Not All Tactics Are Endgame Viable (Pathfinder)

There are few things more frustrating that when your character is in a situation where your character's main skill set isn't applicable or effective. Whether it's the greatsword-wielding barbarian who can't fight the flying dragon, or the wizard's spells slide right off the golems, or the rogue who just can't use their sneak attack on creatures who don't have a discernible anatomy, it can be incredibly frustrating.

But it's even worse when this becomes your character's permanent state of being. There are a lot of situations where this can happen, which is why it's important to take a step back, and really evaluate your strategy's viability.

Because it can be frustrating to get sidelined right as the campaign is coming to the climax... or even when you hit the midpoint.

Because no one wants to be Bruce Banner when they built the Hulk.

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What Are The Weaknesses in Your Strategy?

No matter what kind of character you're building, they're going to have some kind of weakness... something that is necessary for them to operate at full-strength, or which they are not going to be truly effective against. After all, if you're a fighter in heavy armor with a tower shield, then you probably aren't going to be great at a lot of saving throws. If you're a melee specialist then you have to be able to close with the enemy in order to hit them. If you're a ranged combatant you need to have line of effect to your target... and so on, and so forth.

And generally speaking, when you realize these flaws, you should take measures to deal with them. For example, if you know you need to be able to reach your foes in melee, you need to ensure you have some method of increasing your speed, or flying, etc. in those instances where an enemy would be otherwise out of reach. Alternatively, you need to be sure you have some kind of ranged weapon option that, while it might not be ideal, will still allow you to participate in a battle instead of just slogging forward and hoping for the best. If you know there will be situations where your spells can't hurt the enemy, then you keep a few party-buffers, defensive spells, or area manipulation spells up your sleeve so you can still do something.

But in Pathfinder the issue arises that some strategies simply are not long-term viable simply because of the nature of how so many adventures function.

We are legion, and we are many.

As an example, consider poison use. It takes a specific class feature in order to use poison safely as a PC, and the saves for most poisons are fairly minor. Poison itself is expensive to acquire, and time consuming to make... but all of these challenges can be overcome if a player really wants to make poison use a central feature of their character build. However, the issue is that many enemies that tend to make up the end-game threats of a campaign (powerful outsiders, deadly constructs, undead creatures, etc.) are outright immune to poison. So what might have once been a trump card becomes an absolute dead-end, and all the time, energy, and resources dedicated to honing poison into a genuine strategy becomes useless.

You see the same with a variety of other tactics. Mind control spells and certain types of illusions are all well and good when dealing with creatures that have minds to control, or who are subject to illusions. But if your enemies have immunity to mind-affecting effects, or if they tend to have true seeing or similar abilities, then these spells are going to fall flat. Even combat maneuvers like disarm, while they're useful at lower levels, tend to fall flat when your enemies are all monsters with natural weapons, or spellcasters who have no weapons that can be disarmed. Hell, even characters who focus on fire as their main damage element often run into issues because so many creatures have large resistances (or outright immunity) to fire when you hit higher challenge ratings.

None of this is meant to discourage players who want to pursue these options, and in many cases you can still use them effectively for a great deal of the campaign. However, it's important that you have secondary strategies you can rely on in the event your main strength doesn't work against a particular foe, and in a particular way.

Lastly, talk to your Game Master about what you're planning, and ask if this strategy is going to work when you reach the endgame. Don't ask specifically what's coming, but make sure that if you have a strategy in mind that you are going to lean into that your Game Master is aware of it so they can tell you yay or nay.

Because just like telling the ranger who just leveled up not to take Favored Enemy: Goblin, because you're never going to fight another goblin in the entire campaign, they should also tell you if your strategy of using the knockout venom from your pseudodragon companion is going to simply stop working after level 7 because every enemy after that point will simply be immune to it, and you'll need to do something else for the next 10 levels until you reach the conclusion.

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Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

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5 Low-Level Protection Spells That Never Stop Being Useful (in Pathfinder)

Magic is one of the most useful resources in Pathfinder, but too often we end up letting our smaller spells sort of fall by the wayside, forgetting that our lower-level slots can still be useful even at higher levels of play. If you're looking for some ways to keep yourself (and your party) protected when crawling through dungeons and brawling through the bestiary, keep these simple spells in mind, as well as your daily preparations.

Also, for those who like to throw some mud in your enemies' eyes, check out 5 Low-Level Debuff Spells That Never Stop Being Useful (in Pathfinder) as well!

All right... let's talk protection!

#1: Delay Disease

Don't let charisma damage happen to you!

If you've ever played a paladin, then you understand exactly how invulnerable you feel when you can ignore the bite of a werewolf, or sneer at mummy rot because you are protected by a higher power. While getting permanent immunity to disease is tough, getting temporary immunity can be just as effective in the short-term.

Delay disease is a 2nd-level divine spell which also appears on the witch list as a 1st-level spell. Once cast it provides 24 hour protection against any disease taking effect on the target, and if there is already a disease present then the spell can halt it with an appropriate caster-level check. If you want to have something in place to keep your teammates safe before a dungeon delve, this is a solid one to keep in a wand and pass around before you kick in the door.

#2: Delay Poison

And I hit! What? Ah crap...

In the same boat as delay disease is another 2nd-level spell delay poison! This one only works for 1 hour per level, but it essentially stops the clock on any poison in someone's system (without a caster level check), and if someone is under the effects of this spell they can ignore any poison in their veins until it runs out. If you're high enough level that you have a lot of 2nd level slots to spare, this is a good one to keep on-hand, but even if you just have it in a wand for those rainy days when you need to stop a poison from spreading it's quite handy to have.

#3: Defending Bone

Don't worry boss, I got you!

Defending bone is a spell that is likely going to wind up on every character I ever play just for the way it looks. You animate either the femur bone or skull of a Medium-sized creature, and it floats around you. It interposes itself between you and physical attacks, granting you DR 5/bludgeoning. It lasts for 1 hour per level, and it will absorb 5 points per caster level with a maximum of 50 points before it gets turned to dust.

The most useful thing here is that the spell doesn't say you need to be aware of the attack for the bone to protect you. So if you're ambushed, or you have invisible rogues stabbing at you, the bone still interposes itself. Even better, if the DR negates an attack's damage entirely (say, a poisoned dart being fired from cover) then that will block any poison on the weapon as well.

#4: Protection From X/Y/Z

Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't touch me...

Protection from evil, and the variants that apply to good, law, and chaos are basic, 1st level spells that show up on most spellcasting lists. When we initially take them it's usually the boost to armor class and saves that we consider most important, but the other effects of the spell are arguably a lot more important at later levels.

The first is that it protects you from enchantment (compulsion) and (charm) effects, making it basically impossible for a big villain to just reach into the fighter's head and turn him into a party-killing puppet if there's a protected alignment in play. The second is that it means summoned creatures whose alignment matches the protection spell can't make contact with you unless you first attack them. This can be a life saver when a high-level villain is depending on summoned monsters to tear you to pieces, but the demons, archons, or chaos beasts can't get within a foot of you due to a lowly 1st-level spell.

While you get the biggest benefits from casting it at your character level, this is one that's fine to put in potions for immediate battlefield consumption.

#5: Stone Shield

Oh boy, that's gonna be nasty!

Stone shield is an immediate action spell that essentially lets you earth-bend a slab of stone out of the floor, making it rise up to protect you. It grants you cover (+4 bonus to AC and a +2 bonus to Reflex saves), and it basically lasts 1 round, or until something destroys it.

Those are relatively small bonuses, but they can be very helpful in a pinch. Especially when you consider that cover bonuses can be a life saver against ray spells, when there are so few things that help improve your touch AC. Additionally, if you have cover from an enemy, they can't take attacks of opportunity against you, so this is a great method to both cover your butt, and get the hell out of a dangerous situation while maintaining your standard action to heal up, or to cast something bigger once you're at a safe distance.

Like, Share, and Follow For More!

That's all for this week's Crunch topic! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio! Or if you'd like to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well! And if you'd like to help support me and my work, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron! Even a little bit of help can go a long way, trust me on that one.

Vile Bile (Something For Green Dragonborn Assassins)

Folks who stop by my blog know that Improved Initiative is more of a place to remix concepts and builds with existing rules than a place where I brew up totally new stuff. However, when it comes to 5th Edition, barely a session of the campaign I'm in goes by where I don't notice a big gap that is just calling out to be filled in with fresh content.

So this week I thought I'd present something I'm going to try out that other folks might like as well. I call it Vile Bile, in honor of the foul-mouthed, foul-tempered, hard-drinking, blackmailing, vicious, incorrigible maniac I'm currently playing.

The hell you looking at, softskin?

For folks interested in some of my other thoughts for 5th Edition, check out Method in The Madness (A Structure For Wild Magic Surge Rolls in 5th Edition).

Vile Bile (A Poisoner's Best Friend)

Green dragons are unique, in that no other breed can belch forth the clouds of noxious vapors they can foment inside their gullets. While most adventurers are not foolish enough to approach a full-grown green with the intent of harvesting the power of its breath weapon, it is possible for someone with the proper knowledge to get the necessary ingredients from the lesser children of these dragons.

If someone has access to either a willing green dragonborn or a green dragon, it is possible to extract a single use of their breath weapon for the day. The poison gas must be blown into a kettle or a cauldron with a sealed stopper. The vapors must then be alternatively heated and cooled over a two-hour process. The kettle will release terrible fumes, but while they will smell awful, they won't be deadly. At the end of the two hour process, the inside of the kettle will have a thin layer of highly poisonous resin in it. That resin can be smeared on a weapon, or if tea is made in the pot it can be infused into a drink (though the green tint may make some drinkers suspicious).

No, it's supposed to taste like that. Don't worry.

In either case, the person brewing the Vile Bile must make a DC 15 check using a poisoner's kit in order to properly craft the poison. Once it's been crafted, there are as many doses as there are d6's of the breath weapon that was used. The poison uses the same save as that breath weapon, as well, making the bile of powerful dragons and dragonborn much deadlier than that of younger, less-seasoned ones.

Only a single dose (1d6 of poison damage, with the appropriate save for half damage) can be applied to a single bolt or arrow at a time. Additionally, only a single dose can be put into a single cup of tea. However, up to two doses can be placed on light weapons, up to three on one-handed, non-light weapons, and as many as four on heavy weapons. No matter how many doses are placed on a weapon at a single time, all of them activate on the first hit made with it (so if you swing a greatsword with 4 doses of Vile Bile on it, then you add 4d6 of poison damage with the appropriate save for half damage). Once the poison has been spent, it needs to be re-applied, and every dose requires an Action to apply. Due to the nature of Vile Bile, as long as the weapon is not washed or scoured, the poison remains indefinitely.

The additional benefit of Vile Bile is that the specific dragon or dragonborn whose breath weapon is used as the base component is immune to its effects. This allows them to apply it to unarmed strikes or natural weapons without worrying about the toxin threatening them. It also means they can drink beverages brewed from their own breath weapons without damage; a trick that has been used by those with devious intent to get a drop on their foes before they know they're being attacked.

Would You Like To See More?

If you'd like to see more content like this from me, then let me know in the comments below! And it doesn't hurt if you share it around with your groups, either. The more eyes I get on something, the more likely I am to do a repeat performance.

Also, don't forget to check out some of my other 5th Edition creations!

- False Valor: The first module in the Critical Hits series, a murder mystery with a race against time to find the guilty party, and prevent an old war from sparking back to life!

- A Baker's Dozen of Rumours (And The Truth Behind Them): 13 rumors, each one meaty enough to build an entire session around, that you can weave into your campaigns lore, or play with as separate one-shots.

- 100 Bits of Miscellaneous Tat To Find: When you want to give out loot that's worth less than a gold piece, here's some cheap-as-dirt swag for adventurers to find.

- 100 Pieces of Flotsam and Jetsam to Find on a Beach: From wrecked ships, to buried bodies, to cursed coins, to lost fish familiars, there's a little bit of everything in this collection.

- 100 Encounters For On The Road or In The Wilderness: If your party is walking down the road, or cutting through the trees, what will they find? Bandits, lost shrines, buried treasures, and more!

- 100 Encounters in a Fey Forest: From half-mad oracles, to moving clearings, to tiny sentinels mounted on dragonflies, there is never a dull moment when you're traveling a fey forest.

That's all for this latest Crunch installment! If you'd like to see more of my work, remember to check out my Vocal, Gamers, and Dungeon Keeper Radio pages. Also, if you're looking for a new book to read, take a look at My Amazon Author Page where you'll find stuff like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife!

If you want to stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. And if you want to help me keep making content just like this, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a patron today! Every little bit helps, trust me on that one.

4 Simple Tips For Using Poison in Pathfinder

Poison is one of those aspects of Pathfinder that we all know about, but most of us never really play around with. Much like combat maneuvers, poison is something anyone can technically use... but like anything else in the game, if you're going to make it a big part of your schtick, you should be sure your character is specialized in it.

If you can't make your own dangerous, lethal substances, then store bought is just fine.

If you've been thinking about embracing poison in Pathfinder, here are some hot tips I'd recommend using to minimize your frustration, while maximizing your effectiveness.

Tip #1: Make Sure You Have A Steady Source of Poison

Come here, dearest... time for your milking!

Most of the time when players encounter creatures that use poison, it's a poison they produce naturally. Rattlesnakes, pseudodragons, giant spiders, etc. all have an inexhaustible supply of poison. PCs don't typically have that luxury... most of them have to make due with buying poison, or finding it randomly on enemies like drow, or assassins who've been sent to kill them. The problem with buying poison is that it can get expensive... particularly when you consider it is, in essence, a save-or-suck for non-spellcasters. Even cheap poison can cost triple-digit gold pieces, and if you put it on arrows or darts that don't find their mark, then that's venom flushed straight down the drain.

If you're going to use poison on the regular, you need to make sure you know where your doses are coming from. The easy way to do that is to invest heavily in the Craft (alchemy) skill so that you can whip up just the right cocktail to make life uncomfortable, short, or both for your foes. If you take the feat Master Alchemist while you're at it, this allows you to simultaneously create multiple doses of a poison (equal to your Int modifier), and it helps you craft them more quickly.

Your other option, if you want an immediate, personal source of poison, is to make sure you have a trick up your sleeve. The vishkanya, for example, have a natural poison of their own they can use several times a day as a swift action. If your character has the 1st-level power of the Serpentine bloodline, then they can use their own fangs to deliver venom for a number of rounds equal to 3+ their Cha modifier (more on this strategy in How to Power Up Your Pathfinder Characters With The Eldritch Heritage Feats).

And remember, as the infamous Dungeon Keeper said in Better Traps and Tortures, if you poison enough things, eventually your enemy will fail a save.

Tip #2: Avoid Exposure

Don't slip... don't slip...

You know how when you attempt a combat maneuver check it provokes an attack of opportunity? Well, poison has a similar risk when you use it. If you don't have poison use as a feature, then you have a chance of poisoning yourself whenever you apply poison to a weapon, or whenever you roll a 1 while making a Craft check to make a poison. So, you don't typically see non-specc'd characters messing with poison for the same reason you don't see a lot of players making bull rush attacks if they haven't invested in the necessary feats.

Fortunately, there are a lot of ways you can get poison use. The easiest ways are to take levels in alchemist or ninja, though the assassin prestige class, and the poisoner rogue archetype also give you the ability. Vishkanya get poison use as a racial feature, as do several other races in the game. And, if you're clever, you can even get effective immunity to poison (or at least some kinds of poison). The rogue talent Developed Poison Immunity means you automatically save against any one kind of poison that you've saved against in the past, which means even if you decide to drink it, you save against its ill effects without rolling. And, of course, alchemists develop full poison immunity at level 10.

Tip #3: Unique Delivery Systems

Time to take your medicine.

Most of the time poison is delivered through a melee weapon. After all, if you put it on your knife, it stays until you injure someone with it. You can envenom a ranged weapon, as well, but if you miss and lose the arrow or crossbow bolt, then you also lose the dose of poison you put on it. Risky endeavor, unless you've got poison coming out of your ears... or other parts of your anatomy.

However, there are other options for getting poison into your enemies. Pitted bullets, for instance, allow you to shoot poisoned bullets into targets. The poison shot deed (which is a grit feat), allows you to spray a single dose of inhaled or ingested poison in a 15-foot cone, exposing all enemies in that cone to it. Or you could use the Adder Strike feat as a way to apply poison to your unarmed strikes (though you'll need either immunity, or gloves, to avoid making the save yourself). Additionally, if you take the Poison Bomb ninja trick, then you can add an inhaled poison to your smoke bombs, affecting everyone in the area. If you can get your hands on a Poison Vial of Distance, you can deliver a poison at range without any trouble.

Of course, you can also get tricky with your poison delivery. For instance, if you have poison immunity (or you automatically save against a particular kind of poison), then you could use it in all sorts of unusual ways. You could coat your palm in a contact poison, and shake someone's hand. You could poison wine, and then drink some harmlessly to assure others they're safe. The possibilities are rather extensive.

Tip #4: Remember, A Lot Of Things Are Immune to Poison

Ah crap.

Poison is similar to combat maneuvers in another way... the higher you get in level, the less effective it's going to be overall. Because while a DC 13 save might be a big danger at level 2 or 3, by the time you hit your stride at level 9 or 10 it's got a 5 percent chance of actually working. Even rare, powerful poisons with a DC in the 20s will likely be brushed aside by dragons, and creatures like demons, devils, and undead are outright immune to the effects of poison.

It's still a nasty surprise for that human wizard or sorcerer you tangle with around then, but that's a very situational use of this material.

So what do you do? Well, that depends on how much you've sunk into making poison a viable part of your character. If you use racial poisons, or bloodline poisons, then the DC increases with your character level, and thus remains a viable threat as you gain in power. While you might eat a feat slot or two for a unique poison trick, it won't take up too many of your resources. Most of the time, though, you just have to make sure your poison's ready to deploy, and hope for those low saves from the DM. Don't depend on them, though, and make sure that even without your venom you still have a way to contribute to the game.

With that said, there is one way you can get one over on your antagonists if they're evil creatures typically immune to poison (demons, devils, undead, etc.). An 8th-level alchemist can take the discovery Celestial Poisons, which infuses any poison they administer to a weapon with celestial power. This poison overcomes the immunity possessed by evil creatures, and forces them to actually make a save. However, depending on the poison's effect, it might still do nothing (poisons that deal Con damage will have no effect on an undead, for instance).

Well, that's all for my list! Hopefully folks enjoyed this week's Crunch installment. If you're looking for more content from me, then check out my archive over on Gamers. To keep up-to-date on all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Lastly, if you want to help support Improved Initiative, then head over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a patron. As little as $1 a month can make a big difference, and help me keep making the content you want to see.