I started working on a guide for the animist a few months ago, starting with the playtest material and then adjusting with the final release (I got an early PDF with the subscription). I also had a bunch of free time last week. None of this is final and I don't expect every judgement to be on point. Feel free to read it over and let me know if you have an suggestions. As with my thaumaturge guide, I will site those whose advice I use. This will be a work in progress and I will update it regularly. Please don't comment saying it's too early for a guide. This is equally purposed as a review and to give exposure to people without access to the class and and start discussion about various aspects of the class
I know this is years after you first made the guide, but I noticed something huge you missed and cast resurrection on my account just to comment:
Liturgist Sustains each time it Steps. Their unique feat, Cycle Of Souls at Level 18, is a free action Step at the start of their turn, thus a free action Sustain better than Effortless Concentration. Gift of the Anemos also lets them Step when they Sustain it too, creating a small chain.
This is certainly kicking the Medium while it is down, but I'll also point out that Medium is perfect for Striker Animists, by combining Embodiment of Battle and River Carving Mountains, moving and striking in one turn, even while Relinquishing Control. There are other pairs with Gift of the Anemos or River Carving Mountains too, such as Devouring Dark Form, Earth's Bile, Garden Of Healing, and Trickster's Mirrors. Medium is for the Animist who wants to Sustain as many vessel spells as possible and wants to avoid losing the action economy to do so (Relinquish Control).
Also, if you know a school, library, club, or nonprofit that does not restrict its membership and needs Pathfinder or Starfinder products to get started, please email community@paizo.com with a request!
Do we need to be a librarian to put in a request for our local libraries?
I'm in Massachusetts and go to a few libraries. I even volunteered to teach teens how to play trpgs, until 2019 for obvious reasons, when public places were dangerous.
Where are you located as I know that some of my local libraries in Massachusetts (Boston) carry those books and they might be able to help if they did it already?
Also, if you know a school, library, club, or nonprofit that does not restrict its membership and needs Pathfinder or Starfinder products to get started, please email community@paizo.com with a request!
Do we need to be a librarian to put in a request for our local libraries?
I'm in Massachusetts and go to a few libraries. I even volunteered to teach teens how to play trpgs, until 2019 for obvious reasons, when public places were dangerous.
This is my first draft for a class I'm working on, called Reliquarian, after the PF1 Occultist archetype, which is not a real word I discovered.
The goals of this class:
Mechanically, it feels like a magic fighter, with a wide foundation in everything but really solid with that foundation. I wanted the main feature to be flexibility and using all the found loot.
Narratively, this is similar to a Thaumaturge, but instead of giving power to a symbolic item, the Reliquarian focuses on drawing power out of the items and assigning a symbolic meaning to themselves.
This is going to be playtested soon, but for now, I think I accomplished my goals. As usual, I'm concerned I might have accidentally created a broken combination. I compared it to all the non-casting martials, and then some, so please give me good honest feedback! I hope to eventually publish and release this.
Will this mean a lot of holdover mechanics will be dropped, like Wizards not being trained in all simple weapons, or Rogues not being trained in all Martial weapons, or combining armors into just two categories of Light and Heavy (which the numbers kind of favor anyway)?
Alignment has me feeling conflicted, since I think PF does it really well and has built its lore in a way to make the different sides of the alignment spectrum both usable and debatable, something you really want in a moral system. Narakaas and that other psychopomp usher getting into debates over intent vs action is really interesting for the setting. It does what Pathfinder does best; uncertainty and mystery.
In the core rule book, most of the spellcasting classes were able to substitute material components with other components, such as a cleric using a holy symbol or text as a focus instead of needing the materials.
APG did not include anything like that for the Witch or Oracle. Did I miss something or was this intentional?
I would imagine the Witch could substitute their material component and that action by having the familiar perform a somatic component instead (or wielding their familiar like a sword, obviously) , and the Oracle can do what the Sorcerer does.
That's certainly a posibility. Did your players pick up their gear? Is it actually all theirs? Was there an Asmodean holy symbol there? If not, you might have to consider why not? (Although, honestly, I still don't quite see why their gear is in the place it is at the start, other than game system convenience - it may not even have been their gear to start with!)
Again, without going into a lot of details here...the player characters will not have done very much, or made any decisions, between the point of losing their memories, and starting the AP.
You missed the part where I said she has the holy symbol of a deity engraved into her forehead, which was a result of a holy symbol tattoo meeting chitin.
If there's nothing explicitly stated, then that's good and I'm free to input whatever I like for them. I'm thinking of having these characters be absolutely evil, even before Lowls, like the Half-Trox originally being an Infernal Cleric of Asmodeus who enjoyed torturing and forcing others to submit their wills to her.
The Campaign Traits only give an idea of how your current character feels about a past they don't remember, but nothing about what they did at the time.
The PCs don't get their full memories back until much later, but the content of those memories is actually pretty open. To my recollection the only specified plot points are outlined in the second book of the AP. Well the 3rd book does specifically cover how they lost their memories as well.
Yes, but I'm trying to drop hints at who they were. These Good people might have been Evil.
Hello, I'm a GM running Strange Aeons and need some help with a few things. The first book doesn't seem to say what the PCs were before meeting Lowls (which is good) but doesn't say what they did when they worked for Lowls either (which is bad).
I'm also putting together the secret backgrounds for each of the PCs who lost their memories. I have a few plot points that I can use as I wish since my players asked/bought/took things but didn't specify them on purpose.
I'm hoping to hear what their jobs were with Lowls (or at least the page number in which book) and to brainstorm possibilities for these characters, ignoring the mechanics of how to do or did things since I use plenty of alternate rule sets and all sorts of things, including third party content. Most of what I'm going to list is just to sum up what they are essentially playing.
The Party:
CG Half-Trox (think just a Medium sized Trox) Kineticist with magma and only magma. She has the holy symbol of a deity engraved into her forehead. The set of lower vestigial arm (think four arms coming out of the lower rib cage and stomach) are missing.
CG Kitsune Kitsune Sorceress illusionist with some telekinesis. Has absolutely no gear except for her haramaki armor.
NG artificially-made Android alchemy Wizard with plenty of healing and buffing. Could be self-inflicted, could be on purpose.
CG Arshea devout Fighter who is a Psychopomp version of a tiefling or aasimar. Has a big spear, big shield, big armor, white horse, and a signet ring. Also has a strange draw to a mask.
Hi, I'm running Rise Of The Runelords for a few friends, GMing and playing it. It's just myself and two others, but we're doing gestalt and using Spheres Of Power content. I had this crazy idea for my character to try and add to the world and to the plot.
My character is meant to be a necromancer who is weak, frail, has no memories, and doesn't have control over his magical powers at first.
I'm even having him do a thing in the first fight:
accidentally turn the dog that's killed right before the first encounter at the festival into a burning dog skeleton.
So, who is he? He is Zutha, Runelord Of Gluttony, brought back to life by the three books coming together. However, since none of the Runelords expected Earthfall to be so devastating and to delay them for so long, his original magic and plan has gone awry. He's been brought back with no memories, but knowledge that seems to come and go, like languages, information on different creatures, and even some unexplained foresight to traps and how to disable them. At the same time, he isn't the unique type of undead from before and instead a sort of human with some undead traits.
These are all done through being an Empiricist Psyforensic Investigator/Lichling Soul Weaver, who souls in his Bound Nexus are actually past servants who willing serve him, though he doesn't understand why. As he levels, he remembers more and more and learns to better wield and unlock his original magics.
So, what can I do through the AP to interweave the plot and this character? I have some ideas but I thought I'd ask around and see what comes up. My players are relatively new and learning the world as it comes too. Just please please for the love of the Dawnflower not turn this into a discussion about being a GM and a player...
I love the Spheres magic system. For the class, look at the archetypes it has too, especially Blaster, Soaring Blade, and Whitesmith. If you really don't want to learn the magic system too much, then Armorist keeps its use simple enough.
I realize this won't help your current predicament (unless you somehow level up and gain a feat while wearing the collar), but for future reference I believe Disable Dweomer is what you want.
Except then it might just become a normal seamless solid metal collar. There is no way to really slip out of that. So you are still stuck with the collar. If they are something like a shock collar that won't let you leave the area that only gives you 2d4 rounds to escape before they reactivate. If they are just trackers well 2d4 rounds won't get you very far ahead.
Exactly, a normal seamless solid metal collar. Break it. Masterwork Manacles (the closest example) have Hardness 10, 10 HP, and a Break DC of 28. Difficult but not impossible.
Select one specific type of animal (such as wolves or apes). You were raised from infancy by an animal or pack of animals of that type. You learned their ways and have more in common with your beastly kin than members of any humanoid race.
Benefit(s) You gain a +1 trait bonus on Survival checks and can use speak with animals as a spell-like ability at will to communicate with the type of animal that raised you.
What does it mean by type of animal?
If I had to choose, which would be it?
Felines
Great Cats
Cat Big
Tigers
Step 1. Bring creature below 0 and stable (consider Golden Legion's Stayed Blade feat)
Step 2. Spam Capture Monster in a Take 20 fashion. A nat 1 is an auto fail on a saving throw, so you are using it until it gets a nat 1, like taking 20.
Some types of creatures can't be knocked out, but any situation you can spam it without stopping should have the same effect.
For a build, I'm trying to find all morale bonus boosts, like Courageous and an Imperious Sorcerer's Heroic Echo, but for Extraordinary abilities.
The things I'm looking for would be either:
-self-reliant, without needing another character to active, excluding personal familiars or companions
-no action or long-lasting (hours at least, the general working day)
-usable all day, so not a wand or scroll, excluding most staves too
This character isn't a spellcaster but does have good Charisma.
It's important to note that any metamagic on spells for a spontaneous caster such as the mindblade will bump it up to a full-round action.
It's a better option, in my opinion, to forgo the concentration check entirely somehow. Whether that be from clever 5ft steps, scorpion whips, the warding weapon spell, or some other method is up to you.
That's why the various magus metamagic arcana exist.
Magus has only recently gotten spontaneous spellcasting archetypes though.
When I make magi, I prefer to go for consistent weapon damage over nova spell combat, using arcane strike for more attacks.
I want to make a mindblade with as many weapon attacks as I can get and big damage output.
I would prefer TWF over a two-handed weapon.
If there is a way to get Dex-to-damage on light weapons, that would be nice.
Have you ever seen a Nycar? It's an improved familiar, which can take Mauler archetype, which can be affected by Form Of Dragon III, which can be affected by Duplicate Familiar.
When using air blasts, air wild talents, or composite blasts that include air, double the blast's effective range. This effect applies after altering the range due to effects such as the extended range infusion. This doubles only the blast's effective range, not the area of effect for infusions like cloud and cyclone.
>Explains that Air's Blast takes effect after other talents that affect range
>Kinetic Whip affects range
I think it's reasonable to conclude that an Air-based Kinetic Whip can have its range improved. ^^ A Kinetic Whip is still a blast - it's a blast that's just been reshaped by a form infusion.
20 ft. Reach... I know exactly what I'm doing now.
Skinwalkers are well attuned to the natural order of things and value passion above reason. They gain +2 Wisdom, –2 Intelligence, and +2 to one physical ability score while shapechanged (1 RP). While in their bestial form, they gain a +2 racial bonus to either Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution (see Change Shape).
Does this mean that the Skinwalker can get +4 to one physical stat?
+2 from Racial Ability Score and another +2 from Shapechange?
TK Haul works as Basic TK which requires an unattended object. But the object only has to be unattended for the initial cast. After that, you can do whatever you want with it as long as you keep concentrating and the item doesn't leave your range.
So, unattended sheet of metal, teammate stands on it, improvised floating disk?
How does Enveloping Winds interact with tech weapons?
A reminder that the defense talent can also take form as being surrounded in crackling electricity.
The plan was instead of taking overwhelming soul to not burn, I'm just going to not burn and keep the benefits that overwhelming soul gives up. If I end up needing to burn, I can take a day off and reset myself.
I wasn't aware that temp bonus to Con boosted hp. I thought it was a special case for barbarians. So, what is the actual difference between temp and permanent?
I'm okay with not reducing burn if it means the size bonus to my Con affects my hp. Every now and again, I can take a day off to reset my burn back to useful minimum (elemental overflow).
All I can find is to make a DC 15 Fort or penalties. At the level when I have size bonuses, I am rarely going to fail that.
Weables wrote:
yeah. you missed the fact that you cant use a lot of cool abilities cuz your burn for them will keep adding up till you're unconscious. Enjoy.
I don't think I reburn myself daily to regain the benefits if the burn is never removed.
