boring7's page

We are adventurers and we are adventuring. We are fallowing the path of the Dead Suns adventure, but I have this concern...We keep failing to kill people.

Our hale and hearty band includes a crafty and creative Android Mechanic, who makes machines and technology dance to his will. We are protected by a mighty, monastic Vesk Solarian who lost her honor and most of her name in some sort of noodle incident involving Skittermander. Bending the laws of physics is...well we have some player drift but that slot keeps getting filled with a caster. And me, the charismatic and charming Envoy...with whiskers and a long tail.

But we keep failing to kill people. It all started with

After that are some events I don't recall, but I think we actually did what we were supposed to...until we talked to Guido.

Of course, that led us into prime-time. We had an NPC crew, we had a ship, we had a lead...so off we went

And now, we're in Ruined Clouds. No need for spoilers, but after successfully hitting the first 3 locations on the track we've killed a total of 1 person, and he was technically killed by his friend under the influence of a suggestion spell, and he still honestly believes it was his own idea and that his friend had betrayed him. (also, it was a lucky crit).

Okay, maybe 2 people. There's a critter that might be sapient, I'm not sure because I can't exactly look at the stat blocks of an AP book I am currently in. But we even didn't kill (saved, actually) the inside-out dudes.

So yeah, I think we're doing it wrong. I may lose my GUMBO card. Still having fun though.

Golems. Frankly, I hate 'em. When I want to build a robot the LAST thing I want is a humanoid structure. I can just hire a human (or ogre) for that, or even polymorph a critter into one, and chances are it will have more hit points and be easier to heal!

But most constructs are golems, so golems we'll discuss: Are they worth it?

As adventuring companions? No. By the time you can AFFORD one it is outclassed by anything you will be fighting. Unless you "cheat" your wealth (go off and break WBL rules, which isn't always adhered to) you're only going to have a very expensive caddy carrying your junk, it can't hit hard enough or take enough hits to go toe-to-toe with anything scary, and going toe-to-toe with things is what golems do.

As guardians of the home and minions? Probably. It's STILL super-expensive, but quite often your home base and your army of loyal followers are exempt from WBL rules and so you can have an Iron Archer shooting things or an imposing flesh construct toting loads and looking creepy.

Crafting them is actually not that hard. You need cash, SO much cash, but getting the prerequisites isn't that hard. The craft skill is "DC" rather than "skill ranks" so even if you assume you aren't allowed to just throw down Fabricate spells until you make the craft check untrained (party cleric has crafter's fortune) you can hire "skilled laborer" for pretty cheap to help you, he will only be working for 3 months, tops. OR you can just up the DC of the spellcraft check by 5 (theoretically).

Now HEALING is another issue. I *do* love how the Iron Golem is healed by fire magic, and if you strap a cursed Cloak of Immolation on it it ends up with fast healing 1 (sort of) and a terrifying Holocaust Cloak look as it stomps around. on fire. ALL THE TIME. Everything else requires costly crafting checks, regular doses of Make Whole, or some other specific spell that heals that particular construct (usually high level, too). Oooooor, you can spend another 45k to make it a shield guardian, and with fast healing 5 and limited spell storage it might actually make a good second-line bodyguard for your boom-spell caster. It still needs a REAL combat-guy to stand in front of it, but them's the breaks.

I mean there are also a few magic items out there, construct channel brick or the right kind of cleric, but it's a lot harder than "heals naturally, level 1 adept or cleric makes it faster."

But you know what's even better? Animated objects. They can be anything. ANYTHING. Wooden horse that never tires? Got it. Floating table that carries my lazy butt all over the place? No problem. Walking Tower Shield that slaps down Improved Cover at various points on the battlefield? Heck yeah. Unfathomably giant flying scorpion that mounts 7 (or more) siege weapon hardpoints, carries an entire half-brigade of troopers, and hits like a freight train? A third the price of an Iron golem.

And instead of Damage Reduction they have hardness. Since you're operating on the cheap they are probably made of stone (steel is better, but you have to find a raw supply of iron) and it's only hardness 8, but I honestly prefer hardness 8 to DR/most anything, because inevitably the enemy will show up with alchemical weapons or weapons that cut through the DR. Not much cuts through hardness, and what does at least makes up for it by being really valuable (adamantine).

Repairs are still difficult, but at their price you don't mind so much if you lose one and as long as they survive you can just stuff 'em in the hole until you have enough Make Whole spells to fix 'em up. When leaving a Colossal Combat-bot to protect your mage's tower and the associated town just make sure one of the local boys has Use magic Device and a wand or a staff to do repair magic. Staff is rechargeable (good) but more expensive by leaps and bounds.

Obviously a "guardian" colossal animated object would need planning and prep. You'd need loyal minions to "drive" it by ordering it to follow the Pilot's orders, and siege teams to work the Ballistae and Manticore's Tails, but that's a small price to pay for having a setup that can legitimately threaten a dragon or a sizable army. Not to mention it looks like whatever you want. A big ol' Oliphant, Shamu the killer whale, or a giant bird-woman are all options.

Anyway, the key point of golems is money. They are crazy expensive for something that is undeniably tough. Is the price tag something you can afford, and will it do whatever you wanted it to do well for the price you are paying?

Also, there are no rules for tunneling or for riding inside a giant burrowing construct, but that doesn't mean you can't do it.

I had a serious comment I wanted to make, but I'm not sure I should...

Eh, why not: I wish there was a rogue archetype that traded in sneak attack for something else. If bard can give up performance, there should be a rogue who isn't packing some brand of backstab.

No, "skirmish" doesn't count.

My beef with Charm Person is easy.

I have a decent spellcraft. I ID you casting the spell. I fail my Will, then somehow I start treating you like you're my BFF, despite the fact that I know EXACTLY why I am. How do I roll with that?

Your brain apparently tricks you into believing it's okay that they charmed you, because their super-cool guys.

Except you DO have control over what he does. It literally says it in the spell. You can make them do things against their nature with a Cha check.

/you can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to convince it to do anything it wouldn't ordinarily do. (Retries are not allowed.) An affected creature never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing.

Time and effort is a factor. IRL with the right kinds of psychology (indoctrination, groupthink, propaganda, hypnotism) you cannot make someone do something "truly against their nature"; but you can work on them until their nature has changed.

kestral287 wrote:

The Hunter can actually pick up Fast Healing 1 from 1st level. Take the Verminous Hunter, either shamelessly murder your animal companion or allow it to die as a martyr for your cause, apply Worm animal focus to yourself. Fast Healing 1 and scaling Fortification.

I knew there was at least one good option I was forgetting on my last count and that's it.

Also, Bramble Brewer Alchemists get some fast healing through their mutagen.

How many points and for how long? There's a blurry line between "I get fast healing" and "I get really slow cure spells."

Just a Guess wrote:

FingPat wrote:

Don't forget bleed damage, Fast Healing effectively neutralizes Bleed Damage.

This.

I have seen several encounters using bleed damage and fast healing was very strong in one of them and would have been in all.
Especially if the bleed has some additional effect, like healing the one making you bleed.

And, for some time I've been playing a dwarf inquisitor with the favored class bonus into buffing the healing judgment. The fast healing 5 he had at level 9 was noticeable. Especially as he could share it with another pc via shared judgment.
Sure, the shorter combats last the weaker it gets in the case of healing judgment. But in some fights it adds up.

I take it your Inquisitor was avoiding the front lines or somehow just not being targeted?

Well, you could always play with the bleed RAW instead of the RAI. Say that the fast healing is equaled by the bleed damage until you actually tie off the artery.

Or not do bleed damage in the first place, it hasn't come up much in my games, and even if it did, no one is saying fast healing should be automatic for everybody, just easier than "harder than raising the dead."

Bleed itself is just fast healing in reverse, so every argument against fast healing being powerful applies to bleed damage in reverse.

Note that thread's from 2009, so if you necromancy it, it's your own fault.

Reposting from a thread about theoretical infinite-cast CLW wondrous items:

Why it's a big deal: Continuous healing, regeneration, and similar abilities are really expensive or require you be really high level and sacrifice really good abilities for them.

Why it's no big deal: A wand of CLW that will last you half of the campaign* costs less than half the price.

Why it's actually a good thing: Part of the game is resource management, but WBL says that when the party uses up all its potions and wands it should get them replaced (just as they shouldn't be allowed to spend 2 weeks using crafting magic to become super-rich). The only thing you do by forcing the party to stick with wands is take craft wand (maybe, ought to be able to just buy 3 at any decent-sized town) and track charges.

Moreover, while the wand gets used by a cleric or another caster, it really is an item for the melee martials, since they're the ones taking all the hits and having to say, "hey, I'm out of HP, time to head back to town because we can't keep going." It actually helps AVOID the 15-minute adventure day.

If you're that concerned, make it once per minute. That way even the 10 minutes/day buffs can fall off if you're healing someone up.

*Slight hyperbole, but it'll last any regular-sized dungeon.

The dynamic doesn't really change much from "I regenerate with fast healing" and "we have enough wands that I heal up to full between every fight." The question is: Is your campaign and adventure one of running yourself ragged and slowly being nickled-and-dimed down to weakness throughout a long and arduous journey/battle? Or are you Fantasy SWAT, kicking down doors and raiding baddies and having your epic fights be epic because the final bosses are so big and bad that it doesn't matter if you were at full strength?

Obviously I'm simplifying things a bit, lotta spectrum, but that's the math side.

The narrative side still kinda works, but adventurers and superheroes with amazing endurance and the ability to heal from "beaten and bloody" to "back in action" shows up in a lot of media, especially anime. Can't count the number of times a manga hero has been turned into a mass of injury and bandages, but one oversized meal and a few hours of rest.

Makes me think of this riff on food as healing (nsfw language).

Looks like he's going Archer Paladin.

If you go Pantheon, you invoke Calistria when bringing "divine vengeance" upon evil, you invoke Alseta whenever you are crossing thresholds, you call upon Ketephys when chasing evil, and you pray to Yuelral for protection from evil magic.

First, there's a difference between "I don't track encumbrance that closely" and "I let you put the 3 ton marble statue that the AP says is worth 10k gold into the bag of holding." The situation also applies to the macguffin pet golem you pick up and want to teleport/swim/climb with or the large containment sarcophagus that keeps Ed the Undying from rising once more.

Second, every GM I have ever known tracked encumbrance and while they didn't check every single time that we had our math right, if we didn't we were cheating and we all agreed that was the case.

But okay, let's take your premise and even go a little further, a type 1 bag has infinite storage capacity. I know that's not what you said, I'm kicking it up a notch.

A portable hole is not subject to outside force. Once you fold it up and stick it in your pocket it's basically gone. That means that whatever is inside, like your dense but fully-stocked alchemy lab with beakers and test tubes and very slow-cooking experiments do not get tossed about all helter-skelter or jumbled up. A bag of holding on the other hand is a bag, even if everything inside is null gravity and immune to outside Blunt-Force trauma it's going to rub against other objects, sharp things are going to get loose if they aren't rather carefully secured, and you can't really trust your stack of books to stay stacked.

Also, a portable hole is lighter. It's a folded piece of cloth while a bag still weighs something like 5 pounds. If that doesn't seem like much, you haven't tried running around with a 7 str lately. There are necessities that you can't keep in the bag, like your weapon, your spell component pouch, or your trousers. And since you need to keep yourself at a light load...

Finally, a portable hole is ostensibly immune to everything once deployed. Need to hold a swimming-pool worth of caltrops? Need to catch the Lava Flow that the villain just summoned? Need a "lowest point" for the cloudkill spell to go? Portable hole is your friend every time. It holds the Spiky Golem or the well-armed troop with bladed weapons without bursting and dumping them in the astral plane or forcing them all to spend a full round pulling the covers off their sharp edges.

That's a great list of ideas!

I particularly liked the 'easing into it' option. The sorcerer already has a greater demiplane and has sunk about 100k gold into permanencies on it. That's five castings at level 18. so... quite an expansive realm for a wee little fella. I think with pursuing into getting mythic power would be the next step if I were to do the 'easing in' line of things. then I can surpass the normal mortal requirements and further increase my sorcerer's power.

Would uses of the Gate spell and entreating outsiders (through trade, having them make, etc.) magical items to supplement the sorcerer's powers be good?

I've seen people say that Leadership isn't really useful to someone trying to attain godhood. If I wanted to try to slowly gain godhood, could I take leadership (with my really high charisma) and have them not necessarily worship me but have my followers tasked with spreading the word to the region I am guarding? Maybe over time the people that come to replace the orignal members actually do believe the hype, and the ones the generation after that might really Venerate the Sorcerer. Then by the generation after that I could actually have clerics.

I dunno. Just trying to see what would work.

The key elements are ever-increasing power (mythic tiers) doing great mythic deeds (Always Be Campaigning) and loyalty of subordinates (Always Faithful). Leadership is good, but you only get one cohort, and followers who aren't necessarily powerful enough to be useful. Still good in a pinch.

This thread had items for other ways of delegating and avataring yourself. And Mythic (and a few spells) are good for empowering your minions, let alone juicing them up with super buff spells and magic items before they go on missions.

Demiplane is good, but it's still just a demiplane. A more permanent and non-dispellable power base in Nirvana is better.

Turning your demiplane into a Webway allows a variety of things, including rapid deployment of aid to hot zones and the construction of a trade empire. Gates are simple enough to add, and each one can be planted wherever you want on Golarion (inside privately-owned and well-defended waystations) or beyond. Also a good place to invite angels when you're either hiring them to do good deeds somewhere or getting hired by them to do dangerous deeds somewhere. Sometimes Hound Archon packs like to have a den they can hang out in, and as long as they know where the gates are, they can teleport to them no matter what plane they're on.

A major component to gods is that they have portfolios and embodiments and themes. Daikitsu, for example, is all about peaceful villages full of kitsune (Agriculture, craftsmanship, kitsune, and rice). Adopting a persona that isn't stomping on the toes of the gods you're already aligned with tends to be a good idea, and there's room for a teaching trickster-protector with lots of tails. Not to mention the "protector" aspect is really easy to work since you just listen for trouble and then go/send minions to stop the trouble.

Ultimately, none of this may work, which is why you'll be doing your job and getting people to believe in you (only in the interests of teaching and helping) while also constantly investigating new ways of increasing your own power.

Possible obsessive great works (that take centuries to complete) off the top of my head:

An artifact Orrery that lets you see All The Things.

Binding your magic and your soul to the spirit of your people so that when you really focus you can hear any Kitsune in distress.

An Ultimate Weapon against Qlippoth, designed to kill the next Spawn of Rovagug or any invasions by the Qlippoth in Tianjing.

Total Mastery and understanding of Doors, including portals to other dimensions, such as the Worldwound or the rifts in Tianjing.

An army of mentally-linked clone/simulacra that can act in your stead in many places at once, doing lower magics focused around trickery, sneaking, and good-natured trouble. Bonus points for being able to reabsorb them and their experiences after they've had adventures, just like real avatars.

A mighty but good empire.

A really, really clever prank, like stealing Asmodeus' Key and returning it with some notes on how to improve his security.

Anyway, time to brush my teeth and go to bed.

The guilty shall be judged!

I mean at its heart this is a morality/alignment question. Unless you bothered to write up a paladin code beforehand (and no one ever does) you haven't established a hard limit on moral actions. If you don't have an existing rule, you need the paladin to do some pretty dark stuff before they're breaking the "unwritten code".

Try to remember that not only is Judge Dredd a legitimate version of a paladin, the kind of medieval fantasy setting that willingly includes rapists doing rape is the kind of medieval fantasy setting where a knight dispenses judgement and justice and is lauded for doing so. Historically speaking, the "good guy" paladins that fantasy paladins are based on did much more dubious stuff in the course of brutal frontier and warzone (and peaceful village) justice.

Just remember, unless the paladin succeeds at his acrobatics check, he will slip and fall on the bloody mud ground afterwards.

/Yes it's still funny

New as of this evening:

20th level wizard who lost all his spells and spellbook is pretty hurtin', but he has decent skills that may prove pretty useful. I mean, what skills did he pick? If he maxed diplomacy or stealth he can fast-talk or sneak past most CR 10 threats.

Additionally, chances ARE pretty good he took spell mastery by level 20, if only because he ran out of things he actually wanted to put feats into.

20th level fighter against 10th level party? Chances are good he fails his will save and ends up getting everything back, but is also working for one of the party casters now. I mean I bet he could do damage with thrown/wielded river-rocks, but he's still an unarmed man against a gang with guns.

171: Form the worst children's choir ever. "We be the world, we be the burners!"

172: Determine if sacrificing them to the dark gods actually annoys the dark gods for inferior-quality sacrifices.

Just the stuff in the zombie livestock thread.

Ghosts can possess objects a la the animate object spell, so you could make a kind of spirit slave that does that for specific constructs and golems.

Life-drain cannons which enslave intelligent undead and "channel" their powers, allowing a living necromancer to benefit from the effects of a vampire's negative energy attack.

Necrobombs which turn very small objects (polymorph magic) into very large uncontrolled undead.

Spirits infused with elements, like lightning, that power things or act as weapons.

A necromantic ritual that renders a person unable to die and then uses their living body to contain and use malevolent magics/entities that would kill normal folk.

147: Polymorph them into ponies.

148: Teach them about friendship.

Give each goblin baby a gold (painted) ring on a chain and tell them they must go on a quest to cast it into the fires of mount doom. The fact that it is a fire mountain should overcome any latent concerns.

My only issue with some of these solutions is they take the paladin into account but not the Inquisitor.

IE protection from evil would give the inquisitor protection from L,G,E,C. I could see rotating it as a standard action, but still seems strong.

The bonus to perception of sense motives sounds ok, but I hesitate to give it to the inquisitor as they already cast of wisdom and have decent skill points.

Guns are a big no.

Inspiring yell sounds overpowered imho.

Make inquisitor "protection from (choose at acharacter creation)."

Pharasma, Lady of Graves wrote:

captain yesterday wrote:

140. send them to Pharasma, let her sort it out (i'm not getting paid to do her job!)

No! no no no no no! i sponsored Lamashtu so i wouldn't have to deal with those little pricks!

And she freed those Barghests from Asmodeus to pass the buck on to the Goblin Hero Gods.

Even the GODS don't want to deal with goblin babies.

Permanent protection from evil, self-only is an option. Doesn't change much since it makes them immune to stuff they probablyl would have saved against. Also dredges up an ability they had back in 2nd ed.

A bonus equal to half their level to perception checks would help fit their whole "I hunt evil, I stand guard" thing, especially since they get lousy skill points and don't have that detection spell they were supposed to have.

The holy gun gets firearms, but I'm guessing that's a no.

The same perception bonus could be applied to sense motive or survival, for similar reasons. Or it could be a rotating power where, at the beginning of the day, they choose which skill gets the buff. Or it could be all of them all the time (probably overpowered). Or only apply to specific types (evil) though that would create more work for the GM since they'd have to remember to add the bonuses when the paladin blindly tries to spot someone who may or may not be evil.

Nazi Babies was, surprisingly, not the worst rip-off of Muppet Babies. That award goes to Transmetropolitan Babies, which was so bad it resulted in the development of time travel to go back in time and stop it from being made.

Commit suicide and re-roll as an evil character.

The DC for a "lie that is the truth" probably actually lower because you're "getting a hunch" (DC 20) instead of opposing a bluff (DC whatever crazy-high number the player rolled).

One time we foiled an assassination plot that we were supposed to merely witness. 3.5 devoted defenders ability to dive in and take the hit was so good at ruining that sort of set piece.

Speaking of set pieces, rescuing several high-powered characters from a doomed demiplane did not seem to be a part of the plan in an adventure path I once ruined. All I knew was she wasn't an evil monster and the realm we were in was doomed, so I put a lot of effort into saving her. I didn't expect to end up trapped in ANOTHER railroad-adventure demiplane with an unplanned-for high level sphinx fighter as part of the gang.

She ended up tearing s~%* up pretty well, and since she couldn't exactly abandon us (we were all stuck on the same rails) she helped kick a lot of ass.

An alignment-religion thread, we're lucky this thing hasn't already exploded and taken out half the forum with it.

edit: I could add my opinions on religion and the descent/development of various modern-day religions and human ethics and the nature of religious thought in details that would set the boards aflame, but instead, I think we should just have some light music.

Love that song.

Anyways, the question really boils down to "what is your god supposed to be doing?" Even THEN it's an alignment question *sirens blare, hatches batten down* and risky territory, but at least you'd have a little more direction than one data point of a woman (who is portrayed as legitimately insane and probably *not* talking to the god she thinks she's talking to) trying to murder her kid.

God is good, god is brutal? Torag is simple and straightforward. But there's a LOT of possible permutations. Is it The Law or What's Right? Is it Punish the Guilty or Destroy the wicked (before they can do wickedness again)? Is it "Because I said so" or "Because it is self-evidently wrong"?

As the party levels the summoning factor smooths out.

The number of summons available per day doesn't increase while regular spellcasters keep getting more spells. The summons themselves don't progress in power very fast compared to regular party members. At level 1 everybody is swinging and missing a lot so those 3 eagle attacks really count. At level 6 the party martial should hit most of the time, at least on the first swing, and the augmented and boosted summons, while good, are less overwhelming. Not to mention at that point enemies have spellcasting, which can wreck a summoner's day in any number of ways.

Side note: the duration on summons is honestly kind of annoying, it is quickly long enough for most fights (they'll always be stomped before the duration fails) but too short for anything interesting or useful, like the aforementioned rescuing people from a cave-in.

All of that said, banning the class is a LOT easier than doing all the work necessary to keep Mr. Master from annoying and overshadowing everyone else, clogging and bogging down the combat sequence, and being too powerful at early levels. I don't like banning classes either, it feels like a cop-out, but sometimes you gotta just look at it and say, "why am I running myself ragged to keep this game interesting and fun and challenging for EVERYONE when it's all about this ONE square peg?"

On further reflection, I feel I should reiterate more strongly that the dogs were not the best call.

Sequence of events was:
-Player does something stupid.
-player gets defeated (killed, really) by centipedes, somehow not eaten by them (I assume succumbed to poison post-battle?)
-Player is RESCUED by Kobolds. Should have had them just eat her, much more logical and much more straightforward than what happened next.
-Player does the RIGHT thing (uses a signal whistle as advertised, tries to find and rejoin the party).
-Player is eaten by dogs, basically for doing the right thing.

I mean really, it comes off a bit needlessly cruel where you create false hope and then dash it. If this was a "teachable moment" or a learning experience, that little hiccup in between undermines the lesson.

I understand it is more complicated than that, but I imagine if I were the type to make that kind of (dumb) decision I would be less likely to learn "don't split the party."

Wouldn't the city and maybe the armies of 50k have access to some powerful high level types to really throw a monkey wrench into the plan?

They may not have a 20th level type, but could they confront the arch mage with 4-6 15th level types? High priest here, master swordsman general there, high court advisor wizard types? Even throw in a few dozen types of various levels at or below 10th, and I would think this becomes much more difficult to simply have your wizard take down in one afternoon.

I know that's not the exercise here, but numbers might support a few choice high level types to challenge the wizards efforts.

Yes. Also yes. And a little no. And yes, it's not the exercise.

There's no real good way to STOP most of the teleport shenanigans, but copying the technique is fairly easy. The main thing is the enemy doesn't really see it coming. Not that they couldn't scry, but like hunting terrorists in the real world, unless you know who you are looking for, where, and why, you won't catch them in the sea of everyone else who could possibly be a threat. Note: this is why uber-liches become paranoid omnicidal maniacs, they eventually realize they'll be "safe" if they just kill everyone.

But anyway, a decent caster can copy the trick, and has more troops, so he wins. But the expanded explanation says that this particular political situation is basically just a really large-scale assassination. The king is bad, but he is the king. If he is no longer the king because you took the castle and captured/killed him the battle pretty much ends. The only reason you don't scry-and-fry is because the hand of god (this particular exercise) nixed it as an option.

Your primary goal is identifying the in-city high-level threats (easily done) and taking them out by whatever means seems most appropriate.

I like how you think... but what if the 50K soldiers disagree and refuse to surrender?

OP's expansion on the plot suggests the King is fairly unpopular right now due to being a terrible human being. But the question started as "race to the capital." And once you've taken the capital you have done everything that you can reasonably expect will end things quickly. If resistance remains en masse, things get more complicated.

Presuming all 50k troops are mind controlled (hey maybe that's what it doesn't work) and they intend to fight until defeated and broken (morale-wise) you start the next phase.

The city is held, this is pretty much a given, so you take your time locking it down while the siegecraft sits outside. Your supply line still works, even if you have to keep re-binding once a week, so starvation will not be an immediate issue. Sure the enemy might send a 20k-strong detachment to threaten your home base, but that will take a while.

After week 2 you should be free to take action against the outside army. Since I've grown interested in more challenging fare, we'll try and keep things under 5th level spells.

Fly, invisibility, and maybe silence can be extended and stacked on the sneakiest member of your special forces. He will slip behind enemy lines (well, speed past, he's in a hurry) and seed all kinds of horrors. He can drop contagions in the water, set fire to the food, drop gold coins with explosive runes all over the place, and zip back without anyone seeing him. This should have negative effects on company morale. Next up, the caster or the saboteur agent can take giant stone blocks which were hit with shrink item and drop them on the tents of the enemy leadership.

But this is just killing people, and we want to be gentle-ish. For that we want Vision of Hell. For 7 minutes per casting, a 50 foot radius looks like hell. It's all illusory, but danged unnerving. Follow up with a few Summoned Swarms which last for as long as the invisible mage keeps concentrating and a few Mad Monkey swarms just to pick on individual targets you really dislike and you'll not only kill less people but horrify everyone around them.

Stacked in with lots of message spells, destruction of THEIR supply chain, and the fact that the King has been killed and/or abdicated in favor of whoever you wanted on the throne and it is unlikely that the 50k will keep fighting. If they're being mind-controlled, you just keep dispelling. If deprogramming takes time, you start doing snatch-and-grabs. Officers are kidnapped, deprogrammed, and stuck back in. Whole groups are sent on patrol, captured, and smuggled back to the city with the portable hole. Soldiers who have been converted to the cause are dropped outside of the combat zone and back to the garrisons that were emptied when the entire nation's army converged on the capital. It takes time, a LONG time, but it is a fairly winning strategy.

Teleportation circle works on the supply chain, as does demiplane tunnels or Planar binding a handful of lantern archons and having 500 of your soldiers on packing duty putting the supplies into 50 pound units. It's honestly not that likely you will need a supply train for more than 9 days of double-shift delivery runs to establish control, establish local sources of supplies, and finish trying and executing the primary leadership.

But let's do some math. Oracle, level 8, owns a portable hole, 10k gold worth of stuff that Lantern Archons like, and enough cash to rent a warehouse. Assume he has at least an 18 in charisma.

First, he goes to the capital. He uses his diplomancy (18 charisma and class skill, probably over +15) to rent an empty warehouse.

Second, he casts Planar Ally, Lesser 4 times and binds 4 Lantern archons to his service for the next 8 days. 3 of them are to ferry supplies (in 50 pound bites) from Army Base to Empty Warehouse. The fourth ferries PEOPLE inside the portable hole.

Assuming 2 minutes per portable hole load and assuming 4 people per load you can ferry 2880 soldiers per day. It takes less than 4 days to move an entire 10k army wherever you want.

Meanwhile the supply train is moving faster but lighter. Let's assume 5 rounds for a round-trip, that is 144k pounds of supplies every day per archon, and we have 3 of 'em. 432k.

Alexander the Great's army was operating on 8 pounds a day (food AND water, throw in a decanter of endless water and it's free) but let's 4x that based on the assumption other things will come up. That means an army of 10k needs 320k pounds of supplies each day. You end up with a 102k pound surplus of delivered supplies and a whole army in position by day 4.

Problem: Can't really invade the city that slow. So instead you have two warehouses. House 1 is called "Base Trojan" and is inside the city because it is where you pull a trojan horse. House 2 is called "base alpha" and is outside the city walls and sets up a conventional siege.

After you deliver 90% of your army and supplies through Base Alpha. By the time the army is noticed by defenders it is too numerous for them to stop so they have to retreat and bunker behind the city walls. The remaining 10% comes through Base Trojan, successfully fight their way to the gatehouse, take it, and allow the rest of the army in.

City falls conventionally, character's gold input is within WBL for an 8th level character.

Nicos wrote:

Blackwaltzomega wrote:

I believe Lemmy was the one who pointed out that for the most part a fighter's progression is mostly getting greater numbers while the wizard's progression is primarily getting greater options. You can see this in a number of classes, but those two display the gap most clearly.

I would argue that that is not entirely accurate. Wizard numbers also grow immensely.

Would it be more accurate to say that fighters have their numbers grow while wizards have their numbers grow AND gain more options as they level?

Thinking about this further, it seems to me as if wizards (and casters in general) are more powerful because they can change out their powerful options by the day. In this line, is a sorcerer more in line with a fighter because they can't quickly change out their high powered options? Once their spells are chosen, they're more or less fixed, like a fighters. Is the martial-caster disparity reduced with casters that have their options fixed once chosen?

Did you ever play 4th edition? There was a game where you eventually realized all classes were balanced because they were all the same. It was fun not having any utility spells, lemme tell ya.

In my completely subjective experience the parties and classes already are balanced. My summons can't keep up with a good martial, said martial will be completely hosed without my casting support. We have (daily) real "gift of the magi" moments where I am jealous of the martial's kill count but he is jealous of my ability to just control the battlefield with conjured walls and buff spells. He's jealous I could cast fly on him, I'm jealous he had the combat ability to make USE of that flight as anything but a more obvious target for the dragon. Or rather we would have those moments if we bothered to talk about what we already know, that we all have our own parts to play.

But most of it is about railroads and spotlight time. And it turns out that has pretty much nothing to do with caster v. martial and everything to do with individual GMs and players.

Icyshadow wrote:

Raising the goblins could very well be done in a setting like Kingmaker, where there are long downtime periods between some adventures. I guess the vitriolic responses just go to show how narrowminded some folks can be.

In some games it could work. Preferably when it's something the players talked about wanting to do.

In most games you won't have that kind of downtime. Most likely is a cliched moral dilemma forced on you by a GM who's got no idea how to do interesting RP.

Or just as likely one who thinks it's only realistic for there to be babies in the goblin village and thinks it would be horrible for you to hurt them, despite having set it up as heroic for you to slaughter every adult goblin - no survivors, no one tries to flee, everyone just attacks you in suicidal waves, even the older children. Otherwise, why would the helpless babies be the only survivors?

And it really, really isn't playable. And I think Icyshadow knows all of this already and is just trolling.

The goblin baby problem is, at its core, yet another facet of the infinite gem-turd of alignment threads. So we respond with sarcastic humor and baby-chucks.

Wow, people, you are seriously overestimating the power of this spell.

No, it has been mentioned several times. We are well aware, the presumption is that your character has found a way to be immortal and has the nearly-infinite time and resources necessary to make what they want rather than what they are limited to in one or two castings.

It's a mental exercise in creativity and fun. Stop being boring, that's my job.

Tron. That's all, just Tron.

(Not really, probably more like the library thing with raging storms outside but no chance of power failure and loooooooooots of extra time and bountiful and stuff.)

Hmm. How 'bout this? Giant library, standard "endless bookcases" thing, and the whole place is lit with fruiting vines. The fruits on the vines glow brightly to light the place up, and can be picked and eaten if you're hungry.

The glowfruit regrows daily, and there is also a coffee bar somewhere.

Mind control. Even if you use "rule of narrative" to say it won't be a permanent fix, as a 5th level spell you're all-but guaranteed to be able to take over ALL the major players long enough to win the battle. But let's go further, let's assume that the COUNTRY has a permanent protection from evil spell effect via a mythal or something, and assassination isn't allowed because reasons.

You can get your entire army and establish a nigh-unbreakable supply chain in 1 day. This is established upthread. You can assault the capital from inside (there will, guaranteed, be at least one mostly-empty building you can do your work in, invisible wizard scout for the win), you can take the city.

But we want to bring the body count down as low as possible, and I'm feeling creative.

Step 1: Wizard uses divination magic and teleportation to find and collect a sample of Brown Mold. He uses resist energy: cold to protect himself.

Step 2: She proceeds to grow several large "seeds" which are brown mold sealed in a glass container which is surrounded with alchemist's fire.

Step 3: While flying, invisible, and still resistant to cold she drops these fire-and-ice containers over a darkened and sleeping city. As the panicked residents try to fight the brown mold with their bizarrely well-read knowledge of obscure dungeon hazards she helps foster mold growth with walls of fire, summoned fire creatures, and the occasional meteor swarm. Every time it takes fire damage it grows, so the brown mold will rapidly spread to cover the city.

Step 4: Once the entire city is covered in Brown Mold and unconscious, with enough non-lethal damage to keep them out for hours (the cold damage is non-lethal) she brings in her team of cold-resistance-equipped specialists (preferably monks, but warriors with longstrider will do) to hunt down any hiding opposition and capture any major figures.

Step 5: Since apparently the sun no longer kills the mold (if it ever did), she casts control weather and makes the air cold enough to do actual damage, instantly killing all the mold. She then casts control weather AGAIN to warm things up before all the bodies in the streets and homes also freeze to death.

Step 6: Some people may still die of exposure, but most folks will simply be unconscious, and with the army immediately moving in and collecting the unconscious citizens it should take little time for the 10k-strong army to collect them all, move them into warm, comfy, easily-sealed common buildings. Soldiers are placed in prisons, all weapons are collected, the army spends several days gently sacking the town, collecting the people, and making sure they're all fed and nursed back to health.

Step 7: Hypnotism, charm person, diplomacy checks made by planar-bound outsiders will work on and convert most of the enemy into accepting (if not actually liking) the new power structure within a week or two. Spell-work will be focused on the malcontents, soldiers, and leaders as the peasantry won't actually CARE most of the time. After a week or so the city should be fairly well-controlled and presumably the rest of the enemy armies will be at the gates. Take note: this is not mind-control, this is diplomacy being given a boost by magic. Even Charm Person is only used as part of getting characters to listen to something more convincing (like hypnotism or diplomacy checks). There may also be some executions, but always after a big show trial and often with alternatives offered (exile to a demiplane, converting, etc.)

You aren't conquering their minds, you're changing them. And since you are a 20th level wizard you can actually PROVE your case of "serving me is better" by using Fabricate, Create Demiplane, and other utility magic to make the city a nicer place to live.

Step 8 is diplomacy. The King has already signed a treaty and a proclamation demanding the surrender of the outside forces. The 10k (plus any converts) army holds the capital. VERY FEW people have actually been killed so far (so no "revenge" impetus) and Ms. Wizard has slyly mentioned that this was a LOT harder than just raining fire down upon the enemy and killing them all. Chances are good most of the nobility and their soldiers will bend knee and cut a deal rather than fight.

Now you have captured a country with minimal bloodshed. Congratulations.

So I was reading the clothing discussion and started asking myself if eidolons can wear clothing and benefit from Magic Vestment.

I think this is a bad sign.

Anyway, plenty of xenoporn has retractable covers for the "naughty bits." So you can make an eidolon in improbably-skimpy armor and then still get your perv on after hours.

Because everybody loves jocks. It's boring when a nerd wins before the fight even starts.

50.) Send them to Dr. Kaboom's Kamikaze Academy.

Complicated territory. Gets into gender politics, gender identity, the fact that in places and times when royalty was a thing women were mostly property and a royal daughter was "submitted" to the family which brought the Y chromosome to the particular pairing.

I mean, Pathfinder being a fantasy, you have just as many lady killers and ladykillers despite using or ignoring those tropes and memes as they wish. But the method of DOING so is by mostly ignoring sex in favor of more violence.

Anyway, the other and most obvious oddity that magic applies to royalty is life magic. Kill a king, bring him back, is he still king? What about the king who succumbs to the lure of vampirism to maintain his life. What about shapeshifting magic that may or may not allow a human to become an elf and live and rule for 500 years instead of 50? Heck, just having ready access to reliable healthcare (Cure disease vs. sticking leeches on sick people) changes the dynamic a LOT. Alexander the Great died of malaria (or something like it) just for starters.

Then there's the fact that politics are unavoidable. Someone's going to step in it by saying, "and in a world with real gods and divine magic, unlike the real world where there are no gods and no divine influence on the world." Oh wait, I just stepped in it.

*gets shot*

I'd still be stuck on "armor spikes" for a shield.

Like how? The double-weapon thing or what?

/doesn't know enough about Effortless Lace

I like playing freaks and weirdos.

I like it when the party rogue isn't playing the "b@@!+ class" and has options outside of "fragile piece of mobile detection hardware to be pulled out for trapfinding and scouting only."

I like casting weird spells that have no use in combat but do cool things outside of it.

I like having weird and ridiculous fighting styles that only work in fantasy.

I like to be powerful, I know that's the lame-o childish munchkin BadWrongFun but I still like it.

To do that I need more than CRB.

So anyways OP, the consensus is "people mistakenly think it's broken because they don't really suss out the math" and "Because they don't want guns in their swords and sorcery."

Summon monster, learn the grappling rules.

Overland flight, cast on the party martial.

Glitterdust, or see invisibility, to deal with invisible opponents.

Having someone else cast silence on a tanglefoot bag can ruin a lot of casters. One good touch attack and Mr. Wizard is just a commoner who wishes he had silent spell.

Really, it depends on what THEIR loadout is.

Are you set in stone conjuration? Teleportation subschool is better, as is divination.

Murderhobos.

Mind you, my characters all have sarcastic senses of humor.

Melkiador wrote:

Double shield is a rare, but realworld fighting style:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9uILn0iCUs

A Real World Fighting Style? A rather slow demonstration of exercises I'd say. I bet it builds amazing strength.

This statement is derogatory and uncalled for. It is also mistaken. Form drills are the basis of most martial arts, you can't exactly practice by ONLY punching people in the head or beating your limbs against solid objects, the objects would break your limbs and the sparring partners would grow weary and break your face to make you go away.

Moreover, the fact he can make those moves in form means he can make those moves in combat means they could be used in combat, unless there was something WRONG with the moves, such as untenable guards or impossible stances, which to the best of my knowledge was not the case (I was only a brown belt in one school of UNARMED combat, so I'm no expert).

The actual style is strikingly similar to that of a tonfa, actually, with a few obvious differences that make it more defensive (in short; you can't flip your grip and use it as a reaching club, but you can use it to block more because it's wider).

Now, rules as written? A shield is a weapon. That is where it starts and stops.

Rules as intendted? James Jacobs is on record hating it, thinks it's dumb as heck (okay that's hyperbole but he called it silly) and disagreeing with others in the company about it. It is still in the book in spite of this. If it weren't supposed to be a thing, the opinion it shouldn't be would have done away with it.

I thought that splatbooks referred to none core rulebooks?

"Splatbook" carries negative connotations and is used in a dismissive, insulting manner. I.e. "That book is a splatbook, it doesn't count because it's poorly-written badly-balanced garbage." The term itself is murky, but seems to have arisen from both the splat of a paperback dropping on a table and the implication of a piece of something slimy and disgusting like poo going splat. Because the books were poo. Context defined which source you were going with for whether you were being dismissive or descriptive.

Moreover, in the context of your post you listed the APG and the ACG and only called one a "splatbook," suggesting you were separating the two as "good" and "bad" and using a more dismissive and flippant definition of the word.

There is a twin-shield style that was (according to dudes on the internet, no I don't have a scholarly degree on the subject) used by the Zulu in real battlefield situations. There is a proof of concept that has been linked in this thread. There have actually been a couple of enemies and critters in vidyagames with double-shield weapons (I recall one in FF7's little gauntlet minigame festival-thing) using hubcap-sized shields to punch people in the face. It is nearly as much A Thing as twin swords (which you will also not find much of in history) and games on.

Is it overpowered? According to theorycraft builds like the one Darksol is rolling vs. OTHER entries in the DPR and Combat Craft olympics it is not. The shield build can do some tricks, they can be powerful, they can ALMOST but not actually keep up with more regular weapon and shield builds. Speaking of which...

I am taking that feat, but 6th level is the absolute earliest you can get it. The reason why you want +5 AC/+5 hit and damage shields is because you can slap Defending on one, and Guardian on the other, and use both of those to increase saves and AC.

The d20pfsrd says this:

If a weapon has both the defending and guardian abilities , allocating a single point of enhancement bonus increases either AC or saving throws, but not both.

Also, I'm not sure you still have an "effective enhancement bonus" to apply to your attacks if you shunt the points into your saves.

I mean I don't want to debate the rules since some of this build is over my head/interest, maybe you already addressed that point?

Fireworks factory moral dilemma: There is a fireworks factory preparing a shipment for a major (evil) celebration. There is a tribe of goblins nearby that the party could negotiate with, use as cannon-fodder, and pay-off with fireworks. The resulting black eye to the Overlords PR and wasted resources on the goblin extermination campaign would create a distraction, but giving fireworks to goblins is asking for trouble.

Urban adventure: Baby oil factory. Gotta whole lotta orphans being ground up as part of a life-extension magic experiment, has yet to yield reliable results but has produced some immortal rats, some exploding rats, and a people-eating rat-hemoth.

Mine adventure: It's an onyx mine, it uses undead labor, it needs to be destroyed so undead are harder to make.

Alchemy lab: There's a big alchemical factory making acid or weapons or something, it needs to be shut down.

Robbery: There is a stockpile of cure disease potions that a dying village needs. The village is currently quarrantined and billed as infected by the neighboring country to turn the villagers' deaths into a propaganda coup, saving them may not hurt the BBEG but will save a lot of villagers.

Thieves' guild: currently tame, used as scapegoats but never crushed by the guard, they provide a rebellion that is not a rebellion, and keep people fighting or robbing each other instead of opposing the overlord.

Something worse: Chaotic stupid vampire is making mayhem for no particular reason. Evil and good guys want him dead and there's a reward for his signet ring (should count as proof of death). Lots of options between just finding him and calling in the evil cavalry or destroying him and taking his stuff yourself.

Rusting Powder: RAW has it basically useless, but there is something I really like about the idea of having bottled rust-monster blood for whenever I need to ruin someone's stuff.

Bottled Sunlight: two of these kill just about any vampire.

Dust of Dryness: Being able to make water go away has its uses, being able to throw a bead the size of a marble that explodes into a water-balloon with 100 gallons of water in it is hilarious.

Whether or not shield spikes are swappable is a red herring, it doesn't MATTER since the end result is you either do or don't have them and you either do or don't enchant your shield as a weapon. Adding +10 spikes to a +10 (weapon) shield is like super-gluing a +10 longsword to a +10 longsword, it doesn't become +20. Bringing it up is suspect, and implies the poster is trying to obfuscate and muddle up the discussion on purpose.

A quarterstaff works as a 1-handed weapon. All it costs is a feat. This is, of course, only as relevant as the assertion that a +10 weapon/+10 armor shield is somehow different than a double weapon because it can be wielded one-handed. Moreover, separate tracks of enchantment are the only way to make sense of the pricing. A +1/+3 costs 2k and 9k respectively. If you try to count it as +4, then you have to make up all kinds of new, arbitrary rules as to whether the next increase costs 6k, 9k, 7k, or 39k.

Only one shield can provide a shield bonus, and even if this were not the case shield bonuses do not stack any more than armor stacks. You can theoretically use shenanigans with defending and expertise to skyrocket your AC, but this does not change the dynamic from a regular sword-and-board beyond NOT needing separate feats for your weapon and your shield. And as mentioned above, a truly (overly) strict interpretation of the rules can say you cannot use a second shield as a weapon. It's a bit silly and a bit contradictory (the other shield is a weapon, and you can have a weapon) but it's there.

But what aboput the infamous +14 weapon? You get a shield with +5 (armor), you use shield master, and you enchant the shield to +1 (flamingfrostingburstingghosttouchingetc.) that adds up to a +10. Ohnoes, teh powerz, yes?

Except no, the result is a net +4 to hit and damage. You could have gotten that elsewhere via a number of means. You can only afford it when you're in double-digit levels, and since you're a martial that means you're already behind. Nobody should care, because it's nonsense.

And I'm pretty sure the Magus can do something similar with his class powers and nobody gives a crap.

And your damage is still super-dependent on magic. WIthout the right enchantments, you're dealing short-sword damage with a worse crit mod and heavy (one-handed) weapons. You can mitigate with Shield-trained and bashing and spikes and improved crit but those are all choices that have costs.

Not even remotely within existing rules. If there was a rule, then the Flying Blade would use that rule instead of being its own exotic weapon.

If the mods would be so kind as to move this to the homebrew forum...

To get your Rygar on, I recommend the following:

Exotic two-handed weapon: Discarmor
cost: 70 gp
Damage: 1d8 (small) / 1d10 (large)
Crit: x2
weight: 17 lbs.
Damage type: piercing and slashing
Special qualities: performance, reach

Benefit: You fight with a discarmor by spinning it about your head or by snapping it toward an opponent. The discarmor is a clumsy weapon and receives a –2 penalty on attack rolls, but when you make attacks of opportunity provoked by movement, you receive a +2 bonus on attack rolls instead of the penalty. As a move action the discarmor can be retrieved and used as a spiked light shield. When used in this way the discarmor loses it's reach and performance properties.

Add a custom feat that lets you pull it in as a swift action (like the dorn-dergar), another that lets you get a shield bonus while whirling it around (similar to two-weapon defense) and you have a powerful but difficult-to-use weapon that's...probably balanced?

Feel free to modify as you wish, it's 3 AM and I'm enjoying illness-induced insomnia, so I could be completely insane right now.