Versanus's page

Preface: I've been playing a sandbox campaign with the same group for about 4 years now. The problem is that the sandbox feels as though it's made of rock rather than sand. The bounty boards never seem to refill, there are large unexplored patches of the map that we can't enter unless we have an expensive "guide." If we try, the dm threatens our demise (tempted to try him on that, but I'm not interested in conflict). He has a few passive quests that don't actually come up, like finding cult activity. Entire months in game and out of game time can go by without combat (not necessarily a bad thing, but the lack of XP is painful). And the dm insists there is stuff to do, and we just have to find it. We've toured every town and did the traditional ask for rumors thing turning up nothing.

I'm good friends with my dm, so I don't want to tell him his campaign feels rigid, dead, and not tailoring to the players. So I want to see what I can do myself. I recently retired my last character that I played for 2 1/2 years and I'm bringing in a Mesmerist. I was thinking of making some backstory where he is obsessed with finding someone else with psychic magic to learn from, so he searches through the uncharted lands. Problem is, say I find the tribe of psychic magic users and my personal quest is now over. Now what? I don't really know what else to do after that, and I don't want to get stuck in the trap of just delivering packages every session (what we do when the group has no idea what they want to do). Any ideas?

I have tried to talk to my dm about how it feels to play the campaign, but we have differing ideas on how to run one. I'm not willing to say his or my ideas are better as I'm sure more creative people would still have fun in his campaign.

TL;DR: Played in a sandbox campaign for 4 years and don't know what to do now. What should I do?

Background:Currently in my campaign, I have my player's preparing to fend off "a great evil" as I am a cliche and vague GM. They're currently learning all about various planar beings and such, and it's great fun. The player's will soon learn what the "evil" specifically is, but they are currently speculating. They've speculated that a Daemon could be the "evil", so they're are contemplating obtaining a scroll of Banishment.

The Actual Question: Banishment states "You can improve the spell’s chance of success by presenting at least one object or substance that the target hates, fears, or otherwise opposes. For each such object or substance, you gain a +1 bonus on your caster level check to overcome the target’s Spell Resistance (if any), and the saving throw DC increases by 2."
One player laughed and just said they just needed to get the whole town present when the spell is cast and the DC will just be unbeatable because daemons are "Notorious for their hatred of the living". I argued that that wasn't what the rule meant, it meant something like silver or holy symbols, but as a rule lawyer myself, I can't present a real argument. Any help on how to interpret that?

TL;DR: Do having many humans present during a banishment spell cast on a daemon make the DC impossible to beat?

I have an idea for a character who specializes in using the boomerang. As a bonus, GM is altering the rules for the boomerang slightly so it comes back after being thrown. The problem is, I can't get a good combination of Class and Feats to make anything really viable. Ranger seems like the best option, but I'm doing a maximum of 9 damage a round at level 5 with what I have built now. Any advice on essentially a thrown weapon character that can deal slashing/bludgeoning damage and has unlimited ammo would be greatly appreciated.

While working on a Slayer with the archetype "Stygian", I needed to get the feat Combat Expertise (don't remember why atm. I think it was for Slayer's Feint because garbage Cha) Having 7 int, I considered a dip into Brawler for Brawler's Cunning. The unarmed attack would also meld nicely for what I had in mind for the character as well as emergency Martial Flexibility. I found the archetype for Brawler "Strangler". This archetype also adds a bit of color to my backstory, as well as providing a visual. This character is level 5 with 4 levels in Slayer (backstory demands that that cannot be changed). My questions are:
Do I go with this archetype or stick with just vanilla brawler? Giving up unarmed strike sounds like it removes the ability to deal any real damage as this archetype due to having pitiful damage of d3 nonlethal. Or having a light melee weapon, then suffering a -4 to my cmb.
What if I take the feat Improved Unarmed Strike? Do I get the d6 because he is still a Brawler or just a d3?
I like the idea of stacking sneak attack dice when I have someone pinned, but would it be worth the loss of an unarmed attack? It is also worth noting I intend on playing a semi stealthy character with decent physical stats all around.
Either way, I am going to be taking only two levels into this class, then moving fully into Slayer. Monk levels are out of the question.
Sorry if any info is incomplete or hard to understand. Can't fall asleep so I thought I'd ask these questions.