The Morphling's page

I've noticed a few inconsistencies in the chapter on weapons, specifically thrown weapons and grenades.

Strength (Str)

Your character’s Strength modifier is factored into the following:

Melee attack rolls and attack rolls made with thrown weapons (such as grenades).

So in Starfinder, thrown weapons use Str to hit and damage. So far, so good.

WEAPON SPECIAL PROPERTY AND

CRITICAL HIT DCS
Unless stated otherwise, the ability modifier corresponds to the ability score you’d normally use to make an attack with that weapon (Dexterity for a ranged or thrown weapon, and Strength for a melee weapon).

This appears to contradict the above, by implying that Dex is used to hit with thrown weapons (most likely a mistake due to a holdover from Pathfinder).

Grenades

The DC of the save is equal to 10 + half the grenade’s item level + your Dexterity modifier. Any penalty you take to your attack roll also applies to this save DC.

And again here, Dex is used.

This bit really surprised me.

Page 248: "Attacking on a Charge: After moving, you can make a single melee attack. You take a –2 penalty to the attack roll and a –2 penalty to your AC until the start of your next turn. You can’t move any farther after the attack. Some classes, including solarian and soldier, grant abilities that modify attacks made on charges."

Is it just that they want charges to only really be great for soldiers and solarians? Is it just that double moving and attacking is more valuable now that full attacks are limited to only two attacks?

There's an entry in AR which seems to be missing something, unless there's actually a book called "Pathfinder Campaign Setting."

Pathfinder Campaign Setting

Obediences: All deific obediences in this book are legal for play except Gyronna's. An evangelist of Achaekek who qualifies for that deity's third boon can purchase a mask of the mantis as if it were a legal item; Misc.: All variant spellcasting options in this book are legal for play. All alternate paladin codes are legal for play.

What book is this supposed to apply to?

The town of Longacre sits just outside the fringes of the Whisperwood. A few lights shine in the streets and windows, and the occasional snippet of conversation or laughter issues from open doors, but here on the outskirts of town, the night is quiet and dark. Sparse clouds scud across the sky, momentarily obscuring the dim light from the moon overhead. Across a scrubby field, barely distinguishable under the starry sky, a darkened, fortlike compound hunches in the distance.

Cimri points toward the dim structure. "That's it—Louslik Tannery. Here's the job: We break in, sack Ol' Louslik's office, take whatever's shiny, and get out before the sheriff shows up. If we get separated, meet back at the Ash House by dawn."

Dull moonlight glints across her dagger as she flicks it in emphasis. "If you get pinched, remember: you're mute. Keep your mouth shut, and I'll handle things. I got assurances that we won't take any blame if things go south. But get chatty and I'll let you rot." A beat passes and her usual crooked smirk appears. "If you don't screw things up, we'll all be drinking on Razelago's coin come dawn. Let's do this."

Over the course of the last few days, each of you had the opportunity to conduct some kind of reconnaissance around the tannery. Each member of your team can choose a single skill check to attempt to determine their most significant contribution. Feel free to use the suggested skills below, or come up with a creative application of another skill.

The ten-foot wooden palisade surrounding the tannery is mostly used to keep out animals, but it still provides the establishment with a good deal of privacy. Climbing this wall, or sneaking stealthily around the perimeter might yield some useful information.

A massive gate opens into the tannery's work yard, featuring a complicated mechanism that operates the door. Only someone with skill in disabling devices would be able to understand the specifics of how it works, though.

The tannery employs a sizable number of Longacre residents, but the specifics of their schedules (and how many might be working late at night) would be available to someone with local knowledge.

Finally, keen eyes and sharp skills of perception might reveal other weaknesses.

Congratulations, villains! The time will soon come to unleash your wrath on an unsuspecting populace... but for now, you have each been contacted by one Cimri Staelish, who has a shady job opportunity lined up which is particularly well-suited to your individual skill sets.

Take this opportunity to introduce yourselves, discuss out-of-character considerations like "who should take ranks in Disable Device now that the rogue is gone," and make any last-minute tweaks to your characters.

My personal schedule is a bit chaotic for the next few days (starting a new job on Monday), so I'll be waiting until midweek to make the first official gameplay post.

I'm absolutely thrilled to be embarking on this journey with the six of you.

I just want to take the opportunity to thank the team responsible for sanctioning books for getting Blood of Shadows onto the Additional Resources page before its release. It's always very frustrating to buy a new book, see all its new goodies, and have to wait a month or more to get to use the new toys in PFS. I really appreciate having this information available early, and I very much hope this gets to continue for future releases.

Way to go, Paizo!

Cheliax. Since the rise of House Thrune and the ascension of Queen Abrogail I to the throne 76 years ago with the signing of the Treaty of Egorian, the diabolists of that dark family have ruled with an iron fist, bolstered by the infernal might of Hell itself and the endorsement of the powerful church of Asmodeus. Few have sought to challenge the power it wields, but recent events in the eastern province of Isger have ignited the first sparks of revolution in the Infernal Empire. This sows the seeds of chaos in a nation obsessed with law and order, and House Thrune needs new agents to enforce its will and ensure that this inkling of insubordination is crushed as swiftly as it began. For five ambitious individuals in the town of Longacre, this marks the beginning of a meteoric rise to power and fortune should they succeed - or a hellish descent into disgrace and despair should they prove too weak to conquer their opposition.

I will be running a Play-by-Post game of Hell's Vengeance on the Paizo forums, and am looking to recruit four players. A fifth member has already been selected, playing a female Dhampir Unchained Rogue, an information broker and manipulator who plans to take the Sentinel of Asmodeus prestige class.

Since the Hell's Vengeance player's guide is not available yet (ETA February 24th), recruitment will remain open until at least then. I am looking for roleplayers who are able to handle playing an evil character in a mature fashion. This is no adventure path for heroes, ladies and gents. This time... you're the bad guys.

Character Creation:

• 1st level, 20 point buy
  
• Max HP for 1st level, half+1 for subsequent levels
  
• Paizo material only (no 3rd party)
  
• Races: Core races are encouraged. More exotic races are allowed, but I plan to select a party whose demographic matches that of Cheliax - so it's unlikely more than one member of an exotic race will be included (particularly since the party already includes a dhampir).
  
• Classes: If you play a summoner, you must use the Unchained Summoner version. All other classes are allowed - except Paladin. You may ignore any alignment restrictions for other classes - chaotic monks and lawful barbarians are fine by me.
  
• Alignment: Any non-good. Every character is going to need to be comfortable performing evil actions now and then.
  
• 150 gp to start
  
• 2 traits plus one campaign trait (to be chosen when the Player's Guide is released). No drawbacks allowed.

House Rules & Banned Content:
I have a number of house rules and banned character options I have listed here: The Morphling's Ban List & House Rules. Please check this list to ensure you don't plan on selecting any options I've listed as banned.

Homebrew Content:
I have a number of homebrew options that are available for characters in this campaign, if they interest you. Anything in this document is allowed for play.

What I'm looking for in this thread:
Feel free to post any questions you have, comments on the campaign, and ideas you have for your character or the campaign as a whole. When you're ready to submit your character, I would like to see a completed character sheet, a physical description of your character's appearance, a 2-3 paragraph backstory, and an example of roleplaying with your character. Please do not roleplay with other characters in this thread, as it tends to make the recruitment thread spiral out of control.

I am looking for active, long-term players - people willing to go the distance and stick with this campaign for the entire duration, which at PbP speed could take years. If possible, please provide examples of other, long-running PbP games you have participated in. This is not a mandatory requirement, but definitely stands to make your submission much more attractive.

I plan for recruitment to end at midnight, EST, on March 1st.

I've often felt that there was something missing in Pathfinder's ability to combine classes through multiclassing, particularly when it comes to spellcasters. While it's not so hard to make an effective fighter/rogue, or dip a swashbuckler level on a ranger build, spellcasting classes suffer massively when forced to dip into another class for even a few levels. Hybrids like the Eldritch Knight or the Mystic Theurge have been forced to use Prestige Classes to achieve any kind of blending between classes which include any amount of spellcasting.

To address that discrepancy, I've come up with a new system I call Cross-Classing. I'm planning to run some playtest games using the system on the Play-by-Post forums here, but first I'd like to get some feedback on what people thought of the system. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have about the rules, though I hope I've made them as self-explanatory as possible.

I'd love it if you took a look and gave me your thoughts! Too powerful? Not powerful enough? Spot a particular class combo in my system that breaks the game? I'd love to hear it.

Looking over their lore I can't see anything that would make their immunity make sense. It just seems arbitrary to me - why do they randomly get this protection?

So, the Sha'ir Occultist archetype, despite being one of the absolute coolest archetypes for one of the coolest classes, seems to me to be seriously lacking in power. Not only do they trade away many of their central class features, they really don't get a whole lot in return.

They have more spells known than a typical occultist (but the same lackluster number of spells per day), but in particular, the lack of a second implement at 2nd level (putting them at one implement school, one elemental school, and only one set of focus powers) puts them way behind the standard occultist in terms of flexibility.

The kicker though, the one thing I cannot stand, is that the Sha'ir Occultist only ever gets three of the four elements! Why make an archetype designed around collecting tiny magic genies (The Gameboy Advance game Golden Sun comes to mind) and not even let you collect them all?

It seems like it's designed to be a "more spellcastery occultist," but it fails at that by keeping you constrained to only four lists of spells (two schools of magic and two elemental schools) until level fourteen, which is the same level a Sorcerer gets limited wish. Meanwhile, you're just now learning your third school of magic. Of course, you can decide to take the source of half your class features, your fragile elemental pet, and send it into battle as a mediocre flanking partner. If it dies, no biggie! You just lose 50% of your spells. And your implement powers. A risky proposition, to say the least.

I want to love this archetype but I can't seem to get past its massive power deficit. Am I reading everything right? It's really this limited?

I wasn't planning to make one or anything, but it struck me as really odd that Greed and Pride phantoms were allowed, but Lust was banned. There is nothing overpowered about the Lust phantom, and the flavor fits just as well as the other Sin Phantoms. Anyone else find this odd, or have a guess why it's not included on the list?

Everyone post here with your character as your alias.

Armasse officially began at noon, with the blessing of the festival by Lord Hulrun himself, ruler of Kenabres. The crowd gathered in Clydwell Plaza quieted as the aged inquisitor took the stage, clad in shining, resplendent armor. He cleared his throat, but just as he was about to speak, a bright light shone from the west, as if the sun were rising from the wrong direction. Hulrun’s shadow fell huge and distorted across the cathedral’s facade. A moment later, the sound of a thunderous explosion ripped through the air and earth, along with a violent tremor.

To the west, the fortress known as the Kite—the location of Kenabres’s wardstone—had vanished. In its place, a brilliant plume of red fire, lightning, and smoke erupted into the heavens. A moment later, a powerful roar accompanied a welcome sight rising from the crowd—Kenabres’s greatest guardian, the ancient silver dragon Terendelev, who had until that moment been attending the opening ceremony disguised as a human. Above, another form appeared, as nightmarish as the dragon was breathtaking. A humanoid shape three times the size of any man, with skin coated in fire and lightning, gripped a flaming sword and whip. The creature’s identity was immediately obvious: Khorramzadeh, the Storm King of the Worldwound, had come to Kenabres!

As the ground continued to shake and disgorge demons into the streets, the dragon and the balor lord clashed above. The fight was over in a few harrowing moments, as the balor cut deep into Terendelev’s body, swooping down to strike the dragon and arresting her charge. A few more blows, and the titanic duo spiraled downward toward the crowd.

The sight of the dragon smashing into the facade of the Cathedral of St. Clydwell is one no witness would ever forget. At that moment, a titanic demon erupted at the far end of the plaza, reducing several buildings to ruins as it smashed into this world. The rift it created shot across the plaza, and this time there was no escape—it opened below your feet, angling away into darkness.

Even as you fell, the dragon noticed your plight. Though she saw death standing over her, she seized this final chance to save a few more souls. After she uttered a few arcane words and stretched out a bleeding talon, you felt her magic take hold of you, slowing your plummet into the darkness as if you were feathers falling into a pit. Yet the fall remained as inexorable, and as you drifted downward into the depths, the last thing you saw was the Storm King standing before the ancient silver dragon, his sword lashing out and cleaving full through her neck.

As her severed head fell, the rift above you slammed shut, and the light of the world above was gone.

While this might be the single coolest archetype I've seen in years, the wording of its abilities raises a some questions.

When the id rager enters a bloodrage, he gains additional powers as if he were a phantom (Pathfinder RPG Occult Adventures 78) with the emotional focus he selected as his atavistic focus.

They're not particularly forthcoming on the details of what powers he gets - my initial assumption is "Whatever's listed under that particular emotional focus," but that came into question as I kept reading.

For the emotional foci, almost half of them require slam attacks. Most bloodragers aren't going to have those. Is an Id Rager supposed to get slam attacks like a Phantom when he enters a bloodrage?

If the Id Rager gets slam attacks, emotional focus powers, and nothing else, the archetype works beautifully. However, there's no listed provision to give slam attacks. If there's no slam attacks gained, half of the emotional foci become terrible choices, because their abilities only trigger on a slam attack.

If instead the abilities are altered so that they trigger on any kind of attack, not just slams, that works also. But that's not how the emotional foci are worded.

I've recently grown curious to learn more about the odd secular pseudo-religion of the Kalistocrats, but I'm not sure which books can provide more information than the brief summary on a wiki page. Even looking it up in The Inner Sea World Guide just told me they have some vague "dietary and sexual restrictions" (unspecified), and the barest tenets of their philosophy.

Are there any prominent or memorable Kalistocrat NPCs I could look into? Any books which go into some more detail? I'm interested in making an adherent of the prophecies as a character, but I know so little it would be difficult at this point.

I've always liked the idea of a character with superhuman strength literally ripping a door off its hinges, or knocking down a brick wall with a tackle. I'd love to be able to take ten to rip an iron door out of a wall, but at DC 28, that's not something you can accomplish on a ten without exceeding the strength score of a great wyrm red dragon.

Aside from having an extremely high strength score, what methods are there to make breaking an object with a strength check easier? Any traits, feats, bonuses, or items that I could get?

Per the recent FAQ regarding Draconic Bloodline Bloodragers and the Blood of Dragons ability of the Dragon Disciple (linked below):

Dragon Disciple and Bloodrager: The dragon disciple’s blood of dragons ability increases draconic sorcerer bloodline powers. What about draconic bloodragers?

Yes, dragon disciple's blood of dragons ability should also increase draconic bloodragers’ bloodline powers.

Does the robe of arcane heritage apply to Bloodrager bloodlines?

Once per day, a paladin can call out to the powers of good to aid her in her struggle against evil. As a swift action, the paladin chooses one target within sight to smite. If this target is evil, the paladin adds her Cha bonus (if any) to her attack rolls and adds her paladin level to all damage rolls made against the target of her smite. If the target of smite evil is an outsider with the evil subtype, an evil-aligned dragon, or an undead creature, the bonus to damage on the first successful attack increases to 2 points of damage per level the paladin possesses. Regardless of the target, smite evil attacks automatically bypass any DR the creature might possess.

Does a Paladin using Smite Evil ignore the DR of a smited target which is non-evil?

I'll be discussing the details with the GM in person as well, but I wanted to get some input from the forums without reading any of the spoilery threads. I've been invited to join an ongoing Reign of Winter game at level seven, and I'm brainstorming what characters would be a good fit for the campaign. I know very little about the adventure path - right now I know there's some winter, a bunch of witches (including Baba Yaga) and I know where you get to go during Book Five and who must die when you're there. That... is about it.

The GM has mentioned that the group could use a warpriest or battle cleric of some kind (I'm thinking warpriest).

Without giving anything spoilery away (any plot details I'll get directly from the GM), what sort of characters would be a good fit to join up with a party doing the adventure path at around this level? What races, motivations? Would a "witch hunter" sort of character be a good fit? What about elemental magic - I get that "cold" is a theme, but I'm afraid of running into lots of monsters who will be immune to cold. Would a fire-using character be useful here?

At some point I'm going to be running a gestalt Wrath of the Righteous, and I am going to plan things out extensively before the game starts up (probably giving myself weeks, if not months, of prep time). I know two of my players ahead of time, so I'm already working on ways to ensure the adventure content and difficulty is mapped to the types of things that'll work for everyone.

There's a couple of issues I am looking at now. The two guys I have already signed on to play couldn't be more different in terms of power. The first one is an optimizer of the highest order (we joke about his theoretical mythic druid build which could destroy Golarion). That's not a problem - I'm an optimizer too and I love playing around with system mastery. I just want to ensure the adventure is tailored so that combat will be satisfying for everyone - not so straightforward that the optimizer auto-wins everything without the party, but not so difficult that the optimizer is the only one who can handle the opponents.

The first of the players will be playing a Gunslinger/Inquisitor, dual-wielding pistols and pumping out what can only be an avalanche of damage. The second is playing a Shaman/Spiritualist, who I can only imagine will be much less over-the-top in terms of absolute combat dominance. Spiritualist isn't the strongest class on the block by any standard.

I've read the critiques on mythic. I know the system requires heavy adjustment if it's to be balanced. I'm evaluating what options are available to keep the mythic "feel" (it's a cool system, if a badly broken one) without letting it destroy my game.

Any tips on how people have handled this sort of thing in their games (either handling varied levels of system mastery and/or adjusting mythic content)?

I was just thinking about the type of adventures that an Occult character would fit perfectly into, and it struck me - Occult characters fit the theme of a haunt incredibly well. I flipped through the playtest document, and aside from only two spells, there's no link between Haunts and the Occult Adventures classes.

I very much hope that at least one class in the final book (Spiritualist, I'm lookin' right at you) has the ability to interact meaningfully with haunts. They're rare enough of a hazard that it doesn't warrant being the focus of an entire class, but there's precious few ways to handle haunts as it is, and it's a perfect fit for the class.

Imagine a Phantom being able to consume a haunt to grow stronger temporarily... now that's chilling. I'll just leave you on that thought while I go fire up the homebrew drawing board...

I've seen this ruling before but I spent several hours looking for it last night on the FAQ. I want to see the exact wording so I can make sure this build works. The basic wording is "If a class feature does exactly the same thing as another class feature, it counts as that class feature."

If anyone has a link that would be greatly appreciated.

Is there any culture or ethnicity in Golarion which serves as an analog for real-world/traditional fantasy voodoo practices? There's a number of class features and feats that fit - I'm mostly interested in a region or culture rather than mechanical options.

As far as I know, even with the Magus's spellstrike ability, no spell can crit for x3 or x4 damage (just x2). Is there any exception to this rule? I've searched and found nothing.

As far as I can tell, it does not. It came up in a game last night where a grappled caster needed to cast a spell with a concentration check DC of 54, and actually did manage a natural 20 - but as we looked, we couldn't find anything that said natural 20s counted as an automatic success on such checks.

Anything I missed in my search?

Okay, I know this is gonna be pretty unorthodox and weird, so bear with me. Is it possible to attack yourself as part of a full attack? I'm working with my blood conduit bloodrager, and I was thinking that an interesting way to throw a quick self-buff on himself during combat would be to hit himself with an unarmed strike with his lowest iterative, and use the Spell Conduit ability to throw a beneficial touch spell on himself at the end of a full attack. Yes, I know, it specifies "an enemy." Ignore that bit for this thread.

I like the visual too - he tears open the skin on his chest as his boiling blood morphs into a wreath of flame around him, or something. Is there anything stopping you from making an attack against yourself in this manner?

So, I'm kicking around a build for a rather fanatical zealot of an inquisitor (or similar class) with the diehard belief that there is evil in everyone, and purging that evil is the only way to purity. Mechanically, I was planning to have him use the Undead Domain power to give targets the positive-energy vulnerability of undead, and then beat the pulp out of them with holy light.

Are there any other ways to give people Negative Energy Affinity against their will? Inquisitor doesn't have as much positive-energy blasting as I'd hoped for at first blush. My first thought was to get a Sacred Servant paladin to get the domain from an Empyreal Lord, because so many of them have weird subdomains, but no ELs (or, for that matter, non-evil gods) offer Undead.

Inspired heavily by the excellent (and hilarious) 2nd-Edition D&D Story "The Intercontinental Union of Disgusting Characters", I am working on a short story of a Pathfinder world (incorporating some 3.5 elements, so 3.P) where ridiculous exploits of the game rules actually work and are incorporated into the lore of the game.

For example, there are three gods I've come up with so far. First among them is Pun-Pun, the Godslayer, the Shaper of Flesh, He of Infinite Reach - a famous 3.5 exploit where a kobold gains an arbitrarily large amount of HP, arbitrarily long reach, and the ability to deal an arbitrarily large amount of damage to anyone at any point in the entire multiverse. He killed every deity simultaneously at the moment of his ascension, and now has become effectively immortal and omnipresent.

The second god is Vectron (Praise be to His Kindly Claw!), who definitely exists, and is the only god to survive Pun-Pun's ascension. Vectron, who is a real god, offers every single domain to all his clerics, who can be of any alignment. His clerics are quick to explain how their god is real, and definitely is the best god, because he is the god of whatever it is you happen to be doing right now, and also because he definitely exists.

The third god is The God of Brown Mold, a horrific and putrid entity who ascended to godhood when he had the brilliant idea to take a small sample of Brown Mold to the former Elemental Plane of Fire, instantly transforming it in a single moment into the Elemental Plane of Brown Mold. This, of course, killed nearly every creature on the plane - and since the plane is infinite, caused him to gain an infinite amount of experience points. He gained an infinite number of levels in every class, and has literally infinite hit points, saving throws, attack bonus, ability scores, and skill checks. He also has every class feature and every feat, including an infinite number of instances of every feat that can be taken multiple times. While he does not possess the arbitrarily large reach of Pun-Pun, so he cannot kill the Godslayer, Pun-Pun can only deal an arbitrarily large amount of damage - not infinite. The God of Brown Mold is the God of Infinity, because his power is limitless. Practically the only thing he does not have an infinite amount of is treasure.

I'm trying to come up with any other "gods" that would fit into this story, related to similar ridiculous and farcical interpretations of the rules. I'm not aware of any combos, besides the God of Brown Mold, who can obtain such ridiculous power in Pathfinder (3.0 was much more absurd).

Any suggestions?

This has happened more times than I can count in PFS. So, the front-liner takes a couple power attacks from the big beastie, and falls to -3 hit points, becoming prone and helpless. Nobody's particularly worried, because there's a great healer cleric nearby, but the rogue steps into his square to engage the monster in melee because hell, it's a five-foot-wide corridor and Paizo seems to think those are just awesome these days.

On the next initiative, the cleric channels energy. Suddenly... the two medium-sized characters are sharing the same square. What happens then? We usually sort of glance around the table in confusion, and someone suggests "Ummm I guess Jeff gets 'bumped' out to here?" and slides his mini over five feet. Of course... sometimes there's no free space within five feet, and if Jeff was to be 'bumped,' he'd have to travel about fifteen feet.

The same situation arises when someone tries to maneuver through allies' squares to use Acrobatics to get through a monster's squares. Inevitably, they fail the Acrobatics check, which makes them take an AoO... and then they have to stop moving. But... the nearest open space is fifteen feet behind them, because of the mob of players/animal companions filling every square between the archers and the monster. What happens here?

Is there any actual rule preventing this? It's an issue that's come up several times - it's incredibly beneficial for a character to get into combat along with an ally, not having to spend their own movement, etc. Obviously, the rules were not written with the assumption that Fizzbang the Gnome would strap an exotic saddle on Kragthor the Orc's back, but do the rules actually prohibit this?

It's implied that the rider chooses the actions of his mount - what happens when the mount is a player character?

Ignoring the silliness of one humanoid riding another, what happens when a druid wildshapes into a dire tiger and the fighter climbs onto their back?

I'm working on a character build designed to take advantage of the Elemental Commixture feat without help - but rather than being an Inquisitor, he will cast in tandem with his familiar, which will be using spells granted to it via Familiar Spell (with a metamagic cost reduced via traits).

I'd really like to do it with a spell whose subtype can be changed when you cast it, so that my familiar can provide whatever elemental power is needed. The easiest spells I can see to do that so far are spells like elemental speech or a summon spell, but summon spells are 1-round casts and Elemental Commixture requires the casting to be a standard action or less.

Right now, the easiest I can see doing it is using Elemental Speech (perhaps representing the familiar invoking words of elemental power to modify its master's magic), cast out of a third-level spell slot, since the +3 spell level adjustment of Familiar Spell will be reduced by two because of traits. I'd really prefer a lower-level spell, though.

Any spells that fit the "choose your type" option at a lower level than 2nd? They can be of any class - I haven't decided yet whether to be a wizard, druid, cleric, or other.

In the Melee Tactics Toolbox, there is a new feat which says the following:

An aquatic spell functions normally when

underwater and requires no caster level check to cast, even
if it possesses the fire descriptor. In addition, the spell can
be cast from the surface into water and still be effective.
An aquatic spell uses up a spell slot 1 level higher than the
spell’s actual level.

I've been told before that spells can't enter the surface of water, but I looked and looked for this ruling and never found it.

Can anyone give me a page number?

I first looked at Sacred Summons when trying to make a Wizard/Hellknight Signifier summoner - but it looks like having an aura of "Lawful" doesn't really give you much of anything. Am I missing something?

Besides having an aura of "Lawful," what's the most useful alignment (of your aura) for that feat?

I'm brainstorming my next PFS character (a wizard, arcanist, or sorcerer of some kind) and I'm trying to figure out what's going to make him different from every other bearded conjurer with a pointy hat and colored robes. I get my enjoyment of this game from the creative things I can do with class and feat combos, so I'm trying to do something more interesting than "Wizard 20." Sure, it'll be effective, but it's pretty boring.

My one caveat is that I not sacrifice a spellcasting level. I'm not willing to delay access to my higher-level spells by dipping into Eldritch Knight or something.

I'm thinking my character will be a Wizard/Hellknight Signifier. Signifiers get full spellcasting progression, so I figure that will make the character a bit more interesting without really losing much in the way of power. Plus, it'd be fun (though I'm not sure if it will be particularly powerful) to be a primary spellcaster running around in full plate armor.

I'm hoping there's something Signifiers are good enough at that it's worth playing one for the mechanics alone. So far, the only interesting interaction with other abilities I can think of is using the Aura of Law to qualify for Sacred Summons and summon creatures as a standard action.

It also might be interesting to be a Blade Adept Arcanist and combine my Black Blade skills with the defensive capabilities of the Signifier's heavy armor to be a fully-leveled caster who can mix it up in melee with the right buffs.

Any thoughts? What are Signifiers good at? Any suggestions on fun things to do with wizard builds in general?

It's generally assumed among our local GMs that, unless tactics specifically state otherwise, monsters should never attack players below zero hit points if there are any other targets. Is that accurate? I was told this a long time ago as though it were an official PFS rule, and never questioned it until recently. Is this an actual rule somewhere, or just good GMing practice?

According to the SRD, sitting or kneeling gives +2 AC against ranged attacks and -2 AC against melee attacks. What action is it to sit, kneel, or stand up from sitting or kneeling?

I'm working on a ninja character who very much would like to make his way through walls to ensure that he gets to kick off the surprise round. So far, I don't think there's an easier way to pass through walls than blink. Are there any magic items or spells that would be easier than this?

Right now my best option seems to be invisibly blinking through the wall, moving into position, and unleashing sneak attack death.

So my players just began Book 3 last night, and are at Port Peril, about to have their audience with the Hurricane King. They just now discovered that the throne from the end of Book 2 is cursed (they drug it up from the bottom of the sea with a bunch of effort and magic), and they hit on the idea of giving the throne to the Hurricane King as a gift.

Any amusing (or terrifying) ideas for what happens if he accepts their gift and sits on the thing? (And "He makes his save" does not count as an interesting idea by itself.)

We kicked off a new Kingmaker campaign tonight - getting off to a great start as the players aced the first encounter with ease, and tore off into the wilderness to explore and seek out the encampment they'd heard about. Of course, that's when the dice threw a blizzard at them. They were just within range of Oleg's to retreat and hole up within the warm walls of the trading post, but they lost three days to time as they huddled indoors. On the fourth day the gale-force winds subsided and they lost no time forging straight toward the encampment.

One day out of the post, however, and I asked how many people had brought food for their horses. Everyone but one player had neglected them completely (mistakes of a novice explorer), but the halfling luckily had enough feed to share for a few days' travel. After the encampment fight (a slaughter, the players barely took damage against their full strength), we ended the session.

I created inventory tracking sheets for the players, because I'm planning to keep track of expenditures of rations, feed, arrows, encumbrance, and the like. My players aren't used to that - and one player seems very annoyed by the idea (the halfling who'd remembered to bring feed, surprisingly). He considers the rations/feed "nothing but a minor gold sink and a MAJOR annoyance." For the low-fantasy feel of kingmaker's early adventures, and the thrill of surviving in the wild, I want to have the players manage their resources. I even provided a tracking sheet to make it as simple as filling in a few numbers, with gold totals and weight calculated automatically.

How do I convince a player who hates the entire idea of bookkeeping to get on board with the idea?

Spoilers below.

In the homebrew setting my Kingmaker is set in, elvish society is a gerontocracy - the oldest family member rules. And elves are descended from fey, the most powerful of which are immortal. Recent events in the last century or so have driven many powerful fey to come out of seclusion and re-enter the world. Nyrissa's plot is tied into this - and as it turns out, she happens to be the great-great-great-great-great-great- (etc.) grandmother to a large portion of the modern-day elvish settlement. While she rarely deigns to walk among them directly, I'm planning to have her directing their actions behind the scenes and influencing their politics and military actions.

I'm not sure yet how large the settlement/community will be, nor the exact effect it will have on the party, but I'm looking for a place to insert them into the game. Where would be a good place and time to involve this group, which will be antagonistic to any players or nations opposing Nyrissa's plans?

I know from my experience with monks that they can be non-lawful (such as with this trait). Is there any way for a Barbarian to have a Lawful Good alignment?

Bloodrager or Skald won't cut it - I need Barbarian levels. I can't think of any way to pull it off though.

I've been thinking of adding another way players can customize their characters as they level up. At level 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20, players usually receive a +1 bonus to any ability score. Under this system, a player can forego this bonus to instead select an ability called a "talent."

What sort of power level do you think is appropriate for these talents? I'm not quite sure how much power to make them worth. On the one hand, ability boosts are very powerful options for players as they level up, allowing them to exceed normal limitations for characters of lower levels. On the other hand, there are no feats or abilities that provide similar bonuses besides magic items, so I'm unsure what options to make available in place of these boosts.

One thought was to allow players to switch the ability scores used for certain character features. For example, a talent might allow a player to use Intelligence for his initiative instead of his Dexterity, or let a player use Charisma instead of Wisdom for his will saving throws.

Thoughts?

Specifically, I am wondering if a Flame of Rage's ranged touch attack could be utilized with a Conductive weapon.

A conductive weapon is able to channel the energy of a spell-like or supernatural ability that relies on a melee or ranged touch attack to hit its target (such as from a cleric's domain granted power, sorcerer's bloodline power, oracle's mystery revelation, or wizard's arcane school power).

Supernatural Abilities (Su)

These can't be disrupted in combat and generally don't provoke attacks of opportunity. They aren't subject to spell resistance, counterspells, or dispel magic, and don't function in antimagic areas.

While this defines the traits of a supernatural ability, it doesn't say anything about what makes an ability qualify as one. Anyone aware of any rules defining what does and does not constitute a supernatural ability? (And if a magic item's abilities like this one aren't supernatural, then what are they?)

I feel like the Familiar Folio should be up on the Additional Resources page by now! I'm biting my fingernails in anticipation of what makes the chopping block... there's a few of those familiar archetypes that I would absolutely love to take for a spin in PFS.

Based on past releases, anybody have an estimate for how much longer I'll have to wait?

I'm glad that Core addresses some of the issues that some people have with PFS Organized Play, but I am very concerned what this will do to the community. I fear that at locations without a large player-base, it will become more difficult to find tables now. I don't want our lodge's weekly two scenarios to become one core, one non-core (giving me only one choice if I want more content than one book). I really, really worry that this will make it even harder to find high-level tables (already difficult). I worry that this will draw some of the players I enjoy playing with away from normal PFS. The blend of optimized veterans, casual roleplayers, and beginner players was something I enjoyed, not something I felt needed "fixing."

This could be helpful, but I am terrified that it is going to cause harm to the community that I love so much.

Zarta Dralneen stands behind a cluttered desk, piled high with reports and catalogs of powerful relics held in society vaults, as a furled scroll materializes in the air before her with a slight wisp of violet smoke. She smiles slightly, recognizing the theatrical presentation before retrieving the missive and scanning it.

My dear Paracountess,

- Ezekiel Blakros

The Paracountess looks up as a flame flickers into existence, before bursting into a blazing inferno which coalesces into the scowling form of a nine-foot tall woman with crimson skin, smoldering eyes, and small black horns. Smoke rises in curls from her flesh as she bows angrily before the Paracountess. "I am here to serve the Dark Archive, mistress."

I've always been bothered by the idea that certain spells are simply arbitrarily "evil" regardless of the purpose they're used for. For example, if you cast summon monster V and summon a demon in order to save an innocent person from danger, that's an evil act. Casting infernal healing to save someone's life is an evil act, and it's evil to use create undead to provide tireless laborers to harvest food for a starving community.

Now, I don't want to just remove this aspect of the game. There should be evil magic, and this magic should be avoided by good characters except in dire circumstances, when they are willing to commit an evil act for the greater good. So I've come up with a few flavor-based rules to govern these spells and define why they're evil.

In my world, there is a barrier between the Material Plane and the lower planes of the Abyss and the Nine Hells, which prevents demons and their ilk from crossing over without assistance from mortals. Every time you summon a demon, even if the creature is completely controlled by the caster (as with summon monster), this act damages the barrier between worlds, potentially letting another demon (or more) slip through somewhere else. When a caster creates an undead creature, regardless of their intentions, this causes unbearable torment to the creature's soul in the afterlife (and for some undead, like ghosts or wraiths, the soul is physically forced back onto the Material Plane as the undead).

I haven't really come up with a good idea for infernal healing, though. Other people have made similar threads and suggested "it should take those hit points from someone else in the world somewhere!" but I don't like that idea. I also would rather not give it the same evil rider as the summoning devils one - I think it'd be more interesting to give it its own evil twist. In particular, I think it would be cool if it did something tangible and noticeable to the caster, like... maybe it causes crippling pain to the person being healed? Just throwing out ideas.

I'd be okay with a mechanical change to the spell too... but it should be one which makes the spell more appealing, despite making it more evil to cast. The type of change that would make an antipaladin grin with glee but a lawful-neutral-but-usually-compassionate arcanist kind of hesitant to use it, despite the temptation.

Any ideas or suggestions for what evil side effects infernal healing or other evil spells without directly evil effects might have? I'm curious to see what other people come up with!

The website says that Early Enrollment is "estimated Oct 30th" - but that was about 17 days ago. If I signed up for Early Enrollment, would I be able to get involved with the game today?

Apologies if this is not the right place to ask this, but I couldn't find another place which had the answer.

So my Magus just hit level 11 last night, and I've now come to realize that I have pretty much filled every "essential" niche on the character and am trying to decide which items I should go for next. I've got the ever-useful Celestial Armor and my sword is a beautiful Black Blade (so I can't upgrade either of those, since this is a PFS character). I have the Ring of Arcane Might, and some minor other items as well (a +3 Cloak of Resistance, a +1 Ring of Deflection and a +1 Ring of Natural Armor). My AC is 28 (respectable, especially given my ability to increase it by 6 as an immediate action with Spell Shield), and I don't take a lot of hits.

I wonder what else I really need. There doesn't seem to be a way to get spell resistance without paying through the nose, unfortunately. Any "must have" or "totally awesome" items you'd recommend for a magus pushing the upper levels of organized play? (I will be playing her past level 11, hopefully as high as the adventures will take me.)