Wren Rolstern's page

Oh sorry, i was going for human. But I would also do halfelf.

I'm about to finalize my oradin pc after our game tommorrow. It's going to be the usual paladin build with 4 dips in oracle for lifelink to be an hp battery for the heavy frontliners.

What I need advice with is: is there a way I can make this work while doing damage from the rear? Some sort of reach weapon build to trip/or threaten an area in front of casters? Archer is ok too, but it seems I need a lot of feats to be of any real use in the first half of my levels.

Thanks a lot, i was wondering if there was something else Amiri had that lets her do it.

So in order to be legal, i have to take exotic weapon proficiency bastard sword to do it at a -2 penalty just like the pregen barb? (Amiri)

Im writing up a new paladin for PFS core campaign and I'm going for a (WoW) Retribution Paladin feel. I recently found out you can wield a larger size 1h weapon for a -2 penalty and have to wield it 2handed.

My question is as the title says, whats my final penalty considering that:

-Bastard swords are 1handed weapons that can be used w/o exotic proficiency if using as a 2h weapon
-A large bastard sword must be wielded 2handed

I feel your pain. First time I ran into swarms, I had no idea what to do and we had casters with no aoe spells (lvl 3 party). After that scenario I spent most of my gold so I can have at least 10 flasks of different types and started saving up for a swarmbane clasp.

With that said there are a couple of options I have used to deal with swarms at low levels (until I buy a swarmbane clasp as my first big purchase before upgrading).

Swarmsuit 20gp dr10/- against fine swarms or dr5/- against diminutive swarms but cuts move speed to hals. I used it to great effect a few times until I got a clasp.

Someone mentioned vermin repellant too, and 5gp is inconsequential enough that its nice to have when the occasion arrives.

Being creative works, you'd be surprised how some GMs will work with you if you're creative enough:
Spend the gold on tangleburn bags and when you hit, have everyone toss some water with their canteens (you did buy adventuring gear right?). With a full 6man party thats a potential 12 flasks of water hitting as alchemist fires.

Someone mentioned pulling out a sleeping mat and covering the swarm so they can hit with bludgeoning weapons bypassing dr and weapon immunities.

Use your torches as weapons, thats still bludgeoning and fire damage.

And someone mentioned running, thats also an option. My party decided to run and leave a scenario when we realized just how bad our situation was. 3 leech swarms, and I was the only person with flasks out of a 4 man party. Used up all my items and barely killed 1 so we decided to pack up and leave.

I thought so. Great, now to make my shopping list before the next session. Thanks again

Does the 1d6 against me multiply on a crit also? I have improve crit katanas right now so its been happening more often.

Trying to decide on my next big purchase. I have the big 6, boots of speed and jingasa already. Now im trying to decide on which weapon enhancement to get.

On the surface vicious seems good as a flat 2d6 against anything and the 1d6 blowback damage I can just heal off with a Lay on hand. Cheaper too as a +1 enhancement price

Holy on the other hand holy is 2d6 only against evil creatures (which are often in pfs, but not always), and costs +2 enhancement.

Am i missing something or should i jist go with the holy?

Thanks again for any advice.

Swarmbane clasp, something you should definitely look into in PFS play. You can never be 100% sure that your table will have casters with AOE spells when you have to wade through water and leech swarms start coming at you.

As mentioned the jingasa is pretty good. You wont need it as much as a pally (unless you dont have heroes defiance prepared, its just too good). But cancelling that random x4 crit from the BBEG is useful.

Pearls of power lvl1: get a few for heroes defiance.

Other mundane stuff that are very situational but cheap enough that you wont worry about the costs, but you will be glad you had when the conditions are right.

http://michiganpfs.org/80-articles/pfsblog/97-pfs4-4

Just the other day we ran a scenario where it was suggested there was a underwater part. I had a hunch of air crystals that i split up with the party just in case. Soon enough we found ourselves stuck underground with water filling up the room with monsters swimming in for underwater combat. What would have been a deadly combat with a timer became trivial after I drank my potion of touch of the sea (50gp) to finish combat quickly, and everyone still had air crystals to use while i looked for the key to get us out of there.

Thanks. Thats good to know, wish I could spare the feat for it though :(

Byakko does that apply to PCs? Like say I wear my necklace of natural armor first for the AC bonus, then the swarmbane afterwards (which I wont be getting the effects). Then when we run into swarms, use an action to take off the natural armor necklace and drop it?

Yes you can have the paladin ready a move action to step in after the fighter leaves from what i can see with the rules.

Other than using feats or abilities this is how it could be done.

Paladin delays actions until fighter's turn
Fighter makes a withdraw action to leave the square without taking AOO (cant 5 foot step because paladin is in the way, and hard corners)
Paladin comes out of delay and steps up to plug the hole. No AOO for him too.
This assumes the mobs dont have reach

You could also just have the melee stay at the tunnel entrance so you have 3 people making attacks against 1 mob

+1 for this. I've been holding off getting a nexklace of natural armor because I'd rather not spend multiple rounds to take it off, grab my swarmbane clasp, and put it on.

Could be wrong but i thought the boots of the earth only work if you spend a move action to activate it stay in that same spot. Still a cheap fast healing +1 for archer types or oradins.

That halforc paladin with hero's defiance prepared, pearls of powers, and meditation crystals activated will be able to take some serious damage.

Magda, what do you use to get divine favor as a swift action?

Play an evil campaign and have your villain be a paladin with Pearls of power for heroes defiance and meditation crystals for lay on hands.

;)

+1 for flowing monk if you like that build.

We took on defenders of nesting swallow with one standing beside our barbarian. He'd trip anyone that attacks the barbarian, letting him attack them with ease, while i stood on the rooftops taking potshots at stragglers. Even better when the last waves of enemies appeared. He was definitely the one who kept us from dying.

Thanks, i missed that while i was digging around for answers.

I'd like to see a hard ruling myself for PFS but i've yet to see a GM who hasn't let me shoot a full 4 shots (rapid shot, haste, and 2 base attacks). Now double muskets is not something I plan on using for my musket master because this adds the debate if Rapid reload muskets count as applying for this. I'd rather keep it as simple as possible.

Divine bond wont work like that. When you activate it, you decide which abilities you want to go into effect.

At level 8 you would have a maximum of +2 bonus to use. With a non-magical weapon here is what you can do.

First you make it a +1 weapon. Afterwards you choose:
A) another +1 enhancement for a +2 total or
B) you have a choice of adding one of these keen/defending/flaming/merciful

You get the bonuses for 8 mins and then your weapon reverts to its pre-bond stats. No switching of bonuses during the bonds duration

Edit:
And totally missed the last part, but yes your weapon is +1 defending again before you decide to switch the bonus.

I will agree that some of these reach builds are definitely effective as a tank . Personally though I still like the image of a knight in the frontlines leading the charge hence my preference for paladin tanks (Im a fan of Tyrion fordring from Warcraft if that helps).

I also wanted to be an AC beast starting out, but after reading around here I realized there's another way to look at tanking as a paladin in pfs. This isnt the usual MMO where you can use threat and agro to keep mobs locked on you. Opponents in pfs might have different tactics and the smart ones can see that if their atk rolls of 15++ cant hit your AC they will instead ignore you and go for someone else.

With that said I decided to round up my paladin so she can be more effective rather than just a walking tank. You can get by with lesser AC than other builds would have because of a few reasons that I realized from playing:

A) you heal as a swift action with lay on hands (more if you have fey foundling feat)
B) immunities to disease/fear/charm effects
C) high saves with divine grace (especially fort and will)
D) having a lower AC than an AC stacking tank can help make you a bigger target
E) you have access to some great spells to help you tank (hero's defiance -auto lay on hands when going unconcious makes it hard to kill you, compel hostility, shield other, paladins sacrifice)
F) Smite evil- more often than not, that BBEG at the end of a scenario will be Evil. This is just gravy to have in times like this.

With that said here is what my build ended up doing

And then there were fights with undead mummys with fear auras, sandmen with sleep auras, or that glaberazu after that ghostly minotaur in a maze, a lot of it was me holding back the beasts while my party recovered and took them down afterwards. So if you are interested I'd be more than happy to share my build if you think you'll like that. Shes only 24AC so not exactly an AC beast that you wanted.

I cant say how much i love the concept of playing a ranged sniper making that one shot that can change the flow of battle. and since finding out about the gunslinger class, i've been having a lot of fun playing the part.

E.g.

Anyway back on topic, I saw this nice piece of equipment for moments like that when I need to make 1 shot.

Far reaching sight
This sight can be attached to a single two-handed firearm. When this is done, the sight becomes part of the weapon, but can be removed from that weapon with a full-round action. A firearm wielder can choose to spend a full-round action to make a single shot with a firearm that has this sight. When she does, she can resolve the attack against the touch AC of her target regardless of the range increment.

What I'd like help with is what can I do to up the damage for this shot? Deadly aim is a given, while I think Vital strike doesnt work since it specifies attack actions, while the sight works as a full round action.

Thanks. I didnt think the 2 round duration was immediately after. I thought it would be similar to the pearls of power where you "activate" them then use at anytime.

I guess its still ok to have a few fire forged cartridges and just use them right after getting hit by fire spells.

That cleared this up, thanks again.

I've been searching around for anything about fire forged bullets for gunslingers. I understand you can use special materials for alchemical cartridges. Weapon blanches on the other hand cant be used.

My question is since you need fire to "activate" fire forged items (full round on a campfire or flame spell) is it possible to prepare a set of fire forged bullets before it gets loaded in an alchemical cartridge BEFORE buying from npcs or are you stuck with eating a fireball before you can use your fire forged bullets with the damage bonus?

Dot

Perfect timing, since im trying to make my 2nd pfs character. Thanks

Thanks for the list.

Hello all, I'm trying to plan out a couple of ideas for a new PC for pfs. They're basically 2 different paladin builds, a divine hunter and a support hospitaler oradin.

My question is about archetypes. I'd like to take 1 dip in divine hunter and take the rest as either a hospitaler for the oradin, and oath of vengeance for the dpr.

From what i understand about archetypes you cant use both if they change a similar ability, so I wanted to make sure if this idea was pfs legal or not? Otherwise I'll look and see what my options are for the type of character I have in mind.

Sorry for the thread necro but I have a similar question about sidestep secret and cant find the specific answer.

This was mentioned to me awhile back, take a dip in lore oracle so I can apply my Cha bonus to AC as a paladin. But as I read the revelation, I still would only get +1 AC from Sidestep secret from my +5 cha bonus since I have +2 Full plate on which is a 1 maximum Dex AC bonus. My touch AC bonus would go up but otherwise am I right thinking that its not really worthwhile to take a dip in oracle at this point?

The Cold iron choice was more for background reasons since I wanted her to be a demon slaying avenger. And honestly when i bought it I had no clue about dr/hardness. I just liked the idea of a "cold" forged blade lol

What spells work well for the extend lesser rod? I havent really read the spellcasting stuff so im wondering how you get can get value off it.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will definitely work on getting the stat boosts earlier than i was planning on (thought lvl 8 or so)

Hello everyone, I've been mulling over what to buy for my Oath of vengeance paladin 6.

Here are my current stats:
14 str
14 dex
13 con
12 int
-7 wis
18 cha

My current equipment:
+2 full plate
+1 cold iron katana
Darkwood composite bow (+2 str)
Swarmbane clasp
7000 gold

Heres what I have in mind and my thoughts:

Wand of shield + spell storing ioun stone on my wayfinder: During a previous scenario, the BBEG was very nasty and knocked me down 3x. It wasnt evil so SE was not helpful, so this was an idea To UMD the spell on a stone out of combat and use it when I need the boost to shield ac +4. And it stacks with SE deflection bonus for the evil guys.

Ring of protection and amulet of natural prot: straight +2 ac, just swap amulets for swarms

+1 Adamantium katana: for all the constructs, helpful for opening locks too. I plan on getting improved critical at lvl 9 to benefit both and save me 12000gp from getting keen.

Stat boost item: cha or str/con? Stats are always nice

Pearl of power: ive been told these are great especially with hero's defiance.

Any opinions or suggestions appreciated. Thanks again

Thanks for the build suggestions, ill definitely adapt those ideas for my next char. This one is more a fluffy character and didnt have to be optimized. Just something i liked to picture a paladin with a background i had in mind.

Thanks again for the advice

As the title says I would like your opinions about where to go forward with my paladin build. Right now here are her stats. This is for a PFS character by the way

Str 14
Dex 14
Con 13
wis 7
Int 12
Cha 18

I was building her as a melee fighter who switches between sword and board or 2-handed whichever the situation warrants. Seeing as she is a half-elf, I liked it if she used ranged combat if the targets are too far and I don't want her moving away from the group.

Right now her feats are
(1)fey foundling
(1)ancestral arms: Weapon proficiency exotic (katana)
(3)power attack
(5)deadly aim

I was just going to skip the Rapid Shot feat tree because I would only benefit from it in later scenarios. I then realized I could take a dip in fighter for 2 levels to get the bonus feats I need to get Rapid Shot at a more reasonable level earlier than normal. I've read Paladin archer was the most optimized build, but I still wanted to be able to play as the knight who holds back the tide with sword and/or shield in hand.

I would lose out on a Smite Evil use (not too worried becaue of channel wrath)and 1 LoH use along with 1d6, which some math shows me would be close to 87hp LoH heals avg for all uses (including fey foundling hp bonus and extra lay on hands feat uses).

(22hp per LoH x 12 uses vs 27hp per LoH x 13 uses)

tl;dr:
Is the potential loss of self healing 87+hp from LoH worth it to have a potential 5 smite evil attacks (haste + rapid shot)with bows?