I plan on having him multiclass to fighter at second level. I find that fighter and rogue synergize nicely together. He will eventually go more heavily into fighter than rogue. I feel like that kind of goes with his "fake it till you make it" backstory. At level 1 he should be able to dish out plenty of damage with his great axe (especially if he can sneak attack)and his AC is only a little worse than a straight fighter would be at level 1.
Malt the rogue who dreams of being a mighty warrior: 1. Characters are level 1 to begin: Malt is a level 1 rogue who will multiclass into fighter.
Rysky wrote:
The picture is actually of Maidrayne Vox, the Order of the Nail Master of Blades that was mentioned in the flavor text.
Ninjaxenomorph wrote: Yes, the Padishah of Kelesh, well-known for producing... fair-skinned blondes? There are 11 non-Kelish ethnicities mentioned as living in the sprawling Padishah of Kelish. Not unbelievable that one of the is fair-skinned. He could also be from a Ulfen family living in the Padisha as well. Nobody is scratching their head about Ekundayo coming from Absalom.
ikarinokami wrote:
It is definitely a big deal but it is not a big deal if the enemy is already flat-footed. Maybe the critical effect could be "+2 to hit target until the end of your next turn". This keeps most of what makes the bonus good without having to worry about bonus redundancy.
TriOmegaZero wrote:
True, but that goes for who the party is fighting as well. Plenty of foes in first edition can hit characters within their CR range on a 2 or 3. Also, this was a reasonable result of iterative attacks. On attack one you may only need a 3 to hit (90% chance of success) but attack 2 needs an 8 (65%), attack 3 needs a 13 (40%) and attack 4 needs an 18 (15%).
PossibleCabbage wrote:
The problem with your math is that a DC 15 skill check is one point less than "trivial" per the standards of the Playtest rules (pg. 336) . This means your hyper specialized example will always succeed at a less than trivial check (ok seems reasonable) a character with a genius level attribute related to that skill but untrained will fail this less than trivial check 25% of the time and the non-invested character (in full plate) will fail this less than trivial task 70% of the time. DC 20 is considered a "low" level of difficulty. This will break down as follows: * Hyper-Specialized: Fails at a low-level challenge 20% of the time. * Genius attribute with no training will fail a low-level challenge 50% of the time. * The full plate cartwheeler will fail 90% of the time on a low-level challenge. Should someone in full plate with average dexterity fail a less than "Trivial" acrobatics check 70% of the time? What is a less than trivial acrobatics check? It seems like even an unskilled person should have a fair chance to pass a "Trivial" check much less a check that is less than trivial.
houser2112 wrote: They needed to do something to make two-handed weapons more attractive. It is called enchantment. On a recent playtest we gave our only +1 weapon to a fighter with a greatsword. 2d12+4 dmg is no joke at level 4 and the couple of criticals he got absolutely devastated some tough foes.
Mudfoot wrote:
Giving an number of bonus languages equal to a player's intelligence bonus would be a good start. But I like the idea of a scaling feat as well. I think if you burn a feat on it, you should get a new language every other level.
Vigmortis wrote:
The Undeath domain isn't required for the 4th level feat. Although you would have to pass on the ability to get the feat if you wanted the good Undeath domain power.
In the current playtest document there are 10 common languages, 9 human ethnic languages besides common, 11 uncommon languages (why is Gnoll uncommon but not Sylvan or Undercommon?) and one super-secret-decoder-ring language. This does not even account for dead/ancient languages like Azlanti and Ancient-Osiriani. In first edition a character got a number of bonus languages equal to their intelligence modifier and learning a new language only required the expenditure of a skill point on linguistics. Despite this parties I played in occasionally ran into languages we would have to decipher via magic or other means. This happening now and then made for an interesting RP situation where the characters scrambled to decipher writing/communicate with foreign language speakers. In the playtest rules characters with an intelligence greater than 14 gain a single extra language. To add more languages you have to expend skill feats. I feel that this is going to lead to a lot less opportunities for characters to verbally solve encounters which is too bad because now the always available “violent option” will much more often be the only remaining one for the party to choose.
I played the Cleric of Iomedae and heartily concur that the weirdly long lead times on identifying magic items killed a lot of interest in finding them. I always felt that allowing characters to identify magic items more easily was one of the better changes from 3ed D&D to Pathfinder. Please don’t go back to those dark days! If we find a cool wand/sword/magical beaker let us get to using it right away!
Xenocrat wrote: The Wizard arcane school powers wish they were as useful as the domains. Some of the sorcerer bloodline powers envy them, too, especially the higher level ones. Fair enough. My goal was reviewing domains against each other. My hope is we can weed out the "why would I ever take that domain?" domains out before they are set in stone (*glances meaningfully at the Cities domain*).
So I decided to compare to the cleric domains because I would like to help make all of them reasonable choices for characters and (almost probably) not because I am some sort of subconscious masochist. I go into detail below but these are the main issues I have with the domains: 1. Clerics should be able to USE their domain powers. This is a big issue because cleric’s only get to choose one domain. Perhaps things will be different in Pathfinder 2 but I used the Adventure Paths as my litmus test for “How often will this come up in a campaign?” Many individual powers (and some whole domains) would come up maybe once or perhaps never in a campaign. If there is a spell you only use once, no bigee, you can just use other spells but if even one of your domain powers never (or very rarely) comes up, you have basically lost access to half of your domain powers. Clerics should regularly be using up their spell points 2. Damage scaling. Sometimes damage scales and sometimes is doesn’t. Damage should scale or the non-scaling power is going to become obsolete quick. Many no damaging powers also suffer from a lack of scalability (looking at you Fabricate). 3. When a power has a specific limitation (i.e. Unlife’s blessing can only be used on the undead whereas its sibling power healer’s blessing can be used on anything alive) it should get a bump in power. Otherwise it is just a worse power. This is a short list of domains that are the biggest offenders of the above issues: 1. Confidence: One power gives a minor buff that can blow up in your face and the other is a minor debuff that only happens under VERY specific circumstances. 2. Creation: Fabricate can make a chunk of vegetable matter that lasts for 1 minute and this power never gets better. Improving the quality of an item for 24 hours is nice but the specific nature of fabricate and the fact that it never gets better drags this domain down. 3. Cities: Face in the crowd suffers heavily from overly specific limitations without something to make up for it, also how often are you really going to use it OR watching the watchers. The Cities cleric will never run out of spell points. 4. Fate: Read fate is designed not to help. Read the text, it is basically designed so the party can go “Oh, that is what the vague symbolism meant!” after it is too late to help. Tempt fate is also limited without a reward to make up for it. The threat of an unavoidable critical fail does not make up for a possible critical success. Especially when you are spending spell points on it. 5. Magic: Another victim of limitation. A +1 to saves is nice, the cleric having to cast a spell on you, burn spell points THEN burn an action every round to keep it going makes this ability pretty lame. Mystic beacon suffers the same issue. It only applies to healing or damaging spells and it only adds one level. This means it basically gives +1 die damage/healing, only when you cast a spell. 6. Ambition: Blind ambition is an ok example of having a limitation but getting a bonus. It is more limited than charm but works on non-humanoids. Competitive edge is way to circumstantial for the bonus it gives. 7. Destruction: Destructive cry requires you to hit with a non-touch attack and rewards you by doing an anemic amount of damage that scales much more slowly than other types of damaging powers. 8. Dreams: Sweet dreams protects against something that rarely comes up but makes up for it by providing some healing. The healing should scale better, by higher levels it is almost won’t be worth casting. Dreaming potential is kind of weird. But being able to retrain on the fly might be great, I need more time with the game to know how good this is. 9. Secrecy: Forced quiet is nice, safeguard secret is WILDY circumstantial and super specific. I can’t think of one time that a +4 to saves to avoid giving up a SPECIFIC secret has ever come up for my party/players in decades of gaming. 10. Nightmares: Waking nightmare spending an action and spell point to give someone a 50/50 good/bad buff/debuff seems like a net loss. Echoing nightmares also seems like it could blow up in your face, why spend spell points to mess yourself up unless what you could do to your foes it better than what could happen to you? Under the spoiler is a look at each of the domains in a bit more detail. Domains: Ambition:
Power 1: Blind Ambition: This power has an advantage over many charm effects because it does not only target humanoids but the effects are narrower than charm spells as they depend on the natural inclinations of the target. This power also takes two actions to activate. Power 2: Competitive edge (2): This power only provides a +1 bonus to checks and this only when the DC is greater than 11. If this was a reaction to making a check it might be ok but it takes two actions to cast. Summary: Blind ambition is pretty good but competitive edge provides too small a bonus for what will probably be much less than half of the checks you make and you have to dedicate 2/3 of a round to cast. Overall I would rate Ambition as slightly below average. Air: Power 1: Pushing Gust: Single action to activate, can push people (potentially useful) and can knock target prone on a critical at a range of 500ft. This is a pretty good power, the effect is not too amazing but only requiring 1 action makes up for a lot of that. Power2: Walk on air (1): One action power to take a stride action (which costs 1 action) and gain airwalk until the end of the turn. Pretty nice, falling at the end of the turn keeps this from being amazing but that fact that it has a net cost of zero actions help make up for that. Summary: Two action-light and handy powers make Air a nice choice. Cities: Power 1: Face in the crowd: A nasty combination a power you are going to very occasionally use (I can count on one hand the number of crowds I have run through/hidden in 10 years of playing Pathfinder) and a fairly weak bonus. +2 to stealth and deception are underwhelming and the ability to run through a crowd is rarely going to be that handy for a cleric, especially if his allies cannot. Power 2: Watching the watchers (2): Another very situational ability. It sounds pretty cool but how often will your cleric need to know “the location of the nearest openly visible city guard activity within the city, outside the regular patrols and activities”. One, not only would knowing where the openly visible guard activity not be useful all that often (Especially for a cleric of Abadar. What is he going to use this power for? Tracking down the guards and giving them a fist bump for upholding the law?), it cannot even detect normal guard patrols! Summary: Might be the worst of the domains. Because clerics only get one domain the poor city cleric will almost never get a chance to use his spell points. Confidence: Power 1: Veil of Confidence: Takes two actions to cast, and reduces fear by 2 as well as reducing any fear effect in the next minute by 1. Not too bad but the penalty that grants you EXTRA fear if you critically fail a save seems like an unnecessary penalty to an already mediocre power. Power 2: Delusional pride (2): A weak penalty that only kicks in if the person already failed a check. The 24 hour duration on a critical failure is interesting but how often are you going to encounter an enemy more than a few rounds in a 24 hour period? Summary: Veil of confidence is just below average but delusional pride is kind of terrible. Confidence is a pretty weak domain. Creation: Power 1: Fabricate: Not sure what this is even good for. It can only be up to 1 bulk, must be made of vegetable matter and can’t have complex moving parts. This power does not even heighten to something more useful. Maybe I am missing something but this seems relatively junky compared to other domain powers. Power 2: Artistic flourish (2): This could be reasonably useful and the fact that it heightens is also handy. As the ration of quality bonus to hit shrinks when compared to level bonus, this spell will become less and less useful, however. Summary: Fabricate seems pretty useless but artistic flourish could be nice as bonuses to hit are hard to come by. Darkness: Power 1: Touch of shadows: Dazzling a target for 1 round (1 minute for a critical) with a 1 action power is very nice. Power2: Darkened eyes: Pretty good. Many enemies if PF1 had darkvision and stripping this from them could be as good as blinding them for some parties. Nice power but a somewhat narrow application window, which is fine. Summary: Darkness is a pretty solid domain. Death: Power 1: Undead’s bane: Adding the same amount of damage when casting heal on undead as healer’s blessing (see below) adds to healing. This is not a terrible ability but they could easily double the amount of damage it does to undead without making it too powerful as a result of its narrow application window.
Summary: Undead’s bane is the weak sister of healer’s blessing but death’s call is pretty nice. Destruction: Power 1: Destructive Cry: 1 action to do your level in damage to someone you just hit is much weaker than many of the direct attack powers of other domains (i.e. hurtling stone and fire ray). You have to close on an enemy, make a successful attack THEN use another action for destructive cry to do damage equal to your level. This would be more worthwhile if it was a free action you could take after hitting an enemy. Power 2: Destructive aura (2): Unless PCs are going to be picking up a lot more resistances than I assume, this power basically translates into a straight bonus to damage creatures with resistances. Not too shabby although a +5 to damage at 9th level only against creatures whose resistance you cannot overcome is not all that earth shaking. Summary: Destructive needs to be a bit more destructive… Dreams: Power 1: Sweet Dreams: Dream warding does not seem like something that will be regularly be coming up but a bonus to healing while resting brings this ability up from be niche to nearly the point of uselessness to being just a bit below mediocre. Maybe double level in hit points for resting and heightening to affect more targets? Power 2: Dreaming potential (3): Pretty interesting ability. I like what it can do but how often is retraining going to come up? Summary: Without a significant bonus to Sweet Dreams this domain seems to be not terribly worthwhile. Earth: Power 1: Hurtling stone: Very nice ability. It does enough damage to make using you spell points on it worthwhile, can be used often and scales nicely. This would be a good power to use as a benchmark for other damaging powers. Power 2: Localized quake (2): Another nice earth power, especially since it is an area effect spell that only effect enemies. Summary: Easily one of the strongest domains. Family: Power 1: Soothing words: Seems pretty superior to veil of confidence. It completely removes an emotion effect (not just reducing fear) and it has no chance of backfiring. I guess you cannot use it on yourself but it still seems much better. Power 2: Unity (2): Allow ally within 30’ to use your saves. Very nice, especially when it comes to your barbarian making will saves. Summary: This is one of the better domains but is it just me or do other people find it weird that this is a domain for Lamashtu? Fate: Power 1: Read Fate: “Fate is notoriously fickle and inscrutable, and the word isn’t necessarily meant to be taken at face value, so the meaning is often clear only in hindsight.” This is what happens when you achieve a success… Yay! I just burned a spell point for something that allows me to say “Oh! So that is what that word meant” after it is too late to make a difference. If I succeeded on my check, that is. Power 2: Tempt fate (1): The problem with this power is that while critical successes are good, critical failures are often VERY VERY bad. Also, in my admittedly short experience with PF2, it seems like most saves require more than an 11 to succeed. This means that this power will generally hurt more than help. Seems like a bad way to spend your spell points. Summary: Read fates seems to be written to be worthless whereas tempt fate seems like it is going to do more harm than good. Not a very good domain. Fire: Power 1: Fire ray. Very nice, see Hurtling Stone. Power 2: Fire barrier (1): A pretty good reaction ability. Summary: This is a solid domain. Not much else to say here. Freedom: Power 1: Unimpeded stride: Very nice freedom of movement-lite spell and is a free action to cast. Power 2: Word of freedom (3): Really nice. Being able to pop the wizard out of the tentacles of your foes is a very nice ability. Summary: A very nice utility domain. Other utility-esque domains should use this as their benchmark. Healing: Power 1: Healer’s blessing: This is a nice bonus to healing granting a cleric with an 18 wisdom a 20% bonus to healing. Power 2: Healing font (2): Being able to convert 2 spell points to a maximized heal is very nice. Summary: This is a great domain. It allows a cleric to completely focus his spell list on non-healing spells or simply be loaded for tarrasque when it comes to healing if they chose. Indulgence: Power 1: Enhance victuals: Well, you can change water into ale which will save you a couple of copper pieces (or one silver if wine is your thing). Besides its alcoholism-enabling powers it can also make food taste better. Its main mechanical ability is that it can attempt to counteract poisoned food. Although this spell might be awesome in real life the poison counteracting ability does not seem like it would come up more than once a campaign or so. Power 2: Take its course (2): If you are poisoning folks on the regular this could be an ok spell, utility of being able to use it against poison is also pretty decent. Summary: This domain suffers from the same thing a few of the other do, in that the abilities are just too narrowly focused. Especially since clerics only get one domain. The utility if take its course helps offset this issue a bit for the indulgence domain. Knowledge Power 1: Lorekeeper’s fortune: This is a nice ability. It is not overwhelmingly powerful but a cleric can get a lot of use out of it.
Power 2: Dazzling Flash (2): A great combat area of effect spell. Granting the entire party concealment against enemies in a 20ft cone is pretty great. Summary: Mixed bag. Undead’s bane is underpowered but dazzling flash is one of the most potent domain powers available. Luck: Power 1: Bit of luck: This just isn’t going to come up very often, I don’t think it would be overpowering for it to provide a +1 bonus no matter what... Power 2: Lucky break (3): Reroll a (non-critical) failed check is a very nice thing to have in your quiver. Summary: Lucky break is a nice insurance policy. Bit of luck is just not going to come up enough to make much of a difference, the requirement should be removed. Magic: Power 1: Divine vessel: The concentration requirement seems a bit expensive for a +1 bonus to saves on a single ally under prescribed circumstances. Power2: Mystic beacon (1): This boils down to burning an action and spell points to make a damaging or healing spell do a relatively small amount of extra damage/healing. Summary: Neither of these powers do a whole lot for the spell point spent. Might: Power 1: Athletic exploit: Burning an action and a spell point to remove the armor penalty to movement is not worth it but removing the armor check penalty in certain situations (swimming) could be useful. I don’t see this coming up more than a few times per campaign. Power 2: Enduring strength (might) (2): This is ok but the fact that it is only going to increase as fast as your strength bonus does means that its usefulness is going to dwindle quickly as the cleric increases in level. Summary: Athletic exploit would be better if it were a reaction you could take as part of a movement action. Enduring strength (might) needs a better way to scale because damage is going to quickly outpace it over time. Moon: Power 1: Moonlight glow: Not quite as good as the cantrip light (unless the whole party has low-light vision) plus a weirdly specific bonus that is not likely to come up very often. Power 2: One of the most powerful beam attacks among the domain powers. Summary: Decent combo of utility and combat. Nature: Power 1: Skin of thorns: This is a great example of a domain power that will remain relevant because it can be heightened. Power 2: Nature’s bounty (1): Create food and water 2.0. This is a pretty decent power. You always need to eat and drink. Summary: Another good example of a domain that combines a “use every combat” power and a more niche ability. Nightmares: Power 1: Waking nightmare: Kind of a weird ability. The sheer randomness of it seems makes it kind of terrible, however. I feel like I am playing something from Games Workshop with this ability. Power 2: Another weirdly random ability. It is not completely random but if used on anything other than a target with a very low will save you stand a good chance of taking yourself out of the battle. Summary: Don’t like the coin flip nature of this domain. You shouldn’t have to spend spell points to take yourself out of the battle and the plus side of these powers does not offset the possible downsides. Pain: Power 1: Savor the sting: Very nice ability. It fits nicely in line with the other attack domain powers. Power 2: Retributive pain (3): Nice ability. It heightens well so it remains relevant as the cleric goes up in levels. Summary: Both abilities are nice and can be used often. Thumbs up. Passion: Power 1: Charming touch: Despite the name it has a range of 30ft and is charm person. Nice. Power 2: Captivating adoration (2): Unfortunately, as written this effects allies as well… Summary: Charming touch is decent but captivating adoration, as written, is going to mess your party up as much as the enemy if you do not isolate yourself. Perfection: Power 1: Perfected mind: Nice, although it seems like many ongoing effects that required a will save to overcome might prevent you from using this domain power. Power 2: Perfected form (2): Look out medusas! Maybe these come up more often in second edition? Summary: What seem like good abilities at first fade a little when you realize how specific they are and that they only work on the cleric. Protection: Power 1: Divine Ward: This is nice AND it levels up with the cleric so they never have to worry about this power becoming obsolete. Power 2: Protective aura (2): Resistance equal to half your level against all damage AND it extends to your allies? Very nice. Summary: Two nice abilities that can be used in every fight and that level up with the cleric. Secrecy: Power 1: Forced quiet: Handy spell for taking out lone sentries. I could see this being very handy when adventuring. Power 2: Safeguard secret (3): Weirdly specific made even more specific by only being able to choose one piece of information. Summary: Forced quiet is nice but safeguard secret is way too specific in two different ways. Travel: Power 1: Agile feet: Nice, a move bonus and you ignore difficult terrain and unlike athletic exploit (which it is probably superior to), this does not burn an action. Power 2: Wanderer’s guide (3): A nice ability now that downtime is more of a concrete thing but it seems like this ability is going to become obsolete the moment the party can fly long distances or teleport. Summary: Agile feet is nice and wanderer’s guide is going to be pretty good for time management, at least early on. Trickery: Power 1: Sudden shift: This is a nice ability. I am not sure why the cleric cannot step away from the foe. He is burning one of his spell points. Why shouldn’t they be able to step away from an attack that will already have a -5 to hit? Power 2: Master’s illusion (3): Being able to disguise the whole party is a nice ability to have on hand. Summary: Not a bad domain but I still think there shouldn’t be a problem with stepping away from a follow up attack after a foes misses you. If it didn’t cost a spell point it might be too powerful but the limited amount of the cleric’s spell points would keep this in check. Truth: Power 1: Word of truth: This is an interesting power. Everyone who sees the symbol KNOWING you believe you are telling the truth has interesting RP implications. Power 2: Glimpse of the truth (3): Dispel illusion is an ok utility power. Being able to see through enemy defensive spells could come in handy in combat. The problem with piecing illusions outside of combat is you often do not know when you are being confronted with an illusion so the 1 round duration is a tough limit. Summary: Glimpse of truth may come up now and then in combat (and much more rarely outside of combat) but word of truth seems like it might happen once or twice in a campaign, if you are lucky. Tyranny: Power 1: Touch of obedience: A decent combat debuff. Not overwhelming but hey, at least you can use it in most combats. Power 2: Commanding lash (2): Another power you can use often. Very nice way to follow up a round of attacks. Summary: Tyranny provides powers you can use all the time. You will actually have to think about possibly running out of spell points too early if you are a little overly liberal with your power use. This is a problem all domains should have. Undeath: Power 1: Unlife’s blessing: An inferior ability to healer’s blessing for most but still ok. Could make for a nasty “evil cleric and his undead minions” encounter I suppose. Power 2: Touch of undeath (2): Nasty and quick offensive power. Nothing to complain about here. Summary: Although unlife’s blessing should be bit more powerful (maybe +3 hp per dice) because of its limited nature, touch of undeath more than makes up for this shortcoming. Water: Power 1: Tidal surge: A weaker version of the Air domain’s pushing gust (you can’t knock people prone), this could still be a very nice combat power. Your GM will develop an intense aversion to cliffs & pits. Power 2: Downpour (2): This is a decent power. Being dazzled while concealed makes it a bit circumstantial but crafty clerics can find ways to make this work well. Summary: Not as good as Air but that is ok, you have powers that you can and will actually use. Wealth: Power 1: Acquisitive’s fortune: This power is not exactly overwhelming to begin with and the fact that it only kicks in when you make a critical failure on a lore check to practice a trade (super-duper specific) makes it pretty terrible. Power 2: Money talks (1): Pretty cool power. I am not sure how many cleric spells have material components with gold costs. Also, why not 1 SP for spells that have a material component that does not have a listed gold cost? Summary: While money talks provides a nice bit of flexibility it does not make up for the dismal Acquisitive’s fortune. This is another domain that is going to have a tough time managing to spend all of their spell points. Zeal: Power 1: Weapon surge: +1 to hit and +1 dmg dice… for one attack and the damage does not scale. Scalability is this power’s greatest weakness. Compare this to any of the other attack powers and this issue becomes quite clear. A +1 to hit is nice but your attack is not a touch attack (which almost universally makes up for that bonus), also your damage does not scale. Compare this ability to touch of undeath and I think you will see what I am talking about. Power 2: Prepare for battle (3): Very nice ability, especially now that Clerics are kings of initiative. Summary: Prepare for battle is very nice but weapon surge is definitely a weak attack ability. Paizo could safely power it up (i.e. heightening damage dice) without making it overwhelming.
Ok,thanks for the heads-up. Now, looking at masks I see that the War Mask of Terror has the following text: Quote:
Can I create a mask with the abilities listed in bold in the description? Also, can I increase the deflection bonus incrementally?
The Hellknight Signifer prestige class states that: Quote: A Hellknight signifer with a bonded object from the arcane bond class feature can perform a special ritual that costs 500 gp and takes 8 hours to complete. This ritual converts the signifer’s mask into his new bonded item, which takes up the head slot. In this case, Hellknight signifer levels stack with levels from the class that grants the bonded item for determining what additional magical abilities can be added to the bonded item. Does this mean I can apply any head slot wondrous item to the helm or does it mean I can apply nothing to the helm in PFS because there are no wondrous item Signifer helms? |