Ganryu's page

Yeah. This is cryptic thread.

If I knew I would've told you already!

I couldn't find any information about that.

After some googling:

There's this super obscure game made in RPG Maker called OFF. The game is supposedly in French, hence the relative obscurity. The main character is called The Batter.

Aelryinth wrote:

Are you saying your flying ships can't overfly a landmass?

If your ships can't overfly, and must approach along a gravity plane, that makes for more interesting mechanics...they literally have to sail off the edge of the world to fly. I would guess that rivers flowing off the sides of the continents become zero-gravity seas, that eventually evaporate and are sucked back over the continent as rain. The ships would 'take off' once they've reached the skysea, and head into the aether. The 'skysea' would surround the islands, and poor ships would navigate around it, or rivers between the various islands, with the aether on all sides.

You could use this without the flying aspect easily, just by having them sail along flowing rivers through space between the sky islands.

Undiscovered rivers and branches to new realms would be great events of note.

An interesting idea that I may steal bits and pieces from however, I want it to actually be an atmosphere, not space. Even in the middle of nowhere, gravity will be pulling down, which was one of the reasons I had for having a planet somewhere down there. I just didn't want people to be living down there, else where would be the fun in that? :p

However, you do bring up a point that I've been trying to solve: I want there to be significance in having "coastal" cities. I want ships to dock in harbours that are as level with the city proper as real world naval harbours are. On the other hand, I don't want to restrict ships to flying on a single plane. The problem lies in the fact that if ships can fly in all three dimensions, then why would they dock right over the infinite depths of open air as opposed to spires rising over the much closer and less deadly land?

One solution I thought of is, pulling from one of the other suggestions someone made, having the planet far below be covered in incredibly hot lava. This could create universal updraughts that aid in the buoyancy of... well, everything. Of course, landmasses would block...

What about buoyant nets to catch people or things who might fall from one of the ships while docked?

You'd basically have the docks and then extending from "land" you'd have this floating net (made of ropes and quite sturdy. not fishing net style) as a safety.

As for why people would dock on the edge of an island? It saves space.

54: Albertus' Amazing Picture Book: See Them Come To Life Without Magic!

This is a thick volume of several hundred worn pages. Some of them are missing. The pages are illustrated, depicting a slow sequence of two stylized dwarves, one smashing a large pie in the face of the other. Most notably, were one to flip these pages quickly through either magical or non magical means, the two characters would almost appear to come to life!

This is how we're looking at handling weapon and armor degradation so far, but any input is welcome.

Whenever you score a critical hit OR deal maximum weapon damage, your weapon takes 1 point of damage. If both occur, it takes 2 points of damage.

Whenever you take damage greater than the AC bonus of your armor or shield, it takes 1 point of damage. Damage is assigned from shield to armor, so if your shield gives 2 AC and your armor gives 4, if you take 5 damage it only damages your shield.

This system is meant to be difficult for players, but it also is meant to give some level of realism.

I'm not convinced the second point is sound.

Damage scales much faster than armour class bonuses. For example with those rule a shield or buckkler will pretty much always take damage every time its wielder takes damage...

This applies to armour too. This last session I played today the paladin took, over two encounters, about 5 or 6 hits. The weakest hit was something like 8 damage.

I think it's going to be pretty much a guarantee that every time the character takes damage, his armour will be damaged.

Meh. No Charisma bump. Maybe Rogue with Ki Pool talent based on Wisdom.

An alternate racial trait can give you a claw, claw, bite routine at 1st level, which gives you 3 sneaks on a flank, FWIW.

Strap on your Rogue-hate, fowl weather gear.

cheers

Strangely appropriate for a tengu.

Maxximilius wrote:

ub3r_n3rd wrote:

So no, the reasonable answer here is to answer the ONLY question at hand - which the OP asked - and come up with some constructive means of playing a character with a 2 in its stat-block.

This kind of character requires an awesome group and constructive GM in order to be viable, the lattest lacking from what we've been told. All this theorycrafting and minimaxing which has already been done by other people and don't need confirmation by myself means nothing when the guy supposed to tell and direct the story is already hating your guts with a passion and arbitrarily putting sticks in your wheels.

You are not helping someone who wants a viable character if she does not even have a viable group to begin with. Playing a synthesist will mean she gets to play a character that can stand on its own on specific situations; that means the DM now has a character that he didn't want to be viable yet is standing on her own, and he will just have to wait one or two sessions for these specific situations to rise instead of screwing with her right in the first combat. That looks so much hyper fun and candy cool awesome.

So yet again I affirm it: the only way to play this character is to play it in another game. Whether the OP does not want to -actually- hear it is her problem, and I'm sure otherwise it will become obvious in due time.

We actually don't have any background by the OP on the rest of the group and how awesome they are. You are making assumptions and not helping at all with the lack of advice other than to "run the other direction and leave this group." That's not helpful to someone who wants to play in this group with the vast majority being close friends. So your argument is supposition and conjecture at this point when talking about the group as a whole.

The synthesist is probably the most viable choice in order to make a survivable character where that 2 means little to nothing. So do YOU have any other character-related advice on what else...

We don't NEED any background information.

This is a disaster waiting to happen.

As far as I know there is none.

Making a random character generator would be even more complex than making a non-random character generator if the characters are supposed to be rules valid.

The main problem is there's a lot of different dependencies.

So who had the loot? I'm guessing it wasn't the monster that killed you...

It was... Actually.

Would you mind elaborating a bit on this adventure? What kind of place are you in now? Have you seen any other traps? Describe the general location.

The main problem is the irregularity of the structure. When I compose to poetry or verse I have a much easier time with the melody if it is regular.

6-7-8-7 (*)
7-7-7-7
7-8-7-8
6-7-8-7 (*)
6-6-7-7
6-7-8-7 (*)
8-6-7-6
6-7-8-8

The * indicate verses of the same structure.

I'll see what I can manage to produce tomorrow, but I'm out of a microphone at the moment so no recording of song can be made. It will be performed on harpsichord.

Our loot has been recovered in its entirety. Now it's time to go kill some trolls :D

What if the duration for the blindness effect was made shorter? 1d4 rounds, for example?

I would be fine if they never do another NPC codex I would like to have a good reason to renew my subscription to hardcover line of products being that the NPC Codex is the reason I ended it.

If I was going to get a NPC codex book it would have to have things like centaur rangers, catfolk rouges, nixie sorcerers, lashunta alchemist, green hag witches, entire stats for goblin, nixie, and centaur tribes, kingdoms of orcs, hobgoblins, cloud giants, etc.

How often will you need to improvise a lashunta alchemist? A nixie sorcerer? Catfolk rogue?

Rarely.

On the other hand, the common classes/race combinations occur quite often and there are lots of them... Too many for an individual to stat.

I want to make a variation of Summon Swarm that summons a murder of crows:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/animals/murder-of-crows

Those are statted as a CR3 monster, and Summon Swarm is a level 2 spell that summons CR2 monsters. Because of the blindness effect of Murder of Crows, perhaps it should be a level 3 spell? Any ideas?

(Yes I've just recently finished Bioshock Infinite, if you need to know)

Yes, KOS is Kill on Sight. Includes mind flayers, drow in most worlds, kuo toa in nearly all worlds. Generally includes trolls and ogres and probably half of orcish tribes as well as a few human cultures.

Apparently I overestimated how pervasive the acronym was.

Ah right. Thanks.

Most cultures are going to consider bugbears KOS. KOS Cultures are ones that pretty much everyone who isn't KOS or explicitly allied to wants to exterminate. They tend to do things like heap up huge mounds of skulls into pyramids. They also generally don't abide by norms of prisoner exchange or ransom or even the proper methods ethnic cleansing or conquest.

Get conquered by a non-KOS but evil culture and it means you're probably (if you're lucky) paying a 20% additional tribute to them every year until you throw off their yoke, with some of you sold into slavery and a normal, by historical standards, amount of rapine and looting in the process. A KOS culture on the other hand makes Nazis look rather humanitarian in its conquests and occupations.

Did you use the PNBK when you TRGd that WNoT, or was the MN too GTL?

The idea is, if you plan to use an abbreviation, please explain what the hell it means if it's not a standard language abbreviation. KOS is not a standard abbreviation.

I'm saying that shields are not just to protect yourself, not in pathfinder. It's not something just for optimizer. Even if you don't dual wield them it's assumed you will be bashing with them. There are feat chains for it, there are archetypes for it, there are critical feats, combat maneuvers, and all other kinds of things. Heck, they're listed in the fighter's weapon training.

My point is, shields in pathfinder are offensive AND defensive. Your point does not stand because you assume they're there for defense. Not true, there are huge amounts of choices for making them offensive things. Dual wielding them might be slightly cheezy but even if you do sword and board, once you get the 11th level feat to get rid of dual wielding penalties, depending on feats and archetype the shield might be the better weapon overall.

I'm talking specifically about dual wielding shields. Not about using one shield by itself, or one shield with a weapon. Even using one single shield without a weapon is kinda idiotic, but it looks far better than dual wielding them.

The point of the full plate is you're only half using it. You're only wearing half a suit of armor. Does that mean full plate sucks? If you wear it like that yeah, you're only wearing half a suit of armor. Same goes for shields. They're designed to attack and defend with. It's a huge part of their design. So of course if you only defend with them they'll suck.

They're not meant to just defend. They're weapons. Using only half their usage and arguing they suck is like wearing half a suit of armor and arguing it sucks.

Well, let's rewind to my gun analogy:

The gun is better used as a blunt weapon than as a firearm. If you use it as a firerarm you are technically wearing only half an armour. You're not using it to its full potential.

That doesn't make it a sensible thing.

Edit: BTW it's been shown that dual shield wielding is found in real life. Apparently some people do associate with dual shield wielding. Just because you don't doesn't mean no one does. It seems more like that this is versimilitude...

A suitable method for resolving this is to google image. If it's an established cultural concept it should exist aplenty on google image (unless it's very niche). No such images were found, except a modern drawing that turned out to be about some guy wanting some MMORPG to include support for dual wielding shields. His opinion was shot down because they thought it was too stupid.

I tried googling as well, but all I found was information pertaining to dnd or pathfinder.

Ganryu wrote:

Picture that guns existed in pathfinder in a different form than now, and they kinda suck... But for some bizarre reason, they work very well as BLUNT WEAPONS.

Now if someone says, "It's too bad guns suck so bad that nobody makes a gunslinger".

If somebody then replies with "Guns don't suck. They're totally overpowered" you're totally not getting the point.

Using guns as blunt weapons is not the point of guns. Guns are to shoot things with. Some Guy complained about shields sucking (his intent was to use shields as, well, shields), and you reply that shields don't suck because you can dual wield them and that's totally overpowered (which doesn't actually deal with the issue that Some Guy had with shields in the first place).

Dude, shields are weapons in pathfinder. They're weapons that are treated as armor for pricing of enchantments. They're listed in weapon sections. You can find them under the fighter weapon training lists.

Aka. as determined by pathfinder they're weapons and shields.

My comparison still holds.

My hypothetical guns had two uses. Hitting or shooting. They were more effective at hitting than shooting, despite being designed with the intent of shooting and despite their intent being that they should be used to shoot things. When you think of guns you think of shooting, not of someone bashing people with the blunt end.

Same with shields. Shields are designed to defend yourself while wielding an offensive weapon with your other hand. The problem is that in pathfinder that is apparently sub-optimal to the alternative use, which is to wield TWO shields at the same time. Notice the same thing here. You don't see knights in movies wielding two shields. You don't freaking ASSOCIATE shields with dual-wielding.

If you decide to wear full plate but walk around without the pants fullplate doesn't suck. You just don't know how to use it.

What does THAT have to do with anything? Are you saying that if you use shields ineffectively you deserve any problems you get? But the point of shields is to protect yourself. Dual wielding them is some idiocy that optimisers realized later on.

Ganryu wrote:

That's pretty cool actually.

My objection to that comment about two shield usage was the way it responded to the comment before it.

Some Guy: "Shields are underpowered. No one picks sword and board over two-hander"
Other Guy: "No way, man. Dual wielding shields is awesome overpowered!"

And I'm like no... That's not what Some Guy was talking about.

Other guy would be me. You wanna explain how my response was out of line when I showed why his players and he were wrong in saying that two handed weapons were overpowered?

Seriously all I did was state the benefits and flaws in shield usage. Would you like to tell me what I said that was wrong?

Picture that guns existed in pathfinder in a different form than now, and they kinda suck... But for some bizarre reason, they work very well as BLUNT WEAPONS.

Now if someone says, "It's too bad guns suck so bad that nobody makes a gunslinger".

If somebody then replies with "Guns don't suck. They're totally overpowered" you're totally not getting the point.

Using guns as blunt weapons is not the point of guns. Guns are to shoot things with. Some Guy complained about shields sucking (his intent was to use shields as, well, shields), and you reply that shields don't suck because you can dual wield them and that's totally overpowered (which doesn't actually deal with the issue that Some Guy had with shields in the first place).

I've used two sheilds in weapons practice. It was on a whim, and kind of silly, but it was surprisingly effective.

I choreograph fights for stage and film and have a pretty extensive martial arts background, so I'm pretty adaptable when it comes to picking up (or making up) unorthodox fighting styles.

I found that using two shields from a boxer's crouch and striking with the edges of the sheilds in a very direct, aggressive style was extremely effective, especially against long weapons. I landed about 8 blows for every one I took against swords and polearms. I could get inside someone's guard with relative safety (which is usually the biggest hurdle when using weapons with short teach)

Short weapons and flexible weapons gave me a lot of trouble though. Since our reach was the same, getting close gave me no real advantage. Flexible weapons swung at my legs would wrap and strike practically every time. Another disadvantage I discovered was that if someone grabbed the edge of either shield and pulled across my front, it effectively stopped my other shield from being able to get around and hit. I was always able to get free, but I'd usually get hit in the side at least once.

I could absolutely buy two-shields as an effective combat style, particularly for a civilization with a "bulldozer" approach to combat, like dwarves. It practically requires heavy armor on the legs and back, but it still works really well against the most common battlefield weapons.

That's pretty cool actually.

My objection to that comment about two shield usage was the way it responded to the comment before it.

Some Guy: "Shields are underpowered. No one picks sword and board over two-hander"
Other Guy: "No way, man. Dual wielding shields is awesome overpowered!"

And I'm like no... That's not what Some Guy was talking about.

I strongly disagree with making the guy some kind of merchant. A merchant is in it for himself, while this guy is genuinely in it for other people.

Remember that there are ways to make things even more interesting:

1: If this guy likes people fairly compensated for working, what's his attitude to people who cannot work?

2: What is his attitude to people who profit but do not work for that profit.

3: What's his attitude to generosity and giving. Does he appreciate it or reject it?

A fraction of our loot has been returned.

I spent some time buying some some spells back and the GM was being extremely generous in a particular encounter against someone holding some of our stuff. I suspect he nerfed our opponent a bit.

It was actually our inquisitor's greatsword (he's a fighter/inquisitor) and we got hold of our paladin's axe. Armour and other stuff is probably further inside still, though...

I need this resolved as well.

The question is: Can you walk out of the sphere at half your speed?

kyrt-ryder: That's actually an extremely cool suggestion.

You may want to drop/swap Flaming shere for this Create Pit. That spell pluss Aqueous Orb Wreak havoc on my game all time. We call it the toilet tatic. Vs large or smaller oppent that can not fly...Round cast create pit(some Verison)on bad guy. If they fail they fall in the hole

PC win. If the save then round 2 cast Aqueous orb on bad guy and move them in hole. If Save secound time then use ord to keep trying in round 3 or more till you catch them and put them in the hole. Then kill them at you leisure casue it then like shotting fish in a barrel. Target at your level will take 2d6 each round in orb +2 2d6 falling. It will need to make Reflex save at -2 due to being entangled form the orb then make climd check DC 30 (25 base for the spell +5 for Surface is slippery for being wet form the orb. If the taget get out the catch them with the orb again and move them back down in to the pit.

Good idea.

I originally thought of the aqueous orb because I suspect that the weakness of the creature that defeated us is related to its ability to move. If that is correct then the aqueous orb should put a few obstacles in its' way to do so.

I don't really buy the "Hitler was charismatic" angle. I've seen the videos. He was loud. 'Bout it. Someone (anyone) could have been Hitler at the time; Germany was in such turmoil that any number of people could have filled his shoes. If there was no Hitler, I'm sure someone else would have stepped into his place.

Have you seen any of his speeches in their entirety?

Because speeches tend to have an emotional climax. I'm pretty certain you've only seen the later part of them and none of the buildup to that point. He would not stand up there and start shouting randomly. There was a plan.

Uhh... It turns out one of the players is tired of this character and his recent questionable behavior has an explanation. He's trying to kill his character so that he can make a new one... Not exactly good timing for such antics.

Anyway. We have gotten back to our hideout and I have about 1200 gp I can burn on stuff if necessary. We had some old unsold and unused loot.

I suspect I'll get these spells:

Cantrips: Detect Magic, Light, Acid Splash (3*15)
Level 1: Magic Missile, Silent Image, Protection from Evil (3*60)
Level 2: Acid Arrow, Flaming Sphere, Invisibility, Glitterdust (3*135)
Level 3: Haste, Aqueous Orb (2*240)

1110 gp

I suspect that Aqueous Orb can be useful against that gaze attack creature to disrupt it from moving. We are going to strike at it first, then we will focus on the trolls if our loot is not where we look first.

2. Your players don't consider shields worth it? Dear god, shields are one of the most broken weapons in the game. For half the cost you get an equivalent bonus to AC weapon damage and attack. Further you can keep the AC while attacking if you keep a single feat thats only prereq is shield proficiency. Furthermore, they're the only items in the game that further down the line remove all two weapon fighting penalty.

So they're items that give you not only weapon enhancements for half cost but an equivalent AC bonus, either a 2 for 1 on piranha strike or power attack depending on your choice, and you can completely remove all TWF penalties with them and your players don't think a shield is worth it? My god dual shield wielding is one of the more powerful builds in the game.

No offense this says to me that your players simply aren't that good at building high damage characters and the ranger gets off easy because its really hard to screw up a two handed martial.

TWF wielding shields is absolutely freaking idiotic.

It's probably perfectly rules-legal, but that doesn't make it aesthetically sensible.

It's like something out of a bad superhero comic though even those would probably not go beyond a character wielding ONE single shield as a weapon.

Ganryu wrote:

To be honest the GM was quite skeptical of this overpowered creature too. It's from an adventure path and I'm being intentionally vague in order to prevent spoilers.

Can you point it out in ** spoiler omitted **

Absolutely.

Spoilers ahead, yo.

How long where you with out your gear?

How many fight was it or times you played?

I betting not that many that many 3 to 5 fights or 1 or 2 times you played till you got up to speed.

It's been one session so far. We're unlikely to get it back next time either, and if we're really lucky, the loot is with the person who one-shotted us.

I suspect it's going to be easier to get it back from there than if it were with the trolls DESPITE the ridiculous ability this creature has.

In the big picture this bump in road a minor set back. Deal with it. Pick your self up dust your character sheet off and keep roll dice.

So your GM challlenged you and you failed. K np What did you learn for next time?

To be honest the GM was quite skeptical of this overpowered creature too. It's from an adventure path and I'm being intentionally vague in order to prevent spoilers.

But let's just say it's something that forces everyone in range to roll a dc 20-22 will save to avoid being dazed and everything indicates the daze has a non-standard duration.

So finsh the story did you make it out?

Did you get regeared up?
Did you have change your morle code as PC to get retooled? ie Rob/Steal?
Did you go back and get revenge agianst the troll with wierd gaze attack that sold...

No we haven't gotten anything back because our loot is in one of two places:

1: With the trolls
2: With the instant-own creature.

It's a bit of a catch-22. In order to get our loot back we kinda feel like we need our loot back.

Ganryu wrote:

... My banned schools are necromancy and illusion...

Opposition schools aren't banned, it just takes 2 slots to prepare them and a -4 on checks to craft with them. But if you really need/want the spell, you can still use it.

Ganryu wrote:

... necromancy is boring.

GAAHHH!!! Slay the heritic!

Necromancy isn't boring. Ok, things going boom are the most exciting, but necromancy is a close second! Making your opponent blind, deaf, paralyzed, weakened, poisoned, and stupid (I really didn't like that guy). How can that be boring?

I think you misunderstand me. Boring is relative. In my opinion it is the most boring of the schools, but I had reasons for not prohibiting the other schools. I saw spells I needed from all of them. In retrospect, I'd probably switch out enchantment for something else, but I want enhantment later for dominate monster and dominate person.

To GM had monster that onwed the Party? but did not kill them but they down there loot to the toon of 2-4K gp each.

Raise Dead
School conjuration (healing); Level cleric 5
Casting Time 1 minute
Components V, S, M (diamond worth 5,000 gp)
You restore life to a deceased creature. You can raise a creature that has been dead for no longer than 1 day per caster level. In addition, the subject's soul must be free and willing to return. If the subject's soul is not willing to return, the spell does not work; therefore, a subject that wants to return receives no saving throw.
Coming back from the dead is an ordeal. The subject of the spell gains two permanent negative levels when it is raised, just as if it had been hit by an energy-draining creature.

Then it needs two casting of this
Restoration
School conjuration (healing); Level cleric 4, paladin 4
Casting Time 1 minute
Components V, S, M (diamond dust worth 100 gp or 1,000 gp, see text)

So that 7K each to Restart not to bad compaired to 2-4K you said you need. Tell your GM thank you for leting live for only 1/2 or 1/3 the true cost of your failure to live.

In kingmaker I have died 5 time costing My party 30K to get me back. Trust me I hear it every weak. Go check the trap or take watch you own the party.

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say.

I realize that living and losing your stuff is better than dying, the problem is that some classes are really hit harder than others by losing their stuff. Being a wizard without a spellbook...

Ganryu wrote:

I failed my roll to learn Flaming Sphere a few sessions ago so it's not an option until I level up.

Also, you may wish to check the magic chapter again. You only need wait 1 week before re-attempting to learn the spell. Not until your next level. That means if it has been a week since the last time you tried to learn your spell then you can try again.

PRD-Magic wrote:

If the check fails, the wizard cannot understand or copy the spell. He cannot attempt to learn or copy that spell again until one week has passed. If the spell was from a scroll, a failed Spellcraft check does not cause the spell to vanish.

zomg!

That must have been changed from the first printing of the CRB! I remember reading that part very carefully. Even the GM looked it over himself.

Tim Statler: We had a witch before, who would be capable of some necromantic stuff.

Ashiel: That was long and helpful :D

Acid Arrow was a good suggestion.

I failed my roll to learn Flaming Sphere a few sessions ago so it's not an option until I level up.

My banned schools are necromancy and illusion. I looked over and settled for getting rid of illusion because, well, it's kinda common and I wanted to try something new and necromancy is boring.

JohnB: We didn't have time for that while escaping. Ww were too busy dodging trolls (and I could only cast a few of my spells, one of them being expeditious retreat).

chaoseffect: Illusion is my prohibited school and besides, material components required, and I didn't have my pouch.

Troubleshooter: That's actually a good idea. I didn't have time to cast that many of my spells so a few of them should still be in memory: Spiked Pit, Fireball, Grease, Summon Monster 2, Summon Monster 1, Create Pit

...if it wasn't for the fact that we're playing a pnp rpg.

Four level five characters, including a wizard, alchemist, inquisitor and paladin.

So we were all raiding a particular dungeon when we got one-shotted in the most pathetic fashion I have ever experienced. It was not GM fiat or railroading or whatever. We simply got owned by a gaze attack with a ridiculous save.

Thankfully the owner of said gaze attack didn't kill us and opted instead to sell us out to some trolls. So we got dropped off at some nasty troll place (while unconscious), but managed by sheer tenacity to escape!

But, you ask, where's all your stuff?

Exactly...

The only good thing was that I chose to have a familiar rather than an arcane bond item so now I can at least cast acid-splash without having to roll concentration.

If our stuff is still in the first dungeon then we might be able to get it back, but if it's with the trolls there no way we can deal with them without magic. We know for certain that there are at least 3 of them because that's how many of them we've seen... And that's a low estimate.

So we're kinda screwed. Getting myself back to even the bare essentials is close to 1500 gp (we have a stash of 4000 at our hideout) as I need to cover Spiked Pit, Fireball, Haste, Scorching Ray, Glitterdust, Summon Monster 2 and at minimum a few level 1 spells and once that money is spent it can't be sold back... I mean scribed spells are wasted. It's not like a paladin/inquisitor who can buy stuff and sell it when it's no longer useful... >_>;

I just had an idea. Make all spells that don't need to be swift or immediate actions full round actions but a caster can cast any level of spell they were able to cast 5 levels ago as a standard action. Quicken would reduce casting time by one step (full round -> standard action -> swift action) per slot 2 increases.

This puts casters on a full attack-like paradigm making their action economy more comparable to that of martials.

I'm not sure that's a good idea, because full attacks still happen instantly. Full-round action spells will activate the round after you cast them, meaning that there will be a one round delay on all spellcasting.

Must not go off on rant about people using dumb internet slang ... Must not go off on rant about people using dumb internet slang ... Must not go off on rant about people using dumb internet slang ...

MNGOORAPUDIS

I'm slightly disappointed in the attempt at making a Pathfinder Online. It's not that I think it will be a bad game, but rather that I don't think any online game can really compete against the big ones right now.

I'd much prefer an RPG in Baldur's Gate style based on the Kingmaker adventure path. My group is right now a bit into book 2 and it's pretty amazing so far, and I feel that it would really work (with some slight adjustments) well as a single player rpg with the strategy elements too.

Hell. That'd give Paizo the opportunity to have the iconics voice acted!

(unless they want original characters for the path)

what is that 'woven into a unified whole' bit, though?

i take it Paizo has set certain background facts about the dungeon, which each author/level can variate from, but that is the over-all backdrop in a sense. some of the levels will deal more directly with that, others may be tangential... will events in some levels affect others? will there be a certain plot tied into the overall dungeon, or with specific levels?

I'm pretty sure there'll be someone overseeing the entire project and that there is some kind of vision to this dungeon beyond "ridiculously large dungeon".

This makes Expeditious Retreat seem like a far less attractive deal for an inquisitor in heavy armour.

I was hoping it would be a flat boost to maximum speed.

We got into a rules argument last game session over how expeditious retreat works.

I claim that expeditious retreat adds a flat speed bonus to movement and this movement speed bonus is not affected by armour.

The gm claims that the movement speed increase by expeditious retreat IS affected by armour.

Which is it? I can't really find anything in the rulebook.

Ok so I'm yet again getting into bed far too late to be healthy. I'm postponing that for another few minutes though, to post this:

I had this idea to prevent monk MADness and in general to change some stuff around, to make a character concept less based on ability scores.

I want to divorce the "mental" and "behavioral" ability scores from the system so that a player can make, and play, an intelligent fighter without actually having to put points in intelligence, just like you can play a stupid yet magically skilled wizard without nerfing your ability to cast spells.

The idea is pretty simple. We simply remove ability scores from the system entirely. Everything that is based on ability scores is based on a static modifiers that scale with level (slowly). Not all of these need to scale, instead only some class abilities scale.

This would naturally require a reworking of the entire class and race system. In fact now I can picture races to work in a different fashion as well.

This is now getting to be a really great tool.

Also remember about users being overwhelmed:

You're not being overwhelmed if you KNOW what what you're seeing actually means. For example a list of all books you can load isn't going to overwhelm the user, because the user can be expected to know what this tool does, and thus knows that it uses material from different books.

A large list of things that you know about is BETTER than a small list of things you're not sure exactly what they are!

I also reccomend changing "install data" to something else, because it can be interpreted as meaning "load currently selected". Confusion arises from seeing the "load" button and an "install data" button.

I suggest renaming "install data" to "install data from external source". "load" can be renamed to "load selected books" or "load selected set"

These are just suggestions, though, but I'm very interested in user interaction related problems, and this is clearly one :P

Let's start with a question on spell duration.

A conjuration specialist gets a duration bonus on his spells. Is this bonus multiplied when you use metamagic to extend duration or is the bonus applied after?

I've assumed that the duration is added before the multiplication, but you never know with these things...

Now for a question on casting time:

If a spell is cast with a casting time of one full round the effect kicks in before your next round. If you cast enlarge person (full round action to cast) on a character who, during his next round before casting time is over, leaves your range... What happens to the spell? Does it fail or does it take effect?

Similarily, and this occured last game, what happens in the following scenario:
1: Wizard cast enlarge person on Paladin
2: Paladin drops the weapon he's holding to draw another weapon
3: Wizard gets to act again and the spell effect kicks in
4: Paladin takes up the weapon he previously dropped from the ground

Is the weapon medium or large?

(yes I was miffed at the player for doing that, but the GM was generous and allowed him to keep the weapon large)

Tonberries are the cutest FF monsters!

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This thread makes me want to get my hands on Dreamscarred Press' Psionics book.

Like I said. Their is a lot more going on in this type of question than a typical DPR question. I wish someone would take into account something better for combat than DPR. I would like to see something that calculates the average number of rounds that an enemy is combat active. This might be a better indicator of combat effectiveness and show your point better.

Thanks for the tip on readying an aid. That can help out a lot in making sure your aid helps the chances of the receiver hitting.

I wonder if something like that has been done yet, dpr vs dpr.

Monster X has Y hp and Z dpr
vs
Player U has V hp and W 2 dpr

Monster X will be defeated in Y / W turns
Player U will be defeated in V / Z turns

(these assume that the players are monsters attack without taking other actions)

Then we look at which dies quickest. We multiply their dpr by that amount and compare to total HP of the survivor. That's how many HP they have left when winning...

I dunno what you'd actually USE this for, though.

Skip dodge and grab iron will instead I think.

I'm liking these initiative rules. They feel a bit backwards with how it is better to roll low, but the mechanics are pretty clever.

I'm going to skip proficiencies altogether to keep it simple.