Saraiso's page

@Chemlak: Thanks for all the wonderful feedback! Don't worry, I am glad to hear your impressions of this ruleset and I don't at all take criticism as an expression of hate =3

I don't have Ultimate War, though it sounds like a good book? I'll look into acquiring and reading through it.

I made these rules mostly for the use of my personal campaign which is the Wrath of the Righteous AP. As such, all of the battles so far have been pretty standard land based stuff, so I didn't want to overload my players with a bunch of alternate rules for air and sea and underwater combat. Similarly the one "siege" in the campaign so far has been against a mostly ruined castle and I wanted to leave the fortifications as a simple backdrop to the fighting, and not get into deep siege rules. I remember reading the description of Ultimate War and thinking it wasnt relevant to what I was doing, so I stuck with just Ultimate Battle. I will certainly go revisit that book though, and maybe incorporate a modification of those extra systems into Phase 2 of my house rules.

I'll try to answer your points as you posted them:

1) I thought about changing it to the Morale phase, but then the tactics stop making as much sense. (Why would you use the Retreat tactic in the Morale phase?). If you have any better name for it, I am open to suggestions. I can't think of anything better off the top of my head.

2) Done.

3) Done.

4) The difference between this and expert flankers becomes most apparent when your side has two armies and the enemy side has one, in which case you can use Pincer Maneuver to get a +4 to OM without taking any corresponding penalty. Even in multiple army situations this is going to be usually better than Expert Flankers because you gain an OM bonus against the enemy you are attacking (you wouldn't use Pincer Maneuver if you weren't attacking an army engaged with an allied army, right?), but you only take a DV penalty vs armies you are Not attacking. So if that melee army attacks you back, you have no DV penalty, making this tactic superior to Expert Flankers.

Expert Flankers on the other hand is a more general tactic; not requiring a second allied army to use, but also providing less of a benefit against your army's primary target (+4 OM/-4 DV vs +4 OM and no DV penalty).

As to making it a general tactic; I am torn on that. On the one hand I can see how this type of tactic is something that any army could use (everyone can get Flanking in normal combat after all), but on the other hand you could make the argument that only a skilled commander would order their army to deliberately flank another army rather than just advancing straight into melee.

I also want to keep the number of core tactics as small as possible, so there is that. If you can come up with a good alternate version of this tactic (with at most a +2 bonus/penalty) that could be a free tactic, I am open to the idea.

5) I admit, I didn't spend as much time on this section as i should have. I went with the bare minimum to keep complexity down, but there are definitely some resources that should have additional requirements. I just went through the list of settlement buildings in more depth and modified some resource requirements. See if that makes more sense now?

I absolutely don't want any tactics to have a settlement building requirement to learn. Even "primitive" armies of barbarians from the wilds can make use of advanced tactics if they have a good commander, so I don't want to limit the list of available tactics to penalize armies without a developed kingdom. I much prefer the idea of keeping settlement restrictions to Resources, and leaving Tactics alone.

6) I went with armies using Light armor as the default level because of the idea of a basic army as a bunch of peasants with pitchforks and scythes. They would typically be wearing padded or leather, if anything and using simple weapons. An army wearing medium armor also typically has martial weapons. By shifting the baseline down to light/simple instead of Ultimate Campaigns medium/martial, I added a few more options for cheap ways to outfit a low level humanoid army and also set the base speed for humanoid armies to be the same as for non-humanoid armies that don't use armor.

I felt this was a better baseline to stick with, and then modify from there. If you want to use medium armor as a baseline and change Light to be a rebate, you can certainly do that for your game! Doing so would necessitate defining an army as armor-wearing or non-armor-wearing right off the bat though; as armored armies would have a base speed of 1, while non-armored armies would have a base speed of 2.

The light/simple baseline also serves to slightly increase the power of humanoid armies in relation to monster armies, as like you say most armies fielded by kingdoms will have medium armor and martial weapons. I felt this was a good balancing choice as most monster armies have several special abilities that give them advantages over humanoid armies already. Ultimately though, its just a +1 OM/DV difference and it probably wont make a big difference to modify it one way or another.

I did update the Mounts resource to replicate the weight issue though. Light mounts prohibit Heavy Armor. Heavy Mounts allow Heavy Armor. I wanted to avoid lots of conditional bonuses and penalties, so just simply saying "no heavy armor for light mounts" seemed a simple way to go about it. Armies typically do not march while overburdened anyway, as that is a sure fire way to arrive at a battle fatigued and at a disadvantage. When given the option I am trying to go with simplicity over realism for these rules.

7) Added. Armor now has a Material option with modifiers for Mithral, Darkleaf and Adamantine. Other materials are possible with GM permission.

8) This is again simplicity, and in this case consistency, rather than realism. 1 BP is roughly 5000 gold, and so to outfit an army of 100 people with 50gp worth of materials costs 1 BP. Its not strictly realistic, but it makes the math work out with the other BP based calculations so I felt it was a worthwhile trade. It's also a lot easier to divide most of the material costs by 50 than it is by 40. Mithral for example is 500 a pound, which is 12.5 times 40, but an even 10 times 50.

9) Fixed. Thanks to that, I also found a similar typo in an earlier section!

Thanks again for your feedback, and I'm glad you like it! I did add a credits blurb at the beginning, because I don't want it to seem like I am trying to steal other people's ideas!

The download link should point to the updated doc now.

@Chemlak

Thanks for pointing that out! I modified the army template to show ranged above melee to make it easier to read.

@Jason Nelson
I did actually purchase Ultimate Battle, and I sort of used that system as a basis for building this one. In particular the battle turn sequence (Tactics, Ranged, Melee, Rout phases) and the battle zones (camp, range, melee) are ideas I got from Ultimate Battle.

I liked the wide range of options in Ultimate Battle, but the combat system felt too confusing for me and my players both. The tactics in particular were really all over the place. Tactics are basically 1 round buffs, but also some of them require certain actions while others don't? Cautious Combat for example applies no matter what you do, while Furious Charge implies a rush into melee? You can't use it while engaged, but does it Require you to advance into the melee zone? can you use Furious Charge while sitting around in the ranged zone making potshots with arrows? The rules don't say!

The biggest change I made (at least in my opinion) was changing Tactics into Combat Actions. The tactic you choose defines the action your army takes, and in this way the Tactics phase becomes WAY more important than before. Forcing the enemy to reveal their tactic first means you know not just whether they are getting an OM or DV bonus, but also what action they are taking, and you can plan your own action to take advantage of theirs.

It also serves to simplify the combat round. Instead of an army being able to make ranged attacks, advance into melee, make melee attacks, and possible retreat to the ranged zone again all in one round; now you just do one thing each round. My players have said they find my system much less confusing in actual play than the rules in Ultimate Battle.

Actually, many of the rules in my version of Mass Combat are attempts to simplify confusing or overcomplicated rules from Ultimate Battle and Ultimate Campaign, and to unify everything into a single coherent system.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

@Knight Magenta
Thank you for that insight! I have only really used this ruleset for mid range armies; with both the PC's army and the enemy's armies in the ACR 2-5 range. They all had enough HP to last roughly three rounds in even a very one sided battle, so it didn't feel too swingy or to sloggy. As you say though, that will likely change on the very high and low end of the ACR scale.

There were three main reasons that I kept the DV and OM bonuses for resources at a low number.

-The first is that a mass combat round represents 1 hour of battle. While in a normal scale fight you might easily go a round or five without laying a hit on a high AC enemy, when you scale that up to a hundred troopers, the odds of NONE of them rolling a 20 is pretty slim. Odds are, at least Some of the troops of even the low AC army will get a hit in and cause some damage. By reducing an hour of fighting to a single attack roll, swinging the DV by too much effectively negates even that incidental damage. The mass combat system already boils an hour of fighting down to a single roll; I wanted to make sure that that roll always had a decent chance of success.

-The second reason is game balance. No resource should be so hugely powerful that it alone spells the difference between an even fight and a completely one sided fight for armies of comparable ACR. One ACR 2 army should always have a chance to beat another ACR 2 army, adjusted by tactics and the skill of the commander of course. Giving an army the full armor AC bonus, as you suggested, would throw that out the window. Since resources do not modify ACR, they can't (for game balance reasons) provide too much of a difference.

-The third reason is that resources are typically used by humanoid armies. Monster armies don't typically have weapons and armor, but make up for it with special abilities instead. Neither special abilities nor resources modify ACR, and both fulfil somewhat similar roles. You will notice that the +2 DV from having DR 5 is the same as the +2 DV from having Heavy Armor. This is because heavy army is the humanoid version of DR for monsters. Abstractly speaking of course.

The goal of this system is to have an somewhat abstract system for mass combat battles where armies have differences based on their race and gear, but overall those differences would be minor. The main power level of an army should be its ACR, not its gear or its special abilities.

This abstraction is why improved weapons and medium armor both give a +1 bonus, even though in a normal fight the difference between a chain shirt and breastplate (+2 AC) is way different than the difference between a morningstar and a longsword (1 higher crit range). In mass combat, both are abstracted to a +1 to OM or DV respectively.

(Also, if it helps, just imagine that DV bonuses are half AC bonuses. An "unequipped" army is assumed to be wearing light armor, so say; +4 from a chain shirt. An army with Medium armor would have a +6 AC from a breastplate or so, and an army with Heavy armor would have a +8 AC bonus from half plate. Medium is +2 more than light, and heavy is +2 more than medium. Halve this bonus, and you get the +1 and +2 DV bonuses!)

@Cyrad, About 4 battles so far.

The PC's controlled two armies and the enemies controlled between 1 and 4. With four PC's, two of them controlled armies and the other two were Aides. All were Mythic (this was the Wrath of the Righteous campaign) so the aides got to use their mythic powers as well as their boons to help the army.

I haven't fully playtested the kingdom building side of things yet, or the scouting and ambush rules. The enemy armies so far have all been out in the open and the PC armies were flashy paladins who didn't even try to sneak.

The consumption aspects seem reasonable so far, but the armies are using Supplies that they were given to start and the party has yet to establish their kingdom and start paying out of BP, so we will see how things look once they get there.

I welcome any feedback (positive or negative)!

Hi Everyone,

I posted this over in the Homebrew section, but since Wrath of the Righteous is what started this whole project, I thought I'd post it here too.

I have been running the Wrath of the Righteous AP and the one thing that really left me lukewarm was the Mass Combat rules. It seemed like there was loads of configuration in the setup and building of an army (none of which you actually get to do in the campaign!), but during combat you just wind the two armies up (selecting tactics and strategy) then let them go at it and watch them roll attacks at each other till one falls down. Not very satisfying!

So, in an effort to improve the experience, I decided to make my own!

I have been looking at a lot of different homebrew and third party mass combat systems, including from the great 3pp book Ultimate Battle, but none of them were quite what I was looking for. The ruleset I came up with, and which is posted below, is a hybrid of ideas from many other sources as well as entirely original ideas I came up with on my own.

The key differences are that combat takes place in rounds, each of which has 4 phases (tactics, ranged, melee, rout) and that Tactics are an army's actions. Each round an army picks one tactic to use, and that determines which phase the army acts in.

There is also lots of other stuff... in an effort to make the system truly comprehensive I have included all of the army based things I could think of, including several that were left out of the Kingdom Building rules. There are rules for terrain, weather, visibility, more leadership boons, more leadership positions, mythic abilities, overland travel, recruiting/disbanding armies, upgrading/downgrading armies, and so much more!

If any of you feel so inclined (and want to read through the massive 73 page pdf), please give me feedback on this! I am playtesting these rules with the group I'm currently running through Wrath of the Righteous, but if anyone else wants to take these rules and playtest them yourselves feel free!

Just please give me credit if you distribute this to your friends, and don't distribute this pdf for any commercial purposes >_<

Saraiso's Mass Combat Rules

Hi Everyone,

I have been running the Wrath of the Righteous and Kingmaker AP's and the one thing that really left me lukewarm was the Mass Combat rules. It seemed like there was loads of configuration in the setup and building of an army, but during combat you just wind the two armies up (selecting tactics and strategy) then let them go at it and watch them roll attacks at each other till one falls down. Not very satisfying!

So, in an effort to improve the experience, I decided to make my own!

I have been looking at a lot of different homebrew and third party mass combat systems, including from the great 3pp book Ultimate Battle, but none of them were quite what I was looking for. The ruleset I came up with, and which is posted below, is a hybrid of ideas from many other sources as well as entirely original ideas I came up with on my own.

The key differences are that combat takes place in rounds, each of which has 4 phases (tactics, ranged, melee, rout) and that Tactics are an army's actions. Each round an army picks one tactic to use, and that determines which phase the army acts in.

There is also lots of other stuff... in an effort to make the system truly comprehensive I have included all of the army based things including several that were left out of the Kingdom Building rules. There are rules for terrain, weather, visibility, overland travel, recruiting/disbanding armies, upgrading/downgrading armies, and so much more!

If any of you feel so inclined (and want to read through the massive 73 page pdf), please give me feedback on this! I am playtesting these rules with the group I'm currently running through Wrath of the Righteous, but if anyone else wants to take these rules and playtest them yourselves feel free!

Just please give me credit if you distribute this to your friends, and don't distribute this pdf for any commercial purposes >_<

Saraiso's Mass Combat Rules

I am currently running Rappan Athuk over roll20.net, and my group is having a blast. I advertised it as a roguelike in dnd form, so they came in expecting a dungeon focused game :P

I set the dungeon in Golarion on the northern edge of Nirmathas, just below the Hold of Belkzen. The Mouth of Doom is in the forests of Nirmathas, and Rappan Athuk proper is north in the foothills of Belzen. I had to swap around a bunch of stuff on the map, but it works out well enough.

Intro wise, I replaced the town of Zelkor's Ferry with a wizard tower; the tower of Somnabulus the Great. He is paying adventurers a fortune to retrieve an artifact from one of the lower levels of Rappan Athuk, and his advertisements explain why there are always new characters waiting in the tower to form the replacements for any that die in the dungeon.

I have five players, and I started them out with 25 point buy at level one outside the Mouth of Doom. I would not recommend doing any less if you plan to run this at all by the book, because this dungeon is Lethal! I also allow monster races, and templates and all kinds of other stuff (usually using CR or racial HD as effective levels for templates and monsters respectively). That has helped a lot in keeping options open and interest high for making new characters.

So far my party has fully cleared the Mouth of Doom (and one of their characters, a ratfolk druid, decided to retire there and keep the place free of monsters), and have passed through the Gut and into Rappan Athuk proper. They emerged in level four, and are heading up toward the surface to try to make their way back to the tower overland. They are currently in level 3, and are trying to figure out how to deal with the worm cave.

Its kind of interesting seeing them approach the upper levels from the back route as it were; heading up rather than down.

As far as lethality goes? The party is currently level 7, and they have 38 dead characters between the five of them.

I didn't want to punish death too much, so I keep track of xp for the whole party, and new characters come in at the same level as the rest of the party so they do keep advancing even after all the character deaths.

I have to say though, this dungeon is amazingly fun. My players are still really into the game, even after loosing so many characters, and they are constantly coming up with new builds to try. They also enjoy all the various ways to die in this place.

Some highlights:
-The Merfolk Oracle was killed by a mutant giant water snake in the River Dripping, which was ironic as she was the only one capable of swimming to its cave to take its treasure.
-The tiefling witch decided to rest in luxury, and was eaten by the carpet in the Last One Inn.
-The Paladin of Iomedae died fighting the Fire Cobra in the Mouth of Doom, while the rest of her party fled in fear. To this day they are convinced that she survived and is fighting the good fight somewhere deeper in the dungeon.
-The Entire party TPK'd in the Chamber of Eternal Sleep, as someone tripped the carpet trap and not ONE of the five of them rolled above a 3 on their Will save.
-After a TPK, the party decided to go explore the wilderness for a bit (level 5). The first thing they found was the hill with the harpies. Every one of them but the monk failed a harpy save, and they got torn to shreds by the Dire Lions. This was the first and only time we ever called a mulligan and restarted again with a "suspiciously identical party" back at the dungeon.
-The human fighter, dwarf rogue, and aasimar cleric all got killed by their teammates while under Scramge's illusions. The wizard fled and survived, leaving only the Orc fighter left. When Scramge revealed himself at last, the Orc promptly dropped his weapon and asked for a job XD Now he is the Rakshasha's new henchman, replacing all the jackalweres that were slain.

Overall, this dungeon is a Huge amount of fun, provided your party doesn't mind dying and enjoys making new characters :P

As far as advice for you Cycnet, I would recommend only prepping the areas adjacent to where your party currently is. I do that in roll20, loading in and prepping each floor adjacent to the floor my party is currently on. When they reach a new floor I will prep all the floors adjacent to that one. Since its all stored in roll20, I can easily revisit stuff that I prepped previously if they go a different route, and this way I can keep the workload manageable.

Yes, the Master Summoner gets to skip SF(Conjuration) for pre-reqs, which is nice.

The reason I added Heighten and Quicken in there is for spell perfection use. Spell Perfection reads:

Pick one spell which you have the ability to cast. Whenever you cast that spell you may apply any one metamagic feat you have to that spell without affecting its level or casting time, as long as the total modified level of the spell does not use a spell slot above 9th level. In addition, if you have other feats which allow you to apply a set numerical bonus to any aspect of this spell (such as Spell Focus, Spell Penetration, Weapon Focus [ray], and so on), double the bonus granted by that feat when applied to this spell.

(Bolding mine)

It seems to my limited understanding that it lets you use a free metamagic feat as long as the Level isn't above 9th, rather than "the highest level you can cast" so it doesn't seem like it changes for bards and summoners and such.

Anyways, like I was saying, I picked Heighten and Quicken purely to use with spell perfection. Since it lets you use up to a 9th level modified slot, you can do things like apply Heighten to Charm Monster (a 3rd level summoner spell) to Heighten it up to 9th level (a 9th level slot), which changes the save DC to DC 19+Cha. Alternately I could cast a Persistent Charm Monster using a 5th level slot, and use Spell perfection to apply Heighten to bring it up to 7th level (Heightened to 7th, +2 for Persistent = 9th level slot)

Alternatively (for Way down the line) I was thinking of picking up the Magical Lineage (Maze) trait, which would allow me to use Spell Perfection to cast Quickened Mazes every round using my 6th level slots :3 (Maze is 6th level, Quickened +4, -1 for Magical Lineage = 9th level slot). Something about being able to throw out quickened Mazes on top of whatever else I'm doing just makes me giggle. This would work just as well with any other 6th level spell, but I'd have to plan ahead and take the right trait.

Being able to Quicken any 5th level spell or lower (with one preparatory cast of Paragon Surge to get Spell Perfection) or Heighten any save based spell up to 9th effective level (or 7th, and throw on Persistent) is the main reason for taking those two feats. From my preliminary reading of the summoner spell list, it seems like most of their offensive stuff is save based rather than just damage, so this seemed like an interesting and fairly unique way to boost the save DC's :)

Sorry about the wall o text explanations there. I do like your idea of taking Cosmopolitan. I had planned on taking a trait to get Diplomacy as a class skill, but that feat might let me use the trait for something else. (my other trait is a campaign trait from the adventure path, so its not something I am willing to switch)

I didn't really consider Extra Summons, cause with my starting charisma I have 10 of them a day. I will probably have to see how it goes, but that seems like it should be plenty for the vast majority of our adventuring days? Especially since I'll be boosting cha with levels and gear when it becomes available. By level 15 that would be (20 base +3 levels +6 item) 14 uses per day, so it feels to me like spending a feat to get one more would be a bit of a waste of a feat.

I dunno though, I've never played a summoner before, so I could be wrong?

Thanks for the suggestions so far :)

Hi everyone,

I am starting up a new campaign with a brand new level 1 summoner (going Master Summoner) and I'm trying to decide on what feat to take at first level. I thought I'd post this to the boards and see what you clever folks can come up with :)

Our party is going to be going through Reign of Winter (which I haven't read, no spoilers please!) and consists of a bow Ranger, a caster Druid (using domain instead of companion), a Barbarian, and me. As the only arcane caster I'll be focusing on casting rather than melee or ranged combat, and I will be going Master Summoner for extra versatility; using my Eidolon as our skill monkey and trapfinder.

Race is Half Elf, 25 point buy:
Str 7
Dex 14
Con 12
Int 14
Wis 10
Cha 20 (18+2 racial)

So far for feats I am planning on going
1 (bonus) Skill Focus (Kn(Planes))
1 - unknown
2 Augment Summoning
3 Eldritch Heritage (Arcane) for Bonded Item for that extra slot/day
5 Superior Summons
7 Leadership
9 Persistent Spell
11 Imp Eldritch Heritage (Arcane) New Arcana to learn Paragon Surge
13 Heighten Spell
15 Quicken Spell

The build only goes up to 15 'cause that's what an adventure path is supposed to bring us to, though we may end up going higher.

Some notes:
I plan on taking Leadership to get a Wizard cohort, who can be loaded up on knowledge skills and item creation feats. Probably craft wondrous item, wand, and arms/armor at least to start, with skill focus Spellcraft he should be able to make us most of the gear we might need, since the rest of the party is not keen on making magic items.

The idea for the feats is to make (somewhat cheesy) use of the Paragon Surge spell to do things like:
-Pick up Expanded Arcana adding whatever spell might be useful from the Summoner list, thus opening up all those situational spells that would not be normally learned
-learn Spell Perfection (notice how at lvl 15 I have the 3 metamagic feat prereq as well as the 15 ranks in spellcraft) for whatever spell is most advantageous. This allows things like using Charm/Dominate monster Heightened up to 9th level for better save DC's than would be possible with just the spell focus line, or casting Quickened Summon Monster VI in the same round as a Summon Monster SLA, or casting Persistent Dominate Monster spells to make it more of a sure thing.

I think the ability to pick a different Spell Perfection each cast of Paragon surge opens a lot of interesting options for the summoner list, since you can apply metamagic up to 9th level to spells like Dominate Monster that summoner gets at 6th.

The thing I'm stuck on is what feat to pick up at first level though. Any suggestions would be welcome.

If anyone has ideas on the rest of the build then I appreciate those as well :)

I would also appreciate any suggestions on what second sorcerer/wizard spell to learn at lvl 15 from the New Arcana bloodline power.

Where does it say in the rules that creatures killed by negative levels become wights?

In pathfinder it doesn't say it anywhere. The negative levels = wight thing comes from 3.5. The following is a quote from Energy Drain and Negative Levels in the 3.5 SRD:

A character with negative levels at least equal to her current level, or drained below 1st level, is instantly slain. Depending on the creature that killed her, she may rise the next night as a monster of that kind. If not, she rises as a wight.

That line is where all the enervation = wight assumptions come from, which is no longer true in pathfinder, though you are free to house rule it in :)

Thanks for the reply.

I think you are right, having to pay the cost to make the golem sounds like it will be needed for balance reasons. That alone will probably make it much less likely that the party will attempt to aquire the manual.

As for 3); the spell comes from the tome not from a wand, so if UMD is allowed than it would allow anyone to use a manual to make a golem, not just a caster of the appropriate type. For example a fighter with a high UMD score could build golems as long as he can make the DC 20 UMD check to activate each spell in the manual. Since the spells come from the manual itself, they dont even need to buy wands.

On the one hand, since the party is so non-traditional, allowing UMD to be used on manuals is the only way they would ever be able to make golems (other than the cleric who can make clay golems if he wants to). Primarily it is the summoner who wants to make the thing, and since limited wish and geas/quest are not on the summoner list, UMD is the way he is trying to bypass that requirement.

I agree with you about the NPC golem crafters, however if they are doing it with their own craft construct feat then it follows the normal rules for magic items, which means they can make golems they don't know the spells for as long as they raise the spellcraft DC by 5 each. So, for your average lvl 8 golem crafting wizard, the DC would be 23 (Base DC is CL (8)+5, +5 for Limited Wish, +5 for Geas/Quest) and with a reasonable intelect, maxed spellcraft, and possibly a skill focus feat, a DC 23 spellcraft should be easily doable.

The problem that I am having arrises if you allow those standard item creation rules to work for manuals. Now, since the book provides all the spells, the only checks are a DC 13 heal/Craft(leather) check to make the body, which gets a +5 due to the manual, and a spellcraft check to enchant it. The big problem is that according to the item creation rules you can skip the "creator must be 8th level" requirement by raising the DC by 5, and since all the spells are accounted for that gives you a final DC of 18 (8 (CL) + 5(missing creator level requirement) + 5) which this 4th level summoner can succeed at by taking 10.

That just seems too easy to me. =/

I may just house rule that since the golem manual is providing the feat and its not their innate abilities crafting the thing, they cant waive any missing pre-req's to raise the DC, and thus the players would have to be level 7 (requirement is 8, but the manual gives you a +1 on your level for crafting the thing) to create it. By that time a CR 7 golem might be less disruptive to the group.

I mainly don't want the "golem do this" situation developing where the PC's sit back in safety while the invincible golem kills all the monsters. Especially since this is an undead heavy game, and a high CR golem thats immune to fear, ability damage/drain, negative levels, and has DR/adamantine, would be all but untouchable for the majority of encounters.

The situation is this, I am running a group of friends through Carrion Crown and they have stumbled across a flesh golem manual which they are now discussing whether to acquire, which has raised a whole bunch of questions about how they actually work.

1) What is the cost for making a golem using a manual? If they get the manual does it only cost 500gp for the body like it describes under the flesh golem entry, or would it be the full cost of making the golem (10,500)? Does the 500gp include all the bodies that need to be scrounged, or is it in addition to that?

2) What is the time requirement for crafting this golem using a manual? Would it be 21 days according to the base price of the golem, or would it be 1 day according to the cost of the body? Building a golem in one day seems really fast to me.

3) Can UMD be used in this process? The party consists of a cleric, a summoner, a bard, and a paladin. None of them have all the spells required to create the flesh golem (most importantly limited wish) on their class lists, so none of them can use the manual since its spell trigger. The summoner has UMD though; can he use that to activate the item and bypass the spell requirements for it? What about the caster level requirements, does UMD let him bypass that also?

4) What would the skill required be, and what would be the DC? I am having a hard time figuring out which skill rolls would be required for something like this. Maybe Heal or Craft(Leatherworking) for putting together the body, and Spellcraft for using the book? What would the DC's be for both?

The big concern here is that the party is level 4, and I feel like letting them craft a cr 7 flesh golem for 500gp, in 1 day, using UMD to bypass the spell and level requirements, will be slightly gamebreaking.

My instinct is to just say that UMD can't be used as this is part of item creation rather than magic item activation (just like a spellcaster can't substitute a UMD check for a spell requirement when crafting a wondrous item; they must raise the crafting DC instead for a spell they don't have). However That seems shaky to me as its pretty much the same as using a wand to help in magic item creation which can use UMD to activate. Not sure I want to set that precedent.

Any advice on how to limit this (or even if I should) would be appreciated :)

If, on the other hand, you are NOT starting a fight with it already cast, the round you take to do so is a heavy, heavy tax. Most combats last very few rounds. Having to take the beginning of every unforeseen major fight to cast a preparatory spell is very suboptimal.

Yes, from a purely theoretical standpoint in one fight, that extra round to cast spectral hand is a steep cost. From what I have seen in play however, it is less of an issue than theory makes it out to be.

Perhaps its a GM thing, but frequently we get into fights in large temples and other areas, or the place is crowded with minions, and the cleric needs to spend a full round simply moving to get from the fighter back to the ranger who got hit by dragon breath and is in the negative, or any number of other situations.

If there is ever a situation where you would need to move farther than a single move, then casting spectral hand doesn't cost any actions at all.

However, you still would be well served getting a rod of reach, for those emergencies or ambushes.

My only complaint about the rod is that in the games I play in, the cleric casts a Whole lot more touch spells than 3/day, and those rods get pricy quickly if you are buying too many of them. 2-3 preparations of Spectral Hand however is usually all you'll need; as with its minutes/level duration one casting serves for a full fight, or maybe two or three depending on how fast your group moves :P

You are correct though, it does cost 1d4 hp, and have the glowing telltale hand, which, if your enemy is savvy and magically inclined can let them know to dispel it.

Personally, if a baddie wants to spend their action dispelling my spectral hand instead of killing our team, I say more power to them :P

Edit: One other advantage the spectral hand is, is that it is still a Melee touch attack. Not only does this use your str instead of dex on the attack roll (which could be good or bad depending on your stats) but it lets you hold the charge if you miss your attack roll.

Since Reach Spell changes the spells range from touch to close, it becomes a ranged touch and follows the rule for those, which means if you miss the spell is wasted, and you cannot hold the charge to try again next turn.

Just something else to think about to save those spell slots, if your dice hate you like mine sometimes do :)

If you are going a "bad touch" type cleric, Spectral Hand is simply fantastic. Sure, it takes your first round of combat, unless you know theres a fight and can pre-cast it, but suddenly ALL of your 4th level and lower touch spells can be used at range.

This means not only your inflicts and vampiric touches, but your cure spells, your restoration spells, your remove X condition spells, bestow curse... everything that would otherwise require you to waste precious actions moving into threatened range with the angry monsters. I think over time you will find spectral hand gets used for a lot more than 3 touch spells per day, making it a significantly superior choice to a rod of reach.

Other spells I'd recommend:
Fear
Ray of Exhaustion
Suffocation
Enervation
Command Undead

I am actually playing a necromancer in a predominantly good campaign :) Its quite a fun character, though the requirement to "fit in" means she isn't at all optimized.

Mostly, theres the Disguise Undead spell that lasts 24 hours and makes an undead creature look alive. It even fools spells such as detect undead, making the target detect as the creature type you disguise it as. She uses that on her undead cohort (a skeleton champion gnoll ranger, if you can believe it) as well as on a few select minions.

Since the other characters do not know that she's a necromancer, she only travels with 1-2 undead minions at a time that she can keep buffed with Disguise Undead. She currently has an underground keep where the rest of her horde of minions hang out, where they act as unsleeping, untiring, unpaid labor excavating a massive underground Evil Lair (tm). Muahahaha!

I picked up the Undead focused school for the necromancy specialty, so she can buff her undead with the Bolster power it grants, as well as through spells like haste.

Buffing isn't needed as much as you might think, since even at our current 9th level, Fast Mammoth zombies are a thing that win fights. The character uses one as her mount :3

Anyways, the biggest advantage I found in a good/neutral game is the Disguise Undead spell. Its basically the only way you can keep your undead minions and not get run out of town, or get the party paladin to go smite happy on your skinny butt ^_^

Well the necromancer idea just hit another deadwall then, unless i can find some way to get access to negative energy. Is there anything in 3.5 material?

I'm thinking of selecting evocation/enchantment as my opposition schools. Thoughts on this?

Couple thoughts on this. First, if you can learn Infernal Healing and Greater Infernal Healing you can heal your main undead minion for 10 or 40 hp per cast. Undead can still benefit from fast healing just like any other creature.

Second, if your GM allows the Advanced Races Guide there is a fetchling spell called Gloomblind Bolts (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/g/gloomblind-bolts) that might interest you. Its like a scorching ray that damages living targets or heals your undead minions, with a nifty blind effect as well. This would be a good candidate for Preferred Spell, so you can spontaneously cast it whenever you need some undead healing. If you don't want to be a fetchling and your GM enforces race restrictions, Humans can get a feat called Racial Heritage that lets them count as another race, and thus get race only spells and feats and stuff.

Finally, even if your GM is a stickler for only allowing Create Undead to make basic ghouls as in the bestiary, at 11th level you can make Skeletal Champions and Juju Zombies with create undead. Both of these are templates that allow the target to keep all class levels. Skeletal Champions even give 2 racial HD as well as all the class levels, giving the fighter you just killed a boost to their hp and bab.

If your GM is allowing 3.5 stuff, look in the book Libris Mortis. There are a selection of feats along the Corpse Crafter line that give your animated undead 4 str and 2 hp/hd (like augment summoning, but for animated dead) and another interesting one that causes any that die to explode in a burst of negative energy.

Taking this with a bunch of bloody skeletons is hilarity itself, as all your low level minions get wiped out with a fireball, then explode for 2d6 negative energy that damages the baddie and heals your strong minion. Then after combat they re-assemble themselves as bloody skeletons are wont to do :)

Also, look at the feat from the same book called Undead Leadership. Its like leadership but you get an undead cohort and followers, and your leadership score is 2 higher for attracting undead (and 4 lower for attracting living minions). Its a convenient way to get a powerful undead minion that levels with you without having to worry about keeping it docile with Control Undead spells and feats. It also works well for a necromancer wizard because you won't be dumping charisma, as thats what your Command Undead DC is based off of. As a further note to this, consider taking the Skeleton Summoner feat to keep the flavor going, as you can summon skeletal critters with your summon monster spells, and take Undead Master which increases the amount of undead you can control with your Command Undead feat, as well as animate dead. It also doubles the duration of your Command Undead Spell, making it last 2 days/lvl.

If you are playing an evil campaign, I would also recommend the feat Tomb Tainted Soul (also from Libris Mortis) for yourself and all your party members. It causes you to be healed by negative energy and damaged by positive, so if your party has an evil cleric, suddenly the channel energy is healing not only your personal minions but all the party members as well. It costs a feat slot for your whole group, but it makes playing an evil party with a cleric SO much easier. It also synergizes very nicely with the Corpse Crafter line of feats, as now every undead minion your enemies kill explodes to damage the enemies, and heal your party fighters or anyone else nearby :3 This will pretty much make your other players love having your undead horde along, even if they do slow down the fight.

Finally, if you are doing 3.5 stuff and want a prestige class, pick up Pale Master. At 4th level they get Animate Dead as a spell like ability once per day, which means NO material component cost... Takes a while to get, but it really saves money in the long run ^_^

Hope some of that helps.

Just as a disclaimer: I know I know, the consensus for metamagic on a summoner is Don't. If you can, try to suspend that automatic reaction and bear with me here on a thought experiment.

The idea is to find the best spells and feats for Spell Perfection on a summoner.

Some background for the idea. This would be a half elf, taking the Eldritch Heritage(Arcane) bloodline abilities. This gives them an arcane bond for effectively a bonus spell slot of whatever level they want (a premium for summoners) and at 11th level they get to pick a spell from the sorceror/wizard list to add to their spells known. My first thought for that was to get Paragon Surge (which half elves qualify for) and thus to be able to pick a new Spell Perfection with the single cast of a 3rd level spell (at 15th level of course)

So assuming this, which 3 metamagic feats would be most useful (in order to meet the pre-reqs to pick up Spell Perfection with paragon surge) and which spells would you pick to perfect?

I was looking at a Master Summoner build the other day for an upcoming adventure path, and it struck me; with the way Summoners get spells so much earlier, Spell Perfection could be an interesting idea. The wording on Spell Perfection states that you can apply any one metamagic feat to a spell as long as the modified level is not greater than 9th, which means a Summoner has some unique opportunities.

Some Ideas I had:
-Charm/Dominate Monster heightened to 9th level for high save DC's
-Magical Lineage Trait, then casting Quickened Maze.
-Since this is a Master Summoner, using Quickened Summon Monster VII (or Magical Lineage + Quickened Summon Monster VIII) + Summon Monster SLA in the same round for maximum nova

It seems to me that Heighten, Quicken and Persistent would be the most use, helping to either spam summons quickly, boost the otherwise low save DC's of the great SoS spells summoners get, or force extra saves for the same overall effect.

What do you all think?

Hi James, sorry if this is the wrong forum for this but I figured that you would know :)

The Master Summoner archetype states you halve your level for your eidolon's hit dice, feats, evolution pool, etc.

Does the level halving thing effect evolutions themselves, or is it just the entry in the table of Eidolon stats?

Say I am a 10th level summoner and choose Resistance(cold) for my eidolon. Does it count my summoner level as 10, and give the eidolon 15 cold resistance, of is it halved and counts as summoner level 5 and gives the Eidolon only 10 resist?

If it works the second way, how does that interact with the Aspect ability? If I pick Cold Resistance for example with my 1 evolution point I can take from the eidolon, does it give me 15 energy resistance (since it is My evolution and not the eidolon's) or 10 cause it all works the same way?

Thanks for any answers. I am going to be playing a master summoner in Reign of Winter, and I have this sneaking suspicion that the cold resistance issue will be important at some point ^_^

I'd love to join in on this, working on a character now. I just wanted clarification, you said classes and archetypes from the CRB, ARG, UM, and UC are available. Did you perhaps mean the APG? As far as I know the ARG (advanced races guide) doesn't have any classes or archetypes :)

Thinking of either an aquatic druid, or an oracle of some sort. Let me know if the APG is allowed or not, and then I can post the character and background :)

Thank you both for your replies.

One thing I want to make clear, is that the app will not ship with any OGL or Piazo content at all. No feats, no items, nothing preloaded. All it will have is a mini-web browser that allows the searching of d20pfsrd, and the ability to copy and paste from that website.

I'm checking with them to make sure that searching their website isn't going to cause problems (but since it's the same thing any web browser can do I don't think it will be an issue), but my main concern was if all of a sudden the app would count under the CUP or OGL or whatever once the data was entered into it by the user.

I apologies in advance if this is covered somewhere else, but I could not find anything covering my question in my (somewhat cursory) search of the message boards :P

Anyways, I'm working on making an application for iPad that acts as sort of a general GM's helper, it creates maps and provides a place to store monster and npc stats, notes on campaigns, etc. I had planned for one of the features to be a search screen, that provides a customized web view allowing users to search the pathfinder wiki (at www.d20pfsrd.com) for monster stats, spells, feats, etc. I plan to implement a feature allowing users to copy the stats from say, a monster, into the application to use in their game.

Does this fall under the Community Use Policy?

Bear in mind that I there will be no Pathfinder material that comes with the application, or is in any way part of the app, other than what users search the website for and manually copy into the application. The app functions as a way to store data, (which the users can either copy from the website or enter manually if they want to make up their own monsters) but the app does not include that data in itself.

I am working on this project primarily for my own use, but if it ends up as polished as I would like it, I would like to post it on the app store for others to enjoy, and I want to make sure I can implement the search feature without running into licensing troubles O.O