Wildfire Heart's page

Ifrits: I love playing as them, being the pyromaniac with a chip on his shoulder, or as a bard.

Pixies: I know this is a BS race, but I just love the idea of playing as an annoying little tinkerbell with invisibility. Seriously, it's hard to take a pixie druid seriously, even when her buddy is a freaking elephant.

Ogres: Yes, they're OP stat-wise, but they allow some nice, nonoptimal caster builds. An Ogre Witch with massive reach and a poleaxe? Hilarious. Especially when he just uses it to push melee enemies back so he can put them to sleep

Changelings: Fun. So much fun. Being a sexy changeling Amazoness and then going "Yeah, that's my mother" when the party confronts a hag? The look on everyone's faces is just great.

Bob_Loblaw wrote:

@Wildfire Heart, I love creating over-the-top characters that toe the line when it comes to character creation. I tend to make very powerful characters once I understand how a system works. What I've learned to do is to tone it down a bit so that I'm not stealing the limelight from the rest of the group. I have been banned from playing summoners and conjurers because my turns have been known to last considerably longer than the rest of the players combined. That only happened once, but now that it has happened I have been told that I am simply not allowed to play them. That's ok with me. These are my friends and I want them to also enjoy the game. I've changed my perspective about winning at RPGs over time. It used to be that I wanted the most powerful character I could have. Now it's all about making sure we all have fun. To me, that's winning.

Completely agreed. I am significantly better than all of my friends at mastery of the Pathfinder system and I can beat any one of them in powergaming blind and drunk. But instead of showing off, I just don't build my character until I've seen the general power level of the rest of the party, and build my character accordingly. If I'm in a bunch of powergamers, I'll bring a character to be reckoned with. If I'm with a bunch of new players, I might play a vanilla bard without any special abilities, only using core material. And every variation in between.

Being a powergamer can be fun as hell at times, but you have to know when to reign it in to not ruin other player's fun.

Bioboy and I had a talk after yesterday's session, and I think we've made a breakthrough. Part of the issue that Bioboy had (as of recent sessions) is the fact that he plays a technical character (Like an Inspector who's not built for combat, or an arcanist) and the group in general seems to just rush into encounters. He doesn't have time to set up his MacGyver style traps and such, and is left frustrated.

@Bobloblaw when Bioboy was GM, he had the same rule regarding evil or CN characters. While I didn't like it (My personal alignment is somewhere between CN and CG), I accepted it, making CG or TN characters.

@Campincarl I think I've learned a lot from you guys. thanks for the input.

Well clearly the only option left is to kill the player.

Hope you have a good plan for that!

Haha, very funny. That's something Natulia would've said.

In all seriousness though. Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

If the character in question has the Undead Master feat, he could easily command and control 17 HD of undead at his level.

Goblinsaurus wrote:
Have your other players tried getting good and learning how to make competent characters?
Yeah, no kidding. I'm guessing the optimizer owns a copy of the Core Rulebook (and perhaps a few others) while the other players don't have anything?

Maybe the problem isn't the optimizer, but the lack of investiture of the other players. I've found that some peoples' level of interest in the game just isn't as high as others--and this invariably effects the power level of their characters.

EDIT: Looks like I'm a little late to the game.

The funny thing is, I may be the resident powergamer, but the OP is the one that owns most if not all of the group's PF material. I don't even own my own dice, for crying out loud! Most of the material I go through is on D20PFSRD.

Sometimes, less open-ended questions might be useful, like:
How much magic do you want in the world: low, normal, high?
Would you rather have high fantasy or gritty action?
What ratio of role-playing encounters to combat encounters?
Things like that.

Scott_Wilhelm wrote:

Yes, things like that. The bunch of you need to come together and figure out between you what kind of RPG experience you all want to have. Wildfire Heart is very creative in manipulating the rules to create interesting effects. There is no reason why this can't help the party. What kinds of effects do you want to see?

How does each player see his character, his personal narrative and his role in the greater narrative? I don't see why Wildfire can't create such a character and such a narrative that you can't allow room for.

What kind of story do you want to tell? See Ozy's post. To that, I would add do you want this to be a tale of heroic triumph or tragic failure? A lot of the characters described here actually look pretty loony. Is this a loony campaign?

I think these are questions the group needs to be asking, for both the OP's sake and mine.

The answer is no on the looniness campaign. I tend to like loony character concepts, but there's no reason you can't be both loony and effective.

the OP isn't the GM anymore, but used to be at one point. Our group is very inexperienced, and we all started together. Our group has widely differing levels of skill creating and using characters, and has had three GMs lead the group. The list of GMs include the OP, myself, and our current GM.

The OP and I are two of the better players, at least when it comes to memorizing the rules and such. All the same, I have to agree with Ryan. It does rub me the wrong way to have a player harp on this, and then bring this to an online forum, as well as being referred to as "a problem player".

The current GM and I have a very good rapport, and the group is a group of friends, for crying out loud.

After games, we often will talk over Skype, and we (the current GM and I), often discuss how the session went and how it could be improved.

@BrotherFen we did start from level one. We're running an emerald spire. The problem is, I had to build new characters, because my old ones were retroactively removed from the game for various reasons. The campaign started with the OP GMing, but we switched him out because he played an entire session withholding information on traps (a DC 20 roll, I rolled a 30, still didn't give me info), not giving full descriptions of things and then blindsiding us, things like that, even if we's inspected things carefully.

Alex, you seem to be mistaking the situation. The OP is no longer the GM, even though at times he seems to act like it.

Campin' Carl, thanks for your input.

And i realized my mistake before. Her traits are gifted adept and sig spell, not sig spell x2.

her traits are Signature spell (animate undead) and signature spell (same).

Is rules legal.

You cannot take the same Trait twice, because of this rule:

"When selecting traits, you may not select more than one from the same list of traits (the four basic traits each count as a separate list for this purpose)."

Signature Spell + Signature Spell = Regional Trait + Regional Trait. No. Bad. Not legal.

Not that this came into play in the first place since scrolls don't use your caster level, so this trait doesn't apply.

Whoops: I meant to say Gifted adept and sig spell. freaking writing at midnight.

Okay, "Problem Player" Speaking. (I kinda had a problem with that, but whatever).

To answer a few questions that people had:

The lioness doesn't have pounce, but the GM ruled that the lion still got the grapple check on her bite attack.

I did count the bodies into the WBL, I don't remember what I charged myself, but I do remember that it was barely shy of half my WBL (2500 GP or so, I don't remember exactly)
by RAW, you can become a hellknight by killing a devil with at least 1 HD more than you. Keep in mind, this is for the hellknight Prestige class. My char has not taken that. She is a hellknight in title, a signifer, to be precise. She is of the order of the Nail, and went to the emerald spire to try and kill an agent of chaos who is wanted for murder (the pixie character from before).

I bought the Opals with WBL, and still have a bunch of them with the character. She carries them around with her the same way that spellcasters carry ingredients.

Yes, I did roll a D20 to determine backfire every time I used the create undead scrolls. I paid for 4 of them, and she's used 3 thus far. One to bring each minion to life. During the ogre's spell, she also brought two human skeletons to unlife, which she uses as pack mules.

She has the Undead master feat that increase the amount of HD she can control in one casting, as well as the command undead feat. her traits are Signature spell (animate undead) and signature spell (same).

She is a changeling with the following stats:
STR 8 DEX 12 CON 12 INT 10 WIS 20 (+2 from magic item) CHA 18:
HP: 32, AC 19 TAC 11 Flat footed 18 (+6 armor, +1 shield, +1 DEX, +1 Natural

When creating this character, I went with a point buy system, and to date, this is the only point buy character in our campaign. Most characters have significantly higher stats, and our monk has...only 2 stats below 14, one of which is his 8 CHA.

The magic items I gave her at character creation (level 4) are as follows: Mask of stony demeanor, sleeves of many garments, gloves of recon and cracked dusty rose prism ioun stone.

Over the adventure, we found a headband of wisdom +2, which Sicaria took, as she'd benefit from it the most.

During combat, she'd let her minions do the heavy lifting, and back up the party from the rear with spells. Favorite spells of hers include Aggressive Thundercloud, Divine favor, shield of faith and find traps (we don't have a rogue). CLW was sometimes prepped, but more often than not we used the party CLW wand.

The party consists of an arcanist (the OP), who's favorite spell is create pit
a monk (which funnily enough, I built for the guy, since he didn't know how). The unchained monk does 1D8+5 with each strike, and when he gets to level 5 will be taking the flying kick style strike. We also have the Gun-monkey (a Vanara alchemist 1/Gunslinger 3 with a d1000 randogun the GM gave him), and a samurai kitsune.

Past members of the party include Natulia Lathlo the (HEAVILY nerfed) pixie druid (and her bestest friend, Bouncy AKA the elephant of surprise), and the monk's former character, a swashbucker catman with no real combat ability.

We ended up going with a few of your suggestions. I am not the GM, but the current GM has been over this with me. I purposely DIDN'T ask the OP, since the OP is the guy who vetoed me from...

playing any kind of minion build, including leadership, undead, giant guinea pig army (yes, I wanted to bull rush people with an army of dire guinea pigs. They would've never seen it coming!)

Playing a Doppelganger

adopting every stray cat in a city and war training them with my 20+ CHA and maxxed handle animal skill.

using ANY kind of siege weapon tipped with a magic-folding-boat arrow

Campfire beads canNOT be bought/created in bulk, linked to a single command word, then launched/levitated at enemies en masse to make fast-moving walls of flaming death, even if the rules say I can.

using unnatural lust or any of the similar manipulation spells (aww!)

Dervish Dancing Pixies, which WAS for a good reason, admittedly.

Told me to ditch several perfectly RAW characters in the name of balance, including my blaster caster, which is suboptimal, as I understand it.

note that not all of this happened ingame. Some of this (The campfire bead stunt, for instance), I told my GM about, and he immediately said that I wasn't allowed to do.

Sicaria Nightshade has been removed from the game (with me crying foul, since this is...I think this next one'll be the fifth character for me now. lemme just count em here. Ifrit sorcerer, Aasimar Cleric, pixie druid, and now Sicaria).

Note, none of these characters have been killed ingame. These are just the characters that have been removed by veto or Gm removal. If I count the characters that I have had vetoed on character reveal (such as my level 7 Large Tiefling) then the list continues further.

I fully admit that I pull some serious cheese, and that removing these characters have made the game smoother for the other players.

But at the same time I just can't help but feel like I'm being punished for being good at the game at this point, since it keeps happening.

When I build a character, I go in depth. I go through every feat, every spell option, every trait, and while I don't usually choose the most optimal route, every feat and trait that I put on my character is designed to accomplish an objective. That objective being to keep my character alive in the dungeons. Whether it's giving me more firepower, an extra ability, or just boosting my diplomacy to serviceable levels, I look through a lot.

One problem that the OP has is the difference between me and some of the other members of the group. I like the caster classes (sorcerer, cleric, druid, cleric again), and I keep my options open. My characters are NEVER one or two trick ponies, and have just as many roll playing opportunities as combat options.

basically, I'm a tactically well versed player who rolls well above average and knows the game mechanics well enough to roll with the punches. I play optimized characters, but I also love roll playing.

Anywho, we decided to follow Gulthor's idea. I am now playing a friendly male Ogre Witch character named Thugmal who hides his face and body with concealing clothing. He's TN, and he got into the spire completely by accident. Apparently got teleported in by some mage or something. Not sure how we're gonna play that one.

Thanks for all your suggestions.

ElementalXX, you make an excellent point. Although I like my casters, maybe I should give a magus or a fighter a try. I avoid the fighters and such more because it isn't my style of play, not due to power, but I'll keep that in mind for the future. My favorite character I've played so far was my Dervish dancing pixie druid, just because of the funny things I could do. Bloodthirsty druid pixie raor! :D

Thornborn, you pretty much summed the current situation up to a T.

Targyuti, you make excellent points, both in the healing being boring, and in the several ways to either go after my character or level the playing field.

Dave Justus, thank you for saying that. Our current GM is trying his best, but the entire group has a bit less than a year's (once a week at best!) experience, and we all started together.

It's not that I'm more experienced than the rest of the group. I just put a significant amount of time and investment into my characters. Hell, I'm writing a novel about my first character now! Beyond that, I write fantasy and sci-fi for fun, and am pretty good at finding the game 'winning' mechanics.

So I wanted to combine the tinker and Bard into a single class...what immediately comes to mind when you mix music and tech?

TECHNO!!!

...or dubstep or some shit. Whatever. Either way, I want some advice on my homebrew class. Have at it, guys and girls!

In societies where technology progresses heavily, sometimes the young develop music to match. Technos are a mixed bag, using their technological skills and musical savvy to produce awe inspiring performances. Savvy with the ways of the world, Technos charm and beguile when they cannot fight, and use their odd appearance to their advantage.

Role: Technos assail opponents with their massive array of sounds, producing more harmful effects than that of ordinary instruments. They can support allies, inspiring them to either rage or calm, egging them on or helping to regenerate their injuries. Technos rely on their technology for many things, and over time, their mobile stages can be used to support their endeavors. Technos use magic where they can, to support their music and their allies.

Alignment: Any Chaotic

Hit Die: D6

Starting wealth: 1D6x10

Class skills: Acrobatics (Dex) Appraise (Int) Bluff (Cha) Craft (Int) Diplomacy (Cha) Disable device (Dex) Disguise (Cha) Escape Artist (Dex) Intimidate (Cha) Knowledge: Arcana, Engineering, Geography, Local, Nobility (Int), Linguistics (Int) Perception (wis) Perform (Cha) Sleight of hand (Dex)
Skill points: 5+Int mod
Class features:
Level BAB Fort: Ref: Will: Special: Spells per day:0 1 2 3 4 5 6

(ok, how this works is the first four numbers are the BAB, then the saves. Then after that come the spells per day, arranged by level)

1st 0 2 0 2 Mobile stage, cantrips,
- 1 - - - - -
Subwoofer, riffs, Tech instrument

2nd 1 3 0 3 -
- 2 - - - - -

3rd 2 3 1 3 Subwoofer x2, Blast,
Stage AI -
- 3 - - - - -

4th 3 4 1 4 Pyrotechnics

- 3 1 - - - -

5th 3 4 1 4 Alliance with the deaf, Kind of a big deal
- - 4 2 - - - -

6th 4 4 2 4 Headphones -
- 4 3 1 - - -

7th 5 5 2 5 subwoofer x3, Enrage +4
- - 4 4 2 - - -

8th 6/1 5 2 5 Pyrotechnics x2 -
- 4 4 3 1 - -

9th 6/1 6 2 6 Strobe lights
-
- 4 4 3 2 - -

10th 7/2 6 3 6 Kind of a Big Deal
-
- 4 4 4 3 - -

11th 8/3 7 3 7 Subwoofer x4,
- - 4 4 4 3 - -

12th 9/4 8 4 8 Adrenaline beat -
- 4 4 4 3 1

13th 10/5 8 4 8
-
- 4 4 4 4 2

14th 10/5 9 4 9 Frightful Racket -
- 4 4 4 4 3

15th 11/6/1 9 5 9 Subwoofer x5, Kind of a big deal, Inspire painlessness, Enrage+6 -
- 4 4 4 4 3 1

16th 12/7/2 10 5 10 Pyrotechnicsx3 -
- 4 4 4 4 4 2

17th 13/8/3 10 5 10 Enrage+8
-
- 4 4 4 4 4 3

18th 13/8/3 11 6 11 Blood from your ears -
- 4 4 4 4 4 4

19th 14/9/4 11 6 11 Subwooferx6
-
- 4 4 4 4 4 4

20th 15/10/5 12 6 12 Kind of a big deal

- 4 4 4 4 4 4

Bonus Spells per day:
The Techno gets bonus spells per day according to his Charisma stat. See the chart Bonus spells per day on the D20pfsrd site for more.
Techno instrument: The Techno has a strange and weird instrument unlike any other. This can take the form of any modern day/futuristic instrument that can be held in one or two hands, or something else ( at GM's discretion)

Mobile stage: At level 1, the Techno gets a mobile stage. This stage can move on mechanical legs, under its' own power. The power source is chosen at first level and cannot be changed. It moves at 30 feet per round, and directing it is a move action. The stage is large, but can be folded to fit in a medium space. While folded up, it can move at 15 ft/round and can unfold as a standard action. It can carry the Techno and up to 300 lbs of gear when unfolded. The techno and his stage always move together.
At level 3, the mobile stage is capable of picking up all of your subwoofers with robotic arms or other such tech. Deploying subwoofers is a swift action for the rocker, and a move action for the stage.

at 4th level, the mobile stage is capable of producing and deploying pryotechnics.

Pyrotechnic barrage: Deal 1D6 fire damage/ 2 levels to two target squares within 60 feet. Applies the dazzled condition for 1D4 rounds. If target is dazzled, apply dazed. A reflex save (DC 10+CHA mod +1/2 techno level) halves damage and negates the status effect. Dazzled, dazed, stunned or facinated creatures don't get saving throws against this effect. Resetting pyrotechnics takes a full round action that provokes attacks of opportunity. Creating pyrotechnics requires explosives worth 10gp and ten minutes of effort. Deploying pyrotechnics is a standard action.
At 8th level, the stage can hold two rounds of pyrotechnics. Both cannot be deployed at the same time, but that mean that two pyrotechnic displays can be used before reloading.
At 16th level, the pyrotechnic barrages can be used three times without reloading.

Subwoofers: Subwoofers are an integral part of your performance. Subwoofers can be programmed to perform a variety of functions. At 1st level, subwoofers need to be deployed by the techno, which is a full round action. Subwoofers need to be packed up when not in use. Subwoofers can follow one of many instructions:
Enhance: increase the radius of your performance by 10 ft,
increase the DC of your harmful sonic effects by 1 (Max 2)
Blast: Increase the damage of sonic spells/effects by 1D4. This includes the Blast Riff.
Echo: after the end of a riff, keep the effect around for 1 round. (does not apply to blast)
resetting a subwoofer for a different effect takes ten minutes of constant effort. Interruptions to this time render the subwoofer useless until fixed properly. Subwoofers count as attended objects if under control of the stage. Subwoofers have hardness 10 and 30 hitpoints. if broken, it takes 10gp/hp to repair and if destroyed, cost 100gp/level and eight hours to replace.

Alternatively, a mending spell works as well.

Riffs
Techno Riffs: A techno can use his stage, tech and music to perform techno riffs: A techno can use his riffs for 4 rounds/day +his CHA modifier. Every level after level 1, the techno can use this for an additional 2 rounds per day.
Unless otherwise stated, Riffs are a standard action to start, a free action to continue.

List of Riffs:
Overwhelm: at first level, the Techno unlocks overwhelm. The Techno makes a perform (Tech) check. Any ally effected by a magic effect that relies on sound can use the check's result instead of their roll. Overwhelm also grants anybody within 5 feet deafness for 1D4 rounds. A DC 16 reflex check negates the deafness effect (Technos are always immune to their own negative effects).
At 5th level, if the opposing effect is one made by a bardic performance or similar effect relying on linguistics or similarly precise inflections, the Techno can instead target the opposing person within 60ft (more if using subwoofer's enhance effect). The enemy must make a DC 10+Cha mod +1/2 Techno level will save or be deafened for 1D4 rounds and lose the effects of their bardic performance.
At 17th level, this can be used to counterspell. Make a perform (tech) check, your enemy makes a concentration check. If the perform (tech) roll is higher, than the spell cannot be cast. Using Overwhelm in this manner uses up three rounds of Riffs/day
Attention grabber: At 1st level, a Techno can use his Riff to cause one or more creatures to become fascinated with him. Each creature to be fascinated must be within 90 feet, able to see and hear the Techno, and capable of paying attention to him. The Techno must also be able to see the creatures affected. The Distraction of a nearby combat or other dangers prevents the ability from working. For every three levels a Techno has attained beyond 1st, he can target one additional creature with this ability.
Each creature within range receives a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the bard’s level + the techno’s Cha modifier) to negate the effect. If a creature’s saving throw succeeds, the techno cannot attempt to fascinate that creature again for 24 hours. If its saving throw fails, the creature sits quietly and observes the performance for as long as the techno continues to maintain it. While fascinated, a target takes a –4 penalty on skill checks made as reactions, such as Perception checks. Any potential threat to the target allows the target to make a new saving throw against the effect. Any obvious threat, such as someone drawing a weapon, casting a spell, or aiming a weapon at the target, automatically breaks the effect.
Attention grabber is an enchantment (compulsion), mind-affecting ability. It relies on audible components in order to function.

Blast: At 3rd level Technos gain the Blast riff. All enemies in a 30 foot cone (from the subwoofers) take 1D4/level sonic damage (Max 15D4) and is sickened for 1D4 rounds. A successful reflex (10+CHA mod+1/2 techno level) save halves the damage and negates the debuff. Unlike most techno riffs, Using blast is a full round action each time, and uses up two rounds of riffs per use. Extra damage or range from the subwoofers are applied normally. Overlapping radii from the different subwoofers do not grant bonus damage or apply the damage twice.
Enrage: A 3rd level Techno can use the enrage riff. All allies within 30ft of any subwoofer gain a +2 to melee and ranged damage rolls. Every four levels after three, this bonus increases by +2
Screamo: A techno of 8th level can use his riff to rip at an enemy's emotions. His unearthly music causes enemies within 30 ft of a subwoofer to become shaken. To be affected, an enemy must be able to hear the Techno perform and be within 30 feet. Each enemy within range receives a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the Techno’s level + the Techno’s Cha modifier) to negate the effect.
Frightful Racket (Sp): A Techno of 14th level or higher can use his riffs to cause fear in his enemies. To be affected, an enemy must be able to hear the Techno perform and be within 30 feet. Each enemy within range receives a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the Techno’s level + the Techno’s Cha modifier) to negate the effect. If the save succeeds, the creature is immune to this ability for 24 hours. If the save fails, the target becomes frightened and flees for as long as the target can hear the techno's performance. Frightening tune relies on audible components.
Inspire Painlessness (Su): A Techno of 15th level or higher can inspire tremendous resiliance in himself or a single ally within 30 feet. For every three Techno levels the character attains beyond 15th, he can inspire heroics in one additional creature. To inspire painlessness, all of the targets must be able to hear the Techno. Inspired creatures gain DR 4/- and resistance 5 to all energy types. The effect lasts for as long as the targets are able to witness the performance. Inspire painlessness is a mind-affecting ability that relies on audible components.
Blood from your ears: At 18th level, as a free action, the Techno can crank up the volume of his speakers. This causes all people/monsters effected to make a Fort save (any ally not included in alliance with the deaf included). Those who fail take 1D8 bleed damage, and are deafened.
Stage AI: At 2nd level, the Techno's constant tinkering with the stage has produced a strange effect. The stage seems to have grown a slight personality, and follows your spoken directives. Directing the stage is a free action.
Place subwoofers: The stage will place your subwoofers for you. This is a move action for the stage. Subwoofers can be placed up to 10ft away from the stage.
Flee: will pack up all subwoofers, fold up and flee from an enemy, regardless of who or what is in the way. Anybody on the stage takes 1D8 crushing damage (Reflex save negates)
Stalk: Will keep within 30 ft of a given enemy, and ready actions if avaliable to keep within range. When moving more than once/round, a DC 15 acrobatics check is nessicary to remain on the stage.
Follow: Follow an ally at a set distance.

Headphones: One set of headphones can project your music directly into the ears of a willing teammate. These can be worn underneath armor. Headphones can only be deployed to one teammate at a time. Headphones provide one of several effects, as well as providing immunity to harmful sonic effects. Any ally wearing headphones can always hear your performance, as long as they are conscious:
a +1 bonus to melee attack and damage rolls
a +1 dodge bonus to AC
a +2 bonus to reflex saves

Alliance with the deaf: At 5th level, your Blast riff no longer effects your allies. Allies must have heard at least one riff to be immune to the effects.

Kind of a Big Deal: At 5th level, your riffs and music have somewhat gone to your head. You gain Sonic resistance 2 and take a -3 penalty on stealth checks, Handle animal checks and on sense motive checks.
At 10th level you live in your own little world: You gain a +2 bonus to resist all mind effecting effects, but take a further -2 penalty on stealth, handle animal and sense motive checks.
At 15th level, your ego has grown larger than life. Diplomacy checks automatically fail
At 20th level your ego is indestructable. Your mind is alien to most, filled with thoughts of grandiose displays and alien sounding music. Any negative mind effecting effect cast on you is reflected back to the caster, and you gain sonic immunity.

Technos draw from the Techno spell list: (As the bard spell list, but for a few custom spells)
Techno spell list
0th
Strobed: (-5 on perception checks, -2 on saves against light based effects)
1st
Create pyrotechnics: Creates 1D10 Pyrotechnics for use with your stage. These pyrotechnics are only useful for you, not for any other techno, and if given to another, will vanish

2nd
Summon bodyguard I: Summon a man with Str 17, Dex 14, Con 17, Int 12, Wis 14 Cha 8. He wields a wooden shield and a silver +1 longsword. He has a BAB of +4, an AC of 17 and a touch AC of 12. This spell lasts for 1 round/level. All equipment and units vanish when the spell ends. The bodyguard's attack is sword+7 (1D8+4)
3rd
Chord Blast: deal 1D4/level (max 20D4) damage to a single target. Make a combat maneuver check using your CHA modifier in place of your strength modifier. If successful, your target is knocked prone and away from you 5 feet.
Summon bodyguard II: Summon 1D4 bodyguards. lasts for 1 round/level.
4th
Summon bodyguard III: 2D4 bodyguards and 1 tower shield wielding warrior. The tower shield wielding warrior has AC 20, touch AC 14 and will provide cover for the Techno.

...that's about it. Tell me what you think. Overpowered? Underpowered? (I kind of doubt underpowered, personally, but have at it)

@Otherwhere

I am one of the players in the OP's game, and the only one on the forums other than Bioboygamer.

The group has three people who have GMed. Bioboygamer being the most prominent. However, we have problems in that most of the players seem to not particularly care about the game and/or don't seem to understand the mechanics, despite repeated lessons on said mechanics, to the point that I (as the resident meta/powergamer) end up taking input on what they want to have and making the darn character for them.

The post about "only one player I know has a backstory" was referring to me. I love the roleplaying aspects of Pathfinder, as well as the opportunity to refine my storytelling. I also love the opportunity to delve into the mechanics of the game

The group...doesn't, for the most part. We have two different characters for each player right now.

In one group we have...
A stereotypical dwarf warrior who loves booze (with throw anything and improvised weapon as two of his feats)

A money grubbing human Bard

A Human Magus with no backstory (this replaced 'Andalf' the gnomish wizard and the useless summoner character that came before)
it's a well optimized character (which I built), but the way that he plays it, combined with his seeming inability to roll anything higher than a 13, cripples the build.

A well optimized Oread Monk (Yeah, I built it for him), who kicks a ton of ass

An Ifrit sorcerer with the elemental bloodline (removed from group due to frequent OverPowered complaints)
was succeeded by our:
Aasimar cleric, who wields a bow, heals and is generally a CoDzilla build.
(yes, these two were mine, the characters that I played.)

and a Gnomish Tinker (played by our 3rd GM)

in the other group we have

a kitsune samurai

a (heavily nerfed) 3.5 style pixie druid (racial is +4 DEX, +2 WIS, -4 STR, +2 CHA, lesser invis as at will ability, 60ft fly speed and +8 to fly and stealth) ...this one's mine.

A sorcerer with mostly defensive spells

A catfolk dual wielding ranger

and a Barbarian

okay, thanks. I realized that I'd misread the called shot (didn't see the half hp thing). thanks for the input

so basically, we're level 1. the ranger in question has 12 hp (10+2 constitution) and took 11 damage from said hit. it WAS a called shot, and I agree with Lunchbox's assessment. In my mind, if it can do a fair amount of damage to an EYE, then it gets blinded, unless the eye is like stone or something like that. the PF rules for eyes are SO lenient

Okay, so our party catman decided to stick his head in an arrow hole and got an arrow to the eye.

Point Blank.
To the Eye.
From a composite longbow (str +2).

So...the rules state that he gets some...extremely minor penalties and such, but he took a goddamned arrow to the eye!

HEEEEEEELP!

those are all good points. clerics were not overpowered. they burnt a lot of resources subverting the fighter. and they are burning money dealing with other peoples ailments. clerics, and any players willing to play them without having to draw straws should be respected better.

I play a female Aasimar cleric named Isaala in a game I'm playing, and one of the things she does is INSIST that if you want that level drain removed, You're paying for it, or it's coming out of the "loot pool".

our party tends to split loot fairly evenly, and due to the fact that nobody else has healing stuff but the gnome tinker (who usually takes her side in most arguments anyways) and the fact that our party tends to get just a wee bit beat up after most encounters, most party members aren't willing to cross her on that point.

Especially since one of the first things she did was use the command spell to dunk our full plated drunk dwarf into a deep river after he tried to hit on her.

And let the ranger save him.

And laughed.
My response out of game was (between gales of laughter as our ranger frantically rolled a swim check at a substantial penalty) "Well, Neutral Good only goes so far, and she HATES strangers hitting on her". Since then she's maintained a relatively neutral relationship with the Dwarf. She doesn't mind him, but she's wary of him. There are other RP reasons why she doesn't trust the dwarf, but she keeps those to herself.

to quote Dende:
"You touch me, and you're not getting up again. That's right, I'm your white mage. AND NOBODY F@#$S. with the white mage".
...
...
(Thefactthatshecandroplightningboltsonyourheadandshootaswellasanarcherfromh orsebackispurelycoincidental)

okay, so my pathfinder group has decided to run an 'emerald spire' module. I am no longer the GM (Woohoo!) and wanted to play a pixie character. After a few arguments and discussions about the overpoweredness of the pixie race, my GM and I decided that I could play a pixie with a few stipulations.

1. The pixie racial stat bonuses are as follows: +4 DEX, -2 WIS, -2 INT, +2 CHA and NOT the outrageous 3.5 stat boosts

2. The pixie gets none of the SLAs but the invisibility, AND it goes away if I hit something as per normal invisibility (so no sneaky attack pixie.

3. I still get the racial bonuses to fly and the 60 ft fly speed, but otherwise don't get the bonuses to skills, the extra feat otherwise in 3.5, or anything else.

4. I cannot play a rogue, inspector or anything that gets sneak attack. In fact, I must play a druid, which is the class that I wanted anyways. (yes, a minus to WIS, which druids need, but...I'm playing a pixie, so I don't care :D)

5. Usage of any voice sounding like Navi or Tinkerbell will get my character vetoed.

and 6. I am NOT a relation to said characters. (I suggested that as a joke, and my GM took that seriously. That was legit one of his conditions. No complaints here. A good character doesn't need constant references to other characters to make it come to life).

The resulting character (after a 4D6 take away the lowest stat roll) ended up with a tiny character with 6 STR, 14 CON, 26 DEX, 11 INT, 16 WIS and 16 CHA (after size bonuses/penalties). She took weapon finesse as her feat at 1st level, and does 1D2+8 damage with a dagger. She has 10 HP, 22 AC, 20 Touch AC, a whopping +10 to Init, and her animal companion (Bouncy AKA the 'elephant of surprise') is obviously an elephant. (it's also interesting that the only 2 skills that rely on STR (swim and climb) are the ones that she can bypass by flying.

Although she can turn invisible at will, her invis doesn't help her in combat, as the invis wears off after one hit. The invis is useful for stealth, esp since her stealth (her traits are sneaky and reactionary) is +13 normally. (+8 DEX, +1 rank, +4 bonus since it counts as class skill and sneaky's +1 bonus). She's got high stealth, so she is the perfect scout, but as far as combat goes, she's good for first level, but will likely wane as levels go up and other chars come into their stuff.

Her current spells prepared are as follows: 0th. Light, prestidigitation, and I forget the other two, 1st: cure light wounds and entangle.

Tell me what you think. Is this character overpowered for combat? will she remain overpowered? How annoying would you find this character as a GM or as a player?

Yours in Neverland, Wildfire heart

*SIGH*. Yes, it's sad. DM_Blake has an ungodly number of favorites for his post, and everyone's piling on the GMNPC when I see only two fundamental issues with it:

(1) It's an optimized GMNPC
(2) The party is big enough not to need one.

We've had a fantastic time going through CotCT, RotRL, and now WotR and JR with active GMNPCs.

However:
(1) The GMNPC is *always* a supporting role (cleric, front-line fighter, rogue, whatever) and *never* does anything without the party asking, "Hey, xxx, can't you do this?"
(2) The GMNPC is *never* the "GM's Pet". As I think Jiggy said, I run GMNPCs, but if the players say, "Hey, xxx, take off!" then xxx will dutifully take off.

I'm a firm believer in GMNPCs, but that's because I run most of my campaigns with 3 players, so they need a 4th to "round them out". But my GMNPCs *never" steal the thunder from the PCs, nor dominate fights. It's funny -- we actively won't play with one guy because he always creates the "I can do everything better than you" GMNPC.

So GMNPCs are NOT always bad, as some would lead you to believe. But:
- If there are 4+ players, you shouldn't have a GMNPC.
- The GMNPC should -never- do anything unless asked to do so by the PCs.
- The GMNPC should immediately leave should the PCs ask him/her to do so.
- The GMNPC should -never- be so optimized that he/she outshines the PCs at ANYTHING except for his/her designated niche, where the players have previously admitted they have a lack, and are not planning on filling it.

I really don't like absolutes. "GMNPCs suck!" is such an absolute. "I always run a GMNPC" is another.

As always, we have found happiness in the middle.

the funny part is, I Favorited GM_Blake's post as well, even though it kinda ripped on me a bit.

kestral287 wrote:

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Anyone else wanna bet that this is not the general response that the OP was expecting? :P

Do you really think you'd get any takers on that?

A better wager might be whether the OP even comes back after all this. And if he does, what his attitude will be (anger or receptive).

lol. Thanks for the advice, guys. I'm new to the game, as many of you have expected, and my homebrew dungeon was WAY too long, almost as long as an entire campaign in its' own right. I dungoofed as a GM, and last session we decided to move on. I have decided that unless my group wants me to continue, I will step down as GM and let someone else in our group have a turn. We're running an emerald spire module, and so far, it's been very enjoyable.

Thanks again, particularly GM_Blake, but all of you, for the help on this one. Many suggestions have been made, and I agree with most of what you said.

Wildfire heart

...Okay, so our pathfinder group is on a new module, and (thank goodness) I'm out of the GMing spot. Our GM is running us through the 'emerald spire' campaign, and I wanted to play a pixie (with modifications to make it balanced).

so we scrapped the arrow mod ability, changed the greater invisibility at will into a normal invisibility (stops if you take aggressive action), AND made the stipulation that my character was not allowed to play a rogue, because sneak attack. I decided to play a druid...who's primary stat is WIS...and now I have an elephant as a pet. His name is bouncy, and he is awesome.
>:3

and made the racial modifiers to stats as follows.

+4 DEX, -2 WIS, +2 CHA, -2 INT (with the size mods, my pixie being tiny).

anywho, how much does it cost to have weapons/armor made for my char? because it's a tiny character I will need customized weaponry, but what does that cost?

EDIT: The invisibility is the ONLY ability I get out of being a pixie, other than flight.

Hey, I'm the previously mentioned Bard.

First of all, the campaign itself isn't construct-focused, just the current dungeon, although the dungeon is...well...

Ever played Skyrim?
Remember that giant cavern with the Dwarven ruins with the glowing mushrooms and Falmer?

It's almost literally that.

I was somewhat aware of the upcoming heavy focus on constructs, but was not aware of the specifics. Essentially, the GM told me that the dungeon after the one we were currently in would have a heavy construct theme.
Alright, I can deal with that. Just sell some treasure, get some stuff, prepare for constructs.
What I did not know was that the entrance to that next dungeon was a one-way teleportation altar to a cavern miles below the surface.
Even that isn't too bad.
Except as soon as we entered the room, the entire dungeon started shaking as if collapse was imminent, essentially putting the entire party in "Anywhere is better than being trapped under rubble, get on the teleporter!" mode.

In addition, the GM keeps pointing out that both running and sneaking are options, but both are relatively impractical.

Running is difficult mainly due to the fact that either the enemy will have equal movement seed to us, or (as a construct) it will not have to rest, making the encounter nothing but a race to outrun the Terminator.

Sneaking might work, if the party Fighter wasn't in heavy armor and constantly drunk. Plus, the GM is noticeably fond of ambushes and ignoring the rules for surprise rounds unless it's in the enemy's favor.
Funnily enough, his previous GMPC (!) didn't have that problem when he snuck into a group of 50+ enemies and took out their leaders without being detected...

I do have to admit, the GM usually makes a point of giving us personalized magic items, and since last session we are...well above WPL.

And by "Well above", I mean we have successfully obtained about 300 lbs of adamantine, worth a metric crapton of money. Immediately after a gas trap that almost killed my Bard and...

you forgot the 50 000 gp diamond, bro

Warning: the following is blunt.

I spent an hour typing this up. My opinions are backed up by 4 decades of GMing RPGs since the 70's, but they're still opinions. Nevertheless, I am fairly sure these answers will help the OP find a better balance in his games and resolve his players' issues.

Hopefully the OP (and anyone else) can benefit from what I have to say.

Wildfire Heart wrote:

ok, my party bard was complaining to me. His character is a one trick pony, and he was annoyed for a few reasons.

This should be your first red flag. And that flag is telling you that YOU are the one screwing up here.

It's the job of everyone at the table to make sure you're all having fun, but the GM is way more influential in this role than any player. If a player is "complaining" then he's not having fun.

Fix it.

Specifically, YOU fix it. Not him.

Wildfire Heart wrote:

1) that his character is basically useless. we're running a construct themed dungeon of my own creation, which basically means he can't use his mind manipulation spells. Considering that his bard is mainly built for manipulation, he's understandably annoyed at his own uselessness.

His uselessness is YOUR fault. You let him build a useless character and/or you designed a campaign where his character is useless. Either way, it's YOUR fault.

Stop putting the blame on your player.

But, that being said, you're not expected to throw your whole campaign out the window to please one player. Alter some encounters. Don't make everything a construct. Better yet, have the PCs start finding cyborg constructs where the enemy has been building smarter constructs that actually have living brains (General Grievous). Make them cool and dangerous but, good news for the bard player, they are no longer immune to mind affecting magic.

Wind down the construct part of the story and move on to something that is not construct-oriented. If you want, you could have the big bad boss in the next room; they kill him and they're done...

Wow. I love you man. (no homo). Thanks for the advice. You sound like a very experienced DM/GM, and I'll try and do as you say.

I have been running a combat heavy type of campaign, and...the funny thing is, the story kind of did "magically" become mostly about constructs.

The PCs were exploring a dungeon, but then something very big started smashing the place to get at the PCs, who then jumped through an ancient magical teleporter.

Think Ronka ruins from FF5

ok, my party bard was complaining to me. His character is a one trick pony, and he was annoyed for a few reasons.

1) that his character is basically useless. we're running a construct themed dungeon of my own creation, which basically means he can't use his mind manipulation spells. Considering that his bard is mainly built for manipulation, he's understandably annoyed at his own uselessness.

2) that the last city we visited was torched before the party could do anything. (basically, as we got there after almost a week's forced march [an army of kobolds was chasing the party], the BBEG's organization attacked. The party fought off some automatons and ran to the docks, where warships were waiting to evacuate.)

ok, so to put it in perspective: We're a new group, and I am the GM right now. Our party consists of a powerful Oread monk (main damager), a dwarf fighter (drunkard), an elf ranger, a human magus, a gnomish tinker and two GMNPCs. One is a cleric named Isaala (because nobody in the party took healing spells or anything) and a little robot that we found in the city last session. (She's a potion maker). Our builds (with the exception of the monk, the magus and the cleric, which I actually built for players with their permission) are suboptimal at best, but they have flavour.

Personally, I kind of didn't understand why my bard was complaining. As a GM, it's not my fault if your character is useless, that's your job, and I try to make my games as realistic as possible. I've been using crummy tactics for the most part, but when I do use ambush tactics and play the enemies like they should be played, the enemies just wreck the party.

My cleric is an archer/mounted combat/healer build. She has a nice enchanted bow, 12 uses of channel pos energy, and is generally a lesser CoDzilla build. Her two domains are weather and healing. For the sake of not outshining the players, I've relegated her to only healing during combat.

But the group in general has been zerg rushing everything, and not using combat maneuvers and such.

In one example, a single clockwork wizard (evocation) was waiting in ambush. It nailed both the monk and the ranger with a 10D6 fireball, almost downing both in one turn. If it wasn't for our trusty cleric, both would've likely died. Our warrior closed with the mage, then we eventually hacked it down. Personally, I love those kinds of combat. Hard enough that you have to watch yourself, but not insane.

The bard char used it as an example of an "epic level encounter" because the clockwork mage was CR 9 and the party is level 6. I reminded him that because we have so many players, our party's effective CR is 7, not 6.

But where in the rules does it state that I have to give you level appropriate encounters? As a player, I'd rather see encounters where we have to run, or sneak occasionally. Seriously, not every problem can be solved with swords and magic.

Anywho, thanks for your posts

Wildfire heart

EDIT: the clockwork ambushed our ranger and monk when they were trying to sneak into the room where the clockwork was.

oops, sorry

Okay, so I GM a new pathfinder group, and I'm also new to the game myself. As a GM, I've noticed that I tend to go more for hard monster fights and strange locations and situations than anything else.

So one of my players called me on skype. We talked for about a half an hour, but the jist of his complaint was that he's a bard, next to useless in combat, and I'm currently running the party through an underground city filled with automatons. (no mind effecting stuff for him to manipulate). For some reason, his bard is a one trick pony, and his lack of usefulness is aggravating him.

Our party is...amusing, but by no means optimized. We've got a monk (our primary damager) a dwarf drunk fighter (tank) a tinker with a dual flail wielding automaton, an elf ranger (secondary damager), a fairly well optimized magus, and my GMNPCs. One is an Aasimar cleric (because nobody in our group is a healer) and the other is a robot we ran into last session which can make potions and otherwise serves no purpose. We've been fighting CR 6-9 encounters at level 6, and to be honest, most party members aren't up to the fight. Against one clockwork wizard, we almost lost both our ranger and our monk, despite the fact that the monk was really minmaxy(my fault, I made the character for him).

What I'm trying to get at here is this: How do I explain to my buddies that sometimes (as a GM) I'm going to throw curveballs at them? I'm going to throw encounters at them that they cannot overcome by 'zerg rushing', and campaigns where cities are hard to come by?

My bardic friend's complaint was twofold: One, that he's basically useless right now, and two: That I didn't give them time to shop in the new city before I had an enemy organization take it over.

(I mean, the Dark summoners weren't LOOKING for them, so they could've just ignored the whole thing, but they're good chars, and so they took the paladin's advice and ran away with the NPCs.

Yours in wonderland
Wildfire heart

Okay, so as a new group to pathfinder, a bunch of guys decided to make a pathfinder group, GMed by my buddy bioboygamer. Well, most people made some pretty generic characters. We had our elf ranger, our drunken dwarf fighter, our gnome wizard, and...me.

Being me, I couldn't have a generic character. I dislike anything to do with generics, so I decided to make a character with a killer backstory, pulling out everything I could.

So I made an Ifrit sorcerer with the elemental (primal fire) bloodline, with a high stealth and...a baby phoenix on his shoulder constantly.

My GM allowed this, as the only mechanical purpose that Nix (her name) served was the occasional bit of healing (1/day tears, 1D6) and sometimes lighting the occasional arrow on fire. We worked out that Nix would level up at half the normal party rate, and would gain some small abilities like phoenii as she did so...

What my GM didn't realize at the time was that while the Ifrit didn't appear particularly powerful on paper, he quickly became our party's rough equiv of a "send in the deus ex machina". He burned through encounters like nothing (although that WAS partially our GMs fault), had an ungodly initiative, and largely was overshadowing everyone. After a few hours of tinkering, we realized that I'd goofed during creation, breaking the rules accidentally more than once, but even after the rebuild, he still blasted through everything.

Eventually our GM stepped aside because he felt he wasn't doing a good job, especially when people did things he wasn't expecting, and I took over for a campaign. After that campaign, Daijhunna (by popular request) was retired as a character.

Anyways, tell me about your outrageous characters that snuck past your GM. Preferably without breaking the rules like I inadvertently did, but all are welcome. Tell me about your broken characters, the ones that made your GMs cry.

The tears taste so sweet

Wildfire

Okay, so I just came up with an idea for a character, not sure if it'd work, who is a tinker who specializes in light siege weaponry. My idea for his "kill move" is thus:

Tinker has microphone in Alpha's compartment, Alpha can be a siege engine with a modification designed to throw small boxes...

but when he yells a word twice into the mic, that small box turns into a massive honkin' ship that then falls and crushes whatever's beneath it.

The tinker just launched a freakin' folding boat at you...from a seige engine...

That's gravity bow on steroids! I'd like to see the (non deific) enemy stand up to that!

In the description, it doesn't specify what happens when the ship hits something hard, so...technically speaking I could just say the command word again and have it fold up??

enough about MY weird ideas, let's here YOURS! tell me if mine was feasable, please. I GM a pathfinder group right now, but when someone else GMs, I want to see the look on the GMs face when I drop a 2000 lb ship onto the enemy's face.

Submit strange kill ideas to me please!

HA! Thanks. Bioboy and I were arguing on this one. Y'see, I came up with a level 7 Tiefling char that is just...beastly... and we're having kind of a fun game to se who can come up with the most OP character. We're then going to have them fight to prove which one is better. His SLA is a raise dead with 1 HD, and I wanted to be able to do more with that. I used the metamagic rod's price to determine the price for it, which came out to about 600gp. I added 1000 to it because it's modifying the metamagic, raising the value of HD rather than damage

thanks for the assist!

Wildfire

TOZ wrote:

Bioboygamer wrote:

It's less a case of "GM-controlled NPC" and more a case of "GM-Controlled PC".

That's what most of the people here have a problem with.

Yes. A GM-Controlled NPC is every NPC. It's the GM-Controlled PC that creates difficulties.

If you don't want to kill off this character, there are plenty of other ways to remove him from play. Have him get an urgent message that his family needs help, for example. He runs off to do whatever, and the PCs go on with their adventure.

I ended up removing him from the game, under the context that the phoenix baby (ember) with him was put into substantial danger during the time while he was adventuring with the party, and he wanted to find a place to bring her up without too much risk involved. (or at least, that's what he told the party. In truth, he had a connection to the BBEG that he didn't want to tell the party about, and he left because of that). For a while, Haarsk (our party warrior), had an amulet that could summon him once/month as a deus ex machina in case of overwhelming enemies, but that amulet recently broke when Haarsk tried to use it more than once in a month.

I'm aware that it was a bad call. Thanks for the help, guys. I especially love Ravingdork's Dialogue there. Lesson learned, won't do it again. I've built a bladebound magus character for the guy in question, and he loves the idea. Since I can make well built characters (my first one was an Ifrit sorcerer blaster build that went with the primal elemental bloodline and killed EVERYTHING), I'm building him a good char to get around his biggest issue (the incompetent char) and get the party back on track.

Wildfire Heart wrote:

...to be honest, unless you yourself are a stone hearted person yourself, the impartiality to which you suggest is a necessity is simply not possible...

Doesn't make it right when you fail, just understandable when and why you failed.

We don't expect perfect DMing, pick yourself up and try again.

story of my damn life lol. thanks for the tips guys

I appreciate the nuance of NobodysHome's house rule suggestion, but it bears emphasizing that this is still a sort of adversarial approach to getting through a rules dispute, and that's bad for the game.

The GM is not playing against the players. The GM ought to take no joy in using an agreed upon rule to devastating effect on the players. Sure "turnabout's fair play", but if that turnabout results in a TPK then all you've done is proven why the ruling should not have been allowed to begin with. And you have to hit the reset button on the campaign. Doesn't sound like fun to me.

The GM is winning the game when they convincingly challenge the players, but those same players are enjoying the challenge. The second part is more important than the first, and if you're not meeting that second criterion, you cannot be described as successfully GMing.

This doesn't mean you need to be santa claus, by any means. It means that your first duty to the game is to make sure the players are having fun. That includes the masochistic kind of fun where you're scraping through by the skin of your teeth. It does NOT include having your PC arbitrarily killed because the GM decided he didn't like it.

It doesn't matter that the spell was misinterpreted. It doesn't matter if the player was annoying, or the character was weak. Nothing matters beyond the fact that your intent to arbitrarily kill a PC is at odds with your most basic mandate as a GM.

While I'll agree that as a GM, I am supposed to remain impartial, and not gun for a PC, that particular PC was disruptive and interfering with the enjoyment of the party in general. While there are better ways of dealing with the problem, this was an opportunity presented by another player, which I, in my limited GM experience, thought was within the rules. And to be honest, unless you yourself are a stone hearted person yourself, the impartiality to which you suggest is a necessity is simply not possible. I have held back before, saving a PC which should have died because, despite what you might think, I'm not inherently a bad person. I did not want to "off" the PC, but I honestly didn't see any alternatives. While I am aware that I reached, and won't do it again, I don't regret getting rid of such a nuisance.

And to be honest, the way I see GMing is like this: My job is to create content and campaigns, or find such campaigns on the internet, and make sure that everyone enjoys themselves while playing through the game. A character like the summoner described above made my job (making sure everyone enjoys themselves) significantly harder. In addition, it frustrated the person playing as the character, because he couldn't do much at all.

I won't convince you, since you seem intent that circumstance doesn't matter, but I take pride in the campaigns that I make, and the enjoyment of my peers. I've GM'ed one campaign and a bit of a second, the first was a murder mystery set in a large city, and every player at the table enjoyed it. During that campaign, one PC almost died, and one should have died but for GM intervention.

At the end of the day, the person who died might have been annoyed at the death of his character, but shit happens. There's a difference between a GM just 'arbitrarily' killing a PC and what I did, at least to me anyways. Next session, he'll get a nice new PC, he'll be useful in combat, and the party will have more fun in general, because now they won't have deadweight.

It's a win-win, in my book.
yours is up to you.

Nobodyshome, thanks. You've cleared the air for me. I'm kind of new to pathfinder in general, and all of us are as well (The OP, my friend, and our disruptive player.) you probably already guessed that.

I must admit, the first post you made annoyed me at first, but looking at it, showed admirable restraint. Now that you realize the situation, you have been most helpful. Thank you very much for your advice. I plan on implementing the "1 minute" rule as soon as we go to our next session.

love the avatar :)

he was using his familiar for combat AND NOT HIMSELF. he was trying to make his familiar (a spider monkey) powerful, he tried to make it a gorilla early on, but was blocked by our old GM, who was in fact the OP on this comment thread.

I realize that the problem is with the player, but I needed to get rid of the character before I was able to address the problem (that is, the impotent character.) While I recognize that it is a bad thing to do as a GM, the player wouldn't listen to me before when I had tried to coach him through making a character. Instead, he took what he thought was cool looking (Ie flight and mount evolutions on an eidolon) but had none of the support or weapon profs for a mounted character.

Just trying to add some context here, so you understand why I did it.

@Rynjin, I wasn't saying it was an unfair advantage, but when everything he does (or tries to do) revolves around this monkey familiar, then he argues with the GM when the GM tells him that the familiar can't do it, it gets aggravating.

When the most common spell a level 4 wizard casts is ray of frost, you know something's wrong.

As for the summoner character AND the wizard char, there have been entire 6 hour long sessions where he hasn't cast a single spell above 0th level

umm...no. The character in question has been disruptive to the group across several sessions, occaisionally actively hindering the group. His backstory (where it existed) was cliche and did nothing but give him unfair advantages or reasons for doing things he otherwise wouldn't.

for example, one character and an npc considered family to that character shares a common language that most party members don't. (ignan) he tells the party that his dead mother has told him to take ignan as a language for no other evident reason but to hear what that character was saying.

Another example. His (old) character tried to use his familiar (a monkey) for EVERYTHING, up to and including using it in combat.

His new character was much the same, and he built his character with next to no backstory other than the fact that he hates the dark summoners (the BBEG is one of them). This character...I don't even want to get into it. 90% of what he said was a varient on "I hate the dark summoners", or "My parents are dead".

I'm also helping him build a new character, one that can actually do something. he likes magic, but doesn't seem to like hanging back during combat, so I'm making him a magus, and we'll see if he likes it.

But when he did die, I spent about twenty minutes arguing with him about it, then (because time was short) had him res SOMEHOW as a medium ice elemental just to get him to the point where we could continue with the adventure.

I actually had another thing planned, whereby the party was separated by a magical device, and you had to fight a creature by yourself. The summoner would have died there in all probability, and this conversation would never have happened.

But the term "giant dire leech" is actually just the words I used to conjure up an image. I could have just called it "Blood sucking thing from the outskirts of the void".

I was gunning for him, but I did so reasonably, I think.

I am the GM in this scenario. You were right. To some extent, I DID want to kill the PC. The summoner in question has been disruptive due to sheer impotency. I had my friend the oracle tell me that the compassionate ally spell did what he said it would. I also increased the damage of the leech, owing to the fact that giants use it for healing, and he tried to use it on a halfling. Even so, I gave him 4 rolls, any one of which would have saved him.

1. The giant rolled a 19 on the heal check, which meant that he knew how to apply said leech to a giant, -2 for circumstance penalty due to it being applied to a halfling .

2. A CMD check to avoid having the leech used on him. The character got a 1 on the check, instant fail

3. The damage roll, which normally would have been lower, was a D8 due to the fact that halflings have much, MUCH less blood than a giant. I could have dome a D2+(circumstance bonus), but instead I gave him a chance. instead of applying a large bonus to damage, I rolled a D8. I rolled an 8 for damage, +2, for a 10 con dmg.

4. A fortitude save, for half damage, that he failed miserably.

The PC in question was a summoner with an eidolon that could only do a D6 in combat and did nothing but fly him around. His other (thankfully gone) character was a wizard that was in the same position.

I may or may not have made a bad decision here. I know this.

I've already got a plan for this. I'm removing Daijhunna from the game until further notice. I am also replacing him with a cleric NPC, because nobody is playing one and we're likely going to need that in the future

Thanks for all your help!

(PS, this thread can be closed now.)

hmm... Thank you for the advice. Part of the reason I wanted to keep him around was because as an aspiring author, I wanted to use him and gain more material, but I see now that he's simply too powerful a PC for this group. Even if I hadn't taken over as GM, this character would be stealing the limelight in most encounters, as a fairly well optimized PC in a new pathfinder group. I may reactivate him at a later date, as his backstory is simply too rich for me to simply discard. Thanks for the advice.

This was kind of an issue before I became a GM, and that was kind of what I was trying to avoid. Thanks for the honest answer though... The reason why I don't want to do this is because there's only really two of us who could possibly GM, and I apparently do it better. If I take the character out like you suggest, I likely won't get to roleplay for a while, if I get to at all.

So okay...me, bioboygamer and a few other guys have made our pathfinder game, and things seem to be going fairly well. I'm GMing now, because apparently I'm pretty darn good at coming up with story lines and such. Because I also don't want to miss out on the fun of playing/creating/roleplaying a character, I am still using my character from when my friend Bioboygamer was GMing, and after a number of sessions, we've all agreed on two things:

1. I am good at GMing, and we've mostly been enjoying ourselves...but...

2. Through the liberal use of the Efreeti sorcerer alt and a feat that boosts ECL, my char is doing substantially more damage than anyone else. While most people in the game have builds that are as far from optimized as possible, I apparently stumbled upon a REALLY good build and am effectively dominating the encounters... I also apparently have ungodly luck with d20 rolls, to the point that Daijhunna (my char) rolls a crit at least once a session.

Now I know that there's a problem here, but I'm not sure how to solve it. My char does 8D6+8 for scorching ray at level 5, and can do it 6 times/day due to his 20 CHA. We went with the 4D6 take away the lowest for our stats, and my char has unusually high stats for his level, with his lowest at 10 (str) and his second highest at 18 (Dex) again, this is partially due to his efreeti blood (+2 CHA, DEX, -2 WIS) but even that (WIS) is at a 12! Most chars have only one negative stat (8 or 9), or don't at all, so the stats aren't that different, but where his power really pulls away is with the primal bloodline arcana and the alt sorcerer thing (1/2 sorc lvl to ECL of bloodline power) Between that and his mage's tattoo, he has an ECL of 8 for scorching ray, which is the reason for his being so damn powerful.

(by comparison, our summoner has an eidolon that can barely fight due to him taking the mount and flight evolution so early and not having a lance or anything for mounted combat, our fighter has taken both catch off guard and throw anything, our previous GM has an inspector char who is NOT make for combat, and we have a decently optimized monk and another good tinker char. You can tell that we're new here, right??)

Is there any solution that you can tell me that doesn't involve either completely demolishing my char or rebuilding the party? because if so, now would be an amazing time to tell me. I don't want to have to redo a large chunk of the next campaign, (I make my campaigns from scratch), and either way, it's going to throw off CR estimates for sessions down the road.

HELP!!!

Okay, so hear me out on this one: we all know that the ray 1st lvl abilities are basically useless. So what I propose is this: as either a second or third level spell that only sorcerers with the 1st level bloodline ability (ray) can take, is the spell

Elemental Barrage:
As a full round action, All of your uses of elemental ray for that day are fired. The range, etc for the spell is as normal, but if you target multiple enemies, they all must be within 30 feet of each other. Your bonus to damage due to level is halved.

So if you are a level four sorcerer taking this spell (assuming no CL+ or damage boost perks), you get 1D6 +1 per ray, with the option of splitting it over many enemies. Assuming that you have 20 CHA, that's a total of 8D6+8 damage, not bad at all for a 2nd level spell.

(the half level bonus and the full round action thing are optional, I just thought I'd make it less powerful. The damage otherwise would be 8D6+16 for a standard action in this case. Downside is, you can only use it once per day.

Either way, I'd like to hear what you guys think about this, because let's face it, as a sorcerer with those ray powers, you'd love to trade that first level ability in for just about anything else.

Ok, so Bioboygamer and a few other guys, and of course, me, have made a pathfinder group. Nobody has ever played pathfinder before, but with the exception of my character's accidental rule breaking Over-powered fiery rage, we proceeded with surprisingly little trouble. We completed a "Crypt of the Everflame" Segment as well as a standard dungeon crawl. We are now level four, and I took over for a campaign to do a city campaign. (murder mystery).

Considering that in four weeks or so (however long the campaign lasts) he'll be GMing again, how much should he know about the current circumstances?

Hey everyone, I'm the guy playing with the OP here, and I can clarify a few things.

1: I DID have my character sheet with me. I'm not a complete idiot, nor a cheater.
2: I fully admit that I goofed up on a few things. This was my first time playing the game, and every change that my GM has made was taken in stride.
3: My character isn't particularly powerful, merely streamlined, with above average stats.
4: Our encounters to start have been laughably easy for the most part, and many enemies have been weak to magic, or resistant to melee, meaning my char has been front and center for almost every encounter.

for example, 6 skeletons, with regen 1 and 6 hp. The first turn, I hit the 3 bunched together with a cone of fire, killing all of them. I then took out 2 on the next turn, slightly damaging a teammate in the process. Meanwhile, our dwarf and our werewolf fought 1, damaging it slightly. Our dwarf realized their resistance, and so used the blunt end of his axe. Our wizard killed the final one with acid splash (lolwut) and our werewolf almost got knocked unconscious before I killed the two that were near him.

5: I seem to have the luck of the bloody devil on initiative rolls. Seriously, my worst roll on init in 6 sessions was an 8.
6: I am well aware of my knack for scavenging, and have since toned it down.

Hopefully this will shed some light on the scenario.