War Wizard's page

A friend told me of an interesting house rule call he made as dm, and I was wondering about your opinion. I've read your thread for a while and don't worry, I will not be trying to berate anyone that "James said this is how it works," I just find myself generally agreeing with your approach and wanted to hear what you'd do.

My friends player made a character designed around "rage cycling." Basically, he's a barbarian who took 5 monk levels with the Martial Artist archtype to avoid alignment restrictions and get an ability that makes him "immune to fatigue." This ability would seemingly let him drop his rage every round and restart it to refresh once per rage abilities like strength surge or what have you.

Given that barbarians do basically get this ability (at 17th level), the player feels it's just clever character design. The DM has concerns about whether this combination SHOULD work (he accepts that the rules seem to suggest it would, unlike another ruling on invigorate I found you commenting on). Would you be ok with a player in your game using this class combination (or another, it's my understanding you can do the same thing with the oracle's "lame" curse) in order to "cycle rage" and use once per rage abilities every round?

PS: Thanks for keeping this thread up. My friends and I have often looked to some of your rulings for how you do things over the years and found it invaluable. Basically, you are cool for keeping this monster going.

Hi JJ! Long time reader on the thread, first time poster.

1) I was wondering, do you believe intimidate should be able to apply the shaken effect to undead creatures with intelligence? It's my understanding that shaken is considered a fear effect, and undead are specifically immune to mind-affecting and morale effects. However, though a person might think of fear as a morale effect, I could not find anything explicitly stating this. I suppose it hinges on if fear is considered either morale or mind-effecting.

2) If undead cannot be intimidated, would you apply this to diplomacy as well (in terms of changing attitudes with the guidelines listed in the skill).

PS: I looked through the forums and couldn't find an official answer so I was just wondering your opinion (not official I know).

Edit: Correction

I apologize if this has been asked before, but I've been thinking about starting to use 3rd party products based on your advice in another thread. Anyway, I wanted to see if you'd post a top 3 or 5 of your favorite 3rd party pathfinder products, so that I can review and perhaps buy the best that's out there. Thanks.

After talking with our GM, I was out of line bringing the (minor) dispute on a public forum board. I wont be responding here anymore in the hopes that we can resolve what is in reality a fairly minor thing. To answer the last poster I don't have bad blood at this point, and in fact I feel fairly silly about getting inflamed. Sorry to all the readers about the drama.

Axl wrote:

The GM has PCs of level 4 and level 6 in the same group? No wonder the level 4 player is disgruntled.

That GM needs a slap.

Well the level 4 rogue might have a template or is a monstrous PC of some sort. I'd like the OP to clarify this apparant level discrepancies between the characters.

Also: please disregard my previous post on this thread because obviously, I haven't read the full thread before I posted that thing.

To defend the gm, he still approaches xp 3.5 style. That is to say, the rogue is quickly catching up. For example, a one or two page adventure log write up just netted him 5k xp. I think it's fair to say that's an over-reward for the effort (as much as I liked the write up), so I'm pretty sure he's intent on getting the rogue up to par. Our dm is actually quite good, in my opinion. I can't speak for Cole of course.

Also, it was mentioned, so I have to say I'm sorry if I seemed angry. It's because I was, a little. I felt like I'd tried pretty hard to keep the peace on this matter and, well, seeing those comments was a bit of a surprise.

Thank you all for your opinions and advice (except the rude flamers)

After discussing my Rogue with several writer friends of mine we determined that my rogue has something the other Battle Turtle classes don't have:

CHARACTER

This is my first rogue in Pathfinder and I am trying to make him a scoundrel Thief type of guy. However the party is composed of mostly melee fighters, so I feel kind of useless when the Druid with her High WIS and 1 level of Rogue with 6HD of character level is out performing my 4th Level pure rogue (essentially with her high WIS and INT she has a 16 Perception and a 14 Disable Device) to my 11 in both.
When my main function is being trumped like that the Rogue seems pretty damn useless. The Melee fighters are doing my average backstab damage every time they swing their swords and I have to make stealth checks every time I move were the bard with invisibility doesn't have to make any.

So

I'm sticking with my Rogue for now based on all of your advice that his high skill points will eventually make him usefull and my writer friend's advice that my character possession more character then the min/maxed characters and so he adds more to the story.

Again Thank you all for your advice.

Really Cole? So we have a small disagreement regarding whether the rogue class is "worthless" based on last session. You get offended at my manner of discussion, and I was quick to apologize. It was never my intent to be a jerk or make you feel bad about your character. I even send you a personal email saying "Hey I hope your not mad, really didn't mean to offend you. I think your character is really good, and interesting, and I hope you keep playing him." So you seemingly ignore my email over the next couple days, which I blew off. And here I find you, complaining on the Paizo forums.

I guess I could be wrong, but this realllly seems like you're talking about me with this post, and it's pretty negative. The fact that I rolled pretty well on stats and used a fairly straightforward war cleric build doesn't mean than I am not trying to play an interesting character. The fact that your character does less damage than mine doesn't automatically imply your character is better, and I'm a little insulted that you think so.

You asked me before not to make judgements about your character since we've only played together twice, and I said "ok, that's fair." And here you are, lording over how much "more character" you've got than me. Bit of a double standard in my opinion. I'm sorry to bring this up here on this board but you've ignored my personal email and I felt compelled to respond, since you brought it up here and I'm involved in the matter.

Edit: PS: After review of this board, it seems like the majority of the posters feel similar to the way I did initially. That is to say, the rogue is a pretty good class with good options for a pure build. I honestly do understand why you have an issue with the class but it was only ever my intent to state my opinion that the class is good as it is, and your suggested fix of making disable device and trapfinding rogue only is not needed.

Runes of body (and by extension, Runes of Might) are way over powered, a bonus to all three physical attribute score for 1 round per level that stacks with everything else.

Good call. Hmm enhancement bonus might be better. I'm not a big fan of abilities that simply replace magical item bonuses. Perhaps 1 per 5 levels.

I'm still fine tuning. This is where I'm currently at, if anyone is interested. Still pretty rough. Thanks again for the help.

Runic Powers:

Runic Force: At 1st Level, and every odd level thereafter, the Runeknight can choose one Runic Power from the list below. Each choice is permanent and cannot be reversed.

Runes of Talent: The Runeknight can add his 1/2 level to acrobatics, climb, and swim checks. This effect is passive and always on.

Rune Skin: The Runeknight's runes react to physical damage. Each successive round the Runeknight is injured, he receives a base natural armor bonus of +1, to a maximum of ½ his character level. Each round he suffers no physical damage, the bonus decreases by 1, to a minimum of 0.

Thanks for the help Kierato, you knocked that out pretty quick. I like it, it feels similar to the female system but definitely works differently. Couple points, tell me what you think.

Given the duration, is the amount of points roughly comparable with the casting ability of the feminine version. At most I think perhaps 1/lvl +Cha.

Do you think any method of making the duration longer, or changing the activation to swift would be inappropriate?

Physical Ability Scores, do you mean Str or Dex or Con, or all 3 with the one use of the ability?

Thank you for the response, I'll make sure to wait a while to bump again if it's needed. I've read forums quite a bit but don't normally post on them.

Good question, sorry if I wasn't clear. The male version of the magic is to augment physical abilities, instead of magical ones the the runeguards (female) get. So, any scaling system that involves physical stats is game. Increased speed, physical stats, regen, DR, ect.

Self-bump. Is that polite?

The DM in a campaign I'm playing in has an interesting alternate for people in a particular area of his homebrew world. This country has women known as Runeguards, who utilize an old magic known as Runeology. Their bodies are patterned with runes that they can use to cast special spells. It's a template he charges a feat for at the beginning of creation. A rune-guard must be a woman, and ostensibly compatibility is rare. The inherited or acquired template does the following:

-All spellcasting of the character is based off Charisma.
-+2 to Charisma.
-At every odd level the recipient acquires one spell of any class they can case. 1 is 1st level, 3 is 2nd level, 3 is 3rd level, ect. Those spells can be cast 3 times a day.

I want to disclaimer that yes, even considering the feat cost, this is a very powerful alternative. Our roleplaying group is comprised of all good friends, and we're pretty good about not getting out of hand even with powerful characters.

So here's the part I need help with. The story of Runeology is that this is one small form of the magic, and that while powerful, the rest has been lost. I am playing a character I'd like to be the subject of magical experimentation to expand this magic type. The DM is interested in this, and has decided that one of the lost lines of this magic was compatible with men only. He's asked me to work out a system. Here's what we're aiming for, a physical version of the above runeology. Women get casting powers with the magic, and are powerful in said abilities. The male version should increase physical abilities in some interesting and scaling way.

This forum seems like it's always been good for original and inventive approaches to systems like this, so I'm reaching out to get some help. All ideas are welcome and appreciated, and once I've got something nailed down I'll make sure to post the final version.

Andy Griffith -- alternately barney fife.

You nailed it. /advice off.

:)

I am starting a new game as a player with a long time group (as we are wont to do). I haven't played a Pathfinder paladin in a regular game and think it looks like a lot of fun, especially considering that I feel the paladin was hard to look at in 3-3.5 (aside from the boost from the Battle Blessing feat, an obvious attempt to balance a low power class with a high power feat). Anyway, when thinking of this character I was considering an alternate idea. A LG character from a line of paladins whom, despite a sincere wish and strong alignment, will never be called to paladinhood. A fighter who walks the talk of paladinhood, if you will. I was trying to think of some good features and class abilities to take, as well as an interesting character approach to the guy. Any 3.5 is open, but subject to DM Fiat to keep balance in check. Complete champion has the Armor of God and whatnot, but wanted to see what people thought or ideas they had on how to play him. Thanks in advance for the advice.

Turned out pretty well, I convinced the other character to stay with us and keep at it, so one small victory for paladin diplomacy eh? Two for me, I also convinced my torturer she was headed down the wrong path in life, but to be honest, I got lucky on that one. Thanks for the help with the dilemma though, you were all very insightful!

Here was the warmage's response, it made me feel more paladin-like.

"Markus just stood there dumbfounded.
Why does this man care so much?
He had never seen someone care about another person as this man does about him. It was mind numbing, should he go back down the corridor and meet his dark contract altered destiny? Or should he stay and as Ramireous so says, fight the good fight? He did like the fighting, there was enjoyment in it. The chaos of it. The unpredictability of combat. The Lawfulness of inputing your commands on the battle field, your will.
He loved it.
Would he love what was down the corridor?
Magic, he loved magic too, the combination of Magic and Battle was what Markus lived for. Magic was the all powerful warm bosom for which he yearned to be embraced by. He hoped everyday he could all but reach down and touch a little of it, that it may lift him up and fill him with its warm energy. Its life sustaining and powerful energy....
But if he was dead and his soul....well he could'nt do that...
That was what Markus wanted more than anything, the pursuit of Magic. He had dreams of being lifted up by the edding currents of the weave, lying there he would watch in amazement as his form slowly shifted into the weave itself. It was heaven.....
He had to stay...
He must stay and fight...
He would not let the Devils win his soul from him...

Markus looked at Ramireous:
"I will stay with you. I know you do not trust me." with this he looks at everyone.
"But I am willing to do as I must by your will to undo this wrong."
He leaves his statement hanging in the air with the thrumming of the ritual."

Thanks for the advice, in case anyone is interested I went with the following response.

Swinging the greatsword down and behind himself, Ramireous reached grabbed Markus by the shoulder, and walked a circle around the man to cut him off.

"I'm not going to cut you down Markus, but I suspect that you want me to. You haven't betrayed me or done me wrong, and you have not performed any evil acts that you've mentioned, so I have no right to kill you for making a bad decision. Walking away isn't the answer though, there's nothing down that hallway you haven't seen. Just death and evil. There's nothing that way, but as Katsurou said, there's hope where we are headed, someone could know something that could save you. Maybe you can't save yourself, maybe you can, but you can fight the good fight. If you die now, with your soul owed to those things, it's over. Come with us."

Normally you'd be right, but in the Tyrants of the Nine Hells 3.5 book which we use for inspiration or straight up rules, the guidelines provide two kinds of Faustian pacts. Sadly, our foolish mage signed the worst kind which makes you Law Evil automatically. They only way out of the pact is to role-play your alignment back to good, but that information is pretty rare and beyond the knowledge of a 2nd lvl paladin. We don't have access to most magic at this level, and recall, we're in the middle of an escape from this very deadly prison. I like your idea to give him the chance to go with us or fight, I can see that working out well.
As to how I found out I used detect evil and the DM determined his aura was weak (not being a cleric/pally aura) but being familiar with devils I was still picking some of that up from him. When confronted he admitted his error.

There are some who would interpret the paladin's code to rid the world of evil literally and say that the paladin could destroy this LE creature and be done with it. I would accept this in my game.

There are others who think that until the creature has actually performed an evil act -- and been caught in it -- that they can be redeemed and the paladin should withhold final judgment until that outcome is known. I would accept this in my game as well.

About the only thing I wouldn't accept is a conflicted paladin who doesn't know what to do and just sort of straggles along, going with the flow. That's not the kind of fortitude that I think paladins are made of.

For alignment questions you're best off asking your GM. Tell them what you're considering and describe why you can see it going either way and ask them. You should keep it a "PC quandary" and not a "player quandary" so that the GM can give your PC in-game clues (visions, dreams, etc) and help preserve the immersion.

Whatever happens, good luck and have fun with it. :)

I think that's really good advise. I have somewhat conflicting views of the paladin, whom is one of my favorites to play. The paladin should be merciful and will to help people towards the righteous path. He also needs to be the arbiter of justice that the evil and the wicked should fear, willing and able to meet out justice when necessary. Your right that the paladin himself should not be wavering, he should be strong and sure. I however, am a bit up in the air, so I was just looking for some advise. Thanks!

Sorry I was unclear about a couple points. I'm the paladin, he's the warmage who sold his soul. To be straight after he was tortured a small devilish creature convinced him to sell his soul in exchange for "power" that would keep this kind of thing from happening again. In this case personal training with some magister of the evil country. So he was not tortured into signing the contract, just manipulated which per the Nine Hells book, is perfectly legit for a devil to do.

I agree with your comments about mercy, that's an important aspect of being good. My concern is that in the middle of this evil complex, he's either going to get killed or sign up with the bad guys, there aren't many other possibilities. To be clear I do not know him prior to our shared imprisonment. Do these clarifications help at all?

I'm playing in a forum game right now with all friends from high school in a few different cities, to get the original group together for some dnd, and I've found it refreshingly fun in that it allows for a deeper level of role-playing not easily achieved in an in-person game (ex. being able to post internal thoughts about situations). We still have a dm, still do battles with html battle maps, ect.

So our group has started in prison, captured by slavers of an evil country after their unjust invasion of our country. After discussions and plots, we are afforded an opportunity to escape, which we agree to. Before doing so we are accosted by a guard to take one person to be tortured today. Figuring that he is the toughest via his class fort, hp's, and ability to heal himself (2nd level), the paladin draws the ire of the guard believing he has the best chance of making it out of the torture in fighting condition. The neutral warmage thwarts his attempt in derision of the guard, and we both end up going. Great.

Well in the cell I manage to avoid torture by reasoning, rather well I believe, with the guard and making, if you'll believe this, friends with them. The warmage does not do too well, and gets tortured like crazy, eventually signing a Faustian pact ala the Nine Hells 3.5 book, making him Law Evil.

To summarize, during our escape I find out and he admits signing his soul away. After discussion he decides to go the other way in the miles huge complex, stating he's been no bother to us, and tries to leave, which is my dilemma. In our group, despite the fantasy of dnd, we go for real emotional responses and legitimate character reactions. I'm not hardcore exalted, but being a reasonable and righteous paladin, I'm trying to decide what to do. I can strike him down beings that he has damned his soul and may sell us away to evil men, which could compromise our escape from prison (a huge miles large complex with magical and devil'ish defenses). The dm has stated it is not a paladin powers lose situation if I did, but it's my decision, and the player of the warmage is willing to accept my decision and make a new character if I do. If the warmage is refusing to seek redemption and attempts to leave, am I justified in laying him low?

My opinion:

When I picture a lunge in my mind, I see it as a mini Spring Attack -- I move forward slightly, attack with an extended arm, and step back.

However, I agree with T O. The rule for lunge doesn't mention moving out of position; it specifically states you add reach. Unless the target has a different means to retaliate with an AoO against a creature with reach, I don't believe it would get the AoO.

Another case where the rules are more favorable than the movie in my head ;)

Yeah I suppose he's right, even in my post I backpedaled a bit. While it's one of those odd rules situations, I can't see it being too destructive. Most people really throwing around maneuvers will have the feats for them anyway.

Well, a character using Lunge improves the reach of their weapon by 5', not that they actually move 5'. The lunger still provokes the Attack of Opportunity from the creature they're trying to trip, but the creature in question can't strike back unless they have some kind of reach too.

More explicitly, under the definition of Attack of Opportunity from the PRD:

"An enemy that takes certain actions while in a threatened square provokes an attack of opportunity from you." (emphasis added)

So, if somebody tries to trip from outside the target's threatened area, the target can't take their AoO.

"Benefit: You can increase the reach of your melee attacks

You didn't take this as meaning your basically a large creature during your turn? I mean, your weapon isn't actually long like a long-spear, so it doesn't make much sense to me you could hit your targets with impunity. Yeah, I think it's intended you function like a large creature temporarily, and that seems more appropriate to me, but I see how you could come to that point.

Edit: hmm...I'm reconsidering. I'm not sold on my side of things, any other opinions?

Outer space. The people of Golarion often call it "The Dark Tapestry" (meaning the black places between the stars). Basically, when you speak about the "Far Realms" you're talking about the Lovecraft-inspired stuff in D&D. For Golarion, we've decided to simply incorporate Lovecraft's vision and mythos into the world to a certain extent. We've come up with phrases like "The Dark Tapestry" and new content and monsters, but also have drawn upon the writings themselves.

That said, the Abyss itself is another place you can go to to get the creatures of madness. Things like the qlippoths and some of the demonic denizens of the Abyss are certainly quite crazy.

Finally, the plane of Shadow is another place with creatures of madness; as mentioned above, this is where Zon-Kuthon dwells.

I find it staggering that the alien'esque creatures are actually, in pathfinder, in space. It seems the obvious choice, but something never done. However, if things are out in space, how do you get there? A spelljammer approach? I assume, anyway, that you mean space by "between the stars."

War Wizard wrote:

Big factor imo, can be used offensively. Few combat maneuvers screw you as bad as prone in a square. Standing provokes, attacking sucks, ac hit of 4. Tough situation that trip monkeys can create constantly. Though it's nice to see it tougher to do in Pathfinder, with all maneuvers (so no spamming the same maneuvers all the time, should be a choice).

Hence why there are SO many people pissed off at the fact that it still costs two feats to get. I have to agree. If you're going to nerf something, don't make it still hard to get. Unless you're a monk (free at 6th) or a fighter, chances are you don't have the feats to waste on getting it.

While I can definitely see that perspective, I have to admit I got sick of the tripping sometimes in 3.5. The problem was that in normal combat you never saw it. However, if a character came along who had the feat/setup, that's all he freaking did, and it got old fast. Really fast. Combat should be dynamic and interesting, not spamming maneuvers on someone to set up the dnd equivalent of a juggle combo. Gah, drove me nuts. Anyway, even with it being a bit tougher in general to use maneuvers, I'm not sorry to see a feat requirement for trip.

Edit: for grammar.

I created the ethergaunts.

No way! Actually, that's pretty cool. Yeah, one of my favorite monster backstories. "Excuse me, I used to live here, and I don't want you mucking up my existence."

Besides, a group of mages is hard for any group to handle if played interestingly. I had them sitting on the ethereal, controlling a mixed group of giants with mental commands and occasional force spells. The players were a bit confused until someone bothered to see invisibility and saw 5-6 of those fellows behind the giants. Next occasion they got ambused by two or three mind fogs to kill their saves, at which point charms abounded. Fun, fun bad guys, kudos to you sir.

Anyone remember the Ethergaunts from...I think the MM2? Those were amazing mid-level bad guys. I had a lot of fun as a DM involving their rather sneaky genocide return storyline in one of my games. I always thought of them as pretty crazy, and with the faces behind the mask causing psych issues, I can see some correlation.

So I guess the next question becomes, why would you take Improved Trip over Stand Still? Because you DO have the 13 INT and tripping weapon, and want to show off? Or maybe you're a monk, and you can get that for free.

Big factor imo, can be used offensively. Few combat maneuvers screw you as bad as prone in a square. Standing provokes, attacking sucks, ac hit of 4. Tough situation that trip monkeys can create constantly. Though it's nice to see it tougher to do in Pathfinder, with all maneuvers (so no spamming the same maneuvers all the time, should be a choice).

Good call. I myself have gotten into the habit of decent/high int fighters. I hate being terrible at everything except the art of swording. "Quick, jump over the <insert generic obstacle> and smoke that caster! What's that, the physically domineering warrior can't climb/jump/swim/ride for squat?"

In fact, for this character, I took the Golarion alternate class feature to sack a combat feat for 4+int skills and a few more class skills.

Well to be fair, that great sword would be a bit more than a thorn in the titan's foot!

Hah yes. Not that's it's of particular import but I've decided to pick up the feat. I'm high dex anyway, and reflexes with that should help me keep the bad's off my casters. Casting in melee is scarier these days, but it always should have been imo.

I recall a creation feat in Lost Empires of Faerun called Craft Scepter, let you make what was functionally the same as a wand, but of 4th-6th level spells. I think that's a good middle ground for someone pretty focused on using wands, 1 feat lets them keep going on wand creation.

War Wizard wrote:

Am I missing something, or is Stand Still genuinely an inferior choice to Improved Trip, even not accounting for the fact that you get a bonus on Imp Trip and it can be used offensively?

Stand Still works with any weapon, not just trip weapons.

Stand Still works on things that cannot be tripped, such as oozes, creatures without legs, and flying creatures.
Stand Still works on things that are more than one size category larger than you are.
Stand Still is not affected by how many legs the thing has.
Stand Still will stop a normal crawl or a Rogue Crawl (Ex).

edit:added crawl

Good points, I can see the versatility there. So many creatures, even dwarves, give you a hard time on tripping. Fairly helpful to be able to protect your casters no matter what's ripping by your space. I had first thought that the AoO itself, if you hit, would stop them from moving. I suppose that would be too good though, a no-brainer choice for a tank'ish character.

PS: The size concern is funny, you could stop a Titan dead in it's track when trying to walk over you. Pretty awesome really.

In a recently started game, I'm playing an elven straight class fighter (only second). I was considering feat choices and I like the idea of Stand Still for some battlefield control. However, after reviewing the feat I found that, disappointingly, it seems inferior to getting Improved Trip. Both take 2 feats to get into, (combat reflexes and stand still versus combat expertise and improved trip).

Stand still, in place of an AoO, can use a combat maneuver check to stop the character still, keeping whatever else of their round they have. Improved Trip, as a combat maneuver, can be used in place of an AoO, and should the check succeed, puts the opponent prone, stopping their movement as well as the prone condition. Also, adds 2 to both offensive and defensive rolls for tripping, and for that matter can be used offensively.

Am I missing something, or is Stand Still genuinely an inferior choice to Improved Trip, even not accounting for the fact that you get a bonus on Imp Trip and it can be used offensively?

Edit: for grammar.