Good morning/afternoon/evening/why the hell are you still awake?
Just to start off, I just finished a Dresden Files Read-a-thon as well as recently finished Dragon Age II, and the idea for a home brew started to percolate in my brain. Long story short, I want to build a class that is a mixture of the Wardens a la Dresden and the Templar a la DAII.
A hero whose only purpose is to hunt down and destroy criminal magic users, or those that have broken one of the laws of Magic. My knowledge of countering a wizard's magic is null save for a giant axe through the chest, but a pissed off battle mage verses an opponent would seem a rather formidable fight.
Counterspelling is an option but I am looking for a combination of spellcraft and martial prowess.
What class would you use? Gestalts are not out of the question.
I am about to run to Mass but when I get back I will post some more thoughts and ideas.
What about allowing your PC's equipment to "level up" with use? If your PC uses a longsword, and sticks with it, why not allow the sword itself to earn benefits with prolonged use?
PC fighter uses a longsword as his primary weapon, and for each battle that he wins, a portion of the XP he is awarded goes to an upgrade pool specific to that one weapon only. The XP can go towards increasing damage or attack, bypassing DR, increasing crit range or multiplier and so on. If the PC decides to change weapons, the upgrade pool he accumulated does not transfer to the new weapon.
The same can be applied to armor and shields. Thoughts?
I don't mean to derail this thread, but the Prophecy of the Chosen one has always been played out with a PC as the hero of the story. Well what if it wasn't a PC but the BBGG (Big Bad Good Guy) that was the Chosen One?
The BBGG is the Chosen One of a Neutral Good/Chaotic Good religion, and as part of their Grand Prophecy or whatever, the kingdom or religion that the PC's belong to is declared the enemy or main obstacle of bringing about the Paradise on Earth that the BBGG's religion is promising. The hiccup is that the PC's kingdom/religion is of a similar alignment.
Have you ever been on the receiving end of a CG/NG Holy War?
It sort of sounds like you are running a mix of chess like moves with Stratego type combat. Just because your piece moves to attack another piece, does not mean your piece will win. Could make for a rather interesting game.
B is the correct answer. If you are moving in combat, and you do not wish to invoke the -5 penalty to your Stealth check, your maximum effective movement is 15ft per round. However, if you have the Fast Stealth Rogue Talent or simply do not give a s@@$ about that -5 penalty, you may move up to your normal max movement speed per round.
But Option b involves moving 30' in a round without the -5 penalty. Using your movement action and then your standard action to move 15' each.
Yep, you are correct. I read it wrong the first time. If you moved JUST 15ft in a round, not two 15ft move actions but 15ft period, stop end sentence, then you would not incur the -5 penalty.
Two 15ft move actions still count as 30ft per round and thus your stealth checks will have that -5 penalty attached to them.
So in essence, you would be taking two 7.5ft move actions per round so you won't take the -5.
B is the correct answer. If you are moving in combat, and you do not wish to invoke the -5 penalty to your Stealth check, your maximum effective movement is 15ft per round. However, if you have the Fast Stealth Rogue Talent or simply do not give a s!@# about that -5 penalty, you may move up to your normal max movement speed per round.
since the weight is heavier than a typical rock, you could use the range increments for a thrown weapon, I think that is 10ft, and use the damage of a bullet.
Some things to take into account with your world building. You are starting just before the Spanish Flu Pandemic. 50-100 million people died there. USA is 40+ years out of the Civil War, Prohibition is on it's way to the States(magic wielding gangsters?)
8th Dwarf had some great ideas about the various folk heroes coming back in their country's hour of need. If magic still exists, have USA/Native American relations akin to a Cold War, with the NA keeping some territories... This is eerily similar to Shadowrun...
I played a Rogue who had been trapped in a place that was equivalent to Wonderland for several years before being discovered by the rest of the party. In those years, he had ingested some of the local flora, specifically mushrooms, that caused him to develop mild schizophrenia. This manifested in him taking a stick and turning it into his evilish personality, Walter. He had ranks in Perform: Ventriloquism and everything.
You attack at your highest BAB using power attack. if you hit, you can, if you have not already used your swift action, can attempt to trip your opponent.
If you have greater trip, you get an AoO when they go down. If not, the you get an AoO when they get back up.
I would say get your Gm some Preparation H for his obvious butt hurt and get the hell over it. Your build is fine and you are not cheese-dicking any of the rules, at least as far as I can see.
The professor sensed something was wrong seconds before the dust skipped up from the sand and rocks around them.
The loud cracks of riffle fire followed a fraction later.
"Ambush" hissed the English Army Captain that had been accompanying them as he dived for cover.
"No s~$* Sherlock" grumbled the Australian Light Horseman, he had already shouldered his Lee Enfield and sent four rounds in the direction of the Turkish and German soldiers, forcing them scatter and giving everybody-else time to get into cover.
"The problem with Australians is they are the most balanced people in the world.... they have a chip on both shoulders" muttered the English captain in his cultured accent. He began priming various Mills bombs.
"Blow it out your pommy arse" snarled the Australian as he thudded down beside them, a hail of bullets ricocheting off the rock they were crouched behind.
The Light Horse Trooper grimly fixed his bayonet, "twelve of them, sixty yards away behind the big outcrop".
"Madame its probably not the best time engage in your studies", the Englishman breathed as the professor scanned an ancient papyrus.
The woman glanced up "You be ready to attack them when I give the signal" her eyes glowing an eerie blue.
Her beautiful Southern accent changed and deepened as she began to chant, hieroglyphs materialized and floated around her hands as she traced intricate patterns in the air.
The professor cast her eyes in the direction of the ambushing Turkish and German troops... "shenew" she whispered the word rushed from her lips growing louder by the second filling the gullies and bouncing off the boulders and outcrops, it became a crashing roar of broken sounds that rolled over the enemy throwing them into fits of nausea and confusion.
"Go.. go.. go... " Shouted the Australian his pointed ears and fine features at odds with his rough voice and attitude, firing as he zigzagged towards the big outcrop.
The English Captain glanced at the professor, she had already begun to chant...
Is it wrong to get chills from reading that? Awesome!
Unless they start pumping out something comparable to the Complete series, it looks doubtful. However, the beauty of the PF/3.5 compatibility is that your DM or you could just port that 3.5 material into the game.
134. Choose Your Own Adventure: A dogeared, well worn paperback book. When read by anyone but a Bard, it is nothing more than a fun, and rather difficult adventure book where your ending is chosen by the reader by flipping to multiple pages in the book.
If read by a Bard however, the events read in the book begin to take place in real life, with the PC's as the heroes of the book!
Only those that are very luck happen to choose the one ending out of 50 that leads to a happily ever after ending.
I had a really, really, REALLY friendly, polite, just all-around super-nice necromancer. I mean he would issue the most heartfelt apologies as he dismembered your family to pursue his horrendous experiments. He actually was a really nice person. That just wasn't going to stop him in his goals. My group really enjoyed that guy.
If you do not mind terribly, I am going to steal that with little to no shame. Awesome idea, would you mind posting your build?
97. A plain, brown leather-bound book. There is a gold filigree X on the spine, but other than that, no markings. The first page reads, "THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK"
As does the second, and the third and the fourth and the fifth...
Creating a magic weapon has a special prerequisite: The creator's caster level must be at least three times the enhancement bonus of the weapon. If an item has both an enhancement bonus and a special ability, the higher of the two caster level requirements must be met. A magic weapon must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus to have any melee or ranged special weapon abilities.
With that being stated above, why does the Keen enchantment for weapons have a CL of 10 but the Speed enchantment is CL 7? all the spell requirements are 3rd lvl so why the CL difference?
If you are planning on them killing the Fungus Queen next session then the illness thing might not work. However, if you are planning on them only encountering it, then the foreshadowing would work, not to mention it would add to the argument that the illness is fungus related due to the players possibly jumping to the conclusion that the two are related.
That way the Fungus God would not only have a reason to go after the succubus, but now it places the Players in his sights for going around spreading the word of the Fungus Queen being responsible for the illness and needing to hunt it down.
The mysterious illness has been wrongly blamed upon the new infestation of fungus/mushrooms that has been creeping slowly throughout the sewers of City X. To begin fighting the illness, the local church of Faith Y has been sending expeditions to erradicate the fungal infestation, thus impacting Cyth-V'sug's plans.
The Funglord is none too pleased with the gains his cult were making being so rudely destroyed, and through the demonic grapevine discovers said succubus operating in his territory or whatever.
Mending is an amazing cantrip. Just pin-cushioned an enemy and need some more arrows? Mending. Your fighter Sundered the crap out of that nice MW Plate armor? Mending.
While we're on the subject of zombies and survival-horror gaming, has anyone dealt with Zombie Hordes as a single unit before? I feel like this would be a real hurdle to keep it from being "Attack -> Miss -> Move -> Provoke -> Miss ad nauseum and taking a huge chunk of time. The mass combat rules in Ultimate Campaign should help, but until then I'm left to think on my own.
MeleeMonster80 had a swarm rule that I thought was pretty good. Look towards the bottom of the page.
The group lost 4 members or 1/3 of the players right off the top. Till this leg of gaming ends and next person steps in to the gm chair (group rotates games and Gms).
Everyone had 2 characters to run first session. The group was really closed minded about things. They took a bit to get use to metal armor makes noise unless modified, there is more to buildings then just a lines on a mat.
But yeah, There were 4-5 different types of zombies,the biggest issues with the game was was time to sleep, one of the zombie types channel a screaming mind blast (will save to avoid it, vs being shaken, nauseous or frozen in terror).
Gm added a critical hit system and more attacks with lighter weapons for melee classes.
I thought it was really cool, but i wasn't there for the for the first session, Only the 3 sessions after it. The 2 sessions, I played in were sweetest game I played in over the last year or so.
It sounds like they ran a Left 4 Dead type game. I like it!
As far as magic goes, I am considering outright banning arcane magic, leaving just Divine and whatever concoctions the Alchemists can come up with. Possibly adding in the Artificer from ToS.
yea let them know thats a low magic but after that dont tell them what you have for the campaign. I do have a question for you do you tell them what your normal campaigns are?
With Pathfinder, it is usually an AP, so they have a Player Guide to go with. Thanks ladies and Gents. I will tell them it is a low magic/gritty game and hope for the best.
I am planning a Walking Dead-esque campaign, very grim survival horror type thing. It will be a lower magic/scarce magical item game with survival checks for food scrounging and all that.
Now my question is, should I tell my players exactly what type of campaign it is? Here is my reasoning behind this question.
If I tell them it is going to be a grimdark survival horror, they are going to optimize their characters accordingly. And to me, the game would lose that hint of desperate struggle that should accompany the Zombie Apocalypse. And to borrow from Monty Python, No one EXPECTS the Spani.... Zombie Apocalypse.
Of course the flip side of the coin is that if I do not tell them, the players would cry foul that I pulled a switcharoo and now their character is totally not set up for this type of campaign. Which is what I am sort of shooting for, because referring to my previous statement, No one expects the Zombie Apocalypse.
Also if keeping with thematic correctness, mountain lions, See Cat, Leopard(http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/cat.html#_cat-leopard)
for a more winter/cold climate animals if you are dead set on a lion.
If your GM allows Eastern Armor you have two sets of "armor" that you can wear. My witch is wearing Haramaki which gives a +1 AC bonus with 0% SF and 0 ACP. There is the Silken Ceremonial armor, which is the exact same stats as the Haramaki, but costs 27gp more. Best bet for making some quick gold at lower levels is the Scribe Scroll feat. A scroll of Mage Armor can net you about 25gp per scroll and you are limited by how many times you can cast the spell per day. not a bad racket for a lvl 2 witch.
i'd say it would depend upon what "flavor" fits the best. a more grassy or savannah type terrain, lions would fit better. Temperate or even colder climes, wolves.
isn't there an AP called council of thieves? I would have to take a look at it but it seems to fit your bill. barring that make up your own adventure/campaign
Have them begin as part of a city's Thieves Guild, since they are young and eager, have them betrayed by the soon-to-be BBG. have them run out of the city by City Watch or angry Guild members.
Then have them set up shop in a separate city, build a new guild to rival that of the old one and then once they were high enough level, have them take back their old city and get some good old fashioned revenge, bloody or cold.
Thanks guys/gals/scholarly neckbeards. I will bring this up to the other player. They are a new player to Pathfinder and might not know about the Hedge Witch. I am really looking forward to the debuffer witch. Any archetype that might be good for that?
About to start a Carrion Crown AP and the group already has a Pally and a fighter. Another player wants to do a Witch healer, while I want to do a debuffer witch. My GM suggested that I play a Cleric or Oracle of Life to be the party healer. My question is could the Witch act act as the primary healer for a group of six or would a secondary heal-bot be suggested?
Siege weapons, catapults, ballistae for the dragons. What sort of tech are we talking here? Hells bells you could have armored zepplins if the you would allow it.
You could just break it down by gold piece equivalent. A short sword is 10gp new, so as salvage give them 6gp worth of usable materials. once they get enough of a "crafting pool" to make an item they want, let them do so.
This is one area where "Wealth By Level" interferes with Role-Playing. I am even more "old fashion" where back in 1st & 2nd Edition AD&D Rogues were actually encouraged to skim in this manner.
Going further:
What is the rogue's alignment?
Does the rogue have an "in character" reason for this behavior? (i.e., Kleptomania, Overwhelming Greed, etc)
And, of course, when the Rogue eventually gets caught, is the Player prepared to suffer the consequences?
Rogue's alignment is NG. As far as in character reason, her character is a former bandit, which is not in-game knowledge yet. That may be an explanation for her behavior.
My group and I have recently started playing an AP, Kingmaker to be specific, and an issue came up with a player regarding the spoils of battle. Now as some background, this is a PbP game.
Here are the specifics;
what happened:
Incident 1: We just finished shwacking Happs and his crew inside Oleg's. While we are securing the two that surrendered, our rogue looted Happs and kept everything shiny (ie gold and his silver staglord medallion). While this just so happened to be their fair division of the loot, everything else we took off the bandits was sold back to Oleg, it was the boldfaced scooping up of the money that irked me. Call me old fashioned, but I am used to a collection then even division of the spoils with exceptions being made for items that a character could really use. Our fighter type was the only one who could use Happs' bow so it was decided, by the group, that he be given the bow.
Incident 2: In our explorations, we discovered the Hidden Cache. In it were several items, among them a MW dagger and a silver ring, about 375gp for the two items, which once again our rogue character scooped up. It was at this point I sent the GM a private message and voiced my disagreement with the rogue's actions.
So my question to you, the faceless and unbiased masses, is should I have handled this situation differently? Should I have PM'd the player instead of the GM? Am I just being a pain in the ass regarding dividing loot?
If your players like to steal so much, then use that as a basis for a campaign/adventure arc. Have word get out that there is a group of amateurs with some skill at lifting things. Have some shady characters approach them on behalf of a benefactor to acquire a certain McGuffin from victim yadayada.
If they succeed then there will be more opportunities, greater infamy in the underworld, ire from an already established Thieves Guild, increased pressure from a crusading investigator from the City Watch, not to mention a list of victims with money to burn looking for vengeance.
Use missions from Skyrim/Oblivion's Thieves Guilds, look up an old but still great game called Thief, watch heist movies ala Heat, The Score, The Italian Job, etc.
For more violent insparations, The Usual Suspects is a good source for a good old fashioned double-cross.
