Sir Ophiuchus's page

Hello all!

For the past year and a half, I've been playing in a weekly Pathfinder game with a fantastic GM. He hasn't GM'd much before, but his worldbuilding and description is brilliant, and we have a great story going on. Several of us are also experienced roleplayers, which helps. We started at level 1 and we've now just hit level 10, leveling about every 3/4 sessions.

Now, however, we've got a problem. He's a great GM, but we think he finds it hard to understand how to devise challenging combat encounters for the party at this level, and to figure out a reasonable CL (which I found hard as well when I GM'd Pathfinder).

Since you guys are uniformly wonderful and wise, I have permission from him to ask you for ideas to rock the casbah for our encounters, and to give us a hard time! He'll be reading the thread, and possibly commenting, so any advice you can give - behind spoiler tags please - would be massively helpful.

Useful information

- We tend to only have one combat encounter a session. When we have more than one, they're almost never the same game day. This makes it hard to balance, and means we're more comfortable blowing all our limited-use stuff. The party has an airship base, and tends to operate from there, so there's very little dungeon-crawling attrition.

- Party access to flight is currently just the wizard, though everyone has some way to negate falling (repeat, airship).

- The party is:

-- Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager) 6 / Oracle (Lame, Flame) 1 / Rage Prophet 3, with spell sunder and rage-cycling, though not massively optimised for attacking.
-- Ranger (Wild Stalker) 10, who is a DPS machine, and easily does more than 100hp damage in two rounds.
-- Bard 10, who mostly buffs the hell out of everyone and casts enchantments.
-- Cleric 1 / Inquisitor 9, who buffs himself and others with spells, and messes up the enemy with judgements.
-- Wizard (Conjurer) 10, who buffs and summons, for the most part.

- House rule is that all PCs *and* all monsters have max HP.

If you need any additional information, ask away! Help us Pathfinder forums, you're our only hope! Be cruel to us and destroy us with nasty horrible evil encounters. We want to fight them!!

And remember, actual encounter suggestions in spoiler tags!

Hey all,

I have a nice concept for a backup character and I'd like your advice to see if it's even playable, and to make it so if it isn't.

I'd like to put together a very old (read: venerable) human woman who got the call to become a holy warrior incredibly late in life. (For reference, the stat changes for venerable are -6 Str, Dex, Con, +3 Int, Wis, Cha.)

Obviously, given the intent of the paladin class, this would be very difficult to do mechanically. But I'd settle for a style of combat/interaction that makes her useful and helpful to the party, even if she's not going to be kicking out much damage or (most likely) wearing heavy armour.

Also, I know that older characters do better as casters ... that's kind of the point. I want to see if the paladin class in particular can do something unusual or interesting with a venerable character.

Playing with the elite array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8), I see that it's possible to keep her Con penalty manageable or nonexistent, and that she can have some really high Wisdom and Charisma scores, as well as enough Int to qualify for any feats that need it (and getting a TON of skill points if Int goes high). She can even have no Dex penalty if done right.

But can she be useful and mechanically workable (not optimised, just playable in a party without being dead weight) as a character, levels 1-20. Advise me, Internet! I need help!

The things that are locked in stone are:

Race: Human
Gender: Female
Class: Paladin (Happy to play with archetypes, but I'd like to single-class this. I know casters, and even a monk, would be much more optimisable for her.)
Stats: Using the elite array, for convenience.
Age: Venerable (so, 70 years old). -6 all physical stats, +3 all mental.

Hey all,

I'm making a sorcerer that's gleefully specialised in blasting, and I've a few questions about how the APG feat Spell Perfection works.

Spell Perfection:

You are unequaled at the casting of one particular spell.
Prerequisites: Spellcraft 15 ranks, at least three metamagic feats.
Benefit: Pick one spell which you have the ability to cast. Whenever you cast that spell you may apply any one metamagic feat you have to that spell without affecting its level or casting time, as long as the total modified level of the spell does not use a spell slot above 9th level. In addition, if you have other feats which allow you to apply a set numerical bonus to any aspect of this spell (such as Spell Focus, Spell Penetration, Weapon Focus [ray], and so on), double the bonus granted by that feat when applied to this spell.

My question has to do with the line "as long as the total modified level of the spell does not use a spell slot above 9th level". Does that mean that I can't select Chain Lightning with this feat and quicken it using a 6th-level slot? The modified level *would* use a 10th-level slot, but *doesn't*. Hence my confusion. Does it mean that, or something else?

Similarly, if I have Lightning Bolt as my Spell Perfection choice, can I cast an Empowered Maximised Lightning Bolt (8th level) and quicken it for free?

(Obviously, presuming I've the appropriate feats.)

Many thanks, guys!

Once a day, [x] may be activated as a standard action. Flying creatures within sight of the bearer must make a DC 25 Reflex save (or a DC 30 Fly check) or be bound with invisible coils of force and start falling at the normal rate. They may remake this check each round they fall or until they strike the ground, when the effect ends.

Edit: Hmmm, it appears the original post has disappeared. A shame; it was a fun idea, and a great way to keep the forum alive while we wait for the results.

Hello all, I've had an account here for a long time now, but it took hearing about RPG Superstar to get me active!

I have a query about requisite skills for wondrous item creation: The guidelines state that only Spellcraft, Craft, or Profession skills are used for wondrous items. Does that mean that it's forbidden in this contest to have a different skill prerequisite even if it's more thematically relevant to the item? If anyone could give me a ruling on this I'd greatly appreciate it - I'd hate to write in a fantastically appropriate skill and be disqualified for not following the rules!

Thanks, and wish me luck!