If I have to ask then the answer is probably "no", but lets flesh out the details anyway.
My group is playing Way of the Wicked and it's..weird to say the least. And in some cases wuite powerful..quite more than the GM feels he should have allowed.
Probably the biggest problem is a skinwalker spellweaver in the party. He turns into a bat and flies around shooting several d8 of fire or some untyped darkness with an added slow effect, wihtout limits to the uses of abovesaid, plus he can cast virtually any spell with varying chances of successs quite a decent amount of time per day and he took a familiar with some template that lets it use cloudkill 1/d..while we've only just yesterday advanced to 6th levels. Oh yeah, he also catches souls to make into crafting "funds".
Then there's some kind of psionic crossbow fellow with a rangers bonus vs human..which are the most frequent opponent here. Ive never understood nor liked psionics seeingthem as unbalanced..and his shots just confirm it to me. Add in some minor artifact crossbow.
And we also have a tiefling summoner..on the plus side the guy has no idea how to run one properly. That gets balanced a bit by his inability to notice limits he should be having, but he doesn't wreck things as badly ss the other two..he wrecks plans instead, cause subtlety is a rather alien term to him. To each their own i guess.
And then there's me - a self-made, small humanoidal cat race swashbuckler 1/ninja X with a neat 22 dex, slashing grace on a single wakizashi and forgotten trick without the limit of "no rogue tricks".
And seeing the batty guy I feel like Im missing something.
So far Ive managed to plant my sneaks in quite a lot of situations and McGyvered some rather crazy stuff. Ive got a bracelet that produces me masterwork tools 2/d (for personal use only), a collar letting me shrink to a common kittycat or enlarge to medium (never used that option), stole a nerfed instand fortress the last day..basically running more on insane imagination than actual possibilites. Even cheating on the forgotten trick seems like its no much, not that I can use it an awful lot with a mere 5ki until I can get a ring of ki mastery..or a bodyglove with the same effect more likely.
Am I perhaps just underestimating my role in the party?
Or would it be fully justified to ask the GM for a gestalt with..say - bard?
Yes, wacky option. Doesn't get me any more skillpoints, hp nor bab. Just those few spells and performances, thoguh Ive been consideringtrading those in for either daredevil or archeologist archetypes
This party is so far away from the base expectations of Pathfinder I really have no idea what to advise. I will say that this is not a party suitable to playing an AP; I've been GM'ing it as well, going through the first book. So far the encounters have been such that I need to add stuff to them to provide a reasonable challenge to my players. And these are people with no special favors outside of what can be drawn from a rulebook.
It pains me to say it, but slashing grace dosent really work with a wakasashi.
But as fore your question. I think you should embrace your role as skill monkey, clever guy in a gang of half gods. or ask the GM to retrain to magus if all the skill use, clever stuff dosent lede anywhere.
How so? It's both a light and a slashing and even piercing one-handed weapon.
And I'm fine with my part requiring doing the clever stuff. I just feel like I still don't have enough options for my clever bits.
Are you generally saying that I shouldn't try to boost up not because of balance in the party, but because the party is already over the line?
How so? It's both a light and a slashing and even piercing one-handed weapon.
And I'm fine with my part requiring doing the clever stuff. I just feel like I still don't have enough options for my clever bits.Are you generally saying that I shouldn't try to boost up not because of balance in the party, but because the party is already over the line?
Slashing Grace requires you to specify a one-handed weapon, not one-handed or light.
If your DM was fine with letting you use it with a wakizashi, you may as well use two with Two-Weapon Fighting.
You being a gestalt won't put you on their level, it'll put you above them. You're a martial trying to hang with spellcasters and probably a mindbolt, based on the description of the psionic, you're not in their ballpark in terms of power, taping on a casting class is just going to make things more confusing. Rebuild as a bard if you want to be a bard.
A 2/3 martial just a step above "you'd only suck more with an NPC class" tapping into a 2/3 caster.
I'm not into a total change. Like I wrote before - I'd just like to broaden my options when it comes to tricky mischief.
If doing that with a bard gestalt means going high over what I wanted to achieve, any other Ideas how I could perhaps get a little more on par with the others with only minor rule bending? Perhaps gestalting is still an option, but with an appropriately less useful archetype of some sort (one that's more fluffy than poweruppy)
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I'm usually not a fan of the gestalt approach, but it seems totally appropriate here. The other PCs are over-the-top casters. Making your PC a gestalt Bard will still leave you lagging behind them in power, but spells will at least you'll play in the same league. By all means make this request to your GM.
I love gestalt, but its not going to up your power compared to theirs. The most it can do is bring you to parity. Having played in gestalt games, I don't know how it can put you "above" them unless you play a high-power class combo like they're already playing.
You've got a rogue, and its getting to be a higher level game. That has its own issues. Bard has nice options but it has so much overlap with what you're already doing that it really won't add much.
I'd probably graft a 9th level caster class on and be an arcane trickster or possibly diabolist. Play as an "information broker". Cleric or magus can also be nice as a rogue gestalt. The other thing I'd think might work is to rebuild as a slayer//bard or slayer//inquisitor. You'd get your rogue-y tricks with more beef and resilience and some spell tricks besides.
Can somebody tell me what the heck a "skinwalker spellweaver" is?
skinwalker is a shapechanging race, this particular is some subtype that changes into a bat - meaning he can get through very narrow spaces (of course i can too, but I need to use gear for that), fly..and since spell-likes don't have somatic components - use all his magic while staying safely out of reach plus getting that nice stealth and AC bonus from size.
spellweaver is some kind of spellcasting class from dnd 3,5 that always has to roll if his spellcasting succeeds, but he can cast any spell and ignore components and even cast above his level - it just makes the check harder and if he fails by enough he risks an explosion.
..last time he did boom the only one who got hurt by that was me, though at least I halved that..cats have awesome reflex saves ^_^
All bets are off if 3.5 stuff is allowed. Ever since I saw the "Splitting" bow enchantment (double all of your arrow attacks, all the time), it became clear to me that 3.5 things are often a lot stronger than PF equivalents.
I'd say go for it. Ask away. If a player isn't having fun because the DM allowed one overpowered class/race, then it's up to the GM to make it fun by allowing you things you can do.
If he says no, there are probably interesting 3.5 or 3rd party stuff you can try instead that he might allow.