Would need to know the wands/multiclassing to know for sure.
Would also need to know if thats in addition to str/magic/level mods or total.
You have to be rogue 5 to take favored terrain in the first place, is retraining being used in your campaign? Cause otherwise those first 4 levels of rogue cant be used to take favored terrains either by feat or rogue talent.
In addition to that, is his WBL reduced appropriately for retraining costs that far back?
The very last line of the rogue talent. A rogue must be level 5 to take this talent.
Terrain mastery doesn't have the level based +2 increase either. It specifically says no to that.
I see the confusion though...theres 2 favored terrain talents..one from masters of the wild one from ultimate combat. The one from ultimate combat is the one you can take multiple times but you don't get the +2 increase to a secondary one from terrain mastery. Favored terrain from masters of the wild is only takeable once, requires level 5, and only scales if you have ranger levels
So from my count its +12 +2 from the terrain mastery (which must be a new terrain each time and does not have the increase, which is keyed to level and not gaining new favored terrains) and the bonuses from horizon walker.
Edit: The character has also spent WELL above the WBL amount they should have on wands according to the "characters above 1st level chart" a wand of a 4th level ranger spell is 30k and the amount they specify is 15% of the 140k a 13th level character gets. So no more than 21k in disposables.
Table: Character Wealth by Level can also be used to budget gear for characters starting above 1st level, such as a new character created to replace a dead one. Characters should spend no more than half their total wealth on any single item. For a balanced approach, PCs that are built after 1st level should spend no more than 25% of their wealth on weapons, 25% on armor and protective devices, 25% on other magic items, 15% on disposable items like potions, scrolls, and wands, and 10% on ordinary gear and coins. Different character types might spend their wealth differently than these percentages suggest; for example, arcane casters might spend very little on weapons but a great deal more on other magic items and disposable items.
I submit that its kind of abusive to claim that character as relevant to the italicized section given that it seems intended to not require mages to spend 25% on weaponry and another 25% on armor.
The Rogue talent doesn't give a bonus to Favored Terrain (other than the inherent +2 for the selected). The Ranger one doesn't give a bonus to any Favored Terrain (other than the inherent +2) until you get to 8th level so it is out of consideration.
The one from Horizon Walker does give the +2 bonus to any of the favored terrains you know, and the one you just picked is valid for the increase. Obviously our player here wants to stack them all on one class. He gains 5 Favored Terrain as a 7th level Horizon Walker so that could be stacked on any of his +2 terrains for a total bonus of +12.
So for the sake of argument lets say our Horizon Walker has all of his bonuses stacked into Favored Terrain: Urban +12. He also spends 2,400gp and picks up Boots of Friendly Terrain to pump that Urban bonus by another +2 to +14 total. So all of our Horizon Walker's other Favored Terrains have a bonus of +2, just the default.
He picks up 3 Terrain Masteries. Urban, Underground and lets say Desert. Because why not?
He picks 2 Terrain Dominance. Urban because that is the entire build, and Underground because he's an adventurer, right? Terrain Dominance is the ability that gives him Favored Enemy bonuses against natives to the terrain picked.
So when he's adventuring in the Jungle he casts Terrain Bond which means as far as Favored Terrain is concerned he's in Urban terrain. Great. +12 to do skill stuff. But that is all he gets. He doesn't have Terrain Dominance Jungle. Now if this was a Dungeon or a Ruin or a City inside of a Jungle then either Terrain Dominance Urban or Underground would cover him. But if its just a Jungle, or anything not those 2 types...the spell doesn't change them at all.
That Horrison Walker can be extremely annoying, but its not foolproof. In a dungeon or a city he'd be unstoppable, but outside of there? Not really.
Oh wait. Native to the terrain. Unless the creatures in the Jungle Dungeon are native to Dungeons they don't qualify for the bonus. It doesn't really matter what...
Seems like faulty logic to me. Once Terrain Bond is cast, whatever terrain the Horizon Walker is in becomes his highest favored terrain, which in turn means all effects, such as terrain dominance FE bonuses to creatures native to that terrain apply, along with terrain mastery bonuses.
The reason this is so is because terrain mastery and dominance are both bonuses to favored terrain.
Magic. Ain't it a magical thing?
"Terrain Dominance: At 3rd level, a horizon walker learns total dominance over one terrain he has already selected for terrain mastery. When dealing with creatures native to that terrain, the horizon walker treats his favored terrain bonus for that terrain as a favored enemy bonus (as the ranger class feature) against those creatures.This bonus overlaps (does not stack with) bonuses gained when fighting a favored enemy."
A level 13 character joined a game I'm playing in saying he had +20 AB/damage against creatures native to every single terrain he has favored terrain in due to some combination of wands/multi-classing.
Is this indeed possible? Seems insane.
The highest bonus he could attain with gear mentioned above and being 13th level is +14.
Any additional bonuses would have to come from BAB, STR/DEX, buffs, and equipment. The ceiling could be quite high, easily mid +30s to hit and high +30s/low +40s to damage/hit.
This could apply to all domains if he can get scroll/wand of 4th level ranger spell: Terrain Bond, which is quite a powerful combo.
The rogue talent used to have no level requirement and stacked like ranger favored terrain, but character builds like that mentioned in the OP were noticed and the talent was fully nerfed.
It's actually called out that wands or staves of offensive spells would be categorized as weapons for the purpose of wealth spending guidelines, defensive spells would similarly be taken from the armor budget.
I submit that its kind of abusive to claim that character as relevant to the italicized section given that it seems intended to not require mages to spend 25% on weaponry and another 25% on armor.
Either way, a martial spending like 30% more than the recommended amount on a wand doesn't seem in the spirit of that breakdown at all.
Ok, the short version of the argument. Lets say the character in question has all of his bonuses and Terrain Dominance pointed at Mountains. You enter a forest, where you are fighting Ents. You cast Terrain Bond, which makes you treat the forest as a Mountain. Which mean you get all of your skill bonuses here. This Forest is a Mountain as far as you are concerned.
But it only changes the Terrain. It doesn't change where the Ents come from. That is still Forest. Just because you treat the forest as a mountain it doesn't apply to CREATURES in it, and it doesn't change their origin to Mountain where all of your bonuses are.
You call upon the spirits of nature to help you adapt to your environment. You treat the terrain you are in as your most favored terrain until this spell ends.
Good point Meirril. After some rest (a little sleep deprived) I agree with you and you are correct. My mistake.
Must have misread/misunderstood what you had written.
Either way, a martial spending like 30% more than the recommended amount on a wand doesn't seem in the spirit of that breakdown at all.Given how powerful a wand of Terrain Bond is, why wouldn't a character save for a level or two to be able to afford it?
You're supposed to gain 32k WBL going from level 12 to 13 so just save all of that and there you go (this isn't even going into the crafting rules).
-------------------------------
The character has adjusted his build to be...
True Primitive Barbarian 1/Rogue 5/Horizon Walker
Which gives 1 + 1 + 5 = 7 favored terrains for a +14 bonus. He doesn't have the boots but that would bring him up to +16.
Because a character like this one levelling up would likely die from being undergeared and need to spend wealth to be resurrected before accumulating 30k all at once.
Because a character like this one levelling up would likely die from being undergeared and need to spend wealth to be resurrected before accumulating 30k all at once.
...So your argument is a "what if"? That doesn't make much sense.
Suggesting a player "can't" do something because something else is "likely" to occur is...I'll let you fill in the blank.
That's a strawman argument.
Either way, a martial spending like 30% more than the recommended amount on a wand doesn't seem in the spirit of that breakdown at all.Given how powerful a wand of Terrain Bond is, why wouldn't a character save for a level or two to be able to afford it?
You're supposed to gain 32k WBL going from level 12 to 13 so just save all of that and there you go (this isn't even going into the crafting rules).
-------------------------------
The character has adjusted his build to be...
True Primitive Barbarian 1/Rogue 5/Horizon Walker
Which gives 1 + 1 + 5 = 7 favored terrains for a +14 bonus. He doesn't have the boots but that would bring him up to +16.
He didn't go 3 levels of Warden Ranger? He was either being polite, or wanted to keep his dex to damage.
Because a character like this one levelling up would likely die from being undergeared and need to spend wealth to be resurrected before accumulating 30k all at once.
Almost every group I've been in has 1 or 2 characters that get carried by the rest. Just because you're sub optimal it doesn't mean you die faster. Actually, if you are mostly useless a lot of creatures will ignore you until they take care of other more irritating/frightening adventurers.
Like intelligent monsters will target healers, or casters before going after 'hard' targets. The horizon walker isn't either of those. Animals that go after the 'weakest in the herd' will more likely go after the unarmored sorcerer long before they go after the non-descript horizon walker. Now if our HW decides to walk away from the safety of the group who knows what will happen, but that is a player decision not the result of a bad build.
Really, cause every group ive been in where the pc's were undergeared for weapons and protective equipment had at least 1pc drop if not die per session.
Also my gm, when playing intelligent villains (who actually scout out parties) focus on the easiest to drop first rather than scrabbling at hard targets and allowing the pc's to maintain action superiority over their group.
Because a character like this one levelling up would likely die from being undergeared and need to spend wealth to be resurrected before accumulating 30k all at once.
Almost every group I've been in has 1 or 2 characters that get carried by the rest. Just because you're sub optimal it doesn't mean you die faster. Actually, if you are mostly useless a lot of creatures will ignore you until they take care of other more irritating/frightening adventurers.
Like intelligent monsters will target healers, or casters before going after 'hard' targets. The horizon walker isn't either of those. Animals that go after the 'weakest in the herd' will more likely go after the unarmored sorcerer long before they go after the non-descript horizon walker. Now if our HW decides to walk away from the safety of the group who knows what will happen, but that is a player decision not the result of a bad build.
Really, cause every group ive been in where the pc's were undergeared for weapons and protective equipment had at least 1pc drop if not die per session.
Also my gm, when playing intelligent villains (who actually scout out parties) focus on the easiest to drop first rather than scrabbling at hard targets and allowing the pc's to maintain action superiority over their group.
Depends on what kind of villain you're fighting.
Depends on what kind of ressources the villain you are fighting has.
I've been testing using a third party DM to play some of the act villains to avoid conflict of interest. In some ways, it makes the players have a much harder time. In other ways, it exposes the villain a lot.
The one thing that has come out of that experiment though is that Dm's (me included) take a LOT for granted on how a "smart villain" would act.
(Not to mention that we as players often use a con we call "the helpless magician!!!" In which the casters in the party use disguise self as a 10 min buff to look like they have armors, and the fighters put robes over their armor, and Don a pointy hat. It's never fooled anyone due to DM conflict of interest though...)
Its probably never fooled anyone because if your fighter is in armor other than light its not concealable under clothing and disguise self has no audible aspect, meaning your plate doesn't clank around.
Its probably never fooled anyone because if your fighter is in armor other than light its not concealable under clothing and disguise self has no audible aspect, meaning your plate doesn't clank around.
The disguise DC's are often in the 30's and we only use this when the tank is a light armored type.
It's possible there's a justification to be found in your argument, but in a realist scenario, whoever you are, if your goal is to target robed people in the chaos of battle, or even as part of an ambush against a band f highly trained professionals such as pc's, you're not gonna be paying a lot of attention to the details.
Even the 10-20 % of monsters who could and would, that doesn't account for the con not working all of the time.
Hence DM bias.
All but the last one. He does not lose the benefits of his other favored terrains, he just uses his biggest bonus for the terrain he is in. Under most circumstances only the highest bonus matters. In this case favored terrain plane of water has bonuses beyond normal favored terrain, so those other bonuses (to hit and damage vs water elementals) still apply.
Because a character like this one levelling up would likely die from being undergeared and need to spend wealth to be resurrected before accumulating 30k all at once.I literally just explained how the WBL increase from level 12 to 13 alone would be enough to afford the wand.
Except WBL doesn't just magically crap on your character in a big chunk of gold. It shows up as scrolls, potions, OTHER wands, Items that may or may not be an upgrade, things you have to sell. On top of which, a 30k + magic item has to be comissionned (from a 16th+ level ranger, or like 12th level hunter)to access the spell at all. Its never achievable by a raw 75% roll, you have to hope they show up as one of the 2 to 3d4 major magic items a large city or metropolis has available.
Its a build that absolutely requires your gm to hand feed you the magic item that makes it work in any fashion other than prebuilding at that level, and even then you have to bend the WBL rules offered to get it.
That honestly depends on dm style I have seen plenty of dms only award gold and platinum as loot and expect us to buy our gear in town or craft it ourselves its honestly very liberating.Except WBL doesn't just magically crap on your character in a big chunk of gold.Because a character like this one levelling up would likely die from being undergeared and need to spend wealth to be resurrected before accumulating 30k all at once.I literally just explained how the WBL increase from level 12 to 13 alone would be enough to afford the wand.
Yeah and there are DMS that house rule a lot of things but in discussion with a ton of people and no context as to how it happens in the campaign you kind of have to baseline either the rules paizo put out or things deliberately stated about the campaign.
I've never had a gm only award gold and platinum as loot, nor seen a module or adventure path that handled loot that way.
While I'm not arguing people can distribute loot however they want, you generally don't put this much work into treasure tables if its intended to just be raw coinage. It is not unreasonable to say that "I get my treasure all in raw coinage" is an exceedingly rare method of gm's handing out treasure, and frankly one i think people are clinging to because they don't like the idea of their theorycrafted build not being the sort of thing you can reasonably build into from level 1, but instead the sort of thing that comes into existence when prebuilding at a higher level and just assuming 100% magic item availability.
While I'm not arguing people can distribute loot however they want, you generally don't put this much work into treasure tables if its intended to just be raw coinage. It is not unreasonable to say that "I get my treasure all in raw coinage" is an exceedingly rare method of gm's handing out treasure, and frankly one i think people are clinging to because they don't like the idea of their theorycrafted build not being the sort of thing you can reasonably build into from level 1, but instead the sort of thing that comes into existence when prebuilding at a higher level and just assuming 100% magic item availability.
What’s the functional difference between finding straight coins of a certain total value and finding a bunch of items that you take to civilization and trade for a pile of coins of that same value? Or cutting out the the middle man by trading the suboptimal items you found for the optimal items you actually want? Badwrongfun is the only difference that I see.
There are plenty of builds that are more viable if you don’t have to play them from level 1. Are you seriously proposing that GM’s should disallow builds that are more viable if not played from level 1? I loves me a good swashigator but have no interest in playing the swashbuckler level or struggling through the investigator levels without studied target. Playing a character at level 5 that I would never play through 1-4? Such badwrongfun.
I can only imagine the hissy fit you would have in PFS where people often use the same canned level 1 character built for optimal survival that they completely rewrite into the character they actually want to play upon reaching level 2. So much badwrongfun.
Because towns have maximum sale prices, in addition to maximum purchase prices. Also because sometimes you USE the scroll/potion/wand you get in the very same adventure you find it.
If i got a +11 weapon i'd probably retrain
Particularly because the town doesn't exist that could afford to buy it for what it was worth.
Purchase cap at the largest city size is 100k my fine dude. Fine if your GM wants to provide you with someone willing to drop 124k for a dagger buuuuuut there's no rule leverage to make them do so.
What’s the functional difference between finding straight coins of a certain total value and finding a bunch of items that you take to civilization and trade for a pile of coins of that same value? Or cutting out the the middle man by trading the suboptimal items you found for the optimal items you actually want? Badwrongfun is the only difference that I see.
Well, first thing that comes to mind is you get 18,000gp you get to spend 18,000gp. You get a +1 flaming burst butterfly knife and you get to sell it for 9,000gp and try to get something someone would actually use. The more long term D&D players are use to making use of whatever magic items the GM throws out because that was the way it was in D&D. Even in Pathfinder where you get half value for sold items its more efficient to use what you get rather than selling off all your treasure for half value and picking what you want.
But then again, the suggested wealth tables are more aimed at NPCs anyways. If you actually played from level 1, you'd have a lot more loot than what the tables show (unless you play PFS, go find an actual group to play with). So really this sort of thing only matters in theorycrafting like we're doing here. I don't think many people would have the patience to try a build that just sucks till they hit 8th level.
I assure you the chances are exceedingly high that I have been playing D&D longer than you have considering that I’ve been playing the game since before a significant portion of the members here were even toddling around in diapers. Spare me the condescending statements on what “long term D&D players are use to.” I specified a pile of gold or a pile of items that you trade for a value equal to that pile of gold so maybe try responding to what was written rather than hopping on your high horse.
There is no functional difference between a pile of 18000gp, a pile of treasure that I sell for a total of 18000gp cash and a pile of treasure that I trade for a total of 18000gp of other treasure. There is no reason to restrict high level characters from spending their allotted WBL within the rules as they see fit and there is no certainly no reason to tell people building higher level characters that those characters must have been viable all the way up to that level. These are Ryan’s preferences and nothing more.
There’s nothing wrong with the character OP presented aside from the math errors resulting in excessively high numbers. Fix those and the character is fine; including the super pricy wand as long as it was created according to the rules. There is nothing to prevent OP’s player from assuming the most favourable conditions for purchasing loot when generating a character. That is the fully sanctioned process in PFS and common practice outside of organized play. I don’t see what the issue is here other than Ryan doesn’t approve based on personal preferences that no codified rules reflect.
I mean, other than the rules i linked talking about how you spend WBL when creating a character, the rules about how magic items are actually available, spending caps, purchasing caps, the in game realities of finding a 16th level ranger who took craft wand in order to create the wand in the first place...
I mean, other than the rules i linked talking about how you spend WBL when creating a character, the rules about how magic items are actually available, spending caps, purchasing caps, the in game realities of finding a 16th level ranger who took craft wand in order to create the wand in the first place...
The ranger doesn't need to take the feat in order for the wand to exist. He only needs to cast the spell required to enchant the wand as a part of the creation process.
Nothing in the rules states the creator of a magic item has to be the caster of the spell required. In fact, it states just the opposite.
Directly from the magic item creation section in chapter 15 of the Core Rulebook:
Note that all items have prerequisites in their descriptions.
These prerequisites must be met for the item to be created.
Most of the time, they take the form of spells that must be
known by the item’s creator (although access through another
magic item or spellcaster is allowed). The DC to create a
magic item increases by +5 for each prerequisite the caster
does not meet. The only exception to this is the requisite item
creation feat, which is mandatory. In addition, you cannot
create potions, spell-trigger, or spell-completion magic items
without meeting their spell prerequisites.
I'd use a +4 keen flaming vorpal dagger. Take THAT core rule book!I'd slap around anyone that tried to drop said dagger into a game. Name 2 reasons this item is illegal.
Its +11 and you can't have keen+ vorpal on the same item