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It is not that. He took levels in a PrC that gives him feats from one the factions of the City of 7 Seraphs. Each feat gives one template and you can take it multiple times with the GM approval. Each template also needs approval as none them are listed in the normal choices. I take the GM approved them.
One thing important to remember is that some abilities can reach a very high DC to the point of being an auto-fail for the enemies. When this ability only deals damage or some minor penalty it is most likely a non-issue, but save-or-die effects might be very problematic.
The Lingering Spirit feat I've mentioned is a different one that simply lets undead not be automatically destroyed at 0 hp. I could indeed take both this Lingering Spirit and Will to Live as that would increase my death limit to -320. I'm not sure how much it would matter if when I get into negatives I'd be dealing so much damage to myself that I'd trigger Defer Death anyway. Thinking about it, perhaps the path would be the opposite and instead taking more uses of Defer Death. The Bindings of the Immortal is indeed tempting, because it would (in addition to Lingering Spirit and Will to Live) increase my limit to -680. The problem is that Aura of Rage is already on the body slot and is really good for me. I'm already maxed on veils and my other veils are also pretty interesting or flavorful. As an undead, Sgrack is immune to many instant death abilities. About Dark Heart, I was going to talk to the GM about a ruling on how it would interact with delay damage. It says it can't be mitigated or redirected, but I'm not sure delay damage is either. I see mitigated as something like DR or hardness, while redirect as sharing damage with a familiar or other stuff that transfer to an ally, item or enemy. Delay damage isn't really mitigating anything and I'm not redirecting it to something else. Deathgrip Gauntlets have the same wording. If the GM indeed rules that I can't use delay damage, all hope isn't lost, because my sword has Blood Funnels that deal 1 dmg whenever I draw it and I draw and sheath with each attack. My sword also has the vicious ability that deals me 1d6 on each hit, so I'm good. EDIT: Actually, thinking about it I believe I don't really need the Deathgrip Gauntlets, since I took the Patient Riposte implacability with while have a lower floor (+15 to hit and +30 damage instead of +20 to hit and +52 damage), the self inflicted damage will be a fraction and thus make more sense to have the Bindings and the feats to have a higher death threashold.
@Sgrack: I am VERY interested in trying to activate that blood god mode and see what can be pushed to achieve. That might be a small exaggeration on my part, lol. As an undead, Sgrack has the rejuvenation ability to keep it from being destroyed (but it carries its phylactery with it). To make the below 0 hp work, I got it the Lingering Spirit feat to let it keep fighting until minus its Cha (-40). Then, the Deathgrip Gauntlets veil increases the number by 10 (-50). Both the Deathless talent (basically Die Hard) and the Hard to Kill mythic ability double that number, but in PF the general rule is that consecutive multiplications are added, so now we have it be destroyed at -150. Considering our level, this margin isn't that significant, but I could not push it further. Anyway I also got Sgrack two uses of the epilektoi's implacability that lets it fight at negatives no matter what the value is for 15 rounds. When in the negatives, Sgrack would be self-inflicting between 175-550 damage each round to gain +20 insight to hit and at least +52 insight to damage (could be more if enemies manage to damage it for more than 185 each round). The to hit bonus could likely translate to more dmg via Power Attack and more defense via Combat Expertise. Then, once per round it can also use any ability that requires martial focus (from SoM) without spending it, which will likely be a brutal strike for +56 dmg, battered for 16 rounds and -6 to will saves. Considering Sgrack could crit on a 14+ with a x4 multiplier and rolls twice for every AOO (which is equivalent to a crit on 10+), those numbers become ridiculous.
@Sgrack, what price did you end up with for the "Greater Corset of Delicate Moves"? I've paid 20k for the version to give 2 uses per encounter. Reasoned that changing from use per day to use per encounter was at least 5x as expensive.
For Sgrack, I've spend a ton of resources to improve its action economy, since it has just too many interesting abilities. In its current incarnation, it is incredibly mobile and can reliably do full-attacks each turn, preferably in melee. It has some very interesting buffs to its allies, but those are limited in duration, and its main stick is drawing as many attacks as possible and then paying back with dividends. Really, the amount of punishing it can give with AOO and counter attacks is bonkers. It is incredibly tanky as well and if it is brought down to negatives, it activates blood god mode. And that is the plan and the hope, which could be very well just hopes and dreams lol. Many times stuff work wonders in our heads and when they are put into test, they crumble.
@Sir Drystan Goldenflame: Hey Ouachitonian, if you do not mind some constructive criticism, but I believe your "to hit" numbers are way too low. Take a look on the Benchmark Numbers. It says a lvl 20th character focused on attacks should have a to hit of +34 at least, and that is for regular Pathfinder (non-mythic, non-gestalt, non-3rd party). The GM has said quite many times how "crazy" the encounters will be. Just based on the benchmarks, at +29, your highest attack bonus will probably miss 30% or more of the time. Your lower attacks will be even worse (55% or more, 80% or more and, 95% miss). Not only that, you seem to still be using TWF, which makes it lower (10% lower all across). Mythic Power Attack will make it even lower (30% lower all across). When you are able to use smite evil, you might hit something, but at 2/day, that is far from reliable and only limited to evil foes. So, unless you have a hidden ability that lets you pump those numbers frequently, or is able to hit touch AC, or whatever, if you do intend for Drystan to whack foes with sword and whip, I really think you need to bump these numbers to at least +34 after you apply all the attack penalties you intend to use (-2/-4 for TWF and -6 for Mythic PA). Just my two cents, because I know it will suck to find this out during gameplay.
Yes.
@Godwyn Blaecwulf: Qeetan is on longer in the run since I swapped for Sgrack.
The magic item I'm currently interested is a Corset of Delicate Moves, to help with the action economy. I'd like to either increase its number of uses per day or change it to once (or twice)/encounter. Both the Path of War maneuvers (with its boosts, stances and counters) and the Spheres of Might spheres abilities are very intense in the use of swift actions, and on top of that we have style feats, essence shift and so on. I'm trying to make it slightly better. About Sgrack's background, this is my idea:
Short Background: Sgrack wasn't always a menace of blood and death. Quite the opposite. Its start was much more noble.
Oreana Del'Aandarth was already remarkable when she arrived in the City of Seven Seraphs with a host of holy knights behind her. Back then, she was know by names like the Ladylight, the Sublime, the Dawnheir, and the Jeweled One. Oreana was rumored to be a scion of Sarenrae, a goddess of sun and healing from a homeworld that was ravaged by a magic-corruption plague. Oreana eventually created the Everlasting Dawn organization and was a pillar of society, tireless in her pursuit of healing others and fighting similar corruptions, evil and curses to those of her dying world. She eventually was also known as the Trinity Avenger and from her teachings arose both the Trinity Angels and the Trinity Knights. Despite being mostly immortal in terms of age, as she was infused with the power of life itself, she could still be defeated. During a mission in an outer plane, Oreana and a retinue of other angels and knights were ambushed and defeated by Szuriel herself, the horseman of war. Oreana was then dragged to the Cinder Furnace and there her will to live and her connection to the life-giving power of the Dawnflower where turned against her.... there she was flayed and tortured until nothing but a mass of blood and bones remained, neither living nor undead, neither alive nor dead. Sgrack remained and emerged. Sgrack was released from the Cinder Furnace as Szuriel's new champion and for centuries it waged war across the planes. It claimed Roshmolem's greatsword for itself. Sgrack was eventually sent to the City of Seven Seraphs, this time ahead of a host of daemons. The fight that ensued was brutal, bu in a pivotal moment during the bloody battle, Sgrack found itself surrounded by Everlasting Dawn angels and knights, among them a descendant of Oreana, and something awakened inside it. Momentarily freed from Szuriel's grasp, Sgrack turned against its own daemons, which was the tipping point that caused the invasion to fail. After the battle, Sgrack let itself be arrested, but not destroyed, and since them it has been used repeatedly as an instrument of war against invading forces. Its connection to Oreana and the Everlasting Dawn remains a secret, the Jewel Lords making sure it remains this way in order not to tarnish their standing. Just recently Sgrack was released from its shackles and then allowed to officially join the Circle of Wardens, now being a servant of Mrtyu, the psychopomp ushe of soldiers and victims of murder.
Yes, I leaning a lot on the undead/blood aspect, but had to make some concessions. As an example, since I'm focused on being martial I can't spend enough resources to make the saves against my abilities nowhere near to be relevant at our level, so in many cases I've decided to avoid abilities that rely on saves and I did this so I'm not frustrated. When making powerful characters I want to be flavorful as much as I can, but taking stuff that I know I'll suck will quickly become frustrating... gestalt is great because we've got many abilities, but our action economy doesn't change much, so flavorful but powerless abilities will be sidelined. Sgrack can still deal a lot of bleed/bloodloss damage overtime and heal through them. It gets many blood slots from akasha thanks to the Bloodfuser PrC Boon. It can sense and "see" bleeding creatures, spray blood everywhere and coat foes in slimy/slippery blood! It can also feed its companions with its own infused blood to give them abilities. It should be fun! But it should also be a beast in combat and I'd love your opinion if I went too far into Sgrack's numbers as I'd rather tone it down than not being selected because I overdid it. Aside from that, there are a couple rules interactions I'd like to run through you: Questions: 1) Delayed Damage Pool: Both Epilektoi and the guardian sphere gives me a delayed damage pool and they work exactly the same. Epilektoi gives me a pool of 1/4 my hp, while the guardian sphere gives a pool of 3 x BAB. The guardian sphere also has some abilities that interact with this pool. So I should: A) add the two together; B) use the highest; C) track them separate, so guardian's abilities only work on guardian's pool.
I'm good with all, but I think C is a bit complicated. 2) Technique feats: On the Path of War rules, we have technique feats and a session explaining that they were released prior to some "weapon style" feats in PF. This session advises GMs to turn these technique feats into style feats, thus swapping the descriptor and adding Weapon Focus to the Pre-reqs. I thought this made sense, so I went with that. You are ok with this? 3) How much leeway we have into customizing magic items? As an example, we have some magic items that give us an ability once per day. With the amount of gold we have, I could simply buy a couple of them and swap between fights, but that seems clunky. Can we buy multiples and just add the charges together? Or could we use the creations rules to add more charges? Example: The base item costs 2k and can be used 1/day. Could I:
4) I took the "with this sword" alternate capstone, so now what? This gives me +100k to spend on my weapon and turn it into a minor artifact. I intend to make it an intelligent item, but I feel we should work together to make something interesting as it would be a missed opportunity for me to come up with a dedication that will not come up or that is too generic. If you are up for it, I'll work on my background so you know from where I'm coming from.
Considering we are all members of the same organization, I think it is a given we all know each other. Also, Qeetan will not be finished since I swapped for Sgrack.
Now, here is something very interesting reading Kaouse/Arc Zeon is that apparently we've created somewhat similar characters but that play very differently. Sgrack isn't a full epilektoi, since he dives more into the akashic rules, but he also uses the guardian/protection spheres and even the eternal guardian discipline and even is remarkably tanky... however, Sgrack is absolutely not on the side of protecting the team. While he also relies on the patrol ability, he is focused on offense and maximizing AOO potential. He also draws hate from enemies, but does so because once he is attacked, he counter-attacks. Sgrack has effectively 1700+ hp thanks to his familiar and once he is down to below 0, many of his abilities trigger so he becomes a bloody god of murder. I hope at least lol. At this power level, it is very tricky to actually create something a self-damaging character because of the massive rocket-tag nature.
Sgrack is mostly done, only needing to buy magic items aka the worst part.
I got that far. I am not actually using Spheres of Power, rather Spheres of Might. But that said, how do the Spheres rules deal with CL bonuses? (I have a bunch of them available...) I think you need to be a bit more specific, because Spheres of Might are mostly martial options that have nothing to do with caster level.
I really like the suggestions, but I feel the character would become too complex to run. Just too many abilities. The way it is I was already struggling a bit with choice paralysis! This is why I went with the classes I've chosen, as many have simple and static abilities. But thanks anyway!
@Sgrack: That's a lot of abilities! Definitely reminds me of my own statblocks being filled with features. One thing: I assume that 'Dread Blood Gaunt' is an autocorrection of 'Dread Blood Knight', right? By the end of the blood knight session, there is a session about some suggestions to customizing it. One of the suggestions is to remove it's armor focus and thus call it "blood gaunt" instead. I hope that is ok.
Ok, here is the work in progress of my new submission, going purely partial but mixing a lot of stuff (veils, maneuvers and spheres). Should be insane in terms of martial potential. Trying to use as many options related to "blood" as possible (blood knight, blood sphere, duelist sphere, blood veils, etc).
Sgrack follows, his massive frame making it hard for him to move.
Sgrack frowns, not completely understand what is going on but catching bits of informations. "Khonnir dead? Not lost? Not hurt? Not hiding?" He then shakes his head. "Khonnir only dead when Sgrack see body."
Sgrack grabs another mushroom and follows with his big hammer resting on his shoulder. "Sgrack go. Meila safe."
Sgrack continues to eat his mushroom, probably interfering with the light of the ambient, knowing he is not very good with words and negotiations. "Sgrack stay. Sgrack peaceful." He points, which is hard to believe considering he menacing size and appearance.
Deciding to eat the mushrooms, Sgrack eats them. "Dilixous!" he proclaims and smiles to the others, offering some and also revealing his now luminescent teeth.
Sgrack looks around suspiciously before walking towards the glowing mushrooms. They looked delicious, so they would not be evil. Right?
Sgrack moves around, suspicious, carrying his hammer an wondering if the mushrooms are as tasty as they look.
Sgrack plucks a hair from his nose and curses his decision immediately. "Arrgh!"
Sgrack looks around, eager to continue their exploration and in doubt why they are taking so long to examine the body. "Dead be dead."
As his vision starts to focus, Sgrack smiles and gets up. "Sgrack see! Sgrack see!"
In a strange moment of wisdom, Sgrack offers some words. "Past not change. Think future. Live now."
Sgrack listens to the others talking and decides to also tell his tale. "Sgrack live in orc town. Live big hole in ground with crap and trash. Eat stink food, rat and bald big bird." He then decides to explain why. "Sgrack different. White, sick, not good orc." And then he continues. "Very big scorpion robot attack orc town and Sgrack escape... Live in wild. Hide. Survive. Find big river. Sgrack not swim." "Sgrack find big town. People hunt Sgrack, want kill Sgrack. Sgrack flee, follow river and find Torch. People hurt Sgrack, but not kill. Torch people nice. Wild not safe, wild kill. Torch safe, people not kill." He then smiles slightly. "Khonnir help Sgrack. Val good girl. Sgrack eat food. Sgrack not in wind and rain. Life good."
Sgrack grabs the hammer Meila had offered but remains in silence, probably worried about how this condition might affect his survivability.
With the threat eliminated, Sgrack drops his weapon and knees besides the water ans starts to wash his eyes. "Sgrack see nothing! Help friends!"
Sgrack closes his eyes and yells at the sudden flash of light. "Eye hurt! See nothing!" He then tries to smash the thing with his hammer and then bite the thing with his oversized tusks.
Sgrack puts Meila down with a "Sorry." and then grows at the "thing".
Sgrack nods to Keth's suggestion and moves forward, grabbing Meila by her waist and bringing her along until they reach the beach. His eyes narrow at the glowing eyes and he raises his hammer. "Kill?" he asks simply.
While waiting for Keth's guidance, Sgrack questions Irizzle and Meila. "What be 'Halfling'? Half-thing?"
Sgrack moves closer and attacks one of the weird things. "Arrgh!"
"Sgrack know! Slime!" Sgrack answers Sron, feeling smart as readies his hammer.
Despite what Keth says, Sgrack knees besides one of the bugs and tries one of its legs while the others decide what to do next.
Whatever method decided I'm good with it. To be honest, I was surprised with this whole thing, simply because I've never considered it would be important who/how an enemy is dealt with, as the others have pointed out this is certainly a team game. Regard robbing each other's moment, I believe that we'll have plenty of time to show our characters in many occasions in the future, both in combat and out of combat. If Sgrack took Irizzle's thunder by hitting a bug, the same would happen if Irizzle had hit the three bugs, denying Sgrack the chance of hitting a single one, even considering Sgrack is only good at hit things and not dying, while Irizzle will be useful in many more occasions. I believe this kind of discussion will not lead us to a better experience and will only erode the team mentality. I'm saying this with total respect for each other's opinion and it is not my wish to point fingers or anything like that! Regarding some sort of strategy, I'd advise us refraining from using our limited resources when not needed. This encounter is really simple IMHO: three weak enemies with that have no troublesome abilities. We have Sgrack, Sron, Woolf and Keth who can dish a good amount of damage without spending any resources. I know we all want to "show" what we can do, but in the long run these resources (Keth's and Meila's spells, Irizzle's bombs) could be the difference between a success and a failure. When these limited resources are gone, it is not guaranteed that we'll be able to rest without some dire consequences. Once again, I'm not trying to say how you should play your characters... you do you, but keep this in mind.
In almost ever PBP I've played, it is assumed that we can post our actions when we get the chance and then the GM will get it sorted once everyone has posted. It is even common for GMs to group all players together to even speed things up., or even bot us (players) when needed. The luxury of waiting everyone to post in turn usually is something PBP can't handle, otherwise combats would last forever, specially in simpler encounters like this. Taking as example this same combat, we can see three of us (Sron, Meila and Irizzle), then a single bug, then Sgrack, two more bugs and then finally Keth and Wolf. It took more than 24h for all the three to answer to his post. Then the GM would have to post the action of a single bug (which would probably be dead by one of the three's actions) for me to post, and Keth would have to wait for another of the GM's post to act... a single round of this apparently simple combat would perhaps take 2-3 days! I'm sorry if by trying to speed things up if have ruined anything for anyone. If you wish we can do it the slow way of course, but I do not advise it.
Much like the others, Sgrack was amused by the whole experience, even if he did not understand how he was able to breath water. When Meila asks about the smell, Sgrack is fast to check if he is the source of it. "Not Sgrack." Once the bugs appear, Sgrack is fast to react, moving towards the closest, drawing his hammer in the process, and smashing it!
"FINAL!" Sgrack exclaims when he believes the group will finally head towards the caves. "Sgrack ready!"
Afraid, Sgrack slams his shoulder against the locked door. "MEILAA? SRONN?"
As soon as Sgrack sees Meyla and Sron being taken to another room, he follows them and then tries to open the door. "Meila? Sron?"
Sgrack notices the men arguing, but does feel it is something weird. Instead, he looks from table to table, unable to understand what is going on in any of them aside from seeing disks changing hands.
Sgrack follows the others in silence, not really knowing what they are doing here. He stays alert though, knowing instinctively this is a dangerous place.
Sgrack frowns, confused. "Not time fun. Khonnir danger now."
Before Mr. Garritt say anything, Sgrack dutifully moves towards the stack of pallets and starts to right them. "Rat tasty... hard catch. Many hide place."
Sgrack, noticing the poor gnome is not really comfortable with the whole situation, sides with him. "Meila, Izzle, stop make Mister Burdle sad. Mister Burdle good for Sgrack. Mister Burdle Sgrack friend and boss and give Sgrack big hammer." He points to his earthbreaker.
Sgrack usually spends a lot of time in the junkyard, be it helping the bleachling when he needs his strength or even breaking some stuff into smaller parts, or by fetching some parts for Khonnir.
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