TheJew's page

wow in all my zainy adventures I have never played with or ran a game for an all halfling party, I approve good sir.

Stray thought but I wonder how well this will go to recreating aspects of SpellJammer using Pathfinder.

oddly enough I am working on doing just that, with a game I will be running this semester up at my University. there is a site that has space ship combat, and design rules for 3.0, and what I love about pathfinder is it doesn't take long to update everything. Still it would be nice if they did have rules for spelljammer in their as all i have from the site are basics for ship building and space combat.

quick question, I know that if we subscribe we get the pdf for free, but I was wondering if we get the free pdf if we preorder, (I personally am hoping it is a yes but doubting that will be the case.)

Ryokugan was originated as a LR5 system, it is the setting that OA is based on and the campaign book is very interesting also some side books that are of interest are the way of the samurai, and one for each of the clans, also magic of Ryokugan. All are interesting I have run campaigns based out of it and I am currently working on building PF versions for each of the classes, I was never very happy with the complete book's idea for the OA classes. Still your write up seems interesting.

okay so from reading your response, have you read over the truenamer in tome of magic.
they use a skill system for casting there spells, and it gets more difficult each time. A good place to start looking for ideas
Now then skill systems have also been used in the past such as green ronins psionics not too bad until people like me get a hold of it and find ways to make characters out of nothing but mental and go around possessing people for bodies. Anyways so we need to think how to deal with SR my advice is to go with your idea about using SR to penalize casting also I have an idea for anti magic fields thanks to the expanded psionics book's soul knife. first off I would advise a -1 penalty to the check for every 4 or 5 SR, it is normally big when they have it, and when it comes to skills and how you have this system for the most part only low level casting is going to get through in this case. Also remember that some spells are not affected by SR I believe a few ranged touch spells, so these spells would be unaffected by the penalty. Now then remember that this idea works great for single target spells but multi target spells will probably have to be dealt with a little differently.
Now then as for anti magic fields Soulknifes when in anti psionic fields can still create their mind blades it just takes a concentration check every now and then. This idea is still useful by making a further penalty say -5, to the check a caster can still cast within an anti magic field it is just a lot harder to cast, or it could be treated as casting in the dark no matter what and then still has further penalty, thus causing extreme casting difficulty within the area but not impossible.
Lastly saves are going to need to be increased, your idea on using the highest base spell sounds pretty good, or maybe half LV, something like that would definitely help balance it out as now the DC for the saves must be higher because the failure rate has increased, also are we going to do something to increase the effectiveness of touch spells, although they get to ignore SR in most cases which in it self is a boon.

Also green ronins spell master class may have some ideas for you, I have it in green ronins advanced players guide

warning I do not advise green ronin for most normally balanced games especially any books made before quality control, these just happen to be some good places to see other ideas from.

your idea is interesting and to be honest how to go about this is highly dependent on your goal. according to your title your goal is to overhaul the current magic system. Why?

Other things that have me wondering just by the wording you used in your block of info are as follows.
1. you mentioned the dark, now then I guess you mean when you run out of spell slots or is this for each time you cast the same spell, is this for each time you cast in general that it starts to cost more, while it seems to lean towards the same spell it would be best to get this rectified if you would not mind.
2. how do you plan to deal with the saving throw mechanic, and touch spells, as well as SR, and spell failure from armor?

it seems to me that you are trying to build this one step at a time so you do not need to make a complete plan for dealing with the other ways to stop spells, but from my experience making systems and worlds it is best to start with a skeleton, you need to know why you are building this what is your end goal, what are the things you will need to change and a base idea of how you are going to make that change so that when you get there you have something to start with rather than sit around for a week trying to come up with an answer.

I have returned from the land of shadows and decimal places, or SIG FIGS.
okay so yes the Oaths are not over powering on their own, and I stand by my advice for the two at a time at high level, seeing as that would be a +5 bonus to three things at that point more than likely. Now then since many of those bonuses are very specific in some cases this would not matter but in other cases this would be munchkin paradise.
On the other hand I would actually agree with the idea of making no breaking part (it will cause lots of player GM conflict, and then we have the pouty player in the corner wearing the dunce cap for arguing with me) The solution would be that you may only swear an oath once every 24 hours, or maybe right after a period of rest. This way while you have the incredible variety the oaths offer, but you still need to plan ahead for the adventure and you can't just switch them up whenever.

As for DR as long as you can't take that at the get go I would be alright with dr 3/-, it is a lot of DR even though it is only against one target, and the barbarian doesn't receive dr 1/- till later in the class.

The fact that you have set it at so many times per day rather than an open book for challenges per day makes a good difference for the class in general, and opens up a chance for feats that use up challenge uses for special effects. Also making a time allotment of 3rds between each challenge is great. It doesn't hurt too much in a running battle, and in a normal battle you might be able to get a second challenge in, but you might not. So I am okay with this setup, in fact I like it more than the original Beta.

As for whistle, yes you can hear those for a while, more importantly a New York cabbie can hear it over the throng of the masses, and traffic.

Also as for avioding attack of oppertunities, I would simply advise them to take mobility and dodge for the extra ac. Also if mounted to remember that they can roll I think it is once per round for their mount to dodge an attack using mounted combat but I would need to reread that feat before arguing vehemently over it.

Still if we do end up needing such an ability I would say make it use up ones own attacks of OP to counter/deny your opponents theirs in this way you have a limited amount that you get to dodge for free or you have so many you can dodge per challenge spent.

Just some thoughts for now.

Okay it is crunch time

So we will start with what all character builders must due the acid test,
I would play this class in a heart beat without looking at the fluff, which means I need to figure out why it is that powerful and lower it to a more realistic play level.

Level BAB Fort Ref Will Abilities
1 - +1 +2 +0 +0 Challenge +2, Knight's Bond, Order, Oaths
2 - +2 +3 +0 +0 Challenge Power, Oath of Cruelty
3 - +3 +3 +1 +1 Order Power, Mounted Armor Training 1
4 - +4 +4 +1 +1 Oath of Mercy
5 - +5 +4 +1 +1 Challenge Power, Whistle
6 - +6 +5 +2 +2 Order Power, Oath of Destruction
7 - +7 +5 +2 +2 Challenge +4, Mounted Armor Training 2
8 - +8 +6 +2 +2 Challenge Power, Oath of Protection
9 - +9 +6 +3 +3 Order Power
10 - +10 +7 +3 +3 Mounted Armor Training 3, Oath of Pursuit
11 - +11 +7 +3 +3 Challenge Power, Greater Knight's Bond
12 - +12 +8 +4 +4 Oath of Vengeance
13 - +13 +8 +4 +4 Challenge +6
14 - +14 +9 +4 +4 Challenge Power, Greater Oath of Chastity
15 - +15 +9 +5 +5 Order Power
16 - +16 +10 +5 +5 Greater Oath of Purity
17 - +17 +10 +5 +5 Challenge Power
18 - +18 +11 +6 +6 Greater Oath of Valor
19 - +19 +11 +6 +6 Challenge +8
20 - +20 +12 +6 +6 Challenge Power, Master Challenge, Oathbound

Okay challenge at this point leave as be.
Knight's bond, this is a good solution, the reason you can give the full damage bonus is simple you are upping party damage not accuracy, and it is costing you a move action.
Okay orders, I like what you have done with them and honestly we are getting nothing extra at 1st level so that level is fine, we have three potential oaths which should also leave variety.

Okay challenge powers, so far my only thoughts is you might want to drop bonus damage from the favored enemy esc one to +2 or +3, +4 seems a bit much for a reason scratching at the back of my head.
And the bonus DR either give it something behind the dash or drop to Dr2/- /- dr are pretty strong benefits.
Oath of cruelty is fine it caps at +4 (if non epic) which makes it good extra damage and intimidation, but is hard to keep in character with some parties thus promoting not just good/lawful cavaliers, and leading some people to having to be creative.
Okay now then mounted armor training great job it is really needed. In my builds the knights I made had to wait till they could afford mythral heavy nimble armor before going full plate, and that was with a knight of the sword.
Oath of mercy good to have placed at higher level (4th) shows that it is harder to be merciful than to be filled with murder and wrath.

okay I think I know what needs to be done to fix the power level

your challenge power's and oaths or at least one of them needs to be more spread out.
for instance make the oaths one every three levels rather than every odd, this would slime down the list and probably remove the greater but it would lower it to a more reasonable power.
also at 20th level you should probably give 2 oaths at once, if sword still has its ability to allow that, then mention it stacks this way they can get up to 3 but they have to take a specific order to do that.
Other option I can see is that the challenge power could be extended to be gained at every 4 levels after 2 rather than at every 3 levels after.
it cuts back on those abilities but it makes a little tweak difference.

Master challenge really isn't that powerful so leave as be.

So yeah in conclusion all of the high power comes from the large amount of oaths, and the challenge powers. If you fix oaths then you don't really need to do anything to challenge powers, if you fix the challenge powers you might have to do a little to the oaths or something else, and keep in mind lowering the boost from oathbound, Zealous foe, and determined, besides that it looks great to me.

(yeah it was a lot better organized, while 3.5 is a lot like my writing random and improperly placed)

Well I figure we still need to do the crunch work otherwise I will have to fight the munchkins at my gaming table, and if I know it was partially my fault that it happened then I just won't be able to bring myself to use violence to solve the matter. I will actually have to use my words.

So Maeloke, What do you think of your current challenge bonus,
would it be a good idea to add in a penalty like a -2 to hit non challenge enemies, and then throw in a boost against the challenge target.
Or would you rather keep it as is?
Or any thoughts anyone else has on how that function should flow
I am still big on whistle taking 1d4 rounds maybe 1d6 (still leaves a chance of them being there in 1 round unlike 1d4+1)
Does anyone have any ideas for the challenge powers, and on the orders what should we do with them?
Me I am going to crash and in the morning re-read this entire section then come up with some ideas Jew man up up and to wall street.

okay
Challenge (Ex): A cavalier may challenge a foe as a swift action. The cavalier gains a +2 bonus on damage rolls against the target as long as the challenge persists. A challenge ends if the target is killed, the cavalier is knocked unconscious, or the cavalier cancels the challenge (a free action). A cavalier may not declare a new challenge for 3 rounds after canceling a challenge, and my not have more than one challenge active at once.
At 7th level, the bonus damage increases to +4.
At 13th level, the bonus damage increases to +6.
At 19th level, the bonus damage increases to +8.
He may use this ability 3 times per day plus one half his cavalier level.

so this is the challenge power we are working with
so when compared to favored enemy going under the estimate that most are not going to put all their bonuses into one enemy they have probably lets say 1-2 +6, 1-2 +4, and the rest +2 (about 2-3) you can have 2 +6's but then all others are +2, and if you have two +4's you get one +6, and 2 +2's

you thus have worse damage but far superior accuracy against certain types of monsters, as well as superior bonus to hit on 4 other types, and some bonuses to damage along side bonuses to skills used on those monsters.

Barbarian: gets 3/4 your damage, and +20% hit chance not to mention a +4 to will saves. you have a time limiter rounds per day, and an amount of time of fatigue before you can rage again.

In this form of cavalier I notice we do not have the ac penalty (at least yet) so we have no penalty only the time limiter, in this case number of times per day and how long we have to wait to use the ability again. I would say I would be happy with a penalty to attacking other targets besides your main of -2 (so 10%) and a bonus to hit your challenge starting at maybe +1, and increasing by 1 at every increase maybe, of course if we keep the orders then we can still get a bonus like this to hit.

(psst... sorry you were right, and yes it is poorly written, also the section under leadership on page 106 is misleading at best.)

we have to think what the challenge is bringing to the table in this rewrite it brings +2 damage and this increases as you gain further levels up to +8 damage

Now then a ranger who chooses a favored enemy can get one all the way up to +10 if they throw all of the +2s they get for free onto the main favored enemy (not likely but I can see it being done) now then this a bonus to attack roles and damage, as well as several skills.
this is always active but can only be used against a chosen race

Okay now then barbarian:gets a +4 str and +4 con bonus and a +2 will save at the cost of a -2 to ac. which is limited by the amount of rounds it can be used 3+con+2xlevels in barbarian. this increases to +8 STR and CON and +4 to will saves. So extra HP, +4 to attack and +4 to damage (+6 if two handed) and a boost to will save, with a -2 penalty to ac and a time limit of at least 45rds at level 20 (of course we should not consider everything at there maximums)

So a barbarian has a +20% to attack but about half the damage bonus that the cavalier would gain, or 3/4 if two handed (more than likely) the barbarian gets rage powers which are nice bonus as well and the ranger has the skill buffs from his power so we will say those counter the boosts from oaths and orders that enhance the challenge for the most part for the time being

if we compare challenge on its own to favored enemy and barbarian rage where does it stand.

sounds good to me.
hmm what would be a good oath of something cool
Oath of battle? courage? extreme unnecessary violence?
I think building an oath to boost the CMB or one of the actions through it would be nice Trip, Overrun, Bullrush, Grapple if not mounted maybe.

I am more of a crunch source than a fluff source. So I am not so good with names.

actually no I am not, I checked the 3.5 DMG it is the same except for the one section mentioning the XP that the Cohort obtains.
The cohort statement I posted is directly from the pathfinder core book
Okay page 106 of the DMG core book 2, v. 3.5
Paragraph titled attracting a cohort.
A cohort is effectively another PC in that party under that PC's control, one whose share of XP, treasure, and spot light time is bound to take away from the other players' characters.

word for word even the punctuation, maybe they changed this in an errata I don't have but this was what they had for 3.5

woops okay so I was wrong leadership hasn't changed it just has been a while since I did a full read of the 3.5
With only one exception.
That is the rules of towards the level of the cohort and the cohorts XP

Cohort Level: You can attract a cohort of up to this level.
Regardless of your Leadership score, you can only recruit
a cohort who is two or more levels lower than yourself.
The cohort should be equipped with gear appropriate
for its level (see Chapter 14). A cohort can be of any race
or class. The cohort’s alignment may not be opposed to
your alignment on either the law/chaos or good/evil axis,
and you take a –1 penalty to your Leadership score if you
recruit a cohort of an alignment different from your own.
A cohort does not count as a party member when
determining the party’s XP. Instead, divide the cohort’s
level by your level. Multiply this result by the total XP
awarded to you, then add that number of experience points
to the cohort’s total.
If a cohort gains enough XP to bring it to a level one
lower than your level, the cohort does not gain the new
level—its new XP total is 1 less than the amount needed to
attain the next level.

The cohort in 3.5 was granted XP and loot as a full member of the party, this is no longer the case.

Dragon riders are a simple prestige class so if you want them in your game Draconomicon should give anyone interested a good starting spot.

As for allied cohort, it is amusing but that is about it, you get a minion around 1hd for a fighter, and 2hd for everyone else (at 5th) it would do alright but not make a difference and then two levels later you take leadership and all of a sudden your fifth level feat has been wasted. basically if they have any plan of taking leadership, this feat should be avoided if they just want a cohort and don't want to take leadership then it is a useful feat if not superb.

I like this idea of using a system more towards the sorcerers blood lines.
so +1

Hmm...
Thank you for mentioning my 1d4 rounds.
Now then on to the craziness that is me.

First off back in 3.5 we had a dragon rider prestige class as well as several other classes that got you dragon cohorts. Also dragon rider was a 5 level prestige class. You can find it in the draconomicon.

Now then there is also a book called feats 101, which is made to function with pathfinder, while I don't think that paizo made it, I would say that most GM's would probably consider letting you take feats from it, as long as you check the feat with them first. The reason I bring this up is there is a feat that gets you the cohort but not the mooks from your leadership feat. Allied Cohort, need a charisma of 13, and a 4th level (so I am guessing it is available to fighters) they mostly have feats falling on the odd numbers the way pathfinder does it. in the description you gain a cohort as if you had the leadership feat. Except that your cohort cannot exceed 3 levels lower than your total level.
so when you hit 7th level you are still better served by taking the leadership feat but this means that you can pick up the cohort a little early. Still not so great as a cavalier would receive the special mount at 5th level, and it would only be 2hd. Still using the rules from pathfinder you could get special mounts in this way.

Also Pathfinder doesn't only have rules for cohorts that could be mounts it also explains how much exp the cohort receives (1/2 the xp you gain per fight, not from the actual xp amount one from the battle) and that it can go up to a level below yours in this manner, other wise it always must start at least 2 levels lower than you, and of course has to obey the leadership score cap for cohort level, and mooks do not get XP.

Lastly, Leadership has not settled well with many GM's for many reasons I personally in the past 5 years of being a GM have not had many problems. Pathfinder does provide fixes to the problems many of us GM's had. One of those was the XP for the cohort. The second was that having an army makes a player more powerful than his allies. Sometimes true but it comes at costs, one feeding your troops (as they are your responsibility) arming your troops and keeping them from bringing shame and other such unwanted things upon your head. I feel it will function fine in pahtfinder and any creative or half good GM will be fine dealing with a player and his small but worhtless army especially when if your troops die a lot you start taking stacking penalties to your leadership score.

Just some food for thought

in situations where things last longer than the rounds you state that for each round used they grant x amount of time usually minuets or sometimes even hours.

I got this idea from the bard back in the shitty days when playing the party bard meant that most people would kick you around, lingering song makes a difference and makes them last 1 min after each use so in Path finder where each use is a round each round you spend grants you 1 min or ten rounds.

Simple solutions are the best so don't make me get my +5 keen Occam's razor.

I've really enjoyed reading this. i will be playing my first pathfinder game this weekend, and will be playing an oracle.

I have a few thoughts i'd like to share...

1) i wouldn't worry too much about the oracle/sorcerer dual class. the game favors single classing (with possibly a prestige class). an oracle/sorcerer dual class will be able to cast a lot of low-level spells, but that isn't going to cut it when a oracle7/sorc7 fighting anything with a CR14 and higher.

2) I like to think of the Oracle as a force of divine nature, depending on the foci. The oracle is the divine embodiment of a concept or aspect of life. An oracle of the hunter aspect/focus enjoys the trill of the hunt, maybe the selection of the prey, and possibly the kill, but the trill of the hunt is the important and primary part. Once a hunt has begun an oracle of the hunt would never give up the prey. Rem just cause a character hunts doen't mean he kills. The oracle of the Hunt could also be a finder of lost people/items/whatever. this is, as always, ... imho ;)

3) i can't wait to play.

Have fun and let us know how it goes, I ran a game with an oracle and a cavalier this past tuesday. The oracle basic plan was to be the healer for the party still had some combat skills (battle) but focused casting around healing and sanctuary to protect himself against the orcs they were fighting (low level campaign) My players have a knack for doing weird things, he chose an obscure and thus weak G-d but then constantly prayed for help which he got in what would normally be almost useless things which the party used to make a world of difference (nothing like a cask of ale with an alchemist fire trap for the orc troops)

Creativity is key to surviving any campaign. Also I like the idea of spontaneous casters using CHA I also think that it is highly unimportant and I will find a way to punish myself for even bringing it up later. We do need to focus on how we can fix the weaknesses of the Oracle.

The two that I favor the most so far are the one about upping spells known, and increasing the STR of the revelations, also either earlier in this thread or on another one they brought up mentioning of some cool tweeks to the curses making them less back heavy and making them penalize a little extra as levels increase along with their increases.

just some food for thought

just remember that while physics and logic in general are fun every time we use them in a fantasy setting G-d kills a cat girl and boy, now then take into account that every time someone writes a bad fan fiction 20 more cat folk are born.

So the question is with this whistle ability how many cat folk do we want to kill, and take into account that not everything has to make sense. A vamp at least used to be able to summon a pack of wolves in 2d6 rounds so an average of 7rds that might not have been great against a party but sometimes it made all the difference. We can also take a thematic stance on this the mount is believed to be somewhere within a mile it arrives in 1d4 rounds let say, stating of the random probability of it not being as far as we though it would be, but it can't hear us outside of a mile or if it does it still takes longer to get there and by the time it does what we needed it for is no longer usually important (I give the idea of 1d4 because it averages to 2.5 and I would like some variables on the amount of rounds)

pretty good dissection
I would also like to mention that those of us who want to keep the mount alive at that level (ran another play test this time with a cavalier in the party) you might need to buy barding for the mount which costs twice as much as normal armor, also consider that you have 1000gp at 2nd level on average according to pathfinder core page 399. so you can't really afford plate at this point, so plate may be nice later on at 3rd and up if you put a lot of your resources towards purchasing it. my second level cavalier in the party had himself breast plate (medium armor) for himself and his mount eating up 600gp, then bought a masterwork lance, a shield and a longsword, and thats where almost a grand of gold went at level 2, since we were talking of using it as a 2 level dip though this really isn't all that relevant but for a character with just two levels mounts are costly to keep alive, and heavy armor doesn't matter till you can afford it.

Also never forget that light cavalry is also an option, having a high dex check, working some mounted archery, and maybe a little weapon finesse take advantage of spirited charge and you can still do good damage while charging when your enemies get too close.

I am not sure if this class really can be considered over powered.

still just trying to give a view from another angle

Tim4488 wrote:

LastKnightLeft:

Very interesting idea. I like it both in theory, and with the specific numbers you've laid out, at least on a read (have to seem them in playtest, obviously). It makes sense in-game, too, the more they channel the power, they more it affects them. Hopefully we can get Jason's attention and see his opinion on it.

I'm going to second that sentiment. A curse that gets increasingly worse as one further embraces the source of the curse is an interesting idea.

It also adds a second role-playing option to the oracle. Currently, the class is designed to encourage one and only one image an oracle: an oracle turned into a divine conduit against her will. If the drawbacks of the oracle's curse were to scale with level, that would also allow a second character concept: the oracle who intentionally and willfully sacrifices things in exchange for access to divine knowledge.

I like where this is going

Ahem, okay here goes I have one used this class against my party, two I have built level by level up to 20th.

I have done this thing with a lot of classes since pathfinder came out (it is something I do during my rare moments of spare time I like to call procrastination)

It is a nice class when heavily focused around mount in fact I think I made him really scary on the downside there are these things called 5ft passage ways they are not horse friendly also being counted large size because of my horse even if I don't challenge I am pretty open to being flanked. To top this off my challenge damage while nice doesn't touch my quadruple damage on a charge with my lance and power attack. challenge is for when I get knocked off my mount or I am mount less and the bbeg is there or some big mook. not really any other reason to use it leaves my back open too easily and will get you killed. I remember some of the barbarians I have ran with in the past as well played along side, they are scary things don't underestimate Grond the half orc barbarian. and when dipping sorry I choose fighter, feats, full bab, good fort, good hp, and access to everything including tower shields, and if I am full on multiclassing then some extra prizes as well. If I need a mount then I take leadership as I have some feats to spare. Cavalier is nice and can be functional although you need to decide what you want to focus on early on in the character otherwise you will be a hodge podge of suck. Now then you don't have to focus around the mount, but it is a useful part of the class. Challenge is another part that is meant to be big, is it yes and no, if you put a lot of effort into placing yourself up against one foe, and the party can hold everyone off of you, and this is the group plan well then go teamwork. If you end up getting ganged up on by a lot of little guys you need to rethink your strategy.
A barbarian in the same situation has a chance to avoid flank, you don't. The barb is slower than the horse by 10ft, on the other hand he can move through hall stealth like then leap out screaming bloody murder and whirlwind attack a hord of mooks, then all that is left is the bbeg. Things like this happen know your GM , Know your team. Otherwise doesn't matter how powerful you are, you will die. (this goes to you Harvey where ever you are and your little lich too, oh I killed him good.)

first things first happy one hundred posts every body.

Second thing third, I have to say i am very lenient on my players when it comes to alignment they don't seem to notice but I never ask them what alignment they are, I simply watch how they play how they act and keep the style noted, when they start to act completely out of character (so against how they usually portray this character) I call them out on it saying they are not acting in alignment, when they try to argue they are perfectly in line, I tell them it doesn't matter what is written down what matters is are you consistent with how you yourself define that alignment.

Now then this is a very lenient way of doing things, and I admit it is not proper for a GM in the most part. Still I would think we should ask ourselves how do we normally play this, and how do our players play this. In the end the answer is what the alignment is to us and our players.

Third thing second, I am all for alignments being advisory.

Wow, this was an interesting read, all I can say is remember kids if you aren't willing to go put on some gloves and box a few rounds, it wasn't an actual problem.

Now then on to something important how can we fix what some people consider a problem and others just consider a nuisance I The Jewish Crunch Monkey am here to help.

So far the only ones we have really had complaints about are lame for dwarvish folk, deafness, and cloudy vision. Any other ones people have complaints about please post so we can argue/discuss fixes for them and try to get developer attention on our fixes.

So then Lame causes problems for dwarfs because they lose 10ft for being medium (although I would argue only 5ft as they have small size movement and that should be what counts in this case) and they gain immunity to encumbrance penalties, heavy armor weight, and fatigue and exhaustion. well true that I know you at least ignore the heavy armor problems.
So you get the encumbrance benefit and the other two immunities, so the question is if they only take a -5 to movement would this be worth it or because they lose one quarter of their abilities it is not worth taking. (might be half really can't remember if dwarfs have advantages towards encumbrance.)

Deafness: I think we can discuss solutions for this also if someone could look up the penalties for not being able to hear in pathfinder and post them up we can actually calculate the pro's and cons of the progression. Thanks

Lastly cloudy vision, now then for those complaining about this I have already heard on here a great solution increasing the distance to 60ft for first level, any other ideas would be great, also the people mentioning them side stepping around blindness (especially since we have deafness already) Any ideas on how we could go about this possible give scent or increase hearing possibly blind sight or sense at an earlier level and eventually a better range? thoughts and opinions bitte.

well that is what I have so far join in have fun together we can figure some actual solutions out.

TheJew wrote:

quick question are you implying that cavalier is an unaligned paladin or that they are making the unaligned paladin an option

they are gonna include a non LG paladin build the "templar" and a CE paladin build the "anti-paladin"

Not sure if that was to me or not but alt class features are not the same as full classes

seeker is right

quick question are you implying that cavalier is an unaligned paladin or that they are making the unaligned paladin an option

first off any decisions on my request for 50% back on the last question secondly and probably more important Kaeyoss I think I got it right on spelling oh well, what you just mentioned reminded me of something ID and Super Ego, also Ego. The ID being the part of your subconscious mind that goes after the animal needs as well as in General what do you want. This is usually falling around food, sex, and violence. Still it is going after what you want. The Super Ego is what society wants from you (now then remember this is highly dependent on the society you grew up in as that is usually the society it draws from) Ego is the neutrality acting as the water gate to allow the too to flow out at times that hurt you the least.

While this is not a perfect description of Freud's psychology it serves its purpose for the explanation.

TheJew wrote:

found it under mighty charge

Mighty Charge (Ex): At 11th level, a cavalier learns to
make devastating charge attacks while mounted. Double
the threat range of any weapons wielded during a charge
while mounted. This increase does not stack with other
effects that increase the threat range of the weapon. In
addition, the cavalier can make a free bull rush, disarm,
sunder, or trip combat maneuver if his charge attack is
successful. This free combat maneuver does not provoke
an attack of opportunity

This is why I read every line of class features, and am a crunch monkey.

Well that tell me I need to do a more proper and through reading next time I open up the pdf.

So any other abilities the Cavalier should get?
(my oh graceful way of averting embarrassment)

Sorry about that I keep killing conversations for some reason. curse my brain and its memory and logic, curse thee I say.

well darn I only got a 75% on that one I will have to make it up on the final.
Oh well on the other hand LG is the most likely to say that so I am going to push for half credit on that question.

Treantmonk wrote:

The character's values define the alignment, not the other way around.

On this subject, let's consider the kittens in the tree one more time, and let's play a game.

Imagine a character who rescues every kitten from every tree. It's a predictable action, and probably a good one too.

Does that mean this character has Lawful Good values? Maybe not. It's up to the DM to check intentions if they don't think a character is following their alignment.

Here's the game: The DM asks the player why his character rescues every single kitten out of every tree. You tell me by the responses what alignment you think the character is.

DM: "Why do you rescue every kitten out of every tree?"

Player: "Because those kittens feel gratitude to me, for every kitten out of every tree, my plans towards a kitten legion that will force all to bow before me comes ever closer. Those who displease me will be severely scratched by my feline slaves."

DM: "Why do you rescue every kitten out of every tree?"

Player: "Because the kittens are trapped in a vegatable prison. All creatures deserve to live their lives in liberty and freedom, free from opression, including from phyallic wooden opression. Run kitty! Run to freedom!"

DM: "Why do you rescue every kitten out of every tree?"

Player: "Because there is a serious infestation problem of cats in this city, the more they breed, and the more they breed, the worse the infestation. The anarchy and suffering will be pleasurable to me to witness."

DM: "Why do you rescue every kitten out of every tree?"

Player: "Because I like cats."

The first is obviously LE

Bah, you may be penalized in the beginning true but what hero is not in the classic tales, you must overcome your weaknesses your fears and everything in between in order to defeat the enemy at the end of the game. I may have lost my sight by I have gained new senses for it will increase to 60ft then I will gain blind sight and blind sense (can't remember the difference off hand) at 30ft and 15ft, all of a sudden nothing can get close to me without me sensing it and who has better vision and the ability to see through walls no one but the blind man.

For hearing I will attain vision worthy of a spy glass master work, and I then obtain the ability to pick out people and hunt them with but my nose all of a sudden not hearing you sneaking up on me doesn't mean a thing, I could smell your orc but a mile away. Finally I obtain tremor sense 30ft anything that moves can no longer hide even if they find a way to mask their scent.

Haunted, cool bonus spells known, also best thing ever when accidentally dropping alchemist fire you know you won't get burned.

Lame not for everyone but hey no more penalties for carrying your maximum load, and I can walk around in heavy armor traveling at 20-15ft (15ft is for dwarves by the way, they are technically both medium and small) also this would be great for multi class barbarian, you can get your +10ft for light armor, and no longer get fatigued from rage.

Wasting congratulations I get to kick ass at intimidate, and I am not allowed to talk otherwise, also I can go into disease ridden places and fight things there without fear take that plague rat muhahahaha. Not for everyone but really nice for swamp heavy campaigns, and swarm heavy campaigns.

Tongues okay take one and make it the party language, now then the rest are going to be useful when you go on planar travel. Or in situations where you need to translate stuff, I mean at high level you basically got a lot of ranks in linguist for free or a free high level spell slot however you want to look at it this is a nice deal, just talk to your fellow players about the language to choose at the beginning, or don't talk during a fight or come up with hand signals to the party. So many solutions just takes a little planning and a little patients.

Now if we talk about hard core multi classing then of course you are screwing yourself but if you didn't want to do that curse wise we have druids and clerics for that.

found it under mighty charge

Mighty Charge (Ex): At 11th level, a cavalier learns to
make devastating charge attacks while mounted. Double
the threat range of any weapons wielded during a charge
while mounted. This increase does not stack with other
effects that increase the threat range of the weapon. In
addition, the cavalier can make a free bull rush, disarm,
sunder, or trip combat maneuver if his charge attack is
successful. This free combat maneuver does not provoke
an attack of opportunity

This is why I read every line of class features, and am a crunch monkey.

Curses there trying to use logic and reason legion of chaos and random pie charts flee flee to the hills.

Also I am going to start Calling you Professor Treantmonk for some reason it feels appropriate.

Now then we must all remember the old motivational poster Alignment the source of more arguments than anything in Dungeons and Dragons. If we keep this stern warning in our heads we all know that almost no one agrees on the way to properly play alignments at least back in 3e setting yet we get a more vague and yet less so version from Pathfinder which allows us to say well we at least know they have to have one of these attributes X and probably and attribute Y from another alignment.

ahem lets not go to camelot tiss a silly place I think sums this up nicely, Also I would allow this and only one other time would I allow them to take 1st level for the simple reason of messing with them, they would have to take two different curses, and they would not progress with total level nor would caster but only of the caster and level of the specific foci they chose, it would be a horrible gimp and hilarious. Still in normal play it is just silly of an idea and perfectly fine for RP and game plot on the other hand.

okay I will compromise small character but the mount has to be something that Green peace is trying to save this way if the party gets hungry the elven hippie gets to take on the party while they try to eat the small animal (perhaps a seal)

I started with 3.0 being a youngin, but before I got started my Dad gave me all of his 1st edition and Ad&d books so I got a feel for them then got very confused when I was introduced at the beginning of the school year to 3.0 by the school GEEK club. Still I am enjoying this class being someone who has designed over a dozen classes for his own campaign worlds and gaming groups I can appreciate and also have a lot of fun with play tests. Also my players are used to these kind of things being randomly added to the campaign.

heh, I meant leave the mount, not the caviler. The mount is damned useful but not as much in a crawl, you can do it but does not cripple you if you do not

But what if we run out of rashins in the crawl, having a mount around would have been a good idea, oh I had another thought if the room is big enough for a large size monster we can still bring the horse. Well problem solved talk to your DM before running a cavalier, and ask for a smigg more room in the crawl halls.

Can I just say that the people on this thread give me hope for humanity

And fully support this idea for the order to become creed or code (the description makes it sound like that more than it describes the general idea of an order) Also I am all for the non-bound Cavalier, It feels right is the simple way of putting it. When we can ride around proudly on our horses burning the homes of our enemies with pride, we the brave cavaliers of Sir Zug Zug Dabu. Now ride forth my horde of Chaotic evil Orcs this thread has just inspired a campaign for my players to try and survive (they are really good at it I have one killed two players so far same guy twice he had it coming)

wait did you just say leave him outside of the crawl.
That makes me very sad on the inside
In the few years I have had of gaming (only 6)
I have never left a functioning character outside of a crawl and neither have my players when I run a game, sure the mage may have run out of spells, and the healer was almost dead but that doesn't change a thing.
We don't leave a man behind (or woman if your group is blessed with a female that is not scarred off by our geekyness we have a few) why because that weakens the party even without the mount the Cavalier can fight he can challenge he can lead the charge boosting the party with him and shield the party from fear. A tough warrior and still better than an NPC class, I would also advise leadership to any 7th level cavalier, also try to get a bard to come along. Now then choosing the right oath and order in this case is important. If build the Cavalier right he might just be alright still. On the other hand he losses the advantage of mount, cavalier's charge (so no -2 to ac and +2 additional while charging), he loses also mighty charge which grants him an increased critical threat range, and lastly supreme charge which doubles his damage or increases the multiplier (so lance spirited charge equals quadruple damage woot)
Okay so yeah it sucks when you loose such things but it is not impossible to get over. You just have to focus less on charging things, of course you still have abilities that help with charging, and lance based abilities that are just not as good without a mount.
To make for up those losses we would need something either that sounds cool in writing or is cool in functionality.

The thing with making it a flat bonus is, it will work better with all of the fancy charge abilities the cavalier gets.

One complaint about this class that I've heard no one really argue with is that it has too many unrelated mechanics.

that is because it is far too close to true, while reading through this class including a level by level building of what would I do with this class up to 20th level. as well as using a cavalier against my players and soon in my groups party which I am looking forward too. A lot of his abilities don't really fall in together, he can charge amazingly well he gives a bonus to all allies (which if I remember correctly counts him) a bonus to charging gets +4 anyways and takes no ac penalty. So those two work together his ability to do combat manuevers with his lance is really fun I mean bull rush a bunch of people in your way only a -4 for each additional target is fun to work with for mook control herd them together for a nice big wizard fireball. still the oaths are weird for me and while writing the character I had in mind up I ended up a knight of the sword, with a lot of vengeance and some protection oaths not really creative but it was what I could think of, when building a super charged mounted killing machine. I think I might need to look through it and use my crunch magic to figure out everything that connects and then post them up so we can all look over it. This shouldn't hurt my research paper too much.

So just a thought on the sticky subject. Why.
does it make sense that a fast moving character that will probably pick up ride by attack would try to sticky an opponent.
I am more likely to swing by hit you and move away.
Even if I do not have ride by attack if they try to run then we charge them down, or overrun them if we can.
The movement of the cavalier's mount makes it so that having sticky abilities are not necessary.
As for holding as I said leave that to the GM.
If I want an animal to stick around it will why maybe it has cubs nearby, it could be territorial, an animal companion, possessed, a million possible reasons, if it flees well this has already be mentioned in earlier posts you still get the XP.
Hope that explains a few thoughts that run through my chaotic brain.

tejón wrote:

I totally disagree with you on what the challenge represents, flavorwise. The target is irrelevant; when the cavalier issues the challenge, he's psyching himself up with bravado: "I'm gonna take that bastard down!" It doesn't matter if the opponent is completely unaware of the challenge, because the opponent is not the one affected.

In short: Don Quixote was a cavalier.

Except that later, for some reason, the target can't ignore the Cavalier. Why not? If I (the challenged) see that my opponent (the Cavalier) is "in the zone," then I'm not going to stand there and let myself get pulvarized. If I'm intelligent, I'll defend myself (possibly run). If I'm a caster, I'll Calm Emotions. If I'm unintelligent, then how am I being affected, anyway?"

The mechanic doesn't make sense. It doesn't reflect what's happening. It won't play out as intended.

How does it not show what is happening, if I go to fight some guys and I am some gone ho warrior, I am going to pick out the biggest meanest punk there. Now then the biggest guy can't just back down if he wants the mooks to continue following him he has to be big and tough, if they are the mage well then how dare this sword swinging loon attack me we will have to teach him as a GM I have to be able to come up with reasons my characters stick around to fight the party all of the time.

crunch wise it is perfectly good. fluff wise it depends on how you define cavalier, but never forget that it has open aligment and players are nto always good.

If I might suggest, a great flavor would be, if you keep it at the current bonus level, making it a sacred/profane (as appropriate to the oracle's alignment) bonus to armor? With the special effect that bones literally grow out of his body and encase his existing armor (if any). I think, personally, that's a great fluff effect.

Alternately, if it's intended to replace armor completely, may I suggest making it 10 minutes per level per day in 1 minute increments? And then boosting the AC bonus (something like 1/2 Oracle level)? That would be +10 at 20th level, and no ability to put 'buffs' on it. So it wouldn't be overpowered, and would scale nicely by level. Even a rogue at 20th could reasonably have better than +10 AC (studded leather and buckler, easily more than +10).

I would place my money on one of these answers both solve the problem with out pushing the balance to far, the alternative I would have to say I like the most especially if it keeps the DR, then you have acceptable armor for a caster, DR to protect you when they get past it and you can pick up some magic items to back it up.

the first option boosts existing armor which can get a little unbalanced, you can enchant your armor, on top of everything and come out with a really high ac for a character of your level if we went with this the bonus from the bone armor might have to be re thought.

So for fun I put a cavalier (which interesting enough is the word Germans used for gentleman, of course in modern days it is more of a Joke) as the bad guy for a fight I gave him a bunch of mooks (go leadership) and a few extras. My party being the crazy people they are I don't expect them to be the average party fighting a monster so you may disregard this if your players are in fact some form of sane. Now then as usual they started by killing the mooks with great glee (they are sort of good aligned mostly chaotic neutral) and then got caught by surprise when the cavalier challenged the fighter (who was also mounted) to a duel. The fighter agreed. The cavalier charged him unseated him, and then got stabbed in the back by a hafling rogue that jumped onto the back of his horse. He then manuevered the halfling off of the horse and saw the fighter getting back on his mount. The Wizard and monk were dealing with most of the mooks while the fighter kept trying to joust the cavalier and the rogue kept running around stabbing the cavalier. In the end the enemies died and the fighter was badly injured and almost died on several occasions. the wizard had kept the minions from helping him as well as the monk. So being good at fighting alone seem to be a boon for the cavalier as this happens to a lot of my bosses with troops. He took on a rogue who was dishing out the real damage due to the cavalier's tunnel vision, and the fighter was really just tanking and trying to get out a live with getting in a few hits every now and then (belt of healing is your friend)

So yeah I like the class for the most part and I would state that it seems to function and flow well, I have no doubt that it would work well as a part of the party but i have yet to get the chance to run that yet. depending on your oath and your order, you function better in certain situations and you are best as a mounted character which you cannot summon like some paladins which leads to not having it at crucial moments. It balances out well and I enjoy the fact that it is meant to fight mono a mono most of the time while a tactical group can find ways to be involved in the fight while not impeding the cavaliers abilities as well as a tactical cavalier can set up to help the party while still getting there bonuses without stealing away the fun from the rest of the party. Having some AoO. would be nice but if you have a reach weapon and combat reflexes I think you will be fine on that part and might want to consider making use of readied actions with vague bases.

consider asking your DM if you can take lingering song from complete adventurer if I remember correctly. really allows your bardic performance abilities last. Or at third level dragon fire inspiration from dragon magic.
the extra fire damage is fun especially if you end up having to fight a troll or hydra.

Still bards can be very effective melee characters, if we are using purely PRPG then they are still very effective, don't forget to sing, and yes the long spear is a good friend to have, arcane strike, and power attack are nice to have. As your second level you can go into Dragon Disciple you loose a little casting but not much, and that can be supplemented with wands, and scrolls for the most part.

So quick question, since I have not been dealing with purchases from Paizo for very long. When you release the physical copy then the PDF goes up for sale, or will we at least get the PDF this october. (really looking forward to it, my PC's are getting crafty and I need more things to kill them with.)