Morgen's page

I'd imagine not much seeing as those books didn't exist when the Rise of the Runelords was made?

No reason to dip paladin for just 1 level. The whole point is to get divine grace, aura of courage and divine health. :/

I personally call this kind of Combo the "Silver Dragon Knight"

I'm hoping it catches on.

In all honesty Pally/Sorc/DD is a combination that's been around for ages, I think as far back as 3.0/3.5 Dungeons and Dragons.

It worked a bit better on the paladin side as you got spell slots instead of caster levels in old 3rd edition D&D, giving a pally a huge pile of mostly useful first level spells, and lots of interesting abilities to go with it. My personal old build for this was Paladin/Warmage, which was fun.

I don't think you can spell strike with a held charge.

Does it say you can do that somewhere that I missed?

Make sure the weapon is not a special case too. Like Rapiers specifically say; "You can't wield a rapier in two hands in order to apply 1-1/2 times your Strength bonus to damage."

Just an FYI.

You could go Oracle instead of Witch and make a rage prophet? It'd probably work a lot better in most situations, but it is straying away from the whole EK thing.

Yep, that's about where it ends up in the end. Remember the CR system is a tool and a guideline and not a unbreakable rule in the end. You should take your group into consideration when building encounters to make sure you have the right amount of challenge for them based upon what you want the encounter to do.

CR 2 Skeletal Owlbear is about right, it loses a lot of HP and other combat statistics and abilities.

Monte wants to reintroduce the Vancian system? Thank Gygax for that!

Reading that certainly gives me a lot of new hope for 5th edition being a bit more like I want Dungeons and Dragons to be like. One of the reasons I enjoy Pathfinder so much is that they kept the Vancian system instead of say, spell points or mana pools or the like. Vancian or Shadowrun's system are the only magic systems that have worked out well for the games I've played.

The Witch really isn't about buffs though... :(

Summoner or Bard + Pally might be interesting.

I'll suggest a the old standby swing through Dragon Disciple if your going that route. Pick up some nice little toys, pump up a bloodline and then shift into EK after you get your 3rd level spells or top off the class.

Pally 4/Sorcerer 1/DD 10/EK 5

Pally 3/Sorcerer 2/DD 6/EK 9

This works a bit better if your more focused on melee then spell casting of course.

Haven't seen what kind of arch-types are about that might work with this...

This is exactly the kind of thing I want to see in an online multi-player game. I absolutely love the idea of enemy encampments that you have to keep an eye out for. Keeping the lands safe, worrying about problems in adjacent hexes. The idea that these kinds of areas might actually require for diplomacy or even cause huge sweeping events is awesome.

I only hope you guys aren't over-reaching the abilities of the technology.

I want in day one in any case.

Skill Focus also provides roughly the same bonus as getting the skill as a class skill, even more so at 10+ ranks.

Or the +2/+2 feat, whatever that one is that covers stealth. Sneaky? That grows to +4/+4...

I'm actually pondering a Lore Warden for my next character, using it in combination with the net feats out of Ultimate Combat.

Seems like it'd be Manuver-tastic.

Well if nothing else they should look at other miniatures lines to see what they did wrong and not make the same mistake.

For example, making Stirges uncommon. That was freaking stupid. You almost always need like 3-5 of those little guys.

Seconding a shapeshifting class. Would prefer if it didn't have spells either.

How could it possibly shapeshift without using some form of magic? (Remember, alchemy is still magic, even if it isn't.)

Seriously shape shifter isn't a class thing. You've already got druids, polymorph spells and magic items.

If I might ask, why are you running games for them at all when it doesn't sound like they get along and your not having any fun?

I'd say a fighter that had the bodyguard and other similar feats would be helpful. I'd check with your GM to see how they handle the Leadership feat first.

I know in my game and in others we don't allow Leadership to function as a cherry pick kind of thing.

Hahaha, that one was always hilarious.

Wasn't Tom Hanks in some horrible propaganda movie way back when in a similar vein?

Neutral Spell Casters come to mind. Puzzles, investigation encounters, perhaps a few more encounters in a day if you must run combat. More smaller opponents rather then one huge evil thing.

Role-playing, etc. Give them things to dot hat don't involve slaying things, maybe they have to capture some dangerous folks.

Compatible with all previous editions? Yeah...we'll see how that works out.

You could charge him and attempt to jump as part of your movement I believe by the rules just fine. You'd have to make the check but you'd have a good skill bonus I'd imagine. Landing on his back is just fluff, doesn't actually have a mechanical effect if your looking to bite him.

Wow, love the idea of a re-release and the money going towards the memorial...but that's a pretty big chunk of change for a reprint isn't it?

Guess I'll have to add it to the to buy pile while I can, hope the quality is good for that kind of money.

Have you taken a look at Kobold Quarterly? They offer a print magazine that focuses on a lot of that material.

Kenzer & Company also still publishes the delightful Knights of the Dinner Table which is far more then just a comic. Each regular issue includes a lot of interesting gaming material along with a good amount of humor.

I like the idea of maintenance and upkeep for equipment assuming it doesn't become just another button to push. Would make it a bit easier to differentiate some of the different types of weapons and give the "better" ones some kind of minor drawback.

I think a majority of that "problem" is a perception based upon an over-focus on combat and not about actually being useful in other situations. Depends on the type of group you play with of course but that's been my experience.

Just my 2 cents anyway.

I want much more complicated rules then 4E, much deeper and mechanical. A return to the Advanced line would be best, more like 2nd edition rather then 4th.

While it does have good kiting potent it just keeps you a little safer. It's about on par with maybe a 2nd level spell and certainly not anything close to being broken.

You've used it once?

They are prohibited a lot of spells given their spell list, their alignment limits them more and some spells are domain only. They have a spell list designed with the idea in mind that those spells are available to them. Wizards and Clerics get very different spell lists. Clerics get a lot of situational spells that could be very useful and few almost always useful spells.

I'd say your over-reacting. New players aren't looking at the whole spell list either, they'll be looking at the lower level spells and can experiment a lot with things to see what they like.

It is no more overwhelming then the rules for combat or how skills work which are vastly more important to the game as a whole.

Well unfortunately if you don't like the Reaper pre-paint quality you likely won't be to happy with the D&D miniatures quality either. The paint jobs went down significantly on that line after the first few sets and never really recovered. Once they hit 4th edition they were mostly terrible.

The iconic stuff wasn't too bad, but that doesn't sound like what your looking for.

Hmmm, I don't seem to see a P up there for Ponies.

(WARNING: This post is full of opinion.)

When it comes to sorcerer spells it's easier to get sucked into the same traps Wizards get sucked into when they pick their spells for the day because your far more stuck with your choices then they are. That said Sorcerers can easily have quite the diverse selection of spells and effects, especially as they get a lot more use out of meta-magic feats being able to apply them on the fly. If you have Empower or Intensify, you don't really need to know a lot of different blaster spells to blast stuff.

If your not going to actually have an effect on the game in or out of combat, then there isn't any reason you should waste time buffing your armour class. Mage Armour, False Life and similar spells aren't very useful uses of your known spell slots. By the time they last long enough to make a difference, they won't actually make much of a difference.

A good rule of thumb is something along the lines of "if you are capable of finding a magic item that emulates that spell reasonably well then that is superior to learning it as a spell." Boots of the Winterland over Endure Elements, Broom of Flying over Overland Flight and so forth. Potions or Scrolls of the super situational spells. This includes normal gear too. You should have acid flasks, holy water, tanglefoot bags, a crossbow, maybe even a long spear. That helps a lot at lower levels and some even longer.

(Just have to say that Gandalf was so totally not a player character.)

This should be cleared up but I do seriously hope that people aren't playing to the letter of the rule to that extreme. Pathfinder Society would be kind of the only place I hope that would come up.

Of course a weapon is almost always a suboptimal choice for an arcane bonded, and a quarterstaff doubly so when you could just have a regular staff or any other weapon.

I suppose I'm just grousing about it. More important things to do.

Happy Christmas everyone who cares!

You haven't seemed to have purchased a few of the fine monk weapons that exist in the game! I definitely recommend checking out a few of them as they can be a lot of fun, especially if your working on combat maneuvers.

You can ready to move if you get charged, but you'd have to move to some place where they wouldn't be able to charge you as you'd move first before any movement had begun.

Tumbling is a move action so you can attempt to do that, though your getting very specific in what your trying to do. If attacked I attempt to tumble through them or something like that.

I....really have no idea what your asking in the third one?

As someone whose been through that part of the adventure path. Who is Waxwood?

Low Magic games work just fine if you actually run things on the slow track with a good balance of role-playing and the like. If your a group out to crush to high levels it'll probably be fine so long as the monsters are equally restricted.

Huh, I hadn't seen dice based games in a while and now I've seen like 2 or 3 all in a few weeks. :)

Yeah go ahead and let him do it if you think it's fun. Assuming that they have access to the kind of magic and resources to spend that kind of money and it's fun.

This seems like a huge amount of money kind of well.... wasted on these Robes however, like Black_Lantern implied.

Charge him the cost difference between a Cloak of Resistance +5 and a Cloak of Resistance +4 plus another 50%.

(CoR5-CoR4) * 1.5

That should give you a good price for that upgrade effectively treating it like it's a combined magic item and your upgrading just the resistance part.

Effectively any effect in the game that deals negative levels as well as damage would be getting a nice buff. Said Vampire slam could deal enough damage to deal 2 negative levels, plus cause 1 extra from the damage dice and so on.

There are a few issues with this that I see immediately. First is that for the most part any kind of penalty system inherently favors enemies over the PC's. It's similar to what happens with critical fumbles and so forth. Random Orc #4 at -2 to hit (which by the by is way more book-keeping for you) isn't going to be as important as the party fighter is suffering from the same penalty. Plus monsters tend not to suffer as much from negative levels as PC's make far more skill checks which also suffer the penalty.

Second is the fact that this system your proposing looks like it will tend to snowball. If something goes wrong one side is going to have an easier time punishing the other more quickly.

Third as I mentioned before is book-keeping. Your adding a ton of extra work tracking these negative levels on all your monsters, not to mention the PC's, and then how it interacts with magical and natural healing.

Forth, Vampires just got huge.... >.>

More role-playing encounters, more puzzles, more riddles, more mysteries, more exploration and much less combat. Really the same thing I recommend for every game.

I cast Fireball all the time back in LG with my sorcerer. It's perfect meta-magic fodder, especially as it's usable with the lesser meta-magic rods on the cheap.

Sculpted, Energy Substitution: Electricity, Born of Three Thunders, Empowered Fireballs were amazingly useful. That was D&D 3.5 to be fair, in the Pathfinder RPG so far I haven't gotten many 3rd level spell slots on my characters to even attempt casting one, been drawn to Alchemists or Fighters too much. I know I've been in situations where I wanted a fireball or two and have even seen a necklace of fireballs come in handy.

Always important to remember it's a very large AOE damage spell, it's not designed to really just explode the bad guy in a single hit, it's there to either slay or soften up groups of enemies. Another thing going for it is the extremely long range that it has. Situational but extremely useful when you need it. 200 yards at level 5 is a large threat range.

Now if Disintegrate is as useful as it could be as an attack spell.... :/

Wait, where are you seeing hate for the monk? I see TONS of whining/complaining but I haven't noticed hate. Casual readers of these boards who don't play the game probably assume that monk is the only class in the game given how much time people spend on these boards talking about how it should be even more spectacular and amazing.

I believe the Amulet of Mighty Fists is priced where it should be. It's not specifically made only for monks and a lot of other things can get a ton of use out of it. Heck, even Paizo gives it to monsters in some of their adventure paths. Plus there is the whole huge pile of amazing monk weapons that they can enchant and enjoy like Jeranimus said. Sure your unarmed strike damage scales to 2d10, but that isn't a good argument as at 20th level you surely can afford an amulet with whatever bonuses you want stuffed into it, assuming your game even goes to 20 at all which most don't. Just buy a Temple Sword, or a Kama, or even just grab a Quarterstaff and get that thing enchanted.

Erm, this thread might be getting a bit out of hand, remember love and tolerance folks.

I don't know wht specific limitations Windows 7 Starter has on it, but if it has networking you should be able to turn your filesharing on and people can get to it easily enough. (Make sure to only share things your comfortable having your players see! Don't share your whole hard drive.)

For intercommunication over a LAN there are probably a number of solutions for that.

Using something like OpenRPG would have a lot of abilities that would be useful at the gaming table, as well as allow you to have group notes or maps or whatever. It'd be something you'd have to learn how to use to do what you want.

Just a quick google search came up with ShixxNOTE which seems to be kind of a post-it program you can use online.

I'm sure other people might be able to help you better when it comes to electronic communication at the gaming table.

So your looking to set up a Wireless LAN?

There are a number of tutorials and resources online.

Like this, or this!

Hopefully they'll lead you to the right path. It's effectively just a regular network minus the internet. :)

Doubt they'd fire him considering the rumor going around is that he's working on 5th edition for them.

Having more then one bad guy is probably a better solution. Don't give your players just one target to focus down and you'll find it they tend to not get focused down like they do solo.

Wind Wall also shuts down archery hard core like Shadowborn said, and is the same level as your home brew spell. Slow is another amazing spell for turning off an archer.

Best at what?

Well it's right in the Spellstrike description ShadowDax.

Spellstrike (Su): At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack. Instead of the free melee touch attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell. If successful, this melee attack deals its normal damage as well as the effects of the spell. If the magus makes this attack in concert with spell combat, this melee attack takes all the penalties accrued by spell combat melee attacks. This attack uses the weapon's critical range (20, 19–20, or 18–20 and modified by the keen weapon property or similar effects), but the spell effect only deals ×2 damage on a successful critical hit, while the weapon damage uses its own critical modifier.

There is nothing in Spellstrike that suggests anything to the opposite. I'm wondering how others are trying to win that particular argument what with nothing in the rules even suggesting that somehow the spell over rides the magic of your weapon.