Warlord255's page

For the Alchemist, I'd think we ought to get a look at any new mundane alchemical items; since they'll be added onto the Alchemist's repertoire moreso than other classes, it's worth seeing what they are.

I'm also inclined to wonder if any errata for the core classes will be offered up, to see how they compare or synergize with the new ones.

Abraham spalding wrote:

Sure and while we are at it we'll make telepathy have a chance of setting off all the spells in the wizard's head! OOOH I know, when a fighter takes a hit, if it does more than 10 points of damage it should totally take his arm off!

Of course! And then we'll make the rogue accidentally set of the trap he was trying to disable, and we'll have the ranger fall into the pit he failed to see, and...and...

Come on, play nice. I wasn't at all serious about making the alchemist a walking stick of dynamite. But I was serious about brainstorming some ideas for "balancing" the obvious flavor of an alchemist's ability to make stuff all day long with the obvious need to keep him from being the most power-laden class ever.

A little help would be appreciated.

I think a short shelf-life can be justified without the "magical aura" bit. However, the "magical aura" bit is somewhat needed as a justification for the alchemist not consuming every gold piece in sight in order to operate his class abilities.

That said, the whole "loses power when not in the Alchemist's possession" bit is what grinds my gears as far as arbitrary limitations; have his elixirs be inherently poisonous/harmful to others due to the personalized magical tincture, with a discovery to buy off the hazard and allow free sharing with party members.

Why do Alchemist get Disable Device as a skill? I'm not seeing the connection between mixing elixirs and alchemical concoctions and the ability to disarming traps and picking locks?

"Hold on, you purse-cutting twit! That's a gelatinous acid spray trap! If you botch the job you'll melt your fingers off! Let me handle it..."

I agree that the Alchemist needs a lot less work than the Inquisitor right now.

That said, I'd personally vouch for choice of a damage type to come earlier as a free, no-discovery choice at fourth level, so that discoveries like Explosive could be more generalized to have effects based on the damage type.

Beyond that, some more transmutation spells - like mud/rock or even flesh/stone - would be nice if there was a way to use targeted spells instead of self-target only ones.

Love for flame-based attacks aside, surely a Fireball isn't the penultimate Wizard spell. It's popular, useful, and all-around loved, but the wizard's spell-based damage dealing ability scales both per spell and overall with the learning of new spells.

Also, an Alchemist sinking all his discoveries into bombs is similar to an Evocation school wizard. Might it be pertinent to compare those two?

drop spells

I'm inclined to agree. Right now the spells make it seem like a poorly-stretched Factotum mismatch. Keep a magical or magic-related Judgement set of abilities and maybe throw some Detects in there with monster lore. An Inquisitor strikes me as the sort of paladin who does things the hard way.

Draeke Raefel wrote:

Nerioth wrote:

Are we allowed to combine discoveries, such as explosive bomb and force bomb?

Do extracts count as potions, meaning that we can apply extend potion and eternal potion to them?

I think jason stated you couldn't stack energy types for bombs. You have to pick one.

Yes, energy types, but the explosive isn't really an energy type, it increases the splash radius, and then adds additional fire damage. The Force one actually changes the type of damage, so that's part of the dilemma.

My problem is still that the Explosive discovery is restricted to fire damage. I'd personally prefer if it were more general, and added specific benefits based on the chosen damage type; it might also be worth considering to make the damage type choices not cost a discovery.

How are rogues and fighters helping the rest of the team?

Ostensibly, by killing enemies that are threatening the other party members. So by that logic, the alchemist is also helping the team, despite its self-central focus abilities.

If nothing else, I could see the Alchemist's stuff being re-flavored quite flexibly, depending on the interpretation. A "witch-doctor" alchemist with magic mushrooms and dried lizards in place of potions would fit the mechanics just fine, for example.

Some of the bomb discoveries are a bit mixed-up. I still think that the damage type change options should be removed in favor of a free switch at 3rd or 4th level, so that future bomb discoveries can be specialized or generalized as needed.

Bull's Strength and Mutagen both give enhancement bonuses so they do not stack.

I guess my problem is Mutagen doesn't last that much longer than Bull's Strength or Bear's Endurance.

Durp. I feel like a bit of a fool now.

I have to wonder, might it be worthwhile to have Mutagens be a second "formula school" that contains the spells like bull's strength and perhaps self-altering utilities like spider climb? While this would bring up the problem of not being able to share those spells with allies via Infusion, it could open the door for allowing mutagens to be shared - though likely at higher risk.

I agree. I don't see any scenario where an Alchemist wouldn't take the Infusion discovery unless he is absolutely hell-bent on not helping the party, in which case he could still be stingy if the ability was free.

Warlord255 wrote:

[IIRC Sonic damage can affect certain items by bypassing their innate DR, but I could be wholly wrong.

True for objects, but how often are you going to be blowing up objects, as opposed to, say, incorporeal undead?!

If objects includes, say, a creature's armor or weapons, I'd imagine it'd be extremely useful. Granted, it is fairly specialized... With discoveries so limited, I don't really think switching the damage type is worth spending a discovery on.

At a cursory glance, I agree that the Mutagen ability looks week. However, it's worth noting that there are a lot of Transmutation spells like bull's strength in the Elixer formulae list, so stacking those could allow an Alchemist to start being pretty dangerous. A 2nd-level Alchemist with a Strength Mutagen and self-cast Bull's Strength elixer gets +6 to Strength. Add that to an affordable 14 Strength and you've got 20 strength and +5 attack and damage bonuses right off the bat.

Also, while discoveries are understandably sparse, changing the damage type of bombs might do well to be separated from that in some way; an option at 4th level to change bomb damage type as a bonus feature, with an option to keep the existing fire damage with a slight improvement such as catching enemies on fire. Then, the Explosive discovery could be more generalized with special bonuses for each damage type (deafening for sonic, minor Dex damage for frost, etc.)

To add one more, why does the force bomb have a secondary effect when the equivelant sonic bomb does not? They do the same damage, but one seems to be blatently weaker.

IIRC Sonic damage can affect certain items by bypassing their innate DR, but I could be wholly wrong.

The "Explosive Bomb" entry should probably have different effects based on the altered damage type.

Well blow me down. That sure helps, don't it!

I am curious as to the addition of any equipment in the APG; weapons, mundane items, alchemical and pseudomagic items or even new magic items.

My favorite 3.0 book was the Arms and Equipment Guide, which was rife with minutiae like rust cubes, springball nets, vehicles and new weapons. I also loved the item entries in many 3.5 books such as Complete Scoundrel. While I can't predict or command the team, I would love to know if such material is being considered for this or future books.

Multiclassing Summoner could be problematic with other pet classes, but there's also good RP potential.

Best combination would easily be a Wizard, for spells and perhaps the eidolon/familiar or item for RP possibilities. Ranger or Druid would be a lot harder. Biggest problem would be the loss of power on the Eidolon, since it'd be harder to get bonuses from other classes to apply to it.

Two days isn't too long to wait, man.

That said, I'd expect a slightly item-dependent caster similar to the Artificer, but with a different bent - perhaps an easier one to handle, as using splash weapons as "spells" could be less intrusive than, say, construct companions or giant metal arms.

Not sure whether or not it'd fit the current vision, but I wouldn't be against it personally.

I'm tempted to nominate Irresistable Dance, if only because that seems like a very Witchy thing to do. I don't know why but Sword in the Stone is what keeps popping into mind whenever I think of this class.

I think it'd be worthwhile to use the printing space for Witches to offer all new familiars, while referring to the Wizard's list for the current "Standard" familiars.

My suggestion: Crab, Natural armor bonus of +1, and an Abjuration-related bonus spell.

Are there any Witch familiars that aren't on the Wizard list? I don't recall seeing the Octopus on the Wizard list, but that may be inattentiveness on my part.

Personally, I'd think Witch familiars would be some kind of imp or other otherworldly creature, but that's just me.

I'm still apprehensive about allowing younger players to use the Summoner... nothing robs a game's atmosphere like having a neon-colored foxman with "sculpted abs and glittering eyes" or what have you being presented as rules-valid.

All this talk of Magikarps makes me wonder. Would it be possible to hold off on altering evolution points and then doing a drastic change with a whole boatload of them on a whim? Or was there a clause for how many evolution points you can shuffle at a given time that I missed.

Illithar wrote:

If a which dies it's familiar is still around...usally. But, under the 'Adding Spells to a Witches Familiar' it says that a familiar of a dead Witch '...only retains it's spell knowledge for 24 hours.' If a Witch dies and isn't brought back within 24 hours does s/he then have to pay to get their familiar back, or is the familiar restored upon the Witches return?

I have no idea on this but was thinking that a nice little ability would be that if the Witch is killed she becomes her familiar until she is rezzed. No spellcasting but keeps Hexes and allows the player to at least have something to do while the party finds a cleric willing to resurrect a Witch.

Doubt that would be something to make it into the final cut but something I would likely do as a Table Rule.

Familiars ought to keep their retained spells while the witch is dead, unless otherwise instructed/the witch decides which one it forgets as a failsafe. Makes for a good plot hook if you can interrogate an evil witch's familiar for spells.

But I'm just not sure what the summoner's role is. The Eidolon wades into combat/kicks butt. Summoned creature(probably a given for most combats) attacks too. But what does the summoner himself do while this is going on?

Abstract it a bit. The player is controlling the actions of both the Eidolon (word gets weirder every time I write it) and the Summoner; as such, even if the Summoner is primarily an accessory, or if the two are relatively equal, the player gets a win/win scenario in that their character(s) are doing well within the context of the game.

However, this does cycle back to my concern with the danger of the "blank canvas" with the Eidolon; if the creature is doing most of the work, and it's a sculptable self-gratifying "MY EIDOLON IS SO COOL AND UNIQUE AND SPECIAL"... well, there could be problems. I can't shake the feeling that without some DM reins, this class more than any other has the capacity to go out of control, since the mechanism for self-aggrandizing would be hard-written into the rules.

tl;dr still afraid of Sonichu eidolons.

I was surprised to see that the majority of the witch's hexes are touch range. Witches have poor hit points and BAB, so should avoid melee range at all costs, but their hexes force them to get into the middle of the fight. It also doesn't suit the flavor IMO. In stories, witches hex their opponents by speaking to them, or by gazing at them with the evil eye. A 30' range would be more appropriate. This is arguably stronger, since it doesn't require a touch attack, but almost all the touch-range hex attacks also give a saving throw anyway.

By the rules as written, a witch also can't use his familar to deliver hexes, only to deliver spells. Of course, it's downright stupid for a witch to put his familiar (i.e. living spellbook) anywhere even close to harm's way, but that's a topic for another thread.

It'd make sense for some of the more utility-based ones (i.e. Charm) to remain touch-range, but I do agree that having too many spells be melee-range would be irksome. Then again, it's worth noting that there are a good number of ranged spells on the spell list, so having melee hexes would be a more risk-reward thing.

I have a picture in my mind of having some of the creatures i created in the video game spore follow me around a dungeon. In fact if i use this class I am pretty sure i am going to use the creature creator to create the image of it.

I'm afraid of this in some regards, myself. There's nothing wrong with giving players a bit of freedom, but my inner pessimist tells me that there's a 50% chance any given Summoner will be dredging up some neon-rainbow horror from the depths of teenage internet hell.

Carnivorous_Bean wrote:

I have to admit, though, the Inquisitor is the one I'm really eager to get a look at. :)

They all sound interesting, but the ones I'm most eager to see are Summoner and Witch. The Summoner just sounds cool.

As for the Witch, I'm wondering if that will be PF's version of the Warlock, or something completely different. Either way, that "Cackle" ability previously mentioned sounds kick-ass.

Well, given that male Witches will be possible/expected, I'd assume that the concept would have to be able to translate that way. Whether or not it'll look anything like the Warlock of old, I can't say, but I'd be willing to guess it won't.