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I'd appreciate some advice for an encounter we recently had to run away from.

The party is level 6, evil characters, and have approximately half the normal WBL. Alchemist (fire/poison/smoke bombs), antipaladin (mainly guisarme but recently lost that and is temporarily using a morningstar), life oracle, sorcerer with... eccentric spell choices, and synth summoner. We have allies, but they will not arrive in time to matter.

The encounter: stone golem, level 10 paladin (greatsword, I think), level 10 (caster?) cleric; essentially barricaded in a 30x30ft castle room. stone walls / floor / ceiling. Unknown if they have magical equipment. The cleric either already has or currently is in the process of sending for reinforcements, of unknown capability and arrival time.

Assuming we enter the next fight with full resources, this still seems like a pretty much unwinnable fight to me. The alchemist's bombs are the only thing we have that can damage the golem, and he doesn't have enough to kill it (and no expendable alchemy items).

Any suggestions on what we can do other than basically leave and come back when we're better equipped? We'd been making an effort to operate in secret, but it seems like that is entirely blown now.

Edit: We had originally gone after the cleric and paladin while low on daily resources (~20% or so remaining), thinking we could barely pull it off. The golem was a nasty surprise that seems to put all of them handily above our capabilities. The only bright spot is that they seem to be in the defensive, for some reason. We got the impression that the golem was restricted to that particular room, but we could be wrong.

I have a character idea but frankly I'm at a loss to implement it. Are there any good ways to significantly increase caster level or otherwise meaningfully boost the effectiveness of Dispel Magic? I'm not aware of anything besides the orange prism ioun stone. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm in an Iron Gods game, and the character I've been playing so far has been... not exactly fun. Spirit Guide Oracle with the Impossible bloodline (from Eldritch Heritage) so I could use compulsion spells on the robots and such. Good idea, (I believe) decently optimized, but absolutely horrific luck / statistics at the table. Pretty much everything makes their saves, or the CL check is super high. For the past three levels, I've been able to land less than one spell in three, and that's even counting things like hitting a group of mooks with glitterdust as multiple successes. Without that, it's probably below one in five. Long story short, I don't like being limited to healing and condition removal. So, I'm trying to find something else I can bring in that will be useful. Most of what I remember being lauded as fun to play (that I haven't already tried) seems to have been splattered across the pavement with the nerf steamroller, though. Any suggestions on what could be fun?

Existing party is a synth summoner, a tech focused slayer, and sometimes a fire themed shaman.

Something with good DPR would be nice, especially if it's consistent and not easily negated (the Smoking Tower was seriously annoying).

Taking inspiration from numerous discussions on these forums regarding the Paizo APs, I've been inspired to make an AP myself.

Starting at what many people would consider "high level" (10-14) and continuing through 20+ and possibly Mythic, dealing with the aftermath of catastrophic failure in at least one other AP (WotR), utilizing zero "straight from the book" monsters, and providing a relatively sandboxy ecosystem of goals and missions that can be tackled in any order would be the primary objectives.

Would anyone else be interested in such a thing? Comments, suggestions?

What are some good ways to gain a resistance or immunity to wind effects? I'd hate for my tiny familiar (or myself) to get blown away in a fight.

I'm looking for the right VTT setup for an upcoming game with a homebrew system, and was hoping someone here could save me some time trying and discarding possibilities.

What I need:
- Runs on Windows and works with whatever tablet.

- Can draw on map with a pen. Doesn't have to be Wacom (could be Tegra or ipad or whatever), but hand drawing with the mouse just takes too long and looks terrible. I'm willing to buy a reasonably-priced tablet to make this work.

- Can use custom dice. This system uses zero-based d10 pools, so I'd need to be able to either define a die with custom face values, or subtract 1 from each die rolled. Also needs to be able to handle exploding dice (explodes on 9 -> roll again and add).

- Hex grid.

It'd be nice if there were a free solution, but I haven't found anything that does all that yet, free or otherwise.

What does the hive suggest?

Polymorph Any Object can be used to change one creature to a different creature. If the target creature has class levels and the "end" creature has racial hit dice, how do they interact? As far as I can tell, the subject would get all the racial hit dice and abilities, with their own class levels and abilities on top of that, potentially making some very powerful combinations.

Also, does the "end" creature keep the default attribute scores for that creature, or are they affected by (or replaced by) the spell's target's ability scores?

What type of action is the Lantern Archon's Light Rays ability?

Snap Shot says initiative is treated as roll of 20 for surprise round but "may only take an attack action with a ranged weapon". Does that mean that if any attack is made, it must be with a ranged weapon, or does it mean that the only action you get at all is an attack action (specifically, one with a ranged weapon), and Ambush is worthless if you have or plan to get Snap Shot talent?

Flash of Rage says "You aren't fatigued after this rage." Furious Finish says if you use it, you're fatigued even if you would not normally be. Which one overrides?

Also, FF says can be used with Vital Strike. Can it also be used with Improved and Greater Vital Strike?

Does Celestial Poisons work with Poison Bombs? It says "poisons the alchemist administers to a weapon" but from Bomb class feature, "bombs are considered a weapon". If you're changing the bomb damage type to a poison effect (which Cloudkill is), it seems to me that you'd pretty clearly be adding poison to a weapon.

I'm in search of a good module or part of an AP that can be used as the demiplane workshop/laboratory of a crazed summoner/elementalist (oriental 5-element type). Even pointers to bits and pieces that I can kludge together will be appreciated.

As a sidequest for two of the characters in the Age of Worms game I'm running, they helped clear out an old dwarven stronghold that had been taken over by an immortal summoner. Backstory is that the guy couldn't be killed, so they stuck a wounding sword in him and just sealed him up in walls of stone forever. However, some hundreds of years down the line, a group of miners thought the legend was just that, and accidentally woke him up (understandably mad in both senses of the word). Guy starts summoning various elementals (refluffed golems) and wrecking the city, forcing the dwarves out.

Long story short, they killed him (discovered his weakness and exploited it) and found a strange glowing crystal in his belongings. My (vague) idea was basically that it was the "tuning fork" for a demiplane he'd created long ago. Well, the group's caster just got plane shift, so they want to follow up on the storyline.

I have a few treasure and creature ideas for what they'll find, but I've been spending most of my creative energy trying to write up the Test of the Starstone for another character in this group (much later down the line, say 17-19th), and they caught me slightly off guard wanting to go investigate now.

Are there any good modules around level 12-16 (or higher, I can tune things down to fit the characters) that have this sort of theme, or something that could be refluffed to fit?

Is there a limit on how many / what kind of natural attacks a character can get or use? A friend and I were doing a thought experiment and came up with a build that gets 8 natural attacks at level 6 (6 claws and 2 bites). Neither of us can find any rules text that indicates it wouldn't work.

Here's how it works:

Ranger 2 -> natural weapon combat style -> aspect of the beast (claws of the beast) = "grow a pair of claws"
barbarian 2 -> beast totem lesser = "gains 2 claw attacks"
feat -> extra rage power -> animal fury = "gains a bite attack"
alchemist (beastmorph) 2 -> feral mutagen -> "gains two claw attacks and a bite attack"

This is with no race or ability prereqs at all. Is there any actual rule reason this wouldn't work?

(And yes, I know there are weaknesses to this build. Like I said, thought experiment.)

If a creature with the Pounce ability gets hit with a Slow spell and then makes a charge as a standard action (thus being limited to only their base movement rate), do they still get all the attacks from Pounce?

It seems weird that when you're limited to either one standard or one move action, you either stand in place and make one attack, or you can move up to your base speed... or if you have Pounce, you can do both and make 5+ attacks.

This came up in the game last night, and there's not an obviously "right" answer.

This spell enables you or a creature you touch to move and attack normally for the duration of the spell, even under the influence of magic that usually impedes movement, such as paralysis, solid fog, slow, and web. All combat maneuver checks made to grapple the target automatically fail. The subject automatically succeeds on any combat maneuver checks and Escape Artist checks made to escape a grapple or a pin.

The spell also allows the subject to move and attack normally while underwater, even with slashing weapons such as axes and swords or with bludgeoning weapons such as flails, hammers, and maces, provided that the weapon is wielded in the hand rather than hurled. The freedom of movement spell does not, however, grant water breathing.

If a character has FoM active on him and jumps into a body of water, does he simply fall through the water as if it were air? If not, why not (and "a wizard did it" is not an acceptable answer ;) ?

The two ways I can read the second paragraph are either that "move and attack normally while underwater" means "as if not underwater", and thus the character would fall (and take falling damage as usual); or, it means "normally" as in the same thing that would happen without the FoM effect, which is absurd on its face since that's the entire purpose of the spell.

I can't see any sort of logic in this effect letting you move without resistance when you're walking, running, or swinging a weapon, but still letting you "swim" up and down.

With my current interpretation (character would fall), I would say that any effect that would normally prevent a fall or falling damage (Air Walk, Featherfall, Fly speed, etc) would work underwater as well as in air. The character with the FoM effect would also know (if he were the caster) how the spell works, and would have the option not to jump and fall, or to dismiss the effect first.

What say you?

Are the effects of potions (haste, blur, barkskin, etc) affected by Dispel Magic?

Are the effects of alchemist extracts (same spells) affected by Dispel Magic?

Would like to see some rules text either way.

How would you folks build Corvo, from Dishonored? He seems to be mainly a rogue/assassin with a limited amount of magic tricks, such as short-range teleport, the ability to temporarily slow or stop time, and the ability to possess animals and people for a short time.

This is a thought experiment, don't worry about fitting into a specific number of levels.

So, say you have a creature that has a specific vulnerability (clockwork construct, vulnerable to electricity), and it's working for a caster that is: A, intelligent enough to know it's vulnerable; B, capable of casting Resist Energy and/or Protection from Energy; and C, aware that his opponent will be trying to take advantage of the known vulnerability. How do these interact?

Option 1: they don't. Vulnerability is vulnerability, the resist/protection spells don't stick at all.

Option 2: vulnerability first. Lightning Bolt damage is rolled, then multiplied by 1.5, then the protection/resist spells reduce that amount of damage.

Option 3: resistance first. Damage is rolled, reduced by the appropriate amount from protection/resist, then the remainder is multiplied by 1.5 before being applied.

Option 4: something else?

Keep in mind I'm looking for a general rule, so whether this caster is a PC or BBEG is irrelevant.

Thanks :)

How does one, in PF, *become* a paladin? If you take paladin as your first character level, all the joining up and oaths and such are nearly always handwaved away, but what about the lawful good fighter who has aspirations of becoming a paladin later in her career?

Is it just a matter of writing Pal 1 on your character sheet? Is there some sort of quest or training that would be required? What about if you're adventuring in a land that isn't exactly conducive to worship of the deity you follow?

I'm facing exactly this in a campaign I'm running now, one of the players wants to eventually start taking paladin levels... in Cheliax.

As a separate issue, how are alignment transgressions normally handled prior to being a paladin? This character has done some very questionable things so far, that are not at all compatible with the paladin code. (If it makes a difference, such actions are part of an extended pattern of behavior from the player over several years.) I'm hesitant to just say "sorry, no, you can't be a paladin now" after several levels of building towards that.

Would it be inconceivable for another deity (say, Asmodeus) to step in and grant paladin-ish (LE instead of LG, with Smite Evil being replaced with Smite Chaos, etc) abilities to this character *in secret* (so far as the character is concerned)? I don't think it's too outlandish to look at this as sort of a Job analogue, where the character is tempted into a contract (via vague wording etc, so that the character/player thinks it's serving a different god) and given power, just to see how dedicated and principled the character is.

So, a character who is deaf has a -4 penalty on Initiative and opposed Perception checks, and automatically fails Perception checks based on sound.

However, the SRD text for the Deafened condition states that characters who remain deafened for a long time "grow accustomed to these drawbacks and can overcome some of them".

Assuming the character isn't simply affected by a Blindness/Deafness spell (which can be easily removed) and is innately deaf... which of the drawbacks can be overcome, and how does it happen? The one I'm really concerned with is the autofail on sound-based Perception. Is there a magic item that causes sound to be translated into (the sensation of) light, or something else that would help out?

Is there a term for the opposite of a mook? One that describes a character that is not a mook, but without specifying good/bad or player/non-player?

I'm trying to categorize (most of) the things Pathfinder characters do over the course of their adventuring careers. So far, I have the following:

• Combat
  
• Magic
  
• Social
  
• Traps
  
• Crafting
  
• Knowledge

There's some overlap, and many things fit in more than one category (knowledge and crafting overlap with just about everything). Are there any other categories I'm missing?

Thanks!

Are undead (Su) all the time, or just when they're being created? Obviously the Create Undead (or whatever other spell/ability) being used to create a zombie would fail if the caster or the corpse were inside an AMF. But, what happens to a zombie who walks into one? They don't just fall into a heap ( = become a corpse again), right?

Is is possible to make healing (during combat) a viable and fun party role? Currently it's not even close to keeping up with incoming damage, until you get Heal, so the only reason to use Cure X in combat is when you're so outclassed that there would be a TPK without it. It's far more useful for the cleric (or other healing capable class) to do other things, and then patch everyone up after combat ends.

All my thoughts on how to make healing useful (and fun, if possible) require sweeping changes. Things like making Cure spells do significantly more healing (well, scale up better), making them not Touch range, removing most non-player healing abilities/items (wand of CLW), adding spells that give more temporary HP than the paltry few available now, using status conditions (like sickened/fatigued/blinded) more often and making them easier to cure (something like paladin mercies perhaps), etc.

Is it worth doing? Has anyone looked at this before and made any progress?

In an effort to relive some of my own "golden years" of gaming, I've brought forward some concepts from other games and mingled them with bits and pieces of Pathfinder to create a necromancer class with an entirely different flavor from what is already available. It uses a "new" spellcasting mechanic to replicate draining your own life to cast spells (and draining the enemy's life to replenish your own), a minion that is intended to harass and hinder the enemy, and a dazzling array of debuffs and control abilities that make your teammates more effective.

I invite all of you to peruse, analyze, criticize, optimize, even abuse this class. Tell me where it's weak, where it's strong, where it's broken. A good deal of effort went into designing this class, and I believe it's solidly in between tier 2 and 3.

Here's a breakdown of the philosophy and intent behind the class:

Primarily I wanted a class that feels like the Everquest necromancer. That entails 3 things - first, having a pet that can either tank or DPS (DPR in this case, I suppose), with spells to augment/select his role. Second, DoTs (damage over time) and debuffs - few actual direct damage spells, very few area spells. Mainly status ailments, like sickened, frightened, nauseated, etc. Some spells that do damage but not quickly (and this is tough to balance, given the average 5-round-long combat in 3.5/PF). Some thematic utility stuff. Also, *specifically*, decent control spells for use against undead. Third, the ability to manipulate HP - healing and lifetap/lifedrain. That's where the casting mechanic comes from - in EQ, necros have a spell line called Lich, which puts a skeleton (or other undead) illusion on them and drains their HP in exchange for faster mana regen. Basically they're casting spells from their own life force, but at a measured rate. This works side-by-side with their lifetap/lifedrain abilities, allowing them to keep up casting (at a non-peak rate) pretty much indefinitely. Sure, they can do some burst damage, but it leaves them low on options until they've had time to regen. In the middle of a tense fight, that's generally a poor choice (but it IS at least an option).

For this concept, I looked at a number of existing classes. None of them had the feeling I was looking for (I know this is pretty subjective, but even with massive reskinning the mechanics just wouldn't allow what I was going for to be effective - even the coolest concept ever isn't much fun if it can't perform in-game). I looked at Druid, Summoner, Cleric/Wizard/Sorcerer/Oracle, Witch, and Alchemist (even a few third-party classes), and didn't find a way I could mix and match to get what I wanted without a lot of difficulty and just general sloppiness. One of my side goals in this was to not slow down play too much. The "archetypal" necromancer from D&D-style fantasy is a guy who has legions of the dead at his command. In-game, however, this has several drawbacks. First, the sheer number of minions required to be effective (using the standard available undead types) is rather high, and this not only stretches the action economy but slows things down for everyone at the table. Second, it's entirely dependent on GM largesse (what creatures are available to be animated and how much onyx is available for purchase/looting, etc). While I don't think anyone in my current group would intentionally gimp a character, it's all too easy to forget to make allowances to let the character do their shtick, and if we get stuck in the wilderness for weeks, or end up racing the clock for some reason, it's entirely possible for multiple levels to pass by with no real advancement (and likely a loss, as the minions would be ablating in combat) in that realm, resulting in wasted character options. Best to simply avoid the possibility.

So, in order to reify this concept properly, I've taken bits and pieces from several classes and put them back together in (what I think is) a coherent fashion.

First, the basic caster concept. Spontaneous casting (doesn't have to memorize spells or worry about a spellbook), no armor, simple weapons. Limit the number of effects known (simplifying decision making in play but increasing challenge when selecting effects known), limits "innate" offensive/defensive capability. Good will save (have to be strong-willed to resist corruption and control life force), good fort save (necro casting is based on his own life energy, so he has to be healthy and full of vitality), poor reflex save (no need to be fast when you have undead to do all the scut work and fight for you, and crawling around in musty damp tombs isn't good for the joints).

Second, the skeleton pet. I took the base idea from here: UA Necromancer Variants, added some buff abilities from the Summoner spell list, added some more buff abilities to match the buffs in EQ and provide some actual utility. Now there's a "sticky" mechanic that lets him tank, along with a few other things. He's commanded (mentally) by spending a move action, so he doesn't ravish the action economy - selecting new targets, positioning, etc. It is completely controllable; it's made with a tiny shred of the caster's soul so it's immune to turn/rebuke/command. It's not truly mindless, but it has no preservation instinct of its own (it does defend the caster if he's injured, etc). Since it's a basic skeleton, even with more HD it sucks combat-wise, so it can be equipped with items of its own (weapons and armor only). It already does get HD advancement equal to the caster, and there are plenty of buff effects he can put on it temporarily to make it good at things (at a cost!), basically granting templates and abilities to it for the duration of the spell. I really don't want to have the same sort of complexity as there is in, say, the eidolon, so I steered away from build points type of improvements for this. It's not really "undead", anyway, more of a homunculus (essentially a constructed body with a little of the caster's life force powering it).

Third, the casting mechanic. Vancian magic just doesn't do it for me. I tend to play spontaneous casters if I play caster at all, since memorization is bloody annoying (and makes very little sense to begin with, given a bit of thought). So, spell points/pool. Problem there is, it gets ridiculous because of the way spell slots work, plus the fact that damage spells are horribly underpowered. So, limited pool (like ki points, basically) that gets bigger as you level, so you can do more before you need to tap into your life force. Since it IS life force, I based it on Con. Added a class ability to regain pool by spending HP (which is always risky in combat, especially with the d6 hit die of casters), also scaling up with level. The balance point here is being able to use two of your highest level effects before needing to recharge (sometimes 3 if you have pact going before you start using the effects, which gives you 2 rounds worth of regen while you cast), or several lower level ones if you don't "need" the extra oomph, or a couple of "maintained" effects and one big one every few rounds, etc etc. Interesting Choice is the primary concept. Speaking of maintained effects - added an option to let necromancers sustain some effects (generally buffs/debuffs) at an ongoing cost. They're limited in several ways: first, the point cost - you spend casting pool points every round to keep the effect going. Second, pool size - as small as the casting pool is, you just can't have a bunch of effects running at once. Third, every sustainable effect is single target. Finally, hard power limit - you can only have a number of effects sustained equal to your casting stat mod. That done, I provided a limited way to mitigate the sustain cost, since the class is themed around DoT and debuffs - a focus item that can sustain one instance of a single effect at no per-round cost. The effect it sustains is chosen at creation, and only a limited number can be used at once (*very* limited). Sustain effects are much like concentration-duration spells, they work as long as you pay their cost every round, and then (some of them) for a little while after that.

Fourth, the "spells". I use quotes because these effects are balanced differently than the normal spell system. They're balanced against what a Fighter can do, using level appropriate equipment and abilities. In point of fact, they're balanced noticeably *below* what a Fighter could do, specifically because the necro gets a pet that can keep him out of melee (up to a point). Fighters, of course, do less damage than rogues (only when SA'ing) or barbarians or paladins (only vs undead/evil) (or clerics/druids, if they're built for melee) or rangers (vs favored enemy). So, this class won't be putting anyone out of a job damage-wise. Most of the better necro effects are spread across multiple rounds (like the Darkness line that reduces movement - limited utility but it's something that can be maintained, at a continuing cost, as long as necessary and as long as the caster has HP to burn for it). Nearly everything scales with level, but in a much more limited fashion than normal spells. And of course, he chews through his own HP like candy to maintain casting, so *every* cast is a risk. The effects on the Veil Magic list balance out moderately (slight but noticeable) more powerful than the equivalent wizard spell *at the level it becomes available*, but they do not scale up as much, so the power curve drops behind at higher levels. This also has the pleasant side effect of encouraging the necromancer to use higher level effects, with their corresponding higher cast cost (hooray for self-balancing!). This is sort of a "dark side of the force" flavor - quicker, easier, but not really more powerful.

As an aside here, I think, after looking at a *lot* of math, I found the source of the "quadratic wizard" problem. It's because *everything* about spellcasting scales with level. The number of spells you have per day (including activated items and bonus slots for casting stat), the difficulty in resisting the spells (spell penetration, spell focus, casting stat mod increase), the effect of the spells (damage dice, empower, maximize), the power level of the spells (spell level), the sheer versatility/number of different effects that become available, eventually the number of spells you can cast in a round (quicken, familiar + wand, contingency). Not only does a caster become more powerful as he levels, he becomes more powerful *faster* with every level. I think I've mostly alleviated this with the necromancer, since the effect of the spells doesn't increase nearly as fast, or as much, as standard ones. The versatility is also greatly reduced, since Veil Magic has extremely low overlap with other spell lists in terms of available effect, and no overlap at all in terms of "spell list" per se, so a necromancer would need UMD to use pretty much any wand/scroll (and likewise, other classes would need UMD to take advantage of any Veil Magic items; I actually lean towards Veil Magic effects not even being allowed as scrolls/wands, though some would be okay as potions/staves).

Fifth, thematics. The necro is focused around manipulating life force in its raw form, so of course he gets healing effects. Nothing even close to what the cleric gets, and even if it was, the cleric really shouldn't be healing 95% of the time anyway, it's so massively underpowered compared to his other options. No channeling ability, so no elemental wackiness; no lay on hands; just the pure transfer of life energy (most of it stolen from monsters/enemies anyway), and always at the cost of some of his own (the casting cost, or simple direct transfer). He also gets some limited versatility by way of "undead-like", poison/cold/ghost/scary-type stuff.

One thing I've been pleasantly surprised by, is that as I flesh out (ha!) the effect list, I'm finding that there is plenty of variety in terms of saves, durations, schools, etc. I had been a little concerned that everything would end up being necromancy and conjuration.

So, that's where it's all coming from. Now to see if it gets there...

Class writeup
Tables, minion stats, effect list (note there are multiple tabs on this one)

I'm going to Hell. Literally, the party is going to Hell, and I'm stuck as to what spells to pick that will be useful against devils. Character is LG Pal 2 / Ora 1 / Sor 13 (CL 15, 17th vs SR), and I need to pick a 4th, 5th, 6th, and one more that can be anything under 6th level.

The main problem so far is that nearly everything we fight has SR. Despite Spell Penetration (don't have greater yet, maybe next level) and Piercing Spell, I still get shut down over half the time. (Meanwhile the paladin with a Sunblade is dishing out 200+ per hit on a regular basis.)

Already have:
Icy Prison (though it's been houseruled to block all LOE to affected targets)
Calcific Touch + Reach Spell
Heatstroke (also houseruled such that devils' fire immunity negates it entirely)
Pilfering Hand
Haste
Emergency Force Sphere
Enervation
Greater Dispel
Greater Invis

Any suggestions? Should I just Haste the party and then turtle until there's something I can land spells on? Magic Missile forever?

(I'm not entirely sure that this is the right place to put this question, but it seemed like the most appropriate - Mods, if this needs to go somewhere else please feel free.)

Where can I find the "baseline" combat progression per level for PF? (IS there one?) More precisely, I'm looking for the "standard" build of a fighter at a series of levels (1,5,10,15,20 or similar), with level-appropriate gear/wealth/abilities; as well as the "typical" opponent he'd face at those levels.

I'm trying to determine the balance of some potential mechanic changes for an upcoming game (not really ready to discuss the changes yet until I have something to compare to), but haven't been able to locate a "Treantmonk's guide to fighters" equivalent.

(Also, if anyone could point me to something similar for SWSE, 3.5 or 4e I'd appreciate that as well.)

Thanks :)