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Roaring furiously, the massive red dragon swooped down and landed in the middle of the castle courtyard, its mighty claws crashing into the ground and sending fountains of dirt and rubble of what was once an artfully tiled floor in all directions. This was the chance Valeros was waiting for, weapons ready he charged at the beast and brought his sword around. One swing, two, three, four; the gigantic monster howled in anger and pain as the brave warrior sliced its ankle open.

I can't be the only one who is bothered by this.
I actually came up with this after seeing some demo footage for the upcoming video game "Dragon's Dogma". As it stands with the rules the combat is very basic, little more than "move there, do attack XY", and that's fine most of the time, especially for beginners, but why not spice it up a little, make combat a little more dynamic and interesting?

Why not something a little more along the lines of this:

Another swing from the stone giant's club sent Seoni flying against a large rock, where she collapsed unconscious. That is about enough, Merisiel decided, as she ran towards the huge figure and after a nimble leap grabbed on to its makeshift belt. Before the giant realized what was happening she already clung to its back and shoved her rapier deep into its flesh between the shoulder blades.

Sure you could try to pull of such stunts with the current rules but A) it's generally ridiculously hard due to the high CMDs of bigger creatures (both because of their generally high strength and size bonuses), and B) There is no benefit to doing so.

So here is my idea for some special moves, they aren't really combat maneuvers but they depend somewhat on combat maneuver stats:

Cling:
As a standard action or as part of a charge instead of making a regular attack, you can attempt to cling to a creature at least one size category larger than you. Make a CMB check (this counts as a grapple attempt for the purposes of any feats or abilities granting bonuses to grapple checks) or climb check against the creature's CMD. When making this check neither you nor the creature you try to cling to gain any size bonuses or penalties to CMB or CMD.
If you succeed, you cling to the creature. If not, the creature gets to make a free attempt to trip you.
While you are clinging to a creature, you need one hand to hold on to the creature but can use the other normally. When attacking a creature you cling to the creature is denied its Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) against your attacks. An attempt to cling to a creature provokes an attack of opportunity from that creature unless you have the improved grapple feat or a climb speed.

Location and climbing a creature:
Depending on your size and that of the creature you cling to, there are different locations you can cling to, these are as follows:

*Creature is one size category larger than you: - Upper body (this is the frontmost half on a non-bipedal creature); -Lower body (this is the hindmost half on a non-bipedal creature)
*Creature is two size categories larger than you: -Each limb (arm, leg, wing), -hips/lower torso, -upper torso (including head), -tail
*Creature is three or more size categories larger than you: -Each lower limb (forearm, lower leg, wing forearm etc), -Each upper limb (upper arm, thigh, wing upper arm etc), -hips/lower torso, -middle torso, -upper torso, -tail tip, -tail base

Not every creature has all of these anatomic features. Sometimes a creature has unusual proportions such as oversized or undersized limbs (for example a giant centipede has comparably short legs for a creature of its size), in that case treat that location as if it were on a creature of a different size (for example when clinging to a gargantuan giant centipede as a medium character don't treat its legs as separated upper and lower limbs but as one limb each; or on a huge giant centipede treat the legs as part of the torso location they are attached to)
When clinging to a creature normally you start off by clinging to a part that is close to the ground this is, depending on the size of the creature this is usually the lower body, a leg, the lower leg or sometimes a tail or tail tip. Sometimes you might find yourelf in a higher position from where you can directly cling to a higher up location directly.
Moving from one location to another requires a successful climb check (the DC equals the creature's CMD without its strength and size modifiers) and does not provoke attacks of opportunity. If the check failed you stay in the same location. With each action you can move from one location to the next adjacent location (for example from the lower limb, to the upper limb, or from the upper limb to the part of the torso, the limb is attached to etc.).
When you are clinging to a creature's head, all your successful attack rolls automatically threaten a critical hits (you must still roll to confirm them). When clinging to the upper torso of a creature that is two size categories larger than you, you may attempt to target the head specifically, when doing sou you recieve a -2 penalty to your attack roll but the threat range of your weapon increases by one (20 becomes 19-20, 19-20 becomes 18-20, etc).

Standing/sitting on a creature:
While in any torso location (unless the creature stands erect, in which case only the upper torso location is viable) you may attempt to stand or sit on the creature you have been clinging to, doing so frees up your hands allowing you to use both of them. Standing or sitting requires a successful acrobatics check (DC equals the creature's CMD without its strength and size modifiers). If the check fails you don't stand or sit up but instead keep holding on with your hand. While standing or sitting you do not gain your strength bonus to CMD when resisting attempts to shake you off, additionally when standing, you take another -2 penalty. While standing or sitting you have all your hands free and you can make for example attacks with two-handed weapons. Attack rolls while sitting however take a -2 penalty because you have neither the free range to swing your weapon that oyu would have while standing, nor the safety of holding on to something while riding the creature.

Shaking clinging creatures off:
If creatures are clinging to you, you may use a move action to attempt to shake one them off. Make a CMB check against the creature's CMD, without size modifiers to either and without Strength modifier to your CMB.
You can gain the following bonuses to your attempt to shake a creature off, if you fulfill the requirement:
-you use a standard action and a free prehensile limb (such as a hand) that the creature you want to shake off is not clinging to, to pull the creature off: both you and the clinging creature gain their size modifier to CMB/CMD, if any, and you gain your full STR modifier to your CMB roll.
-the creature is clinging to your tail, limb, tail base, head (unless your head is not movable independently from the body) or upper limb: You gain half your STR bonus (if any) to your CMB roll. You do not gain this bonus against a creature on your wing if you are flying.
-the creature is clinging to your tail tip or lower limb: you gain your full STR bonus (if any) to your CMB roll. You do not gain this bonus against a creature on your wing if you are flying.
If a creature is shaken off successfully, it falls to the ground, it may make an acrobatics check to reduce potential falling damage.

Attacking clinging creatures:
You can attack creatures clinging to you as if they were in a square threatened by you, however you may not attack a creature clinging to the body part that you are making the attack with. (For example you cannot attack a creature clinging to your right arm with your right-hand weapon.) The only exception is the head, you may always attempt up to one attack that is made with your head (like a gore or bite) against one creature clinging to your head each round.
You may attack creatures clinging to another creature but take a -4 penalty to attack rolls against such creatures.

A few related feats I thought of too:
Climbing blade
You lodge your weapon in the thick hide of the creature you're clinging to.
Benefit: You can use a light or one-handed piercing or slashing weapon to hold on to a creature you're clinging to instead of a free hand. If both weapons you wield are pirecing or slashing, you can attack with both of them as per the normal rules for fighting with two weapons.

Hitch
You wait for a creature to pass you to grab on and be taken along on a free ride.
prerequisites: Combat Reflexes and either Improved Grapple or climb 4 ranks.
Benefit: You may prepare an action to cling to a creature, the moment either enters your reach, or makes a melee attack against you.

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I know this is a huge wall of text and looks quite complex, but I think it would add some spice to a battle. It makes fights against big enemies more engaging and fights against tiny enemies more gribbly (imagine spiders crawling up your body), I tried to keep the body locations varied in benefits and disadvantages for the clinger, so people wouldnt just latch on to a dragons foot and attack the ankle while hanging from it instead of attacking the ankle from the ground, but have some incentve to make their way up to the body or even the head to put on some real hurt. I think this would also give melee characters a little more of a say in battles against large flying monsters (which particularly in the case of dragons should involve the whole party and not just the archer and wizard). I removed size and strength modifiers for many rolls mainly because those are the parts that make the whole deal basically impossible for most situations, but I also have a reason why it would make sense: Since the clinging creature is not actually trying to influence the larger creature as such, not pushing it or trying to hold it in place or anything, but simply trying to tough it and to stay in contact, while being taken anywhere the larger creature is going.

I would love to know what you think. Would it unbalance anything, is it too complex, or even too simple (in the sense that it is not taking something important into account)?

In our nostalgic retro campaign (entirely 3.0, except for two 3.5 splatbooks) that me and my old dnd group are playing I play a Swashbuckler/Fighter specializing in dual wielding bladed gauntlets, another player is a TWF shortsword wielding rogue fighter and one is a monk, so for a decent damage output all three of us need to get full attack actions in with our melee weapons as often as possible.

Now our GM occasionally (and who is to blame him?) faces us with flying monsters, the most recent two encounters being two wyverns and a couatl (if memory serves).

I found these encounters to be incredibly bothersome, as we could do little more than sit idly by and wait for the sorcerer to lightning-bolt and fireball these things out of the sky. Well me and the monk had rings of jumping (which in 3.0 were +30 to jump with a cost of only 2,500 GP) which gave us at least the possibility of putting in a single attack with a jump check, but that was kind of pathetic considering the two other attacks we miss out on.

I realize that there are monsters that are easier for a caster to fight, and those that are easier for a martial characer to fight, but that something as simple as a different mode of movement puts melee characters at such a disadvantage, as if they didn't have enough problems keeping up with casting characters already.

So my question is, how do you deal with flying monsters? Both as a player with a melee oriented character and as a gm who has Melee PCs?

Hey everyobody,

If an eidolon has the energy attacks and swallow whole evolutions, does it deal the d6 energy damage to a swallowed opponent? The swallow whole evolution says it deals the eidolons bite damage + 1d6 of bludgeoning damage. But does that mean only the bite's physical damage or all the damage the bite deals (including energy damage)?

So I might have a Pathfinder campaign coming up and one of my players, who is himself versed in 3.0 DnD and a bit of 3.5 told me about his character idea.

what he wanted to play is a construct (something like a warforged) hitman/bounty hunter type of character who would customize his own body. His idea was that his character is a centuries old construct that has been used to carry out killings in the names of its previous masters and over the time started to get independent and develope an identity.

First thing that sprang to my mind (since I'm going to use Golarion as my campaign world) was a Numerian hitman construct.

So today I whipped up the ARG playtest to see what i can do about that. Neither the Construct type (which with 20 RP would not end up with a playable character) nor the half-construct type (which just doesn't seem to fit) seemed appropriate to me so I took the construct type rules and cropped them down and altered them to make a living construct type, which is only kind of like the living construct idea under which warforged are made. Basically my idea is that they are arcane synthetic life. So without further babbling here's the type:

Living Construct (8 RP)
A living construct race is a self sustenant group of artificially created
creatures that are so highly complex that their physical properties resemble
living creatures in many ways, due to their complex physique and highly advanced
mental capabilities, they have many of the benefits and weaknesses of living
creatures but also retain construct like traits..A construct race has the following
features.
• Living constructs cannot heal or sustain damage through
positive or negative energy, but can be repaired via exposure
to a certain kind of effect or though the use of the Craft
Construct feat. Living constructs can also be healed through
spells such as make whole.
If a living construct is dying, a mending spell (but never
a stabilize spell) can stabilize it but never heals hit
point damage.
A construct with the fast healing special quality still
benefits from that quality.
• Living constructs are immune to poison and disease but can
be affected by any effects that affect constructs.
• Living constructs gain a +2 racial bonus on saving throws
against mind-affecting effects, and effects that cause either
exhaustion or fatigue.
• Living constructs cannot be raised or resurrected.
• Living constructs do not breathe, eat, or sleep, unless
they want to gain some beneficial effect from one of these
activities. This means that a construct can drink
potions and can sleep in order to regain spells, but
neither is required to survive or stay in good health.

To compare this with a half-construct (7 RP) directly here are the differences between the two:
• Living constructs are immune to poison and sickness instead of just having a +2 to saves against them.
• Living constructs are unaffected by positive and negative energy, making them essentially immune to one type of damaging energy but also takes from them the most common source of healing.
• Living constructs are subject to anything that affects constructs

So while they have benefits over half-constructs, they also have some striking penalties.

Also since he was asking for the ability to build in weapons and armor into his character I came up with the following ability:

Customizable physique (2 RP)
Prerequisites: Construct, half-construct or living
construct type.
Benefit: The bodies of this race can be altered to include
installed weapons or armor. Weapons, shields and armor must be
specifically created for the purpose of installing into the body
of a living construct of the same race. The base price and cost
for masterwork of such items equals twice the regular cost.
Installing a set of armor takes one day of work. Installed armor
infers no penalties for sleeping in armor. Installed armor can
never be made of hide or leather except for dragonhide.
Installed armor must always be masterwork. As long as the
creature is wearing installed armor it can not wear any other
armor.
Shields and weapons are installed into the forearms and only one
item may be included per arm. Only size-appropriate bucklers,
light shields, hand crossbows, light mêlée weapons and one-handed
firearms may be installed. Installing a weapon or shield takes
4 hours of work. Weapons and shields are retractable and
extending them is treated the same way as drawing weapons and
donning shields (including the use of related feats such as
quick draw). Retracting installed weapons and shields takes a
move action to complete. All installed items can be retracted as
part of the same action. Installed weapons and shields can not
be dropped or removed through the disarm or steal combat
maneuvers, however they can still be sundered as long as they are
extended. While a weapon or shield (other than a buckler) is
extended the hand on the same arm is not able to hold any objects
(it might be retracted to make room for the weapon, locked in a
different position to protect it from harm, or the weapon extends
through the hand occupying it).
Installed items can only be removed by disassembling the item,
which takes one hour to complete per item. If an installed item
is destroyed it can no longer be used, in case of shields and
armor it still infers armor check penalty, movement penalties and
arcane spell failure chance but no armor or shield bonus.
Installed items can be upgraded the same way as regular items
(for example with armor or shield spikes), if the item is a
masterwork it can be enchanted the same way as any other weapon,
shield or armor, they can be enchanted either while installed or
prior to installation.
All installed items are used with the same penalties as regular
items of their kind if used without the proper proficiency.
Installed weapons and armor count only half their weight against
the carrying capacity of the wearer but weigh the same as a
regular item of their type when calculating the total weight of
the character (for example when calculating how much the
creature would burden a mount it is riding).

This and a standard +2 Physical, +2 Mental, -2 anything and standard movement would basically be all the race would get.

What do you people think, do the RP costs seem appropriate, or are they too cheap?

Hey everyone.

My question(s) of the day is(/are) quite simple:

1. Can a Cleric (or any divine caster) worship the Four Horsemen (all at once or one specifically)?

2. If so, where can I find their portfolio(s)?

I couldn't find anything in the World Guide or Gods & Magic.

I got to think about this last night as i looked over the cavalier orders, which i hadn't done before, since it never became relevant in our games.

For Cavaliers it says any alignment is permissible but when i look at the edicts of their orders suddenly a few things seem to get a lot more limited all of a sudden.
Right away you notice that adhering to the edicts of your order make being chaotic a little difficult, since chaotic characters are not supposed to be held to concepts like honor or a personal code.

Then when you look at the orders specifically it becomes apparent that a lot of the edicts are about protecting or helping others in some kind of way which is hard to do if your cavalier wants to maintain an evil alignment. If you want to go evil, the only Orders you can justify an evil alignment with are the samurai orders, peacock, maybe tome and dragon. Though the latter would probably get screwed over time and time again by an equally evil party of PCs who know how to play their role.

What do you think? Can you justify all alignments for all orders somehow? Is there something I'm overlooking?
If not, shouldn't it exclude the impossible alignments for your order explicitly in the description somewhere?
And how can any cavalier ever be chaotic?

According to the Brood Master's Larger Brood feature he can have a maximum of 8 small Eidolons at level 13 if he takes the Huge evolution.

I also says that everything apart from the Base Attack and Save bonuses have to be divided among the Eidolons (including natural attacks). Now the problem I have with that is that, A) Each Eidolon base form has at least one natural Attack included already, Biped and Serpentine have 2; B) a level 13 Eidolon can only have 5 Natural attacks and even at level 20 the maximum is 7.

So what happens to those natural attacks form the base form? Does the summoner have to remove them until all eidolons have only 5 natural attacks altogether or do the free evolutions somehow not count against the Maximum? (as far as I recall you can remove your free evolutions like all others but you don't get the EP back)

I'm putting together a group to start a new adventure with, which I will be GMing and i'm just reading up on a few things that have been hazy, at best, to me.

One of the things are firearms (as found in Ultimate Combat). Reading through them, I can't shake the feeling that they are just not very good. Let's look at them with their standard prices:

A pistol is different from a simple light crossbow in the following ways:
+ you only need one hand to fire it without penalty (but how much does that matter when you will need that hand to reload your gun?)
+ + it counts like a touch attack at first range increment
+ x4 crit multiplier instead of 19-20/x2 (which I guess is one category up as usually crit multipliers go 20/x2 < 20/x3 = 19-20x2 < 18-20/x2 = 20/x4)
- You need a standard action to reload each shot instead of just a move action
- - First range increment is 20ft. and maximum range 100ft. while on a crossbow the first increment starts at 80ft.
- Misfire: a 5% chance to break your weapon on each shot. And if it's already broken that chance becomes a 25% chance to completely obliterate your weapon and deal damage to yourself in the process.
- - 965gp!! more expensive weapon
- 11gp per 1 shot as opposed to 1 gp per 10 shots.
- Needs exotic weapon proficiency

The disadvantages seem to heavily outweigh the advantages of the pistol.

I just don't see any compelling reason to use firearms unless someone forces you to play a gunslinger or one of the gun-archetypes.

Now with "commonplace guns" at least the weapons start getting sensible prices but they are still quite expensive, 250 gp for a pistol is still a laughable amount compared to how much more you get out of a 35gp crossbow. I would consider using a gunslinger or gun-archetype in such a situation, but for anyone else these weapons are still less desirable than most ranged martial and simple weapons.

"Guns everywhere" would seem a bit over the top, as I wouldn't want people to be marching about with revolvers and double-barreled shotguns in my campaign and even then a pistol would still cost 100 gp.

Is it just me? Am I overlooking something or are firearms really that bad?

Also double-barreled musket has a range of 10 feet? Is that a mistake?

Hey everyone, I was looking around for good Pathfinder spell sheets in German on the internet today, since I couldn't find any that would work with any non-core classes (not even Paizo officials) I needed to make spell sheets of my own.

Now since I didnt want to go through all my books and tediously list down every last spell in its appropriate spell level for every single class, and since i thought that would just make the sheets unnecessarily huge, I decided to go for a simpler approach. I made a universal spell sheet, in which players can simply fill in all the necessary information, including spell names themselves.

Here's what I got:
English version

German version

Now this sheet by its nature is not only compatible with all magic Spellcasting classes in DnD 3.X and Pathfinder but also comes with a few extra perks:
You only need to have the spells on it that you actually use or your character actually knows, no preprinted spells bogging it down and making the lists unnecessarily large (or the print so tiny that you can't read your own writing between it anymore). You should fit everything even for a normal level 20 wizard onto two pages .
Without the pre-printed spells it is also easier to divide the space used for core and non-core spells when you take a lot of the latter.

Casters having only up to Level 4 spells, like ranges and paladins only need to print one page, as the sheets are divided into Level 0-4 and Level 5-9 with the Spells-per-day and save-dc chart on page 1.

If you intend to keep track of all the spells available to you as a Cleric or other divine caster, or your wizard or witch has an exceptionally large amout of spells known (maybe he copies every single unique scroll and spell from another spellbook into his own) you can just print the pages multiple times and you dont have to bother with redundant listings of preprinted spells.

Lastly I added a components-column to the spell lists so these are easily kept track of. That way you can easily tell which spells your character can still cast if somehow silenced, prevented from using his arms, component pouch, simply wearing armour or something else. I noticed that these things are rarely relevant but when they become relevant it always consumes a lot of time to browse the huge spells section of the core-rulebook for the spell just to find a single letter in its "components" section.

If you find them useful, feel free to download and/or print these for your own use. You can also edit and re-upload them if you want to (if you want to translate them into another language or add something you think I forgot).

Opinions are also welcome and if you happen to edit the sheet, it would be nice if you posted your version here, I would love to see what you did with it.

That's right, always make sure, to get the right thing or you may be scammed!

Original:
http://www.amazon.com/Pathfinder-Campaign-Setting-World-Guide/dp/1601252692 /ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330735881&sr=1-1

Fake:
http://www.amazon.com/Pathfinder-Inland-James-Fenimore-Cooper/dp/1116813866

Know the difference!

I don't know why I always come up with these things at 3 in the morning but here goes:

We all know that for most exotic weapons spending a feat just isn't worthwhile as it often only means an increase of 1 point of damage per hit on average and only under the circumstance that you use that particular, usually rather rare weapon, so I thought, how about tying Weapon Proficiencies skills rather than feats?

My idea would be to add a new skill (based on either wisdom or intelligence, I'm not sure about that one yet), I wouldn't want to call it "weapon proficiency" as i think it could be used for more than just proficiencies, but let's roll with that name for the purposes of my explanation:

Weapon Proficiency (Int/Wis(?) - Trained only)
You are versed in the use and lore of manufactured weapons of all different types, you might even know about legendary weapons from history. You know how to adapt to unusual types of weapons that you have no practice with.
Check: When wielding a weapon you are not proficient with you can attempt to use the weapon proficiency skill to temporarily circumvent the penalty associated with wielding a weapon without proficiency.
Whenever you are making any attack action using at least one weapon you are not proficient with, roll a Weapon Proficiency check against DC 10 plus the following modifiers:
-Weapon is an exotic weapon and you are not proficient with a martial or exotic weapon of the same weapon group: DC +15
-Weapon is an exotic weapon and you are proficient with a martial or exotic weapon of the same weapon group: DC +10
-Weapon is a martial weapon and you are not proficient with any other weapon of the same weapon group: DC +10
-Weapon is a martial weapon and you are proficient with any other weapon of the same weapon group: DC +5
-Weapon is a simple weapon: DC +0
If the check succeeds the attack is carried out as though you are proficient with the weapon, if it fails you take the normal -4 penalty to attack rolls.
You can only use this skill on one type of weapon during each attack action. If you use it successfully with more than one weapon of the same type, all of these weapons are affected. (for example a Fighter uses two bastard swords with two-weapon fighting while not being proficient with them, if he succeeds on a DC 20 Weapon proficiency check -- he is proficient with several martial type heavy blades -- he can wield both of them without taking the normal -4 penalty for using a weapon without proficiency during that attack action)
Weapon proficiency can also be used to detect wether or not a weapon has any magical properties. You can do this with any weapon you are proficient with, simply roll a Weapon Proficiency check against the DC of the spellcraft check needed to identify the magical properties of a weapon. If the check succeeds you can immediately tell if the weapon has magical properties but you do cannot discern the effect of these magical properties. If the check exceeds the DC by 5 or more you can even discern the weapon's specific magical properties as if succeeding on a spellcraft check.
Gaining proficiency: For every even numbered rank in Weapon Proficiency you can choose a single type of weapon (for example longsword, dwarven waraxe, nunchucks etc) to gain proficiency in. To gain proficiency in an exotic weapon, proficiency in at least one martial weapon of the same weapon group (see fighter weapon groups) is required. (this is to ensure that characters not proficient with martial weapons do not get a larger benefit out of two skill points invested in the skill, than characters already proficient with all martial weapons)
Action: Circumventing the penalty for using a weapon without proficiency is a free action. Attempting to ascertain the magical properties of a weapon takes 3 rounds and you must be able to thoroughly examine and try out the weapon (such as giving it test-swings or -shots).
Retry: You cannot retry identifying magical properties of a weapon, as your weapon lore fails you. You can retry using a weapon without proficiency every time you make an attack action with it.
Special: If you are proficient with all martial weapons you gain proficiency with all exotic weapons at rank 20.

Weapon Proficiency is a class skill for all classes that have proficiency with all simple and martial weapons, bards, rogues and ninjas.

One thing i came up with while typing this down, would be calling it something like "Martial lore" and adding armors and shields to the list of items that can be identified. But not letting them circumvent armor penalties caused by leck of proficiency.

Your thoughts, praise and criticism are welcome and most appreciated.

There are several races with character creation stats that are more powerful than the core races. Yet some people might want to play one of these. I immediately think of Aasimar and Kobolds as the two extremes. So what I want to suggest is to include a mechanic in the ARG to counteract the racial imbalance created when using such races.

Depending on the amount of RP above or below the player race default of 10 such characters should get different bonuses or penalties for character creation.

I don't want to give the any ultimate numbers but for example lets take the value of the human bonus feat as a point of reference. A racial bonus feat costs 4 RP.
So lets say we are dealing with a two races, one that costs 14 RP and another that only amounts to 6 RP.
The one that costs 6 RP gets its difference back as a bonus, for which an extra feat at level 1 would be appropriate if we assume that 4 RP is the appropriate cost for an extra feat.
The 14 RP race would get its difference as a penalty, so a 14 RP Player character would have to skip their first level feat and only receive their first feat (barring any racial or class bonus feats of course) at level 3.

Other such bonuses/penalties appropriate to different RP value differences could affect skillpoints (either a unique change to starting skill points or a change to skillpoints per level), an unnamed bonus or penalty to all attack rolls or one or more saves (not actually influencing the base attack/save bonuses, so as to keep consistency in the classes)
Lastly it should be said that none of these bonuses or penalties can be taken more than once and a character cannot choose to take any penalty of greater value than their RP difference above 10 or bonus greater than their RP difference below 10, and also a character cannot choose to take penalties to trade for other bonuses or vice versa.

These effects should only apply to player characters as they are meant to balance power level between players and not to be seen as part of the racial abilities. NPCs never have get any of these traits.

One more thing: These effects are primarily meant for use with pre-written races primarily and not as a free pass for creating overpowered character races or underpowered ones with lots of extra perks. If making an "unbalanced" race to use with these effects, the choses effects as well as the race build should be carefully checked by the GM as such a thing might warrant very easy exploitation.

Let me know what you think about this idea. :)

Hey everyone,

I was trying to get into the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, because I have finally realized that I'm too lazy to create my own worlds (after enthusiastically making a world map I usually power out, too lazy to create pantheons, histories, politcal relations between countries etc). I have the Inner Sea World Guide (in English) as well as a German version of the Golarion Campaign Setting from 3rd Edition, which will help me with the German names of things when I'm actually playing with local people.

I've been quite fascinated by the world and how it's designed to have a little of every corner of the fantasy genre. However the history of the setting is something I want to learn more about. I like to have epic scale backgrounds for my campaign and it helps to know about the most important historical events recorded about the entire world.

So what I'm looking for is a more or less compact timeline describing the most important events throughout the history of golarion. The kind of stuff that affected major parts of the world. If someone could point me to such a thing I'd appreciate it :D

Anyone else disappointed by the dragon shaman archetype?

I thought it would be nice to have a class that as its main feature can turn into a dragon. (before anyone asks, yes Skyrim has awakened my dormant obsession with dragons)

So here are my ideas:

Dragonshifters are a branch of druids who turned their focus away from nature and towards reverence of dragons.
Languages: Dragonshifters do not belong to regular druidic circles, they prefer to associate with true dragons, instead of Druidic, a dragonshifter gets Draconic as a bonus language.
Alignment: Any. May not differ more than one step on either axis from her totem dragon's (see below). For example a dragonshifter with Gold Dragon as her totem dragon can only be Lawful Good, Neutral Good or Lawful Neutral.
Totem Dragon: At 1st level a dragonshifter chooses a chromatic or metallic dragon as their totem dragon. She gains abilities based on their totem dragon. This ability replaces Nature bond.
Draconic empathy: This ability functions the same as wild empathy but instead of animals a dragonshifter uses it to influence dragons with intelligence scores of 1 or 2.
Whem making a diplomacy check to influence a dragon with an intelligence score of 3 or higher the dragonshifter gains a +2 circumstance bonus made on the check, if the dragon influenced understands the same language as the dragonshifter. This ability replaces wild empathy
Dragon shape: A dragonshifter counts her wild shape ability like that of a druid of her level -4 when using it to take any form that is not reptilian, a dragon or an elemental of the same elemental subtype as her totem dragon.
At 8th level a dragonshifter can use Wild Shape to change into her totem dragon, if she does this ability functions as Form of the Dragon I.
At 10th level, when changing into a dragon the dragonshifters wild shape functions as Form of the Dragon II.
At 12th level, when changing into a dragon the dragonshifters wild shape functions as Form of the Dragon III.
A dragonshifter can never change into a dragon other than her totem dragon nor into a plant.

How does this sound to you? Still too powerful or okay?

I was thinking of also replacing Woodland stride and trackless step and maybe changing up a few spells based on the totem dragon. But I think before I go into that I wanted to post this draft for review.

Hey everyone, I've been GMing for a while now but i still don't really know how much i can do to the players before overchallenging them.

This is about monsters, the simple question being: What is the highest CR solo monster I should throw at a party of 5 or 6 adventurers?

Is there a rule of thumb to go by when creating an encounter and what would be challenging but managable worthy boss monster?

My players are all rather casual and mostly inexperienced so they don't optimize their characters very much. I'm not posting the average party level here because i would rather like to know for all levels.

Hey everyone,
I want to whip up a campaign centered in a world in an evolutionary state before the rise of mammals and avians, around the time of the dinosaurs.

Now that doesn't mean any particular period of that time, it's still supposed to be a fantasy world, so it's not a problem if an Allosaurus meets a Triceratops. And of course the Monsters won't be limited to only dinosaurs. I will use anything that looks suitable for a fantasy world in that evolutionary state: Dragons (the true dragons will probably be the most powerful species in it), aberrations, plants, oozes and naturally vermin. So finding a good variety of monsters is less of a problem.

The problems lie elsewhere, so let me go through them in order:

Races: Of course humans shouldn't exist yet, neither their fellow mammalian core races, like dwarves, halflings or even elves.
Instead I want to give players a menagerie of reptilian and amphibian races to choose from. Verminous humanoids also would fit, I think.
I already have Kobolds (who will probably get some balancing, something like a Dragonwrought kobold subrace for example) and Grippli on my list, but there should definitely be more, so suggestions are welcome. Be it some of your own ideas or something you've seen somewhere.
Especially something directly dinosaur related would be fun.
Not using Lizardfolk here would almost be a crime but they would need some adjustments until they are a playable race.

Classes: Civilization in this world should be in an early state in this world, maybe something around the level of aztec culture to be the (absolute) pinnacle of civilization in this world, but most of it less civilized, this of course plays into the background of some classes. Wizards, Paladins, Cavaliers and maybe even Monks and Clerics seem inappropriate for the theme.
I want to bar as few base classes as possible (using PFRPG core and APG) but I don't want to have anything that ruins the theme. So if you have ideas how to adjust the background for any of these classes so they fit better, those are welcome. Also if you can think of any other classes that need to be adjusted at least background wise or don't fit at all, please let me know.

Equipment: This is probably the toughest bit. I think magic items shouldn't be as abundant in a world where civilization hasn't expanded very much yet. The problem here is, that magic items are an integral part of character balance. A level 10 character has an extremely hard time fighting a level appropriate encounter without approximately 60,000gp worth of magic items.
So I need some mechanics that compensate for that lack. Sure i can give a higher point buy value or more dice for stat rolling, but that doesn't take care of the ever advancing attack bonuses while ACs stay the same for example. These things might work for a few level until the few extra bonuses the characters get are become less important. So I need some advice on how to compensate for that.

Currency: Last and least, I think the setting needs a different currency, I just don't see this much earlier civilization putting the same value on rare metals as humans and their likes. I was thinking about maybe gemstones but I'm not sure on that. Maybe something a little more easily available but maybe for the time about as hard to attain as ore and precious metals in a regular setting.

I'm happy about and thankful for any ideas. Also Ideas out of the specified points are welcome, they might help me get more depth into the campaign and make it more interesting. :)

So just last week i asked for a feat for my summoner and this week we're being extremely stupid and get ourselves killed (a lot). So after a TPK we all need new characters.
And after like 5 hours of fussing around and basically already finishing up a fighter I decided to go with a Beast master Ranger

Its the only ranger variant that gets a really good animal companion. But ive been wondering since i can have multiple companions, how many companions should I take at maximum and what is the use of having several?
I know i could use one companion, something fighty like a big cat and a 1 level bird as secondary companion to do some spying and scouting.

Another thing i thought of, for sheer awesome would be to have a whole flock of 1 level velociraptors just surrounding me for the heck of it. but i guess that might be a waste of a perfectly good class feature right there. Or would even a max number of level 1 companions have a use?
In case of velociraptors they would have 3 attacks each so that is gonna get me the occasional natural 20 for hits. And our GM houseruled that a roll in crit range means a crit without having to confirm. On the other hand they might die a lot and spending 24 hours to regain every single one might become a little tedious. Nonetheless it would be pretty cool to have a load of little velociraptors following your feet at all times.

Hey guys, I can't actually believe it but I already ran out of ideas for useful feats for my level 3 gnome summoner.
The party just hit the level today. Quite surprisingly actually as we play normal progression and we made it from just fresh on level 2 directly to level 3 in a single encounter. Maybe its because the XP difference between 2 and 3 is only marginally higher than the difference between 1 and 2.

Anyway now im stuck with selecting a feat for my summoner and nothing seems particularly useful for me.

I have a quadruped eidolon currently evolved with claws, Strength increase, pounce and damage increase for the claws (which will be replaced soon with a gore, as soon as i have another evolution point available).
What I'm going for with the eidolon in the end is supposed to have 7 primary natural attacks with as much damage as i can pack on it. Probably 2 sets of claws, a tail sting, a gore and a bite, which is why the damage increase on the claws will probably find its way back again on later levels (thats +4 damage on average), energy attacks and all sorts of nifty extras such as flight for example.

Im just posting that in case it might be important for the choice of feats I am going with for the summoner, who mostly tries to stay back and provide the eidolon with buffs.

The first level feat i took was combat casting because you can't always stay out of enemies' notice.

Does anyone have any good ideas what might be a good addition to my build?

Also feats for later levels would be nice to know, because i'm sure this is not the last time I'm going to be lost with this.

SO Im currently whipping up my character for a game we will start soon. Seeing how both I (gnome summoner) and the magic-focusing druid can't even carry 30 pounds before we hit medium load I decided to look up what I can get for us to carry our equipment and loot.
So I checked the mount section which lists donkey or mule for 8gp. The equipment section also says that unlike horses, donkeys and mules are willing to enter dungeons and other strange and threatening areas.
Sounds like a good deal for me. After searching for donkey/mule stats for a while I came across the FaQ on d20pfsrd.com which said that a donkey counts as a pony and a mule as a pony with the advanced template.

Now while this already made me wonder why ever i should buy a donkey when a mule is so much better for the same price I also checked how much a regular pony costs: 30gp.

This puts up the question for me, why buy a pony when a mule is a much better mount for much less gold?

High, I'm planning on playing a summoner and the class comes with a few features that are not quite clear to me.

1: If a summoner uses their Summon Monster spell-like ability, can they summon more than one monster at once with it?

2: Do claws and wing buffets count as two attacks when calculating the maximum number of attacks the eidolon gets (as they are literally two attacks) or as one attack (as the pair is only one evolution)?

3: If an Eidolon gets the flight evolution and upgrades it to magical flight, can they decide to keep the wings in order to upgrade them with a wing buffet?

4: Does rend count as an attack against the maximum number of attacks available to the Eidolon?

5: If an eidolon hits with a multiple two claws in a round, for example with 4 do you get the rend bonus damages multiple times too?

6: Do really all claw, bite, slam and gore attacks of an eidolon count as primary (and thus hit at full BAB and full STR modifier) when used in the same full attack action?

That's what I have at the moment, I'll let you know if more questions pop up.

Yeah that's a question I have. I can understand that druids' companions are more powerful because druids have the stronger bond to nature. But what about Paladins and Cavaliers? Both of these classes use their full class level to determin the effective druid level of their mount. Sure fluff-wise at least about the paladin you can say he's got a divine bond with a celestial mount but still, the paladin seems already powerful enough as he is, he doesn't need his mount to pack the same punch as any druid animal companion. And the cavalier has no fluff excuse at all.

I dont know, probably in the game balance it's even but it just seems inappropriate to me that Paladins and cavaliers seem to have a stronger bond with an animal companion than a ranger does.

Now from the search function I know this has been brought up a few times already, but my mother raised me not to commit thread necromancy. Also aside from one attempt at working on a SWSE modification this has never brought up any final results as I have seen (not even the things i found on google)
And as for the SWSE attempt it doesn't seem entirely finished to me.

So what I would like to do is to attempt working out a Mass Effect setting for either SWSE or d20 modern/future with improved rules that also are close to the video games in their style.
I've been thinking about the races and thought it would be good to go for a pathfinder-powerlevel for them. I'm even considering using the pathfinder rules but with weapons, vehicles and technology adapted from one of the other games)

Well this is what I have so far, opinions and anyone willing to help developing this are welcome.

Since in my game the party is now affiliated with a city mainly inhabited by races that are usually antagonists (the main portion is goblins and kobolds, then come other goblinoids, gnolls and orcs and the smallest portion is a mix of underdark races, lizardfolk, giants and various others, all under the rule of a venerable black dragon) they also have a quite different situation with what you get for pets and mounts. (horses and dogs are simply out of question in a city with so many goblins)

So I wanted to offer, dire wolves, boars (as well as their non-dire versions for small characters) and other animals exotic animals as mounts purchasable in the goblin city. The question though since they're more powerful they should also cost a bit more than horses so how do I best calculate a price for these animals?
I figured it would be best to tie it to CR, but thats all I could figure out so far.

Hey everyone, I have a monk in my gaming group and hearing about how monks are still underpowered, and also seeing the monk player doing generally less than most others (not quite significantly though I houseruled TWF to be a bit better, it only gets a -1 penalty if the off-hand weapon is not light, and no penalty at all with a light off-hand weapon, and affected that to flurry of blows too)

But I don't think this should be all. So i thought I would improve the magic item situation for monks. At the moment all they have to substitiute magic armour and weapons are the amulet of mighty fists, monk belts and bracers of armour. But these all take valuable slots for other items and/or are extremely expensive. On top of that they don't provide all the possibilities that magic armour and weapons have so I thought about possibilities and eventually was inspired by DDO:
Outfits and Handwraps

The idea is to substitute magic armour with magical monk outfits/robes and weapons with magic handwraps that can be worn under gloves and bracers and still work.

Handwraps have a cost of 1gp per handwrap and to make it magical you have to pay the cost for a masterwork weapon and then apply magic properties (and their costs) to them as you would for magic melee weapons.
A character can wear up to two handwraps and apply it's bonuses to her unarmed attacks, if she has Improved Unarmed Strike. If a character has only one magic Handwrap the bonus is only applied to her main hand attacks. If she has a second handwrap the bonus of the second handwrap is applied to the off-hand attacks. It doesn't matter if the attack is actually made with the hand in question (it can also be a kick or something else), but each handwrap can only affect either the main- or the off-hand attack (even in a flurry of blows).
[this is to balance the use of handwraps in a flurry of blows with the use of magic weapons for a TWF-ing character and at the same time a monk weapon keeps a use because if a monk weapon is magical, it can put its bonuses on all of the monk's attacks while being only one weapon at the cost of not getting the increased damage die of the unarmed strike]

Monk outfits cost 5gp (as the monk outfit in the equipment section) and to make it magical you have to pay the cost for a masterwork armor and then apply magic properties (and their costs) to them as you would for magic armor.
The magic monk outfit then bestows all it's bonuses on its wearer the same way magic armor does, but the character still counts as unarmored for her monk abilities.
Physically it is possible to wear armor over the monk outfit, but as long as a character is wearing armor (magic or not) or a magic robe none of the magic properties of the monk outfit have any effect.

These are my ideas, pretty simple, and I'm sure especially the outfit idea is nothing new.
I am thinking about the monk outfit to work only for characters with the flurry of blows and/or armour class bonus class features so it doesn't give wizards, sorcerers and similar classes the idea to run around in monk outfits for fortification and damage reduction.

Also an alternative I've been thinking about for handwraps is making the bonus apply to all unarmed attacks instead of just either main- or off-hand attacks and rule monk weapons to get the same damage increases as unarmed attacks do, but if the basic damage dice of the weapon are a different kind than the damage dice of the monk at level one then it becomes an accordingly higher or lower die at advanced level.
For example a Medium sized level 4 monk has 1d8 unarmed damage (at 1st level he had 1d6), if this monk used for example a dagger (base damage 1d4, which is one category below the damage die of a level 1 monk) then the dagger would now be 1 category below the damage die of the level 4 monk and deal 1d6 damage instead. This would give monk weapons a new purpose, namely to exchange damage for crit-range or -multiplier, or simply to change the kind of damage the monk deals. I think this might also encourage (or simply not-discourage monk players to go crazy on a mix of armed and unarmed attacks in ther flurries, just as you would see it in Kung Fu movies)

So what do you think of these? And should I add the rule that makes the outfits only usable for characters with monk levels or should i change the handwraps to affect all unarmed attacks as described (including ruling the monk weapons accordingly)

Yeah I just wanted to propose my idea for a system to make called shots (or blows, as it's melee only for now) against certain body parts, namely being Head(s), Arms, Legs and other appendages (like tails or wings for example), the idea came to me when i read the Hydra entry in the Bestiary.

My idea was instead of a melee attack you make a combat maneuver roll. The attacked enemy however gets armor class bonuses to their CMD (except for the base 10 and dexterity bonus, which are already in CMD).
Each appendage has hitpoints equal to the number of hit dice of the creature + the creature's CON Modifier.
In order to not make sneak attacks obsolete I thought anyone with a sneak attack (or similar) ability can add the number of sneak attack damage dice to their CMB whenever they make a called shot against an enemy against whom they would get their sneak attack.
A blow against the head provokes attacks of opportunity from the defender, to even out the fact that a severed head will be mortal. Also if the AoO provoked this way hits, the blow against the defender's head automatically misses. Otherwise, no AoOs are provoked. And a severed body part never affects the regular hitpoints of a creature. (although im considering changing this so all other called shots provoke AoOs, as combat maneuvers do regularly, but you can take a feat like improved sunder or a homebrew feat to be able to circumvent these, except for attacks against the head)
Lastly you can't make a called shot against a bodypart you can't reach, so no chopping off the Tarrasques head from the ground.

This way altogether landing a called shot is pretty hard and should not get overused.

I already tried this in the last session, just without any AoOs provoked (not even against the head). The group had to fight werewolves and had no silver weapons, so I wanted to give them an alternative chance to cut off their heads, to save their skin, actually out of about 6 attempts at cutting off heads, 2 succeeded with very lucky rolls.

I just wanted to share this idea with you, opinions are welcome.

Hey there, in the campaign i'm running I deal with goblins a lot. So much in fact that the players are currently being employed by the leader of a goblin city (I know this is unusual, but that's due to the leader being a dragon, the city also contains a lot of members of various other races) and now there are two questions ive been wondering about.

The first question is, do goblins and other goblinoids grow hair? (aside from bugbear body hair) And if so to what extend? Can they grow beards and/or mustaches? On their heads or just on the back of their heads (some goblins in the Wayne Reynolds illustrations have braids hanging from the backs of their heads)?

The second question is a more complicated problem, how could a dwarf make himself popular or at least not hated in a city inhabited by mostly goblins, especially if said dwarf is a dog owner? I've been thinking for a while now what to offer him to do but I couldnt really think of anything impressive enough to overcome a generations long racial grudge, especially if you are just a level 4 ranger.
There is one thing he has in common with goblins though: he hates dwarves too.

So literally ever since I started GMing the Pathfinder game I'm doing with some friends. It was the first actual Pathfinder game for both them and me. Only three of them (not counting me in) Played DnD 3rd edition before and two never played any PnP RPGs at all before, but that's beside the point.

So far we played an astounding six sessions since January, although we were planning on playing on a weekly basis. Two weeks were cancelled because I was out of the country (trhose were the only two sessions missed because of me). Other than that sessions were cancelled because too many players had to bail out for whatever reason, some more understandable than others. And in the six sessions that we actually managed to establish, not a single time had all six players been present. One player is currently on a prolonged therapy and won't be back for another six weeks from now, so I took his character out of the game for the time being. So he doesn't even get counted here anymore, we've been playing two sessions since he went and one we played with three players and the other with four (out of five players left), this and last week the game got cancelled as a whole again because two players forgot we were going to play and made other appointments and the third player (who also had been missing in the last two sessions), i haven't heard a single sign of life from ever since I came back from my two weeks out of country, for next week I already know at least one player is going to miss again and... ARGH!

Yeah so there's my problem, I know its normal and has to be coped with, that sometimes players are missing out but I can't seem to get a single session established in which the whole group is actually at the table.

So, do any of you know this problem, got any advice or anything?

We're going to gather the group again tonight to finally continue playing, and since its April 1st I thought I could pull a little april fools on the players.

I remember a few years ago our GM did that to our party when I was a player. He described us in a dungeon room ahead a large, bulky stone statue. While doing so he had the Monster Manual page of the stone golem lying open in front of him (subtly for us to see which page it was).
So we all assumed that there was a stone golem waiting for us (we were still too low level to deal with such a thing).
Only after a long discussion how to get around it, someone remembered that it was 1st of April and the large statue was in fact nothing more than a large statue.

I need some ideas on what to do today. I hope I can get some ideas before the game starts in approximately 6 hours.
So give me some ideas what could a GM do to fool his players, or what did you do to your players or your GM do to you?

EDIT: Ah sorry, I think this should go to the Gamer Life subforum. If a mod would be so kind to move it, I would be most grateful.

Hey everyone,
I've been involved with the Jabberwocky lately. Probably because the new Beastmen have been published for Warhammer and one of my friends is going crazy about the "Jabberslythe". And he usually manages to infect me with his obsessions somehow.

So I've been meaning to come up with some Pathfinder rules for a Jabberwocky monster. And while I'm at it, why not stat out the other four creatures mentioned: Toves, Raths, Borogoves and Bandersnatches

But let's start with the Jabberwocky. This is where I need some help already, because I don't know wether to make it a magical beast, aberration or a dragon.

Things I already know it should have:
Huge size, fly speed
1 Bite, 2 Claws (+grab) ("The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!")
Darkvision (the eyes in the most artworks about it just suggest that)

I think it should be somewhere between CR 8 and 12, that just feels right to me.

So I'm open to suggestions. And hope I get a lot of ideas.

Hey everyone, I've been meaning to expand my repertoire of monsters a bit by the 3.5 books I still have laying around (namely Monster Manual III and Draconomicon) but before I throw old monsters at the players I wanted to make sure they don't have a too easy time dispatching them. Since both classes and player races have been improved in terms of power level (except for those classes maybe, that already had all the power you ever need) I wanted to know wether it would be advisable to adjust the challenge rating of the 3.5 Monsters to make sure that Challenge and reward fit or if the Bestiary Monsters are no stronger than 3.5 monsters.

Any advice?

Hey everyone, while i've been working out a Dragon NPC for my campaign with my local players I came up with the idea to make a campaign with the premise of all players being dragons.
So since Im already running something with my local group and I also dont want to GM again, I wanted to see if we can put up something here.

So to get this running, each player should be playing a different kind of dragon. Either all Metallic (Dragon Rescue Team) or all Chromatic (Dragon Terror Squad) dragons. The campaign would then be about a Mixed up flock of dragons summoned to either Save or Conquer/Destroy the world (or at least some of it).
Mechanically I think the game should start at the highest available base CR for each dragon. (so if its a chromatic team, that would be CR 6 (red) and in a metallic team CR 7 (gold))
All dragons with a lower base CR will get advanced to the appropriate CR by the Dragon age advancement tables.
After the game started the dragons will advance by collecting XP, instead of ageing (because by ageing, it would take a lot of time), so if a dragon earned enough XP for for example Character Level 7, it advances to CR 7.

Now the dragon advancement sometimes skips a few CR levels, so if a dragon reaches the XP threshold for a level, he would skip in the Age category table, the dragon will instead just aquire the hit dice for the next Age category (with all bonuses that come with hit dice, such as feats, skill points and Breath weapons save DCs), but none of the other abilities and bonuses the age category gives.

For example a Black dragon (base CR 3) who currently is at CR 8 (Juvenile) reaches 75,000 XP, which would bring it to CR level 9, but the next age category (Young Adult) starts at CR 10, instead of advancing to Young adult the Black Dragon now gains only the extra hit dice gained by the Young adult age category. That means 3 extra hit dice, the appropriate number of skill points and base attack and save bonus increments and new feats as well as all other bonuses based purely on number of hit dice. All other features (extra, natural armour, damage dive, size, breath weapon ranges caster levels etc.) will not be gained until the black dragon reaches 105,000 XP (and thus enough XP for CR level 10).
(This example is with medium advancement speed)

The game should end at the lowest possible maximum CR, which is I believe 18 for chromatic dragons (White) and 19 for Metallic dragons (Brass)

For ability scores I thought we could use either just the ability scores noted as base ability scores the way they are, or we take the base ability scores and see them as modifiers put on scores of 10 and 11, just like with monstrous race creation. So for example a blue dragon has +2 STR, +4 DEX, +2 CON and +0 INT, WIS, CHA, plus Whatever the current age category changes to them and apply them to a set of rolled stats or point-buy stats (at the GMs choice) for extra epicness.

So is anyone interested in playing/GMing this? I’m open for either a chromatic or a metallic team I don’t mind, but I call dibs on Bronze/Black dragon. :D

Hey everyone, it's once again wacky-animal-race-time. Todays subject is the armadillo girdled lizard (Cordylus Cataphractus)
To answer the five great W's (Wait, What? Why? W-What??!), it started of with me finding this picture: http://academic.sun.ac.za/botzoo/cindy/DSC00015.JPG
After some serious google-fu and wiki-jutsu I found out the name of the creature depicted (armadillo girdled lizard) and that it is an african lizard that preys mostly on insects and if it is threatened rolls up as you can see on the picture and actually rolls away.

I immediately fell in love with those cuties and besides trying to find out how to get some as pets i also thought i should come up with some rules for a small lizard-folk race for PFRPG for them, so here goes:

Cataphra racial traits
Small Humanoid (reptilian)
CON +2, WIS +2, INT -2: Cataphra are surprisingly hardy for their size and also wary and thoughtful, but care little for logical thought and academical study.
Size: Small
Base speed: 20 ft.
Natural armour +1: Cataphra have a thick scaly hide that protects them from physical attacks.
Low-light vision: Cataphra can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light.
Wheel tumble: Cataphra can roll up and bite their own tail to form a wheel. A cataphra can move at it's full speed while performing an acrobatics check to avoid attacks of opportunity without increasing the Check DC.
Further a cataphra moving down a slope of at least 20 degrees, can make an acrobatics check (DC 15) to increase her base speed by 20 feet for one round. If the slope goes down 30 degrees or more the acrobatics check DC for this maneuver increases to 20 and the Cataphras base speed increases by 30 feet. On a 45 degrees slope the DC increases to 25 but the Cataphra's base speed doesn't increase any further. This ability cannot be used on a slope of 55 degrees or more.
A Cataphra increasing her base speed with this ability gains a +2 circumstance bonus to her CMB for bullrush and overrun attacks.
The increased speed does multiply accordingly when making a run or charge action but it doesn't stack with other increases to the base speed, like barbarians' and monks' fast movement or haste spells.
Skilled: Cataphra gain a +4 racial bonus to Acrobatics checks.
Automatic Languages: Draconic and Common Bonus languages: Terran, Gnome, Gnoll, Goblin, Orc

All comments and criticism are welcome. :)

(Offtopic: By the way a message to Eyolf, Molly Dingle and possibly Dragonborn 3, I'm finally back and we can get the wacky animal races PbP campaign running, though instead of the shrewbles i might instead use this)

Hey everyone, GMing a campaign and having an affection for monster races I tried to give the races in the Bestiary some changes to put them to at least approximately equal power level with the Core races. They dont have to be as strong but they shouldnt be all too weak either.

They are not supposed to be the archetypical example of their race, rather some sort of paragon of their kind that are in some way more fit for adventuring than most of their kind (for example a Kobold PC could have a more apparent connection to her draconic ancestors, hence the charisma bonus, while others like for example a goblin or orc, are plainly more powerful), or in case the race has been downgraded they are actually a weaker example, maybe because they grew up in civilisation and didn't get naturally hardened, or simply killed for being less fit for survival in a tribe of their kind.

Aasimar Unchanged

Drow Unchanged

Duergar -2 CHA instead of -4

Gnoll
STR +4, CON +2, INT -2, CHA -2
- Base Speed 30 ft.
- Darkvision 60 ft.
- +1 Natural Armor bonus
- Natural weapon: Bite (1d6)
- Racial Proficiencies: Spear, Battleaxe, Longbow, Shields (no tower shield), light armour
- +4 racial bonus to Handle Animal checks made when dealing with Hyenas and closely related animals
- +2 racial bonus to survival checks

Goblin +2 INT

Hobgoblin Yet unchanged

Kobold +4 DEX instead of +2, +2 CHA, remove Light Sensitivity

Lizardfolk
STR +2, CON +2, INT -2
- Base speed 30 ft., Swim 10 ft.
- +4 racial bonus to Acrobatics checks
- +10 racial bonus to Swim checks (and all other advantages due to their swim speed)
- +1 Natural Armor bonus
- Natural weapons: 2 Claws (1d4), 1 Bite (1d4)
- Hold breath (see Bestiary)

Merfolk Unchanged (but not allowed unless the campaign is heavily sea-based)

Orc +2 CON, -0 WIS instead of -2, remove Light Sensitivity

Svirfneblin -2 CHA instead of -4

Tengu Unchanged

Tiefling Unchanged

Troglodyte
STR +2, CON +4, DEX -2, INT -2
- Base speed 30 ft.
- +4 racial bonus to stealth checks (+8 in rocky terrain)
- +2 Natural Armor bonus
- Natural Weapons: 2 Claws (1d4), 1 Bite (1d4)
- Stench (30 ft, DC 13, 10 rounds)
Probably not allowed due to the stench ability making it impossible to take a Troglodyte character into any social situation, that doesn't involve other Troglodytes.

So what do you think, should I cange anything for better balance, are they acceptably close to Core race power level? Which are too strong, which are (still) too weak?

We all know how stupidly hard it can be to find your favored weapon in a dungeon crawl and then have it be the size you actually need.

So I devised two systems in my last sleepless night, to over come this problem:

1. This is similar the simple approach, many GMs took in 3.5: As long as the weapon's intended size category doesn't differ from your own by more than one size category you can use it without penalties as a weapon of the next appropriate of its type, for example:
Dagger < Short sword < Longsword < Bastard sword < Greatsword (this also includes the changes in damage types, as the weapon with it's size is different to handle for different size creatures)
Kukri < Scimitar < Falchion etc.
If the weapon is intended for something more than one size category different from you own, you get the usual penalties (only 2 less of course) because the hilts are just too big or small to have a resonable grip on them. You also have to use them as a weapon of the appropriate size difference, for example a small character with a large size dagger (2 size categories difference) would use it like a small size longsword with a -2 penalty.

2. The other version would be to apply penalties as the books state, but to give players the options to have the hilts of weapons rebuilt for their appropriate size. Again with the rebuilt hilt the weapon changes to a different type according to its size:
Dagger < Short sword < Longsword < Bastard sword < Greatsword (including wepon damage)
Kukri < Scimitar < Falchion etc.
At the cost of the weapon cost difference. So for example a small character wants to have a medium size dagger (2 gp) to be rebuilt as a small size short sword (10 gp), it would cost 8 gp to rebuild it.
For such a change to be made a magical weapon's enchantment would not have to be broken.
But also a small size short sword rebuilt to be a medium size dagger would cost 8 gp.

I'm not sure wether to add an extra cost for magical weapons or not, for example pay for the masterwork again (paying for the whole enchantment would beat the purpose)
Craft DCs for such a rebuilding process, i'm not sure yet.

This method would make sure that a small character doesnt get for example a cheaper short sword by just buying a dagger of the next larger size category.

So what do you think? Personally i think the latter approach might work out very well and make for stylish fluff for characters, like Amiri, the iconic Barbarian who wield's a giant's short sword as a greatsword.
The only problem (with both approaches) is that weapons that don't exist in different versions can't be rebuild just like that, like halberds. But better have small size halberds that cant be rebuilt in different sizes than have no halberds for other than medium size characters at all.

So I've recently got my party going and i've thought about fleshing out the combat system a little, specifically i thought all that was missing was a proper system for attacking specific parts of an enemy.

Before I try to start writing anything, I thought I'd ask around if someone already has done something like that, or has some good ideas how to make it work (melee, ranged and unarmed). So any suggestions are welcome!

Since I didn't find any other forum to post this on, I thought I'd post it here.

A while ago I started a little picture inspired by the Pathfinder goblins. So, yeah, here is the picture.

You can also check the rest of my deviantart page for other artworks, if you like.
Comments and criticism are welcome. Here or on dA.

I will also post some updates about other pictures here.

Hello there, I finally got my Bestiary, after Amazon and the Amazon Marketplace repeatedly failed me and I managed to grab a copy at a local store.
Now I'm preparing to GM a campaign with some friends, I know that at least one of the players is going to want to play a monstrous race. Most likely Lizardfolk. So I checked the Bestiary and the guidelines for monstrous PCs out and found almost all I needed, except for one thing:
How do I figure out the Ability modifiers for each monstrous race?

Is it the same technique as in 3.5? To round down all uneven ability scores to the next even number and then substract 10?
For some races that seems to check out, while others (from between the list of recommended powerful monster PCs in the core book) seem unusually powerful. Of course I know that the Bestiary races aren't balanced out like the core book races, but it still seemed a bit too much.

PS:
On an only partly related note: Do you guys at Paizo really hate Kobolds so much or are their features really so powerful that it would justify a -4, +2, -2 ability array in a game where a standard race usually has +2, +2, -2?

Hey people I finally got my Core Book today. Man I thought I was going to explode if it didnt arrive soon. But finally it's in my claws.

Well I've been skimming some parts and focussing mostly on a few points that I have been looking forward to most.
And now that I've seen them, I have a few questions mostly to understand the motives about why they are the way they are now.

Let's start with Ranger animal companions:
As it seems rangers don't have the same choice of animal companions. The list in the Ranger entry leaves out things such as Big cats and crocodiles.
Is there any particular balancing reason behind that? I thought especially things like tigers make awesomely stylish companions for rangers. Are they too powerful for rangers for some reason, or do their abilities work too powerfully in combination with Rangers?

Next thing is Two-Weapon fighting:
The feat is effectively still the same. I thought it deserved some major changes. Have there been made improvements to followup feats from the TWF tree or does it really still suck so bad that you'd run as well without all those feats spent at all and a two-handed weapon?

That's it for now, but I might come up with more questions later.

Thanks in advance for answers.

I've been iffy about the animal companions of rangers ever since 3.0 (which is when i started DnD), the animal companion of a druid is all nice an fine, but when it comes to rangers I don't see much of a point to having an animal companion, since such are generally a bit weaker than a player character, but the ranger's companion will always be on half the party's level, making it more and more useless as the party advances. In a 20th level party the ranger could have something between for example a dire rat with +6 HD (that would give it +4 BAB I think) +6 Natural armor, +3 Str and a few nifty bonus tricks and specials, or how about a polar bear with close to no bonuses.

Now having a polar bear by your side sounds pretty awesome but considering that a player character of your level could alone take on a young adult dragon, that's suddenly not that much anymore.

In the end of it all the ranger's animal companion will just deal minimal amounts of damage (if it hits at all!) and die pretty quickly due to way to low armor and Hit points.
The only thing I see it useful for would be flanking, since the enemy will most likely ignore that little critter scratching the polish of their armor anyway.

I know a ranger's companion shouldn't be as powerful as that of a druid, but it should at least be able to do something.

So I would suggest changing the Rangers animal companion level from Half his ranger level to his ranger level-3. That would still keep the animal significantly less powerful than anyone else but it would at least not be almost entirely useless.

Thoughts?

This is actually a suggestions but it didnt seem to fit in the other forums since its neither abilities and races nor playtesting. If its wrong please move it.

On topic:

Something that bugged me ever since I first played DnD (started with 3.0) is that Paladins are absolutely unusable in evil themed parties, without using non-core material.
Every hero can have his evil opposite. The valorous fighter, and the heroic barbarian can as well be bloodthirsty slaughterers, the cunning but good-hearted rogue might as well be a backstabbing (literally) murderer and thief. the great wizards and sorcerers of light can be evil necromancers and fireball flinging destroyers. the enlightened healer and priest of the god of the sun can also be an evil undead controlling priest of death and decay. The druid bringing nature and humanoids to live in harmony with each other could also be summoning beasts to bring destruction about humans. The nature loving ranger could also be a murderous ambusher. The bard traveling from one place to another collecting great tales to tell the people and inspire them could also be a mischievous evildoer travelling only to bring despair to the people.
But the paladin? The paladin is only the paladin. And the only way to become something else is by a prestige class. The black guard is all nice and good, but it is near impossible to go with that option if you start in an evil party at level 1.

So I think it should be incorporated in the core rules that Paladins should also be able to start with parties that are not good aligned.
Why should evil parties be limited in their choice of classes?

as for mechanically, i thought it could work in a similar fashion as a cleric channeling either positive or negative energy.
So the alignment restrictions will be expanded to LG or LE (or maybe CE instead)
The evil aligned paladin will then have the opposite powers of the good aligned one (aura of evil, detect good and smite good instead of aura of good, detect evil and smite evil)
Basically the evil opposite will look like the Unearthed Arcana variant evil paladins.

So yeah, I would love to see at least one evil option for the paladin in the core material, so that class isnt so limitedly accessible anymore.