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Your Gay Uncle posted:Can anyone give me a quick round up on getting a new familiar with a witch? All I could find was how to replace a lost or dead familiar, but I just want to trade my familiar with a new one. If I do replace it, what happens to the old one? Does it still have all my spells, or does it just become a regular hegehog? The only RAW way to handle that is to kill your familiar. Your DM should let you 'dismiss' the familiar though and revoke all the special power and just leaving it a normal hedgehog but you'll probably need to wait the day and pay the gold for your new one.
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Jun 25, 2012 09:13
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Thanks, that's what I figured, I just didn't see anything specific for dismissing a familiar.
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Jun 25, 2012 14:40
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Hey sorry but I have a quick rules question that I'm getting multiple answers to and I'd like to clear up. I'm running a Pathfinder game for the first time and all of us are a little spotty on the rules. One person is running a rogue and wants him to be a ranged sniper type character. The issue comes into the sneak attack ability. The ability says that if the opponent is denied its dex bonus to AC the rogue adds the sneak attack damage bonus. The player was wondering if he stealths and hides himself from the target if this denies the bonus even after combat has started and the target has had its first turn (and is no longer flat footed). I've heard some people say there was some kind of rules update where if something was totally hidden from a target it counted as invisible which does deny the dex bonus and then would allow the sneak attack damage. However I haven't been able to find anything concrete about that. I asked some people at the local game store that played Pathfinder about this and they said it would allow the sneak attack but none of them could find the actual rule to support their claim so I get the feeling it was a house rule they never double checked. I don't want to screw this player out of damage but I also want to make sure I know the rules correctly.
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Jun 25, 2012 14:44
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The situations where a rogue can get sneak attack damage are those indicated with the "2" footnote in the first table or the "1" or "3" footnotes in the second at this link: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Combat-Modifiers. Note that flat-footedness, while the most common way to lose your DEX bonus to AC, is not the only way to do so. I, and most people I've played with, treat being stealthed as being nonmagically invisible, and therefore able to sneak attack. I don't think that there's a rules update that says this, but I would argue that it follows from the idea of being stealthed. If you are stealthed and the defender has failed its Perception roll, then it cannot see you, and therefore would not be able to apply its Dex bonus to attacks by you, just as if you were magically invisible. The other thing I would say is that having a general policy of maximizing PC damage output makes combat faster and more fun. LightWarden posted a lengthy explanation in the Angel Summoner thread about how 3.x monster hp grew from 2e, whereas PC damage capabilities remained constant from 2e to 3.x, to the extreme detriment of players. In light of that, I think that whatever you can do to boost PC damage output is the "right" way to play. some FUCKING LIAR fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Jun 25, 2012 |
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Jun 25, 2012 15:15
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Spincut posted:What is a good adventure to run for people completely new to Pathfinder? My group has been running 4e for a while now, but we're getting a little bit bored with it and looking for something different. I would probably be DMing and have only the lightest of experience with 3.5e, everyone else would be going in pretty much blind.
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Jun 25, 2012 17:03
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Swags posted:Here's a thing, that is actually somewhat spoilery regarding Skull and Shackles, so I'll try not to be too bad about that. He's actually a pretty nice guy for picking Enchanter instead of Conjurer, as Enchanters leave themselves open to a lot of outs for opponents and DM fiat. If the other three people aren't playing casters, then he's going to outshine them no matter what (especially since they picked those terrible classes). Someone already mentioned Protection from (his alignment) preventing mind control, but an enemy gets +5 to their save vs. Charm Person if they're being threatened and any hostile action by a party member toward them immediately breaks the Charm. If that doesn't work for you, many types of monsters are outright immune to Mind-Affecting spells. Maybe the big bad is undead or secretly a construct? Of course, you could always say "I don't want you to be this kind of character, please play something else." If he doesn't want to do that, then I'd be a dick to him with monster selection or templates.
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Jun 25, 2012 17:07
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If you talk to him about it and the type of game everyone else wants to play and he decides he still wants to gently caress everyone else's fun, have the big bad send a single master thief to steal his component pouch. If he wants to ruin it for everyone else, ruin it for him. Post the fallout in the cat piss thread.
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Jun 25, 2012 17:36
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some loving LIAR posted:The situations where a rogue can get sneak attack damage are those indicated with the "2" footnote in the first table or the "1" or "3" footnotes in the second at this link: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Combat-Modifiers. Note that flat-footedness, while the most common way to lose your DEX bonus to AC, is not the only way to do so. Cool thanks for the insight. It sounds like being hidden = non magic invisible is a popular house rule and I don't see a problem with letting the guy have more fun with his sniper, especially when it sounds like rogues and fighters are generally underpowered anyway (I may be wrong but that's what I've heard).
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Jun 25, 2012 17:56
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GaryLeeLoveBuckets posted:He's actually a pretty nice guy for picking Enchanter instead of Conjurer, as Enchanters leave themselves open to a lot of outs for opponents and DM fiat. If the other three people aren't playing casters, then he's going to outshine them no matter what (especially since they picked those terrible classes). I actually sent an email to the group: Here are the four books for my game. They are the Pirates of the Inner Sea, Freeport Companion, Skull and Shackles Player's Guide, and Blood of Fiends (the tiefling book). Basically, for your character, you have four options for making them: You can use anything from these books. Freeport is not the setting, but it's close and I like a lot of the stuff in this book, so it's fair game. Please don't read the Skull and Shackles adventure books. Also, please note: Making a caster with a bunch of "I end the combat if he can't make this hilarious DC 19 will save at first level" is kind of irritating. If nothing is ever a challenge for the group, I'm going to give less experience for the challenge and start upping the challenges. Not if you do it once or twice, but if it happens every time it's really annoying. The idea of "The ogre charges!" "I make him love me." "...yey." just makes for a boring game on my end because of the wasted time in crafting the encounter, and on every other player's end because if people are playing combat-based characters they don't get to do anything their characters are made for. So Mike, Jon, Nick2 (assuming Rion and Nick1 keep their dudes), please be aware of this. I.e., for example, the main antagonist of the 1st book is a 5th level fighter with a Will save of +1. There is practically nothing he could do against any of you if you tried to charm/sleep/dominate him, and that's kind of boring, considering this is supposed to be the MAIN GUY for the first book. So yeah, please don't be that guy. So I didn't single him out, but I did tell everyone fairly directly. Hopefully it pays off.
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Jun 25, 2012 18:35
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Stool Sample posted:My group just completed Feast of Ravenmoore(sp?) today, and almost had a TPK at the endboss. I ended up casting 'cause fear' on it, and scared it off (I think the GM felt bad for us) I've read that module, and there are a ton of posts on the paizo boards about that end boss being too powerful. Congrats on surviving it, if the DM ran it as written.
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Jun 26, 2012 08:15
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Swags posted:Skull and Shackles stuff This isn't quite related to what your issue is, but since you're their DM I have a recommendation for you based on what our group just got through tonight. It'll probably be a few weeks at least before your group gets to it, but you might as well know in advance. Later on in the adventure, [skull and shackles encounter spoilers]when the party is exploring an island, they have the opportunity to row out to a shipwreck near the southwestern coast of the island and dive around to explore it. While searching, whichever party members are swimming may be attacked by a very large eel ("Young Giant Eel" if I recall correctly). It's a large-sized aquatic creature with something like 7 hit dice, +9 to attack, and the attack strength to easily kill even beefy and armored level 2 party members in one hit. The designers expected players to know that they need to run away rather than fight it (as though the PCs can see its stats or something), however, even if the PCs attempt to swim away on the first round, they are entirely likely to be KOed by the eel in the time it takes them to get back on the boat, leaving them effectively completely hosed unless they tied a rope to themselves before jumping into the water. And even if they did, not outright killing their character will basically require you as a DM to say "the hungry eel doesn't attack you even though you are helpless meat floating on the end of a string." My point is that I highly recommend entirely replacing this encounter with something significantly more sane and well-balanced, like 1d4 sharks (or something more obviously impossible for the party to beat that isn't going to kill their characters even when they make the right move). Otherwise, you'll probably end up having to retcon events or stretch the rules heavily to avoid completely loving over your players for the crime of not being able to read the mind of whatever paizo designer thought that was a good idea. lesbian baphomet fucked around with this message at 08:47 on Jun 26, 2012 |
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Jun 26, 2012 08:42
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Honestly, I'll likely leave it in. Not because the book is written that way, but because it's good to have a ridiculous challenge every once in a while that puts newbie PCs in their place. My group is a bit too accustomed to being the most badass dudes on the block, and every now and then a big fight lets them realize "Oh, poo poo. maybe I should RUN." Will likely lower the damage a bit, though. The problem I don't think the gunslinger realizes is that blackpower is useless if it gets wet, which can happen really easily on a pirate ship. What do I do about that? For something that doesn't concern Skull and Shackles: We're finishing up the last book of Curse of the Crimson Throne and I want to make a 14th level rogue-y type dude. Ninja/Assassin maybe? Any good ideas/builds for this?
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Jun 26, 2012 11:25
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Inverse Icarus posted:I was going to ask you why the undead created by Juju were so great. Is it because they have maximum hitpoints for their HD? Bones seems neat because the skeletons/zombies created get your Oracle level for their HD... Looks intersting, I'll have to spend some more time here. Okay no forget about that 1/day summoning poo poo, that's not you. You probably aren't a ghost for a six minutes a week or a guy who wears flimsy lovely armor made of bones either. When you think of a necromancer, you don't care about that, you're thinking of a guy waving his cock at you while like a dozen of your dead family members wreck your poo poo. The Spirit Vessel juju isn't just hot sex because of the maximum HP thing (although I'll remind you that a standard zombie has no CON and 10 CHA, so maximum HP from HD is double the HP right off the bat) and it's not just hot sex because you get an entire extra 2hd of undead per Oracle level following you around, which the Bones guy just can't emulate. It's hot sex because you can be the Lawfulest Good motherfucker in Celestia and still be doing your necromancer thing, because Spirit Vessel gets rid of the Evil descriptor. What's more, everything you bring back to life as intelligent juju undead gets your alignment. Let me let you in on the dirty, frequently overlooked secret about Create Undead: You don't get these guys for free. You can try and use your Command Undead on them while they're forming but if the newly formed undead wins their save, they can just give you the finger and get the gently caress out of there, and when the guy you just made is Chaotic Evil and makes spawn, that can be a little counter-productive. With the Spirit Vessel deal, not only can you make whole rooms full of Neutral zombies and not have to worry about them running out into the villages and eating their descendants, but you can also start handing out the Juju Zombie template to absolutely everyone who dies on your watch. Since you get Create Undead as a fifth level spell for the express purpose of making these dudes, this is actually your (excellent) alternative to Raise Dead. And, its power is not limited to party members. Did you just kill Lawful Evil Dragonhitler, but still have a whole Wizard-SS who swore a personal blood-oath to him and are continuing to eradicate all the elfjews in his absence? Bring that motherfucker back to life with your Chaotic Good Juju and he's automatically amicable to your outlook on life. Anyway, maybe the Bones guy has something thematically over you, and you probably want to keep a Sorcerer with Command Undead around to heard your neutral skeleton swarm, but nobody can actually match the "Four Extra Party Members" style of undead generation that the Juju oracle has. EDIT: Insofar as curses go: The Black Blood variant one gets you an effect where negative energy heals you, which means you can carry the same healing supplies as your emaciated flunkies use. Also gives you some extra revelations to choose from in case you don't think smearing entrails around for initiative bonuses isn't completely rad. Eikre fucked around with this message at 13:29 on Jun 26, 2012 |
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Jun 26, 2012 13:05
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Swags posted:The problem I don't think the gunslinger realizes is that blackpower is useless if it gets wet, which can happen really easily on a pirate ship. What do I do about that? Wax paper cartridges, or something else that will ensure his powder stays dry for anything short of total submersion, would be my recommendation. If he's using the alchemical metal cartridges or whatever, allow him to seal them with wax for the same effect. Basically what I'm trying to say is don't be that rear end in a top hat DM who says "sorry it's raining/waves crash over the deck/someone pours ice water down your back and now you are useless for the next seven days while your powder dries/we sail back to port because you can't shoot."
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Jun 26, 2012 17:07
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MoonwalkInvincible posted:This isn't quite related to what your issue is, but since you're their DM I have a recommendation for you based on what our group just got through tonight. It'll probably be a few weeks at least before your group gets to it, but you might as well know in advance. Ugh, my (thankfully now ex) GM threw something like that at us when we were playing one of the other APs. A giant bird nesting atop an impossible to climb cliff who has something we need. But thanks to a criminally low Knowledge - Nature roll we had no idea that said bird would stop trying to bull rush us off a cliff if we started climbing down it's clifftop nest. His excuse of "I'm just running it according to the module" didn't help things when it killed two party members because we literally had no idea how we were going to defend ourselves against a giant stormbird with Flyby Attack and CL8 Searing Rays.
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Jun 26, 2012 18:31
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Eikre posted:Okay no forget about that 1/day summoning poo poo, that's not you. You probably aren't a ghost for a six minutes a week or a guy who wears flimsy lovely armor made of bones either. When you think of a necromancer, you don't care about that, you're thinking of a guy waving his cock at you while like a dozen of your dead family members wreck your poo poo. These are a lot of interesting words. Juju Oracle is pretty high on the list for my next character. That 1/day summon poo poo looked fun to me because it was a way to have undead out of the gate. As you can probably tell from my rant earlier, this group goes very, very slowly. We've been playing this current game for years and we're still 14th level. Create Undead as a 5th level spell is an awesome benefit, but to me I think "5th level oracle spell => 10th level oracle => 2 years from now" How would you level a Juju Oracle from first? Since we spend so much time at each level, I try to ensure there's always something fun I can do, even at really low levels. Let's make this an exercise for anyone who's bored: Pick the feats a revelations for an Oracle from 1st to 10th, where I'd get Create Undead and be a full-on Juju Oracle. We roll stats in my group so just ignore stats for now and just focus on the feats, revelations, and spells known. pre:[1] Feat: [1] Revelation: [3] Feat: [3] Revelation: [5] Feat: [7] Feat: [7] Revelation: [9] Feat: What are Juju fetishes, exactly? I checked d20pfsrd and they just say you can make juju fetishes as if you had craft wondrous item, but I don't see any fetishes on the wondrous item list. Even in the unlikely event that the feat lets me make any wondrous item as a juju fetish at first level, I'd still need to pony up the cash for them. For revelations I was thinking Undead Servitude, Spirit Vessels, and Reminder of Death. I'd probably bug the DM to let me be from Ankar-Te in Kaer Maga, or The Impossible Kingdoms / Xin-Tia, where undead slaves are commonplace, and ask to start with a zombie summoned by one of my mentors (a NG juju zombie). Getting a new zombie at level 1 would really come down to just finding one. pre:[H] Feat: [1] Feat: [1] Revelation: Undead Servitude [3] Feat: [3] Revelation: Spirit Vessels [5] Feat: [7] Feat: [7] Revelation: Reminder of Death [9] Feat: Spell-wise I'd take the Cures for free and then probably Command and Bless or Magic Weapon at first. I really like Command, yelling "hit the bricks!" and laughing as your allies move in on a prone enemy is always fun. I guess if/when I was herding undead I'd need to learn some Inflict spells. There's nothing really "necromance-y" about the first level spells I can choose from, which sucks. I really enjoy having a lot of flavor in my characters, even from early levels. Restore/Decompose corpse are pretty much useless when you have such a limited spells known. Eventually, when I can animate dead, it would be nice to be able to add/remove flesh to turn a skeleton into a zombie and vice versa, but at low levels I don't see the point in wasting a known slot for it. Cause Fear? Doom? Eh. I'll think about this more later, I really have to get back to work. And if you're one of the people who suggested other Mysteries for oracles, feel free to chime in. I think it was Magic Rabbit Hat who was talking about the Heavens Oracle and focusing on Illusion spells, which seemed neat. I'd probably end up playing a Gnome though, and like I said I'm hoping to avoid small races.
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Jun 26, 2012 21:06
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One more thing: Battle Oracles are hilarious.
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Jun 26, 2012 21:06
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Magic Rabbit Hat posted:Ugh, my (thankfully now ex) GM threw something like that at us when we were playing one of the other APs. A giant bird nesting atop an impossible to climb cliff who has something we need. But thanks to a criminally low Knowledge - Nature roll we had no idea that said bird would stop trying to bull rush us off a cliff if we started climbing down it's clifftop nest. His excuse of "I'm just running it according to the module" didn't help things when it killed two party members because we literally had no idea how we were going to defend ourselves against a giant stormbird with Flyby Attack and CL8 Searing Rays. Paizo likes to do that sort of thing for some reason. Especially when it involves making skill checks to search something while the big monster comes after 1d6 rounds. Though, if you're talking about the encounter I think you are from the Serpent's Skull AP, I'm pretty sure you can approach that stormbird nest from the main area of the island without needing to make climb checks. Though that might have been the DM changing the encounter without even telling us. Of course, our group also had the benefit of luck, since my ranger ended up making great perception and survival rolls at the nest, so the stormbird didn't even realize we were there until we were already leaving. And as we left and spotted the stormbird returning in the distance, our GM said to us "so are you walking away from the nest or are you guys running?" which was a pretty good clue not to gently caress with a storm bird. I didn't even realize how totally problematic that could have become for anyone who didn't roll 18(+9) twice in a row when searching the nest. I can completely understand wanting to humble a low-level party with something that is out of their league, but thanks to the nature of this being a game, it's pretty natural for players to expect that whatever gets thrown in front of them is going to be a challenge made for them to overcome. It seems like paizo forgets sometimes that players can't see the big bad numbers in front of the DM, even when they roll well on knowledge checks. And hell, you can't rely on a successful knowledge check to tell the PCs that something is out of their league, especially at lower levels. I like the idea of "run away" encounters, but it's naturally going to be fairly problematic without a lot of wink wink, nod nod hinting from the DM or metagaming from players who are already familiar with whatever the monster is.
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Jun 26, 2012 21:52
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MoonwalkInvincible posted:Paizo likes to do that sort of thing for some reason. Especially when it involves making skill checks to search something while the big monster comes after 1d6 rounds. He did. All we got from him about that was that it was a 500ft sheer face of rock jutting directly upwards, and climbing it would require DC 20 checks to get up there because of the fierce winds. Considering he enjoyed using the rules as written, none of us were particularly excited about making 30+ Climb checks to get up that cliff face. The entirety of that encounter was the Ranger doing a Monty Python-esque skit of climbing up the cliff face, spending one minute searching, climbing back down so the Oracle could Enlarge him so he could take 10 on the Climb, going back up, failing the Perception check, and so on until the bird showed up and killed him. And before you ask, no, we could not take 20 on the check because "taking 20 implies that you fail many times before succeeding." He was absolutely the embodiment of combative DM and had a habit of concocting situations where my character would be killed then implying that I wanted a different game experience than the rest of the group when I told him that, maybe, four deaths in six sessions is a little much for one player to handle. But that's really better saved for the Cat Piss thread. I'm just really glad I'm not playing with him anymore. e; Also, he never showed us any of the maps in the AP books. Like, literally never once did he open the book and show us even the local map of the area we're in. His descriptions were always vague hand gestures and poorly explained directions. It was frustrating and I think he did it to intentionally lead us into traps sometimes.
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Jun 26, 2012 22:34
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Magic Rabbit Hat posted:e; Also, he never showed us any of the maps in the AP books. Like, literally never once did he open the book and show us even the local map of the area we're in. His descriptions were always vague hand gestures and poorly explained directions. It was frustrating and I think he did it to intentionally lead us into traps sometimes. This is some of the worst DMing I've ever heard of, since I'm pretty sure Smuggler's Shiv comes with an unmarked map of the entire island specifically so that you can show the PCs where they're going.
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Jun 26, 2012 23:00
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Swags posted:The problem I don't think the gunslinger realizes is that blackpower is useless if it gets wet, which can happen really easily on a pirate ship. What do I do about that? Please do not be like this. I mean it's a dick move ordinarily, but honestly, the gunslinger? That's the one you're picking on?
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Jun 26, 2012 23:05
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Swags posted:The problem I don't think the gunslinger realizes is that blackpower is useless if it gets wet, which can happen really easily on a pirate ship. What do I do about that? Uhm, Why are you picking on the gunslinger of all classes? What has the gunslinger ever done to you? You should make his blackpowder dry-resistant AND give him some bonuses, just to make him useful.
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Jun 26, 2012 23:22
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This talk of maps and DM transparency is making me a little nervous about my homebrew campaign. I'm bad enough at describing published adventure sites, but I'm not a very detail-oriented person by default and I already know I'm going to struggle to provide useful guidance for my players. Am I understanding that being able to produce some maps is necessary? Do I need to be able to show them an unmarked dungeon map too?
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Jun 26, 2012 23:50
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Evil Sagan posted:This talk of maps and DM transparency is making me a little nervous about my homebrew campaign. I'm bad enough at describing published adventure sites, but I'm not a very detail-oriented person by default and I already know I'm going to struggle to provide useful guidance for my players. The thing about Smuggler's Shiv is that it's a fairly open exploration campaign where the PCs necessarily need to be able to tell where they are and where they are going in relation to the rest of the island. Everything that happens relies on the players choosing which direction to go, and a DM not providing the map for it is especially stupid specifically because paizo already gave them a very good one. But that's an Adventure Path, which are sold as pre-made campaigns to save the DM preparation time and effort, so they are (or should be) held to a generally higher standard than a non-professional writing his own campaign... which is not to say that paizo always lives up to those standards, of course. As for your case, if you're doing a more or less linear dungeon, you should be perfectly fine just drawing out the rooms as your players get to them. And since it's a homebrew, there's plenty of things that you can just sort of wing as you go along. Though if there's more open exploration to be done, it's good for your players to have some vague idea of the relationship between places. For example, if the PCs need to search the wilderness for their destination, you should at least know (and be prepared to tell them) that the goblin cave is to the northwest of the town, but not as far north the dark fortress or the mountain range. On the other hand, if some NPC or something has told the party where the goblin cave is rather than making them go looking for it, you could just as easily tell the PCs that they travel and arrive at their destination whenever they decide they want to go there. How exact your maps need to be is mostly a matter of how much player-directed exploration is going to be required.
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Jun 27, 2012 00:22
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Inverse Icarus posted:I've read that module, and there are a ton of posts on the paizo boards about that end boss being too powerful. He probably felt bad. One of the party kills was his first character death (dude was also playing a Tengu he got from a boon, so bonus nerdgrief.) I guess if I end up meeting a Paizo bigwig at the con, I'll know what to complain about...or maybe just leave a flaming bag of dogpoop on their doorstep  edit: We all donated to have him ressed, since we felt horrible about it. Losing a character like that would suucckk.
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Jun 27, 2012 06:27
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Swags posted:Honestly, I'll likely leave it in. Not because the book is written that way, but because it's good to have a ridiculous challenge every once in a while that puts newbie PCs in their place. My group is a bit too accustomed to being the most badass dudes on the block, and every now and then a big fight lets them realize "Oh, poo poo. maybe I should RUN." Will likely lower the damage a bit, though. Possible tricks are having slow-onset paralytic poison, visually spectacular attacks like melee+bull rush, blinding, fear effects, etc. quote:The problem I don't think the gunslinger realizes is that blackpower is useless if it gets wet, which can happen really easily on a pirate ship. What do I do about that? Alternatively, drying out power would seem to also fall under an appropriate use for Prestidigitation. Its basically a variation on cleaning an object and it won't do anything for firing IN water(you need Air Bubble for that). Once the players have extra-dimensional storage the point is kinda moot though. quote:For something that doesn't concern Skull and Shackles: We're finishing up the last book of Curse of the Crimson Throne and I want to make a 14th level rogue-y type dude. Ninja/Assassin maybe? Any good ideas/builds for this? Ninja strategies: -As with any sneak attacker, melee means two weapon fighting, flanking/invisibility and a ton of attacks. This can get pretty absurd with shurikens, Rapid Shot, and Flurry of Stars(3 iterative attacks + 2 TWF + 1 Rapid Shot + 2 Flurry of Stars, of which 4 are at your full bonus, though theres a -6 to hit in all, and you can of course, add Haste), but the drawback is the shuriken strategy only works with a flatfooted enemy, while its horribly feat intensive(TWF, ITWF, Weapon Finesse, Quick Draw, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot) so get paired light weapons to do more. -Get a race with innate darkvision, it helps a good bit with stealth and you save on needing magic to sneak and see at the same time. -Pressure Points, a quick way to strip attack ability from melee foes...or to rapidly cripple a target in its weak stat. -Vanishing Trick->Invisible Blade, yes, you likely have rings of invisibility as an option at this level, but it falls off after one attack, whereas this is practically essential to any ranged ninja setup. -Forgotten Trick, note, this goes beyond getting mere tricks, you can get any combat feat or style feat with it on demand. -Smoke Bomb->Poison Bomb->Choking Bomb->Blinding Bomb. Effective...but it costs you a hefty 4 talent slots, for limited uses, and it costs standard actions. Leave it to the spellcasters and alchemists. So cost-wise, it takes 6 feats(out of your...6 feats), 4 tricks(out of 7) and 1 master trick(invisible blade), which doesn't leave a lot of room for flexibility, though fortunately your feats and tricks are largely interchangeable. It'd also take take a pair of enchanted daggers, and some means of getting bonuses on a bunch of shurikens(a friendly mage providing Greater Magic Weapon, a customized scabbard of vigor, etc).
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Jun 27, 2012 09:46
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Magic Rabbit Hat posted:I actually misread the Create Undead rules and didn't realize that Bones Oracles could make Juju Zombies as well, but I wrote up a big thing about why Juju Zombies are so amazing, so here you go; Kind of related, but what exactly is good about deafness? We just started a game (with an antipaladin, a monk and myself as a dervish bladebound magus) and our fourth member has decided on a dual cursed oracle taking both deafness and wrecker (with wrecker as the non-progressing curse) and wind mysteries. No one in the party knows what the hell the player is thinking, he wants wind since it gives him sneak as a class skill (he wants his gnome to be all sneaky and poo poo, but we don't know why he wouldn't roll a rogue in that case), deafness for silent casting it gives and he thought wrecker was the least damaging of secondary curses he could take for dual curse requirements. He has dropped into negative hit points twice in the first two sessions of the campaign, ran out of spells half way through the prison break we are in and refuses to use a knife which is the only weapon we've found that his race size will allow. Did I mention that I'm the only one who can use a wand since apparently it is better to put points in stealth? Sorry if I'm ranting, and maybe it is because his build is dragging everyone down, but I really cannot see the appeal to Oracles.
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Jun 27, 2012 19:11
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Casting all of your spells Silently for free is very nice in exchange for a -4 perception and a -4 initiative, which will quickly ameliorate itself as you level. Getting Scent and Tremorsense later on are just gravy. While it sounds like your friend made a pretty bad Oracle, the class itself is quite powerful. It's got a full caster progression with all the neat stuff that entails. Being spontaneous makes it significantly less versatile than a Cleric, and there are plenty of times when I've thought someone playing an Oracle would be better at what they're doing with a Cleric. But some revelations are quite powerful, as has been discussed above, and in a few levels even that oracle of yours is likely to start having a whole lot of spells to throw around.
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Jun 27, 2012 19:22
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grah posted:Casting all of your spells Silently for free is very nice in exchange for a -4 perception and a -4 initiative, which will quickly ameliorate itself as you level. Getting Scent and Tremorsense later on are just gravy. Yeah, JuJu sounds really interesting and with the setting for our campaign, would have worked really well, but our DM is playing full rules for deafness in that he has to roll perception to read lips of the other party members, and hes been ignoring these rules and subsequently pissing of the DM with what is OOC knowledge. That said, despite our shortcomings, we are doing all right and with his character dropping, our first few sessions have been a lot more tense since we started off pretty much rear end naked and its been really fun since our antipaladin is our DM's dad whose only been playing first edition with is own group since the drat game came out.
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Jun 27, 2012 19:35
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My God Pathfinder Society is full of the biggest grognards I've ever seen. There's a huge argument going on right now saying that a character can't have minor vestigial details like a Dark Tapestry oracle maybe showing the slightest hint of extra mouths or other very minor details because that's not RAW. The justification for this is to repeatedly quote this saying it's perfectly clear characters can't have minor details:quote:Can I re-skin or re-flavor an animal companion or item? Also, one of the regional campaign coordinators literally said they'd tell a player "no" if they were DMing a game and a character described some minor vestigial non-mechanical detail. If they didn't like it they're welcome not to play at a table with them. Now I remember why I stopped playing this poo poo for four years. 
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Jun 27, 2012 22:02
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Enzer posted:Kind of related, but what exactly is good about deafness? We just started a game (with an antipaladin, a monk and myself as a dervish bladebound magus) and our fourth member has decided on a dual cursed oracle taking both deafness and wrecker (with wrecker as the non-progressing curse) and wind mysteries. No one in the party knows what the hell the player is thinking, he wants wind since it gives him sneak as a class skill (he wants his gnome to be all sneaky and poo poo, but we don't know why he wouldn't roll a rogue in that case), deafness for silent casting it gives and he thought wrecker was the least damaging of secondary curses he could take for dual curse requirements. He has dropped into negative hit points twice in the first two sessions of the campaign, ran out of spells half way through the prison break we are in and refuses to use a knife which is the only weapon we've found that his race size will allow. Did I mention that I'm the only one who can use a wand since apparently it is better to put points in stealth? Sorry if I'm ranting, and maybe it is because his build is dragging everyone down, but I really cannot see the appeal to Oracles. For any spontaneous caster, spell selection is their life and soul. A bad selection basically cripples them as their primary class feature doesn't do anything...which given that you hadn't mentioned a single spell, is what I assume is going on. Second, Dual Cursed is best for mysteries with a lot of powerful revelations. Wind is not one of them, with the majority of the revelations being effectively equivalent to relatively weak spells, or synergize with spells they just don't get(Vortex spells work with spells having attack rolls, and improved critical dedicated to them. Cleric spell list is weak on spells with attack rolls, and Wind doesn't grant any of those). A lot of it is blasting, and weak blasting at that(CLd4 line? 1d6+1/2 level TOUCH?). Battle is probably the iconic move for dual cursed, with a large number of relevant mysteries, whereas Heavens(while otherwise pretty great) is less so, you'd probably want just one curse for that. It seems to me its more likely the player would have been happiest playing a Ninja...
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Jun 27, 2012 22:13
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Enzer posted:...refuses to use a knife which is the only weapon we've found that his race size will allow. Did I mention that I'm the only one who can use a wand since apparently it is better to put points in stealth? But there are small versions of all weapons, and Oracles can always use (divine) wands 
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Jun 27, 2012 23:19
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WAFFLEHOUND posted:My God Pathfinder Society is full of the biggest grognards I've ever seen. There's a huge argument going on right now saying that a character can't have minor vestigial details like a Dark Tapestry oracle maybe showing the slightest hint of extra mouths or other very minor details because that's not RAW. The justification for this is to repeatedly quote this saying it's perfectly clear characters can't have minor details: Society is for cons and just wanting to roll some dice if you dont have a regular group. Hence, all the crazy people play it. The ones who can never be in a group very long because people kick them out. Society is for HARDCORE RAIDERS, not you bleeding heart casuals. It's about being able to tell people you have a lvl 11 super multi-class Drizzt who can kill anything and is super cheese.
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Jun 27, 2012 23:23
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Enzer posted:Yeah, JuJu sounds really interesting and with the setting for our campaign, would have worked really well, but our DM is playing full rules for deafness in that he has to roll perception to read lips of the other party members, and hes been ignoring these rules and subsequently pissing of the DM with what is OOC knowledge. Reading lips requires no roll if you invest 1 dot in linguistics and choose 'lip reading' as your language. This is PFS legal, but I don't think it's officially printed in any book. http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety/faq#v5748eaic9os8
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Jun 27, 2012 23:39
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So we'll be moving out of the current dungeon in our session after next and going to a huge city. I want to make with the breaking and entering with my rogue, but I've never done it in a tabletop game before. I'm also concerned about magic traps and alarms. To experienced rogue player: how to you anticipate for magic alarm spells and the like?
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Jun 27, 2012 23:56
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Benny the Snake posted:So we'll be moving out of the current dungeon in our session after next and going to a huge city. I want to make with the breaking and entering with my rogue, but I've never done it in a tabletop game before. I'm also concerned about magic traps and alarms. To experienced rogue player: how to you anticipate for magic alarm spells and the like? "You walk up to a door." "I check it for traps." "You enter a room." "I check it for traps." "You're in an open plain with nothing around for miles." "I check it for traps."
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Jun 28, 2012 00:17
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Nanja Monja posted:But there are small versions of all weapons, and Oracles can always use (divine) wands True, but the switch to a gnome was done at the last min without telling the DM he had done so and so the weapons we looted off of a group of all human guards didn't really lend well for small variations and we haven't gotten to a point yet where we could actually buy anything (We just started Way of the Wicked). It wont be an issue once we get to a point where he can buy something, but still, it stands that he became useless after a certain point because what weapons he could use he didn't want to. As for the divine wands, hes still going to take a double charge use penalty because of wrecker, but I see your point. grah posted:Reading lips requires no roll if you invest 1 dot in linguistics and choose 'lip reading' as your language. This is PFS legal, but I don't think it's officially printed in any book. True, but that is only within ten feet in normal lit areas, it doesn't help when he is half way across a room during combat. The best example I can give was that in a large room one of the party members successfully makes a perception check that a guard is trying to hide his movements so as to not be noticed hes looking for his signal horn, he says that to the rest of us, but the Oracle is some 30 feet away with several guards between him and the person talking. The oracles turn is next and he immediately turns to the guard looking for the horn. The issue was that there were two or three guards between them, the npc was on the far side of the room, and had pretended to cower in fright in the corner (we had a similar situation in a previous room where a surprise round allowed me to hit all but one guy in a room with color spray. The remaining guard, who was sitting at a table playing cards before we had busted in, hid in the corner), the oracle wasn't able to explain how he knew that the guard was a major threat. It may be nit picking, but I do agree with the DM that if your character's design is that they are deaf, and you just ignore that and not even try to come up with a reason (or at least roll a perception check to notice that one of the guys seems bothered by the dude in the corner) to give for why your character acts that way besides that you, as a player, know what is going on. It can also be seen as an issue of the player eventually getting benefits for being cursed, but ignoring the downsides of the curse until then. It is not that big a deal as I made it out to be, it just really threw off the whole party when we started looking into his character. This is the first time any of the actual players have tried Pathfinder (we've been playing a home brewed variant of 1st edition for the past two years), but hes made much better choices in the past.
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Jun 28, 2012 01:12
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B.B. Rodriguez posted:Society is for cons and just wanting to roll some dice if you dont have a regular group. Hence, all the crazy people play it. The ones who can never be in a group very long because people kick them out. Society is for HARDCORE RAIDERS, not you bleeding heart casuals. It's about being able to tell people you have a lvl 11 super multi-class Drizzt who can kill anything and is super cheese. I know, but I actually loved Living Greyhawk back in the day and this is a place even LG grogs were less stupid than PFS people. I can't believe I'm seeing DMs using that ruling on cats to say they'd tell people arbitrarily that they don't like their character concept and would nix everything but that which was written on the character sheet. Not just DMs, but regional loving coordinators for the game. I play PFS because I don't have a regular group because literally none of my friends are nerds. I find PFS is a like 70/30 split of incredible sperglords and normal people with a shameful hobby. The problem is they've let that 70 run the show.
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Jun 28, 2012 02:17
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It sounds like they'd throw a shitfit and flip tables if they knew about my small binder of house rules. Here's an excerpt: Feats that apply to single weapons (like Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and Improved Critical) apply instead to entire weapon groups (like in the fighter's Weapon Training class feature).
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Jun 28, 2012 04:13
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The campaign coordinator for the entire loving Pathfinder Society weighed in saying no you can't have vestigial flavour things that's badwrongfun. Because verisimilitude. Right, time to drop this poo poo like a rock again.
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Jun 28, 2012 04:28
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