The Gaming Den

What's a good tier list to follow, and where can I find class optimization guides? The game's gonna start at level 8.


Ninja and Magus seem cool. I like the idea of being a magic swordsman, I hear the bard can also be an arcane swordsman too. How does the Arcane Swordman archetype of bard compare to Magus? Is there a /Wizard or PrC that I can reach at level 8 which does it better?

I took a glance at some tier lists from google search and I noticed Rogue/Ninja was always ranked below fighter. That true? Does Samurai add anything interesting to sword swinging? How about the summoner, can I basically make a JoJo Stand with that?

Actually... is there some kind of purely martial multiclass mashup that turns out better than a single class fighter/barb/ranger/rogue? Is there a "I punch people" build that works?

Is that "how do I (not suck) and (not break the game)" or "how do I (not suck) and (break the game)?"

I don't want to suck.

I want to know what breaks the game though.

Basically, if Wizard/Cleric/Druid is no.1 and monk is last place, I want to be in the upper middle.

Magus sucks cocks in hell. Don't bother with it.

Ninja is workable provided that the campaign never goes above level 8. Depending on how liberal the GM is with reading a certain ability, you can call up any feat you want, prereq-free, a certain number of times per day as a ninja, along with other good stuff.

Summoner is stupid powerful, fun, and also great.

Things to help you break the game;
There are modifications you can make to constructs to let you wear them as armor, listed in Ultimate Magic. So take a collossal animated object, shrink object it, then wear it. It's about 160 temporary hp on top of your hp total. Then play a synthesist summoner which at level 8 should add another 50 temporary hp to your total. Then get an animate dead scroll, A ring of friend shield, and Stoneskin.

Put your ring on the biggest zombie you can make. And now enjoy a game where HP will no longer kill you. You have hundreds of temporary hp, DR 10 at least, and you only take half damage from every attack. I'm currently in a game with exactly this setup (at 13th level) and I think someone would have to hit for something like 700 damage in a single attack to kill my character. It's a fun game. You worry about mind control spells and true save or dies but little else. Makes you feel like a superhero. I recommend it.

Some Pathfinder MCs really drink the "fully compatible" Koolaid. If they do, then you may be able to swing non-Pathfinder classes that happen to do alright by using as few Pathfinder mechanics as possible. Dread Necromancer and Warblade are pretty good for that, because they have stand-alone abilities that allow them to function at low levels without having to read Pathfinder materials.

-Username17

The campaign is 'Birthright'. This reminds me of one of my favorite PS1 games, Brigandine. The rulership minigame is described as being fairly simple though so I wonder how effective stuff like golem armies could be.

Right now the other players are Magus, Fighter, Cavalier, and Rogue5/Wizard3. As you can see, nothing above tier 3.

Being the magic ruler of a kingdom sounds really cool though. Ok, whatever, full caster it be.


Tell me, how do I become an RPG final boss.

found a guide for wizard/sorcerer http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/communit ... s-lab/test
Where can I learn about different summoner builds? That 700+hp build is cool but I'd like to know more about this new class.


*I don't want to make everyone have un-fun though, I just wanna be fabulous.

I can't imagine that with the team you have that it would be that hard to impress. Hell I had a GM on his toes just playing a summoner and, without the cheese, being very competent in combat while just rampantly befriending every would be enemy or unimportant NPC in sight until I had a small army for myself and every other member of the group (though the GM arbitrated reasons why mentioned army wasn't very "active" during our little adventures).

Edit: Also was a time Oracle. Lot of fun during Magical Tea Party Time. Constantly explained to any and all other characters that I existed in all points of time at once and that my rise to power wasn't really a "rise" so much that it was just "time" to reveal my better abilities.

If you don't want to break the game but still want Real Ultimate Power, play a Bard, an Oracle, a Summoner, a Wild Shape Druid (with the nerfs it's worse than going straight casty Druid, since you need to have physical stats), or a Barbarian (if you just want to be a beatstick).

Bards have Sandman (Beguiler lite), Magician (jacks other people's Caster Level up), Archaeologist (a Rogue that gets bullshit luck bonuses to things instead of SA) Dervish and Arcane Duelist (solid beatsticks).

Oracles are Favored Souls but not terrible; Time, Battle, Spellscar, Dark Void and Nature are good, Heaven gets you Color Spray but viable forever.

Summoners have been said; don't go Master Summoner unless you want to replace the party.

You know how Wild Shape Druids work, I assume.

Barbarians get Invulnerable Rager (which gives them sorta-nice DR), Urban Barbarian (for a one-drop stacking rage), Pounce, and a "Fuck Casters" feat chain in Superstitious.

You could also sandbag as a Cleric or be a Witch and focus on debuffs instead of putting people to sleep forever.

Mister_Sinister wrote:Magus sucks cocks in hell. Don't bother with it.

...I'm going to regret asking this. It's not the best class for the high end, but as far as I can tell it's roughly competitive with the Duskblade from 3.5e (only with a less ludicrously limited spell list than the Duskblade.) As far as I can tell, it's a decent T3/T4 or so. So what makes it terrible enough to earn that?

Mind you, I play with people I'm continually sandbagging my builds to avoid outshining them. We're LV 9 in PF and I'm playing an Urban Ranger who's power attacking with a Falchion from a wolf animal companion. This pretty much makes me the second most powerful member of the party after the the Necromancer Wizard. (Compared to blasty mono-element Sorcerer, sword-and-shield healbot/buffbot Cleric, and archer Paladin). So my power scale's probably a bit off due to playing with people who are pretty bad at building.

gourdcaptain wrote:

Mister_Sinister wrote:Magus sucks cocks in hell. Don't bother with it.

...I'm going to regret asking this. It's not the best class for the high end, but as far as I can tell it's roughly competitive with the Duskblade from 3.5e (only with a less ludicrously limited spell list than the Duskblade.) As far as I can tell, it's a decent T3/T4 or so. So what makes it terrible enough to earn that?

Let's begin by not citing JaronK's retarded tier system. It doesn't prove anything, nor does it measure by any sane or objective standard.

First problem with the Magus - medium BAB. This is a disgustingly nasty gimp on his combat ability, as it limits his ability to select feats that help them. The Duskblade, on the other hand, has full BAB, which means he has no such issues.

While the Magus' arcane pool is cute, spell combat is a joke and a half. First of all, it requires you to be a one-handed fighter, which is hands-fucking-down the worst choice of weapons for doing anything, since it gives you trashy AC, trashy damage, and makes you feel like a whore. To make matters even worse, it also penalizes your attacks (like you needed more excuses to miss with your trashy BAB and screaming MAD). The fact this also requires a full-round action is an even bigger kick in the teeth, as this means you'll basically almost never use it anyway. Compare this to the Duskblade's similar, but infinitely better, spell channeling ability, and you might understand a bit better why the Duskblade is playable while the Magus basically exists to fellate people for a living.

When you look at his other abilities, they're mostly either very situational, very weak, or rip-offs from better classes. The fact that 90% of your shit pulls from your arcane pool (which starts off at about 4, and grows VERY slowly) is a double dose of PF-retarded, and as people have mentioned already, their spell list is trash from the huts of trash - seriously, not only is it full of evocations (the worst and most over-levelled school there is), but you're also a bard caster, which compounds the problem even further. At least Bards had some control abilities and useful utility, and Duskblades, despite their limited range, have some decent spells on their list. The Magus has... neither.

Seriously, don't play a Magus. Ever. There is no reason for it, because all you'll be doing is sucking balls and making your party wonder why you do that.

Mister_Sinister wrote:(Long post)

...Okay, that's why I regretted asking. Wow. I get the point, I guess. I'm just suprised at the SHEER VENOM involved in a response to me asking a question.

gourdcaptain wrote:

Mister_Sinister wrote:(Long post)

...Okay, that's why I regretted asking. Wow. I get the point, I guess. I'm just suprised at the SHEER VENOM involved in a response to me asking a question.

Don't be a whiny baby, there was exactly no venom directed at you, so who cares if he directs venom at a shitty class and a shitty tier system?

gourdcaptain wrote:

Mister_Sinister wrote:(Long post)

...Okay, that's why I regretted asking. Wow. I get the point, I guess. I'm just suprised at the SHEER VENOM involved in a response to me asking a question.

I also have to wonder exactly how you think that post directed venom at you specifically. I've nothing against you - you've never spouted stupid and you've never even argued with me that I'm aware of.

I find the best thing to do in Pathfinder is to take a flavour of CoDzilla, then sandbag it so it looks less effective. You can always keep an extra trick in reserve for when shit gets real. An Eldritch Knight works too. The things that suck in Pathfinder are the same things that suck in 3.5, except sometimes the Bard progression casters are really powerful (summoner) or kind of weak (inquisitor).

Speaking of Summoner, how do the different archetypes for it measure up?

Kaelik wrote:

gourdcaptain wrote:

Mister_Sinister wrote:(Long post)

...Okay, that's why I regretted asking. Wow. I get the point, I guess. I'm just suprised at the SHEER VENOM involved in a response to me asking a question.

Don't be a whiny baby, there was exactly no venom directed at you, so who cares if he directs venom at a shitty class and a shitty tier system?

To be fair, he never claimed that the venom was directed at him, he just said he was surprised at the venom involved period. Still, I don't know what he was expecting from the Den.

HalcyonUmbra wrote:

Kaelik wrote:

gourdcaptain wrote:
...Okay, that's why I regretted asking. Wow. I get the point, I guess. I'm just suprised at the SHEER VENOM involved in a response to me asking a question.

Don't be a whiny baby, there was exactly no venom directed at you, so who cares if he directs venom at a shitty class and a shitty tier system?

To be fair, he never claimed that the venom was directed at him, he just said he was surprised at the venom involved period. Still, I don't know what he was expecting from the Den.

I was going to post EXACTLY this but HalcyonUmbra beat me to it.

Schwarzkopf wrote:I was going to post EXACTLY this but HalcyonUmbra beat me to it.

I am unburdened by the weight of a high post count.

HalcyonUmbra wrote:

Kaelik wrote:Don't be a whiny baby, there was exactly no venom directed at you, so who cares if he directs venom at a shitty class and a shitty tier system?

To be fair, he never claimed that the venom was directed at him, he just said he was surprised at the venom involved period. Still, I don't know what he was expecting from the Den.

Um... Yes. Hence why I asked him who gives a fuck if there is venom directed at not him?

I mean, if I ask a question, about why something is shitty, and then someone tells me it's shitty in a way that indicates they don't like it, what the mother fucking fuck would make me whine about how they have venom directed at the thing I asked them to explain the shittiness of?

Kaelik wrote:

HalcyonUmbra wrote:

Kaelik wrote:Don't be a whiny baby, there was exactly no venom directed at you, so who cares if he directs venom at a shitty class and a shitty tier system?

To be fair, he never claimed that the venom was directed at him, he just said he was surprised at the venom involved period. Still, I don't know what he was expecting from the Den.

Um... Yes. Hence why I asked him who gives a fuck if there is venom directed at not him?

I mean, if I ask a question, about why something is shitty, and then someone tells me it's shitty in a way that indicates they don't like it, what the mother fucking fuck would make me whine about how they have venom directed at the thing I asked them to explain the shittiness of?

Oh. I misinterpreted your post then. I read it as you thought that he thought the post was insulting him (as did Mister_Sinister, apparently), and that you were clarifying that it wasn't.

Kaelik wrote:

HalcyonUmbra wrote:

Kaelik wrote:Don't be a whiny baby, there was exactly no venom directed at you, so who cares if he directs venom at a shitty class and a shitty tier system?

To be fair, he never claimed that the venom was directed at him, he just said he was surprised at the venom involved period. Still, I don't know what he was expecting from the Den.

Um... Yes. Hence why I asked him who gives a fuck if there is venom directed at not him?

I mean, if I ask a question, about why something is shitty, and then someone tells me it's shitty in a way that indicates they don't like it, what the mother fucking fuck would make me whine about how they have venom directed at the thing I asked them to explain the shittiness of?

Yeah... I didn't think it was directed at me, and I was expecting some shouting, I was just suprised by the amount. Should have phrased it better. Sorry.

Archmage Joda wrote:Speaking of Summoner, how do the different archetypes for it measure up?

Synthesis Summoner seems Guyver-cool at first but when you realize you're only getting half the actions compared to a normal one it tends to blow ass.

Never encountered the multi-creature version.

Just stick with the basic one, grab lots of arms, Large size, enjoy.

Or make a flying unicorn mount that farts rainbows when it flies.

Juton wrote:An Eldritch Knight works too. The things that suck in Pathfinder are the same things that suck in 3.5, except sometimes the Bard progression casters are really powerful (summoner) or kind of weak (inquisitor).

How do I build a cool Endritch knight in 8 levels?

Bonus points if I can wear heavy armor and be Golbez.

A heavily armored arcane caster? (not even with melee abilities?)

I don't think that's possible in Pathfinder. Not even with feat tax to remove ASF.


Try going Cleric, but it won't be as blasty.

Or, use Still Spell with its serious penalty at low levels, just like in 3.x