Ecaterina Ducaird's page

Found this in a quick search. My CRB is not handy, so I can't vouch for page 174 personally.

Attended Objects.

If you are touching it, it's attended.
If your sitting on the plate, it's touched.

Shenanigans could ensue I guess by sitting on plate 1, that is on plate 2, and levitating plate 2... at the same time though, at an RAI level, I'd doubt that they intended for that 'style' of loophole. Mage hand is meant to move around objects, not people, no matter how you want to loophole it.

Do not copy parts of the spam messages - they want to replicate specific sequences because it affects various search engine bots. The more the sequence appears anywhere in the respectable (or not so respectable) parts of the net the higher the associated websites end on search engines list.

EDIT: Orthos is an android ninja.

Question. Given the content of some of the more recent spam, couldn't you use that against it?

Eg.... If their objective is to have the same string found as many times as they can here....current flavour seems to be repeated string over and over again.

Shouldn't be too hard to rig up an algorithm to search for posts that contain an exact match on that string (or any string really) more than X (eg 10) times, and are more than 50% that string. Unleash it on the content from this month that hasn't already be cleaned and you might have a pretty useful starting point.

The limitation on the > 50% stops people being flagged for saying "The" a lot, and the > X times means that it has to be a repeated string... it won't (eg) match the whole post to itself.

Course, then it escalates by tacking 3 paragraphs of erotic poetry onto the end of it so it's not a match to 50%, but meyh....

I'm confused.

A creature that is taking bleed damage takes the listed amount of damage at the beginning of its turn. Bleeding can be stopped by a DC 15 Heal check or through the application of any spell that cures hit point damage (even if the bleed is ability damage). Some bleed effects cause ability damage or even ability drain. Bleed effects do not stack with each other unless they deal different kinds of damage.

My read of that has always been that ... well... bleed doesn't stack. So your wounding weapon bleeds for 1 when you hit someone the first time... the second time they are bleeding for 1 still. The 137th time, they are still bleeding for 1. I wouldn't even pay +1 for wounding if that is correct.

To help put it in perspective for you, Bleeding crit is (on average) 7 damage a round per crit and from what I can see is probably the best bleed source out there just because it does stack. I haven't crunched the numbers, but I'm pretty sure that pulling in 1 crit a round reliably is going to be the limit. That means that bleed is only marginally more effective than a free acid arrow.

119. An obviously battle warn veteran, scarred and with armour and equipment scavenged over the course of many battles pushes the door open and stumbles in. Quickly taking the room in, he staggers over to a filled table, saying in a voice just loud enough to be heard, "Thank the gods I found you. I was starting to doubt that the prophecy was true. We can save them all if we work together.".... But... why's he saying that to the next table over, not to the PCs table...

Unfortunately, RAW, yes FoM counters almost every condition in the game.

A paralyzed character is frozen in place and unable to move or act.

The creature is unable to act normally. A dazed creature can take no actions, but has no penalty to AC.

I don't see much of a difference between 'Unable to act' vs 'Can take no actions'. Paralysis is explicitly called out as something FoM counters.

From that statement, it's a pretty safe bet that (at least rules as written) FoM counters things that limits the type of actions you can take (or if you can take any at all). That would mean that you'd probably also be immune to Stun, Staggered, Nauseated, Fascination, Cowering... Depending on how you squint, possibly confused as well. Confused's opening sentence states that you are unable to act normally... FoM states that you CAN move and attack normally. Most likely you could also make an argument for it to bypass the movement impeeding aspects of fatigue / exhausting (Can't run / charge... half speed at exhausted).

As to if you can use it to bypass being dead.... before I answer, what happens to ongoing effects if their target is invalid? Do they continue, get cancelled or are they suppressed until the target is valid again? Don't you become an object when your dead? Either way, you can also get into interesting corner cases around things like stat damage / drain which don't paralyse you per say, but might (eg in the case of Dex 0) render you 'Incapable of moving'.

Claxon wrote:

Saldiven wrote:

Claxon wrote:

I disagree completely, it just doesn't include any of those abilities.

It is about writing and reading.

Quote:

You are skilled at working with language, in both its spoken and written forms. You can speak multiple languages, and can decipher nearly any tongue given enough time. Your skill in writing allows you to create and detect forgeries as well.

There is far, far, far more to language than alphabets and handwriting styles.

But none of it is about wax seals

In some contemporary (east Asian) cultures, stamps (see my link upthread) are still legally recognized as signatures. Wooden block with an engraving, swabbed in ink, and stomped down on paper. That's a legally recognized signature.

It's not much of a stretch at all to presume that stamps in wax can serve the same purpose, especially since they did so historically. The CRB doesn't provide rules to cover every circumstance; they cover what can't be reasonably inferred from experience of the real world. Dragons need rules about how they fly; people don't need rules about how often they need to use the privy.

So, a "signature" is not/was not restricted to a hand-scrawled series of letters in the real world (now and in the past), so there's no reason to presume that's the only thing that meets the definition of a "signature" in the CRB.

There's seals and seals which I think is the problem here.

A seal that is a signature (IE, the king's seal on this letter makes it authentic), vs a seal to keep the document closed and let the reader know that the document was received un-opened. Seal as a signature isn't really relevant here because the signature is authentic. You only need to worry about making it a forgery if you need to re-create or re-use the signature. I think we're looking at the later case here. To me, that's disable device. Ultimately, this is a physical security measure built onto the document... effectively a lock not so much to keep someone out, but to let people know if someone has been in. If the seal existed on a chest, to me it would be open and shut on disable being what we're after. The only difference is that this is on paper. What a device is guarding shouldn't alter what you use to bypass it.

What I'd probably rule is that you can use either Disable Device or Linguistics, but how you go about doing it is different.

Disable device is bypassing the seal and re-sealing it and is the 'quick' option (with checks taking rounds and no special equipment beyond a sharp knife and heat). Botch that (fail by 5 or more) and you damage the letter itself so it's plainly obvious that it's been tampered with in some way (which may lead into option 2 below). Perception vs disable device if they are interested in checking if it's been tampered with. Complexity of the check goes up depending on the complexity of the seal (just like a lock). More inticate seals are going to be harder to deal with without damaging some of the fine detail on it.

Linguistics though would be to create a forged seal (or re-forge the whole document), but would take potentially hours of work (depending on the complexity of the seal and if you need to make the whole document again) to make that forgery. A casual look at the document for interference would not pick up the forgery, but a 'proper' examination of the document for authenticity and tampering may (linguistics vs linguistics).

I'm not sure that Pharasma disliking undead based on 'souls not passing on' makes sense to me. If I animate an old battlefield, does that mean that the souls are sucked back in from where they were previously? What about when there's a killed party member that is restored via True res or clone (or alike other 'new body' effect) after they've had their original body animated? Having the complete soul bound in the undead just starts to weird things out a little when you look at it for too long.

Unless you want to get into Curse of the Azure bonds 'Cutting an infinite thing in half just gives you 2 infinite things.' which I'm not up on my theoretical maths, let alone how it applies to the meta-physics of souls....

Anyways.... I was playing an anti-undead cleric at one point and the below were his views. Dunno exactly how much they fit with the actual lore of Golarian, but feel free to plunder whatever works.

To '5 minutes or less' version is when you died, the soul moved on, but an imprint of your mind was left behind on the body. It has access to all the things you knew, but your soul was responsible for the 'good' feelings and things like a conscience. Animating the body empowered it with negative energy to give it enough of a power source to replace the life that was missing, but it didn't restore that soul (he actually categorised undead as a Negative Energy Elemental). At any rate, because of that in his world view, there was no such thing as a 'good' undead (even the intelligent ones) because they were incapable of being good by their very nature. At best, some of the newer ones were confused about why they had acted in particular ways when they were still alive, and may continue to act like that for a time out of habit, but that will always change and change rapidly. Because the mind is missing and doesn't go on to it's eternal reward it also explained why (at least in our world) no-one ever could really remember much about what the afterlife is really like (the soul being feelings and emotions rather than memory).

I liked it because it played well with the concepts around even though deep down you 'knew' something was right or wrong (based on your soul) you could justify doing wrong things (your mind running interference), especially around concepts like 'the greater good'. Your soul is actually screaming not to do something that it's wrong, but in your mind (different functional area) it was justified. For what it's worth, that cleric also hated books and reading because they just added more clutter to your brain.

If you picked up that theory, ANY sentient undead could be what your after. The more hate and rage filled the better. Become a shadow, Eat all your friends and turn them into shadows (because now they will not age and grow old). Get Ressed and your soul re-attached and have a "DUDE!!!! WTF?!?" moment as you start to look at your memories through the lens of "I am no longer a soulless abomination".

How you want to feel about it from there is up to your PC. If you were a controlled undead, you know someone was pulling your strings, but how much did you resist their commands? If you were free willed, that could raise some questions internally about what your chars 'True' nature is and how you'd end up if you ever decided to go off the rails.

Really?.... You know.... I can't help but shake the feeling that if you don't sort out concepts like 'against a persons will' and what it means, it's going to prove REALLY awkward to you later on in court... Or is it just the use of the word 'Wil' there that your jumping to 'Will Save'?

Against your will I would define against a litmus test of "Does the character that the effect is aimed against want this to happen?" Similar to how (technically) you get a save against healing spells, but you typically choose to fail it.

IF the answer is no, then it's against your will
If the answer is yes, then it is not against your will.

So you would be able to benefit from things like Fortune, luckblade re-rolls and improved Iron Will (which you want to allow therefore is not against your will), however effects like Misfortune would fail.

I've personally been fond of Polar Midnight with Fire substitution on it for breaking my brain. Your in the middle of a raging firestorm so take fire damage, if you don't move, your... encased in a wall of ice? Soooo.... does that wall of ice take fire damage from being in the ongoing fire AoE, or....? And when the corpses transmute to ice, do they then melt?

At any rate.... Don't quote me on this as I don't have the books handy (and would need to be hunting for it), but I have an odd memory of there actually being a 'Subject to GM discretion' clause in one breed of elemental substitution or another (whether it was elemental spell or something else, not sure). The example they cited was putting fire substitution on an ice storm. I think that they suggested that in a case like that you might not have the difficult terrain involed (as there's no large chunks of ice on the ground), but instead might have a blind or a concealment in the AoE from the smoke and ash.

I don't know if it was directly on Elemental Spell or some other kind of substitution, but .... Anyone else have that memory, or am I hallucinating?

So my oracle has just contracted lycanthropy and we do not have a way to heal it currently (without finding wolfsbane or something)

Knowledge about humanoids (which I think is what your were creatures are) is a Knowledge local from memory. Lycanthropy called a curse, but is dealt with via a Heal or Remove disease. Depending on how your GM feels, it might be Knowledge:'Curses' (Religion / Arcana) or it might be a heal check to tell you more about dealing with it as a disease.

I'm hoping someone can pass one of those checks, otherwise, things are going to get real for you if you can't make good saves every month.

Wolfsbane is a naturally occurring herb / plant. I'd suggest step 1 is to pull out the Knowledge: Nature either on yourself or some other party member to track some down. Failing that... Wolfsbane It's 5sp a dose at an alchemist / equipment supplier.

But Lycanthropy I believe is also un-curable after either your first change or 3 days... Nor am I aware of any way to control the affliction once it manifest in PF. So one may wish to consider a certain level of alacrity in this endeavour.

TL;DR With 30ft. movement can you move 10ft. take a standard action, then move the rest of your 20ft. of movement?

Having a short conversation with a player about the rules of movement and actions in combat.

I have always read the rules as you get two actions, move action and standard action you can move up to your base speed as the move action however after that action ends you can't use more of it after a standard action.
We have checked over the PRD but other than the information in Spring Attack there isn't actually any text we can's find which states you outright can't move, action, finish move off. Which has me questioning if my interpretation of the rules is indeed correct.

People probably assumed it didn't need to be spelled out. Actions in D&D (and PF) tend to be discrete events. You perform action A, then perform action B. You have a move action and a standard action. You move the distance for the move, then perform the standard (or the other way around). A move action allows you to move up to your speed. If you want to stop the action sooner, that's fine, but you don't get to finish your move later. You finish it when you stop moving.

It's uncommon for you to have an action that can 'interrupt' another action. Attack of Ops, Readied actions, and Immediate actions being the only ones I can think of off hand that 'suspend actions' or 'interrupt actions'. Even taking that into account, I can't think of event that you'd do that suspends / interrupts your OWN actions. Some (drawing a weapon) allow you to do multiple 'events' as a part of an action (eg move and draw a weapon), but actually inserting a whole other action? .... Jump out a window and featherfall yourself? Not sure if you can continue your move after that though... Maybe 5 foot stepping when doing a full attack, but 5 foot steps are classed as 'Not an action'.

At any rate, There's feats that let you achieve this (move, attack, move), Spring Attack. Shoot on the Run. Flyby attack. I don't believe there is a matching one for casters for Move, Cast, Move (thank the gods). That there is a 'normal' stated with them as well I think that should be rules enough.

I do love infiltration missions.

Question. Do you need to sink or disable?

If that engine runs on heat / fire, I wonder how nasty throwing a vial of humble Brown Mold would be? I'd imagine 'Rapid and exponential growth' may feature prominently.

The GM has 2 choice on how to rule it at that point.... Either
a) The mold rapidly makes enough cold to maybe take over the engine room, kill the engine, but not much else.. Engine goes out and then proceeds to chill it completely. You now need to clear the mold (with cold AoE) hopefully without losing your engineering crew that was looking after the engine at the time. Then you need to re-start the engine, and re-heat a boiler before your moving again. That's going to be an interesting prospect if you weren't 100% thorough in your cleaning of the mold.

b) The engine maintains enough heat for there to now be a serious mold problem on the whole ship.

Depending on how your GM runs 'Fire bought within 5 feet' and if it needs to be actual fire or just heat / warmth.... dropping a Fire Trap on the door before leaving. I shudder to think about what Heat Metal might do in those conditions.

Or (alternately), if they are iron clad, not completely iron, there's always Warp Wood.

Ninja'ed by Bob. Line of effect breaks at the skin if you want to get picky.... Or just read the text...

"Unattended liquids are instantly reduced to sand. Liquid-based magic items (such as potions) and items in a creature's possession must succeed on a Will save (DC X) or be destroyed."

Is a creature an un-attended liquid? No.
Is a creature a liquid based magic item (such as a potion)? No.
Is a creature 'item in a creature's posession'. No. It's not an item.

Therefore it does nothing.

If you allow me to target 'parts of creatures' with effects that specify item and object, then suddenly you have Save or Die as a level 1 spell as I target Break on their C1 vertebra.

Probably this should be in advice, not rules.

Spells you are looking for are...
- Dream. (Or minor Dream)
- Sending.
- Planar Binding / ally on something with teleport.

That's without really trying too hard...

Yeah, a level 0 cantrip with a blast radius tends to throw people off a little, but it is quite cool.

Minor nitpick here...

The level of a word is also the minimum level of the spell slot that can be used to arrange that word into a wordspell.

Targetting word for Burst is lvl 1. No cantrip for you!

Your options for lvl 0 spells are Selected, Personal and 10 foot (un-boosted) cone.

Set wrote:

So, GM's call if the tiny animal can 'reach such a spot.'

True. But as a hypothetical player in this hypothetical game, I'd want a good reason why I couldn't reach "such a spot" given that they're damn near omnipresent in any realistic anatomy.

Rat stealthily walks up to ogre.

I also must confess, applying realism to Martial characters I find most amusing. If I hit a wizard with an axe, can he no longer cast spells because his arm would be too damaged to make the 'intricate motions' associated with spells? Or did cracking his jaw with a hammer render him unable to speak? Shall he suffer bleed because he just got stabbed? Ongoing damage and movement debuff because running when you've got 10 arrows in your legs? Perhaps a caster no longer ever being able to cast because (lets be honest) if he's ever been reduced to 0 hp, odds are he's had enough damage that you should be looking at Regen, because I'm fairly certain that 'Ruined Organs' and 'Broken bones' have kicked in by now...

What? Not supported by the rules you say? Well nor is the rogue not being able to sneak attack because he's vertically challenged. Shall we continue playing?

So yeah. I am having a hard time setting up illusions when the wizard says "I stop every 30 feet and cast detect magic" throughout the entire dungeon.

How do you stop it from going something like this every time:

Him: I cast detect magic. Is magic present?

Me: *sigh*, yes.

Him: *concentrates for 3 rounds* I make my K: Arcana roll. What school is it?

Me: *apply palm to face* Illusion.

Him: Aha! I carefully study the area. And if I can't get it, I tell everyone else it's an illusion for their +4 to disbelieve.

GM: Ok. Roll your will save.

Alternately, illusion magics by their very nature as supposed to be deceptive, there is a certain amount of 'supress this being noticable' built into it. We tend to run that Illusions can't be detected until you know that they are there. Traps we use the same for as well, although things like explosive runes, we would probably treat as triggering if you attempted to decipher the magic underneath it.

I more go for flavour than form when it comes to building a city.

What's the history of the kingdom / city? Is it fledgeling, never took a hold and is about to collapse in because of that, or did it used to be much larger and is now in final stages of collapse. This is probably your starting point because it can change the feel of the town completely and what to expect in the surrounding lands.

Eg. A once thriving kingdom that has shrunk is much more likely to have abandoned well to do buildings and stores in there that might have either been 're-purposed' into slums or just abandoned. There's more likely to be ruins that the forest has reclaimed or alike. Maybe old abandoned watch towers that the party can find that used to be the outer border of the city, but are now well and truely overgrown and collapsed. Potentially this gives the PCs a chance to reclaim and rebuild those buildings at a reduced cost.

The two towns will also have a vastly different feel to them as you go in. A collapsing old town might feel more like a ghost town when you wander around because even though there are a lot of buildings, there aren't enough people to fill them. Whole sections might have been abandoned. A struggling frontier town though won't have that feel and might even feel crowded in if people don't WANT to expand for whatever reason (Similar to the above maybe the fey just butcher anyone who ventures into the forest).

From there, work out the town mindset and mentality... Are they the few remaining people who are too proud or stupid to leave? Given the Fey are they paranoid about strangers (or maybe trade / blessings by the fey are the only reason the town is still here). Are they upbeat, but grizzled frontiersmen making a living on a 'harsh, but fair' landscape to be respected, or do they now hate it and see it as a long standing foe to be conquered.... How do they feel about the Fey? The Elves? The Dwarves? Are all of those common knowledge, and to what degree. Does everyone knows the story about the bogey men in the forest... but thinks they're just stories, or does once a month a dwarven tinker come down from the mountain to trade for... something or other.

More on a personal note? I'd be giving the cleric and his offsider a god. It's OK for them to respect all gods and allow them to be worshipped equally. Maybe there are small shrines to all the major gods (or just the 'good' ones) in the temple. But I'd give them a deity to worship based on what you want the town to feel like. A priest of Irori who spends hours a day in self contemplation and encourages others to do so will have a hugely different feel to (say) a priest of Erastil who preaches that labouring in the field for the benefit of the community is worship enough. What they preach may (or noticeably may not) affect the community does, and at the very least their relationship with the priests (and in turn how he treats them). The contemplative, but not 'active' priest of Irori the populace may dismiss as a useless navel gazer, and because of that rejection he might be slowly turning evil. Conversely, if everyone is attending the priest of Erastil's sermons given in the fields around lunch time because he's been working hard out there too, they may agree with him and have a great relationship with him.

Good gods.... Just once I would like to see a pally thread that does not devolve into an argument about.... heck... anything to be honest. One day I'm going to start a 'How does smite work' thread JUST so we can all agree about SOMETHING with pallys....

Assuming the OP is still checking in on this I was recently playing a pally, so I'll share how I was playing her.

She became a pally at a young-ish age and by this point in time was a well learned and VERY veteran campaigner. She'd seen enough of the world to know that she can't force change down other people's throats and she'd resolved herself to that fact. So she approached it differently.

She wanted to be an inspiration to others. Someone to look up to and think "When I grow up, I want to be her." not "Thank goodness psycho preachy girl left."

She'd also had a lot of the 'newbie shine' I guess knocked off her by being such an old campaigner.... she'd served in many 'front line' towns with other non-pallys in the military and had long ago accepted things like
- Yes... the fighters will drink and make bawdy jokes and go wenching. It's his way of un-winding and there's a lot more harmful things he could be doing instead.
- The barbarian drinks too... but at least while he's doing shots with me, he's not trying to pick a fight with WOEFULLY under levelled bouncers.
- Yes... the rogue will probably try and sneak around to watch me bathe. Your not going to spot him anyway, and after the years she's been campaigning... she half welcomes the thought of someone being close enough to help if she's ambushed.
- Yes... wizards did break the world, but not this wizard. Only give him a hard time about it when he needs to be reigned in.

You could never FORCE a change onto another person. They have to accept it. If you try to tell people what to do and can't back it up with a better reason than "Because I said so..." then your no worse than the people your supposed to be opposing. Your job is to pull the blinkers off people's eyes and be an inspiration to them not so that they do not choose evil because it will offend you or to shut you up... but for them to actively want to be good after you've left because you've shown them a much better way.

It's not your job to destroy evil. It's your job to oppose it and prevent it. This does not mean you need to murder everyone who crosses your path who seems evil. It means that if there is an evil plan hatching you need to prevent it. If that means disrupting a ritual by nabbing the sacrifice and running, then you perform a snatch and dash. If you can explain to the necromancer that his dead wife isn't going to come back as anything more than a zombie, then you make it clear to him.... and when he does it anyway, you contain the zombie, wait til he's worked it out himself, kill the zombie and set him back on the right path. You don't need to kill him if he's seen the error of his ways. He doesn't need a coffin. He needs help.

Every single evil creature or person that you kill is a soul consigned to the abyss (or hell) to be tortured for eternity before turning into another evil outsider for the next generation to fight. Killing an evil creature is the WORST possible outcome you can have. Showing an act of mercy and setting an evil creature on the path of redemption is VASTLY the preferred option. That doesn't mean you have to be a trusting moron. She (usually) viewed being force into taking an intelligent life as a failure on her part... even when it couldn't have been prevented (which happened more than a few times)

You should be the hand of your god / goddess, open to those who are around you with a helping hand to pick them up out of whatever they have fallen. If someone wants to have a go, then they will find very quickly that the helping hand is encased in mail, and can quickly become a fist... but you should never be actively seeking to kill things as a first option.

All of the above is just how I was playing her BTW... not any reflection of "Thou shalt play a pally this way and shouldst thou doth not play in accordance to the above, then thou are playing most grievously wrong-bad". Just saying.

Blink pops you ethereal in and out.

The entire Teleportation subschool goes via Astral.

Shadow walk ends you up on plane of shadow. You actually might want to take a look at the whole shadow subschool and what it is that makes it real. Shadow Conj explicitly says it is from the plane of shadow. Shadow subschool does not make it explicit, but... might be worth checking them out anyway

If your mucking around with the elemental planes, just be aware of implications when it comes to things like Elemental Bloodline in the sorce. You might need to re-jig the elemental damage types if you start going to Wood / Metal / Void (or whatever).

Probably missed some, but it's late and I am tired.

The comment about 'playing something completely different to what you thought' is starting to worry me. If I find spy cameras in my house....

The closes that I think I've come though to what your suggesting is back in yee olde days (non D&D) where we were playing a lot of 'Play as a ghost' (Wraith for those who know it). Was giving very serious thought to, again, build a char, build it from the ground up as a normal mortal person.... OK... so.... the bus your on careens over a cliff and you die... everyone leave your sheets as they are, but your now a wraith....

To pull something like that off though you really need a group that you can roll with the punches extremely well, and in your case though, one that can invest in the STORY your trying to tell, but not their OWN characters... That can be a real tall order sometimes, especially if someone loves the idea they have come up with, and then gets that yoinked out from under them in session 2. Plus, there is no real way of telling the players 'don't get attached' without hinting that these chars are NOT going to around for too long...

I'd probably say do slight tweak on it. Ask them to build a 'larger than life fairytale character' and write the (VERY approximate) story that they came out of. Doesn't have to be a 'hero' or the subject of the story, just a character of the story that would fit in. The kindly old witch who lives in the cottage. The fae / elven woodsman who talks to nature and knows the life of the forest. The trickster that is always breaking into barns for laughs and talking his way out of it. That's your introduction point is after they are dead and re-skinned (metaphorically). From there you can drop the hints that not all is what it seems with them. I'm guessing that they are going to be playing the FairyTale version of themselves more than the mundane, so it makes a lot more sense to have that as the char they are building. Backwards build the chars that they were from what their fairytale chars are. Absorb some of the aspects of who they are into the 'mundane' version. Maybe the kindly White Witch was the local herbalist. The mysterious elf who never misses is the local huntsman, who might have some (very diluted) elven blood in him.

First hint (depending on how perceptive your party is) is to have them actively recognize that they feel a bond together, but they know they are from different stories and really shouldn't know eachother...

Ooooooh..... Now that's clever.

Specifically, FoM allows you to move and attack normally for the duration, even if under other magical effects. Then goes on to talk about Pin and grapple, but that's un-important in this case. Core argument is in the opening statement that you can move and attack normally. You could argue that Dazed / Stunned and alike are not allowing you to 'move and attack normally' if viewed at from a certain Point of View because you can't take those actions.

I think it's rubbish, but potential case could be made... right up until you extrapolate it out to unconscious. Do that and prepare to get laughed off the table.... or Dead I guess. Do spells end when you die? That might be moderately funny arguing that because you had FoM running you can still keep moving and attacking while dead....

Is this a rules question or advice question?

Rules: Many, but not all, devices are based on if spell is on your list or alike (spell trigger / spell completion). If the spell is NOT on the wizard list, then you need to resort to UMD to activate it. Similarly, there are a number of items that only function for classes / alignments. UMD could be used to bypass such things. Eg. Robes of the Archmagi are aligned and your could emulate alignment on them to get around the negative levels of a mis-aligned one if your GM throws it in.

Advice: I can take it or leave it on a wizard, and to me it's mostly up to you and the fluff of the char. I would 100% recommend UMD to a sorc because it's a class skill AND is Char based so your far more likely to get better in it quicker. Less so with a Wizard. It feels more right on a sorc for some reason to me. Dunno why. That said, being able to cast a cleric scroll CAN be important if your planning on Ressing your dead cleric friend. Being able to keep solidering on rather than running back to town for a res can be worthwhile.

Everything depends on what level and how accessible this 'thing' needs to be (and size / type to a degree).

If your willing to go the whole hog, Temporal Stasis removes the need to eat / drink etc etc, but you need to dispel it at the end. It's also 8th level.

Flesh to stone probably has the same effect,(though reading the desc is doing my head in). Minor drawback that you need a fort save to come back. Jury is out on if you could shrink someone with it (Oddly, doesn't explicitly state that you either receive the petrified condition).

Alternately.... if this is just for some random terror mission.... Hit up what you want sent with Ice Crystal Teleport and drop it in that way.

How flexible is your story / campaign?

You wake up one morning after resting in the inn and he's not there any more. Perception checks reveal there's no signs of a struggle, but scuff marks around the window sill which suggest he left through there rather than the front door. Craft (Poisons) reveal a faint, but distinctive odour of some breed of sleeping poison in the bottle of wine still in the room. Gather information (diplomacy these days from memory) can be used to track down some of the shady types who can identify it (or maybe one of them specialises in poisons).

From here, does the rest of the party care enough to investigate? If not, it will be one of the great (HA!) unsolved (giggle) mysteries of their time (LOL!)... Right up until you use that char as a now minor henchmen of whoever the BBEG is.

Doing it this way gives power back to the PCs to control what happens. If they choose to ignore what's happened and look sullen because they assumed he'd "Just left", the reveal will be all that much better when it happens. You can drop hints along the way that now there is someone working against them that seems to have a bit more knowledge of their inner workings... Eg. If they manage to intercept a note or something, they are actually now referring to the PCs by name rather than just 'That elf with the bow'. Perhaps there is a targeting on things the PCs care about (family, towns, favoured inns, lovers, whatever).... things to suggest that the game has changed.

OTOH, if they choose to follow the leads, then they can choose to hunt the ex-PC down themselves. You have a ready made 'end of plot arc' baddie who DOES have intimate knowledge of the PCs abilities and tactics, and even ignoring whatever he does in the mean time, once they find out who is behind it all, they have a definite reason to pursue that goal. If they just go plain vengance, they might be able to get some further contacts or disrupt the BBEGs plan a little by working out who recruited him and getting information from either the ex-PC or his lackeys.... If they subvert him however, they get to feed mis-information to the BBEG for a while.

Attempting to drown out some of the angst in here and get back on track.

More books tends to open up more opportunities. This in turn opens up more combinations that can be effective, or can boost the effectiveness of existing combinations or builds. The more books you have in play, the harder it is for Paizo to make the correct checks and balances against every class to make SURE that everything is balanced and equal in there and that feat X from UM plus feat Y from UC doesn't end up with an Uber death machine. Even ignoring abilities interacting with eachother, there are always solid choices from each book and choices that are sub-par. At the very least, if there are more options / books in play, there should be more 'solid' choices in play for people to use instead of good (but less good) ones from other books.

To a degree.

Remember, everything though has to be paid for in one form or another. Finding a spare feat for wizard to take 'Intensify Spell' because they believe it is powerful can be challenging and can end up making your char vastly more one dimensional and less flexible as you tear out other 'general' feats for it. Where this theory falls down slightly is when it comes to casters and when spells get buffed. They just need to wander into town, find the magic shop and buy a scroll of it to scribe in. For Divine casters it's even easier of they just pray for the thing the day after the book is released. Yes, it means that they have less other spells around, but casters get almost all of their flexibility straight up without having to rebuild.

Ultimately, though it will depend on your group. If they look at the books as opportunities to min max, then guess what? They will use them to min max, and you might have power creep. The good news is that they were probably more effective than they should have been anyway. OTOH, if someone looks at things like betrayer and wave strike and thinks to themselves that a social / surprise attack rogue would be an awesome char and effectiveness be damned, then no, your not going to have power creep.

seebs wrote:

When did 3.5E have a "help line"?

I'm surely no expert, but I doubt they ever did.

Far more likely, it seems to me, that this dork made a bad ruling and then, when he had the chance to man-up and say "Oh, I guess I made a mistake" he took the coward's way out and made up a lie to rationalize his bad ruling "Yeah, see, this one time, yeah, I, ummmmm, uhhhh, called the hotline. Yeah, that's it. The hotline. And they TOLD me you have to prepare the spell to use the wand. Yeah, that's it. The hotline said so, so I'm right! Really! It's true! So, uhh, nyaa nyaa!"

Or something like that.

I confess that I am more bemused by someone in one breath being 'new to the system' and 'playing fast and lose with the rules' on that basis, and yet in the next seeming to claim some extensive experience with 3.5 to the point that you know better than the printed rules. There are changes between PF and 3.5, however many of the core rules remain the same (the material wording in this instance is identical in D20 SRD vs PFSRD for spell trigger). It's not like you've sudden gone from THACO to BAB, nor save vs 'Wand, Staff or Rod / Death / Petrification etc' to 'Will / Fort / Ref'. He doesn't perchance refer to Wizards as 'Magic Users' and Rogues as 'Thieves' by any chance, does he?

Another thought occurs though given the above.... Not having ever dipped my toes into that particular pond with any depth, but he's not potentially getting something from 4th Ed muddled here, is he? Wasn't a wand in 4th nothing more than a way to improve a spell / power you could already cast?

Jarl wrote:

Claxon wrote:

It seems likely that a paladin would recognize an angel or archon and talk to them rather than fight. There would have to be some very specific circumstances to cause the two to fight one another. Without more information I would say they wouldn't fight as their general goals are the same.

Guarding a room may be the angels order, but he is not mindless. Guarding it from what? Guarding it for what? What is he guarding? If the party manages to arrive at the room under great need, is it unreasonable that the paladin could address the angel and inform him of the circumstances and convince him to allow him to pass? I think it's more reasonable that an angel would understand the paragon of goodness that is the paladin and help him in any reasonable way possible.

So a LAWFUL good angel is going to disobey orders for a mortal? Really?

Quite possibly. I'm not saying you're going to walk in and he's going to let you pass without any concern, but the chances that you (as a paladin) can find a way to peacefully gain access to the mcguffin by convincing the angel of your need, and of his gods desire, for you to access the item...it's seems far more likely than a paladin walking into the room with the angel and just deciding that "Hey, that angel wont let me prance on it to what I want so I'm going to kill him!".

Possible, but by no stretch guaranteed.

I'd actually say that the reverse is far more likely of the pally walking up having the angel / archon explain to them and them deciding to agree that yes, the angel is right. Consider for a second that regardless of what you've been told, you have the EMBODIMENT of everything that is GOOD and JUST and what you are supposed to stand for in this world standing in front of you saying "Not going to happen." Ignoring that warning and continuing the course without at least looking at other options would be an absolutely massive act of hubris. In that act, your basically saying that you know better than whoever put that Angel there (who almost certainly is well up the celestial chain of command, has access to far more information than you do, and is far older, wiser and more powerful than you). So I'm explicit, no, I'm not suggesting fall, but he should have a few 'message from god' dreams for a few weeks.

The alternate answer from the Angel might be to the effect of "Sorry. I was charged to guard this vault against all intruders. These order came from upon high and we were told that unsealing this would be worse than anything that might be going on. They not have been aware of whatever it is your facing, but I'm putting my money on they were because... again... the whole upon high part. I respect your quest. I wish you no ill will. Rest here if you want and I will watch over you, but find another way to complete your task or I swear by me I will end you and consign your souls to oblivion for eternity to make sure you do not threaten my sacred charge EVER again. "

Or finally, they might believe that the Pally is earnest, but has been deceived. It might be far more likely that they believe a mere mortal can be deceived to work against them than they believe that their superiors (who might be the right hand of a GOD remember) didn't anticipate or have an inkling that they might be imprisoning something they'll need later in there. Or maybe they did anticipate it being required and allowed for people to pass as long as they uttered the right pass phrase which has been lost in history (blasted mortals and their finite lifespans. I go for a nap, wake up, and suddenly everyone's dead of old age!)... but the Angel can't give these hints because of whatever rules it's under... or for fear that they might mention this to the wrong people and they'd go get the password by force and your back to the pally being a dupe again.

Social / RP situations a lot of people find a lot harder to work with. They aren't everyone's cup of tea. They require a heck of a lot more prep work than 'flip to page X of Bestiary Y and roll initiative'.

Couple of noteworthy that I like throwing out there (IMOHO)

- Put something Wolvesbane does REALLY in conflict with the PCs. Not a 'YARGH.... Draw your swords and fight me' conflict, but a political / moral conflict. Say he endorses slavery. Say that they have gladiator games where the slaves are outfitted by their sponsors and have to fight.... not even for their freedom.... just fight til you lose and die. Say that on one of the days they are in court, he hands out a death sentence to a random peasant for what might seem a trivial crime, and thinks it justified and right, not just a random event (or maybe that it is random and that would be more scary to the PCs that murder is a 10GP fine, but stealing a loaf of bread it a flogging, then hung drawn and quartered). This can also work in with things like Druids / Rangers and having a national pastime of Bear baiting or something suitably offensive to the nature-y types.

- Approaching from the other end put some more court intrigue in there. Have wolvesbane as a genuinely nice and amicable fellow to everyone, but someone in the court (the grand vizier.... no-one trusts them) manipulated things such that the wedding was cancelled and they have the princess stashed somewhere or other. Do the PCs side with the vizier to ensure that wolvesbane does join the kingdom, or find the princess in the hope of earning Wolvesbane's trust and loyalty that way (but probably guaranteeing that they won't join the kingdom).

The miffic version mage armour is +6 and medium fortification.

What are you wearing on your arms? At a certain point, I usually give up on MA and head back to bracers as they go up to +8 (albeit it costs you an arm and a leg for that).

... Added penalties are unnecessary and really just set up a mentality "GM vs Players" which is a poor situation to have. ...

How so? Assuming, that is, that the GM is bound by the same rules as the players are? If the same rules apply, I don't see the issue, and the difference between something being annoying ("You only have a standard or a move next turn, not both") vs awesome cinematics ("The goblin looks up from behind shocked eyes as it realises that from out of inevitability, and the impossible has occurred. It's still alive. Your overhand swing burying your axe to the haft in a crossbeam... You'll need to spend a move action pulling it out next turn.") is all in the delivery.

We play a Nat 1 on the first attack of a round is a fumble. Be it a ray, touch attack or sword strike. If it can crit, it can fumble. That helps mitigate (a little) on the Martial vs Caster difference. Only ever one chance of it fumbling a round, not matter how many attacks.

D100 for level of severity. 95 or higher, roll again and add (and so on until roll less than 95). Tyically Anything less than 50 is more embarrassing than life threatening. Dropping a sword. Fall prone. Snapping a bow string. Things that disable your attack routine that round and will probably cause you to lose a chunk of next round as well, but rarely a life threatening situation. By the time your in the 90s, your rolling attacks on adjacent allies. I once managed to roll 267 and rules were waived as I dealt a death attack with my assassin to an undead cohort.

Ironically, it exploded in shower of negative energy and killed the BBEG who we were COMPLETELY boned against at that point in time. I'm still not sure to this day if our GM is relieved that I found a way out, or feels cheated for me nudging him down the path that ended up with that outcome.

So opinions on what I should call the samurai reskin?

Einherjar.

Yee fripping GODS I could have some fun with an order founded around that in a high magic world...

Its not the spellcasting I'm worried about, its all of the abilities.

What specifically are you worried about here? That a pally in a low magic world is going to be unbalanced because they are a pally, or because of all their 'magic' they are going to break the 'theme' of the world?

If your worried about balance, are you changing any other classes core abilities as well? If you are.... best of luck to you. I hope the game balance works out OK, but there is little advice I can give you. I haven't done the maths on low magic worlds and how they affect what classes and what becomes OP vs not.

If your not doing rebalance on the other classes, then I'd stay away from doing it here. If your after something less 'magical' then have a look at the Cavalier and Samurai class (strip out the Knight and Japanese themeing if you want and re-skin it), but if your worried about pallys breaking the theme of the world, then just have them as 'NPC only'. Resign pallys to being a 'prestige' class in your world. These ARE now your rare holy knights that a 'True' paladin might be the captain of the guard at a large temple... not every single guard on duty there.

The other alternative is to re-skin some other things about the class and keep the mechanics the same. Have them as faithful warriors, but they are sustained by their own faith, not the gods empowering them. Their devotion and drive is what sets a pally apart from a mere fighter, NOT the gods.

- Change hitpoint damage to fatigue, tiredness, poor morale and 'luck' and LoH and Channel becomes inspiring speeches.
- Detect evil becomes training in identifying a jotun's blood in a person or alike. Alternately, just a 'sixth sense' of if you pay attention to him carefully, you can get a feel for what sort of a person he is (queues similar to high sense motive)
- Grace.... low magic means this shouldn't come up as much, but could be runic wards and alike, or just 'Yeah... we train them to be tough as nails'. Similarly with divine health. Same with Aura of Resolve.
- Aura of courage... Again, nothing more than inspiring leadership to others, and refusing to break that example to the pally himself.
- Smite evil, re-skin cosmetically as something similar to the Cav / Samurai challenge, but leave otherwise as is.
- Divine weapon bond becomes tricky in low magic because it's designed and scales for a 'normal' magic world. You might have issues with the balance there if at 8th he can take his +1 sword (uber rare in low magic).... and make it a keen, flaming +1 sword... Again, if it's just a reskin your after, have him throw wildfi.... I mean Alchemist's fire on the blade. Once you've got this power anyway though, your into caster territory for a pally anyway. You could leave this as is as a specialised 'summon' spell for pallys.

Don't forget rule 1: It's a game and is supposed to be fun, if you're not enjoying it then you're doing it wrong.

Why was this not in the original list? Someone give this man / woman / brain-sucker a cigar.

It might sound like a stupid statement or a generally 'given' or 'duh' when you hear it, but it's one I think that a lot of people overlook or forget after a while. I know I have once or twice. Ultimately, your there to have fun and enjoy yourself. If your not, then why the heck are you doing it? EVERYTHING else in this list should be folding into that. It's not about winning or losing or being the baddest or a god mage or a DPS fighter of doom, or the best healer cleric or proving that the alignment system works (or doesn't).

It's about having fun.

Expectations of the group aren't meshing? This affects fun. Unresolved 'out of game' conflict (remembering that PVP or other 'in party' conflict can quickly bleed into 'out of game')? This affects fun. EVERY decision you make as a GM (or a player for that matter) should be cavet-ed with a final check of 'Is this going to make it more fun for me? The other players? The GM?"

If the answer is 'No', then why are you doing it again?

Ain't nobody got time foh dat!

Hand it off to another player. It worked fine in Wraith: The oblivion over a decade ago, no reason it wouldn't work today.

<twitch> Gods save us from Shadow....

To the OP.... might I offer a suggestion as well. How does he want the voices in his head to play out? Haunted by a bunch of spirits where there are multiple voices whispering to him, that may follow him around or just vary a little area by area? Does he just have a mental condition and believe there is a magical voice in his head called 'The doctor' that alternates between saying 'Trust me' and 'RUN!!!!'.

Also, ask they player what they think you having that is going to do to benefit things overall, and where he'd like to see that sort of plot arc go.

If your going with the 'random spirit thing', then you'd want to look at what sorts of area your in and what the spirits in that area might want. Eg. A graveyard (just to continue the wraith example above) might have spirits begging for the barbarian to find or look after a loved one, or to find their lost teddy.... alternately they might be screaming for bloody vengeance against their murderers.

If he thinks that they should be fixed personalities then take the time to work up the personality in question and what it'll add.... and WHO this personality really is. Imaginary friend. Disposessed soul of his dead twin sister that has taken up residence in a tribal fetish. The best one I could think of here would be an Avatar of his totem (if he's going that sort of barbarian). He doesn't need to know this and can be saved for a reveal later, but remember that it IS a team game. You don't want his story overshadowing the rest of the AP and the party. He's just one part of it.

What I'd probably do is read through the AP and find a couple (no more than 1 or 2) of key points in the AP that the voice can give him some instruction based on whatever the voice's agenda is. It might be good, it might be bad. It might be a mixture of both. Create it as a living, breathing NPC with an agenda and work out how that agenda will fit in with the AP (which should hopefully be a mixture of both). Eg. If her sister's soul is the plaything of a given demon prince (and she's evil to the core), she might want see the prince de-stabalised as much as possible, but the general 'evil' of the world left alone (for her to recruit if / when she ascends to being a demon).

BBT.... question.

You want a lawful 'Thief'. What's he going to steal? What's he doing? What's going to happen with <<whatever>> afterwards. Or are you after a way to play a Lawful char with a Thief skill set?

If your just after someone with appropriate sneak / hide / spot traps etc skills, an assassin concept could readily be what your after. Strict code (I don't kill people... unless I get paid, don't give up my employer etc etc etc). Nothing in 'assassin' really means your are OBVIOUSLY a homocidal manic.

Taking that sort of concept and just doing it as pure thief could be a just 'Hired Thief'. Not someone who steals for himself, but steals things for other people. Eg. That Noble stole my antique heirloom vase, and I want it back, but I don't want to cause a public political scene by getting to authorities involved. Flip side would be planting evidence at a site instead of removing objects. A rogue who can be trusted to keep his mouth shut could have a LOT of work in the political or commerce scene (spike that brew of mead with rat poison). He'd probably screen his targets a little so that anything he did wasn't going to upset the status quo or create a riot, but it's a thought.

Could alternately go for a more 'public' and less 'shadow ops' be a 'security consultant' who gets hired to test building security (A-la the beginning of Sneakers for those that have seen it). They attempt to sneak in not to steal things, but to test the building security. Write up a report to the bank afterwards on how that drainpipe needs to be moved or there's a hole in the guard's patrol routes etc.

Final option I can think of would just be a tomb crasher. Either in the employ of a university or the crown or a museum, someone who delves into long lost dungeons looking for the loot, in this case object d'art from forgotten civilisations or from era's long past. Difference being that in his case he's actually a sanctioned agent recovering them for the state or a university. What would set him apart from a standard 'bard archaeologist' archetype would be that while he might be INTERESTED in history, he might not have the intelligence or knowledge to be a true historian to that an archaeologist might. Rather handling the field work of clearing sites and getting things for a 'real' archaeologist that is 100 yards back, or an armchair archaeologist back in their wizard tower.

I am confused as to the purpose here....
Rules
RAW, brawny gets an AaO. Brainy has instigated an action that attracts an AaO, therefore he gets subjected to one. OTOH, if the wizard had a reach weapon, he would disarm outside of reach of the barbarian. No AoO is provoked.

Options for visual manifestation
Remember without improved disarm, brainy has no specialist training in how to effectively perform a disarm and how to defend himself while doing so (provoking an AaO). Forget dashing swordsman and think.... Rincewind.

AaO hits, no disarm attempt. Brainy thrusts his sword out in the hope of achieving something, but has it smashed aside by Brawny's axe with contemptuous ease (AoO). The backswing and may or may not collect his ribcage in the next step (actual attack).

AaO misses, disarm fails. Brainy blocks the incoming swing (AaO) and slide his sword down the haft of the axe attempting to damage or sever Brawny's fingers to make Brawny lose his grip on the axe (disarm). Brainy then screams like a schoolgirl as he realises that while the sword is going towards brawny's fingers, he did in fact NOT block the swing, and the axe is coming towards his head. He quickly aborts the attempt to inconvenience Brawny in favour of not dying immediately (disarm failing). See backswing above for the actual charge attack.

AaO misses, Disarm succeeds. Brainy strikes true on brawny's forearm, jarring brawny's hand long enough to drop the axe (Disarm). Brawny doesn't break stride and grabs brainy's shirt, pulling him in for a headbutt (Unarmed strike).... dragging Brainy's still outstreched sword into his chest in the process (Nat attack AaO). Brawny's final dying words are etched on his tombstone "Your... dice... are... broken..."

Rules changes
There's a house rules / home brew forum a bit lower down (I didn't know about it for years). You might have better luck there.

My .02
RAW is fine. AaOs manifest when your unable to protect yourself properly, or your not dedicating time to your defence. Doing exceptions based on readied actions cheapens the feats involved (When he blinks, I'll grapple him so he can't AoO me because it's a readied action).

Now that's a question..... ARE there actual rules on spell stacking at all? Regardless of it's "Practical" intent?

Eg.... I cast Bull str twice on my barbarian, they will only get a single +4 str (enh bonuses don't stack), but do I now need to dispel it twice to get rid of it?

Maybe a better example of something you might actually want to do is False Life. +Temp HP while in effect... Greater doesn't stack with lesser, but.... If there's no rules about spells not stacking with themselves, you would be able to argue that RAW you stack them as many times as you want.... Good luck with that at my table, but there's a case there.

Completely off topic....

I'm curious, what is the currently held record for thread necromancy? This is rating up there for the highest I've seen....

If you want to get really technical you can have the wizard roll the concentration check but in the damage dealt part of the equation put 0.

I'd disagree.

The phrasing (in the SRD at least) is "If you take damage...". Unless the target took damage, no need for a con check. Implication from that I guess is that also if your DR is enough, you wouldn't need to make a check either.

Paladin's Sacrifice is that the pally is affected as if they were hit, taking all damage blah blah blah.

Pally's sacrifice means the target takes no damage. 0 damage = 0 con check required.

I didn't think so, but apparently I was wrong. Hollow pommel. Adventuring Gear. Page 66.

Wording on it though implies that you store another object in there, not just fill it up with potion.

Doing exactly what you describe probably ventures into house rules or DM discretion though. I'm guessing whoever it is is looking at the action economy and trying to keep their move action (normally to retrieve an item). I can see arguments either way...

Assuming it's in a flask in the pommel, I could also see someone saying that you can draw it fine, but you need to retrieve the item from pommel (as a retrieve item action) and it's a 0 sum gain.

If your willing to just fill the pommel up with potion (ignoring the ick and cleaning factor)... well... here's what I want you to do... get a cup of water and see how long / hard it is to drink it. Now, stickytape said cup of water onto the end of a 5 foot long, 12 pound battleaxe (which the sharp heavy end away from the cup) and you tell me if it's just as easy as the 'quaff a potion' standard action you took drinking from the cup.

Brother Alester wrote:

...

...

My experience has been that a lot of players do not like to invest in those things because they fear there will be too many occasions when they will not be useful. Personally, I'm not a big fan of just giving them these things (though the mounts could be an exception as they could be given to the party as a reward or at the start of a quest, etc.) I'm just not a big fan of handing out free feats and skills. If the party cannot figure out that they need to learn how to travel and fight in the air in an aerial campaign, then just handing them stuff isn't likely to help matters later on.
...

I hear you on that one. Case in point is climb. There is a skill that only really is relevant before you can buy potions of fly, in an anti magic zone, or GM fiat of "Prove you are the strongest" sort of things... Swim for me falls into a similar category, and commonly ride because I can't take a horse into a dungeon corridor and keep a straight face. Because the DCs for flying are so low for anything that isn't "combat-y', you don't need to invest in fly for getting around in that sort of world...

Unless your an adventurer and plan on fighting while flying. Even then.... DCs cap out at 20 (36 in a tornado and are you REALLY going to be flying in one of them?)

Make it known that this is an airborne campaign and that they will need to cater for that. There will be large open spaces with flying critters in it and no floor / ceiling commonly. Then let things land where they players end up going. People might think swim is a bit of a waste, but I'll bet most everyone looked at it REAL hard for skulls and shackles (unless they deliberately wanted to do a 'land lubber' character for RP giggles anyways). Why? Because it was appropriate and you knew you probably wouldn't end up just wasting skill points on it. Someone might want to play a really uncomfortable flier and run with being an extreme ranged bowman to get around it. Perfectly acceptably char that if you were handing out free skill points and feats, you now need to work around to get him 'balanced' against the free stuff everyone else got.

On a different topic, there was an cloud castle in one of the OLD books that I had at one point that had a giant scoop / dredge thing on it that regularly the inhabitants would just drop into a lake for water supplies or just scoop up a whole farm if they needed more food. That's a simple way of getting them up there from the ground if you wanted. They camp out one night, and awake in the middle of the night to find themselves being scooped up along with some firewood trees and already some 100 feet already in the air. From there are they non-persons, slaves, offered citizenship as an apology, offered to be dropped back down, the whole thing a set up by an Seer who sees that they will need them and throws them their plot hook... ?

...i've seen widened ones that claim to be 20' tall. ..

I wish to make a joke about Heighten Spell.

More seriously, fluff aside the 20' radius spread on a fireball is no different to the 20' radius spread on a black tentacles. Given that they have the same mechanical area, why would they be any different in function? Given that, I'd say think of it more as a bunch of 20 foot long tentacles pop up from that point and grab everything they can lay their.... suckers?... rather than a sea of smaller tentacles popping up in a 20 foot radius.

It's funny, you know.

I wonder how often pallys actually rely on their holy sight because of the number of ways to get around it, or whether that topic is even touched on in pally school.

"So yeah... we've got this holy sight thing that will tell if someone is evil. But only if they're over a certain number of HD or are a cleric / anti-paladin or an outsider. And there's a few magic items around that any even remotely subtle guy will have, or some not uncommon spells... and god help you (ha ha) if your actually going against a Master Spy because those guys are so hardcore they'll even trick a Holy Smite into thinking they're not evil... So by the time it becomes useful, USUALLY, it'll be readily counter-able by anyone who is prepared." Or whether they just sweep that under the rug there comments to the general public of "Infallible god vision said he was evil. Nothing to see here but the dead body of an evil doer... brother Jeeves, you prepped atonement this morning right?"

My favourite 3.5 Rogue / Assassin kept teasing our pally wanna-be by changing her alignment with magic fairly regularly. She'd detect as evil one day, but not the next. It proved an educational experience for him in terms of "Magic voices whispering in your head if someone is evil or not shouldn't always be trusted."

<shrug> Re-skin the world and use the game rukles as a framework. You want music as the core thing? Great.... Work with me here for a minute guys... Assume that music is the core of MAGIC.

Clerics are now doing their channels and spells through hymns. Their music is a resonance across the planes that allows gods / devils / demons / whatevers to reach through to this world and touch it.

Wizards... well.... wizards do a Lord of the Rings and try to sing down mountains. They take to the hard end study of magic as their core focus, with their musical exploits being a side effect. In the same way that a master blacksmith learns how to haggle as a side effect of having to sell things, wizards learn music as a side effect of having to handle magic.

Bards approach the magic equation from the other end. They delve into music and what music means, in the process finding out that music crafts the world around them through seemingly magical effects.

Sorcs and oracles are drawn to magic / music by their bloodline and have an inherent understanding of it. Maybe as a generic rule they don't even see the two as different things, but rather different aspects of the same thing. Same as modern understanding of heat and movement.... it's all movement really, but try telling that to someone who didn't do physics / chem.

Identify what school of magic something is by what key it's written in. The more complex a piece of magic is, them more complex the music for it is. For a cantrip, you might have something the complexity of 'Twinkle Twinkle little star'. On the other hand, Gate might be a 5 part harmony dirge in F sharp minor. Oh.... and just in case it wasn't clear, you have to sing all the parts as well. At the same time.

There. Music is now central to every casting related class. It's up to you to come up with the rest of the world to go with it. Is magic just reactive to music when it's sung by the right sort of mind. Maybe creation was brought into being though the OneSong and all music is just a fragment of that song, and each fragment provides mastery over an 'aspect' of the world.

That's about an hour of thinking on making music integral to a world. I'm sure others can do better with more time. Now go forth and play whatever you want.

My .02 is that the reduction in damage dice size is to directly take into account that most things aren't supposed to be immmune / resistant to force effects. Your taking a discovery for the explicit reason of using it against creatures that are either
a) Fire (and maybe any other elemental type you took) resistant / immune
b) Incorporeal

Running some numbers for a minute

At 9th level your 5D6 fire damage vs a 5D4 force damage. It's 17.5 vs 12.5. Prior to here (the whole level of it) your better off throwing force bombs at anything with fire resist 5. Here is a break even point.
Past here, your ACTUALLY still better off throwing fire bombs at resist 5. Course.... anything more than 5 and it's force bombs all the way. At the same level, your behind on damage by 3.75 (+ half int modifier) vs incorporeal targets if you use a fire bomb vs a force bomb. Irritating, but no more so than when a pally makes a reflex save vs a fireball.

Do those numbers sound out of line with (say) Feral Mutagen that is available at 1st? Explosive bomb? Dispelling Bomb? Confusion bomb?

Your also contending Force Bombs vs Fast bombs at that level. Fast bombs is a non-trivial thing to delay (at least in my opinion). Your numbers skew again if your taking into account multiple attacks in a round (albeit you run out more quickly). Also given that there is only 1 discovery applicable to any 1 bomb at any time...

Looking at it like that, I think it's a strong discovery, but by no means overpowering.

This is a common issue that players run into. The "potion of fly" response is fine if your only reasonable battle tactic is to melee in some way. It is generally better to be able to have some legitimate ranged attacks. I don't think I've ever played a character in 35+ years to an enemy flying is "OMG! It's FLYING! What do I do now?" Every character I have can do SOMETHING against flying creatures.

In many cases if you find yourself in a situation where you have to fight a flying creature, you can just run away and find some way to force the creature to come to you.

But if you can't, and your character is, for some reason, stuck with his/her only viable combat option being to swing a pointy stick, then you better buy some potions of fly or just stand there and root for the characters that haven't put all their eggs in one easily overcome basket.

I kinda have to agree here. You need to look at your chars strengths and work out how to play to those strengths and what to do if something tries to avoid your strengths. Doesn't matter what your building, this should be something you think about.

Building a melee monster that has no option to deal with chars that are 'at range' (be it up a 100 foot cliff, flying, or over a chasm), is a sure way to fail Sooner or later, your going to encounter something that can either stay at range, or something similar. Unless you planned for this and have a backup, your contribution to the engagement is going to be limited to being an overpaid cheerleader.

Single focus works as long as you can bring the focus to bear. Same as a sorc or wizard needs to plan for the day when the GM sends something resistant / immune to fire against them, a fighter needs to plan for what to do if the GM doesn't play to his build's strengths.

At least it's not a 5000gp diamond....

We save the diamonds for the number of people casting "Raise Thread" around here. Either that or for resto's for the wis damage inflicted reading Pally fall and alignment threads.

Though given the cost of Taliskers 30y old... anyone remember the GP -> dollar conversion that someone ran up based on beer? Or what thread it lived in?

Tybalt Baneko wrote:

Say a fighter gets a way to cast this, an item of some sort. EVERY CASTER THAT ISNT FASTER THAN HIM DIES.

Not sure what you mean by that. An Anti-Magic field only has a range of 10 feet.

If a caster's turn starts with the fighter adjacent to the caster, the caster needs only distance himself 10 feet from the fighter to escape. Even with Following Step, a fighter can't stop small sized casters from successfully moving 20 feet. Any caster who doesn't have an escape spell and goes up against an opponent who can use a spell with a minimum CL of 11 is either ill-prepared or doomed from the start.

Stand Still is highly situational, but also highly useful, feat. I love it for any 'crowd control / bodyguard' builds. Improved / greater grapple similarly can wreak havoc with your escape attempts as your freedom of movement is now supressed. Gods help you if your GM allows NPCs to use antagonize. 10 foot range means that you ARE spending a move action getting out of there. If you can force the standard (or another move) to be used for something else, then the fighter just steps up to you the folllowing round and your back to square 1. Even things as simple as tanglefoot bags or trip attempts can force problems in the concept of getting far enough out of the AoE and still having enough actions left.

DC 31 UMD isn't really that far beyond reach for a fighter (or monk, or barbarian, or ranger) who didn't dump Char. It's not going to be happening at level 1, but.... max ranks, trait (I be there is a UMD trait somewhere), skill focus.... rogue with the 'I can take 10 on whatever' talent (Skill mastery?). Rapidly stacks up to something not even rolled by the time your around 10th... ironically BEFORE the wizard can cast it.

Thanks, lighter. You saved me a lot of reading.

And I must confess.... still not sure how this can not be open and shut. If we highlight that a little differently...

"... the character gains new spells per day as if she had also gained a level in a spellcasting class she belonged to before adding the prestige class..."

Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't the fact that the first sentence is in reference to 'spells per day' render the whole sentence pointless when it comes to arguing about 'Spells Known'? Without the second sentence (which makes explicit Spells per day, spells known and CL increase) you'd only gain a Spells per Day progression, not CL or Spells Lnown. See above for comments about Spells Known.

With respect to casting, it isn't explicit that it must be on your 'Spells Known' list, merely that you must 'know' it, and that bloodline spells are 'learned'. The SRD version (at least) of the Ring of spell knowledge doesn't say it's added to your 'Spells Kknown' only that you gain knowledge of it may now cast it as if it is on your 'class list' (which to me more commonly means the 'Sorc / Wizard spell list' not your 'Spells Known'). The Page of Spell knowledge though DOES make it explicit it's added to your Spells Known. I wonder if (taking a strict RAW approach) this would make a difference in the instances of UMD-ing an 'out of class' item or pre-reqs for crafting items...

Do I agree with the call.... meyh... I think I saw some mention of witch patron spells and cleric domains elsewhere. I think I saw oracle also mentioned. I think they should be consistent. I don't overly care what that consistent is, but I don't want to hunt through on if a pally with oath against badness gets them, because it's different to a Druid with a domain.