The Sweater Golem's page

I don't like the ability adjustments based on age. This age discrimination has no place in today's gaming. I want to play a grizzled middle-aged warrior and not suffer a penalty to my physical stats.

I am not arguing that a decrease in physical stats and an increase in mental stats makes some real world sense. I just don't think we need it. So, I am arguing that it is unnecessary, although not absurd.

Plus, it eliminates being able to make your wizard really old for a cheesy buff. Your characters age becomes a role-playing decision only.

I liken it to 1e when female characters couldn't have as high a strength as male characters. Sure, in the real world the strongest men are stronger than the strongest women, but I'm not here for the real world. The powers that be at some point decided that this was unnecessarily restricting of female players/characters and I feel they should do the same for our elderly or even middle-aged players/characters.

Ninja'd already I see, but +1 to the LN alignment. This is the description from pfsrd. Emphasis mine.

A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government.

Lawful neutral means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot.

The Shackles has its own code of law and even has a monarch. A monk could hold more strictly to the pirate code than a regular pirate ("They really more like guidelines")

We have an unwritten house rule that shopping doesn't happen during the session. We do pretty much all of our shopping in between sessions through Facebook Messenger and email. The players put together their lists and the GM gives them the OK, or tells them something isn't available.

We'll do this in advance to having the actual money at times. If I know that there is an opportunity to shop coming up in the next session, I will mention it to the players and whoever is tracking loot will give everyone an approximate amount of money they are going to spend. Then people will put together their wish lists in between sessions, with the gp amount next to each item. When the shopping trip comes, it is a simple as saying...You have your stuff now. Granted we aren't exactly role-playing the shopping, we tried that and it didn't work for our group. As the GM, I also do my best to put the shopping trips at the end of the session.

tl:dr - Shop or preshop through social media between sessions.

A handful of berries including a campfire bead.

A scoop of ice cream around a tree feather token.

Diet Coke and Mentos

I can only speak for my own character. We are have just entered the "dungeon" looking for the treasure towards the end of book 2. We all hit sixth level recently. I have a +2 equivalent weapon, +1 armor, a +2 shield, and +2 Amulet of Natural armor. All that plus a few miscellaneous potions and I would say I am pretty much right at WBL of 23,000 gp. Right on target. I'm sure the rest of the party is hit or miss. This doesn't count the magic Hammock, sextant or whatever, and other things we are keeping as party treasure.

Yeah, I was first leaning towards static bonuses, but I ended up with increasing bonuses because I want the ACTOR/REACTOR decision to still matter at higher levels.

A couple other behind the number things: Clearly I used the Inquisitor's Judgement progression for the advancement of the dynamic bonuses.

The Inquisitor doesn't have a way to increase the save DC of their spells. This is a pretty powerful ability at all levels, so I felt that it could stay static.

I also deliberately made the bonus to saves higher than the bonus to spel DC, so that actively resisting spells (by REACTing to ACTing or REACTing casters) would stay viable at higher levels, and in fact become an important strategy to resist the high spell save DC some characters end up with.

Since monsters often have higher HD than the party level, their REACTing bonus will be correspondingly higher. Thus a tough slow solo-monster might be able to be a little tougher to hit or tougher to take out with save or sucks spells.

Here are some abilities I thought of as a rogue talents or they could be a feats for everyone.

A Rogue can ignore the REACTOR bonuses of a number of opponents equal to their INT modifier (minimum 1). This might involve a successful bluff check.

When a Rogue hits with a successful sneak attack, she can waive 1d6 of her sneak attack damage to force the opponent to stay in their current state for a number of rounds equal to the Rogue's DEX modifier"

There are many more options that would of course all need tweaking and balancing. That is why this thread is called Brainstorming.

Other possible options to give the rogue would be abilities around lock opponents into their choice, forcing opponents to change their choice, or getting REACTOR bonuses while ACTing (essentially giving them a weaker form of the inquisitor's Judgement ability)

Just brainstorming here, but I like where my brain is taking me so far.

One concern I have is that it turns the disadvantage from a poor initiative build into an advantage by becoming a reactive character. Sure, you'd still go last in the reactive round, but you gain the reactive bonuses.

Good point. I suspect that even high initiative characters will move to REACTOR at some point in almost every combat. Ultimately, this means that all characters will get a power bump in this system. Monsters too of course. Slow monster will always be reacting and could improve their saves or ACs.

To make high initiative player more valuable, Improved Initiative would likely have to be changed and/or other ACTOR feats created based on this system, with a pre-requisite of Improved Initiative probably.

rough example
Press the Advantage[ACTOR]
Prerequisite: Improved Initiative, 3d6 Sneak Attack
Benefit: Whenever you are an ACTOR, you treat REACTing opponents as flat-footed.

yes, I see possible Special Initiative options as a boost and unique role for the rogue.

I've been following the initiative discussion on the "What are YOUR houserules?" thread the last couple days and it's got me thinking about changing how I do initiative. Right now, I do RAW initiative.

This is what I am considering. I am seeking opinions, possible abuses or repercussions, things like that.

Basic Mechanic
When combat starts each player makes a choice as to whether to compete for initiate or not (Thinking of calling this ACT or REACT).

Players/monster who choose to ACT, roll initiative normally. After all ACTORs have taken their turns, the REACTORs take their turns in order of initiative bonus (essentially they "take 0," but can't go before an ACTOR).

Players who choose to REACT are carefully observing the battlefield and get a boon for the caution. This takes the form of either a 1+1/5 levels bonus that they can apply each round to Attack, Armor Class, or saves (Fort, Reflex, or Will); a + 1 bonus to spell Save DC, or a 1+1/3 levels bonus to damage. 1+1/5 levels means +1 at first, +2 at 5th, +3 at 10th, etc. These would be considered Initiative Bonuses and thus stack with all existing bonuses.

Ready/delay: These actions work as normal except as follows. If readying/delay moves a character's turn from ACTOR to REACTOR they will gain the REACTOR Initiative Bonus on their next turn (the following round). If readying/delaying changes a character's turn from REACTOR to ACTOR they will keep their bonus until the end of their readied/delayed action.

Okay, that's it at the moment.

PROs and CONs as I see them (YMMV)

PRO: Adds some choice and strategy to initiate. Worried about that wizard's? REACT and add to saves. Waiting for the Cleric to buff you before you charge into the fray? You'll get a bonus of some sort for picking you moment. I can think of tons of uses/situations for REACTing and going first (ACTing) has always had its own rewards.

CON: Adds some complexity to initiative. Probably some things I haven't thought of.

Thoughts?

Yeah the standard card stock worked well. I did accidentally print some out on regular paper, and they were workable, but I did prefer the weight of the card stock.

I will paper minis next time I GM. I definitely recommend them.

I used the pdf paper minis for Books 3 to 6. I printed them out at home on standard card stock. I'm defining standard card stock as the one option available at Target. Cutting them out is relatively time consuming, but easy enough to do while you watch tv or some other activity.

I actually paid my then 8 year old daughter a dime a mini to cut them out and glue them together for me. This method could cost you around $13 in production fees though.

Another thing I did was not bother cutting out the medium-sized mooks. I have plenty of medium-sized metal minis, so if there were like 10 zombie paper minis, I didn't bother. I just put out 10 assorted medium-sized humanoids. This will save you a lot of cutting time if you are okay with it.

After we struggled to save our keg of beer from a watery grave at Rickity Squib's, we christened our ship The Drunken Naga

Alright right, great. I don't see any problems with doing this. I would be sure to foreshadow it though. Perhaps having the PCs occasionally dream of themselves as bat people flying through the sky and terrorizing villagers. Somebody might get a bat totem when they get to Nkechi in Racing to Ruin. Be careful not to overdo it though, as the overall theme should still be snake, not bat.

As far a your expert players sanctioning it, I doubt it will be a problem. The Zura cultists are an ancient culture and generally when it comes to ancient cultures anything goes magically speaking. The secrets of how to do that are lost to the ages. You shouldn't need to justify or explain anything. If it comes to it, I would say that this is a special Contingency Spell that triggers and Reincarnation spell upon the subject's death. The form of the Reincarnation is prearranged in this case, but that isn't out of the question for ancient magic.

It has been a while since I ran Serpent's Skull and I don't have the books handy. Can I ask a couple clarifying questions?

I don't remember the specifics on that trapped room with the literal bloodbath. Does bathing in the blood kill them, or are you proposing having it give them a condition so that when (or if) they die in the future they will instead become Batman (as my players called the character who was cursed by the glyph you mentioned), basically giving them a one-time Get out of Death Free card that is accompanied by a hefty social penalty?

Wait, how do you figure that a Heavy spiked shield goes from 1d6 to 2d6 when bashing is added? The medium weapon damage progression is:

1d2 --> 1d3 --> 1d4 --> 1d6 --> 1d8 --> 1d10 --> 1d12

You aren't reading the chart you posted accurately. You read across, not down.

For a one size increase, a medium 1d6 weapon becomes 1d8 as a large weapon.

To do a second size increase, take the 1d8 over to the medium column again and read across. A 1d8 medium weapon becomes 2d6 as a large weapon.

So a two-size increase goes from 1d6 to 2d6.

The Sweater Golem wrote:

My point was really that Murderhobo has a couple applications. It can be applied to indiscriminate or barely discriminate killing for the acquisition of wealth. But it also applies to the default adventurer's lifestyle, regardless of his/her intentions.

What happened to just calling them adventurers?

The term was co-opted by real life people into extreme hiking, camping, etc...

Perhaps we should call our characters Table Top Adventurers

Adamantine,

I am probably still in the initial stage of thinking it is too true and funny to consider any ramifications on the hobby in general. Even though I've been playing Table Top RPGs since way before we had to put the Table Top in front of the RPG, I only came across this term a couple months ago.

I also think that being a murderous hobo for a while is a common, and not necessarily bad, part of gaining role-playing maturity. You learn the system killing things and taking their stuff. When you become system-fluent, you will naturally become bored with this approach and progress towards more story-line and character development. In other words, it is harder to stay in character when you have to thinking about the mechanics too much.

In short, "Let the murderhoboery commence! They'll work it out of their systems."

I personally would not describe the Fellowship of the Ring as "murder hobos." They were on a sacred quest and mostly tried to avoid combat until it was thrust upon them. They certainly didn't wander aimlessly around taking odd jobs here and there, they had specific objectives at all times, in fact you could say Frodo was under an actual geas.

My point was really that Murderhobo has a couple applications. It can be applied to indiscriminate or barely discriminate killing for the acquisition of wealth. But it also applies to the default adventurer's lifestyle, regardless of his/her intentions.

The Fellowship of the Ring was definitely on a sacred and critical quest to Destroy the Ring of Power. Along the way the they tackled these side quests.

* Clear the Balrog from the Mines of Moria

* Rescue Pippin and Peregrine from the clutches of orcs

* Free Theoden from the influences of Saruman and Wormtongue

* Remove Saruman from his tower and seat of power in Isenguard

* Lift the siege on Gondor

* Protect the people of Rohan in Helmsdeep

* Remove the haunting from the Pass of the Dead through the White Mountains.

My point was that even though characters in a well-crafted campaign don't wander around aimlessly, the nature of the business is still often that of transient violence. I think the term is funny because it often applies even when you have the best of intentions.

I don't think it is that many players intentionally play the game in a "murderhobo" style. I think the joke is that even well-intentioned law-abiding adventuring often comes to resemble murderhoboery.

Your young adventurer starts out wanting to save the village. The Lord sends him and his friends off to kill the ogre. As compensation, they take a share of the Ogre's loot. It's better than the town having to pay them. While killing the Ogre, they discover a greater threat. They head off to take care of it and end up with its loot. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I don't think that murderhobo implies that you are killing innocents to take their stuff, but that fullfilling quests and saving the world usually entails two things: moving around a lot taking odd jobs (by definition, being a hobo) and that the jobs involve killing things (murder).

Of course, there are campaigns that don't fit this mold, but this is sort of the standard trope. The Fellowship of the Rings didn't spend much time at home and they sure killed a lot of things.

As for a value, I suggest something around 67,000 gp.

My justification is that a Pit Fiend is a CR 20 monster.

If you are using the Medium advancement track, this is the average amount of treasure for a CR 20 encounter.

When the Pit Fiend comes to kick your @$$, you are going to have a CR 20 encounter.

Elementals are also immune to sleep effects. Use Fire Elementals, you can't Ice Tomb them.

Also, Ability Focus is a Monster Feat, so you can deny access to players if you want. I have learned to do so. Witches save DCs are high enough as it is since they can focus so many resources on intelligence.

And if I ever play in PFS, I'm putting ranks in Profession (drunk).

I prefer to think of my drinking as both a Craft and a Performance.

I've seen bouncer and basketweaver. I think the weirdest one I've seen is soapmaker with craft soap.

If this character's name was Etsy, then, in my opinion, they win Pathfinder Society.

I play a Half-Orc Witch with Profession (Executioner). No GM has ever had any issue with it. I suppose it is legal murder, but so is Murderhoboing in the name of the king.

As far as Profession (Murderhobo) goes, I would be totally fine with it at my tables. I see Murderhobo as a term for adventurer. A Profession(Murderhobo) character basically does some adventuring on the side in addition to his official PFS quests. I see no harm in it if a player chooses to slightly nerf his character to make a joke (nerfed because there aren't going to be too many situtaions outside of Day Job checks where this profession is going to come into play). Personally, I think it is a pretty funny, but my version of Pathfinder is never that serious.

Just find another Time Dragon whenever you travel and convince it to bring you back.

Better yet, after you have done whatever you were going to do whenever. Have your original Great Wyrm Time Dragon (are they TARDIS blue-colored?) travel back to just before you left your original time line the first time. Get the new arrived Time Dragon to stop himself from traveling in the first place and he'll have both of his time travel uses back.

Sometimes exceptions may be phrased differently, so that they don't appear to be exceptions.

e.g. The number of missiles you get when you cast magic missile is half your level rounded up (max 5), but it is phrase as getting one 1 missile at first level and an additional missile every two levels after first.

The same could be said for sneak attack damage dice and channel energy dice. You get half your level in dice, rounded up. I'm not saying I would say that, but someone could say that if they wanted to be annoyingly pedantic.

Here's our band of pirates. We have only been on board the Wormwood for about three weeks and have no idea what is ahead for us.

I'll start with myself.

Sarev Grimm CN Human Male Inquisitor of Besmara (Preacher): I've been told I'm a nasty, loud-mouthed scoundrel. I'm very interested in getting my own ship one day and plundering the seas in Besmara's name, and I'm starting to get the idea that the Wormwood might make a fine starting vessel. Not a great charisma, but is able to use Wisdom for Bluff and Sense Motive (Heresy Inquisition), so he's functioning as the party face. Right now, I'm a swab. It's suits me just fine for the moment. It's easy work and leaves me lots of time to snoops and and ferret out some allies.

Amelia Pond N Female Elven Druid (Aquatic): Amelia is our cook's mate. She blanches every time she is expected to kill the sea turtles. She's been a pretty gods awful cook so far, but her spells have come in handy already so I suppose we'll keep her around. She has a jaguar companion. Yes, even though she is an aquatic druid(?). She says she can "switch" to a shark occasionally when she knows she going where 'Leafspot' can't go. She seems a little unstable if you ask me, but, hey, we're pirates. We've all got our issues.

Shorty (real name unknown) CN Male Halfling Sorcerer (Marid): Shorty is my fellow swab and a total waste of rum rations so far. Halflings just don't seem cut out for pirating. He is whipped almost every day for failing in his chores. I consider him an investment though. If I can keep him alive and allied long enough, maybe he'll prove useful eventually. I think he could the be pretty persuasive if it occurred to him to try. Unfortunately, he is too busy recovering from whippings to talk much to the crew. Plus, he isn't that bright, so he hasn't shown much skill at anything yet. Time will tell, and we can always throw him overboard later if we find a better wizard.

Chum (He says that's his real name) CN Male Human Barbarian (Drunken Rager): Chum's the opposite of Shorty in almost every way. He isn't much of a conversationalist and is almost never sober, but he's one hell of a pirate and I'm glad he's on my side. We've been in a few scuffles already and Chum is invaluable. He's been pretty easy to manipulate so far. Rum rations are a cheap way to secure an ally this powerful. I give him mine and most of the ones I win off the rest of the crew at night. As long as he keeps hitting what I point at, we're going to be 'friends' for a long time.

223. Never trust a statue.
224. You will be attacked on the journey, but only once. This is independent of the distance traveled.

Giving chocolate to GM results in +2 bonus to next D20 roll.

Not a house rule.

The Sweater Golem wrote:

Your character's gender has to match your own.

How would you handle a genderfluid, intergender or agendered player? Or a trans player who transitioned while playing?

I believe you are seriously overestimating the sophistication of our house rules.

I'd probably suggest an overall more neutral party than good party.

That's a nice thing about Serpent's Skull, the party's overall alignment isn't all that important. This AP works fine with evil characters in fact, as long as they aren't Serpentfolk.

The Gun characters will probably be okay. I was just throw some random bullets into treasure hoards here and there. All the random shipwrecks would make a good place for a bullet hoard here and there, or maybe just the materials to make bullets. The Old Pathfinder ship on the Gray Island could work as well. Make finding bullets a carrot to look for shipwrecks. I would keep them low on ammo, so they are concerned about running out. However, just before or sometimes just after they ran out, I would drop some bullets and/or gunpowder.

Once you get off the island you can buy supplies from your faction, so ammo shouldn't be a serious issue any more. You are never really alone in the jungle per say.

The classes that really struggle in this AP are anything that relies on mind-affecting attacks. There are a staggeringly large amount of creatures immune to mind affecting. We had a witch, melee bard, fighter/rogue, and blasting cleric. The witch was severely limited on the things she could hex. Witches are pretty BA though, so she did alright over all. An enchanter wizard or a spell focused bard would be hurting though.

Your character's gender has to match your own.

No Evil characters

We have a rule similar to another up thread where a natural 20 on a confirmation check raises the crit multiplier by one. Just once though, not iterative as above.

Max hit points until 3rd level, reroll results below half the die after that.

I would allow it, and have it do absolutely nothing mechanically. He still makes perception checks like everyone else (since they represent all senses).

It is incumbent upon the player to role-play out the limitations of blindness. There's not a lot of sense in penalizing him and then giving him something like blind sense that is actually really good.

I wouldn't even have him be immune to the blindness spell. If it hits him, assume it compromises the other senses somehow.

It's an awesome character concept best handled entirely in fluff.

+1 to this. Evil Lincoln stole my post. I guess that is why he is evil.

If a player wants to play a blind swordsman, ask him what he sees that meaning. If he is interested in being "blind" without much of the downsides, then just let the fluff cover it. Yes, you are blind, but your mystical training and blah blah blah allow you to function like the rest of us for all intents and purposes.

If he is interested in trying to work around the actually in game limitations of being blind, then let him. Congrats! You are blind. You might think about taking some of these feats. Maybe he is trying to gimp his character because he is a natural optimizers in a group that doesn't value optimization.

tl;dr: Don't let the rules get in the way of someone's character concept.

Beauty is only skin deep.

So, it is really just a question of who has the higher natural armor bonus.

Well, depending on how much healing is partial healing, you could just one level dip into cleric/oracle and get access to scrolls and wands. Then you could be closer to what you want to play.

Other ways to "Holy Up" the straight fighter (although I agree RP is enough)...

1) Use some of those many feats to take eldritch heritage (Celestial). You would pick up a small healing at range (enough to stabilize) and could get flight at 11th level. You'll need Skill Focus (Heal), so then you can tell people you made a healer.

2) Convince your GM to let you play an Aasimar, reskinned as a blessed human. Essentially, you are trading your bonus skill and feat for some resistances, darkvision, daylight, and a "the look."

Healing builds

Battle Oracle. Proficiency in all polearms, heavy armor, lots of spells.

Reach Cleric. Great action economy. You are using polearms anyway...

Yeah, something minor like Vrusks receive a +1 to hit with their one of their weapons (player's choice) when using the Two-Weapon Fighting Feat.

Also, Dralasites rock.

The Sweater Golem wrote:

Be better at disarming than he is at tripping.

OR

Just be BA enough to eat the -4 and kill him from the ground.

For both of those, it helps if the Aldori Swordlord also has a reach weapon (seems unlikely). Otherwise, he has to use his actions crawling (and provoking) after he's tripped, allowing his enemy at least two attacks for every one of his.

I suppose that is true. I would let someone disarm a reach weapon without threatening the person holding the weapon, but RAW probably doesn't support that.

Would that mean that using a readied action to sunder or disarm the polearm would also not work?

Be better at disarming than he is at tripping.

OR

Just be BA enough to eat the -4 and kill him from the ground.

Okay, I our group has still never had a gunslinger. We are starting a new campaign soon (ROTRL: No spoilers please). I usually GM, but I am getting a chance to play for once. Both the new GM and I would really like to see how the Gunslinger works in actual play with our group.

Consequently, I agreed to play one. Now I am a little concerned that I'll be bored to tears.

Reason: From past experience I know I don't like playing archers, because you do the same thing every round: full attack with as many arrows as you can. This isn't a problem for full-casters, of course, and I don't have an issue with melee because being up close and threatened keeps things interest enough tactically.

So, people who have played Gunslingers, is it just like playing an archer or does the Grit and Deeds keep it interesting?

Also, I haven't made the character yet, so input on archetypes that might be more fun wouldn't be amiss.

I don't know if you had a question or if you were soliciting comments. I will comment anyway...

I totally like the idea of characters not knowing they are going to end up wrecked on a tropical island and saving the world from the Serpent God. After all planning your characters based on what the adventure path is going to be like does break verisimilitude a little, especially in Serpent's Skull where your party just sort of falls into the plot line.

That said, the players' guides exist for a reason. I am not familiar with more than the overall theme of Second Darkness, but I am guess reading the players' guide for that AP could leave you to make some bad decisions for Serpent's Skull. SS is a terrible adventure in which to play a heavily armored character for example. If your ranger took Favored Humanoid (Elf), she is going to have very few chances to use that in Serpent's Skull.

With my group, we all agree together on which adventure path is next and who is going to be running it. We are starting Book 6 of Serpent's Skull tonight and decided last week that we would do Rise of the Runelords next.

If I were going to surprise a group with Serpent's Skull, I would at least have them build characters not using any players guide. That way there is nothing specifically leading them in the wrong direction for build choices.

Maybe this is what you have done though.

It is funny you mention all this because we are one session in and the party is now finalized. The player who was considering an Oracle rolled up and Alchemist instead. The fifth player rolled up a "Sword and Board" Fighter.

Well, then I suggest your party get really cozy with Jask as soon as possible.

Okay, we had an interesting situation come up in last night's game and I wanted to get some other interpretations on it.

The party was fighting a high level wizard with a contingency in place to teleport her to safety if her hit points drop below 60.

The party cleric has cast anti-magic field and is continually moving up on the wizard, who moves away on her turn, provoking attacks of opportunity but allowing her to cast a spell and a quickened spell before the cleric moves again.

The party witch is frustrated that the BBEG is in an antimagic field much of the time and she has pretty much nothing to do, so she readies actions to cast spells and use hexes whenever the wizard moves out of the antimagic field. At the time in question she has a readied action to cast an empowered lightning bolt at the wizard when she moves more than 10 feet from the cleric.

So, it gets interesting because the wizard drops below 60 hp while in the antimagic field.

This is how I ruled. The contingency is suppressed inside the antimagic field, but activates as soon as the wizard leaves the antimagic field with less than 60 hp.

I also ruled that the contingency took place before the readied action as an instantaneous effect trumps a readied action, which involves casting a spell. Ultimately the wizard gets away.

Now PC's never like to see the bad guys get away, so there was a little frustration. We are all reasonable friends and no one is prone to ragequit, so we were able to move on quickly. They trust, correctly, that they will eventually get another crack at this evil wizard lady.

So, how would you have ruled? Is there anything in RAW that covers this? During play we usually move on if we can't find an answer within a couple minutes.

What happens to contingency inside antimagic?
Should the lightning bolt have gone off in time to hit (and likely kill) the wizard?

Forgot a Stat boosting item. At level 5, you could probably have +2 Belt of Dexterity. So, make that +33

I'm not very good at this, but I can get the ball rolling at least.

+5 (Dex 20)
+3 (Class Skill)
+3 (Skill Focus)
+2 (That other feat)
+4 (Small Size)
+1 (Trait Bonus)
+5 (Ranks, almost forgot)

So, we are at +23.

Cloak of Elvenkind would give us +28

Favored Enemy maybe, but that is too circumstantial.

Invisibility would make it +48 :)

This is where my ability breaks down. There are probably other magic items that would stack. There are also likely classes that would add to Stealth.
I am playing an archaeologist right now, so +2 Luck and Good Hope Spell for +2 Morale gives us...

+32 (w/ the cloak, but not the invisibility)

I second the above about making sure you have a good healer. It isn't the damage, but the conditions that will kill you in this AP. Lots of diseases and poisons and other sources for ability damage, sickened, nausea, etc. We spent a ton of money on restoration and lesser restoration spells and even Heal scrolls until our cleric was high enough level to cast them. A Wand of Lesser Restoration will be a life saver, but IIRC they give you one as loot fairly early. We used it and bought another.

In regards to the witch, it might be advisable to warn the player up front that this AP has a lot, I mean a lot, of foes that are immune to mind-affecting effects. We are on Book 5 and we have a Mwangi witch in the party. She has gradually shifted her spells to compensate for the immune creatures. The witch is a powerful and versatile class and they can totally get by in this AP. Our witch has certainly been a valuable member of the party, but has been frustrated at times too.

The witch IS one class that gets access to the Remove Sickness spell (along with cleric/oracle and druid). This spell has literally saved our lives on multiple occasions. If your players aren't familiar with it (It's in Ultimate Magic), you might drop in a scroll somewhere. That way the witch could add it to her familiar. Whether she choose to prepare it is her problem...

This is a revelation and the favored class bonus only applies to the effects of your curse.

The only reason for not wanting to be Indiana Jones is that I haven't played with this group before. Seems like an odd first impression.

Despite the Mr. Rogers stuff above, after sleeping on it I am now leaning towards a selfish half-orc who is closer to tomb robber (help me NOT make Lara Kroft) than pure archaeologist. He's got the knowledge skills, but just to intentify possible dangers and opportunities.

@Atarlost

Well, I did mention not being concerned about optimization. :)
You are correct, of course. I plan on starting combat with only my longsword out. Most of my spell casting will be buffing early on. Then the whip comes out. If I have to cast again. I'll drop one of the weapons. That's the nice thing about carrying around two.

I'm not familiar with the Whip Master Line. I am just planning on Combat Expertise and Improved Trip. That will likely be my total investment in whip.

I was planning on half-elven, but I totally agree with the race thing. I might switch to half-orc. I could have the same stats, I'm going to lose that Skill Focus (Perception) though.

So, I am picturing a middle-aged cheerful fellow full of sage advice who believes in doing things by the book (Pathfinder Society Field Guide in this case). Not the least bit interest in women. Probably Lawful Good.

Mr. Rogers with a whip.

I think I'll wear a cardigan and have inside and outside shoes.

@MrSin:

Actually, part of the problem is that this is a new group. Were I playing this character in my existing group of old friends, I would, as you say, be brutally mocked, but mostly tolerated. With a new group I don't want to come across as a Drizzt-playing munchkin, as Tholomyes implied (jokingly, I'm sure)

@DM_Blake

I'm giving the character a pretty high INT. The other three players are basically noobs, so the GM asked me if I might could make a character who could offer in character advice to keep them from doing something stupid. Your idea about playing the Senior Dr. Jones makes me think of giving this guy some gray around the edges and making him not too interested in doing anything risky or foolish.

Maybe I will take Eldritch Heritage to give him a snake familiar... which I will name Short Round. It might be better to just acknowledge the similarities up front.