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When Illusory Creature is cast, which of the following is true: A) it immediately acts similarly to a summoned creature; or
If B), can the illusionist sustain the spell on the round it was cast 
Hey guys! So I've been thinking about the Five Man Band plus the Sixth Ranger as a party composition. An easier version of this would be a five man band with an NPC as The Chick. For those of you whom are unfamiliar with the five man band, it is composed of two characters that are opposites of one another and argue, one extremely smart person, one extremely strong person, and someone who keeps this group from fracturing and/or dying. These characters are:
The Sixth Ranger is a character that joins the Five Man Band and either doubles up on one of the five man band's roles, or is able to partially cover two or more roles in a pinch. What I was thinking about was intentionally giving each of these roles in the group an attribute requirement:
In essence, specific positions in the group would fill certain roles in the game. How I suspect this would play out would be like this:
What do you guys think of the idea? It is part of my anti-power-gaming set of ideas.
One of the players in my Sunday game wanted to know if he could use Weapon Finesse for attacks made by his Spectral Hand. I think he can since the attack is considered a melee touch attack, and the spell grants a +2 bonus to the attack. Weighing in on it, what do you guys think?
Hey guys!
I ask because two villain groups that hate each other and work with the PCs in a game of mine are likely to come into conflict with each other. While acting as bosses, it is entirely possible for them to fight each other in some future climaxes.
Heyo guys, I recently stumbled across the Gastalt rules, and they made me think about mixed parties. How would one run a party of characters when some characters are gastalts, some are non-gastalt, and some are only using NPC classes? Just talking options and theory crafting. My initial instinct is based on XP progression:
My other idea was to adjust pointbuy, but class levels is just plain better (or worse) while not being crippling. Another idea was to give gastalts the Advanced template in reverse (-4 to all attributes) and give the advanced template to NPC class only characters. I suppose there could be a Gastalt NPC classes only character that would advance at the same rate as a normal character since -1 from NPC classes only and +1 for Gastalt. What are you guys' ideas?
Hi everyone,
Does anyone know about any balanced wild-magic (Primal magic) based classes that can trigger wild/primal events a great deal? Thanks.
Hi everyone,
I have a few potential fixes: 1) the enemies throw Force Vials which deal 1d4 force damage, 2) turn energy resistance into a damage shield similar to the Resist Energy spell where the damage reduction is the Resistance Value, and the damage shield can absorb Resistance Value * Character Level (or total HDs) before failing. What do you guys think? In addition to the above, I have some other questions. The general theme of the MAs is that the players are isolated in a strange and unforgiving city. Traveling outside the town is dangerous since all overworld encounters are epic by default and can build on each other (when combat begins, one enemy will spend its turn shooting a firework into the air which calls another epic encounter into the fight which arrives in 1d4 minutes) if the players hang around for too long. On the bright side, the enemies are designed to have high DPR while targeting touch but low HP and defenses. The idea is that the players can forage for magic items in this abandoned magic city to gear up, take on modules (which tend to be significantly easier than the overworld encounters and have a boss at the end), and help the camp survive while advancing the plot. I'm trying to associate victory with defeat using mechanics. To that end, all of the enemies drop healing or consumable items when killed, but the healing offered by these items wouldn't necessarily keep up with the damage dealt. In many ways, I'm building the enemies to circumvent normal AC as much as possible since lower-level enemies tend to struggle with harming higher AC PCs unless they target touch AC. What do you guys think? Any general tips?
Hey guys,
The Gambler class page. Doing the math, it seems to have an average DPR that is similar to an archer fighter or Gunslinger, but because it is so poorly written, its DPS could range from low 100s to mid 200s around level 16. All of its attacks also target touch in addition to getting lots of random abilities. In practice, it seems to be the primary killer, but I also know that when we start running into heavily energy resistant or energy immune monsters, that the class will be trivialized. What do you guys think about this class?
I am running Reign of Winter, and my players encountered event D.
Event D:
The players find a clearing filled with birds pinned to the trees by diminutive arrows and leather. In this event are 3 winter-touched sprite warriors. They all have Deadly Aim, so they can actually deal lethal damage to players.
Environmental conditions: I decided to make the snow chest deep (costs 20 ft. to move 5 feet) per an earlier event. Partially, this was to give the players cover against the pixies. The other aspect, is that it is heavily snowing, bestowing a 20% miss chance. For the most part, this doesn't play any major role in the battle. I had 4 players at the time: a Catfolk Alchemist, Tengu Inquisitor, Kitsune Rogue, and Aasimar Paladin. The former 3 are noobs who are learning the system, but the latter is more skilled. Leading up to combat:
The players entered the scene. The Aasimar Paladin was flying 20 ft in the air (He had a fly speed), so he ignored the benefits / penalties that the deep snow provided. Everyone else was walking in deep snow.
The players entered the scene, saw the bird fetishes, and started talking about them. The paladin used Detect Evil, and noticed that there was evil afoot. The Paladin decides to fly forward, away from the party. At this point, combat starts. During the first round of combat, the monsters used their impressive stealth skills to hide in the upper canopy of the trees. The paladin further flew around isolating himself from the players. The players prepared for combat, one stealthed around, another used his perception to search for enemies, and the last double moved to move 3 spaces in the deep snow. A note about the enemies that is important:
something specific about the enemies:
Winter-touched Pixies have Constant Detect Good and Detect Evil, so they are more or less instantly aware that good creatures have come within 60 ft. of them. This means they more or less always know what direction to look in for the nearest creature with a detectable aura (Clerics and Paladins have auras, but inquisitors do not until level 4 like everyone else evidently). The enemies are only really aware of the location of the Paladin at this point, so they attack the threat they know about and deal consistent damage to him on the 1st and 2nd round of combat while using snipe (-20 stealth) to remain hidden—I was surprised when it was working, and I wasn't even counting in the penalties to perception due to weather effects and distance. On the 2nd round the Paladin decides to fly further away from his allies and hide in a tree. The enemies reposition using stealth. On the 3rd round the paladin sees one of the enemies and attacks it with his light crossbow. It does some damage. The the attacked enemey makes itself more obvious and uses Dancing Lights to create move false trails. On the 4th round, the paladin is low on HP (around 3 left) and decides to retreat from the enemies. How does he retreat? Does he fly to his allies? Does he go to the ground and hide? No. He decides to call the retreat and fly off-screen with a full-round fly (running while flying I guess). His fly speed is 20 ft., the enemies have a fly speed of 60 normally. The enemy shoots him again. Luckily, the Catfolk Alchemist has a climb speed, so he climbed up one of the trees and pegged the the injured enemy with a bomb. This incapacitates this foe, so I have one of the other enemies fly down, grab the fallen enemy, and flee the battlefield. On the 5th round, the Paladin decides to continue full-round fly, gets shot again. By this point he has 2 HP left. On the 6th round, the Paladin realizes that maybe he isn't going to out fly the enemy. So he sees and shoots at it with his light crossbow. He misses. He gets shot again. On the 7th round, the paladin misses his attack, shots shock and knocked out, and promptly coup de graced by his diminutive enemy. Is this kill unfair? From my perspective, the Paladin made loads of terrible decisions. I also started thinking that the reason he was acting this way was because he viewed himself as the "Hero" of the story while the other characters were the supporting cast. After his character died, he decided to quit the game. He packed up his stuff, and left the game store. Of course, when he left, the other players just carried on as though nothing happened, and enjoyed the rest of the game night. What do you guys think?
This is a little build of mine that is particularly absurd. The crux of it revolves around the idea that "Life Link" supernatural ability does not heal positive or negative energy, but instead it just heals damage regardless if the linkee is alive or undead. The basic concept is this: Oracle [Spirit Guide] 17 / Shadowdancer 3 (Oracle 1 - 5, 9 - 20; Shadowdancer 6 - 8).
Animal Companions are GREAT early on, but they have less impact on the game each level beyond 10 or so due to plenty of factors ranging from AC to the fact that enemies will just be able to kill the animal companion later on. The Shadow has 1/2 the Oracle's HP (similarly to a familiar) but is far more dangerous because it is only affected by magical weapons or energy attacks (for 1/2 damage with exceptions) and completely immune to physical attacks. That means most of the high CR animals just auto-lose against it. The shadow is outrageously powerful, doubly so when we take into account that it can sink into the ground for total cover and total concealment.
This is where Life Link (Su) comes into play. The ability does not claim that it uses positive or negative energy to heal, but instead that it simply transfers the damage, and therefore means that a living life oracle could heal a shadowdancer shadow with it. This takes this minion from a potential liability if it takes too much damage (you risk the negative level if it dies or you dismiss it) to you being able to let it fight constantly. Hell, there are fights in APs where you could send it in and win due to the enemies having no retort. What makes this doubly ridiculous is that I am not even taking into account the use of Animate Dead to create a buffer for the Oracle or throw out more undead: this build and theme could be even more overpowered. The Army of Bloody Skeletons acts as the fist, and the Shadow is the heavy hitting assassin that just strength damages enemies to death. When that isn't enough, the Oracles allies actually get off their butts and do something (when they get back from Pizza due to the Oracle taking on everything by himself and winning). My prototype build:
Feats
Oracle with Spirit Guide Archetype:
Pretty standard oracle until level 5 where you go into Shadowdancer, so you basically have two throw-away levels, but when you hit Shadowdancer 3, you become absolutely terrifying. From that level on, you have a scout that can walk through walls, and worse is that probably has comparable HP to your party's fighter. At level 9 this Oracle will likely have a +6 belt of constitution, and from that point on, will probably be saving for a Ring of Regeneration.
9th lvl Oracle's HP: 139 (+8 [1d8] 36 [8d8] +81 [con mod*9] +9 [toughness/lvl] + 5 [Oracle FCB])
20th lvl Oracle's HP: 320 (+8 [1d8] 85 [19d8] +190 [con mod*10] +20 [toughness/lvl] + 17 [Oracle FCB])
This build cannot access 9th level spells. This is one major drawback. What do you guys think? If we throw in Throat Slicer, with the Big Cat..., well, just see my other post Throw down your weapons or the Wizard Gets It! for how ridiculous that is. Cheers.
I found a combination of feats that is probably one of the more effective strategies in the game for just killing targets, specifically the less martial player characters if you're the GM. Throat Slicer looks like a great feat, but it takes a bit of work to make it great. The Grabbing Style works great here, but mixing it with the Improved Grapple line (Improved Grapple, Greater Grapple and maybe Rapid Grappler) and a character built to grapple targets makes throat slicer ridiculously viable.
Mix this with a x4 crit weapon that qualifies for the throat slicer feat and the coup de grace starts to move from potentially survivable, to almost assured death due to the auto-crit. Either way, this is one way to make martials more deadly. It is also a way to make your games lethal again if you're stuck with the players being nigh on invincible gods of death.
Hey guys, I'm interested in getting a critique for a druid build I'm going to be running at a local game-shop.
The other major aspect of the druid is he uses Many Lives to circumvent death and Hibernate to sleep off negative levels due to being reincarnated.
Allow me to introduce why I am asking this:
I am of two schools of thought when it comes to player backstories:
The game creator evidently sold these players on the idea that the GM, whoever it would be, would seamlessly integrate player backstories into Kingmaker. Of course, they then spent the next 8 to 9 months, depending on who I ask, waiting for a GM before they decided to round robin it. I have already told these guys how utterly unrealistic it is for them to expect a GM to effectively rewrite the entire AP to slip in their backstories (one of which consistently demands I make checks for people in his backstory to show up, which tells me that he evidently has a god angry at him or some other absurdity that no level 1 adventurer would possibly survive). One of the entire reasons I have time to GM this game is because the game's owner is creating all of the content with my just running it. So, how do you guys treat backstories as a GM and as a Player? I'll make it easy and define
As posted above,
GM Homebrew:
Player Pregenerated:
Player Homebrew:
So, what about you? Do you have the time required to rebuild content to suit your players or do you play pregenerated content with the least amount of customization possible? Sound off GMs and players!
So I am rolling an idea around in my head that revolves around everything save 1/3 and 2/3 casters being banned with multi-classing also being banned. Summoner would be banned as well, just for good measure more than anything. So the list of playable classes would include: Alchemist, Bard, Bloodrager, Hunter, Inquisitor, Investigator, Magus, Medium, Mesmerist, Occultist, Paladin, Ranger, Skald, Spiritualist, Warpriest. I'm becoming more and more of a fan of locking players to PCs whenever I play on Roll20 or in person, as it prevents people from starting with Barbie McBarbarian, then transitioning to Mega Maggy the Magus and ending with Willy Wise the Wizard. The game would likely start at 1 but never go above 15 or so, definitely stay below 17. What do you guys think about the playable class list? I'm thinking 15 point buy and stats cap at 16 from point buy with attribute bonuses going higher.
Summon monster spells are, for most casters, 1-round.
Hey guys,
If possible, notate what level your various advisements are being aimed at in Bold.
I'm assuming that the vast majority is going to be under General, but lets see if I'm proven wrong. Also, don't worry about mistyping, your categorization of your advice is just as subjective as where you feel you fit in in the above categorizations. Note: Advice is subjective. Do not read someone's advice and think that it is the only way to do something. People have very different preferred play styles.
Hey guys,
What combinations do you think would give a disproportionate power advantage to a single character and could become problematic? I will have six players.
Hey guys,
One of my players in my Kingmaker campaign made a wizard/Sorc (CB: Orc/Draconic) build that averages 27 damage with a save of either 13 (Sorcerer) or 17 (Wizard). This blows game balance completely out of the water since he can effectively 1-shot everything that is under CR 3 or immediately die to it after his turn. While I was GMing this, I came to a simple realization: these characters are fun for the player but not the GM. Doubly so if the GM is running custom content. This was made painfully clear when I built a werewolf for the party to face, which was supposed to potentially hurt one of them, maybe give someone else lycanthropy, only for this Wizard to casually walk up and 1-shot the monster. Done. This encounter that was supposed to be really cool was ruined, and not by a crit, but by something that is easily repeatable, perhaps 9 times a day. After this, particularly egregious result, I've switched the game to CORE ONLY, and told the PCs that they can switch or leave, mostly because I'm not going to rebuilt Kingmaker to make it so things can at least survive 1-round when they are supposed to be decent encounters for the party. Hades, what PFS having a CORE ONLY mode tells me is that even Paizo realizes how many absurdly broken combinations they have in their game. It is basically 3.5 all over again. This leads me to a major question:
I'm a fan of not banning anything, hell Roll With It (Goblin) is the only perma-banned thing in my book, but I'm beginning to see why more and more GMs that I talk to that still run Pathfinder just have ban-lists a mile long or only permit certain books. This experience is turning me off Pathfinder in a big way, especially when I play 5E and see that everyone is around the same power-levels even with cool stuff added. I'm very busy these days, and I lack the time required to build custom content en-masse. What is fun for the player is not fun for the GM, and if the game is not fun for the GM, then you don't have a game, simple.
Hey guys,
What if a Wizard could be melee focused?
The build I came up with is
Class: Wizard (Spell Sage) at 15 point buy I came to (Starting -- lvl 20)
Skills (Acrobatics, at least 3, everything else optional.) Feats
Gear:
More or less required spell:
So this gives you a +5 bonus (at level 20) to your AC, saving throws and checks (I'm guessing skill and attribute checks, but it goes on later to say it also gives a bonus to attack rolls as well). Use Permanency to make yourself permanently small. ----HEALTH---- Because of the CON, Favored Class and Toughness bonuses your HP should be fairly absurd for a Wizard. Add in that your protector familiar is more or less soaking damage for you and things get more absurd. You, in effect, can become unkillable. If you do start feeling yourself losing, you can just have your familiar cast that imbued teleport spell to get him and you out of there.
----DEFENSE----
Your AC will be around:
Add a cloak of displacement on top of that and you're even harder to hit. Your saves will also be fairly impressive: (base for lvl 20 + Con mod + Spellcasting Contract)
(Base for lvl 20 + Ref mod + Spellcasting Contract)
(Base for lvl 20 + Wis mod + Spellcasting Contract)
----Attack----
Your damage will look like this
Crap, I know. On the bright side you don't have to waste magic when fighting trash, and if you run out of magic you are not crippled. But, what happens if we fight defensively, use weapon expertise and apply the Defending property?
Hardly the damage that will make the enemies fear you, but again, you are the one with magic. Absurd AC, Absurd HP (for a wizard), full wizard casting progression, multiple true-name minions to back you up and spells with terrible save DCs to massacre your enemies with. What could go wrong?
You might be able to squeeze a little more out of this build, as it is really just a cursory glance on my part. Giving the Weapon and armor the spellstoring enchantments means you can deal a great deal more damage. If you want to simplify your life even more, use a Cestus instead of a dagger. You are not only always armed, but you also can just cast a spell without switching anything around. Anyway, what do you guys think?
One of the aspects of Dragon's Demand that I liked was the idea that the PCs could gain several allies on their way to fight the dragon. In my Roll20 Kingmaker campaign I am going to be implementing additional content and using slow experience. One such bit of additional content revolves around the idea of members of the Whispering Way also vying for control of the Stolen Lands. The last fight (which takes place after the Kingmaker villain has been dealt with or not at all if the PCs lose) is somewhere around CR 22. The allies that make this surmountable for 4 lvl 17 PCs is a spell sage necromancer that starts at level 11 and then scales to lvl 17 with the PCs, a lvl 5 Saurian Druid that scales to lvl 17 with the PCs, and a monster the PCs free who seeks revenge on the additional content villain (Lady in Red). The spell sage acts as early revives for the PCs, obligating them to his will (which is always directed at combating the Whispering Way) and helping to advise them on country building. The Saurian Druid acts as an emissary of the fey, while also advising the PCs on where they shouldn't go (such as to the Slough at lvl 1). The outsider acts to inform the PCs as to who the villain of the AC content is. What is your take on adding NPCs to the story?
Hey guys, so I am going to be running what I'm calling "Kingmaker Plus" where it is Kingmaker played on Slow XP. The extra XP is going to be coming from my own content. I did some numbers and came up with the following: The levels in each book, typically the last level is obtained after or before fighting the book boss.
This is the additional XP required to reach each level.
NOTE: this is the XP that should be added to each level to get to the next. For example, you need an additional 1,000 xp to reach level 2 on Slow progression. 01st => 02nd: 1,000 - 0 = 1,000
Thanks in advance.
I can't find an official, or even unofficial, ruling on this, are mindless creatures able to deliver coup de graces? I'm fairly certain they are able to perform any and all of the combat techniques. I'm asking because a GM is letting my play an army necromancer, and I'm thinking of giving my bloody skeletons spell storing armor with Ghoul Touch stored in it. It would be nice for them to be able to coup de grace paralyzed enemies. I get that the attack bonus against a paralyzed creature is atk mod+4 vs its flat-foot minus its shield bonus (if the bonus is from a wielded shield) and -5 dexterity due to having a dex of 0, but we are talking skeletons here who, even at 20 HD, will have at max a BAB of +15. What is the general consensus around here?
I'm building a dex based murder machine druid who grabs an agile Amulet of Mighty Fists and mixes Planar Wild Shape with being able to pounce. Thing is, I can find small animals with at least 3 attacks and pounce, but finding tiny or diminutive animals with those same qualifications is proving quite difficult, mostly because I don't think they exist. Maybe I can get my GM to allow me to make a tiny and diminutive Margay cat, but short of circumventing the actual rules to invent something that isn't there, there doesn't appear to be a way to make this happen. For simplicity sake:
So, I'm tossing the idea around of playing a Reincarnated Druid that uses Wildshape to be a viable all-around character.
So, someone brought a maxed Acrobatics goblin Wizard to my table a few days ago. He used Roll With It to effectively become invincible against all of the monsters in the content. If you're too lazy to click on the feat, I'll sum it up with: when hit by an enemy, as immediate action: make an Acrobatic check of 5 + damage taken, if you beat the check you convert the damage into movement at a rate of 1-ft per damage. By doing this you negate all damage, and your movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity from the enemy that hit you. Basically, this moves you out of range of enemies with full attacks even if they are pounce monsters. The only catch is that it only works against melee attacks, and while it has a stipulation about you taking damage if you hit a wall you get to choose what direction you go (thereby making it so that you will probably never hit a wall). In other words: this feat, which requires no feat-tax by the way, is better for a caster than going into Crane Wing. In short, this feat makes it so you get to play by different rules than more or less everyone else in the game. It makes Full Attacks pointless as well. To point this out, the feat can be defeated by raw damage, but it is an all or nothing feat: if the monster does enough damage to bypass the feat then you might be in 1-shot territory. The feat can be circumvented with Ranged Attacks and magic, but we're looking at a single feat here, not a class feature. Compare +1 dodge bonus from Dodge or +4 vs AOOs with Mobility to effective immunity against most monsters with Roll With It. The comparison just doesn't work. Add in that most monsters tend to have multiple attacks to constitute their dpr vs having a single attack that could turn them into a charging death machine, and you start to see the problem. So, what should I do here? I'm thinking of just banning the feat since if I have to choose between banning a feat or updating the entire meta to accommodate a single feat into play, I'm going to choose to just ban the feat.
I have a player who discovered the Agent of the Grave prestige class and now wants to have a vampire cohort by the time he hits level 12 so he can transition into being a full vampire. Since the Vampire template is a +2 template, I'm thinking just apply an additional -2 penalty to the cohort's level and call it a day. This means the cohort's HD needs to be 4 levels lower than his (The PC's) level to compensate for the template effectively stealing two class levels. For example, if Billy AotG wants to become a vampire, he has to wait until at least level 9, since his cohort will need at least the required HD to qualify for the Vampire template (5HD). This is because the cohort is already two levels lower than him, so level 7 to a level 9 character, but the +2 template will reduce it further to level 5. So, in effect, the effective cohort level would be 7, but the cohort would only have 5 class levels. Does this make any sense, or am I heading off into the obscure nether.
In Kingmaker my group has purportedly finished most of Book 2, and we have a pretty robust kingdom going on. However, we are just about to start building more than one settlement.
My character's motivations are going to change over time based on the influence of his evil ancestor that is more or less grooming him to become his own vessel. He is already going to want to make the island of Candlemere his stronghold since his ancestor has planted the reality that it is a heavily defensible location. The ancestor wants a seat of power that he can defend, that he can ensure wont fall so that he can await the return of a different lich imprisoned in Gallowspire. So, finally to get to the question:
I am aware that every building can be built with downtime rules, but I'm uncertain if that will actually be effective. In some ways this is advantageous for the Kingdom, since if my character does become a lich whose seat of power is already heavily fortified it means that when things go south with a country to the south (hint hint) that our capitol, built on the Stag Lord's Fort, will have a buffer. In other ways it does mean that our Paladin will be allied with a Lich that is smart enough to cover himself in illusions and nondetection. Though, its pretty obvious that someone is evil when they leave a powerful evil and magical lingering aura even if they are not as such. Hmm. Things will slowly get complex, and therefore interesting, as the group plays.
So, can a weapon be Corrosive, Flaming, Frost and Shock at the same time to deal an extra 4d6 damage?
My Pathfinder group is on the cusp of beating Kingmaker Book 2, we defeated the CENSOREDs, dealt with CENSORED and are ready to invade the CENSORED's lair for the crescendo of the book. It is going to be cool. However, my GM is becoming tired of GMing, so someone else is going to pick up Book 3. However, between the two I am going to run a mega-adventure. We can always just apply the Advanced template to the creatures in Book 3, 4, 5 and 6 if need be. I learned a long time ago that players will make the absolute worst decisions in any given situation. I also learned that if you don't punish this they tend to keep doing more of it. This is pertinent because my PCs are going to be traveling to a Demiplane wherein a former general of the Whispering Tyrant is hanging out. He is friendly towards them on the simple basis that he wants his wayward apprentice, who has recently betrayed him to found a stronghold in the first layer of hell, dead. This apprentice also just so happens to be the one causing the plague that is beginning to ravage my PCs' country. So, what should I do when my PCs have accepted the hospitality of this lich, only for one PC to decide that she is going to attack the Lich in his seat of power. Should I turn to her and say, "Yes. You can ~totally~ take on this lich who is more powerful than the boss of the entire adventure path. I mean, he has only invited you into his fortress to treat with you, and intends to actually trade with you later because of reasons I can't tell you until they happen when he reach level 14 or so." So, what should I do if one of my PCs make the monumentally stupid decision of attacking this Lich? There is going to be a Hound Archon joining the party up to this point, and he is actually chill with this lich insofar as their agreement is based. Surely, if a celestial is not attacking this lich, the Paladin wont either, nor should the cleric. I do have some fail safes in place, and some bad things can happen on this demiplane. People can die, and the plane is legitimately dangerous on its own (it counts as a hazard, but only gives XP once for defeating it since overcoming it is incredibly simple) and the effect of dying on the plane is that the PC gains the bloody skeletal champion (CR +2, so -2 class levels) template, but aside from looking like a corpse the PC doesn't become a skeleton until deathless takes effect—at which point the corpse flips onto its belly and the skeleton tears itself from the flesh that once trapped it! Until this happens, raise dead reverses the effect. Should the Lich perform this on the offending PC? We know how this is going to go down, a level 6 VS a CR 20. Perhaps the Lich could banish them from his domain, but not tell them where they need to go. Hmm, I'm not sure. What do you guys think?
So this question comes up every now and again, and I usually bat it away with the, "the supporting cast is always far more interesting than the hero," argument. However, when someone is adamant about being the hero what are your ideas and tips for the character? I tend to offer the following:
Cynical heroes look for the bad in the world, then cut it out of their world with all of the malice it deserves. These heroes are surprised by acts of kindness, and typically think that such things are foolish to some degree or another. A Paladin can be a cynical hero, he can have faith in his god, himself and other paladins, but he might believe that the world is irredeemably rotten. For the cynical hero, this adversity only strengthens his resolve. Idealistic heroes look for the good in the world, then protect it with their lives. The focus isn't entirely on destroying evil, but instead adopting the world-view that everyone could get along in theory. These guys tend to be the ones who bring people together into the fold, but they also tend to be the ones stabbed in the back if there isn't a cynical character watching their back. 2) Decide on the class. The hero isn't a wimpy wizard, he is the one at the forefront! He faces evil head-on in some major way. Paladins are amazingly resilient at higher levels. Adding CHA to all saves can give them insane saves with a cloak of resistance +5 at higher levels. For the guy who is supposed to be the one making speeches, this is fantastic! He might be boring, but he is also the one who holds the line. Eldrich Knights (or Magi) can make for wonderful Heroes. They can fight in melee, they can be the ones breaching places, but most importantly: they can survive. While this can overlap with Paladins in the case of the (Pal 2/Sorc 6/EK10) build it is not particularly typical. This character can be just as boring. Fighters are the token heroes beyond Paladins. They are good at one thing: fighting—it is their element.— For this reason they want to be the ones being targeted by the opposition if things go down. Most importantly they don't step on any of the major roles of the other characters: fighters don't understand magic, they value the abilities of a cleric but can't replicate it in any fashion, and they are nowhere near as skilled or clever as a rogue. They realize they are the big-dumb muscle—in the idealist hero's position he might not even realize how stupid his ideas are—, and because of that they are more likely to revel in it while supporting their arguably more important allies. 3) Stat for your role. The hero tends to be the one who squares off with Big-Bad at the end of the story. If Billy McDeath is going to fight anyone it probably isn't going to be the wizard since he can counter the magic with an anti-magic field. He isn't going to fight a Cleric for more or less the same reason. The sneaky character isn't going to be much help when he'll survive the first sneak attack and rip him to shreds. The hero needs to be able to go toe to toe with Billy McDeath, because he is the least dangerous of all of them in some ways, but at the same time he is also the hardest to hard-counter. It can seem ludicrous, but if the hero has blind-fight nothing short of having the villain's AC up to insane levels is going to save him from the hero's steady damage. If the hero is of a race that can gain Pounce, he becomes even more scary. Being that guy whose job is to hit it until it dies, then keep hitting it for good measure tends to mean you can fight at relatively max effectiveness until you die or win. With a little help from McCasty—your wizard—an anti-magic field cast on the hero can turn him from being the prey of casters to the bane thereof. If he has racial SR, he is the single most frightening thing a spellcaster not built to break SR can encounter. 4) Don't try to be god. God is boring, and like Orcus, he is sitting on his throne waiting for you to come to him. Come on, you're the hero! You suck. It is one of those steadfast rules of being the hero when you're not the only character—unless you're reading about a Mary Sue, at which point this rule does not apply.— If you look at Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins or Haru from The Cat Returns, you'll notice that they all are pretty boring in some major ways. Frodo is able to carry the Ring of Power to Mount Doom because of how much he sucks. It is only after his tale that he realizes he cannot go back to his old life and develops the ambition to go with Gandalf. You're the hero, you are literally the least important person there, so be happy that you convinced some old bugger, some better than thou priest and an untrustworthy skulk to come along with you. Those insidious villains might actually throw a logic puzzle at you, and, well, you're the hero: you're an idiot. There might be some riddle that requires some sort of religious lore or divine intervention—or maybe you decided the best way to keep someone from hurting the other people was to sheath their sword in your body—and that is what the smelly old preacher is for: because you're about the smashy smashy and letting god sort things out. Then, finally, there might be a trap that you can't do anything about because when some Indiana Jones stuff starts happening you're not particularly fast in that armor. Overall the hero can be insanely fun to play. You accept that everyone else is more important than you in some big ways, but they have to accept that without you they would be the ones finding out if they could survive an axe to the skull. Don't worry, though, you can take that axe to your cranium, you weren't using it for anything as the wizard always points out, mainly because you're the hero.
In one of the games I am GMing online I have a planned final boss fight that is going to wreck my players. I know it is coming, but they evidently haven't the foggiest even though they have fought the members of the final boss fight. In Short there are four players, they form a sort of Five Man Band, just without the Chick. To oppose them I made a 5 chapter campaign, each chapter ended with a boss fight. Mechanically Speaking:
We started this chapter at level 8.
We started this chapter at level 11.
We started this chapter at level 14.
We started this chapter at level 17.
We end this chapter at level 20, but the PCs are 20 before fighting the final boss event.
Will my PCs survive? I'm not sure, but we'll find out when they get there. There is a lot of deeper darkness, if they haven't figured out that they should have a method of countering it then they're hopeless. What do you guys think? Is this final encounter going to be way to much, or spot on?
In my Kingmaker campaign I have retired my druid, Ten'oio Van'e'naur "Sha'Quessir," the gnomish illusionist I brought in afterwards died gloriously, and so I intend to bring in the LE Half-Drow-Paragon Half-Elf whose build revolves around summoning devils (and later creatures with Truesight) and cloaking them in Deeper Darkness. The build is simple enough: the summoning line (Spell Focus: Conjuration, Augment Summons, Superior Summons, Acadamae Graduate) along with the Half-Elf Drow Paragon line and SR (Half-Drow Paragon, Drow Nobility, Improved Drow Nobility, Greater Drow Nobility, Drow Noble spell resistance). In order to do this the bonus wizard feats are used to gain Acadamae Graduate at 5th level and Improved Drow Nobility at 10th level. D20PFSRD states that these bonus feats do not have to be in the recommended slots (Item Creation, Metamagic or spell perfection) and so I am going with that. The only real problem here is that the Paladin (A gnoll) is Lawful Good and, well, a Paladin. The only major way I can think it will work is if he believes he can redeem this character since Istme'a Mith'Quessir (The Half-Elf I'm bringing in) is only raising the dead and summoning devils or demons for the power. Perhaps the Paladin can attempt to show him that being a good person can be powerful as well. Who knows. I just remember that one of the most memorable games I played in had a party of 1 LG, CG, LE and CE character each.
So I have been working on a build that will keep my moderately skilled group alive since mortality tends to be somewhat high on random days in my Kingmaker group. They tend to make terrible decisions, and therefore face multiple encounters at once after activating them. The tentative build:
Feats:
Traits:
Revelations:
To ride the cat familiar the Human needs to be able to reduce his size below Medium. If the GM allows a slotless item of reduce person, that is ideal. A slotted item would cost 4,000 gp for a permanent Reduce Person effect, while a slotless version would cost 8,000 gp to create. HP:
This means at bare minimum, if nothing else happens, that you will have 243 hp at level 20. However, this isn't the end build. Gear and HD attribute increase points.
At level 16 your HP per level increases to
This gives you
You effectively are playing a commander with the summoner acting as the off-commander whose CON is as high as being an NPC will allow it to go. On the first round of combat each of the pets pounce the nearest or same enemy to deal (hopefully) huge damage. When they take damage they soak the damage, which is eventually transferred to the Oracle. A Ring of Regeneration helps greatly here, as it mitigates the need to constantly heal oneself. Anyway, there is also a Familiar build, which eschews Animal Companions and Leadership to give the familiar more evolutions, chiefly Tentacle attacks since there isn't a limit. Note, using Amulet of Mighty Fists and putting all 4 of the elemental damages on it is ideal since each one deals an additional 3.5 points of damage. ~Taku.
So I was thinking about something that I've found somewhat interesting. The idea mixes crafting a custom construct that has a ranged force attack, a move, swim and fly speed, DR and, due to being a Shield Guardian, fast healing. The class would likely be a Magus. Any ideas as to how to make this happen? I am aware that there would be 3 feat slots used for crafting feats (Wondrous item, magical arms and armor, and construct) so it would be limiting in that way. Are there rules for specifically making constructs?
I'm playing Kingmaker at the moment, and I just retired my Druid (For now, he's rebuilt as a cohort for later) to bring in an illusionist. We needed a high charisma person, so my old aged gnomish crafting illusionist is a False Priest Sylvan Sorcerer. Here is my question:
So, how effective are illusions in combat? I took effortless trickery, so I could cast Silent Image the first round and then Ghost Sound the next to have them work in conjunction. My GM is fairly open minded. If all else fails, that is what the Charm and Shadow lines are for.
Hey guys, so I was just rolling an idea around in my head involving shadow conjuration spells and saves. Is it possible to intentionally lower a spell's Save DC?
So, if possible I'd like to make the DC as low as possible, if I am designing it as a clever trap.
So I continue to read that constructs can be reduced by one size category by reducing its HD by 1/2.
So, after scouring the bestiaries, where it supposedly was, I'm curious as to where to find this.
So, here's the skinny:
So, last session we ended book 1 of Kingmaker, so I made it a point to say, "Ok, so all that stuff you've been hoarding is now getting distributed so everyone gets a fair amount of treasure." I assumed that the player was unaware that such actions are actually highly discouraged at any table unless everyone is in on it, so I gave the player a stern talking-to at the table to which none of the other players objected. I explained how any loot that is found is intended for the party, not just for the rogue to rush ahead, snatch up and bluff out of the party's hands. I explained that such actions are actually quite toxic to the party, and that by doing so the player is stealing from the group. After this stern talking-to we redistributed the loot using a need/greed system based on the cost of items and more or less finished for the day. The player abstained from the after-party, as it was quite late. In the after-party no one opposed this talking-to, but some voiced that maybe it was a bit mean. However, I'd been being nice about this toxic behavior for a while, so it was time to stop being nice about things and if I have to be mean to get my point across then that is fine if it is for the betterment of the group. Now that we have regrouped, I'm making the, likely erroneous, assumption that the player's character in question has become "Totally" trustworthy in terms of not stealing from the group anymore. Therefore, I remind the party, fairly regularly I might add, that the player is "totally trustworthy!" So, we just founded our kingdom in Kingmaker, and I'm curious as to what we should do if the character in question turns out to not be "totally trustworthy." My suggestions range from time in prison to frontier justice (Party says, "NOPE," and starts the hacky-slashy) to my new super-crafter just not making anything for the character. My other idea was to make a necklace of fireballs, inscribe letters onto it to make it look like it spells something and then to put exploding runes on it and using a meta-magic rod to make 1/2 of the damage fire so it triggers the necklace. If the Slayer proves to be untrustworthy, we will likely find the charred corpse later. *rubs hands together.* Basically no one finds the player's Slayer to be trustworthy, but with the talking to, surely the player understands that there are certain key rules among a party that shouldn't be broken. If the player wants to rob people not of the kingdom or the party, then by all means! Any ill gotten goods from that are entirely the player's characters, just don't steal loot that is intended for the party. I mean, if we fight a huge boar, the loot in the boar's cave is obviously intended for the party. However, if the slayer sneaks into a different kingdom's city, sneaks into a bank there, cracks the vault and steals 3,000 platinum, then by all means it is the slayer's—as shall be the consequences when it turns out the bank has hired a small army of mercenaries to find and retrieve the gold as well as punish the thief. I don't know, at all of my tables stealing from the party or hoarding loot instead of attempting to evenly distribute it or at the very least informing everyone of its existence, has always been banned. Mostly because it ends up with the party realizes the thief has all of the stuff and kills the character or the character gets retired leaving the party woefully poor for their level. Worse, this encourages people to retire characters and bring new ones in at higher WBL, meaning that older characters can have less than 1/2 the gold the new characters have and that, to me, is not fair to the people who have been playing characters from the beginning. What are your thoughts on this stuff? Am I just a terrible person for attempting to ensure the feeling of fairness across the group, or should I just make a super charisma super wisdom character and rob the entire party blind only to retire the character in the possible future and take the entire party's gold with me? The player in question is pointedly using the slayer's bluff to prevent the party from getting the magic items and treasure it deserves. To me, that is simply unacceptable. Don't steal from the people you're adventuring with. Though, the slayer is chaotic neutral, or, as I like to call it, the cop-out alignment where you accept none of the responsibility for your actions. We shouldn't have to be policing the Slayer. It'd be easier to just kill the slayer, then kill every single chaotic character the player brings in until the player brings in a lawful or neutral character. I don't exactly want to do that, nor do I want to have to set character killing traps like the necklace of fireballs with exploding runes on it. Thoughts?
So he wants to play a mouse, not a rat.
Rat
Mouse (Young rat)
Awoken Mouse (Young rat)
Awoken Mouse Wizard (Young rat)
The alternative is to allow him to play a Nirvana petitioner.
What do you guys think?
So, this came up recently.
I am playing with the idea of a dungeon where the mobs are not static, but instead travel through hazardous areas. The idea being that the BBEG communicates with his minions via Message, commanding them to go to specific rooms. He more or less is playing chess with the PCs, but also knows more or less where they are through constant scrying. So, the PCs decide that they'd rather come back later. Instead of teleporting out—which would have just trapped them in a teleportation trap and forcing them to fight the entire dungeon at once—they decide to walk out. The BBEG realizes this, and sends all of his minions to the entrance to cut off the party. "Everyone to A1! Yes...yes...." The PCs find themselves in a battle that encompasses the entire dungeon's remaining mobs, and it is a showdown to see who will leave alive. However, each encounter has its own movement speed and location. Some large or larger monsters have to take indirect routes, and so the PCs might be able to escape with just defeating the quick enemies. However, if they know they are being scryed on, they might use this as a ploy to lure the minions away. Perhaps each room has a Spy Eye in it, and these potentially make up the total treasure of the dungeon if they are low enough in level. Spy Eyes come in sets of 5, 4 being deployed and 1 being used as the eye to see out of. These cost 7,500 gp to craft, which is also their sell value. This thematic dungeon would be a villain who is using traps, releasing hazards and sending monsters to attack the party at just the right time. Perhaps the monsters avoid the party, then attack them when they are not expecting it. Have you ever done anything like this? If so, how did it work out?
I have been throwing around the idea of "sleeper agents" for the villain in content. The idea is this: someone dies in a trap—I like to make my traps rather vicious endeavors: a pit trap that falls into a well filled with water and an Owlbear skeleton at the bottom to grapple people. Did I mention the water itself is a large vat of Waters of Lamashtu?—and is offered a raise dead by something. Maybe it is a god watching out for the hero, but it might also be the villain of the dungeon. The idea is that the BBEG leaves the dungeon after a sleeper agent is created, and instead the final encounter, formerly with the BBEG, is instead an encounter where the sleeper agent backstabs the party. One concept I had was Billy the Rogue falls into aforementioned trap: a pit trap he failed to notice. He falls 30 feet into a pit of Waters of Lamashtu and is now around 15 feet down in the 20-ft deep pool. The Owlbear skeleton, which has been holding its action to grapple anything that comes within range, activates to grapple the rogue. Each round Billy needs to make a fort save or take int and dex damage, but he also has to try and escape the skeleton before he drowns or is crushed to death. The party, seeing this, decides that Billy the Rogue's survival is a lost cause. They abandon him to his doom, as his CMD decreases due to Dex damage, and his drowning swiftly becomes an inevitability. Just to point this out, his allies could easily lower themselves into the pit, fight the skeleton, rescue their ally and climb to safety no problem: they are just choosing not to. I hand Billy a piece of paper: a missive from the villain of this dungeon. It details how he could turn on his friends, how the villain will be using him to scry on his allies and send his minions towards them, how he is supposed to aid his friends until the very end or if he knows he could win if he attacked. He can become, for all extents and purposes, a secret agent. His character is dead, but if he wins he gets XP for killing the other members of the party when everyone rerolls. Of course, he can refuse, at which point he stays dead for the piece of content unless brought back by the other players. However, it is just as likely that a deity might have taken pity on Billy, striken down the owlbear when he died then used raise dead on him, the cost of course coming out of the dungeon treasure pool should he accept: but he doesn't know that nor does the rest of the party. Do you guys think this could be an interesting mechanic in a piece of content that will harbor the players working together to aid one another? Sleeper Agents and divine interventioned characters would have Non-detection cast on them until the end of the piece of content, mostly to obfuscate whether or not the character is an ally or spy. Of course, the dungeon doesn't get easier just because they abandoned someone or let them die, so even if the PCs kill their newly raised ally again just to be sure he wont be a traitor, they are only hurting themselves.
(Avoiding the Avatar)
Features:
Starting Class levels and gold:
Alternative Starting Level
HD
Skills
Max. Attacks
Banishment and Dismissal Weakness
Dispel Weakness
Darkvision
Evasion
Ahh, now I am satisfied. Its functionality, however, is largely up to debate.
So, one of my players recently discovered the Unfettered Eidolon creation rules, and wants to play such a creature. My current idea is to allow him to play one, treating his HD as Summoner Levels for qualifying for things (on the Summoner's Eidolon list, mixing things missing there, E.G. Evasion and Improved Evasion, into the Summoner's Eidolon list) and his CR as his "character level." This means that at level 7, 10, 13, 14, 18, 19 he gains 2 HD and evolution points instead of 1, and at level 20 he would gain 3 HD and evolution points instead of 1. In essence it makes him a synthesist summoner who lacks the ability to heal, but such eidolons gain 8 evolution points at level 1 instead of 3, therefore more than making up for the loss of the Summoner's abilities. The idea would be that he does not gain class levels, but instead levels up at the Eidolon as if he was a summoner's pet. So, he advances using the Unfettered Eidolon rules, but does not gain any class abilities. I say this because it is entirely possible that this could end up being a better "monster race" for people who want loads of natural attacks to make a specialty build. For instance: taking quadruped form, pounce, limbs (arms) and martial weapon prof, climb, swim and claws would give him what effectively boils down to an armorless fighter with
Of course, this does mean that he accepts the 10 point buy that Eidolon statistics boil down to.
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