avr's page

Hey, this is still going.

Dazing spell makes a lot of otherwise weak stuff viable. Spell sharing burning gaze to a familiar, just using the flaming sphere spell (which has never impressed me), flicking magic missiles around one per target. It's so good that I'm wary of putting too much emphasis on something which might well be spot-nerfed.

I think if you're dropping a pure 10d6 damage fireball at 10th level, Reflex DC 16 as a standard action that's not that useful. Metamagic rager and bloodline mutations are needed to make that worthwhile IMO.

Cheetah's sprint's bonus is a lot simpler to work out when you don't have to figure out odd things like whether to use the charge or run speed, whether having the run feat would decrease the bonus, etc. And... a really big jump check is great for bragging rights, but without D&D 3.5 material (q.v. jumplomancer) it hardly breaks the game.

6th level human brawler // cleric, Str 14, +1 longspear.

For your own hitting people purposes you're looking at attacks for +9/+4, 1d8+4, or +7/+2, 1d8+10 w/PA. In a gestalt game where there's significant number inflation that's going to be a bit light on the attack bonus especially.

If you get a round to buff it might be spent flexing up a feat or two as a move or swift action (dedicated adversary will give you +2 attack & damage, untyped) and a standard action casting contagious zeal (+2 attack & damage: morale bonus, 1d6 temp hp). That puts you at +11/+6, 1d8+14 which seems like it'd be more fun. Inspire courage is a +1 competence bonus at this point and stays a standard action until 9th level, but you may not be able to cast a 3rd level spell every combat.

If instead you're doing battlefield control with the likes of negative earth variant channeling then - you're doing BFC. That uses different spells and feats and you shouldn't expect to be doing major damage with the same actions spent.

I don't know what's got into Derklord BTW, he's significantly more aggressive than when I was last here and not just to you.

Ta UAE and Andostre for checking that.

I've added a section on ability scores and races which talks in generalities. I'm not going to list exactly which races and variants get natural attacks or SLAs which might be useful for a natural attack-focused bloodrager for example. Sorry to anyone who wanted that included.

Updated link for the bloodrager guide.

A galvo is humanoidish and medium size (medium's probably best to use your greatsword, you'd need to drop it and pick it up again w/beast shape). You might like a secondary bite attack, the +4 size bonus to Str, blindsense 60', resist electricity 20 and being amphibious. Plus the reach 10 slams might be useful occasionally.

Twist away, yeah. And it's been a while but remember how Paizo's nerfing used to work - hit something in multiple ways to make absolutely sure it's gone. Twist away and the ring of ferocious action were nerfed at the same time.

Link without using google docs publishing. Could someone let me know whether it does away with the redirect page on links to AoN? Also I think that's read-only but if it's not please let me know.

VMC barb looks like it gives rage power as a class feature which is what the extra rage power feat requires. That some other VMCs prohibit equivalent things doesn't stop it working here in the rules as written. Quite likely it was an oversight, but that hardly stops other oversights being used.

Yes, it was errattaed so as to not work on the twist action feat which stops it working for you here.

Blessing of fervor is the cleric's haste spell. Contagious zeal is a source of bonuses which work for most PCs. Their best other buffs tend to be defensive; prot from evil/magic circle against evil, resist energy/prot from energy & communal versions. Ashen path helps the party make use of fog spells, and there are many spells which deal with conditions one way or another.

There are of course non-defensive spells - shatter and silence (best used in ways which avoid saves), admonishing ray, blindness/deafness, greater forbid action, chains of light.

You should have some feats from the brawler levels which may help. I'm not sure what level you are but brawlers get improved unarmed strike, something like TWF at 2nd (ITWF at 8th), and bonus combat feats at levels 2, 5, 8 etc.

Many barbarian players are fine with Int 8. I suspect the same to be true of bloodrager players. I do have one skill-focused build in the list, and the archer and humans do get 4 skill points/level. And - actually dumping Wis below 10 is asking for trouble IMO, for perception and will saves. I should note something about level-ups.

Cleaving finish works with any attack, not just cleaves. Which matters because the vanilla build will seldom want to perform the cleave action, I may need to make that clearer. The abyssal bloodline has few decent bloodline feats and throwing one at a seldom-used prereq seemed acceptable.

Re dazing spell see the immediate next build. I'd rather keep them distinct.

The builds are the way I think about options, I find it easier to think about a concrete example than about 10 different components of the example scattered around. Hence a whole lot of them.

There's few enough bloodrager archetypes that I think it's easier to consider the whole archetype each time than whether the urban bloodrager losing blood sanctuary matters (which it doesn't of course.)

To do: consider short section on race, examine whether read-only access to the main doc works better than publishing in google docs (publishing seems to add that annoying redirect page and a lot of blank space), consider noting VMC barb (mainly for rage power @11 which allows extra rage power even in the absence of primalist)

The rage prophet was only brought up because of an oddity in the wording which was fixed in the second printing. Without that we're agreed, no rage prophet.

Not every bloodrager needs uncanny dodge for the sake of immediate action rage. Many won't have that ability because they can't spare a feat (bloodragers are feat-starved if they want to do anything beyond power attack), can't/won't get the Ulfen Guard PrC for any of a dozen reasons, need/want a headband for Cha, and the only rage power for immediate action rage I can find needs them to be subject to a fear effect. Others don't have awesome defensive powers which are brought online by rage. Uncanny dodge is useful in its own right as Mightypion points out though.

I think I'll adjust the vanilla build in my guide to have lightning rager and point it and a few similar things there. Building it around vital strike was fun but eh, VS is more for the feat-rich.

If the dice were the height of capital letters maybe? Using dice does have a nice 'gamer' feel.

Also, I now notice (how did I miss it?) that you did not review races, is that intentional?

I'm not convinced that there's a lot to be said about races. +Str/+Cha being best and +Dex/Con/Wis being useful but not awesome should be obvious, the alternate FCBs are possibly useful but if you forget about them no big deal, and I can't think of racially specific items or feats which especially apply to a bloodrager. The example builds come with a variety of races and mention a couple of things in passing. Do you think a section on races would be more than padding?

I've changed the first six dice to be larger, under the Formatting heading. Are they big enough? I can change the others to match if they are. It's amazing how differently one document may display on different devices.

@Java Man - larger dice or abandon that gimmick do you think?

@Azothath - thanks, but I don't particularly like your style guide and won't be rewriting to use it.

@Wonderstell - you normally can't use an immediate action until your first action has come up anyway. Is it that useful? Except the bladed dash trick, that's unexpected and impressive.

I'll add runestones and pages of spell knowledge (1st) but I think an ioun stone for your familiar misses the cut. I'll put something in about rage recovery.

My quote's from Archives of Nethys, which is I think better updated than d20pfsrd. Also it'd be easier to leave out a phrase by accident than to add one. For now I'll leave rage prophet off my recommendations.

A rage prophet's class level stacks with barbarian levels for determining the effect of rage powers, and with oracle levels for determining the effect of oracle revelations and his oracle's curse. This does not grant additional abilities.

This is saying barbarian levels stack with rage prophet levels for the effect of rage powers, and separately oracle levels stack with rage prophet levels for the effect of oracle revelations and the curse. It doesn't make barbarian levels stack directly for revelations or the curse.

On the other hand oracle curses do stack with half of non-oracle levels for effect. A bloodrager 6 / oracle 1 / rage prophet 1 would have a level of 6*0.5 + 1 + 1 = 5 as far as the curse is concerned.

A gelatinous cube, even with a slightly improved stealth and substantially more HD shouldn't ever be CR 12. It's too easy to avoid and too vulnerable, and unless you're emulating Rusty & Co it stalls out at a much lower CR.

Irrepressible, of course. It's better for a pure spellcaster who will be getting a big bonus, but still worth mentioning.

I can see dipping battle oracle (I mentioned dipping one of the Cha -> Dex mysteries), but what does rage prophet 1 add here? The oracle level alone gives the curse and the spellcasting, rage prophet 1 just lets the prestige class level (1) stack for the curse and gives a bunch of orisons.

Cool. I was trying to show off as many different builds as possible. I didn't think the gnome was the most inventive of them, but perhaps it's more unexpected than most.

Re the archetype yeah, but you can take those race options and those feats (well, mother's gift will need a general feat rather than a bonus feat) with the abyssal bloodline which has similar enough flavour to hag-riven + hag bloodline, and gets better numbers with the claws when big, and whose bonuses are better at applying to other natural or manufactured weapon attacks you might get.

The hag bloodline might be useful if you're squirming through tight spaces while fighting vermin but any other time the abyssal bloodline just looks better. The hag-riven archetype makes the comparison plainer; stronger, faster, better.

I tried my hand at a guide. Here it is:

The Bloodrager: Anger with Style

So tell me, what have I missed, what have I got wrong, what's unclear or just ugly to you?

I tried my hand at a guide. Here it is:

The Bloodrager: Anger with Style

You can chat about it on Reddit, or if there's interest I could create a thread here.

My previous comments were based mainly off the bloodlines where e.g. the vestige bloodline has echoing spell as a possible bonus feat and for some reason it's coded green rather than red. Maybe you're taking some of those from a previous guide if that's not your opinion?

Northern Spotted Owl wrote:

avr wrote:

Spells Like Spell-Like Abilities. SLSLAs, obviously.

Thanks so much! I lean toward spell-like ability spells, as long as we're voting.

Just added fey form ii. Did I miss any options of note?

A norn for maze among other SLASs. The quickling with its supernatural speed, and perhaps a sprite because it's sometimes useful being 9 inches tall. Both of those require FF3 though. Well, so does the whisperer's blindsight, not that that's the only reason to turn into a whisperer. FF1 has its points simply because it's lower level and some of those SLASs won't have aged out of utility yet.

Some random commentary for you to look at or ignore.

Half-elves have another trick. If they want to sacrifice most of their racial abilities they can get +2 Cha, +2 to another stat of choice (Kindred-Raised). It's not quite a no-brainer but it is good.

The +50% to some duration bloodline arcanas run hard up against 4 minutes being no different from 6 minutes 95% of the time in game. You need a bigger difference to matter, like that shapechanger bloodline power's +900% or at the least extend spell's +100%.

I'm not impressed by the argument that exotic heritage and the sylvan bloodline work together. There's a FAQ on eldritch heritage which outright mentions 'a fey sorcerer with the wildblooded archetype trades out both her bloodline arcana and her 1st-level power to gain a new 1st-level power'. The fun thing with shadow well is that it isn't just undispellable, it's un-see invisibility-able.

Cause fear is actually workable as your starter offensive spell in a group. OTOH ray of enfeeblement...kind of sucks at low levels, though it's nice once you have empower spell it's still against fort, which is likely the best save on someone you want to enfeeble. Bestow curse is melee.

Deceitful is worthless on its own, but it's the prereq to cunning caster which can be worth 2 feats in the right game. I have no freaking idea why people like echoing spell (it's not just you Iluzry), +3 spell levels is crippling and sorcerers generally have more than enough spell slots 3 levels below their max.

Spells Like Spell-Like Abilities. SLSLAs, obviously.

I cannot for the life of me find the rule to the effect of: you can use a spell-like ability if it's a spell you could otherwise cast. I just can't remember the details. Do you have to have it currently memorized? If so, does it expend that spell? If you don't have to have it memorized, do you have to know that specific spell or does it just have to be available to your class?

In general I think that fey form is going to require a good bit of close reading for me. But that's certainly on my list.

You can more easily cast spells that the creature has as spell-like abilities, although you must still cast them as normal for your class. When you cast a spell that the creature has as a spell-like ability, it requires no verbal or somatic components and can’t be countered.

I think that's what you're thinking of. The spells don't become SLAs but they do become like SLAs.

Where it says "The invoker" it is telling you which level will apply here - the level of the class with the invoker archetype.

Anyway, class abilities use class level by default, and archetypes are packages of class abilities. No, I don't have an exact quote here.

I need to look through the fey forms. The basic issue with polymorphing a witch is that they're terrible in combat and they can typically fly. So then it's a matter of cataloging the spells & spell-like abilities. And that's on my list...

There's a couple of abilities which stand out besides the SLAs. A quickling's supernatural speed, or a whisperer's natural attacks (six 3d10 touch attacks w/20'reach can make a witch reconsider melee) and blindsight.

High CR fey have a lot of SLAs while still being no more than large size, fey form 2 provides all you need in that respect.

I'd reconsider the barding because if it dies you have to lug that around. If you were crossing water or using air walk or something when it dies you'll need to retrieve anything the steed was wearing.

It's a conjuration (creation) spell. So it can't be affected by poisons, gasses, diseases, or really anything that requires it to be flesh-and-blood.

This doesn't follow. Conjuration (creation) has no such advantage and can create flesh etc.

There are some serious advantages to your plan over, say, spending 3 feats and an air walk spell on a real animal companion, but it will go pop repeatedly over your career if this is for more than a one-shot.

The initiative cards mean there's no ties - if you've drawn the 5 no one else can. It's also a visual reminder of who goes when because you keep the card face up in front of you.

For a gnome illusionist effortless trickery has to be on your list of feats to get. You may not have the feats early for cunning caster, stylized spell/stylized spontaneity or other means of disguising what spell you're casting, but keep them in mind for later. Persistent spell is often useful with illusions.

For phrenic amplifications you'll want will of the dead (affect undead w/mind-affecting) and possibly overpowering mind, intense focus or relentless casting as direct bonuses to casting spells. Not all of them because you can only use one at a time, and situations where only one would be useful are rare. Mindtouch adds utility.

The psychic duelist archetype could be fluffed as dragging the target into a shared hallucination, and while mad hallucinations is appropriate it is also a very sucky spell. Instigate psychic duel does require you to read up on mindscapes I admit.

If you're the party knowledge monkey then the heightened awareness spell is one you want. Fool's gold (AA version) is appropriate for someone who may be the evil plotter some day. Placebo effect pauses effects which stop most psychic spellcasting (and which may be annoying otherwise). Color spray, oneiric horror and id insinuation (read up on undercasting) are some attack spells of note; the psychic seems to have all the wizard buffs, and gets horrific doubles (mirror image + illusion nastiness) as a level 3 spell.

There's an awful lot of alchemist utility extracts. They can mix up an extract to fill a spell/formula slot left open in just 1 minute, so using them for that rather than combat stuff seems likely on a gestalt character even tho' there are some decent extracts for combat use.

& yes collective memory. I could do with a cognatogen myself sometimes.

A vanilla occultist gets 2 implements at first level. The necroccultist only gets 1, and it's fixed as necromancy. When either gets more implements at 2nd, 6th level etc. they can choose any school - including the option of choosing necromancy again if they wish to know more than 1 necromancy spell per spell level.

I will say that the necroccultist does not impress me. The vanilla occultist, or a haunt collector or even a psychodermist (mainly for the look) would make better occultist necromancers IMO.

Fleeting spell is the first thing I recommend to people going for pit spells & similar. Being able to get your pit out of the way of the Big Dumb Fighter can help a lot.

The summon swarm spell is nice for filling your pit with spiders or whatever. It's often not practical, but being able to do it even once is worthwhile. Ashen path is handy for letting other party members see thru your mists.

At some point you're going to want a spell which makes use of your bloodline arcana (admittedly, the ectoplasm bloodline arcana is one of the worst). Ghosts and so on aren't that much bothered by pits or fog spells - getting a straight damage spell every couple of spell levels is useful anyway, and works with the arcana.

Noble scion (or if you can't justify that in your background, improved initiative) is especially good for a sorcerer who may want to put battlefield control spells in place before you get charged by enemies. If you have the Int for it spell specialization is worthwhile. Varisian tattoo is similar. If you have a familiar by any means (possibly by sacrificing your L1 bloodline power) then it could be worth spending a feat on a feat to boost it e.g. improved familiar, or if it has an archetype then a feat based on that e.g. figment's fluidity.

Torc is the correct spelling not torque. It'd be a neck slot item.

I agree with Omnimage re: alignment restrictions and discounts for combining items.

I'm not sure how a continuous item would work with the temp HP from false life. Are they regenerated once per day, but remain in place for the whole day?

I've seen that split before. Generally speaking the first group are in favour of rules-light games and the second like the more complicated games, possibly including PF. Old School Rules games generally get lumped in with the complicated games. And yes there are people who like some of each, but you want to keep your head down about that when you're somewhere that the fanatics claim.

I'd think a psychic with the psychedelia discipline is appropriate here, replacing either wizard or alchemist. Even if you don't take it, it obviously points towards a cognatogen as being helpful for a Int-based spellcaster while also fitting the theme.

Sticking with the wizard // alchemist, besides cognatogen there's intuitive understanding, collective understanding and the potion based discoveries which could work for you. Mindchemist would be an obvious archetype to take.

Zombies and skeletons lose the special attacks of the base creature.

Special Attacks blood drain (1d4+1 Con), blood rage, grab

Blood drain and grab are special attacks so they lose those.

Yeah, it means what happens in the mindscape stays in the mindscape. Don't cast spells there that you want to be in effect outside.

"When a creature emerges from a mindscape, any magic it used while within has been consumed."

It has uses like preparing another spell like it suggests, but it's not a spell of awesome power, no.

Wordcasting is one of those things you can't assume in an arbitrary campaign. Also IMO assuming that you can use the advantages of the warpriests' bonus feats class feature with the racial FCB while starting to take the racial FCB before you get that class feature is questionable. One or the other IMO.

On other options - crusader cleric isn't that good in melee, but occultist is a possibility. Avoid necroccultist, it adds nothing; vanilla or haunt collector, but most importantly go for the mage's paraphernalia panoply. It can give you the command undead spell.

Evil characters can worship neutral deities, and Gorum is pretty close to being evil. Irori is definitely neutral but is still an option.

The oni daimyo Akuma (LE) does martial arts and the malebranche Malacoda (LE) does martial skill - I suspect this is the closest to what you're after, and while simple its obedience is pretty good. General Susumu is a god of war and glory who happens to be LE. No obedience though. Similarly the Horseman of the Apocalypse Szuriel (NE) or the Queen of the Night Eiseth (LE) who do have obediences.

Maybe ask on the 2nd edition rules questions forum? Flagged to be moved.

38. A blind old dwarf. She's memorised more stories than you knew existed, and can repeat them if suitably motivated.

I don't think bladebound and spell dancer stack RAW, they both screw with arcane pool. It's the sort of thing a GM might choose to allow anyway though.

A bladed scarf is honestly not a good weapon. If you're going to use it - look up the kapenia dancer magus archetype. It's not great but it lets you use the bladed scarf as a one-handed weapon, and gives you access to some arcana to use it better. Varisian dancing scarves have no arcane spell failure chance which works with the kapenia dancers' loss of the standard magus ability to cast spells in light armor ignoring ASF. It's a weak archetype, losing more than it gives - but it does help you use the bladed scarf.

Ryze Kuja wrote:

...

Wait?

I can use Empower to increase the save DC of my spells?
This I did not know....

You can't. Ryze's talking about empowering a spell which gives penalties to mental stats including Wis - the penalty gets increased by empower which lowers their saves in future.

The exact combo suggested requires that the caster spend a round of setup, and touch of idiocy is a melee touch spell which means that setup needs to be done from far too close (unless further resources are spent), and empowered ToI is one of the casters highest level spell slots beign used to set up another spell... I wouldn't do it, but it is possible.

Quote:

only roll (or have a player roll) when the result truly matters,

Shouldn't this be all rpgs? Do people really need this to be explicitly stated? Do I need to worry about explicitly stating such obvious things in my system?

It does help if the rules back it up. In an RPG using a variant on this system, Forbidden Lands, the same suggestion is made but the rules on survival and travelling involve many, many rolls; combat can involve a lot of rolls too.

Cheese perhaps, but since one of the instances of strength being added has a type (missed that) and the other doesn't you can add both.

PA applies to melee damage rolls. Bulette rampage is a damage roll in melee. Breaker rush is not a damage roll and it would not apply to that.

Adding the same ability mod to the same thing twice without any kind of type is a no-no. "When he performs either combat maneuver, he deals an amount of bludgeoning damage equal to his Strength bonus", and "whenever you succeed at an overrun combat maneuver check against a foe, that foe takes an amount of damage equal to 1d8 ... + 1-1/2 times your Strength bonus." is trying to add the same ability mod triggered by the same action and doesn't look like it'd work.

There's becoming a god as another means. It has its points.

Of those listed, being reincarnated might be nice. I don't know that I'm getting that much use out of my human bonus feat.