psychie's page

I would be interested to know about any negatives people may have found with this, as well as the opinions of both those who liked it and did not on whether or not this would be a good choice for a gm with zero prior experience on that side of the table to whet his appetite on, or if I should look for other easier things to try out first, as well as what specifically might be problematic if anything.

On the council of theives thing, I think that's likely to be a bad example largely because when last I was vaguely considering getting an AP to run, CoT was one I looked into heavily, and from what I found in reviews, discussion, etc. the first book is just poorly done overall, as well as various other slightly smaller issues riddled throughout the remainder, and I did not come across many other APs, especially amongst the more recent ones, that sounded like they had as many issues, so I would be wary of using that as a metric for setting expectations.

Hey all! I just picked the PDF of this volume up yesterday and I'm already in love. Potentially close to the same love I felt when I read through Hell's Rebels! This book is well worth the money, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the Adventure Path in the months to come. <3 <3 <3

That said, I haven't yet seen a player's guide for War for the Crown yet, and Crownfall is already referencing it. Will it be released soon? I'm actually surprised I haven't seen it by now. If I've missed something, please let me know. Thank you! ^_^()

You've missed the last several weeks worth of discussion in this thread. The short and skinny of it is they're workin' on it, and we'll get it when we get it, we haven't been able to needle any more out of 'em.

I originally was writing something really long winded and wishy washy to try to say what I want to say without coming across as being whiny or overly demanding (because it always annoys me when people post things like that on these forums), but my point got lost in it, so I am going to boil it down to some simple, if blunt questions, because if all else fails, go for the socratic method, right?

1. Are the campaign traits done?

2. If they are, CAN they be released informally through a blog post or in the subforum for discussing the AP, or something like that?

3. If the answer to 1 is yes and 2 is no, why not? Is it part of a company policy or something?

Again, not trying to be combative or demand-y, just trying to understand, because right now I guess I don't know enough about how this stuff works to properly estimate what I can reasonably expect in these regards, as this is the first time I've ever really seriously considered buying an AP, and also I have always been curious about how game design stuff works anyway.

While I get not wanting to commit to a date until you're certain it'll be ready then, surely you have an estimate of the absolute latest it could possibly be... I imagine if we got that date and it were made clear that that isn't a hard and fast date, but rather the most conservative estimate possible, people might calm down with the pestering. Even if it isn't a specific date, but like a time frame, like "it'll definitely be done within the month of March" or "it'll most likely be done within the next fortnight," heck, even "expect it sometime before summer rolls around" would serve to manage expectations.

I'm not trying to add to the pressure and badgering, just offering a possible bandaid that might satisfy at least some of us for awhile.

In a skull & shackles campaign we encountered a giant squid or octopus or something, it attacked our ship, we killed it easily (this was like mid-game or whatever, like book 3 or something), and we had one player decide he wanted to dive in and look for some eggs because he wanted to raise one to be a pet (he kept trying to finagle animal companions without actually doing anything mechanically that would give them to him. He did this in several campaigns with several characters, it was getting annoying at this point). He managed to find the nest and was promptly set upon by the original cephalopod's mate, who was angry because not only was he attacking it's nest (I don't recall if this was the male or female, or if we even knew at that point), but he was also covered in the remains of it's mate having just participated in the battle that killed it. He went down alone, because the rest of us were like "no, that's dumb, we won't help," was a human with no swim speed, no means of breathing underwater, and no magic (the guy kept wanting to multiclass even though he really didn't know how to properly combine classes the smart way, so he was something like vanilla fighter 4, vanilla rogue 3, feat combos that made no sense, and a poor choice of rogue talent). Obviously he died, and none of our characters even though to question if we should wait for him to surface, because the second he dove off the side of the ship we knew "welp, we're never seeing that moron again!"

I'm not seeing a pdf option, are these handled differently than the player companions? I get that it isn't quite time for the official release, but there is usually an "pdf expected" time, at least for the companions, I think.

Likewise, I'm looking into the possibility of using this as my first GMing experience, because it sounds like the sort of adventure that I was looking to write, but haven't because it is hard to get motivated to put pen to paper. The player's guide will go a long way toward deciding if I do feel like running this, and I have to decide quickly because there are one, maybe two sessions left on our current campaign, so I feel kinda in a rush to decide.

The blessings you'll probably want for an archer are Air and either Charm or Glory, due to the super sanctuary. From what I could find on the Archives of Nethys that means your ideal deities would be Hathor, Seramaydiel, or Shelyn.

As far as feats go, this is what I did on an half-orc warpriest of Shelyn, built through lvl 10:
1. Point-Blank Shot
1. (warpriest) Weapon Focus: Longbow
3. Rapid Shot
3. (warpriest) Deadly Aim
5. Ironhide
6. (warpriest) Manyshot
6. (FCB human) Snap Shot
7. Dodge
9. Scale and Skin
9. (warpriest) Improved Snap Shot

You want to go for an Adaptive Composite Longbow (3K gp) as soon as possible, because with all your self-buffs you will have a variable str mod. Although now that I've looked up the orc hornbow mentioned above by avr, I think that that's a significantly better option over the composite longbow, but I would still put my feats into longbow since the hornbow counts as a longbow and a shortbow for all effects, so weapon focus longbow and thus the subsequent sacred weapon stuff should still apply.

My build is designed more to be as close to untouchable as possible, and is definitely built to function best in a party where you have frontliners, taking pot shots at peeps from a distance. Minor Air blessing means no ranged penalties, minor Charm blessing means people must make a will save in order to attack me unless I've already shot them, major Air blessing means I'm flying, and thus hard to get into melee. Scale and Skin gives bonuses to natural armor whilst under the effects of a transmutation effect, which for a warpriest means bull's strength and eventually mighty strength. Snap Shot, Improved Snap Shot, and eventually Greater Snap Shot (or whatever the third one in the chain is called) mean that if an enemy tries to reach me they provoke.

You want to max out STR and have a decently high DEX. You want to have a 16 WIS at minimum, because otherwise you don't get your best spells late game, and since your fervor is WIS based more of it is always good. For belts I would recommend prioritizing DEX over STR because you'll be putting your buffs into STR, and Bull's Strength and Mighty Strength don't stack with a belt, meaning your belt will be worthless a lot of the time if you have a STR belt. Headband obviously goes to WIS, but it really isn't a priority, getting your Adaptive bow, DEX belt, Amulet of Nat Armor, and Ring of Protection are more important (in fact, that's probably a good order of priority for them, those, then the headband of WIS).

Also, very important to remember, Fate's Favored trait isn't just for pumping Sacred Tattoo, Divine Favor and Divine Power (your MVP buffs) are luck bonuses, meaning Fate's Favored pumps them too.

I hope this helps!

Also, if I recall correctly, moving through a threatened area provokes just as much as leaving a threatened area, so even if the crocodile isn't technically "leaving" the threatened area, it is definitely and unambiguously moving through the threatened area, and thus provokes regardless of the semantics of "leaving."

Things that make enemies vulnerable to sneak attacks are always good, there's some hexes that give the entangled condition (which I seem to recall allows sneak attacks). I built one as an intellectual exercise that used slumber hex and a bunch of feats to allow quicker coup de grace, so drop that guy, run up, coup de grace.

That one hex that lets you control the appearance of a certain area with illusions let's you set up a really good point for the shrine walk advanced talent.

Anything that adds to mobility is good for rogues, such as the aforementioned flight hex, but also that one that lets you turn into some kinda slime thing and move around that way to bypass doors, gain a swim speed, climb up stuff, etc.

Swashbuckler, Bloodrager, Rogue, Anti-Paladin, Slayer, Vigilante, a more combat focused Bard or Skald, a more combat focused Sorcerer, a more combat focused Arcanist, you might be able to make a more charismatic magus, etc.

Going in some direction that uses tricks like dirty trick, feint, and intimidate to grant bonuses/penalities would certainly fit the "charismatic warior" idea, all of which work well out of rogue, slayer, and vigilante.

"Charismatic warior" is basically the entire idea behind the swashbuckler class being primarily dex based for combat, with all kinds of stuff that uses panache which is cha based, thus it fits well with your stats.

I'm a big fan of mage hand, I've had characters use it to cheat at gambling games, to just mess with NPCs (I had a guy that once was playing look out while his buddies were pulling a heist, got bored and used major image and mage hand to convince a couple of unrelated guards from across the street that the house they were guarding was haunted, major imaged up a dude to go over start up some small talk and seemingly walk through the door behind them while it was closed, then the more skittish one got tapped on the shoulder with mage hand, used mage hand to throw a rock down the street, etc.).

Eldritch scoundrel rogue is fun. I had a wayang one for awhile, took accomplished sneak attacker ASAP, multiclassed into arcane trickster ASAP, got a shadow form weapon ASAP (I took the ranged weapon variant), sneak attacks apply to any spells with an attack roll, so evocation spells are strong, and you have a variety of ways to ensure you meet the conditions to do it with your spell casting.

Alchemists and investigators both have a rather unique casting type that can lead to loads of flexibility/utility as well as some variability in terms of how they operate in combat, especially once mutagens and bombs start getting involved.

Right now I'm playing a watersinger bard (it's an undine only archetype) that when combat happens how it basically plays out is first use create water to make a puddle with a 30' radius centered on me, use bardic performance to control said puddle, use the water strike feature to have the puddle form blobs that rise up and attack enemies for me while I'm standing back casting support, healing, or damaging spells/masterpieces. It's not an exceptionally combat-viable build, so if you don't have someone in party who's a frontliner you might not last long (especially since most of the build doesn't really come online until the mid level range), but it's super fun.

If the mundanity of regular swords/bows is what turns you off of most combat-centric characters, then some of the more weird builds might be more fun, so like a gnome warpriest who specializes in the gnome battle ladder with a maneuver build might be enjoyable (not sure how hard it would be to do right, though, so grain of salt and all that).

Hope any of this helps!

If you go the archer bard route, I'd recommend the wind song feat from elemental master's handbook, this lets you center your performance anywhere within 120' of you, thus you could potentially be archering from nearly an entire range increment (on a longbow) and still be buffing the party with your performances/debuffing enemies with your performances in melee.

Have 1 of the most expensive mundane alchemical item. Full pouch. Alchemical tinkering! Suddenly you have every alchemical item ever.

Have some doses of alchemical pheromones for something generic, like humanoid (human), and with alchemical tinkering you suddenly have alchemical pheromones for whatever that thing over there is! Also, for the suggestion variant, you can also use this to alter what the suggestion is for the situation, meaning a useful tool for when you can manage to plan ahead all of a sudden becomes an extremely flexible, versatile tool that acts as a catch all for most situations!

I had all kinds of fun with that spell on an eldritch scoundrel rogue awhile back, and I also happened to be in a party with an alchemist whose player had more or less memorized the alchemical items sections on d20srd, so if I had an idea, I'd ask him what could do it, have him hand over something of equivalent value if he didn't have it on him and BAM! now we've got it! (of course this might be more using an underutilized spell to maximum potential than unintended uses, but still!)

I have a watersinger undine bard, has that one alt racial trait that gives watersense. I use create water to make a puddle that is 30' radius centered on me that's a few inches deep, use water song to control it (by the time I'm high enough level to create that much water in a single casting, I can also control that much water), and basically every round I have a mass of water plop up next to whomever I want it to attack, do the full round slam attacks, have it sit there for flanking purposes, if they decide to attack it, the blob pops like a water balloon, but just rejoins the puddle so on my next turn it just regrows. On top of this, because I'm in contact with a body of water, I have blindsense in regard to anything else also in contact with the puddle, meaning unless you are also floating you can't sneak up on me with invisibility!

And I mean, yes this is obviously how the archetype was intended to be used, but I doubt create water was ever supposed to effectively create a battlefield (in fact, I doubt specific usage was considered in creation of the archetype, as the wording mostly discusses using water-created objects to attack, but if I'm controlling a puddle that everyone is standing in I can effectively attack from anywhere in my radius).

And even if they did it would all be in the secret druidic language, so we wouldn't understand it anyway!

I think that would depend on how being plane touched affects or is affected by you genes. I mean, do outsiders have a genetic code, or do they just simulate one for the purposes of reproducing with mortals? Or are plane touched people like demi-gods in percy jackson in that they only have half a genetic code (which doesn't actually work scientifically, but, hey, magic)? Are the effects of being plane touched the result of actual genes from the outsider parent, or are they genetically the same as any other human but have special outsider powers because they have some magical energy inside them passed on from their outsider parent?

If being plane touched is in fact part of the genetic code (thus two plane touched people having an human offspring would be possible, but really unlikely), would having opposing alignment components cancel out, one would over power the other, etc? How does this generalize to the elemental plane touched? What would this mean for, say, an aasimar and an ifrit hooking up, would such a pairing result in some kinda holy-fire dude?

I think it'd be funny if the offspring for a ganzi could be anything, like a ganzi and an human hook up, and out pops a goblin, next kid is a ghoran, then an halfling, then a kasatha!

Stuff about planetouched race's children sounds more like for a product like "blood of the planes" or similar product.

I know, that was part of what I was saying, that it was way out of scope for something like this, and frankly it would be out of scope for something like that as well. This is why I was suggesting that the weird but fun niche stuff that is unlikely to ever make it into the final cut of anything because it is so absurdly specific and edge case-ish could be put out in blog form or something. Y'know, expanding on the lore for things highly unlikely to ever come up in one of the published source books, but interesting enough to actually come up in home games.

And despite there already being plane touched player companions, now that there are gonna be races for all the alignment planes it offers an opportunity to discuss what actually happens when people touched by opposing alignment planes reproduce. I think it'd be kinda amusing to have a ganzi character who's dad's dad was an azata and his mom's mom was a succubus, dad's an aasimar, mom's a tiefling, and because good and evil heritage cancel out, I'm left with the chaotic heritage of both sides, hence ganzi. Unfortunately whether or not it works that way in this setting is unlikely to be addressed in anything published, and while until it is officially addressed it can be houseruled whichever way your table likes, but I still like answers for things like that as far as setting goes, and if I'm playing in Golarion, that means getting an official answer, and even when such an answer is supplied if someone doesn't like it or their home games have already supplied another solution, they can still go with that other solution in their home game.

Also, I was more thinking of dreamland "I want an official discussion for weird topics like these from an official source, and there is unlikely to be another book that gets closer to having this be relevant so it'd be awesome if it could be here." I would never expect anything like that out of any paizo products unless and until the writers explicitly state something along those lines is gonna be there.

I believe it was the feral champion, or something like that. It was in the other class options section, presumably next to the blessings.

I'd appreciate a brief overview of the new warpriest archetype and blessings. Thanks!

Another possibly interesting choice would be the questioner archetype for the investigator, which gives up alchemy for the bard spell list and spontaneous casting, but is still int based. This fits with arcane talents that aren't quite suited to a wizard's academy, and melee talents that come more from being intelligent and observant than through being strong and heavily drilled.

As far as the warpriest idea goes, I play a lot of warpriests, they are really fun but they don't lend themselves well to golf-bagging (carrying multiple weapons). However, you don't really need to have multiple weapons because a large part of playing warpriest effectively is using your self-buffs to shore up your weaknesses. If you want to be capable of reach but not always wielding a reach weapon, I'd recommend carrying some potions of enlarge person (which is sadly not on the warpriest spell list) at low levels and at higher levels prepping righteous might for your 5th level spell slots (I'm currently playing a rather high level warpriest of besmara in a pirate campaign, and I spend most battles buffed out with righteous might). As far as having both a blade and a blunt weapon, well the only way to really do that well without splitting your feats would be to pick a deity whose favored weapon is one and take your level 1 bonus weapon focus in the other, and even then you wind up specializing in one or the other over time anyway at higher levels if you don't split your feats. However it really isn't necessary to be capable of both, as the warpriest really shines at picking one weapon and become really, really good at it, and if you are concerned about getting around DR there are various ways to do that that don't require as much extra investment (for instance I have penetrating strike on my warpriest), but most of the time you'll be doing enough damage that DR shouldn't be overly concerning to you anyway, especially on the creatures that have a DR bypassable by damage type.

For a deity choice, I'd actually say kurgess fits really well with your backstory and motivations. Other choices that fit include: abadar, cayden cailean, desna, gorum, mazludeh, milani, etc.

Another class choice that might work is the eldritch scoundrel rogue, since usual roguish stuff is well covered, you could be the guy that focuses on being tricksy with magic, and even goes on to take the arcane trickster prestige class. The phantom thief archetype could also be interesting, but it is a rather hard class to build effectively. Vigilante has also been suggested and there are a great many ways you could go with that that are both effective and thematic for your backstory. You could also handle the issue of not being the best wizard or fighter by going a different way and taking a more nature based class like the ranger, hunter, or druid. Another possibility is oracle, sort of along the lines of it wasn't the path you chose, but rather the path that chose you, and maybe the reason you were never as good as your siblings was because of your curse, like you're blind or something so you couldn't read the magic books or do much for combat training, or you are prone to fits that make potential teachers shy away from really getting in depth with you.

That sounds really cool!

Bladelock wrote:

Anyone know what about the rogue archetype? Talents?

There are 5 Rogue archetypes: Fey Prankster, Desert Raider, River Rat, Sly Saboteur, and Sylvan Trickster. I did not see any new talents.

found it

and ninja'd!

Someone a few pages back (I forget who) listed the rogue archetypes by title and said that there were five of them, the first one on that list was fae prankster, and the last one was the sylvan trickster. Of course if they were answering from memory or something they could have made an error, but it was definitely mentioned.

I think it'd be kind of amusing to find out what happens if/when plane touched races of opposing alignment origins reproduce. So like an Asimar and a Tiefling mate and have a kid, what comes out? It could be a Human (not getting any of the divine genetics of either parent), one or the other (the divine genetics of one over-rules the other), one of the new neutral races (which one would probably depend on the particular subraces of Asimar and Tiefling the parents were, so like an asimar from one of the lawful-good outsiders and a tiefling from one of the lawful-evil outsiders would make the new lawful-neutral plane-touched race, chaotic-good and chaotic-evil would make a ganzi, one lawful and one chaotic would make the new true neutral race, and one neutral-good/evil parent and one lawful/chaotic-good/evil parent would produce offspring of the race for where the non-neutral parent falls on the law/chaos axis; essentially heritages of opposing alignments cancel out but still produces something weird), or something else entirely.

I know that this is rather outside the scope this book, but really it would be outside the scope for practically anything with broad enough appeal to be published, and this is just fun to think about stuff for possible character concepts, like an extension of the fun of a tiefling paladin or an asimar antipaladin, y'know subverting the usual expectations based on parentage, creating interesting backstories, or having a lineage of characters over the course of several campaigns.
(there's a couple guys in my play group that have several generations of characters worked out and play some of them in various campaigns, and one time a campaign ended with two characters getting married, and so they decided what the offspring would be like in terms of class, alignment, demeanor, etc. So having options that say what happens when two plane touched characters of opposing parentage hook up might actually be relevant to groups like mine)

And as far as out of scope lore stuff like this, I think it would be a neat application of the blog to occasionally expand lore stuff like this when it isn't going to be directly discussed in a book because it isn't as relevant as stuff that is more broadly applicable but it is still a fun discussion to have. So like expanding on the lore with brief topics that can be thoroughly covered in a few paragraphs or less, but are too specific to easily find their way into the published materials like the hard covers and splat books.

Corbynsonn wrote:

If it's not too strenuous can somebody let me know what archetypes/talents the Rogue has been given?

Rogue archetypes:

- Desert raider: lose trapfinding, trap sense, and one talent; gain immunity to dazzled, the ability to hide in plain sight in bright light as a -5 penalty (but not against creatures immune to blinded/dazzled), and a Perception bonus to avoid being surprised. Extremely useful with the right party composition (e.g. a caster with lots of light spells), but ONLY with the right party composition, unless all your adventuring happens at high noon.

- River rat: lose trapfinding and trap sense; gain a bonus on Swim checks, ignore difficult terrain caused by "light undergrowth and shallow bogs", and gain a bonus on saves vs disease and poison. Incredibly campaign-dependent. How many people actually run campaigns in a swamp? How often does disease actually matter beyond one encounter at a time?

- Sly saboteur: Lose trap sense, uncanny dodge, and improved uncanny dodge; gain increasing amount of normal movements in difficult terrain (including 5-foot steps), and the ability to rig mundane devices to fail and deal sneak attack damage, and to rig magic items to fail as extremely complex mundane devices and deal untyped magic sneak attack damage. The difficult terrain part is handy, but the rest seems overcomplicated and useless, since you're basically rigging up traps that aren't even as good as normal (borderline useless) traps.

- Sylvan trickster: Lose trapfinding, uncanny dodge, and improved uncanny dodge; gain wild empathy, the ability to pick witch hexes instead of rogue talents (including major hexes eventually!), resist nature's lure, and DR/cold iron. Seems extremely good to me, nearly on the level of a must-have unless you're in a game where trapfinding is actually important, especially since the witch hexes in the same book include one that's a Fort save or all special sight senses are disabled for 1 minute (darkvision, see in darkness, etc), and since...

What about the Fae Prankster archetype?

I'd greatly appreciate any additional info on the rogue archetypes as well as the warpriest archetype and blessings.

As far as the feats go, is there anything that gives you DR? because reliable DR is one of those things that is really hard for PCs to get, despite there being options to improve your DR (which as said almost nobody has).

Any info on the discretion specialist and the ruthless agent archetypes would be greatly appreciated. Specifically what exactly is traded away, and any general info about what sort of abilities they grant that you are allowed to share.
Thanks!

Could we get a list of the archetypes?
Thanks!

So I have a character that may be looking to write some contracts with some outsiders prone to abuse the ambiguities of language.

What language in pathfinder is the most stable and least ambiguous?

Not gonna lie, when I read that, my immediate response was "protean!"

I love sarcasm...

Actually, Idunn is sharing. She is required to do so, as her apples are the source of the gods' immortality, and they all have to continue to eat them at regular intervals or they revert to mortality.
As far as greek golden apples go, the only ones that I'm aware of are the Kallisti apple from the original snub, and the apples of the Hesperides. The Kallisti apple wouldn't really qualify as a magical plant, as Eris more or less made it herself, and while fruit do come from plants, they aren't really plants in and of themselves, so calling the Kallisti apple a magical plant is like calling a golden bull testicle crafted by Hephaestus a magical beast. And while I don't quite recall for certain what the apples of the Hesperides were supposed to do, aside from being the mcguffin for one of Heracles' fetch quests, but a niggling in my mind says it is similar to the apples of Idunn in Norse mythology, so the apple tree of the Hesperides would be a magical plant, but again the apples in and of themselves would not.

Personally, I tend to just use names that have shown up in media I like, such as ren faires and books, but in this one campaign that I played in, we were in a halfling city and needed to establish ties with the criminal underground for reasons, and there was an establishment that was literally underground that was run by the local crime boss, a gnome named Chuckles the Assclown (a character the gm had previously played in an evil campaign that was based off of the joker from batman lore), whose primary means of fighting (when necessary) was using a device he had built to launch pies into the enemies' faces that were baked with various poisons, marbles (for tripping), caltrops, etc. This establishment was famous for its pies (both the safe to eat ones and the ones thrown by the proprietor) and it was only accessible through a literal hole in the ground. Its name? The Pie Hole!

Any info on the rogue archetype would be greatly appreciated. Also, could we get the rules' index? That always helps with knowing what questions to ask.
Thanks in advance!!!

If you are playing an aquatic race and use the mantis mode mutagen stuff, would that make you a mantis shrimp?

Dragon78 - For this particular concept, I rather agree, I was just on a kick of "let's see how many future books that have a cool concept that lacks an obvious means of including a rogue archetype (my favorite class) and come up with a concept to force one, try including mechanical suggestions as well as flavor ones so people can better see how it would work!" And this was the best I could come up with here, hence why I started off by saying it was a way to shoe horn rogues in.

Oh, yeah, I've had builds with that feat, it was awesomely fun!
However, the reason I specifically want to use greater invisibility is because it turns you invisible and it doesn't end when you attack, essentially my concept is to, at least on the big, important battles is to activate the wand, then abundant step with the dimensional agility feat chain (right now I have it up through dimensional dervish, as I don't have the bab to qualify for dimensional savant, yet) to get as many hidden strikes off before jumping elsewhere as possible.

Actually, now that I think about it, the first character that I built with hellcat stealth used a similar strategy, except that was a level 22 build, 12 levels of rogue, 10 levels of shadow dancer, between all my various bonuses on items and things I had a +84 to stealth, and a ring of invisibility, and I could always stealth while observed, if need be turn invisible for that extra +20, and when there were shadows around I could shadow jump crazy far, and I had the dimensional agility feat chain there, too (this was before blood of shadows so the shadow jump controversy was not yet resolved, and my group ruled that it qualified as the prereq for that feat chain, as we were under the impression that shadow dancer was one of the reasons that feat chain existed, and shadow jump not counting was an oversight, turns out we were wrong, but now there's a way to make it work anyway), so I could bounce around, turn invisible, or even just stealth for the first attack, then flank with myself with dimensional savant to get off all my sneak attacks on the full attack!

I think a great way to shoehorn rogues into an elemental type role would be to have an archetype called the promethean (after the greek titan prometheus who stole fire from the gods and gave it to men), have them be kineticist type people who instead of focusing on harnessing their elemental inclinations toward flashy/destructive powers they focused on harnessing the elements to more "practical" (READ: thieving) applications, like using fire as a blow torch to bypass the need for picking locks and disabling traps, or the earth element to perform reconnaissance and eventually entry, like being able to look through stone walls ala gloves of reconnaissance, gain tremor sense, and eventually a limited earth glide that can basically only get you either through a stone wall, or around a non-stone wall by passing under ground. Water could have uses involving gathering information or getting into hard to reach places via fluidy forms, so you could pose as a puddle in that secluded alleyway that the enemy conspirators are planning to meet up in, or for flowing under a door crack (obviously these would be higher level things, a lower level form could involve not being able to go full fluid, but becoming more fluid, like bonuses to stealth from turning mostly translucent, and bonuses to escape artist and acrobatics from turning less solid, like you have water instead of bones, or something). Air could be utilized to pick pockets and make speedy getaways (I swear officer, the wind pulled my wallet from my back pocket, and over into the hand of some weirdo a block away, who then grinned at me, turned as if to run, and then simply vanished!)

The only thing that kept the batman series from jumping the shark right from the movie (roughly a full decade before that was even a thing, mind you) was the bat-shark repellent. (as well as every episode that followed)

HenshinFanatic - While I don't know the other classes well enough to say without significantly more thought, the rogue class has plenty of things that could be retooled for a shiftery type dealio, especially the unchained rogue. For example, rogue's edge and the related skill unlocks could be replaced with skill related animal morphs, along the lines of pick a skill, gain the ability to morph bits and pieces of the body to gain additional uses/ability with said skill, so like sleight of hand could cause a monkey morph, growing a prehensile tail and more dexterous feet (ie, hands instead of feet), that sort of thing, fly could grow glidy fleshy bits under the arms and between the legs like a flying squirrel (or that could be for acrobatics, I don't judge), etc.

Alternatively (or in addition), a number of rogue talents could be replaced with other utility shifties, more partial morphs, like bits and pieces of the rogue shift to corresponding bits and pieces of various animals to aid with certain tasks as the situation demands.

Also, sneak attack could be altered with instead of every other level you gain an extra d6 damage for when nobody's looking, you gain an extra natural attack for when nobody's, they are all primary natural attacks, but you only get them when the conditions for sneak attack are met!

(I really find the idea of growing natural attacks as a sneak attack to be hilarious, a halfling with this ability and the childlike feats is in town, the townsfolk find the corpse of a huge monster on the outskirts of town, terribly and gruesomely mauled, and they wonder what could have possibly done THAT to THAT?! the filthy little vagrant kid who showed up the other day says "I did it, I'm a powerful adventurer!" No one believes him, but he says he can prove it, everyone stares at him with mild amusement to see what he is going to do, he sighs with exasperation and says, "well I can't do it with everyone staring at me, like that!!!" Everyone laughs, and he says, "No, seriously, trust me, if everyone would just look that way..." he points in the other direction, the crowd begrudgingly obliges, and when absolutely no one is looking at the kid, he suddenly grows ten feet tall, and a crap ton of tentacles with claws at the end grows from his body, and he just eviscerates the entire crowd in only six seconds. The end.)

While that trait goes well with bard mechanically, since you are wanting to play up the stereotypes to your own advantage, I don't think that that really meshes with bard all that well, as bards are showy, and while you could normally roleplay that sort of name based connotation on a class away, the showy-ness of bards is heavily tied to the mechanics of the class (what with bardic performances and versatile performances) so it would be difficult to maintain such a charade for any length of time if you need to use your class abilities or use any of the instrument based performances and thus carry around an instrument, because the savvy npcs (and thus the ones that it actually matters to fool) are going to see those and see "bard" instead of "brute."

I second the mesmerist idea if you want to go the spell castery route, otherwise I would recommend rogue, especially with a str and cha focused rogue, probably the skulking stalker half-orc archetype or whatever it's called, use a big, ugly two hander that you can carry around strapped to your back to further sell the illusion.

All in all, I really like the idea, and it kind of makes me think of how almost nobody in the marvel comics looks at the incredible hulk (even post split with banner) and sees a genius physicist, even though he is. However, your bard idea makes me think of the indelible krunk (or whatever he was called) from the Dexter's Lab shorts but with Van Halen's (or whatever he was called) axe, if that was how it was, I can totally imagine people seeing that and thinking of him as a charismatic rock star (ie, bard) and not necessarily big, dumb brute, which is what it sounds like you're going for, in terms of public perception.

Hope this helps!

Matt2VK - This gm doesn't like Teiflings/Aasimars, which is largely why I hadn't done that in the first place, because the variant teifling with + dex and cha with a prehensile tail would have been perfect for this character!
Thanks!

Thanks everyone for the swift responses!
_Ozy_ - I had briefly considered that, but for some reason when I read the part about a ratcheting mechanism for reloading my brain decided to interpret that as having at least part of the wand or whatever still partially in/attached to the sheath in some way, thus dismissing it out of hand, but I guess that isn't necessarily the case, cool.

Gisher - I had forgotten about quick stow, too bad I don't already have quick draw and only have one feat that I can spare...

avr - I think when I checked weapon cords it said something about not being able to wield a weapon at all with something dangling by the cord, and I can't afford the glove of storing, which would have been my first choice, otherwise.

Imbicatus - I'm already a Teisatsu vigilante, so no dipping vigilantes, and I just don't have the free levels to dip rogue, but I do love rogues!!!

Azten - I don't think I have the free feats/levels to finagle any familiars, but I do like the idea... maybe for a different character!

Chess Pwn - I don't have my own spell casting, and because I'm largely wanting to use the wand as a first round of combat thing, so unless you know of some way to get a permanent weapon wand or equivalent (I looked and couldn't find one, but that doesn't mean that there isn't one), that isn't really feasible. Also, the reason I'm wanting a way to draw/activate/stow in one round or less is because I don't want to drop it and risk it getting broken or lost or whatever (I'm the sort of player that would forget to explicitly mention picking it up again, and unfortunately my gm has a tendency to assume things like if I don't explicitly state I'm going with the party down the hallway that means I'm standing in the first room like a dope with an afk over my head, or something, so I'm afraid I'd lose it, which I can't afford). Familiar and unseen servant are nixed for reasons stated above.

Gallant Armor - I love the idea of the monkey belt!!! That is exactly the sort of thing that my group would get a huge kick out of, and I don't need to worry about stacking because the belt I'm wearing is already dex +2, so that makes affording the monkey belt easier as well, so that is what I'm gonna do because a catfolk ninja-guy who sprouts a monkey tail before vanishing completely is sufficiently within rule of funny for me and my group! I love it!!!

tonyz - Glove of storing would have been my go to if it weren't so bloody expensive!

TL;DR going for monkey belt, but would have otherwise done the spring loaded wrist sheath to draw and then stow elsewhere thing I missed because of head derp.

Thanks all for the all the help!!!

So, I'm building a new character for a campaign where my previous character died, and my concept requires the use of a wand of greater invisibility for the more important battles. I already have the character built (for the most part), and I have some gold left that can be moved around, as well as one feat that could be swapped out if need be, so I can't really afford to change much else at this point, as most all the rest of it is kinda necessary to the over all concept of the character.

My issue is, I want a way to be able to draw the wand, activate it, and stow it away all in one round, so next round I can draw my weapons (I'm dual wielding) and attack at least once. I have not had any way luck in finding a way to accomplish this, especially since quick draw explicitly excludes wands, and the spring loaded wrist sheath requires a full round action to stow the wand again, so that's out, and there don't seem to be many wondrous items that do stuff with wands, and those that do don't do what I want.

The only alternative to something allowing me to speedily draw, activate, and stow the wand that would be equally or more ideal would be if there was either a weapon enchantment that worked like the weapon wand spell that I could put on one of my weapons, or some way to permanency the weapon wand spell (or another spell that does something similar, I seem to recall seeing other spells that do a similar thing but slightly different), but let the wand be replaced when the charges run out (like there would be a command word or whatever that made the weapon spit out the wand so I can put in a different one, like replacing a magazine in a modern pistol or whatever).

I haven't been able to find a way in the rules to let me do either of those things, and while it wouldn't be the end of the world if I couldn't do it, it would go a long way in improving the efficiency of my build (which, other than this, is actually very efficient, compared to some other builds I've had), and I'd greatly appreciate if anyone could point me to something that would work.
Thanks!

Any rogue talents?

Care to post the list of archetypes and their associated classes?

Fair enough, I always forget that that is an option.

I have played a few Warpriests, and while none of them were archers, I did see that the air blessing would be great for a ranged combat build (you remove all range increment penalties on the minor blessing, and can fly on the major blessing).

Also, on the whole bit about weak channeling, yes I've only ever felt the need to channel exactly once (as in people needed heals, and I did not have any better choices), but really, with the right build, you don't really need to channel, because most Warpriest builds have sufficient defenses to the point where if someone is downed in melee and thus needs a heal "right now," it is a fairly simple matter to just walk up, pick the guy up, and walk out to heal out of melee. (charm and glory blessings are the best for this, but ones that give less extreme buffs to your defenses should also be sufficient, in most circumstances)

And in terms of condition removal, yeah you are getting those a tad later than clerics, but with smart usage of items you can make up for it at early levels (although I've only had need for those spells before having them very rarely, as in two or three times, over the course of the adventuring careers of four Warpriests), just make sure that potions/wands/scrolls are available in some way or another, and get them. By the time you will really be needing those spells more than occasionally, you will be able to cast them. Also, there really isn't a third level spell that will dominate your preps like there are for first, fourth, and, to a lesser degree, seconds, and since, as I recall, most of those condition removal spells are third level, if you really feel like you will be needing them frequently, just prep one of all the ones you feel like you have to have just in case.

Two things:
1. Jabberwocky is the name of a poem, the creature cited in the poem is called The Jabberwock:
"Beware The Jabberwock, my son...
And as in uffish thought he stood The Jabberwock with eyes of flame...
And hast thou slain The Jabberwock, come to my arms, my beamish boy..."
Although, I don't know what the Pathfinder calls the creature in the Beastiaries, but I expect they keep to the name for the creature and not confuse it with the title for the poem.

2. I don't know about in Pathfinder, but if you want fairies, dragons, and fairy dragons, I recommend reading the Fablehaven book series by Brandon Mull, it is 5 books long (and dragons don't really enter the mix until book 4), and it is technically written for children, but it is one of my favorite series to this day, so adults can definitely enjoy it!

/thread derail

I just built a character similarly built around realistic likeness. I don't play PFS, so I don't know much about what sort of things they would make legal, but in the vigilante social talents in Blood of the Beast there is one that would let you add your seamless guise bonus to the disguise check resulting from polymorph effects (hence realistic likeness), so that +20 to disguise, and another +10 from the shapeshifing ability, is a flat +30 before adding your actual disguise ranks.
I built that character using the Teisatsu archetype, but since PFS disallows that, you could easily go stalker specialization and take the above social talent.
Also in Blood of the Beast there is a feat that lets you get a feint maneuver off when you shapeshift in combat, so I imagine that would work well with your concept, and the stalker vigilante, as a successful feint would get off the lesser hidden strike.

I hope I helped!