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Hey everyone,
I recently finished the eyes of the ten retirement arc with my party as a paladin. Somewhere in the future, the idea is to finish the season 8 12-15 module 'unleashing the untouchable' and then continue into the season 7 'all for immortality adventures' (level 14-15 mode), which would leave us at level 15. From there on, we might possibly play the unreleased season 10 12-15 modules (half speed if needed, I suppose).
The party makeup is 10(?) rogue with brawler (3?) dip, full arcanist, full cleric, and me as a 2 h melee paladin 12/level 1 bloodrager. Overall, I'd say the power level of the party is fairly high. The melee rogue does good damage and is excellent at debuffing enemies, the cleric has very powerfull crowd control channels inflicting fear/panic and disease debuffs, and the arcanist is our swiss army knife with a focus on counterspelling and teleportation. My role is more added melee damage and using shield other to soak half off the other party member's damage. While this tactic is normally dangerous, I found that with the counterspelling arcanist and the cleric having dispel focus and liking to ready to dispel whatever spell is cast, I haven't actually been hit by any aoe spell at all during the last 4 adventures. In addition, I'm specced to have the 'good hope' bard spell (by worshipping Iomedae) and have the metamagic feat 'encouraging spell' to have a really powerfull party buff.
The only real trouble we ran into during the arc was when fighting an entire swarm of level draining enemies in which we were forced to be split up due to objectives, and the final encounter which features an extremely powerful final boss (the updated version of X, with mythic levels etc). I think that in both those encounters, I got into trouble because my AC and touch AC was fairly low, and because there was no time to use my normal defensive buffs (displacement and the sanctuary mercy with a willsave dc of 24, due to having 26 charisma myself). To be fair, the final enemy was fairly b~*$*~++ with like 7 high accuracy attacks each turn dealing 45-ish (post debuffs on him) damage per hit and crits for like 120, which would have killed the rogue in round 1 if not for shield other, along with items that made X immune to spells and status effects.
Anyway, now that we've survived I'm at a bit of a loss on what to spend my remaining gold on (and we have a lot of that, considering how ridiculously much we got in those 4 adventures). I currently have 39.5 k to spend after selling some redundant items I never used, with the current magical items in inventory:
Champion Fullplate +3, Furious Nodachi + 2, Winged Boots, swarmbane clasp (in bag), Cloak of prot. + 3, dusty rose prism, br. of the merciful knight, Amulet of nat. armor +2, helm of the mammoth lord, Headband of charisma +6, belt of str and con +2, handy haversack, lesser rod of reach, lucky horseshoe (with +1 luck bonus trait) and eyes of the eagle. I also have a bunch of utility scrolls bought from prestige points and some leftover gold.
The most obvious missing item is a ring of protection of any kind. I also only have 1 magical weapon. Prebuffs, my ac is currently 26 with a touch AC of 12. Smite evil however boosts this to 36 with touch 22 against a focus target since it grants +8 deflection and +2 sacred, and I usually try to have displacement up as a scroll in round 1. Additionally, if I lay on hands myself then enemies need to roll willsave DC 24 to attack me, which can be tricky. And I do have even more buffs from wand of shield etc available. The problems start arising when there is no time at all to buff, such as when all enemies start right on top of us.
Regarding ring of protection, I am also just one adventure away from
the greater angelic aspect spell, which grants a +4 deflection bonus against evil creatures (seems to be most of them) to the entire party within 20 ft, along with dr 10/evil and some other damage resistances and immunities. I think that will be my go-to spell for round 1 every major fight from then. However, this deflection bonus wouldn't stack with ring of protection which is why I'm a bit hesitant to invest in one. The counterargument I guess is that not every single enemy we meet is evil, meaning that deflection bonus wouldn't work, though most dangerous ones so far seemed to be.
I had some ideas on what to do:
-Buy a rod of lesser quickening and a +2 ring of protection to hedge bets and invest in action economy. This would allow me to start every fight with casting a quickened encouraging (+3 version of) good hope along with either greater angelic aspect, divine favor or weapon bond. If good hope is prebuffed, then divine favor along with weapon bond or greater angelic aspect. After getting some more gold, get a ring of force shielding and further upgrade the ring of protecting to account for bad luck. The bad thing here is that I start every fight holding the rod of quickeneing, which would prevent full attacking (this is honestly fairly rare for a first turn) unless I'd drop the 35 k rod on the ground, pluc I'd miss out on upgrading the str and con belt.
-Buy a +4 version of the belt of str and con to invest in hp, accuracy and damage, get a ring of force shielding for a +2 shield bonus to ac. Ignore ring of protection, later further upgrade the other AC items. This has no overlapping bonusses and is a bit more effective on the offense and in HP durability, and has no awkwardness of weapon holding going into fights. The downside is that the action economy will be worse than the above build.
-Buy a ring of evasion for 25 k and sell an additional 1500 g worth of items to get a +4 ring of deflection. Then, go on saving for the belt or the rod. This option accounts for that the casters will probably not be able to counterspell every aoe ability that might come our way. The downside is that it's a fairly passive play and doesn't help us out offensively.
-Something I'm not aware of/your suggestion?
Can anyone offer me some advice on what I should do?
-kind regards,
Trevor
Trevor,
I am currently 2.1 levels behind you with a paladin of Iomedea and in a similar position as far as gear and moving forward concepts.
Relative to what you have their are only a couple things I have come up with.
1. Lesser extend metamagic rod to use with delay poison every morning to essentially be immune to poison.
2. Orellon's advice, grab a Ring of Freedom of Movement.
3. Keep adding plus 1's to your current equipment and/or upgrade your belt.
4. You could also get a Cracked Pale Green Prism Ioun Stone for a plus 1 to attack competence bonus for only 4000gp.
The one main difference in our builds seems to be the thing that changed for me recently with the announcement of how to properly price different sized equipment. I have an adamantine weapon that was a large rhoka, but with the increased cost I decided to drop it to a one-handed medium weapon, which then gave me the ability to retrain my Greater Mercy feat for Quickdraw and get a Quick draw shield, so now I can two-hand my weapon on my turn do free actions to have my shield on not my turn and one-hand the weapon for AOO's then back to two-hand on my turn. This has given me a new source of cheap AC to work with, putting me at if I remember 29 at level 11. I got nothing on for the touch AC though, we just have to use our absurd paladin saves and lay on hands to fix that stuff.
By the way I am curious about the rest of your build (stat distribution, mercies, feats you mentioned taking weapon bond), mind sharing?
To be fair:
Paladin 11
Nagaji
STR 18
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 5
Wis 10
Cha 23
Traits:
Magical Knack
Purity of Faith
Mercies:
Fatigued
Sickened
Cursed
Blinded (lvl 12 plan)
Deafened (lvl 15 plan)
Feats
Fey Foundling
Greater Mercy (retrained to Quickdraw)
Power Attack
Weapon Focus: Rhoka
Improved Critical: Rhoka
Divine Interference
Greater Mercy (lvl 13 plan)
Toughness (level 15 plan possibly change depending if I get the +4 CON/STR belt)
1 Skill point in Diplomacy every level
Current Equipment
Masterwork Earthbreaker (weapon from before getting Rhoka proficiency)
Daggers
Adamantine Rhoka +1
Fulle Plate +3
Mithral Light Steel Quickdraw Shield +2
Ring of Freedom of Movement
Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stone (in wayfinder)
Cracked Clear Pyramid Ioun Stone (make rhoka martial)
Cracked Pale Green Prism Ioun Stone [Saves]
Cracked Pink and Green Sphere Ioun Stone [Diplomacy]
Headband of Alluring Charisma +4
Cloak of Resistance +2
Amulet of Natural Armor +1
Bracers of the Merciful Knight
Lesser Extend Metamagic Rod
Masterwork Diplomacy Tool (For speaching about Iomedae) I call it Iomedae's Tips for Creating Believer's (For Dummy's Edition)[Guilded]
Spells
1st
Bless Weapon X2
Hero's Defiance X2
2nd
Delay Poison
Effortless Armor
Paladin's Sacrifice
3rd
Angelic Aspect
Blade of Bright Victory
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Trevor,
I am currently 2.1 levels behind you with a paladin of Iomedea and in a similar position as far as gear and moving forward concepts.
Relative to what you have their are only a couple things I have come up with.
1. Lesser extend metamagic rod to use with delay poison every morning to essentially be immune to poison.
2. Orellon's advice, grab a Ring of Freedom of Movement.
3. Keep adding plus 1's to your current equipment and/or upgrade your belt.
4. You could also get a Cracked Pale Green Prism Ioun Stone for a plus 1 to attack competence bonus for only 4000gp.
The one main difference in our builds seems to be the thing that changed for me recently with the announcement of how to properly price different sized equipment. I have an adamantine weapon that was a large rhoka, but with the increased cost I decided to drop it to a one-handed medium weapon, which then gave me the ability to retrain my Greater Mercy feat for Quickdraw and get a Quick draw shield, so now I can two-hand my weapon on my turn do free actions to have my shield on not my turn and one-hand the weapon for AOO's then back to two-hand on my turn. This has given me a new source of cheap AC to work with, putting me at if I remember 29 at level 11. I got nothing on for the touch AC though, we just have to use our absurd paladin saves and lay on hands to fix that stuff.
By the way I am curious about the rest of your build (stat distribution, mercies, feats you mentioned taking weapon bond), mind sharing?
To be fair:
Paladin 11
Nagaji
STR 18
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 5
Wis 10
Cha 23Traits:
Magical Knack
Purity of FaithMercies:
Fatigued
Sickened
Cursed
Blinded (lvl 12 plan)
Deafened (lvl 15 plan)Feats
Fey Foundling
Greater Mercy (retrained to Quickdraw)
Power Attack
Weapon Focus: Rhoka
Improved Critical: Rhoka
Divine Interference
Greater Mercy (lvl 13 plan)
Toughness (level 15 plan possibly change depending if I get the +4 CON/STR belt)1 Skill point in Diplomacy every level
Current...
I do kind of like the ring of freedom of movement, I'd honestly forgotten about that one. So thanks to both of you for reminding me. My only gripe with that one is that it's probably only usefull against grapplers for me, since with the rediculous saves paladins tend to have I probably can shrug off most spell effectcs.
Sure, since you asked, here is my full build:
A, human oath of vengeance paladin 12/Id rager (hatred, previously kindness) 1.
Stats: 20 str (with +2 belt), 12 dex, 16 con (w/+2 belt), 10 int, 9 wis (with +2 wisdom ioun stone in wayfinder), 26 cha (+6 headband, +2 cha boon).
Hp 131, Rage: 157, AC 26, touch AC 12. LoH: 16x/day +1 faction/day for 8d6+18.
Saves: Fort +28, ref +18, will +20. Rage: +2fort/will. Good hope spell would add an additional +3 to all saves for entire party when active.
Feats:
1. Feywild foundline + noble scion (cha)
3. Extra rage
5: power attack
7: vision mastery
9: Improved critical (nodachi)
11: Extra traits
13: Encouraging spell.
15 (tentative): Quick Draw
Extra: Skill focus perception (Id rager 1 bonus feat, blind fight (+2 wis ioun stone socket bonus).
Skills: Every level max perception, diplomacy and use magic divice. At certain levels I took 1 extra skillpoint to raise fly up to where hover cannot fail.
Spells:
1: Hero's defiance x 2, divine favor x 2
2: shield other x 2, 1 x energy resistance, 1 x paladin's sacrifice (or third shield other)
3: Good Hope x 3 (both the cleric and wizard have haste covered)
Mercies: fatigued, targeted (most important one), enfeebled, restorative.
Traits: Fate's favored, dangerously curious, adopted > tusked (reflavored to dirty fighting, grants bite attack), Wayang spell hunter (reflavored to inspiring leader, lowers good hope metamagic cost by 1).
I like what you have going there. I have a couple questions to see how I can be even better with looking at what you have done, if you don't mind.
1.What do you mean +2 cha boon? like your leveling?
2.How did you get the LoH from 8d6+16 to 8D6+18?
3.I am counting Fort +26, 8 Pal lvls + 2 BR lvls + 3 cloak + 8 Cha + 3 Con + 2 for Lucky Horshoe & Trait, what did I miss?
4.By Noble Scion (cha) you mean the one that puts CHA to initiative?
5.You seem to have a lot of "I will not be caught not being able to see my enemy" has that really been that much of a problem for you? I have only run into that once or twice, though I have my wife's warpriest with me all the time that casts Light on my big metal butt whenever it gets dark.
6. Because I only have 1 skill point per level I am considering an INT Ioun stone linked to fly to help with the hovering problem and such, my access to fly is currently my Angelic Aspect Spell, what do you think?
7.How does shield other do for you? I looked at it when I got level 2 spells, but I always worried about it making me dead and or picking the wrong person/people to share damage with, whereas paladin's sacrifice is a bit more controllable and can be used on whoever needs it at the moment to avoid such a case, though it does only work for one attack a day.
8. When I picked my mercies I didn't know about the Healer's Handbook ones, but after looking into it I was worried about targeted causing enemies to just decide I wasn't tasty enough and going past/around me, or the DC not being enough to make a difference, it seems to work well for you, anything you can share about that?
9.Enfeebled and restorative, how much use do you get from them? They look really good, and I don't get much use out of any of my mercies, so a possible retraining target.
Something I want to compliment you on because I hadn't seen it before.
I really like what you did with divine favor and Fate's Favored, and with Wayang Spell hunter and Encouraging for Good Hope, I wish at least one gave a bonus to AC, but you have me considering retraining Weapon Focus, and not re-taking Greater Mercy for the additional traits and encouraging shenanigans.
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I like what you have going there. I have a couple questions to see how I can be even better with looking at what you have done, if you don't mind.
1.What do you mean +2 cha boon? like your leveling?
2.How did you get the LoH from 8d6+16 to 8D6+18?
3.I am counting Fort +26, 8 Pal lvls + 2 BR lvls + 3 cloak + 8 Cha + 3 Con + 2 for Lucky Horshoe & Trait, what did I miss?
4.By Noble Scion (cha) you mean the one that puts CHA to initiative?
5.You seem to have a lot of "I will not be caught not being able to see my enemy" has that really been that much of a problem for you? I have only run into that once or twice, though I have my wife's warpriest with me all the time that casts Light on my big metal butt whenever it gets dark.
6. Because I only have 1 skill point per level I am considering an INT Ioun stone linked to fly to help with the hovering problem and such, my access to fly is currently my Angelic Aspect Spell, what do you think?
7.How does shield other do for you? I looked at it when I got level 2 spells, but I always worried about it making me dead and or picking the wrong person/people to share damage with, whereas paladin's sacrifice is a bit more controllable and can be used on whoever needs it at the moment to avoid such a case, though it does only work for one attack a day.
8. When I picked my mercies I didn't know about the Healer's Handbook ones, but after looking into it I was worried about targeted causing enemies to just decide I wasn't tasty enough and going past/around me, or the DC not being enough to make a difference, it seems to work well for you, anything you can share about that?
9.Enfeebled and restorative, how much use do you get from them? They look really good, and I don't get much use out of any of my mercies, so a possible retraining target.
Something I want to compliment you on because I hadn't seen it before.
I really like what you did with divine favor and Fate's Favored, and with Wayang Spell hunter and Encouraging for Good Hope, I wish at least...
Right, well thanks for the compliment :) I'll try to answer those questions to the best of my ability.
1. No, it's an actual boon for pathfinder society. There's an incredibly powerful (overpowered) reward for one of the adventures in season 4, which lets you increase one of your stats by 2 points for a fairly low cost (it does have a time limit). My starting spread of stats was 18 str, 12 dex, 14 con, 10 int, 7 wis, 15 cha, with all increases into cha afterwards.
2. That was a mistype, my bad. the +18 is from when I have to use hero's defiance, which is 9d8+18 (so far, once in the entire career).
3. You're missing another boon. The same season 4 has another story reward that just increases your fort by +2 for no real cost. Did I mention yet that the season 4 boons are quite overpowered? I know of the existence of another one that just grants you a bonus feat for another smallish cost, though I missed out on that one.
4. Yeah, scion of war, my bad. I wasn't at home when I typed that. it's the feat that grants cha to initiative instead of dex.
5. Yeah, not being able to see enemies from my experience is a major issue that can quite possibly be lethal. Vision mastery in particular has saved me and my party from ambushes time and time again since it grants me the ability to see invisible enemies laying in ambush before they get to act. I cannot overstate how valuable this is, and if you dont need see invisibility, it also grants me darkvision in case the team wants to cut the light sources in an otherwise dark environment. The cleric from my party recently bought an expensive item that grants him permanent see invisibility, maybe to further empathize the point. See invisibility also lets you see into the ethereal plane, in case ambushers are over there. Blind-fight is there to get through the rare-ish enemies that have displacement-type defenses or rely on obscurement from the terrain, since it allows rerolls on miss chance.
6. I think that since you already have quick draw, are very low on skill points and high on charisma, the easier and more practical solution is probably to get an adaptive composite longbow +1 or 2 and shoot flying enemies from a distance. Smite evil and possibly Good Hope (I really love that spell) will make it work. If you do want to go the flying route, don't forget that winged boots grant an additional +4 to fly over the +4 from good maneuverability that that spell grants. To fly and hover (and thus full attack in midair) reliably, you need a static +14 bonus to fly after the armor class penalty.
I got there with: Good Mnvb (basic fly spell effect or greater angel form) +4, Winged boots +4 , Skllpoint +4, dex +1, good hope +3, +1 fly ioun stone, -5 Armor penalty, +2 masterwork tool (for hovering, let's say a tailfin on the cape :) )
You probably should ask yourself if that investment is worth it for you. I think that since an angel is a creature with a natural flying speed, fly becomes a class skill for you during transformation which grants an additonal +3, since it is a class skill for all creatures with such a natural speed according the to skill description.
7. Shield other is excellent, in my opinion the very best level 2 paladin spell next to resist energy and possibly communal prot. from evil. It IS dangerous to use depending on party makeup, though. In my specific team, I have a rogue who starts every fight invisible, has high AC and evasion, a cleric that heals herself passively when channeling crowd control channels and a wizard who has mirror image and is very evasive and usally away from danger. So they all have decent natural survivability on their own. What can/will still kill them however, is crits from ranged weapons (usually x 3) or some melee weapons (also usually x 3). If you're unlucky, this happens before your turn comes up and paladin's sacrfice is unusable then because you're flat footed. Shield other, since it has hours of duration, is always active and cannot fail in that regard.
I usually cast it on the entire party or on the entire party except for the cleric. The rogue and I have such high reflex saves that we usually make that save, and the rogue evades half damage. So the damage to me in case of a failed save by the wizard is like 75% of a hit on me, which might be slightly more than 1 use of LoH. In my opinion, that is totally worth it. I use a lesser rod of reach to increase the max distance between party members for it to like 180ft. Also, you areprobably the only one able to swift action heal yourself and still attack every turn, so might as well help out the allies with it.
A running joke in the party is that I usually take somewhere around 250-ish damage in a dangerous fight over a number of rounds partly from the soaked damage, which in turn allows my allies to be a bit more risky or agressive.
8. The DC is 10 + half your paladin level + cha mod. That is far better than the actual sanctuary spell (which doesn't scale with level and costs an actual standard action), and it's still a will save. Most martial enemies I have encountered have serious difficulty saving to it (need to roll at least 17+ usually) and casters sometimes also can't do it. I could probably write a number of pages on why this thing is so good, but a few options:
-First, you get to use it for free since you're going to be healing yourself or other with LoH anyway.
-It saves you a feat, since applying free sanctuary is virtually always better than another 5 hp from greater mercy.
-It combines really well with shield other. Sure, they can try to ignore me entirely by not attempting to get through this mercy, but in that case I still virtually grant everyone a 50% damage reduction. Can you name me any other character able to do that safely/succesfully?
-Cast it at the start of turn and walk through enemy threatened asquares to where you want to be. They need to roll willsaves to make their attacks of opportunity.
-Precast it on yourself and approach the enemy in front of the party. Chances are they engage you and that at least one of them misses their action or turn.
-Full attack an enemy, then end your turn with this. They now have a choice: try to attack you and risk the save, or ignore you and die from your next attack or AoO if they try to just walk away.
-It saved me in the msot deadly fight I was ever in, where a harpy swarm ambushes the party with bows while flying in the air. Their willsaves were low and their tactics state to attack anyone flying in the air first. The only reason we made it to the end there was that they couldn't effectively get through this mercy.
-You can reapply it with hero's defiance if you were to go below 0. So, a fullattacking enemy potentially has to save TWICE to finish a succesfull full attack on you.
-After they fail the first save, they can no longer attack you for the duration. In one situation, I was ambushed by myself while the party was behind a suddenly constructed wall. This mercy prevented half the room of badguys from being able to attack me while I casually flew over to their leader and then one-shotted him with the smite evil/full attack. You can also just keep buffing yourself while it lasts before you choose to start attacking.
-Put it on an ally who is on trouble, preferably the healer or bard. If they want to focus the healer/buffer now, he/she has an additional layer of protection that works vs everything. It recently helped my cleric who was in a grapple of a drake. Those deal lots of damage with rake to grappled targets, but it now had to roll a 20 on his willsave to do anything vs his supposedly helpless target... which it failed :")
In my opinion, it is the most powerful mercy and seemingly heavily underestimated.
9. I was able to use enfeebled once to remove a debuff from a high level cleric spell that did strength damage, so it can be really powerful. It is rare, but an automatic dispel is still really useful. Restorative is more common and always useful. If an enemy deals I.E. intelligence or wisdom damage, your LoH now heals 1d4 points of it.
I think the best level 12 one overall is 'ensorcelled', also from healer's handbook, since it gants auto dispel magic on a target. My team already has 2 dispellers, though, and I have a wand from another adventure with 6 charges of a high caster level dispel.
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In the absence of a big, must have item, I would go with:
8,000 Upgrade Cloak of Resistance to +5 - I'm sure your saves are good already. They can always be better, and it's a cheap upgrade relative to level.
30,000 Upgrade Belt to +2 STR/+2 CON - Again, you have good hit points and lots of self healing. They can always be better. Especially if you're using Shield Other on the party. To-hit helps land iteratives, and 22 STR gets you a 2-handed bump to damage, so is effectively +2 damage (although only +1 when you are enlarged).
Alternately, since you have Fate's Favored, a Stone of Good Luck is 20,000. You could by that, sell your Lucky Horseshoe, upgrade the Cloak to +5, and still have 14,900 gold to play with.
At this point, I would not invest in something that grants a deflection bonus. Your AC bonus from Smite is a deflection bonus. And as you noted, you have spells that grant one as well. Having Magic Circle Against Evil going isn't a bad idea until you get the more powerful spell, so a lesser rod of Extend Spell might be good.
Or a Pearl of Power Level 3 is 9,000 gold, which could free up a 3rd level spell slot for something else and still let you cast Good Hope 3/day. You could pair that with the extend rod and Magic Circle if you want.
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In the absence of a big, must have item, I would go with:
8,000 Upgrade Cloak of Resistance to +5 - I'm sure your saves are good already. They can always be better, and it's a cheap upgrade relative to level.
30,000 Upgrade Belt to +2 STR/+2 CON - Again, you have good hit points and lots of self healing. They can always be better. Especially if you're using Shield Other on the party. To-hit helps land iteratives, and 22 STR gets you a 2-handed bump to damage, so is effectively +2 damage (although only +1 when you are enlarged).
Alternately, since you have Fate's Favored, a Stone of Good Luck is 20,000. You could by that, sell your Lucky Horseshoe, upgrade the Cloak to +5, and still have 14,900 gold to play with.
At this point, I would not invest in something that grants a deflection bonus. Your AC bonus from Smite is a deflection bonus. And as you noted, you have spells that grant one as well. Having Magic Circle Against Evil going isn't a bad idea until you get the more powerful spell, so a lesser rod of Extend Spell might be good.
Or a Pearl of Power Level 3 is 9,000 gold, which could free up a 3rd level spell slot for something else and still let you cast Good Hope 3/day. You could pair that with the extend rod and Magic Circle if you want.
Interesting. I hadn't considered the luckstone before. I don't think I particularly need the luck bonus to skillchecks, so that would make the main benefit a +2 initiative. Or is there something i'm not aware of, too?
If we're going for trying to cast magic circle against evil, wouldn't it simply be better to just buy a +3 ring of deflection? That's also 9000 gold and would always be on, in case we get jumped or have to fight against non-evil enemies?
One thing I recently thought of and that wasn't here yet is a scarab of invulnerability. That grants magic resistance 20 and can absorb up to 9 negative energy effects... maybe that's worth it?
Ring of Inner Fortitude (minor) and Stone of Good Luck, sell the horseshoe.
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Magic Circle also protects you against mental control by evil creatures, and it protects your allies out to 10 feet, which sounds like a Paladin thing to do. And summoned evil creatures can’t enter the circle without a will save. The deflection bonus is a minor benefit compared to everything else it grants.
Also, a +3 Ring of Protection is 18,000 gold. Not 9,000. Or do you have someone crafting Rings? It didn’t look like you reduced the price of the Ring of Evasion, so I was assuming no crafting. If you have someone to craft rings, then the Ring of Evasion or Ring of Freedom of Movement are probably giving you more for the price than the other items. Either way, since you’re getting a spell to give you a +4 deflection bonus next level, and your Smite gives you a +8, I don’t think the money spent on a Ring of Protection is worth it.
For the luckstone, +2 to all skills and iniative is really good. It also depends what your GM considers an ability check. Concentration checks may qualify. Generally a circlet of persuasion modifiess those as “Charisma checks.” So ask your GM what all they consider an ability check. If it’s a limited list, and you don’t care about the skills, then skip the luckstone. I will admit that the existence of the Horseshoe makes the stone less appealing.
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Magic Circle also protects you against mental control by evil creatures, and it protects your allies out to 10 feet, which sounds like a Paladin thing to do. And summoned evil creatures can’t enter the circle without a will save. The deflection bonus is a minor benefit compared to everything else it grants.
Also, a +3 Ring of Protection is 18,000 gold. Not 9,000. Or do you have someone crafting Rings? It didn’t look like you reduced the price of the Ring of Evasion, so I was assuming no crafting. If you have someone to craft rings, then the Ring of Evasion or Ring of Freedom of Movement are probably giving you more for the price than the other items. Either way, since you’re getting a spell to give you a +4 deflection bonus next level, and your Smite gives you a +8, I don’t think the money spent on a Ring of Protection is worth it.
For the luckstone, +2 to all skills and iniative is really good. It also depends what your GM considers an ability check. Concentration checks may qualify. Generally a circlet of persuasion modifiess those as “Charisma checks.” So ask your GM what all they consider an ability check. If it’s a limited list, and you don’t care about the skills, then skip the luckstone. I will admit that the existence of the Horseshoe makes the stone less appealing.
Fair enough. I don't really think the magic circle idea tends to be worth it considering the +20 willsave and that both the level 3 spellslots, the action itself and the money are very contested, but it is an option. I think I confused the price of the ring of protection with the cloak of resistance, so that's my bad.
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Also fair. I just think of Magic Circle as a standard party buff past a certain point. Again, it's not necessarily just for you. Someone in the group gets dominated? Move within 10 feet of them, and they get a new save at +2. But it is a fair amount of investment, given the limited Paladin spell slots.
Magic Circle was just an example of an additional spell you could prep if you had the Pearl of Power. If you prefer to think of it as a 4th casting of Good Hope per scenario, you could do that. Or being able to have any other 3rd level spell prepped and still cast Good Hope 3/day. It adds some versatility by opening up a spell slot. There are some decent 3rd level Paladin spells.
I forgot this was PFS for a minute, thus the crafting question.
I would go with the first option I listed and bump your cloak and belt. It's straightforward and something you'll eventually want. If you feel you don't need the save boost, spend that money on miscellaneous items. Maybe a Pearl of Power 1 to get an extra divine favor. Maybe First Aid Gloves (I don't think I saw a hand slot item on your list) in case your Cleric goes down or can't get to whoever does.
Honestly, at these levels, there's very little that's needed. So whatever you choose should be fine. I'm sitting on 55,000 gold with my Sorcerer trying to figure out what to buy for the last part of All for Immortality. I'm probably going to end up improving his Belt of Dex/Con to +4, just because. Either that or a Lesser Rod of Quicken Spell. But I already have the feat and plenty of spell slots, so it's really not that huge of a boost.
I would not recommend Quicken Rods of any sort, as it will cost you actions to get it out, and then to put it away again taxing you the exact actions you intended to save in combat. Most of your best in combat spells are swift actions anyway. If going rods, go for Extend or Echoing.
Quick Runner's Shirt was a pretty good idea, once per day.
I like the Luckstone as well.
Do you have Oath of Vengeance? If so the Bracers of the Merciful Knight are the right item to carry, but if you don't, I'd say pick up the Silver Smite Bracelet, since it should net you another smite as well as higher damage, whereas the Bracers with the oath gives you two more potential smites, at your current level. Mo' smites, less problems.
Quicken rod with Gloves of Storing and Quick draw for the weapon solve the problems with the rod not helping, or even just always carrying out the rod and dropping it after use then quick draw for the weapon.
Quicken rod with Gloves of Storing and Quick draw for the weapon solve the problems with the rod not helping, or even just always carrying out the rod and dropping it after use then quick draw for the weapon.
I believe getting both those items would be a waste, since it's above his budget and since most of the best in combat spells are swift action anyway, the purpose of having the quicken rod to facilitate full attacks while casting becomes a lot more hassle than it's worth to be able to do it only once per combat, and to expect to drop your 35K item every time you use it.
Mechanically efficient, but in practice it falls apart.
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I would not recommend Quicken Rods of any sort, as it will cost you actions to get it out, and then to put it away again taxing you the exact actions you intended to save in combat. Most of your best in combat spells are swift actions anyway. If going rods, go for Extend or Echoing.
Quick Runner's Shirt was a pretty good idea, once per day.
I like the Luckstone as well.
Do you have Oath of Vengeance? If so the Bracers of the Merciful Knight are the right item to carry, but if you don't, I'd say pick up the Silver Smite Bracelet, since it should net you another smite as well as higher damage, whereas the Bracers with the oath gives you two more potential smites, at your current level. Mo' smites, less problems.
The idea behind the rod of quickening was to be able to activate two buffs at the start of every combat instead of just one. Unless I'm mistaken somewhere, I could start every fight holding the rod in one hand and the Nodachi in the other. Sure, I couldn't attack with the 2-h weapon before my turn comes up but I can't do that anyway since I'm flat footed then.
Now, I could use the first turn to Quickened Encouraging Good Hope the entire party as a swift, then use any other spell or weapon bond as a standard (most likely greater angelic aspect or divine favor), then put the rod away as a move.
I should probably mention here that the arcanist tends to taxi people around and that there's a good chance he will park me next to the enemy before my second turn comes up.