gnomersy's page

As far as Dex Magi go, since they were mentioned upthread, is losing the +4-5 damage from Dex bonus that crippling? My level 1 PFS Magus has an average damage per round of 4.83 without spell combat, sufficient to do about a quarter of a CR 1 creatures suggested HP. Tossing shocking grasp in and I do 6.16 damage per round on average, assuming a target that has the same touch AC as normal AC and non-metal armor. That goes up if they have a lower touch AC or metal armor. Sure, Dervish Dance could add some points to that, but for a 3/4 BAB class, I'm happy to knock 25% expected HP off a CR-equivalent foe on average. Toss in one buddy and the fight will be over in two rounds as often as not.

I agree, finding a cool feat and then getting the rug pulled out from under you sucks, but losing Dex to damage isn't crippling.

Sorry but what? Let's look at your example of a Magi with 4-5 dex bonus and a plain ole rapier. Average on 1d6 is 3.5 damage average on 1d6 from shocking grasp is 3.5 assuming the lower end of dex you lost 4 damage out of 11, more than 1/3rd of your damage output. Is that crippling? Would you call going from a perfect grade in a class to a D a crippling blow?

Over time this certainly ends up being less significant as the bonus damage from spells outweighs the raw damage from stats fairly quickly but even at level 5 with shocking grasp at 5d6 = 17.5 damage +3.5 weapon = 21 the probable 5 dex you have is still roughly 15-20% of your damage. That's still a significant loss. As far as tossing in buddies sure but that doesn't change how much relative power your build lost in the process.

And if we assume that build already wasn't oppressively overpowered in comparison to raging barbarians or warpriests or whatever it's a big deal and it makes it so that the class is even more dependent on spellcasting which impacts the value of its archetypes like kensai which slow down the speed of casting progression as well as reinforces the 15 minute work day because you need to be using more spells per combat to keep up your damage numbers.

These changes have much wider impacts than just the one feat that gets nerfed it changes how characters need to be played it might invalidate entire feat lines. And yes I can just rebuild a new character but it's a constant annoyance to have to do so particularly if I am at all invested in the character and the story sure I could just play him as a s@&$ty version of his old self but why would anyone want to?

For what it's worth it also makes it harder to learn the system because the information you thought you knew is now false and there's a bunch of books out there full of not just slightly wrong information like oh this ability that happened at this level and which you were almost sure replaced that ability does in fact do that but rather oh yeah everything about that archetype is different or that feat doesn't do what it said at all or instead of permanently it does it once a week.

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Frogsplosion wrote:

this is not a competetive game. nerfing things is unecessary. I am 100% on the OP's side and think paizo should knock it off with the obvious power nerfs and let home DMs handle the issues. If they dont like something in PFS, ban it and stop messing with everyone else.

By that logic - balance doesn't matter at all. RPGs should stop worrying about it entirely and they should go purely by 'rule of cool'...

Lots of indie RPGs do that. There's a reason that they don't have significant popularity.

BAlance matter, there are so many options that plain sucks that would benefit from some balancing FAQs, those are almost never seen.

Balance always matters but balance is balance not variance between OP and UP. Taking something OP and making it UP is not balancing the game it's unbalanced particularly when you release new content which hasn't gotten it's turn with the nerf hammer.

And it is worth noting that perfect balance while very important in a competitive setting is relatively less important in a cooperative one. In a game like say DotA or League of Legends balance ensures that games can be fun and tactical. In a game like Pathfinder balancing things into a similar area is important because it makes sure the whole party can have fun together without feeling underpowered compared to their allies.

In PF however it has a great deal of wiggle room because normally people don't share roles. So the key is that everyone feels strong and unique in different ways and part of this is ensuring that classes have balance compared to each other and each individual item feat and power should be evaluated on that grounds and on the grounds of whether or not it is an issue overall for the health of the game.

There have in the past been powers and feats which I approved of nerfing. For example that one divine feat that gave cha to all saves was so overpowered that it needed a nerf or the stone mask item that was like 500gp for a +5 and a +10 skill bonus which was pretty clearly more powerful than all it's competitors even the Jingasa to a degree could have used a minor nerf but in comparison the way that paizo releases its FAQs and Erratas always feels like they take stuff that was a little too strong and then they gut it thematically and power wise until it may as well not be in the game at all.

What is the point? Sure you avoid a little power creep but if the effect is identical to a blanket ban of the item/feat/power what's the point? Just ban it for society and move along. And what's worse often times they nerf things that didn't need it(I'm looking at you fencing grace/slashing grace/brass knuckles/crane wing/mnemonic vestments) often times they do this when an alternative exists that does the same things like say prosthetic limbs or dervish dancing the only difference between those and the generic options is that they limit your choice in terms of flavor which is the exact opposite of what paizo should be doing. I understand needing mechanical balance but if what you're implementing doesn't accomplish that and only serves to limit flavor choices you're doing it wrong.

Snowlilly wrote:

knightnday wrote:

No, errata and/or FAQ are not somehow killing fun.

The magus community would like to speak to you about the Slashing Grace / Fencing Grace erratas.

Didn't they all just go back to Dervish Dance?

Yes which is in fact the exact thing that spawned this post.

I had an old character build that was using a non scimitar weapon(It was going to be either an Aldori Dueling Sword or a Cane Sword) with Slashing Grace that I finally had a chance to use. Frankly the scimitar as a weapon is fine but it's not super exciting and I certainly don't want any dex build I use to use the exact same weapon every time it's just not fun and yes I know I could reskin it or ignore the errata but I prefer to use the rules as written both for convenience and to avoid dumb situations like "Okay a +2 Cane Sword just dropped do you want it?" "Oh yeah uhhhh I can't actually use it I actually use scimitars" "Wait what but what was all that talk about flourishing your cane and whipping out your blade from it to cut down the ambassador yesterday?" "I have to use scimitars because they're the only option that works, the cane is just flavor." "Wait so you were just waving around a sword in his face? What the f..?"

Sadly as a player I don't have the final call on whether or not we use the current errata and since most of the people I've met DMing use d20pfsrd instead of pdfs or hard copies most of the time they prefer to use the rules they can easily reference than old rules that literally can't be found without access to the first printings.

For my home games, I routinely ignore the errata. We have some pre-errata books, and we just follow the printed text most of the time. If something really is game-breaking, only then do we look at the errata & FAQs. Often we don't even use them because a lot of them are contradictory to other staff members. For example, I've seen JJ post reasonable rulings on various questions, only to have the design team oppose it and then there is fallout or edge cases or other issues.

It bugs me that sometimes there are more issues after the errata or FAQ comes out. I feel like they should be patching holes, not making new ones.

I suspect Paizo might even support my habit of using original texts, as it's creating a market for older "first edition" books.

This is exactly my issue with it and it really does make me regret going digital to a certain extent. I mean I just didn't have the room to keep books anymore(ended up donating like half-3/4 of my recreational reading stuff when I moved because there just wasn't space for it) so I switched to pdfs but if my hd fries or I'm over at the game table in someone else's home and want to pull up the pdf to check the rules suddenly I get a bunch of stuff I didn't want which is real frustrating. I just wish there was a good source for the old rules.

So I'll be honest I'm not here to point fingers at the dev or design team or anything of the sort they're doing their jobs and doing what they want to do and that's fine.

I just wanted to see if anyone else shares my opinion about FAQ and Errata content in Pathfinder.

So I've been playing the game for a good long time and overall I genuinely like the base system that pathfinder was founded on. Namely, give the players lots of different options for everything. This is the same base model that D&D 3.5 was designed on and I was a fan of it there too.

Now my issue is that every time I see a FAQ or an Errata it's usually not fixing things it's not oh we wanted to include an "s" over here and "No allies in this particular case doesn't include you" it seems more and more to be "Oh hey look at this ability that made a certain niche build fun and interesting as well as decently viable? Yeah we'd actually really like it if instead you just didn't have fun. Mmmkay thanks. Oh and give us another $10 for our latest pile of new interesting things that you can use for a year or two before we nerf it so hard that it will not be fun or interesting or viable."

I get it they need to do balancing sometimes, but once that thing is out and about for years the time for balancing is over at that point balancing it doesn't accomplish anything worthwhile because anyone who cared already had a fix either sourced off of something like the suggestions forum or their own creation and anyone who didn't was probably happy with it.

Anyways that's how I feel. Does anyone else actually dread it when paizo rolls out new FAQs/Errata and just wish they could get the unedited content more easily so they could not use them(particularly on online indexes like d20pfsrd)?

Totem Warrior Barbarian:

Issue: The archetype is literally worthless. It does nothing whatsoever and actually just wastes space and makes people think it should do something.

Fix: The archetype should be centered around Totem powers to that end some abilities should be replaced to increase that aspect of the archetype.

Level 2 - Replace Uncanny Dodge with Totemic Attunement - Every Totem Warrior creates their own symbolic Totems, by spending 1 hour focusing upon a totem the Barbarian can change which Totem powers which he has taken that he has access to during his rage. A Totem Warrior may take rage powers from any amount of Totem groups. This Attunement time becomes 1 minute at level 6, a Standard Action at level 9, and a Swift Action at level 12.

Replace Trap Sense with Totemic Synergy - A Totemic Warrior may add 1 additional effect of a lesser totem rage power he knows to his Attuned Powers this is increased by an additional 1 lesser power every 3 levels thereafter.

Replace Improved Uncanny Dodge with Improved Totemic Synergy - A Totem warrior may add 1 second tier Totem power to his attuned powers. Increase this by 1 power at level 12.

Replace Indomitable Will with Greater Totemic Synergy - A Totemic Warrior may add 1 Greater Totem power he knows to his attuned powers when starting to Rage.

Replace Mighty Rage with Totem Master - The Totem Warrior is always attuned with all of his totemic Rage Powers.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not convinced this isn't overpowered since I traded out some garbage for good things but at the same time since it's self limiting until around level 12, I figured it probably wouldn't be too busted also none of the rage powers other than Beast Totem are all that fantastic. Let me know if you'd pick this over Invulnerable Rager normally or if it would only be a flavor pick.

bigrig107 wrote:

I don't think any of us actually believes that original Crane Wing or SWD needed any fixing.

Having seen Crane Wing in performance I applaud the fact it was addressed, but not necessarily how it was addressed. My roommate, who used it quite effectively at my game table, admitted it was broken, but the errata just broke it in the opposite direction.

To be fair Crane Wing was never so bad if you assume that the Master of Many Styles doesn't exist.

In general, some of the changes were due to unclear rules. All of the "must be worn for 24 hours" is a way to individually fix the "same source" blocking of using an item. Mostly because I guess they fear a sweeping "you can't swap out an item for another for an effect" general rule.

I'd assert that, that is not in fact an error but a case of something working as intended but getting reduced in power by making slotted magic items less versatile.

But honestly I've never had a problem with that I never liked the idea of a guy carrying around a stack of spare shirts to get extra move actions or scroll uses and only used one anyways.

For things like the Mnemonic Vestment, where that was the only real change, I'm still happy to use the item. I don't think it needed the nerf but the item still functions, is useful, and priced reasonably that would be an example of a decent change. In comparison for the Jingasa I literally can't think of a situation ever where I'd buy one now and that includes if I was told I could take any items I wanted below 10k for each slot.

From my perspective, poorly written and unclear rules were the biggest problem with 3.5. You couldn't discuss anything rules related online due to so many PunPun/Footsteps of the Divine 144,000 ft movement in a round/9 copies of spells per day due to Ring of Sustenance/100 orange ioun stones and other issues.

The fact that Paizo answers questions (slowly), fixes thing in Errata, and in general makes solid rules in the first place is the main reason I'll keep supporting their products.

I get that some don't like that agenda. I get that some prefer the 3.5 model of "push it out there" and it's broken 6 ways to Sunday. That doesn't seem to be Paizo's desire for their product. I'm glad.

It's a good thing all the changes people are complaining about are poorly written or unclear rules issues ... oh wait ... no the rules that were written for most of these complaints were completely reasonable and easy to understand and most of the rules fixes were just straight hard power nerfs and not at all rules fixes. This was the computer game equivalent of a patch full of nerfs except it's much more inconvenient to keep track of in a tabletop game so there's that.

Knowing that giants have low ref saves is knowledge of the game.

The problem the the OP has is knowledge of the story

Can you see the difference?

Who cares? If the issue is he has knowledge of the story the question is whether or not he uses that knowledge to ruin the game for the other players. If he's not ruining the game then it's fine. If somebody wants to see the same story twice why not let them?

And frankly if the person was inclined to cheat in this fashion to gain a benefit from it they would never tell you or show you an indication that they're cheating like an itemized list of loot drops which they claim that you said was okay. The only logical assumption is either this player is a complete idiot when it comes to cheating or more likely that he did believe that the DM allowed it.

And this goes both ways, I've seen characters fluke into doing exactly the right thing when encountering creatures they've never heard of. If you've read the adventure before you've basically eliminated this opportunity. You're either doing what you know is effective, or choosing to not do so.

And then we decide to call it cheating when a player has experience. Because what else could it be when you tell him a creature is huge he uses a spell on a ref. save because he knows that often huge creatures have weaker ref. saves, and he uses fort saves on wizards because likewise, and he doesn't use mundane weapons on ghosts, and he can't keep a bow or potions or wands of healing. Because well when you were a complete newbie you wouldn't have done that! And not taking skill focus basketweaving is clearly cheating.

Just accept it people will have knowledge about the game if you aren't changing things. That's just life, if you are working around this assumption this type of "cheating" laid out by the OP is negligible.

Matthew Morris wrote:

This kind of thought leads to making an organized play system unable to function for new players. As 'best case scenarios' will kill non 'best case characters'

Let me rephrase.

Ignore PFS for the moment, and ignore encounters.

Balancing should (and usually is with design) done with best case scenarios.

If you design all your creatures with to hit and then someone can compile together things to be "only hit on a 20" for all encounters. Something needs to be changed in design. Either the to hit raised (which hurts non optimal builds) or the thing tipping it over the top needs reduced.

This is the worst argument. I'm sorry but logically your statement equates to "Everything should be designed so that even when you make choices, you don't."

If someone puts all their eggs in the AC basket they should be hard to hit that's fine that's what meaningful design allows, if someone puts all their eggs into grappling they should do it well, if someone puts all their eggs into stealth they should be impossible to detect, etc. etc. etc.

If somebody is trying very hard to be good at something let them be good at it that's the f@+!ing point of what they want. If you fail to provide that, that isn't good design it's 5e.

I think the current pricing is about right for what it does if you view it similar to a breath of life scroll. 2k for the deflection bonus, leaving 3k for the crit negation. The scroll costs 1k in broad numbers. I'd say the slot vs broad usage is roughly a wash, so the certainty plus immediate's better action economy than somebody else's standard (plus proximity) puts it in that neighborhood. I'd call it appropriately priced anywhere from 4-7 with the deflection bonus. Like I said elsewhere, I'm not crazy about the specific change in function, but the pricing seems reasonable for what it does now.

Interesting point of view. I'd accept that while a 3k consumable hat which prevented one crit would be reasonable for some characters any deflection bonus which does not scale is inherently worthless, for a spell caster the +1 deflection bonus is too low to make a notable difference in their overall AC for any martial the fact that it doesn't scale means that you almost certainly have a Ring of Protection +2 at roughly the same point in the character's life in which case the Hat is just double charging you for an effect which you can't use.

Had the effect remained a luck bonus and the crit negation become a 1 time deal I could see your point because +1 AC is worth 2.5k in a slot-5k slotless and a one shot crit negation is too rich for my blood at 3k but still usable. As is the item might as well not have the deflection bonus because it isn't a stacking bonus and it doesn't scale, it's just tacked on to inflate the price for no good reason.

The fundamental problem is "don't compare new items to old items that are themselves mispriced."

The AMF is still overpriced by a factor of at least 2 (arguably 4 because weapons are slotless and amulets aren't) for unarmed strikes.

Brawling armor's fair price is somewhere between 4k and 8k flat. As a bonus equivalent enchantment a +2 might have been excused, but a +3 is absolutely ridiculous. Even a +1 equivalent bonus becomes overpriced when you start enhancing your armor for the purpose of keeping you from getting killed.

In fairness the comparison for how much brawling should cost was probably measured against the gloves of dueling of course it does still ignore the fact that you need to buy armor upgrades afterwards if you intend to not die which makes it notably worse and as such pretty much unusable to anyone who has both of those as an option.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

If the problem is that every character is buying the same thing in the same slot, then make more than one thing that people want to put in that slot.

If you have 99 items for a slot and among those items you suddenly realize that there is only 1 item that is so good that everybody uses it, then it's unwise to revise other 98 items or introduce new items.

It's much more easier to fix only one problematic item.

If this statement was true then yes. But on the other hand you have 98 items not worth wasting gold on and 1 item that is worth it for a slot but you always have 6 excellent choices that literally must exist because you can't maintain game balance without them. Nerfing the 1 worth while item will not result in people spending money on the 98 garbage ones, people will use that gold on a different item that is worth buying either from the 6 necessary items or the 1-3 items that are decent in any given slot which you were already planning on getting.

If the problem is that every character is buying the same thing in the same slot, then make more than one thing that people want to put in that slot.

This.

Let's be honest 99% of what goes in the head slot is not worth taking. Even if the Jingasa didn't exist you would see most people just not taking head slot items is that really better for item diversity? If you wanted more diversity just include more situationaly valuable items that would result in people actually wanting those items.

But I am not bigoted or wrong for saying "every butterfly collector I have met so far has been a dick." Maybe it's a sign I need to get out more, but it doesn't invalidate my previous experience.

just because I want pi for my stats doesn't mean I choose numbers at random. It means I like pi!

You're right saying that "every butterfly collector I have met so far has been a dick." Is not bigoted or wrong, it can be a simple factual statement. However, if you don't intend to generalize that to "Butterfly collectors are generally dicks" the entire statement is pointless, just like saying I've never died in a car crash is a pointless statement sure it's true but the anecdotal evidence can't be used to prove the general statement that car accidents don't kill people, just like it can't be used to prove that butterfly collectors are dicks, or that optimizers are a#@#**~s.

If you had a sufficiently large sample size you could make the statement that there appears to be a correlation between people who are butterfly collectors and those who are dicks but given that your knowledge of people who satisfy these conditions likely amounts to less than a hundred out of a population of thousands if not millions I'd say you're nowhere near having a statistically relevant sample size.

As far as wanting your stats to be pi ... sure that's not random, that's idiocy.

If they enjoy it (as I do) why do they need a reward for it?

Why do you need to get payed for doing a job that you like? Because we're not insane and we still want to be rewarded for doing effort?

Its not a matter of "moved on" Rhedyn - Roleplaying Games are not competitive MMOs where everyone should be concerned with "hitting their benchmarks" as it were.

RPGs are about a player playing a character.

If Ringlefoot the Halfling Rogue wants to drop a few skill points in Perform because his player rationalizes that he would have picked up some sweet dance moves, and maybe he should spend less points in Stealth even though that means less opportunities to use his sneak attack... He shouldn't be seen as a lump because he's not optimized.

And what makes PF any better to "play a character" than 5th ed or Fate or Gurps etc etc etc.?

The fact is that at the end of the day you don't pick a roleplaying game for the roleplaying part you want that to be there and you want it to not get in the way but what you want is the framework that the game is providing and that framework is like 75% numbers and 25% just enough content to make those numbers work for your ideas. This is true in PF and in DnD and in many other systems to varying degrees.

If you want to just play a character and not be a useless lump for not optimizing then play a purely narrative game those exist and they do the job of taking out the math much better than trying to force a game built on the math ever will.

Do I like pathfinder?

An interesting question particularly because it forces me to divide Pathfinder specifically from the simple act of spending time with my friends and I do rather like them.

We've started playing 5th Ed. mostly because of rules bloat and a desire to cut down on the numerical aspect of the game for simplicity and speed. On the one hand I personally like number crunching it's something I can do to improve my character while we aren't playing but my friends aren't as keen on it so that's an aspect that I like about PF.

Another thing I like is that there's a lot more build variety in PF than 5th but there was more of that in 3.5 and I liked that game as well. I do feel like the more recent content has been less interesting to me than some of the older content was but I like the fact that it is there.

What I vehemently dislike is when the dev team "fixes" something by smashing it with a hammer and gluing it together into a new shape entirely like say the Scarred Witch Doctor change because it completely throws any ideas I had before about a character out the window. I don't dislike errata that fixes mistakes but errata-ing to patch the game and re balance things is annoying. It's annoying in video games and it's worse in tabletop games where you have to actively hunt down the rules and apply them correctly instead of having a computer handle it all on the back end. Occasionally this kind of thing has to be done but more often than not I'd rather they didn't.

Martial caster balance wise we haven't really had a huge issue but at the same time I'm the most "powergamer" like of my friends and I tend to play something other than a caster usually.

I don't find it hard to imagine, personally. Not everyone feels Paizo ignore their fan base. If we were polled and the designers went contrary to the majority vote - wouldn't it bolster the claims of those who feel the community is being ignored?

I think the existence of a poll itself isnt going to help. The only way to fix the perception of those who currently feel ignored is either better communication as to why the PDT went the other way or a shift in design direction. Neither of those things requires a poll, but a poll without either of those things gives the potential for the perception to get worse, in my opinion.

An interesting thought. But it all comes down to how they act about the polls.

If the devs dump a poll up provide zero input feedback or discussion whatsoever and then rule against the majority then yes people will believe they're being ignored because they are more or less being ignored.

On the other hand lets say they put up a poll they see a lot of feedback from the community and add on a few follow up questions and have some discussions about why Crane Wing for example is being an oppressive part of the game for some people maybe the skew is 60% CW is fine 40% It's OP and needs to be fixed. The Devs end up going with the 40% and explain why they think this fix will change CW into a better place. They then move the change on to the Errata Playtest section of the forums and wait for feedback on how the ability fairs in some game sessions. Then they see it's too weak and tweak it back up a bit, they run another set of playtests that find it being meaningful without having that never hit element of the original, they then push it "live". I imagine very few people would say they're being ignored that wouldn't be saying that regardless of what Paizo was doing.

Comparing Paizo's defenders to people protesting seatbelts is a charged bit of rhetoric. The real hostility I saw, though, was in the oft-rehashed "we sure as hell don't owe Paizo anything if they're not willing to meet the standards we have for spending money on a hobby." Rynjin put it even more aggressively, of course (I really don't see how you can read the posts on this thread with a neutral eye and not see hostility on both sides).

I apologize if your intent wasn't to be hostile. Intent doesn't always transfer well through the internet, and Kobold Cleaver's mastery of interpretation transfers even worse.

In all fairness that is a fact. Paizo is a seller of game rules we are purchasers of game rules we enjoy a potentially valuable exchange of services for money.

We do not owe Paizo our money or loyalty, they are getting what they desire in exchange for their work.

Simultaneously they do not owe us particular services on products post release such as errata. It is not something they have to do.

However when they do choose to do it we expect something of equivalent or superior quality to the original products since this is intended to be a fix for an error made on the part of the dev team. If it weren't errata wouldn't be necessary in the first place.

As a result when the errata is released and detracts from the quality of the original product in the opinion of the buyers that is a black mark it is something to complain about in the hopes of a solution and something to consider carefully regarding future business with a company.

These are facts.

Outside of the facts there is the emotional response and that is also worth noting, not for us because we don't care. But, for Paizo consumer loyalty and faith is important. This is a business with a great deal of competition and if DnD 4e proved anything it's that people will gladly jump ship when things stop being what they expect.

Personally I was disappointed with the quality of the changes. I felt they lacked the flavor of the original material, and in several cases went far over the mark for balance.

In some cases I agree that something should have been done though, I just feel like there were better choices than that which they ended on.

Purple Dragon Knight wrote:

Bah! if you think keeping the gold stolen by orcs is morally reprehensible once the orcs have been dispatched (as a fee for the dispatching) then you have a problem with every governments that ever existed in the history of all time (crown lands, taxation, right of way, tolls, etc.)

What if I told you I do?

Then I'd tell you to do your political preaching somewhere besides the gaming table, if I wanted to listen to people b!#$* about real life problems I wouldn't be playing a fantasy game now would I?

Low damage die, short range compared to other projectile weapons, a move action to load it so you can't use rapid shot or iteratives without a feat tax - which feat you could spend getting proficiency in a better weapon instead. Is it hard to see?

Low damage die - Irrelevant, most of a character's damage comes from static mods and the sling uses the strength mod making it a solid choice for a character lacking bow proficiency who has a decent strength score.

short range - A valid complaint but the effective range is long enough to be useful most of the time as most DMs won't let you pepper an enemy with 4 round of longbow fire at max range at least not in my experience ymmv.

Move action reload - Same as a crossbow which has the same proficiency level and costs money on top of that, on top of which this is only an issue if you have multiple attacks and are therefore a ranged attacker primarily or higher than level 6 in which case you should have just got a bow or used spells if you lacked bow proficiency.

The game is already stacked in favor of the PC's, not adding round rules that don't exist doesn't make you a dick GM.

You have to make the check, the DC is 10.125. You rolled a 10? You fail. You roll an 11? You succeed. There is no rounding there.

Riiiiight. Sorry I must have missed the part where the PC's have arbitrary control of the entire universe and everything therein. Also as noted in the rounding section it doesn't matter if it asks you directly to round the value "For example, if you are asked to take half of 7, the result would be 3." The example clearly indicates that asking you to take half of something is equivalent to asking you to round.

Additionally @Toz It actually matters 2 halves equal one damage and -.5 hp is unconscious and dying while 0 is disabled and a potential threat.

Also worth noting that nothing in the saves section explicitly states that you are expected to round down damage on a save however the examples provided in other sections clearly indicate that is the case which further supports the idea that being asked to take a fraction is equivalent to being told to round and that unless told otherwise you round down.

Arnwolf wrote:

Personally I see multiclassing as just ways to min/max, has nothing to do with RP or character development. You should be able to build whatever you like with Class, Skills, and Feats.

You know, I was going to do a rather long post pertaining to this... But I just gotta ask....

What?

Seriously. Before I even begin to attempt a reply, I'd like a bit more explanation here. I can't even conceptualize how "Multi-classing has nothing to do with RP or character development"....

I'm going to have to agree with this one, yes my current character could maybe have been done using a single classed character frankly he might have been stronger(mechanically) if I'd done it that way but multiclassing is almost always the most effective way to fulfill a weird RP idea that you have if the game doesn't have a hybrid class that does it for you.

For example until the Magus was released the only way to make a magic swordsman was by taking two classes and then bumping into a prestige class to do it. Even now ideas like a bloodthirsty viking cleric of a war god might be played by mixing Barbarian with Cleric. Powergaming particularly in Pathfinder is usually not benefited by multiclassing and you straight up can't do what you like with feats and skills in a single class a lot of the time. Particularly because for some classes you just don't have skills or feats to spare. I have to just agree with "What?" because that just doesn't make sense.

DM Under The Bridge wrote:

Orfamay Quest wrote:

DM Under The Bridge wrote:

.

Orfamay, there are no rules backing up your views on the restrictions of low int.

There are also no rules backing up your views that a d20 should have numbers lower than 20 written on it. I'm sure you'll consider it a tremendous improvement in your game when I literally never miss a roll again -- and I'm sure the rest of your group will as well.

What the hell are you talking about?

The rules for d20s simply say that a d20 has twenty sides.

They do not specify the numbers to be written on the sides, or that the numbers be different. There is no rule to back up what I assume to be your view that I can't write a '20' on every side of an icosahedron and use it as a d20.

Do the rules say anything about your players not beating you unconscious with their hard back rulebooks and finding a DM who isn't a t+*%?

CommandoDude wrote:

So if you're saying a character must make a DC 10 int check or whatever to "make a judgement call" if he's dumping int, expect to have to make a DC 10 strength check just to move without a walker if you're dumping strength in my game.

How much weight you can carry is explicitly defined under RAW.

Low intelligence is not so well defined, which is why people are so eager to dump the stat. When sitting at the table, they are free to ignore their characters intelligence and can continue to come up with complex ideas and plans.

Except you're wrong. Low intelligence is perfectly defined.

A person with low intelligent has less breadth and depth of training in many skills, he or she is inherently more forgetful and has trouble recalling things that they may have read (takes a penalty to Knowledge skills), is more gullible or easily fooled as to the real value of an object(penalty to Appraise skill), lacks understanding of the craft of spell casting and how it is codified(takes a penalty on spellcraft), has a more difficult time planning and creating things (takes a penalty on craft skills), such a person is less eloquent and has more difficulty learning languages they weren't born into as well as having a harder time deciphering codes or ancient tomes (takes a penalty on linguistics).

Sounds like an awful lot of definition for the consequences of having a low Int score. Now just because you or your gaming group are too lazy to use or allow the use of those skills for anything of relevance doesn't mean they don't exist and don't accurately convey the penalty for having a bad score on their own.

That's like saying that because you ignore the weight capacity rules that Str scores aren't accurately covered and so from now on your character rolls DC10 Str checks to not collapse helplessly anytime he engages in physical activity.

Just tell your GM it's not a super death machine. If he's not willing to even audit your character, he's probably not that great a GM to begin with.

To be fair the DM is probably already putting in more time than the player into the game setup and the DM in question probably has a life outside of the game, making him spend hours going through pdfs, books, faqs, etc to audit your characters might just not be worth the time for him and that's fair imo.

Best bet is bribe the DM, give him some pizza or something to compensate him for his time and make him feel less bad about it. Also go through your stuff and note every book and page number which you take something from and when necessary provide him with the books in question if he doesn't have them on hand.

Dm says: This merchant has every magic item in the game. But he is an ancient golden dragon. I designed him so that if you manage to kill him, you deserve all the stuff he has.

Dm means: Had to make a way so that you couldn't easily steal everything in a magic shop of magicness. If you want to, good freaking luck.

I don't know I'd opt for,

DM says: Are you sure you want to try to steal from this well established magical item shop?

DM means: I'm going to have all your characters get stabbed to death by the roving death squads they hire to keep this king's ransom of magical goods safe if you do this, just try me.

...(unless you're Ravingdork, who makes interesting concepts that are very effective).

I'm in LA for the summer and have friends who game in LA, so I'm hoping to run The Emerald Spire assuming schedules and interest line up. I'm assuming some people may want to play ACG classes, and some may want to play quirky concepts (dire bat riding halfling cavalier comes to mind). Say for example that there might be a shaman or druid, and someone plays an early-entry mystic theurge so the group has cleric spells. Assume wizard 2/cleric 1/mt X. The mystic theurge will be pretty underpowered until level 6 or 7, a high point buy makes it more workable. Or if a player wants to play a prestige class that is primarily an NPC prestige class- those have great flavor but are generally weaker than base classes.

No offense meant to Ravingdork I like a lot of his character concepts but I've definitely seen characters of his which I felt would not survive the climb to the level where they come into their own as well.

But yeah I can attest that with a higher point buy I'm more liable to play something that is either more MAD, more thematic, or more quirky. I was considering making a twf build that passes it's own crits to itself to use with a big multiplier weapon that I would never have bothered with if our PB wasn't so high. And I did infact go into Noble Scion which definitely would not have happened if I didn't know that the rest of our party wasn't optimizing and if our DM hadn't given us rather ungodly stats.

I think an array is better for this kind of thing than point buy though because it means that while you might have a crazy high PB equivalent you might force SAD classes to be a little more rounded whether they like it or not and it gives MAD classes more bang for their buck than PB might. But other methods work too.

Allowing the rogue to target touch AC would actually free them up to focus more on defense.

Not really. The reason Rogues don't focus on defense isn't because they need to focus on offense but because they need to focus on just getting sneak attacks this doesn't alleviate that issue which means all it does is make the Rogue more inconsistent between when he's sneak attacking and when he's not.

In general I find inconsistency in my character to be annoying at best and intolerable at worst but not everyone agrees with me.

To cap it all off the ability doesn't really make sense in context either since thick hide and being literally made of steel apparently make it no more difficult for the Rogue to find a good place to stick you but only when he sneaks.

If the DM doesn't want you to have money you're not going to have money it doesn't matter what you do.

Just scratch off the gold section of your character sheet and pretend there's no such thing when anyone asks you about gold or pay, start spouting communist propaganda at the table. I'd say 50/50 odds the DM gets sick of it and asks you to stop, then explain that communism is perfectly reasonable when there are no reasonable rewards for exceptional work already, and if such rewards were available your character might care more. If he continues his obstinate behavior begin killing and redistributing wealth in the populace to bring down the Bourgeoisie.

This may or may not get you booted from the group though so there is that.

How much do they sleep with? Completely up to them.

How much can they sleep with? Pretty much everything.

How much would I have my character sleep in? Well given that the game doesn't have a discomfort mechanic outside of armor I'd say all of it.

If we were being realistic though probably rings are on and maybe amulets, possibly a body/chest slot depending on the item would be worn as a nightshirt of sorts, headbands are probably on, belts would probably be a no although because of the rules I would never remove it so I'd say that's a yes, boots are off probably, gloves are probably off but that's a maybe, bracers are probably off, eyes are almost certainly off. Light armor might be on depending on how militant/wary the character is.

I think there´re two different things at work here:
1) Too much Meta-Thinking w/o context. Talking about stuff like Tiers doesn´t take into account what actually happens at the game table.
2) Lack of respect for ones co-players. If someone wants to have fun with a class, the gm should provide the appropiate challenges and the other players should respect the niche of that class.

To be honest, when a wizard player would start using a wand of knock, I´d politelly ask him to refrain from the if the rogue player is present, at the second infringement on the rogues niche I´d kick tha wizard player out.

Therefore: There can never be a "weakest" class.

There can never be a weakest class because I'll ban hammer anyone who infringes on the weaklings roles! Sounds like some quality DMing.

graystone wrote:

pocsaclypse wrote:

Wouldn't a sorcerer wearing a haramaki and a kilt be wearing medium armor?

Yep. The only thing that it does is slow you down though. There is still no spell fail or armor pent.

I see, because neither the haramaki nor the kilt have acp or spell fail, those zeroes are just added together to stay zero even though the armor is medium. But a character only proficient in medium armor would have to deal with the non proficiency application of acp if he added a kilt to medium armor, right?

Yep. Still neat for people with heavy armor proficiency who don't want to wear full plate for some reason like say too much dex or trying to keep your acp low.

There are a lot of people in this thread that think dominate is more like suggestion lol.

A couple things:

1. Vampires are pretty smart, and know how their own ability works. The gm might not know exactly, causing this error. To me that seems like a lame kind of "gotcha", like "Ha ha you didn't know the rules so your vampire acted like he hasn't been a vampire for many years and has no idea how his magic powers work at all! I'm free!". Just retcon it to "Play in the dirt" and no problem there.

2. There is no "not dominated" time, where you get to act normally. You are dominated at all times, which is why you act weird.

3. The range is unlimited, and the vampire only needs to concentrate for 6 seconds a day in order to maintain control.

Welcome to dominate person! Yes, vampires are huge a#&@*&!s and this spell is really, really brutal. Getting it as a standard action is pretty insane when used properly, lol. You are pretty much screwed unless you have some high level magic available. Protection from evil only suppresses it for the duration if you make another save, it doesn't dispel it.

I hate DMs like you just fyi.

So a char got killed at level 18+ most encounter can and probably will kill party members, there are spells te repair and prevent that, if they dont use those than it is the party's own doing they get snuffed

So a DM incorrectly used the rules and killed off a party member what a bunch of babies for feeling like that's a s&**ty thing to do ...

"After using this spell, you can't take any other actions until your next turn" Quote is from the spell entry from dimension door.

You literally couldn't attack the wizard without cheating. So I'm voting dickish move.

Edit: Unless you took the dimensional agility feat. But you didn't say that unless I missed it.

Good peace keepers: Barbarians make excellent mage killers, Monks are great since they can resist spells and incapacitate the mages without killing them, Inquisitors are good if divine magic isn't illegal. Paladins would be good if you can justify it(hard since most good gods wouldn't sanction enslavement or killing of people because of their birth.)

Gregory Connolly wrote:

Davick, that is a straw man argument.

Nope. I didn't make an absurd argument, I merely changed the trappings of the one at hand. Wyvern->Man woods -> hall

If you're saying the scenery affects what is good and evil, then no amount of logic will help you. The same could be said if you think it's good for a person to kill one half of a diplomatic meeting.

Would it be good for Obama to shoot Putin at their next Summit?

Except that isn't at all what this would amount to. Good job on missing the point.

This situation would amount to Putin Bombed the US then called a peace summit with California and Texas while talking in a secret code then Obama shows up and shoots him in the face twice. It seems fine to me, no falling imo.

You can always run interferance/distract the enemy a la Aid Other action no matter what you're facing or how unprepared you are for it.

If you don't think being reduced to using the aid other action or "distracting"(and how exactly are you doing this when you're not a threat at all?) isn't being sidelined I don't know what to say.

Fair enough. I don't entirely agree, if you've ever read the Dresden Files I feel like planar binding should be more along the lines of Dresden's relationship with the demon in his brain where if you rely on it you're headed right into the clutches of evil and even trying to use it for good is the sort of thing where you need to be prepared to damn yourself every time you do.

Anywho as I stated earlier regarding the OP to get things back on topic, I think wizards are mechanically stronger than sorcs simply by virtue of increased rate of spell progression and non linear spell power growth. That being said I think they're both fun and can be powerful in their own ways.

I urge you to remember the following. According to the CORE RULES, those being CORE only, casting spells with the [evil] descriptor is not an evil action. The paladin book (Champions of purity, I believe it was called) had a section called "evil magic in golarion" or something like that, that spelled out that in Golarion, casting [evil] magic is an evil act.

I'm personally -really- glad that this is not a core rule, so I don't have to house-rule it out of all of my games, because it is just the stupidest, most nonsensical ruling ever. If you doubt it, go find Ashiel's response to SKR stating that casting [evil] magic is an evil act, and watch her spin arguments that just completely, utterly -DESTROY- any semblance of reason SKR and half the thread try to muster in the defense of this bad, bad ruling :)

I'm not joking, she obliterates that ruling on a subatomic level, spelling out clearly and precisely, why it is an absolute nonsense ruling. It's a good read.

-Nearyn

*Shrug* the precedent is clearly set and in Golarion(the assumed setting for most of PFs extended rules which people use on the forums and the setting in which the PF gods dictate whether or not a Paladin falls instead of pure DM fiat) the use of evil spells is evil.

That being said I think certain spells shouldn't be classed as evil but some spells are definitely evil. And if you think summoning demons shouldn't be evil I could point out one of a million stories and real life examples of where the summoning and communing with demons is pretty much universally considered evil.

Logically speaking I can't see any reason why the gods of good would be like "Well sure he's summoning demons that could get loose and kill and spread evil throughout the world but if he had to do his dishes and make a sammich with his own power why that would be truly evil!"

remember brawler gives +1/+3 so the gloves should give +2/+6 (they double the stuff right?)

also, my bad, for some reason I thought fang was a swift action. brain derp, still you can only take 1 immediate action a turn so eh, without combat reflexs you only get snake fang 1/round anyway

also remember the nice thing about MoMS is, once you have the style, you don't need to get the rest of the trees in order, you could very well go snake style, then take snake fang as your MoMS feat without sidewinder (or whatever the other one was called.)

Rorek you really need to fact check before you claim things.

Drinking does not provoke, "The act of drinking is a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity." Directly out of the drunken master drunken ki entry.

Also the gloves do not double anything they increase the bonus from weapon training by +2

Edit: Additionally panther explicitly calls out getting attacks back only due to movement not due to any action which provokes. "when an opponent makes an attack of opportunity against you for moving through a threatened square,"

remember folks, the AoMF isnt *required* anymore since the clockwork prosthesis is out--it costs regular to enchant, and can go up to +10 like any other weapon. main issue is that it's 6k, meaning that you'll have to wait for quite a few levels to get one.

if youre stuck using an AoMF because you DM is a terrible person, for higher levels the monk's robe isnt terribly useful anymore--it's effects cap at effective monk level 20, you can wear a bodywrap of mighty strikes (yes, yes, heresy i know) to add more effects (like, say, holy and courageous) to 4 attacks, generally the first four since they're more likely to hit.

keep the AoMF at a flat +5 enhancement, and use the bodywraps for auxiliary effects.

Unless

OR

2) You know that in a month or two they're going to make it so that prosthetics don't count for unarmed strikes because if they were going to nerf Brass Knuckles into oblivion why not do the same to fake arms?