Bill Dunn's page

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I honestly think that the first maneuver feats shouldn't exist. If you are a trained combatant, you know how to use your weapons and you should be capable of something as basic as a trip attempt without investment.

For maneuvers that are attempted with a weapon, I might agree. But I do find it hard to agree with someone who is unarmed getting away with the same thing as someone with a weapon. It probably should be harder to disarm a man with a sword with your bare hands.

I think I could easily agree to having unarmed combat against someone who is armed provoke and AoO and generalize that to also include the combat maneuvers. And then have a single feat (Improved Unarmed Attack) negate that AoO in all cases. That could consolidate feats nicely.

After that, any Improved <insert maneuver here> feat could simply give the combatant a bonus to succeed or a special benefit.

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Monte Cook is no longer involved in D&D Next.

The reason is because WotC was removing the focus from rules and placing it on story. Monte didn't want to go that route. I will admit that this is hearsay, but I trust my sources.

I've been wondering about his departure too, particularly after Stan! turned down a job offer and blogged about it. Since Monte said that his beef was with management rather than the design team and design of the game, I suspected that his reason for leaving was similar to Stan!'s for not taking the offer - the freedom to work on other, non-WotC projects.

WotC has a non-competitive clause or something of that nature that prevents their designers/developers from working freelance on other projects. That's a policy that employees can request to be released from and they turned Stan!'s request for that down - so he turned down a permanent (or as permanent as WotC allows) position. Considering how soon Monte's Numenera Kickstarter debuted after he announced he was leaving WotC again, I figured he wanted to work on that too and, like Stan!, had his release from the restriction turned down.

I have absolutely no evidence of this. It was just something that occurred to me after Stan!'s blog posts.

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I certainly wouldn't say the first iteration of the D&D Next rules got universal scorn. The bulk of the scorn I witnessed it receiving was from 4e enthusiasts because it moves away from quite a bit of 4e's development direction. In the online areas I frequent, there was a lot of enthusiasm for the public play test - or at least curiosity. There was also a lot of skepticism that WotC couldn't pull off their goals.

That said, while there is still a large body of 4e-fan critics decrying being jilted at the altar, there does seem to be a growing core of players interested in where it is going. So I agree that D&D Next will put up a pretty good marketplace challenge for Pathfinder. Hell, as much as I like Pathfinder and Paizo's take on design, I'm interested in D&D Next too. So far, in many ways, it does play simpler and characters are an easier build. It harkens back to 1e/2e in substantial ways and, I think, has a good chance of drawing some OSR fans into its sphere of influence.

Right now, there's still so much in flux that it's hard to see where it will all go. They could have a big winner, an also ran, or a flop. They could manage it brilliantly or cock it up completely (this is WotC we're talking about). But, all things coming off with average competency, and I think D&D Next will product a strong showing with a product that will do better among Pathfinder fans than 4e did.

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Jabba was still a helpless creature. He was an evil creature, but a helpless one. He could not move on his own power anymore (this has been confirmed in the EU, though he used to be able to) and all of his minions were being destroyed by the handsome young man with the laser sword.

So the EU says he got even fatter and less mobile between Episode IV and VI? Of course, even if true (and that was canonical as of Episode VI's release) that still doesn't make him helpless.

If anything, I see this as a failing of the EU. If they've redefined Jabba as an immobile fatty, largely helpless, they've robbed Leia of her heroic act. Revisionism and poor continuity just keep dumping on the poor girl.

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I wouldn't phrase it as "Star Trek wasn't sexist, but it is now because of Abrams", but as "Star Trek had been becoming less sexist over its history, but has reversed that now because of Abrams."

I dunno. T'Pol offered a lot of fan service...

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Though it smacks of Xanatos Gambit. The various ploys had to fail and fail in the right way, without Jabba just killing anyone off. Pretty implausible, if you look at it too closely.

It is possible to over-analyze these things. It's really just an example of overlapping contingencies. Lando's on the inside in disguise with both droids. If Leia's attempt fails, Lando's in a position to potentially ameliorate the worst outcomes. Notice how he doesn't break cover. And if all hell hasn't broken loose, Luke is in position for his attempt. And if that doesn't work out as planned, there's a droid ambling about with a concealed weapon awaiting his master's call. There's no real necessity for plans to fail in specific ways as long as they don't go too pear-shaped - but like I said, Lando and R2-D2 are position to surprise in case they do.

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that keeps being trotted out, but the more I watch the original series, the less it holds true for women. Almost every episode had a damsel of one sort. The series was ahead of its time with respect to race relations, however.

The other old story is that they were pretty much forced to pick their battles. NBC had a limit to the controversies it was going to court and science fiction is generally full of them.

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I might have let it slide if it was just a generic space movie. But this is STAR TREK, which at its heart is about an optimistic future society where humanity has actually achieved lofty ambitions like equality.

Lets consider the female characters in this film:

Uhura - Most of her character stuff involves humanizing the male Spock, in addition her one contribution (Diplomacy) goes hilariously wrong.

Dr Carol Marcus - After being touted as a brilliant scientist, she doesn't actually get to do anything super intelligent at all. She saves the doctor by punching the torpedo. Oh yes, and she gets into her undies to show a character trait of KIRK's. Which by the way was completely unnecessary because we already established that when he awoke with two sexy alien cat-girls in his bedroom. But guess which gets used again and again in the promos? Hell's bells she even gets kidnapped and needs rescuing by men.
Remember every scene that happens in that movie was written by someone, then filmed by someone, then edited by someone and then put into a film (all of which would have been approved by someone). That means that JJ Abrams made a deliberate choice to titillate and objectify a character in a movie that's supposed to exist in a universe of optimistic equality. Which I guess only applies to race but not to gender.
<snip>

So yes, I do say so.

Pretty selective, there. How about Uhura going to help Spock against one of the few guys who can severely kick everybody's ass? Or Carol taking a stand against her father/admiral? And even though Uhura's shot at diplomacy goes wrong, how is facing a pack of Klingons alone not a big deal and give the movie some gutsy, tough woman cred?

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I am thoroughly enjoying Pathfinder but I do feel lure of somewhat simpler systems as well - and that's why I'm still curious about D&D Next and would rate 2e as my 2nd favorite D&D variety.

I will admit also that there are some elements of PF that I would like to see changed - mainly because 3.5 screwed them up. For example, golem magic immunities are so much weaker now thanks to the change in 3.5 that I believe was ill considered.

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Bill Dunn wrote:

Meh. Reads like another diatribe against D&D Next backsliding away from 4e by a 4e fan to me.

Maybe. But for me it has nothing to do with what 4E did or didn't do -- rather, the idea is that we should be open to whatever works best, because the essence of D&D isn't Vancian casting (or saving throws, or even hit points).

But what does work best at making a game D&D as opposed to Swords and Sorcery, Fantasy Trip, Rolemaster, GURPS Fantasy, Hero Fantasy, Tunnels and Trolls, Ars Magica, or any other fantasy RPG? There are reasons that some mechanics really should be sacred cows - because they differentiate D&D from the other games out there. Simply being about fantasy adventuring, or even killing monsters and taking their stuff, won't do it.

What strikes me about the Hebert essay is it reminds me so very much of the statements that several 4e fan/edition warriors on another site expound on (ad infinitum, if given the chance). And there's an element of arrogant, pseudo-objective progressivism in what they post that almost sneers at OSR or even just older edition fans.

As for Vancian casting -- I think I would probably prefer spontaneous casting all around. It's just as dead simple as Vancian, but doesn't require the prep-work, or the weirdness around being able to cast a meteor swarm, but not a fireball. It seems to be the best match for most genre fiction without introducing spell points or similar. Keep zero level spells usable at will, and go through the spell lists with only spontaneous casters in mind. Drop extra time for metamagic. KISS. :)

Thankfully for both of us, PF now incorporates both with different classes and, using one as a boilerplate for the other, it's really easy to convert the casting of any one class as a house rule. Ideally, PF 2.0 would be able to do so as well and continue to satisfy both our preferences - Vancian and the 1 step away spontaneous slot variation.

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Bill Dunn wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

bugleyman, you read this yet? Seems relevant to the topic.

Meh. Reads like another diatribe against D&D Next backsliding away from 4e by a 4e fan to me.

A lot of commenters thought so too.

I hadn't read those yet. But I have to say that Hebert's responses don't exactly disabuse me of the notion.

I notice that Wolfgang Baur posted a rebuttal here.

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bugleyman, you read this yet? Seems relevant to the topic.

Meh. Reads like another diatribe against D&D Next backsliding away from 4e by a 4e fan to me.

As for me and Vancian casting, I like it. I think it's one of the core elements that makes the D&D family distinct from other fantasy RPGs. Some players may chafe at it, but I think it should remain a core PF mechanic. And I think that is a good enough reason to keep it. Distinctness of identity in the marketplace has value.

I've already held forth about why I prefer saving throws to static defenses, so I don't do that again here.

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Worse, the Kirk of the original series was in the academy for, what, 14 years before getting his ship? This one went from cadet to captain in one day.

I still think that he learnt his lesson in responsibility. We'll see next movie.

Fourteen years in the Academy?!? I'd like to see the citation on that one. Memory Alpha has him entering the Academy in 2250 and serving as a Lieutenant on the USS Farragut (meaning he had graduated) before 2255. He gains his first command in 2264 so that 14 years is right in one area, but not for spending all that time in the Academy.

It's true that the movies do compress the timeline substantially. From entering the Academy to command was 14 years according to Memory Alpha in TOS, in the movies, it's more like three years. Entering the Academy around 2255 and taking command of the Enterprise as acting Captain in 2258 and then taking full command, being busted down for violating the Prime Directive and hiding it in 2259, and then becoming Captain again shortly thereafter..

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2) You're going to like mythic power, then. :) That said, there's nothing saying that you couldn't spend a point to add +1d6 to your AC or your Fortitude or whatever. Force points being Offensive only is an oversight, not a limitation of what the system could actually do.

You could add 1d6 to your defense, but you lose a crucial element of the system - feedback. With action points, the player gets to see his d20 roll before he decides whether or not to burn an action point to gain +1d6 (though the action point use has to be declared before the result - success or failure - is announced by the GM). If you roll badly, you may estimate that an action point won't help and save it. But if you think the roll is on the cusp of success, you use the point. With a static defense, that element is gone. You're burning the action point blind to how well the roll turned out. A static defense just doesn't work well with that style of action point - and it really is a very good style.

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Website bookmarked! I hope I can check out a game every once in a while...

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DrDeth wrote:

2. I despise the 4th ED "defense" system.

Just curious, why? I've never played 4e, so I haven't seen defenses in practice, but it seems fine in concept, though it's a pretty minor issue either way for me.

I can think of 3 reasons why I prefer saving throws.

1) Rolling to hit a defense introduces the idea of a critical hit - something I don't think should be possible for lots of spells (like area effect spells).

2) I like the Action Point system from Eberron and 3e's Unearthed Arcana. You can spend a point to roll a number of d6 and add the best one to your d20 roll - be it a skill check, and attack, or a save. You can't really use it to pump up a static defense like your AC or 4e-style Non-AC Defense (NAD). I noticed this in SWSE with Force points. You can use them offensively, but you can't really use them very well defensively and that's backwards.

3) Saving throws were, as introduced, a last ditch attempt for a PC to survive certain death - hence the name saving throw. Turning them into a constant defense, I think, makes them too mundane and simply doesn't fit in with the rest of the game's tradition or feel.

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So, is this the right thread to talk about the actual Into Darkness movie?

From a franchise point-of-view, this is the opposite of Wrath of Khan. Wrath was deliberately written as a movie about Jim Kirk, the man who swaggered through every problem he encountered, the man who refused to acknowledge the no-win scenario,finally coming to terms with the consequences of his actions. Over and over again. It's a great movie, but it leaves writers struggling with Kirk as a character afterwards.

Into Darkness is a movie that teaches Jim Kirk that actions don't have consequences, at least not for him.

I don't think I'd agree with that assessment. On one hand, it teaches him to listen to the advice of people he trusts. Scotty balks over the torpedoes - Kirk comes to realize he's right. Spock badgers him into rethinking the morality of the mission - Kirk agrees which leads to the exposure of the main plot. In both of those cases, failure to listen leads to or would lead to trouble.

I'd say a lot of people learn that authority and power clearly don't make anyone trustworthy and it's good to have a surprise play at hand.

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TriOmegaZero wrote:

Possible to convert a 3E campaign, yes. Not possible to convert HIS 3E campaign.

Ah...I missed that he was using "us" in the "our specific campaign" sense, rather than as "we D&D players."

I know of several others for whom the changes were so drastic that it wasn't worth converting their campaigns. My gut suggests that the number who converted old campaigns into 4e is small compared to the ones who brought 2e campaigns into 3e.

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I have it on good authority (The Onion) that R'lyeh is sunken in Lake Mendota and Cthulhu has been known to wander the University of Wisconsin steam tunnels. And The Onion wouldn't lie to me.

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You see, I play in games meant to emulate great fantasy.

None of them feature Magi-Mart.

And you're worried about fabricate and 9th+ level wizards obsoleting dwarven smiths? How does that fit in with emulating great fantasy? It seems more of an irrelevant question given that parameter.

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Okay, answer this for me then: Why does anyone want this job at all? My impression is you really aren't going to be raking in big bucks, or even average middle class money. You are lucky to get full time and 30k a year.

If it isn't a "fun" job, if there is any iota of pita to it, why stay in it? I mean what happens when you get old, and you have bounced from company to company because of the WOTC-style reorganizations, companies going under, etc.

You can wind up 50 with not much in the bank, and no pension prospects. Plus unless you are an anomaly I doubt you have much in an IRA or 401k.

I'm not sure I'd agree with the assumption that it isn't a fun job. Even people turfed out by WotC seem to have enjoyed much of their jobs. At the very least, they say positive things about it and the people and projects they worked with. Is that just putting a positive spin on things? I doubt it.

My guess is people work in game design because they have a passion for it. That covers over a lot of ills or otherwise sub-optimal behavior - kind of like the way people have played fighters, rogues, and blaster wizards all through D&D's 3e/PF history despite the internet peanut gallery calling such characters sub-optimal. Being able to eke out a living doing what you love to do is often more enjoyable than making more money doing something that you don't like as much.

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A better response:
"If Paizo moves to PF 2, then Paizo stops making stuff for PF 1. I like getting more stuff for PF 1. Therefore, I do not want Paizo to make PF 2."

For me, the ideal solution to this is evolutionary change in any new edition. I do not particularly want a new PF edition that is not largely compatible with the current edition. That was my single biggest problem with 4e and one of the biggest benefits we experienced when we blended 1e and 2e together throughout the 1990s. We had campaign continuity and the editions worked together well, allowing us to replace problematic 1e rules with 2e's better organization, and allowing us to continue to use 1e classes where the 2e classes didn't measure up (like the ranger).

The shift to 3e from 2e didn't allow us to be nearly as seamless, yet conversions from 2e to 3e worked reasonably well. We could't really even do that with 4e so there was no chance of taking the 20+ year old campaign and characters to the new system.

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The movie was a great "Tony Stark techno thriller" movie but a really bad "Iron Man" movie. And I went to see an Iron Man movie.

If the movie was billed that way, I would have just saved my money and waited for the DVD. It would be like going to a Superman movie and having a Clark Kent news drama where less than 5 minutes he was Superman. Likely a decent movie, but not what you want to see when you go out to a Superman movie.

I think to be fair, we'd have to compare it to Superman spending a lot of time as Clark Kent while still pursuing the story movie - and isn't that largely the successful Smallville?

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JJ Abrams is convinced that surprises are what make good movies. I think he might be right, but he is BAD AT MAKING SURPRISES. The twist that Cumberbatch is Khan was the worst kept secret in the world.

Are we talking about Abrams or about M. Night Shyamalan? Trying to hide the Khan reveal over the last several months was pretty hamfisted, true, but I think the reception and reviews underscore that the secrecy was not necessary at all.

In the course of the movie, I thought the balance between surprise and foreshadowing was nicely done.

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Are there moderately evil wizards in the world? Think NPCs...you know, the guys that don't care about anyone else, but want their profits?

An NPC. How is this a problem since NPCs are entirely under the GM's control? If a GM is causing problems for his own campaign with an NPC abusing a powerful spell, he's got worse problems than the spel.

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Aureate wrote:

Because the game isn't an economic simulator.

And?

Immersion only works if there's some sort of internal logic to the world.

Get it?

It sounds to me like you're still trying to make an economic sim out of it. Fabricate is a powerful spell. At 5th level, it's out of reach of most wizards in a campaign setting, so its macro-level impact will be minor, at most. Its rules are written to aid a GM adjudicate a player making one-off stuff in an adventure, not run a shop. If a player thinks they can abuse the system with it, the GM should just say, "No, that's not what we are here to play."

There are a lot of debates like these that come up that I think can be relatively easily solved by a GM with the cojones to rein a wizard in to the spirit of the game.

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I'm pretty much OK with PvP and killing other PCs as long as the players at the table are OK with playing in a campaign that won't prohibit that sort of thing. If even one person expresses reservations about not prohibiting PvP or shows that they can't handle it, the option is off the table.

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It'll nerf the summoner pretty severely. And witches need a familiar for spell prep. Every other class can work around it just fine.

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Okay, so long story short, a character willingly blew up a city block of tenements, killing hundreds and leaving the rest homeless. Now, he and the rest of the party are on this quest to ultimately slay this big bad with these legendary weapons.

Now, he wants to make things right, because holy s*+*, he was straight up neutral before the sudden Anakin-level nose dive. <snip>

I'm leaning towards the third, but I still want to in some way penalize him. I've considered everything from negative levels to outright removing limbs. I want something that is going to stick, and make him think twice about breaking alignment again both in and out of character. Now, I have been out of the player seat for a long time. Short of outright killing him off, where can I hit him where it hurts the MOST?

OK, so he wants redemption. Involve the player and hash out how he can achieve redemption. Does he set aside his share of any treasure to compensate the victims and rebuild the block? Does he personally toil to rebuild the block? Does he tread the strait and narrow path because he has learned the consequences of his thoughtless actions? All of those could certainly work in favor of redemption.

Don't set out to hurt the PC (or player) with penalties. If the law has not been involved or he has no immunity, being a marked man may be penalty enough because he has to be on the lam. Seek to find ways for the PC to earn redemption and hold him to them.

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Don't brain-eating zombies try to coup de grace in order to devour brains?

Unlikely. I would expect them to just drag the PC off and start gnawing away. That's probably more damage but I wouldn't call it a coup de grace. The effect will likely be about the same - PC death - but maybe a slightly slower one that affords more opportunities for rescue.

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And band != orchestra.

Yeah, band doesn't suck to listen to because it's a lot easier to get them all in the same key.

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I'm not sure I understand, but I think he was saying that he actually rolls crits a lot? Like, his dice actually come up as 20s? By themselves? As a general tendency?

I might very well be the one interpreting this wrong, though.

I do not believe you are misinterpreting. Hama's context makes it pretty clear.

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I have a bit of trouble with fudging, so I completely abstain nowadays. It's too tempting to spare a character I like, PC or NPC. And it's important to set an example for a cheater in the group, so we roll all dice in plain view.

If the character in question is a pleasure to have in the game and that dynamic will be changed because of an unlucky death - why is it bad to spare that character? I don't get it. If the character is a good contributor to the campaign, what's wrong with a little plot immunity? This isn't to say that letting the dice fall where they may is bad, it's just mystifying to me the number of people who, for some reason, characterize fudging as some kind of weakness, moral or otherwise.

However, if fudging works for you, and nobody's complaining, I don't see much wrong with it. I think you miss out on a lot of excitement, though.

And you get to avoid a lot of frustration in favor of excitement too. Because sometimes it's more exciting to stay in the fight rather than be killed by that lucky x3 or x4 crit on the first shot of the combat.

<sarcastic bored monotone>"Ooo, killed before I get a chance to act. How exciting."</sarcastic bored monotone>

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The crafting rules themselves state: "To create a masterwork item, you create the masterwork component as if it were a separate item in addition to the standard item."

Why are you not able to use fabricate for the "standard item" and your Craft(Armor) check for the "masterwork component"?

The masterwork component is actually abstract. It's not literally a separate thing to be made, rather, it represents the extra materials and effort going into making the standard item masterwork and is part and parcel of the crafting of the item. This is why I don't necessarily have a problem with using a fabricate spell to make a masterwork item - I just require skill checks for quite a bit more than that as well.

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.

Also, the phrase "You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship" is one that requires interpretation, because there's no rules definition of "a high degree of craftsmanship. Anything that can potentially be crafted by any random person picking up a hammer, such as a chain shirt for example, obviously doesn't requite a "high degree of craftsmanship". Thus, no crafting check would be necessary, as allowed by the crafting rules. ("In some cases, the fabricate spell can be used to achieve the results of a Craft check with no actual check involved.") That frees up the one check allowed by the Fabricate spell for covering the check required to make a masterwork item.

A chain shirt doesn't require a high degree of craftsmanship? My interpretation would be that it does. Something that wouldn't might be sheets of metal, horseshoes, maces, or crowbars rather than armor or swords, basic bookshelves or tables rather than glide rockers or puzzle boxes.

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I always make sure that when my players roll for hit points they get a minimum of half-plus-one hit points for their level. Thus a Barbarian would get at least 7 hit points before Con bonuses, while a Wizard would get at least 4 hit points. (What I do is have them reroll the die until it's above half.)

The method we typically use is for both the player and the DM to roll an appropriate die - the PC gets whichever is better. It doesn't prevent 1s from happening, but it does make them a lot less likely. It also makes maxing out hit points more likely, though the expected value tends to be in the 60+% of max hit points depending on the size of the hit die rolled.

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This is wrong. A coup-de-grace is a full-round action, which is also the type of action used for, say, a charge or a full-attack. It both starts and finishes on the ghoul's current turn.

You're probably thinking of the "1 round" casting time for spells, which works the way you describe.

(Even so, this wouldn't necessarily be a poor house rule for CdG's)

I agree with Are, here. Full round actions are generally adjudicated all on the acting character's turn. The 1 round casting time makes this unnecessarily confusing because it is both a 1 round time and a full round action as well. It's easy to make the assumption that other full round actions should be adjudicated same.

I also agree that a 1 round action resolution would be a good way to house rule the coup de grace. But I also think that, as a tactic, its use should be rare as long as there are potentially dangerous PCs still up in the fight. Better for a creature who wants to eat the dying PC to drag the meat away from immediate danger before biting down and finishing the PC off for further consumption. Yes, that makes it more likely for another PC to be able to rescue the stricken PC (up to a point), but it's also probably treating the characters (PCs and NPCs) less like game tokens with actions and hit points and in a more in-character fashion.

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Designers do not pull out magic item prices out of their hat. They use formulas. I figured that for minor rods they take the spell slot level increase the metamagic feat gives (Empower +2 level), add 1 and multiply that by 5k and then divide it by 1.66 to get the price of the minor rods (9k for minor empower rods). For a minor merciful rod it is 0.5 multiplied by 5k divided by 1.66. Makes sense since merciful doesn't increase spell level when it is applied to a spell.

This breaks down at +3 level minor rods though. But both +3 level and +4 level minor rods multiply 5k by numberX.6. I wanna figure out how they came to numberX and the .6.

Yeah, I got issues.

Yeah, you have issues. The biggest one is that you're making big assumptions about how they derived the prices for metamagic rods. I don't expect that they had a standard formula going in that they expected to apply to all meta magic feats. Instead, I suspect they followed the standard advice - eyeball it and compare to other things that are roughly as useful.

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Technically, you can do it even without Two-Weapon Fighting. You're just going to take large penalties for doing so - and your unarmed strikes will provoke (as the "Holding the charge" rules state that you only count as 'armed' during the round you cast the spell).

It does not say that. It says that the caster holding the charge may elect to make a normal, unarmed attack (or with a natural weapon) and do that damage as well but the attack will count as unarmed or armed as normal for the attack type. Touch attacks backed by held charges are not considered armed for the first round only.

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Evershifter wrote:

Can I use Spell Combat to continue to deliver Chill Touches?

You can't just say "I use Spell Combat to deliver another charge." To use Spell Combat, you need to cast a spell. If you have TWF, you could use that to deliver multiple charges, but not Spell Combat.

I agree that's what the rules say, but let's push the situation a little bit. Suppose the magus using spell combat casts a touch spell with a single touch charge and, due to a bad roll, misses. Now, he can't use the same general fighting style to retry the touch attack despite the situation becoming less complicated because now he no longer has to actually cast the spell that round. He has to either make a touch attack or strike with his weapon (which could still discharge the spell but requires him to hit the full AC of the target), cutting down what he can do despite removing a complication.

As I say, I agree that the text of the rules does not allow that, I'm just not sure that it would be a game breaker to allow the magus to make his touch attacks along with his other attacks at the easier spell combat penalties even if he's not actually casting a spell.

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I have always found it a bit weird to have 1 round not equal a full-round. I'm not sure we really benefit much from having two different and distinct measurements for taking up a whole round, particularly with respect to spell-casting. I mean, I get that the full-round action is a lot easier to administer because you resolve it all on the acting character's turn. But I think, conceptually, it injects a lot of unnecessary confusion.

I wouldn't mind seeing more full-round actions like coup de grace and spontaneous metamagic be increased to 1 round actions to increase their interruptability. But then, I think a lot more spells should be increased in casting time to increase their interruptability and decrease caster mobility as well.

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Maybe Killian really was just that much tougher than his flunkies, though I don't think we're ever given any real confirmation of why the former geek should be more dangerous than all his ex-military goons. Other than that he's the BBEG and they're just mooks.

It's all about the super-villain ego. His first impulse is selfish, rather like Korvac giving himself new form after absorbing power on Galactus's ship or Doctor Doom fixing his face when he capture's the Beyonder's powers. Killian fixes himself first and then probably hoards the best enhancements for himself so that, always omega dog before, he's now the alpha.

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After much thought now....

Spoiler:

The biggest bit of disbelief I had was with the Killian and his goons. With Tonie's generator you had a way out for disbelief, but with these goons and Killian, you seem the re-grow limbs and even breath fire. How much mass and energy must they consume to do all of this?! Its not like they were a bunch of fat-guys that all of a sudden got skinny as they re-grew a limb. The least they could have done was given us the alien-tech way out.

All in all though, it was a fun and entertaining movie.

As far as the spoiler above:

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The latter, in my running of CoT. But also a bit more elaborate as well. I also used imagery of Venice to try to help set how it looks in my players' minds.

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I didn't ask you to reference your post... I asked for a reference to the rule that states that every creature in existence has All Around Vision(Ex).

Edit: They don't by the way, or it would be listed in their stat block as All-Around Vision(Ex)

In fairness, being able to make a perception check due to activities going on in any direction regardless of which direction the creature is currently looking isn't the same as All-Around Vision. For one thing, All-Around Vision precludes the possibility of being flanked - 360 degree perception doesn't include that. And for a second, 360 degree perception also includes hearing and smelling, not just seeing.

An awful lot about these debates on stealth and perception tend to focus on the stealth target's sight. One one hand, that's fair since most of us (and most PCs/NPCs) are going to be sight focused. Foiling sight is the single most important way to achieve a successfully stealthy action, but we shouldn't forget the target's hearing (or other senses). This is why he still gets a perception check to hear the sneak even though there are reasons he absolutely can't see him. And conversely, getting eyes on a sneak is the single best way to foil his ability to be stealthy - hence the need for some kind of visual obscurement be it cover or concealment or attention drawn elsewhere for a moment.

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Technically there still is a perception check, it just starts at DC 0 (the DC to notice a visible creature). It is modified most directly by range (+1 to the DC per 10 feet). If the observer is distracted (which in my book, in-combat would certainly apply) then add another +5 as well as the sneaking character's stealth check -10.

Good points. Distance can always add a factor. And I had forgotten about the +5 DC for perception if the perceiver is distracted - definitely makes that -10 dash to cover less of a bitter pill.

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Bill Dunn wrote:

wraithstrike wrote:

You did miss it. If I can draw a line from my character to the other character without any obstruction then I can see them. I don't have to choose a direction because the game has no facing rules. That is listed a few post about the post I am now replying to.

I think it's better characterized as "If the creature in question does not have either cover or concealment and my character doesn't count as distracted (which enables the dash to cover clause in the stealth rules), he can be seen without needing a perception check." Simply drawing one unobstructed line is usually not enough because most checks for cover/concealment succeed as long as at least one line is obstructed.

I listed the actual rules earlier. What you are quoting is the simplified paraphrase from me.

Simplified is good, particularly since the phrase I was responding to wasn't accurate. It's not a question of being able to draw a line without obstruction in most cases. Every line you draw must be free of obstructions to disqualify cover or concealment except in the case of melee attacks vs adjacent targets and concealment.

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Bill Dunn wrote:

wraithstrike wrote:

It does say you can use stealth while moving, and part of your movement is out in that open area where you no longer have cover or concealment. At that point you no longer qualify for stealth.

There is a caveat on that. If your observer can be considered distracted and you can reach an unobserved location, you can make the stealth check at -10. What constitutes distracted is, effectively, GM's decision.

That point has already been mentioned by me in one of these ongoing stealth threads. We are just assuming no distraction at the moment.

I think it's a really important caveat to make and it's probably a caveat that the GM should be encouraged to be lenient with. In one of the famous threads about sneaking up to steal a chicken, moving across an open spot, while the farmer sits on the porch, I'd rule the farmer distracted if he's doing pretty much anything that doesn't involve looking around for trouble - whittling, drinking moonshine from a jug, sharpening a knife. That rogue can make a move across the open terrain and back into stealth-appropriate territory with a -10 on his check.

I'd even allow a sneak to dash from one column to another in an otherwise open view if he's waiting and watching until the sentry turns to look in another direction under the distraction clause - he's distracted by looking over there rather than in the sneak's direction. I do think the -10 penalty, under these circumstances, may be a bit harsh.

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You did miss it. If I can draw a line from my character to the other character without any obstruction then I can see them. I don't have to choose a direction because the game has no facing rules. That is listed a few post about the post I am now replying to.

I think it's better characterized as "If the creature in question does not have either cover or concealment and my character doesn't count as distracted (which enables the dash to cover clause in the stealth rules), he can be seen without needing a perception check." Simply drawing one unobstructed line is usually not enough because most checks for cover/concealment succeed as long as at least one line is obstructed.

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It does say you can use stealth while moving, and part of your movement is out in that open area where you no longer have cover or concealment. At that point you no longer qualify for stealth.

There is a caveat on that. If your observer can be considered distracted and you can reach an unobserved location, you can make the stealth check at -10. What constitutes distracted is, effectively, GM's decision.