threemilechild's page

With respect to healing potions, this is a basic disconnect between the game design (each encounter takes its toll on the party) and PC behavior. Any sane, reasonably experienced group of adventurers would heal up as much as they can between encounters. I wish that games would take this into account.

Tightening the resource management issues (especially for non-casting classes who might feel tempted to dump Cha) is going to either push more expectation that PCs who *can* devote class resources/spells to party healing do so, or very strongly encourage playing only classes with built-in healing, depending on the personalities at the table.

Sure... any fighter could take the Cleric feats for a little extra healing... but mostly they're going to ask for healing.

That's not how EXP works in Pathfinder. The people a level ahead will always STAY a level ahead. There isn't anything that allows a lower level character to "catch up".

This is a pretty common misconception. The XP needed for each level increases so drastically that a character who is behind catches up in levels without catching up in XP.

Here's an excerpt of the XP track:
Medium
2000 (2nd)
5000 (3rd)
9000 (4th)

Imagine that the party is 2nd level, at 2200 when Bob dies and is replaced with Bill, who gets set back to 1st with 0xp (the minimum). Bill catches up to 2nd level at +2000xp, before the rest of the party reaches 3rd level (+2800xp.) They may continue to level just before Bill does, but it depends on how big the chunks of XP get; his missing 2200 xp becomes less and less likely to make him fall just out of range as the numbers get bigger and bigger.

The groups I play with usually start the new PC off a level lower (or, if they're using XP, at the minimum for the lowest level in the party). But we've been discussing something else.

As a rule, we feel there needs to be some penalty for a new PC because they're usually significantly more powerful than original party members. One of the main reasons has to do with wealth by level; when you're a PC being leveled, a lot of your wbl is taken up by random things you've found, or DM thought would be cool, or items that were the best things you could afford when you bought them... even in games that have well-stocked MagicMarts on every corner.

...but a high level PC gets exactly what it wants; it can afford the big-ticket items without having to spend no gold for six levels. It can buy custom magic items without having to leave its belt in town for three adventures. It can also skimp on very common items that it knows will turn up immediately.

So we've been discussing having replacement PCs join at the regular party level but with NPC wealth (since they've been NPCs until now). So far it's only been a threat, so we don't know how well it would work in practice.

Given that Paizo first made a widely-hated ruling about free actions, and then nerfed weapon cords in order to deal with the problem of TWF pistoleros (1) when an interpretation of the rules that interleaved primary and off-hand attacks would have sufficed... I really don't think they intend that primary and off-hand attacks to necessarily be interleaved.

(1) They made all their attacks with one hand, reloading with the other, then switched -- it was important that they could do the whole routine with each hand before switching because they recovered the gun as a swift action.

- Becoming Large increases your reach, including with polearms. A wand of Enlarge Person will double your reach.

- Effective use of AOOs is dependent on cooperation from the rest of your party. You can be a size Large polearm fighter who threatens 20', but if the greatsword barbarian in your party always charges the enemies when they're 30' away, it won't do you much good.

-On the other hand, if you get a couple party members interested in taking AOOs when you trip the baddies, you can make a devastating team. I know an orc who trips his victims, kicks them on the way down (Vicious Stomp) for nonlethal damage that intimidates them (Enforcer) provoking another AOO (Hurtful) plus the AOO from Greater Trip. My orc is only too happy to add two more attacks (Vicious Stomp and the regular GT one).

- If you use a reach weapon, you don't need any trip feats to consider substituting a trip on your AOO. If they can't reach you, it doesn't matter if you provoke, so if you think you can beat their CMD, go for it. Even if you don't have Greater Trip to make them provoke, you'll still get an AOO when they stand back up, your friends might too, and it'll be at AC-4 for prone.

Hey OP, I was working on a spreadsheet earlier to calculate (among other things) crit percentages per round for a shadowdancer who passes the crits off to her shadow... anyway, it's not exactly fit for the public but if you come up with a build or two it'd be easy for me to run the numbers for you. (Or if you're comfortable with spreadsheets and use googledocs I'll share it with you.)

Some ideas:
-For the low low price of 1 base attack, two levels of Rogue or Ninja yield 1d6 sneak attack and Pressure Points (1 point of Str or Dex damage on a sneak attack). Since getting crits requires confirming, you'll be built to hit reliably and a lot -- and doing dex damage just makes that easier.

-Remember that in order to get more than one chance to roll 15+, you have to be able to make full attacks. Lunge helps. Pounce helps.

Blasting is lots of fun and if you're used to face-smashing, you'll love it.

I might choose a different bloodline feat besides Still Spell. Unless you want to wear armor, it's a corner case that's unlikely to come up. There's kind of slim pickings there, though.

If you're allowed to take crafting feats, Craft Wondrous Items is the one you should take.

Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus, and Persistent Spell are all things to increase your save DCs. Along with the choice of Dazing Spell (which is extremely powerful, btw), this implies that your "signature spell" might as well have a save.

Fireball (3rd) is an obvious choice -- it's got a decent area of effect, it's pretty low level, and it's really long range. You'd want to pick up Intensified Spell somewhere in there, though, or you'll be capped at 10d6. Also fire is the most commonly resisted element.

If you want to stick with electricity and cold, you can wait for Ball Lightning (4th), Cone of Cold (5th) or Chain Lightning (6th). Ball Lightning does much less damage than the others (and none, rather than half damage on a save), but the penalty on their saves if they're wearing metal armor is pretty nice especially if your motive is to daze them as much as inflict hp damage. Cone of Cold can be hard to place, though it does cover a large area, and caps out at 15d6. Chain Lightning has a lot of the benefit of Fireball -- long range, multi-target, and it does great damage, but it's pretty high spell level so you'll be waiting a long time for your trait to come into play.

@Headfirst The bouncer should get a surprise round in that case. I'd probably give the party members Perception followed by Sense Motive checks, so -maybe- somebody might notice his intention and be able to go before him (and there's magic), but he should be going before most of the party even if he has poor initiative.

To answer the original question, nobody in any other of the games where I play uses the soft cover rules. I guess we feel it's kind of already covered by the penalty for shooting into melee, and it's just easier not to remember and adjudicate what exactly is in the way.

-A Titan Mauler/Shadowdancer might be fun. You'd spring attack out, then scurry-dance back into the shadows. (Since you'll be hiding in plain sight, it won't matter so much that your movement speed is 20, although I'd probably pick up boots of striding & springing when possible.) Seems pretty ratty to me.

I figure you'd probably just use the nicest big-die magic weapon you came across, since you can use small weapons and also light or one-handed medium weapons. (This makes you much less dependent on the DM allowing you to find or commission the weapons you want, normally necessary for small martials.)

I'd probably take six levels of barbarian (for a net penalty of -1 for using oversized weapons) before dipping into shadowdancer (HiPS, Evasion, +30' to your darkvision, and Uncanny Dodge) for two levels. Then you can decide whether you want the third level for a Shadow companion and a rogue talent (I like fast stealth), or back to barbarian. Or even fighter, if you want the feats. (Somehow I usually end up wanting them.)

You won't do TONS of DPR, but you'll be hitting pretty reliably (almost full base attack, small, rage, stealth), you'll be pretty resilient (evasion will help against AoEs, and stealth should help you avoid being specifically targeted), you can sneak anywhere, and you'll have lots of skill points.

Pretty much every character I play buys a mirror. Way, way back in 1E D&D my DM was inexplicably fond of having things drop on us when we walked through doorways in dungeons. (Usually stirges.) They're also good for signalling, confronting basilisks, and making sure your faerie dragon hasn't turned your hair purple overnight.

As far as more modern equipment, a few feather tokens can really come in handy.

I use a templated sheet on google docs (Epizephyrii). It looks pretty much like the standard PF character sheet, and it calculates your stat bonuses and puts them into your skills, AC, CMB/CMD, and whatnot, based on your class levels. It works for up to three classes (two spellcasting classes) and doesn't seem to do prestige classes, but within its limits it's very quick and easy. It's just a spreadsheet, though... so it's not a big deal to modify it.

Plus it's online, which is pretty convenient if you're prone to forgetting things.

I've been using it over several years for multiple characters, only ever found one mistake besides a misspelling of "Appraise". (And I've heard several complaints about Herolab over this time, although presumably those get fixed.)

Not my Wish, but the best one I ever saw in play.

Our low level group of adventurers was investigating the disappearance of Little Johnny Bupkis, in a small farming town. I think we'd discovered his body, but I'm not sure we'd figured out he'd been killed by a yellow musk creeper. The gypsies came through town with their Deck of Many Things, and the paladin got a Wish. No hesitation, no thinking it over, no Holy Avenger, but "I wish LJB were alive and well!"

The DM pulls out a mini of LJB as a musk zombie, all yellow and with vines. "I guess you won't be fighting this, then..." Ten levels later, the paladin took leadership and now LJB is a life oracle after his brush with death and fiendish plant-dom.

You should make your airship intelligent. This has many benefits, including:

-- you can give it the ability to fly without resort to rules-bending overland flight & permanency. (It may not be able to carry anything given that it has no Strength score, but that's a problem with the original spells, too.)
-- you can make it able to walk at 10', which is slow but means it can do fun things on the ground like overrun enemies (depending on its size, this can be incredibly lethal)
-- it gains senses (up to 120' darkvision and blindsense) and can act as lookout
-- it can illuminate its surroundings at will like a magic weapon
-- you can give it the ability to cast up to 4th level spells, or teleport
-- you can make it able to talk, and who doesn't want a ship with a sentient talking figurehead?

I've been wanting to make a magic wagon, but the rules are really terribly unclear.

I preferred my Empowered Energized Twinned Admixtured Split Ray'd Magic Missile converted to Rays off my Force Missile Mage/Spellwarp Sniper, thanks. 108d4+108 dmg to undead, 54d8+54 to everyone else, any element you wanted.

Yes, Arcane Thesis was the best feat for blasters.

==Aelryinth

More effective, yes, but not as fun as getting to say, "searing flaming fiery fireballs." :)

(Plus my DMs would have made me actually roll and sum 108d4. I mean, I probably have 108 d6s, but not d4s.)

Well, actually, it's a magic Varisian wagon for my sorceress to live and travel in.

So, my plan is that my animal companion (Sylvan bloodline) will pull the wagon.

But I've also been researching alternate methods of wagon propulsion. Unfortunately, the only example vehicle with magical propulsion is a Colossal airship with two decks, described as "exotic and expensive." So it's a little difficult to extrapolate based on that, however, if you divide its price by its size, and multiply by the wagon's size, you get something around 8334gp. If, instead, you subtract the cost of a sailing ship (which the airship states it resembles) from the cost of an airship, you get the balloon, chains, and magical propulsion system adding 40,000 gold to the price. Even if you assumed that half of that was the expense of an airtight balloon, I guess it would explain why there are very few magic carriages.

There are no suggestions in the rules, either way, and my DM's not really comfortable with adjudicating house rules yet.

So, here's some other options:

-Enchant it either with a continuous Mount or Phantom Steed. Mount isn't really durable enough for combat, meaning it wouldn't be suitable for overruns; it would die immediately and often, even just by a single attack, and then everyone in the wagon would die, go flying, or both because of the incredible deadliness of the "sudden stop" rules. It is by far the cheapest route both in gold and resources (1000 gold to enchant with Craft Wondrous Items). Phantom Steed is barely more durable and three to eighteen times more expensive.

-The second is to enchant it as an intelligent magic item. The problem here is that there are only two movement modes available; one is "Item can sprout limbs and move with a speed of 10 feet" and the other is "Item can fly, as per the spell, at a speed of 30 feet." I'm trying to be a gypsy fortuneteller type, not Baba Yaga, so the sprouting limbs seems... wrong. The "basic" intelligent flying wagon that could talk would cost 11,000 gp, which seems quite reasonable and fun. (I'd possibly spend a bit more in order to give it 120' senses and darkvision, plus skill ranks in Fly.) The hitch is that Fly limits the target to carrying its "maximum load, plus any armor it wears," and items don't have strength scores. On the other hand, wagons specifically DO have a carrying capacity: "These wagons can carry up to 4,000 pounds of cargo."

Still, I'm afraid this might be a case of words not meaning what they mean outside the game. Although an intelligent wagon that's always flying off without me would be hilarious, I'm not sure I'd really want to spend 5000 gold giving it the ability to cause me hassles.

-The next is that I could dump all my feats into crafting. Along with the planned Wondrous Items and probably Craft Rods, I could take Arms and Armor and... Craft Construct! This is the most expensive both in gold and in opportunity cost. It would cost 12,500gp for the basic Huge Animated Object, of which Wagon is listed as the example. It would be able to trample all on its own, though for much less damage than if it were being driven. It would probably also fly (though badly) and swim, because the only way of using its creation points to make it more durable are to make it out of metal or stone. (There are options for grab, but none for swallow whole, which would have been funny.) It would be mindless and lot less fun to talk to, too, and couldn't really watch out for us the way an intelligent wagon could, having no perception.

I'd also be able to make other constructs. I'm playing a fortune-teller in Kingmaker, and so I could have a bunch of those coin-operated robots in boxes that hand out cards with your fortune, and they'd all look like me. Unfortunately, the "Inhabit Image" spell has only a 50'/level range, but it still seems amusing. Other possibilities are making little metal vipers -- they usually deliver poison, but it specifically says that they can also deliver potions with a bite. Either way, I could make a few for the alchemist in my party, and that might be really fun.

On the other hand, I'd then be a sorceress who had no feats to help her actual spellcasting. (Not that I'll be needed to kill stuff when there's an alchemist around, but...)

One last thing is that while the spell "Animated Objects" requires a nonmagical object to begin with, there's no such stipulation in Craft Construct. If I actually take all the feats, I don't see any rule against animating my intelligent wagon, although of course this would be really expensive. I wouldn't be able to modify its initial enchantments once it become a creature, either, so I'd have to be sure that it was the way I (and it) wanted it to be, first.

Am I missing anything?

If I am a wizard 1/bard 6, can I take Improved Familiar? I have all the prerequisites (ability to acquire a familiar, arcane caster level high enough), but not from the same source.

This is outrageous. Clerics, Druids, Wizards, MOST Sorcerers, Rogues and Valdivian AssGrabbers can all melee burrowing opponents, why can't Fighters? Is there a bulette template?

No, but if you take Skill Focus (gardening), you're qualified to take Monstrous Heritage (Ankheg).

They're clear about the Black Blade being an intelligent item, and intelligent items are meant to be treated as NPCs. Intelligent items can only use skills based on mental stats unless they can move -- as people have said.

To go down the list:
Appraise, Bluff, Craft, Diplomacy, Disguise, Heal, Intimidate, Perception, Perform, Sense Motive, Survival

...are the mental stat based skills that can be used untrained.

Appraise, Bluff, Diplomacy, Perception, and Sense Motive are all obvious, assuming that the Black Blade has the ability to communicate. Perform seems reasonable for Singing, Comedy, and the like, not so much with Dancing. (There's an Arcana for that, isn't there?) Survival checks to keep from being lost make sense. Lastly, I think that even Craft or Disguise checks could be made to Aid Another -- it's perfectly reasonable that the sword could supervise work or point out where a pointy ear is showing through a wig.

If the spell's statblock has a Target, you cannot use it on a swarm. If it creates an Effect, you can.

Could you post a link to where Mr. Jacobs states this? It seems to directly contradict the PRD:

A swarm is immune to any spell or effect that targets a specific number of creatures (including single-target spells such as disintegrate)

Effect: ray

-

One other thing, my groups typically play that elemental damage on a weapon (such as flaming) does go through. Apparently, this may be only a holdover from 3.5, however, although James Jacobs says he thinks it's fun. This is a good rule because swarm HP pretty quickly outstrip the point where doing 1 point of damage with a torch is significant, or even 1d6/round with alchemical items [1], so unless your fighter is carrying a necklace of fireball, he's going to be pretty bored until your blaster(s) either kill the swarm or run out of AoEs.

[1] Assuming you have enough and they're not on the party treasure sheet carried by a player who isn't there that day. Also, I recommend you favor acid because it won't set things on fire that you don't want to be on fire.

But it would be nice to see if ANYTHING multiclasses well with magus and if broad study is of ANY use, which honestly so far I think it is not.

A whip-using trip-specialist Magus has some nice synergy with Cavalier. I envisioned it more of as a spellcasting Cavalier than a pure Magus and [url=http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG/advice/whipAsMainWeapon&page=1#16]I went on at great length in another thread[/a], the general gist being that a Magus can use Spellstrike to add damage to trip, or can net a +18 in one round with a Spell Combat Truestrike, so he's a decent alternative for tripping, and riding around on a horse is a good deal if you're a Hexcrafter Magus who wants to Cackle, and a lance is a one handed weapon while you're mounted. You could probably pull the whip and trip out and just do damage.

By the way, he's pretty good at making a big cool story to play in, but he's not so good at having all the rules down and actually running sessions.

I think he should pass the actual DMing of his campaign to another person. If he gives one person the details of the world/story and the rest of the players an outline, you'll be able to get through it quicker and more easily. (The players won't have to sit there asking "Can I X? Can I Y? Can I Z if I P first?" and he won't have to get frustrated and play video games.)

This will also relieve some of the work from the guy (and having cancer is a lot of work in itself), ensure that you can finish the story even if he can't finish it with you (I suspect he'd like knowing that you will finish it or are finishing it) in addition to making it more pleasant a game for the players and more efficient time-wise (longer sessions for player A and more quickly over for everybody who'd rather be playing Kingmaker).