StDrake's page

too many choices now xD

But the dwarf was about the skald option. For shaman I like the idea of an orc one. Sortof makes me remember the orc shaman pics from the modern King's Bounty games

The remote hexing witch with a bag of mice sounds neat, but I don't want the rest to curse at me from the beginning for kicking off with troll bits

Oh right, reminded me that Skald is a mid caster..maybe I should go with the Shaman idea. Another melee-centric character could make the rogue feel bad with being outshined..specially if i did that bloodrager dip trick.

Having said that. Could someone elaborate more on building that life shaman at least to that 10 level?

Wow, didn't expect such a quick and rich reaction to my post.

The oracle ideas are a nice addition to the prime concept I had with my own race, but from the other things I like the shaman and skald you guys (and gals) proposed.
Seems to me that they have that sort of image I could go with..a shambling orc (well..half orc) ooga-booga style shaman :D
And that viking visage of a skald..hmm..any idea if there's a way to make a dwarf suitable for a skald?

I'll probably be joining a new group and they mentionned they've always been missing a healer..and at the same time commented how the climate of the campaign might not suit a cleric very well. Apparently they're leaning towards chaotic with not much attention for gods.

The group mentionned consisting so far of a "warrior, thief and mage"..with the "mage" apparently being a druid really

I've thought of a life oracle with my self-made race, that would have a neat look together, but there's a question mark on whether or not they might accept the race.
On the other hand I just can't "see" myself playing an oracle with anything else..not enough feel for the class i suppose.

What else could I have to fill in a healer role, look cool with a race from the books and hopefully not be just a healbot? And not be a cleric/oracle/overly lawfulness-enforcing creep?

and while at it, problem nr.2: they mentionned starting around level 10..and my parties so far never made it further than 7, so..yeah I'll be needing help actually building that character with feats and gear

I merely read the first few posts and already started facepalming. Going into pvp first thing straight would be enough for a paladin to fall from grace in my game even if it was for killing a helpless opponent. Giving the culprit a vocal flogging of a lifetime about how wrong it is and how the evil pc should repent should definitely come first before comming to blows. A paladin certainly shouldn't go " you did something I dont agree with - I kill you".

A good use of rope should make fingerbreaking needless too.

An onteresting point there. Will have to read into the intimidate skill deep, but so far it looks like this:

Is your house on fire? Call in the Antipaladin Firefighter squad - they'll scare the fire right out of your building. Granted they'll sack it afterwards and burn down the whole neighbourhood around, but YOUR house will be just fine.

If he doesn't have patience for a full caster I doubt any caster will do, but you could let him be a ranger and make plentiful use of those background skills, maybe offer rolled stats and secretly boost his int roll (make some cards with "random" bonuses, rigged for skills and offer a draw for some negligible sacrifice). A well made ranger holds his own quite well in combat and with the right archetypes (urban?) he can replace a rogue in scouting and skills. Magic isn't his strong side, but that might not be a big drawback.

Other options to consider would be skald - the spell kenning feature giving some nice freedom in tue magc field, slayer and investigator if he doesn't mind the combatty bit being a bit lower
You might also consider allowing some more races as long as they dont stray far from your preset set..um..youre the GM right?

Im running a variation on antipaladin currently through our groups giantslayer and I wouldn't give up str for charisma definitely. Ill only put maybe one point into it to have any bonus at all. The extra abilities are not that a big thing - it's still a melee class and thus straight combat is still the main thing for him.

HOWEVER..Im using the dread vanguard archetype and even parts of stonelord..meaning that I dont have spells and I dont have unholy grace (or whatsitcalled), but i do plan on making fun use of intimidate and radiant charge (for which i could use charisma for more dice to the smack), but still Ill probably only pump cha once to an even number, then go to other stats.

Out of curiosity..thats for Way of the Wicked isnt it?

Indeed (pardon the pun there, wasnt aware until after i voiced it) and as was already stated - that is THE Indiana Jones archetype. I'm voting a +1 to what CraziFuzzy wrote. You get a nice amount of skills, including knowledge (some linguistics might be in order besides the history part), that fun whip path, and if you tell anyone at your table the archeologist word theyll automatocally imagine a fedora..or boobs and guns, but well..you're trying to make a male right?

Though one option I am toying with the idea of giving him his full wish and tying it to his backstory that we will eventually get to fulfilling. Perhaps if he completes his family quest, that will result in an item that lets him do his SLA Permanency. That way he doesnt have it NOW, but he will get it eventually. Perhaps his quest results in his enlightenment allowing that ability.

If my player reads this, let me know what you think about this alternative since we may head to completing your side quest sooner than later.

That there is actually a very god idea and even one in line with the wishcraft written up in Legacy of Fire - don't just hand it over with a fingersnap, but let reality slowly work its way into delivering the wished effect.

Or agree with said player to have a good laugh and give him a free familiar named Will (the refer to my previous post here) to see what comes out of it. If things go haywire the familiar can always choose freedom..or die.

Admittedly I haven't been watching this to the very end, but my main thought about the Vigilante was not about its practical rules, but about alignment. It seems to me like a whole lot of our cultures iconic vigilantes would simply not be doable with the 1 step alignment difference limit between alter egos. Most I can think of require two - CG Zorro playing vs a lawful noble, LE Sith Lord Palpatine vs "ooh i care so much for your wellbeing" LG senator Palpatine..
The zorro example hurts me most though. The class seems just made about Zorro and at the same time - it bars him out.

1-you end up with one live troll - yourself. For the others decapitation would be a death effect.
2- +1 to the "slicing it in equal halves is not doable" voices
3-In Warhammer I believe there is an ogre or someone like that whoe ate a troll and became horribly fat and never hungry, with the troll constantly regenerating and geting consumed back. In pathfinder you'd notice that getting swallowed would yield acid damage and stop regeneration. Still the stall would end up bust most probably due to low demand and costly supply. People would simply be too afraid of having the troll grow back in their stomachs and ripping them apart.

Drew from the deck of many things, player drew the card with a wish. He cashed in his wish request tonight with the following wish, how can I mess with it?

I wish to have a spell-like ability to cast the spell "permanency" at
will, and without any cost, and without any unintended consequences,
and without the chance of failure, And have no limit to the number of
times I can cast it, and have no limit on how often i can cast it.and
without level requirement.

hmm so..

I wish to have a spell-like ability to cast the spell "permanency" at

will

you can't really spell capital letters in speech can you now? so what he actually said was..

at

Will

Does your party include someone named William? *wink wink*

There are archetypes for familiars that could in a way be interpreted as a class, but actual classes - no. That would require the familiar to gain levels which would mean it to be an independent character. Perhaps it being a cohort would mitigate that, but as far as I remember your cohort cant be your familiar at the same time

I have some bad memories with being stuck in a few games, not having anyidea what to do next and now I'm more into the riddle of how to deal with something than to the surprise element, plus we have problems getting together lately and Im just getting impatient!

so yeah, I dont want our team to suddenly fall apart cause the game at this point preferred to see some dead bodies and any ideas to help our survival is welcome, even if it does spoil some surprises

Although I do admit I'm more interested in what WE can do, than in what the game can do to us

Home AND travel with an addition of chaos.. sounds like a cat coincidentally I got a deeply built race that would fit, but that would mean it'd give more of a hero than a real deity, similarly to what goblins worship..and I should present the whole race first to give the whole picture. Should I or will it just be a waste of space?

I've only done a very minor intrusion to merge the race I've designed into the world. It didn't require much changing since they're highly adaptative beings from the great beyond that actually look like a modification of already existing races and in fact often cohabitate with those they mimic, or in places where they're talents are seen as useful..while being ignorant of a problem with their background.
Kindof like gnomes! Except gnomes don't wade so close to ancient horrors

So I've read some of the gm reference sticky..and Im one of the players in my group.
What I read there only has me worried how the heck are we supposed to survive that battle? We got 3 melee dwarves and a more buffy/healy than combatty caster and we just got out heavily bruised from the old church outside trunau. Skreed got away if he was even in there, GM said someone did.

I thought about covering up the white crosses with canvas and running around with a similar picture on a makeshift banner to trick that catapult into firing at the invaders already inside and later takng the cat over without breaking it to lb a rock at a giant, see how he likes his own medicine.

Any player or GM whose party managed to live through the whole battle got any more ideas of what can be done from the players perspective to avoid making new character sheets?

I wonder what class you've made. Anything that has to rely on a class code, like a paladin or cavalier can have that code made in such a way as to bar yourself from turning upon your allies or face severe penalties. Just make it clear to the others that you have such a mental barrier and if you break it you'll become worthless. Think up something with your GM to organise some way of enforcing such a feature upon your character if it doesn't naturally have it.

Comming back onto the antipaladins not necessarily getting int Callistras realm is actually pretty sensible. Just think - a soul used to vengeance gets turned down ny its goddess, probably sent to the abyss with what its used to and from there..it's out for REVENGE..coincidentally that's just in line with said goddess anyway. A gimmick truly worthy of a deity with trickery in her portfolio - tricking a faithful soul i to pursuing vengeance in both life and death, being that's what the thing knows and does best. Might even be seen as a true reward by the soul itself..in far retrospex ;)

"hello, I see you like vengeance so faithfully that I'll give you a reason to seek what you love so much for all eternity - to the abyss with you!" doesn't matter much if thats said by Calli or Pharasma

I bet he could use one of those, but I doubt there are any that substitute stats for class abilities.

Indeed he's made a stonelord, so no divine grace and no spells, so LOH is the only thing left on cha. I'm also playing one, but I took the effort to at least get the cha modifier to 0. Stats were rolled, unless the GM agreed to a different approach for him.

Funny thing there:
He's also a divine guardian, so no detect evil..
And there's an ANTIpaladin in the group..well frankly a house-ruled LN antipaladin-based dread vanguard stonelord (also houseruled to paint those dread vanguard abilities over what stonelord would otherwise take up). Represents more of a "wrath of god" than an unholy destroyer..but even without the evil part in his alignment the aura is still there..and the LG stonelord doesn't have detect evil..he has no idea :D and the GM didn't even twitch when I used ToC right in front of him when the player missed a session and had to be NPCed for continuity (we all got caught in a net and I was using a reach weapon at the time), so he has no idea :)

If I have to ask then the answer is probably the one I don't want to find, but I have to ask anyway. One of my teammates is running a dwarf paladin. Charisma below 10 obviously. Can he use Lay On Hands at level 2 or does he have effectively 0 uses? (1/2level = 1 -1 from cha = 0)

Without fly anyone with some means of getting up into the air and do some ranged attacks is game over for you - you can't hurt them, they can hurt you.

Reach can do some funny stuff - you can save yourself some tumbling against bigger creatures that have reach themselves, that's already been said, but against a 5ft rech opponent..grab a reach weapon with brace and set up. If you can hit that unlucky fellow charging at you will suffer a hit with double damage and then an attack of opportunity to boot. With a level 1 character you can fit in 3 rounds worth of damage when it's not even your turn.

That's a rues question more than advice

Anyway - since they stack then they're effectively one set of DR and that single total DR gets boosted. Once.

I always thought the class rogue was silly because players would introduce themselves as "Hi I'm ____. I'm a rogue." What rogue in his right mind does that?

I don't know about rogues, but a player in one of my games did just that, heh: "I'm ____ and I'm a thief". Frankly if you think about it that might not just be such a bad idea - nobody treats you seriously as a threat after something like that and you can do your thing in peace as long as you keep your harmless fool cover.

I admit though the name antipaladin sounds like all they do is oppose paladins, but truthfully - I aleays end up hating the iconics more.they always look like morons that give more show than thought.

I would have considered letting go of a few Lay Ons, but with how tanky the stonelord archetype seems Call Out was too tempting, and now that you've mentionned cornugon smash the charisma bit for intimidate seems even more tasty, even if it fits an anti-pal more. Hell knows if I won't turn into a home-ruled lawful one as the party seems to head into GM-enforced ancestral worship that mightnot care as much about the good/evil axis.

16int does indeed seem a bit out there, Id be fine with 13/14, but that 9 roll just had to mess me up

Somehow I managed to make my decision.- for my groups upcomming giantslayer ap I'll be making a dwarf stonelord paladin with a rolled array of 18, 16, 13, 13, 10 and .. 9 (sigh) I thought Id start with
Str 18
Dex 13
Con 16+2
Int 10
Wis 9+2
Cha 13-2
Have to pick one campaign trait and one from a GM-prepared list, not so important
Will probably start out with heal and craft(armorsmith) trained for fluff reasons

Still no idea what first feat and maybe a third skill feom favored class to pick

But how to progress it past lev 1?

Any advice?
Was considering upping intimidate and getting Call Out at some point but thats a few feats

Just not the songbird :)
Either go with something that requires a lot of different stats..or go with a sub-par option so you don't show the overpower as much. Monk seems to connect the two if you don't do the zen archer bit.
Or try out one of them occult classes and see how the novelty takes the attention away fom the stats.

My but that won't work so well without trolls for a good start..come to think of it, are there going to be trolls?
Another priest..hmm not sure

So one of my friend that's been GMing so far got tired and anoher will be stepping in with a different campaign.
We've decided on Giantslayer and will quite likely be running a dwarf only team. I've already read that's going to make things icky, but that's how we roll :)

Anyway, I've got a few concepts, but all are rather weak and I just can't decide what to pick. Thus I'm hoping to learn some more about what things might come in useful in the campaign, or even some minor spoilers on what to expect (minor, please).

We're hoping at least a major part of the team are going to be dwarves from a pre-estabilished group. Perhaps mercenaries, perhaps on "holy duty" in the region.
One already semi-decided he's going to play some sort of artificer-priest with his life mission to create an artifact..though in practice - to turn into one. He's also thinking about running around with a gun, as out of place as it may seem

And me..I'm a bit undecided. I had ran a heavily group-support cavalier in a one-shot adventure before and was thinking on that..though making aerial charges on a wingover abusing roc might not be very climatic here and the priest fellow is sceptical about mounted combat.
Another problem with the cavalier might be that..we're not sure if his group support will come in useful at all (like a bonus on charges if the rest of the group turns out ranged)

The GM-to-be came up with the idea of a stonelord paladin. The whole archetype looks a bi odd to me though - it changes so many things, the paladin won't even have his divine grace.

My general idea was to be a sort of party leader, at least in battle, or at least a heavy avant-garde of the group, someone who leads and strengthens the others in crisis.

Any thoughts about these concepts? or perhaps anything else that might match the general idea and fit more into the campaign?

Side note - the GM-to-be insisted on using an alternative magic system called spheres of power. Not sure if he was aware the stonelord turns the paladins normal casting ability off. We also rolled stats and I got:
18, 16, 13, 13, 10, 9
one campaign trait, one dwarf trait..the GM has some list of those I didn't see yet, so there's not much chosing traits outside of that.

What should I build to fit best into the party-player heavy melee role?

Quote:

Did only Ravendork and me so far notice that most of a diamonds worth comes from cutting it to shape actually? AND the diamond produced might not be enough quality to allow it to get cut into something sensible anyway.

Er, no:

Quote:

A better choice would be to buy raw uncut diamonds for a 1/3 the price of the final diamond, and use fabricate with a gem-cutting skill.

A, my bad then sirrah. Good point there, good point, my perception rolled low there I supose.

Did only Ravendork and me so far notice that most of a diamonds worth comes from cutting it to shape actually? AND the diamond produced might not be enough quality to allow it to get cut into something sensible anyway.

I'd allow it, but the diamonds produced wouldn't be worth much, not comparing to the cost of materials anyway. How much is 20 cubic feet of coal worth anyway? Without a crafting check in crystal growing (no, craft jewelry just wouldnt do it - you can use it later to try and cut it into shape once the diamond is ready..so another casting probably and still the DC for working with a heavily flawed crystal is catastrophic) you'll just get a lumb of diamond mess, flawed, cracked in every way possible and impure to boot. Likely worth less than the coal used to be true. And read around to see how hard it is to grow artificial diamonds..and they still don't look quite like the real things.

Yep, go ahead and use fabricate to make diamonds. Diamonds worth nothing in practice.

Reversing effects sounds nice, but I was thinking something that reacts more to what it enounters than to what the blade itelf is used for, like reflecting damage rather than acting as a vampiric weapon, or affecting targets more the more they stray from an overall idea of balance and so on

Encourage players to make up some near character background and give those weaker ones some boons basing on that. Not afraid of letting your players craft? Use alternative magic item crafting from Unchained and give that kobold a free crafting feat and maybe a +1 to all rolls to craft anything..that is if he's into such stuff. Or seek something in the adv race guide that fits in the RP point difference and can be classified as influence from some past events basing on that chars history.

If you're up for experimenting I'd also advise something different - try on one of those +2 templates, but without any base race modifiers. I mean - all the pluses minuses and traits should come from the template as if the character has a 0RP base race

I'd advise to ask the paladin player to take something not immune to fear. Best if he can find an archetype for that so he doesn't need to resign from paladin.Fear immunity is shooting yourself in the foot from another angle im my opinion as it kills the spooky mood you got a chance to incorporate here otherwise.

Well first thing you need is information what you're up against. If the safe is small - steal first worry later :D
If it's actually a vault..does the group count a female character in it's numbers? Seducing whoever has the key into a fun time alone in the vault might work..if you set up an ambush by the entrance beforetime so the merry target gets something heavy on his head instead of in his pants as soon as he opens the door.

As far as I remember the Vigilante has it clearly stated that divinations targetting his currently inactive identity fail, this way or the other.

As for the seen target thing - it depends if you interpreted the seen target as some other target and are trying to find the PERCEIVED target, or did you specify the SEEN target for the spell. If the disguise was some random person, then it won't help against a "tell me where's that guy I saw back then", but if the question is "tell me where mr. Bumbles is" then the spell will find the real mr. Bumbles, not the person disguised as him..unless of course you've never seen the real mr. Bumbles and that's how you name the counterfeit.
For false names though - yes, I would agree that targetting someone by a false name would fail..or find someone else bearing that name

Bit of a lead in before I get to the point - I'm playing what might be in some circumstances be called the most despicable thing in a Way of the Wicked campaign - a True Neutral character. Lately my main weapon (a wakizashi) has been tainted with evil from slaying good outsiders, bit later we started running into some rather wacky stuff with aligned artifacts and mystical power sources (yeah the campaign went haywire and got a life of its own, those things aren't from the original books), which made me plan out on making my own artifacts (my character is quite a tinkerer for a ninja by main class, but tainted with uneven gestalting with a wizard and even a bit of investigator..long story).
Thus I considered making a pair for the evil blade by aligning a different one with good by doing a mirror action and ridding the multiverse of a potent evil outsider (there's a good chance we might run into a devil that will be more interested in fighting us than helping, despite serving the same cause..we've already started to cause some bad blood with one) and then utilising the mystic sources to meld those two blades into a potent artifact more in line with my alignment

- A Blade of Balance

..right..just..I'm going all the way HOW to get that done, but it hit me that I don't actually have an idea WHAT should the result actually be.

Besides some wonky obvious things like being a Holy Unholy Axiomatic Entropic weapon @_@ what would you think such a Blade of Balance should actually do, being an artifact with some nice, though as of yet short history?

..well..
Now they changed that to the pirate campaign

I guess that lets us close this topic. Thanks still for the ideas, they got me thinking and may yet come in useful in the future

halfling..never played those, used an extremised version of ctfolk for small chars. Why halfling in particular? and how does one actually roleplay one thats a pally?

there are traits like gifted adept, but those usually work for only a single chosen spell

So out of the blue my group came up with WotR tomorrow, a campaign I've only heard bad things about and never given much thought as to a character concept I'd like to play it with.
And now I need one when I'm rather low on ideas and not even sure if I'll make it to the game.

I suppose I could go cheap with a paladin/fighter, but maybe some kind soul here might propose a concept I'd be able to put more spirit in?

side note if anyone goes as far as adding a build to the concept:
heroic point buy (that's..25pts?)
gestalt
no crafting, probably no leadership, GM said PFS rules, but I don't think he fully knows what else is forbidden (still means paizo material only)

By that ruling, if the PCs were to break into a tomb and defile it, and in so doing, anger the dead or activate a curse that causes the entombed to rise as a spirit or come back, then it only counts as the dead bodies being dead for 1 day?

There are numerous cases and adventures where an action can cause an undead spirit or guardian of the entombed to take form even when such a creature did not, and was not, an undead creature before. Such as burning or desecrating a corpse could cause the spirit to return. It makes no sense that there's a 1,000 year-old corpse, but then suddenly it's turned into a mummy or a ghost, then as soon as it's destroyed, the corpse counts as as being dead for 1 day.

I admit that part of my proposal is full of holes and I'd feel no shame in backing out of it. That still leaves the part about how deep the soul is into the afterlife as a pivotal point for counting the time.

Will.Spencer wrote:

GinoA wrote:

Vampires and liches have no more soul than an animated skeleton or a plain corpse.

It is difficult to think of a character as complex as Dracula having no soul. It seems more that he has a soul and it is very evil.

It's used in a difference sense. What used to be a soul in Dracula's (or any other classic vampire's) body has been replaced by an infernal essence. That's why Angel and Spike were different from all the other vampires in the Buffyverse, they both had their own souls. Angel, as a result of a gypsy curse, and Spike as a reward for passing a set of trials. (although not the one he was hoping for.)

Just that you're mixing up different universes.

Point is there's no rule as such, but through analysis of different things flying around resurrection topics one can expand on the soul topic - yes, the problem is about the soul and to be more precise..

..it's about how deep the soul is into the way to its intended afterlife and beyond the point of no return.

Resurrection needs to draw the way for a soul to come back (while pumping positive energy to its linked body so there's anything to come back to of course). That's why it fails when something is holding the soul captive, when the soul simply doesn't want to come back anymore..or can't becaue it's too far away into other destinies already. That distance is the thing that's limiting resurrection times. The more time has passed the further the soul is and the more power you need to open it a way back.

Having said that, undeath doesn't let a soul go on - it locks the soul down. The soul can continue its way once it's freed from the curse of undeath. Thus the period of undeath shouldn't count towards the resurrection time limit.
I'd go even further - that undeath actually resets the counter, which you can start then start from null once the undead is back to a properly dead state.

on higher levels convince one of your teammates to make good use of a x4 critting weapon and yourself grab something with a wid crit range, improved criticals and, most importantly - butterflys sting. Then do get into that melee and try to score crits to give away to the x4 person.
Reconsider not putting everything into teamwork feats and trying to boost your ability to soak up damage + feats that pin down opponents like Stand Still, coupled with step-up or combat patrol (and of course combat reflexes to get an additional aoo to halt people), so that other people can do their tricks in peace. Armor Master fighter archetype with adamant full plate would work nicely given its DR potential, but then you're adding yet another class to the collection.

Psionics may be made compatible with Pathfinder, but Pathfinder isn't compatible with psionics. A character overusing and showing off such powers can quickly become feared, stimatised and avoided by locals being suspiscious of anything too weird.
Likewise leadership is very easy to torpedo. There's a ton of ways to lose score - all it takes is bad fame. If it drop too much the feat becomes useless.
Cheating on points and casting times now..that's just what I wrote - cheating. Catch him on the act and he's gotta do some heavy explaining..and hopefully ease down.

If you're not alergic to 3rd party then Rogue Glory feature a nightsuit. Not exactly armor, but definitely in the climate.
Later on you can try to get that enchanted with the same functionality as a ring of ki mastery.

Planet of the Apes did a nice example of what can happen after a cataclysm wipes out most of humanity - common animals take over, especially those kept as pets before. There common pets suffered a practical wipeout before humans did and so apes became the new pets, but without that part the whole glory could have gone to cats, dogs and rodents with a less frequent addition of other animals.
Thus you could end up in a world dominated by uneasy alliances and old hostilities between catfolk and ratfolk, gnolls who never really adapted to recivilisation, rare occurences of mighty but isolationist lizardfolk and..yes gripplis in the more sunken regions.

You're mistaking hit points with hit dice. The barbarian with health 12 has only 1 hit die of type d12. The Hit Die is the thing with sides you roll or have already rolled to see how much health you got at levelup.