SkyHaussmann's page

My group is about to embark on the way of the wicked campaign starting this Saturday. They're all really looking forward to a chance to be evil dark lords of doom, and my DM nature to root for the bad guys is going to be gloriously fulfilled vicariously through my players. Let the Evil times roll.

The party makeup is as follows:
F LE Changeling cleric of Asmodeus (domain Law subdomain Slavery) -thorn will like her
M NE Half-Orc Barbarian
M LE Human Sorcerer (Elemental Bloodline [electricity]) - he's gonna be mr "I have every energy type evoker"
M LE Human Magus (also the party's best skill monkey)

I'm going to post the events and details of sessions in this thread, please feel free to comment. Hopefully my group of borderline, and not quite so borderline sociopaths will have fun being evil baddies and bringing the hurt to the happy people of Talingarde. Will update as frequently as possible. For now, blessings of the prince of Nessus be with you.

So happy day, since converting over to pathfinder from 3.5 I've been a touch sad at the lack of resources for undead PCs in the Paizo sources. We use only Paizo sources, no 3pp stuff, and no 3.5 stuff. I have managed to successfully lichify (sp?) my character, and have been going through various means to disguise this fact from the world at large, and to a lesser extent, from the NG wizard in the party (Everyone knows OOC that I'm a lich, but none know in character, and its been super fun coming up with plausible reasons I take less damage, don't sleep anymore, cant be fatigued, etc.
I've been concealing my nature with Gentle Repose, Undetectable Alignment, a greater Hat of Disguise, and a bluff check through the roof, but one thing occurred to me, namely that I can't find a way to block detect undead. Walking around inside a lead box is obviously somewhat prohibitive, so thats out.
Is there any way to avoid detect undead without using 3pp or 3.5 stuff, because that does not exist in our pathfinder games.

So I'm assembling a spiked chain wielding tripper at the request of my GM, cause he thought it'd be neat. I decided to go dex-based for the AoO's, and so now I have a question, and I'll try to include all the relevant source material.

Normally, a Two-Handed attack with a spiked chain adds 1.5 times strength, as it's a two-handed weapon. Sounds good.

Overhand Chop and Backswing say you add 2x strength when you use their respective actions.

Overhand Chop (Ex)

At 3rd level, when a two-handed fighter makes a single attack (with the attack action or a charge) with a two-handed weapon, he adds double his Strength bonus on damage rolls.
This ability replaces Armor Training 1.

Backswing (Ex)

At 7th level, when a two-handed fighter makes a full-attack with a two-handed weapon, he adds double his Strength bonus on damage rolls for all attacks after the first.
This ability replaces Armor Training 2.

The Agile weapon property lets you add DEX to damage, but you don't get the 1.5x modifier for two-handers. Also fine.

Agile weapons are unusually well balanced and responsive. A wielder with the Weapon Finesse feat can choose to apply her Dexterity modifier to damage rolls with the weapon in place of her Strength modifier. This modifier to damage is not increased for two-handed weapons, but is still reduced for off-hand weapons.

So thats all fine and dandy. My question here is, given that I'm going with DEX, which of the following three interpretations is correct? Or if they are all wrong, what is the right answer? Help me out.

Idea 1:
Attacks deal 1x DEX from Agile, plus 2x STR from OC or Backswing eg: STR 12 and DEX 18 would net you 2x1+1x4=6 damage

Idea 2: DEX acts in place of STR for damage, so you just get the stated 2xSTR, but STR = DEX so 2x DEX, or 2x4=8 damage for the above stats.

Idea 3: The two-handed fighter abilities were built assuming you'd be getting 1.5xSTR to damage, so you could RAI the change to STR damage as +0.5x instead of goes to 2x in all cases. This would get you then DEX+1/2 DEX or 1.5xDEX... or 1.5x4=6 damage in the above scenario.

thoughts?

I really hate to do this, because I'm sure its been discussed somewhere, but for the life of me I cannot find it.
I'm putting together a Dwarf Druid, and my question is as follows: when he wild shapes, a) does he lose the benefits of being a dwarf (saves vs poison, stonecunning, etc) ? and b) does he lose his qualification for dwarf racial traits/feats?

Basically, if I wild shape into an elemental, am I considered Humanoid(Dwarf) or Elemental during the wild shape?

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So I'm currently in a Serpent's Skull campaign, and we're planning on doing Skull and Shackles next, I'll be in both as a player, but the GM will be different for the two campaigns. As the groups de facto board-searcher, i have a few questions to throw out at you all.
First, my group is of 5 of us, including the GM, and two of the players seem really into psionics, one for the versatility while still keeping full progression of the psion, lets call him Tony, and the other guy likes the new expanded psionics classes like vitalist and aegis, call him Luke. I'm kind of on the fence regarding psionics, I dabbled a bit in it in 3.5, but haven't touched it in PF as there are so many other cool things i can play. The other two guys in the group don't care for psionics. One just doesn't like the idea it seems, call him Red, and the other one (our current GM) is of the opinion that Psions are overpowered, having played one himself in our last campaign, and now GMing our party with a psion in it, call him Fred. So Fred, our current GM is grumbly about it, but seems to be letting it go for now, and the GM for Skull and Shackles will be Red, the other fellow who doesn't seem to like them for flavourful reasons, and maybe a bit of a imbalance perception. We have thought out our party for the beginning of Skull and Shackles, and Luke wants to play an Aegis, but Red isn't sure about it. So I'm talking to Fred and Red the other day, and Fred mentions also how he doesn't like how DSP has incorporated psionics into Golarion, and how his life would be easier if we just stuck to the Paizo material, as it would make his world nicer, and he would not have to worry about balance between 3rd Party material and Paizo stuff. The discussion eventually ran to the idea that instead of the GMs just decreeing that psionics does not exist in the world, we should put it to a vote. Now here's the part where I need your advice, oh wise internet. It would surely fall to me to break a 2-2 tie if we voted on this, and from the GM's point of view i can see why they don't like it for non-canon reasons and the psion's ability to stack up power points into more high level spells than a wizard could dream of, but I'm concerned that we'll be alienating two of the group. I think Tony would be a bit upset, as he said he'd never play an arcane caster again as long as psion is available, and he has played a few, but i think he'd just say poo on arcane casting and play divine or martial characters. But Luke really likes psionics conceptually, and I think he'd be a bit put out.

Again, I have no real desire to play any psionic class, but should I agree with the GMs and say we're playing Pathfiner, lets keep it Paizo-only, and not have to worry about 3pp balance issues, as well as the idea that if we let in psionics we'll slowly end up adding more 3pp material, some of which is silly how unbalanced it is, or should I say let the players play what they want to? any reasonable advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

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I have a 15th level sorcerer, and I've read often that a high level caster should not walk out the door in the morning without an array of spells running either through casting or magic items, other then obvious stuff like mage armor, possibly nondetection, what are we talking about here?

EDIT: It just occurred to me contingency should be a good one.

So I'm assembling an inquisitor as a backup character in an ongoing campaign, and he's a dwarf. The dwarf alternate favored class bonus for inquisitors is

Add +1/2 to the inquisitor's level for the purpose of determining the effects of one type of judgment.

So now I'm wondering what is a better choice? +1 HP/level, +1/2 level for Destruction Judgement, or +1/2 level for Justice Judgement.

Normally I take +HP on characters, because EVERYONE likes more hit points, and it can save on CON if you're jammed for point buy with a build. The inquisitor I've go going here has 20 CON with items, and Toughness, so he's pretty well set for HP, making me consider the judgement choices.

Race: Wayang (+2 Dex, +2 Int, -2 Wis)
Small size
20ft speed
+2 Perception, Stealth
Darkvision 60
1/Day: Reverse effects of positive and negative energy for 1 min
1/Day: Invisibility for 5 Rounds

Classes: Weapon Master Fighter 3, Rogue 4, Duelist 5

Stats: (20 point buy)
STR: 9
DEX: 16+2Racial+3Leveling=21 (25 with belt)
CON: 14
INT: 16+2Racial=18 (22 With Headband)
WIS 10-2Racial=8
CHA:7

Saves:
FORT: 12 = 6(Base)+2(CON)+4(Cloak)
REFLEX: 21 = 8(Base)+7(DEX)+4(Cloak)+2(Grace)
WILL: 8 = 4(Base)-1(WIS)+4(Cloak)+1(Trait)

Feats:
1-Dodge
1(Fighter)-Weapon Finesse
2(Fighter)-Mobility
3-Dervish Dance
5-Improved initiative
7-Fencing stance (+2 AC when wielding only 1 weapon and a free hand)
9-Weapon Focus (Scimitar)
11-Toughness

Traits: +2 Initiative, +1 Will

Class Features:

Fighter:
+1 CMD vs Disarm, sunder, Weapon-related Saves
Weapon Training (Scimitar) +1

Rogue:
2d6 Sneak Attack
Trapfinding
Trap sense +1
Evasion
Uncanny Dodge
TALENTS: Resiliency, Combat Trick--> Improved Critical (Scimitar)

Duelist:
Canny Defence
Improved Reaction +2
Enhanced Mobility
Grace
Precise Strike (+5)
Parry
Combat Reflexes
Riposte

Combat:
+3 Scimitar +26/21/16 15-20 Crit x2 for d4+18+2d6SA
(26 to hit=11BAB+7DEX+3Weapon+3Weapon Training+1Weapon Focus+1Size)
(18 dmg = 7Dex+3Weapon +5 Duelist +3 Weapon Training)

AC: 33(41vs AoO) = 10+4Bracers+(7+5)Dex+1 size+1Amulet of Natural Armor+2 Ring of Protection+1Dodge+2 Fencing stance
Flat footed (Uncanny Dodge): 18 = 10+4Bracers+1Size+1Amulet+2Ring
Touch:28 = 10+(7+5) Dex+1Size+2Ring+1Dodge+2Stance

Skills:

Maxed: (12 Ranks)
Acrobatics
Appraise
Climb
Disable Device
Escape Artist
Dungeoneering
Local
Perception
Stealth

Others (2 ranks)
Engineering
Dance
Other
Swim

Gear:
+3 Scimitar
+4 Bracers of Armor
+4 Belt of DEx
+4 Headband of INT
Gloves of Duelling
+4 Cloak of Resistance
+1 Amulet of Natural Armor
+2 Ring of Protection
1x CMW potion
2x CLW potion

So as a GM myself i know that its a fine line to walk with regards to allowing PCs to have custom magic items that can sometimes be crazy combinations of spells. Now as a player I had an archer character who was running a round with an efficient quiver. That was fine and all since it's SRD. I had the bright idea that I could go pay a wizard in town to make me a efficient quiver with the abundant ammunition spell stacked on top. I followed the magic item creation rules' guidelines for adding other abilities to magic items, and paid the full price, went back to adventuring and came bak to town a while later when my item was done being crafted. The GM now claims that "he should never have let me do this" because me having adamantine, silver, etc arrows on hand all the time was "broken", even though the cost of the arrows this magic quiver had generated for me never got anywhere close to the thousands of gold I paid for the quiver in the first place.

That character met an unfortunate end thanks to a vampire who wanted all his blood and levels, so I'm on a different character now. Since this guy might die also at some point as PCs tend to do on a semi-regular basis, I wrote up a few other backup characters for the campaign. In making these backups, I've been wanting to include in their gear a few custom magic items. The GM has approved other magic items like the Monk's ring of enlarge person 3/day, though it's not in the SRD, but was made following the rules.

What I'm wondering basically boils down to: Is there a decent argument I can use to convince my GM that magic items custom made with the rules in Pathfinder should ALL be allowed and not subject to his whims? I know the GM is the final word on everything, but I feel like it is a bit unfair that my imagination and creative making of new wondrous items is looked upon so negatively.

Thanks

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The desecrate and Consecrate spells become more powerful if cast in the area of a desecrate or consecrate spell. Is there any rule, or statement by a paizo staff member about what exactly constitutes a "altar" or "shrine"? Mostly I'm asking because as a PC who is always on the go, things like temples, which would have these things aren't available most of the time, so i'm wondering if something small enough to be portable and set up with only an hour or so of work would still work?

Hey everyone, I've been trying to write up an Undead Lord as a backup character for the adventure my group is currently playing. I'm writing him up at level 10, and was wondering a few things about the Corpse Companion feature.

1) Is it better to go with a 10HD skeleton or use the "create a variant skeleton such as a bloody or burning skeleton, but its Hit Dice cannot exceed half her cleric level." approach?

2) If I go with the variants, can multiple variants be added, so long as the HD does not come above 5? eg: 3HD monster with Skeletal Champion giving +2 Racial HD, as well as burning, or acid? Or is it only one variant cap?

3) Skeletal Champions seem to be a really good way to go to me, so the next thing to look for would be a monster I could skeletonize with good STR, DEX, and CHA scores, (min int 3) so it would be a formidable fighter and have decent HP, any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for any help, I hope I can get this figured out.