Terranigma's page

Yep, quite a lot that I ask. Our group starts a new adventure from level 1 with 4 players. As two of us will most likely go for tossing out damage and another one for a more supportive and manipulative witch, what seems to be missing is a character that tries to keep the foes at distance and protects the group as good as possible.

Now there are several ways to to that but I want to go for a new gaming experience, even though it might not be the best way to do it, e.g. a phalanx soldier based on reach-weapons and trip. However, here's what I am looking for.

(1) Dex-Based.
(2) Melee.
(3) Non-Caster.
(4) Combat maneuvers.
(5) Parrying, blocking and redirecting attacks.
(6) Damage doesn't matter.
(7) Nets, Whips and such mundane means.
(8) Offer a variety of out-of-combat skills and abilities.

I try to corporate those 8 points into one coherent character concept. I want to be active (!) in battle by parrying attack, using combat maneuvers (especially interested in dirty tricks) to keep foes at distance and redirect attacks against my group.

So far I thought about going either for a Rogue or Swashbuckler. The Swashbuckler fits the general theme perfectly by abilities such as Opportune Parry and Riposte (Ex) but then again, I like the versatility of the Rogue and I think even a Rouge can be turned with the right feats and rogue talents into a supportive melee-fighter. But then again, a Rogue only has a medium BAB and that might be rather problematic ...

Two levels in Duelist seem to have a must-have due to Parry (Ex), but aside from that, I am rather undecided how to proceed. Any advice? Basically, I want to throw dirt in people's faces, pull their hair, hinder them, throw nets, parry attacks and take a blow if I have to in order to defend an ally. Thanks!

I'm currently up to write a character who's in terms of equipment and tactics similiar to ancient greek hoplits, thus using a shield and spear for meele range. While browsing through the armory I came across the pilum, which is pretty much a javelin just with the neat addition that it can cause shield-using enemies to loose their AC bonus from that shield if hit. It might be due to the fact that English isn't my mothertounge but I really don't know how the pilum is supposed to work in practice.

Here's what it says on the SRD. Pilum:

Benefit: Like ammunition, a thrown pilum that hits its target is destroyed. If you hit an shield-using opponent with a pilum, he loses the AC bonus from that shield until he takes a standard action to pry out the remnants of the pilum.

What does hit mean? Usually when the SRD says hit, it means a successful attack, thus an attack roll which beats the enemy's AC and would inflict damage. This however seems to make no sense at this point, because if I hit the enemy and deal damage with the pilum, I obviously havn't hit the shield but some vital area.

Thus I thought hit would mean to simply hit the enemy, thus making a ranged attack against the enemy's touch-AC. If I surpass the touch-AC but not his overall AC, the pilum could've hit the shield.

Therefore I think that either the pilum hits the target and deals damage or beats the touch-AC but not the overall AC and disables the shield.

But that's just my five cents after all. Any ideas?

I want to build a character who focuses on nonlethal damage as he won't kill anyone due to his backstory. Luckily, I stumpled across the feat "Bludgeoner" and am a bit puzzled about this wording:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/bludgeoner-combat

"Special: A rogue with this feat can use a lethal bludgeoning weapon to deal nonlethal damage with a sneak attack."

It says clearly that 'a rogue with this feat' can deal nonlethal damage with his sneak attacks. That is as obvious as it can get and still, I was wondering whether it has to be taken literally as usually only rogues get sneak attacks at all. So I was wondering whether this 'gimmick' would also apply for non-rogue classes which can get access to sneak-attacks.

If so, what about if I dip one level into rogue, could I apply the feat also on sneak-attacks I gained due another class, for example the Expanded spell-less ranger. I mean, it says 'a rouge with this feat' can 'deal nonlethal damage with A sneak attack' - not HIS sneak attack.

I know that is some hairsplitting but I puzzled how to interpret it.

I currently play a Witch (lvl 6) and having a blast with this class. It's mainly because of the theme and mood of the class - not the mention the patron of insanity - and not mainly the mechanics, though, the Witch has without any doubt several very potent hexes and is after all a caster. That's however not the way I enjoy playing this class. I enjoy combat, but evenmore do I enjoy characterplay.

Having the cauldron hex already it was a no brainer to delve into alchemy, potion and poison creation. It suits the character very well and allows for some interesting non-magic/non-hex actions. I thus grabbed Spell Hex (Beguiling Gift) in order to make sure that those, who I can't poison unnoticed, will eventually take whatever I give to them. Furthermore I intend to take Master Alchemist, speeding the creation of poisions dramatically.

All in all I currently have/intend to take, feat-wise:
1) Spell Hex (Beguiling Gift)
2) Master Alchemist

Now I was wondering whether there are more possibilities to flesh out the effeciency of the poisons without dipping into another class. I don't want to apply the poisons on weapons, i.e. I focus on poisons which are either ingested or inhaled. Sadly, the DC for most poisons is rather low so that they seem strongest at the first few levels decrease in efficieny quite fast.

I was wondering whethere there are any traits, feats, etc. which could be used in order to boost poisons?

I know that the Alchemist's discovery Concentrate Poison is pretty much what I'm looking for, though, I dislike the idea to dip into another class for two levels in order to get that discovery. I think it would fit the character to have levels in Witch and Alchemist, though, I'm usually not a fan of multi-classing. At any rate, this character is not meant to be min/maxed but should be fun and stick to a theme, which is a lunatic who's skilled at creating potions, drugs, poisons and all sorts of psychoreactive liquids and alchemical substances. Of course, it's only fun if the poisons actually work. Therefore, if you have any idea how to make poisons more potent, I'd be glad.

I suppose it's not possible to grab the discovery class ability at any means without taking levels in an Alchemist, eh?

I currently GM for a homebrew campaign and, playing d20-system (D&D/PF) for several years already, I wanted to try to do things a bit more different as routine has sneaked in over the course of time. That being sad, I switched to PF as D&D became more and more a game I couldn't enjoy anymore - it encouraged players so tremendously to powergame and felt more like a dungeoncrawler, as the official material supported that kind of gameplay. While it's all up to the GM how the campaign works, now I took over - we're playing PF as being said - and I want to turn the game in a little bit different direction in two aspects.

First, it's more orientated towards a steampunk-style world. Magic is, if existent, usually consider as superstituion, pagan religious stuff noone takes really serious. There is magic, but I want to become magic again more 'magical' and mysterious. D&D, and sadly PF as well, treats magic like some sort of tool you can easily buy at a shop and usually, is degraded to mere mechanics - there's nothing magical or special about magic in usual D&D/PF-campaigns. Therefore, magic is very rare and there won't be any Shortsword+1 or such. Instead, I've substituted those more 'mechanical' progressions into mundane, non-magical items. If you want a better sword, get a better blade for it. If you want to improve your leather armor, get some harder material to improve it. On one side, I don't change 'too' much about the overall balance - even though the characters are weaker due to the lack of magic 'tools' - but present it in a more 'low-magic'-fashion and encourage the players to make frequent use of the craft-skills in order to improve their equipment by themselves.

That being said, I'm happy with it so far. Is kinda lot of work as I have to write most of the material myself but I like it, because magic - when it appears - is usually stranger and more powerful. Anyway, now here's where I need some help and advice:

Half a year ago I ran a Realms of Cthulhu (Savage Worlds)-campaign and it was a blast, because the game felt so gritty and even the players were - finally! - acting cautiously and tactically as they knew that a wrong step might kill them. It is a very intense system and only then I realized how I love such deadly system and how much I've become to dislike the high-fantasy-superhero-marvel-epic feeling of D&D/PF. When I first played D&D, it was the AD&D system which was nowhere as 'powergamingly' as it is nowadays. Anyway, I currently search for some EASY to include ways to change the pace and feel of PF a bit.

Cutting out most magic and substituting it with non-magical means was a good start. Still, I'm still a bit puuzled how to turn PF a bit more into a grittier fashion. I don't speak of horror and such but a fight - if taken - should be deadly. I could, of course, simply tweak the numbers of the enemies but that wouldn't do the job; the enemies would feel stronger but the players wouldn't feel less powerful after all. I'd like to work a bit more with moral, the way armour works, the way hit points work - I mean, you can be beaten down to 1 HP and still can act as you havn't received a scratch, according to rules. I know there are some official variant-rules: have you ever tried them out and can give me some feedback on how it turned out or do you have any other ideas how to 'tone down' PF a bit. The work-in-progress products sadly go in the right opposite direction, turning players in even bigger monster/heroes, thinking, that bigger numbers make a game more fun or even epic.

However, do you have any EASY to implement ideas - or maybe even some more difficult ones? The alternative systems for armour and hit points look like they require a lot of calculations and I'm no huge fan of spending all the time doing math and calculating weird formulas in order to play a game. The more simply and straightforward, the better. I like PF and D&D, but I somehow miss the feeling I got when I've GMd Realms of Culthu and somehow want to bring it back, making the player's character again a bit more 'human'. Yes, even the dwarves and elves, but you get the point! :P

I currently DM a game and two months ago, I gave the group a quite powerful artefact. It was meant as a tool to encourage roleplaying and well, I simply like skilltrees and Pathfinder - like most P&P games - simply doesn't have any. So I came up with one myself.

It is an intelligent item, a lantern which follows one of the group's characters. It has a neutral alignment and is first of all, curios - about all sorts of things. There ain't much information about the background of this item given but only, that's its old and curious and sometimes sticks to people in order to obtain information about each and every aspect of life.

This item has several powers which can be unlocked in a skilltree-fashion. Think of it as a skilltree similiar to the one in the videogame Titan Quest or if you don't know that game, Diablo2. In order to unlock those powers, the group has to fulfill certain tests. That can be very tough, nasty or tricky battles, riddles and such. Due to this, they can unlock certain abilities and passives bonuses which the lantern grants to the group. Once those abilities are unlocked, they need to be charged with sigils. For every test they gain one sigil. But the sigils gained this way aren't sufficient to fill all available ability-slots.

So! And now, what I've asked for ideas for 'Achivements'. All this stuff is optional. It so-to-say something they can do aside from the ongoing story. Now I thought it would be a good thing if the group could gain a few more sigils throught fulfilling certain tasks. Achivements, so to say. As it's all optional, it could be pretty much anything but I'd like to use it as a tool to encourage roleplaying. Therefore, these achivements shouldn't be too much action-focused or such but most of all, require some sort of roleplaying, doing something unpleasent, uncommon, weird. These tasks are given by the lantern and if the group can satisfy its curiosity, they receive another sigil.

As much as I like this idea in general, I have some real problems coming up with some good/nasty/funny/difficult tasks. I'd like to use it to encourage evil characters to act evil or good characters to act good or just to give them a somewhat puzzling task.

Basically, I just got this one so far:

"The lantern has again and again watched the process of reproduction, it sill has not grasped the ethical, social and biological aspects of it completly. Therefore, one of the group is asked to have sexual intercourse and to have an offspring."

Do you have any ideas what tasks would fit? As said, it would be nice if it could require some sort of roleplaying and, as it is optional, can be anything inclunding all sorts of evil, good or whatever acts but not too easy.

Thanks in advance!
:)

Me and my group recently started playing Pathfinder, as we got somewhat bored with D&D 3.5. It wasn't bad, but yet, we were searching for something new and that's one the reasons I'm writing this.

In general, I'm very pleased with Pathfinder and how it handles certain aspects of the game. The fusion of ceratin skills is reasonable, the core classes are interesseting but yet, there's still one think that already freaked me out when playing D&D and it slowly starts freaking me out while playing Pathfinder as well, and that is: the lack of "magic".

http://bxblackrazor.blogspot.de/2012/01/nothing-magical-in-d.html

I havn't written this "rant" but I wholeheartedly agree. While there are numerous pages about spells, magic items, spellcasters and whatsoever, all of this doesn't really help by creating a certain feeling of aw, curiosity or mystery. Maybe that's just me, but when I think about magic, I think it should be, well, "magical", mystical. So far, Pathfinder handles Magic in an identical way as D&D does - it trivialises magic and depreciates it to some sort of technology. So whys that?

One of the biggest issues I think, is, that the use of magic is predictable. That's especially "Fluff-breaking" when you consider, what "arcane" magic actually means. "Arcane" derives from the latin word "arcanum", meaning secret. But arcane magic isn't secret at all in Pathfinder, it's basically spalltered all over the world, all-day-buisness. There is no reason not to accomplish the even easiest, mundane task by means of magic.

I'm too bored to lighten a torch? Just cast Dancing Lights!
I'm too bored to look for a bridge in order to cross the gorge? Just cast fly!
I'm too lazy to roll on Survival in order to find some wood? That's what Create Food/Water is made for.

I know, that Pathfinder plays in a Highfantasy setting. Still, I find this all-day-use of magic deprives the game from even the slightest gimples of a sense of mystery. In books you can read about wizards that meddled with magic too much, turned mad, magicians who feel dragged towards magic by their will to gain even greater power and failed. But all of that, is simply fluff.

There is mechinical-wise not a single rule which creates some sort of mystery, danger or unpredictability. A spell will usually go off, without any hinderance - it is predictable. Using magic on a daily basis won't never do any harm, using magic out of mere laziness and wish for comfort bears no risk, whatsoever. That's not magic, that's just some sort of technology, to me.

This post isn't meant to be any sort of rant, so here's a constructive question:

Do you know of any good, 3th published or even house-made, alternate magic system which fulfills these criteria?

1) Casting a spell can FAIL. Maybe you have to make a roll of some sort to cast a spell.
2) Failing in casting a spell can harm you or create some unpredictable, random effects.
3) This system should encourage the players not to abuse magic for the mere sake of comfort. Instead of casting Create Food/Water each and everyday, it should encourage the players to accomplish these mundane tasks with skill checks or simply some non-magical means. Instead of "walking over the water", they should think twice before casting "Water Walk" instead of searching for some other sort of transportion. Maybe that casting a spell can fatigue the caster, or whatsoever.
4) It should treat arcane and divine caster in a similiar fashion, in order not to "nerf" any of these casters more than the other. Thou, I could imagine that a deity, to which a divine casters prays in order to get his spells, might sooner or later say "Nay" when a cleric of his begs for Create Food/Water each and every day because he's too lazy to get himself any food in "non-magical fashion".

So, long story short: an alternate magic system which makes magic more dangerous in use and more unpredictable. It should by no means reduce useful of magic or nerfed it, but simply encouraging the players not to solve each and every issues with magic, as magic - from my understanding - should be "arcane" (means: mystical) and dangerous. Means, it can fail. And when it does, no one can know what'll happen next.

Currently, I'm a bit in a fix. I'd really like to get back of magic and mystery in my campaign (which PF likes D&D imo lacks) and therefore, I'd be glad for any piece of information, advice how to do that!
:)