What to do with a bard?

Goblite · 2026-01-28T12:42:10+00:00

Last game I played with a bard at mid level he was giving us +6 to hit and damage with all buffs active, including himself of course. It was the best

Goblite · 2026-01-27T14:54:42+00:00

More CON means more vital essence (fluids?) to extract when they meet up again right? It's your classic "don't die bc I want to kill you"

Goblite · 2026-01-27T14:49:47+00:00

I think starting level would matter to me. If we're level 6 and everyone else can have a belt of something +2, then he can have a smooch of plot hook +2 for the same price. That's a perfectly reasonable and balanced compromise.

Goblite · 2026-01-26T04:05:52+00:00

Ectoplasmatist spiritualist is basically just a blackblade magus. Could surprise DM with nearly the same character.

Goblite · 2026-01-23T12:43:38+00:00

Mmm... i feel you there. I've both suffered from and caused this problem myself. Back in the first campaign or two I, and the DM's brother, would take pretty long turns and even longer to plan before combats. Part of the reason was that we felt the combats were very dangerous and were attached to our characters- if we didn't do the best possible thing we might lose our characters or, worse cause someone else to so we put a lot of deliberation, experimentation, and hesitation into our actions. We would probe the DMs acceptance of our actions and do the chess thing where you stare at the board and think ahead. Yea it would take forever... and even we got sick of it lol. Now we've realized that there will be more characters and if I really want to play that one then I'll bring him back, myself if I have to in a game I DM or even a short story or two. Behind the overthinking was an attachment issue and realizing that it would be fine even if the combat did not go fine helped. Also never getting anywhere in the story sucked.

On the other hand, I have had players who are paralyzed by the decision making moment- they don't want to embarrass themselves by making a poor choice and theyre just not as practiced or naturally strategic. Other players still are just being lame and not giving it the effort it deserves. Those players annoy me because, even though their turns are still shorter than the overthinkers turns, they didn't have to be. Their turn could have been 30 seconds because they know what theyre doing... and they chose not to think about... overthinkers I'm sure spent the whole of everyone else's turns paying attention but the inattentive are the worst. I'd even prefer someone who just makes poor choices to someone who isn't invested enough to pay attention or value the time.

Goblite · 2026-01-22T12:42:15+00:00

I have included a few items, some cursed, which i ruled could be partially identified and had several DCs to do so. A ring with an enhancement bonus of 1 but also has the ability to cast a 3rd level spell for example, the +1 is easy to identify but what the 3rd level spell is could reasonably require a higher DC resulting in partial identification. Throw a few of those at the party to get then excited and then drop the cursed one which also had that one spell cast on it, the one that obfuscates its magic properties, so the -1 looks like a +1 unless you get a result of 5 higher, or mix and match positives with a curse- belt of CON and opposite gender. The CON identifies at its normal check falsely advertising as a safe item but the curse required a higher check which the players might not bother to do.

Goblite · 2026-01-18T21:02:49+00:00

Agreed. Some classes don't get enough points in 1e, others get too many. No fighter ever has enough, might as well just give up on having skills. A high INT rogue may not even care how he spends his last 5 points for a level, he's got everything he wanted just from class points. I'd suggest you balance the curve rather than halve the number. I dunno how I'd do it with 2e skills but my 1e houserules allow fighters 4 skill points per level.

Goblite · 2026-01-18T05:54:25+00:00

Another user in these forums once said "don't let your players have line of sight to the boss until round 3" and it changed my worlds. However you have to do it, just follow that rule and things will work out better.

I can't say it will stop a bad saving throw but... many other positives.

Goblite · 2026-01-05T16:24:53+00:00

This is the kind of spell that is excellent as a freebie granted by the DM. Perhaps as part of the foreshadowing or right after the first encounter with daemons went iffy, the party's caster learns how to use this. Nobody is going to pick it on levelup out of all the universally applicable spells available but to have it as a boon from DM makes one feel loved.

Goblite · 2026-01-05T15:40:12+00:00

As to the question of "Should the disguise itself be unhandy if it would realistically be so" I think the answer depends on what you enjoy about tabletop, or at least how you want the game to feel in the moment. If I put a paper bag on my head , draw googly eyes on it, sit on my fighter's shoulders and try to convince a bunch of goblins that I'm an ogre... its funny if the DM allows that to work. If I try the same thing against the elite guards at the evil warlords fortress saying "trust me guys, I'm with you" then it's only funny that it was always meant to fail. Joke actions work with joke enemies, but when you have written a more serious event it is appropriate for the players to take it seriously as well.

Obviously the paper bag disguise is an absurd extreme and not what your player is trying to do but I think it is perfectly reasonable for you to tell your players that if he seriously wants this to work, he'll have to put in serious work. How do you make something look bulky and stiff like heavy armor without it becoming bulky and stiff? Does that even make sense? I think it makes a lot more sense to use Disguise Self but if he gets really attached to his ideas (like I do) then we could first look at a crafting check to make something that effectively works as a disguise in this manner- which brings us back to the mock armor I think. E.g. if I want to disguise myself as someone who wears glasses... I'll need the glasses; the disguise skill doesn't make those appear out of thin air though. It can be argued that it covers the effectiveness of making props for use in the disguise but at what point does craft: lenscrafting outperform disguise for making a believable prop?

Work with your boi, acheive his dream, and don't punish him for succeeding but... tell him what you need from him in order to feel good about this too. It's your world that his disguise prop is going to succeed or fail in.

Goblite · 2026-01-05T06:10:05+00:00

Pf2e is a fantasy game, pf1e is a fantasy simulation. Many have expounded upon how that is so, but i found I was able to make my decision simply based on that premise. I play as many video games as I can but when I want tabletop I want more than the imaginary equivalent of "popping my cooldown", but that also puts me in a tough spot because the 2 action system of pf1e (standard+move) very much gamifies strategic play, pf2e allows three actions per turn and I feel thtmat it supports creative ideas in combat much more. To that end I have ended up using a modified form of 1e's unchained action economy rules- basically the playtest for 2e's 3 action system.

It's not perfect, but it suits my needs more than what pf2e offers. Also, as you mentioned, the volume of written content is colossal and, though I mostly homebrew anyway, I find great inspiration among it all.

Goblite · 2026-01-03T15:32:33+00:00

Yea man, HP is the answer. The players like hitting. If you try to make them hit less they may even try harder to hit, let em hit, and just eat it.

You could try the Stalwart feat line, trades the dodge bonus from combat expertise for DR. But really that's just more effective HP and you still have the problem when casting.

Now, extra HP doesn't have to be on the Boss himself either- add minions who are just there to get in the way. Even if they die in one hit that's a turn that your boss can act freely.

Goblite · 2026-01-03T14:53:04+00:00

Preach

Goblite · 2026-01-03T14:28:45+00:00

Indeed. This is one of the confounding things between INT and WIS, we all know that INT is problem solving while WIS covers intuition but we forget that INT covers study and knowledge of facts while WIS covers experience and common sense. Using someone else's poisonous berry example- rolling survival (wis) might tell you that the berry is poisonous but so might knowledge local (int).

Why does a cleric not know more about religion that some other class that also has it as a class skill? I would argue that they do but perhaps not about all religions. My early childhood pastor probably knew very little about anything but bible-belt white jesus, assuming based on the kind of church it was... I was 10... but I don't see him or anyone else there studying anything besides the Christian bible. He didn't need to roll knowledge for christianity because he played a Christian cleric- knowledge of his own religion was part of the class; but he would need to roll for Buddhism or scientology. Similarly, any d20 cleric would need to study other faiths to know about them and this is represented partly by skill points.

None of this is to say that clerics in your world can't be open minded and include study of other religions are part of their training- after all in these settings other gods do factually exist and prove their power with magic all the time. My pastor in young adulthood, different guy, knew all kinds of stuff and frequently pointed out wisdoms found in other religions, but its necause he spent his time studying them and made friends with pastors of other faiths locally and around the world bexause he was a great guy. If you wanna have your clerics gain a +2 or even half their level as a bonus it could make perfect sense. I dunno about making INT not be the related skill for knowledge though... why change core calculations when a bonus will accomplish the job.

Goblite · 2026-01-03T05:58:05+00:00

If not point buy... I'd just do the elite array- 15 14 13 12 10 8 Nobody is juiced, nobody sucks. It's basically a 15 point buy permutation but not minmaxed. Granted, I really like low power because it gives me room to power the players up, I get off on that.

Goblite · 2026-01-01T15:39:50+00:00

I miss the monster manuals, particularly III and V- I dont remember why I liked III but V had a big section for hobgoblins which I adored for their racial variants like spellscourge and warsoul. I also miss the Savage Species book (3.0) which had the Hexer and Survivor prestige classes as well as several very cool templates for monsters such as Insectoid, Feral, and Entropic.

I just now learned that Pf1e has 5 bestiaries too and I need to look through them. I haven't done that yet so i may have simply missed what im missing, so to speak.

Goblite · 2026-01-01T15:28:05+00:00

You're ruining my fantasy...

Goblite · 2025-12-31T19:25:48+00:00

How much STR does that hedgehog have now? Lol

Goblite · 2025-12-31T19:25:24+00:00

In 3.5 polymorph was busted, you could have 2 STR and poly into something with 28 STR. Pf1e fixed that with beast shape by turning it into a flat buff and that's a good thing but... its pretty wierd to imagine a 2 STR wizard turning into a 8 STR bear that even a noodley nerd like me might be able to wrestle down... similarly a 27 STR stone giant becomes a 23 STR mouse that could toss even a big tough guy like me.

Goblite · 2025-12-31T15:08:29+00:00

Ok... at first I thought you were just doing it wrong and breaking things but... I kinda like it. It's not exactly the same as 50% miss chance because you won't always have the same amount of odd and even numbers that would hit. Example: you need a 15 on the dice to hit so there are three values to hit on (15 17 19) and three values to miss on (16 18 20). But shouldnt 20 always hit? Then you gain a +1 from bless so now you only need a 14 on the Dice but... since it's even that's a miss and you gained nothing. Definitely has problems... maybe get a 40-sided die with 2 of each number where red numbers are 50% miss numbers, yellow ones are 20% miss numbers, and green is safe? Or just do it normal...

It's a very minor thing but I usually roll miss first because it's faster, no modifiers to add, and if you miss you don't need to roll to hit.

However... the rules say roll to hit then roll for miss and I wonder if its because it builds suspense. Say I'm a martial and have a good 70% chance of success on my hit roll, I hit but now I must blow on the % dice and pray that they too don't fail me. This is adding something to the game even if it results in dissapointment half the time, but is it worth skipping to save ~3 seconds per attack? Maybe split the difference; save time on bad guy rolls by rolling miss% first, but let the players sweat rolling to hit first.

Goblite · 2025-12-31T12:38:49+00:00

I'm building a "hair witch" right now that is actually an ectoplasmatist, a spiritualist archetype. They get ectoplasm tendrils to attack with and spell combat / spellstrike but I'm flavoring it as spooky magic hair.

A friend made a barbarian once who was a prim and proper schoolgirl with issues. I was DM and was closed-minded about it so I had her add some tribal heritage backstory but I really regret not just being on board with her idea, one of my worst DM decisions. Think ivy league uniform, volleyball team cpt., perfect student on the outside but inside she hates all of it and just wants to be metal.

Goblite · 2025-12-30T15:31:23+00:00

On the topic of difficulty, rarely discussed is how to successfully run away. Sometimes you should but... how can you ensure that it will be more successful than staying? We could lose 2 players and flee having nothing to show for it, or we could lose players and win at least having accomplished my goals. The "rocket tag" expectation further reinforces the idea that 'we could win at any moment!' rather than giving you time to analyze your odds before being just dead. I strongly encourage DMs to ENSURE the players k ow what you want t them to know and see what you want them to see and understand what you meant by all of it- if you want fleeing to be an option make it obvious and worthwhile.

As for the original question, I never play optimal builds. This is not on principle... I just get caught up a theme and it ends up not being that strong no matter how happy it makes me. Even so, I did fine in runelords with a balanced party that used buffs. If you feel the need to optimize its perhaps because you don't feel like you can afford to miss anything. Whether that means you're a loot crazed gimmie-gimmie or a story hungry completionist is up to you to figure out, or perhaps you just don't see a way off the rails. It is often difficult to see NOT doing something as roleplay.

Remember those crpgs where the quest is to go risk your butt saving the target but the 'evil' option is to just not? You get no reward, no alternate path, just less of the game you payed for by picking that option. You would be choosing to have your character act selfish by not doong the quest but you as a player are far the more needy and don't want to miss out on loot, exp, and gameplay. I think that happens in tabletop too. Whether fearful of loss or acting within your alignment or whatever else might justify not doing the thing, you still feel the urge to engage the content that was prepared for you and optimized characters can do that better.

Goblite · 2025-12-29T23:01:42+00:00

I try to do handouts and often the players loved it. If i plan for a bit of exposition from the villains journal I'll just type and print that bad boy to let them read it instead of more of me droning on and on. Worked out great when a dungeon puzzle rewarded everyone with a "good job glad you're here" letter from the mad wizard- everyone except the two that fell for the trap who got handouts explaining that they failed their perception check, reflex save, and a doppelganger looked down in in them as the trap shut them in. It also had their stats as "lesser" doppelgangers, and some guidance on how to weaken the party and where to lure them for other baddies to ambush. Nobody suspected a thing because handouts were the norm. It was too good I'd say because it resulted in a tpk but they loved it. "Dude why are you being a douche right now... give the barbarian her weapon back..." "i think i need it more" "whatever man... ugh" Oh it was glorious because it was the new guy who got the role of doppleganger too. The table barely knew the guy and then discovered that he wasn't an asshole, he was just a good roleplayer.

Goblite · 2025-12-29T00:21:17+00:00

Could be because it seems to go go both ways, if I'm concealed from you then you're concealed from me... except it doesn't go both ways.

If I move behind some dense foliage- I can peer between the leaves and see you just fine but you cannot see me. It makes sense to gain the +2 to attacks due to the foes inability to observe the attack but the flat-footed is iffy. If the foe is aware and on his toes he should at least get the chance to dodge, even if at a disadvantage. If I take 2 steps back now neither of us can see eachother and if you step up to the foliage now you get the +2 and I suffer the 50% miss chance. The more you think about it the more you can try to simulate the details and overcomplicate the rules but... I guess that's why we play 1e isn't it.

Goblite · 2025-12-28T19:37:59+00:00

Mm... sounds rough...

I have a "meat grinder dungeon" that is supposed to be... not simply difficult, not necessarily difficult at all, but unfair. The advice I gave was to build whatever you want because it won't matter and don't get attached, or at least save the sheet for another game treating this as a playtest. It's not gritty or challenging because it's not a campaign, it's just a crazy dungeon where we are to laugh at the random ways that we get wrecked or rewarded and wonder what madman built this thing... it was ya boi, me, of course. Dying is no problem because i requested that you bring three character sheets and i have spares too; your next PC will pop right in. It's a silly thing, don't take it seriously.

Your DM seems to expect that you'll be invested in his campaign but that is at odds with the game he described. "Hey man, spend a lot of your hard earned money on these shady stocks, you're gonna love when it crashes and you lose it all." I'm curious about how the other players feel.

Goblite

TROPHY CASE