tsuruki's page

Damn, a step backwards in my opinion.

There are still many way's to fight that are not covered by the rules and there are so many rules that have been a little broken since the Core rulebook was released. The only characters that fight with one handed weapons, for example, are the ones who can cheeze them with some kind of special attack (magus, Swashbucklers). I'dd love to see some oe-handed fighting feats. Also, Two-weapon-fightting still needs help.

Isnt it time for an updated core rulebook?

Im not saying pathfinder 2, nor am I saying Core-rulebook 2. Im saying a new Core rulebook for this very same system, with some new generalized feats and some class updates.

It seems we've reached the point of exhaustion for new crunch, therefor the pathfinder crunch book line is delving deeper and deeper into Pathfinder's campaign setting, which is a big turnoff for me.

Generally i don't think a Rouge captain will do well beyond sailing waters near settlements where he can quickly slip on and off dry land.

Sea monsters are a huge pain for anyone who does'nt have a swim speed or easy access to aquatic abilities, especially if you're a character who needs other characters to dive in with him. You need to adopt a passive, patient role in monster and ship-ship battles.
One of the big misconceptions about sneak attack characters is that they HAVE to be in the melee like everyone else. If you dont see the chance to shine, dont, stay hidden. Let the other peeps do the hard work. Then when the moment arrives you go and obliterate the fight on your own.
Until that moment arrives you should stay on the ship giving commands, messing with the steering wheel or climbing into the best position to strike or counterstrike from. That might mean climbing up the mast to drop down on the enemy later, or behind some obstruction.

If you absolutely must have a ranged weapon, try hiding somewhere high up and sniping, the -20 penalty might seem debilitating but remember that if you're using a crossbow that means you can spend every other round hiding from sight and the others firing. Keep moving along the obstructions and you'll get sneak attack benefits every round. Ship combat is actually the perfect place for a short ranged sneak attacking combatant.

I wouldn't like a new edition.

I would ADORE a cleaned up edition. Kinda like Unchained.
A "Core rulebook MK II" that buffs and debuffs feats, spells, classess and other stuff. Core rules that make two weapon fighting more viable, double weapons marginally useful, new methods to move and full attack (im the the small group that full attacking and multiple attacks are fine, but that we need more ways to close distance without costing an important action).
A new feat line that makes fighting one handed less bad. An offensive-Defensive re-balance, damage can get a little too high sometimes and non-AC stats are a little to hard to acquire.
More ways to implement and use stamina pool. Non-multiclass methods for non-casters to gain limited spellcasting.

Yeah, I would love those.

Cleave is an auto for most martials in my opinion.

At any level the ability to close and make two attacks against groups of enemies is essential.

It gets worse though if your GM has some kind of "All mobs have avoiding cleaver opportunities hardwired into their brain" disease.

Damn, i'm all for a dragon hardcover :P

Darkvision on PC's isnt common enough for this to be your fault. The players just gotta man up, spam some torches or find another way in.

My players are generally content with the changes I've made to reduce the gap between casters and martials.

Unchained rouge and Monk. That fixed a bunch all on its own.
Increased skillpoints. The only remaining classes in my story that have 2sp per level are the full arcane casters. Everyone else who had 2sp/level now has 4.
Greatly boosted TWF rules.
Fighter upgrades, including replacements for Bravery, the full Weapon focus and Weapon Specialization feat lineup has been enhanced.
Stamina pool.
Many feats (not just martial but Metamagic feats as well) have been buffed or modified. Also a bunch of new addition that skyrocket martial defensive stats (ac, touch ac, hitpoints and hitpoint recovery). Feats that make maneuvers more fluid. Limited forms of fast healing and ways to block or negate damage and debilitating effects. These are also attacks against the 15minute adventuring day in feat form.

Proper adventure structure also helps.

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This Does´nt remove gap altogether, the gap is mostly caused by spells that allow a caster to change the game (big controls, powerful utility spells). So long as a caster can trivialize an encounter with one spell the martial-caster disparity will never be fixed. The question is, do we actually need it as much as we claim we want it?

Step 1:
Ignore the monster statblock. if you want to play as a Dullahan you still have to adhere to the rules and systems players make and play their characters by, Headless horsemen can have all sorts of fighting styles depending on your vision of them.
Ive seen a headless horseman that held back and threw flaming skulls at people (could be any caster or even a kineticist).
Ive seen a headless horseman that fought nobly (Paladin, cavalier, whatever).
I´ve seen headless horsemen that revelled in causing fear and confusion (Again, caster).
The coolest dullahan I ever saw wielded a black scythe made of shadows and rode a motorcycle.

Once you've decided exactly what kind of headless horseman you want to play start figuring out what makes a headless horseman interesting to you.
Do you want to fool around with the detatched head, perhaps even leaving it lying around?
Do you want to have some magical mount unique to yourself?
Do you want to be undead or fey?

If I were the GM I would suggest you play it as a homebrew race with the following abilities:
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Fey Humanoid.

Abilities: Str +2, Con -2, Wis +2.

Low light vision.

Eerie: You take a -2 penalty on diplomacy and bluff checks, the penalty is trippled while your head is unattached.

Detached head: Your head can be detached from your neck, detaching the head is an immediate action but reattaching it is a standard action. Your ability to sense your surroundings is unchanged when your head is unattached, however you are able to sense your surroundings from both your head and your main body simultaniously, whilst unattached you can speak from your body with a whispy magical voice, or your heads mouth, or both simultaniously. If you are ever further from your head than 1000 feet or on a different plane of existence the head closes its eyes and mouth and falls asleep, severing the sense link between head and body.
Your severed head has all of your applicable defenses and resistances, your head has 1/4th of your hitpoint total, damage dealt to the head while detached is dealt to the body as well (Damage dealt to Head and body simultaniously (Such as area spells) is not transfered in this manner).
If your head is destroyed it reappears in your arms one week later, If your head remains unattached for one week it instantly reappears in your arms.

Cleave free: When you suffer a critical hit there is a 10% chance that your head is immediately detached from your body, when this happens the damage of that critical hit is reduced by half.

At-will Spell like ability: Mount.

Spectral horse: The mount conjured by your spell like ability is bound to your soul, the mount is immaterial and cannot be ridden by anyone but you nor can it affect or manipulate its surroundings. Your mount lasts as long as you remain awake, if the mount passes out of your field of view it winks out of existence. At 5th character level your mount can support up to one additional passenger while you ride it, if you permit.

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Thats a wall of text, but it should work for nearly any class you want to play it as.

A move action is roughly 2-3 seconds, dashing 30ft in that time is easy peasy. Certainly fast enough to intercept a spell being cast that takes 3-4 seconds to complete.

The first is what has been explained to me as a Razor disc for the Sorcerer

. Chakram or perhaps a shield with the throwing enhancement.

The Second is a M1911 requested by the gunslinger (they are slowly becoming captain america)

At best an advanced firearm, disallow it entirely. The ideas, skills and refined metalworking (and plasticworking) technology nessessary to design such a weapon dont exist. A Double pistol will do fine.

specialized arrows. Exploding, grappling hook, fragmenting tips, ensnaring and a noise maker arrow.

Exploding: Enchanted arrows from "Heroes Of battle", a 3.5 product. Grappling: Pathfinder SRD. Fragmenting: Any arrow that causes bleed, there should be a ton of them both magical and not. Ensnaring: Tanglefoot arrow, Pathfinder SRD. Noise: Whistling arrows. Try pitching further arrow ideas! Brilliant energy earrows. Fire, ice, Sonic arrows. The list of possibilities is long.

Its a morally ambiguous circumstance.

Animal or not, is it ethical to end a foe who has stopped fighting back? If the enemy in this case wasn't some world threatening villain i'dd say it was pretty evil to kill his all-natural monkey.

Do you mind homebrew, my group uses this feat:

Dervish.
Your attacks are precise enough to nick even the best protected arteries.
Prerequisites: Weapon finesse or One hander. Weapon focus . Base attack bonus +3.
When you fight with a weapon for which you possess weapon focus and that can benefit from the Weapon finesse feat you may use your dexterity modifier in place of your strength modifier for weapon damage rolls.

My fighters get 4 skillpoints per level.

Combat stamina.

Every rank of Vital strike free at the appropriate levels.

May trade Bravery for Iron will, Lightning reflexes, Great Fortitude, Combat expertise or power attack.

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My fighter players are pretty well off with that.

He makes a really good flexible Feat user who can down a Mutagen to make himself buff and then throw down alongside his Familiar in tag team combat.

Can you elaborate on this?

A case can be made that Pummeling style is not an attack at all.

It is a unique action enabled via a feat.

This is the kind of ability lineup that will make you feel sad as a bard in combat. You can try a lot of tricks but they arent likely to work very often.

Stick with the crossbows and don't bother with the rapier. Even if you up str to 12 its only going to get you killed. Trust me on that. Keep the Int and make your skills shine in and out of combat.
If you still want to use the rapier use your high cha and build for feinting, use your rapier to buff with aid another and debuff with feint and intimidate, not to deal damage.

Eventually creatures will start getting DR, invalidating your crossbow bolts. In fact many common undead will be plenty immune from the get-go. Make sure you can do something else when that time comes, have a good long look at your spell list.

Focus on using skills as much as you can, even in combat, they are your strong point, damage is not.

favorite cat

If he sais "But all my cats are my favorite" reply "And all of them are headed for the gallows"

Youre in prison, your best friend, father or favorite cat is about to be executed next week.
Whats you plan?

Magus, Warpriest, Cleric. Any class with 3/4 BaB. Any class that can do hack & slash and spellcasting at the same time.

Hunter. Druid. Bard. Skald.

The second favorite was Hazmir the half-elemental inquisitor. He wielded his iron will, physical strength and power over acid to create and lead a guild of alchemical necromancers.

The first time the players encountered him they were far from aware of the danger they had confronted, for he was fleing the scene of one of his earliest crimes and not supposed to be found.
it would have been a fairly simple "villain makes his escape" situation, but one player rolled a godlike intimidation check to get his attention, so he turned around and got "caught" in their ambush.
After a quick beating the players understood that they had happened upon the final boss who would go on to plague them at every step for the rest of the story.

What made this guy fun was not his agenda or his backstory, but his behaviour and visuals. Like a true villain he made his escapes when prudent and short appearances where his agendas had to be furthered firsthand. Evidence of his minions, living, dead or undead were everywhere. When he had to throw down he threw down hard, when he had to act smart he acted smart.
This guy was a supervillain and he didnt need any levels in Wizard, Undead, Outsider or Dragon to be awesome.

The favorite antagonist my players have encounterred so far was successful mechanically and story wise.

He was the Kestros the Paladin, a man driven to dethrone his king to better society. The paladin was hounded by the ghost of his dead wife.
The Players, seeing the ghostly possession, decided Kestros was not fully sane or even deceitful and went against his plans on several occations. Eventually the Paladin made his move against the throne and the players wound up protecting the charming(and manipulative) royal family.
The fight was long because Kestros had godly amounts of healing, and he was surrounded by a small army of clerics and warriors, however many times the entire army was drowned in fireballs they stood up again in great bursts of healing. A Butterfly sting -> Earthbreaker combo finally downed the Paladin after I think 10 rounds of fighting.

Kestros was fun because he was flawed, and very human. He was never truly their enemy, the players just picked the other side.

Even for an npc there are so many counters to this feat.

Full melee attack with a bab+6 npc:
Attack 1: Hit goblin, goblin bounces away, cackles tauntingly.
Attack 2: Thrown dagger, 4hp goblin is now unconscious.

Its both thematic and wise to give npc's secondary weapons, Orgers with javelins, trolls with Javelins, everything with javelins!

Its a good class feature, but rarely worth it during combat unless you can hit 2-3 characters with it at once. Even then the feats required to make it not heal your opponents as well make it a little tough.

Most clerics I know either use it out of combat or learn selective channel at some convenient level.

38) Give them a pirate ship.

29) Infect it with a curable disease and shove written instructions about the cure in it's face.

30) Throw a book at it.

31) Make a trail of candy from its hut to the hut of an Annis Hag.

32) Give it a credit card with unlimited credit. See how long it lasts before it gets killed or crushed under something it bought.

The barbarian VMC has cool synergy with melee hunters. Especially if youre the type to take the animal focus for yourself.

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Primal hunters have a tonne of cool stuff they can do by applying the evolutions to either themselves or their companions. Ranging from thematic (Breath, Climb, energy attacks) to nice and crunchy strong (ability scores, size, special attacks). I beleive pounce is in there somewhere.

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Combine the two above for a hulking monster hunter. A single form shapeshifter a-la Jeckyl and Hyde or just lycantrophy, or more alien stuff suitable for cthulu-esque campaigns.

Ranger spell combination:
Named bullet+Venomed bolt.

A ranged touch attack arrow shot that autocrits and inflicts the poison spell. You can pull it off with just basic hunter level 6 or 7. If you add to the mix: Gravity bow, the strength bonus (+4) for composite bow, point blank, +1 enhancement and deadly aim damage bonus, you can easily get roughly 6d6+30 points of damage from that one shot, and then the poison spell hasnt even begun to kick in.

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All kinds of arrow magic becomes viable with the hunter spell progression, Arrow eruption is one of my faves.

These I have used:

Background skills. Really nice, I dont think ill be going back to normal any time, ever.

New rouge, Monk and Barbarian all replace the old when I DM, but players can choose to use the old ones if they prefer. I have had no reason not to like them and any archetype incompatabilities are houseruled.

I dont care for the summoner. It IS more balanced, but it takes away so many evolution points that it breaks the class a bit.

Already been using fractional bonuses and "innate item bonuses" for a while, allways worked good and still do. Characters should'nt have to pick between "+1 to my saves, or this cool magic cloak that actually does stuff? Hmmm."

The expanded list of skill uses in the background skills has a lot of stuff ive thought about or had to make up DC's for up fo on the spot.

Skill unlocks and Stamina is really just something for players to pick for themselves. None have yet but I think its a cool system

Variant multiclassing feels a little like creep for me, I allow it because it is thematic.

Dynamic magic item creation is cool, my group is halfway through a crafting quest to make a dragonbane sword and they have no idea im using these rules, its cool stuff I tell you.

I have trouble with the new poison rules because there are no rules for how much to cost poisons or give them CR. They stand out as a rules system that Idd like to but cant use.

The monster creation stuff is moot for seasoned GM's because it doesnt actually make monster creation easier, it just speeds up the math, However, the abilities listed in the Monster options list are cool and ive stolen lots of stuff from it for my regular critters.

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I dont like automatic bonus progression. For characters that actually use every bonus its ok, but it kicks characters who dont aim for every bonus in the shin.
Thematically or not, if you play a character who only wants to improve their armor, or weapon. Or if you just want certain wondrous items, the system gives you lots of useless stuff and then takes away your gold.

Great, my full caster is now holding a glorious stick +1, oh and his plaided shirt is also +1 now, yay. Great, my "katana fanatic" character has 50% less gold to spend on the only item he wants to spend gold on. I know Gm's who like the system and if they use it I´ll endure but I'll make sure to play something that can make use all the bonuses, a subsystem is never good if it causes players to change their character choices for the sake of not getting gimped.

[Long argument why this thread is baseless]
[Badly typoed example]
[Passive agressive end statement to try and invalidate replies]

Isnt the general idea the op is suggestion to introduce nested messages so that different conversations may flourish without tkakign voer a thread?

I.E:
Poster 1: "How could I make this fighter build work."
Poster 2: "By not playing fighter!"
-(Nested conversation starts where people argue about the viability of fighters)
Poster 3: "You could do Y and take X to make it work"
Poster 1: "K-thx."

In the example above the original poster can hope to get a reply without having to work through however many arguments about fighters the thread started.

Reviewed. Thanks for the good product Flaming Crab. Ill have fun with it but that Metamagic empowerment thing sticks out like a thorn in my eye!

Phalanx fighter. I just like it, is all.

Generalist inquisitor.
First ever PFS experience, it didnt help I was level 1 in a party of level 2's and 3's.
Also bad teamplay. Cast obscuring mist in the middle of a fight where every player is currently using a ranged weapon, good call randon teammate, good call.

I like the oracle because it has a great deal of interesting mechanics built in and available to you as part of your innate class features.

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You can build a full caster oracle who never enters melee that also has fun stuff to do outside of casting spells. Or pla ya divine caster wit hsome extra alternate role. Fire oracles have healing spelsl in one hand and blasting spells in the other for example.

Most oracles can also be built for melee. Gaining access to unique combat benefits, speed and more. For exampel the metal mystery Oracle that gains a lot of proficiencies with just one revelationm, as well a speed buff in another revelation. Stay right next to the fighter/barbarian/bloodrager and co-tank with him.

You like intrigue? Lots of Oracles get divination spells in their mysteries.

You like control? Some mysteries got that as well.

The thing that sells me the idea an mechanics of oracles in general is what they can do with mysteries.

Race themes arent allways as HUGE as they sound. The whole "drow hate everything and kill everyone, including drow" basically means that drow are MORE LIKELY to backstab each other then, say, humans, but that doesnt mean everyone does it.

For the same reason not EVERY person in the pathfinder universe takes levels in player classes (because taking levels in commoner is stupid duh, why would you go through life as a commoner when you can level up as an Inquisitor or something!?) not every drow is a murdering sociopath. Drow just have a healthy bit MORE sociopaths then humans do, not all of them are.

I had fun with a decoy bat the other day. Blindsemse coupled with the ability to speak let it detect hidden foes very effectively for every member of the team, not just me.

Yes, but I always envisioned a Power attack as a wind up (like a baseball bat swing), and then a huge swing for the fences(again baseball reference), basically raw power at the expense of everything else.

With the estoc that just translates into:

Backing up slowly, aiming as best you can, then letting loose with a massive thrust.

I.e, wind up then attack. No different from spears.

No problem there. What is it with the Estoc? It seems very popular these days.

Its one of the weapons available in Pillars of eternity, which may have contributed a bit to its popularity on the tabletop.

How did he get an advanced firearm? Isnt that the main cuse of the issue here?

Gunslingers get exponentially more powerful everytime they gain access to a new method to bypass reloading. Multiple guns, quickdraw, weapon cords, many many magical items, advanced firearms, double guns. Advanced firearms especially are crazy.

One time I played a homebrew alchemist that got firearm profiency, thats essentially the gist of the archertype. With just double pistols (a whole 8 of them) I made everyone else look like a chump when it came to dealing damage.

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One way to deal with this is to modify your encounter design. Try flooding the team with weak foes before you reveal the big bads, undead minions are especially good for this. By the time the real bad guy finally becomes a viable target the gunslinger will have expended a lot of ammo and must reload at some point during the fight. In other words this problem can be dealt with by adding more expendable HP to your fights.

Aeon: a four-armed cloud featuring a photo taken by the Hubble telescope.

Well a colossal nebula cloud sized monster is a whole other thing :P

"And then the universe collapses in on you in 4 giant fists"

It can be the most interesting creature in the world ability/fluff wise, but if it doesn't look cool I might not even notice it.

Quoted for truth.

Milo v3 wrote:

As for Aeons and Inevitables, ones about maintaining order, and other about maintaining balance. Very very very very different. Since the inevitables do not want balance, they hate the idea of balance.

Not really. For something to remain ordered, it needs to be balanced to remain sustainable. A system that is imbalanced cannot remain orderly.

This is true, but are Aeons still not vastly different from Inevitables on the note that Aeons impose balance for balance´s sake, whilst Inevitables impose Order for order's sake. Overwhelming order skews the balance. This is also why Inevitables are in conflict with chaos, wherever chaos reigns inevitables wish to impose order, and wherever rigid order has taken over chaos seeps.

Aeons probably play a huge role in the war between chaos and order but that too a trait of Aeons that has not been explored much so far.

My gripe with Aeons is that they look unappealing. "And then you get attacked by the strange cloud things" doesnt sound very epic.

40. To play a story your current players arent interested inand you just found some people who like the idea.

41. Meat for the grinder.

42. To induct more "casuals" into our world.

43. To diversify your portfolio of future potential players as well as your current roster.

44. To teach the game to new players.

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I know some of the above are similar, but still :P

74. Lack of brain faculties + lack of attention.

One is forgivable, other is not, the two together is a disaster. And no this person is not disabled, theyre just not very smart.

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75. "Ok, so, there are no elves in this campaign world? What If I make an Elf planeswalker apprentice and came here from another world via a portal my master made?"

This everytime we start a new story. Other examples include "Pirates you say? Vikings were technically pirates right?"

I second valkyria.

Have you tried Pillars of Eternity yet?.

I assume you of course have played X-Com enemy unknown?

Invisible.inq is really good.

I dont like Psionics so much as I dont like the mechanics and poor balance thus far.
In fact ive had more then one spellcaster in my games cast spells classically as sorcerers or wizards, but let them refer to their magic as "psionics".

Many already established monsters have lots of strange abilities that I can not classify as anything but psionics. I understand that a demon may be born with fire in his essence, casting fire spells and generally setting stuff on fire with his burning hair/armpits whatever, but why does a vampire have the ability to dominate people? Its supposedly because the have such immense willpower that they can overwhelm lesser minds? Is that not the definition of psionics?

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In other words, I dislike psionics so far because to me they are synonimous with power points, psionic feats and other stuff that makes up an alternate system that I find broken, overly complex or otherwise detrimental. The last time I played psionics I played an "Aegis" or I think, the one that psionically armor's himself, in game he was an arabian themed mezmerisingly charismatic gigolo playboy and businessman, but everyone knows it was Iron man. With flight and phaser lasers and everything.

So yes, when I get my hands on the official Pathfinder version of psionics I will be exited and glad to find a new ruleset for psionic characters.

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The only downside I see however is that at first glance none of the Occult mysteries classes seem to have any martial elements. At least the old psionics system had Soulknives, Psiblades and stuff like that.

Lets stop talking about porn in a rather nice and straight faced anime chat, before someone has to disprove hentai is this or that by mentioning certain videos about cups or jars.

The Evil familiy of from Kill-La-Kill.

Satsuki starts out as a badass villain herself, full of unstoppable determination. A person of iron resolve.

And then the utterly depraved mother, completely given over to a mad agenda, so incredibly determined and methological in her pursuit of victory.

Voldemort.

For all the stupid decisions the Author has him make so that Harry may actually somehow defeat him i nthe end, the bloody guy has contingency plans within contingency plans.

The guy is so unstoppable that despite the good guy's best efforts at stopping him wherever they may find him the guy still manages to come right back to life.

Also the things hes supposedly done before his death at the hands of the potter family and level of loyalty he instilled in his followers is admirable.

That the guy was an interestign villain enough to keep people interested for seven books is proof enough.