Min/Max Boards

Hello fellow minmaxers!

I'm currently playing a kingmaker-like campaign run by a friend and I was desperately in need of an automated sheet because memorizing everything isn't so cool. So I found an user named "Grifta" had made a great one (find it here: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2swi6?-Automated-Kingdom-Management-Spreadsheet), but it still needed some more tweaking. So I did the changes I thought were necessary and I'm now sharing it with the internet so everyone can use. I used only stuff from the PF-SRD, so I think it should be 100% ok sharing.

It even has mass combat rules integrated into it (I'm pretty proud of it). So, sharing it to help other players.

Anyway, here it is: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PmcxGtvP-Ef4znjUY3Rt8jGkS4K5PTdi-eJSUvvI6T8/edit?usp=sharing

Anyone wants to discuss/criticize/praise it, be my guest.

P.S:Yeah, I suck at formatting my posts. Sorry for the eysore links hehe.

My android's dnd conpendium can't read the sqlite (or the zip) file either. Maybe it has something to do with the android version? The play store page says it was "now availble for android 2.2" and my version is 4.3.

I'll test it later, but maybe a combination of the sqlite database and an sqlite database reader can be an alternative for PCs.
(we shouldn't let a resource like this die)

Look at Pathfinder's Cavalier (it has shining armor, honor conduct codes, cool mount and no spells). It's cool, well rounded and it's an easy plug-and-play - for low to mid op games, Cavalier 20 with a few mounted charger feats and some dismounted combat feats can make for a good knight. If she really wants to be divine connected, she can either roleplay it or maybe dip on cleric or paladin just for fluff.

Alchemist is actually more for shits and giggles than hardcore minmaxing. I like having bombs and buffs. My build isn't so much focused on being "different things" everyday, but it manages to do it anyway - and a bit of tweaking here and there can make it more flexible for sure.

I'll post it, but it isn't 100% what you want - just a few good ideas here and there. Note that the "be something different everyday" concept can be well made by proper usage of skills and roleplay; what is hard is making your focuses (and ultimately, you character) actually matter mechanically.

Human Feat Rogue 4/Fumigant Alchemist 1/Chameleon 5/Master Thrower 5/Chameleon 5

1:Able Learner
Point Blank Shot
Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Xen'drik Boomerang)
2:Deadly Aim
3:Precise Shot
4:Boomerang Daze
5:Bonus – Weapon  Focus (Xen'drik Boomerang)
6:Boomerang Ricochet
7:Floating Feat
8:Bonus – Quick Draw
9:Two Weapon Fighting
12:Improved Two Weapon Fighting
13:Bonus – Snatch Arrows
15:Rapid Shot/Wild Cohort
Bonus – Improved Critical (Thrown Weapons)
18:Woodland Archer

I found my greatest trouble when building it having something useful to do in combat, since it's quite hard to minmax for 4 different things at once. So I chose to focus on using boomerangs; you can easily swap master thrower and the boomerang feats for whatever suits you, really.

Now, the thing is: having proficiency with all armors (from chameleon) and loads of skills (I have 18 INT and able learner), I can, for instance, dress up as a pally or a cleric and effectively pretend I'm one of them (my disguise check is +18 I think, with items). Or I can emulate Craven with my feat, turn on the stealth focus and pretend I'm actually a rogue (it's a low-op game). Or you can use the extra feat to emulate wild cohort and get an animal companion to have a decent wild focus. Or I can combo the alchemists mutagen + rage + fists of stone spell (as an alchemist extract) + get power attack from my extra feat and become a barbarian for a few minutes.

Besides my class features, I make extensive use of marbles (not only they allow me to sneak attack with ease, but might also stop charges, provoke AoOs and make battlefield control. And they don't use actions if you deploy them before the battle starts), poison (sleep-smoke is your ally, as are other poisons), traps and a custom bat-claw (to reposition myself) to be effective in combat.

Alchemist is cool because the mutagen allows me to have a stat bonus I can choose on the fly, and having a couple level 1 spells can actually help a lot any mundane character, if those are well chosen.

Now, my greatest advice to you would be: go and talk to your DM. Explain to him that the fact that your focuses other than divine and arcane are shit means you will almost be forced to use only the magical side of the Chameleon and therefore, using some fiat and making the other focuses more powerful would actually nerf you a bit, since they will never be as powerful as magic, but would become usable.

In my game, I've worked with my DM to have my Combat Focus give me a bonus fighter feat at levels 1th and 5th; my stealth bonus gives 1d6 sneak attack at each 2 levels; and the wild focus gave me Wild Cohort for its duration. Also, I've talked him into giving me an extra psionic or martial (ToB) focus at 5th level, tough I haven't decided which yet.

Hope some of this material is of use to you 

Quote from: ketaro on April 09, 2014, 07:37:57 PM

Fighting dirty?

Dirty Fighting! 

Yeah, I linked that in the original post... it's terrible.


Okay, so you generally want to Win whatever fight you're in, I remember a thread before that compared like Honour and Pragmatism and whatnot. Fighting to survival vs Fighting for sport.

So, general ideas.

Act First:

‘Hit the other fellow as quick as you can and as hard as you can, where it hurts him most, when he ain’t looking.’
—Field Marshal William Slim,

So whether it's ambushing, hiding or just straight out sucker punching, you want to act first.
Ways to act first:
Hide - Shadows or invisibility
Trickery - Illusions or disguises
Winning Initiative

Traps & Poison

They're not fair, but they're effective.
Weapon capsule retainer and triple weapon capsule retainer is a solid way to utilise poisons quickly and with minimal investment.
A wand of Create Trap is a solid method of making a trap in 6 seconds flat.
Otherwise carry tools of the trade, like Shovels, Fishing Line, Nets, Metal hinges/loops and Rope.

Ways to deny your opponents actions

An opponent who cannot act, cannot defend himself effectively.
Stunning, Dazing, Nauseating, Helpless, Cowering, Bestow curse


Ways to render your opponent flat footed

Blinded, Cannot see the attacker, Cowering, Surprise Round/Not acted yet, Climbing, Balancing, grappling, Stunned, Helpless, Feinting


A Scoundrel's backpack, items that render opponents less able to defend themselves

Marbles
Poisons

Potion Belt, Scrollcase, Handy Haversack - getting items as a move action or free action is important.

Macgyverisms:

Glass Bottle of Marbles and Oil: This is oil, marbles and "caltrops" in one. It's hard to balance on marbles, let alone oil slicked marbles. Caltrops lower the enemies speed in the future as long as their footwear doesn't render them immune. Once they're on the floor, set the oil on fire.

Feats
Ambush Feats

Skill tricks
Acrobatic Backstab
Conceal Spellcasting
Hidden Blade
Mosquito's Bite
Spot the Weak Point
Sudden Draw
Timely Misdirection


Stances
Assassin's Stance

Maneuvers
Drain Vitality



Could put something like this together for a handbook maybe.
Combat Pragmatism; (or how I learned to stop making boring attack actions & Love the Throat Punch)

Please do it! I'm currently playing a character who would love it.

Good places to look for material are the Complete Mcgyver, and there's also the Dirty Trick maneuver in Pathfinder (which can probably be inserted in D&D 3.5 with minimal DM complaint).

Suggestion that may or may not be useful:

Have you considered using a Shifter instead of a werebear human to pass on the "werebear" feel?

They are from the "Eberron Campaign Setting" book, a race of half-lycnathropes (sort of). You could make an excellent werebear by doing a barbarian/fist of the forest (from Complete Champion)/bear warrior (from complete warrior), if you want to.

That aside, you can choose all of your feats even by going straight werebear.

I once had the same problem and, after digging the internet for a good adaptation, I found a nearly perfect one for my needs:

http://www.pathfinderdb.com/character-options/classes/full-class-list/1414-warlock

It's way better than the original warlock (which was cool but bad), it follows the pathfinder spirit of "choose your class abilities" and it still looks like a warlock (unlike the "official" adaptation). The only downside is that it is homebrew, but I suppose almost all adaptations are.

Alternatively, you can take a look at the alchemist base class in PF. It has a different fluff, but mechanically it is really similar to the warlock, and it can be refluffed if need be.

So, one of my players just challenged the leader of his norse village to single combat and won, becoming Earl of said village. And he asked me if I could think of a way for him to develop the village, and thus increase in power.


And since I think this is extra cool, I'm willing to think on a system to represent that. We're playing a 3.P game, but it is more pathfinder than 3.5, with a bit of homebrew here and there (but nothing major). I'd like to know if you people have cool ideas for such representation or if you know other systems who have done similar things for me to inspire in them. Also, I'd like it to be as simple as possible, no need to represent an actual economy in all its details.

The context of such village is this: They are survivors of the fall of a major city who was destroyed by yet unknown forces far away who established themselves in the ruins of an old city (the game is a heavily inspired by the Fallout series) and worshiped a demon-pig who lived nearby mainly because he was badass (until the atheist player usurped the old ruler and stopped the pig worship). And they're norse-ish.

So I suppose a bit of scavenging will play a part, and so will the religious and state reform and political intrigue. (but the latter three are best made through roleplay only I suppose). You know, rebuilding society and such. If more info is needed, I can provide. Can you help?

I understand sorcerer is sort of something you are looking for, and if you are dead set on the sorcerer-with-psychosis thing, then please ignore my post.

But have you ever pondered over the possibility of a DEX-based Duskblade?

You take weapon finesse and find out some way not to use strength in melee damage, you can dump STR and stay all fight attacking and channeling spells with your sword/hammer/axe/oversized chicken leg.

It's a nice class, very well done and can fit a low or even medium OP party you can play without much complexity. Also, the first 10ish levels are quite good, so you won't need to prestige out of it. And the fluff of a kobold duskblade is cool. If you want some variation, you could also take 1 or 2 levels of spellthief and get the master spellthief feat to steal enemy spells and use them to recharge your own, tough I don't even think that is terribly necessary. (but it's still fun using their abilities against themselves). Also, master spellthief allows you to cast in armor to boot, but duskblade already does that.

If you are dead set on sorcerer, a build consisting of Sorcerer 2/Kobold Paragon 3/ Your favorite prestige class (look for the paragon classes in the SRD, adds 2/3 casting, some weapon and armor proficiencies, and +2 CHA, and has no pre-requisites other than being a kobold) will allow you to keep a good sorcerer casting, have proficiencies and generally build a sorcerer-based gish without having to use insane cheese like dragon psychosis.

Mysterious Stranger isn't that good an archetype. Sure, it's CHA to damage, but it's in place of the DEX to damage ability he had, and I believe DEX is a more useful ability. Also, pistolero is nice, but actually nicer if you are a single classed (or almost single classed) character, as it's bonuses are spaced out.

Grenadier archetype is almost a must - considering you get Precise Bombs for free with it.

Explosive Missile is actually a freaking awesome discovery, if you interpret it the way I do. Why? Because then you an fire bombs.

Think a bit. What is the second biggest problem of the gunslinger (after reloading time hehe)? Money. At 1 GP each bullet (or more, if you want a fancy bullet) you are shooting gold at your enemies (even tough that depends a lot on how much gold does your DM give you). Now BAM!, you have some free exploding bullets every day. Also, with the right discoveries, they can do stuff (and circuvent another of the gunslinger's weaknessess, which is, the fact that he is mundane). Like blinding or nauseating bombs.

I have a build I've been messing around, based on the concept of an gunslinger alchemist that rides a mammoth with a cannon on its back (but this is optional) for laughs, I'll post it for you to see, tough it uses some 3.5 material too.

I'm posting the complete build for sake of completion. If you don't like the mammoth with a cannon thing (tough I can't see what isn't cool about a mammoth with a cannon), simply remove the level of mammoth rider and take some other archetype instead of Wyrm Sniper. Also, there may be small mistakes on the build, as I have edited it a lot and so, there may be an illegal feat here or there that I haven't found yet.


Human Gunslinger 1/Alchemist 8/Mammoth Rider 1/Fighter 2/Gunslinger +7

Archetypes:Grenadier, Lore Warden Fighter and Wyrm Sniper Gunslinger

1-Point Blank Shot
(Human)- Precise Shot
(Gunslinger)- Gunsmith
(Gunslinger)- EWP Pistols
(Gunslinger)- EWP Cannon or whatever
3-Deadly Shot
5-Rapid Reload
7-Wild Cohort*
9-Extra Discovery
11-Extra Discovery
(Fighter)- Two Weapon Fighting
12- (Fighter)- Improved Two Weapon Fighting
(Fighter) Combat Expertise
13-Extra Discovery
14-(Gunslinger)- Siege Commander
15-Improved Two Weapon Fighting
17-Rapid Shot
18-(Gunslinger)-  Signature Deed (Dead shot)
19-Signature Deed (Munitions Master)

*If your DM doesn't like the idea of using Wild Cohort as an animal companion for pre-requisites, substitute for Skill Focus (Handle Animal) and 1 level of Beastmaster.

Don't forget to take Precise Bombs, Explosive Missile and Fast Bombs, no matter what.

The idea is that you either use Dead Shot + Bomb+ Deadly Shot (2 times deadly haha) on your cannon sometimes, and at others your attack a lot of times using your bombs + your pistols. You add both your INT and your DEX on your shots, so have them both really high. And you have a few extracts to have fun with.

EDIT: The Mechanist archetype is also cool, keep it in mind. It uses intelligence for grit, adds extra damage (remember ALL fixed extra damage is applied to your secondary bomb targets) and makes you a LOT better against casters.