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I'd like some clarification on the Legendary Influence feats from Ultimate Intrigue. The wording isn't as clear as I'd like and one interpretation makes the Improved version almost crippling. Here's the exact wording of the feats as posted on D20PSRD; "Legendary Influence
"Improved Legendary Influence
My confusion is how this interacts with the Medium's Spirit ability, especially this paragraph; "In addition to granting power to the medium, a channeled spirit can influence the medium. By channeling a spirit, the medium allows the spirit to gain 1 point of influence over him. If the medium loses that 1 point of influence, he loses contact with the spirit, though he is still unable to perform a new seance until the normal 24 hour period has elapsed since his last seance. When the spirit leaves after the 24-hour duration and before the next seance, the spirit's influence over the medium resets to 0. Certain abilities allow the medium to gain additional power in exchange for allowing the spirit more influence over him." Interpretation A: You must gain 1 influence to channel the spirit, then a 2nd point to gain the first feat, then a 3rd point to gain the second feat. Interpretation B: The 1 influence you're required to gain to channel the spirit also qualifies you for the first feat. You then must gain a 2nd point for the second feat. As written, Interpretation A would would put you at the 3 influence threshold at the start of your day and you're automatically taking the spirit's influence penalties and initiative penalties, which are all more severe than any feat you might gain. Not to mention you're only 2 influence away from being an NPC for the rest of the day. Interpretation B still puts you at 2 influence, but at least that gives you a bit of breathing room and no automatic penalties. However, from the way the feats read this doesn't seem to be the one that is intended.
Of course my answer is largely going to depend on the setting we're in and the specific character I'm playing. If we're in a Middle-Earth type world where certain races are always evil and cannot be redeemed or "raised right" then I would have no trouble with letting the party kill infants of the species. If we're in a Forgotten Realms type world where races tend toward good or evil because of their culture, than my reaction will largely depend on my character's life experiences and prejudices. In most cases though, unless I'm playing a particularly black-hearted or kind-hearted character, I'm more likely to just ignore them. Maybe they'll die of exposure or maybe they'll be rescued by other goblins. I don't want to actively harm an infant but because it's a commonly antagonistic species I don't care enough to help either.
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.
I'm planning to run a game set in the Diablo universe and could use some advice on several things. We'll roughly follow the plot of Diablo II or III and the players will be Mythic. I'm pretty familiar with the lore of the setting but if anyone has some cool ideas share those, too. In most of my previous PF games I simply use wealth-by-level and have players buy their own equipment rather than figure out where to place loot for them to find or calculate how much gold they should have. In the Diablo games, however, acquiring sweet loot is a huge aspect of the series. My players do like finding stuff and I feel they would be missing part of the experience if I didn't have at least some random drops. What is the easiest way to handle this kind of thing? I know I can roll on the tables in the PH but is that the fastest method? Whats the best way to avoid players having too much loot or getting a lot of junk they can't use or don't need (which they will probably sell)? Another aspect of the Diablo series is fighting a whole mess of dudes at once. Sometimes it might just be swarms of peons, but other times it could be a dozen very powerful enemies. In my experience it is very cumbersome and takes a very long time irl to run combat with a dozen creatures. Are there simpler ways to do this in PF? What about houserule suggestions? I'd like the combat to feel dangerous and epic but not slow it down. ps. I really want to run a chase scene with a Treasure Goblin.
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.
I agree with the goat; Eldritch Knight is my favorite. While Magus might blend things better, I'm really more of a sword *or* spell guy. I like having nearly full casting while having my sword on the side in the event that maybe I wanted to hit people today. As far as base classes I enjoy just about any kind of caster, whether it be Inquisitor or Summoner, but Sorcerer is kind of my go-to class.
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 would rather see noncombat spells, like one that replaced cartography training in the creation of maps, or one that increased carry capacity, or one that does nothing but have a very flashy effect. What DB said. Combat spells are a given, but everyone is going to have those. Archers and fighters can deal damage and root and all that just as good as a mage using ranged and close combat spells. The only different there is the presentation and that a wizard's effects might hurt a little more or cover a bigger area. What really sets mages apart in the tabletop is their utility spells. The ones that make life easier or allow you to skirt the rules a bit. Or spells like Phantom Steed that allow you to ride around on your ghost horse while mere mortals have to use their feet like a sucker.
I think I also like the idea of a close 3rd person. Enough to where I can see my whole character model (I like to see how cool I look) but not necessarily what is several feet behind me. My biggest concern is always peripheral vision, which a lot of first-person games lack. I don't want to feel like I'm running around with horse-blinders on because then even regular-not-stealth melee becomes almost unplayable.
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.
Have you seen those Redguards? They have curved swords. CURVED. SWORDS. #skyrim
I'm right there with you, Pax. I always thought it was relatively common knowledge that a skald was a real word referencing Viking culture. It kind of surprised me that people thought it was a fictional word. But it might be like you said. Seeing all these borrowed terms used right alongside fictional words in most modern games can make them difficult to distinguish when it's been around for years.
I am a late-introduction guy and Crowdforger backer person. As of right I don't have any affiliations and probably won't join any groups until I'm actually in game. I've been reading and posting a bit lately to pass the downtime at work. I like how things are coming together so far!
In my experience with MMOs you might have 10 or 20 abilities but only use 3 or 4 on a regular basis in most encounters. So I imagine even in an optimal PvP build 6 abilities will be plenty and the rest is just situational. Also are all 20 of these abilities directly combat related? Because if 6 of them are just tied to my crafting professions or something then keyboard dexterity would be a non-issue there since I'd likely be standing still. PS. I like that Cavalier is easily doable by combining Aristocrat and Fighter.
Man, I didn't even think about climbing trees for sniping. I guess I'd have to get a better feel for PFO's terrain to know if that's possible. While I enjoy flight immensely in my superhero MMO's I'm not sure how it would be effectively balanced in a PFO style game, which makes me leery about it. Perhaps if it were more of a transportation power and less of a floating-gunship I could get behind that. I think with jumping and climbing I'd like to see it as either a trainable skill or a slotted ability. There should definitely be some difference between how monk/rogue types get around and how the heavily-armored characters move.
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.
We do have that nifty Advanced Race Guide book with a whole chapter on how to make new races. I would probably try and build a Flumph using those rules (comparing abilities unique to Flumphs to existing stuff to try and determine the cost) and come up with something in the 10-13ish RP range if you want to balance them with other PC races.
The final enemy in the short AP at the end of Mythic Adventures is a non-mythic creature that has class levels and tiers/path like a character. Unfortunately I don't think it really provides an example of what happens if a creature is both a mythic creature with ranks and a mythic character with tiers. You could do this one of two ways. Either a creature can only have one or the other, in which case a monster that normally advances through HD should advance via mythic ranks whereas a monster that normally advances through class levels (most player races) should advance through mythic tiers. OR a creature can gain both. In this case the ranks and tiers should probably stack to determine a creature's total number of surge points, path abilities, and the strength of those abilities.
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.
If anyone is still updating this guide I found something interesting. This only works assuming you allow racial spell-like abilities to count as spellcasting as per the recent ruling. The Lashunta race has both mage hand and a 2nd level spell as spell-like abilities and are a 11 point base race found in the Inner Sea Bestiary. This means you could get into the class at 5th level (due to the 4 point skill requirements). Also, in reading the Arcane Trickster again it seems like it can actually stack with any spellcasting class. So while you might need arcane casting to qualify you could actually advance divine casting with it.
Nope, would have to be house-ruled.There's nothing in the "Becoming Legendary" section that would prevent it. Technically, all the character would have to do is pick up the Legendary Item path power and pick his Black Blade as the item. This is my interpretation as well. This seems like it should also work fine with a Wizard's object and similar abilities.
I think Improved Critical is also used as a universal monster ability in the normal Bestiary and improves critical threat range or in some case the multiplier. So it might just be one of those "monster rules are different from player rules" things. But it is a new book so it very well could be a typo, too.
I've seen a player pull this off very well with using a Ninja. There is some ninja trick that allows for quick disguises or illusions, plus the class already lends itself to superhero-esque shenanigans. I've also played a superhero type using a Synthesist Summoner and taking the favored class bonus to reduce the summoning time by 1 round per level.
I'm currently GMing a Runelords game and I can say it seems to have a a wide variety of scenarios as you advance through the story. Later on (maybe around the time you'd have your mammoth) there are several battles against other larger creatures that take place outside and it could be very cool to battle them with an equally large mount. That being said there are also stretches of dungeon or other confining areas where you couldn't bring your companion. If you're willing to deal with those times when it's not available or you have some way of shrinking animals then I say go for it.
The original 3.5 version did have 13 or 15 levels and was sort of split up into three sections. It was an oddball. The current PF version is just 10 levels and is in the Inner Sea World Guide. It plays more like a Paladin/Antipaladin but focused on Law instead of Good/Evil and has abilities related to armor and devils. |
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