Sean Clark 391's page

> My GM is trying to make my Paladin a Serial Killer

I would say your DM is giving your paladin the opportunity to prove that he is dedicated to his faith and he will NOT become a serial killer.

Find the source of the corruption. Refuse to turn to the dark side.

Having said that, if you actually do die from NOT succumbing to the dark side and NOT committing murder - and you aren't reborn in some sort of angelic form - I would seriously consider leaving that gaming group. Playing a paladin being challenged by corruption and the forces of evil is fun. Playing a paladin that is forced by the DM to succumb to evil or die is NOT fun.

I also only went with a single level into Living Monolith, as I wanted the feats from Lore Warden. Here's the build:

Half Elf Lore Warden 8 / Master of Many Styles 2 / Living Monolith 1
1) LW1 - EWP: Fauchard (Half-Elf), Weapon Focus: Fauchard, Combat Reflexes
2) LW2 - Combat Expertise (LW bonus), Improved Trip
3) MoMS1 Unarmed Strike, Stunning Fist, Fuse Styles, Dragon Style, Power Attack
4) LW3 - +2 to CMB/CMD
5) LW4 - Iron Will; Endurance
6) MoMS2 - Tiger Style; Evasion
7) LW5 - Tiger Claws; Weapon Training: Polearms (+1/+1)
8) LW6 - Greater Trip
9) Living Monolith 1 - Ka Stone; Toughness (Ka Stone bonus); Improved Critical: Fauchard
10) LW7 - +4/+4 CMB/CMD
11) LW8 - Tiger Pounce; Combat Style Master

Ok, Monk here.

The last session Isis (OP) take, one of the dudes come with his new PC, his Kitsune Witch (his last rogue died). At some point of the quest, we where inside of a dark cave, I wanted to mess with this dude, so I told GM "Hey, I want to be nice and make the Which fall in love with me", so OP answered "Ok, you must make a Charisma check, get 3 consecutive 13 and maybe you have a chance".

My rolls where 11, 11 and 17 (plus 2 CHA). This is true.

Then OP said "Ok Witch, you can make a Will saving of 10 in order to avoid his love skills". She got 3. The witch can't resist the seductive powers of the low-dressed and well shaped monk.

This dude became very upset but was very hilarious.

After that, the Kitsune Witch was grappled by a Giant Squid (yeah, you can make an idea...), and the Monk went to the rescue.

Nobody mess with his Foxy Queen.

What you guys are talking about isn't PC flirting - it is about the monk forcing himself on a character that doesn't seem to be interested. Aside from how screwed up that is from an RPG point of view, there is the issue of these unwanted advances, as well as the issue of sexual objectification of women.

Why are you treating this situation any different because the PC is female? I would call that a double standard.

Bottom line? If you are OK with the way that your character can "make the Which fall in love with me", I would suggest that the player playing the Witch might want to consider rolling up an a high-Intimidate oversexed gay Half-Orc Barbarian instead. Half-Orcs need love, too.

Pwn: if you don't have anything constructive to add to a resurrected thread, why post?

For anybody considering Mithral Full Plate for PFS and reading RainyDayNinja's post, please disregard: Mithral full plate (@10,500 GP)is available to PFS characters with 27 fame, which isn't very high level.

Kysune wrote:

To be honest Clerics/Healers are a bit rare in my local area. We have quite a few barbarians, rogues, rangers, and arcane casters. Healing is generally lacking which is why I'm worried ...

Sounds like someone in your local area should play a reach cleric or oracle. All the offensive power of a Barbarian or Ranger, and all the support and healing of a full divine caster. Don't play as a healbot, of course!

I must take exception to the OPs disdain for standard action buffs. While they are usually not practical once combat has already begun, it's often possible to get them off just before combat begins. I play several characters who rely on Standard Action buffs. These characters very rarely waste a Standard Action in combat to cast them, but still usually manage to have them up. This with many different GMs.

An obvious example is Magda Luckbender, an 11th level reach cleric of Shelyn. With no buffs up her combat numbers stink on ice for an 11th level front line fighter: +11/+6 for 1D10+14 HP. Thing is, when the big fights actually happen the numbers are generally +23/+23/+18 for 2D8+1D6+30 HP. Yet she never wastes a Standard Action on self-buffing. If you only consider numbers calculated without buffs you are guaranteed to drastically underestimate this approach, leading to the erroneous conclusion that, for example, a monk can fight better than a cleric. An unbuffed monk will beat an unbuffed cleric, but a fully buffed cleric will crush a fully buffed monk. Similarly, the standard DPR calculation ignore AoOs, for various good reasons, which has the effect of undervaluing characters who fish for AoOs. For a build like Magda, actual combat damage is about five times larger than what DPR theory says it should be. This because of buffs (ignored in DPR calculations) and AoOs (also ignored in DPR calculations).

A more accurate model is to calculate a high end, a low end, then guess at the probability distribution....

If you are playing with GMs that allow you to spend rounds pre-buffing for most combats, AND you find that aren't wasting a lot of buffs getting ready for combats that don't actually happen, your GMs aren't doing their jobs right - and I feel bad for the non-casters in your party, because they are getting screwed. Don't get me wrong: I'm happy that you enjoy playing your character that way, but that is not how Pathfinder is supposed to be run.

Part of being a good "tank" is to be an effective threat to your opponents. If you are tough to hit and aren't much of a threat, why would your opponents waste their attacks on you?

Weapon specialization is the obvious choice. Leadership will allow you to play a companion that might have some interesting skills (rogue?) or spells.

Against a +30 attack, +1 AC is just as good on 34 AC as it is on 49 AC.

I REALLY hate when people are trying to prove a point and make statements that are based on bad math.

To crux of this question of taking Dodge is really that Dodge has much more benefit for characters that will focus on having a high AC then it does for characters who have a low to moderate AC.

If a monster needs a "4" or better to hit you (looking at AC 34 in Torchlyte's example), they have a 17 in 20 (85%) chance of hitting you. If you add one AC to that, they have a 16 in 20 (80%)chance of hitting you. That's a 5.8% improvement, or 5.8% less damage taken, on average.

If a monster needs a "15" or better to hit you (looking at AC 49 in Torchlyte's example), they have a 5 in 20 (25%) chance of hitting you. If you add one AC to that, they have a 4 in 20 (20%)chance of hitting you. That's a 20% improvement or 20% less damage taken, on average.

Please be careful when you make assumptions and state them as facts.

I just wanted to resurrect this thread to throw in a kinda weird option for a 1-level martial dip leading into Eldritch Knight:

Cad fighter archetype gives you the standard fighter feat, but trades med/heavy armor and shield prof for a handful of useful added skills:
Acrobatics (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Sleight of Hand (Dex), and Stealth (Dex).

I think it is pretty straight forward: if you have just the feat, you just hold your standard in one hand, meaning you cannot wield a weapon in that hand. If you have the feat AND the banner if the ancient kings, you can present the banner whilst fighting with a long spear.

Lastly Heavy armor Proficiency is good and All but Mithral Full Plate counts as medium armor and provides all the benefits without any draw back of not being proficient.

This is 100% wrong - unless you want to take a -5 penalty to all of you attack rolls, since you aren't proficient with Heavy Armor. That's probably OK for a pacifist cleric, but definitely not for a combat cleric.

PRD says:

Nonproficient with Armor Worn: A character who wears
armor and/or uses a shield with which he is not proficient
takes the armor’s (and/or shield’s) armor check penalty on
attack rolls as well as on all Dexterity- and Strength-based
ability and skill checks. The penalty for nonproficiency
with armor stacks with the penalty for shields.

If you have access to the Gods of the Inner Seas book, I would suggest looking at a cleric of Iomedae and focusing on the versatility of the longsword: one handed or two handed, as needed, with the ability to take feats equivalent to Weapon Specialization and Greater Weapon Focus. Pretty slick for a melee cleric.

Take a look at the Crusader archetype, too: trading a domain and a little casting for 3 feats is probably a pretty good deal for a battle cleric.

I missed the OP's focus on shields.

Shields are a bad option for most paladins. Per the rules, you need to have a free hand to use Lay on Hands. A sword and Board paladin can't be effective at the swift LOH unless they use a light shield (since you can hold your weapon in the hand that you have the light shield equipped in whilst you LOH). Some DMs may be OK with you using a heavy shield, but where I play (Colorado), most of the DMs won't let you swift LOH with a heavy shield.

The defensive benefit of using a light shield does not justify the damage lost when compared to wielding a two-handed weapon.

The other benefit of using a two-handed weapon is that you will generally be more of an offensive threat, which means you are a better target for monsters, allowing you to fill the "tank" tole much more effectively.

Unsanctioned knowledge is a great feat at higher levels, but I don't think it really shines until you have 3rd and 4th level spells (Haste and Blessing of Fervor. I don't think it is worth the cost of a feat and 123 INT for PFS. With my PFS paladin I got a lot of mileage out of Hero's Defiance at first level and Paladin's Sacrifice at 2nd - enough mileage that I eventually prepared only those two spells for all of my spell slots.

I think there is a lot of room for characterization and flavor in a paladin PFS build. I would highly suggest these feats to make you very functional:

1st Level: Fey Foundling
3rd Level: Power Attack
9th Level: Improved Critical

This approach leaves you three feats (5th, 7th and 11th levels) for flavor or for broadening your function, without compromising your contribution to the table when the crap hits the fan. Note that if you start with a STR lower than 18, I'd highly suggest Weapon Focus to help your attack bonus. With an 18 starting STR (and especially if you continue to bump STR as you level), you can afford to not take Weapon Focus. Would it help you offense? Definitely. Is it Necessary? No.

One more thing: I disagree with dropping CON to anything below 14 for any melee build, unless your race choice gives a penalty to CON, and this is especially true if you are playing a character that is intending to tank. Your swift LOH ability can make up for a lack of focus on defensive stats like AC, but it can't make up for a lack of defensive stats AND a lack of hit points - if you are planning on "tanking".

It sounds like you have been intentionally beating up the paladin. If you constantly attack your players with no-win situations, the game will quickly lose its fun.

How about yourself?

I enjoy making interesting characters that are fun and effective both in and out of combat.

I also try to avoid making broad, sweeping (and especially inaccurate) generalizations while I am trying to prove a point.

> How Do I Prevent These Two Players From Dominating The Group
> Without Arbitrary Gimping Them?

Talk to them.

You might want to look at a more even split between DEX and STR, so that you will hit more often. That huge +STR composite longbow is pretty spiffy, but it still sucks if you miss your target.

Fighter archers are the strongest overall for even, sustained damage. Paladins and Rangers are situationally very strong, but cannot put down consistent, sustained damage across a variety of enemies and/or during a long day of combats.

Rangers and Zen Archers have much more versatile skills, especially out of combat. Paladins are incredibly durable and offer some more healing options (especially out of combat with wands, etc).

If you decide on fighter, I would recommend taking a long look at the Weapon Master archetype: you lose Armor training (you'll probably be wearing a chain shirt anyway), but gain weapon training sooner and get some strong options to with rerolls and crits -- plus the bonuses to CMD Vs disarm/sunder help fill a major weakness for archers.

A monk focusing on damage can get Dragon Style, Tiger Style and Tiger Pounce very quickly, but you have to have good DEX to pull off the TWF feat tree if you want to emulate Flurry, which can spread you pretty thin, MAD/stat wise.

As a side note, I've found that Master of Many Styles makes an amazing 2-level dip for 2H fighters, picking up a ton of skills, feats, class abilities and save bonuses that help round out the fighter extremely well.

Technically, you cannot combine Flowing Monk with Master of Many Styles, since they both modify your bonus feats.

Cool list of monk archetype combos:

Clicky Link