Jason Nelson's page

I was just reading an article the other day basically bagging on books 7-10 of the Wheel of Time series. I agree with some things the author said and disagreed with others, but it got me to thinking about something.

Book 7 I thought was pretty good overall. Book 8 okay but not great, with a bit of anticlimax at the end. Book 10 was dreary dreck, the worst of the series by a longshot.

Book 9, Winter's Heart, however is an interesting case. The final event in the book, centered on the chapter "With the Choedan Kal," is utterly, completely, and magnificently EPIC, the ascendance and transcendance of a bunch of the hero characters to the point where, though previously they had been fighting a losing or tenuous battle overmatched against tougher, better prepared bad guys, in this case the heroes finally put it all together and achieve a world-changing super-good event and kick some serious villain hienie. The event, including the couple of chapters leading directly up to it, also has character depth and drama, a bit of backstabbing, hero/villain points of view that are very interesting perspectives on the event that is happening - in short, it is all good.

But, honestly, I couldn't tell you any more what happened in the rest of the book. True, it's been some years now since I read it, but I have only the vaguest inklings of other events that happened in the book, aside from that final epic scene and a handful of chapters (maybe half a dozen tops) leading up to it.

So the question is this:

Is that one scene enough to make Winter's Heart a "good book"?

Discuss! :)

"Just one more thing... "

"As you wish."

Given the recent thread on Rope Trick (and bearing in mind that the below suggestions were written up based off of the IMO more abuseable 3.5 version of the spell, not the final PF version), I dug up this alternate rope trick spell I had posited back during the PF beta test period, just in case anyone is interested in a different take on the spell. That uses actual ROPE and stuff. :)

If you're interested in the discussion from that original thread, it's here.

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From way back when, we had many arguments about a certain spell referenced in the title. Contained herein are a pair of alternate versions of the spell that I think take it down to a much more 2nd level power level, avoiding all of the weirdness of the invisible, impenetrable extraplanar space.

Rope Trick (the simple version)

School: Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 2
Components: V, S, M (powdered corn and a twist of parchment), F (a rope)
Casting Time: 1 round
Range: Touch
Target: One touched piece of rope
Duration: 1 hour/level (D)
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

This versatile spell can be cast upon a piece of rope, causing it to stretch vertically to a height of 5 to 30 feet and hang suspended, knotting itself for ease of climbing (Climb DC 5). The top of the rope leads to a ropy hammock woven in a ring of 5-foot squares surrounding the square containing the vertical rope 'ladder.' This ropy hammock is stationary and can support up to 2000 pounds of creatures or objects. As a move action, the caster can command the rope ladder to withdraw into the hammock, forming a new 5-foot square of hammock in the center of the ring, or lower to the ground again, opening a 5-foot hole in the center of the hammock. When the rope is withdrawn, the rope trick blends in with its surroundings and muffles sounds and smells from creatures resting on it, imposing a -10 penalty to Perception checks to notice creatures resting on it. This penalty is negated if a creature on the rope trick attacks or moves faster than half speed. The hammock provides partial cover (+2 bonus to AC, +1 to Reflex saves) against attacks from beneath it.

The rope trick is made of ordinary rope and can be broken or damaged. Each 5-foot section has a break DC of 23, AC 11, hardness 1, with 1 hit point per caster level (maximum 10), and is immune to bludgeoning damage. A 5-foot section reduced to 0 hit points collapses and is destroyed, but the other sections of the rope trick remains magically suspended. If the center section or the vertical rope is destroyed, the caster can cause a different 5-foot section to transform into the rope ladder.

Rope Trick (the cool version)

School: Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 2
Components: V, S, M (powdered corn and a twist of parchment), F (a rope)
Casting Time: 1 round
Range: Touch
Target: One touched piece of rope
Duration: 1 hour/level (D)
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

This versatile spell can be cast upon a piece of rope, causing it growing in length and weaving itself into one of magically suspended several shapes at the direction of the caster, each of which may support a maximum weight of 200 pounds per caster level (maximum 2000 pounds). Once the form of the rope trick is chosen, it remains in that shape for the duration of the spell. Once created, the rope trick is stationary.

Rope bridge: The rope forms a bridge that spans up to 10 feet per level horizontally (maximum 100 feet). A character must make a DC 5 Acrobatics check to move across the bridge at half speed. Failure means the creature loses its balance and fails to progress; failure by 5 or more means the creature falls from the rope bridge.

Rope hammock: The rope knits itself into a stationary hammock suspended in midair. The hammock can be suspended at a height of 5 feet plus 5 feet per 2 levels (maximum 30 feet), with a rope ladder (see below) leading up to a ring of 5-foot squares surrounding the square containing the vertical rope 'ladder.' As a move action, the caster can command the rope ladder to withdraw into the hammock, forming a new 5-foot square of hammock in the center of the ring, or lower to the ground again, opening a 5-foot hole in the center of the hammock. When the rope is withdrawn, the rope trick blends in with its surroundings and muffles sounds and smells from creatures resting on it, imposing a -10 penalty to Perception checks to notice creatures resting on it. This penalty is negated if a creature on the rope trick attacks or moves faster than half speed. The hammock provides partial cover (+2 bonus to AC, +1 to Reflex saves) against attacks from beneath it.

Rope ladder: The rope knots itself and hangs suspended in midair, perpendicular to the ground stretching up to 10 feet per level vertically (maximum 100 feet). Climbing the rope ladder is a DC 5 Climb check, DC 0 if there is a wall adjacent to it to brace against.

Tripline: The rope stretches into a ropy tangle that fills one 5-foot square per level (maximum 10); each square must be adjacent (including diagonally) to at least one other square. A creature entering a tripline square can move through it at half speed with a DC 10 Acrobatics check. Failure means its movement stops after entering the square; failure by 5 or more means it falls prone in that square.

Any type of rope trick can be attacked and damaged. Each 5-foot section has a break DC of 23, AC 11, hardness 1, with 1 hit point per caster level (maximum 10), and is immune to bludgeoning damage. A 5-foot section reduced to 0 hit points collapses and is destroyed, the remainder of the rope trick remains magically suspended.

I would point you toward buying an "Entertainment" coupon book, here:

http://www.entertainment.com/discount/local_editions.shtml?linkName=11MEM_0 52511_2A&cm_mmc=Email-_-CurrentMember-_-WB11MEM2F20-_-11MEM_052511_2A

(no, I am not affiliated with the company in any way, but you can save a bundle so this is just an FYI).

Most of the coupons in the book are of the buy one, get one free variety, but there are coupons for a huge number of restaurants and touristy attractions in and around town - things like the Aquarium, Science Center, Experience Music Project/Sci-Fi Museum, etc.

Some of the coupons are also generic ones for national companies, so you may even be able to get use out of it after you leave.

If you use just one or two coupons, you could throw the rest of the book in the trash and have come out ahead. Or give it to a local Paizonian when you head home. I buy one every year and have gotten great use out of the book.

Since their current promotion is buying two coupon books for $20, I'd suggest getting in contact with another Paizonian if you are able and splitting the order; probably one of you would have to order them and bring them and then swap them once you meet up here.

Just got an email from them today and thought I'd pass out a suggestion that might be helpful for some of our visiting friends. See you at the Con!

Crossposted from one of the Superstar threads:

I think I just learned something. Off to find the sentence that says bonus dice aren't multiplied on a crit.

EDIT: nope. That's just extra dice from special weapon qualities (such as flaming). The archetype would still need to say it doesn't multiply on a crit, right?

Interesting quirk.

The critical hit rule only explicitly calls out bonus dice from precision-based damage (like sneak attack) and weapon special qualities (like flaming).

I've played more or less constantly with WotC and later Paizo staffers since not long after 3rd Ed came out, and perhaps in 3.0 or 3.5 there was a specific stipulation that "constant numbers multiply on crits, variable dice don't," but if so I don't see that as a universal rule in the PF Core Rulebook (p. 184) or in the paizo.com/prd.

By RAW, it looks like Channel Smite, and any other bonus damage dice that don't explicitly exclude it (e.g., Vital Strike), would be multiplied on a crit.

So, there's the question:

The RAW call out two exceptions to multiplying damage - precision, and special weapon properties. Is this intended to be a universal "bonus damage dice don't multiply" rule, or is it intended to be specifically limited to only those two?

I'm flagging this for the FAQ. You should too.

Spellstrike has you cast a spell (generally as a standard action) and then use your weapon to deliver the spell.

Is this considered an "attack action" for using Vital Strike (as it pertains to the weapon damage only, of course)?

FAQ QUESTION:

When you channel energy into your weapon using Channel Smite to activate the grayflame magical weapon property, does the grayflame property REPLACE the normal Channel Smite damage, or is it in addition to it?

In thinking about spells that make items (major/minor creation) and about the APG hurling barbarian's ability to throw objects, and the ability of mages to use shrink item to store objects for later use, like dropping on people's heads. We have sort of a guide in the table of Animated Objects in the Bestiary (p. 14), but that's not much to go on. So, here's the question (and some follow-up questions after it):

FAQ QUESTION 1:

How big (in terms of square or cubic feet) are objects of each size category (Tiny, Small, Med, Lg, Huge, Garg, Col - not really worried about Fine/Dim)? Perhaps as part of the same question, how THICK must an object be to be of that size?

We know Small and Medium creatures use 5-foot cubes, Large use 10-foot cubes, Tiny use 2-1/2-foot cubes, etc. But I have some rocks in my yard that are probably about 2 feet by 1 foot by 1 foot... and they seem to me like pretty big rocks. If they were sized by creatures, they'd be Tiny, right? They're probably bigger than a candleabra, but they're certainly smaller than a chair.

As for thickness, a stone block 2 feet on a side is probably a Small object, maybe Medium. What if we flatten it out, so now it's a stone frisbee 11 feet across and 1 inch thick. It's still 8 cubic feet... but is it still Small/Medium now that it covers 4 x 5-foot squares, instead of less than 1/4 of ONE 5-foot square.

FAQ QUESTION 2:

For a barbarian hurler, his ability is based on the size category of the object, but not its weight. Should weight be a factor in how big/heavy a thing he can throw?

I can see the reason NOT to do this - then we'd have to calculate weights for everything in the game. Creatures already have this (see question #3). We could just handwave it as this titanic surge of hurling strength and I think everyone would be fine with it.

FAQ QUESTION 3:

Can a barbarian with the APG hurling power throw a CREATURE?

Sure, he'd have to grapple the guy first, right, but shouldn't it be possible? We already have a guideline for size and weight.

FAQ QUESTION 4:

If a barbarian throws an object (or creature) that is bigger than one square, does it HIT multiple squares (this would presumably use the Reflex save mechanic from falling objects, which is how damage is calculated for the Hurling rage powers), or does it only hit your main target, or does it affect both, like a ginormous splash weapon?

FAQ QUESTION 5:

Same question as #4, but pertaining to falling objects.

Thanks in advance!

Awwwwww....

That is just insufferably cute.

To anyone playing in either of these scenarios, I believe the event sign-up text states that pregens will be provided. I should probably clarify:

Pregens *WILL* be provided, but you are more than welcome to bring your own character as well. Characters should be built using PF rules, 20-point buy, standard gear. Feel free to use existing characters as well, with the caveat that excessively twinky or cheaterous characters (the judgment of which is the sole purview of the DM) have a strange magnetic attraction for unfortunate events... :)

COLD MOUNTAIN is for 4th level characters. It's mostly outdoorsy, so feel free to build to that end.

DAYS... is for 13th level characters. It's set up around a grand tournament, and there will be the traditional jousting and archery events (with a twist, of course), but there are also events for other classes and types of characters. There also are some NPC competitors, and some events at the tournament that are of a more... interesting variety. Suffice to say, pretty much any kind of character will have something to do.

THE RULES (for both sessions)
1. No evil characters.
2. No characters whose personality boils down to "I'm a jerk, deal with it!"
3. No Chronic Backstabbing Disorder - your PCs don't have to be nicey-nice Pollyana types, but you are supposed to be working together most of the time. Unless you suddenly go criminally insane or something... just sayin...

It would probably save time if you could either post your intended character or email it to me at tjadenjason at gmail dot com so I can vet the character ahead of time and/or make suggestions in reply.

This is a thread for people currently using the Kingmaker AP discussion area to make Bo9S-related arguments pro, con, and otherwise.

Please take your discussion here.

Similar but slightly different from creating new types of buildings, in my Kingmaker campaign I introduced the following ideas for some things you could build in your non-city hexes. In part I was inspired by the Civilization computer games, but also wanting to allow something to boost the effect of special resources.

Any of these actions take the place of the "build a farm" action in your kingdom turn. They also are mutually exclusive - you can have a farm OR a mine OR a fort OR a camp in a hex. None of these improvements represent a single building in a 12-mile hex. It's not just one farm, or just one mine, or just one fort. Building means you have devoted the primary physical and human(oid) resources of that hex to the activity of farming (farm), mining (mine), logging/fishing (camp), or patrols and defense (fort).

You can, however, build roads through a hex with any of the above.

So, you might consider the following as possible house rule ideas:

Fort: (6 BP, cost is halved if built over an area with an existing Lair or Cave) Instead of building a farm hex, a fort can be built in any hex. +1 Stability, -1 Unrest. If the hex is attacked, +2 Defense.

This is essentially a watchtower. The defense bonus would apply if an enemy attacks your forces in that hex using the upcoming mass combat rules. However, you could also apply it as a special Stability bonus to a Stability check you might make in response to an event like "Monster Attack" or "Bandits" if are having that affect a specific hex.

Mine: (6 BP) Instead of building a farm hex, you can build a mine in hills or mountains. +1 Economy, +1 Stability. This is doubled if the hex contains a "resource" like gold or iron ore: +2 Economy, +2 Stability.

This is essentially the same as a mill in a city, with a special bonus for doing it in a hex where you have a resource.

Camp: (6 BP) Instead of building a farm hex, you can build a logging camp and mill in forests or a fishing camp in swamps. +1 Economy, +1 Stability. This is doubled if the hex contains a "resource" like rare lumber, herbs, or fish: +2 Economy, +2 Stability.

Yes, this is essentially identical to the mine, just in different terrain.

Terraforming: Instead of building a farm hex, you can convert a forest hex into hills or a swamp into grassland. This takes 6 months and costs 24 BP. You could also plant a forest in a grassland or hills hex (though I'm not too sure why you would want to) for the same cost. You continue to gain the benefits of a camp during terraforming, but at the end of the terraforming it is destroyed.

Terraforming is an interesting idea - should PCs be able to really alter and remodel the map as it exists? I think they probably SHOULD be able to; however, I think it is absolutely fair to increase the incidence of negative events - Monster Attack would be a natural, as habitat is destroyed, but any of the nature-based ones like Bad Weather could be druidical revenge, and even Assassination, Feud, and the like could be sponsored by druids and fey objecting to systematic "rape of nature," so to speak and lashing out against it.

Rivers: Much like roads, rivers can be used for commerce. For every 4 hexes your kingdom controls that contains rivers, you gain +1 Economy. (Yes, hexes with a river and a road count for both.)

This was another Civ-inspired notion, as rivers in Civ traditionally boost trade. Of course, they also speed movement in civ, which I wasn't quite willing to do, although people can of course use river transport if they like per the normal PFRPG rules.

I am looking to add a player to an existing group. Currently we are playing Rivers Run Red, the second Kingmaker adventure (yes, I know it's not out yet; being a contributor does come with certain perks). Currently party level is 6th-7th.

Interested? Email me at tjadenjason at gmail dot com.

By this time tomorrow, you are going to be up to your eyeballs in writing, so I thought I would post this tonight, when you might still have a chance to read it before diving into the deep end of the pool for the final round. I posted this note last year as the Final Four got underway, and I hope the contestants this year might glean a useful scrap or two as you get ready for the last roundup.

You're so close... sooooOOOOO CLOSE!!!

You can almost taste victory!

But how do you make sure you don't trip over the finish line?

Well... you can't. You can put together a proposal that you think rocks hard, but people will like it or not like it, and add it with what you've done before, and you might win or you might lose. But big congratulations for making it this far. Still, a few final words might be helpful to keep in mind to make sure all 4 of you put out the best thing you can, so without further ado I provide Uncle Jason's Seven Secrets for the RPG Superstar Final Four (not that they're secret, and why listen to me since I didn't even win it anyway, but hey, take em for what they're worth!):

1. Rein in the size and scope

Rob, me, and especially Boomer all got nailed on this one - that our adventure proposals were simply way too big to fit into a 32-page adventure. Some said Boomer's was more a whole campaign than an adventure. You definitely want big IDEAS, but resist the temptation to try stacking the deck by trying to make your adventure do too many different things.

I went through a bunch of the Paizo modules and thought I had calibrated a pretty good number of encounters, social and combat, to what was the average, but a lot of folks didn't agree, and "a lot of folks" are who is voting. If you think your adventure pitch sounds like it has too few encounters, you're probably a lot closer to "just right" than you think.

2. Don't hand-wave non-combat encounters

Sure, we all like a good dungeon crawl, but nowadays we like chances for interaction and dialogue with NPCs and non-combat events. The thing is, those are ten times trickier to run than combat encounters, so if you include them (and by all means you should if they fit with what you're doing), give a little bit of meaty detail in the description to describe how you'll handle them.

The same is true for other kinds of non-combat encounters - things that require skills or puzzles to overcome.

3. Don't use shorthand

Sure, it seems like a good way to save on word count - use numbered lists, bullet points, and common gamer shorthand - but find some other place to save and don't skimp here. Don't bury yourself in purple prose, but keep it narrative. It shows your skills as a writer and it makes it feel more like a proposal and less like a shopping list. For some reason, the second half of my proposal ended up like this last year; I don't recall now if I ran out of time or if I ran into a word count issue or what, but I don't think it served me well. I think I'm a pretty good writer, but I messed this part up last year, what should be the simplest part of all.

4. Avoid extraneous encounters

Red herrings, tricks, dead-ends, and side-treks are fun to use in an ongoing D&D campaign, but when you're up against a word/page count, you probably won't have time or space to include things that are irrelevant to the main adventure. You can have things that derail PCs to one side or the other, but there should be a connection that brings them back to the main event. I had a neat encounter at the start of my adventure that in the first draft was connected more tightly to the plot but in the editing process ended up getting cut off. It was still neat, but now it was extraneous and stood out as such. That was a mistake, and ironically one that might have come from having TOO MUCH time to think about the adventure - you start to out-think yourself...

5. Find your big beginning

Journalism 101 is "don't bury the lead" - leave the most important and interesting part of the story till somewhere in paragraph 5. If you haven't grabbed the reader by the throat in paragraphs 1 and 2, they'll never get to 5. You can have backstory and a LITTLE BIT of prelude, but get the PCs into the action ASAP. Find out where the adventure REALLY begins and start there. You waste too much time on preliminaries and the reader/publisher starts to lose interest. This was another mistake I made - taking too long to get to the "James Bond with genies" part of the adventure. Sure, that stuff at the beginning was nice enough, but too big a piece of the proposal compared to how important it was to the overall adventure.

Sure, part of publishing adventures is for DMs to read, so there is a value in putting some stuff in there that is realistically only for the DM, but that's what you can put into the finished MANUSCRIPT. In the PROPOSAL, focus on the action that's going to happen at the gaming table, and only put in enough backstory and preamble/DM background to frame the story. The action of the adventure should be able to tell its own story.

6. Find your happy ending

Beginnings are important, but so are finishes, and your adventure needs a climax, and that climax needs for the PCs to be the stars of the show. People dinged Rob last year for an "Elminster" ending, where the climax had the PCs release a super-duper good guy to fight the super-duper bad guy. Which is cool in a way, but a lot of people objected on the basis of the NPC ally really being the star of the final encounter and the PCs were reduced to spectators or cleaning up the mooks below the "real" battle. Fair or unfair, perception is reality in a voting competition.

7. For Heaven's sake, make it AWESOME!

This is, of course, the most important rule of all, and one that is spelled out plain and simple in the guidelines for this round: Don't be boring.

Whatever you turn in, make sure that you love it. If you're gonna go down, go down swinging and bring something to the party that you love! Win or lose, you went down with your best stuff and if that wasn't good enough then a big thumbs up to the winner and it was a heckuva fun ride getting to the Final Four.

Hope this helps, best of luck to everybody. You have all done great stuff to get this far, and I hope you all bring it big time in the final round.

First off, I love "mystery" as the name for this class ability rather than focus!

Second, for the Awesome Display revelation, when you reduce HD for target creatures when using an illusion (pattern), does that apply to:

1. ALL targets collectively (so you cast rainbow pattern on a bunch of ogres and you reduce their total HD by 4 cuz you have an 18 CHA); or,

2. EACH target individually (so with the same spell and stats above you'd treat each ogre as the 1 HD minimum)?

Just to clarify:

An inquisitor with Second Judgment uses the "judgment" ability and gets to activate two judgments at once. Does this mean:

1. This uses two uses per day of the Inq's judgment ability (since it's activating two judgments; the benefit of the power is a free action activation on the second judgment); or,

2. This uses one use per day of the Inq's judgment power (it's still the judgment power; you just get 2 effects from it instead of one).

Whichever it is, the same would, of course, be true for the Third Judgment power.

I don't really have time for a full recap of the use of these three sessions, but I can give the following general impressions from using these classes in play during these sessions. The PCs are 5th level, more melee-oriented than ranged. Some combination of these characters was present over the course of these three sessions

Irina (halfling barbarian 2/fighter 3)
Gersemmi (dwarf fighter 1/cleric 4)
Renner (dwarf ranger 1/fighter 4)
X (human paladin 5)
Fijitor (gnome druid 5)
Mallare (elf wizard 5)

Fight #1: Elf inquisitor 5 plus hobgoblin mooks

The inquisitor did well with a bow and the bane ability and played like a more versatile ranger; true, their bane ability isn't "always on" like a ranger's favored enemy, and it doesn't scale up, but it's

(a) a much bigger bonus at lower levels, and comparable (on damage at least) even at high levels - average increase in damage output for "bane" is 9 (2d6+2), best possible for ranger vs. FE is +10 (maxed out at 20th level; obviously +10 to hit beats +2); and,

(b) much more versatile, in that it can be applied to whatever you happen to be fighting that day, rather than being locked in.

The Inq hit pretty hard, and his buff spells to himself and his mooks came in handy, but even with aid if memory serves he felt a little fragile hit point wise. Maybe it was just that one big crit knocked him down.

Fight #2: Two human inquisitor 3 plus a metric ton of skeletons and zombies, plus a cairn wight

This turned out to be a weird fight, because with waves of undead swarming around (final total was 14 skeletons and 20 (fast) zombies), so the paladin and cleric were blowing off channel energy left and right. One of the Inqs almost got taken down early, but after that there was so much healing flying around that the party stopped attacking them (no Selective Channeling for either PC) because any damage they did was just getting healed.

The Inquisitors themselves, however, didn't pack much of a punch offensively. Even using their judgments to add to attacks, the PCs' armor class was too good to get more than an occasional hit. The MAD of the inquisitor as a fighting class was on display - I think they had STR like 12, or maybe 14. Their ACs were decent, but they just didn't hit hard enough; the undead who made it though the positive energy barrage were doing a lot more damage.

Their spells were handy - one was able to heal himself near the start of combat, before the heavy channel energies started falling, but the other wasn't able to do too much.

Fight #3: Elf alchemist 7 plus hobgoblin mooks

The PCs were trying to get out of the evil temple where fight #2 took place (they found some crypts to rest in until the next day, once they had knocked off an undead guardian and a gelatinous cube), but when they tried to leave the hobbos were waiting outside and the PCs were kinda boxed in. They parleyed and the alchemist taunted them about why she was there and what she wanted. Eventually hostilities ensued and she lobbed a bomb down the hallway (she had explosive bomb, so her bombs did a 10-ft. blast instead of 5 ft). The party lured the hobbos into the dungeon. The alchemist was flying and spelled up for an AC of 27 (including a mutagen for natural armor plus DEX, plus cat's grace, putting her DEX up to either 22 or 24) and an attack bonus around +13.

One PC rang a gong that alerted the undead inside the other wing of the temple that they had been invaded, the party cleared a path to escape with Cleave and Great Cleave from the two dwarves. The collateral damage from the bombs was substantial (10 pts in the splash zone) and added up fast, as the party got hit a couple of times; fortunately, the halfling had a ring of fire resistance (10), and barricaded themselves in the secret crypt while the undead and hobbos fought, plus another force of orcs from outside led by the half-orc summoner (basically, the party had successfully triggered a 3-way contest amongst their enemies).

The PCs had a lot of damage still and were very low on cures, and when the alchemist and 4 hobbos survived the fray and came looking for them (she had a wand of detect secret doors) they parleyed again through the crypt door before a fight started anew.

The alchemist's AC had been rebuffed (though some of her spells had expired), and though the PCs hit her once or twice they couldn't confirm a crit or hit with AoOs, and she was pounding them with her last few bombs. Finally, the closest hobbo got blown up by friendly fire and one of the dwarves was able to close and grapple the alchemist. She tried to cast her last 3rd level spell, gaseous form, prepared for just such occasions, but failed her concentration check and her hobbo allies, a little ticked off by the disaster she had led them into (and her blowing up their own guys) abandoned her to her richly deserved coup de grace (one dwarven waraxe CDG for 59 points of damage later, head =/= body).

So, the alchemist was fairly easily able to deal out consistent damage through a two-phase battle (with assumed burnoff of other resources during the NPC battle off-screen) and to keep herself pretty well protected. It did take a lot of her spells to buff up, which she couldn't have done as easily as a PC going through a full adventuring day, and only a few of her spells or effects were long-lasting (like the mutagen). She also needs some people to screen her from enemies, but that also puts them in the line of fire (literally) for her bombs.

SO, A FEW QUESTIONS

1. Should Arcane Strike apply to alchemist bombs?

I took this feat in part so she could use her longbow plus poison (though in the end I forgot she had it), but I ended up deciding to let it work on the bombs. It probably shouldn't in retrospect, but I'd be interested to see an official ruling.

2. Should Point-Blank Shot apply to alchemist bombs?

Clearly yes for attack, but what about for damage? Would it apply to only a person hit with a bomb, or also the people in splash range? Again, I think I let her add it, but it was probably a little on the cheesy side.

3. Is there a save vs. the splash damage?

Okay, so we know how much damage the bomb does on a hit (in this case, it was 4d6+8, plus the above cheese for Arcane Strike and PBS), and we know how much damage the splash does (minimum dmg, in this case 8, or 10 or 11 with feat cheese).

There's no save on a hit, but should there be a save vs. the splash damage? It doesn't say there is, so I suppose not, but I believe I gave the PCs a Reflex save for half damage on splash damage.

That might be a point to make explicit.

So, there's my short version of playing out these three classes over a couple of sessions and seeing some things that came out. In a nutshell:

Inquisitor seems versatile but not great at anything in particular until they get the bane ability at 5th, when they become pretty boss, if only for a couple of rounds.

Alchemist seems like it can dish out a lot of damage and has some versatility, but burns through spells pretty fast if it's concentrating on buffing, and most of those have a short duration.

Just had a notion Golarion-wise that inquisitors would make excellent members of the Cult of Razmir. Dedicated to a cause or an ideal, pronouncing judgment and murder, stirring up calumny and condemnation, yet without following an actual deity.

I suppose for their domain, since Razmir doesn't actually have any, they would have to take an alignment domain.

So, I sent them after first a goblin witch, then had a half-orc summoner come down and attack. The battle was a near-TPK, averted by action points. In the end, both the goblin witch and the half-orc summoner ended up getting away, but their followers were wiped out.
Summoner/W Playtest

The PCs:

Irena – female Halfling barbarian 2/fighter 1/cavalier 1 (wolf mount)
Gersemmi – female dwarf fighter 1/cleric 3
Coel – male human ranger 2/fighter 2
Fijitor – female gnome druid 4 (big cat animal companion)

The campaign does use action points, so PCs can occasionally take extra actions, boost die rolls, etc.

The PCs began the gaming session with a weeklong voyage across Lake Encarthan from Tamran in Nirmathas, stopping in ports in Druma, Kyonin, and finally Razmiran, heading into the River Kingdoms on the trail of a priestess of Razmir with a tripartite key that would grant access to a lost city filled with hidden treasure.

The PCs had several seaborne encounters (a sea hag on a drifting wreck, several lacedons almost carried off a paralyzed druid and left him with goul fever, a Druman tax cutter shook them down, and a swarm of tiny crabs accosted them near the Kyonin shore) before bypassing Xer in Razmiran and heading upriver into Tymon. The cavalier usually ended up picking oaths that did not help and never really used his challenge ability in these fights.

They landed at the Keep on the Borderlands, a free fort at the river fork where Kyonin, Razmiran, and the River Kingdoms meet, and discovered their wayward Razmiran priest had hired a guide and guards to take her to the Caves of Chaos not far away. Conflicting rumors said many different rival humanoid tribes lived there, while others said most had been killed and only goblins (or orcs, depending on the report) remained. More importantly, a ruined shrine to some dark power (every story naming a different malign deity) was said to lie within, guarding a sealed gateway of some kind. Of note, they learned they were not the only ones interested in the Razmiran priest; a mysterious half-orc of several aliases (but known to keep a winged blue serpent as his pet) was also looking for her. Some said he had been an orcling in the Caves of Chaos as a child but had left to study arcane magics.

But, enough backstory! The party got to the caves and entered one of the cave mouths, which turned out to be a trap-riddled goblin lair. The party was soon beset by goblin archers from ahead and behind, while a cry of “Bree-Yark” brought reinforcements from deeper in the caves. We had lots of bog-standard goblins, plus an ogre that came out of an adjoining cave later on, and a goblin witch!

Before arriving at the battle site, she buffed up with cat’s grace, false life, heroism, mage armor.

Once she arrived, she cast web, which she did to great effect, getting all but one of the party in it. The druid already had a flaming sphere going, though, which allowed them to ‘tunnel’ a hole through the web. The party was also split by the web, with about 8 goblins on each side of it.

My original idea was to have the ogre come out and have her cast enlarge person on it, both to bash for huge damage and also to bull-rush people into the web or into pit traps in the lair. As it happened, the party got two quick big damage hits on the ogre (one with flaming sphere, one a weapon) and it dropped fairly quickly, though it hit for big damage a couple of times before it went down.

The second part of the witch’s strategy was going to be to use misfortune on a target, cackle to extend it, and then move up and use bestow curse and other save-based spells. She first used misfortune on Irena, and while it worked another PC came and blocked the way so she could never close on her. Even when she dropped other spells on Irena afterwards, luck turned out that she rolled just about the same every time she had to make a pair of rolls – by luck, the misfortune ended up not mattering.

The closer PC, the Gersemmi the dwarf, was targeted with evil eye and misfortune but saved every time. The witch did move up and use burning hands for good damage on one character, but the other two hit avoided it (evasion for the cat, ring of fire resistance for Irena). More effective was a grease spell from her wand that messed up movement through a tunnel and made it harder for PCs to approach. In the end, the witch (with 1 hp) and two of her goblins were able to retreat and use Stealth to hide, but the party did not have time to find them because all of a sudden phase 2 of the battle began, with that half-orc they heard about.

with 5 orcs in tow, plus his eidolon

He can pre-spelled only with invisibility and shield on himself and on his eidolon.

The summoner started burning his way through the webs with a trio of small fire elementals (using his SMIII ability) followed by his orcs, and he ended up parleying with the party for about 2 rounds, telling them of his rivalry with the goblins and that he and his orcs would be happy to finish things up and that the party should be on their way so there weren’t any unfortunate “accidents.” The party was not keen on giving up its loot and of course ended up fighting. Bear in mind that the web and grease effects were still there and gumming up a fair amount of the caves, as well as a couple of pit traps.

Inevitably, things turned to violence.

Round 1: The fire elementals went forth as did the orcs, some running afoul of the grease. The summoner maneuvered invisibly, ordering his minions to attack and casting magic fang on the eidolon’s bite. The eidolon cast shocking grasp and held the charge.

The druid was stuck on the side of the grease with the monsters. Low on spells, she wildshaped into a deinonychus for speed and attacks (still had a flame blade going) and ran away, with one of the elementals in pursuit. Turns out fire elementals are really fast; hard to get away from one. Still, the dino-druid now runs a circuit out of the ogre cave and back towards the goblin cave entrance, hoping to use scent in wild shape to find the invisibles.

Round 2: Last round for the fire elementals, but two are killed so there’s only one left anyway. Summoner began a new SMIII. Eidolon stays near to give shield ally. One orc makes it across the grease, two fall down trying to navigate it. The cavalier’s wolf moves across the grease and finds the invisible summoner and eidolon (though doesn’t know which is which), but misses attack because of concealment. The cavalier/ftr/barb moves across the grease to try and close.

Round 3: 3 fiendish riding dogs are summoned and attack, two against Coel and Gersemmi on the far side of the grease, one against the wolf companion on the near side. With Augment Summoning, they hit pretty hard (1d6+5 damage), but nobody in the party who is good-aligned gets smite gooded. Summoner immediately follows with haste on himself, the eidolon, and the 3 riding dogs. Orcs continue fighting, but two get cleaved by Gersemmi the ftr/clr.

The eidolon flies out and attacks the cavalier with a bite plus electricity plus shocking grasp for almost 30 hp.

Round 4: Last orcs are killed, but riding dogs are getting 2 attacks/round and eidolon 5 attacks per round. Eidolon attacks and almost kills Irena (would be negative except for rage hp, and only has about 2 rounds of rage left). Irena challenges it and misses its high AC but has his wolf move into flanking position. Fijitor the dino-druid runs back into the cave and locates the invisible summoner. His cat attacks one of the riding dogs. Summoner cast’s protection from good on his eidolon.

Round 5: Coel, at low hp, has been using his bow but switches back to earthbreaker for melee. He and Gersemmi eventually kill the two on their side of the grease and start making their way across. Fijitor the dino-druid tries full attacking (5 attacks) the invisible summoner and misses all. The eidolon attacks Irena and misses all 5 attacks. Irena crits the eidolon (using an action point to improve the confirm roll). Wolf still flanks.

Round 6: As riding dogs start falling, summoner begins another SMIII. The eidolon is hit twice more and killed! Riding dog trips dino-druid and knocks him negative, but he uses action points to stay conscious.

Rounds 7-8: Party calls for summoner to surrender, he finish summoning a fiendish aurochs and tells THEM to surrender, or offers a truce – they can keep the goblin loot and he’ll take the ogre loot. His aurochs readies an action to trample. The party reconfigures, does some healing to save the druid from death, and makes a path for the summoner, who moves invisibly into the adjacent ogre cave (connected to the goblin cave by a secret door) and starts looting. The PCs argue that it’s their loot too and eventually someone goes in and attacks the summoner carrying the visible bags (though for like a round or so we had forgotten that rule and treated them as becoming invisible, but it never really mattered as there were 2 animals and a druid with scent that were always close enough to figure out where the summoner was).

As soon as the party attacked, the aurochs trampled, killing the wolf and knocking Coel negative (he used action points to stay conscious). The druid cast an entangle outside of the ogre cave to prevent the summoner from fleeing that way with the loot.

Round 9: Aurochs trampled again and killed Coel but got entangled. Summoner started another SMIII. PCs located him but couldn’t hit his AC/miss chance. I believe because there had been the couple-round pause for conversation above, I let the cavalier challenge the summoner (treating it as a separate battle from the earlier fight when the eidolon had been killed). We did remember to add in his Order of the Cockatrice power (+1 to hit for allies vs. challenged target if she threatened).

Round 10: First aurochs disappeared, but ANOTHER fiendish aurochs appeared and trampled big cat (evasion = no dmg) but stomped Coel again (he ended up at like -43 hp, but kept functioning another round because of action points) one or two other characters, ended up next to Gersemmi. Summoner tried to flee past Gersemmi, but she blocked the only clear square between the grease and web.

Round 11: Cole died finally. The aurochs tried to bull rush Gersemmi out of the way into a pit, but her max-damage AoO killed it. The half-orc moved through the grease and went around Gersemmi. The rest of the party followed and eventually decided to attack his visible bags of loot. He fled invisibly without his gold.

SUMMARY:

Witch: The witch’s planned strategy didn’t exactly work out, as the organic battlefield didn’t let her do what she had planned to do. She was reasonably effective in combat, and two of her spells really complicated the battlefield (both for her own fight and the next one). Her good AC let her get away with some AoOs, but she avoided taking touch powers and went ranged instead.

Cackle is nice for getting good hex effects to ‘stick’ to a character. Item creation led to a fistful of wands which were handy, but it was hard for her to worry about buffing just one creature when she had one tough ally (but who died quickly) and a bunch of homogeneous minions. Witches might need a bit more in the way of group buff effects.

Summoner: My players thought the summoner, even played with the Jason B revision (full-round to activate, last 5 rounds), might be overpowered. Being able to cast their max-level summon spell so many times is pretty significant. He whistled up 3 small fire elementals, 3 fiendish riding dogs, and two fiendish aurochs, as well as a half-dozen throwaway orcish redshirts as a personal guard. With the de rigeur Augment Summoning feat, all of those summons were coming through pretty beefy – usually it would take 2-3 hits to drop one , plus they could do good damage (and the STR bonus made the fiendish aurochs’ trample attack (2d8+12, Ref 21 half).

Towards the end of the battle, the summoner really had very little to do on his own. He ended up casting a cantrip (resistancce) near the end. He had good UMD; I really shoulda given him a wand of some sort to supplement, but I forgot . Being invisible was far too useful in avoiding AoOs from PCs and their pets.

Short and sweet:

What happens with witches who take this feat? What auto-spells do they get from having a mephit, quasit, shocker lizard, etc.?

Alrighty, second playtest with the new classes. The PCs:

Xanthus, half-elf paladin 4

Irena, halfling barbarian 2/fighter 1/cavalier 1

Tarendlon, elf fighter 1/oracle (battle) 3

Gersemi, dwarf fighter 1/cleric 3

As a side note, the cavalier didn't get to be very cavalierly this session. He was mountless, as his mount was killed last session and he had not been able to replace it yet. Also, the player flat-out forgot about his challenge ability. He did use some of his cavalier class skills and his hefty multiclassed Fort save bonus (+12 when raging, pretty good for 4th level), but that was about it. So... this playtest session is really almost all about the oracle.

FIRST ENCOUNTER - The PCs went to an abandoned rock quarry in search of their contact, who had gone to investigate weapons smuggling by cultists of Razmir. Supposedly there was a madwoman who lived out there that they might have been working with. The PCs, assuming that naturally their contact would be overcome and captured whatever he found, hired a boat to take them out to the quarry, which was a wide rocky area at the water's edge, with about a 20' high rocky rim around the edge with about four or five rough-cut ledge/steps (Climb DC 10) carved into the walls at intervals, and a rim of rocks above with a treeline about 10-20 back from the edge.

The PCs arrived and drew the attention of Naanee, the crazy lady, and parleyed with her for a while. At the suggestion of someone in the village they had brought her a picnic with wine and biscuits with jam, which seemed to improve her mood, but she wanted them to tie the basket to a rope so she could haul it up. She got very cranky when the PCs tried to come up to her - they stopped climbing and again soothed her and got a little information about the "masks" who had stored something here and had recently taken it away, and also some cryptic references about a "new husband." One of the PCs went across the quarry and started climbing up again, and soon enough she got good and riled up and combat ensued.

Behold, Naanee the oracle of stone!

While the PCs had approached, Naanee had cast shield of faith and aid - the party saw her muttering to herself and making gestures, but Spellcraft rolls failed to figure out what she was doing and the spells had no visible effect, so they weren't sure if she was just being crazy.

Round 1

Tarendlon (PC oracle) has the clouded vision curse and so couldn't see Naanee, but he made a high Perception roll and heard the moaning of the unconscious NPC contact and went to investigate. He won initiative AGAIN (just like last week) but didn't immediately get into the combat.

Naanee went next and began chanting as if in a trance (as in, casting summon monster III).

Irena climbed up and ran past Naanee, not taking an AoO as she went by, perhaps because she wasn't 100% sure the crazy lady was totally hostile, but also he was following Tarendlon to see where he was going.

Xanthus and Gersemi had some trouble climbing up the steps/ledges in their heavy armor.

Round 2

Tarendlon checks on the unconscious guy and finds he's stable but negative, then moves back towards Naanee.

Naanee summons 4 fiendish riding dogs, sending two to block the steps where Xanthus was coming up and two to attack Tardenlon & Irina. She starts casting another summon monster III (was planning a fiendish aurochs to use its trample attack and/or bull rush people off the edge back into the quarry). With boosted STR and flanking (vs. Irena) and high ground (vs. Xanthus), the dogs hit pretty hard damage but fail to trip.

Irena uses Acrobatics to get away from the dogs and close on Naanee, using either a charge attack or a staff sling to hit her; she fails her Concentration check and the summon spell is lost.

Xanthus climbed and attacked one of the dogs with smite evil.

Gersemi climbed.

Round 3

Tarendlon moves up, attacks and misses.

Naanee 5' steps, uses her shard explosion revelation to do good damage, and casts shield (AC now up to 27), while the dogs move in to threaten Tarendlon and Irina. Moves one dog from blocking Xanthus to blocking Irina.

The difficult terrain from the shard explosion prevents 5' steps, and Irena was threatened by 3 dogs and didn't want all of those AoOs, so attacked a dog.

Xanthus kills a dog with smite evil, then climbs up.

Gersemi finishes climbing and advances, drawing longbow.

Round 4

Tarendlon 5' steps out of the difficult terrain and uses a potion of CLW. Rolls a 1 and uses an action point to reroll it, getting a 6 (he had been at like 4 hp).

Naanee steps back again and uses shard explosion (getting 3 party members and one of her dogs), then uses acid arrow on Irina (who has I think a 24 AC). Tarendlon uses immediate action (sudden charge) revelation to move up next to her and threaten her, getting AoO, but misses. Dogs keep threatening and attacking.

Irena 5' steps out of the difficult terrain and hits Naanee with staff sling.

Xanthus moves up to Naanee and misses.

Gersemi advances and shoots again with longbow, misses.

Round 5

Tarendlon attacks and misses (notice a theme?)

Naanee tries to use Acrobatics to avoid AoO but fails vs. one, succeeds vs. the other, and uses sound burst to hit 3 PCs and one of her dogs, stunning the dog and two PCs. More acid damage on Irina.

Irena stunned.

Xanthus attacks and misses. Uses action point to take another attack and misses again.

Gersemi advances (not tripped by dog AoO because of dwarven stability) and does healing burst.

Round 6

Tarendlon stunned.

Naanee throws a mighty pebble revelation at Xanthus, damaging several other PCs. More acid damage on Irina - she would've dropped except for rage hit points.

Irena hits again with staff sling.

Xanthus attacks and might have hit, don't recall for sure.

Gersemi casts hold person - Naanee fails save and is held.

Round 7

Tarendlon was too far away to reach Naanee and/or his charge path was blocked by dogs or something; don't recall which. But, the player suddenly realized he had forgotten to add enlarge person to his spell list (from the Battle focus) and cast that and moved.

The dogs disappeared. Naanee used a full-round action to attempt a new save vs. hold, which succeeded.

Irena spent 5 action points to declare a natural 20 on her next attack roll (failed to confirm) but then threatens Naanee and demands surrender. She seems dubious but willing.

Xanthus doesn't attack but demands she drop her weapon (which she does).

A round passes with 3 of the PCs attempting to get her to surrender but Tarendlon declaring that the 'ecstasy of battle' is upon him and that he MUST slay her. The 3 PCs use aid another to assist Naanee's AC vs. their party member! Naanee readies an action on her turn. When Tarendlon ignores his party members' pleas and tries to attack her she 5' steps and casts sound burst again, stunning no one but dropping Irena from damage. Tarendlon finally hits, taking her from 1 hp to -13 in one blow.

SECOND ENCOUNTER

This one was a lot shorter, a close-quarters fight between three of the party (Xanthus' player had left) and a pair of Razmir cultists - one an acolyte (human warrior 2) and one a "priest" (human ftr1/rogue 2).

The playtest-relevant parts of the fight were the PC oracle's double-roll for initiative, which for the first time FAILED to win him initiative (and wouldn't you know it, he got sneak attacked by the "priest"), and his sudden charge, which enabled him to overrun the priest when he was running away and block him - the priest had earlier overrun Gersemi in order to escape from the room at the inn where the PCs had brought the two Razmirites.

Thoughts:

1. Multiclassing is complicated!

The barbarian/fighter/cavalier forgot to use challenge in the fight vs. Naanee; it might have been dangerous, given the riding dogs and giving up flanking to them, but they got flanking on a copule of occasions anyway. The extra damage would have helped. That stated, this cavalier is actually better at ranged combat than melee - the player only added cavalier as a class to do a bit of playtesting with it - he'll probably dump it and take another level of fighter instead.

The PC also didn't have a mount because his wolf got eaten by Flanary Xigris' alligator last week and the mandatory weeklong mourning period had not passed yet.

So, really, his cavalier level didn't help him at all.

2. Sudden charge

It's maybe a bad name for the ability, since it doesn't let you actually CHARGE per se; however, it is a handy ability. It acts kind of like a free readied action to zoom up to someone who's doing something that provokes AoOs (like spellcasting or ranged attacks), and then BANG.

Also, it turns out to have handy applications when you simply need an extra bit of movement, as in encounter two. Since overrun is a standard action taken as PART of movement, the PC oracle could only move 20 feet with an overrun in the middle of it. Since the bad guy was like 30 feet away, that wouldn't work, but adding the sudden charge gave an extra 20' of move, which gave him the range to do it.

3. When you think Stone Focus, you probably think strength and melee before ranged combat

And yet, here we had a halfling with 6 STR who was a killer with ranged attacks. If she had gotten off the second summons to add a bit more chaff to the battlefield, it might well have been a TPK.

The shard explosion ability was particularly nice, since as a swift action she could use it and another ranged attack (like acid arrow) or area attack (like sound burst or mighty pebble) in the same round.

4. Action points do make a difference

I use a system similar to the Unearthed Arcana/Eberron AP rules, but there are some things you can do that cost more than 1 AP (like the aforementioned declaring a natural 20 on an attack roll for 5 AP). Some of the AP expenditures ended up creating little benefit, but two uses led directly to hits, which was a big issue when the target had such a high AC that the PCs were having a very hard time hitting. When you're right on the edge of being able to succeed, using APs can be enough to push you over the edge to success.

5. Maneuvers are your friend, but...

True, the obvious 'solution' to the combat would have been to try to run up and grapple Naanee and prevent her spellcasting, but the difficult terrain (both the climbing and terrain that led to party separation, plus the shard explosion revelation) made it hard to close without giving up a bunch of AoOs. Also, it took a while into the battle to realize that she was going to be so hard to hit (abetted by the fact that she cast shield DURING the battle, so an attack that hit her at first vs. AC 24 would miss her AC later).

In retrospect, it actually would have been to her advantage to keep one of her shard explosions in reserve in case she did get grappled, since it requires no physical action to use. I also should've given her ranks of Escape Artist, cuz her DEX was good, whereas she would have had no shot to escape a grapple with CMB.

Also, had she been grappled, she could've had all summoned monsters focus their attacks on the grappler (denied his DEX bonus), so it's not like grappling her would've been an auto-win strategy. Certainly a GOOD strategy, but not the only one that could work.

And, a couple of rules questions that came up:

1. Running in the woods?

An interesting question: can you use the Run action in woods. A run needs to be in a straight line, but what do you do about trees? There was not sufficient undergrowth to make difficult terrain in the trees above the quarry, but there were, yknow, TREES.

In the end, I went with the path of easy and just said "sure, I'll let you run."

Now after he cast enlarge person I think I disallowed a run or charge through the threes, or I probably shouldn't have even if I didn't. Don't recall for sure now.

2. When do AoOs reset for the round?

This question came up. I've always run it where your AoOs reset at the beginning of YOUR turn; thus the 1/round limit applies from your current turn until right before your next turn. One of the players, new to my group, said he had always played it as... I guess I'd call them calendar rounds. Once through the initiative order, top to bottom, is a round, like in the olden days, or like in the recap above. We looked in the book and it was a little ambiguous, but I think we went ahead and played it my way.

3. When do summoned creatures act?

Sure, the first time they appear at the conclusion of your spell they can act immediately, and you still get your whole turn.

But for the remainder of their existence, do they act before you? After you? Can you mix and match when they act? For a spellcaster, it can be convenient to have the animals move either before you or after you to make sure they are inside (or outside) a spell's area of effect. Is there a hard and fast rule on when summoned creatures go?

The following playtest info comes from my home campaign. With the playtest opening up, I encouraged the players to look at the new class info and see if it interested them. One new player this session made an oracle character and another multiclassed into a level of cavalier. In addition, I created a 5th level cavalier NPC that featured in one of their encounters. The party:

Mallare – elf transmuter 4
Tarendlon – elf fighter 1/oracle (battle) 3
Irena – halfling barbarian 2/fighter 1/cavalier 1
Gersemi – dwarf fighter 1/cleric 3
X (can’t remember the PCs name now) – half-elf paladin 4

The oracle had the blindness curse.
The cavalier had a wolf mount and took an oath of vengeance.

FIRST ENCOUNTER – 2 apes atop a cliff/waterfall, plus a venomous snake in the pool beneath the fall

The oracle had high initiative thanks to getting to roll twice for it. The first ape was downed quickly and the barb/ftr/cav (BFC) challenged the second ape and hit for good damage. The oracle downed the ape at the start of the second round and the BFC ended up getting dragged over the waterfall (don’t ask, it was mostly player silliness, but it was amusing how it turned out) and eventually fought off the snake while floating with the dead ape body, while the other PCs climbed down the cliff face.

Thoughts: The cavalier’s extra damage was handy and the flanked condition irrelevant, as no other melee enemies threatened during the challenge.

The oracle’s high initiative was helpful, but the short-range vision prevented using ranged attacks to support the BFC after she had gone over the waterfall.

SECOND ENCOUNTER – 4 hungry ghouls (as normal, but also healed hp equal to damage dealt on a successful bite attack) lurking on a sand/gravel bar in a river (one hiding in the river behind the party’s barge, three in the underbrush)

The oracle had high initiative again, and very good Perception to spot the hidden ghoul near the barge and protect another party member. However, once that foe was dealt with (and paralyzed ftr/clr hauled up on shore), the other party members and ghouls were too far away to see, which made it difficult to get from one side of the battlefield than the other.

BFC charged a pair of ghouls on foot, because she was not mounted when the encounter started but her wolf was adjacent. She and the wolf helped wipe out the ghouls, along with the paladin’s channeled energy. The ghouls did take advantage of the flanked condition vs. the BFC when she challenged one of the ghouls. Her wolf also absorbed some of the attacks by the ghouls that might have otherwise gone vs. party members.

Prior to the battle, in anticipation of meeting river pirates during their trip, the BFC declared an oath of vengeance against them, but it did not apply vs. the undead.

Thoughts: Interesting question: We know a cavalier’s mount has to be something he can ride, and some of the cavalier’s abilities work best when riding, but are there any limitations on what he can do with the mount when he’s NOT riding? Can/will a cavalier’s mount do everything another animal companion can do? Can you fight with it alongside you rather than under your saddle?

Again, the cav’s extra damage was handy, and the ghoul survived a bit longer than the ape, which allowed a second round of challenge attacks, but on the down side also allowed the cav to remain flanked by another ghoul for an additional round.

That brings up another question: When does the cavalier’s “flanked by everyone else” condition go away? As soon as their challenged target is dropped below 0 hp (that’s the way we played it)?

The oracle again got to go first, and high WIS and Perception were handy vs. close range, but the 30-foot vision limit was a big hindrance.

THIRD ENCOUNTER: Traveling by boat now on a large lake (with two NPC experts crewing the boat), the party was attacked by another boat with three pirates (human War3 with longswords and light crossbows) and the enemy cavalier.

The party heard the pirates approaching in the dark and had time to do prep spells. The oracle’s defensive magic boosted his AC up to like 24, but the bad guys rolled very well and still hit him repeatedly during the combat; however, the high AC prevented two crossbow threats from confirming as crits. Likewise, his divine favor should have boosted his combat prowess, but crummy attack rolls hampered his effectiveness.

The oracle also again came out on top in initiative, but had to delay because no targets were within 30 feet at the start of the battle, so he had no one to attack. He had already cast his buff spells and so was left cooling his jets until the others went later.

Flanary, the enemy cavalier, started the battle with lion’s call right as his men approached the PCs’ boat. That, combined with his banner bonus, helped enable the pirates to use their Deadly Aim (with crossbows) and Power Attack (with longswords) by offsetting the attack penalties. The party never used any fear effects, so that bonus was irrelevant in the battle.

The BFC used her staff sling vs. the pirates and had her wolf ready a melee attack, so no cavalier abilities came into play; these were the pirates she had declared Oath of Vengeance against, but ironically she ended up focusing her efforts on the NPC cavalier.

Flanary then charged into battle, declaring challenge vs. the BFC (two halfling cavaliers challenging each other!). Zooming in for a challenging, power attacking, spirited cavalier charge at +11 to hit and 6d6+21 damage… and he rolled a 1. Oops. Still, his AC was very high, as he was using Oath of Protection for his mount, so vs. the target of his challenge his AC was 26 (+2 dodge for Lion order, +2 morale for oath of protection). The wolf’s readied action couldn’t reach the cavalier, but he used Ride-by Attack to get closer and the alligator bit and grapped the wolf. In retrospect, it would have been smarter to keep his distance and keep the alligator mount out of melee.

The BFC challenged the Flanary in turn, but missed because of the NPC’s AC. Other party members attacked the alligator (whose AC was worsened by the grappled condition), negating Flanary’s oath of protection bonus. The wolf tried both Escape Artist and CMB checks to escape but even on a 20 could not roll high enough, so eventually started trying to attack the alligator. The wolf was later dropped by damage and dragged off the side of the boat, but the PCs had the clever idea to heal the wolf back to consciousness so it would still be grappled by the alligator, penalizing the alligator’s AC.

Mallare the transmuter cast grease on Flanary’s lance, causing him to drop it into the water. Flanary drew his sword and attacked the BFC, still getting challenge damage (so a hit for 3d6+6 with Power Attack) while the BFC decided to attack the alligator as well. Gersemi the ftr/cleric cast hold person on Flanary, which he failed to save against. Fortunately, the boats kept moving while the alligator stayed in place, so he was not at coup de grace range, and for better or for worse the PCs concentrated their attacks on the alligator. It had a lot of hp and a decent AC, so it stayed alive long enough (grappling and mauling the wolf for several more rounds) for Flanary to get un-held. Flanary then tried to to pick up his lance floating nearby (he had drawn his sword rather than trying to pick it up before cuz he would have provoked multiple AoOs) and the party continued attacking the alligator at range.

The other party members finished off the pirates (ironically, the BFC had an oath of vengeance against them, but focused his combat attention on the other cavalier & mount and didn’t gain any benefit from the oath) and commandeered their boat to row back toward the cavalier and the floating lance. Meanwhile the ftr/cleric summoned a celestial dolphin and commanded it to let the BFC ride it.

His mount killed, Flanary had used his potion and elixir to swim, full armor and everything, but didn’t want to leave his magic lance behind. Several rounds followed of fruitless attempts to make his Reflex save and pick the thing up and then stow it. He was swimming underwater to take advantage of cover (though the transmuter used a readied magic missile to zap him when he came up to try and grab the lance). The BFC and dolphin swam up to try and attack and did so, missing the cavalier again. Eventually, with the oracle and paladin coming up in the pirates’ boat Flanary gave up on the lance and swam away. As the dolphin disappeared that round, the party was unable to pursue, but succeeded in gaining a new MORTAL ENEMY!!!! “You haven’t heard the last of Flanary Xigris! I’m coming back for what’s mine, and Death and Hell are comin’ with me! Curse yooouuuuuuuuu!”

Thoughts:
1. If you cast grease on someone’s saddle, do they need to immediately save to avoid falling out of the saddle, or would it happen only if they tried to move, and would they make Ride checks rather than Acrobatics checks to stay in the saddle?

2. If you make a save vs. grease, does your ability to maintain control of the object last for a full round, or until the next time you take an action with it? Flanary ended up making two attempts per round (each a move action) to pick up the greased lance. On one round, he made his second save, but then the next round when he tried to use a move action to put the lance away he failed his save and dropped it again.

3. The challenge mechanic is nice in that, while you can build it up with a charge monkey model, it still works fine if you have to go to plan B, like Flanary losing his lance and having to go with his sword.

4. The flanking drawback played little role, as the battle was sufficiently spread out that really no one was able to make melee attacks on the cavaliers other than their challengers. Ranged attacks, sure, but flanking doesn’t apply to those (while a flat -2 AC penalty as some have suggested would).

5. Banner plus lion’s call was a nice combo in a fight where the cavalier has mooks on his side; it made them much more effective. Same thing for the attacks their mounts make. A warhorse is a pretty buff combatant (and so is a croc, for that matter).

6. Using your oath of protection on your mount is a nice move (since you have to stay adjacent to the one you’re protecting to get the AC bonus), as long as you can draw the enemy’s fire towards yourself, or that your Ride/Mounted Combat is good enough to prevent your mount taking damage. Otherwise, you lose it pretty easily. Still, it’s a nice way to start a battle if your mount hasn’t taken damage in 24 hours.

7. The oracle’s spells were effective buffs, though mitigated by bad rolls in this battle.

8. The oracle’s clouded vision again loomed very large in a battle with movement and distance. If you were running a straight dungeon crawl, clouded vision wouldn’t be too bad of a deal; line of sight might not be more than 30 feet a lot of the time. In an outdoors adventure, though, it is an almost crippling hindrance. It also somewhat negates the oracle’s advantage on initiative, as it is at the beginning of the battle when you most need to see where the bad guys are. If the oracle is going to win initiative but have to delay until other people act… what’s the point of winning initiative?

I would suggest a larger fringe benefit to balance out clouded vision, though exactly what I’m not sure.

9. Cavalier’s charge is a nice complement to Power Attack, since the big attack roll bonus on mounted charging easily offsets the PA penalty and the flat bonus from PA is multiplied with SC and/or a lance charge. A human cavalier could have the MC/RBA/SC feat cluster by 2nd level, plus PA by 3rd. Add challenge damage and it’s a hefty package.

10. I made the halfling/alligator NPC cavalier as a test case, but it would be good to decide what restrictions you want to have on the mount ability. Specifically:

a. Will there be only a specific list of mounts?

b. If it can be any animal companion type, what kind of things can you ride? Can a halfling ride an alligator? A Large constrictor snake? A velociraptor? A tiger? An ape? I think having a mount be quadrupedal makes sense (which would rule out snakes and apes and deinonychuses), though I can think of exceptions (a shark perhaps for an aquatic cavalier?)

c. What recourse could or should a cavalier have for obtaining an exotic mount, in particular one that can swim or fly? The animal companions do include a couple of swimmers, but no fliers unless your cavalier is Tiny. Will there be a way (a feat or two perhaps) for a cavalier to get something like a pegasus, griffon, giant eagle (Eagle Knights of Andoran!), or (inevitably someone will want) a dragon as a mount? They could use Leadership to get one as a cohort, but would that allow them to use their mount benefits with it?

Just some things to think about.

Odd that no one has posted this yet, but here it is! Thus begins a new story arc. Could the event we've been waiting for lo these 200+ strips finally be drawing near?

Either way, Elan's genre savvy is again on display!

Doggone it! This just keeps us in suspense!

Perhaps all of the battle, taunting, dialogue, etc. has taken the balance of 10 minutes. Could the rest of the OOTS arrive soon for a sudden rescue?

Aaaarrrrrgh!!!!

Had some folks drop out recently and seeing if there are interested parties who might care to brave the trackless wastes of the winterlands and smite the wicked with COLD STEEL.

Current regulars are a ranger, fighter, bard, wizard, and genasi swordmage, mostly unaligned (one or two are good). Current level is 7th.

Traditional play day has been Friday nights, but there may be some room to move on that.

And now the poo starts to hit the fan.

"Which planes?"
"Um, those in the ventral position."

Excellent.

Congrats to the esteemed Mr. Spicer, long may he game!

You're so close... sooooOOOOO CLOSE!!!

You can almost taste victory!

But how do you make sure you don't trip over the finish line?

Well... you can't. You can put together a proposal that you think rocks hard, but people will like it or not like it, and add it with what you've done before, and you might win or you might lose. But big congratulations for making it this far. Still, a few final words might be helpful to keep in mind to make sure all 4 of you put out the best thing you can, so without further ado I provide Uncle Jason's Seven Secrets for the RPG Superstar Final Four (not that they're secret, and why listen to me since I didn't even win it anyway, but hey, take em for what they're worth!):

1. Rein in the size and scope

Rob, me, and especially Boomer all got nailed on this one - that our adventure proposals were simply way too big to fit into a 32-page adventure. Some said Boomer's was more a whole campaign than an adventure. You definitely want big IDEAS, but resist the temptation to try stacking the deck by trying to make your adventure do too many different things.

I went through a bunch of the Paizo modules and thought I had calibrated a pretty good number of encounters, social and combat, to what was the average, but a lot of folks didn't agree, and "a lot of folks" are who is voting. If you think your adventure pitch sounds like it has too few encounters, you're probably a lot closer to "just right" than you think.

2. Don't hand-wave non-combat encounters

Sure, we all like a good dungeon crawl, but nowadays we like chances for interaction and dialogue with NPCs and non-combat events. The thing is, those are ten times trickier to run than combat encounters, so if you include them (and by all means you should if they fit with what you're doing), give a little bit of meaty detail in the description to describe how you'll handle them.

The same is true for other kinds of non-combat encounters - things that require skills or puzzles to overcome.

3. Don't use shorthand

Sure, it seems like a good way to save on word count - use numbered lists, bullet points, and common gamer shorthand - but find some other place to save and don't skimp here. Don't bury yourself in purple prose, but keep it narrative. It shows your skills as a writer and it makes it feel more like a proposal and less like a shopping list. For some reason, the second half of my proposal ended up like this last year; I don't recall now if I ran out of time or if I ran into a word count issue or what, but I don't think it served me well. I think I'm a pretty good writer, but I messed this part up last year, what should be the simplest part of all.

4. Avoid extraneous encounters

Red herrings, tricks, dead-ends, and side-treks are fun to use in an ongoing D&D campaign, but when you're up against a word/page count, you probably won't have time or space to include things that are irrelevant to the main adventure. You can have things that derail PCs to one side or the other, but there should be a connection that brings them back to the main event. I had a neat encounter at the start of my adventure that in the first draft was connected more tightly to the plot but in the editing process ended up getting cut off. It was still neat, but now it was extraneous and stood out as such. That was a mistake, and ironically one that might have come from having TOO MUCH time to think about the adventure - you start to out-think yourself...

5. Find your big beginning

Journalism 101 is "don't bury the lead" - leave the most important and interesting part of the story till somewhere in paragraph 5. If you haven't grabbed the reader by the throat in paragraphs 1 and 2, they'll never get to 5. You can have backstory and a LITTLE BIT of prelude, but get the PCs into the action ASAP. Find out where the adventure REALLY begins and start there. You waste too much time on preliminaries and the reader/publisher starts to lose interest. This was another mistake I made - taking too long to get to the "James Bond with genies" part of the adventure. Sure, that stuff at the beginning was nice enough, but too big a piece of the proposal compared to how important it was to the overall adventure.

Sure, part of publishing adventures is for DMs to read, so there is a value in putting some stuff in there that is realistically only for the DM, but that's what you can put into the finished MANUSCRIPT. In the PROPOSAL, focus on the action that's going to happen at the gaming table, and only put in enough backstory and preamble/DM background to frame the story. The action of the adventure should be able to tell its own story.

6. Find your happy ending

Beginnings are important, but so are finishes, and your adventure needs a climax, and that climax needs for the PCs to be the stars of the show. People dinged Rob last year for an "Elminster" ending, where the climax had the PCs release a super-duper good guy to fight the super-duper bad guy. Which is cool in a way, but a lot of people objected on the basis of the NPC ally really being the star of the final encounter and the PCs were reduced to spectators or cleaning up the mooks below the "real" battle. Fair or unfair, perception is reality in a voting competition.

7. For Heaven's sake, make it AWESOME!

This is, of course, the most important rule of all, and one that is spelled out plain and simple in the guidelines for this round: Don't be boring.

Whatever you turn in, make sure that you love it. If you're gonna go down, go down swinging and bring something to the party that you love! Win or lose, you went down with your best stuff and if that wasn't good enough then a big thumbs up to the winner and it was a heckuva fun ride getting to the Final Four.

Hope this helps, best of luck to everybody. You have all done great stuff to get this far, and I hope you all bring it big time in the final round.

After a long wait, we now know the answer:

"I... I must succeed."

I also must say, Rich Burlew has a nice touch with writing evil dialogue in the depths of knife-twisting rat bastardness. This one reminds me of the convo between Xykon and Redcloak at the end of Start of Darkness.

I suppose someone needs to start the thread...

I thought the quality was really, really good this round, no clunkers, ranging from "solid, not bad" through a bunch of "really fun, but not quite getting there" to "spectacular."

My clear favorite of this round's entries is 26 Paper Street, and that's one vote for this round.

My second vote I'm really torn between Hecataeus: Sanctum of the Colossus and The Legendary Playhouse Theater. I actually have liked both guys' work thus far, so there's not a really strong difference there, maybe a slight lean towards Neil.

I think I'm gonna have to go with the Playhouse, but I certainly hope both guys get through to the final 4.

With congratulations to all who made it, and to the alternates (because you never know, you might be in this thing a week from now), I am curious what the Paizo community thinks of these items. Which ones really catch your fancy?

In no particular order my five favorite items were:

Master’s perfect golden bell

Key of closed doors

Last leaves of the autumn dryad

Veil of the midnight vigil

Hurricane gloves

Simple enough question, right?

I get that we want to have a super-strong force field, and that's cool, but one of the arguments that came up back in the fighter playtest discussion was the fact that there are certain spells that are absolutely unbeatable without a specific countermeasure. WoF is such a spell. It cannot be broken by any amount of physical strength. It cannot be damaged by anything but disintegrate, which destroys it. It doesn't matter if you are an epic paragon l33t uber-tarrasque, you cannot break through this 5th level spell. It can't be done.

To me, that's a little silly.

It's not even consistent with the rest of the force effects in the game. Every force effect except for WoF and forcecage is either dispellable and relatively small in size, not affecting movement (shield, mage's sword, spiritual weapon) or has hit points (Bigby's ... hand) and can be attacked.

One solution is to give classes like barbarians and fighters high-level capstone-type abilities that let them smash or destroy indestructible things. I suggested a few such things. The problem is that you end up with a lot of specialized idiosyncratic solutions to counter one problem. Why not go to the source and fix that?

I want WoF and FC to be super-tough and hard to break. I'm perfectly okay with having them be immune to dispelling (though I could see an argument to make them and perhaps some other spells subject only to greater dispel magic, just to give the higher-level spell a little more juice, but that's really a separate notion).

That said, there is plenty of precedent in sci-fi and fantasy for force shields getting battered down, shattered, broken through, or otherwise circumvented by constant pounding. I'd say there are more examples of this than there are of shields that are just flat-out unbeatable.

So what to do? By way of comparison:

Wall of ice is 4th level, hardness 0, 3 hit points per level.

Wall of stone is 5th level, hardness 8, 3.75 hit points per level (15/inch, 1 inch/4 levels)

Wall of iron is also 5th level, hardness 10, 7.5 hit points per level (30/inch, 1 inch/4 levels)

As a side note, I might propose making wall of iron a level higher than wall of stone, since it's twice as strong. True, WoI isn't shapeable, but just a thought.

Wall of force is also 5th level, and unlike all the others only lasts 1 round per level. Why not make it work like so:

Hardness: 20 (so adamantine weapons don't penetrate its hardness), or perhaps even 20 +1 per caster level, or a flat hardness of 30.

Hit points: 15 per level (continuing the doubling from stone to iron)

As an object, it suffers half damage from energy attacks (1/2 damage from cold). Allow the disintegrate spell to bypass its hardness, or just make it an auto-counter spell that beats it.

This kind of barrier would still be VERY hard to break down and would block line of effect and ethereal creatures and all the rest, but it would at least give the max-power-attacking fighter or giant or dragon some theoretical chance to blast its way out of the wizard's cage.

Alternatively, leave everything as is and make WoF and forcecage have a duration of concentration. Sure, they are unbeatable, but you have to bend your will to holding them up to make sure they stay that way.

Thoughts?

(apologies if the original post ever shows up; it appears to have been postmonstered)

A fun but weird spell in 1st Edition when it first appeared in Dragon #68, chain lightning has a great name and a great visual, but perhaps even more than the other evocation/direct damage spells it got kind of a kick in the nards in 3rd Ed.

It's plainly true that being able to select your targets is neat, although having to select them within a small area is less cool.

Still, the fact that everyone besides your initial target only takes half damage just pokes a finger in the eye of the poor evoker even more than usual. You end up with a spell that does the same base damage as cone of cold, except it only does that damage to ONE creature, and HALF of that to your other targets. Again, it's cool that you get to exclude allies in the AoE, but honestly, the damage is so minor at 11th+ level that you almost wouldn't care if your allies DID get hit with it.

The most comparable core spell to CL is horrid wilting, which is 2 levels higher, so it should be better, and it is, but consider this:

Both have long range.

HW affects EVERY living creature you want within a 30' r.
CL affects 1 living creature/level you want within a 30' r., as long as the primary target is in the center.

HW is Fort half (no evasion)
CL is Ref half (subject to evasion)

HW is untyped damage (no energy resistance)
CL is electricity damage (subject to energy resistance)

HW does max 20d6 (20d8 vs. plant/water)
CL does max 15d6

HW does full damage to EVERY target
CL does full damage to only ONE target, half damage to everyone else

The untyped damage is the big one, but HW clearly wails all over CL. It is better and it SHOULD be better - it's 2 levels higher. That's fine.

My point is that CL should be at least a little bit better than it is, and the solution is simple: make chain lightning do full damage to all targets.

HW is still a much better spell and worthy of being 2 levels higher, but it gives CL back a little of its luster. A spell like CoC is still good for hitting a big area, but CL doesn't seem so weak compared to its lower level cousin.

As part of the effort to dial back the power of spellcasters a bit, esp. in the land of "save or you're screwed" spells, we talked about recovery saves. Basically, spells that resulted in ongoing conditions would follow something like the hold person principle, giving a new save each round to shake it off. To make it a uniform mechanic, we talked about something you do at the END of your turn, which could mean one of several things:

1.[b] As a character, you can make a recovery save as a swift action at the end of your turn vs. a condition affecting you. This limits it to one roll per round (and imposes a slight cost, as it prevents you doing other swift actions on your turn, like quickened spells), and you would have to choose which effect to save against if more than one is on you. This decouples it from spells and makes it so you don't have to alter any text in the spells themselves. Everything can work as written.

[b]2. As #1 above but it's a free action that you can do at the end of your turn vs. EVERY condition that is on you.

3. You can make it an inherent quality of the spells that they allow recovery saves. This model would be a free action at the end of your turn, and you'd roll for each effect. This might be more effective in reducing the 'I win' power of these spells because the spells themselves would stipulate their 'recoverability' (like hold monster does). Maybe it's just a psychological distinction.

Thinking about recovery saves leave you with a couple of things to think about as far as types of spells:

A. Effects that are just flat-out damage effects. Most of these are instant. A few are ongoing. I suppose if we'd led a person shrug off a charm spell, they should be able to quench ongoing damage from an acid arrow. I dunno, though, I'm really thinking much more about status conditions than just damage, or even ability damage (whether poison or disease or straight ability-attack spells). I think that's where the problem area lies, more so than raw hit points.

B. Effects that are instantaneous/permanent conditions. These are the real hardcore screw-you effects. Bestow curse, blindness/deafness*, flesh to stone, feeblemind, insanity, finger of death, imprisonment, baleful polymorph, plane shift (to some instalethal plane; although I should say I always thought that was a chump use of the spell; it should only affect willing targets). These are iconic types of effect, and it would be kinda weird for somebody to just instantly snap out of it when they've been turned into a statue or a corpse. Still, the game should acknowledge that failing a save vs. a super-bad effect like this is worse than failing a save vs. fear or contagion or eyebite or whatever.

Long story short, following the precedent of psychic crush, insta/permanent take-out effects should give a +4 bonus on their saving throw. Yes, they are more powerful and lasting effects than comparable-level spells, but the target has a better chance to resist. There's your trade-off as a caster.

* Can we please separate blindness and deafness back into separate spells like in 1st Ed? The game-mechanical effect of deafness is so piddly compared to blindness, they really should be different levels. And, for that matter, blindness is so hardcore in 3rd Ed that there is no way a 2nd/3rd level spell should be able to PERMANENTLY lay that on somebody.

C. Effects that normally allow no save. How do you make a new save vs. a spell that didn't give you one in the first place? To make it no different than a spell where you had to save seems a little weenie. Perhaps require two successful recovery saves to shake off the effect of power word stun or irresistible dance.

D. Spells with open-ended durations. These mostly make me think of mind-control spells like suggestion, geas, and charm/dominate person/monster, where you might give instruction that takes a variable and unpredictable amount of time to complete. How exactly would you reconcile this with recovery saves. That is an excellent question. My answers would probably be that:
- Suggestion and geas have a sort of self-limited duration already in that their duration is limited to a specific task. I dunno. Those are both hard to say.
- Charm I have been thinking of recasting as a skill spell that you cast on yourself to improve your Dip, which would moot the point.
- Dominate I could reasonably see allowing recovery saves each round, though that already sort of exists with the resaves allowed for "actions against your nature" stuff.

I dunno, if those sound like underwhelming explanations to you, that makes two of us.

E. Everything else. Any other spell you can just keep saving til you throw it off. True, this makes pretty much all combat condition-imposing spells have a duration of rounds rather than minutes or hours, but I think that is all to the good. I would include effects like ability penalties (say, ray of enfeeblement) in this category, but not ability damage/drain. Negative levels, I'm not quite sure whether you'd call that damage (I think I would) or a condition (I could see that too, though). I think everything else this side of instapermanent conditions would work just fine with a recovery save mechanic.

So, recovery saves as a mechanic?

What do people think?

The basic notion of this idea is to provide a unified kind of mechanic that both makes skills more relevant and gets rid of redundant mechanics. Instead of having to describe a detailed set of what, say, Diplomacy lets you do with someone who's your friend, vs. what a charm spell does (and then having that information in two separate places), we can combine and unify the spells to do that. This means we need to describe some higher-DC effects than 30, and that's okay, since PCs can get there without casting spells too, but it makes it easier to resolve if we do it with spells. It also helps get past some of the binary nature of spells that make whole skill paths obsolete.

All skill spells could use basically the same mechanic.

Idea #1: A simple method is to use the jump spell mechanic. They give +10 to a skill at the level you get the spell, +20 4 levels later, +30 8 levels later. Now, you could argue this is just too much, so you could flatten the curve, say to +10, +15, and +20 instead of +10/20/30, because you could argue the game effect of super-diplomacy is way better than the game effect of super-jump, and I might agree.

There is a little problem with that method, though, in that it relatively privileges low-level spells vs. high-level ones. Maybe that's okay because their ancillary effects are better (better duration, more targets, more variety of uses). If I'm 9th level, I could cast a 1st level charm person and get a +30 bonus with humanoids, or cast a 4th level and get a +10 with monsters. That seems funky.

Idea #2: On looking at the Beta rules, it seems that the good Mr. Jason B. has discovered the perfect uniform mechanic for these kinds of "skill spells." It's not jump; it's knock (PF Beta style).

In effect, the caster replaces a skill check with a caster level check with a +10 bonus.

Take, for instance, the aforementioned knock. At 3rd level, a caster gets what amounts to a +13 Disable Device (open locks) check for casting the spell. A 3rd level rogue with 18 Dex and MW tools should have +12 at the same level. The knock spell has some other advantages (range, speed (standard vs. full-round), suppresses arcane lock), and the rogue has advantages (cheap, infinitely repeatable, does not consume resources to use, and most important can benefit from skill-boosting magical effects).

In essence, it lets a caster be as good as somebody who is extremely skilled ONCE (or for a limited amount of time). It also lets you make a skill check quickly (which is nice for something like Disable Device or Diplomacy that normally takes time). This makes charm person suddenly a very nice spell, as you can influence reactions quickly (standard action caster level check instead of 1 minute and a Diplomacy check).

CLC is not very easy to bump, it scales nicely with level, it lets us not worry about spell level. I think it actually works better than being a skill bonus, because it lets us use the same mechanic as the skill check but without the gross stacking that could happen through feats, skill-boosting spells and magic items, etc. It also represents the power of the caster - someone who is a complete horse's ass in person (say, Raistlin Majere) could still cast the spell and seem like Prince Charming. Without it, he'd have a hard time convincing someone that the sky was blue without pointing up. For a super-charming Diplomacy-focused character, it may seem to make the spell a bit superfluous, but it becomes a trade-off - when you needs a quick Dip check, you cast the spell. When you have more time, you can use the skill.

I could see an argument to bump the numbers higher for a skill like Acrobatics (for jumping) that is just not very game-breaking, but really the numbers aren't enormously different (honestly, SRD jump is +10 at 1st, +20 at 5th, +30 at 9th; this version would be +11 at 1st, +15 at 5th, +19 at 9th, but would also keep on going), and besides, by the time you care about the difference you're probably already flying anyway.

I really think it is a perfect and elegant mechanic to use for all of these kinds of spells and could save you time and space in the book.

Idea #3: The uber-simple idea for such spells, if you think divorcing them entirely from a normal skill check is too much, I would say you could alternately use a spell to give you a bonus to a skill check. Say, something like this:

a. You can cast this spell as a swift action to give you a +5 competence bonus to a [xxx] skill check.

b. You may instead cast this spell as a standard action, which allows you to make a CLC at +10 in place of a normal [xxx] skill check.

NOW, we come to the acid test: What spells affect what skills? I'm glad you asked, because I've drawn up a list. It doesn't perfectly map onto all spells, but take a look and see what you think

1st level

Charm person – skill bonus to Diplomacy (humanoids only)
Comprehend languages – skill bonus to Linguistics (to read unknown languages)
Detect secret doors – skill bonus to Perception (to notice secret/concealed doors)
Disguise self – skill bonus to Disguise
Doom – skill bonus to Intimidate (demoralize) - The puzzle here is also whether this should be the mechanic for all fear-type spells, buffing Intimidate. To do that, you'd have to add in special effects for high Intimidate checks (say you beat the DC by 10, they're frightened instead of shaken, by 20 they're panicked)
Grease – skill bonus to Escape Artist (if you cast it on a creature)
Hold portal - skill penalty to Disable Device (vs. locks) DC and break DC
Identify – skill bonus to Appraise checks to ID magic
Jump – skill bonus to Acrobatics (jump) checks

2nd level

Alter self – skill bonus to Disguise (but not an illusion, so real changes as per the spell)
Command undead – skill bonus to Diplomacy vs. undead, and lets you use it vs. mindless undead
Find traps – skill bonus to Perception (vs. traps, can find high-DC traps like a rogue)
Invisibility – skill bonus to Stealth - yes, it would be a bit of a radical departure, but why not? In LotR the frickin' One Ring only made you partly invis in direct sunlight, you leave footprints, you can hear the person… wouldn't this just make things a whole lot easier if invisibility didn't have its own special set of rules? And that it wasn't such a total screw-you vs. non-casters & people without see invisibility?)
Knock – skill bonus to Disable Device vs. locks (plus you can do it at range and without tools, nice enough as fringe benefits)
Silence – skill bonus for Stealth checks (vs. Perception/hearing)
Spider climb – interesting corner case. We could just make it a skill bonus to Climb checks for the sake of consistency, but the ability to have a climb speed has certain specific game effects. Climbing is better than jumping, but it's probably about even with levitating for usefulness.

3rd level

Glibness – skill bonus to Bluff checks (for tricking people)
Invisibility sphere – skill bonus for Stealth checks in the sphere
Tongues – skill bonus to Linguistics checks another corner case, and poorly worded. Does it let you speak/understand the language of ANY intelligent creature, as in any SINGLE intelligent creature? Or does ANY mean ALL, simultaneously? (might be easier to just say the subject can "speak and understand all languages, but may only speak in one language at a time," though I guess it'd be a neat trick to speak more than one language at a time when you only have one mouth!). I would be in favor it being one language per casting, but I don't know if it would make much game-mechanical difference. Also, it would be good to specify if "understand" a language means just spoken or written as well. The implication is spoken but it's unclear.

4th level

Charm monster – skill bonus to Diplomacy (any sentient creature you can communicate with)
Freedom of movement – skill bonus to Escape Artist checks; equivalent bonus to resist or escape a grapple.
Invisibility (greater) – skill bonus for Stealth checks
Zone of silence ­– skill bonus for Stealth checks (vs. hearing)

5th level

Fabricate – skill bonus to Craft checks (and presumably some reduction in the time needed for crafting)
Seeming – skill bonus to Disguise checks

6th level

Analyze dweomer – skill bonus to Arcana/Appraise checks to ID magic
Legend lore – skill bonus to Knowledge (any/all)
Mislead – skill bonus to Stealth (for yourself) and maybe Disguise (for your illusionary duplicate)
Veil – skill bonus to Disguise checks - this one is harder to just say Disguise checks, since it lets you look like ANYTHING, so perhaps best to let this go. Maybe it ignores penalties for looking radically different? Still, I wonder why this is only one level higher than seeming, since it is completely superior in every way (fools all senses, can appear like anything, everyone affected can look different instead of all same/similar)

7th level

Vision – skill bonus to Knowledge (any/all)

8th level

Charm monster, mass – skill bonus to Diplomacy

There might be others, but those are the main ones I happened to see in looking at the Beta book. You could add in spells to fill the other skills not addressed (like Swim, especially, since there is no core PFRPG spell aside from polymorph-type stuff that actually helps you swim, which is weird – you can breathe water, you can walk on it, you can freely move in it, but you can't SWIM in it with magic!).

Anyway, skill spells. Too radical? Interesting idea? What do you think? Inquiring minds want to know!

From way back when, we had many arguments about a certain spell referenced in the title. Contained herein are a pair of alternate versions of the spell that I think take it down to a much more 2nd level power level, avoiding all of the weirdness of the invisible, impenetrable extraplanar space.

Rope Trick (the simple version)

School: Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 2
Components: V, S, M (powdered corn and a twist of parchment), F (a rope)
Casting Time: 1 round
Range: Touch
Target: One touched piece of rope
Duration: 1 hour/level (D)
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

This versatile spell can be cast upon a piece of rope, causing it to stretch vertically to a height of 5 to 30 feet and hang suspended, knotting itself for ease of climbing (Climb DC 5). The top of the rope leads to a ropy hammock woven in a ring of 5-foot squares surrounding the square containing the vertical rope 'ladder.' This ropy hammock is stationary and can support up to 2000 pounds of creatures or objects. As a move action, the caster can command the rope ladder to withdraw into the hammock, forming a new 5-foot square of hammock in the center of the ring, or lower to the ground again, opening a 5-foot hole in the center of the hammock. When the rope is withdrawn, the rope trick blends in with its surroundings and muffles sounds and smells from creatures resting on it, imposing a -10 penalty to Perception checks to notice creatures resting on it. This penalty is negated if a creature on the rope trick attacks or moves faster than half speed. The hammock provides partial cover (+2 bonus to AC, +1 to Reflex saves) against attacks from beneath it.

The rope trick is made of ordinary rope and can be broken or damaged. Each 5-foot section has a break DC of 23, AC 11, hardness 1, with 1 hit point per caster level (maximum 10), and is immune to bludgeoning damage. A 5-foot section reduced to 0 hit points collapses and is destroyed, but the other sections of the rope trick remains magically suspended. If the center section or the vertical rope is destroyed, the caster can cause a different 5-foot section to transform into the rope ladder.

Rope Trick (the cool version)

School: Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 2
Components: V, S, M (powdered corn and a twist of parchment), F (a rope)
Casting Time: 1 round
Range: Touch
Target: One touched piece of rope
Duration: 1 hour/level (D)
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

This versatile spell can be cast upon a piece of rope, causing it growing in length and weaving itself into one of magically suspended several shapes at the direction of the caster, each of which may support a maximum weight of 200 pounds per caster level (maximum 2000 pounds). Once the form of the rope trick is chosen, it remains in that shape for the duration of the spell. Once created, the rope trick is stationary.

Rope bridge: The rope forms a bridge that spans up to 10 feet per level horizontally (maximum 100 feet). A character must make a DC 5 Acrobatics check to move across the bridge at half speed. Failure means the creature loses its balance and fails to progress; failure by 5 or more means the creature falls from the rope bridge.

Rope hammock: The rope knits itself into a stationary hammock suspended in midair. The hammock can be suspended at a height of 5 feet plus 5 feet per 2 levels (maximum 30 feet), with a rope ladder (see below) leading up to a ring of 5-foot squares surrounding the square containing the vertical rope 'ladder.' As a move action, the caster can command the rope ladder to withdraw into the hammock, forming a new 5-foot square of hammock in the center of the ring, or lower to the ground again, opening a 5-foot hole in the center of the hammock. When the rope is withdrawn, the rope trick blends in with its surroundings and muffles sounds and smells from creatures resting on it, imposing a -10 penalty to Perception checks to notice creatures resting on it. This penalty is negated if a creature on the rope trick attacks or moves faster than half speed. The hammock provides partial cover (+2 bonus to AC, +1 to Reflex saves) against attacks from beneath it.

Rope ladder: The rope knots itself and hangs suspended in midair, perpendicular to the ground stretching up to 10 feet per level vertically (maximum 100 feet). Climbing the rope ladder is a DC 5 Climb check, DC 0 if there is a wall adjacent to it to brace against.

Tripline: The rope stretches into a ropy tangle that fills one 5-foot square per level (maximum 10); each square must be adjacent (including diagonally) to at least one other square. A creature entering a tripline square can move through it at half speed with a DC 10 Acrobatics check. Failure means its movement stops after entering the square; failure by 5 or more means it falls prone in that square.

Any type of rope trick can be attacked and damaged. Each 5-foot section has a break DC of 23, AC 11, hardness 1, with 1 hit point per caster level (maximum 10), and is immune to bludgeoning damage. A 5-foot section reduced to 0 hit points collapses and is destroyed, the remainder of the rope trick remains magically suspended.

This is an old chestnut as far back as basic D&D: What happens when you use a torch as a weapon?

The simple answer is that it is an improvised weapon of its size, and that's fine for the basic whacking aspect of the torch, but what about the fire?

1. Should a torch used as a weapon inflict fire damage on a hit?

(probably 1 point of fire damage)

2. Should a torch have a chance of setting a target on fire on a hit?

(mmm... probably not, but maybe you could try to light someone on fire with a torch as a full-round touch attack, rather than attacking for damage... still probably too good)

3. What are the chances of your torch going out when you're waving it around and whacking it into things?

(pretty substantial I would think, though not automatic)

The "torch as a weapon" is a pretty classic fantasy/pulp trope, but it rarely shows up in D&D because the rules have always been awfully fuzzy on it. I'd like to see that remedied in PF.

Just wanted to spread a little hate and loathing for the chain shirt, which is better than EVERY kind of medium armor. +4 AC, +4 DEX. The only one that matches the total is the breastplate at +5/+3, and for that is more expensive, heavier, and oh by the way slows you down 10 feet per round!

I know, I know, backwards compatibility and all that, but can we PLEASE get rid of this armor type?

Suggestions:

1. Eliminate it entirely.

2. Reduce the AC bonus given by all forms of light armor by 1:

a. Padded goes away.
b. Leather becomes +1/+8, ACP 0
c. Studded leather becomes +2/+7, ACP -1
d. Chain shirt becomes +3/+5*, ACP -2

* (but unlike the others kinds of light armor, chain shirt can be made mithril)

Medium armors can offer base AC +4 to +6

a. Hide +4/+2, ACP -3
b. Scale +5/+2, ACP -4
c. Chain +6/+2, ACP -4
d. Breastplate +6/+3, ACP -3

Heavy armors can offer base AC +7 to +9

a. Splint +7/+0, ACP -5
b. Banded +7/+1, ACP -5
c. Plate +8/+1, ACP -6
d. Full plate +9/+1, ACP -6

Just a notion...

A different version of the duelist for your consideration.

Prestige Class: DUELIST

Requirements
To qualify to become a Duelist, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Base Attack Bonus: +6
Feats: Agile Maneuvers, Combat Expertise, Dazzling Display, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (any one-handed or light piercing weapon)
Skills: Acrobatics 5 ranks, Perform 3 ranks

Hit Die:[b] D10

Full BAB
[b]Good Saves: Reflex

Class Abilities
1st - Canny defense, precise strike
2nd - Elaborate parry
3rd - Enhanced mobility, Stunning Defense
4th - Evasion
5th - Sneak attack +1d6
6th - Acrobatic charge, Whirlwind Attack
7th - Riposte
8th - Improved evasion
9th - Deadly Stroke, grace
10th - Sneak attack +2d6

Skills (4 + Int bonus per level): Acrobatics (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Perception (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis)

Class Features
The following are class features of the Duelist prestige class. Unless otherwise noted, all of a duelist's class abilities require that he be unarmored and unencumbered, and bonuses apply only when wielding a single one-handed or light weapon (not including a natural weapon) that can be used with the Weapon Finesse feat in one hand.

I thought it was easier to state this fact ONCE here, rather than separately for every class ability.

Canny defense (Ex): A duelist gains a bonus to initiative checks and a dodge bonus to AC equal to his Intelligence bonus (to a maximum of his duelist level).

You don't need to stipulate that the AC is lost when Dex bonus is lost, because dodge bonuses are ALWAYS lost when you lose your Dex bonus. I also figured rolling the init bonus into this ability would simplify the class and enhance this ability.

Precise strike (Ex): A duelist gains a bonus to damage equal to his duelist level when using Weapon Finesse with an appropriate weapon (see above).

The damage ends up being similar to the precise strike, but since we are assuming a rapier or dagger for most duelists, we want their crits to boost their damage, right? They're already gonna have a fairly low STR.

Elaborate Parry (Ex): At 2nd level, when fighting defensively or using the total defense or the withdraw action, a duelist gains a dodge bonus to AC equal to his duelist level. In addition, once per round when you are attacked you can use an attack of opportunity (even if using the total defense action) to try to deflect the attack with a CMB check against your attacker. You gain a bonus on this check equal to your duelist level. If you succeed, you deflect the attack and take no damage.

1. By adding the withdraw action to the list of things where you can use your elaborate parry, we essentially emulate the Mobility feat and have it scale with level when you are retreating.

2. Adding a very simple CMB-based parry (combined with the Agile Maneuvers feat prereq to use your Dex for CMBs) I thought made this a nice, easy to use ability.

3. This ability seems in many ways the quintessential ability of the duelist; why should they have to wait til 7TH LEVEL to get it?

Enhanced Mobility (Ex): At 3rd level, you may stand up from prone without provoking attacks of opportunity. You do not lose your Dexterity bonus when balancing or climbing and you may take 10 on Acrobatics and Climb checks even if you are rushed or threatened.

I added Climb to this and the class skills, because I figure we want duelists clinging to walls and ladders and ropes and still dueling.

*Stunning Defense: At 3rd level, a duelist receives Stunning Defense as a bonus feat.

Evasion (Ex): At 4th level, a duelist gains evasion.

Sure, some duelists are going to be part rogue already, but some won't, and this really does seem like an absolutely obvious ability for a swashbuckler type.

Sneak attack (Ex): At 5th level, a duelist gains sneak attack. At 10th level, it improves to +2d6.

This is meant to synergize with the Stunning Defense feat and the Dazzling Display prereq feat – you scare them with DD, then make them flat-footed with SD, then sneak attack them. Yes, evasion + sneak attack seems awfully rogue-ey, but this is a PrC, so why not?

Acrobatic Charge (Ex): At 6th level, a duelist's movement is no longer slowed by difficult terrain. In addition, when charging a duelist gains her Elaborate Parry bonus to AC and need not move in a straight line.

*Whirlwind Attack: At 6th level, a duelist receives Whirlwind Attack as a bonus feat.

Riposte (Ex): At 7th level, a duelist fighting defensively or using the total defense action may take an attack of opportunity once per round against a foe that attacks and misses him in melee. The attacker is considered flat-footed against this attack.

Improved Evasion (Ex): At 8th level, a duelist gains improved evasion.

*Deadly Stroke: At 9th level, a duelist gains Deadly Stroke as a bonus feat.

Grace (Ex): At 9th level, a duelist gains a +2 competence bonus to all Reflex saves, Dex checks, and Dex-based skill checks.

* While I more or less built up these three particular feats to synergize with the Dazzling Display and the sneak attack combo, I could just as easily see them all pulling out of just a "bonus feat" pool containing, say: Acrobatic, Blind-Fight, Deadly Stroke, Dodge, Improved Critical, Improved Disarm, Improved Feint, Improved Trip, Mobility, Quick Draw, Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack.

As suggestion for a bardic combat ability, one that seems appropriate to their idiom and will add a bit of handy utility without getting all crazy about it, I present:

Dramatic Flourish (Ex): At 2nd level, bards may use their performance skills to distract and momentarily confuse their enemies. A bard may feint in combat or create a distraction to hide as a move action, using a Perform check in place of a Bluff check.

The feint is plausible enough, but the distraction to hide seemed odd to me at first, until I sort of had a visual of a bard playing the dramatic final note of a tune, bowing, the people around cheering clapping each other on the back and then looking back and... where did he go? Cue the dramatic chase music as the bard is sprinting away through the alley with the princess and the jewels...

Thoughts?

P.S. I had also considered making this a bit of bardic music, with targets who fell asleep being considered flat-footed to the bard for a round, but I think I like it better as above.

Another idea buried in the 400-post Paladin Upgrade thread, and I believe now twice eaten by the postmonster, but that I thought I would repost for general consideration.

Rather than using the same channel energy power as the cleric, why not give the paladin something unique and distinctive. At first this looks like kind of a wall of text, but realize that this is analogous not only to the channel energy class ability for clerics (3 paragraphs on p. 22 of PF Beta) but also the section on channeling energy in the Combat chapter (which I would actually much rather see in the cleric description, instead of having to search for it each time it comes up) (7 paragraphs on pp. 148-149).

Anyway, for your consideration, I present:

VERSION A:

This version does similar curing/damaging to channel energy, or an alternate non-damaging effect. You do only one thing at a time, choosing which you will use.

Holy Channeling (Su): At 4th level, a paladin has the power to channel divine energies directly from the upper planes through his holy symbol. This power bolsters creatures of good alignment and harms those of evil alignment in a 30-foot burst. A paladin may use holy channeling a number of times per day equal to 3+ her Charisma modifier. Save DCs are equal to 10 + 1/2 paladin level + Charisma modifier.

The paladin may choose to heal those of good alignment and harm those who are evil. Good creatures in the burst are healed of 1d6 points of damage per 2 paladin levels. Neutral creatures are neither healed nor harmed, but evil creatures suffer 1d6 points of damage per 2 paladin levels to evil creatures, with a Will save allowed to halve damage. Evil outsiders, fiendish creatures, and any creature with the [evil] subtype or an aura of evil suffer double damage.

A paladin can instead choose to release a burst of spiritual power that bolsters good creatures and terrifies those of evil alignment. Good creatures gain a +1 morale bonus to weapon attack and damage rolls and to saves against fear and charm that lasts for a number of rounds equal to the paladin's Charisma bonus. If they are currently under a charm or fear effect, they are entitled to an immediate saving throw to break the effect. The morale bonus increases by +1 and the healing by 1d6 for every 4 paladin levels beyond 4th (e.g., +5 and 5d6 at 20th level).

Evil creatures within the burst are shaken for a number of rounds equal to the paladin's Charisma modifier; evil outsiders, fiendish creatures, and creatures with the evil subtype or an aura of evil are frightened instead. Evil creatures succeeding on a Will save are shaken for 1 round.

Finally, a paladin may use holy channeling to command the allegiance of a single good outsider, celestial creature, or creature with the good subtype or an aura of good within 30 feet. This effect works as charm monster (Will save negates) with a duration of 1 day. While a paladin may use this ability on more than one creature, the total number of hit dice of creatures commanded may not exceed his paladin level.

VERSION B:

This version is more about multitasking, having multiple effects come into play at once. You give ONE use of the ability and it booms out and does all the stuff on the list.

Holy Channeling (Su): At 4th level, a paladin has the power to channel divine energies directly from the upper planes through his holy symbol. This power bolsters creatures of good alignment and harms those of evil alignment in a 30-foot burst. A paladin may use holy channeling a number of times per day equal to 3+ her Charisma modifier.

Evil creatures within the holy channeling suffer 1d6 points of damage and are shaken for a number of rounds equal to the paladin's Charisma modifier. A Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 paladin level + Charisma modifier) negates the shaken effect but not the damage. The fear caused by holy channeling affects undead as well as living creatures. This is a good, mind-affecting effect.

Evil outsiders, fiendish creatures, and creatures with the evil subtype or an aura of evil suffer double damage and are frightened on a failed Will save.

Good-aligned creatures receive 1d6 points of healing and a +1 morale bonus to weapon attack and damage rolls and to saves against fear and charm. If they are currently under a charm or fear effect, they are entitled to an immediate saving throw to break the effect. The morale bonus increases by +1 and the healing by 1d6 for every 4 paladin levels beyond 4th (e.g., +5 and 5d6 at 20th level).

Good outsiders, celestial creatures, and any creature with the good subtype or an aura of good gain double the normal amount of healing, and if the paladin wishes he may attempt to command the allegiance of one or more such creatures. This effect lasts for 1 day and is equivalent to a charm monster spell. A Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 paladin level + Charisma modifier) negates the command, and the paladin may only affect one or more creatures whose total hit dice do not exceed his class level.

The curing ability of Version B is less than for the clerical channel positive energy (unless you have the good subtype, like a paladin or good cleric), which I don't mind; after all, a paladin still has lay on hands for straight-up curing. I could see an argument for doubling the curing and having the "special effects" be an option (i.e., damage OR fear vs. evil, healing OR bolster/command vs. good) via version A, and I think I like that version better, but I think this would a neat and distinctive paladin ability that wouldn't just be a second-rate cleric knockoff.

Thoughts?

Since this idea was hatched some 300+ posts into the Paladin Upgrade thread I thought I'd throw this out as its own thread.

For those paladins who go with the divine bond (celestial spirit) angle, I thought it might be a nice idea to allow them to apply their divine bond bonuses to either their weapon or their shield (or both). I think a full double-dip would be too much, but I could certainly see splitting the bonus between them.

My suggestion would be to add an enhancement bonus to the shield (as you would with a weapon) or one of the following additional abilities: arrow catching (y'know, to protect your allies!), arrow deflection, bashing, blinding, fortification (light, medium, or heavy), ghost touch, reflecting, spell resistance.

And yes, I intentionally left off animated because animated shield SUCK!!! :)

Similar to what I mentioned over on the paladin side, if we want to make the ranger's spellcasting a bit more legit as a class ability, to move it from a forgotten corner of their utility belt up towards something that would see more use, we might add a few more rangery spells to their list, things that would help them sneak about and be awesome. To wit, a few suggestions:

1. Movement

1st - expeditious retreat
2nd - spider climb
3rd - haste
4th - air walk

2. Combat

1st - faerie fire, true strike
2nd - protection from arrows
3rd - beast shape I, keen edge
4th - beast shape II

3. Utility

1st - animal trance, animate rope, feather fall
2nd - fog cloud, whispering wind
3rd - tiny hut, water breathing
4th - secure shelter, solid fog

And, if you want a little throwback to 1st Ed, you could add in this:

4. Information-gathering

1st - [/i]
2nd - [i]see invisibility
3rd - clairaudience/clairvoyance
4th - prying eyes, scrying

Anyway, I think any of these might be fine additions to the ranger's spell list.

Thoughts?

Yes, I realize it's rather late in the game to add a new thread, but why not just throw one out there. We know paladins can cast spells, and that is one of their compensations for not being as good at straight-up combat as the fighters are, but their spell list is... a little thin.

I just thought I would throw out a few suggestions for enhancing it, spells that seem very thematic for paladins, and a few that I'm frankly shocked aren't already on his list.

1. Spells they already kind of get, but only partially.

Why do paladins ahve a level skip in their cure wounds spells? Why do they get magic weapon but not the other similar spells in that tree? Why stat buffs for STR, WIS, and CHA but not CON?

1st -
2nd - bear's endurance, cure moderate wounds
3rd - cure serious wounds, magic vestment, magic weapon (greater)
4th - cure critical wounds (or maybe breath of life)

2. They are holy warriors, perhaps a little more in the way of combat buffs.

1st - shield of faith
2nd - aid, heroism, protection from arrows
3rd - divine power, keen edge (keen is maybe superfluous with divine bond, but it's a thought)
4th - righteous might

3. They are also benevolent protectors and caretakers, so a few more spells to help their allies (and themselves).

1st - mount, remove fear, sanctuary
2nd - calm emotions
3rd - lesser planar ally
4th - atonement, heroes' feast

4. Call down the thunder and the holy wrath upon the unbeliever!!! (or perhaps immobilize someone for, yknow, questioning instead of killification)

1st - nothing really jumping out at me here, unless you wanted to throw in something like sound burst, but really this sort of spell isn't going to be a paladin's forte anyway. Just sort of a nice add-on if that's the way he wanted to go.
2nd - hold person
3rd - searing light
4th - hold monster, holy smite, order's wrath

I think any of these types of spells would be sensible and logical additions (or adjustments to spells already on the list, in the case of the cures under #1) and would make the pally's spell list more enticing for those who want to make that a really useful part of the class.

Thoughts?

I had an idea about a monk using the ki pool to cast greater magic weapon on their unarmed strike. The details are under the spoiler below. On thinking about it, though, I think I like this version of the same general idea better:

As long as the monk has 1 ki point remaining (so as to keep the current 'reserve point' model), her unarmed strike is considered a magical weapon with an enhancement bonus of +1 per 4 monk levels.

1. This helps satisfy those who would like the monk to be a better combatant without bumping BAB.

2. This helps monks compensate for their fists not being a golf bag full of weapons. At 12th level, they beat silver/cold iron DR. At 16th adamantine. At 20th aligned DR.

3. You could certainly keep "ki pool (lawful)" as a 10th level ability if you like. It makes sense. You get to beat DR/lawful at 10th, and then DR/good/evil/chaotic at 20th.

4. This change would make the notation of "ki pool (adamantine)" kinda superfluous at 16th level, since a +4 weapon is already treated as adamantine for beating DR, but if you are more into monks breaking stuff you could keep in something like this class ability if you liked:

Adamant fist (Su): At 16th level, a monk's unarmed strike is considered an adamantine weapon for bypassing hardness.

What do you think?

For some more thoughts on using the GMW model (I hid it cuz it got too long):

We already have (essentially) a jump spell as a ki power (High Jump... and I should say I still like "Leap of the Clouds" as a name for that class ability).

Why not just make Slow Fall into a ki power to use feather fall on yourself as an immediate action? Wouldn't that be a good deal simpler than a scaling slow fall ability? You don't get the ability prior to getting your ki pool anyway.

Really, Quivering Palm is nothing crazily powerful. It's a neat, weird 1st Ed ability. It's a supernatural death effect so no SR, but it doesn't affect anything immune to crits, requires a touch attack, and is Fort negates. It's not technically a death effect, so it bypasses death ward, but it is also easier to come back from (breath of life, raise dead, revivify (the latter not PF, but still)). The monk gets it at 15th level.

The cleric has already had slay living for SIX LEVELS. He can do this multiple times a day. It's also a touch attack, affects things immune to crits, and inflicts damage even if the target saves.

True, slay living doesn't automatically kill on a failed save any more. For that effect, empowered poison (which the druid has had for SIX levels) is probably a better bet.

Now maybe the trick is that the quivering palm is exempt from Pathfinder's general nerfage of save-or-die effects, and that's why it has to be reined in. In all, though, I have a hard time seeing how a simple SoD ability, with all the limits it has, needs to be restricted to once a week. It seems an odd choice to me, even as a legacy limit from 1st Ed.

SOLUTIONS?

I'd suggest one of the following:

1. Make it usable once per day.

2. Assign it a ki point cost. Empty Body costs 3 ki points and essentially duplicates ethereal jaunt, a 7th level spell. QP, which I suppose you could compare to finger of death if you were feeling generous, is in the same power level, so why not 3 ki points to do it? That way, it fits in with the monk's extant mechanics.

As a side note, you should probably say Empty Body duplicates ethereal jaunt (which just affects the caster) rather than etherealness (which affects a gaggle of friends too)