Raje's page

I believe it gains a slam attack if it didn't have one before.

It says it keeps all natural attack and gains a slam attack though. No "if it's got a slam already it doesn't" caveat, so I don't think that's true.

Alright. So a zombie retains all natural attacks, manufactured weapon attacks and so on of the base creature. Then it also gains a slam attack at its highest attack bonus.

What if the base creature has 2 slam attacks? Does it have 3 slam attacks then? And if it's a fast zombie variant, does it do 4 slams when full attacking?

Take the Cave Giant for example. It has 2 slams as natural attacks. Add Fast Zombie variant. Do it get +1 slam for being a zombie and another slam when full-attacking?

Full attack options for Cave Giant non-zombie (feats removed):

Melee battleaxe +12/+7 (2d6+9/x3) or
2 slams +12 (1d8+6)

Full attack options for Cave Giant fast zombie (stat changes not factored in):

Melee battleaxe +12/+7 (2d6+9/x3) and slam +12 (1d8+6) or
4 slams +12 (1d8+6)

Is this correct? I'm unsure how the natural slam attacks interact with the slam attacks from being a zombie and quick strikes.

EDIT: I remembered that one can make natural attacks as part of a full attack with manufactured weapons as well, but forgoing 1 slam per weapon hold in a limb (due to the slam would not be possible, I guess the logic goes), those natural attacks count as secondary attacks then and impose the usual -5 atk bonus penalty. With holding the battleaxe 2-handed (losing 2 slams for 2 limbs holding manufactured weapon) and in addition to the full atk bonus slam from quick strikes I guess it would then look like something like this:

Melee battleaxe +12/+7 (2d6+9/x3) and slam +7 (1d8+3) and slam +12 (1d8+6) or
4 slams +12 (1d8+6)

Blasting is not really what I'm aiming at (battlefield control and less of a blasty role, leaving such things up to the damage dealers — a few fireballs with dazing being the exceptions), so that makes Deafening Song Bolt less ideal.

Enchantment spells from the bard list are out as well, due to it being an opposition school. I'd rather avoid using enchantment at all (to be honest, I dislike most of them).

Ill Omen is an interesting choice, but by then it won't help my action economy, and I don't have that many save-or-die/suck spells to justify quickening it. I'll keep it in mind.

Greater Dispel Magic I've placed high in the list, I'm somewhat leaning towards it. It seems like something I'd want to cast a few times a day in most cases?

Summon Monster VIII as a level six spell, a d4+2 pouncing dire tigers are liable to end any combat at that level.

Greater Planar Binding. Go adventuring with your own pocket Planetar and its level 16 Cleric spellcasting abilities. I recommend having friends on hand in case it breaks out and chooses to remonstrate with you about interfering with the divine plan or something.

Plane Shift at level 5. If you choose this as your spell for Spell Perfection later on you can be dispatching enemies to the Abyss at range as a swift action by level 15 with a level 6 spell slot.

I've consciously chosen to not take SMVIII as it would be overly broken (and steal the spotlight from my fellow party members), but a good suggestion I've considered myself.

Isn't a high charisma needed for Greater Planar Binding? I've never used any of the Planar Ally/Binding spells before so I don't know how effective they are in actual play. What task do I get them to do for me so they stick around and don't stab me in the back with creative interpretation of the terms of service?

Plane Shift: isn't it just willing targets though? Didn't think you could use it on enemies.
Edit: "Target creature touched, or up to eight willing creatures joining hands"

The first application is unwilling any creature? Not sure how good it would be in the campaign as it will feature plane travellers I believe. Unless you're thinking of something I'm not.

Why are you taking Bard's Escape? It's like a poor mans Dimension Door. Sure it takes slightly more people but it has a much shorter range (200' versus 800' at 20) and is a level higher and you still cant take any actions after casting it.

Because of the positional advantages. It's a combat spell for my Wizard, not an escape spell (whatever the name might be ^^). By the wording you can decide where everyone affected ends up within the range of the spell, i.e. I could chose to put all melee fighters in melee with the enemy so they can deliver their full-round attacks on their initiative (this is of course best if I go first). As per Dimension Door, it's only my wizard who cannot act afterwards, others I chose to have teleport can.

Quote:

Mystic Past Life (Su) You can add spells from another spellcasting class to the spell list of your current spellcasting class.

If you add a spell that is already on your spell list, then it should have no effect. This ability was not designed to give early access to spells, and should not allow you to get spells earlier then the class you are taking them from. Selecting the Summoner's spell Haste as a Wizard, should not allow you to gain the spell 4 levels before a full summoner.

You'd think that yes. But there's nothing preventing you from doing that, interestingly. You just add a spell from another spell list to your own spell list. Doesn't mention that you can't have it already. For this thread, assume that you can. There's plenty of other threads where that thing has been discussed ad nauseam.

Any opinion to share regarding the topic at hand?

I should add that Enchantment is an opposition school, so Dominate Monster is not an option sadly.

I overlooked Greater Dispel Magic actually. Is it really that useful at higher levels? I had the impression that DCs were kinda hard to beat (the wizard is a conjurer and not an abjurer, so the DCs will be lower.)

Are the Hostile Juxtaposition spells any good? Summoner has the greater version one level earlier.

While checking the arcane spell lists for the Past Mystic Life trait for a newly created Samsaran Wizard (I can choose 6 spells from other lists) I realized that the Summoner and Bard lists had quite some interesting things (mostly early access for some great spells like Maze or Greater Teleport). All of a sudden I had too many choices.

Firstly I was checking for good spells not on the Wiz/Sorc list, and I found Bard's Escape and Gallant/Brilliant Inspiration on the bard list. The Bard's Escape spell just seemed to great not to choose. I was more unsure about the Inspiration spells. Bard's Escape I *will* take.

Then I checked early access from the Summoner spell list (that list is just too silly, I found out) and Haste, Greater Teleport and Maze caught my attention. I might be missing more, but those are the ones I *will* be taking for now.

With Bard's Escape, Haste, Greater Teleport and Maze chosen, that leaves me with 2 slots open.

What are the good picks and why? I am very inexperienced with spellcasters in general and high-level play in particular.

See my dementedly long post. The build isn't even legal.

It is. Qinggong stacks with every other archetype because you can cherry pick what you want to replace. That's why your ki ability count is incorrect as well.

As for your above post and the item cost, they're perfectly fine as well. Take "ring of protection+5 & counterspells (56,000gp; greater dispel 660gp)" for example: ring of prot +5 = 50k gp. ring of counterspells = 4k gp. To add a ring of counterspells on top of another item = cost x 1.5 = 6k. Total 50k + 6k = 56k.

As you by now surely understand, you've made several other incorrect assumptions as well.

So I saw some issues. Perhaps its just your english which you took the opportunity of blaming.

Two things stood out to me. This first bit:

"But in my expérience, full attack action is a rare occurence in battle. most of the time, monster moves, character too. I,have played a rogue for 16 level in schakled city. I have had the opportunity to use twf only a bunch of time in two years play."

As well as this bit that followed:

"In many build, attack of opportunity is a must. But it's a rule that praticly never happened in our game."

So first you state that people very rarely spend a full-round attacking someone because they run after a monster? Then you say that AOOs is very rarely done in your game. That's strange, because if monsters run away from melee they trigger an AOO. Either they stand still so you can full-round attack or they run away so you get an AOO for leaving melee. I don't understand how neither of those things happen often, as they're contradictory.

Well, you could. But it's not very "strong".

As long as he is proficient, an Ironskin Monk still only loses Flurry whilst wearing medium armor.

If you are going into Brother of the Seal, I would not wear armor.

"This ability can be used only if the monk is wearing light armor or no armor. A helpless monk does not gain the benefits of resilience."

You lose your DR too.

Will lose more stuff if you wear more than light armor though.

MoMS loses more to armor. Ironskin Monk only loses flurry.

Ironskin gets +6 natural armor @ lvl 20. MoMS and ordinary monks gets +5 AC + Wis bonus AC @ lvl 20. How do they "lose more to armor"?

And as Icyshadow said, Ironskin does not lose flurry evidently.

I'd use MoMS to be honest, so I don't know how you'd do it with Ironskin. Haven't really looked at it too much as it seemed lackluster, so cannot help you there.

I explicitly said you can use it with any other + ironskin.

You can stack Qinggong on top of anything, as long as you don't replace something which any other archetype replaces.

Drunken Master, Ki Mystic, Hungry Ghost Monk, Qinggong Monk and Treetop Monk are the only archetypes which stack with the Ironskin Monk assuming no racial restrictions.

Among those Drunken Master would probably be my choice.

Qinggong Monk is the only archetype able to stack with the any other + Ironskin Monk as well.

So it this deity a real deity or just a fragment of the goblins' imagination? I'm assuming the latter one, due to the GM not being involved at all...

There's a feat called Ankle-biter or something too, I believe.

Yes and yes.

Hmm... a few things. First, I don't think a MoMS needs Dragon Style to qualify for Elemental Fist (this is important later). I believe the restriction listed in the bonus feat section doesn't mean you must meet the prerequisites of Elemental Fist, but rather you must have Elemental Fist for any style that requires it. In other words, you can't take the elemental styles without Elemental Fist, but you can take Elemental Fist at any level as a monk bonus feat.

You're wrong. This has been discussed ad nauseam before. It explicitly say Dragon Ferocity qualifies you to get Elemental Fist (only other way to get it is with Monk of Four Winds). Why in the hell of anything hellish would it say that if you could just get Elemental Fist with any bonus feat at any time? Be rational instead of making your own faulty rational up.

Power Attack is probably not the best thing as your to hit is hurting due to BAB already. I'd put more into dex though, as you're not gonna use heavier armor.

It's not a two-handed attack. It's two one-handed attacks, you just use one attack roll for both and do roll the damage separately. You use Tiger Claws and use full action and roll to hit, if hit you roll damage twice (ie once for each hand), but you only add your extra (normal unarmed) dmg from power attack to one of those - if a crit you multiply each one.

As you can see, you're just "over-thinking" it. It's quite straight forward.

You can only use ki to gain an extra attack while flurrying. Tiger Claws isn't flurry.

3. Magus casts touch spell. Gets free attack to deliver it with his weapon. If a hit does weapon damage + touch spell effect.

It demands a gmail account to be able to view, so you have to allow anonymous viewing or whatever it might be called there.

You might learn something or find inspiration from this thread. Not exactly what you're looking for, but it's relevant so it might be helpful in some way. I'd advice from doing it that way though, a bit too powerful. :)

If you are set on going Master Chymist I'd only take a few levels so you get more mutagen uses per day, and concentrate on Alchemist levels for caster progression.

If you go with MoMS you'll have to face the issue of 3/4 BAB and no flurry, which hurts your offense unless you find some kind of combination with MoMS which grants you comparable offensive options. If you're doing a MoMS grappler (dragon+turtle) you should probably go for greater grapple and rapid grappler also. Note however that dragon works best if you also use power attack, and lower bab and less attacks also mean you're not getting out as much out of dragon style.

In either way, Str is usually the way to go if you wanna do damage.

The Orc Scarred Witch Doctor is all kinds of awesome and I've evaluated Endurance as its best Patron.

The reasons being? I can't see why it would be best for anything. Apart from Miracle (which is a good spell to have, but it's 18th level meaning you'll probably never get it anyway unless you start at around that level) and perhaps Spell Immunity, there's nothing you want really.

Bear's Endurance to buff your con for better spellcasting and hex DCs only last minutes, and you'll have atleast Belt of Mighty Consitution +2 as highest priority around the time you get that spell anyway, and +4 as soon as possible after that - which is more reliable than a minutes/level duration spell.

A more important question is at what level the game will start, rather than the end, as you can't be sure the character will survive that long.

Apart from Miracle Endurance is really rather crappy, and I'd avoid it unless you're starting close to 18th level or so.

Both Deception and Time are good patrons (among the best there is) but Deception is preferable at lower levels due to invisibility (see invisibilty isn't as frequent then), while Time brings both haste (awesome) and time stop at higher levels. I'd go with deception, as I prefer that kind of thematic/sneakyness. Cackling while invisible is fun.

Shadow patron is an option as you get the shadow evo spells later, while are quite handy for utility being able to replicate so much.

Not to mention.... James Jacobs is the Paizo Creative Director and Mark Moreland.... I've never even heard of before or seen post on these boards.

No offense to him, but I'm willing to bet JJ is his boss, for all intents and purposes.

Mark is listed inside ARG as "Editorial Assistance".

pH unbalanced wrote:

Mathwei ap Niall wrote:

Actually no they don't. Only pure Orcs qualify for this archetype.

(they clarified the racial archetypes today and ruled that half-orcs are only considered Orcs for EFFECTS not archetypes.)

Can you point us towards that ruling? I looked around a bit but couldn't find it.

Well here is James affirming that half orcs are subtype Orc. I can't find any semi-official statements that half or s would not count as or s for feats, or archetypes.

http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz20ea?Whats-the-halforcs-subtype#0

He said "today". That's from over 2 years ago. IE not "today". Of course you won't find it there.

I was more referring to enemies ending you and then ending/eating your familiar. I guess I just have too much experience with overly thorough GMs. I will add a clause about starting play at higher levels, though.

My GM has explicitly stated "If you use your familiar for combat it becomes a valid target", but ignores them otherwise. Seems like a reasonable thing, as I think most foes wouldn't actively target small animals (or the like, I guess imps or so are valid targets by default by atleast good people and those who dislike devils - but they can turn invisible anywway) and instead focus on another threat.

I guess I'm still not really seeing the benefit of slogging through nine levels of less-efficient existence in order to achieve this "immortality." Seriously, do you guys not play with GMs that attack familiars?

I suppose you could add a bit about starting at or after 10th level, if those first 9 are your issue.

I want to believe that's the intention.

Regardless, back to my "how to level 1 Scarred Witch Doctor" inquiry. I took Improved Initiative for him, because hell yeah Improved Initiative, but maybe it would be better to grab Toughness at first level, especially if he'll be without armor and in melee?

It fits the fluff, too, you'd imagine a dude who has covered himself in scars would be exceedingly tough.

Well, Toughness might be overkill (or would it?) assuming you'd have 16+ con already.

For feat picks at level 1 you could probably consider Improved Initiative, Combat Casting (if you're going to do some melee it could be handy sometimes) or perhaps Dodge (if you got 13+ dex). Not too many great choices when you can't pick Extra Hex.

On a side note: imagine feeding a fetish mask burned scroll-stuff to teach it new spells.

If you look at more races you will find they more often than not do not have racial bonuses to stats which their favored classes use as a primary stat.

You pretty much answered your own question by using the word "flavor", flavor does not equal racial bonuses per se.

Eh, Games Workshop doesn't really have any place complaining about anyone taking inspiration from them considering how they've been ripping off Blizzard for over a decade now.

Elaborate.

I'd have to have a good IC reason for lore warden. How am I gonna learn that on a pirate ship? I dont think its possible? Also I want invisibility at 2cd level. I'd rather not waste a trick on weapon finese.

How are you gonna learn invisibility on a pirate ship?

Quote:

...add weapon finesse and you have your bomb thrower that can also do melee damage. goes well with vivisectionist....

Something is seriously wrong with trying to put these statements together as a complete thought. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure it out.

Throw in some Agile on an AOMF as a remedy! :D But yeah... haha.

If you're building him as a bomb-tossing scholar you're not really focusing on his mutagen form, to be honest.

You have a severe dissonance between your jekyll and hyde personas, which will probably gimp your hyde more than help it in any way. You shouldn't be surprised then that the character is worse than "your half-orc" at melee combat or in mutagenic form.

Fair point, but that is a lot of feat investment.

Compared to what?

You should probably stick with something which can wear fullplate. Monks aren't really "tanks", even with crane style and bumped up AC (but I suspect there might be some way to heavily optimize and get the AC up, but you'll probably be bad at most other things than not getting hit).

MoMS and MA don't stack.

Raje wrote:

I see no reason why you'd want to dump feats on Vital Strike when you've got Flurry.

Because you don't always get to make a full attack?

He's feat starved as it is, though. You need too many feats to make Vital Strike "worth it".

I see no reason why you'd want to dump feats on Vital Strike when you've got Flurry.

You got 10 int and you're a samurai. You won't have anywhere near enough skill points to do that I'd imagine.

Oni-spawn Tiefling (for +2 str/wis, -2 cha) with Mizu Ki Hikari Rebel (Chu Ye) or Quain Martial Artist (Quain) as a trait.

Throw in some Power Attack as others have said, and maybe even Dragon Style for good measure.

The Sword Saint HAS to strike first in combat

Not really. You can challenge and use iaijutsu strike all in one round.

I also believe order of the warrior, ie standard samurai shenanigans, is the way to go with a samurai/sword saint. You might even want to consider ronin (you get awesome saves, rerolls and all).

Regarding deadly stroke vs iaijutsu strike: deadly stroke is useful all day long, while iaijutsu strike is usable a limited amount of times per day (as many as you have challanges and haven't attacked the challenge target yet). You need something with an oomph to use in normal combat, if you're not full-attacking.

For items I'd say o-yoroi (I believe it's +2 dex in that one, so increase your dex to 14? I see no reason to leave it at 13), keen on your katana. Not too sure about any special wonderous items which fit a samurai but not a fighter.

Traits: go with the tried and true.

I really don't get how that concept meshes, but the optimizer in my get the chills at the thought of combining witch and monk. What kind of playstyle are you going with? You can't really go full-round attack due to no flurry, and you can't use style feats if you're at range using hexes and spells. Not to mention the horrible bab.

Try to convert 3.5's Choker (monster, abberation) to some kind of PC? Something with grab and constrict out of the box sounds too powerful though.

Hmm.

A level of Juju Oracle for Spirit Vessel, and then Undead Lord Cleric?

Lich Samurai perhaps? :P