sir_shajir's page

Remove the druid from the build, and just go with a life witch. You get arcane casting and all the some healing stuff.
pure witch all the way...

You'll keep up with the party etc.

You can try leadership with GM approval.

Would a vivisectionist alchemist qualify for this if He bought or crafted a hand of the mage item? I can see an vivisectionist alchemist at 4 th or 5th level having all the requirements and entering this presitage class unless extracts do not count as spells.

I am playing in a carrion crown campaign as an inquisitor, I would also recommend playing an archer.

I would say

str 15
dex 16 +2
con 14
int 12
wis 14
cha 7

for stats, and I would also recommend the conversion domain or good domain (desna), knowledge domain for pharasma is good aswell.

What is up with all that intelligence, my monks are generally happily ignorant and abnoxious with 7 intelligence and 7 charisma (5 if your a dwarf, and 3 if you are a duergar). U only really need 2 skills, maybe 3, like sense motive, perception, maybe 1 rank in swim and climb

What is up with all these people talking about amulet of mighty fists? That item is so garbage, real monks use +5 Brass Knuckles they want unarmed damage, or +5 Temple Sword if they want more power attack damage. Amulet is way over priced, that Item is sooo only core book only.

For 50,303 gold, all your unarmed attacks get +5 to hit and damage, and it gets around almost all damage reduction.

Not everyone is an experienced player aswell. And starting an adventure path at level 1 is great for new players aswell. My sister never played dnd, and she felt comfortable starting at level one when I ran Kingmaker. It's an easier progression for newer players then starting at level 2-20.

Funny thing is that when I play a wizard (my fav class actually, second is monk). That I also understand that it is a teamwork game, and I'll cast things like haste and black tentacles or stinking cloud etc. After I cast these spells, I may do the odd thing here or there or cast another debuff/control/buff spell, but I understand that is a teamwork game and thus I still relie on those "useless" melee class guys to finish and mob up the enemies.
As a wizard, I don't have the ability to just cast spells all day long, and the DM's that I play with do not do one encounter per day, they can do up 6-8 encounters per day. There are times when I need to relie on the fighter or barbarian to make sure that they do their role and kill things. God forbid if I prep my spell list wrong and we get jumped. Sometimes I am in a city and expect to not do too much combat and I get surprised by the DM.
Many times I've had to run around invisible (vanish) to go and cast displacement on the tank or main striker to make sure that they didn't die. Another example is when I cast greater invisibility on the rogue and he goes to town by massacring people, so please don't use the arguement that it only comes up when melee classes.

I just make sure that I don't get this sense of entitlement or that I am special because I am playing a caster and someone else isn't. There are games when I make the monk incredible disgusting at killings things by casting haste and singining inspire courage with my bard. I don't go around telling people that they are playing the game wrong because they aren't playing what I want them to play, I just work to thier strenghts and they work with mine while we cover each other's weaknesses.

I like having a monk in a party because they can hunt down casters and any buffs are really good on them because they throw so many attacks. And I don't have to worry about him getting mind controlled and turning on us. He is reliable at not getting hurt and there are very little weaknesses to the class.

You guys know that a monk is actually pretty hard to grapple as they add thier monk ac, strenght, dex and 3/4 bab +10 + and dodge effects to thier cmd. Monk's are one of the hardest classes to grapple.
Even if you do grapple the monk, good luck trying to maintain said grapple on the monk. So what, I can still flurry of blows my opponent as a monk when they are grappling me. So all you have accomplished with your grapple is lower my ac and make sure that you can't get away from me while I flurry of blows you.

How is that magus' reflex save and evasion working btw? Oh yeah he doesn't have it.

At GatfromKi.

If I grappled you once as a monk and you demension door, what prevents me from doing it again, unless you are running away (cause the magus is better then the monk... :p)

And that random stick that you grab that becomes a +3 weapon, you do realize that optimized monks run around with brass knuckles which also will get around damage reduction. Sure it costs money, but they are able to get around dr with weapons at the same rate everyone else a fighter or barbarian is.

Btw the monks I play are ussually tanks, strikers and support characters all rolled into one because of thier versatility, mobility strenght and defensive abilities. And they good perception, stealth (cause everyone has see invisibility as the game drags on) and sense motive (a lil bit of role playing never hurt anyone). When I play a monk, I plan to disarm or trip any fighters, grapple/stunning fist enemy caster. Sure I can't do everything myself, and sometimes i'll need help from the wizard, but thats what he is there for to support me while I protect him. What does the magus do when my wizard buddy casts fly on me so I can hunt you down, or I use my boots of fly to hunt you down? You move 60, I move 60+my enhancement bonus. Because believe it or not, pathfinder is a teamwork game and you have to depend on your teammates to win.

sir_shajir wrote:

BTW- It pretty much has a full BAB, with two weapon fighting for free, doesn't suffer the +1 damage/-1 to hit in his off hand for power attack, gets double slice for free, gets improved and greater two weapon fighting for free. If you want to grapple or trip or disarm, you do not need 13 intelligence to do this, which is huge.

An interesting take on it. Even more itneresting is putting it that way even archetypes that give up their flurry of blows can still get it back by taking TWF and Double slice. So they only truly give up the full bab.

Problem with that is that you need 15 dex for the basic two weapon fighting. Remember, they get improved at level 8 and greater at level 15. And now you have to qualify for the dex requirements, and if you read power attack, your off hand attack doesn't get +2/-1 normal rate, it gets +1/-1 instead and there is no feat to fix that, as double slice deals with the damage from strenght. And they don't flurry and would still use thier 3/4 bab.

The math for flurry is as such
- Level -2 BAB, add a secondary primary attack.
At level 8, add a second secondary attack.
At level 15, add a second tertiary attack.

Adding haste and medusa's wrath and ki pool you are able to throw out like 8 attacks if you hit stunning fist by level 10 which is mid level. 6 of those are at your highest to hit.

This is what it comes down to with the monk.

It is a decent class that hits hard, has good saves all around, and moves fast. It is also capable of some nifty tricks that allow it to move around. It has defense against

BTW- It pretty much has a full BAB, with two weapon fighting for free, doesn't suffer the +1 damage/-1 to hit in his off hand for power attack, gets double slice for free, gets improved and greater two weapon fighting for free. If you want to grapple or trip or disarm, you do not need 13 intelligence to do this, which is huge.

It also has a very good touch ac and flat footed AC. Ki pool (really good), Evasion (great), Still mind (great), + a bunch of other stuff which is ok and will come up once in a while.

What does your fighter/barbarian have for defense? Oh yeah close to nothing but good AC, which I can match or surpass with ki pool a couple of times per day. How was that touch ac, how is that will save? How is your reflex save, do you have evasion? How is your perception check, your sense motive or stealth? Swim and climb any good in your armor?

I don't know what games you guys play, but in the game pathfinder, I've used the monk as a Boss and almost TPK'd a party with said monk. I've used Vampire monks where as I flurry, they have to save vs stun fist, get tripped and still make a save vs level loss, or worse have their weapons stolen. While the wizard is having a problem casting offensive spells on said monk, the two mellee guys are having problems hitting him, and the ranger is lying on the floor cause he got grappled and his blood sucked nearly dry.

If you know how to build a monk, they are devastating and fall behind fighters and barbarians by very little in to hit and that is because the barbarian has rage, the fighter has weapon training. You have stunning fist which is still useful.

There are ways to get around the initial crappy ac of the monk with spells like mage armor, and scrolls that you give to your arcane buddies.
For the people who use amulet of mighty fist to boost thier monk's to hit, you should brass knuckles as they work perfectly with the monk. With this you can keep pace with the rest of the melee guys for the same cost while keeping your monk unarmed damage. BTW you can still use amulet of mighty fists after you are done with your +5 Brass Knuckles.

I use sniper and scout archetypes together to make sure that my ranged rogue can sneak attack at a distance.

At level 8, you only need to move ten feet and then you are golden for sneak attacks.

I tend to play something different everytime I play, so far I've played wizard, fighter, monk, cleric, inquisitor, ranger and I had fun playing all of them.

I favourite one that I pulled off in a game was a black tentacles on a wizard and a bard, followed by a quickened stinking cloud to remove any of thier actions that they may have. They were stuck there taking damage from the tentacles while i softened them up with some fireballs.

my group has been playing for 8-9 months now, and we are on the last book of kingmaker, we should be done in 3 weeks

or you guys could play the ranger - guide variant that just pretty much smites anything he wants to :)

I do not see a problem with this.

Again, this should be done during downtime.

School enchantment (compulsion) [mind-affecting]; Level bard 5
Casting Time 1 immediate action
Components V, S
Range medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Target one living creature
Duration 1 round
Saving Throw Will negates; Spell Resistance yes
Cast this spell when an enemy is about to make an attack
against an ally. The creature makes the attack against a
valid target of your choice instead or the attack is negated.
In addition, the target is considered an ally for determining
flanking for 1 round.

Some questions about this spell.
1) can this be used on a caster casting a spell like scorching ray, ray of frost, or any spell based attack.

2) during a full round attack, what happens to the consecutive attacks. Ex. tiger full round attacks (2 attacks) fighter, bard casts foe to freind on the tiger's first attack, tiger fails will save, what happens to the tiger's 2nd attack.

sir_shajir wrote:

Do vampires get thier fortitude save modifier from charisma instead as that stat is keyed into thier health/level?

Yes, CHA in lieu of CON for undead.

Ok, thanks, I figured a monk vampire with good grapple for biting, and solid unarmed strikes that have a chance of energy drain would be an interesting challenge for the party.

I am trying to make a vampire monk (I am the GM) for my next session but I was trying to figure something out. Vampires do not have a constitution score, so how does the sorceror vampire in the bestiary have such a high fortitude save? Do vampires get thier fortitude save modifier from charisma instead as that stat is keyed into thier health/level?

Happler wrote:

I guess you could find a way to do ability damage to one of their mental stats of greater then the stat to start. Then they would naturally heal 1 point per day and stay unconscious till the damage is less then their stat.

So, if a peasant has a WIS of 10, doing 14 points of WIS damage would keep then unconscious for 4 days with out any other form of healing (as they healed 1 point per day).

Not sure what you could do this with right now though..

Thank you everyone for all the ideas. I like this one the best, and if it is ability drain, they will never get up unless someone heals them, so that would have worked best, but I decided to scrap the idea.

I am actually the GM in this game and had some vampires who receive a shipment of people to feed on every once in a while. The players' goal was to capture the head vampire (he betrayed their army in an earlier war), but no one knew he had been turned into a vampire, so they were looking for a human. Anyway, my initial plan was to have the vampires place their victims in the bedrooms and feed on one person each night. The easiest way to keep the victims in the bedrooms seemed to have them be unconscious, which also could have created confusion for the players when they broke into the mansion and found humans seemingly asleep (the vamps' coffins were in a sub-basement below the mansion). Anyway, this is how the vampires would have normally acted, but long story short, they now had reason to create more spawn to help protect their mansion, so I decided that the vampires drained all their victims - before the players arrived - in an effort to grow their numbers before they were attacked.

You are the dm, jast make something up like a special vampire poison. Story before mechanics is what I always say.

Happler wrote:

I guess you could find a way to do ability damage to one of their mental stats of greater then the stat to start. Then they would naturally heal 1 point per day and stay unconscious till the damage is less then their stat.

So, if a peasant has a WIS of 10, doing 14 points of WIS damage would keep then unconscious for 4 days with out any other form of healing (as they healed 1 point per day).

Not sure what you could do this with right now though..

Thank you everyone for all the ideas. I like this one the best, and if it is ability drain, they will never get up unless someone heals them, so that would have worked best, but I decided to scrap the idea.

I am actually the GM in this game and had some vampires who receive a shipment of people to feed on every once in a while. The players' goal was to capture the head vampire (he betrayed their army in an earlier war), but no one knew he had been turned into a vampire, so they were looking for a human. Anyway, my initial plan was to have the vampires place their victims in the bedrooms and feed on one person each night. The easiest way to keep the victims in the bedrooms seemed to have them be unconscious, which also could have created confusion for the players when they broke into the mansion and found humans seemingly asleep (the vamps' coffins were in a sub-basement below the mansion). Anyway, this is how the vampires would have normally acted, but long story short, they now had reason to create more spawn to help protect their mansion, so I decided that the vampires drained all their victims - before the players arrived - in an effort to grow their numbers before they were attacked.

You are the dm, jast make something up like a special vampire poison. Story before mechanics is what I always say.

I'm playing an archer fighter myself, so I've analyzed pretty much every every feat related to ranged weapons, and as other posters above have noted, it's a perfectly LEGAL combination. You couldn't combine them with 'Focused Shot', for example, or any other feats that function as standard or full-attack actions.

Archers can be quite deadly in PF RPG; Deadly Shot, Manyshot, Point-Blank Shot, Rapid Shot... you can *easily* rack up +12 (or more) on damage rolls by 6th level. Not to mention that a 6th level fighter can fire *four* arrows per round! It's madness.. but totally legal as per RAW.

Technically it's 5 arrows when that arcane caster casts haste on you. :) By 6th level a party should have access to haste, unless ur reling on a bard, then it's 7th.

I would drop your intelligence in favour of con. Going to 7 intelligence gives 3 more points to work with, and thats thirteen con, 14 at level 4.

In most games that I play in, the player gets two traits, they have to be different styles, so no 2 combat trait. In the adventure paths, u generally get 1 trait from the adventure path, and one trait from the APG or trait guide (they are the same thing).

There is one thing I noticed while reading these 400+ posts. There is an assumption that every rogue has to be twf to be effective. In the Game that I DM, I had rogue (based on the character Link from Hyrule) that pretty much ran at people with a two-handed great sword. The player had good damage, and could keep up with the rest of the party. She treated sneak attack dice as a bonus when she could, but did not rely purely on the sneak attack damage. Now she did use a lot of APG stuff, so I'm not sure if that negates my argument. If I remember correctly, she had the scout variant and the sniper variant.

The pathfinder dm's guide provides a lot of npc's to use. Great tool

Aslong as the horses aren't attacking, thats fine. When they attack or cause a threat, thats a different ball game and you should include thier exp.

But keep saying the fighter can't do "all the cool things" that a monk can, but...well, what cool things?

Combat maneuvers? With the fighter's feats, the fact that he can safetly drop wisdom and dexterity to get that 13 in intelligence, and how he can focus entirely on strength, no, he's better then the monk. He can even grab a guisarme or other tripping at reach weapon to help.

Skills? Which? Certainly the fighter as fewer skills then the monk, but what monk skills are the drastically important ones that the fighter misses out on? Climb? Nobody ever uses climb. Swim? Water breathing is hilariously easy to get, and besides that, even with zero ranks in swim, a fighter can swiftly make the take ten for it due to lowered ACP and high strength. Stealth? Congrats, you're a rogue that can't find traps, I'm sure the party will find you useful.

Movement speed? I've honestly yet to see that come up in a game. By the time the monk is moving significantly fast enough, fights require flight, which more or less destroy his fast movement.

His "awesome abilities?" Which ones? Which ones that matter? here we hit the "Flurry of Misses" again, a long list of abilities that don't actually do much. The fighter takes a bit more damage when he falls, ok, but that's not really that meaningful, especially when the fighter has more HP to soak it. He isn't immune to disease, except monks get that at about the same level clerics can remove disease, so that's not that big of a worry. Wholeness of body isn't even worth using. Diamond body? At level 11 fighters are already immune to most poisons due to their giganto fort saves - and even if they are hit with it, by level 11, poison ain't no thang at all.

That's why the monk is a Flurry of Misses. He has all these different abilities, and none of them are really all that useful.

This argument is not directed at you, it's just that you cover most of the points being thrown at monks. So no disrepect.

When you get to higher level play, you have to deal with enchantment spells which the fighter is generally not well equipped to deal with. What happens when I (the DM) try the following? I dominate person you with optomized vampire sorcerors every round until fail your will save, (and you will unless you have mystical dice). After your dominated, have fun cleaving/vital striking/Full round attacking your freinds the wizard and the cleric while my sorceror kills the rest of your party. A failed will save can TPK the party, especially on a fighter.

OK, your a fighter vs my monk? What happens when I disarm you, take your weapon and continue to kick the crap out of with flurry of blows because I invested in a strong strenght modifer, my knuckles ensure that I am a little underneath you for damage/to hit, while my ac is near the 40's at level 12 because of my monk's robe and my ki point. And forget about touching my cmd, because unlike you, I add 3 stats to that+3/4 BAB to add to that which is greater then your 2 stats and full BAB.

I don't know how you guys play, but the monks that I play with are the most durable and ussually the most reliable members of the party. If I feel like an ass, and I want to TPK a party, I will use a monk with PC gold (cr=to level) that is roughly 2-3 levels higher then the party's APL (a tough challenge), and go to town on them.

Between evasion + reflex save, strong will saves, decent fortitude save, high ac, and a high touch ac, the highest cmd in the game, it is nearly impossible to take down a well built monk. SO what if they don't fly, drink a potion of fly, you have problems with dr? USE POWER ATTACK. If your to hit sucks, then have good strenght, spend your money wisely on things like brass knuckles and strenght belts. At higher levels, they get SR as an added layer of defense. This is a team game, so purchase a wand of mage armor, or get a pearl of power for your wizard/sorceror/witch/alcamist freind to cast mage armor on you. At later levels, you can get a ring of spell storing, and get shield cast on it, so that in a pinch your ac is that much higher.

Monk's are not easy to play, you have to be smart, and you have to be frugal. Honestly, this hate for monks from people who don't know how to play monks is really annoying.

BTW, due to the monk's high defensive nature, they are able to set off traps and not have to worry about it that much. THey have good reflex, good fort, godly will (only druids and some clerics have higher will saves). So all that talk about monk's being mobile and sneaky, but useless due to lack of disable device is kind of bunch because they can just set off the trap and most of the time not worry about the trap due to thier defenses.

With regards to skills, ok you can spend money on swimming stuff, and you can spend money stuff that will help you climb (or just fly). What about sense motive when people are lying to you? What about perception, the MOST SINGLE IMPORTANT SKILL IN THE GAME!

monks on average should be 3-4 to hit under a fighter/barbarian, but you have to account for the sheer number of attacks that are bieng used+TWF aka flurry of blows.

Brass knuckles is a monk weapon that scales with the monk's unarmed damage and costs the same as any other weapon to enhance. So instead for paying 5000 for +1, 20000 for +2 and so on, you are paying 2000 for +1, 8000 for +2 and 18000 for +3 just like any other class, and this works for all of your flurry attacks. It becomes way for feasable for a monk to catch up to a fighter with damage when he can match the fighter for wealth in the offense department.

Is he going to be a good as a fighter, no. Will he suck at dpr if he is flurring and has decent strenght+brass knuckles ( like a fighter with high strenght and a weapon with enchantment) so it's almost comparable, no... he'll be ok at dpr now.

Hey I was just thinking if it is better to run around two handing a temple sword (1d8, 19-20 crit) then it is to just use fists?

For instance by two handing a temple sword you would get more damage from stenght and power attack and less variable damage due to dice. I figured by level 20 (15 with monk's robes) you might aswell go for the 2 d10's worth of damage but what about before hand? But at what level is it not worth using a weapon anymore?

I am also a fan of jedi's and I figured a Ghost Hungry Monk running around with a temple sword tripping and kicking people is the best the closest you'll get. (Maybe Eldritch knight with telekinesis and lightning bolt, but thats a different thread).

Looks like he isn't really built well, I would have personally gone for a more ranged kind of character with stuff like point blank and precise shot (works with the blasting spells aswell).

If you want, you can run the game in a way that only certain things are available in a shop. Another tactic I used is that the shop keeper wasn't interested in the item that the pc's wanted to sell cause he didn't think anyone else would come along and buy it, it was an obscure role playing item not neccessarily a powergame item.

I noticed discussion about grapping a wizard at level 13, and how they had 30 intelligence at that level.

How does a wizard get 30 intelligence at level 13?

I am currently playing a level 13 wizard, and have 29 intelligence and am wondering if I missed something.

Starting 20 intelligence, + 3 permananent stas for levels (4,8,12)
+6 stat item = 29 intelligence at level 13. Did I miss something?

Evil Genius Prime wrote:

If so, how did that go for you and your players?

What point buy amount did you use?

I ran a 36 point buy game and MOST of the Players got the point.

Beware of the Power Gamers who will stat dump to optimize.

As an example (and I really don't know why I said okay) the problem
character was a monk Str 22 Dex 18 Con 16 Wis 18 Int 8 Cha 7, and I let him buy monks Robes. Again I really don't know what I was thinking.

I'm sorry Cos :(

I on the otherhand as a GM keep on moving down the point buy... the players I play with now are all power gamers, and 15-20 point buy is where the game should be for expereinced players.

A character that I built for fun was a arcane trickster, at higher levels I would cast greater invisibility on myself and do full round actions with sneak attack dice that would apply. It wasn't optimized or anything, but the character was versatile and fun to play with, as it was super stealthy and would be able to do many things that an average wizard or rogue would do.

there are tons of ways within the game to foil casters, the simplest way to jump the party before the casters have thier spells prepared, or you push the pace of the day to something like 5-6 fairly difficult encounters and make the casters run out of spells, if they cast something that lasts minutes/rounds per use, then wait till it runs out and then attack the casters again.

loaba wrote:

Kingmaker suggests going Slow so that's what we're doing.

Where?

All adventure paths are done under medium if I am correct. I am currently dming kingmaker under medium and the party seems on track.

In kingmaker they have a scenario where the Pc's are in a low ceiling area, the rules were fairly simple; The creatures recieved -2 to AC and -2 to hit.

AP are meantto be played a medium rate of exp.

"MY GOD! I HAVE CREATED A MONSTER!"

The best damage dealer in the game is either the ranged ranger, ranged fighter or ranged inquisitor.

Ranged Combat is the way to deal the most in pathfinder, and you do far more damage then a melee combat.
I would say try the inquisitor or ranger as they give you some utility spells and your saves should be better then a fighter's.

I don't scream at players, and they don't scream at me. I would tell him not to bother coming back.

Without the caster level being a firm requirement - which has yet to be solidly addressed - you will see gear via item crafting go through the roof.

One of the best solutions I've come up with is to scale the foes according to what the characters do. If they "go stupid awesome", layer on multiple advanced simple templates (from the PF Bestiary) until things are about where they should be. If they pull the "multiple noble djinni planar allies to grant me 30 wishes for my ability scores" thing - the BBEGs get it too. The GM should have a good gauge of what AC, save bonuses and attack bonuses the characters have - and layer/adjust accordingly. Just don't engage in a "gear escalation" - it will exacerbate the situation, not improve it.

If the players I played with started doing anything remotely like that, I show them the door and tell em go to play WOW.

The first book of kingmaker should have some magic items, a couple of +1 weapons, there is even a fae bane weapon in the first book. The boss also gives you a significant amount of magic items. I do have to say, that game does encourage high perception in order to find your magic items and what not.

Suggestion #2.

Be a good DM and guide your player. Next time you're in-session and she insists that her character refuses violence and wants to stay in town to bake, explain.

"D&D is a role-playing game where the choices the player makes for their character has real mechanical impact on that character. As a DM, if one of you players said 'Durfoff the Wise' jumps off the cliff, it'd be my job to inform you that if Durfoff does that, he's going to fall four hundred feet and die. In your case, <name> I need to tell you that your choices will result in your character leveling up VERY slowly, acquiring basically zero treasure, and not being involved in any of the plot of the adventure that takes place. Would you - like Durfoff's player - like to reconsider your choices?"

Just put it plain and simple.

If she opts for being stubborn, again be a good DM. "Your character stays in town and bakes. Give me a Profession(baker) roll. Oh, good. You earn four silver for the next week and your cost of living is three silver. Now, the rest of you..."

Then don't tolerate game distractions. You wouldn't accept it from participants. Just be a good DM and explain again, "I'm sorry <name> but I need <other name> to be able to think about his choices. Your story about <boring> is interesting, but you'll need to tell it another day, when we're not playing our game."

Look, maybe the girl is a pacifist vegan religious radical. Let her be. But when the group decides to go to the Kill 'Em An' Eat 'Em All-You-Can-Eat Pagan Steakhouse, she has to either club herself a cow, smear herself in its blood and chow down... or stay the <expletive> home.

This is the best suggestion, let the player bury themselves, thats what I would do.

Unfortunately, the best way to counter a spell is to ready a magic missle or fireball and make em fail thier concentration check.

Do we get to vote now? I vote that this thread is done.

Yeah this tread is done.

/end thread???

Cool. My game was (and still is) kinda artificial, since one of the players "designed his character for being the ruler", and there was hardly any real debate to it. Wish the council roles were written more into the individual APs though. My players are kinda annoyed that it hardly matter what office they have, beyond pure RP. No rules for spying as the spymaster, modifying city stats with the warden, affecting the establishment of an army for the general etc.

Paladins being stronger? Hmm, I agree on some points. He is a good amalgam between solid magical defense and general combat ability, but not the best at any of the things he does (except getting through obscure DR, which is pretty great). He makes for a good "hero" though, I will give him...

I did some RPing where the king with the assistance of the council, had to determine had to officiate some claims/dispute kind of like King Solomon. If you ever played Dragon Age: Awakening you could take some ideas from that.

The other thing is that the spymaster sometimes goes out to spy on the citizens or goes investigates certain events in Book 2 and does some intel on the loud guy and on the girls to figure out stuff about them.

I do understand what you mean though, but if they put in those rules into the books, it would mean that they would have to remove stuff to make space or charge us more for the content, like that story at the end of the book (the prodical son) is really good. There's also the various history lessons and blurbs on various deities which are fantastic reads.

I am the primary offending party, and from what I saw at the time: A Gm making a paladin _FALL_ (which was the original issue) in an AP I have played, on a check I know to be next to impossible....

The Paladin is not the ruler, the party had a vote, and everyone vote for the Bard, as they felt the paladin would be too strict and impose his very strict LG views on the party. The bard on the other hand is CG and they felt that was more suited to the kind of Kingdom they would like to build. The composition of the party was mostly C and good with two CG members (a cleric of Cayden Cailen, and a bard) a druid (CN) and Paladin and LG Cavalier (he didn't want his brother the paladin to be incharge of him, so he voted for the bard out of spite).

I am of the belief that paladins are one of the "stronger" classes in the game, but it comes at a steep price of being honor bound and the paladin code, hence why I would not play a paladin myself.

I've seen really bad RP'er make horrible choices with paladin's and DM's taking thier powers away, it generally makes for bitter players, players leaving tables, or the best one i've seen is a player straight up changing thier character.