Sereinái's page

I would suggest doing to another store and pick up some items to boost your disguise skill and show up at the storekeeps door as someone else. Since he has it out for you you should be able to argue that he should not have any problems making a deal with Bernard Flynnworth or whoever present yourself as, but considering what we've heard he'd just give the store owner a massive Perception bonus to see through the disguise.

Otherwise poisons are mundane items. Just saying

Should he live long enough to become used to undeath you can start re-introducing the joking and fun loving aspect and have him be sort of an honorary member of the Addams family

Be careful if you mix gothic and Lovecraftian themes. While neither is "in your face" about the type off horror they go for they have at least one thing that can be hard to mesh.

Lovecraftian things are often terrible in how beyond the reach of the mere fragile human mind they are while gothic terrors are the opposite, terrible in just how similar to us they really are.

Its not impossible to have both but it's worth keeping in mind.

Alter Self can seem really bland at first.

Then you find a humanoid race with bite and two claws such as Lizardfolk and it opens up some more combat viability. You can probably find someone with one of the vision types and/or scent as well.
Three 1d4 attacks per round for 1 minute per level is an OK threat at lower levels.
It also works for your familiar with Share spells

Will it be that much of a problem though?

Invisibility makes him harder to see, not ignored. Once combat starts the perception penalty the undead have is pretty much gone (+20 for "standing still" and -20 for combat).
He is invisible, not ignored and penalties still apply both from invisibility and the regular stealth rules.

Sneaking past them will not be to hard but pointless unless the Aasmiar can get past as well.

Using the Folding boat for inspiration I would have a vault or at least part of it, such as the strongbox room, fold itself up when not in use, no place to open portals or teleport into and should you try you'd be shunted into a nearby holding cell.

You could retrain Boon Companion into Horse Master and not worry about your mount falling behind even if you go deeper into a second class for more goodies

Could have A lie to the Paladins superiors that she is carrying his child in order to save him from the danger of falling that Xs Asmodean connections bring.

Edit: Since Good/Evil and Law/Chaos are separate, can a paladin have a lover or mistress? It might be non lawful but the opposite of that is chaos, not evil so the paladin might not fall.

Any way to get this going for bards? To rock out with their cocks out?

If your players complain about bloated AC they will complain about bloated hit points once they notice that being the only real change.
Most of your players seem to have focused on dealing damage. Simply giving your bosses a ton of HP invalidates their specializations when it matters the most.

If encounter duration is the only concern then take a cue from action movies.
Start with a firefight. Some minions with bows or similar blocking charge to the boss and firing on the party. Your boss fires once or twice or throws a few spells. Once the party is closing in on the boss it is time for the next part.
Now it's a car chase. Maybe your baddie has stolen the holy relic or kidnapped some royal and has them on a cart, boat, evil hot air balloon. Its easy to explain why another similar vehicle is nearby. Baddies hid their escape vehicle in plain sight where such are naturally or it was meant for the goons you killed during the firefight to escape in. Time for some more direct confrontation with the boss but still at a distance where the party is at a disadvantage since the lead can duck and blindly throw things in their direction if it gets to hairy while the pursuers need to expose themselves to have a clear shot. Since the boss is leading the way you can have him go past more henchmen that can jump on to attack the party if someone is left with nothing to do. Keep any effect the players land on the boss on him but direct the damage to the vehicle. It will result in either a crash into or an arrival at an awesome showdown location such as a large smelting facility, a garden maze etc.
Then you have a small tip toeing around as the party orients it self and pinpoints where the boss landed/is hiding and the last evil speech time before a classical showdown in a location filled with fun and dangerous items and terrain.
That sort of filler makes the encounter with the boss last longer without making the enemy silly in terms of health or AC. Your players didn't seem to be the sort who did massive CC, heavily focused melee rarely is so it opens up more interactions before the actual punching each other in the face part of the encounter

If you fear that they won't be able to keep up in the chase then overpower them during it and let them have some fun like this

Low light, Darkness or other concealments, Blur, Mirror Images etc. are alternatives to AC that don't penalize 3/4 BAB classes over full BAB classes. They also provide a variety of counters from having one player sacrifice one hand for a torch or lantern to dispelling or good old fashion "hack until only one is left"
Making a boss with or giving them Darkvision in some way should not be hard.

What I think you really want is more mobile bosses. The main martial killing tool is the Full Attack action. Make them force the boss into a position where they can use it. Mobility is a good feat for your bosses since it ups the AC when you move him out of their Full Attack range without making it harder to hit with the regular attacks.
Hit and run or run and cast. Focus on Standard action attacks like Vital Strike or Cleave if the boss looses to much threat from lacking multiple attacks.
Back out far enough that the minions coming up from behind him will be AoO threats if they are ignored.

Bludgeoner feat allows it for bludgeoning weapons.

Order of the Blue Rose Cavaliers can do it with any weapon and get a +2 to damage and seems to fit your group well overall. Make them Huntsmasters to ditch the horse and knightly feel and they look more like members of a hunting lodge, giving you a nice base for the group unless you already have one.

Monks, Brawlers and Order of the Hammer Cavaliers can all do it bare handed.

Pick whatever race is easiest to use as a base. Don't know if there are any good bases for half-giants so probably whatever the other parent is (or half elf is that one is an elf, it's close enough).

Then pick a suitable point build and spend about one third to get the stats of the five year old, another third at 10 and the full at 15. This means you can have good old uncle party member wizard be a bad influence and get the kid to want to be a spell caster while growing up and involve the entire party in the kids upbringing if you want to.

Er... How are you reading the scroll if you're blind?

One rank in Lingustics to get Braille.

Would not magical ways be allowed?
Get up close and personal with a character with the Stand Still feat. Not a guaranteed way but something to work with.

Can't think of any aside from taking one level of oracle for the curse and mystery and then have the curse scale up on half speed and pick up a few basic revelations via feats.

Versatile Performance. Fine at level 2 but do you really want to wait until 6, 10 or later to get a skill and not "waste" points?
I don't see any pair of them as a that I would want but not until mid or late game.

The Infiltrator Investigators Voice Mimicry ability seems so be the only non magical way to impersonate peoples voices that I can find. Until it came out it was just ask your GM how it works but now there are rules for it but only for this one archetype.

Obviously you want a trap door. Escape route, another way to throw things at pursuers (be it pouring alchemist fire or dropping delayed fireballs and maybe, just maybe you get to eject a bad guy mid ride.

Use up some of your hidden locations to store banners, colored ribbons and various items. One day you are a lavish carriage but the next day such a wagon is wanted for whatever reason and with some easy changes you are now Mr. Flentons Fantastical Travelling Knick-Knack-ery or simple travelers with a filthy wagon with (false) broken parts sticking out and mud allover (your wizard friend can swear later when you convince him to prestidigitate it off)

And never ever forget the most important alteration

Spinners

With Fox shape being on the list of wants I wonder how well it would work to go at least one level of Mouser Swashbuckler.
With the low damage on the bite one might need some rogue levels for some sneak attack as long as an ally is adjacent.

If you want your mounted character to have some CHA synergy you might go Nature Oracle and grab your mount as your first revelation maybe Natures whisper later on for CHA in place of DEX to AC and CMD.
Same armor as the Emissary while a little weaker in terms of health and BAB but you should be able to work around it.
Unless another divine caster would feel a bit to much. Still dippable

Now I want to encounter an old house in the middle of nowhere with an old couple living in it and taking care of just below a hundred abandoned familiars.

Have fun being stuck on guard duty the full night every night. Doubt the others will stay up just to keep you company. Not their fault you don't need to sleep

Don't worry about not being able to interact with the normal world. You lack a Strength score so you can't lift anything anymore anyway.

The "Tied to a single location" could be fixed by binding you to an item instead that the party gets to lug around

9 levels of Samurai lets you use the resolve ability to turn critical hits into regular ones. 5 times per day if you save it exclusively for Crit-countering.

Though not the easiest thing to work into an existing build

Not all that far fetched scenario:

Party enters a room with one or more traps in it.
An enemy is already inside the room waiting to ambush the party.
The party does not notice the ambush or the traps
The ambusher attacks and get to act in the surprise round (or at least before the player with Trap Sense)
The ambusher springs one of the traps and the party is in the area of effect of the trap.

Uncanny dodge is also not a guarantee for players with Trap Sense. Simply lacking the exp for level four or taking the minimum rogue levels for Arcane Trickster or any other multi class character would open up a lot of possibilities for having one but not the other

Does the regular "within 5 ft of you" definition of adjacent ever change?
Wondering since tiny and smaller creatures loose their threaten area due to size but do they also stop counting the space 5 ft around them as adjacent?

Mainly wondering because the Bodyguard feat and the Mouser deed Underfoot Assault.

Don't ye know the laws of the sea? It be bad luck to have womenfolk aboard.
Better rename yer ship the Miss Fortune and pray ye do not forget to leave the toilet seat up.
On the bright side there likely won't be as much barrel duty.

Only real downside it that you have to enter a room so it won't work when exiting a building. Breaking the door from down below and storming up on the ships deck or jumping out through a window down on the enemy bellow would be great uses for it that I'd personally allow but that sadly at least one GM I know of would not.

Don't bother with 3 int, there isn't any real compelling reason.

While probably sub-par I would love to have a horse that uses Dazzling Display on the turn after we charge into the fray. I'd be hard pressed not to name it Nightmare.

Tried a stalker? Someone who left the PC unfulfilled but decided to get a monopoly on him/her? Give the stalker enough resources to travel between any settlement the party goes to (following in their path should mean the road is clear for a while).
Start low and ramp up the creep level as time does on. Starting with sabotaging pick-up attempts and go on to looking in through the window while the PC goes to sleep/wakes up.
While the party is out hunting for bandits have your stalker sneak into camp and prepare food and sprinkle rose scented water on the victims sleeping bag. Have the stalker steal the victims blanket for a few days and return it with both of their initials embroidered inside a heart on one (or all) of the corners.

Give the stalker a some ranks in disguise so he/she can sabotage without being to obvious. Having different people "accidentally" spill their drink all over whoever the PC is trying to woo or shooting daggers from their eyes at the one being hit on and roll some perception or sense motive to clue the PC in on the disguised stalker seeming odd, familiar or reminding them of someone. With a bit of disguise and stealth you can have only the PC know about the stalker in character for a fair while which can lead to some fun situations especially if the other players decide that their characters don't think the stalker is real and only paranoia.

A stalker shouldn't make it impossible for the PC to sleep around, only a bit harder.

It's no use trying to nerf or balance houses.
Ever been to Vegas?

The house always wins

Only if you compare it to the summoner. When compared to other classes they are good.

Let's compare it to a class with the same level of spell progression. Bards. Same hit die, same BAB, fewer skill points per level but Int based so not a big deal, fewer class skills. Hmm not bad so far but it's here it falls down.

A summoner with a PC eidolon will miss out on using two abilities, the companion and the Summon Monster line (since using it will kick a player from play unless said players character is dead).
The summoner gets Life link, Bond senses, Shield ally, Makers call, Transposition, Aspect and Merge forms (I'll stop at 16th level as the AP is unlikely to go far above it).
A bard gets Bardic performances (Countersong, Inspire Courage, Distraction, Fascinate, Suggestion, Dirge of doom, Inspire greatness, Soothing performance, Frightening tune, Inspire Competence, Inspire heroics) Bardic knowledge, Versatile performance, Well versed, Lore master and Jack-of-all-trades.

One of the lists is a better deal. Yes it is a bit of apples to oranges but the summoner class is is very focused into the eidolon and summons. A summoner without it is about as strong as a wizard who looked at the bard table for spell progession. It can be a fun challenge but when looking at the idea of getting two players to share what is meant to be one players power we have two problems to deal with. Making it fun for the ones playing the duo and keeping their gimmick from making the game worse for the other players. Unless they get bumped up to what would be expected of two regular characters you risk having other players simply be annoyed at the two who can't pull their weight.

Biggest problem will be that they will have about half a character each in terms of power and mechanical possibilities.

It's a very interesting idea that can be a lot of fun but I think you'll need to to tank to them and get to know what the core is of their idea of it is and then work from that. How do they see the bond working? Is it a type of Faust/Mephistopheles sort of situation? Regular caster character and a slightly modified tiefling as a start and then trade away a few class features or insert penalties in exchange for the most important summoner like features needed (such as summoning the specific player once per day)
Keeping uncommon races actually uncommon and having almost exclusively core races around (I have not read Second Darkness but I suspect it to be that way or can be made so with few changes hopefully) can let you use them as strange. The Kitsune with its shapechange and tails feat lines would keep a bit of the physical upgrades an eidolon gets. In a world of only humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes and orcs it would seem otherworldly.
Downside would be that it would only work as a standing for bipedal summons but that's due to the system being balanced around humanoid PCs.

It really sounds more like an ability for an archetype than the base class.

First thing that comes to mind would be either Witch with Fortune and Misfortune hexes or a Dual-Cursed Oracle who gets a similar set of revelations with the same names.
Both classes I think have enough spells to theme the spelllist around luck (or bad luck) with a bit more buffing on the oracle side and a bit more debuffing on the witch side.

If you go witch I recommend the cat familiar to balance out your lucky halfling with a black cat

Going for Bludgeoner and Enforcer might be to much focus on the intimidation or at least a bit of overkill (is that overscare?) but could be fun for a short lived all-in type of build. Going for non-leathal also mechanically sets him apart from his brother in making him the "good" or at least batmanny (totally a word) brother.

Could you achieve the effect using Magic Jar?
It's not disguising oneself but might be good enough for your bad guy on the keeping him/herself from giving their identity away with some small Bluff assistance.

I'm about to start a Jade Regent campaign and have gotten my players characters. A barbarian, a magus, a witch and an alchemist. A fifth player has mentioned being interested but since he asked to join yesterday he hasn't had the time to make a character yet.
Of the four known players three don't have much need for weapon loot though. The magus is picking the black blade archetype so weapons will become less interesting as far as loot goes once he gets that if I understand the archetype, the alchemist is going for natural weapons with claws and a bite once he gets the feral discovery and will use regular claws out of mutagen time, the witch would have little use for them most of the time in regular play but is playing a white witch so he'll likely default to ray of frost as a default filler attack making them even less interesting.

So with a group where weapon use is the exception to the norm I feel I might want to replace some of the weapon loot with some other goodies. What sort of goodies would be good replacements for at least a few of the less important weapons?

I have heard opinions of fellow players that he didn't seem to care when I got his father commit suicide due to the paladin political decisions. Or when she paniced and sentenced her cousin who came to rescue her to die horribly eaten by gnolls.

I fear that seeing her mentor's journey into sin and finally confronting her won't have any impact on her character, just another day of doing the Lady's work.

For someone burning brightly with the light of Sarenrae she seems awfully cold.

Paladins can't worship Pharasma and get their paladin powers from her.

Have you considered Sarenrae? She HATES undead.

Is this a Pharasma specific thing or have I missed something?

For fragile mounts Mounted Combat is good feat assuming you have a little Ride skill and a feat to spare.

I'm just imagining a BBEG standing in an old hall and as the PCs enters he waves his staff and the Atlas styled statues wake up and start moving in on the heroes only to have the whole room collapse in on the baddies.

If your evil guy is using golems give him profession Architect so he doesn't mess with load bearing golems

A horse is probably the easiest animal to drag around in a city next to a dog. None of the problems of a druids wolf scarring children and pets.
It can't really go indoors but tying it up outside should not be to bad outside the shady part of town and even there your mount is capable of self defense. Get creative with the outdoors only restriction. Baddies try to escape through the back door won't expect a face full of angry horse hooves or a fully plated pony blocking the alleyway exit.

Hopefully your city adventure won't be limited to indoors and the severs below. You can take full advantage of your mount in other areas such as town squares, docks, parks, court yards etc.

Even if you can't ride indoors you can still bring the horse inside larger buildings. It's still a good flanking buddy and while not the most dangerous animal companion it's not bad.

Don't think Sleight of Hand or Lockpicking would get any bonuses. having more arms doesn't make you better at using them for fine movements.

Should have a bonus to Grapple though.

A shovel for any adventurer leaving a town. I don't like to wander to far from camp when nature calls and nobody appreciates the combined latrine/fire-pit.

Combat Patrol is the feat in question.

Since it doesn't have any stated rules for use while riding I want advice for a good set of houserules to pose to my GM.

I would pose that it works if the rider and the mount both posses the feat. With no mounted version of the feat that I can find I would call that a fair restriction. Enough or should there be an extra feat on top to make it more fair?

I would think the maximum distance should be based on the mount regardless of how far the rider has traveled. I would also say that once the mount cannot take another AoO it can't move and the rider is "stranded" and left with regular Attacks of Opportunities if there are any left.
I think that would follow the regular mounted rules the closest.

The tricky part is in the threatened area difference due to BAB and possibly reach weapons.
The mount and rider will end up with different threated areas.
Would the mount be able to move so the rider can strike when only the rider threatens?
Would the mount be able to move so the rider can strike if it stays within it's own Combat Patrol range even if it can't attack?
Moving within the mounts threatened area at least is something I hope to be able to though it might be stretching it without an extra feat cost or other restriction.

What restrictions and costs would make a good ruleset to pose to my GM and in case it still gets a no, what are the options for a similar effect; large area control/denial?

Rather than full BAB what about a Combat Style like the Ranger?
Otherwise consider that spells don't have to be purely combat power. What about something useful outside of battle such as bumping him to 4 + INT skill points and/or the ability to temporarily suppress the eidolon for 3 + lvl minutes per day to let him have some normal face to face interaction. With physical stats being less important due to the synthesism some face power might be good. People really shouldn't interact normally with the sort of creature he becomes when merged.

209. A loud boom can be heard from nearby and it would appear that a circus is is town, or perhaps leaving it, as a man and a woman are apparently "blasting off again" as they put it in their shout while flying off into the distance. And was that a cat with them?

Musica Cthulhiana
Lustmord

Soundtracks are often good as long as the players don't recognize them, they lot when they do sadly. With a little filtering of the most recognizable ones it often works out well. Silent Hill, Twin Peaks the Myst series offer a lot of variation when it comes to creepy background music

Imrijka, the iconic inquisitor might be something to base your next character on. Half-orcs are not really known for their sexiness and are somewhat monstrous while as a race being flexible enough for any class.

Or throw yourself out into really wild waters as a Halfling with the Childlike feat. Be the scariest of monsters; an evil innocent looking child

If the PCs venture in tack on any themed side quest that's appropriate (Scooby Doo, gothic horror, classic adventure, etc.)

Would that mean that the kids are the monster if we go down the Scooby Doo trail considering they are the first ones we meet or should we introduce an old gardener, who won't show up again until the end, on the way up the hill?

121. While following a guide through the city their guide takes the PCs down a street with large red lanterns hanging outside most of the doors and stopping at one of them at the end of the street indicating it as their destination. A Knowledge Local check can clear up the confusion as in this region a red light district is something else than what they are used to but rather used as an indicator for something else such as a religious sign, political affiliation, fashion statement etc.

Caught a very Freudian misspelling of political as plotical