Statboy's page

Because making cantrips unlimited screwed up the balance that had been in place for decades. The spells weren't designed to be infinite and the cleric had an ability that either affected all undead in a large area (turning or rebuking) or later just did 1d6 damage to every undead in a 30-foot burst (and only got stronger each level).

Because they deliberately messed with Turn Undead (turning it into Channel), they knew making an unlimited ability available that did the same damage, at least over the first few levels, and could critically hit (and potentially add Sneak Attack damage, since they also made undead vulnerable to all of those now)
... they realized just how useless people would find Channeling against undead (ie. not as a burst heal) except in cases with a lot of weak, low-level undead. As opposed to blasting over and over at lone or paired undead, at least until higher levels. Plus they get a saving throw for half damage.

In short, they [messed] around with established game mechanics, realized they'd made one practically obsolete, and so keep disrupt undead away from clerics to obfuscate the fact and force their new 'unique class ability' to be used as default.

But no, giving cleric's access to disrupt undead very likely won't mess up your campaign in any way, unless you set up encounters that allow it to. And probably not after level 3 or 5.

That makes sense. Though in practice I've found PC's rarely channel to harm anyway. If the undead are numerous enough for it to be a better use than healing your allies outside of combat, then the undead are typically too weak to scare the PC's.

So PC's don't use it against a large number of weak enemies because they don't want to waste the resources, nor against one large enemy because its a group AOE. It only see it used if there is one big scary undead leading a lot of weaker undead.

I'm thinking about house ruling that Disrupt Undead is on the cleric list. I just want to make sure I haven't overlooked something.

Is there a reason its not a cleric spell? It fits thematically to be a cleric spell and not a sorc/wiz spell. Is there something broken a cleric could do with that spell that I'm not thinking about?

I'm going to be forced marching my party. I'm pretty sure its not last hit matters anyway. If you have 10 HP+sp and take 6 lethal and 6 non lethal damage. You drop unconscious but aren't dying no matter what order the damage came in.

From forced march:
"When you recover from this nonlethal damage, you also eliminate the fatigued condition."

So did this mean a 10 minute rest removes the fatigued? Does it still if non lethal is greater than SP? Since you only recover SP.

Question about how 10 minute rest works with, fatigue and non lethal.

Fatigue states anything that heals nonlethal cures the fatigue. If the amount of non lethal damage is greater than your stamina points, does the fatigue still get removed?

Also if non lethal damage is greater than stamina points does all the non lethal get removed on a 10 minute rest?

So the book says it's tier 3, while when I added up all the systems its comes to a BP of 118 making it a very low tier 5 ship. Is this a mistake or am I missing something?

A decent built martial is doing 100+ damage per round at 8-10th level, and you want to increase it? your players must not understand feat optimization.

we actually had to ban fighters and archers because they were killing the bad guy before the rest of the party could react, your suggestion would have made it worse.

Decent or Munchkin-ed? My players prefer fun over min/maxed. You are not doing 100+ a rnd as a martial at lvl 8-10 without greatly limiting your options. You have to take take a two handed crits on 18 weapon, and build it to crit on 15, and add Power Attack. What if flavor wise they want to run a Khopesh or Dwarven Warhammer? What if flavor wise they want burn 3 feats and have a full animal companion instead?

P, you may be underestimating just how high strength bonuses can get. For example, my 17th lvl Ironfang Invasion Shaman has 24 strength (+7 bonus), and the Bard/Dragon Disciple that I played as my first Pathfinder character got up to about +10.

If you're one handed thats 7-10 extra damage at end game when enemies are 200+ hp, thats not much. If give up the extra shield AC and go two handed that's 10-15 per hit. What I'm proposing at 7-10d3's would average 14-20. With the minus 1 average from the smaller die size of the main weapon. The increase isn't much over two handed. But would make one handed viable at end game (which it currently isn't for a pure strength build).

I'm am considering dropping the damage of all melee weapons by 1 dice level (ie a 1d8 becomes 1d6). Then adding (StrMod)d3's to all melee. So a Longsword from a medium character with +2 Str would become 1d6+2d3. The additional damage from the D3's cannot be added with any precision damage.

The reason I am considering this is because STR seems underrated to the point that I've run campaigns were I had no PC's with a STR higher than 12 at lvl 1. Melee also tends to die off after 7 or so. So this would make melee and STR stronger into later levels. I have personally felt they needed a little buff. Is this too much? Is this balanced? Any thoughts (expect yes or no without any reasoning) would be appreciated.

1st time RP cost is 4
2nd time RP cost is 9 (4 from 1st, 5 from 2nd)
3rd time RP cost is 15 (4+5+6)

After looking at the character creation rules you included, I noticed minotaur was not an option. Any chance that is an available choice?

No, there is no official Minotaur race. I used to allow custom built and third party, but its too much work to get play tested. All the races are official.

I am in need of 1-2 more people for Ruins of Azlant on roll20, it is voice chat and we have a discord for discussions. I am not posting for recruitment on roll20 anymore due to low quality player rate, and was hoping this forum would have better success.

What I'm looking for: Someone who can make a firm commitment to being there (Mondays from 12 Central US to 3). Not an RP snob, I do enjoy RP, if you don't then tabletop probably isn't for you. But some people enjoy PF almost strictly for the RP, while I try to bring a good mix of RP, Combat, and Story. The players that enjoy me as a GM the most, are the ones that enjoy all aspects of PF, not just RPing. My most important rule is that you dont Meta game or read ahead in the AP, to that end you have to, have not played past book 1, or read past the very beginning of book 1. I do have a small amount of homebrew rules which I will link at the bottom of the page. I am willing to take new players, and players that don't know Roll20.

Application:
Name and Discord:
Favorite character you've made in the past:
Have you played or read Ruins of Azlant before?:
Can you commit to mondays from 12 CST- 3?:

Homebrew Rules Link

I was looking at building a Pitborn Tiefling Paladin, and got to looking at the alternate physical features list, which list's changes to appearance and nothing else. Am I missing something, are the alternate features supposed to do anything? If I roll bat ears, did just give up the SLA for bat ears that don't improve my hearing? I haven't found were the Alternative Physical Features change anything other than appearance, which makes me think I'm missing something entirely, since you have to lose your SLA for it.

Primal Warden Shaman looks like a pretty good match for a Chaos Mage

Wildshape isn't useful if I'm already a Centaur and therefore can be the mount without wildshape. Warpriest is a good idea though, buff the natural attacks and get some spells/healing for utility and fill a role other than combat only.

I have a couple of fun characters I'd like to try out sometime but I'm having trouble building them. Any advice would be appreciated, I prefer someone that's fun to play over strong, but they shouldn't be a drain on the party either.

1st: Zoey the Chaos Mage from Orcs Must Die
About Zoey, she is a straight up Wizard, with a bat familiar, what makes her unique is that she cannot control her magic. In Orc's Must Die, she had the highest damage potential of any character however her magic randomly changed schools. You would never know if she would attack with fire or electric or anything else. I like the idea of an RNGesus spell caster who's evocations (or other spells) are slightly stronger but at the cost of control. I just haven't seen anything that could build this well.

2nd: a Centaur
I personally allow point buy based on race type, so I allow Kobolds at 25 point buy and Centaurs at 5. I would like to make a Centaur that is the mount for another PC, and I'm wondering what 2 builds would mesh together. The rider's build would be odd for a mounted build because you don't need a mount from the class which most mounted builds provide. My first thought was both Barbarian's raging together, but that doesn't make a good team as you have 2 PC's playing the same role.

I'm setting a PF game on Triaxus which is all Dragons/Drakes/Dragonkin. So I'm looking for tokens I can use in the campaign for each chromatic/metallic/other form of each. Dragons and Drakes aren't too hard to find, Dragonkin as they are described in PF are not similar to other Dragonkin in other fantasy settings so I am unable to find any tokens to use for them. Any help in finding Dragonkin token's would be appreciated.

The Beguiling Gift spell requires any item that would force the other player to use two hands and thereby drop their weapons. Though I like to use the Girdle of Opposite Gender. Force someone to drop their weapon and spend a round putting on a belt that changes their gender. I once did this to someone in my own party which was hilarious. Its a DC 20 Fort save to resist switching genders, if you nat 1 you become androgynously non-gendered.

Though I have been advised against a mount for this game.

Small characters with smaller mounts have an easier time with indoor campaigns. If its all difficult terrain that would be a different story.

I love Kobolds, LOVE THEM! But that -4 str means they can't realistically play melee characters. You are better off with the Divine Hunter or Holy Gun archetypes.

If you have your mini-dragon heart set on melee. Your best bet is maxing Charge Lance. Lance deals double while mounted and charging, Spirited Charge feat(which requires Ride by attack) makes that triple damage. Also charge of the righteous feat lets you keep your full AC when charging against the Undead.

Choose aspect of the Tiger, two weapon fighting, and improved natural attack for feats. Str at ~18 by that point (you could be at 20 if you had a +str race, but its not necessary). You get 2 attacks at +8 1d6+4 to hit plus grab, bite, and pounce. Claws bypass DR/ Cold Iron and Silver. AC is Dex+Wis, +2 for being Tiger 18-20AC without armor isn't unrealistic. Nothing about this seems either over or under-powered. It seems right where its supposed to be.

That being said, some of the Shifter aspects aren't worthy of being used, and will only see use in NPC's. I haven't looked closely but Aspect of the Bull makes you large as well when you get the major form? So +str and +str, on top of a charge gore, you could do some nasty things with that. Owl and Mouse aspect seem great for stealth, just bring a good weapon with you for the fighting parts.

Thanks guys, this seems pretty good. Advanced plus 4 levels of druid. Its in the wiki that these elder frost firs can disguise themselves as human so I'm guessing they could polymorph at least some. It would be a stretch to think a simple disguise kit would help a tree looking bro look like a human.

bump for ideas?

Two-Handed Fighter Archetype is good if you will be going Vital Strike (double str to damage instead of 1.5. Also Viking Archetype to get rage is pretty good.

OK, I am in the camp that Boon Companion must be taken by Character. The rules are equivocal, but more easily support this. Additionally, thematically the "master" is the actual source of power for companion, all the "animal companion" feats are how this power manifests. On a soulless wargame basis, having the companion being able to take the boon companion feat will give that companion greater abilities, including more feats so is giving it something for nothing, which is pretty much anathema to how the rules work.

I agree with your analysis, my initial post was because if animal companions could boon themselves that becomes a game breaking mechanic. Like you said something for nothing, I would be house ruling that you can't do it. Still a quick note from the Dev's would be nice to clarify, because its not written clearly.

There is a new table in the Ultimate Wilderness book, which does list Boon Companion under general. But its in the section on Animal Companion feats, rather than the section on general feats which is much earlier in the book. Once again, its going both ways.

Thank you Null. I guess RAW has two conflicting statements, ROI seems to be broken. Can we get a clarification from Paizo about what ROI actually is?

Statboy wrote:

Boon Companion never applied to the Master but to the Companion to begin with.

I can only assume at this point you are being deliberately obtuse. I will explain one more time for the sake of anyone else reading, and then I am done with this.

If, somehow, some way, an Animal Companion takes Boon Companion, it then applies to the Animal Companion's Animal Companion, which they would then need some way of getting for it to do anything. Period. Stop. If the Companion's Boon Companion applies to themselves, then by extension ALL FEATS taken by any Animal Companion can therefore be applied to the character who that Companion belongs to, by the same logic you are applying.

i just went ahead and flagged you for the personal attacks. nobody is saying that if an animal companion took boon it would apply to the animal companions animal companion. Rather, like i've stated multiple times before, it would apply to the animal companion itself

Statboy wrote:

IE at lvl 5 the Master has given 1 level to 5 different animal companions, who then each take this feat and each become level 5.

Again, this is just wrong. Let's say, for the sake of argument, the need for the Animal Companion class feature is bypassed. It's not, and I explained why already, but let's allow that. You still run into the issue that the feat requires the creature that takes it to have an Animal Companion themselves to act on. Since they don't, it does nothing.

Otherwise, you're seriously arguing that, because an AC has taken the Power Attack feat, the Druid the companion belongs to can Power Attack with a scimitar despite not having the feat and an 8 strength. Which is just ridiculous, but you can apply the same logic you're using to get there.

If the AC takes power attack the AC gets power attack. If the AC takes Boon Companion the AC gets Boon Companion, seems to be the RAW from Ultimate Wilderness. So no, your example is not using the same logic. Boon Companion never applied to the Master but to the Companion to begin with. And yes RAW from Ultimate Wilderness seems to say Animal Companions can take this feat themselves (among several others listed that are at least balanced). Its not saying it bypasses the prerequisite but that being the animal companion itself counts as the prerequisite.

TL;DR if animal companions can't take this feat, then Ultimate Wilderness didn't change the feat at all, in which case why would they waste their time putting in?

I'm just going to post the whole 2 paragraphs here

"As they grow in strength and experience, animal
companions and mounts develop mutations, personality
quirks, and tricks that grant them new abilities unlike those
seen in typical animals of their kind. The following feats
can be chosen by characters with the animal companion
or by companions themselves, as indicated in each feat’s
prerequisite line.
An animal companion or mount can select from the
feats listed below that include “animal companion” as a
prerequisite as if it appeared on the list of animal feats on
page 53 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook."

It does go onto to say "as if it appeared on the list of animal feats" which means feats that can be taken by the animal companion or mount. The rule is amending Animal Companion class feature, to the Animal Companion itself. If it weren't then why would any of that be in there? As to your second point. The companion isn't non-existent, a companion gets a feat at level 1, so its first level has to come from the master. I'm saying this rule becomes unbalanced specifically with the archetypes that allow a PC to divide there effective druid level across multiple animal companions.

IE at lvl 5 the Master has given 1 level to 5 different animal companions, who then each take this feat and each become level 5.

I personally give point buy based on Race, so you can be a Centaur but you get decreased point buy for it. The only "weak" race I give increased point buy for is the lovable Kobold. Honestly if you can't make it balanced then don't allow it. A basic Duergar is balanced, but a Tyrant is pretty strong, I'd give 10 less point buy if it were me. Which would probably cause him to take regular Duergar which is fine.

Relevant new rules text:

Ultimate Wilderness p. 217 wrote:

An animal companion or mount can select from the feats listed below that include “animal companion” as a prerequisite as if it appeared on the list of animal feats on page 53 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook.

Boon Companion is listed explicitly as one of this new type of feat, so they get to ignore the prerequisite. Again, assuming they actually mean that and it didn't slip through editing, which I think is honestly the more sensible interpretation.

EDIT: Withdrawn - I didn't read closely enough, although the way it's written is kinda janky. What they are trying to get across there is that feats on that list with "Animal Companion" as a prerequisite are not limited to the list in the CRB. I think.

I read it as, an animal companion can take those specific feats listed. That the whole list in the book can either be taken by Master or Companion

The requirements text of Boon Companion, if they haven’t changed it, has a different requirement. It’s “animal companion class feature” rather than “animal companion”.

The new ultimate wilderness book did change it. It rather explicitly states an animal companion can take this feat. Which just seems broken to me.

Not sure about #1, I have follow up question with that. Can a PC and a companion both take the feat, allowing to make up for 8 levels of difference?

For #2, it applies anytime you lose a level up to 4 levels. I'm not sure if you can take it at level 1, due to it being completely useless at that point, but if you take it then multiclass away from the animal companion, it will bring the companion up.

I can answer your followup, Ultimate Wilderness didn't make a new feat they just amended the old feat. So its still has "Each time you take this feat it applies to a new companion". At the bottom

Two questions about the changes to Boon Companion that were made.

1st) It says an animal companion can take this feat themselves rather than needing the PC to take it. If you have multiple animal companions can each one take it? IE can a 5th level Pack Lord Druid or Huntmaster Ranger have five fifth level animal companions, where each companion Booned itself? This seems to be RAW but incredibly broken, I know this could happen before but the PC had to burn 5 of there own feats to do it. Now though each companion just has to burn one of its own. I feel like I must be missing something.

Origin:
"An animal companion or mount can select from the
feats listed below that include “animal companion” as a
prerequisite as if it appeared on the list of animal feats on
page 53 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook."

2nd) This is something that has always been vague to me. Are the extra levels given only at the time of the feat or can the animal companion take this feat at level 1 and get the extra level whenever the master levels up but adds an extra companion instead?

Origin:
"The abilities of your animal companion or familiar
are calculated as though your class were 4 levels higher, to a
maximum effective druid level equal to your character level."

If we're being honest, they could do some things that would break the story/map. A good player wouldn't set about trying to do that, but it is RAW.

My PC's stumbled across a couple of Frost Firs with a baby still in the dirt. They killed them before realizing the baby was there and now want to adopt the baby frost fir. They have re-potted it and are taking it with them. I will now have the extended group of frost firs begin hunting the PC's through the forest culminating in a fight with an Elder Frost Fir. According to the wiki some Elder Frost Fir's become druids and even disguise themselves as humans.

I was hoping to make this about a CR 6 encounter. The hardest part is building the Elder Frost Fir, which while they're mentioned in the wiki, they don't actually have a statblock. I was kind of thinking about a CR 3 from racial and 4 druid levels. But I'm not sure how to build out the 3 racial levels. Would an Elder be large instead of medium? Should I point buy him or start with the stats of a regular frost fir then advance it a few point? Should they have more racial abilities than a regular frost fir? Has anybody built this creature yet?

HD+Con mod, ty

So quite a few creatures have numbing cold but I haven't seen in rule's how to calculate the DC needed to resist it. It says it's constitution based so Con Mod + ?

I'm still reading through the rulebook, but I haven't seen where Starfinder has different damage if you are small or tiny. So put a gun on it, keep it out of range, it does have full BAB, and is the best scout in the game. Though the combat drone I agree is worse than the exocortex. The others, I believe we will find a meta that makes them equal.

Statboy wrote:

I appreciate the apology, I am up to attempt number 4. It just keeps network erroring out.

You might want to curb your enthusiasm for getting the PDF quickly a bit. I usually get my download done in 48h. There are likely hunderds of thousands of people hammering Paizo's server right now.

And in before "but Paizo should have prepared for this", there's an old rule that if you're not a major IT company which can just pretty much pull servers out of thin air, you'll *never* have "enough" bandwith/servers for digital product launch. Governmental websites go down on day 0, commercial websites go down on day 0, ticketing services go down on day 0, it's A Fact of IT Life.

Actually with current tech it isn't too difficult to "rent" extra bandwith/servers to allow for increased download demand. It just takes extra forethought and the will to adapt your product to it. Honestly it isn't unreasonable to expect a company to deliver a product they sold to you. Just because everybody else does it is no excuse to do it yourself; regarding failure to adequately plan for high demand.

Side note, your "in before" was already too late

I appreciate the apology, I am up to attempt number 4. It just keeps network erroring out.

@Squisky's point still stands. Paizo was ill prepared for the Starfinder launch. My downloaded has failed once so far due to the Paizo server connection timing out. That shouldn't happen with such a small download, I understand its because so many people are downloading, but that's still a failure on Paizo's part.

I'm starting up a Mummy's Mask campaign to be run on Roll20. I am looking for a couple more people to round out the Party that haven't read the books or played the campaign before. I have one major change I am making however, that is Race/Class will be randomly chosen.

I like the idea of a party of PC's that feel like a group of friends that came together, rather than a pre-built power gamed group that has all there bases covered. PC's will also be localish, meaning that they will be Egyptian/African/Middle Eastern flavored. While classes are random, any archetype can be chosen and prestige classes can be taken.

I understand that this will make the party weaker (especially early), and I am allowing high point buy, and higher starting gold to compensate.

Post here if you are interested!

No one has gone for Knife Master rogue yet? That is the most Rogue a Rogue can be D8's for sneak attack damage but you have to use knifes and daggers. Meaning small and sneaky and damage is reliant upon sneak attack damage.

The worst Monk is the one without an Archetype, so pretty much all Monk archetypes.

I've allowed Tumor Familiar to have an Archetype and it didn't break the campaign. The PC used it to craft quicker, which is an excellent use IMO

Mixing 2-handed and dipping into knife master is probably going to make you too weak in either to be effective. I would focus either two handed or sneak attacking. Also the Accomplished Sneak Attacker feat can be used to increase your sneak attack damage as a slayer if you want to focus that. Its one of the few times that feat is useful. Natural Weapon is actually a really good Ranger Combat Style to supplement a sneaky slayer. It gives you Aspect of the Beast and Vital Strike.

I would stick to a pantheon that already exists. One of the biggest downsides of PF imo is that the gods were largely unknown to the players.

Starting with a pre-existing pantheon gives you players more familiarity with the gods from the start. Rick Riordan has made fiction books concerning Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Norse gods. At the end of each book is his glossary of gods from the pantheon the book is about. It's a good place to start, his early books were even really good, though his newer books have dropped in quality quite badly.

3.5 was much kinder to new players. I find that when I try to bring new players into tabletop RPG's I either need to start with DnD 3.5 or use Core rulebook only PF.

The beginning plot hooks are the most set in stone part of the story, and what the players have to adapt to the most. The players joined the campaign to be in the story, not apart from it. During my character building instructions to my PC's I tell them, they need to have a reason to want to be here written into there backstory. I usually give the story setup and a few specifics they need to work with. I'd tell him he has to make a PC that wants to participate, though he has complete freedom as the reasoning why he wants to participate.

I like what the other posters are saying, if your team has a glaring weakness that you can fill with your casting do that first. After that a mesmerist is in my opinion better than a witch at control, and usually fills the role of control caster.

You could think about Deities from other Pantheons. For example a character from Osirion could worship Ancient Osirion deities, or a Chelaxian could worship an Archdevil. You might look at Set a NE god of Darkness, Deserts, Storms, and Murder. Most of the Archdevils areas of concern are reasonable that a non-evil person would follow.

The only thing I would say balance wise is that an RP score of 15-20 is a little strong. But if that's how you're making your campaign you can balance it out with stronger enemies. Not every PF animal race has a high RP score, so if you allow PF races like Grippli or Kitsune, they'd need a buff to be equal to the races you've added.