Shamisen's page

Once, for no particular reason, one of my players drew an eye on a post it note and stuck it to my wall. Now, every session, I draw another post it note eye and stick it up on the wall with all the other post it note eyes.

Alternatively, you could rule that his sneak attack die are now d4s instead of d6s with the understanding that it is a house rule and if the combination of the two archetypes proves to be an issue in the future that a change will be required.

Seeing as this is a home game such rules bending is allowed. Your house, your rules :-)

I do my best to avoid houserules on the grounds that they may create unforeseen consequences, but that actually sounds like a fair enough trade. I'll keep it on record as a possibility. Thanks.

Edit: And then immediately after that suggestion, my player suggests the same thing.

I'm not familiar with the psychonaut archetype, but if it downgrades the bomb, then combining it with the vivesectionist is exactly the sort of thing the rules were written to prevent.

Think of it this way: The Psychonaut must be gaining power elsewhere to account for the lost bomb power. Likewise, the vivisectionist gains power elsewhere for losing the bomb. So that character is "spending" the bomb power twice, for more effect then it's worth.

So: RAW, not able. RAI, not able. Is it overpowered? I'll leave that to someone else.

All right. I hadn't considered it from a perspective of spending the ability. In that case, you'd be correct. I may do some tests with it to ensure that it isn't going to put too much emphasis on the alchemist.

Technically, both archetypes replace the Bomb ability. Therefor, I don't believe they'd be compatible, no.

That is the language on a technical level, yes. It just seems like it defies the intent of the restriction, you know?

I'm currently hosting a campaign of mostly new players (and I'm not exactly a veteran, either), and one of the more experienced ones has been experimenting with his alchemist. He's gotten rather inventive with it. The concept is that of a doctor who is fascinated with the occult. To create this mechanically, my player wants to take two archetypes and a prestige class. He wants to ultimately be 10 vivisectionist psychonaut alchemist/10 shadowdancer. As far as I've been able to tell, this all works out save for one thing.

Psychonaut downgrades the alchemist's bomb ability.
Vivisectionist replaces it completely.

Now, I understand that multiple archetypes can be taken, as long as they don't overlap. However, in this case, it doesn't seem that his alchemist will be able to double up on his abilities. I reason that you can't take multiple archetypes because it would allow a character to double up on abilities or improperly augment them, but this doesn't seem to be the case with this particular combination. He's completely getting rid of the downgraded ability, thus downgrading it further.

How's my logic here, guys? I'm really not sure on this one. RAW he wouldn't be able to do this build, but RAI may be different. From an "I don't want this guy to break my game" standpoint, how would you rule this? Feel free to point out any other potential rules problems that I may have missed if you notice them.

I can probably explain further if needed.

Let's see here. . .

I've only seen this complaint thrown around a couple of times. I'm relatively new to the forums, though, so I can't really evaluate if people consider it a big deal or not.

I don't really care for the fact that a character's BAB is tied in with their HD. I understand that it provides internal consistency within each type of class, but there are instances in which this doesn't give a class enough to hit *COUGHMONKCOUGH*, and others in which it seems to be an unnecessary boon.

Ultimately, though, it's mostly a gripe against the monk.
Which I'm not going to bother getting into because this isn't one of the five oceans I should be spitting in on this matter.

Firearms I've never liked them in fantasy games i mean who would want carry several lbs of something that explodes when it comes into contact with fire

There's always that guy who wants to carry around a lot of alchemist's fire.

I'm GMing my first serious game as well, and I've found it difficult to keep the game morally and technically challenging without alienating the players. I'm succeeding, however. The characters are so fearful of dying that they don't want to continue, but they're so swept up in the narrative that they are compelled to go forth regardless of their fears. It is at least effective within the context of the campaign, which is horror themed.
Anyway, onto my point. No one has died yet, but given my particular situation, I don't think it would be unfair to have them reroll new characters as APL -1. That might not solve the issue of loot and character wealth, but it seems to be a sufficient (but not game damaging) penalty for death that would allow new characters to be viable. Having a balanced penalty for death will allow your characters to stick around for longer amounts of time, which will ultimately be good for the development of the narrative.