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I was thinking of making an enemy NPC that would delight in tormenting players by doing something we see now in reality-shows. E.g. catch them at their worst and then replay the worst moment image. E.g. the NPC is an devil morphed into a beautiful woman, seduce the PC and when the PC is about to get it on, sees the girl is really a dude (let alone a devil), he'll freak out and the devil captures the image(s) and delights in showing them off at the character's expense, and at key moments, such as when the PC is in vulnerable social moments. E.g. the devil comes in morphed as a person and tells locals stories of the PC while showing them videos and images of the embarrassing moments.

The devil in this case would get a type of psychic fulfillment chronically psychologically torturing the PC, and obviously the PC will likely want to kill the devil and destroy if not take over the magic that allows for this.

OK so there's the premise but if I did this, the players are going to be like, "what spell is that" or if it's from an item they'll want the item, so the technical could get important for game playing. All the illusion spells I see are very combat based such as Mirror Image and don't fit into a more role-playing aspect like this.

Can anyone guide me to magic devices, spells, or psionics that'll allow for this type of thing already in the rules?

I got a level 5 ranger, and during battle, he was doing on the order of 40 damage using gravity bow combined with some of his feats that allows him to shoot 2 arrows per round (and he's using a +2 composite longbow).

The DM thinks this is too powerful. I actually see the DM's point, but as a fellow player in the group counter-argued, Rangers, until Gravity Bow, were pretty wimpy compared to other classes and that this puts them on better footing with say a fighter that can pull in devastating damage per round if he has the right feats.

The DM is considering countering Gravity Bow with a house-rule all arrows fired with it are now unretreivable and destroyed upon use. I'm not strongly against it though at the same time, I figured the game-authors already know it's powerful and would've added more limitations if it indeed were too powerful.

Just wondering what people's thoughts are on this.

I figured someone already asked this on the forum but I looked around and couldn't find it.

If say an orc was put into sleep by the spell of that name, would shooting a gun next to the sleeping orc wake him up?

Okay, for those of you who say yes, what would be the range to wake up a sleeping monster?

I'm a forensic psychiatrist and we deal with issues regularly as to whether or not someone was responsible for their actions.

I'll try to make this as succinct as possible.

Mental illness in the Pathfinder rules are very inaccurate to what is known about actual real mental illness. For example, the majority of psychiatrists don't even believe multiple personality disorder exists or aren't sure. There's been a lot of evidence showing the disorder is bogus. The rules for schizophrenia in the game don't come close to what schizophrenia is truly like.

But the bottom line is, hey, it's a game. I don't expect the writers to portray it accurately. That would require for too much research and experience to a degree where the game would've never gotten off the ground.

Now getting on to the original question, if a character was mentally ill to the degree where they weren't responsible for their actions, then IMHO that character shouldn't even be played by a player.

In terms of the law (not game rules--I'm talking criminal and civil law), a person is not responsible for a crime, if due to a mental disease or defect, that person could not tell their actions as being wrong. So, if for example, a person had a delusion that someone was going to kill him, and he killed the other person believing it was self-defense, then that person is not responsible. (But that person would then be shipped off to an involuntary psychiatric institution instead of a prison).

But to have a player character suffer from this type of problem, the DM would have to feed the player wrong information pretty much all the time to the degree where the actual player would commit an action under false pretenses.

If you want to play a character like that.....IMHO the game really wouldn't be any fun. DM gives you wrong information all the time because the character is delusional, and then the town guard ships the character to the local asylum, and the player wouldn't know why.

As for the gods and being a paladin, if I were a DM, the way I'd handle it is I doubt a god would grant powers to a paladin so dangerous as suffer from a mental illness that could make the paladin commit actions he/she wasn't responsible for. It wouldn't be that the paladin "fell." If the paladin were get the illness cured, and still chose to follow the path of a paladin, I'd play it as the god giving the paladin the powers back.

And the mention that having psychosis would make one chaotic evil, no. If psychosis made someone hear voices others didn't hear, have disorganized thoughts, etc, that doesn't make someone evil or chaotic in their moral beliefs or actions. Several psychotic patients I've treated that even when at the height of their psychosis were polite and nice people....yes they had problems, e.g. they ate rocks, talked to their voices, or might not have bathed, but that didn't make them "chaotic evil."

Problems with Batman...

Different writers have presented him in different ways. Another problem is that many of Batman's capabilities are done with technology that doesn't exist in Golarion. Batman in Golarion would either have to have magic to compensate (e.g. a darkvision spell vs. having night vision goggles built into his mask). Another, Batman, if he were a character class, IMHO would have several skills per level, near 18 or more in every ability, a monk's fighting skills, and a high fortitude, reflex, and will save, and code similar to that of a Paladin. No one character class fills all of these.

He'd have to be in a character class all his own that would only be balanced by the fact that he could spend all his available time to his one specialized goal--to fight evil and injustice.

So here's my thoughts on Batman's stats.

Strength: 17 (yes Batman did occasionally encounter nonsuperhumans stronger than himself, though he is very very strong)
Dexterity: 19 (this guy is dextrous. He could do complex acrobatics while also faking important documents).
Intelligence: 20 (Obvious, he's one of the most skilled and brilliant men ever.)
Wisdom 16 (yes he's got a strong mind, but hey, he wears a Batman outfit, has issues, and has allowed his desire to fight evil and injustice take him a bit to the edge).
Constitution: 16 (Hardy and in shape, but not the most hardy person ever).
Charisma 18 (Remember, Bruce Wayne was charismatic, and Batman always had strong presence and intimidation).

Such a character, all things being equal, could only exist on die rolls that are next to impossible to attain or a very lenient DM allowing for this.

What character classes? Again, there is no one class, so I will have to try to use the existing classes, and then there's the problem of whether or not he'd use technology or magic.

If one allows magic to replace Batman's gizmos: monk (at least 2 levels--enough for him to get evasion, but too many in this one area will limit his skills), Ninja, (no rogue, Batman does use poison), wizard (or alchemist) and Arcane Trickster. Yes I know, Arcane Trickster requires someone not be lawful, and a monk has to be lawful, again this is the best I can come up with given what we got. If you really want to push this rule, you can say he was lawful good, but then became neutral good.

This Arcane Trickster would have to have a create wondrous item feat and make several items to enhance his already high abilities.

A problem with the above aside from the obvious is Batman does specialize in several things and such a mix of so many classes hurts his ability to do that.

And yes, I understand and even believe that Batman, at heart, if in the world of Golarion, personality-wise most follows an Inquisitor committed towards justice, and if Bruce Wayne actually existed and saw his parents killed, I don't think he'd take up the Batman guise because the profession of adventuring is pretty open in Golarion, but in the comic book world that's the only way he could take his fight directly against evil.

If no magic, I'd say monk/ninja/assassin, but he'd have to have access, through his wealth, to several magic items that'd have to be the equivalent of technology he uses in the DCU found in Golarion. Another problem is Batman would not kill someone just for the sake of killing them, and that is a requiement to be an assassin. He's good. Yes, brutal, wearing black, and scary, but he's good.

Another problem here is that Batman pretty much always fights humans in the DCU. His favored enemy in such would have to be humans. In Golarion, while humans usually make a great favored enemy because many encounters are with such, the enemiese can highly vary per species.

He'd also have to have at least some of the following: knowledge: nobility (to fit in with the upper class), knowledge in several areas (e.g. history, religion), a high stealth, disable device, intimidate, acrobatics, bluff, sense motive, capability of moving around incredbly well on the battlefield, and a huge amount of wealth.

I am considering doing the same thing myself. My current DM is bogged down with work, and since I've played ToEE on the computer, I feel I know this supermodule fairly well. The compuer game actually has more depth to it than the actual module itself, though the module is really just a framework open to much larger possibilities if a good DM chose to add more and the module encourages it (as was done in the computer game.

I don't know where I'd put it but here are some concerns I'd have.
St. Cuthbert (Lawful Good), and his followers plays a major role in the game. Putting the ToEE closer to the Worldwound would give what IMHO is the closest Golarion equivalent-Iomedae more prevalence. As far as I know, worship of her is closer to the Worldwound due to the Crusades. I don't know how much she's worshipped in all areas of Golarion.

The relation to Worldwound need not be close or far. The ToEE could be at a specific location elsewhere in Golarion that could cause an major crack, thus opening the gateway for a huge crash of evil into Golarion. This adventure could be tantamount to the fate of Golarion itself. (So if your players screw it up, it could have major consequences for future Golarion play unless you reset the entire universe!) Such a location need not be close to the WW.

I've only gone through ToEE, but did read in Wikipedia that it dovetails into Scourage of the Slave Lords, and Queen of Spiders, and all 3 supermodules could be merged together.
So if you do ToEE by itself, no there are no Drow, but if you want to go through the entire series, yes there will be Drow, plenty of them! So this begs the question, will those Drow be the same as the ones of Golarion, or a separate faction?

There was a previous crusade in ToEE that destroyed the evil for decades. It's returned. This could be merged with a prior crusade at the Worldwound, or it could be separate.

My recommendation as of now (given that I've only skimmed the various nations of Golarion for about one hour---too much info!) is possibly Mendev. Substitute Mendev's city Nerosyan for Verbobonc. A problem here is I dont' know much about Nerosyan. I've read that the Pathfinder module D3, The Demon Within covers this area.

http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/p/paizoPublishingLLC/pathfinder/modules/35 E/v5748btpy82qh

Any and all input on this topic is welcomed. I'm gathering up data to do ToEE in Golarion sometime in the next few weeks.

Gotcha. I was thinking the same thing actually, but I wanted to hear what others had to say about it.

Thanks.

Two-weapon rend: if hit the opponent with both the primary and off-hand weapon, the player does an additional 1D10 damage.

Lead Blades: All melee weapons the player carries does damage as if one size category bigger.

Okay then, if two-weapon rend requires melee weapons and the damage is a result of those weapons, would a player with that feat, two weapons, both weapons hit, and has the spell lead blades active increase the 1D10 damage to the next higher size category, doing 2D8 damage?

Along the same lines, would sneak attack also work similarly? If the player's using a melee weapon, shouldn't sneak attack do 1D8 instead of 1D6 damage given that the weapon is effectively enlarged in size if it successfully hits the target?

Some may argue it could disrupt the game balance. While that may be so, it does require the player, if they want to make a decent character, to carefully bridge together either a fighter or ranger with a rogue class, and have the ability to cast the spell. That is not an easy thing to do and could cut the benefits of simply staying on a one class track. Further, the two-weapon ranger is most definitely crap compared to the archer ranger. Such additions could make such a ranger on par with that other ranger type.

Opinions?

Not so much an heirloom as it is lack of time. The bow in question is a darkwood masterwork bow. The way the campaign has been going, there's been extremely limited time, so our characters haven't had much opportunity to make our own items.

Buildiing a new bow from scratch is going to take a heck of a longer time than modifying an existing bow, and I don't know how much of a challenge the DM is going to make it to find more darkwood.

I'm of the opinion that my DM is giving the party challenges for the sake of making it tough more so for the challenge than balanced game-playing. E.g. we got an NPC in our debt (pledged service for saving his life) who's good, we're good, and we ask the NPC to do something for us that any good character would do and the DM has the guy respond "what' in it for me?" I really think it's because he doesn't want to give us easy challenges but I also think it's a bit out of game balance.

I'm no expert in bowmaking, but I figure from what I've read that I could at least recycle the darkwood given that a lot of making a composite bow is about gluing it together. I'd have no problem simply being told I got to make it from scratch and buy the stuff, but I figure the DM's going to put some added restriction that I won't even be able to get the darkwood, or have the time to build it.

(Overall I like the DM...You're only hearing the complaints. So far the campaign has been good but with the challenges we've so far had 3 deaths and the party is right at 4th level.)

I'd like to craft some items with darkwood. I've seen no rules on obtaining the material or costs. Any sources or advice on how a campaign should handle this? Just house-rule it? Use a survival skill to locate it in areas where it's known to be found?

If I got a composite bow, say with a +2 strength rating, can I have a player, via using a craft bow skill, modify an existing bow to a +4 rating?

I figure you'd simply just use the price difference of a +4 vs +2 bow in terms of the crafting rules.

If not why?

If so why?

"The game is designed with parties in mind. A solo game is something else entirely."

No it's not. Sometimes parties get separated, other characters get knocked out, and heck, if someone wanted to play solo with a DM, you can do that too in this game. Yes, the game is better with parties, I even buy that it is designed with parties in mind, but it's not "something else entirely." There are plenty of situations where a character will be solo.

As for Van Helsing, I was referring more towards the lame movie, but in the Dracula novel, yes he was a team player, but just not a teamwork feat type of character. (E.g. I didn't see him doing acrobatic cartwheels with his arms grabbing another guy's legs, locking shields, flank enemies...).

A shame. I like the idea of the character class, and for fans of Inquisitors in fantasy and history like Solomon Kane, I'd rather go with an actual Inquisitor class instead of making him a fighter/cleric. The teamwork feat thing just doesn't ring true to the character class IMHO.

You are right, and I think I temporarily forgot about the Solo Tactics. Still, nonetheless, Inquisitors require other players to assist them with their solo tactics, when in so many cases, like Solomon Kane (who by the way is a great character) are loners and weren't looking to work with others.

An Inquisitor is a waste of a character, game mechanic-wise, without other people with teamwork feats.

The idea of an Inquisitor being a master of teamwork feats seems silly IMHO. The major characters from literature, fantasy, and history that I think of that fit this class: Torquemada, Van Helsing, Alucard and Iscariot (from the anime Hellsing) didn't seem like the teamwork feat type.

I didn't seem them locking shields, or doing other "separate units work as one" like the Romans or Spartans did, tapping each other's fists and saying "wondertwin powers activate" or doing teamwork gymnastics where 2 guys grabbed the ankles of the other and rolled in teamwork like a wheel, while somehow making me feel the act wasn't heterosexual (not that there's anything wrong with it).

IMHO, the Inquisitor, instead of having teamwork feats, should've had something similar to rogue talents such as bleeding attack, and these could've worked with higher intensity against those that the Inquistor had judged against such as an enemy of an opposing alignment or church. Another option was the Inquisitor just could've been given an extra feat here and there period. Don't limit it to teamwork feats.

NONONONO!

Just kidding.

Actually, and you guys beat me to it, I did find posts from the Pathfinder creators in other threads saying that caster levels do not stack period unless specified. Otherwise assume they do not stack. The only cases where I've seen that they do stack are with prestige classes as mentioned above.

Nuts, I found that thread a few days ago, just a little after I posted above, I was going to include a link, but the wife was bugged with me for spending so much time on the computer and I got off. Now I don't remember where it was. The Paizo contributer, I believe it was Jim Jacobs mentioned the issue was somewhat nebulous the way it was written in the books and clarified.

So even being extremely liberal and trying to be a sneaky ambulance-chaser type and trying to stretch the rules without violating them becuase one could argue that rules must be followed literally, no you cannot stack levels unless there's something specifying you can. It's already been answered by the head honchos in other threads.

I don't see anything in the rulebooks saying caster levels cannot stack when it comes to requirements for item creation feats. Further there are several sections in the rulebooks going out of it's way to specify that specific types of spellcaster levels do not stack in several regards, specifying those types of caster levels in the requirements (e.g. wizard, cleric, divine, arcane) but this issue was never addressed with item creation feats.

With regards to item creation feats, all it says is "caster level" in the requirement.

In my opinion, that at least opens the floor to the argument that caster levels could possibly stack for item creation feats. Repeat: "possibly." Unless someone from Paizo answers here, I think issue is going to be house-ruled and/or open to debate.

In my opinion it really doesn't mess with game balance to allow stacking of caster levels for item creation feats. The idea of a 3rd level wizard being able to brew a potion, and a Wizard 2/Cleric 1 being able to do so IMHO doesn't knock the balance off.

If a ranger at fourth level chooses Hunter's Bond with his companions, and does not choose an animal companion, can he still gain the feat of Sable Company Marine at sixth level?

I'm going to try to work with my DM on making bear traps.

Here's how I figure it should work.

If the attacker lands on the trap itself, reflex save or they are trapped, (requiring a limb to land on the trap), 1-2 points of damage, and the trap will prevent the victim from moving, the victim cannot be pushed or pulled from the spot, suffer a -2 to attack, a -2 to defend.

This is assuming the trap was tied to an object that is secure such as a tree.

The only way to get out of the trap is to push open the trap (requiring some type of strength related feat) that will take a standard action. Or the person could try to pull the trap outside of whatever is securing it also requiring a strength related feat/standard action. If the person manages to break the trap from the foundation, but is still trapped in it, they could move at half speed and are -1 to defend, -1 to attack.

Drawbacks, allies can accidentally land on the trap, carrying one is cumbersome.

Problems: cost? Any other drawbacks?