Taroxion's page

Isn't there a trait that allows you to do exactly this?

Like disguise a piece of gear to appear as something different?

Found it:
Power of Suggestion
Benefit: You may make a Bluff check to make observers believe that an object in your possession is actually a different object entirely. The DC for the check is 20 for items of a similar size, shape, and color (such as a glaive and a quarterstaff). Items of a different shape, size, or color raise the DC by 5 for each dissimilar aspect, or more if the dissimilarity is extreme. This deception lasts 1 minute; if the item is still in view, the observers may recognize their error unless you make another bluff check.

That is pretty much what I'm looking for mechanically. But it does sound like it would bog down the RP with a lot of unnecessary rolls. Ill present both to my player and see what they think.

Thank you all! So many helpful replies!. The cultural suggestion from
Zza ni is wonderful, but where they are clawed races are not so uncommon that the player could get away with it. (I have also let the players use them for non catfolk races in the same world)

I think pulling from everything that the approach I plan to go with is using a base 10 DC modified by the characters bluff base, opposed by perception. That way we are are not making tons of rolls and slowing things down while still giving the players stats some say in their own stealth.

Still unsure of what I want the gold cost to be, but I agree it probably shouldn't be too out there given that the sword cane itself is only 45g total.

I have a player that is playing a catfolk, they want to use the claw blades weapon.

My conundrum comes in that they want to have them disguised as those jewelry style claws to fit into the social setting the game is currently in so they can have a weapon if things go bad but not one that needs to be hidden like a dagger (playing it off again like jewelry).

Magic is currently in short supply for the party, so glamor is out. But I'm not finding anything that would be relevant in the stealth/disguise/sleight of hand skills.

The sword cane has some of what I'm looking for, but I'm not sure how to go about pricing something like that effect, or calculate the DC for the perception check.

I'd take a look at Calistria's Exalted bonuses and see if those appeal to you. Going from cleric to exalted starting at 6th level could be useful provided you aren't relying on channeling for some reason. Changing charm domain's dazing touch to another stun option, and getting charisma to AC later, are both nice benefits. The only drawback would be the daily prostitution, which may not be character or campaign appropriate.

Something I like for brawlers is picking up a versatile(close) starknife and the Desna's shooting star feat to have a charisma focused brawler, but you're into unarmed here so that's off menu.

Depending on your character's overall style, it could be cool to go strong-side-boxer: brawler. The chain wrapped leg, the broken glass covered rope bound fist, it gives the Calistria angle a vengeance/S&M switch hitting vibe. Potentially terrifying, potentially too edgy for a campaign depending on how it's played. If you leave the implication for others to fill in on their own, then I think it would play well.

If I were making the character, I think I'd like the Divine Scourge archetype for the cleric half. Trading channeling and a domain for the sleep hex alone would be more than worth it thematically. That would give you reason not to prestige the cleric half and decrease your need for a charisma score. Spend your class feats on the cleric side and use your bonus feats on the brawler side. Use slumber to engage at a distance or to set up coup de gras.

I completely forgot about those prestige classes! i will look into those. Not really worried about the prostitution thing, the group i play with is mature enough to be fine if i decided to embrace that part of Calistira's dogma rather than her vengeance part

Taroxion wrote:

Slim Jim wrote:

Is there a reason behind your choice of Calistria aside from the naughty dominatrix artwork? (Which, admittedly, is a very popular reason, and nothing to be shy about!)

Along with the character being an elf born Tiefling and thus being more cultural. It actually has to do more with the vengeance aspect than the sex aspect, (though her portfolio around social freedom is also a very good fit.) Backstory wise the character lost their love to murder and did something stupid trying to gain vengeance. After the repercussions of that event they found a "better place" in the church of Calistria in Quent. After making a trip to port peril on business the campaign happens.

Hmm.... You might find that Besmara is a chaotic-neutral female deity of revenge (who also possesses the same Deception, Trickery, and Thievery domains and subdomains as Calistria) more to your liking. Aside from gaining rapier as a favored weapon, the pirate-related theme and obediences are probably less cringeworthy than Calistria's bedroom antics (which, aside from generating uncomfortableness in certain, easily-triggered contemporary playing circles, always seems to give your GM the green light to explore sneaky ideas of infecting your character with a horrible mythic communicable disease).

And not to mention you'll have a trash-talking parrot sitting on your shoulder.

With this being a pirate campaign, Besmara was actually the first deity i looked into. While she would be a good fit, Calistria was just thematically better, and since the character uses their fists the deities favored weapon means little.

Taroxion wrote:

They were primarily a front-line fighter that pummeled people to death with their fists, (was initially looking at monk but the requirement to be lawful rules out Calistria and that is too a perfect fit for their deity to pass on) Right now for the brawler portion I think i'm going to do something that uses dirty trick and I would like to emphasize the fist fighting portion of the character in some way. However i would like the cleric part to have synergy with it also.

Another annoyance you'll face is that Calistria's favored-weapon is the whip, meaning you'll forgo certain bling here and there (class freebies, associated feats, etc) if you use something else. For example, Crusader's Flurry wouldn't gain you anything, whereas, say, Shizuru-worshippers will be generating a blizzard of crits with their 15-20 threat keen katanas.

--Is there a reason behind your choice of Calistria aside from the naughty dominatrix artwork? (Which, admittedly, is a very popular reason, and nothing to be shy about!)

Along with the character being an elf born Tiefling and thus being more cultural. It actually has to do more with the vengeance aspect than the sex aspect, (though her portfolio around social freedom is also a very good fit.)

After making a trip to port peril on business the campaign happens.

Its honestly kind of hard not to advocate for a stunning fist focus given the wis being high for cleric...even though i know its kinda suboptimal, ive always wanted to go elbow deep into making stunning fist and its assorted feats the focus with monk of the mantis

Stunning fist is one of my fav abilities, was part of why i wanted to go monk. but between martial artist and brawler im kinda leaning towards brawler for the BAB and utility, but it is very tempting to go monk.

"When your GM hands you gestalt and 45pt-buy, you wrap a 9th-level spells caster class around a fireplug martial -- because he's basically telling you up front that he's going to be up-ending a dumptruck full of ACME anvils on the party constantly, and little kiddies better clear out'a the pool full of ravenous monsters.

(This party will have dire need of a "professional" mass-cure-spamming cleric as opposed to a bandaid-specialist/UMD wand-burner.)"

LOL i love the way you phrased that! But we wont be in such dire straits.

Backstory, some time ago my old DM who had been DMing for quite some time built a world were the PCs were gestalt to represent their nature as divine avatars in the world. He knew what he was doing and just as you said it was ACME anvils for most of the game but a ton of fun.

Fast-forward to now, i moved away and started my own group where i am DMing the carrion crown adventure for a group of mostly new players. During downtime like bathroom breaks or waiting for the last player to show up, stories of past games have come up.

Now for carrion crown we had a player drop for school and of the two new people that joined one of them has a very RNG work schedule, so for the days when he cant make it, one of the other players wants to try their hand at DMing. They liked the stories i told of that one game and despite my cautions against, wanted to go with gestalt.

So now im looking to get a good thematic, synergistic, flow to what i'm playing while not stomping on everything and making the game un-fun for the other players.

@OP: Would your PC really want to fight on the front lines pummeling with unarmed attacks? Unarmed combat is great as a way to carry a concealed weapon all the time, but it's waaay less effective than carrying a weapon. Unarmed combat is like an always-worn sidearm: great to have if that's all you have. That said, when facing likely battle, why not carry a cumbersome Primary Battle Weapon? Sidearms include unarmed fighting, swords, axes, pistols, etc. Sword (or any sidearm) is to spear as pistol is to rifle.

As a player I cannot dispute your logic, but the character is very fond of the visceral act of pummeling someone, part of why i went with pitborn for "the urge to smash".

warpriest instead of cleric is an option if you feel like you don't need the full 9 level caster as well. difficulty would arise between swift action buff spelling and swift action feat gaining though.

The warpriest was one of the cleric-esq classes i looked at first but the 9th lvl spells and the action conflict aside, it felt like the sacred weapon stuff would be competing with the unarmed damage increases, almost invalidating a whole class feature.

*Edit* although looking it over i could do sacred fist and esoteric magus, would be kinda heavy on the stats but spell combat with heals could be interesting.

Thank you all for the replies! Thinking about what Dave said, I probably should have put down more of what i had in mind for the character to start with. I'm basing this character off one i did in a text only RP (non pathfinder).

They were primarily a front-line fighter that pummeled people to death with their fists, (was initially looking at monk but the requirement to be lawful rules out Calistria and that is too a perfect fit for their deity to pass on)

Right now for the brawler portion I think i'm going to do something that uses dirty trick and I would like to emphasize the fist fighting portion of the character in some way. However i would like the cleric part to have synergy with it also.

Many of the brawler archetypes seem like they could fit, but while i went looking through the cleric ones for an unarmed themed cleric that gave up domains or something, everything i found just seems kinda tacked on or not really applicable.

I am not really worried about it being super efficient since as a couple people pointed out, the degree of power in the game isn't going to set up a ton of challenge if the DM doesn't change anything.

I don't know if that made what I'm looking for any clearer, but all your suggestions have given me things to think about (But I'm certainly open to more)

Hello! first time posting on these forums and I find myself with an interesting dilemma. My group is going to be starting the skull and shackles adventure path soon and my DM has made the "mad" decision to have the players do gestalt, (for those that don't know its basically playing a single character with 2 classes side by side).

Our group comp so far is a Ranger/Gunslinger, Ninja/Monk or Swashbuckler, Occultist/Magus, and myself looking to go Cleic/Brawler. Point buy is 45 with background skills variant and 2 traits. Character is a Pitborn Tiefling and I'm looking to go Calistria for their deity for RP reasons.

The conundrum I'm running into is getting the classes to mesh well, any advice, thoughts would be welcome!