Min/Max Boards

If you are the main tank, and you aren't doing some weird mega dodge bonus build, I'm gonna assume most of your AC comes from your armor and incorporeal undead go straight through that.

Haha! Yeaaaa my guy was actually supposed to be more of a comic relief character with our inquisitor being the tank, but he decided he doesn't like melee and is building pure range now. So I kind of got thrown into the tank role. Basically the idea behind my guy is this:

Poot the Wizard(Barbarian)
He's a half-orc barbarian who's clan was caught in the middle of a mage war. Almost getting wiped out, they managed to escape and rebuild. But, instead of hating magic, they saw the true power of it! They decided to become wizards themselves. Only problem, they're pretty stupid. So while they THINK they're practicing magic, they're really not. So now he thinks he's a wizard on a quest to find powerful magic. His main magic attacks so far are Magic Missile: He throws a javelin yelling magic missile. Fireball: He lights a flask of oil on fire and throws it yelling fireball. Currently he's using a heavy mace as his wand and beats people with it. And every once in a while he can use elemental rage to light them on fire! If one of his magic spells miss he automatically goes into rage for at least one round.

So because of this he has high Dex from all his throwing, decent Con and decent Str. Currently we're level 5 and I have 18 Dex, 17 Str, and 15 Con. (7 Int Haha!) I'm pumping Str up every ability increase now to boost my damage. Plus with our campaign, we just released an unknown and powerful evil that's causing the undead problems, but in doing so we just gained 1 tier of Mythic.

I'm looking for a longsword right now cause of the undead resistance to blunt weapons, but with my str, power attack feat, mythic power attack feat and using two hands for attacking, I'm doing 1d8 + 13 damage a hit without rage and have an AC of 23. I've been able to one shot most zombies so far, so I think I'm doing alright on damage for now. Could be better if i hadn't made my guy as a joke. Haha! Once I get Mythic Titans Rage, vital strike, and mythic vital strike I'll be doing crazy damage with lots of attack of opportunities and still decent AC.

And yea I'm still working on what equipment would help me the most. So far I have an ioun stone dusty rose, my mithral breastplate armor, a cloak of resistance +3, and a ring of protection +2.

What I was thinking about going for eventually is:
Head: Jingasa of the fortunate soldier
Neck: amulet of natural armor +X
Shoulders: cape of free will +X
Waist: belt of strength +X
Wrist: vambraces of defense
Boots: boots of speed
Hands: gloves of storing (for instant magic missiles!!! XD)

So yea, I think I've got pretty good AC for level 5 and decent resistances. A lot of the items are just a little boost to AC, Str, or just for flair. So instead I figured why not spend a little extra to make me immune to drain effects? Thought that might be a bit more useful. Sucks I can't throw it on boots or gloves, but I guess armor wouldn't be a horrible choice. Although, doing ghost touch sounds like a really good idea too. I'll have to think about it some more. Thanks for all the great ideas!!

Hey everyone,

I could definitely use some help with crafting items and how much it costs to enchant items in pathfinder. Our party basically just accidentally started an undead apocalypse in our campaign and we are about as unprepared as it comes. Having no cleric or paladin is really kicking our butts. My character is pretty much the main tank right now as a barbarian, so that kind of sucks.

So, being the main tank, I’m trying to come up with ways to buff my defenses against undead. I have Mithral Breastplate right now that I’m using and figure it’s good enough to keep for a while, but I’d like to enhance/enchant it with something that would help me fight the undead. To me it seems like the scariest part of fighting undead creatures is their ability to energy/level drain while fighting. So, I was trying to come up with a price of adding either Deathless to the armor or going all out and enchanting it with a continuous Death Ward ability to ignore all energy drains. I’m just not sure what I’m doing with pricing though. I've never crafted items before.

In order to enchant armor you have to have at least a +1 enhancement bonus on the item first right? So for either enchantment, I’d have to at least make it a +1 piece of armor, adding +1,000 gold to the cost automatically. Then, if I wanted to add Deathless to it, it says it’s a +1 Bonus to price, would that just be an additional +1,000 gold? So to make my armor a +1 Deathless Mithral Breastplate, it would cost 2,000 and about 2 days to make? Does that sound right? I guess that’s not bad.

Now, while Deathless would be nice for the 25% chance to ignore energy drain effects, I would definitely rather have full immunity with the Death Ward enchantment. I’m just not sure how much that would cost. Of course, I’m guessing it’d be quiiite a bit of gold, but it’d be nice to have something to shoot for. So going by the equation for crafting magical items, this was kind of my line of thought:

I’d still need to make it a +1, so I’d add an extra 1,000 gold to it.

Base price = Spell level  x  caster level  x  2,000gp (because I want it to be continuous) and then multiply all that by 2 because Death Ward is a 1 minute/level spell.

Spell level is 4, which would mean it’s at least 4 x 2,000 x 2. I’m just not sure what they mean by caster level. Is that just lowest level the caster would need to be in order to cast that spell? So to cast a level 4 spell it would probably be a caster level of 7? Does that sound right? Any way I could lower that level?

So to make my armor a +1 Death Ward Mithral Breastplate it would cost me: (4 x 7 x 2,000)x2 + 1,000 = 113,000gp? And take 113 days to create? Ouch…the price isn't that bad, but that's a loooong time to wait for it. Oh well, I guess I could always just look for something like the Scarab of Protection. Haha! Any other ideas of equipment I could use against the undead? Thanks for the help! It's also the apocalypse right now, so who knows if I could even find someone that'd be able to craft the armor in the first place! Haha!

Hello everybody! Sorry in advanced for the crazy long post! >.<

So, my buddy’s back in town and we’ve decided to strike up another adventure in pathfinder! The only problem is it’s been over 2 years since I’ve played last and I could really use some help building my next character. The last couple times I’ve played I’ve just gone with a straight up Wizard (Conj) build and straight Ranger archer/dual wielding build. They were pretty fun, but got kind of boring pretty quick since we don’t level up very fast. We usually only get to around level 10ish and my wizard only made it to around level 8 or 9. I was pretty much useless for the first 90% of our adventure! Haha!

This time I wanted to try something unusual/weird/different. I looked around different forums for a while and found a couple builds I thought would be fun to try, but could use some help optimizing them. One was actually a *4e* build that I don’t think can translate into pathfinder:

It’s this guy’s Blind Assassin build:
http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/2428626

It utilizes the gnome’s ability to stay hidden when he misses his attack. Combine that with the ability to add shrouds that deal damage upon a miss and you get what seems like a lot of fun! Only problem is I can’t find anything in pathfinder that could equate to a build like that.


So, instead I figured I’d go with another idea for an interesting build. It’d be more along the fun RP side instead of crazy damage dealer, healer, or crowd controller, but I’m up for it! I’ll just jump in and explain the idea and would greatly appreciate some critiques and helpful advice to make him better or possibly just more fun in general.

I’d like to try to play a barbarian that is so stupid he thinks he’s actually a wizard! Haha! XD Possibly come up with some back story where when he was a child, his nomadic barbarian tribe got caught inbetween some elven wizard war and was almost completely wiped out. The few families that were able to survive, instead of seeking revenge, saw the incredible power of the wizards and wanted to emulate them! The only problem is, being barbarians, they had neither the intellect nor the control to be able to wield magic. They definitely thought they did though! During the war the elders had seen wizards “throwing aarows of pure power, balls of fire, and bolts of lightning from their fingertips!” They had found piles of wizard spell books and scrolls around the battlegrounds that they were able to have partially explained to them. They took all this information and started raising/training their own wizards. My character is one of the first children to be raised as their first barbarian wizard!

My idea is basically to create a full-fledged barbarian (no actual levels in wizard), but play him so stupid that he thinks he’s a wizard performing powerful magic to defeat his foes!

BARBARIAN WIZARD
I figure he’d be Chaotic Good and worship the deity Azuth or maybe Mystra.
With a 20 point buy-in, I figured I didn’t want him incredibly weak in AC so that he’d die really easily, so I’d want to focus on constitution and dexterity and do something like:

Stats:                                             Or maybe something like:
Con: 16                                          Con: 14
Dex: 16                                          Dex: 16
Str:  12                                           Str:  14
Cha: 12                                          Cha: 12
Wis: 10                                           Wis: 12
Int:   7                                            Int:   7


He’s going to be a Half-Orc, so I could put the extra 2 points into either Dex or Con. I was going off the idea that growing up he wouldn’t actually be practicing magic, but instead their tribe would focus on throwing their “spells,” hence the high Dexterity. Being Half-Orc would give him high Constitution and partially high Strength. I kind of liked the first stat spread keeping with the stupid theme and having a low 10 Wisdom instead of 12 and of course Int being as low as it can go. Cha is just whatever’s left.

I’m still not sure exactly what I want to do with the extra 2 points though. Plus, being that we usually only make it to around level 10ish, I’ll have another 2 more ability points to put somewhere else. So what’s more important? Should I bump Dexterity up to 18 for the AC boost, then bump it to 20 through my levels? Or would I get more out of the HP boost from bumping my Con up to 18 and then 20 through my levels? I guess I do get another big boost of HP with my barbarian Rage ability, so maybe I don’t need to worry so much about HP? Grab the extra AC while I can? Another thing I was thinking about is possibly getting the Intimidating Prowess feat so I can add my Strength modifier to my intimidation checks, so the second stat build might be better for that, having Str at 14 instead of 12.

So, with those stats, I’d try to make him think he was a wizard as best I could. Here’s my idea on how I’d build him weapons, armor, and magic-wise:

Weapon:
- His main weapon is a Club that he thinks is a magic wand. Either that or possibly go with a quarter staff that he thinks is a magic wand? What do you think would be better combat-wise? I was also trying to come up with some good curses that some of his items might have to make him think they had magical properties. Like maybe having the Club cursed with Backbiter, so whenever he rolls a 1 it curves around and hits him in the face. Magic is so unpredictable!!! 

Armor:
- I’d probably have him wearing some kind of stupid cloth robe or just to get a little AC maybe throw him in Leather armor or maybe later upgrade to a chain shirt or something.

Magic::
- Magic missle: His strongest of spells! He carries around a handful of Javelins that he throws at people and yells “MAGIC MISSLE” at them.
- Mage armor: Maybe get the rage power Increased Damage Reduction because obviously his Mage Armor is always on, making him stronger!
- Fireball: He would carry a couple liters of oil and a bunch of flasks with him. He’d ignite the flasks of oil and throw it at enemies yelling “FIREBALL!” If he ran out of flasks of oil, he’d grab some of his “spell books” he carries, light them on fire and throw those at enemies instead.
- Lightning Bolt/Acid Splash: Possibly go for the Elemental Rage power and have him beat people over the head with his lighting bolt magic wand club!
- Fear/Scare: Intimidating Glare
- Resist Energy: Possibly get Energy Resistance rage power
- Identify: Clearly he’s such a powerful wizard he could easily identify anything magical! The whole game just mistakenly identify things all the time and try to use them wrong.
- Fog Cloud/ Stinking Cloud: ??? Not sure. Anyone think of something?
Then, maybe the only way to get him to Rage in battle is have people make fun of his magic, or have his magic be so useless he gets pissed!?
Any more ideas would be great! Definitely emphasis on the goofy/fun side instead of the practical side on this one!


So, to hopefully make my guy not suck completely, at level 10 I’d get about 5 feats and 5 rage powers. My ideas for those would be:

Feats:
  - I’d definitely need 1.Throw Anything
  - I might want the Orc feat 2.Ironhide for a small AC boost
  - Possibly 3.Toughness for more of a boost to health?
  - If I went with a quarterstaff instead of a club, I’d probably want 4.Two Weapon Fighting and possibly even 5.Two Weapon Defense
  - I’d like to get the 6.Intimidating Prowess to at least be a little useful in battle?
  - Maybe 7.Catch off Guard? Think I’d need that if I grabbed Throw Anything?
  - Finally I was thinking if I went with a club I could use the extra feat slots and get a couple extra rage powers!

Rage Powers:
  - 1.Intimidating Glare for my Fear/Scare spell
  - Maybe 2.Guarded Stance? For survivability?
  - Possibly 3.Renewed Vigor at level 4 for a healing buff? Me so good me even know healing spells!!!
  - 4.Lesser Elemental Rage so I can get ER
  - 5.Elemental Rage for some extra “spells” and bonus combat damage
  - 6.Increased damage reduction at level 8 because my mage armor is getting stronger with me!
  - Then maybe if I take extra rage powers go with 7.Energy resistance and 8.Greater energy resistance?

Can you think of any other feats or rage powers that could work as possible “spells?” Any crazy ideas would be greatly welcome! I’d love to make the build as uncommon and funny as possible! Any fun curses that aren’t character breaking that my idiot could have on him? A talisman he could’ve inherited that sucks? I thought of possibly the Gauntlets of Fumbling or Ring of Clumsiness, but I figured that those would hurt my already terrible combat skills too much. Haha!

Anyways, sorry for the incredibly long post! Hopefully it at least entertained you! If you have any ideas to make the build a little better or at least more entertaining I’d love to hear them! Thanks for your time!

Out of pure curiousity what is the party make up of your group ?

It's actually a pretty great party so far! Haha. We've got a human paladin tank that we're slowly trying to get turned into a blackguard! But he's sure feisty!! We'll get him soon though!! Haha!

Then we've got a tiefling cleric, which we weren't supposed to have tieflings, but shes new and really wanted to be one. So we all agreed it was ok. Shes mostly our healer of course.

We have a human ranger that's following Treantmonk's Ranger Guide. So right now at level 4 he's a powerhouse! Haha! I'm hoping he scales off here soon cause he's making the rest of us look bad! >.<

Then we have a half elf sorcerer. She's also pretty new and loves games like dragonage. So she's trying to create the "Super strong melee fighter, that can cast powerful spells, while shooting at them with a bow" character. Haha! Hasn't quite figured out there are usually different roles for that, but she's learning. It's fun.

And then there's me, the Elven Wizard. I'm trying to do a balance of damage and crowd control to help out the newer players. I'm liking it a lot so far. Though I'm definitely looking forward to when I start getting my powerful spells and summons!! Haha!

Deflection bonus works against everything, but unlike, say, shield bonus, it is effective against touch attacks. Also, it remains in place even if you are flat-footed. One of the best bonus types for AC.

Oh wow sweet!! Thanks so much for the information! You're awesome!   Now I can't wait to get back to plotting world domination!!! MUAHAHAHAH!

Toughness was a rather subpar choice for a Wizard and Conjuration spells tend to lack saving throws, so Spell focus (Conjuration) is not that hot either. Improved initiative is an excellent choice for any Wizard.

You mentioned that only the PHB is available to you. This begs the question, how do you plan on handling gear? Magic items, for example, are located in the DMG rather than PHB.

As for metamagic, Quicken spell is something you ought to look at later on. It is not a pressing issue at that level, but consider it as your level 12 feat. Also, if you are allowed magic items, getting a Rod of Extend is a good investment. The cheapest one can double the duration of any spell up to level 3 (three times a day only) for the cheap price of 3000 gp.

You are off to a good start there, battlefield control is the way to go as a Conjurer. One thing baffles me though, where is Glitterdust? That is a spell you should not neglect. Color spray is a fantastic choice, good to see you have it. Personally I tend to keep at least one Detect magic available as well, but your mileage may vary...

Thanks for the reply!! Yea I always hate taking Toughness! But it just seems to help so much at those lower levels!   And I was thinking about taking the Imp Initiative here at level 5. I figured since I didn't really have many CC spells at those low levels, a bit of life would be more helpful than going first. Now that I've got a few CC spells, it's definitely very helpful going first!

Also, the Spell Focus (Conjuration) was pretty much only so that I could get the Augment Summon feat later. I figured I was going to have to take that Spell Focus at some point and just picked it at level 3 because I was rushed and needed to pick something. Haha. Metamagics still kind of confuse me though. They all look like really powerful feats, but having to increase the spells level slots has always turned me off. I did like the Enlarge, Extend, and Quicken feats though! I was looking at those for later. But what would be some good spells for quicken? A quick Web in case we get surprised? But that'd be a level 6 slot! Quick Color Spray seems like it'd be nice, but at a level 5 slot? I'll keep looking into it though. I like the idea of getting a Metamagic Rod though! I'll look into getting one!

And yea, I definitely have Glitterdust in my spell book, I just didn't memorize it for today! Haha! I've already used it, and it worked perfectly , but the next couple game days we'll be spending in the middle of this crowded city trying to get a revolt going. So, I figured I didn't really NEED it right now. I could probably get rid of Mirror Image for it instead. And both our Cleric and Sorcerer had Detect Magic and use it all the time, which is kind of another reason I didn't mind getting rid of Divination. So if I find myself alone again I'm kind of SOL, but that's alright.

As for magic items, I haven't looked too hard yet at all the items. I was pretty much just going off of the list Treantmonk had on his God Wizard Guide. Here's most of the items I'm currently looking at getting:

First I was going to try to get a Ring of Sustenance so I can prepare spells easier and don't need to rest so much. Then I was going to try to get the Headband of Vast Int, so I could jump to 22 Int as soon as I could. Next would be something like the Belt of Incredible Dexterity, just for the extra AC, Initiative, etc.

After those, it was kind of just, whatever kinds of Resistance items I could get and AC increasing items. Like: Cloak of Resistance, Amulet of Natural Armor, Ring of Protection, Maybe a Handy Haversack and Efficient Quiver. And then to finish it off I was probably gonna look at getting some Scrolls (Although, don't I have to use Read Magic in order to use them?), some Rods and Wands, and then maybe a few Pearls of Power. Just in case I need to get that one spell back when needed! haha. And just to double check, those Pearls of Power are just a one time use item right? Kind of like just having a "scroll of any spell you've memorized?"

But yea, most of the items I wanted were all in the Core Rulebook. He did say that if we wanted to though, we could look at the Magic Items list in the DMG and he might let us get some things from there. Are there any awesome items you were thinking about in the DMG that I could look into? I still don't really have any ideas for boots, gloves, or even weapons for that matter. haha!

Haha! thanks! 

Hello Everyone!! Been a lurker for a little while now and decided to finally join the forum! Here are some details about me in case you were curious:

My name is Dave and I'm from Duluth, Minnesota, United States of America.

Oh gosh, I don't even know where to begin with my favorite games. You can probably tell a lot about someone just by the games they play. Haha. Here's a short random list, in no particular order:
Final Fantasy 7, entire Suikoden series, Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, Chrono Cross and Trigger, Wild Arms, entire Fable series, most Star Wars RPGs (Kotor 1&2, Jedi Knight games, Swtor), Pretty much every Pokemon game ever created haha, Xenogears, Baldur's Gate 1&2, Starcraft 1&2, Might and Magic Series, Star Ocean games, Fallout 3, I could go on and on and yet still sooooo many I haven't played but really want to.

Some other stuff I like doing besides gaming would be mostly just hanging out with friends, watching movies. I love pretty much all kinds of music. I like to go Geocaching from time to time. Then a bunch of other random stuff here and there too.

I'm always up for new friends so send me a friend request on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/davidnil?ref=tn_tnmn

If you can, put something like "MinMax boards" in the message.

That pretty much about sums me up. If you have any questions just shoot me a message.