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Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Angry Diplomat posted:

there are tons of people still playing 3.5 because they love the system. there are tons of people playing pathfinder because they love the system. repeat for every other edition. a lot of grognards cried at wotc because they wanted 4e to be exactly like 3.5 but with minor updates, so paizo saw that and went, "oh hey we can capitalize on this" and made exactly that.
It's also that some of the Paizo staff are those grognards. The whole "no Vancian spellcasting" thing was (at least they claimed) a real part of their decision to not go along with the GSL and publish 4e-compatible stuff.

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Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

I may not be remembering it right, but I swear Erik Mona voiced a major distaste for the end of Vancian spellcasting as one of his reasons for not wanting to go 4e.

One of my major reasons, too.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

mixitwithblop posted:

Maybe not. That's not a wizard, but an oracle. New divine class.

And it's not a fighter, either, but the Pathfinder version of the Cavalier. Oracles are spontaneous divine casters, similar to sorcerers.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Etherwind posted:

It'll be poo poo advice on game balance from people who don't understand the concept...
They understand it, they just don't care about it as much as WotC.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Never done PBP before but I might be up for it.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

grah posted:

SR of 11 + level is also a pretty big benefit that is not easy to come by other ways. And the array of attributes that Noble Drow get in pathfinder--it's easily a 3 level adjustment, if not 4. They are much more potent than pc races, and much more potent than common drow.

As an aside, does the Magus class playtest seem really broken to anyone else? Not in the sense of being overpowered, but in the sense of "this is badly made and there is no reason to play it"? The class has two (2) touch spells and a class power that only works with touch spells. Using it's signature ability requires a significantly hard caster level check and imposes a -4 to attacks whether or not you get the extra spell cast or not, and if you fail you lose the spell slot, which you have a very limited number of. I can't see any reason to play this. If you want a sword fighting magic user, even a straight sorcerer works better than this, or a sorcerer-fighter or a ranger or literally anything you could think of seems better. Am I missing something here?
Noble Drow need to be a +1 level adjustment at any level. It's just at the lower level spectrum that they need to be a +2 or even +3.

There's supposed to be a metric buttload of new touch spells in Ultimate Magic, which should supposedly make the class better. It's just that they didn't want to playtest them so all we get is what's in the core and the APG.

And so with the lack of playtesting, they'll likely be the same poorly-executed-but-decent-ideas-at-the-core kind of stuff we got from the APG. (Losing faith in Paizo month by month...)

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Tactical Bonnet posted:

There's a dinosaur build (brontosaurus?) that uses precise strike and some other stuff to deal 18d6 plus a ton of strength damage with a tail slap.

How do you use Pathfinder's version of Wildshape to change into a Gargantuan creature? At best you can only manage a Huge sized animal.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

No, he means casting spells like Enlarge Person, Haste, and other buff spells, not just blowing stuff up.

Wizard in melee = dead Wizard, pretty much. Run away, help the meat shields/tanks/Fighter-types do their jobs better, and once you safely get out of range of the enemies' direct attacks, THEN start casting Magic Missile, Scorching Ray, Fireball, and whatnot.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

crime fighting hog posted:

How much does a wand of cure minor wounds with infinite charges cost?

E: I'm serious I remember when we played 3.5 my player asked me if he could buy one because we didn't have a cleric and I never figured out the cost.

Cure Minor Wounds doesn't exist in Pathfinder, as cantrips and orisons are all now at-will abilities, and an ability that could be used (with sufficient time) to heal any hp damage a party has sustained during normal adventuring kind of unbalances the game.

:goonsay:

(It's been replaced by Stabilize.)

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

James Jacobs (Paizo's Creative Director, though not the main rules designer) has, by his own admission, never even read Bo9S, let alone thought about rules along those lines. Ultimate Combat should be coming out sometime in 2011, though.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Red_Mage posted:

The problem in this case is that paizo keeps an ear to their own community, and their own community hates:

Encounter Based Design
Martial Characters gaining narrative control through class features
Splatbook classes that are more competent than core classes (is your fighter variant better than fighter in ever way? bad design).

The only way I could see this being better received is if they used a system of martial points. They work much like power points,...

The only thing Paizo hates more than functional melee combatants is points systems. Not gonna happen.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

10,800 gp - 9000 gp to make your armor into +3 Hide Armor leaves you 1800 gp.

Seriously, if your armor isn't already at least +3 (or maybe +2 with a +1 equivalent ability) then up the bonus on your armor.

Though you do have just enough to up your weapon from +2 (8000 gp) to +3 (18000 gp).

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Zemyla posted:

I've seen them as fairly compatible. We've had to houserule Concentration back in for Diamond Minds, but all in all there's no real grinding of gears between two incompatible systems.
I always just used Perception in place of Concentration.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Magic Rabbit Hat posted:

My GM just told me I can make Sneak Attacks with a Wand. This is the happiest day in my Rogue's life. :woop:
If the target is flat-footed against you, sure, you can add sneak dice to wands like Scorching Ray. It's sort of the whole idea for an Arcane Trickster.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Gnomebitten posted:

Free PDF on the Paizo site. Yes, it is a single google away.

For Artificers, just nix their craft pool and anything that relates to XP costs. They don't need any help and wealth by level has been changed. They break it anyways. Give em d8 HDs because BAB and HDs have been tied to a standard; have mid BAB, you got d8s.

For the races, the standard is a +2 overall statgain. If you feel that you should preserve the normal statistical drawback of Warforged and Shifters, just nix one of their -2s. Psionics works fine in Pathfinder, just give the empty levels of psionic classes fluff if you use em. Unless I'm mistaken there have been either some 3rd party psionic supplements but be wary; Pathfinder has some pretty lovely 3rd party sources. I mean Tome of Secrets.

Dragonmarks should just work as printed.

The de facto Pathfinder Psionics book is the 3rd party Psionics Unleashed from Dreamscarred Press. It does all of the work of updating the 3.5 psionics rules. If you liked 3.5 psionics, you'll probably be really happy with the book. The only real complaints I've heard about it are from people who never liked 3.5 psi to begin with.

And yes, there certainly are crappy 3rd party books, but most of them are a lot, lot better than Tome of Secrets.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

metachronos posted:

When is ultimate magic coming out exactly?

Next month, assuming it gets back from the Chinese printers and through customs on time. Their books literally take the slow boat from China to get to us.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Donraj posted:

Yes. Though technically I don't believe it's considered multi-classing since there's no XP penalty.

I may still be thinking in 3.5 on that one.

There's no XP penalties for multiclassing anymore, but you do lose out on the Favored Class bonus that you get for each level in any one class of your choice, usually either +1 hp or +1 skill point. There are some other options for the bonus if you look in the APG, too.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Iron Squid posted:

So my Fighter becomes a 10th level Fighter / 1st level Stalwart Defender, then?

Yup.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

LightWarden posted:

Reminder that there's a SRD containing most of the stuff they've put out (plus some more stuff in the "work in progress" section).

Anyways, if you somehow can't play a trapfinding caster, you will probably want a Rogue. Human, Half-Elf or Elf is probably your best bet. Get a high Dexterity and Weapon Finesse, wield a rapier in your main hand, and some other light one-handed weapon later on once you get two-weapon fighting. Trick to playing a rogue in combat is to find any situation where the target is flat-footed or flanked and attack it as many times in one turn as you possibly can to make the most of your sneak attack. Dexterity boosts your attacks, AC, Reflex, Stealth, Disable Device, Initiative, and other vital rogue statistics. It is the god-stat for a non-caster, your alpha and your omega.

What level and point buy are you starting at?
d20pfsrd is a fan-run site, not anything official from Paizo at all. That's not to say the folks at Paizo have any issue with the site, as they've said on more than one separate occasion. (While almost all of the rules content of Paizo books is Open Gaming Content, and can be legally reposted wherever as long as appropriate credit is given, d20PFSRD tends to put a 2-week embargo on posting any new content from books Paizo's just released. Ultimate Magic content will not be formally posted to the site until next month, for example, even though its street date is the 18th of May.)

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

J. Alfred Prufrock posted:

Dip a single level of rogue for Trapfinding and getting the class skill bonus, then play a wizard (or alchemist I guess).

Pathfinder is basically 3.5 with a smattering of house rules and some new classes, so if you know enough about 3.5 to know that you always play a caster, you should be pretty good to go for PF.
No, you wanna go Rogue 3/Wizard 3/Arcane Trickster 10, then finish off with more Wizard so you can have 9th level spells at character level 20. Caster PLUS sneak attack.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Meepo posted:

256 pages for 40 bucks...blah.

That's pretty much the standard now. The Bestiaries are also 39.99 MSRP, but they're 320 pages with a lot of art, so it's about the same amount of text over those pages.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Ballpoint Penguin posted:

I’m curious to see how it plays. On paper it looks a tad overpowered, but I’d like to think that Paizo wouldn’t succumb to the power creep problems that ruined 4E and 3.5 before.

On an entirely different note, I’m planning on starting a Pathfinder conversion of the Savage Tide adventure path. Has anybody tried that, and if so, how much actual conversion was required? It seems like it wouldn’t need that much of an overhaul (especially at lower levels), but I feel like Pathfinder characters are bigger and stronger enough than their 3.5 predecessors that some of encounters will be a total cakewalk if I don’t update them a bit.

The Outsider type changed from 3.5 to Pf. They now have d10 HD and only two good saves, so any of the unique or new ones will have to be rebuilt. That would be the first major thing that would come to mind. As for the rest, you can always just add on the Pathfinder Advanced simple template to the listed 3.5 monsters if you want to bring them up to the same level as Pathfinder class PCs.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Tactical Bonnet posted:

While we're on the subject, I'm playing a Magus, blade-bound archetype wielding a bastard sword(not reskinned into a katana. It's a giant black bastard sword.), who is also a word caster and level 4. I've got a total of ~4700gp at my disposal. Other than the obvious "keen" on the sword for 2000gp, any other(better?) suggestions for a character who's main purpose is dealing damage?

We already have a wizard, so don't bother going on about how dealing damage isn't as effective as magic, I'm just enjoying playing the character.

You can't just make a Keen weapon. It has to already be enchanted to at least +1, so the only way to buy a Keen weapon is to buy a +1 Keen weapon, costing 8000 gp.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

ProfessorCirno posted:

I am in awe. I think I'm basking in it.

And headed by Ryan Dancey, no less.

Edit: Oh my lord it's being done entirely in-house.

They literally don't have any experience whatsoever with any sort of video game programming. At all. None. And they're jumping into making their own MMORPG.

I'm going to love - and I mean love - watching this.

They describe it as being like their minis deal with WizKids - they know that they don't know how to make minis themselves, so they contract out with someone who does, then tell them what kind of minis they want.

Now the question here is can Ryan Dancey create a working MMO or not. Sadly, my money is on the "no" as well.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Flameingblack posted:

I've never played a Tabletop game before, so of course I'm going to start bugging people on the internet to help me build a character. I've got two different groups of friends that are heavy into Pathfinder, so I'm going to make a character and play with them both. I'd ask them for help, but they're all in school/out of town so it's hard to get them to sit down and help me make a character on my own time.

I'm using This to help build my character since I'm math dumb.

So anyway, I've been thinking about a Half-Orc Inquisitor. After long thought I finally decided that playing a Kobald was a dumb idea for a first-time player. I'm not finding a lot of resources on Inquisitor. No pre-made characters or suggestions of any kind.

Depends on what you want to do with the Inquisitor. If you're going Half-Orc, you might look into the alternate favored class ability that lets you add 1/2 your class levels to Intimidate. This is in addition to the class ability that already lets you do the same thing. Take Skill Focus (Intimidate) and a trait for +2 to Intimidate and you can easily pull off a +20 Intimidate check at level 4 or so. 4 ranks, +2 from starting 14 Cha, +3 from class skill, +2 racial, +2 trait, +3 skill focus, +2 class ability, +2 alternate favored class. Then start picking up all the weird feats that interact with Intimidate and be Gorum's personal champion of Terror.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Benny the Snake posted:

I started my first Pathfinder Society campaign today. I can say without doubt that I'm probably the worst person to play Tabletop.

I'm playing a rogue. First thing I did? Pickpocket a team member. After that, things went downhill. Overused knowledge dungeoneering for every little thing, not paying attention to movement, etc. The GM flat-out told me if I hosed up again, he'd throw me out of the campaign. I feel dumb.

Rule 0: The GM makes all the rules. Don't like any ruling? See this rule!
Rule 0.5: Don't be a dick to your fellow party members. No pickpocketing, no backstabbing, and no cockblocking the bard (unless it's really funny).

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Benny the Snake posted:

Hey is there a Pathfinder print magazine out there?

Kobold Quarterly has Pathfinder coverage, but it literally billed itself until issue 18 (current issue: 21) as "The Switzerland of the Edition Wars", so there's almost as much 4e crap as Pathfinder. And now AGE seems to be overtaking 4e, but still, not a pure Pathfinder mag.

Kvantum fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Apr 25, 2012

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Herr Tog posted:

Hi. I never played in this system but I want to. I also found this: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Farmer_%283.5e_Class%29

Would this be compatible with the rules of this system? I wish to water the meadows with the blood of my enemies.

It would take a lot of conversion work for all of the class abilities. Most of them are based off of abilities that changed quite a bit from 3.5 to Pathfinder. Bardic Knowledge (I Reckon), Lay on Hands (Green/Brown Thumb), Smite Evil (Don't Touch My Daughter), Turn Undead (Turn Pests)... they're all different in Pathfinder to varying degrees. Turn Undead is probably the most radical change, so you'd want to base Turn Pests off the new version, which is actually just a feat in Pathfinder. "Mettle" is now Stalwart (see the Inquisitor in APG for details.) Also the normal skill list changes (Hide and Move Silently merged into Stealth, Listen, Search, and Spot merged into Perception, etc.)

And even if you do all the conversion work, and you get it all ready to play, your GM may not feel the result is balanced. Can it be converted? Sure, but that's no automatic guarantee.

Kvantum fucked around with this message at 06:18 on May 24, 2012

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Paizo made its name in the RPG business publishing magazines for D&D and Star Wars. Then they lost the Star Wars license and had to focus on just the D&D magazines, Dungeon and Dragon. In Dungeon they started publishing year-long adventure paths which were a series of 12 monthly, interconnected adventures. They were the most popular thing Paizo had ever done so after they lost the licenses from WotC to do the D&D mags, they kept publishing 3e-compatible adventure paths under the Pathfinder name. Then after WotC launched 4e, they used the terms of the OGL to (choose on based on your opiion of Pathfinder: update/upgrade/reprint/rip off) the 3e rules as the Pathfinder RPG.

Trailblazer came out long after the Pathfinder name was being used by Paizo.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

veekie posted:

... though Diamond Mind had some issues due to the loss of Concentration. I wound up making Diamond Mind run off Perception instead...
You're not the only one there. Seems to be the common idea amongst those of us who play Pf and don't run screaming into the night if Tome of Battle gets mentioned.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

CAPSLOCKGIRL posted:

For those of you more familiar than the Pathfinder setting than I am (I know who some of the gods are and that's about it), how far up there on the Mary Sue Scale is playing a Gnoll Monk of Desna? Because that's kind of what I'm playing in a game I'm in at the moment.

Let's see, Gnoll, usually CE aligned, and the favored race of Lamashtu. Lamashtu, the Goddess of Madness, Monsters, and Nightmares, and the eternal enemy of Desna, Goddess of Dreams, because on top of the whole dreams/nightmares diametric opposition, Lamashtu also killed Desna's teacher Curchanus and stole away the care of natural beasts from him, a portfolio that was supposed to go to Desna if anything happened to him. Also, you're playing a Monk, a class that has to be Lawfully aligned, in the service of a CG-aligned deity.

You're basically Drizzt, if the drow was also a Paladin, and probably a Paladin of Lathander no, make that Sune, at that.

If you and your GM are cool with it, hey, whatever, more power to you, but the Mary Sue-ism is strong with this one.

Kvantum fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Jun 6, 2012

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

CAPSLOCKGIRL posted:

So, what, should I change it? I mean, the GM is okay with it, but I know next to nothing about this setting because the setting book is impossible to find in Australia, but I'm what I'm taking from this is that what I'm doing is pretty wrong.

Wrong? The only "wrong" is if your GM has a problem with it, at least when it comes to your home game. Now for a Pathfinder Society character you'd basically have to scrap everything in your description but "Monk", but if you and your GM like the character, then go play. Have a blast.

Edit: Oh, now ask your GM before you start pouring over this site, but if your GM is ok with it, check out the Pathfinder Wiki. It's a Wiki covering Golarion, the default (but by no means mandatory) setting for Pathfinder.

Kvantum fucked around with this message at 13:22 on Jun 6, 2012

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

internetstuff posted:

Thank you so much for the advice, everyone! I think I am going to just let her stick with a wizard but help her build her own rather than going with the pregen from the beginner box. Let her pick Elf for the racial bonuses and show her how she can focus on enchanting spells. I noticed that, indeed, the Wizard gets a lot more spells per level than the enchanter plus (if you stick with the core rulebook/beginner box only) the Wizard just seems overall more straightforward than the sorc.

I have one more dumb newbie question. I was looking at Burnt Offerings but they didn't provide the AC for the goblins. Are they assuming that you will look up goblins in the SRD/Bestiary for the full stat block?
When stats are missing like that, yes, they assume you're going to look at either a copy of the Bestiary or else the PRD or other online reference.

You're looking at a copy of Burnt Offerings, volume 1 of the Rise of the Runelords adventure path? That series was still printed under the Dungeons and Dragons v3.5 rules so not everything will match up 1:1. It's playable, but there may be some things that could trip yup new players and a new GM. They're just about to release a hardbound compilation of the entire AP updated to Pathfinder RPG mechanics at the end of July so you might think about that as a long-term goal if they really get into the first session or two of Burnt Offerings.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

I might look at the Crypt of the Everflame/Masks of the Living God/City of Golden Death module series. Takes PCs from 1st to 7th level or so, and they're written with a new GM/new player in mind, especially Crypt of the Everflame.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Inverse Icarus posted:

Oh, the fourth player that's joining our group sent me a message, he's going to make a Bard/Monk.

Eager to see what he comes up with, and how low his to-hit will be.

I'd be more eager to start a pool with the other players for how many rounds of combat he survives. Or how many rounds until the player realizes the character is utterly worthless and has him suicide or just spontaneously combust.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Vander posted:

Could I please hear from someone what the process is to determine hit points at a level up? My group is new and the core rulebook isn't clear on it to us. What are the steps for us?

Roll your class hit die, add your Con modifier. That's how many more HP you get each level. Unless your GM is using something like average hp or some such modified system (And there's different ways of "averaging" too.)

But the official is just roll the hit die of your given class and add your Constitution modifier to it. (Your hit die is almost universally determined by your Base Attack Bonus rate - if BAB improves at every class level you have a d10 hit die, if it's 3/4 you have a d8, and if it's 1/2 you have a d6 hit die. Barbarians, Dragon Disciples, and other corner cases violate this general rule, though.)

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Vander posted:

Cool thanks. Will that be the same for a druid's animal companion?

They don't get a favored class bonus, but otherwise, yes, the same procedure.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Angrymog posted:

Do the Kingdom buiding rules from Kingmaker exist anywhere except the adventure path and the books by by Job Brazer enterprises? (I don't want to get the adventure path because I still hold out hopes of playing in a game of it that lasts for longer than the first two encounters*, and the JoN Brazer stuff sounds like it's an :effort: reprint of the Kingmaker stuff, which isn't something I feel should be rewarded)

* Seriously. If Kingmaker was a computer game, I could play through Olaf's trading post in my sleep.

The Jon Brazer Enterprises book actually has a good bit of work in it, for what it's worth. It expands both the kingdom building and mass army rules, reprinting what came out to about 14 pages in the two AP volumes, expanding that up to 38 pages of actual rules and gamemastery content in the 48 page book, or the 52 page PDF.

That's the only other source for the rules that I know of. Sorry.

Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

If you want to go further into the draconic kobolds, there is a 3rd party option from Super Genius Games, Races Revised: The Kobold Kings. Presents a older race of heavily draconic kobolds, the Koldemar, or Kobold Kings. +2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Str, but other racial abilities as well. Favored class options for every class (sometimes more than one to choose between) and over a dozen racial feats, with all the traditional draconic options. $2.24 right now at rpgnow for the 20 page PDF if you want.

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Kvantum
Feb 5, 2006
Skee-entist

Fudge Handsome posted:

Does anyone else think that the Inquisitor's Solo Tactics class feature should just be a feat that can be taken? Or better yet, a class feature for more than just the Inquisitor? I'm tempted to give the fighter Solo Tactics and a progression of Teamwork Feats just because.
I've sort of toyed with an archetype that basically does the reverse: swap Solo Tactics to function as per a Fighter of half class level for the purposes of fear pre-reqs, and swap the Tactics feats with Combat feats.

But yes, it wouldn't be a bad way to upgrade the Fighter. It's not like it's going to make the class weaker.

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