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Hello, all.

Been pondering spell usage for an upcoming campaign. Planning to play a Str build magus (Bladebound/Soul Forger). The main apprehension I have about the class is getting stuck using Shocking Grasp forever. As follows: 1st level combat starts... "what do you do?"... "I use Shocking Grasp through my sword"... 18th level combat... "what do you do?"... "rinse and repeat... but intensify."

...Although easy and optimal, it sounds boring to me. Combats are more interesting when there is more variety, by my preference.

The main alternative I've read about is using frostbite, and that leads me (finally) to my question. The spell does nonlethal damage specifically. What has your experience been with that detail? Has it made the spell useless, or made things more interesting?

Any advice on alternatives, or simply on frostbite, would be greatly appreciated.

All the best

Hello, reader!

I'm in process of building a 1st-20th level campaign frontline character for a 3-person party. Thinking a Tiefling Magus. Mixing the magus archetypes of Nature-bonded and Magic Warrior has really intrigued me. While I feel I have a handle on managing AC progression, I'm not so sure about damage progression.

Giving up the arcane pool is pretty big sacrifice for the archetype; and while getting two druid spells is awesome (one at every new spell level from Nature-Bonded and another at 19th level from Magic Warrior), I'm not convinced that spells alone can keep the class damage solvent. To solve that, and make the class a bit more interesting, I was considering a two level dip into the Titan Mauler Barbarian archetype (Jotungrip and a Rage Power). Though the build would lose a druid spell per spell level (ouch), if it had over-sized limbs as a tielfing trait, it could wield large-sized two-handed weapons with one hand. Couple that with a high crit weapon like the nodachi and the enlarge person spell and you've got quite a bit of damage per hit (not to mention a few rounds of rage if it runs out spells or something).

I'm not really to trying to make an all-around-monster, just making sure I don't have beer-goggles for a build that is trash in reality.

Thanks for reading and any advice/insight you're willing to share.

P.S. Also looking at a Soul Forger/Bound Blade, but I'm not fluent with it enough to know its merits over the choice above. I'm not precious with my choice of race or build yet.

Hello, all!

A party of three, including myself, are considering a full caster party –starting at 1st level and going to 20th level. Could be a really fun dynamic.

As to ability, we'll have an array of spells ranging from divine and arcane, to buff/debuff, and blasting. We should be good on all that. We'll just have to play smart and be creative. That's not the problem. The problem is when magic isn't an option, like a magic immune golem.

If the three of us get surprised by a golem and can't get away, we're screwed. What about some other similar problems of magic not working?

Any advice out there?

Thanks for reading.

Hello! Looking at witch archetypes for a future campaign as a player. Haven't played a witch before, so I didn't want to play an archetype that changes the class too much from vanilla.

Wyrmwitch: Archives of Nethys

Recently came across the wyrmwitch archetype, and it seems like a fun flavor change from the core class without too much change. The little bit of reading I've done on various forums indicates much from the Legacy of Dragons book is notoriously difficult to interpret. My questions has to do with learning spells from the treasure hoard.

From text: "Also, a witch can add a spell to his hoard from a wizard’s spellbook, if the spellbook is kept in the hoard and the spell is on the witch’s class spell list. The wyrmwitch must sleep on the spellbook in his hoard for a number of days equal to the spell’s level, after which he must succeed at a Spellcraft check (DC = 15 + spell level) to learn the spell. No matter the result, the spell is erased from the spellbook."

Question: Does this mean that a wyrmwitch can only learn one spell at a time from a spellbook, or more than one be at a time?

Neither option sound perfect to me.

To compare, one spell level per day could be the worse rate of spell learning present in 1E, and would become worthless mid-to-late campaign (i.e., five 6th level spells taking a month). But in the opposite respect, many spells at a time seems like WAY too much (i.e., five 9th level spells takes nine days).

So by the first method, nine 1st level spells takes nine days while nine 9th level spells takes nine days. Seems like a crazy difference, neither which is good. Useless vs. broken.

Any help interpreting/understanding would be greatly appreciated!

For context, our inquisitor was wanting to cast this spell on our paladin's weapon.

My party came across an interesting section of wording in this spell which seems to contradict itself:

"With a touch, you cause a glowing rune to appear on a single weapon, granting that weapon the flaming property (and allowing it to cause an extra 1d6 points of fire damage on a successful hit). If you are using the judgment class feature, your weapon gains the flaming burst property instead. The spell functions only for weapons that you wield. If the weapon leaves your hand for any reason, the spell effect ends. The effects of this spell do not stack with any existing flaming or flaming burst weapon property that the target weapon may already possess."

However, the spell has a range of touch and a target of weapon touched.

By the text of the spell, does this mean that the spell is actually personal only?

Thanks for reading, and for any insight.

Playing a RotRL campaign with a party of five, and we're all 8th level. I play a human arcanist. One of our newer members, a samsaran mesmerist, can't recall some of the memories from his past lives. I had an idea of a way to help him remember, but the spell needed to do so is personal only and not on his spell-list --hypercognition.

Is there a way for him to cast a 4th level spell not on his spell-list?

So far the only way I've thought of is to put the spell in a wand. However my character doesn't have Craft Wand, so it would be a protracted strategy: teaching the spell to a person who can craft wands; pay them to craft the wand; the samsaran uses the wand to cast the spell on himself.

Considering the time and money, that's not an attractive strategy because he probably will only need to cast the spell once --and crafting a 4th level wand with 50 charges is absolute overkill for role play.

Thanks for your interest and help.

Currently a player in an AP. Looking to send gold back to the town we've been staying in so they can hire more guards to scout the perimeter of the town -about 10 guards for a certain amount of time.

It would be about 3-5 days of shipping by boat. Looking for a way to send about 1100 gp in a way that significantly reduces risk of theft.

At first I considered using Arcane Lock (my character is an 8th level Arcanist). However, I want those receiving it to be able to open it so that strategy is counterproductive.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Greeting, all.

Currently playing a RotRL campaign as an arcanist. One of the party is a silver champion paladin with a rift drake as his companion.

I've been looking into ways that he could transport his drake more inconspicuously -such as the hosteling enchantment on his heavy armor. He loves this idea since his drake will emblazon on his full plate every time it enters his armor.

But there is a problem down the road. Once the drake gets to level 15 with him, it will be more than one category size larger than him -too big to work with the enchantment.

My question is this: are there any paizo official magic items that can reduce the size of an animal companion while worn?

Thanks for your time

*Possible spoilers for Rise of the Runelords*

Hey, all. Looking for some advice/discussion how how to become immortal via non-undead arcane means.

Playing a NG Human/Varisian Arcanist in Rise of the Runelords, and we're only halfway through Book 2. After coming across the failed lich at Misgivings, he's beginning to wonder if there is a way to gain immortality without becoming some sort of undead. He's well read concerning Thassilon, and is wondering how the Runelords could have lived as long as history suggests.

As a player, I'm looking for possible ways that could be fun for role-play on how he can gain immortality without becoming undead -and that don't exceed Paizo official material.

I realized that the Arcane Discovery Immortality is Wizard only, so that's out, and the best I've found is as follows: a demiplane that stops aging, clone spell, and magic jar -so his real body stays in the plane while clones keep going out into the world.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Greetings to all who read this.

I'll soon be GMing a 3-4 PC play-through of the Emerald Spire, but two of the players threw me a bit off a pre-game curve ball. I'll refer to them as P1 and P2 hereon.

P1 wants to align with the Hellknights, playing as a half-orc armiger working his way up the ladder. He is Lawful Evil, same as his leadership. He chose to lower one of his INT score make the character more fun.

P2 wants to be aligned with the Seven Foxes, playing as a human ranger subverting the efforts of the Hellknights in Fort Inevitable. He's Chaotic Good. Essentially wants to play a Ranger as if he were a Vigilante.

I've come up with a scenario that gets the players moving as a party toward the Spire, but I haven't figured out a way to prevent P1 and P2 from trying to kill each other when the opportunity arrises.

I've considered simply telling them this dynamic won't fly -as I don't want them suspicious of party betrayal all the time- but I don't want to shoehorn PC creation.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Players:

P1 is an edge-lord that often plays "bad guy" PCs. However, he is a great role-player that makes interesting PCs that inevitably support the party well. He's played tabletops for awhile now and often "thinks before he leaps" in a given scenario. Doesn't really care what happen to his PC as long as it's cool for the story.

P2 is a longtime WOW player that hasn't quite differentiated Pathfinder classes from their WOW counterparts, though he's gotten better about that recently. His characters are fun, but he is much newer to tabletops and his personality is sometimes a "jump before you look" approach. He wants his PCs to be heroic, much like a high fantasy hero.

Taking a guess, it's probable that P2 will attack P1; P1 will retaliate and maybe kill P2; then P2 will likely get butt-hurt. If P1 dies, however, he'll just think it's good role-playing.

I'm curious to let this dynamic play out, but I'm concerned P2 will get too invested and lose taste for the scenario if he loses. It might be a good lesson for him if he does, but I suspect the lesson won't go beyond getting butt-hurt.

Thanks for taking time to read this.
All the best to you.

Hello all who read beyond this, and thank you.

Currently playing through an AP with a party of three: a paladin, a druid, and myself as an arcanist. Because we're a pretty squishy party, I've been looking for any advantage I can find for us.

Some weeks ago I came across items that can be used as reference for a circumstance bonus on skill checks. One of the items was a sheet which I recall being one which gives a +2 bonus to either knowledge arcana or spellcraft, I apologize that I can't remember which though my memory leans toward knowledge. Sadly, I forgot to save the item anywhere and searching for it since then has been fruitless.

Here is my request: Did I imagine this item? If I fabricated it, I apologize for the waste of your time. If not, what is it called?