Sidivan's page

Gimped = Your character has 1 thing he/she is good at and is completely worthless in all other aspects. A fighter with 10 DEX, 10 INT, Full Plate +5 and a Vorpal Mercurial FullBlade +5, but no ranged weapon and no other magical items is an example of this.

Viable = All party members are contributing in various ways. Sometimes you shine brightly, sometimes you don't, but you always contribute. If you find yourself with nothing to do in a lot of encounters, refer to gimped.

Overpowered = You outshine everybody in the party. If it wasn't for you, the party wouldn't survive at all. 2/5 of the party is dead, but you have yet to take damage. You land all the killing blows, yet you've managed to completely replace the skill monkey through magic items.

It's not about how viable your character is on his/her own. It's about how balanced he/she is with the party.

I wondered this as well with my Alch. The class is full of weird stuff like that... like, casting a spell is a full-round action if you don't already have the extract in your hand. Move action to retrieve the potion + Standard to drink/cast. It got too cumbersome to navigate the gaps, so I eventually gave up around level 12.

As far as I can tell, you have to trick somebody into drinking the infusion to get Nightmare to work.

Gaseous Form is a living cloud of gas, plain and simple. If whatever method you're using can grapple a cloud, then you can grapple the gaseous form. This is not even close to being incorporeal.

Notice I did not specify the type of cloud, but it shouldn't matter. It's a gas you can see in the air. Rules for grappling Nitrogen, Carbon Dioxide, Argon, Xenon, or any other gas apply.

Think of the damage reduction as resistance to dispersal. Try using a sword to disperse a thick fog... doesn't work too well.

A caterpillar can move though small holes and cracks... that's not even a valid comparison. That's a size thing, not a state of matter thing. A caterpillar is a solid. Gaseous Form is a gas, not a solid, not a liquid, not a vaporized liquid, not a plasma, not a ghost.

Well, after 10+ years of DnD, it's finally come up that the entire party has been bitten by werewolves. Two of the characters had been bitten previously by, unbeknown to us, werewolves. One full moon night, we found ourselves in a one-room house and those two on watch. Awaken by howling, we're un-armored and fighting wolves, which ran into the woods after the remaining 3 of us beat them down to a few inches of their lives while sustaining heavy damage ourselves.

Now, in the Core rulebook, Werewolf lycanthropy is listed on curses, which can "usually" be removed with a remove curse spell. This would be handy as we have a cleric in the party. It doesn't list a DC or anything.

In the bestiary, it says

So, which is it? Two of the members want to remain werewolves, but I do not. Would a Periapt of Health (immune to disease) protect me from being afflicted?

So far, my best interpretation is that it's a curse, which is transmitted through a disease that takes 3 days to incubate. After 3 days, you are afflicted with the curse.

No problem! Have fun!

Also, I would add that the other requirement is proficient with all martial weapons, so you'll need a level of some class that has that ability. One level of Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, or Ranger would work.

You will not be able to get into the Eldritch Knight prestige class at level 2.

Looking at the which spell progression, she cannot cast level 3 spells until she is level 5. At the VERY MINIMUM, you'll have to be level 5 witch to get into the class. This is indicated by the "Spells Per Day" chart on page 67 of the Advanced Player's Guide.

Bonus spells due to high intelligence only come into play when you already have a sufficient level to cast the spell. Once you hit level 5, you can then cast 1 lvl 3 spell per day, but your bonus spells give you an extra spell per day. Therefore, at level 5, you can cast 2 level 3 spells per day.

If you are brand new to Pathfinder/D&D, I would start with a much simpler class than Witch/Eldritch Knight. They don't call it the "Advanced Players Guide" for nothing. ;)

Actually, for the +INT skill point debate, it's resolved in this thread
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/rules/2INTIounStone

It doesn't say that it's retroactive, but it definitely would modify the skill points going forward.

Sidivan wrote:

Any time your INT is raised to a bonus instead of a penalty, you gain the skill points retroactively.

Where is this rule stated? This is the opposite of v3.5 rules regarding Intelligence enhancements and I have not located anything covering this in PFRPG.

I guess we've just always done it that way. That's how CON works.

The text is pretty clear. The skill points in the text have nothing to do with the skill points you get based off your INT. The headband has a specific skill assigned to it. After you've worn the headband for 24 hours, you get your level in ranks in the skill. If you already have ranks in that skill, too bad, they overlap instead of stack. If the headband doesn't have a skill tied to it, the ranks are spread out randomly across knowledge skills.

A fighter with 7 INT wearing the headband will not see any change to his skill points other than having max ranks in the specific skill the headband possesses.

Ioun Stones do not have this ability. They are a straight up bonus to your INT. Any time your INT is raised to a bonus instead of a penalty, you gain the skill points retroactively. Therefore, a fighter with 7 INT that equips a +2 INT Ioun Stone will not see a change in skill points. If he went from 8 INT to 10 INT, then he would see 1 skill point per level increase.

Edit: I'm unsure if skill points are retroactive. That's just the way we've been doing it for many years.

I want an Artificer type guy. Very steampunk style that uses technology to produce magical effects. You can kind of create this with a skin, but I picture this guy with a haversack full of random gears and gauges constantly crafting tools in the field in a Macguyver sort of way.

Party: "How the heck are we going to know when 5 minutes is up?"
Me: Hold on a second... /digs around in bag for parts. /craft check to make 1-time use stopwatch
Me: This should do it!

A martial artist that doesnt have the 'mystic' tie in the monk does. Whether it's through archtypes or new feats or a new base class, I'd like to see a way to create an unarmed specialist who doesnt use things like 'ki' and doesnt have an eastern flavor to them.

You have a couple options already.

1.) Go straight fighter
2.) Re-skin the monk and call ki "focus" or "adrenaline". Give him an irish accent. Drink a lot. Now you've got yourself an irish brawler.
-Flurry of Blows becomes "Rabbit Punch".
-Still Mind becomes "Ignore the Crowd".
-Slow Fall becomes "Tuck and Roll".
-Purity of Body becomes "Tough ol' Bird".
-Wholeness of Body becomes "Quick Healer".
-Diamond Body becomes "Tolerance".
-Abundant Step becomes "Fast Footwork".
-Diamond Soul becomes "Not Today, Junior".
-Quivering Palm becomes "Kidney Shot".
-Timeless Body becomes "Road Dog" (I think Keith Richards has this).
-Tongue of the Sun and Moon becomes "Well Traveled"
-Empty Body becomes "Body Shift" (This one's hard)
-Perfect Self becomes "Man of Myth and Legend"

I came up with all of that in 10 minutes. People really need to use their imaginations and not wait for a developer to create new rules for a class they want to play.

In my group, we usually go with "what is the spirit of the rule?" As such, we've decided that the idea is so you can't have extra-dimensional space filled up with extra-dimensional space. We have therefore ruled that any item containing extra-dimensional space cannot be placed inside any other item containing extra-dimensional space. Therefore, you cannot put a bag of holding inside another bag of holding, a haversack, a portable hole, or any combination thereof.

I was looking at the Poisoner Archetype and had a question regarding the Master Poisoner ability.

APG wrote:

At 3rd level, a poisoner can use

Craft (alchemy) to change the type of a poison. This
requires 1 hour of work with an alchemist’s lab and a
Craft (alchemy) skill check with a DC equal to the poison’s
DC. If successful, the poison’s type changes to contact,
ingested, inhaled, or injury.

I understand the poison changes type, but what about onset times? Say I want to change Drow Poison to ingested. From the table of example poisons in the Core, almost all of the ingested poisons have on onset time of 10 minutes. Does this mean my "changed" Drow Poison will have an onset time of 10 minutes, or is it still instant? And vice verse, if I want to change a Lich Dust from ingested to injury, does the onset time become instant or stay 10 minutes?

If it doesn't change the onset time, then is it worth trying to change the types?

Thanks in advance for any input. :)

Only the type changes. All other aspects remain the same (onset time, save, effects, etc...)

This is really simple to solve...

If you think they needs still spell, great, give them still spell

If you don't think they need still spell, don't give them still spell.

To me, it's the difference between sorceror and wizard, Sorcs are natural born, it's in their blood, thus in my game, they don't need the feat.

Exactly.

RAW: Blink Dogs can be sorcs

That means that they've learned to cast spells. This does not mean that their verbal components would be the exact same as a human's components when casting the same spell. No where in any rule book does it specifically state that the verbal components are the same in every language or the motions are identical from person to person much less species.

Spellcraft to recognize a spell as it's being cast represents this really well. If every creature in the universe said the same words and the same motions for a spell, then there would be no need for a spellcraft check to identify a spell that you are familiar with.

Use your imagination and come up with some logical answer that works in your game.

Sidivan wrote:

Please please please create a spontaneous caster version.

Also, create a feat in Ultimate Magic that works like the Magus' medium/heavy armor class abilities. These would replace Arcane Armor Training.

+1 on the Grammaton Cleric idea. I've been struggling for years to create a good d20 version.

no way, if there was a spontaneous caster version it would a) unbalance things (that he works like a wizard is a nit of a limit he needs) and b) outshine classes like bard (spell sword comes to mind)

if you would have feats that work like the magi class abilities why would you not have a feat that gave you "all martial weapons" (an ability from fighter and other classes.

the point is not to be able to do what the magus can do with other classes, or to have a magus variant out shine another base class, arcane armor training is still there for other gish type clasess and multi classes, and it is more limiting for them, where as the magus gets full armor but doesnt get access to the amount of spells the other types of gish do, thats balanced.

letting the others do what the magus can would be unbalanced.

as is the magus has a niche (with limits and weaknesses) incomaparison to other gish types, and thats a good thing.

I am currently playing a 1ftr/6sorc/8EK and matched it up with the Magus. With Mithral Full Plate on, the only differences are I have a 5% chance spell failure and a deeper spell list. The Magus version would have spellstrike, Spell Combat (the huge one), and spell crit, which I get in 2 levels. The armor abilities would've been handy at lower levels prior to getting the Mithral FP though. I didn't compare hp, but I would think their incredibly similar (magus has a d8, but sorc is d6 and EK is d10).

Spell Comabat is the big thing that may unbalance a spontaneous caster version, but everything else I suggest is really negligible. As it stands, I'm sticking with my EK build as I can't stand preparing spells. It'd be really nice though if wouldn't have had to map out all the math involved in multi-classing 3 classes, which is the point of making the Magus a base class.

Please please please create a spontaneous caster version.

Also, create a feat in Ultimate Magic that works like the Magus' medium/heavy armor class abilities. These would replace Arcane Armor Training.

+1 on the Grammaton Cleric idea. I've been struggling for years to create a good d20 version.

I'm sure people have ran the numbers on this, but I didn't the math drawn out anywhere.

Assuming 16 INT, Combat Casting Feat and trying to cast highest level spell.

Level 2
15 Base DC
2 (lvl 1 spell *2)
2 Spell Combat
-4 Combat Casting
-3 INT Mod
-2 Your Level
---------------
10 DC Vs Naked d20 = 55% Success

Level 3
15 Base DC
2 (lvl 1 spell * 2)
2 Spell Combat
-4 Combat Casting
-3 INT Mod
-3 Your Level
---------------------
9 DC vs Naked d20 = 60% Success, but Magnus Concentration gives a 2nd roll with a +4. That's a DC 8 vs Naked d20 (once per day) = 65% Success.

Level 4
15 Base DC
4 (lvl 2 spell * 2)
2 Spell Combat
-4 Combat Casting
-3 INT Mod
-4 Your Level
---------------------
10 DC vs Naked d20 = 55% Success on first roll, DC 6 vs naked d20 = 75% on second roll

Level 8
15 Base DC
6 (lvl 3 spell *2)
0 Improved Spell Combat
-4 Combat Casting
-3 INT Mod
-8 Your level
-----------------------
6 DC vs Naked d20 = 75% Success on first roll, 2 DC vs d20 = 95% Success on 2nd roll

Level 10
15 Base DC
8 (lvl 4 spell *2)
0 Improved Spell Combat
-4 Combat Casting
-3 INT Mod
-10 Your level
-----------------------
6 DC vs Naked d20 = 75% Success on first roll, 2 DC vs d20 = 95% Success on 2nd roll

Level 14
15 Base DC
10 (lvl 5 spell *2)
-4 Combat Casting
-3 INT Mod
-14 Your level
-----------------------
4 DC vs Naked d20 = 85% Success on first roll, 1 DC vs d20 = 100% Success on 2nd roll

Level 16
15 Base DC
12 (lvl 6 spell *2
-4 Combat Casting
-3 INT Mod
-16 Your level
-----------------------
4 DC vs Naked d20 = 85% Success on first roll, 3 DC vs d20 = 100% Success on 2nd roll

Without Combat Casting, the ability is significantly reduced in power (-20% Success rate). Quickly...

Level 2: DC 14 vs naked D20 = 35% Success
Level 3: DC 13 vs naked D20 = 40% Success
Level 4: DC 14 vs naked D20 = 35% Success
Level 8: DC 10 vs naked D20 = 55% Success
Level 10: DC 10 vs naked D20 = 55% Success
Level 14: DC 8 vs naked D20 = 65% Success
Level 16: DC 8 vs naked D20 = 65% Success

Granted, at medium to higher levels your INT will be higher, but I don't think it is unreasonable to include combat casting as a bonus feat.

EDIT: I made a grave error and didn't include the +3 INT mod. I re-worked everything accordingly. This slightly changes my opinion. Perhaps Combat Casting as a bonus feat is slightly too much.

No no no, Sean, you don't write on them, you're supposed to eat them.

Maybe he's labeling it for later.

Seoni is hot, but in the picture on page 253 of the core rulebook she looks like she's trumpeting her robe and 2 strips of fabric out of her butt. That's a strange conjuration.

So, I've been knee-deep in this Alchemist since the beta was first released and much was cleared up in the revision, but some major points remain.

Is the Alchemist an arcane spellcaster for the purposes of feat qualification, such as Arcane Strike and Craft Wondrous Items?

Extracts say "as if imbibing a potion". This would suggest that you must draw the potion (move-equivalent action) and then drink it (standard action). Surely they did not intend for a full-round action to be used for an extract that can only target the Alchemist.

We take everything. In our last campaign the druid would shift into a stegosaurus and haul everything out. Coincidentally, we now find ourselves adventuring in a lot of ruins and "abandoned" dungeons.

I'm really liking the Alchemist in it's current form. It's very flexible, has a great flavor, and isn't completely useless. I would not like it if they made it a normal arcane spellcaster.

I LIKE the fact that my extracts are mine. If I want other people to use my stuff, I'll brew them a potion. Also, about people using their actions to buff is a GOOD thing. As a Sorc I was constantly expected to throw out buffs in the first few rounds of battle, which isn't fun for me (G. Invis, Bull's Strength, etc...) because I had so many spells per day. I would much rather everybody use their own actions to buff.

Brew Potion @ lvl 1 pretty much eliminates the entire problem anyway. 25gp and 2 hours for a shield potion? Yes please. We don't normally have a cleric, so the ability to brew Cure Light Wounds is great. A wand takes care of out of combat healing.

I love that it only takes 1 min to prep an extract. It's not fast enough to replace a sorc's spontaneous casting, but it's quick enough to be flexible in the field.

The cool part is you can build a Bow Alchemist, a melee weapon alchemist, a natural attacking melee alchemist, a pure bomb guy... all effective if built correctly. I'm currently playing a poison focused, rapier weilding alch. Could I make bigger boom as a bomb thrower? Sure could, but it wouldn't be as fun. I think people put too much emphasis on being crazy optimized and powerful and not enough on making an interesting charactor.

Sidivan wrote:

Abraham spalding wrote:

It's smurf-abolous!

Now I feel like I have to make this Alchemist a smurf specialist. Constantly babbling about Gargamel and brewing up crazy potions. Take a page from Jokey and make all the bombs presents. Mutagens would turn me into Hefty. Start referring to the local old wizard as Father Time...

I could say stuff like, "Hmm... let me see if I can smurf something up real quick..."

O.M.G!!

that would be soo totally awesome!!!! Even better, play as a Blue :)

I think i am so gonna steal this idea!!!

Kudos to you sir!!

Have at it! Let me know how it works out!

I'm working on the bio for my alch now. Over the years, I've done a lot of research into Alchemy, so I'm tossing a nod to Nicholas Flamel. My charactor is a novelist and while researching for his next book he stumbled upon the same book Flamel did, only it has maniacal writings all over it (from Flamel). He ends up spending 50 years in a lab (an elf of course) obsessing over it's meaning and driving himself mad, but ends up discovering mutagens and extracts. CN Elven Alchemist named "Lazel Nicoli"

Raestlin wrote:

Sidivan wrote:

Kraven Evilfart wrote:

Except alchemy in the form of chemistry simple does not work, you can't make lead into gold.

Playing devil's advocate here, but you can in fact turn lead into gold using physics... it just requires an incredible amount of energy to get the lead to drop an electron. They don't do it regularly because it costs more in energy than the gold is worth in the market.

I do agree that the alchemist abilities need to be supernatural. Take the magic out and make it completely mundane and you open the door to "If his extracts are mundane, why can't the cleric use them?"

My friend, you mean that you would need to strip PROTONS from the nucleus. That would require you surmounting the Strong Force, literally the strongest force in the universe that overpowers electromagnetism utterly. Not only is the strong force insurmountable but we know almost nothing about its carrier particle the theorized Higgs-Boson.

You cannot make lead into gold with modern day physics, its impossible.

Incorrect... Radioactive Lead decays down into gold. It's half life is about 500 million years but hey... if you got the time...

The soviet's did it in the 70's in a nuclear reactor, though accidentally. Particle accelerators transmute elements all the time. I mis-spoke about the electron and meant proton.

Glenn Seaborg transmuted Bismuth to Gold in the 80's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_T._Seaborg

TheChozyn wrote:

stuff

Hey thanks! That might work for me with some re-tooling.

And you are right. I actually LOVE my players having fun. There are never any consequences to their moral actions, just consequences for getting caught. If my players wanted to make a bunch of howling barbarians, who loot and pillage towns, that would be dandy, as long as they have fun. The only morality issues I have are if a player would have their character rape someone (this issue has never come up) or harm a non-monstrous child (another issue which has never appeared). There may be some other things, but I can't think of them off the top of my head. And if someone crossed that line, I would probably stop associating with them all together.

I don't think of Pathfinder, or any other system for that matter, as a game made for people to be heroes, I think of it as a system of game mechanics with which you can pretty much do anything you please. That's the great thing about imagination. You can do anything you want!

I was never looking to punish my players. Besides, they always look for a new, harder scam THEMSELVES, because it would get boring otherwise.

Agreed. I had a player put a guy upside-down in a burning barrel of garbage once. We laughed our asses off. Of course, we also had a small keep with brass poles and concubines... I need to run another Ravenloft campaign.

Also... it does not "fly in the face of the game rules" per se. I'm using the same mechanic for dex bonus to damage that you can get from strength bonus to damage and two-handing your weapon. Thus its no more abusable in its own right than a barbarian maxing out his strength stat to abuse power attack, a two-handed weapon... and rage.

Actually, there's a huge difference. You've combined the 2 biggest combat stats into 1 stat. That barbarian isn't getting his pumped up STR score to initiative and AC. Whereas the samurai is getting all of the combat benefits of STR.

Aeshuura wrote:

She'er's Spell Ward?

I like the word Ward... "you're being to hard on the Beaver!" Hahahah!

She'er's Spell Ward sounds like a spell rather than a magic item to me.

Agreed.

Spell Rejector sounds like a gnomish contraption of some sort. Would be sweet as an amulet or some sort of watch-like device with a bunch of frivolous moving parts.

Did you make that PDF or is that a tool you found somewhere? I like the layout.

Quote:

Also, Dexterity is primarily precision, with a secondary function of speed. Strength is primarily POWER, and power is what you want when hitting stuff. Someone really strong can wield a weapon as if it were weightless...someone weak actually has to use a light weapon. The reason why weapon finesse is a feat is because it is a considerably more difficult fighting style to use, and not instinctual. Relying on precision and speed to place your blows is much harder then relying on devastating speed and power to do the same.

Just want to mention this. If tornado force winds can speed a piece of straw up fast enough to shoot it through a cinder block... then speed can work in place of power just fine in my book when you are dealing with the razor edge of a sword.

Playing devil's advocate here, but a tornado cannot drive straw into a cinderblock... Mythbuster's tested this into a palm tree and they only ended up with a 1/4" of penetration.

Anyway, it would be a function of power since in essence power is speed (mass x acceleration). To add acceleration, you need more force. STR dictates how much force you can apply to anything, which means STR governs the speed at which you can swing. This is already built into the rules.

DEX is precision and reflex. Reflex is the time between recognizing something and reacting to it; it has no bearing on how quickly you can move your limbs. This is why using weapon finesse effects your attack rolls, but not damage (can quickly judge and maneuver around the enemies dodge/armor/shield, but still hit with the same power).

Sidivan wrote:

You've got quite the little paradoxical sorceress there! Not only did she over-come the "women are below men" stigma, but also managed to find a powerful evoker living amongst a people that avoid evoking! All the while she dresses the complete opposite of the culture and maintains some sort of humility.... Calimshan is known for being obsessed with wealth, cutthroat politics, and all around extravagance.

Even before getting to the end of your post where you mentioned combining the names I had already settled on She'er's Mantle of Denial. I guess we think alike.

Awesome! Grats on the cool character. She's got a lot of flavor and is still really effective. Nice work!

Sidivan wrote:

Tell me a little about her and I'll come up with something.

Here is her downloadable PDF character sheet.

Here is her bio:

You've got quite the little paradoxial sorc there! Not only did she over-come the "women are below men" stigma, but also managed to find a powerful evoker living amongst a people that avoid evoking! All the while she dresses the complete opposite of the culture and maintains some sort of humility.... Calimshan is known for being obsessed with wealth, cutthroat politics, and all around extravagance.

She'er is a pretty cool PC, though. You seem like the kind of guy that sticks with flavor over uber-power, which I appreciate immensely.

None of that matters though, for we are here to name a magic item! I noticed you used her last name for your custom spells, which I'm assuming is for alliteration purposes. I would definitely stick with something simple, as you suggested. I listed a few styles I like to use.

Falen's Frock
She'er's Shelter
She'er's Shawl
She'er's Shroud

She'er's Mantle
She'er's Humility
She'er's Quiet Rebellion (VIVA LA RESISTANCE!)
She'er's Grace
She'er's Denial

Of course, these can be reversed...
Shelter of She'er
Humility of She'er

Or they can be mixed/matched...
She'er's Mantle of Denial (I think is my fav for this char)

Edit: The more I think about it, the more I like She'er's Mantle of Denial. It's simple, has her name, and represents not only what the item does, but also her background growing up in Calimshan. She's pretty much the polar opposite of the society she was raised in, so denial both represents her denial of the spells that it resists as well as the denial of the influence of her environment.

It's smurf-abolous!

Now I feel like I have to make this Alchemist a smurf specialist. Constantly babbling about Gargamel and brewing up crazy potions. Take a page from Jokey and make all the bombs presents. Mutagens would turn me into Hefty. Start referring to the local old wizard as Father Time...

I could say stuff like, "Hmm... let me see if I can smurf something up real quick..."

Making a potion requires a Brew Potion though?

True, but we figured Brew Potion combined with Craft (Alchemy) and poison use to be enough.

We were playing a game where we coming up through a wizard's tower. The top floor of course was the wizard himself, but he was buried deep in his work. We always send the rogue ahead to scout and the DM made the mistake of not having a door at the top of the staircase (spiral staircase, so just an open archway). The rogue snuck up behind the wizard, pulled a bag of holding over his head and punctured it with a dagger. We had a hilariously headless wizard.

I like the idea of including her name (though not her full name) in the name of the item, but nothing so ostentatious or long-winded as you've suggested. As powerful as she is, she isn't terribly pompous and so a short to the point (but still cool sounding) name would be better suited I think.

Tell me a little about her and I'll come up with something. Magic Items are kinda my thing. What's her personality like? Something as simple as "Shelter of She'er" might work. What's the mantle look like? Is it like a hooded 1/2 cloak or is it like something a priest would wear with the scarf thingy that hangs down on both sides?

http://www.vintagetextile.com/images/Victorian/6603.jpg
http://www.lrpstore.com/uploads/images_products_large/95.jpg
http://www.ravensmoon.com/images/catdwarfmantle.jpg
http://www.wdtprs.com/images/08_09_05_vestment01.jpg (the scarf thingy)

It's really impossible to come up with a good name specialized to a character without really knowing the character's personality. For instance, my sorc feels he's surrounded by "amateurs and bumbling idiots"... mostly because we have a mountain orc with 6 INT and a rogue that likes to set traps off after he's found them. Therefore Crestis is kind of pompous and makes very grand motions when he speaks.

Craft Poison

** spoiler omitted **

Course we went ahead and homebrewed this homebrew to just work with Craft (alchemy) instead of Craft (poisonmaking)

++

HAH! We came up with the same solution for our homebrew poison rules. Only we didn't make it a feat, we just went with it as the new rules for crafting poison. Basically, it's like making a potion only it's poison.

I have a 15th-level half-elf elemental sorceress (fire theme) named She'er Falen. I want to give her a unique item, essentially a pumped up mantle of spell resistance (MoSR) that grants 24 spell resistance.

I am trying to think of a cool name to give this mantle so as to differentiate it from a standard MoSR. Unfortunately, I am having a hard time coming up with anything.

I browsed a thesaurous hoping to get some ideas, but alas, I am not coming up with anything. Could you give me a hand?

Here are some of the terms I looked up. Perhaps they will help you help me brainstorm.

Arcane Synonyms: cabalistic, esoteric, impenetrable, mysterious, mystic, occult, recondite, unaccountable, unknowable

Protection Synonyms: aegis, armament, armor, assurance, barrier, buffer, bulwark, camouflage, certainty, charge, conservation, cover, custody, defense, fix, guard, guarding, insurance, invulnerability, preservation, protecting, reassurance, refuge, safeguard, safekeeping, safety, salvation, screen, security, self-defense, shelter, shield, stability, strength, surety, tutelage, umbrella*, ward, wardship

When I come up with a unique item for my character, I like to name it after the char like the old days of dnd. After all, an item that gives SR 24 is pretty huge and she's likely the only person on the planet that has one. Also, I'm a sucker for alliteration.

She'er's Shelter of Spectacular Spell Spiting

I crafted a ring with my Sorc, who is the self-proclaimed "All knowing master of elemental magic", which gives +30 resist to acid, fire, sonic, cold, and electricity. I called it "Crestis' Clever Climate Contention Circle".

I think varying the gold by character level is likely the game-breaker here. Just because I'm level 20 doesn't mean I can get a gold piece from some poor sap on the street. It simply means I'll get a higher percentage of the coin they happen to be carrying. How much do you carry on average in real life? $20 - $50? That's a couple fast food meals to a couple nice meals. Considering a meal in game is 1sp - 5sp (poor to good) I would say max the average Joe has 10sp. How good your scam is would decide how much of that you get and/or how many people you can fool. That being said, if a troupe of scammers were raking in that much money, it's not going to take long for somebody to show up with their bruiser friends... as well as the authorities... and probably the local branch of the thieves guild.

PC death in my group is not as harsh on the individual in my group. Granted, we've been gaming with the same group for 10+ years, so we act more as a group than a bunch of individuals.

The person who died doesn't get any penalty on treasure or XP. We figure if anybody learned something from that encounter, it was definitely the person that died. The burden of death then becomes a matter of in-game logistics. Do we have the cash to get them resurrected? How do we get their body home? Is the big bad evil guy going to get away since we're traveling back to town after pounding 1/2 way into his defenses? We're very careful to not have the dead PC sit around doing nothing for too long though.

It makes for some interesting role-play scenarios and we find that the stories we remember are related to these times. Like the time we carried home the rogue in 2 separate sacks after being ripped apart by a Troll's rend. Or when our flying wizard was petrified mid-air by a beholder, which caused him to crash to the ground and shatter.

Most times people will give their character some cool scar or deformity once they're back together. We had one player give himself tally mark tattoo's over his right eye every time he died. I think he had 4 by the time we hit lvl 15.

Does the swift alchemy ability include crafting poisons? RAW applies only to alchemical items, but I plan to allow it as a houserule at the very least.

We houseruled that it does. If poison isn't alchemical, I don't know where else it would go.

After a long discussion with my entire group we've decided on this interpretation.

Fast/Precise/Potent/Sticky/Explosive don't modify the bomb, they modify the alchemist (kind of like a feat). These can be used in combination with any other bomb discovery.

Frost/Acid/Force/Concussive/Shock - only 1 of these can be applied at a time as it says, "he can choose".

Inferno/Stink/Poison - Only 1 of these can be applied because they say, "instead of fog cloud".

Madness was the only one we haven't figured out where to place. I don't intend on using it though, so it won't be a big deal for our game.

I think your ranking system there is a little out of order. Let's say you're level 16, which is 21 points. You want to spend them all on attacks (max of 7). With a Strength of 20 (low for lvl 16)...

4x Claws and Limbs = 7d4+5 (49 dmg average) for 12 points.

7x Slam + Limbs = 7d8+5 (63 dmg average) for all 21 points.

7x Sting + Tail = 7d4+5 (49 dmg average), for 14 points.

7x Tail Slap + Tail = 7d6+2 Secondary (35 dmg average) for 14 points

7x Tentacles = 7d4+2 Secondary (28 dmg average) for 7 points

Slam out-performs Claws if you're going for max damage. Obviously, there's the argument of spending the leftover points on ability scores, elemental enhancement, etc...

As far as dmg per point goes
Claws > Tentacles > Sting > Slam > Tail Slap

Edit: Added STR to the damage and a

I'm planning out my Alchemist for our new campaign and I've run into a bit of a snag with bomb discoveries and the following text.

Unless otherwise noted, discoveries that modify bombs do not stack. Only one such discovery can be applied to an individual bomb.

RAW this means that nothing that modifies a bomb stacks, save for multiple instances of the Potent Bomb discovery. Does this also mean that you can't mix and match discoveries (i.e. use Precision Bomb and Frost Bomb together). It appears to me that the intent of this rule is that you can't stack multiple occurrences of the same discovery (i.e. apply explosive bomb 5 times), but it seems to read that you can only apply 1 discovery to any 1 bomb.

Maybe I've been staring at this too long... this may come down to the definition of "stack".

Nope not seeing it. If your a Fighter 1/wizard 5/EK 10. Your 16th level with a BAB of +13 a 14th level spellcaster, counts as an 11th level fighter for feats and has 11 feats (4 being combat) and the ability to cast a spell on a crit and base saves of +7/+5/+8

You are in all respects the classic fighter/mage

As an archer with Rapid Shot and Imp crit you could toss out 3 arrows with an ok chance that you'll ALSO get a spell. Provided you can confirm your crits, spell crit will trigger every 3.3 rounds.

I think the animosity towards this PrC is people think they can make it work as a melee char. My group had the same response when I said I was going to try it out. Of course, they ended up talking me out of it, but I'm thinking about going the archer route for my next char.

Quote:

It also counts as a weapon, so it counts for weapon feats. I would rule that TWF or Rapid shot would work, but their effects wouldn't stack. Treat the bombs just like you would throwing daggers. Many shot would also work, just throw 2 in one hand.

But any weapon is categorized as a 2-Handed/1-Handed/Light weapon, because it's important for if you can hold a Shield, if you can 2WF, etc. So since Bombs count as weapons for most all purposes, they obviously need to be classified as 2-Handed/1-Handed/Light for determining exactly those same things.

The wording on using multiple Bombs as a Full-Attack Action obviously can be cleared up, because it isn't clear if it's as many as you can throw, or limited somehow. I think it's pretty likely that we will NOT see Light-weapon/ 2WF-enabled, Rapid Shotting, Hasted Bombs with as many bombs as you can manage per round, but I can't say exactly which part of that will be restricted (I'm not even considering multi-limb Alchemists). Certainly I don't think EVERY part needs to restricted to the maximal (2-Handed, can only use base Iterative # of Bombs/round irrespective of Rapid Shot, Haste, etc), but some areas seem likely to be restricted to establish a 'middle ground'.

It would be useful if the intent here was shared, for play-testing purposes.

That's a good point. Bombs are weird because they act like part ranged and part melee weapons. I think they really should be treated like a throwing dagger without precise damage. Rapid Shot applies, but you need the fast bomb discovery to do it (just ass you would need quick draw with daggers). Vital Strike would even apply, but it only applies to the base 1d6 damage and not the bonus you get from your level. The only thing that doesn't apply is sneak attack and precise shot due to the text about bombs can't do precision damage.

In that sense, I would rule that they are 1h light ranged weapons. And yes, they can be any shape/color you want them to be (ball and fuse, capsule, candies, gems, flasks, pumpkins, tiny clockwork clowns, smurfs, paper airplanes, human toes... whatever).

Creating and throwing a bomb requires a standard

action that provokes an attack of opportunity. Thrown
bombs have a range of 20 feet and use the “Throw Splash
Weapon” special attack (see page 202 of the Pathfinder RPG
Core Rulebook). Bombs are considered a weapon and can be
selected using feats such as Point Blank Shot and Weapon
Focus.

I think that's pretty specific. It doesn't say anything about MIXING. It says CREATING. So, you could do it with 1 hand. It also counts as a weapon, so it counts for weapon feats. I would rule that TWF or Rapid shot would work, but their effects wouldn't stack. Treat the bombs just like you would throwing daggers. Many shot would also work, just throw 2 in one hand.

I guess I don't picture these as the old school ball and fuse bombs. I picture them as little capsules that you activate and throw.

Except alchemy in the form of chemistry simple does not work, you can't make lead into gold.

Playing devil's advocate here, but you can in fact turn lead into gold using physics... it just requires an incredible amount of energy to get the lead to drop an electron. They don't do it regularly because it costs more in energy than the gold is worth in the market.

I do agree that the alchemist abilities need to be supernatural. Take the magic out and make it completely mundane and you open the door to "If his extracts are mundane, why can't the cleric use them?"