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353 posts (577 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 4 aliases.




I'd like to run a one-shot (maybe leading into some ongoing adventures) along the lines of Aliens/Predator (or even maybe something a little more "tech-heavy"). Basically, I'm looking for a system that supports a "squad" of soldiers/elite operatives. Ideally it would support a variety of gunplay (pistols, carbines, machine guns, etc) and not be TOO complicated (I'd like to avoid having to use a precise map with minis if at all possible).

Anyone have any good suggestions for systems that I might look into?


*I hope I'm not violating any rules with this thread. I seem to recall someone posting a similar thread a while back, in which they listed the books they were trying to sell off. If I am in error, I'm sure the mods will notify me post-haste, and in which case - sorry!*

I need some extra cash to get through the month, and I have a bunch of the early APs on my shelves that aren't likely to ever see action. Would anyone be willing to take these off my hands at a discount price? I was thinking $40 for a set of six (plus whatever shipping, of course) but I'd be willing to go lower for anyone willing to take several sets at once.

Basically, I've got Pathfinder volumes 7-36, which include the following in their entirety:

Curse of the Crimson Throne
Second Darkness
Council of Thieves
Legacy of Fire
Kingmaker

I hate to part with them, but I'd like for someone get the use out of them, and some extra cash would really help me out this month.


So I'm going to be capping off a pretty lively side-adventure this weekend. The PCs are trying to save a plane that is going to be literally ripped apart (i.e., the plane itself will be shredded and cease to exist) but in order to enact the necessary ritual to stabilize things, they will call the attention of a host of myriad powerful planar creatures (who will be drawn to the magical energies). I was hoping to solicit some suggestions on creatures to throw into the mix that will be a challenge for the following party:

Cleric 17 (lots of luck-based powers providing lots of bonuses/rerolls)
Sorc/Cleric/Mystic Theurge 15
Dark Elf Fighter 15 (Cohort) Sword and Board
Rogue 17 Whip-Dagger wielder, off-tank
Wizard 17 Illusionist (prohibited schools: Evoc/Conj)
Rog 2/ Bard 15

Obviously, they're a bit short in the tank department, but the Rogue and the Bard rock some pretty stellar ACs, so I've been finding it a little difficult to put together a roster that is a sufficient challenge. Any suggestions for extraplanar critters that can put them through the paces?


Hey all,

I'm going to have a bit more time for PC gaming this summer, but I need some recommendations. I've got a hankering for a high-quality rpg and/or a good strategy rpg for the PC (or Wii, I guess). Anyone got any good suggestions of what might suit me? For reference, I have played and enjoyed:

Mass Effect series and Dragon Age series (loved both)
X-Com: Enemy Unknown (had a great time with it)
Ogre Battle (enjoyed a lot, but found the overall unit management a little too micro-intensive)
Baldur's Gate II and Throne of Baal
Fable
Telltale's Walking Dead series (not a real rpg, I know, but still very compelling)

I'd really like a good story to sink my teeth into, especially if there's a good cast of characters (and good voice acting's nice, too - I've gotten spoiled by it). Graphics aren't a major priority. I prefer "Western" style rpgs but if the story's good enough I'm flexible.

So please, o wise paizo boards, help me out!


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Ok, so the monk-lovers finally got some of their terrorist demands - I mean, humbly requested changes made.

So... has anyone crunched the numbers on a monk builds like this? Seems like monks now come out way ahead of two-weapon fighters, but I'm too dumb/lazy to do the math for myself.


I wanted to get some feedback for an encounter I'm planning for some PCs (about APL 18). They're going to get bushwacked by a Blue Great Wyrm (BGW) whilst they're searching some desert ruins. My tentative plans are outlined below - can anyone offer some suggestions or point out mistakes I might be making? Party composition is:

*Cleric 18 of Callistria (Trickery/Luck Domains, spellcasting focus)
*Cleric's Cohort, a Drow Fighter 16 (sword and board)
*Cleric 16/Ranger 2 (Travel/Liberation Domains, archery focus)
*Rogue 18 (high acrobatics, dagger-whip wielder; uses offensive defense to pump AC to the low 50s)
*Illusionist 18 (Conjuration/Evocation opposed schools)
*Rogue 2/Bard 16

The Plan:

1) GBW has simulacrum of itself at the site of the ruins; this simulacrum will interact with PCs and occupy their attention.
2) GBW buffs while simulacrum interacts with PCs
3) Simulacrum engages PCs if necessary to keep them in place; GBW uses Sandstorm ability and hits the area
4) GBW and simulacrum use blindsense to isolate and disable major spellcasters (power word stun, suffocate)
5) GBW uses breath weapon as necessary to blast enemies; dismisses sandstorm if necessary to locate them

Thoughts?


Basically, if a monster like a dragon could pinpoint the location of a creature (that has concealment) using blindsense, could they then freely target them with a spell like Power Word Stun?


My other, rambling post helped me realize a much clearer question that might provoke more productive conversation. Assuming that a PC has one or more item creation feats, how much of their wealth can they reasonably expect to be in the form of items that they have crafted for themselves? In other words, is a PC with item creation feats being "cheated" if the pace of adventures does not allow enough downtime to use X% of their wealth to craft items? If so, what is the threshold?

EDIT: What about long-term campaigns? If a campaign begins and provides ample crafting time from say, levels 1-13, but crafting time is more limited up to 20, how does that affect things?


I need to vent and hear some thoughts from other wise board denizens about frustrations with people messing with crafting, with stubborn players, etc. Please bear with me:

After our Savage Tide session last night, me, another player (whom we'll call "the Wiz") and the GM had a long conversation about magic item crafting. The Wiz feels as though crafting needs to be "fixed" because "Crafting has become a lot less useful now that we're at 17th level."

Some background information: we're playing the Savage Tide AP. The Wiz has Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion, and Craft Wondrous. He is also a wizard (as one might suspect). The wizard was requesting (and eventually received) a modification to crafting times because he felt that it took long to make "really useful" high-level items (the specific item that he wanted to craft was a robe of the archmagi) because we were gaining levels so quickly in game time (going through a dungeon takes a couple of days tops, resulting in relatively quick level/wealth gain).

Our GM obliged by adjusting the crafting time to a number of days equal to 2 multiplied by the square root of the item's cost. I don't think this is necessarily bad as a mathematical adjustment, but I objected to the idea that we needed to change anything at all, particularly on the grounds of the the Wiz's specific points he used to support his claim, to wit:

1) His crafting feats are "less useful" because his time is "more valuable." He tried to make some kind of argument about how since his downtime is "more valuable" (which I don't think can even be justified) at higher level, that he gets less value out of crafting several less expensive items than a single big-ticket item. I countered by saying that he still gets the full benefit of the feat, which is to effectively double his cash on hand. Perhaps I am being obtuse here, but I completely fail to see his point on this at all.

2) The implicit assumption that all of his feats should remain equally useful at all levels. I specifically pointed to Cleave as an example of feat that becomes more or less useful depending upon what level you were - he countered by saying "but the designers didn't INTEND for crafting feats to become less useful, so that point doesn't matter." I found this to be an unprovable and insufficient answer. Having played in a 1-20 AP before (Age of Worms) as a character who could craft magic items, I feel he should have gone into this with the knowledge that at high levels, the pace of the adventure quickens sufficiently to give one less time to do a lot of dedicated crafting. I feel like he's asking for the mechanics of the game to change to compensate for the fact that he feels that he made a sub-optimal feat choice.

3) It's practically impossible, he claims, to craft any high-end magic items because his gold is "tied up" and not being useful to him during crafting, and he might, at the end, decide he doesn't want the item anymore and he's lost all of that time. I countered that this is in no way different from being a non-crafter who has to save up money to buy a high-end item (as my barbarian did for his primary weapon) - other characters have to let a big pile of loot remain "useless" until they can buy an item, which they may then decide they don't want anymore. He countered that it's worse for him because he COULD be using that time crafting other, smaller, useful things for the whole party. But that also remains true of the non-crafter - they could be spending stuff on potions or other wondrous items.

So I'm frustrated. I don't think this is going to break the game or anything, but I'm really aggravated by the attitude and what seems to me to be specious reasoning of the whole process. Part of it is that this particular player is not very good at the strategy of the game in general (he's the topic of this thread I started a while back), and I feel like he's trying to change or manipulate the rules to make his weak character more effective... instead of just building/playing his character more effectively (he actually has improved in his spell selection and tactics since I started that thread, but he has retained some bad habits. I recommended him using Quicken to prepare a 3rd or 4-th level buff, but he blithely replied that he hardly saw the use in wasting a 7th or 8th level spell slot to get one extra low-level buff. He then opened the next combat by casting Time Stop, rolling only two rounds, and casting two 3rd/4th level buffs on himself. [FACEPALM]).

So I guess a couple of questions:

1) Does anyone think I'm totally off-base here, that my line of reasoning in the argument was not particularly strong?
2) Does anyone else tend to run into a lot of frustration when dealing with characters who want to craft a lot?
3) Does anyone else have good houserules for adjusting crafting times?
4) What does everyone think of our own houserule equation?


I heard a lot of good things about Ready Player One so I checked it out recently - it took me about 2-3 days to finish, and I have to say, I'm feeling pretty let down. I felt the need to share some of my thoughts. (Spoiler alert, obvioisly)

Stuff I Liked/Minor Quibbles:

1) I really liked the concept of a giant easter-egg hunt in cyberspace. As a hook, this had me pretty excited early on.

2) I felt the dystopia was pretty bland and unoriginal - sort of a generic "environmental problems make everything yucky" thing without any real depth to it. On the other hand, there were one or two specific developments that I thought had some neat potential. I thought the idea of "stacks" was pretty cool, and I liked how navigating them was very similar to playing a platform game. This real life-showing-shades-of-video-games was really what I was hoping to get more of in this book.

3) Wade's scheme to hack into the Sixer database was pretty clever, and I enjoyed seeing it go down. It gave me a chance to actually see some of the rest of the real world of the novel, and had some relatively interesting flesh to it (e.g. indentured servitude to a giant corporation and the relentless drudgery that accompanies it).

4) The greed-inspired obsession with 80s is a cute take on the whole retro/hipster thing; I would have liked to see more of this in the "real world" of the text.

5) It was really difficult to gauge the passage of time since so much of the text was taken up with Wade in OASIS. This got particularly bad with the way that Wade leveled up so quickly. Getting boosted up to 20 by finding a few gates is one thing, but then he's suddenly level 50, and then shortly after that, he and all of his friends have jumped another 40 levels to get up to 99. Based upon the gap between being level 20 and level 50 (something he emphasizes in his first encounter with Art3mis) it seems like it would take a long time to do that much leveling, but it gets taken care of in the space of a few pages in the book.

6) The idea of a virtual space that is a gigantic mish-mash of popular culture, eventually resulting in battles between a wide variety of SF/Fantasy genres is pretty exciting. I'd really love to see this on film.

Stuff That I Really Couldn't Stand:

1) Good lord, what editor told Cline that it was a good idea to make a bunch of geek references in the text and then explain every single one right after introducing them? This was excruciating, and it occupies at least half or more of the book's matter. It's like telling a joke and explaining the punchline - it defeats the purpose.

Now, if they make this into a movie, this could turn out a lot better, since (I assume) they'll just SHOW the audience all of these references instead of verbally explaining each and every one. That would be pretty cool (I'd love to see a big screen version of Halliday's funeral video, for example). As it exists on the page, though, it falls awfully flat.

2) It's really, really hard to get excited about someone playing classic video games. I mean, I cannot imagine that I would find it deeply interesting to watch someone play PacMan for fifteen minutes. I certainly did not find it particularly interesting to read about someone playing Joust. It's hard to be dramatic about wiggling around a joystick. So many mini-climaxes (and the actual climax) are built around these kinds of moments, but it's hard to feel any kind of suspense about them.

3) The synch-vids are even worse as a concept. DDR: The Movie version might sound kind of cool at first, until you realize that all you are doing is reading from a script - there's no opportunities for variation and creativity (which, ironically, good video games of our current era provide). Having multiple chapters where we're supposed to feel excited about a narrator explaining to us how he's re-enacting scenes from WarGames and Holy Grail baffles the mind - we could just go watch those films instead.

4) The resolution of conflicts gets pretty ridiculous. Wade just "happens" to have mastered Joust and nearly all of the other games included in the challenges. He'll be stuck on a puzzle until he just "happens" upon an epiphany. He'll "accidentally" run across an opportunity to get the 1-up quarter. I'm normally not picky about having a little Deus ex machina in my stories, but this took things to ridiculous levels.

5) The dialogue and characterization left a lot to be desired. Every one of the characters was basically an anti-social reclusive geek - with extremely minor twists.
Wade - A reclusive geek
Art3mis - A reclusive geek who sometimes talks too much.
Aech - A reclusive geek who is actually a black lesbian.
Shoto - A reclusive geek who is Japanese.

Wow. Such variety.

6) The ending left a big, dangling red button. Why bother bringing it up if it's going to be completely ignored afterwards in favor of a generic "I'm rich and I got the girl" ending?

7) I wanted to feel suspense about the battles in the online world, but the "rules" of avatar-on-avatar combat never seemed properly fleshed out, and since this was an imaginary world with the whole sf/fantasy kitchen sink thrown in, I had no way of really gauging levels of danger.

My experience reading this book was very similar to my experience reading the Hunger Games. I could see why some people got into it, and there were a few good (but not especially well-executed) concepts, but nothing about it screamed "omg this is so awesome"... which is why I'm so baffled about level of praise it has received.


What spells/items do you guys consider essential for mages to have active in order to stay alive at high levels?


Hey all,

My friends and I are trying to finish the Savage Tide AP, and while we're having a good time, one of our party is feeling left out and useless.
The player with a level 16 Wizard (Illusionist/Shadow) PC is feeling frustrated with his perceived inability to contribute to combat. At this stage of the game, we're facing lots of demons, and his save-or-die/save-or-suck illusion spells are routinely failing to succeed against foes' saves/SR. To make matters worse, this player routinely gets killed in major encounters, leading to a great deal of irritation (and a drain on party resources having him raised).

Can I get some suggestions (tactics, magic items, spell selection, etc) to help him succeed at high-level play? By all rights, he should be totally dominating as a spellcaster at this level, but he feels a lot like dead weight.

Some relevant details:
*He does not, as a rule, have any long/medium term buffs on himself (because he's leery of "wasting" spell slots).
*He does not have a supply of emergency scrolls with potent spells - mostly low-level utility stuff (knock, comp. languages, etc).
*He does not have Quicken Spell, as he feels like there are no 2nd-3rd level spells "worth a 6th/7th level slot."
*He used to use debuffs like Slow and buffs like Haste/Blur on the party a lot, but recently we've run into enemies with True Seeing, and the party bard is now the one who typically kicks off Haste.

Any suggestions you could make would be appreciated. I've tried to point him to the class guides, but he's a little resistant to change. I'm hoping that an overwhelming response from people on the boards here will help him change his thinking.


I'm looking to get an honest evaluation of my character build for a couple of reasons. See, my friends and I are trying to finish the Savage Tide AP - we've been working on this off and on for about 3-4 years - and we're coming close to the end. Thing is, we're level 15 now, and some disparities are beginning to show in character builds - we recently had a challenging encounter (2 brine dragons) where all of the PCs got ganked pretty hard, pretty early, except for my barbarian. I'm worried that there might be a little resentment that I've over-optimized (though I don't think I have). I'd just like to get some feedback from the fine folks here and see how'd you rate this character's effectiveness (especially those of you who have played Savage Tide).

In case it matters, here's the party:

Rogue 2/ Bard 13 (buff-centric, lots of high knowledge skills)
Illusionist 15 (SoD focused, with a weird fixation on Phantasmal Killer)
Ranger 2/ Cleric 13 [Travel/Liberation Domains] (buffing and archery)
Rogue 15 (Acrobatics and Whips, really high AC - around 41 when he SAs)
Barbarian 15 [Me]

The Build:

Chaotic Good Human (Olman) Barbarian 15

Str 24(30 Raging) Dex 14 Con 24(32 Raging) Int 8 Wis 12 Cha 8

HP: 226 (+286 raging)
BAB: +15/+10/+5 Init: +2 Speed: 40ft/60ft flying.
Fort: +21(25 raging) Ref: +12 Will: +13 (16 raging, +20 vs. enchantment raging)
AC: 25 Touch: 14 Flatfooted: 25 (23 when raging, 19 when using Reckless Abandon)
CMB: +22 (+25 raging) CMD: 34 (37 raging)

Feats (9): Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Greatspear, Power Attack, Combat Reflexes, Diehard, Endurance, Iron Will, Improved Iron Will, Raging Vitality, Raging Brutality
Special Abilities: Fast Movement, Greater Rage (37 Rounds, +6 Str/Con +3 Will), Trap Sense +5, DR 3/- (DR 5/- when raging), Improved Uncanny Dodge, Rage Powers (6)
Rage Powers (7): Raging Leaper, Increased DR x2, Strength Surge, Reckless Abandon, Come and Get Me, Bestial Leaper

Traits: Ease of Faith, Quick Learner

Raging Attack Profile:

Holy Evil Outsider Bane Greatspear +28/+23/+18 (2d6+18 x3)

w/ Power Attack and Raging Brutality: (2d6+44 x3)

Gear:

Belt of Con +6
Gloves of Str +6
Cloak of Resistance +5
+2 flaming burst shark-toothed club
Winged Boots
Amulet of Natural Armor +2
Ring of Protection +2
Mithral Breastplate +3
+3 Holy, Evil Outsider Bane Greatspear
Gloves of Swimming and Climbing (not worn)
2 Potions of Cure Light Wounds
1 Potions Enlarge Person
3 Potions CSW
2 Potions CMW
1 Potions See Invis
2 Potions of Fly
1 Potions of Heroism
1 Potions of Displacement
2 Potions of Blur
5 Potions of Lesser Restoration
2 Magic Circle Against Evil
3 Oils of bless weapon
1 Oil of Silence
Unslotted Protection From Evil Item: Dinosaur Tooth Pendant

Nimbus Bow: (+2 shocking burst longbow that allows its user to add his STR bonus to attacks made with it as if it were an appropriately modeled composite longbow. Against reptilian monsters (including all dragons) and creatures with the earth subtype it is a +4 shocking burst longbow that inflicts an additional 1d6 points of damage). When outdoors, the bow has the following spells:

Summon Nature’s Ally 5 1/day Control Wind 1/day Warp Wood 3/day

One other question I'd like to pose: at this level, is it worth it to ditch his current armor/amulet/ring in favor of getting items that give him concealment/resistances? This guy gets hit all of the time except when he's rocking a miss chance, and I've been relying on DR and massive hp to stay alive.


Inspired by the many conversations about the [perceived] weaknesses of Fighters, Monks, and Paladins, I was curious to see how two three-man teams of those classes would fare against each other. I know, 'class vs. class proves nothing,' and I agree, but I've noticed that all of the class "competitions" have been one-on-one duels instead of team fights (which is really what D&D is all about, right?) so I thought it would be interesting to pit the "weak" classes against the "good" classes.

Anyone interested in this as a good-spirited, bickering-free experiment? I was thinking 12th-level builds with standard WBL/magic item guidelines. I suspect the f/m/r team might surprise a lot of people if they're given the chance to work as a team.


Can anyone recommend some extra optional rules to add some depth to melee combat - you know, something beyond "I roll to hit... now I roll damage?" I'm willing to entertain combat options that will slow melee down, even - I just want something a bit crunchier.


Who's got some good stories about ridiculous things that you (or other players) have tried to pull in game?


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

There doesn't seem to be any wording that prohibits it, but I might be missing some errata somewhere. Can paladins have multiple smites in effect at the same time?


I hate to ask this question, but it became the basis of a heated dispute in a game recently, and I need clarification.

While keeping watch in the jungle one night, one of the PCs, a Barbarian/Druid, saw a dire tiger hungrily eying him and his companions. He said that he wanted to use the Handle Animal skill to make the tiger "heel." I said that he could use his Wild Empathy skill, but not handle animal. He said that he could "push" the unfriendly dire tiger to perform a trick, because the text of the rulebook says that he can "push" any animal.

Was my interpretation of the rules wrong?


Due to having a gaming group that unexpectedly lost some players (and some other weird stuff that is a bit complicated to explain), I've ended up GMing for 2 players who control 6 PCs between them. On top of this, one of the PCs is a druid (hello animal companion!) and another took the leadership feat. Fortunately, neither of those PCs are played by the same person, and furthermore, they only ever use 4 PCs at a time for any given adventure (we joke that the others are "back on the airship with Setzer"). To make things easier and to keep the "odd men out" PCs relevant, we just agreed that all of the characters would level up together - so far, that's worked pretty ok.

We had a big, BIG conversation about character wealth last time, and some complications arose. One of the biggies is that we're using the Kingmaker Kingdom rules in a homebrew setting, and the PCs (now 9th level) spent almost a full year of downtime making their various cities (they have four) into economic powerhouses. The upshot of this is that they have the ability to pull lots of money out of the kingdom's economy for personal use, and this troubles me because of the vast amount of resources that they can gain so easily this way. I started designing special "events" that would force the kingdom to expend significant resources to try and keep things in balance, but the game got derailed for a couple of hours last session when one player complained vociferously about how unfair he thought that was. We came to a kind of agreement, but I'm not 100% convinced that this issue isn't going to rear its head again. So for those of you who have dealt with Kingmaker - am I off base here, or do I need to have these kinds of things in place to prevent runaway economies?

The other issue is what is perceived to be a lack of "sufficient character wealth." One player has frequently complained about this (and his mate has occasionally echoed him), often using the "we're dividing the loot amongst 6 characters" argument. While this seems to make mathematical sense, my gut tells me that giving them 6 PCs worth of loot is a bad idea, especially since they ever only use 4 PCs at a time. Now we're at a point where one player wants to "retire" a PC and bring in a new one, and is asking how he's going to handle character wealth. I'm not really sure what to say, since my players seem absolutely convinced that they are well below "appropriate character wealth"(see my objections below).

Maybe some wiser folks can offer me some insight on this? I want to just say "make your character using those guidelines," but I'm afraid that's going to be used as a pretext for saying "that's not fair, the other PCs don't have as much stuff" and having to pretty much let the PCs re-equip themselves at level 9. That's a big headache that will drastically skew the power curve, I think (especially since the party does not seem to have any problems dealing with EL appropriate encounters). So what should my answer to this player be?

Do they not have enough "stuff?"

My PCs say that they have well under the "character wealth by level" guidelines in magic items and goods right now. While I have been slightly conservative on treasure, I think they're getting the numbers wrong for a couple of reasons:

1) Inaccurate book-keeping. My players often forget to add loot to the big "party treasure" list (one player last session that everything they had gained from the previous adventure was listed on his master list, and I immediately found two items that he had left off) so I think they may well have lost some valuables along the way just to bad notes.

2) Lavish roleplaying/kingmaker spending. At one point, the PCs sacrificed a large number of magic items to raise funds to equip an army. At other times, they've spent a great deal of money on roleplaying concepts (one character in particular is a "high roller," and dropped 5,000 gp on a townhouse).

3) Expendable items. The PCs rely very heavily on wands of cure light wounds to keep them going - they burned through 4, I think, between levels 7 and 8. They've also used a lot of other consumables like potions and scrolls.

4) Special magic items/bonuses. I've given the players a number of "special" items that I personally devised for the campaign that don't have immediately clear gp values. I also introduced an event that gave them an opportunity to gain some permanent special abilities (like darkvision, natural attacks, even, in one case, a random +1 stat increase etc.) that they took advantage of.

5) Plain ol' bad math. I noticed that at least one of them was forgetting to add things like backup weapons (and masterwork costs) when estimating his total character wealth. Since the PCs recently dropped a lot of money on cold iron/silver weapons to fight against foes with DR, this makes a big difference.


...or more specifically, "solo combat." I made a kind of duelist affiliation that allows PCs to gain aff. score bonuses by engaging enemies in "solo combat," but I'm having a hard time defining what a "one-on-one" encounter should be. Off hand, I'd say the following should apply:

1) Other PCs do not attack, aid another, or cast spells that effect the combatants
2) Cohorts/Animal Companions count as "other PCs" for purposes of 1) above
3) PCs cannot summon monsters to assist themselves
4) Other PCs can verbally shout advice to the "duelist"

What do you guys think about this? Anything I'm overlooking? I have a player who is really hung up on #2 (because he has an animal companion) and thinks that his "PC" equals "anything generated on [his] character sheet" but that doesn't seem to make sense for a "solo fight."


I'm in the middle of what seems to me to be a fairly pointless argument with one of my players about the way I worded a special ability. In my wording, a player gains "+2 to combat maneuver checks" and he's harping on how it should say that it's a +2 to CMB. I explained to him that I was following the model provided by feats like improved/greater trip, disarm, etc. but he continues to press the matter saying that the only reason those feats are worded in that way is that they provide a bonus to a specific type of check.

Anyway, to get to the point, IS there a good example of a situation/reason where this distinction makes a practical difference? It would be helpful to be able to cite something that would get him to shut up about this.


So in my campaign, I tried to add a few affiliations. I used the old PHB 2 guidelines and the Savage Tide affiliations as guidelines (in fact, I cribbed pretty heavily from a couple of them) but my players are pretty dissatisfied. Has anyone else tried making their own affiliations? Any advice? One complaint that I'm having is this:

"I should not have to change my character plan to take advantage of an
affiliation. I want my character to *act* differently because of the
affiliation."

This regards the warrior-centric affiliation I made based pretty heavily on Zelkarune's Horns from ST. The rewards included bonuses to intimidate, and the option to take a bunch of custom feats tailored to specific fighting styles. Affiliation score bonuses were gained by "soloing" monsters or winning duels, taking certain feats/skills (Weapon Focus, Combat Reflexes, Intimidate, etc.) and flat 1/2 BAB progression, among other things. The players have felt that gaining bonuses through taking certain feats/skills are inappropriate because they "change" the character (see above).

I guess what I'm mostly needing to understand is, how should affiliations basically function? What should the basic model for gaining aff. bonuses be (i.e. what types of things should give bonuses to the score) and what kind of rewards should be offered for gaining higher ranks?


To Whom It May Concern:

Please cancel my AP subscription.

Thanks.


If the PCs annex a town that, as the sole city in a kingdom, already has unrest, what happens? Do the PCs add that unrest to their kingdom? Does it vanish?


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

So I'm looking at this:

"Animal companions should select their feats from those listed under Animal Feats. Animal companions can select other feats, although they are unable to utilize some feats (such as Martial Weapon Proficiency)."

And I'm not really sure why that section was even put in. It seems like, for all intents and purposes, there really is not restriction on what feats animal companions can take beyond those which will not biologically/anatomically function.

...Or is there? Can someone (or someoneS) offer a little clarification? Are there any real, hard-and-fast restrictions on what feats animal companions can have?


Animate dead has the following wording:

"This spell turns corpses into undead skeletons or zombies that obey your spoken commands."

Does this mean that you apply the skeleton or zombie templates to the base creature that was killed, or does it mean that the spell merely creates the "skeleton" and "zombie" monsters as found in the Bestiary?


Pretty straightforward question that I need a solid answer to: Can you add the "wounding" special ability to a net? My gut says that's kind of ridiculous, but I have a player who really wants to add it to his net-and-trident ranger/cleric.


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Ok, so I'm wondering if either/both of these feats would function against a net. On the one hand, a net is a thrown/ranged weapon, so it seems like it would be deflect-able / snatch-able, but the following points makes me uncertain:

1) In the text for Deflect Arrows, it says "you may deflect it so that you take no damage from it." A net, however, does not do damage - does that disqualify it for the purposes of this feat? "Deflect" isn't a term that's officially defined by the rules, so this seems like an important ambiguity.

2) Would a net count as "unusually massive?" It's certainly not as big as a boulder or a ballista bolt (examples from the feat description), but it is definitely larger and bulkier than an arrow or even a javelin.

Relevant feat text:

Deflect Arrows
Benefit: You must have at least one hand free (holding nothing) to use this feat. Once per round when you would normally be hit with an attack from a ranged weapon, you may deflect it so that you take no damage from it. You must be aware of the attack and not flat-footed. Attempting to deflect a ranged attack doesn't count as an action. Unusually massive ranged weapons (such as boulders or ballista bolts) and ranged attacks generated by natural attacks or spell effects can't be deflected.

Snatch Arrows
Benefit: When using the Deflect Arrows feat you may choose to catch the weapon instead of just deflecting it. Thrown weapons can immediately be thrown back as an attack against the original attacker (even though it isn't your turn) or kept for later use.


Can you sunder a net? If so, what would its hardness be? The weapon description says that it has 5 hit points, so that much is clear, at least.


On page 432 of the Core Rulebook, it says that "thrown weapons are ineffective underwater, even launched from land."

And since the Core Rulebook also identifies the net as a thrown weapon, does this mean that you cannot use a net underwater? This does not seem to jive with the traditional "net and trident merfolk" flava.

Help, please!


Hey all, I'm trying to put together an affiliation a la PHB 2 / Savage Tide (you know, stuff like the Dawn Council, Zelkarune's Horns, etc) for my campaign. The PCs, who include a cleric of Calistria, recently discovered a secret enclave of elves who worship that same deity, and I wanted to give the cleric a neat organization that he could link into. Unfortunately, I'm having a tough time coming up with good, flavorful benefits. Do you guys have any ideas? The basic idea of the organization is this: The "Silent Stings" are a secret band of Calistria adherents throughout the campaign setting, dedicated to helping others achieve vengeance that would normally be beyond their ability (e.g. helping a peasant get revenge against his local lord).

Thanks in advance!