Pathfinder General /pfg/

750 XP is a bit under a CR 3 fight, which qualifies as a "Hard" fight. The CR system is not great but in general fights are designed to drain party resources, not actually murder players. Depending on optimization, most/many parties can handle fights of CR+2 pretty easily.

With that said, CR isn't a great system and doesn't take into account special abilities that are often a huge part of how difficult monsters are. If you want to be able to design tough but fair fights out of the book without a ton of experience, you probably want a different game. 4e in particular has great rules for this.

But uh, you probably shouldn't be planning on murdering your players, just in general.

"It's like someone took all my fond memories of 3.5, raped them and put all the material online so people can make bullshit characters, including the 3pp shit so they have that to constantly fawn and bitch over, and they have no lives so they just spend all day on pfsrd coming up with new shit that isn't even broken but still pisses me off."

All my group ever wants to play is fucking Pathfinder. So that's what I run. We play other systems too but no one wants to play in those recently. I'm seriously considering trying to kill them off tomorrow. At least 2 to 3 of them. I don't want to end the campaign. Yet. I just want to end off my current notebook on a solemn note (whatever the word is for a major "stopping point" in a series... not a cliff hanger, but like right after a major defeat or something).

So I'm planning to throw a hezrou against them as a "boss monster." I figured since their current encounter is sending them deep into the woods to retrieve something, they might encounter a tribe of goblins. Goblins will be easy to pew-pew for a level 7 party. Then throw a couple of the goblin NPCs in monster codex at them. Then they fight the new "chief", which is a CR 11 hezrou. This actually fits into the story for reasons I don't want to go into cause it'd take too long.

So I'm trying to adjust the hezrou to be more deadly, his blasphemy is going to be the main thing, my party has this habit of "forgetting" to add half their save bonuses and slowly "walking" their save results up to whatever. They're not cheating, they just suck at remembering their bonuses and try to retcon things. And a DC 21 Will save just isn't that high. So I'm curious if ability focus would work on a spell-like? I know it's not a special attack, so maybe it'd have to take spellfocus and greater spell focus instead.

Why are your players having to "remember" their bonuses? Unless the bonuses are for situational circumstances they should be already written down on their sheets.

>Stop Having Fun: the post

750 XP... isn't even CR 2 I don't think. An encounter of CR four levels higher than the party, has a good chance at killing them. That's a "boss fight" for sure, and they definitely might lose. My pathfinder group easily took down a bugbear at level 1, and that's, what, 600 XP? I don't even remember. Just don't go much over their level + 4 in what you throw against them for single monsters. CR system is for very easy fights. If they fight then rest then fight then rest, chewing through one encounter at a time, they're going to have an easy game. Don't let that happen. Either hammer the fuck out of them with random encounters, or make most of the battles equal to their CR + 2. Seriously. If they are allowed to take on the fighting on their own terms, make the fights tougher. CR assumes a sterile set of archetypical characters and certain other assumptions that fall apart in actual play. CR is a guideline, not a hard rule, and that's how it should be in ANY system. God fucking damn I hate when my players get pissy that they went up against an enemy leader who was six levels above them, almost won (but almost died, thing ended in a stalemate).

Thanks for the reply! After reading you I see now how some factors made the fights easier for them (having a cleric in an undead dungeon, slow enemies, having narrow corridors that made the tanks take all the damage...)

PS: I don't want to kill them or anything... but watching a skeleton champion (intended to be a boss fight) dropping dead barely havin scratched the party was unnerving.

My still a noob and could use some help. I'm making a paladin. What I can do so far is that I can hit, be hit, do some CMB reliably, and diplomacy. My other character is a bard, where I can cast spells, umd, buff the party, weird words, aid another, use alchemical grenades, etc.

I know that dealing damage and taking damage (instead of others taking damage) is always going to be valuable in combat. Out of combat, I have diplomacy. I have a lot of flexibility with my feats and traits right now.

tl;dr As a paladin, is there anything else that I could/should be doing? Damage, Tank, and Face.

>. If they fight then rest then fight then rest, chewing through one encounter at a time
FUCK. I let them sleep. Twice.

I thought CR 3 was going to be too hardcore. Welp, I'll try a adding 3 leves next time. Thanks m8!

You get to build your own car using any parts that you want (that are available). Some parts are clearly superior to others, and some parts are actual detriments and hindrances to your vehicle. You get to drive around with friends and race against other cars (combat). You hope to fuck that you've actually built your car correctly so that you can keep up with your friends otherwise they win all the races and you don't do shit. You hope to fuck that you can outrace other cars. But, you can never be quite certain until you're actually out there racing!

Paladins can also buff and heal. Takes a while until they get their spells though.

Sure, I just thought about that. I have favorable stats for UMD, so I could do that. What buffs would you recommend, once I get them? I'm probably only going to be playing until level 9 or so.

Mostly self-buffs then. At around that level your main purpose is being a smite bot that can heal itself as a swift.

Because this is how it goes:
>"ok will save against the spell the enemy sorc is casting on you"
>"15"
>"14"
>"22"
>"Okay, X and Y don't make their saves, but Z does."
>"oh wait I forgot! I'm an elf I get +2 versus enchantments"
>Oh wait I have X class feature I forgot about.
>OH wait don't half-elves have that too.
And they say this AFTER I have already flipped over miniatures to represent who is affected and who isn't.

Honestly, I've been a really good GM for a long time. I am the forever-GM for that group and I've run at least seven campaigns for them of significant length, I'm tired of getting fucked in the ass and having five different people tell me what they are doing, having PCs quit sessions, having a PC get asshurt we weren't doing the type of campaign he wanted, then when we DID do that type of campaign, he left the table to go play video games instead of following them on the investigation. Plus it's been a while since I've drawn blood and I'm running out of story material, and it's a logical time for their enemies to hit back, and hard, because the PCs just killed one of their major minions. They have no idea who the main villain is, either, and because of that he is able to lead them right into his trap. God, that reveal is going to feel so good.

Right, so I would have categorized that under damage. I think I'm going to get a spell storing weapon so that I can drop something like a frigid touch or an ally's shocking grasp into it.

Remember, time is also a resource, and backtracking/setting up camp to rest and heal up consumes precious time which they might have all that much of
What i'm saying is, don't impede them from resting, make them not want to rest and instead keep going

>How do you explain pathfinder to your friends?
"It's a shitty system, don't use it."

"Fair encounter" means "a completely unoptimized party should be able to handle several encounters like this between rests without anyone dying."

"It's a bad game with awful glaring design flaws, but bad games are my guilty pleasure"

Then you need to start enforcing the policy that if someone says a number that's going to have to be the number they go with in order to facilitate a better flow of combat. Spritz a dog with water enough times after they do something wrong and they'll learn to avoid it, likewise your players need to learn to be pro-active rather than re-active when it comes to discerning whether or not their conditional modifiers are applicable or not.

I can't really speak on the rest of that, sounds like personal issue you've got to get through, but that's my advice for that at least.

Ehhh not the best idea. just take normal +.
You can add enchantments to your weapon through weapon bond

Get them to make you a quick sheet of all their saves/defences. You should have a copy of their character sheets anyway so you can design monsters that have feats/saves relevant to their abilities.

The CR system is a bit wonky at low levels. At higher levels when your xp budget is higher you have a lot more to play with. The problem at low levels is that adding more CR 1/8 monsters isn't really a challenge since their AC and HP is so low they are generally one-hit. Then if you use a CR 3 monster instead it can TPK them because they might just never hit it due to high AC.

You could try giving your mooks an advantage like ambushing the PCs, trade some feats to counter PC abilities, put them on favourable terrain etc. Remember to use combat manoeuvres, it's unlikely that your level 1 PCs will have a backup weapon if they get disarmed, -4 AC is huge at level 1 if you knock them prone, look for creatures with special attacks like the boggard which can let out a screech which staggers (-2 to everything including attack and damage) the PCs unless they pass a will save.

If they're fighting humanoid enemies play them intelligently, have them flank for the juicy attack bonus or pull individual PCs off to get 1v3d or go around the frontline to murder the mage.

As for XP, each PC earns an equal share of the XP, so 4 characters would each earn 100 XP from defeating a monster worth 400 XP. If you're playing an adventure pack like rise of the runelords or kingmaker it should give you a general idea of what level PCs should be in each book. If you're not playing an adventure pack, you should at least read through one to get a general feel for the things on offer in pathfinder.

>How do you explain pathfinder to your friends?
"Its an off-brand D&D"
Which is what I tell my acquaintances, as my friends already know what Pathfinder is

>tfw game was cancelled AGAIN!
>tfw haven't played in months
The only silver lining, is that yesterday the girl I sit next to in OChem Lecture is also looking for a group as well, so I might finally get some locals to play with. Though, the downside is that her favorite class is Swashbuckler

>when people flake out and you and a few other players or you and the dm and a player or two are left. they give no notice
I want to FUCKING DIE

That's silly, user. You should want the flakes to fucking die, instead.

>her favorite class is Swashbuckler
Protag is a girl now?

Haha, no, because this happens every single game I play. Every single time, some asshole flakes out and I'm left completely unable to do anything with my well-written, well-designed character.

I just want to play some Pathfinder. Just some good high fantasy monster slaughter and roleplay (as there's no other system populated enough to do that except GURPS, and fuck GURPS) but no. People have to leave and ruin it. It's making me feel like I'm at fault somehow, when I'm just playing a barbarian or fighter or similar beatstick.

What's wrong with Swashbuckler?

It got crippled by Paizo's inability to balance martials, but the deeds are fun, and the attempt to make a more dynamic martial is admirable. It tries really hard and ultimately fails, but that just makes it more interesting than a class like Slayer, which takes no risks, and does nothing new.

Posting Again. So I'm running a Fate/Apocrypha style game for my players. I am designing the enemy side and I need opinions on the servants I chose for the enemy side. For reference the enemies are lead by a US government & Clocktower joint venture, so basically a mix of CIA agents and clocktower mages for their masters:

>Saber
Roland
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland

>Archer
Saint Sebastian
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Sebastian

>Lancer
Jangar
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Jangar

>Rider
Pheidippides
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheidippides

>Caster
Dante
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri

>Assassin
H.H.Holmes
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Holmes

>Berserker
Lawrence of Arabia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence

Also the neutral Ruler is going to be George Washington since the holy grail war is in america. Do you think is high enough power/appropriate figures to be heroic spirits?

Except Slayer is actually fun to play and effective.

>trying to find a way to wield a weapon while in a form without arms, using SoP and not dipping into something class-locked
>Telekinesis Sphere seemed good, but it's a lot of talents just to get baseline functionality of "can full attack, can apply feats", on top of requiring a certain caster level
>Telekinesis sphere only has one drawback, which means I can't just gut the sphere down so the only thing it lets me do is "have weapon orbit me so I can attack with dancing/mobile weapon"
>Mind Limb feat can be taken by anybody, but unless you're an archetype completely based around it it can't actually "wield" weapons, just carry things
>that just leaves trying to add an actual limb capable of wielding it, which would look kind of janky

Well I guess I didn't have to be able to do it, but it would have been nice to have open as an option.

I was ultimately joking, but you have to admit that the whole class is a pile of shit, and was made irrelevant by the UC Rogue and a few other class archetypes

What, you are in America and you don't have Lee Harvey Oswald as assassin shooting magic bullets, or Teddy Roosevelt as rider with Nobel Phantasm that summon the great white fleet, a bunch of wilderness creatues, and boxes the fuck out of people!

If it is modernist America and the Cia is involved you should 100% involve a media push of novels and movies about historic figures to boost their fame bonuses.

What are the creation rules?

Dancing weapons?

stat her, pfg

XP 1,200
N Large magical beast
Init +5; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, scent; Perception +12
DEFENSE
AC 15, touch 10, flat-footed 14 (+1 Dex, +5 natural, –1 size)
hp 47 (5d10+20)
Fort +10, Ref +5, Will +2
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft.
Melee 2 claws +8 (1d6+4 plus grab), bite +8 (1d6+4)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
STATISTICS
Str 19, Dex 12, Con 18, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10
Base Atk +5; CMB +10 (+14 grapple); CMD 21 (25 vs. trip)
Feats Improved Initiative, Great Fortitude, Skill Focus (Perception)
Skills Perception +12
ECOLOGY
Environment temperate forests
Organization solitary, pair, or pack (3–8)
Treasure incidental

I don't totally know what you are going for but this may help
spheresofpower.wikidot.com/hekatonkheires

Assassin is already a famous American. The idea is most of the summoning implements were stolen from Germany during WWII at the failed Dresden Holy Grail War.

Falls under "the sphere needs a lot of talents to get baseline functionality" and "not dipping into something class-locked", I was looking for a way to effectively just have a single always-available "mind limb"-like thing that otherwise functioned like an alchemist's extra limb discovery. Didn't give me extra attacks or actions, just let me always have a "hand" no matter what form.

Encounters aren't designed to be fair, think of all your encounters as a collection of monsters, traps, hazards, story objectives, and possibly npcs to save or help.

Because the CR system is designed to drain PCs, not actually challenge or potentially kill them. (Until you go beyond an "epic" encounter or APL+4)

Check out this guide, helped me alot.
docs.google.com/document/d/1nx-o8VAjhUwh3nnfzDQT-JA5eFLnN_BZJiBitGjBMDg/edit

Mage hand as an at-will spell-like ability
Or at least enough uses of it that you wouldn't need to worry about it

Does anyone here have a lot of experience with the Occult classes? I'm running an occult themed P6 one shot with them, and told my PCs to pick from them. (Or possibly one of the archetypes in Occult Adventures)

>>trying to find a way to wield a weapon while in a form without arms, using SoP and not dipping into something class-locked
Literally just 2 Talents. Dancing Weapon and Divided Mind. Read this excerpt from Divided Mind
>You may treat these objects as one effective object for the purpose of bludgeoning a creature, or you may make multiple bludgeons per round (although you cannot make more
attacks in a round than would otherwise be allowed with your BAB and any respective feats if you possess the Flair or Dancing
Weapon talents).

Again Divided mind explicitly gives you the ability to make attacks with your BAB iteratives. You can get this running right at level one with telekinetic daggers, and then maybe take Powerful Telekinesis for something bigger if you want one-handed weapons. Literally all you need

How would you feel if the new member of your party was an occultist Necromancer. He doesn't want to rule the world he just wants a big happy undead family where all of his skeletons and such are his children

He's still evil because he thinks the living are trash but he'll go along on your adventures because it's an opportunity to learn and gain new children

PURGE

I turn his "children" into compost for my poisonous fungus garden.

If he wants to create life from death, he's gonna have to do it the old fashioned way. Death is not antithetical to Life, for it is through Death that we can beget Life

Kill him immediately. He's too dangerous to leave alive.

If I just want something to float next to me and to be able to attack as if it were being held normally, I would, as far as I can tell, need:
>Dancing weapon
>Mobile Bludgeon, as it lets me use a single object to attack
>Flair (to use melee feats with Bludgeon)
>Orbit, with CL8 or 12 to "carry" a one-handed weapon for a medium creature to keep it next to me

It's interesting to go through, but it's something I'd have to base a whole character around rather than just take it so I can have it as a handy thing should I need it.

How?

Slayer is the most boring class in existence, even the Fighter has more options and active abilities. It's effective, but terribly dull.

UC Rogue and Swash do different things, and even you have to admit actually being able to react to enemy attacks/effects was a change that we've needed for a long time. Hell, aren't Counters are part of the reason people rip their dicks off over PoW?

>my well-written, well-designed character.
user, I know you can't hear it, but I want you to know I'm laughing at you.

Depends on the campaign, I have a character that's similar in nature so he'd probably get along great with him, in another campaign I play a good-aligned Cleric who's morally opposed in the greatest possible terms and would seek to either rehabilitate him or have him destroyed, with a whole range of characters in between.

What's the best class combination for mythic gestalt?

No, you don't need Mobile Bludgeon. As long as you have multiple weapons to bludgeon with, you can still perform a Full Attack with them sing all your iteratives. Go back and reread Divided Mind.

Also, 4 talents does not mean "must dedicate your whole character", as you can get all of that in 3 levels, or just 1 if you're Human and/or have Limited Telekinesis

Also, you said you're building an armless warrior, so what the fuck else do you plan on spending the rest of your talents on, when you already are going to have to dedicate a few just so that you can actually perform your job because you wanted to be paraplegic? Plus, Iteratives won't come to you until 6th level, so you don't even need Mobile Bludgeon or Divided Mind until that point.

Also, do don't really need to worry about waiting for a high level to lift a sword, as you can either grab yourself a Staff, or grab the Powerful Telekenisis Talent.

Also, all this is assuming your on a shitty Armorist talent budgent and a Low Caster. Most of these problems concerning limits tends to go away once you play just about any othr class, like Mageknight or any of the Midcasters. The only other instance where I can see your Talent budget preventing you from getting your goal done within 5 levels is if you're a non-caster who's getting into Spheres purely through feating in, or if you took one of the shittier Sphere Archetypes for the normal 1pp Classes

Also, you seem to not understand the whole concept behind Spheres. The whole point of Sphere is to provide a bunch of options while also INCENTIVIZING specialization into one or two (3 if you wanna stretch it or do something specific) spheres.

So tell me, aside from wanting to play as the telekinetic version of that one waterbender chick from Korra, what do you want to do with ths character? Because if you're upset about having to spend at least 4 talents when you already get 2 for free from just being a caster, then ere might be some issues here

How well would your party do against a standard Nosferatu? Assume they've had no prep time and it's a large chamber with moderate cover

I just wanted to have the option available to still use my one weapon when in an alternate form, and have it be be "swinging it one-handed" in terms of mechanics. Just in case I couldn't spare a turn to change back, and because it might be neat to not NEED to change back if I don't have to. I wasn't looking to carry an entire arsenal.

Not having this is fine, because I didn't NEED this ability and it does nothing but "look cool" for me.

Okay, then I guess you don't need Divided Mind if its just one weapon, and I guess if its just a backup weapon, you probably don't need Orbit either, since chances are you'll probably just be using the one and will just be concentrating on it. Just take Limited Telekinesis (Metal).

The only Talents you really need if you just want this as a backup is Flair, Mobile Bludgeon, and maaaaybe either Dancing Weapon or Powerful Telekinesis if you really want that sword. Since your TK is on concentration, you effectively have an at-will long distance attack whenever you want, combined with being able to actually hold and pick up small items. Its only 3 talents at minimum, and one of them is free from your drawback.

Also, ou don't have to take them all at once. Just focus on your main build, then slowly sprinkle them in as you advance in level. Or perhaps just get the local crafter to make a Wondrous Item for you that does mostly the same stuff. Maybe make it a should item that rakes the form of empty sleeves that fall from your shoulders

Orbit was just me looking to keep the thing floating next to me in the alternate form, with the intent of only attacking in what would have otherwise been "natural reach" as a human. If there was a Telekinesis Drawback for that, I'd take it in a heartbeat, hell maybe writing it up would be worth a shot. Dancing Weapon I assumed I "needed" with Flair, as otherwise none of my melee-based feats would be working.

It's, again, a mostly superfluous ribbon thing I figured would be nice to have, since most of the "real buffs" are taken care of by other party members. It's just a shame it's not as cheap as my other silly "ribbon" choices (extradimensional storage, shifting disguise).

>Dancing Weapon I assumed I "needed" with Flair, as otherwise none of my melee-based feats would be working.
The wording for the Flair talent is poorly worded, and does not specify which feats you can and can't use with your bludgeon, only that you can use your feats and that your Bludgeon counts as a ranged weapon for those feats

RAW, you don't really need Dancing Weapon for combat feats except for those that requires melee attacks, as Flair already gives you combat feat use for ranged weapons

Well, again, as someone who normally fights melee, I would kind of have to have Dancing in that case. It seems like it was kind of poorly thought out to require Flair if you wanted to benefit from melee feats.

>It seems like it was kind of poorly thought out to require Flair if you wanted to benefit from melee feats.
On that I can agree with you on

Hydraulic Push. It takes 1/3 its health in damage when sumbersed in running water for 1 round.

Contain it by having your Cleric show its holy symbol to it, then pelting him with Cure spells

Use sunlight spells if you have them

Make sure you have plenty of spear or arrows to stabbystab him with

If your Wizard has Hold PErson or any other ability to leave him helpless, impale him with a stake, saw his head off, then take it to the local church to have it anointed.

If you must run away, try to fabricate garlic, or ask your gm if you can pull some from your spell components pouch.

If you can, avoid betting into direct adjacent combat with it, and give your allies some Protection spells or similar to stave off his Dominate power

If he takes his swarm form, AoE him to death

I wonder if I could just get a "mother may I" to get both an Orbit-based drawback and then benefit from melee feats with just Dancing Weapon or something. It's already a bunch of hoops to basically just do something I normally do anyway, so I guess I could ask when it finally comes up.

>Orbit-based drawback
My suggestion is to make it simple. Something like this

>Adjacent Kinesis
>The range of your telekinesis is reduced to 5ft, and does not increase with your caster level. You may not take the Increased Range talent, and to use the Tether talent you must be within 5ft of both targets of your tether, and the targets must stay within 5 ft of each other. Other Telekinesis talents are likewise reduced in thier range to 5ft.

Sounds about right. It'd still have "movement" with which to return to orbit, but otherwise is limited to what your reach would normally be. I'm honestly surprised this wasn't already a thing, or at least there being some special thing for Mind Limb where "if you have x talent you can ALSO do y with your Mind Limb".

Looks like the players were picked for starstone.

>le anime vampire bloodplay tranny
Disgusting.

What shit taste.

Who would you have preferred?

I swear everytime I see Mashallah picked for anything I assume it's a joke.

Not shitty wanna be Gilgamesh.

I liked Stefan, but lel nonevil undead, and lel urgathoas friend, smeg the character I am pretty indifferent towards, but really I am pretty sure there were better choices in there.

A bamboozle. It would have been amazing.

Did you see those picks? It might as well be a bamboozle.

There's still time, though I doubt it'll happen.
Alright, Stefan, any others you would have picked? I'm genuinely curious who you would have picked. Like, not saying you have shit taste for not liking the picks or anything.

For it to crash and burn.

>Who would you have picked
>For it to crash and burn
Do you see why this doesn't make any sense?

Going from top to bottom of the apps, these are all apps I feel were better then the other three.
Thesis
Baiane
Sylvia
Crysila
Eliza
Alexander
Minerva

So! Who all's excited for the weekend? Any big plans, game-related or otherwise?

Yeah, I pretty much agree

Apparently my family is going to shout and scream at each other, which causes me profound amounts of stress. So my weekend is probably going to be absolutely shitty, then I'll go back to killing myself at work on Monday. Fuck everything. I really wish I had a game to distract me, even for a few hours.

Sorry to hear that, user. Do you have a particular sort of game in mind? Maybe you can find others interested in joining one.

Not really. Anything's fine, besides lewdshit. But the time for games is coming to an end, so whatever, I guess. I hope you have a good weekend, Fennec-user. I hope all of you have good weekends.

Not me. Besides lamenting over my incredibly poor choices, shattered dreams, and general incompetence.

gonna grab a tarot deck for campaign related purposes and maybe work on planning one of three sessions i'll have to run next
aside from that i'll probably laze about

Any you would add/remove from that list?

I might knock off Alexander and Minerva. I haven't really decided if I like them yet. The others are pretty solidly better.

Usual game on Saturday. I don't think we're getting out of the dungeon we're currently exploring this week.

Thank you, user, and I hope yours turns out better than you think it will.

My Saturday game got canceled, but my biweekly Sunday game is this week.

My problem with the picks is that some of them spent more time trying to justify a character rather than detailing their desires and aspirations for being a god, a lot in your own picks fall into that too.

The only good apps were the ones that specified a meaningful deific purview