Charlie Bell's page

"Once more into the breach, dear friends!"

I have never really given the Liara relationship much thought, but she's really grown on me as a character in ME3. I am tempted to start from ME through ME3 with her as a central romance, but I don't think I could commit time to doing the whole trilogy from scratch.

Totally worth it.

Your wish is granted! You're the lone survivor shipwrecked on a desert island.

I wish I could unsee what has been seen.

Faction socks. That way we can get 2 rerolls. Faction gloves, too. Michael Jackson only gets one reroll from those.

Your wish is granted! Your dog was never born. Instead, you have a mangy cat who hates you and is not declawed.

I wish I had minions!

How does contingency know you're being targeted? Can it make Spellcraft checks to identify spells being cast? If so, since you can't Spellcraft SLA's, would it fail to trigger against them? Wouldn't that also preclude it from working against area spells, since they don't specifically target you?

Can contingency see the future? If so, could you make a contingency that popped off a dancing lights if you were about to be ambushed, thus rendering yourself immune to surprise? If so, that's a 6th level spell doing the job of a 9th-level spell (foresight).

I guess I've just always read contingency as more reactive than proactive. I might allow the proactive contingency based on a different trigger, such as "cast protection from energy when I utter the word 'nukestop,'" with the idea that if I can Spellcraft an energy attack spell I can utter that word even if it's not my turn.

No, I can only blame extensive personal experience, including about 8 hours a day listening to retarded people babble, all of whom self-identify as christian. It's anecdotal, I admit, but it's a rather large sample set.

I see. You're stereotyping. Got it.

Try Reaper 03524.

Also on Paizo.com.

Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

It seems some posters in this thread are unaware of the fact that people exist - at both the individual level and organizational level - who encourage abstinance until marriage without being anti-contraception/education/etc.

True, but they're probably statistical outliers, or at the very least not nearly as loud as the abstinance + ignorance crowd.

Most likely the latter. It's the nasty folks who make the news or get turned into internet memes or have stories told about meeting them, etc.

Sort of like how statistically, a child is more likely to be molested by his/her own family members than by any sort of clergy, yet in some circles the very phrase "Catholic priest" has become a euphemism for "child molestor", with no such correlations drawn about being a parent of a young child.

Mrs. Bell frequently complains to me that "it's the stupid Christians who get all the press." The rest of us aren't sensational enough to bring in ad revenue.

Your wish is granted! You're in Antarctica. Penguins gawk at you quizzically. Maybe today wasn't a shorts-and-tshirt day after all.

I wish for a nap.

Your wish is granted! The whole world sings. Sonic vibrations cause seismic disturbances in the Earth's crust, resulting in a cycle of devastating tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes, and, ultimately, an Alderaan-like planetary explosion.

I wish I had a coffee pot in my office.

Coffee witch? Made of WIN.

I'd have less problem with contingency "deciding" the energy type for protection from energy than with it somehow taking effect before the energy damage actually affects you.

Not really overpowered. By the time you could afford such a thing, you have more important things to do with a standard action. You might come out slightly ahead in gp economy, but you'd lose in action economy.

Sissyl wrote:

Google "purity ring" and "purity ball". I think that should produce enough about this sick practice. Plus, it apparently has no effect either, so whatever you think you gain from it, you don't.

Urgh, just did as you suggest.

Western Taliban stuff.

When your local Episcopalians and Baptists start burning the faces off their daughters, then you can call it the "Western Taliban."

EDIT: On purity balls or whatever- silly, but hardly deviant.

I'd say maybe 3 additional levels to bring up to par with PC level 30. They have so many at will SLAs that you could reasonably sub them for a 30th level PC without any changes at all. Action economy means they'll rarely eclipse a 30th-level PC in combat, but in between fights, the solar can overcome basically any difficulty.

Your wish is granted! You are now riding the moon as it orbits Earth. Since you didn't ask for a spacesuit, however, your ride is short-lived, as you die from explosive decompression.

I wish I didn't have to work so late so consistently.

After watching Gary Kovacs' TED Talk on "Tracking the Trackers," I installed Collusion.

Paizo.com doesn't report your activity to any trackers. It doesn't even show up in Collusion.

And that's awesome. Thanks, Paizo.com, for doing your part to protect our online privacy.

If Donahan gets the pony treatment I will ragesubcancel.

Crypt of the Everflame series (includes Masks of the Living God and City of Golden Death). They can be played singly or as a series. Bonus points because City of Golden Death caps out at level 5.

Drejk - yeah, unbeatable regeneration is the stuff of CR20 tarrasques and the like. You're probably right about it being meant to be fast healing.

PROTIP: use a one-handed weapon in two hands for that trick. That way you still threaten with it. For instance, an exotic katana or bastard sword.

It's in AP #48.

Morrigna psychopomps have regeneration 5, but don't list anything that overcomes it. This is probably just an omission--what's intended to beat morrigna regeneration?

"adventurer pajamas" - a mithral chain shirt

Summoner isn't a buff caster with a pet, it's a pet with a buff caster.

Also, if either side has large, sturdy monsters, they fill in for tanks. Better if it's just simple humanoid types.

A few things made trench warfare possible IRL: barbed wire, machine guns, and the lack of tanks (once tanks came along, they could roll through barbed wire and machine gun fire).

In this kind of war, casters *are* the machine guns. And the artillery, and the engineers.

Wands of fireball, scorching ray, magic missile, and the like mean that lvl 1 warriors will be deathly afraid to go "over the top," as they should be. Sleet storm, spike stones, wall of fire, and the like could be employed to stymie charges (or, for added cruelty, retreats) Conversely, LOS blocking spells such as fog cloud become incredibly useful for obscuring enemy defensive positions, allowing attackers to close.

You will either have to keep it low level or have some reason fly magic doesn't work or is not widespread enough. Otherwise, casters will also become the Air Force, and the whole trench warfare thing goes out the window.

Wraiths and spectres both have sunlight powerlessness. They don't take actual damage from sunlight, but I'd consider sunlight powerlessness to fulfill the "undead creature specifically harmed by bright light" condition of sunburst.

When he gets the urge, he has to leave the house. That's a good time to go get coffee, catch a movie, hit the gym, go for a run, whatever. Bonus points for the gym or running because a) it tires you out and b) gets you in shape.

TOZ, our groups must have cross-pollinated at some point. I've heard "Greyhawk the bodies" before.

If you're tinkering with the rules, you can either buff the attacks or debuff the defense.

Buffing the attacks: Let the low-tech firearms target touch AC even past the first range increment like advanced firearms do. Increase threat range/multiplier. Or both.

Debuffing the defense: Limit what modifies touch AC to dodge, Dex, and cover bonuses only. That rules out monk AC and the myriad ways to get deflection, insight, sacred/profane bonuses, etc. OR, half dodge and Dex bonuses to touch AC against gunfire because hey, bullets are hard to dodge. That would effectively give each character a fourth AC: regular AC, flat-footed AC, touch AC, and gunfire AC.

Triads plot revenge
Yakuza retaliate
Chop socky gang war

"wandering experience" - a random encounter

"wandering damage" - a random encounter that turns out badly for the PCs

Not a verbal vocabulary, but when one of us makes a Reflex save, we mime a dodge by leaning to the side with our hands in front of us as if we were diving out of the way. If the individual in question has evasion, the hands are flipping off the GM :)

You mentioned it already, but surprise. Citizen Joe with the gun may not be dangerous if you get the drop on him, but he's incredibly dangerous if he gets the drop on you.

Money to pay for curative consumables and raise dead is built into encounter treasure and WBL assumptions. Anything short of a TPK and you still won. Until you can afford raise dead, be careful.

Also, RotRL, particularly that one encounter, is benchmark hardmode, not middle-of-the-road AP difficulty. And not all opponents need be played "intelligently." Many enemies are quite stupid, or have other reasons for not using optimal tactics.

"happy stick" - wand of cure light wounds, e.g. "hit 'em with the happy stick"

I think I have favorited more posts in this thread than in any other thread ever.

Furious Focus is very good. I would avoid trying to go the archery route. Archery takes a lot of feats and you will never have a lot of feats.

Even a 1-level dip of ranger will get you favored enemy, which if you pick undead works about 50% of the time in Carrion Crown. It also gives you the ability to use ranger wands, for instance, the 750 gp wand of lead blades that will kick up your base greatsword damage to 3d6 for 1 minute per charge. A second level of ranger will give you a combat style feat, and you can select Two-Handed Style to get some of the good THF feats. I'd consider ranger a very worthwhile dip for you. OTOH, you could work just as well as an undead-fighting THF ranger with a 2 or 3 level paladin dip up front :)

Sent you an email.

Thod - you gotta internalize it, man. Gloat on the inside :)

My experience has always been that for some reason, 6 is OK, but that 7th PC just pushes the game over that critical mass. Sure, 6 is still harder to balance than 4 or 5, but 7 seems to be the magic number for near-unplayability.

Also +1 to the limitation of pets, cohorts, familiars, eidolons, companions, etc. I would "strongly encourage" (require) players to take alternate options (druid domains, ranger bond with hunting companions, etc.). I would also disallow Leadership in any party over probably 5 players.

I use the following house rule:

Bastard Spears: Spears (not longspears) can be used 1-handed as a martial weapon.

Wildshaped druid claw/claw/bited the black pudding. He took 3x acid damage and wound up with 4 black puddings, who promptly grab/constrict/acid-ed him to death. The roll that really killed him was the failed Knowledge: dungeoneering check.

Getting dominated is your one chance to stomp a mudhole in the character of that player who gets on your nerves :)

Rebuild would be a great thing to be able to spend PA for. I have a PFS character that I've basically retired since the new base classes were released. The original concept would have been better as a gunslinger, but you couldn't do that when he was originally built. I'm sure there are plenty of players out there that wish they could go back and take some archetype that didn't exist when they made their PFS character.

Up front, you're just going to have a hard time of it. Seven players means less GM face time per player, more niche overlap, and consequently less time to shine for each PC.

I would not adjust treasure at all. Being below WBL will slightly compensate for more PCs.

As for encounter building, adding more monsters to each encounter will help, as will beefing up some monsters with class levels or templates. The latter is, of course, much more time-consuming.

Single-monster fights get exponentially more rocket-tag-y because to threaten such a large party, the monster has to have enough defensive capabilities that it can last more than one round against concentrated attacks from seven PCs. Any monster that has such defenses probably also has extremely dangerous attacks. Classic example would be something like a greater invisible stoneskinned flying 10th-level wizard (CR 9) vs. a pack of 7 6th-level PCs. That wizard will probably also be slinging DC 20 feeblemind or circle of death. Either the PCs will be able to effectively concentrate attacks on the badguy and he goes down in 1-2 rounds, or you overcompensate and the badguy is utterly impregnable and able to kill 1-2 PCs each round.

As you get more experience (IRL experience not XPs) running such a large group, you will get more of a feel of what they can handle.

Combat Expertise helps with rays. And, you know, other attacks.

This fails my goofy filter. I would say no.

Gooby pls.