Reksew_Trebla's page

Just wondering, if say, you gave a Heavy Horse, which is a Horse with the Advanced template and a bite attack, the Man-Eating Animal template, which raises its Int by +2, would the Advanced template now raise its Int a further +4, or would there be no change from the Advanced template?

Helm of Opposite Alignment works on animals, but they have animal level intelligence, meaning they aren’t intelligent enough to actually have an alignment, hence why even the most destructive and carnivorous ones still have an alignment of true neutral.

This confuses me, because you could legit have a Lawful Good T-Rex, and I have no idea how it would behave.

Juggernaut (Soul-Powered ability), Barghest (Feed ability)

I’m looking for things similar to these, because I discovered that the Juggernaut has no limit to his kill points, but eventually it plateaus in usefulness since it doesn’t increase hp or damage.

I’m thinking of just adding a reskinned version of the Feed ability, but with no growing after 4 points, and adding it to creatures I want to make stronger, but I would really like to know if there is anything else that is similiar to these abilities.

So everything, even class features like Animal Companions, gets Variant Multiclass from Pathfinder Unchained, without having to trade feats for it. If the creature has more than 20 HD, they will start getting an additional VMC, also for free, to make up for the fact that they already got the full effects of VMC for the first 20 HD. If a creature somehow has more than 40 HD, again, they will gain another VMC for free, and so on and so forth for every multiple of 20 HD.

I will allow 3 extra options, a variant of Paladin, Rogue, and Cavalier, based off of Antipaladin, Ninja, and Samurai, trading the gained class features of original VMC options with those of the Alternate Class equivalents. I will also allow some archetypes to be applied on the VMC, as long as it actually works appropriately. For example, I would allow the Wildblooded archetype of Sorcerer, since it doesn’t cause any issues.

So how does this sound? It allows the idea of Gestalt, without the muddy rules of some prestige classes not being allowed, and the whole not knowing how to change the CR of NPCs that are also Gestalt, as in this case, every monster gains this benefit.

Reksew_Trebla wrote:

I literally did that in the op.

Think of it this way... your material is about a rock, skipping. Notice that a rock doesn't keep going. It skips a few times, then sinks. The other linked article is about actually staying above the water's surface while perched on tiny little feet with very little area of contact.

That is not at all what my link is about. It is literally about running, not skipping, on water. The video is just there for aesthetics.

As for the other guy, it is a fact that you can run on water. You just have to move fast enough for it. A single move is not running. A double move is not running. Only running is running, ergo water cannot be difficult terrain.

I’m really liking the Destined Bloodrager bloodline now.

Also, I’ll be unable to replace the 1st level bloodline power with rage powers, because the Primalist archetype only works for 4th level and beyond powers.

So I’m down some rage powers, but it should otherwise be fine.

So while looking at the Eldritch Scion Magus archetype, and the Primalist Bloodrager archetype, I realized, the Eldritch Scion technically has all the class features necessary to archetype it with the Primalist archetype.

Yeah, it’s probably not raw, and definitely not rai, but it works.

But are there any other possible combinations like this across the game?

I’m basically looking for weird interactions here, so anything goes, even third party.

Sure, sounds alright to me. What bloodline are you thinking?

Not sure yet, but I’m thinking of the Verdant bloodline. That fast healing looks good for early gameplay.

Providing you're trying to specialise with the gestalt rather than to fill two or more roles, sure. And also providing you don't want skills at all; melee + Cha (not dumping Wis) can suck up the points in a point buy, and 4 base isn't huge.

Yeah, just the one role. Basically just a better Bloodrager is what I’m going for.

So the idea is you’d take the Mad Magic feat, and replace all of your Bloodrager bloodline powers with rage powers, thus getting both all the bloodline powers and rage powers due to the gestalt. So basically a bigger, badder Bloodrager, who can use spell combat/spellstrike.

Would this be a good idea though?

Ryan Freire wrote:

Your feet have to hit the water at 67mph

https://www.outsideonline.com/1783941/could-humans-run-water

Thanks for linking a clear resource.

I literally did that in the op. Usain Bolt can move 10.4 meters per second. To run on water, a human has to move triple that speed, which is 31.2 meters per second. Now that isn’t exactly useful info for a game that uses feet instead of meters, but luckily, you can literally google any site that will convert it, or download an app to do so for mobile devices.

31.2 meters/second is approximately 102.3622 feet/second. A round is 6 seconds. So you need to move at least 614.1732 feet/round to run on water. The run feat makes a run action multiply your base speed by 5. So you need to have at least a 122.83464 ft land speed to run on water. Since Pathfinder only deals with movement in multiples of 5 ft, we must round that up to 125 ft land speed.

Not that hard to do, at all.

Without magical aid, the surface of water should be ruled as Difficult terrain; it gives when you try to push off of it with your feet. I’d be fine with it at 250 ft base speed. Edit: looks like you can’t run across difiifcult terrain, so it would need to be 625 foot base speed (with every turn a double move action).

None of that is true. You can very much run across water. Science literally says it is possible. You just have to be 3 times as fast as Usain Bolt. So maybe not humanely possible irl, but Pathfinder makes you superhuman pretty much by level 2, so that doesn’t matter.

It would be like trying to run on the beach at worst with the give. And last I checked, that isn’t difficult terrain either.

Because moving 625 ft in 6 seconds is actually fast enough to allow something that is of adult human weight run across the surface of water without sinking.

Fun fact, it wouldn’t have to be that high for halflings since they only weigh as much as a human child, though I don’t know the minimum speed they’d have to go.

And if you’re wondering why I’m bringing this up, it’s actually not too difficult to get that high of a land speed in Pathfinder.

EDIT: By “realism”, I meant in regard to real world physics.

Fetch was dropped to four hit points, which would have killed him had it not been for the Con boost :)

Was not prepared to be a guardian angel. Glad I helped.

Woah, Occult is amazing, and brings so much new stuff with it. You really should read it. You will be missing out on a huge part of the game if you disallow it.

As for Mythic, it depends. You either like it or you don’t. But you cannot listen to anyone else’s word on it. You have to form your own opinion.

Anyways, don’t just listen to the naysayers who write off an entire category of something. They are typically the same people who claim every new thing is bad, just because it is different. That is not something you want to listen to.

So the rules for Scaling Items from Pathfinder Unchained recommend a few different ways to handle this, for example, less wealth (so out of character understanding that the player would get less of the loot to accommodate the increase in price of the scaling item), or some of the wealth being replaced with a new item of some sort, like crystals, that can only be used in a ritual to enhance the scaling item to the next level when you level up.

So basically, I wanted to know, how do/did you handle this when you allow(ed) scaling items in your games?

If you can somehow get your hands on tech artifacts, the Temporal Accelerator nets you 2 standard, 2 move, and 2 swift actions every turn it is active.

The spells Greater Magic Fang + Permanency, along with an Amulet of Mighty Fists (no enhancement bonus; all weapon special ability enchantments) = the potential to have the same as a fully enhanced magic weapon, but with natural weapons.

Rending Claws, which, despite the name, is not a rend effect.

If they are Catfolk:

Claw Blades which turn claws into manufactured weapons, meaning you get iteratives, but no working Amulet of Mighty Fists for them since they aren’t natural attacks anymore.
Rending Claw Blade which gives you a rend for your claws.
Two-Weapon Rend which has 3 prerequisite feats, but if going the claw blade route, will work with them AND Rending Claw Blade, because despite the name, this isn’t actually a rend effect. If going this route, make sure to include the Rending Claws feat I linked.

Bear in mind that it is not 1/3rd Kinetic Blast damage but rather 1d6 per 3 dice round down, minimum 1d6 with no static damage modifier. So until you are level 11 it only deals +1d6 points of damage unless you use it with composite blasts.

Yes, you can use a Conductive Amulet of Mighty Fists, but only if the blast you are using is a touch attack (Conductive does not work with vs AC blasts).

Yes, but then you multiply that by the number of natural attacks you have, which puts it at a far higher level than just a Kinetic Blast, even without any of the modifiers on the Kinetic Fist damage.

And Conductive also has to be done with a Kinetic Blade, since you can only use melee abilities with melee attack forms, and only ranged abilities with ranged attack forms. Plus can only be done once a round.

It is good, especially if you increase it with Aetheric Boost. Plus with 11 attacks that can discharge it, you are almost guaranteed to get it off.

Just theory crafting at this point.

Kinetic Fist wild talent becomes stronger if you have at least 3 natural weapons, because it deals the damage of 1/3 the Kinetic Blast damage dice plus the nat weapons.

But is it worth it to pursue this?

I’ve never done a natural weapon build before, so I’m not sure how strong this will be.

Aasimar for Metallic Wings for two wing attacks, Ring of Rat Fangs for a bite, the variant Aasimar abilities #6 for the two talon attacks, Improved Eldritch Heritage for the Phoenix Bloodline for the Vermillion Wings+ the feat Powerful Wings for two more wing attacks, Helm of the Mammoth Lord for a gore attack, if possible, Dread Wing enchantment full-plate armor for yet another two wing attacks, and Wyvern Cloak for a sting attack.

So I have 11 natural weapons.

Amulet of Might Fists would be a must, obviously.

Is this a good build? Can it be better? Remember, each nat weapon deals 1/3 the damage dice of a Kinetic Blast, so with 11 nat attacks, that is almost the same damage as 4 melee range Kinetic Blasts every turn, but with the addition of the normal damage of the nat weapons, it is even greater.

Otherwise, best thing you can do is get an Amulet of Might Fists enhanced with the Merciful weapon enhancement, but that costs 16000 gp so it's a bit too pricey at the lower levels.

While it is even more expensive, technically you can put the Sapping enchantment on an Amulet of Mighty Fists, and it should work (though probably with GM variance) with any weapon that is made non-lethal through the Merciful enchantment.

If a RAW answer exists that hasn't been stated yet, go find it yourself. Other than that, try to find peace with your disappointment, because at this point it's becoming pretty clear you're just here to argue with people about obscurities and anomalies in the game. "Finally," finding loopholes and exceptions to the rule to try and manufacture other loopholes and exceptions *factually* is trying to "cheat the system."

If it's not game breaking, and is actually balanced, you should be able to convince your GM of that. But we all know you're here because your GM/group already told you that you couldn't do it...

Did... did you just say doing something like firing a +3 arrow from a +1 holy bow is a loophole/exception to the rules? Am I being trolled here? That is literally what is called out in the rules, in a faq I believe, where it says you can stack enchantments from multiple sources onto the same attack, up to a max effective enhancement bonus of +10.

The point about it cheating the system is that if you had, for example, an amulet of mighty fists +2, and you also wanted to grant your natural weapons a +1 magic ability, to increase the amulet to an effective +3 would cost 20,000 (36,000 - 16,000). However, if you could instead enhance the natural attacks separately as individual weapons, it would only cost 2,000 to add the +1 magic ability to it. Meaning you could individually enhance 10 of them for the same price as increasing your AoMF by 1.

The thing you're not seeing is that *in your individual case* you might not be breaking the system, but the concept you're proposing is one that could be very VERY very VERY very VERY easy to abuse. Because it's much cheaper to spread out multiple low level enhancements than it is to continue enhancing one item. Stop getting all upset about something not working out the way you want it to. You've gotten your Rules as Written answer, *and* you've gotten your logical interpretation of the rules answer, and both are against what you're trying to do. If that doesn't satisfy you, try to convince your GM, but if he has a brain he'll nip your idea in the bud before you or someone else in his group uses the precedent to break the game

That can already be done with an arrow and bow. If you have a +3 arrow and a +1 Holy bow, it costs less than a +3 holy arrow/bow, yet that is the end result.

Further more, that can be done with a Magical Tattoo AoMF+Regular AoMF, and it would be cheaper than what I’m trying to do.

Finally, you can (sort of) get the same result with Permanencied Greater Magic Fangs+AoMF.

Finally, no RAW answer has been given, since it is in fact a weapon. And no logical answer has been given, since I already disproved this “it’s cheating the system” answer.

Reksew_Trebla wrote:

I can’t fathom how they think paying MORE money for the exact same effect is cheating the system.

Because adding the AoMF effect to the helm is not what you were talking about. Ignoring the fact that putting a wondrous item in a differen slot is problematic in itself, and should at least carry an additional cost increase, you were talking about enchanting the item's natural attack as a weapon, which implies at regular cost.

If this is a purely academical thought, you have your answer - no, ebcause it's not a weapon on its own. If it's for actual play, you also have your answer - hell no, because you're trying to cheat the system. If you weren't trying to cheat the system, you wouldn't attempt it in the first place.

Except the AoMF also effects every other natural weapon. I’m just trying to effect one at a time. And at no point would putting the AoMF on something else even come up for this. After all, you don’t enchant brass knuckles with the price of an AoMF. You don’t enchant Claw Blades with the price of an AoMF. So why would you enchant an individual manufactured nat weapon with that price? So you are factually wrong with it cheating the system. And it is a weapon, otherwise you couldn’t attack with it as a nat weapon. So you are factually wrong about it not being a weapon.

I'm just going to point out that from a purely economic standpoint a natural attack based character saves a ton from using an Amulet of Mighty Fists. While you are limited to +5 in bonuses, as long as you have 3 or more natural attacks then it is cheaper to use the Amulet rather than enchanting 3 different weapons. And you can use that entire +5 budget to give yourself special abilities if you wish.

Combined with a middling level druid and Permanency you can have +5 in special abilities from the Amulet, and Greater Magic Fang to make all of your natural weapons +1. Or you can spend time to find a high level druid and get each of your natural weapons made into a (druid level/4) enhancement bonus weapon at the cost of a permanency and GMF from a high level caster.

And for truly absurd amounts of gold, you could have multiple Amulets to give yourself access to different sets of special abilities as needed.

This. I can’t fathom how they think paying MORE money for the exact same effect is cheating the system.

Drop everything!

You need more item slots for Fetch?

Take this feat: Extra Item Slot.

Uh, adding class levels to any creature with racial hit dice results in them gaining a +4 to two ability scores, a +2 to two other ability scores, a +0 to a different ability score, and the final ability score gets a -2. This is detailed in the Monster Advancement rules of Bestiary 1 on Page 297.

So normally you can’t enchant a natural weapon because they

1: aren’t masterwork,
2: can’t be upgraded to masterwork since you have to make a weapon masterwork when you make the weapon, not after the fact, and
3: you can’t cast Masterwork Transformation on them because it targets items, and your body parts aren’t items.

But here is the thing. Natural weapons that are from an item, like the gore attack from a Helm of the Mammoth Lord, the wing attacks from the Dread Wing enchantment on armor, etc, are in fact items, meaning they theoretically can be made masterwork when they are crafted, and even if not, they should qualify for Masterwork Transformation, since they are weapons, and they are items.

So can you enchant said manufactured natural weapons with weapon enchantments?

Yes, I know the Amulet of Mighty Fists exists, but I’m not asking about that, so please stay on topic.

If I had to choose, it would be the most dragon-like Kobold. Basically, while ignoring polymorph, since you can just flat out use Form of the Dragon, I tried to make a Kobold as dragon-like as possible, through feats, alternate racial traits, and through Dragon Disciple. I believe he took levels of the Dragon Mystery Oracle, using the feat that lets Kobolds use a Divine casting class to qualify for Dragon Disciple, in order to basically double down on the temporary dragon-like features, such as the breath weapon.

My idea is to let each player pick a sin for the Runeplated Construct template, and they gain that template. They counted as ECL 2, but only have the experience and wealth of 1st level. They do not gain the Runeplated Special Quality, though, as I don’t want to restrict their magic.

The sin they have to choose is the one their character most embodies, and I will tell them straight up that it could change if their “most embodied sin” changes to a different sin.

So what do you think? Is this a good idea, or have I gone mad?

My GM frequently runs avatar games, where we're playing versions of ourselves.

Stealing this.

Human with the fire subtype, cause heat legit does not bother me, but if the temperature gets to even 60 degrees F, I start dying from the cold.

Going to be difficult to be a good cleric of Asmodeus.

/carefully avoids comment on morality of capitalism

On the contrary

So if a Manticore mates with a Lion, it makes a Manticore. Dire Lion= Advanced Manticore. Lamia, Sphinx, and Chimera= that creature with the Manticore’s Spiked Tail and Spikes special attack.

But what happens if instead of a Manticore parent, we have an Advanced Manticore, which we know exist because it is called out as the offspring with a Dire Lion, or a Boreal Manticore, which we also know exist because they are one of the template’s example creatures?

For Advanced Manticore, I could see it having no change, but for Boreal, does it pass on the cold damage upgrade to the Spikes special attack?

Y'all are ruining a perfectly good troll thread by seriously beating this long-dead horse.

...Unless it's a metatroll thread now?

Nah, I’m just autistic and didn’t realize it was a troll thread. Not sure about the others though.

Uh, Bob, you do realize most of Batman’s physical feats are superhuman by real world standards, yet he isn’t superhuman in the DC multiverse? He is literally the example that counters all of that.

Actually, they nerfed martials compared to real life. A warrior who is only properly efficient with only one kind of weapon would not make it long in the field.

Similarly, most martial artists would dominate any non martial artists, yet that isn’t the case here. Hell, martial artist is limited to a Monk archetype, maybe representable by style feat chains.

Furthermore, mixed martial arts is barely doable, only really representable by two archetypes, one being a Monk, the other Fighter, where they can mix multiple style feat chains.

Grim Reaper, Grim Reaper and Reaper, Grim Reaper

Also there is Danse Macabre and Shinigami, which are both pretty much Grim Reapers as well.

So what gives?

Can you please give a better example of how it works then?

The OP, was obviously not clear in terms of an example if many people are misinterpreting how your method works. I did read it and tried to understand it best as I could and what I ended up with didn't sound appealing.

I've looked at it again, came up with about 5 different ways that it might work and found one that seems like what was intended. Tell me if I am correct or not with the following.

I'm playing a fighter my fighter has +5 to hit and the goblin has an AC of 14.

Example 1
---------------------------
I roll a nat 20 against the goblin.

So, I have a 25, and then I roll the die again. My second roll is a 13. This gets added to my original roll for a total of 38. I hit. I now roll to confirm the crit and get an 8 for a total of 13, which means I failed to crit the goblin and just do normal damage.
---------------------------
Example 2
---------------------------
I roll a nat 1 against the goblin.

So, I have a 6, and then I roll the die again. My second roll is a 13. I take the difference of 20 and 13 (7) and subtract this from my roll. I end up with a -1 which is not enough to hit and so I miss. I now roll again to confirm my fumble assuming such a rule is being used.
---------------------------
Example 3
---------------------------
I roll a nat 20 against the goblin.

So, I have a 25, and then I roll the die again. My second roll is a nat 1. This forces me to re-roll I get a 5... At this point I have no idea what happens. Either I

A: have a +30
B: have a +25
C: have a +10
---------------------------
Example 4
---------------------------
I roll a nat 1 against the goblin.

So, I have a 6, and then I roll the die again. My second roll is also a 1. So, I roll again, this time getting an 18. I take the difference of 18 and 20 (2) add that to my 6 and subtract an additional 20. Resulting in a -12. This is a miss and then I roll again to confirm if I fumbled or not (again assuming such rules are...

Yeah, you seem to have gotten it. I emphasized the answer for Example 3.

I have to say though, I’m not responding any further. I seem to be getting pissy, because of things happening irl, and don’t want to do that to people, so I’m forcing myself to back off for now.

I feel like a lot of you didn’t read the op. If you did, you wouldn’t be saying half the things you are.

It isn’t complicated. It is in line with the level of complexity of the rest of the game.

It is not difficult to track, as it resets for each d20 roll. Meaning it only comes up on a nat 20 or nat 1, and is unique to each instance of a d20 roll.

It is more accurate. When you are factoring in the fact that some of the creatures are meant to be g@~ d%!n Godzilla monsters (the Kaijus), how the f&&% can you say they mess up 5% of the time against commoners? The 5% rule is nowhere near accurate for one reason: the better you are against the same opponent, the less likely they are to hit you, and the more likely you are to hit them. Making it where you always have a 5% minimum chance to miss/hit is not accurate to this. I do not need f*!&ing battle experience to know this, just like I don’t need to go to outer space to know there is no air there.

If you think this rewards players who get nat 20s often, or punishes players who get nat 1s often, how? It prevents auto hits, thus it actually makes players who get nat 20s often WEAKER, and prevents auto failures, thus it actually makes players who get nat 1s often STRONGER. This means it makes the game more balanced when factoring in the bad/good luck of players.

As for Java Man, you gave a reasonable alternative. I still like mine more right now, because it gives that ever so microscopically low chance for something like a Kaiju to miss against a commoner, like how Zilla missed crushing a human due to just how big she was (there was empty space under her feet that he happened to be when she tried to step on him).

Just feels needlessly complicated. Plus, that 5% chance of failure no matter what keeps players from becoming totally complacent with their strongest abilities.

If a giant monster gets hit by a commoner, he's got so many hit points it doesn't matter. And he's probably immune to the damage anyway, or will regenerate it next turn or whatever.
And if a giant monster misses a commoner with one attack, he's probably got a few more. Or an aura that will kill them.

This is a roleplaying game. Anything mechanical in the rules should not detract from that objective of being a ROLEPLAYING game. There is no way a giant is going to miss 5% of the time against a commoner, and likewise, no way a commoner is going to hit 5% of the time. Ergo, that rule is bad for roleplaying, thus bad for a roleplaying game, and needs to be replaced. But at the same time, there still is that incredibly small chance that the giant could miss or the commoner could hit. This reflects that, far more accurately, than a flat 5% chance ever will.

So something I came up with, is instead of auto success on a nat 20, or auto failure on a nat 1, which means something like Mogaru has a 1/20 chance to miss an attack against a level 1 commoner, and that commoner has a 1/20 chance to hit something like Mogaru, I have a new number to keep track of: The exploding dice number.

Whenever you roll a d20, you reset ED to a value of 0. Whenever you roll a nat 1, you lower it by 1 (even if this puts it in the negatives). Whenever you roll a nat 20, you increase it by 1. If this puts you back at ED 0, act as if you haven’t rolled yet, and start over (for the purposes of whether or not you get a critical threat or get some effect that activates on a specific nat roll value, like a nat 1 with UMD for wands).

When you are done, multiply your current ED value by 20, and add it to the final roll result. This means a negative ED value results in a further and further lower chance to hit, while a positive ED does the opposite.

For critical threats, if you are positive ED AND hit, then you threaten. If you have a higher critical threat range, it only matters if you actually hit on an ED of 0 or lower.

So for example, say you have ED -1, and roll a 19.

That is a 19-20+your bonus to the roll. So -1+bonus to the roll. If you can critical on a 19-20, and you still manage to hit, then you get a critical threat, and roll to confirm.

If you have ED 2, and roll a 5, you get a 5+40+your bonus to the roll. If you hit, then it is a critical threat, and you roll to confirm the critical.

Further clarification, you reset the ED value when you roll to confirm a critical, you do the ED for all d20 rolls, not just attack rolls, and if something actives on a nat 1, like not being able to use wands anymore for 24 hours when doing UMD, or activates on a nat 20, they activate on a negative/positive ED value as if it was that roll.

So what do you think?

Reksew_Trebla wrote:

I don’t think you actually read Iron Gods. I just spent 5 minutes skimming it, and it says Casandalee only becomes a demigod. All demigods are CR 30 or lower for as long as they remain a demigod. They are not full deities. But demigods have the ability to threaten full deities, like the Archdevils to Asmodeus. This is a fact. It is also a fact that anything above CR 40 would be impossible to be threatened by a CR 30, so that means full deities are usually CR 40 or lower. There are exceptions, yes, like Rovagug, but those are not the norm.

Well, time to put up or shut up. Link to stats on demigods please.

Uh, you expect me to waste time linking to evey single demigod that has stats? That’s like 10+ links. You aren’t helpless. Look up the demigods on the deity section on nethys and find the ones that say they have statblocks when you follow the link to the wiki.

Reksew_Trebla wrote:

It is also a fact that anything above CR 40 would be impossible to be threatened by a CR 30, so that means full deities are usually CR 40 or lower.

Something you make up is very much not a fact.

I didn’t make it up. Pathfinder has mechanics to it, you know. Some of those mechanics are how to create stronger monsters, known as monster advancement. And a CR 41+ will never lose against a CR 30 or lower.

Reksew_Trebla wrote:

The Archdevils that have stat blocks are legitimate threats to Asmodeus, according to lore. This means a CR 30 has the potential to beat a full deity. This probably means most deities are only a max of CR 40, if even that. Take that how you will.

Putting numbers on deities isn't done for a reason. And that reason is someone will insist they killed a god in some game. Or trying to kill a god in *your* game when you have no intention of having deities enter it.

And gods are as powerful as the plot requires. Take for instance the Iron Gods AP. The end boss has divine powers, worshipers, and is on the verge of becoming a true god. If you follow his plan after you defeat him you can create an actual deity! And this is a CR 18 being.

Deities are everything you need them to be to keep the story interesting. You don't want them solving problems unless the problems are ruining your game. You want the players to feel that they accomplished everything. A little help is appreciated, and the feeling a deity is watching them and approves of their actions is great. The feeling the deity solved the big problems is disappointing. If Pharasma uses her divine powers to defeat the BBG in your game...why were your players even there? To get Prarasma to care enough to clean up your mess?

Before you involve a deity, figure out their role in the story. My personal feeling is its usually better to use something other than a god if the players are going to directly interact with the subject. Gods have other agents they can send to solve major problems, there is no reason they need a party of level 10 adventurers to take care of things. That changes if you are talking about level 20 adventurers but who plays at that level?

I don’t think you actually read Iron Gods. I just spent 5 minutes skimming it, and it says Casandalee only becomes a demigod. All demigods are CR 30 or lower for as long as they remain a demigod. They are not full deities. But demigods have the ability to threaten full deities, like the Archdevils to Asmodeus. This is a fact. It is also a fact that anything above CR 40 would be impossible to be threatened by a CR 30, so that means full deities are usually CR 40 or lower. There are exceptions, yes, like Rovagug, but those are not the norm.

The Archdevils that have stat blocks are legitimate threats to Asmodeus, according to lore. This means a CR 30 has the potential to beat a full deity. This probably means most deities are only a max of CR 40, if even that. Take that how you will.

FAQ wrote:

Improved Familiars: There are various ways for characters other than arcane spellcasters to gain familiars at this point, and some of those options even grant Improved Familiar as a bonus feat, but technically each Improved Familiar option requires a certain arcane spellcaster level to take it. Does that mean that non-arcane characters with Improved Familiar have a dead feature? How does it work? If it does work, can I take an Improved Familiar as some kind of variant familiar or a temporary familiar like the occultist’s soulbound puppet?

The Improved Familiar description was written back when only arcane spellcasters could have familiars, and it wasn’t sufficiently future-proofed. To that end, you can always substitute your effective wizard level for the purpose of determining your familiar’s abilities for “arcane spellcaster level” to determine the available improved familiars for your character. In general, you can take Improved Familiars for class-granted variant familiars like a shaman’s spirit animal, with a few exceptions: First, temporary familiars like the occultist’s soulbound puppet can’t become Improved Familiars from the Improved Familiar feat, and those class features don’t qualify you to take the Improved Familiar feat. Second, tumor familiars, as lumps of flesh in the shape of animals, can’t become Improved Familiars. In other cases, treat Improved Familiar as if it was an archetype to see if it stacks with other familiar options: since the two things it alters from a regular familiar are that it removes the ability to speak with animals of its kind and it prevents changing the creature type for non-animals, you couldn’t make a familiar that changes the creature type of non-animals or alters or removes speak with animals of its kind an Improved Familiar.

Since you treat it like an archetype, we see that it modifies an already modified feature in this case, and thus...

Funny, cause last I checked, Patron Familiar is NOT a Familiar archetype. Thus no stacking occurs. Thus it does in fact work.

Trick the players into drawing from a deck every so often. Eventually, when the retcon happens, reveal they’ve been drawing from a modified Harrow Deck of Many Things that only has The Vision card. What just happened was a vision of what was going to happen, unless you want to completely change it, then it was the false vision of the future.

Done and done.

Reksaw, if you think a fairer comparison is a human bow kineticist 7 to a halfling kineticist 7 sure, I can do that - be warned the changes may not all be to your liking. In particular the halfling will get the option of a physical blast at 7 (conductive requires a touch attack so can't go that way), and becomes an absolute demon in melee with the risky striker feat.

If you'd rather make your own version of the bow kineticist we could agree some ground rules and try that out. PM me if you want to talk about that.

Believe it or not I wasn't trying to kneecap the bow kineticist and was rather trying to set up comparisons from a similar level of optimisation.

I have to be honest, I’ll have to wait at least a week on that. Sometime this week I’m suppose to expect the apartment owner to have a pest remover spray for insects, which will take hours according to my mom who has been through that here before, and then I’ll have to deal with a funeral this week as well, and several other days of visiting family since most of them are normally in a different state.