Some Other Guy's page

One of the PCs murdered the Chelish aristrocrat that attended the Queen's banquet. He left the body on the street, beaten to a figurative pulp. I'm struggling trying to find a good consequence for him based on how Vyre might handle these situations.

Demoralizing (combat application) is not the same as Intimidating (social application). Combat use of intimidate should not have any more of a negative outcome than engaging someone in combat would already produce.

Anyone with ranks in perception and disable device can find and disarm traps. You only need trapfinding to disable magical traps.

I'm curious if anyone has come up anything interested for the PCs to do in Vyre while waiting for the banquet?

No I'm saying you should consider another class. Investigator sounds more your style. That's what I'm saying.

Why? The class doesn't make the character, the character makes the class. You basically telling him he's having fun the wrong way. If he doesn't like bombs, there are plethora of ways to build an alchemist without them. Not everyone builds characters around the most optimal mechanical choices available at all times.

a little more versatility to the wizard

Why? The wizard is already the most versatile class in the game (possibly second to the arcanist) and does not need a boost. Your description is very confusing with a lot of strange parts. Half of it follows the same exact rules that wizards and spellbooks already use and this is almost identical to how the arcanist functions. Casting high level spells is an odd mechanic that breaks the game balance. I'll gladly fatigue myself every time to cast spells of higher level than I have access to. Also, why is it shaken and damage on a successful save and fatigue on a failed save? Shaken is a worse condition than fatigue.

Yes, that is the RAW.

For me, this is always about RAI, so that's way I ask :)

It is not clear cut for me that a feat, that you don't really qualify for in the first place (since you are not fighter), only works partway since you used you special power to get it.

The RAI is that you can use your bonus feats to select feats you wouldn't otherwise qualify. It's not going to cover this extremely specific situation that really has nothing to do with how the bonus feats are obtained.

You know what else is official? A Paizo publication. Specifically one which covers rules. Which this named publication does, and is more recent than the relevant FAQ entry.

The only time official truly matters is during sanctioned play, where RAW is law. In PFS, FAQ entries supercede everything else. The designers jobs don't involve making sure every little detail of everything printed is in line with everything else.

Because the newer classes are inherently more complicated than the base classes, and are in-world rarer than the base classes. As a result, when I build and develop NPCs, there needs to be a good reason for that NPC to be one of the less common and more complex classes; and often the best reason is "This character is a significant presence who the GM will be expected to study up on and prepare more for." If it's an "on the way to the end" NPC like this guy, and if his role can be fulfilled by a base class, in 99% of the cases I'll build him as that base class so that a GM can use her/his system mastery and not have to spend extra time familiarizing with the new rules if they aren't familiar with the class.

Of course, if you, the GM, are already familiar with the new classes and are eager to play with them, rebuilding NPCs is one of the best ways to adjust an adventure and make it your own.

Could you share your reasoning for using warpriest for

Some Other Guy wrote:

But Spell-like Abilities are subject to the same effects that spells are.

Quote:

In all other ways, a spell-like ability functions just like a spell.

Except the FAQs have repeatedly disagreed with that:

Quote:

Metamagic: Can I use a metamagic feat to alter a spell-like ability?

No. Metamagic feats specifically only affect spells, not spell-like abilities.

Quote:

A spell-like ability is not a spell

This is the same reason people argue that the gnome's pyromaniac doesn't boost his fire spell like abilities.

Without context, saying "A spell-like ability is not a spell" would negate the entire line saying "a spell-like ability functions just like a spell". The FAQs are about specific functions that spells can be used with. Without that context, anything that says "spells" would never apply to a spell-like ability such as dispel magic. Half of the invisibility description wouldn't function because it specifically references "casting this spell".

Can you read invisible words? :-)

What I'm saying is that you either see everything that is invisible (including yourself) or nothing (including yourself).

IIRC the summon monster is coming from a scroll, yes?

In that case, I don't think she can use it (or any of her other scrolls) while invisible--you need to be able to read the scroll, and she can't see invisible objects.

She can use the wand though, and I got in a good sneak attack with that.

That's not very fair. If you can't see anything you're holding then you can't see yourself, how can you accurately attack with a weapon or move without penalty?

But Spell-like Abilities are subject to the same effects that spells are.

In all other ways, a spell-like ability functions just like a spell.

Set wrote:

Yup, racism (or sexism or fantasy speciesm, or some intolerant level of nationalism or faith) is one great way to evil up an otherwise 'nice' character.

Good characters can be at least somewhat racist or no dwarf with the hatred racial would ever be able to be good. Also, no alignment discussion would be complete without mentioning the chaotic good elven deity of tradition and racism, Findeladlara.

Why would racism be evil?

For instance, if the one individual is someone who you know will contribute more to society than those 10 individuals combined how do you choose? What is that person is also a family member?

That's an exception and we can constantly add different variables to change the morality of a choice and drag this on indefinitely.

Regardless, I find all of this arbitrary if the actions are judged by deities that would not care about the "value" of an individual.

I've always gone with ruling that 'Good' is Selfless or Altruistic and that 'Evil' is Selfish and those alignments have no other requirements.

I'm inclined to agree with this. Anything else is more or less neutral.

There is no "good solution" in the trolley problem. Though there are "optimized solutions" based on your philosophical outlook.

Sure there is. If you save the one person because you like him/her better than the other ten people, you're making an "evil" solution. If you're saving the ten people because ten lives are worth more than one from a moral standpoint, you're making a "good" solution.

My point was mainly just that evil isn't necessarily self serving. That's what "greater good" means. It doesn't mean the action is actually good. It just means that the evil action will accomplish more good than other actions, including inaction.

That still doesn't mean anything to me. I've seen/heard/read many different definitions of "greater good", but it always sounds like a cop out to me. It's always "doing that is evil" and then the rebuttal is "but greater good". I'm not buying it.

As for evil being self-serving, there are always exceptions to everything ever but the basic principle of evil is selfishness.

Bloody Skeleton is a specific option from an adventure path and is not intended to be used in every game. Whether or not it's allowed, I don't know, but there's nothing broken about it due to this fact.

Some Other Guy wrote:

But what is the greater good? I never really understood what that means and people seem to use it to justify anything and everything. Alignment doesn't need to be complicated. It's as simple as good serves others, evil serves self. Good is about what goal you're achieving and evil is about how you achieve that goal.

Torture is generally considered to be evil. But what if I am torturing someone evil to find information to protect those who are good? Creating undead is considered evil, but what if I am creating undead from my fallen enemies to protect my people? Evil doesn't have to be self serving. It just usually is.

It's still evil regardless of intentions. That's the point I was trying to make. There is always a non-evil way to accomplish your goals.

But what is the greater good? I never really understood what that means and people seem to use it to justify anything and everything. Alignment doesn't need to be complicated. It's as simple as good serves others, evil serves self. Good is about what goal you're achieving and evil is about how you achieve that goal.

Example: I played a LE character once in Curse of the Crimson Throne. My end goal was to quell the chaos that has overrun the city that I grew up in and cared for dearly. The evil in me meant I'd do what I had to do to accomplish this goal with little to no remorse in my actions. I would never betray anyone that trusted me, but I'd murder random people if it got me closer to my goal.

Edit: for good alignments, ends do NOT justify means. Committing an evil act for a "good" reason is still evil.

It's clearly stated in the last sentence under spells that their caster level is class level -3, making it 1 at class level 4.

Through 3rd level, a paladin has no caster level. At 4th level and higher, her caster level is equal to her paladin level – 3.

Obviously, Nox was built with the Melee NPC Heroic Array - exchanging the Cha Base Value for the Dex Base Value. If you'd re-exchange this, you'll have the Dex back to 13. And after adding the devil-bound modifier to Dex, you'll get a nice 15 - enough for Combat Reflexes to make sense. Even if I'm not "Cha is a dump stat" endorser, I'll make the changes to Nox for my upcoming campaign.

Cheers!

She has combat reflexes as a prerequisite for Stand Still

the second, completely seperate sentence has no modifiers on it, meaning that even if you were using that somewhat restrictive ruling the effect would be very little different, i would just be casting arcane spells that use thought and emotion components

It doesn't work that way. You can't just ignore the first part and only use the second part. The second "separate" sentence is part of the entire description, not a standalone feature. As written, your arcanist spells would still be arcane and use verbal and somatic components. Arcane spells do not use thought and emotion components. This is exploitive use of wording.

This would be like ignoring the line on smite evil saying it's wasted against targets that aren't evil and then trying to claim that it bypasses DR of any creature that is smitten.

Does anyone have any experience with the Varl Wex quest? It seems a bit lackluster to me. Both the investigation and the encounter with Wex.

What are you looking for? Something that's as good as a full-attack in a standard action?

Not necessarily "as good", but something that makes me "this might be useful to use at this time even though I can full attack". What about something other than damage?

I'm curious how people would value a full attack. I'm asking because Vital Strike is considered suboptimal. I understand why, but it raises the question, what would be optimal? What kind of bonuses are an additional attack at -5 worth? -10? When you have haste or something similar?

What about using Path of War? In the Path of War Expanded playtest there's a bard archetype that trades spells for maneuvers. You easily take that template and apply it to Skald.

I would personally consider 2/3 spontaneous casting off the cleric/oracle spell list to be one of the least powerful 2/3 casting options I could imagine (second only to 2/3 casting off the druid or witch spell list). Basically, my thinking is that 2/3 cleric/oracle casting + revelation & cure/inflict bonus spells is still weaker, power-level-wise, than standard spontaneous casting off the summoner spell list. I would be open to arguments regarding why this is not so, of course. I wouldn't have a problem removing the spontaneous cure & inflict spells, actually, since the channeling does make those feel a bit superfluous anyway.

I don't know that I agree with you. The cleric spell list is pretty powerful when you have share spells to use on an intelligent melee character. It's still not as powerful as the summoner list though. Regardless, that usually isn't a consideration when Paizo designs classes since they typically follow a standard formula without regards to power level. It's probably fine, but nothing can tell for sure without any playtesting.

2/3 casters typically don't get any bonus spells and this one gets a plethora of them. That alone is an extremely strong boost to power.

Eidolons are healable by magical healing to begin with.

I feel revelations (bonus spells aside) are much more powerful than the abilities they are replacing.

Neither Sidestep Secret nor Nature's Whispers is listed as a valid option for a revelation available to a VMC Oracle.

Letric: Base isn't bad at all, it's a solid tier 1 or 2 class. However some archetypes push the class firmly into tier 1 (I'm assuming you're talking about my comment on the archetype section.)

Arcanist is always Tier 1. By definition, all 9-level prepared casters are tier 1, but that has nothing to do with how good or bad they are.

I'd say Potent Magic and Quick Study are needed. They push the arcanist in league with the sorcerer and wizard and give the arcanist they're own special feel among them. Dimensional Slide and the others are just really good utility/survivability stuff.

But they aren't needed. Both are very good, but saying they are needed is doesn't make sense to me. In the case of potent magic, it's a simple 5% chance for the opponent to fail their save or an extra d6 on your blast. I can certainly "be in league with a sorcerer" without those small numbers simply due to the fact that I prepare spells and have the same number of spell slots per day. Quick study is completely dependent on the game. If you either can't obtain spells in your spellbook easily or have combats last 2 rounds, then it is not useful at all. I've been in many games where both of those were the case and quick study had no value at all. I'm not trying to say that you shouldn't take it, I just have an issue when people say things are "needed" when they aren't.

I meant the emphasis on need. I'm well aware of why they are good.

I'm a little confused.

Why is the base Arcanist bad?

You need several Exploits
Metamixing
Metamagic Knowledge (recommended Feat: Extra Exploit)
Potent Magic
Quick Study
Familiar
Dimensional Slide

You can't achieve that without giving up so many.

Why do you need those exploits?

Why did they have to make THAT FAQ, instead of a really simple fix to the wording of the Sylvan Bloodline?

One of the biggest reasons for this is word count limits in the book. The second reason is that, by RAW, you can't select mutated bloodlines without the Wildblooded archetype. I don't know where people got the idea that you could. The archetype specifically calls out that you select a normal bloodline, then select a mutation for it, thus specifying that mutated bloodlines are not full bloodlines.

Clarification ...

Focused Casting: Saying that it will only add 2 is not valid critique. Even at level 1 it's better than Spell Focus and Greater Focus combined. This is especially true if I'm an arcane caster and hardly ever wield a weapon anyway.

Attune Ability: I think this is fine, but the wording is off. The prerequisite should just be possessing a bloodline and the description should say something like "You can use your Charisma score in place any other ability score for the purposes of qualifying for bonus feats granted by your bloodline."

Focused Casting

Benefits: When casting a spell using both hands, you must have both hands free, you can treat your spell casting attribute (Charisma, Intelligence or Wisdom) as if it where 1-1/2 the original modifier.

I like the idea behind getting a bonus for two-handed casting, but the benefit is just too strong. At mid-levels, I'm looking at somewhere around a +4 to DCs, Spell Resistance, and Concentration checks.

Attuned Focus

Benefits: When casting a spell that requires an attack roll you can use your spell casting attribute (Charisma, Intelligence or Wisdom) instead or your Strength or Dexterity modifier
----------------------------------------------------------

This seems fine.

Attuned Ability (this may be a trait instead of a feat)

Prerequisites:Access to bloodline feats

Benefits: You can use you Charisma instead of any other attribute as a prerequisite for bloodline feats

What does this mean? Are you referring to feats that bloodlines allow as bonus feats and have a charisma requirement? Or something else?

Order 3777976

Why is Blood Arcanist not viable? There are some VERY good bloodlines that give great abilities (Arcane, Nanite, and Fey, for example). In addition, if the campaign goes high like an AP, I'm going to run out of good exploits by the time I'm level 11, so losing 5 is not a huge deal.

I don't understand the Elf FCB rating. You don't gain more points each day, you just gain a higher maximum pool. You'd still need to consume to get more than 3 + 1/2 level each day. Resting would not change any of this.

I also feel Scribe Scroll should be green for obvious reasons. You can't always rely on Quick Study.

Don't forget the Clever Wordplay trait.

This is not viable for 2 reasons:

1) You can't use slashing grace with spell combat because your other hand would be occupied when casting a spell. In this case, if you did cast a spell, you would lose the dex to damage benefit.

2) Katanas are not finesse weapons. You'd have to someone make it count as a light weapon to get dex to attack. The only thing I know of that does that is the swashbuckler/daring champion cavalier version of weapon finesse in combination with slashing grace, and the effortless lace magic item.

What's wrong with tiefling? They aren't inherently half demon, just half fiend (encompassing many different evil outsider types).

What if a Sorcerer learned a new spell at every level? That fits with the idea of an innate caster I think, versus the Wizard who has to find a scroll or book with the spell in it.

On the other hand, the idea to revise the Bloodlines has been om these boards once or twice I think, usually to mimic an Oracle's Mystery. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it makes the two classes almost mirror images to each other that way, with the main difference being a different spell list and branch of magic. So if a rewrite is in order, try not to make them Mysteries.

I love the change to Smite for the Paladin, seems almost perfect for a looser or different alignment game.

I don't think sorcerer need more spell casting ability, they are fine on that front. I personally feel bloodlines are poorly designed. Many of the abilities don't fit well with what sorcerers actually do.

I don't know. This seems even more difficult than the base Nox. Being able to make 3 attacks at 11-20 damage on a power attack is going to get people killed if they are still level 3.

Why not just start over? Also, why allow that? As a player, I would find dying to another player making counterproductive decisions the opposite of fun. Why does he hate fun?

I find it strange that you complain about perception, and not about Diplomacy, Sense Motive and me removing Survival. I mean, it seems to be your pet peeve, which is...

You're right, I glanced over those. More fun? Probably. It closer resembles the path of war classes, which I'm a big fan of.

I don't see why it wouldn't have 4 base skill points. One could easily imagine a fighter hailing from a prestigious war academy and having recieved a passable education. Perception? Well, I can't imagine a fighter without it. How are guards guarding things without perception being their class skill? How are soldiers standing watch for their sleeping allies without perception as their class skill? It doesn't make sense to me, personally, and these are arguments that have been said many times by other people as well.

The same justification for perception can be used for any class, I just feel that people creating classes make it a class skill because it's perception. I don't feel fighters should get 4 skill points because they aren't *skilled* at many different things. They train to fight, not to know things, or to learn languages, or to disable devices. This is just my own feeling toward it, of course.

As for the healing, I kind of thought this ability wasn't overly powerful even with this, personally. Paladins can heal for more than that in a single turn, and many more times per day. Granted the fighter has no thematic reason to be able to heal himself like a paladin. Would making it once per day be more balanced, for example? Or should I just drop it entirely?

But that's what paladins do. They don't get tons of feats or, in this case, cool abilities to use. They can heal, smite, and cast a few spells. They are also at 5d6 at level 11 and only 6-8 times a day. This would be potentially unlimited since you can regain the resource. I don't think once per day would even be worth having. To me, the name Last Stand says temporary hit points. If I look at the WoW ability Last Stand (I know, taboo), it gives a temporary boost to hit points and then fades.

I like the flavor, but it reminds me a lot of the Hexcrafter Magus. I see very little bardness in any of its features.

Specific comments:
-Class Skills: There aren't enough. All 6+ skill point classes have a plethora of skills to choose from. All knowledge skills doesn't seem to fit either.
-MADness: I need 5 stats (Str, Dex, Con, Wis, Cha) to be effective. That's worse than any other class. Limiting it to a single mental stat would be fine, in my opinion. The emphasis on melee means stacking a single mental stat like a witch would would be suboptimal.

Like others, I couldn't understand a lot of this.

My suggestions:

-Reformat in a a doc
-Include a table if you'd like
-Remove all the blank lines, they distract
-Use shorthand until the final wording is done. For example, -proficiencies can simply say "simple and martial weapons, all armor, shields (not tower)"
-Don't list out the weapon groups, they are already listed under fighter. Or better yet, weapon training can just say "as fighter"
-Tactician can also say that it functions as the cavalier ability.
-The bonus feats are odd: Craft Magic Arms and Armor requires a caster level, Bouncing Spell can't be used with extracts and thus oils, master tactician is a cavalier class feature and not a feat, I have no clue what touch of serene is or if it even exists, and the rest don't fit the flavor aside the teamwork feats.

I don't like it having 4 base skill points and then requiring intelligence for features. Also, why is perception a class skill? It doesn't fit the fighter class and people giving it as a class skill "because perception" is not fair to other classes.

This doesn't make sense to me: The fighter may spend 1 superiority point as a swift action to heal for a number of 1d8+Con hit points equal to half her level (5d8+5xCon at 11). Swift action healing seems a bit too good. The wording is poor and the scaling is too high. When it's obtained at level 11, it's going to heal and average of around 32, which is about 2/5 of the total hit points at that level. Why not do it like the Kineticist's blasts? The name also suggests something done when the character is on it's last leg.

Why remove heavy armor but retain armor training?

I prefer modular abilities as well and I think the way you handled aspects and manifestations was smart. It makes the concept less essentialist than sorcerer bloodlines. To set it apart from the summoner, I would focus more on these elements, maybe even remove spellcasting completely.

If I did remove the spellcasting, I would try to create some system where the character summons monsters and then uses them to augment his own body to gain abilities, sort of like wild shape but a bit different.