Sean Mahoney's page

More to the point of your question though, there are some great feat options out there for the gish-type fighter.

Power Attack - This feat is fantastic if, and only if, you have a way of making sure you can still hit. Feats like Shock Trooper allow you to take a hit to AC instead of BAB (up to your same max) allowing you to still hit... the bad news is that it has a fairly steep feat chain to get. You as a caster have a better option though, Wraithstrike. This 2nd lvl spell from the spell compendium allows you to make all your attacks for 1 round as touch attacks... those are tough to miss and tend to get EASIER at higher levels... so more to dump into Power Attack. Lots of damage is a great way to get things attention as well, so this works for some of the tactics below as well.

Keep in mind that this feat by FAR works the best with a two-handed weapon. The good news is that with the shield spell running this doesn't really hurt your AC at all, but if you aren't using a shield it means you are missing out on enchantments of the non-AC variety.

Goad - As a Cha based caster you might some use out of this feat that allows you to taunt a foe into attacking you. The idea being that you pump your AC up crazy high (see other feats in addition to class abilities and magic items) so that they can't really hit you. Honestly though I am not sure how well this one will end up working as it allows for resistance to it.

Standstill - This feat is from the Expanded Psionics Handbook though it is a general feat, not a psionic one. It allows you to use an attack of opportunity to stop a creatures movement. They then typically will attack you as they hopefully don't have other targets (and you are annoying them with large amounts of damage).

Combat Expertise and Improved Combat Expertise - This is where that dodge bonus comes in handy. If you have a creatures attention and your fellows are quite capable of dealing enough damage you can use these to lower your attack rolls but jack up your AC to crazy amounts. At the level of your character you are proposing, you could have an AC in excess of 38 (10 base, 9 Armor from Mage Armor, 9 Shield from Shield, 10 Dodge from Improved Combat Expertise).

Reserve Feats - Some people really LOVE taking these as a gish, but they are not really my bread and butter idea of the class... your mileage may vary though so it is worth a look.

Arcane Preparation - Kind of situational, but it might be worth it if you take extend spell and apply it to Wraithstrike with this feat used so you can keep it a swift action... probably better to just use a lesser metamagic rod though.

Arcane Strike - This is a very viable alternative to going the Power Attack route for dealing large sums of damage. The trick is that the feat does not cap the number of spells that can be channeled into damage this way... and you could combine this WITH Power Attack to get that bonus to hit from this while dumping BAB into even more damage for additional hurt. The down side is that it is pretty easy to burn through all your spells fairly quickly... but when you need to nova, you can do so with style.

Combat Casting - Normally I would avoid this sub-par feat like the plague and recommend Skill Focus instead, but as it is a pre-req for Abjurant Champion you really don't have a choice.

Combat Reflexes - Having a high Dex just jacks up the already high AC of your build, and spells can keep that even higher. This feat helps make sure you can take advantage of synergies with that ability. Best when used in conjunction with tactics like Stand Still or Improved Trip.

Improved Familiar - Having a familiar that can help out in combat means that you can actually use the thing with this build. A flanking bonus is that much more you can dump into a power attack or combat expertise and still hit, but these guys still aren't tank material at this level, so I am not convinced on this one.

Improved Trip - High Dex and combat reflexes combined with a tripping weapon (especially one with reach like a guisarme) gives you quite a bit of control over an area. A high strength here really helps as well though... so if you aren't going high on Str I would suggest Stand Still instead.

Innate Spell - It has a fairly long feat chain to get but if you would make Wraithstrike a spell-like ability that you could use as a swift action once a round... well, you could expect the ban hammer on this one pretty quickly.

Sounds like my kid is waking up... I will post more when I can

The first thing I would do when playing an Abjurant Champion is get a ruling on the efficacy of the Abjurant Champion's abilities on Mage Armor.

The issue essentially boils down to the fact that Abjurant Champion's abilities indicate they effect abjurations. Mage Armor, though, is a conjuration and there for would not qualify. That is pretty much the Rules as Written (RAW) interpretation.

However, the sample character given for the class is using Mage Armor and it is affected by the ability. Additionally, if you look at the reasons that a spell is considered an Abjuration, Mage Armor fits them very nicely. Many DMs (though not all) therefor rule that Mage Armor (and the like) are abjurations rather than conjurations.

If Mage Armor is affected by your class in your campaign, then the need for the Armored Mage class variant becomes much less impressive. With Mage Armor up you would have a +9 Armor bonus to AC, a swift action at the beginning of combat lets you cast Shield for an additional +9 shield bonus to AC, for a total AC (assuming NO other bonuses which is not likely) of 28. It doesn't take much else to help that skyrocket... Dex bonus, Deflection, Natural armor, and the all important Dodge. I say all important because unlike any of the other bonuses, dodge stacks. Which brings us back to our Armored Mage ability... light armor will not give you as high an AC as your spells very easily will.

That said, there still could be a VERY good reason to get the ability (though it is a tougher call), that being that you can't enchant your spell with additional abilities that armors can be enchanted with. This means that if you do wear armor it should just be +1 and the type doesn't really matter as the AC will be overlapped by your spells... but throw on as many special armor enchants as possible. The same goes for your shield.

According to the feat, it allows you to change the spell's area to one of the predefined areas for +1 to the spell level. Here's my question: Do you have to choose which area the spell will have when you prepare the spell, or do you choose it at the time of casting? Either way it is an extremely helpful feat, but it would allow for much more versatility for a wizard if you get to choose which of the areas it will use upon casting

I don't know if there is an official ruling on this one, but I would allow it on the fly.

Sean Mahoney

Orthos wrote:

Fun thing about Diviners? They only get ONE prohibited school, unlike most specialists who have to discard two.

Wrong! Also (as follow up) you can now give up Divination as a specialist too!

Well, wrong in Pathfinder... but this is the 3.5 forum, is it not?

Sean Mahoney

The Belt of Battle allowed a high level Wizard to kill almost anything we encountered in one round when combined with a Rod of Quickening (3 Meteor Swarms in one round, anyone?). Very broken item, especially for it's price.

In my experience so far, it feels like that is just how high level wizards roll. An encounter is really all about who gets initiative and the higher level PCs figure that out and stack stuff to increase it. I guess I see this as a problem with high level play as it would continue even without the belt.

Sean Mahoney

I would recommend playing a class that has access to (and takes) the social skills. Having the trapfinding abilities is a nice bonus, but I think it is the social skills I would miss the most.

I would probably take which ever of the following strikes you as fun:
Rogue
Bard
Factotum (dungeonscape)
Spellthief (complete adventurer)
Swashbuckler (complete warrior)
Beguiler (player's handbook 2)

My personal choice from the list for this campaign would be the beguiler.

Sean Mahoney

I want my players to fear a guy with a crossbow, no matter their level.

In all honesty, I think I would recommend a system other than D&D/OGL for this kind of feel.

However, if you really like the system otherwise you might want to look at something like the injury system optional rule from Unearthed Arcana. I believe it is also on the SRD site.

You might also want to look at some of Monte Cook's alternate stuff which is supposed to allow for non/low-magic worlds (Arcana Unearthed? Iron Heroes? Something like that).

Sean Mahoney

Typically I would recommend starting with 8 or so gods that PCs could choose from. I would tend to feature 2 or three in a campaign (1 bad guy god and one or two players in the home city type thing). I would only develop the names, sphere of influence (god of _), domains and favored weapons for these gods. If one or more is being played by a PC I would work up (or have the PC work up) more about that god and have them be one of the prominent gods in the campaign. I would then before the start of the campaign work on the other one or two I will be using in the campaign.

However, I have been playing Dragon Age: Origins lately and have really liked the monotheistic thing going on. There are other gods, but the single religion is really dominant and doesn't really recognize the other gods. It can make for a very different feel than the typical D&D campaign and can be a lot of fun as well... so it just depends on the feel you are going for.

Sean Mahoney

The bard has two and will swap it out in a day if he uses all the charges on one.

Interesting. While I haven't had anyone try this with the battle belt I did have someone feel me out with a healing belt and swapping it out after all charges are used.

I can see this just getting out of hand too fast and smacks of stacking nightsticks to me... so I ruled that using a charge affects the person who used it and the item so swapping on a new belt wouldn't work.

How have you found this to be in your campaign?

Sean Mahoney

It is certainly on the "must have items" list for my players as they get up in levels (and yet only 2 in the group had one last campaign), but I never found they actually were game breaking. More often than not the charges never got used as they wanted to hold them until just the right time.

So, no. I have not made any rules restricting these.

Simple enough, Baleful Polymorph, and then Contingency: Baleful Polymorph into human when kissed by a princess (And tell the frog that when kissed by a princess it will transform into a prince so it knows to voluntarily fail the save should the event trigger)

Baleful Polymorph can only turn things into a small or smaller animal. Using Break Enchantment with the Contingency should get the effect you are looking for though.

Sean Mahoney

That's heaps cool. I guess I'm more of a "core books only guys" sort of DM. Did that from 2e --> now. Why I like Pathfinder RPG, it sort of re-set the jungle that we call 3.5e. Now I can simply say - if it's in the corebook it's in the game.

It was common in the pro-4E threads to see someone boil things down to not liking the bloat of all the additions to 3.5. I guess it shouldn't be surprising to see it for PFRPG either.

I am curious though, do you fear the release of additional rules and splat (in some ways worse because it will be spread here and there across more books with smaller amounts in each) from Paizo doing the same thing to the game?

Sean Mahoney

DigMarx wrote:

Aaron Bitman wrote:

I remember a WotC free adventure, "The Ettin's Riddle," about a victim who was forcibly polymorphed into an Ettin. In Pathfinder RPG, this just can't happen.

Yes it can. I'm the DM, and I say it can. Seriously though, some of us are too tied to rules. If you've got a group whose suspension of disbelief is ruined by an edition-related rules change, you've got bigger problems than any ettin, polymorphed or not.

Zo

+1

Whole-hearted agreement.

It was interesting that when 3.0 came out it was important to people that if the bad guys could do things then so could the good guys and vice versa (stuff happens in the rules and the rules are flexible enough to handle it). Now we see people who would like the opposite.

I am curious though, does it bug your players that the world works differently for them than everyone else?

Sean Mahoney

My group also had a tough time with her and FINALLY ended up drowning her in the non-magic pool in the room. It was a very similar fight to what others have recounted.

While I would agree it is tough fight, she doesn't really have tremendous damage potential either, so groups CAN take a long time to work on alternate ideas.

(Note: warlocks make this a MUCH easier fight... ranged touch attacks...)

Well, my first thought is that changing to the HP of the creature would make sure that the druid almost NEVER wildshapes into forms with low HP (like a cat) as it will be too dangerous for them to do so.

That move, in and of itself, will limit the usefulness of the ability.

Second would be that allowing all abilities of the creature can lead to some VERY powerful options (on an already powerful class). Anyone willing to take the time and look at their new options at this point will quickly be able to make combat brutes that are more powerful than now.

The combined result of those will be more combat forms, less other forms... if that is what you would like to see in your game then keep going forward.

I am not sure why you wouldn't want natural spell. Why would it be bad to have a druid in animal form that has spells going? In practice I haven't found that the animal formed druid is running around casting spells but is buffing then charging in.

Anyway... those are my thoughts. I am not sure I know why you are wanting these changes, but I do think that the druid player will likely feel like you are hitting him hard with a nerf bat.

Sean Mahoney

- Full spell casters with a very good spell list (primarily buffs and divinations for me from this list, sure healing is there, but hat is rarely my focus)

- OK BAB and HP (much more of each when buffed means they can outstrip a fighter in these regards)

- Heavy armor with spells that provide enhancement bonuses to armor so you can spend your armor cash allotment on other abilities and still get that armor bonus up high. This often makes them some of the best tanks in the game

- Divine Feats (particularly divine metamagic, but others are great too)

- Domain abilities (these make clr 1 one of the best dips in the game)

Frankly there isn't much NOT to like... other than other player's expectations that you be nothing but a healing battery.

In a current game I am playing I am playing a Crusader 1 / Cloistered Cleric 3 (omw to Ruby Knight Vindicator) and am LOVING it!

Sean Mahoney

RIIIIGHT! Your the guy who mentioned that document on another thread. I'd intended to post my email asking you send me the link to it then, but I was busy with something else and ended up losing the thread.

(My email is below, I'd appreciate the link Sean :) thanks man.

I shot it and several other lists I have made in excel off to you. The over all email was a little larger than I realized though, so if it doesn't come through let me know and I will break it up.

Sean Mahoney

The backward compatibility is there for all of those books, just some items will take more effort to converter then others. The only real problem is interpretation over those conversions. The way I convert a feat (or class, or whatever) from Complete Fighter may be different then the way you would convert it.

You are very correct that the issue is how the feats are converted. Since I like to know what feats do and spend hours coming up with builds, I would need to convert them all prior to making a character (or at least a VERY significant amount of them). Right now, my list of feats from 3.5 products produced by WotC is right around 1700 feats... that's a lot of converting!!! Sure, some would be fine as is, but those subtle differences in things we have mentioned really come back at this point. In addition, the changing and ramping up of powers in the core classes in PFRPG means that these same feats could have some very serious (and perhaps game breaking) effects when combined with the new ways of doing things... what balance was there would be deeply upset, making the use of so many feats not as useful.

All that said... you are right that the only way to keep them all would be to start houseruling like crazy and just because you come to understand it for one persons game doesn't mean it would have any consistency in another... so lots more work and rulings there.

Overall, the undertaking we are talking about does not sound like it preserved the use of "all the books on my bookshelf."

Sean Mahoney

I think the answer from a base rules point of view is that this would be covered with an intimidate check by the torturer. The DC of the check would be against a roll from the PC of 1d20 + character level or Hit Dice + target’s Wisdom bonus [if any] + target’s modifiers on saves against fear (with characters who are immune to fear automatically passing the check). If successful the characters would answer questions as if friendly to the torturer for the duration of the intimidate.

I guess I would role-play this out as a torture session and if the check was successful the character started talking... and once you start, it is hard to stop. Maybe give them will saves to stop the duration or something. I might even take the players to another room and do this part so no one knows if anyone else broke or if they did what they said. That could lead to some interesting role playing if only one was lead away, he swears he didn't break and yet the bad guys seem to know things they shouldn't. Or maybe someone breaks and they have to RP out how that character deals with the feelings of guilt.

However, unless you have some good role-players this might not make for a very satisfying session and some of the other options presented might be a lot more fun.

Or you could just have them get sprung or escape just prior to the torture session.

Sean Mahoney

The full reading of that rule from the SRD is:

"If you are able to take only a standard action or a move action on your turn, you can still charge, but you are only allowed to move up to your speed (instead of up to double your speed). You can’t use this option unless you are restricted to taking only a standard action or move action on your turn."

The second sentence in that paragraph prohibits the use of celerity to create a situation in which you could charge twice in a round using this rule as you would not have been restricted to taking only a standard or move action on your turn.

As a side note, I thought it was only when you had a standard action available that you could use this option.

Things brings up the question as to whether or not you could use this option to charge while subject to the nauseated condition.

"Experiencing stomach distress. Nauseated creatures are unable to attack, cast spells, concentrate on spells, or do anything else requiring attention. The only action such a character can take is a single move action per turn."

You do have a single move action (and nothing else) which would qualify you for the partial charge, but the sentence before that prohibits attacks. I guess the argument would be if that second sentence is flavor (like the first) or an actual rule.

Personally I would land on the side that you could not use a partial charge while nauseated.

Sean Mahoney

A separate consideration for the backwards compatibility issue is how it affects "all those other books on your game shelf." One of the main selling points when referring to backwards compatibility has been that you would still be able to use all of that material just fine.

While that may be true for the adventures (as discussed so far, and what most Paizo products are), but doesn't seem to hold as true for all of the additional crunch books that WotC put out for 3.5. How feats interact with the rules will have changed in some significantly subtle ways and prestige classes may or may not function as intended anymore.

I suppose in the end, they are just different and not better or worse, but it is the loss of mastery of the game mechanics and the ripple affect that it causes in everything else I worry about.

The easy solution (and one the people who didn't like a constant stream of splat books are happy with) is to just not use any of that and just use the core Pathfinder stuff. But to those who loved all the extra crunch and what it brought to the game, that is gutting the game and just about the opposite of backwards compatibility.

Another way to look at is that the backwards compatibility seems to be there for DMs who are typically the ones buying all the adventures, but less so for players who spent more of their own money (in my experience at least) on things like the complete series of books. In a group with one DM and 4 players, that means the BC wasn't really there for 4/5 of the market place.

Sean Mahoney

The 3.5 to PF conversion guide can be found here.

General PF resources are here.

While it isn't really targeted toward people converting PF stuff back to 3.5 (understandably), it does go a long way in helping me pick out some of the changes in the adventures and will help me keep in mind what to look for in changing things back.

Thanks...

I think the biggest thing would be XP and levelling, but since my group (though not me personally) greatly prefers to just level when appropriate in the module, this won't be an issue.

Sean Mahoney

No, you don't get bonus spells until you can actually cast that level of spell. Some classes, like the bard, get 0 spells per day at certain levels. That means they get only bonus spells, but your sorcerer won't have that.

While Cthulhu_waits is correct in what he says, I think the answer to the question that you actually asked is yes, though the answer to the example would be no.

Let me clarify a little.

You do not get access to the bonus spells for a level until you have the ability to cast spells of that level. So a 3rd level Sorcerer who has a bonus 1st and 2nd level spell would still only have 6 1st level spells per day and no second level spells. Upon reaching 4th level the sorcerer would then gain access to that spell.

That said, if there was some reason that a sorcerer capable of casting 5th level spells did not know any of them, they could indeed cast spells adjusted by metamagic to use a 5th level slot. Perhaps the chose lower level spells instead of 5th level ones when levelling up? But at any rate, the bonus 5th level slot would not be available until 10th level in sorcerer was reached.

Sean Mahoney

Ah, ouch. That's something I hadn't thought of. I would imagine that would be more difficult to do. Have you downloaded the conversion guide? Since it tells you how to convert from 3.5 to PF it may be of some help in converting back the other way....

I didn't know there was one... last I heard there wasn't a plan to produce one. Maybe I will go looking for it again...

I suppose I should... right now I am finding that I have less and less interest in keeping up my subscription if the modules are something I can't run with my group (they are still enjoyable to read though), especially when I can't get a consistent time that I will be billed for them.

I guess I am still in the camp that feels that there is enough changes that I no longer would have mastery of the system like I would with 3.5 and if I took the time to learn the difference it would take just as long to learn the differences in 4E (which had a lot of design decisions that I thought made a lot of sense)... so I am not sure why I just wouldn't go that way (I guess a good argument is "because WotC can't make adventures as well as Paizo" with the rebuttal being "I love lots of new crunch books and I won't see that with Paizo").

A Man In Black wrote:

damaged backwards compatibility,

...the hell? I'm going to regret asking this, but I'm masochistic: Where did you ever come up with that?

For what it is worth, I found that there is a definite lack of backwards compatibility as well. I do not own the Pathfinder RPG book, so I don't really have any way to check on things, instead I keep getting my Pathfinder subscription with the latest AP and have to scratch my head when I read over the stats of the creatures.

The poison does what? I can't really use that in my 3.5 game as I have no idea what it means. Perhaps the opposite is true and it is really easy to take 3.5 stuff and play it in Pathfinder, or maybe it is just easy for someone who knows both systems to convert, but someone with no frame of reference for what the changes are will find it difficult to just pick up a Pathfinder module and use it as is.

Sean Mahoney

KaeYoss wrote:

Well, if you count äöüß, we have 30 as well. There's a lot of normal letters with some mutations, like aäáàâ etc..

Yeeeeeeah. :P You suggest thist to our art directors who would then need to find fonts with those glyphs (hard enough to find ones with dashes and ellipses), our editors who then have to distinguish between names like "Rhoatgast" and "Rhoatgäst", and - heck - us, who would need to track down those bloody squiggles every time we need to spell a name via keyboard combinations and drop down menus. I understand the uses in the language such symbols originate from, but in our stuff it largely just gums up the works without a significant gain or feels like a ham handed attempt to be more "FaaaaNtAsY!". It's also why you don't see ANY (or very, very, very, very few) names with apostrophes or dashes in Golarion: they don't add much of anything, just confuss things on the editorial and design side, and - really - are pretty played out in RPGs.

As a typesetter who often had to type things in languages he did not understand, I can tell you that a character map is your best friend in those situations... no one can remember all the ASCII codes!

Sean Mahoney

With a 17 Cha, Selective Channeling will be Profan Life Leech's best friend.

Not a bad idea, though that would reduce your healing as well, as you only get the amount of damage you do.

And, there is the fact that the OP does not seem to care if he is hitting his friends, so why bother?

Sean Mahoney

The feat I am taking is from Libris Mortis called "profane Life Leech" basically two turns attempts give me a D6 healing from EVERY living creature within 30 feet, no save,no spell resistance just HP drainage and a happy cleric.

I will have this at first level and be able to spend my spells to heal others but my turns to heal myself.

Has anyone else used this feat before with any of there charecters?

As a DM I would have no issue with this feat, but I would make it very clear how it works. You aren't just healing damage for every living creature around... you are draining them for d6 hp and then you gain the total that you drained in healing up to your max hp.

As another player in the group I would not like this at all. You are going to sucking HP from your own group to heal, and I can see them not being overly appreciative of that act. Don't kid yourself, you aren't getting away from your friends and just popping this off when there is only bad guys around. You will be wearing the heaviest armor you can to make sure things aren't chipping into that no Con bonus health pool, and that will give you a base 20 move. Unless you take two turns (double move the first, then pop this off the second), you aren't even able to get far enough away from them to keep from damaging them as well.

That said... I can see this being a great feat for an NPC who is fighting off a numerically superior foe. It will be interesting to see how long until your own party sees you are that NPC who needs smacking down because you keep damaging them more than some of the opponents.

Worst case scenario, you have them arrested and sentenced to head to the same place... either way it can logically move in that direction.

The wotci capitolized on the myth of the adversarial DM by marketing to players the need for character builds using so many products to survive their DM.

Can you point me to or remind me of some marketing material that WotC put out that indicated that players needed character builds to survive killer DM's? I don't seem to recall any that could really be interpreted that way, but would be happy to look if you can point me in the right direction.

Further, its kind of sick that the rules and the company's obsession over them has transferred into the community a belief that excellence comes from twisting rules knowledge, rather than using critical thought or imagination.

Wow... that is a lot of bitterness for some reason. I don't recall anything from WotC that would make you think that it is only about rules (and certainly the rules discussions require logic and critical thinking).

I guess what I really don't get is why you seem to think that creativity of story and thinking can not co-exist very nicely with rules or the understanding of them. It has been my experience that the more the rules are understood and consistently applied by the GM and players the less time they take up around the game table so that far more time can be spent on the actual game and the story.

The rules are not the game, but they framework on which it operates. If that framework is solid and well understood then you don't really ever notice the frame and focus on what you are supposed to. If, though, the rules are not understood or followed consistently then they become jarring and are much more the focus of time around the table.

At least that has been my experience.

Additionally, the fact that there is a rules discussion in a thread on the boards does not mean that the people participating in that discussion only care about the rules... it just means that the rules are what that particular discussion is about.

You mention that being a munchkin, meta-gamer and rules lawyer does not make you a master of the game... and you are correct. But not having a decent understanding of the rules DOES detract from the game. If we have to pause a game to, once again, go over the grappeling rules for the same player who always asks, then there is less time to play and have fun.

Likewise, if the original poster or anyone else who is participating in this discussion were to pause their home game to have this discussion there instead of on the boards, then they would have less time to enjoy their game. Having it here helps solidify understanding and give more time for the game.

Coming in and saying that discussions like this are bad fun and are ruining the game is not helpful. This is a message board, if you don't like a particular type of discussion then don't read it. It is pretty rude though to go into discussions you don't enjoy and try to keep other people from having them or discouraging them from doing so.

There is NOT a shift to 100% rules discussion on these boards. There are threads with people looking for character ideas or ideas for a campaign or advice on their campaign. In the AP sections there are very few (relatively) discussions about rules with the exception of conversions and most of the questions are about how to deal with a specific situation or resolve a contradiction in the books. Sure... there are more rules discussions in D&D 3.5/D20/OGL section of the board... because that description denotes a rule set so that is the appropriate place for a discussion about those rules. You sure don't see many of them in the Campaign Journals section as it wouldn't make sense there.

Anyway... I will let this go now.

Sean Mahoney

To be clear, you can not choose ranged spell as a weapon focus, you can choose a Ray (which are spells, but not all ranged spells are rays). However, assuming that is what you meant in your question by ranged spell I will go on.

Choose one type of ranged weapon with which you are proficient.

You certainly are proficient with a ray, so you are good on the first sentence and can take the feat as Ranged Disarm: Ray.

Reading over the rules laid out in the Rules Compendium for Disarm, I don't see anything that would prevent a ray from being used the same as any other ranged attack.

You would need a ruling on the DM if the ray counted as two-handed, one-handed, or light for the penalty (I would suggest light, like an unarmed or natural strike) and if the size adjustment would be taken into account (since spell damage does not scale with size, I would suggest no).

Overall it seems like a really good use of 0-level spells or wands of low level rays. As you get to higher levels it would be much less useful a tactic though (as disarm is in general), but in a low level game you don't expect to progress real far this would be a option.

The downside with Ranged Disarm is that you don't get your str added to the roll as does the defendant and you have a poor BAB... the fact that the ray was a touch attack doesn't mean anything to the disarm attempt.

Sean Mahoney

I got into a chat with a fellow player and he was wondering how both our charecters had the same strength but my cleric was carring 140lbs as a light load with a 15 str. score.

I pointed out that I found a feat in the planular guide that lets you have double your carrying cap. It's called Heavy Weight, it doesnt help with attack or damage but for a heavy armor wearing class it's an indispensable feat to have.

I guess I am not understanding why this is a big deal. The largest draw back I find from wearing heavy armor is the slowing down of movement, but that wouldn't be reduced as it is not from carrying a medium or greater load (though you can also get the effect there).

As an aside, being size small effectively gives you a +50% carrying capacity for items sized for you. Since things that are size small weigh 1/4 their normal weight but being size small only reduces your carrying capacity by 50%.

If you really find the increased carrying capacity a big deal you could combine the two and have the equivalent of 4x normal carrying capacity (while really only having the normal carrying capacity).

Sean Mahoney

Stand Still from the Expanded Psionic Handbook

I am really enjoying Stone Power from Tome of Battle as well... not sure if it is necessary, but it sure gives me a whole ton of survivability.

I would not allow the use of Divine Metamagic with Sudden Metamagic feats in my game (or at least I would not allow it in a way that would be beneficial to use). My reasoning would follow several lines.

The first would be a pure RAW interpretation. By RAW the Sudden Metamagic feat can only be used once per day. Spending turn attempts through Divine Metamagic would not change this limitation of once per day. (The math that it would only take one turn attempt to do does work, but I don't know why you would do that instead of doing it that once for free... either way you only get it once per day).

I am a big believer in RAW, but there are certainly times where a pure RAW interpretation comes out with something very broken (though I don't think this is one of them due to the limitation on Sudden Metamagics to being usable only once per day)... so then I would go to a RAI or Rules as Intended.

I would venture a guess that the Divine Metamagic feat was not intended to combine with Sudden metamagics in a such a way as to give you 1 turn cost metamagics. It would seem clear by presenting an X+1 cost model they wanted to make sure it was more costly to use this than the feat itself. For this reason I do not believe that RAI is in support of the use of sudden metamagic with divine metamagic.

Finally I would ask myself what the effect in game would be... and this one would be a doozy. Sure it would take a lot of feats to get that Sudden Quicken but once you did it would one turn attempt to quicken any spell you have on the fly. That is crazy! Even maximize which is generally looked at as only a middlin' metamagic feat is only such because of the upgrade to the spell slot it gives balancing it back down. At the cost of 1 turn attempt this is too cheap. The previous poster who stated if you can do it so can the DM is right... and the DM would likely crush the party by making use of this.

Anyway... bottom line is that I feel there is little to no support that would suggest that this should be an allowable combination. I applaud the original poster for coming up with it (and the many others who have posted the same question on other boards), but I just don't see this one as doable.

Sean Mahoney

After reading DM_Blake's comments, I do not think I would continue the game. In both his comments in this thread and in others he has complained about how horribly long one part of the adventure path is taking. To me that is a clear sign that someone is not having fun... or at least has a bad attitude about the game.

Sean Mahoney

Good questions... I will do what I can to answer how we deal with them.

1) How do you handle getting people being permanently level drained, resurrected, etc? They lose levels, but the XP difference numerically between level 6 and 7 is less than at 14 and 15, for instance, meaning that eventually the lost level will be at least partly caught up later in the game. If I have to start a new PC when the party is 6th level, and the rest of the group is 7th, how would I ever catch up without a totally arbitrary "hey you level twice this time, while the rest get one."?

We changed the level loss mechanics for our game prior to changing over to an automatic level up system. We have really tried to remove some of the mechanics that our group just found to be less fun. Permanent loss of level was one of them. We also would start a new player at the same level as everyone else. We see the game itself as the reward for playing, no so much xp as the reward.

(we did the same thing for save or die mechanic which were not seen as very fun and changed them to put the person at -8 hp and bleeding).

2) XP is often seen as a bit of an incentive to have good attendance at games. We don't have an attendance issue in our group, but if you're not feeling terribly well one night and just don't feel like gaming for whatever reason, sometimes the thought of missing out on your xp for the night is enough to get your lazy @$$ going to the game. Missing games takes away some of the fun for everybody, so it's important that they show whenever possible. Is that a problem you see when you do it this way? If you do have people who consistently miss, do you "punish" them by not letting them level now and then, or through some other in-game mechanic?

Currently we are set to play every other Saturday from noon to midnight or whenever we break up. We ask for a commitment from any player who is joining the group to make this on a consistent basis. While we understand that things can and do come up, it doesn't take each person missing very many before the game just doesn't work. We don't play the game if someone can't make it as we find the other options (fade into the background, someone else plays character, etc.) not to be good alternatives for our tastes, but we do meet anyway and play board games or card games (I think this goes a long way to keeping the group together).

Anyway, for use that means that the missing a session thing isn't an issue for XP.

I guess what I would recommend doing is talking to the group as a whole and look for a consensus on what is the most fun for them. If they are just likely to have fun with the story then the XP incentives and disincentives are not really necessary and you can keep everyone at the same level.

Sean Mahoney

A cleric that can cast limited wish?!?!

It's a MIRACLE!!!!

While I can't comment on most of this, I will say that I LOVE the idea of Shanwen climbing up to the crossbow and tossing the poor fellow who had been manning it out of the way after a missed shot or two (and him bouncing down the road in "oomphs" and "ooffs").

Sean Mahoney

My biggest advice would be to try and tie the character backgrounds into as much of the plot as possible.

Examples would be a fighter who has worked for the town guard and knows people there, or one of the PCs comes from one of the farm families hit by the ghouls in the second adventure (particularly effective if it is their father who rides into town all crazy eyed), etc.

Sean Mahoney

I have an elegant disproof of Pendagast's post, which unfortunately will not fit in this margin.

How can you 'disprove' someone's opinions? While you may not agree with them, you can't really deny that is how he (and apparently his group) feel about things.

I personally DO wait until all of the supplements are out before starting an AP so that I can add in foreshadowing, deeper role-playing around those areas and characters that will have the most impact on the campaign, and integrate the players PCs into the world. I get the impression from his description of his group that I would not be adding value to their game experience if I were the DM. That's fine, to each their own.

As a result of being willing to wait, the delay isn't a big deal to me or my group. We take longer than a month to play through a module, so even we did start before they all came out we wouldn't have an issue.

I will concede that the delay is worrisome in that it could mean that in stretching themselves beyond their core mission (the APs) into the realm of game mechanics (Pathfinder system) that they are hurting their ability to do APs. I really hope that isn't the case and this is a one time thing. Frankly, they should have delayed the system rather than APs... but who knows if that was even a choice.

For what it is worth, I am fine with pocket dimensions and would not have an issue with them being used in each and every AP. However, I do think some care needs to be taken to make sure that PCs can sell, buy and repair things. I see this as a big issue with a long stretch of LoF, for example.

Sean Mahoney

Actually, I know it's a little off-topic, but I don't think the surgestion is even needed. Nammed bonuses do not stack, so if you get one ability saying "You add your Intellegence bonus to AC" and another ability saying the same, the intellgence bonus does not stack with itself.

While I understand where you are going with that, it doesn't really work out. Intelligence bonus is not a type of bonus but a noun describing something... it would have to be an intelligence bonus bonus to AC for it to work out that way.

Sean Mahoney

Keep in mind that you were not optimized to be the main damage dealer in the group. Your job is to keep things hitting you and then, and only then, dish out some decent hurt. Oh... and stay alive when they are hitting you.

You have high HP, a pool of damage reserve, and ways to heal yourself. You can do things like give the enemy a -4 to hit if they ignore you and they know it, so they stay on you. AFTER all that, you still have some pretty good options for doing damage, but if you get some bad die rolls... no worries, that wasn't your main job.

If everyone walks out of an encounter with very little hurt then you did a good job at what you were optimized for. Fortunately you can still have some fun laying down smack. (Nothing you can do about dice rolls)

Sean Mahoney

It's not the way I normally play, but all this talk of banning everything but core makes me want to bust out the brokenness that is the alter self through polymorph chain.

Sean Mahoney

I indeed had the horses (with the exception of the recovered warhorse who got away) eaten by the carrion swarms.

bwhahaha

So we have an Arabian (Qadira) and an Egyptian (Osirion) setting, any chance we'll see an Oriental setting in Pathfinder?

Yep, probably in 3 or so APs.

Sean Mahoney

I don't have a release order version of the list for the 3.0 stuff... I started working on dragon stuff after all the 3.5 stuff.

(creating a master list of all feats, magic items, etc.)

Sean Mahoney

That's logical, but it does keep monks from getting the benefit of other insight bonuses from magic items and group buffs. Optimized monks aside, the wisdom bonus to AC is less a perk than a necessity, since they can't use their abilities with armor.

My suggestion would be to house rule a "class bonus" type similar to the racial bonus. That way it would stack with most everything else, but be less abusable.

Not RAW though, just a thought on a house rule.

Sean Mahoney

They are unnamed so they do stack

It's a little tougher to adjudicate than that.

The sword sage ability reads that the Wis to AC is only applicable while wearing light armor, while the monk can only use it while unarmored.

However, the unarmed sword sage variant isn't actually a real thing but is instead lightly suggested in the "adaptation" section of the class. The adaptation specifically only says to give the ss the unarmed progression of the monk and remove the light armor proficiency, it doesn't say that the ability changes from while wearing light armor to not wearing armor (though such a call would make sense since the ss no longer has proficiency with light armor... it just isn't what it says).

Finally the way stacking works also would argue a bit against these stacking. In the Rules Compendium under stacking it indicates that unnamed bonuses stack unless they come from the same source. It could certainly be argued that these are indeed the same source (a class ability that gives Wis to AC when unarmored) and so overlap instead of stack.

It really comes down to a DM call because of all that... there isn't a crystal clear RAW ruling on this one. Well, I guess by RAW the ability doesn't change over and so you either have Wis to AC in light armor or unarmored but not both.

Sean Mahoney

I should clarify that my list isn't just a random jumble but was by release date. I did that so I could more easily try and figure out what books to look for spells and magic items in beyond the spell compendium and Magic item compendium.

I was not able to find one a while back when I went looking so I did my best to create one... this is what I came up with:

Player's Handbook
Dungeon Master's Guide
Dragonlance Campaign Setting
Miniatures Handbook
Monster Manual III
Underdark
Book of Exalted Deeds
Complete Warrior
Draconomicon
Unearthed Arcana
Player's Guide to Faerun
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Complete Divine
Eberron Campaign Setting
Serpent Kingdoms
Planar Handbook
Races of Stone
Frostburn
Shining South
Libris Mortis
Complete Arcane
Sharn: City of Towers
Races of Destiny
Complete Adventurer
Lost Empires of Faerun
Races of the Wild
Sandstorm
Races of Eberron
Lords of Madness
Heroes of Battle
Champions of Ruin
City of Splendors: Waterdeep
Dungeon Master's Guide II
Five Nations
Weapons of Legacy
Explorer's Handbook
Stormwrack
Magic of Incarnum
Magic of Eberron
Heroes of Horror
Champions of Valor
Spell Compendium
Player's Guide to Eberron
Races of the Dragon
Power of Faerun
Tome of Magic: Pact, Shadow
Complete Psionic
Players Handbook II
Mysteries of the Moonsea
Secrets of Xen'drik
Monster Manual IV
Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss
Dragons of Faerun
Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords
Faiths of Eberron
Dragon Magic
Complete Mage
Cityscape
Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells
Complete Scoundrel
Secrets of Sarlona
Dungeonscape
Magic Item Compendium
Cormyr: The Tearing of the Weave
Complete champion
Drow of the Underdark
The Forge of War
Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land
Monster Manual V
Grand History of the Realms
Exemplars of Evil
Dungeon Survival Guide
Dragons of Eberron
Rules Compendium
Elder Evils
City of Stormreach
An Adventurer's Guide to Eberron