Shiney's page

I very rarely weigh in around here, but some of these responses have been almost unfairly harsh. The level of transparency is not *explicitly* stated in the CRB to my knowledge.

Whether you have no transparency, complete transparency, or any shade in between is a decision you make as a GM.

Combat will be easier with PC awareness of what they fight, but not for any difference in the game mechanics. Merely reducing the factor of making poor choices because of unknowns. Some people find this entertaining, and some people find it unfun.

I feel that one of the easiest assumptions to make is only vague transparency at best, due to the ability to use your skills to identify weaknesses rather than having them all be apparent, as one example. But that does nothing to invalidate the full transparency style of play. The game still functions the same, but the players are able to make better informed tactical decisions.

yes, the original printings of the books have what it was changed from in its entirety.

other than that no, your closest thing would be to get the current book and then take the errata documents backwards and undo them on your current text.

That's my issue. Some of the errata documents I can do that with, but others say "The text should read as" And gives the new information, rather than giving any clue what it was prior.

Hello! I'm not interested in trying to make an argument about whether content that has been given errata is in error, so please help by keeping this thread from exploding into debate on that subject.

I have numerous questions and concerns about original content, and tracking them down on sources such as the PFSRD is very difficult. Is there any location in which I can not just find what text was 'changed to' but find the original information it was changed from, in it's entirety?

Wow, A lot to respond to. Again, to everyone, thanks a lot for the input.

Ideally, I had hoped to start from the get go with wings, so strix, or dealing with the clunkiness of aasimar is kind of required, but if it ends up being a game that starts off at a level fairly close to them, I may skip out on that.

As for being a druid, it's a fantastic concept, but doesn't really fill in the role I'm looking for with this character. Thankfully, I know more about monster/natural attacking than I do about using a regular martial.

The Phalanx soldier sounds surprisingly decent, I may make it a dip if I'm dead set on shield and spear, or I have other options available to me, just a bit more feat intensive than I was hoping for this traditional combination.

If you considered a magus then you're looking at more than a slight touch of magic. But yeah, they're not your best option for a polearm-wielder, their mechanics work best with blades. A bloodrager does work though - taking a hand off the polearm for a moment to cast a buff spell isn't a problem for them. A celestial bloodline bloodrager might fit your image nicely.

Spear + shield isn't impossible as a style but it tends to lock you into two-weapon fighting and shield bashing, which eliminates most movement and takes up all your feats (probably not what you want, from what you say.)

A brawler with the exemplar archetype might fit your shining leader type (if I'm understanding what you mean by Valkyrie correctly) while their ability to pick up feats temporarily might fit your wish for options.

I may very well go bloodrager, you were right about the magus being a lot more magic, hence why I was a bit hesitant on it. The bloodrager is sounding pretty good, after a few closer looks.

I'm a bit confused. I'm aware of how to do two-weapon and shield bashing, but I thought that that would still require a one-handed weapon and a shield, thus making most reach weapons not qualify?

Exemplar looks pretty good, I may very well consider some version of brawler like this, or maybe look into going chevalier from bloodrager. My real goal of the valkyrie role was a true battle maiden, honor, chivalry, and all that without some of the shackles of paladin codes, and the ability to fly around, hitting things really hard with a lot of battle prowess (And -perhaps- a hint of mysticism.)

All in all, this is a lot to think about, and I suppose I have to consider my options.

There are some differences with a land speed regarding minimum speed and changing direction. Look up the Fly skill and you'll see what I mean.

There are a number of ways of attacking adjacent creatures when wielding a polearm. The spear dancing style feat, or having a natural weapon you can use, or possibly beefing up an unarmed strike or armor spikes, or casting a touch attack spell. Some of these will require you to hold the polearm in one hand while you do them. Flyby attack combines well with a reach weapon since that feat doesn't remove attacks of opportunity against you for moving out of an area threatened by your opponent. Being outside their reach would be good.

Without knowing what you want to do exactly it's hard to recommend a class though. Any number of classes fit the 'armored martial with a polearm, and possibly a slight touch of magic' bill.

Thanks for the tips! Let's see...

Looking up the fly skill, definitely affects turning and hovering, but nothing on charging and movement ACTIONS, so I can safely assume it works as a normal land speed in those regards.

Just looked up the spear dancing style, and it's pretty neat, though it takes me away from my shield-wielding hopes, I think I could make something like that work, though apparently I won't get the reach qualities back until much higher level.

As to the others, well, it works and all, but it mostly reduces itself to using a secondary weapon rather than focusing on just one. Still, I can look into it for options.

As far as the class itself, that's something I'm still thinking on. I've been prejudiced in the past with the idea that pure martials just have a hard time competing, but I do want most of my actions to be around being able to maneuver and attack in creative ways. To that end, I was thinking some version of the vigilante could work, but I wasn't ready to rule out thinks like bloodrager or magus, (Though that would hamper the reach idea, as I'm not aware of any one handers except possibly the whip.)

My main goal here was a flying character to reduce the weakness of martial mobility in traditional fighty types, but I certainly wouldn't mind giving them support to unleash a few devastating attacks or self buffs to fill the role I originally imagined, I.E. The Valkyrie type.

For the flying speed, convince your gm to allow you to play a Strix. They come with a 60 feet flying speed with average manouvrebility

I do admit, I'd been hoping for some other aasimar/angelic options to fit the Valkyrie theme, but that's a vanity point, not necessary to the build. I don't know how the strix managed to slip by under my nose, but that's a great idea, thanks!

Hello all, been away from any kind of civilization and normal life for quite a long time. But I'm finally back, ish, and looking to take up playing the game again. That said, I'm particularly rusty, and despite some lovely guides, I could use some advice on how to make a certain themed character.

Ideally, I would be going for something along the lines of a valkyrie, very martial, perhaps with a SLIGHT touch of magical support, and builds a lot based around a fly speed.

As I see it, this requires a fly speed that can't be dispelled, and is pretty much always on, rather than x/day. The only good options I know of, are Aasimar alternate features, or the feat chain for aasimars that grants it at level 10. However, this is locked at 20ft and poor maneuverability, considering this will be a martial, and almost certainly in heavy armor.

That said, I'm hoping to find a way to improve that, or other options for a natural flying ability for such a character.

Beyond that, I'm not entirely sure how to build the character itself. With the advantages of flight, it seems like it'd be begging for a reach weapon (On that note, are there any options other than polearm master fighter for hitting adjacent people?) or the airborne charge/flyby attack route.

Specifically, is a fly speed largely the same as a land speed in terms of rules? (Double move, charging, etc)

So far, depending on the combat style, and what options are available, I could see fighter filling in the many feats required, or possibly ranger of some kind, or vigilante. That said, I'm horribly out of practice, and would like to know how some of you would tackle a situation like this.

I looked at corruption, hoping for player OPTIONS. Nothing about the corruption speaks of options, but penalties, for gaining weak imitations of 'real' monster characters. It's a real shame. Perhaps there will be better third party alternatives, but for the time being, I guess we're still handing out templates.

In older editions, poison was considered 'evil.' That's silly. It's tactics. You're fighting, and if you're fighting for what you believe in, there's nothing wrong with hitting them where it hurts. As long as you're not indulging in more pain or suffering than needs be, pretty much anything in terms of tactics is fair play.

Additionally, though you give up a lot, you might want to look at the new archetype from legacy of dragons. The Drake companion sucks REALLY bad for a mount at most game levels, but a small character can get a mount at 9, instead of 13.

The best character I'd ever played was a complete arcane warlock who gained lichdom at 11th level. Did it give me some serious advantages? Sure. Did it make me markedly more powerful than the party wizard or paladin? Not by a long shot.

That said, there are some options in the new Horror Adventures for emulating it, but frankly, they're garbage. Even on the "nice" variant rule, you don't even really become undead. Just get some really bad emulation of it. I'd just ask your DM for the template, and a level adjustment that goes down over time, or balance things around it.

Quote:

My current understanding though, is that the corruptions work with a hard-mode russian roulette, fail three saves and it's done. And in addition to still bedding down with evil, rather than actually eventually becoming these monsters... The bits and pieces I've seen suggest that we'd just emulate some of the features, rather than actually transition into tat new type of creature.

Don't have the book, but I hear there's some corruption options to prevent going down the dark path at the extent of holding back the power it grants.

So you can choose to play Russian roulette with a peashooter, beanbag rounds, or old fashioned lead.

Thanks for this, and not to sound mean, that's hardly my intent, but:

If I wanted to hold back the powers of turning into a monster like a vampire, I'd look for some complicated system where I duplicate some of their powers without actually turning down that dark path- Oh, wait, that's kind of what we have, isn't it?

I admit, I'm a little salty. Still enjoying everything else I hear about the book, archetypes, sanity, etc. But really, that whole 'become a monstrous character' thing was the big thing for me.

I'm kind of upset.

Obviously, waiting for the PDF to be released, but the whole system I was looking forward to, was corruptions. Options to play the monsters without the baggage of the always-evil prejudice, and make some interesting characters within the rules, rather than by bending them.

Still eagerly awaiting this, here's hoping! Lost my copy of the old, and desperately need my fix.

I don't know, I'm a little sad to not see it yet, but I understand this is a huge project. My group is on the edge of their seat waiting for the new version.

Hello everyone. After a really hectic time in my life, the dust is finally settling and I'm going to be trying to get back into the swing of gaming in my area. But a recent idea someone gave me had me wanting to try and make a synthesist along the lines of a tentacled, sea-dwelling horror.

However, seeing as I'm both rusty, and not the best with synthesists, this has lead to several questions:

1. Gaining extra tentacle attacks. Can the summoner take the multiattack feat, given that it would only apply when in eidolon fusion?

2. Identical natural weapons: If you take a special ability such as grab for a tentacle, it applies to only 1 of x tentacles you may possess, not automatically applying to every tentacle attack, yes? (Or say, improved bite on an eidolon with two heads?) I.E., Four tentacles, one bite. I would need to take grab four times for tentacles, or grab twice and pull twice, to get a special ability on each tentacle, or does taking grab (Tentacle) apply to all four of the weapons?

3. Multiple such special attacks: Lets say that the beast has 3 tentacles, grab, and pull. Both grab and pull say that they occur as a free action when attacking. Does that mean that the synthesist can theoretically grapple/pull two opponents, when hitting them in a full round attack? Or does it apply to only one attempt at a 'free' maneuver per turn?

3B. Speaking of which, let's say that for some reason,I have an attack with grab, and pull on it. Does it get to make both checks? (As silly as that would seem, just trying to understand the rules of it) and only have one succeed? Or does a certain attacking limb only get one 'free' special attack?

4. Is there a particular reason why tentacled eidolons of a certain size can't constrict? Or should tentacles just get by on grapple damage?

Sorry, I had a bit of a family emergency, had to grab a plane ticket, I'm halfway across the world at the moment. I'll have a friend help me access my stuff on a home computer ASAP, but I wanted to apologize for the delay.

Shiney, you'll be up once we are done with Arkellus's Formbender/Warshaper.

Got it, I've done a little groundwork to present, but I'm really sitting down tomorrow, as today's game day kicks off in less than an hour.

@Ocean - Got it. I'll keep looking it over, thinking about how it works, and keep checking in. I think I get how it all goes.

@Trogdar - I thought about that. But the purpose is still to assassinate, and I thought the bard's abilities to fast talk and tricks would be a better supplement to the killing, than the other way around. Of course, I could be mistaken entirely!

Well, s'pose I'll give this a go then! This normally seems pretty hard to do, the assassin that isn't seen, but rather, isn't noticed, sticking to disguises, bluffs, fake papers and such, they can be anyone they want to, up until it's time to strike, turning whatever is at hand into quick and effective tools of murder.

My inspiration for this was a scene played out by a multiclassed NPC: a scribe, handing guards his linguistics-forged letter of acceptance, entering a keep, and on an idle passing by, murdering a target with quill, or hair ornament, or whatever else may be at hand, blinding a guard with ink quill or sand, and making a dastardly escape.

Infiltrator
Primary: Ninja
Secondary: Bard

I cannot believe how late I am to this party. I've read through the first post, and think I get the general concept, but I'm still a bit confused as to the process. I post a concept, and await the 'go-ahead' or a no-go from Lightbringer, before posting anything beyond a title, primary, and secondary? (Though I'm free to work on it alone, of course.) That about cover it?

-Change wasn't needed, it was balanced and acceptable.

If you are in a situation where deflecting a single melee attack per round was the difference between life and death, or a major game breaking change, your GM isn't doing the encounters properly.

This one thread nearly slipped me by. I now have an absolutely wonderful idea to inflict upon my players in the next game. (They seem to love selling their dignity to the first bidder.) Maybe this'll be just odd enough to discourage it.

I just did the same thing, and it references "other lizards" as well, so I'd say that at least as far as golarion is concerned, it's a rare, but very real possibility. Which, is awesome.

So, here are some of the options I'm seeing, if one wanted to get rid of X/Day.

I'm going to refer to people with X/day abilities as wizards, for simplicity. However, I actually mean wizards, sorcerers, druids, barbarians, paladins, etc.

1. Recharge Magic: This is fairly elegant in that wizards are powered down if you have less encounters per day, they're powered up if you have more encounters per day, and "out of combat" spells will have more of a cooldown than in-combat spells. The downside, is if you want to play a spellcaster who uses lots of wall of stone to control a battlefield, now you can't.
It would need some tweaking, and you'd have to figure out how to handle the cooldown times for other abilities, but I think it could be quite good. Likely the cooldown times would scale based on the ability's old progression and the assumed number of encounters and duration of encounters. So if you have an ability that is 8/day, based on 4 fights per day and 4 rounds of combat per fight (16 rounds total) you have an ability you can use 50% of the time, IE 1 round cooldown.

I also like it because it provides different cooldowns to classes who spontaneously cast, such as sorcs, and charts for paladin, bard, etc. I really think that this has the best baseline to achieve what you want, but it would take a lot of work (and more skill than I have) to balance other x/day abilities on a similar scale.

I really liked the other thread that was linked, save for a few rules problems such as the ASF from scrolls. I suppose investing in things like arcane armor mastery would be important. Contstruct armor seemed such a ridiculous fail in terms of what you actually get, that I'm not sure why people consider it an option. You don't get any bnefit to riding around in the construct, your breastplate just happens to have it's own HP pool.

Thinking back on it, what makes iron man, feel like iron man?

Super-suit of armor, providing massive defense and physical boosts.

The only way I see us getting this, is through animating an object permanently. or through some GM fiat to turn the construct armor into something actually resembling wearing a construct.

Blasts, tools, and tech.

The enhanced senses, the tools, the flight, and the weaponry. As much as I would love to credit the gunslinger, ultimately, I feel this falls to the wizard. Maybe even a spell-slinger But we still fall to the problem of completing spells without invoking the Arcane spell failure chance.

So those are the two minor hurdles to bypass. I'd prefer not to rely on house rules to make these options more viable, but so far the best iron man build seems to be the wizard type, or perhaps a very gung-ho crafting magus. However, it is my understanding (and please forgive me for not being anything close to an expert on the comics) that iron man preferred ranged attacks and blasts, rarely entering melee at all.To me, that seems a pretty important nail in the coffin of the magus, but if there's a way to make it work, to give say, more ray and/or ranged attack options to the magus, I really feel that a crafting magus could outshine the wizard, marginally, due to it's improved attack scores and armor use.

Again, this is something that's largely determined by roleplay versus rollplay, I'm big on the side of roleplay here. I am always, and likely always will be an advocate of the 3.5 rule Recharge Magic

I wouldn't be above a similar system being implemented towards other x/days, within reason. It does change up the balance a bit, but by applying this uniformly, it ends up becoming a great way to make sense with your character, and worry a little less about daily resource management, and more about your in-combat resource management.

"So you can call fire from nothing, and push lightning out through your nose, but you can't put together the levitation spell you already did twice today?"

"*Sigh* Yes, that's correct."

"Why?"

"Because REASONS THAT'S WHY GET OUTTA MY FACE!

Wow. I hadn't even considered a lot of these options. I had been planning on building the table around an embedded TV, not having a TV attached to the game.

Laithorn, it would basically be a TV wall-mounted horizontally on the top, and plexiglass or something similar over the top, what did you plan for the sides? Also, I'm a little concerned about heat build up from extended use without ventilation. Would this be an issue?

That said, these are some really interesting ideas I hadn't considered before (And I still am going to need to find a -very- large table apparently) and I appreciate the sizing tips. A sense of scale is really bringing this together in my head.

First off, sorry if this isn't the right section, I was baffled as to where this would fit in.

I was inspired by some earlier projects I had seen, but couldn't remember clearly after having vast amounts of frustration with repetitive map drawing, and limited battle-mat space. So, my basic idea, was as follows:

The Problem: I have no experience whatsoever in any form of carpentry, or knowledge of the tools and materials I should use for this. So I was hoping someone with a little more experience than I could share some tips on the quickest, easiest, and most simple ways to get an electronic battle-mat like this running.

Shiney wrote:

The bottom line is, I'm looking for ways of getting permanent humanoid minions similar to through Animate Dead

Do they need to be undead? 'cause Simulacra can be pretty useful, trained animals are surprisingly effective and if you pay your mercenaries enough they should allow some magic to keep them in line.

I'm aware of all the goodies to be had through other forms of minions, and unfortunately, yes. It's kind of hard to be a necromancer creating an army of the dead, if, you know, they're all alive.

Some of these I think are plenty reasonable, but a few I'm totally opposed to. A Prestige class should reflect a focus, a specialization, and be both flavorful and capable at their speciality. Unfortunately, a few things keep this from being the case.

The lack of scaling, (making them fit in with the trivial point you made) is something that keeps me from even considering a PrC nine times out of ten. And often I'll go to my DM, present my awesome character and flavor, and then show them how horrible they are in play.

Skill starvation, as well. While the minimal number of skills some PrCs offer make sense, there are quite a few that seem to quite desperately need more, not only for power, but also in terms of flavor.

After having a number of various feats and houserules and third party supplements, myself, the other DM in our group, and our on-again, off-again necromancer realize that the marvellous Animate Dead fails to satisfy unless we're collecting a menagerie of giants. And the flavorful, interesting Create Undead line lacks any meaningful methods to control the undead you create, unless you like relying on temporary, unreliable means.

The bottom line is, I'm looking for ways of getting permanent humanoid minions similar to through Animate Dead, not just having to forgo the town guard and heroes in their grave, and go hunting hydras and cyclops to reanimate.

My group has discussed things such as paying increased gold cost to animate certain varieties as per Create Undead, or ways to animate dead with increased hit dice, so on, and so forth.

What sort of methods have people used, or worked up before to have a more reasonable set of minions?

So one of my players has let slip that he's end goal for his dwarf barbarian is to challenge Gorum to a fight and take his place... I'm conflicted as to should I allow this? I mean I highly doubt he could succeed but I mean if he did.. But yea, what would other GM's do in this situation?

As pathfinder campaign puts it, you don't. You fight the gods, gods win, the end.

However, if such a closed-book policy leaves you with a foul taste in your mouth, feel free to take upon the old DnD supplements, or looking up some of the lesser "deific" beings with stats, demon lords, heralds, etcetera, and have him start devouring, or acquiring similar abilities.

Or, conversely, you could have him work on obscure lore and knowledge to cut his target down to a more fair fightin' size.

Shiney wrote:

(You should have heard the barbarian talking about what he was going to do to our DM's Dice...)

Threatening his dice ?! that is just pure evil..

No. Eight crits and two instant deaths (nat 20, confirmed crit, then 100's on the percentiles for our homebrew crit hit chart) are pure evil.

I don't doubt Shiney and his/her GM are having a fun game but...there are just certain lines that are NOT crossed for one to retain their soul, and lichdom is one of those lines. What gods could forgive someone who has done such a thing to themselves?

Good undead? Never. Well, perhaps a mummy who was wronged by his priests and much rise and wreak vengeance. Didn't mummies channel positive energy in the old days?

In the end, it is YOUR story that is told. If you've grown up on Twilight, and want sparkling vampires of goodness, then go for it. Tell your own myths. It's what we're all here for.

For me, undead will always be evil by the very fact they are the antithesis of life, an abomination of everything that lives and breathes, and liches are the epitome of that dark pact with Death.

Fair enough. Not for the sake of defending the argument for good liches (That's zombie pulp now, not even a horse) but to describe what happened, it's simple. My character doesn't care about the gods. As for his soul? Retain it? That's exactly what he did, it's in a box somewhere. My codex on vampirism is written by Stoker. But that's vampirism. Some people undertake lichdom as a moral or religious statement. Mine was a scientific, simple endeavour to extend his lifespan.

That's for him, not for everyone. And then he went, kept on doing good things and help people. And that worked. Not everyone thinks he's good, plenty will still consider him a vile stain. And that's okay, that's them. He'll keep doing what he wants, living the good life, fighting the good fight, until he does finally get offed. And he'll be laughing all the way down the boneyard.

Fair enough, I get what you're all saying. Yeah, the suck it was maybe a bit much for some DM's, but we also have a little light hearted trash talking at our table. Again, this was something that me and my DM worked on together. No wool over the eyes on my part, and no (abnormal) laziness on his. And again, that original suck it, was my trash talk (which was more than okay, at our table) to my DM, on presenting my case. Not to anyone here, so I apologize if someone took it that way. (You should have heard the barbarian talking about what he was going to do to our DM's Dice...)

I get that. And the bottom line is, I did figure it out. I made knowledge checks, spent time researching, and planning the process. There was a little more fluff besides my actual transition, but the only rules I had to meet were the phylactery creation rules, because the DM didn't feel the need to create extra hoops and whistles and unnecessarily evil deeds, when all I had to do, at it's most basic level, was

1: Create magic box.
2: Figure out how to stuff soul in magic box.
3: Proceed.

And again, we're getting into fluff and crunch and rules and backstory. The bottom line is, my DM didn't decide I needed sacrificial babies and deals with the devil to apply my learning to extending my life. That's my group, my game, my story. And Alwin's could be the same way. Or it could be totally different where the lich only becomes such by horrible deeds and can never ever ever become good again. They're both okay.

Again, I realize this flies for some, not everyone. My group ruled that there is no alignment penalty, nor terrible horrible deeds for figuring out a new soul-tank. Some people require sacrificial babies, deals with devils, and permanent evil taint. They're both cool. Why is there still an argument?

If you want to be a technical, rules-miser a phylactery is only part of the process and is described as such. There is inherent fluff required to complete the process. To dismiss the fluff presented and to claim the phylactery is all you need it simply inaccurate.

I'm sorry. I see the point you're making, I do, and I disagree. To say that fluff is required is to make it crunch, and thereby, not fluff.

It's just like RAW vs RAI. Our group feels one way, yours may feel another, and any number of people can be anywhere else, or in-between. Do we really have anything else to throw at this zombie-horse?

Shiney, your GM did you a HUGE favor when he apparently decided the entire lich process, which traditionally involves an entire string of atrocities to pull off and which can fail completely, shouldn't be any more complicated than just making a magic item.

You mean, by going by what the actual rules about creating the phylactery state? Yeah.

I need to re-read the lich entry in Undead Revisited and see if they go into any of that.

The Graveknight creation rules from Undead Revisited (which can be read here) should give you some ideas as to what the lich creation process should be like.

I'll, give you that. But, the graveknight to me seems to be about pledging yourself to a lord, so that he can give you the power to do what a magic user can do on their own. I suppose that's just interpretation.

I admit, I find it lackluster myself how there's little to no flavor behind it, but it's great that they give players options for legitimately becoming undead besides "find vampire, attach timebomb, offer neck"

In my games,

There ya go. Your games. It works for you, that's great. Not everyone feels the same way, and that's what I was trying to represent.

Shiney wrote:

We went by the D20PFSRD, not the PRD.

Exact same text. (for once)

Shiney wrote:

Soooo, yeah. I'm a lich. CN, and CG this upcoming session. Y.M.M.V., I'm just trying to show that this is something that you really can go any direction on, as that seemed to be not present in this thread yet.

You did catch that you're not a valid target for atonement, yes?

Yes, actually. I was recounting the events as they happened. After we broke for that game, the GM did some more digging about that, and we talked it over. So the Atonement was out, cause I did it to myself. The fact that I had always been leading a noble, always helpful character role that was expected to be a perfect fit for the hero, and showed no intent of changing, was still strong enough for the DM to consider CN, even after the atonement was retconned. We saw the fluff there, but the fact was, I had a massive arcane library at my disposal. I barely even needed to touch the dice to break into the 40's and 50's for my knowledge DCs, and I had the plan, and the cash. Then we looked up what the actual creation rules were, and the DM's response (paraphrased) was basically "That doesn't match what the lore section said at all." And we worked it out from there.

That said, that was just our group who didn't believe that all undead regardless of their reasoning had to be magically evil. Some groups do go by that. I've played in them, and had a great deal of fun in them. I just avoid any undeath related aspects.

Edit: To Mojorat, No sacrifices, no babies or virgins, no demons or devils, either. Arcane research to rip out a soul, stuff it in a box. Necromancy death effects, binding conjuration, so on, so forth. Again, this is all because our group, and DM didn't go by the claim that all undead meant evil, no exceptions.

*Many things omitted*

Did you even ask your GM what method you would require? No? Then ** spoiler omitted **

We went by the D20PFSRD, not the PRD. And I did ask, and we looked up what the rules were, and we operated by the rules presented there.

Soooo, yeah. I'm a lich. CN, and CG this upcoming session. Y.M.M.V., I'm just trying to show that this is something that you really can go any direction on, as that seemed to be not present in this thread yet.

EDIT:

And to Buri, again, Y.M.M.V. The "Always evil undead, because undead" thing works for some people, not others. I'm aware that doesn't fly in all groups. But it can, will, and does in some. I'm not suggesting that it's the default, or even more than a minority. But it is totally doable, and by the RAW, completely okay, if your group and DM sees it that way.

Well, as far as Pathfinder is concerned, you did it wrong. The process to becoming a lich is much more involved as is the process of atonement according to established lore. Also seems like you tried to railroad your GM. Not cool.

The Lich's Phylactery

An integral part of becoming a lich is the creation of the phylactery in which the character stores his soul. The only way to get rid of a lich for sure is to destroy its phylactery. Unless its phylactery is located and destroyed, a lich can rejuvenate after it is killed.

Each lich must create its own phylactery by using the Craft Wondrous Item feat. The character must be able to cast spells and have a caster level of 11th or higher. The phylactery costs 120,000 gp to create and has a caster level equal to that of its creator at the time of creation.

There's little actual lore behind the actual creation thereof as far as the rulebooks were concerned. And if we were operating under the pathfinder specific campaign setting lore, I haven't found setting-specific phylactery requirements.

All I see are a GP tag, a caster level tag, and a feat tag, by the rules.

Unfortunately Pathfinder has made the solid "Undead are always evil" nonsense that makes things more difficult in cases like this.

I hear you there, that's the whole reason I magically became CE for all of like ten minutes.

Personally, however, if someone just completed the path to Lichdom and emerged as an undead creature of arcane (or divine) existence, filled with an evil nature (be it selfish, paranoid, sinister or destructive), i would not allow them to simply cast atonement right off the bat because they undertook it willingly and with the new nature (alignment), they shouldn't have the drive to just hand wave it away... there should be some serious soul searching involved.

I didn't want to die. I devoted massive expenditures of wealth and effort into finding a way to rip my soul out, and stuffed it in a box. And then I had to go hard to work, showing that I wasn't magically a twisted sadistic fiend.

Also, if such a player told me to "suck it" at the table, there would be a foe with a +5 holy, impact, undead bane earthbreaker in their immediate future...

In our group, you act stupid, you get called out on it. Common sense and whatnot. "NO, UR EVIL BECAUSE DED." Receives "Noo, you look at what I'm actually doing."

They've removed from flavor the "steps" needed to become a lich, but in 1st edition it involved some pretty horrific things that put a person well beyond any form of atonement and redemption.

You're never 'beyond' any form of redemption an atonement. Maybe the spell, but you're never 'stuck' in any one alignment. Anyway, as for the steps, if they still included them in the game, then sure. But they don't, so it's nothing more than money research and a feat.

I just achieved lichdom in a campaign, and you want to know what I did? I amassed a great deal of wealth, material components, and spent a while in secluded research and work, to strip my soul out and stuff it in a box. No evil sacrifices, no misdeeds, no bargains with devils. mechanics wise, being undead, I was shifted to evil alignment (from CG) I gave my DM The Stare, proceeded to cast atonement, and continued being an upstanding, moral, helpful hero (And may or may not have OOCly told him to suck it)and got back to CN that same session by illustrating these same points (With extra emphasis on the 'Suck It.')By now I'm on my way back to CG.

Simply put, it depends on how you do it. You can be a NE lich druid, no problem. If you want to atone and get rid of the evil, no problem! just show that you're not an evil hateful bastard because of other people's prejudice.

About the brawler capstone ability...

While I'm surprised that people aren't liking awesome blow as the brawler capstone (as normally you can only select this if you're Large, and have a very high Str and two specific feats), we're looking at replacing it with something else. Any suggestions for this? Compare to the fighter and monk capstones for the level of power we're talking about.

I'm as surprised too, I looked at that, and instantly fell in love with the flavor even if I was a little doubtful about the power behind it.

That said, maybe an ability to inflict statuses as was mentioned earlier would be nice, or the ability to perform one of a few different statuses (So no one type of immunity ruins it) without that pesky save getting in the way. Ogre? Sicken it. Vampire? Blind it. Tarrasque? SUPLEX IT.

EDIT: Right as I posted, another idea came to me. Why not some kind of strike-through? Similar to a certain gunslinger deed, what if the brawler was always able to inflict a portion of his damage, even if the attack would normally be blocked by AC?

First off, a massive thanks to everyone for their input, I've ended up with a lot more to think about than I thought I would stepping into this. That said,

I would like to see more of a dirty fighting feel added to this build, rather than optimization;

Vicious Stomp, Catch off Guard, Felling Smash, Betrayer - more flavor and feats with creative uses suiting the character than actual combat prowess

Someone who has grown out of the idea of nobility and glory and is more geared toward what works, regardless of how underhanded it might be

I was looking for a good way to say exactly this, and Dimi did it perfectly, so thanks for that!

Shiney wrote:

When someone came in using the charts, the DM was surprised to learn we were 'normally' at twice that in character value. So it may be a while before I can work with anything like that.

Charts?

Suggested wealth by level.

Thanks for the input. So Thugsalot, you're saying to more-or-less take the 1 level dip into cleric to cheese my way into attacking with my WIS modifier, right? Originally, I hadn't even considered multiclassing options, out of a desire to keep things cheese free, but this could be worthwhile. Thanks for the tip, and since it's only a one-level dip, it should be fine.

And Kazaan, thanks for that, bookmarking for future reference, but our DM tends to starve us for gold. Not intentionally, but despite our DM's reasonable attempts, our average character wealth by 7th level was about 8-10K GP per character. When someone came in using the charts, the DM was surprised to learn we were 'normally' at twice that in character value. So it may be a while before I can work with anything like that.

Thanks for the input, but is the rest of my idea sound? Further, as I mentioned, has anyone had success in higher age categories for such a fighty type?

The Idea
Rule of Cool, except making it work mechanically.

Rambling
In an ongoing game I'm in, our DM has a tendency to throw very large, very capable enemies at our party. Standard fair, Minotaur barbarian by third level, large category black dragon with minions by fifth, 12th level PC classed, PC equipped and specced gunslinger by seventh.

After some rather disturbing realization of character mortality in my game, I began looking for a new build when my floating caster eventually gets taken out. We have an oracle buffer with some minor battlefield control, and a LOT of melee muscle in the form of a vanilla monk, and a sword saint/shield focused fighter to lay on some defence and hurt on things. We also posses a vanilla bow ranger laying on some ranged attacks and group bonuses.

I looked at a lot of different ideas, but another ranged character just isn't appealing to me, whether magic or weapon based. So I thought why not try something odd?

cutting to the chase
Melee debuffer.
Monk, with weapon adept and drunken master archetypes. As for what's allowed, anything pathfinder is A-OK, but too much cheesing is punished severely.

I don't have a specific build for this, it's a very new idea for me, with very little set in stone.

Our group uses a 4d6 standard roll for ability scores, and I was thinking of going for a human katana user, specializing in dirty trick and disarm as time goes on. The lack of flurry will hurt, but in blinding enemies, disarming them and letting them pick them up or fumble blindly, AoO's should help balance that out some.

Additionally, while reading through the wording on drunken strength, it's worded on the SRD as a melee attack, not an unarmed strike or monk weapon, so I could quite literally use it with any melee weapon as I read it, is this the case?

Other ideas I had were using the equipment trick with the scabbard as a ranged weapon, the occasional stunning fist, and possibly snake style. Or possibly the feint chain as opposed to one of the other maneuver?

The idea here is in terms of mechanics, to be a character that while isn't as severely a threat as the other frontline fighters, is dangerous when underestimated, or when fighting in conjuction with them.

As our DM is a sucker for roleplay, it's quite literally a washed up old swordsman, who's 'stunning fists' are represented in foul breath, fights in a dirty and honorless manner, and a surprising amount of skill at exploiting an enemy's vulnerabilities. Ideally someone to continually cripple enemies and garner their attention from other squishy people, and back it up with some emergency defence should crippling them fail.

Finally, would there be any way to make this sort of character viable at different age categories? I've been a sucker for older characters, but I can never find a good way to make a melee one work.

You know, this hadn't occurred to me before, but I have no idea. Also, if there's a difference between those with magical flight speeds, or natural. I could really use an answer to this, since I just got a hold of flight in a dungeon crawl my DM is using to exterminate my party.