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Umbranus wrote:

As a quick option on how to rule it you could compare his running speed to the speed of a fall and use this as a guideline for the damage he takes.

As to RAW there is no damage: If I jump off a cliff and declare to bullrush someone on the ground do I take damage? I should not as I am not falling I am willingly bullrushing someone.

I could even say that I think I had seen indication that there is someone invisible down there and try to bullrush him.

** spoiler omitted **
If you find something wrong in this estimate (wasn't a real calculation with all that rounding and guessing) let me know.
Would perhaps have been easier to do just in feet but I'm used to using meters for calculation.

Your math is incorrect. The formula for determining the final velocity is:

v = square root of (2 * acceleration * distance)

Plugging in the numbers, for a 10 foot fall (1d6 damage), you hit the ground at 17mph, which equates to pretty close to 150'/round:

((17mph * 5280 feet per mile)/3600 seconds per hour)*6 seconds per round

Compare this to the Feather Fall spell which describes falling 60'/round as equivalent to dropping a few feet and does no damage.

So, unless the character was running at 150'/round I'd probably just have them be stunned, maybe take some minor damage depending on how fast they were going.

Also, I am having a hard time imagining a character running head-first into what they think is an open hallway. Headlong maybe, but not head-first.


Weirdo wrote:

Except the cleric isn't saying "let's take her to a place where she can be safe and properly cared for." He's saying "let's take her to a place where they can lock her up for life and make sure she doesn't do anything evil." It's not quite the same thing as being locked in a dungeon, but it sure isn't motivated by a desire to do what's best for the girl herself.

Depending on the campaign, it might be a better idea in the long run to find a non-adventuring adoptive parent for the girl. But in the short term the witch absolutely looks like the person best suited to protect her (since he's the one who wants to protect her).

I concede that the OP makes the Cleric's suggestion out to be a punitive one, but I have my doubts solely for the reason that when I want to imprison a clawed, fanged extraplanar humanoid with super-human strength that can walk through walls, my go-to option is not "nunnery". This is not a pregnant daughter that you want to squirrel away out of embarassment. The nunnery option implies (at least to me) that you are not just looking for imprisonment.

Odraude wrote:
She's the Ripley to the Changeling's Newt.

I must have missed the scene where the colonial marines murdered Newt's parents, and the scene were Ripley declared she was gonna adopt Newt as soon as she pulled out of the air duct. I further missed the part where Ripley decided that instead of just wanting to go home and try to put together a normal life she decided she was gonna join the marine platoon (more than half of which want to kill Newt or sell her into slavery) in hopping from planet to planet, killing xenomorphs. Must have been the super extended directors cut.

It's obvious a lot of people in this thread have a different perspective than me so I am just gonna state a few more things and then bow out of the thread.

It's one thing to feel immediately protective of an orphaned child you just met. That's not the same thing as "I am go to raise this child as my own". I think it's a trope that a hero takes an orphan under their wing out of a sense of obligation and then grows fond of them and decides to become a surrogate parent. What I don't think is a trope is that the hero helps kill the bad guy then at the drop of their hat decides to take the bad guy's kid and raise her as their own, accompanied by the other murders of her parent, half of whom want to kill her or sell her into slavery. That's not hero territory, that's creepy serial killer territory.

I don't even necessarily object to someone's character making that irrational decision for whatever. It starts getting very strange for me when another character steps in and says "Yes, this character has made the best possible choice for this child."

Anyway, clearly I am in the minority.


Odraude wrote:
Might seem unusual to our 21st century sensibilities, but an adventurer or mercenary raising an orphan is a common thing you see in fiction. Whether it's Kenshin being raised by Hiko Seijūrō or Batman raising Dick Grayson as Robin, it's something that isn't all that unusual in a world filled with danger.

Whether or not it's unusual or not in fiction is not the point. The point is what's the best course of action for the child. From the OP's description, this is does not sound to me like "we found this orphaned girl and kept her safe as we traveled back out of the wilderness, and even though we intended to find her a good home that could accommodate her special needs, by golly she grew on us and I can't bear to be without her. Even though it may not be the safest for her, we have an emotional bond that I think is important." This sounds like "we found this orphaned girl and while we were discussing what best to about her I decided I am going to keep her because I always wanted a changeling pet, er...I meant child and I think that would look cool on my character sheet."

Honestly, if I was an adventure and a party member's first reaction to finding an orphan (immature hag or not) was to profess their desire to adopt them while threatening the rest of the party with violence if they tried to separate them, I would immediately jump said party member, tie them up and try to figure out who just hit them with mind control magic and how do we cure it.

Weirdo wrote:

Actually this resembles several campaigns I've played in.

In two campaigns, the PCs had a safe home base from which they adventured. Said adventures would usually take a couple days, but a fair chunk of time was spent in town. One PC did have two children living in town.

In another, the PCs found a minor artifact enabling them to teleport between one linked item in the field and another kept at their home base essentially at-will.

In another, the PCs live in town and work in town, on the town guard's payroll.

Witch will probably need a good nanny to help out, but depending on the campaign he might be at least as available as many real-world parents.

That may be the case here, I don't know how this campaign is structured. But even if it is, it still doesn't negate the fact that the Witch might never come back one day because he was disintegrated and the ashes scattered to the winds, or trapped in the abyss or something.

Sure, anything can happen to anyone at anytime, but adventurers intentionally put themselves in harm's way. Sure, that's a thing that some parents do. But in this case there are no emotional bonds or other extenuating circumstances presented. This isn't the adventurer's child. This isn't a child the adventurer has grown fond of. This is, as presented, the party finding a child and the Cleric saying "let's take her to a place where an orphan can be safe and cared for and are likely to have the magical know how to deal with her special needs" (I assume that's the Cleric's position as he/she suggested a nunnery and not a tossing her into a dungeon) and the Witch saying "No, a life of danger or possibly just the constant threat of losing their parent-figure to violence (again) while being raised by one of the guys that just murderer her real parent is best for this child", and the Paladin saying "The Witch makes sense to me."

It's not that it seems odd to my 21st century sensibilities, or that it's unworkable on a practical level (or at least not just that, which is why I asked how the Witch intended to raise this child). It's the fact that it seems very odd to make that decision at the drop of a hat when there is no emotional issues coloring the decision. It wreaks of "oh, shiny! Me want new toy" rather than "I want whats best for this child" or even "This may not be ideal, but it's the best we can do given the emotional factors."


Lumiere Dawnbringer wrote:
but relying on permanent magical equipment doesn't feel very heroic either. unless you are playing something along the lines, King Arthur, Aragorn, Eragon Shadeslayer, or Elric. i would prefer that the inherant bonuses be a part of the Hero themselves, not the benefit of relying on some cheap trinket. i know i would have to drastically modify pathfinder to make that work. but tequilla sunrise has a good starting point and i could make tweaks from there.

Obviously everyone's mileage may vary on what they think feels heroic. For myself I feel perfectly comfortable playing a low-magic campaign, but using magic items with static bonuses doesn't bother me overly much as it doesn't really change the character's MO. That is to say that if I am playing "guy who chops people up with a sword", he chops people up with a sword whether he has a non-magical sword or a +5 sword and +6 Belt of Physical Perfection. Mechanically the magical gear makes him better at what he does, but thematically and how he plays still remains the same.

To expand further on why I find consumable characters unintersting and unheroic to play, once you start dipping heavily into the consumables tactical situations start becoming less about how my character will creatively overcome disadvantageous obstacles and more about pulling contingency plan #27 out of my handy haversack and applying to solve. So, for example, when playing a melee focused martial faced with archers on a balcony, I could play:

1) The boring full-attack fighter that has to climb up a hanging tapestry while dodging arrows to leap onto the balcony and carve guys up

or:

2) the guy who made smart purchases and just pops a fly potion

Guy #2 might be more effective and perhaps even more realistic in a world with heavy magic for sale, but I still want to play Guy #1.


When I am playing I rarely use consumables, especially on martial characters (which I tend to gravitate to) unless the concept of the character is a gadget guy. I know consumables are effective, but when I envision my characters in my head I see "big bad dude that wades into battle with a sword and ruins peoples' day" and not "that guy that waves a wand at his sword to make it sharper, then drinks a potion to make himself 9 feet tall before throwing a bag a glue at people."

It just doesn't feel right unless that's a shtick of the character. It doesn't matter to me how effective it may or may not be, it doesn't feel particularly heroic or interesting for me to play. I know a lot of people would disagree that "hit a guy with a sword real hard" is more interesting than "complex web of magic item synergies", but to each his own.

That being said, I don't turn my nose up at healing consumables.


What is the Witch's plan for raising this girl? Drag her along on dangerous adventures? Leave her at home alone for weeks at a time and pop in for absentee parenting when there's item crafting to be done?

Unless the Witch retires or the campaign involves spending most of the time at the Witches home with a 20 minute jaunt down the local farmer's market to pick up a six pack of trolls to fight, I don't see how the Witch, Paladin or anyone else can think "the Witch was best suited to raise her".

I think the Cleric is in the right here because the Witch (unless he retires) cannot give the attention the child needs without putting her in constant danger (not to mention the possibility of getting himself killed/imprisoned/whatever and leaving her an orphan, always a risk as an adventurer). Sounds less like the Witch has the best interests of the girl at heart and more that he thinks it would be neat to have a changeling pet.


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Mad Gene Vane wrote:
That's the size of a typical pre-schooler. Most preschoolers have trouble carrying a gallon of milk, because it's too heavy for them.

This is a bit of an exaggeration, I feel. My son could deadlift a gallon of milk one handed when he was 15 months old. Admittedly he is a bit of a beast. Broke my nose with a sippy cup when he was 9 months old. I was so proud!


We use Roll20.net and agree with the others that it works well except for the voice chat. It can be integrated into a Google+ hangout which is how we play, using Google+ for voice & video chat.

Gauss, good tip about the chat archive! I will mention that to our GM.


Ciaran Barnes wrote:
Sir Ophiuchus wrote:

My DM gives max hit points at all levels. But he gives NPCs and monsters max HP as well.

When I DM, I normally just declare no rolling, everyone take their average (fractional, rounded down but recalculated each level) HP.

I'm curious how that plays out, aside from lengthening combat. Do you find it difficult to get healed up to full hit points? Do you take more risks? Does combat get boring after a certain point?

In my experience it doesn't affect in combat healing much because damage that needs to be healed is still coming in at the same rate. You are taking damage over a longer period of time, but really it's no more a strain on healing then having 2 combats with average HP opponents. What it does give you is more time to react with heals if huge damage spikes are happening so there's less chance of someone suddenly dropping and things escalating into a TPK.

Maxing HP for everyone essentially turns a 3 round combat into a 5 round combat, assuming you are using the first round for buffing, battlefield set-up and maneuvering into position. I don't think a 5 round fight is so long it becomes boring, and the extra rounds of engagement tends to make players that like to get into the thick of things more willing to perform non-direct damage actions. For example, a sorcerer that likes to blow stuff up may be more willing to throw out a haste on round one if he knows he get's to do what he likes most (blow stuff up) for 4 more rounds rather than 2 and so enjoys the game more.

From a DM perspective your effectively cutting the number of encounters you have to prep in half, since each combat will last nearly twice as long (game and real time) and eat roughly twice the party resources. This let's you focus your creative time and juices on a smaller number of encounters if you want so you can either save yourself a lot of prep time if you have a busy life, or spend more time making each encounter interesting. Or you could run with the same number of encounters with a smaller number of opponents per fight, since the enemy damage dealers won't drop as fast. I think this helps add variety to the game too, since not every fight has to be against 4-5 opponents to be a challenge. The downside is that with less encounters or less enemies your going to be slowing down XP. Even if you don't adjust encounters/adventure or opponents/combat, your still gonna level slower simply because each fight will take longer to resolve so you get less progress through an adventure on any given night.

I'd be interested to see how much correlation there is between the responses in this thread and the responses in the thread on 3 round combats.

Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:

this thread has me curious though...

Has anybody gotten rid of any other random rolls?
If you don't like the wizard having more hit points then the fighter, what about a wizard hitting a target the fighter missed?

not trying to knock on anybody, just curious

Just removed random HP for me, nothing else. the reason being that a lucky/unlucky streak in combat is a temporary thing, but bad rolls on Hit Dice stick with your character forever.

Plus aberrant dice streaks in combat or skill checks can make for funny stories, but if someone wants to play a tough barbarian or fighter or whatever, a bad HP roll or two is messing with your whole character concept which is no fun.


Last campaign I ran, max HP for all PCs, NPCs and monsters. Made Hit Dice type more meaningful, removed the chance that someone with less CON then you had more HP just because they rolled better, and made fights less likely to end on round 1.


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Goth Guru wrote:
2) Falling damage should go up geometricly. A 10 foot drop does 1D6 damage. A 20 foot drop does 1D6 * 1D6 or 1-36 damage in excessive realism.

Actually, this is incorrect. Sure, gravity is constantly accelerating you as you fall, but as you gain velocity it takes you less time to travel through each 10' increment so for each 10' you fall you have less time to accelerate before hitting the next 10' increment. (Wow that sounds confusing)

In any case, the formula for calculating your velocity after falling a given distance is:

v = square root of (2 * acceleration * distance)

(assuming 0 initial velocity and ignoring wind resistance)
If we punch in 32 feet per second squared for gravity (messy imperial units, I know) and adjust to mph, we can arrive at the following approximate velocities for distance fallen:

10' 17mph
20' 24mph
30' 30mph
40' 35mph
50' 39mph
60' 42mph
70' 46mph
80' 49mph
90' 52mph
100' 55mph
110' 57mph
120' 60mph
130' 62mph
140' 65mph
150' 67mph
160' 69mph
170' 71mph
180' 73mph
190' 75mph
200' 77mph

So, if we consider that fall damage is a factor of how fast you are going when you hit the ground, 1d6 per 10' is actually too much damage. If each 17mph increment represents 1d6 damage, then you shouldn't take 2d6 until 40', 3d6 until 90', 4d6 until 150' or 160', and you never reach 5d6 (85mph).

My god the things I do to avoid watching recorded CW shows with my wife!


Here's the basis for the last campaign I ran (back in 3.5):

150. Centuries ago the known world was spanned by a sophisticated, magicly rich empire when two gifted but twisted brothers rose to promenance. Far surpassing their peers in arcane knowledge, soon the brothers bent the empire to their wills even as they turned against each other. After extending their lives to the limit their mastery of the arcane allowed, both brothers raced to secure true immortality to extend their reign, one through necromancy, the other through pacts with powerful demons. Their bids for immortality resulted in a magical cataclysm that laid waste to the world.

The party begins living in the post-apocolyptic fantasy world that has never recovered, making their living as treasure hunters in a small isolated settlement on the edge of a ruined ancient city. The players soon stumble on information that nearby is an underground necropolis ruled by the Ghoul King, the now immortal brother that dabbled in necromancy. Not only does he command an army of the living dead, but his continuing arcane research threatens to unravel reality itself! But within one of the Ghoul King's many treasure vaults, the party finds an ancient map, preserved by powerful protective magic, that shows the citadel/tomb of the other brother who, after failing to achieve immortality, was buried with a powerful weapon that may be the only way to kill the Ghoul King!

Can the PC's cross a post-apocolyptic continent to recover the weapon that is their only hope from the demon haunted ruins before the Ghoul King sacrifices the whole world to feed his lust for power?! Tune in next week to find out!

(This campaign works great for a group that wants a party of odd character oncepts and monsters, as what little society there is has a Gamma World feel of freaks banded together in small groups for survival)


Wolfsnap wrote:
A chest with a trapped lock. The lock is in a recess that you have to stick your whole hand into to manipulate. The trap is a scything blade that tries to cut off the hand. If it does X points of damage, the hand is gone, along with a permanent point of DEX.

Why cut the hand off? Make the chest very, very sturdy (adamantine? maybe with a very small radius but permanent anti-magic field?), and have a manacle close around the wrist of person who trips it. Congratulations! Your'e doing the rest of the adventure with a 70lb chest dangling from your arm unless you can figure a way to get it off.

Still teaches them a lesson that they can be hindered if they are not careful, is less permanent, encourages creative problem solving and gives everyone a funny story about how Grak the Barbarian fought his way through a nest of demons by braining them with his chest-hand.

More on topic, it sounds like straight Pathfinder just may not be your cup of tea at the moment. Maybe an E6 variant would be more to your liking (although not necessarily to the liking of the others in your group)?


xanthemann wrote:
I'd also like to hear your house rules as well.

Back when I GM'ed 3.5 I got tired of fight's ending too quickly. And I also got tired of seeing people playing supposedly tough fighters or barbarians but rolling 1's or 2's for hp when they leveled up.

So I made a houserule that everything (PC's, NPC's, Monsters) received max hp on all hit dice. Martial classes always got the full use of their larger hit dice instead of just when they rolled high, Fights lasted longer and were more dramatic as a result, and had a side benefit of letting martials exploit their non-dependence on limited resources (i.e. spells) while also making spells that could remove an opponent from a fight quickly have a bigger impact.

Me and my players loved the result and if I ever GM a Pathfinder game I will definitely incorporate this rule.