Thalin's page

After 4 rounds, our group is adding to the list leaving the playtest.

It's not that I think that classes or powers are underpowered. There are some balance issues that have been beat to death (non-scaling druid forms, bardic performances, etc). It's not the lack of the difference between "trained" and legendary... these are problems to be sure, but I am confident the team will eventually fix these issues.

No, the issue is I think the game is, fundamentally, not fun. And I don't know that you can fix this with just playing and rebalancing.

It took playing the (I enjoyed it) Pathfinder: Kingmaker video game to really help me understand the real difference here. I must have played the first act 10 times, just because I wanted to test various combos and builds and rebuilds and feat setups. This was what Pathfinder was all about, what DND 3.5 had that 4.0 and 5.0 lacked, the ability that you were truly building towards something unique with tons of options. Someone that could do their "special trick" without worrying too much about the die roll mitigation.

With Pathfinder 2.0, it felt like no matter what you did, your success was more or less 50/50 on pretty much every action you did (poor scaling made the monsters hitting on 6-7 while parties hit on 13-14, but again I have some confidence you'd balance that out). Your tanks were 2-3 points higher AC than your non-tanks; which sounds like a "big deal", but in our play simply meant things were more regulated to the dice.

And actions? You were so focused on making sure that things can't stack or build in ways that you did not anticipate that, well, everyone is cookie cutter. Yes a few classes have certain specific "long term goal setups" that you can pick and choose (Paladin change was good, for the record; I played a paladin in our final round). But by and large, every character feels the same, like I can't really put much thought into my character creation and say "look how cool!"

In the end, the best you can do with this fundamental system is add a few more interesting options and fix the bad abilities to be slightly better or scale better. But this isn't going to change having a system based too much on everyone being average at everything.

My hope that I don't think will be realized from 2.0 is that you take the parts that work well (love the "3 action setup", I think there SHOULD be a limit to the number of ongoing buffs that characters can have going on, and like at least the idea of the racial feats for free... even if I think there are obvious choices for nearly every race). Take those pieces, put them into PF 1.0 system, and you have something better (already you've given martials "move and attack", which I think was the only thing they were honestly lacking). I hope you do not let Pathfinder die into a 4.0 "blah" system... remember that PF dominated the market because players hated DND 4th.

Please. I believe in you Paizo. With love and hope,

-Dave

Morning Paizo. I don't really think your survey is enough to give "True" feedback, so I wanted to come back to the forums and do a post-up.

My character for the playtest, part 2, was a Dwarven Monk. I wanted to experiment with multi-classing, and wanted to see dwaves "in action".
Here were my thoughts on everything (for those reading, minor spoilers below). I ended up using Rogue, even as I saw that it would probably
be better to be a fighter. I also wanted to see how combat manuevers worked, so I "Experted" Athletics and took lots of skils aroudn it.

*The rogue add-on feels MUCH weaker than the fighter add-on. Rogue gets "suprise attack", which doesn't really come into play terribly often
(especially considering how relatively easy it is to flank etc). Fighters get full access to all weapons and armor; and fighter feats are simply
better at low levels. I'd like to see something more iconic... maybe make the sneak attack "d4 style" be what you get as a rogue multi-classing
(since sneak-attack is probably why you took it anyway).

*For wanting to be a manuever specialist, I sure couldn't find any athletics-based skills that let you do a manuever better than anyone else.
I used the opportunity to become a jumping specialist... which turned out good. Assurance was a lot better than I thought for athletics... the ability
to just know I could make 15 foot jumps (expert athletic + extra 5 foot feat + quick jump) was good for determining landing spots.

*Combat in general felt pretty sloggish. Part of the problem were the monsters... when they generally have ACs in the low 20s and our highest was 20;
and they get +13 to hit compared to our +8, it felt like the scenario where they rarely missed and we rarely hit.

Only the containment fields on the elementals kept us alive... those things were rough. Our GM said this has been a general belief, and that crit immunity at low levels will be discussed; much less the air/earth elementals ability to take exactly 1 hit without everyone go into "ready" mode.

*You sure reintroduced the "Cure Light Wound" effects quickly. Yes we had long combat days... but at no point did we actually enter a combat with less than full health. Medicine is required; and like a lot of skill-check based thing, sitting there rolling dice until that person rolled a 1 (and the party
became "bolstered" for them), then moving to the next peson seemed like a waste of time. I know you want longer adventuring days... but I thought part of the CLW effect was it removing the danger of traps and the need to ever go in combat with less than full hp.

*Manuevers were actually pretty good

The gnoll fight (we had a player who had made their background a slave by gnolls, so yes, it was a fight) was great for testing the "push" manuever; and indirectly the "grab edge" reaction. Grappling seemed effective. Disarm seemed terrible so I did not even try. For the crab, grapple leading to it ending up tripped on a nat-1 showed lots of potential danger

*However, it emphasized that there felt like almost no difference between an "expert" and a "trained" character. Lacking any exciting feats, the +1 was a 5% bonus... leading to the die having a lot more outcome than how I spent my skills. I think your introduction of the -4 to "untrained" skills
really did what it was supposed to... we stopped doing the "everyone roll every knowledge check" scenarios. I think this could be extended.... double the bonuses to each level on everything. It should fix itself... a legendary armor vs legendary weapon user is still relatively the same. And I do think the
difference between a Legendary person at a skill and a untrained one should be the difference in a critical (a success for the untrained guy being critical for the Legend).

*With the higher hit points and "static" options, games don't feel as diverse as 1st edition. I've been a big advocate and really trying to push the idea of change. But I feel like I am playing the same problems of 4th edition... they tried to overbalance everything, and doing so took away options and
made everyone seem kinda "blah". I don't like that feeling... I can't put my finger on it, but I think something needs to make the combats more exciting and have more options.

*Animal companions were god-awful. We had a ranger and a druid (animal companion specialist). The druid's animal companion occasionally got a hit for a little damage, but the rangerrarely felt it was worth 1 of his actions for 2 low-damage attacks from the animal companion. Also, they suffer from lack of feeling special as well.

*Monks still feel bad relative to the "weapon" classes. With the magic weapon spell being 1st level, and all the emphasis on making a weapon magical adding dice, a d12 feels like a requirement for weapons. Anything not rolling d12 had better have some amazing keywords to make it worth swinging. Also, the expert in unarmored did not make up for what armor can do for you. Not that it mattered (see the monster's high to-hit).

Again I can't emphasize the combat is starting to feel very 4th edition-like. It seemed you went SO safe in the design of the new edition that you took no risks and effectively made everyone feel the exact same. You have lots of potential actions that could be useful in a variety of circumstances... fill up our arsenal of options. As a monk, I should have had a million extra actions for Athletics to be cool... I had none (I think there was one that lets
you do str in damage if you start a grapple... that is terrible). Barbarians should have options to make their various rages more cool. And experts relative to trained should feel more diverse.

And just so we can say it, I'm not coming down hard... I like the way the levels are set up and the fact you are trying to give options. They just don't feel risky enough. You took the game's power level down 95%... I think you need to consider dialing it back up in the final edition.

Always a fan! I know this is playtest and far from the final version.

Just wanted to make sure, they can Freedom of Movement right? Does this immediately qualify them for Eldritch Knight?

If so, they're REALLY good as a 1-level qualifier. For 1 splash, you get (relative to the "standard fighter"):

*Weapon Focus (makes up for lost BAB)
*A 2nd good save
*The ability to use all cleric wands
*1-2 1st level spells a day
*Full qualification (not needing to be Aasimar/Diviner... this is a question).
*Probably the best blessing of them all.

You lose
*2 HP
*1 BAB (again, weapon focus mostly covers this, though you get 2nd attack @ 8 instead of 7).

So in a PFS game recently, my Archivist Bard and the crew he was working with ran into some random statues that got free trip attacks when they hit.

My archivist has his Naturalist (gives a bonus to AC), and he has Bodyguard (lets him do AOOs vs attacks to add to AC).

The GM ruled that neither of these could actually add to CMD. Looking afterwards (I allowed the ruling through because I hate arguing with GMs during the game), I could not find any supporting rulings to the contrary that would say I could add them. But I remember some ruling somewhere that said if it did not say otherwise, AC bonuses work with CMD.

Any clues/insight?

So here is the setup I am planning. This is a PFS character, so I want it "as good as possible" low levels (as well as high). I actually like the idea, since I will be 1 "spell level behind" (but with a trait, my caster level will actually be FULL).

Things that are not changing:
*I have to be a Scryer Diviner, as I do not want to be a Wis/Chr Aasimar (I appreciate you can make a Sorcerer, but getting 2nd level spells @ 5 is hard enough, I don't want to wait till 6).
*This is an archer build
*For the reasons above, I am only taking 1 level. I appreciate the possibilities a 2nd or 3rd level gives, but I want my caster level to be = my level.
*Spells are currently going to be primarily focused on self-buffing... most of my rounds will be shooting with a little utility.

So here are 2 stat blocks):

Str: 14 (Deadly aim, and I want to keep damage up).
Int: 14 (or 16 if Tiefling, which is an option)
Wis: 12
Dex: 18
Con: 12
Chr: 7 (5 if tiefling)

or:

Str: 13 (at least qualifies for deadly aim)
Int: 16 (18 Tiefling)
Wis: 7
Dex: 18
Con: 14
Chr: 7

Worse will saves / no perception variant that has more hp / better saves on spells / more skill points. Give-and-take.

Potential Classes (Setup "Choice Class 1" / Wizard (Scryer) 1 / Eldritch Knight X)

Fighter: The default. Would probably go tiefling, since I get the extra feat here. Would be Lore Warden just for the 2 extra skill points, since armor proficiency does me no good.

Magus: Arcana lets me enchant up the bow to +1; the few archtypes I would want take away full weapon proficiency. Would get 1 extra spell, but would lose 2 hp and a feat (and this is a feat-intensive build). 2 lost skill points.

And yes, I looked at the Merm. I didn't care for it; the Knight setup SEEMS better than this.

Urban Barbarian: Controlled Rage for Dex is flat-out awesome for a few rounds per day, gives 2 hp and +1 AC on fair occasion. Same skill points.

Divine Hunter: Smite evil 1/day (nearly worthless, as I'm probably not pumping Chr just for this), but gets the same extra feat (would pick up Precise @ 1 anyway). 2 less skill points.

Ranger (Battle Scout): 2 extra skill points, great class skill list, +2 to hit / damage once per day. +2 Reflex save. But loses the extra feat. Looking strong though; a human battle scout is where I'm leaning towards.

Sohei: Deflect Arrows is nice for archers, +2 to Will and Ref, threaten with unarmed strike, +1 AC (we'll assume the 12 Wis build here).

So feat plan for pally or fighter + human would be:

1) PBS, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot
3) Arcane Strike, Weapon focus(bow)
5) Weapon spec(bow)
7) Multishot, Deadly Aim
9) Improved Crit

With non-fighter (or Tiefling)

1) PBS, Precise Show
3) Arcane Strike, Rapid Shot
5) Deadly aim
7) Multi-shot (if available, would use retraining rules @ 8 to get this otherwise), Weapon Focus
9) Weapon Spec

Thoughts?

What do people think

OK, so here's the situation.

My character was fighting a dragon. The dragon, not particularly liking a flying monk annoying him, decides that it would be smart to take away the flying carpet. So, he does a Steal combat manuever and takes the carpet.

Later, the dragon continues to be annoyed by the party. So it burrows (it has the skill) and drops the carpet deep into the ground, then offers us another chance to pay a surrender cost. The dragon is also threatening to full-attack an already injured back line member. At this point, with a party death and me losing a 20K magic item both at probable risk (The GM said I would lose it permanently if we did not figure out a way to get it back), we decide to surrender and pay the dragon's bounty.

Now, let's pretend that this did not occur; we go ahead and beat the dragon, and now the carpet is effectively unrecoverable. In the handbook, I can pay 5 PP to have my whole body brought back if it is "otherwise unrecoverable". Is it possible for me to pay 5 PP / any level of PP to get it back? The carpet is effectively the cost of 3 deaths, and obviously cost me a pretty penny to get in the first place.

I just want to know the options in case shinanigans like this occur again :).

So a module that I shall not name gives a creature the once per day ability to cast Inflict Serious Wounds at Tier 1-2. I had a table of lowbies (2 2s, 4 4s); and per usual rolled my dice in front of everyone. A critical came up, and I didn't think the ninja I just hit could survive 6d8+10 damage (he had already announce. I quickly decided the creature suddenly had the ability to cast Inflict Moderate Wounds twice per day, and reduced the damage to 4d8+6 damage for the crit (which dropped him to -7, so the extra 2d8+4 would have been "certain death", pending rolling 2 1s on the extra d8s).

Similarly, in the same mod I decided that a creature with an AOO attempt on a guy with 1 hp deciding to stand would want to take a hostage, and had him go for subdual damage (said creature hit for 2d6+4, again giving the potential that would have been realized of killing that PC).

Do people feel this is justified for the first few levels, and do other GMs do this for "lowbie" tables?

We had a few odd situations come up that I was hoping someone could shed light upon in regards to grappling. This is based on PFS, so I want rules to be based on RAW if possible?

1) A creature is grappled, then pinned, then "roped up" (effectively pinned by rope). Said creature was holding a wand it pulled when the grapple starts, and starts using it every round. Is this allowed?

2) Similarly, a much larger and stronger monster is pinned and then "roped up" in a different grapple. I am still holding onto him when he is pinned. The GM ruled that A) As an alternative to trying the impossible DC to escape the ropes (20 + my CMB, with nat 20s not working); said creature could "burst" the ropes somehow. It makes sense to some degree (though somewhat detracts from my future dreams to rope up the Tarrasque). But is there anything in raw that supports that you can do this type of action while pinned?

3) Further in #2 above, he ruled that I couldn't be holding the creature while the ropes were pinning them; therefore the creature was totally free. I agree with this to some extent (the best I could do might be to assist the ropes), but that made the monster completely free just by "busting the ropes". So it legal for me to maintain the "pinned" condition, doing damage and holding in case a monster somehow breaks free; or would this be against the rules of RAW?

I just wanted to see whether any of these were right; I didn't have anything I could think of to site to say either of these moves were illegal (and don't like arguing rules at the table), but would like to know the ruling for the future in case it comes up again.

Let's take a monk who switched out flurry of blows for another feature, but wants to use two-weapon fighting with both unarmed strikes. Is this RAW (IE: PFS) legal? It states that unarmed strike counts as a light weapon for the purposes of unarmed strike, but can it count as both the "off" hand and the "on" hand?

So already on my Monk's "to buy" list is the Spectral Shroud, which grants permanent detect invisibility and a way to get away from flying creatures and many other things martials don't like to deal with. For 26K and your usually-unused body slot (monks robe notwithstanding), I recommend it for any martial above, say, 10th level; but that is neither here nor there.

Well, it also enables you, once a day, to turn incorporeal. This is handy for say, fighting incoporeal creatures or getting places you want.

1. So now let's say I want to get even trickier. My Amulet of Mighty Fist has Ghosttouched (or will if I can do some of the interactions I would like), and I would like to grapple my corperal foe from the incorperal world. Is this a legal action?

2. You could argue only "attacks" or corperal; which still begs the question... can I turn incoporeal and, say, trip people from the otherly realm?

3. Finally, someone mentioned on my "drop out to grapple" that, while you would fall immediately once you stopped being incorperal, you could possibly "ready to grapple", then use the dismiss action as a move to grab your flying opponent (dealing with flying invisible mages is a pain yo). Would this be legal?

You could argue only "attacks" or corperal; which still begs the question... can I turn incoporeal and, say, trip people from the otherly realm?

Inquiring monks want to know.

So many who now play PFS may remember Living Greyhawk. The world started out great, with interesting and diverse characters; and a fair-but-easy-to-get into challenge level.

Then the splat books came. With them came amazing magic (we all talk about "CoDzilla" and the use of divine metamagic), incredible classes, etc. Suddenly the modules had to ramp up in power level, and it began to block newer players from playing (since most newer players didn't read or optimize through all of the SPLATbooks), and everyone group in power. The world eventually became a mess and collapsed.

Now let's look at what is happening in today's world of PFS. APG was a pretty big "power burst", with Summoners and Witches outpowering the melees somewhat; and the addition of Kits giving a good, but still more powerful, variant to the base classes. It was a minor enough bump though, and the Ultimate books succeeded in adding more options without overly affecting balance. Life continued to be good.

Now I'm starting to get a little worried. The main issue I have is with Advanced Races, and specifically with the allowance of "variant" Tieflings and Aasimir. The Tiefling and Aasimir alone were considered "powerful enough"; Aasimir especially had 2 positive stats, no negative ones, great "favored class options", and the unheard-of ability to start with 2nd or 3rd level daily spells. Now you add the ability to actually place those stats (almost) wherever you wan. These days it's becoming more and more rare to see non-Planar players (I played at a table with 4 the other day, and the only non-planars were myself (playing a also-overpowered-but-not-quite-as-much Tengu; and a new plaer). And why not? Aasimir and Tiefling characters are insanely powerful.

We've talked about options of bringing CR-4 monsters to low-tier campaigns in the thread "Battle Cattle". We're starting to see something Pathfinder was attempting to avoid... those weird "multi-class monsters" from 3.5 that cherry-pick abilities from several front-loaded classes to get insane number of attacks. And the modules are increasing the challenge to make up for this; I would be concerned about any newer-player base that tries to go into a Season 4 module, and expect the power levels to increase at Season 5.

So what are thoughts here? Should Paizo start locking things down, restrict the "alternate" planestouched, and make some rule that prevents the animals from joining the party if their CR is above the class level? Should they just let things be and increase the power of the campaign? Should they let it be but assume newer players won't access these books and keep the power level low (essentially making most "advanced" players cakewalk modules)? Should they reinforce the boon requirements for races like Tengu, Aasimir, and Tieflings (or at least require boons for Aasimir and Tieflings to have any but the "base" setup)?

So I witnessed an interesting tactic in a campaign two days ago, and wanted to find out this is legal?

The player was playing a 3rd level sorceress who happened to have purchased a Bison with 2 PP. Bison are large creatures that, for the record, have Trample that does 2d6+12 (half if saved) to anyone who fails their reflex save OR takes an AOO. You can imagine how breaking that is before, say, level 5 or so.

Now, the Bison was trained with the Trample command and the player made their handle animal check, and proceeded to be able to wipe out a squad of 4 guards for extensive damage. I can imagine that, were it able to accompany us in the rest of our adventure, it would have done similarly all around; after all, to get a Bison into play via summon takes Summon Monster IV, a 7th level spell.

I guess my question is "how would you handle this situation" and "how legal is it"? As a strict RAW, considering the legality of purchasing animals I don't see anything against this; but of course knowing Bison I would find it difficult to believe it would be intelligent enough to pull this off (I would at least use that as an excuse to not draw "perfect" trample lines. At the very least, I would deem the cow too stupid to tell friend from foe; it would trample the direction pointed and keep going.

So, how would you adjudicate this? Is it a legal tactic, and if so would you let the player control the battle cattle or would you just have them point a direction and go?

Want to open this up to all of the rules lawyers (and this is all for RAW play, btw, since I am talking about a PFS character). This came up in an online game yesterday.

So enter Polly, the Manuever Master / Lore Warden. His regular attack action is typically claw / claw / bite, with an extra manuever of his choice, per Manuever Master. He chooses NOT to make an unarmed strike (though he could), since that would make his claw / claw / bite secondary attacks (which would mean -5 to attack, a bad thing).

For clarification, in addition to my "Flurry of Manuever" bonus, we are talking about doing trips as a substitution for a claw attack (Combat Manuever - Dirty Trick from flurry / claw as trip / claw as trip / bite as disarm is a "typical" Polly Round).

Here is manuever master's "Flurry of Manuevers"

So life is good there, and he often gets many tricks. Well, one of the feats he has is Ki Throw, which was pointed out tonight does NOT allow you to work if you are using natural weapons, since they are not unarmed strikes.

and of course the relevant text on doing "Tripping":

1) The GM argued I can't even use my Manuever Master bonus attack as an "Unarmed Strike", unless I wanted to make my claw / claw / bite manuever secondary attacks. Is this correct? This might end up making the feat completely worthless; but luckily I can trade it out with Fighter 4 (which I might take "sooner rather than later" if this is the case).

The reason this is relevant is the text in Ki Throw that states you must use an unarmed strike.

2) Is my (new) reading of the feat correct; IE: am I restricted from doing Ki Throw when I trip with a Claw or Bite attack? One of our locals said no, that you don't technically use te "claw" attack:

3) I've been taking -4 on my claw and bite attacks to disarm; if they are not unarmed strikes, do I actually not take this -4? I know it means that I don't end up with the weapon in hand, but I usually immediate-action drop it anyway.

This was a local's answer:

Unusual Speciman Trait

You were born somewhat different from others of your race

You may only take this trait at first level, and it costs 2 trait slots.

Choose either a physical bonus (Str, Dex, Con) or a mental bonus (Int, Wis, Chr). You may swap it with another bonus of the same type. This may be used to counteract a negative.

For instance, a dwarf with this trait may have +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Cha; or just +2 Con (trading the Wisdom bonus to negate the charisma penalty).

Comments: I was initially going to make this a "1st level only" feat, but realized Paizo tends to make those into traits. So I made it a trait that costs 2 traits (effectively a feat, but a little more flexible).

Just as a matter of note, races seem to NEED the racial bonus in order to stay competitive in Pathfider. Sure you can have the odd elven fighter, but he's going to be mechanically inferior tO his full-strength counterpart.

This will give PCs more flexibility; in essence get us away from the human dominated world we seem to live in. It would make more unusual builds like dwarven wizards viable, and the Halfling outrider paladin would be much better

What are thoughts? I think it would be a fairly popular but not overpowered trait that would make the Pathfinder race-class selection much more diverse.

OK, so yOu stat out like a weak and lovable genius half-elf

Tiny Tim (Half-elf)
Str: 7
Int: 14
Wis: 16
Dex: 7
Con: 7
Chr: 20
Free skill focus: UMD
1: Free Evolution 3: Combat Reflexes 5: Free evolution
And stay permanently infused with your angelic Eidilon (cute so people won't run in fear). Say you decide to Be a quadreped. You become:

Str: 14
Int: 14
Wis: 16
Dex: 14
Con: 13
Chr: 20

Evolution: UMD (+8) Arms (2) Claws (1)

You have 3 attacks; not a ton of damage at 1 but it'll scale quickly. You have a UMD of +19 (activate any wand on a 1, 1st level). You will later start spending evolution points to increase charisma and cast your slows etc at massive DCs (figure by 4 when you get slow you have a stat item and the DC is 20). And your AC should be through the roof (major armor self). Also, good saves and 4 skill points / level. A self-buffing, casting melee machine, and by 8 you'll be large for "free" (2 feats and your 8 levels of favored bonus), have a 30 Charisma (+4 evolutions +2 levels +4 item).

A bit good?

All right, so after the growth domain I decided the Fighter X / Inquisitor 1 "growth polearm" fighter would be fun to play. Here is my planned feat setup:
1st (Human Fighter): Weapon Focus (Glaive), Dodge, Combat Reflexes
2nd (inquis) - Plant (growth) domain
3rd: Combat Expertise, Mobility
5th: Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack
6th: Weapon Spec

(If it matters, Str 18 Int 14 Wis 12 Dex 14 Con 12 Chr 7)
Idea obviously will be to grow my size instantly and whirlwind everyone within 15 feat (including adjacent thanks to Polearm fighter).
So I was thinking about what to do after... starting to take disruptive came to mind, but then I encounter Hamutula Strike.

Basically with 3 feats (IUS, Improved Grapple, Hamutula Strike), I can set up such that, when I stab someone, we grapple. This feat is legal in PFS, where thus charActer is designed for.

Now my question comes in with the Strike + Whirlwind. Do I get to attemp to grapple everyone struck, or once it gets one are we grappled and "done"? What is the timing on immediate vs finishing my whirlwind?

The idea for this is traditionally we are given a certain amount, usually 15 - 20 points, to derive our base stats. These points are then distributed, at a cost of the level's bonus, per stat point, rather than a static amount.

The issue is that, strictly speaking, this encourages more power in the SAD characters, and encourages people to put all points into a single stat. Further, it can actually cause disparity... A character at level 8 who uses his stat points to raise a 13 to 14 and a 15 to 16 is actually considered 5 "points" behind someone who optimized and moved a 20 to a 22.

So, my solution? Make a point "pool".

At level 1, you get your first point in this pool, essentially making you a 21 point build. Unlike starting stat points, you can save these up, and you can raise stats above 18. The cost is the same as the bonus; so raising 18 to 19 costs 5.

You get another point per level; you could probably even get away with a feat that gives yet another point, but we won't go into that.

So, diverse and MAD characters come out much better; SAD characters a little worse. I think it would help eliminate disparity.

Thoughts?

Hey all.

I'm running Shattered City; and for those who know I am in Chapter 6, which with non-spoiler a very minor portion of it has to do with "a tower". I've decided to make this a bigger focus of the story, and would love if there is a published (Pathfinder GREATLY preffered, but 3.5 if necessary) Tower module that will get the PCs through levels 10-11. I'd like somewhere in the neighborhood of 18-24 hours of game play (4 of our 6 hour sessions; generally fast group), but am flexibile there (just no "in one sitting").

The plot etc are largely irrelevant (as the plot will come from the module). The big issue is that chapter is the first (of I believe 2) chapters which are sadly great plot with random encounters; I really don't like "trudge fights", and don't think my players would either. Again, really a shame because the chapter has a fantastic plot.

So anyway, any recommendations for a good 10-11 tower module (just need a tower set up with some creatively-populated encounters)? I don't want to spend the time / resources to build up my own (not much of a mapper, don't want to devote my life to making my campaign).

Masochism for Fun and Profit
A Paladin Optimization Guide

Introduction

Inspired by the excellent Treatmonk guidebooks, I decided to do one up for the front-line player in all of us. Like Treatmonk, I tend to play for high-power, and before Pathfinder Society you never would see me put out a guide for any melee class. Times have changed, the Paladin probably gained more than any other class in conversion over. Now, instead of being a bad secondary healer/tank, they are excellent and effective Masochist Tanks.

A few things to know about me

*I don't play past level 15, and recently past level 12. I am firmly a Living Campaign player; as you get older it just gets harder to keep a home campaign together and running consistently. Even back when I had the 13-year home campaigns running, we would stop somewhere in the 12-16 range... after that the game simply gets silly. Oh, I've had the odd 1-or-2 session campaign where we built the most powerful gods we could at high level just to strut our stuff, but that gets old quick for me. So high level content, if included at all, will be mentioned briefly and entirely theorized
*I generally play front line caster types, most notably druids and clerics; though recently I've expanded to bards and paladins because of their great PF upgrades. So while I have much appreciation for the Sorcerer or Wizard of the party, I'm not that guy.
*Like Treatmonk, I believe it to be the most fun to play a character who is good at his role. Most consider me a great role-player, but that's not what this is about; it's about making sure you can do what a paladin does best.

With all that said, on to the guide.

Masochist Tanking

So why is it masochist tanking? Well, generically, Paladins are able to take blows better than anyone; even a comparitvely same-level fighter. Why, you may ask? Simply put, they have the best saves in the game, and they have Lay on Hands, a power that has converted into the only combat healing that should ever be done.

See, like Treatmonk, I agree that the WAY overplayed healer is a total waste of the party resources. While the rare combat healing might be necessary, it's not going to outdo the damage that monsters are made to dish out. So everyone needs to be able to contribute their fair share.

So, with that said, unlike the regular fighter, you use this free healing and con as your secondary stat to get more damage through. Monsters see themselves hitting, so they target you more. Everyone is happy; you have effectively the most HP possible, and the best saving throws in the game, so the more you are hit the happier you are. Masochism indeed.

Your Role – and Roleplaying

Well, if you read a Treatmonk guide, you may be asking what role the paladin plays. You get to play the Big Stupid Fighter in spades, but you also to a lesser extent get to play the Fop. You don't have skill points to really spare (some builds may only get 1 skill point a level, thanks to the “Intelligence Dump Stat” syndrome), so you have to pick and choose what to play.

Now, with that said, we'll address something that must be talked about: Roleplaying a paladin. Usually this wouldn't come up in an optimization guide, but many people cringe at the idea of having a paladin in the party because of how people typically roleplay their restrictions. Paladins can be as if not more fun than any other class, and can be fun to have around and share ideas with. Here are the various potential Paladin roleplayings:

The Prick: Sadly, 90% of the Paladins I've seen are playing this role. You tell people they can't do things because it's a violation of your conduct. You try to force the lawful good values, and refuse to kill anyone who's surrendered to you, causing awkward attempts to take prisoners to jails they'll no doubt overpower and take over. At the most extreme, you enter booming a challenge at everyone and refuse to take advantage of the act of suprise (this is referred to affectionately as “Lawful Stupid). It's a terrible person to have in the party; it's both cumbersome (where do you keep all that rope?) and annoying. If you see party members starting to whisper behind your back and plan things without you because they don't want to argue every night, or if god forbid you start rolling initiative to see if someone gets killed (I've seen this on more than one occasion), than you are The Prick. Take a deep breath, and explore other options.

The Valkyrie (or Avenger): Think Judge Dread, or Avenging Angels, or Batman. You are here for a purpose, and you will not accept surrender as an option. You will let the party generally work in whatever parameters they want, including setting traps and taking the enemy by surprise, as long as they are brought to justice and no innocents are hurt. When you are talking with enemies, you don't talk nice, you strike PURE FEAR into their hearts (high skill:Intimidate). When you find their head, you will not accept surrender for the terrible deeds they have done.

The Valkyrie tends to push the bounds of Lawful Good; they are the purest form of Lawful, with a desire to bring back order to society. They will not compromise situations to hurt innocents, but by the same token they take a hard hand to enemies. The party will actually accept you into their plans; they aren't going to have to plan behind you in order to use poisons or traps or lying to get what they need from enemies.

The Innocent Idealist: Far from the Avenger, the innocent idealistic is the most gullible person on the planet. Always have a smile on your face, and believe everything told to you (and go out of your way to make it clear you will take anything said at face value). Talk in a Tiny Tim style accent if you can.

The Idealist embraces the low Wisdom expected of today's Paladin (yay dump stats) with the loveable, high charisma found within Paladins. People know they can get away with things, just by keeping you distracted or fooled; you'll never role Sense Motive on them. So again, you are kept within and people find you fun rather than a burden.

The Tai Master: Usually reserved for Monks and Clerics, the Tai master will never impose their harsh standards on anyone else. They will offer suggestions in the “How do you feel about this?” style (think “New Age” people). If the person decides for themselves to take the good path, give them a smile and small words to encourage them in the future. If not, say nothing negative at all... remember their path to enlightenment may be far away from yours.

The Tai Master works great for Lawful Good clerics, where I have played one successfully. Unlike the other roles, he is often able to get the group to gradually change to more good ways; it's human nature to like the encouragement given. The only reason I add caution to this is it is hard to justify with a low wisdom, and sadly dump stats are necessary for an effective paladin. But if you can deal with not quite playing your scores, or de-optimizing a bit for roleplaying purposes, the Master is a great choice that everyone will be able to get along with.

Various Roles For a Paladin:

So unlike most caster types, Paladins really do two things, and they do the very well: They take damage and dish it out. The more attacks you can get coming your way, the better off your party is. Your saves are LEAPS AND BOUNDS better than everyone elses; you have two good saves in the most important areas, and you get ~+3 (and after stat items +4-+6) to all saves. You have continual hp regeneration on tap (1d6 per 2 levels you've achieved; as a swift action). So really all that is left is to pick a way to make things WANT to attack you.

First, what is better left to others

You are not the AC fighter. Oh sure, you are proficient with heavy armor, and the archer build even has a pretty good dexterity. But they get all the armor optimizations that make this work well, and they have the feats to spare if they really want them to grab dodge and armor specialization and whatever to work with them.

You are not the two weapon fighter. Just way too many feats, and the payoff is very low. Without precision damage two-handed fighters just tend to do less than these guys; and getting two magical weapons is way too expensive for a melee type.

You are not the combat maneuver specialist. This role has really downgraded in PF to begin with (Trip and Grapple are nowhere close to what they used to be), and you certainly don't have the spare feats.

So what does that leave:

The archer. Archer paladins are surprisingly good. If you're not a Human you'll probably want to take 3rd level as a Fighter just so you have both Precise and Rapid Shot lined up by 3rd level; otherwise your effectiveness at low levels will drop. But this class eventually has the highest AC, and is not subject to having to close like most fighters; this means they get to full attack every round.

The charger. Want to be the charger? Here's a hint you'll learn from 3.5: Be a small character. You heard right, I'll talk more later, but Gnomes and Halflings make by far the best lance chargers. Why? Because Medium mounts are far easier to maneuver around in dungeons. The charger is great because of maneuverability; with high-speed full frontal attacks that can leave opponents prone and bleeding badly.

The two-handed swinger. Takes very few feats, and has great damage output. This class is great at getting into people's faces and making them deal with you, which makes it a default role. One of the issues is as a Paladin you really can't spread specialization, so it will be hard when fights go to range/flight. So at low and mid levels this class IS the best, but will find itself quickly outpaced by the other two roles.

Race Selection:

The Paladin is suprisingly diverse; each of the 3 roles has a very different race that it would like, and a few fine fallbacks if you want to play them for roleplaying purposes.

Human: +2 Strength (or Dex for the Archer) and a free much-needed feat make Humans an EXCELLENT choice for paladins. This is right after the Halfling for the best role for The Archer (and unlike Halfling doesn't need a level of fighter), and is the best two-handed swinger.

Half-Elf: Generally a little worse than a human because of being feat-starved, the Skill Focus makes it handy for those who want to be able to pick up UMD, but in general I would skip this.

Half-Orc: Orc Ferocity is better for you than anyone else; thanks to your ability to heal without pausing. And darkvision is awesome to have on tap. Again though, the feats are needed, so if you want +2 to any stat, I'd generally good human. Still, they are an excellent second option for two-handed swingers.

Gnomes: By far the best charger, the Gnome gives you 2 of your 3 excellent stats. Sadly they take a hit in Strength (which sucks hardcore; you'll be working hard to make up for that). But higher hp than anyone else and a nice Charisma bump makes them hold better; I give them the nod over

Halfling: My pick for best archers, they get the 2 most important stats, +1 to AC, and +1 to hit with those bows. The speed 15 is much less relevant for archers; and not much of a step-down from speed 20 anyway. Eventually you'll be in a Mithril Chain Shirt anyway; so you'll get a little back.

Dwarf: Just... no. I know they're good in WOW, but seriously, nothing going for them.

Class Features:

Not color coded unless you get a choice, usually with Paladins (unlike casters) you take what you can get.

Detect Evil at will: This is known in my campaigns as the “Paladar”. While it doesn't work in all situations, it often makes up for a lack of perception by being able to see through doors that bad guys are in position. Concentrate the 3 rounds, get their general positions, alert the party, and open up. Don't use this as a justification to kill things, but do use it to see whether an NPC generally can be trusted. After all, they don't know you're using it, and direct target takes only 1 round to get all the info.

Smite Evil: Oh god. This is the bread and butter of Paladins. +3-+6 to all attacks, add your level to damage (twice vs certain very powerful things... at mid to high levels evil outsiders are typical default adversaries). Nothing can take out BBEG quite like this, and now it works on your archery too. You'll do exactly what the Paladin is supposed to do, make the biggest threat focus fire on YOU. And you'll make the rest of the party look like chumps.

The ability to spend 2 Smites to call Alpha Strike for the party can be OK; it gets better as you have more party members focused on melee. In a general party build (Tank, Skill Guy, God, Divine Combatant/Pokemaster), you don't get quite as much use, though it's great to tell the God and Pokemaster to summon out d3+1 allies (a summon 2 levels lower) and give each of them +5 to hit and +11 damage on all attacks against BBEG,

Divine Grace – The primary reason The Masochist does so well. Other tanks are often removed from combat too easily by saves, but not you. Hello, free cloak of protection that stacks with other cloaks.

Lay on Hands – Read as “Fast Healing”. Ever using this on someone else is a waste of an action unless they are unable to take actions (and we'll be taking those that remove actions above the rest).

Aura of Courage / Immune to Disease / Eventually Aura of Resolve – Free immunities are always good, and while diseases are generally easily cured, it's nice to know you won't have the expense.

Mercys – Having accepted that healing someone else is generally a waste, we'll focus mostly on getting rid of things that hurt us

3rd level – Fatigued, Shaken, Sickened. Get what you want to cure off yourself for 9th level, both Fatigued and Sickened are good choices. Shaken you're immune to fear, and giving others a bonus, so ignore it.

6th level – Dazed, Diseased, Staggered – While Staggered comes up less often than Dazed, you can't cure yourself of Dazed. Still, Dazed isn't an awful decision; I'm fine with healing if someone else is missing an action and you feel their action is more important than yours.

9th level – Cursed, Exhausted, Frightened, Nauseated, Poisoned. Cursed and Poisoned are generally a waste (Poison it's too late; they already have the damage and ability damage). Frightened you are immune to; so take whatever is lined up with your 3rd level ability.

12th level – Paralyzed, Stunned, Deafened, Blinded – The ruling is unclear whether you can cure yourself of Paralyzed... it technically is only mental, but you have to have a hand on yourself at the time? Regardless, Paralyzed and Stunned are similar, and come up about as often; it really is your call. The other two are nice and can be self-cured, but ultimately you and others can operate with them up. Deafened is generally a waste to cure.

Channel Positive Energy – It's a lie. Don't believe it. Absolute emergency case, eats your action and 2 of your lay on hands.

Spells – You get none. Next

Oh, OK... they get spells, kinda. Their spell list is even less useful than the Rangers, the only reason you like it is after battle you can pick up wands of cure light wounds and Divine Favor. Treant's done a fine job of most spells, so I will give you some good choices, and talk about a few, and you can read his choice.

Divine Favor – Take it, live it, love it. Even with your reduced caster level, an easy-to-stack bonus to attack AND damage, key for the paladin.
Bless Weapon – While confirming crits automatically can be fine, it's generally not worth passing up Divine Favor for. This is handy for facing demons when you don't want to Smite, but by then you should have a holy weapon around (or be able to pull one up)

Shield Other – Be careful with this one, but it is handy, lasts forever, and lets you heal up. I like this as an archer, since you might not have as much of an opportunity to soak damage for some of the squishier types

Resist Energy – Good thing to randomly keep around

By the time you can cast 2nd level spells you should have at least a +2 or +4 stat item, so Bull's Strength/Eagle's Splendor aren't as exciting.

3rd level is almost a total waste for paladin. Take a few utility spells, GMW should be left to the cleric because it is highly level dependent.

I've never seen 4th level spells from Pallys in play, but I know Dispel Evil/Chaos are always nice.

Divine Bond

Here you've got an interesting choice. For low-level campaigns, I recommend the animal companion; if you're going to be going high, the Mercy is handy. Animal companions with intelligence are great, and a horse's attack actually does a fair bit of damage. If possible, request the exotics like a tiger at level 7; Pounce AND it looks way cool to ride a tiger (you see it on fantasy covers all the time) Your small sized companion can take a dog; which is handy for riding through dungeons.

At high is when the weapon would truly shine. At level 12, a Pally with a friendly cleric casting GMW can effectively have a +9 weapon.

That's base (+1 Holy) – 18,000 GP, easily afforded
GMW - +3 Holy for 12 hours (+5 Weapon, worth 50K)
+3 Holy Flaming Merciful Keen (+8 weapon worth 128,000 GP) 3 times / day for 12 minutes/use

So you can see it adds to his damage output significantly. Still, animal companions offer you a far higher movement; and if you are in an awkward situation for them to move (tunnels, for instance) you can unsummon and resummon them with no worries. Note this is also a handy way to cure them, making them more useful than the druid's animal companion.

I won't go into the high level stuff, though DR is always nice at 17th. Still DR 5 doesn't seem really worth anything by then.

Stat Blocks

Halfling Archer: Str: 12 (5 pt) Int 7 (-4 Pt) Wis 7 (-4 Pt) Dex: 19 (13 pt) Con: 14 (5 pt) Chr: 16 (5 points). While you lose out a little bit on strength bows, +1 to hit is very nice, and eventually you'll make it up. All bumps go to Dex. Because it is readily active, and because you can't fight alongside the animal companion, I am generally going to recommend the take the Divine Bond. That damage boost is nice when you can use it every round multiple times. +1 = Mercy (even as a killer, it's a d6 untyped damage) +2 = Mercy Flaming, +3 = Mercy Holy (or Axiomatic, or Mercy Flaming Burst; as appropriate). Your generic bow should be +1 (then +1 Shocking, then +1 Shocking Frost), as you want the damage bonuses at all times.
Feats to 12: 1st: Point Blank 3rd (Fighter Level): Precise Shot, Rapid Shot 6th level – Deadly Aim 9th – Weapon Focus (Composite Short Bow) 12th – Improved Precise Shot

Wish List (in order): Belt of Dex, Headband of Charisma, A Magic Bow, + Resistance Item, Gloves of Archery when they become affordable or you find some. Eventually get around to that Magical Mithral Armor if it's around and spare, otherwise just run around in Full plate and be happy (just because you can't apply your dex bonus doesn't mean you have to wine about it; you still get it with your bow).

Gnome Charger: Str: 15 (13 points) Int 7 (-4 Points) Wis 7 (-4 Points) Dex 10 (0 Points) Con: 16 (5 Points) Chr 18 (10 points). Sucks to see that 15 for 13 points doesn't it? Well, don't sweat it; being able to lance through dungeons because your mount is small more than makes up for it. Add to the fact that your mount can trip opponents and you have a nasty little combination. Larger chargers ARE better in outdoor-only settings, but being able to transverse dungeons makes up for damage. And as far as damage output, these guys charge in with their lance and triple up damage, which can be great.

Necessary Skills: Handle Animal, Ride. Yes, because of our intelligence, this means you are going to not get the free hp every level; but the Con makes up for that; and it is a cheaper buy than keeping int at 10. All boosts go to Str

Feats: 1st – Power Attack 3rd – Spirited Charge k 6th – Vital Strike (yay more multipliers) 9th – Ride-By Attack 12th – Improved Toughness

Just make sure your party knows to leave you a charge line, it can be trickier in dungeon settings, but again with a medium base it's not so bad.

Wish List: Headband of Strength, Magic Lance, Headband of Charisma, Cloak of Resistance, Magic Barding for Animal Companion, Magical Amulet for companion

Human Two-Hander: Str: 19 (13 pts) Int: 7 Wis: 7 Dex: 10 (You have HP For that) Con: 14 (5) Chr: 16 (10).

I still recommend the animal companion, though don't ride the thing; ask for the recommended Boar or better still, a Lion; and go Druid on the opponents. Even Horses can give flank and output some damage. This is certainly the most debatable one though; big damage keywords can be nice too.

Feats: 1st – Power Attack 3rd – Weapon Focus (Greatsword) 6th – Vital Strike 9th – Improved Critical – GreatSword 12th – BlindFighting (you start needing this here).

Wish List: Headband of Strength, Big, Powerful Sword, Headband of Charisma, Cloak of Resistance, maybe some armor one day.

So there you are, my justice loving friend. Go out there and show them the new power of the most improved class in Pathfinder.

I was running at a convention this weekend, and saw this build (3rd level, PDA). Is it legal?

Wielded shield two-handed (19 str)

d6+9 damage (str, power attack, spike on shield)

Feats (Improved shield bash, dodge, power attack, something else)

AC: 26 (full plate +1, large shield +1, feat, armor specialty)

This was by far the most efficient "sword and board" I have seen, since the damage of long sword or even bastard sword pales in comparison to getting strength-and-a-half for a fighter type while still getting the full benefit of the shield.

I am just worried about getting all the benefits of sword-and-board AND two weapon fighting mixed (well, 1d6 less damage, but especially over levels that becomes less and less relevant). Plus, shield as the best weapon in the game is stupid. And while I can house rule, PFS is strictly by the book.

Thoughts?