blue_the_wolf's page

So I would like to concept a BBEG that has few or no spells, is an epic battle, and still gives the group a run for its money.

I want it to be powerful, but not one shot players (except maybe on a good crit)

i want it to have good defenses but not be nearly impossible to hit or cast against.

I want it to require more than spell dump/full attack to kill it.

lets balance this for a group of level... say 10. so they have access to some hefty spells like hate, chanells and buffs.

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Off the top of my head I am looking at something with multiple attacks like a modified dragon or simply a Bad Bobby with an adamantine great axe he can swing 5 times...

I feel fine giving him some basic AOE like a breath weapon because I expect the AOE to be generally a less effective attack than the melee only used for its area effectiveness.

AC would be high but not too high... i want the heavy melee classes to hit with about 1/4 to 1/3 of their primary attacks. remember with haste around that usually means 2 or 3 full attack bonus attacks per turn.

SPells, I dont want him to have too many spells. maybe some defensive things like mirror image or blur. or maybe some utility spells like true sight, but nothing spectacular, this is a melee brawl.

this monsters claim to fame will be survivability. I want it to survive at least 10 rounds of combat getting hit hard by fighters, paladins and flanking rogues, not to mention a spell caster doing his best to get thorugh his spell defenses.

I want everyone to be usefull so no anti-magic or too many immunities fields but a high SR and Saves is nice.... also a dynamic and interesting spell defense that a caster has to figure out may be interesting.

also a great durability... I find DR, hardness and fast heal to be rather limited... unless they are closer to 25 than 10 so I think a simple enormous hitpoint pool will suffice. like 500 or so. or a combination (300 Hitpoins hardness 10 + fast heal 20 with the intelligence to avoid damage and heal when possible.)

any geneal ideas that may point me in the right direction?

So... I am considering a system to limit extreme skills.

The game gets a bit... rediculous when a character achieves a skill level that pretty much negates cirtain aspects of the game.

beyond the simple difficulty of building an adventure around a character with +30 or +40 to a skill comes the issues of group balance.

even more difficult comes the issues related to players knowing they have tweeked their character to some ungodly level demanding an ungodly results.

How do you think about this. Do you think that having characters that legally can see an invisible pixy from 100 feet away adds to the game or breaks it.

do you think that anything a player can tweek the rules to do should be acomodated by the GM or is there a mutual responsibility to a balanced game?

should the GM, fased with unreasonably focused characters simply bend the story to mitigate those insane skills or should the players basically get to cake walk where ever their special skills are concerned as a reward for focus?

I am considering a home rule that limits ultra high skills without taking away all incentive to level up a skill.

something relativly simple like at some point skills increase at a rate of 2 for 1 and later 3 for one...

or maybe some kind of RP penalty for excessiov skills (some one with a super high perception gets a penalty to sudden light or sonic attacks as an example.

just exploring the thoughts and ideas.

im wondering how passage through field effect things.

if 4 characters are in a long hallway.

50 feet ahead of them is an silence bubble.

50 feet beyond the bubble there is something creating a loud noise (source is irrelevant)

do the players here the sound? in other words does the sound pass through the bubble, any one inside would not hear anything but does the sound continue on the other side.

in a similar (but totally different sense...

same 4 characters, this time the characters are 20 feet from an anti magic field and 15 feet beyond it is a lich, wearing magic items and cloaked in an illusion making him look like a run of the mill guard at his feet is a small invisible imp the only light in the hallway is a daylight spell anchored just outside of a false window across from the guard.

each character has a different effect up, Detect magic, detect evil, arcane sight and true sight.

how would this effect the characters ability to see.

would any one detect evil or magic? would any one see the invisible imp? would they see through the illusion to recognize the lich as not what he appears?

would they even be able to see anything?

I guess what i am asking is... does the antimagic field block the radiation of magical effects or just the source.

will the light from the daylight spell radiate through or no? will a lightning bolt cast on one end wink out as it passes through the field and continue on the other side... or just dissipate? etc etc etc.

does any one know of a good general purpose set of information for construct creation?

I allowed my player to get/build a construct and the player wants to add to it... i want to allow it but I also want to see if there is anything like a race guide or magic item creation guide for constructs

any hints?

There is a situation coming up that requires the players to fight while balancing on 6 inch wide beems.

the stated acrobatics check for walking on these beems is DC 15

but how do i modify that in combat?

do they take -10 while moving at full speed? do they have to make an acrobatics check every time they swing or are hit?

do they get a +10 for attempting to move carefully?

I like to tweek my mobs. change feats, treat them like creatures that actually want to live rather than be speed bumps.

I will sometime swap out monster feats.. for example winter wolves that live in a deep forest where everything off of the trail is hindering terain may all swap improved initiative for woodland stride. or something to that effect.

its not scientific. I dont spend hours balancing the value of the feat they lose for the one they gain. I just do what makes sence or makes the encounter more entertaining (in my opinion)

I have a player that considers this fun and entertaining. monsters are more unique and encounters less predictable.

I have another player that considers this annoying and cheap. monsters have stats because thats the way they are supposed to be. change a winter wolfs stats its not a winter wolf any more, mod the game and your not playing pathfinder your playing some other game.

just wondering how other people felt about this kind of activity.

I generally run an open table meaning all rolls, mine and players, are on the table.

I recently had a player attempting to make a stealth check roll the dice, get a 1 and say "i dont think i stealthed well enough so i am going to try again."

to which i replied, "your character has no idea he rolled a 1 you have to keep that roll"

my mentality in this is that, especially in opposed checks, the character really has no idea, as a character, the full effect of their skill check. they do their best and thats it.

the player basically states that a character would know, for example they try to stealth through the trees roll a 1 step on a stick and stop moving to re stealth.

I understand the characters point on this... but when run that way everything is essentially a take 10 or 20 ... since anything less than 10 and the player says... ah... i try again.

Im wondering how other GMs rule this.

I personally stick by the 1 roll no kibitzing mentality, though my players then just go "ah... next round I will stealth again" tehn if the roll is like an 18 they expect to cary THAT roll through the next 4 rounds of stealthing. which is another problem entirely.

so I am wondering...

11th level kitsune monk with vulpine pounce...

can I charge 120 feet and make 6 attacks? (flurry of blows 5 and a bite)
or 5 attacks (flurry of blows 5)
or 3 attacks (two hit full attack + 1 bite)
or 2 attacks (two hit full attack)

or am i just reading it wrong?

what is the defense bonus when attacking from murdur holes, arrow slits and just for the sake of argument... through a grated barrier like a prison bars.

in other words

I cast cast a spell / spill oil / shoot an arrow through a murder hole or arrow slit (different things i know but lets murge them for game purposes.

would i get +2 defense because its cover that i can attack around, +4 defense because even though i can attach through it its a specialized structure giving me that benefit or is it documented somewhere to provide an even better bonus.

suppose I am in a cage fighting some one on the outside. the cage is large (5x10 prison cell) but i am swapping from weapon to weapon first a mace (large swings) then a spear (thrusting weapon) then a bow.

pathfinder does not really take into account how you use the weapon (except maybe in water conditions) so I dont think there is a difference between using the mace or spear but is there a difference for the bow? and if you were running the game would you consider a benefit to the swinging weapon vs the thrusting weapon in this special circumstance?

Im wondering how people feel about the Pathfinder Poison rules.

we have always played that the DC of a poison stacks with each dose.

we never questioned the rule hell we never even thought about how long this stacking applies we just figured if in the course of a battle a person was poisoned 3 times the DC would go up by 1 every time he was dosed ... basically that battle.

I just read the rule which essentially states that poison only stacks if your already poisoned having failed the save before.

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This is not a rules question or even an argument. its an opinion question... Do you think this makes perfect sense or can be handled better?

I find it hard to believe that a person with a fort save of 10+ can be dosed with endless amounts of black adder poisons and would only feel a little ill every 1 in 20 times they roll a 1. even if they roll a one and get poisoned again they just have to beat the next save to restart the clock.

it seems right to assume that each dose would increase the DC so that enough doses of a poison pretty much ensures that the target will eventually suffer from it.

just wondering peoples opinion on this as I am considering setting the original plan in stone as a house rule if my players agree.

Im wondering how people feel about the Pathfinder Poison rules.

we have always played that the DC of a poison stacks with each dose.

we never questioned the rule hell we never even thought about how long this stacking applies we just figured if in the course of a battle a person was poisoned 3 times the DC would go up by 1 every time he was dosed ... basically that battle.

I just read the rule which essentially states that poison only stacks if your already poisoned having failed the save before.

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This is not a rules question or even an argument. its an opinion question... Do you think this makes perfect sense or can be handled better?

I find it hard to believe that a person with a fort save of 10+ can be dosed with endless amounts of black adder poisons and would only feel a little ill every 1 in 20 times they roll a 1. even if they roll a one and get poisoned again they just have to beat the next save to restart the clock.

it seems right to assume that each dose would increase the DC so that enough doses of a poison pretty much ensures that the target will eventually suffer from it.

just wondering peoples opinion on this as I am considering setting the original plan in stone as a house rule if my players agree.

mohrg

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/mohrg

any one have any idea what the effect type of mohrg paralysis is? (poison, mental, fear, enchantment etc etc)

and what is the save to avoid it. (fort, will, reflex?)

and now that I am on it what is the save based on, charisma? str?

if a person happens to ready an action to punch a spell caster in the face if he casts a spell.
caster tries to cast and gets punched in the face for non-lethal damage

does the non-lethal damage from the sap force a concentration check just like lethal damage?

I am allowing a player to create a crystal golem but will not tell them the stats and abilities of that golem until it is created.

I am thinking about 8 hit dice, DR5/blunt, AC 21 or so.
it has a blinding flash ability by essentially using daylight channeled through its crystals. Im not exaclty sure what immunities and vulnerabilities to give it.

I may give it a berserk chance and add some kind of effect when hit by blunts weapons (blunt weapons beat DR but send shards flying.)

I want it to be fun and interesting to use but its ESSENTIALLY a pet/construct/ally for a player. using leadership I figure it should be about 2 or 3 CR lower than the player but have enough martial ability to give the player (who is a healer) a few offensive or self defensive options

just throw ideas at me and I will incorporate the ones that seem to fit best.

I was reading drag and it seems to be a stand alone ability, as in I just drag the target and do not need any prior action.

I though that in order to drag I had to controll the target in a grapple first.

am I missing something?

I was looking at the new version of heirloom weapon that came out last year.

make an elf (so that curved blade is martial for you)
chose the heirloom weapon trait and take an Curved blade with +2 to sunder

you now have a

finessable d10 18x2 with +2 to CMB/D Sunder.

there is no greater weapon in the history of the game.

ok... so I think I know the answer to this and I am pretty sure its one of those situations where the RAW makes no sense when compared to real world logic, but here goes.

I am standing 30 feet from an opponent, I ready an action to brace for a charge. The opponent instead just moves 30 and makes an attack.

do I get to attack him?

By Raw I think the answer is NO, which is RAW that defies logic but no worries.

expanding on this scenario...

instead of readying to brace for charge, Can I ready an action to attack if the opponent attacks me, and if that attack is a charge can I then use my attack action to brace against the incoming charge?

or can you ONLY brace as a specific readied action against a charge that may not come.

NOTE: this is the 3rd round of combat flat footed does not apply.

Suppose your players come across some hell wasps.

the group wizard says I roll a knowledge check.

would you make the player state the proper knowledge and make the roll...

or would you simply have them roll a D20 and ask them for all of their knowlage bonuses...

or would you simply say 'roll a knowledge planes'

I have a situation I want to put my players in but want to know how other people would deal with this situation.

Note: this game does not make use of XP. thus players are not motivated to fight thing just for the XP benefit.

also note: I have spoiler tagged the various parts of the encounter so please try not to meta your answers.

The party is level 10 or so. they are trying to get from point A to point B and are passing through a Region which is controlled by an organized community of giants ranging in CR from hill giants to rune Giants.

Shortly after entering this area which they will know to be ruled by Rune Giants with several smaller tribes of other kinds of giants as their subjects the party will be approached peacefully by a group of giants (probably a stone giant and 2 rune slave hill giants) who will inform the group that they have to pay a transit tax of some amount (say 500 to 1000 gold)

first question... how do you think the group would react to this?

The final question is... should I run this or should the party never be faced with situations they are not ultimately supposed to overcome through conflict.

does a readied action trump a swift action?

I have a readied action to cast magic missile (standard casting time spell) at my target as soon as he starts casting a spell, I am doing this to interrupt the targets spell casting.

the target knowing about my tactics from past interactions. attempts to cast a quickened Shield spell that he prepared just for this occasion.

does my standard action spell beat his swift action one?

I am trying to figure out if there is a rule for misdirecting spells, and if not is it because its something that fundamentally shouldn't happen or if its just not a quantified rule at this time.

what I mean is...

suppose you want to cast invisibility but want every one to think you teleported away.

you can say "Ill get you next time my pretty!" and cast invisibility. non-casters may be fooled but casters could roll a spell craft to determine the spell.

is there anyway to raise the DC of that spell craft? like a bluff check to trick the spell craft making the DC higher... or maybe quick casting daylight to distract from the follow up spell so that they dont realize what it was.

I know that this really falls under GM discression. just wondering how to manage it semi-legally.

This is not a rules question.

I understand the RULES for illusion of calm but the spell leaves many open questions beyond the spell.

for example...

would you allow the player to manipulate the image or do they have a set non moving image, in other words... can I create an illusion of calm that looks like me cowering in a corner, or a person in a meditative pose just like every one else in the crowd or is it always simply a person standing with their arms to the side.

I know that the spell does not hide the source of ranged attacks or eliminate sounds... but I would assume that a silenced call lightning for example would simply appear from no where with no indication of the caster.

how would you rule the perception check to hear the caster if the spell is not silenced.

If I cast Illusion of calm then sat on the ground (sitting/prone) then some one attacked me... would you give them a -4 to hit, 50% chance to miss me if they hit the illusion, count the illusion as flat footed... and touch...

It says that it creates an illusion in your space... but does not mention anything about the spell ending other than disbelief or duration.. if i cast illusion of calm, then cast invisibility... can i then walk away invisible and leave the spell in place with people thinking I am still there?

I was thinking about a situation in which an orc picks up a broken chair leg and swings it.

in my mind the voice of an annoying player said "improvised weapon, -4 to attack)

which got me wondering what is the difference... and why bother with the neg 4 anyway.

I understand that swingin something awkward like a broom or chair would obviously be improvised... but what about a chairleg... isnt that just a club? your fighting in a furnace and some one grabs a hot poker and swings it at you... would you consider that simple or improvised?

You come across a troll and whip out your trusty flame burst arrows and fire.

The troll laughs at you.

turns out this troll is immune to fire

battle ensues.

turns out this troll (for entirely valid story reasons you may not know (yet or ever) is a variant immune to acid and fire but vulnerable to cold and electricity instead.

do you find this kind of thing fun, annoying, a bad way to play the game.

what if the GM does this with many monsters, not to screw you, but the world is built that way, ALL trolls are cold/electric rather than fire/acid you can learn this information in the normal ways and these changes are made independent of the players (as in the GM is not just randomly changing things to counter the wizards empowered fireball.

I am currently running 2 games and some of the players I have played with as players in their games.

I have noticed that there is a huge difference between thinking like a player and thinking like a GM. I have also noticed that it is often very difficult to switch between the two.

GMs tend to know everything that is going on because they set up the world... their job is to react to and guide the players telling the story as it progresses in reaction to the players actions.

Players on the other hand tend to not know anything except for what they are told and what they intend to do.

when a player is thinking like a GM they have a tendency to rule lawyer, get frustrated by situations they dont understand, disrupt the story to argue insignificant points, meta game monsters and spells, and generally approach the game in a mechanical sense rather than a PC in the world perspective.

have you noticed this in your games? if so how do you deal with it... I am trying to figure out how to talk to one of my players who does this to a great degree.

I know a group of players that pretty much never search random rooms. they search the enamies and maybe the bosses room but as they are wandering around they never bother to use a search to find anything interesting in the room. Instead they simply go "detect magic the room"

on the one hand this frustrates me because no matter how difficult the search WOULD be ... detect magic auto finds it... got a magic ring hidden in a secret desk drawr?
Detect magic the room, ZING! i sense magic.. focus... focus... got it.

on the other hand the party is complining about lacking enough loot... why? because if that same drawr has no magic items but a ceremonial dagger worth 2000 gold they never bother to look in the drawer and find it.

Now... I know that the easy answer to this is that not getting loot is a valid penalty for their lazyness.

however the long term result is the game is missing certain elements of fun. The fun of conducting the search and possibly dealing with traps or just RPing the search itself for cleverly hidden items. the fun of finding unexpected stuff and the fun of having the loot they need to buy the items they want.

how do you.. or would you deal with this issue in your game?

I have tried hints and suggestions but they tend to roll over them... and when they later complain about the low level of loot in a particular dungeon and I tell them that they missed aboug X000 gold in stuff that they failed to search for they look at me like I am a horrible person for not giving it to them.

most people think that torture to get information from the enemy is pretty bad if not flat out evil.

a common answer to this is, use charm person.

but I recently had a debate with some one who made a very valid argument that using charm person is just as bad as torture.

how would you rate it?

NOTE: I am not really asking if its good or evil lawful or chaotic. its not an alignment question... its more of a cultural response question.

The party captures two assassins who just tried to kill them in the middle of a tavern. The rogue takes one to a corner and starts applying 'physical discomfort' in order to find out who sent them. The Bard walks over to the other one whispers a few magic words and the assassin immediately begins to fawn over the bard answering every question, obviously under the effects of some mind effecting spell.

How would you say the other patrons of the tavern and later the rest of the town would view the comparative methods?

I am building a scenario (actually moding an AP) in which the players will be traveling through an underground place that turns out to be the long abandoned ruins of a dwarven city or temple.

at the entrance and exits to the temple caves the players will see a pair of life sized dwarves in heavily modified stone plate armor. the statues will not radiate any magic but the armor is (masterwork, jarring, deflecting, vital guard stone plate) the idea is that the greatest champions of this ancient complex sacrificed themselves as eternal guardians in a type of deathless stasis able to arise when any one with evil intentions enters or any one who has desecrated the tombs exists the caves. (note they are not undead)

the players will be entering with the intention of passing through the temple complex to the exits on the other side of the mountain so they will not have evil intentions. but if they desecrate/grave rob the tombs the dwarves at the exits will come to life and attack.

By this time the group will be 4 level 9 or 10 fairly optimized characters and as the characters will be fighting 2 of them I want to build the NPC guardians out of level 10 or 11 Druids, Paladins or Clerics.

I am looking for advice on how best to go about this.

I was thinking cave druids or Crusader Clerics But I think my favorite choice is either Divine Defender Paladins (for shared defense and divine bond with the armor) OR Dwarven Stonelord Paladins to simulate that the guardians will appear as if made of stone.

my biggest questions have to do with balance (I need them to be about a CR 13 or so encounter), which paladin to use and general cool factor.

any ideas would be appreciated.

first: I know this is a game and real life to game comparisons are difficult

second: I know that the 6 seconds to a round rule is just a mechanical convention not to be taken TOO seriously.

third: I know that people are going to ignore 1 and 2 and take the following as a personal affront to their gaming enjoyment.

having said that.

Does any one else find the six second rule as a bit too short. It works for the convention of melee combat... sort of.

but in the longer term its really quite short.

consider that most battles against mobs and dragons take about 30 seconds.

people hustle faster than most real people can sprint.

in fact.. if you have ever done a full dungeon clearing in rounds it probably takes no more than 10 or 15 mins for a major AP dungeon.

Im not saying it should change... doing so would wreak havoc with mechanics and spell conventions.

personally I just make things out of rounds and general descriptions of events into more realistic times.

I am just wondering what you all think about RAW time conventions.

I know that hitpoints are just a convention. but I like to imagine and describe the action going on in a battle.

but how do you imagine damage dealt by little things to big things.

your halfling rogue with a dagger and a ton of bonus damage sneak attacks a storm giant... for 40 damage.

how does one think of or describe that you did almost a quarter of the giants hit points and you berly reach his calf.

your ranger shoots a gargantuan dragon with a few arrows for 1/3 of his hitpoint. how do you explain murder by toothpick at 100 yards?

after rereading the ready action rule I have realized that you can take a 5 foot step as part of a ready action.

thus if you are standing next to an archer and say "I ready an action to swing at him if he shoots that bow" he can take a 5 foot step back and start shooting but you also get to 5 foot step up to him and take your readied attack.

however.. After that attack do you still get your AoO allowing you to effectively attack twice?

also... after the archer 5 foot steps back and begins to shoot triggering your 5 foot step and attack can the archer chose to NOT take the shot and move back again in order to get out of your threat?

if he does chose to NOT shoot and moves back is that now a part of his second movement (in other words is he now using his standard action to move) or is he simply turning his 5 foot step into a normal move action to get out of range.

I have a player who has been out of game for a few weeks.

the in game story is that the player was captured by the enemy and has been tortured for much of the time he was away.

I want to give the player a positive and negative lasting effect to role play the experience.

for example I may give the character the toughness feat to represent the character becoming more resilient to the mundane pains of battle... but the character was tortured by race X (in this case Oni) and now has an overwhelming hate for them causing a DC20 will save or attack on sight when ever given the slightest provocation.

any ideas from stat tweeks (+1 will -1 con) to role play hooks that dont affect the over all story would be appreciated.

has any one ever created a table of such ideas?

I have in mind a few tactics to be used in combat by melee characters against ranged and casters.

I intend to use them both as a player and as a GM.

Im looking for opinions on these tactics.

tell me what you think in regards to legality, abuse, logic flaws, would it offend you as a player or GM etc.

1) step up: very simple it basically lets you counter the 5 foot step and cast/shoot but it takes a feat and after te first use the archer caster will simply move 10 feet instead.

2) ready action to follow the target: similar to step up but instead of using a feat you simply ready an action. so I get in melee range of the target and ready an action to follow the targets movement if the target moves any distance 5 to 30 feet you can follow and make an attack of opportunity if they try to cast or shoot within that distance. (if they move more than that they probably cant cast or shoot.

3) disarm/sunderI think disarm or sunder on the archers bow is the best couner to the archer. sure he can pick up the bow and shoot but doing so is either going to give me 2 AoO or cause him to waste the turn (and I can always disarm/sunder again) the bad thing is many players are personally offended by this and as a player the rest of the group may take offense to me sundering loot.

4) step up + ready action charge this one is a bit complicated. i take the step up feat. then I close to melee with a target. I ready action to charge when the target tries to cast. if the target casts without moving i may get an AoO, if the target takes a 5 foot step i get to step up and AoO if they try to cast. if the target moves more than 5 feet I charge when they try to cast. seems to cover the bases but i am not sure if it works by rules and logic... for example can I charge when the opponent moves only 10 feet? also can I move into melee then ready a charge?... can I ready a charge when the person is currently not a legal charge target?

5) Grapple grappling casters and archers is fun because they dont get a defensive AoO... but it seems to fall into the disarm/sunder realm. I once used grapple repeatedly on the DMs monster and the DM had a fit over it.

6) DO NOT close to melee, ready a charge this is a variant on step up + ready action. basically I close to 15 feet and ready an action to charge if the caster tries to cast. its a means of countering both 5 foot step AND defensive casting as defensive casting only stops AoO not readied actions.

what are your opinions on the tactics? once again i am looking for any opinions or advice regarding legality, viability and general fun factor. if you have any tactics that I have not though of I would love to hear them.

I think the name "BARBARIAN" unfairly limits the barbarian class from a role playing perspective. I mean... by calling it barbarian you almost have to make it some uncivilized wild man, savage, crazy person or otherwise sterio type. Which Barbarian as a class name you get the impression that every one in a barbarian village has to have levels of barbarian class. you also get the impression that no one in the city guard could ever draw on his rage in battle.

So I am looking for new names for the class.

Berzerker fits the class much better than barbarian.

RAGER I like the most. anyone can be a Rager from a savage tribes man to an otherwise calm and collected and educated noble woman who actively dips into her primal self to over come her enemies.

are there any other names that would fit the base class that uses rage powers regardless of the personality or status of the character?

An enemy wants to ambush the party but wants to talk first.

he creates a major image while the party is some distance away then when the party is close enough he has it walk into the middle of the road prompting them to stop.

from about 30 to 60 feet away he starts talking to them, conversation doesnt matter he is basically declaring his intention to kill them.

its likley that the party will charge or shoot the image which will prompt his attack.

my question is this.

BEFORE any attacks are made or any one gets any special interaction with him. while he is standing in the road declaring his intention to kill them all for the glory of his master.

should the party get will saves to disbelieve?

note: this assumes that they have not used any special spells or abilities like detect evil/magic/etc, nore have they had any back and forth conversation. although I wonder if back and forth conversation with the caster in control would make a will save or if interaction means direct phisical interaction.

my playgroup has made multi-shot a standard action attack.

We did this because an archer that can make a full round action with multi-shot does way too much damage but has his damage greatly limited when forced to make any movement beyond a 5 foot step.

with the change the archer can basiclly raise his standard action damage but lowers his full round action damage.

the logic being that no matter how you slice it a multi-shot takes a bit more concentration and skill. they can run 30 feet while drawing 2 arrows and relatively carefully line up the shot. but they cant just unload shots at maximum speed and throw in an extra arrow from time to time.

just posted so others can use this idea or comment on it.

a level 5 sorcerer does burning hands on some offending street thug.

the target is wearing leathers and cloth.

due to the wording of the spell it seems as if the target would automatically catch fire.

Any creature in the area of the flames takes 1d4 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 5d4).

Flammable materials burn if the flames touch them. A character can extinguish burning items as a full-round action.

does the catch fire component of the spell mean only non-attended items or does the spell basically cause fire to any target that can burn?

I personally give the target 2 saves, 1 for half damage and 1 to avoid catching on fire. is that reasonable or am i doing it wrong.

I am planning a good vs good scenario.

essentially a Lawful good society and a chaotic good society are in conflict.

my question is this...

which do you think is the more viable plot.

A lawful society decides they are going to 'fix' a chaotic society such as a great shining religious city out to 'civilize' the chaotic elves/barbarians/free society.

OR

A group of some sort seeks to free the people of someplace from the tyranny of an oppressively lawful good government or religion.

I know both are viable,but my question has more to do with testing the waters as to which is more viable as adventure fodder.

for example one option with the first example allows the players to be a group sent out by that society that later questions the validity of their actions. by the same token the second scenario allows a situation in which the players start of defending a wrongfully prosecuted group or individual but their activity leads eventually to leading a full rebellion.

I am kind of partial to the first scenario because it seems like it will create situations where even good outsiders, dragons and paladins may end up fighting each other.

NOTE: I once did a scenario where the players basically chose to support what they perceived as the lesser of two evils in a battle between a necromancer who in conflict with an evil cult bent on summoning an ancient demon to rule the world. But it didnt have enough moral dilemma. I think good vs good will achieve this much better.

I know that if I cast a touch spell like shocking grasp but dont attack i can hold the charge.

but what if I miss entirely? like I roll a 1 on the attack or attack and hit a mirror image.

is the spell discharged harmlessly or remain available till my next attack.

As one rises in level BAB goes up naturally with level but AC does not.

also there are many more static attack bonus feats than defensive feats.

the end result is that you hit far more often and do far more damage at higher levels than at lower which makes sense but leads to encounters that can end much to quickly.

I know that this is not a deal breaking issue for people but i wonder if its something that can be done better.

any ideas?

I want to set up a situation in which the party is being watched over a period of time via scryig. I am less concerned with the fact that players will occasionally notice the scry sensor as I am with the will save cancellation. I want to make sure I understand scry correctly and get advice on how best to use it within the rules.

I am also considering house ruling scry to be harder to automatically avoid.

this is both a rules and advice question but I am placing it here because I am also looking for oppinons.

mostly i want to understand if the NPC uses scry on a party member... does every one get a will save or just the target. if just the target the NPC can then see any one around the target also correct?

can the NPC scry an item in the Players possesion (like a give given for the purpose or a known piece of loot taken from an underling) and if so will the NPC holding it get a save?

how would you run saves and perception checks for extended scrying? 1 per spell, one per time frame (for example once per hour)

should a player get both perception AND will in order to defend from a scrying?

is there a valid way of setting up a long term scry that players may not legally detect?

If I were to house rule it I would restrict the knowledge/connection requirements but eliminate the will save all together. I would allow the players to see it using perception and if they fail but are close (say within 10) I would allow them to have an uneasy feeling of being watched but not really know why. lastly I would allow the players to attack and disable the sensors when they notice them in order to temporarily stop the scrying and possibly allow them to gain backlash information on the caster.

what say you all?

this i just an idea. kind of wondering what people think.

I kind of feel as if shield bonus should add to touch AC. I am wondering what people think of that idea. my reasons are the following.

1) a shield basically deflects things from actually touching you. I mean... except for something like shocking grasp if your holding a metal shield deflecting something with a shield should mean your not hit by it.

2) I know that this can lead to the whole "then If i am wearing plate armer then they cant really touch me" argument but I think a certain amount of creative license should apply. basically, touching an armored shoulder and touching a shield are two different things.

3) some shields are pieces of wood or metal on your arm... and others are magic disks floating around you. if its the disk type wouldn't it protect you from touch attacks?

4) at this point I am running low but you get the point.

ah.. thats it...

just an idea.