WarmasterSpike's page

The MT I have seen in play at our table was brilliant. I hate it people say you are doing it wrong, but if you are looking for kill power or mega healing out of this build you are in fact doing it wrong. The MT in our campaign was a skeleton key for any impedance, a answer guy for a multitude of issues from, invisible or flying foes, cursed pc's, in excesible areas to a fighter who needs just that one buff to hit the BBEG or protection from the dragons breath weapon. He was the ultimate utility player and in this roll he was beyond fantastic. The DM found his ability to always have an answer on hand quite a handful to deal with. YMMV but I think if you play an MT with this goal in mind you would be very delighted with your choice.

I heard a rookie cap on Cheetos and Mountain Dew was the sticking point in the negotiation. Glad to see managment caved and got us the player we needed to go for the gold.

I would go dual class Fighter/ Rogue. Feats to consider Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack Plus any and all dual wielding feats. I would then Start out with Rapier and Dagger. If you have your heart set on a high charisma make use of it with Bluff feats as well so that you can get your sneak of in rounds where you have no flank buddy. Other builds to consider would be to eliminate the dual wield and grab a buckler. In this case you could then consider point blank and precise for throwing the daggers. Either way works for an RP build, but the dual wield makes gets more bang for the buck on damage.

Before I add my two cents, I would reiterate a few things I see here. Our group always has to have on hand their own copy of any rulebook they use to make a given character, has any house rules provided in print on start of campaign, our DM deligates looking up of some obscure rules to a player who's turn it isnt and we use physical representation via maps, minis and models to depict our world. In fact our DM goes way beyond the call of duty and hand builds many of the environments and dungeons out of plaster and wood...it is beyond outstanding. But one simple thing I didnt see that we do and its really not very expensive or time consuming, combines a few things I see here. Take one standard white board about 2 foot by one foot. Place it on a small wire stand. Buy one roll of sticky backed magnetic tape and some dry erasable laminate. Cut down one inch by half inch pieces of paper and laminate them placing a magnet on the back, make one for each party member and a handful of extras. On these magnetic strips put each characters name. Now when you roll intiative you can just re-arange them to show everyone the turn order as well as that of the enemy. We use the rest of the white board to track group buffs and modifiers. The individual tags we will write the initiative number, individual modifiers etc. When someone delays you just slide them down in the order. It works really well, is inexpensive and I have never seen another group use it.

Dunno, I hate the Mac as a computer, but love their phones,and hand held devices. I want an I pad a ton. My alienware laptop is huge and heavy...this is the perfect airplane device, great for watching movies, reading books and listening to music. At home I can use it as a more cofortable bed time web browser, a nice way to catch up via I tunes on tv shows I have missed and yes if it handles PDF's well I may finally not have to lug a million books to game every week. I would still probably bring the core book for ease of use, but all my other books in one little device would be sweet. On top of all that I could throw a handful of games on it.....I think I will be hounding the wife for my birthday.

I have always wanted to play a hound Archon. I know there are rules to spread the out as a character class, but my DM believes them unbalanced....Sigh...

Shifty wrote:

The concept of Magic Item Shoppes should be fired directly into the Sun.

Followed immediately by 'you must have magic items to beat these monsters'.

My problem with this...too many people who staunchly observe number one, completely neglecting fixing number two. These people then place themselves on a percieved moral highground.

Just out of curiosity what is your reasoning for waiting. Its not as if this is an ability that does anything other than benifit the party. We are not talking about a combat ability nor should we presume to worry about stepping on the Rogue's role as that is exactly the point. To have a trapfinding option other than Rogue or dual class with Rogue in the mix. I see nothing but benifit and absoloutley no unbalancing in terms of class parity.

The flavor of the Alchemist is actually still magical as opposed to chemistry. I would argue that instead of removing the disable device skill they should gain access to removing magical traps. This would reinforce their arcane melding with science feel and add in a second class that can bypass traps though all levels.

True..he might think he is a vet that day!

So if you are using a lance from a mount shouldn't you add the weilder's strength to that of the horse? That is the point of a lance. You are able to do far more damage with a lance from horse-back because you are adding the power of the horse behind it.

I would be far more impressed by a knight on a horse than a pony.

Clever idea but the rules dont really allow for it. I think really the x3 to damage is what accounts for it and is deemed simpler for math's sake.

Now that is interesting ...I think that alot of the classes can potentially cover " rolls" that many assign to a specific class. Maybe that is where the rubber meets the road on this discussion. Fundamentally I see no problem with classes being able to fill any roll they want. As long as they cant fill more than one simultaneously.

WarmasterSpike wrote:

It seems to me the rules allow it, but as has been stated, he would lose his shield bonus. Visually I see it resting against the shoulder with the second hand crossing the body and reinforcing the grip over top. Hense the shield must be put away as to not impede view. One thing I caution against though I support allowing it is to not cater to those who are screaming to allow it just because they think the fighter is under powered in "needs" the advantage. This is a terrible reason to allow something in your game.

Game balance is not a good reason to allow something?

And wait we were talking about a guy with a shield here? I thought he was just using a lance in 2 hands? Can you even do that with anything besides a buckler?

No, that is not what I said. I said making a knee jerk reaction against what the rules read based on wanting to " even the score " for a percieved difference in class power which is debatable to exist is a poor reason. I also stated that the rules seem to allow it an he should as well.

Edit:
"It's not that the fighter-type deserves a power-up, because this isn't a power-up, it's rules as written. What the fighter doesn't need is a power-*down*...which is what you're imposing, if you start imposing simulationist restrictions on fantasy weapon use."

This is very in spirit with what I was saying, only from the oposite perspective.

WarmasterSpike wrote:

These messageboards are to often overrun with everyone whining that their pet class isn't better than all the others under the guise of "balance".

Queue the hordes trotting out rehearsed statements and manipulated numbers to "prove" that their favorite toy in the box isn't nearly Uber enough.

I thought the stock accusation was not "You're just trying to get your favorite class buffed," but instead "Well, obviously you don't know how to play that class the right way!"

Man, keeping up with peoples' attacks on the speaker instead of the argument is hard.

Clearly since I never mentioned any names or said anything about someone in particular I hit a nerve with that statement. I was not meaning anything by way of a personal attack. My point being that the orignial discusion was about party roles and what classes could reasonably accomplish those roles...regardless of what classes you think can or cant, or if I disagree that some are better at it than you do. My point was that many of the comments were leaning towards the very very commmon result on this board. That being Wizards are better than everything...or Fighter make every thing look terrible...if you read something more into it I appologize, but maybe that says more about you than me.

I'm really fed up with all these posts saying this class sucks and that class ought to deal a lot more damage and the class over there needs a bag full of buffs to be on par with that class, and also this class is only good for that role.

I have been playing this game in its various incarnations for nearly 30 years, and everyone I played with chose their class for the flavor and the images and stories they were connecting it to, or because of their personal preferences, and not with the intent to max out the dps (a term that was, fortunately, unknown in those days) or to fill a certain role.

Nowadays? All classes must be in equilibrium, or else they are subpar. I don't get it. I know that the bard hits worse than the fighter, hides worse than the thief, and has worse spells than the wizard. So what? If I like the idea of playing a minstrel, I will do it anyway. If I can try to enthrall and charm the enemy warlord rather than hacking him to bits, then that's what Pen & Paper RPGs where meant to be. If you want swordfight after swordfight, play WoW instead.

You are my hero!

These messageboards are to often overrun with everyone whining that their pet class isn't better than all the others under the guise of "balance".

Queue the hordes trotting out rehearsed statements and manipulated numbers to "prove" that their favorite toy in the box isn't nearly Uber enough.

It seems to me the rules allow it, but as has been stated, he would lose his shield bonus. Visually I see it resting against the shoulder with the second hand crossing the body and reinforcing the grip over top. Hense the shield must be put away as to not impede view. One thing I caution against though I support allowing it is to not cater to those who are screaming to allow it just because they think the fighter is under powered in "needs" the advantage. This is a terrible reason to allow something in your game.

I am finding this highly entertaining, watching how somethings differ in regards to how we did it and how some are scarily similar. I am jealous of the level of RP going on here...

For some reason though our party is comprised of strong players, there is just a faster pace to the group that tends to push us from combat to combat. We miss out on the little moments of character interaction and often reduce to one note players.

I have had Dm's nearly wipe parties with Black tentacles...it is a brutal spell. A wizard for example pinned us down and tore us up from ranged. While its a smart tactic, I do agree who ever gets it off first is probably going to scew the results.

I am really eager to see how this pans out...

I have also seen the approach that it is a construct of pure magic created and held together by the will of the summoner, and that it is a summoned being of incredible might that requires a major portion of the summoners would be considerable power to hold in check.

WarmasterSpike wrote:

It seems that the changes to the Eidolon are a little unbalanced in favor of humanoid forms due to the ability to use rings, weapons and shields. Is there any chance of getting some love for the quads and serpents to mitigate this ?

You might notice that the quads and serpents have some evolutions that the biped cannot access.

Its a tradeoff... but I am willing to see how it goes.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

Fair enough!

It seems that the changes to the Eidolon are a little unbalanced in favor of humanoid forms due to the ability to use rings, weapons and shields. Is there any chance of getting some love for the quads and serpents to mitigate this ?

I think this is straying a bit from play testing... Could you maybe get somebody else to run the opposing mobs and see how it goes. We are getting dangerously close to "my dad can beat up your dad". I think you are on to something with using average rolls, but it is opening you up to tactical criticism.

I would also like to point out rage powers are in addition to the traditional rage bonuses they have always had....Our barbarian at 13th level has the ability to confirm crits, a huge bonus to intimidate, and can run like the wind. That is in addition to his huge chunk of hit points and strength he adds everytime he rages. Again I would like to ask what the specific build this guy is running might be...because our Barbarian as a matter of habit makes my Rogue look like a joke in damage output.

Several posts all but accused the guy of rigging the playtest to wipe the party. And then when he suggested folks go play their own and post it all they did was continue to rip apart the playtest. It looks like a lot of folks are scared to death of anything that shows the summoner in to good a light. I have news for you. The class will be in the book so calm down and yes, chances are it will be toned down a bit. If you were involved in any of the playtesting for the core you will notice a trend. They throw everything, including the kitchen sink at you and then some of it doesn't make it to the final book. My guess is the summoning will not be as over the top as it is now, but they won't know how far to move it, one way or the other, if you run everyone out of the boards who dares report a playtest.

You don't like his tactics. Fine we get that. Make your own playtest. It isn't hard. You can run all the characters yourself if you can't get anyone to play with you. Just make a party, make a summoner and his pet(s) and have at it.

There is a huge gulf between berating and discussing and I assure you that I am not the only one who feels like you are on the wrong side of that gulf.

Waves hand < obiwan voice > " Listen to this man"

wraithstrike wrote:

Maybe this class was made for the Eidolon to be the star, and the PC to be the backup, so to speak. If that was the intent the Eidolon should be as powerful as a PC class, and the Summoner should be about as good as an NPC class. Now I if not then there should be some transfer of power. I do think it fits the trope of the magical person summoning some creature that is more powerful than he is.

You have hit the nail on the head.

The name Summoner should be changed to Eidolon Class :)
I fully understand that but the Summoner, the person who is supposed to be in charge as it were, without his Eidolon is so weak no one would be playing it. That is the balance.

For me, although I love the concept, it should be the other way around. I would prefer a weaker Eidolon and a beefed up Summoner.
Or I could build the Eidolon as the boss who has a human summoner as an animal companion...
Perhaps I'll try that approach and have my summoner a bit of an idiot which the Eidolon uses.

In terms of reasons for the Eidolon to work with the summoner I submit the follwing...

1) It takes the mojority of the summoners power to keep the eidolon at bay

2) maybe they have a close bond that transcends relative might

3) The Eidolon is actaully a manifestiation of the Summoners arcane might from another plane.

4) There is a pact made in the families past that binds this extra planner creature to the bloodline

5) The Summoner has a contract with the Eidolon and vows to perform some deed for him in repayment for servitude.

those are just five off the top of my head...maybe you could try one of those and see if the flavor catches up with the crunch.

Details on build please...because to be honest, the orc barbarian in my group makes us all look like gimps. I dont mean to say that you are doing it wrong or anything, but we might be able to give you some pointers.

I have to admit it begs for a 12 year old PC and his "imaginary" friend.....

I am saying the agruement of obsolesence is a very big stretch until you actually play test it. There isnt a whole lot of offense in that spell list to call it a strong caster for example, and numbers seldom tell the whole story in terms of feat interaction, strategic versatility, and ability versus differing oponents...not to mention that the majority of the arguement seems to be switching from 1 vs 1 to 1 vs the enemy at the convinience of the person posting.

Heladriell wrote:

xJoe3x wrote:

I would say a druid w/o his animal companion is a lot stronger than a summoner w/o his eidolon. That is why the eidolon is made stronger.

I agree completely.

And I don't see a problem with a mighty summoned creature, that is the core feature a of a class, beating a fighter or a barbarian.

With leadership anyone can have a moderately powerful cohort, and it's just a feat. The summoner must have something more powerful.

It is not an issue of a class feature beating a fighter or barbarian but rather replacing them.

Many classes fill the same niche though...I dont consider it a problem really if there is an arcane class that emulates a front line fighter. If it is so much better that it makes all other Melee classes weak by comparison, it needs to be nerfed. But again I would aledge that it needs to be actually play tested to prove that point. Numbers can easily be made to argue in anyones favor.

DnD was never about classes being balanced if they fight each other. That is MMO material. Some classes like a Wizard would destroy a fighter most of the time. You are a team/group and I think the fighter would be glad to have BDF with him or a wizard with him.

+100

and beyond that...it really needs to be play tested to get the whole situation figured out. Balance in D&D is about whether a single character can steal the show from the entire party on a consistant basis, not who can beat who one on one, or whe is better against a specific creature or even creature type.

If he turns out to be a better fighter then the fighter AND a better wizard then the wizard you have a problem...

Many of the summoner archtype in fantasy are actually villians. The Pokemon reference aside it's usual the villians tactic to employ henchman, hide behind his bigger buddy or get someone else to take the hit for them. I think Summoners would make stellar villians. But if I were to approach it from a player perspective, I think I would make him an arcane big game hunter...

Take your feats in ranged attacks like a longbow or crossbow. With haste on his list he will be able to pick up an extra attack before to long...make the eidolon a big hunting beast with scent and be able to summon him a pack of hunting dog co-horts, or some birds of prey for recon. For added fun dump some skills in UMD, or take a level of sorcerer and let him "hunt" with wands of Magic missles.

Agreed...the problem with the spiked chain has always been two fold, one being the art, the second the relative craptasticness of almost all other exotics to the point of being wasted feats. When ever I picture a chain wielder I think Kill Bill, or Jackie Chan in Shanghi Noon with the Rope and Horseshoe. For the record I am playing my first one after it started out on the ground floor of 3.5 in my current campaign and he has only used it to trip once ( going a rogue build with vexing flanker) ...also the mini wields a length of chain with a spike on one end and a grapple looking weight on the other. Makes more sense for piercing damage and the trip attack.

The only two things I didnt care for was the nerfing of the Handfull of decent exotic weapons ( see spiked chain ) down to the level off all the other crap ones, and the exclusion of the Earthbreaker from core.

I feel all the exotics should be worth using a feat to wield and now frankly none of them are, and the Earthbreaker finally brought bludgeoning damage equal two hander love.

Just to clarify.

Brutesquad07 wrote:

...they found a magic sword and a staff. They started laughing loudly as they realized they had wormed their way all around Castle Scarwall looking for a magic bastard sword, avoided all of the legendary bad and ickiness and managed to find a magic bastard sword.

Brutesquad07 wrote:

The Cleric’s Favorite Weapon this campaign has been a Silver Dagger he got waaaaay back in the first mod...

So I'm thinking ... python?

If its your favorite weapon shouldnt it be a trouser snake...

There are no flowery speakers or Diplomatic wunderkinds in this party. We are very much about the "shotgun" diplomacy.

Tell you what next campaign I will make a social butterfly...but Altair isn't likey to start wearing tye dye and Lennon classes anytime soon.

As too the well built death machine...I would alledge that if that combat didnt end when it did one of us would have been rolling a new Orc. ( fate points dont save you from death by ability damage). It may have been fast but it was a good combat as evidenced by they fact we had to rest right after. I also failed to attempt to bluff the guy,which though limiting me to one attack should have increased my damage output. Another spot where we goofed is I think we needed to spend a fate point to force a reroll the second time the Wraith rolled max con damage on our Orc. I think this dungeon is going to be a bit of a problem for us without full restoration as an option.....here is hoping for a few diamonds and a potion or two amongst the loot!

I have to say the helmets are the new ring of protection plus one....

( for those who dont know in our previous campaign we joked of making a suit of chain mail out of them)

"Will AC 17 be enough? Stay tuned to find out"

Swami say....not bloody likely!

I have only played the Rogue using Beta rules as our campaign has run the entire length of playtesting up to current. To be clear I have loved every single change to that class and could be perfectly content playing it for years....but the changes to the monk that I see here have me drooling at the oportunity to try one. I suppose there is some cumbersome rules in there due to straddling the line of compatability vs balance, but lets be honest if you can handle a spell caster are point pool based abilities really that much to complain about, or utilizing full bab for certain abilities for that matter. I doubt it will be a big problem to the vast majority of players.

I posted about this in the product thread for the book. The price is obviously set that high so he can purchase more uranium for his time machine.

And here I thought time machines were powered buy plutonium....clearly this is why mine doesnt work!

No No No...you are doing it wrong, your minions shouldnt be Rangers. They should all be bards with perform " Pole Dance "

Geeze do I always have to explain these things......

To be honest I havent been reading up on what the final classes will look like...Its a shame that they are nerfing the druid, not like he was abusive ot begin with. Personally I alwasy wanted wild shape to start at first level, with our games usually ending in the low teens, half a campaign to get the one ability I want to play them for is too long.

I too have been down the summon road with my last caster, and found it more than a little underwhelming. I dont think that any animal companion/ summon works except the druids to be honesnt. The only real purpose they serve is as damage sumps.

The reason people seldom see eye to eye on balance amongst classes is two fold....The first being most people have a tendancy to side with their preference turning minor blemishes into boils and minor advantages into gargantuan game breaking superman feats of daring. The other that I often notice is that people zero in on a specific level range and point exclusively to it as their only arguement...for example Wizards are gimped because they arent the best at levels 1-5...or Fighters are gimped because they arent the best at level 25+. The truth to me has always been that the classes all have a time when they shine, a sweet spot if you will. Paizo has gone a long way towards evening out the hills and valleys, but I imagine it this will always be the case. We like Channeling because it is a huge boon to the party that doesnt impede on another classes role, and also makes the class more fun for the person playing it....ymmv.

For Quicken channeling, I'd make it a tree:

- Fast Channeling: As a move action.
- Quicken Channeling: As Swift action, Fast Channeling prerequiste.

For Selective channeling:

The charisma requirement makes it "a not so sure" thing, that 12 (+1) cha. the cleric gets for fluff and a bit of a boost on turning doesn't make it a great feat choice. A good feat build, IMO.

Also, don't forget the will save for 1/2 dam. that make a big difference for inteligent undeads and I can't wait to see how the turn resistance of certain undead turns out vs channeling.

This is how we plan to do it..actually I dont beleive we are even giving an option to get to swift. Just Quicken = move action. Thus limiting the amount of abuse possible, but keeping the spirit of the feat...IE: not taking your whole round away to be heal bot.

Put my group in the super completely over the top emphatic love for channel crowd. We are also kicking around the idea of allowing quicken turning to be applied as a feat in the next campaign. As someone who got bored playing clerics I salivate over this idea as I can supply the healing for my party and still actually play !....miracle of all miracles.

Also dont forget that the rest of your party is not walking around in Iron Man's favorite tuxedo so blanket solutions like adding to the bab of all enemies might be ill advised and could make the problem worse in the opposite direction.

Also Mage armor doesn't stack with worn armor, they are the same bonus.

Those are both pretty high. Average ac for my group is low 20's at the same level. It's probably to late now but it might be time for a character audit to see how it got so high. There may be too much loot being given our or a miscalculation. In terms of hitting them try spells that don't target ac, or at least hit touch ac. There is also ways to lower ac like trip and disarming sheilds or the more permanent sunder.