Raith Shadar's page

Completed this module.

Changes:
1. The Oculus: Changed The Oculus into a spy that infiltrated the group encouraging them to track down all the components to relight the forging and tricking them into relighting the forge. Increased her Bluff skill substantially and had her infiltrate the party after several prominent giants were killed leading Urathash to realize that the small people had infiltrated.

2. Etena: Only a minor change. Made her a true ally of Urathash. She strongly desired to relight the Forge to provide the Storm Tyrant with a means to produce weapons to rival the Dwarves and other small people. She was more of a prominent member of the giant hierarchy at the Cathedral working in tandem with Urathash rather than an afterthought.

*****

The villains in this module were not formidable enough to challenge the PCs except for Urathash. Unfortunately, he had a very bad time with a displacement spell that didn't get dispelled. He fought for 8 rounds and must have missed 12 or more times. Most annoying displacement spell I've ever ran into.

PCs waited to relight Minderhal's Forge until the giant valley cleared. They made a deal with the dwarves of a local citadel to hold the forge and keep it secret from Volstus. Volstus would not let a forge as powerful as the Minderhal Forge alone if it wasn't guarded. He would bring his cloud fortress to take it. With the dwarves of a powerful battle citadel guarding it, he will be more wary.

Anyhow, glad to be done with this module. It was a tough one to run. Monsters were too reliant on brute force. That doesn't work well against PCs using magic. A brawler, magus, and summoner with optimized eidolon do a lot of damage and are hard to kill. I may have to design more magical support for the giants in the next few modules.

It make the point buy more like a 9 point buy than a 10 point buy. Easy fix is to make it an 11 point buy. I can't stand odd stats. It would have been a smarter decision mathematically to make the point buy 11 points. This works out to a more mechanically and aesthetically pleasing statistical spread.

This is going to replace the rogue class along with the Investigator. Rogue is done as far as I'm concerned. Fighter probably done too. Then again no one played a rogue in our campaigns and the fighter was pretty rare as well.

Any official ruling on this?

It seems to me that the bonus spells are the only reason to remove the cure/inflict line of spells and reduce the number of spells per day. Everything else the class provides is rather minor.

I think I'm going to allow them to add unless there is an official ruling. The loss of cure/inflict spells is very huge since this is a healing replacement class.

Raith Shadar wrote:

They're usually a giant pain to run as a DM because of how often they turn the battle in favor of the PCs.

That's usually due to Inspire Courage, though, isn't it, which Negotiator trades out? Bards always sound good in theory, but I've never been able to make one play out to my satisfaction. Their abilities always feel like they're a mile wide and an inch deep: There's all kinds of stuff they can do but none of it terribly well. I have a great time with them until initiative is rolled, and then it doesn't seem like I'm making any contribution. (I always trade out Inspire Courage because I'm too much of a diva to be the wind beneath anyone else's wings.)

Inspire Courage is a big reason, especially early on. Later on it is the overall package. All the buffs and spells like Saving Finale that have specific uses that can turn an unlucky miss around. A bard support class in a party is a real pain for a DM at high level. They are starting performances as free actions, while casting spells to boost the party or crowd control an opponent. It can really disrupt a battlefield. Their ability to move an entire party in combat can be quite useful. Then again those are all high level abilities, something not normally reached in PbP.

Do you think Piccolo will be nearly useless in the types of combat you have planned during the adventure? I don't want to play someone useless. Maybe I make something else before we get going like a cleric or inquisitor.

This is the first bard I've run. I wanted to try something different. Bards have a potent set of abilities. They're usually a giant pain to run as a DM because of how often they turn the battle in favor of the PCs.

Happy Anniversary, Joana! If you don't post for at least a day or two, I'll completely understand.

Piccolo selling the gems to his aunt might not be a good idea. Normally, he would sell to a jeweler at a higher price provided by his bardic performance, but he couldn't do that to his auntie. I would like to sell certain objects. He has an ability that modifies Appraise checks possibly in his favor to increase their value. Though it is not as assured as gaining 10% from the NPC with the trait. He might be the best way to go.

I feel lucky to have made it into the game. Thanks to Javell for the heads up. I do like to role-play. This type of game is right up my alley.

Good luck all in your future campaigns. It was a fun few years.

I guess in a weird way I should perhaps thank you Maddigan for your comments on my dming...

I'll take a few weeks to think things through. Probably three or so. I'll pop back if I feel like continuing, but I doubt it at this point.

I wasn't much interested in killing the campaign. I moved on and adapted to the environment presented. If it will allow the others go on, I'll take myself out of the campaign. No harm intended by my comments.

I wanted to finally speak openly on why I was so disappointed in what happened. The situation is on me as well for not making my character development goal more clear to the DM. I figured the nature of the Jade Regent AP was set up for one of the PCs to romance Ameiko and sit next to her on the throne. When everyone but Izumi chose different NPCs, I figured why not go for the obvious story angle. A little competition for the Empress's hand would have made for interesting role-playing.

Every DM is different. You handle things in the way you see fit. It's not always going to be agreeable to the players present. I accepted the decision and moved on by creating a character with a character development angle I could see through to the end.

I just wanted to make it more clear as to why I gave up on Raith and changed characters.

Good gaming with all you these last three years. I enjoyed the campaign for the most part. And excellent role-playing Pavel, your stuttering ranger was fun. Had fun with your Elven wizard Daeron and your flamboyant actor playing as a cavalier Javell. Nice to meet you Seila.

Thanks for DMing all these years, Dreaming Warforged. It was for the most part an enjoyable experience. That's why I stuck around to make a new character.

It sure would have been, Javell.

I was looking forward to the whole rise to samurai status angle. I love the Samurai culture. Just finished reading Lone Wolf and Cub for the third time (I still can't read book 28 and not be moved). I've watched all the Zatoichi movies. I've watched tons of Kurosawa and samurai movies in general. Read books on Bushido. Such a cool warrior culture. The katana sword is my all time favorite warrior sword (I know...I'm not alone), though I like European full knight armor best. The Seven Samurai is one my favorite movies of all time as well. The main attraction of Jade Regent was to play a ninja and a samurai.

The reason I chose monk as my base class was because most samurai and ninja are good at martial arts and don't wear heavy armor when they fight (unless they're on the battlefield). In duels, the samurai don't usually wear armor. Duels are all about mastery of swordsmanship.

I wanted to have Raith learn the samurai way once in Minkai. He would eventually start to learn Bushido, the way of the warrior. This way he would have been able to earn the respect of the warrior clans in Minkai, so he could sit the throne and not dishonor Ameiko.

I figured Izumi had a similar idea in mind. Once he dropped from the campaign, I was thinking the path was clear for my character development angle. Everyone else had chosen other NPCs to be associated with. I figured no one would mind if I went for the throne.

As they say, the best laid plans...

This campaign does indeed sound like my type of fun.

Javell told me about this campaign. It does look very interesting. I'd love to join in. I'm very flexible in how I am worked in. The role-playing looks fun. I'm willing to work with Joana to integrate a concept that works for her.

I post consistently and am a very stolid player that loves to role-play.

I liked Jade Regent for the Asian theme. I don't mind NPCs having a strong influence on the game. Putting an Empress on a throne is a pretty cool goal.

It takes a lot of work to make an NPC interesting. If you're not comfortable role-playing an in-depth romance with said Empress, her entire purpose for existing in a campaign with a bunch of adventurers is moot. That was the attraction of this particular AP: romancing the Empress and possibly becoming the Emperor yourself. That's a cool story to play in.

Once I figured out Celestial wasn't interested in running this story element, I lost investment in the character I was playing. He was built with that in mind.

My character development arc was to romance Ameiko. Rise up to the level of samurai. Marry Ameiko. Become the Emperor. Whole story arc completely destroyed once Celestial decided to have Ameiko bed down with Izumi off-screen and make Izumi the star of the movie and his child the Emperess's heir, when he wasn't playing anymore. I truly did not understand that decision and was flabbergasted.

I would have never done that to a player that stayed with the campaign. That's why I was stunned after it happened. I didn't think Celestial did it to be mean, but I also thought it was an indication that I shouldn't focus on the story and character development too much. I should focus on plot movement. When a DM ruins your background, not much you can do about it but adapt. That's what I did.

Why beat around the bush any longer. That's what I was going for. So Raith lost his character development angle and I had no other angle for him to work. It would have been damn cool in my opinion to play the no name, small town handyman that rose up to Samurai Emperor of Minkai ruling next to his lady love.

I was really looking forward to that part of the story.

Now my character development arc is a native from the icy north seeking the ultimate hunt. I imaginine the look on the Jade Regent's face when Akulyaok's arrows sink into his flesh killing him. That would be a pretty cool story too. Some badass native hunter wanders out of the icy tundra with the Empress seeking her throne and a ragtag group of adventurers she picks up on the way and ruins his plans.

On a side note, I agree with Javell about Shattered Star. I read it. Doesn't sound like fun. Serpent's Skull was cool because of the competing organizations. Working for the Pathfinders again doesn't appeal to me. I don't like reusing ideas and organizations.

I'm huge into NPC interaction. I agree with Javell, even the NPC interactions should make the PCs the star of the show.

I'll toss some of my views out there.

We rarely interact with the NPCs on anything more than a superficial level. A little narration and a tiny bit of interaction. I thought the plot was important, but not character development. I figured that was your DM style, Celestial.

When you basically gave the chance for an in-depth romance to a character that quit the campaign and said nothing to anyone, I figured your focus was on moving the plot along. You were using a character you didn't have to develop any kind of serious relationship with to do it. You could hand wave it all and make up whatever you wanted regardless of the present players. My assumption has always been that you liked a well-scripted plot, but with a superficial level of story and character depth.

I made Raith with the idea of an in-depth relationship with Ameiko. When that relationship basically occurred off-screen with a player that left the campaign, I assumed you had no interest in developing in-depth relationships between the NPCs. Since I'm accustomed to this type of DMing, I made a character I thought would fit that DMing model better. That was my motivation for replacing Raith.

I figured you understood my purpose with Raith that from the beginning. That's why I was surprised you tried to turn my character into a cuckold. I wasn't about to play a cuckold as a PC. When you let me change, I was ok with it because I liked the overall campaign.

Would you want to play a cuckold as a PC? Or anyone here for that matter? I seriously doubt it. No one wants to play a cuckold as a main character. They want to be the romantic lead, not the also ran.

A well-connected plot with a legitimate reason to pursue a goal involving role-playing and combat works for me. I definitely mix it up in my own campaigns. I make sure to keep a balance to make it fun for the players. Players generally like to roleplay a little and fight quite a bit. I'm ok with that paradigm the majority of the time.

Though I would prefer a really in-depth role-playing campaign online. It would give me a chance to flex the writing skills.

I'm just waiting for the talk to be done. This kind of stuff is not Akulayok's area of expertise. If Daeron, Théoden, and Seila aren't going to push us through, I don't know what to do. Akulayok and Pavel aren't much good at this kind of stuff.

Sheesh. Glad to hear you're alive. That's harsh.

Welcome to the game, Tark.

Let's recruit a guy. Some new blood won't hurt. I have a good feel for Akulayok as he is.

Sorry to see you go, Garand. You were here from the beginning. What has it been? Two plus years?

Now to find a new healer. If I had known Garand was leaving, I would have made my new character a healer.

I hope Garand's absence is only lost internet or taking a break and not health issues. Surprised to see him leave without saying anything. He doesn't seem the type.

the lantern archon thing is nothing unique to the summoner though, just fyi. Every arcane and divine class with summon monster can do it...(nearly all of them)

Your definition of cheesy is now every caster in the game nearly.

They don't all do it with standard actions and the amount of times a Summoner does it. It's not even close to the same level of frequency.

They slow the game down to a crawl. They use cheesy abilities like summoning a ton of Lantern Archons to kill high level things due to a unique attack that bypasses all DR. They summon air elementals to constantly move things around the battlefield and throw them in the air to do damage. Their tactics are often cheesy, but highly effective.

Mostly they slow the game down.

Serum wrote:

Skaldi the Tallest wrote:

Serum wrote:

Raith Shadar wrote:

I'm also thinking of focusing on vampiric touch with Empower Spell (which with the new ruling can be used with frostbite).

Could you point me towards this ruling?

Seconded.

Since Raith Shadar's disappeared, does anyone else know what he's talking about?

I think he was referring to an old JJ post in which he said that the multiple touch spells doesn't count as holding the charge, so you was able to cast frostbite, and get +1d6+lev to every hit AND discharge another touch spell mantaining frostbite on. A FAQ corrected that.

@Mathwei: isn't wyroot sub-optimal for a hexcrafter and useless for the defiler? A standard magus gain really high advantage from high critical range, but I don't know 18-20 wooden weapons. For the defiler, he attack only with his hairs, so he don't use a wyroot weapon, so I don't know how it could be useful.

Nope. Ruling about Empower Spell. As far as I know it is still in the FAQ and still applies.

Serum wrote:

Raith Shadar wrote:

I'm also thinking of focusing on vampiric touch with Empower Spell (which with the new ruling can be used with frostbite).

Could you point me towards this ruling?

Seconded.

frostbite and Empower Spell

I wonder where Garand is. He usually posts more often than this.

I'd love another limited run colossal mini. Preferably a Titan. Then I'd have one dragon and one immense humanoid that could be used to represent titans or giants.

Raith Shadar wrote:

Sounds like you're playing a debuff build to set up other party members. Our kill speed is very fast. I don't want to waste time tripping and grappling.

I played with STR Ranger's hexcrafter in another group. The only Hex that proved particularly useful was the Flight Hex. Between the paladin, inquisitor of Gorum, and the Magus, everything died so quickly that utilizing a hex was a relative waste of time. Better to choose spells that improve kill speed and finish everything fast.

This is also my experience running the Magus a few times. Death happens so quickly in most encounters that any actions not spent killing are wasting time.

Our group tends to power through the lower levels. I want a build that focuses on bringing the hammer at lvls 10 to 15. I won't be using wands in those instances. I'll hammer with harder spells.

The Icy Vampire build will focus on bringing the pain with a little hit point buffer for the occasional hit that makes it through. Magus has pretty good defenses at higher level against all enemies that don't have true seeing.

You're Icy Vampire build intrigues me. I see the potential but would love to see you're actual build. Most of my designs have been focused on getting the build running as soon as possible so haven't worked out anything for a higher level starting point yet.

I'll post an update around lvl 12. I'm lvl 5 right now. Let you know how it is going. Hopefully it will be effective and fun.

Sounds like you're playing a debuff build to set up other party members. Our kill speed is very fast. I don't want to waste time tripping and grappling.

I played with STR Ranger's hexcrafter in another group. The only Hex that proved particularly useful was the Flight Hex. Between the paladin, inquisitor of Gorum, and the Magus, everything died so quickly that utilizing a hex was a relative waste of time. Better to choose spells that improve kill speed and finish everything fast.

This is also my experience running the Magus a few times. Death happens so quickly in most encounters that any actions not spent killing are wasting time.

Our group tends to power through the lower levels. I want a build that focuses on bringing the hammer at lvls 10 to 15. I won't be using wands in those instances. I'll hammer with harder spells.

The Icy Vampire build will focus on bringing the pain with a little hit point buffer for the occasional hit that makes it through. Magus has pretty good defenses at higher level against all enemies that don't have true seeing.

They screwed the Magus with wands. Wand Wielder and Wand Mastery do not allow the Magus to cast spells from wands using his level. Either of those Magus Arcana would be far more useful if one of them allowed you to cast the spell at your caster level. I won't spend the money on a wand to get it to a higher caster level. The advantage of frostbite is no level cap on the extra damage, which now functions with Empower Spell. At level 10 your Empowered frostbite will do 1d6+10 x 1.5 (average 19 per hit). If I use a wand, they'll do 1d6+1 unless I spend the dough to boost the CL.

I'd much rather spend my coin on permanent magic items. If either of those arcana allowed CL casting, they would be very worth it. Buy a lvl 1 wand to cast your favorite spell 50 times would be great. I imagine that is why they didn't allow it.

I was looking over some spell combinations.

I'm having trouble picking many hexes. Generally the kill rate is so fast that wasting a standard action hexing seems like a poor use of my actions. I'm not sure I want to pick up too many effect hexes. I'm grouped with an Arcanist and a Bloodrager. They are both quite effective at bringing the hammer.

I'm doing a frostbite and Rime Spell build. That will require a commitment to a single spell active for a few rounds which would reduce the use of Spell Combat and the extra attack. So I'm thinking of using haste more often.

I'm also thinking of focusing on the tactical acumen spell. This spell with the Flight Hex can give a hefty to hit bonus that stacks with heroism once I pick it up with Spell Blending.

I'm also thinking of focusing on vampiric touch with Empower Spell (which with the new ruling can be used with frostbite).

I'll call this my Icy Vampire Hexcrafter build. I'm going to give it a shot and see how it works. I'll update the build and its effectiveness as I build it. Should be interesting.

Fighter and Rogue (and all associated archetypes) brought up to similar power level to other martial classes or martial hybrids. Get rid of two save paradigm. More playability at higher level.

Reduction in number of attacks. No more three or four iterative attacks. A couple of attacks a round should be enough for all classes.

If attacks are not reduced, then an increase in rounds time back to a minute or thirty seconds. I want this for stylistic purposes rather than mechanical. All these actions within six seconds reduces verisimilitude.

Special monster building rules for solo monsters and monsters of extreme size. Huge, powerful monsters should have two to three times the hit points of a regular humanoid without increasing hit dice or combat ability.

Monster damage increased to a level it can compete with PC damage. Bring back the fear of death from physical damage from monsters.

Every spell with a save including Energy Drain. Fewer abilities to boost saves to insane levels so that saves don't become trivial.

Dodge and Parry mechanics. Less reliance on magic items to boost stats and AC to keep pace with the game. The reduction of the magic item Christmas tree.

Rikash, they closed the recruitment. It's too late. Sounds like fun.

Raith Shadar wrote:

Nope.

It's a choice between living and dying. Mass Heal heals 150 to 170 to each target when you acquire it. Higher with beads of karma. It can stave off death and give an extra round of battle. Heal is a "death from damage" mitigator.

So do you not in battle heal before Heal? Or do you buff heal spells before that then, since prior to Heal you're getting a pretty terrible exchange rate for your action. I've been thinking of making the lesser cure spells better myself.

Occasionally we use cure spells or channel, we don't use those as much as heal. I'm mostly talking the high level game. Lower level you can get by without much healing in battle.

That's why we gave all clerics the ability to channel positive and negative energy and cast cause or cure spells. Give them a little something else to do.

Sometimes healing is needed at lower levels. Most of the time you can end a battle before you need in combat healing. If you were referring to lower level games, then I agree that in combat healing not a great choice.

Raith Shadar wrote:

....

It is hard to do when the barbarian has 420 base hit points. 520 when raging. I gave them an ability called Rage to the Death, which allows them to rage until they reach negative con. An opponent has to plow through 560 hit points to bring them down. Not easily accomplished I must say. This with the barbarian hitting them with Raging Brutality, which matches the best fighter output for damage. Then using Come and Get me on his turn. I've had to buff the hit points and damage output of many an enemy to keep up with the Barbarian. He's vastly most powerful than any other martial character in most combats.

So you buffed the Barbarian and he is now "vastly more powerfull than any other martial character in most combats"? Pehaps the other Martial classes need some of your helfull houserules to even the score.

We buffed the rogue and cleric as well.

Raith Shadar wrote:

Or with DMs that don't create challenging encounters.

My encounters are so challenging buffing and healing are required, not optional. If you try to unload hoping to kill them or gain the upper hand, you're going to die 90% of the time.

I don't mean rinky dink trash encounters. I'm talking the BBEG encounters it seems most players on here tend to steamroll. Doesn't happen in games I run very often at all because the enemy is every bit as well-equipped and supported as the PCs. Their strategies to win are equally vicious.

If you're playing with guys who think they can do math and win, I can see why you don't bother with healing and buffing. My players see the value of buffs and not always the same buffs. At high level avoidance buffs like displacement and invisibility tend to be worthless. But haste and hit buffs highly worthwhile. Healing is almost a must because I buff opponent damage output substantially. At the moment Pathfinder monsters are woefully underpowered when it comes to damage output.

Do you also buff healing? Because if not, it's still a terrible exchange rate unless you're quick channeling. And Haste is a minute per level, so you could burn that off before the encounter and be fine. Barbs already have nice to hit, and a lot of other good buffs to hitting also are pretty long term (Heroism for example), meaning Superstition doesn't get in the way. What it DOES get in the way of is breath weapons, SLAs, Spells, and other SU abilities that would halt a melee monster from melee monstering. If I had to choose between having an extra attack but being dominated, I'd go without Haste. Being almost immune to most things that require saves is worth being buffless/healless, but thankfully you can buff ahead of times (especially before a BBEV, since most of the time you're the proactive one of the two there)

But if you've buffed healing abilities (which I advocate to make them worthwhile in combat), then yeah your encounter strategy...

Nope.

It's a choice between living and dying. Mass Heal heals 150 to 170 to each target when you acquire it. Higher with beads of karma. It can stave off death and give an extra round of battle. Heal is a "death from damage" mitigator.

Damage at high level both ways is sufficient to kill the opponent in one to three rounds depending on build and crits. Effect mitigation is very powerful at high level and usually done with buffs that prevent conditions from occurring, but can also be done post-effect as long as the casting time of the effect remover is a standard action.

Healing is required because the opponent is usually defended against save or suck or save or die effects or has an effect remover which prevents their attacks from being mitigated. Thus if the PC does not have heals, they will be hit with attacks that are sufficient to obliterate their health. This requires a heal to keep them up and fighting.

I have designed encounters where the exchange is important to survival. Anything that keeps you alive is not a terrible exchange.

It is hard to do when the barbarian has 420 base hit points. 520 when raging. I gave them an ability called Rage to the Death, which allows them to rage until they reach negative con. An opponent has to plow through 560 hit points to bring them down. Not easily accomplished I must say. This with the barbarian hitting them with Raging Brutality, which matches the best fighter output for damage. Then using Come and Get me on his turn. I've had to buff the hit points and damage output of many an enemy to keep up with the Barbarian. He's vastly most powerful than any other martial character in most combats.

I think Greater Invisibility is generally a pre-combat buff. In combat you're talking about wasting up to two rounds before that has any usefulness. Also, pretty irrelevant to the actual discussion about whether Superstition on a Barbarian is really any kind of hindrance. The Barbarian tends to have abilities that negate his need for a lot of the buffs that are more handy for mundanes like the Fighter and Rogue.

Superstition is not a hindrance most of the time. Barbarian damage resistance (since Invulnerable Rager is the standard archetype now) is high and their hit points are high. They can generally take so much damage that half heals are sufficient to keep them alive. With Greater Beast Totem combined with fly makes their damage output amongst the highest in the game. They don't care about attacks of opportunity and charge into combat knowing that a full attack with Raging Brutality is often all they need to finish most targets.

Now against a prepared caster looking to take them out Superstition doesn't help much. The best way to hammer a barbarian is with enervate and energy drain. Barbarians tend to have very low touch ACs. As long as enervate and energy drain don't allow a save, you can annihilate even high level barbarians fairly quickly. Some get death ward on them prior to battle knowing this strategy is highly viable. A barbarian with death ward is virtually unstoppable. You have to strip it first which takes actions.

Superstition does not hinder a barbarian. It makes them nearly invincible against anything that allows a save. If they pick up a ring of evasion, they dodge reflex save attacks better than a rogue or monk. Make the so called reflexes of a rogue or monk look like fairy stories.

Which comes back to why I buff damage. Paizo does not test this game at high level. I have to believe that because when a Great Wyrm Red dragon has near zero chance in melee against a lvl 20 raging barbarian because their damage output is too low, they did not do a good job testing the damage output of a great wyrm red dragon versus the barbarian. Yes, the barbarian has free action by that time to ensure he can't be grappled. The dragon is wasting his time trying.

That being said, I'd rather see monsters made tougher than barbarians nerfed.

DrDeth wrote:

Thomas Long 175 wrote:

Honestly, I've never had anyone try to cast a buff on me, or a healing spell for that matter, for me to care about the downside of superstition.

Every wizard I've met, pfs or homebrew, PEW PEW PEW. Not one person other than myself has built a cleric. No other bards. The oracle has never cast a buff spell on me.

Wow, in our games and in JJ's games the opposite is true. You must play with very selfish players who don;t know the value of teamwork.

Or with players who recognise the value of in combat offence over wasting their time casting small buffs or trying to undo monster damage with in combat healing.

Or with DMs that don't create challenging encounters.

My encounters are so challenging buffing and healing are required, not optional. If you try to unload hoping to kill them or gain the upper hand, you're going to die 90% of the time.

I don't mean rinky dink trash encounters. I'm talking the BBEG encounters it seems most players on here tend to steamroll. Doesn't happen in games I run very often at all because the enemy is every bit as well-equipped and supported as the PCs. Their strategies to win are equally vicious.

If you're playing with guys who think they can do math and win, I can see why you don't bother with healing and buffing. My players see the value of buffs and not always the same buffs. At high level avoidance buffs like displacement and invisibility tend to be worthless. But haste and hit buffs highly worthwhile. Healing is almost a must because I buff opponent damage output substantially. At the moment Pathfinder monsters are woefully underpowered when it comes to damage output.

Nails wrote:

Ya know that part where Galdana's presence is supposed to prevent the players from AOEing willy nilly in the Grey Friar fight? Yeah, faulty logic there.

Players: A mass of ju-ju zombies disguised as the count? I fireball 'em!

GM: If you do that you'll surely kill the real count Galdana.

Players: You mean the count Galdana who's the heir of the whispering tyrant, whose very existence makes his resurrection possible? Oh yea, I fireball the S%+~ out of those zombies.

My party was low on resources so they planned to bust in, kill the count, then retreat. They wound up winning the fight anyway but the goal wasn't to rescue Galdana, it was to kill him.

Thats why my (and others) rewrite was to have Kendra be the heir, and not some random joe. Then the party cared.

I wrote it so that Galdana was already dead. His essence drained into the elixir to be used by Adivion. I figure they wanted to try something different. I went with Adivion trying to become The Whispering Tyrant and failing because no one can become The Whispering Tyrant.

Raith Shadar wrote:

Sounds like he is saying unequal system mastery is the cause of most problems. It is a major cause of problems with the game.

Not necesarily unequal system mastery. A good portion of system mastery is to obtain the best from the worst. Like how to make the best non-TWF shield and sword barbarian or something.

The good thing of system mastery is that in groups withlow optimization you can play and somewhat optimize the bad options.

Heavy umbalance in power amons diferent party members is a problem though.

Most of the people I play with try to obtain the best of the best save for one player who doesn't like all the rule options and wants to go back to playing 1st edition D&D. Thus he spends a lot of time b@++!ing about how powerful the other characters are. He is the one that plays a wizard the most often. At one point he didn't see the value of metamagic and thought it was worthless.

System mastery definitely has a dramatic effect on the game.

Sounds like he is saying unequal system mastery is the cause of most problems. It is a major cause of problems with the game.

Barbarians are definitely tough. I think they are appropriate. They are beings of pure rage. They have disadvantages like not being to put much thought into combat. They can still be killed. You better be ready to fight them or they'll rip you apart. That's how it should be.

Lemmy wrote:

Leonardo Trancoso wrote:

I´m not saying that the rogue can´t contribute to the combat, it is just the class concept isn´t make to compare rogue vs monsters 1x1 at a open fight.

Fortunately, no one here is thinking of x1 battles.

People complains because they choose a 8 skill point class in games that GMs make a poor use of skills and then try to make the rogue face monsters like barbarians do to compensate this fact.

Poor use of skills? You can only do so much with skills. Are you going to talk the lich out of finishing his evil plan? Stealth up on a dragon, something you can't do with a +infinity stealth. Once you've disabled that trap, then what? You going to use that climb skill when everyone else is flying?

Skills are used. Some of the most important skills are better accomplished by an intelligence based class or a bard. How about all those knowledge checks to gather useful information? You the best at that? Those checks are extremely common in and out of combat. Diplomacy is often better accomplished by a bard or paladin.

How do you feel when you reach high level and the opponent targets you with hold, mind control, polymorph, or petrification effects because you're the weakest person in the group?

How does that rogue archer do when the opponent is invisible to start the battle or has total cover in preparation of an ambush? Or if they have heavy fortification armor negating your sneak attack 75% of the time? Or cast a blur spell to completely negate your sneak attack? Blur potions are extremely cheap. They get passed around like candy when an opponent knows a rogue or sneak attack class is present. Make them absolutely useless.

Lots of ways to make a rogue useless that don't exist for other classes.

The main problem with rogues at higher level is their weak saves. Once you start getting bombarded with auras, gaze attacks, high level spells and spell-like abilities, and supernatural fort and will powers, they get hammered. The increased mobility and reach of high level monsters makes positioning for sneak attack rough.

All "acted" means in the Flat-footed text is they haven't reached your initiative yet. It's more a "could have acted". Once they hit your initiative you are no longer consider flat-footed even if you can't take any actions. You're considered to have acted and are capable of defending yourself as the Dazed condition allows.

Nope. Flat-footed only applies to the first round and maybe a surprise round if they can't act. I know it doesn't make sense. It's how it works by RAW as far as I know.

Once they've rolled initiative and they can act during a round, they aren't flat-footed.

It's one of the classes I boosted. They still don't get played very often at all. They could definitely use a makeover. Love to see them changed to an Inquisitor-type mechanic instead of sneak attack. A versatile combat system that still has rogue flavor.

They have too many caveats to their main shtick in combat. This shtick can be good. It's hard to do at higher levels with invisibility being easily defeated, concealment extremely common, and fort and will save effects that remove you from combat or kill you common attacks. It makes the rogue dead meat along with the fighter. The fighter can at least do good damage and hit things. Rogue has problems.

I would love to see Paizo rework the Fighter and Rogue to fit in with their new paradigm of two good saves and more versatile abilities for characters. They've done a great job with the Inquisitor, Magus, Ranger, Paladin, and Barbarian. Even the Cavalier can do some spectacular stuff in the right setting. Fighter and Rogue are seriously lacking as main characters (though rogue alternative Ninja is pretty awesome, but could use two good saves).

Raith Shadar wrote:

Dekalinder wrote:

Be sure your party companion are good, since any neutral among them will be istantly killed.

Now you must ask yourself...does she care.

I'll let the other players know what she is doing in advance. If they choose to be neutral to avoid alignment effects as they almost always do, they suffer the consequences of their choice.

What is being good if not caring? If she did not care that her actions caused harm to others, then she would not be of good alignment.

You seem to think good is much more tolerant than evil. They aren't always. Good people might kill neutral as well as evil folk looking at their death as proof of an unclean soul. In Pathfinder you can prove a person is good by how holy power interacts with them. If they can't withstand it, then proof they aren't on her side.

Good people can be avengers. Her intent is to destroy those that aren't good. If people with her are unclear as to which side they are on, they had better choose in her eyes.

She takes care of people. She teaches them to be good. If they don't take to the lesson, then it's on them. The only time she will be careful is in towns and areas where civilized folk live. If her adventuring companions aren't good, they can take the train. She intends to blast evil with pure holy power. If her companions souls aren't shining with goodness, they will suffer the pain of their equivocation.

This line walking by the neutrals won't be tolerated. Neutral people sit on their ass while evil does what they want as long as it doesn't interfere with their lives or plans. They have no clear moral boundaries. She won't tolerate their lack of action or their overly grey personas. She is GOOD...in capitals. She doesn't understand neutral or evil people, nor does she want to associate with them.

Be sure your party companion are good, since any neutral among them will be istantly killed.

Now you must ask yourself...does she care.

I'll let the other players know what she is doing in advance. If they choose to be neutral to avoid alignment effects as they almost always do, they suffer the consequences of their choice.