Lexarius's page

On casting times and targeting templates, I would hope that you'd activate the ability, spend some time casting, during which an obviously magical animation plays, probably breaking stealth if applicable. People with the Spellcraft skill would be able to tell what you're doing and how long it will take. At the end of the casting time, the area template appears under your mouse and you can press a button to fire or cancel the spell. Most spells would need to be fired within a certain amount of time or fizzle, or you'd end up with groups of wizards standing around chokepoints with all of their magical doom preheated and waiting for someone to walk through.

On AoEs vs. Formations, you might differentiate a few different kinds of AoEs and the formation tactics that would work best against each. If your formation has shieldbearers, a turtle formation would work well against a rain of arrows or (potentially) effects that are directional in nature like dragon breath. On the other hand, if all you've got are swordsmen and spearmen and nobody's got shields equipped, being clustered would probably make things worse (unless you want a "human shield" mechanic). On the other other hand, there's probably not much defense against a grenade-like effect other than scattering, assuming that it hits where the caster wants it to hit. Fireball is described as starting off as a bead-like projectile that detonates early if it hits something, so a shield wall might be of use against it (ranged touch attack vs. openings between shields). Flame Strike, on the other hand, is just a column of holy death wherever the caster wants it.

My biggest problem is the implications with training. If it's nigh impossible for the baddies to get up to the same level of training and feat lines as the heroes, after awhile there is no more good vs evil on even footing, it becomes Good beating Evil unless it's evil jumping a newb.

It's been said that the best training won't be available in NPC settlements anyway. Evil people will set up settlements for evil purposes that contain helpful training centers offering degrees in the evil arts, including assassination, necromancy, blackguardery, accounting, and so on.

In EVE Online, your Security Status is a global indicator of how well you play with others. If you shoot an unflagged individual in high or low security space, you take a hit. If you kill NPC pirates or turn in certain tags, it goes up. The higher your status is, the slower it rises and the faster it falls. The lower your status, the harder it is to bring it up.

If your security status is somewhat low, faction guards will attack you if you try to travel through high security space. Annoying, but manageable. If it's really low, you'll be flagged for anyone to attack for as long as it stays low.

One of the popular "professions" in EVE Online is the suicide ganker. People who spend all of their time in high security space are (if they don't catch on quickly) misguidedly comfortable about their safety. They'll try to run missions semi-AFK in ships worth billions of ISK, or stuff under-protected hauling vessels full of goods to ship from market to market. In highsec, anyone attacking you without first doing the proper paperwork will be killed in very short order by the space cops. But it turns out that the space cops take varying amounts of time to actually get there, depending on the security level of the system. So the plan is simple: build some ships that can do as much damage in as little time as possible for the least cost as possible. Find a ship carrying enough goods to make losing X of these cheap suicide ships profitable, as determined by an estimate of how much damage the victim can soak up before the cops show up. Sacrifice your ships, have some other guy come in and scoop the loot. If you're lucky and good at math, you profit.

The only "control" for this is that you lose some security status, which makes it hard to get back in to highsec to do it again until you've ground out a bunch of NPC kills. This process of grinding security status and blowing it on a fat, unsuspecting kill can be repeated indefinitely.

I can imagine Space Police Central evaluating visitors to highsec. "Well, this guy has a long record of murdering merchants under our noses at a profit. But on the other hand, he's very dedicated to murdering space pirates too. It's been a while since he's murdered anyone we like, so... ok, he's approved. Let him through."

I'm certainly not against the practice of snaring the unwary where they feel most safe. It's a part of the game. I do, however, have a problem with treating your reputation as a resource that can be spent and replenished routinely, even if it is an annoying grind. People should be allowed to make a few "mistakes" and still recover their reputation, but it feels as though there should be something permanent that dissuades repeat offenses. Hard crime is a valid career path in PFO, but it should be one that only those willing to live with abysmal reputation should practice frequently. Maybe a hidden "meta-reputation" score. Keep track of all the reputation that someone has ever lost, and use some logarithmic function of it to penalize reputation gains. Forever. Hitting minimum reputation once or twice and then climbing back up is fine. But it should get harder to make that climb each time. At some point, the person should resolve to either stop doing things that hurt their reputation, or embrace the low-reputation lifestyle to its fullest.

Pharasma isn't Marking adventurers because she wants to.

There's a hidden darkness beneath the Crusader Road. It ensnares the souls of those of great power or destiny or some other attribute upon death, forcing them to serve in death. This being is Pharasma's sworn enemy, and it is sealed beneath the region by her power.

The being's power over souls is such that, given the proximity, even Pharasma herself cannot properly draw them into the afterlife. Should she simply let this being build its army with the souls of the dead? Instead, she provides a temporary solution. She Marks those traveling over the Crusader Road. The network of shrines that form the being's bindings intercepts their souls if they die in the area. While the shrines can't send them on to the next realm or hold them indefinitely, they can bring them back to life.

While abhorrent to her sensibilities, this is the best she can do for now. The upshot is that, in time, the heroes who grow powerful thanks to their immortality will one day find the being that sleeps far below and destroy it. Of course, the heroes don't realize that Pharasma will no longer auto-ressurect them once the source of the problem is removed, but res spells will still be available to players. If you die, you'll just be dead until someone raises you. Maybe you can wander around in spirit form and try to communicate with those sensitive to spirits?

In my next session: a spider swarm wielding a rapier.

I think, for the preservation of realism, that all of the tiny spiders should be wielding tiny rapiers.

What I really would like to see is paizo consider working with these folks in some way. Maybe have their AP's posted to a closed sight that only those that are subscribers or bought the PDF or something have access too. This way we could access all the maps and handouts and such for our games here.

I believe their pitch mentions that they hope to make income from premium art packs and module packs. I could totally see Paizo licensing maps, tokens, handouts etc for their modules. These could be sold piecemeal in the Roll20 marketplace, and Paizo could supply coupon codes to cover some or all of the cost for qualifying customers.

Yes, the spell can be dismissed at will. The tiger goes away whenever the caster wants.

A summoned creature is bound to do the caster's bidding. Summoned demons and devils will do as you ask whether they want to or not. Since this is not a compulsion effect and should work on mindless summoned creatures, one might argue that possessing a summoned creature isn't a very good idea. Congratulations, you're driving around a body that's bound to do the caster's bidding.

There's also the Pale Stranger monster.

Playing Devil's Advocate here...why not just use MapTools and Skype?

Did you view their overview video?

Looks like better integration and easier to get players connected. No Java app to run locally. No port forwarding to configure. Background music. Integrated web search for tokens/map objects/music.

Hopefully it should be a more friendly experience all around. That seems to be the theory, anyway. Looks like they've collected enough money to get started, so I guess we'll see what they actually produce.

Moved thread.

Thanks, didn't see the Technology forum.

I noticed this kickstarter project to make a usable online gaming table yesterday, and thought some of you might be interested in kicking it a few dollars: Roll20

Seems like you'd mainly need to grapple the creature in mid-air. Most creatures probably can't fly while grappled, and some effects that prevent or reduce falling damage might be impeded by either the grappling itself or the extra weight. If you do it from high enough, you might try readying an action to escape from the fall somehow.

The 4E type system is a little better for things like this. Creatures have a body type and an origin. Humans, Elves, and Succubi are all Humanoids, but their origins are Natural, Fey, and Outsider, respectively.

If you have infinite money,

Rule 1: DON'T LET ANYONE FIND OUT

Rule 2: Don't crash the local economy. See Rule 1.

We've used Leadership in past 3/3.5 campaigns that went to around 20th level. Notes:

1) The player did not get to construct the cohort. If he was actively searching for a cohort to fill a specific role he could specify that, but the GM was in charge of the actual specs. It's an NPC, after all.

2) Cohorts took up a half-share of XP, and sometimes treasure.

3) Due to Note 1, it was not possible for the player to minmax a combo team. Due to Note 2 and the fact that extra characters on the field meant combat took longer, there was an unspoken rule that only one cohort would be used in battle, and it would only be used by someone who was not already using summons or pets. So it generally wasn't abused.

In 4th Ed, there's no feat for Leadership. If you seek out a companion (or one seeks out you), then that's that. Companions are fairly simple to run, but they still take up time, and the document describing them suggests increasing encounter XP budgets to account for them. Our current 4e game has several companions, but mostly they just run our ship while we're away. 4e combat is slow enough as it is without adding more things to do, so typically our companions stay out of the fights even if they're around. They only get used during combat if their talents are needed, and in a balanced party, that's rare. Usually only when someone can't make it to the game - easier than running two PCs.

Animate Dead? I'd suggest something higher level, though. Find some undead templates that can be reasonably applied to PCs.

Give her a book, but make it a familiar. Base stats similar to a tiny animated object. Maybe give it a clumsy fly speed achieved by flapping its covers?

It would probably just pretend to be a normal book most of the time, but might open to specific pages to suggest a spell to use if the witch needs a hint. Perhaps the "wind" will blow it open to a page with a cryptic hint or warning on occasion. Or if someone other than the witch reads it, something disturbing or threatening. Maybe let the witch put Explosive Runes or other book traps in it that it can flip open to.

While the Steam Giant itself might not be appropriate, you might still consider using vehicle rules rather than monster rules for your mechs as they are, after all, piloted vehicles.

See also the Steam Giant from Ultimate Combat.

Supernatural abilities are not subject to spell resistance.

Only spells and spell-like abilities need to beat SR.

Two things in a spellbook might be useful to a sorcerer:

1) Spells researched by an NPC (or other PC, I suppose)
2) Spells cherry picked from a splatbook that you do not otherwise wish to be freely available.

I would allow a sorcerer to learn these spells when he gains new known spell slots.

He could also get a wizard to prepare scrolls or other items by handing over the book, of course. Spellbooks can be valuable.

Interaction between unusual effects on custom items is purely in the GM's hands, so ask your GM.

If you are the GM, you decide.

Personally, I'd have the aegis be represented by a gem or some metalwork embedded in the amulet that, upon 'destruction', crumbles away, leaving the normal Amulet of Natural Armor +1 behind. The character already payed a premium for the aegis effect, no need to add insult to injury.

B) Walk up and I ask if I can be Asmodeus.

Little girl replies: "No, silly, daddy is Asmodeus!", with innocent childish grin.

My take on the looting:

A random item, perhaps a fraction of carried money, is immediately available for looting. Even before the character "releases" and starts the corpse run.

Once the loot has been taken, another random loot item becomes available after X amount of time. The lootables don't pile up, so someone coming across your untouched fresh corpse 10 minutes in will still only find the first item.

You don't lose everything, though you lose more and more if you don't make haste.

With the destroy-on-loot system, there pretty much has to be a loot timer, since otherwise the deceased would pretty much always lose all their stuff in PvP. Under my idea, the winner can take his prize immediately and be off.

On the other hand, the loot timer gives you time to get your friends / marshals to the scene of the crime to help.

On the other other hand, the looter could get greedy and decide to stick around to get extra drops, giving you back that opportunity.

The other issue is corpse camping. If the corpse can be looted multiple times, then getting a group to sit on it and keep you from reclaiming it might be profitable. They could eventually milk all of the items out of it. To remove this temptation, giving you the ability to remotely destroy your corpse after a certain amount of time (destroying all items still on it) might work.

Of course, the simpler thing to do would be to just drop a few things immediately and then not leave a corpse behind once you release. You keep the majority of your stuff, the winner gets some gold and other odds and ends, and we're all spared from having to hear about corpse runs on the public channels. I didn't play much EverQuest, but "HAS ANYONE SEEN MY CORPSE?" messages got old fast.

Oh, but one additional thing I would add: if you're killed by an NPC or monster, or one comes across your dropped items, give them a chance to pick the stuff up if they like it. Maybe even equip it, if it's appropriate.

Richard Leonhart wrote:

Other possibilty if you have a bird, it will always know true north if they have their left eye.

...what?

Something about magnetic bird eyes

I haven't read Goblins of Golarion yet, but are we sure that goblins are actually illiterate? A writing taboo doesn't necessarily imply a reading taboo. Writing steals ideas from the heads of stupid humans. Goblins read human writing to steal their ideas (and spells!). Of course, only a few trusted tribe members might be allowed to read, since a reader can, in a moment of weakness, become a writer at any time.

Under this interpretation, a goblin wizard might get his spells exclusively by stealing spellbooks from others. As for the free spells they learn at each level, they would either need to figure out another way to encode spells, succumb to the temptation of writing, get them pre-written from GM-supplied sources, or go without.

The best way I can recommend to play with seven people is to find two additional people and split into two groups of four players + 1 GM.

Possibilities:

• The games should be run simultaneously, preferably in different rooms of the same building. If one or both GMs is short on players that day, the groups can be combined for that session.
  
• The groups could be working on different parts of the same general plotline. They could be working wiith or against one another. They might not even know about it for a while.
  
• If the parties wish to contact one another, it's just a matter of skype or speakerphone. The two GMs can coordinate a bit during the game with an IM session ("My team just destroyed the dam, so do the 'Flash Flood' encounter soon").
  
• In case of Epic Boss Fight, or Epic Party vs. Party fight, have one group switch locations. This is unwieldy, of course, but having two GMs might help with the monsters.
  
• For bonus points, during the combined battles try having each GM run half the PCs and monsters - simultaneously. Just make sure you sync up at the bottom of the round so that nobody gets to go twice before someone else. Things are bound to be a bit confusing since other creatures can act while you're trying to take your turn. (This is probably a terrible idea.)
  

Alternatively, just split off into two separate gaming groups that run at different times and whose campaigns do not necessarily intersect much. Run both if you have the time and energy.

Everything you ever wanted to know about ability scores:
Pathfinder SRD: Ability Scores

To summarize:

Temporary bonuses, ability penalties, and ability damage do not count as changes to ability scores. They have defined effects (listed in the above link) and do nothing else (unless otherwise noted).

Only "permanent" bonuses (after being in effect for 24 hours) and ability drain cause your ability scores to actually change.

Experiment: Use a Take 5 rule instead of Take 10.

Personally, I would try to select appropriate equipment for a tumor. Not clothing. It's weird enough to see witches who put sweaters on their dog familiars, but a monkey-shaped tumor wearing clothes?

Anyway, piercings (rings) and maybe tattoos seem the most appropriate.

Casting a Silent Still spell with no material components still provokes an attack of opportunity. So there's still something noticeable going on, even if it's not obvious.

Perhaps the caster should make a Concentration check (Casting Defensively DC) to continue moving and talking normally while the spell is executing.

After that, the caster should probably need to make a Bluff check to avoid looking like he's trying to project mind beams into the King's head.

Of course, all this could probably be obviated by casting the spell while hidden or invisible. Which an arcane trickster is likely able to accomplish, I'd think.

-Every 48 hours, Harvestmen must replace pieces of themselves that have rotted away. They must use 3 lbs, of flesh following the rules above.

You didn't mention any consequences for failing to do this. Probably treat it like starvation, plus obvious rotting meat smell.

One thing I liked about 4E was the removal of ability booster items. Instead, you just get ability increases more often (+1 to two of your choice every fourth level, and +1 to all at 11 and 21).

Items with similar names exist, but function differently. An item that would in 3E boost Strength might instead give the character a bonus to a single Strength-based attack or skill check once a day.

Granted, things scale differently in PF, so giving out points at a different rate is probably appropriate.

Ok so a first happened in tonights game.

A NPC was killed in a square. A PC may move into an enemy occupied square if the opponent is helpless. So the PC did that. Next the PC got disabled and helpless in the same square. What are the rules for movement in a square with TWO helpless creatures?

There are no rules for this that I am aware of, though the GM is encouraged to make squares act as difficult terrain when they have "too many" bodies in them. If I were keeping track of such things, I would say that two medium bodies in a 5' square would probably make the footing a bit difficult.

For simplicity, though, I usually just remove medium creatures from the map when they drop, unless they're not entirely out of the battle. For Large (and larger) creatures, I'll usually mark a few squares as difficult, or leave its mini sprawled over an appropriate area to indicate the same thing.

In 4E, most of the derived scores are based on the Level/2 thing.

Instead of BAB, all classes get Level/2 + ability mod + proficiency bonus.
AC gets 10 + Level/2 + ability mod + armor bonus
Fort, Reflex, and Will are 10 + Level/2 + ability mod + class bonus
Skills are Level/2 + ability mod + proficiency bonus

Basically, everything scales with level at about the same rate, plus whatever static bonuses the character can get.

Equipment, feats, and more importantly monsters are all designed with this progression in mind. Whether or not they were designed *well* is another question, but Pathfinder definitely wasn't designed with this in mind. It probably wouldn't play well with it.

The 3.5 Defense Bonus variant mentioned above would probably be easier to work in.

Something from 4E that would probably be easier to work in is the "inherent bonuses" variant used in Dark Sun. Basically, the idea is that characters gain the enhancement bonuses they would normally get from magic armor, weapons, and amulets as they level up. The rate at which they get these is such that they're never behind the bonus curve, but they're never really ahead either, so finding a higher-level magic weapon would still be useful. Additionally, lower-level weapons with special properties continue to be useful without having to upgrade them all the time. (4E does not have ability score boosting items, but one could imagine providing similar bonuses to ability scores based on class to reduce the need to provide up-to-date belts and such).

Take a look at the Qlippoth (in Bestiary 2) - the original owners of the Abyss. It's suggested in their entry that the Daemons were responsible for the birth of the Demon race that forced them out of the higher layers. So if they seem to be similar, perhaps it's because that's the way the Daemons wanted it? The Qlippoth don't seem to be particularly interested in mortals or destruction*, so it would make sense for the Daemons to advance their agenda by replacing them. Demons are also a lot more "popular", allowing the daemons to advance their plots relatively unnoticed while more contemporary threats like demons and devils take up most of the attention of mortals and goodly outsiders. And if the demons get blamed for their plots and take the brunt of the retribution, all the better.

* - Or at least, they didn't originally. Giving the qlippoth a reason to believe they need to end sin - by ending all mortal life - also seems like a likely thread of the daemon plot.

The one being grappled, however, can choose to make FULL ATTACKS, albeit at a -2 penalty against his attacker or anyone else within reach!?!?

Try this at home. Give your buddy a knife. Now, grab him and try to keep him from moving.

Unless you've put him into some sort of pin, chances are he'll be able to stab you in the back multiple times while you're giving him a bear hug.

If you want to be sure about it, disarm the guy first and then pin him. Also, grappling things with claws is probably not a great idea.

If I'm an illithid with one tentacle wrapped on your head, I should be able to slap you around with the remaining 3 while still holding you! Or say I am a tiger that has you in a grip, I should be able to rake with all my claws while my mouth is clamped on your throat! If the grappler makes any such move, they're forced to let go of the grapple.

Your tiger does get free rake attacks while grappling, in addition to the claw or bite damage it gets from maintaining the grapple. If you don't mind changing the tiger's feats, Greater Grapple would allow you two chances to deal your damage with a move action, two free claw attacks from rake, and a standard action remaining for you to make your bite with. That's four claws and a bite.

As for the mind flayer, I haven't seen them converted yet. I imagine they would have some extra rules added, like the Kraken's Tenacious Grapple. (Granted, Tenacious Grapple itself isn't the ability the flayer would need, but you get the idea. Special monsters get special attacks.)

Freehold DM wrote:

I've found the best way around this is to not do this(Con Score + HD) for the NPCs, even important ones.

I could do that but one of the key things that appeals to me about 3.x in contrast to other versions of D&D is that NPCs and PCs use the same build rules. While that might make them needlessly complex to generate and play from an aesthetics reason I like having both types of characters operate on the same ruleset.

So for me the kicker needs to be scaled for both PC and NPC use.

You could use the old "PC classes are better than NPC classes and racial HD" trick. The rules already specify that if your first level is a PC class level, you get max for that level.

So why not: if your first level is a PC class level, add your Con score. Important NPCs with PC classes get a survivability boost, while warriors, adepts, and the like can still function as low-HP mooks.

The split chapter versions of the Pathfinder PDFs have bookmarks that work between the chapters, so long as the appropriate PDF file is in the same directory and hasn't been renamed.

Sadly, this does not seem to be the case between books. Spell and feat lists in Bestiary stat blocks would be an awesome place for an inter-PDF bookmark. I would gladly give up my ability to sanely rename my PDFs for this capability. Though giving them sane file names to begin with would be nice.

(Also, as has been mentioned elsewhere, no hyperlinks in Bestiary 2 makes me a sad entity)