BTW - at Kirth: Magical Talent has been DM modified to not allow cross genre spells - you pick your spell list: Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Bard - and you're stuck with that list. You also stuck with whatever list you have if you're a caster - so wizards can't pick up cleric spells regardless.

It makes it less broken - though it's by far my most favorite feat ever, because it's soo darn versatile. Initially had a sorcerer with CLW unlimited... DM said it'd make the clerics cry (and obviously negate the need for wands).

DM btw is Heliopolix - he rocks.

My issue with non-contested skills is the DC typically is too high at low levels and trivial at high levels unless artificially inflated for no particular meta reason other than they're trivial.

(Seriously, why is opening a lock harder at 20 than at 1? Some superduper metamagiced uber lock on a commoners house? just to keep the party rogue sweating?!?)

Anyway, my thought on the matter is, DCs should all be low - or lower than they are now, and stay that way. The thing that should change is the amount of time something takes.

Lockpicking, for instance. Simple lock: DC 5, Complex: DC 10, Superior: DC 15. That's it. Just that it takes 10 rounds to open it. Now, if you want to open it faster, increase the DC by 5 for every round you reduce (or more realistically, roll the skill and see how long it takes.) Rogue: "I got a 32 on my lockpicking" DM: "Great, it's a simple lock, DC 5, it takes you 5 rounds to open it." The DM would then check to see if any guards are passing by, checking their passive Perception against the rogue's Stealth check (if he remembered to do it stealthily) etc etc.

I'd also alter the knowledge checks accordingly. Level to CR par (to make it easy, for this purpose only, call level = CR of creature. If par, DC 5 knowledge check to know about the creature. +/- 5 DC for every CR to Level difference (and stop at CR 1; don't continue providing penalties for 1/2, 1/3 etc.) Again, the knowledge check takes 10 rounds, as the player studies the subject. Increase the DC by 5 for every round shortened (again, roll the skill to see how long it takes). The longer it takes, the more likely the subject will notice - not a big deal if you're trying to ascertain the royal crest on some knight in a crowd - a larger deal if it's an undead stalking your camp...

I also think that critical success and failure should work for skills. Even the most badass of scouts might flub a stealth check if at the critical moment, he's kicked in the shins by his woman - or gets tangled in his dog's leash... whatever. The same with the ninja-esque woman and the cookie thief... maybe the cat ran in front of the tv, knocking the rabbit ears on the ground, interrupting Days of Our Lives and the kid wins the skirmish...

Most skills aren't so critical that a one time 1 will negate any chance of future success - and if it does, it creates more drama and story anyway.

My DM is concerned with the following text in Ultimate Equipment:
"* Add to enhancement bonus on Table 3–1: Armor and Shield
Pricing by Bonus to determine total price" It's an asterisk on every line of special abilities that have a gold piece cost rather than an enhancement bonus (+1, +2, etc.)

Her interpretation is that since the gold piece costs are itemized on the charts under various bonuses (for instance, Glamered is on the +2 bonus chart, but noted as 2700 gold pieces) that the total cost is 2700 plus a +2 bonus cost.

Now, I can see glamered adding to the total enhancement of a piece of armor (say, a +3 breastplate) for a total bonus of +5 for consideration of further improving the armor - but actually having a gold cost of 6,700 seems pretty ridiculous for the ability (4000 for +2 and the 2700 base cost).

I can't seem to find anywhere where it specifies one way or the other - the quote above is as close to an explanation as there is, and it's fairly clear that by that, her interpretation is correct.

My current 'tank' build is pretty crazy multi-classed.

Barbarian (Armored Hulk) chassis - 7 levels
Cleric of Kurgess 1 - travel (speed!) and Community - Fatigue!
Fighter 2 - Unbreakable for free feats, grabbing Combat Expertise as second level (already get Heavy Armor from barbi)

Possibly adding in a level of Oracle of Metal for extra 10' move and more spells.

Oh, and I'm going dwarf, with Rockstepper and Giant Killer racial traits.

Cleric is picking up alternate channel - earth, to make difficult terrain (rock stepper, and Agile Moves negates the penalty for me :)

Finally, taking last 10 (or 9 if I pick up the Oracle level) in Stalwart Defender. The Unbreakable fighter free feats is the heavy lifter for this.

Community's fatigue remover works for both Rage and Stalwart Defense, plus I'm picking up Stalwart and Improved Stalwart feats to give even more DR

The only serious drawback is lack of damage output. I'll be a hard nut to crack, but not a lot of incentive to stick to me - outside of not being able to 5' away.

Even so, it feels like it'll be a fun build... with the potential for 50' move in full plate as a dwarf. 40' for sure.

So, I've been thinking about playing a pure tank, and I'd like some critique of this build as well as ideas on stats (20 pt buy)

1) Barbarian (Armored Hulk), Toughness
2) Cleric (Crusader) of Cayden for travel domain, Tower Shield Prof bonus feat. Also taking Earth alternate channel power.
3) Fighter (Unbreakable, Lore Warden) (asked for special dispensation to drop the will save from unbreakable at level 2 - both classes replace Bravery) - picking up endurance and die hard from unbreakable. Steel soul 3rd level feat.
4) Fighter - Combat expertise for free (no int pre-req) from Lore Warden. Shield Focus level 2 fighter feat
5-20 Barbarian, picking up Stalwart line, superstition rage line, etc.

Playing Rise of the Runelords

Concept is to take the dwarf traits of Glory of Old and Giant Killer, taking Rock stepper and the giant hatred alternate traits. Then, with the Earth channel, I can keep enemies from 5' stepping, while I can 5' to them.

By 8th level, I'll have Armored Hulk 5, granting another 10' of movement in heavy armor, for a total of 40'. Considering taking the pounce rage line, but without TWF, it's a bit silly. Being able to charge 80' as a dwarf is pretty sick as is.

Plate and tower shield for total turtle defense, Stalwart to add more DR in turtle mode, earth channel to provide some battlefield control (agile moves from travel will also allow me to negate the movement penalties if I want to charge as well).

All in all, it seems very dwarfy.

Thoughts?

I'm probably going to be playing a cleric in an upcoming Rise of the Runelord campaign, and it's been decided the group is going to be a band of dwarves as an homage to The Hobbit.

However, no one in the group is particularly happy with being slow, so they're all looking for various ways to over come it (most often by taking a level in barbarian).

I've decided, since the cleric hand has been shoved at me, to grab a deity with the travel domain. Sadly, all of the dwarven gods are homebodies, so I'm ranging into the humans and Abadar really has my attention.

Now, on to the really non-optimal part of this - I'm thinking of playing a battle-ish type cleric with secondary push into support. For that, I'm for sure, going to take up the tower shield and be the frumpy turtle that annoys the enemy by healing up the party.

I'm toying with going with the Crusader archetype, just for the free feats - which allows me to skip the Fighter levels that typically boost the military prowess. Grabbing tower shield at 1st, heavy armor at 5th and greater shield focus at 10th (regular shield focus along the way).

The other idea was to grab Tower shield prof as my 1st level feat and dipping into Unbreakable for endurance and diehard - two feats that, along with Toughness would really make this guy a very hard nut to crack.

Abadar is great, except for his divine weapon of choice. Caiden seems like another great choice - though I have a hard time wrapping my brain around rapier and tower shield... but I'm not expecting to be wading into combat too much (else, I'd just go classic Gorum and Greatsword, obviously)

So I guess my primary question is, has anyone played a tower shield wielding battle/support hybrid and what class/archetype options did you use, and what feats - bonus and level did you take?

Off the top of my head, I'd like Scribe Scroll, Steel Soul, Weapon Focus (Warhammer or d.waraxe for dwarven flavor) - but should I grab Elemental Channeling and go into Holy Vindicator? Should I grab Spell Focus: Conjuration / Augment Summoning and go the summoning route?

I'd read about taking 5 levels of Fighter - Tower Shield Spec for the bonuses, but eating 5 levels of spell casting seems really harsh.

Anyway, any advise would be appreciated. Trying to have a fun quirky character, but don't want to shoot myself in the foot and be completely unplayable.

Oh, as for the rest of the party, the only other person who has provided a character is a barbarian 2 / Two handed Fighter /x Which is the primary reason I didn't go full on battle cleric - I figured we'd need a tank and flank buddy for him.

Seems to me, the availability for bow users to this discovery but not two-handed gunners, is, bow users touch their ammunition prior to releasing. You aren't grabbing your bullet, infusing it with a bomb, stuffing it down the barrel, lining up your shot and firing it as a standard action.

A bow user on the other hand, is. It's stretching the imagination that allowing this as a standard action on a heavy crossbow is ok. But on a rifle? Leave me some verisimilitude, please.

Sorry for the rez - has there been a ruling regarding this in the last 8 months?

My GM was gracious (maybe crazy) enough to let me use the ogre build example from the ARG. I had originally stated out a barbarian, but after one session of play, found it to be a bit... defenseless. So I'm switching to a fighter to start and would appreciate any advice.

Ok, specifics.
Attributes:
STR: 16 (+6) 22
Dex: 16 (-2) 14
Con: 17 (+2) 19
Int: 13 (-2) 11
Wis: 13
Chr: 12 (-2) 10

We are using the Vigor/Wounds alternate rules, hence the higher Con.

I've fallen in love with the dorn-dergar, so took EWP as my first feat. With the ogre's range and it being a ranged weapon, and a decent if not stellar dex, I picked Combat Reflexes as my fighter feat.

We're also playing Kingmaker - all the players are half-orcs, hobgoblins and me with my ogre... we're interested in seeing how we can make the River Kingdoms into an orc/monster haven.

Because it's Kingmaker, and outdoorsy types are king (no pun intended) I'm considering taking levels in Ranger, focusing on THF (grabbing Shield of Swings at R2 and Great Cleave at R6) Outside of that though, I'm a bit lost. I'm planning on grabbing Darting Viper at level 4 as F2 (so F1, R1, R2, F2 for levels)

Any thoughts on additional feats / progression? I'd like to get at least F3 for armor training 1 (and might as well go to F4 for spec?) Given the ranger feats are limited to medium armor, I figured being able to full speed in it would be advantageous.

So, any archetypes would need to reflect keeping AT1. I also want Great Cleave, but not Cleave (necessarily), so would like to keep R6 free feat (had considered Falconer, until I saw the loss).

So, anything else that would help?

I'm looking to do decent (not insane) DPR while being, if not a total tank, at least able to hold my own.

Thanks!

I've been playing around with a Stonelord build since I heard about it last week... coming from a 3.5 Dwarven Fighter / Defender, this is just like "Angelic whispers and holy light in my optic nerves awesome!!!"

So, I too went the dorn-dergar route, however, I like to hedge my bets and be prepared for anything - and build organically.

My stats are:
Str: 16
Dex: 16
Con: 17 (+2 = 19)
Int: 13
Wis: 12 (+2 = 14)
Chr: 13 (-2 = 11)

Note, we're playing Vigor/Wounds, so higher Con is quite important, otherwise I'd swap it for Str.

Traits:
Eyes and Ears of the City - I like me some Perception
Glory of Old - I've always been a saving throw junkie, and loss of Divine Grace has me scrambling for anything that'll help. (One reason I just love dwarves).

Feats: I've done many many iterations, but after personal review and board / advice scrounging, here's my current set up.
1: Two weapon fighting (Using Dwarven Urgosh for most benefit)
3: Improved Shield Bash (switching to Dwarven waraxe and light shield)
5: Dorn-dergar Master (switching to Dorn-dergar for range, light shield for close)
7: Shield Slam - free bull rush to get them back to DD range? Yes please!
9: Power Attack - Needed a feat to fill in... seemed worth it at this point, other option is Steel Soul; will probably see where the campaign is and how often I come to failing or nearly failing magic saves.
11: Shield Master (switching heavy shield for light) - It's about here that I think the campaign will be winding down. Hitting a bit harder and having another point of AC is just nice.
13: If I took PA at 9, I'm grabbing Imp. Bull Rush, if not, then PA
15: Imp. Bull Rush if needed, or Combat Reflexes. Game will probably be over by now anyway.

Mercy:
Fatigue, of course. Nothing says 'aww crap' like killing fools and then next turn Free Action drop Defensive, Swift Action LoH and removing Fatigue, Charge into some fools and activate my Defensive Stance again.

Defensive Powers: Here, I'm not sure what order to go in... Currently, I have:
Unexpected Strike
Renewed Defense
Bulwark
Halting Blow

I also took Rock Stepper and Relentless. With Earth Variant Channeling to make difficult terrain (Which at least RoI, should be compatible with Rock Stepper), means I have more control, especially with a reach weapon.

The one big drawback, so far, is lack of Combat Reflexes. The reach just screams for it, the Dex nearly demands it - yet there's no place for it until 15th level. Really don't want to lose progression for Fighter - though without the capstone being reached, it probably isn't that big a loss.

Critiques?

whats the other guy look like, and what are you trying to achieve? whats the campaign?

Other than skills, we're twins. So, identical regarding feats and such.

We're starting book 2 of Carrion Crown (I'm swapping out a zen archer for the rogue).

The rest of the party consists of Paladin (meat shield), Inquisitor (secondary meat shield), Cleric (Guidance spammer /eyeroll) and Abjuration wizard (most useless low level character evar)

The paladin is a pretty decent tank, and is situationally aware, maneuvering into areas allowing others to flank. (We had a ranger/rogue who had benefited from this - and is a big motivator into bringing in a pair of rogues.

As an archer, I was really carrying the group. The ranger was second best dpr, but he's leaving the group. The inquisitor is happy to get into the mix, but is sporting a gauntlet and scorpion whip... not overly optimal for damage. The wizard has only acid splash and disrupt undead for offensive spells - and so far, the only BFC he's used was from a wand of slow he got. That was helpful, but he's purposefully not building for combat and takes no combat spells so he can 'role play' better (he's also 100% devoted to the Stormwind Fallacy.)

you can't take only one lvl of an archytype if you take more lvls in it i.e. rogue and barb. You get you stick with it.

I realize that - I didn't think I'd need to keep writing the archetypes in the class list...

My friend and I are updating a pair of rogues we played in 3.5 for a pathfinder only (20 pt buy) game. Of note: the GM has stated we get full HPs every level, so Toughness and FCB Hit Point aren't AS important.

We'll be 4th level, but I stated out a full build.

Couple of unbreakable items of note
Race must be halfling
There must be at least 1 level of barbarian.

Here's what I'm currently thinking:
Barb (Invulnerable Rager)1/Rogue (Knife Master) 1/Barb 1/Rogue 3/Barb 2/Rogue 12
Str: (16-2)14, Dex: (15+2)17, Con: 14, Int: 12, Wis: 10, Chr: (7+2)9
Traits:
Reactionary, River Rat (+1 damage with daggers)
Feats:
1: Power Attack
3: TWF
4: Weapon finesse (finesse rogue)
5: Double slice
6: Weapon focus [dagger] (weapon training)
7: Imp. Init.
9: Imp TWF
11: Imp. crit (dagger)
13: Outflank
15: Greater TWF
16: TW: rend (bought with Feat talent)
17: Precise strike
19: TW: defense
20: Feint partner (bought with combat trick)

Rage Powers
3: Superstitious
8: Witch hunter

Talents (those not taken as feats)
10: Offensive Defense
12: Underhanded
14: Opportunist
18: Imp. Evasion

As a matched set, are there better options? I tried to find teamwork feats that would compliment the fighting style and maximize our damage output. The 8d8 sneak dice I thought offset the -2dx sneak loss from 4 levels of barbarian, but the added BAB and extra iterative attack (especially against mooks we can crunch like popcorn) made it net zero.

Also, I'm not sure the progression is optimal... feats and classes taken as listed...

I have a zen archer in an established game, so I can't make any changes (sans dying), but wanted to maximize my character going forward.

Current stats
Halfling, level 3 (nearly 4), 20 pb, PF only (Carrion Crown camp.)

Str: 10
Dex: 16
Con: 10
Int: 10
Wis: 16
Chr: 15

My current plan is to take a level in Sorcerer (Borean) at level 5 to gain access to Gravity Bow, and take Arcane Strike as my 5th level feat. Then back to Monk until level 9, and pick up 3 levels of Arcane Archer for the magical arrows + elemental damage, then finish out monk.

I reason I think this is the better way to go is the DM has a house rule that ranged weapons and ammo have different magical properties. A +1 Bow is just to hit, a +1 arrow is just to damage.

I've flipped/flopped on considering Bard instead of Sorcerer, for Arcane Duelist and the free Arcane Strike feat, freeing up a feat slot (plus better saves and more skill points) but Boreans Cold Metal ability (putting Frost damage 3+Chr mod a day on all my arrows for a round) on top of being able to cast Gravity Bow really sold me on Sorcerer.

One thing I'm not sure about is whether taking more AA for the BAB progression will help - will having a +16 BAB and thus more damage with Deadly Aim per shot be worth the hit to my overall monk level? Any advice is appreciated (including if I should just stay pure monk and ignore the, on average +2 points of additional damage from Arcane Strike and Gravity Bow)