Soul's page

Let them become the new lords of the town. And then their precious town becomes attacked by other would-be conquerors / destroyers. So they have to protect it because it is theirs.

Later on, Magnimar officials could offer them full pardon, official recognition of their status and even greater rewards to deal with the future problems in the AP.

I will re-check the books to see how it can be played this way.

I think this is actually the most elegant solution thusfar, with a runner-up being have them become agents of the runelord of wrath. Both of these seem like good ways to proceed through the campaign with relatively little twist from the original story, unless of course the players simply don't want to play the ap, at which point scrapping it would be for the good of all parties. I thank you for the suggestion, and will send it on to my friend.

A friend of mine asked me for some advice about the Rise of the Runelords campaign he is running where the party have gone... a bit chaotic evil.

nonspoiler question: What do you do when the party revolts against the entire Adventure Path and instead tries to destroy the driving factor of the story?

A friend of mine asked me for some advice about the Rise of the Runelords campaign he is running where the party have gone... a bit chaotic evil.

Nearing the end of the first book the party have caused issues in Sandpoint, to the point where they were conspiring to and assaulting town members over various arguments. They were given an ultimatum by the Sheriff that if they continued with their actions they'd be de-deputized and removed from the case they were being paid to help with. They continued, and at the end of the last session the Sheriff followed through with his threats, and now the party is planning to attack and pillage Sandpoint.

At this point in the story they should be eradicating a goblin tribe nearby and moving towards Magnimar. My friend is at a loss for what to do, because despite his best efforts to build extra encounters and rp scenarios to allow the party to make amends with Sandpoint, they've dug in their heels and ignored all of these options. I've already suggested that they sit down out of character as a group and talk about why they hate sandpoint and if Rise of the Runelords is the right AP for them at the moment. Failing that, how should the GM handle going forward?

My first thought was that he dangle some powerful MacGuffin that would help them destroy the town, or perhaps dangle cooperation with the nearby goblin tribe in doing so, then have the Sheriff show up with powerful backup from Magnimar who then arrests the team and drags them kicking and screaming to Magnimar, but that feels like a slap on the wrist that won't actually push them in the right direction. It wouldn't be a problem if the defense of Sandpoint weren't literally the entire driving factor of the AP...

Here you go, I've even got your demon for you.

Glabrezu

From the Treacherous Wishcraft ability:

tldr: If you elect not to grant them the wish in the worst way they could imagien, you can give them a curse, force them to agree to do a service (or potentially die, but you can lessen this penalty as you're the gm), or simply make them become a chaotic evil plant controlled by the demon/gm/player with insider information that wants nothing more than to kill or convert his former friends without them knowing what he's doing.

Metamagic feats and the casters that can employ them effectively are already hands down the most powerful things in the entire game barring 20+CR demon lords, which are only stronger because they're 9th level casters AND highly powerful melee combatants.

That said, Sacred Geometry is what you want if you wish to make the entire table hate you. You'll get what you want 90% of the time if you're bad, and 100% of the time if you're good, but you'll take three times as long to do your turn as the rest of the party unless you're using apps or extremely fast math.

My suggestion: Don't. Just play the sorcerer. your party will love your big blasty spells and your big blasty heals even if you don't focus on metamagic, and if you do focus on metamagic, you're likely to have more than enough spells per day to employ your feats without spell level reductions.

I wish you people would stop using my pool for this kind of stuff. It's horridly unpleasant to clean up afterward.

Honestly, with your pool starting at 0 and requiring that you give things negative levels in order to make use of, you're going to need to have a good number of points before i'd feel comfortable using it. The Protect Soul feature is easily the strongest ability in a campaign heavily featuring negative levels, but those campaigns tend to also have creatures that resist or are immune to energy drain. The item creation is the weakest in my opinion. I guess my question is how often are you going to actually have more than 0 points in your soul pool, and how often are you going to be capped?

maybe it's best to just use it when you have it near cap on recovering spell slots, but always leave a few points to negate a negative level.

This seems like a fairly bad idea for the Planetar: Remember he/she isn't mythic and should be relatively under-powered compared to the party and your foes.

How are you getting access to a 'Planar Ally, Greater' spell? Offhand, I can see combining the 'Touched by Divinity' trait with the Tactics(War) subdomain getting this spell for you, as you should be limited to 7th level cleric spells by my math (Cleric 6 + 8 from Evangelist's Aligned Class = 14th level, leaving 8th level spells just out of reach).

Mostly through a Gm ruling that Prestigious Spellcaster and it's feat tax work for Evangelist, even though they don't as written.

His stance is that it is a mythic campaign, and anything we do he can do too.

I should have made that clear.

Honestly, this going to vary with your GM.

Like personally, your summoning an ALLY who is an LG ANGEL to help you kill demons. That's their normal day job. And your asking basically the most powerful angel you can to help you, by doing his normal job.

The both of you are probably on a first name basis with the god you worship/serve. You're probably friends. If I were your GM, it'd basically be a conversation of "You'll be sure to find a way to bring me back if I die right?" "Sure" "Then let's go!"

Is there such a way? I thought that once a called outsider died it was gone for good, because outsiders don't have mortal souls.

I don't even know if "Wish" or "Miracle" would do it.

My current thought is that I'll promise to not expect the planetar to fight a demon lord himself and that I'll do everything I can to prevent his death even at the potential cost of my own.

Loath as I am to suggest this: Gunslinger.

I don't know where a Goblin would get their hands on a firearm, but high charisma, high dex, and large standard damage dice/crit multi would lead to a solid and thematic goblin.

otherwise:
bomb-alchemist. the formulae book can be a picture book!

Fire sorcerer.

Titan Mauler/Titan Fighter barbarian

Rogue/slayer/ranger/shaman of any flavor

*****special mention*****
Tome-eater occultist. again, the bonded book can be a picture book! Gobgob no fear words. GOBGOB EAT WORDS.
(it's also super cool that they get the bonuses from read magic and such from scrolls/spellbooks just by looking at them.)

Soul, I absolutely LOVE that you built in a back door for the rest of the party to survive when your monster gets Confused/Dominated.

But why not start with 4 levels of Bloodrager? Then take the Fighter levels when you can afford a decent weapon of the size you want. Bloodrage is better than Power Attack at low levels, anyways. Even at level 4, Shocking Grasp will deal 4D6 lightning damage, with Magical Knack and Intensify Spell @ 5, you barely miss anything taking Titan Fighter levels 5-7...

Sure, that's totally an option he can do. I built it out with fighter first to frontload Iron Will, and get him into his oversized weapon around level 3, which is when I expect players to reasonably be able to afford whatever non-magical weapon they wish.

I agree that bloodrager first is certainly stronger, and honestly it makes me concerned to have even a single level of a rage class without Raging Vitality, but I thought that the above was worth the delay.

I also didn't include any specific meta magic feats because Bloodragers are Spontaneous casters, and full-round shocking grasp is a lot worse than standard-action shocking grasp when you don't know if combat is coming and need both hands to hold your sword.

EDIT: @Deluk The best possible path is probably Bloodrager 4 (Raging Vitality, Iron Will) Fighter 5/6/7 (other feats listed) then back to Bloodrager for the rest)

To be totally honest here... It sounds like you want a strong Magus.

The Magus can channel touch attack spells through their weapon, dealing both the weapon's damage and the spell's damage with a single strike. And guess what? The Magus's PRIMO spell for every flavor of combat is Shocking Grasp, a lightning based spell. The only issue with the Magus is that you have to have your second hand free, so you cant 2 hand your weapon which will limit your weapon damage considerably. What I would suggest instead is that you take a look at Bloodrager, which does basically everything you want with the added bonus of not having to take a PrC to advance both spell-casting and face smashing.

So here's my question for the board. Have you ever managed to make the proverbial "all bard group" we always talk about? And if so, how did you manage to herd those cats and pull it off?

I actually have a somewhat okay example for this one. My primary online playgroup managed to strongarm one of our members into running Serpents Skull as long as we agreed to do our best to make it fun for everyone including the GM. pretty easy stipulation in my opinion.

Amusingly, we are almost "all bard" and also "herded cats"

Our Party:
MEOWTALLICA

Bartholomeow: Lead guitar, dancer, stage diver, all around frontman, a Catfolk Swashbuckler

Purrtricia: Lead Vocals, manager, mastermind, merch creator and saleswoman, a Catfolk mastermind bard

Nyan: Warm up act, drummer, stand up comedian, frenchman.
Human (wearing a cat-ear headband and taped on tail) Juggler urban bardbarian

Shifu Chuuy: groupie, raodie, drunkard, and leader of the meowtailica fan club
Human Drunken Fist/Sensei monk

Sadira: pyrotechnics, laser lights, scorching rays, special effects
Catfolk phoenix/... something? crossblooded sorceror

It's been pretty fun and also pretty terrible, roaming around a deserted cannibal-infested malaria-ridden island in search of literally anyone who can contact our agent and get us off this rock.

//////spoiler warning///////

Before you read any further, this post is about the Wrath of the Righteous campaign, and more specifically the final book. I will do my very best to avoid any possible spoilers, but if you haven't yet played the ap and do not want any potential spoilers no matter how small I suggest you not read further.

//////spoiler warning///////

I played a PFS scenario with a player several months ago. At one point during the scenario he talked about how his Blossoming Lights cleric could channel energy in either a 30' burst, 45' cone, or 60' line. I am wanting to play an offensively channeling cleric at some point and would like to know how he was doing that, but I can't remember his name for the life of me. Was hoping someone here would know how to do it.

Soul wrote:

Oh, somehow I completely forgot my clouded vision/deaf life oracle who i roleplay as mute.

Try a dip in Monk for a Monk Vow of Silence.

Unfortunately you have to go 4 levels for Vow of Silence to take effect, and I would include blowing a whistle as breaking said vow, but that is pretty funny.

Oh, somehow I completely forgot my clouded vision/deaf life oracle who i roleplay as mute. She writes notes in wizard's spellbooks and tears the pages out to talk out of combat, has "Read Lips" and "Taldan Sign Language" as 2 of her 12 languages, and can cast heightened continual flame strong enough to counter supernatural darkness. She also carries a whistle to blow when she needs something in combat. She carries a +1 adamantine bardiche she isn't proficient with, a Tower shield she isnt proficient with, wears +1 deathless spell storing full plate she isn't proficient with, has a -15 initiative, and commonly takes 300-400 damage per adventure.

She has 2 kills in her entire career, a skeleton she killed with a shield bash in Crypt of the Everflame, and a random vampire spawn she channeled to dust in some scenario I cannot recall the details of.

She has saved 8 pathfinder's lives with Breath of Life CL 10 cast through a metamagic rod of reach followed by quickened reach cure critical wounds for a total of 9d8 + 22 healing.

Also, i have a level 5 comic book hero. no levels of vigilante.
Hugh Man appears at all debriefings and gathers the pertinent information for his client, Skeleton Man. before the party sets out he tells them he has to go get his client and then they can be off, walks around a corner for 2 minutes, and comes back without his shirt on. d20 - 2 dc disguise check.
following an accident as a small child in which he broke his arm Skeleton Man was exposed to dangerous Divination rays. these rays revealed that he was in fact part man, part skeleton. yes so too as a centaur is part man part horse, he is part man, part skeleton.
He uses his skeleton eyes to detect the dastardly minions of Skin Man, which he brings to justice with his Calcium Strength and Skeletal fists. He's only recently picked up a weapon which with to fight his foes after seeing how effective reach weapons are at subduing foes: The Bane of Skin Man, a tri-point double-edged sword.

I have a few really decent ones:

In Skull and Shackles I am playing a small-sized Vanara swashbuckler (mouser) 1/ Unchained Rogue (Vexing Dodger) 4/ Fighter (Cad) x named Jack the Monkey.
Key abilities: Shikigami Style, Shikigami Mimicry, Shikigami Manipulation, Catch off Guard, Greater Dirty Trick, Catch off Guard, Sneak Attack, Devout worshiper of Arshea, the empyreal lord of sexual abandon.
Mechanically he steps into your square, climbs up your leg, whaps you on the head with a coconut (or traveler's any-tool) then gives up his sneak attack to blind you.
Thematically he climbs you and humps you in the face, then spends an hour talking about how great it was. (look up Arshea's devotion, if you don't already know)

In Wrath of the Righteous I am playing a Human Lunar Oracle 1/Warpriest x of Desna named Charlie Halfhand.
Key features: Fate's Favored, 20 charisma, noble scion of war, Divine fighting technique Desna's Shooting Star, Startoss Style, Oversized Starknife held in two hands.
Mechanically he has Charisma to: Initiative, To hit, Damage, AC, and Reflex saves. Additionally he focuses in luck bonuses, getting the most out of his Fate's Favored.
Thematically: He's basically mr magoo. he trips when demons swoop in for the kill, he happens to glance away when bright lights flash in his face, when he attacks, he closes his eyes and hurls his Returning Starknife at the nearest thing and it ricochets around wildly before somehow bouncing back to him.

I have a pfs character that, at 8th level, can grapple large and smaller creature up to 20 feet away from him and reposition them into flank with his buddies. as an immediate action. on their turn. he's also a full natural attacker. it's a spicy meatball.

I've narrowed it down to two builds:

Fate's Favored Warpriest of Desna wielding an oversized returning starknife w/ Divine Fighting Technique: Desna's Shooting Star, 13 dex 14 con and 20 CHA

or

High wisdom full spellcaster Blossoming Light Cleric built entirely around showing Demon's the painful side of positive energy

I generally tend more toward making less-than-broken things good rather that making already good things very good. Not that I begrudge anyone who does go for the powerful stuff. As a full caster, even going a sub-optimal domain and giving up Channel I think he'll play well. The other direction I've thought of going is the complete opposite in Blossoming Light cleric.

Either way, we now have 2 more confirmed characters, both full natural attacking half orc barbarians with Amplified Rage

We've got a new AP starting up in the next few weeks and for once I have the opportunity to join the AP at the beginning, not filling a vacated slot to help a struggling party along. I've always built characters to be what the party needed, and am now sort of at a loss as to what to build now that I finally get to be one of the first to make a character. I get to be the one forcing the party to build around me for once!

The only other character thusfar is the low templar my brother will be playing. As soon as I mentioned that he was invited he said "imma play my low templar!" so... whatever.

My current characters are a Conversion Inquisition Inquisitor of Erastil, a Vanara small-size mouser/vexing dodger, a human zen archer, a dwarven switch hitter ranger, an aasimar life oracle, an aasimar bard, a Hugh Man monk, and a Cavalier/Warpriest/Cleric/Battle Herald 6 archetype monstrosity. I've a build in the works for a palmonkadin Champion of Irori that might be okay in this setting but isn't really something I want to play with a Low Templar.

Things i've looked at in order of likelyhood of being played:
Dwarven Forgemaster cleric: The gm has told me that in the mid to later levels your characters get downtime, so a crafter wouldn't be the worst character in the world. Forgemaster is a tad MAD and gives up Channel as well as both domains, but being a gruff Dwarven cleric who hammers holy symbols of Torag into the carapace of demons with a warhammer seems really thematic and fun to play.

Just another Inquisitor: There are a few things I could do with inquisitor, including the classic Sanctified Slayer Conversion Inquisition Inquisitor. Could worship Ragathiel, or go out on a limb and be a LE Inquisitor of Asmodeus sworn to purge the world of the blight that is demons.

Fate's Favored (Un)Lucky Bastard Halfling: Archeologist 1/Combat oriented oracle or warpriest X who worships Desna and uses Starknives. Basically a random joe who accidentally found himself in the worldwound while treasure hunting and Mr. Magoo's his way around with the boost of Fate's Favored. low STR, high dex, con, and Cha.

Please, feel free to add any input on your thoughts for each of these in the setting but avoid spoilers.

Well, your initial post says your second turn involves rapier damage but it wouldn't, you abandon the rapier for claw claw bite, or use claw rapier bite. Since the spell is charges this is fine but honestly it sounds less efficient than doing the attack->spell combat defensive cast->attack combo that a standard magus does. Additionally, you can elect to do nonlethal damage with a rapier at a -4 to hit. This is pretty steep up to the point that you can get merciful, but it allows your build to focus on nonlethal damage.

I'd suggest boosting defensive casting so that you have less chances of failing your spells, as well as looking for ways to ensure that you can continue to recast spells. Finally, you've invested a LOT into those two hexes and into that intimidate to demoralize even with ability focus slumber you're only at an 18 and you'll soon find that most monsters just shrug off slumber, which is why most witches go for ways to inhibit save DCs before trying to land their save or suck stuff. Skill Focus intimidate can boost your chances of success there, but I'm not really sure where you're going with the whole thing. Performance combat is a clunky relic that most DMs have no experience with and is an unreliable and feat intensive method of getting sneak attack, of which you only have 1 die. It feels to me like you've given up a lot of stuff to push yourself into this weird monster build then come to the forums wondering why you don't do much damage.

Who needs to be a full caster when you can be a Bard and be the envy of all your friends. Imagine, such glorious phrases as "I inspire courage in all my friends with tales of my own Derring-do!" And "Oh, you failed the will save? Time to laugh yourself to death!" See that cute farm girl over there? Melt her heart with song and dance. Farmer caught you in the hayloft with his daughter? Make good your escape with a full suite of skills like: Diplomacy, Bluff, Sleight of Hand, Escape Artist, Acrobatics, Color Spray. Look fabulous. Be fabulous. Bribe your way out of trouble and it's back to the road, eating and drinking for free at every Tavern in exchange for a few songs.

*farmer's daughter not included, Bards Inc. is not liable for damages done to person or belongings in the event of angry farmers.

In all seriousness though what the bard gives up in blasting ability he makes up in sheer flexibility. The bard has a ton of skill points and the ability scores to use them, can talk his way into or out of most things, can use martial weapons like the Rapier and Longbow to some effect, and can do all sorts of fun tricky things like carry around half a dozen nets which he proceeds to toss untrained at the 5 foot square occupied by an enemy spellcaster up to 30 feet away and still only need to hit like a 9 on the die to shut that guy down until your martial friends can do the dirty work for you.

Blasting and debuffing are the least efficient ways to be a caster due to the incredible saves present in a vast majority of the Bestiary, and everything that a full caster does to the things that don't have amazing saves, the bard can also do with less investment. You'll never find a knowledge the bard doesnt at least have a chance on, and both in and out of combat you'll be one of your parties lynchpins.

I bleeping knew it. I distinctly remember years ago the first time I tabled with a level 2 Magus and they declared "I'm defensively casting SG through my rapier to do my melee damage and the spell damage through spell strike" when I, a lowly 1st level Inquisitor on his first character, said "I looked at magus when I was deciding what to play and I *think* you get to attack, cast your spell, and attack again..." and everyone looked at me like I was dumb. I was right. I've been watching players do it wrong all along.

Lots of good advice in here already. Biggest piece of advice is to know how much punishment your table can take. One of the reasons that tabletop gaming works is that death HAS CONSEQUENCES. This is the same in dark souls, death has consequence. I'd suggest that if you are going to make the penalties for death cheaper then you need to add in other penalties elsewhere. Something like "each death increases the cost of basic adventuring gear by 5%" a small penalty that eventually becomes a detriment. "Killing big bads and completing tasks for the town lowers the cost of this gear by 5% (to a maximum of 25% discount)." This way, if they eat a tpk the party loses 20-35% of it's spending power, but perseverance will right the balance and killing that NPC restores the party's buying power. After that all you have to do is be aware of how many rounds each combat will take. Difficulty in Pathfinder is more about resource expenditure. Don't allow frequent rests to put pressure on your casters, don't just make punching bags with massive HP, give enemies a way to fight back. Don't just bloat damage values, hitting consistently for smaller amounts is often scarier than one hit for big damage because it feels much more inevitable.

Edit:
I should also say that combats don't just have to be about damage. Tactical enemies are often more threatening than big beefy Bois. Hit the Archers and clerics with sunder, if you're feeling particularly vindictive, go after the wizards spell book too, these classes don't have the CMD to protect their toys. Hit the fighter with targeted Dispel on his spendiest magical toy (or worse, his belt and headband), he doesn't have the capacity to protect that. Don't make the fight impossible by nerfing your players too much, but put stress on them in ways other than simply lowering health points. Stealth, ambushes, invisibility, traps. false trails that lead nowhere are a good way to mess with the trackers while also alerting your bad guys and allowing them to buff up.

At the behest of my GM I've gone with a Zen Archer monk using the free stat boost to jump my 16 wisdom to an 18 eventually resulting in 16/14/14/10/20/7 (or something like that before belts and headbands) and eventually a 2 level dip into Inquisitor for Conversion Inquisition, Wis to initiative, 3 1st level Inquisitor spells, Judgement 1/day, and a few other bits. Probably doing this dip somewhere between 5 and 9 so that I don't delay third flurry arrow or Improved Point Blank too long. I feel like this fits the theme of characters I like to play while offering a fairly unique take on it, as well as using the state boost in a way that improves the character, between Monk and Inquisitor Wisdom gets a lot of mileage and having the free +2 significantly reduces the GP cost of getting that to 22-26 for competitive DCs on Stunning Palm and Quivering Palm, should I ever make it to 17 for Ki Focus Bow. Or I guess of I apply them manually. Still a monk after all.

The things I've been looking hard at are:

Crossblooded Kitsune Sorceror Fey/Serpentine Compulsion focus w/ 20-22 charisma

Psuedo-switch hitter Zen Archer monk w/ 16/13/13/10/18/9 for a very solid AS spread following the snap-shot tree for AoO's with bow and splashing in just a few feats like PA Improved Sunder and Improved Grapple for when using a bow is simply not feasible.

Exploiter Wizard/Bloodline Arcanist for counterspells and potentially Shapeshifter synergies.

Blade Adept Arcanist (Basically a red mage cosplay): I'll probably do this one later with a less important character so that if it just doesn't work then I won't feel bad about it.

I've been holding on to it for what seems like forever but I've finally decided to use my Boon. Problem is I have no idea what type of character I wish to play. For those of you that don't know, the Prodigy boon confers a 1 time permanent additional plus 2 bonus to one ability score on character creation. Generally speaking, I'd like to use it on a character with above-average chances of surviving the early levels of its career. I'd also like it to be a well-rounded character that can do more than be a murder hobo. I've extensive playtime with Bards, Inquisitors, Rangers, and Rogues and I generally tend toward Dexterity/Charisma characters. Finally, I live 2 hours from the nearest Pathfinder Society Lodge, so I'd like to play something that is "fun" in the 2-5 range and "really fun" in the 8-11 range. As fun as it is, my Rogue Barbarian that had to wait until level 10 to sneak attack properly was so un-fun to get to that point that I'd rather not have a similar experience.

The characters general backstory is that she/he is one of the orphan children in Absalom that my OG character, an aged and retired inquisitor 14 of the Silver Crusade, has a tendency to take under his wing. He's become a bit of an eccentric older man (of 38) in the time since he retired from the Society. This opens up any playable race excluding Aasimar (I have several, don't want another even though I have the boon to create a new one still.) and Wayang (currently playing a slow advancement wayang alchemist 2 online)

I want to stay away from Divine Casters and "Tanky" characters although I don't mind some beef. I currently have my Alchemist, a Ranger (5, standard advancement), Bard (7, standard advancement), and Life Oracle (8... or 9?, standard). Additionally, my local DM's have had bad experiences with animal companions and while I am more than capable of running one correctly they have a bit of a vendetta against them and have been known to target animal companions. That should about cover it, thanks in advance for any and all class suggestions.

A couple things here. Second point first: I would take that as well. The problem is that there are plenty of pieces that are open for misinterpretation. Criticals are one. Another is this:
"Whenever you gain a spell from your bloodline, you also gain a spell
slot of that level, which you can use to cast any sorcerer
spell, not just the spell granted by your bloodline. For
instance, at sorcerer level 3, you’d learn the 2nd-level spell
from your bloodline and gain another 2nd-level spell slot
to cast any of your sorcerer spells."

This literally just repeats the same text twice. It's not a "for instance", as they claim. There's lots of this stuff throughout, and vagueness isn't hard to come by.

Second point. Call it a playtest, but the fact is Paizo promoted this heavily and even sold collector's edition versions. I don't have any basic issue with charging, but the fact is, this *is* their opportunity to make a good first impression. And I think they bombed.

Well, it does provide a specific numerical explanation for the preceding sentence, but it is unnecessary and the way it is laid out is odd to say the least.

I'm not sure I'd call it a bomb. As some other people are saying under all the over-clarification and other issues there IS a good, solid, well thought out gaming system. We've just got the chore of finding it, bringing it out, and over the next 5 or 6 years, bringing it up to the level of content that pf1 had. The more I read and re-write and explain the system the more i see their big picture, I just wish that there had been a better effort to make PF1 content transferable... I have lots of characters that simply wont work under this system.

I personally am running into an issue where... well... I've built about a dozen different characters and they all feel like pre-gens. The system lacks personality.

This is what I would replace the current Bastard Sword with:

• Bastard Sword (35 sp | 1d8 S | 1 Bulk | 1 Hand | Sword | Versatile P, Two-Hand d10)
Katana should also have the exact same characteristics except be Uncommon.

To resurrect my thread:

Longsword, 1d8 S/P

Bastard sword 1d8 S, 1d6P, twohanded 1d10 S/1d8 P

that would be far too complicated honestly, and theres no reason a thrust would deal less damage than a slash. in fact it is likely quite the opposite, thrusts are more likely to be deadly than slashes unless you cut off the head/limbs with your slashes.

After much deliberation with my other playtest buddies we feel that the best course of action is adding a negative modifier like "bulky" or "cumbersome" restricting its use with other weapons, in order to have a niche for every weapon.

After reading the responses I feel like my solution is the most elegant thusfar (naturally, it is mine after all xD) Give it versatile s/p, restrict it to only single-weapon+shield fighting, reduce the d12 to a d10. It is not a longsword (arming sword), so you cant use it with a weapon in your off-hand effectively, and yet it does not have the mass and raw power of a greatsword. If you want to two weapon fight with a d8 weapon, the longsword is better. if you want to fight with sword and non-tower shield, they are virtually the same. if you want to fight with a two handed weapon, the greatsword is better. if you want the flexibility of a sword and shield but also the ability to two hand the weapon, the bastard sword is better. This matches thematically, is sound mechanically, and honestly... it just makes sense.

hmm... the more I look at it the more I think it was a deliberate change to the weapon. why would anyone ever carry a Longsword into battle if the bastard sword is pretty much better in every way? maybe add something like cumbersome/complicated or something which says "This weapon cannot be wielded with a weapon in the off-hand" this gives players who want to dual wield a reason to take the longsword over the bastard sword.

Can't for the life of me figure out a reason for this change other than to directly nerf a popular weapon. The weapon should be S versatile P like all of the other arming sword variants. It really feels like it was simply an oversight. It's exactly the same as a longsword, except it can be held in two hands like a greatsword.

Edit: If it is a balancing issue, it would fit in more with the arming sword variant if it was 1d8 s/p one handed, 1d10 s/p two handed. This makes the arming sword tree look like this:
Shortsword 9 silver 1d6 p/s finesse agile.
Longsword 10 silver 1d8 s/p
Bastard Sword 35 silver 1d8 s/p one handed, 1d10 s/p two handed
Greatsword 20 silver 1d12 s/p

each damage dice above 1d6 is covered in this tree and each sword feels unique and like it has a certain tactical advantage over the others in certain situations.

honestly my initial idea was to run a big cat, charge on round one for pounce/lance damage, then hop off and be a flank buddy using the teamwork feats. i only decided to switch to flying combat when i saw that i could use a Roc. i believe i am going to try it out at level one and two when no matter what i decide to go with my feats will be largely the same, and then maybe switch if its not working out. the celing height was something i had thought of, but i know for sure we're doing emerald spire part 1 on saturday. i had not thought of a Giant Gecko, but that sounds awesome too.

remember this is the hunter class.

the issue i had with giant gecko is it's a small creature, and i wanted to be mounted at level 1.

Hey All!

about to be starting a new character with my local PFS group, and i was thinking about playing the new hunter class.

I wanted to play a halfling and do mounted combat with my animal companion, then i got to thinking...

Hunter gets access to alot of different animal companions, including the Roc.

is there any reason i cant use my flying animal companion as a mount at level 1?

gunslinger/alchemist that deals damage? youve got it already... gunslingers break gestalt... just like everything really. gunslingers are op. nerf plz.

This game sounds like a cautionary tale gamers tell each other when discussing toxic play styles.

are you saying ive been toxic? i only did what i did at the behest of a gm and some of his players. i actually told both of them, after it was built, that the thing i had created should never have existed, but i do agree. the table needed to see what the difference working together and playing as a team can cause. and i hope that they did learn something. plus, seeing as they werent even upset about the deaths of these characters... eh, maybe its a case of a bad gm.

so if anyone is wondering how it went... our wizard scries then and figures out what road they would be on, we set up an ambush.

knowing that the enemy party is reckless we picked an area that suited our needs well, our fighter/rogue hit in the tall bushes along one side of the road with a 45 stealth, our wizard/druid stood in the center of the path knowing that the enemies transformation wizard/druid/monk would dim door up and attempt to grapple him. as soon as the enemy wiz transformed and jumped in my gunslinger blasted him using oil of silence, greater invisibility, and full buffs, as well as Bane and Judgement... and rolled a 19 on the die backed up with a 43 (9+30+4) to crit... 4d12 gave 32 damage +(29*4) +21 from 5d6 for a total of 169 damage on the first shot... outright killing him. the rest of the enemy party was a little bit smarter, but without their tank they didnt last much longer. i used a total of 8 bullets, but 3 of those were completely wasted from firing my doublebarrel musket at people who were already dead.

the thing i dont get is that while everyone was upset at the fact that they didnt even manage to do damage... they were glad to get to start a new campaign. i dunno about you but i tend to get attached to my characters.

eh, the GM says he doesnt mind if i combine the two. dont know for whatever reason he wouldnt mind but OH WELL. he wants me to kill the party ill kill the party.

hmph, haremlord, it doesn't say Mysterious Stranger replaces Firearm/gun training at all in herolab, which could just be an error. ill look into it and see if its a mistake, an edit, or if the GM even cares. for some reason he seems to want to show his players what a well-built character can do, something about an average party dpr of 50 with good rolls... so uh... i didnt even mean to build soemthing that'd destroy them in so many rounds. The GM has said, since i last spoke to him, that a gunslinger can only carry 20 alchemical rounds (well... whatever... ill just kill them 3 shots at a time instead of 6...) and that we will have time to buff prior to the fight... all i can say is im sorry.

so, a friend of mine has been playing a Gestalt game of 3.5/pathfinder with a group of other friends and, after some bad rolls and various other mistakes, as well as some real life scheduling conflicts, has decided to leave the group. the GM wanted to do a showdown between the Pirate (im sorry, Privateer) crew that i have two characters in, along with four other friends, and their DND group. cool beans.

so i get to build, more or less, 2/5 parts of the 5 man crew of this privateer vessel up to the gestalt level of the other group... being 12. my two characters are an inquisitor and a life oracle. the life oracle doesnt particularly benefit from Gestalt, because she already does amazing things as a single class, but the other just makes her more fun, so ill find something to do with her.

anyroad, the inquisitor, while already fairly strong at level 12, has amazing potential. i went through and thought about each class individually to decide what would make it the most broken as possible, what with his focus on dex and a little wisdom, with decent charisma low strength and intel. it was then brought to my attention that i could reroll stats, since we used an array for one game type and the converted Gestalt rolled 5d6-2d6 and made 3 columns, then picked the best. i hope you see where this is going... here, in the following spoiler, is the result of my evil machinations...

i built him using herolab with the community gestalt file made by ShadowChemosh

lets look back at this offense tab shall we?

"Ranged +1 flaming reliable double-barreled musket +24/+24/+24/+19/+14 (1d12+29/19-20/×4 plus 1d6 fire)"
this is with Judgement active (seeing as its going to be only one combat we take part in, and the gm is going to give both parties time to buff... ive also activated a number of my spells and other abilities) both parties are confined to normal races, so bane will not be an issue, with both knowledge checks and spells at my disposal during the buff period...) but even so, this is without Bane, and without haste... assuming reloading isnt an issue, and that i will gladly spend grit to reroll missfires, not to mention im hitting Touch AC, from greater invisibility, as well as with oil of silence... i pity the other team. i added up the damage, and with everything active assuming 5 hits my minimum damage, with no crits and with all 1's on the d12's, is 195 per round, not counting Haste... is there any class that can live that at level 12?

was actually toying with the idea of not wearing armor and either having a friend smack me with a wand of mage armor every day or else try and umd one myself, and otherwise simply trying to avoid being in melee combat as much as possible and just using my blasts. if you read above i had already said toughness for sure, the CoR is a given, same as the RoP and AoNA. i generally tend to pick up, initially anyway, monotype belts ASAP and then getting better belts as i find them/can afford them. again though, i just wanted to post the core concept of the build for some lols, i dont really INTEND to be the most hated guy at the table every time i inspire courage. (the snow gleams white on the mountain tonight, followed quickly by a chorus of groans and people thanking me for getting that damn song stuck in their heads, again)

I can see the usefulness of a level in bard especially if it fits the theme of the character your trying to create. Besides the extra skills points, extra class skills, boost to will save, cantrips, first levels spells, and bardic music would be useful.

Am I blind did you not list your feats?

class skills, will save, a few fun spells, and the inspire was indeed why the level dip bard. also, it was 5am when i built the character after i realized the class could appropriately accomplish all of the things she does without even really trying too hard and still maintaining viability, but i didnt really know what feats it needs. seems as though power attack, a common go-to for me is useless, while if she's hitting touch AC then point blank and percise arent really going to make a huge difference. she could take a few Extra Wild Talent feats just for some added versatility, but she already has most of the abilities we saw in the movie... apart from the whole frozen heart thing. my only real problem with the class is, the way its worded, it doesnt seem that many of the most common feats would be all that useful to her. particularly the parts about the blast-weapons doing blast damage not weapon damage, and about it not being able to make two-handed or even two one-handed weapons. this takes vital strike, cleave, power attack, spring attack, whirlwind attack, point blank, and all of the style feats (i toyed with an unarmed strike build, since it has a unarmed form infusion) out of the equation if you intend on your primary damage source being the blast. i also wonder if Weapon Focus or Spec would work with the blast... she will likely take Toughness, Dodge and Mobility, maybe try and work in combat expertise and reflexes (although again, the way most of the form infusions are worded makes it seem like these arent useful feats, mainly how the infused weapons only last for your turn, and the amount of burn it requires to maintain them.) on top of this metamagic feats dont seem to apply either, she has integrated metamagic to increase her blasting, and the flavor feats like silent spell and still spell likely arent needed, i didnt read anywhere that the blast had any verbal or somatic, other than a free hand to direct the blast... thats a huge chunk of the feats i take on most characters cut out.

of course, i could just be flat wrong, and i hope someone tells me i'm flat wrong. the vision i had for my original kineticist was a water-blasting dervish dancer who either created a single kinetic scimitar or coated an existing one and used finesse/dervish dance to get in as much damage as possible, while carrying dodge/mobility and some decent armor to properly make use of that massive hp- pool. invest in the critical line and just do massive amounts of damage to single targets around the edges of the fight before plunging in on the big guys that the tank proper is hopefully taking on.

i uh... i refuse to feel any shame in creating this. it was only a matter of time and you brought it on yourselves.

My pounce range is whatever I polymorph into allows. Probably a range of 120 ft, but other exist.
Static damage sits at dice (1d4 to 1d8) + 18, without impressive buffs. To hit bonus are the same as the last post.

This is not to be played, I'm outdamaging the mythic paladin, with no mythic at all.

Ah, i see. well assuming a party of 5 or 6, likely composition of Big guy in full plate, older man wielding a stick and a book, one or two dudes with bows (monk, ranger, inquisitor, and arcane archer all fill this slot nicely) Two guys with various weapons (fighter, rogue, damage-paladin other... there are alot) and my 115 lb 17 year old girl wearing nothing but a cheap set of nobles robes, minus the gemstones, and carrying nothing but a small backpack and lantern, all around level 16, who you gonna take out? my bet would be on wizard, personally, but with good rolls and alot of experience you might be able to glean that the girl carrying no holy symbols whatsoever is an oracle. i guess some liberal use of detect mag... oh wait, alchemists cant do that can they? hmm, darn.

i dunno how you'd get it to move, but you could easily make a castle with a cool revolving-door of planes. the Gate spell is a good place to start. maybe create demiplane. these options range between cheap and expensive, depending on your control. hell, some... liberal... application of the Wish spell would do it.

Yure wrote:

wraithstrike wrote:

It is really hard to get sneak attack with a bow if don't win initiative and after round 1, unless you come up with ways to use stealth in combat.

To that I say; Scout/Sniper Archetype!

At level 8 they can just move 10 ft and sneak attack from ranged :-) Cheesy but legal by RAW :-)

I don't think it is cheesy. They need to get more to make it really good.

lol, there are quite a few ways to get reliable sneak attack at range, but i will always maintain mine is the best xD

Soul wrote:

ElMustacho wrote:

more stuff

well... good thing i dont play a caster, because once again i say, once i see that..........thing looking at me im hauling ass for the nearest door and waiting for at least some of it to wear off xD are mages the only things you run into issues against? oh, one more thing... how do you do against Blindsight and save-or-suck spells?

Blindsight? Until I find a way to bypass it I think I'll pounce, losing some attacks. Still more than 1000 damage.

Save or suck? They need to target me.

Remember that this monster could just attack once and wait for the paranoia.
Then repeat. He's not stupid.

im just trying to find a way, as a gm/player, to not die instantly to this thing. what is your pounce range? 10ft like a normal cat? what level are you? would you be able to figure out a small 16-19 year old girls class based on observing her? what is your static damage without sneak attack? is it just greater invis, or some other form of being undetectable.

edit: i feel, as a player and a gm, that if there is no way to kill something in combat, or other flaw that stops it from just roflstomping its way through entire encounters solo, then i dont allow it to be played. there is of course a difference between fun and just plain broken.

more stuff

well... good thing i dont play a caster, because once again i say, once i see that..........thing looking at me im hauling ass for the nearest door and waiting for at least some of it to wear off xD are mages the only things you run into issues against? oh, one more thing... how do you do against Blindsight and save-or-suck spells?

I like my ranged fighter, he's alot of fun, but as far as "best" i would say Zen Archer... its really front loaded you get alot of your important abilities really really early.