hogarth's page

In the feat table (on this page --> http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/feats.html), for Persuasive it reads:

Persuasive | — +2 | bonus on Diplomacy and Intimidate checks

The "+2" is in the wrong cell.

right ... but am I the only one who wondered about that? I mean, since when are raccoons more common in the tropical jungle than monkeys?

Let see we have
1. hogarth=cleric or oracle of battle, or a melee fighter.

hogarth wrote:

I'd be interested in taking a stab at it. I'd probably prefer Pathfinder rules, but 3.5 is good, too.

Cool! Truthfully, I'd prefer Pathfinder rules myself. But in case a bunch of players wanted to roll with 3.5, I wanted to leave the option on the table.

Thoughts on race and class, hogarth?

I'd be interested in taking a stab at it. I'd probably prefer Pathfinder rules, but 3.5 is good, too.

hogarth wrote:

Every time I read a post that says (paraphrased) "it's not a monk's role to do XYZ; a monk's role is to run really fast and have good save bonuses", a little bit of me dies inside.

:-(

Would it bring a little of you back to life if I said the monk's role is to kill arcane spellcasters?

A buckler or light shield should be O.K.; they both say that you can hold something in the shield hand. Heavy shields, no.

And if you are willing shell out the GP for it. An adamantine spiked gauntlet and Improved Sunder make a nasty trick.

Another one of my favourites: Pyrotechnics! It affects a huge area, and nothing is flashier than a bunch of fireworks!

Phanaton, I believe.

But it's doubly so in PF, because spellcasting classes received buffs in exchange for spell nerfs. New class abilities, a skill point back, +1 or +2 HP per level, etc.

At any rate, whether it's 1.01x worse or 2x worse, it's still basically the same issue that 3.5 had, and DMs will treat it the same way, I'm sure.

Old 3.5 player, went to 4.0.

I personally love it, but over the last year my kids (players) have asked for the old game.

I won't go back to 3.5 but when I did play, we played Paizo modules. So, Pathfinder....

What do I need to look at to start giving it a run?

Thanks,
Frank

All of the crunchy rules bits are available here at paizo.com/prd if you want to take a look before buying anything.

I'm probably alone in this, but I don't think the oracle class lives up to its name.

I think a good pair of questions to ask is: "What do I want my character to be able to do in combat?" and "What do I want my character to be able to do out of combat?"

Without knowing the answer to those questions, it's hard to make a recommendation.

hogarth wrote:

Are you looking at the Spectre from the PFRPG Bestiary? If so, then the DC is 16 (= 10 + HD/2 + Cha modifier).

You're right ! But the PC have to do a normal fortitude save based on their constitution or using their bonus in charism ?

I want to know a thing, for example, for Spectre, the DC for the Fortitude save against the Energy Drain is equal to 15 and the save DC is Charisma based. Does it mean that to calculate the DC of the save they use the charisma of the spectre (which seems impossible with 15 in Charism) or the PC must do their save in using their bonus in charisma and not their constitution ?

I haven't read all the way through this thread, but it is an issue that I was just struggling with. And having just bought the Bestiary made the issue even more obvious. How? Let's take a balor as an example...

CMB +33
CMD 54

Anyone else see the problem?

It is almost impossible for a balor to grapple another balor!!!! Surely it should be a fairly even contest, requiring perhaps a 12 or better to grapple something else exactly like yourself?

Likewise, for a weak but highly agile creature, it makes sense that grappling might be an exercise in futility.

I thought for Dragon Disciple that you had to have the Dragon bloodline as a class requirement.

My point is that even when this is done absolutely flawlessly (and nobody's perfect; I underrated Murderous Mist for a long time for reasons I cannot fully explain), it's still a powerup for those classes because every new spell is a new option for free or nearly free.

A Man In Black wrote:

As dragons are specifically called out as an example of a form which can cast spells, I don't see the problem.

I stand corrected. Still, being able to use a single 7th level spell twice a day isn't really worth a caster level. Especially when the spell isn't really that great. You get a few attacks at the cost of armor bonus, basically.

And my Dragon (actually, Abyssal) Disciple is a monk, so Form of the Dragon II is a pretty good buff spell for him (since he doesn't use armor or weapons anyways). Now I'd also argue that later levels of monk are a waste, but that's a topic for a different thread...

Oh don't worry. There's still an abundance of surprises to be TPK'd by.

I love the isles of dread, I just hope it is not one of those memories, where you think it was great, but when you go back to it you are disappointed..... who am I kidding, its the friggin isle of dread! It will be awesome!

Flying Monkey men, dinosaurs, butt naked native chicks, King Kong style walls, giant pearls and sinister kopru living in the volcano! What more could a Pirate ask for, boy oh boy I wish I had made Ardanto a Ranger now!

;-)

hogarth wrote:

Again, I think you're underestimating the effective +7 bonus (+5 for continuing to grapple, -2 to opponent's Dex) compared to the -4 penalty.

Try and kill a level-appropriate foe with a one-handed attack, one attack per round. Never mind the -4, it's the bad weapon, lack of 2h mojo, and lack of multiple attacks.

You can always hold the rope with your teeth :)

Also, the -4 penalty for having something in your other hand means that you'll never, ever kill anything in a grapple without a natural attack. (You're not going to do it as a monk because your CMB sucks.) It used to be grapplers grabbed you and then shanked you to death. Now, not so much.

What fun is it to say, "Okay, I spend my turn sitting on this guy"?

Even if you somehow manage to outlaw every spell that is more powerful than the PF baseline (which would be quite a feat!), simply adding the breadth of options to classes with unlimited or near-unlimited spell access is a power-up.

hogarth wrote:

I'm playing a grappler now, at level 1. The important maneuver to remember is "Tie Up". Once the initial grapple has succeeded, it's basically all over for the enemy in two more rounds (one round to pin and one round for tying up); the +5 bonus to CMB in succeeding rounds (not to mention the -2 penalty to CMD for the "grappled" penalty to Dex) makes it quite difficult to escape.

I imagine you need to hold that rope in a hand. That's a -4 to the check.

An even better criticism is: "I want to play a wrestler, not a hog-tier."

All the niggling BS modifiers sort of ruin the simplicity of the one-roll system, as well.

Natural attacks already include size and weight in their base damage, and the muscle to throw your mass around is included in strength. A dragon stepping on a halfling is its claw attack or tail swipe.

One point that was made was that using 3.5 splats with PF pretty much negates all the nerfs. The wizard actually comes out ahead if he can use the Spell Compendium spells unmodified with his PF class structure, because plenty of those spells were just like the PHB spells with different flavor text. So he gets the same game breakers along with more hit points and extra class features.

So I imagine Pathfinder will be the same way: the players will ask "can I take XYZ?" (whether "XYZ" is from a 3.5 splatbook or a PFRPG splatbook) and the DM will say "yes" or "no" accordingly. So basically I won't see much of a difference from 3.5.

I can't imagine why you'd want to specialize in grappling, either, to be honest. Anything that's scary in melee (most enemies) will just eat your face, barely inconvenienced. Spellcasters, setting aside the ones who who teleport or are made out of flame or whatever, get Dimension Door and Freedom of Movement at about the same CR-appropriate level as Greater Grapple falling into PCs' hands.

So few things are actually worth grabbing.

You are correct that at higher levels there are whole categories of enemies that it's useless to grapple, of course (demons, devils, a well-prepared spellcaster, really huge creatures). If the game gets that far, maybe I'll give up.

Since this thread got rezzed, I'll take a moment to add to it. My issue with CMD is mostly grapple, the same as most people. Grapple with big monsters has been 'ha ha, no more turns for you!' It seriously irritated me as a DM when I grappled a PC and he literally had nothing to do but hope the monster rolled low and he rolled high. The problem is, there is no opposed roll in PF, so now instead of hoping for luck, that PC is out of the fight permanently. And that is no fun for me. I'll give up on the 'CMs for PCs' fight, but not this one.

My two cents from my experience so far: combat maneuvers are easy to perform if you stack on a lot of bonuses (whether from BAB, Str, feats, enhancement bonuses to a weapon, flanking, whatever), and are hard to do if you don't. In that sense they're not much different from the 3.5 version (except size was the big bonus to try for in 3.5). That's both an advantage (yay! I get to use my specialty with almost guaranteed success!) and a disadvantage (boo! The bad guys gets to use his specialty with almost guaranteed success...) to the system.

Further on this, now that I've had a moment to think about it:

Let's say there are 3 players and we are in combat with an NPC. The initiative order is:

Player A
Me
Player B
NPC
Player C

If I choose to hold my action until Player A is up, can I 'stack' my initiative and effectively go twice, or as near to twice as possible?

That's not saying I would be insulted and pissed if the topic comes up. "My character is a Dwarf Rogue from Mt. Deepunderground and he happens to be gay" is not gonna bother me. If however, Mr. Dwarf Rogue's character revolves around his being gay or what ever, it's going to get annoying PDQ.

LazarX wrote:

They are enhancement bonuses to armor. Your +2 leather armor is giving you a +4 armor bonus. and you lose that in wildshape.

So... that's an enhancement bonus to an armor bonus to AC. A bonus to a bonus? How are stacking rules for bonuses to bonuses? My head hurts already...

"Barkskin toughens a creature's skin. The effect grants a +2 enhancement bonus to the creature's existing natural armor bonus."

Clunky, but true.

I'll give you the same advice that my dad would give me if I was ever sick or hurt (especially with a headache): "Amputation is the only cure." ;-)

Currently, I'm seeing a couple of ways:

1) The typical "divide up the magic items, sell the rest, split the gold equally". If there's a common purchase, we'd all chip in, presumably.

2) Assign a value to every magic item (based on what it's worth to sell, not what it's worth to buy), and make sure that each person gets a treasure parcel of equal value (e.g. Joe chooses a +2 sword for his share, Bob chooses a Belt of Giant Strength +2 and 2000 gp for his share, and Alice chooses 4000 gp for her share). Again, group purchases come from folks chipping in when needed.

I like #2 a little better than #1 (you avoid the complaints about "why do we never find anything I want?", and it gives you an incentive to sell magic items of limited use rather than just giving them to Joe), but they're both fair, IMO.

hogarth wrote:

(...) a monk flurrying using a 2-handed weapon (like a quarterstaff) might be able to get away with using the -1/+3 (...)

The quarterstaff is the only 2-handed weapon available for a FoB. The rule for FoB (as read from the online PRD) say that flurrying is like using the Two-Weapon Fighting feat. If you use your quarterstaff two-handed, you can't use all attacks from a Flurry. If you use it like a two-headed weapon, you can flurry with either head, but your Power Attack only gives you -1/+2.

"A monk applies his full Strength bonus to his damage rolls for all successful attacks made with flurry of blows, whether the attacks are made with an off-hand or with a weapon wielded in both hands."

I agree that the intent is probably for a monk to get no benefit (Str bonus, Power Attack or otherwise) from wielding a weapon in two hands.

BAM! You're dead! Fighter:

** spoiler omitted **

hogarth wrote:

Yes, although it doesn't specifically mention Power Attack. So a monk flurrying using a 2-handed weapon (like a quarterstaff) might be able to get away with using the -1/+3 version of Power Attack, if the DM was so inclined to rule that way.

There is no specific mention of it under Powr Attack, but is it not implied on p.57?

PRPG p. 57 wrote:

A monk applies his full Strength bonus to his damage
rolls for all successful attacks made with flurry of blows,
whether the attacks are made with an off-hand or with a
weapon wielded in both hands.

As I read this the monk always uses x1 Str when using FoB, regardless of weapon.

I am fully with KaeYoss on this point (which kinda scares me). Why is the martial arts class not even in the same ballpark as fighters or barbarians for tripping or wrestling with people? It makes no sense to me at all.

Uh...what was I talking about again?

Oh, right. The monk's role is threefold:

• Run Really Fast.
  
• Fall Slowly.
  
• Have Good Saves.

(I'm kidding....I hope.)

Round 4:

18: Bron seems to get a good hit in at the azer with his hammer, but the flame-dwarf's steel-hard skin repels the blow.

17a: The azer's counterattack is relatively feeble and is easily blocked by Bron's weapon.

17b: The fire monster strikes Bron a glancing blow, but it is enough to knock him out (2 dmg, Bron is at -1, but he made the reflex save and is not on fire).

16: Myv...

Daegan makes a note of the town guardsman's outfit, but it doesn't seem particularly notable. The boy was wearing a peasant smock, similar to those worn by the other two orphans. He...

Stone...

Gaejan...

Finn. I rolled your fights ya lost 1, but assuming ya do at lest 1 hunt per month that gives ya a total score of 19 making you a scapper

all non magic gear can be bought at 3/4ths cost and ya gain a +2 to intimidation while in the city

But as far as Strength being *only* for CMB, what about the lithe elf who can feint and sneak a stab in (as a matter of speak; I know there are feint and sneak mechanics)?

As mentioned above, the boring answer for "Why CMB = Str and CMD = Str + Dex?" is that that's basically the way it was in 3.5 -- you needed to make touch attack (essentially Str + BAB vs. Dex, unless you have Weapon Finesse) and then an opposed check (essentially Str vs. Str). Dex and Str were always involved for the defender, and Dex was never involved for the attacker unless he had Weapon Finesse.

Assay Spell Resistance

My favorite spell: Sleep. Accept no substitutes! (At least until you reach level 3.) It's performed admirably for me on more occasions than I can remember.

He should have named it Jacques, not Spank.

Just to echo Mr. Mirror, Mirror's experience, I'm also playing a monk (actually a Sorcerer 1/Monk 4). He's doing reasonably well as far as doing damage (although he uses a weapon, not an unarmed strike), but I've also noticed he's a bit lackluster when it comes to AC (even with Mage Armor) and hit points.

From my experience, the closest comparison to the monk is the TWF ranger:

• full BAB + TWF = flurry, sort of
  
• both get bonus feats on roughly the same schedule
  
• lightly armored = mediocre AC
  
• decent skills
  
• a few minor spells, or spell-like abilities

The ranger is much more kick-ass against his favored enemies, though.

I kind of prefer more beer 'n' pretzels D&D games. So as long as you (or your character) don't interfere with the simple joy I find in bashing orcs/solving riddles/avoiding traps, it's fine by me. Live and let live! :-)

For the Climb skill, it strikes me as a trade-off, similar to using the Acrobatics skill to balance on a narrow surface. Namely: Should I "walk" and be relatively safe, or should I "run" and risk falling?

I guess I'd apply the same reasoning to any skill: you can take the slow and safe approach, or the quick and risky approach.

I think the oldest Adventure Paths and the newest ones tend to get most attention (the old ones because folks are still playing them, and the newest one because people are just reading it for the first time).

So posts on Second Darkness and Legacy of Fire might perk up in a year or so. :-)