Years ago I ran a related build through Gencon. Resulted in several nerfs shortly thereafter, but it gave me some familiarity with the issues you describe.

I was playing a build where I shape changed into a giant octopus, then via shadow projection was doing touch attacks for str dmg.

Shortly thereafter the nerf hammer came down saysing only 1 str atk.

Notes: Yes, you need natural spell. Yes, you keep your ability to breath air.

After the ban hammer, you can make a build that can do a grapple to pin in the same round, due to having a familiar.

Yes, LG = Living Greyhawk.

The thing that was cool about LG was there were mods composed on the local level, the regional level, and then at the national level.

Meant there were a lot of cool plot lines, a lot of personality. Some regions were evil - and it was hard to play a paladin. Others focused on dwarves or elves.

Generally, I would say the writing was better than current, and there were hundreds of mods released every year.

More FAQ's, errata's.

More unique items available in interactives.

Retained or replicated the LG system for local / regional / national game play.

Better Organized Play environment. (not criticizing anything but the premise. Pathfinder society centralized control - but it also prevented richer and faster development of the game world.)

Scott,

1. Paizo writes game rules not legal contracts. They are often interpreted in different ways.

Nonetheless, game designers introduce these rules. Games are played. And how things work becomes canonical.

Cevah, Ferious, I telling you how things are is evidence -of what canonical play is and is reprrsentative of what the op will face if they attempt your suggestion.

2. Our previous grapple thread, where after ridiculous number of pages you finally conceded you were wrong,suggests you don't understand grapple rules.

3. I quoted the rule to you. "If you do not release the grapple" & ff.

For your understanding of the rules to be correct, you are saying the designers contradicted themselves in the same paragraph.

4. Of course one can make multiple grapple checks. No one disputes that.

The usual mechanic is this:

Grapple.
Next turn, maintain the grapple as a std action, which allows you to do various things.

Yes,feats change the type of action. No one disputes that either.

5. What is incumbent on you, is to find language that defeats the existing language:

Specifically:
*A* check to *maintain* the grapple.

Ie wording that allows you to break the standard condition on the type of action a grapple check is, says nothing about getting multiple checks in a round to maintain the grapple.

It is the second rule you must find a rule quote for, and you have not.

Another thing you must find
Is an exception for is the verbiage

"On subsequent rounds..."

So please quote the rule exception that allows you to break these two conditions.

The rule that gives you +5 to grapple in the same round, and the rule that specifically allows you to make multiple attempts to maintain.

And thirdly, mate, if you fail to maintain, the victim becomes ungrappled. You don't get another attempt to maintain the grapple.

You may, with the appropriate feats attempt to grapple again.

Yay. Another 40 page grapple thread with Scott.

Suffice it to say, if you plan to run with Scott's interpretation that it will not work at most tables.

Hair is a natural attack. Only one creatute may be kept in a grapple per limb.

Second: progressing a grapple (to pin etc) isnt the same as maintain.

Maintaining the grapple is done one time at the beginning of the round.

The grapple feats change what kind of action you have remaining

". If you do not release the grapple, you must continue to make a check each round, as a standard action, to maintain the hold. If your target does not break the grapple, you get a +5 circumstance bonus on grapple checks made against the same target in subsequent rounds. Once you are grappling an opponent, a successful check allows you to continue grappling the foe, and also allows you to perform one of the following actions (as part of the standard action spent to maintain the grapple)."

**A** check,

no, the spoiler you quoted (and that was quoted and discussed literally two posts before yours which makes me wonder if you actually read the things other people type) reads

Quote:

It is not “real” damage.

note the quotation marks you omitted. are you saying they mean nothing?

I didn't omit quotes. So I am left wondering what the hell you are talking about.

Regarding the rest of it. You are truly amazing. Somehow you can read my mind, what I understand about your argument.

And you can interpret my reticence to want to get involved in a long rules discussion with someone who posts condescending and snide posts as not understanding.

Bully for you.

the (apparently obvious to everyone else)

Wow, so now you're an expert on what everyone else thinks, as well.

rectangles and rhombi are parallelograms. that is a fact.

Yay!

nonlethal damage and normal damage are both types of damage. also a fact.

And here you demonstrate the inability to separate fact from your legendary (in your own mind) opinion.

touch of gracelessness and ray of exhaustion
... blah blah blah

No it suggests I was careless in the former case and subject to automatic word completion in the second.

I understand that *you, oh god" believe that non-lethal damage as well as ability damage - are all types of damage. Yay!

I would however point out the text of chill touch:

Here's the money line: "An undead creature you touch takes no damage of either sort."

Categorically saying that there are more than one kinds of damage, and that the undead will take no damage of either kind.

Now, getting back to the crux of the argument. Pathfinder uses short hands and colloquialisms all the time. It is not a "rigorous" definition.

Almost every single time that pathfinder refers to "damage" it is referring to damage that gets subtracted from your hitpoints. (Lethal damage). However, since that is the kind of damage more than 95% of the time - the lethal gets dropped and is understood.

According to your argument - ability damage is a type of damage.
But the definition of damage (Core Rule book) "Damage reduces a target’s current hit points." Does ability damage reduce a targets hit points?

No so it clearly isn't "damage". Thus blowing a whole in your rhomboid argument. Ability damage - doesn't reduce hit points - it therefore cannot be a subclass - it is, indeed a parallel class. A different type of damage.

{Watertank, Battle Tank} ∉ Tank.
{Ability Damage, Nonlethal Damage, Lethal Damage} ∉ Damage

No one I know allows dazing to work on calcific touch. If you wish to allow dazing calcific touch at your tables: Go right ahead. Its insane, but hey, its your game.

So, we've established:
A) That the game does differentiate between different kinds of damage.
B). That the game uses the term damage non rigorously. Damage (with no other qualifiers) refers to that which reduces Hitpoints.
C). Thats what the dazing metamagic feat refers to when it says. "When a creature takes damage from this spell".
D). Neither nonlethal nor ability damage reduce hit points. They are not damage. They do not qualify for dazing.

And finally:

No amounts of insults or condescension on your part is going to persuade me; and I doubt I will persuade you. So instead of making character attacks or whatever - why not just state your case and leave it there. Do we really have to argue about it for 22 pages?

I was thinking for a caster druid. What would you recommend for that? .

AVR always gives good advice. Adding to it:

You have almost the equivalent of a frontline fighter in your animal companion, which can be used as a blocker to block trouble, or as a mount to evade trouble.

You have two good saves, saves being the thing that kills most non frontliners.

IC is mostly a money sink: if you wish to avoid it you need to incorporate other methods of minimizing hits. Blink, Mirror Images, or a very good mischance.

Applying an armor's enchantment bonus to saving throws is brilliant. Bravo!

And so we return to the beginning. People forget that in original D&D armor added bonuses to saves.

Put me in the camp of "I will not play."

This is a losing move for Paizo.

You've been losing market share every quarter for 14 quarters. So.. whats management do?

Fragment your existing user base. Brilliant.

As I predicted a year ago - paizo would continue two trends:
a). simplification of the rules system (because 4th edition worked so well)
b). Diminish the power of mages.

So here is how all this is going to pan out.

Paizo is going to create a huge disenfranchised group that will not move to 2nd edition.

Paizo will not attract any new users to replace its old users? All those supposed new users are already playing 5th edition.

Nothing in this will attract new players. Nothing says I want to play more than - oh, yeah. All your old investment is hosed, go out and purchase $300-$400 dollars worth of crap.

What Pathfinder needed - rather than a rules reboot, was a better campaign. Micro transactionalize certs, to give paizo a slice, and then let independent judges set up a compelling world.

Its even easier not to play with things likely to result in significant table variation.

https://www.polygon.com/2017/12/19/16795148/dungeons-and-dragons-movie-rele ase-date

https://www.forbes.com/sites/toddkenreck/2017/07/31/why-now-is-the-time-for -a-dungeons-dragons-movie/#5f5883bb7f93

Pretty good article.

You forget. Bards had to start as druids.. and were tougher than sherman tanks...

Perfect Tommy wrote:

Fallacy of self selection bias; small sample size; and about half a dozen other problems.

The fact that a disparity exists doesn't mean there's a problem.
If you play the monster that ate sheboygan - there's a huge disparity between the monster and the human players.

If you play axis and allies - the allies almost always win. In neither case is it a problem.

Just because a dozen people (out of hundreds of thousands) make a comment - doesn't mean.. A THING. You can get thousands of people to agree the world is flat.

What does it mean? Not a damn thing.

1) Are you comparing people who put forward that the caster/martial disparity is a problem to flat earthers?

2) If the stated goal is historical recreation, Allies beating Axis most of the time is not a problem. However, if Axis and Allies are both put forward as equally viable factions and Allies consistently wins, that is, objectively, a problem with the game's design. And in Pathfinder, Fighter and Wizard are presented as equally viable adventurers.

Where?

Where exactly are Fighters and Wizards promoted as equally viable adventurers. Because I've searched the literature and I don't see it.
Here is a quote from the forward:

My! Not a word about equally viable, or balanced, or fair.
Now mind you, I happen to think they *are* equally viable. They all provide you an equally viable mechanism *to have fun*.

I thought my basis for making a flat earth comment was fairly clear.
You can get thousands of people to post positions that the earth is flat.
The fact that they will do so means simply that there are a lot of people that hold an opinion; that is at variance with the facts; and are willing to so post.

And the fact that they are willing to post means absolutely nothing.

The style of argument is called reducing to the absurd. Mathew claimed that the fact that a dozen and a half people posted pointed to the severity of the problem; I reduced this to the absurd by making an analogy. Thousands of people claim the earth is flat. That doesn't mean it is.

So yes, on the one hand I am comparing this comment to flat earthers. And, no, I am not commenting on posters (or even their position),at all. And I dislike your insinuation.

But it's clearly a bigger problem than the people who say things like "disparity is a myth perpetuated by wizard-haters" believe.

Fallacy of self selection bias; small sample size; and about half a dozen other problems.

The fact that a disparity exists doesn't mean there's a problem.
If you play the monster that ate sheboygan - there's a huge disparity between the monster and the human players.

If you play axis and allies - the allies almost always win. In neither case is it a problem.

Just because a dozen people (out of hundreds of thousands) make a comment - doesn't mean.. A THING. You can get thousands of people to agree the world is flat.

What does it mean? Not a damn thing.

Power builds break games, martials or casters.
Far more people choose martials. Wizards, for example were what 3%?
Fewer people playing wizards, prepared casters exacerbates the M/C disparity as posters are predominantly martial types.

Cooperative play means setting up your team members to contribute rather than glory hogging. Call it keeping something in reserve so you don't have 15 minutes work days or what have you.

Martials dominate levels below 9. Casters dominate above 9. Means that for about 80% of PFS life, martials dominate.

Yeah, he's right. Its 1.25 seconds to fall, independent of any time for the attacks.

This is actually a good answer to why you can't grapple and drop the grapple repetetively in a round - you simply don't have time.

Well, first, being grappled into a dangerous location gives guy an extra attempt to break out, with bonus. For each grapple.

Second, I'd let it fly, but recognize that some GMS might protest at 9 or so free actions.

Low will saves are survivable low levels. 5+ they are dangerous.

However, rather than magic circle, or prot e, I prefer charm monster or similar.

The duration of charm monster is days per level. Charm all your (low will) party members before going into the dungeon.

Its a more predictable result (opposed domination effects) rather than the save or die.

Toss in nostalgia oil.

Druid with shapeshift?
Item mastery?

Oh and buy 5-6 grey ioun stones. Paint the other ones.

Hardly hosed. One missile is hosed. Out of 5 on your quickened spell. In the very rare times someone has it up. And it is *very* easy to raise the DC of one spell.

Which still lets you cast your standard action.

As for shield.. Chain Lightning, shocking grasped is nerfed by mirror image. Hungry Darkness with 60'radius and virtually guaranteed to nuke your own party. And is an 8th level spell.

Dazing ball lightning is beaten by a lot of choices - EFS, Resist 20, dimensional slides.

Dazing Tar pool does half damage compared to fire ball until you're over 10th level; and still does less damage, at 7th level compared to 4.

Chains of light doesn't do dmg and so isn't qualified for dazing.

As for the DC

Spell Focus, GSF
Heighten Spell
Outlander Lore Seeker
spell perfection
Potent Magic
Eastern Mysteries
Rage Prophet

Getting high DC's isn't really an issue - especially since theres a lot of party debuffs madness domain, prayer, evil eye, misfortune, rerolls

You're not a wizard. Strange things happen around you when you read books.

So.. have a figment familiar.. protected by a familiar figment. And mirror image.

Bill Dunn wrote:

But don’t forget the 18 javelins for 36 lbs and 6 bows or staves for at least 18 lbs more.

Because anyone with a bow uses javelins and staves for....?

Silly Wolf.

Efficient quiver is for wizards. Meta magic rods, wands, staves, scroll cases.

And yes.. we need the weight savings.

no.

" A caster may only use one metamagic rod on any given spell, but it is permissible to combine a rod with metamagic feats possessed by the rod's wielder."

Not to mention - if a spont casters attempted what would the casting time be?

I was this close to working the Ottoman Empire into that but I couldn't think of a natural segue.

What, like "that was a real Turkey?"

Thats because you were a Russia-n too much.

But.. if you're Hungary for more punishment, C'mon back....

I don't think you understood what I said. The rules say what is required.
No additional penalties than what is required.

So if you are grappled, the penalty is -10. Boom, youre tied.
If you have him pinned, there is no penalty to the roll. Maintain the grapple; tie him up.

Essentially its

Grapple - you win.
He gets to escape - you win
Grapple - you get to pin
He gets to escape - you win
Grapple to maintain (no penalties)
Tie him up.

You can touch up to six people in the round of casting if I recall correctly.

I believe dragon to be correct.
While you can cast, move and touch, I do not believe you can hold the charge to touch next round.

Me wonders the group you're playin' with.
I don't have to tempt mine at all....

Gah!

I knew I should have stuck to my guns. But I couldn't remember why. But perusing another thread - This question has *already* been answered by the Design Team.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qsrb&page=3?Amulet-of-Mighty-Fists-and-Gra ppling-Can-We#135

Quoting: "The answer is no. An amulet of might fists "grants an enhancement bonus of +1 to +5 on attack and damage rolls with unarmed attacks and natural weapons." [bold] You make a combat maneuver to grapple.[/bold]

Not an attack - a combat maneuver....

So. Despite that you can take Weapon Focus: Grapple; despite the fact that humans make a grapple attack with empty hands or take a -4 to the check; despite the fact that hands are either natural weapons or unarmed strikes: Making a grapple with them is a combat maneuver, and not an attack (or the AOMF would apply).

Paranoia

The troubleshooters come down the escalator into a subway station, where they are to board a subway to start their mission. Two cleaning bots are mopping up.

Of course its a setup and the bots manage to kill 5 of the seven party, not however, including the fellow who had the huge, experimental area affect plasma weapon.

He and his remaining buddy are nervous; wondering if they can trust each other; will more bad guys appear. I tell them there is a wooshing and a light coming down the tunnel.

Without even a moments hesitation he opens up with the plasma weapon.

At which I turn to the 5 players who were returning via subway to join their fellow troubleshooters...

"Go ahead and add one to your clone numbers..."

fnord!

Comments on Vigilante

1. I believe the class to be strong, but possessing inordinate amounts of fluff.
2. This fluff makes it fairly difficult and time consuming to analyze the permutations. Not fun for beginners to do; and not fun when they see significant power variances with power gamers.
3. Vigilante suffers from two defects:
All players should be able to be famous. And while homebrew gms can do this, the biggest campaign PFS really does not. So vigilante has a class feature that all players want/should have.

Double tapped, because all players should be able to be vigilantes. And the struggle to maintain secret ID's should be role played - not handled mechanically.
4. Much of the biggest campaign (PFS) is handled in pre chunked 4-6 hour time slots, which lends itself to roll-play vs role-play. And being so good out of combat, with so many skills encourages the vigilante to shine excessively (inequitably).
5. The vigilante egregiously draws from a comic book genre; a lot of people prefer their fantasy 'pure'. And while you can argue mechanically its true to the fantasy genre...Imagine you're sitting down at a con. Party introductions:

I'm Ezildor-Arcanist of the third Golden Circle.
Me Grok. Me smash.
Ah, yes, my good associates. Pleasure to meet all of you. Borris the Bard - at your service.
I'm Batman. Vigilante.

One of these things is not like the other - and even by just a title has sort of spoiled the immersion.

Huh... 12 bodaks seem to be cr appeopriate. Saves please?

If you can't be a lich then grave knight is a good substitute

And if you can't be a grave knight.. be batman.

LOL.. personally I agree with you. But there are a bunch of bard fanatics that will pick up that gauntlet and argue it is the strongest pathfinder class.

Hiding in a crawl space, where she could be trapped and forced to use potentially lethal violence in front of children...

not purchasing an escape ladder so she can get her self and the children out...

not having purchased a very loud panic button based alarm...

There is no defense for an intruder being in her home, and I detest your attitude. As far as I'm concerned this woman protected her family and her children and my only regret is that she did not kill him.

You posit all kinds of noble intentions on behalf of the intruder. Lets posit some other ones. Suppose he had run off and broken into another home. Suppose he had raped her.

Paul Ali Slater was a repeat offender. His experience with the justice system taught him to burgle houses and removed any deterrent affect the law may have had.

Until he met mama. I sincerely regret that this man was shot. I sincerely hope that he will be able to rehabilitate and choose a better path for his life.

But condemn this lady? Not on your life.

I notice a great deal of items that are game breaking.
I notice a great deal of items that are class breaking.

Those I vote down, regardless.

After that - pricing bugs me, because effects which occur too cheap are almost the same as game breaking.

Subsequently I look for items that are useful.

Wrap it all up with formatting, and good writing.

Instead of saying things we don't like, perhaps we can have one thread of things we'd like to see...

Potion master: this may be chosen multiple times. Each time it adds one to the level of spell that made me made into a potion or infusion.
If taken three times, allows postions to be crafted at level-3 that do not have the "self" designation. EG with three examples of this path, can make 6th level potions or 3rd level potions without a self focus.

Clock Work:
Allows you to build permanent animated objects and golems. Insert nifty mechanic here.

Craft Understanding : Is unaffected by cursed items, and may at his option turn a crafting failure into a cursed item. Prior to UMDing a device or using a rod of wonder, may pre-roll the result. If he chooses not to accept the roll, may use not use the device for 1 round.
A weapon in his hands gains fast healing 1.

Magic Resistance: Can be taken multiple times. First occasion gives SR 11. Each subsequent give SR +4. Stacks with existing SR. Cannot be taken with Demonic Lucubrations.

Demonic Lucubrations: Pick one school of magic. Gain immunity to that school, and susceptibility to an opposite school. Your visibile aura reveals your immunities.

Friends in low places: Choose an outsider. Outsiders of that type start friendly, and will not attack unless you directly attack.

Racial Paragon
Increase all racial bonuses provided. If a race gives magic spells, add three racial spells at one higher level. Can be taken multiple times.

Mythic Luck: Add +1 to all saving throws. You no-longer auto fail on a 1.

Mythic wildshape Mastery: Choose one shape. Assuming shape does not count against uses perday, and can be changed into as an immediate action.

Blood of Giants: For one use of mythic power, increase your size as a swift or immediate action. May be taken multiple times. Each time you may increase your size one category.

Uncanny knowledge: Increase the crit range of a weapon by +1.

Mythic Necromancy: Increase HD you may control by 4, per instance. Animating undead requires no material costs. Additionally, with each repetition you may animate greater undead: wights, wraiths, vampires....

Willing Avatar: You may confer a measure of your abilities and appearance on a willing agent. Agent receives mythic tier 1, and level abilities -2. You may observe your agent as a move action, at will. Avatar may call summon you as a swift action, which ends the effect and you may choose to answer the summons or not.

Icyshadow wrote:

The thing is, can Israel really risk letting them all in? Jews will become a minority in "their own country".

Not too long after, they'll either be the ones persecuted again, or driven out completely like they have usually been.

They were a minority in the area for almost 500 years after being tossed out of Spain with relatively few problems. The amount of time it would take the Palestinian population to become a majority of voters, much less a majority of those with political power, should be enough time for tensions to cool off a bit.

I don't understant your proposed solution:

In order to enfranchise the Palestinians you want to disenfranchise the Israeli's? How is that a solution?

The Israelis and the Palestinians can not live in peace together now, so your solution is let the Palestinians take over Israel - and you think that will result in greater peace how?

The Israeli's have a functioning nation, with a working democracy. The have political and economic systems FAR greater than any other nation in the area. Their system of government has the best empirical results of any in the area.

And you want to replace it with.. what?

How do you fix gnomes and halflings?

Doesn't it depend whether they're male or female?

The wish should have been twisted upon asking. I would not twist it because he killed the demon.

For example: The demon might say - I have granted your wish - but in order for it to occur - you must eat the flesh of a living, sentient being.

Then - once the player does that.. he finds out that the bonus is temporary.. it has to be renewed .. daily.

Now that is the way a wish is granted from a demon - spreading pain and destruction..

Actually, more interesting would be shuriken with spell storing ability.

Are they too long (time slot wise)? - still up in the air, I think yes.

*To the point that I cannot run them on my weeknight sessions, as the ability to finish in 3.5-4 hours is just very slim.*

Does the difficult excite players or push them away? - Some of both.
Here's my belief on the whole issue, atm. I have played a lot of games, ultimately the top 5% always feel like it's "too easy" there is no avoiding that. You have to design for the masses. If you design for the top 5% the other 95% don't have fun or can't complete content. I'm going to point to how completely WoW dominated the MMO market with the "easy MMO"

You will never make a challenge for the true "uber" players. If there is a group of 6 folks who are all "ubers" and know each other well no scenario is going to touch them, while still being even remotely beatable for normal players.

There is nothing theoretically impossible about designing a mod to please both average and top players. Marathons segregate by age; bridge players segregate by skill level. So its certainly not impossible.

But I think the mindset is for solving "uber" players is wrong. Uber players don't really care about the mod, and are probably more individualistic than average. They care about dancing on the edge of disaster - and the recognition that they have skills.

So for example - like chess - they'd like to get ranking points. Just because pathfinder has no system in place to accurate rate challenges or character strength - doesn't mean it couldn't be done. With that done - you improve your ranking by winning the scenarios - the lower your power rating when you win - the more rating you gain. Death, of course, reverses that.

Go that route - and you take pressure off the mod writers to be in an arms race with splat books and optimizers...

.02

Feather fall and Emergency Force Sphere are the only two spells that come to mind as immediate actions.

Immediate actions interrupt the normal turn flow and take place in the split second before the triggering action.

So, in this case, featherfall is triggered before the falling condition is acquired.

So, in that split second - you are not violently moving- in fact if you are considered to be moving at all you are moving at much less than the usual daily distractions of walking in a dark, dank creepy dungeon etc.
Restating - you are casting before the condition of violent movement applies.

This is both RAI and RAW.

I submit to your consideration that I have been reffed at official paizo events and this is how the spell has been reffed in these events.
Additionally, this is how it has been reffed at official 3.5 events.

But if this isn't enough, a bit about RAI:
Finally, as a bit of subjective evidence. The spell is meant to be available to low level characters as evidenced by the fact that its a first level spell. Had they meant to make it unusuable by requireing a concentration check there is a chance that the devs would have made it a higher level. Ie,. the fact that it is a first level spell suggests that the developers intended it to be usable at low levels.

a). We agree that the spell is *very* strong. The event in question however is called the cheesegrinder. Bring all the cheese you can find.

So discussions about banning aren't conducive to the question. The question really is what do the rules allow.

Lets look at other examples:

Character A has a readied action that will interupt b's action. How do you adjudicate. (These are, for all purposes, the same as immediate actions).

1. Archer readies to shoot caster on casting. Caster starts casting. Archer shoots him. Don't you rule that the caster must make a concentration check due to the damage? Do you let him take a different action?

2. Barbarian charges 40 feet in a straight line vs a mage that has a contingency spell - ddor 400 feet up on a charge.

Barbarian charges. Mage teleports. The barbarian was charging to a specific spot.

Do you let the barbarian redo his turn because the mage tported away? Or has he used his turn?

3. Cleric readies a silence upon bard starting to sing. Bard announces he will use one use of bard song. Cleric casts spell. Bard fails save. Would you let the bard *not* sing - thus wasting the clerics silence?

Immediate spells and readied actions *interrupt* another action. This means that the action announced continues after the immediate or readied action.

Its not relevent what the cost of the interrupting action was - whether it was a readied action, a contingency, or an immediate action.

In fact, the costs of an immediate action (and EFS) are quite high since it burns your swift action for the next round (which could be used to cast a quickend fireball) and it consumes a valuable spell slot.

When you cast a spell, you announce the spell and the target. Neither of these things can be changed after the interruption, RAW.

"You can ready a standard action, a move action, a swift action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, anytime before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character's activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action. Your initiative result changes. For the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action.

You can take a 5-foot step as part of your readied action, but only if you don't otherwise move any distance during the round."

People often confuse an announced action with a desired result.
A player will announce a move action, and an attack action on the pointy headed wizard.

The wizard teleports away, (readied action) just as the fighter swings.
The fighter has taken the actions (move, and attack action against wizard). The fact that the results are unsatisfactory (from his point of view) aren't grounds to change the action.

The line " assuming he is still capable of doing so" refers to being incapacitated during the turn.

So, for example, fighter A readies a spear against a charge. Fighter B charges him. Fighter A will roll his to hit against fighter b using Fighter B's lowered AC. He will do double damage on a hit. Only after the resolution of A's readied action will B then be able to complete the charge attack, if his is still capable (ie., not dead, unconscious etc).

You're probably right.

Actually, I have a French guide to write; That's why I was interested in this guide...

Nonetheless Gat's comments are mostly *right*.

I *often* take a 12 con with a wizard. And it isn't the hitpoints I worry about - its the fort save. So to say that toughness is blue - is just wrong.

No less than Monte Cook said that toughness is a trap feat. If one of the architects of 3.x says a feat is a trap feat, I think you should consider revising your opinion.

Gat is also more or less right on his ranking of persistent, & quickened. I don't really go for fighting oracles, personally I thinking fighting is for fighters - so I will leave the defense of persistent to him. Personally I suspect a rod of persistent is probably better than the feat.

While a soundburst cannot be persistent (nothing instaneous can be) it can be quickened.

Gat is also right about combat maneuvers. Combat maneuvers are COMPLETELY a waste at high level - and to my mind they get that way starting around level 10.

It isn't only that your non-humanoid opponents are essentially immune to them- its that your humanoid opponents should have counters to them as well.

Lets look at the counters to grapple: Grease + alchemical grease. Contingency, ring of blinking, FoM, conjuration school, Familiar with any of a variety of wands, Stilled spells... and the list goes on.

So you are spending feats for something that I wll have a counter EVERY time by level 6.

And the story is virtually the same for trip. To start off with - as a caster - I don't *care* if you trip me. And honestly - nor will a lot of fighter builds. Sunder deprives the party resource - and bull rush and overrun are NEVER more than situationally useful. Once every 5 games - maybe?

Now one thing I do agree with the OP: Bouncing spell is definitely a good meta feat - and often overlooked. The game often comes down to action economy- you can't afford for your action to be of no consequence. Bouncing gives you a chance to affect the BEBG with a safe out if it fails.

I do however agree with GAT as well that dazing is not as good for clerics as it is for wizards - whether it retains an blue or green rating is debatable. Fundamentally, Oracles lack magic missiles or a good 0th level orizon with an elemental trait and a reflex save.

I tried to suggest that healing is also MUCH better than people realize - and that stacking healing has ABSOLUTELY changed the game. I have essentially retired a Cleric/Oracle because he broke the game. A couple of level dip of oracle with the ring/armor/headcap of mystery (being facetious) combined with the healing domain is very strong - and there are a lot of very strong combinations besides that one. When you are tossing out 90 pts a round of AOE healing that STACKS as temporary hp - NO combat based on hp is going to matter.

Anyway I still applaud the writer for the effort it takes to write a guide.

Great guide, but a few suggestions.

1. Heavens: Dazzling display is so cool its broken. Get Heighten spell and boost your charisma - (and keep boosting it) you will be ending combats left and right. Your charisma is doubly leveraged - subtracting hd and adding DC. VERY powerful.

thanatopic spell to let you affect undead.

Moonlight bridge is *blue*. Need a forcecube to protect a party member - check. Need a ladder, stair, slide? Check. Need to block a door? Check.. Need the the slide to disappear while the enemies are on it? Check. Barrier to arrows.. check.

Cmon man. Its a forcewall at ridiculous low level.

2. You have underrated Deaf. Deaf is freaking awesome. First there are a lot of ways around the down sides... read lips, telepathic bond, detect thoughts - hand languages.

Second... you are immune to wail of the banshee. sonic lance. Silence.
Immune to harpies, and cmd. the list is huge.

You can use a silence spell with impunity - not to mention thunderstones.

3. Miscellaneous

You are, if anything understating how much healing an oracle can do. Usually healing is a losing idea. However, when the extra healing stacks as temp hp.. its soundly ridiculous.

Toughness on the other hand should be orange or red. 1 HP a level just nothing to right home about.

Step up & Strike .. disrupt .. is not going to work with a caster worth his salt. Familiar activates a wand of mount then caster steps back - and you cannot step forward.

Great guide.

True strike + Combat maneuver for the win.

-or-

quickened true+strike + magical lineage + Combat Maneuver.

-or-

Eggnog Monk (quiggnog) monk + true Strike +combat maneuver

Or

True Strike + Share spell with familiar + Combat maneuver (if you want action efficiency)

-or-

human Cleric with Saurian domain + luck domain with boon companion with
lesser quicken rod + TRex animal companion with true strike on the grab...

There are .. lots of ways to make combat maneuvers useful...

cp wrote:

*controlling via daze spell*

Like Ravingdork, I am quite impressed. Even without traits you could pull this off relatively early on (you might have to wait, at worst, until 13th level) and it looks to be a very effective - and resource saving - method of locking enemies down. Excellent control wizard idea. Much thanks for sharing. :)

YW. Use it in good health. Thanks. This is my 4th or 5th most powerful build; made it as soon as UM came out. Been preaching it a lot with not too many believers. but you can fairly easily expect to lockdown 8-9 opponents in one round if you have need.

Feats are not put in the order I would select them. I'd probably put Improved Init first. Being an Elf, you also have +2 to penetrate CL.
I also didn't do anything with the familiar - and I would probably go evolved familiar.

Even slightly stronger (in my opinion) is Rime.
So, for example: Magical Lineage: SnapFire + Elemental + Rime = 2nd level spell that entangles for 1 rnd, recycling everyrnd.

Combine that with magic missile+toppling+elemental + lesser rod of quickening: you have entangled, prone opponents.

Or Combine toppling magic missiles with stinking cloud.
Or combine Sleet Storm (rimed) with toppling magic missile. So they are entangle, prone, in difficult terrain.

I would also like to respond to those people who are getting googly-eyed over Dazing Spell. It's not as good as it appears. With a +3 slot increase, your spell DCs are rarely high enough to daze on-par CR creatures.

The only thing it really has going for it are (1) mook clean up, (2) its ability to be used on unconventional saves such as Reflex, and (3) the luck factor that sometimes nails you an easy win against a BBEG.

More often then not, though, it is a wasted use of metamagic and a higher spell slot.

Ravingdork, I competed in the Cheesegrinder olympics and did VERY well using a dazing wizard. This is just encounter after nonstop encounter - and these aren't just CR level encounters - a party of 5 11th level characters can face CR 16, 17 or higher.

You're wrong about the DC's not being competive, for three reasons.
1. You can target the opponents weak save.
2. You can take advantage of the Elemental Focus line.
3. Playing a control wizard with ridiculously high init to boot allows me to strongly focus Int and dex.

I posted the builds and the DC's before.

But here's an example at Level 11:

Elf Diviner 11
Dex:18
Int: 20 +2 +6
Con 12

1. SF
3. GSF
5. Elemental Focus
5b. Greater Elemental Focus
7. Elemental Spell
9. Dazing
10b Additional Traits (or Heightened)
11. Improved Init

Traits: Magical Lineage: Snapdragon Fireworks
Eastern Mysteries

If you wish, some refs may allow additional traits to take magical lineage: Magic Missile, and lore seeker (three spells gain +1 CL).

Equipment: Less rod of quicken 35K
Headband of Int +6 36k
Dusty Rose Ioun Stone 500
Boots of dex +2 4K

So you're about 6500 K under cap.

So init is : +5 Diviner, +4 Improved init, +5 Dex, +1 Ioun Stone = +15

Each round Toss off:

Dazing, magical lineage Snap dragon, quickened with lesser rod.
DC = 10+ 1 + 4 + 9 = DC 24. Wasn't that 4 higher than the dc for your fireball? Plus this is a spell that persists and can be redirected every round with a move action. One time (which ever fight you want) bump up the DC by 2 with Eastern Mysteries.

Heightened Elemental Magic Missile
DC = 10+6+4+9 = DC 29 Will Save (again you could toss it up to 31).

This is at 11th level.

The snap dragons fireworks will daze for 1 round - but it recycles with a move action. Magic Missile potentially dazes 5 opponents for 6 rounds each.

Once your opponents are doing nothing -your fighters can do the hp damage to them at no risk to themselves, at their leisure.

And, unlike a blaster wizard, I'm unaffected by fire resistance or immunity as I have changed the damage type to cold or sonic, and, in the case of incorporeal since I am still doing 1/2 force damage - affect them as well.

And Daze is not a mental effect.