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Minions, healing minions, support minions, meatwall minions. Plenty of bosses, even end of AP bosses, are ridiculously weak to anyone who knows what to do (even when not min-maxing). One of the few bosses I see that can have an interesting fight is the end of Rise of the Runelord. I won't spoil it further, but well...he's got minions, a lot of them, and a diverse bunch at that.

Don't let your players do the rpg/mmorpg thing. Don,t let them buff freely, don't let them explore freely. Monsters and enemies are sentient, they explore, they seek, they prepare too. Your boss shouldn't,t wait on his ass in the *last* room all ready for PC's with 8 rounds of prep time outside his door (unless they make the rolls and manage to not be detected)

Altough I'm assuming most will propose Arcane Strike, or perhaps cleave? I'l have my EK levels count as fighter levels for feats, but I don,t really see any worth it in the higher levels.

I've been playing the CotCT AP for a decent while now and according to my DM we're about to finish book 2. This is my first time making something like an EK and I'm running into some complications.
Since we were allowed to do a 25 point buy build I allowed myself a little creativity, not wanting to min-max I tried building something fun that would be strong without crushing everything. But now I'm looking for suggestions on how to further my build, as a lot of things look plainly bad/boring feat wise and so on.

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=1095313 Is my current character as of now. I should level up soon giving me 2 feats (1 from level 7, 1 from EK 1) and I'm not sure of where I'm going with all of this. He's focused on combat more then casting, so buffs and protective spells with some blasting and less use of save or suck and other spells that people cry make the wizard OP in the first place. I don't plan on using Arcane Armor Training so that leaves other feats out. We have almost 0 time to craft because the plot doesn't let us so now I'm trying to figure out what else I could take to make this character decent. And also noting that since EK's can't gain new spells when they level up, I'l need to live off wizard spells books to increase my spell list from now on.

tl;dr : Looking for suggestions on how to improve an often angry and short tempered muscle wizard who dreams of making it big. The rest of the party includes a greatsword wielding cleric of Gorum that channels negative energy to kick more ass, a summoner with a big beefy monster and a buffer bard that's more on the social and lore side then the fighting side, leaving that job mostly to the rest of us.

Herald I meant, but that makes a lot of sense, didn't think of greater planar ally. I just found it funny how heralds were weaker then the higher CR demonds and such. But pushover or not, he's still CR15 and still some challenge either way.

Interesting, I do realize it was unbalanced, but it was more out of annoyance then game breaking needs. I'l give this side duration thing a look. With a group of 4 buffers this might be interesting for everyone.
And no I try and keep track, others do it loosely, but there was this nagging feeling and this might just be the thing to make things simple.

So the only way to appease my bookkeeping OCD is 500k in magic items. Which is in short, stupid as hell. At this point I'l just handweave the 6-24 seconds difference in the shorter buffs within reasonable reason and just cast whatever I need unless the DM gives me specific things I can and can't do. Or get leadership and hire someone to follow me and buff me around or something.

I want them, I hate having to have all these buffs and calculate them 1 by 1, by minute, tens of minutes, seconds. It bothers me a little. And of course there's quicken rods and all that *obviously*. I'm looking for something to bypass all of that, something to make spellcasting neat. I don't think spending what I assume is a good few thousand gold pieces to sync the minor buffs togheter something to be broken.

Every morning/before a dungeon it's mage armor, then the first thing that goes up is shield. But then you have mirror image, the stat spells, and everything else in the minute department. I don't need all of them, but when I know we're going to have trouble and I need to blow everything, making sure I half every buff I'm packing on me is good to know.

The party is a summoner, eldritch knight, battle cleric and bard, our whole shtick is medium equipped melee characters (bard is 100% support, summoner has a melee summon) buffing ourselves up the wazoo and going in.

I don't need it, I want it, because it's clean, call it minor OCD or something. It's why I also reprint my character sheet every time it gets a bit too crowded, or why I appear to be the only person ever to keep record of gear weight, cost of living and everything minor that should be taken care of in a regular game.

You're not meant to buff that much, but investing a lot of money to make something specific, that's doable. I do plan on having a rod of quicken for side attack spells, and because it fits the character.

I'm currently playing a wizard/fighter and soon to be eldritch knight in an AP and I'm facing the problems of needing a good 6-7 rounds to buff myself (or less depending on situations). So I was wondering if there was a way I could create a magic item or even a spell to facilitate using that. Mostly because the buff spells that work per round/minute are annoying to calculate when the actions die down :

How many seconds passed between this and that, we talked IC/OOC for a minute, did a minute pass? The hourly/tens of minute stuff can usually last an entire dungeon, but it's the little things.

My main idea for making the item would be some sort of charger, where you transfer the spells on your item and they are held there until they can be released all at the same time for say, a full round action. Making everything all neat and proper. If unusued, the item discharges at the end of the day so you can't cheat and save more spells.

I'm still adamant about 15 point buy. Right now I'm seeing it in 2 ways with 2 other campaigns. I'm playing in curse of the crimson throne with 25 point buy. It makes me ridiculously strong, but I built a non optimized eldritch knight and because of the high stats he's good all around. On the other hand I have a paladin 15 point buy that's also not too optimized for another AP. He's having troubles hitting sometimes and whatnot, but everything feels more like a challenge and it's fun.

Koth is too fun as an enemy to replace him, and Armag does not at all fit the type of someone to be in the tournement. He's the champion of Gorum, conqueror of all and slayer of everything. He's getting his steamroll going, and he aint stopping.

True, that's interesting. I've also been checking the avatar of Gorum in the end of book 4 or 5 (I forget) and he seems like a massive pushover for CR15.

The 10-15 year part is to make them work up from Duke to king and have a semblance of normal life. Besides, Armag's *horde* is kinda weak and tiny now, 10-15 years of training, gathering followers (all the while keeping raids and squirmishes) and so on. He's a raging monster of a man, but even he knows that he can't take the river kingdoms and the world with only like 4 thousand weakened and soft barbarians.

I do think I'l have Armag up and leave, and Zorek will end his term and the cave will close. Loss of loot and current exp. Armag leaves for 10-15 years to re-unite the barbarians into a blossoming horde. If he beats the PC's armies later on, he snowballs into Armag 2 and goes on to conquer everything like his predecessor.

Irovetti (who had a smahh horde of barbarians on payroll if I remember book 5) loses some of his men, but sees the opportunity to assist the pc's. Make them do most of the work all the while placing his people in place to counter after the war. Something like that. And the Armag+Skeletons bossfight might evolve into Armag+Herald of Gorum bossfight in the middle of an army clash.

Low int as a result of 15 point buy shouldnt be rewarded with other stuff. It's their fault for dumping stats if it so happens.

Currently about to restart DMing Kingmaker after months of hiatus, I realize that my players are smack dab in the middle of Armag's tomb at the end of book 4. Nearly out of ressources they've beaten nearly everything except the cleric, Armag and some of the bloody skeletons.

Despite being only 3 players, they are managing things well enough with a slightly higher amount of WBL and being 25 point buy. But with the sorcerer having gotten Teleport recently, he always keeps it in hand to go back to their castle to rest for the night.

Assuming they go back to heal and rest (and eat supper, they basically go back for supper). I was thinking of Armag just up and leaving with his transformation finished. He'd probably be busy going back to unite the barbarians under his thumb again.

On the other hand I was thinking of simply making teleport impossible inside the cave. Gorum wouldn't like people running away from a good fight while they are still good to go, but I feel that this might punish the players too much.

tl:dr how did you guys deal with players teleporting/taking their sweet time with Armag and the consequences?

I created a simple NPC out of the need for the players to have more information in my Kingmaker campaign. Since they found him amusing I decided to have him appear once in awhile. A knight-errand sort of cavalier, his might curiosity and bravery is only overshadowed by his total lack of direction. This allows the pc's to stumble upon him every few months or years. He comes from Varnhold and basically serves as a quest giver. The PC's know he is a bad-ass, perhaps even more then them (but not the group combined). His highlight will come in the tourney in book 5, and perhaps as one of many groups handling the events of book 6.

Being stronger then the PC's is 1 thing you can do while not overshadowing them, it's how I manage to have a level 14-15 Cavalier be cool with my lvl 12 group. He's always there to help with some things, but not everything, and he has his own motivations anyhow.

I'l go on a limb and say Wrath of the Righteous. I mean, no spoilers there, but the game ends at lvl 20, mythic, the stuff you do there at the end is world shattering.

Would this ring be a good alternative to a wizard who isn't going into the whole summoning specialisation builds? I have this half orc wizard who is going eldritch knight later, he might pick 2-3 summon monster spells along the way, but I like fancy items like this, they looks fun to have around.

If not, he will probably buy one or try and find one to give to the party summoner to buy him out.

Summoner,Hunter,Ranger,Druid, 4 pet classes and a whole lot of paperwork.

To anyone who plays Skyrim, I'l try and make a Kitsune sorcerer called J'zargo who wants to master the expert level destruction magic. Mostly a funny evocation blaster sorcerer for humor's sake.

Do you accept classes from the advanced class guide?

A bit too restrictive but I have a fierce hatred of snowflake characters. Besides it depends, if we're on Golarion things are different, plenty of options, but they have to make sense.

It all comes down to who you play with, if you know your players/friends and such. I accepted some uncommon things in a game (a sorcerer who can take the cure wound/heal line of spells at level appropriate because he gave me a good background, wanted to be healer without being a divine spell-casting class and that anyway he'd have even less spells to pick since he'd have to learn every heal spell) and I've refused others, like the usual catboy snowflake character or someone insisting on playing a grippli in a desert setting or any non-normal race in a setting of highly racist humans/elves/dwarves who thought he could make them see the goodness of other races, because that was not the goal of the campaign.

But for classes, fighter is mechanically boring, rogue is under powered and equally boring, wizard and cleric have been played to death and are usually OP, I tend to put much less restrictions on classes, if any at all. For people who've played for nearly a decade, we've all played those classes, and we could still play them in an interesting flavor, but then again there are plenty of other options that are fun and not ridiculous.

Year of the way too many Kitsune character.

I'd be interested, I got ideas for an investigator skill monkey to bring to the table, assuming this is PFS

I would like to join as a Skald :D Angry angry songs for all

I'm very interested in both of the 2 characters leftover. I'l let whoever's after me choose and I'l pick the last one if that's alright :)

You'd guess it's a dwarven thing, like people in China right now (I think) prefer male children to females for various reasons. Reading the story you'd see that having a male already means you receive dowry instead of giving it out, a big bonus right there from the get go. Add to that the usual dwarven cliches and society (mining, fighting, etc) it makes more sense that they would prefer a boy. But she was raised properly and cared for anyhow. Make it up as you will I'd say.

I do find it wierd when people have 3-4-5-6-7 Tiefling/Aasimar characters. I felt bad having one of each...

BigCoffee wrote:

I reclassed my human ranger into an angelkin oracle of battle. I kinda regret it since I'd prefer he went the route of a warpriest now and with 4 games played he can't change class. But he's going to make it. Playing as a snowflake who comes from a very boring background makes for some interesting roleplay. Farmer's son Angelkin never wanted trouble, eventually gets mystical oracle powers and sighs, thinking it's fate. Joins up with the society and is constantly amazed at everything happening, with what his previous life had little in the way of excitment.

You can use the retraining rules from Ultimate Campaign if you have that book.

And if you don't, I'd recommend looking into it. Retraining rules are helpful, as are the traits.

True they are, but I don't own that book and I have no wish to buy it seeing as a friend does and brings it to our games. I made use of the rules to swap race and class after finishing my third game and before my fourth. It's better then retraining mostly because retraining costs a bundle of gold from what I've heard, and PFS is rather stingy on that regards.

Seems like I was removed from the group, was something wrong?

I reclassed my human ranger into an angelkin oracle of battle. I kinda regret it since I'd prefer he went the route of a warpriest now and with 4 games played he can't change class. But he's going to make it. Playing as a snowflake who comes from a very boring background makes for some interesting roleplay. Farmer's son Angelkin never wanted trouble, eventually gets mystical oracle powers and sighs, thinking it's fate. Joins up with the society and is constantly amazed at everything happening, with what his previous life had little in the way of excitment.

Alright, I registered, I have roll20 already. Now I have to wait to be approved I guess?

I've only played part 1 but I find that the DM who I was with isn't interested in doing parts 2 and 3. Is it possible to only register for those games?

Curse and Council could be fun since all of the others you seem to have a hand in. Kingmaker is also very fun, but as someone who's currently DMing book 5 I do know all of the plot twists. But I can make a more follower and fun roleplay character.

As for time itself thursday is seemingly the best day for me, and monday to wed are no's because of evening work.

I'm pretty down for this, I'm going to work now but I'l read the details when I get back.

I have a level 4 gnome cavalier and a level 2 that I can rebuild into anything, so I'm open to what's needed.

Yes I'd like to also apply if there is still some open spot. I have a few concepts from the strange to the more cliche but well-loved.

I assume, as you say Mulgar, that I'd only need 1 game to cement my character's presence and have it be legit? I always wanted to try one of the more horrible and disgusting tiefling subrace, I do tire of seeing perfect beauties with every assimar and tiefling crossing my table. But ranting aside, thanks for the quick reply

I haven't been playing PFS for long and my only characters are a level 4 gnome as well as an un-created character that currently receives me GM exp, but can I not create tieflings and assimars if I own the race book or am I missing something?

I'm going to go on a limb here and say that most AP's are written for the lowest common denominator stat/build wise. Any amount of optimization or doing a decent build wrecks things. I just tell my players now to go with that they want, go pure flavor, it helps a little since a lot seem to prefer concepts and RP then power-gaming. Although they do end on top with whacky combos, it works well enough most of the time.

Rogue/Fighter/Assassin can also work well. The main thing is he is currently employed by the one of the players as a kindly jeeves/alfred like helper and do-all in his castle, and has been for 6 years. Note that the player never asked how such a refined and highly qualified man got to work for a newbie baron like him, things don't work out and he never truly checked them.

Assassin as been honestly serving the player, doing his best to be a good castelan/steward (or whatever the term is, the guy who handles everything in the castle and then some), but when he receives the go from the one who hired him, he's too to his best to disturb the kingdom, kill council members, etc.

He will get the go at the worst time, when a dragon attacks the city while he is busy outside the castle. Still wishing to do his job and with the players nowhere in sight he will off a couple of members, f@@! a few things up and run off, only to be met later as a boss fight, perhaps with a few weaker guys backing him up.

He will casually taunt them in fights, attack weaknesses and all around be oddly kind despite trying to kill them. This was supposed to be his last job before he retires in the shadows, so if he dies, he will be a good sport about it and give the players a clue on where he is from.

Would anyone have some tips on how to make an old man in his 50's+ be an assassin? An entire life of successful killing, lvl 11, extremely prepared Alfred the butler-like killer. Also acts as a good steward/castelan when needed. Something to give a sorcerer, alchemist and melee ranger a good challenge as a decent boss fight. He can supplement his failings with extreme amounts of consumables so as to leave the least amount of treasure behind if he should ever die.

A Dm of mine had me roll stats once. My lowest was a 12 and I got 3 18's. His rule was that any 18 you get past the first one is downgraded to a 17, and if you somehow manage a fourth 18 it gets downgraded to a 16.

I ended up with 18-17-16-15-12-12, as a cleric very OP, but still, minor tweaks here and there. We did do the very generous roll 4d6 drop lowest reroll 1's.

We got a wish from the Pathfinder variant deck of many things. The one stated to be stronger then a regular wish spell, capable of reshaping things, etc etc.

Big burly dragon obsessed ranger asks about the villain we are fighting. Some evil sultry thousand year old sorceress queen.

''I wish she was my wife, and loved me and wasn't interested in doing evil things anymore.''

And that's how the campaign ended, with the entire group riding on in the sunset on a flying carpet (we all drew 3-4 cards from the deck of many things, most of it good things) to another continent to help one of the party members with his card inflicted geas. 4 lvl 10's, and 1 lvl 20 sorceress riding off to kill whatever happens to be the Spider Queen of Rakshlar.

Then we went for pizza.

-Actual Dungeon Crawl
-Possibility to link BBEG's meddling with a well place ring of green hair.
-Lich fight at *low* levels
-Good loot
-Scooby-doo time
-Good roleplay possibilities with angry centaurs.

It's a great adventure really, the weakest part of the AP for me was all the troll shenanigans in the previous book.

You could simply roll for stats, 4d6 dump lowest reroll 1's could have some interesting results.

All those dump stats hurts my eyes.

What will your stats look like? I imagine you will go Sword'n'Board for this? Since you're alone for this I bet you will have more money then a normal group so don't be afraid to have wands, potions and to buy magic items for different situations instead of just 1 set of armor and 1 sword and 1 shield for your paladin's entire career.

Especially since it's Wrath of the Righteous, keep with a longsword, just don't ask question and use the feat for something else. If you'd like some sort of ally, Paladin / Sorcerer (buff and summon spec) or Paladin / Summoner can be great. Or if you're crazy enough, Paladin/Wizard going to Paladin/Eldritch Knight

Gestalt, 25-30 point buy, maybe an extra trait too. That should be decent for the power curve too.