RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32. Goblin Squad Member. Organized Play Member. 383 posts (1,148 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 1 Organized Play character. 5 aliases.
So I put this spreadsheet together, there are probably errors so apologies in advance, is a WIP. If you let me know I'll try to correct them quickly. Also it only goes up to 4th level spells cause lazy.
Put the character level in the lime green box and then scroll over to see which setup has the highest DPR. Scrolling down will show a set with Weapon Focus added into the mix, and then Weapon Specialization in the third set.
Hey, not sure if you guys will check this, but I got far more busy and stressed out over this last election than I anticipated and I'm very sorry how I left this hanging. I've meant to leave a message here for the past month but never seemed to get around to it.
Keeping this going turned out to be pretty difficult but it was still a lot of fun and I'm sorry to see it end. I want to say thank you to all of you for trying and giving some great effort.
Has your party decided to return to town, but you haven’t had time to roll what is available? Need a random item quickly? Need some treasure on the fly?
The Item Shop and Treasure Generator may fit your bill. Just load up this excel spreadsheet and let it do the work. It can generate Magic Item shops, Apothecary shops, and Scribe’s shops for any size city all at the touch of a button. If you want to keep a particular shop for later, you can even save it. Added in this version is a Random Treasure Generator that takes any Encounter level and generates an appropriate amount of treasure. You can also print or save it. Coming Soon: Ultimate Equipment treasure tables.
These are just the bones for the game itself and a bit of a reskin to easily slide into any campaign. That's pretty much the whole purpose of my site, encounters, npcs, mechanics, etc that can be dropped into a game in less than 5 minutes, so it fits the bill.
The mechanics for special maneuvers such a grapple, pin, trip, disarm, teamwork feats and other things are already built into Pathfinder, there's little need to remake the wheel in that sense.
As for the quick, chain combo, that's why the chain gets heavier armor, he's the best defended person on the field with the widest reach, the quick can follow him around as a tactic.
The rest, is all up to the GM. Is magic allowed? Is this a campaign wide sport where dog skulls are prized or is it looked down upon as the closes thing to brutal bloodsport? These are campaign specific items, I'm not trying to replicate the feel of the movie, just the feel of the game.
Thanks for the input though, I weighed many of the same question when I was writing up the mechanics and the post.
Has your party decided to return to town, but you haven’t had time to roll what is available? Need a random item quickly? Need some treasure on the fly?
I had returned to WoW hoping that many of the changes to the game (flex raid system, removal of lockouts, etc.) would facilitate a more cohesive raiding atmosphere. In my opinion, I was incorrect in this hope and things remained relatively unchanged. I created a forum thread for people to discuss their opinions and then was backhandedly accused of starting drama. I realized I'm 35 and paying $15 a month to be unhappy with a community, so I decided once again that my time and money were better spent elsewhere.
I like the game and I like the people, but the philosophy around the static raids inflames me like few other things do. I considered starting a new guild but that's a lot more work than I'm ready to put in to start over. So, I'll drop by on the forums and run this lovely game for you guys, and play some Star Wars:ToR.
Potions are expensive, daily spells and wands are pretty cheap. We'll keep the wands and spells at the standard amount. There are bonuses you can get for healing if you take the right paths (not that anyone is taking those but it's still an option) that would be moot if I changed it.
Full disclosure: Our group uses the 10, 20, 30 across the board for all healing, but I feel it makes all healers vanilla, this way a potion is well worth the money you pay for it and one healer can be stronger than another. I also like the decision of whether to burn the more potent potion in combat or wait till after and burn wand charges for healing. I realize its not normal to think this much about imaginary resource management.
Combat needs to be a bit abstract for it to work, especially magic. The rules have been stated pretty well in the thread, attacking a square with fireball is pretty straightforward, in most cases Fireball is a 'put it where you want it' aoe, barring the bead going through a narrow space or impacting a wall (I don't know that in 20 years of gaming if that one's ever actually happened in my games).
Sorry guys been on the road a bit too much to report in. Sent T a private message on the forums but I haven't heard back. I was hoping he would verify if he was in or out.
Has your friend made an account here rei?
I think what ill do is get us up to 5 by recruiting on this site. So make what you think youd like to play and then we can recruit 1 or 2(if t is out) to fill the needed roles. That sound good?
My opinion is that it sounds like it could be a nasty fight, but with the addition of the two extra NPC's it should be do-able. If they have bad luck it could go very poorly (that goes for any fight though).
What strategies were you planning on using with the dragon?
EDIT: Reading comprehension helps sometimes. Removed the parts that didnt make sense.
I had a player argue with me about putting a fly spell on his zombies. He argued that the zombies would be able to fly and I stated that since they were mindless and had no sense or idea what flying was or that they could move upward, that it wouldn't work (the magic would be effective, the zombies just wouldn't know to go up). I agree with the idea that mindless is a set of very strict parameters and once you've surpassed them they are still limited to options A,B, or C. Zombies dont open doors for instance.
I gave him the option of casting another spell which he did.
I spent an hour and a half working on my backstory and the forum ate it. I am so po'd right now. I'll update it soon with the bare bones but I don't have time to type all that out again at the moment. Arrrrghhh!
Two good items I've got quite a bit of mileage from on my ninja are a Ring of Foe Focus and a Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier. The Jingasa negates one crit per day and gives a +1 Luck bonus to AC for only 5k, not bad. The Ring of Foe Focus allows you to (at will) designate a target that you receive a +2 untyped bonus to AC AND saves versus. Its a bit more pricey at 10k, but well worth it.
Having looked through the CoT's players guide, I was thinking about going with the Pathfinder's Exile trait (My second option is the Westrcown Firebrand for obvious name and benefit reasons) This trait would tie in well if Gwendolyn had managed to join or become entangled with the Pathfinders and was in someway tied to the message received from the Pathfinders (Either she sent the message or the message mentioned her or something related). The wayfinder itself holds little interest to me as its presented in the player's companion. I assume that trait ties in with another storyline in the AP in some way and if it would be too much an inconvenience to incorporate that, I understand and can easily go with the Westcrown Firebrand trait because I that also fits his personality.
Alright, that being out of the way, a crunch question.
Spoiler:
I didn't want to ask this in the larger recruitment thread because you made the rules quite specific. My question is if it would be okay to take the Wildblooded Sorcerer Archetype and take the Primal bloodline. The changes are relatively minor, and hoping to be primarily a support blaster, I could use all the help I can get, if you do not wish to open that metaphorical door, understand completely. From the PRD:
Primal
Your powers are attuned to the concentrated core of the elemental plane.
Associated Bloodline: Elemental.
Bloodline Arcana: Whenever you cast a spell with an energy descriptor that matches your elemental bloodline's energy type, that spell deals +1 point of damage per die rolled.
Bloodline Powers: You can infuse raw energy into your summoned minions.
Elementalist Summoning (Su): At 9th level, whenever you summon a creature, it gains energy resistance 10 against the energy type that matches your elemental bloodline (if it already has such resistance, its resistance increases by +5), and its natural attacks deal an additional 1d6 points of damage of the same energy type. This bloodline power replaces elemental blast.
All variations of these seem a bit strong in my opinion. The advantages are large while the disadvantages are minimal. Judge these against the Core races.
Goliath's should be large with the stats that go with large creatures. Or if you want them to be medium with +4 strength, +2 Con, -4 dex and -2 charisma or something similarly balanced. Dumping on 2 good stats should be counterbalanced by a decent penalty to a good stat. This is before you even get to the subtype that allows for SLA's and other benefits.
A good philosophy to design by is that if the option is the obvious best choice among all the choices then it's probably too good. Humans and dwarves already border on this in many cases.
The Trollkin is just too strong and it gets a crazy regeneration ability off the start. A trollkin barbarian would be incredibly strong versus a normal 1st level group, so would a Goliath.
But I'm old-school, I'm certain there are other people that would allow these races in their games.
I had a PC carry a bag of holding into a portable hole trap...it didnt end so well. Actually, it didn't end badly either, the character was a paladin so I used the opportunity to go through some astral plane things I had needed to do with that character and then his god resurrected him. So he died, but his 2 hero points and DM fiat saved him.
Having played an invoker for quite a few years and as DM Blake mentioned, the d4 hp/level was playing on a knife's edge for most encounters.
I was really happy to see PF up the HD to d6. For much of my invoker's life the illusion school was barred (along with conjuration) and so I had to find other means of survival.
1) Dexterity is almost as important as intelligence. Not only for your AC and reflex save, but mainly for initiative. Acting first in any battle puts you in control (Perception is obviously good for this as well), a wizard or sorcerer has the most ability to control and setup the battlefield. Improved Initiative is one of the most important feats for this reason.
2) Active defensive spells you should have up most of the time (getting an extend rod or the extend feat is very good): False Life, Mage armor, Stoneskin. If you think you'll be going into a fight soon, Blur, Cat's Grace, Mirror Image, Invisibility and Shield are excellent.
3) Items: Ring of Protection, Bracers of Armor, Cloak of Displacement, Hand of Glory, Ring of Freedom of Movement, Belt of Stoneskin. Get yourself a Ring of Wizardry II, your second level spells are some of the best in the game for all around defense and the more you can cast per day (at least up to 12th or so level) the better.
3a) One thing that I would beg my DM to allow is a custom item that has a permanent Shield spell in place on it (theoretically this should cost only 4000g but the stacking shield bonus along with negation of magic missiles is the best 4k gold I've ever spent in a game, and I'm SO glad shield no longer has a facing.)
4) Play smart and tactical, use others to shield yourself and assume that you'll be targeted first for every encounter's alpha strike, if you do that, you'll (hopefully) never be caught with your pants down.
Looking over your creature as a DM I would have a few concerns, especially if it needs to be a CR 1 or 2. The DR/good is a bit too strong as other people have stated. Someone suggested DR/bludgeoning, but maybe something like cold iron or wooden weapon would work better.
Black bolt works for me, reflex save is fine, although I'd probably have it work more like a scaled down chain lightning that does 2d6 damage with one additional target.
Chain Lightning:
This spell creates an electrical discharge that begins as a single stroke commencing from your fingertips. Unlike lightning bolt, chain lightning strikes one object or creature initially, then arcs to other targets.
The bolt deals 1d6 points of electricity damage per caster level (maximum 20d6) to the primary target. After it strikes, lightning can arc to a number of secondary targets equal to your caster level (maximum 20). The secondary bolts each strike one target and deal as much damage as the primary bolt.
Each target can attempt a Reflex saving throw for half damage. The Reflex DC to halve the damage of the secondary bolts is 2 lower than the DC to halve the damage of the primary bolt. You choose secondary targets as you like, but they must all be within 30 feet of the primary target, and no target can be struck more than once. You can choose to affect fewer secondary targets than the maximum.
From your description and the poison use, I assume that the Black Skulk is the assassin in the group of 4? But it can't crit? Weird, theme breaking, and generally just defies explanation. Magic...I get it, but I can critical hit someone with a paper clip to the eye or the ear, you're telling me (and your players) that your magical, entropy-riffic dagger is less dangerous to the the soft spots on a body than a paper clip. I understand what your attempting, but breaking theme and general game mechanics just makes me ask 'why.'
On the intelligence, which score would you use if it got hit with int ability damage? Use that score.
And lastly the poison. Again, I see what you're attempting to do. Dangerous drug cocktail and all, but here's the thing. As a player, when I hear a new ability and it doesn't have a save it gets my hackles up. Especially when there's ability damage attached to it. Few things are as aggravating to me as a player as ability damage. If you want it to be deadly poison, make the save a high DC or give it a moderate dc, and apply a penalty for some reason (you can handwave that). If these are recurring villains then the saves will get easier as they level and the characters can appreciate that their bodies are learning to adapt to it or whatever. As you have it now, a first level character fails, and a 20th level character fails, as a 20th level character if I failed anything that a 1st level character would for most reasons other than rolling a 1, I'd be fairly annoyed.
As it stands I'd call it a low CR 3 or a High CR 2.
I've never seen that spell before, but the version I posted is a wall of force as per resilient sphere which is a hardness 30 and 20 hp/level, so its quite a bit more resilient than that version.
My version is effectively just a personalized, one round, resilient sphere which is why its one level higher than resilient sphere.
Well, you've got the spell Stoneskin and the spell Spell Resistance rolled into one and both of those last for far longer and this spell is better than Spell Resistance offering SR30 right off the bat. It's also better than Stoneskin theoretically because there's no pool and to me that's a problem.
Here's what I'd do if I were the GM if I wanted to fix this particular spell. First I'd make it 1rd/level, and have it act like both Stoneskin and Spell Resistance that works with one casting and it would be 7th level for a Wiz/Sorc (for one because you're casting a spell that's not on the Wiz/Sorc list, and for another because you're basically casting 2 spells with one spell).
It sounds like what you want to do is more like a selective Resilient Sphere though. So here's what I would let you do:
School evocation [force]; Level sorcerer/wizard 5
Casting Time 1 immediate action
Components V, S, F (a crystal sphere)
Range Personal
Effect 1-ft.-diameter/level sphere, centered around you
Duration 1 Round (D)
Saving Throw Reflex negates; Spell Resistance yes (Harmless)
A globe of shimmering force encloses you, provided you are small enough to fit within the diameter of the sphere. The sphere contains you until the end of your next turn. The sphere functions as a wall of force, except that it can be negated by dispel magic. A subject inside the sphere can breathe normally. The sphere cannot be physically moved either by people outside it or by the struggles of those within.
My Ulfen scythe wielding barbarian fought a giant boar in the first few encounters of the Kingmaker AP. Crit and took it down first swing, I loved that scythe. The DM later encouraged me to change to a greataxe, out of sympathy I obliged.
To change the fight from 1HKO to merely "mopping up" territory?
Mostly, doing 60ish points of damage at first level was seen as 'overkill,' HA!
I'd be very interested to see how furious focus effects the numbers. Although, I'm guessing that it would be a very minor bump in damage output at 14th level.
My Ulfen scythe wielding barbarian fought a giant boar in the first few encounters of the Kingmaker AP. Crit and took it down first swing, I loved that scythe. The DM later encouraged me to change to a greataxe, out of sympathy I obliged.
Fair point Jaatu, but you have to roll higher than their total attack meaning if they both rolled twenties and the players roll was say 30 with all the bonuses added in and the creature's was 29 with all bonuses added in, the attack would land. The creature still has to exceed their attack (granted that the attack bonus of this creature, and most likely the bonuses of the future mythic encounters will be significantly higher than the PC's attack bonuses means this ability almost always works, but that's the nature of Challenging encounters).
Just for transparency sake, the encounter was a CR18 Colossal intelligent construct with the Invincible(mythic) template. The PC's were Samurai 15 (Marshall T1), Paladin 15 (Guardian T1), Cleric 15 and Cohort Wizard 13 (Hierophant T1), and Wizard 15 (Archmage T1), and the encounter was a CR 21 in total. (It was the toughest encounter they've had so far and they worked their butts off for the win)
I'm curious as to the opinion of many of the GM's out there that plan to run mythic encounters and how they plan to use the Block Attacks ability.
If you're unfamiliar with it, here it is:
Block Attacks (1/round) (Ex) When hit by an attack, if you succeed with a melee attack at your highest bonus vs. the attack result, the attack misses.
The problem my players had was that I was saving the ability until a crit came up, then I'd block it. The creature was an intelligent Mythic being (int 13) by no means a genius but smart enough that it would know that crits are certainly more OWWW than normal hits. My rationalization of the tactic is that it's a Mythic encounter, if you're having trouble getting crits in, then too bad, its not supposed to be a goblin.
After a bit of player complaint, I switched to blocking the first attack per round. Needless to say, the encounter went much faster after that. My opinion is that had it been a player with this ability they would save it for the crit, as I had a Paladin using Sacrificial Shield in the same encounter blocking 66 points of crit damage, I feel fairly well justified in saying that.
This is the first Mythic encounters in a chain of Mythic encounters leading to a final apocalyptic confrontation. I plan to use this ability quite a lot and wonder if in later encounters I should just ignore the complaints or if there's legitimate player concern.
I'm a big fan of the ninja. Currently playing one in a game and I'm having one of the best times I've had in a campaign. The rogues I've played just weren't as fun.
I think calling leadership broken is debatable (its been debated considerably over the years), sure it can lean a power gamer to more power gaming, but it can also be a very effective roleplay tool.
What you've done here with these rules is dramatically increase the bookkeeping at your table. If you're okay with that then it may be a good solution for you. At my table it wouldn't work, I have enough to keep up with already.
Rule 1 seems okay, nothing too complicated there.
Rule 2 seems to not only increase bookkeeping (did npc #3 take a move or standard action, etc.) but would (in my mind) end up with most of the PC's allies on the board just run around and do nothing defeating much of the purpose of having allies.
Rule 3 to me, if I were a character, seems like I'm being penalized for having allies that the GM forced on me. If I didn't want to take leadership would I still have to use these rules? Rule 3.3 seems interesting and makes some sense, my comments are mostly aimed at 3.1 and 3.2.
Rule 4, either give me leadership for free or don't force me as a player to take the feat, a player should have control of their characters development path given a set of options by the DM. Forcing PC's to take feats is looked down upon. If they want something special that may be a special case. The rest of 4 based on the rules given seems fine.
Rule 5 seems okay.
It seems a better idea to just give each PC 1 cohort that works along with the Leadership rules. If they want a larger organization then they need to pick up the feat. This may be more simple than your looking for but in my opinion simplicity works best.
Having played both a rogue and a ninja recently, I found the ninja to be far more versatile and fun in general. There was quite a level gap, but I find both low and mid level groups to be fun.
The things that pushed the ninja over the top for me were these:
Vanishing Trick and Invisible Blade both help tremendously in getting into situations where you can bring Sneak Attack to bear, spending the rounds to get into position are a thing that happens rarely. The concealment that invisibility gives you comes it very handy as well, its almost better than DR.
Ki attack speed allows you to sneak that extra attack in there when its badly needed and has saved both mine and my companions butts on multiple occasions.
Ki jump, great for getting into position when you need to.
Light Steps is an amazing ability, cross the river, bounce from tree to tree, difficult terrain is simply non-existent to you for the most part. Sure, it requires a full round action, but it's well worth the round for positioning.
Ghost Step is another amazing ability for a someone who sneaks. Combine these with Gloves of Reconnaissance and Invisibility and you can have a great time.
The rogue I played couldn't come anywhere near these abilities and the fun suffered greatly because of it.
Best advice I can offer (and you probably already realize this having DM'd games in the past) is to have fun. You, your players, everyone, should be having a great time playing. Rule 0.
Here's a link to a youtube series about getting started in pathfinder, hope it helps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77nb34DB6Gs
I've got a minor rules question regarding the Sunder article... how does the new Sundering system (which I love, BTW), interact with the 'broken' condition? Does it replace it altogether in some way? I'm partially wondering because one of my players asked with regards to the Gunslinger's starting weapon, but I know there are one or two other things that specifically reference the Broken condition (the Disposable Weapon and Fortified Armor Training feats in UC, for instance).
There's probably a simple interaction I'm missing or a passage in the article, but if there is I'm overlooking it.
Thanks everyone for the positive reviews of the Simplifying Sunder article. The folks at KQ are great for letting me drop it into their amazing issue.
As for the Broken condition, it effectively goes away once you decided to use the new rules, broken is very similar to Cracked, but I felt different enough that they needed separate names.
For the two feats mentioned I would change them to read:
Disposable Weapon
You ignore the limitations of your equipment, striking harder despite the damage it does to your weapon.
Prerequisites: Base attack bonus +1, proficient with weapon.
Benefit: Whenever you use a melee or thrown weapon with the fragile weapon special quality to score a critical threat against an opponent, you can give your weapon the cracked condition to automatically confirm the critical hit.
Fortified Armor Training (Combat)
You have learned to let your armor bear the brunt of the worst attacks.
Prerequisite: Proficient with armor or shield.
Benefit: If an opponent scores a critical hit against you, you can turn the critical hit into a normal hit. If you do, either your armor or your shield gains the cracked condition (your choice).
Nope, you'd need a different feat or weapon property for that.
IF you've got a nice GM maybe they'd let you, but DEX is already one of the best stats, letting more abilities pile on make it even more valuable and can harm game balance.
So while I've got all of you Creat Pit experts here, quick question:
If someone casts a Resilient Sphere, then one of the Create Pit spells directly beneath the creature trapped in said sphere, does the Sphere fall into the space, or is it (the sphere) fixed in place? I actually had this come up in our campaign and wasn't certain how to adjudicate it.
My guess is that the sphere wouldn't move. If you cast a Resilient Sphere on a flying creature, it wouldn't knock them to the ground would it? Imagine not, so if the ground falls out from under it, shouldn't matter.
If characters and villains know they're likely to come up against these spells there are many methods available to counter them.
The first and most obvious, is to put points in to climb (it's a useful skill anyway). The next is to have another method of getting out of the pit, a rope and grappling hook cant hurt at lower levels, a Climber's kit cant hurt either.
A Scroll of Spider Climb is 150gp, a Potion of Spider Climb is 300gp, a Ring of Climbing is 2500 gp, a Wand of Spider Climb is 4500gp, Slippers of Spider Climbing are 4800gp, or a Cloak of Arachnida for 14000gp. A scroll of Fly is 375gp, a potion of Fly is 750gp, there's wands, and permanent items that grant fly as well.
A character that has Use Magic Device has more options obviously, but potions? 300gp potions? Anyone can use those.
There's also dispel magic.
On the flip side, for creatures, the characters are expending resources to defeat their opponents. How the characters defeating the creatures shouldn't matter so much unless its the only spell they ever cast.
Banning these very useful spells is only coddling both the GM and the Characters. Obviously it's your game, but there are a variety of ways to counter these spells. Hold person is a lower level spell that has a pretty decent chance of getting most melee types, Resilient sphere, as mentioned, does a better job of dividing a party as mentioned above.
Going a bit further with this 1 in a million for 20th level characters, just to make it easier to feel out. In the 1300's the world population is thought to have reached 350 million people, so that's 350 20th level characters in an earth sized world with 5% of the population of today.
Europe had an estimated population of 70-100 million people, and Britain was estimated at 5-7 million (5-7 level 20's), France with 18-20 million (18-20 level 20's).
That's a considerable number of 20th level people in a relatively small area (in comparison to the entirety of the planet).
Well, thanks for the many many ideas there, vicon, the volcanic vents are something I hadnt considered at all, even though I was certainly aware of their existence.
I already had an abyssal type area in mind with things like angler fish and other oddities. Very dark indeed as a large subterranean sea would be.
I also came up with a few other areas I thought would be unique:
-Schools of fish being pursued by predators
-A feeding frenzy area around the corpse of a whale or something large
-An area of open water around a large fungus called a Seastar that produces vast amounts of luminescence to attract food
-A junkyard so to speak from all the refuse of the humanoid races (they live in a relatively confined area). This area would provide both food and shelter for many animals.
-An estuary (if you could call it that) where the freshwater "lake" contacts the saltwater "sea" and causes all kinds of dangerous currents.
Cool, those are very nice. I'm also now trying to find a copy of Sanctum at redbox, think that will probably have a few additional ideas.
I'm just running an adventure underwater, not a whole campaign, so unfortunately I cant help you there. I do hear that Cerulean Seas from Alluria is quite good though, it just goes a bit beyond the scope of what I'm looking for, rpgnow has the pdf for $10.
Also the characters are 13th and 14th level, they'll figure something out.
