Wolin's page

The thing I'm interested about is whether it works with a fire kinetic blast, although this is bound to have been answered elsewhere. I'm pretty sure it doesn't though.

Yeah, I'd be fine with shorter APs or higher level starts. My group has finished about 2 of the 6 that we've started; tends to be about end of book three that things fizzle out. It's things like PC deaths making continuity too awkward or one of the books being awful (Reign of winter book 3, URGH) or sometimes just the threads of the plot being too disjointed between modules to give the characters or players enthusiasm to go on. The middle books just kind of tend to suffer for being middle books: No real start or end, and their relevance to the overarching plot can be rather strained.

The ones we have finished have actually been when they've been duos rather than a full party, and those are the ones that we've kind of wanted to go further with. Not completely sure why. Maybe it's that the whole party dynamic is different with only two PCs so it's not so harsh br

Level 1 is also just kind of a pain since you don't really have many (or any) fun things to work with and encounters are just inherently more lethal. I'd be quite happy to not have to deal with level 1 again, as a GM or a player. 3's a comfortable starting point, even if you're put on the slow xp track to compensate.

Personally, I have an excel sheet for most hidden rolls like fort and will saves, perception and sense motive checks, plus any extra modifiers and senses, and then just mass roll everything.

Had to check after Chris mentioned no secret saves; as far as I can see, that's definitely valid for spells (oops), but can't see anything like that for, say, diseases or delayed onset poisons. For those, it's actually fairly important to do those in secret because otherwise it has a lot of metagame potential. The odd assassination attempt fails pretty badly if they know they've just eaten a delayed onset poison, and my experience is that diseases don't work at all if they know they've failed a save.

I like CrystalSeas' pre-rolling thing, and I think I'll use that rather than my mass Excel rolling sheet in future.

Certain checks, particularly sense motive and perception, really should nearly always be done in secret, or at least have their results hidden. Just knowing the check's been made is dead giveaway, unless you're the sort of person who asks for things all the time to hide when there's a real one. Also there's a fairly big difference knowing you've just stuffed up your roll and you should try again and getting a 20 and knowing you're not getting anything else.
Disguise and stealth can arguably be done openly; they're the sort of thing where taking 10 is ideal anyway unless you're terrible at it or in combat so it's obvious if you've failed.

I suppose you could also just assume everyone takes 10 unless they specifically want to roll, which makes things a lot easier.

Feels like it ought to, but technically no. Guess it's a rare instance that it comes up as relevant.

5% would be reasonable if you're house ruling; That's -5% at 3rd, -10% at 7th, -15% at 11th and -20% at 15th. Or combining with Arcane Armour Training, 0% for any light armour at 7th, 0% for the ideal breastplate at 11th and a mere 5% with full plate at 15th. Or if you're investing feats for arcane armour mastery, you're done at 11th.

Probably don't want to make it 10% or it makes it very... exploitable, particularly with mithral. If you're doing your few levels in fighter for eldritch knight, I know I'd be kind of tempted to pick up a sash of the war champion and wear a mithral breastplate with no ACP (or maybe even grab arcane armour training and go for the mithral full plate).

I personally keep track of my players fort and will saves and relevant modifiers for this reason so I can tell them if there's anything relevant (and partially because they struggle not to metagame diseases or I don't necessarily want to reveal that they've needed a save).

Using the good examples above, I feel like (B) is the option I prefer, with bits of (D). Mostly there's no reason to conceal what the effect is because either they (or another party member) are going to immediately suffer it or they'll make the save and it'll be irrelevant. Don't think you're likely to risk people going "Oh, this thing has a poisonous bite! Quick everyone, drink your anti-venom to protect yourselves!" and then everyone actually doing that. But hey, it's an extra round the monster gets to go if they do.

It's hard to argue with a level or three of Unchained rogue to go with your monk levels. Dex to damage with your unarmed strikes, plus a few dice of sneak attack on your flurry is pretty good. You even have the spin kick style strike to take advantage of that. The Ki Pool Rogue talent gives you 1.5 your wisdom to your ki pool, or if your GM allows it, the offensive defense rogue talent. Consider the minor magic talent for Message. Plus all those extra skill points and class skills go a long way.

As far as ki powers, probably go for Empty Body when you can manage it for ease of scouting, or Gaseous Form if you're chained (Because there's no reason to ever no take qinggong monk). Feather step (Qinggong) and sudden speed (Unchained) are a decent choices for a scout, too. Share Memory (Qinggong) or Abundant step (Unchained) are good 8th level powers that make sense for a scout as well.

More things I hadn't considered:

Consider enforcing sticking with 2d10 or 1d20 with ongoing uses once someone's made a decision on which to use. I'm primarily thinking of full attacks (It's beneficial to use the safe roll on your highest bonus and the risky d20 on later attacks which need higher rolls), but you could also do it with ongoing saves from poison/disease/spell effects. Alternatively, 1d20 as default, but can swap to 2d10 at any point in that same thing. Kind of like how power attack works: once it's activated, you've got to use it until your next turn. Usually this isn't a good option, but sometimes it can be a save if you've been rolling awfully (I have had a character die from a 1d3 con poison he initially needed a 6 to save on).

Critical Focus is quite strong since that +4 bonus is a huge probability boost. Ditto Improved initiative and combat casting. Even Mobility becomes rather more useful.

Could try a variant where a feat that gives you a bonus to some d20 roll allows you to lose that bonus in exchange for using 2d10 instead. Any later iterations of a feat like that should probably give it back if you use that though. Bonus decrease by 1 if you're more generous.

Continued thinking on crits and saves, I'm not sure moving crits around is necessary. It makes crits much more unlikely, but that can be kind of a consequence of using 2d10. There's a certain appeal in keeping odds the same though. Regardless, those auto pass/fails should remain limited to the 20 and 2 for the same reason. Not much point in changing the system if you keep all the probabilities the same.

I find it not uncommon that against high powered opponents players may end up needing 15 or so to hit which would make your rules change suck in that fight.

Your suggestion would help alleviate the problem, although I can think of circumstances where it would be advantageous not to use 2d10 on a single attack so you could let players choose , but that will slow everything down as it sounds like your players are the sort to do methodical statistical calculations to decide which to roll.

I would also be concerned that your change will hurt characters which are less optimised than the rest of the party .normally if your attack total is 3 less than the best other melee fighter you are hitting 15% less , here if the best is at 50& your -3 drops you off the bell curve cliff and you are I think 25% worse(sorry its late and I can only do maths when I am awake)

I think in a strict 2d10 system, as a GM, since things do become rather harder when you fall off the probability curve, you'll need to careful with opponent choices. For example, by Bestiary guidelines, AC increases by 2-3 every 2 CR or 4-5 every 3. If you're working off needing an 11 to hit a CR=Level creature (55% hit rate), 2CR higher is a ~32% hit rate or a ~18% rate for 3CR higher (or ~8% for 4CR). Or in other words, at CR2+ your hit rate halves, and halves again each CR after that.

Basically, you kind of need to drop the CR of things you're willing to drop on your PCs by 1. It probably actually kind of makes the recommended CR table accurate.

You are right in that you do need to optimise a lot more: keeping on top of the curve in your specialisation is a good aim, but you kind of need to acknowledge that your weak spots are going to be very weak unless you put fairly significant resources in keeping them passable.

A kinetic blast is a spell-like ability, so it won't stack, unfortunately.

That's cool, having the feedback on that. Was interested to see how it worked, and cool to see that it basically did. Which of the various suggestions that people made above did you end up using?

I feel like a longer play test might not be a bad idea for longer term effects; it's relatively easy to build around certain mechanics in a one-shot. It's what you can actually manage in practice though.

Liking the idea you're putting in on making it something trained people can do. I think the flavour you kind of need to put it in for the spectrum is
Taking 10/11: It's an easy task and you're sticking with tried and true methods. No sense in any risk.
2d10: You know what you're doing and trying to be safe, but trying out a few new things you read about, are improvising a little, or you're threatened or in danger (this makes it a kind of take 10 in combat option)
1d20: standard risky option.

Putting it like this, there's a definite kind of appeal in giving at least an option of 2d10.

Linking it to feats seems reasonable, with the exception of the skills, where I like your take on it. Combat expertise (urgh) is probably the most sensible option to start doing it for combat options, and possibly also Precise Shot. My group don't really use the improved save line of feats, so I'd personally make it an option for a save as soon as you take the feat for that save. Once a day at least, before at will on the improved one. Caster level checks might want things like a school focus or spell penetration or combat casting, depending on what variety of check you're making.
Ability checks though? That's a tough one. Just a positive modifier? If it's a key ability for you? Even just always on, to make your actual score more relevant (Because it's just embarrassing, if hilarious, when your 5 strength wizard breaks down a door the raging barbarian has just failed to). Although might want to keep the 1d20 option for stabilisation rolls.

Based off quarterstaff master, likely you wouldn't be able to use a glaive held in one hand as a double weapon. Both cases you're holding a double weapon in one hand.

Sounds cool though! Cool enough that your GM might let you do it anyway if you ask.

I'd been thinking a +0 is really the way to go, or just making it a feat or letting your players always do it. After all, you can already decrease your range for free by just not casting that far out, so a positive modifier is stupid, and negative metamagics are just a baaaaaad idea. But then I realised:
The thing that actually makes this a decent option is not provoking for making a ranged attack.
Because frankly, the desire to use melee touch spells as a focus is pretty niche, so that's not something that should be penalised, but avoiding AoOs with your rays is something that is actually worth something.

So, as I see it, you really have two options as far as feats go:
Make it a +0 metamagic so there's a bit more of a commitment to making it close range (Either it's stuck close or they spend a full-round doing it, at which point they could have just moved away or 5-footed)
Make it just an automatic option, but it's a feat, and it requires CL3 or 4 (To bring it in line with the magus arcana or point blank master) and Combat Casting (Since point blank master requires at least a feat, and anyone doing serious melee casting should really consider combat casting anyway)

EDIT: Oh, and critting. Yes. You might like to limit it to rays that need to touch anyway. Like Lathiira says, you can get some nutso things happening if you let different spells start being able to crit.

Staff-like wand is a kind of baseline for doing things like this. Although I personally feel like it's unnecessarily restrictive in its requirements (Level 13 to pick it up? Really?)

For Magic Weapons/Armour, a feat to add... something to the DCs would be good. Play it by ear to see what makes sense for a given item, but Cha for magical things or the highest of Str/Dex/Con for more just whacking people. Limit it by CL of the item and make it a tree if it seems concerning. Say, CL7- items for the first feat, 14- for second and then anything else.

Wands and other at will or easily spamable items want harsher prereqs to be able to increase DCs. Otherwise you'll just find that your PCs won't use any resources and just use their items.
Daily use items or potions could follow a fairly similar pattern to the arms and armour, but also add a CL7th prereq for the first feat and 14th for the second. Mostly since martials should get more nice things and a lot of magic arms/armour require relatively specific conditions to trigger.

Saw this earlier today which is probably what you're after: Reach Cleric Guide. Although haven't read it myself.

Off-hand though, plain human cleric with a longspear will probably get you what you're after without any need for multiclassing. Combat Reflexes, dirty fighting/combat expertise and improved trip is a common solid choice that's online by 3rd. Take the fighter dip if you really want it to start with, but since you'll be wanting at least reasonable dex the heavy armour probably isn't worth the dip (unless you're going really long term and getting mithral full plate or you're after a better weapon). Bodyguard's a good follow-up feat.

As far as domains, it's pretty hard to argue with travel. Personally like liberation and trickery on general principle, and darkness for the free Blind-Fight is nice for a melee cleric.

Personally don't feel like bombs are the right flavour (or for that matter, guns with the makeshift munitionist trick) for a fantasy survivalist. I'd be more inclined to borrow from the horizon walker prestige class: Give favoured terrains and favoured terrains can can count as favoured enemies vs creatures native to that terrain. Personal preference though: archetypes are around for a reason. Besides that, seems kind of weird to have all these abilities based around improvised weapons and then make a major damage source not use them.

As is, feels like there's a lot of rogue toe-treading. I'd scrap the advanced rogue talents.

It's not clear whether you need the feats or not for the Artificer Advanced talent. It's pretty strong regardless, and might do better to make it master craftsman-like. Also craft wand is a bad example since you actually need the spell access and can't fake it.

Might suggest removing advanced talents completely; swift tracker could be level 8 to be on par with ranger, ditto woodland stride (both of these even earlier possibly), Seasonal Sage is hardly game breaking if you got it at 4th. Launch trap is the only one that needs level 10, and the others I've already addressed.

Seems pretty reasonable otherwise; something I might use in the right sort of campaign.

Hadn't thought about it, but reroll spells and effects are fairly terrible with this since you don't get the large swings. Or less rewarding or satisfying, anyway. You can get interesting mechanics you couldn't with a d20 though. Reroll a die of your choice would have to be the quirk (Although you may want to do/allow both, depending on the quality of the roll).

Say there's an average roll of 11 with a 10 and a 1. Rerolling both isn't particularly fabulous: there's a 10% chance of nothing happening, 60% chance of being up to 4 higher or lower, leaving 15% each for a good 16+ roll or an awful 6- roll.
If you can force someone to reroll just the 10, or reroll your own 1, this becomes rather better. Now it's a 10% chance of nothing, a 40% chance of being 4 higher (or lower) and a 50% chance of one of the rare 16+ (or 6-) rolls. And, importantly, a 10x higher chance of getting an automatic success from the 20 or failure from the 2.
For comparison, on the d20, the same roll is 5% of nothing, 20% a little better, 25% each for a little worse, 5- and 16+. You're less likely to do well, but more likely to get something fabulous compared to rerolling both, and rerolling 1 is strictly better.

With this in mind, you might like to make reroll effects more common as a means of getting to high or low numbers more easily/at all. I've toyed with the idea of giving immediate action rerolls based on charisma to make it a more useful stat (and since it's the most thematically close to luck).

Other thing you could do is unusual stuff with doubles. If you're familiar with Shadowrun's glitch system you could use a variant of that. Basically, it's a "You succeed, but..." or a "You fail, but..." kind of system. At its simplest, you could keep odds of critical success/failure the same as d20 and make, say, double 1-5 auto fails and double 6-10 auto success.
There's a degree of narrative addition that it can make it more interesting, if you're creative, or gives you an easier way of rewarding players who try something cool or inventive but fail because of a bad roll. Or punish players who do things like insult people to their face but still succeed on the diplomacy check because they have +56415338 to their check.

The way I've imagined the automatic success/failure working using the 2d10 system is treating the 20 and 2 as 20 and 1 respectively, but expanding critical range to keep the odds about the same (as Dasrak did). Point is reducing the luck factor without breaking the mechanics after all.

Taking 10 should probably be boosted to taking 11 using this, since the average roll is now 11 rather than 10.5. Taking 20 I feel would be fine to still take the same length of time to do.

You might want to consider increasing basic DCs of everything by 1 for the same reason that you should take 11. That is, base AC is 11, save DCs are 11 + level + modifier. It's kind of an awkward toss up between making things slightly easier by having a higher average and making things harder by effectively reducing the highest value you can get.

Probably the biggest and most obvious change is power gaps, which become much more pronounced. Say you hit on a 4+. That's a 6% chance of missing. A +1 bonus drops that by 3%, while a -1 penalty raises it by 4%. If you need an 11, +1 bonuses and -1 penalties change it by 9% or 10% respectively.
Basically, if you're behind, it takes a lot to catch up, and if you're about even, it takes very little to shift the balance in your favour. You'll probably find boss fights become much harder and see more tactical play. Taking that move action to jump on the table for the +1 high ground bonus is more worthwhile when it boosts your 10 to an 11, changing hit odds from 45% to 55%, compared to the standard 45% to 50%. Dropping prone to avoid arrows could reduce that 45% chance of hitting you to 15%, an effective +6 to AC using the d20.

Aid another becomes fairly valuable, since even a lightly trained character will be able to succeed easily and a +2 bonus can be up to a +19% chance of success.

Think that's about all the things I've considered when I looked at it myself. Haven't actually tried it though, so how valid any of this is in practice is debatable.

Reign of Winter, book 1. First fight was a TPK.

I had that too! Although it was the second fight. And it happened on the same fight when I gave them another shot at it with meta knowledge.

Wolin wrote:

I'm somewhat amused to see a guide on this through incidental forum browsing when I started playing a spell sage a month or two ago in a kingmaker-esque game. I've ended up going nearly full crafting mode since I can have the resources to do constructs (My free house is animated now, thank you very much), and scrolls/wands/staves are pretty useful with such a large collection of spells accessible.

Are you crafting and constructing because you're a Spell Sage, or is that incidental?

Mostly incidental, but I'd still say that wands or at least staves are a good call for valuable spell-slot saving. I'm a fan of staff-like wand which you might as well grab if you get craft staff, and then craft wand is there to make it more viable.

Wolin wrote:

Consider unusual cross-class spell combinations! Take glyph of warding for example. You could put confusion, charm monster, fear, fireball or poison in for an otherwise impossible combo.

That's a good one! Going in the Guide. Any others?

Greater glyph of warding is basically the same deal.

Blood Money earns its keep even more than usual since you can get free restorations/reincarnates/&c.. Thanks to overclock you will basically always be able to remove your own negative levels with restoration, too.

Contingency's an obvious one, and worth dropping both of your overclocks on it. Keeping it ready for a triggered Brilliant Inspiration would be one of my favoured uses beyond the more obvious Heal.

Spellstaff is such a good time and slot saver to the extent it's basically obligatory.

Visions of Lamashtu has several interesting new options available, such as teleporting the target to you, Feeblemind and Life of Crime.

Overwhelming Presence, Irresistible Dance, Euphoric Tranquility, Fool's Forbiddance and Waves of Ecstasy are particularly nasty 6th level bard spells that you have substantially earlier access to (and can also put in Greater Glyph of Warding/Contingency), with Song of Discord and Archon's Trumpet being notable 5th level spells of the same type. Brilliant Inspiration and Impenetrable Veil are of the same ilk although less offensive.

I'm somewhat amused to see a guide on this through incidental forum browsing when I started playing a spell sage a month or two ago in a kingmaker-esque game. I've ended up going nearly full crafting mode since I can have the resources to do constructs (My free house is animated now, thank you very much), and scrolls/wands/staves are pretty useful with such a large collection of spells accessible.

Some things that I've found helpful from my experience so far:

Make scrolls! You get scribe scroll for free, so use it. It covers up your lack of spell slots. If you can spare it, use your overclock on it too. I had a boss fight as level 3ish where being able to slam down a bunch of CL7th magic missiles was pretty useful. You may find the Cypher Magic feat useful in this regard.

Max UMD! Kind of on the same note, with spell study you can make scrolls from other lists very easily. This has the advantage of making them combat viable (as far as casting time is concerned, anyway). Of course, you can't use them very easily without UMD, but at least since they're all "wizard" scrolls you just need to emulate caster level and not ability score.
Same kind of deal with wands and staves, and although these are much easier to just use, it's probably not a bad idea to aim for the +19 modifier to never fail.

Keep an eye out for early access spells such as heroism (Bard 2 vs Wizard 3) or animate dead (Cleric 3 vs Wizard 4); these are nice since scrolls and stuff are easier to activate when you can make them lower caster level. Plus you can get special discount consumables like this as well, since little else can make CL3 wands of heroism, for instance.
As an added bonus, you can rub it into your other party members' faces that you get their spells earlier than they do. (Getting animate dead a level before our necromancy obsessed oracle as a wizard was pretty funny)

Consider unusual cross-class spell combinations! Take glyph of warding for example. You could put confusion, charm monster, fear, fireball or poison in for an otherwise impossible combo.

Know your full spell list! It's already been said, but it's worth saying again.

Looking through my assortment of characters, looks like I favour non-human, small sized characters with a bias towards melee. Despite my dislike of prepared casters I've played more of them than spontaneous casters. Same deal for full casters vs all other casters (Call me odd, but I like to have actual class features and spells only doesn't really cut it). Done more psychic casters than arcane, and somehow never done a plain divine caster at all. Several monk/kineticist/natural attack type characters.
Usually go for more unconventional builds or ones that could be considered downright terrible, notably a kobold Champion of Irori on a 15 point buy. Tend to come up with a personality or background and pick what feels appropriate for them from that which tends to be the reason.

Haven't done the full alignment spectrum, but hit a lot of it. Let the game go a few sessions to let the character settle before I pencil in an alignment, and have in the past finished campaigns without ever formally putting in an alignment at all. I prefer law/chaos conflicts to good/evil ones since the moral grayness conflicts like that tend to involve interest me more, so that tends to be a focus in my alignment.

I dump wisdom and higher charisma characters more than I should, largely because I find characters who make dumb decisions are more fun to play, particularly when they can be convinced they're right. A trend I may have passed on to the rest of my group...
Mostly otherwise I try to avoid a dump stat at all.

Finally, a very even split between characters whose background could be summarised by "Just fine, thanks!" and "I am doomed and horribly unlucky."

Click me!

If you’ve read through the kineticist class in Occult Adventures, or even any of N. Jolly’s excellent Kineticists of Porphyra series, you might have found that it’s a touch difficult to use, largely because everything’s just thrown about higgledy piggledy. Well, not quite, but alphabetically, and while that’s a fine, sensible way to organise things, you don’t actually end up with a thing that’s especially easy to read, use or reference, especially since there are a big chunk of things you don’t need to use for the element you want to use
Therefore, I have started this document as a way to make things that much easier to read and use by treating each element (and in some cases, each blast) separately. There is repetition in here, largely because it’s more practical to use when your thing’s just there without needing to go looking for it in other places. No one likes to be told “it’s like this thing” and then need to go off and find that thing.

Document plans

I will update this as I gain access to it.
I will grant editing access to people who are fairly dedicated contributors and/or designers
I will try to change descriptions so the flavour suits that element only
I will try to include 3rd party material if I can get approval from the designers
I will try to check the document from time to time to comment on stuff/make changes
I will not trawl through the Paizo forums looking for errata &c.; if there’s something that’s changed just drop a comment on here and I’ll update it when I get around to it
I plan to do an archetype section at some stage
I might do a list of what wild talents are shared between elements for multi-element kineticists

This should contain most of the current Paizo material available, as well as N. Jolly's excellent Kineticists of Porphyra series (with the current exception of book 4)

I feel like cleave is actually better on lower BAB characters, where those extra attacks from BAB come in 2 (or 5 if you're doing something unusual) levels later and the lower hit chance on them make the more accurate, earlier multiple hits a better option.

If you build a rogue for it for instance, a surprise round or just winning initiative where you can sneak attack multiple targets because of cleave can be pretty sweet. They're even more likely to be in a cleaveable position. If you have one of those rare things that give you extra standard actions such as Mythic or Monk of the Four Winds, cleave becomes a better option again as well.

To an extent you can take other things to help it work for you; the standard reach trip build can work pretty well for keeping things where you can cleave them. A friend (or pet) with reposition manoeuvres can help a lot, which could make it viable for a Druid, Summoner or Spiritualist. Going fancy, having a golem or undead companion and brilliant energy weapon gives you the option of harmlessly cleaving through your non-living friend if necessary before continuing on to another target.

Hasn't been mentioned yet, but the Torc of Innocuous Gems from the Spymaster's Handbook also keeps Ioun Stones out of the way, albeit at the cost of the neck slot.

Actually went ahead with Kobold Monk/Paladin (with vow of poverty for extra cringe).

Agreed that Halfling Barbarian is also pretty cool, and becomes pretty sweet if you throw in Risky Striker.

Gnoll swashbuckler is something I've wanted to do for a little bit, as well as a Goblin Rage Prophet.

In the realm of NPCs, a Troll vigilante? Pugwampi cleric? C'thulu Commoner?

Amused to get serious responses about the origin of the mile, and while not especially helpful for remembering how many feet are in a mile, at least it's insightful information, I suppose? The point of it was really just that stuff gets really awkward when you have to convert within the system.

Anyway, I think I'd be perfectly fine to just have everything in units of squares, since that's what it all comes down to, really. Call it 5 feet, or 1 metre, or what have you. Even just a little conversion table in easy reach within the book to convert from squares on the various scales into metric/imperial would be a start.

*echoes above sentiments and fears*

It still surprises me when I realise that a 10 ft. by 10 ft. room is 3m by 3m, and it's actually pretty large. I suppose it's just what you're used to, but it's difficult to care about getting used to the bizarre conversions just within the imperial system. I mean, the number of feet in a mile? Who even came up with that?

Ultimately though, when everything's basically just in units of "Squares" on your battle map, you can call it whatever you like. I admit to just crushing distance a little and using 1m squares instead of 5ft. ones, and calling a mile a kilometre. Everything's (approximately) 2/3s the size in actual distance, but it's still the same number of spaces between things, and that's mostly what matters. Also makes it incidentally more practical in normal use.

More playtest feedback (going here since I can't make a thread in the playtest bit). Hope this is still kind of relevant for a later date.

I'm kind of interested to see if it's possible to improve the damage my Fighter's bear-trap covered table, or bear-trap fishing pole, or cauldron with bear trap on the inside, or chair with swords strapped to its legs. And if those are even technically improvised anymore. Marked.

Thanks for those quick responses!

Sounds like it's probably not a good idea to boost those further without due consideration. You've convinced me pleasantly quickly.

I do like the idea of increasing their cost rather than denying access to players, and will probably go with that, but probably won't do it to the extreme that 3.x did. How do you think something like a formula like normal trend x (1 + bonus above 5) would work? That is, 72000gp for a +6 cloak and 147000gp for a +7 cloak.

Just noticed Mythic Adventures had items like the Cloak of Quick Reflexes +5/+6 Reflex, which gives a +6 resistance bonus to reflex saves and +5 to the others, so it's not unheard of, it seems, but Mythic isn't exactly a great example of balance.

I've been digging through my rulebooks trying to find some kind of reason why you shouldn't be able to make something like a cloak of resistance +6 or a belt of giant's strength +8. A number of items like this have level requirements, but in principle these could be beaten by high caster level creatures like half-fiendish Rocs with little difficulty or just increasing the DC of the spellcraft check to make it.

Are the values actual hard caps in order to maintain game balance, or are they just guidelines that are intended to be surpassed, and simply weren't included in order to create more space in the books instead of cluttering them with simple high-level variants of basic items? What kind of an impact would extrapolating the trends make on a game?

Modify memory is great almost whatever you're doing, and so much more subtle than many of the other enchantment spells. Gotta love it.

Siphon magic's good for a laugh. There's nothing more satisfying than stealing someone's permanency, spell resistance or spell turning.

Quite partial to a good Battlemind Link as well, if you have the appropriate party members to benefit from it.

Hmm, the way you are describing it it would make sense for it to be a universal effect based on remaining HP, rather than a fighter only mechanic (not like the pain is much less when you are being blindsided by an assassin or mauled by an owlbear). Unchained had rules about debuffs tied to HP thresholds, but I do not remember if casting was affected. I would say that it should, so perhaps build on that.

It does indeed hit caster levels, and casters who have taken damage can lose access to higher spell levels. I haven't tried it yet, but I like the idea. I sort of like the gritty one where the penalties double, so every time you lose 25% of your hp you lose a level of spells.

Called shots came to mind when you said some of those things. You can do a lot by readying an action to make a called shot to a caster's arm as they try to cast a spell. Combine with spellbreaker and they're going to have to deal with a pretty nasty concentration check (19 + damage taken + spell level). Neck shots can crumple casters too, if you're a crit fisher, although they're hard to pull off.

That said, it's very much like counterspelling, even if it's more likely to work. You need some kind of way to be able to do that as an immediate action for it to ever be practical. Some kind of mechanic/feat that would let you exchange Attacks of Opportunity for Readied Actions would be just the thing (a 2 for 1 trade? Start at 1 but increase costs per readied action?). The spell contingent action is sort of okay for that, but it's impractical.

Well, I tried, and it went as I expected. You ignored my suggestion to just make humans good at skills and doubled back on yourself with your reasoning about why humans get the climb speed and weapon proficiencies in the first place. Don't use real stuff to justify giving things then reject real stuff that contradicts it.

Seriously, it is all your ridiculously generous house rules. I would honestly as a player complain about that, because it is horribly, horribly strong. You would do better to just not start at level 1 and let people have their feats and skills from levels without massively weakening humans as you currently are.

I'm not sure why you've bothered to ask for suggestions, because you've taken very little on board (In your defence, you've done something at least), responded with abuse to criticism and have repeatedly contracted your arguments, which many people on this thread have pointed out to you. I know this sounds like an attack, but please, if you're coming to people asking for their advice, make sure you're actually open to suggestions. We can't help you if you don't want help. You're just subjecting yourself to hatred and mockery otherwise.

I'm just going to link this to you, and point out 'Guns everywhere', but otherwise, I'm done with this. Whatever you decide to do, enjoy your games.

I can't believe I'm going to add to this mess, but here goes. I've lurked long enough. I'll try to be mostly constructive and stick on topic.

It seems like the reason you're finding humans weak is because your house rules are giving everyone a big bunch of feats (at least 3) right at the start (as you said right back at post 71). My primary suggestion for buffing humans is consequentially: don't do that. If you're giving basically the best thing about being human to everyone, twice, of course they're going to seem weak! By all means, tweak feat trees to make them less feat intensive (we all know they need that), but you should let humans keep the thing that makes them special. It's almost surprising you'd have any humans at all.

But, that aside, if you still want to improve humans...

I suppose I'm fine with your liberal interpretation of flexible, but I'm aware that it's still very strong and worth a lot. Since you're so liberal with feats I'd scrap the bonus feat completely and just go with even more skill ranks. I'm a big fan of the Focused Study alternate race trait, so you could throw that in there as well. Make the humans good with skills since their feat isn't really a thing anymore. That'd be my choice of things to alter from basic humans.

As for the rest of your proposed features? I'd scrap them. I'll be the token person who foolishly tries to bring real world examples to the abstraction because no-one else seems to have and maybe it will finally convince you that they really don't make sense (And regret it when I look through later and see how you or someone else viscously rips it apart).

I don't know about you, but I certainly couldn't reliably climb at 0.5m/s with ease, even up something simple like a ladder, and especially not if people were being shot at or something nearby. And by 'ease' here I mean for an extended period of time as easily as walking. I don't think I could effectively dodge an attack if I was climbing, either. I'd call myself slightly on the less fit side of average, but still, I think that's something most people would struggle with. With that in consideration, I think it's tough to justify the climb speed, since if humans had a climb speed, everyone would be able to do that.

Since we have guns everywhere, that makes them simple weapons. Not that I've ever used a real one, I can imagine most people would be able to use one without a lot of difficulty, and they'd be the weapon of choice. BAM, commoner's simple weapon proficiency dealt with. Other stuff, like clubs, spears, daggers? Maybe less so, but lots of people today would be experts and be able to use them anyway. People able to use other stuff, like swords or bows effectively? That's getting a lot rarer. If the basic NPC classes can take care of the weapon proficiencies actual people have, it's probably not necessary to give everyone weapon proficiency in something else as well.

My solution? Speak with animals and just ask the parrot.

More seriously, I think this is very doable. It's a nice little puzzle, and I wouldn't expect it to take more than 5 minutes to solve.

If I was actually in the party you were doing this for, I probably would have gotten it after a couple of trial things to figure out how it worked. You should probably have some hints for if they got stuck though.

Ooops, you're right, it is fixed. Looks like I misread it on the prd. My mistake (sorry).

Curious. It's not mentioned in the errata for 2nd to 6th printing. And as mentioned before, it's still there in the prd (with links to show).

Regardless of what happens, it would be nice to have it clarified in the prd if nothing else.

The errata relevant for my printing (2nd) doesn't fix it, but since the bestiary says they can't do the counterspell thing, that's probably the interpretation to take.

In fact, it's not fixed even in the prd. The page 554 version and the page 221 version.

EDIT: I've got a pdf

For whatever reason, I can't find any errata for this, so I thought I'd see if anyone can find me something official. I've checked the errata relevant for my copy of the core rulebook, but there doesn't seem to be a fix.

Spell-Like Abilities: Usually, a spell-like ability works just like the spell of that name. A spell-like ability has no verbal, somatic, or material component, nor does it require a focus. The user activates it mentally. Armor never affects a spell-like ability’s use, even if the ability resembles an arcane spell with a somatic component.
A spell-like ability has a casting time of 1 standard action unless noted otherwise in the ability or spell description. In all other ways, a spell-like ability functions just like a spell.
Spell-like abilities are subject to spell resistance and dispel magic. They do not function in areas where magic is suppressed or negated. Spell-like abilities cannot be used to counterspell, nor can they be counterspelled. Some creatures actually cast arcane spells as sorcerers do, using components when required. Some creatures have both spell-like abilities and actual spellcasting power.

Spell-Like Abilities (Sp): Spell-like abilities, as the name implies, are magical abilities that are very much like spells. Spell-like abilities are subject to spell resistance and dispel magic. They do not function in areas where magic is suppressed or negated (such as an antimagic field). Spell-like abilities can be dispelled and counterspelled as normal.

So, one page says you can counterspell them and use them to counterspell, while the other says you can't. Which is correct?

Here's another idea. Make the required gems rare. Like they should be, at that price. Suddenly you have all sorts of complications that make returning less routine:

- To get a 5000gp gem you may have to travel to a major city. Can you make it there in time before your days limit on Raise Dead runs out?
- Even then, the amount of gems may be limited. Some of them may be reserved by nobility for a rainy day. Convincing them to sell to you may require some inspired RP or a quest to build trust. After all, wouldn't the noble's rivals also like to trick him into selling his get out of death card?
- If the PCs wisely stock up on such gems themselves, they may become targets of thieves and assassins looking to "make sure they stay dead". If a gem is stolen just before a major fight, your players will be nervous...

That idea I like, and it's so easy to implement. It's all too easy to just handwave that issue.

I was going to suggest something like how the old Wizardry RPG did it. While the low level spells work, there's a chance of turning someone to bone or ash instead of it working. As an untested example:

Make a DC 25 caster level check. On a successful check, the target is revived as normal. Failure by less than 10 indicates that the target is instead reduced to a pile of bones as the physical remains reject the soul. Failure by more than 10 indicates the body instead is reduced to a fine ash.
Using resurrection gives a +2 bonus on this check, and true resurrection gives a +4 bonus on the check. If the body is already bones, failure on the check reduces the body to ash instead.

Alternatively, if you don't want to do the bones/ash thing, just keep the check and let the negative levels be applied regardless of whether it succeeds or not.

My other suggestion would be that the spell always works... but they're never quite the same. Maybe something caught a lift back with them. Perhaps some small fear develops, or paranoia, or schizophrenia. An overwhelming compulsion to try on every pair of boots that they find, or lick every dwarf with red hair. Maybe a one-time one-round domination by an unknown force for dramatic effect.

I did something similar to this a while back, but went for the half-orc two-handed style instead for Intimidating Prowess, cornugon smash and surprise follow through. grumble stupid lack of alternatives for finesse training grumble It's worth looking at Dazzling Display and Shatter Defences if you're considering this (and haven't already), as the memorable trait and dastardly finish. It's always hilarious to open a fight by making everyone scared with no save.
Also, don't worry about non-lethal damage. Luckily, Sap Adept and Sap Master are things. (And you get to have prisoners/pets if that's something you like to have)

The main issue you might have is that it's not clear how the skill unlock for intimidate works combined with Thug. The (basically) guaranteed frighten on one hit per creature is nifty, but it can sometimes be annoying not giving them shaken as well. Long term the intimidate skill unlock will be better than the Thug's ability, especially with the number of attacks you'll be making.

But, that's beside the point. The Thug is easily the better at intimidation since it can give frightened so easily, and sickened beats shaken for a debuff, and getting both (which you'll have) is better yet.

For the record, my half-orc was able to just always intimidate everything for basically the whole fight, right from level 1, and Intimidate scales pretty well. The extra stacking +5 from rake isn't necessary. Funny, but not necessary.

Don't forget that if you get 25 on your heal check for treat deadly wounds you add your wisdom modifier to the number of HP per HD. If you've got a decent wisdom, that very quickly becomes a good heal. Still takes ages though. Some way of speeding it up would be great though. Treating lesser wounds is good.

The special's terrible at low ranks. Really. And then it becomes too good on a success. If you wanted to reward extra ranks in heal, something like reducing the time it takes by 10 minutes per 5 you beat the DC of 20 by would work well.

Heh, this is a great idea. I'd favour a Sorcerer's, Psychics or even Mesmerist's chances of succeeding compared to a Wizards. The lack of new spells would be a serious barrier to a wizard, if they weren't completely prepared when they came and/or couldn't plane shift somewhere to buy access to more. That spellbook could quite possibly be the most valuable book on the planet, if word got out.

But, that's beside the point.
By outright conquest by brute force, I don't think it would be possible short of a bunch of mythic ranks. Or at least, it might work for a small, weak country, if you were reasonably strong, and then you could maybe use their resources to build an army of your own and work from there. A wall of force or something similar would realistically be one of your best defences, but I don't think it would last for that long. You'd need something like a one-way wall.

The secretive approach would definitely be the easiest option. Just working your way up, charming the right people, until eventually you get to the top. Charm monster would be ideal, so that's making it a 7th level wizard at least. Charm Person simply doesn't last long enough to be consistently useful, especially at lower levels.

But, rules as written, you could probably just pull it off with a +18 modifier to diplomacy/perform(oratory)/bluff, which would sway most crowds. To get that, assuming reasonable charisma (+2) and a trait to make it a class skill, that's level 13. 10 if you get skill focus, or even lower than that with magic items. Don't even need to be a wizard, but the magic would help a lot in doing your other things.

I've often wondered about trying to do this as well. Thing is, as you've probably seen, actually getting it to work is tricky. I'd certainly shy away from making anything more than one level lower on principle, because sometimes there are spells that you haven't thought about that would be able to be altered with a metamagic you hadn't considered. You also need to keep your bases covered so that you're never giving any spell levels away for free, and that you're not potentially giving people early access to spells. A little bit like "You cannot cast spells modified by these metamagics without being able to cast a vanilla version of the spell" would be helpful. Also, just a general thing saying that you can never reduce the level of a spell below 1 is better than saying it for each one.

That said, there are some good ideas that I hadn't considered that you've given me ideas for, which I might as well drop here now. Note that these are intentionally harsh, because any spell level drop is very, very good. Also because there aren't any official ones to compare them to.

The other big thing that hasn't come up yet is that sometimes monsters can qualify for prestige classes without needing to take any (or far fewer at any rate) levels in a base class, and that's a niche that's worth filling. When you haven't got a base class to be committed to in the first place, prestige classes are usually a better choice. I'm actually sort of disappointed that there haven't been more prestige classes designed with monsters in mind.

These are interesting ideas. I agree more with our Jolly friend rather than the other two above me.

So those gloves are... 4,000 gp for the element focused, 16,000 gp for the blasting and 36,000 gp for the greater blasting? It's not totally clear, but for the blasting and greater blasting, I'd say those are pretty much spot on for both power and effect. For an enhancement bonus to the blasts, I'm inclined to say there's likely a reason for them not including an item that does that yet (and I'd be surprised if it was lack of book space). The overflowing rod does that job pretty well as it is.

The Canopic Jars/Blood Runes are definitely too cheap. If it was just one burn per day, and you can't also use gather power then it'd be about right for the price. I'd probably double it to be on the safe side, and use the usual square mechanic to get the price of new jars (ignore 2 burn=8,000gp, ignore 3=16,000gp). Also, I'm pretty sure there's already canopic jars, so blood runes are probably a better name.

The Nonlethal DR though? I'm less happy about that. I think the burn mechanic is pretty elegant, even if it's not actually very good. N Jolly's got the right idea here though; just a wearable something to ignore x burn a day is pretty decent. Body Slot's good, too. But, I think it's actually better to not have it increase your total burn limit. So, it's effectively a belt of mighty constitution, but it only works for kineticists with burn (and it doesn't actually increase constitution). So yeah, 2,000gp * x^2 where x is the amount of burn you ignore would seem reasonable.

I'm sort of interested: how many people actually ever use counterspelling in any way? Do you ever ready actions to counterspell things as you wander through dangerous areas? Do you give you NPC parties counterspell specialists? Or is it just a complete waste of time for you, something that's so rare that it might as well not happen?

SNERK! This is hilarious! Good job! I'm probably going to have to use this in future.

Ring of endless feather fall
This gives the wearer a constant effect feather fall and earth glide effect. However, the feather fall effect is broken and does not recognise the ground at all, causing the wearer to sink into the earth uncontrollably as soon as they put it on.

Multi-purpose banana
The swiss army knife of fruit! You can use it to speak at will to any other banana on the same plane, peel it to make a hat that grants a +1 banana bonus on saves against mind-affecting effects or fire it as a ranged touch attack that does 1 banana damage on a successful hit. Also, it functions as a banana.

Self-carrying box
A creature standing in this box can pick up the box and manipulate it as if it were not in the box.

Plate of Eating
As a standard action, a creature can attune itself to the plate. Once attuned to a creature, anything put on the plate is magically transferred into the attuned creature's stomach.

Needle locator
This small compass points to the location of the nearest needle. If the nearest needle is in a haystack, the needle locator groans loudly as if in pain, then vanishes in a puff of black smoke.

Paint bucket of interior design
Throw the entire contents of the bucket into a room and it will redecorate the room completely, including furnishings worth up to 1,000 gp in total. Popular colours include 'prison cell grey', 'Bar room brown' and 'arcane laboratory of eldritch secrets octarine'.