Pathfinder General /pfg/

>implying she's not a necromancer

This. Mercy is a Necromancer plain and simple.

I once played a paladin who was fucked over by the party so hard.
Investigating church basement rogue burns it down,
party spits for five minutes find out party held up the blacksmith for all his magic shit then skipped town,
leave on the only boat big enough to make it to the mainland for a hundred miles abandoning my holy ass in atheist land,
they feel bad and sendthe ship back,
Promptly forget about me and start turning the city including the docks into a dark-age home-alone movie but with chilly-vikings instead of wet-bandits.
Gets off boat, rolls 5 reflex savings on the way back to the boss lady.
Told to gtfo and defend the city.
Reward 1 vial of fucking holy water.
Still not bad for our DMs second game, and got a good story out of it.

>NecroMercer hivemind

But how do you stat Reaper?

Harbinger / Desperado Privateer Warlord

>dualwield dragon pistols
>get Sea Combat
>get the whirlwand attack feat chain
>use Solar Wind stance for unlimited ammo
>kill everything around you with 20 ft cones of scattershot

Obligatory owlbear statblock.

Sweet, thanks!

I thought Initiators didn't multiclass well together

I just wanted to make a joke about heroes man

A PERFECTLY ORDINARY HUMAN BEAN

You only take warlord until you get sea combat.
Then you go full Harbinger for the Dark Claims and teleport at-will and edge fluff

Alright, I wanna talk.about the Shackles, particularly the Ghol-Gan
What do we know of them, what they did, why they dead, and what kind of stuff you should expect to find in their ruins

Pic but really related, just wanted an excuse to post Brock

Speaking of warcraft. I like to implement items like the "orbs" they had in my games, as sort of a floating magical bonus that can be attached to an item.

An Orb of Flame for example can be attached to any weapon, and grants the flaming burst property on weapons (where it's appropriate), albeit it does eat up the regular enhancement bonus for it. I like to toss things like this in as treasure every once and a while, and they function sort of like Ioun Stones but for weapons.

i wish the guys who make the pathfinder sheet for roll20 would add sections for spheres of power

Would a wolf count enough?

I'd say any canine other then a hound.

Speaking of Warcraft, I'm shocked that there's no options in Pathfinder that recreates the system they have in there for casters to use DoTs. Is that just too broken of a concept for a game system like D&D?

no DoTs are awful in Pathfinder

Someone already homebrewed that. I *think* it was DHB.

basically gem slots for weapons, separate from weapon enhancements.

Oh, so there are options that utilize the concept? Strange I've not heard of any of them, even if they are bad.

What would you give in return for good DoTs, user?

there are DoTs but you'd never use a DoT when you can use another spell that cripples an enemy, or just blows them away

Combat doesn't last enough rounds for DoTs to be enough as they stand now

Bleed and things like acid arrow are some of the only ones I know. But bleed sucks ass as it's too easily healed and not a lot of damage usually. Acid arrow just has a "round after, take damage" thing which is okay I guess.

Bleed weapons deal DPR.
The problem with turnbased games is that its more sensible to rocket-tag someone rather than waste rounds waiting for a target to die.

In WoW, it works because DoTs deal damage per SECOND. making it a reliable extra damage.

>tfw your character got completely disintegrated
Rest in peace, Will, the wise-cracking alchemist.

Wish and True Resurrection doesn't need your body parts.

The ability to stack multiple DoTs on a target at a time OR boosting the user in addition to damage as a positive you can give to them that would make them viable as spells, as a counterbalance they can only be done within a certain range so if the target leaves that range the spell ends.

>not keeping your hair or fingernails in a jar for these sort of occasions.

do you even murderhobo?

We're like, level 7.

Don't see that happening any time soon.

>In WoW, it works because DoTs deal damage per SECOND. making it a reliable extra damage.

Have you tried to level as a warlock? Things die before you can actually do any damage to them with your 24+ second long DoT. Because other classes fucking ruin them in a quarter of a second. Shit even mages cant do much that often because things are dead before your cast timer is up.

DoTS only work when things have ungodly hp and veeeeeery little damage comparatively (or you have shit that can functionally heal for forever unless enrage timer). Which would make for one of the most boring tabletop experiences ever... unless you're of the DoT shit and run away school of combat.

Don't even talk to me about current Warlock man, it makes me want to kill myself.

Affliction struggles on single target since it needs things to die for its Artifact golden traits to work.
Demonology's demons are really just very short DoTs with visuals.
Destruction is literally RNG: the spec.

Post interesting Fighting style combinations!

Dragon and Pummeling style don't count.

DoT in WoW and most MMOs, has 2 purposes:
1) against raid bosses, DoTs reliably stack to deal a lot of damage while the caster repositions and avoids getting mobbed.

2) DoTs register damage per tick on the boss, making the caster draw less aggro from the boss than the main DPS and Tank who deal more damage per tick.

Again, the DPR needed just can't be there without breaking everything. Think about it this way. In an MMO, dots tick multiple times, right? Either Per second or per few seconds. If you translate that to PF rounds, it's one tick per "six seconds". This all sounds fine, if not for the fact that damage dealers are usually two rounding (if not one rounding) enemies and encounters only last 4-5 rounds. That be like the MMO dot dropping a mob in two or even one tick, with the total fight length being only 4 tics. Things die too fast in PF for DoTs to be mechanically viable. And padding out health wouldn't make them more viable compared to other options, only equal, while also making encounters take up huge amounts of real time at the table.

>t. lamenting MMO player

>allowing resurrection spells
why let characters die at all if the PCs can just pay a fee and come back right as rain?

I played warlock at the end of WoD before the legion change. Destro was great (even if burning embers were a bit silly).

Affliction has been my favorite spec since like vanilla, aside from that brief period where they had like 7 dots and maintaining them was a literal nightmare - I've really enjoyed the "channel a spell to cause your dots to half-tick every time your spell ticks" gameplay and thought it was as smooth as butter.

Demonology was a bit strange but ultimately a fun spec about managing resources and optimizing when to be in demon form or not, it wasn't viable in wod cause they broke its fucking legs during the tail end of MoP, but it was a cool spec.

I *hated* what they did to warlocks with legion. they fucking ruined affliction and destruction, and Demo is just a goofy dot spec but with "omg le speshul pets" it doesn't actually even fucking play any differently from how afflic used to.

According to what is saying then why not have it as an option that you can use against bosses with a lot of health, or have it be Force damage that goes through DR, for those characters that draw out a fight that way. I'm not saying make DoTs the new meta, but with the meme that often goes around that PF has tons of "trap options" that are actually garbage I'm just surprised this wasn't one of them.

>bosses
>lots of health

ECKS DEE

The ONLY way to make DoTs spells a viable option in PF is not by buffing the enemy's HP.

Its by making DoT spells deal a flat percentage of health.

It will deal damage, spread over a length of time equal to rocket tagging for one round.

You cannot do a MMO style battle in a tabletop without it being fucking boring. That is literally happened at the start of fourth edition and people hated it.

I mean that's usually how we play it in our sessions, it's a bit anticlimactic to have the boss go down in 2 rounds if you've built them up.

They are an existing trap option in the form of bleed damage. Which sucks. And bosses don't have enough health for encounters to last long. Even if they did, you run into the issue of single monster action economies which still fucks things. Aggro doesn't exist in TTRPGs outside of Log Horizon and the movement thing isn't a problem since you get a standard and a move. It's frustrating if you only in melee full attack, but /pfg/ actively dissuades that playstyle.

I learned this the hard way. My players were bored to tears with my bosses with massive amounts of HP, mechanics and adds.

I can imagine playing online would solve some of this, assuming the interface was good enough.

If you had a turn-based jrpg-esque menu of options to spend your turns actions on, as well as the calculations being done automatically through the program, turn length would shorten quite a bit I would assume.

It's all in how you play up the theatrics. Maybe this was just because we were doing this in person, but during the past two finales of the sessions we've run with one of our friends as the GM pretty much the entire session was dedicated to fighting one dude and his summoned minions, it was an intense, greuling battle that out of game took us about 5 hours but was oh so worth it.

We were doing it on roll20.

I like it but god it's clunky.

I'm actually running a Warcraft campaign now. Moonwells basically act as a Cure Serious Wounds potion with 5 charges that refill every night. Each charge also gives you back a spell slot of your choice, or if you're a Spherecaster you regain 2 spell points.

>5 hours
>One guy
>Entire session

Would you believe the guy also had multiple forms that we had to fight, one of which was extremely reminiscent of a Cupheads boss?

...

God I'm glad you're not in my group.

If that's what I was looking for I'd just play an MMORPG. Unless that's what you were going for.

I wouldn't want to be in yours either. Combat in PF is dreadfully boring and dragging it out for 5 hours sounds awful.

>tfw your players all hate combat
>but they never talk during RP
SO MANY LE SILENT MAN PLAYERS

Ehh, I think it'd still give something different than a MMO. The ability to interact with a world out side of combat would be vastly different.

All I want is a better roll20 interface, yo

I don't know if you guys use Roll20 and studied it enough...

But you can create macro commands to really speed up a single round.

If you cast a spell, type a macro for the spell, let roll20 roll the damage die for you and the DC to save.

If you declare an attack, type a macro and roll20 automatically makes your attack and damage roll as well as damage rolls from weapon enchantments, etc.

This shit shaves off minutes from a single round per player.

To top it all off the part with that bit of the boss was because the first round was just him and his ads, the second round was him backing off and letting a giant robot he made do the fighting for him while spewing more ads from its top hat, and the final form being a culmination of the two combined into one with the combined powers of both.

>tfw whole party is "le silent man of sneaking stabbing" other than you
>you're a wizard
>with 8 cha
>and no diplomacy
>tfw you become the party face

>This shit shaves off minutes from a single round per player.
If your players aren't like mine and think their turns out while their comrades are acting.

My players will sit there just going "uh... im gonna uh... no.... uh...." for a few minutes on their turn every time.

time to take a dip in empiricist investigator user

Jesus, I know what you mean. Roll20 is absolutely shit, and Maptools seems better from my end but I've never had to do it from the DM's side. Thing is, I like doing the math. I make characters with character, but I still like a big sheet full of little numbers that I stack into piles and then laugh at the GM when my piles are bigger than the ones he made.

Can that work with the more odd mechanic maneuvers like the zeniths, golden lion, shattered mirror or counters?

>Combat in PF is dreadfully boring
Yeah it is. I wish it wasn't such a big part of the game.

So far, every game except for this week's has been this:

>You arrive at some city for some reason
>You meet the [insert local authority]
>He doesn't seem to be what you thought he was
>He's actually a demon
>Party fights for 30 mins
>HP drops to 0, we win!
>Time to wrap up

Finally had some fun this week by going off script and chasing down invisible PCs. Not a single combat.

I always have a great time in combat.

Combat being such a huge part of the game is why I optimize for it, even though I find it dreary and unexciting. No better way to not have combat than immediately invalidate it when it starts.

Moonwells apparently restore health at a 2Hp to 1 mana ratio, and mana at .5unit mana to 1 moonwell mana ratio.

It attempts to heal mana and health equally, unless the unit caps on mana then it goes straight for health. So a 100 mana moonwell would give 100hp and 25 mana, unless it fully heals mana then it gives 4hp per point of mana not healed.

Day / night cycle in wc3 lasts about 5 minutes and moonwells regen mana at 1.25/sec (or 1.77/sec with upgrade) capping at 300 (or 425 mana).

So... on average a moonwell completely fills in a night - it actually overflows by about 25%.

I'm not sure how to translate its healing for units, but I think about 5 charges of cure serious wounds is maybe appropriate, as would be restoring a spell slot. Seems pretty spot on user.

yeah, macros are like excel formulae.

You need some know-how to add in a formula and its random variables, but once you get the hang of it, its easy.

>I always have a good time on my phone waiting for my party members to take their turn.

Teach me, Shishou!

Here's why that is:
I make a character. He has to be good at some things and bad at others (specialized). So I find some sump stats and try to pump important ones. Charisma isn't a particularly useful stat so down it goes.

Meanwhile skills are important. Some moreso than others. I want to be able to sneak around, not fall down, fly, see things, and know some stuff...and I'm out of skills points.

So now I'm playing a non-social character. It makes sense to be quiet. Alternatively, I can attempt to make some rolls but not do very well because they're dump stats and ranks are more useful other places. Unless things are going South anyways, just go with it. If I need to, I can magic my way through it but it costs resources.

You could use weapon crystals, an item type from the 3.5 Magic Item Compendium, basically the same idea.

Yeah, however I do limit it. It can only restore a spell slot of 4th level or lower. Plus if any player is a Blood or High Elf then they don't have to meditate for a few days after drinking from a moonwell.

fucking google it, scrub

>Things die before you can actually do any damage to them with your 24+ second long DoT.
This is because they curbstomped their DoT damage around Cata or MoP, not because of design issues inherent to the class. Warlock was easy mode leveling before that.

Sasuga Shishou! Always so wise!

...

I always have a great time waiting ten minutes for the DM and 2 players to RP a scene. I get up, make some food, browse some /pfg/, look back, read the 2 or 3 posts they made in that time, go back to doing what ever. It is a blast.

Ohmygod kill me. /pfg/ how do I tell my group mates to hurry the fuck up with typing without being a total douche about it? I cannot stand this slow ass shit.

Sounds like someone doesn't play with a group that makes things fun regardless of whose turn it is at the time. Granted, this is coming from a place where cries for help are regularly met with scorn and derision so as not to "spoonfeed those who should know better" so I'm not entirely surprised that antisocialism runs rampant.

Just play as the peanut gallery man, it never fails with my group.

Become kazuma

just talk over people with 'really' and 'amazing' and 'yes i'm kazuma'

the "yes i'm kazuma" is basically how i respond to one guy in the party when he spend a few minutes asking me a retarded question

I leveled a warlock in vanilla. It wasn't that warlocks were easymode, it was that every other class had to deal with bullshit.

Warlocks had a pet to tank for them, dots were extremely mana efficient, health funnel could heal the pet, drain life could heal you (bonus points for being undead and cannibalizing the corpse), life tap could heal your mana. Your pet took the damage so you didn't get fucked by durability, and you generally didn't need to worry about food or drink.

Hunters weren't as good because they had to buy ammunition and were fucked by retarded mana regen and shitty items.

Mages/priests had to eat & drink after *everything*. Paladins did no DPS. Warriors got fucked by durability and gear but could occasionally chain-pull. Rogues could maybe stunlock but didnt have access to like half their kit unless they were combat because positional requirements. Shamans literally just auto-attacked. Nobody fucking played druids because they were shit (unless resto, which wasn't really good till endgame). If you were specced healing you got to stand next to someone as they killed things, and remember no in combat mana regen!

Warlocks just got to kill things one by one for forever with almost zero downtime.

>Implying my group doesn't ban fun.
Nigga, they can barely figure out their classes. God they're incompetent and I wanna die.

>Warlocks just got to kill things one by one for forever with almost zero downtime.

And then they grew up to be that class that was taken to raid only because of summoning and soul stones.

>kazuma

I will have to look this up.

>peanut gallery

Maybe. They are just so fucking slow.

It is not so much that they are incompetent. I think mine know what they are doing. They just take forever to get the point across.

watch konosuba user

watch it now

it'll change your life

My sympathies then, perhaps I'm just extremely lucky to be a part of a group that's known each other for years, since we got out of high school even, so doing those 5 hour boss battles I mentioned earlier was a lot better than it might have been with your groups.

Vanilla raiding was silly shit. It seemed like warlocks would be incredibly efficient because 'omg they can restore their own mana' with life tap / drain mana / mana tap (sucks the pets mana out of it, commonly used with imps). In practice they tended to end fights with no hp and no mana, or they had to give up DPS for tapping.

My DPS was usually pretty good though.

Fuck soulstones though, god those things were retarded, ate up all your inventory space and you needed like fucking seventy of them for a raid.

>user raid is in an hour, where are you
>FUCKING OUTSIDE THE INSTANCE FARMING SOULSHARDS LIKE I AM EVERY WEEK

Armor should be damage reduction
Rename AC to Dodge Class

You know, Anongsk, combat isn't slow in games where you have microphones and don't omega powergame.

It shouldn't take more than a minute to explain what you are doing with your turn, unless it is VERY complex. "I use Maneuver/Spell/Attack/Ability on [Target]" shouldn't be more than half a minute, and even a shenanigans turn shouldn't take more than a minute or two.

>implying that you're literally getting hit by every attack except only being 'saved' by armor.

No. Armor and Hitpoints are abstractions. Fuck off.