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The idea behind this build is simple, never ever get into the thick of things alongside your allies, instead, you support them from the comfort of your home. By utilizing massive range buffs, scrying, distance healing and tactical maneuvering, you can safely have a significant effect on the battlefield or social encounters from a literal mile away.
Lazybones McGee
Human Geisha Bard 1/Oracle (Life) 1/Hedge Scarred Witch Doctor (Deception) 10/Oracle +3/Verminous Hunter (Worm) 1/Witch +4
20 Point Buy
Str 7
Dex 7
Con 20
Int 8
Wis 7
Cha 18
Progression:
1 Extra Performance, Extra Performance, Tea Ceremony
2 Life Link
3 Racial Heritage (Orc)
4 Healing Hex
5 Extra Hex (Scar Hex)
6 Spontaneous Healing
7 Toughness
8 Fortune Hex
9 Extra Hex (Ward Hex)
10 Empathic Healing
11 Endurance
12 Waxen Image
13 Spell Hex (Hex Vulnerability)
14 Healing Hands
15 Diehard
16 Fast Healing 1
17 Fast Healer
18 Major Healing Hex
19 Healer's Touch
20 Witch's Charge Hex
So, what does Lazybones McGee get up to? Well, he uses some heavy rules exploits and questionable readings to allow him to inspire greatness in his allies at level 1 from literally anywhere in the multiverse by hosting a tea party that no one else actually attends since Tea Ceremony doesn't actually say that the allies have to drink the tea or witness the setup to receive its benefits. 2 d10 hit dice should be enough of a boost to carry his allies through to second level where he can begin to heal them while staying at medium range, which keeps him well out of most combats. 5th level lets him heal allies from up to a mile away and 11th level lets him teleport over to his allies while invisible so that he can steal their poisons and diseases to have them effect him instead without most enemies realizing what happened. 12th level lets him move his allies around the field on his turn to set them up into better tactical positioning, 13th level lets him spam healing hex while 17th level makes sure he doesn't die from his life link with the other party members.
Basically Lazybones stays as far away from his allies as he can and uses scrying effects to keep tabs on them to see how they're doing. If their about to go exploring he'll throw them a tea party and then keep them healthy with hexes. If things start to go sour, he'll go invisible, teleport nearby and then give them buffs and emergency healing and might tag along for a while to heal them up with life links before teleporting back to safety. If done correctly, the party may never know what Lazybones actually is, since he should be invisible always from 6th level onwards and there is technically no reason for Lazybones to ever reveal the fact that he even exists.
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So, thoughts, opinions, advice? How would you spruce up this kind of a character? Do you have an idea of how to make a more effective buff-bot that likewise doesn't even attempt to stay close to their comrades? Etc, etc.
When adding new levels of an existing class or adding levels of a new class (see Multiclassing, below), make sure to take the following steps in order. First, select your new class level. You must be able to qualify for this level before any of the following adjustments are made. Second, apply any ability score increases due to gaining a level. Third, integrate all of the level's class abilities and then roll for additional hit points. Finally, add new skills and feats. For more information on when you gain new feats and ability score increases, see Table: Character Advancement and Level-Dependent Bonuses.
You cannot become a witch doctor before you get orc heritage. You get the class level before you get the feat, so the 3rd level feat cannot qualify you for the 3rd level class.
You can switch it with an Extra Performance from 1st level to make it work.
/cevah
Shame you don't have a Familiar: the Skinsend spell can allow it's hide to go with the party and deliver your touch-based spells.
(You can designate its skinned body on your lap as the toucher, and the skin can take "any action it normally could". That should include delivering touch spells.)
Shame you don't have a Familiar: the Skinsend spell can allow it's hide to go with the party and deliver your touch-based spells.
(You can designate its skinned body on your lap as the toucher, and the skin can take "any action it normally could". That should include delivering touch spells.)
I felt that the increased survivability (and reduced MADness) from constitution casting was kind of essential to keep using Life Link for extended periods of time, but using skinsend on your familiar would save a couple teleport slots so that is a strong pull to being a regular witch (although technically you can cast touch spells through your fetish mask so you could just give it to your allies and they'll think you gave them some minor artifact because of how much it helps them).
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This is either the ultimate GMNPC or the ultimate villain. Being able to interact with the players without being at risk is perfectly fulfilled by this build. Thank you for this!
Dot
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I wouldn't use this on a PC, but this is worthy of consideration for a mentor or a villain mastermind (and the two are not mutually exclusive), especially if you switch out the Scarred Witch Doctor for a Witch that has a (well hidden) Familiar, so that this character is harder to recognize for what it is. Scarred Witch Doctor is going to be pretty obvious unless you blow a Hex or a spell on Disguise, although that might not be a bad idea anyway, and not having to take Racial Heritage frees up a feat that could be used for Extra Hex or for not being Human.
EDIT #1: Ninja'd by Shane LeRose!
One question, though: Where do "14 Healing Hands" and "16 Fast Healing 1" come from?
EDIT #2: Going to a Witch other than Scarred Witch Doctor means you boost INT, which is more fitting for a mastermind mentor and/or villain.
EDIT #3: Found "6 Spontaneous Healing" and "10 Empathic Healing" = Hedge Witch abilities, duh. For race if not Human: Anything that boosts at least 2 of the 3 of CON, INT, and CHA, and doesn't penalize the other. Core: Gnome would work (fairy godmother/godfather). Featured: Agathion-Blooded Aasimar, Peri-Blooded Aasimar, or Kyton-Spawn Tiefling would work (first 2 are godmother/godfather; last is spooky godmother/godfather). Uncommon: Gillman or Merfolk would work (and they have a real excuse not to follow you to most places).
I wouldn't use this on a PC, but this is worthy of consideration for a mentor or a villain mastermind (and the two are not mutually exclusive), especially if you switch out the Scarred Witch Doctor for a Witch that has a (well hidden) Familiar, so that this character is harder to recognize for what it is. Scarred Witch Doctor is going to be pretty obvious unless you blow a Hex or a spell on Disguise, although that might not be a bad idea anyway, and not having to take Racial Heritage frees up a feat that could be used for Extra Hex or for not being Human.
EDIT #1: Ninja'd by Shane LeRose!
One question, though: Where do "6 Spontaneous Healing", "10 Empathic Healing", "14 Healing Hands", and "16 Fast Healing 1" come from?
EDIT #2: Going to a Witch other than Scarred Witch Doctor means you boost INT, which is more fitting for a mastermind mentor and/or villain.
Spontaneous Healing comes from the Hedge Witch archetype, which stacks with Scarred Witch Doctor
Empathic Healing likewise comes from that archetypeHealing Hands is a Life Oracle revelation
Fast Healing 1 comes from murdering your pet worm that you got as a Verminous Hunter
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Fast Healing 1 comes from murdering your pet worm that you got as a Verminous Hunter
EDIT #4: Ninja'd by johnnythexxxiv! Murdering your pet worm definitely puts a lean in favor of the spooky, even if not using Kyton-Spawn Tiefling . . . .
EDIT #5: If you just give the character a Ring of Regeneration, you don't actually need the above, or as far as I can tell any of the Hunter levels, and you can just convert these into more Witch levels. Also, since you have both Witch and Oracle levels and might have a helpful SLA depending upon race choice, Mystic Theurge might be worth considering (link to Angry Wiggles' guide and the corresponding thread).
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Normally I'm against this kind of thing, but this one is just so charming. Bravo!
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Fast Healing 1 comes from murdering your pet worm that you got as a Verminous HunterEDIT #4: Ninja'd by johnnythexxxiv! Murdering your pet worm definitely puts a lean in favor of the spooky, even if not using Kyton-Spawn Tiefling . . . .
EDIT #5: If you just give the character a Ring of Regeneration, you don't actually need the above, or as far as I can tell any of the Hunter levels, and you can just convert these into more Witch levels. Also, since you have both Witch and Oracle levels and might have a helpful SLA depending upon race choice, Mystic Theurge might be worth considering (link to Angry Wiggles' guide and the corresponding thread).
Tiefling wouldn't work for this build anyway since Scarred Witch Doctor is Orc specific. Agathion blooded Scion of Humanity Aasimars on the other hand would work excellently for the benevolent benefactor/mentor concept getting thrown around here
While ring of regeneration does free up a level slot I prefer to post builds that have as little item dependency as possible since there's no guarantee that you'll actually get/keep the crucial item.
Tiefling would work fine if you didn't use the Scarred Witch Doctor archetype, but used most of the rest of the build.
Normally, I don't like item dependence either, but in this case the Ring of Regeneration provides a really compelling advantage. Depending upon what else you do in your support role and your day job, it might even be worth taking Craft Ring so that you can make your own if you can't find/buy one or if you lose yours . . . .
More information on racial SLA to qualify for early entry into Mystic Theurge on the divine side:
Human/Half Orc (including the original version of the build using Scarred Witch Doctor): None (duh). Only class-based 2nd level divine SLA requires you to take the Wood Mystery, which conflicts with your need to take the Life Mystery.
Gnome: SLAs are all arcane and none are 2nd level, so same problem as above.
Gillman/Merfolk: None (duh), so same problem as above
Agathion-Blooded Aasimar (whether or not you use Scion of Humanity): Summon Nature's Ally II qualifies!
Peri-Blooded Aasimar: Pyrotechnics is arcane, sorry.
Kyton-Spawned Tiefling: Web is arcane, sorry; Soul Seer alternate racial trait gets you a divine SLA (Deathwatch), but unfortunately this is only 1st level.
So looks like whether or not you are using the Scarred Witch Doctor option, Agathion-Blooded Aasimar is best.
Lazybones McGee - The ultimate solution for the group missing a player for a session.
Life Link (Oracle) has a range limit of Medium range, thus you would need to be withing 100+10/level feet of your bonded creatures or the bond ends.
Lazybones McGee - The ultimate solution for the group missing a player for a session.
Yes and no, if things are going really bad in a dungeon crawl he would pop in to help his allies so you'd need the player to be around for that, but for an RP session he doesn't even need to be on the same plane of existence to inspire competence in his party via Tea Ceremony so you could skip the social encounters fairly easily. Personally, I prefer high level extra-planar beings gating in party members to do things for them as my reason for them no showing. It gives them a logical reason to have gained XP even after missing several sessions in a row and provides additional plot hooks that "was secretly there all along" wouldn't.
Life Link (Oracle) has a range limit of Medium range, thus you would need to be withing 100+10/level feet of your bonded creatures or the bond ends.
I did already cover that in the original post, Life Link is used continually only until Lazybones has another way of healing his allies effectively from a distance and then is used just for back-up healing from there on out. He does still engage with his allies if he needs to, he just prefers to stay out of sight and out of mind.
There are a couple of characters like this in the Anime X and Betterman, and a few others.
They basically sit back at base, or somewhere off in a remote vehicle, usually connected up to some master computer or system, and psychically assist the people on scene, though mostly with tactical advice or psychic insight, and only sometimes with some sort of manifested power.
Per usual Anime guidelines, they tend to be very waifish, depressed young girls with high voices and brightly colored hair.
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What I'd really be interested in is a caster that can possession or inhabit the body of a doll / marionette and still be able to cast spells.
If an Exploiter Wizard uses the 'Shadow Projection' spell and an extend rod + Spell Tinkerer exploit they can easily get to 24 hours duration of sending their Shadow out to adventure with the party and if it dies a Ring of Regeneration on the Wizard should save him from dying while he's at his own house.
You can't use Skinsend and have a Ring of Regeneration on, it mentions it in the spell description that you'll regenerate your lost skin and the old skin (that's adventuring) will die once your new skin has regenerated (which would be less than 10 minutes probably.
Anyone know of any spells that you can possess or send yourself out and still survive if your "sent self" gets destroyed? Only thing I can think of is Shadow Projection and I doubt GM's would let you cast spells from your shadow (maybe the only exception is spell prepared with Still metamagic?)
^Project Image does this, but the range is only Medium (Long if you add Reach Spell), and you have to maintain line of sight or it quits, and the duration is only 1 round/level (2 rounds/level with Extend Spell). It is also base level 7 (6 if you are a Bard), so you're stretching hard to get it to be Extended with Reach (which a Bard won't even be able to do without epic spell access, which currently isn't even defined except for a suggestion in Character Advancement that serves as a stub for a future Epic Rules supplement that was probably killed in favor of the far more broken Mythic Rules, but might be resurrected if enough people upchuck on Mythic Rules).
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^Project Image does this, but the range is only Medium (Long if you add Reach Spell), and you have to maintain line of sight or it quits, and the duration is only 1 round/level (2 rounds/level with Extend Spell). It is also base level 7 (6 if you are a Bard), so you're stretching hard to get it to be Extended with Reach (which a Bard won't even be able to do without epic spell access, which currently isn't even defined except for a suggestion in Character Advancement that serves as a stub for a future Epic Rules supplement that was probably killed in favor of the far more broken Mythic Rules, but might be resurrected if enough people upchuck on Mythic Rules).
So, despite not being able to cast spells, 4th level spell Shadow Projection is far superior is what you're saying. Any other ideas? Any ideas on the Possession spells to possess an object and a failsafe incase your "puppet" gets smashed? Ways for your soul to get back to your body that's miles and miles away?
I was referring to this comment. "...while 17th level makes sure he doesn't die from his life link with the other party members." If you only use Life Link to top up, then you would never be in danger of that. Actually, you should never be in danger of dying from Life Link since you can end Life Link as an immediate action.
I was referring to this comment. "...while 17th level makes sure he doesn't die from his life link with the other party members." If you only use Life Link to top up, then you would never be in danger of that. Actually, you should never be in danger of dying from Life Link since you can end Life Link as an immediate action.
Ah, okay. That was provided more as a failsafe for in case the party needed extensive healing throughout the day that spamming cure serious wounds (major healing hex + hex vulnerability) simply couldn't cover. Why let hp damage be a reason for a 15 minute adventuring day if you can avoid it?
So, despite not being able to cast spells, 4th level spell Shadow Projection is far superior is what you're saying. Any other ideas? Any ideas on the Possession spells to possess an object and a failsafe incase your "puppet" gets smashed? Ways for your soul to get back to your body that's miles and miles away?
Not in all ways -- it's a mixed bag. Shadow Projection is much lower level and doesn't require line of sight, but it doesn't allow spellcasting through itself, and it is much more dangerous to the user -- if it goes blooey, you're going to be in a world of hurt and possibly end up dead, and even if you don't end up dead directly from that, you'll be in poor shape to deal with or escape your opponents if they figure out where you are. At least if Project Image goes blooey, nothing bad happens to you as a direct result (although you do have the disadvantage that you have to be near enough to your opponents that they may have the chance to do something bad to you, but at least you'll be in good shape to high-tail it out of there or even put up a full-fledged fight, minus whatever spells you already cast). You can flip your vision and hearing between your Projected Image and yourself as a free action -- the one that doesn't have those senses on it is just temporarily blind and deaf, not totally helpless and unaware. You can cast spells through it even if your opponents disbelieve it.
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The concept in this thread makes me have thoughts of a Prestige Class that would put together the abilities in one more convenient package. Pathfinder Support Agent, anyone?
If you're wanting to be a support from a mile away you may want to look into the world of psionics. *shudders* That's as close as I care to get to that world..
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A Pathfinder Agent that does not adventure is about as antithetical to the spirit of the Society as I can imagine.
Depends upon how stickly(?) the Pathfinder Society is about all members adventuring. After all, canonically they do have Venture Captains like Sheila Heidmarch that run bases (lodges) and organize expeditions rather than adventuring themselves. A Pathfinder Support Agent would actually be sort of in between: dispatched by the Venture Captain to support the away teams (and report back).
So, what does Lazybones McGee get up to? Well, he uses some heavy rules exploits and questionable readings to allow him to...You lost me here.
What can I say, Tea Ceremony is poorly worded.
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So, despite not being able to cast spells, 4th level spell Shadow Projection is far superior is what you're saying. Any other ideas? Any ideas on the Possession spells to possess an object and a failsafe incase your "puppet" gets smashed? Ways for your soul to get back to your body that's miles and miles away?Not in all ways -- it's a mixed bag. Shadow Projection is much lower level and doesn't require line of sight, but it doesn't allow spellcasting through itself, and it is much more dangerous to the user -- if it goes blooey, you're going to be in a world of hurt and possibly end up dead, and even if you don't end up dead directly from that, you'll be in poor shape to deal with or escape your opponents if they figure out where you are. At least if Project Image goes blooey, nothing bad happens to you as a direct result (although you do have the disadvantage that you have to be near enough to your opponents that they may have the chance to do something bad to you, but at least you'll be in good shape to high-tail it out of there or even put up a full-fledged fight, minus whatever spells you already cast). You can flip your vision and hearing between your Projected Image and yourself as a free action -- the one that doesn't have those senses on it is just temporarily blind and deaf, not totally helpless and unaware. You can cast spells through it even if your opponents disbelieve it.
Well, I already pointed out prior to that post that Shadow Projection doesn't allow spell casting but since it has no distance limit and the duration is 1 hour per level you can easily hike that up to 24hour+ duration (Extend metamagic and Spell Tinkerer Exploit). I also mentioned that you'd only need a Ring of Regeneration as you'd take damage if the shadow died. Shadow dies, you go to -1, ring kicks in, you wake up from unconsciousness, cast some healing spells or use a healing potion and then scry the location or teleport there to assist your team further if they need.
With a Ring of Regeneration there's really no danger from what I can tell. You can stay at the Pathfinder Lodge or at your own personal house.
^Need a Coven Anchor Hex before this becomes a viable option for more than a few corner cases.
Greater Status.
^Yes, but the Pathfinders want their away missions to succeed. Even if the Pathfinder Society has the ideal of self-sufficiency, sooner or later some Venture Captains are going to try to find a way to cheat on the ideal as long as they can do it without breaking actual rules. Besides, the Pathfinders also have some ideal of teamwork.
Thought you guys would like to know, I incorporated Lazybones into a 'viable' party.
I’m not sure if the Tea Ceremony trick should really work, but if that spoils your “magical tea party” you could consider the Duettist archetype for Bards. It would be kind of amusing if the performing familiar were a man-sized Mauler, but communicating with the party might be a problem since Maulers don’t talk.
I guess that an Unchained Summoner could also do a lot of adventure by proxy stuff. That would work best when the Summoner was within 100 feet, but with Life Link you could use your HP pool to keep the eidolon in play even with lower HP. Even just 1 or 2 levels of Summoner could give you an essentially unkillable remote control wand jockey (it would always come back the next day) while taking all or most levels in Summoner could probably produce a reasonably effective melee character.
An Alchemist could send in a familiar with lots of infusions for the other PCs to drink though that makes me think of a St. Bernard dog with a magic barrel around his neck. It also occurs to me that with a little planning you could probably construct an entire remote control party of “RCs” instead of PCs. The animals, eidolons, and familiars would go into the dungeon while the PCs relax back in camp. I guess the trick would be making such a party effective enough to defeat level appropriate challenges. This might be easier if the PCs lacked any scruples which precluded the use of undead servants. Constructs could work too though I suspect they'd be too expensive.
I understand that sending in a team of NPCs to clear the dungeon on the party’s behalf probably seems like the very antithesis of fun, but it might be a fun party for “theorycrafting”, and maybe it could be amusing to actually play for the right group of masterminds.
What can I say, Tea Ceremony is poorly worded.So, what does Lazybones McGee get up to? Well, he uses some heavy rules exploits and questionable readings to allow him to...You lost me here.
No, not poorly worded if that is the exploit you're thinking of, a exploit that would get you kicked out of any game I know of.