Axl's page

While Gauss is correct in his description of the rules, to me it is implausible that the presence of armour on a mount prevents it from flying completely.

A creature could be wearing full plate without proficency, and carrying a heavy load, yet still be able to fly.

The same creature could be wearing hide armour, but when a halfling rider climbs on, it is no longer able to fly, even though it might still have a light load including the weight of the halfling.

If this matter ever came up in one of my games, I would houserule it.

Link: Dervish Dance

An interesting corroboration for this theory of mine is that every snake stat block that I looked at lists a flat footed armor class for the reptile in question. Clearly we all know that snakes (at least in our world) don't have feet. So to be "flat footed" is impossible. Yet there it is in in their stat block, which lets us know that the absence of actual feet, does not negate all foot based mechanics.

That's my 2cp anyway.

Being "flat-footed" also has nothing to do with having flat feet.

What was your point again?

RAW: no.

But I don't think that any GM would actually object.

(I suspect that this matter is such a corner case that it has never been considered by the game developers. Even if it has, it isn't worth adding to the rulebook.)

one die for the "Einser" (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. german, I don't know the english term for that)

I don't think that there is an English term for that.

;-)

Game today?

Unlike things that could be better known as "corner cases", this is a core issue.

In almost all situations, sunder is a poor option for PCs - to the point where it is almost a "trap option". In my years of playing 3.0, 3.5 & PF, I have only seen a PC attempt to sunder once. And I don't think I have ever seen an NPC/monster attempt to sunder.

I suspect that the rarity of its use is the reason why the issue has not cropped up before.

It's only a "core issue" in the sense that it is an ambiguity in the core rules. No matter what the ruling on this (or, more likely, the absence of any official ruling), this is never going to affect my game.

I think we all agree on what we are trying to accomplish.

Perhaps something like "At will, a monk can allow a specific spell to bypass spell resistance if he chooses."

How does the monk know what spell is being cast? Does he have to make a spellcraft check? What if he is unaware of the spell being cast?

This rule creates far more problems than it solves, for not a lot of gain.

I am not pleased that there seems to be no answer yet.

You seem surprised...

As to SR, I'm leaning more and more toward it just being against hostile spells, but I would love to have someone weigh in on where this might cause problems, as clearly the Devs put it the way they put it for a reason.

SR already has a mechanic to allow creatures to lower their own SR to receive helpful spells. Our suggestions make it easier for the monk to do that.

To define "hostile spells" creates a whole new mechanic, and one that potentially creates problems.

Is Reduce Person a "hostile spell"? What if it's cast by the party wizard? When it cast by an enemy spellcaster? A dominated friendly wizard? A rogue using disguise or bluff skill and use magic device?

I'm trying to avoid a chart

I suppose you could write:-

At first level, unarmed strike damage for a medium size monk is 1d6, and for a small size monk is 1d4.

[This removes the need for a chart, and it should be straightforward for players/GMs to extrapolate damage for odd-sized monks.]

Actually my SR suggestion might create a problem if the monk wants to keep the SR down for more than one turn. The following text may be better:-

A monk may choose to lower this spell resistance as a swift action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Once a monk lowers this spell resistance, it remains down until the monk's next turn. At the beginning of the monk's next turn, the monk's spell resistance automatically returns unless the monk intentionally keeps it down (also a swift action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity).

[I use the phrase "this spell resistance" to explicitly apply only to Diamond Soul's spell resistance. Other sources of SR should use the default core rules.]

Any suggested changes to wording?

A monk also deals more damage with his unarmed strikes than a normal person would. At first level, a medium size monk's unarmed strike does 1d6 points of damage. (See the table below for damage for other sized monks.) At 4th level the monk's unarmed strike gains a +1 enhancement bonus. For every four levels beyond 4th, the monk gains an additional +1 enhancement bonus to a maximum of +5 at 20th level.

Tiny monk: 1d3
Small monk: 1d4
Large monk: 1d8
etc.

[I have also added errata to the text.]

A monk may choose to lower this spell resistance as an immediate action.

[This allows the monk to react when the party cleric declares "I'm coming to heal you", but also uses up the monk's swift action for the next round. There is no need to mention raising the SR back up, because the default rules is that it automatically returns at the monk's next action.]

At first level, tiny monks deal 1d6 damage and gargantuan monks deal 1d6 damage? That's broken.

Spell resistance automatically pings back on at the start of the creature's turn. This should remain so for the monk's SR. Why spend a swift action to do it?

It makes sense otherwise low level druids will have a very hard time teaching their animals anything for a few levels.

So junior druids are worse at teaching tricks than senior druids. I don't see that as a problem.

Animal companions with Int 2 will already have 6 tricks by default, so this is unlikely to be an issue anyway.

I would discourage a houserule here. It potentially makes archers more powerful. Worse, it may create frustration and annoyance for the players when the PCs are hit, who are used to handwaving the matter.

I remember playing a game of Rolemaster (second edition) many years ago when a PC cast Invisibility. Then we wondered if his lantern would continue to shed (visible) light.

After a couple of minutes, the GM handwaved it.

Game tomorrow?

Oh boy!

Will a sysop please block this thread?

wraithstrike wrote:

I am sure it will be fixed eventually though. :)

I think I said the same thing. . . 12 years ago.

(S)

Maybe in 12 years time, Paizo's successor will fix the monk. (S)

Preferrably, this reply should come in the form of a 'no response needed' flag.

-1

I have tagged the original question for FAQ. (For what it's worth, I think that the description of Haste is poorly worded and probably wasn't intended to exclude unarmed strikes.)

Combat manoeuvres

A combat manoeuvre can be performed as a standard action. Some combat manoeuvres can be performed in place of an attack; these manoeuvres are called attack-like manoeuvres. Attack-like manoeuvres can replace the attack during a standard action attack, attack of opportunity attack, or iterative attacks during a full-attack. Penalties that normally would apply to an attack are also applied to the attack-like manoeuvre.

Disarm and trip manoeuvres are attack-like manoeuvres. [Whether sunder should be an attack-like manoeuvre is the question.]

Fighting defensively as a standard action

You can choose to fight defensively when attacking or making an attack-like manoeuvre. If you do so, you take a -4 penalty on all attacks and attack-like manoeuvres in a round to gain a +2 to AC and CMD until the start of your next turn.

Fighting defensively as a full-round action

You can choose to fight defensively when taking a full-attack. If you do so, you take a -4 penalty on all attacks and attack-like manoeuvres in a round to gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC and CMD until the start of your next turn.

-----------

This text may well need some adjustment to iron out any loopholes or confusion that I haven't spotted.

Are you talking about making new rules to change things, or just a way to conceptually group disarm and trip together?

New rules, but which don't actually change the way anything works. They just make it easier to understand how it ahould work.

Kazaan, I was thinking of defining a new sub-class of combat manoeuvres called attack-like manoeuvres, where the manoeuvre can be used in place of an attack during a full attack. I'll need to work on it a bit to draw up formal rules.

Chemlak, thanks for pointing it out.

The problem lies with the phrase "attack action". It would have been much better not to have this phrase at all.

Just say that an attack can be performed as a standard action.

Similarly, it would better not to have a phrase "full-attack action". (Actually I'm not sure if that phrase is used in the book.)

3.5, rounded down to 3 is average damage on a d6. 2 is almost as good as 3, and for all that you gain, it is way too good.

1 is almost as good as 2.

0 is almost as good as 1.

...

-1 is almost as good as 0?

Regarding the subject of jumping to the moon... sorry to be a party-pooper, but even if nat 20 is an auto-success, this limitation prevents you from jumping to the moon:

Pathfinder SRD: "No jump can allow you to exceed your maximum movement for the round."

So the best most people can manage is a 60-ft. high jump.

For a character with speed 30, the maximum movement in a round is four times the speed, which is 120 feet. So the character would move 120 feet up in the first round, finishing the round's movement in mid-air. Next round, he continues to move another 120 feet towards the destination.

It may take a while to reach the moon....

I'm in two minds. Given the design team are presumedly about to get crazy-busy with the mythic playtest, I wonder if any deadline they'd suggest would therefore be framed conservatively. They copped some flak recently since "after gen con" was taken by some to mean "immediately after gen con" - if i were in their position and was asked to pin down a time I'd add a few hopefully unnecessary months, just to be sure.

It can't be easy to schedule design time for work which isn't directly tied to new product. "When we get a chance" is probably the reality.

I don't believe that Paizo will fix the monk.

(Yes, I am aware that they said they would fix the monk. I am too cynical now.)

It's saying that cake is cake even if you serve it as a single serving (1 cake) or multiple pieces (iterative cakes).

Are you saying if you cut the cake up it's no longer cake? The humanity!

"It's not a cake."

"It's still cake."

"But it's not a cake."

"Of course it's cake!"

...

"Not a cake though."

Doesn't the base TWF allow two attacks with a standard action?

No. Two-weapon fighting can only be used with the full-attack action.

2 points of damage per 1d6 is almost better then just 1d6, honestly.

No, it isn't. Not even close. It's 57% of 1d6's average damage.

Every class has extreme builds.

I would love to see an extreme core rules monk build.

Two-weapon fighting works best when there are extra damage bonuses to all attacks. The easiest ways are sneak attack, paladin's Smite Evil, and ranger's favoured enemy.

I haven't the time or energy read through the whole thread. I just read the first page. I suspect that the remainder re-hash the same arguments.

It seems to me that the text is poorly worded, hence confusing. I have tagged the original post for FAQ. It is disappointing (but unsurprising) to see that the previous Sunder thread received "Staff response: no reply required".

As an aside, I believe that sunder provokes an AoO if you don't have the Improved Sunder feat. If you subscribe to the "in place of a melee attack" interpretation (as opposed to the "standard action" intepretation) this could potentially set up a bizarre chain of AoOs between two combatants with Combat Reflexes.

Not being able to cast feather fall when flat-footed does make a lot of sense and this is how I would rule it.

Any time that you aren't in combat, you are flat-footed. If a pit suddenly opens up underneath you when you're not in combat, you are flat-footed. Worse, if you're standing on top of a wall all alone, nothing else happening, you're still flat-footed. By your rule, the wizard cannot cast Featherfall.

Characters with the Uncanny Dodge class ability would be able to cast whenever they want though.

[I don't subscribe to this interpretation. I am just presenting it as a reductio ad absurdum.]

Is there a game on tomorrow?

Do we have an official answer on what the monk is supposed to be: shaolin style mystic the.Asian flavor in the west or is he supposed to be every type of unarmed warrior that eschews armor after that /s answered is he a scout skill monkey martial battlefield control the class every martial dips or the master of defends.

No.

Of course, nothing we do or say on these boards will affect what Paizo will do in the end.

That's my conclusion too.

:-(

Regardless of any real world analogues, adding Str bonus to AC would screw up the balance of the combat system, because then melee characters would focus on Str even more than they already do.

Even in 3.5, there was no way to add Str bonus to AC. All five other stats could be added though, including Con through an odd prestige class I think.

Another minor anomaly occurs when a character is being flanked along a diagonal. In this situation, the character can take a withdraw action to escape without provoking an AoO. Whereas if the flank is along a straight, the escaping character will provoke from at least one of the enemies.

In 3.5, clothing was considered to '0 armor bonus'. I.e., you could add enhancement bonuses to that 0, just like with magical armor, except it stayed clothing, not armor. I look at the robes the same way: base AC 0, not armor, but clothes, to which is an an enhancement bonus to Armor. In fact, let's look at magic vestment.

Grants an enhancement bonus. Doesn't say to AC or armor, but then the first sentence is talking about armor and shields.

It is self-evident that Magic Vestment's enhancement bonus applies to the armour bonus or shield bonus of the item it is cast on. (If this is not self-evident to you, please say so.) In any case, Magic Vestment is a spell cast on an item.

If it works for a spell, why not a permanent magic item? We also have the Robe of the Archimagi, which grants a +5 armor bonus to AC, yet isn't armor.

MA

Indeed! There is already a precedent for an armour bonus from an item that occupies a "wondrous item" slot. You should have modelled the item on the Robe of the Archmagi. There is no precedent for an unqualified enhancement bonus occupying such a slot.

Your item's text includes the statement "The armor bonus granted by these robes do not stack with ordinary armor". Yet you claim that the item doesn't give an armour bonus.

Also, do the Robes of the Old Order affect touch AC?

In summary, your design breaks precedent and creates confusion when these could easily have been avoided.

Regarding the Robes of the Old Order, there isn't any existing item that gives an enhancement bonus to AC per se. Magical armour has an enhancement to its armour bonus.

I recommend that you change this from an enhancement bonus to an armour bonus.

Anything happening?

The problem with the flurry of blows text is that it allows "any combination" of attacks "as if using the two-weapon fighting feat".

But the two-weapon fighting feat does not allow "any combination" of attacks.

If any of my players decide to play a monk, I'll point him to a homebrew forum.

If any of my players wants to play a monk, I'll tell him to play an unarmed fighter.

Mithril Breastplate (even a mithril comfort breastplate) does not actually count as light armor, so should not be able to take the brawling property.

Yes it does.

I would use common sense.

Limited Wish?

Admittedly a level 7 wizard spell to duplicate a level 1 cleric spell is perhaps over the top.

I like how everyone is looking at it as, "this feat would be a waste to any PC I could think of..." and think that makes it ok.

That's not at all how everyone is looking at it.

It's a feat that exists for a DM to **** over a rogue PC, hard.

Yes, and used sparingly, it would work fine. It's no more powerful than Uncanny Dodge & Improved Uncanny Dodge. (Actually it's much less powerful.)

Axl wrote:

This is a poorly written and underpowered feat. No "real" PC or NPC would ever take this feat because it is so situational.[/QUOTEno real PC or NPC would ever have the War Domain? really?

You seem to have screwed up the formatting. Is there a question directed to me?