SilvanOrion's page

Doug Hahn wrote:

SilvanOrion wrote:

I do like that it has the higher DC options, which is a great help. I'm curious why getting continual recovery is so hard for an Herbalist. As it is, you'd be doing Nature for treat wounds, but then would need to get Medicine up to make it any good, at which point you may as well have not done Natural Medicine since you're now just as high on Medic but spent a feat to use a different skill that is likely at the same modifier. At least that's how it feels to me.

Suppose it is just me wanting more, but a man can dream.

SERIOUSLY. I'm building a druid for an AP and no one wants to heal except me. All of this character's skill feats and increases are taken up by Medicine to level 8. They feel less like an outdoorsey druid and more like a medical school grad student.

Allowing another path to qualify for these feats (or adding an equivalent within a path, such as a Natural medicine feat chain) would help mitigate this bad feeling.

This feels like a party problem, and not a system problem. A single skill feat unlocking a whole path doesn't make a lot of sense, and there really isn't a good way to build a druid as only a healer. The alchemist subclass of Chirurgeon is taking a class feature to build this out. Short of them adding another subclass under druid, I'm not sure how this would make sense.

You are very right, that a single skill feat unlocking it all shouldn't happen. I think that's where the idea of having it be something specifically in Herbalist would make it maybe easier to do, but I am by no means a game designer. I also admit some of it is just player greed of "but I wanna do this too". Especially when my dedicated healer cleric isn't as good at healing as the rogue. Lol

While I think a follow-up feat to Natural Medicine sounds cool, it's way beyond the scope of this errata.

This may be the best point I didn't really think on. Even if it was changed, it would have to be more focused than this errata is.

SilvanOrion wrote:

As it is, you'd be doing Nature for treat wounds, but then would need to get Medicine up to make it any good, at which point you may as well have not done Natural Medicine since you're now just as high on Medic but spent a feat to use a different skill that is likely at the same modifier. At least that's how it feels to me.

Suppose it is just me wanting more, but a man can dream.

I think part of the reasoning is that Nature is also one of the magical tradition skills used for identifying magic and creatures, so it is already a valuable skill on its own. It is also given trained proficiency automatically for several classes. Sometimes even up to Expert proficiency (Thaumaturge can get Nature to Expert at level 9 for free).

A fair point. I suppose what I'd want is some feat just in Herbalist that allows a continual recovery type of effect. Not Ward Medic or anything that strong, mind you, but just the flavor of being the druid hermit healer is one I like, but I always feel so starved for skills. Likely that's just left over from 1e though and I need to get over it. Lol

SilvanOrion wrote:

Firstly, I want to apologize if this has been discussed already and I simply couldn't find it.

With the changes to the healer alchemist (I'm bad at spelling), do we think we will ever see adjustments to Natural Medicine? I don't want to see it take over the medicine skill, I just wish it would qualify me for continual recovery so I can use it more than once an hour.

If they won't do that, can someone help get me off of my soapbox and explain why not? If not for me, than for my poor DM that has to listen to me.

Natural Medicine did receive a clarification!

"Page 264 (Clarification): When I use Natural Medicine, can I attempt the higher-DC checks even though I'm not using Medicine?

You absolutely can. Essentially, you replace any mention of “Medicine” in the activity with “Nature” if you’re using Natural Medicine. You do still need healer’s tools. 

Also, note that this feat applies only to using Treat Wounds. You would still need to be an expert in Medicine, not Nature, to select the Ward Medic feat. If you did qualify for and did select Ward Medic, you would be able to use Nature to Treat Wounds for two targets. You’d still need to become a master or legendary in Medicine to treat more targets than that."

I do like that it has the higher DC options, which is a great help. I'm curious why getting continual recovery is so hard for an Herbalist. As it is, you'd be doing Nature for treat wounds, but then would need to get Medicine up to make it any good, at which point you may as well have not done Natural Medicine since you're now just as high on Medic but spent a feat to use a different skill that is likely at the same modifier. At least that's how it feels to me.

Firstly, I want to apologize if this has been discussed already and I simply couldn't find it.

With the changes to the healer alchemist (I'm bad at spelling), do we think we will ever see adjustments to Natural Medicine? I don't want to see it take over the medicine skill, I just wish it would qualify me for continual recovery so I can use it more than once an hour.

If they won't do that, can someone help get me off of my soapbox and explain why not? If not for me, than for my poor DM that has to listen to me.

So let me give as much info as I can. Please keep in mind that some of what I'll post is because of some house rules we have about feats and the like, so it is not a PFS legal character.

My party and I are currently playing Curse of the Crimson Throne. To avoid too many spoilers, we've recently finished book 2 and our DM has set aside a little bit of downtime before book 3 will officially start. Among other things, this includes our table's usual "end of book shopping spree".
I'm playing a hunter in this setting, going melee focused and having a firepelt cougar (large cat stats) for the animal companion.

Here are some stats and feats to help get a grasp of things.

Senowa

What I'm wondering here is if anyone has any advice for flavorful items for a Shaonti Hunter. I'm already setting aside some money for armor and weapon upgrades, so no concerns on that. However, magical/wondrous items and things like rings are something I've always had a hard time shopping for.

Presuming that any one item suggested shouldn't cost over 20k gold, what are some things you would look for?

So I'm working on having a quarterstaff Nature Fang druid off of some of the advice I've seen in the forums here. I was wondering if I could get an opinion on 2 things.

1) Shillelagh: I understand that it can only be cast on a non-magical quarterstaff, but what are the thoughts on it being cast on a caster staff? Staff of the Woodlands is the best example I can think of. Is their ability to "function as a +2 quarterstaff" something that makes them then a magical weapon, or are they non-magical?

2) Greater Shillelagh: Will we ever see something like this? Shillelagh is a great spell, but I'm worried about trying to over come damage resistance types at higher points if I make this my focused weapon and fighting style. Will I simply have to bite the bullet later and get a more enchanted staff, or is there simply something I'm not seeting?

Thank you in advance for any assistance, sorry if I'm posting incorrectly, and as always, thanks for all the work you and the team do.

Thank you Declindgrunt for the thought. I talked with my DM and he's pretty much in the same boat. As long as the end goal is kept in mind, and not the "well, you did say the dress looked good on them so you fall" mentality, I'll remember to keep up the good fight.

As for the plot situation, ...

You have to decide how much your character would sacrifice personally to stop what is about to happen to the world (hopefully you know the importance of what you are doing by now). If I were playing a Paladin through this, I would likely cross the line if I knew the significance of what was happening, though I would still not kill any innocents that were not already evil (which should be almost non-existent where you are).

The book you are in is painfully hard for a Paladin, even without other annoying players.

As a GM, I wouldn't make it extra hard for the paladin here and putting them into ridiculous moral situations unless I was also prepared for them to fight their way out of everything. Also, as a GM, I would allow Torag to bless you with full Fighter levels if he did take away your Paladin abilities for some time until your mission was complete and you atoned. I believe the adventure even suggests some things here for paladins.

Thanks a ton for the advice. I'm talking with the GM as it is about the situation, but I have to be cautious about talking to the player since I think he didn't even want me to know out of character what he is planning. I only found out cause the GM warned me.

I'm excited to see what kinds of things will be in store for my paladin, and I honestly hadn't considered even if I may have to cross the line. You've given me some good food for thought.

So the title is just to give an idea of the setting. As it says, I'm a paladin in Second Darkness and we just got to the point where we

First, the obvious, I'm a paladin. A stonelord paladin of Torag to be exact. I'm wondering what I should really be trying to do. I'm not a very social character (yay 10 charisma >.<) so I worry about a social story section being something where I can't really help. I'm a craftsman on the character, so there are activities I can do, but I don't want all my sessions to just be "I roll to finish making another hammer" or some such.

Second, the rogue in our group. Now this is the hard one. When we talked in our group that we wanted to do this campaign, I was excited to bring my WoW paladin to life in Pathfinder. He is very much of the opinion that everyone can become better, and deserves that chance. Honestly, I could have gone Sarenrae for his god, but I just recently played a cleric of one and was worried about it being too similar.

Anyways, the issue is our "neutral" rogue is very CE. Follows the Favored Sting, swears vengence on multiple enemies we deal with. Even has sacraficed a person on a demon altar. The only saving grace for me is his bluff is huge and I haven't in character had proof yet. Now, the issue is he wants to play our social face for the next book, and is also talking about killing people in their sleep and even the idea of summoning spawns of Rovagug in an effort to just kill off the "enemies".

I need help here people. He knew that I was excited to play my paladin, and it is seeming more and more like he wants it to either come to PvP, or make it so my character has to leave the group. I mean, you show me what LG paladin would be ok with someone summoning Rovagug stuffs.

So what advice to people have? How should I play my character in the coming book? What kind of activities should I be trying to do(we were told upfront by the quest giver that there will be atonements available to me immedietly upon our return)? How do I deal with a player that seemingly wants to just destroy the character I was excited to bring to the table?

Ok, first of all sorry that I accidently hit post while typing.

So in looking for Advanced Scurvy, it seems that spell is from the Skulls and Shackles setting. While I might be able to get it eventually, my DM is pretty strict on origins of things.

The same would apply to Aboleth's Lung

Nice idea though :D

nope, unless it said that it was added to the list for slayers than it's not.

damn, but alright. thank you :)

When the Slayer class came out, there was a list of the various Rogue Talents they could select with their Slayer Talents.

One of the rogue tricks they could take was Terrain Mastery. While this is a very strong one and nice to get ahold of, I'm wondering if Slayers are also able to take the new Rogue Talent Favored Terrain.

Rules as written, it isn't on the list. However, the second is a decently new rogue talent and I'd like to hear thoughts on this.

Actually, if possible, get that Int down to a 14 (still plenty, believe me) and try and get STR/CON even higher.

Saddly, that's as high or low as I can get my stats. The grid looked as follows.

I could trash the int more, but would actually have to take my bonus roll (a 10) and put it in just to make my int bad.

I do like the idea of a squid druid (literally focus on them) but I'm not sure if I want to do that for this particular group. We've already got one person going in a direction that made me think they wanted to use water spells mostly. Another is doing a Buccaneer (arctype) while the last is a "f!!~ everything in the water" rogue. (he really hates the water).

What I'm trying to do at this point, is decide if I want to do a blaster caster druid, or go with a more melee feel on the druid. Either with Wild Shape or the Nature Fang and focus on high damage through those.

Alright, so a few people have said don't worry too much about dex (even my GM). So I took a second look at my grid (yay grids!) and came up with a bit more Str in the build.

Str 16
Dex 15
Con 15
Int 17
Wis 17
Cha 14

Again, this is post race (+2 Dex and Int, -2 Con [in case yall forgot])

I had a lot of fun preparing a Nature Fang Druid for Skulls + Shackles, using Besmara's favored combat style for feinting and such.

I actually hadn't considered this. I will have to take a look at the class and figure if that might fit better.

Although there are some underwater activities, Skull and Shackles is a 'we are pirates on a ship campaign' not 'explore the world under the sea'. The party having some ability to function underwater is important, but don't build you character on it.

Noted. I didn't want to focus too hard on underwater combat. The idea with the elementals was to go for making large enough whirlpools to mess with the ships.

Since most of it is going to be combat on, in, or involving boats (I'd presume) are there any spells people would suggest? I already know Warp Wood is one but not sure about anything else especially helpful.

So my friends and I recently beat Rise of the Runelords (finally! was second attempt) and we've decided the next one we're doing is Skulls and Shakles.
After talking it out as a group, the class I've decided to go with is an Aquatic Elf, Mooncaller Druid, with the Water sub Oceans domains.

The idea, before anyone worries, is the Mooncaller part is more about venerating the moon's sway over the tides, and the GM is alright with this.

What I'm wondering is if anyone has any advice for feats/spells for the druid. One thought I'd had was having the feat that makes your wild shape treated as one size larger for the purposes of abilities and using water elementals, thus having larger whirlpools.

I know this is fairly broad of a question to ask, and I am sorry for that. I'm a little nervous playing in a almost fully water setting, since I've not done that much and our last few battles involving water things kind of nearly killed us.

Thank you in advance for any advice you can give, and I'll try to answer any questions I can when I get back from work.

Also, do please avoid giving spoilers if you can (not that people do, but room mate mentioned it and now I'm paranoid. lol)

Character stats (post race)

an odd question to go with everything in here: do you think they will ever re-print the book? PDFs are nice, but I don't have a way to easilly access them with the group I play with so in some cases having the physical copy of something is very nice.

I'm currently playing in a Carrion Crown campaign and playing with a sorceress (Empyreal bloodline) and wanted to ask a question about Hell Knights.

With a bit of talking to my GM, we realized that one thing we might be missing out on is someone who can talk with, and is willing to, the various undead we're likely to come across.
None of us is exactly planning on going with demons, but we know that we will likely have to talk to them to.

This lead to us talking about Hell Knights, and I somehow got on the idea of becoming this world's version of Sorin Markov (ala Magic:TCG).

As a caster, and looking at the mentalities of the orders, I figured that order of the portal will likely be the easiest for me to work with (as well as my own mentality). What I'm curious about is if Hell Knights look down on Vampires and the like.
Since the portal order focuses on learning about magic and the power it offers so they can better fight it, would they condemn, welcome, or just not care, if someone was also a vampire?

TL,DR: Is it a viable option to be a vampire hell knight?

I wanted to just hop in here and thank everyone for all your help with this.
Yeah, it kinda bites to not be able to do it in one round, and I didn't imagine I'd be able to. I just wanted to make sure I was sure on everything. :)

I'm working on potentially going for the Gravewalker archetype for Witch. I do have one small question about their Spell Poppet though.

At level 3, they gain the following ability ~

At 3rd level or higher, a gravewalker can use her poppet to deliver touch spells. After casting a touch spell, as a full-round action, the witch can designate a target and stab a pin into her poppet, delivering the spell as a ranged touch attack. The target must be within range of her aura of desecration ability.

What I'm wondering about this is would I have to cast the spell one turn, holding the charge, and then next turn it is a full round action to stab the poppet? Or, do I cast the spell, and the rest of my turn is spent stabbing the poppet?

I could use a little help on this, and I appreciate all the assistance in advance.

This thread makes me think of a giant story my DM likes to tell.
Rather than try to chase around the party, the giant simply took hand-fulls of his gold piles and threw them at the party. lol

I see a lot here and so I thought I would share how it was put to me by my DM.

I wanted to get this on my alchemist, as well as Madness Bomb. I liked the idea of lowering Wisdom as well as causing confusion. My DM perused the forums (he's much faster at finding things than I am) and told me that no, the bomb did not require a save.
However, he pointed out that the spell says they attack the last thing that hurt them, and since I had hit them this was, in essence, a taunt. Granted, there can be uses for this (pulling a mob off a caster came to mind) but it also means that the alchemist in question needs to set things up in such a way to make sure they don't tank something they can't deal with.

Personally, I skip over this bomb these days. I'll get my Madness bomb later, strip their minds, and be happy to not die by accidentally pissing off the dragon.

In regards to the damage penalty, yes, I would assume that you apply both discovery effects completely and that includes the penalty for each.

As for the Confusion, it says it affects the target as if under the effects of a confusion spell for 1 round per level. The confusion spell lasts 1 round per level and allows a will save, so I think it stands to reason that since the bomb duplicates the effect of the spell, that it is meant to do so in every regard, including the save.

I understand this, and that's kind of how I saw things at first. The point my friend made was that 1) the rule of it doesn't say it gives a save and 2) since it doesn't effect a burst like the spell does it might not have one because an attack roll already has to be made.

Still, I'm just trying to get different voices on this particular discovery as well :)

One other thing that I noted on here and I'm just making sure that it isn't an oversight on the discovery.

"A creature that takes a direct hit from a confusion bomb takes damage from the bomb and is under the effect of a confusion spell for 1 round per caster level of the alchemist."
So does this mean that a Confusion Bomb doesn't allow a will save to negate (there is nothing in the rule as I read it that says it would) and I want to, again, make sure I fully understand the discovery before I start hucking around confused enemies.

D20PFSRD wrote:

Discoveries that modify bombs that are marked with an asterisk (*) do not stack. Only one such discovery can be applied to an individual bomb.

Yep, I was mistaken. I've been playing it too restricted this whole time. The chaos I have lost, the MAD BEAUTIFUL CHAOS!

so as I understand you guys, these two in particular can stack, and I can add Madness to other bombs I use. I just can't add Confusion to ones with an asterisk on them.

Also, reading them they each reduce the damage of the thrown bomb by 2 damage dice. I presume so, but those would stack? (ie: a bomb that would do 6d6+int-mod if under the effect of both discoveries would do 2d6+int-mod damage)

I'm currently running an alchemist for a campaign and I'm planning on going a little crazy with him. Part of the flavor of this is the Confusion Bomb discovery and the Madness Bomb discovery.

The problem I'm having is that I don't own all of the books yet, so I have to get some of my info online. I'm curious if these two abilities are able to stack.

I know not all bomb related discoveries stack, but I also know that some can. I'd like any help people can offer with this.

Thank you in advance for any help with this, I know this is a pretty simple question but I need to know so I don't cheat on accident :(

First, I want to thank everyone for all the help with Oracle tips. Some of these are things I never would have thought up :D

Given that the main way for healing it seems would be channeling (really didn't think it would be so strong with that life link thing. holy crap!) what are some spells people would suggest?

As I understand, I don't need to worry about choosing cure spells since I get them guaranteed each time I gain a new level of spells (based on alignment). Please correct me on this if I'm wrong :)

One thing to keep in mind here is something my friends and I came to the receiving end of.
Are the monsters/baddies smart enough to realize that the creature is a summoner's pet? why not go for the summoner then.
Do they see someone buffing the monk? why not take out the buffer then.

It might seem like sniping to some, but it makes sense to me. If you can't hit the tank, then you go for the healer.
In the case of the tanks, they don't always put out lots of damage, and if they don't then the mobs will just run right by them. I was on the bad end of that stick on my monk, where the mobs just ran by me.

Anyways, I really do hope that things work out for you. I haven't been a DM for a LONG time (D&D 3.0) but I know it is never fun to have your players steam roll the challenges you put in front of them.

Hey there everyone. I'm playing an online game with some friends soon and I'm running the healer for us. After a bit of looking, I decided I wanted to give Oracle a shot, and the DM has approved me running Aasimar.

The idea for this character is going to be nothing too new, they want to redeem who they can and will slay as a "last resort". Therefor, as the main healer/buffer of the group I'm wondering if anyone on here can offer advice for things I should get.

Feats and multi-classing are my main focuses of questions, though spell advice is (of course) always welcome.

I'll thank everyone in advance for your helpful tips and advice. I haven't played the healer of a group for a while, so anything you got helps.

Things I'm considering already:
Heavy Armor Proficiency
Tower Shield Proficiency
Cure spells (obviously)
Burned Curse (since not meant to be melee offensive anyways)

Azata-Blooded (for Dex boost for ranged spells)
or
Agathion-Blooded (for Con boost to HP)