Rafim's page

OKi thanks.

It's strange arcane discovery, i mean, what was created for?

A grappling transmuter?
A multiclass/gish grappler?
A (bad) defensive Discovery against grapples?

thank you for clarification!!

Rafim

and i've another question about this spell:

What happen if the spell has a value of STRENGTH as your stat?
I've noticed different uses of words:

-case 1 : Hydraulic push ..Your CMB for this bull rush is equal to your caster level plus your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma modifier, whichever is highest.

In this case you can't add the same stat twice because the spell specifically tell you that your CMB is CL + stat, and it's clear that you can't add the same bonus twice.

-case 2 : Battering blast "The force has a Strength modifier equal to your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma modifier (whichever is highest). The CMB for the force’s bull rush uses your caster level as its base attack bonus, adding the force’s Strength modifier ..."

If the STRENGTH of the force pull has the same value of my casting stat, but the spell is specifically using the strength modifier of the spell, can i add my caster stat bonus to this ?

Am i cheating :) ?

Same question for me about

BLack Tentacles: The tentacles do not provoke attacks of opportunity. When determining the tentacles' CMB, the tentacles use your caster level as their base attack bonus and receive a +4 bonus due to their Strength and a +1 size bonus.

In this case i think that i can apply Knowledge is power because the spell uses a +4 modifier for his own strength and then you can add the int bonus arent'you?

Oki i went With the first + toughness!!
Thank you all for the help.

uhm.. oki. you re totally right.

so:

trait

gifted adept: call animals
reactionary

so what about feats?

1- improved initiative
1- dunno
3- power attack
5- natural spells
7- Wild Speech
9- powerful shape
11- Planar Shape

or

1- spellfocus (conj)
1- aug. summoning
3- power attack
5- natural spells
7- Wild Speech
9- powerful shape
11- Planar Shape

any ideas?

Thank you :) i choose menhir savant instead of a shaman mostly because i dont like the change form later. I love saurian shaman and the idea of summoning as standard action a lot of punce/charging things.. i think that it is a nice character to play but it's not what i want this time. i cant dump charisma to 7 (i forgot to mention it) cause my GM doesnt' like it.

str18 dex 12 con14 int10 wis 14 cha 8

Lol i'm basically creating a combat druid :)

It could be fun.
I've another question: i love animal companion, but i want the domain too, so i'm thinking about the Feather Domain. But until lvl4 i've few spells (low wis), no AC.. no change form.. i'm s+@* :)) is possibile to start with the AC and then, at lvl4, reatrain the AC with the feather domain?

In this case i can set talent like this:

1- combat casting
1- weapon focus (natural weapons??? possibile 1 feat for all?)
3- boon companion
5- Natural spell
7- dunno
9- powerful shape?

Hi guys..
i'm becoming mad. I have to play my first session in a new Pathfinder Campaign with a GM friend. Here's my problem: i usually play wizard and i love Wizard but, unfortunatley, for a Campaign reason "arcane prepared caster" are gone. I'm lost.

so i decided to try the Druid.

We start from first level and i think we would play till 10-12.
After reading EVERYTHING about the druid my idea and concept is this:

I want to play a no-specialized druid. I know that in PF everything is a specialization in something but i'm sure that the druid can do that.

And this is the idea:

20 point buy

human menhir savant liv 1

str 14
dex 14
cos 12
int 10
wis 16
cha 8

i'm thinking about the +2 human bonus.. what about str 16 and wis 16? the idea is to be a good caster with buffs, some control and later fighting with Change Form and the help of some spell.

what i want to know is, i your opinion, if this thing is possible or
is too much general and no specialized.

Aasimaar Lunar Oracle too.. great favoured class option and if u choose
the spirit guide archetype you can change the bonus spell list and make some good trick :).

Quote for the sorcerer and druid too

Human sorcerer (orc bloodline): spell battering blast

Two possibilities (i dont know if the first is avaible)

1- boost to CL with

+2 from trait:
Gifted Adept (battering blast)
Secret of the Impossible Kingdom (Battering blast)

from feats:

Magic Tattoo EVocation +1
Bloodmage initiate +1
Spell specialization +2
Spell Perfection +1+1+2=+4

equip: 1 rod lesser rapid
1 weapon +10 (+5 courageous and whatever)

CL 30

Throw 6 blast with bonus to hit touch AC 10 base+15 (touch of rage) + dex

6 x 7d6+7 (spell) + 15 (touch of rage + courageous weapon)

standard action

42d6 +57 = 309 (maximized)
42 x 3.5 + 57 = 204 (empowered)
total = 513

Rod of rapid =1026

2 if the trick with caster level it's not avaible (i'm sorry for that)

CL 25 (easy to accomplish)

all the same things above but 5 blast

5 x 7d6+7 + 15

35d6 + 50 = 260 (maximized)
35 x 3.5 + 50 = 142,5 (empowered)
total = 402,5

Rod of rapid = 805

Force damage

This night i couldnt sleep and i started thinking about a sorcerer specialized in force spell. i read a lot of interesting material in the forum.
Here's some ideas:

1) Normal arcane sorcerer (maybe tatooed) with increased caster level and all things referred to Battering blast. The goal is a +5 CL.

Trait: Magical Lineage (Battering Blast) (-1lvl for metamagic)
Secret of the Impossible Kingdom (Battering blast) (+1CL)

standard sorcerer build with all feats for a blaster:

1) spell focus (evoc) - mage tattoo (evoc)
3) Toppling spell
5) Spell specialization (magic missile and later battering blast)
7) Combat casting (bonus from arcane) - Greater spell focus (EVoc)
9) Intensify Spell
11)Greater spell focus (Evoc)

and so on (help me now until spell perfection)

The second idea is thr real idea but i want to know if all of these will be a)possibile b) efficient

Sorcerer Crossblooded Arcane/Orc (the dark side of the force)

Both Arcana so +1dam/dice with every type of spell and the Arcane arcana.

Only 1 spell to combat: Battering Blast (and some enervation sometimes but its not the point of this build)

the goal here is to maximize that blast:

+1cl from trait
+1cl from orange prism stone
+1cl from mage tattoo (Evoc) (bonus from feat)
+1cl from blooded initiate (bonus from feat)
+2cl from spell specialization (bonus from feat)
+4cl from Spell perfection

+10cl

at liv 20 (cl30) an intensified battering blast (3rd lvl spell thanks to gifted adept) will throw 6 blast for 7d6 each.

42d6+42 (flat bonus from orc bloodline) from the base intensified spell, force damage.

Even if this will not be possibile from the debate about spell perfection and feat bonuses i can still arrive easy to +5cl.

At liv 20 (cl25) the same intensified throws 5 blast for 7d6 + 7 each -> 35d6 + 35 force damage.

I would use blooded initiate only if this is allowed.

Crossblooded arcane/orc will (always human) will mitigate the drawbacks from crossblooded with an hedgehog familiar (+2 will save)
and the 3 spell bonus from the newarcana.

with both this build my idea is to grab BLINK or a Ring of blink and play safer with force spells.
The other interesting things is that i've a +1/dice bonus for every spelldamage i throw, so i can take some elemental spells for area blast and control too with a bit more damage

CMB

Battering blast start a bull rush against every target that takes damage from the spell. if more blasts hit the same target you can roll each bull rush against the same target using the best dice for the check. the CMB is CL + STAT + 10 each blast on the same target after the first.

If the cl trick is regular and assuming a charisma of 30 (20 base 6 item 4 increments) = +10

at lvl 20 = CL 30

damage 6 blast 7d6+7 each = 42d6 +42
CMB "the best of six rolls" + 90 (30CL + 10 CHA + 50 for 5 additional blasts)

at lvl20 = CL 25 (caster level trick not allowed)

damage 5 blasts 7d6+7 each = 35d6 +35
CMB "the best of FIVE rolls" + 75 (25CL + 10 CHA + 40 for 4 additional blasts)

I need some help with maths, impressions about the Xblooded arcane/orc (i think i will use the +5CL way).

yeah i read that part and i call my gm :) ayeah!!! thank you very much!!

this resolve everything :) and i have a lot of feat to use in something else :) thank you

as paladin mount i mean sorry

can i choose cat as companion?

That was my first idea.. i shall drop celestial companion.
Too much problems, this build it's boring me.. i start thinking about something else. thank you for the help

argh you are right!! i will ask GM explaining him the fact but i agree that it's not that much of a bending of rules.

at the same time with adoptive parentage i can ask for Nature Soul (thanks for the idea) that's very close to the skill focus knowledge(nature) obtained with the human trait and go then with the Animal Ally route :) thank you both!!!

you are right :( my fantasy is knocking on the door, laughing at me :) i've something to work on during this days :P

Fey Foundling + EH Fey(SYlvan)... uhm... a child born from the love of a Fey and a Human. Born in a forest where he lived under the protection of an aasimar cleric of erastil.

Hi guys,

next week i finally play PF again after a long period of "no game life" .. as usual i start creating my Wizard for the campaign (my best class ever) but, this time something changed :P

The party lack a melee and this could be the right time to try my paladin idea.

I want to play a Paladin tied to the nature probably a paladin who worship Erastil and i want him to play with a celestial tiger.

So i found in the race book that Aasimar can have celestial companions and paladin has the charisma for Eldritch Heritage(Sylvan).

Adoptive Parentage: "Humans are sometimes orphaned and adopted by other races. Choose one humanoid race without the human subtype. You start play with that race's languages and gain that race's weapon familiarity racial trait (if any). If the race does not have weapon familiarity, you gain either Skill Focus or Weapon Focus as a bonus feat that is appropriate for that race instead. This racial trait replaces the bonus feat trait."

I will speak with gm for Skill focus Knowledge(Nature).

I'm thinking about a guy son of an important family of somewhere (i'm working on BG in this week too). The reign was attacked from something extremely evil that kill all the sons of the most important families in the country. His parents, at the cost of their lives, saved his life hiding him in a forest. A Cleric of Erastil (an aasimar) found the guy and grew him up, in the ideals of nature and community. animals became his best friends and he learned al lot of things about nature, animals and the life outside cities. A ranger teached him the basis of combat with sword and arcs.. He his too strong and not so agile so he decided to wear a bigger armor and a bigger two handed sword to balance this things. His god answered his prays and he became a paladin, devoting himself to the protection of the nature.

But the war arrived, and burned everything. He saved a little tiger from the fire of the forest and make a Oath of revenge against people who destroyed his forest.

Now that the story is composed, lets try to make this things number and choices in the respect of the rules :)

- Race Human (Adoptive parentage Aasimar)

- Stats i dont know the value of the pointbuy but i think i will use the standard of the vindicator paladin in the paladin guide.
High str and cha, then con, some int for skill point (almost a +1. Low wis and 11-12 dex

- Class Oathbound(Vengeance) Holy Guide Paladin

This combination reflects exactly my BG.
The Holy guide gains Knowledge(Geography) and Survival as class skill, and with a trait i gain Knowledge(Nature) too.
It changes the class with that bit of ranger that i want but leaving all the paladin abilities there.

at 3rd favoured terrain --> Forest (for a mercy)
at 5th a teamwork feat --> Improved Spell Sharing

so

1 - Aura of good, Detect Evil, Smite Evil 1/day - Feat: Fey Foundling, (B)Skill Focus Knowledge (Nature)

2 - Divine Grace, Lay on Hands

3 - Aura of Courage, Divine Health, Favored Terrain(Forest), Feat: Power Attack

4 - Channel Wrath, Smite Evil 2/day

5 - Divine Bond (Weapon), Feat: Eldritch Heritage (Sylvan), (B)Improved Spell Sharing (Teamwork)

7 - Boon Companion, Smite Evil 3/day

The Teamwork Feat is a great bonus cause i can take that with the tiger too, with the stat increment in INT from 2 to 3.
In this way at lvl 7 i've a paladin with a Large tiger with him.

He's not the perfect combatant cause the time spent in the forest was subtracted from a formal training that all paladins have, and it is reflected from the only Feat releated to combat and weapons:Power Attack.. He can buff himself and share nice and fun buffs with the tiger. Wrath, shield other, Aspect of Divinity, Blessing of fervor and so on.. he can heal himself with a big bonus gained with the long exposition to fey (Fey Foundling).. coupled with the Fey (Sylvan) Bloodline.. a lot of flavour about all this things.

I'll start at level 6 so the pc is almost done..
At level 9 : Celestial Companion

Later.. dunno atm. weapon focus, improved initiative, extra lay on hands..

that's it.. impressions?

Iknow that Erastil favoured weapon is arc and Divine Hunter is will probably well suited with this idea, but i want to have a big sword and stay in melee :) i play always squishy characters so i want to stay in the middle and kill things :)

But the Divine Hunter suits very well with this pg.

Thank you for answers :)
Yes i know that its not an optimal choice but its great for the type of pc i figured out!!

The idea was a cleric with two animal companions.
The first obtained by the animal domain and the second by the eldritch heritage feat.

The one obtained by EH is boostable with a cloack of arcane heritage and i'm looking for a way to keep the feat slot for something else.

With the two level boost of the Theologian i could accomplish my task using Dinosaur Companion (Ex) from the Saurian Domain.. a couple of t rex? sound well :))

But my idea of character is a cleric with two tigers so that's why i opened this thread :)

The idea is to are ready for lvl 7 when the tigers grow up

so

Human Cleric 7 (Focused study)

Domain

Feather (Animal companion: Tiger)
second domain: depends from the archetype choosen

1 - Boon Companion (Tiger from the Domain). (1B) Skill Focus Knowledge(Nature)
3 - Eldritch Heritage(Sylvan)
5 - Boon Companion (Tiger from the bloodline) or another feat using a cloack of arcane heritage
7 -

Now that's my second goal: divide my cleric buffs with my pets: i found two way to make this

first

Feat Improved Share Spells that requires 10 ranks in Spellcraft so it's usuable from the lvl 11.

second

Improved Sharing spells (teamwork): i can take this feat early and take this even with the two tigers using the stat boost in INT from 2 to 3.

This could be done early in levels (even from the fifth with only one pet atm) but requires the use of one feat for each Tiger

so i dont know what do to..i probably choose the second way so i can have fun playing this early.

So now, i've a cleric with two large tigers with 3 attack pounce rake grab, i can share my buffs (dividing the duration obviously) with them.

With the Evangelist i can start buffing everybody and play with only one domain.
With the Separatist i can pick up a domain for big buff

a lot of options, and i like this :)

However sorry for the digression.
You answered me: there were not a way to do what i asked

thank you.

Hi guys,
i hope this is the right place to ask the question i have.
here we are:

if a cleric (Theologian Archetype) select Animal as her (only) focused domain
the animal companion level at lvl 4 will be

Druid as a Cleric -3 liv so : Cleric 4 + 2(archetype) = 6 - 3 = 3

So basically she looses only 1 level without the use of boon companion feat.

the question is: Does ANYTHING exist to fill that 1level gap without the use of Boon Companion feat??

Trait, items.. but NO FEATs plz.

Thank you.

Rafim

uhm your idea is very interesting i want to try it in the next session: can you explain me exactly??

I understand the free weapon finesse feat coupled with the dex to damage concept, that i love. obviously power attack work on STRENGTH so-> no power attack but.. what about the feat that allows power attack with dex? (atm i dont remember the name sorry)

by the way.. FAQ are FAQ.. so they are welcome. i will let my player use

i've already done but i dont like it and i dont agree with them! that's it

I dont think they are overpowered.. but i dont like their spells list too. haste at lvl 4.. before a WIZARD?? no thanks.. this is a bad way to give too much things to a class. summoners are fun, my player has one and it's not so difficult to manage him. sometimes there's something 'strange' in the evolutions of the Eidolon because they leave a lot of way to read them. for example.. but i dont want to go out of theme, the always in act discussion about

Improved Natural Armor (Ex): An eidolon’s hide grows
thick fur, rigid scales, or bony plates, giving it a +2 bonus
to its natural armor. This evolution can be taken once for
every five levels the summoner possesses.

I FIGHT with my summoner's player two days because d20 e someone says that you can take this at first level and then every 5 level.
I explain him that, in my opinion, this is:

lvl 1.: Do you POSSESSE 5 summoner level HERE?? NO
lvl 2 : Do you POSSESSE 5 summoner level HERE?? NO
lvl 3 : Do you POSSESSE 5 summoner level HERE?? NO
lvl 4 : Do you POSSESSE 5 summoner level HERE?? NO
lvl 5 : Do you POSSESSE 5 summoner level HERE?? YES

so (i repeat) in my personal opinion you can take imp. nat. armor at 5-10-15-20. there are some way to interprete here, but i dont think so.
But d20 wrote that it could probably be 1-5-10-15-20... and they will write it in the next printing of the APG.
how could it possibile?? at lvl 20.. regardless about the possibility of taking this at lvl 1 or 5.. at lvl 20 you POSSESSE 5 levels of summoner 4 times. so tell me why you (probably) will take this evolution 5 times.
In my opinion this, and other little things bad explained and ruled, let the summoner get too much powerful. 2 AC at level 1 or not make differences. and this is only an example.
It's a class that should be written again, cause it often break the rules (too much for me).

if clarified and with a re written of the spells list it could be an interesting class.

lol you are right it's 2d6 :)
yeah this is exactly the idea.. playing with critical hits and critical feats. Combined with sneaking precision (but not necessary) you can use those cool critical feats. i hope it could be interesting.. we start next wednesday :)

Hi guys!! i'm starting a sort of new campaign (it's not exactly but it's too long to explain here the adventure) with lev.3 PCs. I want to test these houserules for the rogue PC (and eventually assassin):

- On a critical hit with a SA she can add the weapon's crit modifier to every SA's dice.

example: rogue of lev.3 with a short sword (1d6) rolls a critical hit + SA
damage 2d6 + 2 x ability mod + 3d6+6 + other bonus

- I want to leave the 3/4 BAB but his hit dice can qualify him for critical feats

ASSASSIN

Death attack : the same as the original but the damage of the attack is maximized (weapon and SA dice)

From the CORE book:

'Recent Casting Limit/Rest Interruptions: If a wizard
has cast spells recently, the drain on his resources reduces
his capacity to prepare new spells. When he prepares spells
for the coming day, all the spells he has cast within the last
8 hours count against his daily limit.'

simple

for me it's quite simple:

Improved Natural Armor (Ex): An eidolon’s hide grows
thick fur, rigid scales, or bony plates, giving it a +2 bonus
to its natural armor. This evolution can be taken once for
every five levels the summoner possesses.

possesses: at 1st level you dont posses 5 summoner levels so i trust the 5-10-15-20 rules in my game.

Stop playing with that DM
Respect other players..
or rest there and play a wizard.. play easy, and wait for high level spells then change the world and reshape the reality :)

p.s. : this is a game and you should have fun playing with. at the same time you should your friends have fun too ;) stay calm.. and play wizard :)

I really love Combat Manager.. it's very simple and you can create an encounter in less than a minute. I usually create a lot of enconuters before and then save them. U can load them when you need them.. you can add power to monster in a click.. do u want to add a template to increase the GS on the fly? 1 click. Do u want to create a new random monster with random abilities or randomize some of them?? some clicks.. easy to drink!!

For maps my pencil is my best friends :)

Uhm i didnt read all the posts here (maybe one half more or less)

- As GM i think this is the perfect example of how people cant menage groups with paladins. The punishment for some kind of evil act should happen in situation with a normal choice from a good act and an evil act.
The line that divide these two worlds should be clearer as you can when playing with paladins. In the 'gray zone' people love to let paladins fall.. but why??? I'd probably jump down to the hell.. imho, but setting up situation like this is almost terrible.. no choices and everything you do will bring pain on you (the better for a paladin) your friends (no good) killing an innocent (sob..) .. why not the end of the world too??

I dont like these things sorry.

Playing with the phrase that a paladin will fall if he volontary commit an evil acts its a different things.. always imho.. and creating a fan of choices like 'bad evil act - evil act - suicide' it's not a good way to manage with that :)

bye bye :) and have a nice play

Sword Saint :)

The example of the bird and the duck is very nice :) thank you

I've a lot of questions about this class and Iaijutsu Strike..

1) Which kind of feats can you stick with it? (vital strike for example)
2) Can I use the Iaijutsu Strike dice as Prerequisites for other feats?
3) What about Weapon expertise? Is one level of warrior required to stack with the SS levels? or i can use directly the SS levels as warrior levels?
4) does haste grant an additional attack with Iaijutsu Strike??

:)

In these days I'm thinking about the sword saint too.. Power attack + furious focus let you Iaijutsu Strike with no penalties and this is good :) I'm reading atm the samurai cause i dont know the class very well..

so sorry then!

and is it not legal then??

I missed nothing at all.. in the cover book I read Pathfinder.. in the description of the regions i read something like: Varisia, Cheliax, Numeria and so on.. Uhm I don't remember this 3.5 expansion atm :))

Did Serenrae kill Pelor taking his place?? :)

Holy warrior IS in the Pathfinder Chronicle campaign setting.. pg. 43

Ranger trapper for trapfinding then the rest of levels as Holy Warrior:
Full BAB, all cleric abilities except domains, full caster.. profincient with the deity's weapon too. (Gorum->greatsword)

You can fight very well, you have a lot of buffs, protections for the group, can convert in cure too.. heal.. miracle..
I missed something :)? but you lack skill points

I agree with you Mortuum :) 4ed is more balanced in numbers (but I dont like it) and every character has the same number of power (more or less) except for rituals (usual) I think that martial characters need options!! in combat and out of it! this is what i mean with the idea that balance should be in options and not in numbers. I never compare casters with martials cause it's impossibile. I play a wizard and my dpr in very low cause i love to control things and environments.. with my abilities i help martials doing their work better, i divide enemies and reduce their attacks to the fighter. With magic martials get options and this is why they play well together. I dont know if this is good or not, but with the idea of the tipical fighter and mage, even in the fantasy literature, i never read of a big fighter that teleport himself.. this is the iconic wizard's job. We can change this, for sure. But in a fight all the damage of my group is done by melee. They have fun doing that, they do that very well and, when the enviroment or the situation is bad for them magic helps in their job. The problem is all the other things and this is the point. I'm happy when i create a demiplane, or when i summon things from other planes. Some people is not interested in this. I never say 'i full attack' or smile for a critic that crushes a mob: i'm not interested in that and i dont cry for that cause is not on of my options. In the other group when i play my barbarian i'm happy to play him, even if his options are lesser.

I agree with you about the story of my brother. In 3.5 and in pathfinder martials need options that's for sure. But i dont think that a 20th fighter could be comparable with a 20th wizard. It's impossibile

When I think about magic, or a magical things, i think about something inusual that breaks the ordinary laws of physics. This is magic. Even the idea of calling a fireball is beyond the normal things that a non magic player can do. Fly.. and everything in the spellist is magic. Even magic items are magic! without that the disparity from a martial and a caster will be bigger i think :) but at the same time you are right with the idea that in a game two 20th lvl PGs should be almost comparable in numbers or in options. we can get the way of the 4th edition arent' we? In my first post i said that 4edition has something interesting and i trust this idea. Non casters need some 'martial powers' that let a martial pg do something exceptional.. every class should have something incredible that grows in power tied to their job and atm they lack this.
This is where i'll try to focus my jobs if i would be a game designer. at the moment i'm a player that play with a lot of fun..
You say that 4th edition is balanced, and it probably could be, but so WHY a lot of people dont like it? Why it was an epic fail?? why wotc in dnd next changed everything coming back with a lot of things near the 3.5 rules??

I read the d&d next playtest and i played sometimes.. have you ever read about wizards and clerics :)? they are more and more powerful with the option of studying the daily spells and then choosing from their daily spellslist as a sorcerer :) they create options for martials too, and i think that are interesting. Why did they come back from the 4ed rules and plans? There is only a reason: money - They tried to create a game for a different target of players (probably) the MMORPG users. RPG players are different!! But even in those game classes are not balanced. Enter a forum and read !! i played wow for a lot of years and everyupdate some class was happy and some class cried. Even is the 4th edition, where balance should be prior, this never happened. It's impossible to balance and rpg game, this is not absurd :) this is my personal idea and this is what i see in everygame, videogame, board game (characters in talisman for example), card game and everything i've played.
The most balanced game i've played was FFX where you have potentially the same abilities for every player.. but Yuna had summons :) So Tidus should cry for the unbalance cause summons are too much good :) (i'm joking). So this is why i was speaking about players and Gms. Starting from the point that the game is not perfect for sure, and that martials need something, the unbalance is sizeble by GMs. GMs are the real gem of a game like this. If you create a very intesting adventure, where people have fun and occasionally everybody shines with his abilities, people dont perceive this 'unbalancment' (this is my personal experience) or perceive is a lesser way.
In the group where i'm GM i have some guy at their first experience with the game. They sometimes read forums for good tricks and build but i try to teach them about the game as an rpg way. In this group there's a girl who plays a battle oracle with low strength.. she miss a lot, and other guys do more and more damage but she's the best of this newplayer about her pg creation, interpretation and all these things. I play very well with her cause i want a lot of rpg and i created a personal goal for her tied to what she likes. When a session ends the goal of the game is FUN.. and they everybody have fun. The barbarian is happy cause is the combat he does better then the other, the wizard is happy cause his spells helped a lot for the game, and so the other classes if u PLAY with them and nobody is crying for the other player options. Player abilities are resources for a dm and not something to fight against.
This is why i dont see any problem with the divination, the teleports and the other things we were speaking in the previous posts. If the game is unbalanced you can alter the perception of this things, or can use some house rules (i use something) meanwhile some game-designer try to balance these things. In the next games in the next years unbalancing will always be if you let people perceive it. Trust me. It's impossibile to create something balanced and good for thousands of player.
If the rogue has a lot of thing to do and he has fun with that, he will never be unsatisfied from the game, he will be happy that the wizard teleport everybody to the main chamber and help them a lot. If people are engaged with the story and the cleric calls an extraplanar hero to fight with them a group should think 'great, we are more powerful now' and not 'o F**k i dont have planar ally'..

Sure!! it's the base for playing..as a dm i read it all and all the spells too cause i'm a wizard in another group :)

I see a lot of guys that dont read the book.. that's why a lot of questions come out :) (my players sometimes jump up some parts (bad thing if you want to learn the game). U can learn things by playing but it's boring when u are at table and u dont know what kind of actions you have in a round.
Beside Race Classes and Feats you MUST read the ability chapter and read almost your class abilities and can you do with those.
The Combat Chapter is the base of the game
If you are a caster you must read the magic chapter too before your spells
Everything you skip is something that will slow the game, the combat, the exploration and whatever you will do.. and the GM or a more experienced player will be obliged to teach that to you..

The best thing that most of the player dont think about is that if you know the rules you know your options in the game. Knowledge is power

Casting a quickened spell
doesn’t provoke an attack of opportunity. (core rulebook pag.132)

You can cast it normal without concentration check

I played 4th edition from the beginning. I don't like it, and my players too. There are a lot of nice things but my feeling is that they tried to balance something that cannot be balanced: An rpg game.
At that time i was reading on 4th edition forums and all i read was MIN/MAX, numbers, dpr, and a lot of one-trick pony pgs (for example the optimization of the at-will powers and all the trick for the nova round and so on..)

pathfinder

In my experience I think that numbers are numbers but the real gem of an rpg game are people and not numbers. That's why you read posts about how fighters and rogues are underpowered BUT a lot of people play them.
For flavour.. what changes a rogue in a Rogue is the player who play him and the GM. Fighters are under critic but i see a lot of people playing them?? so why??
My friend is a GM of a group where the only caster is a bard :)
Spellcasters are full of options and their power grow up with levels a lot .. I remember when i played in a party with my brother: he play always barbarians :) I play usually wizards.. sometimes he cried for my options and for the reason but when i asked him to play a wizard too he laughs at me saying 'too boring'.
As GM now, i know a lot of things thanks for experience and to all your post with numbers, impressions, tactics and i know that my rogue player cant do the damage of the fighter BUT my rogue player is not interested in numbers. Is the GM that balance everything:

Take the rogue and the fighter: if you are an optimized fighter you probably dump INT.. games are not only combats and mine too. In a session sometimes can happen that we fight once and the fighter shine sometimes.. but this happens only if he can full attack the mob.. if he cant move easy, if you set up a good environment the fighter cries and the rogue with rapid attack is happy.

This wouldnt be an analisy of the tactical playing. I think that non caster classes could be simplified a bit with the fusion of a lot of feats to give them options.

About magic: Magic will be always atop normal human possibilities because.. it's MAGIC!! :) but a GM can manage all the options of a caster easily without boring them with 'Immune - Immune - you cant - antimagic zone'. Wizards (my favourite class) is crazy about options in play but you have not all the options together and you number of spells is restricted. If I can always sleep and recharge all my big guns it's easy to play, but what about a 'you have 1 day to do your mission or the BBEG destroy the world??' if you run out of your best spells you are less less powerful. That's why groups are necessary.. i can teleport you at the cost of power, then the fighter can kill the mob easily and i can use my spells for something else. Divination is meneageble whit the assumtion that BBEG are not stupid and, at high levels, they can protect them from it, they can think forward and use divination of the players against the players too.. They can have wizards followers, they could be a wizards too. Wizards are intelligent: think intelligent and know what you have in your hands.

Sorry for the digression. I want to say with all these examples that i dont think that 'number balance' should be the priority (4th edition is a good example of boring failure).. the real balance is probably impossible so why lose time for that?? give option to characters, give something to do for melee characters more than 'full-attacks' and dont optimize you fighter with dump stat :) play them!
With a good gm and good players the goal of and rpg game is easy to get:
FLAVOUR, fun for players and for the gm too. Fun is the thing that let you play your 'probably underwpowered' pg at lvl 20.. min max for combat will probably end your fun with this game at mid level.

what about creating a greater demiplane with no gravity trait and No time :))?

No Gravity: Individuals on a plane with this trait merely
f loat in space, unless other resources are available to
provide a direction for gravity’s pull.

Timeless: On planes with this trait, time still passes, but
the effects of time are diminished. How the timeless trait
affects certain activities or conditions such as hunger,
thirst, aging, the effects of poison, and healing varies
from plane to plane. The danger of a timeless plane is
that once an individual leaves such a plane for one where
time f lows normally, conditions such as hunger and aging
occur retroactively. If a plane is timeless with respect to
magic, any spell cast with a noninstantaneous duration is
permanent until dispelled.

In a condition of time suspended his regeneration wouldn't probably occur so you can kill him 1 hit every year :)

The 'floating permanently non-starved Tarrasque' the nice thing is bring it there :)

2 days a months (more or less) you enter the plane to refresh it and wave your new 'floating' friend :)

ah oki.. it would be nice however! :)

what about my first question??

my turn: pounce + 3 attacks with grab. If the first grab attack is succesfull can i finish my attacks??
Or, after the first positive grab, am I considered immediatly grappled??

Analisy (part 2): as well i read all the options i've new questions so be patience.

So we calculated CMB: 11.. GRAB gives +4 on CMB to enter and manteine a grapple.

3 attacks: 3 grabs (with tiger) with a CMB +15 to enter and continue

while i'm the grappler, as i read in grapple rules, i've 3 options:

1) move at half mov me and the grappled creature
2) PIN
3) attack with ONE natural attack at choice

Example.

(initiative won by me)

round one: Pounce and full attack something medium (tiger is large and atm i have not powerful shape)

i have 3 attacks.. what happen if i enter grapple with my first attack?? can i finish my full attack for that round??

In the creature grappled turn she chooses to break grapple but fails against my CMD

round two: (already grappled) I start my round rolling for going on with my grapple and I beat the creature CMD. With this action i decide to attack with my bite (the best attack) at the same time in this round
I have RAKE and I can attack with 2 claws too.

- last but not least i've a question about the wild shape -

now with the druid's changes to wild shape you basically play with your bonus on attacks, CMB, CMD modified by The Beast Shape used with your wild shape ability and the size modifiers.

So it's easy to play: you prepare ahead all your stats for EACH size you can trasform in and finally apply the situational modifiers for the creature abilities (in my example the GRAB bonus).

So i start to think: Can a Druid wildshape in the form she prefer (and she can trsform in) regardless of the bestiary examples?

The only thing that changes really is the base damage of natural attacks.

Take the tiger.. suppose to use Beast Shape III and create a tiger HUGE.
The few differences in this trasformation will be:

claw 1d8 -> 2d6
bite 2d6 -> 3d6

+2 strength -2 dex for the spell, more natural armor but malus to ac for dex and size.
But these stats would be the same if the druid trasforms herself in a stegosauros..(but trip instead of grab, obviously)

What you think about this?? What about a HUGE ant? a druid in the form of a HUGE ANT has the same stats of a druid in the form of a stegosaurus
with excpetion of the kind of natural attacks and abilities of the form.

I hope to have exaplained what i mean.. sorry my english is not my mother language :)

cool i'm glad to hear this! i was afraid about reaching high levels and finding all monsters immune to non-lethal damage :)
that's fine I love this PG :)

thank you guys for all the help and suggestions :)

sob sob sob :((

sure

in my CMB and CMB calculation i considered that:

CMB : BAB 4 str 6 +1 size (large)
CMD : 10 + CMB = 21
accordingly with the size modifiers in the core manual (p.198)
large +1
huge +2
garg +4
colo +8

I missed the penalties to fly and stealth you're right :)

OMG! so the AC is 16.. -2 dex and -1 AC for size i was wrong again

Hi!

After reading this book I fell in love with the radiant and began thinking about possible builds, but then I encountered a small issue:

According to p. 47 of Akashic Mysteries (first page of chapter 6: veilweaving) you can only shape veils occupying different chakras (without taking options like the Twin Veil feat).
From level 17 onward, the radiant can shape 7+ veils, but he gains only six kinds of chakra binds. Does this mean, you can't utilize the full potential of his base class feature (8 veils at level 20) without taking Twin Veil twice?

I mean, there ARE enough chakras available on the radiant's veil list to cover all 8 (which can be unlocked with the Access [...] Chakra Slot feat chain), but the issue still stands with not being able to utilize all veils to the fullest without feat taxes...

Yeah, you can.

Take the Selective Spell metamagic feat for example. However, it can't be taken before level 10 as it requires spellcraft 10 ranks and increases the spell level by one.

As I'm blessed with mostly normal groups, I don't have much to contribute to this thread but anyway, two stories of my player experiences (mostly dm'ing):

First one isn't even a special one. I know, railroading is frowned upon, but it's also bad taking it in the complete opposite. In one group, our DM started the introduction into his homebrew campaign world (4e) with 'I absolutely loathe railroading, so you won't get this from me'. Well, he REALLY avoided railroading. Our group was often three sessions long doing literally NOTHING (at least to advance the plot) because noone knew what to do. So we mostly roleplayed philosophical discussions between our characters (we were mostly clerics, paladins and such). It was really fun for us, but a little bit more 'railroading' had been appreciated.

The other one is something around a decade ago. We were playing The Dark Eye (which may be not all to known in the US). Our master did nearly everything you can do bad when dm'ing, but three scenarios are still vividly present in my memories.

- At the beginning (in a tavern), I'd tried to make some money with juggling. My character (kinda like a mix between thieve and non-magic bard) jumped on the table and made a juggling check. Our DM decided to give absolutely ridiculous penalties on my check (as I know from rl experience, juggling 3 balls without any complicated tricks is a cakewalk which should get NO penalties at all), I failed miserably and she decided one of my balls fell off the table, hit the fighter PC of my best friend on the foot AND did 1 point of damage to him! 1) how in the world could the ball fall from above the table on the feet exactly under the table? and 2) why does a small, soft 80-100 gramm ball inflict damage? Against an armored fighter above all?

- In this game, you have two actions per round, which you can use to attack or defend (i.e. you can attack once and defend once, or do one thing twice, or take other actions as casting spells or such). We were fighting against a bunch of orcs (with NPCs and such there were around a total of 30 participants in this battle, nearly even distributed). I attacked one of the orcs. He defended. The next member of our group attacked the same orc. He defended. By the rules, he would now be out of actions. Another participant attacked the same orc. He defended. We protested. Her (the DM) answer 'Since he used his two actions, he has already proceed to the next round, so he has a brand new set of new actions...' I then asked 'when he is already a round ahead of us, will he blink out of time for now and return in 3 seconds (the duration of a combat round in this game)?'
Later that same fight, one of the orcs attacked my character. This in and of itself wouldn't be bad. BUT: My character was on the western side of the battlefield, that orc were on the eastern side (with LITERALLY ALL ~28 other participants and something around 50 ft. between us) with absolutely NO ranged weapons (and no melee weapons suitable to throw).

- The infamous DMPC in his 'best' form (I totally have no problem with DMPCs, when made right, on the contrary, both me when I'm a DM and others when they are in our groups are even ASKED to play DMPCs, as they can greatly contribute to the game when played right) was played by her: A 'blind' (or at least 24/7 blindfolded) wizard named Merlin. Well, we could live with that. What wasn't all to entertaining was the fact that our second combat encounter (after this first encounter mentioned above) in the campaign happened as follows: 400-something orcs are charging our small party on an open field. Her wizard takes a few steps in front of us, lifts his blindfold and copies Cyclops from X-Men, a laser-like beam kills the whole army in one round. After that, Merlin reveals he's the son of - can't remember right - I think it was Rondra (the goddess of war from this setting). From this point onwards, in every encounter we just handwaved and said 'let Merlin do it, we'll watch'.

Sorry, this post get longer than planned, but I hope it was at least a bit entertaining.