born_of_fire's page

Cavall wrote:

dunelord3001 wrote:

Ryan Freire wrote:

dunelord3001 wrote:

gnoams wrote:

Um, well, it is a class feature intended to cause drama.

Maybe. But that class feature as written gets discovered by the rest of the party. Quick.

I mean...situationally? If you're out in BFE with this adventurer you met level 1, and you finally get back to the capital city by 11, where it turns out that adventurer is actually some minor nobility assuming a different identity to adventure, there's not really much opportunity to discover it.

You should be getting a roll to notice that they go off by themselves and do something and come back. You might not know both names and addresses but having no idea that something up is just ridiculous.

I mean, Supermans been doing this for like a century. And Batman. Shazam! Wonder woman. Green lantern. Green arrow. The Question. Daredevil. Spider-man. Robin. Robin. Robin. Robin. Robin.

I don't want to sound mean or anything but anytime you're trying to defend anything with examples from DC Comics you might as well just type in that you think I'm completely right and there's no point in discussing any further because that's what it looks like. The idea that you can stand slightly differently and people you've worked with for years won't be able to tell it to you is the dumbest single thing I've ever come across in fiction. At the age of 11 I was like this is dumb and pretty much decided to not read DC Comics, at least the ones with no mask. Never been a decision I regret.

Clark Kent/Superman

CBDunkerson wrote:

Meirril wrote:

Round 1: unstopper Eversmoking Bottle. Your allies can't see. Neither can you. This takes a standard action.

A character can unstopper and drink a potion as a move action... I don't see how it could take them a standard action to just unstopper the bottle. It'd be a move action at most. I'd probably rule a move action to reach for the bottle and unstopper it, or a free action to unstopper if you already have your hand on the stopper.

It's a standard action to drink a potion.

I could see an argument for unstoppering being a move action, but by the rules of the game it's a standard action (and free action wouldn't even be on the table).

EDIT: Just to be clear, I don't think that build is as bad as some here do, but it is pretty gimicky, and it dies have it's flaws.

It’s super gimmicky. That’s the problem with it. It’s going to hit like a kitten made out of wet noodles in any situation it can’t sneak attack and there are plenty of those, even with the 12 or so rounds of performance that “lock in” its sneak attack. Sneak attack and ranged attacks don’t mix well, for starters, and there are plenty of creatures straight up unaffected by sneak attack, are innately unaffected by this tactic or can overcome this tactic with abilities or tactics of their own.

The build takes 8 levels to “lock in” 12 rounds of sneak attack damage. That’s not a reasonable investment when you consider what it’s traded away to become this one trick pony. Its CL is 3 and it’s short a ton of skill points compared to a straight or lightly dipped bard. It has no higher level performances, no masterpieces, it has only level 1 spells so no haste nor heroism nor good hope nor finale other than saving. It takes the king of versatility and trades that all away for a singular, limited tactic. This is not a bard that sneak attacks, it’s a sneak attacker that has dipped 3 levels of bard.

Ugh. Low con hurts everyone but especially hurts anyone looking to stand in melee. That 15 str is a trap! You prolly want to figure out a way to play some sort of full caster but I’m hard-pressed to think of a yuckier distribution of the half-decent numbers you rolled, especially if you can’t even bump that con up to 10 through race selection. Those stats don’t really point to any obvious choice. 13, 14 or even 15 as your main casting stat is no great shakes but you really, really can’t expect to be in melee with an 8 con. 10 dex hurts an alchemist but might not rule it right out if everyone rolled as awful as you lol. I guess I’d go some sort of wizard or a bomber alchemist, most likely a summoning specialist wizard TBH.

Maybe a monster tactician inquisitor using a reach weapon? Summon a phalanx of disposable meat shields that act as the true front line. Monster tacticians get access to exceptional summons that other summoners don't and are very good in some cases. Also, sharing teamwork feats with your summoned creatures? OMG, yes please.

Take the teamwork feats that boost your AC and saves when adjacent to allies to toughen up you and your summoned creatures. Or the teamwork feats that pump AoO's and focus on those. Or the teamwork feats that boost maneuvers and CMB the heck out of everything. Or any other interesting combination of teamwork feats you fancy...you can share any two of yours each time you summon at level 10.

Standard action summons with a min/level duration is just gravy on top of all of that.

You do have a lot of people your group that hit things. If you enjoy healing and are ok with mostly that and buffing with maybe a smidgen of offensive casting in combat, you might consider a silksworn occultist.

Just to give an idea of what they can do: my SSO usually starts combat with a haste spell, then legacy weapon to give +1 and bane to the main tank's weapon, then mirror image on himself just in case (I may cast mirror image sooner if things are scary AF but this usually works out). At that point, there are more buffs available if needed--enlarge, versatile weapon, aegis, resist energy etc.--or healing since it is possible to take a good beating over three rounds. SSO's can get access to most of the healing and condition removal spells and, for those that they don't, his stellar UMD with class bonus more than suffices. Since, generally speaking, SSO's get lots of spells, both known and per day, he's also got a handful of debuffs and SoS spells--murderous command, glitterdust, suggestion, dispel magic, aversion etc.--for those occasions when no one needs a buff or heal. The DC's are not the greatest as a 6/9 caster but that's not a big problem, just gotta be judicious about who he points at with what spell.

On top of no shortage of useful but not necessarily aggressive things to do IC, he has tons of OOC utility spells and abilities--fly, mind's eye, object reading, rope weave, invisibility sphere etc.--and oodles of skills, 9/level as a human (nice but I might have been better with elf in hindsight--can never have enough mental focus). He is the party diplomancer and trap-finder and basically does everything except actually hit things. He's surprisingly resilient for an arcane caster (best saves in the group which includes a pally and among the highest HP's) and is probably the most roundly capable character I have ever played...again, aside from the fact that he literally does not physically attack.

That said, I specifically chose to limit him in combat this way; I, too, play in a larger group so can afford to let others do the hitting. You can likely find a way to make even an SSO physically menacing enough in combat if you really wanted to. I have stayed away from evocation and necromancy so you could also make different implement choices to get a different sort of caster-y SSO than I have. It's such an incredibly versatile chassis! The only negative thing I could say is that, like with most arcane casters, efficacy does depend on level. The first 6 levels were very painful but we are level 9 now; things have become comfortable and will only improve in the future.

What level?

Since you mentioned an Occultist, a geomancer has an Inspire Courage-like ability called Dominion that buffs your party based on investing mental focus points in your surrounding terrain each day. With that and the Trappings of the Warrior panoply you can be a great melee contributor and team player. It should play like an int-based druid with decent utility and skills but no pet or wild shape of course.

Occultist is such a cool class BTW. I’m currently playing a silksworn that plays nothing like that geomancer would despite sharing the base class.

born_of_fire wrote:

MrCharisma wrote:

Barbarian.

Dwarf (doesn't keep 30', but keeps "full speed").
Travel Domain.

I thought of barbarian and travel domain but is giving a speed increase the same as allowing you to move at full speed or is it just offsetting a penalty that other characters would simply not incur in the first place?

It depends on Lucy_Valentine's intent and definition.

Dorf is legit either way.

In war, an army's speed is defined by its slowest unit. Unless you are willing to leave the slower members behind, you have to slow yourself down.

If you raise the character's speed to the point where your "weighed down" speed is the same as everyone's unarmored speed... you are going to do fine.

Yes, the end result is the same whether your speed is 30 because you eliminated the penalty or because you added a speed bonus that is equal to the penalty but the methodology is not. You really felt the need to Captain Obvious this one over three hours after Lucy_Valentine specified they were looking for ways to remove the penalty rather than add a speed bonus to offset the penalty? Thanks, I guess.

If you were willing to take up the mantle of Sir Stabsrarely, you might consider a silksworn occultist. I am currently playing one in a homebrew campaign since level 1 where we've just reached level 9 and I'm quite enjoying it, especially now that we are past the lower levels that are painful for any caster-type.

IIRC I have stabbed three things ever, maaaaybe four, but I am a bountiful bag of tricks when it comes to most anything else: I heal, I buff, I debuff, I have a crapton of utility spells plus mental focus powers and, for anything that I can't legit do, like condition removal, I can UMD. I've also got skills coming out the hoohaw and am the party's trapfinder/disabler, diplomancer and walking encyclopedia.

A regular occultist is not a particularly strong melee combat character and the silksworn a little less so but I really like the class. I've made some RP choices that make my character particularly ineffectual in battle however it's such a versatile chassis that you could easily go a stabbier or blastier route than I've opted for. Maybe even stab ten or twelve things by level 9! ;)

Way of the Wicked uses an interesting system to generate stats:

Focus and Foible
Choose a Focus, an ability score at which you excel. You receive an 18 in that score. Choose a Foible, an ability score that is your weakness. You receive an 8 in that score. The other four, roll 1d10+7 four times in order. There are no rerolls or moving of ability scores. Those are your other four scores.

The main attraction is that you can pick your low and high scores so you won’t get stuck playing a wizard when you wanted to roll a barbarian. There’s very little risk of bad rolls, though, so it might not suit your motivations. None of the characters in the game I participated in were min/max monstrosities however; the players took the opportunity to make unusual and more roleplay focused choices in the low risk environment of such generous stats.

pauljathome wrote:

The mistake Paizo made was making those rules the default for all campaigns.

The rule was essentially already the default for all campaigns given the way the Spellcraft skill works. Unless you can't see the caster, if they cast a spell you get to make a check to identify it. That's been the rule since 2009.

"Visual manifestations" is just a way of justifying how someone in-universe knows to identify a spell in the first place if it doesn't have components.

Spellcraft is a trained only skill. There is a vast difference between anyone with eyes and ears automatically knowing you are casting a spell and anyone trained in spellcraft has a chance to figure out you are casting a spell.

The problem with the FAQ and everyone always knowing everyone and everything is casting a spell is that there are a ton of spells that no longer make sense and, as avr pointed out, a ton of creatures whose abilities no longer make sense.

When an acquaintance of mine, who is a semi-pro hockey player, plays in his beer league, he doesn’t play as hard as he can. He could easily hog the puck, skate circles around everyone and score goal after goal without much, if any involvement from his lesser skilled teammates but he doesn’t. Instead, he plays only hard enough to challenge the other team and uses his superior skills to get everyone’s stick on the puck. He goes out of his way to ensure a good time is had by all even though he could wipe the floor with them if he wanted to.

I feel this is analogous to Pathfinder. It’s much easier for the skilled players to tone down their characters than it is for the unskilled players to “just get better at the game”. It’s also important to play to the skill level of the group. No need to build a character who does all the stuff markedly better than the rest of the characters just because you can. Pathfinder is generally more about cooperation than competition.

I personally just dislike multiclassing, so if an archetype or class requires a level or two in another class to be functional I consider that a problem.

Like the preponderance of Swashstigators points more to the Investigator class being too weak on the front end than anything else.

Also the front-loadedness of the swashbuckler. It’s an attractive dip for a number of builds and not much reason to go straight swash ever.

I’m a huge fan of the Inquisitor archetypes that trade judgements for what I feel is a strict upgrade in terms of simplicity and equal in terms of power until very late levels. We’ve never played past 13th which definitely informs my opinion on this. YMMV

Inquisitor: Sanctified Slayer, Monster Tactician and (slightly less so due to Hunters being a thing) Sacred Huntmaster.

Sam Phelan wrote:

No posts were removed, but I suggest that participants not insult the individuals who work on the content being discussed. This is a personal attack, and is entirely unnecessary and unproductive for any discussion and an inappropriate way to refer to any member of the community.

Great. Now, I'm trying to figure out what was an insult?

Just a WAG here, but I’m gonna bet it’s the stuff where Slim Jim insinuates authors and developers smoke crack and don’t understand English because he wants to use a feat to do something it explicitly disqualifies.

Keying off of born_of_fire's comment about Iomedae earlier, why not a particularly cerebral and/or misguided devotee of Irori, obsessed with physical perfection and trying to unlock it through wisdom and intellect concurrently?

I just realized I meant Irori rather than Iomedae. I got them mixed up and am surprised no one called me out on that.

OK I’ll be that person since no one has yet: have you asked the player what they’re interested in playing? What the player wants to play should trump anything anyone else thinks they should play, right?

A monster tactician inquisitor perhaps? Your summoned critters will be badass but not as gross as an eidolon. You can be far more melee capable than a summoner so, with the right build, less sense of sitting back to let your summons do all the work.

I’d build for melee instead of ranged, maybe use a reach weapon. Then you can get in there and mix it up with whatever you’ve summoned that is sharing your teamwork feats. You still have spells and plenty of skill points as well so you can do more than hit things and absorb damage when the time comes.

You’re already playing an inquisitor so you know the chassis is solid. It’s a question of whether you want to try something new and different or if you are ok with playing the same class again. It’s such a versatile class though; one inquisitor can be quite different from the next.

The Swashtigator makes a great rogue that isn't a Rogue.

Very much so. The swashigator out-rogues a rogue on the roguey-est day of its life while using an electrified rogue-ing machine.

In coming on 35 years of playing, I have encountered only a small handful of characters that didn’t fear dying. They were played by players who were pretty much burned out or otherwise disaffected due to IRL circumstances and ended up quitting the game before long or, extremely rarely—like count on one hand rarely—a player who was not enjoying a particular character but didn’t feel comfortable just walking away with it to bring in something more to their liking. Other than that, the people I play with universally do not want their characters to die.

We deal with TPK the same way that we deal with individual character death: write up a new character with good and interesting motivations to be doing whatever the character who died was doing. The new character must also have good and interesting motivations to have joined up with the other party members.

I don’t know where people get this idea that death somehow has no meaning in the game. It sucks to have your character die. You lose what you’ve invested in it for however long you’ve been playing it and you never get to see what it could have become had it not died (often the most painful part of losing a character for me—I am still so disappointed that my super cool casting-focused oracle died at level 4 before he became any good at what he was designed to be in an AP three years ago now). Or you spend wealth which could have been better spent elsewhere on bringing it back and restoring the built in penalties for death. For our group members, these are enough of a deterrent. I have not personally experienced any reason to make death meaningful by artificially creating circumstances that make surviving more difficult or having a character die more punitive.

Yqatuba wrote:

But it's way more fun the other way. As for it being underpowered if you use the wrong command, couldn't you argue the same about most mind affecting spells? I.E if you dominate someone and just say "stay here and don't do anything" it wont be nearly as effective as if you said "help me fight"

They changed it because it was not underpowered, it was MASSIVELY overpowered : Command "Suicide"...

This is more a reflection on English speaking peoples’ obsession with making nouns into verbs than it is the relative power of the spell.

XP is awarded for overcoming a challenge. Certainly this means murdering the crap out of that challenge more often than not but it can also mean sneaking past the challenge, talking your way past the challenge, bribing your way past the challenge, tricking someone else to murder the crap out of the challenge, distracting the challenge or any other creative method you can come up with that overcomes the challenge.

None of this means your group is obligated to do anything other than murder the crap out of the challenge, I'm just saying the idea that you have to come up with a chart of some sort is unjustified as the game already accounts for the option you are interested in pursuing.

Val'bryn2 wrote:

I stand by my belief that Batman would be about 6-9th level. He's famous, but he's really only a regional hero, staying in Gotham. According to the Gamemastery Guide, a regional influence would be between levels 1-6. Bruce Lee would be about level 6, 7 at most, because it's actually been shown that a real-world person is low level, with 6th level being the equivalent of an Olympic level athlete. And Batman is described as Olympic level, not superhuman.

That may be true in game terms, but keep in mind that Bruce Lee fought a grand master (a 10th degree blackbelt), Wong Jack Man.

6th level? Sounds fishy.

Blackbelts are heavily restricted when it comes to sparring other combatants because of the lethality and dangerous nature of their martial abilities. They have to restrict what strikes can be used, and upon reaching 3rd degree, are most often not allowed to spar others, even those of the same rank, because of their lethal martial prowess.

Even in the Olympics, they don't allow for full-contact martial arts competitions. They are all floor routines, non-contact, form and balance, etc.

Hardly a good estimation of ones true martial ability.

Additionally, Batman's martial prowess may be that of an Olympic athlete, however, that's just one facet of his skill set.

Know any 6th level characters with unlimited wealth?

Olympic Tae Kwon Do consists exclusively of full contact sparring; there are no forms, balance, floor routines or any such thing. Olympic Judo consists exclusively of full contact sparring; there are no forms, balance, floor routines or any such thing. Olympic Karate will debut in 2020. It will include kumite (sparring) and kata (forms).

As of 2020, your statement will be partially correct otherwise what the hell are you talking about??

I’m not even going to address your nonsense about Bruce Lee or black belt martial artists in general.

How do you suppose this:

Healer's Hands (Conduit)
Source Planar Adventures pg. 28
Your healing efforts are bolstered by positive energy.

Prerequisites: Heal 1 rank, Knowledge (planes) 1 rank.

Benefit: You can use the Heal skill to treat deadly wounds as a full-round action. You do not take a penalty for not using a healer’s kit when treating deadly wounds this way, and you can do so on a given creature more than once per day. When treating deadly wounds this way, if your result exceeds the DC by 10 or more, add your ranks in Knowledge (planes) to the damage healed. These benefits do not apply to creatures that are not healed by positive energy. You can use this feat’s benefit a number of times per day equal to your ranks in Knowledge (planes).

And this:

Incredible Healer
Source Blood of the Ancients pg. 20
You are able to treat deadly wounds with an almost supernatural skill.

Prerequisites: Heal 5 ranks.

Benefit: When you use the Heal skill to treat deadly wounds, the target heals a number of hit points equal to either the result of your Heal check or the normal amount, whichever is higher. A creature can still benefit from having deadly wounds treated no more than once per day.

Interact together?

It’s a little slow coming online but it appears that on a succesful DC 30 heal check, a character will be healing gobs of HP in a full round action: 30 + target’s HD + 10 (2 x knowledge ranks, presumably kept maxed) + wisdom score bonus (for exceeding the DC by 5) = mid 40’s to low 50’s depending on your wisdom score and the target’s HD. This is potentially at level 5, when 30 is a difficult but not unachievable DC, more than once on any given character and a number of times equal to your knowledge ranks! And it scales!

It seems llike these two feats will make TDW pay off better than the various single target cure spells of appropriate level. CSW is 3d8 + CL so maxes out at 29 at level 5, for example.

So am I missing something or do they work nicely together and is the healing better than the relevant cure spells assuming max ranks in knowledge (planes) and heal?

You’re also pretty pressed for time in my experience. PFS sessions at my FLGS are completely wrapped up within 3 hours. There’s not a lot of time for chit chat unless it’s goal oriented and moving the scenario forward. It’s one of the reasons I stepped away from organized play. I always felt too rushed to enjoy the game.

Is this not just a clumsy repackaging of the Stormwind Fallacy?

Roleplay and rollplay are not mutually exclusive ideas. Both are possible, one does not prevent the other.

At the end of each session, the players vote as to whether they should level up. If a majority say they should level, then everyone goes up a level. A tie means staying the same level.

Hahahaha, sounds like a great way to become level 20 in just 20 sessions.

Kifaru wrote:

A few months ago the party killed a bunch of lawful good pilgrims that were defending holy artifacts the party wanted. The fallout from that was bad enough that they have been a bit better about who they kill. A couple session ago they did kill the girlfriends of the bad guys even though they were just 0 level commoners cowering in the background.

Killing people to take their stuff makes you a murderer and a thief. Killing lawful good pilgrims to steal holy artifacts makes you an evil murderer and thief.

Killing 0-level commoner non-combatants makes you bloodthirsty and ruthless. Amoral at best.

And these events prompt no dialogue about alignment, but the pc's kill a high-level cleric servant of a rogue tribe of barbarians while she is in counsel with the tribe's leader and only then does the "OMG, is that an evil act?" alarm go off? And one of the pc's is thinking about taking a level of paladin in the near future? I don't think that word means what you think it means...

Two diagnosis:
1. Kifaru's table appears to have a very different view of alignment then most of the responders.
2. Kifaru's players do not seem at all interested in the type of campaign Kifaru is trying to run. Nuke it from orbit appears to be their go to solution. So nuanced encounters with inwardly conflicted clerics of Erastil are a waste of time.

If you didn't challenge their alignment and behavior after the pilgrims and the girlfriends, you have zero standing or credibility to challenge them on the barbarian cleric. Who, regardless of an assessment of her activity/inactivity level, has far more culpability for her situation than the previous victims of these homicidal maniacs.

It's groups like this that give murderhobos a bad name.

Really? What do you think the line about the fallout from the incident with the pilgrims being bad enough that they’ve been better about who they kill means? Without some sort of challenge, there is no fallout so obviously that event did prompt a dialogue with the players...

People are reading way too much into this. And starting to get really nasty about Kifaru’s GM’ing along with his players’ playing, making pronouncements regarding their ability and their intentions that are not only unsupported by Kifaru’s statements but seem to outright ignore them. There’s way more to this game and these situations than Kifaru can communicate to us over the course of a few posts, even if a lot of his statements were not dismissed to accommodate others’ snap conclusions.

If you’re here to quarrel with Kifaru’s version of the events, or to tell Kifaru how terrible his players are or how awful of a DM he is, you’re not here to be helpful and should just move along because these things don’t add to the discussion in any way.

born_of_fire wrote:

The GM is the only conduit the players have for information. If your players are making bad choices due to a lack of information, you can be more forthcoming. You say they didn’t investigate but I’d recommend you take the initiative to give them the information you want them to have rather than waiting for them to ask the right questions. Hit them over the head, repeatedly, in a variety of ways with what you want them to know because they’re only going to absorb, remember, realize the significance of a small portion of whatever you shovel their way. I think sometimes GM’s, who have access to all the information all the time and fully understand how everything is related, don’t realize how much being a player is like the old five blind guys describing an elephant allegory.

I think this is probably right. My general method is to put all the information out there but I mix it in with lots of other stuff. I give a lot of background info on places and NPCs. I have plenty of maps with important places labeled. I have a wall of mugshots for most of the important NPCs, complete with names and a few key pieces of information about each of them. The pictures are mostly grouped by their relationship to each other. The players have responded well to this and have stated they enjoy the extra details. But this may be information overload. Too much fluff info may be clouding the key bits that they really need to know and understand.

I will reassess how I get the information out and try to hammer home the info that is most important.

I'm very happy that you took this in the spirit I intended. I was concerned that it could be interpreted to say that you are a bad DM. That's not what I was driving at in any way and you seem to recognize this. Phew!

a) I did not mention, nor did I advocate, ruthlessly slaughtering anyone.

b) There is a huge difference between ruthlessly slaughtering the characters and running the game and the characters being woefully unprepared.

Oh I'm sorry I didn't realize your statements that "it is not the GMs job to softball" and "there are consequences of choices and the group need to adapt to that" is you counseling for a spirit of cooperation and collaboration between the players and the GM >.>

The GM is the only conduit the players have for information. If your players are making bad choices due to a lack of information, you can be more forthcoming. You say they didn’t investigate but I’d recommend you take the initiative to give them the information you want them to have rather than waiting for them to ask the right questions. Hit them over the head, repeatedly, in a variety of ways with what you want them to know because they’re only going to absorb, remember, realize the significance of a small portion of whatever you shovel their way. I think sometimes GM’s, who have access to all the information all the time and fully understand how everything is related, don’t realize how much being a player is like the old five blind guys describing an elephant allegory.

SheepishEidolon wrote:

Haldrick wrote:

I am strongly of the view that if a group decides on a non balanced party it is the player job to make it work, not the GM's.

Isn't it much easier for the GM to adapt the campaign?

No.

a) not everyone has the time, inclination and/or skill to adapt a campaign -there is a reason adventure paths are so popular.

b) if the players, as a party, made a choice to skip being able to handle certain challenges it is not the GMs job to softball them for that choice. There are consequences of choices and the group need to adapt to that, either by planning better at the start or spending resources to fill that lack during the game.

Why not a little of both: the GM adapting and the players adapting? There’s likely no game at all if the GM ruthlessly slaughters the characters to teach the players some sort of lesson about party composition.

I'm pretty bitter about being faced with monsters that have effects at a level that the characters cannot be expected to remedy them. There isn't a class around that gets remove curse, remove disease, remove paralysis etc. prior to level 5. Level 5 and up, the inability to deal with these conditions is due to poor choices and lack of preparation but before that, it's just dirty pool to suck up the party's wealth with a bunch of just in case 3rd level spell scrolls.

Vargouille are my nemeses for this reason. I've lost two characters to them, both prior to level 5.

Dips hurt more than they help in most cases, especially for casters. There are a few limited circumstances where this is not true but they are truly exceptional IMHO. If anything, powergamers avoid dips. In my experience, it's the folks who don't care as much about numbers that meander through a dip or two or three to fulfill a roleplaying desire rather than for the sake of optimization.

Druids are prepared divine casters which means you can pick any spell that is on your spell list whenever you memorize spells. You can choose the same level 1 spell twice if you want to but you do not have to. You can choose to memorize different spells each time you prepare spells. Prepared divine casters are wonderfully versatile when it comes to spell selection.

The chart for determining your saving throws is with each class description.

Prolly not the worst person to ever sit at our table but this has stuck with me for over 20 years. We had a fellow who ate the snacks everyone else brought but would not share his with anyone to the point where he refused to trade my toddler son a cookie for the popcorn he'd been eating out of my son's bowl. I get it, cookies are better than popcorn but that's a 2 year old child learning to share. What the hell is wrong with you?

If a crossbow bolt is not "the same general size and shape of an arrow" in your group, I'd like to know what they believe is "the same general size and shape of an arrow".

"as optimized as the rest of your group" = "*this* optimized". Just because you don't define a universal bar right here doesn't mean you aren't setting some sort of arbitrary rule on players that the text simply doesn't support. You do not have to be as optimized as the rest of your group, full stop. That's a rule you, and those like you, made up. I'm under no obligation to vet my sheet with anybody but the GM.

I don’t get that anyone is saying it’s a rule. It’s a courtesy. Those are not the same at all.

Spells are a huge part of being a cleric. The hugest part even. If you don't have a god, you don't get spells and if you don't get spells, you aren't a cleric, you're a gimped fighter with crap BAB and HD who is also feat starved and has no way to buff itself into competitiveness with the other party members. Chances are very good that you're not a skill monkey either so you can't really fight, you can't heal, buff, debuff or act as a controller and you won't have much out of combat utility. What exactly does your GM imagine you bring to the table after he's made you renounce your god?

Inquisitor
Slayer
Alchemist

Honorable mention to oracle. I love it so much but there are too many crappy mysteries and curses.

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

WaterScorpion wrote:

So I'm fairly to new to the pen and paper version of pathfinder ( few years of the card game ) but I'm wanting to create a character, but unsure which class. I'm a big fan of... the whips, daggers... and also of magic.... Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated. I do have access to almost every major book, but not sure where to start. Thanks

I have a funny thought. If you really want to develop Whip, and you want to cast spells. Consider being a Warpriest and make your Sacred Weapon a Whip. You get to cast Spells. Your Whip will do Sacred Weapon Damage instead of the low damage for Whip, and there are a lot of cool feats that go with Whip, things that will give you like a 15' Reach, make you awesome at Tripping and Disarming, lots of neat tricks, and like I said before, since you will be a Warpriest, your Damage will be respectable.

Which Deity favored weapon is whip by chance?

Calistria

Come on guys we gotta pump these numbers if we are gonna take the spot for longest argument on these boards we still need 1100 to over take Succubus in a Grapple.

Was that actually an argument? I looked at the title and assumed it was nerdy, back-handed porn.

With apologies to anyone with a deep cultural or other investment in this weapon: it is such an unfeasible looking thing. I’m gonna shake my Christmas tree at you menacingly and then, after the battle when you’ve died of laughing at me, I’m gonna try to figure how I comfortably carry it around with me on adventures. The video is good but it’s very hard to envision it actually being used which, I suppose, is why it’s a rather obscure weapon: not many used it. I’m also not sure why it was decided it should be a finessable weapon. I shake my Christmas tree at you with great finesse!

born_of_fire wrote:

master_marshmallow wrote:

Omfg Point Buy is not balanced.

Stop saying it's balanced.

It gives the players control and lets them make a character without someone there to arbitrate dice rolls.

That's it. It's not better, not more balanced, and not intended by the design of the math.

It's totally fair to prefer it, but stop spreading this bullsh*t myth about balance.

Even characters with a 20 point difference in PBE might literally have only two stats different by one point each. That's how dumb point buy is. You really won't notice the difference at the table, except if someone gets to actually play their f*cking MAD class for once.

Could you please show me an example of this? I don’t think I understand what you are saying here. Are you saying one array has, for example, a 0pt value and the other has a 20pt value and the actual stats are the same except for two that differ by one integer each?

Scroll up.

If we're going to compare PBEs, you have to look at the actual stats and the impact they have on the characters.

The jump from a 17 to an 18 is 4 points. 4.
Someone who has two stats that are 18s and a 12 in place of a 10 is by no margin overpowered compared to the guy wth two 17s and a 10.

Also I never said 'rolling is better'
This ought be evident from the fact that I use different rolling methods.

Stop strawmanning me, and understand that point buy is preference, and has no effect on balance.

Balance is a lie. Starting characters out with the same resources is not balance, they aren't even designed to have the same starting resources.

And to be fair, someone rocking 5 (13)'s and a (14) might be worse than someone with 2 (7)'s a (15) and an (11). Depends on the classes.

When did I say anything about your opinion of rolling? When did I say anything about balance? When have I claimed point buy is anything other than my preference?

I asked you to clarify a statement in which you claimed something was literally so. The problem is that “Even characters with a 20 point difference in PBE might literally have only two stats different by one point each” does not seem to be true. There are no point buy arrays with such slight difference in stats that result in a 20pt buy value difference—2 18’s vs. 2 17’s results in a 12 point difference. I ask again again if I have misunderstood you. You have the opportunity to correct me if this is the case.

OTOH, it’s fine if you were simply exaggerating. I hardly deserve to be accused of using logical fallacies, making claims I have not or maligned in any other way for questioning your hyperbole though.

born_of_fire wrote:

CactusUnicorn wrote:

John Mechalas wrote:

Wicked Woodpecker of the West wrote:

Roll 4d6 drop lowest in order.

Add/retract racial bonuses.

Work your characters around overall results of random rolls and characters description given earlier.

So let's try that.

[dice=Str]4d6-2
[dice=Dex]4d6-4
[dice=Con]4d6-2
[dice=Int]4d6-1
[dice=Wis]4d6-1
[dice=Cha]4d6-1

Yowza! I don't know anyone who would turn down a 45-pt build.

How about character #2?

[dice=Str]4d6-1
[dice=Dex]4d6-3
[dice=Con]4d6-1
[dice=Int]4d6-1
[dice=Wis]4d6-1
[dice=Cha]4d6-1

Uhhhh....That's technically a 14 pt. build. But more importantly, would you want to be playing character #2 in the same campaign with character #1?

This is the problem with flat-formula die rolls.

That's the easiest question I've heard all day. Yes, yes I would. I am very confident in my ability to have fun playing my dumb but good natured Sorceror struggling to control his powers, or maybe my naive Swashbuckler trying to understand the world and make his friends proud along with my friend the strong and reliable fighter. Maybe he is my older brother/sister looking out for me, or maybe I'm a charming idiot they met on their travels. I've seen people have fun with 3 Str characters and I believe I can have fun with a 4 Int character.

You are repeatedly answering a different question than you are being asked. You keep telling us that you could have fun with a character using the second set of stats. No one has asked you whether you could have fun with that set. The question is how much you would want to play a character with those stats alongside another character using the 45pt build.

My group switched point-buy after many, many years of rolling stats because we have one particular player who would reliably roll a 45pt buy build while the rest of us less lucky players would end up

...

Your math means very little when actual our play experience is to the contrary, just like the folks who insist in combat healing is always a waste of time when our play experience is that we have avoided TPW's only due to in combat healing on numerous occasions.

We noticed a stark difference in the performance of the characters when we rolled for stats. The GM also noticed it was difficult to safely challenge the party when we rolled for stats. It's not like the GM woke up one day and decided we would use point buy for no reason; we had problems we were trying to solve, we noted a massive disparity in stats, made the change to point buy and discovered that these problems were both mitigated as a result.

It is possible that we could have used some formula to calculate the optimal point buy for each type of character being rolled so that a SAD class is not unfairly advantaged by point buy compared to a MAD class with that same point buy. It is also possible that we would be even happier if we did such a thing but that's an awful lot of work compared to just switching everyone to an equal point buy, especially when most of us have done little beyond basic mathematics in 20+years.

I've never claimed that the classes are balanced or that point buy creates balance. We do feel that simply decreasing the amplitude between the peaks and troughs so everyone's stats are closer than they were when we rolled has been enough without achieving perfect mathematical balance.

Ahem...do you think this fan boy battle is helping the OP in any way?

What you consider a bug (Ugh, it takes hours to make a character and there are a billion options to sort through) is, I suspect, considered a feature by most people who love PF (Yay! It takes hours to make a character and there are a billion options to sort through!) That's how it is for me at any rate.

I love that I can make any character I want. I love that I can make basically the same character out of several different classes depending on which mechanics I feel like using at the time. I love that I can make 5 oracles, for example, and none of them will be anything like any of the others.

We took a stab at 5e and, while I found it interesting enough, I felt very stymied. I had a very difficult time finding a class whose mechanics appealed to me because everything was so sparse. It didn't feel like my choices made much, if any, difference and the only real way to make a character unique compared to others of the same class came down to roleplaying. Not that I object to rp'ing but with PF I can make my characters individuals mechanically and with roleplay.

One suggestion: if you are feeling overwhelmed by the character creation process, the guides are very useful for paring down your options by highlighting the most commonly used and generally beneficial choices as well as steering you away from the less useful ones and the outright traps.

Hedge witch gets spontaneous cures though some GM's will say it only kicks in at level 4 so be aware of that. You can combine it with hex channeler if you really want to have access to channeling too.

DrDeth wrote:

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

You're built wrong if you want to be the most fearsome character in the game. Your first mistake is you played a martial, and not an Arcane Full Spellcaster, in a game that's designed with magic being the meta, and not mundanes. So expecting to go against the meta and complain about your bad experiences is just exacerbating the problem.
.... Weapon damage is largely irrelevant in the higher levels of gameplay, where you will be struggling the most, and it won't shore up your absolute weaknesses.

The second mistake is optimizing a silly weapon. Melee in this game are really bad and really clunky unless they have stupid amounts of reach and battlefield control to go with them. A basic beatstick is largely ineffective by 6th level, where iteratives and flight become commonplace. .....
...

This is just your opinion, trust me, in my current game and in RotRL, the Fighter was far and away the most dangerous character. Of course, we played D&D as a Team.

It is true that with Armor & Weapon mastery handbooks, any archetype that trades away weapon and armor class abilities will be sub-optimal.

And weapon damage is anything but irrelevant. My Fighter is downing demons the spellcasters can barely touch.

Melee works really well, in fact. With no reach at all. And, again, my fighter is 13th level.

Difference between a Fighter getting buffed by his party members and contending with his party members is precisely the reason why the OP is in the situation he's in. The factor that your Fighter had to be buffed to be considered the "most dangerous" really only proves what I will now dub as "Mistake Zero," as well as proves Caster/Martial disparity, especially when said buffers would have and could have just as easily ended encounters as they began.

And unfortunately, telling the OP "Ask your teammates to give you buffs" isn't really a fair answer/response to "Why does the Fighter not get any bones?" Since the entire point...

He’s NOT talking about getting buffs from others. He’s talking about the bones that fighters were thrown in the Armor Master’s and Weapon Master’s Handbooks. I know this because he refers to those books and the abilities from them but doesn’t refer to asking anyone for buffs. Why did you quote a post that you did not reply to in any way, shape or form?

It’s very unfortunate that the case against giving bonuses for player skill is being conflated with and reduced to a game without any roleplay at all. Not rewarding players mechanically for their RL abilities does not mean an absence of role-play.

I need to think about things, brainstorm, consider options, mull them over and then maybe do all of that over again before I formulate an appropriate IC response. I usually spend a good deal of time between our weekly sessions thinking about what my character thinks and feels so I’m more prepared for the next time I have to come up with something off-the-cuff but often still find myself at a loss for words. None of this is the same as being naturally gregarious and none of this is the same as not role-playing. I’m an active and enthusiastic role-player, I’m just not glib and don’t work well under pressure.