gatherer818's page

I wouldn't say that the wizard is customizing the outsider, it's more that the wizard has researched a specific outsider that already meets his criteria. Many (not all, of course) GMs already allow customization of feats on summoned monsters normally, especially for summoners and conjurers that by nature summon really often, they summon the same monsters each time and have chosen monsters with particular feats instead of the racial average.

I don't like the power mostly because if that outsider dies, you lose it. No replacement. The fact that you're customizing it makes it even more obvious - this is a single, specific creature that is even more irreplaceable than your own character (at least you can be resurrected).

A few quick reasons I play fighters:

quick to build. As long as I'm starting with what I want them good at in mind, you can slap a fighter together nearly as quickly as you can double check to make sure you added all your bonuses and aren't writing a number that's too low on your sheet. I don't sit down "I'm going to make a fighter", I say "I want a grappler... hmm... monk takes ages to make, grapple-fighter it is!"

no baggage. "I want a two-weapon fighter who..." if the next words are anything besides "LOVES NATURE", Fighter is your best choice. Likewise, "I want a two-hander who..." RAGES and HEALS are the only answers that allow you to choose something besides a fighter.

omg versatility. Sure, I don't have unique class features, but so many feats, and the fighter archetypes give me some unique class features if my fighter fits into one of them. Just a few days ago I had a player have to step outside and calm down when he tried to five-foot away from my fighter so he could cast (Spellbreaker ftw) and died to a scimitar critical (Step Up and Strike ALSO ftw).

Raw DPS, every time. Sure, the fighter isn't going to keep adventuring once the wizard is out of spells... but when does the wizard run out of spells? Half the time the wizard is complaining that there aren't enough targets left after my turn to justify an AoE...

Also, I noticed a lot of assumptions that fighters are melee... Improved Snap Shot anyone? In the game I'm running my bow fighter, I did talk the GM into letting the 'sure shot' class feature (which does the exact same thing as Point Blank Master) count as the Point Blank Master feat, to save me one more feat pick when it was going to be completely worthless, and now my fighter has a 15-foot threatened area and a selection of +1 arrows with different abilities on them and a conserving bow. Spell storing arrows are ridiculous... I've got a few with vampiric touch and one with ray of exhaustion left, hehe.

Slightly off-topic, but my bow fighter is about to get the ranged-defense class features as well, and she's got a buckler of arrow attracting... "if you tank melee for me, I'll make you immune to ranged physical..."

Darkvision as a PC power is nearly unnoticable for anyone that sticks with the party. Assuming your party has at least one person without darkvision, your party STILL carries a light source. It might be good for the rogue if he's going to sneak away from the group though, since the concealment granted by darkness is good enough to make Stealth checks with....

I'm curious, when someone said Summoners don't fit in the Golarion lore... what happens when a Conjurer hits level 20 and gets his permanent summon? Because to me, it sounds a lot like you're saying "permanent summons don't belong in the world"... Let's also not forget the original "permanent summon", a certain re-summonable panther that faithfully served his dual-wielding master as a friend and front-line for a limited number of hours per day.

Which brings up an awesome point - Eidolons need to have "character" crafted for them, too, not simply be ignored by the party as just one of the Summoner's class features. Face it - other PCs are more likely to interact with the wizard's familiar or the cav/pal's mount than spend any time talking to the melee-bunny or wolf-made-of-blood that Summoners are likely to dream up.

At this point, it seems like your best bet is to ask the player if they'd mind playing something (ANYTHING) different that actually fits in the game, killing the barbarian, and having the GM allow your players to stumble on a raise dead scroll for when the final showdown that all the original characters will be needed to win. They made a character that simply doesn't work at all with the game you're playing. They might as well as have run a Space Marine with levels in Sith Lord and a few skill ranks in Pilot(Giant Mecha).

The OP is looking at fireballing ONE monster in his examples.... that's not the point of fireball. My dragon hunter party closes in with our group Fire Resist 10 and lets the caster lay down the fury. He pings his team for around a total 15-20 between the four of us in melee, sure, but he puts out 150+ against good sized groups of minions and gets them out of the way, while hurting the lieutenants to reduce the damage we have to get on them before they drop as well. Lightning bolt is better for when your team doesn't all have Fire Resist, though, since you can angle it to blast through a few baddies without hitting teammates.

Actually, I wish our caster had opted to be resurrected instead of rerolling when he got eaten (we were ready for a dragon... not a half-dragon dire crocodile. Charge-bite-grab-death roll, followed by death roll-swallow whole... he didn't stand a chance).

That is what I was thinking, even though it seems... odd. Roll it every round and take the roll if it's higher than the static.

My problem with that, though, is that if that works that way, then why shouldn't multiple applications of dice bleed also work that way? If I can inflict 2d6 bleed 3 times, should we 2d6 three times a round and take the highest? My group might honestly just stick with the static-dice (roll once and use that) for simplicity, even though we're usually pretty solid on following RAW w/ errata.

Mosaic wrote:

Do you re-roll bleed damage each round, or continue bleeding the same amount each round based on the initial bleed damage roll?

If the bleed damage is expressed as a die roll... yup; you reroll the damage each round.

How does this work with the fact that multiple sources of hp bleed don't stack?

For example, the rogue in my party lands a Bleeding Strike that causes 7 bleed, on a target I've landed a Bleeding Critical against for 2d6 bleed. Do we roll the 2d6 each round and take it if it's higher than 7? Does the 7 bleed overwrite the 2d6 because 2d6 averages 6.5? Maybe they count as "different types of damage" since one is dice and the other solid, and now he bleeds for 2d6+7?

I always thought you just rolled the bleed dice once and kept that, and so my 2d6 bleed would have a single number on it - so it would be, say, 9 bleed and would make the 7 redundant. Now that I know you reroll the dice every round, I don't get how they work together.

True, but the ability states that it works just like a full attack and the FAQ answer clarifies that it does so. It's slightly less "activating a supernatural ability" at this point and simply "using a weapon other classes don't have". It even provokes attacks of opportunity (making it act more like a ranged weapon than a supernatural ability). If the supernatural ability in question specifically says to treat it as a full attack, and the official answer from the developers is that it works fully with two-weapon fighting, taking the two together makes a pretty solid case for treating bombs in a full attack as just another potential weapon choice.

Going back to the OP, your question about using a hand crossbow seems like it would work once between reloads, faster with the Rapid Reload feat (after all, your hand is empty between bomb throws). If you only take the first TWF feat (or don't take it at all) you only get one off-hand attack anyway. Nice for adding a little extra damage to one full attack during a combat anyway.

That said, an official answer on using other weapons during a Fast Bombs full attack would be nice. I always prefer offical errata to attempting to divine the intent of the devs - even when I'm GM'ing, I prefer players and GM alike know they can rely on the rules to determine what's going on.

I've heard it compared to a shooter, but no one can ever explain how it's like a shooter. The spells don't recharge until you rest, and rests inside a dungeon on higher difficulties are limited. Combat is almost entirely roll-based, although positioning does play a part. Tumble is nice for moving quickly through a combat (it reduces the collision you get with other models, making it easier for a tumbler to get past enemies) but it only helps you "avoid" hits if you get out of an AoE before it lands - and fireballs fly too fast for you to have predicted where the AoE was going to be and dodged it intentionally. Active shield defense gives DR, doesn't negate hits, and you can't attack during it (I don't normally play sword-and-board or actively block on my healer, so I can't recall whether you can abort an attack-in-progress and block an incoming attack or not).

Most of all, rule #1 of a shooter is not to sit still in combat so as to present a harder target. Movement during your attack animation in DDO gives you a -4 penalty to your attack rolls - unless you have the Spring Attack feat.

The only time I feel it's like a shooter or action game is in PvP - it's actually likely that you can get out of the attack animation of your opponent with well-timed dodges or strafes, or that you can get behind a caster (breaking line of sight) if he's throwing slow spells or you're a tumbler. However... PvP has absolutely no point in the game. There is no reward, not XP, not drops, not even a ranking system I'm aware of, and is always 100% voluntary with no lasting consequences (unless you use up consumables during the fight, those don't get replaced).

I'm not saying the alchemist is a terrible class at all, simply providing a few answers to the OP's question. I like the alchemist as well. I think that in most cases having EVERY melee-type splash a level in a given class is just stupid - not for rules reasons, but for flavor. It could work, but I imagine that table feels a lot more like min/max central than a storytelling station right now. Even the barbarian spends a few hours a day carefully measuring reagents and applying heat for precisely measured minutes.

Being able to drink the high-level alchie's mutagens is... impressive. The costs on Infuse Mutagen are a bit high to mass-produce them, but I could totally see major battles being decided by the entire party producing Grand Persistent Infused Mutagens from under their cloaks and totally "hulking out".

Thanks for doing the footwork on Mutagen AoOs. I might consider houseruling that - it is literally the exact same action as drinking a potion, after all - but it's a bit too late for that in the OP's game (waiting until after everyone has taken a level in alchemist and then changing how the mechanics work is simply dirty), so that's not an answer.

If you're not using an already existing city as your campaign area, if it's taking place in an area that's being defined by you instead of out of a canon book, you might consider having certain types of alchemy banned in some areas or for a time period. That hurts your main alchemist, though. I'd make sure to limit it - only mutagens is specific enough that your main alchie still has options without breaking the law every time he acts. There's all kinds of rationale you could use - maybe a Master Chemyst attacked the mayor's house in his transformed state, or some other alchemist archetype was doing experiments he maybe shouldn't have and something horrible happened. Maybe a mage guild simply managed to draw together some support to have mutagens banned through political clout. Getting them unbanned could become a storyline (mostly non-combat, even) - or your players might prefer to live as outlaws, always carrying a black market substance under their cloaks and having to make tough decisions on whether or not to risk using them.

As long as you and your players are having fun ^_^

given the official FAQ answer, I can't see any way that using whatever combination of one-handed weapons you wanted wouldn't be ok with TWF. Mix and matching thrown weapons, using a one-handed melee weapon (bombs presumably count as light weapons), or using a one-handed ranged weapon (which are few and far between - I could see a single round from a crossbow, but you can't really use a longbow one-handed). Of course, you found a way around that with the revolver... and I might point out that you can get an extra arm as an alchemist. You could reasonably TWF/Rapid Shot bombs with bows for tons of fun. Suddenly I'm thinking of what cannot possibly be an optimized build... but dual-wielding bows with an alchemist seems like too much fun. Maybe I'll focus Mutagen-side and make him dual-wield greatswords instead...

that's... excellent. I knew you could attack from prone, and have used it on both sides of the screen, but for some reason I thought prone creatures no longer threatened. Threatening with reach from prone is hilarious to me. I'm going to have fun with this. Thanks all.

well, if the first thing they do in any fight is use their mutagen, there are a few easy foils. First, they are wasting a standard action on it. If the enemy surprises them or is able to quickly close, or is effective at range, then they're giving away a free turn of combat to the enemy who will use it to damage them. Second, it doesn't seem to say in the alchemist class description whether using a mutagen provokes attacks of opportunity. I'm sure a little searching whether or not it does, but my guess is that it does, since it's basically a potion. Again, enemies who surprise them or manage to close before their first move get more free shots.

Attacks of opportunity or readied actions can be used to attack the mutagen as well, breaking it so it can't be drunk. If they're using the Dexterity boosting mutagen, they're taking a Wisdom hit, so Will-targeted spells or SLAs are good. Finally, they need an hour to make a new mutagen after using one. In a dungeon, they might not have that much uninterrupted time - unless they retreat from the dungeon entirely between every battle.

---

You might consider whether or not to use any of these ideas, though, as you say it's not really a bad thing. Also, they're depriving themselves of benefits from their levels in their main classes. If you want to be really mean about it, design encounters where a class ability they'll get next level would be really useful - a class ability they'd have if they hadn't splashed alchie.

EDIT: GM Hands of Fate reply wasn't up when I posted this, it was intended to go after TarkXT's post.

yeah, I failed to address that point. An ill omen from the god? No, as the god mostly doesn't seem to care (although the small settlement bit, as well as it being hearsay that the creatures deserved it, might deserve attention). I got distracted by the thread and thought we were discussing an alignment hit. A warning that he's approaching an alignment change is perfectly appropriate, but power loss of some sort isn't called for in this situation unless you want to go from the "small settlement" angle, and even then probably only if at least a few of the murdered had never participated in raiding other villages and such. And I'd still go with a warning first.

EDIT again: To GM HoF, I'd strongly remind you that if the cleric is NE and his god is true neutral, that is not a situation where he should lose his cleric abilities. He does lose the ability to cast spells with the Good descriptor (and if he currently channeled positive energy, he'd have to switch to negative, but that's moot here). As long remains neutral on one axis or the other, he's good as far as alignment is concerned. He can't go to any of the four extreme alignments (CG, CE, LG, or LE) without losing his powers, though.

Hrm... Lurk3r, this just totally destroyed a character I just made. On looking it up, it seems it was ISWG/UC that nerfed it, as the APG doesn't mention it anywhere. I suppose I can live without, but only because the character has a ton of survivability. I withdraw my advice to the OP, as my weapon of choice seems to no longer be reach.

that really depends on how sure they are that the people they're killing deserve it. If they're so much weaker than the party that one channel is killing more than half of them, the party should probably be talking to them and giving them the chance to stop looting/raiding/whatever. I mean, they're really like children compared to the party at this point. Your player is throwing hand grenades through elementary school windows because he heard that the kids like to kick stray dogs.

If you try to talk and they attack you, fine. Self-defense is far more neutral than wholesale slaughter, even if it's not necessary (a single entangle, which he's probably getting from a Domain, would likely also solve the issue). At least this way they have a chance to defend themselves.

I'd personally definitely warn that player that he's risking moving to Neutral Evil if he continues slaughtering unarmed, unaware sentient humanoids because he's heard rumors they might be violent. Not that moving to NE would really affect him - a cleric can be one step removed from their deity, if I recall correctly. As long he doesn't ALSO move on the law/chaos axis he should fine. He can continue enforcing his god's will via brute force all he wants.

(However, if you as the GM want to be evil, you might consider... his god protects small settlements? If the creatures lived in those locations for a while, they could count as small settlements. Directly opposing your deity is a much worse choice than not exactly matching their alignment.)

um... can anyone point me to a place that specifies that prone creatures don't threaten squares / can't make AoOs? The fact they keep their reach made me go look... and I can't find one anywhere. The thought of a sleeping dragon landing AoOs (after someone wakes it up, but before it stands up) makes me giggle.

oddly enough, it doesn't seem to say in the description what happens to summoned creatures already within the area of the circle when the spell is cast. Does it shunt them out or do they get the benefit of the protection spell as well? Both? I was hoping to provide some kind of RAW justification one way or the other, but I can't find anything to grasp onto that hasn't already been mentioned. *marks as FAQ candidate*

Per my previous post - I was wrong. Every poison that lists 2 saves for its cure indicates 2 consecutive saves. It is possible to create poisons or other afflictions which don't require consecutive saves, but the guideline in the book and which every poison and disease in the book follows is always that the saves must be made consecutively.

To the OP's question about flanking - According to what I can find in the rules as written, it seems to be impossible to flank a creature sharing your space. They're still assumed to be "everywhere" in the square they inhabit, and so if you're sharing your space with the creature you can draw no flanking line that passes through opposite sides of their square.

---non RAW---
I'd allow it as a GM myself, maybe allowing the creature to choose when it moves which side or corner of the square it is in (and therefore which three squares it could be flanked from - for example, a creature in the north-east corner could be flanked from the north, east, or north-east bordering squares, while a creature on the south side could be flanked from the south, south-east, or south-west squares) if I wanted to get technical.
---back to RAW---

Do note that creatures that take more than one space can still easily flank a creature sharing one of their spaces, as they may choose to draw their flanking lines from their own center or the center of any of the squares they inhabit. A Tiny creature inhabiting one of those squares could be flanked by the larger creature drawing a line from any of the squares around it (and would have a large number of options for doing so - more than most creatures can be flanked from. Typically, for one given flanker, the flanked creature can only be flanked from one specific other square - a Large creature sharing one corner of its area can flank with creatures in three other squares).

I should also like to point out that there is no "amulet" category of items, ergo, the text in the Bonded Object rules is useless here. By the strictest literal interpretation of RAW, an Amulet of Natural Armor cannot be used as a Bonded Object, because it's magic item category is wondrous item.

That said, in my own games (and likely any reasonable GM's games), I'd allow any neck slot item that was either a necklace or something suspended from a necklace to work. I might even go so far as to allow anything that took the neck slot by assuming that was the writers' intent when stating an amulet category, but that's veering out of rules forum territory easily.

I've always read it as "the new spell dispels the old AND still applies to the target normally", although this thread makes me wonder. I too will nominate the OP for inclusion in an FAQ (not that my opinion is a huge deal on these boards, but one more voice can't hurt). I'm also not sure whether I'd apply the dispel effect of slow (against haste) regardless of the save/SR of the target.... I can't find rules that say it definitely works one way or the other, but my interpretation of the opposite effects rules still makes me lean to my original interpretation.

Outlined creatures do not benefit from the concealment normally provided by darkness (though a 2nd-level or higher magical darkness effect functions normally)

This is annoying the life out of me. The exact intent of the line isn't clear - does this mean that the creature no longer appears outlined (let's assume the area is NOT "supernaturally dark" - only reduced to dim light or darkness) in the area of any darkness effect? Or only that it doesn't shed the light - the creature is still outlined, but doesn't provide the candlelight effect?

Drow stand to play a fairly large role in a story arc or two in the campaign I'm in, and they get both darkness and faerie fire as spell-like abilities.

Callarek - I'm not looking at the PFRPG at the moment, but I seem to recall some poisons specifying consecutive saves and others not - I believe only the ones that specify such require consecutive saves. I'll come back with support (or an apology, depending) when I get out my book.

the Urumi (also called the Flying Talon in some of the splat books). To my knowledge, it's appeared 3 times in official Paizo stuff, so you don't have to go to 3rd party material (one of the pathfinder world setting guides, the Adventurer's Armory, and the APG I think). The description seems to vary from source to source, but it's a bladed weapon that does slashing damage and can be used one-handed to attack melee OR reach (it doesn't have the spear's drawback) and has a very nice crit range. It's Exotic, of course, it's a bit tough to be a martial weapon, and if your GM likes to use critical fumble rules expect him/her to be VERY harsh if you ever fumble one (it's the kind of weapon that asks for it - excellent stats and a description that always implies it would be nasty to mess up with).

It should be on the PFSRD, I believe.

I often like to throw away XP systems, but I should mention one important thing you should consider before you do: Parties where members aren't the same level. As Pathfinder doesn't currently have a RAW way (I know of) to handle PCs that need some kind of level adjustment, the XP system can be used to automatically handle it. In the game I'm in, the party consists of one character each at level 7, 8, 9, and 10 - created at those levels. The 10th level is a human, the 9th a tengu, the 8th a natural werewolf, and the 7th a half-dragon drow noble. They're all about equal in power for now, but the race benefits will start to mean a lot less at the higher levels (we expect this game to go to 20th, if not to epic), so just saying "now everyone level up" will leave the drow permanently 3 levels behind the human and he will start to be seriously handicapped later on. The XP system automatically handles this by letting him level more often - by 20th he'll probably be the same level, but at that point most of his abilities won't be too unbalanced compared to other 20th level characters. And he'll still always be the last to level up...

Sorry for the thread necromancy here, but I was hunting rules for this myself and didn't know it had been errata'd until I found this thread.

Just my opinion, the reason for the change is probably so that a Vampire can't control several Vamp Spawn and command them to make enslaved Wight Spawn as well, controlled by the Vampire through the Vamp Spawn. Especially since Wights seem to have no limit to the number of spawn they can control.

A lone vampire of only 5 HD could still end up controlling entire armies that way - especially if one (like myself) doesn't own Classic Horrors and is playing by the RAW, since nowhere in the Vampire entry does it say they need to or feel discomfort when they don't feed. I was trying to come up with a reason vampires would feed besides already being in the middle of a fight and needing to augment their fast healing - much easier to energy drain the pesky adventurers out.

Vampires are a ruling class in the world I'm making, so their mechanics are important to me. I'll see about obtaining Classic Horrors for myself...

Idran wrote:

Oh, so it does! Haha, my mistake. Thanks!

If I remember correctly, it happens when dragons reach a certain size category and that size happens at different ages depending on the type of dragon.

Just a quick Create Undead Thread spell here...

It can't be size-based specifically, because Reds (and likely some others) get it at an age category where they don't get a size increase..

Red Dragon
1 Wyrmling Small
2 Very Young Medium
3 Young Large
4 Juvenile Large *gains Frightful Presence*
(cont...)

I couldn't find where to find WHEN they got it either, I just totally didn't notice the charts at all, so thanks to the person who answered the OP (and thanks OP for asking).

I'm thinking this too, but not finding anything definitive. By the exact wording in the Overrun, Trample, and Improved Overrun descriptions, it seems like having Improved Overrun on a trampler would negate the AoOs for trampling (but not the movement!) AND the reflex saves... which seems slightly OP to me. But it seems to work by RAW.

Unless your group plays strictly RAW though, likely your DM would rule that it forces them to always choose "avoid" and never attempt the AoO for your Tramples, even though the Improved Overrun feat says that it makes targets unable to attempt to avoid you, it would just be overpowered, even with a two-feat cost to get there.

So, by my analysis, Rules As Written: YES, it negates BOTH the AoO AND the Reflex save for trample; Rules As Intended: YES, it negates the AoO but NOT the Reflex save.

Aren't Illithids available from other sources anyway? I could swear they can be found in Lovecraft... I know Aboleths can, but my Lovecraft knowledge is terribly lacking for now. I'm pretty sure WotC/Hasbro couldn't possibly own them completely. They've been a pretty strong presence in literature for a long time now, haven't they?

Beholders and Displacer Beasts were created, to my knowledge, by DnD for DnD, but I could swear Illithids were based on an outside source.

And to the people claiming Hasbro could forgo the OGL and claim ownership of every monster in the monster manual - it's impossible. The Sphinx, the Dragon, the Fairie, these things have existed in literature and art since long before the United States was founded. You might as well try to claim exclusive use of the word "God" or "marriage" or "law".

If only the creators of the "limited" monsters had thought to only give unlimited use of, and not right to control all use of, these monsters when they created them. I'm sure they were made with the intent that roleplayers everywhere should be able to fight them in the darkest dungeons of their collective imaginations.

all that stuff Smerg just mentioned are fantastic tricks :P

if you're not happy with those, I might suggest a flying talon and Imp/Greater Trip feats. (Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting book) - I have a twin-flying-talon halfling fighter using AoOs to trip people who try to get into melee, getting free AoOs on anyone they trip. His main purpose in the party is to not make his two caretakers have to worry about him (a monk and a barbarian) so they can do the killing, but he does a bit of killing himself.

To get to him, you have to run up to 10 feet away, stop, suffer a full attack from a two-weapon fighter with Greater Trip without getting tripped once, then 5ft step into his range, OR charge through and provoke the AoO and pray you don't get tripped by it.

+1 DM Blake.

Not counting terrain penalties until you move out of it would open up all kinds of ridiculous situations like Blake mentioned, walking inside a wall because it didn't count against your movement until you left it would be perfectly legal that way.

The only time that leaving a square is important is for opportunity attacks (because people are watching for you to make a mistake as you turn tail to flee the square), the square itself "attacks" you when you enter it.

shields are always strapped onto the arm and shouldn't be disarmable, EXCEPT in the situation of using the Equipment Trick (Shield) feat from the Adv. Armory. This feat allows you to unattach the shield from your arm and simply hold it and still gain the benefits of having the shield, and then you can do stuff like throw the shield at people from that position.

If you are NOT using this feat, you cannot have your shield disarmed, ever, in RAW. It can still be sundered though.

heh, Charm Person. Our party is loving the "make an opposed CHA check to make him do something he wouldn't normally do". We have a witch in the party with only social spells known (Witch fit his concept much better than bard, even though a bard would be a better social caster). He's so abusive.... He soloed an encounter that should have been party-appropriate last night. Never again will our DM use creatures that are all commanded by a single leader.

I don't get all the Summoner hate. Maybe some people haven't read the final version. Eidolon doesn't get Augment, Eidolon takes away the extended summon SLA, base form restricts the mix/matching (min/maxing) of abilities, has a cap on number of natural attacks... I'm switching my Eidolon (with my DM's permission) from quadruped (permanently losing the ability to Pounce) to biped so that his reach will be better, since biped gets a reach enhancement to all natural weapons from size, and it's more important for combat control than the usually-first-turn-only benefit of the Pounce attack. Combat Reflexes is far more important than having 4 or 5 attacks per turn.

@KaeYoss - first post - lul lern2readthread noob lololol

@KaeYoss - second post - I find I completely have to agree with you there. Unless they were playing some weird houserule system, a DM that arbitrarily says "Your character dies because I said so" fails miserably at DMing and probably needs to graduate middle school. The system is designed to let you do heroic stuff like allow the dragon to swallow you so you can target its soft fleshy innards (referenced fairly often in movies and literature, too - Dragonheart comes to mind, but I'm sure it's not the only example out there).

rather than starting its own thread, this seems like the place to ask: what if the attack of opportunity has a movement ability linked to it?

A creature with the push, pull, or trip special attack as part of their primary natural attack comes to mind. I think I asked this elsewhere but can't find it :( If you are pushed, pulled, or tripped during your movement, where do you end up? I'm almost certain trip ends your movement immediately but with push and pull do you get to finish your move?

Rogues aren't meant to be massive DPR monsters except when their tricky ways permit them to set up sneak attacks. Sure, many monster types are immune, but many are not. More importantly, they do the scouting, the trapspotting / disarming, they likely work out the more obscure magical items and puzzles the group finds (UMD = awesome skill), they're backup spellcasters and healers and fighters in combat (Fighter: well guys, the cleric is dying, and no one has the Heal skill. And he's at -12. Give up and go home? Rogue: Or I could just activate this Cure Serious Wounds wand I found in his pocket. *CSW* welcome back Cleric! Cleric: Oh, I'm ok! But I seem to be missing a few wands...)

Fighters fail to contribute to anything besides combat. He SHOULD outshine the Rogue in combat. But a smart Fighter will move to help the Rogue flank. More than any other class, rogues benefit from teamwork.

"How do I do my sneak attack damage? oh noes!"
Actually attack from surprise (can do it twice with a decent initiative, once in surprise round once (as a full attack!) while target is still flat-footed in the first round of combat); flank with anything that threatens the target (hey wizard, do you need your cat for a minute? Can you have him set me up a flank? BOOM +10d6!); Make use of feinting / the Improved Flank feat; have the Wizard throw a spell that sets up sneak attack (Hold Person and Deep Slumber come to mind, but there are lots of situations in which you can sneak attack thanks to conditions caused by spells)...

ignoring the religious aspects of the words, since Pathfinder doesn't mention any religious connotation to the Witch class, the Witch and Warlock (from 3.5) are both arcane spellcasters who receive spellcasting ability from a mysterious outside force oft rumored to be demonic, devilish, or fiendish.

But there's no Warlock class in Pathfinder yet, so my group's male Witch calls himself a Warlock. We see no problem with this.

What the witch is NOT, in Pathfinder: (s)he is NOT Wiccan, pagan, or by default associated with any religion existing in Pathfinder or the real world. She doesn't necessarily revere nature (or Nature), worship Gaia, or do anything else real-world witches or Wiccans or pagans might do as part of their belief. If she uses a pentagram in her spellwork, it does not (for her) represent nature necessarily, although it can.

The Pathfinder Witch is quite obviously based on the witches that are parts of our old-wives'-tales and does things like curse people, brew foul potions, and talk to their favorite pet far more often than most people consider normal. This is much more "Wicked Witch of the West" or "Hansel and Gretel".

(Side note: the male witch in our group started with what seemed like a stock generic background: only survivor of a bandit raid that wiped out his town as a young boy. Instead of being raised by wolves / adopted by another race / sold as a slave, though, he wandered the ruined village and found a fox that had been tortured by the raiders for sport. He took care of it, trying to save the only living thing he could in the village, and after it recovered, it began speaking to him. An unnamed dark force spoke through it to teach the child how to use magic to stay alive and grow stronger, which he wanted to do in order to protect others from the same fate... unfortunately, this dark force requires blood sacrifice of living sentient humanoids on occasion. He maintains his Chaotic Good alignment in spite of the occasional sacrifice by being an absolute bastion of Good the other 99% of the time... plus he's negotiated with his patron so that mostly evil persons are chosen for sacrifice.

He took Cauldron and Charm as some of his first hexes, Charm Person and Hypnotism for spells, and attempts to avoid combat whenever possible, especially when hunting his sacrifice. He creates Drow Poison and uses spells and Charisma-based skills to isolate his target and subdue them for sacrifice.)

That's what I get for not also having the Corebook open and referenced while I type. You are completely correct, and I was wrong. The offending line has been removed my previous post.

My other points - mostly pointing out that the most argumentative person whose posted so far can't even agree with himself - are still valid.

so the argument "the SLA and the Eidolon share the same energy source" (which is false anyway)

Quote:

They DO share the same energy source which is why you can only have summon monster OR the eidolon.

I never claimed otherwise. My statement was that a Su ability and a Sp ability can share the same power.

Yeah, about that....

That was the official line back in the playtest before they added the "Summon Monster I (Spell like ability): This uses the same summoning power as the summoner's eidolon." line to the summoner description.

They DID remove the restriction to only summon him once per day, which is nice. Still got the "can't resummon the same day if he dies", but they also changed that to "the following day" instead of "for 24 hours", so I don't have huge periods of uselessness now :D

The fact is no tag was applied to the eidolon ability, nor does it specifically say, so barring errata, it's gonna be down to the DM. My current DM isn't going to allow it because I was too powerful while I was using the playtest class... which sucks because now that I'm less powerful he's gonna cut my power even more (I was using Augment on my Eidolon until now). Here's hoping after they see how the final version of the summoner works they'll make the errata specifically say one way or the other to clear up the confusion.

*none of the "quotations" in this post are direct quotations, but my APG was open and referenced during its creation

My usual reply to "Well a Fighter always beats a Wizard in an antimagic field" is "how did the fighter cast the AMF?".

Answer #2: "Since the Wizard is the only arcane caster on your theoretical (retarded, since 1 fighter vs. 1 wizard only happens when BM turns on Fgtr in 8-bit Theater) battlefield, he dismisses his AMF."

No, I've never even looked to see if AMF is (D) :P argument over.

If there's a permanent AMF that they have to go through, the Wizard still has options, if he gets a chance to prepare. Disjunction I think can break it, Divinations can find a way around it, perhaps you can Shape Stone a wall out of the way and not have to cross it.

But the biggest thing is, inside an AMF, a Wizard is going to pull out his Spear with reach and support the fighter by getting Attacks of Opportunity and providing Flanking bonus from outside threat range. And as soon as they get through the AMF, the Fighter's not gonna complain "wow you were useless". He's gonna say "oh hey you got more spells than usual since you couldn't cast any earlier, right? So I should wait to charge until after you Fireball the hell out of these guys? Thanks buddy *hugs*" and then BM will backstab him - HARD.

Tatterdash - "crunch" is the opposite of "fluff". Crunch is the hard numbers and data and patterns that can be analyzed to determine the relative power level of a particular feat/class/spell vs. others. Crunch + fluff = roleplaying.

The problem with "broken" isn't that when something seems overpowered, the DM has to work harder to overcome it. It's that the other players in the game have no fun. In a solo adventure, use whatever you want. Your Half-Dragon Half-Celestial Drow Monk w/ Vow of Poverty and Ancestral Weapon is fine in a solo adventure. As a DM, I can adjust the encounters to match so it's still fun and challenging.

That same character dropped into a party of 4 characters who are completely normal PCs, however, "breaks" the game. If I challenge the broken character, the others can't participate or die immediately. If I scale the encounter appropriately for them, the powergamer kills everything and the others hardly get to play.

Time for me to show my ignorance - I understand fluff, crunch, and DPR - what's "Gish"?

I don't mean to be snarky or anything, but do people seriously use this book? My friend bought it, and I'm looking at it, and it seems seriously ill-considered. It doesn't appear to have been playtested or in many cases even just proofread before being released. I found an errata thread that slightly clarifies a few things that weren't adequately explained in the book (like the Artificer's spell-table, which appeared to list number of inventions although it's been clarified to number of spell-effects - even though the table is clearly marked inventions), but there's still so much that is fairly broken.

Just an example off the top of my head - I seem to recall the Warlock getting three 1st level school abilities by second level. The issue is that my friend's copy only had one 1st level school ability in it. The other two picks are wasted.

So Warlock sucks from 1st to 3rd level... then they get access to unlimited-use day-length summon monster II. Level 4 Warlock can summon a new creature (or 1d3 weaker creatures) every round forever.

I just can't imagine talking my DM into letting me use the Warlock, ever.

OgeXam - according to the Summon Monster I spell description, creatures you summon using it act on your turn. They do not roll initiative. If your place in the initiative order changes, so does theirs.

The Eidolon, existing prior to the start of combat, I'm assuming gets it's own initiative. I see nothing in the Eidolon description to contradict that.

My group only uses "shared initiative with master" for creatures that explicitly list it....

So summoned monsters and familiars move on their masters' turns, while animal companions, cohorts, followers, and eidolons roll their own initiative. I could see consolidating them to give each player one "turn" per round, though.... just depends on your group's style.

it doesn't help for summoning creatures, no, unless you're casting a spell that requires the summoned creature to save against you (I think gate? Probably planar binding too, my summoner isn't a high level yet), in which case it adds to the DC the summon needs to beat to resist you.

Don't forget the non-summoning spells that it likely boosts, especially if you're a conjuration-specialist wizard: lots of acid spells and some force spells. Just because the iconic acid spell - Acid Arrow - doesn't allow a save, doesn't mean all the other "no SR take acid damage" spells don't allow saves - and SF:Conj makes them that much tougher.

(And then, Augment Summoning is so broken that it deserves to have more prereqs anyway - you know the little Viper you can summon with Summon Monster I? You know its poison save DC is Con-based, right? So Augment Summoning adds two to that DC. Also, see if you can get your DM to let you repick feats for your summons, especially getting rid of worthless feats like Improved Initiative (since the summon doesn't get to roll its own initiative) and take things like Ability Focus: Poison (ANOTHER +2 to that DC!). Last night my summoner picked up a Lesser Metamagic Rod of Maximize Spell and tossed a Summon Monster III through it for 1d4+1-maximized-to-5 Vipers with boosted hp, fort saves, chance to hit, bite damage, and a 17 save DC on that Con poison.)