logan grayble's page

The chirurgeon alchemist and to a point the vivisectionist alchemist can work as "medics". Imo a healing patron witch with the herbal witch archetype performs the role well, but with a more "magical" feel to it.

I actually really like combining those two archetypes

Painful Stare says it effects the target of your Hypnotic Stare. If your intended target is immune to mind-affecting abilities, then it isn't a valid target for either.

Back when we played with 3.5 books, we ruled no one was allowed to use a race with racial flying.

Now that we play pathfinder, we don't really have TOO many. Although my favorite is max hit points on level ups.

I don't know if your DM would appreciate it, but you could get really familiar with the rules for Psychic Duels. Initiate Psychic Duel is a 2nd level spell and effectively removes an opponent from the fight while the two of you duke it out in a mindscape, but your allies can still attack the enemy's physical body while it's stationary and unable to defend itself. If I remember correctly, you're better off in a psychic duel if you have high mental scores, so it's an effective way for a small sized character like your gnome to defeat a big huge beat stick.

It seems the ability really doesn't do anything. All the other spells I found that mention "gaze" allow the target to use the gaze mechanic to avoid them, but the actual source of the attack doesn't involve a gaze.

That's the issue I'm having. Aside from being able to use your Stare abilities through your familiar. But the ability seems to be quoting a specific spell descriptor that doesn't exist. Like there should be a "gaze" descriptor or something. Even Burning Gaze, despite being called out in the ability description, SPECIFICALLY says it doesn't give you a gaze attack in the spell description.

I recently rebuilt my Mesmerist character into the Eyebiter archetype and I was wondering if there was a compiled list of spells that work with it's Staring Eye ability.

I don't know if you've considered it or not, but you could take both Eldritch Guardian and Mutation Warrior. With Feral Mutagen you'd be able to take Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization with your Bite or Claw attack, which your familiar would also get, assuming you have a familiar with a bite or claw.

Don't Raccoons have like 8 strength and are tiny sized? Seems like a solid choice

This does bring up an issue you don't notice until you actually try to build one of these characters. Most alchemist discoveries deal with bombs and mutagens. This leaves the archetype with a really short list of options to choose from.

I've made quite a few alchemist characters myself, and I've noticed this problem as well. If you pick an archetype with a theme you really like that happens to give up bomb or mutagen, then you're stuck with "weird" discoveries since you're locked out of most of them. Promethean Alchemist can't even get mutagen back without multiclassing, which irreparably harms its primary feature. It's an unfortunately interesting archetype that really can't do much but sit around being interesting.

When I wanted an alchemist with a homunculus servant, I took a good archetype and then just choose the Promethean Disciple discovery.

logan grayble wrote:

zainale wrote:

you can always pick brew potion back up later in lvl

Actually you can't. Alchemist doesn't qualify for the Brew Potion feat as they don't have a caster level.

yes yes you can its call spell knowledge its in discoveries. here i will just copy and paste it here for you.

Spell Knowledge
Select a single spell from the sorcerer/wizard spell list that is at least 2 levels lower than your highest-level extract known. You can prepare and cast this spell as an arcane spell.

Brew Potion (Item Creation)
You can create magic potions.
Prerequisite: Caster level 3rd.

at thirteenth lvl an alchemist can create 5th lvl extracts and that means at that lvl or later an alchemist can take the discovery spell knowledge. and be able to caste a third lvl spell thus the alchemist can take brew potion.

I suppose you're right, I guess I should have specified that alchemist doesn't NATURALLY qualify for Brew Potion. But then again you'd only be able to make potions out of the actual spells you know, which doesn't really seem worth it.

you can always pick brew potion back up later in lvl

Actually you can't. Alchemist doesn't qualify for the Brew Potion feat as they don't have a caster level.

Or incorporate abilities that allow the puppet master brief control over other creatures.

I had that idea as an Innovation, but a high level one

I suggest dropping the notion that this is an alchemist archetype, as you have stripped away many of the alchemical trappings. Aside from bombs being useful, I honestly don't see how bombs belong to a class that uses puppets. Perhaps it would be better to use the chassis of the alchemist and give yourself the freedom to flavor it as you see fit.

If you want the community to offer advice or critique, I suggest you start writing out the class features that will show up in the first few levels and post them.

I think I'm personally just attached to the bomb feature. I could cut it. I was considering keeping the poison abilities as well, but I was talked out of it. But yeah, I was kind of using the alchemist as a chassis, but I'm just having a hard time getting my ideas across in a coherent way and format them to be easy to read.

Unfortunately I'm still working through a block on possible class features outside the puppet, it's evolution, and the innovation. I should probably just leave some of the other alchemist abilities in place to keep out dead levels.

I've come up with a few ideas for Innovations, but unfortunately I'm hitting a bit of a block.

Some ideas I'm thinking are:

-all Bomb discoveries are fair game

-extra arm, same as alchemist discovery except it's mechanical and it counts as having a free hand when controlling puppets

-"cast line" which lets you reattach your line to a puppet at a range of 30ft if the line is cut

-extra range for puppets. doubles your range. can be taken twice.

-"line snare" attack with your line and entangle an enemy as if struck by a net

-"ranged reattach" reattach your line to a puppet with a ranged touch attack with a 30ft range. normally requires a melee touch attack to reattach a line.

-an ability that allows you to make a disguise check on your puppet to make it appear as a human

-an ability that no longer requires you to have line of effect when controlling your puppets

-a high level ability that allows you to take control of a creature with your line, and control them with as if they were a puppet

I've been working on the idea of a puppeteer class for a few days now, and unfortunately I've hit a bit of a wall when it comes to abilities. If you'll bear with me a little, I'll try to explain this admittadely complicated archetype. Please let me know if I'm explaining things clearly, and ask me for clarifications. I know there are things I'm missing.

This is going to be an alchemist archetype, so let me start by explaining what you're giving up:
-brew potion
-mutagen and all progression
-throw anything
-poison use and all progression of poison resistance
-you do not gain swift alchemy or instant alchemy

There are abilities that are slightly changed:
~bonus to Craft(alchemy) changes to a Knowledge(engineering)
~bomb progression changes to every 3 levels instead of every even levels
~discoveries are changed to "innovations" which will be explained in a later post
~extracts remain mostly the same, but you have 1 fewer per day

Okay, now onto the main course of this mess in my head...
At level 1 you begin play with a puppet of your own unique creation. It is effectively an eidolon, and progess as one, but it is a rudimentary construct instead of an outsider. You use the stats of an eidolon, treating your alchemist level as your summoner level. But your puppet has no constitution or intelligence score. Being a construct, you do not choose a good save. It has the free evolutions listed as well as base statistics listed for it's base form as if it were a normal eidolon.
A new puppet can not move on it's own. It requires the puppeteer to control it, which requires two free hands. The puppet must remain within 30ft of the puppeteer while being controlled. All these restrictions can be modified with innovations.
The puppeteer controls the puppet, and uses many abilities, with a metaphysical concept called "line" which is simply mundane wire. It is assumed you always have enough "line" for any of your abilities.

Innovations are gained at level 2 every two levels after.

At level 4, and every 4 levels after, you can choose to "tune up" your puppet or make a new one. This first tune up a puppet allows you to control the puppet with one hand, but controlling it this way does not give you full control of the puppet, so it has the Staggered condition similar to a zombie, but you have a free hand to do anything else.

At level 8, you can again choose to tune up or gain a new puppet. If you choose to tune up your first puppet a second time, it gains a small amount of independent movement. You can control your puppet freely with one hand, or release control and let it act alone. But releasing control means the puppet is Staggered and you must be given verbal orders, which is a standard action from you.

Level 12 allows another tune up, you can tune up or crate another new puppet. If you tune up your first puppet a third time, it can move freely on it's own without being staggered, but still requires verbal orders, but you only spend a swift action. Alternatively, you can tune up any other puppets you have, not just the first.

At level 16, you get another tune up or new puppet. If you give your first puppet a fourth tune up, your orders are purely mental and no longer require an action.

Level 20 capstone abilities will be explained in a later post

Obtaining a new puppet, and progressing it, works just like the Broodmaster summoner archetype. You choose which puppet progresses at each level, but you can only choose to create a new puppet at the levels you would obtain a "tune up".

One of them seems to be that Shield Bonuses Stack; at least the Shield Bones from 2 Weapon Defense stacks with the Shield Bonus From Shield.

That's what I was speculating myself. A rule allowing bonuses of the same type, but from different sources to stack.

I remember a story from an aquaintance from high school who played in a game with a similar rule. Something to the effect of simply having a shield on your person would give you the shield bonus, so the players took to quite literally tying shields to themselves.

I think it was a corruption of a house rule their DM instated that having a shield on your back prevented you from being flanked, and then quickly spun out of control.

Did the DM tell you what this homerule is? Because I'd kind of like to know, this sounds incredibly screwy.

But yeah, look for ways to target touch AC or grapple. Are you allowed to use non-caster archetypes of spellcasting classes? Because there are some winners in that category if it applies.

I'd like to revisit this question to see if anything has changed before I make my character with it, especially as regards to whether I can modify my mutagen any further. I'd like to go all the way to Grand Mutagen, which doesn't seem to be an option currently, and possibly pick up the Mummification one since Preserve Organs is on the list.

Has anything updated in the two years since this thread was alive?

I suppose you could ask your DM permission, but the list of discoveries available to Mutagenic Mauler does not include Mummification or Grand Mutagen

A good old fashioned pitfall trap would at least be a memorable way to start an encounter.

Bards are a very interesting class because of how indirect you are. Your personal damage output will be less than the Fighter or Barbarian, but you make sure they keep hitting and actually increase their damage output. And when your 7 Charisma friends are in town not able to hitting things, you're going to be the guy babysitting them and playing the puppeteer. But if you want your bard hitting a bit harder, there's always the Discordant Voice feat, an extra 1d6 damage isn't much, but you'd be hard pressed to find something that resists sonic damage.

My favorite mounted character is a Halfling cavalier with both Power Attack and Risky Striker. Having a medium sized mount means you can charge pretty much anywhere, so a lance is still viable.

Well, now you have me looking at hunter lol. That seems to be what I was looking for with emphatic link and what not. Also plan to increase wolf int to 3 for ease of play.

Leaving animal out of town could work in some scenarios, but this next adventure has the enemy compound in town, and we either have to sneak in or bluff our way inside. I'd like to keep wolf with me so that's why trying to figure out way to make him look like a simple dog a merchant might keep around.

I don't know the context of your adventure, but if you really cant just bring your animal into town freely, you could maybe see if your DM will let you purchase a Figurine of the Concealed Companion, a Whistle of Calling, or have the Hosteling enchantment on your armor.

And if you don't like Hunter, there's the Circlet of Speaking, which just lets your animal companion talk.

We usually have quite a few animal companions in our games, our Druids and Hunters tend to leave them outside when in metropolitan cities.

As for a speaking with your companion and not just an empathic link, Hunter can actually speak with their companion at level 11.

Yes. While not being a potion, they're activated like potions, which provoke an attack of opportunity. The opponent may also choose to target the extract instead.

Instead of doing that strangeness with 1.5x caster level +2, just switch it to caster level = level. Also, that would be a logical extension of getting cantrips at 1st level.

Instead of Smite Evil, why not "Smite Mage"? Full damage against arcane spellcasters and enemies that cast as arcane spellcasters and 1/2 against enemies with SLAs? Not subject to alignment restrictions.

Perhaps Arcanist exploits or Magus Arcane Pool instead of Lay on Hands and Mercy?

the increased Caster level is a bit weird, I was copying it over from the original 3.5 version. your idea is probably better.

I originally thought about having Smite Evil change to Smite Magic, but I thought it might be too powerful if you let it work on everything with spells or spell like abilities, because that might as well just be everything after a while.

I hadn't considered giving it access to Arcanist Exploits in place of something. Might be an interesting addition in place of something else. Perhaps in place of Mercies?

You can't make the class a 6-level spellcaster unless you reduce it to a 3/4 BAB class. But if you do that, you pretty much have an entirely different class.

looking back, I think using the Medium spells per day list makes much more sense.

Here's what I have come up with so far. The legend is as follows
- means a lost ability
~ means a slightly altered ability
+ means a new ability

Level 1:
- Aura of Good
- Detect Evil
~ Smite Evil slightly changes to causing spellcasters to require a concentration check for 1 round after hit or risk losing cast spells
[edit] I'm thinking about changing Smite Evil to Smite Magic, working the same way against enemies with actual spell casting abilities and half damage against enemies with spell-like abilities.
+ Spellbook: start play with a wizard's spellbook and 4 level-0 wizard spells, can prepare 2 per day plus 1 every 4 levels

Level 2:
- Divine Grace
~ Lay on Hands alters to giving temporary hit points that disappear after 10 minutes

Level 3:
- Aura of Courage
- Divine Health
- Mercy
+ Defense against Magic: choose a school of magic, gain +1 to saves against spells and spell-like abilities from that school.
+ Foil Casting: casting defensively DC in the paladin's threatened area increases by 2, this stacks with the Disruptive feat. Your Paladin levels count as fighter levels for the Disruptive feat, and feats that have Disruptive as a prerequisite.
+ Bonus spells per day: you gain a bonus spell slot of your highest level to prepare each day. any time you would gain a new mercy, you gain a new bonus spell.

Level 4:
- Channel Energy
+ Spell casting: you gain the ability to cast a number of spells per day equal to the Medium spells per day list, but you select spells from the wizard spell list. You record spells in your spell book just as a wizard would, except you do not select a specialized school. your spellcasting is based off of Intelligence, and you gain bonus spells from having high intelligence.
+ Improved Spellcasting: the paladin's caster level is equal to your paladin level.

Level 5:
~ Divine Bond: divine bond changes to Arcane Bond as the wizard ability, but you can only choose a weapon. you can grant your bonded weapon enhancement bonuses as a paladin would a bonded weapon.

continued from here it's kind of self explanatory. every time you get a mercy, you get a new bonus spell slot. the various Aura abilities are replaced with Defense against Magic, you select a new spell school and your previous selected spell schools gain an additional +1. I need some ideas for Holy Warrior. I'm thinking of making it like the Impervious ability from Spellbreaker.

[edit]
I'm considering the idea of giving this Paladin access to Arcanist Exploits or Magus Arcana in place of Mercies. What do people think of this idea?

I like your idea of it functioning as a paladin of a fallen god that switched to casting arcane spells.

For a start, I think giving him the Medium's spell progression sounds good and have it and something else replace detect evil.

I was thinking something like giving it the Bard spells per day, but use the Wizard spell list. But Medium would work pretty well, too. I was also thinking of taking away the Detect Evil and Aura abilities, no divine magic means no aura of good, right?

I really need something to replace the various aura abilities with, I can't come up with anything thematically appropriate. I originally thought about the "Defense Against Magic" ability from the Spellbreaker Inquisitor archetype. There's actually some really good ideas to repurpos from that archetype. You can trade Divine Protection for Defense Against Magic that maybe progresses in place of the Aura of Faith, Aura of Justice, etc abilities.

I'm working on trying to adapt my favorite prototype Archetype from 3.5, the Mystic Fire Knight paladin, a paladin capable of using a wizard's spellbook to prepare arcane spells. My idea is to thematically change paladin into an arcane caster, the reasoning being they were a paladin order to Aroden before he "died" so they use arcane magic since they've lost access to divine magic.

I want to strip away the divine implications of the core paladin abilities, like Divine Protection, and change them slightly to be more thematically appropriate. Perhaps changing divine protections to only giving you a bonus to saves against spells and spell-like abilities.

I guess what I'm looking for is some advice on how to replace some of the ablities and some balance issues. The original "archetype" offers some good ideas, like trading Channel Energy for more spells per level, but getting Greater Dispel as a spell-like ability at level 6 seems a bit too much.

I'd kill for something similar to the Mystic Fire Knight/Sword of the Arcane Order from Champions of Valor. I don't know you could change it to fit with the Pathfinder Paladin, but I just love the idea of a paladin to the God of magic casting arcane spells.

My favorite maneuver focused build is a Duergar monk with the Gray Disciple archetype. At level 15, your Bullrush and Reposition maneuvers become Reflex save or die.

As weird as it sounds, small sized cavaliers are the way to go. Your mount can go anywhere your medium sized friends can go. My personal favorite is Halfling with the Order of the Paw. Doubling up on the damage bonuses from Power Attack and Risky Striker makes up for your below average starting Strength.

PFS Legal Two-Handed Weapon Tricks

Source Weapon Master's Handbook pg. 9
These weapon tricks are known to dwarves of the Five Kings Mountains and Shoanti champions of the Cinderlands. You can use these tricks while wielding any two-handed weapon.

Cleaving Smash (Cleave, Improved Vital Strike, Power Attack): When you use Cleave, you can add the additional damage from Vital Strike to both your initial and your secondary attacks. If you also have the Greater Vital Strike feat, you can instead add the damage from Improved Vital Strike to both your initial and your secondary attacks.

And with this, cleave is great

Seriously, take this advice. I have a Dwarf Warpriest with this and the cleave feat tree and it is amazing.

Personally, I kind of miss prestige classes. They made sure you could turn just about any "base class" into something that you specifically wanted. You want a Druid with sneak attack or whatever? Sure, take some levels in assassin. Or you could make prestige classes built with the intent of adding a different theme to an already existing class, like the Hellfire Warlock prestige.

I recently made a Dwarf Warpriest with the Vital Strike and Cleave trees and the Weapon Trick feat to use vital strike on a cleave. Pretty simple, just find a big group and use your Dwarf cleave feats to clean them up.

Are those the only books you're allowed to use? Or the only books you have physical copies of?

I don't think many Kineticist elements could stand by themselves. Void seems best mixed with Earth to me.

Maybe you could do something like a mini-rage ability that gives you a bonus to strength by spending Ki Points, but you take non-lethal damage equal to your level similar to the Kineticist Burn mechanic.

I suppose you could have the sword cane in a combat scabbard.

I always played Alchemist as the party's one stop shop for alchemical cure-alls and weapons to beat early monsters that have regeneration or an energy weakness. Alchemist can really switch up their play style whenever it's needed if you keep your mutagen. You can start with modest stats, and boost them when necessary if you need melee or ranged in any situation.

Would I personally allow it? Absolutely. I always prefer simple solutions to questions like that.

But is a multiclass Mutation Warrior/Alchemist intended to stack? I don't really know. I can see arguments for both sides. It says your fighter levels count for your Mutagen, but the language suggests that's your fighter levels only could towards their limited discovery list.

There's a 3rd party race from Dreamscarred Press called a Maenad that has a racial trait that lets them be Lawful Barbarians

Consider the Ambuscading Spell feat from Dirty Tacticts Toolbox. It imparts a -2 to your opponents' saves against your spells during the surprise round.

Thank you all. I think for my next PFS character: Cavalier, Halfling order of the paw. 20 point build. How do I build it to be effective. What feats should I take? It will max out at 10th level.

Everyone provided many good ideas for my PF RGP group.

If you don't mind it being a tad silly sounding, you could go the Two-Weapon fighting route and wield two lances.

I like using Fate's Favored with the Adaptive Luck alternate racial trait. Most of the people in my group won't play small races, so I like to show them how nice it is to have a Halfling around.

Does Slipslinger Grenadier/Bombardier work with Alchemist's bombs? Could make for a really good combination there. I don't have my book in front of me to check.

So they spiked gauntlets provide no bonus to unarmed strike damage ?

Sorry, but no. They would only increase the damage you do with the gauntlets from 1d3 to 1d4

Edit: BUT, if you're a Brawler, and you're not using an archetype that gets rid of it, the Spiked Gaunlets would get increased damage from Close Weapon Mastery

Attacks with Gauntlets, spiked or not, are seperate from Unarmed Strike. Just because you have something on your fists doesn't mean it's an unarmed strike. Unarmed Strike is a blanket term for attacking without a manufactured or other natural weapon.

If you want to use warpriest sacred weapon damage with alchemical weapons, that is not allowed.

Sacred Weapon (Su) wrote:

At 1st level, weapons wielded by a warpriest are charged with the power of his faith. In addition to the favored weapon of his deity, the warpriest can designate a weapon as a sacred weapon by selecting that weapon with the Weapon Focus feat; if he has multiple Weapon Focus feats, this ability applies to all of them. Whenever the warpriest hits with his sacred weapon, the weapon damage is based on his level and not the weapon type. The damage for Medium warpriests is given on the table above; see the table below for Small and Large warpriests. The warpriest can decide to use the weapon's base damage instead of the sacred weapon damage—this decision must be declared before the attack roll is made. (If the weapon's base damage exceeds the sacred weapon damage, its damage is unchanged.) This increase in damage does not affect any other aspect of the weapon, and doesn't apply to alchemical items, bombs, or other weapons that deal only energy damage.

Yeah, I just read that myself. Looks like doubling up on the Sacred Weapon damage with Slipslinger Grenadier was a pipe dream from the start.

I'm sorry if this was answered somewhere and I just missed it,

But can you take Weapon Focus in an alchemical weapon like Alchemist's Fire or a Flask of Acid? I'm curious if my idea of a Warpriest with the Halfling racial weapon style feats would be viable.