Ponyfinder: Baconbits · 12:51am Dec 1st, 2017
So, this coming weekend, I'm going to end up having to convince my DM to let me do the dumbest thing ever. No, it's not playing Glimmer. It might actually be fun. I am going to have to argue that, between the Disney's Robin Hood ripoff (Kitsune Archer) and the Tengu rogue, having a pony in the group won't make it any more silly. It's a bit sad that I'll be using up a lot of my IRL credibility on this. After all, I'm going to fight tooth and nail to play a pony, only to spend most of my time looking like a teenage girl.
Yes, it's time to bring Sunset Shimmer. So you can yell "Fuck you, I'm a pony" every time someone tries to cast one of those "$X person" spells that only effect humanoids.
Sunset Shimmer's schtick, as you should know, is being a unicorn pony who is currently a human. In vanilla Path/Ponyfinder, that's a very hard sell. You're looking at cheesing duration of some lower level polymorph spells, or waiting until level 15 and using Polymorph any Object1. Even still, you're left hoping nopony dispels or disjoins you. But again, Spheres of Power enables a concept that's all but impossible in Pathfinder, and right from first level to boot.
Here's how it works. You need to play some sort of caster. For Shimmer, I favor Sound Striker Sphere Bard. Lots of smarts, 3/4 caster, and lots of skills, skill points, and (most importantly) versatile performance and bardic music. You can sing and play guitar (pick this as your VP to cover Bluff/Diplomacy and add Intimidate to it at 6 and Sense Motive at 10 as Advanced Versatile Performances. Then maybe UMD at 14. Retraining will be your friend.) Sound Striker gives you the very nicely scaling (until level 10) and thematic ability to hurt stuff with sound. Badric Music gives you the ability to inspire others with your music. I think we can all see the thematic similarities here. An alternative would be a Hedgewitch VMC bard using the Charlatanism and probably Academic tradition. That gives you more upfront versatile performances, but you lose out on most of the bardic music. Not to mention that pony bard favored class bonus is really nice. There is the Mystic prancer, and, while it's good for some abusive skill based builds, it's not really for Sunset.
You'll need to burn at least one talent on Alteration (and a drawback [hello Beast Soul]) to grab Anthropomorphic Transformation. Normally, this is to turn you (or someone else) into a furry, and it can totally be used for that when you decide to (ugh) Pony Up. Note that the way shapeshifting in Pathfinder works (RAW) is that you are only ever under 1 polymorph effect at a time. So "previous form" should probably be "base form." It's unclear if this is the intent, but RAW, a second use of Anthropomorphic Transformation dispels the first as it takes effect. You're DM would have to make the "previous form" call to see if you get to count "pony" as your previous form for the purposes of getting adorable ears and luxurious hair.
That's cool. It let's you do human and part-pony. But it's not forever (concentrating all day is kinda out, IMO, even with Easy Focus.) So what can you do? Enter the Transformation feat (Su). For a full round action, you assume a single specific form (it's the same one every time) that you could apply with Alteration (so, human version of yourself) permanently.
Ponies, like humans, get a bonus feat at level 1. So you can take Transformation right off and still have a feat to get something more useful.
So, to bring this online, you're looking at level 1. You can play Baconmane right off! Around 6-10 is when it shines. You've got a really nice source of sonic damage, the ability to inspire your allies with music, and a lot of skills directly linked to your ability to play guitar. Plus, you know, magic at a decent caster level.
Check with your DM on Weird Words. It doesn't say you can't shoot all the notes at the same targets Yeah, you're making 10 touch attacks (and will likely roll at least one nat 1,) but 10d8+10*cha mod is a decent chunk of damage. If your DM disagrees, than drop Sound Striker and just take some customized Destruction talents and fluff them as friendship lasers.
Welp. There it is, more horridly twisted ways to foist friendship horses onto other groups of friends!
1And this probably doesn't work, with Ponyfinder. Since ponies are Fey and not really mammals (because they aren't Kingdom Animalia.) If your DM lets that slide, than Pony to Human should give +5 for same kingdom (Animalia), same class (mammalia), and same intelligence. That's a duration mod of +9 which is permanent. Or until dispelled.
Due to getting maybe 15 hours of sleep this week, I completely forgot to mention grabbing divination for Detect Thoughts. Gotta replicate that geode, yo.
I know some of these words.
I'd allow it, just for shenanigans. Especially considering the kinds of people already in the group.
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tl;dr - literal pony who spends all her time in human form, but gets to keep her pony racial traits. Uses guitar to: intimidate people, make friends, lie to people, sense when other lie, fascinate (entrance) others, bolster her friends' combat abilities, bolster her friends' skill, make magical suggestions. With her magic, she can touch someone and read their thoughts. Later on she can steal their sense of sight and literally see the world as they do. Also, she shoots music and/or friendship lasers as a primary mode of combat.
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I posted this and then saw that the SoP/SoM gish book just was released. I wish I had waited. I could have probably done better with that new source. Oh well, Rainbow and AJ can probably make use of that one.
You always make such fascinating blog posts.
Alternately, you could use a greater hat of disguise for permanent alter self. As long as the hat survives, anyway.
But yeah, I'd definitely allow this, so long as you roleplayed a unicorn in a humanoid body.
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This is my new favorite sentence.
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The form talent bestows a language. So you don't even have to know common, but will miraculously speak it once you change!
The big problem with the Greater Hat is you're waiting until at least 8th level to be able to even afford it. And that's taking almost half your wealth!
Green Magic Tradition (hedgewitch thing, might be worth a 2 level dip) can grab the following as a power
So there's something to be said for the Hedgewitch approach. Once could probably do Hedgewitch (Academic/Charlatanism) and then grab Animal Friendship with a pair of feats/powers.
Also, I wanna see that "Sunny tells SciTwi she's a pony" thing when you finish it :V
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I looked for a relevant Most Interesting Pony meme, but then I gave up
I wonder if I will be able to assemble my "tropes kits likes/hates/needs more of" list this weekend.
4738908 Here's hoping!
There is a third party book that is called "in the company of unicorn" which is made by a well renowned writer in the community that turn being a unicorn into a new race and class (the class lvl 20 power is to become an alicorn )it also has powers to to turn you into a single humanoid form for longs period of time (kind of like the kitsune) It also create archetype for other class to allow you to progress as a unicorn even while playing a honest to god unicorn.
I want to see someone hit her with Dispel Magic, go 'What the horse?' And get Friendship to the face.
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That's the joy! transformation is Su not Sp! You can't dispel magic it!
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Took a quick look and that is most definitely a possibility. Dunno how well the rules work, particularly the universal archetype thing. Bards are already 3/4 Casters in SoP. Unless you go for pure utility or some war rallies, losing any more CL could be disasterous.
I saw a real Last Unicorn vibe from the discussion page. If you're not interested in all the other Pony Finder stuff (like cutie mark feats) you could probably pull that off too.
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A bards loose Jack of all-trade versatile performance and is considered 3 level lower for all purpose for her bardic performance ability (she even gains it at lvl 4) no change to caster level You also loose proficiency with all but your natural weapon
You Gain natural attack as if you had level in the paragon class equivalent to Your BAB not your level you gain an alicorn point pool of 1 until lvl 5 then it follow the normal class ability and you grow in size at lvl 5 and 10 without changing your str, dex or con but gaining +2 nat armor each time you also gain a new alicorn ability at lvl 5, 10, 15 and 20.
Pony finder that's a thing? I will be right back...
P.S. The alicorn ability to turn into an humanoid as an interesting restriction:
A silvermane exemplar can return to her normal
form by expending a full round action and then
succeeding on a Will Save DC 10 +1/2 her silvermane
exemplar level + her Con modifier. Failure means she
cannot try again for 24 hours. This ability also works
against any polymorph effect (including involuntary
ones).
The silvermane exemplar can remain in her alternate
form indefinitely. However, should she hold a humanoid
form beyond 1 day/paragon class level, she risks losing
herself, and her memory of who she is. The day after this
duration expires she must make a Will save (DC 10).
Every day a silvermane exemplar remains in humanoid
form beyond the normal maximum duration, the DC of
the Will save increases by 1.
Failure causes a -3 penalty to all skills she has ranks
in. A second failure causes all of her silvermane
exemplar class abilities to function as if she were 2 levels
lower than normal (thus potentially losing access to
abilities), as she begins to forget that she is truly a
majestic re’em. A fourth failure results in the loss of all
class abilities and she no longer remembers her true
identity.
Returning to her normal form restores silvermane
exemplar class abilities and removes all associated
penalties. Once a silvermane exemplar loses all her class
abilities this effect cannot be changed except by a wish
or miracle.
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Losing versatile performance is harsh! It's my favorite bard ability, even if Music and Spellcasting are stronger.
Caster level works differently in SoP (like BaB). It sounds like Sphere bard and that archetype stack though, so that's probably not an issue.
Yes, Ponyfinder is a thing. It's got quite a few source books to go with it. I think that Weiss and Hickman did a Griffon (Gryphon?) supplement for it too. It is the closest thing to My Little Pony you can get in Pathfinder. They, of course, had to abandon MLP canon because of lack of a license, but to not acknowledge that it's heavily inspired by MLP is to say that Mighty No 9 has nothing to do with Mega Man at all.
I disagree with some of the Ponyfinder rules (I disagree with many Pathfinder rules too,) but from what I can tell, it doesn't impact game balance too much. Paizo has a flight-at-first-level-race already, and that's about the worst of the rules bending I've found. If you're already using SoP and/or PoW, Ponyfinder is basically fine.