This won't be until much later, but I'm playing an avenger vigilante and am wondering which feats I should pick up later. I know saves are generally better for the most part but there's some homebrew that might change the priorities:

1. I'm a classic avenger vigilante, basically just a melee fighter, AC would probably come up more against most of the martials I'd be fighting, and lethal Grace power attack DEX build with reactionary improved initiative boots of striding and springing tends to almost always have me move first and one-shot any casters before they have a chance to force their saves

2. The DM is treating magical enhancements on armor a little differently, where magical enhancements apply to all forms of AC (so for example, a +1 mithral chain shirt would give its entire AC bonus to flat-footed, and a +1 bonus to touch AC, think of the magic +1 as basically a typeless deflection bonus) I'm not sure if the AC bonus from armor/shield focus would be treated like this as well

So I understand saves are important, and even with my 14 CON investment my whopping total of a +4 to fort saves is something I'm definitely feeling right now, and I'm not sure if these homebrew buffs to AC/my role in the party will be enough to justify taking over great fortitude and iron will (iron will I'm not too worried about since companion to the lonely and steely resolve are both talents I plan to pick up later, but you can never have too much will save). Thanks in advance!

Xivartan The Horrid Hare, Snatching Rabbit, The Unbroken Nascent demon lord of murder, immortality and haunted constructs Edicts: create constructs bound with souls, murder people to use in your experiments Anthenama : destroy soul bound constructs, destroy routes to immortality Unholy symbol:a half a gold rabbit mask

Once upon a time, there was an inventor with a gift for making constructs. Ones that entertained and preformed so well they were practically lifelike. But over time, the novelty began to wear off. The crowds no longer flocked to the man who would become Xivartans creations. So he hatched a horrible plan,he would make his creations even more lifelike. He toiled and tinkered, but no matter what they just didn't have that SPARK of life.

Until the day an assistant was killed by an accident with one of the bots, and Xivartan,got an idea. He secretly repeated the accident a few days later with an innocent soul, trapping their soul in the metal. working to bind the victims soul to the bot. The bot was more lifelike than ever before and Xivartan was pleased. The crowds flocked once again towards the creations.

But again the novelty wore off over time. So again the man tinkered and murdered,a cycle of blood and oil. All the while Xivartan worked to discover the secrets of life and death. Of how to bind his own soul to the constructs he crafted so that death will never touch him. Countless innocent souls sacrificed on the altar of Xivartans unholy ambition,all the while he hid behind a golden smile and false horror at the disappearances around him eventually his own creations turned against him,his inventions malfunctioned and he was slain before the truth could come out

But he did stay down.

His experience with soul trapping allowed him to bind his soul to one of his creations and live on. Continuing his unholy experiments in the shadows,his mechanical form lacking the charisma and false charm of his human form. Eventually he was found and destroyed,his shell destroyed and his soul banished

But he did not stay down.

Again and again the cycle played out. He would return,learn from his failures, experiment,fail ,be caught and destroyed, and return. A cycle of murder and destruction. Until finally a psychopomp Usher was sent out to prevent him from slipping out of deaths grasp once again. The Usher burned his shell to the point where it was immobile and useless but still together, preventing his escape. The Usher dragged him before Pharasma for judgement. The goddesses power binding him so that he could not slip away this time. As Xivartan was sentenced to the Outer Rifts he swore an oath,that he would return to the Lady of Graves chamber, and that her judgement would hold no power over him. That he would conquer death and outlive even Phantasm.

Rising through the ranks of the demons of Outer Rifts,he has recently the status of nascent demon lord. Planning on rising to full demon status, and possibly even becoming a God. One that would be more powerful than even Pharasma. He works endlessly in his realm of Springgear, trying to craft the perfect mechanical shell that even Pharasma could not overcome.

The Horrid Hare resembles a large dark yellow,demonic parody of a bipedal rabbit. With needle-like teeth and claws that are deceitfully nimble and dexterous. The Horrid Hares body is actually a shell; a puppet he controls similar to the Archdevil Mammon. He can eject himself if his current body's would be destroyed by anything but fire damage and possess new constructs afterwards. The Unbroken works to keep him weakness to flame a secret and at the same time overcome it, trying to create a construct that would be immune to flame to render him deathless. Any construct possessed by The Unbroken slowly warps and transmutes into his lapine visage.

The Horrid Hare has only been a nascent demon lord for a handful of years so his presence on Golorian is microscopic. Which ironically grants lots of breathing room because very, very few would know to look for him. His cult is also entirely lone individuals rather than groups, all the better to hide under the radar with. He attracts those that,like him, desire to overcome death but prefer the surety of metal over the decaying flesh of the undead.

As someone fairly new to Golarion, I’m looking at running a campaign based in Axis. What books would be the best to pick up for more information on the setting?

The three I’ve been eyeballing are The Great Beyond, Concordance of Rivals and Distant Realms, but none of the descriptions really say how much they cover Axis (if at all).

Today's spell is Curse Water!

What items or class features synergize well with this spell?

Have you ever used this spell? If so, how did it go?

Why is this spell good/bad?

What are some creative uses for this spell?

What's the cheesiest thing you can do with this spell?

If you were to modify this spell, how would you do it?

Does this spell seem like it was meant for PCs or NPCs?

Previous Spell Discussions

I have a player that wishes to be a druid who's story arc as a tragic end, their death, however they want their death to be helpful to the party, i.e. fighting the bbeg to buy them time escape or something along those lines. I am having a hard time thinking of something for their druid, all ideas are welcomed thank you very much!

As a DM, how might one balance/change encounters around say: PC spell casters who make frequent use of those Conjuration Creation spells that don't allow SR (and some just straight up function even in an anti-magic field). Without resorting to something like Arcanist exploit Counterspelling to try to "5e style" stop them from being cast?

EDIT: I also do 3.5 stuff, where there are even more of those kinds of spells. So any suggestions from that side of the table are welcome too.

I love druids….in 3.5 and 2nd edition. I hate druids in Pathfinder. They’re the second most boring class to me next to the slayer. I’ve tried, repeatedly. to play druids. But every time I turn to the oracle (or witch). Nighttime swampy crocodile/scorpion pet Druid…eh, I’ll go lunar oracle. Flaming blaster with awesome fire powers? Fire oracle. Want to be a water elemental with ice armor and wielding a lance of frost? Waves oracle. You get the idea.i always felt like I should get my fix with Druid but there is just never enough of a feature. But bugs? Druids can do bugs, actually.

Tentative build: Swarm Monger Druid 10, Evangelist 10 (race undecided).

We just want wisdom, dex, con, and maybe like a 13 int. No need for str.

Feats: Spider Summoner, Fiendish Obedience (Deskari), Proxy Summons, Versatile Summon Nature’s Ally, Planar Wildshape, Spell Focus: Conjuration, Augment Summoning, Superior Summoning, Damned Disciple.

That’s 17 levels of feats making human and elf seem like better choices for the bonus feats though spider summoner is a drow feat.

Additional feat choices are Improved Familiar (Stirge or Div), Vampiric Familiar (if we are a dhampir).

For the familiar (rat, spider, or centipede) we’re looking at swapping the redundant weapon finesse and the other feat it may have for Improved Natural Attack and either Familiar Focus or Extra Item Slot.

It’s not the most powerful summoner or anything, but it looks totally serviceable, gets 19 levels of druid and archetype featured and a bit extra. It has a few really good tricks and quality mechanical choices (like which second level boon to grab) and seems like it would be relevant at all levels of play against most enemies and also super, duper durable.

So what else can we do to spice this build up some more and polish its chrome?

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Not sure if this is a player or GM question but either way.

Two players build a dungeon (vampire mansion) that they are defending from the hero. They are level 8 gestalt vampires, (one Oracle/ anti-paladin. The other sorcerer/ Magus) there xp budget for traps and minions is 2×their xp (38,400 each).

I'm trying to make either a single character or pair that can survive the dungeon and give them a good hard fight 60-40 odds in their favor.

I'm thinking of making the heros gestalt as well. Any ideas?

We're playing a campaign which we expect to have a low number of story-related mythic tiers.

We have a new guy joining at level 11 with 2 mythic tiers. He's playing a two-weapon-fighting ranger. The build is solid, but he's not sure what to do with his mythic feats.

He's thinking of going Champion Path and taking Fleet Charge and Impossible Speed at mythic teir 1 to let him make full attacks as much as possible. What to do with the Mythic Feat at tier 2 is not clear. Mythic Two-Weapon Fighting seems weak when Fleet Charge will be competing for uses of Mythic Power.

Any advice?

Question’s in the title. I’m 95% sure I don’t get the super fast 5th/11th/14th level progression unless I actually take 5, 11, or 14 levels in Cleric. However, does the feat advance at 12, 16, and 20 HD as normal if I take 1 level in Cleric and drop the class, or will I be stuck with the 1st tier forever? Thanks for the help!

I'm going to be running Skull and Shackles for my kids and their cousins. The kids are a 9 y/o boy playing a magus Eldritch Archer, 8 y/o girl playing a witch, 7 y/o girl playing a rogue, and 6 y/o boy playing a shifter. We picked this adventure path because they want to be pirates.

Obviously I'm toning down some of the booze and violence and whatnot...

I'm planning to augment the path by getting them to sing sea shanties and do lots of drawings of the ship and their characters and stuff like that along the way.

For those who have run this adventure path - do you have any advice? Anything I should watch out for or things you changed? And particularly, is there anything you'd recommend modifying to keep it fun and engaging for kids and help the 6 year old keep up with the others?

(I don't have any spoilers, but added the Spoilers flag in case any pop up in replies)

Aphortani the Beauty In Scars Nonbinary Kyton demagogue of beauty,body modification and uniform symmetry.

Beauty is pain, and none know that lesson better than Aphortani. They are the patron and master of all the many painful things done in the name of beauty. They are patron of foot binding and rib crackingly tight corsets. Of binging and purging and lead face powder. The Beauty In Scars claims to have cut away all that did not perfectly match on both sides. Modifying themselves to the point both sides of their body perfectly mirror each other,even down to have 4 thumbs,one on side of their hands.

Aphortani appears as a perfectly androgynous humanoid of such pale white, smooth hairless skin would be forgiven for mistaking them for a marble statue or a porcelain doll. Each of their fingers on both hands are the same length and their toes the same. They favor skin tight clothes,all the better to remain symmetrical and thus perfect.

The Beauty In Scars domain is one of a never ending contest of beauty. Where all involved try endless ways to stay on the top of their form and be favored by the Beauty In Scars for their appearance.

I'm wanting my build to be heavy armor tower shield focused. I was thinking bulwark fighting style and guntank gunslinger would be the best for just being really hard to hit or deal damage too. Additionally share the bonuses to ac and such.

I looked at the shield brawler and that didn't appear to gain anything for tower shield. Towershield specialist is a thing for fighter but how does it compare to guntank gunslinger?

Howdy. Wanting to explore options outside of DnD5e, and the Pf2e remaster has firmly captured my attention. Got the first Player Core, and am trying to craft a Cleric of Desna, the goddess of dreams, luck, stars, and travel. But I'm not gonna lie, all these new traits, feats for ancestry/skills/class, and focus spells are making it hard to decide on what I should pick, especially when I don't know what's actually good and especially not what's optimized.

My main character concept is a sleepy priest that draws inspiration from the moon, stars, and night, more so an imaginative dreamer/idealist than an astronomer/astrologer. Someone who religiously values the small moments of quiet wonder and mystery in life, like a fun discovery during travel, an entertaining or meaningful dream, strange moments of coincidence, and omens in the night sky. Overall, a humble and humorous light in the darkness, who wants to foster imagination and joy among the faithful.

If anyone has any advice about what major choices I might want to pick to bring this character to life (hopefully with a decent bit of mechanical strength), or how to better fit this character into the Lost Omens/Golarion setting, please let me know. Thanks :)

Link: Shadow Raid

This spell was not in the Remaster. The Knights of Last Call 'All Spells Ranked' series ranked this spell as D Tier. Would you change that ranking, and why?

What items or class features synergize well with this spell?

Have you ever used this spell? If so, how did it go?

Why is this spell good/bad?

What are some creative uses for this spell?

What's the cheesiest thing you can do with this spell?

If you were to modify this spell, how would you do it?

Does this spell seem like it was meant for PCs or NPCs?

Previous spell discussions

Hi, new pathfinder player here, in my first campaign actually. My character is a fungus leshy sorcerer(elemental wood) and so I've built his spell repertoire to be pretty much flavored around any kind of fungus/plant based spells. I've noticed that a good handful of these spells are so...niche in their application, which would be fine, but they also take up valuable resources and have little to no cast time??? The biggest offender here that I want to talk about is Fungal Hyphae, one of my chosen signature spells. For a lvl 2 spell slot(currently my highest as the campaign started at lvl 4), I get.........bad tremorsense in a tiny area...for a minute? How is this good? Lots of spells come off like this. Am I playing wrong?

So I dm for a group with 4 people who never played a TTRPG before, and they've been playing for about a year now. When they started I openly told them that I'm not a big fan of 5e, but since they're new to TTRPGs it's the best place to start due to its simplicity, and once they have a sound grasp of 5e we'll move to PF (Most likely once they finish mu current campaign). They're open to the idea of it, and we're still a ways off of actually making the switch, but I want to start think about how to make the switch as seamless as possible.

My biggest concern is that they'll get intimidated once I hand them PF character sheets and they see all skills, and stat boxes and such. I fully believe they'll be able to learn without much issue, since the core ideas are the same, just plug your numbers in and do the math. The math is just a bit more complex.

So the campaign I’m writing depends on an evil dragon in human form meddling in politics. This seems like rather standard stuff to me, but now I’m realizing that chromatic dragons don’t generally have the Change Shape ability- that seems mostly limited to metallics. I know I’m the DM and I could just handwave this away, but especially for something important like this, I’d prefer to keep everything plausible as per the rules. How would you turn a chaotic evil dragon into a human-shaped warlord king? A magic item in his hoard?

Today's spell is Cursed Earth!

What items or class features synergize well with this spell?

Have you ever used this spell? If so, how did it go?

Why is this spell good/bad?

What are some creative uses for this spell?

What's the cheesiest thing you can do with this spell?

If you were to modify this spell, how would you do it?

Does this spell seem like it was meant for PCs or NPCs?

Previous Spell Discussions

So I had another idea last night

Velidar the Crimson Mist Sahkil tormenter of hallucinations, illusions and nightmares

Velidar is the fear of what is all in your head or isn't truly there. The Crimson Mist embodies the horrible things the mind creates as a result of mental illness magic, sleep or mind altering substances. He is a master of mind altering substances and crafting dreams so realistic they are indistinguishable from reality. He enjoys driving someone mad by blurring the line between fantasy and reality so badly it's impossible to victim to know if they are still sleeping or are awake. Velidar has access to powerful psychic magic as well, allowing him to work more subtly than most. He's such a master of mind altering effects they can even effect things like the undead or constructs.

Velidar appears as a deep purple cat folk that's extremely tall and skinny,mind altering red mist emerging between his lips.

Essentially he's Sahkil Catnap. He's about the fear of things only you can see, the horrible ways drugs can mess with perception and the nightmares that are immensely horrible.

The Alchemist's Monstrous Graft Discovery states:
"Benefit(s): The alchemist can replace up to four of his own amputated limbs with those of a monstrous beast of the same size category. If the grafted limb is an arm, the alchemist gains either a climb speed of 15 feet or a claw or slam natural attack that deals 1d6 points of damage (1d4 for a Small alchemist).

If the grafted limb is a leg, the alchemist gains one of the following benefits: a +5 bonus to land speed, a swim speed of 15 feet, or a +5 bonus on Acrobatics checks when jumping. For each limb the alchemist replaces in this manner, he takes a –2 penalty to Wisdom as he loses his sense of self. Derros are immune to this penalty."

The parts that concern my question are these: "If the grafted limb is an arm, the alchemist gains... a claw or slam natural attack that deals 1d6 points of damage (1d4 for a Small alchemist). . . . For each limb the alchemist replaces in this manner, he takes a –2 penalty to Wisdom as he loses his sense of self."

So if he replaces both arms, at the cost of -4 to his Wisdom, does he get a two primary claw attacks? Does he get a primary and a secondary claw attack? Or does he just get one claw attack per round until he reaches 8th level, at which time he gets two attacks per round?

It seems like the first choice would be the only one that would make sense logically, as it's the one that justifies the cost of an additional permanent -2 to Wisdom. It also seems like the only reading that makes sense linguistically, as the wording used can be paraphrased as,, "Trade -2 to Wisdom for a claw attack. You can do this twice."

What do you all think?

Remember to tag which edition you're talking about with [1E] or [2E]!

Check out all the weekly threads!

Monday: Tell Us About Your Game

Friday: Quick Questions

Saturday: Request A Build

Sunday: Post Your Build

I've been fairly out of the pathfinder loop so I just wanted to check this but my table says that they got rid of the surprise round but a lot of games that I used to play we had a chance to sort of see what was going on and maybe get like one pre spell off but they are all saying this is surprise round.

I guess I'm just looking to see if this the right interpretation of the rules or just the way my dm plays. I'm fine with either answer because I know how to deal with both so that I can continue to have fun at the table.

Example for clarity:
Party explores temple.
We declare we proceed cautiously.
enter new room.
DM calls for initive (this is the part loses me because I'm used getting a chance to see what's in the room but the table is on the consensus that anything before the initive is what surprise round would be and I am not versed enough in the rules to counter that argument)

can i really apply Brilliant Energy to my longbow thru the arcane bond of my arcane duelist bard? if yes how much it costs? will i be able to change this ability? how

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons/magic-weapon-special-abilities/beaming/
if i have a +3 weapon and before using the beaming ability i use bloodthirst arcane bard ability to enchant my weapon of another +3 can i create 6 orbs? with arcane strike is the same?

I am building a flame oracle for a Hell’s Vengeance game. Would it be considered a little to min/max to take one level in sorcerer for bloodline (or cross blooded) to bump up fire damage? I would be joining a game in progress, and the group seems to be primarily melee oriented.

I'm looking to get the core rulebook to transition my players over to Pathfinder, but the hardcover core rulebook seems to be out of print. I found the pocket edition for a good price, so is it all the same just a smaller paperback?

The title says it all (in reference to the Pf1e Occultist class). I understand that you need at least 2 implements to pick up the Panoply Trappings of the Warrior.

But in pf1e that isn't enough to stop me!

I noticed that silksworn gets some extra implements at level 1... ah shit then it loses the ability to get Panoplys at all.

So does anyone know a nefarious way to make this work? For example via feats?

Heya all. I'm working on building a pair of characters for an upcoming Curse of the Crimson Throne Game. It's only 2 characters, and we have some house rules to consider. Regarding the AP, the character will have strong ties to the city and will be affiliated with the city watch in some way, to be worked out with the GM, instead of the campaign traits normally used for the AP.

Elephant in the room feat mods, gestalt classes, psionics and Path of War allowed, 20 ptb abilities, no monstrous races, 3 traits and a drawback, and 2 (mostly) free feats at level 1.

Character 1: Holy champion tank I'm thinking ordained champion warder with maybe cleric on the other side. Feats would probably focus on AoOs and radiant dawn maneuvers for healing and temp HP. Probably go shield and polearm using pikeman's training.

Current //very rough// sketch House rule bonus Feats: Shield Focus, pikeman's training

HD 1: Defensive Expertise HD 2: HD 3: Improved Shield Bash, Radiant Dawn Style (Warder bonus) HD 4: HD 5: Deft Maneuvers HD 6: HD 7: Radiant Sunlight HD 8: Greater Trip(Warder bonus) HD 9: Improved Unarmed Strike HD 10: HD 11: Vicious Stomp HD 12: HD 13: Radiant Daybreak(Warder bonus), High Noon HD 14: HD 15: HD 16: HD 17: Advanced Study:???

Even with EitR and the free bonus feats, the build just seems to be burning a lot on using a shield and polearm for reach and trips, but i think this should make for an effective lock down build that still hits hard enough not to be ignored. I'm thinking cleric for the other side for divine casting, but I'm pretty open here. I do know that at least 6 level casting of some sort should be on the non-warder side and cleric seams like the best fit.

Character 2: Gumshoe Detective Another character where I have a decent idea of what it should "look like" but not exactly sure how I should build it. I'm was thinking Investigator//Spellslinger Wizard 1+Eldritch Archer Magus X, or maybe Gun Chemist Alchemist// Vigilante Stalker, but other than "skilled detective with a gun and some magic", I'm super open to options.