|
So I'm going to be moving soon out of this state and fairly soon my group is going to start running Wrath of the Righteous. We've got one of each of the divine classes (paladin, inquisitor, cleric, oracle), and I think a soulknife and a barbarian, but I wanted to do something else. My three thoughts at this point are 1) go cavalier and do the ultra-charger type of guy, Order of the Sword until 8th level and then straight into Mammoth Rider, stabbing things with my uber-lance for hundreds of hilarious points of damage. 2) cavalier forced on the Tactician ability, taking the tactician mythic path to buff my group as much as possible. The problem with this is that if there aren't enough combatants, I've spent my levels on making my team better, but they still won't be great. 3) Alchemist focused on poisons. Sadly, this takes until about level 8 to get good, and even then it's not fantastic, but at least I can poison demons/devils immune to poison, so that's cool. I know the group is lacking in the 'arcane' department, but I don't really have any urge to play an arcane type at the moment (or ever, really, but that's just me.) Maybe if I can use the Harrower's Handbook, because it seems neat to cast with a tarot deck, but I haven't fully read that yet, though if one of you has a cool idea or build for it I could give it a shot. I also read a Maneuver Master monk build here that seems interesting, but I don't know if it's fully viable in a mythic game. Or any game, really. But it does sound neat. So, any ideas on what to play? Mythic takes this out of my usual realm of expertise.
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2014 07:24
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 06:37 |
|
|
So last night I joined a game of Carrion Crown right towards the end of its run. I played in a few months ago back when they were fighting vampires and asked the GM, "Can I make a lovely Van Helsing knockoff to fight the vamps?" And he said sure, so I made a halfling paladin with the Undead Scourge archetype (which, for some loving genius design reason, can't be grouped with the Oath Against Undead, ugh). Last night I leveled him up to 14 and headed in. My attacks were sitting at something like +33/+33/+28/+28/+23/+23 for about 1d3 + 55 damage if it was a smited target, and was undead on top of that. It was ridiculous. It got to the point where I just stopped rolling damage and would see how many times I hit and add that many 50s together. I never even counted the times I critted because most things were dead by the third or fourth swing anyway. Even if I couldn't smite it, I was still at around 1d3+23 or so, which is respectable and apparently right around the highest everyone else was getting. I really don't see how I'm the only specialized guy in the campaign where it's a non-stop slugfest through a bunch of undead. I mean, I guess I maybe min-maxed my guy a bit more than everyone else, but not by a ton, honestly. The Ranger took favored enemy: evil outsiders because they killed his pet at some point, so he's only adding +2 or so to undead and counting on his Holy bow to make up the damage for him, but he'll Instant Enemy the big guys. It's just... weird, I guess, to be so good at it with a melee dude. I guess 14th is right in the sweet spot for paladin.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 15, 2014 17:56
|
|
|
fatherdog posted:There's nothing wrong with being sex positive, just like there's nothing wrong with liking custard pie, but if you wrote a fantasy novel where every chapter had like fifteen pages dedicated to detailed scenes of custard pie consumption people might suggest you should maybe cut back a little If you've never read a Greenwood book, this is actually kind of what it's like. The main character, in the middle of doing something important, will see a custard pie. He'll then describe the pie in exacting detail, the pan that it's in, the history of the baker, and the local baker's guild, and how their founding was because of a crazed elven fighter with a huge cylindrical club that fought a wheat monster in the great and ancient past, and where that wheat came from, and why it was so special, and how that specialness related to the age of magic at the height of the wheat golem rampages, and how such rampages hurt the surrounding economy, which of course lead to a war that he'll describe in detail including a few of the more famous generals, and of course their sons and daughters and various adopted monster-babies, and why those monsters eventually turned to a life of crime and started inhabiting the Emerald Spire superdungeon. And after all that pointless poo poo, then the main character sees a hat or a cloak or a walking stick or something and it just starts all over again.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2014 08:49
|
|
|
Make each of the martials mythic characters and give them legacy items. It still won't quite balance them, but they'll feel awesome when they can do stuff that even other legendary heroes can't do.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2014 05:54
|
|
|
Dreamscarred would get all of my love in a sloppy, filthy way if they'd just put their books on HeroLab. I want to make characters, I really do, but I don't want to buy anymore books. And their books are ridiculously expensive as it is. A printed color version of Ultimate Psionics is like $80.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2014 02:47
|
|
|
Oh, I completely understand both of those points. I get that it's a smaller company and needs to do smaller print runs, and I get that the .pdf is cheaper. But I don't want the .pdf. I want the information in HeroLab where I can gleefully fiddle with it to my hearts content. HeroLab has made me really lazy in generating a character, but I think that it's a wonderful thing. Hell, give me the HeroLab information and up the price by $10 and I'll still pay it. I just don't want to have to lug another book and a bunch of hand drawn work sheets with me to the game.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2014 03:29
|
|
|
I agree with you. I thought Tome of Battle solved this a bit, and I've heard very good things about the "Talented Fighter" .pdf I saw a while back. I've always thought that the more stuff people can do in and out of fights, the more fun the game is. The problem I find is implementing those things without giving so many options the fighter is basically just a sword-wizard who has a memorize things from his spellbook of fighting.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 13, 2014 00:06
|
|
|
Dairy Power posted:I have a campaign starting tonight and can't decide what to play. I rolled stupidly well on stats: 18, 16, 16, 15, 15, 15, so I kind of want to play something that's usually bad because of MAD. Starting level is 2. I don't know anything other than we're going to be mercenaries and that the current group is (assuming no one's changed): Bloodrager, Samurai, 'pacifist' Sky Druid (ugh), and something (most likely a skill monkey based on what he usually plays). The samurai will only be around for a month or two before he moves. I'm playing a sorcerer in my 5e campaign already, so even though we 'need' an arcane caster the most, I'd prefer to play something else. Things that usually suffer from MAD are typically 1) not full casters. And that's about it, really. Magus does tend to suffer from MAD a bit, though that tends to be mitigated lately by everyone just being a scimitar Magus. I'd recommend going strength magus, which it seems like barely anyone ever does. A Bladebound/Kensai Magus needs high intelligence even more than a typical Magus, but it gets to add Int to a bunch of stuff, like AC and critical confirmations and such. I'd say put your 18 in INT, your 16s in STR and DEX, and have a burly, agile magus. You'll have a high Str so you can add that to hit and damage (unlike most Magi) and you'll have a good enough AC to start with a 14 and it'll only go up from there as you increase your INT and DEX. I'd recommend going the 'debuffing' Magus route instead of pure damage, because being able to stack a -6 to str, -6 to hit, -6 AC on someone from a round of attacks is pretty awesome. You won't directly outshine anyone and you make everyone else look great. If you're interested in trying out a melee witch build, you've got the stats for that, too. They're way harder, but at least you've got the ability to ignore most of the drawbacks from stats.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 14, 2014 18:38
|
|
|
RPZip posted:Has anyone played Reign of Winter and have a review of it, maybe with some notable high/lowpoints that should be fixed? I'm positive it's been mentioned in here before, but I'm not sure by who. My old group got to book two in RoW and once we split up I read a bit past that. Here's my advice. I'm going to go ahead and call SPOILERS! for this whole post. The adventure starts in Taldor. You play as Taldorans who are sort of supposed to give a poo poo about the winter stuff happening. It seriously makes no sense, and you have to venture to a land where outsiders are arrested/murdered on sight. Just start it in the Mammoth Lands or something. Give the PCs a reason to care. The faeries at the beginning are horrendous. High ACs, and DR that most people won't have (cold iron, which is only barely available in that region), plus a concealment chance that they don't suffer due to the blizzard. It really sucks. The encounter with the bard, if it isn't done right, seriously screws the party. That said, it's very hard to 'do right' for the party. If they don't look like natives, they haven't 'done it right.' Pathfinder is a game where you can play as a goddamn bird man, but if you're not just a viking in this adventure, you're hosed. They even put out a People of the North book for it, but since you're starting in Taldor it literally makes no sense for any of that to even come into play. Here's what snow/deep snow do in terms of combat: Snow: Every square counts as two squares. Can't run or charge. Can't five foot step. Deep Snow: Every square counts as FOUR squares. Note how none of this affects ranged characters. If someone wants to actually play a barbarian or something, they're boned from step one. If your players make a fire-type character they will run through encounters like it's nothing thanks to the Cold subtype having a vulnerability. If they make an ice-type, like let's say a disaffected Winter Witch, they won't even be able to hurt anything. The townsfolk will start fights for no reason. I played in the first part of book 2 twice, and the townsfolk started poo poo for no reason both times. Separate GMs, too. Even if they're scared of the guards, have them at least not treat the PCs like poo poo and attack them. Thing is, the majority of PCs have NO QUALMS with murdering someone who throws the first bottle. The goblin fights in the main city are really weak. They just seemed like a minor annoyance. Same with the mirrormen. I was expecting more from the 'elite guardsmen' and there was nada. The dragon fight in book 2 (3?) was interesting because it was the only time I've seen a dragon written as "this guy just strafes with his breath weapon for a long time." Our melee guys were really irritated, our archer and mage had no problems. Happens quite a bit in this adventure. The plot is, overall, kind of meh. There's a lot of "Grab these three McGuffins to summon back Baba Yaga!" and "Don't do anything wrong in the city because if you do, the evil queen will send every single guard she has at you." You're forced to do some stupid poo poo. I get that you finally get to venture to the cat-wookiee planet and to modern Earth and stuff, but it's just annoying having to do that because you need to grab this little trophy to steal this little item or whatever. There's a number of moments in this adventure path that are seriously meta, as far as the characters understanding the rules. Things like, "Evil Wizard casts suggestion on the guy in the heaviest armor, knowing idiots usually wear armor. And then he flies really high, knowing melee guys don't bring bows. And then he casts silence on whoever is in robes, knowing that wizards don't wear armor." A lot of it is directed at fighter types. Usually the stuff that entirely takes them out of the fight.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 14, 2014 21:26
|
|
|
Arivia posted:He's not wrong, to be honest. Pathfinder doesn't go to the same detail as 3e did, but it does have a settlement creation system (a very good one, at that). By table 7-36 in the GameMastery Guide (p. 205), a thorp of less than 20 people does have 1st level spellcasting. More than likely it comes from adepts. Clerics are important people. That crazy priest that knows how to cast Cure Minor Wounds but lives a days travel into the Forbidden Wood isn't quite an important person, but he's definitely useful.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2014 04:03
|
|
|
Here's the problem with handing out free 'feat tax' feats like that: It's not going to fix the imbalance of the system. Your fighter will still only be able to sword stuff, albeit slightly better, whereas now the wizard or cleric will be able to sword stuff nearly as well. In addition to being a spellcaster. The feat taxes are a dumb thing and I agree with using them to get rid of a very, very stupid part of the game, but you'll need to give the martials something extra on top of that.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2014 21:39
|
|
|
I remember the whole thing about actually taking time to train back in 2E. You had to find a guy at least three levels higher than you, and you had to pay him his level X however many gold to do it, and it took however many weeks, etc. Leveling up was honestly just a huge hassle.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2014 09:01
|
|
|
Yeah. And every single Dhampyr has to be an inquisitor anyway. It's required by LAW.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 23, 2014 07:21
|
|
|
CaptainPsyko posted:Occult Adventures Playtest is out, 6 new 'Psionic' classes, etc. "The Ultimate Psionics book is doing really well." "Oh. How can we copy it?" "We'll find a way!"
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2014 03:30
|
|
|
If you guys want Binders/Pact Magic done right, look up Pact Magic Unbound by Dario Nardi on Paizo's site. They're two very good .pdfs, with a 3rd one coming out mid-year, and they get binding done right and way better than Paizo's managed with this iteration.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2014 22:45
|
|
|
Roadie posted:Same. The whole ability score/alignment conditional bonuses thing is just needless complication. Seriously, check out Pact Magic Unbound. It's done so well.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 1, 2014 09:04
|
|
|
Red Metal posted:Is there any way to use intimidate to frighten enemies instead of just making them shaken? I believe the Thug archetype for rogues and the Hellknight can both do this.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2014 00:25
|
|
|
Cincle posted:I have been running a ptolus campaign for about a year or so in dnd 4.0 but got tired of creating encounters all the time and we've decided that we're gonna give pathfinder a go since converting 3.5 to pathfinder appearantly is easy. My players were all lvl 7 and we made somewhat comparable lvl 7 pathfinder dudes. I just finished preparing my first session (created from scratch) and I am completely overwhelmed; I've included a lot of npc humanoid dudes and I'm gonna have to look up a massive amount of crap while playing and all the player characters are super complex (we have a wizard with a million spells and summons, a druid with laberinthine and complex wildshape rules and a billion summons, a ranger dude who can do like five attacks a turn) and I fear we're gonna get bogged down by rules, systems etc. etc. A 7th level paladin with AC 29? Sounds like a well-made tank to me. Considering some CR 6 monsters have to-hits of +12 or so, that means they'd have to roll a 17 to hit him. That's pretty impressive. But here's the thing: You could attempt to damage him in other ways. Does he have a shield? Sunder it. Knock him prone. Rust his armor. Cast spells. Etc. This dude's entire goal was to make a tank, and he did that. If that's the kind of guy he wants to play, then let him have his moment. The KEY DIFFERENCE between Pathfinder paladins and 4th edition paladins is that there's no 'Marking' mechanic, so he gets to literally put himself in danger to keep other people out of harm's way and it's pretty tough to get monsters to focus on you if they don't want to (since you have to spend feat to do that). The ranger sounds iffy. Assuming a strength of 20 (+5), 7th level (+7), that's a 12. If he has weapon focus and a +2 weapon, that's +15. So assuming he's got some other bonus smuggled in there somewhere, a +16/+11 doesn't sound too ridiculous. Hell, he even stands a chance of hitting your paladin on a roll of 13+. But a 2d6+5 attack 4 times a round sounds iffy, unless he's doing some weird Greatsword tricks that may not work the way he thinks they do. I believe that's the only 2d6 weapon in the game. If you wanted to post either/both of their characters, we could critique them for you. But really, in Pathfinder FAR more so than in 4th edition, martial characters really tend to lag behind casters. Maybe not so much toward the beginning, but as you get farther in, that 2d6+5 really pales in comparison to the other guy gating in dragons or summoning meteors or stopping time. The other thing about encounters to remember is that they aren't JUST 'here are monsters to fight.' Make the terrain difficult. Include puzzles that MUST be completed while the battle is being fought. Put in environmental hazards, or hostages, or devices that need to be put together or broken apart. Put in low-level monsters who are completely invincible with an unlimited number of spells and a certain weakness if an object nearby is destroyed (just, y'know, key them in to what that might be). Creatures themselves are awesome, but if they're in a fight where every round they're adjacent to the monster they take 1d6 fire, or where no spells of a level less than three or greater than 4 can be cast, or an area where they need to make acrobatics checks every round to stay standing, that all increases the difficulty a lot without you having to toss in more and more creatures. I'd also suggest templates. There are some great template .pdfs on Paizo's website along the lines of 101 Not So Simple Monster Templates. You just take one of those and toss it on a monster they're somewhat familiar with and it can change the entire encounter. Add in some environmental effects and you can even run similar encounters that seem completely different. Also, just practice making poo poo up. Honestly, if the monsters seem really underpowered defense-wise, a quick +2 to all saves and AC isn't terrible. Likewise, if they're not doing enough offensively, toss them a +3 to hit and damage, or give them a quick addition effect (poison, disease, knock prone vs. a Reflex save, etc) on their attacks for when they actually do hit. Making poo poo up is half of your job. Give the PCs their time to shine and be good at what they do, yeah, but there should still be fights every now and again that just absolutely push them to their limit and make them think they're going to die. But if every fight is that way all the time, I find that players think they're never actually gaining power, they're just always about to die. So give them their moments of power, but give them moments of weakness, too. If you've gotta make stuff up to do that, then make it up.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2014 00:56
|
|
|
Cincle posted:Thanks for the suggestions guys, I've calmed my tits a bit. Ranger guy: Ahh! I get it now. That's easily solved by swarming him in melee. Ranged attacks provoke attacks of opportunity, so if he gets swarmed, he provokes. His only recourse is to take a 5-foot-step back and then attack, and he might still provoke if the guy he's backing away from has any of the Step Up feats (Step Up, or Step Up and Strike). As for the druid wildshaping, you could always just turn him into whatever his warg buddy there is. That way you've got two massive dogs to run around beating the tar out of people. There is a list of NPCs on pfsrd. It's here. Just follow the line down for what the game considers to be 'appropriately CRed guys.' Note, they likely aren't actually a challenge (for martial guys) or are a party killer (for magical guys) so be sure to realize what they can actually do. But a majority of it should be spelled out in the stat blocks. Edit: Also, like Roadie said, taking a monster and going "Nope, this is a dude." is fine. Who's going to know or care? You want your guys to fight some priestess of a sensual demon cult? Just put a succubus in. You want them fighting a cleric of death? Pop in a psychopomp. It's all cool, really so long as the game's fun.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2014 01:34
|
|
|
I believe the supposition is that the two traits stack to lower the spell level by two, making it a first level spell.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 15, 2014 14:56
|
|
|
I know if you take the version of the Noble Scion feat that gives you Charisma to initiative, it helps with that, too. As Light Warden said, this is pretty good on certain Oracles. Get Charisma to reflexes, initiative, social checks, and I think it's possible to grab the bonus to attacks too.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2014 06:40
|
|
|
Is there a way to steal through a whip attack?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2015 05:10
|
|
|
Red Metal posted:Do you mean in place of a normal attack, like with trip/sunder/disarm? If so, there's the Quick Steal feat. I meant 'in place of a regular attack, but done with the weapon." Like, I crack my whip at the guy from 10 feet away and he is now missing his holy symbol.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 14, 2015 10:55
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 06:37 |
|
|
sugar free jazz posted:Anyone have suggestions for ridiculous and silly but weirdly effective builds for PFS? Halfling cavalier on a dog. Give the dog all of the aid another stuff while you ride around tripping people.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2015 10:47
|
|