Surbrus's page

How about a curse to submit to hostile spells? Or at least remove the auto succeed of a save on a natural 1.

Curse a target to always identify itself for the purposes of Magic Jar, so as to remove the randomness associated with trying to possess the body.

Curse the target to not be hostile to the caster, unless it is obviously under attack.

I am thinking that these set of curses, maybe even combine with multiple other castings to reduce mental stats, and Will save, will make the target into a very good body to possess (nearly indefinitely) via Magic Jar.

This would probably only be suitable for an evil PC, or a Big Bad to do. I am thinking a powerful body such as a Dragon or maybe even an Outsider (note, this would not give access to SU abilities of the target (so no at will spell like abilities from possessed demons/etc).

Personally I have been toying with the idea of an alternate entry into Assassin, by using Wizard.

Vanish, True Strike, Shield, Obscuring Mist, Silent Image (depending on how "if interacted with" is ruled), Feather Fall, Touch of Idiocy, Invisibility, Gaseous Form are all nice spells that could be very useful to an assassin. Bring a bunch of Pearls of Power with you and you have plenty of spells per day. Maybe pick up Silent Spells, so that you can caste while hidden (True Strike while hidden)... or even casting that spell while standing in plain sight, but your victim being unaware of your intent. Additionally the cantrips could prove useful.

As for School, maybe Teleportation subschool of Conjuration for a 10 foot DDoor 3+INT times per day (helps get around obstacles, helps infiltrating and remaining unseen), or perhaps Scryer subschool of Divination (a 2 round clairaudience/clairvoyance 3+INT times per day might be a helpful in remaining unseen, or finding your target.

A familiar could be helpful as a scout. And give you a nice little skill bonus.

You would be giving up 2.5 die of sneak attack, however the Death Attack will be stronger, and the arcane spells could be very useful. This would probably be less of a combat build, and more of a sneaky build depending moreso on the Death Attack ability, and hit and run attacks.

Twin Soul(Su)

At 10th-level, if the witch or her familiar is gravely injured or about to die, the soul of the dying one immediately transfers to the other’s body. The two souls share the surviving body peaceably, can communicate freely, and both retain their ability to think and reason. The host may allow the guest soul to take over the body temporarily or reclaim it as a move action. They can persist in this state indefinitely, or the guest can return to its own body (if available) by touch, transfer into a suitable vessel (such as a clone), or take over another body as if using magic jar (with no receptacle).

This replaces the witch’s major hex at 10th-level.

Yes, the Beast Bonded Witch archetype does have this ability, although slightly different. My question here would be what does the lack of receptacle mean? Is the possessed creature's soul imprisoned in its own body with the witch/familiar's soul controlling the body? Is it imprisoned in the other's body? Does it have no where to go and therefore dies (giving the witch/familiar permanent control over this body).

If the latter guess is correct, wouldn't every Beast Bonded Witch just secure two high-physical-stats bodies, then:

1)kill own familiar
2)familiar possesses one of these strong bodies
3)kill self
4)witch possesses second strong body

?

Frankly, with the PCs bringing a light source onto the bridge at the start of the battle (in round 1 when the first spell failed), and them having to yell their back and forth to one another, I'd say the kids have a fairly good idea of what was happening. There was absolutely nothing to obstruct line of sight, just a few branches of tree line and one or two burly gnolls.

Opps, my apologies. I had missed that the PCs (the fighter?) were able to get to the bridge/war party itself on round one. I assumed that the hostages (illusions) would have been killed should the party make a move as drastic as charging into battle. Although I suppose it would make sense now that they wouldn't start killing hostages... since it turned out that they did not actually have any hostages on the bridge.

However, even if the children saw what they did, I still think it silly that their word would have any meaning upon the ears of anyone with any sort of power. Nor could they read the minds of the PC's (or the players) to gather their intentions. And even if it did, the PC's have a rock solid defence due to the fact that they only hit what were illusions, so that they could get a better hit on the enemies. They ended up as heroes that saw through the deception of their enemy... or that is at least what the story will be.

Also, earlier wasn't it was stated that this Paegin was a very worthy adversary, and a previous encounter had been really tough for the PC's? Perhaps that could have played a role in their escalation in tactics. I can think of a few examples of such a thing happening with my Rogue Trader group, where the situation can appear (and more often than not actually is) very dire, and drastic measures would be taken to address these, scary encounters. Although yes, Rogue Trader and a Heroic Fantasy game (extra emphasis on the "Heroic") are much different settings, however the idea of breaking your morals by escalating the situation to very drastic strategies can apply to both systems. Perhaps Paegin was too scary a BBEG for his own good?

That's such a cop out. You can play the "DM's an A-Hole" card everytime you don't get your way.

There is nothing wrong with the children knowing what went on.

If the kids have the ability to see through the fourth wall, or just have omnipotent knowledge then they probably don`t need the PC`s help in the first place.

As described, the kids have no way of knowing of the players conversation that lead to the decision, that the kids did not even see. If suddenly the kids turn on their rescuers, inform the town/empire what they witnessed through the fourth wall, and have the power to convince the empire to take action against the PC`s... then that is either a DM just arbitrarily screwing their players, or this is a story arc in an of itself (demon possessed kids dominating empire officials, or perhaps the children were the bigger BBEG all along).

That's why I only play "Good" characters once in a blue moon. Maybe all that Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader are to blame as well... huh..

Also, how could the kids see what was going on?

Because they have the ability to see through the fourth wall, and want to screw over the players.

Seriously, this talk about how the children will rat them out is just a weakly thought out "FU" to the players.

Besides, in the party's opinion the [illusions of kids] were as good as dead... so they might as well maximize the damage done to the baddies by ignoring the fact that the kids are sitting right in the middle of the optimum position for laying down that Black Tentacle. If they were real kids, then the gnolls probably would have carried out their readied actions to kill them should the party have made a move... assuming that they were actually physically threatening to kill the hostages.

I've never had a problem with TKing in Evil parties... well, if there was any issue it was the Good characters that were the starting things (whether the party was mostly Neutral or some Evil members). But then again the groups I play with are all friends, so we don't have to worry about immature antics.

Evil doesn't mean someone who necessarily back stabs their friends. Besides, that kind of game is not as fun... and your character cannot amass nearly the amount of power and wealth if they cannot trust their own party members.

I think the Paladin (if he's still a Paladin at all) is obligated to seek some sort of justice for the dead children-- whether that means ensuring the summoner repents, the summoner does some sort of atonement, or the summoner is brought back to court to face justice for his evil deed is a good question....

However that was all handled by the retcon. They were just illusions, the caster just tells the Paladin that he had a hunch, or that he received a divine message to act, or some such... and that would be quiet literally true in this case, as the big number one god (the DM) made it so that attacking the "children" was the best possible action.

That relates to the whole idea of the PC's complaining about none of their actions having any real impact. In this situation, attacking the hostage takers and the hostages at the same time became the best action... if they had surrendered themselves over would that have magically turned into the best course of action as well?

Wall of fire around the children.

Dimension door inside wall to deal with any baddies inside the safety of the ring.

The only one there with Wall of Fire was the BBEG. Besides, Wall of Fire damages all within 20 feet of the spell.

A DDoor rescue would take at least two turns, and it wouldn't take a gnoll or two very long to kill several children.

How many children were there again? And how many guards were in close proximity to the children? As said earlier ITT, a single gnoll with Whirlwind Attack could probably kill every hostage in a single round, or the BBEG, being a spell caster could also kill them all in a round.

As far as how effective an interrogation technique it would be, it would be the same as any other sort of torture I would think. That is, it won't actually work unless it is Hollywood.

You are arguing that the PCs should have submitted themselves to save the kids but there was no guarantee they would be safe. "Oh yes I agreed to let them go but I did not guarantee safe travel back to the village" would let the LE bad guy live up to his deal while pulling the classic devil small print. "I guaranteed that I would not harm them. The gnolls made no such deal" There is also the possibility that other creatures of ill intent could attack or eat the children. I can think of a hundred ways where surrendering does not guarantee the children's safety.

A better way to carry out the bargain would be to release the children, and even escort them safely back to their village, to make sure that some wild animals or bandits do not harm them. Make sure that they are well fed and comfortable on the long detour back to their village. When they finally arrive safely back at their village, it is nothing but smouldering ruins (because the BBEG sent a stronger group up ahead to attack and destroy the village). Bonus points if the blame is put on the PC's.

If you are the LE BBEG, might as well not half ass it.

That's why surrendering your life to a LE BBEG is not how you "save" the hostages that they are holding, especially if they are so LE that they are dealing with devils in plain sight of everyone.

I generally have different packs when carrying capacity becomes an issue (whether due to low strength, or just a whole lot of stuff to carry). Have a list of stuff that is always on your person, another list of stuff that is always on your horse (or bag that will be carried by other party member), and a list of stuff in a "drop pack", a bag that you carry on your person but you can, as a free action, drop.

Was it the player or the character that has a history of excessive force? If it really was the player, then that is metagaming.

Also, what was the purpose of retconning the children away if you are simply going to pretend that you didn't? With how things turned out, however he had done it, the Sorcerer called the (LE) guy's bluff.

Russia's probably the only country that's actually been completely faithful to these rules-- and regarding use of force-- though a lot of people died the last time I'm aware of the Russians attempting a hostage rescue-- the Russian anti-terrorist units still did not deliberately target the hostages.

The last hostage incident I can think of that targeted Russians was that Beslan school incident. It incident was very unfortunate, but it emphasizes that taking Russian hostages is not a valid strategy. Off the Horn of Africa any Somali pirates that get caught by Russians simply disappear, and how many Russians have those Somali pirates held for ransom? None... it is pretty much only Westerners that get targeted by Somali pirates because we reward that behaviour.

Back to the main topic of this thread, perhaps if word gets out on how ruthless the PC's are when it comes to hostage situations, any potential hostage takers will simply give up their hostages since they are only slowing them down... or perhaps baddies will make sure not to lie to the PC's since they have learned of their almost supernatural ability to call bluffs (they were able to catch this BBEG in his first bluff ever told, thanks to the retcon).

Literally nobody has said they should've flat-out surrendered, not even RavingDork.

See the top of the page:

Had I been the paladin I would likely have attempted to negotiate an exchange of the children for myself as hostage, and promised not to attempt to escape on my honor as a paladin, if all the children went free. Failing that I might even offer the exchange for as many children as I could manage to get free.

And the implication was silly, because it implied that killing the hostages was done to remove the bargaining chip, rather than an unfortunate result of attacking the BBEG. Had the fireball/black tentacle(or whatever it was) have been a selective metamagiced spell, I would wager to guess that the caster would have spared the hostages.

EDIT: Fixed quoting format

It is not metagaming to not want to lose your gear. In character, most characters understand how important there gear is... otherwise they would not be spending so many thousands of gold to upgrade their gear all the time.

Metagaming would be killing the kids because you know that the DM will simply retcon the situation to being back on track.

Also, you can't retrieve your gear if you are dead.

So, if I'm an FBI agent, and I am dealing with a bank robbery where the robbers have taken everyone in the bank hostage, you are saying I should kill the hostages, so the bank robbers no longer have a bargaining position? Slick.

That's just a silly implication.

I would advocate that the FBI agent do what they normally do... try to calm down the hostage taker and try to get him to surrender, or stall for time until they can subdue/kill the hostage taker. Simply caving to the hostage taker's demands is just going to encourage more and more hostage takings.

If any Paladin, or Good aligned character would simply give up their own life whenever they get into a hostage situation, there simply would not be any Paladins or Good aligned people left. Do gooders screwing up your plans?.. just take a kid hostage and have those do gooders surrender. That not only would result in many Good aligned characters being easily killed, but would drastically increase the rates of kidnapping and holding kids hostage, actually making it more dangerous for those kids.

Dealing with hostages takers only encourages more hostage takers. There is a reason why hostage takers in South America/Africa/Asia target Westerners and Japanese/Koreans, and never target Russians... because they know that Westerners will often times cave in to the demands... whereas the Russians will just come in and kill the hostage takers (and most of the hostages). What is more "Good"? Promoting the practice of hostage taking, or making sure that it does not happen in the first place?

It is not without its drawbacks though. You must pre cast it, and that would add to the "pre fight buffs" that you may have to cast. If you simply cast a spell and attacked with it at the same time, you would be able to neutralize enemies faster.

Also, as it goes off unintentionally, it could accidentally go off on a party member. Enemy bull rushes one of your party members into you? You just got off that "free action attack" and you probably have one really pissed off party mate. In need of healing? Your ally won't want to give you a Cure spell or a Lay of Hands if they will need to eat your prepared spell. What if you get knocked unconscious in combat and your party decides that they need to run away from the combat... the party member who goes to pick you up/drag you has to suffer that touch spell... meaning that if things are really dire, you will most likely be left behind for the enemies to coup de grace or imprison.

Pre casting a touch spell and holding on to it has benefits as well as drawbacks. I would hardly consider it to be ludicrous.

Even with true strike the fighter will be free on round 2. He either takes a full attack against the goblin or just escapes depending on what weapon he is using.

Ahh, of course. Well the disarming/tripping/etc still work. But I think the level 1 Druids might actually be too hard for the fighter. Stirges doing CON damage from touch attacks is pretty ridiculous, even if they only last for one round... a spell that essentially does one CON damage with no save is very powerful. I have heard of 3.5 campaigns where the Tarrasque was easily taken down by an army of level 1 Druid hirelings.... of course this is no longer possible in Pathfinder due to all the Tarrasque's immunities now.

A level 1 Wizard or Sorcerer can cast True Strike. There is your trip/disarm/dirty trick/initial grapple/sunder right there.

Or hey, even if the level1 Sorcerer Goblins were eating the opportunity attacks for casting in melee, the fighter would not have enough opportunity attacks to stop the casting of True Strike, and will be pinned in no time.

Or if they were lvl 1 Druids then they could summon a bunch of Stirges, which do touch attacks at +7, and do 1 CON of damage. That fighter would be dead in no time..... without even being able to attack a single Goblin...

If you give Blindness/Deafness a short duration, it would be completely useless because of Glitterdust. Glitterdust is the same level, hits all creatures within a 10 foot radius, cancels out invisibility (no save or SR), destroys the ability for targets to use stealth (no save or SR), and blinds for rounds/level on a failed Will save (no SR). Also it has the same range as Blindness/Deafness.

The duration of permanent is the only thing that Blindness/Deafness has over Glitterdust, as well as the fact that it is available to Clerics as a level 3 spell.

EDIT: Oh, and I suppose Glitterdust requires V, S, M, while Blindness/Deafness requires only V, and the fact that you can also use Blindness/Deafness to deafen as well... but why would you deafen something when you can blind them just as easily?

About the most "broken" thing from a combat perspective I've come up with is a quickened ray of frost which would allow an unlimited number of swift action frost rays to be cast out of a level 4 slot. But that wouldn't be possible before level 7 and a possible addition of 1d3 per round in ddamage hardly seems broken.

The Evocation Wizard will add 1/2 Wizard level to those damage rolls. Also add in Disruptive Spell metamagic and every swift action turns into a bit of damage and forcing spellcasting concentration checks for the next round.

Young Blue dragon

Large
fly 200 ft. (poor)
Skills: fly +8

Attacked While Flying: You are not considered flat-footed while flying. If you are flying using wings and you take damage while flying, you must make a DC 10 Fly check to avoid losing 10 feet of altitude. This descent does not provoke an attack of opportunity and does not count against a creature's movement.

...

Creatures with a fly speed treat the Fly skill as a class skill. A creature with a natural fly speed receives a bonus (or penalty) on Fly skill checks depending on its maneuverability: Clumsy –8, Poor –4, Average +0, Good +4, Perfect +8. Creatures without a listed maneuverability rating are assumed to have average maneuverability.

A creature larger or smaller than Medium takes a size bonus or penalty on Fly checks depending on its size category: Fine +8, Diminutive +6, Tiny +4, Small +2, Large –2, Huge –4, Gargantuan –6, Colossal –8.

If the dragon is low enough then just pepper it with arrows. He needs to make a DC 10 fly check with a +2 bonus to fly every time it takes damage or lose 10 feet of altitude. A damage over time spell like Acid Arrow, or some area damaging spell might be nice.

Also, wind conditions that are "Strong" or more will impose even more penalties to the fly skill.

I think a "+1 Dueling Greatclub" sounds the silliest.

You could always add in some bizarre and terribly dangerous arcane technology every now and then (Skaven technology). Maybe some fragile poison gas grenades here, an musket that fires arcane-radioactive-glowing-rocks, a flame thrower of sorts that spews forth eerie green flames, etc. Everything being dangerously pron to mishaps of course. Don't make it too obvious, but a little easter egg here and there could make things interesting.

A fellow player in my group was looking at playing a Monk(1) Wizard(x). The idea of the level in monk is to get higher AC, more class skills, ability to threaten even without wielding a weapon, deliver touch spells with an unarmed melee attack if the target AC is low enough (giving an additional 1d6 unarmed and 1d6 elemental from elemental fist to the damage).

Sacrificing a single spell progression level (bringing this character more inline with spontaneous casting spell progression), for the large amount of nice class skills, bonus AC, and other Monk(1) bonuses looks like an interesting concept. This isn't really a Monk-Wizard hybrid in any way as the OP might have liked, but it is using both classes.

Even if a Half Elf could take Eclectic, you would probably be better off just spending that feat on Toughness or Skill Focus.

Spells, bombs and combat maneuvers. Is there something you aren't telling us?

Actually, the assassin idea sounds good.

Perhaps even just the threat of assassins may be enough. In one game my group had, the LE Sorcerer put ~5-10% or so of his income into as assassin fund. He would literally hand over ~5-10% of his income to an assassin guild, that would come to is call should he need some work done for him, or to avenge him if and when he fell (to party members or other enemies). He called it his "gardening fund", talked about them as if they were farm hands, and often dropped a phrase about having to "prune the weeds" or similar play on words, as an intimidation to other party members.

How does a wizard prepare a divine spell even if it is written in their spellbook?

If someone really wants to go through with this, I would think that having to do a UMD check whenever they try to cast the spell would be fair, as if they were casting from a divine scroll. But even then, it is kind of sketchy that the Wizard would be able to put that divine spell into is spell book anyways.

Hire some assassins to do the job for you if you don't want to get your hands dirty. Back to what "Spanky the Leprechaun" said, you can make it look like you are trying to save him, but just "unlucky", or made a "bad tactical discussion" or the like.

I think of Wirlwind Attack as being a feat for a fighter that wields a spear. Perhaps a little enlarge person and a lunge and call it a useful strategy.

Well technically not an infinite number of times a day, you would be restricted to 14400 as there are only 14400 rounds in a 24 hour day.

Find out what kind of AC and to hit bonuses enemies will have, since a d20 limits the range of possible outcomes to 20 numbers. Being able to auto hit 5 higher than the target AC might as well be the same as being able to auto hit 30 higher than the target AC in most cases.

Also Power Attack.

Paladin2, Sorcerer6, EK x.

It will take a couple more levels to get to EK than the more common Fighter+Wizard, and will have no skill points in comparison, but the saves are really nice. However getting spells 3 character levels after a straight Wizard gets his would be a little rough.

Personally I am a fan, one of my recent PC's was going this rout... but then met an untimely end in a near TPK.

If you don't mid the hit to spell levels, maybe even pick up a level of Oracle to substitute your CHA mod for your DEX mod for AC and CMD or REF. I was considering that plan, but the character was dead before I could finalize that idea. The level of Oracle would really help the AC and CMD/REF, give an additional spell list to play with for UMD/wands/scrolls/etc, but yeah some people would not like to be 4 character levels behind the straight Wizard in spell levels at all.

How large are these wards? How much farmland/forests/mines/rivers/lakes/etc does it include in this town? If none, then either some members of this town are not affected by this ward, and can then bring food and other supplies into the town, or outsiders from neighbouring towns pass through and trade needed supplies with this town. In either case, there are non-lychanthropes entering this town out of their own free will... the townsfolk can't be that bad.

It looks like mdt has covered pretty much everything else I was going to say. The party sounds like a bunch of high powered, cut throat, bandits attacking a town that is just trying to defend itself. But then again the D&D alignment definitions can be strange or byzantine at times.

Furious: This ability can only be placed on a melee weapon. A furious weapon serves as a focus for its wielder's anger. When the wielder is raging or under the effect of a rage spell, the weapon's enhancement bonus is +2 better than normal. If the wielder has a rage power that gives a skill bonus while raging (such as raging climber, raging leaper, or raging swimmer), the wielder gains an enhancement bonus to that skill whenever the weapon is wielded or held in hand, even when not raging; this bonus is equal to the enhancement bonus of the weapon (including the +2 when the wielder is raging).

Moderate enchantment (compulsion); CL 8th; Craft Magic Arms and Armor, rage; Price +1 bonus.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/magicItems/weapons.html

That is probably an enchantment you want for your AoMF. I recently played a similar style character (Barb(x)/Druid(x)), and that was the first big item I purchased, which was a good choice.

Be very mindful of your HP and enemies with low attack bonuses... especially rogues, they will eat you for breakfast (that's how my character died).

Same I've always ruled it that different classes, even of the same caster type, have different spells and such. You can't be a wizard sorcerer and cast your wizard spells in sorcerer slots unless the sorcerer knows it as well. Likewise if you have the wizard half not knowing spells the sorcerer cast you would be able to cast it spontanteously with sorcerers slots but not at all as a wizard.

A Wiz/[other caster] should always have all his [other caster] spells in his spell book if it is on the Wizard spell list, because any Wizard can simply write up scrolls, then copy those scrolls right into his spell book.

As for the OP's topic, the only time a character with two separate caster levels and spell lists will interact with each other, is if you take the Mystic Theurge PrC (in which case it is only a mix between Divine/Arcane only). Otherwise, spell lists do not interact with each other even when a character has two different spell lists.

The way my group did it one time was the people who want to roll get to roll for stats. Then the point total of those stats was counted up, averaged, rounded down to the nearest 5, then that is the point buy for everyone else. The two rollers averaged like a 28 point buy though, so all the characters were more powerful than I had anticipated (as the point buy characters then got to use a 25 point buy).

This method let the people who want to roll roll their stats, and allowed the point buying players to not be completely imbalanced in relation to those rollers, as well as giving the rollers the benefit of a higher total for taking that risk. We adopted that system after the previous campaign where the rollers all got 20-28 point buy equivalent characters while everyone else was at a 15 point buy (and ironically enough, the 15 point buying characters were the MAD characters, while the 20-28 point buy equivalents were the SAD characters).

Our current game everyone opted for point buy, and average hit die rolls (alternating between rounding up and rounding down). On hit die rolls, we also had the option of picking to roll, or average rounded down (giving the rollers a higher average, but that just led to everyone rolling even though no one actually want to roll).