Quandary's page

MyTThor wrote:

This is the correct answer.

Yes, but I'd still let him have it.

A little aside:

Over on the PFS General Discussion forums, we've had a recent rash of Rules questions, which then get shunted over here because they're about Pathfinder rules rather than things specific to PFS organized play. Thing is, the posters have complained about having their threads moved here, and even prefaced their posts with things like "Please don't move this to Rules Questions; all you ever get there is houserules, 'ask your GM' and people telling you you're stupid for asking".

Not trying to pick on you specifically, but I think it's a sad state of affairs when the Rules Questions section of the boards has such a reputation that people would actually prefer to take their rules questions to a different forum.

So please, everyone: if you're going to respond to a question in the Rules forum, answer in the context of the rules, even if you do things differently in your own games.

It is possible to not worship any gods. You just end up in Pharasma's graveyard.

That's the simplistic version, actually... it's a lot more complex than that. Just as with anyone else, what ends up happening to an athiest's soul in Golarion depends a lot on how "successful" that soul was in life. If they're failures, they'll go to the graveyard. If they're not, they could be reincarnated... but if they're great succeses, those souls become free-roaming spirits that are allowed to drift off into the multiverse to go wherever they want to learn whatever they want and do whatever they want.

So what is being said here is that the monk wins when he gets to set ALL the terms of engagement, from terrain to age at the time of the engagement, right down to the terms of winning.

I don't think there's any point arguing here, the goalposts will get moved every time to say "I WIN" for the monk, so I'll go be reasonable some place else.

If I was playing a monk, that would count as winning.

I still think the identification of magic items and spells should fall directly under Spellcraft and esoteric magic subjects and monsters should fall under Knowledge: Arcana.

I am excited that Paizo has such an active involvement in the feedback process relating to their published materials and I am thankful that they are willing to talk about (and address) ambiguity when people are confused.

I especially want to thank SKR for being the most active presence in regards to rules insight. Not only is he willing to do FAQ updates, but he responds to rules posts with guidance (not always just making official rulings), he constructs Rules Blog entries addressing hot topics and he's willing to put himself on the line in chaotic threads by offering the Design Team's perspective in cases where the conversation can quickly devolve.

I know that he has been working on other projects recently and consequently had to pull back on his activity, but I can honestly say that the rules forum is a much more lively place when Sean is the liason for the Design Team, armed with blog entries and engaging in meaningful discussion with those that are interested in furthering the experience that is Pathfinder.

I just wanted to say thanks to SKR for being the pointman on rulings. I know many of them are considered unpopular but what many do not realize is that he is not alone in those rulings.

Being a pointman for unpopular rulings has to be a hard job so, thanks Sean for doing the dirty work.

- Gauss

P.S. I love that Paizo is active on the boards compared to other game companies I've seen over the years. Please keep this up.

Pathfinder's take on sandbox economics sounds interesting, and very much like Eve, at first glance. Perhaps too much like Eve in the sense of the speed and miraculous availability of information the description implies to me.

Information will propagate instantly, whether it is done in-game or out-of-game. It's trivially easy to ensure that you have up-to-the-second pricing and availability info anywhere that you care about by using alts.

So rather than put players who don't understand that at a disadvantage, we'll just provide those tools to everyone automatically.

RyanD

Simply because the majority has reached an incorrect consensus does not mean that the established viewpoint is the correct one. Similarly, just because the members of the Paizo forum happened to be under the misapprehension that Flurry of Blows happened to work in one way while being written in another does not mean that the authors were incorrect (as some here have been quick to accuse the writers of). The fact that other forums have managed to, almost directly after the initial printing of the book, reach the same ruling as SRK, without aid, proves this.

Its always good to have statements on how confusing rules are supposed to work from an official source so +1 for keeping these FAQs coming. Its really helpful especially to new players and groups to read things like this to know problem rules before they become an issue at the table.

Re: Mirror image/cleave, its good to know what the official rules are, for something like a PFS game. As for a home game, especially if I'm GMing it, I'd still vote for or rule that you can cleave the images. The official ruling makes no in-world sense. It seems like the official stance on the rule is derived entirely on grid mechanics, instead of envisioning the behaviors the characters would exhibit if such circumstances could occur in "real life". Really, since its not a "will save" type of illusion messing with the fighter's head, "realistically" he could just cut through all of the images in one sweeping cleave, since a "cleave" is not actually multiple attacks, its one big attack over an arching area, for which the mechanics of this game require multiple attack rolls purely for mechanics sake ;)

To illustrate with "hyperbole", it gets kind of ridiculous if a mirror image stops a 20 foot tall giant from hitting his target because of some images when his weapon is likely filling most of the 5 foot square as he swings through it (in which case he'd hit all the images and the caster all at once, as would someone taking a sweeping arc through it with a normal sized sword...)

StabbittyDoom wrote:

concerro wrote:

Magic missile works because mirror image states that it does not stop targeted effects. Examples are charm person and magic missile.

And this tells me you missed entirely what my point was. My point is not what the rules of the spell currently say, my point is what those rules say about how the world works (specifically the flavor of the spell). Sometimes a spell or ability just does not allow verisimilitude (and "a wizard did it" is only a good excuse when you're pressed for time at the table).

The effect is normally written before the flavor, but I do see your point. Why not just rewrite the flavor? Mirror image is not the only place where the flavor is hard to swallow.

Making a reflex save why paralyzed is hard to swallow since the reflex saves says it represents your ability to move out of the way. The fluff many of us use is that luck is involved also.

For my own personal satisfaction I would say that the figments are not considered to be foes for the purpose of cleave, and therefore don't count. That takes care of a lot of issues right there.

People generally take abilities for the effects so I would avoid changing the mechanics as much as I could.

Your first sentence tells me you did not read my whole post (or, I suppose, that I wasn't clear enough), as my proposed solution *was* a change in flavor.

To the second sentence: I also make the "reflex == skill + luck" flavor assertion in my home games.

To the third: Rather than say that figments are not foes, I would say that *these* figments are not foes, with the justification that they do not occupy any appreciable amount of space (but this only works with the flavor change I proposed, as under normal mirror image they are mostly non-overlapping rather than mostly overlapping).

Yes, some people take abilities for the effects, but many take them for the flavor. I have a player who wants to make a construct-based character, knowing nothing about how constructs might work, simply because it sounds cool. They don't care much what the specifics are, just that they have one or more machines under their control squishing stuff and helping carry their loots. (When I told them it wouldn't be precisely what was listed in the book, they still didn't care, showing to me that they aren't even after being able to say "LOL Iron Golem!" or some such.)

The job of a rules writer (and to some extent a DM) is to make sure that things make sense in the context of both flavor and rules (both individually and how they interact), because to mess up the former would kill immersion, to mess up the latter would imbalance the game, and to mess up how they interact could have both problems. If the rules and the flavor conflict, one must be changed (possibly both in a few odd cases).

I normally love a good FAQ entry, but the ones about Mirror Image smack of patching the symptom instead of the problem (in this case, patching how cleave/magic missile work instead of addressing the mirror image's shaky justifications.)

If the reason you can't hit the caster properly is that you don't know the right thing to target, then why does a magic missile bypass that? Does it know something you don't? What if I attempt to attack a silent image that happens to share the square with the caster, does the magic missile redirect to the caster or simply fizzle on the image? If it's the latter, why doesn't it do that with mirror image? If it's the former, would that work for any figment that shares a square with a creature? What about attacking an image that shares a square with a solid creature using a normal attack, do those attacks hit the other creature or the figment? If the latter, why is magic missile different?

Similarly, with cleave, why would hitting something immaterial *stop* your cleaving (thinking conceptually here)? If figments have an explicit AC (which they do), could a cleave guy not cleave off of a figment into another creature (being completely unaware of the figment's nature)? If not, then why can they cleave off of an incorporeal creature to which they do no damage, and why does a figment have an AC if they can't actually hit it? (The incorporeal subtype states they are immune to the damage, but not that the attack misses.) If they can cleave off of a figment, then what makes these figments different?

Maybe I'm just being picky here, but I'm a "world first, rules second" kind of guy and I would rather modify a spell to be fair then modify the world to make the spell work. These FAQ entries, though sensible as a "keep the game going" kind of thing, don't feel fully thought through as they are currently written.

If the spell were instead a pattern, the FAQ would make total sense as it's mostly that it messes with your head. But as a figment, not as much.

I don't see the difference between a player wandering into a higher level wandering monster encounter than PvP. That being said no low level casual player is going to enjoy being completely destroyed by a high level raid character every time they leave the town to gather some resources. I think the development team are looking at balance of risk and reward. Lower level characters will have to stick closer to towns to gather lower level resources. Medium level characters will be willing to stray farther from towns to gather better resources. And finally if your looking for exotic resources you will have to go off the beaten path and have higher PvP, and PvE threats. Likewise, it would be nice to have wandering patrols so those labeled as criminals would have a chance of wandering into bounty hunters. It could actually be self policing. Town nobles could offer nice bounties on criminals and player characters could keep an eye out for them.

Ryan, does that mean that if you're a player who doesn't want PvP (most notibly, doesn't want to deal with other players attacking them) and you head off to the deep wilderness, far from towns, laws, etc, then you're simply SOL if someone attacks you? If so, then that is unfortunate.

Yes, that is what it means. You need to think about other players as being a part of the world just like wandering monsters. They're predators, and if you venture out alone you're the prey.

Massively Multiplayer games gain value and become a unique and distinctive kind of experience when they maximize human interaction. There are lots of ways to play sword & sorcery games by oneself. MMOs are not designed for that kind of experience. If you want an MMO where you don't have to worry about being attacked by other players that's what most theme park games have specialized in.

Pathfinder Online's sandbox design means that interactions with other players, sometimes via combat, will be an ever-present part of the experience.

There will be characters who will go alone into the wilderness to explore. Those explorers will always be in danger. That danger will often come from the knowledge that if they are detected by other players, they're probably going to die. But if the rewards for solo exploration are sufficient (both qualitative and quantitative), people will do it. I think those rewards will be sufficient.

I'm excited but I have several concerns.

• Cannibalisation of tabletop players.
  
• Development tensions starting between the tabletop and online versions.
  
• If characters from one will be transferrable to the other.
  
• My wife leaving me when it takes up all my time.
  
• Not being able to play any more when I've run out of money.
  
• Contagion spreading from the debt crisis in France to the US, tanking the economy and stopping development.
  
• An asteroid hitting the Earth and stopping me from playing until we can construct subterranean cities.

I know that people are getting honestly upset in this thread, but part of me wants to smile a little, because it sounds like people are having the following conversation.

First Person Hey, wasn't there a pear on that table yesterday?
Second Person Maybe, but there's a banana there now.
First Person Yes, I can see that, but I'm pretty sure there was a pear there yesterday.
Second Person Even so, banana there, today. It's pretty obvious to anybody who cares to look.
First Person Yes, and I'm not disputing that! I heard you. But yesterday, it was a pear.
Second Person I'll take your word for it. But that's not what's there now. It's - a - banana!
First PersonYesterday it was a razza-frazzin' pear!
Second Person Well, it's not a pear any more. I'm trying to tell you, it's a banana!!

(They glare at one another, each daring his opponent to refute him.)

Third Person (enters) Hey, wasn't there a pear on that table yesterday?
First Person HA!
Second Person Oh, for the love of God...

I will concede the point, but not the spirit. At least I am not alone in disapproving the giving away of EWP. By the same logic, Cavaliars should get EWP falcata or Bastard sword or Curve Blade or Dwarven Waraxe. Eesh.

Taking EWP in katana should be a choice of the samurai's style, not a default.

==+Aelryinth

Quandary wrote:

...taller creatures don't automatically get this bonus if they are standing on the same ground. Likewise, flying creatures don't get it: they aren't standing on ground period.

It would seem that Death From Above (UC feat) would disagree with you.

Death From Above wrote:

Whenever you charge an opponent from higher ground, or from above while flying, you gain a +5 bonus on attack rolls in place of the bonuses from charging and being on higher ground.

Death from above actually supports Quandary's position.

It specifically mentions "higher ground" and "above while flying" as two distinct things that each qualify for DFA. If "flying" = "higher ground" there would be no need to mention the flying part, and even if it did the word "or" makes them separate. If they had said "higher ground, including from above when flying" that would be completely different.

That said, I don't put to much stock in trying to interpret broader rules from picking over every word in every stray feat.

Screw Sun Tzu or Hannibal, if we're going for figures from the past, I'm going for Darth Vader.

My (possibly mistaken) impression is that the Paizo policy is geared toward changing behavior rather than simply removing objectionable content. If one's whole post is removed and one is asked to make one's point again with less inflammatory language, the burden is put on the poster to express him- or herself in a more acceptable manner from here on out. If the mods are simply following after people, cleaning up a word or sentence here or there, there is no inconvenience to the poster and no motive to change. (They might not even realize they're being moderated if they don't re-read their old posts.) In the long run, it leads to less work for the mods if people learn to self-moderate (or get mad and leave). Otherwise, the mods are just the guy in the circus whose job it is to follow after the parade and clean up after the elephants, whereas the elephants are already in the tent basking in applause and not even realizing they left a mess behind. :)

We really, REALLY need to make it crystal clear in this thread whether we're talking about re-skinning that has some mechanical effect or re-skinning that is 100% effect-free. Otherwise, this thread is going to accomplish absolutely nothing.

First, this is a rules discussion to get thoughts from the general playerbase. This isn't set in stone that it is or is not going to happen. The very reason I put these out here is to hear what the fanbase has to say about the issue and it helps me, and the Venture-Captains, to go back and discuss everyone's input. From there, I am able to try and make the ruling that is best for the campaign.

What I don't want to see is "stormtrooper armor" and "lightsabers" that were bought in Katapesh as relics of Numeria. They have the same stats as existing items but they look like something else entirely. Neither of these change items mechanically but they are a huge problem.

+1 to the above.

There's a more fundamental reason why metamagic can only go on rods. Metamagic rods are the only metamagic magic items that exist.[1]

Take a look at the rules for creating magic items. You can choose to create an existing item, in which case you follow the requirements specifically listed for it, or you create your own.

When you create your own, these are the options you have:

"Ability bonus (enhancement), Armor bonus (enhancement), Bonus spell, AC bonus (deflection), AC bonus (other), Natural armor bonus (enhancement), Save bonus (resistance), Save bonus (other), Skill bonus (competence), Spell resistance, Weapon bonus (enhancement), Spell Effect."

Check it out yourself. The magic item pricing table does not support anything else. You won't find feats or class abilities priced on that table, and that's on purpose. Feats and class abilities are meant to be special. You can't create a ring of metamagic any more than you can create a cloak of sneak attack or a belt of improved critical.

Your GM, of course, may do what they like, but the reason you can't create a ring of metamagic is because no such item has ever been created before (thus there's no rules for it), and no rules exist for creating a new item with that power.

[1] Unless, of course, your GM creates something different.

Note that in this specific case, I personally would allow another item at the same cost, because rods are already a slotless item that must be wielded so there's no gain in it. I would not allow someone to create a different item at a lower cost; no matter what form it took, it would cost the same as a metamagic rod, even if they made it as a slotted item such as a ring.

We got less feats in 3.5 and we roleplayed... We got NO feats in 1st edition and we roleplayed. If your players won't take anything that doesn't lead to crunch advantage it doesn't matter what you do, if you say extra feats with restrictions, they'll just game it until they come up with the most optimal extras that they can squeeze into your restrictions.

I'd file that under "the GM is free to rule that in certain circumstances, a creature can apply weapon bonuses for these maneuvers."

This makes the monk as a tripper either good or lousy based on DM ruling from table to table. Its kind of a big deal to a lot of builds to leave it up in the air like that.

it can even be worth it, but it's totally unfair.

Well sure. Its also horribly unfair Sorcerer's dont have access to things like the applicable Arcane Discoveries that would be massively cool for them... like True Name. Or the one where Wizards can talk to animals. Or Immortality.

If the Stealth skill is a merging of Move Silently and Hide, then why do most of the Stealth rulings and clarifications seem to be limited to what would have been covered by the old Hide skill, but not Move Silently?

The only time the Stealth skills seems to acknowledge this is in the second sentence "This skill covers hiding and moving silently.", which then appears to be largely forgotten as the rest of the text focuses on how Stealth prevents a person from being seen visually. Previously, one could raise their Move Silently skill to be able to avoid sonic based detection methods, but now it seems you can't avoid those methods using the combined Stealth skill.

It might be worthwhile to step back and examine how abstract versus how granular you want the Stealth skill to be (should it cover a broader range of "staying undetected" or be largely limited to being a search-and-replace for the old Hide skill)? It may be possible to simplify the skill a great deal depending on what you decide you want the skill to be able to do.

under the planar binding argument, risking to threadjack a little, I have to say that the weakness of the sorcerer compared to the wizard comes from the fact that completely different kinds of spells use the same resource to be cast. planar binding is the most blatant example, with one slot, you can summon sth for days/level. but thanks to the sorcerer spells per level restriction, this spell is worthless to them, since it will take up half the spells he gets at a certain level. I have a strong opinion that spells that resemble rituals(casting time in minutes and long effects) shouldn't use the precious spells slots of the casters.

Just a thought, but if you had a scroll of planar binding and a scroll of moment of prescience, and had the Craft Staff feat, couldn't you make a staff with those spells (and at least one more that you know)? That way, when you use the staff to cast those spells, you can use your own Charisma modifier and caster level. Also, you can recharge the staff, even though you don't know some of the spells in it, since you do know at least one spell that it contains. Also, you don't need to take planar binding or moment of prescience as spells known, if you don't wish...

I hate the human sorcerer favoured class bonus, and I think it's exactly the sort of thing the sorcerer needs.

The problem is this:

I think that favoured class bonus should have been built into the sorcerer by default, without costing any favoured class picks. As it is, it's comparitively much harder to make a decent sorcerer with any other race and I prefer that classes are never tied to a particular race. It reduces the availability of concepts. I do not think anyone should have to take a lesser option because they want to play something different.

All those poor wolves who live in the deep caves and never get to see the light of day. . .oh wait, ya, there aren't any.

Low light vision is exactly what an animal should have. (If even that, really.)

When Daidian Ruel founded the Hellknights in 4576, he chose the Legions of Hell as the prefect model of order and discipline.

– Pathfinder #48 “What Lies In The Dust”, page 63

The question is why? Are the slavish devils inherently more "lawful" then the robotic axiomites or the dutiful archons?

If this is true, why is it so?

If it is not true, why would have Daidian Ruel believed it to be so? Why do the Hellknights continue to believe it to be so?

Inherently more lawful, absolutely not. Inevitables and the other lawful neutral outsiders are epitomes of lawful concepts. At best, devils are equal to them. Another interpretation might see the law-chaos/good-evil system as a circle, with the neutral alignments at extremes, thus making "lawful evil" less pure lawful or pure evil. (That's AN interpretation, this sort of thing doesn't have to be writ, so whatever works for your game).

What devils have that inevitables and their brethren often (not always, but often) lack is passion. The archetype of a crusading angel comes easily to mind. By the same token, the idea of the reverse, a hellish dark knight, is easily summoned up. The crusader for law for law's sake... comes less easily - Judge Dread, Javert come to mind, but there's not a super strong icon or visual element there.

Add to that the influences and artistry Ruel was likely exposed to. This man wasn't a scholar of the planes, he was a soldier and nearly a life-long Aroden worshiper. The conflict between good and evil (and the extolling of a middle path - or a goodly path as benefits a society) would likely be heavily represented in the church's artistry. So would the conflict between law and chaos, but I could see an argument that it's harder to attach recognizable and sympathetic faces/images to this battle so it would likely be represented by more identifiable combatants, like the knights of the land vs barbarians and monsters. So faced with images of armies of angels vs armies of devils, there's a point of inspiration there.

The other inspirational point is that the threat of harm and menace is a powerful motivating factor. It's the same technique utilized my numerous religions: do what we tell you or monsters will punish you horribly (and likely forever). It's a far, far more persuasive technique than: do what we tell you because we asked nice, or do what we tell you because it furthers all of our goals. If we're talking purely costume, I think I'd be more likely to follow the command of a soldier dressed as a devil than a soldier dressed as a robot or bug.

On top of all of this is the perspective of a soldier trying to prepare his knights. For purposes of training, if you're trying to make the baddest ass soldier what there is, do you send them to Heaven, Axis, or Hell? Lets say you send one soldier to all three planes for a year and all three come out, and then you make them fight, which do you think is going to win?

Finally, I don't think I'd say Axis has an army. The forces of inevitables, formorians, and their ilk don't really run like that. An inevitable army is like a machine, formorians are like swarms, axiomites... I'm not even sure what that's like (how does the Matrix attack you?). Anyway, they're all super organized and effective, but they're a step away from the human experience. And even if you think of the best armies in real world human history, you're probably more likely to think of crusaders or hellish legions or something even more disorganized than an organization that functions like a machine.

In the end, the Hellknights aren't about furthering the agenda of order on a multiversal level, they're (largely) about getting humans to obey society's strictures for their own good. To do that, they use motivating factors effective against humans, rigidity, mercilessness, fear. Additionally, they are trying to shape deadly warriors embodying such elements, but who are also inured to the emotions, fears, and weaknesses typical members of a society possess. Thus, taking their cues from universally dreaded lawful beings (and doing battle with such creatures) serves their goals more effectively than trying to model themselves after more philosophical ideals (who they wouldn't want to fight).

Also - worth noting again - scary knights aren't just effective, they're cool.

I've yet to see these phantom people who both a) love the Synthesist archtype and b) tots support your rulings.

In fact, it seems people who liked - past tense - the class are rather irate!

I'm one of those "phantom people," and I'm not sure how myself and others on this thread who are exceptions to this comment suddenly found themselves invisible. You'll see upthread other players actively playing this class (and another, Ral'Yareth, above) that don't have the problems that the rest of you armchair critics seem to have.

I said it before here and I'll say it again: I've played a synthesist from 1-6 level, RAW, by-the-book with no house rules, and besides a small hiccup over healing the eidolon's temporary hitpoints (where my GM and I made the same obvious call that the FAQ reiterated), I haven't had problem, have quite enjoyed it, and I thought the clarifications on the FAQ made sense. There was one call I took exception with regarding enlarge person, and that was changed, so there you go.

It really is crazy when you sit down and actually play the class that you just don't have all of these extraordinary problems that you can sit behind your keyboard and theorize and agonize over all day. I understand folks like Seraphimpunk wanting to be prepared for upcoming PFS players who might try some exploits, and while Cartigan's complaints on the de-evolution of rules applications compared to the Pathfinder polymorph rewrites is a valid observation on design philosophy, I suppose, a player can still safely roll up a synthesist totally ignorant of Pathfinder's polymorph design shift and have a ball, without problems, and without getting irate. It WORKS FOR THIS CLASS. You don't have to know or care about the design philosophy of polymorph to have a valid, playable character, and the pocket rules for this class don't have to have wide-ranging, sweeping rules implications as a result, either. They are the rules for the class. That's it. As for some of those weird "Con drop" problems outlined above? Well, I'd suggest not painting your PC into a corner by giving him a higher Con than his eidolon.

That made me shed a tear for the still-born ´Maneuver AC´.

*performs the secret beta-era design thread handshake*

I don't like the idea of magical invisibility granting a straight up bonus to stealth. Because Hide and Move Silently have been combined this really doesn't make sense anymore. After all the invisible target is no harder to hear than they were before.

I would apply it as a penalty to perception checks to pinpoint an invisible character (-20 for moving, -40 for immobile) instead.

So a magically invisible character would make a stealth check to bypass a guard. If the guard's perception beats their normal stealth check then he's aware of their presence. If the character was moving and the guard's perception beats their check by 20 then they've been pinpointed. If they're not pinpointed while moving but the guard hears them (by beating the base stealth check) and begins actively looking for the character who in turn stands still to avoid detection, then the guard needs to beat their stealth check by 40 to pinpoint them (because they're now immobile).

I just want to say that I'm very grateful that you guys are doing this. This is exactly the kind of stuff I want Paizo to do now that a bunch of stuff is released and out there; tune that stuff to perfection. I'd buy a book full of updates like this, but that might just be me.

At a quick glance, this looks great and I think it's a big improvement to how stealth is currently described.

Wait. Formians, larvae. Where is the blog's image from? Because that's just one of the most awesome images of a formian queen ever.

Incanús Kindler wrote:

Detect magic accidentally revealed a villain that should not have been revealed. The party got very suspicious when the supposedly unarmed farmer seemed to be in possession of some sort of magic item. Why the villain didn't attempt to hide it we will never know.

In the first the supposed unarmed farmer should have cast Magic Aura before the encounter at some point if his goal was to remain hidden. This is not a problem of the spell messing up the plot hook, but rather the GM not thinking ahead. However, in this circumstance the GM could have just said "you don't detect anything" after realizing he had not personally foreseen the PCs doing that, but realizing the villain likely would have. Problem solved.

Exactly. I would discuss with him the ramifications of Detect Magic in the world as a whole, as well as Magic Aura. In such a world, anybody who routinely uses magic items, yet wants to be discrete about it, will also use Magic Aura. It`s REALLY REALLY long duration makes it extremely convenient, somebody with a spare 1st level spell slot per day can PERMANENTLY conceal 7 magic items. You can also use it to `shift` magic items, e.g. when trying to look like Mr. Totally Mundane won`t cut it, you can try to look like `Mr. Low Level Wannabe with a CLW Potion or 2 and a +1 weapon and not much else`.

Given the huge duration of Magic Aura, I don`t see why a 1hr version couldn`t also work as a Cantrip, although I would limit it to only being able to affect 1 target at the same time (i.e. so you can`t conceal every item in the world if you have enough rounds to do so).

Incanús Kindler wrote:

We also used it to determine the difference of a cheap knock-off weapon from the real one. Supposedly we were supposed to use perception, and realize it had a certain symbol engraved on it. But I don't think that the advancement of the plot should be determined by a die roll.

The second. No plot hook should ever depend upon the PCs doing ONE SPECIFIC thing to advance the story. In this case, discovering the proper weapon should have been enough, whether through Perception or Detect Magic. If the engraved symbol is what was REALLY the important clue then once the weapon was properly discovered the plot should still be waiting to advance and clues planted about the symbol. Additionally, there could have been a clue dropped that "only the symbol of the sword in the mountain will gain you entry" and have a character make an Intelligence check to realize he had noticed that symbol once, and maybe another check to remember it was on the weapon. The plot has now gone from a one skill check success or fail encounter (which kills plot advancement) to several checks and become a fuller, more enjoyable encounter.

+1

And instead of getting pissed that the players used a no-roll detection spell to notice that it was magic, without needing notice the flavorful details that he wanted to tie into the over-all story... Ask why not, when you cast the spell, he doesn`t `flavor` the result in a way that emphasizes the enscribed symbol, e.g. the symbol is the focus of the weapon`s enchantments, and glows stronger/with more detailed magicks than the rest of it.

Most foes won't have this feat.

If you don't get hit, you can continue to deal sneak attack damage.

Even if you do get hit, you can use some other sneak-attack enabling mechanism besides flanking, such as feinting or becoming invisible.

Anyone who's spoken at length to either me or Wes or James Sutter, or anyone who's been following the type of monsters we've been putting into the Pathfinder Bestairies, knows that all three of us are huge fans of cryptids, to the extent that us talking about and concepting a book like "Cryptids Revisited" would approach 100%, even though we haven't said anything about it.

Would folks be interested in such a book? I know I would be. And I know we've got enough cryptids in our books to fill a 10 page book... or close enough that we WILL have enough cryptids by the end of the year to do so... with ease.

The ones that come to my mind include:

Chupacabra
Death Worm
Mothman
Yeti (sasquatch is a different monster, and thus would be a different chapter)
Mokele-Mebembe
Sea Serpent
Water Orm
Sandpoint Devil
Bunyip

So assuming that sometime soon we'll have bigfoot/sasquatch stats handy... that's 10 chapters right there.

Personally, I don't have a problem with a "heritical" LG paladin of Asmodeus, but James makes the decisions about what's allowed in Golarion. :)

Illiteracy!

Ooh! ReallY!? I missed that from the 3.5 version...

I mean, it was good in a way because it de-emphasized the Barbarian Class = characters from Barbarian cultures,
and I can voluntarily choose to be illiterate just as well with a Barbarian as a Ranger, Druid, Rogue, etc... but I still miss it :-)

Is it an Archetype or what?

Abraham spalding wrote:

Not at all -- you would simply be ignoring the rules:

Some would consider this an attack, or bad manners, I realized it's my error for disagreeing with you.

According to my copy of the APG, pg 28 p2 of the Bomb entry it's worded as such: " Creating and throwing a bomb requires a standard action that provokes an attack of opportunity." Unfortunately this may be a case of the first printings, but by now I'm remembering why I try not to post here often.

If one is going to discuss rules they should remain up to date on them, and in order to be disagreeing with me I would have had to posted earlier in the thread -- which I haven't done.

An inability to know the rules when combined with an internet suggested smug certainty of superior position doesn't mean the person that proves your position false is attacking you.

title says it all.

Matt and others have brought up more details than I was even aware of,
but I think the main ´question´ about this Power is still simply it´s appicability for when Rage is dropped.
The fact that it ultimately doesn´t cover all the Rage HPs lost from Rage doesn´t concern me, that was almost certainly intended.
But there is an issue with order of operations that I think may NOT have been intended:

If you drop Rage, let´s say from Calm Emotions, you lose Rage HPs immediately AFTER you are no longer Raging... which means the abilty doesn´t apply per RAW... This is also true if you drop Rage because damage sent you unconscious (and you don´t have the appropriate Feat to counter that). Twice in the ability it directly references being at negative HPs, which isn´t even normally possible while Raging... Which leads me to think the INTENT is that the ability SHOULD still kick in if you were raging before whatever affect caused you to drop Rage.

I figured you started 2-3 of these threads a day anyway, a few of them getting locked so I figured someone might as well start a thread that is appropriate for it.

Rave away my good dork.

Diego Rossi wrote:

You decrease incoming damage by 30%, not 15%.

50% of enemy attack hitting become 35%. A reduction of 15 points over 50 is a 30% reduction.

No. Every point of increase is 1 higher the opponent must roll. On a d20 there are 20 possibilities, each thus representing 5% of the probability spectrum.

Look, this isn't the first time you've said something utterly baffling and brain-frying that I've tried to respond reasonably about. In fact I think that's all you post. I'm just going to do my best to ignore you from now on for my own sanity's sake.

Guy A do 1 point of damage each attack.

He it 50% of the time vs AC 11.
He do 100 attacks.
he do a total of 50 hit point of damage

You increase your AC to 14.
He hit 35% of the time.
Still 100 attacks.
He do 35 hit point of damage.
He has dealt 15 hp less damage.
15/50=0.3
That is a reduction of 30% of incoming damage.

Got it?

To put it another way, if someone hit you only with a 19 or 20 and you increase your AC by a +1 you have halved the damage you get by that enemy.

In play it is not so linear as you aren't hit 50% of the time by all enemies, but unless you are hit only with a 20 or the enemy can hit you with a 1 and still has modifier to spare, every increase in AC give you more than a 5% reduction in incoming damage.

So James, can I switch out a familiar's starting general feat and/or skill ranks or not? Your reply remains somewhat vague on this specific issue once it becomes my familiar.

Dude, you're being deliberately obtuse. James said:

A "normal, unmodified animal" is an animal that's taken from the bestairy's three pages of Familiars. Simple enough. No templates, no changes to stats, nothing like that."

That's not vague at all.

Yes, James said you can "change things as you want," but that's in the context of the rules for familiars, which say when you get additional skill ranks and feats.

You can't change your PC's feats and skill ranks every time you level up, why would you be able to do that with a familiar when it doesn't explicitly say you can?

It's an additive process, not a rebuilding process.