Skeletonkey's page

I've got a couple, from my orcish adventures in QFP Part 2: On Hostile Waters and The Frostfur Captives.

When I'm a player, I very much try to get the "highest score" so to speak, making important skill checks and doing things that bring the party ahead (being the one to kill the strongest enemy, making the battle plans, etc.) Even if the other players are having a good time, I kind of feel like I'm not getting the most fun out of it unless I'm "winning".

When I GM, I don't have that "play-to-win" problem (because there's no victory or loss involved with being a neutral judge) and I get a lot of enjoyment out of seeing the players at the table have fun and knowing that I helped entertain them and made their time spent playing PFS worth it. Even if they aren't taking it seriously, or are steamrolling through combat, or using brute-force methods without any roleplay involved, they are still having fun doing it and to me that is what counts above all other things.

This looks pretty sweet. The retraining effect lets the fighter be prepared for the situation like a wizard, tooling themselves out for what they expect to fight and stopping them from becoming obsolete due to a change in enemy type.

By RAW only weight affects his encumbrance, and if he has such insane strength that this puts him at no/light encumbrance then what can you do? Since it's only a move action to draw a sword from a scabbard (or another equivalent action of grabbing and pulling an object out of something when you know where it is) he could theoretically have as many dangling scabbards as he wanted. The rules would only have an issue with this as soon as he carries them in a bag or backpack of sorts.

The limit on how many weapons he could have ready is nearly arbitrary; as soon as they're in a bag or complicated jumble of items they aren't considered "ready" anymore.

As for the 99 greataxes... If they're all the same exact kind of greataxe and he knows where the bundle is? He can just grab something in that area by the handle and pull, knowing he'll draw a greataxe.

(Personally, I think at that point you should get DR 1/piercing.)

This is what Agile Half-Plate has in its description (straight from the APG Equipment section)

Agile Half-Plate: This style of half-plate is specially crafted in a manner that allows extra maneuverability for some physical activities. The armor check penalty for Climb checks and jump checks is only -4 (masterwork and mithral versions of this armor reduce this penalty as well as the normal penalty). In addition, unlike most heavy armors, the wearer can still run at quadruple speed instead of triple speed.

Most often light armors have no speed penalty, medium armors carry a speed penalty, and heavy armors carry both a speed and running penalty. The special quality of agile half-plate is that it has no running penalty, making it equivalent to medium armor for purposes of speed/mobility.

Mithral doesn't have a special chart to show what effect it has on the armor's speed, it only says that most armor is treated as one category lighter for purposes of speed/mobility. This makes heavy armors have no run penalty, and medium armors have no speed penalty.

What I want to know is: would this make a suit of Agile Half-Plate have the mobility of light armor with the statistics of heavy armor?

Atarlost wrote:

You get rogues to hit level appropriate AC by taking another class. A ~50% rogue/cavalier or rogue/weaponmaster fighter split or possibly rogue/barbarian if you can stand to give up the higher prerequisite rage powers.

At which point you might as well just play the other class. Are you telling me there is no uber optimization way to get a rogue to have a to-hit bonus that is within 5 points of a fighter?

You can make a rogue who is on-par/close to being on-par with a fighter, but then what you've got is an odd-ball fighter with a tough time qualifying for feats. You don't even need to be badass at optimizing, just get your weapon focus feats when you can, put an 18 in strength (or dexterity if you really want,) and try to make the enemy lose their dex bonus as much as possible.

On the subject of skills, just the 8 you get is good enough. If you're going to go the skill-focus route, go human and take Focused Study instead of an extra feat (it will pay off at level 8.) It really is better to look into the extra +x bonuses to skills rather than getting high intelligence, as the extra points you get are limited by the "ranks =< level" rule.

Power gamers are more focused on being good at roll-playing than role-playing; they try to be best at the mechanical aspects of the game (tactical combat, skills/checks/saves, etc.) and like to make "progress" towards the objective (killing a boss or reaching a town.) They aren't necessarily min-maxers, but they would probably take a +1 to damage over something with roleplay benefits.

A paladin casting an evil spell for a good purpose won't affect his alignment because it is a natural action. He is choosing to do something HE regards as vile and worthy of contempt so that good can come of it. Likewise, the reason that violence doesn't automatically make characters evil is because most of the time they are doing it for a reason (self-defense) or because diplomacy and threat-display have failed and it's the only way to stop a madman with a sword or a goblin about to wound someone. Even when they do so, most people that do it realize they are causing pain, that pain is bad, and that they would usually consider life sacred.

Casting an evil spell isn't an evil act, the objective you are trying to achieve with it is what matters. If casting an evil spell was always an evil act worthy of dropping a paladin to fallen status no matter the objective they were trying to reach, then they shouldn't bother with carrying a sword or being unwelcoming/intimidating to someone because oppression and hurt are evil.

This "paladin falls" BS is weak because that falling mechanic is there so that rules exist for a deity forsaking the paladin/anti-paladin when he starts dropping his morals like a rock for his own selfish ends/contemplating how life is sacred and not to be done away with so callously.

Actions aren't gerrymandered to be both good and evil at the same time because that would be stupid and would drag almost everyone to neutrality. That snake-faced lying hood is helping an old lady so that he can pickpocket/break into her house later? I guess he isn't evil but merely neutral because he did both a good act (helping the elderly) and evil act (pick-pocketing). Doesn't matter that he had his eyes on the prize the whole time, he might as well tear up his membership card now because the Neutral Evil clubhouse won't be letting him in anytime soon!

That paladin just slew an orc because he thought he would soon do harm with his brutal mace to a few innocent peasants? Put him in his place by taking away his divine abilities because the orc sure didn't consent to dying and he sure hurt the orc with his sword too! Nevermind that it was completely natural of him to do it (being a militant arm of the church and likely worshiping the crusader deity Iomedae) he did both a good act and evil act, so either he forks over 2,500 gold or he gets to tough it out in the mundane life.

"The end doesn't justify the means" is kind of a trap because on one hand it kind of makes sense (good ends are achieved with good means for best results) but on the other hand it totally robs paladins of their entire "divine killer" shtick and taken as a literal statement makes that deceiving thief scenario I mentioned earlier correct.

Finally, the reason the evil descriptor is there is because of this: evil magic is related to the evil planes and divine magic is given by gods/cosmic energy. When you are a good cleric, the evil god is not going to share his power sourced from his evil soul. When you are at least neutral, he might reconsider. When you are evil, the allfather of good won't give you his gift of benevolent healing and smiting because he feels that you are a waste of effort. That is why that subtype exists, to manage how it interacts with other magic and with the source that you get it from.

tl;dr:
using evil for good is natural.

using good for evil is natural.

evil spells come from an evil place. that is about it.

evil spells aren't objectively evil to use.

paladins fall when it is obvious to everyone that they should.

"the end doesn't justify the means" is very weak.

actions aren't both a good and an evil action at the same time.

most actions are natural, and those that aren't are usually neutral and only change alignment over time.

mechanics consequences: he gets healed (infernal healing does nothing to a character's alignment, nor does it influence their personality)

RP consequences: up to the players/GM but i would play it as a "necessary evil" (WAY easier on a Sarenrae paladin rather than an Iomedae crusader) and probably atone (in a characterization/RP way) for the unholy nature of the spell. If it were a matter of "patch me up" then that might be a bit more hazy, but you can still play it as giving him the strength to fight for good and making up for the wrongness of using evil power(?) making a habit out of it is definitely a no-go for an Iomedae paladin like I said though.

Wands? If the paladin is willing, he should stick to his lawful good morals to justify relying on unholy healing but if he is unwilling there's always a will-save to negate.

Depends on alignment if the whole party is using it, but I wouldn't be surprised or expect them to change their character a whole lot (it's entirely neutral to want to not die.)

As it is a half-orc doing the deed to survive, I would call it a natural/neutral action and leave it at that. Of course, there might be ethical concerns with what you're doing, but that's more lawful/chaotic than good/evil.

UMD and wands of Paladin spells for the win. You can make your weapon a holy avenger for a period of time. Give yourself +5 to attack and damage and 10 DR /-. Plus give your armor and shield a +2 enhancement bonus to AC.

What do you need to have in order to reliably make the DC20 check? Or is there no big penalty for failure when using wands?

Are metamagic feats/rods important?

Poop in his gauntlet.

Short but sweet; I like it.

How set are you to playing a cleric?

While a good battle cleric can be made, I just find them frustrating. This is because to be good, you need to take the time to pre-buff before or at the start of fights.

Another issue is that clerics in PFS are expected to heal and buff at PFS tables. They even expect this if you tell them you're a BATTLE cleric. Which means some of the time you'll end up doing support.

So if you're looking for a class that can deal cleric type stuff while still be good at fighting I suggest you take a look at the Oracle class as some of them can make very good fighters and they are not as MAD as a cleric. Another option is just take a Paladin and grab the feats that help with the paladin healing. There are some nice paladin archetypes for healing but don't know if your books have access to them.

I was pretty set on making a cleric-type because the "crusader" theme appealed to me, it had good saves, and I like playing fighter/cleric characters in CRPG's. Oracles also seem a little arcane/sorcerer-y to me, which feels a bit hard to work into the "holy warrior" thing I've got going on.

I only guessed at our level composition, I don't really know what the other players had.

On the topic of the cleric build, what spells are good?

The table I was playing at (myself included) decided it was worth the gamble to play up a tier with our level 1's and the payoff was about 1,500 more gold than we would have gotten for a tier 1-2 playthrough. That is the reason why I can afford masterwork armor and sword + shield at level one.

Do I go with channeling positive, or channeling negative energy?

Also, what's a good domain/subdomain to look for?

Why did you dump Charisma and not Intelligence? That seems rather silly.

I felt like having the extra points of intelligence would help me keep up knowledges and intimidate (roleplay reasons.) I didn't think charisma did much except boost channeling, which I wasn't going to put resources towards. Is channeling worth it? Are skills not worth keeping up for a frontline cleric?

I'm making a Cleric for PFS, here's what I have so far at level 1:

Cleric (Crusader Archetype)
Worships Iomedae

Equipment:
Masterwork Full Plate
Heavy Wooden Shield
Masterwork Longsword
(2056 gold limit)

Stats:
16
12
14
12
16
7

Feats: Additional Traits, Heavy Armor Proficiency, Weapon Focus (longsword)
Traits: Reactive (slight initiative bonus), Indomitable Faith (slight will save bonus), Bully (for intimidate), Divine Warrior (slightly better weapon buffs)

Skills:
Diplomacy
Intimidate
Heal
Kn. Religion (probably just put one point in my class knowledges)
Sense Motive
Spellcraft

Spells:
0th
Light
Virtue
Guidance
1st
Divine Favor

I haven't played a cleric before, so what I'm asking for is some help with designing a good fighter/cleric type. I'm open to multi-classing if it will really help.

The Books I've got are the CRB, APG, and UC. If there is a really good reason to get something like Ultimate Magic then I might consider it.

Fire-Forged Steel lists a magical fireball and a campfire as two sources of heat that can power it for the extra fire damage. There is a piece of equipment that adds a shield sconce to your shield, allowing you to have the benefits of a torch on hand while still using a shield. Shield Spikes are considered a separate weapon that are on your shield, allowing you to treat them as a weapon for magical/material enhancements.

Would it be possible to attach a shield sconce to a light/heavy shield with Fire-Forged Steel spikes, and have the torch be placed in such a way that it exposes the spikes to constant fire damage, causing them to always have a +1d4 fire damage bonus?

I ask about this because I'm building a Black Orc type of barbarian (Heavy Armor Invulnerable Rager) and was thinking about how cool it would be to have a metal skull on a shield that could do fire damage with each bash.

I don't make barbarians myself, but any natural attack made with another attack as part of a full action becomes a secondary attack, which makes it not worth as much. Also, deathless initiate allows you to not be staggered, only removes hitpoints when you do a full round worth of actions, and gives you a +2 on damage and attack rolls. Ferocious resolve on the other hand _requires_ you to have Orc Ferocity, and you remain staggered and losing hitpoints when you are in the negatives. You also gain a +2 to intimidate, which isn't worth much compared to a +2 attack/damage bonus. Again, I don't build barbarians so option 2 might be worth it, but I wouldn't go for it.

Buckler isn't a quickdraw shield, the specific metal and wooden quickdraw shields are.

The buckler behaves nothing like you would think it does, it (and pretty much all fantasy bucklers) acts like a targe in that it is strapped to the forearm and the hand is free, while a real european buckler would be held in the hand with a simple bar.

Because you must strap the buckler onto your arm (like you strap a light, heavy, or tower shield to your arm) it costs a move action and is not affected by quickdraw. The quickdraw shields however provide 1 AC, a -2 penalty, but are a free action to equip if you have the quickdraw feat. This is because the QD shields are designed with a different type of strap and handle that makes them faster to equip but less effective as a shield. The thing that the buckler gets that nothing else has is that it doesn't have any type of handle you have to grip, giving you a completely free offhand.

Also, regarding losing the AC when you fire a bow, the text itself is not nearly solid enough about that. It first says "You can use a bow or crossbow without penalty while carrying it." Then it says "You can also use your shield arm to wield a weapon (whether you are using an off-hand weapon or using your off hand to help wield a two-handed weapon), but you take a -1 penalty on attack rolls while doing so." Finally, it says "In any case, if you use a weapon in your off hand, you lose the buckler's AC bonus until your next turn."
With a two handed weapon both hands are committed to swinging the sword and an offhand weapon is obviously using the buckler arm to attack with. Ranged weapons however are different, and aren't attacking so much as firing something. I would rule that since the offhand for a crossbow or bow is either aiming or reloading that you don't lose the AC bonus. It looks like what they were aiming for is that when your offhand is being used to swing or stab with a melee weapon that you can't also use the shield in a defensive way.

Hobgoblins seem kind of redundant with the competition the orcs pose for "generic evil physical chump race" but here's the big difference:

Orcs are the kind to bash in a wall and throw forward a few stodgy blocks of hit-dice that can make the players feel good about their stats. They have nothing in the way of actual traps or things that can really catch the party off guard such as sneak attacks/sneak skill/solid ranged damage.

Hobgoblins are the kind to try and sneak around back the party's side and nail their cleric with a few well-aimed crossbow bolts, as well as use reach weapons in pairs against fighters. They may not have a lot of two-handed weapon barbarians lying around but they do have reach weapons, crossbows, and the occasional nasty ambush.

It's really all up to the GM after all, how he implements them determines their effectiveness. Some random raider orcs are roughly on par with a group of ramshackle hobgoblins in the early game, but imo hobgoblins can be used in more tricky ways like the kinds listed above. As for actual differences between orcs and hobgoblins on a basic level? I'm not sure but I think that hobgoblins just carry better equipment and weapons.

Shield Ward (Ex): At 20th level, a shielded fighter gains evasion (as a rogue) while wielding a shield, and adds his shield bonus to his AC (not including enhancement bonuses) on Reflex saves and to his touch AC. In addition, his shield cannot be disarmed or sundered. This ability replaces weapon master.

The language used there makes it seem pretty clear that shields could otherwise be disarmed.

Talking about switching one-handed weapons from a single hand grip to a two hand grip, remember that pathfinder and the D&D it came from abstracts a lot of stuff down, such as how ranged weapons work for example.

It would definitely be a free action to take your second hand off the weapon as it is the same to drop a weapon. Likewise, picking up a weapon-corded weapon is a swift action due to energy expended which would make something so effortless as gripping your weapon a free action too.

It wouldn't be a non-action (which is really just an easy explanation for notching arrows/slotting bolts/what have you) because it isn't insignificant, and it wouldn't be immediate because that would qualify other actions as immediate. Just remember to declare that your hand is on or off the weapon when you make your action.

Like Ilja said, if there don't appear to be any core rules for it than it is probably:

A) irrelevant (how something is gripped)
B) common sense (when you throw something with quickdraw you pull another)
C) or doesn't make sense (you should logically be able to hold a two-handed weapon in one hand, talk it out with your GM)

Also, whether or not it is a free action to grip-ungrip a weapon consider this: simple weapons are clublike, martial weapons are practical to handle, but some exotic weapons (such as the chained ones) could possibly be considered as more "difficult" to handle than martial/simple weapons.

P.S. when handling a bow two hands are required to shoot it, two hands are required to load it, and one hand is required to hold it in one hand. They aren't exactly like two-handed melee weapons, they have their own rules regarding usage and handling.