Checking Pathfinder brokenness.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

OK, everybody knows that in 3.5 Pun-Pun is one of the various broken builds - and not even the most broken one. And that between Pun-Pun and a generalist wizard that only memorized Evocation spells, there's a whole ladder of brokenness, starting from soloing 10 encounters/day to tearing down whole cities to challenging gods to omnipotence.
Now, the question is - how does Pathfinder compare optimization-wise? If you take a wizard or cleric, how much can you pump up their power level with infinite loops and without infinite loops?


So here's a question for the playground; what is the most powerful wizard, cleric, druid, oracle or sorceror build you can possibly get with Pathfinder-only, non-third-party, non-homebrew/conversion material with a) infinite loop exploits and b) without infinite loop expoits?

Knowing the optimization ceiling should help with comparisons between editions, comparisons between different levels of optimization and comparisons between casters and noncasters.

[grarrrg]

Pathfinder (currently) lacks "Infinite loops" (there might be one, just to prove me wrong).

The best that comes to mind is the Half-Elf Paragon Surge Oracle.
Through use of the Eldritch Heritage feats, the Paragon Surge spell, and some Metamagic (and reduction) you can have (almost) ANY Divine or Arcane spell on your list, ready to cast, as a Swift Action.

Granted, the Oracle is generally a Tier 2 class, but this gives it a big power boost.

[AttilaTheGeek]

The best that comes to mind is the Half-Elf Paragon Surge Oracle.

That's the only openly cheesy, barely-RAW build I've heard of.

[Paul H]

Hi

Some builds to be aware of:

1) Summoner (Synthesist build)
2) Most Aasimar builds (PFS Legal now)
3) Halfling Barb (Titan Mauler)/Oracle/Rage Prophet
4) Magus
5) Aasimar Oracle Life using Fav Class Bonus on Channelling Revelation

that list in no particular order, and is far, far from complete

Thanks
Paul H

[Carth]

You can build a sorcerer that at level 15 can defeat any published monster* consistently. Unless you know of any monsters that have a will save bonus of higher than +23, immunity to daze, or immunity to force damage, by level 15 you could be winning initiative reliably and then casting geyser. The dazing spell feat causes anyone in its quite large splash radius to need to make two DC 43 will saves (two because of persistent spell) or be dazed. If you can find a way to not take the damage from the spell you won't need to make the saves, but there's a trait that adds 1 force damage to all damaging spells, which to my knowledge nothing is immune to.

*As in, anything with a pre made stat block that Paizo has put out. You can build characters that would make the saves consistently, of course. Either way, this build basically boxes the DM into not using any published monster/NPC without considerable modifications. As far as I'm aware.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, at level 1, a rime blooded sorcerer with the wayang spellhunter and magical lineage traits, and rime spell feat can hurl ranged touch attacks, which have piddly damage at level 1, but automatically entangle the target if damaged. Then they need to make a fort save or be staggered, and another fort save or be slowed. At level 4 thanks to traits you can empower your snowball to be 6d6, and at level 6 you can intensify it, resulting in damage of 9d6 with a touch attack. At level 8 you can have take elemental spell, and change the element around as needed. At level 10 it hits its peak and is a 15d6 (or 60+5d6 if you can find a lesser maximize rod for 14,000 GP) element of choice damage, ranged touch attack, no save against damage, no SR, auto entangle target if they're damage, fort save or be staggered, separate fort save or be slowed. Remember that reductions to movement speed stack, so anything entangled and slowed is barely mobile, unless it had a really high move speed. As it's only a level 1 spell, it's a cheap target for rods as you only need lesser rods for it. It's also great for dazing spell.

[Paul H]

Hi

Only problem is that Daze only works on Humanoids up to 4HD, and only for one round. They are immune to daze for one minute after that.

Daze Monster is the same, but works against any creature up to 6HD.

So anything immune to Mind Effects, or has 7HD or more is immune. against a 15th Lvl Sorceror? Hardly a fight

There are plenty of ways that a lower level PC can be immune to those effects.

My Pyro Gnome Oracle (Fire) 8/ Pathfinder Savant 1, in Elemental form would just laugh & ignore it. And you'd be 6 levels higher! :smallbiggrin:

Thanks
Paul H
Edit: PS, a Magus 10, with Intensified Shocking Grasp (effective 2nd lvl spell) does 10D6 Electric. A finesse based Magus putting that through his Scimitar as part of a full hasted attack is lethal! Imagine threatening on 15+ for 20D6 plus wpn damage? :smallbiggrin:

[Carth]

Hi

Only problem is that Daze only works on Humanoids up to 4HD, and only for one round. They are immune to daze for one minute after that.

Daze Monster is the same, but works against any creature up to 6HD.

So anything immune to Mind Effects, or has 7HD or more is immune. against a 15th Lvl Sorceror? Hardly a fight

There are plenty of ways that a lower level PC can be immune to those effects.

My Pyro Gnome Oracle (Fire) 8/ Pathfinder Savant 1, in Elemental form would just laugh & ignore it. And you'd be 6 levels higher! :smallbiggrin:

Thanks
Paul H

You appear to have not carefully read my post, and while I'll concede I wasn't detailed, you have made multiple incorrect assumptions. You are confusing the spell daze (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/daze) with the metamagic feat dazing spell (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/metamagic-feats/dazing-spell-metamagic), which is being applied to the spell geyser (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/spells/geyser.html). Further, immunity to mind affecting effects does not grant immunity to the effect dazed (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/conditions#TOC-Dazed). Ear-piercing scream (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateMagic/spells/earPiercingScream.html) is an example of a non-mind affecting thing that can daze you. I'm pretty sure there's a melee feat out there that can daze people too.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

The best that comes to mind is the Half-Elf Paragon Surge Oracle.
Through use of the Eldritch Heritage feats, the Paragon Surge spell, and some Metamagic (and reduction) you can have (almost) ANY Divine or Arcane spell on your list, ready to cast, as a Swift Action.

1) You must expend a 3rd level slot as a standard action to cast Paragon Surge, at least 6th level slot to do it as swift action.
2) You can only take an Eldritch Heritage for which you have a Skill Focus - which means you really only can choose from very limited pool... or not at all.
3) Eldritch Heritage does not give any spells known - only a 1st level bloodline power.
In short, this does not work at all.




You can build a sorcerer that at level 15 can defeat any published monster consistently. Unless you know of any monsters that have a will save bonus of higher than +23, immunity to daze, or immunity to force damage, by level 15 you could be winning initiative reliably and then casting geyser. The dazing spell feat causes anyone in its quite large splash radius to need to make two DC 43 will saves (two because of persistent spell) or be dazed.
1) A dazing, persistent Geyser is a 10th level spell. It can't normally be cast at all unless Traits are allowed. If traits are allowed, you could cast it as a 9th level spell via magical lineage at 17th level.
2) Please explain how you get DC 43 for a 5th level spell. 10 + 5 level +12 ability +2 greater focus +2 arcane bloodline = 31, a dozen points lower than you indicated for most spellcasters.
3) A fighter at similar level can reliably deal 250+ damage, consistently killing monsters without needing to expend spell slots. Thus this is not actually broken in comparison.

[Paul H]

Hi

Well said, Belial!

Straight damage doesn't always win the day - at that level there are plenty of ways that monsters can mitigate it.

Magii using Intensified Shocking Grasp via their finessed scimitars aren't so good vs creatures immune to Electricity, for example.

My wand-wielding magus took down higher CR critters using concealment with ease. Just use wand Truestrike in off-hand. (And that at 3rd lvl)!

At the end of the day all we can do is do what our characters do best. Sometimes it's not enough, and that's why we need a team. :)

Thanks
Paul H

[Renen]

1) A dazing, persistent Geyser is a 10th level spell. It can't normally be cast at all unless Traits are allowed. If traits are allowed, you could cast it as a 9th level spell via magical lineage at 17th level.
2) Please explain how you get DC 43 for a 5th level spell. 10 + 5 level +12 ability +2 greater focus +2 arcane bloodline = 31, a dozen points lower than you indicated for most spellcasters.
3) A fighter at similar level can reliably deal 250+ damage, consistently killing monsters without needing to expend spell slots. Thus this is not actually broken in comparison.


Yeh I would love to know the answers too.

As for the fighter, i think there's still the risk of missing (AC, consealment, etc) where as here, its a near guaranteed perma stun.

[Snowbluff]

Hi
1) Summoner (Synthesist build)

Thanks
Paul H
Regular summoner is actually worse, due to the action economy. It's pretty much 3.5 Druid for PF.

Summoner has a access to the snowball spell, so you can mix that with the metamagic and traits for some nice bonuses.



2) Please explain how you get DC 43 for a 5th level spell. 10 + 5 level +12 ability +2 greater focus +2 arcane bloodline = 31, a dozen points lower than you indicated for most spellcasters.
As far as DCs are concerned, Persistent spell can handle those. Does anyone have a good use of Persistent Spell?

Toppling Spell is kind of ridiculous, but tripping isn't as good as it was before. I had a 7th level sorcerer with Magical Lineage, Toppling Spell Magic Missile, and a Giant Frog. It was a pretty strong combo.

[WhatBigTeeth]

2) Please explain how you get DC 43 for a 5th level spell. 10 + 5 level +12 ability +2 greater focus +2 arcane bloodline = 31, a dozen points lower than you indicated for most spellcasters.
I believe this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15046971&postcount=10) is the build in question.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Ah, I see.


Of course, most CR 20 enemies can take said sorcerer. I could take him with a Pit Fiend, for example.

[Baroncognito]

1) You must expend a 3rd level slot as a standard action to cast Paragon Surge, at least 6th level slot to do it as swift action.
2) You can only take an Eldritch Heritage for which you have a Skill Focus - which means you really only can choose from very limited pool... or not at all.
3) Eldritch Heritage does not give any spells known - only a 1st level bloodline power.
In short, this does not work at all.

Actually, what you do is:

Take Skill Focus (Knowledge: somethingorother)
That allows you to take Eldritch Heritage: Arcane.
Take Eldritch Heritage: Arcane. This gives you a familiar or a bonded item. You don't care about this at all.

At 11th level, cast Paragon Surge. You qualify to take Improved Eldritch Heritage: Arcane. The Arcane Bloodline's 9th level ability is "new arcana."

New Arcana (at 9th level) allows you to choose one spell of a level that you are capable of casting from sorcerer/wizard spell list and add it to your spells known list.

[kardar233]

I believe both Candle of Invocation and Wish loops still exist in Pathfinder.

Dust of Sneezing and Choking is still encounter-smashing.

The Paragon Surge trick works with Expanded Arcana, not Eldritch Heritage. You can get any spell you can cast, and with a couple of traits you can get the Quickened version down to 4th level.

Collegiate Wizard is absolutely ridiculous.

[grarrrg]

The best that comes to mind is the Half-Elf Paragon Surge Oracle.
Through use of the Eldritch Heritage feats, the Paragon Surge spell, and some Metamagic (and reduction) you can have (almost) ANY Divine or Arcane spell on your list, ready to cast, as a Swift Action.
1) You must expend a 3rd level slot as a standard action to cast Paragon Surge, at least 6th level slot to do it as swift action.
2) You can only take an Eldritch Heritage for which you have a Skill Focus - which means you really only can choose from very limited pool... or not at all.
3) Eldritch Heritage does not give any spells known - only a 1st level bloodline power.
In short, this does not work at all.

Forgive me for attempting to be brief.
1) Spell Perfection (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/spell-perfection) lets you choose one spell, and from then on you can apply ANY one Metamagic feat "for free". You will choose Paragon Surge as your one spell. And you will typically choose Quickened as your "freebie" Metamagic.

2&3) You'll note I said "Eldritch Heritage feats". The catch is in the plural. You take Skill Focus: Knowledge (doesn't matter which), and Eldritch Heritage: Arcane Bloodline. These 2 feats are locked in.
When you cast Paragon Surge you get 1 feat for free.
If you want a Divine spell, you choose "Expanded Arcana". If you want an Arcane spell, you choose "Improved Eldritch Heritage" and select the 9th level Bloodline power, which gives you at least 1 Sorc/Wiz spell.

Yes, you still need to spend a 3rd level spell slot, and Paragon Surge does have a duration of Minutes/Level.
So while it is not a "use it all the time everytime" type of trick, it still allows you to cast (almost) ANY spell EVER on a moments notice.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Hi

Some builds to be aware of:

1) Summoner (Synthesist build)
2) Most Aasimar builds (PFS Legal now)
3) Halfling Barb (Titan Mauler)/Oracle/Rage Prophet
4) Magus
5) Aasimar Oracle Life using Fav Class Bonus on Channelling Revelation
Paul H
Questions/Comments on this list.

1. Synthesist isn't broken by itself. It's just infuriating as a fighter and watch a caster completely steal your schtick. It's Pathfinder's wildshape druid.

3. What exactly is important about the Titan Mauler Archetype?
4. What's wrong with the Magus?
5. What's broken with this particular tactic?

[Belial_the_Leveler]

@Paragon Surge:
OK, this works with the Arcane Bloodline version. It needs specific race, 2-3 feats and spell slot expenditure each time you use it but being able to get the exact spell you want is a very nice bonus.


@Candle of Invocation:
Yep, still works. But is far weaker than in 3.5 as you're limited to 17-HD creatures whereas in 3.5 you could control up to 34-HD creatures. Generally speaking, having used Planar Binding and dominated the called creature comes off cheaper and you could get up to 18-HD creatures.


@Dust of Sneezing and Choking:
The problem is that you can neither buy nor craft it without GM permission as it has no indicated price and no creation rules for specific cursed items.


@Wish:
Wish can no longer make magic items and has a GP cost to cast. Also, the only creatures that are non-variant and could grant non-perverted wishes are Pit Fiend and Solar.

[Carth]

Built for level 15

Buy 17 charisma
2 ifrit
2 ifrit fire elemental bloodline affinity
6 enhancement
5 inherent
3 venerable
3 leveling
2 planar bind and charm a succubus

Good for an effective sorcerer charisma of 40

15 base dc
15 charisma
4 spell focus, elemental focus, and greater of each
4 spell perfection doubles the above
1 arcane bloodline arcana
1 have improved familiar activate wand of arcane concordance
2 level 15 arcane bloodline ability

42, or you can replace the arcane arcana with 2 levels of heighten for 43. If you settle for 42, you can apply dazing with spell perfection and only need to spring for an intermediate rod to persist it. If you opt for 43, you apply persist with spell perfection, and need to shell out the GP for a greater dazing rod, because you're heightening to 7th level.

Before you object to my combination of a rod with spell perfection, be aware that you merely delay the inevitable, as at 16th level you get 8th level spell slots, and can manually add dazing spell to geyser using an 8th level slot, then apply a persist rod. Further, you get another stat bump at level 16, and if you buy 18 charisma instead, you chariama mod and therefore DCs go up by 1. Similarly, at 18th level you can heighten geyser by 2 and persist it with a 9th level slot, and apply a dazing rod, again not using spell perfection's free metamagic. I don't see the sense in interpretting the free metamagic portion of spell perfection in such a way that it forbids you from doing something that can be done without it, though. All spell perfection is doing is lowering the level of the slot you use, it doesn't allow you to do anything you couldn't do before.

Traits: havoc of the society and reactionary

Feats:
1: greater spell focus
3: elemental focus
5: greater elemental focus
7: improved familiar
9: quicken or other metamagic
11: dazing or heighten
13: persist or heighten
15: spell perfection
Bloodline: spell focus
Bloodline: improved initiative

Pit fiends have a piddly initiative score of 13, and will get rocked if they lose initiative, except on the 1/400 chance it rolls 20 on both saves. I'm on my phone and not keen on doing more details on it, but you can see plenty of example initiative boosters in the thread WhatBigTeeth linked to. Note that geyser's damage is pathetic, it's just that once you're stuck in it, you can't get out, and will either die from a slow drip of force damage or by the sorcerer losing patience and doing something to accelerate the process because the defender is dazed.

[grarrrg]

Questions/Comments on this list.

1. Synthesist isn't broken by itself. It's just infuriating as a fighter and watch a caster completely steal your schtick. It's Pathfinder's wildshape druid.

3. What exactly is important about the Titan Mauler Archetype?
4. What's wrong with the Magus?
5. What's broken with this particular tactic?

Yeah...not entirely sure where he's going with most of those...
Unless he's going with "Broken" as in "does not work".
That would definitely cover the Synthesist...while it works on the surface, it raises SOOOoooOOOOOO many rules questions.

Rage Prophet is a downright horrible PrC, so that one fits.

The other 3? Really not sure...

[Belial_the_Leveler]

@Carth;
At 15th level you have exactly enough treasure to (barely) buy a +5 tome, +6 enhancement item and a medium dazing rod - and little else. So you just spent all of your treasure for a trick that works maybe 3 times per day, in exchange for ungodly low saves, hp and AC (seriously, +4 fortitude, 55 hp and 20ish AC?).
All it takes is the GM making the encounter be 2 creatures too far apart to be hit by the same spell and you're toast in the first round.



Pit Fiends have a piddly +13 initiative. I'll still win playing the Pit Fiend in a typical encounter against a single sorceror like yours. If you doubt it, we could run a quick fight here.

[avr]

Well, Carth's sorcerer does still have whatever other tricks are in the spells of a 15th level sorcerer to defend himself with.


On a slightly different subject, dazing spell, metamagic-reducing traits and spells which do damage over time have an interesting synergy. A 2nd level spell (3rd level slot with a couple of traits and dazing spell applied; or just 2nd with a 14000 GP minor rod) hands out a couple of rounds of dazing each time it does damage which is an amazingly effective lockdown.

Sorc/wiz examples are acid arrow, burning gaze, spontaneous immolation, boiling blood, even flaming sphere. Druids & witches can do the same with frost fall (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/frost-fall). Clerics/oracles could use boiling blood but generally aren't as blessed with appropriate spells except possibly via domains, mysteries, or one of the means of getting out of class spells.


Planar binding is just as effective in PF as 3.5.


Skinsend (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/skinsend) and some form of regeneration (ideally a cracked pearly white ioun stone (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/h-l/ioun-stones/pearly-white-spindle-ioun-stone)) allows an alchemist, sorc/wiz or witch to fight without risking their life, providing they can hide their body.

[Frosty]

Why does the Paragon Surge trick require Oracle levels? The spell isn't even on the Oracle spell list.

[grarrrg]

Why does the Paragon Surge trick require Oracle levels? The spell isn't even on the Oracle spell list.

Oracle spell list is identical to Cleric spell list.


Oracle is actually the only class that really CAN pull this off.

First off, while any class can pull off the Heritage/Bloodline trick to get Arcane spells, there is no equivalent to get Divine spells. So we need/want a Divine caster.

Secondly, we need a Spontaneous caster, because Prepared casters wouldn't be able to make use of knowing a new spell for X minutes.

Given the above 2, the only choices are Oracle and Inquisitor. And since Oracles get 9's and Inquisitors only get 6's, that makes it a pretty clear choice.

[Carth]

Belial, we can just look at the numbers and calculate the probability without playing anything, I think. We'll assume any scenario where the ifrit doesn't go first, or the ifrit does go first but the monster (any, pit fiend included) makes their save, the ifrit dies. Fair?

You're right, squeezing this down to 15th level was barely within WBL, that's a detail I didn't bother to look at when shrinking it down from 20th. At 15th level, dropping the rod leaves enough gold for a runeforged dueling longspear holding up a banner of ancient kings (planted/dropped at the start of combat). Gauntlets with the dueling property are also being worn, and an ioun stone floated. Ifrits get a racial bonus of +4 to initiative (who would take the 5 fire resistance...?), then improved initiative and reactionary. I'm going to assume buying 16 dex, with +2 racial and +4 from a belt for +6 initiative. Contingent anticipate peril is thrown in, because going first is obviously crucial.


6 dex
4 banner
6 longspear
5 anticipate peril
1 ioun stone
4 racial
2 trait
4 feat
1 minimum roll
For a total of 33

Some other stats for fun and the possible curiosity of others.

WBL:
137,500 inherent
36,000 enhancement (cha)
16,000 enhancement (dex)
32,350 +1 runeforged dueling longspear
15,750 wand of arcane concordance
60 Exotic military saddle
500 ioun stone
1,000 Muleback cords (for familiar, +8 to str for purposes of carrying capacity)
239,100 total

Traits: havoc of the society and reactionary

Feats:
1: greater spell focus
3: elemental focus
5: greater elemental focus
7: improved familiar
9: extend spell
11: dazing spell
13: quicken spell
15: spell perfection
Bloodline: spell focus
Bloodline: improved initiative

Stats, assuming 25 point buy, after racial, age, greater age resistance, and everything.

Str: 7
Dex: 22
Con: 12
Int: 16
Wis: 12
Cha: 38 (40 for the purposes of sorcerer casting)

Assuming maxed 1st HD, 4 from each subsequent HD, and +1 HP/level from con and favored class, we've got a squishy 92 HP.

For skills, perception, UMD, arcana, spellcraft, and ride are maxed. The only one that might merit investigation is ride, which gets +15 from ranks, -5 for an unsuitable mount (I can see an argument for this penalty not applying, but I'm going with it applying), +2 from an exotic military saddle, and +6 from dex for a total of 20. Ant haul is being used to up the familiar's carrying capacity to just under 300 pounds for its light load so the ifrit can fly on it. Note that there is no rule in Pathfinder about what size mounts need to be (though there is for PFS), and strictly speaking in terms of carrying capacity the elemental has no problem carrying and flying the ifrit around, even if people don't want to consider it a true mount. If this throws you for a loop, realize that a small sized child could carry around a medium sized adult in real life too, if given a supernatural source of strength such as muleback cords. This is pretty much irrelevant to the whole geyser thing, though.

As a miscellaneous note, extended echolocation is used during adventuring for 40' blindsight.

So, anyone, pick any monster you desire, calculate the odds of the ifrit winning initiative, and then reduce the ifrit's win percentage commensurately by how often the monster makes the save (DC 42 in the non-heightening scenario). For instance, against a monster who could never win initiative, the ifrit's win rate would be 95%, because it would make the save by rolling a 20 occasionally. Against a monster who won initiative 50% of the time and saved 5%, the ifrit's win rate would be 47.5%. Against a mosnter that saved 50% of the time and won initiative 40% of the time, the ifrit's win rate would be 30%. For a boiled down arena setting this seems fair to me, did I miss anything? I'd ignore the possibility of anything besides a behemoth recovering from the daze after failing the initial save, I'm realizing now calculating the odds of victory against those poses a problem, though going to a 17th level version of the sorcerer would solve this predicament. Edit: wait, a second casting of geyser after the behemoth is dazed initially does a good enough job of fixing this. Inelegant, but if facing a behemoth it's probably worth the spell slots. :smallbiggrin:

Exact order of ifrit's action, if relevant:
1. Have familiar activate wand of arcane concordance, granting still, silent, or enlarge spell for free.
2. Have familiar move action as far away as is feasible (geyser's range is 400+40/CL)
3. Cast extended geyser, with spell perfection adding dazing spell, and arcane concordance adding still or silent spell.

I'm pretty confident that the ifrit is going to win more often than not against most, if not all monsters one on one in an arena type setting. The possibility of multiple enemies was brought up, which is entirely fair, hence why the ifrit flies as far out of reach as possible on their turn. However, there are lots of other variables that can be brought into play, both positive and negative, the least of which is a party scenario, where the ifrit might have friends trying to prevent its sudden transformation it into a punching bag. This is where the ifrit really causes headaches for planning in a theoretical game, because it can cause it to be difficult to appropriately challenge a party, due to it requiring you to rule out or heavily modify so much stuff that would otherwise be blasted.

Of course, if you build for level 17 (IE, taking spell perfection at that level), the WBL problem goes away and persist comes back (+170k GP, yay, con, saves, and AC!), and you've also got noble scion as a feat to increase initiative by 8 (or 9 if the point buy is rejiggered to start with 18 cha). I'd also probably switch to the heighten variant and purchase a daze rod. This would also eliminate the problem with behemoths. If anyone is interested in a statted 17th or 20th level version I can do that another time.

[Zerter]

If this stuff is the best people can come up with, the optimization ceiling in Pathfinder is what, 1/1000th the ceiling of 3.5? No comparison really, Pathfinder might not be perfect but it is better than 3.5.

[grarrrg]

Pathfinder might not be perfect but it is better than 3.5.

Part of the problem is age.
Pathfinder is still young, with few 'extra books' out.
Every time a new book comes out it has new stuff,
the more new stuff there is the more interactions there are
the more interactions there are the more likely something can be combined to be abused or "broken"

If you'd go back to the early days of 3.5 you'd find a similar lack of outright gamebreaking combinations.

(also remember that Pathfinder learned from some of 3.5's mistakes, so there SHOULD be less 'broken' interactions)

[Spuddles]

All this stuff is pretty tame on the brokenness scale. Hey wow a bunch of damage and using spell slots to be a mage of the arcane order.

The only thing I've come across in PF that's really bad is this spell (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/blood-money).

Because that means now you have no reason not to abuse the hell out of Gate, Wish, Planar Binding, Simulacra, or any other spell that requires a costly material component.

[Carth]

Fantastic, the gauntlet has been thrown and the edition wars will now begin. Well done.

[Spuddles]

Belial, we can just look at the numbers and calculate the probability without playing anything, I think. We'll assume any scenario where the ifrit doesn't go first, or the ifrit does go first but the monster (any, pit fiend included) makes their save, the ifrit dies. Fair?

You're right, squeezing this down to 15th level was barely within WBL, that's a detail I didn't bother to look at when shrinking it down from 20th. At 15th level, dropping the rod leaves enough gold for a runeforged dueling longspear holding up a banner of ancient kings (planted/dropped at the start of combat). Gauntlets with the dueling property are also being worn, and an ioun stone floated. Ifrits get a racial bonus of +4 to initiative (who would take the 5 fire resistance...?), then improved initiative and reactionary. I'm going to assume buying 16 dex, with +2 racial and +4 from a belt for +6 initiative. Contingent anticipate peril is thrown in, because going first is obviously crucial.


6 dex
4 banner
6 longspear
5 anticipate peril
1 ioun stone
4 racial
2 trait
4 feat
1 minimum roll
For a total of 33

Some other stats for fun and the possible curiosity of others.

WBL:
137,500 inherent
36,000 enhancement (cha)
16,000 enhancement (dex)
32,350 +1 runeforged dueling longspear
15,750 wand of arcane concordance
60 Exotic military saddle
500 ioun stone
1,000 Muleback cords (for familiar, +8 to str for purposes of carrying capacity)
239,100 total

Traits: havoc of the society and reactionary

Feats:
1: greater spell focus
3: elemental focus
5: greater elemental focus
7: improved familiar
9: extend spell
11: dazing spell
13: quicken spell
15: spell perfection
Bloodline: spell focus
Bloodline: improved initiative

Stats, assuming 25 point buy, after racial, age, greater age resistance, and everything.

Str: 7
Dex: 22
Con: 12
Int: 16
Wis: 12
Cha: 38 (40 for the purposes of sorcerer casting)

Assuming maxed 1st HD, 4 from each subsequent HD, and +1 HP/level from con and favored class, we've got a squishy 92 HP.

For skills, perception, UMD, arcana, spellcraft, and ride are maxed. The only one that might merit investigation is ride, which gets +15 from ranks, -5 for an unsuitable mount (I can see an argument for this penalty not applying, but I'm going with it applying), +2 from an exotic military saddle, and +6 from dex for a total of 20. Ant haul is being used to up the familiar's carrying capacity to just under 300 pounds for its light load so the ifrit can fly on it. Note that there is no rule in Pathfinder about what size mounts need to be (though there is for PFS), and strictly speaking in terms of carrying capacity the elemental has no problem carrying and flying the ifrit around, even if people don't want to consider it a true mount. If this throws you for a loop, realize that a small sized child could carry around a medium sized adult in real life too, if given a supernatural source of strength such as muleback cords. This is pretty much irrelevant to the whole geyser thing, though.

As a miscellaneous note, extended echolocation is used during adventuring for 40' blindsight.

So, anyone, pick any monster you desire, calculate the odds of the ifrit winning initiative, and then reduce the ifrit's win percentage commensurately by how often the monster makes the save (DC 42 in the non-heightening scenario). For instance, against a monster who could never win initiative, the ifrit's win rate would be 95%, because it would make the save by rolling a 20 occasionally. Against a monster who won initiative 50% of the time and saved 5%, the ifrit's win rate would be 47.5%. Against a mosnter that saved 50% of the time and won initiative 40% of the time, the ifrit's win rate would be 30%. For a boiled down arena setting this seems fair to me, did I miss anything? I'd ignore the possibility of anything besides a behemoth recovering from the daze after failing the initial save, I'm realizing now calculating the odds of victory against those poses a problem, though going to a 17th level version of the sorcerer would solve this predicament.

Exact order of ifrit's action, if relevant:
1. Have familiar activate wand of arcane concordance, granting still, silent, or enlarge spell for free.
2. Have familiar move action as far away as is feasible (geyser's range is 400+40/CL)
3. Cast extended geyser, with spell perfection adding dazing spell, and arcane concordance adding still or silent spell.

I'm pretty confident that the ifrit is going to win more often than not against most, if not all monsters one on one in an arena type setting. The possibility of multiple enemies was brought up, which is entirely fair, hence why the ifrit flies as far out of reach as possible on their turn. However, there are lots of other variables that can be brought into play, both positive and negative, the least of which is a party scenario, where the ifrit might have friends trying to prevent its sudden transformation it into a punching bag. This is where the ifrit really causes headaches for planning in a theoretical game, because it can cause it to be difficult to appropriately challenge a party, due to it requiring you to rule out or heavily modify so much stuff that would otherwise be blasted.

Of course, if you build for level 17 (IE, taking spell perfection at that level), the WBL problem goes away and persist comes back (+170k GP, yay, con, saves, and AC!), and you've also got noble scion as a feat to increase initiative by 8 (or 9 if the point buy is rejiggered to start with 18 cha). I'd also probably switch to the heighten variant and purchase a daze rod. This would also eliminate the problem with behemoths. If anyone is interested in a statted 17th or 20th level version I can do that another time.

With a 50ft radius, how are you not stun locking yourself and all your allies when in a dungeon? Without a hallway of at least 50ft, you can't really use this spell inside.

[Carth]

Remember that you can cast spells at a lower caster level voluntarily. That means the minimum height is 40 feet, with only a 20 foot radius, the same as a fireball. As mentioned, the air elemental repositions the ifrit prior to casting geyser, too. Further, line of sight isn't required, so the ifrit could go back around a corner, and cast geyser somewhere that it would splash the foe. So as long as you can get 20 feet away or behind a corner (or other cover), you're fine.


Edit: also, I came up with this as fuel for blood money
12 base str
10 form of the dragon 3
10 blood rage (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/blood-rage)
2 succubus boon
6 enhancement
5 inherent
6 ring of inner fortitude (effectively)
51

You've gotta spring for that first inherent bonus, but otherwise, all you need to do is get together with a cleric, and agree to provide them with wishes too, in exchange for them casting heal after each wish to remove all ability damage. This frankly isn't that expensive, assuming you were going to buy a +5 enhancement bonus anyway, because it doesn't require any junk items, or you can sell them afterwards if desired.

[Spuddles]

That level of str optimization isn't even needed. You just drop to 0 str, have your ally with a readied Restoration for when you drop, then cast your spell.

[Carth]

Huh. Well, heal is cheaper at least, it also removes all ability damage, but with no costly component.

[Sylthia]

Hi

Some builds to be aware of:

1) Summoner (Synthesist build)
2) Most Aasimar builds (PFS Legal now)
3) Halfling Barb (Titan Mauler)/Oracle/Rage Prophet
4) Magus
5) Aasimar Oracle Life using Fav Class Bonus on Channelling Revelation

that list in no particular order, and is far, far from complete

Thanks
Paul H

What do you mean by Aasimir builds? Do you mean that cheesy table that basically lets you add +2 to any stat without any reason not to, or something else? I banned that, but otherwise, they're not ridiculously OP, just borderline of needing +1 LA.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

@Carth:
Contrary to popular belief, tactics trump overspecialization. In your case;

a) The Pit Fiend starts an open-ground encounter flying 150 ft up. Geyser can't reach so your specialization with it is moot.
b) The Pit Fiend's spot check and stealth check beat your spot check and stealth check. It will see you before you see it and thus start the encounter first regardless of your initiative. Not to mention that SLAs have no verbal/somatic components and thus it can stay hidden and snipe at you with them till you die.
c) The Pit Fiend in a dungeon uses its at-will Persistent Image to do interesting things. It can, for example, script for images of itself to appear down long corridors -beyond true seeing range- as soon as you enter them, so you go for your strike-first tactic and waste your spells on illusions. It can blanket the entire dungeon with illusory darkness so you can't see stuff beyond true seeing range while it can see you just fine - and hit you first from beyond true seeing range. It could even disguise magically held hostages as Devils - the very hostages you went there to save - so if you do use your strike-first tactic you kill them and if you do not the real pit fiend which will be among the disguised hostages will strike first.
d) The Pit Fiend in most Prime Material situations could have any number of undead in its dungeon to waste your spells on before you meet it since it costs it nothing to go to a cemetery then use its at-will create undead SLA then its huge Diplomacy to convince the intelligent undead to work for it.



And that's only the tamer tactics that a base, unmodified Pit Fiend that isn't using its own double-standard treasure can use to trick, trap and kill you. If an Intelligence-26, Wisdom-30 greater devil is in any way going to fall in the first round to straight blasting without using any of the abilities it has tactically then your GM is going easy on you.

[Sith_Happens]

Fantastic, the gauntlet has been thrown and the edition wars will now begin. Well done.

The only people making any of these threads into an edition war are the ones who insist on coming in just to play the "edition war" card. Pathfinder is no more exempt from criticism than any other game.

[Sylthia]

The only people making any of these threads into an edition war are the ones who insist on coming in just to play the "edition war" card. Pathfinder is no more exempt from criticism than any other game.

It seems there's about four or five similar threads on the merits of Pathfinder right now, maybe they should be consolidated.

[The Random NPC]

With a 50ft radius, how are you not stun locking yourself and all your allies when in a dungeon? Without a hallway of at least 50ft, you can't really use this spell inside.


Remember that you can cast spells at a lower caster level voluntarily. That means the minimum height is 40 feet, with only a 20 foot radius, the same as a fireball. As mentioned, the air elemental repositions the ifrit prior to casting geyser, too. Further, line of sight isn't required, so the ifrit could go back around a corner, and cast geyser somewhere that it would splash the foe. So as long as you can get 20 feet away or behind a corner (or other cover), you're fine.

Geyser allows you to reduce the height, and by extension the radius, without limit. No reduction of caster level is needed. Additionally Geyser can target Reflex instead of Will on the first round it is cast, though subsequent rounds will target Will again.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

It is a pretty big subject, discussing an entire edition.

The current thread deals with overpowered builds (or specifically, overpowered casters) and comparing them with their overpowered counterparts in 3.5 edition.



From what I've seen so far, while there are fairly powerful builds, there isn't a build that flat-out wins encounters like the 3.5 wizards could. The optimization ceiling seems to be around "twice as powerful as intended" levels, not "totally negates need for a party" levels.

[CTrees]

It's somewhat minor, but in the same vein as the Paragon Surge Oracle:
-nine levels of the Razmiran Priest Sorceror archetype get you the False Channel ability:
At 9th level, the*false*priest can use his own magic to power spell completion and spell trigger items that use divine spells. He expends a sorcerer spell slot that is at least 1 level higher than the level of the spell he’s trying to*activate, then makes a*Use Magic Device*check. If he succeeds, the item’s spell occurs and the item or charge is not expended. If he fails, nothing happens. Whether he succeeds or fail, his spell slot is expended.*
-one level of Pathfinder Savant lets you always take ten on UMD checks (natural 1's actually having consequences for UMD, this is handy)

This nets you a sorceror that can cast any divine spell up to one level below his highest spell level, off his own spell slots, so long as he has a scroll of it (or wand, whatever), without ever burning through those scrolls/wands/etc. This actually includes Paragon Surge, so I believe that if the sorceror starts out as something other than an Arcane Bloodline, he can actually take the skill focus and eldritch heritage required for the paragon surge->expanded arcana->any arcane spell trick, without being a half-elf (or requiring Racial Heritage (half-elf)).

[Spuddles]

Inner Sea Magic has magic guilds. They give multiclass casters some pretty outrageous benefits. Imagine a cross between practiced spellcaster and greater rite of the dragon- bonus caster levels, including spells known, up to your hd!

[Prime32]

If this stuff is the best people can come up with, the optimization ceiling in Pathfinder is what, 1/1000th the ceiling of 3.5? No comparison really, Pathfinder might not be perfect but it is better than 3.5.Part of it is the number of optimisers who got banned from the Paizo boards; a lot of the most talented people at this refused to touch PF because of what happened to them or what they saw happened to others.

I mean, they patched it, but it used to be possible to get infinite spells per day with two feats (Echoing Spell + Spell Perfection), and that's just something I came across myself. People don't often talk about the game breakers from 3.5 that PF didn't fix, either, since they're old news.

And generally the bigger concern is PF's optimisation floor.

[Carth]

The only people making any of these threads into an edition war are the ones who insist on coming in just to play the "edition war" card. Pathfinder is no more exempt from criticism than any other game.

I was referring to Zerter, who basically stuck his tongue out and said 'neener neener 3.5 sux' with his post. It's entirely possible it's not what he meant, but it was trollbait regardless.


@Carth:
snip

It appears we're trying to do two different things, and you're still not picking up on that. As I said in my previous post, in an arena setting. IE, one that doesn't favor either side, whereas you are clearly trying to create a real game scenario that favors the defender, as would be the case in a dungeon situation. This is not something I'm interested in getting into because we can play 'what if' with any number of variables both positive and negative for the ifrit. Hostages and so forth aren't relevant to me, minions aren't relevant to me (and probably would be hit with some lesser tactic anyway). To test what you seem to want find out about, multiple campaigns would need to be written and run through. If you want to bring such scenarios to the table, then the ifrit's tactics are also going to change, because my action list was meant for an arena, not an entire dungeon/campaign. And while your scenario is plausible in a real game, in a real game you've also possibly got someone else in the party with perception checks that don't stink. All it takes is one person noticing the pit fiend and it gets one shotted. You can ho hum such a meager ability all you want, it doesn't look like anyone else is taking it lightly.

Sure, this doesn't replace the entire party, it merely one shots any published monster, and locks DMs out of using broad swaths of encounter tactics, because anything not hidden simply dies. Seems broken to me. It doesn't reach 3.5 levels of broken, but that's like bragging about not being the stinkiest turd in the pile - not something to celebrate. Though with that said, there is a bright side to this for the players, as if there's a good DM, all encounters will have been extremely well thought out by necessity, because of all the extra work they're basically required to put into encounters. :smallbiggrin:

As a variant for people's general consideration, if one were willing to tone down the DC, one could actually achieve a much greater level of versatility simply by switching to being an elf (or some other +int race) wizard. This is definitely more optimal overall, but it loses the charm of all published monsters needing to roll a 20 on the save. I believe the DC only goes down to 38, you lose 3 from the arcane bloodline and 1 from the ifrit fire affinity's +2 cha. Or using the heighten variant it goes to 39, and 40 at level 16 if you bought 18 int. I think.

[virgileso]

How much do you need to care about character build and just spell use?

Wish remains free to cast as a supernatural ability, and the ability to dominate/bind remains an option.

Simulacrum may cost, but mundane money isn't a real issue by this point, and the lack of need for a piece of the target is a real problem. You can create perfectly loyal copies of any number of entities. Do you know what happens if you make a half-HD Solar or Tarrasque?

Polymorph Any Object remains problematic for objects. While I have no problem with it, I personally know a plurality of DMs that will ban the spell for creating a castle; not to mention using it to create heavily trapped terrain.

Fabricate remains a solid choice for breaking WBL, especially when combined with the change to magic item crafting. Minor/Major Creation allows for the same abuse here while also allowing one to dump a literal vat of contact poison, and who knows what shenanigans happen with at least 9 cubic feet of alchemical goodies.

[Reverent-One]

I mean, they patched it, but it used to be possible to get infinite spells per day with two feats (Echoing Spell + Spell Perfection), and that's just something I came across myself.

Not trying to say there's no brokenness in pathfinder (because there most certainly is), but this combo shouldn't work. Echoing spell has a line saying "No effect that allows you to reprepare or recast a spell can affect the echoed spell". So you can't echo repeatedly.

[Urpriest]

Freedom of Movement is still the miniature Iron Heart Surge that it was in 3.5, despite being trivial to fix.

[CTrees]

Do you know what happens if you make a half-HD Solar or Tarrasque?

Ah... huh. I don't know why, but I never realized Simulacrums didn't have to be of yourself. I actually have no idea what happens when you make a half-HD Solar or Tarrasque, because of this line:


It appears to be the same as the original, but it has only half of the real creature's levels or HD (and the appropriate hit points, feats, skill ranks, and special abilities for a creature of that level or HD)

I mean, is spell-casting considered a special ability? It's not included in the normal Special Abilities block of bestiary entries (rather residing in the Offense block), which almost reads as though it's not reduced unless it comes from class levels. I mean, look at Efreeti - "3/day: Wish" is again in the offense block, but even if it's susceptible to reduction, how do you reduce that to something appropriate for a 5HD outsider? It's arguable that it isn't even an appropriate SLA for their normal 10HD...

Huh.


Not trying to say there's no brokenness in pathfinder (because there most certainly is), but this combo shouldn't work. Echoing spell has a line saying "No effect that allows you to reprepare or recast a spell can affect the echoed spell". So you can't echo repeatedly.

I just checked my copy of Ultimate Magic. The original printing of Echoing Spell did not include the line, "No effect that allows you to reprepare or recast a spell can affect the echoed spell." This is why Prime32 said, "I mean, they patched it, but it used to be possible..."

[Reverent-One]

I just checked my copy of Ultimate Magic. The original printing of Echoing Spell did not include the line, "No effect that allows you to reprepare or recast a spell can affect the echoed spell." This is why Prime32 said, "I mean, they patched it, but it used to be possible..."

Whoops. Sorry Prime, misread your post.

[Frosty]

1) How should Paizo fix Freedom of Movement
2) How does one break WBL with Fabricate? Please give step by step instructions.

[Urpriest]

1) How should Paizo fix Freedom of Movement
2) How does one break WBL with Fabricate? Please give step by step instructions.

1) Explicitly list the conditions it deals with. Look at the Liberation Domain (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/cleric/domains/paizo---domains/liberation-domain). Freedom's Call has a specific list of conditions it can cure. All that was needed was for Freedom of Movement to have a similar, explicit list. Since Pathfinder added more conditions and codified more monster abilities, this would have been quite straightforward.

Instead, they left the spell with no specific language about which conditions it deals with, but simply with the old phrasing that "This spell enables you or a creature you touch to move and attack normally for the duration of the spell, even under the influence of magic that usually impedes movement", which has all sorts of stupid Iron Surge-esque interpretations. (Does death impede your movement? What about being Dominated?)

Most of the spells they want this to apply to reduce movement speed, and just using that phrasing (spells that reduce movement speed) would obviate at least half of the stupid interpretations.

[CTrees]

2) How does one break WBL with Fabricate? Please give step by step instructions.

Well, the simplest form could well be "how many sets of plate armor can 10cu.ft/lvl of steel make? And how many times can I do this per day?"

That said, my favorite simple means is to use False Focus (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/false-focus)
By using a divine focus as part of casting, you can cast any spell with a material component costing the value of that divine focus (maximum 100 gp) or less without needing that component. For example, if you use a silver holy symbol worth 25 gp, you do not have to provide material components for an arcane spell if its components are worth 25 gp or less. The casting of the spell still provokes attacks of opportunity as normal. If the spell requires a material component that costs more than the value of the divine focus, you must have the material component on hand to cast the spell, as normal.
So with one feat and a 100gp divine focus, you can create 300gp worth of whatever per casting of Fabricate, without the need to find the base materials. However many times you can cast Fabricate per day. Forever. Have a week of downtime and can cast Fabricate five times per day? Say hello to 10.5k worth of finished goods to sell. Heck, if you're worried about finding a buyer, you could limit yourself to 100gp per casting and just make gold coins.

Or you could just cast Blood Money before Fabricate, but there are more exciting uses for that particular, broken spell.

I'm sure there are plenty of ways to more thoroughly break Fabricate, but these are easy. Also I really like the False Focus feat.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

As I said in my previous post, in an arena setting. IE, one that doesn't favor either side, whereas you are clearly trying to create a real game scenario that favors the defender, as would be the case in a dungeon situation.

The Pathfinder rules clearly state that a creature's CR is assigned taking account the creature's preferred environment. I.e. fighting kobolds in their caves or an Aboleth in its underwater domain or a devil in his part of Hell. Fighting creatures in an arena clearly favors a PC over any creature because the creature does not get to use all of its abilities and powers - many of which are situational and work well with the creature's preferred environment.


For example, how would a Pit Fiend use its 3/day devil-creation ability or its undead-creation ability or its stealth and illusions in an arena setting?

[Carth]

The pit fiend could summon things in the arena and hide behind objects? I never intended for the arena to be featureless, not that it matters, because I wouldn't test those things, and have never intended to. As I have said repeatedly. I am confused that you continue to bring it up. The character does exactly what I said it does. It creates geysers that no published monster has saves high enough to resist, daze locking them. From what I can tell, you appearing to be extrapolating from this claim that the character is capable of solving entire dungeons on their own. I have never claimed this, and do not understand what you want. Make your judgement about whether this is something you'd want to see from a character in one of your games. I'm pretty sure I know what most people would say.

[grarrrg]

OH!
How could I forget the Bigger Boat Eidolon (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245496).

A 13th level Summoner can fairly easily have an Eidolon with TWO Slam attacks that do 12d10+STR damage EACH.
By level 20 it's possible to have SIX Slams doing that much damage.

But we probably don't want to spend quite that many Evo points, as it leaves us with no 'utility'. Better to drop an attack or 2 and grab Flight and such.

[Squirrel_Dude]

1) Summoner (Synthesist build)
2) Most Aasimar builds (PFS Legal now)
3) Halfling Barb (Titan Mauler)/Oracle/Rage Prophet
4) Magus
5) Aasimar Oracle Life using Fav Class Bonus on Channelling Revelation
3. What exactly is important about the Titan Mauler Archetype?
4. What's wrong with the Magus?
5. What's broken with this particular tactic?Still haven't gotten answers to these questions. I ask because if there is something that is broken about them that I don't know, I would want to know it for future games.

[Detholusin]

I think i found something really approching of Pun pun.
So I begin with my own character: an aasimelf named Detholusin Amaelthrayam (whatever the level but his was paladin2/sorcerer 4 with magical knack set to sorcerer).

First step: buy a scroll of simulacrum, and a handy haversack (eventually)

Second step: successfully use the scroll to create a simulacrum of an efreet

Step three: ask the efreet to use his three wish to launch two create demi plane spells (so you are safe to do your ascend) and to launch another simulacrum of the original efreet.

Step 4: the next day, ask your efreeti to get you a deck of many things (they even can use their wish to accomplish that goal).

Step 5: once in possession of that deck, put it in your handy haversack and ask your efreeti to launch dimensional anchor on the deck so it can't escape the bag.

step 6: tell your deck you wanna draw 600 cards and tell to your bag you wanna draw the king of diamonds (the sun) EACH time. So you earn something like 600 * 50000 xp about 3 million xp in an hour. So you level up quickly and have basically infinite levels which means infinite feats and so on. (from then, i highly recommend to take these levels in wizard/and or sorcerer first so you can use the spell create demiplane greater to set your own demiplane with timeless and erratic time (one round in material plane equals one year in your demiplane) and eventually the spell time stop (so in your demiplane with timeless trait, you gain infinite rounds to ascend without being interrupted)

If step 6 doesn't function as intended then use your army of efreeti's wishes spell to reroll any draw you made until you draw the sun and there it is, infinite sun card draw!!

Step 7: duck every books and things your dm will surely throws at your head :p

Congrats you have attained the level of a god with pathfinder materials only!!!

[FlimFlam69]

I think i found something really approching of Pun pun.
So I begin with my own character: an aasimelf named Detholusin Amaelthrayam (whatever the level but his was paladin2/sorcerer 4 with magical knack set to sorcerer).

First step: buy a scroll of simulacrum, and a handy haversack (eventually)

Second step: successfully use the scroll to create a simulacrum of an efreet

Step three: ask the efreet to use his three wish to launch two create demi plane spells (so you are safe to do your ascend) and to launch another simulacrum of the original efreet.

Step 4: the next day, ask your efreeti to get you a deck of many things (they even can use their wish to accomplish that goal).

Step 5: once in possession of that deck, put it in your handy haversack and ask your efreeti to launch dimensional anchor on the deck so it can't escape the bag.

step 6: tell your deck you wanna draw 600 cards and tell to your bag you wanna draw the king of diamonds (the sun) EACH time. So you earn something like 600 * 50000 xp about 3 million xp in an hour. So you level up quickly and have basically infinite levels which means infinite feats and so on. (from then, i highly recommend to take these levels in wizard/and or sorcerer first so you can use the spell create demiplane greater to set your own demiplane with timeless and erratic time (one round in material plane equals one year in your demiplane) and eventually the spell time stop (so in your demiplane with timeless trait, you gain infinite rounds to ascend without being interrupted)

If step 6 doesn't function as intended then use your army of efreeti's wishes spell to reroll any draw you made until you draw the sun and there it is, infinite sun card draw!!

Step 7: duck every books and things your dm will surely throws at your head :p

Congrats you have attained the level of a god with pathfinder materials only!!!

That is overly complicated, but funny!

[charcoalninja]

Though funny as hell, PF only has 20 levels so you'd stop there.

[Raven777]

/Turn Untread!!!

[Sayt]

@Paragon Surge:
[snip]
@Wish:
Wish can no longer make magic items and has a GP cost to cast. Also, the only creatures that are non-variant and could grant non-perverted wishes are Pit Fiend and Solar.

Marid's (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/genie/marid) have 1/year wishes and have 12 hd. CN, so maybe iffy.

Efreeti (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/genie/efreeti) are 10hd, and grant three wishes per day. LE, so malicious, but likely to uphold a strictly worded wish.

Pasha Shaitan and Vizier Djinni can both grant wishes, but are variant monsters.

[TuggyNE]

/Turn Untread!!!

Isn't that just for revenant tires? :smallyuk::smalltongue:

[Drachasor]

Take a Great Whale (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/animals/cetacean/whale/whale-great-white).

Charm/Dominate/Whatever it.

Cast Anthropomorphic Animal (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/anthropomorphic-animal)on it.

Use Parasitic Soul (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/p/parasitic-soul) to permanently put yourself in this new body (there are many ways to do this, a scroll and a construct with a Bioconstruct Brain (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/building-and-modifying-constructs) and UMD on an unconscious target would work).

You now how 50 Strength, 6 Dex, 27 Constitution, and 225 hit points (body has 18 hit dice)

Cast Heart of the Mammoth (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/h/heart-of-the-mammoth).

Cast Blood Rage (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/blood-rage) and do 25 points of damage to yourself.

You now have 68 Strength.

Wish for a Scroll of Wish. Limited Wish for Restoration. Do this for as many days as you need until you have all the Scrolls of Wish you could want.

While you are doing this, give everyone you like +5 to all stats. You now have 73 strength when buffed, 55 when not buffed. 41 Strength, 15 Dex, 24 Constitution when wearing your Greater Hat of Disguise (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/h-l/hat-of-disguise)(good to be medium size now and then).

Make all the simulacrums of anything you want. Make a Succubus Simulacrum for Profane Gift (+2 to an ability score of your choice). We're now up to 75 strength for Blood Money. Any magic item under 11000 gold is yours for free. All permanentable spells are permanent on you.

Use Arodan's Spellbane (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/aroden-s-spellbane) to make yourself immune to Disjunction, Arodan's Spellbane, and Dispel Magic.

Possibly there are better bodies out there, you could use Spirit Jars (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/h-l/jars-spirit) instead of Parasitic Soul to have a supplied of bodies -- you can even eliminate your old body if you want.

Anyhow, with an army of Simulacra, you can use a Ring Gate and your Succubus (always in telepathic contact with you) to toss out an arbitrary large number of spells through the gate if you ever get into combat.

(Note, I didn't use the Blood Money + Fabricate Cheese to just MAKE material components that are expensive. Technically you can get anything you want).

Anyhow, this is a start.

Edit: You can't wish for magic items in Pathfinder.

NO PROBLEM!

Get Cooperative Crafter (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/cooperative-crafting) Simulacrums. Each one doubles how much you can craft. Since the multiplying rules only apply to ROLLS, then this works normally. So 5 of them take you from crafting 2k a day to 64k, and 10 of them let you craft 2048k each day. In fact, they can do this without you.

Between this and Blood Money + Fabricate to make gold coins (or whatever you want for money...diamond dust works too), you can make however much of any magic item you want -- assuming the DM doesn't let you fabricate magic item components directly. This makes a Sorcerer probably the best option, since you can get arbitrarily high numbers of spells of all levels.

Edit 2: Though, you can also just make a Golem and do this. Construct rules even allow you to keep increasing its statistics for 5000gp for every +2. Unfortunately you can't increase its Con by RAW. But you can arbitrarily high Reflex Saves. With Ioun Stones you can have arbitrarily high Temporary Hit Points. A golem, during construction, can be made with an arbitrary number of hit dice as well.

So you can get as much HP, Strength, and Dexterity as you want. You can also get as many spells of all levels as you want. You also get immunity to any spell that allows Spell Resistance and Spell Bane lets you generate a selective Anti-magic field that blocks whatever other spells you dislike. Constitution, and Mental Scores are harder to increase though.

Naturally you are in your own demiplane once you get 7th level spells.

[Shapurnippal]

Built for level 15

Buy 17 charisma
2 ifrit
2 ifrit fire elemental bloodline affinity

[etc...]
1 arcane bloodline arcana
1 have improved familiar activate wand of arcane concordance
2 level 15 arcane bloodline ability


The ifrit affinity only applies to Ifrit with the elemental (fire) bloodline, but you have a bunch of stuff from the arcane bloodline (such as bonus feats) and no abilities or feats listed related to getting multiple bloodlines. This seems like a pretty basic mistake, so I'm wondering what I'm missing.

[The Random NPC]

The ifrit affinity only applies to Ifrit with the elemental (fire) bloodline, but you have a bunch of stuff from the arcane bloodline (such as bonus feats) and no abilities or feats listed related to getting multiple bloodlines. This seems like a pretty basic mistake, so I'm wondering what I'm missing.

Maybe the build uses Crossblooded (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/sorcerer/archetypes/paizo---sorcerer-archetypes/crossblooded)?

[Drachasor]

Hmm, Collaborative Thaumaturgy (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/collaborative-thaumaturgy) with the above posted "unlimited" spells Sorcerer lets them use Simulacrums and Ring Gates to have:

Every 8th level spell: Enlarge, Extended, Silent, and Stilled.
Every 7th level spell: above and Empowered
Every 6th level or lowered spell: Maximized and Widened

This spell is only 3rd level so any Simulacrum of the caster can use it. They also have unlimited casts.

Err, to be clear, infinite casting comes from infinite wealth and using Runestones of Power (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/runestone-of-power). Likewise the Sorcerer has all available spells known due to Pages of Spell Knowledge (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/m-p/page-of-spell-knowledge).

I still can't find any way to arbitrarily increase mental statistics. Constitution can be done IF you take over a Shambling Mound, but then you can't do Dexterity or Strength. Though, I have to admit that Constitution is probably more important for the Fort saves.

[The Random NPC]

Take a Great Whale (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/animals/cetacean/whale/whale-great-white).

Charm/Dominate/Whatever it.

Cast Anthropomorphic Animal (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/anthropomorphic-animal)on it.

Use Parasitic Soul (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/p/parasitic-soul) to permanently put yourself in this new body (there are many ways to do this, a scroll and a construct with a Bioconstruct Brain (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/building-and-modifying-constructs) and UMD on an unconscious target would work).

You now how 50 Strength, 6 Dex, 27 Constitution, and 225 hit points (body has 18 hit dice)

Cast Heart of the Mammoth (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/h/heart-of-the-mammoth).

Cast Blood Rage (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/blood-rage) and do 25 points of damage to yourself.

You now have 68 Strength.

Wish for a Scroll of Wish. Limited Wish for Restoration. Do this for as many days as you need until you have all the Scrolls of Wish you could want.

While you are doing this, give everyone you like +5 to all stats. You now have 73 strength when buffed, 55 when not buffed. 41 Strength, 15 Dex, 24 Constitution when wearing your Greater Hat of Disguise (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/h-l/hat-of-disguise)(good to be medium size now and then).

Make all the simulacrums of anything you want. Make a Succubus Simulacrum for Profane Gift (+2 to an ability score of your choice). We're now up to 75 strength for Blood Money. Any magic item under 11000 gold is yours for free. All permanentable spells are permanent on you.

Use Arodan's Spellbane (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/aroden-s-spellbane) to make yourself immune to Disjunction, Arodan's Spellbane, and Dispel Magic.

Possibly there are better bodies out there, you could use Spirit Jars (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/h-l/jars-spirit) instead of Parasitic Soul to have a supplied of bodies -- you can even eliminate your old body if you want.

Anyhow, with an army of Simulacra, you can use a Ring Gate and your Succubus (always in telepathic contact with you) to toss out an arbitrary large number of spells through the gate if you ever get into combat.

(Note, I didn't use the Blood Money + Fabricate Cheese to just MAKE material components that are expensive. Technically you can get anything you want).

Anyhow, this is a start.

Edit: You can't wish for magic items in Pathfinder.

NO PROBLEM!

Get Cooperative Crafter (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/cooperative-crafting) Simulacrums. Each one doubles how much you can craft. Since the multiplying rules only apply to ROLLS, then this works normally. So 5 of them take you from crafting 2k a day to 64k, and 10 of them let you craft 2048k each day. In fact, they can do this without you.

Between this and Blood Money + Fabricate to make gold coins (or whatever you want for money...diamond dust works too), you can make however much of any magic item you want -- assuming the DM doesn't let you fabricate magic item components directly. This makes a Sorcerer probably the best option, since you can get arbitrarily high numbers of spells of all levels.

Edit 2: Though, you can also just make a Golem and do this. Construct rules even allow you to keep increasing its statistics for 5000gp for every +2. Unfortunately you can't increase its Con by RAW. But you can arbitrarily high Reflex Saves. With Ioun Stones you can have arbitrarily high Temporary Hit Points. A golem, during construction, can be made with an arbitrary number of hit dice as well.

So you can get as much HP, Strength, and Dexterity as you want. You can also get as many spells of all levels as you want. You also get immunity to any spell that allows Spell Resistance and Spell Bane lets you generate a selective Anti-magic field that blocks whatever other spells you dislike. Constitution, and Mental Scores are harder to increase though.

Naturally you are in your own demiplane once you get 7th level spells.


Hmm, Collaborative Thaumaturgy (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/collaborative-thaumaturgy) with the above posted "unlimited" spells Sorcerer lets them use Simulacrums and Ring Gates to have:

Every 8th level spell: Enlarge, Extended, Silent, and Stilled.
Every 7th level spell: above and Empowered
Every 6th level or lowered spell: Maximized and Widened

This spell is only 3rd level so any Simulacrum of the caster can use it. They also have unlimited casts.

Err, to be clear, infinite casting comes from infinite wealth and using Runestones of Power (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/runestone-of-power). Likewise the Sorcerer has all available spells known due to Pages of Spell Knowledge (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/m-p/page-of-spell-knowledge).

I still can't find any way to arbitrarily increase mental statistics. Constitution can be done IF you take over a Shambling Mound, but then you can't do Dexterity or Strength. Though, I have to admit that Constitution is probably more important for the Fort saves.

First, I wanted to thank you both for those feats, I'm playing a crafter right now and I can never seem to get enough time, and I plan on making a Telepathic Bonded golem army to police the world.
Second, did you notice that Collaborative Thaumaturgy is instantaneous? Get them to cast it on you 7 times and you can always do it.

[Drachasor]

First, I wanted to thank you both for those feats, I'm playing a crafter right now and I can never seem to get enough time, and I plan on making a Telepathic Bonded golem army to police the world.
Second, did you notice that Collaborative Thaumaturgy is instantaneous? Get them to cast it on you 7 times and you can always do it.

It's instantaneous because it just applies to the current spell being cast. So it needs to be cast each time you cast a spell. Hmm, it is unclear how it works if 4+ are cast on you at once. You might only be able to pick one metamagic at a time. Probably that's the intention anyhow.

Need help crafting and you make golems...there's a way.
A Homunculus with 7 hit dice is the cheapest.
Make it with 7 hit dice, this costs 11050gp

1st: Spell Focus (any) - no spell-casting
3rd: Mage's Tattoo - only requires spell-focus
5th: Craft Wondrous (or any crafting, really)
7th: Cooperative Crafting
If your DM won't let you replace Lightning Reflexes on the Homunculus, you'll need to make a 9 hit die one

Total cost: 15050gp
Get one rank in a whole bunch of craft skills. Anything that uses one of those craft skills it can double the crafting time.

Granted, this is a bit expensive, but it is an option if you didn't take Cooperative Crafting yourself and can't find someone who did of high enough level.

Of course, rather than make two such Homunculi, you should just make one with twice as many hit dice (25050). Then make simulacrums of it. That's a lot cheaper after the first.

There are probably some tricks to make this all cheaper though.

[The Random NPC]

It's instantaneous because it just applies to the current spell being cast. So it needs to be cast each time you cast a spell. Hmm, it is unclear how it works if 4+ are cast on you at once. You might only be able to pick one metamagic at a time. Probably that's the intention anyhow.

Need help crafting and you make golems...there's a way.
A Homunculus with 7 hit dice is the cheapest.
Make it with 7 hit dice, this costs 11050gp

1st: Spell Focus (any) - no spell-casting
3rd: Mage's Tattoo - only requires spell-focus
5th: Craft Wondrous (or any crafting, really)
7th: Cooperative Crafting
If your DM won't let you replace Lightning Reflexes on the Homunculus, you'll need to make a 9 hit die one

Total cost: 15050gp
Get one rank in a whole bunch of craft skills. Anything that uses one of those craft skills it can double the crafting time.

Granted, this is a bit expensive, but it is an option if you didn't take Cooperative Crafting yourself and can't find someone who did of high enough level.

Of course, rather than make two such Homunculi, you should just make one with twice as many hit dice (25050). Then make simulacrums of it. That's a lot cheaper after the first.

There are probably some tricks to make this all cheaper though.
I figured it would be something like that.
Also my GM is letting me make Dedicated Wrights, so I'm good for the most part, I just need to get them Cooperative Crafting and I'll be set.

[Norin]

I really enjoy the fact that one of the first "broken" suggestions here is based on a half-elf build.

In 3.5 people laugh at half-elves and optimization. :smallbiggrin:

[Drachasor]

Hmm, actually, because of the crafting changes, you can get access to Wishes as early as level 5 if you break the economy (which is pretty much just as easy in PF as it is in 3.5). A Luckblade can be made if you have the money for it.

Since you can craft arbitrarily fast with assistance Homunculus, level 5 (required level to make them) is where you can make one Luckblade per day as long as you have the funds. Though it is level 9 before making money is easy -- literally, Blood Money + Fabricate to craft gold coins. Unlimited money before then is possible via Blood Money and other spells, but much slower.

But at level 9...the sky is the limit. You make the monies and the Homunculi can handle building things, even multiple things at once but splitting into teams. And you can easily make items to increase how quickly you can make money as well.

Armies of constructs packed full of magic is possible. No limit on how many you can make or how powerful. A 20 hit die Homunculus could lead the creation of a Adamantine Golem (Golems are one of the few things that actually have a caster level requirement for crafting in PF).

And of course, at level 9 you'll get +5 to all stats. Level 10 if you are a Sorcerer (recommended for infinite spells).

So, I think that's fairly competitive with 3.5 brokeness. Doesn't beat pun-pun or numerous other things, but it is pretty insane.

[charcoalninja]

It's instantaneous because it just applies to the current spell being cast. So it needs to be cast each time you cast a spell. Hmm, it is unclear how it works if 4+ are cast on you at once. You might only be able to pick one metamagic at a time. Probably that's the intention anyhow.

Need help crafting and you make golems...there's a way.
A Homunculus with 7 hit dice is the cheapest.
Make it with 7 hit dice, this costs 11050gp

1st: Spell Focus (any) - no spell-casting
3rd: Mage's Tattoo - only requires spell-focus
5th: Craft Wondrous (or any crafting, really)
7th: Cooperative Crafting
If your DM won't let you replace Lightning Reflexes on the Homunculus, you'll need to make a 9 hit die one

Total cost: 15050gp
Get one rank in a whole bunch of craft skills. Anything that uses one of those craft skills it can double the crafting time.

Granted, this is a bit expensive, but it is an option if you didn't take Cooperative Crafting yourself and can't find someone who did of high enough level.

Of course, rather than make two such Homunculi, you should just make one with twice as many hit dice (25050). Then make simulacrums of it. That's a lot cheaper after the first.

There are probably some tricks to make this all cheaper though.

How is the homunculus qualifying for Craft Wonderous Item? Mage's Tattue only gives you a caster level of 1.

[Drachasor]

How is the homunculus qualifying for Craft Wonderous Item? Mage's Tattue only gives you a caster level of 1.

It doesn't specify a caster level (I just double-checked the physical book to make sure the PFSRD didn't leave something out), therefore the caster level is equal to the caster's hit dice:

If no caster level is specified, the caster level is equal to the creature’s Hit Dice. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/universal-monster-rules#TOC-Spell-Like-Abilities-Sp-) (Note: Spell-like ability rules appear in 3 places. Only the set with the Universal Monster Rules goes over what the caster level is by default).

Though since the cantrip is from the school you get a +1 CL bonus it, it's actually Hit Dice +1 now that I think about it.

Without that you'd have to take the Master Craftsman (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/master-craftsman---final) feat and you'd be restricted to Wondrous Items and Arms and Armor. Well, there might be a way to nab a caster level otherwise...I just grabbed the first one I saw.

While making a craftsman is kind of cool, I would note that a humunculous requires regular contact with their master (though a Simulacrum might qualify if you can get one). So this isn't without its problems. Outside of that, a Construct with a Bioconstruct Brain could also grab feats and skills, but this is very expensive (over 20k for the mod). There aren't many intelligent construct options in PF, unfortunately. Fewer that are under your control.

I think one of the interesting things about PF here is how easily accessible some of these insane exploits are. A number of 3.5 stuff required combining fairly obscure things from various sources. PF has a lot of low hanging fruit, so to speak. IMHO anyhow.

Hmm, short of just straight wishing for magic items in 3.5, I think PF allows for faster crafting.

That said, I think I'll look at stuff that avoids using Fabricate to make money (via selling) and doesn't use Blood Money either. They make a lot of things way too easy.

Oh, speaking of broken things, Disjunction in Pathfinder is completely OP. It just disables magic items temporarily now and automatically removes all buffs. There's no reason this shouldn't be the first offensive spell cast in any major combat against enemies that use buffs or magic items.

[charcoalninja]

I had thought there was a rule regarding caster level for the spell likes and figured you were using it, I just wanted to know the rule myself! That rule opens up a LOT of interesting possibilities since there are many races with innate spell like abilities...

I may have to give all my devils craft wonderous item from now on... Come to think of it, all my outsiders could make great use of it, especially flavor wise. Especially dragons toting pages of spell knowledge...

[Drachasor]

Ahh, there's a spell level 8 way to give your constructs an intelligence score AND a constitution score!

Polymorph Any Object them into an Earth Elemental. Ideally you'd want a construct made out of an earth elemental substance. They then gain a Constitution of 10 and an Intelligence of 5. While the spell doesn't explicitly say they get feats and skills, the general rule on this sort of thing is that it is retroactive in PF.

You can then spend 5k per 2 point increase to either one of those ability scores on your construct.

Probably best done with animated objects since in PF polymorph is REALLY vague about what abilities you gain or lose.

[Karoht]

Behold, the magnificence of Drow Fleshcrafting Potions!
New and improved Formula! 100% Less Drow! 300% more Exclamation Points!

http://www.pathfindersrd.com/feats/item-creation-feats/brew-fleshcrafting-poison-item-creation
Requirements? Caster Level 10 and Alchemy 5 ranks. You don't have to be drow to have it or learn it. It is however in a campaign setting, so there is a good chance it will be a restricted book as most DM's don't allow content from campaign settings. This is about the point where the downsides stop.

Seriously, you want 3 wishes a day at no cost? Caster Level (minimum of 10) x CR of Genie x 1000 (half that if you craft it yourself). Perminantly. Less if you only want it for a day. 10 x 1000 x 8 (divide by 2). 40 grand (and brewing time) if you want it perminantly. 10 x 50 x 8 (divide by 2) = 2000g if you just want it for a day at a time. But hey, your you're poor, 3 wishes will put you to 25000g each (75000g) pretty quickly. You can make absurd money doing this.

Want the nearly unbeatable regeneration of a Terrasque? Or perhaps his Swallow Whole or Spines or Carapace?
And if you want an immunity, find the lowest CR creature you can with the Immunity de jour. Immune to Mind Affecting shows up in creatures like Undead, which is crazy low CR. Want Lich/Undead Immunities with none of the drawbacks? Here's how you do it.

If your DM allows it in the campaign, grats, your DM just gave you the keys to break the game in whatever means you want.

[N. Jolly]

Behold, the magnificence of Drow Fleshcrafting Potions!
New and improved Formula! 100% Less Drow! 300% more Exclamation Points!

http://www.pathfindersrd.com/feats/item-creation-feats/brew-fleshcrafting-poison-item-creation
Requirements? Caster Level 10 and Alchemy 5 ranks. You don't have to be drow to have it or learn it. It is however in a campaign setting, so there is a good chance it will be a restricted book as most DM's don't allow content from campaign settings. This is about the point where the downsides stop.

Seriously, you want 3 wishes a day at no cost? Caster Level (minimum of 10) x CR of Genie x 1000 (half that if you craft it yourself). Perminantly. Less if you only want it for a day. 10 x 1000 x 8 (divide by 2). 40 grand (and brewing time) if you want it perminantly. 10 x 50 x 8 (divide by 2) = 2000g if you just want it for a day at a time. But hey, your you're poor, 3 wishes will put you to 25000g each (75000g) pretty quickly. You can make absurd money doing this.

Want the nearly unbeatable regeneration of a Terrasque? Or perhaps his Swallow Whole or Spines or Carapace?
And if you want an immunity, find the lowest CR creature you can with the Immunity de jour. Immune to Mind Affecting shows up in creatures like Undead, which is crazy low CR. Want Lich/Undead Immunities with none of the drawbacks? Here's how you do it.

If your DM allows it in the campaign, grats, your DM just gave you the keys to break the game in whatever means you want.

I didn't know about this, and now it's getting added to my Alchemist guide. God bless you for bringing this information to light. I almost feel like this feat needs an entire section to itself.

[avr]

I didn't know about this, and now it's getting added to my Alchemist guide. God bless you for bringing this information to light. I almost feel like this feat needs an entire section to itself.
Alchemist is one class this doesn't work for. With the exception of Brew Potion which they get as a bonus feat, they can't take item creation feats due to technically lacking a caster level.

[N. Jolly]

Alchemist is one class this doesn't work for. With the exception of Brew Potion which they get as a bonus feat, they can't take item creation feats due to technically lacking a caster level.

The base class yes, but the character themselves can as long as you have a SLA, which allows you to qualify for item creation feats (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9qp0). It's why something with a scaling arcane SLA can qualify for Arcane Strike.

An odd ruling to be sure, but one that I plan on abusing. Also Alchemist being able to craft items really is RAI (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fn#v5748eaic9qdk), but as far as RAW is concerned, all you need is a scaling SLA which can be racial (or by a trait (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/TraitDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Wendifa%20Apprentice)) and you're good to go!

[skyth]

Though funny as hell, PF only has 20 levels so you'd stop there.

Pathfinder explicitly has no level cap. The rules say to guess at progression past 20 or start going up in another class.

[Snowbluff]

I didn't know about this, and now it's getting added to my Alchemist guide. God bless you for bringing this information to light. I almost feel like this feat needs an entire section to itself.

This is pretty extra ordinary. :smallsmile:

[Karoht]

I've been doing some checking regarding Brew Fleshcrafting Potion.

1-Most DM's I've spoke with allow it, but only physical things (so no SLA's meaning no Wish laundering).
2-The feat doesn't call for any specific materials or any bizarre kind of skill check, but some DM's will require you to have a piece of the creature in question. Polymorphed versions won't count.
3-Most DM's will probably ban outsiders of any kind.
4-Templates can't be copied.

Those requirements aren't terrible. Lots of excellent (Ex) abilities to choose from. One could still have Terrasque Regeneration perminently (admittedly for 250K, half if you make it yourself, plus downtime) and literally be unkillable. Mind Blank, or Immune to Mind Affecting is pretty cheap to get ahold of because so many low CR creatures have it.

Stack on some feats to make the crafting faster and cheaper and, with enought time and money, you could probably craft yourself into a weaker incarnation of pun-pun.

[Drachasor]

Fleshcrafting Potion...never noticed that. That's worse than Simulacrum -- oh and they got rid of the material component for Simulacrum for no reason. So yeah, you can make a Simulacrum of whatever you want as long as you've at least heard of it (I guess).

Worst part? You bring up this sort of stuff with the Devs and half the time they'll just say it's the DM's job to take care of it. The other half they'll act like the text says something different than what it does. I'm sure we're just scratching the surfance.

[Karoht]

Fleshcrafting Potion...never noticed that. That's worse than Simulacrum -- oh and they got rid of the material component for Simulacrum for no reason. So yeah, you can make a Simulacrum of whatever you want as long as you've at least heard of it (I guess).

Worst part? You bring up this sort of stuff with the Devs and half the time they'll just say it's the DM's job to take care of it. The other half they'll act like the text says something different than what it does. I'm sure we're just scratching the surfance.Simulacrum still requires "(ice sculpture of the target plus powdered rubies worth 500 gp per HD of the simulacrum)" which makes it at least cost prohibitive. For a while.

[Drachasor]

Simulacrum still requires "(ice sculpture of the target plus powdered rubies worth 500 gp per HD of the simulacrum)" which makes it at least cost prohibitive. For a while.

As a 7th level spell, the most it would ever cost is 6500gp when you get it, and another 500gp each level you gain. That's not cost prohibitive at that level. At 15th level you can make a Adamantine Golem for just 7500gp! Sure, half hit dice and whatnot, but that's plenty to do well, especially given how hard it is to kill.

To say nothing of just picking powerful spellcasters and the like.

[CombatOwl]

From what I've seen so far, while there are fairly powerful builds, there isn't a build that flat-out wins encounters like the 3.5 wizards could. The optimization ceiling seems to be around "twice as powerful as intended" levels, not "totally negates need for a party" levels.

CC Sorcerer builds. It's not mentioned here because no munchkinry is required. Take one AOE damage spell that targets reflex, one AOE damage spell that targets will, and if you're really paranoid, one AOE damage spell that targets fortitude. Take Dazing Spell. As soon as you can put Dazing on those spells, you'll start winning encounters without help (by using the AOE that the monsters are weak against). It goes downhill from there if you can also fit persistent onto it. If the first casting fails, repeat. Because Dazing Spell does not make the spell mind-affecting, unless the creature is specifically immune to daze, you're golden. Personally, I also suggest taking both Icy Prison and Phantasmal Killer, just in case something gets in your face. Persistant PK and Persistant Icy Prison are both very likely to kill whatever they hit--PK against things with evasion, Icy Prison against everything else. There are a lot of ways to do this without increasing casting time--bloodline abilities, staves of the master, etc.

Since you only need three spells for your combat efficacy, you have a bunch of other spells you can pick up for utility or battlefield control, just to make sure you don't get hit. Granted, if the encounters scale way out of your "party's" CR, you'll start to fail at it.


Hi

Only problem is that Daze only works on Humanoids up to 4HD, and only for one round. They are immune to daze for one minute after that.

Dazing spell applies the daze condition, it's a metamagic feat. Works on everything. And because of the way dazing spell is written, unless the spell that would apply the daze is mid-affecting, the daze is not mind affecting. It's quite powerful.

[Chambers]

True Name (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/archetypes/paizo---wizard-archetypes/arcane-discoveries/true-name) (Arcane Discovery).

Pick something that can cast Wish and work out a favorable deal with the creature, i.e. I'll use X number of Wishes for me and X+1 number of Wishes for you.

[Paul H]

Hi

Well, I DO have a 13th Lvl Myrmidach (Ranged Magus archetype), Tier 6 Mythic who does about 150 -108 hp damage/rnd in Wrath of Righteous campaign.

Feats: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Deadly Aim, Mythic Deadly Aim, Wpn Specialisation, Rapid Shot.
Bow: +1 str (comp longbow) +1/Axiomatic/Holy/Evil Outsider Bane (has Mythic Gtr Magic Wpn CL 13 c/w thundering)
Has +3 Arcane Pool & Arcana Hasted Assault running.

Synthesist is only vulnerable to Dismissal etc. Otherwise is beyond the curve per level.

Aasimar Oracle of Nature can add half their levels to effective Druid for their animal companions. So Oracle 10 has companion as 15th lvl druid

And as for Dazing Spell -it pushes up the spell effective level by 3, and Sorcerors take a full round action to cast, can be interrupted, plus has a save to negate. So my OOT Mythic stuff means my ranged guy will prob ignore any effect.

Other builds include an Aasimar Oracle of Life, with lvl dip in Cleric (Sarenrae) for the extra channels. Add a phylactery that adds 2d6 to any channel, and you're looking at over 60d6 channeling per day (Oracle 8/Clr 1)

Thanks
Paul H

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Please do not revive old threads.