Charender's page

Also, I think making cold iron unenchantable would make it useless, but I would support making it harder to enchant. Make it so that enchanting a cold iron weapon or armor counts as being +1 before any enchantments are added. So a +1 cold iron sword would code 8k to enchant.

I would move away from the cold iron ignoring spell effects, and make getting touch with cold iron act like a targeted dispel magic effect.

So...
Getting struck by a CI weapon would have a chance of dispelling spells on the target.

Someone in a cold iron cage would have to beat a targeted dispel(as per counterspelling) to get a spell off. If they cast a spell with a duration, they get hit with a dispel attempt every round they are touching the CI.

Charender wrote:

Now that goes to the question, can you ready an action outside of combat? The RAW seems to assume you are in combat when you ready actions, but it does not explicity say you must be in combat.

That gets really fuzzy because different DMs run combat differently, and allowing completely unrestricted readied actions outside of combat is ripe for abuse. I do allow readied actions outside of combat, but I put some limits on it.
1. If you ready the same action round after round, eventually you lose focus. IE if I draw an arrow and point it at a doorway eventually I will get bored and my attention will wander. DC 10 wisdom check with a -1 per sequential round.
2. You must have a good reason in character for readying the action.

But this is more on my house rules on things.

Those seem reasonable house rules to me. I think from a verisimilitude point of view, it makes no sense to disallow readied actions outside of combat; the idea that my ability to aim a weapon at a doorway varies depending upon whether or not someone else is swinging a sword at a third party violates my sense of propriety and fitness.

My only quibble is that the wisdom check will be failed too quickly; DC 10 + 1 per sequential round generally means anyone except the cleric can't focus on any task for longer than about a minute and has a fairly good chance of losing focus within 30 seconds. Indeed, an average commoner will fail to focus for twelve consecutive second about half the time.

I have been playing planetside 2 a lot, so I have been in situations like this a lot, IE guarding a room waiting for someone to come through the door. I find after more than about 10-15 seconds, my attention starts to wonder. What about the other door? What is my friend doing? Maybe I should move over there... and so on. So I think those numbers are reasonable, but you can always adjust the base DC to something you feel is better.

Charender wrote:

Extreme example.
Lets assume you have an open doorway 5 feet wide.
You ready an action to shoot anything that appears in the doorway.
A level 1 human with expeditious retreat and the Run feat goes running by.
Base move of 60 x 5 = 600 foot move per round. That means they are moving 5 feet every 0.05 seconds.
They pass in front of the doorway, and you shoot them dead before they move another 5 feet.
You made the decision to shoot, and took the shot in under 0.05 seconds.

Shrug. As far as I'm concerned, the magic makes it unrealistic to begin with. Strip the magic spell out of it, he's firing in a much more reasonable tenth of a second, especially when you consider that he has the advantage of hearing the runner approach the doorway and hence can prepare to fire.

Yeah, I was just throwing it out there for perspective. It started with me asking the question, just how long do they have to make the decision to fire or not.

A more common situation would be a normal human making a double move past the door. In that case they are moving 5 feet every half a second. Still not a ton of time, but more in line with what is reasonable.

In this situation do you hide the map from your players, then just tell them things like? "Bob, a humanoid figure just moved into the square just north of you. Because of the bad lighting your not sure if that is Joe, or the guy you saw fighting Joe 20 seconds ago. You can full attack it, or you can take a move action to try and determine if that is indeed Joe or the guy that he was fighting."

If not, why not? Because that is what I am seeing you doing with readied actions here. I think your approach adds some interesting possibilities, but for me, more often then not I'd just not use readied actions at all under such a system - they simply become to cumbersome for something that already has such a small niche use.

In that context, we are talking about reading an action to attack someone entering the room. I generally assume they know everyone who is in the room with them unless there is a good reason not to(invisible friends and foes/complete darkness/etc.). Someone who enters the room will be an unknown for at least a few moments. A good perception check would quickly pick up on details that let them tell friend from foe.

Also, when I say chaotic, I am specifically thinking about a larger battle with a lot of new allies that you haven't had a lot of time to get familiar with. If it were just a handful of longtime allies, the DC would be more like 15, even with bad lighting.

Stuff

That actually ties in with some of my thoughts I was thinking about last night.

Extreme example.
Lets assume you have an open doorway 5 feet wide.
You ready an action to shoot anything that appears in the doorway.
A level 1 human with expeditious retreat and the Run feat goes running by.
Base move of 60 x 5 = 600 foot move per round. That means they are moving 5 feet every 0.05 seconds.
They pass in front of the doorway, and you shoot them dead before they move another 5 feet.
You made the decision to shoot, and took the shot in under 0.05 seconds.

Avatar-1 wrote:

Perception comes into it, but that's an unrelated no brainer - if you don't know it's happening, it doesn't work. You can't ready until a guy 3 rooms away casts a silent still spell.

Which is why I don't believe you can ready an action to "shoot the first person who comes through the door".

The point of the initiative roll is it's the start of combat. It represents who reacts first. So in the case of a door opening, the initiative check occurs just as the door opens and both parties become fully aware of each other. There is no surprise round/readied actions.

Now that goes to the question, can you ready an action outside of combat? The RAW seems to assume you are in combat when you ready actions, but it does not explicity say you must be in combat.

That gets really fuzzy because different DMs run combat differently, and allowing completely unrestricted readied actions outside of combat is ripe for abuse. I do allow readied actions outside of combat, but I put some limits on it.
1. If you ready the same action round after round, eventually you lose focus. IE if I draw an arrow and point it at a doorway eventually I will get bored and my attention will wander. DC 10 wisdom check with a -1 per sequential round.
2. You must have a good reason in character for readying the action.

But this is more on my house rules on things.

Charender wrote:

Charender wrote:

As for my personal style:
1. If the player is too vague, there is a chance they have to decide to take their readied action on vague and confusing information.
2. If the player is too specific, there is a chance the condition is not met.
I warn my players about these things, then I leave it up to them to make their readied actions conditions.

I give my players plenty of feedback about how to word their readied actions, but ultimately, they decide exactly how they want to word it, and I use that wording as a guide to their expectation on the situation.

If I was your player, I'd take that warning as "don't ready actions, because I'm going to screw you on them, just like you should never actually bother using a wish spell". Either that or I'd make sure that everyone in the party is wearing a uniform of some extremely uncommon colour and/or pattern, along with painting the party logo on their shields and wearing big ass signs that have the name of the party written on them so I could prepare all my actions as "anyone who isn't wearing the party uniform" instead of just "anyone"

But you are not my player and it is obvious you have no clue how it actually plays out in a game.

Example:
Player: I ready an action to shoot the first thing though the door
DM: Ok, perception for that is DC 0, but you won't be watching for friendlies.
Player: Um, maybe I should ready for the first enemy.
DM: Ok, this is a chaotic situation with bad lighting, it is going DC25 perception check to know a friend from a foe right now.
Player: hmm, my perception isn't that great, what about just looking for someone who is hostile
DM: Reading body language is sense motive, Hostile body language is pretty obvious, but the lighting is bad, so DC 15
Player: ok, I am going to do that, I will ready an action to shoot the first hostile person who comes through the door.

As for how it plays out with NPCs.
Lets say the players are attacking the BBEGs castle. There is a group of soldiers hold up in the barracks getting their armor on while the players are fighting in the courtyard. There is one guard in the barracks firing a crossbow at the players through a window. There are 3 guards getting armor on, and there are 3 guards who have readied actions to attack. Now, these guys are trained guards, they wear uniforms to make it easy to tell friend from foe. So they are readied to attack the frist thing through the door that isn't wearing a uniform(perception DC 5). Now if the player's burst in, they get 3 crossbows to the face. If a player grabs a fallen guards tabard and then bust in the door, the guards will not get their readied actions.

Charender wrote:

Xaratherus wrote:

You are essentially 'punishing' the players for not living up to your expectations of detail on describing a readied action. It is, in my opinion, an antagonistic stance, setting up the sort of "DM vs. Players, and the DM is in it to win it" dichotomy that I personally dislike.

As I said, if it works at your table, and your players enjoy it, then more power to you.

No, that is not at all what I do, I highly suggest you read everything I wrote, and not focus on the one piece you have pulled out of context.

I have read everything you wrote. Just because I am only commenting on specific parts does not mean that I am not reading everything.

If a player says, "I ready to shoot the next thing that walks through the door," and that next thing happens to an ally of the party, then you have stated you respond "Your free perception check(DC 0) tells you there is a human person present in the doorway."

Then you state that to discern further detail would require an additional action (which, consequently, is questionable regarding the description of perception; you already have found your stimulus,the rules say nothing about taking a move action to identify it).

You have yet to show me from the RAW that the reactive check shows you more than "There is something there". What is the DC to notice every single detail about a single human being? Are you claiming that a single DC 0 reactive perception check gives you all of that information for a person standing out in the open?

What I see you saying is a contradiction. You say that you assume a readied action is taken in context of harming an ally or helping a friend, but the various scenarios that you are laying out are not 'helpful'; they appear, again to me, as punitive for a failure to detail out the readied action.

No, I let the player decide what the scenario is. If they don't think there is a chance of a friendly coming through the door, they can ready an attack on the first thing through the door. If they think it is possible or even likely, then they have the option to account for it.

You are essentially 'punishing' the players for not living up to your expectations of detail on describing a readied action. It is, in my opinion, an antagonistic stance, setting up the sort of "DM vs. Players, and the DM is in it to win it" dichotomy that I personally dislike.

As I said, if it works at your table, and your players enjoy it, then more power to you.

No, that is not at all what I do, I highly suggest you read everything I wrote, and not focus on the one piece you have pulled out of context.

Specifically

As for my personal style:
1. If the player is too vague, there is a chance they have to decide to take their readied action on vague and confusing information.
2. If the player is too specific, there is a chance the condition is not met.
I warn my players about these things, then I leave it up to them to make their readied actions conditions.

I give my players plenty of feedback about how to word their readied actions, but ultimately, they decide exactly how they want to word it, and I use that wording as a guide to their expectation on the situation.

Charender wrote:

Any time you are exposed to an unexpected stimulus, it throws your entire brain for a loop and it take you about 300 milliseconds for your brain to realize that something exceptional just happened. At this point, your begin processing the exception, and that can take up a lot more time depending on how much of a surprise it is. Thus a human being getting something unexpected thrown at them can delay their response time by up to a second or more.

A readied action is a standard action and thus takes about 3 seconds to execute. 1 second of delay is enough to push you into the delayed action category.

For a seasoned and trained combatant - which would be the equivalent to an 'adventurer', while a standard reaction time would be that of the typical NPC classes - I don't see that this would be an issue. I would agree if you were talking about me. My reaction time tends to stink in situations like that. But combat isn't my profession.

No, it isn't. A soldier has the same human brain you do. Training can teach you to have a wider range of expectations, but the human response to the unexpected is hardwired into the brain.

Charender wrote:

Not at all. Remember these rules apply to NPCs as well. Imagine having every other combat the PC run into a room with 20 readied archers.

Honestly not certain why this is relevant to be honest. I play this way, and have never felt coerced to drop a pointless 20-archer ambush against my players, even though I allow NPCs the same leeway I allow PCs when it comes to readied actions.

You comment that I am being unfair to the players then fail to see the relevance? It is a lot easier for a DM to abuse readied actions that it is for players. My rules also apply to NPCs, so it the players cannot do it neither can NPCs. That is the epitome of fairness.

Charender wrote:

DM: Your free perception check(DC 0) tells you there is a human person present in the doorway. Taking the time to verify the identity would require another perception check which is move action, are your going to forgo your readied action?

It's not a move action.

Perception, d20pfsrd

Perception, d20pfsrd wrote:

Action
Most Perception checks are reactive, made in response to observable stimulus. Intentionally searching for stimulus is a move action.

You're not searching for a stimulus at that point -- you've already found it. It is, quite literally, right in front of you. You are reacting to an observable stimulus, so the check is not an action.

Check

Perception has a number of uses, the most common of which is an opposed check versus an opponent's Stealth check to notice the opponent and avoid being surprised. If you are successful, you notice the opponent and can react accordingly. If you fail, your opponent can take a variety of actions, including sneaking past you and attacking you.

Yes, you see the humanoid that is in the doorway via your free reactive perception action. The DC is 0, so I won't make you roll the check.

Perception is also used to notice fine details in the environment. The DC to notice such details varies depending upon distance, the environment, and how noticeable the detail is. The following table gives a number of guidelines.

Oh, you want to take some time to look at the details of the person standing in the doorway? That will cost you a move action, unless it is a detail you already told me you are looking for...

If the player has told me they are looking for some specific detail, then I will up the DC of the reactive perception check based on the difficulty of noticing that particular detail.
1. Ready action for first person through the door - DC 0
2. Ready action for first enemy soldier(assuming a distinctive uniform) or very different race(like goblins) - DC 5
3. Ready action for the first enemy. Now we are talking about quickly noticing a whole set of details like face shape, hair/skin color, equipment, weapons, body language, and cross checking it against a group of people, DC 15 to 20 depending on how familiar you are with your friends.

Charender wrote:

Player: I ready an action to shoot the first person who comes through the door.

DM: A person comes through the door, are you going to take your readied action and shoot them?
Player: Who is it?
DM: Your free perception check(DC 0) tells you there is a human person present in the doorway. Taking the time to verify the identity would require another perception check which is move action, are your going to forgo your readied action?

This in itself seems horribly unrealistic to me unless there are mitigating circumstances, like poor light or the person is wearing a hood or something. Yes, friendly fire occurs, but still...

Actually it is very realistic.

Taking a track like this in regards to readied actions is sort of akin to the antagonistic genie who offers you 3 wishes, and then screws you over because you aren't minutely specific in your wording. Your table, your rules, but personally I wouldn't stay at a table like that for very long.

Not at all. Remember these rules apply to NPCs as well. Imagine having every other combat the PC run into a room with 20 readied archers.

Generally speaking, I assume that any player who readies action does so within the parameters of harming the enemy and\or helping his allies, not vice versa - unless the player specifically states otherwise. If the circumstances cause difficulty in determination, then I'll warn the player of that.

Which is generally what I do as well.

Of course, regardless of how strictly or ambiguously you word it, you're never obligated to follow through. The rules for readied actions say "you may take the readied action". Probably to avoid situations like peppering an ally or allied NPC if they happen to be the first one through the door :)

Of course the DM can also be vague.

Player: I ready an action to shoot the first person who comes through the door.
DM: A person comes through the door, are you going to take your readied action and shoot them?
Player: Who is it?
DM: Your free perception check(DC 0) tells you there is a human person present in the doorway. Taking the time to verify the identity would require another perception check which is move action, are your going to forgo your readied action?

We are talking about split second decisions here, so I have no problems with forcing a player to make the decision to take the readied action on limited information. The key is that the player didn't think to look for friends beforehand, and thus the character isn't expecting it. If the player had thought to check friends coming through the door before firing I would have made their free perception check look for that, but I would have upped the DC based on how hard it is to tell friend from foe in that particular situation.

As for my personal style:
1. If the player is too vague, there is a chance they have to decide to take their readied action on vague and confusing information.
2. If the player is too specific, there is a chance the condition is not met.
I warn my players about these things, then I leave it up to them to make their readied actions conditions.

My general guidelines:
1. The readied action needs to be a single sentence in the form of I ready an action to do X when/if Y happens. "I ready an action to cast fireball at the wizard if he tries to cast a spell" is good.
2. The readied action has to be based on information that is readily available to the character. "I ready an arrow to shoot the wizard if he casts a fireball" won't work unless you have spellcraft trained and you make the check.
3. No compound triggers, single action and single trigger only. No I ready an action if A or B happens.
4. Be wary of subjective targets. "I ready an attack when the first enemy comes through the door" is dependent on the player being able to recognize that the person is an enemy, which may or may not be obvious.

Mortuum wrote:

I think penalising casters is a valid and interesting topic all of its own. Concentration checks could work, but I suspect the most consistent way is to make conditions which penalise attack roll penalise spell save DCs equally.

Attack rolls OR skill checks, methinks.

DC = Spell Level * 5, concentration roll is modified by the same penalty as to attack rolls or skill checks.

This is probably going to become a house rule, for me. I'm waiting for it to come up one more time and frustrate me. It will probably be negative levels. I just hate that you can level drain a wizard to almost nothing and he can still cast his best spells, while a fighter is made nigh impotent.

CL * 5 seems a little steep. A level 20 mage(30 int) with a single -1 injury is looking at a having a 55% chance of completely failing to cast a level 8 spell. Meanwhile the fighter is at a whopping -1 to hit(5% less damage on average)

I am thinking the base concentration check should be 5 + 3xCL modified by penalties. That still makes it pretty safe for a level 1 caster to get a level 1 spell off (DC8 vs a +5 with a -1 penalty = 85% chance of success)

Meanwhile a level 20 wizard with a +30 with 1 injury is at +29 vs a DC of 32 -> 90% chance to suceed

Charender wrote:

First, where do you get the 1 in a million odds? Forgotten Realms has whole communities of good and neutral aligned Drow. There are enough of them that they have their own diety. That leads me to odds in the range of 10^-2 -10^-3 range. On what grounds, do you think your numbers are more accurate than mine?

Depends on where you are in the time. Good drow were rare and didn't have communities until after the spell plague. They certainly aren't very large if I remember right, but I haven't read any literature for forgotten realms in a long time so pardon me if I'm off.

Ostracism and pariah are good paths to evil. A big thing about the questionable morality is you have no idea where they were going to go. There is a good chance they would just return the Underdark, and if anyone who heard of you letting go of drow would hate you and of killing them might actually like you. Morality is subjective and varied between individuals of course.

If you go back far enough in time in most D&D worlds, the drow don't exist at all. At one time, the elves were all a single race.

Another funny thing about drow. 99% of the drow that grow up in communities of good drow don't automatically become evil.

Charender wrote:

First, where do you get the 1 in a million odds? Forgotten Realms has whole communities of good and neutral aligned Drow. There are enough of them that they have their own diety. That leads me to odds in the range of 10^-2 -10^-3 range. On what grounds, do you think your numbers are more accurate than mine?

Depends on where you are in the time. Good drow were rare and didn't have communities until after the spell plague. They certainly aren't very large if I remember right, but I haven't read any literature for forgotten realms in a long time so pardon me if I'm off.

Ostracism and pariah are good paths to evil. A big thing about the questionable morality is you have no idea where they were going to go. There is a good chance they would just return the Underdark, and if anyone who heard of you letting go of drow would hate you and of killing them might actually like you. Morality is subjective and varied between individuals of course.

If you go back far enough in time if FR, the drow don't exist at all. At one time the elves were all a single race.

Another funny thing about drow. 99% of the drow that grow up in communities of good drow don't automatically become evil.

Charender wrote:

Another way to look at it is via statistics. Lets assume for argument sake that on average out of 100 members of a given "evil" race, 94 grow up to do unspeakable evil, 5 come out neutral, and 1 ends up good.

Now, you find a group of 20, and you kill them all.
There is a 29% chance that all 20 of those creatures would have done unspeakable evil if allowed to live.
There is a 53% chance you killed a neutral bystander.
Finally, there is a 18% chance you killed someone who was going to grow up to be a good person.

Further, all of the above assumes that you character has no influence over those 20 specific members of the race. What if you character's actions change the distribution for that group to 80% evil/10%...

Well, now you are just making up numbers? What if drow are like bugbears, where they draw pleasure from the suffering of others? What if their very biology makes them Evil? What if only 1 in 1 million drow is good? I'd expect that from an "usually evil" race.

In this case, the chances are 99.98% that all of the drow in the quarry are evil. If you choose to let them live, they will go and hurt others.

If you wanted to be extra thorough, assuming you could not take them with you, is to use magic to enforce an oath of honor from them. Depending on your level, this could be an oath under Zone of Truth, or a mark of justice, or an atonement or something like that.

In these situations, its important to know if you live in a world where other races are just humans in make-up, or if they are truly alien minds.

First, where do you get the 1 in a million odds? Forgotten Realms has whole communities of good and neutral aligned Drow. There are enough of them that they have their own diety. That leads me to odds in the range of 10^-2 -10^-3 range. On what grounds, do you think your numbers are more accurate than mine?

Second, even if the default chance of a drow being good is 10^-6, you are assuming that the character's actions had no effect in influencing this specific group. If a character took a baby goblin and raised it from near birth in civilized society, cared for it as if it were their own child, and taught them a better way to live, then 16 years later the DM says, "The goblin coup de grace you in your sleep. They are evil. It is just what they do." That would be some epic bad DMing. The specific events of slavery and being saved by a good person for no reward would be a generally positive influence in any creature's life, and thus could have as much as a 10^2 positive multiplier on the odds. If the character did more to help them, then the influence could be even more.

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So what you're saying is... we fixed fighters?

No, but you can expect about the same increase from this feat on any class.

A straight up no restriction dex to damage feat would add 7.5-15% to damage.
Weapon focus is a 5% increase in damage dealt.
Weapon specialization +4 BAB, fighter only, and roughly a 6.3% increase in damage.
Improved critical is +8 BAB and is a 4.7-13% increase in damage.

I am just trying to show you the power of dex to damage relative to other feats. These examples should give you an idea of how many restrictions you need to put on it to make it balanced.

Based on that I would go with this.
Finesse Strike: Prereq Weapon finesse, Weapon Focus. Add half dex to melee damage.
Improved Finesse Strike: Prereq, Finesse Strike, +8 BAB. Add dex to melee weapon damage.

Each of those feats give about a 3.7-7.5% increase in damage.

Another option might be to cap the bonus to damage based on your BAB(IE you add the lower of your BAB or dex mod to damage). This would emphasize the skill acpect of the feat more.

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So, I have another way to look at it.

I built a basic level 10 TWF fighter with a pair of +1 agile Kukris. Against AC 24, he gets about 50 damage per round.

I gave him a feat that gives dex to damage and swapped the +1 agile weapons for +2 weapons. That gave him a 15% increase in damage dealt.

For reference, weapon focus nets you are 5% increase in damage on average.

A straight dex to damage feat is 3 times better then weapon focus in a TWF build, and about 50% better than weapon focus in a two hand build.

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This is what I would do:

No alignment shift. Instead, since he is NG, I would have the character experience nightmares about the dying drow, lungs filling with burning gas. When he wakes up screaming and remains Fatigued hours after doing so, he might get the message.

Now if the player tries to act like he did the right thing, and that there is no need for regret, then the nightmares would stop and he could shift to Neutral alignment. If however he talked about it, maybe confessed to a member of his church or a good aligned one, then he could probably forgive himself. In any case I don't think he would do such a thing again too fast.

BTW, I am stealing this idea. This is a very solid way to deal with players who act outside their normal alignment. You give them some kind of hint that they did something wrong, then you give them a choice to repent or accept it.

This would even work for other character alignments.

I run a similar version of this, but it only allows you half dex to damage, but allow it to be used with TWF. I am going to watch it closely because I still think it may be too much.

TWF + weapon finesse + dex to damage -> best offense and defense in the game

Another thing people forget when playing with these ideas, natural attacks. All natural attacks are finessable. So, Vivisectionst Alchemist with 4 vestigial arms, claws, and bite. That lets you wield 2 daggers with TWF while making 2 claw and 1 bite attack with +dex +5d6 to every attack that hits.

Even with just the standard dervish dance, I can crank out a Ranger 2/Vivisectionist 8 build with a 35 AC that does about 120ish damage a round when flanking.

Having an evil alignment is not sufficient justification for execution.

Being a member of a usually-evil race is not sufficient justification for execution.

Justice implies an appropriate degree of punishment for evil actions. From what the OP stated, these slaves weren't a danger to anyone at the time they were freed. They hadn't committed any crimes that the OP's player had witnessed.

A good person would take that as an opportunity to attempt to lead by example-- to show these wretched (though possibly evil) former slaves what altruism and self-sacrifice can do. Perhaps seeing what a good person can do would make a positive impression. IT may very well not work, but a good person will offer the chance of redemption.

What to do with them? Lead them back to a relatively friendly drow settlement. Or lead them to a place where they can set up their own society. Or give them arms and supplies and lead them as reluctant allies against a common enemy. Or make sure they have food and water and leave them to their own devices. There are a LOT of possibilities.

Could this backfire? Of course. But a good person will give them a chance.

What if they reject their chance at redemption and do more evil stuff? That's what the sword is for.

Another way to look at it is via statistics. Lets assume for argument sake that on average out of 100 members of a given "evil" race, 94 grow up to do unspeakable evil, 5 come out neutral, and 1 ends up good.

Now, you find a group of 20, and you kill them all.
There is a 29% chance that all 20 of those creatures would have done unspeakable evil if allowed to live.
There is a 53% chance you killed a neutral bystander.
Finally, there is a 18% chance you killed someone who was going to grow up to be a good person.

Further, all of the above assumes that you character has no influence over those 20 specific members of the race. What if you character's actions change the distribution for that group to 80% evil/10% neutral/10% good? Now there is a 99% chance that you killed a person who would have been a good or neutral person.

How should we instead have killed the drow then?

Convince them to make a full frontal assault on the driders. They would have likely died, but that would have been given the chance to go down fighting.

For me the real telling point is that the guy felt the need to lie about it. That tells me that even he knew it was wrong.

Charender wrote:

It is possible for a level 1 sorcerer to trick a celestial being in exchange for power, but it requires some generous assumptions from the DM, and even then it is very improbable.

And even that ignores that he's tricking the celestial being to get the very inherent magic that lets him be a sorcerer in the first place.

Yes, although in theory, you could make a DC 20 UMD check to emulate the class features of a sorcerer. Every point you beat the DC by adds to your effective sorcerer level for actually using the scroll.

Activating the scroll outright is DC 37 or more, so that is not going to happen, but you can emulate having the spellcasting of a sorcerer at a DC of 20.

So if you have a charisma of 20 and a 1 rank in UMD, you get a +9 UMD. So on an 11, you are a level 0 cleric, and you need an 18 or better to make the caster level check(15% chance). For every point you get about an 11 on the UMD check, the caster level check comes down by 5%.
UMD -> CL check
11 -> 18
12 -> 17
13 -> 16
...
20 -> 9

When you roll all of those probabilities together, you get an 18.75% chance that you UMD to emulate a sorcerer then successfully pass the CL check. That is close enough to the 20% that I used earlier to be a wash.

As for the skills, I never said it would happen with bad dice luck. Just that it's by no means game mechanically impossible.

I agree that it is possible, but you are ignoring way to many variables.

Lets continue on with your example. For this to work, 4 things have to happen.
1. The sorcerer got their hands on an item that let them summon a celestial being capable of granting powers. We are talking about a level 9 divine scroll worth 3825 gold. Lets put that in real terms. If $5 buys you a basic meal at a fast food resturant. That roughly constitutes a poor meal which is 1SP. So 3825 gold is roughly about $200,000. What are the odds you are just going to "find" something like that lying around? What are the odds that whoever it belongs to are not going to come looking for it? I am being very generous when I give you a 1% chance of letting that happen with no strings attached.
2. They were able to use the scroll 20% chance, 16% chance of mishap.
At this point, lets assume they manage to summon a Shield Archon(weakest celestial being that might actually be capable or granting some measure of power)
3. They have to convince the celestial to give them powers(Diplomacy check) assuming that they start at indifferent, you are looking at a DC of 27(15 + charisma mod + 10 for Reveal secret knowledge). That is being generous, the DC is likely higher as this could be considered "Give aid that could result in punishment" which is a +15. A level 1 sorcerer with 20 charisma and 1 rank in diplomacy would have a +6 modifier and could not pass this check. If the sorcerer took a diplomacy trait(+1 make it class skill), then they would have a +10 diplomacy and need a 17 or better to pass this check. That is only a 20% chance of success in the absolutely best case. Note, this also assumes celestial has to be unaware of the would be sorcerer's nature. If the sorcerer had committed any unspeakable acts and the celestial had some method to know about them via divination spells, it would shift their initial attitude to hostile adding +10 to the DC of the check.
4. They have to deceive the celestial(Bluff vs Sense Motive). A sorcerer with 20 charisma 1 rank in bluff gets a +9 bluff. A shield archon has a +15 sense motive. So if the sorcerer rolls gets a 29(5% chance), then the archon needs a 14 to know something is up. with a 19, the archon needs a 13, and so on. If the sorcerer rolls a 7 or less, the archon automaticaly wins the contest. Overall the probability of the sorcerer winning this contest is 77.25%. So the sorcerer only has 22.75% chance of not giving away the game.

So if the sorcerer maxes charisma and puts a rank in bluff and diplomacy to start off, then they have a 0.011%(1 in 8791) chance of succeeding. That is if you give the players some very generous assumptions(Shield archon can give them the power, they have a 1% chance of finding an item that lets them summon with no strings attached). This is important, because there is no build and set of dice rolls that would let the sorcerer convince or trick a star archon, for example.

Now remember, a character's back story is not the absolute truth. It is just what happened from their point of view. It is far more likely that the Celestial Being appeared and let the Sorcerer think that they were being tricked. They gave the sorceror the power willingly to further some unknown agenda of their own.

I don't think straight out changing the bloodline would be ok. At creation, I would allow them to make the character, but I would let them know that obtaining the power in this manner may cause some complications later on. From there, I would have no problems with making the the powers occasionally backfire in a way that served the purpose of good and leave the sorcerer in a position where they can't always trust their own powers. I would also drop hints to the sorcerer that maybe they were the one who got tricked and let the story play out from there. Also, there might be a group of clerics running around who are moderately annoyed and on the lookout for whoever stole their scroll.

TLDR: It is possible for a level 1 sorcerer to trick a celestial being in exchange for power, but it requires some generous assumptions from the DM, and even then it is very improbable.

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2 - DO NOT ASSUME ANYTHING, EVER! I cannot stress this enough. DO NOT require a skill check [OR ANY TYPE OF ROLL] to move the story/plot/mission/quest further. If the players need to find a clue to move on, they simply find it. If not, then call for a skill check. Lets use the locked door as an example. The 3 obvious choices are lockpick (if able), bash (if able), find keys (if able). If there is a possibility they could fail all 3, it should not be required to get through that door. Instead, the door should have something else behind it that helps the players if they do succeed. Such as a shortcut, treasure, or possible just an empty room (whatever the situation calls for).

To expand on this one a bit...

It is ok to make an obstacle like a locked door.
It is ok to have a few ideas about how the players can get past it, bash, pick, find keys.
I would go so far as to say it is ok if this door is a critical obstacle, IE the players have to get past it, or they fail the current mission.

What is not ok is making your ideas into hard rules. IE this door can only be bypassed with bash, pick, or finding the keys. Be open to any and all methods the players might come up with to get past the door, and be fair about giving them some chance of success.

As for 7, 7 is extremely important for adjudicating my expansion on 2. If the players decide that the best way to deal with a small orc invasion is by rallying and training a couple villages worth of peasants into a small army, you will need to know how the Lord of the Land is going to react to a someone raising and equipping a small army from his vassals.

Also, with some of the archtypes available, it gets even easier. An evangilist cleric makes a good face AND gives you bardic performances.

A one level dip in Fey Sorcerer can gets you a bunch of useful goodies. It can be a solid choice for any bard.

You get 4 more Cantrips, Eschew Materials, 3+ level 1 sorcerer spells, +2 to the DC of all compulsions, the ability to use any wizard wand or staff without making a UMD check, and laughing touch.

Laughing Touch is a great SLA for a one level dip, since it is a touch attack with no save.

I can't think of another class that would do as well with all members the same....maybe 4 Inquisitors? Nobody would expect that.

Only if they were all Spanish...

The problem with advance scouting is that the stealth rules make it very hard to stealth without the terrain being set up in your favor. As it is, it tends to be VERY rough on the scout.

This has been my experience as well. When all goes well, advance scouting is great. When you step on a trap you missed, the guards get a lucky perception roll, or any other the dozen of things that can get you spotted, next thing you know you have alerted enemies to your location and the rest of your party is 100+ feet away... The latter only has to happen once for you to end up very dead.

GM says, "I need you to make a Fort save".

I reply, "Is it versus a Poison, Spell, or SLA?"

GM answers, "Yes."

I add my dwarf's +2 to the number written next to my Fort bonus.

If you have multiple saving throw bonuses, like I have an Aasimar Paladin with quite a few, then sometimes it might be easier to just give the GM your list, and have him notify you when you can apply a bonus. YMMV.

The only thing with this is you have to be careful to avoid metagaming.

For example, you make a save, and you get your +2 against poisons. 1 minute later, one of the other party members loses 3 con, you can't just say "You're poisoned make a heal check".

This is also true if you get a bonus vs evil, then you turn around and smite because you know the creature is evil.

Long story short, that is a very efficient way of handling these things, but make sure you don't use the knowledge in character.

master_marshmallow wrote:

False, letting them sleep extra without wasting time out of the adventuring day is bad time management. I will not ignore a plainly stated rule just because "WIZARDS!!!"

If they want to sleep more, it will not be 'just implied' that they sleep more. Serious time will be spent out of teh day to make up the extra 2 hours of sleep and the hour it takes them to prepare their spells, eventually they will run out of daylight. Your opinions seem to be that "wizards are god, they have no weaknesses!!!! your dm is badwrongfun!!!!" And you have offered nothing constructive thus far.

You are already ignoring a plainly stated rule. If there’s an interruption, they need ONE extra hours sleep. No biggie. Geez, dude, don’t you ever sleep in a extra hour? Does that ruin the whole day?

Asked and answered. The OP already admitted to that mistake(he thought it reset the rest time). The players wanted to completely hand wave the need for rest entirely, and none of them bothered to look up the actual rule. One fairly minor mistake on the part of the DM does not excuse gross mistakes on the players parts. I have had groups do this as well. They see a situation, then one or more players impulsively decides to do something stupid, and when their stupid actions lead to consequences, they start picking everything apart. "You didn't tell us this." "You didn't use these exact words to describe the situation accurately" "How do you expect us to know this?" I am sorry, as a DM, I don't play the game of "Lets retcon the whole damn thing, because the DM didn't adjudicate every single rule perfectly."

The inn full of kobolds. It sounds like they didn't even take time to explore any other options, they just took the very first impulsive, stupid plan that came to mind and ran with it. We are talking about a group with an average int of 16 and they thought "Let wake them all up(and lose any tactical advantage of surprise we may have had)" was a good plan.

That said, there are at least 2 other methods for dealing with the encounter that the players ignored.
1. Do the rooms have windows on the outside? Maybe we can get in through those.
2. Burn the inn down with the kobolds inside. That will make them come out, and they won't know they are under attack, and they won't have time to gear up.
That plus the original ones pointed out by the OP plus some others mentioned in this thread brings us to a total of no fewer than 6 ways to deal with the kobolds that are all better than, "Lets scream until they all wake up and come out to fight us"

The problem is not a lack of options on the DMs part, but the player lack of willingness to explore any option beyond the first on that jumps into their heads. When the stupidly impulsively character is a half-orc barbarian with an int of 8, the party usually expects it and manages to compensate and pull through. When the in character impulsiveness and stupidity is coming from the guy with a 20+ int who really should know better, things will get grim very fast.

Which brings me to a final tip for DMing. Remember, a lot of characters with an int or wisdom of 20 are being played by a player with an int and wisdom of 10. If one of my players was about to do something that colossally stupid, I would give them an int or wisdom check followed by a "You seem to think there might be a smarter/wiser way to handle things" before they did it. If they ignore the warning, I let the dice fall where they will.

By the RAW, you are limited by what you can do while falling.

A character cannot cast a spell while falling, unless the fall is greater than 500 feet or the spell is an immediate action, such as feather fall. Casting a spell while falling requires a concentration check with a DC equal to 20 + the spell's level. Casting teleport or a similar spell while falling does not end your momentum, it just changes your location, meaning that you still take falling damage, even if you arrive atop a solid surface.

The implication of that passage is by a strict RAW reading

A. If you fall more than 500 feet, you may cast one spell while falling.
B. If you fall less than 500 feet, you may cast a single immediate action spell.
C. The rule is silent on non-casting actions, which means
C1. If you are falling, you cannot do any action other than cast spells.
or
C2. If you are falling you can do any number of non-casting actions

That is the strictest reading I can manage, and it comes out as being very, very stupid.

RAI
The falling rule seems to be assuming that most falls take less than a round to hit the ground, so if you change that, IE long fall and/or feather fall, you can take as many actions as you have turns of falling. Spellcasting while falling requires a spellcraft check no matter what.

Mind Blank wrote:

Mind blank even foils limited wish, miracle, and wish spells when they are used in such a way as to gain information about the target.

As I said, it really depends on how the wish is worded. In theory, a wish could allow you to communicate with Eliminster, who would then proceed to tell you what you wanted to know, and he would know because he is Eliminster(IE Ultimate God character).

HangarFlying wrote:

Wish.

Mind Blank > Wish

Mind Blank is an absolute. It blocks all divination, including wishes, used to reveal information.

Yes and no.

If the wish is being used to duplicate another spell, then mind blank would beat it.

But...

If you worded a wish in a way that was meant to give you very specific information in a way that gets around mind blank, then wish might win. It would all depend on exactly how the wish is worded.

Charender wrote:

The complaint(If I understood correctly) wasn't about how feather fall works, but rather how falling works.

An actual freefall from space takes several minutes before the guy reaches the ground. In PF, there are no rules for maximum falling velocity. It is assumed that all falls take less than a round.

So if I fall from 10 miles up, it takes 1 round, I cast feather fall right at the end, and by RAW, I get to basically travel 10 miles in 6 seconds without any harm. Feather fall isn't the problem, traveling 10 miles in 6 seconds is the problem.

Wasn't there something about being able to take actions if you fell from over 600 feet that seemed to imply it took more than one round?

I just took a quick look at the SRD, and didn't find anything about taking actions while falling.

The only thing close is

A character cannot cast a spell while falling, unless the fall is greater than 500 feet or the spell is an immediate action, such as feather fall. Casting a spell while falling requires a concentration check with a DC equal to 20 + the spell's level. Casting teleport or a similar spell while falling does not end your momentum, it just changes your location, meaning that you still take falling damage, even if you arrive atop a solid surface.

It says > 500 feet gives you a single spell, which is even wierder, because by RAW, the duration of my fall depends on the casting time of the spell I choose to cast while falling. I fall 501 feet and I cast animal messenger on my way down I take 1 minute to hit the ground. I fall 10 miles and I cast fireball on the way down my fall takes 1 standard action(~3 seconds). If I want to pull a blanket out of my pack and try to use it like a parachute, I can't because only spells are allowed, not other actions....

Feather Fall works fine. It slows your falling rate to 60 feet per round. So if you fall from 24000' it'll take you 400 rounds to get there. I hope you brought warm clothing.

Not quite sure what Nezzarine's problem is with falling. Apart from a perverse reading of the Jump rules which limit the length of a jump (and by inference, a fall) to your movement in 1 round, I can't find anything which says you fall an unlimited distance in 1 round.

The complaint(If I understood correctly) wasn't about how feather fall works, but rather how falling works.

An actual freefall from space takes several minutes before the guy reaches the ground. In PF, there are no rules for maximum falling velocity. It is assumed that all falls take less than a round.

So if I fall from 10 miles up, it takes 1 round, I cast feather fall right at the end, and by RAW, I get to basically travel 10 miles in 6 seconds without any harm. Feather fall isn't the problem, traveling 10 miles in 6 seconds is the problem.

alchemist cannot use extra limbs for additional attacks. Agile works with anything that is considered a light weapon, so it already works with natural attacks.

You might want to recheck that...

Vestigial Arm (Ex)
Benefit: The alchemist gains a new arm (left or right) on his torso. The arm is fully under his control and cannot be concealed except with magic or bulky clothing. The arm does not give the alchemist any extra attacks or actions per round, though the arm can wield a weapon and make attacks as part of the alchemist’s attack routine (using two-weapon fighting). The arm can manipulate or hold items as well as the alchemist’s original arms (for example, allowing the alchemist to use one hand to wield a weapon, another hand to hold a potion, and the third hand to throw a bomb). The arm has its own “hand” and “ring” magic item slots (though the alchemist can still only wear two rings and two hand magic items at a time).

Special: An alchemist may take this discovery up to two times.

Hence why I have the alchemist wielding weapons in the vestigial arms, and using claws on the normal arms.

Well, my own problem was solved by feedback from those who actually tried it in a non powergaming environment, so I'll just see how it turns out, thanks for that.

@Charander
Fun fact, your ranger can carry 15kg, so lifting a child puts you in medium load and caps your dex to ac at +3 and 20ft base speed. Thing about dex to ac, is how easy it is to hinder and reduce it, there's probably more ways than I personally know of, top of the hat we got Tanglefoot Bags, Nets, Dirty Tricks with belts, pants and ropes.

If a villain dislikes the agile hero enough, he'll get some Dust of Weighty Burdens, expensive unless crafted, but gives the target Heavy or Medium encumberance for 2d4 rounds, meaning +3 or +1 dex to ac.

First, a fighter with a 50 strength would be heavily encumbered by a direct hit from the Dust of Weighty Burdens. How exactly is that something specific that an Agile warrior specifically needs to worry about? Ditto for dirty tricks and tanglefoot bags. You might as well have said, "It is a melee character, and it can be countered by anything that counters melee". Also,

Second, almost all of your counters require a hit on AC, touch AC, or CMD, which the agile ranger is equal to(CMD) if not better(+4 AC, +7 Touch AC) at avoiding in the first place. Still not seeing how only having a 10 strength makes me worse off.

Third, ok, a few of these effects(like blind) are slightly worse for an agile ranger... So basically, if the villains plan ahead, use specific tactics designed to cripple a finesse based character, and actually manage to hit the character, then the Agile Strike Ranger becomes only slightly better than a non-agile melee character(19 AC(Dex Ranger) vs 20 AC(STR ranger), but Agile Ranger has more damage, +7 init, and +17 reflex save). So, if you are countered, you are only slightly better than your counterparts instead of way better, how does that make it balanced?

Fourth, I spent less than an hour on all 3 of those builds, and I specifically picked ranger because that class is suboptimal in this case(paladin smiting, flanking vivisectionist, or fighter will all come out even better).

Finally, my group plays by the convention that the DM uses the same rules and feats as the players, so my players know I can and will send highly optimized murder machines at the players as NPCs. How would you deal with my Agile Strike Ranger as a level 8 party outside of hitting him with a save or suck spell and praying he fails the save? What if he sneaks up on the party with +20 to stealth? Init +7, surprise round moves in close on the arcane caster, goes first in the normal round, and boom, there is a really good chance that the one party member that has the best chance of stopping him is dead before anyone in the party gets to act. I could easily see the agile strike ranger to wiping out a level 8 party, that alone tells me he should be classified as CR 11 or 12.

Its your game, and you can play it however you like. I have shown you the specific situations where it can be overpowered. If you used it in one weapon builds without natural attacks(IE like dervish dance), it is a good feat. If you allow it to be used in TWF builds especially if you allow it to work with natural attacks, it quickly becomes very overpowered

For visible stilled silent spells, I always cite the "swirling magical rune" rule. Most pathfinder art depicts bright runic circles around the hands of casters. As metamagic feats, both still and silent have some value beyond concealed casting, so you can only get so upset about it. Sure they're weaker than you thought, but still not useless.

If you really want a stealth illusion enchanter, look no further than the feat Spellsong.

I guess there could be a "hidden spell" metamagic, but honestly I think the SMR rule is a much needed check on caster power.

At that point, you are using an artist's rendering to justify your interpretation of RAW. Hopefully, we can all agree that "The picture shows them doing it like this" is not a good way to go about interpreting the rules.

The 3.5 wording was very clear about when you got a Spellcraft check. The PF wording is different and not is a good way.

Just as an example...

Level 10, Human Ranger, 20 point Buy, Enemy with 24 AC

Agile Strike Feat Version
Str 10, Dex 24 (16 base +2 racial +4 enhancement +2 level), 14 con, 10 int, 16(14 +2 enhance) wis, 10 chr
Equipment: 2x +2 Kukri, +2 Darkleaf Studded Armor, Belt of Dex +4, Cloak of protection +3, Ring of deflection +2, Amulet of NA +1, Circlet of Wisdom
Feats: Weapon Finesse, Agile Strike, Piranah Strike, Two-Weapon fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Two Weapon Defense, Weapon Focus Kukri, Improved Critical(Kukri), Two Weapon Rend
AC: 26(Touch 19) (10 +5 armor +7 dex +1 shield +2 deflection +1 natural)
HP: 75 Saves: +12 Fort +17 Ref +9 Will Initiative: +7
Attack: +20(+10 BAB +7 Dex +2 Weapon +1 Weapon Focus) for 1d4 + 9(17-20/x2) Bow: +17 for 1d8 damage
Full Attack: Piranah Strike +15/+15/+10/+10 for 1d4 +15/12(17-20/x2) DPR: 36.5 55% chance to rend for 14 damage
Full Attack: Favored Enemy + Piranah Strike +21/+21/+16/+16 for 1d4 + 21/18(17-20/x2) DPR: 81.84 93% chance to rend for 20 damage

No Agile Strike Version
Str 10, Dex 24 (16 base +2 racial +4 enhancement +2 level), 14 con, 10 int, 16(14 +2 enhance) wis, 10 chr
Equipment: 2x +1 Agile Kukri, +2 Darkleaf Studded Armor, Belt of Dex +4, Cloak of protection +3, Ring of deflection +2, Amulet of NA +1, Circlet of Wisdom
Feats: Weapon Finesse, Piranah Strike, Two-Weapon fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Two Weapon Defense, Weapon Focus Kukri, Improved Critical(Kukri), Two Weapon Rend, Double Slice
AC: 26(Touch 19) (10 +5 armor +7 dex +1 shield +2 deflection +1 natural)
HP: 75 Saves: +12 Fort +17 Ref +9 Will Initiative: +7
Attack: +19(+10 BAB +7 Dex +1 Weapon +1 Weapon Focus) for 1d4 + 8(17-20/x2) Bow: +17 for 1d8 damage
Full Attack: Piranah Strike +14/+14/+9/+9 for 1d4 + 14/11(17-20/x2) DPR: 30.6 46% chance to rend for 14 damage
Full Attack: Favored Enemy + Piranah Strike +20/+20/+15/+15 for 1d4 + 20/17(17-20/x2) DPR: 73.1 88% chance to rend for 19 damage

Two-hand version
Str 24 (16 base +2 racial +4 enhance +2 level), 12 dex, 14 con, 10 int, 16(14 +2 enhance) wis, 8 chr
Equipment: +3 falchion, +2 Agile Breastplate, +3 cloak of resistance, +4 belt of strength, +2 circlet of wisdom, Ring of deflection +2
Feats: Weapon Focus(Falchion), Power attack, Cleave, Furious Focus, Shield of Swings, Lightning Reflexes, Improved Init, Dodge, Improved Critical(Falchion)
AC: 22(touch 12) (10 +8 armor +1 dex +2 deflection +1 dodge)
HP: 75 Saves: +12 Fort +13 Reflex +9 Will Initiative: +5
Attack: +21 (+10 BAB +7 Str +3 Weapon +1 Focus) for 2d4 + 13(17-20/x2) Bow: +11 for 1d8 +7 damage
Full Attack: Power Attack +21/+13 for 2d4 + 22(17-20/x2) DPR: 45.4
Full Attack: Favored Enemy + Power Attack +27/+19 for 2d4 + 28(17-20/x2) DPR: 69.3

So not only does the Agile ranger have +4 AC, +7 touch AC, +4 Ref, +2 Initiative, +10 (+6 dex, +4 armor check) stealth, and +6 to hit with a bow, but against favored enemies, the agile ranger does 17% more damage. If I did similar builds with a smiting paladin or fighter, I would expect to get similar results.

Edit: Added non favored enemy damage, and fixed math errors

Charender wrote:

but a strict reading of the RAW says if you can see the person casting the spell, you get a spellcraft roll.

That is what GM's are for. If yours isn't functioning correctly, take it back and try a different one.

I'm kidding, I know what it's like to be "stuck" with your game group, because choices are limited, or just because they are your friends.

But, seriously, RAW is wrong in this case, just like it is in hundreds of others. There are many situations that don't synch with RAW. Working them out is part of building a good group game experience. It takes diplomacy, persuasion, and yes, rules knowledge.

I agree, and I house rule it to work like 3.5 did, but this is a thread about silly or dysfunctional rules, so I think that one deserves a mention.

Charender wrote:

The PF rewrite of spellcraft is a horrid mess. They changed it to an ambigious wording of must see the spell, which basically means that if you are casting a spell, even a spell with no noticible components, everyone withing in line of sight gets a spellcraft check to not only know you are casting a spell, but to know what spell you are casting. This makes it pretty much impossible to use illusions and similar non-violent spells in social situations.

Okay, logically that is ridiculous. If there are no possible signs of actually casting a spell, then there is no way you could identify it.

Exactly, but I have been involved in no fewer than 3 rules debates over this issue, which is how I know what a mess that section of the rules are. I house rule it to the way it worked in 3.5(IE must be able to see a somatic or hear a verbal component to ID the spell), but a strict reading of the RAW says if you can see the person casting the spell, you get a spellcraft roll.

There is one big caveat to the detect magic spell that often get overlooked: false-positives. Everything magical is going to register, not just what you're looking for. If there is so much as a "light" spell or a piece of magical ammunition in your field of view then you're getting a positive feedback on the presence of magic. A very astute player might be able to deduce something from this information, but the fact remains that there are a lot of situations where the first two rounds of detect magic are functionally useless. All the GM needs to do is stick a continual flame spell on the walls at 60 foot intervals and spell is pretty heavily neutered.

That's not to say that detect magic can't be used to find invisible creatures, or that it isn't very powerful for a cantrip (it is), but it's hardly a catch-all counter.

It also means that in any party above level 4 or so, the wizard has to be in front. Otherwise they will be getting false positives off of the other party members.

I don't understand why some enchantments may only go on certain item types. I mean, conductive armor spikes make sense, or an ape throwing an improvised barrel of returning should also be possible.

there are some enchantments that should be able to go on anything that isn't anti-magical. Why can't I enchant my broom with a +5 armor enchant if i want to waste that money?

My DM once let me put spell storing on ammunition. It was a really, really bad idea. Basically I was doing archery damage while effectively casting 3-4 level 3 spells per round.

Okay, a 28 Dex character is badwrongfun optimizing?

Start any human with a 20 Dex.

At level 12, you can afford a +6 Dex booster, and assign 3 pts to Dex.

You are now at a 29. Technically speaking, you could have a 28 by level 8 if you could afford the dex booster.

At level 20, you will spend the money for a +5 Tome, and have +5 Stat raises. You WILL have a 36 Dex, because it's your prime stat and you want it high.

That's not 'optimizing', that's 'standard progression for a dex-intense character.'

If you start with a mere 16 Dex, you will have 28 by level 16. That's simply how a Dex built character will advance, and RP has nothing to do with it.

==Aelryinth

Yeah, if I have a Single Ability Dependent(SAD) character, I pretty much assume...

1. Start with an 16 or 18 in your main ability score.
2. Pick a race that gives me a +2 to that ability score.
3. Put all of my ability score increases into that ability.
4. Get a magic item that give me +'s to that stat when it is about 25% of my wealth by level(6th for a +2, 10th for a +4, 14th for a +6)
5. Get a +5 tome at around level 18 or 19(roughly 25% of your WBL).

That means my stat would follow this progression assuming you start with a 16 base. Starting with an 18 base just adds 2 to all of these numbers.
1. 18 (base 16 +2 racial)
4. 19 (base 16 +2 racial +1 level)
6. 21 (base 16 +2 racial +1 level +2 enhancement)
8. 22 (base 16 +2 racial +2 level +2 enhancement)
10. 24 (base 16 +2 racial +2 level +4 enhancement)
12. 25 (base 16 +2 racial +3 level +4 enhancement)
14. 27 (base 16 +2 racial +3 level +6 enhancement)
16. 28 (base 16 +2 racial +4 level +6 enhancement)
18. 33 (base 16 +2 racial +4 level +6 enhancement +5 inherent)
20. 34 (base 16 +2 racial +5 level +6 enhancement +5 inherent)

That is a pretty normal progression for a SAD character. I would follow that stat progression for a int on a wizard, charisma on a sorcerer, or strength on a barbarian. I surely would do the same for a purely dex based melee character.

Piccolo wrote:

Actually, one could argue that the very nature of Illusion spells would prevent Detect Magic from piercing them so easily. If an Orc casts a spell to look like a human, and that spell gives off a magic aura that Detect Magic easily picks up, that negates the very reason for casting the 1st or greater level spell. Being that Detect Magic is a lowly orison, why should it be able to confound a much higher level spell anyway?

Just thought I would throw that out there. I honestly think that note should be added into the core book.

Add on the fact that more powerful spells all radiate even stronger auras and it means that more powerful illusion spells are less effective against 1st level casters.

Strong illusion magic should really be undetectable by a lowly cantrip spell as it renders the magic of disguise and deception much less effective.

That reminds me of another heaping pile in the rules....

In 3.5, you could use still + silent + eschew materials to make your spellcasting undetectable via spellcraft. The 3.5 rules specifically state you must be able to see or hear the spellcasting to identify the spell.

The PF rewrite of spellcraft is a horrid mess. They changed it to an ambigious wording of must see the spell, which basically means that if you are casting a spell, even a spell with no noticible components, everyone withing in line of sight gets a spellcraft check to not only know you are casting a spell, but to know what spell you are casting. This makes it pretty much impossible to use illusions and similar non-violent spells in social situations.

Aelryinth wrote:

Corvo Spiritwind wrote:

Can you do this with a ranger, barbarian or any other class that doesn't have armor training?

You're picking the best case scenario, which is a fighter with access to rare armor matching his size and preference. If we do it like that, every combination might broken superior. I'm talking generally, something any class can pick off the best if they wanted to for character reasons.

In this case it's a dex alchemists vs str alchemist, what if someone wants a dex cleric without easy max dexter increase from armor training, suddenly the field Is levelled.

If we're talking purely fighter, then yes, a cheesed and minmaxed dex will be better. Do I ban intensified because of 10d6 shocking grasps all day long?

Yeah, you can do it with the other classes. That's why I mentioned Mithral and Celestial armor.

Mithral Celestial mail allows full Dex up to dex 30. That's right, no armor training class features needed. Mithral Celestial plate allows up to a 24 Dex...but the low dex melee is highly unlikely to ever get his dex that high.

It's not rare armor, you can buy it and commission it, and you'd be stupid not to...it gives the absolute highest dex limits in the game. Sure, a fighter with armor training may not need it, especially if his dex is lousy. But everyone else, and a Dexterity specialist, will certainly do so.

It's also lighter armor, and the mail allows full movement bonuses that the plate, mithral or otherwise, doesn't give.

==Aelryinth

"You'd be stupid not to" comission a 34,000gp fullplate on an agile themed character. I think we're done here, I'm talking character concepts, while you're talking cheesing optimization to the min-max potential. I can hands down say I will never have a dex ranger in mithral celestial full plate in my group, because that concept is borderline dumb.

We have two dex users, ones a gunslinger, out of the 62k wbl gold they had, they just bought mithral breastplate, the other a mithral shirt.

Let me put it this way. If I had an imporved weapon finesse feat available, I would take it for any melee character I make except a barbarian.

Assuming 20 point buy, Human
Finesser, Str 10, Dex 18(16 + 2 racial), Con 14, Int 10, Wis 14, Chr 10
At level 1, get Weapon Finesse, Improved Weapon Finesse, level 3, get piranah strike instead of power attack, kukri, chain shirt, and light shield for 129 gold. +4 to hit, 1d4 + 4 damage, 19 AC, +4 reflex, +4 init.

Twohander, Str 18(16 + 2 racial), Dex 14, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 14, Chr 7
At level 1, Get Weapon Focus, Power Attack, Falchion and a Chain Shirt for 175 gold. +4 to hit for 2d4 +9 damage(power attacking), 16AC, +2 reflex, +2 init.

So at level 1, you have spent 46 gold more on equipment, and you are +7 damage, -3 AC, -2 reflex, -2 init, -1 SP/level to show for it. Since I like sneaky characters, the net +2 to stealth isn't a bad thing either.

The two hander will probably stay ahead in damage, but they are going to fall farther and farther behind on defenses from here. At level 10, you are looking at a 24 dex vs a 14 dex. That is a net +5 AC, +5 init, and +5 reflex save for the Finesser. The Finesser is also going to close the damage gap a lot by getting Improved Shield Bash and Two Weapon Fighting. Finally, a Finesser who has to use a ranged weapon for any reason will be at a huge advantage over a Twohander.

DarkLeaf Studded Leather Armor is 925 Gold and gives you a +3 armor bonus with a +7 max dex bonus with an ACP of 0. Put a +2 enchant on it and combine it with my +2 light shield, and you are looking at a Base AC of 25 without any deflection or natural armor bonuses. That will keep me in good shape until I can commission some mithril celestial mail. In contrast, Full Plate with a 14 dex costs 1500 gold, and gives you a +10 AC. With a +2 enchant and a +2 shield, you are at the same AC of 25, but you spent 575 more gold, and you have a -6 ACP and -10 movement.

As for the comments about strength draining. An 8 point strength drain on a Two-handed fighter would significantly nerf their ability to deal damage(-4 to hit, -6 damage). Further, to keep the saves the same above, I had to gimp dump charisma AND int, so an 8 point drain on either stat will paralyze the two hander outright, so I am not sure how a 10 strength dex fighter is any more vulnerable to these tactics than most other characters.

TLDR: A feat like improved weapon finesse allows Two-weapon fighters to deal as much damage as a two hander at mid to higher levels without having to sacrifice defense. At level 10, this results is in roughly a net +5 reflex, +5 init, +5 AC, +1 will, +1 fort, and +1 hp per level on average for the cost of 2 feats.

Can you do this with a ranger, barbarian or any other class that doesn't have armor training?

You're picking the best case scenario, which is a fighter with access to rare armor matching his size and preference. If we do it like that, every combination might broken superior. I'm talking generally, something any class can pick off the best if they wanted to for character reasons.

In this case it's a dex alchemists vs str alchemist, what if someone wants a dex cleric without easy max dexter increase from armor training, suddenly the field Is levelled.

If we're talking purely fighter, then yes, a cheesed and minmaxed dex will be better. Do I ban intensified because of 10d6 shocking grasps all day long?

Yes, they can. A Switch Hitting ranger would get a lot of mileage out of a feat that lets them use one stat to hit and damage for melee and hit for ranged. The would have to go for lighter armor, but they would still end up with at least a net +2 to ref, init, to hit, and to damage over someone who did not take the feat.