mole75

I hadn't really made that link to Alias. But you are right. She's good at impersonating, disguise and general spy-work.

I'm considering the free trader as archtype at level 2. How does your free Archetype rules work with an archtype that only has a level 2 ability? You mentioned free feats, but could you take a new archtype and delay it so you get the level 2 ability at level 4 and so forth?

Not to step on anyone's toes, especially not the GM 😁

But another mistake that is often made by players (myself included) is not to pay attention to the kind of bonuses that Starfinder hands out. If you come from PF1 you only rarely have the same bonus twice at level 1. However in SF, most (or all?) skill bonusses to classes are insight and thus don't stack with something like the skill focus feat.

On 11/18/2023 at 2:03 PM, artsmythe said:

I think DARWYN PRIESTLY is now ready for review. If my math, or my understanding of game mechanics or continuity are off, please let me know and I will make the necessary revisions.

There are two three points that stand out with your character:

Ability score: According to the core rulebook you cannot start with an ability score over 18.

Skills: The operative edge is an insight bonus. It does not stack with the skill focus (making the skill focus feats they get at level 1 redundant once they reach level 7)

Weapon: Because the baton and knife are operative weapons, you use your dex modifier to hit rather than the strength mod.

I guess Arabella is ready for review.

I still need to spend a little credits, but I think all the mechanical stuff has been taken care of.

Seems like Array 5 is the one to go with: 17, 16, 16, 15, 13, 12

The dice gods are usually not that kind. But I hope that this one will be alright.

I'm considering an operative or a nanocyte.

Array 1

Array 2

Array 3

Array 4

Array 5

Array 6

Just throwing in my $0.50. Hoping it will help a little.

The Dhampir (LA+8) from DoD (different from the one in Libris Mortis) and the Half-Fiend (LA+4) are both templates. There are no racial HD if you go that route, and the shifters from Eberron doesn't get racial HD. I'm not sure how the DM will rule on that, but assuming they will allow it, you'd have to:

• Spread out the stat gains over the 12 levels.
• Group the SLA (as well as dominate and spiderclimb) into lesser, normal and greater categories as mentioned elsewhere.
• Make some sort of progression of the powers that aren't mentioned above (resistance, blood drain, fast healing)

For all of those 12 levels, you won't get:

• BAB
• Saves
• Skill points
• HP

On 5/21/2023 at 2:32 AM, TheFred said:

I was using that for the Arcanaloth. And, well, there's about as much consistency as there is for LAs in any book. 🤷‍♂️

(LAs are typically too big, since they didn't seem to realise how good class levels are and/or perhaps wanted to discourage monster characters, but also different authors seemed to have very different ideas and in fact there's some evidence to suggest that some of them didn't even understand ECL themselves, so higher-HD monsters sometimes get higher LAs even though it should be the other way around, if anything.

Case in point: The Ultroloth is ECL 23 despite being weaker and having a much lower CR than the ECL 19 Arcanaloth - even though lore-wise it's not meant to be, Ultoloths are the bosses! - though at least here the actual +5 LA is lower, it's just you have a lot more HD but worse abilities.

But, of course, this is gestalt - where LAs matter a lot less - and we're all forced into at least 12 levels of monster "stuff" so everyone gets at least a regular single-track character and nobody can really optimise the gestalt bit properly so it all... kinda works out? Or, you just decide not to care that much, I guess 🙂)

I agree. The whole CR, LA, ECL system is inherently flawed. It helped balance the leadership feat, but the effects were really awful.

In contrast, I do like the way it's handled in Pathfinder 1e. There, the monsters have a level (often more or less corresponding to their HD). A level 5 monster is as powerful (in theory at least) as a level 5 character. There are not any (official) rules about monster classes in pathfinder though, but that could be house-ruled.

I believe my application is complete.

On 5/19/2023 at 5:26 PM, mole75 said:

It seems I was remembering wrongly. They only did it with Monster Manuel 1 and not with 2 and then they did it in MM 3??? Well if inconsistency is expected then this is the way 🙂 

 

I have looked at a few other books and it seems the same (in)consistency is prevalent in all the 3.5 material: There are level adjustments in fiend folio and heroes of horror, but not in the fiendish codex I or II 

I think I've figured out some of the confusion. My version of MM2 is from 02 and thus 3.0. So it makes sense that it doesn't have the LA. However Wotc did publish a update to 3.5 for the MM2 and I found it lying in an obscure folder on my computer. There, the monsters from MM2 are all given LAs. But I would be quite wary of them if I were the DM, there doesn't seem to be much consistency between the LAs given and the actual power of the monsters.

But if anyone is interested here they are: There are 8 demons, 3 Devils and 3 yugoloths in the book:

Just now, Steel Warrior said:

It was in reference to the below, and I was only helping by showing a valid template that isn't dragon magazine. I am at least trying to be helpful, but you keep trying to call me out instead of giving advice.. Is this going to be a problem?

I'm sorry I was mistaken. You (originally - now edited) quoted a post that referred to the discussion on the changes of the succubus from 3.0 to 3.5. And to avoid confusion, I pointed that out. It was in no way an attempt to discredit your point. You are perfectly right about your point about the extra limbs, but that was not the post you appeared to repsond to. 

Just now, Steel Warrior said:

DMG II pg 157
LA +2 not as good as the Obah-Blessed template, but it's offical.

 

I'm pretty sure that @TheFredwasn't responding to you, given what they wrote. They were replying to @paladinred's request about the succubus class. 

56 minutes ago, paladinred said:

@mole75 Thank you for the info, do you know where the upgrade can be seen?

You're welcome. But like it was said, there's no (official) 3.5 update to the SS book or the rules therein.  

Realized that I had mixed up the 3.0 and 3.5 erinyes up. The 3.5 only gets DR 5 (Good) so I removed the DR 10 entry.

12 minutes ago, Michael said:

Ignore favoured class rules, I have never liked them, chop and change as you wish.

Again, thanks for the quick and precise answer.

@paladinredJust a few pointers that you can take or leave. The class in your thread is the one from SS. The succubus got a little upgrade when it was converted to 3.5.

A quick glance says that the following have changed: Claw attack, spell resistance, ability scores, damage reduction (all for the better I might add).

But importantly what haven't changed is HD and LA.

I don't think most outsiders get Alter Self. IIRC only a few of them do in fact have alternate forms or ways to change shape.

14 minutes ago, Steel Warrior said:

Pretty sure he is waiving XP penalties for multiclassing, since it's a 3.5 game, you don't get any other benefit of having a favored class. Unless you are 1 Fighter, 1 Cleric, 1 Rogue, 1 Wizard, 1 Ranger lol I don't think he's going to like that.

Why are you sure of that?

I was not asking for other benefits, but was specifically referring to the xp penalty as the RAW from players handbook.

If one had a build in mind, it's pretty important to know if you are penalized for taking the wrong level at the wrong time.

Quick question: What do we do about favored calss?

The monster progressions from SA all have their racial calls as FC. However with the other gestalt track it requires some planing, if the FC are RAW.

It seems I was remembering wrongly. They only did it with Monster Manuel 1 and not with 2 and then they did it in MM 3??? Well if inconsistency is expected then this is the way 🙂 

I have looked at a few other books and it seems the same (in)consistency is prevalent in all the 3.5 material: There are level adjustments in fiend folio and heroes of horror, but not in the fiendish codex I or II 

29 minutes ago, Ryfte said:

 

Also to clarify, other than Savage Species, which lists the monstrous classes for numerous creatures without any actual listed LA, right? So as long as its in there, despite not having an LA in other publications, its acceptable.

As far as I remember, from MM 3.5 they started to add LA to all monster where applicable. So all 3.5 monsters should have the LA entry as the last entry of their stat block. 

I was flipping through my Savage Species book and there were a few discrepancies that caught my eye. After a short search I realized that there's quite a difference between some of the fiends of 3.0 (and SS) and 3.5. 

What it means is that some of the classes in SS does not correspond to the monsters in the 3.5 MM. This includes at first glance vrock (better stats, more HD and higher LA), barbed devil (no LA any more), kython (better stats)

I don't know if that's something that need to be addressed, but now it's brought to very one's attention at least.  

I've made the erinyes class and think I'm done. But if any of you have critique, comments or questions that you might want to add, then please don't hesitate. 

My own (however small) objections to the class are:

The large starting ability boosts. However a total of +8 is on par with what the succubus gets. 

The quite dead levels at levels 13-15

The useless Spell Resistance 🙂

4 minutes ago, Michael said:

Looks good, only thing is you have duplicated teleport into both standard and greater powers list.

Good catch. That was a copy/paste error. It's only in greater powers now.

I've also replaced the entangle effect that erinyes have with animate rope lesser spell-like ability.