Many problems

[stratofear]

Good morning to all, I am new to this forum, but a regular reader and role player; I have some questions and I would like to think that in this place I will be able to evacuate those doubts, a few days ago I was invited to play a PF campaign, it is the first time I play it so I put together something quite simple and try not to disturb my team while analyzing a little more the game and my companions.
The problem is as follows:

1st - Use of "optional" rules (if you use magic, psionics, etc. that deals damage you must make a dice roll of 1d20 + your key skill (Int, Wis, etc) against the salvation of the opponent to see if you hit a hit (this applies to any spell that deals damage, even if it's a fireball or a magic missile), I'd like to know where I can read those rules to better understand them.

2 ° My colleagues (now lvl 7) I think they have optimized their characters but I do not see coherence in how they have achieved it, I cite examples; a druid or invoker (I still do not know) that summons orcs of fire, nagas of electricity with a duration of hours in some case and in turn has skills in archery at the level of a good warrior (it is orc so the dexterity bonuses by race they do not count), an Elf who is fighting with a big sword makes his standard attack and adds an elemental attack (for the moment I have seen 7d6 damage shots to which he adds 10.20 or 30 more points per se) and doing these things all the times a day that you have enough desire, and we talk that this added to an AC of 29, high saves of salvation and maximized skills, the worst is that the DM takes this as something normal and does not ask where all this comes from; This is complemented by a Gunslinger who performs all his attacks as touch attacks, not counting the points of sand or the necessary distance increments and that being with full coverage (tower shield) according to the attack impacts equally.

I would like to know if these things are possible and if you can tell me where to gather this information to read it, thank you very much.

{Font size reduced. Please use the default font.}

[Selion]

Good morning to all, I am new to this forum, but a regular reader and role player; I have some questions and I would like to think that in this place I will be able to evacuate those doubts, a few days ago I was invited to play a PF campaign, it is the first time I play it so I put together something quite simple and try not to disturb my team while analyzing a little more the game and my companions.
The problem is as follows:

1st - Use of "optional" rules (if you use magic, psionics, etc. that deals damage you must make a dice roll of 1d20 + your key skill (Int, Wis, etc) against the salvation of the opponent to see if you hit a hit (this applies to any spell that deals damage, even if it's a fireball or a magic missile), I'd like to know where I can read those rules to better understand them.

2 ° My colleagues (now lvl 7) I think they have optimized their characters but I do not see coherence in how they have achieved it, I cite examples; a druid or invoker (I still do not know) that summons orcs of fire, nagas of electricity with a duration of hours in some case and in turn has skills in archery at the level of a good warrior (it is orc so the dexterity bonuses by race they do not count), an Elf who is fighting with a big sword makes his standard attack and adds an elemental attack (for the moment I have seen 7d6 damage shots to which he adds 10.20 or 30 more points per se) and doing these things all the times a day that you have enough desire, and we talk that this added to an AC of 29, high saves of salvation and maximized skills, the worst is that the DM takes this as something normal and does not ask where all this comes from; This is complemented by a Gunslinger who performs all his attacks as touch attacks, not counting the points of sand or the necessary distance increments and that being with full coverage (tower shield) according to the attack impacts equally.

I would like to know if these things are possible and if you can tell me where to gather this information to read it, thank you very much.

First of all, please, reduce the font size.

1st- I don't know anything about this rule, it seems like a way your DM came up to tune down spellcasters (you know, one of the big problem with d&d/pathfinder is that magic may be overwhelming in respect to martial and social skills), unless you are fighting creatures with spell resistance, which works exactly that way.
2ts- First guy seems to be a magus (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/), he can cast spells and attack at the same time, but has a worse spell progression than a wizard and a worse martial progression than a fighter, it's basically a half wizard half fighter. Nothing strange about that, he should have 5 1th level spells, 4 second level spells and 2 third level spells, which he uses to increase both his attack and his defense, that's why probably he can reach that whopping AC 29, that value won't last all the day, after 3-4 fights in a day he'll have probably all his resources depleted.
Second one is a gunslinger ( https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/gunslinger/ ), touch attacks is basically the way firearms work and may be nasty, but firearms are limited in number of attacks, damage, or both, it really depends on how this player built his character.

What class are you playing? Maybe we could help you with your build, if you feel your character is so behind the others

[stratofear]

First of all I apologize for the size of the source, I had seemed smaller than it really is.
Continuing with the issue, I had analyzed that it could be a magus, but as an example I will say that in a fight I attack more than 4 targets with the same combination of attack + elemental damage, that was in a combat, it is worth clarifying that before finishing the I went back to do it against 3 more opponents which already exceeds my calculation of number of possible spells (I must clarify that I had fun when I told him that the night before I had not slept 8 hours continuously and did not understand how he had recovered spells but .. .), maybe in some compilation can be done and I do not know it.

With the case of the gunslinger something similar happens, it is the deadeye ability, which allows you to make touch attacks as long as you keep at least 1 point in your pool, the strange thing is that that ability is activated when the enemy is after the first increment away, which to our friend seems not to affect him since he makes his full attack with deadeye at any distance followed by a recharge as swift action, I repeat that maybe they are compilations that I do not know.

With respect to my class I had started a level 7 psionico but I have the freedom to change it for anything, since only one session would not affect my character's decision to abandon everything.
Added to all this annoys a little the internal fights to see who is the strongest showing off these combos between the mimsos members of the game (except a dwarf specialized in taunt and who only has defense) threatening to kill himself for anything.

[Selion]

This reverse engineering seems amusing, let me try, even if i'm not a good optimizer. I know magus class features pretty well, though, because i'm playing a magus myself (even if i'm still level 1)
He is an elf, so he is probably building around dex/int
His should have around 20 base dex and 18 base int, his bab is +5, i'm pretty confident his choice of feats is the following:
weapon finesse
dervish dance
combat casting
intensified spell
He even has the magical lineage trait applied to shocking grasp, which justifies the 7d6 bonus damage to attack (it's a typical combo, he can cast intensified shocking grasp as a first level spell)
At level 7 WBL table gives you 23500 GP
so there we are:
+2 mithrall mail shirt 5150 GP
+1 scimitar 2300 GP
+2 belt of dexterity 4000 GP
+1 talisman of natural armor 2000 GP
+1 ring of deflection 2000 GP
+2 cape of resistance 4000 GP
Total 19.450 GP

Ok, now let's do some calculation.
CA: 10 +6 (dex) + 6 (armor) + 1(natural) + 1(deflection) = 24
He probably uses shield in most combat, maybe he even has a wand to cast it (750 GP), so we are at AC 28
He probably is under haste effect in dire times, which adds 1 point more, AC 29 !!! Gotcha!!!
Let's see how his attacks look like
At level 7 he has just 1 base attack/round: scimitar + 12 (+5 bab + 6 dex + 1 enchantment)
He has an arcane pool of 8-9 points, which he can spend to add 2 points more of enchantment (or adding properties to the weapon such as keen or 1d6 elemental damage)
This buff lasts 1 minutes and it is a swift action, so probably you're seeing it every single fight. My choice would be +1 and keen, but i don't know what this guy's tastes are like.
If he decides to put two elemental bonuses instead, he would add 2d6 damage (eg +1d6 fire +1d6 acid) to every attack without spending spell slots, which justifies him using elemental damage without recharging spells.
(this is getting complicated) He can decrease his attack bonus by 2 to cast a spell during a full attack; if the spell has a touch range (such as shocking grasp), he can bring that attack with his sword and this gives him a bonus attack.
So, let's see which spells he probably uses daily:
6 1th level: at least 4 slots of shocking grasp, 2 utilities spell, assuming he uses shield with a wand
5 2th level: mirror images is a pretty good spell, frigid touch is a solid debuff, i'd use two slots on each of them
2 3th level spells: haste!!!!, then probably fly

So, it's combat routine should look like:
1th round: shield(wand), movement to reach melee, swift action to give the scimitar +2 bonus (or 2d6 elemental damage, or +1 keen, or +1d6 damage and keen)
2th round: haste, full attack
3th and successive rounds: full attack + shocking grasp.
ok, i'll assume he uses arcane pool to give +1 keen to his weapon.
so at 2th round he has two attacks +12 (1d6 + 8, 15-20 x2) (average damage 1d6+8=11.5)
At 3th round he has three attack, because shocking grasp gives him a free attack, he adds 7d6 damage to one of his attacks (intensified shocking grasp deals 1d6 dmg/lev, max 10d6 )

So, we guessed right his CA and his average damage.
A final thought: i don't like playing this way, every character feels the same. (TBH i don't know if these players are that into optimization as it seems, maybe they are good role players anyway)
You are playing a psion, if you really want you will overshadow these guys easily, it's pretty straightforward: pick an online guide and copy everything you read. Instead i suggest to search a personal design for your character, you chose a strong class, you will not fall too much behind and it will be your unique character: a stranger in a random forum wouldn't be able to guess your character that easily.

[stratofear]

First of all thanks for the response, it was a good analysis of reverse engineering but I should clarify certain points so you can see why it has complicated me:

1 ° the Magus uses a greatsword (and by itself could not use magic to have both hands occupied).

2 ° Until the time of all your fights I have not seen him use a magic item or potion.

3 ° Because he uses a 2-handed weapon, he does not wear a shield and I do not remember well, but I think his armor was a complete one (I'm not sure at the moment, but if so, it's not proficient even if it was mirihtil)

4 Since round 1 is already making a dmg of 7d6 aggregates (not counting weapon dmg) we talk about spending about 7 points of your pool (we are talking about a pool of about 9 points) which would allow you to do it 1 minute a day, not in several separate fights.
Regardless of the analysis how to be armed that pj is a mystery but for everything I read I find no logic whatsoever to back it ....... and the other members do not stay so far behind.

[Selion]

First of all thanks for the response, it was a good analysis of reverse engineering but I should clarify certain points so you can see why it has complicated me:

1 ° the Magus uses a greatsword (and by itself could not use magic to have both hands occupied).

2 ° Until the time of all your fights I have not seen him use a magic item or potion.

3 ° Because he uses a 2-handed weapon, he does not wear a shield and I do not remember well, but I think his armor was a complete one (I'm not sure at the moment, but if so, it's not proficient even if it was mirihtil)

4 Since round 1 is already making a dmg of 7d6 aggregates (not counting weapon dmg) we talk about spending about 7 points of your pool (we are talking about a pool of about 9 points) which would allow you to do it 1 minute a day, not in several separate fights.
Regardless of the analysis how to be armed that pj is a mystery but for everything I read I find no logic whatsoever to back it ....... and the other members do not stay so far behind.

Then i give up, or he used some options i'm not aware of, or this characters has been built under heavy house ruling, or both
(BTW, he can enchant his weapon only with one point and they don't stack, so this is not the reason he can do that)

[Krezdorim]

Then i give up, or he used some options i'm not aware of, or this characters has been built under heavy house ruling, or both
(BTW, he can enchant his weapon only with one point and they don't stack, so this is not the reason he can do that)

Sounds like either a 3.5 Duskblade or a Mindblade Magus. Or maybe even a Kineticist with a Conducting weapon?

[Selion]

Sounds like either a 3.5 Duskblade or a Mindblade Magus. Or maybe even a Kineticist with a Conducting weapon?

Yep, you are right, mindblade can cast in heavy armor and can manifest a two handed weapon, but i think OP would have noticed if he manifested his weapon out of thin air.
I stopped playing 3.5 a decade ago, so i'm not well informed about 3.5 classes and i'm not very knowledgeable about kinetist, too much oddities in that class.
By the way, if he is an elf wearing heavy armor and a two handed weapon he suddenly seems not that min-maxed as i tought

[stratofear]

As I said to me it has made me think a lot, to clarify, it's not psionic since the first one who took that kind of character was me, his powers are all arcane, I have the firm theory that I manipulate the definitions of many things to create the character, and has the nullity of action of the DM, in general I think that is the line of most of them.
I stress that Pathfinder is not D & D, if that serves as help, but I reiterate that more than a character construction is a manipulation brazenness of what can or can not do (for those who did not read the beginning, have a druid or invoker invoking orcs of fire, nagas of electricity and that last a pair of hours, while it attacks with a bow with the same BAB that the warrior of the game and other interesting things)




I had forgotten to mention, with the theme of magic I also had some surprise, I wanted to use a psionic power and they say "strip to see if you hit", clarify that I did not need to throw anything, I just had to wait for the saving roll of my opponent, then they tell me that they used a variant of the rules in which the caster must shoot 1d20 plus his caster level against what the opponent has in the corresponding saving roll (he did not know the format) which applies to the critics for spell using a random generator of critics of a page ...... so if you titas a ball of fire maximized you can put a critic x4 quite easy ....

[Manyasone]

I had forgotten to mention, with the theme of magic I also had some surprise, I wanted to use a psionic power and they say "strip to see if you hit", clarify that I did not need to throw anything, I just had to wait for the saving roll of my opponent, then they tell me that they used a variant of the rules in which the caster must shoot 1d20 plus his caster level against what the opponent has in the corresponding saving roll (he did not know the format) which applies to the critics for spell using a random generator of critics of a page ...... so if you titas a ball of fire maximized you can put a critic x4 quite easy ....

What??! Specially the last sentence

[Selion]

What??! Specially the last sentence

At this point i think that their DM just doesn't follow rules too much and abuses rule zero. This doesn't make him automatically a bad DM, but it's hard to help OP without talking with him.

[stratofear]

Imagine my expression when seeing those modifications to the rules, for the moment I use a psionic character, specialized in telepathy and with prestige class Thrallherd, with the intention of spending my power points in killing other players, or using a stun and that my murderous slave does the dirty work.