Tiehunter's page

OmNomNid wrote:

Might want to see this.

Like the link, well all except the Defiling rules, do not like the bookkeeping.

.....

What about this for defiling? Instead of more spells, you can spontaneously apply metamagic. This can be kept the same even if you add in sorcerers.

Whatever you do, do not use 4E's version of Dark Sun. The 2E version of Dark Sun is far superior for a conversion. 2E's is far more indepth and many of the changes to 4E were not for the better.

I used 4e's Dark Sun, and there are definitely problems with it. It's really easy to say that 4e's is less in depth considering that there is a single book as opposed to 2e's dozens. I'd say that it's a good introduction to the setting and it explains some things better than 2e's (why are there no gods intervening in the world, for instance). The main problem is just 4e's combat is not threatening. It's just tedious. Probably even worse is that defiling is just plain aweful in the 4e version. I never once saw a PC use it, even on nat 1s for a daily power. Even after I powered up defiling, it was still aweful. I think that mixing the two is probably the best way to go for me, but it depends on DM and PCs. The setting is highly dependant on the players and DM and what they want from it.

It seems like these are two distinct abilities. UMR says if you hit with 2 or more natural attacks while the Eidelon's states two claws against the same target.

In otherwords, a monster with rend would get the rend when they hit with their second attack in a round while the eidelon gets it for the second claw against a specific creature.

120. You can't have fun with an RPG system that most people don't like or is poorly designed (ie. 4e or something more esoteric like Fuzzy Heroes' 2nd edition).

I would assume that the answer to 1 is what common sense says, but who knows. It's probably any ally that you can reach with a melee touch.
2 and 3 have clearer answers, For 2, you decide who your allies are, so you can use it on bystanders or enemies, if you really wanted to (say you wanted to make sure that someone you captured lives). For 3, you must declare using it when the "ally" is targeted, so it's before the attack roll (though DMs may be more lenient if they tend to give little to no notice for attacks).

Sarenrae gives favored weapon scimitar, so you can take a cleric level at level 1 to gain proficiency and take weapon focus scimitar. Then put a skill point into perform (dance).
Level 2, take the level of fighter, another skill point into perform (dance) and take weapon finesse.
Level 3, level of monk and take Crusader's Flurry.
Level 4, a level in fighter and take Dervish Dance (or wait to take Dervish dance until level 5).
This would let you dump Strength entirely and buff your dex and con. Though, you'd probably want to change your tiefling to be Asura-Spawn. Dervish Dance monk is a hilarious idea, in my opinion, and it helps you be not MAD. If you go Dervish, you can have 7, 16, 14, 13, 16, 7 before racial modifiers.

Though, that's just my munchkin side talking. It looks right and hilarious. As far as the question 2 goes, I'm fairly sure that you can take separatist since cursader's flurry doesn't say that you need to get proficiency from being a cleric and you have it from being a fighter.

A build idea that I started working on recently is a dervish dancing monk. This is possible with a dip into cleric if your worship a deity whose favored weapon is the scimitar and then take the Crusader's Flurry feat. The silliest thing is that by RAW, you get to use dex damage for all attacks with dervish dance, and monks get great unarmed damage, so they can punch or use the scimitar. It also helps the monk be less MAD (though, you'd likely still want to pick up power attack).

I vote Dark Sun, but I'm in love with the Dark Sun setting (to the point of working on my own conversion for it after finishing a campaign of it). Otherwise, I'd vote steampunk.

Panther style requires a swift action to make a retaliatory strike unless he gets panther claw, in which case it becomes a free action limited by wisdom mod ... but still not an AoO, so combat reflexes gets him zip in that regard.

I'd probably go for Dragon Style, Dragon Ferocity and Leadership ... use Dragon Ferocity to make opponents shaken and then have your cohort stack some different shaken effect on top to make them frightened.

My bad, I mis-read the feat. I'd probably go with Dragon Style as well. I'm not sure if flurry of blows or Dragon Style takes precident though. FoB states that you only deal Str mod on any attack with it.

You'll definitely want Leadership at 7 though. It's one of the best feats in the game, if not the best. There's a good reason why it gets banned so often.

Well, assuming that your DM hasn't banned Leadership, you still need to be level 7 before you can take it.
You need Elemental fist before you can take Djinni style.
Are you a master of many styles? That's the only way that I can see you having Panther Style without combat reflexes. I'd still probably take combat reflexes since it lets you use Panther style more.

We had a Synthesist join a 15th level home game at 14th level. He hasn't really looked any better in combat than the Beastmorph Master Chymist so far. Everybody has a good laugh when his "crab angel" eidolon pops and his scrawny PC with 7 in all physical ability scores ends up standing there naked to the world in front of every kind of monster.

Does he not sacrifice his own HP to keep his eidelon alive? If he isn't, then he's not using one of his strongest abilities for staying alive. Especially since summoning the eidelon gives him a bunch of normal HP for the bonus to con... With his and his eidelons HP combined, he shouldn't be losing it. The only problem would be the eidelon being dismissed, but that's a will save that he should be able to make consistently.

I had a DM recently present us with a fight that he expected us to flee from. It was against a vampire as a level 2 party of a monk, cleric, sorcerer and rogue (he was way beyond our league, to say the least). Retreat would have been a fantastic option, except we were on a glass floor which prevented the cleric from moving, unless I (the monk) were carrying him. Then the vampire feared everyone except for me and the cleric. I ended up just punching him until he decided to go so that I could save the cleric's life. It only worked once I pointed out to the DM how our characters had no real way to escape from the situation.

The race doesn't fit in how you see the setting. I love Dark Sun (to the death of many PCs, of course). Once someone wanted to play a Gnome. I tried to see how it could happen, but in the end, I couldn't. I told him that he couldn't play it, and that's all there was to it. I was the DM and there were a plethora of other options that didn't conflict with the setting.

I would also add that it shouldn't be up to the DM to explain why a weird race isn't allowed, but the PC should need to come up with a compelling enough reason to convince the DM to allow it.

Personally, I think that any optimized magus should be scimitar with dervish dance. There is a question of whether or not you want to take an archetype (the only one that I really like is the kensai for more AC without dealing with armor).

You could make the sword bypass a certain amount of DR/Bludgeoning and DR/Piercing (or DR in general). This seems to be the simplest way to do it without changing the enemy. Then if others in the party have slashing or piercing, they can see that the intelligent sword is awesome.

It could be interesting from a roleplaying perspective though. For example, a character with only 5 Int (start at 7 and racial penalty) suddenly has +6 int and realize how dumb they've been. That in turn throws them into an existential crisis because they're not sure if or when this intellectual boon will disappear and they'll return to their idiotic ways. Of course, once that happens, they won't really care because they're really dumb at that point.

"Tried" to feign innocence? That seems to imply that he failed. If he hasn't outright failed yet, then I would turn this into an investigation that the PCs need to throw suspicion onto others.
If he has failed already, I would probably have public execution of the PC who killed the informant (unless s/he escapes). Then have the other PCs swear fealty or what have you. The employer would keep a close eye on the party for a considerable amount of time and send them on missions that are almost certain death.

Instead of alchemy, I think that it would make the most sense to reflavor it as psionic. I'm not saying to use power points, but just make them psi-like abilities.

I kept my racial abilities at the normal baseline, but I give everyone an additional free feat. I'm not familiar with 3.5's half-giants or thri-kreens, so I made my own. Unfortunately, I haven't had the time yet to add in all of the alternate racial traits that I've made so far.

One thing that I really like about 4e's Dark Sun is the inherent enhancement bonus. I made a version for Pathfinder which should really help out with the low-magicness and helps monks not need an amulet of mighty fists (and all of the natural attacks races get).

I might refer to your documents for the heat/starvation rules and the wild talents. I wasn't quite sure what to do with wild talents because I don't know them in 2e and 4e's wild talents are useless at best.

I've made a dray for my Darksun Pathfinder conversion. In 4e, dray are dragonborn, so it might be useful for anyone who wants a base. They only get fire, but others can add other elemental breath weapons. Link

I've also been working on a conversion. I had a similar idea for defiling being applying metamagic feats for free, but there's still a big difference. I'm more used to 4e's Dark Sun, so there's a sense of that in mine. There's a lot of changing. The Bard is no longer a caster, but has assassiny things. Link's here.