Pathfinder

So realized it was a bad idea to take color spray when I start at level 8. Any ideas for replacements?

To replace color spray? Well, depends on what you have, I guess. Some of my favorites...

• Grease - It's rather utilitarian (door stuck? need a bonus to get out of a grapple?)
• Disguise Self - The Disguise skill is for rogues.
• Ray of Enfeeblement - Zap a fighter's strength below 13, and no Power Attack chain of feats for you!
• Expeditious Retreat - Never underestimate what you can do with an extra 30 feet of movement.

Hideous laughter, Grease (my favorite "Save or go screw yourself" spell), Magic Aura, or Magic Missile (as if you didn't already have it)

Go Grease! Not to mention there's a house ruling that, should you use the spells Black Tentacles and Grease in tandem, they must make a reflex, will, AND fort save or lose their dignity, gain a phobia of cephalopods, and have their movement speed cut in half because of limping.

edited 23rd May '14 8:58:32 AM by Poisonarrow

Oh, grease is just a general "highly recommend" first level spell by pretty much everyone I know. I didn't want to bother explaining the in-combat uses because they seem so patently obvious. What I like instead is to point out just how many non-combat applications it has. It might not be fun to need to use it to escape down a privy into a sewer system... but it works and keeps you alive, damn it.

Two things about grease. One, I once joked that they need to make an improved grease spell... which I dropped when I was challenged to find a way other than increasing the DC of the save (of which there are other ways) to improve the spell.

Two, I grew up hearing that you only really need two tools - duct tape to make it stop moving if it shouldn't be moving, and WD-40 to make it start moving if it should. Well, grease is your magical WD-40. Grab mending or make whole to cover the other side, and you're Magical MacGuyver.

Oh, also, should note that you can't swap hideous laughter for color spray on the spell list - hideous laughter is a 2nd level spell; color spray is a 1st.

I already have grease.

You may need to tell us some of the other spells you have already, then. It wouldn't terribly surprise me if you already picked several that I'd recommend.

For example, I'm inordinately fond of reduce person. I know most people think of using it against enemy fighters, but it's great to use on yourself. For example, in conjunction with grease - nobody would expect the human wizard to have darted down the two-foot wide hole. But a casting each of grease and reduce person, and you suddenly have a getaway that is unlikely to be pursued. There's also the fact that you also get a nice AC benefit if you're just using spells for offense anyhow (a small wizard using fireball does just as much damage as a gargantuan one) - it also can factor into skills to be more sneaky if you don't want to use invisibility or the like. I actually have it on-hand for my bomber alchemist - I'm harder to hit, connect more often, and my main offense does the same damage regardless of my size. Combined with rays for attacking touch AC, and even at low levels you're almost guaranteed a hit.

All that said, if you have it already, kind of silly to recommend it further.

What does reduce person due to a character that's already small?

RPG Crossing sheet. I'll list them if you guys can't see it.

edited 23rd May '14 12:48:08 PM by RhymeBeat

When you're already small-sized (like my bomber alchemist, who's a ratkin), your melee reach goes down to 0 (i.e. you can only melee attack someone in your square), and you otherwise get the same benefits/drawbacks that anyone else gets regarding the spell (temporary changes to strength and dexterity, AC and to hit bonuses, speed remains unchanged, other size-related modifiers as appropriate). One silly thing you can do actually, if you have ranks in Ride, is to get on Medium teammates and hang on while slinging spells. Just chill in their backpack; it's damn near impossible to target you.

It's not so good if you rely on weapons for combat (bows, arrows, slings, swords, etc.), which is why it's a debuff against martial classes. But when your damage dice are fixed anyhow, it becomes a fine buff.

OK as for my other L1 spells. Silent Image. Corrosive Touch (For acid arcana reason also I have a flying familiar so the fact that it's a touch attack matters less). Floating Disk. Magic Missle. Need to replace Color Spray for uselessness at higher levels, and redundancy with Glitterdust.

Since I'm assuming you're a sorcerer/wizard:

• Feather Fall is a good one.
• Marid's Mastery is a good conditional buff/debuff. If you're out of water, you can use a touch attack to give a -4 to all attack and damage rolls by the target. If you're in water, it switches to a +1
• Peacebond is pretty baller in an ambush situation. Lock someone's weapon into their sheathe/a place on their body and the object gets to make a will save (which it'll most likely fail), then the person has to make a strength check as a standard action to remove it at your spell's DC.

If you're willing to go 3rd party...

• ANIMATE TATTOO. At least, until you get a chance to switch it out again. It gives you an attack that always attacks at your BAB plus your int/cha modifier that doesn't need your hands.
• Pseudopod: Ten foot reaching tentacle that uses your caster level as its BAB and lets you deliver touch attacks with it? Sign me up.
• Energy weapon: extra 1d6 damage of any energy type added to a weapon.

Sorceror.

Nice to see this thread moving at a steady pace.
My kobold is actually a good guy. He's preoccupied with notions like acting noble and earning respect. Its why he has the dragon-kin◊-like eidolon. He sees that as something to aspire to be. Something, well, noble.

I know I'm sacrificing some battle capability. That's unfortunate. Its a cost I currently consider worth paying.

My summoner synthesist has dissociative personality disorder, and thinks that his eidolon is an angel sent from heaven to guide him...

His eidolon is pretty... Good... I guess would be the word. But s/he's also very creepily inhuman, what with the four arms with hands wreathed in fire, two sets of wings that stretch from his/er back, constantly-glowing golden mark of the cross on its forehead, spouting latin pseudo-religious phrases, and wielding a flaming sword.

What's your eidolon's mark? Keep in mind, it's got to be visible and obvious.

edited 23rd May '14 4:26:05 PM by Poisonarrow

Metatron's Cube. It seems fitting.

Heh. I thought up another mythic villain for my campaign: a human bard. Just a human bard. Granted, he will be 20th level and mythic tier 10, but hes still just a bard. Mostly focused on fighting around his minions.

I have gestating in my mind an entire campaign revolving around a trio of bards as the main villains. Initially spawned as the idea of making such a class the Big Bad.

I have to recommend against peacebond. For one, the strength check to draw the weapon is easily handled for most classes where you'd use it against them (DPS rogues are generally the only case where they can't). Two, most characters I've seen have backup weapons. Even at first level. Sure, you might have disabled their strongest weapon, but they generally have a good backup option even at first level, which they can draw without a problem. I find that its effectiveness is low unless you use it on really stupid opposition. And if the GM sees you regularly using peacebond, they're going to smarten up very quickly.

Really, reduce person and grease are the two I'd recommend, Rhyme Beat. The former gives you a bonus to your touch attacks, an effective +2 bonus to your AC (one from the size change, one from the +2 to dexterity), and gives you goofy ways to have fun with the Ride skill (heck, depending on your familiar, you might be able to ride that). The latter, well, we've gone over that.

@740 I've considered making evil bards based off of so many real world musicians, it's ridiculous. "Oh no, we have to fight the mythic elven Wayne Newton!" An actual band of evil bards with absurd abuse of Leadership would be even worse - they could take turns using Inspire courage on their followers while the others keep using Deadly Performance on the ringleaders of their opponents.

The decision turned out to be even easier. My DM makes enlarge/reduce person the same spell, with the caster picking which one to use at a given moment.

I need help with many things with my character sheet.

I need to know the mechanic for rolling up skills.

You don't roll up skill points.

Your INT decides how many skill points you have.

And then your class gives you a bonus in certain skills.

Thats... an awfully utilitarian explanation. Your class gives you your skill ranks per level, your intelligence modifier gives you extra ranks per level, and your class gives you your class skills.

No, I meant how do I determine what my starting skill would be?

That depends on your GM and what system they want to use. basic roll, 4d6 drop the lowest, point buy.

The most standard is 4d6 drop the lowest x 6 Roll 4d6, removing the lowest die from the roll. Do that six times, then assign the stats as you want. But some Gm's use other systems.

For mine, that, but yet the player reroll till they had a somewhat decent set of numbers, including at least one 18.

I wasn't considering the combat applications of my bard villains, actually. Rather, what would an individual with amazing diplomacy and bluff do? My thoughts included the bards having peaceful nations go to war with each other to slow down the party, and be able to get help from extraplanar creatures from multiple alignments.

The final battle would be to stop the Bards from singing the song that ends the world. The PCs do this with a counter-performance. I cannot stop considering either Through The Fire And Flames or Jumpin' Jack Flash.

I already did that. I meant how do I get the starting stats for stuff like Knowledge(Arcana) and Knowledge(Dungeoneering).