Goblin Squad Member. Organized Play Member. 1,430 posts (1,448 including aliases). 2 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 1 Organized Play character. 1 alias.
Wonderful srt, as always! And a great backstory.I love the shoutouts to White Estrid's crew, and especially to his brother Ostog. And he's got an artifact -- awesome!
Very cool! I like how this has turned out! This is absolutely, 100% going to be my new favorite class.
One little thing, though...
The easiest way to explain crits to newbie players has always been, "flat numbers multiply, extra dice don't." But Studied Combat has a "flat" bonus to damage that doesn't multiply on a critical hit. Cases like this one mess up that simple explanation.
Note that there are very, very few of these elsewhere in the rules:
Spoiler:
Learned Duelist archetype for Fighter
Siege Gunner archetype for Gunslinger
Raging Brutality feat
Large Target feat
Flying Stunt rogue talent
Named Bullet spell
Those are all pretty obscure cases. This is a standard class feature of what may well be the most popular new class. To me, that's not good consistent design. I'm gonna end up houseruling that it multiplies.
When should backers start being contacted about fulfilling our backer rewards? I backed it through my wife's Kickstarter account; I want to make sure she hasn't missed something already.
I've sent you an email regarding this Trinite, hope to hear back from you soon!
Erik has sorted this all out for me. Once again, they Paizo's customer service team prove themselves to be the best.
When should backers start being contacted about fulfilling our backer rewards? I backed it through my wife's Kickstarter account; I want to make sure she hasn't missed something already.
I like how Salim shows how the Golarion setting can tell swesome stories for "high level" characters, as well as gritty low-level ones. As far as I can see, there really aren't any other PFT protagonists that are up there at Salim's level, though Varian and Radovan are clearly leveling up over the course of their series.
My least-liked rule on the other thread was Encumbrance, so here's where I defend it:
Encumbrance rules can be very helpful if you're running a tight survival-style game: you're marooned in the desert, or stuck in a huge dungeon, and you won't be able to resupply very easily.
In that case, it's very important to keep track of ever little piece of equipment, how much it weighs you down, and how fast you can travel.
As much as I dislike fiddling with it, I'd probably use encumbrance rules if I were running Souls for Smuggler's Shiv or a long-distance traveling adventure. Or at least I'd consider running a simplified version. :)
Whoo! Go Mike! This guy writes a badass adventure, and runs a rocking game!
Absolutely! I'm thrilled that the stars finally aligned to bring about what the people have been demanding for some time. And as I said in that thread, Mike is a first rate storyteller, and I will chug fist-fulls of hard earned cash after any products he finds the time to write. Never been happier for my AP subscription.
As the beginner of that thread, let me also say, "Hurrah! Kortes rises again!"
Interesting choice to make Ra LN instead of LG. What was the thought behind that choice, may I ask?
The Block Knight is pretty much spot-on with the choices behind the deities and their alignments, domains, and so forth. I go into more detail about the design challenges of this pantheon in the foreword to Pathfinder #80, but beyond the things The Block Knight mentioned, I also had to make sure the Ancient Osirian deities also fit in with the core 20 Golarion deities. For example, what do you do with Anubis when Pharasma is already the goddess of death, or Ra when you have Sarenrae as the sun goddess? Not to mention the fact that the Ancient Egyptians had way more than 20 gods, and that many of them changed over time (or even absorbed other gods who had previously been distinct entities).
In the end, I had to make the choices that felt right and did what we needed to do within the setting, and when dealing with actual historical entities, there's no way that everyone will be happy with every choice made. But I did my best, and I'm looking forward to people's comments when they get the chance to read the full article!
I'd like to play a Monk (drunken master)/Barbarian (drunken brute) -- you have to take the monk levels first, then do an alignment shift -- to get double benefits from drinking. For the Skull & Shackles AP, he'd be an unarmed fighter who rages after consuming cans of fermented alcoholic spinach.
*blink* There's a shout-out to Professor Lorrimar? If so, that's cool. I don't think I'll be playing in this AP, but I'll need to read this later.
Is the guy in the center of the cover a Pharasmin inquisitor? He looks bad-ass.
No, sorry, I made that detail up myself. But there *is* a reference to explorers coming from as far away as Ustalav, which is what gave me the idea. ;)
And there's a strong connection to ancient Osirion for the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye, the Masons-esque secret society from Ustalav. Who knows; that might show up in an NPC or something later on in the AP.
Yeah, I can't decide between wanting to play an Ustalavan archaeologist who studied under Professor Lorrimor there to learn about the undead, or the descendant of an ancient dynasty trying to prove my family's heritage, or a Magaambyan Arcanist there to meet sphinxes, or a local street urchin looking to make a quick buck, or...
URLs on tabs on front page are:
http://paizo.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Store.woa/wa/browse?path=paizo&tab= paizo
http://paizo.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Store.woa/wa/browse?path=paizo&tab= tales
URLS on tabs on Store Blog and Paizo Blog pages are:
http://paizo.com/paizo/blog
http://paizo.com/pathfinder/tales/serial
Actually a faction of Zon-Kuthon followers that went out of its way to hurt people that attacked Shelynites would be amusing. It would be far from the most out their possible sectarian schism after all. Though partly this is just me finding the idea of someone assaulting a Goddess of Love and Beauties temple, and then finding you have a bunch of Kuthite murder cultists wanting you dead.
A mysterious organization has hired you to break a certain prisoner out of a high-security prison. You'll have to get in, get out, and also perhaps try to discover why exactly this particular prisoner is important to your client.
The whole campaign is under the ocean. An ancient underwater empire has returned through a 10,000 year time rift, after they fled a catalysm into the future. You're a ragtag group from the current aquatic races. Deal with the consequences of a complete civilization suddenly appearing from nowhere into the existing ecosystem and political order of your oceanic home.
Some of my players are homeschooling their kids, and are giving them mathematics credit for doing their own calculations during play. And in addition, I've also watched their 14-year-old daughter learn excellent problem solving skills while playing the party Rogue.
I think it can cause problems by leading to a divergence between player expectations and GM expectations. I find that a lot of players have the feeling that if something is in the CRB, it's *supposed* to be in the game. And that's perfectly understandable.
But there are a lot of plots that relatively-easy resurrection magic causes problems with. For example, I'm planning to run a game that starts with the assassination of an Elven king. If resurrection is ubiquitous (at least for the for the rich and powerful), not only is the plot easy to solve, but nobody would have even bothered to assassinate him in the first place
As a GM, it's important for me to make it perfectly clear which ways I am going to be deviating from the core rules. In my case, since my characters are only level 8, I'm going to mostly keep magic as-is and have the assassin go through a bit more trouble to ensure that the king stays dead.
But I also don't really want to permanently kill PCs off in this campaign without the players' permission, so I've given them access to a scroll or two of resurrection magic at lower than usual levels. But I'm also using some "twists" like Crank does to keep player death meaningful without it being permanent. So far, the party wizard has been resurrected, and now he's haunted by a Nosoi who feels like it's messed up its job and is trying to get him re-killed. :)
Right; I would be quite interested in hearing stories of rules issues actually causing problems *at tables*, so those can be fixed. If they just cause problems on the forums, then whatever.
Would this be a viably buildable character or do the not-allowed evolutions restrict the Eidolon too much?
"Viable" in what context? I suspect you'll be effective in combat, but it'll take you five times as long to get through it. So you as a character will win lots of fights, but you as a player will lose lots of Saturdays.
Here's what I would do if I were your GM: I'd say that you can take the feat Selective Channeling and have it apply only to this ability. This would be separate from the normal effects of Selective Channeling (i.e. if you wanted both effects, you'd have to take the feat twice).
If that turned out to be overpowered in play, I'd probably make it so using the feat cost double the rounds per day. BTW, rounds per day isn't Wis+3, it's equal to Cleric level.
Thanks for the ideas, James (and you too, Warhaven!)
James, what do you think of the Chase Card rules? Have you ever used them? Any ideas for houseruling them to give the PCs a little more creative agency beyond picking between two skill checks?
Criminals of the Inner Sea: An examination of thieves guilds throughout the Avistan and Golarion, covering methodology and psychology of groups like the Sczarni, the Outlaw Council of the River Kingdoms, Westcrown's Council of Thieves, and Korvosa's Cerulean Society. It'd be a great way to give your rogues more flavor.
Yes, yes, yes. But PLEASE not until I have a chance to earn myself a spot on the contributor list for this book. All of my best organization ideas are illegal groups in some manner or another.
James, I'm planning to run a game soon based on the assassination of an Elven king in Sovyrian, and I'm brainstorming things to include/deal with. PCs are all level 8, and NPCs are between level 6 and 12.
1. What tools could the assassins use to help ensure that the king can't be resurrected?
2. What ideas might the assassins come up with to frame the PCs (strangers from another planet, there for research) for the assassination? They would need to work against 10th-12th level security measures.
3. What could be some good ways for the PCs to find clues that connect the real assassins to the mastermind -- an ambitious nobleman -- while they evade capture by the authorities?
I agree with you about the problematic nature of the Rules as Written. The way I run it instead is that the spell creates a copy of a type of creature, rather than actually taking some real creature away from what it was doing -- otherwise the Lantern Archons would all unionize and appeal to the gods to be taken off the list!
One caveat: TWR only functions if you hit the same opponent with both of your attacks. GTWF might be better if you often divide your attacks up among various targets.
EDIT: Ah, I see that you already mentioned this in your post. Good call!
Blood of the stars would be awesome. I would like more info/abilities on Lashunta and we also have the Triaxians, Kasatha, and maybe Trox. Also by the time we ever see such a book we will have stats for races like Vercites and more.
Yeah, that would be cool! And perhaps an alternate racial trait or two for Sovyrian Elves, or mortals kept for sport on Eox.
Also, +1 for Blood of Shadows. Wayang, Fetchlings, Shaespawn, maybe "pre-Kyton" mortals...
Congratulations on the new opportunity for you and Jodi! You'll be missed by all of us fans -- and hey, thanks for "File Off the Serial Numbers." Hope you keep the freelance material coming!
If rules-lite Burning Wheel appeals to you, I highly recommend Mouse Guard or Torchbearer. In many ways, they are just better games.
But Burning Wheel (and Burning Empires) have a lot more depth to them. If you're not making use of the depth, I'd look at the other two.
We don't intend to always run rules-lite; this was the intro session for everybody (GM included), so were were just working out the basics.
The complicated stuff, like "Fight!" and "Duel of Wits" look really fun to me -- but I still haven't quite gotten my head around how wounds work.
EDIT: I have heard Mouseguard is great, though.
Race
Pld 4/Orl 1 [ HP 36/36 | AC 21 T 11 FF 20 | CMB +7 CMD 18 | F +9 R +5 W +8 | Init +3, Per +4, Speed 20ft]
Deity
Shelyn
Location
Absalon
Languages
Common, Elven
About Moadis
PFS # 35561-9
STR 16, DEX 12, CON 14, INT 10, WIS 8, CHA 17
Half Elf
Male
Age 58
Medium Size
Alignment LG
Paladin - Warrior of the Holy Light archetype lvl 4, Life Oracle lvl 1
COMBAT STATS BaB +4
Init +3; Senses: Perception 5, Low Light Vision p
CMB +7 (+4BaB +3strength)
CMD 18 (+4BaB +3strength +1dexterity +10)
Favored class: Paladin (+4/2 hit point to the paladin's lay on hands ability) and Oracle (+1/2 to the oracle's level for the purpose of determining the effects of one revelation)[/b]
DEFENSE AC 21/23 with shield, touch 11, flat-footed 20/22 (+10 Armor +1 Dex +2 shield)
HP 43/43 (4d10+1d8+10]
Fort +9 (+2 vs death effects)
Ref +5
Will +8 (+2 racial saving throw bonus vs enchantment spells and effects)
OFFENSE Speed 30 ft, 20 ft Armored
Melee +1 Silver Lucerne Hammer +8 (1d12+5/x2)
Melee Mwk Cold Iron Greatsword +8 (2d6+4/19-20x2)
Melee Longsword +7 (1d8+3/19-20x2)
Melee Cestus +7 (1d4+3/19-20x2)
Ranged Sling +5 (1d4+3/x2), range 50 ft.
Space 5 ft; Reach 5 ft
TRAITS
Reactionary: +2 trait bonus on initiative checks.
Exalted of the society: +1 channel energy per day
FEATS Fey Foundling: You heal an additional 2 points per die rolled. You gain a +2 bonus on all saving throws against death effects. Unfortunately, you also suffer +1 point of damage from cold iron weapons (although you can wield cold iron weapons without significant discomfort).
Power Attack Furious Focus
CLASS'S SPECIAL ABILITIES
Aura of Good
Detect Evil
Smite Evil 2xDay
Divine Grace
Lay on Hands
Channel Positive Energy
Orisons:
Stabilize
Enhanced Diplomacy (+2 on one diplom/intim check)
Detect Magic
Guidance
1st LVL:
Cure Light Wounds
Protection from Evil
Command
Spells per Day
1st lvl: 4/4
Life Mystery:
Class Skills: An oracle with the life mystery adds Handle Animal, Knowledge (nature), and Survival to her list of class skills.
Bonus Spells: detect undead (2nd), lesser restoration (4th), neutralize poison (6th), restoration (8th), breath of life (10th), heal (12th), greater restoration (14th), mass heal (16th), true resurrection (18th).
Revelations: Life Link (Su):
As a standard action, you may create a bond between yourself and another creature. Each round at the start of your turn, if the bonded creature is wounded for 5 or more hit points below its maximum hit points, it heals 5 hit points and you take 5 hit points of damage. You may have one bond active per oracle level. This bond continues until the bonded creature dies, you die, the distance between you and the other creature exceeds medium range, or you end it as an immediate action (if you have multiple bonds active, you may end as many as you want as part of the same immediate action).
CURSE - Legalistic:
Legalistic:
Whenever you break your word (either purposefully or unintentionally), you become sickened for 24 hours or until you meet your obligation, whichever comes first. However, once per day, you can make a vow to yourself that grants a +4 morale bonus on any one roll you make while trying to fulfill a promise made to another individual.
At 5th level, you gain a +3 competence bonus on Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Sense Motive checks while talking to an individual one-on-one.
At 10th level, you can make a new saving throw each minute to resist mind-affecting effects as your subconscious searches for loopholes.
At 15th level, any creature that violates its freely given word to you takes a penalty to AC, to spell resistance, and on saving throws against your attacks and abilities equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1) for 24 hours.
Racial Traits:
Half-elf characters gain a +2 bonus to one ability score of their choice at creation to represent their varied nature.
Type: Half-elves are Humanoid creatures with both the human and the elf subtypes.
Size: Half-elves are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Base Speed: Half-elves have a base speed of 30 feet.
Languages: Half-elves begin play speaking Common and Elven. Half-elves with high Intelligence scores can choose any languages they want (except secret languages, such as Druidic). See the Linguistics skill page for more information about these languages.
Elven Immunities: Half-elves are immune to magic sleep effects and gain a +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells and effects.
Adaptability: Half-elves receive Skill Focus (Perception) as a bonus feat at 1st level.
Keen Senses: Half-elves receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception checks.
Low-Light Vision: Half-elves can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light.
Elf Blood: Half-elves count as both elves and humans for any effect related to race.
Multitalented: Half-elves choose two favored classes at first level and gain +1 hit point or +1 skill point whenever they take a level in either one of those classes.
Paladin's Abilities:
Aura of Good (Ex)
The power of a paladin's aura of good (see the detect good spell) is equal to her paladin level.
Detect Evil (Sp)
At will, a paladin can use detect evil, as the spell. A paladin can, as a move action, concentrate on a single item or individual within 60 feet and determine if it is evil, learning the strength of its aura as if having studied it for 3 rounds. While focusing on one individual or object, the paladin does not detect evil in any other object or individual within range.
Smite Evil (Su)
Once per day, a paladin can call out to the powers of good to aid hern 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.
In addition, while smite evil is in effect, the paladin gains a deflection bonus equal to her Charisma modifier (if any) to her AC against attacks made by the target of the smite. If the paladin targets a creature that is not evil, the smite is wasted with no effect.
The smite evil effect remains until the target of the smite is dead or the next time the paladin rests and regains her uses of this ability. At 4th level, and at every three levels thereafter, the paladin may smite evil one additional time per day, as indicated on Table: Paladin, to a maximum of seven times per day at 19th level.
Divine Grace (Su)
At 2nd level, a paladin gains a bonus equal to her Charisma bonus (if any) on all Saving Throws.
Lay On Hands (Su)
Beginning at 2nd level, a paladin can heal wounds (her own or those of others) by touch. Each day she can use this ability a number of times equal to 1/2 her paladin level plus her Charisma modifier. With one use of this ability, a paladin can heal 1d6 hit points of damage for every two paladin levels she possesses. Using this ability is a standard action, unless the paladin targets herself, in which case it is a swift action. Despite the name of this ability, a paladin only needs one free hand to use this ability.
Alternatively, a paladin can use this healing power to deal damage to undead creatures, dealing 1d6 points of damage for every two levels the paladin possesses. Using lay on hands in this way requires a successful melee touch attack and doesn't provoke an attack of opportunity. Undead do not receive a saving throw against this damage.
Aura of Courage (Su)
At 3rd level, a paladin is immune to fear (magical or otherwise). Each ally within 10 feet of her gains a +4 morale bonus on saving throws against fear effects. This ability functions only while the paladin is conscious, not if she is unconscious or dead.
Divine Health (Ex)
At 3rd level, a paladin is immune to all diseases, including supernatural and magical diseases, including mummy rot.
Mercy (Su):
At 3rd level, and every three levels thereafter, a paladin can select one mercy. Each mercy adds an effect to the paladin's lay on hands ability. Whenever the paladin uses lay on hands to heal damage to one target, the target also receives the additional effects from all of the mercies possessed by the paladin. A mercy can remove a condition caused by a curse, disease, or poison without curing the affliction. Such conditions return after 1 hour unless the mercy actually removes the affliction that causes the condition.
At 3rd level, the paladin can select from the following initial mercies.
Fatigued: The target is no longer fatigued.
Shaken: The target is no longer shaken.
Sickened: The target is no longer sickened.
At 6th level, a paladin adds the following mercies to the list of those that can be selected.
Dazed: The target is no longer dazed.
Diseased: The paladin's lay on hands ability also acts as remove disease, using the paladin's level as the caster level.
Staggered: The target is no longer staggered, unless the target is at exactly 0 hit points.
At 9th level, a paladin adds the following mercies to the list of those that can be selected.
Cursed: The paladin's lay on hands ability also acts as remove curse, using the paladin's level as the caster level.
Exhausted: The target is no longer exhausted. The paladin must have the fatigue mercy before selecting this mercy.
Frightened: The target is no longer frightened. The paladin must have the shaken mercy before selecting this mercy.
Nauseated: The target is no longer nauseated. The paladin must have the sickened mercy before selecting this mercy.
Poisoned: The paladin's lay on hands ability also acts as neutralize poison, using the paladin's level as the caster level.
Channel Positive Energy (Su):
When a paladin reaches 4th level, she gains the supernatural ability to channel positive energy like a cleric. Using this ability consumes two uses of her lay on hands ability. A paladin uses her level as her effective cleric level when channeling positive energy. This is a Charisma-based ability.
Warrior of the Holy Light Archetype:
Power of Faith (Su)
At 4th level, a warrior of the holy light paladin learns to use the power of her faith to bolster her defenses and aid her allies. This class feature replaces the paladin’s spells class feature. A warrior of the holy light does not gain any spells or spellcasting abilities, does not have a caster level, and cannot use spell trigger or spell completion magic items.
At 4th level, the warrior of the holy light gains one additional use of her lay on hands ability per day. She gains one additional use of lay on hands per day for every four levels she attains beyond 4th. She can spend a use of her lay on hands ability to call upon the power of her faith as a standard action. This causes a nimbus of light to emanate from the warrior of the holy light in a 30-foot radius. All allies in this area (including the warrior of the holy light) receive a +1 morale bonus to AC and on attack rolls, damage rolls, and saving throws against fear as long as they remain in the area of light. This power lasts for 1 minute.
At 8th level, the nimbus of light heals the paladin and her allies, curing of them of 1d4 points of ability damage, as per the spell lesser restoration. A creature can only be healed in this way once per day.
Vanities:
Property: Caravan (5 PP)
You own a controlling share in a caravan that makes regular trips through the Inner Sea region. You arent required to maintain a presence in the caravan, and thus do not need to accompany the caravan as it makes its journeys, but you shoulder some of the responsibility of ownership.
For the most part this means handling things like representing the caravan's interests to important merchants, politicians and aristocrats. You do so as an upstanding citizen and above-the-board merchant, you can use Diplomacy to make Day Jobs rolls.
Booms:
Rescued the minotaur Prince (PFS#45): Permanent +1 circumstance bonus to any intelligence or charisma-based checks made while in Absalom.
Backstory:
Found in the ruins of Bedis as a baby Moadis is believed to be the sole survivor of that village massacre at the hands of the demon hordes. He was raised in Mendev at orphanages sponsored by the crown and the churches. There wasnt any doubts in his mind when he become old enough to be responsible by his own fate, he joined the Mendevian Cruzade at the first opportunity.
There he spent most of his adult life. He never stop believing in the cause but as the years passed he lost faith in his ability to make any difference. He witnessed to many deaths, lost too many friends, slowly despair started to weight heavily on his chest. He became another drone on the battlefield, living just for his next kill. One day, when Moadis had lost all hope, he could no longer go forward, he became catatonic. His superiors sent him to a temple's sanatorium to heal.
Eventually he came back from that dark place inside his mind and in the process found his faith. He converted to Shelyn and became a knight of that church. When the fifth cruzade was launched he was already at the end of his middle age and decided to retire and leave the fighting to more young and capable hands. He joined the pathfinders to see the world he spent so many decades fighting for and save some money for his late years.
