Character Submission Thread

[elecgraystone]

Variant Heritages, such as the Azata-blooded that you've used for Emily, aren't from an approved source. I think that's what elecgraystone means.

Oops. You are correct GlassEye. For some reason I was thinking tiefling. For Aasimar's, the variant heritages come out in Blood of Angels and that also isn't approved. So you'd be stuck with the +2cha, +2wis, daylight aasimar.

 

[elecgraystone]

It's all from ultimate Equipment. Check here under food and spices [ http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/goods-and-services/ue-more-gear-4 ]. Note that this is raw trade good foodstuffs and needs somekind of skill to use. Also look here [ http://www.archivesofnethys.com/EquipmentMisc.aspx?Category=FoodDrink ]. These are ready use foods/drinks.

Sorry about cross-posting. Didn't see post asking about food when posting before.

 

[OperationMaximumBear]

Thanks.

 

[Satin Knights]

Reviewing Rose:
a) The shield trick sounds a little cheesy to me.
I) a throwing shield is an exotic weapon, requiring a proficiency to use.
II) The last sentence on a weapon cord says that it interferes with fine movement with the hand it is attached to. So, that would still upset spell casting.
III) A summoner is not proficient with a shield.
b) The Maw or Claw gives you one or the other as a permanent attack form for the tiefling. Not both.
c) The bite or claws from the tiefling form get covered over and are not useable in the fused form. Consider the eidolon as a full body suit. It needs its own attack forms.
D) That leaves the fused form with only a bite attack for natural attacks. The dart for a manufactured weapon attack is not optimal either.
e) You have only spent 4 of the 5 skill points.
f) The penalty in charisma for a tiefling is really hurting you. Where an Aasimar would spend 5 build points to get a 16 charisma score, you are spending 17 of your 20 points.

So, Rose needs to go back to the drawing board a little more. It is an interesting concept, but there are several non-optimal choices there. And some of the combinations just don't work.

 

[elecgraystone]

a)The whole weapon cord thing is cheesy to me, but when in Rome...
I) As far as I can tell, the free action to throw has nothing to do with proficiency. It's still a free action to pull out an arrow for a longbow even if I'm not proficient.
II) I can cast with only one hand, so it shouldn't be an issue. I could have a longsword or even chop off the hand and replace with a hookhand and cast without issue with the other. IMO the whole spell fail for shields is kind of silly since you only need one hand. If this is an issue, I could always drop the shield and pick it up with my tail for the same quick action. The weapon cord just has a limit on where the shield can go(adjacent squares).
III) The only thing proficiency in the shield does is let you ignore the armor pent. to your attacks. Since darkwood takes the pent. to 0, she gets a 0 pent to attacks, so it's not an issue.
b) Bite from merged form, claws from tiefling.
c) this isn't what the synthisist page in your wiki says. "Can a synthesist (page 80) make attacks from his own body (such as manufactured weapons, unarmed strikes, or natural attacks) and attacks from the fused eidolon in the same round?" = "Yes, but the fused character's natural attacks are still subject to the Maximum Attacks entry in the table for an eidolon of his level. For example, a 1st-level synthesist is limited to 3 natural attacks per round, whether those natural attacks are from the eidolon, the synthesist, or a combination of the two. "
D) again, your wiki says I can get both attacks (claws and bite). My only other option for ranged damage that adds str damage is sling. crossbows have a longer load time and have a lower minimum damage, so I'd avoid those unless I KNEW I'd be dealing with long ranges.
e) oops, That I can fix.
f) I took tiefling because the wiki synthysist section said that I could use both my natural attacks AND my merged forms attacks. It's a savings of 1 evolution point and I still have a good enough stat to cast my highest level spells. I don't need my stat bonus to most of my spells as I either heal myself or summon creatures and neither one needs a save. I plan to stay in merged for all day so stats of 14/14/12/16/14/16 looks like pretty sweet stats IMO. I'm really only losing 2 summon monsters SL abilities, and I don't want to be in humanoid form anyway.

So to add it all together:
The shield is a cheesy but IMO RAW way to avoid spell failure. I'd only use it for a few levels, so it wouldn't be a big deal if you said no. The only thing I'd ask is that you let me know why it doesn't work so I can avoid it in the future. For the bite and claw, I've already quoted the section from the wiki that says both attacks should work. see http://livingpf.wikia.com/wiki/Synthesist If this wiki is in error, let me know what is different and I'll have to start the character from scratch as I based the character on it being correct.

Quotes for shield: "Nonproficient with Armor Worn: A character who wears armor and/or uses a shield with which he is not proficient takes the armor's (and/or shield's) armor check penalty on attack rolls as well as on all Dex- and Str-based ability and skill checks. The penalty for non-proficiency with armor stacks with the penalty for shields." + "This shield is designed for throwing and has specially designed straps that allow you to unclasp and throw it as a free action." + "To cast a spell with a somatic (S) component, you must gesture freely with at least one hand."

EDIT: Fixed skill. I'd put a point into linguistics and added my extra language but forgot to add the rank to skills.
EDIT2: Just thought of something else with shield. I could unbuckle the shield and just hold it in my one hand. As a weapon held in my hand it has no spell failure (it's no longer being worn). Then I could use my move to rebuckle and not have to use weapon cord.

 

[GlassEye]

c) this isn't what the synthisist page in your wiki says. "Can a synthesist (page 80) make attacks from his own body (such as manufactured weapons, unarmed strikes, or natural attacks) and attacks from the fused eidolon in the same round?" = "Yes, but the fused character's natural attacks are still subject to the Maximum Attacks entry in the table for an eidolon of his level. For example, a 1st-level synthesist is limited to 3 natural attacks per round, whether those natural attacks are from the eidolon, the synthesist, or a combination of the two. "

Personally, I think the 'Authoritative Answer' is confusing and could be stated much more succinctly. I also find the description of the eidolon as a suit misleading; it seems much more logical to me to describe it as a summoning/possession that causes a transformation in the summoner's body while the eidolon is summoned and therefore avoiding the whole confusing 'body-suit' question. There is no part of the summoner's physical body that can act outside the eidolon without an equivalent evolution. So if your normal body has a bite attack and the eidolon hasn't taken the bite evolution you cannot make a bite attack while fused.

The fourth paragraph of that section on the wiki talks about this.

Sorry if this means you have to totally rethink your character concept.

 

[elecgraystone]

I'm really confused then. The wiki says "Yes, but the fused character's natural attacks are still subject to the Maximum Attacks entry in the table for an eidolon of his level. For example, a 1st-level synthesist is limited to 3 natural attacks per round, whether those natural attacks are from the eidolon, the synthesist, or a combination of the two." I can't read this quote any other way than you can use natural attacks from both you and your eidolon. It's cool is it doesn't work that way around here, but you should edit this part to delete out the part where it says you CAN combine the natural attacks. I took paragraph 4 as saying you couldn't do use your own arms while your eidolon was doing something else. I knew you couldn't stick limbs out, but I figured natural attacks could because of paragraph 1 (because paragraph 1 doesn't need to be there is you can't use your own nateral attacks. paragraph 2 also says "If the synthesist wants to use his eidolon's natural attacks and use his own manufactured weapons or natural weapons in the same round.).

Ok, sorry to have taken up so much of your guys time. I'll start work on another character. I'd just ask that you guys think about axing paragraph 1 and editing paragraph two to remove the parts on using your own natural attack so the next guy doesn't read it the way I did.

 

[Systole]

I) As far as I can tell, the free action to throw has nothing to do with proficiency. It's still a free action to pull out an arrow for a longbow even if I'm not proficient.

III)
c) this isn't what the synthisist page in your wiki says. "Can a synthesist (page 80) make attacks from his own body (such as manufactured weapons, unarmed strikes, or natural attacks) and attacks from the fused eidolon in the same round?" = "Yes, but the fused character's natural attacks are still subject to the Maximum Attacks entry in the table for an eidolon of his level. For example, a 1st-level synthesist is limited to 3 natural attacks per round, whether those natural attacks are from the eidolon, the synthesist, or a combination of the two. "

So to add it all together:
The shield is a cheesy but IMO RAW way to avoid spell failure. I'd only use it for a few levels, so it wouldn't be a big deal if you said no. The only thing I'd ask is that you let me know why it doesn't work so I can avoid it in the future. For the bite and claw, I've already quoted the section from the wiki that says both attacks should work. see http://livingpf.wikia.com/wiki/Synthesist If this wiki is in error, let me know what is different and I'll have to start the character from scratch as I based the character on it being correct.

Quotes for shield: "Nonproficient with Armor Worn: A character who wears armor and/or uses a shield with which he is not proficient takes the armor's (and/or shield's) armor check penalty on attack rolls as well as on all Dex- and Str-based ability and skill checks. The penalty for non-proficiency with armor stacks with the penalty for shields." + "This shield is designed for throwing and has specially designed straps that allow you to unclasp and throw it as a free action." + "To cast a spell with a somatic (S) component, you must gesture freely with at least one hand."

I Drawing arrows is different from drawing weapons/shields.. Throwing weapons is RAW different from nocking a bow. I don't know what point you're trying to make, but they are apples and oranges.
III b A synthesist does indeed have access to his normal racial abilities while merged. RAW, the claws count.

Re: Shield. I can find no way that this doesn't work RAW. However, this is absolute, stinks-to-high-heaven, runny French cheese with extra mold on top. Now, I generally like to see well-built characters, even shading into optimized characters. As characters move from the realm of 'optimized' to that of 'min-maxed,' I start to get a sick feeling in my stomach. Rose has gone so far beyond whatever grey area there is around well-built/optimized/min-maxed and that I am filled with full-on revulsion and loathing. In my opinion, you are welcome to use this trick, and I would even approve you as a character. With that said, and not speaking for anyone else in LPF, your character would not be welcome in any adventure I ever ran, simply due to GM prerogative. Moreover, I would never run a PC in the same group as her.

In LPF, we don't run the kind of meatgrinder dungeons where this character we be more appropriate. You may want to take a look at some of the approved PCs and adventures in progress to see if the playstyle we're offering is the kind of playstyle you'd enjoy.

 

[OperationMaximumBear]

That's pretty harsh. I wouldn't let the shield thing into my home game either, but Rose is still a summoner with a charisma penalty. Relentlessly min-maxed she is not.

Morbid curiosity: what do you think about Emily?

Edited to add: I mean my proposed Living Pathfinder character, Emily Halten, to whom I cannot yet link. She's on the wiki.

 

[Systole]

That's pretty harsh. I wouldn't let the shield thing into my home game either, but Rose is still a summoner with a charisma penalty. Relentlessly min-maxed she is not.

Morbid curiosity: what do you think about Emily?

Edited to add: I mean my proposed Living Pathfinder character, Emily Halten, to whom I cannot yet link. She's on the wiki.

Well, I'm the unofficial jerk judge of LPF, and I take my unofficial job seriously. When you start abusing the loopholes in several different poorly-worded abilities or items or whatever, I get cranky. I also get cranky when people write Nazi catfolk porn and try and get us to adopt it as a serious proposal. Or when a trait gives Perception as a class skill +1. Or when young whippersnappers won't get off my lawn. I'm cranky a lot of the time, actually. I'd also like to point out that charisma means very little to a combat-oriented summoner. You only need a high Cha if you're planning on being an offensive caster in order to make the save DC as high as possible. My 'dark ranger' summoner has a 14 and gets by pretty well by sticking to buffs and a longbow.

Regarding Emily, I think you're basically asking about the DR/evil thing. My opinion is 'meh.' It's working its way toward cheesy, but on the whole it's comparable to a barbarian's DR and GMs can easily work around it if they feel the need. So, it's not broken. And I do have to admit, it's a neat combo, and I can be impressed by neat combos. If no one steps up, I'll go through and do an approval, but I find synthesists to be a pain in the neck to approve, so I'd prefer someone else did it.