Kurukami's page

You have to have identified the creature using kirin style and it takes a swift action to use the damage buff. You could only use it on one attack per round. For a magus, I could see this being somewhat useful if you for some reason have that many extra feats.

Except that identifying the creature only takes a DC (15+CR) roll, which is effectively a cakewalk for any wizard. Fighting a CR 10 creature, as a 10th level wizard, you'll have at least (10 ranks + 3 class skill + 7 INT bonus), minimum, making the check succeed on at most a 5 or better. Higher INT items, or more substantial inherent bonuses, mean it's even less of a problem.

I'm not complaining, mind you. My monk/wizard build just got a lot nastier, that's all I'm saying. *grin*

Might it be possible to add a filter for ranges? I know I was looking to narrow down a list of touch spells best used in cooperation with Reach Spell, and the filters as they stand currently don't have that capability.

*imagining*

The frost giant chuckled, a low, horrible sound. "Your friends are defeated, and you are helpless in my grasp. Do you understand now how hopeless your attempt to defeat me was? What did you ever think you could do to stop me?"

The draconic sorcerer struggled to free himself from the giant's grip, then glanced down at his necklace before looking up with a wild grin. "Spark."

The resulting explosion, it is said, could be seen as far as the valley's floor.

*evil grin*

For purposes of a resist energy spell, would an entire necklace of missiles detonating at once be considered one large block of fire damage (i.e., all the dice of damage being rolled together, and resistance only then being subtracted from the total) or many smaller blocks (each missile being considered a separate source of damage, and thus possibly being more resistable)?

So you want to be spending move actions in the middle of combat to re-dose your weapons, one at a time? That hardly seems like the sort of thing Batman would do. He'd be more about the preparation, the sudden strike, the sly rejoinder of "Oh yes, I poisoned you back at the beginning of the combat... didn't I tell you I spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocaine powder?"

But hey, to each their own image of Batman. :)

James Thomas wrote:

Has anyone done a Pathfinder conversion for this excellent classic adventure? I'm planning to run it this week and I could use some help with my prep. A few monsters I can just use from the Bestiary -- but if you know this adventure, you know almost everything is an original creation.

The Hidden Shrine was used as a Site in the Savage Tide AP as a nostalgia/history nod. A lot of DM's expanded from the small section used into more from the old classic module. You could check under that forum and see if there is anything there you could mine for ideas.

I'm in the middle of converting the whole thing over to Pathfinder for my Savage Tide campaign, with a few small updates and changes (like bumping many of the shrine nasties up to around CR 6-7 -- a single wight, for example, isn't going to do much of anything against a well-equipped and coordinated party of 6th level PCs). I'll post a link to the finished product, along with monster sheets, once I get it done. Not that this'll help the OP from a year ago, but who knows, someone else might be interested.

(For one thing, I shifted Xipe the ogre mage over from a "giant" oni to a "reptilian" oni (though with the same stats, mostly) and changed his name to Cipactli, the crocodile-headed Aztec god of earthquakes and eternal hunger and such. It seemed to fit better with the area being theoretically infested with lizardfolk, after all.)

What, no one?

Well, fair enough. I accept the judgement of my peers. : )

He's moving more than half his base land speed in the round. Therefore, at least to my understanding, there should be a penalty to his Stealth roll.

In my campaign, one of the clerics has the Thought domain and therefore has been regularly been preparing seek thoughts. The PC is using this on a ship at sea with the claimed question of "do you mean harm to me or any of my companions?" -- thus, basically, the player is trying to word it as a method of detecting nearby enemies.

I think that interpretation is ridiculous. The APG phrases the spell as "you may scan for either the answer to a simple question (such as "Where is the hidden lair of the wererats?" or for information on a general topic (such as the beliefs of an evil cult)", and goes on to say that you can engage people in normal conversation with the spell up to try to bring up leading questions about topics of interest.

To me, this very specifically means you don't get free looks into questions of "are you an enemy?" You have to actually talk to said target to try to bring their thoughts around to the topic you'd like to discern their true thoughts on.

Thoughts? Opinions?

One of the players in my campaign is playing a rogue. Despite the book definition of Stealth indicating that:

You can move up to half your normal speed and use Stealth at no penalty. When moving at a speed greater than half but less than your normal speed, you take a -5 penalty. It's impossible to use Stealth while attacking, running, or charging.

He claims that he can take a move action at half speed while using Stealth, then take another move action at half speed in place of his standard action, thus effectively moving at his full speed without penalty.

I call shenanigans. What's your take on it?

BATTLE FATIGUE wrote:

First: Fatigue and exhaustion affect mental stats, not just physical ones. This is true in life, and should be true in the game as well in order to make the mechanics run more smoothly and to preserve some semblance of balance.

The optional rule outlined below is a two-edged sword: it allows accumulated hit point damage to hinder combat effectiveness. This tends to slightly improve the overall effectiveness of melee and of evocation spells, vis-à-vis battlefield-control spells. However, it also inhibits “Die Hard” scenarios for PCs, by presenting them with penalties for wounds.

Interesting. I'm still reading it over. Of course, what also occurred to me with this is that this could provide an additional benefit to PCs that take Endurance/Diehard -- perhaps lessening the penalties by a level, or something.

In general:

While I understand and even sympathize with your desire to add wound effects to Pathfinder, I think you're playing the wrong game. Many game systems exist that handle wounding in a more detailed and realistic manner than D&D/Pathfinder.

(second spoiler)
* All characters receive maximum hit dice rolls at each level. (You're going to be imposing penalties at low HP, so the total will have to be higher to maintain game balance.)
* A character with less than 1/2 of their HP remaining is Fatigued until healed to above 1/2 HP.
* A character with less than 1/4 of their HP remaining is Staggered until healed to above 1/4 HP.

I do like your round of ideas. In fact, I'd be tempted to make the "less than 1/4 hp" thing include exhausted as well as staggered. However, neither of those penalties you're mentioning does anything to substantially handicap spellcasters either -- given that they're based largely on standard actions, especially.

Now, if there was something about forcing Concentration checks, or a penalty to skills, for a seriously wounded character whenever they're doing something that requires concentration -- whether it be casting a spell, picking a lock, trying to do something acrobatic, or the like -- I'd be all for that. Just imagine a ballet dancer trying to do a full, perfect routine with a torn ligament -- doesn't it make sense that would be tougher?

For my next campaign, however far down the line that may be, I want to put together some house rules which make hit points less of a yes/no thing. That is, that getting hurt and losing hit points means a character/opponent/NPC can take penalties before they actually go unconscious.

Additionally, I want to work in that taking critical hits adds wounding penalties, making them even more nasty.

I'm basing this along lines similar to what I remember about wound penalties in Shadowrun. What I'd like to say is that each "wound" would impose a cumulative -1 penalty to attack, CMB, AC, and possibly concentration checks, as well as a 5' loss movement per wound. (After all, it should be harder to sprint forward and lunge forcefully at the enemy while dodging a counterattack when you've got an arrowhead grinding against your hipbone.)

In theory, this ratio of wounding would be based off of both Constitution and character level/hit dice. A character with higher Constitution or level should be able to fight longer, with fewer penalties. Additionally, while classes with smaller hit dice will be unconscious, classes with larger hit dice will be able to continue fighting -- even though it will be at substantial penalties.

All averages and maxes below aren't counting favored class hit point bonuses. All penalties are calculated as one wound being suffered for each (1/2 CON plus level) hit points taken. (And by that I mean the actual CON score, not the CON bonus.)

5th level fighter (20 CON, so 5d10+25 hp)
(average 52.5 hp, max 75)
-1 at 15 hp taken
-2 at 30 hp
-3 at 45 hp
-4 at 60 hp
-5 at 75 hp

10th level fighter (24 CON, so 10d10+70 hp)
(average 125, max 170)
-1 at 22 hp taken
-2 at 44 hp
-3 at 66 hp
-4 at 88 hp
-5 at 110 hp
-6 at 132 hp
-7 at 154 hp

5th lvl rogue (14 CON, so 5d8+10 hp)
(average 32.5, max 50)
-1 at 12 hp taken
-2 at 24 hp
-3 at 36 hp
-4 at 48 hp

10th lvl rogue (16 CON, so 10d8+30 hp)
(average 75, max 110)
-1 at 18 hp taken
-2 at 36 hp
-3 at 54 hp
-4 at 72 hp
-5 at 90 hp
-6 at 108 hp

5th lvl wizard (12 CON, so 5d6+5 hp)
(average 22.5, max 35)
-1 at 11 hp taken
-2 at 22 hp
-3 at 33 hp

5th lvl wizard (16 CON, so 5d6+15 hp)
(average 32.5, max 45)
-1 at 13 hp taken
-2 at 26 hp
-3 at 39 hp

10th lvl wizard (16 CON, so 10d6+30 hp)
(average 65 hp, max 90)
-1 at 18 hp taken
-2 at 36 hp
-3 at 54 hp
-4 at 72 hp

10th lvl wizard (20 CON, so 10d6+50 hp) (in deference to CoDzilla's high-CON caster builds)
(average 85 hp, max 110)
-1 at 20 hp taken
-2 at 40 hp
-3 at 60 hp
-4 at 80 hp
-5 at 100 hp

Additionally, I was thinking that any critical hit would inflict a number of "wound points" equal to its crit multiplier. Although hit point damage could be healed by your standard curative spells, wounds should be tougher to heal above and beyond just healing the hit point damage.

Any thoughts or critiques?

Randomly, I'd throw a couple of night ambushes at the party. The cleric can't sleep in that full plate armor without getting fatigued, and somehow I doubt he spent a feat on Endurance.

Alternatively, an advanced elder black pudding does wonderfully horrible things to edged-weapons wielders in heavy armor. : )

Again. I'm talking about other magical weapons. Let me try again.

I have a +1 short sword. I would like it to be a +2 shortsword. I don't have the necessary amount (3000) of gold in my possession to upgrade it. But I do have a +1 greatsword, a +1 hand axe, and two +1 shields. That's more than 3000 gp in stuff. If I have crafting tools and a heat source can I upgrade my short sword?

I think it would still be highly dependent upon conditions and location. "Crafting tools and a heat source" implies an anvil, heavy hammers, and a rather large forge, none of which are easily portable. You could do it on something like a ship that was properly equipped, though it would be tough; middle of the jungle would be a lot tougher. As a GM, I'd argue that the crafting rolls would be substantially higher.

I've got a little argument going on with my GM: I think you can use the stunning fist ability as part of a flurry of blow. He thinks the use of Stunning Fist takes a simple action (and as such can't be used in flurry)

The fact is, there's no indication about it in the manual...

Can someone help me on this one?

A stunning fist attack is just an attack roll, as an unarmed strike. As flurry of blows specifically says a monk can do any combination of unarmed strikes, attacks with a special monk weapon, or disarm, sunder, or trip combat maneuvers with the flurry, I see no reason why stunning fist should be excluded.

Hell, a normal attack is a standard action. The fact that it isn't specifically allowed doesn't mean it's specifically disallowed. As Pathfinder seems to be pretty good about noting exceptions, particularly in feats, and given that the monk can do combat maneuvers (which are also standard actions) I see no reason why your GM's argument holds water. (And I say that as a GM myself!)

Good reasoning. No crew would want to stay on hardtack and salted pork forever -- and especially not in the earlier part of the voyage, what with having potential ports of call to resupply in and jungles to hunt about in. Better to save the preserved rations for the latter portion of the voyage, once the ships break away from the mainland and head south towards the Isle.

Sure, they could fish at that point as well, but who knows what horrors lurk in the deep? *evil grin*

Expensive ammo is a decent way to balance it, definitely something to think about. Makes it compare poorly with the bow though in a lot of ways.

Yeah. If the ammo's more expensive, it should accomplish more than just an arrow -- or at least have certain advantages that an arrow doesn't. All things being equal, to do otherwise means there's no reason to choose a firearm over a bow.

Although I can see where you are coming from I would say this:

I can play a Drunken Master of the Four Winds and the Mountain (three archetyped monk) and be a really effective and fun to play character.

Oh, I don't disagree! But archetypes define a character from the beginning of their career. Good as the variability is, it means that feat and skill choices are the only real choice they can make -- and the same feats and skills are available to any character.

I liked, and like, prestige classes because they add possibilities later in an adventurer's career. Often, a player will plan to aim towards a particular prestige class from the very beginning, but at least you have that option and can potentially shift paths if you choose.

This is why I think archetypes are superior to PrCs in every way.

Want a battlerager? Barbarian archtype.
Want a Bladesinger? Magus archetype.
Want (racial trope class)? (existing class) archetype.
This works way better than a PrC. No loss, you know what your working for from level 1...
It's just better.

Not in all cases.

Let's say I want to make an armored arcane abjurer who specializes in dispelling (and does it substantially better than other casters), countermagics, and blocking particular types of attacks. In 3.5, I could accomplish this with the PrC's of master abjurer, runesmith, and initiate of the sevenfold veil. In Pathfinder, there's no way to do it with base classes or archetypes.

And tangentially, I would point out that spell focus (abjuration) is a waste of time, since virtually no abjuration spells require saves and it doesn't add to the rolls for dispelling.

Heh. I don't disagree, given that the 5th level wizard in my campaign regularly seems to hit DCs of 25-30. Personally, I'd be tempted to adjust the levels of information provided - maybe by a +5 DC or so. I'd also apply contextual adjustments based on how much direct experience the PCs have with such things.

I´ve seen that spell somewhere, it was a prismatic Spray, turned into a ray, and it was a 5th lvl spell. I may be wrong tho.

You're thinking of the one from the Spell Compendium.

Spes Magna Mark wrote:

Dire Mongoose wrote:

Nope. That trope always gets trotted out, and people who have seen casters played well know it's not true.

IYE, but not IME. I killed the 15-Minute Adventuring Day quite a while ago. In my games, the "problem" diminished significantly.

What is IYE and IME?

At a wild guess, "In Your Experience" and "In My Experience".

Bertious wrote:

I have a problem with the guns = touch ac concept and thts special materials ok a good gun can shoot through your tin plate mail but what about an adamantite set you lead bullet would be a decorative new badge and little else really.

That would be easy enough to house-rule. Generally, if the armor used to stop the bullet is tougher than the ammo (as in your example), reduce the damage and convert the remainder to non-lethal damage.

The other option is: Use the touch AC to hit the torso (largest section of the body) and deal non-lethal damage OR use the full AC to hit the body, apply DR based on the armor's material, and then apply the remainder of the damage as lethal damage.

Of course, this also opens up the possibility of mithral and adamantine bullets. Not to mention the inevitable subject of the "magic bullet".

"So let me get this straight. You're saying that this one sniper fired one bullet that went in the Prime Minister's shoulder, came out his armpit, turned around and went in through his belly, blew out his spine, then came round and hit him in the back of the skull?"

"Ayup."

"G%$@&@ned wizards." ; )

Although martial types did grow substantially stronger with the benefit of the various 3.5 splatbooks, I think that many of said splatbooks -- the Spell Compendium, most notably -- aided magical types even more. CoD's examples frequently include a claim that the entirety of his party can make any save on a 2 or 3 at most, but that claim is built on a foundation of spells such as superior resistance, interfaith blessing, and the like -- which, notably, exist nowhere in Pathfinder core.

CoD has in the past countered arguments that, lacking those, his party would inevitably take down opponents even faster (since presumably said opponents would lack the same buffs, and therefore be more vulnerable to the massed SoS's/SoD's his party of casters generates). I would argue, instead, that the lack makes his party much more fragile and likely to lose a PC or two.

Are casters more powerful than non-caster types? Yes, but this difference has existed since 3.0/3.5 and looks unlikely to change -- at least not without serious houseruling.

One potential houserule to consider is to make all higher-level spellcasting (say, 3rd level spells and above) a full-attack action. Sure, your wizard can cast, but he can't move and cast -- just take a five-foot step, like the martial types can once they get a iterative full attack. A caster could be mobile by sticking to lower-level spells, if he needed to, but the ability to tell the universe to sit down and shut up requires more concentration. ; )

I'm going to be running Sea Wyvern's Wake in a month or so, and started reading through the adventure in more detail to get a good grasp of what's to go on there. One minor detail I noticed, though, is that with the advent of unlimited cantrips/orizons in Pathfinder a single cleric or druid eclipses the need to stop for fresh water at various towns and forts. Unlimited create water, after all, means that any divine caster can top of the ships' stores within a minute.

As many of the events seem to hinge upon stopping at the mouths of freshwater rivers to replenish stores, what alternative reason for stopping might work? "Running out of food" doesn't seem feasible -- why would the expedition have set forth without rations enough to feed the crew and passengers for the full four-month journey?

Any ideas? I could, I suppose, bypass both the flotsam ooze and river-hydra encounters, but that'll put the PCs a bit behind the XP curve for the adventure path. Moreover, it lessens the feeling of "limited resources, away from civilization" as well.

I have a problem with the guns = touch ac concept and thts special materials ok a good gun can shoot through your tin plate mail but what about an adamantite set you lead bullet would be a decorative new badge and little else really.

Still the pathfinder armor rules don't work that way therefore all you can really do is assume armor works against guns.

Sure they do. Adamantine armor has damage reduction, which overthrows the touch AC thing to at least some degree.

Hell, protection from normal missiles would manage it even better.

Then again, this comes back to the thought that magical defenses work better than mundane ones.

Bows were fortunately one of those weapons where you could immediately see the improvement -- unlike firearms which continued to have issues well pass the 300 year mark of their discovery. Heck they weren't even reported for penetrating armor until 200 years after they had been in 'use' in europe. "Handcannons" were barely functioning for most of this time prone to all the problems that the bow had plus some(took training, wet weather tended to ruin the powder and fuse, were harder to aim, etc). If it weren't for people hoping for siege engine power in a man portable form the gun wouldn't have been developed.

Even as late as the 1700's guns were known for being inaccurate (dueling pistols were more of a case of "stand and fire until someone gets lucky or we go back to the swords) and most gun deaths are more correctly attributable to poor medical practices than the deadliness of a gun.

Interesting. I hadn't know that, but definitely worth taking into account -- perhaps by lowering the range increment on them, at least in my house rules. That way, bows and the like may be more reliable at long range, but close up they'll be quite potentially dangerous.

3d6 damage and 18-20 crit and Touch AC.... ouch. Ya that would be the end of Bows, Crossbow, and Sword, Dagger, Axes, hammers etc....

.
Handguns (simple weapon)
1d6 damage crit 20/x3 and Is treated as a Touch Attack....should be plenty of an advantage. Give them 1-15 payload. Two-hand move action to reload.

Rifles (martial weapon)
1d8 damage crit 20/x3 and is treated as a Touch Attack. 1-30 payload. Two-hand move action to reload.

Well, I counterweighted it by requiring exotic weapon proficiency for it, since the matter of caring for and reloading a black powder weapon is pretty challenging for those who don't know how. By comparison, a sword or a club are much easier to use. (Hell, so is a revolver or even a cartridge rifle.)

Also, it takes two full-round actions to reload... I think. I need to go back and look at my house rules.

Or maybe it is because the projectile slams *through* most armor?

Or would ignoring armor be too difficult a mechanic? Yeah, let's leave ranged touch attacks to the Casters ;)

Nah. I houseruled muskets in my campaign to do base damage of 3d6, 18-20/x3, against touch AC. No, Sir Winsalot, your plate armor won't help you against this particular opponent...

I also houseruled the Crossbowman template in the APG to be applicable to a musket-focused build as well. That, combined with the touch-attack benefit, nicely counterbalanced the slow reload time.

Touch of gracelessness, from the APG, seems tailor-suited for the magus. As a DM, I used it to drop a PC's DEX by 10 in one shot (8th level caster, maxed-out roll), which promptly caused that PC to get flanked and knocked unconscious by the caster's allies. Nothing quite like an abrupt 5-point drop to AC and the inability to run away effectively to turn the tide of a battle.

Anyways, given spellstrike, touch of gracelessness seems ideal.

Back in 3.5, I had a lot of fun with a heavy-armored dwarven abjurer. If I remember right, the build went something like cleric 1 (inquisition, for +4 to dispel checks)/specialist wizard (abjurer) 3/master specialist (abjurer) 1/runesmith 1/master specialist +3/initiate of the sevenfold veil ... 2? I actually got him up to 11th level.

He was a blast to play. I brought him back as an NPC in a later campaign, where his abjurations and general spellcasting wackiness threw the players for a loop. : )

Actually, that's completely wrong. It's a non-dimensional space, which is completely different. All that means is that the inside is bigger than the outside. There is nothing stating that it isn't otherwise in the same place or not on the same plane.

This is a common mistake I see a lot of GMs make. If I'm in my bag of holding, and I can see out of the opening, there is absolutely nothing keeping me from dimension dooring out of the bag. I'm not crossing any planar boundries in doing so. A bag of holding or similar non-dimensional device, is not another plane. It's simply a magical bag.

Amusingly, the phrase nondimensional actually is in the description of the bag of holding. Along with the little tidbit about:

If a bag of holding is overloaded, or if sharp objects pierce it (from inside or outside), the bag immediately ruptures and is ruined, and all contents are lost forever.

One arrow to the bag/handy haversack -- which, presuming it's made of leather, has a hardness of 2 and at most 1 hp -- and the summoner's permanently removed from the game, followed immediately by the now-defunct eidolon. As a DM, I'd laugh myself silly pulling that trick on the PC who wanted to bring in such a ridiculous concept.

One possibility that I'd considered -- which would absolutely be a house rule -- is to have armor bonus (and perhaps natural armor bonus) -- change lethal damage equal to the armor bonus into nonlethal damage. That way, heavily armored characters would be a bit more likely to get knocked out than to be knocked into negative hit points and risk bleeding out.

Kryzbyn wrote:

Honestly, what do ya'll think? CoD, be nice.

By itself? An absolutely terrible idea. Especially in PF.

If combined with other things that would actually make it workable, it might be workable.

What kinds of things do you think might make it workable?

But nonlethal damage works fine, as not all damage has to be that way. Nets and grapples are another good way. There's a lot of spells that works. And remember - characters aren't dead at 0hp, so you have a marginal. If you play a lot at high levels, that marginal is much smaller and you might want to house rule it a bit larger (for example half your hit points).

That much I know -- hell, half of the dramatic combats have had a party member or two down into the negatives. (The fighter in the group seems to get down there so frequently he took Diehard!)

Hmmm... well, I suppose there's the possibility of grappling, entangling, or manacle-ing some of them up quickly after a stun effect went off... *evil plotty grin*

I've occasionally come across mentions of parties being captured and having to escape. Aside from instances of surrendering to legal authorities, I've never had a party I was DM'ing for be willing to accept that -- they always seem to want to fight to the death.

Short of an opponent intentionally choosing nonlethal damage (which seems likely to result in said opponent's death, unless the party is massively outnumbered), how would you go about accomplishing that? An overabundance of drow sleep venom? Chain-metamagic'd deep slumber? *grin*

Summon Monster 4: augmented celestial lion. It appears, swift-smites, and pounces. Five attacks, each at +9 with charge, (+11 with flank), for 1d8+7+grab medium once, and four...

That's a solid one, although I'll point out that the extra two claw attacks from the rake require that you start the turn grappling and therefore aren't available on the pounce turn. Still, three attacks at +9 isn't bad by any means at the level.

Recently, I was using the augmented celestial rhino as well for SM4. Summon, swift-smite, and normally it attacks at +10 for 2d6+17. If you give it a little space to get moving in, it powerfully charges for 4d6+20. It's a great minion-clearer, and it's big enough and tough enough (DR/5 on top of that 53 hp) that it's able to soak up a good amount of damage before it goes down.

(And if using it as a DM, you can powerfully charge back and forth between the martialists and the casters, assuming the latter decided they didn't want to be adjacent to the massive horned monstrosity that just one-shotted the rogue into unconsciousness. Not that I've done that as DM, or anything... *wicked grin*)

Ryu_Hitome wrote:

I had an idea for a very psycho-analytical gnome who viewed it all very technically and who viewed his eidolon as a manifestation of his id, so that he was the representation of a superego and between them, they had the ego. So the summoner was excessively perfectionistic and stuffy and the eidolon was wild and barely controlled chaos.

YOUR EIDOLON WAS TYLER DURDEN!

My eidolon fought Gandhi. ; )

I really like the positive and helpful comments made thus far in this thread. I personally would like to introduce some sort of mechanic like this for the next campaign I run and seeing the points raised so far has been very helpful.

My first concern also (as mentioned above) is how to use a spell casting-time system with the existing initiative system. I agree that in most rounds, unless a situation is dire, the spell caster is well-served by delaying until after everyone else has gone so that he can not be interrupted. In that case it doesn't matter if his spell has a 1 or 9 "tick" casting time, as since he is already last its just a matter of does the spell go off now, or... now?

So, how would people recommend dealing with that?

One possibility is to have the initiative count indeed "roll over" at zero into the next round -- so delay too long, and the fast dextrous guy at the top of the initiative count, who just stabbed the fighter, might see your wizard ponderously casting a mighty spell and move over to interrupt him.

Thinking of additional flavor for a Victorian-era or late-Renaissance-era game, I would recommend reading:

Mark Frost, "The List of 7"
Ellen Kushner, "Swordspoint"
Martha Wells, "The Death of the Necromancer"
Michaela Roessner, "The Stars Dispose" and "The Stars Compel"

Wow, consider me impressed! I'm developing a campaign setting of my own, around a central Empire in an extensive fertile valley and inner sea, and I must say your ideas solidify many that I was contemplating. I'll definitely be incorporating some of your examples on how classes are viewed within the Imperium.

(That, and short descriptive passages about the Empire's interactions with and views of other nations, should help my players to find the flavor I want to give the campaign.)

I'm no expert on casters but I recently watched the new Harry Potter and the Last Airbender movies. I'm not going to go into the quality of the stories one way or another, but there are pretty cool magic duals in both - spellcaster A throws fire and B pulls up a wall of earth to block it, etc. Cool. But nothing like this in Pathfinder because there is no mechanic for "blocking," not with magic or with weapons. Your system would allow a caster to shoot off a spell but still give the other caster time to counter it. I like that. Seems like a lot of defensive spells would be swift or instant. Feats like Quicken Spell would be important.

Questions - someone above pointed out that casters aren't known for high initiative (I agree). Why wouldn't they/couldn't they take Improved Initiative to help balance this?

Some casters do; some also go with high DEX builds rather than high CON builds, which adds up.

I'd been thinking primarily of the possibility for disruption when I first proposed the casting-delay mechanic, but the possibility of spellcasters/opponents taking defensive measures (throwing up a wall rather than being able to counterspell) is definitely intriguing. It conjures the image of a caster frantically throwing up a shield to block what he just recognized as a intensified empowered magic missile, or a bunch of mercenaries who just watched their cohorts get incinerated by a fireball taking cover (and thus gaining cover bonuses) when they see the caster start to wave his arms and incant.

Those are just a few direct-damage examples, of course. I'm sure others could come up with ones just as evocative. : )

Mosaic wrote:

Questions - someone above pointed out that casters aren't known for high initiative (I agree). Why wouldn't they/couldn't they take Improved Initiative to help balance this?

Also, wouldn't low initiative almost be a boon? If everyone else has high initiative and I (as a caster) end up at 10, there isn't going to be anyone else below me to interrupt me. A 9th level spell is only going to take 9 ticks, so it'll still go off before 0 and the initiative rolls back to the top.

Casters can take Improved Initiative, but very few do. As for your second point its not unusual for people who dont take special measures to end up with inits of 5 or 6 or lower even. This would cause severe problems in the proposed system.

I don't entirely agree. Although a long casting time would still mean that a caster with a low initiative roll would go last, it doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't get a chance to go. One could have a negative initiative modifier -- rather like an ooze or slime -- and simply go at the very end of the round. That would be simpler, tracking wise.

(Admittedly, all of this works better for me because as GM I build up an Excel spreadsheet, drop in the numbers for the players and the opponents (and whether or not someone is delaying, which happens more often than you'd think) and can do a quick re-sort of the initiative order. Adding spell casting times might add a little complication to my spreadsheet, but I think it's doable.)

Something you'll want to keep in mind about slowing down spellcasters is the length of your campaign. If you expect to play through 20th level, then yes, your spellcasters will be very powerful for the later levels. If, on the other hand, your campaign is expected to last 12 levels, this is an unnecessary complication. Well built melee characters dominate the early levels, in the middle levels a caster who supports his melee is much stronger than one who competes with them, and it's only at high levels where the balance really shifts toward casters.

I'm not entirely sure I agree that it shifts only at the high levels. In my current campaign, I'm seeing the balance of power begin to shift in the latter part of the level 5-10 stretch -- largely because although the melee types have some measure of mobility, they can't easily counter some of the things a caster can do.

Slow Magic - If you do decide to go with spell casting times, I suggest making those times simply equal the level of the spell being cast. It's easy to keep track of, doesn't hurt the weak low level casters as much as the high, and encourages the use of lower level spells in general.

*nods* That makes sense to me, and is largely what I was considering anyways. On the other hand, quicken spell would become all the more useful and the +4 level-modifier more power-appropriate -- not only would the caster be getting an additional cast in a given round, but he could do it on his actual initiative count.

Aside: I agree that weapon speed was fun. It was cool that the rogue with a dagger could strike faster than the barbarian with a gigantic axe.

<snip>

If you add weapon speed, I suggest simple initiative modifies of:
0 for light and finesse weapons
-2 for one-handed
-4 for two-handed
No modifier on a charge or attack of opportunity.

This makes a whole lot of sense to me, actually, without getting into the ridiculously complex weapon speed charts they had back in 1E. Of course, completely negating the modifier for a charge will probably lead to a lot of hair-on-fire screaming charges by the greatsword wielders, but hey, sometimes that's what an adventure needs. *grin*

I have always liked that both from a GM and player perspective. Unfortunately I doubt you will find much support for such a notion either here or in your group.

There's that. However, setting it up as a house rule within a new campaign, rather than as an instance of "hey, halfway through the existing campaign, we're doing things this way now", will likely be more acceptable. My group of players is pretty reasonable that way. : )

(Notably, also, I plan to resurrect the old method of memorization for specialist wizards -- that you can't, at all, handle the spells from two opposition schools.)

With recent discussions of caster power within Pathfinder, I found myself contemplating ways to somewhat downplay their power without completely nerfing them. Anyways, a thought from older editions came to me.

I seem to recall, waaaay back in I think 1st edition, that casting a spell required a certain number of "segments" -- and that as initiative counted down, a caster began a spell when his or her initiative came up, but didn't finish said spell until the casting time had been satisfied.

This meant that a caster who rolled high on initiative could almost certainly get off a low-level spell, but that a higher-level spell ran the risk of being interrupted as opponents went "Oh crap, a caster!" and directed hostilities towards them as said opponents' initiative counts came up.

A simple way to adjudicate this might be to have any spell take one "segment" / initiative count to cast per spell level. Spells which display a casting time of one swift action or one immediate action could be cast whenever, and would always go off on the caster's rolled initiative count.

A caster could take a move action before starting to cast the chosen spell, or after he/she finished casting. This would, of course, involve complications on the initiative count though.

Thoughts?

One proto-campaign I'm looking to get into had a background of a human culture which was particularly well-versed in the manufacture and crafting of metallic and mechanical items. The summoner idea I had in mind, then, bore some resemblance to the steampunk-y "spark" based mad scientists of Foglio's Girl Genius. Thus, the eidolon would be a clockwork semi-organic beastie.

That gave me the setup for "recreating" the eidolon through entirely different evolutions at each level -- the mad scientist is rebuilding his servitor creation! Moreover, I'm thinking on making the celestial/fiendish summons that he pops out have brassclad/clockwork cosmetic looks as well -- not enough to actually change the stats that they have, but enough so that the summoner looks like some portal-opening mad scientist.

( CRASH! Pow! Zap! Whreeeeeding! "Hooray! ... I meant to do that!"

"How long...?"

"In my experience, a strong spark will take about two hours to truly warp the laws of nature." )

In my game this past weekend, the party encountered two medium fire elementals. At one point, one of the fire elementals connected with his slam and I said the burn was automatic so the character should take the resulting burn damage and had to make a reflex save. I was told this was wrong and the fire elemental had to make a second subsequent attack as the statblock stated "plus burn". The example given was like a wolf has "plus trip" and has to make a combat maneuver check. I don't think this is correct as further in the burn description it states unarmed strikes would have to take damage upon hitting the elemental and make a Reflex save or catch on fire. Which is the correct way to handle this?

It sounds to me like you had it right. Burn isn't a combat maneuver, it's an additional damage thing -- like poison. No one expects a viper to have to make a combat maneuver check to poison a PC when it bites them; it just happens when the creature hits and the PC then needs to make a save against the additional effect.

Burn (Ex)

A creature with the burn special attack deals fire damage in addition to damage dealt on a successful hit in melee. Those affected by the burn ability must also succeed on a Reflex save or catch fire, taking the listed damage for an additional 1d4 rounds at the start of its turn (DC 10 + 1/2 burning creature's racial HD + burning creature's Con modifier). A burning creature can attempt a new save as a full-round action. Dropping and rolling on the ground grants a +4 bonus on this save. Creatures that hit a burning creature with natural weapons or unarmed attacks take fire damage as though hit by the burning creature and must make a Reflex save to avoid catching on fire.

Format: burn (2d6, DC 15); Location: Special Attacks and individual attacks.

Link.