Something I've never understood about this debate; everyone agrees that smog and air-pollution is bad, right? And everyone agrees that these are a major health problem in urban centers around the world, right? So why not look at alternate fuel options simply for the sake of our health? You don't have to believe in global climate change to agree with clean air. Or how about switching to alternate fuel sources simply because we will, eventually, run out of oil? Or so countries don't have to rely on foreign imports for fuel? Or all of the above... Unfortunately I suspect the answer to both of these is probably mired in corporate politics with oil and automobile companies.
My first though on reading this is that what we clearly need is an Eldritch Gun Samurai. Make it happen Paizo! Speaking of overpowered classes. XD I don't know what our gunslinger's build was, but I'm going to assume he was either vanilla or a musket master since he was using a two-handed gun through most of the campaign. I know he had Deadly Aim and seemed to have a solid build. The Fighter and Samurai both had Lunge and would basically set up a teamwork-choke-point thing in a lot of rooms to blockade enemies while still being able to whack them every turn. I mostly just slapped Haste on everyone and assisted with ranged attacking. The Magus just did whatever he wanted and laid down a lot of grease, black tentacles, etc. Maybe I've just got my Friend Goggles on but I didn't really notice major discrepancies in power level between the party members.
As someone who has been in a long campaign alongside a gunslinger I can say it seemed pretty balanced to me. The party consisted of the gunslinger, an eldritch knight (myself), a fighter, a samurai, and a magus. In most encounters the gunslinger was definitely the heavy dps, which was expected, but not to the point where the rest of the party felt redundant or useless. This was primarily because the gunslinger was unremarkable in all other areas except direct damage. His skill checks, saves, and defenses were all average and everyone else had their own way of contributing, whether that be tanking, control, or buffing/blasting (me again). I will add that in several encounters the gunslinger's weapon jammed, leaving him near helpless for rounds at a time. In one particular encounter his weapon jammed multiple times and he was effectively unable to contribute for the entire encounter and nearly died. Unless you're using some critical fail house-rule no one's sword or bow ever locks up and stops them from doing their thing aside from a regular auto-miss. I know the damage output and ability to hit touch AC can be surprising to some GMs but it's really only a problem if all your encounters rely solely on eating through the hit points of the enemy. Other than that gunslingers don't do anything out of the norm and are very feat-intensive to reach full effectiveness.
I've role-played for years in Champions Online and I can say the single most important feature for RP is a functional, easy to read, and easy to use chat system. This is *way* more important than emotes, furniture, player housing, etc. This was the deciding factor between spending my dollar on CO over DCU, even though DCU has a lot of other features I like more (it's nicer looking, for one). A nice chat system is important for everyone who plays the game, not just role-players. Being able to make tabs and custom channels (local, team, zone, invite-only, colorable text); all great tools to have whether you're just managing a guild, a raid, or player event. If the designers have the time and money to add other little niceties, then sure, those are cool. But chat is the make it or break it thing for me. Everything else is just icing.
I'm the kind of gamer that likes to get off the road and admire the scenery by crawling all over it. Prince of Persia and Shadows of the Colossus are among my favorites for that reason. I realize that level of detail isn't feasible in an MMO as these kinds of features require all kinds of additional animations and physics (compounded by each additional type of character model, etc) but I would love to see a little more interaction between player and environment than I usually encounter in an online game. The only MMO that comes to mind where climbing is fully supported is DCU, although that is more Spiderman-style. Even little things such as being able to actually climb specific elements like ladders or designated walls or vines would be awesome. Normally when I encounter a ladder in an MMO it's usually just decoration or something I click on to magically appear at the top or bottom. In a game where we can expect to see a lot of forts and walls and sieges I wouldn't mind something a little different.
My primary MMO experience comes from Champions Online and City of Heroes. As a result I like a lot of mobility and platforming in my MMO's, although I would expect less of both in PFO based on my experiences with other fantasy MMO's. The only fantasy online game I've done a reasonable amount of PvP in was the first Guild Wars, which seems to be a popular choice from what I've read here. I've done a bit of WoW (only up to level 30) but it didn't really do it for me. I'm not a fan of systems that require exact behavior; unless the Tank is doing X at exactly the right time and has such and such level gear the mission *will* fail. It seems to confuse "challenging" with "tedious and stressful". (Not just in WoW specifically, it's something I see repeated in a lot of games. Just picking on the big target here). I really prefer games that play more loose and reward unexpected behavior over mathematical precision. That's something I've enjoyed about the PF tabletop. The party can get along just fine without everyone being shoved into specific roles as long as the players are cooperative and creative.
I've played a little bit of everything but I think my favorite is probably Sorcerer (I'm really looking forward to trying out Arcanist). I'm a huge fan of spell casting in general. The highest level character I've played in PF was an Inquisitor, so that's a close second for me, with Summoner following shortly thereafter. The only non-casting class that I kind of enjoy is Cavalier and maybe Barbarian. My friends play Fighter and Rogue without fail so I rarely try to fill those niches in the party. Also hi, this is my first post in the PFO section.
I assume a lot of the objections come from how people view the real world and how it can be presented in a game setting. A few months ago we ran a PF game in a sort of pulp-noir campaign set in a fantasy prohibition era. I essentially played the Rocketeer (Spellslinger with his spells refluffed as gadgets). We had a pin-stripe suit mobster with a witch doctor mask and a tengu paper-boy who moonlighted as "The Finch". The car chases especially were hella fun. With the right themes and some imagination I don't see why a more technology heavy setting can't be just as fun. Granted sometimes I just want some good old low-tech high fantasy. But I want options even more and I'd love to see some Paizo sourcebooks on other eras of play.
Even though I don't play them, I love Gunslingers and am very thankful that Paizo decided to break form by publishing them. I hate any setting with societies that are tens of thousands of years old but aren't any more technologically advanced than dark-ages Europe. I can't for the life of me understand why people don't like historical technological advances touching their high-fantasy peas and carrots. The idea that the two are mutually exclusive is alien to me. I don't think the power-gap between martial and magic is nearly as bad as people make it out to be. I feel like the players who argue the hardest about rules, game balance, and optimization actually see tabletop as a competitive solo game instead of a cooperative social game. The GM and the other players are not actually out to screw you. And if they are they're playing the game wrong. Unless you're into that kinda thing...weirdo. I don't think 'optimization' is the same thing as 'power-gaming'. Building a Barbarian by putting his high score in Strength, taking Power Attack, and choosing a two-handed weapon are just logical choices. Power-gaming is intentionally trying to break the rules and exploit loopholes to make your character untouchable or disruptive. Monks are really good.
While I got pretty far on this on my own it's still far from complete and I'd like some input from our wonderful forumites. Realsorceror’s Immovable Guide to the Stalwart Defender Completely missing at the moment is a magic items section and I'm sure the Feats section could use some expansion. I certainly wouldn't mind someone reviewing what I've already got going and see if I'm misjudging the usefulness of certain archtypes and classes. And of course if anyone has any cool strategies for playing a Stalwart Defender I'd love to hear them!
We just roll new characters at the level the character died at and try to find reasonable ways to bring the new character into the story. The last time a DM tried to have a drawback for character death was during a total party kill. An enemy cleric had a scroll of save-or-die and a couple of unlucky rolls laid everyone out. He said we had to make new characters at one level lower and rerun the same encounter. We collectively said 'no' and that was the end of drawbacks for dying. Maybe some people find that fun or normal but I can't wrap my head around it.
This is a class which I personally adore. Unfortunately it can easily produce an unoptomized pile of class features that isn't especially effective at anything. This is also my first attempt at a guide so I can't guarantee it's going to be very complete, but I hope it's at least helpful to someone interested in the class. I'll eventually convert this to a Googledoc and expand it to include the role of the class and discuss the number of buffs and auras it can put up, as well as which ones stack with eachother.
Cavalier - The major decision here is whether you want to have 1 level of Cavalier or 4 levels. If you want your mount to actually matter or you want more Order abilities and Challenge uses definitely go with 4 Cavalier levels. And speaking of Orders... Order of the Cockatrice - You are the teamwork guy and ideally you want to be close to your team all the time to hand out buffs, thus negating this Challenge. The morale bonus from Braggart will get overlapped by other abilities. Order of the Dragon - If you intend to take 4 Cavalier levels this is actually a strong choice. The competence bonus from the Challenge stacks with Inspire Courage. And since you want to be close to allies you are often in position to Aid Another. Order of the Lion - The dodge bonus to AC stacks with everything. The competence bonus against Fear effects also stacks with the moral bonus against fear from Inspire Courage and your Banner. Not too shabby. Order of the Shield - The best reason to take this Order doesn’t come until 8th level and by then you don’t want to still be in this class. Not great. Order of the Star - If you have a strong Charisma score and decided to take Evangelist Cleric you may consider taking 2 levels, but really you’d be better off with more levels of Cleric. Order of the Sword - With all the moral bonuses you’re going to be throwing around the ones granted by this order will probably be overlapped early on. Beast Rider - This could make your mount a little more durable and make it viable longer than the standard mount. If you intend to go with 4 levels of Cavalier and take Boon Companion this option isn’t bad. Emissary - You lose Tactician in exchange for more mobility and mounted abilities. Taking Fleet and being able to move in medium armor is nice and will let you maneuver alongside your fellow combatants, but the main reason to do that was Tactician. Standard Bearer - Yes. What was a lackluster archtype before suddenly becomes much more appealing. Because you aren’t likely to ever take more than 4 Cavalier levels the vanilla Cavalier would lose out on the Banner ability until much later. Standard Bearer fixes that by moving the Mount ability (which you don’t really want) to 5th level (which aren’t going to take). This is also the best 1 level dip option if you’d prefer 4 levels of Bard. Strategist - Unless your party has other members with mounts or animals, take Strategist for the more useful Drill Instructor ability if you intend go 4th level Cavalier. Strategist can also be paired with Standard Bearer. Samurai - Strictly speaking, this is a worse option than Cavalier. You want to be a team player and losing Tactician to the self-only Resolve ability isn’t great. While it’s nice that Resolve can refresh off of your Challenge ability, you will likely only ever have 2 uses of Challenge. Swordsaint - This Samurai archtype replaces your mounted class features with more melee focused abilities, which can make it slightly better. The trouble is that these abilities scale with your Samurai level and you are a multiclass character.
Bard - The advantages of going 4 levels of Bard are many, including having 2nd level spells, more skill points, and upgrading your Inspire Courage to +2 as soon as you enter Battle Herald. We’ll also go over a few of the Bard archtypes here; Cleric (Evangelist) - This is an interesting build with better spellcasting upfront and strong flavor. You may actually consider taking that 5th level of Cleric at some point for 3rd level spells. Any domain with a strong 1st level power that doesn't need a high Cleric level is a good choice. Nobility makes sense but won't really pan out unless you're especially high level. Animal can stack with the Cavalier's Mount but you aren't really going into Herald for a strong mount. Travel is a great choice for battlefield positioning. Monk (Sensei) - This is also an option, though it carries with it the usual multiple ability dependance. You also won't get full use out of your armor proficiencies unless you decide to ignore your Monk bonuses. Technically the Battle Herald doesn't require a high Charisma score but it can't really be a dump stat either. Some Cavalier Order abilities do require Charisma, so if you go this route don't bother taking more than one level of Cavalier. Cavalier 5/Pathfinder Chronicler 3 - Technically this works, but this is a really late entry into the prestige class. Definitely the worst option which goes back to that 'big pile of mismatched class features' problem. Not something to consider unless you are starting at high level.
This is a confusing and ill-understand discussion within my gaming group. How does the Pathfinder Lycanthropy template actually function? The wording of the template seems clear enough, but it doesn't match up with most of the example creatures given in any of the PF product lines. This makes it especially difficult to try and use it with player characters. Challenge Rating: If the PC's level is greater than or equal to the animal's, this only increases your CR by +1. This actually wouldn't be a problem with many animals, but when you start talking about bears or tigers that +1 does not justify the huge ability score gain. Does the template assume "base creature" just means the PC's race? Or does it also include class levels? If "base creature" is just meant to be 1 HD humanoid then the CR increase would be much higher when creating weretigers and such, which seems to make more sense. But that's not how most other templates work. Size and Type: This issue was cleared up with the errata to Bestiary 2. Hybrid bears and tigers are large. Ability Scores: And here is the real difficulty. In what order is the +2 Str/+2 Con applied? Is it added to the base creature's stats before or after you compare them to the base animal's? The wording of the template suggests you apply the bonuses to the base character first and then compare them to the base animal's to see which is higher (and therefore what stats the hybrid will have). However, none of the example animals seem to follow a consistent pattern.
In my opinion the correct method for determine the ability scores of a lycanthrope in hybrid form is to apply the +2 Str and Con to the base character first and then compare these adjusted scores to those of the base animal, taking the higher of the two. This matches the wording of the template and also provides the smallest increase in stats. However, this method does not match half of the example monsters. Several of them compare the unadjusted stats to the base animal, take the more favorable, and then apply the +2's on top. This creates a larger stat increase and does not match the wording of the template. If I could get an official response, that would be great. Even better would be a clarified and consistent version of the template in future Bestiaries.
Silly titles aside, I'm currently playing a sort of fantasy equivalent of a spider-themed superhero. The character is a 3rd level Drow Synthesist Summoner in the Kingmaker AP. For a bit of background, Aldo is an orphan raised by surface elves and has grown up sheltered and naive. He balks at the frontier justice that the rest of the party views as normal and tries to redeem bandits (with little success thus far). Because he has never really encountered his own people, he has developed a romanticized vision of the Drow and tries to emulate their fighting style (badly) to strike fear into the hears of mean people. Instead of an Eidolon, he summons a heroic costume that grants him special powers. Things I currently have in the build;
Things I'd like to eventually do;
1) Is there a better or different way of accomplishing similar results? Should I look at using a different class or multiclassing? Ninja? Monk? Wizard? 2) Are there any swanky feats, spells, or magic items that you believe would benefit such a character? 3) How do I shot web? Aside from Synthesist, is there another means of acquiring the Web ability? Alternatively, are there ways of getting the Web Bolt or Web spells on the Summoner list? 4) Are there rules for swinging on a rope, vine, or whip? Can I attack while swinging on a rope? Does it provoke? What happens if I swing into someone? Is it a charge? Bull Rush?
sssSSSSPPPAAAAAAACCCCEEE!!!! Yeeeeaaa-haaaawww!!!! Fan Core: "Hey Paizo, I'm in space!" Paizo: "I'm proud of you son!" Fan Core: "Paizo, are you in space?" Paizo: "Yes, son. Now we are a family again!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVn1oQL9sWg |
