MyTThor's page

1) People complain about the problems. Generally people don't come to an internet forum to say "man, X class is very well balanced and fun to play."

2) See #1. If the game is incredibly successful, you don't redesign 3 of the basic, core classes, because a vocal minority of your fan base has issues with them. For every thread you see bashing a class, there are people who deny the numbers, or who don't care about them and enjoy playing the class anyway.

Put me down on the side of Barbarian being hard to ruin. As long as you remember to rage, you're going to be OK in combat.

How about Witch? While there are some poor hexes, I think they're mostly pretty obvious. There aren't really any trap options that are tempting but suck. You can make a really ineffective Witch, but I think it's pretty obvious how not to, even for a beginner.

You can use an unarmed strike if you have a weapon in hand, and nothing says it has to be with a fist. It would still provoke unless you had IUS.

Please hit FAQ regardless of opinion.

This is going to come off jerky, but I promise I'm being 100% serious.

Why would I hit FAQ regardless of opinion? If I don't think the question is worthy of developer attention, I would rather not encourage their attention on an issue when I'd rather they were paying attention to something else.

If you're not going to use undead, probably the next best revelation is Near Death. Not the most exciting, but really a lot of good defensive bonuses there.

There aren't a lot more to write home about. You should consider going with an archetype that gets you access to some more cool revelations, like dual-cursed or seer, or one that replaces revelations with other abilities, like seeker.

Human is very hard to beat for oracle, and you should switch out your bonus feat for the 3 bonus skill focus feats. Use one to pick up the prerequisite for whichever Eldritch Heritage you are going to take, the other for intimidate, and the third for whatever you want. Perception of course is a solid choice.

Alternately, check out the Samsaran Reincarnated Oracle. You lose some point buy with Charisma, probably can't afford to start with more than a 17, but you get to cherry pick any 3 (or 4, if you can afford an 18 charisma) divine spells you want off any divine list. Look at some of the cool swift action antipaladin spells. Plus the flavor fits with the Pharasma worship. You get a couple very solid revelations to replace your rather lackluster list as a bones oracle not interested in creating or controlling undead.

I suggested the possibility of confirming critical failures, much like critical hits are confirmed, but he insists that gives the players too big an advantage because they'll be critting more than they're failing.

Yes. Why would a character who can battle a dragon with his sword fighting skills do well more often than he did poorly?

There is an excellent article here demonstrating that 5th level is about as high a level as anyone in real life has ever been. The amazing epic heroes from your favorite books, if they aren't D&D books, don't even get to 10th level. So someone who is better at fighting than anyone ever in real life and better than most FICTIONAL characters will screw up so horribly that they will injure or handicap themselves in some way? It's just terrible and stupid.

Or to put it another way, for every 20 bullets fired, a modern soldier would be overwhelming likely to shoot himself/a bystander/break his gun at least once.

Wow. How did I miss that? Well that ability went from CRAAAAAAP to crap.

I see nothing to indicate that firestorm would last more than one round. There's no duration listed. It seems to me to be an instantaneous duration blast that would only do damage once.

Flurry of Blows would stack with spellstrike, as long as you cast the spell in the previous round and held the charge. Spellstrike is the ability to deliver touch spells through regular attacks.

However, I have to assume you're talking about spell combat, which is the ability that allows you to cast spells and make your attacks in the same round. And no, those wouldn't stack as mentioned above because they are both full-round actions.

Honestly, I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but it doesn't seem that you have an especially deep understanding of the system. Everything you've suggested so far is not allowed by the rules. Perhaps you should be playing a simpler character concept?

I don't think there is any ambiguity in any of this. None of these cases give any indication of getting the 2hd power attack benefit despite being wielded in one hand. Perhaps lance and thunder and fang could stand to have the same clarifying line as jotungrip, but just because it's not specifically called out, it doesn't mean the opposite is true.

I am going to be the obligatory OSG poster.

This thread is what is wrong with gaming. The concept that people are really crunching the numbers in order to have a slightly better chance of doing a little more damage is disgusting.

What I gather from this is that people on this thread would not build a barbarian with an axe, even though everyone knows that barbarians have axes (ask any 6 year old), because the axe has a slightly lower percentage to cause as much damage on a regular basis...for a character that is basically "Hulk. Smash!"

I miss the days when we built characters because we wanted to see if they'd be interesting. I'll bet none of you have an 8 or 9 as an ability score!

Being a min-maxer is not exclusive to MMO's, and it happened just as much in the old days as now. Now with the advent of the internet, so many people have put their heads together that it's just easier to find the mechanically best choice.

Knowing what the best mechanical choice is doesn't force you to take it. It just makes you a good planner. If you choose to use a suboptimal weapon because you want it for flavor, that's great.

Ignorance is not bliss. Knowing things is better than not knowing things.

Also, picking the mechanically best item doesn't suddenly make you a bad role-player. How powerful your character is mechanically has no bearing whatsoever on how well you role play.

I really wish weapons were balanced, but they aren't entirely so. I enjoy having a 15-20 critical over a 20/x4.

The fair comparison here would be 19-20/x4 and 15-20/x2.

Chris A Jackson wrote:

already powerful rogue class

Wut

Yeah I had to ask my wife to pinch me and see if I was dreaming.

I'd say the passive boosts stay, otherwise the wording would have said "she cannot BENEFIT from rage powers." It's not like passive rage powers are some unforeseeable corner case.

Well thanks for all the replies, guys. All the threads just tend to reference the issues, not actually illuminate them for those not in on it from the beginning.

I tend to not play stealth-based classes. Can someone sum up what the horrible problem with stealth is that everyone seems to acknowledge exists?

Yeah, if you want to be an archer, concentrate on getting the ability to fire while in melee and stay out of melee. No reason to spread yourself thin just to get better at something you don't want to be doing in the first place.

Well that faq addresses using magical items, and not creating them. I think it's reasonable to rule that if the same character scribes and uses the scroll, that the abilities would apply. After all, scribing a scroll is like casting the first 90% of the spell, and reading a scroll is like completing the last 10%. I don't this is supported in the rules, but I think it's a reasonable houserule that isn't explicitly contradicted in the rules either.

If a player scribes the scroll and another character reads it, or vice versa, then I'd say definitely no, per that faq.

Well obviously for HeroLab you don't have to buy all the additional books. There's a lot of customizability and you can just create some stuff if you need an adjustment that's in a book you don't have. Also with all the licenses possible your whole group can pitch in and get it together. I highly recommend it.

Using 20th level characters for examples of realism doesn't work. The common conception of the real world "master" of a subject as being 20th level was disproven here.

If you don't want to click on the link, it basically explains how everyone that's ever actually existed caps at 5th or 6th level. 20th level characters are a level of prowess that only exists in fiction, so applying real world logic to their scenarios doesn't work.

Definitely not RAW. Greater and Tireless rage aren't parts of the Rage class ability, they're their own class abilities. Rage doesn't give you anything except rage. If it did, they wouldn't have any reason to specifically call out that you get rage powers.

Somewhat of a different issue than 'marked in FAQ' phantom responses, but I guess I may as well repeat that while Jason Bulmahn made several messageboard posts clarifying the Vital Strike/Attack Action topic, that information or equivalent explanation is still missing from the FAQ. Since it was deemed worthwhile enough to explain via the messageboards, I don't know why it isn't valid for FAQ material... Any player who isn't aware of those messageboard posts which came out shortly after PRPG 1st printing, is simply left in the dark.

The simple answer to this is that a messageboard post requires a minimum of effort by one person, but an official FAQ takes what I'd imagine is a team effort, and has a bit higher stakes in that it is an official answer.

While I do think it's possibly subject to being interpreted differently, I think the clear RAW and RAI is that it works. Specific trumps general.

Came across this issue in our current campaign.

I was attempting to cast Plane Shift to return to the Prime Material from what was essentially a created demiplane. The focus for this is a forked piece of metal attuned to the plane of travel. While I understand the general idea that a material component or focus like this that doesn't have a stated value is assumed to be in your component pouch, how do you guys play it in a situation like this where until you were there, you didn't know the plane existed?

My thought was that you just have the forked piece of metal handy and the knowledge of the spell would allow you to know how to "attune" it. Any suggestions?

Yeah this guy just sounds like a jerk player. Also, I don't necessarily see the Kitsune as some lighthearted race. It's not a friggin Care Bear. You can play it as some goofy children's book character, but you can do that with a human or an elf, too.

I will say, though, that if you have this gritty, grim game planned, and one or more of your players doesn't want to play that type of game, well, it's not just you that has to have fun in the game. The PC's are not characters in your novel; it's a collaborative game.

His stupid antics are destructive in-game. But if it's just an issue of being lighthearted, and you don't want that, did you ever stop to think you might be ruining his fun at the same time he's ruining yours?

I don't see any reason why if there's a way (detect magic) to quantify the exact mechanical abilities that those who possess that ability wouldn't talk about it in prosaic, mechanical terms. If you're talking about cars, you don't say "This vehicle could travel the distance from here to the next town in the span of an hour," we say "It'll do 140." There is a set mechanical benefit to the items and there's nothing wrong with addressing it as such. If it doesn't fit your campaign world, don't do it, but I see too many people assume that doing this somehow makes your world limp and lame. It is what you make it. It's the rarity or power of the item that makes it impressive, not the cool way in which you describe it. You can just call a Ferrari a Ferrari, it doesn't make it any less amazing.

Forcing someone to fall is still on the evil end of the scale.

What? Huh? So it's ok to ram your sword into the guy but to get him to lose his efficacy as an agent of evil through clever interplay is evil?

Gorbacz wrote:

JiCi wrote:

mplindustries wrote:

A -1 penalty to hit is significantly more penalizing than dealing 1 average damage more per hit is beneficial.

Accuracy is far more valuable than damage.

Masterwork, problem solved...

I have money to spend on a masterwork weapon. Difficult math question: do I want a weapon that will make me hit at +5 for 1d10/x2 damage or one that will make me hit at +6 for 1d8/x3 or 1d8/x2 at 19-20 damage?

The scizore is almost un-disarmable and counts also as a shield. The masterwork bonus to attack rolls counters the penalty to hit, and I'm pretty sure that any feat that allows you to keep a buckler's AC bonus while attacking with the same hand can apply to the scizore as well.

Critical hits are rarer to get than maximum damage anyway, so might as well get the weapon that has the highest damage cap.

My gripe is that martial one-handed weapons always cap at 1d8, while exotic one-handed weapons always cap at 1d10. The scizore looks like a cheap bastard sword when it's supposed to be an upgraded spiked gauntlet.

I don't know why you're worried about making it an exotic weapon when it's mechanically inferior as a martial weapon. What was the last min-max build you saw wearing a scizore? You're just flat out incorrect on this.

Consider growth subdomain to get swift action enlarge person

Divine scion is not 3rd party.

Also perhaps a monk/cleric multiclass with the dedication to lawful?

MyTThor wrote:

DreamGoddessLindsey wrote:

I never said you have to kill everything. Never once did I say that. I simply stated that you have to actually be aware of and/or in an encounter to get XP for said encounter.

How aware do you think they have to be? Knowing where the enemies are and avoiding the location? Actually sneaking by them?

You gotta know what the enemies are and you have to be in the vicinity. If you fly over an entire stage without setting foot in it, no XP because you skip the stage. If you're in the stage, and there's a fork in the path, and you go left, and there are no monsters there, but there were monsters on the right fork, no XP because you didn't go the direction that would have made the encounter relevant to begin with. If you walk into a room full of sleeping monsters, and instead of fighting you use Stealth to sneak past them, you do get XP because you were in the encounter area and actually had to use skills specific to that particular encounter.

I think I've gotten a bit off my point by working with these hypotheticals. If there's a castle off the road that the PC's are following, and they just keep going, of course they shouldn't get xp for everything in the castle. But if they need to get something from the top level of the castle, depending on how much thought/work goes into getting to the top, I do think it should be possible to get as much xp for avoiding the combat on the way up as they can get for fighting everything. And I think if you put a goal in front of the PC's such as getting something from the top of the castle, you shouldn't be pissed at them for going right to the goal and "skipping your content." If you want them to enjoy everything you've put in, make it necessary for them to go through it. Obviously there is an unspoken agreement where they won't totally avoid what you're putting in front of them, but I prefer running and/or playing in a campaign where it's a little less railroady. Honestly, the idea of a "stage" bothers me, it makes me think I have to do everything you want me to in a specific order and that's not my style. But hey, if your players like your campaign, who cares what I say?

MyTThor wrote:

Quote:

Ad hoc XP awards are discretion, and RAI never supposed to be as much as total XP for all encounters in skipped stages.

Where do you get that idea?

From reading the book. Where are you getting any idea to the contrary? Take my example, where my PCs took the back door to the boss room and skipped all the other encounters. There were about ten encounters, total value of several million XP. You're suggesting that I should give the PCs that XP because they got around them, despite not knowing what any of the encounters were to begin with.

There is not a single RPG in existence that works like that, this one included. Sorry. RPGs would be in a sorry state if you got rewarded for outright skipping content.

No, what I'm suggesting is give your pc's XP for whatever you want, and don't tell me I'm playing the game wrong because I don't do it the same way. Of course I wouldn't advocate giving xp for avoiding encounters that they didn't even know were there.

I think you're overblowing things a tad lamenting what the state of RPG's would be if xp was given out any certain way. The point of RPG's is to have fun; there's not some abstract "purity of the game" concept that's being infringed upon if you're giving out liberal xp.

I don't think anyone is arguing that it would be overpowered. But I don't think it is vague. The spell says you can shift into a large animal (for instance). You look at the list of large animals, and you pick one. As this is the rules question forum, I think the RAW are clear that you choose one from the bestiary. If this had been the general discussion forum, or the house rules forum, I'd be saying that absolutely you can be different sized animals (within reason).

I never said you have to kill everything. Never once did I say that. I simply stated that you have to actually be aware of and/or in an encounter to get XP for said encounter.

How aware do you think they have to be? Knowing where the enemies are and avoiding the location? Actually sneaking by them?

Ad hoc XP awards are discretion, and RAI never supposed to be as much as total XP for all encounters in skipped stages.

Where do you get that idea?

So is it ok for someone to turn into a colossal sparrow or a diminutive elephant?

I mean obviously there's not any reason it is overpowered, but I still don't think it's legal.

MyTThor wrote:

DreamGoddessLindsey wrote:

stuff

Narcissism and masochism don't have an appreciable effect on determining alignment.

Narcissism is putting yourself as most important to a crazy degree too often, barring you from the altruism needed to be a good aligned character. neutral sure but hard to argue that as a trait of a good character

No, narcissism is thinking you are better than everyone else. In fact, one's narcissism could even be rooted in the fact that they think they are the best, smartest leader in the world in order to bring peace and prosperity to the inferior masses. Good, and narcissistic.

If there is a law or rule that a lawful person doesn't agree with, he/she would either try to change the law, or leave the land. A chaotic person would overthrow the authority. A neutral person just breaks the law.

Obviously these are the extreme examples and not every chaotic or lawful person has to handle every situation the same way every time.

Even following the code of a specific religion doesn't mean you're specifically lawful, or else there wouldn't be chaotic religions. The personal code of a devoted worshiper of Cayden Cailean is to live free, do good, be brave, and get drunk. Following the code doesn't make him lawful.

stuff

I find it hilarious that you're making all these 100% black and white pronouncements about all these other people find grey areas being totally and completely evil in your mind, but you think someone who's good, even chaotic good, can torture and kill people for their crimes. The death penalty is neutral at best, I'd say, but if a good society does it grudgingly, I'm not immediately calling that society non-good. Torture, however, has no place in a good person or society's moral code. I think you're tending toward neutral, yourself :)

Overall to the OP, I'd say your character is pretty much true neutral. He doesn't go out of his way to help people, but doesn't go out of his way to harm them in most situations, either. He doesn't lash out at people who don't share his beliefs, except for a couple corner cases. Narcissism and masochism don't have an appreciable effect on determining alignment.

Another note - adherence to a personal code does NOT equal lawful. Everyone besides some insane people have a personal code. Barring insanity that makes one completely unpredictable, it is 100% impossible for someone to not have a personal code. Even the conviction to do whatever you feel like at a given time is a code - in fact that's the textbook definition of Chaotic Neutral. Lawful/Chaotic is the extent to which you worry about following the codes of society.

Um, no. That's not how it works.

You get XP for overcoming an encounter. If you skip it altogether, no XP, period. I don't any GM who'd actually give you XP for entire stages you skipped.

In my most recent final stage, I put a back door to the boss room that skipped the rest of the dungeon (encounters and treasure). The PCs found it, surprisingly enough, and skipped the encounters. I wasn't mad because I put the back door in there to begin with, it was an option. I still didn't give them XP for the encounters they skipped.

Generally, you have to have at least started an encounter to get XP for it, regardless of the resolution.

Um, no, actually XP is given for whatever the DM feels is appropriate.

If the point of the Great Caverns of Orcish Obstacles (tm) is to put a dent in the Procreation Tribe, then you only give them XP for killing off all the orcs. If the point is to get to the Ancient Sword of Enemy Incision that's in the cave behind them, then if you do something especially clever or difficult to get to the Sword another way, there's absolutely no reason not to give xp for bypassing the caverns. Maybe not full XP, but they've overcome the encounter, so long as you hold that the reason for the encounter is to stop the PC's from getting to the Sword.

You don't need a FAQ or errata to verify that you can only turn into animals that exist. Wild Shape works like the Beast Shape spells (and others). Those spells say you turn into animals or magical beasts of certain sizes. They don't say anything about creating your own animals.

To me, the "disrespectful PC's avoiding content" type of thing is you put an adventure in front of them, and they settle down to run an inn. You gave them a goal, don't punish them for meeting it.

Nicos wrote:

I find your post hilarious, really. " I am the DM and if you do not do exactly th thing I have planned for you then I will kill your Pcs".

If they get TPKed while fighting the BBEG that is fine provided the DM run the encounter fairly, not for DM-rage as you advice.

Pardon me if I would be a bit ticked off to work really hard on a nice adventure and then the PCs decice "screw it, we're gonna storm the BBEG's fortress instead", leading to delays in gaming and a loss of productive time.

I don't put in hard work on a stage just for it to be skipped. That's disrespect on the part of the PCs.

littlehewy wrote:

Players should be punished for having good ideas and avoiding encounters that aren't necessary to engage in?

Wha?

That's the weirdest thing I've read on here for ages. And I've been checking out some of shallowsoul's posts...

They didn't just avoid encounters, they avoided entire stages. That's not a "good idea", that's called "derailing the campaign". I won't have that at my table.

If I put hard work into an adventure, I expect it to be played out.

Moox wrote:

If this thread were to NOT get hijacked into a discussion of...stuff, that would be super cool.

--Moox

It's okay, I'm not hijacking your thread or even planning to do so. That was my honest advice. If you intended it to be for later levels, make it for later levels and show them they're not ready for it.

I'm just saying, don't let other work you've put into this campaign go to waste by the PCs skipping over a bunch of content. It's totally not cool for players to do that. There's sort of an unspoken agreement that players aren't supposed to derail things just because they can.

If you've made the quest to get the magic ring, then the players should be able to use whatever resources and strategies they want to get the magic ring.

I don't want to hijack the thread as Moox requested, but I actually think this is relevant. He's doing the right thing in trying to figure out a way to roll with it. If you've put in a ton of work in designing a railroad quest where you want the players to do A, B, and C to get to D, then you need to make A, B, and C make sense beyond "they're what I designed." If the steps don't make sense or aren't necessary, that's not their fault, that's your fault.

I typically ask myself the question, "Would it serve the story at this point for a PC to die?"

Most often, the answer is no. Once in a while...yes.

** spoiler omitted **

I probably wouldn't have low level mooks killing your PC's, unless they are being really stupid against the enemy, but if they choose to confront a BBEG that hits hard without some healing...the story should play out to make the BEST story.

I think we can safely say you're not pulling punches, since your BBEG, who's likely to toss out a TPK as designed, is either casting 10th level spells or he's got a magic item that's by itself worth twice his expected wealth by level.

The only oracle that does not get a curse really is the 1 i mentioned above being Black-Blooded. Other than that 1 archetype i find the entire class suck s*** and refuse to even team with 1 when i game.

Out of curiosity, why such the negative view of oracle? Don't like the flavor? Oracles are very very powerful when built well.

You'll need to ideally cover the arcane and divine casting roles. Witch is a good idea, Ancient Lorekeeper oracle, Samsaran with Mystic Past Life as a reincarnated oracle or any caster, really, and cherry pick some necessary spells from the other classes. Eldritch Heritage: Arcane for some spells off the wizard list. Lots of UMD. Full caster is very necessary, a bard won't have the necessary spells per day to really play your role

There isn't one in the rules, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that if you were to homebrew such an item, just have it basically the same as the existing one, just change the energy type.

The focused trance revelation from the Lore Mystery gives a +20 circumstance bonus to one intelligence based check.

Ssalarn wrote:

"Animal Companion (Ex): You gain an animal companion. Your effective druid level for this ability is equal to your sorcerer level – 3 (minimum 1st). This bloodline power counts as your bloodline arcana and also replaces laughing touch."

It counts as your bloodline arcana. Robes of arcane heritage don't affect arcana.

It's a bloodline power. Robes of Arcane Heritage affects bloodline powers. There is nothing in the description that suggests it would fail to affect bloodline powers, just because they count as something else as well.

That's a plausible interpretation but your statement that "there's nothing to suggest" otherwise is definitely incorrect, since other people have interpreted it differently based on the text. Obviously there is something to suggest it, even if that's not your reading.

However, that said, I agree with you.

Rules as written it doesn't work, but none of the things you're suggesting are overpowered. I'd allow any of them.

My 2c.

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

2) "Should tieflings be humanoid?" is not a frequently asked question.

I disagree with SKR on this -- at least, if it isn't a frequently asked question, either "Tieflings should be Humanoids" is a frequently made statement or "Why are Tieflings not Humanoid?" is a frequently asked question.

It doesn't make it a _good_ question, but it is frequent.

- - -

A FAQ response somewhere to

Quote:

Tieflings, Aasimars, and other plane-touched races do not have the Humanoid type but Outsider; is this, and the correspondingly different spell effects, intentional?

Yes. This is intentional.

wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea.

- - -

While it may be a frequently asked question, so is "Why haven't I won the lottery," or "Can I have all the Paizo products sent to me for free?" It is implicit in the idea of a frequently asked question that it should also be a question that is frequently asked based on some ambiguity, not frequently asked because people don't like the obvious black and white answer.

A faq entry verifying that rules are, indeed, intentional? The fact that the rules are printed in the books should be, by extension, proof that they are intentional.

stuff

As near as I can tell, this is what you're saying:

"The people who are professional game designers think a certain way. I, a gamer, think another way. I insist that the game designers give me a justification as to why they disagree with me."

Can you not see how arrogant that comes off?

It's like walking into a burger joint and saying "I want to speak to the manager. Since filet mignon is beef and burgers are also beef, I feel that this burger joint should sell filet mignon. The manager must explain to me why they don't serve filet."

The answer is because the people in charge feel it should be that way. It wouldn't be crazy if they did feel that way, but it also doesn't mean that they are beholden to you to explain why they don't.