RavenStarver's page

Just double checking I'm understanding this correctly.
So if I wanted to make an item that's basically an unlimited wand of magic missile, it'd be Caster Level x Spell Level x 2000, so 1 x 1 x 2000 = 2000?
Is that correct?

RavenStarver wrote:

The issue I face is what feats to take at later levels, with all the ones that work perfectly like Vital Strike being locked behind the Fighter requirement.

You can't Vital Strike on a charge anyhow.

How exactly are you using this homebrew weapon to get DEX modifier on damage?

I don't get Dex on damage. That's why I took Power Attack.

The issue I face is what feats to take at later levels, with all the ones that work perfectly like Vital Strike being locked behind the Fighter requirement.

RavenStarver wrote:

BadBird wrote:

The Felling Smash tripping feat is great for going strike-trip-strike, but if you've got a weapon with double-charge-damage then it's kind of redundant.

You might even want to look at Dragon Style simply for the fact that it makes charging far easier; with a double-damage charge, the last thing you want is to have to make standard attacks instead of charging because something is in the way.

In fact, you're probably going to want to make double-damage charges as much as possible to combo with studied strike damage. Exactly how you would play with range to always be able to make charges depends on exactly how you're planning to wield your homebrew weapon. Lunge, Pushing Assault, Amateur Swashbuckler: Dodging Panache... it all depends on how you fight.

Dragon Style is something I hadn't thought about, that's a really good idea. Is it possible to pair it with Ascetic Style?

It's possible, though it involves dipping into Master of Many Styles Monk or going through that whole feat chain to qualify for Combat Style Master. Dragon Style only helps actual strength-based damage though.

Elven Battle Focus would allow you to use INT towards damage instead of other stats, including getting 1.5xINT with a two-handed weapon. But it's restricted to "Elven" weapons...

Reading through Dragon Style a couple times, it doesn't look like I'd need the other style. The only part that it states only works on Unarmed attacks is the damage boost. All the charging bonuses are unspecified.

The Felling Smash tripping feat is great for going strike-trip-strike, but if you've got a weapon with double-charge-damage then it's kind of redundant.

You might even want to look at Dragon Style simply for the fact that it makes charging far easier; with a double-damage charge, the last thing you want is to have to make standard attacks instead of charging because something is in the way.

In fact, you're probably going to want to make double-damage charges as much as possible to combo with studied strike damage. Exactly how you would play with range to always be able to make charges depends on exactly how you're planning to wield your homebrew weapon. Lunge, Pushing Assault, Amateur Swashbuckler: Dodging Panache... it all depends on how you fight.

Dragon Style is something I hadn't thought about, that's a really good idea. Is it possible to pair it with Ascetic Style?

Working on an Elven Investigator, no archetypes, and I'm stuck on what feats to give him now.
What I've got is weapon finesse to boost attack, and Power Attack for a boost to damage.
The GM also let me start with a home-brew sword, d8 damage, finesse, can be used one or two handed, and does double damage on a charge.
I don't want to go Two-Weapon fighting, that doesn't fit the idea of this guy that I have.
He's more of a spy so I like the idea of sneaking around and then rushing in for one devastating hit. But I don't know what other feats would help in that regard.

Holy water.

It is very effective, very expensive to produce in large quantities for a one use item.

Working on a culture in a custom setting.
They're germanic in style, like land vikings, or a certain kingdom of horse riders.
The trick is that they don't really fight each other, the region they're in has a lot of the basic undead, skeletons and zombies and the like, due to these magical crystals.
So I'm mostly wondering what kind of weapons and tactics would be best suited to combatting the large groups of undead regularly encountered.

So if 1.000 hobgoblins are archers, we are looking at 50 natural 20s per round. A small band against an organized army of 5.000 is ridiculous. I heard roman-greek mentioned - that were the guys with the best tactics and organization around and not a howling mob of dumb barbarians (who got their asses handed to them by the legions).

Sun Tsu said it in his book: there are battles that should not be joined :)

Interestingly the Romans actually rarely used archers. They relied almost entirely on heavy shock infantry.

@java Guerrilla style combat is certainly an option. Assassination is less so as I am a Paladin and so must act honorably, facing him in a fight is okay by the law of PCs though :P

@Darksol That would require our witch to be really good at her class and know the spells. So far her combat techniques have been "run at them with short sword".

@avr & Yorkblack there is a canyon he would have to pass through, the issue is the GM has declared that it is 3/4 of a mile wide. That would allow for quite a lot of troops to be marching. Quick and dirty division gives me about 800 men if they're marching shoulder to shoulder per rank. so maybe half his force. That's if they're marching shoulder to shoulder though which is highly unlikely.

As an odd idea, is the hobgoblin chief just passing through or is he actively looking for you?

I was thinking that you might be able to hide everyone inside the mines, but I'm not quite sure how much people the mine could hide and if they are willing to put up with some very uncomfortable living conditions while the opposing group passes by.

Not sure if this sort of thing even fits with your groups play style, but I thought it might be worth piping in.

It is one of our main options. And we ran into some friends underground who would be glad to help us out by hiding us. We would not be found.

Issue is that In-Character, we're all a bit combat crazed. Like we've gone into impossible fight after impossible fight without a care. They've ignored me repeatedly whenever I try to suggest using cover and the like. So there's good odds the Brawler, Swashbuckler and those following them would literally try to fight the guy on an open field. Stupid, I know, that's how they roll.
So I'm mostly fishing for ideas to give them that give them their big battle without us being guaranteed to die.

If you want to break shield-walls, use area effects. Unfortunately, you don't seem to have a good blaster class.

Nope. For whatever reason our group has a strong dislike of magic casters. I think they're great but I enjoy playing silly tank builds. (I'm the warlord/ranger/paladin).

So our party is going to be facing a problem very soon.
Long story short we are very deep into the hobgoblin controlled lands mining for magic crystals, and we just received word that a hobgoblin war chief is going to be passing through the valley we're in, in about a week. And he has about a full legion of troops, (hobgoblins in this setting are very Greco-Roman) so he has about five thousand or so guys.

We've yet to figure out what to do. Fleeing is an option except for our large entourage of NPCs that'd not be able to move quickly. But a battle is likely suicide.
I'll list what resources we have, I'm fishing for any ideas, any tactics, anything we could do to not get steamrolled into paste by an army.
The party is all 7th level.
Characters are a Warlord/Ranger/Paladin, a Brawler, a Monk, a Witch, a Rogue, and a Swashbuckler. The more powerful NPCs we've got are a Jotunblood Barbarian, a Cleric, a Bard and an Artificer.
The bard just got a Lyre of Building, we've got some magical weapons between us. The dwarf is chief of a tribe of one hundred goblins and I just took leadership and got a hundred hobgoblin mercenaries under my command. The other twenty or so NPCs are all just laborers and miners.
We have a week to a week and a half.

So our group has a very high chance of having to face off against an army of hobgoblins and if we do it'll be a battle, and running five thousand of them against our two hundred just isn't possible.
(we have two hundred because our brawler took over a tribe of 80 goblins and I just took Leadership so I'll have 100 or so soldiers of my own)

The core bits of the combat system work just fine, each mini representing 10 creatures and the way it works is straightforward and is understandable. The issue that will arise is how to handle the "advantage, disadvantage" rules.
What would be a good guideline for the bonuses and penalties listed?
http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/UA_Battlesystem.pdf

This actually looks like one of the easiest army combat systems to run I've seen in years. Kind of reminds me of the Total War games with the heroes and morale systems.

I don't have any experience with conversions but I might take a stab, have you had any luck with your tinkering?

Just commenting so I can find this thread later. Once the links work I'll be using this a lot

We tried to make the rules as seamless as possible going from creatures to vehicles, but the 'object' nature of vehicles made that hard (when making a creature larger, you can just throw on natural AC. Objects don't get that benefit in core Pathfinder, they just get more hp).

Keeping Strength at '10' was a means of adjusting for that discrepancy; size penalties to attack and ac would scale at the same rate, so two Large mechs fighting would have the same hit/miss chance as two Colossal mechs fighting.

However, while this makes attack values more correct, other things are thrown off as well with mech/creature interactions, as you've pointed out.

When dealing with mech/creature interactions, I would recommend adjusting the mech's base strength according to its size as if you were advancing a monster: Large 18, Huge 26, Gargantuan 34, Colossal 42.

If you want to keep these values all the time that's also valid; when fighting mech to mech in melee combat you'll never miss, but everything else will be more seamless, and it will certainly speed up vehicle combat and make melee attractive compared to other vehicle combat options.

I was wondering about using the Colossal base strength. Thanks!

I just picked this book up at a Con and was reading through and was kind of perplexed when the 90ft tall Mecha Kitai robots only had a strength of 10.
Is that just for Vehicle to Vehicle comparison? Or can my Half-Orc fighter actually arm wrestle this thing?

Do you mean you can count your Wizard spell slots as Magus spell slots? Because it isn't really useful if it's the way you said it.

Sorry. Basically the Magus abilities apply to both classes and I get to combine my spell books and spell slots. The only ability he didn't let me use like this was the light armor proficiency.

RavenStarver wrote:

412294 wrote:

You can do almost the same thing as a magus, though it takes a mithral shirt instead of mage armour, past that point blur, mirror image etc. are better than AC anyway.

Right, I'm considering a one level dip into magus mostly for the combat casting and dual wielding weapon and spells. Mithril shirts are expensive though, I need all that money for making magic scrolls so I have lots of castings ready to go. Blur and Mirror Image will be amazing indeed once I can get them.

Keep in mind that you'll only be able to use Spell Combat and Spellstrike with the spells in your very few, low-level Magus Slots.

A very good point, thankfully my DM house ruled it and said I can combine my Wiz and Magus spell slots and count them all as Wizard. He figured it would work as Magus are essentially War Wizards and they cast the same way anyway. :D

You can do almost the same thing as a magus, though it takes a mithral shirt instead of mage armour, past that point blur, mirror image etc. are better than AC anyway.

Right, I'm considering a one level dip into magus mostly for the combat casting and dual wielding weapon and spells. Mithril shirts are expensive though, I need all that money for making magic scrolls so I have lots of castings ready to go. Blur and Mirror Image will be amazing indeed once I can get them.

Sure you can roll into melee like that, but what are you going to do to the enemy? And once an enemy rolls the 16 or 18 they need to hit you, how long will you last? And a smart enemy that ignores your ac and grapples you can just smash your fragile little elf bones.

Well for one I actually have a reasonable attack what with a +5 from Dex, as well as a weapon that hits reasonably hard.

EDIT: actually this does raise a question of what type of bonus Mage Armor and Shield give. If its Deflection bonus then they would raise my CMD preventing grapple crushing as well.

That's why I went the Transmutation specialist. You get all the fun spells instead of just being a blaster.

Now does this build lose its usefulness at higher levels? Absolutely.
But until level 5 when you start getting the really good spells playing as a Magus increases survivability by a huge margin.
And it creates a far more interesting dynamic when everyone was like "A wizard? oh cool." then I whip out a sword and start slashing dudes up after I've debuffed them, far more memorable

I'm slightly surprised I've not seen someone in my group try this before and was even more surprised when they were shocked at the build.
Okay, everyone in my group is a firm believer in having a backup character, just in case your guy dies and there's no method to Raise them. It's nice not having to sit out the rest of the session. Anyway I made an Elf Wizard as we don't really have any arcane talent in the party currently, actually we've only got a Witch, everyone picked martial types.
Anyway, the build, Elf, wizard, we're currently second level, I managed to get 20 in both Int and Dex, (Transmutation specialist ability).

I pointed out that my guy can cast Mage Armor, Shield and then wade into combat with a 23 AC.

Has anyone else used this build? I'm curious.

Thank you, I knew I'd seen it somewhere.

I don't have a question about how it works, but I could swear that somewhere I read that you can pour alchemist fire or burning oil on a melee weapon for some added damage.
But I cannot find that rule anywhere, did I imagine it? Does anyone know where it might be?

This is getting some really good ideas *scribbles notes furiously*

I'll second class levels now that I understand your meaning. I'll also add tactics. Lower CR creatures can gain a lot of longevity if you really understand the options they have available to them. Of course, this all comes back to what I said earlier about understanding the rules available to you. If you understand how to capitalize on your advantages while mitigating your disadvantages caused by things like weather effects and poor lighting or slippery surfaces, etc. then you can be better equipped to have your NPC's/monsters make more interesting choices.

For example, if the PC's attack a group of bandits and the bandits get their asses handed to them. Those same bandits might come back and ambush the party. They could use ranged attacks from behind cover on high ground. Maybe they buff their attacks with something like Flaming Arrows (an underused spell considering it's duration). Maybe they laid a pit trap or two to slow down the PC's advance. Those conditions alone could be more than enough to get the PC's interested in the fight because it gives them the feeling that the stakes have been raised. They aren't fighting programed monsters with attack routines anymore. Now they're fighting bandits that actually care about their success and their survival. It adds a level of verisimilitude that let's the players know you're invested in the game and willing to try to make things interesting and exciting. As long as you pay attention to the party and make sure not to make the situation unwinnable or unfair the PC's will (generally) respect you for it. It seems simple, but few DM's really use the tactics available to them. Which is odd to me because the returns you get from your players is so worth it.

Yes, tactics are my biggest point here, I personally don't like adding Class levels to certain things (like oozes) ogres I heartily agree, Skald and Bloodrager being my favorites.

Sorry about not responding, had some things to take care of.

Certainly to most people responses, terrain and interesting type encounters do make huge difference.
I didn't properly explain what I meant by "Deadly". I was referring to that strange occurrence when players get more health as they level and suddenly every dungeon and palace is stocked with traps and guardians powerful enough to give an adult dragon second thoughts.
Where it just turns into monsters with bigger health bars that do more damage.

It's mostly personal that I love the more normal creatures and finding ways to keep them around/ harass the party with them.
"Tucker's Kobolds" are the perfect example of this, taking something an using it in a new and creative way that makes them more dangerous without having to make them more powerful.

As to the terrain comments, all of my yes.
My favorite is bandits or hobgoblins or such with a proper ambush, party's on an open road when the arrows start flying. The bandits are off nearly a 100 feet away, and to get into melee with them the party has to go down into the ditch, up the other side, over a fence, up a hill, and over another fence before the sword fight starts.

Let's start with a staple of low level play, spiders, they run out of their holes, throw some entangling webs and then charge and fight till 0 HP, story is old story is boring.
That's not how a spider usually hunts, they don't charge like a zombie, they wait for prey and the ambush.
Here's and idea on how to change the playing field and keep players nervous.

They're going into the spiders home, their nest, the spiders have spun webs everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, not just in the big drapes across hallways, have them lay some across the floor and on the walls. Second, remember that spiders can sense vibrations through their webs and can find prey through that vibration. The spiders follow, stalking, then dart in, bite one of the PCs and then run away and let the poison work. Often times, players aren't used to that, and while poison saves are often low, if the spiders keep doing this someone's inevitably going to fail, and then stat loss happens and the players get scared.
If the fighter fails a few saves and loses say, 3 Strength, he's going to be scared, he won't hit as often, he hits less hard, and if his strength drops too much, he could start getting encumbered by his gear.
Anyone starts losing Dex and their AC starts dropping fast.

This has a startling effect on a players confidence, and can be a major inconvenience even at higher levels. Stat damage from Poison or Disease takes time to heal, sometimes several days of straight bed rest, or a valuable Restoration spell, which they might want to save in case of bigger problems.

You can even throw this at them without a Giant Spider dungeon.
You're in an abandoned tower rummaging through a bookshelf, a tiny spider bites your hand cause you nearly squished it.
If you're DM is mean (diabolical genius) he could put on the door right before a fight.
While they're tromping through the woods have them step on a normal hornet nest. I guarantee it'll be entertaining.

Include Disease.
If they're walking around all kinds of dead rotting corpses make them make that saving throw to get all kinds of nasty crap.
If they're wading in swamps make them roll against things like Dysentery or "Trench Foot" or Malaria cause they're getting eaten alive by Mosquitoes.

If you've got other ideas please, share them.

I have only ever faced one dragon and that barely deserves mentioning.
It was 4th ed (shudders) and the DM was, subpar. She can come up with some okay ideas but her overall style is very very Mother Goose/Fairy Tale Theater. The fight basically amounted to us enacting WW3 outside it's door against its kobold minions, somehow the dragon didn't hear this, so we walked in, surrounded it and Coup De Grace'd the living snot out of it.
Everyone felt pretty meh about the whole encounter and we weren't really enthralled with the looting, just felt so hollow.

Years later, in a campaign I was running with a different group I really wanted them to face off against some kind of Dragon, and they were like level 6-7 so they could handle a tougher fight, but I really wanted Dragons to be these HUGE boss types. So I went with and Advanced, Giant, Flame Drake. That actually really threw them off because the thing was smart enough to have organized a kobold tribe into an effective fighting army and it was way bigger than a normal drake.
They actually handled it really smart, they used Sphere of Invisibility to sneak past its guards, they'd all brought potions of Resist Fire and they used like 4 Web spells to pin it in place so they could fight it.
I still nearly killed the Barbarian and half cooked their NPC cleric.

It was simple on the how. They were all shattered drunk, and saves were rolled. It was a high level illusion spell. Mechanically everything was up and up. The wizard's dc's were 28 vs a heavily impaired paladin.

Also I asked the paladin to roll saves a few times, he knew something was up. She did not touch him, when she reached to do so, he killed her. I gave him an attack of opportunity as if it were an unarmed attack from someone without the feat. I also stated it was not an aggressive motion.

Yeah no. I play Paladins and with Paladins extensively and I can tell you that there is NOTHING in this situation that would make the Paladin fall.

1) Saves are abstract, while the Paladin (the player) knows that he's making saves and that something may be up, the Paladin (the character) only sees a demonic creature babbling in an unknown language and attempting to touch him. And tons of creatures have auras or abilities that require saves, hell a vampire can Dominate you with a look. So why would rolling saves be a clue that something is an illusion?

2) "the touch was nonthreatening" yeah, so is a touch attack by a Succubus. Level draining kiss, looks nonthreatening until you shrivel like a raisin. A touch attack can be any type of touch, it doesn't always look like it wants to eat your soul, my point on Succubi again.

3) WHY IN THE NINE HELLS DID YOU LET IT GET THIS FAR!?!?!!? Seriously why? What possible purpose was there in allowing the Wizard to commit such an iredeemably evil and despicable act?

4) "A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class features except proficiencies if she ever willingly commits an evil act." Since the Paladin had NO in character way of knowing that it wasn't a monster he did not WILLINGLY COMMIT AN EVIL ACT AND THUS DOES NOT FALL. And THEN you had the sheer GALL to tell him that he couldn't raise her, why? He tried to right his wrong and you shut him down, that's not good roleplay or fair, that's just being a dick.

5) The Wizard just proved the Paladin was right all along. When he was angered he orchestrated the murder of not only and innocent woman, but a holy warrior at that. He just pulled a Joker or Scarecrow move, and left a letter on her corpse. HE JUST SIGNED HIS OWN CONFESSION! The Paladin now wanting to kill him is right in the holy sense as that is an incredibly evil act, right in the judicial sense in that the wizard committed a murder and then left basically a confession letter, and right personally in wanting vengeance.

The only way out of this if you want to avoid been THAT DM is to have the Paladin not fall, have a SERIOUS talk with the Wizard about what he thought made this okay, make the wizard an NPC villain while the player rolls a new character, and give the party some way to save the girl and get her back.

RavenStarver wrote:

Nah, my guy's a good captain. Not gonna throw them away needlessly

Mamma mia! Now who'sa gonna be buyin' Mario's catapult?!

We've already done the 'shooting peasants at the enemy' unfortunately he was a Necromancer.......

Nah, my guy's a good captain. Not gonna throw them away needlessly

Oooh, sorry, I'm a casual Star Trek fan, not hardcore.
We do have about 30 redshirts on board though.....

Oh no, not again.

???

It's an online campaign run on Roll20.net
It's working really well so far, just use Skype instead of the built in video.
Yeah, 5 players and the DM has 4 NPCs. As for making combats unruly, we're handling it like Mass Effect or Dragon Age were we pick which companions every time we disembark. Or like Star Trek ^.^

If I could draw I want to do the campaign as a comic, but my drawing skills are, lacking >.<

Actually, I'm talking about the Sacred Band of Thebes, who actually defeated the spartans and was a military force composed of 300 men, or more appropriately, 150 gay couples, with older/younger pairing being the standard. Yep, they crushed the Spartans.

And being gay was part of the strategy. It was their love that ensured that they wouldn't break and abandon their fellows. It was their fighting to protect their love. It was their fighting to show off to their love. They fought as a lover would for their other.

As a fun exercise, the next time you hear someone talking about gay marriage rights, just think that gay couples whipped the snot out of the guys Master Chief is named after. ^_^

Do we REALLY wish to tempt their wrath!? ಠ_ಠ

I remember in Spoony's Counter Monkey: Theives City videos, there was a group of horsemen in the setting that were like that. Gay couples that were all like, 10th level mounted fighters. *shudder*

blackbloodtroll wrote:

Why does additional female PCs mean the game will suddenly shift to "sexy adventures"?

That is just as likely to happen with a group of any ratio of male/female adventurers.

Hell, you could all be male Spartan soldiers, and the hot and heavy nights would be beyond number.

The most epic fighting force to have ever existed was composed entirely of homosexual male couples. They were chosen specifically because they were both highly skilled, and highly gay, and were encouraged to love each other; and that bond gave them a morale edge that just refused to break, even when they were eventually slain to the last without surrender; and the commander of their enemy army wept at their death after their display of valor and unity, and demanded that no ill be said of them.

So...yeah! :D

Now I'm imagining the party running up against a group of these guys.

Lynk wrote:

Immediately start referring to them as your "Harem". . .

Better yet, introduce yourself as THEIR harem. Let that sink in for a bit.

harem |ˈhe(ə)rəm, ˈhar-|

o.0

@Ciaran Barnes: We've been a group for the last..... 6 years.

Okay, character lineup is,

An NPC Female Human Samurai
An NPC Female Dwarf Rogue
An NPC Female Ifrit Sorcerer
An NPC Female Naga Ninja
A PC Female Human Oracle
A PC Female Ratfolk Monk
A PC Female Teifling ??? (Player hasn't revealed their class)
A PC Female Gillman Rogue (currently in the belly of a giant fish)
And myself, a PC Male Dhampir(looks half-elf) Warblade/Swordsage

The GM is a guy, as for players, three of us are guys, two are girls

As for if this could be an issue.....
In our little group, we're all major Anime fans, so sexual encounters, awkward positions/situations, and sexual escapades in character are VERY common place, sometimes embarrassingly so. :/
Honestly though, the sexcapades aren't the issue, I'm mostly worried about us falling into a Harem campaign were all the girls start fighting. That'd be, just a little awkward.

The comment about falling into a harem campaign was a joke...

That make me question my idea for a Greek Hoplite Hobgoblin with the Leadership feat.....

Why does additional female PCs mean the game will suddenly shift to "sexy adventures"?

That is just as likely to happen with a group of any ratio of male/female adventurers.

Hell, you could all be male Spartan soldiers, and the hot and heavy nights would be beyond number.

Dude! You made me spit my soda everywhere!!!!

Okay, character lineup is,
An NPC Female Human Samurai
An NPC Female Dwarf Rogue
An NPC Female Ifrit Sorcerer
An NPC Female Naga Ninja
A PC Female Human Oracle
A PC Female Ratfolk Monk
A PC Female Teifling ??? (Player hasn't revealed their class)
A PC Female Gillman Rogue (currently in the belly of a giant fish)
And myself, a PC Male Dhampir(looks half-elf) Warblade/Swordsage

The GM is a guy, as for players, three of us are guys, two are girls

As for if this could be an issue.....
In our little group, we're all major Anime fans, so sexual encounters, awkward positions/situations, and sexual escapades in character are VERY common place, sometimes embarrassingly so. :/
Honestly though, the sexcapades aren't the issue, I'm mostly worried about us falling into a Harem campaign were all the girls start fighting. That'd be, just a little awkward.

Well dang, our rogue went cowboy and got eaten by a giant fish. Solves the Yandere problem.

If you are all friends, then I wouldn't be worried about anything. Girls are people too. If you do not know one or more of them well, it would be courteous to at least act mature until you have a rapport. Basically, don't be the first person to blurt out "That's what she said."

Actually "that's what she said" jokes make up about half of our sessions :P

So does your party consist of 8 players or 8 characters?

8 character's including GM controlled NPCs. 5 of us are Players

I ... honestly can't imagine what problems this would cause.

STD's and surprise pregnancy