filgaiasguardian's page

I think the riding drake is supposed to be more like D&D style drakes which are wingless protodragons vaguely resembling their true dragon cousins. Here's a blue drake example from 5th. I like it! I just hope with it being uncommon that I can have one in PFS. I'd like a Champion/Cavalier of Apsu to ride one!

filgaiasguardian wrote:

But is the damage from the claw attack based on your shifter's original size or the size of the mouse? The damage of the claw attacks is size dependent I assume, so the question becomes is it always set by the size of the PCs race when you create the character or is it sized by the current size of the PC?

If it's the former, then when the hell would a small character ever use it save when he's like a mouse and how does that work with things like enlarge person?

If it's the latter how does it scale at large sizes and doesn't that mean that with some aspects and size combos like mouse and medium PCs you'll never use their base damage?

I suppose you could argue either way. RAW it doesn't say you adjust for size when swapping the damage so my inclination is to say it's based on your natural un-altered form. If that is the case, then yes, some animals will always replace them like mouse and hawk. But if it's based on your adjusted size, then from level 7+ it will Always use the adjusted claws cause the option is average claw for the size or average claw for the size increased by x die sizes depending on level of shifter. For things like enlarge person, it's only gonna effect your natural form because you can't have your size altered by spells when under a polymorph effect. In that case I'd say your claw damage would be adjusted for size as that's what the description of enlarge person says it does.

Someone a few pages back (I forget who) listed the rogue archetypes by title and said that there were five of them, the first one on that list was fae prankster, and the last one was the sylvan trickster. Of course if they were answering from memory or something they could have made an error, but it was definitely mentioned.

Yeah, it was me. Sorry, the Fey Prankster is under the Gathlian race. It says it's only taken by that race, but possible for others with GM permission. Anyway, they specialize in dirty tricks, using plants to play tricks and doing some silliness with swapping the appearance of similar objects or even creatures.

But your size has changed. Doesn't the claws ability alter to follow those rules? By that logic, wouldn't turning into something like a rat or a falcon as a medium shifter automatic bump your damage from level one and you'd never use the base damage at all?

That is correct. If you turn into a mouse, you get a single bite attack based on your natural form's claw damage, but you'd be Tiny with no reach. However the form eventually can enter squares without provoking attacks, so maybe you could do some kind of crazy mouse version of the Songbird of Doom.

Is the BAB requirement difficult for a 3/4 BAB to use?

It's a bit rough for a 3/4 and they won't be able to take Greater Wilding Strike at all.

Does anyone know what the wilding (???) style does exactly? It increases unarmed strike damage but I am curious by how much and how hard it is to get

I don't want to get too number specific because I think that's against the spirit of the discussion, but as far as qualifying, the chain requires another new feat simply called "Wilding" as well as Improved Unarmed Attack. Wilding gives you wild empathy and other nature-y benefits. The Wilding Strike chain also has BAB requirements.

K so question about the shifter: When you use your claws damage to replace a natural attack while wild shaped, do you use your initial size to calculate the claw damage or the size of your new form?

Like, if a gnome lizard shifter is 11th and changes and uses her claws damage on her attacks are they treated as small claws (from base form) or large (from lizard form)?

You use the normal damage of the form or your normal claw damage, whichever is greater. In this specific case, the lizard form does not have claws, but a bite and tail attack. A small gnome's claws do less damage than the normal bite attack for the lizard and the same damage as the tail attack so you would just use the lizard's normal damage, but they do gain the benefit of ignoring DR cold iron and silver.

Anyone know what about the rogue archetype? Talents?

There are 5 Rogue archetypes: Fey Prankster, Desert Raider, River Rat, Sly Saboteur, and Sylvan Trickster. I did not see any new talents.

Are there any stand out feats in the book?

There's a lot and everyone has different ideas on what makes a feat good, but the coolest one I saw is one that works as a substitute for Skill Focus for the prereq of Eldritch Heritage and if you use it for that purpose, you can take a Wildblooded version of the bloodline.

What are the new weapon groups and what weapons are in them?

Only weapon group is Tribal which contains club, dagger, greatclub, handaxe, heavy shield, light shield, shortspear, spear, throwing axe, and unarmed strike.

What is the elemental based shifter archetype like?

You can add elemental damage to your attacks instead of grow claws and you wild shape into elementals of your chosen aspects instead of animals.

How dependant is the Shifter on Wis? Can the full Wis to AC be insignificant compared to wearing real, bona-fide, less-polluting-than-leatherworking steel?

The only thing they use Wis for is the AC bonus. There's a feat that lets you add wis bonus to minutes/day of aspects as well. A Shifter that wears metal armor loses most of their class features while doing so and for 24 hours after, though.

Would anyone with the PDF mind telling me what spell lists the 'Fey Form' spells are on?

Alchemist, Bloodrager, Druid, Magus, Shaman, Sorc/Wiz and Witch.

Does anyone know if the 'Planar Focus' feat works with Shifters and their animal focuses? If so that may be some of the scaling and utility that people felt was missing.

Shifter's aspects do not count as the "Animal Focus" class ability and so they do not qualify, sadly. Even if the elemental focuses don't have major forms, it would be cool to have them available as minor forms. But keep in mind a Shifter only has at most 5 aspects unlike Hunters who can freely swap between all of them, so a Shifter would be hard up to sacrifice a possible wildshape form just for a minor buff.

Morbid Eels wrote:

Sad to hear that the Shifter is a disappointment.

I would suggest still seeing it for yourself because of the "internet".

I second this opinion. Even though it's not what I'd hoped, it's still not terrible. It's just different than what I was expecting so I'm working with it and trying different builds to see how I'd like to play it. I still intend to take one to PFS once it gets cleared.

Details on the Tribal Fighter and Skirmisher archetypes?

Tribal Warrior is restricted to druid armors and weapons in the new "Tribal Weapon" group. They gain weapon training only in this group. The Tribal Warrior also more easily qualifies for style feats by having ranks in skills associated with them.

The Skirmisher is a light-armored fighter that gains resistances based on the climates he's adapted to, has altered class skills and ranks, and a scaling dodge bonus to AC when wearing light armor as well as some other defensive bonuses.

Any new Advanced Weapon or Armor training options?

Nope.

Any cool combat feats?

There are many feats listed, old and new. Some of my favorites are a new Beastmaster Style chain that's focused on fighting with an animal companion, the Wilding Strike chain that lets you improve the damage of your unarmed attacks (similar to monk's scaling damage but does not stack with it), and Nature's Weapon that lets you use whatever random stuff you find in the wilderness as an improvised weapon.

I'm not sure how I feel about the Shifter yet. I was disappointed by the lack of hybrid forms because they really talked up the possibility of being an "owlbear" and stuff, but the mechanics aren't there. I thought it would be something like eidolon-lite where you could customize a unique animal or something along those lines, but it's really just druid wildshape restricted to a handful of forms with the benefit of enhancement bonuses for minutes/day.

But it's not all bad. You can use the scaling damage claws in your animal form if the form has claws or, if it doesn't, replace the damage of up to two of the form's natural attacks with the claw damage, which is nice. Even though most of the bonuses from minor aspects don't stack with magic items, it does allow you to save money as they're usable often enough for them to be relied on for most/all encounters throughout an adventuring day. It's true that Hunter gets unlimited duration on their aspects when they don't have an animal companion, but they can't have as many active at a time as the Shifter can. And while you only have a few aspects, they do cover a good range of options from full offense tigers to stealthy mice and flying hawks.

Overall, if you take a druid and a shifter, have them both go tiger form and go all out on an enemy, I'd say the shifter will come out ahead. For general utility excluding spells in a natural environment, shifter and druid are comparable with druid coming ahead slightly. But ultimately the druid has 9th level casting which is really hard to compete with. If you want a shapeshifter without dealing with spells, Shifter is fine. It's not Amazing, but it's not terrible either.

What are new fey based polymorph spells like?

I got my PDF today and this was one of the things I was looking forward to the most. There's 4 tiers of Fey Form and they allow you to use a wide variety of special abilities. You don't get spell-like abilities, but there is something nice related to the spell-likes of the form you assume. Overall I really like the series! I was super disappointed there weren't any archetypes using them, though. Really wanted a druid archetype that had fey wildshape. Maybe in the future?

Many of my PDFs are missing as well. =(

Has anyone actually gotten their PDFs yet?

My order is still pending and hasn't shipped as of 5 minutes ago. Oh! Maybe now! ...Nope, still no. ._.

So far we know they get full BAB, scaling claw damage (including in normal form), bypassing DR, and wisdom to AC (with reduced bonus while in druid-approved armor). It seems like they get earlier access to large and maybe tiny forms, and I think a dev mentioned in an interview that the aspects you apply are stronger than the animal focus abilities. Those aspects can get added onto what you're shifted into.

For new players, it's also simpler. You have more information about your options baked into the class rather than spread out across six bestiaries. (I know not everybody values that, but I think it's useful.)

I was a little apprehensive with the negative initial take on the class, but as more information comes out I feel more excited about the Shifter and its potential. A long while back (before Shifter was announced), I was digging through Druid archetypes for something that specialized in one or a few forms without any satisfactory results. The Shaman archetypes are nice, but don't take the idea far enough. I wanted to be Really good with one form. I think (without actually having received my book yet. Pending... ;-;) that the Shifter is exactly what I wanted.

Just because they can't turn into an entire zoo's collection of animals doesn't mean they aren't the best at shapeshifting. DR is a Huge hindrance to natural attackers and it seems Shifters have a good answer to that. Scaling claw damage is very nice. I would be thrilled to see it applied to all their natural attacks, but even if not, claws alone is quite good and really helps a lot of animal forms that are more limited in attacks. Like a wolf with three attacks at full BAB is suddenly a lot more competitive with a tiger even without pounce. Or take tiger as one of your lesser aspects and be a pouncing wolf! It seems to me, again without actually being able to read the class description, that while a Shifter can't turn into as many animals, a wolf Shifter is going to be much more capable in melee than any wolf-wildshaped Druid.

I think its hard to balance making something a better shifter than the druid without making them a better fighter than the fighter.

I don't think that should be much of a concern. While the Shifter and Fighter are both melee combatants, Fighter's "thing" is using weapons. Either lots of different kinds or being really good at a specialized few. Shifters, presumably, only use natural weapons. Even if Shifter does more DPR than a Fighter (which isn't the only thing that matters, of course), people will still play/favor Fighter because they want to use cool weapons/dislike nature-themed classes/prefer being a humanoid/etc. Besides, looking strictly at tiers, Fighter is pretty bottom of the barrel so I would hope the Shifter ranks higher than that. No offense, Fighters.

My long shot hope for this book is a reprint of the avian base form for eidolons compatible with Unchained Summoner and PFS legal. Been dying to make a phoenix-themed Summoner and I was so disappointed when the avian and centaur forms weren't allowed. They were released right before PFU and didn't work with the new eidolon subtypes. T-T

I'm so excited! I subbed just to get the PDF early! The first thing I'm going to read is Shifter class section, but I'm looking forward to harvesting venom, fey polymorph, expanded animal companion rules, new archetypes... SO MUCH STUFF! I haven't been this excited for a book since ACG!

The only thing I would question is Master Chirurgeon just because an endless supply of healing with mercies/metahealing seems super busted. Buuuuut, it's a capstone and at that point, other classes are doing things equally silly and unless you plan on doing a lot of the game at 20th level it probably won't matter. Maybe call out kinetic healer as not an option for the capstone? Personally, I think I like the regular archetype better just because Kinetic Chirurgeon already offers a lot of utility and I'd like the option to use a composite, but I can also see where some might prefer your changes. Overall I'd say it's an acceptable alternative to the RAW.

I need to cancel my Player Companion subscription. I'm thoroughly pleased with the product, I just need to save some money for a few months. I'll be back. =3

Willing to come to Minnesota this weekend? Skalcon runs Fri-Sun. We might still need a GM or two.

I like where you're going with this character and I wish you the best of luck.

Aw, if it were Any other weekend, I'd see what I could do but I already have out of state plans this week! I do need to do more conventions, though. =3

nosig wrote:

James Anderson wrote:

Given that the most recent GM boon was Aasimars, I wouldn't be surprised if Tiefling came up in winter or spring. A Rakshasa-blooded Tiefling = catgirl aesthetics.

So, you could wait for that then GM at a con or trade with someone who did. Or maybe there's some very old tiefling boons floating around still you could trade for.

Doesn't one of the Aasimar bloodlines have "Cat-like" features? So, with those boons being in the current release mix, you might look at running an Aasimar.

Idyllkin (agathion-blooded) aasimar can have animal features, including feline from a leonal agathion. The stat modifiers are a bit weird for a witch - +2 Con and Cha - but more than workable since you just get a net bonus.

If the Rakshasa bloodline is enough to grant you rakshasa physical features, why not go with eldrich heritage (celestial) and stipulate cat agathion as your ancestor.

That's perfect! I can't believe I didn't think about agathions sooner. I love Silvanshees! If I can get a hold of an Aasimar boon, I'll go that route for sure, but if not, I don't see why eldritch heritage (celestial) couldn't work just as well.

I'm actually playing a Cartomancer Witch at the moment with plans to go Harrower (...)

If you really want to accentuate the harrow/fortune telling options(...)

Oh man. Cartomancer and Harrower? That's definitely going all in! I think I'll be satisfied with cartomancer alone, but I'll play with builds with and without Harrower and see what I like best. Thanks for pointing out those feats! I haven't picked up Occult Adventures yet, but I'll definitely look into it!

Cartomancer is a weird archetype: I played one recently through Tears at Bitter Manor (so levels 5-8) and found it interesting to play, and despite its oddness, it's not that ineffective. It just doesn't do what you'd expect a witch do due to Deadly Dealer. However, it sort of splits your focus - you'd like to get as much done as a witch as you can, but you also want to take ranged combat feats in order to, well, not be useless with your cards. Deliver Touch Spells can be crazy useful, and just having the cards gives you something to do when you're out of spells. However, you trade out any bonus a familiar would give you, as well as the possibility of getting Improved Familiar.

Synergist loses you some of hexes, including your first hex, which can be off-putting for a lot of people - getting a lot of versatile hexes early (Slumber, Evil Eye, Fortune and Misfortune coming to mind at once - personally I would go for Misfortune first since the first two are mind-affecting) is something most people come to expect from a witch.

Also, you might note that casting harrowing, when you get to those levels, requires a noticeable amount of time and bookkeeping, since the effects you get are so random and varied. Not all people will appreciate it, or the fact you're flipping cards during the game. Timeslots can be a big deal in some PFS situations.

Going into harrower from witch is a viable option, since you don't lose caster level: do keep in mind, however, that nothing progresses aside from spells per day, so your patron spells, for instance, don't progress, and again you lose out on hexes. One issue can be losing out on major hexes. The harrower abilities give a lot of interesting buffs, but they're also very random and therefore vary in usefulness. They're also time-consuming card-flipping abilities, which can, again, be a problem for some people and situations. The witch spell list also has an... odd assortment of divination spells, which are a prerequisite for the prestige class: there are many nice...

Oh man, thanks for this! I've played with a couple witches, but never as one myself, so your insight is appreciated! The split focus of the cartomancer did concern me, though I am glad to hear it can be pulled off with a measure of success. I must admit I hadn't considered how time consuming it might be to keep track of which cards do what. I'm the kind of person that keeps a super neat binder with all my character's source material organized but even I would probably find 52 cards a challenge. The programmer in me wants to code something that could make it all faster. I wonder if there's an app available already? Would I even be allowed to use that? I recall one of the rules for using Harrow decks was you had to use a real Harrow deck and not any approximations.

Cartomancer Witch with a Healing Patron is a solid choice for using a Harrow Deck to heal and buff. You also get some nice control/debuff/damage options too. Harrower is fun for flavor, but it really does come down to how much you want the class to be about the cards/Harrow.

As far as the racial option go, there really isn't anything re: Catfolk that is legal without a chronicle granting you access to it. Eldritch Heritage (Rakshasa) is one option, but takes some feat investment.

Another option I could fall back on is kitsune. Not a cat, but fox ears and tails can be just as cute and it would require a lot less hoop-jumping to achieve. Cartomancer/Healing Patron is what I'm leaning toward. It gets me all the witch goodies and throw in card tricks for good measure. I'd need to figure out something about keeping track of which cards are what, though.

Instead of Racial Heritage, you could take Eldritch Heritage for the Rakshasa bloodline instead. That would require 13 Charisma and Skill Focus (Disguise), but it would also give you a solid boost to your Bluffing skills.

Oooh, I hadn't considered that. As long as I don't have to inherit backwards hands, that could work. xD

I'd go with synergist as simply treat your cards as your (non-costly) material components. Essentially make it flavor.

That seems to be the simplest route to take if I don't use the above Eldritch Heritage suggestion. The only trouble is how evil rakshasas are, but that could also be an RP opportunity. Maybe she devotes herself to healing and supporting her allies in an attempt to prove herself above her tiger fiend ancestry. Anyway, it's probably no more problematic than having a poor cat trapped in my body forever just so I can frolic about with his adorable animal features.

Hi! I've lurked these boards for years but I rarely post anything because I'm quite shy. Anyway, I've got a concept for a character I'd really like to make, but I'm not sure the best way to go about it. I play the MMO Final Fantasy XIV and my character is called a miqo'te (basically your typical anime cat people race). Her class is Astrologian which is a healer class that uses a tarot-like card deck to buff their party members. Flavor-wise, they don't so much tell the future as manipulate fate to try and get the ideal outcome. I have some ideas on how to go about it, but I'd like input.

First, I'm leaning toward Witch as my starting class for a couple reasons. Obviously, healing patron would be great for the healing aspect of my character as well as the healing hex and fortune/misfortune hex kind of goes nicely with the idea of controlling fate. There's also a couple archetypes I'm interested in. The obvious one is Cartomancer since Harrow decks are basically Golarion's tarot cards. The other is Synergist for one reason only: so I can merge with my familiar and "adopt some basic physical features of the familiar," ie have cat ears and a tail. The problem is the two archetypes can't be used together since Cartomancer makes your Harrow deck replace your familiar. So I was wondering about approaching the cat thing from another angle...

Racial Heritage (catfolk)? I've seen it debated (rather heatedly) that this feat could justify having cosmetic traits of the ancestor but taking a feat solely for that reason seems like a waste. I mean, I'm all about flavor, but I would still like a competent character at the end of creation.

And finally, the prestige class Harrower. Would it be worthwhile to pursue alongside Witch or would I be better off just sticking to the base class and have better hexes? Harrower has exactly the flavor I want for my character, but I'm concerned it's not really that strong a PC class. I'd lean toward taking Harrower more if I go with Synergist archetype. My "familiar" will be gimped, but that doesn't really bother me since I'm going to be merged with it all the time and pretending it doesn't exist.

TLDR: I want to be a cat girl that heals and buffs with a harrow deck. I am willing to sacrifice optimization to achieve this goal, but at the same time I don't want to be dead weight to the party. How I do?

filgaiasguardian wrote:

What if Paizo offered some sort of book registration for PFS? You take your books to a LGS. The game stores have sheets of labels with registration numbers that are placed in a standard position on the book, like top of the inside left cover. Then the store fills out a registration online tying the Name of the book and the registration number to your PFS number. Then, from our account page, we can have a list of all hard copy titles we've registered like we currently have for PDFs. Then we can print that page out to prove ownership. You could also use photocopies of the material you use for your character as long as it comes from a registered book. I dunno, it's just a rough idea, but I could see something like that working. The LGS could even charge like a dollar per registration. I don't think people would mind paying for the convenience of not having to lug tons of books around.

Again, this places the burden on someone OTHER than the owner of the book. In this case, the LGS would bear the burden of doing the work of registering the book, keep a sheet of labels, etc. For that reason alone I would oppose it - anything that transfers the responsibility from the player to some other entity is unlikely to get my support (and many others, I would imagine.)

But, I will say this - your idea is beyond just saying, "let us bring photocopies." It really tries to solve this issue in a way that kills 2 birds with one stone, and I very much appreciate that.

Thank you! I tried to come up with a solution that benefits everyone. I don't actually see this as placing a burdon on the stores. On the contrary, it's giving them something else to make money on! Assuming the registration site was well designed and easy to use, we're talking about a process that would take less than a minute to complete and the store pockets an extra buck or two. Heck, they could charge whatever they wanted as long as it was still cheaper than just buying a PDF version of the book. It's an add on they could suggest with every book sold and a way to make money off products that have already been sold. I don't see this as anything but a win for the stores.

What if Paizo offered some sort of book registration for PFS? You take your books to a LGS. The game stores have sheets of labels with registration numbers that are placed in a standard position on the book, like top of the inside left cover. Then the store fills out a registration online tying the Name of the book and the registration number to your PFS number. Then, from our account page, we can have a list of all hard copy titles we've registered like we currently have for PDFs. Then we can print that page out to prove ownership. You could also use photocopies of the material you use for your character as long as it comes from a registered book. I dunno, it's just a rough idea, but I could see something like that working. The LGS could even charge like a dollar per registration. I don't think people would mind paying for the convenience of not having to lug tons of books around.

zergtitan wrote:

What does the alchemist construct rider archetype get/do? And what abilities does it replace?

re-posting a question I put up earlier. what does it get?

Construct Rider gains the ability to build their own mount based on an animal. It advances as an animal companion (gaining str/dex bonuses, natural armor, etc.) but has no constitution score and gains hit points as a construct based on HD. It also has construct immunities except mind-affecting effects because it does have a mind. The alchemist can use craft (alchemy) instead of Handle Animal for all things related to the construct. The number of extracts they can prepare is reduced. Finally, they get a few discoveries unique to the archetype that can do things like add potion tanks to the construct or use bombs to create breath weapons.

Would someone kindly explain the harmonies?

Bard teamwork feats, correct? Sounds like another use for Battle Hymn of the People's Revolt!

Basic Harmony (teamwork) - You can use aid another to help the performance check of another with this feat. The bonus to the other's perform check increases the higher your aid roll is.

Charming Performance - You can use perform as diplomacy to improve the attitude of an NPC toward you or another person.

Compelling Harmonies (teamwork) - You can spend a round of bardic performance to increase the DC of another with the feat's performance.

Counterpoint to Inspiration (teamwork) - Increase an ally with this feat's moral bonus from their performance by performing the same song yourself.

Rouse Emotions - You can use Charming Performance on a group of people and opt to have it influence their attitude toward a well-known group or organization.

So I believe that the Instructor wizard is the only archetype which has yet to be detailed. Could we please have any spoilers for that as well?

The instructor starts out with an apprentice cohort who starts as a commoner, but eventually becomes a real wizard. It still uses a Leadership score to determine how strong your cohort can be, but it's based on Int rather than Cha. When the wizard gains a bonus feat, they can choose a Teamwork feat that they share with the apprentice as long as it's nearby.

Well that's weird...what's the difference between that and taking Leadership? Other than not having followers?

The Monstrous Companion is weaker than a cohort gained through Leadership and they can gain the AC's link and share spells, evasion and devotion abilities, but only if the character level of the cohort is low enough to have 1, 3 and 6 class levels respectively.

For example, a blink dog (ECL 4) with 6 class levels would have all the animal companion abilities and only require you to have 17 druid levels. Yup. Imagine a druid sending a 9HD blink dog after a CR17 monster with an all of +10 bite and 14 AC... At least it can dimension door at will to gtfo, right?

To put it even more in perspective, a normal dog animal companion at druid level 17 has 14HD, +16 Bite and 24 AC.

That dimension door, though!

What can you tell me about tauric eidolons? What free evolutions do they have? The basics would seem to cast at least six evolution points.

Tauric eidolons start as small unless you pay 2 evolution points to make them medium. Free evolutions are claws, limbs (arms) and limbs (legs)x2.

Also, are there any mechanices for gaining a cohort without followers?

The Divine Guardian (paladin), Esquire (cavalier), and Instructor (wizard) archetypes all provide unique cohorts as class features that do not come with followers. The Recruits feat lets you gain a number of cohorts equal to half your character level, all of which must be 4 character levels below you. No "followers", but the cohorts are more like followers than cohorts so I guess it doesn't count. Finally, if you have an animal companion, you can swap it out for a magical beast cohort via Monstrous Companion feat. I think that covers all the means of gaining cohorts in the book.

Any expanded options for Hag cohorts/Witch covens?

Not seeing anything specifically for witches nor any hag cohorts.

What are the New campaign-focused rules?

Unscrupulous characters can use downtime to manipulate evidence for their crimes, prepare resources or discretely recruit people for your nefarious deeds.

You can also hire people for contingency services which are like contacts, but are usually only used for one specific event prepared ahead of time such as breaking into a building, finding a creature or body in the wilderness or fighting bodyguards to get to your party. You negotiate with people for services and the DC varies by how dangerous the situation is. You can also trust hirelings with emergency funds to pay for things like spellcasting or bribes, but if their loyalty is low, they may embezzle your money!

3)What is the Proselyter and what does it get?

Loses heavy armor and martial weapon proficiency but gains proficiency with deity's favored weapon. They gain a list of spells that basically control emotions. Can deal nonlethal damage using sacred weapon damage. They get "conversion bonuses" for every NPC they convert to their religion. Last, they get the ability to use a major blessing to communicate with any creature that has a language.

4)What is the Dread Investigator and what does it get?

Dread Investigator gains inspiration, studied combat and studied strike at delayed levels. They gain a list of necromancy spells as extracts to effect dead bodies as the infusion discovery. Gain a bonus against death effects, negative levels and negative energy. When taking the alchemical discovery talent, they can choose from alchemical zombie, mummification, or preserve organs. They gain the undead anatomy series of extracts and can use them to mess with dying people. This is so gross. xD

5)What is the Esquire and what does it get?

They gain a cohort that has a few limitation on class selection. Whenever the cohort is adjacent to the cavalier, they gain any teamwork feats the cavalier has. The cavalier can share his challenge bonuses with the cohort. The cohort can carry your banner for you providing the same effect to everyone and double the effect for the cohort. The cohort can avenge the cavalier if he is killed or otherwise out of commission and gains the ranger's quarry ability. The capstone staggers enemies the cavalier and cohort crit on the same round.

1)What is the Bonded Wizard and what does it get?

The bonded wizard must take the item option for arcane bond. The item gains hardness and hit points as the wizard levels. They get the ability to alter the type (weapon, ring, amulet, etc.) and aura of the bonded item. They get a pool of "force points" that they can spend to duplicate the effects of mage armor, shield and spiritual weapon. They also get the ability to repair damage to their bonded item.

What is the Divine Guardian and what does it get?

Divine Guardian does not gain divine spellcasting. They can designate one person per day to be their Divine Troth. Detect evil is replaced by locate creature that tells you where your DT is. The paladin can use lay on hands on himself or the DT as a move action and can take hits for the DT. Finally, they get a few bonus feats from a list.

I was afraid that the bard would get shafted yet again. >_<

I wouldn't say shafted! They did get some interesting teamwork feats that boost their performances. Unfortunately, in my quick look through I didn't see any ursine-like cohorts available, much less ones that can sing and dance. =(

That could be where you are wrong. I don't believe animal companions are allowed to take class levels. Which means neither should Monstrous Companions.

So Monstrous Companion will get you the Unicorn that increases via like an animal companion.

And Leadership gets you a unicorn you can advance via class levels.

Unless I am mistaken, I do not have the details of the book so maybe intelligent magical beasts that are companions are allowed to take class levels...?

That is incorrect. When you take Monstrous Companion, you no longer have an animal companion. You have a magical beast cohort with stats straight from the bestiary and progresses via class levels. It does not progress as an animal companion and only gets the share spells, devotion, etc. abilities if they gain enough class levels. They get no bonus strength or dex, natural armor, tricks, nada. Although I'm thinking since it's not an AC and most of these cohorts have high intelligence that you don't need to use handle animal/tricks anyway. So that's a perk.

The Monstrous Companion feat has confused me. If I am a druid, I can have an animal companion as normal, then take Leadership at 7th level, and get a cohort whose type is up to me and the GM (it can totally be a magical beast), and whose level will be as high as my total level-2.

Monostrous Companion allows me to take a magical beast as companion instead of an animal, and is not compatible with Leadership. In effect, it replaces both the cohort and the animal companion (and the followers!) with one magical beast. Except the maximum effective level of that magical beast starts out at druid level -3, and ends at druid level-8 - so it's got fewer levels than a cohort (character level-6 to -3) and fewer HD than an animal companion (16 HD at level 20), despite somehow being a replacement for both. Worse, it only gets animal companion abilities if its base effective level is low enough to allow it to take levels.

So a 20th level druid that wants a unicorn for an animal companion can have a unicorn with 4 levels of ranger, and only link, share spells, and evasion animal companion abilities. That's 8 whole hit dice of companion, at 20th level. If the same druid took leadership, his unicorn pal could have 6-9 levels of ranger, for 10-13 HD total. His animal companion would have 16 HD.

This seems like a terrible deal - it's not just worse than taking Leadership to get a magical beast cohort, it's in many ways worse than just having a regular animal companion. Combining a feat with animal companion shouldn't give worse results than just the feat or just the animal companion.

Am I missing something? Are the effective cohort levels supposed to be in addition to animal companion stuff?

I too am extremely disappointed with this feat. If it's even allowed in PFS (I doubt it), the only cohorts I've seen that are low enough to have at 12th level or below are blink dogs, worgs, hippocampi, hippogryphs or pegasi. Most of those you can get through Monstrous Mount and are better than the Monstrous Companion version in every way. In fact, the only thing this feat has over Monstrous Mount is the less restrictive requirements to take it. This is really saying something considering how generally terrible the Monstrous Mount chain is.

On a different subject, Summoners got two new eidolon base forms: avian and tauric. The avian one is something I've wanted for a long time, but there's no information on how it fits in with the unchained summoner, so unfortunately these options might not be available to PFS summoners either. ::sigh::

I agree that Monstrous Mount need to be opened up to Druids and others that can get animal companions. But other then that everything else is fine and to the fly speed if you are mounted on a creature the creature takes your weight as part of it's encumbrance. Flying creatures can only fly with a certain encumbrance. meaning they can not fly with 200bs. on their backs unless they are strong enough. That is why the feats allow for some fly speed.

I don't really have a problem with the restricted flight except that it's kind of unnecessary. Like you said, the rules already exist for encumbrance so there's no need to tack on an extra speed tax to these two specific companions. I might be rusty, but as I recall, no mount can fly at any speed when carrying a medium or heavy load or any barding heavier than light. So as long as a rider and their carried gear are not more than a light load for a regular, non-AC griffon they are free to fly around willy nilly. Yet an AC griffon or hippogriff with More strength than a regular griffon are somehow unable to fly at the same speed with equal burdon? And there are plenty of other AC's that can carry riders and fly with no restriction on flight like the roc.

But, again, if the flight restriction stays it doesn't matter to me. In fact I don't even use the griffon as a mount for my ranger so the restriction doesn't apply to me at all. I let him dive bomb people while I snipe with arrows. xD I just love griffons and would like to be able to use them on more classes and from level 1.

Edit: Posted under wrong name, lol.

Bardess wrote:

A Monstrous Mount feat revised would also be in order. Flying mounts should be able to fly at full speed. Monstrous cohorts and flying companions are, after all.

+1

I fully agree with this, but unfortunately don't think it will happen. As ISC was a very recent book, an update so close is probably not going to happen.

Realistically, even if they folded Monstrous Mount and Monstrous Mount Mastery into one feat (that scales to fly at 7th level) it would be better. This is what I would do in my homebrew, but it's always good to have an official adjustment.

Second that this feat needs reworking. I think it needs to be less restrictive in classes that can use it (Rangers can but Druids and Hunters can't? wtf). And get rid of the silly skill rank requirements. There's no reason any of the companions couldn't be used from level 1 and avoid players from having to give their early level companions the boot to take on their fancy new griffon.