amorangias's page

Level 1 - Color Spray and Grease

Level 3 - Web, Glitterdust and Pyrotechnics
Level 5 - Sleet Storm, Spiked Pit and Slow.
Level whatever - black tentacle

Wow. I must go read up on these spells. They've never been part of my repertoire but now that someone is making a list of all the win buttons i'd better do some homework...

Is this really true? Are web and color spray win buttons in pathfinder? I have to admit I've never bothered to read them partly because they're just not my style, put partly because they used to kinda suck... I've never been much of a combat wizard though...

Perhaps we can make a separate topic where we list all the win buttons so that they can be erratad and people can start playing campaigns above level 8 again...

Color Spray - it only affects low level creatures, but when it does, it's an area save or die effect.

Grease is probably the most versatile first level spell. It creates an area between the team and the monsters where anyone who enters has to save or fall down, stopping chargers and giving team's archers a few rounds of free shots. It can also help with escaping grapples and act as a magical disarm, depending on what you need.

Web is Grease on steroids, with higher save DC and a much more debilitating status. Everything that gets caught in it is a free target for all the team's fighters. In certain environments, it can even stop flying creatures.

Glitterdust cancels invisibility and inflicts blindness - both are area effects. Blinded enemies have a hard time doing anything against the team, and the ability to effectively dispel invisibility is a godsend at such low levels. The only downside is, the blindness effect allows a save each round.

Pyrotechnics also blinds enemies, but with only one saving throw - the downside is, there has to be a source of fire nearby. Or, if you don't wish to blind enemies, you can instead create a cloud of smoke that obscures all vision and inficts a -4 penalty to Strength and Dexterity.

Sleet Storm is a mixture of Grease and Pyrotechnics - it creates an area where no one sees anything and movement is hampered. Again, put it between the team and the enemies and you gain a few rounds to prepare for the oncoming battle.

Spiked Pit is just what it says on the tin - you create a spiked pit into which the enemies can fall and take damage. Use in conjunction with any of the vision-obscuring effects above (or even Fog Cloud, another good 2nd level spell, just not as versatile as those above).

Slow is a straight up mass save or suck. Staggered is one of the nastiest conditions you can put on a monster relying on physical attacks.

None of these spells is an absolute "I win" button, except maybe Color Spray on really low levels. Instead, each of these significantly hampers the enemy forces, either straight up debuffing them or buying your team time to buff without dealing with those pesky attacks. Each of them affects many targets and leaves a relatively long-lasting effect, which is key to proper use of magic in PF.

Then, there's Black Tentacles, the closest you can get to a true "I win" button at low-middle levels. It creates a field where everyone who enters is attacked with a grapple, and then crushed for your pleasure. No save, no SR. Just roll for grapple using your CL as BAB and adding +5. I've seen it wreak havoc from level 7 to about 13, then it starts falling behind enemy CMD, but while it lasts, it's absolutely amazing.

Paladin is good as far as martial classes go. Smite makes him king against single big evil dudes, and his overall survivability carries him through the rest of encounters. He also gets a very badass list of spells, perfect for boosting his offensive when evil isn't around.

That said, he's still a martial class. He can't teleport out of the dungeon when there's no other way to escape. He can't stack miss chances on himself until the enemy BAB becomes irrelevant. He can't divide the enemy forces with walls or single out the boss with Resilient Sphere/Prismatic Sphere/Forcecage. He can't handle entire rooms of weak enemies with one casting of Black Tentacles. He can't Gate-in a 30HD outsider to help with the fight. He can't effectively cover for other classes with a right use of high level Summon Monster. He can't create his own plane of existence where the whole team can chill and rest while only a fraction of time passes in the outside world. So on, so forth.

Even other martial classes can keep up with him, except poor fighters. Barbarians get all sorts of nice things (Reckless Abandon is practically Shock Trooper on steroids, then there's Pounce, Witch Hunter, Spell Sunder...). Cavaliers lose out on the awesome saves and immunities, but their Smite-equivalent works against any enemy you might encounter. Plus, they get Mount, they get ridiculous damage on mounted charge, they get a few extra feats... Rangers also get an animal companion, a very versatile spell list, free combat feats without needing to meet prerequisites, awesomeness that is Favored Enemy/Terrain, and ultimately even Save or Die effects on their weapon attacks.

Can a Paladin dominate an encounter when there are other martial classes around? He can, situationally. Just like the Ranger will dominate against his favored enemy (and preferably in his favored terrain as well), or the Cavalier will dominate when there's room for mounted charge, or the Barbarian will dominate... pretty much all the time when others can't get their preferred situation, but especially against magic users.

Meanwhile, a Wizard with the right spells memorized can dominate any of the above, regardless of whatever the martial types want to do about it.

well I had meant that with there big skill spread they can be tooled to most if not all jobs E.G. mouth(bluff,diplo) theif, forger, crafter ect.

Or you can be a Sandman Bard. Six skill points instead of eight, trapfinding, half sneak attack, six levels of spells, some powerful performances, adds half his level to all essential thieving skills. Better as a party face because he gets so much more out of high Charisma.

Or the Archeologist Bard. No sneak attack, but that's actually a good thing, sneak attack is a trap. Still gets trapfinding and bonuses to infiltration skills, still gets six levels of spells with the Bard's wonderful list. Trades performance for a decent self-buff and a bunch of rogue talents - not the best deal ever, but workable, especially since you don't need to blow any of those on making Sneak Attack somewhat usable.

Or the Urban Ranger. Also gets trapfinding and six skill points, on a full BAB class with an animal companion and four levels of divine casting.

If you're really into Sneak Attacking, go Vivisectionist Alchemist instead. Full Sneak Attack, four skill points on an Int-based class, can take Rogue Talents essential to maximizing the usefulness of SA. Six levels of "spells" with a very nice list, can buff his physical stats to "over nine thousaaaaaaaand!", can build himself for using natural attacks to somewhat make up for medium BAB.

It's sad, but there's really no mechanical reason to ever pick Rogue. Each of the guys I listed is a better scout, better combatant, and at least the Bard options make for vastly superior "party faces". All at the same time. To borrow from Order of the Stick, these classes have single features that are stronger than the Rogue's whole 20-level progression.

ITT: Paizo forum goes full /tg/.

My candidate for the worst feat ever is Helpless Prisoner.

You thought Strike Back was bad for locking an intuitive option behind a feat? Well, thanks to this little gem, it now takes a feat to bluff a guard into loosening your bonds just a bit in order to get a circumstantial bonus on Escape Artist! And apparently only Gnomes can employ this sort of arcane trickery.

To add insult to injury, it lets the GM arbitrarily screw with you by declaring the guard a cruel sadist, in which case your action actually penalizes your EA roll.

I hate this feat so very much. It's bad game design at it's finest.

The gist of Monte's advice, as far as I understand it, is to acknowledge there's a thin line between helpful playtest data and the "white noise" of things that might seem important to potential playtesters, but prove ultimately unhelpful to developers. I see nothing insulting about it.

I firmly believe Monte Cook made several very poor decisions when designing 3e - decisions that up to this day negatively affect all incarnations of the d20 system.

I also think his advice for playtesters that Sean linked here is pure gold. Monte may have ideas I neither share nor endorse when it comes to design, but he's also a consummate professional who knows how things work.

If it was Tier 1, I'd share your worry. At Tier 5, it seems about right. A spellcaster who knows his job will simply fall back on spells that don't require saving throws, so this mostly shuts down already suboptimal tactics and various "cheap shots".

It can be anime if you want it to be anime.

It doesn't have anything that specifically makes it anime, and it barely scratches the surface of the kind of power some anime characters exhibit.

Seriously, nothing in this playtest is nearly as weeaboo as Magus or Ninja.

Alternate interpretation: Since the Paladin is immune to fear, practically speaking he acts as though he's always passing fear saves. Hence, Hubris kicks in automatically whenever he faces a fear-inducing opponent.

I quite like the idea that mythic paths aren't class-specific. It makes them more... well, more mythic. One Paladin can become the epitome of holiness, another builds his myth as a staunch protector, yet another becomes a holy avenger of his deity, so on, so forth. It encourages telling many different stories with an appropriate mix of classes and paths, and generally expands the number of options without unnecessary feature bloat.

If anything, I'd like Path abilities to be more permissive in which classes can benefit from them - for example, I have no idea why Endless Power is worded in a way that shafts Paladins and Rangers who'd rather tread the path of the Hierophant. It's not like their spell lists contain anything scarier in those first three spell levels than what other casters can access.

DR/Epic was kind of a big deal - in 3.5, where it was intrinsically tied to Epic Level Handbook and a completely different tier of play. I don't see the reason to keep interpreting it in that context when we're talking about a different game that assigns different values to things.

I'll say it again.

DR/- is objectively stronger than DR/Epic. I've never seen anyone suggest Smite shouldn't ignore DR/-. Why should it not ignore the objectively weaker DR/Epic?

DR/Epic is nothing special, really. It's just a fancy name for DR/+6. It's not even an intrinsic part of the new Mythic rules, it's just more abundant within them than in previous rules.

I vote for making DR/Epic not be overcomed by non mythic paladins.

I vote against.

Not that it's a matter that can be settled by a vote, but I see no reason to nerf paladins in the face of mythic foes. Being hit with the pure power of divine goodness should hurt. A lot.

And it's not like with the number of smites a Paladin has daily, this lets him casually go "lol, screw your epic DR forever!" or anything like that.

Yes, Wis makes total sense - earth endures, steady and relentless, and it bears witness to everything that happens on it's face.

That those bonuses make Oreads the perfect monk race is just another bonus :)