Remco Sommeling's page

A bit of thread necromancy over here, but.. it applies to any illusion or disguise spell the inquisitor sees.

So invisibility and the like would be out.

I am not quite clear on what a "disguise spell" is, I suppose this could include alter self and the like.

I'd probably diminish this class feature a bit, and state that the inquisitor would get to disbelieve illusions automatically if applicable, and get a save to recognize other illusions and disguise spells and allowing an opposed spot / disguise check (without the typical +10 bonus) if the save is successful.

Deaths Adorable Apprentice wrote:

The internet isn't leading to anything. From what he told me the when prepping the spell you store two to three spells in it and when you cast sequencer the stored spells are cast then. Its a quick buff. I do not have the book of spells from AD&D.

The minor stored I think 2 spells from first to second level spells. While the major one is three spells from fourth level and below.

If he wants to design a custom spell, submitting a written proposal happens before you even consider it.

And sequencer, along with Matrix, are among the most crazy overpowered caster benefits from a line of mostly crazy overpowered caster fellatio. Those spells are meant for Mary Sue NPCs, and completely wreck the action economy.

The spells drain some hit points, they require dispelable somewhat pricey foci, have a limited duration (10/min lvl) and require multiple spell slots to invest also the buffs are relatively low level buffs.

They sequencer should replace the possibility to cast quickened spells for the round in which you use it.

Altogether there are a number of drawbacks to the spells that help balancing them out, then it also helps creating nova potential where PC's flame for a single encounter which might not at all be desirable.

You can find it on D&D tools / player's guide to Faerun.

Simbul's Spell MAtrix, lvl 5
Simbul's Spell Sequencer, lvl 7
Simbul's Spell trigeer, lvl 9

If you consider it, make sure to use the updated version in Player's guide to Faerun. The one in the 3.0 Magic of Faerun is too unbalanced.

It basically allows you to cast quickened spells from a focus in which you stored spells, I'd replace the free action to use the spells to a swift action but otherwise I'd be fine with those versions.

Of course an evil GM might note that magic jar doesn't change the host's body and the Tarrasque's body is really, really hungry for the nearest meat...overwhelmingly so, unless the wizard makes a really hard save. Instinct is biology, not soul.

you could just rule it doesn't have a soul.

It's not mind-affecting, I think it should be.. but it is not

I'm confused on how any of those are "milking the system for power gaming" or over-powered at all.

Heck, there are clerics who start with heavy armor proficiency, and you can pick it up with a single feat if you don't. How is multiclassing simply to gain heavy armor proficiency even a good idea, much less power gaming?

Not necessarily overpowered depending on your baseline, but promoting certain combinations to milk the system to get results.

A caster multi-classing into fighter will not get heavy armor proficiency, but multi-classing into a cleric can. Which feels like awkward design, logically the fighter would be the arms and armor expert but you'd be better off multi-classing into cleric if you want a heavily armored mage character.

Just small things that do not quite feel right or balanced to me, but are perfectly acceptable for people that focus on building effective characters primarily.

Charisma is the stat most involved with physical appearance, the higher charisma is the more ugly or beautiful one is generally.
High charisma simply means you are memorable, but it is more than physical appearance to the extent you are fairly free to determine physical appearance disregarding charisma.

You could have a low charisma and be a handsome, but shallow individual with rather plain personality or you simply do not radiate confidence and trustworthiness.

you could have a high charisma and be rather plain in appearance, but you might have a certain bearing that inspires people, confidence, strength of character and a flair for the dramatic without being over the top.

You might be fairly repulsive, people notice you and can't help but feel sorry for you initially, but impressed by the strength of your personality and conviction, you are likely to inspire or terrify people but you are unlikely to leave them indifferent.

He'd be in the range of LN, N, NE or LE, you might start him off as N or LN but doing as many evil acts as good acts should not keep him neutral in my opinion.

The character seems incapable of true atonement which would cause him to fall into evil fairly swiftly.

Attempting to attack is interaction regardless of the result.

Remco Sommeling wrote:

There are a few options I'd like to ban, but power gamers would love.

Care to elaborate on that?

moon druid / polymorph, warlock / sorcerer (hex / eldritch blast), multi class cleric (heavy armor), bard (poaching some high value specialty spells from other classes), the contagion spell, archery is a bit too powerful for my tastes.

Not an extensive list, I haven't played much recently and memory is a bit fuzzy on the details.

I am not saying they are terrible by many standards but I do not like milking the system for benefits. Something other people might enjoy much more.

I've got the back story and the barbarian bit can easily be cut out as it really doesn't affect much. Just didn't find it relevant since I was strictly talking build here. Oh well perhaps it is a tad silly I suppose, or at least not practical since I was wanting to stick to monk mostly. Would've liked to do (un)monk/(un)barbarian that only took one level of monk. However the trait to get around that alignment restriction would require me to be an aasimar and they are frowned upon at our table.

As a side note I don't see how people don't think a one level dip in unchained monk is the absolute best dip for a pure martial. Use a seven branched sword, or whatever monk weapon suits you as there's tons now, and get an extra attack at full bab when you full attack for a one level dip plus some monk crap and a decent selection of bonus feats? Sold.

Well flurry of blows does not work while wearing armor or using a shield or carrying a medium or heavy load. The same with the AC bonus.

That might limit your choice of builds considerably.

Rynjin wrote:

Imbicatus wrote:

Omnitricks wrote:

The only reason I played PFS a few years back is because I can't play anything with my friends otherwise.

If I had any other choice I wouldn't even play PFS. Its needlessly restrictive and some of the restrictions don't even make sense.

I find PFS is far more permissive in player options than any home game I've seen.

How often do you see no monk/samurai/ninjas because I don't want Asian crap in my game? No gunslingers? No advanced class guide?

With very few exceptions you can play most of Paizo published content, which is seldom the case with home games.

I've never played a game where this is the case.

I've seen "no UC Gunslingers" because Paizo was sloppy in writing the gun rules, and the 3.5 gun rules work much better. Also, Paizo's gun rules interact really badly with my house rules on critical hits, which I wrote years before Pathfinder came out.

No ACG is a rule I currently enforce....
of course I run 3.5 and don't allow any Paizo products with the exception of Ultimate Campaign (I do use Interjection and DSP stuff though).

I've honestly never heard of someone banning stuff because they "don't want Asian crap" outside of the Paizo.com forums.

I think it is fairly common to have options or classes banned, CRB is usually allowed and other sources are on a case by case basis, often dependent on the books the GM has available.

I think the rules for PFS are quite understandable and fair to attract a wide range of players, expectations of the game simply vary too wildly to put random players at the same table without extensive guidelines.

I am a fan of the 5th edition baseline system. Though some things still feel a bit clunky or obviously unbalanced to me, I guess, coming from PFRPG (and earlier systems), that should not be a huge deal breaker.

There are a few options I'd like to ban, but power gamers would love. WotC probably left enough of such options in the system intentionally to appeal to a wider public (but leave me not quite content in an otherwise great system).

I like how the game plays mostly like 3rd edition, feels more like 2nd edition and has some significant contributions of 4th edition mixed in, with some hints of PF influence. It's a good game but with relatively few options it seems a delicate balance is easily broken.

The support and involvement with the game and players is well behind on PF, the developers are more distant though arguably an improvement over previous editions.

The game is made to be run as your gaming group enjoys it, easily adjustable to your tastes. So no PFS is not the best way to play the game but it is a way to play the game making it more accessible for many people that otherwise wouldn't have a steady gaming group.

Sounds like the worst table to play at. This kind of stuff made me quit gaming for a decade.

it didn't make me quit but it has resulted in some undesirable tension in the short term, the added value in game play was less than nothing.

I'd recommend to steer clear of it, only the killing player will likely consider this even remotely fun, that might be a wrong evaluation but if you are anything but 99% sure I'd just leave it well alone.

I think it is a good idea to shorten the gap between strong and weak saves, but a revised system should still reflect the differences between individual classes. But sure, conditional bonuses work fine as well.

I could fix the saves to a class but I like to give characters the option to increase will saves as a warrior or fortitude as a rogue or caster.

I am deliberately moving away from the class system so characters are not defined (as much) by the classes they picked, and a little more freedom to customize but not increase specialization.

It is a fundamental shift in how gameplay works.

You basically have to ask yourself the question: Do you want saves numbers to mean something at higher levels, or do you want to have saves as an automatic and binary thing, where the roll is perfunctory (barring outlier rolls).

I would like that confusion spell to have a little more chance to affect characters with traditionally good will saves and a little less chance to affect characters with traditionally bad saves.

Going from an almost certain save and almost certain failure, to a good chance of making that save and a good chance of failing that save.

It's not an attempt to have characters fail much more or much less than before over all the levels of play, just to spread "the pain" out a bit more over different characters. Among other reasons.

Grant the same +2 bonuses a character class gets at 1st level, but only to his or her first class. Additional +2s from multiclassing are not gained.

Possible but it wouldn't really fix classes that have notoriously weak saves, though it might help over specialization a little bit.

Making characters weaker overall is not my intention, I just want to boost up the weaker characters a notch and take down stronger characters a notch regarding saves.

Honestly, base saves are there for a reason. That said, I think some variety and re-balancing along say, 2e-like lines could be cool.

Going back to your main reasons...

1. What could be an auto success against one effect could be a very difficult roll against a different effect targeting your bad save in the current system. It's not nearly as clear cut as you present it.

2. Multiclassing is already lackluster, discouraging dips is discouraging even remote ideas of maybe multiclassing

3. Classes are balanced around base saves (albeit sometimes not well, but still). This kind of system is essentially unfair to say, the monk, which one of its selling points is all good saves

4. You could do this by rewarding weaker classes directly, not changing game fundamentals in ways that could produce large unforseen consequences.

5. Is that not the case already? The fighter is likely to have great fortitude because his class is already naturally inclined to invest in CON. The Cleric will have even better will saves because the class encourages WIS. Many if not most classes are like that - they reward synergy.

6. Again with point 4, you could just give a blanket +1 or +2 instead of complicated changes. Also part of the reward of low magic is higher risk.

Thank you for your feedback, much appreciated. In short my feedback to your feedback:

1) well yes, but I don't think it should be like that. Now everyone should have a fair chance to make their saves and auto-success will be more rare.
I started playing in 2nd edition where basically you always could fail or make a save with less dramatic differences between characters. That might be a large part of what shapes my preference for a different save system.

2) I do not think class dipping makes multi-class shine at all. I do have some house rules in play that help multi-classing characters but I try not to promote 1 level class dip for the front loaded benefits, the front loaded saves do not make much sense to me on top of that. A fighter barbarian has no reason to have saves better or worse than a single class.

I am trying to make single class characters more appealing or at least fairly workable, but it is not my intention to punish multi-classing players.

3) I agree, but the monk in this campaign will be the unchained version which has two good saves. Before I read up on unchained I tried to touch up a monk's saves with some class features. Still mind became a flat +2 on will saves, and 1 ki could be spent to reroll a failed save as an immediate action.

4) I think the consequences will be quite tame, the stronger saves in a party are slightly less strong than they are in the old system (like -2), the weak saves are only a little higher like +1 at lvl 6, +2 at lvl 12 and +3 at lvl 18. The change is really not that dramatic.

The bonus on saves outlined is to help create characters that are a bit less item dependent mainly but not essential to the system.

5) The synergy is a bit over the top, I consider it a bad thing to have characters feel like they have no chance to make a save and others that are not even a little nervous rolling.

All the heroes in a party can function roughly in the same league without taking away their special skill.

6) the changes are not that complicated, you can determine saves by character level and ability score at the basics. Different, but not more complicated. I could boost up weaker and penalize stronger classes but I consider the saves enough of a mess that a blanket overhaul works better to create the base I want.

I came up with something very similar for mostly the same reasons.

However, I'm not sure how I feel about 5). Do these bonuses replace the regular bonuses for high ability scores or are they in addition to those? Do only base save increases grant bonuses?

And I agree with Ciaran Barnes. Maybe it could work differently for different classes:
monk gains a bonus at 1,4,8,12,16;
wizard gains a bonus at 1,6,12,18;
ranger gains a bonus at 1,5,10,15.

I think it is possible to marry additional abilities to increase saves into classes if you feel they are short handed in that department, I always felt it was fairly appropriate to give wizards a bonus versus spells for example.

A classic monk is a very defensive class, originally I came up with the monk being able to make a reroll for saves by using a ki point from his pool. I am not going to use that for the unchained monk though, I do not think it will come up short compaed to other martials.

Why do you think it is a good idea to put the bonuses at different levels for different classes ?

@can't find the path

I did consider starting the bonus progression at 1. As it is the save progression doesn't eclipse classes with two good saves till level 10 in the old system. Before that they are a bit more vulnerable, discounting added benefits of your choice.

A character with only a single good save will start reaping the benefits from level 5 onwards, discounting the added benefits.

It doesn't seem too terrible, but I might change it a little:

Pick a primary save at level 1:

the benefits are the same except that fortitude adds a +1 hit point bonus every level the character advances.

A Secondary save is picked at level 6:

The same benefits but hit points gain does not work retroactively over the levels you already gained. (if fortitude is picked), increases other save increase as normal.

A third save bonus is granted at level 11:

Like the level 6 increase for fortitude.

At level 16 all saves and benefits are increased another step, except fortitude which simply keeps granting a hit point every level of course.

* The saga system is nice as well, I wasn't familiar with it, only thing I do not like is that it still rewards multi-classing into different roles a bit more, definitely better than the current system. But I still like to divorce saves from classes, it gives a little more freedom to character creation and can be used to shore up weaknesses or focus on a single good save a bit more.

Saving throws will be pretty low at low level. Its a small change for classes with one good save but noticable for those with two. What happens to the monk, who is "supposed" to be known for strong saving throws?

I had thought about it since before unchained monk and never quite found it satisfactory, but with the unchained monk I do not see this as a problem.

just to adress reason number 2.

The Unchained rules brings up this problem with multiclassing and explains why it exists with "Fractional Base Bonuses". You could implement this system to avoid heavy dipping at your table.

Unchained Classes.

(scroll down for the Other Class & Advancement Variant Rules section.

** spoiler omitted **...

that's good, I am already using fractional BAB. I just want to smooth out saves as well.

Just keep in mind that while people might not mind that their character gets killed it is another thing to have your character get killed by another player. It might just start more trouble than it's worth.

Other than that, the most obvious way but also the most crappy for the other player is killing him in his sleep. If I'd steer to be the antagonist in the campaign I'd not try too hard to kill my fellow players but build a difficult but possible way for them to fight back.

Desecrate his holy temple, raise the priests from the dead and use them to exact your vengeance in a carefully planned ambush. That will help making you your preferred status of antagonist and much more fun for the other player.

I want to replace the class based saves for a variety of reasons:

1) To have the various saving throw bonuses of characters less far apart and prevent automatic success and failures for level appropriate threats.

2) I want to discourage multi-classing for dip benefits, not multi-classing in general

3) I see no reason to maintain it, ability scores and potential feats do a well enough job to explain why someone is more likely to succeed or not

4) I wish to equalize the classes a bit more, it seems that the weaker classes often have the weakest saves as well (rogue, fighter), or would typically lack the ability scores to boost saves (wizard, sorcerer), while other classes with already strong saves have them enhanced even further with high ability modifiers (cleric, druid, paladin)

5) I like the correlation with a creature's / character's deductible traits having a relation with his strong saves rather than meta gaming

6) it's meant for a relatively low magic campaign and the characters might miss out on the assumed bonuses inherent in magical items, so slightly increasing the saves overall might be a good thing.

The basics:

The base save will be a bonus of 1/2 your level in every category modified for ability modifiers.

At level 5, 10 and 15 you can pick to get a +1 bonus on one of the various saves, at level 10 and 15 you can pick a save you did not choose to increase before, your other previously chosen increases go up +1 as well.
At level 20 they all go up by an additional +1.

So at level 5 you can choose to increase fortitude, at level 10 you pick reflex and increase your fortitude up by +1 as well. Your saves are now +2 fortitude, +1 reflex. At level 15 your will save gets +1 and the other saves go up +1 as well. Your saves are +3 fortitude, +2 reflex and +1 will.

When your fortitude goes up by +1 you also get a bonus of 5 hit points per increase.

When your reflex save goes up by +1 you also get a +1 bonus on initiative checks per increase.

When your will saves go up you get a +1 bonus on concentration checks per increase. *

* caster level / concentration ranks will be determined by stacking together the caster levels and half of the non-caster levels. Concentration will use charisma by default unless stated otherwise.

(still working on some feats / alternative uses for concentration for the magically challenged)

Start with a base of Slayer. The archetypical martial hero is smart and not above some sneaking about. Add full Brawler and full Barbarian with some refluffing, so Rage is more of a battle focus. Add the Samurais challenge and resolve and the Swasbucklers panache and deeds. Give him a good Will save, the archetypical fantasy hero can out willpower mages and gods, it's weird that no martial class has a good will save.

This the archetypical euro-american/fantasy hero, tough, charismatic and smart, with lots of tricks under his sleeve and amazing willpower.
If 3pp allowed I would add some Warlord instead of Swashbuckler, not even for maneuvers, but because his class abilities are better at representing the inspirng leadership heroes normally have.
Ranger and Paladin are too supernatural for the archetype and gishes are right out, the archetypical martial is as Ex as possible. You could also trade Barbarian and Swashbuckler for Fighter and Gunslinger for a more Western/WWII/Modern archetype.

paladins have good will saves and are immune to fear

I don't know if alignments require rulesets. Much like real humans, just let the characters be who they are.

The game does not require it, depending on your play style. But you still need rules for interactions from a Rules perspective and from a Role Playing perspective which honestly works better if you determine character boundaries before hand (if your group cares about such a thing).

Have players pick personality traits from a well sized list and just use that as rp-tool and intelligent item conflicts etcetera.

I don't think your system is bad but there should be many more traits and methods to pick from.

You still can have alignment aura's and creature types to determine magic effect interactions in your campaign, in some cases you might want to adjust the level / cost of the spell / magical effect because of reduced or increased effectiveness.

I don't believe a potion's magic is contingent on it being in a vial. Nothing about the vial is special or magical, it's just a container.

Although this delayed swallowing reminds me of the alchemical accoltion (spelling?) spell that is just repeated backwash. One of my GMs who is a germaphobe houseruled it as an evil spell.

lol, no nothing really. it is just something I might rule on to prevent abuse. I'd give it a few rounds but not more to prevent too much silliness.

I'd transfer the potion from the bottle to my mouth before jumping, and try to swallow just before landing.

That might work, GM willing. Though it would cheat the standard action economy a little, it wouldn't be too far fetched for a GM to rule it will only keep it's magic for a few rounds out off the container.

I'd use acrobatics, as that's already involved in jumping and falling. At 500' I'd use DC 20 to avoid any damage. The damage they take is based on what they target they hit. DC 15 for 1d6, DC 10 2d6 and DC 5 3d6.

Acrobatics to drink the potion.. nah, but sleight of hand would work for me.

Nope, circlet and headbands are two different slots. You can wear both items!

Also you cannot retrain to get Noble Scion of War or other first level feats like Fey Foundling. Such feats can only be taken at first level. Retraining does not get around that requirement, alas.

Hmm

oh you are right, that's what you get when you usually play in magic light campaigns. All good then :-).. except for the not retraining part.. lol

Remco Sommeling wrote:

Scion of war will not help you, it replaces the dexterity modifier to initiative, so you only get benefits if your charisma will have a modifier of at least +8. Until then improved initiative will be better or as good.

A circlet of persuasion would help your initiative checks, as well as your concentration checks and all your performance checks with the feat though. Which makes it a bargain at 2,250 gp. Unfortunately it does take the head slot.

Ah yeah, good catch. +3 from DEX and +4 from Imp. Initiative. take away the Imp Initiative and exchange the DEX for CHA and I'm back where I started.

Don't you mean "Fortunately" it takes the head slot? I currently am not using anything in the head slot, my Headband of Alluring Charisma is using the headband slot so I should be ok. How does it help my initiative checks though? Does Scion of War turn (and qualify) Initiative into a "Charisma check"? If so then that would make the feat worth taking. I didn't realize that the Circlet would help my concentration checks either but I guess it would.

Well since it replaces your dexterity modifier it seems like it would be a charisma check now, though I guess you could argue the point from the character's perspective or in general.

With versatile performance it will help quite a bunch of skills, the unfortunate part being that it would replace a charisma enhancing item in that slot.

In theory you could simply ready an action and drink it.

As a GM I would probably ask for both a dexterity and a wisdom check, since I imagine drinking a potion while free falling and trying to time something just in time to prevent being splattered would be tricky. Not even sure the potion will come out if you are trying to pour it out really.

Both DC 10 checks seem right to me, without armor check penalties since I feel nice today.

Scion of war will not help you, it replaces the dexterity modifier to initiative, so you only get benefits if your charisma will have a modifier of at least +8. Until then improved initiative will be better or as good.

A circlet of persuasion would help your initiative checks, as well as your concentration checks and all your performance checks with the feat though. Which makes it a bargain at 2,250 gp. Unfortunately it does take the head slot.

I thought it would be cool if not optimal, a mount is pretty decent to keep up movement even in combat in an area that is 'horse-friendly', with a better AC than I have any attack made on the mount rather than me is still a good thing.

Also the immediate action to gain cover is nice when attacked. Also you can move and still take full-round actions and even 'run' while still taking actions with only slight inconvenience.

I might have to settle with just a mount spell though that is difficult to control in combat.

increasing con won't do much since it doesn't have a con score or hit dice unfortunately.

A light warhorse as animal companion would have been cool but that isn't possible with just the CRB.

I guess I'll have to invest in craft construct to make wooden, stone or steel steeds later.

I am making a sorcerer / wizard or bard that wants to make good use of the phantom steed spell. I am looking for ways to improve on the durability and effectiveness of the steed in combat especially. I prefer to use CRB material (APG might be ok later), other sources are unlikely to be permitted. We start out at lvl 6 using only the CRB afterwards, we 'might' be able to use material from the APG as well.

Obvious things seem to be to take the mounted combat feat and cast a mage armor on the steed to increase it's AC to 22, any other ideas to keep my steed alive or increase it's effectiveness ?

EDit: We do not start with magic items but it might be possible to craft relatively simple items in the course of the campaign.

I wanted to say Animate Object coupled with water walk or a fly spell, but it seems you need a very high caster level if it is at all possible.

Summoned water elementals might help keep it afloat at gm discretion, depending on the extent of the damage.

Freezing sphere might turn the water into ice, expanding the volume and making it buoyant. Any cold spell might work at GM discretion. Also polymorphing in a dragon with old breath might help.

Polymorph any object might be able to repair it.

fabricate and other creation spells might create floats in the hull off the ship, most likely barrels.

Blake's Tiger wrote:

However, in this case, each Archetype gives up a Domain. This seems to be a clear case of "no." Or the end result is zero domains.

It wouldn't be zero domains. Neither says you get one less domain, they both say you only get one, a very noticeable difference. This would easily be a GM handwave since neither actually affects the other.

Of course they are not supposed to be combined the intention was presumably to balance them with other class features the archetypes gain.

Usually the granted powers of a domain would be sacrificed and flexibility in preparing your domain spells. Stripping the granted power of both domains would be obvious, but stripping both domains completely would result in a complete loss of bonus spells.

I would either strip both domains or strip one domain and spontaneous inflict / cure feature (if the archetypes don't already take that (I don't know from the top of my head)

Sometimes, when their toolset happens to align well or the monsters roll badly, encounters you thought would be difficult become trivial. I know this can seem like it ruins a thematic encounter and often the reaction can be to knee-jerk limit the things that worked well for them. I recommend instead considering that perhaps the players sometimes also enjoy encounters where their tactics work well and they quickly gain the upper hand. It can make them feel like their decisions are meaningful.

Of course, if every encounter becomes 'pit, entangle, acid arrow' you may need to reconsider your encounter design, but this combo being strong generally, or used once to trivialise an encounter is not an issue in the slightest.

I agree, though such tactics often have major flaws that many GMs (or players) might miss at first glance. If it becomes a drag then you might decide to discuss any potential house rules with your players, after they had their fun with it.

CampinCarl9127 wrote:

grease would just make them have to climb out one side instead of the other.

It would deny the climbing bonus from having opposite walls to use though.

Maybe, you probably need at least three sides of the insides of the pit and not around the edges of the pit though. The golem is large which makes bracing rather easy for it.

Aside from all the difficulties to target areas at the bottom of the pit or the golem you can target the area fine.

Entangle is big enough not to worry about it, grease is not that large and must be targeted more selectively.

The sides of the pit are plain rough rock, and no vegetation so the entangle effect wouldn't exactly extend to climbing movement.

The golem is likely to have (total)cover versus ranged attacks unless they are taking a risk to approach the edge of the pit.

The scarerow has a climb modifier of +16, counting bracing against opposite walls that could make +26. Meaning that accepting a -5 penalty could bust him out of the pit in a single round climbing 30' (two move actions, accelerated). >> That means it is fairly unsafe to approach close enough to pelt him with spells.

Both fail to do anything about misschances though. Invisible is invisible, and miss chance is misschance. Blindsense and Blindsight get around invisible.

Well, blindsight does, blindsense doesn't

Only way I know is by a summoner's evolutions or spells.

I custom built a Jotun (giant) bloodline for a player at some point and instead of claw attacks it had a slam attack. Eldritch heritage would be able to get you claws, your GM might not mind it giving slam instead even if it is only for a limited number of rounds per day.

Why would you need a slam attack if you don't mind me asking ?

The earth elemental's ability has a range of 30' only and is not typically very stealthy.

Of course the elemental can 'swim' underground if in stone or earth at least. It is possible to have the earth elemental make a stealth check with a significant bonus (probably +30) to allow creatures a chance to detect vibrations in the earth themselves.

It will not be a very high chance to be detected but there is a slight possibility that increases with higher CR foes.

PRD wrote:

Dominate (Su): A vampire can crush a humanoid opponent's will as a standard action. Anyone the vampire targets must succeed on a Will save or fall instantly under the vampire's influence, as though by a dominate person spell (caster level 12th). The ability has a range of 30 feet. At the GM's discretion, some vampires might be able to affect different creature types with this power.

The part about it using a telepathic link to issue the commands is missing, it was present in earlier editions of the game. So, as long as the silence is in effect, we fall under this part of the Dominate spell:

PRD wrote:

If you and the subject have a common language, you can generally force the subject to perform as you desire, within the limits of its abilities. If no common language exists, you can communicate only basic commands, such as "Come here," "Go there," "Fight," and "Stand still." You know what the subject is experiencing, but you do not receive direct sensory input from it, nor can it communicate with you telepathically.

The vampire can communicate basic orders with gestures and the dominated person will follow them.

The dominate ability works like the Dominate Person spell, and thus telepathically, the vampire does not need to speak the commands.

The sharing of a common language is not the same as a requirement to speak and be understood.

The basics of it being that even if you would be invisible and silenced the creature would still be able to locate you. Since stealth can not beat absolute invisibility or absolute silence stealth is useless.

A simple spell or magic boots might be developed to cheat tremor sense though.

It comes down to play style preference. Alignments are not much specified and for just about any act I perceive as evil there will be a large number of players claiming it is 'chaotic'.

That said I am a little confused about what 'possible' wartime means ?

Also: evil =/= murderers, in that light without further information it seems rather brutal / excessive.

none that I know of, might have to work with your GM on that. Personally I find all purpose summoning a bit tacky, but you should be able to get close to a fair custom summon by using the oracle class fixed to a creature you can summon at lower level.

It will work up to a certain point as long as you let them have easy access to potions and have a few options in place to allow for faster healing.

For example you might treat half of the damage non-lethal damage, this will effectively double the effect of potions used in combat and allows the characters to be more durable from combat to combat.

The heal skill gets to be more meaningful but might need some subtle improvement.

Be more careful considering the monsters you use, consider whether they have the tools to handle a given encounter judging it by more than just rough CR rating.

It will be a different game, with some proper house rules it might work better than the established rules at higher level even.