Crusader of Logic's page

Crusader of Logic wrote:

1 round =/= full round.

From the SRD:

"A spell that takes 1 round to cast is a full-round action. It comes into effect just before the beginning of your turn in the round after you began casting the spell. You then act normally after the spell is completed."

If PFRPG has changed this definition (I doubt it), I guess it's less of a problem. :)

The difference between the two is a full round action spell cannot be interrupted except by ready actions. A 1 round action spell can if anything hits you between the end of this turn and the beginning of the next.

1 Standard action =/= 1 Full round action =/= 1 round action.

Edit: Hour/level spells like Bull's Strength were made Minute/level instead because they made stat boosting items utterly pointless. That's also not the reason why you get short adventuring days. The reason you get short adventuring days is because you let a stupid player be the caster, and as a result they cannot effectively manage their spell supply.

Edit again: Generally, D&D players are of above average intelligence and mathematical abilities. So no, I haven't had issues with random 1s. I only start to see the problem when one person is managing ten or more creatures at once, which means it only happens to DMs running highly in depth tactical high level combat. And then, not even that often. No, summoners don't get it. By the time they get that many buffed summons on the field the fight is long since over.

Well I'd put Clerics and Druids as a bit better or worse, but around the same bar. Outside core there's also the Artificer (craft anything, cast anything) and the Archivist (cast any divine spell if you have it in your spellbook). That's the uppermost level. It just doesn't get better than that.

There is no need to optimize said wizard. All you need to do is focus on the spells that either are save or die, or save or suck. These are available from level 1 on up. No specific builds are required, no non core material is required. You can give this to a completely new player and it will work just fine, provided said completely new player understands that save or be screwed is far superior to dealing out minor damage with a save for half. If however you do optimize for max DCs, it works even better. Still, even the casual Wizard with a starting Intelligence of 15-16 with no spell focus feats etc who simply puts his stat points into Intelligence and eventually gets a Headband for further boosts is quite usable with this approach.

For example. At level 1 you could try casting Magic Missile which is probably just going to annoy one kobold of several, and is roughly as effective as your crossbow except that you get far fewer MMs than crossbow bolts. Alternately you could cast Color Spray. They fail their save, and they're helpless. They technically are not dead, but they will be down so long that anyone, even a Commoner with a Scythe he isn't proficient in can easily finish the job before they wake up. Therefore, it is effectively a SoD.

Beyond level 1, HP scales far faster than damage spells gain the ability to punch through it. In other words, direct damage has exactly the same issues as melee for exactly the same reasons. It doesn't scale fast enough, and it is too limited in scope to be useful. Save or dies do keep up. Save or sucks do keep up.

The only way you are making a blasting caster that is remotely useful is via maximum optimization. Every book under the sun, lots of metamagic cost reducers so that you're effectively casting a Level 20 Spell at character level 13 (when max spell level = 7). All this, to equal an unoptimized Wizard who simply makes use of his natural intellect to work out which of his spells are worth a damn, and which exist for the sole purpose of being pretty but ineffective.

If you've been out of it for 8 years you probably remember 1st and 2nd edition where direct damage was about the same as it is now, but enemy HP were many times lower. 10d6 means a lot more when the upper end of enemy HP is 88, and not 880. Save or dies existed, but everyone had saves so good they'd only work about 20% of the time or less. Then, blasting was worth a damn. 3.0 on, not anymore.

1 round =/= full round. Also, summons have no better tanking ability than PF melees, aside from the fact they block more spaces on the battle grid. In other words, it's not like melee anything can actually make stuff attack them. Summons are inherently disposable though, so you don't have to burn resources on them.

All instances of you below are the impersonal definition of the word.

Anyways. With that said I was deliberately harsh about the go play a video game. That's what recalculating buffs is - adding 1s and 2s. If you lack the basic arithmetic abilities required for that you also lack the basic arithmetic abilities required to play a tabletop game. Seriously. How do you handle rolling say... 2d6+12 for damage, if +1 and +2 bother you? Video games do the math for you, so you can just 'I attack' over and over and over via A or X spam and have your super simple game.

It's that Power Attack thread all over again where people can't handle simple straight plus and minuses so they want to make melee even more bland auto attackers because they do not want to think.

Because he was assumed to automatically be better, so the Fighter had a few levels on him. Ok. Boot the Fighter. Wizard gets more XP, since it's divided fewer ways.

"Spellcasters are also quite reliant on having a fighter around for protection. You will find that many casters take on a "chosen melee" partner or a bodyguard of some sort. It is a powerful combination, especially where the caster is a crafter of magic items, which he can hand out to his melee chum."

False. Fighters have absolutely no ability to protect the casters, or anyone other than themselves aside from killing the enemies before they can attack. They cannot kill the enemies before they attack, as they lack the ability and power to do so. The only way Fighters could do a half decent job of protecting anyone is via being a Spiked Chain Tripper. That doesn't work anymore, because Improved Trip was nerfed, therefore all melees worth considering were nerfed.

Along the same lines, they have absolutely no ability to 'tank' as there is absolutely nothing stopping the enemy from just ignoring the guy lightly scratching them to beat the crap out of the people who are really posing a threat to them. Which means either the casters are well protected, and drawing fire well thereby serving as effective tank and offensive ability, or they are not and die, but the Fighter is just a loot and XP sink since he can't actually do anything to help.

Edit: Looking at those party members... Let's see... Sorcerers are simply inferior to Wizards. Only having a few 1st level spells when 2nd level spells are available explains his uselessness. If he thinks Magic Missile for a whopping 1d4+1 is actually worth casting, that explains even more. The Cleric however should be quite solid at level 3, as long as he isn't falling into the Healbot trap. The Fighter... eh, all you need to deal with hordes of 3 HP enemies is the ability to hit them. Give it a level or 2, and he'll start crying.

If you cannot handle adding +1s and +2s, don't play high level. I wouldn't recommend mid level either. Actually just play a video game where you can make it through a fight by spamming 'A' or 'X'. There is no need to dumb down the game for the sake of those who cannot do kindergarten level mathematics. That just gives you 4.0, the tabletop game where you don't have to think.

Dispel Magic has a CL cap. It will automatically fall behind and require the use of Greater Dispel to keep up. Tracking dispel is as simple as having the CL marked beside the buff name.

Case in point. I have a character whose active buff list looks like this:

Bite of the Werebear, Superior Resistance, Bless, Shield, Focusing Chant, Embrace the Wild, Wraithstrike, Master Air, Bite of the Wererat, Silverbeard, Surefoot, Divine Favor +3, Divine Power, Scintillating Scales, Hunter's Eye, Divine Sacrifice, Extended Greater Magic Weapon (armor spikes), Extended Greater Magic Weapon (glaive) Extended Magic Vestment (armor), Extended Magic Vestment (shield).

Law Devotion (AC) (9/10), Haste (currently on) (9/10)

Resist: 20% miss chance (Lesser Displacement Cloak), 50% miss chance vs ranged (Ring of Entropic Deflection, only if 10+ feet move).

Immune: Magic Missile, precision damage, Sonic damage.

If a Dispel lands on him, it still doesn't take very long to resolve since I just look at the Cl list and quickly go down the line, scratching stuff off.

If you aren't using Persistent Spell, it is much simpler.

Most of the caster issues are solved by the guy knowing what he's doing. Which isn't that unreasonable to expect from the person playing the most complex character at the table.

I keep reference cards for my abilities. My turn tends to resolve faster than anyone else despite having at least two dozen distinct options on any given round.

I don't think much can be done to fix high level play in any edition of D&D. The numbers are too high and there's just too many options.

Limiting spell effects to 3 maximum (as per the optional rule in PFRPG) is a great idea, it'll do a lot to speed up high level play. I just don't think it'll do enough. Fortunately, it seems like Paizo won't be writing too many high level adventures. So my group and I can continue pretending levels higher than 14 just don't exist for PCs.

All capping buffs does is make the guy saying 'Sorry, you're not a caster, you can't function beyond this point in the game.' slap the character he's speaking to in the face a few times and deliver a few papercuts with PHB pages held between his fingers, and then Telekinetically drop a bucket of salt onto his head.

Combat gets wonky at high levels because of casters. Casters don't need the splatbooks. Their best tricks are in core. Splatbooks just makes everyone else slightly less trivial.

With that said, more specifically things get wonky because enemies have no hope of countering everything the caster does. So unless they plan on 4.0izing the caster, I don't see how they'll be fixing it. Especially since for whatever illogical reason they buffed casters and nerfed everyone else.

Damn thing ate my post. Summary:

DC 20 Heal check which takes 5 minutes heals 1d6.

For every 3 points by which you exceed the DC, heal an additional 1d6. This cannot heal more dice than the target has HD.

If the process is interrupted for any reason, the attempt fails automatically.

This can only be attempted once per person per encounter.

Heal is a class skill for any and every class that can reasonably be considered self sufficient. That's most of them.

Example in use: A level 1 Fighter gets smacked for 3 damage. He tries to Heal, but only gets an 18 so the attempt fails. Unless someone else succeeds at the Heal check, or he gets magical healing he will have to enter the next fight at less than full. In the next fight he doesn't take any damage because it was over on round 1. This time the heal attempt succeeds on a 20 and he regains 1d6 HP. He rolls a 4, and is back in top shape. Next fight he gets smacked hard for 8 damage. This time the heal check result is 25, but he only has 1 HD so he still gets 1d6. If he were level 2, he would get the full 2d6.

Overall this is a half decent method of out of combat healing, which at least provides different flavor text to the old passing the CLW wand around approach. It is blatantly inferior to magical healing, which aside from Heal is rather meh anyways. It's essentially impossible to break it, because by the time you can reliably hit DC 38 for 7d6 average 24.5, 24.5 is practically meaningless to you. The CCW sited as an example is 4d8+7, average 25. Hint: You're higher than level 7 when you can reliably hit that DC. To match a minimum CL Heal, you need level 32 and the ability to hit a DC 113(!) skill check. You're clearly better off UMDing a Staff of Heal since the Cleric was doing what you do 21 levels ago, and he gets status effects to boot.

I think the point is that the benefit should outweigh the drawback and plate users should actually be the best protected instead of so much clunky canned lunchmeat. And yes, they also taste good with ketchup. Nine out of ten dragons agree. The tenth didn't chew his food and is having intestinal surgery to repair the internal damage done.

The keen enhancement and the Improved Critical feat really should stack. You may wish to disallow it for scimitar masters, but it's really not that game-breaking at all.

Let them have it. They still won't compare to reach users because they always take a free hit on the way in.

Only reason they don't stack is because of a double fix. Vorpal was on a critical before, which means you got it 45% of the time. 60%, with a bladed gauntlet. 3.5 adjusted it to natural 20 only which fixed that, but then they overdid it via making those two not stack which didn't accomplish anything except making another technique subpar at best. Much later, WotC introduced something that makes criticals worthwhile, but even so you won't get too much out of it because combats are fast, and it takes time to build up.

Getting hit 10% more often means you take more hits, and more damage anyways. Vs the damage dealing foes you care about you are taking a net loss because they are doing 1 more damage to you per hit.

Speed boosting items don't make up for the fact you are behind on all forms of movement including, and especially flight. This is critical. It doesn't even matter how good you are at melee if you can never get into melee because you are too damn slow.

Incorrect. Even under the most optimal of conditions you crit 28.5% of the time for 5.5 damage. That's 1.5675 damage, or less than half of what you get with plain Flaming/Frost/whatever. Even if Keen and Improved Critical stacked giving you 45% chance to threaten, and you confirm on a 2 that is 2.35125 damaged which is still a third less than plain flaming/frost/etc which gives 3.5. If you have a * 3 or * 4 weapon the burst damage is doubled or tripled, but you only crit on one number (two with either/or, three with both) which means the end math is exactly the same. They at least aren't precision damage dependent, but they still simply fail to be worthwhile uses of an enchantment slot and your limited resources. Even so, the plain flaming/frost/etc enchantments fail at the cost/benefit check because the damage is too low, and of the wrong types to matter. The bursts are inferior versions of these that cost exactly the same. Naturally, they come out worse.

Oh and did I mention the flaming/frost/etc enchantments intrude upon the Action Economy? Yup. Standard action to turn the thing on. Fine if you know a fight is coming and don't mind walking around with an obvious glowing weapon. Not fine if combat occurs without warning. When anything intrudes upon the Action Economy, it is automatically required to be much better to be worth using. That means if it isn't an always on or free action ability it needs to be at least as good as your other Standard/Move/Swift action options or it's never worth considering. 1d6 damage at any level you could actually have a +2 or better weapon does not qualify.

Not really. In 3.5 you have to memorize general rules, then just remember when they apply. This hasn't changed in any variation of 3.5 thereof. In 4.0 you get a lot of things that are almost the same but not quite.

In other words, in 3.5 if you want to use say... a basilisk you just have to remember how it petrifies using a few keywords, what the DC is, and there you go. In 4.0 you would have to memorize every last word of the basilisk entry to avoid confusing it with say... a gorgon's petrify.

It's simpler to memorize some entries once, and then just remember some keywords thereafter than to have to remember every single word to avoid confusing it with something that is almost the same but isn't and doesn't stand out due to its generic nature.

Um, what? What's the point of nerfing deflection to AC? What are you talking about?

Wait, people have said Power Attack wasn't good?

It could be argued Forge Ring is an example of logic failure since you need to be high level to take it, but most of the rings are low level and would have been nice 5-10 levels ago. That's more a case of consistency (where DO all these rings of protection +1 come from) than ineffectiveness, though there aren't that many good rings in core. Outside it you get things like Entropic Deflection and Spell Battle which are the items that sell crafting feats, just like the games that sell systems.

3 feats, +2 spell levels of adjustment, and prediction. Eh. Well in any case, that explains it.

Ok, how is that automatic blocking?

Um, Natural Spell?

DR 3 is very minor since we aren't talking about level 3 here, but a point much later on. 2 AC and touch AC is also minor, but more significant. Especially when you consider a PAer is doing 4 more damage to you with every hit, therefore you still come out behind. Regardless, Medium armor has what is known as the Monk flaw - it is too inbetween, and too unfocused to be remotely useful compared to either of the extremes. Light armors lose near no protection and don't lose speed when moving. Heavy armors give greater protection while applying the same speed penalty.

Edit: Heavy armor means you're too slow to get into melee range. Falchions and Greatswords mean you lose vs reach aka mid and high level opponents. Put another way, you amplify the already existing failure you have by default to deal with enemies of your level. Polearms grant the reach, but since you don't threaten adjacent you're still rather easily messed with. Spiked chains lose 2 damage compared to greatswords. Except tripped enemies lose 4 AC, and therefore take 8 more damage from any attack at level 4 or higher. Even at level 1, the damage is equal and you are attacking something with 3 less AC. Focusing on critical hits in any way aside from Blood in the Water is a trap tactic. In other words, it is a waste of resources to focus on that since precision damage is so situational and you need more options, not less.

PF removed the only options Fighters ever had so the point is moot save for academic purposes, but there you go.

I would say that is the reason many people like 3rd Edition - it requires, maybe even expects, system mastery. Players argue this all the time, but I would say it equally applies to DMs. It's downright impossible to have a game that allows the players a detailed complex system but is intuitive and simplistic for DMs. At least, not one that has both sides using the same rules.

I dunno about all that. But I do know that I wouldn't touch it if it did not stimulate and sharpen my mind, particularly the analytical and tactical bits. Without that, it is just Magical Tea Party at best. Free form bores me, and I have absolutely no reason to pay for something I can get for free.

Many People wrote:

Many things.

Is this discussion going anywhere my dear colleagues? I've lost myself in the middle of the discussion, when I couldn't even find the point anymore.

The original topic was does the feat justify saving money. It got rather sidetracked with some crafting misconceptions which were corrected by myself and others. I think the original topic was resolved first though.

Jal Dorak wrote:

Crusader of Logic wrote:

S W wrote:

Crusader of Logic, is there any way to send pm's on this board? I was hoping to chat with you about some things, or email you some houserules to get your opinion.

Not that I am aware of. Doesn't have signatures either, which presumably is for streamlining purposes.

Yep, that's why there are no sigs. But some people have taken to copy+paste to add a "sig" to every post.

So are you on any other forums that do have pm's?

Yes, but I choose not to announce them on the grounds I already have had to chase away one stalker here (Aelryinth).

Sean, first off it's Lightning Reflexes. Not Combat Reflexes, which a Wizard has no business taking unless he's going for Ye Olde Spiked Chain Gish. Which means he has a 10% better chance to not take minor to moderate damage from some random AoE, which is the weakest threat a spell could possibly pose to him. Now consider +2 to 1 save is around oh... 2k or so, or perhaps lower... Yup. Items still trump feats. So do spells.

The Wizard can get +5 initiative for 6k. For that matter, so can anyone else. That becomes 3k if you have Craft Magic Arms and Armor.

+2 Int gives the +1 DCs and bonus spells. Getting that of a different bonus type... I forget the amount, but it's a four digit figure. At least it's probably more expensive than the other two, but that's really not saying much.

Toughness is one of the best examples of a feat that becomes less useful to you as you level. Several others that came up here also qualify such as Whirlwind Attack (by the time you get it, you're no longer being swarmed by weak enemies but instead facing smaller numbers of bigger enemies). Though he can get that for a +1 enhancement if he cares. Spring attack requires two garbage feats and even then only allows a single attack, which means you aren't doing that much, and the enemy can probably just 5' step to get you in reach anyways unless you have something boosting your speed substantially (See: Haste from boots or something). Two weapon fighting is a flat out inferior style. It's only worth considering if you are a construct or undead dual wielding life drinking wounding weapons with sneak attack or something. And that's only because of all the 'procs' combined with a high number of hits. Further, for 8k you get that (two extra attacks) for free, even if you aren't high enough level yet. You have to have regular TWF, but you'd have to do that anyways.

A normal anything is useless beyond level 5 at the absolute latest. Level 6 and beyond require extraordinary abilities. Period. I'd still take the Warblade, because 300 damage will still 1 round most stuff, and I can do it a lot more often. The only purpose doing more damage than enemy HP can possibly be like that is to circle jerk to big numbers. There is no actual benefit aside from bragging, as you kill the enemy in 1 round regardless.

The normal Fighter is lucky he isn't dead yet, and should consider turning his WBL into a tavern to settle down before it's too late.

So,the whole party was completely fixed on the Berserker.The only thing they did, was building a freeway to the big enemy and throw the smaller guys around or grapple them. And that is what I don´t like about the Berserker. With this guy in your team, you will allways be his slave somehow, because the center of every fight is he. what if I wanted to play a fighting Cleric or use more damaging spells with the Wizard? Everything a normal Charakter does seems to be a joke, if you compare it with the damage of the Berserker. If I was the Warblade, I would have killed the Berserker at Night... ;)

Correction: The Berserker performed well enough to get noticed, despite being a one trick pony and became a relevant part of party plans. Seeing as casters get this by default essentially, having the non magic guy not be completely trivial sounds like a good thing to me. Though it could have been done in a non one trick pony way, as that tends to backfire (See: Barb vs Uber Demon).

Also, we've been over this before but it bears repeating. If your strategy is damage, you lose. Simple as that. Or put another way... a save or die is the same as doing enemy HP + 10 all at once. Seeing as enemies have hundreds, or even thousands of HP given sufficient level... Taking the enemy out of the fight for 2 rounds or so is just as good as killing them, as that's two rounds of free shots from everyone - easily good enough to kill anything with a CR of your level +2 or less and likely the +3s and +4s as well.

If I were in the party with you, my contingency plan to deal with betrayers would kick in. And since both I, and my character would be exceptionally intelligent and the latter has a great deal of power as their disposal I would ensure an optimal success rate in negating the threat you pose to my still loyal allies. Enjoy your no save, you die courtesy of your friendly neighborhood caster. ;)

Why? Because I'm the mother ****ing Batman, and no one messes with my team.

The gear the Fighter must have to function is most often crafted for efficiency purposes. This takes time. Therefore they're actually more downtime dependent.

Not to mention the obvious flaws with a hard downtime setup as it forces the DM to pace things a certain way. Though the higher level characters would naturally have more downtime since fewer things happen on a big enough scale for them to care about. I mean really. How often does something threaten to Destroy The World? Exactly. The fact they also need the most (craft time is based on cost) is simply incidental. So the principle works, trying to nail it down doesn't so well.

This wasn't said by me, but I'm replying anyways.

The amount of XP spent on item creation is trivial enough that the level difference is irrelevant, or at least it's not the big deal that your comment makes it out to be. Say you're a Clr10 and you want to "spend" 1/3 of your wealth at that level creating the bestest mace you can. Wealth at level 10 = 49,000 gp. 1/3 of that is 16,333 gp. That means you're spending 32,666 gp and 1,306 xp on Uber Item of Clericality. A party of 4 10th-level characters earns 3,000 xp for defeating an EL10 challenge, which is 750 xp per character. So after two level-appropriate challenges for your group, your crafting character has caught up to the average party level ... in general, your character is going to be behind the rest of the group for a couple of encounters every time the rest of the group levels. Woo. So it's not like you're 2-3 levels behind for a long time and you'll be rakin' in the xp because of the level disparity. And unless your DM is doing something weird (like saving up four weeks' worth of xp for one giant award), I don't see how your lower-level character is suddenly going to jump ahead of the other characters.

Wealth scales exponentially. 5 levels later he has over 4 times that amount of gold. For that matter, 5 levels earlier he had less than 20% that amount of gold. With that said take any XP calculator such as this one to compare. Notice how if one of those level 10s is actually a level 9 they get 1,013 XP, or a little over a third more? That's about standard. The gap is self correcting. In the above example, you get 263 extra XP from your routine fights 5 times, and you're now ahead by 9 points. Which isn't that big a deal, but is still ahead.

Getting 2-3 levels behind would be counterproductive. This means you're a cohort. 1 level behind however is a common and smart optimization technique known as riding the gravy train, where you intentionally craft enough to be one level behind and thereby get roughly a third more XP which fuels more crafting, or anything else with an XP cost.

Strange, most people believe that feats are more valuable than items because you have tons and tons of gp worth of magic items (and you can always go quest for money in easy areas that won't net you any xp) yet you have a very limited number of feats. :) "Most people" meaning "the designers of 3e, who went out of their way to greatly limit the ability to put feats into magic items because at high level it would be trivial to buy up all the feats you wanted in the form of magic items."

Well, they aren't. Just take a look at feats. They are flat out inferior to class features. Class features are all over the board. Items are accounting for at least 5 points of to hit and damage, various special properties required to keep up on the damage dealing spectrum, 5 points of every saving throw, nearly all of your AC, your miss chance if any, your complete ability to deal with flying, invisible, teleporting, high ground holding, tactic using, or any other adjective referring to an enemy that does something smarter than charge at you while shouting "LEEROY JENKINS!" Yeah. No feat comes close to that. Even when you consider there is a legitimate WotC way to get any feat (from a large list) for 8k. Some of them cost less.

This is the melee comparison. There's less of a difference for casters because spells can duplicate or supersede some items, and they get feats that are actually worth something such as Quicken Spell which is so blatantly superior to the minor melee feats like +1 to hit with one weapon and other such much weaker things they get it's not even funny. Even so, their gear still is ahead of their feats. Just not by so great a margin.

I think your math is suspect. An "extra 25-50,000 gp worth of magic items" means you're talking about a character that's (for example) crafted 50-100,000 gp worth of items at half cost (thus, 25-50k is extra). Are you creating characters from scratch and letting them spend ALL their money on crafted items? That's unrealistic (an organically-grown character with crafting feats is going to have some found items and some crafted items). Give me a concrete example and we'll debate it ... the above general term is vague enough (I don't know what you mean by "higher levels," either) that I can't address it.

The math is flawed, but not for the reason you think. In order to get everything for half cost, your craft feats would have to cover everything. Craft Wondrous is the broadest feat in that it covers the greatest variety of items that matter. But even it doesn't cover everything. Weapons, armor, rings... those matter too. Therefore, you would need every craft feat to do that. This pretty much ensures it is an Artificer only thing, except that class is not in PF. At least not yet.

Found items are practically guaranteed to be inferior to items you already have, unless you're 'just breaking in' so to speak and have to get your Ring of Protection +1 (example) somewhere. That means they are just gold fodder for what you actually want. A simple comparison of PC WBL vs NPC WBL demonstrates this flawlessly. Since there is really no reason not to craft if you are able since it means that you get twice as much for the same cost? Yes please. The only reason why you'd ever have non crafted stuff aside from the very rare getting lucky is because you didn't have the time to make it. DM fiat blocks anything, ergo it means nothing.

He was never, or almost never hit. It wouldn't have made any difference. The Ring Gate is just to rub it in. If he had gone himself it would have went just as well.

What purpose does the unarmed focus and half elf race serve?

Crusader of Logic wrote:

Um, Tumble has already been pretty good. It's right up there with Perception and Use Magic Device. Acrobatics is Tumble, + something else. You sound as if this were a new thing.

It gains an additional use: avoid automatic blocking by fighter. That's fine with me. Perception already has so many uses; Acrobatics can, too. And Craft and Knowledge and Climb and all the rest should, too, for that matter, but now we're opening a whole different can of worms...

The point is, there's an alternative to a "taunt" mechanism, which I dislike because of (a) its attendant "skill tax" (Intimidate); (b) its logical (but lame) Cha-based DC; and (c) the fact that it relies on irrational decisions on the part of those affected, rather than on actions on the part of the "blocker."

I don't understand what you're talking about. Moving through an enemy space = DC 25 before or after PF. DC 15 if you have to move around instead. That's not new. Keep in mind, I still can't load the damn thing. If you mean something else and just aren't being clear, nevermind.

Um, Tumble has already been pretty good. It's right up there with Perception and Use Magic Device. Acrobatics is Tumble, + something else. You sound as if this were a new thing.

I can't get anything to load right now, including that article and my PF guide. But if crafting has an XP cost that must be paid by the crafter that just encourages him to only make things for himself. Yeah, riding the gravy train is nice. But it only applies if you're only making stuff for yourself. Otherwise you drop too far. If someone else can pay the cost, or there is no cost then sure, why not make stuff for the other guys?

Incorrect. If the enemy has multiple pouches, it will be obvious by looking at them. Seeing as spending a few dozen gold to counter something like that is trivial, there is no reason why everyone wouldn't counter it if it were an option at all.

If the enemy is an illusion, and you know it, that's a waste of actions as well. In order for your example to be valid, the extra pouches or whatever would have to be invisible so that you did not have prior awareness of them. Even then, as long as you have a rare chance to swing at them you're better off sundering their face.

Except that even if they move in the way, unless it's a 5' hallway there's nothing stopping them from going around. And if they can make the proper check, there's nothing stopping them from going right through his space either.

The cheap items could easily exist in multiples which just makes attacking them a waste of an action.

If the item is damaged but not destroyed, what was the point of wasting actions attacking it, and not sundering the enemies' face?

Anyways, I'd personally take something like Vicious, since I have a Cleric following me around anyways eating 1d6 to self isn't so bad (and almost certainly less than the enemy is doing).

See above.

Crusader of Logic wrote:

Sword and Board still loses, without serious modification because even if you do last longer you also kill slower, meaning you need to last longer anyways. In other words, all you have accomplished is being slow, and having to blow a lot of extra cash on the shield. Although Animated Shields work fine for obvious reasons.

QFT, and that's the sad fact of the matter. Sword-and-shield is so lame compared to THW with Power Attack and an animated shield that I shudder to condider it. If shield use had meaningful options (apply bonus to allies, apply bonus to saves against fireballs and the like, etc.), and if the fighter's armor training applied to armor and shield and stacked if you had both, then maybe it could be salvaged.

Or even THF without the Animated Shield. At the minimum, it would require all of the following:

Apply bonus to allies. Problem: If they have to be adjacent, it's near worthless. It's hard to make it make sense at any greater distance.

Greater AC. If you aren't on the RNG, don't even bother.

A miss chance. This is on top of the AC boost.

A bonus to saves (not just the one that matters least, but all three saves).

A tactical feat that lets you hit your enemies in the face with your shield. Not a bash, but an Immediate action attack foil since that was how shields were actually used (preventing the enemy from being able to swing their melee weapon). Make it opposed attack rolls based or something.

Now, that they actually have a meaningful defensive advantage they need a taunt ability, otherwise enemies will happily ignore the least threatening party member who in theory at least is hardest to kill in favor of everyone else meaning you have failed utterly to do your job as a tank. Taunting means they're fighting you, ergo your defenses matter. And no, DC 10 + half HD + Cha will not cut it for reasons that should be obvious. Especially if it gets the Mind Affecting tag. But just in case it isn't... it's getting based off a dump stat, ergo the save DC is crap and the taunt will almost never work and therefore might as well not exist. This is especially true if you have to burn actions on the thing. Even if you do not dump stat Charisma, the save DC is still pretty low. Remember, casters only manage respectable save DCs because it's based on their highest stat. If save DCs were Strength based for whatever illogical reason, they'd fail to affect anything as well. For this reason, all the abilities that use that formula might as well not exist for all the effect they have. Monks, I'm looking at you. PF made it worse.

Crusader of Logic wrote:

Those benchmarks are way too low to be remotely meaningful. Seriously, +2 to hit at level 1? +30 at level 20? I've seen level 12s with close to +30. They weren't even optimized.

I don't think they are way too low. Possibly a low average, but not far off from where most monsters sit - barring dragons of course. I do plan on having a look through the MM to get a better idea of a base number, but I think our best bet here is to go with a median number rather than an average; I think the flukes like dragons and giants will skew things higher than they need to be. But when I get the numbers I will present both.

They are too low. The averages only factor BAB. They do not factor Strength, Enhancement bonuses, or any of the other things that boost attack rolls. If you cannot deal with the melee threats that matter (giants, dragons have better things to do) you have no business being on the front lines.

In other words, your numbers range from 2 points or so behind to 10 or more points. Since every point is 5%, that's huge. At the high end, you need an AC in the 45-50 range just to be half decent (and the real melee brutes will still hit you on a 2, even with PA).

Before this, see giants, elementals, animals, and any other enemy only good for hitting the thing with the other thing.

The cleric cohort saves on bags of overpriced consumables. The steed is a normal heavy warhorse in terms of durability, aka a single hit kills it.

If I had to guess, I'd say it's because of a combo of not wanting to get into custom items which might get him shot down for that reason, and not having enough cash to cover his bases even with an item factory on his side, and other intelligent resource use such as GMW/Magic Vestment instead of blowing more cash on plain bonuses.

Those benchmarks are way too low to be remotely meaningful. Seriously, +2 to hit at level 1? +30 at level 20? I've seen level 12s with close to +30. They weren't even optimized.

I was going to put some optimization by the numbers stuff here. Then I realized it does not even consider attack bonus for some reason. The closest thing it does to that is include enemy BAB... which, alone just about meets every single one of those benchmarks. Without including Strength, and anything else boosting the to hit. It covers HP, Initiative, BAB, AC of all three types, and saves of all three types. And that's it.

I mentioned Magic Vestment because someone mentioned a +3 Breastplate. In other words, wasted cash and enhancement slots on plain AC when they should have been going for useful special abilities in order to bring their gear up to par. +1 blah blah blah armor (or weapon for that matter) + Magic Vestment/Greater Magic Weapon is a standard measure to try to get a non caster up to an average level.

Sword and Board still loses, without serious modification because even if you do last longer you also kill slower, meaning you need to last longer anyways. In other words, all you have accomplished is being slow, and having to blow a lot of extra cash on the shield. Although Animated Shields work fine for obvious reasons.

Crusader of Logic, is there any way to send pm's on this board? I was hoping to chat with you about some things, or email you some houserules to get your opinion.

Not that I am aware of. Doesn't have signatures either, which presumably is for streamlining purposes.

I will point out that Lesser Restoration has a casting time of 3 rounds, so it is not a spell to be casting during combat. Heal, however, does cure ability damage (not drain) so could be used in combat.

This too. And Heal is already good to cast in combat because it actually heals enough HP to be worth the combat action.

I've seen melee kick ass at level 1, where his greatsword is an at will SoD, and the Wizard just has a 2/day AoE SoD in Color Spray.

Go up to about level 4, and hitting the thing with the other thing still works fairly well, but real spells are starting to pull ahead by significant margins.

Anything beyond this, it really becomes apparent. Even when using plain melee brute enemies to ensure the melees have a target, the fact said melee brute enemies will likely win any exchange of blows due to better full attack routines limits their effectiveness considerably.

Cases in point:

Level 15 melee guy vs CR 11 enemy. They're doing about the same damage to each other. Problem: Said enemy has DR 10/-, and more HP. He got out of that because a caster blew away his opponent.

Level 15 melee guy vs CR 6 enemy. Yes, CR 6. 2 rounds later, melee guy is at -9 HP, enemy is at 90% health. Granted, there was some bad luck here in that the enemy had around a 45% chance to hit, but hit 80% and criticaled once on about the only party member not immune to those yet. Said enemy also had a few, relatively minor buffs in place. Still nowhere near CR 15 even after the most generous ad hocing. Zombie Hydras are nasty little buggers aren't they? There were other enemies there, but they did nothing meaningful during the combat whatsoever. Unless getting in a minor status (Fatigued) counts.

Magic Vestment.

In personal experience I have seen many instances where the wizard was useful, but the melee guys were essential. In the current 3.5 campaign I am playing in, the wizard does pull his weight, but it's the melee guys that prevent the TPK's. Your theory sounds good, but I haven't seen it in actual game play. Actual experience trumps theory in my book.

I'm not talking theory. I'm talking actual experience. Are you implying I have not actually observed this?

Edit: This is with multiple encounters. Most enemies died before round 2 (when the melee guy gets in range). The BBEG fight with minions was done in 3. The Wizard, who had no resource expanding abilities such as wands whatsoever still had multiple good spells remaining. I, as the Artificer was better off (though the main wand I was using was nearly drained since it had been used pretty heavily in multiple battles on this day and others). The Druid still had multiple high level spells in him and also had no resource expanding items except a Staff of Heal (which was never needed). Only ones that lost more than 15% of their health? The melee guys. Casters didn't get hit, even when targeted except by AoE spells.

Also, it is much harder to cover your bases with gear than spells. Especially when he probably has lesser gear due to inability to craft. But even if all else is equal... 'But, the caster should buff the guy!' you might be saying. Well, even if we ignore the fact that if you're having to devote resources to getting someone else up to par they are not up to par by default, the best spells are still self only. It cannot be helped.

Official entries only.

Only 3. I expected more. Play around on that feat index and check out the other duplicates.

Do you know how many feats named Augment Summoning there are? It's more likely they just picked the name because it was generic enough to fit.

Hold on a sec. Using Bracers or a Monk's Robe would make a Barbarian a laughing stock? Well, maybe the robe... but why would kicking ass while naked from the waist up make people laugh at him?