gabrias's page

Thanks for the replies folks. I suppose I'm influenced by the metagame I play in. Most campaigns I'm involved in run from level 1 through to 7 or 8, so things that take a while to come on line are relatively weak as you won't get to use them much. The reason I'm thinking about changing things is just to promote more variety.

I hadn't thought about changing TWF. That's an interesting idea.

I've played a lot of Pathfinder since it first came out, both as a GM and as a player, and I'm getting ready to start running a new campaign. As I do so I find myself reflecting on the overwhelming popularity of two handed weapons amongst player characters in my group. They are flat out the best and simplest way for martial characters to do damage in the game. By comparison ranged combat and sword and shield styles seem much less effective. With that in mind I'm wondering about adding some house rules to promote a bigger variety of combat styles and I thought I'd ask the opinion of the messageboards here to see if there are any obvious pitfalls that I've overlooked. ;-)

All characters gain the following feats for free reducing the 'feat tax' problem:

• Point-Blank Shot – makes everyone a little better at ranged attacks.
  
• Weapon finesse – which is only useful for high Dex characters but makes them more viable combatants.

And similarly any character who meets the prerequisites gets these feats for free. Prerequisites given in brackets below for convenience.

• Combat Expertise (Int 13)
  
• Mounted Combat (Ride 1 rank)
  
• Quick Draw (BAB +1)
  
• Shield Focus (Shield Proficiency, BAB +1)
  

Finally to rein in the use of two-handed weapons Power Attack would not give 50% extra damage when using two handed weapons just the regular damage increase.

Thotham, Expert would make sense but like all NPC classes it's pretty weak.

Thanks Bertious. I'll check out Soulforger too. A bonded item was very handy on the Wizard I played.

Blackbloodtroll, thanks for all your ideas! I'm not set on Master Craftsman, knowing that it won't help me until level 7. I had misread it originally.. Toilcrafter seems good, so does Kensai and two handed ranger.

I'm just sitting down with a pen and paper to work something definite out. There are so many options in Pathfinder nowadays... It's great but bewildering at times.

Thanks for all the suggestions folks. I've been looking at the Magus, it's an interesting class. Any suggestions using Fighter? Is Magus 2 Fighter 3 aa sensible idea?

Tangaroa: Thanks for the tip about Toilcrafter. That would allow me to stary making items at level 3! I don't understand why Master Craftsman needs level 7 to work though.. As far as I can see it should work at level 5(?).

You can get away with one or two basic personality traits. It doesn't to be complicated. I often just pick an adjective and play it to the hilt. For example:

The honourable knight.
The greedy merchant.
The vain bard.
The ruthless crimelord.

As you may have noticed O don't think cliches are bad in RPGs. :-)

Yep, I was planning to be a non caster - or mostly a non caster. Magus is about as castery as I would go. If it were a higher level campaign I might do it differently but at low level non caster seems better.

I'll take a look at the bladebound archetype. Thanks.

So I'm have an idea for a character but I'm not sure how to build him and the game starts on Saturday. Any thoughts would be greatfully received!

Elrohir is the son of a famous elven swordsmith whose weapons have been turning up in the hands of the Elves' enemies. This has brought suspicion upon his family and he has resolved to leave the Elven lands and find out what has been going on so that he can clear his family's name.  He also wants to build his own reputation as a weapon smith both to bring honour to his family and to prove himself to them. He is a skilled swordsman himself who uses an elven curve blade.

The campaign is going to be from level 1-5 and I was thinking I'd take Master Craftsman at level 5 and see if he can make a magic sword before the end of the campaign. We're using 15 point buy and anything from the SRD

Over a year ago I started using an alternative Hero Point system which my group really likes. As it's become a really popular house rule I thought I'd share it here in case it's of interest to anyone else. It's speeded up combat a bit and gives the players a bit more control over the story than normal. It's adapted from the Fortune Point system in Atomic Highway. There's a long post about how these mechanics affect the game, in my experience, over on my blog if you're interested. Anyhow on to the rules!

Fortune Points in Pathfinder RPG
I start with about 20 Fortune Points (FPs) divided amongst all the players, so depending on how many people there are, players get between three and five each. I sometimes give out extra ones during play if someone does something particularly cool or funny but usually just two or three over a four hour session. I always have physical counters that people can pick up and pass around, somehow it's just better than making them another number on the character sheet.

If you want to just test out the mechanic in your game you might try giving one to each player to start with.

Using Fortune Points
You can use Fortune Points in the following ways:

• You can spend one FP to change one d20 roll to a natural 20. You can't score critical hits from doing this but that's the only limit. You can use one to confirm a critical. You can only affect d20 rolls so damage cannot be affect.
• You can spend two FPs to create a plot tweak, a small change in the plot that you want to see happen.
• You can spend more plot points, typically five, to create a plot twist which is a more major change in the plot.
• Players may spend points on other players if they wish. They may also club together to buy plot twists and tweaks.

I am interested to see powergaming chars, that break the game. 15 pt build, only races officially named as PC-races. Anyone having links to some?

Preferably around lev 5-15.

Its just that all PG-Chars i can think of have some serious weakness. In situations where the weakness does not matter, they are great, in situations where it matters, the rest of the party must save the day.

I agree with you that every character has a weakness and I'm afraid I can't help with the build you're asking for. I actually think that weaknesses add to the fun of the game. Have you thought about trying to come up with fun weaknesses for characters that will make for an exciting game? Isn't it part of the fun when the rest of the party help you out, just like it's fun when you get to save them?

I have just the thing for you: Dawn of Worlds. http://www.clanwebsite.org/games/rpg/Dawn_of_Worlds_game_1_0Final.pdf

It's basically a free form world building rpg that you can play in a few hours to create a world with an general history. Best of all it involves your players so they feel involved in the world from the get go. I've used it twice for creating settings for Pathfinder campaigns and I really like it.

My advice: know the type of campaign you'll be playing in and who you'll be playing with. Some character concepts are great for one campaign or one group of people but not with others.

One of my favourite recent characters was a rogue called Cassius Brewer. The campaign I played him in was set in a city that was under occupation by the forces of the Dark Lord and all the characters were members of the resistance. Cassius was an an innkeeper and former boxer who didn't normally bother with weapons unless he thought there was a really good reason. His fighting style lent itself to a setting where you couldn't carry much weaponry in public. Mechanically, he relied on Improved Unarmed Strike, Weapon Finesse and Two Weapon Fighting in combat and he did surprisingly well.

If you have a grasp of the setting you can also think ahead to where the character might go. For example, Cassius started off as Neutral Good but slowly became more ruthless as the campaign wore on, which was an idea I came up with in character creation I think. It was fun to watch him change. Anyway, he was great for that campaign but would have been a really odd choice in, say, the game we played which was about a knightly order.

Hope that helps. :-)

I think Banner could be easily tweaked for S&S:

Skull and Crossbones:
Whenever your ship flies the Skull and Crossbones in battle the crew receive a +2 morale bonus on saving throws against fear and a +1 morale bonus on attack rolls made as part of a charge. At 10th level, and every five levels thereafter, these bonuses increase by +1.

It gives a bonus in boarding actions, which will presumably be a fairly frequent occurrence since there are naval rules, but doesn't help on land.

I haven't read the naval rules yet but I imagine someone will come up with a class feature that could help in naval combat and replace Mount.

You can always give the guards some magical back up. Nothing complicated, any low level spellcaster would add some variety to the opponents. How about a Cleric with spells like Bane, Bless and burning disarm?

Magikot, rather belatedly but thank you for an awesome build! I had decided to go with Bard 2/ Fighter 2 for the first four levels but I'm very tempted by your battle Oracle!

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. Keep 'em coming... You've all given me a great deal to think about. The Bard and Fighter builds could definitely work nicely.

Magiskot's suggestion of the lame battle Oracle is neat too, perhaps using a Falcata (or kopis as the Greeks called it) rather than a spear since I wouldn't have so many feats. On the other hand, a Cleric might be better given that we already have a lot of Charismtic characters. It has the skills, weapons and armour proficiencies that I need, and fills a different niche in the party. Not sure what Domains would suit, maybe war, community or law? Perhaps multi-classing is the answer. Any thoughts are welcome!

As far as the historical debate goes, I'm with Chubbs McGee. What he said, is what I remember from studying the Greeks - admittedly that was over a decade ago.

Although I picture my character as an Athneian - think a sort of young Pericles if you're into classical history! - I'm not too hung up on the Athens/Sparta/other Greek thing. After all, this is going to be a Greek character in a medieval fantasy world, so I'm not going to worry about the finer points of historical accuracy, just the broad strokes. Actually for a miniature I'm thinking about something from the Wargods of Olympus range - probably one of the Spartan figures. They're so awesome! Mind you the Mycenean figures look smart too but I don't know whether I'll be able to get them easily in the UK.

@the Black Raven: That's a new one to me, I'll look it up. Thanks!

@The Red Army: Good to hear your legionary worked out well. I certainly agree with you about the armour and spears and that's the knid of thing I'll do with my character. Not sure what the other players will do though.

@Aeshuura: Sounds like a great adventure you have planned! I think players like movie parallels so I reckon you're on to a good thing taking inspiration from the start of Troy.

I think SKR's PDF is defintely on my list of things to run in future. Updating it to PFR would be a bit of work though.

By the by I've made a thread in the Advice forum asking for help with a Hoplite build in case anyone is interested. The wonderful creative and historical minds of the forum have already provided me a ton of ideas!

My group will soon be starting the Kingmaker AP in our homebrew setting and I was wondering if anyone could help with ideas for my build.. I want to play a character inspired by the ancient Greek Hoplites, but more the cultured Athenians than the warlike Spartans from the 300 movie. He doesn't need to be highly optimised by any stretch of the imagination but he does need to contribute in combat. A few specific things I'd like my character to do:

• fight with a spear and shield - I think the Shaft and Shield feat may well come in handy.
  
• Wear a breastplate - heavy armour doesn't fit my theme.
  
• have some sort of tactical ability to help his party.
  
• speak well and have some intelligence
  
• Oratory would be nice to have when we get to the Kingdom building part.

We're using 20 point buy and starting at level 1. The other characters that I know about are:

• Human Paladin of Sarenrae
  
• Human Cavalier, Order of the Cockatrice
  
• Elf Alchemist
  
• One unknown...

Any suggestions would be most welcome!

Thanks for all the feedback, folks!

I often GM in our group but on this occasion I'm playing. (Yay!) When Kingmaker came out I incorporated the Kingdom building into the campaign I was running, which went down well. Mivon and Pitax in particular also established themselves as places in our homebrew world. All of this means that I can't influence the game world much but..

If enough of the other players get on board with the idea we'll have group of Greek/Roman style characters exploring the usual Stolen Lanads. I think the juxtaposition of classical characters in a medieval fantasy culture would make for some interesting gaming. Sounds like Brunnwald's campiagn was a similar sort of thing.

@Atarlost: Thanks, I'd completely missed the Oracle's Greek connections!

@Kolkotroni: The Godlings look cool but I don't think that's what ou rGM is after in this campaign. I'll have to keep them in mind for future though.

@GeraintElberion: That's a great PDF, thanks for the link. I'm deliberately pitching the idea as broad as possible to my fellow players so that we can fit in a variety of character concepts. Hopefully we'll reach mythic hero status by the end of the campaign. ;-)

@Eben the quiet: I agree with you. I think some of my pals may want their full plate armour though...

@Aeshura: Great archetype there - I might have to run it by my GM. I'm still not sure on a build for my character but this is definitely on the list. As for how it influences Kingmaker, I think we might found a city state rather than a feudal monarchy when the time comes.

@Mabven: Me too!

@Fire Mountain Games and Brunnwald: Sounds very cool - thanks for sharing!

My friends and I are about to start Kingmaker and are pondering the possibility of creating characters based on the Greek and Roman world. I think it could be fun and different but I was wondering if anyone else had done this (in any campaign) and how it worked out?

Random ideas that spring to mind from my memories of historical vikings:

Vikings were famous traders and explorers so you could include some epic voyages by longship.

If memory serves, swords were historically quite rare and valuable, so you could make every sword masterwork but difficult to acquire. They wouldn't be starting equipment unless you were playing a noble. PCs could acquire swords from a powerful defeated foe, or as reward for some great service. If you think your players would accept the idea you could extend the idea to metal armour.

You could also remove coins from the game and make the economy barter based. Jewellery and cattle would be signs of wealth. After the first couple of levels gold pieces are mainly for buying magic items in game mechanical terms anyway.

Hope that helps.

I don't think you should get hung up on the Monk class, which is, as you say, based on eastern variety. Nor in fact would I worry too much about finding a religious class. Historically monks and friars were not necessarily all that well educated or even devout and miracles are only attributed to saints, whereas in Pathfinder they are ten-a-penny.

Most NPC monks would probably be Experts with a focus on craft and profession skills like SCribe, Brewer, Farmer. They migh also be clerics with Cloistered archetype, but that's reeally only for NPCS if you ask me.

In terms of making a PC I would make a monk as an ordinary character with a particular background and outlook on life. Vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obediance don't need mechanics, you can just roleplay them. I'm sure there are traits that allow access to Knowledge: Religion as a class skill if you want. For example, Friar Tuck from the Robin Hood stories is normally portrayed as overweight, a heavy drinker. He's pretty uncivilised and much better with a quarterstaff than one would expect but his heart is in the right place...and he's be fun to play. I'd make him as a Chaotic Good Fighter or Ranger with high strength and Constituion and a focus on the quarterstaff.

Another well known fictional monk (at least in Britain!) is Brother Cadfael who is a monk detective. He's middle-aged and fought as a crusader before taking holy orders. I'd stat him as a Fighter / Rogue(Detective) with above average mental stats and profession herbalist.

I'd also go along with the suggestion of a re-flavoured Bard, if that gives you what you want.

In terms of being a pacifist I don't think you need to cripple yourself in combat. There's no reason why you wouldn't fight undead or many of the monsters that roam the world, the difference would be your motivation. You would strive to protect innocents and especially the members of your own religion. You would avoid combat and use subdual damage on civilised opponents.

I played a similar sort of character in a two session one shot adventure. I used a glaive so that I could fight with reach and get pummelled less. It worked out pretty well.

Have you thought about making a sorcerer with the Arcane bloodline? You'd still get the arcane bond and if you're likely to focus on a relatively limited number of spells, it might work out better.

Thanks you to everyone for your ideas and suggestions! It’s fascinating to see all the fun and different ways one could make this kind of character work.

Bard, Druid, Sorcerer and Witch all have interesting possibilities but considering the metagame are probably less suited to the campaign. I’m sure that there will be the occasional need for the raw power that a Wizard has and I think fireballs and summoned creatures will be more impressive if I can save them for crucial battles. Wizards also have a huge breadth of spells and the bonus feats allow me to get the various item crafting feats more easily. Arcane bonds are also very cool – I’m going with the staff option, but I have some ideas for making an enchanted pipe and hat to round out his equipment. He might even have a collection of them: “Battle at Goblin Lake? I’m sure I’ve read about that. Hmm. Let me get my pipe... the antique one.” "Frost giant courting rituals? Let me see.." Takes out walrus bone pipe and thinks.

The Skullcap of Languages is neat idea too, Regrs. I’m sure Knowledge skills and Linguistics will definitely feature prominently and Loremaster might well be an option later in his career.

Sylvanite, I like your idea of a mundane profession! I think tailor might be good – he can make the robes, gloves, hats etc that he later enchants.

As far as specialisation goes I’m still dithering between Transmutation and Divination, but at least the honourable members of the Paizo boards are divided on the topic too. ;-) Necromancy and Enchantment will definitely be the opposition schools though.

Whilst I can’t have a Familiar as a class feature, I think I’ll keep some mundane animals as pets to add to the ambience. A cat and owl maybe. With Feral Speech I’ll be able to communicate with them somewhat, so they may prove handy from time to time.

Staff is the most iconic thing really isn't it? It's even more important than the beard... I do agree with Kirth though, I think there's probably more scope for bonded items. Coffee Golen - the Wizard with hand mirror is something my group would definitely appreciate - I think I might use that for an NPC in the game I'm running actually!

Bard is an interesting idea. Maybe with the archivist archetype or something.. I've thought about Druid and it does fit the idea well, but I don't get to gm that often and I quite fancy playing a wizard. Is multi classing Druid and Wizard a recipe for disaster?

Thanks for the ideas folks, keep 'em coming!

Thanks `_Q. Transmuting and Extend Spell is a good idea!

GMs can always make exceptions. I don't think taking my hat as a bonded item is going to give me any real advantage. Hats are much easier to lose than rings or staves..

Also, is it wrong that I'm thinking about using the Anthropomorphic Animal spell to make a Puss in Boots type henchman? ;)

Hi folks! I'm looking for some advice on how to make a mechanically useful but rather unusual human wizard. (I'm not looking to optimise him, just make him useful!) I want to make a Merlin style character who is the group sage and advisor and uses magic in a more subtle and folklore-y way than a typical Pathfinder Wizard. He'll probably be a bit old and eccentric. I expect I'll still keep Fireball in my spell book for those days when we absolutely, positively have to kill every single last critter, but I don't want it to be the first resort. I'd also like to stay away from summoning spells for similar reasons.

Anyhow I'd appreciate your thoughts on any or all of the following:

• Which school should I specialise in? Divination, transmutation, illusion and enchantment all have their appeal.
• Interesting magic items.
• Feat-wise, I'm thinking of taking Craft Wondrous Item, Craft Magic arms and Armour and the Feral Speech arcane discovery. That leaves my human feat and first level feat open. Any thoughts?
• Bonded item - what's the most iconic thing for a wizard? I'm tempted to make it his hat.. I might be able to persuade the GM on that!

Finally a little background to the campaign. This is a prequel to one that I ran a while back about an order of Knights in a city run by a Lawful Good King and the Priests of the sun god. This campaign is going to be about the foundation of the city about a 1000 years before, when a small group of exiles from an 'evil' empire fled north to start a new life. The other party members include a Cavalier, a Paladin, a Rogue and a Monk, so I think we'll see the foundation of the aforementioned knightly order before too long.. Apparently there's going to be big emphasis on survival against a variety of tribes that will be hostile to us. I think there's goingto be a fair bit of negotiating too.

We're starting at level 6 with a 25 point buy and 16,000 gp. The GM says we won't be getting a lot of treasure in the campaign, so I need to pick my starting equipment carefully. I'm planning towards level 10, although we might go beyond that.

It sounds like a great idea - I love Roman history! I don't know that you'd need to change the rules too much, I think it will be mainly a change in flavour. After all, some of the people in charge have different ideas about how to do things and you end up with a vote on what to do. That's happened in my campaign where we have a typical feudal barony, and I'm sure it happens in every campaign...

It sounds like you would want to spend a bit more time on intrigue and marshalling your voters than normal. Patronage was a big deal in Roman politics and a group of PCs could really work with that. "We'll build you a fine new temple and you can vote for us..." Votes in the senate should be as dramatic as any battle, with characters making impassioned pleas for support, as their rivals muster there thugs outside.

I think you would definitely want a one or more strong NPCs in a leadership role to give the PCs some competition. You could perhaps model them after some famous Romans. Frankly, the more cut throat the politcal rivalry become the closer it will be to Roman history where you frequently had blood on the streets.

Hope some of that helps. I'd be fascinated to hear how it goes.

I've been using the kingdom building rules for some time now in my homebrew campaign and everyone is enjoying them, but war is on the horizon and I'm not quite so confident in the mass combat rules. I'm sure I'll keep some aspects of them, especially for maintaining armies since they mesh with the Kingdom Building rules. We've experimented with them in some small battles but I think they might be a bit too abstract for my group. So I was wondering, what experience other people have had with running wars in Kingmaker?

I'd be interested to hear any general experiences you've had, although I've got a few specific questions too.

1) Do you find that the Mass Combat rules make for a good war? Did you come up with any improvements?

2) Has anyone used the Warpath rules and how did you find them? They seem like a light simulationist set of rules that my group might enjoy.

3) Has anyone got any good house rules for followers from the Leadership feat interacting with a mass combat system? I'm thinking about some free basic equipment and/or lower consumption as most of the characters have taken the Leadership feat.

4) Since our campaign involves small numbers of troops, I've reduced the number of soldiers in a small army to 25, a medium to 50 and so on on. Has anyone else done this and did it throw up any oddities? The only thing I can think of is that the PCs become more of a battlefield presence.

That's all for now!

Is it possible? I spent some time trying to get something like a Sorc/Fighter/Dragon Disciple, and conversly a Wizard/Fighter/Eldritch Knight, but it seems like you're sacrificing a lot by way of BAB. Is the slight versatility worth the drop? I know they're trying to make this more viable with the Magus class, but in terms of what's currently in place, has anyone ever had a decent build like this?

Human Fighter 1/Wizard (Abjurer)4

AC 18; HP 43

Feats
Human: Toughness
1:Quick Draw
FB: Weapon Focus - Glaive
3: Arcane Armour Training
5: Arcane strike

Equipment
Glaive +1, spell storing
Masterwork Battle Axe – Arcane Bond
Breastplate +1

Favoured Spells so far...
Burning Hands, Shield, True Strike
Scorching Ray, Protection from Arrows, Mirror Image

This is the character I'm currently playing when I get a break from GMing. So far it works well, although I don't know if it's optimal. It's definitely a second rank fighter, but that's ok because there's alreay a Paladin and a fighter in the party. The glaive is handy because it makes it a bit easier to stay off the front lines and it's a two handed weapon so it deals quite good damage. If necessary I switch to my battle axe, which I will duly be enchanting when I level up and take Wiz 5 - the joys of a bonded item!

So far I haven't found Arcane Spell failure to be much of a problem. It's an occasional nuisance, but with AAT the chance of failing is only 15%. Having AC 18 is nice too, and Shield is an easy spell have memorised a couple of times a day.

Being a Wizard is also handy because the sheer number of spells I know makes me pretty versatile and I've got at least one rank in every knowledge skill so I know stuff. :) I should mention that I'm the main Arcane spellcaster in the party. So to answer the OP's original question I'm definitely finding that the versatity is well worth the drop in BAB.

My first ever post!

I think that level of detail went beyond the space available in a 32 page Adventure Path. That's why the rules are so abstract.

A couple of my players have hirelings and are planning to take the Leadership feat soon, so I'm thinking that I might give them some benefit there if they build a barracks or garrison. They currently maintain their hirelings out of their personal wealth using the standard rules not Build Points. It seems to be working quite well; I might reduce the cost of paying them or something. It would be a pretty minor benefit.

I'd be interested to read any mechanics that people come up with though.