Thaine's page

I actually didn't know about the detailed movement rules so thanks for that. After having read them though I don't think they are a problem for what the OP wants to do.

From the d20pfsrd:

There are three movement scales, as follows:

Tactical, for combat, measured in feet (or 5-foot squares) per round.
Local, for exploring an area, measured in feet per minute.
Overland, for getting from place to place, measured in miles per hour or miles per day.

and then farther down:

Hustle

A character can hustle without a problem on the local scale. See Overland Movement, below, for movement measured in miles per hour.

So there is no "out of combat" or "in combat" movement (what I originally thought) there is actually three movement types: tactical (which is combat obviously), local area, and overland.

Overland to me is what you see in Lord of the Rings, where the party is covering large distances going from town to town or geographic area to geographic area. Exploring a local area, like around town or a dungeon, would fall under local movement rules which state that "A character can hustle without a problem on the local scale".

Now having written all that, I'm still going to agree with with Murdock Mudeater that the rules should probably be bent a little for verisimilitude's sake. Have them take a break to catch their breathe after a couple hours or at least stop for lunch or something. At our home table we break for meals or snacks a few times so I didn't think about going for hours on end.

I really don't think it's that big of a deal in a dungeon. Rarely have I seen groups actually move at full speed out of combat. They're always moving at half speed so people can either check for traps or hidden doors, constantly have detect magic up, detect evil, guidance, resistance, or some other ability.

Which brings up the inherent balancing factor of someone using his standard action for total defense constantly. And that is that he is not using his standard action for anything else, such as checking for traps, casting detect magic, detect evil, guidance, etc.

And some VOs will rule one way, while others rule the opposite.

I GM almost exclusively for PFS. Given my reasons above, and the restriction of Spell Combat ("the off-hand weapon is a spell"), I cannot in good conscience continue to allow such builds.

I would of course tell such a player before the game begins, when asking about or auditing their characters.

Name a single VO that ruled that dervish dance doesn't work with spell combat for his area.

This is astounding to me.

Have you really missed all the dervish dance shocking grasp magus builds in the advice section for PFS characters? Have you missed people complaining about how every magus is dervish dance because it's the easiest way to get dex to damage with spell combat? Threads like this with people talking about seeing dervish dance magus everywhere.

And you say it doesn't work because the spell counts as a weapon in the off-hand? That means you also allow all feats and abilities that specify weapons to also affect spells since a spell in the hand counts as a weapon right? That's...actually kinda cool and I think would open up some nice build opportunities...like a ray user or a maybe reaaallly bad touch cleric.

dysartes wrote:

I think the key point with any of these cases where the GM will roll for players is to make sure your players know about it up-front.
As noted, there are a number of cases where it makes sense, but I think it is important to be clear about the fact that you'll roll some checks for them (or do the Take 10 Passive Perception, etc) when you start the campaign, rather than springing it on them the first time an appropriate situation occurs.

I agree. The last 2 or 3 campaigns I've run, I've made sure to make this point before we started. My players know to expect this going into a campaign. They've never complained about it either. Then again, they're a pretty awesome group.

-Skeld

Heartily third-ed. However you run the game doesn't matter as long as the players know what their agreeing to when they sit down at the table.

Keep in mind that there are global circumstances bonuses and penalties that are entirely within the purview of the GM. I see any adjustments, at any time, simply an extension of that.

If there are actually circumstances that would merit an adjustment of the outcome then absolutely. I also hope you inform the player of these circumstance modifiers before their action if their character could observe them. Everyone has their own equally valid opinion on how to play the game and if that works for your table then fine. At our home tables the DM adjusting dice rolls just because he feels like it is cheating. Half the fun of the game for us is seeing where fate (i.e. good and bad dice rolls) decides to take the story.

To the topic:
When I DM I roll in the open as much as I can. It really adds to the player interaction. Instead of reaching for their cell phones when I start the monsters turn the players now have their eyes glued to my attack or save rolls to see what's going to happen. There's a nice sense of tension when the attack roll is set in motion and the players hold their collective breath hoping it's not a 20, or when the cleric watches my save roll and starts praying to Desna for a 1.

NPC interactions (like sense motive) and disguise are some of the few roles I keep secret. I've been playing around with perception but haven't noticed a difference either way. My experience so far is that after a certain point someone in the group is going to have such a high perception modifier it doesn't matter.

Has anyone done Pre-rolling? That is where you have the players sit down and roll out like 10 perception checks (or however you think you'll need) in advance, randomize the order, and the go down the list yourself every time there's a perception check.

I was going to try that next and see what that did to group dynamic.

swoosh wrote:

dysartes wrote:

Counter-example: Games Workshop.

Also Wizards of the Coast. Fifth Edition's marketing campaign has actually tried to spin the fact that it's an unfinished mess as a good thing.

I've actually found 5e's rules hang together quite well. In a number of places I find the game considerably better-designed than 3rd, in fact.

Agreed. I like how 5E acknowledges that there is a DM at the table to handle corner cases. This prevents the Paizo problem where they issue rules to cover a corner case that go on to effect systems or other options that were just fine.

On the other hand I like playing pathfinder society and have heard that it's a better experience then the usual Adventurer's League game. I suppose 5E makes for a better home game and Pathfinder makes a better game for organized play.

I allow it in dungeons, no problem. I don't allow it when walking around town. In dungeons your in a hostile environment where you know with almost certainty that there are monsters out to get you. Every adventurer worth their salt should be expecting danger behind every corner and be constantly on their guard. That's not a reasonable expectation in a civilized town though.

Honestly I think the only curses with real problems are Blind, Deaf, and wrecker.

Tongues is usually my go to curse. Wasting is easy if you don't want to be the face and Blackend is good if your playing as a caster and starting at higher levels. Lame isn't bad either, if 20ft movement bothers you grab a wand of longstrider.

Legalistic is a good one for paladins. I don't like haunted but it's doable...definitely a pain though.

@ superman and power plays and what not, i'd just like to point out the movies themselves often revolve around what isn't perfect about them.

Stark is a billionaire with a past in weapons dealing and him destroying all the equipment in that one scene is symbolically him defeating his past, showing that he can try to overcome it.

And that's the point, neither of those heroes are interesting because of their powers but because of their faults, and that's the thing movies and literature, you don't win all the time, but in PnP games you need to always succeed and this is the fundamental rift in the system, it promotes good play but not good story telling.

That's not an opinion I share. Superman is about hope. What I find interesting about Superman is his dedication to good and the way he inspires people to be better.

I'm big comics fan. I'm a big fan of Superman. He breaks the monotony of the old story of good guys struggling against powerful evil (because evil is always stronger than good right?) and shows that good and evil don't mean weak and strong. But it's not strength that matters, it's what you do with it. The best superman stories are the ones like All-star superman where you see him doing as much as he can to help and inspire. Panels like THIS are what makes Superman, Superman.

I'm 100% with Xerres. My favorite parts of Superman movies is when disaster strikes, the people are overcome with fear because they know how this is going to end... and then somebody spots that S-shaped shield and knows there's still hope.

but in PnP games you need to always succeed

What? Why?

I've seen campaigns end where the party died and half the world got blown up. I've seen campaigns where the party tpk's at level 5. Evil cleric summons the elder evil and wins because the party died and didn't stop him. That's a wrap, roll new characters for the next story.

How does your group keep tension in the story if they already know they're going to win? If the party does bad you gotta let them lose.

And never bluff. Don't put a gun to anything in the story if you're not willing to pull the trigger. If you tell the party that if they don't stop a ritual in 3 days then the city of Silverhorn will be destroyed, then 3 days later when they still haven't put the clues together that city needs to be a crater. If bad guys capture an NPC but the party decides to go do something else for a bit instead of giving chase, then that NPC is dead.

I'm honestly not sure how I would keep tension in a game without failure....

At our home tables flavor and mechanics are completely unrelated. The flavor text Paizo writes in the books are suggestions at best and really don't even need to be there. Just pick whatever mechanical options are fun for you and re-flavor them however you want.

For example, the OP said he's using a sub-par weapon because he escaped slavery with it? At our table grab the mechanics for a greatsword, call it a pickaxe and go to town with your 2d6 19-20/2 pickaxe.

The most general rule/way to do:

When in initiative order, you may not take 10.

When not in initiative order, yoy may take 10.

+1

Couldn't have said it better.

MannyGoblin wrote:

The weapon cord nerf was the worst. Martials can't have nice things.

yo yo gun was silly and it deserved to be phased out.

True, but the problem I see is that Paizo doesn't know how to nerf just one thing. If there's a corner case that's abusing a rule or an item Paizo will hit everything related to it instead of just saying "guns don't work with weapon cords".

Also, I always saw that as a DM problem. I never saw a yo yo gunslinger played but wasn't it about taking a whole mess of free actions to shift pistols around? DM could, and should, have limited the number of free actions in a round.

The English language terminology used in the classification of swords is imprecise, and has varied widely over time. Historical terms without a universal consensus of definition (such as "broadsword", "long sword", "short-sword", "bastard sword", "great sword", "full-bladed sword", "side-sword", "dual-bladed sword" and "two-handed sword") were used to label weapons of similar appearance but of different historical periods and fabrication technology, often by describing their size or shape relative to other unrelated weapons, without regard to their intended use and fighting style. In modern times, many of these terms have been given specific, often arbitrary meanings that are unrelated to any of their historical meanings.

Medieval people (up to maybe 1400 a.d.) just called everything a "sword". Maybe they'd add "big sword" or "small sword" but they didn't care for classification like we do today. Modern collectors and historians started trying to come up with specific names to differentiate the weapons and of course everyone had their favorite system with arbitrary names.

Point being, there are several competing systems for classifying swords and each is just as valid as the next.

Hopefully it would be offset by having the main character (Drizzt) being a dark elf with a heart of gold but I think your right and that it'd be a problem anyway.

I hate how nowadays you can't just have a character be a character, they're ambassadors of their race/gender/culture/religion/creed/etc.

There's also the fact that no module ever made Barnes and Nobles best seller list, if you get my point. The vast majority of Drizzt fans at this point, are probably not even gamers.

This is definitely true. I have a lot of friends and family that read fantasy. They love Homeland by Salvatore. They have no interest in pathfinder/DnD.

Browman wrote:

On the store side of things, FLGS need to adapt as businesses always have. Gaming cafe/ store seems to be the new way to go, along with a healthy supply of magic cards and Friday night magic.

This is exactly how my FLGS does it and it is doing amazing business. They have had to move locations once and are looking to move again just to have more tables for people to play.

Alcohol.

A game store in the city near me got a liquor license and opened up a bar area in the adjoining storefront. I think this is the future.

As for the original topic, there's really been no surge? Even with the release of 5E?

5e saw sales spikes during the release but now we're a few years down the road and it looks like everything holding to what it used to be.

My information is from December 2015, so it's a little old at this point. But at that time, during an interview with Angry DM on talking tabletop (a podcast) they brought up the topic on what the status of the industry was because earlier that week Mike Mearls said on twitter that sales growth was steady. This wasn't good news though as all tangent geek-type industries (fantasy books, board games, card games, video games, comics, etc.) are seeing large sales growth.

During the discussion it was agreed that the main problem is the table-top rpg sales method for new players. Basically, most everyone gets into pathfinder and DnD because they knew someone who also played and brought them into it. Their friend/cousin/uncle, etc. either taught them the game or brought them along to join a game. Which means if you don't know anyone who plays your probably never going to hear about it or find a game.

It's completely legal for a class that receives domains to take an inquisition, although usually sub-optimal.

Ultimate Magic wrote:

Inquisitions are intended for inquisitors, not for other classes that give access to domains. While a cleric or other domain-using class can select an inquisition in place of a domain (if appropriate to the character's deity), inquisitions do not grant domain spell slots or domain spells, and therefore are much weaker choices for those classes. These other classes use the appropriate class level as their inquisitor level for the purpose of inquisition granted powers (clerics use their cleric level as their inquisitor level, and so on).

If a class has an archetype that grants a domain, may they select an inquisition instead?

My family and I would love to see the Drizzt books made in to a TV series on HBO. The game of thrones writers would have blast with menzoberranzan to play with and later I'd love to see Jarlaxle and Entreri interacting together on screen.

Back to the original topic, it's not the twilight of Pathfinder, it's the twilight of the whole table-top role-playing industry. We are living in a geek renaissance right now where there has been a massive surge in popularity (and sales) in everything from comic books to board games. Despite this, table-top role-playing sales have been stagnant without the same surge of new blood. And this doesn't bode well when everything else tangent is on a massive upswing.

Can you switch to lore warden? It's the best fighter archetype for combat maneuvers.

At level 14 and beyond you are really going to start facing enemies that are either flying, have many legs, too big or just cannot be tripped for whatever reason. What is you character's plan when it can't trip the enemy?

Dirty trick is a nice de-buff that applies to lots of different enemy types.

For my trip fighter build I took a 1 level dip in bloodrager. As a dwarf my con was high enough I got some use out of rage and in addition to fast movement I got access to a spell list that allowed me to use wands like enlarge person and fly. If you already have casters that can help you out here then it might not be needed.

I would think about what your character is going to do when it can't trip or is out-reached by the enemy and try to shore up that weakness.

DM ruled it was good so it's good. That's the end of it.

Flip this around. If we are concerned about players having the right level of challenge then a different solution is to institute minimum benchmarks that must be met for a character.

This way developers will know that characters will be at least at a certain minimum level of capability and can raise the difficulty of scenarios accordingly.

No I'd say it's not going to happen because that subsystem directly contradicts the pathfinder society FAQ regarding evil spells.

That sidebar says "Casting an evil spell is an evil act".

But the society FAQ for evil spells states:

Does casting evil spells cause an alignment infraction?

Casting an evil spell is not an alignment infraction in and of itself, as long as it doesn't violate any codes, tenents of faith, or other such issues. Committing an evil act outside of casting the spell, such as using an evil spell to torture an innocent NPC for information or the like is an alignment infraction. For example: using infernal healing to heal party members is not an evil act.

Emphasis mine. Adopting it would just be a pain all around. However, if we do end up using there are at least some benefits we'd get out of it for some of the alignment based classes.

Monks
Monks are required to be lawful to continue to level as monk but other than that lose nothing by being chaotic. This sidebar allows a monk to act as chaotic/neutral and then UMD a wand of protection from chaos before leveling up.

Barbarians
Opposite of monks, required to be non-lawful. Sidebar lets a player play Lawful/Good and then when a GM says he's done too many lawful actions and his alignment shifts he can UMD a wand of protection from law to shift back

Paladin
Although not actually allowed as I believe the text states if a paladin drops alignment he must specifically cast atonement to get his powers back, if a player has a really permissive DM in his area they could either cast or UMD a wand of protection from evil two times to get their powers back. There's one GM in my area I think would go this way (he loathes alignment restrictions) and I think people could find some in their area if they asked around.

If we use it
Hopefully an exception will be made for infernal healing as I enjoy having some variety in healing spells.

Real losers I think are necromancers or anyone else who uses raise dead. I have never played the class or even seen it played so I don't know the mechanics at all but they'd only get four castings of raise dead or other evil spells an adventure before their alignment drops to evil and they're out.

Oh and also the headaches that come from tracking all this and the hurt feelings that are going to come when someone drinks the wrong potion or blindly activates the wrong wand.

What is being argued right now? I think this conversation has gone off topic as I don't think the tier list has been mentioned in the last two pages except indirectly. Are we talking about the fighter again?

And why are we talking about the fighter's combat ability? The fighter is not low tier because of his combat ability. If someone disagrees with the fighter's tier placement then please show how the fighter solves out-of-combat problems with class features, or options that are unavailable to other classes.

Seriously, please. I have a dwarf lore warden I'm testing out in PFS right now and It's hard getting him a secondary niche. I gave up on diplomacy and I'm going for knowledge monkey now.

@Thaine You bring up very interesting points. As is, the fighter can't do anything about those, but at the same time I'm not

I think we're on the same page. I agree, he shouldn't be able to do all of them. I don't want any more tier 1 classes. The less challenges like that a class can overcome the lower down the tier list they go. I think Tier 3 classes (investigator, alchemist, etc.) which can solve maybe half those challenges is the sweet spot for class design.

I just don't like the idea of a class designed so that it's like; "Go stand in a corner while we handle the social interaction, sneaking around, information gathering, mystery solving, and other out of combat challenges. We'll come get you when your class features become useful again."

I would like for the fighter to be able to handle like, 2 or 3 things on that list without having to sacrifice a lot of combat ability. Other martials like the paladin or ranger or barbarian can handle some items on that list while still being great at combat. Why not the fighter?

And like I said before, thankfully it looks paizo might finally be doing that...albeit very slowly.

I was more pointing out that that more money discounts a fighter's advantages is the same as saying more money (Wands) discounts a ranger's advantages.

I think the point being made is that giving a wand to the fighter doesn't let them cast spells like a spellcaster. For example:

A level 2 ranger gets hurt, he used a wand of cure light wounds to heal himself.

A level 2 fighter gets hurt, he pulls out a wand of cure light wounds and...nothing because he has terrible use magic device skill.

Then you have the problem of how much wands cost. You are going to have to spend a LOT of gold to have access to a wand for every spell on a ranger's spell list.

I disagree about feats not helping a fighter in the tier ranking (Or whatever the hell this is about now). The biggest class feature of a fighter IS feats, so the better they are, the more options they provide, the stronger they are, the more appealing the fighter is (Relative to other martials).

Alright! I"m with you, preach on brother.

Yes, any class can take feats, but I seriously doubt any classes can make use of as many feats and options as a Fighter when it comes to feats. I brought up Startoss style as an example of good feats for a fighter, but I see it more useful for combat versatility. The same was I brought up a boomerang great sword. Yes, the latter is silly, but can made very effective with a number or feats (Which, again, is essentially a class feature).

Now you lost me. The problem is exactly what you said, that a fighter's strength lies in having access to good feats that provide options. And there really aren't any. When you talk about the versatility provided by feats like Startoss style, you are talking about combat versatility, and even then your still only targeting AC and making damage number increase. The fighter does not have a problem hitting AC for lots of damage. The fighter is tier 5 because there's little else he can do beyond that.

1.) There's a canyon 200 feet across. Where's the feat that lets a fighter get over that?

2.) The PC needs to infiltrate court to find the traitor planning to kill the king. Where's the feat that lets a fighter do great at social encounters?

3.) A fighter needs to sneak through a king's court without being seen. Where's the feat that let's him turn invisible?

4.) A fighter uncovers an ancient tablet that holds the key to stopping an ancient monster. Where's the feat that let's him understand the hidden message?

5.) A fighter comes across a wounded traveler about to die. What feat gives him the ability to heal him?

6.) The evil wizard teleports away to attack again another day. What feat let's the fighter chase after him and continue the fight?

7.) The fighter investigates a murder. What feat let's him cast speak with dead or otherwise easily find the murderer?

Now after you figure out which combination of feats might make the fighter somewhat able to do one of those things, put together a fighter build that makes the fighter able to do ALL of those things AND still be great at combat.

That's the problem with fighter's and their feats. However, there is hope.

And that hope is archetypes. Lately Paizo has apparently decided to help out the fighter a little by making some nice archetypes that help the fighter outside of combat, Martial Master and Mutagen warrior, which bump up the fighter to tier 4. I'm hoping this trend continues and spills over into some new fighter only feats that give them some strong options outside of combat.

The tier list linked by Air0r in an excellent tool for unseasoned DM's to use for balance in uncooperative groups and to make less work for him when trying to ensure that nobody at the table outshines the rest.

Rule of thumb is to have players be within two tiers of each other, 4 if they know what they're doing. It's also great at helping to balance experience between players. For example, if you have a veteran player at the same table as some new guys have the veteran play a tier 4 class, it helps a little to balance out the skill levels.

Once you have an experienced group and a DM that knows how to tailor the game for the class's strengths and weaknesses you don't really need the tier list anymore.

Thaine wrote:

5-5-10

Diagonals alternate between 5 and 10 whether they are taken in order or not.

To quote:

"Which printing? There are six."

Mine's first. Here is the online rule quote.

5-5-10

Diagonals alternate between 5 and 10 whether they are taken in order or not.

The entire point of superdelegates is for party leadership to override the people and select the candidate. You have to count their votes up front or they don't serve their purpose.

They were created in response to the democrat losses in the 70's and 80's to stop the people from selecting the far left candidates that kept losing in the general election so party leaders could selected a moderate candidate and win.

Here is a link to an interview with one of the creator's of superdelegates that explains this.

relevant quote: "Superdelegates were created as a safeguard against nominees like George McGovern, whom Democratic Party officials saw as ‘too far to the left."

After replying to one of the other rules threads I had some questions I wanted to discuses regarding meeting the prerequisites for feats and the fly skill.

Question 1:
A fighter has 13 strength. He has the feat power attack. The fighter encounters a monster that hits him with an attack that reduces his strength score by 2 for 48 hours. With a strength of 11, he can no longer use power attack. The cleric casts the spell Bull's Strength on the fighter giving him a +4 enhancement bonus to strength.

The fighter is still unable to use power attack as the bonus does not last 24 hours and so does not count for meeting feat prerequisites, correct?

Question 2:
A level 1 wizard gets a wand of fly with 50 charges. Does the wand allow the wizard to put points in the fly skill?

Does the answer change if it was a rogue with a high use mage device skill?

Question 3:
A fighter acquires an item that lets him cast Dimension Door at will with infinite charges.

Does this qualify the fighter for the Dimensional Agility feat?

These are all academic. I'm just curious where the line for qualification is.

cuatroespada has a point. We can't be 100% certain about RAI until a dev actually says what RAI is and even then RAI can change.

For example, everyone was wrong with their RAI on how flurry of blows originally worked and according to RAI the zen archer monk didn't function as written. Then they changed the RAW and the RAI so that it did work.

All this RAI talk seems off topic to me though. The original question was "does Teleportation Mastery qualify you for Dimensional Agility". This kicked off a larger question of "what does and does not count for prerequisites?"

Specifically I think the question is something along the lines of:

"Does having access to spells or spell-like abilities through items or feats count as having access to spells for the purpose of meeting prerequisites?"

I think there's a good FAQ question in here that someone more well versed in the rules than me should write as this sounds like the sort of thing that should be nailed down for PFS.

Pathfinder society, for the most part, stops at 12. Improved precise shots requires 11 BAB. So for the the entirety of your career your going to have cover problems (+4 to AC).

It's not stylish but one of the best things about Rangers and Zen Archer monks is that they get Improved Precise Shot at level 6. Zen Archer's also get Point Blank Master at 3rd.

I'm not sure about barbarian. It looks like your taking it solely for the dex boosting rage but your going to have...what? 5 + con bonus rounds of rage? Is that enough to get you through a day?

At what level do you want your build to come "online"? 2 Barbarian levels first means that if we pick Human we get point blank and precise shot at first and then nothing until level 3.

I don't think there's a systematic issue of feats being written for things that would normally be allowed. We seem to keep bringing up the same handful of feats for this whenever this topic comes up.

But I do think there's a problem with how 90% of feats are sub-par or bad options.

Paizo needs to figure out how strong a feat should be, and what kind of options a feat should allow you to do that you couldn't before, because based on what they've published it really seems like they don't know and are just publishing feats for anything they can think of.

I mean look at this feat:

Bloody Vengeance:
If an opponent within line of sight has damaged you within the last minute, you may study that opponent as a standard action. Thereafter, if you hit that opponent with a melee attack, you deal 1 point of bleed damage to that creature in addition to the normal damage dealt by your attack.

Really? Paizo thinks this is how strong a feat should be?

Yeah I played in a 5e game a few months ago and I was blown away at the feat design in that system. 5e feats are really powerful and usually scale with your character. There are also no trap options. I think there's only two feats that are considered bad in 5e (greater weapon fighting and something else...can't remember).

In pathfinder there's lot's of trap feats like monkey lunge, elephant stomp, prone shooter (pre-errata), and bad feats like water skinned, combat expertise, dodge (+1 ac, whoopee), child-like, All-Consuming Swing, etc.

Back to the topic, I've said it before but I really hate the trait Prehensile Whip.

Prehensile Whip:
You can use a whip as if it were a rope with a grappling hook at the end. Attaching your whip is a standard action, but detaching it is a full-round action.

Caustic Slur is another one that shouldn't exist.

Also rumormonger.

Another thought is instead of going Fey, go serpentine bloodline so your enchantments can affect animals and magical beasts. Then pick up a rod of Threnodic Spell when you have the gold which will allow your enchantments to affect undead. That way the only creature types immune to your enchantments now are constructs.

And Gray Warden is correct, the magical tail feats are not worth it for a full caster. You can get by just fine with scrolls and wands as supplements.

A big one for me is the prehensile whip trait:

This is stupid and should be something every table allows by default. I don't think anyone takes a whip and doesn't expect to be able to swing across a pit like Indiana Jones.

It also shouldn't take as long as it does.

Skip dodge, its a waste of time. Give yourself iron will instead(or toughness at first level, use rebuilding rules before lv 2 to give yourself iron will). If you want to get a monk level, somewhere in your feat array vicious stomp, for more AOOs up close.

I'd normally agree about dodge but it's a pre-req for a lot of feats so my thought is to take it as a standard feat and have it in case it's required for something I want to use martial flexibility for.

Lore Warden Martial Master seems fun.

I was thinking about this combination for a reach fighter for PFS.

Human Fighter (Lore Warden)
Str: 18
Dex: 14
Con: 12
Int: 14
Wis: 12
Cha: 7

Traits: Student of Philosophy and Armor Expert

Student of philosophy is taken to turn the modifiers for diplomacy and bluff from -2 to +2. Since this guy is for PFS it let's him participate in diplomacy which comes up alot.

Armor Expert gives us Mithril Breastplate

Skills per level: 7 (2 base + 2 int mod + 2 Lore warden + 1 race)
A nice amount of skill points we can spread out. All int skills are class skills and with a +2 int modifier we have a chance at making or at least helping with PFS skill checks.

Feats
L1: Combat Reflexes, Power Attack, Dodge?
L2: Combat Expertise, Improved Trip
L3: Fury's Fall, Improved Dirty Trick?

I have no idea what to do with feats. All we really need is combat reflexes and improved trip/Dirty Trick. Once Martial flexibility comes online at 5 we can grab the greater version or the improved version of any other trick as needed. I was thinking of heading toward combat patrol.

The best part of martial flexibility is it gives the fighter some out of combat options. Like that feat that adds strength bonus to intimidate check or Equipment Trick when needed.

I was thinking of trying to squeeze in a level of flowing monk (gives us +2 to saves, improved unarmed strike, keeps the bonus feat, and a trip maneuver against attackers)or spellbreaker inquisitor (re-roll some will saves, access to spell lists, swift action enlarge person with growth domain?).

For the thread subject though, I think Martial Master/ Lore Warden is the best all-around fighter nowadays. We can fight well enough, we have flexibility to adapt a little to situations and we have skill points.

It seems to me that the opinion here is that the racial heritage feat should read something like this:

Racial Heritage (Human)

The blood of a non-human ancestor flows in your veins.

Prerequisite: Human.

Benefit: Choose another humanoid race. You may ask your DM whether or not you count as a member of that race for the purpose of taking traits, feats, how spells and magic items affect you, and so on.

To me, above all else, rules must be consistent and reliable. If flavor text (that is not written to same rules rigor as the rest of feat descriptions) is allowed to influence prerequisites, then nobody can know what Racial Heritage actually does when you take it. Its effects will be entirely subjective and change drastically on a table by table basis.

In my opinion, this is the opposite of a good official rule. A player should not take a feat and then have to ask the DM what it actually does. A player should take a feat and know exactly what it does and how it interacts with things and if there are any interactions that the DM is not okay with then they have all the power as the DM to house rule it.

And this is before we get in to the repercussions of this when applied to other feats. For example:

Artful Dodge (Combat)

You are practiced at avoiding attacks when outnumbered.

Prerequisite(s): Int 13.

Benefit: If you are the only character threatening an opponent, you gain a +1 dodge bonus to AC against that opponent.

Special: The Artful Dodge feat acts as the Dodge feat for the purpose of satisfying prerequisites that require Dodge. You can use Intelligence, rather than Dexterity, for feats with a minimum Dexterity prerequisite.

According to the flavor text of Artful Dodge, this feat can only be used when outnumbered. Would people rule that Artful Dodge would not work when threatened by only one enemy? That seems against the intent of the feat to me.

And then we have to get in to the flavor text of spells, class abilities, items, etc...

Linguistics is a trained only skill. Detecting a forgery is an opposed linguistics check.

Can you make an opposed linguistics check to detect a forgery without being trained in linguistics?

Comics and pathfinder don't mix.

Batman's ability to work just fine with the Justice League without being overshadowed has nothing to do with his physical capabilities. It's because he's a brilliant, cunning, downright devious person. A master tactician.

In pathfinder terms, he's the player with absolute system mastery. Or the guy at the table who is always coming up with the creative solution that make the DM throw out pages of notes. You know the guy I'm talking about. That's what makes him Batman.

And that can't be replicated in Pathfinder. You can't make system mastery or creativity into class abilities or feats or attributes. It's just something the player either has or he hasn't.

But while we're talking about comics I just wanna set this straight. I don't think Batman has ever beaten Superman in the main continuity. Even in Miller's TDKR comic that everyone thinks is the whole history of their fights Batman lost that one too. He used up all his tricks to get his hand on superman's throat, (Superman by the way held back the entire fight so as to not kill him), and then faked his death while superman was ready and able to go round 2.

As far as I know, in the main continuity (no elseworlds) their record is Batman:0 Superman:2

Ok back to pathfinder. Martial vs Magic will never be solved because of exactly what Zalman said.

the superpowers 3.x players have come to feel entitled to.

He hits the nail on the head here. Paizo inherited the martial/magic problem when they made pathfinder backwards compatible with 3.5. This was smart at the time to snap up the player base left behind by 4e but now they're stuck. 3.X has many die hard fans that like their magic toys, a lot even believe that magic should be just straight up better then a normal guy. We've seen the posts in the martial/magic debate threads where people say that they like the class imbalance.

And Paizo can't fix it because they can't afford to split their customer base. They need these people to buy product.

There have been many threads pop up to talk about Pathfinder 2.0 or Pathfinder Next and in each thread a LOT of people say "No, I like the current system" or "No, the system works with my 3.5 collection". These guys have spent hundreds on bookcases full of 3.5 material that they will not let go of. If Paizo fixes the martial magic problem they will lose the "must work with my huge 3.5 collection" fans and the "Magic FTW!" fans and I don't think they can afford that. They're not a big company.

TLDR: Paizo inherited the 3.5 customer base and can't change without losing a lot of it which they are unwilling (or can't?) do.

About the comic discussion:

Superman used to be a super-genius during the Silver Age (along with being more powerful than God, in all honesty), but thankfully since John Byrne's reboot, his intelligence, like all his powers, have been reduced to generally-balanced levels; even writers that put his powers back to Silver Age levels of insanity leave his intelligence largely untouched.

Hate to break it to you but superman has had a big genius intellect for years now.

When we talk about comparing intelligence we need to establish that there is a difference between being smart and being clever. A difference between intelligence and cunning. Superman has a genius IQ and processes information faster then any supercomputer. And Lex is just ridiculous. The guy cured cancer in just minutes and can trade intellectual blows with Braniac.

Bruce doesn't have their book smarts, but he's got them beat by miles with street smarts. He's a master tactician that preys on his enemies weaknesses and psychosis. That's the difference IMO. They are a different kind of smart.

Topic:

Considering that Pathfinder's system assumes readily available magic (in pretty large quantities too) why is it important that a purely non-magical hero be able to compete?

In fact, if this character type was created would he not then easily become overpowered by decking himself out with magic items and buff spells?

I don't want to nitpick too much, but Batman has actually defeated Superman and many other cosmic-level supers many times. I'm not sure if Superman has ever won in a head-to-head battle against Batman. (Even when Bats didn't "win," that was usually part of his strategy and so he still "won" by not winning, if that makes any sense.) Of course he needs help or some kinda gadget to win -- because that is his schtick. That is his "superpower." I'd like a character class with similar powers.

Can you offer some examples? I'm seeing this repeated a lot in this thread but I can't recall anytime batman has beaten superman in a head to head battle in canon.

TDKR by Frank Millar is the usual suspect but that was only once and is not canon. Other then that the only time I can think of is the tower of babel arc, if you count a stolen plan with months of prep-time used in a trap a head to head fight. I think of it more as a symbolic victory for batman.

Not sure about superman wins but off the top of my head he thrashed batman in the maxwell lord arc and again in their first meeting in the New 52. So that's at least two.

On Topic: It seems like the least magical we can get and still remain competitive is with liberal use of items. Even in our examples of famous literary characters they all had assistance of advanced magical or technical gadgets. So with that in mind it looks like an artificer of some type is the way to go.

5e classes are going to be very troublesome to convert because they are designed around having abilities granted by the system and not the class themselves.

For example, a 5e warlock is designed to work with spring attack and can also do some combat maneuvers without spending resources to get them because they're granted by the system. They also get spells back with just a short rest instead of a full 8 hours.

In pathfinder terms that's a lot of free feats there.

I think your better off taking the abilities of the 5e warlock that you like and just trying add just those abilities to a close pathfinder class counterpart. Like putting something from the pact of the blade Warlock on to a Magus as an example.

If I have the enlarge person spell cast on me, and then grab and fire a large size arrow (not a medium arrow that is enlarged, a separate large arrow) will I do large size damage?

Was putting together an order of the dragon cavalier for a PFS game and I wanted to see what I could do with the aid allies ability. I went online for ideas and found all the rules discussions talking about what does and doesn't stack with it. This was surprising as this was not at all the reading my home group has of the ability. This is our case:

Helpful (Halfling): "Whenever you successfully perform an aid another action, you grant your ally a +4 bonus instead of the normal +2."

Helpful: "When using the aid another action, you grant your ally a +3 bonus instead of a +2 bonus."

Aid Allies (Shadow lodge trait): "When using the aid another action, you give your ally a +3 bonus instead of a +2 bonus."

Improved Aid (Ex)(Pathfinder Chronicler power): "Pathfinder chroniclers frequently serve as the companions of great heroes, standing by their sides and recording their deeds, but often lending a crucial helping hand. Starting at 3rd level, a Pathfinder chronicler using the aid another action grants a +4 bonus, rather than the normal +2."

Fools for Friends (Second Darkness): "Whenever you take the aid another action to help an ally, or whenever an ally aids you in this manner, a successful check grants an additional +1 trait bonus to the check for which aid was being rendered. Additionally, as long as one of your friends is within 30 feet, you gain a +1 trait bonus on all saving throws against charm and compulsion effects."

Now the Aid Allies ability

Aid Allies: "At 2nd level, whenever an order of the dragon cavalier uses the aid another action to assist one of his allies, the ally receives a +3 bonus to his armor class, attack roll, saving throw, or skill check. At 8th level, and every six levels thereafter, this bonus increases by an additional +1."

Aid Allies does not seem to read as a modification to the aid another action but as a separate ability. In every case where the new bonus is meant to replace the +2 granted by the standard aid another action, it is specifically called out as granting a +3 or +4 instead of the normal +2. In the case where a +1 bonus is granted in Fools for Friends, it is specifically stated to grant a +1 trait bonus.

Aid Allies does none of these things. It does not say it replaces the normal +2 bonus, and it does not say that it grants a +1 bonus. It does not even say the Aid Allies has to go to the same ability you're aiding with the aid another action. To back this up, Aid Allies specifically states that you may grant a +3 bonus to a saving throw, which is not stated in the normal aid another action, it's barely implied as an afterthought text. It looks to us like a separate ability that triggers off of the aid another action.

For example, a cavalier uses the aid another action to give an ally a +2 bonus to an attack roll, he then uses the aid allies power to give that same ally a +3 bonus to his ac.

Thoughts?

Dark Immortal I could kiss you! This is exactly the kind of advice I need. I simply don't have the experience to know how things play later on and your perspective is invaluable. Thank you.

Lot of good advice, and I'm taking it. New build:

Race: Aasimar, Angel-Blooded
Alternate Racial traits: Scion of humanity, Truespeaker
Abilities: Str: 18 (16+2), Dex: 12, Con: 14, Int: 10, Wis: 8, Cha: 16 (14+2)
Class: Oracle
Mystery: Ancestor
Curse: ?
Favored Class Bonus: Spirit-Shield
Skills: Diplomacy, Knowledge Religion, Knowledge Planes, Linguistics (will drop one for UMD if that gets added with a trait)
Traits: Fate's Favored, something that's save+1 or Dangerously Curious?

1 feat: combat casting
3 feat: power attack
5 feat: Extra Revelation
7 feat: heavy armor/ Cleave? or meta-magic extend/quicken?

Revelations I'll be getting go like this: spirit shield, ancestral weapon, voice of the grave, wisdom of the ancestors, spirit warrior.

While I won't be focusing on casting, with a charisma of 16 would it be worth it take murderous command or Hold Person when they come available? It's only 1 off the DC from 18 so I think they'd be useful as long I make sure I get the buff spells I need first.

Dark Immortal- Good advice, power attack is back in, favored bonus goes in to spirit shield, ancestral weapon won't be my primary but I think it might be useful to be able to just summon whatever weapon I need whenever so I'll take it later. And yeah I agree that the ancestor mystery is really lacking on the mechanics but I'm just too hooked on the flavor. Next time I'll look into re-flavoring the dark tapestry mystery.

Wasum- Haunted is going to give me mage hand, ghost sound, levitate and minor image and that's it. Is it worth it? With tongues I could just pick common at level 5 and negate pretty much the whole curse couldn't I?

thenovalord- Thanks for the encouragement. How'd the oracle's play, was there any weaknesses you noticed in your early builds that you fixed in your later oracles?

Kalvir- I think your right with dual-cursed. I'm really just getting misfortune out of it with bestow-curse as icing and it does kind of dilute the focus. I'll drop it for now and use it later in a support life oracle character. Adding the Truespeaker trait to get more from linguistics. That storm of blades idea is awesome! I love the thought of summoning ghost swords and flinging them at enemies.

Chun Hei- How's she doing? Is there anything you wish you'd of changed? And I noticed you went dual-cursed, how has that worked out for you?

Really new to pathfinder and I'm going to start joining the society. My problem though is I have no experience past level 1 (only played 1 game)and so I don't know what I have to be prepared for down the road. Hoping you guys can use your wealth of game lore to make this guy stay useful and alive.

Race: Aasimar, Angel-Blooded
Abilities: Str: 18 (16+2), Dex: 10, Con: 12, Int: 10, Wis: 8, Cha: 18 (16+2)
Class: Oracle
Mystery: Ancestor, Dual-cursed
Curse: Haunted, Tongues (advancing)
Favored Class Bonus: ?
Skills: Diplomacy, Knowledge Religion and 2 more...
Traits: Fate's Favored (Stack with Divine Favor is good right?), Then maybe a will save increase for second trait? Or add UMD as a skill?

1 feat: Extra Revelation (pick up misfortune and I think ancestral weapon as my revelations)
3 feat: No idea for the rest

So a lot of blanks but here was my thought process. 3/4 BAB means this guy is going to be a secondary melee so my usefulness to the group is really going to be through putting out some OK damage and buffing the others. I figure using a longspear to keep some distance from the enemy and take dual-cursed so I can help out the others by re-rolling enemy crits.

These are my concerns with the character and where I need some advice:

1. Stats. Is the 18 Cha worth it for a melee oracle? Because I could go Str: 18 (16+2), Dex: 12, Con: 14, Int: 10, Wis: 8, Cha: 16 (14+2) which seems like a stronger array.

2. Hitting the enemy. Being dual-cursed means I lose Heroism. That SUCKS. Is it worth it? Or does the Ancestor oracle really need heroism to melee?

3. Staying alive. I got a d8 hit die, no dex and no heavy armor. How do I get the AC to survive? Take a feat for Plate?

4. Favored Class Bonus. Where would you put this? I'm kind of looking at storm of souls. I know it's usually a bad blast but at Level 6 I'm looking at 4d8 dmg to normals and 9d8 dmg to undead. At 8 that turns into 12 d8 dmg to undead. Worth it as a big anti-undead spell?

5. FEATS! I have no idea. I saw the math somewhere in this forum showing that power attack isn't worth it for a 3/4 BAB class so there goes my main stay. Maybe the eldritch heritage line?

Everything is on the table for change except for the Ancestor Mystery. I love the flavor too much to change that.

I know that's a lot of text and questions but you don't have to answer all of it, any help is appreciated.