Search Posts
Using a brace weapon (Nodachi) and rolling a crit, I lethally wounded a Minotaur... as a nonlethal-built character...
Honestly looking over the list of infusions I am not seeing a big problem. While the list is larger than most spells know for spontaneous casters the list is really not that good. Blade Barrier seems to be the best offensive infusion which they get at 16th level. The oracle picked up this spell at 12th level. At the same level the artificer is picking up Blade Barrier the bard is picking up Mass Charm Person or Project Image. "Blast rod," unless I'm reading it wrong, allows you to prepare a metal rod with 1d8/lvl force damage and release up to 10d8 (if you have that many) as a ray that deals force damage. At level eight, she did 8d8 damage on a ranged touch. Does the fact that that's only a few times per day balance out the amount of damage? Or am I looking at it wrong, and that's not too much damage at all for a third level spell? Why not have them "cast" like an alchemist? Like prepare them ahead of time? Or have a book of formulas? I'm still considering that option, and it might be a good choice. There are a lot of things I didn't fully trust with this class [...] My problem with the hit die and armor was I was comparing it to a wizard or sorcerer, sort of a glass cannon, but seeing it as a more support-based class it makes sense it should have fair survivability. As far as the problem with spells, it just seemed like a scary idea from the get-go to have such versatility, along with fair survivability and damage.In one case, she cast "concurrent Infusions," a third level spell which let her cast three first level spells at once. She raised two walls with move earth, and Glue-sealed a door... looking at the spell again, she shouldn't really be able to do that, as the spells all have to affect one target. Aside from that, her 8d8 damage kind of ruined our previous striker's mood, (though not by much, as we barely stick to party roles as it is) even though it took two rounds to cast. Perhaps I am being too hasty though? should I give it another session, and if more problems arise, then do something?
Have you looked into the Occultist from Occult Adventures? Considering the class's dependence on a multitude of implements, the otherwise similar chassis to the Artificer (decent HD, armor, skills, no arcane failure chance, and so on), and the fact that it's a Paizo class and therefore will probably get as much official support as any other class, I'd see how it fares. Ooh, the occultist does look nice... I'd rather not go through character creation again, but this is really good to compare to. thanks!
Oh, I didn't even consider bard... I originally wanted something with a spellbook to fit with the theme, but considering how little room there is for exploration, she can just craft for any extra spells she needs. Thanks!
Spoiler:
So, just invited someone new to the party, who said they wanted to play an artificer. I know that an official paizo artificer is as hard to find as a unicorn, so I show her some third party stuff I like, like the machinesmith, and things that come close to the artificer. We eventually went with this one, apparently based off of the 3.5 Eberron artificer. There are a lot of things I didn't fully trust with this class... D8 hit die, medium armor with no spell failure chance, and a third level spell that after one round of preparation, at level eight can deal 8d8 points of damage with a ranged touch, and can be held onto for up to 80 minutes in advance. All of that might be fine on it's own, but the one thing I'm almost certain is a problem, both mechanically and thematically, is that she gains access to her class' entire spell list as spontanous-casted spells. Sure, her spells per day aren't all that exciting, but in one session she pulled out a solution to most every problem that arose. "Bad guys chasing us and we have to run? let me just look at my massive spell list... yeah, I just so conveniently have this thick wall of steel to block the doorway with." Rest assured though, I'm placing none of the blame on the player. I probably wouldn't have as big a problem with it if the resource didn't try so hard to convince me it was totally fine to have spontaneous, infinite spells as long as the class' spell list was small, and sure it was small, but still, no other class has access to that many spells at any level (unless a wizard goes absolutely crazy studying everything there is to study.) Is * this * class overpowered because it can cast * any spell it wants to * without preparation?
Sorry for my rambling, and thanks in advance for any advice!
As a side note the magic item creation rules are notoriously wonky and I've found that its almost always better to find an already existing item at least somewhat similar to the one you are trying to make and working backwards instead of figuring out what the price should be according to all of those tables. That would have saved me a lot of trouble XD. I have at least two weeks until our next session, so I thought I'd spend the time needlessly over-complicating things, as long as it's not too easy to abuse.
I have a potentially pretty bad habit of adjusting monster/item stats without referring to any official sources on how to do so. I know there are monster templates and item creation guidelines, but I'll admit, I'm lazy, and sometimes it's easier to just say "double the damage and increase the CR by X." In little over half a year of GM'ing, it's only bit me in the butt once, and a little on-the-spot adjustments fixed things without any lasting harm. For my own conscience though, I thought I'd bring this to the table. These forums have stopped me from doing stupid things before, and I kind of want to test myself to see if I can make something without making something obscenely broken. The storyline, party composition, and why I'm making a dumb item like this.: -----
My party consists of a gunslinger/rogue, fighter/alchemist (with seemingly no interest in healing potions or abilities), antipaladin, and warlock. A messy party to begin with, but lately I've been noticing the suckiness of not having a healer of any sort, and I wanted to tackle this in a creative way.
On an unrelated note, at lvl 6, the Gunslinger decided he wanted to get a merciful (nonlethal) coat pistol, but the craft check ended up getting it cursed. I don't like cursed weapons except as plot devices, so I figured I would simply make it (to the character's surprise) deal totally lethal damage. I don't want the curse to last forever though, so I decided it would simply malfunction at some point, and the residual magic would dissolve into what I've created below, killing two birds (no healer and player wanting to not kill things) in one stone. The Item In Question... Price comparable to a wand of CMW, 30% off for being class specific (am I using this right?)
(50) Curative Cartridges. Flavor Text: ------
These bullets, now Pepto-Bismol pink in a teal cartridge feel too soft to even be fired correctly. The cartridge holds, but the bullet flakes off at a touch. When fired, the gun gives no kick, and you can barely tell it’s been shot. Instead of firing a metal ball or bullet, these bullets shoot an invisible magical force that heals whoever it hits. A willing target has an effective touch AC of 10+range increment penalties. This effect heals 1d8+2 damage on the target, or harms undead for the same amount. Unreliable Ammunition: The magical quality of these bullets are unreliable at best, and only a professional can get them to work right, with a bit of luck. The bullets are currently "dormant" and do not even fire when placed in a gun. By spending one grit point, all the bullets on a gunslinger's possession become 'active' for a number of hours equal to the gunslnger's wisdom modifier (min. 1.) The magical effect can only be used by characters with the grit class feature, but if one character with grit activates it, another character with grit can use it. Sorry if I've been too long worded (again,) but thanks for those who stuck it out!
TL;DR: gun that heals... can it be done?
365: Mark off 365 days on a calendar... even though the writing disappears later.
I do think however that i will offer feats/multiclassing/smite-specific-drops before I go and change the nature of the ability. Thanks again!
Wow, I didn't expect this topic to get so much attention. Thanks everyone! I did tell them ahead of time that he's walking into a good campaign, and it hasn't seemed to cause too much trouble so far as goals go. (the character's current "evil" goal is to search for treasure for his god, so tagging along with good guys is no particular trouble.) My only concern with balance is that this person also didn't roll particularly well on ability scores (or at least not as well as anyone else) and so mostly hits things with swords till they die. That's not to say it doesn't work, but we also have a fighter who is twice the antipaladin's size and strength score, so I'm worried he feels a tad left out. My original thought was "nobody likes alignment restrictions," so if we got rid of that altogether, an evil paladin could heal his evil allies, and a good anti paladin could smite his evil foes. However, I see the risk of a "smite anything" so I may offer them a chaos/law smite instead. Until now, I've almost never considered alignment, but now I have a number of options if the player ever complains about low damage output. Thanks all very much!
Is this a common problem, or did I stumble into a pretty obvious mistake?
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/alternate-classes/antipaladin While it's easy to keep him on-track in this "saving the civilized world" campaign, I'm a little concerned that his class features are all focused on killing "good" creatures when that's honestly not what anyone's ever going to be up against in this campaign... TLDR: Antipaladin has "smite good" and there's no good to smite. Would it be fair to just give him "smite anything that's not part of my antipaladin cult?"
Hah, you said sliders and I thought mini hamburgers... About the carnivore/anthropomorphic thing, the easy way out is just to not mention it, and either hope nobody notices or come up with a joke response; like when the cow waiter says "actually, I never thought of where these steaks come from." And of course the characters don't know either. Or make it into a distopian horror plot hook. SOYLENT GREEN IS MADE OF SHEEPLE!
I'm running a game right now in a sci-fi/magic universe where one of the players is playing a... uhm... we call her an "office lady." Sort of a CEO for a CE company. As an antipaladin, her "deity," naturally, is the company itself. This has almost nothing to do with "actual" antipaladins except to mention that we would never actually call her "antipaladin" in character. I imagine this would be the same with other "evil-paladin" classes, simply being referred to by their job (Doombringer, Paladin of [devil], CEO) rather than an by an out-of-character class.
How bout a... is it called round robin? A game where everyone takes turns DM-ing. the framing narrative is that a bunch of non-magical rich folk (played by the PC's) are travelling from one place to another, and along the way their guide insists they each tell stories, and the best storyteller will buy everyone else a round of drinks at his bar. In other words, the Canterbury Tales. Ugh... I know the first few lines by memory and I still had to google search "Definition Soote." I am far too sleepy for poetry.
Ah, what the heck. I'll throw a few more onto the list. How bout a... is it called round robin? A game where everyone takes turns DM-ing. the framing narrative is that a bunch of non-magical rich folk (played by the PC's) are travelling from one place to another, and along the way their guide insists they each tell stories, and the best storyteller will buy everyone else a round of drinks at his bar. In other words, the Canterbury Tales. Another one which I have no real idea how I'm going to do: one, some, or all of the characters are lesser gods that must gain power through the adoration of followers. They perhaps start out with one small city, and the more followers they have the higher level they are. Perhaps even in the case of disaster they could go down levels if their followers die or decide to find a better god. And lastly, something like shadow of the colossus, but instead of killing the colossi you build cities on their backs... Because that seems like a reasonable thing to do. That one's also partially inspired by "mortal engines" by Phillip Reeve.
358: Pretend to be a higher level caster. With a good bluff check, anything is possible!
All things in pathfinder should either advance the narrative or the gameplay. I have a player who gets angry at the idea of his character dying, or even coming down with a serious curse/disease/ailment that might last a session or two. While I still put that character in the illusion of threat, it doesn't benefit anyone's entertainment if he actually dies. On the other hand, i have a player who's doing pathfinder for the first time, made a character he might not be attached to, and if he showed interest in playing a different class and a different backstory i would talk it through with him and find a way to give his player a good sendoff, even if that means he "happens" to walk into an obvious trap. he can then make a new character and introduce him to the party. In this sense, death contributes to the gameplay, and can have rippling storyline effect. Edit: I just want to make sure nobody thinks i'm targeting them personally for the way they play. This is just the way I do things as a GM, and how I imagine my players have the most fun.
Pokemon Tabletop United? Wow... I didn't even know that was a thing. To be honest, I was just going to reskin normal classes. Most fire/lightning pokemon could be some sort of sorcerer, fighting types are either monks or warriors. I'll need to look into that.
In a sci-fi setting, i put paper cut-out control panels in front of my characters with drawings of arcade-machine like buttons and joysticks on them. "Your characters are in strange, alien siege weapons, which button do you press to fire randomly at the enemy ships?" One of the buttons, of course, was the self-destruct button.
I thought i'd add one more to the mix: has anyone every read/been forced to read in English class "The Allegory of the Cave?"
Eventually, the players stumble outside of the cave. Perhaps they thought you just wanted to do a platformer-esque campaign, but no! they have been magically chained such that they always face the wall, and their backs have always been turned to an enormous flame behind them! they return to their city in the cave unchained, and attempt to convince their brethren that their world is more than two-dimensional. It's about as hard to explain as the actual allegory of the cave. If you're familiar with the story, simply imagine the chained-up people can move, build cities, and become adventurers, but can't rotate their heads.
The pokemon game I mentioned in the original post actually has at least one person confirmed willing to play it, and i'm starting to feel more confident about it each day. I'm still not sure if I'll finish mine either, but you'll never be the very best like no one ever was if you don't try.
Sounds like Power Kill. Holy Habaneros that's dark... ... I love it...A kitchen sink campaign that literally allows anything I wouldn't have to create new rules for and won't unbalance the party. I almost did a "Kitchen sink" campaign where everyone played as animated objects... Oh, that's not what you mean by kitchen sink? Nevermind then XD
A world where there is a Mega-Dungeon Roguelike structure, and there is an industry of looting stuff from it. I did something sort of like that once, but there was no story or anything involved. The GM at the time had just played Dungeon of the Endless, and took most of the idea from that.
That sounds like an interesting plot point! I would just be lazy and have the party fight spiders or frogs and just use the stat blocks for "giant spider" or "giant frog." there's also a possibility for a really interesting shadow-of-the-colossus feel, but that's almost like asking for HD surround sound in a pen and paper game.
Does anyone else ever get a ridiculous, crazy idea for a campaign that you know you'll never do, or if you bring it up to your friends you feel like they'll just look at you like you're crazy? For example, I'll be the first to open myself to the world, I've always had a "Guilty Desire" to play a game set in the pokemon world. Why? How? I dunno. I was playing too much Pokemon Mystery Dungeon at the time. Another one included all the players playing as garden-variety vegetables defending their tribe from hungry humans. Again, i'll probably never use these ideas, but one can dream. Does anyone else have ideas they think are ridiculous and can't see themselves using? Or does anyone else have an experience with actually playing weird ideas, and how did that go?
So here's an idea... seeing as the player becomes a "one trick pony" with his magical rocket-launcher, here's an idea: Half or even quarter uses per day, encouraging the artificer to make more and varied machines, NO DAMAGING MACHINES!
Yes? no? i'll try it in a campaign and tell you how it goes.
---_-_->EVIVED!<-_-_--- Anyone else listen to the critical hit podcast? This breaks... oh, about ALL the rules for prestidigitation, so I won't number it unless someone else thinks it's worthwhile. Pods of Casting: record your journals and adventures in the form of audio recordings! give them to your friends! To local bards! store the passage of history in the palm of your hand! However, to not break the rules so much... 321: Holographic advertisements/signs.
If I may throw in a little experience, I once played a game as a wizard in a world where magic was scarce and limited. What we did was make a little "mana/magicka" system, where I had X amount of spells i could cast before I had to recharge (usually by eating a magic item such as a wand, which "restored my mana" somehow.) A similar method could be used to have that "scarce resources" of survival without the intense calculations of knowing exactly what materials the players have spent. At some point during a long treck, tell your wizard that his materials pouch is seeming pretty light, and tell him he can probably only cast ten more spells before it's completely dry, and he better start scrounging for resources. Maybe higher level spells require more "charges," so you can't cast some impressive spell with just twigs and feathers.
Give the undead colored nametags? "Red team, kill unicorns, blue team kill dwarves," Etc. Probably too complicated for their decaying brains? that's where the charisma check is required. I've never even played a necromancer so I don't even know if I'm helping, but just thought I'd see if I can help. If all else fails, I'd say just wing it, or ask the GM. Maybe experiment with what size of command becomes too "overpowered."
Hello everyone. This is my first post on the forum, so sorry if I’m breaking any rules already! I’m going to be DMing for the first time ever pretty soon, and one of the players wanted to play as a weaponized robot, seeing as the setting is Sci-Fi.
Long story short, I thought I’d bring it up here just to make sure it’s not overpowered or anything. I’m really concerned about overdoing it, or even underdoing it if I overcompensate. Even though it’s close to the 10 point limit for standard races, (mostly) I know that just because you can do it doesn’t mean it’s not overpowered. Without further ado, here’s the S19 Military robot. Numbers in {brackets} are RP costs. HALF-CONSTRUCT {7}
SPECIALIZED ABILITY SCORES {1}
MEDIUM SIZE {0} SLOW AND STEADY {-1}
LANGUAGES: {standard, 0}
NATURAL ARMOR {2}
RESISTANCE (technically only allowed to outsiders, but I’ve seen some people break this rule before)
VULNERABILITY (also for elemental outsiders)
SHINY PAINT JOB (skill bonus) {2}
{Total RP: 11} (Ever so slightly into the “advanced races” bracket) Homebrews: shouldn’t affect much but I’ll include it nonetheless.
PORTABILITY: Folds up into a 3x3x5 ft. box for storage and shipment. That’s about all I got aside from flavor text and stuff, which I might include in a spoiler below. I’m also a little concerned that I’m building a class-specific race (fighter or barbarian). Thanks so much to anyone who took the time to read this, and assisting my neurotic, paranoid, perfectionist side. ---
Flavor text and stuffs: S19, originally designed by Quan’Iri of Q-Forge, is the first of few successful military AI robots. At the time, it was most remarkable because of its nearly flawless ally recognition system, making it the first prototype armed robot not to turn against humanity. The same model has been used for twenty five years since its release, due to the faith of the time-tested equipment and hardware. Recently though, rumors and discussions have been popping up over the model’s potential sentience. The model’s apparent capability of “making friends” spells recalls, morality debates, and possibly lawsuits for Q-Forge. |
