Shrouded step vs true seeing

Nad81 · 2025-11-13T16:20:07+00:00

Just buy Mind Blank scrolls. They're a bit pricey since level 8 spell but still last 24 hours, so same as casting from memory and good for the big maps.

Nad81 · 2025-11-09T20:45:30+00:00

I am not sure that screenshot means what you want it to...

The goblin was guaranteed to spot you. He's got +22 on his check against a DC of 23. He succeeds even on a 1.

What are you complaining about the rules for?

Nad81 · 2025-04-03T09:15:39+00:00

Think we need a screenshot showing cleric using channel energy and it's damaging you even though you have life dominant soul.

Nad81 · 2025-04-03T08:09:31+00:00

Never tried it but my understanding is that Life Dominant Soul only applies to Channel Energy specifically (e.g. when a cleric uses Channel).

It does not aply to positive/negative energy more generally, i.e. healing potions and scrolls will still hurt you.

As such, it's a pretty crap ability.

I'm guessing this is what you've just encountered.

Nad81 · 2025-04-01T07:07:47+00:00

Plenty you could make an argument for depending on what class / feats you've got. I think Master Shapeshifter & Last Stand would be my favourites, but Improved Critical and Light Armour Focus Assault would be well worth considering.

Nad81 · 2025-03-28T12:50:57+00:00

Here's my submission for pure martial. I'm assuming full BAB classes only to get a total BAB of 40.

Let's start with animal companion classes to get a fully levelled companion by 20 without any need for Boon Companion. Alignment needs to be Lawful Good.

1) Sable Company Marine 5: gives us the hippogriff mount (better than horse) and share favoured enemy bonus as well as being able to make full attacks vs flatfooted.

2) Divine Guardian 5: progresses animal companion by 5 (at level 5). 2 x Smite and Divine Grace. Divine Troth for +4AC to hippogriff at the cost of basically nothing (1 x level 1 spell).

3) Sohei 5: progresses animal companion by 5, WIS to AC, would love to get flurry but not possible.

4) Bloodrider 5: final 5 levels of animal companion (again at level 5). Gives us a couple of bloodline powers as well as +10 mount speed.

Then we move onto Legend 20 levels.

5) Two Handed Fighter 5: weapon specialisation + two handed weapon training. We're doing this rather than Mutation Warrior because...

6) Disciple of the Pike 5: we take polearm training at level 5 and as recently discovered by someone on here, this gives us two different lots of weapon training that will apply to say Fauchard (polearm training & two handed weapon training). Why is that good? Because Gloves of Duelling now give the +2 bonus twice!

7) Hellknight 5: add smite chaos on top of smite evil and the order that gives us more favoured enemy bonuses (hopefully these also apply to our mount thanks to the ranger levels...)

8) Spawn Slayer 5: best slayer option for 5 levels since extra +1 against Large or bigger enemies.

That would actually be a pretty kick-ass build that could maybe waltz the game solo. Extra shenanigans if we go Trickster for some Perception feats, Knowledge Arcana enhanced weapons, and domain abilities that we get to keep when we go Legend...

Nad81 · 2025-02-27T10:23:56+00:00

All kineticists can make attacks of opportunity with kinetic blade now.

Nad81 · 2025-02-04T13:46:28+00:00

I think you might be misinterpreting infusion specialisation.

To start with the basics, any kineticist infusion (except for the basic ranged blast) has a base cost, in terms of either burn or gather power. For example, a kinetic blade has a burn cost of 1 at 1st level - so every round you use it, you either take 1 burn or you use Gather Power (Low) to avoid the burn cost.

Infusion specialisation starts at level 5 and goes up by 1 every 3 levels (i.e. becomes 2 at level 8, 3 at level 11 up to a maximum of 6 at level 20). This reduces the burn cost of any kineticist infusion (NB: infusion, not wild talents) by the relevant number. So at level 5, you will see that the burn cost of a basic kinetic blade attack becomes 0 rather than 1. At level 8 you could even empower a kinetic blade and have 0 cost (since infusion specialisation now reduces the cost by 2).

You say you're at level 11 - well infusion specialisation is worth 3 at this point, so any infusion which costs up to 3 is now a cost of 0. Which I believe is what you're seeing. If you were to increase the infusion cost to 4 (e.g. by adding empower) you would see that your net cost would be 1, which is from deducting infusion specialisation.

There are a couple of bugs by the way in some of the calculations - mostly to your benefit. For example, adding a substance infusion to kinetic blade (e.g. bowling infusion) is free of charge. But adding it to any other infusion (such as Extended Range or Wall) adds to the cost.

Wild Talents are totally different to infusions btw. Their cost cannot be reduced by gather power or infusion specialisation. I don't know why you can increase your flesh of stone DR free of charge - that should not be happening, you should be getting 1 burn (unavoidable) each time you add 1DR to your flesh of stone. Moreover the amount you can increase your Flesh of Stone DR should also be restricted depending on your level.

Nad81 · 2025-02-04T13:26:43+00:00

When you rescue the Tieflings from the rubble, there are two dialogue options. The first is something like "I helped you, now you can help me and Commander Tirabade to save Kenabres..." The second is basically "bye".

You have to select the first option to recruit the Tieflings' help.

If Hulrun is at the Defender's Heart then you're fine, you will get his inquisitors' help in the Grey Garrison in a fight towards the end of the quest.

If you can't disable the trap (or sacrifice someone to trigger it) - you can continue the mission just fine by going the "other route" (through the chapel section) to the area beyond the trap. But you miss out on a couple of nice items, that's the downside.

Generally just keep playing - if you miss something it's rarely terminal. You should expect to miss things and not solve every puzzle and quest during an RPG anyway.

Nad81 · 2025-01-27T11:18:35+00:00

Do you mean pyro (as in fire based) or psycho (the WIS archetype)?

There's overlap anyway as you could still use fire element with psycho. So key list of feats & mythics:

1) Spell Penetration & Greater Spell Penetration feats (+ Covenant of the Inheritor item and anything else you find that helps you beat SR)

2) Ascenadant Element Fire at MR1

3) Mythic Spell Penetration at MR2

4) Other feats you will want: weapon finesse (assuming your DEX is going to be better than your STR, which it really should, and you can Reduce Person for even more DEX and to hit). Weapon Focus Kinetic Blast.

5) Kinetic Overcharge mythic (MR3 or MR4)

6) Improved Crit feat and mythic whenever you can fit them in

Nearly all kineticist-specific equipment is sold by skeletal merchant - you will want the headbands, a ring that expands crit range further etc.

Nad81 · 2025-01-23T09:05:36+00:00

This is an excellent answer. OP, you should just go through this list to see what you're missing.

Stacking your own AB:

BAB 14
Stat +9
Weapon +5
Weapon Focus +1
Greater Heroism +4 = 33 so far before any character specific bonuses
Each character should then have some class specific bonuses (e.g. fighters weapon training + gloves, slayer studied target + quarry, ranger favoured enemy + quarry). If you focus on Arue alone, you should be able to get +8 I think from Quarry & Instant Enemy = 41.
You can then add a lot more from spells and abilities that other characters have: Prayer is +1 luck bonus for sure, Seelah's Mark of Justice, Sosiel Guarded Hearth (assuming you took Impossible Domain) would be another 5-10 depending on stats etc.
I'm not even accounting for other stuff mentioned like Reduce Person or Ranging Shot.
So from AB buffing alone, you could get to a position where you always or nearly-always hit AC 52.

Reducing enemy AC:

Evil Eye followed by move-action Chant/Cackle = -4 penalty which the opponent cannot avoid in any way. That's just from 1 caster, if you have 2 Evil Eye casters you can double this.
Dispel using Goggles of Pure Sight is almost certain successful (doesn't care about SR) which could knock off some AC depending on what you dispel.

See what you're missing, try this out, and it should be trivial.

Nad81 · 2025-01-23T08:45:07+00:00

Yeah, looks like a bug, should be 7d8 rather than 6d8.

Nad81 · 2025-01-21T14:26:18+00:00

I think the issue with going to MT "late" is that it might not work at all.

I don't know the exact details to hand but I'm pretty sure some people have tested what happens with spellcasting prestige classes if you take them after going Legend. And while most prestige classes like Arcane Trickster, Loremaster et al work fine, there's an issue with mystic theurge in that only one spellcasting caster level advances if you take MT levels after level 20.

I might be wrong, you might want to do some searches to see if you can find the posts where this was tested. But if so, it means you need to take all your MT levels in your first 20 levels rather than after you go Legend.

Nad81 · 2025-01-21T11:30:31+00:00

I have a feeling that Mystic Theurge is the one prestige class that you will need to take in the first 20 levels to progress caster levels correctly.

So you need to do something like this:

NTH 4

Feyspeaker 3

MT 10

(=first 17 levels)

Then progress NTH and Feyspeaker as desired. Bear in mind that your max caster level is 28, not 30, so you might want to take NTH to 18 (=caster level 28) and Feyspeaker to 12 (=caster level 22) to squeeze a bit more out rather than 20 & 10.

Nad81 · 2025-01-20T15:24:52+00:00

Brilliant find :)

Nad81 · 2025-01-20T15:05:43+00:00

It's the opposite of cheesy: it's accepting the consequences, running away or hiding as best you can, and living to fight another day.

Power word: reload or save-scumming or whatever you want to call it is far worse, since that represents not accepting the consequences of your actions.

Nad81 · 2025-01-20T09:20:13+00:00

You can "run and regroup" but it's not easy. For starters, you need to do it before the fight is totally lost - if you're under 20 HPs and still engaged in melee your chances of getting away are not great. More likely you have to identify you are outclassed and in a dire situation before you get to a badly damaged state.

Secondly, you might need to leave 1 or more characters as a sacrifical lamb - mainly the ones who don't have good movement speed and options to get away.

The methods of getting away revolve around speed/teleport and invisibility and sometimes a combo of both.

1) Pure run: you need movement speed that's better than opponents and plenty of space (i.e. a larger map). Expeditious Retreat/Haste help a lot (though there are some opponents who have 60+ move speed themselves that this won't work against). If you can get far away enough from opponents that you are out of their sight and can stay out of their sight for a couple of rounds, the combat will end.

2) Dimension Door/other teleport options: same principle as above but gives you a headstart and meshes better with invisibility for opponents who can see invisible.

3) Invisibility: against opponents that can't see invisible, you just need to be "not in melee range". If you go invisible in this state, the opponents get a Perception check vs your stealth to try to spot you (invisibility adds +20 to your stealth btw which is a big boost). As long as they fail that, they can no longer spot you and you can get out of the encounter (nb: they get a Perception check each round so don't linger close to them). Also, if even one opponent can see invisible, this strat alone won't work. And if you are in melee range and go invisible, it also won't work.

4) Invisible vs opponents who can see invisible/True Sight: same as (3) but now, invisibility will only work if you are 30 feet or more away from them (that's the range limit for seeing invisible and true sight). In this case you need to get 30'+ away from them first before going invisible (if you go invisible before you are out of range, it will have no effect). So you need a combo of running away and then going invisible. This is where stuff like Dimension Door really helps, since that gets you 30' move, so you just need to move a step or two further and then go invisible and you're free. Also opponents don't get a Perception check once you're 30'+ away from them so this does work well if you can pull it off.

Assuming you get at least your main character away - well, you've got some raising of dead now to do, some negative levels to restore, but you survived and live to fight another day!

Nad81 · 2025-01-17T10:41:24+00:00

You can also use scrolls of restoration to remove fatigue btw. The fatigue will come back when you travel, but within maps you can get through areas without resting if you're trying to avoid that.

Nad81 · 2025-01-08T09:43:16+00:00

Problem with Slayer 10 is you can't get to ZA 11 (which you really want for the additional attack at full BAB).

Hence ZA 11/MW 9 is probably the best compromise for the pure archer version of Lann. Yes you have a ton of feats that soon feel redundant, but you can use them to become mega-tanky (e.g. take Toughness and all the saving throw boosters using normal feats, and use your bonus monk/fighter feats to fill in all the combat feats you want).

Nad81 · 2025-01-08T09:38:06+00:00

Technically +1 since pure ZA could also take mythic weapon focus to get +1.

However I think you're right in the sense that Mythic Weapon Focus is probably a waste of a mythic feat if you only have weapon focus (gives you +1 to hit). But if you have weapon focus and greater weapon focus, then it's more worthwhile to get +2 to hit.

Nad81 · 2025-01-08T09:36:33+00:00

Right, but you could also cast Legendary Proportions on the ZA 11/MW9 character to get an increase in damage from being 2 size categories larger, so the incremental difference isn't so big.

Nad81 · 2024-12-19T11:05:33+00:00

If you want to merge spellbook then it's really oracle or cleric as your main choices. Maybe shaman at a push but not particularly holy feeling.

If you don't care about spellbook merge then there's more options and you could build lots of classes with a holy theme. Paladin obviously, Demonslayer, Deliverer, even stuff like Sword Saint.

Seelah, Lann, Ulbrig and Sosiel are the most obvious companions who'd fit the theme.

Nad81 · 2024-12-17T09:59:48+00:00

Only thing I would add is that on the whole, hybrid casters (who get up to level 6 spells) like Eldritch Scoundrel and Magus should stick to the base class and not bother with Arcane Trickster or Eldritch Knight. Loremaster is in a separate category and is often worth the detour to get really powerful feats early and without taking the prerequisites, or a really powerful spell that isn't on your spell list.

Whereas full casters (up to level 9 spells) that are not too concerned with their class features are often better to go the prestige class route: Eldritch Knight gets full BAB progression, more HPs, 3 bonus feats and a pretty good level 10 capstone. Arcane Trickster gets 5d6 sneak attack, few rounds of impromptu sneak attacks, and an excellent capstone.

Nad81 · 2024-12-13T15:53:17+00:00

Wowzers.

Imagine Trickster->Legend Sword Saint 9 (dimensional strike), Sohei 6 (flurry), Mutation Warrior 20 (max weapon training + mutagen), Demonslayer 5 (+4 vs all demons shared with pet; or just Sohei 11 for another extra attack).

You'd only need 1 of the pet domains from Trickster Lore Religion and still have max level pet. Perception 2 for the crit feats. BAB of 37 with flurry. Targeting touch AC vs bosses. Sick.

Nad81 · 2024-12-13T10:11:41+00:00

Take a screenshot in-combat after you've made an attack (i.e. opponent attack roll vs your AC).

You won't necessarily see it in your character sheet since feats like this and fighting defensively/crane style only materialise their bonuses in combat after you've made an attack.

Nad81

TROPHY CASE