santherus's page

The shield is an ENERGY shield - it already protects against all energy, so you don't need to pick fire, acid, etc. You're already covered: this is already explicit in the text:

"protects you from energy damage. Whenever you take acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage, the shield absorbs the damage". As noted, is doesn't stack with itself, so should you refresh the ability, then you'll essentially start a new shield.

If they are dressing up then flotsam gauntlets solve the issue.

Cestus perhaps - people still provoke using gauntlets, but a cestus does not, and can still do bludgeoning damage, and could be wrapped in bandages etc.

Interestingly, this sort of attention to detail might be just the thing that prevents the need for a perception check - the 'if you don't draw attention to yourself, others do not get to make perception checks' vs 'f you come to the attention of people who are suspicious (such as a guard who is watching commoners walking through a city gate), it can be assumed that such observers are taking 10 on their Perception checks.'

Just depends on whether we consider your PCs suspicious in context. Stuff like Knowledge (Religion) checks (for the mummy) might help put them in that pot, if they're not already there. I'd suggest that the PCs be treated as suspicious - especially if in combat

The monster disguise check (made at -2, for different race) needs to beat the passive perception (score+10) for the PCs.

The 'monsters' could offset the -2 with a disguise kit, and simulate slam with a cestus, (just how are they hiding their armour?).

... What are the 'monsters' trying to achieve? Are they bluffing/scaring people away? If so (and they need to fight) then they've already failed and may just as well pull out actual weapons at that point.

Hope this helps!

Cyrad - I already covered that in my original post. RAW it works. I was looking for any kind of explanation as to "why" or "how" it works. All that you did was re-iterate the points 1-3 I'd already made.

Weables - The "base" of the whip is in the kineticist's hand, 10 feet away, five feet outside of the swashbuckler's grip. The "fluff" bothers me because it makes no sense. Saying that a swashbuckler's parry, with their rapier or scimitar or whatever, can just "fan away" a kineticist's flames (Or their void, or any other energy they can summon" still doesn't answer the question. It doesn't make any sense, in any case. So, is the concensus "Ignore logic, allow RAW" or could somebody be justified in saying "RAW fails, accommodate reason"?

"The Snaking Flames of the Kineticist's whip lash out at the swashbuckler, who slices madly at the glowing tongue of fire, which unravels, spraying flame left and right, but leaving the swashbuckler untouched AND driving a blistering riposte straight back at the surprised flame-wielder!"

OR

"The Snaking Flames of the Kineticist's whip lash out at the swashbuckler, who knee-slides under the slash and rises into a perfect thrust straight at the midriff of the surprised flame-wielder!"

It's just visualisation - you may find it easier to describe such attempts in terms of a dodge.

Turning this towards the track of lowering damage in a more 'official' manner, an option exists in the shape of the Expanded Metakinesis Feat selecting 'Merciful Spell' as the option. This should help a little, no?

One other thing: does your player's character have Eschew Materials as a feat? You might wish to enforce that the player actually needs to obtain the material component (i.e. a part of a sewer troll) as opposed to handwaving it: that might allow you to present a story hook where the party hunts down a pack of troublesome predators in the tunnels beneath the city...

Although: what concerns do you have with allowing the player to take that form for a few minutes? What class is the player using the spell? Do you feel that they outclass/steal someone else's schtick by doing so?

Don't see why this would work:

Q1: Are you below 0 hit points? No. (Your body only appears to be dead).
Q2: Are you Unconscious? No.

Also: What does your group deem as 'you'? The spell indicates that 'the host's soul is imprisoned with you'... meaning that your body isn't you. As you're not wearing the armour any more, neither clause would then apply.

Abilities generally do JUST what they say; in this case it notes that you may move - not that it grants extra movement modes, bypasses difficult terrain, etc. The 'special' bit is that you're getting to do this as part of a flurry.

So in answer to your question, I'd say that point 2 represents my view.

[EDIT: concur with Aghaton Ris - fluff text name of 'flying kick' does not actually mean that you're flying/jumping; also fast movement bonus applies only to land speed, so this doesn't work for fly/swim/burrow]

Garbage-Tier Waifu wrote:

If you can somehow can make use of Magic Jar as a Kineticist, you could use another body in order to gain another lot of kinetic burn before burning out the body and being forced to switch back. Horrific as that is, I don't think there is anything to suggest you can't do this, and I definitely don't think burn moves with bodies.

If you had a clone, you could also just burn out bodies to death and switch to a fresh clone to keep fighting (you just need some way to reach your old body. This is why create demiplane and a few scrolls of plane shift are handy). Equally horrific but without the moral implications of body snatching and violation of free will and all that.

Hmmm.... this would be an amazing boss fight. Find monsters with high dex and/or con and keep them as pets, then use a greater hat of disguise so you can shift into a humanoid form and proceed to just burn your body up. Like, maybe use one or two bodies to seriously beef up your kinetic defense, and use other bodies to "nova" every round of combat. Well, I guess it would be an amazing boss fight for the GM anyway!

...This would largely be self-limiting due to the 3+Con Mod cap for burn, unless I'm missing something (if you could get Cthulhus body with its 20 burn cap you might be onto something though!)

I'd consider taking water or Aether at 7 as both offer brilliant defensive wild talents if you're gonna be in melee.

In fact when I make melee kineticists I take earth as my expanded element because both of these grant pseudo flight and I don't think earth does so I find having them as a second element and thus delaying when you get flight too painful.

obviously if you take either of these it opens up a lot of infusion options.

I am leaning towards aether at the moment.

One thing with the wording of elemental whispers: it never actually says that you gain a familiar - just that you can create a body does this mean that my 'not familiar' can or cannot take archetypes (such as sage?) Despite this, language used later in the elemental whispers refers to 'the familiar' so it's a little unclear to me. For what it's worth, hero labs falls on the "it's a familiar" side of the camp.

Steel soul is never a bad choice if you didn't trade out the hardy racial feature.

Good reminder on steel soul.

Re: the others I'll consider fire or aether or air and work up some builds. Thematically, I had already considered a familiar via elemental whispers, so I might revisit an ioun wyrd sage, which would prove a useful scout too.

Thanks all. Excellent food for thought.

So I'm attempting to build a Kinetic Knight (Dwarf), originally planning to stay with an Earth focus... but I'm finding that I'm running out of not just _decent_ infusions to take, but that there don't appear to be enough infusions to work with at all, as I can't take/use form infusions due to Kinetic Knight restrictions.

25 point buy, will be starting at L3.

Str 16, Dex 10, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 8

I need the Int to help provide the Knowledges(!) for the party of 3 (Human Desnan Warpriest, Human Destined Bloodrager and Me).

My L1 and L3 feats are Breadth of Experience and Cosmopolitan in order to support this focus, with Pushing Infusion and Kinetic Cover (prereq for shift earth later) selected so far.

Traits are also tied down with:Arodenite Historian, Forbidden Knowledge, and Guardian of the Forge to grant maximum breadth of knowledge, making my Knowledge (History) essentially also count for Planes, Arcana and Religion.

Any advice/thoughts about future feat selections and possible options for expanded elements and wild talents? Earth Climb and Earth Glide are Locked in for Levels 4 and 10, and Shift Earth at 8 - I'm otherwise open to suggestions.

I'd like to avoid water as an expanded element for various reasons but am otherwise open to anything that lends itself to a thematic and effective 'tough' & knowledgeable earth-based build. All Help is gratefully received.

Hi all,

I'm currently playing a lizardman saurian druid in a Serpent's Skull game (great fun so far, just starting book 2). I'm on the cusp of gaining wildshape next level, and I'm trying to imagine ways that my character would go about practicing how to change forms before fully learning how. Unfortunately, I've hit a bit of a mental block. Any suggestions that might help fuel my creativity?

Thanks in advance!

So - as you'll be primarily saurian forms, you might roleplay this as acting upon advice from ancestors speaking to you in dreams, with your L2 Totem transformation ability actually showing your burgeoning alternate forms beginning - the totem Bite attack is a 1D6, as opposed to the standard lizardfolk 1D3 - your jaw taking upon the characteristics of a fiercer, larger ancestor, the +2 natural armour flavoured as plates and scales of a stegosaurus, etc.

Hope this helps.

lemeres wrote:

Additionally, with the armor expert trait, mithral can allow any class to grab a mithral breastplate without any penalties or need for proficiency.

And all this time my Monk's been running around in no armor, to think I could have had him in a Mithril Breastpate!

[argh - missed the previous post]

Technically 'without any penalties' isn't quite accurate in the case of a monk - wearing armour means that you lose flurry, fast movement and your levelled and WIS bonus to CMD.

If you've already traded flurry and fast movement away with an archetype, you're a little more in the right place for armour if your wis isn't great.

What about all the magic items that call up potions, such as Sipping Jacket?

While it makes sense for Accelerated Drinker to apply to draughts, I wouldn't see Sipping Jacket apply to it.

A Draught (created by distilled spell) functions as a potion (or oil), but is not a potion.

By that reading, Sipping Jackets/Accelerated drinker apply to potions only, so wouldn't apply to draughts.

Problem Solved: Slipslinger Style

Stops AOOs for loading AND also _explicitly_ applies this to the warslinger trait (which is a prereq for this feat, along with weapon focus sling).

Meaning that Warslinger+Weapon Focus(sling)+Slipslinger Style = L1 Hafling fighter that can reload a Staff-Sling as a Free action without AOO.

Hello all. I was once playing a game of PFS with a guy who had a barbarian with quite high DR and I seem to recall that he had a way to double his DR against the first hit he took each round.

Does anyone know how to do this?

I could be remembering it wrong as this was quite a while ago now. I have a character in a home game who is building around being very hard to kill and this would be great for him.

I'd imagine that this would be the Stalwart and Improved Stalwart feats from Ultimate Combat - You'll need Endurance and Diehard to get them, though.

How noticeable would a Screen spell be when cast from hiding while invisible?

Scenario: character wants to sneak into enemy encampment that contains ruined towers and wants to use screen to conceal activities in one of the towers

Assuming that the spell hasn't been prepared as a silent spell, the caster will be speaking for the full ten minute casting time of the Screen spell - must be a goodly number of perception checks as a result.

Perhaps your GM will allow using ventriloquism (the spell) to throw your voice (vertically) up into the air in order to add additional distance penalties to any perception checks.

Damage at L8 sounds a bit low (depending upon CON), assuming that you have your size bonus to con fro burn, overflow and empower; I'm doing 3D6 +13 at L6 (point blank, 20 con with bonus) for an average of 25 + 12 empowered = 37 for my kinetic blast.

You should have a bit more damage that me, or a little less if your con is lower.

Doesn't seem excessive really: An archer should be putting out comparable or better damage at greater range, for instance.

Your party issue might be that the class has a high floor, low ceiling for optimisation: you don't get to push 'up' a lot as you're already in the right sort of place...

(and Three feats is not exactly 'hardly any' investment!)

Pizza Lord has the right of it: looks like your player has cherry-picked a third party race with (presumably) the addition of a 'herald' template, then added the skeleton template over the top, making a few errors along the way, and grabbing some sort of archer template too: he's basically given himself a top-flight skeleton to work with as his starting equipment.

Note that there's no actual presumption that you START with a corpse companion: if you're feeling generous you could grant him a 1HD skeleton from the bestiary, but otherwise he needs to source his own 'materials' in play.

force it to miss with crane wing

Crane wing was errataed from an auto-miss a good while ago - it now provides a conditional +4 dodge bonus while fighting defensively, unless you're on full defense.

can you make an effective healer out of one of these guys? and if so can you point me to a guide that i can read?

All the advice is on the money so far, except..... what do YOU mean by 'effective'?

What do you/your party need?
Assuming you're playing the Druid, will you be the sole source of healing for the party?
Are you talking about healing in/out of combat?
What is there about druid that you like/love?
What scale/type/frequency of healing is needed in your group?

It's all about the context.

Then familiar gets half the hp wizard gets by wearing the belt?

If the wizard wears the belt and has their HP increased, then yes (assuming that the wizard does not take off the belt or otherwise have its function negated).

Really, just remember that Familiar Max HP = Half Master Max HP and you'll be fine.

Just as a little coda to all of the above, the Dirge Bard gets to affect undead with mind-affecting spells at 2nd Level: not sure if that's a help.

Good luck with the game!

Sorry, I'm fairly new to this. I've got a player who wants to play an Empyreal Knight, but I don't understand it's summoning capabilities. Could someone explain to me:

How it's supposed to work?
And a list of what monsters can be summoned at what levels after the skill is attained?

If you take a look at the summon monster 1 list, it notes that animals can be summoned with the 'celestial' template. So your player can summon any animal off that list (at 4th level) as long as the celestial template is applicable.

If you take a look at the summon monster 2 list (available to your player at 6th level) you'll see that elementals and lemures are on the list: these aren't available to your player, as they can't be summoned with the celestial template.

Basically, your player can summon (using the appropriate list(s) for their level) anything that can be summoned as celestial, or (for example) a lantern archon (summon monster 3) or anything marked as an angel.

I can go more in depth on this, but does this give you what you need?

Before everyone starts on the build details, one thing jumped out at me

7 Str = Max light load of 23 pounds

Chain Shirt = 25 pounds (or 12.5 if mithral).

Aside from the mechanics of your build, you're going to really watch your encumbrance (or offset it in some way) or end up with a -3 Dex penalty (at best) for medium encumbrance which will be rather unpleasant for your 'to hit'.

This guide is an excellent metric for character viability based explicitly on the aforementioned Monster Creation Guidelines, and seems to match up with most people's experiences in play (it certainly matches my own for the most part).

According to it, an 18 AC is what you need at 5th, a 22 is a good AC, and a 27 is as high as you actually need, with above that likely being superfluous.

A 28 is a very high AC at that level. A 31 is absurd.

Seconded. The Guide inspired me to publicise a little chart that I worked up a while ago (found at this location - AC 27 at Level 5 Pretty much protects you from all but a natural 20 according to the guidelines (assuming no debuffs/extra buffs on the monster side).

One last (tangential) note from me - aside from the spell itself, I'm assuming that you're happy with the crossblooded Sage/Elemental combo and (as GM) have specifically ruled it OK: It's not otherwise legitimate as per This FAQ note.; Wildblooded (Sage) and Crossblooded do not combine.

Good luck with the player and Game!

I'm lost here. Can you enlighten me as to what this means?

Sorry for the confusion - The first line of 'Reality Ripple' notes it as 'Construct 4', as well as Sorceror/Wizard 4. 'Construct 4' means that it would replace 'Minor Creation' in the 'Construct' Subdomain for divine casters:

e.g. If I had a cleric with the 'construct' subdomain, I'd receive this spell instead of 'Minor Creation' on my domain list.

I was trying to express that Limited Wish (at Level 7 for the Construct Subdomain) appears to be intended to allow divine casters to more readily supply arcane spells (via limited wish) when doing something like building a golem; I didn't think that reality ripple (which appeared to be a lesser version of limited wish) really had a place at Level 4 in that spell list for such a hypothetical cleric.

In short, I was suggesting also removing 'Construct 4' in order to limit the spell to Sorceror/Wizard types.

So: We're having a weaker version of limited wish here. Possible issues:

1) Are you as GM happy with the flexibility that this provides to a class with a 'built in' flexibility limiter in the shape of 'spells known?'

2) Gemstones worth 500g become largely irrelevant with the Blood Money spell. Food for thought.

3) The whole crafting requirements/spells issue shouldn't be a concern, as the need for the spell whilst crafting is avoided by adding +5DC to the (easy when taking 10) spellcraft check: if your home game deviates in some way from this, then the additional flexibility for crafting is a significant benefit.

4) Am assuming the construct domain is to bring it in line with limited wish (at Construct 7). For me, the Construct 7 version is intended to grant access to construct construction wizard spells - Reality Ripple wouldn't have that effect. I wouldn't add Construct 4 for this spell - the existing minor creation at level 4 is thematic and sufficient.

5) The 'any other effect' has a bad/potentially overpowered example - limited wish states that a creature automatically hitting on its next attack is an example of a Limited Wish effect. Perhaps an attack reroll instead as an example for this lower level spell?

6) Save DC should be of the copied spell.

Hope this helps.

Thus why the debate raged and was never settled. I believe second edition stated the metal disrupted the connection to nature, but is not relevant unless you are playing second edition.

Much like elves never sleeping. It changed between editions so some carryover is bound to happen.

The question: is a druid forced into either mechanically or magically metal armor rendered powerless or must the druid decide freely to don the metal armor????

A druid who wears prohibited armor or uses a prohibited shield is unable to cast druid spells or use any of her supernatural or spell-like class abilities while doing so and for 24 hours thereafter.

Is the Druid wearing prohibited armour? If so they trigger the bad consequence of the above - willing or unwilling appears to be irrelevant according to the above. In practice, this is a largely pointless issue as the ability to dress an unwilling druid in prohibited armour pretty much means that the druid is at your mercy. The 'locked in armour for trial' already mentioned is pretty much the story trope ready for exploitation here - it's otherwise a flavour/money tax on the class.

There's potential for adjudication regarding 'using' a prohibited shield: I take this as enjoying an AC benefit/threatening with it. YMMV. Even more unlikely to come up that the armour.

Side Note: no atonement necessary, just 24Hrs of 'oops' to deal with.

As the title reads, my character was recently in a game where a family of dire bears was killed, and found a cub near all the stuff in the cave. Hes a level 2 ranger, and attempted to subdue the parents, which were killed by the rest of the party. Being able to save the cub Im curious, is it possible for a ranger to get a bear/dire bear cub as an animal companion? It doesnt fall as a listed animal at level 4 for the hunters bond but it is on the list of Animal Choices

The 'Beastmaster' ranger archetype is what you're looking for - this will allow you a bear companion, as per a druid; no dire bear though - you could just flavour the ordinary bear companion as dire bear cub and the later advanced companion as dire bear, whilst keeping it as an actual bear. You might also need to rebuild the character a little at level 2 as class skills are a little different.

Alternatively, your ranger could just train the bear using animal handling, no particular class feature needed.

My group is always at wealth per level and often finds consumables, that push them above wealth per level all together.

The answer is in the question. Reduce other items that you're giving out to balance the increase in what your custom monsters 'drop'. You have the ability to control their WBL, so I'd suggest a gentle transition to managing it a little more so that they're always where you wish them to be.

Also: Are your monsters getting a bump in CR to represent their increased effectiveness?

So far Paizo has come up with 7 different kinds of Kineticists for us players to try out. But what other kinds of kineticists would you like to see them develop in future Pathfinder products?

Personally I would like to see:

1) Electrokinesis

I know that Electricity currently is a part of Aerokinesis. Why I am not really sure. But I can imagine that this form of kinesis could come in handy in places like Numeria.

2) Cryokinesis

Like electricity, cold is currently a part of hydrokinesis. But I think this form of kinesis could stand on it's own.

3) Audiokinesis

Sometimes mistaken for bards, these kineticists are their own sound-system. ;)

4) Photokinesis

Like #3, I can imagine that these guys can be mistaken for illusionists. And if a photokineticist was to expand into audiokinesis (or vice versa)... ;)

Positive and Negative energy

Expansion to the Void and Wood elements already published: they're pretty sparse.

Lots More Composite Blasts - If I'm Water (Cold) planning to expand into Air, I'm stuck Air Blast to get a composite as there's no Cold/Electric blast. Even worse situation if I wanted to pick Earth, as I don't see a Cold/Anything blast for earth.

More utility talents at more appropriate levels: Why can't my water kin breathe underwater when the air kin can at second level (air bubble)?

More choice in utility talents!

The above isn't a criticism by the way - just hunger for more Paizo Stuff (tm) for Kins. We don't use third-party products, so Mr. Jolly's supplement isn't a goer.

So I have a bit of a guild going on, got a nice little variety of characters, some aren't optimal but whatever, they'll live...then there's the wizard. I have her started out, I have her schools (favors enchantment, disfavors abjuration and evocation,) but that's it. I don't know what spells to give her aside from Heroism.

I should probably give some context. She's foreign, learned her magic in an academy but due to her father trying regicide blah, blah, blah, she's working in a guild dedicated to dealing with the aberration generating dungeons that plague the country with the help of a magus who's basically a knight of the order of the stick staff, a slayer who specializes with two-handed-weapons, and a cleric of Gorum who loves him some greatsword. Most of the creatures speak Aklo so she's got languages covered for the spells that need it

So what spells, feats, and equipment (she's on the standard NPC budget) should I give her? I don't want super optimal, god-wizard stuff, she's an NPC after all, but I want her to function and wizards are kind of the total opposite of my playstyle.

Perhaps a little more context needed:

Is the NPC supposed to adventure 'in the field' with the PCs? Are they a 'downtime' sage/knowledge/crafting resource? What is their role in your campaign?

If 'in the field' as implied by the 'heroism' comment, a buffer/debuffer would allow the PCs to shine, whilst still providing a solid role for her; also look into battlefield control via conjuration effects (stinking cloud, glitterdust, etc).

I may even post this inquiry over at James Jacobs' thread.

As a slight Necro, I've FAQed this too - might come up more frequently now, as there's a kineticist (water) power that references control water as a source.

My specific issue with the spell isn't just targetting, rather what exactly is meant by 'other water-based' creatures?

If we mean creatures with the (water) subtype, then I think the spell should specify this.

QuidEst wrote:

David knott 242 wrote:

The Insinuator Antipaladin can also work with neutral (neither good nor evil) outsiders and gets nice benefits for doing so.

Wait.

I can have a CE Antipaladin in cahoots with Proteans? But Christmas isn't for another two weeks...

The only difficulty is that you have to succeed at a Diplomacy or Knowledge (Religion) check of DC 15 + antipaladin level to invoke an outsider whose alignment does not exactly match yours. Also, if you violate the ethos of the invoked outsider, you lose the ability to invoke outsiders of that alignment until you atone. If you lose access to your own alignment and do not have high enough skill bonuses, you could render yourself powerless.

If you can use a trait to snag Diplomacy as a class skill, you should be fine: Class skill with 1 rank = 4. Assuming a Charisma of 14 gives another +2 for a score of 6. Take 10 = 16 at first level = auto success for the check. Just keep Diplomacy current as you level and all should be well.

I use diplomacy here as it's likely that builds will have a good cha for the 'cha to saves' class feature. Could always use knowledge religion in the same manner for a more intellectual Insinuator AP (14+ int).

first off what kinds of steps need to be taken to get that pint of blood.

also what about higher hit dies? if we where to calculate using real life stats it would take 4 months per hit die after the first (assuming you haven't drained a pint in the past 4 all ready) to do so safely. surely there has to be a way to make it faster.

We're into strictly GM territory (which is why I dislike things like this).

That said, blood loss is likely to be ruled con damage: you should have access to lesser restoration by then, or simple bedrest to heal ability damage prior to that. Seems simple enough to obtain your blood - the rest is just fluff.

Ambitious Bond: I believe you skip the aligned step and go directly to "whatever you want".

Outsider Servant: "You gain a new servant each day" seems pretty clear. The penalty doesn't seem to be removed, although I'd probavbly house-rule it away (or call it a curse from the patron who sent it). Since it doesn't say it stacks with itself, despite being untyped, I think you only take it once (counting its duration from the last servant's death you've had).

Good calls.

In passing, I also note that the Archetype doesn't provide Diplomacy as a class skill, meaning that either you need to snag an appropriate trait, or will be reliant on knowledge religion each morning for non-aligned invocation.

.. The archetype also doesn't have 'knowledge (planes)' as a class skill, which feels like an oversight - knowledge (religion) seems out of place.

Still reading the book - seems good so far.

I just purchased agents of evil, and thought that it's be useful to have a single place to list/discuss Rules Questions arising. Here's my Starter (I'm keen to play a NE Insinuator Antipaladin, and these questions came up whilst I was reading through the archetype):

Insinuator Antipaladin - Ambitious Bond
How does 'bonded weapon' function if I'm Neutral Evil and have invoked a True Neutral Outsider? May I add as my first special ability anything I please due to there being no appropriate 'Neutral' weapon special ability, or should I choose from any of Anarchic/Axiomatic/Unholy?

Outsider Servant
If the servant dies, do I still receive another servant the following day, or do I need to wait for 30 days as per the normal Antipaladin rules? If the 30-days applied, does that apply to all servants, or just for servants appropriate to that alignment? If so, are the death penalties 'to hit', etc. cumulative?

Sorry to be a Negative Nancy, but...

I'm pretty sure I have an app for all the info that's on the prd for free on my Android devices.

Just checked my phone and yes I have three. One that just has the prd, one with all the feats and archetypes from the previous and splat books, and one that has spells from the prd and splat books.

... But this is an iOS app. I've been finding it useful on my iPad for years.

Do I understand correctly that both Magus players focus on dealing massive damage with Shocking Grasp?

Because another approach you could take is inform these players that they're taking a versatile and multifaceted class and treating it like a sledgehammer. That is, they can do plenty of other things they can do with a Magus that are effective and aren't 10d6 electricity damage.

Check this guide for suggestions.

What character level (and skill level) are the other players? I'd expect an Archer Ranger (for example) or a wizard to excel in a variety of situations, and well-built barbarian to be exceptionally competitive at dealing (and taking) pain.

Is there a chance that (as well as the magi appearing powerful) that the other players are a little weak, exacerbating the perceived issue? Would it be possible for you to post a little info about the character builds involved?

I am making a sorcerer / wizard or bard that wants to make good use of the phantom steed spell. I am looking for ways to improve on the durability and effectiveness of the steed in combat especially. I prefer to use CRB material (APG might be ok later), other sources are unlikely to be permitted. We start out at lvl 6 using only the CRB afterwards, we 'might' be able to use material from the APG as well.

Obvious things seem to be to take the mounted combat feat and cast a mage armor on the steed to increase it's AC to 22, any other ideas to keep my steed alive or increase it's effectiveness ?

EDit: We do not start with magic items but it might be possible to craft relatively simple items in the course of the campaign.

The phantom steed is (for me) primarily an 'overland travel' spell: at level 6, it's HP are actually less than that of an 'actual' light horse (although its AC is significantly better).

Thinking 'core only' you could use standard buffs for Con/Dex (if your sorc/bard has those spells) to give a little extra HP/AC, although these are 'minute only' things.

Protection from arrows is a long lasting buff, as is false life. Blur/displacement are short duration, but might be your best bet for damage mitigation via spell.

In terms of offense.... the steed doesn't have any attacks to buff. Overall, I don't see the spell as a great choice for optimisation:you might get better mileage out of mount - save phantom steed for overland travel.

I am a ne half orc wizard who worships Urgothoa and wants to be a cannibal. How would I do this

Technically, cannibals are those who consume members of the same species, so you may want to look at consuming half-orce specifically.Have you looked at Kabriri (CE Demon god of Ghouls)?

On a serious note, is your GM and group happy with your characters alignment, religion and 'lifestyle' choice? Does your character fit with the sort of stories that your GM and group wish to tell?

Keith Apperson wrote:

Hubaris wrote:

Illusion School wrote:

Pattern: Like a figment, a pattern spell creates an image that others can see, but a pattern also affects the minds of those who see it or are caught in it. All patterns are mind-affecting spells.

If you cannot see it you do not have to save. Always played it like that (despite the line of 'caught in it').

I'm sorry, this is the rules forum and you are actively ignoring a line of a rule that you acknowledge is there?

This is the rules forum but I assumed we were all speaking openly as I barely saw any citations for Figments or Patterns.

Let me go back to quote mode and clarify then.

Lets take a look at a list of every Pattern effect for completion sake.

Colour Spray wrote:

Sightless creatures are not affected by color spray.

Hypnotic Pattern wrote:

Affected creatures become fascinated by the pattern of colors. Sightless creatures are not affected.

Rainbow Pattern wrote:

If the view of the lights is completely blocked, creatures who can't see them are no longer affected. The spell does not affect sightless creatures.

Scintillating Pattern wrote:

Sightless creatures are not affected by scintillating pattern.

Wandering Star Motes wrote:

Illusion (Pattern) [Light] [Mind-Affecting]

We can draw a few things from this.

1. All Illusions fall under the Mind-Affecting Tag (as per the school description) and Patterns are a Subschool.
2. All of them (except Wandering Star Motes) do NOT affect sightless creatures.
3. Wandering Star Motes HAS a Light Descriptor, meaning that if Color Spray or Rainbow Pattern, etc needed a Light Descriptor, it would have had one.
4. Rainbow calls out line of sight (more on this later)

You need sight. It says straight out that sightless creatures are not affected. When one is in total darkness (sans Darkvision) you are effectively Blinded and suffer the same penalties....

This one is slightly painful to work through IMO: blind and sightless are non-equivalent. Being blind does not protect you (you could make a case that closing your eyes makes you effectively 'blind').

Sightless (however) is a creature that cannot 'see' at all, rather than one deprived of a sense, e.g. a Brain Ooze or similar.

It's a little sticky, as there are some inconsistent monsters out there, but I'd find it hard to rule a PC in darkness as 'sightless'.

Ultimately I'd see this unlikely to come up in play for monsters (except in corner cases raising the HD cap, such as Heavens Oracles).

Given that we're primarily talking about PCs then (or low level NPCs) I'd have to come down on the side of a PC in the dark not being sightless - they have the ability to use sight, but are temporarily unable to do, and are therefore not sightless (although they are effectively blind).

So: given that the bolt ace has been errataed into sensibility, I'm now starting to look at putting one together to play from Level 1.

I was hoping to eliminate penalties from firing when threatened at some point in the build, but can't seem to see a RAW way to do it:

Crossbow mastery only prevents AOO from loading (which the Bolt Ace already has via Vigilant loading), The 'Deft Shootist' feat applies only to firearms, and point-blank mastery requires weapon specialisation. Is there another feat that I'm missing that might help?

I'm also wondering if there are any simple ways to boost/gain grit that are floating around out there: seems like 2-3 points of grit is only a negligible amount in play - especially as I need to retain 1 for certain class features (such as vigilant loading) to work.

Any thoughts, help?

I am wanting to focus on the Javalin for flavor reasons but am having a hard time getting past not being able to effectively melee with it. If I were to take Catch Off Guard, would it eliminate the -4 penalty for using it in melee?

Seems like it would...

If it's for flavour, why not just use a spear and call it a Javelin (Heavy Javelin?) in-game?

I'm looking for whatever the feat/ability that allows a human to ride a medium mount. What book is it from?

Some guy said it was the slight build feat but I can't find it. If it is slight build then where is it?

Undersized Mount, advanced class guide.

Good luck with this! I'm sure you'll find it rewarding.

1) 7 seems a little large - they'll coast through an AP whilst keeping you very busy indeed. Any scope to split into two? about 4 players are usually expected, and you don't really want to be tinkering with your challenges the first time out.

2+3) Depends on the path! I've only worked with adventure paths so I can't reccomend any of the one-shots from person experience: I'm sure someone else can help.

4) Have you thought of providing a number of pregens rather than getting them to work through character generation - you could just leave perhaps feat selection and campaign trait selection up to them. Although 15 points build could work (I prefer a 20). Why not run up a few pregens at 15 and see if you'd be happy playing them?

5) Good understanding of NPC motiviations, character and story. Cater to your players. give them hooks for the sorts of things that each player can contribute/shine at.

6) Don't worry about it for this one: I'm sure that you're aware of the 'beefing up' of sneak attack since 3.5 (e.g. Undead are SA-able): anyone coming from AD&D should be amazed at the simplicity of the mechanics and the power levels of Pathfiner characters in comparison.

One note - try sticking to just the core rulebook for the first time out.
Also, if someone focuses on summoning creatures, make sure that they've all the relevant stats at their fingertips. Same with spells for spellcasters in general.

Luck to you.

Not a rules question, it's quite clear what it does and how it works.

Conceptually I can't see how a hellfire goat is any more wonky than about 50% of the bestiary.

Careful with that planeshift though, or you'll have a player stranded on another plane for a month. I'd be tempted to give them an up front knowledge/spellcraft check (depending on the campaign or how mean you feel)

Interesting to get other people's perspectives on this. I was under the impression that 'statistics' meant 'statistic blocks' in this context - so physical stats only, etc. what you seem to be saying is that the goat of Travail is essentially a 'Nightmare+' (addition of 2 extra horn attacks) ... meaning a flying, smoky, planeshifting, fiery attack mount - except that unlike a nightmare, that it obeys its owner and doesn't speak: really useful feedback from you both; much appreciated.

I'm currently GMing an adventure path, and my players have picked up a set of Ivory Goats (Figurines of Wondrous Power). The write of for 'The Goat of Travail' is a bit wonky, and I thought I'd check in here for thoughts/opinions/precedent before I make a ruling:

The Goat of Travail: This statuette becomes an enormous creature, larger than a bull, with the statistics of a nightmare except for the addition of a pair of wicked horns of exceptional size (damage 1d8+4 for each horn). If it is charging to attack, it may only use its horns (but add 6 points of damage to each successful attack in that round). It can be called to life just once per month for up to 12 hours at a time.

Nightmare Statistics Here

...So it doesn't seem like the nightmare stats are appropriate for the goat as written: I don't consider the 'Smoke' or 'Plane Shift' abilities appropriate, neither the flight speed, languages, type/subtype or some of the skills; Has anyone raised this before? Is there a commmon consensus on what 'statistics of a nightmare' mean before I retool this by hand?