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I broke my own brain a little reading the thread title. I was thinking in terms of a Were-wolf Elf which is an elf that turns into a wolf and saw Were-sperm Whale or a whale that turns into sperm and was confused as to what type of campaign you were playing...


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I really wish cure spells and the like had remained necromancy spells. Healing being a subschool of conjuration never made any sense to begin with. Then nobody would think twice about LG necromancers.


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Cavalier (Inspiring Commander archetype, Order of the Dragon) to Battle Herald. Requires 3rd party stuff but you synergize with everyone. Up to a +6 to attack to any teammate at level 2? Yes please. You toss out DR, THP, and heal allies like candy. Since you're already into 3rd party products, take a 1 level dip into warlord for more passive bonuses to your party.

Cavalier 9/Warlord 1/Battle Herald 10
+2 Initiative
+2 Competence Bonus to Attack and Damage
+1 Untyped Bonus to Attack and Damage
+3 Circumstance Bonus to Attacks vs your Challenge
+9 Aid Another (assuming minimum +1 int bonus)
DR4/-
1d6 THP
4d6 Healing per turn on up to 4 allies
+4 to two saves that your party is weakest at
Whatever Teamwork feats you have

With your full BAB, shield and medium armor proficiency, and HD, you can tank easily. Buff-bot go!!


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Inspiring Commander Archetype from THIS BOOK is a great starting point. You can buff your minions and still be a powerful front-line character.

Couple that with the Order of the Citadel from THIS BOOK. Hand out even more buffs and tactical bonuses to yourself and minions.

Take ten levels in the Battle Herald prestige class if you like to grant them healing and DR. Also, a 1 level dip into Warlord from THIS BOOK is a good passive buff.

18/16/14/14/14/8 would be a 40 point spread I would use for this type of character. Get great combat stats and a good int and cha for your cavalier abilities.

If you take Master Performer and Grand Master Performer (normally they require TPA in Kith Academy, but I don't think your DM will mind you taking them from the sounds of it) from Factions guide and find a Badge of Valor (3.5 Magic Item Compendium), by level 20 your Inspire Courage will be granting a total of +7 to attack and damage (+8 if you dip Warlord due to their passive benefits.)


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We just got a paladin in our group. My evil bard casts Undetectable Alignment every day. It is fun being the evil guy boosting the good guy's ability to do more good and reliant upon you for buffs and power. Come to the dark side Luke.


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@Vonklinen

Extra Performance (in my experience) tends to be useless. You can get 3 extra from a trait, but Lingering Performance is really all you need to extend your performances. Round 1 start performance, Rounds 2 and 3 let it Linger, Round 4 start it again. One feat effectively triples your daily allotment of music.

Scorpion Whip does qualify as a regular whip.

Crafting minions sounds like fun, but I would personally just take Leadership. But whatever floats your boat. If you want to throw in more fighter levels for for the extra feats to take Whirlwind Attack, by all means do so.

@gallahad

That is a good idea. All this time I have been reading finesse needing a BAB of 1, which it never did. Though my understanding is that combat maneuvers can be done in place of an attack, but I am not sure if they actually qualify as an attack. Trip can be used in place of an attack, but I don't think that actually makes it an attack. I say check with your DM since I can understand the merits of both sides of the argument.

I don't see any reason why Fury's Fall and Agile Maneuver's wouldn't stack. One let's you replace your Dex for your Str for CMB, the other adds your Dex to CMB for trip attacks. Seems to work to me according to RAW since they modify your CMB in two different ways. Even if they didn't/don't you will still have about a 60 CMB or so.


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@galahad

Lore Warden is a great 2-3 level splash. Since we started talking about the whip tripping bard I thought of a build for one. Any bard level after 1 can be replaced with a third level of Lore Warden for another +2 to CMB for even more tripping.

Human
20 point buy - Str 9, Dex 20, Con 10, Int 13, Wis 7, Cha 14
Traits: Heirloom Weapon (Whip, +2 to trips), Reactionary
Level 1 Bard 1: Lingering Performance, Agile Maneuvers
Level 2 Fighter 1: Weapon Focus (Whip)
Level 3 Fighter 2: Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Whip Mastery
Level 4 Bard 2: Dex +1
Level 5 Bard 3: Combat Reflexes
Level 7 Bard 5: Improved Whip Mastery
Level 8 Bard 6: Dex +1
Level 9 Bard 7: Greater Trip
Level 11 Bard 9: Fury's Fall
Level 12 Bard 10: Dex +1
Level 13 Bard 11: Weapon Finesse (Whip)
Level 15 Bard 13: Discordant Voice
Level 16 Bard 14: Dex +1
Level 17 Bard 15: Dazzling Display
Level 19 Bard 17: Shattered Defenses
Level 20 Bard 18: Dex +1

With a +6 Dex belt and a +5 dex tome this will grant us a 36 dex. Use a +5 Deuling-FG Whip (Agile too if you like) and - assuming my math and understanding of the rules is correct - you have a CMB when you trip somewhere in the low 70s, 3 trips on your turn and 19 attacks of opportunity per round. Each trip you make provokes a damaging attack from you (which is why Agile is good), then when they stand up they provoke again letting you trip them again followed by another damaging attack because they provoke for falling down. You can easily keep 3 enemies out of the fight almost indefinitely this way.


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If you want to just to go all out with your whip (and are human) at level 1 pick up Combat Expertise and Improved Trip.

3: Weapon Focus (Whip)
6: Whip Mastery
9: Improved Whip Mastery
12: Greater Trip
15: Greater Whip Mastery

If you need more feats you can always splash a couple levels of fighter. Some useful feats for the fighter bonus feats are Fury's Fall to add your dex bonus to trip attempts, dazzling display, and any of the feats listed below.

If your DM allows it get a +5 Deuling-FG Whip (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons#TOC-Dueling-FG) for a +15 to your trip attempts on top of your regular CMB.

Other useful feats for a bard of any flavor are Dodge, Toughness, Imp. Init., Lingering Performance, Combat Casting.

Blistering Invective is an amazing second level spell for a bard. It is like Dazzling Display (so if you don't have room for the feat this is a good replacement), but it deals fire damage and has a chance to catch opponents on fire. Only drawback is that it is language dependent and mind affecting so it doesn't work on everything you might come across.


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I have run multiple horror campaigns (none like what you are talking about though).

The key to a successful horror campaign, IMO, is to make players play around in the grey areas of morality. They should ask themselves how far they are willing to go and then find themselves in a situation where that line may need to be crossed to save the lives of thousands. Let the atmosphere convey a sense of dread and remove or alter the alignment detection spells. For example, the Lawful Evil sociopath wouldn't register to the Paladin's detect evil spell when serving food to the homeless, but he would while pouring poison into the soup kettle. Often the villains in a horror campaign begin as trusted allies.

In a normal campaign a group of adventurer's storm the devil's stronghold, free the captured villagers, and return them home for rewards and glory. In a horror campaign the villagers are in various states of pregnancy or nursing newborns; the devil was using them to breed a fiendish army and increase his influence in Hell. Now the PCs need to make a choice: Slay everyone to stop the corrupting influence of the Devil, abort the pregnancies and slay the half-fiendish infants, or allow all to go free and hope that the goodness of the villagers is enough to counter the influence of Hell coursing through the veins and souls of the children.

If you want to run a slasher flick campaign (or one shot) I would suggest you use cut-scenes. Imagine the players come upon a ransacked cabin in the woods, they search it and find a couple clues, you cut away to describing Mr. Slasher Orc dragging a screaming and bruised woman through the woods by her hair. Now there is a sense of urgency to the action. The PCs need to find her in a set number of rounds or they will only find her corpse while the masked orc is looking for his next victim at the lake-side summer camp.

Keep your player's comfort levels in mind for a horror campaign. You want to make them slightly uncomfortable, but not to a point where they no longer want to play. If you notice your gory details are making people fidget in their seats, you are going too far and need to tone it down.

Hope this helps.