BobChuck's page

As several others have pointed out, you are pricing the "luck bonus" wrong.

Firstly, it's 2,000 * bonus squared, not 1500 * bonus squared.

Secondly, because the "luck bonus effect" does not take up an item slot, you have to double its cost.

So a rock or a stick that gives +3 luck bonus to saves costs (2 * 2k * 3*3 =) 36,000 gold.

+ 21,014 gold for the +3 Adamantium Hammer equals a market price of 57,014 gold.

That's assuming your GM even allows you to do this - remember the very first thing that the custom item creation rules say: All magic items require GM approval.

Personally, as someone who used to be a BIG min-max power gamer in the 3.0 days, I would turn down this item as soon as you suggested it to me. I've seen what happens when you open the door to allowing "alternative bonuses" on custom magic items, and it's ugly.

Now, if you had it grant a +3 resistance bonus (total market price: 39,014 gold), I'd be okay with that.

[RANT]

...No, I am not necessarly evil, just highly motivated =)...

I stopped reading after this line, so forgive me if I come off as harsh.

Your Character is EVIL. period.

Evil does not mean "enjoys murdering and eating babies". That's the definition of Vile, which is another way of saying "super-evil".

Evil - casual, everyday evil - is pretty much exactly the above: "I know that doing this will probably result is any number of horrible things, but I stand to make a lot of money, and I won't actually be doing any of those horrible things, so it's not like this is actually wrong".

It's crappy fail-logic like this that makes playing Paladins so freaking difficult in most parties.

[/RANT]

Anyway OP, if you are looking for a way to make some money off of this thing in a way that doesn't involve accidentally unleashing a 10hd demon that will terrorize the local populace, I'd suggest finding a nearby church of Saerenrae or Cadean Caylan or one of the other more-or-less reasonable good-aligned gods and convince them to straight-up buy the ruby from you, demon and all. Figure out what it'll cost to get rid of the thing properly, subtract that from the market price of the ruby, and divide by two - that's the amount of coins you want them to put in your pocket.

EDIT: the "divide by two" is there for a lot of reasons:
1) to help sell the idea to the church (which will have to call in experts and coordinate the actual expenditure of resources and so on, all of which costs "background-setting-money" (as opposed to "adventuring money"))
2) To keep your involvement to a minimum. If you try asking for the whole net worth, they'll likely want you to provide "security". They'll also ask around, find out about the rest of your party, and ask them to assist with the ritual (which means you have to split the gold with them now)
3) To sell your GM on the idea. He handed you a big shiny box of trouble, and this solution gets rid of it simply and quietly. Maybe he's upset that you are trying to dump the trouble this way, or maybe he didn't mean to give this to you at all and wants to remove it cleanly; either way, asking for less makes it more likely he'll go for it.

My business trip got pushed up, so I will not be there this Saturday. Unless things go extremely well, I will also not be there next Saturday.

meh; maybe I'll swing by and see how it's going. It's not exactly a big detour for me.

Math is hard.

It's not difficult for me, but I've been playing D&D since about 4 months before the 3.0 PHB came out (I was thrilled be able to join in right at the start of the new edition, but my teenage wallet was very sad).

For new people, or folks not used to doing math in their head, or who just plain aren't any good at it, diagonals can be difficult.

You realize, of course, that certain players who live less than a ten minute drive away might be interested in playing in both events back to back? :p

Also, the only reason I haven't signed up for the wednesday game is you are on "starter module part 3", and I've only played through part 1.

A couple things to bear in mind:

Summon Monster/Animal X all have a casting time of 1 round. This means that the Conjurer or Druid must spend both his move and standard action on the spell (so can only do a 5ft step and a swift action) AND that he continues to cast the spell all throughout the entire initiative cycle, until the start of his next turn (at which point the spell resolves and both the caster and creature may take a full round action normally).

This means that he has to make concentration checks (and not "casting defensively", either; just the normal kind) every time he takes damage throughout the entire round, which puts a big target on his head; if you aren't taking advantage of it, you should start.

There's also the range of the spell (close: 25 feet + 5 feet per 2 caster levels). If he's 6th level, he's only got an initial range of 40 feet. The creature can of course move beyond that once summoned, but it initially has to appear within 40 feet of the caster. Put the big bad at the other end of a long guarded throne room and the monster can't get to him, put the ambushing baddies on the top of a 60 foot cliff and give them bows, and he can't drop anything at all on their heads.

Finally, I have a question: what monsters are giving you trouble? If he's sixth level, the best he can do is throw a lantern archon around, or 1d3 small elementals, or 1d4+1 riding dogs, or something similar; none of those should be even remotely challenging to a monster capable of going toe-to-toe with a 6th level fighter.

My brother and I had a blast, and look forward to playing again.

Why are people still posting in this thread? James Jacobs (creative director of Pathfinder and frequent poster on these wonderful boards) already won an internet with his beautiful comment.

"no where in the rules does it say that a dead body falls prone". Just wonderful.

Don't forget that there is a limited number of bombs per day; there's enough that a typical alchemist doesn't really need to worry, as he'll be doing all sorts of other stuff, but a dedicated bomb-thrower will start running out.

Also, bombs have a limited range, and alchemists are squishy.

I don't think it's a problem.

1) Either zero or one; it doesn't say because it doesn't really matter. Handedness beyond "you have a maximum of two hand slots for holding stuff" is not important.

For instance, a Wizard with an Arcane Bond that is a Staff (in other words, every iconic wizard ever created) is technically not capable of casting spells at all, because he has to be "wielding" his staff (which takes two hands) and also needs a hand free to make somatic gestures (so that's a total of three, which he doesn't have). Thing is, no one cares.

Likewise, no one is going to care whether or not your witch technically has to take her hand off of her staff or crossbow in order to use a hex. No one cares if the half-orc with a greatsword technically can't pull out a potion and drink it. No one cares if the cleric technically has to drop his mace or large shield in order to heal the Fighter.

Now, if the cleric starts trying to cast offensive spells, someone might care, but really, it's called "put a hoop on the bottom of the mace and swing it back into your hand", also known as a weapon cord.

The point is, I've never seen or heard of a GM who actually made an issue out of it.

2) No. There are no real somatic components, either.

This next bit is technically sort of a house rule: There is (and has been for a long time) a general consensus both on these boards and on the old WotC boards that Supernatural Abilities (and spell-like abilities, and Force powers from the d20 Star Wars stuff, etc) do require you to do something rather obvious, and also require something that indicates your target (pointing and screaming, glaring in a blatant way, or tapping his shoulder as you walk past all work). If you want to not do this, you have to make a check to go unnoticed (bluff or stealth, depending on what you are trying to do). Some GMs run it the othe way, with everyone around getting a chance to notice what you did.

Again, technically a house rule, as there's nothing in the books to support this when applied to spell-like and supernatural abilities, but it seems unfair to the victim and his friends (here meaning "it really sucks when the GM does it to you without either making a conceal check or letting the party make a notice check, so you shouldn't be able do it to him without rolling either"). Plus it makes for a better narrative, and fits with what we see in media (and thus in our heads) all the time.

It's one of those "rules patches" that has been around forever and everyone uses, but isn't actually written down anywhere.

3) That's a hard question.

First of all, there's my response to "2"; technically there's nothing obvious to indicate to third parties that you are doing anything, but I've never seen anyone play it that way.

Secondly, there's nothing that directly addresses your question, but there is the "charm rule": pass the save and you know something happened, fail the save and you don't automatically know.

Hit a guy with Charm Person; if he passes, he knows something happened, but unless he's got spellcraft or saw the caster or something, he doesn't know exactly what. If he fails, he could very well know that he's charmed (if he had spellcraft and identified the spell as it went off, for instance); he just doesn't care. Identifying the effect and resisting the effect are two different things.

So it really depends on your GM and on the individual situation.

***

For your specific case, if I were at the table (either player or GM) I'd encourage you not to - it's "hostile magic", just like casting bless in front of the guy (and not also giving it to him) would be hostile magic, and if he notices he is quite rightly going to be concerned and highly suspicious of your motives, because, while he's got a good chance of catching you doing something, his odds of knowing exactly what is was are low - he won't know it was "just" a potential -2 to some rolls; it might have been a charm attempt, or a "put him to sleep and slit his throat" attempt, or any number of other things.

Bards use arcane spells to heal. Wizards should be able to learn any arcane spell. The witch has a healing hex, which is ok. But having an actual arcane spell for it too is just as wrong as the bard having it.

More people with heals makes it a better game. Since arcane healing is around I wish they could include the wizard even if it is only for a generalist Mage and one specialization.

On the other hand, false life is a great spell.

and

Bards cast arcane spells and cast CLW through Mass-CMW. They don't use smaller dice or any of that nonsense, they just throw arcane cure spells, like gold dragons.

are the only two people in this thread, besides me, to realize that "arcane healing" has been in the game for at least 11 years now. Bards and Gold Dragons, among others.

Now, there's a difference between having arcane spellcasters able to heal, and having healing spells on the sorcerer/wizard spell list, and maybe that's what's actually trying to be discussed here. But if that's the case, the apparent topic is misleading, because there are arcane healers, right in the core book, going back all the way to 3.0 PHB.

I have registered on your site and for Pathfinder Society. Not sure what to play. Not sure what my brother will play either, and I don't think he has a paizo user ID.

Thanael wrote:

Inquisitor
Oracle
Cavalier
Witch
Magus

The only Thing that is noticably missing here is a trap finder. Anyone know a way to cover trapfinding with these classes?

I do not believe that trapfinders are still relevant.

I do not believe that most people on these forums still believe trapfinders are relevant.

I think it'd be nice if trapfinders were releveant, don't get me wrong. But they really don't matter.

Well now we've got a game at 6 PM at the Guardtower on Wednesday nights, and we will be starting a game at Ravenstone Games on Saturday's at noon. I'm putting up games on our warhorn site (http://warhorn.net/columbus-pfs/) though actually getting all my players to register has been a pain.

Ravenstone! we live less than ten miles from there! I went to Woodward Park Middle School like 1 mile down Karl road (this was 15 years ago, mind, but still).

By "Saturdays", do you mean "starting this Saturday, November 5th 2011"? Because we are all for that.

We both play straight pathfinder (no 3.5 or house rules) and we've got all the hardback books plus most of the softback ones and adventure paths (as you probably can tell by my tags).

Neither of us have any familiarity/experience with Pathfinder Society - what do we need to know before showing up?

My brother and I are looking for a pathfinder group. My brother was a regular at the Armory and was sorry to see it go - he played lots of L5R there.

My brother and I are in colummbus, which is an hour each way. Any chance of going longer (either starting earlier or ending later?)

I'm just getting back into gaming after a long hiatus but don't know anyone locally who plays. I'm pretty much free in the evenings or weekends and am open to any type of game.

I'm willing to DM a game if you're willing to put up with a newer DM and can give me a lot of advice and help.

My brother and I are looking for available players - we both went to college and did the responsible adult thing while our friends screwed around, and about 4 months ago all of them independently realized that they really needed to start acting like adults, so we are suddenly without any available players.

We might be able to scare up an additional player or two, depending on the game day, but we're trying to find two or three people with mostly open nights and weekends.

It's not a contentious issue; the use the of word "hand" is mostly a hold-over from previous additions. You can do Two-Weapon Fighting with a two-handed weapon and armor spikes. it was doable in 3.5, and I believe even in 3.0.

It is, as mentioned, very sub-optimal. Using Ranger means char is stuck in Light Armor while trying to fight, using anything else means horrible MAD (Multiple Ability Dependency - needs high Str and Dex). He cannot benefit from feats like "Two-Weapon Defense" because they specifically exempt unarmed strikes and the like. He doesn't get to double-up his feats (must take Weapon Focus twice instead of just once and then using 2x same weapon). And so on.

Again, cheesiest use of this is a Fighter wielding a longspear (for reach) and armor spikes, and going into Whirlwind Attack, and he's not doing that (I think this is where the "debatable" kicks in; I'm not sure this works, and I'm not sure I want it to, but not relevant).

If I was you, I'd ask him why he was doing it. If he says "super cool character concept" let him have his fun. I e says "ultra cheese" show him this thread so he understands that it's actually not that good, and if he still wants to, let him.

Basically, Darkness works like this: "For each Square within its radius, the light level within that square is reduced by one."

You seem to be confused as to how the spell works. It's exactly the same as a light or daylight spell, except instead of creating a magical source of light that adds light, it creates a magical source of dark that subtracts light.

Alternatively (meaning as an entirely different whole other completely separate spell effect and you can only choose one OR the other at the time of casting), you can cast it to counter or suppress a single existing magical source of light.

I'm with most of the posters here: it's not metagaming for a Paladin to use Detect Evil, especially if they are talking to a guy who's acting suspiciously.

Actually, I suspect that the above term is the problem. "Acting suspiciously", at least for me, means "doing something to provoke a perception or sense motive check", not "making a successful perception or sense motive check". Passing the check means either your fears are confirmed or you find out there was nothing; failing the check means you always find out there was nothing.

Using Detect Evil, Detect Magic, Detect Poison, etc is not metagaming. For me, at least, it's on the same level as asking to make a sense motive or perception check.

In fact the only thing i can think of that can't be properly covered by a fighter is a decent thrower, you have to optimize the crap out of them just to get them performing 'average'

In other news: Paizo, can we have this please?

Quote:

Bringing an iconic Rogue along on a typical adventure is like bring a valley-girl on a hunting trip, just like bringing an iconic Barbarian to a Ball is like bringing a Red-Neck to San-Francisco - neither one fits in the others world. Unfortunately, Pathfinder is almost all about wilderness and dungeon exploration; city adventures - and especially social adventures - just aren't something the system lends itself to.

-The difference is that

1) Its easier for the Barbarians Player to have fun at the ball being unsuccessful at WOOING WOMEN! than it is for the rogue to have fun either hitting like a dry sponge or being backhanded by every monster in the game.

2) Everyone participates in combat. A social challenge is like a lock: usually ONE person does it. AM BARBARIANS social grace of a rabid honey-badger in heat hinders the parties face as much as Sir clanks a lot's mammoth esque dexterity score keeps the rogue from picking locks. If worse comes to worse treat a trip to the palace like putting BA on a plane.

Which is my point - Pathfinder is set up, top to bottom, front to back, beginning to end, etc - to be about exploring dangerous places, killing weird monsters, and taking their stuff. While an iconic Rogue is definitely interested in that third item, they are horrible at the first two.

Pathfinder Rogues, when they play to type, work really well, as I detailed in my last post. It's just that what they tend to do isn't what Pathfinder as a whole tends to do, so they don't fit well.

What I'm trying to say, really, is there is no solution to this problem. Making Sneak Attack easier or adding Dex to damage or whatever will not let Rogues act like Rogues. Think about Iconic Rogues like Errol Flynn, Robin Hood, Captain Jack Sparrow - how many people did they actually kill, or try to kill, or even face in anything like a fair fight or especially fight at all when they could run away?

My point is that, at a very deep, fundamental level, the Iconic Rogue just does not fit into a typical Pathfinder Adventure. no amount of rules tweaking is going to fix that.

Ultimately, the mechanics of the Rogue class are not the problem; it's the game the class is in.

In Pathfinder, if you want to deal lots of damage in melee, you must stack Strength. To be a Rogue who does lots of damage in melee, you still need to stack strength, which is fine mechanically, but doesn't fit how people see Rogues.

The "patch" for this in 3rd edition and 3.5 was to use two-weapon fighting; however, Fighters and other big melee guys do more damage now, and while there are now almost no monsters that are immune (only elementals and oozes I believe), getting the damage to happen reliably is hard. It looks good on paper, but ultimately its a trap - Sneak Attack damage either can't be set up at all or can't be set up against a worthwhile target. When Sneak Attack does work, it runs into the problem of overkill - odds are, if you got a target, you only have one target, so when it drops your turn ends. It's similar to the problem that weapons like the scythe have - 20x4 looks like its the same as 18x2, but it tends to waste more damage.

***

Finally, there's the concept of a "Rogue" itself. They are supposed to be dashing, charismatic, humorous guys who dart and dash around the battlefield, using their training, wit, and cleverness to beat their opponents. Yes, archtypes like "thug" and "assassin" should be supported, but the "assumed default" is supposed to be a, well, Rogue.

Believe it or not, this sort of character is already completely supported by the core book - take Agile Maneuvers, Combat Expertise, and Improved Feint; pair with Rogue talents that let you taunt opponents with bluff and go to town. It'll be a while before this kind of Rogue can pick up feats like improved Disarm, but that's the beauty of the archtype - Feint renders the opponent flat-footed, which reduces their Combat Maneuver Defense (just like it does AC), plus flat-footed characters can't make Attacks of Opportunity, so you don't need the feat to function.

Unfortunately, and this is what I meant in my opening statement, this sort of universal, instantly recognizable, and thoroughly iconic character archtype is just flat out not compatible with a typical Pathfinder game. Being agile in tight spaces isn't any use in the wilderness or in large dungeon rooms. Being able to trick and taunt your opponent doesn't help when fighting mindless creatures, or ones that don't understand you. Trying to preform Combat Maneuvers on creatures two-three sizes larger than you is just asking for trouble. And so on.

Bringing an iconic Rogue along on a typical adventure is like bring a valley-girl on a hunting trip, just like bringing an iconic Barbarian to a Ball is like bringing a Red-Neck to San-Francisco - neither one fits in the others world. Unfortunately, Pathfinder is almost all about wilderness and dungeon exploration; city adventures - and especially social adventures - just aren't something the system lends itself to.

Also, are we sure that ending the blood war is a good thing?

After all, if the Demons or Devils or Horsemen or whatever side that wins suddenly finds itself without anything to kill, after spending hundreds of millennia with multiple entire planar levels on a continuous war footing, which are they more likely to do:
1) stop fighting and become all chummy with the other outer planes
2) go on a war of conquest against the good aligned planes in an orgy of violence

Ending the blood war is a very bad idea.

Protection from Evil (first level spell for just about everybody but druids/rangers) blocks new mind control effects, and allows a new save versus existing effects.

As a warrior-type, it's not really on you to stop getting mind controlled; as you've noted, your class is rather vulnerable to those effects, and has no real way of countering. This is why adventurers form parties, so their weaknesses get covered and their strengths get emphasized.

EDIT: after all, you don't expect the wizard to take point and tank, and you don't expect the cleric to scout. /EDIT

Your fellow party members should be helping you here: the rogue can tell if you are under the effects of a compulsion (which includes suggestion I think), and all the spell-casters in the party can drop a Pro:Evil on you as soon as they spot mind controlling critters; by 8th level, they shouldn't need all of their first level spell slots to function.

But yeah, mind control is annoying.

For your first campaign, stick to the Core Rulebook only.

Also, standard "first campaign with a new group/system" rules apply: Allow people to tweak (not overhaul) their characters, plan on 3-8 sessions max, start at level one, keep thing simple.

Finally, the two biggest, most important things to remember about Pathfinder:
1) It's not 3.5 D&D. The rules are similar, but they aren't the same. The most annoying things about 3.5 were the power creep, the min/maxing, and the rapid release of books that needed more editing. The easiest way to prevent your game from turning into that is to not let any 3.5 stuff in ever, under any circumstances. This goes double for anything from the Spell Compendium.
If a player wants a certain thing from a 3.5 book, he's got to convert it, in which case it's no longer 3.5, but a home-brew creation.

2) Pathfinder is published by the guys who ran Dragon and Dungeon magazines for their last 8+ years. These guys know how to write small, tightly focused paperback/pdf expansions for, say Orcs or Goblins. They know how to write Adventure Paths that start out at level 1, take 3-5 sessions to complete, give characters three levels each month, and are both easy to run and fun to play.
I cannot recommend the Adventure Paths highly enough.
Adventure Path spoilers:

Of course, I'm subscribed to pretty much everything I can subscribe to, and I was a fan of Dragon and Dungeon, so I'm rather bias.

Okay, let's hold off on the rules suggestions just yet.

We need more information. I'm almost 100% positive that the OP did not know that the "assassin" is a prestige class. He may not know what a prestige class is.

Diving straight into the Ninja, an alternative base class from a recently release book that his group may or may not be using, is probably not the right way to go, at least not straight out of the gate. Jumping straight to half-elf fighter dual wielding is better, but it's awfully specific.

What we need is more information. Like, lots and lots more information.

so, OP (OP = Original Poster, the guy who started the thread); Op, tell us about your character. Male or Female? Any races you prefer? any you don't want? What about appearance (equipment is what we in this thread are looking for, but having a clear picture of what your character looks like helps with roleplay).

Speaking of roleplay, tell us about your group. Is it fairly small (3-4 players + GM), qutie large (8+ players and GM), etc. What has the GM told you about his game-style - mainly combat focused, mainly RP focused, etc? What have the other players said about the GM's game style?
(making an assassin with lots of skill emphasis with a GM who likes to ignore/bypass skills is not going to be much fun. Making a combat monster assassin in a heavy-RP game will not be much fun)

What sort of campaign is the GM running? Is it Urban focused, wilderness focused, dungeon focused? Are there certain creature types that definitely will or will not show up frequently?
(Making an Urban rooftop assassin for a game that's set on the wide open plains will not be fun. Making an Undead Hunter type character in a game that's focused on Giant-killing will not be fun)

What are the character creation rules? Ability Score generation? Starting Level? If above level 1, starting Wealth? What races, outside of the Player's Handbook, are allowed as Player Characters? Are traits available, and if so how many?

Yes, this is a lot of information we're asking for. But so far all we've got to go on is "an assassin". All that tells us is that you want a character who is good at / focused on being able to quickly and cleanly kill a single target from an advantageous position. I can think of seven different races and eleven different core classes just in the Player's Handbook that would qualify for that. If you want us to help, we need more information.

I just sent CrackedOzy all the files I originally received. I'm also assuming he now has everything again.

Hopefully he'll post here to confirm that. This would be more likely if I had though to ask him to do that in the e-mail, but oh well.

The best way to learn is to play.

There's all sorts of advice and tips and rule and so on that all of us here could throw at you, but the above is really all you need to know. Go in with an open mind and have fun.

Don't worry about not knowing what's going on - let the guys who actually know what they are doing manage the rules. Odds are there's at least one person in the group who really enjoys knowing the rules, and will happily explain things in far more detail than you need to know right now.

The best way to learn the game is to show up, tell the group the general sort of character you want to play, answer their questions, play what they make for you, and have a blast killing things and taking their stuff. After a few sessions, once you've got some idea of what's going on, start by looking at your character and trying to figure out why they picked "X" instead of "Y", and what the difference is. Work outward from there.

Above all, play the game.

Awesome. Only catch is it's Fighter only. What are Rangers supposed to do?

Well I'm going to assume that this race is balanced, since no one has posted anything.

You only gave it six hours. You typically need to wait several days before making such an assumption.

As far as your race is concerned...
The ability scores make sense, the explanation does not. How does a Race "choose" its genetic/cultural inclinations? Also, "cunning" by itself is associated with Int at least as much as Wis - use "natural cunning" instead.
Size is standard.
Speed needs to be reworded. It should say something like "Tikari have a base speed of 30 feet on their hind legs, and 40 feet when on all fours. They may switch between the two once per round as a swift action, provided their hands are free."
Low-Light vision is standard.
Heightened Hearing is complicated - define a "sound-based" perception check. Also, most circumstantial abilities like this tend to get forgotten by players/DMs. I agree with the other poster, bump it to full-on +2 to all perception checks.
Other Skills: make sense.

Scent: overpowered. The speed thing + Low-Light Vision and the +2 to skills puts them about equal to half-elves and half-orcs. Scent is a messy ability in general, hard to properly use at the table, and not usually available to standard races. Drop it, do a little cleanup/rewording, and you should be good.

It already is overpowered, if it was a feat it would be even more. there should be a feat to allow it to use half dex on damage, then we'd be on the balance track.

It would only be overpowered as a feat if there were no prerequisites. If it required Agile Maneuvers and Weapon Finesse, it'd be fine, especially since they'll have to take yet another feat to get the dex equivalent of Power Attack.

As a weapon enhancement, I'm not so sure. For one thing, it just doesn't feel like a weapon enhancement. What is it about the magic that lets you do "graceful-stabs"? How is it different from how the basic "+X" bonus is described to work from a fluff point of view? It makes more sense as a feat.

Someone did a full Ebberon conversion - all the races, feats, domains, dieties, the artificer, etc; Least Dragonmarks done up as traits, very nice overall.

Sadly, it cannot be posted/pinned here because of copyright infringement (Ebberon is not a part of the OGL), and I do not remember the person's name so I cannot give proper credit.

I do, however, have copies of all of the pdfs. Here's that version of the Warforged:

Warforged Racial Traits
• +2 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma: Warforged are resilient of body and sharp of mind, but their
difficulty in relating to other creatures makes them seem aloof or even hostile.
• Living Construct Subtype (Ex): Warforged are constructs with the living construct subtype. A living construct is a
created being given sentience and free will through powerful and complex creation enchantments. Warforged are
living constructs that combine aspects of both constructs and living creatures, as detailed below.
- Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, disease, nausea, fatigue, exhaustion, effects that cause the
sickened condition, and energy drain.
- Cannot heal damage naturally.
- Can be affected by spells that target living creatures as well as by those that target constructs. Damage
dealt to a warforged can be healed by a cure light wounds spell or a repair light damage spell, for
example, and a warforged is vulnerable to disable construct and harm. However, spells from the healing
subschool and supernatural abilities that cure hit point damage or ability damage provide only half their
normal effect to a warforged.
- A warforged takes damage from heat metal and chill metal as if he were wearing metal armor.
- A warforged with 0 hit points is disabled, just like a living creature. He can only take a single move
action or standard action in each round, but strenuous activity does not risk further injury. When his hit
points are less than 0 and greater than negative his Constitution, a warforged is inert. He is unconscious
and helpless, and he cannot perform any actions. However, an inert warforged does not lose additional hit
points unless more damage is dealt to him, as with a living creature that is stable.
- Can be raised or resurrected.
- A warforged does not need to eat, sleep, or breathe, but he can still benefit from the effects of consumable
spells and magic items such as heroes’ feast and potions. Although living constructs do not need to sleep, a
warforged spellcaster must rest for 8 hours before preparing spells.
• Medium: As Medium constructs, warforged have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• Warforged base land speed is 30 feet.
• Natural slam attack that deals 1d4 bludgeoning damage.
• Composite Plating: The plating used to build a warforged provides a +2 armor bonus. This plating is not natural
armor and does not stack with other effects that give an armor bonus (other than natural armor). This composite
plating occupies the same space on the body as a suit of armor or a robe, and thus a warforged cannot wear armor or
magic robes. Warforged can be enchanted just as armor can be. The character must be present for the entire time it
takes to enchant him. Composite plating also provides a warforged with a 5% arcane spell failure chance, similar to
the penalty for wearing light armor. Any class ability that allows a warforged to ignore the arcane spell failure
chance for light armor lets him ignore this penalty as well.
• Automatic Languages: Common. Bonus Languages: Any.

What about letting them use weapons that are one size category larger than themselves without having the "handedness" change? That would make it easier to get "more" from the bonus / extend its life, and the difference between 2d6/2d8 and 3d6/3d8 is not a big deal.

It's called "meat shield + wand of cure light wounds".

Trapsense is almost completely useless; a fair number of groups with rogues don't bother with traps, because it's faster to send the bag of hit points in.

If you've got a player that wants to play a rogue, great, you'll have to use less cure magic, and thus will probably get through things faster. If you don't have someone who wants to play a rogue, don't worry about it; trapfinding is not a critical ability.

northbrb wrote:

Xum wrote:

So, basically this Archetype suck? You can't use larger weapons 2 handed, and the Titan Rage is soooo bad it hurts. Is that it?

if you ask me what needs to be added to the massive weapons abillity is a single line stating that the titan mauler is no longer restricted by size when trying to weild a weapon, meaning that the titan mauler can pick up any weapon his strength can handle and use it with the appropriate penalty and the massive weaponabillity reduces that penalty as you level.

Actually, if you removed the line stating that Jotungrip weapons need to be appropriately sized, then the entire archetype would potentially make sense.

Their potential weapon sizes would go up one, so removing the penalty by 6 at the highest level would actually have an effect, if they wanted a gargantuan dagger or some s~%*.

Removing the 'size restriction' would make this horribly overpowered, because titanmaulers would all start using size colossal greatswords.

The archtype can already use a size huge short sword. It's light at huge, one-handed at large (-2), and two-handed at medium (-4). I'm not sure how a gargauntian dagger would break down; in 3.0 it was effectively "ultra-light" (actually size tiny, but not important), so having a gar dagger being two-handed (and -6) for a medium character makes some sense, even if the rules might not work that way now.

But removing the size restriction means they'd be swinging a (medium 2d6, large 3d6-2, huge 4d6-4, gar 6d6-6, col 8d6-8) 8d6 weapon; even with a -8 size penalty to attack rolls, that's insane.

(yes, I am aware that 8d6 with -8 attack is only 2.625 damage per minus, which is less efficient than Power Attack; but titans can do this at first level; even if they miss 75% of the time, when they hit, it's dead.)

Besides, where is a character even going to find a colossal greatsword? For tht matter, how much does it weigh? If it exceeds their carrying capacity (and I think it will, at least for a 16 strength), then how are they capable of even moving with the thing, much less swinging it?

I get that oversize weapons are awesome, but the thing most people don't understand is that the greatsword is already ridiculous and oversized, with the Size Large Bastard Sword even more so.

Titanmauler lets you use a 2d8 weapon without penalty, effectively adding +2 to pretty much every single attack roll your character will make, ever. In exchange, you lose out on a +5 bonus that rarely comes up and is often forgotten even when it is relevant. I don't see the downside, and I certainly don't understand why it needs to be made better. It's already good.

"Economic Control?"

What are you talking about?

quote from the SRD: "If the damage you deal would reduce the object to less than 0 hit points, you can choose to destroy it. If you do not choose to destroy it, the object is left with only 1 hit point and the broken condition."

Quote from the Broken condition: "If the item is magical, it can only be repaired with a mending..."

So in other words, a successful sunder will never destroy the weapon/armor/etc unless the attacker wants to, and fully repairing it only requires a 0th level spell.

How is this an "Economic Control"?

What?

*checks SRD*

Oread

*sees comment*

wow. okay then. Did not know that.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Special-Attacks
hyperlink directly to the section you are asking about.

Aid Another: concept is pretty simple; spend your standard action, make an "action X" d20 check against AC/DC 10, and if you succeed, you give someone else a +2 bonus on their next "action X" check versus the same target.
Note that it is a Standard Action.

Charge: move up to twice your speed in a straight line under restrictions and make a single Attack Action at the end. Powerful action, especially at low levels. This is a Full Round action, with special rules for a Partial Action variant.

Combat Maneuvers: most of the rest of this section is devoted to Combat Maneuvers, which are powerful but confusing. The description of this section does explain how to calculate the bonus very well, but it fails in one simple but very important aspect: A Combat Maneuver is an attack, therefore anything that adds to attacks also adds to combat maneuvers. Bard Song, Bless, the +2 bonus from preforming a charge, Weapon Focus, etc - all of these can apply.

Likewise, Combat Maneuver Defense counts as AC. The Dodge feat adds to Combat Maneuver Defense, as does Deflection bonuses from your Ring of Protection; this is why Monks get their Wisdom here. Likewise, anything that penalizes AC also applies here, such as the AC penalty for charging or being flat-footed (Rogues, PAY ATTENTION TO THAT!). About the only thing that doesn't apply to Combat Maneuver Defense is Armor, Natural Armor, and Shield bonuses.

All of this is technically in the book, but it's not explained well, and knowing the above is really important if you want to make a character that focuses on Combat Maneuvers.

(rant)

(Rogue comment: people see the massive Sneak Attack damage bonuses the class gets and become obsessed with min-maxing it, which is silly; Combat Expertise + Improved Feint + Agile Maneuvers = almost an auto-win for any Combat Maneuver you want to preform. Target is flat-footed, so no dex bonus or dodge bonus to CMD and he can't make Attacks of Opportunity, so not having Improved Whatever doesn't matter. Why more Rogues don't do this is beyond me.)

(random comment: something else that's not explained well is Ranged Attack damage. Every single weapon - all of them, with the sole exception of Crossbows and Guns - applies your Strength Penalty to the damage roll. All of them. Thrown also always apply your Strength bonus, and Bows will if they are mighty, but your Strength penalty, if any, is always applied. I am continually surprised at how many people do not know that. Ranged Characters cannot dump strength, unless they are Gunslingers.)

(/rant)

Anyway, Combat Maneuvers. You seem to understand the general concept behind them, so I won't go into detail; hopefully all of the above has been helpful to you. Here's a basic list of the Combat Maneuvers and the type of action required:

Bull Rush - Standard Action. Special: can also be used at the end of a Charge (full or partial), instead of the normal Attack Action. Does not normally use a weapon to preform the action (so Weapon Focus would not apply to the Combat Maneuver Bonus).

Dirty Trick - Standard Action. Introduced in the Advanced Player's Guide, it's the generic "I want to do X to the guy instead of stab him" maneuver. May or may not involve a weapon.

Disarm - Attack Action (meaning it may be used at the end of a charge or as an Attack of Opportunity). Uses a weapon, so Weapon Focus applies.

Drag - Standard Action, no weapon involved.

Grapple - Standard Action, no weapon involved. It's not complicated, really it's not, but it is poorly explained. Print off the flowcharts on that website, keep a cheat-sheet that lists the effects of the Grappled and Pinned Conditions, and you are good to go.

Overrun - Standard Action, no weapon. Utterly useless as currently written.

Reposition - Standard Action, no weapon.

Steal - Standard Action, no weapon.

Sunder - Attack Action (can be used at end of a charge or as an AoO), weapon involved.

Trip - Attack Action (can be used at the end of a charge or as an AoO), certain weapons can be involved (whip yes, longsword no). Note that, as the FAQ states, standing up from prone provokes an AoO before the action resolves, so you can't trip-lock.

Finally, the last Special Attack is Feint, which is either a) complete crap or b) a fun way to annoy your DM, depending on who you ask.

I realize that I could have just given the above list as a reply, but I don't think that it would have helped. Hopefully ,the more in-depth and only slightly wrong explanation will take care of most of your questions.

If you need any more help, don't hesitate to ask. These boards are awesome.

Oh yeah, welcone to the boards, have a good time, so and so forth. "[" "i" "]" for italics, "b" for bold, "url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com" for hyperlinks.

Like I said, I don't know what you know, so I wanted to go over the basics.

Anyway, there are three other types of actions that need to be discussed before we can go into the nitty-gritty details of your question.

A Full-Round action uses both the Standard and Move actions of a Character's Combat Turn. A Full Round action consists of something that requires pretty much all of a character's attention and effort. A Charge (move up to twice your speed in a straight line and make a single attack), a Full Attack Action (make as many attacks allowed by your iterative attack bonus, special effects like haste, and feats like Two Weapon Fighting), and a Full Round Spellcasting Action (cast a big spell) are all examples of Full Round actions.

A Partial Action is basically "half a turn". It entitles you to preform a single standard action (which you can downgrade to a move). There are a few special rules for Partial Actions, such as the Partial Charge (move up to your base speed in a straight line and make a single attack; you cannot preform a Partial Charge unless you are restricted to only a partial action this turn). Partial Actions happen whenever a character wouldn't be able to act at full speed, such as during a surprise round or when under the effects of a Slow spell; some monsters (most notably zombies) are limited to Partial Actions.

(for the record, if you want "fast zombies", check out the Ghoul. They are fast, they eat people, and they have a disease that turns people into ghouls. Fun times)

Finally, there is the Attack of Opportunity (AoO); it's a special action that any character can preform when a hostile character does something "risky" or "distracting". An Attack of Opportunity is an Attack Action. There's a common point of confusion here, so I will point this out right now: an Attack Action is a kind of Standard Action, so anything that you can do as a Attack Action can be done as an Attack of Opportunity (AoO), but anything that requires a Standard Action cannot be done as an Attack of Opportunity (AoO), because it is not a Standard Action.

Summary:
Full Round Action: uses both Standard and Move actions; subtypes include Charge Action and Full Attack Action.
Standard Action: basic unit of what one can do in a turn; subtypes include Attack Action and Spellcasting Action.
Move Action: relatively minor action that requires some time or attention. Does not require you to actually move.
Swift Action: anything that is almost, but not quite, quick and easy enough to count as a free action; usually represents something that requires skill to learn.
Free Action: anything that doesn't require hardly any time or attention. Can still only be taken on your turn.

Alright, so far so good. Now, we're going to go to this absolutely amazing resource: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/

Seriously, bookmark that website. We'll be going through the "Gamemasters" -> "Combat" -> "Special Attacks" section step by step.

Let's see if I can go into more detail; the above posters are correct in their explanations, and they did answer the question being asked, but I think they missed the OP's real question, which seems to be a fundamental (and entirely understandable) confusion regarding the nature of Attacks, Actions, and so on - in other words, "how does a combat turn work normally, and how do all of these various special actions change things?"

I'm going to start out extremely basic, because I don't know what you know, what you don't know, and what you've misunderstood. Please don't take offense.

Combat begins when two (or more) hostile individuals meet and roll initiative; there is the possibility that one or more will be able to gain the advantage of a Surprise Round, based on circumstances. Technically, characters that can't act during the surprise round do not roll initiative until the start of the first full round of combat (more on that later), but personally as a DM, I have everyone roll and just skip the the surprised people the first time around - simplifies the bookkeeping.

A Combat Round consists of each Player and NPC taking their Combat Turn, in initiative order, with the highest roll going first, then the next highest, and so on. In the case of ties, you have to pick how to resolve it - I'm honestly not sure what the actual rule on ties is; I've always used higher Initiative modifier, but I've seen some people use higher roll; in either case, if there's a tie among the tiers, re-roll - only one character/NPC can act at a time.

(There's no good place to mention this, so I'm putting it here: At the start of each character's Combat Turn, all duration-based effects focused/dependent on him "tick"/"expire"/"lose one round of duration and have any dependent effects trigger". Poison damage, spell duration, etc all "count down" at the start of each character's Combat Turn, unless specifically noted otherwise. Summon Monster is one such example.)

A Character's Combat Turn consists of three main actions: Standard, Move, and Swift, preformed in any order. A character can also take as many Free Actions as he likes, in whatever order he prefers. It might be more helpful to think of the action types as "Major, Moderate, Minor, and Free" instead.

A Standard Action consists of a single 'big action', such as making a single attack or casting a normal spell. A Standard Action can be downgraded into a Move Action.

A Move action consists of a single 'simple action', such as moving up to your base speed, retrieving an item from your belt or pocket, putting an item into your belt/pocket, and so on. A Move Action can be downgraded into a Swift Action.

A Swift Action is best thought of as a single 'skilled action' - while there are some things any character can do as a swift action, most of the worthwhile one require skill, like the Quickdraw feat, the Quicken Spell metamagic feat, or a Bard's ability to start Bardic Music more quickly. I suppose, technically, a Swift action can be downgraded into a free action, though why you'd want to is beyond me.

With me so far?

Jeff1964 wrote:

any spell that takes more than a full round to cast normally, which cannot have a metamagic feat applied to it anyway).

that is not actually true looking at the prd

prd wrote:

For a spell with a longer casting time, it takes an extra full-round action to cast the spell.

No, actually, you are incorrect.

If you are casting a prepared spell, you must choose to apply the feat when your spells are prepared, and you cannot apply it on the fly to a pre-memorized spell. The casting time of this modified spell is not increased.

If you are casting a spontaneous spell, you can only choose to apply the feat on the fly. The casting time of this modified spontaneous spell is increased - this is what the rules you reference refer to.

Note that neither of the above are dependent on what class you are. Clerics and Druids both normally prepare spells, but both have the ability to spontaneously cast certain spells as well.

A cleric who wants to prepare a Quickened Bless would have to reserve a 5th level spell slot when he prepares his spells, and casting it would be a swift action; if he wants to convert this spell into a Maximized Cure Moderate Wounds, he'll have to spend a full round casting the spell, because he's applying a metamagic feat to a spontaneous spell.

Again, the answer is "no".

"uses int to prepare arcane spells" =/= "has levels in the Wizard class, or an ability that counts as having levels in the Wizard class for determining feats". Period.

That said, it's a perfectly reasonable house rule. Spell Mastery is hardly a powerful feat, and if you are worried enough about losing your book to delay getting "weapon focus" or similar, I say have fun.

But technically, according to strict RAW (Rules As Written), the answer is no.

Oh, good. Someone's offered to analyze the build if it's posted. thank you. I was hoping someone would do that; the people here are awesome.

Personally, I know enough to realize that the eldiolon/summoner is easy to mess up (and thus commonly done so), but I also know enough to realize that I am not all that well suited to analyzing the build, which is why I didn't offer - I don't think I'd do a good job.

Also, please double-check THE ENTIRETY of the summoner/eldiolon build. Many players make mistakes on the math (and some other players are drawn to the class because it's easy to "make mistakes" with the math). Odd are quite good that the eldiolon is either
a) absolutely terrible at attacking/dealing damage (sure it's got 3-4 attacks, but if the bonus is low or the damage is crap, that doesn't mean much).
b) statted up incorrectly, due the the aforementioned math errors.

See, these boards see lots and lots and LOTS of "eldiolon is overpowered" posts, and every single one of them - every single one - has, on further examination, proven to be one of the above. So I promise, I guarantee, that if you sit down and double-check absolutely every single statistic involved in this summoner/eldiolon, you will find one of the above.

The master min/maxer power-builders on these forums have done the math, and a Fighter with a greatsword will mop the floor with any eldiolon + summoner, regardless of buffs, even assuming the Fighter completely ignores the squishy mage until the eldiolon is down (which no Fighter - and none of your monsters - should ever do).

In fact, the min/maxers on these forums have determined that the most effective build for summoners is one that completely ignores the eldiolon entirely, and instead focuses on Summon Monster spells.

So, again, please double-check every single statistic of the summoner/eldiolon. I promise you'll find the problem.

This question comes up quite a lot, and the previous poster is correct: Post it here and GM approval required.

Any, and I mean ANY, non-standard item is by definition nonstandard and thus needs GM approval. The item creation rules are guidelines, and if we're being perfectly honest they are not exactly the best-written section of the book; even if they were, the rules are still trying to fit literally anything a magic item can be or do into about 10 pages - there will be holes.

There's also Feint - if the target is flat-footed, they lose thier dex to CMD, just like AC.

I've run the numbers, and a Dex-based, low strength Rogue with Combat Maneuver feats is extremely effective. Monks are better at grapple, but the rogue excels at just about everything else.

Firstly, you need to find a way to break off large pieces.

If you've got it in your head, however it is, then "look" or "feel" your way around, find something that has a minimum number of connections, make sure you know where those connections are, and "break it off".

Now take that piece and map it. Repeat as needed.

***

alternatively, go outside with some graph paper, find a small tree, and try drawing a "map" of it, until you get something that is accurate, easy to understand, and suitably "tree-ish".

Then, after you've done that, take your mental tree-city, set it aside, and re-build the whole thing in your head, using what you've learned and drawing a map as you go.

Succubus. Start with tiefling and just pick the right hexes. The witch fits the role far better than any other class.