Random DM nagging.

[Corwin]

As per request!

Lisa, 24HD Celestial Dire Wolf with LASER BEAM EYES

Spoiler: ShowHide

Presuming fair BAB progression (3/4) and good save progression for all three saves based on the dire wolf sheet and extrapolating for 24HD.

Large Animal
Alignment: NG

HP: 226
[18:20] <@Annerose> roll 23d8 hp
[18:20] <Serith> Annerose roll for Serith < 98 > [d8=6,6,6,2,7,1,3,7,1,6,8,2,8,5,5,4,2,5,1,5,4,1,3]

Initiative: +7

Speed: 50 ft. (10 squares)

Armor Class: 15 (-1 size, +3 Dex, +3 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 12

Space/Reach: 10 ft./5 ft.
Base Attack: +18
Attack: Bite +27 melee (1d8+11)
Full Attack: Bite +26/+21/+16/+11 melee (1d8+11)

Special Attacks: Trip, Smite Evil, Eyes of Light
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, Scent, Darkvision out to 60 feet, Damage reduction 10/epic, Resistance to acid, cold, and electricity (10), Spell resistance equal to HD + 5 (29).

Saves:
Fort +17, Ref +16, Will +14

Abilities:
Str 26, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 5, Wis 12, Cha 10

Skills:
Listen (24) +42, Spot (24) +42, Survival (27) +37

Feats:
Alertness (lvl1), Improved Initiative (lvl3), Track (B), Weapon Focus/Bite (lvl6), Skill Focus/Survival (lvl9), Skill Focus/Listen (lvl12), Skill Focus/Spot (Feat15), Toughness (lvl18), Epic Skill Focus/Listen (lvl21), Epic Skill Focus/Spot (lvl24)

Special:
A dire wolf has a +2 racial bonus on Hide, Listen, Move Silently, and Spot checks.
*It also has a +4 racial bonus on Survival checks when tracking by scent.

Smite Evil (Su)
Once per day a celestial creature can make a normal melee attack to deal extra damage equal to its HD (maximum of +20) against an evil foe.

Eyes of Light (Sp)
At will as a swift action, Lisa can fire beams of light from her eyes. Treat these as a searing light spell, caster level 24th.

Trip (Ex)
A dire wolf that hits with a bite attack can attempt to trip its opponent (+11 check modifier) as a free action without making a touch attack or provoking an attack of opportunity. If the attempt fails, the opponent cannot react to trip the dire wolf.

Scent (Ex)
This extraordinary ability lets a creature detect approaching enemies, sniff out hidden foes, and track by sense of smell.
A creature with the scent ability can detect opponents by sense of smell, generally within 30 feet. If the opponent is upwind, the range is 60 feet. If it is downwind, the range is 15 feet. Strong scents, such as smoke or rotting garbage, can be detected at twice the ranges noted above. Overpowering scents, such as skunk musk or troglodyte stench, can be detected at three times these ranges.
The creature detects another creature's presence but not its specific location. Noting the direction of the scent is a move action. If it moves within 5 feet of the scent's source, the creature can pinpoint that source.
A creature with the Track feat and the scent ability can follow tracks by smell, making a Wisdom check to find or follow a track. The typical DC for a fresh trail is 10. The DC increases or decreases depending on how strong the quarry's odor is, the number of creatures, and the age of the trail. For each hour that the trail is cold, the DC increases by 2. The ability otherwise follows the rules for the Track feat. Creatures tracking by scent ignore the effects of surface conditions and poor visibility.
Creatures with the scent ability can identify familiar odors just as humans do familiar sights.
Water, particularly running water, ruins a trail for air-breathing creatures. Water-breathing creatures that have the scent ability, however, can use it in the water easily.
False, powerful odors can easily mask other scents. The presence of such an odor completely spoils the ability to properly detect or identify creatures, and the base Survival DC to track becomes 20 rather than 10.

[Yuthirin]

As per request!

Lisa, 24HD Celestial Dire Wolf with LASER BEAM EYES

Spoiler: ShowHide

Presuming fair BAB progression (3/4) and good save progression for all three saves based on the dire wolf sheet and extrapolating for 24HD.

Large Animal
Alignment: NG

HP: 226
[18:20] <@Annerose> roll 23d8 hp
[18:20] <Serith> Annerose roll for Serith < 98 > [d8=6,6,6,2,7,1,3,7,1,6,8,2,8,5,5,4,2,5,1,5,4,1,3]

Initiative: +7

Speed: 50 ft. (10 squares)

Armor Class: 15 (-1 size, +3 Dex, +3 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 12

Space/Reach: 10 ft./5 ft.
Base Attack: +18
Attack: Bite +27 melee (1d8+11)
Full Attack: Bite +26/+21/+16/+11 melee (1d8+11)

Special Attacks: Trip, Smite Evil, Eyes of Light
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, Scent, Darkvision out to 60 feet, Damage reduction 10/epic, Resistance to acid, cold, and electricity (10), Spell resistance equal to HD + 5 (29).

Saves:
Fort +17, Ref +16, Will +14

Abilities:
Str 26, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 5, Wis 12, Cha 10

Skills:
Listen (24) +42, Spot (24) +42, Survival (27) +37

Feats:
Alertness (lvl1), Improved Initiative (lvl3), Track (B), Weapon Focus/Bite (lvl6), Skill Focus/Survival (lvl9), Skill Focus/Listen (lvl12), Skill Focus/Spot (Feat15), Toughness (lvl18), Epic Skill Focus/Listen (lvl21), Epic Skill Focus/Spot (lvl24)

Special:
A dire wolf has a +2 racial bonus on Hide, Listen, Move Silently, and Spot checks.
*It also has a +4 racial bonus on Survival checks when tracking by scent.

Smite Evil (Su)
Once per day a celestial creature can make a normal melee attack to deal extra damage equal to its HD (maximum of +20) against an evil foe.

Eyes of Light (Sp)
At will as a swift action, Lisa can fire beams of light from her eyes. Treat these as a searing light spell, caster level 24th.

Trip (Ex)
A dire wolf that hits with a bite attack can attempt to trip its opponent (+11 check modifier) as a free action without making a touch attack or provoking an attack of opportunity. If the attempt fails, the opponent cannot react to trip the dire wolf.

Scent (Ex)
This extraordinary ability lets a creature detect approaching enemies, sniff out hidden foes, and track by sense of smell.
A creature with the scent ability can detect opponents by sense of smell, generally within 30 feet. If the opponent is upwind, the range is 60 feet. If it is downwind, the range is 15 feet. Strong scents, such as smoke or rotting garbage, can be detected at twice the ranges noted above. Overpowering scents, such as skunk musk or troglodyte stench, can be detected at three times these ranges.
The creature detects another creature's presence but not its specific location. Noting the direction of the scent is a move action. If it moves within 5 feet of the scent's source, the creature can pinpoint that source.
A creature with the Track feat and the scent ability can follow tracks by smell, making a Wisdom check to find or follow a track. The typical DC for a fresh trail is 10. The DC increases or decreases depending on how strong the quarry's odor is, the number of creatures, and the age of the trail. For each hour that the trail is cold, the DC increases by 2. The ability otherwise follows the rules for the Track feat. Creatures tracking by scent ignore the effects of surface conditions and poor visibility.
Creatures with the scent ability can identify familiar odors just as humans do familiar sights.
Water, particularly running water, ruins a trail for air-breathing creatures. Water-breathing creatures that have the scent ability, however, can use it in the water easily.
False, powerful odors can easily mask other scents. The presence of such an odor completely spoils the ability to properly detect or identify creatures, and the base Survival DC to track becomes 20 rather than 10.

After a brief glance at chat, I'm understanding that Lisa is one of Jaela's siblings.

Did Hanna bang a wolf?

[Anastasia]

No, Lisa is a magical wolf Jaela managed to get to tag along with her in Ysgard. No relation to Hanna at all.

[Anastasia]

Lisa's posted. Changelog incoming.

1. Increased natural armor from +3 to +20. This is a normal adjustment for a highly advanced specimen and it is meant to balance its AC relative to its power level.

2. Subtracted 1 from Lisa's attack roll. The full attack had the proper value, so this was probably an editing error or forgetting to apply the size mod to both values.

3. Raised Lisa's bite damage by 2 to 1d8+13, as her bite gets 1.5 times Strength to damage.

4. Removed full attack on bite, as Lisa lacks the proper feats to make a full attack with a natural weapon.

5. Increased damage reduction to 15/epic after checking my notes on the celestial creature template in epic.

6. Increased energy resistance to 20, same reason as the previous.

7. Raised Spot and Listen to 27 ranks. I usually use the final Intelligence score of a creature to determine skill points, so it was only fair.

8. Lowered Survival by 2 to +35 as I came up to that instead of +37. The math is 27 ranks + 1 Wisdom + 4 scent + 3 Skill Focus = 35 total. Let me know if I'm missing two points somewhere.

Lisa's intelligent enough to gestalt. She'll certainly be in a position to, but she's still rather dim. Her ability scores don't support any Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma based classes. Her best bet is physical classes, which also suits her nature. It will take a bit of time to train her. Suggestions for classes are below, though as you'd be directing this, you'd have final say.

1. Scout. The skillset synergizes well with wolf tactics and boosts Lisa's damage output.

2. Fighter. Feats, feats, feats.

3. Rogue. A little trickier and the more technical parts of the class, like trapfinding, would be largely wasted on Lisa. However, sneak attack is a thing for her.

4. Ranger. Possible and she could do favored enemy, though ranger spellcasting is incredibly marginal for her and would probably be ACFed away.

5. Barbarian. SMASH + some coordination with tripping.

[Yuthirin]

This is why I shouldn't read when I'm tired.

Dune, where is the explanation of the paragon template? I can't find your version.

[Anastasia]

http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,103072.msg1051027.html#msg1051027

[Yuthirin]

Thanks

[Anastasia]

1. Added the bardic music feats from Moore's request to houserules.

2. Where are we on that feat rebuild and Calleigh thing, Tryll?

Update 6.

1. Cor's light stuff.
2. Newspaper.
3. More bardic musics through feats.
4. Epic bardic magic item.
5. THAT FOG SPELL.
6. Druid class.
7. Yuth psionics. - In progress x2.
8. Post Jaela's elder brother.
9. Yuth familiar feat stuf, waiting on him x2 for more feats.
10. Post Jetina.
11. Tailiel - Probably not, though. He'll work fine as a non combat NPC and it's in the middle of an NPC influx.

I was going to make an actual newspaper before in Word or another program, but technical difficulties are interfering. I'll probably do something a bit different with that.

Druid class is an eternal todo, but it's a big project plus being purely for prep. If I end up needing it, it's not so big that I can't bang it out in a few days.

Yuth psionics is in progress. Yuth, where were we there?

Jaela's brother is in progress. I posted his PrC to Homebrew this evening, the epic progression is coming soon and he'll follow. Sorry for the delay, but I never help myself when I start making homebrew. Well no, it helps overall, but it shoots my deadlines to hell.

Jetina's next after that and should be quicker, since her build is pure paladin and healer. Probably no PrC unless something unusual happens.

Tailiel will go to the non combat pile unless I have extra time or inspiration. He's just not needed here and his timing is bad. If I wasn't busy with a bunch of other builds he might make it in, but alas.

[Yuthirin]

Okay, this is workable, Yuth. In the future though, I'd rather you just make a new post than editing your old ones. I usually miss edits like that. Thoughts?

---

Alternate Class Feature: Psicrystal Empowerment

You gain the potential for a psicrystal and pour it into your familiar.

Class: Psion.

Level: 1st.

Special Requirement: You must have a familiar take this alternate class feature.

Replaces: If you select this alternate class feature, you do not gain a bonus feat at 1st level.

Benefit: Your familiar gains a bonus feat from the list below. At 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter, your familiar gains another bonus feat from the list below. Additionally, your familiar gains the psionic subtype and a power point reserve of one point, which allows them to take psionic feats.

If you take this alternate class feature, you can never have a psicrystal. If you already have one, it is destroyed when you select this alternate class feature.

Psicrystal Empowerment Bonus Feat List

Acrobatic, Agile, Alertness, Athletic, Blind-Fight, Cleave, Combat Expertise, Deft Hands, Diehard, Dodge, Endurance, Great Cleave, Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Magical Aptitude, Mobility, Power Attack, Self-Sufficient, Stealthy. Additionally, any psionic feat may be chosen, so long as the familiar meets the prerequisites.

Ohhhh it eats the first level feat! Interesting. I'm assuming I can train away the existing psicrystal-related feats? A thought I just had: would Psicrystal Containment still function as normal, or is it broken by the ACF?

Yeah. Instead of taking Psicrystal Affinity to get one, you take that instead (and it eats up a feat that could go to it) and use it to power up your familiar. It's feat-neural compared to getting one.

Yeah, it would bork that, since no psicrystal means nothing to focus. Could possibly be replicated with Calleigh as your familiar, maybe.

We can work it out later, I didn't use it much anyway. Later on, twinned empowered maximized powers can still be a thing.

Looking through it, I could use a feat rebuild anyhow.

I believe we were right here.

[Anastasia]

Be on this once I finish Dycedarg's elder brother.

[Corwin]

I remember what it was intended for. I want to ask if it can be used for something similar.

-Can someone open a Gate elsewhere and use this feature to scout past it, due to it becoming the closest portal by nature?

Not anything beyond what Analyze Portal offers or other upgrades related to it give.

To be clear, you mean like seeing around the detected portal?

Yes. Say Tepen goes to open a gate outside Aurora, and Jaela uses this system to scout ahead via this part of Analyze Portal:

A glimpse of the area where the portal leads. You can look at the area where the portal leads for 1 round; the range of your vision is the spell's range. Analyze portal does not allow other divination spells or spell-like abilities to extend through the portal. For example, you cannot also use detect magic or detect evil to study the area where the portal leads while viewing the area with analyze portal.

I'm also interested in an upgrade that reduces the Analyze Portal check from 4 rounds to 1 round or shorter.

-Can we use it as an early warning system? Ie someone sneakily opens a gate nearby, command staff gets alerted since the location of the nearest portal shifts while we are stationary?

There's no reason why not, though you'd have to have someone using it regularly. As a gate could last a round or two for a simple transport, once per round would be required. Automating or improving on this (since it's a piss boring job liable for errors at best) through magic would be advised. If you're interested, I'll whip up an upgrade for that.

Interested.

A reminder that I don't believe this got codified properly to the Aurora improvements.

[Yuthirin]

In addition, we'd been discussing feats to enhance or extend psionics. This went beyond standard metapsionic feats.

Ideas include epic feats to remove caps on damage dice, add additional damage dice, or possibly a feat allowing powers to penetrate immunity to mind-affecting.

[Nephrite]

Just general musing, but is flat Paladin/Healer any better than trying to take some Paladin PrCs (or a Cleric one or something) on the Paladin side?

Obviously Jetina isn't going to whip out Emissary of Barachiel or something (or is she????) but it was just a thought. go fist of raziel

[Iron Dragoon]

Hospitalar/Cleric >.>

[Anastasia]

Jaela's Brother is up. Notes as follows.

- Jaela means wild mountain goat. His name is Ram so the pun is obvious. Not saying his name was purely a bit of an amusing gimmick that's outlived his shelf life.

- He's a human with the half-celestial template mechanically, though he's become a full outsider like Jaela.

- TWF + Flurry comboing as well as allowing both of them being unarmed strikes is arguable RAW. The FAQ supports it but some people disagree. I'm iffy on the issue, though for the sake of things now I'm going to assume they fully combo and you can do unarmed strikes with both your main hand and your off hand. If this is broken I'll houserule it otherwise. It's probably no nastier than something like Muirfinn's dragon shapechange + monk flurrying anyway.

- Mechanically, Ram is built around getting as many attacks on a full attack as possible and going for boost that apply to hit or damage for his entire flurry. Divine might, smiting flurry, blinding speed and favored enemy all help here. He has a decent array of SLAs as well as 19th level paladin spellcasting to back him up. He uses an ACF that trades stunning fist and slow fall for favored enemy as a ranger and swift tracker. He doesn't use track so that's worthless, but oh well. The point is getting a nice, big favored enemy bonus for evil outsiders and smaller bonuses for a variety of opponents.

- Unlike most NPCs, Ram comes with a good deal of starting gold. This is to finance a suit of armor, as armored monk allows him to use one. Expect that soon.

- His armor, his paladin spell list and some class skill spoilers are incoming tonight or in the morning. I wanted to post him since he's essentially done otherwise and he ran much longer than anticipated.