Pathfinder General

Here's the only mostly-completed one, the Dread Prince:
docs.google.com/document/d/1QxlWQjtbHba89Va-qbA88j8hdyXScl1CcOlPirH-i9g/edit?usp=sharing

It's still got some bag-of-cats issues and I'm thinking of retooling it somewhat to be more of a nega-Chandler, using the terror of its foes as a sort of debuff aura.

Everyone I REQUIRE HELP. I have created part of a class I am writing for a homebrew. I need opinion on the features that are out so far.

>docs.google.com/document/d/1WKwyK10BvzqVb9M3lIJ0ZyraUNSuEr8y0QK6ML6d-6Y/edit?usp=sharing

To explain the feature Facility Expansion it goes as the following.

The Agent gains a facility they can both pack and unpack, while it is unpacked you are able to make use of a number of features. At it's base it just gives skills, but your Facility Expansions provide other bonuses ranging from at low level stored research notes to at high levels a cloning lab.

Both packing and unpacking your facility is something one must consider as for how long it will take. As well as transporting it.

I would love to have some feedback.

I made Thriae as a playable race!
pastebin.com/MJvED5bt

Please give me some feedback, /pfg/!

Grasp is also countered by freedom of movement, and also a binary system.

Why is darkwood so important to the Andoran navy that it allows the Lumber Consortium to exist? It seems like it would be prohibitively expensive to build a ship entirely out of darkwood, and probably not wise (though it would be lighter, it would probably also be more at risk for rolling over, especially in a storm).

My closest guess is that darkwood is used in conjunction with other hardwoods to cut weight and increase speed and mobility on smaller ships that rely more on their maneuverability than outright firepower, and maybe on larger ships so they can field more and heavier armaments. But that doesn't seem like enough to tolerate what is basically a monopoly that operates on wage-slavery when you've got a paladin for president and a literal celestial who drops into random town hall meetings around the country.

I realize the answer is probably just that either I'm interpreting things wrongly or Paizo is shit at writing, but I'm just tryin' to make this shit work.

Me here.

Brander, Inquisitor Archetype
pastebin.com/hd55CccZ

Pretty much the extremist militant inquisitor class

As far as recovering maneuvers go, the Agent should probably have normal 'recover-one-as-a-standard action' and then their special action (which should be noted as recovering [Init Mod] in maneuvers)

What is this weaboo shit?

but i'm still (not) writing Jels!

I'm trying to think of pointless details I'll probably never include in their description like the types of clothing they favor!

Half-oozes? I feel like they'd either favor loose, easy-to-move in stuff (to make use of their natural flexibility unhindered) or fairly skin-tight stuff (for similar reasons, and also for, uh, 'consistency' when hanging out with other mortals)

youtube.com/watch?v=hpFsNeubnug

I unironically love you.

have an idol song about felynes / nyanta's with no translation because it's in monster hunter gibberish wyverian languange.

> (which should be noted as recovering [Init Mod] in maneuvers)

Got this, but I will put the standard action one in.

I had similar lines of thought - leotard type things were one of them, the other was just going to a fabrics store and picking up like a yard or two of cloth and winding it around themselves, because their ability to compress means that sizes are a nonsense thing.

Like they can literally squeeze their hips/chest down to half the size, pants probably aren't going to do shit for them. So I'm obviously leaning more towards the latter than the former (though the former may occasionally show up).

pastebin.com/FZLfxt6Z

The Charmbound Witch, an archetype that allows the witch to turn her hexes into physical objects as well as utilize occultist Implements. Now your witch can fly on a broomstick, give someone the Evil Eye with a literal glass eye, and so on!

It's also not something that can easily lock someone down. It repositions, yeah, but you need multiple maneuvers to actually pull off real crowd control.

I'm currently writing:
-Vampire As a PC Race (a more flexible thing that accommodates many different choices for types of vampire legends, and racial feats to get more of them together on one character)
-Brighter Fighter (Fighter archetype that can use chosen mental attributes for lots of things)
-A "final" version of my Weapon Styles Quick Reference sheet that better accommodates throwing weapons, and I hope can still be fit on one page (which was itself a design goal)
-I have the VERY rough beginnings of a Combat Actions Quick Reference sheet, which will more likely span two pages. Why yes I do have new groups that ask me tons of questions all the time, how observant of you.

I might rework my Mentor Bard too because its spell progression is irregular and that bothers me. It's this

How do I best go about impregnating hundreds of Drow as a dhampir?
I understand this is an uphill battle in two ways, but I feel I can succeed anyway

It reduces someone's movement to zero and allows you to move them where ever you wish up to half your speed (or greater later on). Repositioning an enemy is stronger than grappling them in many circumstances.

Rajang would be a fun as hell encounter for the average party.

It would likely end with them all screaming "FUCK RAJANG"

I would never inflict the horrors of a plesioth encounter on a party though. Fuck that stupid hipcheck.

Plesioth special rules: If it misses by three or less, it hits instead, because its hitboxes are all fucked up.

Isn't this basically just a worse Magus?

>Fate's Favored trait combined with Halfling's Adaptable Luck racial trait

Noice

So any actual thoughts on the Research Facility and its upgrades? Any options you think a facility like that should have but are not detailed?

Tomorrow I'm going to finish my thoughts on the Anatomical Analogues and post them into that as well. Facility Expansions are out of combat and Anatomical Analogues are in.

I've explained this before.

You don't play him like a magus, you play him like a fighter with new toys.
You get the cool stuff the Magus gets like being able to craft magical weapons and armor and wondrous items, as well as using your magus pool to enchant your weapons and a few magus arcana if you really want any.

You also have things a Magus doesn't have like a full BAB, D10 HD, A lot of feats to play with, proficiency with heavy armor at an early level without penalties, and capable of wielding two-handers to do massive damage with power attacks, etc.

Divine Favor is the main thing really.

Don't worry user, *I* still like it. It's obviously still gonna be a Fighter but it's a good archetype and could be great alongside a Fighter fix.

Strictly worse than a +2 luck to saves desu senpai.

hey all. I had a quick question about PoW expanded. Was there any word given why this feat was removed from the book? assuming it was OP or something but never the less shit seemed really awesome.

Sorcerous Bloodline [General]
You’ve learned to tame the wild martial magic within yourself and may use it as a sorcerer.
Prerequisites: Ability to generate animus, possession of a sorcerous bloodline.
Benefits: You may add your mystic levels to your sorcerer or bloodrager level (pick one if both are possessed) to determine the effectiveness of your bloodline and bloodline abilities gained from class levels. Additionally, bloodrager or sorcerer levels (pick one if both are possessed) count as full initiator levels to determine a mystic’s total initiator level.

It was removed because they didn't want to have a specific caster multiclass feat. It and the other MC feat got turned into Practiced Initiator.

Magus can use two handers if they really want to; they do lose out on spell combat but they can still use spellstrike. They still have all their spells and other abilities.

That's true, but by design, Maguses are almost discouraged to use a two-handed weapon or a shield because they'd be cheating themselves off a feature, which is tied to another feature.

Thinking about making a Draconic Bloodrager (specifically a Rageshaper since it seems pretty handy for what I aim to do), but I don't know what race to play as. On one hand I could go Human and snag two feats, on the other I could go Half-Orc and have Sacred Tattoo/Shaman's Apprentice/(maybe)Fey Thoughts as racials...

Any ideas/recommendations?

Nothing stops maguses two handing one handed weapons when they aren't using spell combat.

Regardless archetype looks good.

You can use adaptable luck on saving throw. So that's +3.

Or you could just be a half orc and take Sacred Tattoo for a +2 to all saves all the time.

> Maneuvers from this discipline require the initiator to be using discipline weapons or be unarmed. Use of discipline-specific weapons with Broken Blade inflict an additional 2 points of damage.

What does it mean? Every time I initiate a Broken Blade strike maneuser I get +2 to damage?
Since I can't initiate BB maneuver without discipline weapon anyway.

+2 all the time is better than +3 three times a day.

damn. really wanted to make mystic/sorcerer multiclass work somehow. oh well. any ideas on how to make this combo viable? or should I just stick with mystic.

The adaptable luck is more versatile. I'd rather have three +3s every day than a +2 for some saves I may or may not have to make.

Mystic Star.
For even more magical girl mystic.

docs.google.com/document/d/1M7P2mxetPD0NFmC-wo_YbooLosZLCB1rdBmmI9UlZ_E/edit

Just in case - with Sacred Tattoo you get +2 to every and all saves

If you make only three saves per day - yes, adaptive luck is slightly better. But I hardly meet days like that - it's usually either none (non-combat day) or more than three.

user, spells are actually good, though. None of the Swashbuckler abilities are.

So I'm a bit late to the party but I just stumbled upon this wanted to ask some questions regarding this:

imgur.com/1aE4bNR

Is it only me or does the style look a bit different, perhaps older ? Is it a weird perspective or is left one smaller ? Is there a context ?

From her body type and how they looked under the shirt I was expecting a bigger muffin top and for them to be rounder, bigger and flappier.

Wrong picture.

A plus 2 to all saves you'll have to make. If you're expecting to have to make less than 3 saves a day then sure, go for it.

What happens if two spellbanes with "spellbane" specified as their baned spell collide?
According to spellbane description, "spellbane" is a valid spell to bane, but there's no stated interaction in such a case.

Guys I need to head to bed.
Here's the latest pastebin

pastebin.com/KeH4Bb24

Please use that pastebin for the next thread.

Aw god damn it. I was still polishing my homebrew!

Should include a Fool's Errand link as well, while you're at it.

Share it with the class tomorrow. And don't rush it - deliver when you're confident with your work.

Can you provide a link?

docs.google.com/document/d/1jWw7bVMARxrXfRuOW20NlRqXEnS_XGLPT6LHTbz2qME/edit#

Maybe put a note for how it's just a preview and not in official playtest yet, though of course that means it'll have to be changed sometime.

Okay, here's the new Pastebin for next thread:

pastebin.com/5F8RNubX

Please, let me sleep, anons. I still got work and a game to DM later tomorrow evening.

Goodnight.

What does the author mean by "A Role is an archetype-lite that has few mechanical effects and is instead a list of already-existing class features and abilities. When combined together these will make a class seem like a specific version of that class from the setting. For instance, your Fighter could be a Hell-Knight if you focus around Intimidation and the Morningstar. This doesn’t change your character at all, it is just an interesting bit of background."?
Just the usual Striker, Defender, Leader, Controller-thing?
therobotsvoice.com/2014/04/the_5_best_and_5_worst_things_about_pathfinder.php

>make a Vampire Paladin (Knight Disciple)
>player opposite me makes a Cleric of Sarenrae

welp nice knowing you guys.

3.5 player here, is there a way to make shadow spells 100% real in PF?

Fetchling arcanist FCB from blood of shadows is one option. (some DM's will allow using it on a more fun class like sorcerer, but YMMV)
Shadow bloodline capstone combined with solid shadows metamagic feat is another.
Pick your poison, user.

Some advice for GMs:
I think twice now I've been in online games where the players optimised for combat to a higher power level than the GM would have liked - in both cases I've dealt with fights that were interesting and challenging, but the GM thought they didn't work out well because the enemies each got steamrolled in 2-3 hits, or barely scratched the PCs' defenses, and that meant the fight was 'too easy'.

I've realised I don't really think that's the case - I don't judge fights strictly on threat, I judge them on decision complexity: how much you need to think over what you want to do each turn and weigh your options against each other.
These aren't entirely separate, since obviously when enemies can barely scratch you or you can one-shot them, you don't really need to make decisions. But, I've really enjoyed some battles were I was never in any proper danger (as long as I took a bare minimum of caution), but had to make a lot of choices on what to do turn to turn to maximise success or minimise failure - for example, strike focused PoW classes do this well since you'll always be deciding between multiple effective means of attack. The move actions that strikes free up are another resource you get to play with more than full attackers.

PF is a rocket tag game and it's not always accurate to judge how hard or enjoyable a fight was by how much damage the party took or resources they spent.

I've got a homebrew initiating archetype for the hunter, since I hated that I couldn't get an initiating character with an animal companion from level 1.

docs.google.com/document/d/1N5I_R5QceisH-gUtmuwcN5Z34mnIT-Jr22T2ZqajdBo/edit

Ravenlords though

But I know what you mean

Ok so Possession seems to be safer than magic jar simply because you can be as far away from your body as you want and still be ok when you dismiss the effect, but anyone think the greater version warrants an 8th level known slot for spontaneous casters like psychics and sorcerers?

Can you use polymorph any object to upgrade an obsolete, lets say juvenile dragon skeleton into its larger cousins?

Because once upon a time the consortium was just regular folks trying to make a decent living. And then Paizo realized that those CN fey in the woods probably don't like the forest being cut, which has to mean the consortium is clearly lawful evil due to their having a conflict with such inhuman and unpredictable creatures.

>be DM
>monster actually hits the minmaxer
>OMG user WHAT THE FUCK IT HIT ME
>mfw

fights also have a high RNG variance.
A fight wihch should have been threatening can easily become trivial due to good initiation and attack rolls at the start.
I am not even talking about critical hits or Save or Suck spells: your warrior going first, hitting twice and getting missed twice, basically quickly eliminating one enemy, changes a lot.

I do enjoy fight complexity, despite the fact that my party is completely ignorant and just charges in and hack and slash everything;
Is there any particular fight setup/idea/scenario/trick that you would suggest in order to encourage and force PCs to make tactical decisions in a fight? how do you avoid everything going terribly wrong if they do something wrong?

It.. means exactly what it says. A Role is basically a list of class features you already have access to, and basically says "if you choose these things, you'll be like This!" Basically a how-to replicate a certain organization or individual. Like the example given: the Hellknight Role is "as a fighter, put a skill point in Intimidation every level, and focus your weapon focus/training on the Morningstar." It adds no new options, it's just a guide to using the ones you already have.

>I hated that I couldn't get an initiating character with an animal companion from level 1.

Hussar.

Okay, lemme put it another way

I wanted one that didn't have a ridiculously limited animal companion selection. "Bird" or "Horse" just doesn't do it for me. Plus, I like the mechanics of the hunter.

In which books can they be found? I've never seen them and am curious.

Correct, and you can add any weapon to the list of discipline weapons, so any weapon can get +2 damage every time you use a broken blade maneuver.

I gotta say that I know where these GMs are coming from. We can't see your thought process, all we see is that all our prep for a fight got curbstomped in four or five rounds. Sometimes we even try to set up an interesting sort of fight that should require some thought to handle effectively, and then some super optimizer player has a PC with three different ways to solve it with minimal effort.

Before it was almost only ever casters who did that, so it took a little effort but could be sort of contained. Now PoWE is turning martials into weird psuedo-casters with some of the effects they get, plus recovery mechanics making it spammable.

I know, and I've GMed for optimizers myself so I know how that can be.
The main thing I'm saying is to think about what goes on behind the scenes like that. Someone can pull out a winning combination of actions on their turn to succeed - and sometimes that doesn't mean it was too easy, it means you made that player think hard and look over all their options to narrow it down to the best one.
If they pull out some combination of three or four different class features and chain them together, each step needed thought - it looks like minimal effort but that's because you just see the result.

What sort of stuff is PoW:E doing that bugs you? I do think there are some over the top things but not much strikes me as just a 'win button' the same way certain spells can work.
Also I kinda suspect you're my GM but this is an interesting topic

I want to engage in platonic camraderie with a Strix!

Tell me about where your characters live /pfg/

Do they have a nice comfy house? do they own an inn or something like that? Or do they live in a fancy tower?

Do they live in a ship or an airship that they sail around to adventure?

Don't forget to be a Warpriest for swift Divine Favors, and make sure to buy yourself that Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier too.

Well, I don't think there are any golden rules, but some tips off the top of my head:
-Encourage PCs having principles rather than being CN murderhobos. Then they might have other goals every fight, like ensuring the safety of innocents, reducing property damage, wanting to give enemies the chance to surrender peacefully, etc, and tearing into the enemy no holds barred isn't always the best way to do that.
Sometimes in randomish encounters when I was sure the party could handle themselves, I've given up turns or made intentionally bad decisions to fit character RP. Though when there's a boss and we really need to get serious, I'd RP a decent way for the character to overcome mental weaknesses.

-PoW initiating helps martials, it really does. Not just in power level, but in options. Choosing which maneuvers to use. Having your move and swift actions every turn and something to do with each one. PoW class features generally help - knight chandler's candle and ravenlord's gloom are simple things but they add a constant extra layer of decisions.
The 3/4 BAB classes are better at this because Full Attack is a less obvious choice for them, but I've enjoyed warlord and zealot too. (Haven't played a warder)

-Terrain and positioning. Really easy to underestimate this. Where to move is an important decisions characters might make every turn.

-Bait characters with their strengths. If a character has no idea what to do, then they'll default to the boring 'hit as hard as they can' option and zone out. But if a character has two /good/ options then they need to think. An easy example is having an enemy that has a weakness that one PC is good at targeting, but that PC is engaged with another enemy at the other side of the battlefield. Do they go over and help the party with that one, or finish the fight they're in? Are they willing to try and make the reflex save to jump through a wall of fire, or wade through AoOs, to use their special move when it's needed?

Road Rumble, a discipline that's supposed to make you play Street Fighter in PF.
docs.google.com/document/d/1T6SL20wo1p98czHNie7QPvyMk1r9VeRyxmEnAOk0xmY/edit
pls gib feedback, balancing it is hard

There are only two characters I've had that have been in one place long enough to have a home... actually, they were kind of the same character, just made at different times with different options.

Ellis was a young child in a noble family known for a long history of wizardly talent... unfortunately, he was a sorcerer, and his traditional parents were having none of that shit. They shipped him off to a wizard's academy to try to force some prepared casting into him, which is how he developed his unique style of casting... he was a 3.5 Sorcerer/Wizard/Master Arcanist. He ended up falling out with his family, and lived in a small suite of rooms attached to a tea shop in a small city. He did translations, scribing, and light research as a day job, and did errands for those who needed magical help whenever the opportunity arose. He also used his alchemical skill to help spice up the teas of the shop's owner to help pay rent. On the side, he ran a small book-trading thing: if you brought him a book he didn't have yet, he'd scribe you a copy of any book he did have (assuming doing so wouldn't threaten the fabric of reality or something). His rooms were cozy, with warm dark wood and soft, comfy (if a bit worn) furniture.

Arthur is a later version of the character with the same origin story, only I created him after learning about the Arcanist class in Pathfinder (so much easier to do the concept, and available from level 1 at that). He never had a "normal" home, instead living in a permanent magnificent mansion installed in an animated ironwood wagon that he'd crafted himself. He still preferred cozy, warm, comfortable living quarters, he just had a lot more space and a house that could fly, defend itself against intruders, and travel on its own. He still did the book copying thing, but sadly there was nobody in the group willing to run a tea shop out of his wagon, and he didn't have any spare points for Profession (Tea Shop Owner).

A private demiplane for my currently highest level character (Empyreal bloodline sorcerer, 15th level).

The demiplane is actually central to a lot of my contingencies, defenses, and abilities, mostly oriented around his (many and varied) tattoos and runic markings on him. The big one is his 1/day immediate action protection that allows him to be treated as if he was standing in his demiplane for 1d4 rounds, like an ultimate defense (can't hit what isn't there). But he has other stuff as well, like adapting a tattoo to function like a portable hole he can reach into his demiplane armoury for and pull out weapons. He uses them as material components for the Storm of Blades spell and shoots greatswords at people, mostly. He also likes to pull out random shit from other places in the demiplane, like his entire reservoir full of whiskey that makes the party's Barbarian incredibly jealous.

Demiplane is styled as a monastery-like structure on the side of a dormant volcano (all covered in ice and snow, think High Hrothgar in Skyrim), but also with a fancy cave inside the mountain part (kind of like Journey to the Centre of the Earth) teeming with flowers, plants and a waterfall shower. He's got a dryad in there who looks after it for him while he's not around, she has a pretty fucking sweet deal. Also a bunch of unseen servants, a kitchen and dining room that produces a heroes' feast once a day, a mind blank trap that triggers on entry into the demiplane...

Yeah, I went pretty all-out on this private retreat. At least half my WBL went towards setting the place up exactly how I want it to be, and it's taken a good six months to create it. Next I'm going to be working on defenders. I'm tossing up between bound outsiders (risky if they get loose) or clockwork automatons (loyal but less independent).

For day to day stuff, though, the party uses an airship or teleport if we're in a serious hurry.

I'm not sure about it user.

I do think it would be cute to include some references to pro players though like YSB's hugo slaps - where once one connects more are coming, or daigo's perfect parry (call it the "umehara" make it a counter - negate all damage and initiate a strike of your own in return, if below [$value] of HP, recover all expended maneuvers and initiate a *second* manuever).

youtube.com/watch?v=KS7hkwbKmBM

Fool's Errand already has a Daigo counter.

So? Yours doesn't. Theirs is just a "negate a full attack" counter anyway.

Eh, there's Crushing Rebuke from Eternal Guardian, and quite a few other counters can also end up negating a full attack depending on the situation.

could be if the last few sessions were rather buggy[/spolier]

On phone at work so kinda slow

Big issues I guess are
Banned vancian and psionics, use SoP instead
PoWE brings psionic systems back in
Means to build SAD PC's, typically a sign of the brokeness of casters
Counters to Nope at everything
Strikes deal damage and spell effects, like I needed to deal with another form of the damn magus
Recovery mechanics make it all spammable and protect the user while recovering
Another mention of hatred for counters because skill based counters are the same as Emergency Force Sphere at-will
More stuff that hasn't come up yet but will clearly be a headache when it does
The entirety of Fool's Errand for example

And really I can learn to keep up and play on that level but it's no fun. The game was not supposed to have the level of combat that I now find necessary to make even a dent in the PCs, and it's really no fun to run it. I'd rather just say that once they arrive at a fight they auto-win, just to avoid wasting prep time on it. Crushing fights certainly feels like what my players find the most fun, so I may as well just hand it to them.

So what spells do you consider instant win buttons? Some can be pretty nasty but unless you have a Mass Dominate Monster that bypasses immunities and has an unbeatably high DC I don't think many spells will instantly end a good sized fight

Overall, not fond of the stances or strikes. I'm unsure on the comboing the manuevers. I don't /really/ like the new resource you've attempted to implement... and I think you're focused way too much on shoto's and their moves.

You're greatly missing out on attempts to stun enemies, which is a large portion of how street fightan werks. Add a boost or two that gives a chance to stun, with it's DC increased by number of hits in a combo.

Other problem is that because your maneuvers are intended to be chained, you can easily expend all readied manuevers in just a single turn.

light/medium/heavy strike - I don't like them. I don't mind the idea of chaining them so much, but these are basically the same thing with huge penalties to attack

It could be okay, but it needs a lot of work and I don't really like what you've got going currently. Some of your higher tier 'manuevers' are still just basic punches and kicks when they should be shit like the kongou kokuretsu zan or shun goku satsu.

Oh goddammit what the fuck spoilers?

>read the spell description
>find out
>???
>profit.

Not the user you're responding to, but...

>Banned vancian and psionics, use SoP instead
To each their own.

>PoWE brings psionic systems back in
This complaint makes little sense to me. DSP writes psionics, of course they're gonna have it. PoW 1 had psionics too.

>Means to build SAD PC's, typically a sign of the brokeness of casters
SAD is not a bad thing. Casters are strong because their spells; ideally, PCs WOULD be either SAD or mostly SAD (primary ability and secondary less important ability).

>Counters to Nope at everything
Being able to say "no" to the large amount of bullshit effects that monsters have is a good thing, especially spellcasting monsters.

>Strikes deal damage and spell effects, like I needed to deal with another form of the damn magus
Now it just sounds like you're complaining about people being able to attack with more than just full attacks. "Spell effects" are mostly limited to 'it's a debuff'.

>Recovery mechanics make it all spammable and protect the user while recovering
Most recovery methods are utter shit to use in combat. Most combats tend to last 3ish rounds before they're decided, and stuff after is just cleanup. Maneuvers are spammable if you build for it, but that's not really a problem, is it?

>Another mention of hatred for counters because skill based counters are the same as Emergency Force Sphere at-will
So use more enemies, or use more flat-footing things, or use enemies with more actions, or give enemies counters too. This is basic encounter design stuff, man. Take a page out of 4e's book.

>The entirety of Fool's Errand for example
Fool's Errand's grasp mechanic is gonna be a headache, yeah. I hope they change it so it's a bit easier to escape.

>And really I can learn to keep up and play on that level but it's no fun.
So don't use PoW in your games. A lot of this sounds like personal problems. You've ID'd the intent of skill counters but hate the result, etc. Send it the same way as magic and be done with it

>counters everything
Counters everything once per turn. Do you know how immediate actions work?