Ulu's page

So I'm trying to a build a Technomancer character who's mechanical contributions to the group are mostly knowledge skills, and big spell damage. Some utility spells would be cool too (I'm sure I'll take Invisibility right away because it's fun), but I'm not really focusing on that. The knowledge part of this build is fairly easy to figure out- I'll grab 18 INT, keep INT as high as I can, always rank up knowledge skills, choose the scholar theme etc- and the only advice question I have about that is whether folks have found the Quick Scan hack to be useful. When it comes to combat and spells I have more questions. I definitely have some ideas about what would be useful, and could post a sample build, but I think I'd rather just hear from folks who've played a little bit about what's worked, or what they think would work best rather than have people critique a specific build. Seems to me like something like Energize Spell would be more useful than Harmful Spells, and it seems like Magic Missile is the go-to low level damage spell since there's no way to use dex for touch attacks, but I don't really know. Since energy damage is more common, and even spells with PF analogues scale differently I'm not sure what to expect when I actually start playing. Anyone have advice for me?

There's a sentence in the Fabricate Arms rules that I'm not sure I understand. It says "treat this as a spell of the same level as the expended spell slot." What exactly does this mean? I have some guesses, but am not sure I'm reading it right.

It also says this in the description of Fabricate Tech, but that's a Spell-Like Ability as opposed to Supernatural so I think it refers to the rules for dispelling or resisting summoned items. Is Fabricate Arms supposed to be Spell-Like as opposed to Supernatural?

Simple question, as the GM how would you guys facilitate a PC being an alcoholic? There are some addiction rules, but it leaves a lot up to the GM. In my current campaign I had everyone draw character traits out of a hat, one of them pulled "drunkard."

Here's how I was planning on running it...
The player starts at minor addiction, and when they drink they have to achieve drunkenness stage 1 (just a morale bonus). Every day they must take a will save. It starts at 5. If they make the save they increase the difficulty by one. If they fail it their addiction changes, but the difficulty does not increase. Here's a list of how it changes:
First failed save: Addiction becomes moderate
Second failed save: Player must achieve drunkenness stage II in order to avoid withdrawal.
Third failed save: Addiction becomes severe
Fourth failed save: player must achieve drunkenness stage III in order to avoid withdrawal.

Does this seem fair to y'all? How would you do it? I'm curious. I'm hoping that as the this characters addiction worsens the other characters help her kick the habit. If not this could get pretty upsetting.

So I'm a huge fan of low magic settings, I know Pathfinder doesn't support that well, but blah blah I keep trying. What I've found myself doing is what I like to call "volatile magic" because while there is a lot of magic in the game, it doesn't always work well or predictably, and when it goes wrong it goes REALLY wrong. The goal is not necessarily to be balanced- this low magic business is obviously flavor, fluff etc, but I prefer things to be as balanced as possible. Part of the balance is on me: I need to design enemies and environments such that successful use of magic is REALLY powerful, and how exactly I do that on a session by session basis you will not know. Still, I'd really appreciate some folks critiquing these magic rules.

After you declare what spell you are attempting to cast you must roll a d10. If the number on the die equals the level of the spell, the spell is cast normally. If the number on the die is lower than the level of the spell, the spell fails and is lost. If the number on the die is greater than the level of the spell the caster overcasts, and takes damage proportional to the spell level: a first level spell does 1d4 damage, a second level spell 1d6 and so on. If the caster rolls a natural 10 they surge, the effect is proportional to the spell level:
-a first level surge deals 1d4 damage to the caster and the target of the spell
-a second level surge deals 1d6 damage to the caster, anyone within five feet, and the target of the spell
-a third level surge deals 1d8 damage to the caster, anyone within ten feet, and the target of the spell... make sense?

Point of clarification: if the caster is him or herself the target of the spell, yes they take double damage.

Casters have a number of points (lets call them Caster Points because I'm feeling lazy) they can spend per day to help them cast normally. This value is equal to their level plus their casting ability modifier plus the number of ranks they put into spellcraft. They can spend one of these points to modify their d10 role by one. They an also spend points equal to three times the spell level they were attempting to cast to avoid a surge (but the spell is lost, and they still overcast).

Now for some examples to help illustrate how this works. Let's assume we have a second level Witch who has put two ranks into spellcraft and has an intelligence of 16. She therefore has 7 caster points.

Example one: She casts burning hands, a first level spell, and roles a 4. She doesn't want to overcast, so she spends 3 caster points to cast normally.

Example two: She casts cure moderate wounds, a second level spell, and roles a 1. Easy, she spends one caster point and casts normally.

Example three: She casts burning hands and roles an 8. This is a harder decision; she can either chose to spend all 7 of her caster points to cast normally, or she can accept the 1d4 damage. If she has several enemies in her sights, or knows that she can kill one, perhaps its worth it to save those points for later.

Example four: she casts cure moderate wounds on her ally and roles a 10. She will do 2d8+2 healing to the ally, then 2d6 damage, and 2d6 damage to herself and anyone else within five feet. Odds are that she will still heal a little bit of damage, but she takes 1d6 damage herself, and maybe damages some allies. Then again, maybe she'll damage some enemies in the process. But what if she roles poorly? It really depends on her health, the health of the ally, and all the other particulars going on in the encounter. This is the kind of tough decision I'm trying to force on players.

Ok so I totally wall of texted. Sorry. If you're still here and want to give me some super harsh feedback please do. I'm likely to defend this system a little since there are nuances I haven't elaborated yet, but I really do want people to pick this apart so that I can turn it into something that works.

TLDR: I want to make all Wizards use Word Magic so the class becomes about designing spells. What say you?!

So I've been an avid Pathfinder player since I first heard about the Beta way back, but I've only been GMing for about a year. I'm a younger person so my 3.5 DMing experience wasn't really as an adult, and I'm still learning the ropes. That being said I've discovered very quickly that I prefer to accompany my own world with some unique rules. Examples of these include: I don't let good players use Summon Monster spells, I require rangers to use the "Skirmisher" features, I don't allow Inquisitors. These may seam extreme, but they were all worked out WITH my players as we explored the world together. The Skirmisher requirement for example, was suggested by a player who wanted to play a Skirmisher and felt they fit better into my world since the setting is somewhat low magic. Obviously there are exceptions to all these rules at times. If a Ranger has a good excuse for knowing magic of course she can use spells! Sometimes a spellcaster will need to summon creatures from the planes to save the day even though it's forbidden by the gods.

I've started work on a document that contains all of my campaign setting's special rules so that I can let players come up with new characters easier, and get newer players up to speed. This includes everything from the background of certain races and kingdoms, to each class's specific alterations, and even a list of feats that I approve of from all books (I know it's bad form to cherry pick instead of just opening up books for use, but I've seen too many broken spellcasters in my day). Right now I'm just hashing out a few of the last rules.

My biggest problem is the Wizard. This setting is low magic (as least relatively), and while I'm content to simply limit upper level spells (6+) for other casters, this seams to nerf the Wizard a bit too much. Their whole schtick is having a wide variety of spells known, and versatility with those spells. My idea, which I have not tested, is to make all Wizards Wordcasters. I like the concept that the Wizard is a true student of magic, and is the only class capable of designing his own spells. Other classes are limited by tradition, but the Wizard is a magical scientist. Does anyone have experience with Word Magic, and if so how do you think this would work out? Are there changes I would need to make? Just so you know, the other classes I allow to cast spells are: Alchemists, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Oracles, Paladins, Sorcerers, and Witches.

Hey, internet, I posted some questions about a game I was GMing here and got helpful results so I thought I'd try that again. There are two requests for advice here so if you think i should make two threads let me know and I'll edit this.

1) I'm beginning to get concerned with the quality of my PCs' teamwork. Since they are APL8 I'm designing encounters that require a certain level of coordination, otherwise it's just high level hack n slash. This party IS relatively new to Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs in general. One player has been in several campaigns and games with me for the last five years, but of the other three two have only played a few times, and for the fourth this is his first game (I designed a TWF Fighter for him that is quite skilled with Handaxes, so he's doing alright). Last time I came to this forum it was about an encounter with limited light sources. I thought I'd designed that encounter well (it was short and sweet, there were places to hide and regain light, the enemies were weak, they could exploit their sources of light in several ways etc.), but it was a HUGE challenge for them. I blame myself as the GM for that debacle, BUT from my perspective what did them in was a lack of coordination. I put them in a survival-type situation and they all acted on their own; the casters of Light would often leave certain players in complete darkness, the melee fighters would give each other orders to do opposite things ("back up so we can flank them!" "No! Everyone pile into that room"), and at one point the Witch cast Black Tentacles down a narrow hallway, grappling the Cleric. In the next fight they worked together much better and took down a buffed Oni quite skillfully. Maybe teamwork is coming to them naturally, but I'm wondering if there are any tricks to teaching the party to work together, or tricking them into figuring out how to coordinate combat. In case it helps the party consists of a Debuff/Buff oriented Witch, a "healb&~+%" (her words) Cleric of Erastil, a TWF Fighter who uses Step up and Strike, and a THW-Style Ranger with the Skirmisher alternate features.

2) I'm a huge fan of very, very powerful enemies that you need to use crazy tactics to defeat, or find a way to evade. One of my old DMs for 3.5 would throw these at us every few games and it was very satisfying to have that "Oh s#%! we're going to DIE down here" moment and then escape unharmed, or pull out a secret weapon. I know these are hard to run because you often risk killing one or more characters in the process, but I'd like to try some. This past game I threw a (Young) Frost Worm at them. The Worm had limited movement so they could escape easily, but they chose to fight it. It had one-shotted the Cleric on an AOO and the death throw would have killed her had it not been for some lucky terrain (do to new positioning it didn't have line of sight when it died, so I rolled concealment to see if the terrain would block the ice).
At the end of next session I'm planning on making them fight a Noble Efreeti who is CR11 (I will buff it, and also change its existing stats). They will have the ability to run past the Efreeti to escape, but it will be risky. If they fight the Efreeti they are up for a tough, tough fight, but they CAN win, or weaken the Efreeti enough that escape is easier. If anyone has any advice on how to run this encounter it would be much appreciated. Thanks!

I'm sure this is written down somewhere so feel free to answer with a link. How does spell storing work with spells that do not have single targets (like cones or radii)? Is the center of the radius/source of the cone the enemy who was hit? What about ray attacks? Must you then make a ranged touch attack for the spell to hit? This came up in conversation with my group and I mentioned if you hit with a spell storing weapon I would probably let a ray attack go off as if you had made a successful touch attack. I just rolled up random loot and the big cheese for one encounter is a Flaming Burst Spell Storing Light Crossbow +1, which my party's Witch will LOVE, but now I want to make sure I get the rules right, even though I've already bent the rules by allowing a spell storing ranged weapon (I've expanded the list of special abilities for ranged weapons).

So I'm a relatively new DM (have DMed three dungeon crawls and part of one campaign before) and I'm currently running a short campaign of my own design for Levels 6-10. We've played one game and everyone in the party is currently level 7. There is a Witch, a Cleric of Erastil, a Ranger (Skirmisher and THW Style from the APG), and a Fighter.

Anyways, there's an encounter I'm designing that I need a bit of help with. The basic premiss is that the players enter a Dwarven tomb, but cannot leave through the entrance. Inside the tomb are waves and waves of squishy, but hard-hitting and fast undead. The party must navigate the tomb, keep themselves from being overwhelmed, and eventually find a way out. The way I WANTED to do this encounter was to actually play in the dark with a flashlight representing either a limited source of light, or limited vision for each player in the darkness. None of the players have darkvision, but both the Witch and the Cleric have access to Light as a 0th level spell. This would not be an issue if there were a limit to the number of times they could cast Light, as I would just force them to stay within a 30ft light source, but if they can cast it as many times as they want it breaks that component of the encounter because they can just cast it on the walls, on various object, on whatever, and light the whole tomb. Is there any way to avoid this and keep them in the dark? Or at least limit their light? Any and all advice is appreciated. Thanks!

I try and stay off tabletop RPG forums, because they tend to make me cynical about how much of the game I'm playing is actually broken or breakable and I have zero tolerance for flamewars, BUT I can't seem to find an answer for this anywhere so I decided to suck it up and post.

I'm trying to build a Fighter who balances damage and AC fairly well and supports the party through intimidation (Dazzling Display). Our party is small and consists of a Barbarian, Paladin, Wizard, and myself, and the DM is heavily concerned with RPing. I'm not too worried about optimizing and am just trying to have some fun with this build, BUT because (in my experience) Fighters start to get underpowered around 7th level I want to make sure it's at least somewhat viable.

By fourth level I've taken the feats Bastard Sword Proficiency, Shield Focus, Bastard Sword Focus, Dazzling Display, Intimidating Prowess, and Bastard Sword Specialization. In order to provide some harassment power and defense against spellcasters I'm planing on taking Missile Shield, Shatter Defenses, Disruptive, Ray Shield, Improved Critical, Critical Focus, and then Spellbreaker at 10th Level. I think this build hinges on the effectiveness of Ray Shield to stop one or two Scorching Rays or Acid Arrows if they come my way, or forcing the DM to use cones, which make it hard to him to also flank me. Is Ray Shield at all useful? If I have a Heavy Mithril Shield it has a hardiness of 15 and 30hp per inch of thickness (which I assume is 1, but I don't actually know), so my thinking is that I could shrug off at most two rays before I had to worry about breaking the shield. Thoughts?

AGAIN: I know this build is sub-optimal. I just need it to be functional.