Suichimo's page

OP, what you want is explitly the Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords,3.5 WotC, and Dreamscarred Press' Path of War material.

For me, personally, the problem with a class along these lines is that it would break this arbitrary, gut-feeling sense of verisimilitude I have about non-magical abilities. It's completely "unfair" and "illogical", et cetera, since a lot of basic rules (like falling damage) already screw about with physical laws and render them sort of a moot point within the rules system. All the same, there are certain kinds of things, such as achieving flight, creating earthquakes, et cetera, which I just will never be able to feel comfortable describing, in-game, as being non-magical.

I don't personally have a problem with this, even if it basically puts a cap on the power level of "mundane" classes vs. magical ones. In my group, for whatever weird reason, we tend to have fun playing both fighters and wizards in the same party, despite these, well, quite glaring differences in power level.

That being said though, I don't think your idea is without merit. It would be cool to take a stab at a class like this. If it truly manages to completely skirt the completely "inexplicable" magical effects, as you termed it, but still managed to up the mundane power level quite a bit, that'd be a very interesting feat!

Cheers,
- Gears

Then don't make the abilities non-magical. Yes, unless you have wings, Ex flight is silly, this is why the Su tag exists. This is basically what WotC and DSP did. The abilities in their products that are Ex are the high point of normality.

Soooo... Im playing a few games now and then, like 4 now, I think.

And I have a question about "Tanks".
I have a fighter and a monk on my team, that are the more "Tanky" players, (Like 20~22 hp each, and 16~18 AC or so~).
And a Sorcerer that has been able to do A LOT of damage lately, but she is lvl 1, so she has 9 hp (Like, one hit dead, kind of).

As someone else said, why is there a difference in the levels? The Fighter and Monk are level 2 or 3, assuming they rolled really well.

So my question is, If she makes a LOT of damage to a Monster, to me, makes total sense that the monster will try to atack her, but, most of the monster I use deals like 8~20 damage (Give or take). So it would be an insta death (Even with the cleric nearby). Is there anyway to move inbetween an atack? I've searched for rules and the only rule that I think makes sense would be ready/delaying an action, so, for example if an Ogre gets near the Sorcerer, would the monk be able to just, move in between? (If he initiative allows him, of course) Would the ogre "loose" his attack trying to... Get past him? Exactly what would make the ogre just, move around and get to the sorcerer?

You can ready an action to move in front of someone, yes. Will this stop the attack, likely not. At best, the monster will have a couple of AoOs to take before it can eat the baby Sorceror.

There is practically nothing you can do to stop an enemy that knows what the real threat is.

I was thinking, that instead of that, the monk could spend one action getting to the sorcerer, and one action moving her out of the way, so he would take the damage, but is that little bit OP? I know that I dont have to follow the rules 100%, especially if they are messing around with the fun out of the game, but... I was wondering if you guys knows a system or somthing, that allows to "Tank", other than that feat (Wich name I dont remember now) that allows you to make other dont get past you n'stuff.

As always, thanks in advance.

No, you can't move someone out of the way unless you want to initiate a bullrush on them. If you want to tank, you're going to have to get a third party supplement called Path of War. The Warder in there can actually tank.

Caster-Martial disparity does exist in favor of casters...at higher levels. Casters, however, pretty much suck at low levels. They're essentially Magicarp.

I'm playing in a game right now where I'm a full orc brawler. There is a wizard in our party. In two fights she's done more or less 4 damage, where I have done like 30. Sure, she could drop a colorspray or two, but it's an all-or-nothing spell, and if the enemy makes their save it's a waste of a slot, a waste of an action, and a waste of getting dangerously close to the enemy when you're a very squishy person. Not only that but it's a severely limited option. Nobody I know prepares colorspray as ALL their slots, so let's assume maybe 2 slots are prepared there. Two enemies can be taken out of the fight a day if you get lucky. A martial, at low levels, can take out a lot more than that in a given day, especially with decent ac.

You earn your way into power as a caster.

Now if you play a game that starts off at 15th level, I could easily see nobody wanting to play a martial...

Casters start their dominance so much earlier than 15th. At 1st level you've got Grease, Sleep, and Color Spray. Any one of those three will take enemies out of the fight. Don't want to deal with SoS? Enlarge/Reduce Person, Silent Image, and Mount/SM1. These are great buffs/debuffs/battlefield control. And that is only at 1st level. 3rd level they get Create Pit, Fog Cloud, Glitterdust, Stone Call, and Web out of Conjuration alone.

Judging a Wizard on how much damage it is putting out is pure folly.

Not going to read all 10 pages but just going to say my part. Frankly, I don't like perfectly balanced classes and I like the game the way it is without people trying to get their personal house rules put in. Maybe the class you want can't kill stuff as well as barbarian or whatever but guess what? That means that class is not MEANT for being a kill-count monster. Every class shouldn't cover every possible aspect of things to do and every class shouldn't be based around damage output. When people want the classes to all be perfectly balanced and do pretty much the same stuff in combat, what the heck is the point of classes anymore?

If you don't like something, houserule it. That is what we did in older editions. I get voicing your opinion but eventually you have to say suck it up, that's the game. They can't appease everyone and when you try to do that, a product falls apart and becomes all bland and tasteless.

I think what a lot of people don't get about pathfinder is that it isn't just a system with a world for flavour. As it is now, after they made it their own game, it is a world first with a system that exists to fit in it. When you start demanding heavy changes to a system, they have to look at how that effects the world it was designed to be used for. Yes, I know you can make your own worlds and whatnot but guess what? If you are making your own worlds, then you can houserule the system how you want to fit there without trying to force the standard game to change and thus inflict your changes on everyone else that is cool with it as is.

Finding errors and contradictions is one thing but trying to force massive changes just because YOU don't like it does nothing but hurts it for everyone that does and the people that wrote it that way to work in the world they designed the system for.

There a plenty of games with things in it I don't like. There are certain abilities in games like Shadowrun that work a certain way I don't agree with but rather than demanding the devs to change...

Damage is not the only balance point in the game. In fact, it is the worst balance point in the game.

Also, I'm going to take this as you meaning that it is perfectly fine for a Wizard to be able to replace an entire party, and then some. Because that is what it sounds like. No one is saying everyone should be able to do everything. Just that everyone should be able to do a lot of things.

discosoc wrote:

My group is just really burned out with Pathfinder, after a year and a half of playing. Combine that with about 10 years of 3/3.5, and it becomes a pretty heavy dose of fatigue.

I think a lot of people are in that boat, which is why 5E seems to be doing so well. It feels like the anti-3.5 version.

Are there other people out there that starting to feel burned out with Pathfinder? I though we was alone in this. I’m not being sarcastic. We even have one in our table top group who has bought 5ed players guide.

I mean, I like pathfinder and love I Paizo and I have been playing PF since the BETA-version, but as you put it: “Combine that with about 10 years of 3/3.5, and it becomes a pretty heavy dose of fatigue.”

Unless the Devs clear up some of the stuff I think we either swap to 5E or start to play call of Cthulhu.

I am. I would've switch to 4e when it came out, but only one other person in my usual group was interested for more than a session, so our voices were worthless.

I started with 3.0 back in 2002, so that is 12 years that I've been playing the same system. Pathfinder just continued with that, except that they haven't brought in all the quirky subsystems that WotC did at the end of 3.5. We started with Martials and Casters in 3.5. We ended with Martials, Casters, Psions, Binders, Shadowcasters, Truenamers, Martial Adepts, and Invokers. I may even be forgetting a couple of subsystems. Paizo started with Martials and Casters, it still only has Martials and Casters, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

I'm gladly going in to 5e and, this time, it looks like my group is on board with it as well.

I know this isn't really the focus of the discussion, but I feel a powerful need to point out that your original plan wouldn't work; being able to use a SLA once per day does not meet the "able to cast 3rd-level arcane spells" requirement of Eldritch Knight.

Except that it does:

Spell-Like Abilities, Casting, and Prerequisites: Does a creature with a spell-like ability count as being able to cast that spell for the purpose of prerequisites or requirements?

Yes.
For example, the Dimensional Agility feat (Ultimate Combat) has "ability to use the abundant step class feature or cast dimension door" as a prerequisite; a barghest has dimension door as a spell-like ability, so the barghest meets the "able to cast dimension door prerequisite for that feat.

Edit 7/12/13: The design team is aware that the above answer means that certain races can gain access to some spellcaster prestige classes earlier than the default minimum (character level 6). Given that prestige classes are usually a sub-optimal character choice (especially for spellcasters), the design team is allowing this FAQ ruling for prestige classes. If there is in-play evidence that this ruling is creating characters that are too powerful, the design team may revisit whether or not to allow spell-like abilities to count for prestige class requirements.

Fusing is an enhancement bonus of +2. And is from Dreamscarred Press, a 3rd party material.

A 3rd party material that Paizo has said is how they would do Psionics if they put them into the game.

So what enhancement should there be for all those bonuses of Celestial Plate? Should it be a +4 or +5 bonus to do all the things celestial armour does? Perhaps it doesn't compute with the numbers. The only thing that computes with the numbers is a special material.

It doesn't have a straight enhancement bonus, I've already been over this. It is an enhancement that purely costs gold to add on, and yes these do exist before you even ask.

Nope, can't find an enchantment or "magic" to reduce the spell failure. How about increase max Dex, or even decrease weight.

Spell resistance, energy resistance, etc...sure... But nothing that reduces max dex, weight or even armour check penalty for cash.

I find special materials that does that though.

You're not looking hard enough, then.

Fusing

A suit of armor or a shield granted this ability melds with its wearer when the appropriate command word is given, seamlessly fusing with the wearer’s form. The Armor Check Penalty of the armor is reduced by 1 (to a minimum of 0), the Maximum Dexterity Bonus is increased by 1, any arcane spell failure is reduced by 10%, and the armor is treated as if one category lighter for movement restrictions. This decrease does not apply to proficiency in wearing the armor. For example, a character wearing mithral full plate must be proficient in wearing heavy armor to avoid adding the armor’s check penalty to all his attack rolls and skill checks that involve moving. These modifications are in addition to any changes from special materials, but do not stack with effects such as that from graft armor.

Aura Strong psychometabolism; ML 4th; Craft Psionic Arms and Armor, float; Price +2 bonus.

There is also the Nimbleness quality, to increase Max Dex, on page 13 of the Magic Item Compendium and the Twilight quality, to decrease ASF, on page 15 of the same book.

The only thing I can't find a property for is weight. There is, however, the spell Lighten Object which flat out reduces an item's weight by half.

How can you say this when it has a weight, max dex, armour check penalty, and spell failure like any other armour. Unquestionably is an odd word to use.

You now found out how much the material cost is just like with adamantine or mithral.

Do magic armors not have weight, max dex, acp, or asf? Every single armor in the game has those. There are magic properties which affect all of those. I'm really not sure what you're getting at with this.

I've broken down the costs for you for the "Celestial" property. It is not a special material as special materials don't require you to have anything to forge them.

Not sure your question. It has special requirements. It's gold/silver (thought to be divine because of it's "purity") that is imbued by a lawful good god to make it celestial. The maker needs to be good.

If it's an enchantment there needs to be a cost.
If it's a material than there is rules.

It either can be one or the other. Not just a "magic".

There is no question. I'm flat out saying that it is an enchantment. We have the rules on modifying specific magic items. We have rules for enchantments that are either +x equivalent or +GP equivalent.

The +x equivalent is the +3. The +GP equivalent is every other bit of magic in it. We have a breakdown as such:

Full Plate - 1,500
Masterwork - 150
+3 Enhancement - 9,000
Total - 10,650

The price of the item is 25,000. 25,000 minus 10,650 equals 14,350. Therefore, the price for Fly 1/day, +5 Max Dex, and -15% ASF is 14,350.

It is unquestionably not a special material and is an enchantment with a cost of 14,350 GP.

Suichimo wrote:

Mydrrin wrote:

What is the enchantment? Which enchantment gives things lower weight, highest ability to be nimble, lowest spell failure? What is the bonus of said enchantment? Is it a +3 enchantment?

Read the rules. Conveniently, I posted them only a few posts above this one.

When you're altering specific magic items you have to decide what is a +x enhancement and what is a GP enhancement. Clearly, the armor is +3 so we know it has that. The rest of the abilities don't have a clear equivalent so the easiest thing to do is to make them a GP enhancement at the cost of 14,350, since +3 full plate is 10,650.

Now that you have these two numbers, you can easily modify the Celestial Plate Armor to your own desires, as long as your DM is fine with it.

But you can't go against things that are against the rules like have two materials. Only the dominant material is valid. What does the magical modification isn't about altering the material when it changes weight, dexterity enhancement and spell failure?

This wouldn't be the first magical property that does such a thing. 3.5 had Nimble and Twilight. In Ultimate Psionics there is a property called Fusing which does all of that.

It is very clear that Celestial isn't just another special material. It has actual requirements to be made.

Celestial Plate Armor

Aura faint transmutation (good); CL 8th
Slot armor; Price 25,000 gp; Weight 25 lbs.
DESCRIPTION

Celestial plate armor is a sturdier version of the standard celestial armor.

This bright silver suit of +3 full plate is remarkably light, and is treated as medium armor. It has a maximum Dexterity bonus of +6, an armor check penalty of –3, and an arcane spell failure chance of 20%. It allows the wearer to use fly on command (as the spell) once per day.
CONSTRUCTION

Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, fly, creator must be good; Cost 12,500 gp

If it were just a special material, you wouldn't have requirements to make it.

If it's a special material, then there are rules for that. That no two can overlap. It's either a special material or an enchantment.

What is the enchantment? Which enchantment gives things lower weight, highest ability to be nimble, lowest spell failure? What is the bonus of said enchantment? Is it a +3 enchantment?

Read the rules. Conveniently, I posted them only a few posts above this one.

When you're altering specific magic items you have to decide what is a +x enhancement and what is a GP enhancement. Clearly, the armor is +3 so we know it has that. The rest of the abilities don't have a clear equivalent so the easiest thing to do is to make them a GP enhancement at the cost of 14,350, since +3 full plate is 10,650.

Now that you have these two numbers, you can easily modify the Celestial Plate Armor to your own desires, as long as your DM is fine with it.

master_marshmallow wrote:

It can't replace the stats and also be an adjustment on the stats. That is the point, either it is an adjustment, or it replaces the base stats.

Per the strict interpretation of RAW being heralded as correct by the "no" crowd, it would seem that the armor has it's stats replaced with the new base. Mithral's rules always adjust the base.

If that is not the interpretation, could someone please explain it to me?

It's a special material. Plain enough.

Can you put celestial upon adamantine full plate? To get :

An armour of 25 pounds, a maximum Dexterity bonus of +6, an armor check penalty of –3, and an arcane spell failure chance of 20%. It allows the wearer to use fly on command (as the spell) once per day.

With a hardness of 20 and a 1/3 more hit points and a /3 damage reduction?

Almost everyone would say no. Somehow mitral does? I don't think so. It's wrong any way you look at it.

How is it a material? It is a magic property, they even give you what you need to craft it.

And yes, Celestial Adamantine Full Plate is perfectly doable and has basically no grey area outside of modifying a specific magic item.

And since they are set items, we coukd not actually change them and put celestial on something because we dont know what exactly it changes per se?

For specific magic armor and weapons, the price for the base item may be hard to determine, as some abilities may have been priced as plus-based properties and some as gp-based properties. Without knowing which is which, how to increase the price (using the plus-based table or flat gp addition) can't be determined. If this happens and nobody can agree on a fair price, it's best to not upgrade the item, or ask the GM for permission to pseudo-upgrade the item by swapping it for a different item with a price that can be calculated with the normal rules.

You have to figure out what it changes between yourself and the DM. We know that it is a +3 suit of full plate, so we can go from there. The easiest way to do it is to just assume everything else is the "celestial" property. You have to work backwards to get the actual changes. In the case of Celestial Plate we get the properties of +5 Max Dex, decrease ASF by 15%, Fly 1/day, half weight, and treat as one category lighter.

How the hell are you guys seeing Celestial as replacing stats? Its not a magic property, it is a specific magic item, the wording is very different. EVERYTHING in the description of Celestial Plate is based on the assumption of regular full plate as the base. You have to infer, from there, the changes that it gives if you're allowing people to mess with specific magic items.

Nothing is being "set" in Celestial Armor or Celestial Plate. The wording is different because they are specific items.

Seems to me a LOT of people complain about the system as it is. Complaints about not enough dex-to-damage options just up your strength if you really want to melee THAT badly

And if that is against your concept?

or that certain classes are vastly underpowered compared to others don't play said class

Doesn't stop those classes from being vastly underpowered.

or that feat chains are unfair,

They are.

or that Pathfinder should be classless Seriously?? Play another system then, there's plenty of classless ones out there!

Agreed.

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I like Pathfinder how it is.

So you have absolutely no house rules, then?

I think the feat chains are neat, and a fair way to get to more powerful feats.

One problem is that the benefit you get for long feat chains generally isn't worth it. The other problem is that casters don't have these and get all of their powerful feats at, basically, no cost to them.

I think there SHOULD be some caster versus martial disparity; it makes you feel like you earned it when you're a high level caster and you had to struggle through the low levels to get there. (I don't care what anyone says, wizard 1-4 is pretty boring and you feel almost useless compared to the barbarian who's destroying everything in one hit until you start to get some decent spells.)

If you can't find a way to not feel useless as a Wizard at any level, I think you may need to look around a bit more. At 1st level, Wizards have things like Grease, Color Spray, and Sleep in their arsenal. All three of those can flat out remove enemies from the encounter. It only gets better from there.

Obviously there will always be some disparity between casters and martials. The problem is the size of the gap between them. Right now, casters are gods and martials are peasants. Ideally, you'd want both casters and martials to be kings, but caster kings and martial dukes would be a fair enough compromise for now.

Also, it has already been mentioned but, just because we have complaints it doesn't mean we don't like it. I've never called Pathfinder anything more than 3.55, because that is what it is to me. I haven't consistently played 3.5 for 11 years for nothing.

I think the big point of contention between you two, at the moment, is how the armor is qualifying as either medium or light. The ability in question is:

This bright silver suit of +3 full plate is remarkably light, and is treated as medium armor.

Gauss, you're reading this as a strict "Celestial makes armor medium". The issue I find with that thinking is that it doesn't care about the base material of the armor or about the other Celestial armor that Celestial Plate references.

Since there are no rules pertaining to silver armor, we have to assume that the base qualities of this set of full plate are equal to that of regular steel armor.

Celestial armor simply references +3 Chainmail, so we have to assume it is also made out of steel. However, this time the Celestial bit is making it light armor.

So instead of reading this as "Treat this armor as medium/light" you should be reading it as "Treat this armor as one category lighter". You can similarly boil down the other properties of "Celestial".

The Belt of Giant Strength gives an Enhancement bonus, actually. The thing about wearing it for 24 hours means that, after 24 hours of wearing it, your strength is considered to permanently be the increased score for the purposes of prerequisites.

You actually can get inherent bonuses higher than +5, but I only know of two ways to do that and both of them require getting the Sorceror's bloodlines.

With the exception of using multiple Wishes in a short time frame, no, they work like all other named bonuses.

Stats cap at 22 with best magic items.

Barbarians can actually hit 24 in Str and Con. I'm not sure HOW they'll do it, since the ability comes at 20, but they can.

Raising the baseline strength of the martial classes relative to casters would be a major improvement to any of the D&D-based systems, Pathfinder included. So long as the monsters are sufficiently ferocious that they still pose a challenge to these new super-martials, this is probably a good thing.

I haven't taken a look at 5th ed yet. Hopefully, they have dispensed with dissociated 1/day abilities, Rangers who can push targets 10' in any direction with their arrows (wut?) and other such rubbish. We shall see. At this point, I am skeptical of WotC's ability to design a good system. Time will tell.

The martials did, in fact, get a great big boost. For starters, you can move and get all of your attacks in in the same turn. You can even move, do one or two attacks, move again, and finish your attack routine in the same turn. Dex based characters get their own benefits as weapons can now have the "Finesse" quality, this means they can use their Dex mod on both their attack roll and damage roll. Similarly, some ranged weapons have the "Thrown" quality which lets you use your Strength.

I personally liked 4e, but I can't really see any of it here.

5e also doesn't have that many important statistics attached to DEX that you have in 3.x.

Reflex saves are replaced by Dexterity saves, and every other stat is important because they also have saves attached to them.

AC has a cap of how much DEX you can use depending on your armor, light, medium, or heavy.

Dex is still pretty big. You've got your Dex save, Initiative, all ranged attacks that are worth a damn, and a full sixth of the skills. The only characters that can ignore it somewhat are those in heavy armor, and they still need it for everything outside of AC.

All things considered, they also nerfed STR hard because as far as I've read into it, there is no more Power Attack mechanic, and you don't get 1.5 damage from using a two-handed weapon. A versatile weapon can be used two-handed for a larger damage die, but we all know that damage dice are not as important as flat numbers.

Power Attack is still there, it is in the Great Weapon Master feat. You really seem to be approaching 5e from the same mindset you would approach 3.5/PF.

This appears to be a major flaw in 5e's design imo, and I do not believe that DEX/Damage should be free because it would invalidate the STR stat. I am fine with Weapon Finesse being free, but not damage.

I do believe that characters should be able to get it with a single feat, assuming free weapon finesse, or two if weapon finesse still exists in current form. Slashing Grace is a joke because of feat taxes.

Why should people be penalized just because they want to play a Dex based fighter? You're not going to invalidate Strength over night, or even over a lifetime, by just allowing Dex to damage.

I can only hope this is some form of sarcasm or satire.

If you count school specializing for wizards, the comparison on even levels is this:

Level 6
Wizard - 4/4/4/3
Arcanist - 7/4/4/2

Arcanists cannot get extra spells per day from having a school:

1. The School Understanding exploit only gives you an ability from the school.
2. The School Savant archetype only gives you extra spells prepared, not extra spell slots.

Arcanists can, however get a Bonded Item. It's under the Bloodline Development exploit.

Quote:

...

If this ability is used to gain an arcane bond and a bonded item is selected, the arcanist can only use that item to cast spells of a level equal to the level of spell that could be

...

Now to see how many people continue to specialize and how many people take Exploits.

Yeah, that is why I crossed the school stuff out. I'd rather get the arcane bond through Eldritch Heritage(Arcane) since you should qualify for that easily enough. Sadly, I don't think you can take the Familiar exploit with this.

Minor quibble but on a purely personal note I don't like the fact you still need to memorize the spells each day. Sure you can cast any of them as long as you have spell slots remaining (or at 20th level arcane poolpoints) but I was under the impression once you memorized a spell it remained until you memorized a replacement rather than just fizzling away after 24 hours requiring you to rememorize it.

Not to mention the fewer spells and delayed casting I'm honestly losing a lot of interest in the arcanist class because of this.

You only have fewer spells per day, not counting items, than the Wizard on levels where it has a spell level over you. Take levels 6 and 7, for example:

Level 6
Wizard - 4/3/3/2
Arcanist - 7/4/4/2

Level 7
Wizard - 4/4/3/2/1
Arcanist - 7/4/4/3

Both of them can get a school specialization and a bonded item to allow for casting more spells throughout the day and both run off of the same casting stat for bonus spells.

Technically, the Arcanist doesn't even have fewer spells per day than the Wizard, it's just that at odd levels the Wizard has a higher level spell than you.

Edit: I'm not entirely sure why I thought they could get a bonded item through an exploit. They can only get the familiar. They can get it through a feat though.

Best advice? It's paladin, not pally.

I am going to wipe that god-aweful 'pally' slang from people's lexicon if it kills me!!! :)

You don't talk about wizzies, rangeo's and sorcies, do you?

Sheesh!!!!!

No, I do talk about the Wiz and Sorc though. There isn't much of a consensus between games for the archer classes, though. You've also got the Barb.

:D

I'm absolutely in love with the new Arcanist class. However, I've GM'd a game with one of my players playing an Arcanist and here's what's stood out to me:

1. Their spellcasting is okay. They can prepare the same amount of spells as spells known by a Sorcerer or Oracle, except they don't have any bonus bloodline/mystery/cure spells to broaden their on the fly versatility. Sure, there's Quick Study, but how often do you want to burn points and full round actions on that? I wouldn't even recommend Quick Study until probably 5th level or later, since you’re limited on resources at low levels.

Arcanists are prepared casters, shouldn't they be able to leave some slots open in the morning? And one thing I think you're missing in this point is that they have a library of spells available to them rather than only a few.

2. They have less spells per day. They have the fewest spells per day of any full caster and you feel it. No bonus School Slots and so on. However, they can somewhat make up for that, but more on that later...

School Savant solves this, on the even levels before 18.

3. Being a level behind wizards is a really big deal. Just like with Sorc vs Wizard debates, a level 3 Arcanist vs a level 3 Wizard is no contest in terms of spellcasting, and the same holds at all odd levels. Although the Arcanist does have some nice abilities.

Yeah, that one stings.

4. Abilities like Acid Jet are actually quite good, if you didn't dump Charisma. For a level 3 character, it's akin to more than doubling your spell slots for the day. Prepare some good first level spells like Grease and Color Spray and backing that up is quite the nasty little blast spell. A ranged touch attack dealing 2d6+Cha damage (2d6+3, in this case) and if they fail their save, sickening the target for d4 rounds is really quite a nice alternative to using spell slots, which you are lacking. It never becomes irrelevant, as the damage keeps scaling up, and the DC also scales with your level.

Despite it being the most commonly resisted element in the game, I personally like Flame Arc. It doesn't have any debuffs tacked on, unless you get the greater version, but it has a very nice area of effect.

Some item magic say that they have a specific value as jewelery (like the ring of splendor found in the Crimson throne AP) or that that they have some kind of gem in them, but generally the item description don't include that kind of details.

As I envision a amulet of natural armor it wouldn't qualify, as I see it as a pendant made with a perfect dragon scale or some piece of hide from an animal with a though skin. A ring of fire elemental command made by a band of red gold set with a perfect ruby would qualify.
Essentially, it is a GM call and it would be made singularly for each item.

That sounds like a perfectly suitable piece of jewelry to me, especially if it is a scale from a metallic dragon. The second one, with a bit of adornment, could also pass off as a necklace(only example of one like it that I can think of is Katara's necklace from Avatar The Last Airbender).

You can't do it without taking, at least, 5 levels of Arcanist. Also, you'll have diluted the ability by a lot, since your caster levels don't stack.

P.S. Is your name a reference to Bravely Default?

Hiram_McDaniels wrote:

Incidentally, my vote is Yes on a new edition of Pathfinder. 3.x was a mess before the Pathfinder RPG, and PF has steadily grown into a bloated, tumorous mass. I think they need to completely break the game down and rebuild it from scratch without 3E D&D assumptions.

That is what the traditionalists do not want - we got into Pathfinder because it was a continuation of 3.5. We wanted to keep playing that game... with tweaks and improvements. You change the game to ignore those assumptions, and it is a vastly different game... and one I know I wouldn't play. A great deal of why I like PF is that it is built on that chassis.

Those assumptions lead to classes that are either obsoleted by classes released at a later date or that are obsoleted as you climb in level. We've already seen the end of Pathfinder's life with the end of 3.5. Sadly, I think the assumptions made by 3e have been too pervasive as anything that goes against them is put down.

Every class from core, APG, UC, UM, ACG is allowed, as well as most archetypes. You can see what is and isn't allowed here. http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety/about/additionalResources

The bonus feat? It is not required, but is good to have.

I've said it in other threads, but I personally like the Gunslinger as the martial side of the EK. The Fighter has the bonus feat over you, but you've got a good reflex save, proficiency in firearms, more skills and a better skill choice(Perception!), at least one point of Grit to fuel deeds, and(if you are a Gun Tank) you get Light Fortification against an attack once per day.

Now we've got some new martials, though. I imagine Bloodrager would easily fit in.

Yep, under one of my DMs all finesse-able weapons automatically use Dex to hit and damage, if that is superior for you. Absolutely no problems so far.

Warning, long post ahead.

I am curious- those that really want a new edition- what are you expecting? I mean if you want a new edition as you are hoping they will get rid of alignments or Vancian casting are very likely to not get what they want (not saying that for sure, mind you). Some have asked for Teleporting Fighters. Even a small change like more Skill points for the Fighter may not be in the cards.

Feat taxes may still exist, etc.

So- do you want a new edition as you are hoping for a certain change? What happens if 2nd Ed comes and that change isnt there?

For me, at the very base of things is the martial vs. caster disparity. One side eventually becomes nothing more than mere peasants compared to the other side. There are other things, but I'll talk about those in a bit.

A lot of this is on the caster side. The very philosophy behind them is that they get monstrously powerful abilities that are usable only a few times per day. I imagine a good bit of people will say that this only really gets out of hand when the DM allows the fifteen minute work day, but I don't think that is true. With specialization, high Int, and magic items(including a bonded item) you have a minimum of six ninth level spells per day. Six! So if the average day has three to four encounters during it, in two of those encounters you can drop two ninth level spells. One ninth level spell will likely end the fight by itself. On top of those, you have your eighth and lower level spells. So the entire philosophy of ULTIMATE COSMIC POWAH but itty bitty casting space is bupkiss from the start. In 5e, casters get a single ninth level spell per day, with no way of getting it back.

Another problem with casters is "I have a spell for everything". This only gets worse with each new splat books, we've already seen it in 3.5 where even books like Complete Warrior and the Tome of Battle had spells in them. This is one of the reasons I liked 4e's splats. Martial Power only had Martial abilities in it, Divine Power had Divine, Arcane Power had Arcane, and so on. Back on the starting point of this paragraph, starting from second level spells, at the latest, you have gems like Knock and Rope Trick. The first of those obsoletes one of your party Rogue's main features, the second removes the need for a night watch.

The third major problem exists in the feats meant for casters. Take a look at the vast majority of the metamagic and item creation feats, which are easily the two strongest subsets of feats in the game. I count about five Metamagic feats that have prerequisites, these being Knowledge skills, Spellcraft, and caster level, you may not already meet. The two most useful item creation feats, Craft Wondrous Item and Craft Magic Arms and Armor, have no requirements outside of caster level, and Wizards get Scribe Scroll for free. This is the exact opposite situation for the martial characters who have to deal with long feat lines just to get their character to do what they initially conceived. This is another area that I think 5e is doing very well.

For the martials, we've got nearly the opposite of the first point I had for casters. The design philosophy for martials was "I can swing my weapon/fire my bow/attack" all day long. So since they could do it for as long as they wanted, this needed to be fairly low powered. The problem here is that they actually can't do it all day long as they will eventually run out of HP, even fighting nothing but hordes of level 1 commoners as they will crit every so often. It might take them longer than the caster to run out, but they eventually will. Possibly the single biggest grievance here is the melee character's inability to move and full attack in the same round.

From there, you have the casters stepping on the toes of the martials as mentioned above. Do you have a Monk in your party built for grappling? The caster has Black Tentacles. Fighter focused on tripping his opponents? Grease. The Rogue who sneaks in to the enemy base and robs them blind/sabotages their armory? Invisibility, Knock, and numerous other spells. The Fighter? Animal companion/Eidolon/Summoning.

Finally, to expand on the martial side of the feat issue, let us take a look at a couple of feats from the recently released Advanced Class Guide:

Anticipate Dodge (Combat)

Your knowledge of mobility and your attack prowess allow you to thwart elusive opponents.
Prerequisites: Dodge, Mobility; base attack bonus +7, brawler† level 4th, or monk level 4th.
Benefit: You automatically know whether a creature you can see has a dodge bonus to its AC. You gain up to a +2 bonus on attack rolls against a target that has a dodge bonus. This bonus cannot exceed the dodge bonus of the creature you attack.

So, for the cost of three bad feats, you can ignore a single feat your opponent MIGHT have.

Coordinated Shot (Combat, Teamwork)

Your ranged attacks against an opponent take advantage of your ally’s positioning.
Prerequisite: Point-Blank Shot.
Benefit: If your ally with this feat is threatening an opponent and is not providing cover to that opponent against your ranged attacks, you gain a +1 bonus on ranged attacks against that opponent. If your ally with this feat is flanking that opponent with another ally (even if that other ally doesn’t have this feat), this bonus increases to +2.

This one's requirements aren't that bad, Point-Blank Shot is a feat pretty much every archer will have, but then you notice its Teamwork tag. So not only do you need the feat to get an extremely small benefit for the cost of two feats, you need a buddy that has it as well. Also, your buddy has to be in melee combat for you to get the effect, which is precisely where archers shouldn't be.

Pummeling Style (Combat, Style)

You collect all your power into a single vicious and debilitating punch.
Prerequisites: Improved Unarmed Strike; base attack bonus +6, brawler’s flurry† class feature, or flurry of blows class feature.
Benefit: As a full-round action, you can pool all your attack potential in one devastating punch. Make a number of rolls equal to the number of attacks you can make with a full attack or a flurry of blows (your choice) with the normal attack bonus for each attack. For each roll that is a hit, you deal the normal amount of damage, adding it to any damage the attack has already dealt from previous rolls (if any). If any of the attack rolls are critical threats, make one confirmation roll for the entire attack at your highest base attack bonus. If it succeeds, the entire attack is a confirmed critical hit.

Now, considering my last two feats, you might be asking yourself "Why is Suichimo including Pummeling Style, which is a great feat, in with two such obviously terrible feats?" To that, I'll answer, the reason I'm including this feat in with the previous feats is the uproar this one feat has caused. There have been at least two threads, that I know of, that have discussed what weapons you can use with this and just how overpowered it is. I've seen people go so far as to say you can ONLY use punches with this feat, not even head butts/kicks/elbows. Yet, in the same book we get the Divine Protection feat, a feat that literally every Charisma based spell caster that can get access to it will take it, and we've actually got people arguing that it is just fine.

Do I want to see spell casting gone? No. They can even keep vancian casting. I would like to see the power of spells reigned in drastically. I would also like to see martials get their own nifty tools, that aren't bound to reality, to play around with as well.

I know this may be a generational thing, but I'm absolutely fine with my swordmasters flinging sword beams around like Link. I'm fine with my hammer users smacking the ground and opening up chasms. I'm fine with my melees being able to reflexively jump in to a caster's Dimension Door and follow him. And I'm fine with throwing a weapon or item and using that to fly, similar to Thor or Tao Pai Pai.

TL;DR Reign casters in and let the martials have more to play with. I just don't think this can be done with the 3.5 mindset that Pathfinder follows to a "t".

Ravingdork wrote:

ANY GM who feels the need to PUNISH his players is not only a MAJOR douche, but is missing the point of the game entirely.

Perhaps I should have phrased that more carefully; I seem to have offended you. Intelligent villains punish the party for the flaws and limitations in their strategies. The DM runs the villains.

I realize that not all DMs play truly diabolical villains, but they should. Let's be real here: the black wizard with the 26 INT that's been hounding the party for months is going to devote some resources to picking off that wand monkey if he turns into the spambot many players think he ought to be. Why? Because the familiar is a soft target and a force multiplier. The villain goes after him because the villain actually wants to win, not merely to present a class-level-appropriate challenge to the party on their way to world domination.

When the intelligence of the NPCs is just a number on a stat sheet and their only function is to provide the illusion of true challenge...that, my friend, is the sign of a DM who has missed the point.

I'm on the side of the bonded item but, I've got to say that an enemy smart enough to know about your interplanar friend is also smart enough to know about your super special ring/amulet/weapon/etc. In fact, if we're talking about DMs who are out to just crap on someone's day, it'd be much better for them to take out your bonded item as that ROYALLY screws you over.

I've got to agree with RavingDork, a DM who attacks either is a major douche.

Completely, absolutely, and unequivocally yes.

Pathfinder was broken before Pathfinder was even a thing. Running with the 3/3.5 engine explicitly means that. It means your spellcasters are gods and your martials are filthy peasants. It is built directly in to the system. You aren't going to escape that imbalance without escaping 3.5.

Spells aren't the only place this is noticeable either. Martials get to take long feat chains to get fairly minor effects, such as ignoring someone's dodge bonus. Spellcasters just get to take metamagics and crafting feats with very little, if any, real requirements, caster level and skill ranks in skills you're already going to take are not real requirements, and the effects are huge.

I have no experience with PFS, what martial classes are allowed? Also, is the bonus feat super important to you?

None of them are that effective, as you only have 1/2 BAB. If I had to choose one of them it would be the Blade Adept. If you want 9th level casting and four attacks in a round, be an Eldritch Knight.

Also, you want the Scrollmaster, not the Scroll Scholar.

Wouldn't the Aegis class be a pretty ideal repersentation of Iron Man?

This is basically what a friend of mine is doing in one of the two games I'm in.

Zhayne wrote:

JoeJ wrote:

It's not a lie to say; "Be gone beast, back to whatever abyss you crawled out of. I'll never help you."

Then the monster kills you 'cause you ticked it off (more), and eats the kid anyway. You accomplished absolutely nothing.

Or the paladin manages to hold off the monster just long enough for the kid to escape.

Or the enraged monster attacks recklessly and is killed by the paladin.

Or the monster utters a horrible threat and stalks off to search somewhere else.

Or, more likely, the monster is going to have a much tastier treat in the form of a Paladin. You're not hitting for much when you're unarmed. You're hitting for less if you have any form of magic glove, since you have to switch out your gauntlets for these. 1d3+Str+Paladin level, and most likely non-lethal, just isn't enough for our neighborhood Paladin to be able to be giving out any kind of orders to the monster.

Though the monster may not be completely satisfied afterwards.

The reduction in strength/increase in dex only comes from Reduce Person. It is not an inherent quality of being small. A small Archonblooded Aasimar has +2 Str.

Dying again and having your twin brother/sister replace you.

Seriously though, that sounds super harsh. Any way to get those negative levels restored? Possible Scroll of Restoration?

Divine Protection

It's Divine Grace in Feat form.

That doesn't make it ok to have the signature ability of a class be largely useless, Stranger. Small or Smaller races will love this, but that doesn't mean those instances aren't niche. Sacred Weapon is one of the defining features of the Warpriest and a lot of them won't even be able to really use it.

Didn't you get full BAB with it in the play test?

Suichimo wrote:

No idea why, considering we now have three 3/4 BAB FULL 9th level casters. If all 9th level casters were 1/2 BAB, I don't think I would mind this nearly as much.

4 actually, but they are all divine casters. The 1/2 BAB divide for 9 level spellcasting only hits the arcane casters as a result of backwards compatibility. Once the Cleric and Druid exist in that fashion, Oracles and Shamans pretty much have to as well or they won't see the light of day in many gaming groups.

The full BAB restriction is kind of important seeing as how non-spellcasters are so easily eclipsed by high level magic anyways. Once a full BAB class with more than 4 level spellcasting shows up, well, I don't really want to think of that.

I completely forgot that Druids got 3/4.

The crazy thing is, 3.5 had both a 3/4 BAB Sorceror and 1/2 BAB Cleric in Unearthed Arcana, the Battle Sorceror and the Cloistered Cleric.

Undone wrote:

Was looking for for the archetype which gave WP full BAB. Was disappointed.

I keep seeing things along these lines, but honestly, I don't understand why. There are no Full BAB, 6 level casters. Think of the WP as a Divine Magus (Who uses Buff's instead of Touch Attacks).

No idea why, considering we now have three 3/4 BAB FULL 9th level casters. If all 9th level casters were 1/2 BAB, I don't think I would mind this nearly as much.

Can't wait to see a Warder Archetype for this. There is going to be one, right?

Would it be reliable to summon spellcasting monsters and have them willingly fail checks against your different methods of restoring your Reservoir?

Just found this when looking at the Ultimate Psionics stuff from Dreamscarred Press on D20PFSRD:

A suit of armor or a shield granted this ability melds with its wearer when the appropriate command word is given, seamlessly fusing with the wearer’s form. The Armor Check Penalty of the armor is reduced by 1 (to a minimum of 0), the Maximum Dexterity Bonus is increased by 1, any arcane spell failure is reduced by 10%, and the armor is treated as if one category lighter for movement restrictions. This decrease does not apply to proficiency in wearing the armor. For example, a character wearing mithral full plate must be proficient in wearing heavy armor to avoid adding the armor’s check penalty to all his attack rolls and skill checks that involve moving. These modifications are in addition to any changes from special materials, but do not stack with effects such as that from graft armor.

Aura Strong psychometabolism; ML 4th; Craft Psionic Arms and Armor, float; Price +2 bonus.

Fusing

First off, where are you getting this weird DR mechanic from?

Second off, what happens when the Archer uses a +5 bow and all his arrows get it?
Third off, if that didn't work, what's stopping the Archer from buying a bunch of cheap alternate metal arrows and shooting them out his Bow of Awesome at almost no cost?

CRB, page 562, Overcoming DR. You'll find everything I quoted there.

A +5 bow doesn't allow regular arrows to bypass anything other than Magic DR.

Nothing, although I'd hate wasting that money.

Ah yes, all melee guys wield Greatswords. That's good to know. There's only 1 melee weapon in the game, eh?

3.5 has a 2D6 ranged weapon. 3.5 doesn't care though, as it has much cooler enchantments for the weapons. It also has a Manyshot that doesn't suck, allowing you to basically Full Attack and still get your move.

It's an example, don't pretend that it was anything other than such. It's not like it still isn't one of the best, if not the best, two hander available. Where I said "greatsword" insert "melee weapon of choice".

What ranged weapon had 2d6 in 3.5? The highest I can think of is 1d12, the Bone Bow. If you're thinking of the Greatbow, it is only 1d10. Trust me, I'd actually like to know as my Paladin's Lesser Bracers of Archery give him proficiency with any bow.

1k gold for adjustable Str rating. No big.

And then you add Power Attack, which reduces accuracy.
That's all assuming your conditions. Now it's my turn...
High level ranged? I can get a +19 weapon to your piddly +10 melee weapon. That's +5 on the bow, with +5 more worth of mods (which might include an Alignment mod that is given to the ammo shot), then +1 on the arrows (minimum pre-req) with +9 worth of mods.
Where's your full attack on a move? Gotta pull out tricks to get Pounce. Archer shoots 2 at level 1 if he picked the feats. (By all means, bring up TWF for melee, please...)
Yes, lets add Deadly Aim on to that bad boy.

And then K177Y K47 just walks in and unloads a heap of salient points too. Thanks Kitty! I especially like the flying creature example. ;)

As said to Thomas Long, that was referring to 3.5, where two handers were king and archery was a very, very niche option. Also, TWF is crap.

But despite this, look at all those pro-melee examples as to why Deadly Aim is not a problem and is just as necessary as Power Attack! Thanks buddy! Why did you argue all that earlier just to say this now?

Because the entire thing that I'm arguing is that Deadly Aim is absolutely not a problem.