Pathfinder General /pfg/

Trying to decide a multiclass for my aegis, thinking of bloodrager.

why does everyone and their mom play pathfinder? what does it do well? what does it do badly?

not b8

Short answer you'll get here: People play it because other people play it.

It's easy to find games.

I personally play it for the number of options, and my friends are cool. So we ignore or fix many of the system choices.

I created an improved VMC homebrew. Might be worth taking a look at:

docs.google.com/document/d/1lQR08Ay37FhDpVzYQ0yi9gzUn4WudeLRdH9ejVvjmmM/edit?usp=drive_web

Fuck pathfinder. All you need to do to win is to put as many ranks into search and spot as you can; take feats like skill focus and whatever, and you'll find the path.
It seriously takes longer to roll up a character than it does to play a full game.
Pathfinder a shit.

nice bait

I'm level 6 and I have 850 gp left to spend for a caravan focused game, /pfg/. My current items are a Mithral Katana, a Mithral Chain Shirt +1, a Cloak of Resistance +1, a Belt of Dexterity +2, an Amulet of Natural Armor +1, a Ring of Protection +1, and a Vest of Endure Elements. What else should I buy?

This user knows what's up

Does Astral Skin aegis mode count as +0 for purposes of Crystal Spaulder enhancement bonuses, or do I need to just cover myself in Djzet skin to have something to buff?

but user, you use perception. spot and search are 3.5e.

Well, when D&D 4th Edition came out, a lot of people hated how different it was from 3rd and 3.5 Edition. Pathfinder is very similar to 3.5, but with a few small changes and improvements, so 3.x fans migrated to it rather than the hated 4e. It's a high-fantasy, combat-heavy system with craploads of options that let you make just about any kind of character you could ever want-however, it has balance issues, and is pretty inaccessible to new players, thanks in part to the inclusion of trap options that should have been removed back in 3.5. Also, it's awkward at running anything that ISN'T a high-fantasy, combat-heavy game.

My DM uses survival for pathfinder the absolute madman.

Why buy a mithral katana?

That's 3000 gold you're never going to see again. I'm a little tired to be looking over lists of wondrous items, but you could always go for a sleeves of many garments, traveller's any tool, handy haversack, or any one of a hundred little items, like bags or crowbars.

Mithral Current user, maybe?

Maybe, I suppose. That's still a difference of 2910gp for 1 damage.

Not really the most efficient at 6th level.

What said - I'm a Bushi Stalker (Vigilante), Mithral Current is my main discipline, and I can make enemies vulnerable to Silver (and never have to worry about DR/Silver). Plus, it's a flavorful item.

Can't afford the Haversack, but the Anytool might come in handy.

I personally like the system.

I may not like a lot of the CONTENTS of the system, but I like the system itself.

>writing mythic AP
>all mythic ranks are gained by slaying mythic creatures and stealing mythic sparks from them
>difficulty is turned up to 11
>homebrew races, only ones human related being humanoid
>homebrew continent with odd politics
>players are part of one of 3 mercenary companies they choose at the beginning with large list of started NPCs
>follow a war both public and in the shadows
No idea if people would even play it or if it is too difficult. There is a legitimate chance if simply "Losing" the AP and having to stop (which is stated at the beginning of book 1).

>>homebrew races, only ones human related being humanoid
Why?

Because I want more unique races rather than "human but..." races.

So what are the races in setting going to be?

So, how do you guys balance having Path of War enemies? I dabbled with this once but I wound up having the party getting trashed.

Lot's of counters.

Don't give the enemies full-on initiating. Give them only the Martial Training feats, or only give them a couple levels in a partial-initiator class like Myrmidon or Primal Disciple. Focus on the enemies having counters rather than boosts or strikes; the biggest problem with Pathfinder combat is that it's rocket tag, so counters help to prolong a fight and make people more wary and careful instead of blowing all of their buffs at once only to get countered with it all.

A signature, but not optimized maneuver, maybe a stance if they're supposed to be a boss. Getting into a pose with their sword encased in frost magic, or enshrouded with fire is good pre-fight flavour.

And yeah, plenty of counters. It makes a fight last without them feeling like you contrived them being useless to keep the fight going.

Pretty much this. Monsters already have the TAB and damage they need and special abilities to make them dangerous anyway - or at least, should - so giving them counters helps make the combat longer.

Don't give PoW to enemies if there's more than 3 in the field, or it just takes too long.

If you want to challenge a PoW party, use pressure, not attrition. Increase the CR of an encounter out of the blue by having reinforcements show up (that were there before, don't magic them into existence unless you gotta), traps go off, etc. that force them to decide if they want to spend time recovering maneuvers or just run away and come back in a few minutes after the enemy's prepared for them better.

Which book is Initiator's Soul in?

My attempt at making a template for a single creature boss fight

Grip of Destiny(Su)
"The creature summons bets their whole being on the battle gaining unnatural prowess."

At the start of combat the creature can force their entire soul to blaze forth.

The Creature rolls Initiative three times. On the Highest of these rolls, the creature acts normally. The other rolls, the creature gets a single standard action.

Spell slots are recharged after 1d4+1 rounds.

Fast healing = to HD/class levels.

Melee attack damage is bumped up a size category.

all the power comes at a price, For every round they have the power active, they burn a class level, or hit die as fuel Loosing it permanently outside of wish/miracle spells, or regaining the lost levels via leveling up.

IF they exceed their HD in rounds spent, they start hemorrhaging their soul and die after Con modifier rounds.

Its anime as fuck, and completely unplaytested, but i like it.

Well yeah, but pretty soon they'll be too low-level to do much.

And then you just kinda push them around and laugh until they drop dead.

Doesn't synth. summoner already get evasion from their eidolon?

Gonna link this in the new thread too, now.

I've created an archetype for the Kineticist that gives it Veilweaving, therefore helping it to live up to ALL-DAY MAGIC. It's also compatible with the Avant Guard, so there's that! If people could give me some helpful critique that'd be wonderful.

pastebin.com/7vWfS4CU

Oh right, the level down effect was supposed to kick in after they stopped using it.

I want to fuck that jackal.

Read through this: theangrygm.com/return-of-the-son-of-the-dd-boss-fight-now-in-5e/
It did what you intended, except better and simpler.

Do we know anything about about Legacy of Dragons beyond the info on the Paizo website yet? Pathfinder has been supplying me a good amount of Dungeons, but I will go after anything with Dragons like a......
...something? I can't think of a metaphor, I need my fix of overhped scaley goodness.

Like a kobold, user.

>pastebin.com/7vWfS4CU
State whether Gather Essence stacks-with or overwrites the existing essence investment in things. Just to note, if it's the latter, toss this ability in the trash and set the room on fire to make sure the trashcan can't escape.

Assuming it was the former; it's a bit too action intensive; you're spending 2 such essence per 1 burn, so even composite blasts require prior charging up.

Consider setting veilweaving attribute to CON, because kineticists already require DEX and CON to be quite high.

Kinetic Weaving is not very good. You're looking at a 15 essence class, 17 realistically with the extra essence feat, and since you've lost your empower blast and all that are required to keep full essence investment in your blast, for what's effectively Overflow-again.

We're looking at 5 essence always stuck there.

>playing evil campaign
>everyone is meh tier "I guess since I'm evil I'll steal this and kick a kitten"
>actually play a sickfuck hedonistic bastard
>murder, drugs, sex, the whole shebang
>GM is suddenly uncomfortable about my evil-ness
Well what the fuck did you think would happen you stupid idiot?

People would be reasonable humans instead of autistic edgelords or something along those lines, I'd guess.

Last time I played an evil character I was a radical anarchist terrorist. I cleared the character, his alignment, and his motivations with the GM before hand. He ended up killing my character session 2 with a powerful NPC. I don't even know why, I didn't fuck over the party, and I did not do anything that did not make sense for my character to do. I was subsequently kicked from the game and my actions retconned.

We weren't even in a predominately good party. It was LN, TN, and NG besides me.

Right this is already leagues better than what i came up with. Thanks a bundle!

So what does everyone think of that Vigilante Playtest in the OP, anyway? Is it busted, or pretty good so far? Most of the archetypes and talents looked kinda dumb, but I have a massive boner for the Fortune Thief and am hopeful for the archetypes that got teased. Some of the talents look totally ridiculous, though I'm not really sure I can complain since it would make a lot of really stupid gimmick weapons and fighting styles actually usable.

I don't actually have any superhero-esque image in my folder so you get this shit instead.

Not even playing it as an autistic edgelord though. There is a difference between:
>I stab the merchant and drink his blood because I failed my roll to get a better deal
and
>party has to interrogate a hired goon who might have information
>tell their PCs to leave the room if their squeamish
>go "the best of 24" on the guy and start peeling off toe nails

Sex, drugs, rock and murder does not an edgelord make. Just because you're an autist doesn't mean everyone else is.

>Well what the fuck did you think would happen you stupid idiot?
>no ur the autist
Ok

Question about leadership (I know I know...):

You can get leadership for free as Olheon's 3rd boon (Celestial Obedience feat or Mystery Cultist PrC). The text is possibly missing a bit?

>"You automatically gain the Leadership
feat, and you are always considered to have a reputation of fairness and generosity so long as you maintain your allegiance to Olheon. If you already have the Leadership feat, you gain an additional +2 bonus to your Leadership score. You may choose to attract a hound or legion archon as a cohort. Your archon cohort gains additional HD to bring its total HD to 2 lower than your own level."

Do they... take class levels, as normal cohorts do, or do they just get increased HD instead?

Monster cohorts usually have an effective cohort level, so they still take class levels but just get a lower number of them. This seems like the most reasonable way to interpret the boon (as opposed to starting at lv1 as humans do), but they aren't given an effective cohort level, nor are they on the normal list of them (d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/leadership---final).

what do, other than not taking leadership?

>El Goonish Shive
Dafuq is that and why should I be bothered to give two shits?

Well that escalated quickly.
Little scaly fleshlights...

Is there anything that gives you "better leadership" besides Cavalier's Esquire and Daring General?

Noble Scion

Legion Archon is effective level 15th.

Instructor Wizard

Path of War: Expanded.

I mainly mean gives you extra cohorts.

Alright, thanks for the advice! I've taken it and modified the archetype a bit to be more effective and have some clarity to things. It modifies less stuff and now keeps Metakinesis, so that it can use that "convert essence into burn" ability more effectively.

pastebin.com/cN0PkkMR

"What does Akasha look like" was in my head when I was rewriting this, so the pic is what I assume a fully decked-out-in-veils character looks like.

I'm trying to build the most overpowered character I can under the following constraints:
>1pp only
>core races, nagaji, tengu, kitsune (ugh) or wayang
>no summoners except the shitty unchained one
>2 traits, no drawbacks
Yes, it's for PFS. Yes, I realize PFS is shit. I wouldn't be doing this otherwise. Right now, I'm thinking half-orc (fate's favored and sacred tattoo) dual-cursed (haunted and legalistic, haunted improves) lunar oracle. Can I do better?

So be a lunar oracle with the Hunger curse. Be a race that gets claws to start (or gore, either works). Take the natural weapons revelation. At level 3 take power attack. You can go at something like 60 average damage per round at level 3, plus your animal companion.

Personally, I always imagined it as some kind of magic EQUIP action like in Digital Tamers, Megaman.eye stuff, Medabots, or like a spontaneous version of Zoids

I also liked some of the illustrations from the original Incarnun book, since you can see the meld being specterally projected from the individual casting it.

Kinda like pic related with his crown, you mean? Also, got any feedback for this? Any bit helps, even just a "this sucks and doesn't work and here's why"!

>extra cohorts
get cucked

>the coke can

Daring General does, they just have to be full BaB classes.

Last time I played a level 20 Daring General I had a Paladin, a Ranger, and a Bloodrager.

In pathfinder one would consider most PCs essentially a PMD (Person of Mass Destruction).

It occurs to me that a lot of this power would be highly regulated by any competent government. Because of magic globalization is a thing for any wealthy nation, along with enormous amounts of facilities that normal countries with their technology level would not have.

Some of the things I could see are the following:
>Tests on children to find Sorcerers/Bloodragers in the population, have them be on a watch list
>Alchemy/Wizardry/Magi/Anyone who uses a spell book be highly regulated with "banned spells". These would be stuff like the more high power combat spells and stuff related to mind control.
>People capable of stuff like rage would be noticed and be told to register, since there are semi-supernatual rage powers (and some just straight supernatural ones)
>Divine casters must register with the government and be part of state sanctioned religions
>Oracles would be taken in by the government if found

What other sort of things could a government do to try and stabilize a nation where PC classes exist.

Give in.
Government funding for the adventuring guild, mandatory minimum attractiveness for barmaids, anything necessary to convince adventurers to go adventure in the other countries and bring the wealth back home to sell and trade away.

I took a leaf out of a post on Veeky Forums and have the government actually just have paid enforcement squads of PCs.

Also essentially do what you're saying with the government funding expeditions to keep dangerous individuals out of the country killing primitives.

>party go up against dwarf half-dragon draconic bloodrager
>guy is in massive fullplate
>party tries to steal his hoard, thought he was a dragon by how his kobold servants talked about him
>guy stops them, asks them to leave
>party doesn't
>dwarf asks why they are even there, just to steal his belongings
>the party tell him he terrorized the closest town (a dwarven town)
>dwarf tells them he was exiled as a fact of his birth, and that he isn't terrorizing but simply mining the same land for gold
>players not sure what to do as they now have a bit more of the full story
>party feel bad about killing a dozen or so kobolds

its before your time, the cultural values, idioms, and memes of it were esoteric or fringe at best when it was young, and obsolescent and arcane in this day.

Its like wondering about some truly old, pointless bullshit. There are a ton of web-comics have have come and gone, some wonderful, many not, that are already forgotten and in many cases, thoroughly obliterated from the internet.

tl/dr: Its nothing to waste time on.

>TFW you were there for the eternal September.

what have I done with my life?

They're kobolds, man. Odds are, they would have done something really stupid and killed themselves somehow. At any rate, it just means more food for the other kobolds.

I never really got how fixed priced special abilities work for magic arms & armor. Do they contribute towards the max +10? Why are they fixed rather than variable like others?

They aren't actually fixed. If you're looking at those tables, that's how they're divided up for the purposes of loot tables.

Like, the one that gives you Breath of Life once a day is grouped with the +5s, because it counts as that for loot rolls, and nothing else.

Flat cost enhancements just add to the total cost, they don't consume or limit or impact the +10 limit at all.

Wow, that person is really fucking terrible at drawing facial features hey?

So I can make a suit of armor with Greater Elemental Resistance to every element?

So long as you can afford it, laddo.

The problem is extremely similar to modern day "lists": Those who should be shot on sight for the safety of the population are those making the list without checking it twice, and giving no fucks if you're naughty or nice.

ANY massively intrusive information or individual-regulation program will always (and history has shown us there really are no exceptions) be abused in every way possible, in the worst ways the program's limitations can allow, and then some. In fact, nowadays many such programs have no use whatsoever outside the abuses and corrupted practices; though they may have a tough-sounding official statement of existence, they were not, are not, and will never be used for anything other than abuses of power!

What it would do is not actually stabilize anything at all, but rather gut the fuck out of the kingdom where this is done: Those in charge, just like the "high programmers" in Alpha Complex (you do recall knowledge of programming is treason) the mind-controllers, miracle-emitters and wish-casters are allowed to do everything they damn well please, divinations are used to ensure anyone who could be a threat is faclon-punched before they're even born, and those allowed to be born are known ahead of time to be exactly the corrupt replacements/reinforcements those who write these laws want.

MEANWHILE you're standing in line to be detected and identified, you randomly get strip-searched by orcs before being allowed to board a carriage, and if someone working for the mind-controllers happens to like your daughter or your shoes, you're under arrest, and they're confiscated for safety.

and you'll lap this shit up like nobody's business, too, because you've had fucking enchanting methods used on you since before your parents were even born.

>destined primalist bloodrager
>Huge luck bonus to saves
>bonus from superstitious
I actually feel pretty damn safe.

So, you're saying mortal governments should have all these restrictions against people who are basically gods? Good luck with that.

They would employ people with PC levels.

There's at least one terribly-written comic series covering the ensuing punch-up when that happens.

The fact you realized it and pointed it out first means wherever we sank, you're at the fucking bottom.

Is this just fetishes general now or what?

You can make the DM throw things at you with a Kitsune Sorcerer taking the FCB and just Charming everything in sight or you can be a Human Divination (Foresight) Wizard with good spells and an Improved Familiar (high level) or Arcane Bond (low level).

>Now
>Implying it wasn't before

Hah! Oldfag!

So, halve all spell slots of fullcasters by half. Is this better?

Dunno if all of this is allowed, but

>Human Juju/Legalistic Spirit Guide Oracle
>Noble Scion (War)
>UMD a Ring of Revelation (Nature's Whispers) since the errata on that only says non-Oracles can't use it, not that Oracles with the wrong mystery can't use it
>TECHNICALLY, an Onyx Spell requires Animate Dead to function, so TECHNICALLY if you hold one and then jump off a cliff, you'll turn into a Juju Zombie with full HP per HD. Do it at the bottom of a Descrated cliff, or stick a Voidstick in the ground down there before you jump, so you get even more HP. Then you also get CHA to Fort saves and HP on top of that, easily having double or triple the HP of all the martials at the table, and also the natural armor and whole other host of benefits Juju Zombie provides. Then you're immune to goddamn everything that's bad ever.
>If the GM won't allow that, make a pressure plate-based trap of Create Dead set to Juju Zombie mode out of a CL 11 scroll + an Enervate scroll. You made the trap, therefore you made the undead that it shits out, and it's explicitly Create Undead. Now you and the party can have a jolly old time as undead together.
>If the GM still won't allow that, I'm pretty sure the rules for cursed items are PFS. Use the crafting rules to ignore the CL requirement for a Phylactery and stack a shitload of nasty curses on the thing to make it like 2gp, throw it in a fucking well and forget about it since it never works anyway, and attain Lichdom without the resurrection at whatever fucking level you want.

>TL;DR Juju Zombie Oracle + Become fucking undead somehow = OP as shit.

You can also use Blood Money and a Wand of Lesser Restoration to basically turn everyone you meet into skellingtons and ruin every single AP you come in contact with, via skellingtons, because it's hilariously easy to stack CL for Animate Dead, and Juju Oracles get 6HD/CL anyway, so even the shitty Lesser AD can grab good shit at CL 4.

No, they just spend more money on Pearls of Power and Rods of Echoing Spell you fucking retard.

It's a very, very anti-fun solution that doesn't solve much. They still completely change the game and need more frequent breaks OR completely change the game and then play on their fucking phone for the rest of your session.

Ban T1 classes unless the player specifically works with the GM and provides a reason to use one, put the Tiered Gestalt rules in effect, and use some of the better 3pp stuff that makes non-casters better and provides options for less-retarded casters.

Ban that shit, you goddamn thirsty cockmongler.

They'll be able to cast fewer times, and need to consider what they cast.

Not necessary to ban them, just rein them in a whole deal.

Generalist wizards should be banned, with school specializations only available.

No, I'm saying that that's basically what you do to fix the problems to some degree. Halving spell slots is an unnecessary kick in the dick, and doesn't actually solve any of the problems.