mercilessdm's page

One of my players is playing a pyrokinecist and said that he wasn't happy with the current selection of items. I don't know much about kinecist to make an informed opinion so I wanted to ask the community what they thought about these item requests.

Conductive Gloves: Hand Slot
Priced as two magic weapons of the same enhancement bonus
Caster level as thrice the enhancement bonus
Applies enhancement bonus to attack and damage rolls with Kinetic Blasts. Can have ranged weapon special abilities applied to them with the exception of abilities that rely on wielding the weapon and abilities that add elemental damage, in addition to some custom special abilities.
+1 Element-focused: The enhancement bonus of the weapon increases by +2 when used with simple and composite blasts associated with the element. The gloves may possess weapon special abilities that add elemental damage as long as that damage is a type associated with the element the gloves are attuned to (cold damage for water, acid for earth, and lightning and sonic for air).
+2 Blasting: The gloves grant a single simple blast to the wearer, which deals damage as normal based on the wearer’s kineticist level. If the wearer has no kineticist level, they are treated as kineticist level 1. this blast has access to any infusions the wearer may possess, but costs one burn at activate. This can be reduced by Gather Power, should the wearer have it.
+3 Improved Blasting: as Blasting, but also grants the wearer access to any composite blasts the granted simple blast would normally cause them to gain. These composite blasts cost one extra burn to activate.

Canopic Jars/Blood Runes
Priced at 1000 gp (based on the Plume of Panache, an item serving a similar purpose. feels a little bit cheap)
CL 5
1/day as a swift action, the bearer of this item may choose to redirect all burn he suffers that turn into this item. When doing so, he cannot benefit from Gather Power, and is still restricted in the number of burn that can be accepted each round. After this item absorbs burn, it deactivates for a number of days equal to the number of burn it accepted. It can be used while deactivated in this manner, but explodes the following round, dealing 1d6 damage per point of burn it absorbed. This damage is of the same type as the blast whose burn it accepted, with a reflex save DC (half damage) equal to 10 + 3 * the number of burn accepted.

Internal Bandages: Body Slot or Arm Slot
Price Undetermined
CL Undetermined
Gain DR that only applies against nonlethal damage, including Burn damage, though you are still limited in terms of the maximum amount of Burn a character can take.

unless a feat says it can be taken multiple times it can only be taken once.

RAW, yeah, but it doesn't make sense why a PC can't be of two different races.

I think it makes sense if a half-orc PC takes Racial Heritage to be technically an Orc and a Human. Likewise I don't see whats the problem with having a Gnome Dwarf crossbreed.

I don't see any giant mechanical flaws and the player is investing 2 feats for it....

One of my players wants to play a ranger in Curse of the Crimson Throne with his favored enemy bonus to human and his favored terrain as urban.

If you haven't played CotCT before, 90% of the enemies are humans and 99% of the campaign is in urban terrain.

Is the ability for a ranger to be constantly under the effects of favored enemy bonus and favored terrain bonus too strong for this campaign?

I don't think you included your armor check penalties from your armor and shield. Your acrobatics and other STR or DEX based skills should be:

+3 (Class Skill) + 2 (DEX Bonus) +1 (Rank) = +6 - 7 (Armor and Shield Penalties) for a -1 total.

I found two interesting feats and wanted to know if they stack:

Splintering Weapon
Whenever you use a melee or thrown weapon with the fragile weapon feature or similar quality and hit an opponent, you can give your weapon the broken condition to deal that opponent 1d4 points of bleed damage.

Chairbreaker
When you attack a target with an improvised weapon, you can give that weapon the broken condition to deal 1d4 points of additional damage on that attack.

Additionally, you gain a +4 bonus on the roll to confirm a critical hit with this attack. If you confirm the crit, the extra damage granted by this feat is also multiplied and the improvised weapon is destroyed.

From what I understand it seems like it could stack, because the broken condition means it has lost half its hit points. So during an attack could I apply the broken property twice (thus destroying the weapon) to apply an extra 2d4 damage?

Neat concept!

Honestly, I would just pick a weapon that is mechanically viable - whether it be because its finessable or does more damage. After that, you can reskin it as whatever you want, within reason.

For instance, I am playing a Witch that uses Fortune and Misfortune a lot. I RP him as a high IQ psycho court jester that manipulates the boundaries of luck to help allies and punish enemies. He carries around a quarter staff and some kunai. Both are weapons the Witch is proficient in but don't make sense with my character concept. I asked my DM if I could reskin the quarter staff to a slap stick and the kunai to throwing cards and he was fine with it.

Again, reskin your weapons within reason. You shouldn't ask your DM to reskin your great sword as a pen and sneak it into a prison or something. In this example my throwing cards are clearly bladed, so I get no mechanical benefit from my reskin if a guard searches me or something.

Alright, I will go with this ruling. Thanks everyone!

If I use the Wisdom in the Flesh trait to make Stealth a class skill that uses my Wisdom modifier, do I still take Armor Check Penalties despite not using Dexterity for the check?

we get together once a week to play and really can't spend precious game time talking about the ins and outs of the liquor business.

I agree with your philosophy. If I were you I would create a Play by Post document online, perhaps on Google Drive, for the specifics of his business. It would be a log of what funds he allocated, who he hired, and what he intends to do. You're GM could do things like roll random encounters for him too, like:

/roll 1d20 -> 1
"Your contact for ____ ingredient was killed."

With this in place, he is free to get as involved as he wants with his business idea, without taking session time.

And there's probably someone else in your group who wants to beat up goblins. Going pacifist, with your standard encounter tactic be 'convince the other guys to like me instead of fighting', either you or your party members who want to fight will be dissapointed in every single encounter.

Go with some non-lethal damage, trip, stuff like that.

I agree. An interesting concept would be getting your bluff super high instead. Your party will find it a lot more entertaining if you sneak them into the bad guy's castle or lead an infiltration mission instead of just shutting down combat encounters.

I don't want to be a buzzkill, but getting a super high diplomacy isn't being a "badass" pacifist. Non-lethal damage monk or something RP'd right could be badass, but strictly getting high diplomacy isn't going to be badass, just annoying.

You can't get through a campaign with diplomacy alone. I guess technically you could smash the diplomacy DC's for a bit but at some point the DM is going to tell you that the Big Bad Evil Guy indeed will not abandon his evil plot because you convinced him.

Odds are the rest of your party will be geared to do damage, so instead of being a badass who dislikes violence but wants to protect his friends, you will come off as an annoying cockblock because your party will be dieing to enter combat but you will keep convincing bad guys to drop their weapons.

I love RP as much as the next guy, but combat is a big part of a lot of Pathfinder campaigns. If you skip it with diplomacy you'll be missing major parts of what makes Pathfinder enjoyable.

mercilessdm wrote:

+2 (Masterwork Bluff Tool)

Just what, might I ask, is a "bluff tool"? At least as a generic item, I could see giving a "Tool" bonus for having something that supports the bluff, (e.g. a handcart full of goods for "I'm not the guy you're looking for, I'm just a travelling peddler who happens to look like him"), but not a general item that can be made masterwork.

It is GM specific. I allow Masterwork Tools if they are creative enough. In this case for instance, you could have a Masterwork Bluff Tool RP'd as a scarf your partner in crime used to wear before he died. Whenever you wear it your confidence bolsters, allowing you to bluff slightly better.

In the end, it is the GM's choice what he considers reasonable.

mercilessdm wrote:

I'm surprised no one has suggested Infiltrator Inquisitor. Get your wisdom to 20, take the Conversion Inquisition, and the Infiltrator archetype. The Conversion Inquisition lets you use WIS instead of CHA for diplomacy, intimidate, and bluff. The Infiltrator archetype lets you add WIS to Bluff and Diplomacy.

Sadly, Infiltrator and the Conversion Inquisition don't stack as of the FAQ ruling where you can't add one stat to something multiple times.

I saw the FAQ ruling, but I disagree. I think that applied to things like various Paladin multiclasses adding their Charisma twice to saves.

This is the wording on Infiltrator:

At 1st level, the infiltrator’s will is bent toward subterfuge and deception. She adds her Wisdom modifier on Bluff and Diplomacy skill checks in addition to the normal ability score modifiers.

I can see you arguing that this only applies to the "normal" ability score modifier, but I'd also argue that the Conversion Inquisition changes the normal ability score modifier on those skills.

Regardless, I wouldn't mind if it doesn't work like I think it would. As a GM I am really against anyone playing a build like this anyways.

Hello all, I am playing a new campaign, at level 3 with 200 gp and I have decided I want a super high bluff. I would have a 20 charisma but everything else is up in the air, please give ideas for super bluff, thanks.

I'm surprised no one has suggested Infiltrator Inquisitor. Get your wisdom to 20, take the Conversion Inquisition, and the Infiltrator archetype. The Conversion Inquisition lets you use WIS instead of CHA for diplomacy, intimidate, and bluff. The Infiltrator archetype lets you add WIS to Bluff and Diplomacy.

At level 1 you could easily have a bluff of: +1 (Rank) +3 (Class Skill) +5 (Conversion) +5 (Infiltrator) +2 (Masterwork Bluff Tool) +2 (Racial Bonus) +2 (Trait) +3 (Skill Focus) = +21

There are various races that offer +2 to Intimidate, and the Framed Trait offers +2 to Bluff. A masterwork tool is 50 GP and gives a +2 circumstance bonus to all bluff checks.

I made a bluff build as a challenge once. I don't recommend actually using it.

Arcane eyes are visible and fairly easily detectable by whatever happens to be on the other side of the door. A scrying sensor is only a DC 20 perception to spot IIRC. This is why I say the information gathered by scrying is mutable based on our actions. Sure those guards were playing cards for the last two hours but now that my floating glowing eyeball has entered the room, they are likely going to stop with the card game. They will now likely be more diligent at guarding and they might even start looking for the source of the magic eyeball that is staring them down.

As another example: say I use a divination spell to ask what my day might be like so I can memorize the best spells. The answers come back that I will be facing a bunch of enemies who are vulnerable to fire based on where the DM thinks we will head that day so I rack and stack a bunch of fire spells...then the party takes the first left instead of the first right in the dungeon and we head into the area with all the fire resistant monsters instead. The DM can't know what we, as a party, will do so it's hard for him to indicate what the future holds. Alternately, when my "Commune" spell tells me that my day will be conflict free, there is no accounting for any random encounters generated by rolling; how could the DM possibly know that roll was gonna turn up an Ancient Red Dragon when responding to my spell?

Not to say there aren't uses for divinations, I just have never found it a terribly useful tactic and have certainly never found it as invaluable as you seem to. I feel that there is a reason why Divination was not eligible to be an opposed school for specialists in 3.5; it had to be assigned value because the inherent value of its spells is pretty weak.

If the party used a scrying spell, I would roll to see if the random encounter was going to happen, then tell them results. Not too hard of a solution for the Ancient Red Dragon thing.

Other examples look solid.

Hey everyone. So I'm DMing a group of really shy people. All of them love roleplaying of sorts in online games, but for two sessions they've been sitting down face to face and nothing really has come up.

They've all written good backstories, but none of them are really willing to bring any of that up. They've all taken up the role of "dark, broody, mysterious dude" and won't snap out of it.

What is the best thing that I, as a DM, can do to nudge them along and get them to be more confident? I know they're good at RP and want to do it, but I don't know what the best way is!

Good RP starts with the DM. During social interactions you need to get in character too. Instead of saying:

"The guard says you can't enter this area"

Try:

"The guard approaches you, stone faced and determined, clearly recognizing you all from the various wanted posters surrounding the city. He tries to walk over casually, but is clearly on edge, with his hand on his scabbard."

"G-g-good evening adventurers." he says nervously. "What brings you here?"

When you start playing the characters, and talk in first person character, your players will soon follow. Make them talk in first person even if it is awkward. Once you give them a little 'push' they will start doing it without any encouragement, especially if they invested a lot of time in their back stories like you mentioned. Good luck with your group!

I'm currently dming Rise of the Runelords for a fairly experienced group; all of the players are contributing and rping well.

One thing that I have noticed, however, is that the party's witch is completely carrying them. From level 1, he had Cackle and Fortune (bonus hex feat), allowing the martials to roll twice on attack. Soon after, he got Misfortune, reducing the enemies' saves/attacks. Pretty much everyone in the party loves him. The martials are always hitting and the other casters are landing their DC based spells. He carries around a wand of hex vulnerability and took the scar hex, so he can buff/debuff from a mile away and can reuse hexes on allies/enemies.

The party is still extremely strong without the witch, given their experience and character synergy, but with the witch, they are almost doubly strong, with the witch's hexes alone -not including his almost full arcane casting. I'm not interested in shutting his build down; I've been using their increased combat power to thrower harder and more entertaining encounters at them. He isn't stealing the spotlight because he is throwing buffs at his teammates, so he is generally enjoyable to have at the table.

I saw a thread earlier considering them weaker than other arcane casters and such, but from my standpoint, they seem pretty great. Does anyone consider hexes to be extremely strong? I feel like the witch would still be strong if he only had hexes. Inbetween his arcane casting and hexes I think the witch is potentially the strongest arcane caster.

Still disappointing, though... Could have a general Dex-to-Damage feat, allowing us to create Finesse warriors that use chakram, daggers, unarmed strike, gauntlets, bladed-boot.

I don't understand why they decided to be so pointlessly restrictive with this. It's been proved time and time again that Dex-to-Damage is not unbalanced or even more powerful than good ol' Str-to-Damage.

And this thing costs 3 feats... I guess Dervish Dance will go on being the best Dex-to-Damage alternative in the game.

Oh, Swashbuckler... You never fail to disappoint me...

Just go inspired blade. You get weapon focus and weapon finesse for free. At level one you can get Fencing Grace, effectively giving you dex to damage.

Swashbucklers are great!