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So I'm looking for a bit of help with some inspiration. Life has just been too busy for me lately to come up with ideas organically, so I'm seeking help to boost my inspiration in the right direction. Here's my issue:

I'm currently running ROTRL for my group who have just defeated Barl and finished the Hook Mountain Massacre. It's the beginning of Winter, and they've discovered that Teraktinus plans to attack Sandpoint at first thaw. With the increased travel time due to the winter conditions, it looks like the party will reach Sandpoint within days of the first day of spring. However, due to an out of game scheduling conflict, our next session is going to be pretty short, and I'm not confident we'll have enough time to complete the battle of Sandpoint in one next session. Instead of cutting the session in the middle of the battle, I'd rather add a little something extra between the Hook Mountain and Sandpoint for the PCs to deal with.

Here's where my ideas are going, let me know if you feel this can be improved, or if there is a more interesting sidequest they could deal with:

Nualia managed to escape the PCs at Thistletop. The PCs then encountered her again when they visited the Seven's Sawmill, where she escaped again. During this time, the Paladin and Druid are both convinced she can be saved, and turned from her dark path. Both players have talked to me about this out-of-game, and so I allowed them to get their hands on a strand of her hair, which they've used periodically to scry on her. This has allowed me to give them a good deal of the story ahead of time that they normally wouldn't have access to. Also, during both encounters, the Paladin and Druid have fought her non-lethally, tried to talk and reason with her, and even managed to succeed in a very high DC Diplomacy Role to improve her disposition (and thus flee the battle at the Sawmill).

I'd like for Nualia to play a pivotal role in the Battle of Sandpoint, perhaps having something to do with the secret passage from the glassworks, and if the PCs play their cards right, I may even have her switch sides and help with fighting Longtooth.

But, as I said earlier; I'd like to put a sidequest in front of them before they return to defend Sandpoint - something that would take a day or less to complete.

However, this seems to be where my inspiration has ceased. Should I have them encounter her one last time on their travel back to Sandpoint? What would she likely be doing? Who/what might likely be aiding her? Would she once again return to Thistletop to plan her second attack on Sandpoint? What do you think?

Hey everyone, I'm currently in talks with my players for what kind of characters they want to play in an upcoming campaign. One of them has decided on playing a Lawful Good Magus, but is torn between which race he'd like to play. He really likes the idea the mechanics behind a Tiefling Magus, but he's currently stumped on a backstory and personality for the character - and he won't play a character unless the character is an actual character, and has a compelling backstory. I totally respect that kind of choice, but I'm stumped as well and can't seem to think of a good backstory for a Lawful Good Teifling Magus either, so if anyone has any ideas, please feel free to post them.

If it's any help, the campaign will likely be either Curse of the Crimson Throne or Shattered Star.

Hey, so I recently created a new character for my game table, and decided to try something different. Seeing as the group already had a switch-hitting ranger and she has damage pretty-well covered, I decided to see if I could make a defensive-based character work in a group. Paladins, with their high saves and the ability to heal themselves as a swift action seemed like the best route to go to accomplish this.

Now, I know that going a defensive-route for characters is sub-optimal in anything that's d20-based, and that just killing enemies, or using spells to render them useless is really the more effective way to go; but I've been gaming for a very long time and really would like to try something different and new, just to see if I can have fun with it. I was quite surprised when I found a combination that actually worked by working-around the innate disadvantage that defensive building comes with.

The idea is that if you're too tough of a target, and enemies can't take you down easily, they'll simply focus on your allies and leave you for last. So, if you could find a way that trying to get to or to take down your allies is more of a headache than simply dealing with you, that would do pretty well to eliminate this disadvantage right?

Enter the Bodyguard Feat. You can use an AoO to use an Aid Another Action on an ally that is the subject of an attack. But Aiding is only a +2 bonus, which is kind of inconsequential. Unless you're a halfling and you took the Helpful trait, which increases your Aid Another bonus from +2 to +4 - suddenly Bodyguard actually becomes a useful and viable option! We began play at level 3, so I was able to actually begin by using this combination (since Bodyguard requires Combat Reflexes). So far, it's proven quite effective in getting enemies to leave my allies alone. They're instead stuck dealing with me, which due to my small size, and that I'm carrying a shield, my AC high enough that most of them aren't able to hit me reliably.

However, from this point I'm not so sure where to go, and so I ask for your advice. There's a lot of options, but nothing is really standing out. Stand Still seems like a no-brainer for this setup, as does Lunge. Covering Defense seems like a nice Teamwork feat that will give my allies more AC against ranged attacks just for standing next to me, but other feats like Saving Shield, Missile Shield and Covering Defense, just don't seem all that worth it. The main goal isn't so much to make my character an invincible defensive powerhouse, but to make him a hard target while simultaneously making it so that trying to deal with his allies is so annoying or obnoxious or difficult, that you are left with few options aside from dealing with him first.

Are there any other feats (or paladin spells) that you know of that make it difficult to deal with your allies, without outright forcing them to attack you (a la Antagonize)? What other feats (or paladin spells or magic items) help improve your own defensive abilities? Would an Order of the Shield Cavalier have made a better choice for this setup? What do you think?

PS: I feel I should reiterate that I know that creating a melee character not specced for damage is sub-optimal. I know that playing defensively is not the most effective way to play. I've been gaming for a very long time, and am really just looking for something that's new and different, but that isn't a total waste of space at the table. I'm perfectly fine with the other players in my party getting the spotlight in that regard.

So, a player at my table is looking to play a Dragon Disciple in an upcoming game, and I've okayed the Cabalist Magus Archetype for him to do so. In case you're unfamiliar with the archetype, Here is a link. His plan is to get to 7th level and choose Crossblooded Dragonic/Elemental Bloodline, then go immediately into Dragon Disciple at 8. The campaign is set to go from 1st to 17th level, and will use standard Wealth by Level. So, he's got an idea of where to go, but needs help filling in the last few feats, Magus Arcana and such.

Now, a couple of things to keep in mind here:
A) He wants to go Strength-based and use medium armor to better synergize with the Dragon Disciple bonuses to Strength and Natural Armor. So no advice recommending Dervish Dance, please.
B) The group only consists of 3 players, so he is trying to fill the role of both a martial character and arcane caster, hence the Spell Blendings at higher level. If you have ideas for good Wizard Spells to take at these levels, by all means suggest them.
C) His weapon will be a scimitar, but the party's rogue is dual-wielding kukris (martial weapon proficiency gained from the Swashbuckler Archetype) and she has the Butterfly Sting feat specifically to help him with crit-fishing. Both of them are open to the idea of Teamwork Feats.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

Here's my scenario. A fighter and monk both possess Paired Opportunists, but only the monk has Vicious Stomp. When the monk knocks an opponent down(let's assume by tripping), that opponent provokes an attack of opportunity. However, the attack must be an unarmed strike, which the monk is perfectly okay with. But what about the Fighter Standing next to him that also threatens the opponent? Paired Opportunists states that:

... Enemies that provoke attacks of opportunity from your ally also provoke attacks of opportunity from you so long as you threaten them (even if the situation or an ability would normally deny you the attack of opportunity)

So does the fighter then just get an normal, unrestricted AoO, since the situation would normally deny him the ability to perform it with a weapon, and Paired Opportunists specifically overcomes that? Or for some other reason would the fighter only be able to use an unarmed strike for his AoO?

I've had a player come up with some really strange ideas lately, and has been asking alot of questions about the Eldritch Heritge Feat and how it interacts with alternative ways to gain bloodlines. The feat says this:

Eldritch Heritage

You are descended from a long line of sorcerers, and some portion of their power flows in your veins.
Prerequisites: Cha 13, Skill Focus with the class skill of bloodline selected for this feat (see below), character level 3rd.
Benefit: Select one sorcerer bloodline. You must have Skill focus in the class skill that bloodline grants to a sorcerer at 1st level (for example, Heal for the celestial bloodline). This bloodline cannot be a bloodline you already have. You gain the first-level bloodline power for the selected bloodline. For purposes of using that power, treat your sorcerer level as equal to your character level – 2, even if you have levels in sorcerer. You do not gain any of the other bloodline abilities.

So here's the questions began. Note the sentence I bolded. I understand that if you are a sorcerer and already possess a bloodline, that you can't take this feat to get abilities faster. I've got that.

But how does this feat interact with the Dragon Disciple prestige class's Blood of Dragons ability? Like, say for instance that I began as a Bard and chose Skill Focus (Perception) as my first level feat and Eldritch Heritage (Dragonic) at level 3. Then, after reaching 6th level took levels in the Dragon Disciple Prestige class? Would this mean that to determine the potency of my claws, that I add my levels in Dragon Disciple to my total character level -2? Does it make the Eldritch Heritage feat void, since I now possess the same bloodline as the feat is giving me? Or should I make a common sense house rule and simply go with my levels of Dragon Disciple plus my levels of non-Dragon Disciple -2? Or is there a better answer that I'm just not seeing?

Now here's where it gets a bit more confusing. Let's assume I'm playing the Cabalist Magus and I took the Eldritch Heritage (Draconic) feat at 3rd level. What happens at 7th level when I gain the Boodline Power ability? Am I eligible to take the Draconic Bloodline then, or not? Do I have two separate sets of abilities - like having claws twice, one from the feat and a second from the class ability? Because I didn't already have the bloodline when I took Eldritch Heritage, I came upon the abilities of a bloodline later, not an actual bloodline itself.

While I'm on the subject, how does the Cabalist Magus of 7th level or higher that chose the Bloodline Power (Draconic) interact with the Dragon Disciple Prestige Class's Blood of Dragons ability? Do I add my levels of Magus and Dragon Disciple together to determine the effectiveness of my powers? Or do I simply have two sets of the same powers (as I mentioned above)?

But what if I combine all my above questions? What if I began as a Cabalist Magus, then at 3rd level took the Eldritch Heritage (Draconic) feat, then waited until 7th level to pick up the Bloodline Power (Draconic) class ability, then just dove right into the Dragon Disciple class at level 8? What happens then? Is this even possible? Does that mean I could have three sets of draconic abilities? Or that I combine my Magus + Dragon Disciple + CL -2 to determine my bloodine abilities? Or is it some other combination?

As you can see, it's alot of gray and murky areas to have machinegunned at me by a player. Any help would be appreciated.

So, a player mentioned to me recently he's debating about playing an alchemist. What he knows thus far is that he wants to focus on fighting from a range, so a beastmorph/vivisectionist kind of thing is out. What do you guys think is more effective? A Grenedier bomb thrower, focusing on extra bombs and extra discoveries; or a vivisectionist that throws knives or darts or javelins or shurikens and builds for the Snap Shot feat chain?

Hey guys, I'm getting ready to run a session this weekend, and my party is likely going to end up having to deal with some mounted opponents. Now, the party's wizard loves to lead off with a Slow spell in nearly every combat that seems like it's going to be difficult. So, I know it's going to come up, but how do you guys run how the two interact? Do you use the rider's save for both rider and mount? Or does the rider and mount roll separately? This just seems to get foggy about when a rider wants to perform a full attack action but the mount is slowed, or how does a mount react if the rider is slowed? etc.

A situation hasn't come up yet, but I know my players and I want to make sure I have a clean answer before it does.

So, I've begun playing Skull and Shackles with a new gaming group. My roommate picked up the adventure path and we've picked up a brand new group of players to run this adventure path. Though he's altering it slightly to take place in a homebrew world that we've been playing in for the past 17 years, the AP will remain unchanged, except for the names of some places.

Since I'm already running two games myself, and spend alot of time working on them, I just didn't feel comfortable making up a character that was too complex. Though I usually GM, when I play I tend to be characters with complex backstories and lots of inner-workings, and I play more complicated classes like wizard, clerics, or a paladin (if the GM isn't a jerk). But, this time, I just didn't feel like I was going to have the time in my life to let enough creative juice flow to be able to do something like that. So, I decided to play a very simple fighter. I'm going to play a Spartan.

In this homebrew world is a country by the name of Hespar, which is a fantasictal version of ancient Sparta, post battle of Thermopylae. We did our research when creating this country years ago, and it's pretty accurate to how ancient Sparta worked, including a caste system, a bone pit of dead babies, young boys undergoing the agoge, women having most of the responsibilities in a household, etc. Anyways, The character concept was simple. A Hespearean mercenary by the name of Urian Pentifax, who had been tasked with protecting a merchant vessel on its way past the Shackles, when the ship is attacked by pirates and he's shanghaied. Litterally, the simplest backstory I've ever written.

We were given a 20 point buy, so his physical stats are amazing, but his mental stats (including charisma) are all in the crapper. I wanted to mix it up and play the BSF. I wanted a simple character that didn't take too much thought. I got far more than I bargained for...

These are the stories of the Spartan in Skull and Shackles. What follows are his daily accounts of what happened to him over the course of this campaign. If you haven't played Skull and Shackles, read no further. This story will be chalk-full of spoilers.

Our Party:
Hepsar: Human Fighter (generic), TWF/Shield build
Sorin: Drow Rogue(swashbuckler)/Gunslinger(Buccaneer)/Monk (Master of many styles), skill/dodge AC build
Celeste: Aquatic Elf Witch, control build
Feona: Human Bard (Seasinger), archer build
Deadeye: Half-Elf Fighter (Archer)/Sorcerer (Sage Bloodline)/Acrane Archer, snap shot build

So I have a player who's looking to join my game that's very interested in playing a Magus, however his character concept involves being a sword-and-board fighter that has a small emphasis on arcane magic. I'd origianlly recommended the Skirnir, but he felt like it just gave up too much of the magus's key abilities for the ability to use a shield; he also didn't like the "bonded shield" idea very much.

I'd really like to find a way for this character to work, but it just seems like the magus class was specifically designed to use only a single weapon. He brought up the idea of how a light shield may still allow him to cast a spell with his off hand, he'd just have to roll the arcane spell failure. Here's the rules he cited:

Shield, Light; Wooden or Steel: You strap a shield to your forearm and grip it with your hand. A light shield's weight lets you carry other items in that hand, although you cannot use weapons with it.

Spell Combat (Ex): At 1st level, a magus learns to cast spells and wield his weapons at the same time. This functions much like two-weapon fighting, but the off-hand weapon is a spell that is being cast. To use this ability, the magus must have one hand free (even if the spell being cast does not have somatic components), while wielding a light or one-handed melee weapon in the other hand.

He believes this means his shield arm is "free enough" to cast a spell with it, but my gut reaction is to say "you grip it with your hand" means that "your hand isn't free." At best, possibly using spell combat to fight with your sword normally, then switching it to your offhand to cast the spell, but this does seem to go against the intentions of how the ability should work. Really though, spell combat is almost an ancillary ability in his mind, he really just wants to not kill his fighting ability to pick up arcane magic and really liked the spellstrike ability.

What do you guys think? Is there a good way to build a magus or a fighter(or paladin or ranger)/magus that uses sword and board? All advice is welcome, but please no trash-talking sword and board. My friend is perfectly accepting of that it is sub-optimal and is more concerned with fitting the concept without making a character that is unplayable.

So, I want to preface this post with a small backstory to understand where it's coming from. If you'd prefer the TLDR version, just skip to the end. But anyways, I've been playing tabletop for about 17 years, and have almost exclusively DMed for 14 of them. I began at age 13 with 2nd Ed D&D, and if you've seen either of "The Gamer's" movies, you'll have some kind of insight into about how our games went back then. We didn't know what we were doing, so we made alot of mistakes and had alot of pretty disjointed stories and crated some insane game-breaking, rules-ignoring characters. Foremost among them was my best friend's Elf: Darkpath - a name that lives on in infamy a our tabletop, even to this day.

Darkpath is the character that taught us alot of good lessons for being a DM. Lessons like why you should be familiar with magic item creation rules, and why you don't let players take their characters to other games to "power them up," or why you keep a close eye on what the chracters do in their down time. Darkpath loopholed, bent, and munchkined, every rule - and rules that downplayed him were often overlooked. Eventually, he had his own kingdom with tens of thousands of followers, all equipped to the teeth with magical gear, and he had enough class levels to descend to the depths of Hell and knock Asmodeus around every weekend. Eventually, we set up a game date where each of us brought our most powerful character from any campaign we'd ever been in. In total, about 15 of us, banded together to form a team of resistance fighters, bent on taking down this evil tyrant. In a huge 72-hour long game-a-thon we impaled ourselves upon his defenses, and to a man, were defeated - Darkpath had won the day. After that, Darkpath's player moved on, and the character has been retired for the past decade or so. He never even got to see 3rd Ed.

So anyways, fast forward to today, where I'm getting ready to start a new campaign for the next generation of gamers in my area. They've played in a couple campaigns of mine now, and have only ever heard rumors of Darkpath - anecdotes of a bygone age. Many of my PCs now use his name as a synonym for having ridiculous power, or for when someone totally optimizes their character without regard for story or consequence. In game, he's a mysterious figure who has appeared from time to time, and exudes an air of mystery power about himself. So, seeing as it's been a long time being built up, I bringing this old PC back from retirement to become the BBEG in my next Pathfinder campaign. The only thing is, this character originally came from 2nd Ed, and has never been converted. Even so, converting him directly, he loses out on ALOT of his power because of the changes to class balance since then. So, I'm looking to convert him to an "idea" that mimics the character's original idea, while still giving my PCs an challenging foe to fight. And so, I seek your help.

Here's where you can start reading for TLDR:

In 2nd Ed, he looked like this:
Elf: Level 20 Cleric/20 Mage/20 Rogue (keep in mind, this was 2nd Ed, so this did equate to a 20th level character, not a 60th level one)
- Cleric, because it was bar-none the most powerful class in the game.
- Rogue, because then he's got Backstab for the extra damage
- Mage, because that gets him Magic Missile, Fireball and Meteor Swarm (not the most well-rounded spell loadout, I know.)
- He had all the followers that each of those classes had, plus he made magic items to keep them outfitted.
- His Alignment, of course, was Chaotic Neutral. Because no other alignment is quite so proficient at totally screwing over the rest of the party! :)

I know that duplicating all those abilities is just not going to happen without actually building him as a 60th level character, which I'm not going to do. I'd like to keep him to the confines of level 20, possibly going higher if he really needs to, to gain specific class abilities. The Leadership feat, however, is going to be pretty much required in his final build.

Now, clerics aren't nearly as gamebreaking compared to other classes as they were in 2nd Ed, so I'm looking for an alternative here. This guy is supposed to stand up to a party on his own, and clerics seem to be at their most powerful when working with and supporting a group. My initial thought here is to go one of two ways: Druid or Vivisectionist Alchemist. With Druid, he gets some more melee effectiveness and some decent buff spells, but the vivisectionist alchemist gets alot more melee effectiveness, and alot more self-buffing potential. Plus, the vivisectionist route covers the "backstab" prequisite that he originally had rogue levels for.

For a full compliment of magic, I'm torn between being an Evoker, Cross-Blooded Sorcerer, or Magus

Should I go with the vivisectionist option, then the Silent Hunter alternate racial trait to compensate for not having Stealth as a class skill seemed like a decent choice; along with Cross-bloodlined sorcerer with Sage (to compliment the high Int I'll want from being an alchemist), but haven't been able to decide on a useful second bloodline.

Mystic Theurge seems like the Go-To prestige class for this character, but building to properly do so reduces his melee capabilities significantly.

That's where I'm at right now. I'm not married to any of these ideas, so all advice is welcome.

In my current game, I have a player looking to play a whip-wielding fighter, and has brought a number of rules questions regarding how exactly certain mechanics interact with the whip.

1) With Imp. Whip Mastery, the whip threatens at a range of 15'. Does that mean that if he has the Combat Reflexes feat, that he can get 2 attacks of opportunity on an enemy that moves from out of his range into melee with him? (when the enemy moves from 15' to 10', and again from 10' to 5')

2) The Vital Strike feats state that the extra damage is applied when the wielder uses the "attack" action. Is an Attack of Opportunity considered an attack action? Or does this feat only work when using a Standard Action to perform an attack.

3) If Vital Strike works when using an "attack action," does this mean that it deals it's damage if you use your "attack action" to perform a combat maneuver like Disarm or Trip (but not Bull Rush or Overrun, since those are specific standard actions)?

Most of this confusion is stemming from the term "attack action." If neither of these Vital Strike interactions work, then is there any way to have Vital Strike Errata'ed to be listed as its own Standard Action, like Cleave?

How do abilities like Smite Evil and Sneak attack interact with the feat Two Weapon Rend? Does the extra damage/damage dice from these abilities get added to TWR's damage? What about a fighter that is dual wielding weapons that he has Weapon Specialization with? I'm really just looking for where the line gets drawn with this ability.

Hey guys.

I'm just getting ready to start on a new game. The story is ready, I've chosen my players, all that's left is for me to fill in the blanks in my notebook and start building my individual sessions.

Amidst all the work I've been putting in, I've left one thing very important to the plot out. The campaign will involve the players travelling around a single country, trying to assemble the MacGuffin before the bad guy can assemble his own and release a great evil power upon the world. Despite the fact I've outlined this entire campaign, I seemed to encounter a block asto the exact form of the macguffin, but my creative juices were flowing so heavily for the story that I just continued to write the story that was coming to me and figured I'd come up with the exact form of the macguffin at a later date.

Well, as I mentioned earlier, this campaign is pretty much ready to go and I've got players chomping at the bit to play in it, so I really need to come up with this last detail, and fast. Since I'm still experiencing a block as to what to make it, I figured I'd toss it out here and see what kind of cool ideas all of you guys had, considering the density of creative talent on these boards.

There's nothing in the description of the Challenge ability that states that you can't have more than one foe challenged at any given time. Like for example, suppose a 8th level Cavalier is fighting 3 enemies, then over the course of 3 rounds, by using 3 separate swift actions, he'd be able to challenge each one of them, and get his bonus damage against all three. Is this correct, or has this been Errata-ed?

Hey guys, I've been running a homebrew 3.5/Pathfinder game that has been going over the course of 5 years and stretched three campaigns. The first two campaigns worked amazingly well and I never felt burned out for the the 3 years I ran them. In fact, those campaigns went over so well, that my players spread the word and praises for my GMing to the point that I've developed a waiting list for my tabletop games, and now have far more people interested in playing than I can accommodate at one time. I've never really had difficulty running my games in the past, and I realy do enjoy GMing. Even my current campaign was going great until recently.

My current campaign is only 2 sessions from ending (maybe three if the players really draw it out). We've been playing bi-weekly for jut over two years, and all the players have gone from level 1 to now level 16-17. The challenges have varied from encounter to encounter, story to story, and the players have had their fair share of losses along the way, but have managed to come out on top in the end. However, something seemed to change with them in a session a few months ago, and now it's to the point I don't even want to finish the campaign I'm so burned out of them.

The session where it started was when they decided to try and lay a trap for another adventuring party who they'd earned the ire of. Each of the 6 PCs were 14th level, and were going up against a witch, sorcerer and monk, also 14th level and nearly suffered a TPK from the encounter. It wasn't that I was metagaming my players or anything, as I had the enemy party's tactics written down ahead of time. It's that the PCs plan was all-around a very bad plan, poorly executed, and the gish characters (like the magus and paladin) were trying to play to the weaknesses of their classes. This situation created alot of rage on the part of my players, who were lost in solid fogs and being pelted with the witch's debuffs and sorcerer's blasts. The monk didn't even join into the fight until the 7th round of combat, when the fog was finally disabled and he could actually act.

Anyways, I ended that session very early, as the games wasn't progressing anymore, and had resorted to a scream fest of outraged players. People went home with hurt feelings, and I went back to the drawing board, feeling like I'd failed since the golden rule was broken that day - no one had fun with that session. But that's not really the problem. The problem is what came next. Since then, my players can't go a single combat without at least two of them jumping up and arguing about a ruling. The magus seems to have forgotten the difference between Standard and Full-Round actions, the rogue has forgotten how crit confirmations work, the paladin has forgotten how to figure his save DCs; the list goes on an on. The players have seemingly forgotten rules they've been playing with for two years, and have given up on planning ahead, using teamwork teamwork and don't seem to even try to have fun anymore. My players show up, and it seems as if as soon as one of them takes damage, or they miss an attack roll, or the battle setup doesn't allow them to open combat will a full attack, they devolve to pointing fingers, arguing and yelling.

I'm t the point that I don't even want to run anymore. I'm sick of my players, I'm sick of arguing, and I have 12 more people waiting to get in on a game. My current players were very much enjoying the story until that bad fight, but now they don't even RP amongst themselves. With only 2 sessions until the campaign is complete, is it even possible to salvage this game? Should I even continue running, just to finish the story and move onto the next one with a completely new set of players? What do you guys think? I'm very curious how other GMs would handle this situation.

Forgive me if this topic has come up before, but I am relatively new to these boards, and to Pathfinder in general. Don't get me wrong, I've been playing 3rd Ed and 3.5 since they came out, but I've only recently learned of Pathfinder, and converted my entire gaming group over from 3.5 just a few months ago. Having recently picked up Ultimate Magic, I've come to very much enjoy alot of the rules presented within, but Words of Power seem to elude me. Upon reading the concept behind Words of Power, I really liked the idea, seeing quickly how it can especially help the spontaneous classes that only have a limited number of spells at their disposal. The rules seem simple enough, but the execution is where I'm tripping up, and here's why.

So you put together a target word and effect word, or target word and 2-3 effect words to create your spell. Okay, simple enough, but looking through the spells, I was looking to see how this works and set out to see how to create some of the iconic spells seen in the game. Here's what I came up with:

Mage Armor: Target - Personal (0), Effect - Force Shield (1). That's a 1st level spell. Okay, that works out, it makes sense.

Cure Light Wounds: Target - Selected (0), Effect - Lesser Cure, Boost (2). It's close, giving you Cure Light Wounds at 2nd level, but as a ray instead of touch, but it still isn't quite Cure Light Wounds, leaving you with the only wordspell you can use to heal someone at 1st level with being able to heal 1 pt of damage, or reduced to 1d6+(up to 5).

So those ones, along with all the Wall spells and Summoning Spells can easily be Duplicated. However, I started running into issues as I tried to duplicate some of the more powerful blasting and healing spells, as well as some of my favorite illusions. Here's a few that I've found that just don't want to line up with existing spells:

Haste: Target - Selected, Boost (3), Effect - Accellerate, Boost (3). This gives me Haste at 6th level. That's awfully late in the game. Unless I wanted to just be able to cast it on myself or one person, then it appears at 3rd, where it belongs.

Magic Missile: Target - Selected, Boost (3), Effect - Force Bolt (2). That gives me a 5th level spell that instead of dividing the damage how I want, instead deals 5d4 damage to a number of targets of my choosing. Okay, that's a bit more powerful, but there just doesn't seem to be a way to make anything close to magic missile, and 5th level seems like an awfully high cost for this minor effect.

Fireball: Target - Burst, Boost 20' (2), Fire Blast (3). This puts fireball 2 levels higher than where it belongs. Again, it just seems like a really big price to pay for some versatility.

So, in essence it seems like Words of Power don't actually give you all that much versatility. For most spells, you still need to take an effect spell to replace them, like having a word for Fireball, Wall of Fire and for Delayed Blast Fireball. Even then, Fire wall is still restricted that it can only be used with the Barrier command word, just like all Wall words, so in essence, you don't gain any versatility there. It seems to me that Words of Power actually don't give you any more versatility, they just allow you to pseudo-mimic metamagic feats, or change the targeting of your spells. But at the cost of many of your spells being at a much higher level. Is this how Words of Power are supposed to work?

Hey guys. I have a player that is feeling underwhelmed with the cleric he is playing in my current game. Normally, when this is happening with one of my players, I sit down with them and go over the way their character is built, seeing if there is any room for improvement, or (if they are a spellcaster) see if there are some spell they don't use commonly or there is a combinations of spells they hadn't thought of, that can help improve their effectiveness.

Unfortunately, there isn't much I've been able to do to help him. Clerics are a class I don't feel I've ever "got the hang of." By that, I mean I know what their role is, but even when building and playing NPCs that are clerics, they just never seem to add as much to the combat as I'd like. Then, he asked me a question about a spell combination I just didn't have an answer for that I liked.

He wanted to know if the extra attack granted by Divine Power would allow his Spiritual Weapon an extra attack. It's something no one at one of my tables had never thought of before, so I let him do it based on that he had been struggling compared to my other players. More than likely, I'll let him continue to do this, but if there is anyone that has a clear-cut rules clarification on this, I'd like still to know.

So, if anyone can tell me how Spiritual Weapon and Divine Power interact, as well as if anyone can give me some reasonable advice for improving a cleric, I'm all ears.