So to preface this, let me go ahead and list the party:
Human Samurai
Tiefling Spellslinger/EK
Human Druid (Weather Domain, so no AC)
Half-elf Ranger (Switch hitter with a cat AC)
Gnome Cleric 6/ Rogue 6
All level 12, and above WBL guidelines. If you think you're in this group, you're one of my players, so stop reading!
Now the situation. They are in book five and are currently on part three. I'll put the rest in a spoiler so people don't freak out about it.
Current Sit-rep:
The group was having some significant trouble when they first entered the Shadow Maze. They fell back to the town and regrouped for an assault the following day. They managed to get up to Yugureda Shosaito without any real difficulty this time, mainly because they made most of the correct choices in the maze.
To be frank, he tore them up something fierce. To complicate it, the party couldn't deal with the summons quickly enough, so he just pelted them with his lightning and laughed as they struggled.
As a last ditch effort though, the party fled (using a teleportation magic, with the bodies of the two women. At this point, Yugureda is at about 50% on his spells and 95% on his health. The party has taken the bodies, but left the soul, so we are at a bit of a stand-off.
Alright, so now the advice I'm seeking. How would you run Yugureda's attempt to either destroy the party or at least retrieve the women? I assume he would probably wait to recover his spells, but what then? He needs the bodies, and the party needs the soul.
If you've gotten this far through my post, then I appreciate the forthcoming sage advice.
As per RAW, I don't think there would be any increase to the DC of the climb check. Since there is a save or be knocked prone by Sirocco, I would treat that as falling and use the rules for that under the climb skill. Under the "Catch yourself while falling" heading in the Climb skill. You're already getting a significant penalty to climb out of the fatigued / exhausted conditions imposed by Sirocco.
Again, I am not entirely sure what the RAW stance would be on knocked prone while climbing, but I would treat that as being knocked off the wall / slope.
Personally, I love the system. I think it is generally better for spontaneous casters, but it does have a primal magic vibe. As such, I can't see it being implemented in a high-fantasy world like Golarian. I have used the system in a world that I've developed which is suppose to be a more "low-magic" or "primal-magic" setting, and I think it turned out well. At the same time however, I haven't had a chance to run anything in said world yet.
I think it lacks some of the world-shattering spells that are on some of the spell lists, which IMO isn't a bad thing, but that fact alone can really turn would-be casters aside.
Let me clarify just a little bit as I'm the GM in question. I simply said that I, as the GM, would add the FE bonuses "behind the screen" until a proper knowledge check was made. After a successful check, the creature type would be determined correctly, and the ranger can proceed to add the bonuses themselves.
If I don't do it this way, then there is no mystery when a ranger runs into a FE. Oh, you have a FE of (Insert type/subtype), you automatically know this creature that you have never seen before because it just shifted in from some distant plane for the first time in history is this...
This seems like a cheap-man's creature ID. Even on a failed check, a ranger would automatically know the creature type? This just seems wrong to me...
There are two paths I would consider in my game. Either Sam turns to the authorities, or he turns to faith. Personally, I like the second option more, as it opens up some interesting and flavorful options.
One, he could become a Paladin (specifically oath against vengeance, but I'd flavor it more on chaos than evil). The oath would open up some interesting role play options.
Second, He could turn to a more evil god and attempt to use necromancy to try and bring back his lost family and eventually learn how powerful the dark arts can be. Then he could use some new found ability (either researched or demon-granted) and vow to use them to exact revenge.
As far as alignment goes, I would suggest Lawful/something. He is acting with a specific goal in mind, and a particular code. On the other hand, if he is only seeking vengeance and will stop at nothing, letting no one and nothing stand in his way, then Chaotic/something is a reasonable option. I think it probably boils down to how you want to flavor his grief-fueled vengeance.
In my opinion, and with my gaming group, this encounter probably would have been too easy. Granted that I play with a few more people in the party, but nonetheless... What killed the group, as others have said was the fighter's...less than aggressive "fighting."
As a side note, the fear on the fighter was the perfect situation. I'm a caster and a guy with a large two handed weapon runs up to me...you can damn well guarantee that I want to move away from him, or move him away from me. If he'd have charged and hit the guy to begin with, or even just moved up and did fighting defensively he would have had a CHANCE to do the five points of damage the team needed.
It was bad tactics on the party's part. I think the OP played an intelligent enemy correctly, though maybe a tad on the harsh side with Death Knell, but it was over before that anyways...
I thought I had read that you couldn't turn it on and off like that, but I wasn't quite sure. Gronk, you make an interesting point though, and as most of the variant channeling abilities are what I would classify as sub-optimal, I'd probably run it the way you originally suggested.
I guess as a side note, how would the variant channeling interact with the channel force? I ask because channel force works in increments of 2d6, and the variant channeling reduces the amount by half. Would that affect the distance enemies would be pushed as well?
I would say that shrink item could could work to shrink an item and its contents. The specifically calls out shrink a burning campfire, which in my mind would be a bunch of individual pieces together making up a single whole. Here is a link to an old question regarding this.
my link and searchfu is weak on my phone, but unless there was some errata on the subject, according to RAW, and I would argue RAI, it should work.
A different approach would be to just make your body invisible first, that way the enemies wouldn't be able to effectively target it.
Now this might sound kind of creepy, but you could, I believe, buy a plain wooden coffin, then just cast shrink item on it after you body is in it. That would change the size of the box and its contents by four size categories, then allow you to carry it around.
as long as you cast the spell, then I think even if your familiar dies, you could revert it back to the normal size.
Just as a reference for allowing a feat to qualify for itself, Final Embrace requires the constrict special attack. Anaconda's Coils gives you that. The interesting thing is that Final Embrace actually gives you constrict as well, so it satisfies that portion of the prereqs. This means that if you take the belt off after taking the feat, you still qualify for it and can use it.
I don't recall the exact link, and my search-fu is weak, but I believe this was discussed before by someone relatively important...
I would say that most of this depends on your GM. Because you were able to identify it as an enemy before combat actually started, I would say that there shouldn't be a surprise round, or that you should at least be able to act in it if there was. At the same time, however, you would still be considered flat-footed until you actually acted in the initiative order. That means, regardless of surprise round, if the enemy was able to act before you, then you'd be dead. If you were able to act before the enemy, then you should get your ability.
Again, this has a lot of GM fiat. Just because you recognized the thing as an enemy, doesn't mean you were ready for it to jump you, for instance...
Ok, it is obvious that you weren't really looking for peoples' input, just validation in the choice you've already made. For argument's sake, however, I will say that while you are correct that it doesn't explicitly state that the creature must be from the Bestiary, it does say that your character must be familiar with the creature. As there are no Huge Wolves, in any book, than one can surmise that they have not been found on Golarion....yet....therefore it would be hard for your character to be familiar with them. Like I said at the beginning of this exchange, for a home game, I would be in favor of you shifting into a Huge Wolf, but I think it would be a houserule implemented at your table. That is my two pennies.
Well, to make a creature larger than what it is depicted as in the Beastiary, to me, means that you are adding the Dire template to a creature that is not already dire, and fits the large size to make it huge.
There are rules for creating animals already in the Beastiary, so if your DM wanted to use those to make a Huge Lion, he/she totally could, but it would not be strict RAW.
Since this thread is in the RULES QUESTIONS section of the forums, I'd say that, no, you can't create animals that aren't in the books. With that in mind, however, I think I would allow you to add a template to the animal in a home game. It would make the animal shamans stack up better imo.
I think this has a lot to do with the GM. Some metals probably look different, such as adamantine, but I would say cold iron would look very similar to regular iron or steel even.
As far as the werewolf being fooled by mithril; I guess it is possible, but after someone hit it with the weapon, I don't think it would be fooled anymore. Werewolves, I would think, are pretty feral and would attack regardless.
I wouldn't say NO use...it still provides resistance to Magic Missile and applies against incorporeal attacks as it is a force effect. But no, they don't stack
I agree with AD. There was obviously a misunderstanding between you and the PC. I don't think it was a bad idea, as no character should be able to control two full PC's just because. I think that if you just explain that it wasn't really feasible to have the player play more than one, and apologize, the player really should be able to get over it.
It might have been a better idea to give the player the option as to which character to continue to play.
I generally charge about 75% of the cost to buy if I provide the spell(s) and about standard creation cost if they provide the spells. I'm a magus, so my spell list isn't nearly as large as a wizard's, but he has scribe scroll, so if the cleric wants him to make a scroll of a spell I don't have, that's something they can work out. If not, that means I have to buy the scroll, so add the cost of that to creation, and the price jumps. As far as "rush" jobs go, we have an adequate amount of time to craft stuff, so I guess I haven't really had to deal with it.
From what I can read, you can choose how to distribute the points when you summon the weapon. At 7th level, you could have a +1 Keen whatever, at level 11, a +1 Anarchic whatever. To answer your question, the bonuses are paid for via the enhancement bonuses granted by the ability. I would read it as an extension given to the Arcane Pool ability, allowing you to choose different enhancement bonuses, but using the same enhancement bonus distribution method.
That's just my take on it though.
Edit: After rereading the ability, it doesn't say it replaces the regular arcane pool ability, so by RAW it could technically stack right? I didn't actually look for any other input about it though, so I could definitely be wrong on this "Edit" point.
A torch, against THAT....if I'm not mistaken that's an improvised weapon....maybe if one enchanted it via arcane pool it might....MIGHT....hit, once...
Alright, first off, I'll agree with you about the sandwich (at least that's amazing.
I guess I'll have to take your advice and use a burning hands or two like I did with the other swarms. Besides that, would arcane pool to use Flaming/shock on my weapon still damage the thing(s)? I guess along those lines, I would ask if something like flaming burst would still effect it. Though they're immune to critical hits, can the effect still be triggered?
@MTC - If only I didn't have darkvision, then I might have brought some lamp oil :S
Let me preface by laying out the situation. I'm a 5th level magus using the whole shocking grasp concept with a sword. We are playing Jade Regent and just entered the room with the
spoiler:
Hellwasp Swarm.
I broke the case open. Now that I've owned up to the probably stupid idea, let's not bring that up again. Now to the questions...
spoiler:
Hellwasp Swarms
are immune weapon damage and any spell that has a specific target (ie: not area of effect stuff). How would using shocking grasp, chill touch, etc... delivered via spellstrike effect the thing? Just because the creature is immune to weapon damage, doesn't mean it can't be hit by them; thus activating the spell? I know spellstrike changes the delivery method, but does it still technically remain a single target spell?
Guided Hand is an interesting feat, and I honestly never knew that it existed. Too bad it doesn't do attack AND damage rolls. I guess it would be too much to ask to make STR too much of a dump stat.
Normally, I would agree with you mplindustries, but in this instance, the entire party is playing are playing clerics. The reason the question came up was because the GM made the stipulation that we all had to pick different gods/channeling abilities/domains, therefore I think there will be enough channeling going on throughout each session that being able to burn a couple on a smiting could be useful for some of the group.
Before anyone mentions anything about party dynamics and not being able to complete certain things because of class restrictions in an all cleric group, I should state that it was exactly that reason, the challenge and "uniqueness" of the situation that origionally drew the group to playing a game where the party all plays a single class, archetypes allowed.
We rolled for it, after eliminating some classes that no one wanted to play, and it just happen to fall on cleric. If nothing else, it should an interesting challenge to say the least.
Thanks for the quick response. This is more or less what I figured, but I wanted an outside opinion before it happened in-game so I at least had something besides my own rules' judgement to present.
While I was browsing some other board posts, I came across some interesting discussion about the channel smite ability. Most variants mesh well with this as they affect creatures directly anyways, but how would these variants, listed in the first post, react to that. Would only the square the creature is standing in be considered difficult, would that creature have a minute a difficult terrain regardless of where it moved (possibly forcing a will save then), or would the variant not even come into play since I would purposely be targeting a creature instead of the area/ground?
My opinion would be the last of those options, but again, someone to bounce an idea off out-of-group would be helpful. Thanks again.
I've searched through the messageboards, but either the question I'm going to raise hasn't been answered yet or I just can't find it. According to the rules, enemies hit by the channel are forced to save or negate the additional effect of a variant channel. What about in instances where enemies aren't specifically targeted by it. For instance, the Earth domain makes all squares count as difficult terrain for one minute, do creatures get to save to negate this effect, or is it automatic and they just save against the damage?
Along with that, I assume the Destruction variant would allow objects a save? The other variants are Darkness and Air/Sky/Wind, same question as with Earth variant.
My final question relates to the Travel Domain's Agile Feet power. Would that power then allow someone freedom from the Earth Variant channel, assuming they made their save if one is indeed required?
