Wolfism's page

Kineticist.
Then Inquisitor as a cleric path and I like this Antiquarian idea.

If there's no dirty trick in this edition how does it handle throwing dirt in someone's eye or other non standard ways of messing with enemies?

That's a fairly standard thing creative players ask about. It's a pretty big part of keeping the game open ended.

That seems like a weird oversight. Only three classes can ever be good at unarmed without multicasting into a specific flavor of character. Maybe four with a warpriest of the right god?

Not being able to use most of your class feats even if you multiclass? That's got to be a mistake.

Spellstrike replacing the somatic action with an attack action makes the most sense to me.

Spell combat could expand the options to any attack fear becoming a somatic action, even one that used multiple actions as long as you still have enough total actions to cast the spell. That last bit is probably too complicated.

Does the dirty trick or reposition combat maneuvers still exist? They weren't in the playtest. My flowing monk would be very sad.

I'm hoping there's good options for a ki sage or sensei style of monk, who focuses more exclusively on wisdom and ranged or support powers, or on disabling and maneuvers and not on just dealing damage.

I was excited for the idea of the kinetic knight because of this feat:
Unconquerable Resolve

My DM was going to let it fly without a level of samurai and it would make him a pretty impressive tank I'm hoping. I'm thinking the archon style feat line would work well for this.

Range seams less important as you get impressive flight capabilities counting as an aerokineticist to start with.

Also are there any good feats that expand the options for ki that would be useful to a non monk?

I count as having combat expertise for free does that open up any particularly good options?

I'm looking at playing a Psammokinetic Knight, jumping into a game around 6th level and I'm trying to figure out a few things about the class.

The main thing I'm worried about is that the ki pool that replaces elemental overflow doesn't include anything to make up for the size bonuses you're losing, which are there, I understand to help with the kineticist being able to hit properly. Has anyone tried playing one at mid to high levels who would know if this is actually a problem or not a big deal.

Also it's kind of weird if I start with sirocco blast then when I get my expanded element there is no composite blast for that and no real way to get one. It seems like it wants to force you into the sand blast first.

If the additional set of essences are opposing and therefore harder to connect and create spells with it makes sense to me that they would take weirder traditions to access them. Those exist already in core in a way I think works.

Alchemy and ki.

This would bring them in world with the other spell list in an interesting way. I don't remember which essences are which list well enough but I think spiritual/vital makes perfect sense for ki as it's accessing magic through perfecting mind and body and alchemy would be mental/material because it's using material ingredients and mental understanding of the formulas involves.

I do wish the essences were tied closer to the rules, having it listed what spells are tied to what essence and hanging other rule options off of that.

@pjrogers One of the nice things about having the sorcerer have kineticist style casting is that it would be integrated into the system from the very beginning instead of added on at the very end of a systems lifespan without a lot of support.

I've been arguing for the sorcerer as kineticist since the earliest preview posts about magic. I've never gotten a response to it. I don't think it has any traction with the designers, which is sad. I think it's one of the most interesting design spaces and I'd love to see how it plays with the 3 action economy.

It would also open up the idea of everyone else using arcanist casting which would solve a lot of the situational spell list problems people have been complaining about because of the limited slots per day.

It's going to be the first thing I homebrew when the actual game is released I think, and I almost never homebrew. I just feel very strongly about this one, it would bring together so many things and really help separate Pathfinder from other RPGs in a good way.

Forcing specific combat styles onto specific classes.

I've always liked the bloodied terminology, it feels good in narrative.

I'm not sure of the specifics but I like the general idea. I always like having a good reason to play a high intelligence or high wisdom fighter without having to resort to magic.

These are the sort of cool ideas I want to see worked into every class power in the game. That makes me actually excited about playing a druid sometime in a way that none of the current powers really do.

Idea for sneak attacks and critical hits. Instead of doubling damage on a crit, it does standard damage but both to stamina and HP. Sneak attack dice go directly to HP.

I can't believe I forgot about the excessive siloing of feats! That's my big one. Fix that and a lot of other things will fall into line I think.

Seconding MER-c here but my biggest thing is making heavy or light armor viable on all characters.

That's a bit of a bad metaphor considering the different specialist wizards being the base idea behind the wizard in Pathfinder. The magic tinkerer in pf1 was the arcanist the wizard was more like an engineer. A mechanical engineer has a very different toolkit than a electrical engineer.

I like the idea but I'm not sure what that would do to the universalist.

Just to chime in only slightly off topic as everyone is talking about strength and con or strength and charisma that all martial classes (and probably some non martial classes) should have dexterity as a possible key score too.

The first character I made for the playtest was a dex based fencer paladin. I see no reason you couldn't have a small knife willing feral barbarian that rage leaps on people's heads, definitely also dex based.

I really don't like the class key ability score in general. It seams overly limiting when you look at characters like a battle bard or cleric that can't start with an eighteen in strength. Or something like the eighteen con dwarven drunken master monk I had in pf1. Or a sensei style monk who starts with an 18 wisdom.

The whole thing is rather pigeon holed.

#3 with powerful moves that can end rage early. Involve con in the max duration I think. Make the temp hit points and resetting rage ending actions a meaningful decision between continuing a rage or taking a round of fatigue. Make rage scale up to bigger damage bonuses.

Also I don't think barbarians should get to master with weapons. That speaks to training which is not their thing. They should get those bonuses and the numbers they need in other ways.

Rage definitely should stack with more things.

Raaaggggeeeeeee!

All of these changes sound excellent to me. I'm hoping they go with something more like Knight for the overarching name of the class rather than champion and give it some options for being non divine, just tried good as well. That's probably farther than they're going to go though.

I while the problem might be solved numbers wise by multiclassing into fighter or the like it doesn't solve wanting to make a magical strike from a character perspective.

I worry that because of the new multiclassing style and action economy that we won't see something like the magus for a long time because it's "easier to make a Gish now", but that hasn't made it so you can combine your spells and attacks into a single thing though and that's something I really want to see be part of the game.

I like everything about what bluescale just said.

Also both, why not both those options.

Inquisitor and kineticist for me with the occultist not too far behind.

My favorite prestige classes were there rage prophet and the champion of irori.

+1 for the shadowdancer and getting cool summoned shadow weapons.

I also really like the idea of the summoner being an archetype that gets to flavor it's summon/eidolon on it's base class.

Yes to all of this. A knight class is probably the closest in making convention to the rest of the Pathfinder classes and when you add the paladin archetype would really feel like the paladin of old.

This would let you make a holy war mage smiting enemies of their god with holy fire or a sneaky Inquisitor based on the ranger or rogue.

How about one to refresh an ongoing buff spell?

More spells that use the three action system.

A non class specific or spell list specific feat that let you use a melee strike as a somatic casting action.

More spells useful both in and out of combat.

I really liked the Stamina system. The only things I didn't like were:

1) It felt awful playing a healer because healing magic doesn't affect Stamina

2) It added another resource pool to track.

However, both of these are easily fixable.

1)I specifically like that about stamina because it pushes the healer out of a passive reactionary role and makes them need to be designed as a more active participant in combat.

2) Tracking another resource pool can be a pain but this can be designed to be a very story rich resource pool.

Keep the wound pool very small, like negative hit points, say half your con score and gain one each of them only from falling below zero stamina, taking a critical hit or certain specific magic. Then you can track them individually and have cursed wounds, poisoned wounds or crippling wounds that can effect the story and have interesting story ways to heal them.

That gnome one might be enough to actually get me to play a gnome for the first time ever.

This is a great step. Hopefully as they get through some of the feedback from the classes survey and rules survey they'll start to fix some of the big problems with feats too.

There was a post in the survey blog post from one of the designers, Jason I think, said they're going to do an entire separate survey on magic. They are waiting because if they do to many surveys at once they get less answers, but it is coming.

Making treat wounds so you always heal some amount but it gets higher based on your check would fix that.

A 2/4/6 progression would really feel more meaningful.

Removing general feats and giving every class more class feats would be a small step in the right direction. Making general feats as powerful as class feats and moving a whole swathe of class feats into the general feat category would be even better.

This plus making the feats themselves much more interesting is all this system needs to go from stable but bland to something I really really want to play.

There's definitely a disconnect between the idea of class and mechanical niche going on with the designers right now. To me class choice is about aesthetic, how I want to look and feel in the world, which is different then what role I want to fill in the party.

In pf1 there were enough general feats and combat feats available that you could get almost any class to fulfill any role your party needed.

In the entirely non scientific archetype survey that was posted back on the preview blog boards the most popular archetypes completely changed the nature of the base class.

That's what I want out of Pathfinder, not rigidly defined classes who seem to get a lot less a lot later than their earlier versions.

They definitely need to add back in dirty trick and steal. Dirty trick is the go-to maneuver for doing interesting ad-hoc things in combat and steal just leads to great character moments for the rogue types.

I love this idea, and if a class doesn't feel like it has enough going on with proficiency stripped out that really shows a serious problem in the class as is.

Math wise I'm worried about one issue with the armor proficiency and why it seems like the designers have avoided giving any sort of higher level light armor proficiency. Light armor would end up overshadowing heavy armor on defense making higher dexterity characters tankier than heavy armor characters. And while I love playing dex characters they should have other reasons to make them worth playing than that.

This is a bit of a problem with the tight math in general I think. Not enough room for interesting bonuses, but that's not something I should get into in this thread.

I'm definitely with using intelligence for medicine.

With alchemists becoming a core class and the timeline shifting a few years forward it makes sense that there might be some medical colleges cropping up around the world.

Yes this is a fantasy game but remember:
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
-Agatha Heterodyne

This sounds like what they hinted at in the original blog posts previewing the fighter and then really failed to deliver on.

I'm not sure the fighter paths are nessessary but I can get behind absolutely everything else in this post.

That does sound metal AF, I would really enjoy playing something like that.

Still hoping they'll at least try the wizard as arcanist and do something really interesting and different with the sorcerer. My personal wish would be to merge it with the kineticist.

It will be more like 30 versions of each feat before long if classes proliferate like they did before.

I'd like to feats like double slice divided up by fighting style rather than class and have the feats gated by your proficiency. That gives fighters earlier access, protecting their niche.

I'd want that to go along with the classes getting more control of where they put their weapon, armor and spellcasting proficiencies though.

I'd really been hoping they would do this but then use the kineticist framework for the sorcerer, making them really mechanically distinct and giving them a very different niche from the wizards.

Plus I might actually play a wizard one day if they gave them the arcanist's casting. Won't happen otherwise.

I really hope the Divine sorcerer doesn't need a weapon to get by. That's kind of the clerics thing, getting better weapons armor and hit points.

This seems like the right place to have a proper priest/whitemage class that is all about casting. Here's hoping they get some good ways to burn people with holy fire and good defensive casting they can be doing round after round instead of having to fall back on the old crossbow or multiclass into fighter just to keep up.

Considering how hard it's been up till now to make a priest/white mage type character I hope they give them good options to not need to use weapons and mundane tools. They should be able to hold their own magically better than a cleric who gets better hit points armor and weapons options.

I actually think the new rules help with interesting roleplay.

The fact that you have the actions per round but a third attack whole possible is very good will get players into the mind set of looking for other things to do with their second or third action like flipping a table over or climbing a chandelier.

There design of combat maneuvers being skill checks makes it easy to think up other ways to use skills on the fly in combat because you know how that works already.

I think the only thing that really takes away from it right now is exploration mode, which is not a terrible idea just overly codified and defined right now.

Edit: Also the tight math really helps the idea that my roleplayed combat ideas might actually mean something so that I'll actually use them more often. If climbing a chandelier and jumping on an opponent gives me a circumstance bonus on my one attack that actually matters in the round I get a significant higher chance of getting a crit, and vice versa for flipping a table for cover. That means it feels good to do as a player and I'm actually a lot more likely to actually do interesting actions that interact with the world. I love that.

Likes:
The three action system.
The critical hit system with the basic system math.
The stance press and open moves for martial characters, in theory anyways, the implementation is weirdly lacking for such a cool idea.

Dislikes:
Siloing of feats, they should be based on proficiency not class.
Overly defined proficiencies. I should get a choice of what proficiencies upgrade so I can wind up with a weapon master paladin who wears light armor or a super tanky armored hulk of a fighter who's legendary in his armor.
And third the fact that becoming more proficient in anything other than skills just adds a +1 bonus and nothing else. It should open up awesome things for the character when they become legendary in anything.

On page 425 there's a haunting, evocative painting of a green dragon in some sort of forest ruins.

Is that taken from another Paizo product? If so, I want to run it!

The end of the year is a good time to look back on your life and see what might have gone better, so open up, you're among friends here.

*What's the worst gaming thing you've ever done?

*The most munchkin-ed PC you've run?

*Worst rule misinterpretation you went with for years?

*OOC behavior at the table that makes you cringe now?

*Shameless plagiarism you passed off as original? (I'm looking at you, Driz'zt clones!)

*Character concept you're most ashamed of?

I'll start:

I DM'ed a group of players that killed Asmodeus (1E version) in about a half-hour adventure. I let the party gate right into his throne room, neglected to have any minions around, forgot about magic resistance and let them strangle him with Bigby's Crushing Hand.

I'm trying to understand the thinking behind making UMD part of the rogue's abilities - I grew up in 1E and I don't remember it being a part of the class back then.

Is it crunch-based (gives them an extra benefit to balance out other classes) or fluff-based (rogues are deceptive, so they can "fool" a magic device)? I can't think of examples of this kind of skill in much fantasy literature, so I wonder where it came from.

Looking through my ancient and battered copy of Deities and Demigods (the original 1E printing), I saw in the Celtic Mythos section the entry for the Wild Hunt and realized that it would be a great addition to Kingmaker.

I see that there are stats for a CR27 (!) version of it HERE, but the original 1E Huntsman was a 15th-Level Ranger with 20 hounds of about 6-10 HD each, so that's a little more in line with the power level of this AP.

Anyone out there built some Pathfinder stats for this force of Nature?

Now I just have to figure out when to put it into the campaign....(rubs hands gleefully)

I'm a sucker for static defense problems, everything from Rorke's Drift to the defense of Minas Tirith. I'd love to plan something like that for the early chapters of KM. (Before the mass combat rules are introduced, as I want max player involvement so they enjoy it as much as I will.)

Here are the two options that come to mind:

- At the end of KM #1,
--Site: Oleg's
--Enemy: Humanoid Bandits (after the defeat of the Stag Lord, or maybe with him leading the bandit assault)

- Near the end of KM #2
--Site: Oleg's or the Stag Lord's fort (whichever one isn't a city yet)
--Enemy: Hargulka and his troll band (This would replace the crawl through the troll outpost.)

I'll need to establish a motivation for the enemy and get the PCs just enough warning to prepare, but not enough to move major forces around the map.

Thoughts welcome.

Is there a Pathfinder version of the Swashbuckler class, either official Paizo content or 3rd party?

A bunch of my old NPCs are swashbucklers and I'd really like to convert them for an upcoming adventure - also to give PCs the option to run them.

I searched these forums before asking and , but I didn't see anything definitive - mostly comparing Duelist vs. 3.5 Swashbuckler.

Thanks!

How tough would it be to run Kingmaker using 3.5 rules?

Players and I haven't made the switch to PFRPG yet, but Kingmaker would fit soooo nicely in my campaign that I'm itching to try it anyway. How much conversion would be necessary?

I'm getting rid of a bunch of my old gaming stuff. Lots of old Dragon, some 1E books in excellent shape, and a few other things.

Where's the best place to sell them? I haven't seen a Marketplace for used stuff here at Paizo. Is eBay best? Anywhere at ENWorld?

Thanks for any suggestions,

Tom

I gotta get this. The original Twilight:2000 was one of my all-time favorites, probably second only to D&D.
Free Teaser

Sure hope it doesn't suck.

I have to integrate a new player into an existing party, and I'd like to run her through an adventure to gain some XP (current PCs are mostly 2nd level or almost there) and provide some backstory.

Most of what I've found searching for solo adventures are the "solitaire" kind where you're the DM and the PC. Any suggestions for good one-PC stuff? My FLGS had two from Expeditious Retreat, but those were L7-9.

TIA,

Tom

Given its usefulness against evil outsiders (particularly since they get no saving throw and no SR) and the frequency of same in this AP, Holy Storm seems like an excellent battlefield-shaping spell for use in the Savage Tide, especially as it's just 3rd level. Anyone been using it?

OK, confession time.

I've been playing since Christmas, 1979, and DM'ing most of that time. In all that time, I've never seriously run a wilderness adventure. Now I may have to to get my players where they need to go.

How do you run the "table talk" (or maybe narration) in the wilderness? I'm comfortable with "You open the door, it's a room about 20x20 with a fire pit in the center..." and the transitions from location to location, but I'm clueless about wilderness.

I know that you don't narrate each tree and stream crossing, but do you just say "you travel through the hills for 8 hours with no encounters"?

How do you transition from travel to tactical-level detail? Every stop, or just for fights?

Do these questions make sense?

Thanks for any suggestions,

Tom

Ragnarok, Armageddon, Tarmon Gaidon.....

Has anyone played through the end of their world? I'm toying with a cosmology that predicts a great battle at the end of all time, but the scale of running such an event (other than just a bunch of narration, which wouldn't be much fun) is a little overwhelming.

Any experience or ideas?

Dark Conspiracy - GDW
I found this game book in my attic stash. I bought it, made up some characters (I've always liked GDW's character generation - Traveller, Twilight 2000) but never played it.

Anyone else ever play this one? Did it turn out to be as good as it seems?

Tom

I've seen that lots of folks have played this module. Since the armies of the Hobgoblin King play a big role in my homebrew world, I'm thinking of trying to fit RHOD into the current campaign.

Did y'all like it?
What style of play does it favor?
Does it need a lot of modification?
Is it heavily dependent on any one setting?

Thanks,
Tom

I'm developing my homebrew world, and I'd like to give PC's from some cultures bonus feats or skills.

What is a good rule of thumb for good game balance here? I don't think that 2-4 points of Ride for the Whirlwind Rider nomads will unbalance things, but what's too much? Should this kind of bonus avoid combat skills and feats?

TIA,

Tom

The Vulgar Unicorn, the World Serpent, the Welcome Wench, even the Boar's Head. These names are often more famous that their patrons.

What are some of your favorite bar names from D&D, fiction or even real life?

Hang's Bar in a nameless mill town in the Eastern Frontier is from my homebrew campaign, which also has the Silver Mermaid. .

The Slaughtered Lamb is a real bar in NYC. Werewolf theme.

Anyone here do conversions of mythos adventures into any version of D&D? I know that there's a d20 Cthu, but that's all modern, right?

I'm most interested in the two old big ones: Shadows of Y-S and Masks of Nyarl..

I'd like to hear your RP lessons learned as well as game mechanics.

Thanks in advance...

Tom

It's probably too late, but...

Dragon #351 featured, on the editor's page, what looked like a bar coaster from the World Serpent Inn. Any chance that Paizo's selling these and I just missed them?

Those would be the ne plus ultra for my bar.

Thanks,

Tom

Still learning 3.5, still thinking in 1stEd terms:

Whatever happened to broadswords?

Does anyone allow scimitars to be considered a light weapon?

Is there such a thing as a sabre in 3.5? Maybe with all of a rapier's stats but doing slashing damage vice piercing?

I'm fond of weapon speed factors. Any surrogates in 3.5? I'm thinking of light weapons =+2 initiative, heavy/2-handed weapons -2. Anyone tried something like this?

Me, while shopping at the local Big Box Bookstore:
"Do you have this month's Dungeon? It's not on the shelves."

Counter Girl, checking computer:
"No, it's sold out. Wow, we'll have to order more of these next year; it looks like they've been selling out a lot recently."

Me, sad:
"..... Don't bother."

First off, I loved the St. Cuthbert Core Beliefs article in this month's Dragon. I have one point of disagreement, however. I'll admit up front that this may be due to my misunderstanding of 3.5's cosmology and the assumptions underlying deities' relationships with their worshipers, as it seems to be a prevalent theme in many discussions of gods and clerics.

How can there be sustained heresy in a world that posits activist deities? The article describes a heretical sect of LE worshippers and an entire arm of the church dedicated to wiping out heresy.

In a world where clerics receive their spells from the deity daily, how do the LE worshipers get their spells if St. C. doesn't like their alignment? Similarly, if a sect is espousing new doctrine that runs counter to orthodoxy, a schism is not necessary. Either their doctrine is acceptable to their god (and they get their daily spells)or it isn't. If a point of doctrine is unclear and is dividing the church, Contact other Plane or a similar spell is probably available at some level of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and the issue can be decided in short order.

This might not be the case for a very chaotic-aligned deity who enjoys seeing his followers trying to figure out what he actually meant in his holy writings, but probably not for most deities and definitely not for the lawful, simple and straightforward Cuthbert.

I think that these ideas are carrying forward underlying assumptions from our world, in which most religions' gods would be described as quietist (vice activist) and deviations from orthodoxy do not receive immediate divine punishment and doctrinal questions have no independently verifiable divine answer.

Thanks for any thoughts.

OK, I'm stuck. Looking for your ideas, hunches, and hare-brained schemes.

This takes place in my homebrew campaign, but it's a conventional Greyhawk-ish world, but with younger civilizations building on and exploring the ruins of an ancient realm that passed away somehow. The PCs (low-mid levels) have been adventuring around a small coastal village doing Good Adventurer Things.

I got a flash of insight that the Strange High House in the Mist (that's not what they call it, but that's how I think of it-HPL influence) has been bought by a wealthy young man, a merchant trader, who is fixing it up, ending the evil influence and entertaining the local notables, taking special interest in the PCs. He's actually a Young Adult Bronze Dragon, who loves the sea-side location and plans to.....

and there the flash of insight ends. I'm thinking of him mentoring the PCs as they progress, but I can't figure a good motivation for him to settle in this backwater hamlet.

What's he looking for? Sunken treasure? Defending the region against some impending evil? Mating season? Nothing seems to fit.

Help?

Here are the baddies:
21 generic lizardfolk
3 Warrrior1 lizardfolk
1 Fighter3 lizardfolk

What do y'all think? The RAW about CR seem to break down with these large numbers.

TIA,

Tom

Several campaign journals have made references to "Hero Points". This is a new concept for me, although it kinda sounds like "Good Stuff" points from the Amber diceless RPG.

Can someone explain the rules here? Are these found in a pub somewhere or are they house rules?

TIA,

Tom

Tim Powers' On Stranger Tides is one of the best and creepiest pieces of historical fantasy I've read. It's worthy of Lovecraft without being derivative. Zombie pirates, ghosts, evil wizards and witch doctors are wrapped up in a compelling story with three-dimensional characters.

For STAP purposes, vodun zombies are much spookier than the stock version or the ravenous Parrot Island kind, so I'm trying to figure out how to work some in there.

Amazon Link

Enjoy!

It looks like my players will be running through another set of adventures before they might get into the STAP. (I'm doing only moderate railroading, so their initial decisions are putting them on a path farther north than Sasserine.) By the time things take them down toward the Southfens (which is where Sasserine is in my campaign), they'll probably be in the 3rd-5th level range. What would y'all recommend?

- Stick them into the STAP at a level-appropriate point - Bullwug Gambit or Sea Wyvern's Wake?
- Start them off at TINH, beef up the encounters per Scaling sidebar and count on some slower level progression to catch the adventure up to their levels after a few sessions?
- Something else I didn't think of?

One P.S.: This is a small group, probably just three PCs (Bard, paladin and druid or sorcerer if they all survive) and maybe an NPC.

TIA for suggestions...

Last week I bought Issue #146 (Serpents of Scuttlecove) at Barnes & Noble. The bag was intact, but there was no "Giant Poster Map!" inside. When I took it back to B&N, neither of the two issues still on the shelf had the maps either!

Anyone have suggestions on a way for me to get a replacement map, other than buying a whole new issue from the back issues part of this site?

Thanks,

Tom