Warriorking9001's page

I've noted in the past my mixed feelings about Sorcerers (or at least I think I have)
On one hand, I adore the idea of magic from bloodline, and how that affects a character. However, I feel that concept of a character shaped by primal magical forces isn't emphasised enough by the current 'Spontaneous Vancian Caster' Sorcerer.

Sadly I don't have access to my computer at the moment, so I cannot properly put the class together, but I thought I would throw some ideas out there.

Sorcerer as a class akin to Kineticist or 3.5 Warlock.
d8 hit die and 3/4 BAB
An at will blasting power based on bloodline that improves over time (Example. Draconic starts as a simple close range energy blast, but becomes a cone or line later, and can be further augmented as you level up.)
Bloodline specific arcana/wild talents/etc. to gain new abilities like natural attacks, armor, and various useful and thematic things. (Example, any bloodline with claws can get 2 at will claws as a talent, or physical augmentations akin to abyssal as a talent)
A 'Battleborn' Archetype that replaces your blast with a powerful, soulknife-esque magical weapon and gives access to new talents.
Something akin to arcane pool that they can use to augment various spell like abilities.
A 'Bloodrage' talent that lets them act like Bloodrager for pool points.

Admittedly, aside from just figuring out core features, the most difficult thing in my mind is making talents and incantations for every bloodline.

This had been going through my head for quite a while, so I thought to ask if this conversion would be possible. Below is a list of what specifically I wanted to see.

1: Thematically appropriate patrons like Fiend, Undying, Great Old One, And most importantly Hexblade (Emphasis on HB because it's my personal favorite of all of them)
2: Invocations/hexes that allow for a broad range of customization so no two warlocks look the same.
3: Eldritch Blast.
4: Having its spell slots work differently than others. Sadly short rests aren't a thing in PF so that's out, but I think there must be SOME unique way to handle magic for them.
5: Arcarnum spells? not sure about this one.

My thoughts would be make them a 6 spell level 3/4 bab class of some sort with abilities to use some unique cantrips and not a lot of spell slots.

As the title says, I was rather curious lately about how Vital Strike and the various Special Attack Actions work together. My first assumption would be that due to how Spheres of Might is designed (Lower DPR rounds and longer fights) that Vital Strike wouldn't be able to stack with special attack actions, but I'm unsure as to whether that is true. Hence I came here to ask.

For context, basically in a setting I had been designing that I imagined I'd turn into a campaign setting, there is a class of weapon with the working title of "Manalock", which essentially amount to highly accurate but short range laser pistols.

The issue is that I feel like these things would be a lot more 'expensive' than I wanted them to be, but I also feel like I NEED them to be so hard to get for balance reasons. Mostly because it compares somewhat to Guns.

Manaelock: 1 handed | 1d8 | x2 | Damage Type B | Range Increment 30-40 ft. | Reload Move Action for a 5 shot 'clip'| Touch and Special
Touch: Within the first range increment, this weapon targets Touch AC within the first range increment.
Special: Mages are capable of squeezing out extra use from this weapon by way of their magical manipulation. Arcane casters and Spherecasters can change the damage type of this weapon based on what spells/abilities they have ready at the time) (For example, a Wizard or magus with Burning hands prepared (or a sorcerer that just knows burning hands) or a Spherecaster with Fire Blast may change the damage type to match the spell. Although some damage types will require one spend a spell slot or point (For example, a wizard wishing to make their magelock do Force Damage and have Magic Missile would have to spend their prepared magic missile slot, but gain the benefits of changing the damage type for 1 round. A Spherecaster with Force Blast meanwhile would need to spend a spell point as if casting Force Blast to do the same thing.

Extra Note: Mentioning Spheres of Power: Why this isn't just a wand (since that seems to be the "Cast a talent to shoot something" magic item)? Simply put, it isn't a wand because I want it to be able to used for Attack Actions for SoM.

I had recently been thinking about Vancian casting because of PF2 coming out and I realized just WHY I had such a distaste for it, because some classes it makes sense, and some classes it makes absolutely none. Hence I got the irresistible urge to throw some vague ideas up to brainstorm.

Alchemist: Basically the same as before, vancian works perfect for them.
Wizard: Retains most of their vancian abilities, but gain a small amount of extra abilities that they can reshape spells into (maybe instead of bonus feats they gain like 4 talents across their career that they can spontaneously turn spell slots into.
Magus: takes Reduced Casting as per Kensei, but rather than gaining weapon abilities they gain a small number of at will talents to use spell combat with in order to represent their one-note focus on Combat magic.
Cleric: Similar to Wizard's changes, gaining a few small abilities through their domain that they can use to reshape prepared spell slots.
Sorcerer: Total overhaul of the class to make them look like something closer to Kineticist, with each bloodline being a different specialization with unique bloodline adaptations and magical talents to represent them.
Oracle: possibly something similar to sorcerer, but I don't feel like just rolling oracle into "sorcerer but divine" or even worse "A couple of Bloodlines" seems fair to it.

Not to end up just ranting somewhat but I'm rather frustrated by armor in pathfinder, namely in the fact that there are basically a number of armors that are straight up better than other armor types. (also I'm just listing the core armors because I can't scrounge up the FULL list right now)

Light
Padded is trash even though Gambeson is generally really useful in history and interesting.
Leather is.. not trash but still overshadowed over time
Studded Leather is the best cheap light armor you can get, but how the hell does adding studs to something make it better at protecting you?
Chain Shirts are generally the light armor everyone will wear eventually unless they have +6 or higher dex bonus (Since +5 is the max for a mithral chain shirt).
Celestial mail just flips all of these armors the bird by being just better in general than them for no real cost.

Medium
Hide is basically only ever used in 3 specific scenarios. 1: you're a low level druid so you can't wear metal but want medium armor, even though your combat abilities should be focused on Wild Shape anyway. 2: You're a Barbarian choosing it specifically for Flavor. 3: you have a very specific suit of hide armor that you really want to use (like Giant Hide or the like)
Scale Mail is the cheap "I want medium armor at level 1" Armor, but have you EVER seen someone purposely go after scale mail after that?
Chainmail is getting better, but is still overshadowed by... (and basically all of the +6 armor have this same problem)
Breastplate: Lower check penalty and higher max dex bonus at the cost of 50 gold, which... who cares? you're probably picking it anyway. Either that or you're using Celestial Mail because it has all the advantages of chain but as a Light Armor

Heavy
Splint, Banded, Half-Plate, etc. All of these are the "I don't have the cash for full plate" armors.
Full Plate is the meta.

Is there any sort of way one could rebalance armors to give all of them a reason to be used?

Bear with me for a moment (Yes I know that pun was bearly bearable.. ok I'll stop) but the Bear Sphere, despite the bad puns and it obviously being an April Fools joke (I also doubt it's very balanced, but what do you expect from an April Fools joke), but I'd just like to note a few things about it.

1: I feel like the idea of "Channeling an animal Spirit" Could have easily been its own sphere along the lines of nature or weather, we have Fire , Water, Earth, Air, Plants, and Metal for druids, but not a whole lot for Animal druids other than Alteration (and nature's Animal Friend talent technically). And maybe a druid doesn't want to transform into animals and merely wants to call upon spirits for power (Yes technically the Spirit Mender would be in this category but it gives up basically any ability to fight and bring the wrath of nature alongside its kindness)

2: The Child of Hope is basically the first time I've ever seriously wanted to play a Druid, because I want to channel my inner Disney Princess/ Dr. Doolittle. I want to walk with the animals. Talk with the animals, grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals!

I recently learned once again about a trait. Magical Lineage.

Benefit: Pick one spell when you choose this trait. When you apply metamagic feats to this spell that add at least 1 level to the spell, treat its actual level as 1 lower for determining the spell's final adjusted level.

I was curious since.. Obviously Spheres doesn't have explicit spells and levels, but I wondered if there was Anything this could do for sphere casters (Especially considering that Metamagic is one of the few places that you can end up paying multiple spell points for a sphere effect other than powerful combination spells)

Blood Focus
At 3rd level, a water warrior adds 1/2 their elementalist level to all damage dealt with Drowning blasts.
At 9th level, This bonus damage increases to become equal to their elementalist level, and the elementalist may use his class level as his caster level when using the Water package from the Nature sphere. This stacks normally with caster levels gained from other sources.

At 15th level, the bonus damage increases to 1.5 times their elementalist level, and they gain a +2 bonus to their caster level with the Blood Sphere

This modifies/replaces favored element.

Bloodwrack
When using your Drowning Blast, you can spend a swift action to force a Fortitude save from the opponent, if they fail, they are considered to be under your blood control for a number of rounds equal to 1/2 your blood bender level. You may also spend a spell point to force them under your blood control as if you cast it normally when using blood wrack.
This replaces Elemental Defense

Bloody Motion.
Greater blood circulation helps you to move more quickly, giving you a +20 bonus to your land speed, at 13th and 19th level these increase by +20 feet.
this replaces elemental movement.

Master of Blood
At 20th level you become a master of the careful art of manipulating the body. You become immune to Poisons, Diseases, and bleed damage, and no longer Age.

From what I understand, you can basically at will transform into a creature matching any 1 form talent's description.

For example my Aasimar could become a Balisse or some other celestial and gain the ability to fly and brand people, or some other form of angel.
my Dragon bloodline anything can become a Dragon to fly, breathe fire, and the like from level 1.
And they can transform at will as a full round.
and they can later grab hybrid transformation to do this and still use their own abilities
and can grab Improved transformation to add their choice of blank form improvements so long as they have the talents (and some even if they don't)
Am I reading this wrong or is this basically the best feat in the game?

Yet another of many things that have just come to mind. I've been wondering if there would be any sort of way to create an "Equivalent Exchange" caster similar to stories like Fullmetal Alchemist or Avatar.

The problem is I don't really think there's any specific way to make the idea that you need "Materials" but have that material casting component mean something so variable. Though the Material Casting tradition notes that it does not necessarily need to be X number of SP per CL I'd think that what material components constitutes would be far too broad under an EE system.. Here are a few examples of how variable it could be.

A Blaster using equivalent exchange taking flammable gases from the air and using the spark from a lighter or the fire from a torch to help in making fire effects. (example given by Roy Mustang)

A Character using the Creation sphere to repair items, but the only 'material' really needed is the equivalent mass of the object (for example you get some iron and reshape it into a sword or a spear) or using Metal Geomancing where again the only real material involved is the metal ore you're drawing out (FMA example courtesy of Alphonse).

A character using Conjuration by creating and then reanimating a mixture of the exact combination of materials that make up the body of a given creature down to the molecular level (though approximately), and having the possibility of it going horribly wrong. (Yet another FMA example)

Another blaster type who draws stone from the ground to make a rock blast, or a water elementalist needing to actually have some water or other things with water in them that they can pull out enough water for drowning blast or water geomancing, or a Air elementalist who just needs there to be actual air, but by extension can't use their spells when the air is too thin or if they're underwater. (Examples from Avatar).

I feel like this is too variable (although both of these magic systems are well understood in their settings and among their viewers) to really make their way into spheres, but I wondered if I was missing something or just simply being an idiot.

I haven't really kept up with what was going on with pathfinder, and I decided to recently read through the 2e material that's available and.. to be completely blunt I don't get any of it. Granted I know I'm reading the Playtest rather than anything that's been released, but.. So far all I seem to understand is..

1: Classes have unique 'feats' in place of nailed down class features for the most part, and these 'feats' might use different actions.
2: the action economy seems to have been streamlined, although I don't understand exactly how it works so far.
3: I wouldn't accuse it of "Stealing" anything, but Bards are now full casters like in 5e (and they can get a miniature version of Colleges with Lore, Maestro, and Polymath.), it uses the Proficiency stat in place of BaB and Skill Ranks
3: The new style of character creation by using your character background to increase stats is pretty cool.
4: Apparently doomsday dawn WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE AN ACUTAL CAMPAIGN OR SOMETHING? (Caps because I am very, Very confused on this fact and am kinda glad I didn't actually play doomsday if it's not actually supposed to be fun)
5: Archetypes are now... feats?

Feel free to kinda treat me like an idiot (like the title says) since.. I understand some general things, but really don't get like 95% of what is actually going on.

1: is something like Magus making a return? I get the idea that you can just multi class into the opposite class (casters going into fighting and fighters going into casting) but I thought it was worth asking.
2: I heard somewhere else in forums that apparently heavy armor is actually really bad now?
3: Less a discussion point and more something that interests me. Apparently Shields are finally good, and My Boy Valeros has a shield now.
4: Kinda along the magus line, will a Witch or Warlock class be a thing?
5: Will Multiclass choices have their own archetype feats? (Example like a Wizard Fighter getting their own 'magus' feats)

Your arm cannon becomes an intelligent weapon with an Int, Wis, and Cha of 10, and your alignment. You may further enchant your arm cannon as if it were an unbound magic item to increase the power of its Intelligence, statistics, and powers, treating yourself as if you possessed the necessary item creation feats to do so.

Granted, why it is blaster exclusive makes sense in regards to the arm cannon, but I more mean that I feel like the idea of turning a piece of bound equipment into an intelligent item doesn't seem like something super specific to having a gun in your arm. It could just as easily be a suit of armor or a weapon.. Or heck, this seems more like a Symbiotic Knight exclusive ability considering the titular Symbiote.

I mean its not a huge deal but it's another one of those little weird things that I couldn't help but wonder why.

Yes I know that sounds like a really, really stupid question, but... Theorycrafting again

I was thinking about Tieflings, and how I could imagine a lot of characters that were really nervous about using something akin to blood rage, and only pulling it out once in a blue moon... But with how Pathfinder Classes work, I'd assume a barbarian or bloodrager that basically never uses their rage is majorly gimping themselves. What do you do in this situation?

Just as the title implies, I was thinking of running something akin to the Rise of The Runelords adventure path using Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might, but the issue is.. Well I haven't really gotten the time to properly read the books for starters, and I'm nervous about having to basically rewrite various creatures in order to make them fitting for a Spheres of Might party.

I had noticed the fact that the Mystic (Champions of the Spheres) and Bladebound archetypes for Magus were actually compatible (I was surprised because normal sphere magus did not have this compatibility)... However, I wanted to ask something rather simple about this fact.

How much would removing the "One-handed Slashing or Piercing" restriction change the balance of the bladebound archetype? I always assumed the restriction was more "This is the magus' niche and we want you to stay there" than something that really made a major difference, but I also know that it would be foolish of me to act like it's not possible that there's some sort of exploit that wasn't originally intended that I don't know about because I'm not smart.

Also on a totally unrelated topic (but magus related) is there any way for a magus to get a bloodline other than eldritch heritage?

I've been scratching my head over something admittedly really stupid regarding these two classes, and at risk of sounding like a powergaming maniac (although with it being more a Character concept than a mechanical one I hope that's mitigated.

Basically the idea was something akin to a tiefling 'warlock', connected to their demonic family and capable of having a taste of Hell's Armory. (I wanted to avoid this direct comparison but think Dante, wielding different demonic weapons that each had their own unique powers and playstyles. Though I'll note that this character has been bouncing around in my head for a long time and has nothing to do with the new devil may cry.)

As to why I feel like neither the Armiger or the Armorist alone could do this.

Armiger: Being a Totally mundane class, it doesn't quite fit the fluff I was going for, and armiger weapons are still physical objects rather than 'summoning', and can be stolen. Although the idea of something like Rapid Assault to use multiple weapons in the same attack would fit well.

Armorist: Despite definitely having the weapons (And DEFINITELY fits the whole "Hell's Own Armory" aesthetic), you don't get nearly as much ability with weapons, and you totally loses that whole 'totally different movesets' concept that I mentioned fits the Armiger so well..

Would there be any sort of in between for this?

I was recently setting up the idea that some major casting traditions in a setting, and particularly that all "Divine" casters gain something akin to the Bound Creature boon. (Basically the idea that both witches and clerics have a familiar as their magical focus)

The Problems are... In no particular order
1: Conjuration Archetypes and Bound Creature. Specifically something like Familiar came to mind for them since it was literally based on the idea of familiars, but.. For a creature that always is around you what exactly is the point of an archetype that reduces summoning costs if you never have to summon it?
2: Low Casters: I don't want low casters to end up kinda screwed by what is supposed to be a boon. Seeing as Half Casting progression means they gain half as many companion hit points as a full caster would, going from about 92 by 20 CL to about 44. or about 68 by grabbing boon companion) Granted I wasn't necessarily expecting them to be battle companions, but I still wouldn't want your Paladin or similar (again anyone using divine powers of Warlockey) to end up losing their bound companion basically every single session. And on top of this the fact that in general a low caster could spend half of the talents they'd get over their entire adventure just to set up the fluff of what their companion is supposed to be. Or even worse spend half their precious talents just trying to make up for the fact that their eidolon is basically tissue paper.
3: I get that conjuration is generally seen as one of the most powerful or at least one of the most annoying spheres (It's basically an Eidolon after all) so I want to be highly cautious about doing anything that might end up overly buffing bound companions in any major way, seeing as that really could break the game in a way.

I was dreaming up concepts as I often do, and in particular thought of the idea of a Champion (specifically either a Magus or a Paladin) using Guided Strike to basically gain a +20 to any weapon attack and between 5d6 and 10d6 extra damage and making up for the main disadvantage of using destructive blade or spell strike.. However I thought that seemed a bit too good to be true, so I thought to check it with the people to see if it would really even work.

Power Word Musical

Bard 1, Song 1, Maestro 1 (you can choose to replace your maestro or song domain spell)
Length: Concentration. Variable (See text)
Components: Variable
Powerful mages of song have learned how to truly make all the world into a stage. All creatures that can hear your song (The components of this spell depend on how you create this music. Singing requires vocal components, whilst playing an instrument requires somatic components) are compelled to join in with your song. Choose one creature of your choice to act as the "Central Character". This creature receives a will saving throw. Failure means that they reveal their deepest secrets and true nature through their song. Success holds a similar effect, except the affected creature can use the Bluff skill (with a DC equal to your will save DC) to obfuscate the truth and make their desires and nature sound like something different than what they really are.
Attacking any creature involved in the song instantly ends the effect, and often causes all involved to feel a great animosity towards the attacker.
Those who have the Bardic Performance class feature can spend any number of performance rounds between 1 and their Charisma Modifier in order to increase the central character's save DC by 2 per spent performance round.

I liked the idea of bards (and other musically inclined characters) just having an ability that lets them turn the campaign into Pathfinder the Musical. Hence why it's a level 1 spell.. but how would you make an actually balanced version of this spell?

Improbable Weapon (Ex): At 1st level, the battlefield tinker learns to create a unique invention, cobbled from various weapons to suit her unique specifications. The battlefield tinker chooses one weapon or shield with which she is proficient. She may add up to two other weapons to the chosen item. Each weapon acts as a mode for the improbable weapon, being wielded and dealing damage as that weapon. Modes may be switched between as a free action. The improbable weapon requires as many hands to wield as the largest component weapon (so combining a kukri, sap, and scorpion whip counts as a light weapon, while a longbow, greataxe, and longspear would require two hands). If any mode occupies a hand, that hand counts as occupied for all purposes (such as spellcasting or reloading a weapon) while the improbable weapon is in use (so a buckler combined with a pistol and cestus would occupy a hand as a pistol). Each mode is treated as a different customized weapon set for the purpose of how it interacts with armiger class features. Each mode of the improbable weapon grants an additional talent at 11th and 19th levels. An improbable weapon can never have an additional weapon or shield added to it via improvements.

I thought to check this since.. well I had a particular idea in mind relating to it but it seems improbable (pardon the pun) with this ruling

Sword and Heavy Shield as mode 1
Great Axe as mode 2

I tried to look for information on one handed crossbows but only found forums about dual wielding hand crossbows.

I was recently thinking of an idea for a build using something similar to the Slinger from Monster Hunter Worlds (Where basically you can throw status effect projectiles at enemies from a distance with it). However I don't think that I could really use a Hand Crossbow with this for multiple reasons (Namely that as much as it has the advantage of being a Light weapon meaning that it can easily be used any time, it has a range increment of 30 feet. Granted anyone going for a sword and shield is probably going to be within 30 feet but more generally the hand crossbow is just generally seen as bad unless centering a whole build around it.) Are there any other crossbows that can be held in one hand or ways to hold other crossbows in one hand? and if not what kind of homebrew would you need to do to make it happen?

Although to kinda undermine my own point, I will admit that maybe I put more emphasis on penalties than I should, because I keep thinking that the -2 of holding a light crossbow, or that range increment penalty for the hand crossbow might mean the difference between killing the Lich before he can murder another party member and totally whiffing and letting a party member die. (This fact of imagining nightmare scenarios is also why I often end up being cursed with an 'optimize or die' mindset that still hasn't died totally)

Thought I'd start an admittedly silly thread idea, converting characters and mechanics from the game Darkest Dungeon to pathfinder..
I put this in 3rd party because it's going to use a lot of spheres of power stuff.

A Few Classes
Crusader: Dirt Spattered Angel Paladin wielding full plate and using a Great-sword. Also you could grab Sphere Paladin if you don't want vancian casting.
Highwayman: Conscript with the Scout and Sneak Attack specialization and the Guarded Shooter drawback on dual wielding (also the Duelist Sphere for open vein and Fencing to get more sneak attacks). I'm sure there are probably better options for the fluff but in terms of its role as damage dealer that uses attacks for everything it's useful.
Plague Doctor: Scholar, Possibly of the Doctor Archetype, or the Alchemist. Scholar has the advantage of flash bangs being at will meaning you can toss them at everything you don't like, whilst the Alchemist's titular ability and higher bab and hit points mean a lot.. But if there's an archetype for alchemist that replaces Mutagen then take it.
Vestal: Cleric. Probably taking the Light and Healing domains. Total healer that heals all the things.
Arbalest: Scholar with Martial Training with the Sniper Sphere, making singular, deadly called shots at people and going around with a big bow and a breastplate.

Marvin Seo's mod classes
Thrall: Darkness Defender. Going all in on berserking and getting as many Brute and Berserker talents as they can, also grab duelist and bloody slasher if you want some bleeds.
Falconer: Scholar with Martial Training with the Barrage sphere, and specializes in combining Scouting and deadly barrages of arrows together.

Mechanics
Stress: Characters have a secondary hit point pool of 'Stress". Players can take stress damage from multiple sources. On average, players have a stress pool between 10 and 20 (not sure about particular numbers)
1: Some monsters have abilities specifically designed to deal stress damage.
2: When a monster confirms a critical hit against the character they make a will save or take 1 stress damage.
3: some other abilities or circumstances can increase stress.
Stress can also be healed in a number of ways
1: confirming a critical hit or maxing out the dice of a given ability (Example, a healing spell rolling a perfect 8 on any of the D8s) will heal 1 stress.
2: Some abilities might be able to heal
3: similar to caring for a partner using the heal skill. during a rest you can use the Diplomacy skill to give a pep talk that can heal stress.

Afflictions
When stress is maxed out once, the hero rolls a save. and has a chance to gain either a Virtue or an Affliction.
Afflictions They take a -4 penalty to certain rolls or statistics, and must roll each round in order to avoid a negative outcome.
Masochistic: AC and saves against hit point damage. Failed saves will cause you to actively try to get yourself killed, presenting yourself as a target, running up to the strongest enemy you see and giving them an attack of opportunity, or if you get a natural 1, turning your weapon on yourself and taking 1/2 weapon damage.
Fearful: Attack rolls and will saves against fear. Failed saves will cause you to panic and try to get further away from the cause of your fear.
Irrational: Effectively anything, rolled randomly at the start of your turn
Abusive: Will Saves (other than your affliction save). Failed saves will cause you to choose one of your partners at random and berate them, causing them to take stress damage.

If you max out your stress a second time after gaining an affliction, you are forced to make a fortitude save, or be reduced to 0 HP from a Heart Attack. You are stable, but may need immediate medical treatment. If you max out your stress a third time, your character makes a second fortitude save at -4 or immediately die. This can go on, giving an extra -4 to the save (so the 4th time would be -8, 5th would be -12, etc.)

Virtues give a +4 bonus to certain rolls and statistics, and roll each round to gain a free bonus. You also heal 1/2 of your total stress and no longer take any penalties if your stress is maxed out again.
Powerful: Attack and Damage. Successful virtue rolls will allow you to give your virtue bonus to an ally for 1d4 rounds.
Stalwart: Will Saves. Successful virtue rolls will heal 1 stress from one random ally.
Vigorous: AC and Fortitude saves: Virtue rolls will heal you 1d4 damage.

I was recently reading through spells again and through various guide books and.. Well I was somewhat annoyed at the fact that there was no equivalent to the mentioned Lead Blades spell

Lead blades increases the momentum and density of your melee weapons just as they strike a foe. All melee weapons you are carrying when the spell is cast deal damage as if one size category larger than they actually are. For instance, a Medium longsword normally deals 1d8 points of damage, but it would instead deal 2d6 points of damage if benefiting from lead blades.

(also as for what "Mighty Wallop" is, it's a Races of the Dragon spell which basically makes it that you can increase the damage dice of a bludgeoning weapon in a similar manner.

I have an idea of how it might be done but I want to know what others might think... Speaking of which, here's how I imagine I'd do it if I were making it.

Powerful Might (Advanced Talent)
Prerequisites: Improved Strength, Caster level 5 (if it even needs a caster level prerequisite. I don't think it would be 'game breaking' in any respects, but advanced talents are the only types of talents with prerequisites.)
When using the Improved Strength enhancement, you may spend an extra spell point to have all weapons wielded by the target creature deal damage as though they were one size larger (or their Unarmed strikes if they have no weapon). However, your ability to wield larger weapons and the bonus from Powerful Might do not stack (For example, a 7 CL Medium character wielding a Huge Greatsword (the limit of how much one can wield at 7th CL) gains no benefit from powerful might).

The title of this is mostly a joke, but I make that joke because of the fact that... One of my favorite parts of the Tome is the fact that it had so much story and background that one could honestly make a novel or adventure path in its own right from the concept (9 legendary blades, each representing an equally legendary martial tradition, these nine 'swords' have been since lost to time, and a number of heroes come together right when these blades are needed the most. Also note I was incredibly upset that path of war didn't have nearly as much of that flavor) However...

Well the title kinda says it. I have a slight distaste towards the systems presented therein. Not because they are actually bad, but because the idea of needing what amounts to miniature spell slots in order to make a martial character good kinda annoys me.. Also I use Spheres of Power/Might in most of my games which I think is worth mentioning.

How would a 'tome of battle' campaign that does not literally use the system play out?

And I guess whilst I'm yapping about ToB and Spheres I'll throw out some ideas as to what specialists in these 9 areas might use as spheres characters.

I was rather curious about this (although admittedly I know that this might be the wrong place, but I assume that this will need some homebrewing). I recently read through Pathfinder Unchained again and its various rules on equipment, and just couldn't help but wonder how a lot of these classes would work since... Well let's go class by class

Armorist/soulknife:
Automatic Progression: Both basically gain an inherent weapon (and armorist gets inherent armor), so how do you balance the enhancement bonuses?
Innate item Bonuses: How would you even start to balance this out when the extra enhancement bonuses to their items are part of their class table?

Magus:
Automatic Progression: He doesn't have it QUITE as bad, but still has the issue that the black blade's main gimmick is a bonus to enhancement.
Innate item bonuses: Same issue as the other 2, you can't exactly remove the black blade's enhancement bonuses since that is still part of his class features and getting their +1 later would cause trouble for trying to balance (I don't know if it would be a dead level or not though)

As you can probably glean from the title, I'm trying to figure out where I can find more modules based around the Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might systems by Drop Dead Studios. I've gotten a bit of an addiction to these systems over time (I mean it fixes vancian casting and wizards being broken, and both allow a grandiose amount of customizability that vanilla can only dream of, so I'm not surprised.) But as a new GM (haven't even gotten a chance to play or run a game yet) I don't really think I can handle going all in on making a campaign from scratch.

So far I know of exactly 1 sphere module, and that's Wizard Academy.

It has come to my attention that the Adroit Warden Archetype for the Sentinel was removed from the game. Did the developers give any particular reason why this is the case?

No this is not a skateboarding topic.

Basically for a potential setting I was thinking of trying to redo how elves work. However I have the issue that... Well to be somewhat blunt I worry that the drawbacks could be really extreme and I'm not sure how to offset them.

Iron Aversion: elves are somewhat averse to iron, and can end up finding discomfort when wielding ferrous weaponry. taking a -1 to attack rolls made with iron weapons.

Anti-Magic Drain: For Elves, Magic is as precious as water for their very physicality (note: literally, like how humans are 50% water, elves in this setting are 50% magic). If/when an elf is forced into an anti magic field, they must make a fortitude save once each round. On a failed save they take 1 constitution burn.

What could you give elves that could balance this out without also just making them overpowered.

Once again reading through Spheres of Power with way too much time on my hands. I couldn't help but be a bit curious about the Symbiotic Knight, and the Symbiote Traits ability.

One thing that it does not make mention of is whether you need to actually have the alteration talent you want to get a trait from yourself in order to use this power. So... Basically just as the question sounds, do you need to actually use Alteration Talents in order to use the Symbiotic Knight?

I recently had a character concept for a "Telekinetic" Character that specializes somewhat in internalizing their telekinetic strength to enhance their mundane abilities instead of lifting objects. However I was rather upset to find that that basically isn't possible as far as I can tell without either...

Another complication would be that there are no real Archetypes that help with this either since I was hoping for this concept to be a full bab, the big party fighter type.

1: Spellcrafting Physical enhancement and/or Enhance Strength onto your telekinesis effect, which at that rate why not cut out the middleman and be an enhancement specialist instead of telekinetic specialist.

2: Make some kind of BS with homebrewing... Which granted I will say somewhat that I could see this working, something like you can wield an object that you have under sustained force and add your casting modifier to damage with it or something.

Granted admittedly this character design came more from a book I want to write than from a campaign I was planning to play in, but I've used Spheres for a LOT of inspiration for the story already and thought to keep going with a bit of a challenge to take some liberties but not a huge amount of them.

I recently was thinking about weapon special materials and the fact that... To be blunt, a lot of materials are just plain useless, and a number of abilities centered around materials lose their worth easily because of one simple rule.

Just as a reminder, in PF, Higher Enhancement Bonuses allow you to bypass ever greater amounts of damage reduction.
+2 (as far as I know) ignores slashing piercing and bludgeoning
+3 removes Cold Iron and Silver Resistances
+4 removes Adamantine resistances
+5 removes ALIGNMENT resistances

This design was to remove the long present "Golf Bag of Weapons" problem wherein you'd technically need a Slashing, Piercing, Bludgeoning, Cold Iron, Silver, Adamantine, and Aligned (to your own alignment/s) weapon if your GM was particularly lavish with different enemy and DR types. However, this brings with it the problem that a lot of abilities both within the normal game and in 3pp become useless. (Here are some examples)

First Party Example
The Multimetal Mace (Original Source: Pathfinder unchained: but I can not access the archives right now is designed with the concept that you can change its properties and metal on a whim, but any fighter worth his salt would probably just get a +3 adamantine light mace (assuming they don't go for literally any other weapon) and be done with it.

3pp example
Mystic Fists (source Spheres of Might): A talent designed specifically to allow you to bypass different types of DR... Or you could just get an amulet of mighty fists.

I'm not saying this material problem is a HUGE issue, but I have been wracking my brain a bit trying to find a good way to sort it out, and I thought I'd throw what ideas I have out into the ring... Although granted I needed to use individual concepts for different types.

Slashing, Piercing, and Bludgeoning: +2 enhancement bonuses when using the proper weapon just halve the effective DR, whilst using the proper one removes it entirely. I feel this doesn't really gel well with the system I used for others here because of how common these three are.

Cold Iron and Silver: +3 enhancement bonuses alongside having the proper material is basically an equivalent to Bane (but probably not stack with bane). I feel this is somewhat fair despite being far less expensive than bane itself simply because... Well mostly because you've already spent the gold to get it up to a +3, and it's fitting in setting that creatures that normally resist anything other than these materials would be "Weak" to these materials, and really hit a more thematic tone than just "I enchanted this to be particularly strong against this kind of monster" (Also... I'd note that dependant on the GM I cannot say whether Mithril gains a similar ability, some GMs rule that mithril adds the finesse property and as such has an inherent bonus in and of itself aside from DR penetration and wouldn't gain this bane bonus, but for others the only advantage mithril has over silver is not coming with a -1, where then it WOULD get the bane bonus)
Adamantine: I'd personally note that rather than just a +4 enhancement bonus bypassing adamantine, something of 20 hardness or greater bypasses adamantine, similar to adamantine itself ignores and hardness less than 20 itself. I wouldn't want to combine it with the Bane idea is because it has inherent bonuses unto itself (ignoring hardness below 20 and reducing effective hardness by it if it is 20 or more)

Alignment based DR: I'd say group this in with silver and cold iron for the whole 'new bane' idea, but I'm pretty sure that the only way for players to get permanent Alignment DR piercing (aside from maybe Celestial Bloodragers' Angelic Strikes and Paladins' Smite Evil and another class or two I might be missing) is with the Holy, Unholy, Axiomatic, and Anarchaic weapon properties, which already hand out the +2d6 bane type ability I'd already be handing out for this "you have +5 AND the right alignment" bonus.

Either way, I think that the idea of making it that no one 'needs' to have the DR piercing materials, meaning that you're not going to have a constant golf bag of weaponry or arrows, but you still get players to use different materials and matching weapon to DR without making it punishing for them if they don't want to carry a metric tonne on them.

Let's get Right into it.

1: Blaster and Bound Equipment: I noticed the blaster says it "Modifies" bound equipment with the arm cannon rather than replacing it. does this mean that the Blaster can still get other equipment like a suit of armor or an axe?

2: The hypothetical I propose that I started this with is a villain based loosely on Dark Samus, the concept of perhaps a malignant spirit or undead creature finding itself able to get into and manipulate some sort of ancient dwarven magical armor type thing, and using it as a casting focus. I was thinking of using the Martial Armorist and Blaster to make this work, but worry it might be slightly MAD (Blaster says dexterity but in melee it would probably use an axe of some sort) and being very talent hungry between covering the elemental bases (focusing on negative energy but having other energies for what it might need) and a decent number of martial talents (Needing armor training twice to wear full plate, Sniper to use with its ranged weapon if I actually go all in on it, and Berserker to batter foes who get too close... maybe even Brute to use shove and heavy swing together)

3: And... Whilst I talk about the armorist, I feel like it should get some sort of equivalent to Gear Training that it can grab when it's a martial practitioner, since it seems like one of very few classes that could actually benefit from having proficiency with all martial weapons since they can just summon whatever they feel they need.

Just as the subject says, I was wondering if I'm unusual for using PF as an inspiration for writing, and not in the obvious way either.

The process of making a specific story started with a Spheres of Power Casting Tradition of all things, the Scion of the Crown, and went from there to the point that I have a short chapter 1 and multiple character ideas bouncing around in my head. Is that unusual?

I've been scratching my head for the longest time over how the Magical Focus Feat works, mostly because it's difficult to figure out what the actually can be used for.

Magical Focus (Drawback)

Prerequisites: Focus Casting, access to the Enhancement sphere.

Benefits: Whenever you enhance your focus, you may choose to have the effect continue without concentration without spending a spell point. This feat only applies to the spell point spent to relinquish concentration. If another feat, talent, or class feature grants you the ability to spend more spell points when relinquishing concentration to improve the effects, you still need to spend the additional spell points to gain those benefits.

What I don't get is that... What if your casting focus is not actually something that can normally be enhanced? For example the Scion of the Crown example tradition on the wiki uses a 'Crown or Coronet' as its focus. What would you actually gain from enhancing a crown or coronet?

I've been trying to take the Warforged and... Not convert it since someone else has done that, but add some things to it to allow a wider variety of things. Here's what I have so far, and... any suggestions?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xhFCqyGMg137kI_WZdbwMGG4izhLRagIWJN4fiy oOMM/edit?usp=sharing

I was thinking about the above-mentioned systems and got somewhat of an idea about it, tell me if this seems off.

Concentrated Focus (Drawback)
Prerequisites: Mental Focus Drawback.
Benefits: You have learned to push all of your energy and focus when it is needed most. You may use a free action at any time that you make a concentration check to treat that concentration check as if you rolled a 15. Doing so expends your mental focus.
Special: with GM permission, you may qualify for Psionic feats that require you to spend psionic focus, using your mental focus in place of it.

Thought I'd make a discussion page

Recently s campaign recruitment based on Skyrim got my mind turning, so... How would you price out this new stuff? (and I also statted out Dawnbreaker a bit, but not all of its enhancements)

Elven/Moonstone: Acts similarly to Mithril, reducing the weight of armor by one category, and gives weapons you wield the Finesse property. If the weapon you create already has the finesse property, it now takes only half the normal price to get the Agile enhancement.

Glass/Corrundrum: Reflective: Applies 1/2 of the Armor AC and the full enhancement bonus against Touch Attacks, or All of your Shield bonus

Orichalcum: ??? No real idea what the Orcish material could give.. maybe something like Orc Ferocity? With Orcs and Half Orcs gaining an extra bonus beyond that? (Orichalcum makes the 'orcish' items)

Dweomer Alloyl: Hyperdense: Armor you wear made out of this material has you treat yourself as One size category larger for combat maneuver bonuses and defenses, and weapons made from this material deal damage as though one size larger. Generally this is not used to create light, Finesse based weapons. Though I will not try to put an actual bar on this because of the fact that I think it's a case by case basis.

Ebony: Acts as Adamantine.

Daedric: Acts as Adamantine, except the damage resistance is DR/Good. and weapons made of Daedric metal gain the Unholy Enhancement.

Aedric: IF we can go off the script a little bit to make it "Not literally Tamriel but very similar" Aedric would basically be the same as Daedric but for Good creatures, getting DR/Evil and the Holy enhancement.

Dawnbreaker: Minor/major (not sure which) Artifact Flaming Ebony Undead Bane Longsword with a unique ability. x number per day when reducing an undead creature to 0 hit points you can activate dawn breaker to unleash a powerful wave of positive energy. this deals (Dawnbreaker CL) D6 damage to Undead creatures, and any undead creature reduced to 0 hp or less by this ability (and the first one as well) is instantaneously Disintegrated as the spell. It can only be destroyed if used by an elder undead creature (like a vampire or a lich) to kill a priest or champion of the god that created the blade.

I don't know if I'd use ALL of these (mostly because Daedra and stuff is too Specifically skyrim for my tastes) but I think it's interesting to build just what these materials might be and what uses they might have

Just thought I'd toss this out there and see what happens.

Some design worries
1: making This version of the Black Blade slightly better than the normal black blade. Mostly I did this because of the fact that Sphere magi (and especially Mystics) rely far less on needing to have an empty hand due to not being guaranteed to need somatic components.

Basically I'm converting the Kobold King path to Spheres of Power and Spheres of might. I'm trying to figure out what fits best and whether it fits right.. but here is what I have so far.

(MINOR EDIT... I ONLY JUST REALIZED THAT THIS IS A 3.5 MODULE. WHAT DO I NEED TO DO TO EDIT IT FOR PATHFINDER)

Hollow's last hope enemies seem to need very little change surprisingly aside from maybe putting some traditions on things.

Crown
Jeva: Give up Weapon Focus (bite) to get Open Hand, sacrifice the trip ability of open hand and grab Bestial Training instead, and put the Assassin tradition on them in hybrid form. (gaining Athletics with run, Mobile Striker for essentially a miniature Pounce, and the Duelist Sphere to put bleed on every attack)

Kobold Warriors: Probably fine for just a normal thing, but I would note that I'm so tempted to scrap the bog standard kobold warriors and give four kobolds some complimentary powers.. but again that might be kinda broken for a bog standard regular enemy fight.

Gelatinous cube: Sadly you can't add martial talents to a cube, which it's a shame because I was excited to see us fighting the ghost of a dwarven warrior only to find it instead to be just a cube.

Galesong: Fairly standard bard. give him Life for cure light wounds, Light for light, and illusion for ghost sounds. give him verbal and somatic casting or even the actual bardic magic tradition if you want to.

Bloodscale: change him from kobold fighter 2 to kobold conscript 2, give him the Assassin tradition. grab, "... And Stay Down!", and finesse fighting twice (I seem to have a weird thing for making people bleed in this game) allowing him to run around the room applying bleeds and disarms and trips (which cause more bleeding and extra attacks) with the talon, and when he needs to get in close he can mobile striker with the spear to get out of there.

Kerrdremak: give him standard arcane casting stuff, Destruction with a fire drawback, Mind and give up suggestion in place of gaining fear.

Dark Talon: Basically the same as bloodscale, except grabbing Fencing with your assassin background, grabbing Fast Feint, and Feint Strike. Basically another "I know what I do well and that's harassing with upscaling damage)

Lekmek: Finally a monster that uses a tradition OTHER than assassin! This one uses Butcher, grabbing Heavy Swing with his free berserker talent, and he basically just uses brutal strikes with his pick.

Grugakrug: Now we get to see just how destructive the combination of both the bloodscales AND dark talons are together! I wouldn't say it's tuckeresque but "... And Stay Down" with duelist bleeds sounds kinda brutal.

Kapmek: Not really going to try to change anything for him, rather than giving him a whole tradition and class change, I'll just give him the Sniper Sphere in place of Rapid Shot (using a crossbow with a move action reload he's better off with it)

The Kobold King Himself: a PROPER use of the Butcher tradition, but somewhat similar to Lekmek otherwise, maybe using Leg Smasher instead of Heavy Swing. Also... I guess go Sphere Sorcerer and have him use Enhancement with Physical enhancement and Protection for mage armor?

so... how does all of this seem for enemy conversions to spheres? there's still the question of replacing spells for some of them though

I wanted to know a few things..

1: Spell Attack VS Improved energy Blade: I kinda realized that.. wouldn't Improved Energy blade just be better in most cases (though this assumption ignores that you can use time and death strike talents with spell attack) because you could stack together a special attack AND your energy blade? Arcane Archers using snipe and arcane blade at the same time, Bloodrager types channeling fire into brutal strikes, etc.

2: How many spheres does spell attack actually benefit? I'm curious about it, just because of the mentioned fact that it seems like choosing between using a spell attack and using a talent to debilitate makes spell attack.. Just a little less exciting than I originally thought it would be, and aside from blood monger I wonder what you're gaining.

3: Not an arcane choice, but Haste in primarily spheres of might campaigns. It seems as though haste would be far less useful the less you are using full attacks. I mean I would not say that it would make time a total skip or anything, but is it something that I need to worry about that haste basically does not have a use so long as you are not using full attacks?

Granted maybe this whole thing is me regressing into some kind of power gamer because of just being paranoid and the fact that even when finally getting planning on getting into games most of my interaction with the game has been brewing together concepts for fighters.

I am rather confused about natural attacking builds because I get this sense like the only way to make them work any better than a sword is to get as many as possible, ending up as a winged 4 armed 2 headed monster.

I mean maybe I'm just salty because I want to make dragonblooded bloodragers and dragonblooded mortal hedge witches that use swords and such have no use for it, but I'm just really curious as to how natural attacks are supposed to work since...
1: when you have just 2 or 3 it's obviously better to use a weapon unless you're going to two weapon fight boot blades or something (maybe unarmed strikes technically)
2: it can be broken wide open by just getting as many of them as possible, essentially becoming a monster like mentioned above.

To start off, I say "Semi-Open Semi-private" because of the fact that I had already started getting a group together in the Undying Light campaign thread. However I decided to somewhat put that campaign on hold due to fears of my lack of experience. I would not try to straight up and down make the thread totally private, so feel free to say hello and see if we have a free spot for you, but I am going to prioritize those that I had already planned with.

[u]Rules[/u]
20 point buy
Level 1
Variant multi-classing available
Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might used and preferred (This is also why I'll need time to tweak whatever modules we use.
Kirthfinder Inspired Equipment rules. (However when using Spheres and This equipment system together, come ask me for anything that seems like it might be missing, or what some of the weapons that are explicitly present in Spheres would translate to in the KF equipment system)

Modules
Feel free to recommend a module to use. Currently leaning towards Hollow's Last Hope and/or Crown of the Kobold King, but I am willing to at least look at any adventure path.

I can't really say I'm a full on power gamer, but I've noticed somewhat that my RPG upbringing has kinda steered me towards this mindset, and I'm nervous about how it might affect my gaming in the future.

My first RPG experiences were looking at different message conversations about people asking how to optimize different situations and heard about how people hated things like 3.5's samurai for being awful, and reading Tome of Battle and hearing about how there is an actual bloody tier list for RPG classes... So for a long time, I thought Optimize meant to not fall into "trap" choices and make yourself good so you're not a burden to your team.

The rest of my first experiences were making hypothetical builds that I'd probably never get to play either because I never finished them or because I was the only one with in-depth knowledge of the systems I was hoping to play in.

Though I've recovered somewhat from the complete "I need to either optimize or die" mindset, I still end up with a bit of issue that I end up pausing at a number of things thinking "This is not a good choice" like lamenting that Spheres of Power Half Casters (Mageknights and Armorists) "Can't" use things like Conjuration, Death, Mind, Telekinesis, or Destruction because their low caster levels mean they would be bad at those things. or thinking "this class/feat/build/whatever is not good" in general.

How do I break past this so I can just make whatever I might want rather than worrying about numbers?

Just as the title says, as there has been a LOT of discussion in the recruitment page.

Hello! I thought that I'd try to see if people would be interested in a new campaign idea I had and see if I can scare up some players.

Bullet Points
1: Highly Freeform Character Design, basically play whatever you want within the constraints of the prompt
2: A Tournament across multiple worlds, and heroes from all of them have signed up. (Campaign based somewhat on Super Smash Bros. So basically the prompt that the first bullet point mentioned is that you're creating what would be the video game characters for an alternate universe, heroes, villains, and otherwise.)
3: Players have a lot of control over the story, since they are each representing their character's 'world', they get the privilege of helping to build that world, (and with the "Video Game Character" basis, what the past stories of these worlds might have been).
4: Sadly one negative I think is worth a bullet point is that I am a very inexperienced GM
5: Some 3pp content allowed if not encouraged (Drop Dead Studios' Spheres systems in particular)

Mechanical Detail
Level 1 (In universe justification being they lost a lot of their power escaping the calamity that will be explained in story beats)
25 point buy (These are somewhat legendary characters, so they get good stats)

It started with something small, the lightest scratch on the scale of an elder dragon, a prick on the finger of a demon lord, a lock of hair from a hero's head, but turned into something so much more terrifying.
Heroes and villains across multiple worlds brought together for a sportsman's tournament. This had been fairly regular, though no one knew exactly how so many places in time and space were so interconnected. However despite all of this, something far more sinister was afoot than any minor thing the average bad guy was planning.

Fight for good and reawaken the Undying Light.

This question is somewhat based on the topic Silly Campaign Idea: World of Light

Basically my main worry about GMing such a game (aside from my being very inexperienced as a GM and if I ran it it would be my first game) is the fact that within the circumstances no matter whether you go for one (Canons) or the other (unique PC designs), there would be a relative lack of NPC characters due to the world they live in basically being erased until all people except for a number of heroes were turned into Spirits. Hence asking the topic question, is it possible to do a story based game without NPC characters? and if not how can I introduce NPCs into this?

I wanted to ask about this because.. well it's a bit complicated.

Balance Defense: While wielding a light or one-handed weapon and nothing in any other hand you possess, you gain a +1 shield bonus to AC. For every 4 points of base attack bonus you possess, this bonus increases by +1. Attacking with an off-hand weapon, making more than one natural attack on your turn, or using abilities such as a monk’s flurry of blows or a magus’ spell combat suppresses this bonus until the start of your next turn.

Duelist's Grip: Whenever you wield a melee weapon other than a natural attack in only one hand and make no attacks using any other hand or natural attack you possess, you apply 1 and 1/2 times your Strength bonus to damage rolls with it instead of just your Strength bonus.

Somatic Casting:You must gesture to cast spells—a process that requires you to have at least 1 hand unoccupied. When using magic, you cannot wear armor heavier than light without incurring a chance of arcane spell failure. You may select this drawback twice. If taken a second time, you cannot wear any armor or use a shield without incurring a chance of arcane spell failure.

Would a Magus or other caster using spheres here need to give up these two martial talents if they wanted to use something like Arcane Blade of Spellstrike?