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Dedicated HP-only-healers doesn't make sense in Pathfinder.The one exception I feel is the Life Mystery Oracle who is also a Paladin, since you can heal the entire rest of the party at once with your HP wia the Life Link revelation, and then lay hands on yourself as a swift action leaving you able to do whatever you want to do with your standard and move action. Healing as a strategy really needs action economy tricks like that to really be viable or interesting. Plus (esp. with the hospitaler archetype) you have copious channeling for post-combat healing.
If I'm going to play a healer, I'd prefer to to be one who can still attack most rounds. If my entire round is devoted to casting a spell, I'd really rather it be a spell that does something that wouldn't be just as useful to do after the fight is over in most cases. So if I'm in a campaign or with a party that for whatever reason *needs* a healer for some reason, I'm going Oracle [size of party-1]/Paladin [the rest].
After all if you're going to play something weak or narrow, optimize it until it's no longer at least one of those two things.
Yes. Everyone agrees that Oradins are legit.
Yes, people who want to play dedicated healers can totally do that. I have no objections, and I don't think anyone ever has, really.
Yes, like most options, healing has situational value in combat.
No, people shouldn't be forced to play a character they don't want to play because of some archaic devotion to tank/healer/DPS tropes that aren't necessary anymore.
Yes Oradin is a Viable build to heal with.
Yes a person CAN play a healer...but is wasting precious action economy most rounds by playing a dedicated healer. Doing little to nothing while waiting to heal someone....this is the issue most the community has. The Do nothing but Heal type of PC/Player.
Yes sometimes a Heal or Cure is Exactly what is needed...but when it is not...then what? You better have a REAL role to fall back on. Arm by Buffing and Dropping Mitigation spells (Like Resist Energy), Hammer- Attack, cast a spell, Use a Wand....do damage and help end the encounter faster. Or Anvil- Summon, Cast a enchantment to tie up a enemy...Just be doing something other than healing and waiting around to heal.
Any Yes never force someone into a position/class that they don't want to do. Especially when you are saying it is a MANDATORY class/role that has to be there for everyone to survive. That means someone is not having fun.
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Dedicated HP-only-healers doesn't make sense in Pathfinder.The one exception I feel is the Life Mystery Oracle who is also a Paladin, since you can heal the entire rest of the party at once with your HP wia the Life Link revelation, and then lay hands on yourself as a swift action leaving you able to do whatever you want to do with your standard and move action. Healing as a strategy really needs action economy tricks like that to really be viable or interesting. Plus (esp. with the hospitaler archetype) you have copious channeling for post-combat healing.
If I'm going to play a healer, I'd prefer to to be one who can still attack most rounds. If my entire round is devoted to casting a spell, I'd really rather it be a spell that does something that wouldn't be just as useful to do after the fight is over in most cases. So if I'm in a campaign or with a party that for whatever reason *needs* a healer for some reason, I'm going Oracle [size of party-1]/Paladin [the rest].
After all if you're going to play something weak or narrow, optimize it until it's no longer at least one of those two things.
Yes. Everyone agrees that Oradins are legit.
Yes, people who want to play dedicated healers can totally do that. I have no objections, and I don't think anyone ever has, really.
Yes, like most options, healing has situational value in combat.
No, people shouldn't be forced to play a character they don't want to play because of some archaic devotion to tank/healer/DPS tropes that aren't necessary anymore.
Yes Oradin is a Viable build to heal with.
Yes a person CAN play a healer...but is wasting precious action economy most rounds by playing a dedicated healer. Doing little to nothing while waiting to heal someone....this is the issue most the community has. The Do nothing but Heal type of PC/Player.
Yes sometimes a Heal or Cure is Exactly what is needed...but when it is not...then what? You...
Except that RPGs are about playing the kind of character you want to play. If someone shows up at my table playing a physically-dumped super-healer and expects to do only that, that's fine with me. Yes, it isn't OPTIMAL, but this isn't about what's optimal. This is about what your players want to play, and handling encounters accordingly.
Either way, healing is never a REQUIREMENT for any group. Once you force someone to be a healer, you're robbing them of gaming agency, and that's uncool. Simultaneously bashing someone for playing a dedicated healer that they WANT to play is equally uncool.
Also, as a side-note, challenging combat doesn't mean characters lose tons of health. It means it CHALLENGES them. I've had encounters where the difficulty was the terrain, and fighting over it became a serious issue. IF we hadn't solved that issue, we would have eventually gotten killed. Challenge w/o healing. Healing in that encounter would have prolonged the inevitable without providing any real solutions.
Except that RPGs are about playing the kind of character you want to play. If someone shows up at my table playing a physically-dumped super-healer and expects to do only that, that's fine with me. Yes, it isn't OPTIMAL, but this isn't about what's optimal. This is about what your players want to play, and handling encounters accordingly.
Agreed,.... but one thing to remember is that when someone shows up with a super-healer, they're not showing up with a character that's either necessary nor (a lot of the time) useful. The modifications that you'll need to make will probably involve making sure the healer has something useful to do.
Basically, show up with a walking box of Band-aids if you like, but that's not that much different than showing up with a fighter with 13 strength and 17 intelligence.
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Except that RPGs are about playing the kind of character you want to play. If someone shows up at my table playing a physically-dumped super-healer and expects to do only that, that's fine with me. Yes, it isn't OPTIMAL, but this isn't about what's optimal. This is about what your players want to play, and handling encounters accordingly.
Such a character would have no problems also buffing. I've seen characters who expect to do little but buff and sometimes heal - they can be pretty sweet. (Had a cleric like that in a group with my bard. The stacking was amazing.)
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Except that RPGs are about playing the kind of character you want to play. If someone shows up at my table playing a physically-dumped super-healer and expects to do only that, that's fine with me. Yes, it isn't OPTIMAL, but this isn't about what's optimal. This is about what your players want to play, and handling encounters accordingly.Such a character would have no problems also buffing. I've seen characters who expect to do little but buff and sometimes heal - they can be pretty sweet. (Had a cleric like that in a group with my bard. The stacking was amazing.)
Exactly.
Healer isn't a role...Arm is...Arm involves more than just Healing. Buffing is perfectly acceptable to do when not healing if that is the PCs stic.
BUT I've been at a table that a player did NOTHING but heal....a person take 3 HP damage they run over and hit them with Cure light and then go back to waiting for a wound to lick. Towards the end of the campaign the player says, "Healers are boring." Because he did nothing unless something needed healing. How narrow of a focus. That Narrow Focus made him useless at everything else because he was blinded by the narrowness.
I play lots of Clerics. Evangelist is my favorite. I will say my gaming reached a whole new level once I went from old school thinking to the forge of combat. I learned just how powerful they are and that I was using lots of my resources improperly.
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I have discussed double dipping Oracles in some cases so I can attack after buffing and before needing to heal. I pick fighter for two levels and become a ranged attacker. It allows me to damage when I'm not needed as a healer. My role as healer slows as you get higher and higher.
As the party gets higher in level usually about twelve or thirteenth they rely less on healing and more on Restoration or Neutralizing poisons or removing curses. That's when I consider a second class. Until then having as many cure spells is more important.
A reach focused character is better at the action economy. Move into position to pick up a AoO and cast as your standard. Take your AoO with your new buffed up stats. Round 2 heal/buff if needed or go Full attack. This allows you to do damage when not playing Arm...and get in more attacks hopefully through AoOs. No need for a dip into fighter as Long spear + Combat reflexes + Power attack are all Core options and available to EVERY class. It is much less feat intensive than Archer/ranged. And it is also less ability score dependent as a 14 str is enough for any class with buffs to be effective with a long spear.
Except that RPGs are about playing the kind of character you want to play. If someone shows up at my table playing a physically-dumped super-healer and expects to do only that, that's fine with me. Yes, it isn't OPTIMAL, but this isn't about what's optimal. This is about what your players want to play, and handling encounters accordingly.Such a character would have no problems also buffing. I've seen characters who expect to do little but buff and sometimes heal - they can be pretty sweet. (Had a cleric like that in a group with my bard. The stacking was amazing.)
Buffing is good.
One of the nice thing about buff spells is that they are almost always useful.
For example, let's look at delay poison. If you prepare this spell at the beginning of the day, you are assuming that
* you will run into a monster that poisons people
* the monster will, in fact, be able to get a poison off before it's overwhelmed
* the monster will hit in delivering the poison attack
* the target of the poison will fail her saving throw.
... or else the spell is basically wasted.
By contrast, any day you're in combat, a bull's strength or similar attribute buff spell will help one of your front-line fighters.
That's true of any condition removal spells as well as any HP restoration spells; they are inherently reactive and you are assuming that specific bad things will happen to you. If they don't, you've wasted an opportunity. And even if those specific bad things happen to you, they're normally the kind of specific bad things that you can deal with after the combat is over, especially if you were able to help win the combat faster and with less resource expenditure.
Dungeon and Dragons First second third and fourth. Pathfinder was built on that.
Yes, and the modern Ford Focus was built on the Model T, but if you tell me that turning the crank at the front of the engine is mandatory, I will laugh at you.
One of the things that Paizo specifically did in the Pathfinder redesign was reduce the need for healbot, precisely because, as was pointed out in the opening post, they're not fun to play.
Now it seems to me you are playing in home adventures with a very, very nice DM. Adventure modules have a tendency to be brutal and extremely lethal without a smart well balanced party.
Actually, we find them to be ridiculously easy and often need to beef them up to provide challenges. A well-played party will trash a published Paizo AP. (This, by the way, is by design -- so that new players, without much system mastery, will still have fun. If you're really losing to the published APs, then this means you're not playing up to the levels Paizo expects of someone who just received a copy of Core under the tree last December.) The encounters are badly designed, and they're often solo encounters that will lose based on action economy alone. The tactics listed for published critters are generally very poor, and the treasure given is more than adequate to provide us with all the consumables we want -- in fact, we're usually selling consumables back because who needs yet another potion of healing?
No healer in our group three encounters later the party is dead. Fact!
I believe it. You've established your group has little tactical sense or system mastery. I'm not surprised that you get slaughtered with impunity.
You keep playing like the way you want. I bet you have a higher body count then I ever did.
Our usual body count is about one death per player over the entire six volume AP. We're more likely to swap characters out in the middle of the game because the opposition is so weak that the character isn't fun to play. (One player in particular, who seems to specialize in gishes, hasn't had a character die [that I can remember] in over three years of weekly gaming, but the average is brought up by another player who likes to charge up the middle and put himself in what even he recognizes as tactically questionable positions.)
So, no, I don't consider your tales of woe to be evidence of anything about party composition.
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For example, let's look at delay poison. If you prepare this spell at the beginning of the day, you are assuming that* you will run into a monster that poisons people
* the monster will, in fact, be able to get a poison off before it's overwhelmed
* the monster will hit in delivering the poison attack
* the target of the poison will fail her saving throw.... or else the spell is basically wasted.
Isn't that sort of the whole advantage of clerics being able to change such niche spells to cure spells when they turn out to be unneeded?
Isn't that sort of the whole advantage of clerics being able to change such niche spells to cure spells when they turn out to be unneeded?
For example, let's look at delay poison. If you prepare this spell at the beginning of the day, you are assuming that* you will run into a monster that poisons people
* the monster will, in fact, be able to get a poison off before it's overwhelmed
* the monster will hit in delivering the poison attack
* the target of the poison will fail her saving throw.... or else the spell is basically wasted.
Well,.... I prefer to think of it as "being able to change any spells to cure spells when they turn out to be unneeded."
But, yes, spontaneous cure spells are part of the ongoing get-rid-of-the-healbot redesign, and even predates Pathfinder. But that's not really an argument for preparing niche spells like delay poison; you could just as easily prepare a generically useful spell and swap it out instead. And if you're really set on having the capacity for condition removal, you leave spell slots open -- and, again, handle things out of combat.
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Dungeon and Dragons First second third and fourth. Pathfinder was built on that.Yes, and the modern Ford Focus was build on the Model T, but if you tell me that turning the crank at the front of the engine is mandatory, I will laugh at you.
One of the things that Paizo specifically did in the Pathfinder redesign was reduce the need for healbot, precisely because, as was pointed out in the opening post, they're not fun to play.
Now it seems to me you are playing in home adventures with a very, very nice DM. Adventure modules have a tendency to be brutal and extremely lethal without a smart well balanced party.Actually, we find them to be ridiculously easy and often need to beef them up to provide challenges. A well-played party will trash a published Paizo AP. (This, by the way, is by design -- so that new players, without much system mastery, will still have fun. If you're really losing to the published APs, then this means you're not playing up to the levels Paizo expects of someone who just received a copy of Core under the tree last December.) The encounters are badly designed, and they're often solo encounters that will lose based on action economy alone. The tactics listed for published critters are generally very poor, and the treasure given is more than adequate to provide us with all the consumables we want -- in fact, we're usually selling consumables back because who needs yet another potion of healing?
No healer in our group three encounters later the party is dead. Fact!I believe it. You've established your group has little tactical sense or system mastery. I'm not surprised that you get slaughtered with impunity.
Our usual body count is about one death per player over the entire six volume AP. We're more likely to swap characters out in the middle of the game because...
You keep playing like the way you want. I bet you have a higher body count then I ever did.
I agree. A good majority of my deaths are DM fiats that can not be avoided cause he has deemed my Build too powerful. Or I'm BEGGED to reroll. I have a bloodrager build that is now banned at my home tables cause I soloed the Dungeon and Slaughtered the end of book boss in a single round. I came in to replace their frontliner and ended up replacing the need for a group. APs are typically weak sauce and I have a book of builds that can tear them apart without much issue.
Most deaths in groups I am in come from self inflicted bad tatics or a DM who just had enough of being abused by a theory crafted power house characters that can solo +2 CR fights. Not because we lacked a Cure spell.
I think one of the things that I find interesting is that "healing potions" are a well established trope of fantasy fiction, but you very rarely see pathfinder players stocking them (since wands are lighter and better). So one thing I do to mitigate healing-deficient parties is to ensure that a lot of the intelligent antagonists are carrying around healing potions, because that's a sensible thing to carry if you're planning on getting fights and you don't know CLW wands exist. That way I can ensure players have good access to healing, and I don't have to worry about them reselling a pile of potions because I can just fiat that almost all vendors won't buy potions of uncertain origin because who knows what got put in there.
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I think one of the things that I find interesting is that "healing potions" are a well established trope of fantasy fiction, but you very rarely see pathfinder players stocking them (since wands are lighter and better). So one thing I do to mitigate healing-deficient parties is to ensure that a lot of the intelligent antagonists are carrying around healing potions, because that's a sensible thing to carry if you're planning on getting fights and you don't know CLW wands exist. That way I can ensure players have good access to healing, and I don't have to worry about them reselling a pile of potions because I can just fiat that almost all vendors won't buy potions of uncertain origin because who knows what got put in there.
I like to stock and carry on most my Character (especially my Clerics/Divine casters):
Wand of Cure Light WoundsPotions of Cure Moderate and Serious (When I find them dropped)
Potion of Remove Blindness (Can't read a Scroll when blinded)
Scrolls of Remove X condition (- Blindness as I carry it in potion form)
Scroll of Deathward (cause this has saved my life Countless times)
Scroll of Life Bubble (So under rated and powerful group answer to many things)
Pathfinder has cleaned up a lot of the mistakes of D&D. However combat people get hurt. Look at a typical military squad one person is trained as the medic. Why because someone is going to get hurt.
No. The military medic is still a very deadly combatant. Most triage is performed after the dust settles NOT in a midfirefight situation.
Your analogy is a poor one.
The best tactics I've seen don't rely much on rolls, Derek. Area denial and threat of damage are often enough to force opponents to do what you want.
For example - you want the enemy to come to you, want to stop them using ranged weapons, and to be in combat with your melee rather than your Wizard. The Wizard drops Fog Cloud or Darkness the enemy Archers, then your Melee (enlarged or using reach wespons) move into position so their threatened areas do not leave gaps to move through. For good measure, the group's Divine caster uses Wall of Stone, or a couple of summons, to create a bottleneck that limits the number of foes who can rush you.
At this point no-one has rolled a die, but you have achieved a tactical advantage.
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I'd respond more fully to the main gist of the thread above, but I think my first post would be just as appropriate here as when I posted it. That's still my opinion.
Short version:
You don't need a character whose combat role is healing. You need someone who can do combat healing in emergencies and do non-combat healing/condition removal effectively.
Now, a support/buffer character is another matter and very useful, but healing is not their primary combat action most turns. Even an Oradin, who heals very well most turns, does most of that as a Swift Action, while doing other stuff.
Except that it comes from a specific adventure path and it might not be allowed in other APs. I know a case in which the GM has allowed it just for the Trapfinding, but not every GM will be like that.Anyone can disarm traps now. Magical traps on the other hand is limited to Rogues and a few archtypes.... or anyone who takes the "Trap Finder" trait ("You can use Disable Device to disarm magic traps, like a rogue.").
Literally. It's now half a feat to have that ability.
In fariness, I'm with Quentin on this one. The Mummy's Mask Traits each provide two separate bonuses which are each worth a conventional Trait (Blood of the Pharaohs, for example, gives +1 Will Save, and +1 to two skills and make one class). That makes calling Trapfinder 'half a Feat' seriously dubious. The same is true of many other AP Traits...but those are all specifically tied to that AP and using one set for another is easily and commonly prohibited on thematic grounds.
Now, I'd allow someone to take Trapfinder as a Feat in a heartbeat. Or even as a Trait that didn't give Disable Device as a Class Skill. And there are lots of ways to get Trapfinding otherwise that make calling it a party role a bit dubious...but using the Trait is a bad example.
How did monsters get the drop on you without beating your Perception? How did they beat your initiative? How did they know who the weakest members are and what does "weakest" mean? You can't stop someone from thinking tactically, even if you surprise them. You can only change what the most tactically advantageous option is.
In the case that monsters magically know the "weakest" member and target them and get the surprise round and deal enough damage to put him below 50% before anyone can do anything, we have a decision to make.
Do we heal him for a hilariously low number of hitpoints and hope the monsters leave him alone on their turn? That sounds like a bad plan. He's just going to get attacked again and you wasted one of the members' turn on healing. He's going to die anyway, and you've reduced the chances that the survivors will win the fight.
Do we obliterate the monsters, deny them their actions and otherwise control the battlefield to such a degree that the battle is effectively won? That sounds like a good plan. The creatures are usually dead, at the bottom of a pit, or choking on a cloud of something awful.
These spells have a chance of failing, but healing cannot outpace damage. If they were going to finish him off, they'd just use the same attack they did to start the fight and kill him anyway. If they weren't, then healing him was kind of pointless. If the reason they suddenly lose interest in killing him after the heal is that you DM wants healing to be useful more often, then this argument is meaningless.
There are some situation that healing is useful in, but they are never common enough to merit a focus on healing as a character. Not if you care about what is optimal. You have healing as a back up, you keep condition removal spells around for when you need them, but it's just that. A secondary function of the character.
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Bonus to a skill is one thing. Disarming Magical traps is a whole different matter. Few classes can do this with even fewer archtypes. While most modules don't recommend a Rogue some do knowing it's full of magical and often deadly traps.
Anyone can disarm a non magical trap it's a skill anyone can take. They can even take it without it being a class skill. It's the rogue and a few archtypes that get bonuses for doing so and the ability to disarm magical traps that make them a worthwhile addition to a party.
As a wizard I can use the mount spell and "Disarm" magic traps level 1.
Detect magic + Mount. Magical trap is triggered and of no detriment.
Detect magic and walking around the trap works too.
Non magical traps can be treated the same way.
Perception check + Summon monster 1 or mount.
Perception check and Avoiding the trap.
Who the hell says you MUST disarm all traps like a rogue?
Trapfinding is a nitch....but not a needed nitch...rogues are trash anyways and never "worthwhile".
IMA get to this when I get home.
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Some combats start without any Perception, as Derek said, or we rolled low on Perception, or they just have insane Stealth skills. Try seeing an ambush by Invisible Stalkers coming, I dare you.
Some prewritten adventures (like APs, modules, or PFS scenarios) simply don't give a Perception check, or the encounter is supposed to be a surprise or an ambush, either not giving a Stealth check to beat, or it's so damn high it's practically impossible to beat. Maybe it's night, and Mr. Sorcerer McShit-for-Perception is on guard duty and fails to see the ambush. And sometimes the encounter triggers when you touch or do something. In some cases, prewritten adventures just cheat to make an "exciting" encounter. No matter how long you've been roleplaying, at some point you're gonna get surprised. It's like Batman: prepare for the unlikely, and you'll always have a solution.
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Bonus to a skill is one thing. Disarming Magical traps is a whole different matter. Few classes can do this with even fewer archtypes. While most modules don't recommend a Rogue some do knowing it's full of magical and often deadly traps.
Uh...if by 'few Classes' you mean 'three different Classes that fill out most party roles aside from full caster' and by 'even fewer archetypes' you mean something like half a dozen, including ones for full casters...
Disarming magical traps is an important thing in some APs and adventures, certainly, but it isn't very hard to get as long as you agree beforehand someone needs to have the ability.
And that leaves aside the Detect Magic + Mount workaround mentioned above.
Now Unchained Rogues aren't actually a particularly bad class (though corebook Rogues are), but going Rogue for Trapfinding isn't actually super useful or necessary.
Don't canned adventures for which "disarming magical traps" is a *really* big deal generally allow the "trap finder" trait? I imagine that's why the trait exists, so nobody *has* to play the rogue if they don't want to.
General rule: Nobody should ever *have* to play any particular thing or general kind of thing. Whether you're running or writing a scenario, if there's a thing that it's really important that the party be able to do it, make sure there's multiple ways to do it. That there's an essentially unlimited number of ways to accomplish anything because you have a human adjudicating the game is really the best thing about tabletop roleplaying games.
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As a side note: Mages don't wear armor? A +2 haramaki with an armored kilt is only a HAIR more expensive than a set of Bracers of Armor, costs FAR less to get up to +5 quality (the equivalent of Bracers 7), and you even get to pair it with a mithril light shield (which you can enchant as well). Until you start using those swift actions regularly, Arcane Armor Training is actually a pretty good idea, which ups you to a Mithril Chain Shirt (up to a +9 armor bonus), and maybe even a Mithral Heavy shield if you choose that route instead. I don't know how people play an unarmored mage. XD
Maybe it's night, and Mr. Sorcerer McShit-for-Perception is on guard duty and fails to see the ambush.
Goodness, I'm supposed to believe that this kind of bad planning is a reason to take a rogue?
Keep watch is a level 1 spell, and it's a level 1 spell for some of the higher-skill point, Wisdom-based classes. If you're worried about camping in the wilderness and your ranger doesn't bother to prepare this spell, buy her a wand so Mr. Sorcerer McShit-for-Perception can get his beauty rest.
"THOU SHALT LEARN TO LOVE THE WAND, THE SCROLL, AND THE ROD." This is part of one of the cleric optimization guides, but really it applies to everyone. Learn the spell lists and bring a case of the spells you expect to need.
And, yes..... this is how Batman thinks. You'll notice he's got all the scrolls and wands he needs in his utility belt. There's little chance he prepared keep watch today, but he has a wand of it,.... just in case.
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As a side note: Mages don't wear armor? A +2 haramaki with an armored kilt is only a HAIR more expensive than a set of Bracers of Armor, costs FAR less to get up to +5 quality (the equivalent of Bracers 7), and you even get to pair it with a mithril light shield (which you can enchant as well). Until you start using those swift actions regularly, Arcane Armor Training is actually a pretty good idea, which ups you to a Mithril Chain Shirt (up to a +9 armor bonus), and maybe even a Mithral Heavy shield if you choose that route instead. I don't know how people play an unarmored mage. XD
It has been proven that Bracers of Armor are a waste of Gold. A wand of Mage armor is 750gp. If the Bracers are a waste of money then the HAIR more expensive Haramaki route is even more so.
Honestly the only time buying a Haramaki is really worth it is if your looking for a special magic on the armor like +1 spell storing armor. to get more action economy when attacked.
Plus people who are good "lightly/no armored" caster Layer thier defenses. On a wizard I can walk about (for HOURS) with Mage armor (AC), Defending Bone (DR), and False Life and be on par with people wearing Medium armors and have a D10 HD. This doesn't even take into account Shield and Mirror image that I either prepared or Have on scroll/wand.
If your Wizard is walking into a Dungeon unbuffed and gets jumped...he deserves to die....
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Second they were smart enough to recognize armor mages don't wear armor. They hit him to below zero.My monk wears a robe & pointy hat covered in stars & moons.
I'm actually Playing a Halfling Warpriest switch hitter with a sling staff...he wears Glamoured armor and appears to wear basic adventures cloths and some leather skins....
But in Fact is wearing +1 (Magic vestment makes it +2 atm) Undead Defiant Glamoured Mithral Full Plate. Yes please attack the little halfling that looks like he isn't wearing armor...He will be glad to take your hate and suffering upon himself and give it back 10 fold.
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My sohei/druid walks around barechested, but then the party ARE pirates after all...
But in Fact is wearing +1 (Magic vestment makes it +2 atm) Undead Defiant Glamoured Mithral Full Plate. Yes please attack the little halfling that looks like he isn't wearing armor...He will be glad to take your hate and suffering upon himself and give it back 10 fold.
Kurik walks around in cleric vestments. Or so it seems until someone tries to hit him and hears the CLANG and sees the glamer ripple.
As a side note: Mages don't wear armor? A +2 haramaki with an armored kilt is only a HAIR more expensive than a set of Bracers of Armor, costs FAR less to get up to +5 quality (the equivalent of Bracers 7), and you even get to pair it with a mithril light shield (which you can enchant as well). Until you start using those swift actions regularly, Arcane Armor Training is actually a pretty good idea, which ups you to a Mithril Chain Shirt (up to a +9 armor bonus), and maybe even a Mithral Heavy shield if you choose that route instead. I don't know how people play an unarmored mage. XDIt has been proven that Bracers of Armor are a waste of Gold. A wand of Mage armor is 750gp. If the Bracers are a waste of money then the HAIR more expensive Haramaki route is even more so.
Bracers of Armor are only a waste of gold because cheaper alternatives exist.
A +2 haramaki costs 4,000-ish gold pieces which goes up to about 5K with the kilt and masterwork qualities -- and that gives you exactly what mage armor gives you for the cost of a first-level wand or what bracers give you for 16,000 gp.
A +3 haramaki setup costs you 10,000 gp and gives you better armor than you can get with a wand. That's actually the cheapest way for a wizard to get a +5 armor bonus. The +5 haramaki setup is 26,000 gp, roughly half the price of the equivalent bracers.
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A +2 haramaki costs 4,000-ish gold pieces which goes up to about 5K with the kilt and masterwork qualities -- and that gives you exactly what mage armor gives you for the cost of a first-level wand or what bracers give you for 16,000 gp.
The kilt doesn't add any AC to the haramaki as the bonuses don't stack.
But yes - the bracers are bad for wizards. They're pretty much mid-high level monk only.
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Bracers of Armor are only a waste of gold because cheaper alternatives exist.
As a Mage your paying money to your Spell books and all your other gear. The Best mages are also Accountants who look for all the cheaper ways to achieve the same bonuses. Saving thousands of Gold means more spells in your book and more items down the road.
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A +2 haramaki costs 4,000-ish gold pieces which goes up to about 5K with the kilt and masterwork qualities -- and that gives you exactly what mage armor gives you for the cost of a first-level wand or what bracers give you for 16,000 gp.The kilt doesn't add any AC to the haramaki as the bonuses don't stack.
But yes - the bracers are bad for wizards. They're pretty much mid-high level monk only.
Read the description of an Armored Kilt, not just the bonuses listed.
Maybe it's night, and Mr. Sorcerer McShit-for-Perception is on guard duty and fails to see the ambush.Goodness, I'm supposed to believe that this kind of bad planning is a reason to take a rogue?
Keep watch is a level 1 spell, and it's a level 1 spell for some of the higher-skill point, Wisdom-based classes. If you're worried about camping in the wilderness and your ranger doesn't bother to prepare this spell, buy her a wand so Mr. Sorcerer McShit-for-Perception can get his beauty rest.
"THOU SHALT LEARN TO LOVE THE WAND, THE SCROLL, AND THE ROD." This is part of one of the cleric optimization guides, but really it applies to everyone. Learn the spell lists and bring a case of the spells you expect to need.
And, yes..... this is how Batman thinks. You'll notice he's got all the scrolls and wands he needs in his utility belt. There's little chance he prepared keep watch today, but he has a wand of it,.... just in case.
Sigh. You're really adamant in your convictions, aren't you? You're right in this case, as there are spells for almost any situation. But there are still multiple examples you've chosen to ignore, as well as my comment on how the Trap Finder trait isn't accessible to everyone.
I'm done. You're set in your ways and that's fine, but arguing back and forth won't help anyone.
Trapfinding is hella accessible in an insane amount of forms.
Why is the worst person with perception on guard duty? O.o
Trapfinding is hella accessible in an insane amount of forms.
Why is the worst person with perception on guard duty? O.o
Because it's a small party and if we have to pair up for naptime we'll literally have only six hours of adventuring per day. It's not a perfect system.
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The Trait mentioned allows him to Disable Device. That's it and anyone can spent points to do that without spending a trait. What he missed is the part where I was talking about Magical Traps. No trait or feat allows that. It's a class feature for the Rogue and a few archtypes can pick it up.
Detect Magic. How many classes can have this? Magical traps are easy to spot when you spam Detect Magic and Perception check. Disabling it like I've stated can be accomplished in many ways. And some traps can be bypassed needing no more than a Perception check and a 0 level spell. Clerics can handle magical traps. Still not seeing the mandatory need for a class with trapfinding.
