Is there a small humanoid race with a swim speed? It would be useful to be able to Alter Self into one.
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Kingdom Death is in the process of sculpting some fantastic minis of Kyra, Merisiel, Seoni, and Valeros. They won't be available for some time--a year, at least--and the only folks who are sure to get them are the folks who ordered them through the Kingdom Death: Monster 1.5 Kickstarter. The folks at Paizo would probably like to know if there's a wider interest in them, so that they can talk supplies and distribution with the manufacturer. So who (besides me) wants to buy these?
I've got an Arcane Duelist bard in PFS who will eventually want to take advantage of his Arcane Bond class feature to enchant his masterwork weapon. I've read all the relevant resources I can find, including the FAQs in this forum. I'm a little worried that I'm overlooking or misinterpreting some rules, though. When I become a level 5 bard, I can enchant it to +1, paying 1000g to do so. It takes 2 days, I have to make a DC 10 Spellcraft check, and I have to have enough fame to buy a 2,000 gp item (not a problem). Seems simple so far. Let's say I want to make it a Dueling weapon. I would need to pay 7,000g, pass the DC 10 Spellcraft check, and have enough fame to afford a 16,000gp item, right? Let's say I want to make it Keen. Do I have to be CL 10 to do that, or can I just add 5 to the difficulty of the Spellcraft roll (making it 20) before I'm CL 10? Can I use a scroll of Keen Edge to meet the spell requirements, or is increasing the Spellcraft DC my only option? Is there anything I'm overlooking? Who should witness my spellcraft rolls, and should this go on a chronicle sheet somewhere?
I'm going to make a Wishcrafter ifrit sorcerer, and would like some ideas about what spells to pick over her career to best take advantage of the Wishbound Arcana ability. At 1st level, the wishcrafter can use the wishes of non-genie creatures other than herself in place of the normal verbal components of her spells. A creature can make a wish as a free action at any time, even during the wishcrafter’s turn. The wishcrafter must be able to hear and understand a wish in order to use it as a spell component. A spell that doesn’t normally have a verbal component gains one when cast using this ability. A wish doesn’t need to mention the name of a specific spell, but must describe an outcome that can be accomplished by casting a spell the wishcrafter knows (for example, wishing to be bigger could supply the verbal component for enlarge person). A wishcrafter gains a +1 bonus to her caster level when using a creature’s wish as a verbal component in this manner, but cannot include herself as a target of such spells. She can be affected by such a spell if it affects an area rather than a target or targets. A wishcrafter is under no compulsion to grant a creature’s wish. Once the wishcrafter grants a creature’s wish using this ability, she cannot use this ability to grant that creature any further wishes for 24 hours. I'm looking for spells that: •Are flexible in application, so that they could be used to grant a variety of wishes;
Please share your suggestions with me.
May a druid in a Core Campaign assume the forms of animals from all the various Bestiaries? Or is she limited to animals listed in the Core Rulebook, such as animal companions and familiars?
I'm pretty new to PFS and have only played the Confirmation scenario. I have an opportunity in a few weeks to play either Murder on the Silken Caravan or The Wounded Wisp. Without spoiling anything, could you folks offer me some criteria for choosing one over the other?
If a Bloodrager of the Blood Conduit archetype trips someone with a weapon, can she use her Spell Conduit power to deliver a touch spell?
The wording doesn't rule it out, but the 1st sentence does seem restrictive.
I’ve been playing around with some of the new toys from the Advanced Class Guide, and I’ve slapped together what I think would be a fun build, a dex-based whip reach warpriest. The build suffers some at levels 1 and 2, before whip mastery comes into play. At these levels, the warpriest will be relying on a rapier for combat and doing pathetic damage; she might do best by focusing on buffing allies with spells and blessings, and using the whip to disarm and trip at reach. At level 3 the whip works on armored opponents, doesn’t provoke, can do lethal damage, and adds dex to its damage. At level 5 the whip threatens at reach and has the damage die of a longsword. At that point the warpriest is a serious menace on the battlefield. I do wish I could think of a way to make the build better for the first two levels, however. Calistria would be the obvious choice of deity, but Selket would be reasonable in Mummy’s Mask and similar campaigns where the ancient Osirion gods aren’t off the table. Jalaijatali’s portfolio isn’t ideal and she’s a deep cut, but aceeptable if you can pronounce her name consistently. Alternately, you could try to convince your GM that a worshipper of Ahriman or Moloch won’t derail the campaign, that a warpriest of Llamolaek or Lissala would totally be hopping around current-day Golarion, or that your human was raised by a half-boggard troll and so worships Dahak or Gorgunta. Using enlarge person potions is a mixed bag for this warpriest. The damamge die increase is great and the long reach is just golden, but she takes -2 to hit. Still, I think it’s worth it in combat against low AC foes. Human Warpriest Str 10 Con 14 Dex 18 Wis 14 Int 10 Cha 10 (20 point buy, dump int and cha for dex if you prefer a min-maxed version) Traits: Fortune’s Favored, Accelerated Drinker Feats
Take Luck and Trickery Blessings (if worshipping Calistria) or Good and Protection (if Selket) or Good and Water (if Jalaijatali).
Does an inquisitor's spiritual weapon spell gain a bonus to damage from the inquisitor's destruction judgement? I ask because it is an action to activate a judgement, and according to the text of spiritual weapon, " Your feats or combat actions do not affect the weapon."
The listing for Ghoul Touch says there’s a save: “Fort neg”. The text reads, “Imbuing you with negative energy, this spell allows you to paralyze a single living humanoid for the duration of the spell with a successful melee touch attack. A paralyzed subject exudes a carrion stench that causes all living creatures (except you) in a 10-foot-radius spread to become sickened (Fortitude negates). A neutralize poison spell removes the effect from a sickened creature, and creatures immune to poison are unaffected by the stench. This is a poison effect.” Does the spell grant a fortitude save to negate against the paralysis, or is it just against the sickening stench?
Polls have shown that 135% of RPG enthusiasts think heavy metal is awesome. Which is to say that around 10% of RPG enthusiasts think heavy metal is lame, but 5% of them think it is SO AWESOME that it averages out at 135%. This is how math works when heavy metal is involved; do not dispute me. The upcoming Paizo adventure path Iron Gods looks pretty metal. But could it be more metal? Yes, yes it could. How much more metal could it be? Massively more metal. I’m posting here in hopes that the 5% will join me in urging the Paizo creatives who are working on Iron Gods to invoke the blessings of the true Gods of Metal upon their enterprise. My main advice is for them to get a copy of Double Fine’s Brutal Legend for the Paizo staff to play on their break--maybe several copies. The visual design of the game should be inspiring, and though the tone of the adventure’s pretty tongue-in-cheek, it’s all remarkably well-written. And the music...the music is METAL. What suggestions do you have to help Paizo fill Iron Gods with the screaming power of metal?
I’ve got a player who’s determined to play a dual-class Life Oracle (Seer) / Gunslinger (Mysterious Stranger). He’s an experienced player and a grownup, so I’m not going to try to talk him out of what I suspect is a fairly weak build. Instead, I’d like to offer him some ideas on how to optimize this original combination. Can I ask you Pathfinder savants for build advice? What feats, revelations, deeds and so on will give him strong options in and out of combat? (I don’t mind a discussion on how or why he should be encouraged/discouraged from playing this combo, but please don’t derail into that completely--I’m here for the optimization, friends.)
I’m adapting the Carrion Crown adventure path for my party of five players. My plan is to add enough encounters to each section to boost the players’ XP and wealth up to expected levels. I don’t want these to be wandering monsters, or more of what’s already in the adventure path; instead, I want them to be directly related to the players’ backgrounds--chances to fufill their ambitions, or their pasts catching up with them. Here’s my crew: Character descriptions:
A Life Oracle (Seer) from a nomadic Varisian clan. He’s a fortuneteller who casts the harrow and is haunted by the ghost of his grandmother, who passed the family’s harrow deck down to him. Before becoming an Oracle, he was the Professor’s carriage driver.
A Sczarni Rogue who obtained occult works for Professor Lorrimor through dodgy methods. A Wizard (Necromancer) who was the Professor’s apprentice when Kendra was just a girl. They had a falling out; the Professor thought he was too interested in the dark arts they were learning to defeat. A Dwarven Inquisitor (Infiltrator). He’s been trained by the Pharasman Inquisition to track down the nests of Urgathoan cultists believed to riddle Ustalav; part of his training was a course with the Professor. He’s the only nonhuman in the group. An Alchemist (Chiurgon) whose wife died giving birth to a dhampir daughter shortly after being attacked by a vampire. He’s been searching for a cure for her condition; he corresponded extensively with the Professor. If any of them have stumbled across this thread, I ask that they please read no further. I’d like to ask you messageboard folks for your opinions of the changes I’m making to the adventure path and the additions I’m making to my PC’s backgrounds. I’d also really like to hear any ideas you have for encounters I can use to bring their backgrounds into the main plot. The greatest change I’ve made to the plot is to the character of Adrissant, whom I’ve given the ambition to usurp the Whispering Tyrant. Adrissant in my game:
He has contrived a formula for a Carrion Crown elixir that will make the body of a decendant of Tar-Baphon similar enough to the Whispering Tyrant’s own carcass that the lich’s own phylactery won’t be able to tell the difference. Since, in my Goralion, Tar-Baphon’s imprisonment is the result of his phylactery being stuck in a failure mode--it continually rebuilds his body, which is continually destroyed by the shard of Arden’s shield--drinking the elixir atop Gallowspire should result in the phylactery transferring the lich’s spirit to this new body.
Adrissant has convinced the Whispering Way to help him towards his goal, explaining to the Grey Friar that they could abduct a distant decendant (Galdan) of the Whispering Tyrant and allow the lich to seize his body for himself. But Adrissant has a secret--he is also a descendant of Tar-Baphon, and to his way of thinking, the Whispering Tyrant’s deserving heir. He believes, in his arrogance, that he can subsume Tar-Baphon’s spirit into his own, and take the lich’s powers for himself. He admits to himself that perhaps his acendancy isn’t guaranteed, but he believes the risk well worth taking. The endgame, then, will be the players rushing to Gallowspire while Adrissant and Tar-Baphon fight for control. The transfer of the lich’s vast power will take many days, and Adrissant will be wracked with agony the whole time, his incredible force of will only letting him cling to himself by the most tenuous of grips as the Whispering Tyrant’s power mounts inside him. The party will hear their battle of wills via the Tyrant’s Whisper haunts that batter them on their way to the tower. Presumably they will reach the top of Gallowspire before the transfer can be completed, and will need to defeat the unstable, incomplete lich and destroy it to prevent Tar-Baphon from escaping his prison. Why the change? It simply fits my narrative instincts better. I’ll make other aesthetic adjustments to each section along the way. As examples, here’s a number of changes I’ve made to the Haunting of Harrrowstone to make it feel more internally consistent to me. Harrowstone in my game:
I’ve made Father Grimburrow a fanatical Penitent, one of the Pharasmans who believes suffering in life is rewarded at Pharasma’s final judgement, as this helps me explain why he’s never attempted to exorcise the obviously haunted prison: He believes it’s Ravengro’s appointed lot to suffer the curse of Harrowstone. To make him somewhat sympathetic despite his horrid fatalism, I’ve made him a fantastic midwife. The people of Ravengro haven’t lost a mother or child in birth since he arrived forty years ago, which means he’s well-loved.
There’s an old legend in Ravengro that “Harrowstone was built to hold the dead as well as the living,” which the old folks use to mean that the town is safe even though the ruins are haunted. This legend comes from the precautions the superstitious and wary Ustalavic government took with the corpses of executed prisoners to prevent their unquiet souls from returning, such as burying them upside down and nailed into coffins with a oaken stake through their hearts. Another such precaution was the badge of the warden, which incorporated a gem empowered to compel the spirits of the dead--this was the “harrow-stone” that gave the prison its name. The dead in the Restlands do not rise, as the cemetary is consecrated to Pharasma. Dead folks not buried there will definitely be a problem, however. This includes a drowned couple whose boat capsized in a storm that blew out of Virlych after the Professor’s death, some moldering Varisians murdered by brigands, River (the town’s dog mascot), and others. The prolific family that runs the general store are halflings in my game. I use them to highlight the xenophobia and racism of the Ravengro farmers. There’s a town-and-country conflict that’s been brewing for many years, with the shopkeepers and tradesmen being more tolerant of outsiders than the completely clannish and insular farmers. Old Gibbs, once a soldier of Ustalav’s border guard, is the farmers’ ringleader. Zokar was witness to Vrood and his fellow necromancers as they passed through town, the one who alerted the Professor to their activities. He pickpocketed a spell component pouch off one of them and showed it to Lorrimor. The contents convinced the Professor he was dealing with the Whispering Way, but unfortunately also made him think they were too low level to be a threat--Zokar had lifted an apprentice’s pouch, with no components for high-level spells. The apprentice necromancer didn’t mention its disappearance, fearing Vrood’s reaction, and instead replaced it at the Furled Scroll. Alendru, willing to sell necromancy supplies to such a shady character, comes across a rather shady character himself, a bit of a red herring for the players as they look for the Whispering Way. Vrood killed the Professor with Circle of Death. A perfect circle of dead vegetation surrounds the spot where he fell, a fact overlooked when his body was recovered, since the plants had not been dead long enough to change color. This could alert the players to Vrood’s power level and gives them a clue on how to prepare for their eventual encounter. Adrissant, one of the Professor’s correspondents, did not come to the funeral, but sent his condolences to Kendra along with a diplomatic if too hasty offer to buy his entire research library. Several PCs are familiar with Adrissant’s reputation as a wealthy book collector with arcane interests. Kendra fears her father was killed for having anaphexic knowledge. That’s a legend among the academics of Ustalav, that learning the wrong things can be fatal. Which is true enough, but not in his case. Some of these changes were made to resonate with my players’ backgrounds, as I describe below. PC background secrets:
The Oracle’s family harrow deck carries a curse related to the failure of prophecy, symbolized by a phantom 53rd card--count the cards face-down and there are 53, count them face-up and there are 52. The 53rd card is the Dead God, and it expresses meaninglessness and futility. Should it ever be drawn in a reading, the results would be catastrophic. His grandmother’s spirit lingers to prevent this from happening; should he ever circumvent her guardianship--perhaps by using the harrowstone badge on her--he could invite disaster. The Rogue has the blood of King’s Wolves in his veins. He’s not a werewolf himself, but the kinship he feels towards them could try his loyalties, especially once he is offered a chance to join their number. The elders of his Sczarni troupe are aware of the connection, and have profited from doing the werewolves’ bidding. The King’s Wolves have an admirable purpose, the destruction of the Whispering Tyrant, but their methods can be needlessly cruel and savage. The Inquisitor’s superiors are hunting for the cause behind the disappearance of so many of Ustalav’s academics, suspecting the Church of Urgathoa. In truth, there are several organizations that target scholars in Ustalav: the Whispering Way recruits promising necromancers and enslaves useful ones as undead thralls; the Anaphexia murder those who learn forbidden knowledge and steal their secrets; Conte Tirac abducts gifted alchemists and others who might aid his search for his cure for vampirism, and so on. The Alchemist’s wife was targeted by Conte Tirac. Disappointed by persistent failure of the alchemists in his thrall, the vampire conte decided to try a new tactic. He assaulted the pregnant wife of a brilliant young Alchemist, causing her death and the birth of a dhamphir child. Hiding his partonage, he has guided him into a search for her cure. The Necromancer’s name was passed on to several of the Professor’s long-time academic correspondents, asking them to watch over him, or more to the point, watch out for him. A number of arcanists and Pharasman have therefore heard of him as a potential black necromancer. Most of these correspondents are exactly the trustworthy champions of light that the professor thought they were. A few are agents of the dark powers he set himself against. That’s rather a lot of information to dump on you folks, I know. Thanks for browsing through it. If you have any helpful suggestions or creative ideas, please share them. |
