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Hey All, while I love pathfinder, to give my players something new I was thinking of pulling some ideas from D&D 5e specifically when it comes to high level baddies. The things I wanted to start using were things like

Legendary Actions (a list of attacks or abilities that a powerful enemy can use on the players turns with. Each action has its own point cost and a baddie has so many points to use between their turns) Since my guys are getting high level I figure this is a way to make single bosses cool again without adding in a host of minions while letting a baddie not just be pounded on by the 6 of their turns and all the attacks and abilities that implies.

Legendary Resistances (a set number of times per battle, where a baddie rolled a fail on a save, but through their own power can declare that they saved) I am less sold on this as most creature saves in pathfinder are much higher. The only reason that I still considering this is that I did have the experience of rolling the 1 vs a feeblemind spell cast on an ancient green dragon, taking it from an awesome encounter to here is a bag of hit points to wail on until it is dead, but at the same time my guys felt awesome. I figure if I did this then it would need to replace spell resistance.

Lair Actions (Makes it more of a threat to attack a big bad in their home base. And again adds more to the action economy of a big bad to the mix. The place seeped in their power gets a turn and different environmental effects occur)

So here is my question is this. As I am not a numbers person does anyone have experience with this and what kind of adjustment in power level it would create? I don't want to make it an outright death to players, and because I want to award appropriate experience points. Usually I can do well with the experience point budget system, just want to add something new.

Also, Undetectable Alignment in a Cleric Spell and can thus be done by an Oracle out of their own resources rather than necessitating help (an invaluable distinction if one is undercover).

This is definitely spell wise the way to go. I think I have decent plans for how to rules wise give the best chance for accomplishing what I want.

Any ideas on putting in sly hooks that after her betrayal will make it appear as, well of course she was always going to betray us, but in the moment will likely be acceptable.

Ok since I have not played in PFS maybe I am off, but I thought that arcane caster's could use one handed items in their casting as a focus. Ala use a dagger as an athame to focus your spells. I mean if a wizard can choose it as a bonded item for then I would assume that a sorcerer can cast with one in hand. Also are you sure you want to go the metamagic route? As a sorcerer that pulls your casting time out to a full round action.

Random but possible alternative. Dip into fire kinetecist for 3 levels, you get elemental overflow and can set use an all day ability to accept burn in the morning and be an object on fire.

Or Feats

1. Familiar Bond

2. Improved Familiar (Choose a fire elemental or a fire wysp)

Personally I have gone the route of rewarding things with the advantage system of DnD (roll twice take the higher result). Disadvantage is roll twice take the lower, if you want to penalize something like a monster's saving through. I find that this can be done faster than arbitrary bonuses. Though in combat I usually award great roll play with cool points (1 point = 25 X Level XP).

Whether advantage or bonuses though I would let your players know that role playing in combat may award bonuses for originality and immersion, and give them examples for the benefits of bonuses that can be awarded or advantage given, but don't be limited by it. I would not do it every time, but when a person is very creative, uses the environment well, or artistically (for that player) then they get the bonus. I would not award it if it is a repeat unless it is some how the exact same circumstance.

Ex: Cleric channels energy to heal the party and prays, "Our Lady of light restore us with your grace that we may overcome this darkness."

GM: You feel the warmth of your goddess heading your prayer, reroll any ones on your heal die.

Fighter: I slash toward my enemy with the moon glinting off my blade.

Also if you want them to do it, then you need to do it for the enemies blows too.

Go to D20PFSRD.com

On the top right side of the home page is a block for the beastiary. One option is monsters by type. From there you can see a list of all official Pathfinder Undead creatures.

Also under the beastiary block is a tab for monster templates. These are unfortunately not sorted by type.

One of the Templates that I like is the Penanggalen. It is an alternative the the Lich and vampire templates. It is usually added to a female caster NPC through a rite similar to a lich's and the great part is that during the day she can walk around seemingly normal, not even detectable as undead. When she feeds her head and entrails detach from her body and fly around on their own to fill up with blood. Personally I think this image is horrifying enough to set her apart and give some players that terror momemt. Also if she drains the life out of a strong enough female caster they will rise within a few nights as another undead under the penanggalen's power. Lastly I like it as it is not something most players have encountered before.

Mechanics:

Story:

Mechanics
1. Check she is an Oracle (Charisma caster) and she is going to have several feats dedicated to bluffing well.

2. Yeah I figure on having 5 or so rolls written down for her bluff at any given time.

3. I believe not, and doesn't need to prepare.

4. Not especially but there is an arcanist and an oracle in the party, so they could potentially learn detect evil. Hmm need to look up if those spells are ones she can learn.

Story

1. I wasn't going to beat her up because she will have access to healing magic. This is also how I was going to explain that the sacrifice the party will walk in on will have her tongue freshly mutilated, while the villain will have hers still deformed, but apparently healed. (Real reason, sacrifice was freshly mutilated, while the villain's was done as a child so she could pronounce Cthuluesq text.)

2. I was going to have her cry about the girl being sacrificed on the alter. Possibly even claim it was her sister. I was thinking of this initially being an escape plan, but then villain realizes she can use them to get her will done. Possibly giving them magic items that dedicate their kills to releasing her gods. Dedicating the "final battle field" to her gods so that the death toll their releases them.

3. I was thinking that she will find them later. She might present it as clearing out other dens of evil or vengeance for her imprisonment. She will give apparent aid, but as above this works toward her ends.

4. Long game indeed. She will fight along side them. I plan on her working to dedicate their kills to releasing her gods, so even slaughtering her own cult members will be in line with that goal.

5. Good thought. Maybe in the cult she is known by a title or moniker. "The Mistress" maybe, also on the same line a mask she wore during cult rites might be appropriate.

6. Duping them into releasing her gods.

Don't worry about ruining your friends' fun. As long as people aren't focused to the point where they compete to outshine in the same area you're fine. If you play your summoner, yes a cleric can also summon, but you will be better at it. It will be your moment to shine, though he can support you if you need it.

Full Casters are about bringing different options to the table. If you want to be the one to out think situations play a wizard. With a little prep a wizard can answer almost any situation.

Summoner it going to let you counter being outnumbered to an extent. Depending on your build it could be about your versatility in a fight. I have seen some summoners, who for the most part ignore their eidolon and would summon the exact right creature to overcome resistances and the like.

Sorcerers get a few cool side powers and some spells that they can fling around multiple times. Easier to manage than a wizard, though a wizard with pearls of power can achieve the same excess of spells.

Play what sounds fun. You'll have the character for a while. I am of the opinion that there are no bad party combos, it may just take more creativity to overcome obstacles for some parties than others.

Wise spell usage is key, though like everyone said, at higher levels not so much a problem. If you play an arcanist you can get an some extra exploits. Also you can focus your gold expenditure on pearl's of power.

If all you really want it to continuously blast things and do it all day long, be a kineticist. It's not arcane, but it is fun.

While it's not ideal you could take Leadership at 11th level and get a Dragonkin (Beastiary 5) as a cohort. They aren't quite as epic as a normal dragon, but you can fly on it.

Or ask your GM for a quest to find one. It literally is described as bonding with a rider. If you're starting at first level I would talk with the GM about letting you have the egg to start with and it only maturing when you reach a certain level. Size, abilities, and attacks could be toned down appropriately to make it workable if they are willing.

I prefer theme, so I would look at what is the legend of the place and who built it. You say they have heard of the dungeon before. What was the story, don't be bound by it, but it should give the flavor of what to expect.

Religious order good or evil, well someone likely placed a Forbiddance spells over the whole enclosure, can't have those pesky mage's popping in and out meddling with their religious relics. This shuts down planar travel including etherealness and teleportation.

If it's a wizard he knows how other magic users think. Maybe he has incorporeal guardians bound to that spot in the ethereal plane. Maybe he has a Ghost siphon that can shift anything ethereal to a certain location in the tunnel.

Teleportation traps are also a thing. Go to d20pfsrd.com and look them up. Similar to the ghost siphon I described Maybe the wizard would have a ghost siphon and a teleportation trap over the whole area. Using one spell will shift you to one room and using the other will shift you to the other room.

Add a Guards and Wards spell for fog and confusion effects with narrow hallways that don't follow a grid, but move up and down or loop back on themselves.

If someone royal built the dungeon, why? If to protect something they may well have payed for all of the above and more. High Level Spell casters with time, money, and access to permanecy spells can seal up most areas pretty well.

You could also have the dungeon's entrance cross into a demiplane or 3. That will limit the effects of the above spells especially if the transitions are in an area of Fog from those guards and wards spells. Then attempts to go around will lead to confusion and if some characters follow the normal path then

Maybe the item they seek is easy enough to get to but if it's an artifact maybe it can only be removed from its resting place if certain trials are passed. Avoiding the trials allows the magic item to transport back to its resting place.

Also if you do any of the above, remember to give your players places to shine. If they can pass some skill test or disarm some traps on the way great, they'll feel like their patience in building these characters is paying off.

Lastly remember anything they can do, so can the villains. Why not a teleporting wise cracking guardian who holds the magic item and keeps popping around the dungeon taunting the party.

I'm going for chaotic neutral.

I didn't know there was a "necromancer" language. Thanks for the advices.
I was thinking about studying from the Alabaster Academy in Cheliax. They don't seem to be against diabolism, so I guess necromancy for medicinal knowledge might be acceptable too? Does that make sense?

Technically it is the language of the undead, but to my mind Necromancers would learn it to give orders and tend to assume others won't learn it so what better way to protect their texts. If your using a standard Pathfinder setting some of the ancient half forgotten languages of Thassilonian and Azlanti could also work. There are campaign specific traits to learn each of the languages (Rise of the Rune Lords and Emerald Spire for reference), but I wouldn't be surprised if your GM made you go on an adventure to learn them since they belong to empires that fell 10,000 years before the adventures in the paizo mods started. Starting at the Academy though may give your GM enough reason to allow knowing one for a trait.

I thought Aboleth was a language. Hmm Aklo is good though anyway as the language of dark fey.

Arcanist with the School Savant archetype. Divination as the school of choice. This gives you that nice bump to initiative and prevents surprises. Also divination is most likely to remember to stop others from divining them.

Exploits:

Dimensional Slide - to keep you from being pinned Down

Counter Spell - Game changer since you don't have to prep dispel magic all the time or waste your turn with it as a trigger action to counterspell

Spell Disruption - take apart your enemies magical defenses

Obfuscated Spell Casting - in case they also enjoy counterspelling

Spell Resistance - self-explanatory

Greater Exploits:

Counter Drain - Recharge your arcane reservoir when you counter spell

Dimensional Seal - Keep others from teleporting away from you and your allies

Greater Counter Spell - Easier to counter others

Greater Spell Resistence - higher SR

Greater Spell Disruption - Easier to dispel effects

Resistance Drain - recharge arcane reservoir

Siphon Spell - recharge arcane reservoir

With the archetype this will take 5 feats

Also I forgot there is a Witch Hunter Archetype for Inquisitors

This would take a discussion with your GM, but what a Bladebound Magus, with a black blade focused on evil wizards, could easily tie in with "chosen one" archetype.

Other Class alternatives to consider

Fighter with the Disruptive and Spell Breaker Feat chain (Gear up with anti Magic Items) To my mind the easiest

Barbarian with Superstitious Rage, Eater of Magic Rage Power, Disruptive Rage, Spell Breaker Rage, Witch Hunter, Spell Sunder. This wouldn't work so much as a "Paladin," but could be a fun story with a kid who saw a mage destroy his village and pledges to destroy him. Fun for character though to my mind Superstitious as a rage power is a bear to play with.

Inquisitor with the Magic Domain, you get dispelling touch and dispel Magic as domain spells. Judgement and Banes can be used to wreck a single enemy and Inquisitors aren't seen that often.

Slayer (there is even the Church centered Deliverer archetype to make it more Paladin like)

Mesmerist with the Sapped Magic Bold Stare and Spell Anticipation Masterful Tricks.

Also with it's area dispel magic ability if this person is culturally a Paladin, will your GM allow you to wield a Holy Avenger and count as one. I can't even say that I would, but it is good to ask.

Usually ancient texts come in Draconic, Celestial, Abyssal, or Infernal. How moral or ambiguous is your character. With the 3 divine languages that is going to have an impact as to where you are willing to look for sources. Given necromancer's interest in anatomy, Necril could be a good add.

If you really want to add a twist on this, what if this high priestess villain of yours actually considers the PCs to be her friends? As in, even if she's manipulating them to her own ends, she genuinely and likes them and would let them in on what she's trying to do if she wasn't sure that they'd probably object to her plans?

If you go with this idea, then some discussions she has with PCs on the nature of forgiveness and if people who disagree with each other can still be friends could be some foreshadowing.

Nice I like that, so when she is doing the summoning at the end it would be victorious, but add some tears like Moses after the last plague in the price of Egypt. I think I would have her grow into that idea of friendship though. Adds some nice flavor to her character.

I'm a big fan of the rule of 3. The first they will miss, the second they will misinterpret, and the last might make them suspicious. They should be in the details. Dismiss able as quirks but still notable enough to possibly be remembered. I would make her very likable as a person so look into likable character traits and add a bit of depth and she should be ok in the friendship department. Also to add impact make her similiar in thinking to one of the PCs, perhaps allowing them to grow even more close while building narrative tension and creating a nice foil. If they suspect her you can have her frame a fake villain, preferably someone who stands in her way anyway. They will probably still suspect her even if they get no more reason to but it can establish things as closer to your original narrative.

I like the idea, though how far apart would you space the 3? I am planning on this being a long running campaign, so real time this may take a year to 3. So if it appears that it is going on the 3 year line, would I introduce on thing a year? And what sorts of things would you use? I definitely plan on her helping them to clear out centers of worship for her deities, something along the idea of being able to dedicate those deaths to the summoning.

Ouch! Good luck! Your players may attempt bodily harm if you do it right.

This is the exact feelings I am hoping for.

This all depends on how your players think. Make sure your plot is flexible enough to cope with them working it out much earlier than you want (and much later than you expect)

Yes I have alternates for how the play will go if they figure it out early. If she is able to get away then she will just become a more typical villain, my least favorite alternative. If she is not then her death might just become the key that is needed to unleash Cthulu, something like a willing sacrifice by a righteous hand or something like that. If they are too late well when she starts chanting and then rejoicing at Cthulu showing up that should give things away and if they think it's a mistake and try to rescue her well that just gives me fun opportunities for the narrative.

My question though is more a brainstorming effort of ideas for possible ways to slip in hints at her evil nature, but not enough that players are likely to guess a head of time. I agree that I need to know how my players think over all and I may nix certain ideas as I know it wouldn't work with them. But there are six of them and 1 of me, so wanted to generate ideas that might be useful to sprinkle in. Any ideas I could use?

****Spoiler Warning American Gods Book*****

Hey all, so continuing to flesh out a campaign I am working on. I have a core villain that I want to introduce early, but remain close and helpful to the party. In part I am basing this villain off of a friends character in a game I played in and partly off of Odin in American Gods. I was thinking that they will "rescue" this Oracle of the Dark Tapestry in a tower top from some Cthulhu styled minions. Another girl currently sacrificed on the altar and this girl in a cage. I want her to in secret be the high priestess of the cult. I planned to give her the feat where her tongue was altered to pronounce things in alien languages. I though I could somewhat cover this by having the sacrifice's tongue also be altered, though the sacrifices's would be raw and bleeding. My character would be attempting to help the party along the way to go with them to the "final battle" so she could claim the blood spilled as a sacrifice and use energy to raise an elder god.

What I am looking for though is seeds to plant throughout the campaign. Things so that even though she is helpful to them and I want them to consider her a friend, that when she betrays them the disparate clues make it seem like, "how did we not see this coming?"

You don't have to build the whole world at once. Leaving white space outside the area filled with the identified cultures (until the party gets close to the edge) is totally OK.

If you have a friend who's good with maps and whose taste you trust then outsourcing a map or two works too.

Your Japan-analogue might want to be off the edge or otherwise partly separated from the existing cultures due to the differences though. Perhaps there's a barrier of magically-rough seas between their islands and the 'West'. Or perhaps they're newly arrived; Japanese colonising some land from far away could work.

Given what I had originally planned the Japan analogue would be where Japan is. The player specifically wants his parents to have been explorers. He's leaving it up to me why they left their homeland. His personal experience though was to have been born around when they reached the viking analogue and moving to the current island. I guess I am just worried that if I don't limit things, then it could get out of control. I know a decent enough about the Celtic cultures and the Roman influence to work through things. Past that though I wonder if I could do it justice.

Ok so I am homebrewing for the first time. I started working on everything a while ago, but our current campaign is taking a while. The good part is that this is letting me flesh out the world I am making more. Anyway, I am rubbish at maps, so I had planned on using real world maps as a base line. I enjoy my Scottish heritage a lot so the campaign has a Celtic theme. I had started with including an amalgamation of real world places, old myths, and my own story elements. I had developed a viking analogue as they will frequently be interacting with the players. And an invading empire that has taken over part of the islands (essentially a Roman analogue).

Seeing the real world cultural aspects, I have a player who is playing a Kitsune and wants to ancestrally be of a Japanese analogue. I have no problem with that, my question though is more of a practical one for GM's who have prepped worlds before. Since I have opened this door of real world places and cultures, should I work at being ready for players to potentially visit anywhere reasonable. To give real world flare to the places I am making I am actually looking up some of those places and legends to include. Then I am letting those flavor what I put there of my own story elements. On the other hand a part of me is now wondering if it wouldn't just be easier to have a friend map out a completely new world and populate it with the few cultures already identified, rather than attempting to summarize a cultures when it looks like my players will interact with it.

Flavor wise your idea sounds fine.

I would nail down the mechanics a little harder, with each of their tomes providing a +2 (most likely) bonus to a (different) craft, knowledge or profession skill as appropriate. This makes them the equivalent of a masterwork tool. If you want them to be cooler than just a masterwork tool you could (a) have them provide insight instead of circumstance as the bonus type, so they would stack or (b) make the bonus higher.

One other advantage to this is that you can, should you wish, alter the flavor of some of the items to be something other then tomes, the Unicorn Oracle could have a carved gemstone flower handed down from her ancestors that whispers secrets of fighting evil outsiders to her (i.e. +2 knowledge: planes). You could still create specific 'pages' for each player/character as you desired of specific flavor things for your world that might or might not impact the game (The tale of the herd battle against the evil Balor)

Hmm I will consider the mechanics, but I had originally seen these as more character pieces that might come in handy for in-world situations not as a stat bonus, but for knowledge / personal significance. The Arcanist, for example, is going to play an archetype to focus on the divination school. I figured his book, at least at first, may only have directions on how to read a harrowing. If he performs a harrowing when it is a story moment, then I will actually place the cards out as the character feels something like, "Though you have played the cards many times, now it feels as though hands not your own embrace yours as you shuffle the deck and begin to lay them out." The guy will then get a real in game divination, if he can read it right according to what is in his book.

The Slayer on the other hand may have different poisons, the ingredients, and their best use. Maybe a spider's venom will work quicker in the blood and best used for blades. A specific serpent's venom might seem to cause a person to become ill over several days before dying if ingested allowing a clean get away. He can use the knowledge to plan his attempt not as a random bonus, but for strategy.

The Druid will have a druidic script he can therefore read. The former occultist now shaman wants quests related to learning the true names of spirits, so he may have some in his book to get him started. Maybe there will be a riddle written in druidic, but referencing several of these names. These 2 would together have the knowledge to solve the riddle.

That's the kind of things I have been thinking instead of stat bonuses. For the Oracle and the Kinetecist though especially I do like giving it some other form.

...alternatively, you could have whatever deity the paladin follows tell the character off-screen or via spoiler that they are desperately needed in the fight against EVIL somewhere else, and at the next remotely convenient point (such as a town) they part ways with the party.

No 'Paladin Falls' angst, none of the other baggage mentioned above, a nice, seamless removal of the character to fit the on-going narrative.

The other plus side to this is if the player ever comes back with resolution of whatever issues caused that to happen, they can worked back in without the mental gymnastics of trying to undo a big screw-over job.

Added Bonus you now have an NPC friendly with your PCs who could contact them with quests that the temple needs accomplished and would be willing to pay for or could be a reoccurring ally if you allow NPC tag alongs. Not someone regularly with the party. They might even meet up with the paladin while in some dungeon and find out that he is leading a group from the temple on a similar or unrelated mission. Maybe the big bad is a wizard who has created a simulacrum and they don't know which to fight and both must be stopped before (insert dastardly evil here). The Paladin and his crew go off and end up fighting the simulacrum. PCs get the real deal. It can make the world feel bigger and more complex.

Ok working out some starting details of the world for a campaign I am hombrewing for the 1st time. This world is going to have a high celtic theme to it. Druids are therefore going to be fairly dominant in society. My plan was to have there be different druid circles within a grove to add Rangers, Shaman, Hunters, and maybe the new Shifter class in with standard Druids and socially count as Druids. The Shaman would be the Voice of the Spirits, Rangers the Eye of the Hunt, Hunters the Brothers of the Wild, Druids the Soul of the Land, and maybe Shifters will be the Fang of the Beast. Anyway while I intend for class Druids to be in effect the central circle or high priest as they somewhat encompass all the other duties. Still working all this out, but my questions is should I have the other classes also have druidic given to them as a language. On the one hand I am not sure it makes sense to deny it if I am making them culturally one body. On the other hand in game I had intended to give the guy who wants to play a Druid Ohgam Script key and have things written in "druidic" around the world. I now also have someone who wants to play a Shaman. I am now stuck with which is better give them a shared language and not have that be something unique for the druid, or is there a viable reason druidic is just for class druids.

The forum ate my last post...okay anyway I love your last option, also maybe give your oracle a list of prophecies and your kineticist innate knowledge of his elements or something, it was longer but I don't remember my post in its entirety

Ok for a knowledge base that work I also guess I can piggy back on the mentors of 2 other characters since the kineticist is a non human following the druid around like a companion and the oracle is going to be a unicorn following the Arcanist around, so I could have their mentors give the kinetecist and oracle their tomes.

Your basic idea and approach sounds great; I'm a little confused about what your question/problem is.

Regarding the Occultist: As you probably know, an Occultist's powers are dictated by their chosen Implements, each of which are of a magical school, and each school has different kinds of items that can be Implements for that school - a book is only appropriate for divination, for example - so for the Occultist, you should find out what schools of Implement the player's chosen for his starting two, and get him a prop that matches one of those.

I think I am going with the binder to add stuff later. Mostly my question was around what kind of game seemed more fun. I originally came up with the book idea for the Arcanist as something cool for his character. I am worried that giving everyone a similar tome would ruin the interest factor because then it's ok I have a book but everyone has a book so nothing cool. So would it would be better to have the Arcanist get a book and come up with something different for each character. Or is it enough that the contexts would cover different areas and so each person get their own area of expertise.

The book wouldn't need to be a focus for the occultist, if that is what he ends up playing. It would be a prop with in world knowledge of some kind that may end up useful to the character. If he does play an occultist he then I guess he could use it as a focus if he does divination since it would be an item pf personal significance from his mentor.

OK GMing question. I am working out a campaign where the players are starting of as early teens in a small town. The first few levels will occur over the years. Those playing "educated" classes are going to have mentors. This includes a Druid, an Arcanist, and either a Magus or an Occultist. There is also an Oracle, a Kineticist, and a Slayer.

Anyway I had the idea of the Arcanist receiving a book from his mentor. This could include arcane knowledge. Potentially things like how ley lines work or how to read a harrowing. That may or may not become useful in the campaign. Now I had 3 thoughts. Originally thought it might be cool to age up some paper with tea and make the whole booklet right from the start. This i thought woukd give it that I have a prop that "belongs in this world" feeling. I also had the idea of making a binder so the book can have "a spell on it that only allows him to see the pages when he is ready for them." That way I could add more later. Then I also thought what if each character had some source of knowledge that could be used later. If the one guy plays an Occultist he might have half translated lists of words from an ancient language he gets from his parents. The Druid might have a lexicon for reading Druidic and stories around places of power. The slayer may even know the ingredients for natural poisons.

I like the last option best, but not sure how to give something similar to the Kineticist and Oracle. Also does this make it seem boring and all the same if everyone or nearly everyone has some knowledge base like this? The benefit I saw was down the road I could slip in puzzles like having a password to enter a tomb be an ancient word written in Druid and then players have the info to work it out from the beginning making their backstory and mentor important.

Well, editing would help if you want feedback.

When writing an archetype, you get to assume that everything works as normal except for the stated changes. That saves text.

Edited Version wrote:

Class Skills – A Wild Heart gains Diplomacy as a class skill instead of Ride. This is a minor upgrade - Diplomacy is better than Ride.

Shapeshifter's Empathy – In addition to the usual ability to communicate with animals, a Wild Heart gains a greater understanding intelligent beings by taking their forms. The Wild Heart adds half of their level to interactions with intelligent beings of a species whose form they have already taken. This ability modifies Wild Empathy. First: creatures whose form they have taken ever, or creatures whose form they are currently using? I suggest the latter as the former requires a lot of bookeeping. Second: clarify "interactions." Social skills? Stealth? Attack rolls? I expect you intend social skills but it needs to be clear. Third: I recommend allowing the Wild Heart to use normal Wild Empathy only when taking the form of an animal, to balance this out.

Bondless – the Wild Heart does not receive the Nature Bond ability.

Wild Shape A Wild Heart druid gains the Wild shape ability at level 2, and gains an additional use of wild shape every 2 levels (maximum 9 at level 18). Skip the monkeyfish thing as it is weird and confusing. Let the druid use Wild Shape to add claws, or a bite, or a swim or climb speed. See the totem shaman ability.

In addition, a Wild Heart can use Wild Shape to take the form of a wider variety of creatures. A Wild Heart must spend 2 uses of Wild Shape to take the form of an intelligent being. Does this include elementals and intelligent plant creatures, but not vermin, or do you just want it to apply to the new forms? The alignment

...

Thanks for the tips. Like I said, first time doing this.

Depends on if you are doing a homebrew or playing in Gorlarion, where most of the Paizo mods are set. The Inner Sea Primer has a decent listing of cultures for the world and therefore attendant languages for each region. It elevates the role of spells like comprehend languages and tongues, but may restrict interactions with much of the party as those with the skill points for linguistics will be the only ones who can interact outside their home region. Consider other ways to draw them in. If you are homebrewing feel free to do your own. I am in a campaign I am putting together for my group.

Never read any first or second edition, so nope. This is just how I think.

Possibly thinking of adding beast / plant speech as an ability when Wildshaped into that form, but not sure what to trade out for that.

Thoughts, balance issues, any means for improving?

Hey all,so I have never tried this before, but I kind of wanted an archetype mimicing the idea of master of many forms from older D&D ideas. I have seen a few other archetypes on here doing something similar, but I didn't want to give up spell casting for the capability, so I looked to limit the more extraordinary wildshapes in another way. Looking to potentially use this in an upcoming campaign in about a year or so.

Wild Heart
A Wild Heart is an ancient path of druids who saw their role as emissaries between their tribes and the beings of the greater world. While most druids divide their focus between their bonds to external aspects of nature and to mimicking that varied nature in themselves, a Wild Heart druid is drawn solely to showing nature’s power and majesty through their own bodies. These druids often feel more comfortable interacting with non-humanoids even more so than other druids and so they were often the representative from their tribe or grove to other intelligent races.
Archetype advances as Druid with 4 exceptions.
1. Class Skills – Wild Hearts prefer where possible to take the form of the beings that they interact with which often precludes riding and often will need to interact with other intelligent races as they make pacts and treaties. They therefore lose Ride as a class skill and gain Diplomacy.
2. Wild Empathy – in addition to the typical use, a Wild Heart, through a greater understanding of the beings with whom they are interacting may add half of their level to interactions with intelligent beings, whose form they have already taken. This is specific by species and so taking the form of a silver dragon for instance will not help a Wild Heart to understand brass dragons or any other similar form, but turning in to a medium silver dragon will grant the bonus when interacting with an ancient silver dragon.
3. Nature’s Bond – as the Druid expresses their bond to nature through their Wild shape feature they do not gain any other benefits. They do not gain a companion or a domain and this archetype is considered mutually exclusive with any other archetype that affects Nature’s Bond.
4. Wild shape – Except where noted a Wild Heart’s use of Wild shape functions as any other druid, including the restriction on being familiar with the creature they are changing into. When Wild shape is used to take the form of an intelligent being (Monstrous Humanoids, Magical Beasts, Giants, and Dragons) at least 2 uses of Wild shape are utilized instead of 1. An additional use of Wild shape is utilized for each step a druid’s alignment differs from the typical representative of the race on the druid’s non-neutral alignment axis. (i.e. a lawful neutral druid would only use up 2 uses of Wild Shape to turn into a gold dragon as they are typically lawful good or a blue dragon as they are typically lawful evil, but would have to use 4 uses to turn into a brass dragon as they are typically chaotic good or a red dragon at they are typically chaotic evil. 2 uses for being a dragon and 2 uses for the 2 steps from lawful to chaotic.)
a. Level 2 - A Wild Heart druid is considered to gain the Wild shape ability at level 2. They cannot at this time take any specific forms and can only use their hours of Wild shape as the spell Monkeyfish, with the exception that armor will not prevent its use. Medium and even heavy armor that the druid may wear without violating their prohibition will bind itself to the druid’s form for the duration of the Wild shape, nearly like an exoskeleton. This means that the druid may not remove their armor for the duration of this use of Wild shape, but does not offer any other benefit or restriction. Medium and Heavy loads apart from armor still prevent effective use of the climb and swim speeds granted. Loads may be put down at any time throughout the duration of this Wild shape to utilize its effects. While this ability does not yet allow the transformation to other shapes, it does qualify a character for any feats that have Wild shape as a prerequisite though not any additional prerequisites such as level. This additional use of Wild shape is also added to the druids total with the expected additional use added every 2 levels. (a total of 9 uses at 18th level)
b. Level 4 – The Druid is now able to use Wild shape to take the forms of Small / Medium animals, as well as Small / Medium vermin. Wild shape may now function as Beast Shape I and Vermin Shape I.
c. Level 6 – The druid now adds Tiny / Large animals, Tiny / Large Vermin, and Small elementals. Wild Shape may now function as Beast Shape II, Vermin Shape II, and Elemental Body I.
d. Level 8 – The druid now adds Diminutive / Huge animals, Small / Medium magical Beasts, Medium elementals, Small plant creatures to their list of Wild Shape forms. Wild shape may now functions as Beast Shape III, Elemental Body II, Plant Shape I,
e. Level 10 – The druid now adds Tiny / Large Magical Beasts, Large Elementals, Large Plant Creatures, and Small / Medium Monstrous Humanoids to their Wild shape forms. Wild shape may now functions as Beast Shape IV, Elemental Body III, Plant Shape II, and Monstrous Physique I.
f. Level 12 – The druid now adds Huge Elementals, Huge Plant Creatures, Tiny / Large Monstrous Humanoids, and Medium Dragons to their Wild shape forms. Wild shape now can function as Elemental Body IV, Plant Shape III, Monstrous Physique I, and Form of the Dragon I
g. Level 14 – The Druid now adds Diminutive / Huge Monstrous Humanoids, Large Dragons, and Large Giants to the Wild shape forms. Wild shape now adds Monstrous Physique III, Form of the Dragon II, and Giant Form I.
h. Level 16 – The Druid now adds Huge Dragons and Huge Giants to the Wild shape forms. Wild shape now functions as Monstrous Physique IV, Form of the Dragon III, and Giant Form II.
i. Level 18 – The druid is now capable of utilizing their A Thousand Faces ability when Wild shaping. This allows them to impersonate a specific being whose species form they can assume through the use of Wild shape (i.e. a specific dog’s form could be taken, but not that of a specific great wyrm golden dragon as they are colossal, which prevents Wildshape from being able to be utilized to transform into them).

I can't speak too much to the experience part of the this since my new games is only one session in. I am also the unusual person here in that I am starting with Fire. I plan on then taking air at 7. If my group meets devils then yes I will suck for that encounter, but is that really any different than most classes. Wizards and Sorcerers aren't fans of running into golems, Fighters aren't itching for tons of fights with Ghosts, and the last Pathfinder Game I was in we had a Dark Tapestry Oracle. All of our fights started with her asking, "Does it have a brain?" When the answer was no she grabber her scythe and hacked at it, which resulted in little overall damage. When it did she usually had it crazy and begging for it's mom within a few rounds. Plus that character was loads of fun to have in the party and role play off of. I am honestly confused by the hate for the class on the this thread. Is it a class for that everyone will want to play, no; but honestly I would never want to play a fighter. Not because it is a bad class just because I wouldn't personally be interested. I am glad that Paizo is trying an alternate spell caster. Personally I think this a good attempt to capture the idea of a person with an innate control of an element who has to balance how tired it will make them. I think the utilities are fun and fully look forward to lvl 10 when I can Fly over the battle field unlikely to be hit by most typical ranged attacks raining destruction on my enemies.

It was the first Google result for me.

It's also a complex and strangely designed feat.

It's a similar feat for Druids, Rangers, and the like. The primary difference is that any magical beast technically can be chosen and there is not a mastery version with upgraded abilities.

Thanks for all the help. CraziFuzzy, I think the interpretation of the RAW makes the most sense. So if the player in my game does want to awaken his wolf I will look at his starting stats and compare to the list to gain an effective level. Since I am ball parking this I am thinking it would probably be around a 2 or 3 as it is large sized, but wouldn't have any spell like abilities like most of the upper level magic beasts on that list. Thoughts?

James Risner wrote:

Quote:

Sphinx, criophinx 13th

Sphinx, gynosphinx 14th

Both of those are greater than 12th level and therefore require more than 20 levels of Druid.

That part of it I did actually understand. The effective level bit determine whether or not a companion can then take class levels. It does not say that you are limited to a companion that can actually take those levels. So a person that takes the gynosphinx would have just that. It wouldn't be able to take any class levels unless you were playing an epic game.

Ok I haven't done much with PDF's in general. How do you extract the handouts?

So this may be a misunderstanding of how this feat works, but trying to figure this out. It seams that it should be possible using this feat to subsequently utilize it to awaken a companion, but then keep it as my companion. If I have understood this correctly though I need to figure out what the animal's effective level would be. In the first place how do I figure out the effective level for a normal animal that has been awakened? After that my subsequent question though is, would this effective level change depending on my level as that changes the animal's level, but it doesn't appear to change the effective level for the animals listed in the feat description. Asking this last as my GM believed that was the case in a game I was in, but in a game I am running a player is considering the same thing I was and I am less certain.

So since I have seen the Rise of the Rune Lords Anniversary Edition, is there any chance there will be a similar edition of Kingmaker since much of it is also out of print?

Hey all, so this may me a stupid question and it has likely been answered in one of the thousands of threads on this campaign, but after looking at a few pages I didn't see it. So here is my question. I bought the anniversary edition at Barnes and Noble originally. A few of my friends are starting to play. They have only played 3 sessions before and I want to make this campaign awesome. I saw in an off-site review that the PDF includes specific PDF's of the handouts, but when I looked on here it just listed the maps. While cool that was not enough for me to put out the money for the PDF. If the handouts are included too though as they are in the book so I won't have to take the time recreating blood spatters and seals that would be awesome. So in short does the PDF also include specific print outs of the handouts?

Hey all, thanks for the advice. I think I am going to go with the Kingmaker adventure path. I got the PDF for the first section and it looks like everything I was looking for.

Hi all, so here is the situation I work at a mental health facility for kids. I have been gaming for about 5 years, but I have never been the DM. Recently some of the kids where I work wanted to try gaming. I advocated for it and said that Pathfinder would be great due to the free content. The kids were given a beginner box and started trying to play twice on their own, but don't understand the rules enough to get through it. I want to lead a game,but since all the kids read the beginner adventure I don't want to do that one. I got a hold of rune lords, but with the issues the kids are facing I don't think an adventure with ritualistic murder is a good fit. So after all that can anyone think of an adventure path where the kids get to feel like heros, but the circumstances won't be triggers for past traumas?