You have an excuse if you are new and inexperienced. But if you are a long time GM and you can't cope with the random stuff that players pull the you need to take a good look at yourself.
When are new players on the field with different tactics, you can't keep going back to your old play book and having a big cry when your well trodden old plays are stomped on by switched on players.
You adapt, there is no broken only different and different requires you to think and some people don't like troubling the little grey cells so they moan.
If you can't come up with your own answers ask others there is no shame in that. This not a gentleman's game of cricket with all the politeness and FairPlay. It's meant to be challenging and exciting and DMs are supposed to play dirty within the rules to make it fun for all.
So is that a reasoned assessment of the official PF ruleset? Or is it a general statement about all RPGs? Or at least all D&D variants, including 3pp?
I believe they didn't actually make new measurements, they used existing data from old studies.
abstract wrote:
In this study we used the data on the secular slowing of simple reaction time described in a meta-analysis of 14 age-matched studies from Western countries conducted between 1884 and 2004
I have to say, Book of the New Sun is one of those classic greats of science fiction that I never really got into. I read SotT long ago and wasn't inspired to read the rest. Finally got around to them a couple years ago and it just confirmed my first impressions.
3) Only one tier, but 3 different versions....which is what we have now. Sounds like an old 1-7 scenario. Just more narrow in the level range, but just as much work, so less people will be able to play it, thus not making monetary sense. Nope.
No, now we have two different versions, not three, and you're missing the point. Characters of the same level would play easy, normal or hard mode, unlike the tier system. This alteration is to account for differences in power level from one PC group to the next.
How would that interact with the current tier system? Would each scenario have 6 versions? (low tier-easy, low-normal, low-hard, high-easy, high-normal, high-hard) What would be the difference between a low-hard and a high-normal setting?
Or just the 3, so you could only play it with a character of a narrower level range, but got to choose your difficulty?
The first is a lot more work for each scenario. The second means less scenarios available for a character of a given level.
Of course, if you want to have any job outside of combat you're probably going to want skills. If you want skills, you probably don't want to dump Int. If you ever want to interact with any NPCs, you probably don't want to dump Cha.
Especially at low levels, when stat bonuses/penalties are still significant relative to ranks.
Bolding mine above - I'm glad you said the "probably".
I have a human Rogue with a 8 INT that gets 8 skill points per level.
I have a Social Rogue with a 10 CHA - and makes up for it with Magic items and extra skill points.
Yeah. I was thinking more of the combat monster (caster or martial) who's just trying to make sure he's got something to contribute when not killing things.
If you get 8 skill points dumping int isn't a big deal. If you've got 2, or even 4, it's a different story. Especially if you're not human.
...You're not going to spend it exploring any reasonable dungeon. Not without resting. Even 2 hours is 1200 rounds. If you play through 5-6 combat encounters with a few minutes of searching and bandaging between them, you probably haven't taken an hour and you're probably running low on resources...
The notion of what a "reasonable dungeon" is varies from table to table, of course. I tend to favor either A) event-based adventures which have multiple things happening over the course of a day, or B) very large dungeon compounds in which the PCs are exploring portions at a time. I only do ticking-clock plots on rare occasions. I won't claim 8-hour adventuring days (excluding the Darklands and similar situations), but they've generally eaten up 4 or 5 hours by the time they're running on fumes.
What do you spend that 4-5 hours doing? How many combats? Even in the very large dungeon compounds, unless there are large empty areas or long stretches between areas, you're going to be getting burning resources faster than daylight.
Even 15 minutes is 150 rounds. Very few groups could sustain 150 rounds of combat against anything more than chaff. So obviously the vast majority of your adventuring time has to be non-combat.
Event based adventures work, especially if the combat encounters can be interspersed with roleplaying, rather than just waiting around. Wilderness adventures work, since you'll spend most of your adventuring time traveling.
Of course, if you want to have any job outside of combat you're probably going to want skills. If you want skills, you probably don't want to dump Int. If you ever want to interact with any NPCs, you probably don't want to dump Cha.
Especially at low levels, when stat bonuses/penalties are still significant relative to ranks.
Yeah, I kind of get that's the theory, I just can't see how it works. At least without some metagame assumption that you won't use random encounters if they keep pushing on long enough to make you happy.
Except the whole 15 minute work day is already a metagame concept. No one in any story ever has walked through the woods for 10 minutes, got into a fight with a bear and then some wolves, and then said Oh...well...time to rest... Yes you are countering metagame with metagame but it works, so long as you know, you talk to your players.
Quote:
Is the thought process really supposed to be: We fought a couple of fights, were low on spells, so rested and got smeared by some randoms in the night. Obviously we need to use up less in each fight, but then do more
Random encounters dont have to just happen in the night. They could for instance be waiting for you in the next room that you already fought in yesterday. But again, the thought process is 'yea if we stop after 2 hours of adventuring our dm may very well drop another owl bear on our heads. Maybe we should keep going and see what we can get done today.'
As long as it's openly metagame, I'm more cool with it.
Still, I'm not really sure resting after a serious fight is all that metagame. It doesn't usually happen in real life but that's more because we don't get per day abilities. If I get in a fight with a bear in the woods, I'm not going to rest there over night. I'm going to get out of the woods and to a hospital. Or lie there and call for help. :)
More seriously, when soldiers on patrol get in a fire fight or hit a trap/IED, they don't conserve resources and carry on. They call in air support and back up and evac. Same thing with police. Of course, that may be because they've got backup and evac available.
"2 hours of adventuring"? The problem with the 15-minute adventuring day is that it's pretty much built in to the game. You can't run an 8 hour adventuring day unless most of it is travel time. You might spend that time travelling to the dungeon, exploring it and going back. You're not going to spend it exploring any reasonable dungeon. Not without resting. Even 2 hours is 1200 rounds. If you play through 5-6 combat encounters with a few minutes of searching and bandaging between them, you probably haven't taken an hour and you're probably running low on resources. If the combats are easier, you'll get through a few more, but you'll probably do it faster.
I really can't imagine an 8 hour adventuring day, unless it's 95% unadventful travel. How many sessions would it take to play out?
The one thing that anyone who knows anything about a cockatrice will know is that they turn people to stone, but you don't get to know that without a +10?
I think I said earlier, there could be all sorts of reasons why the correlation wouldn't hold across historical studies. The old methodology could be bad. There could be other reasons why reaction times have slowed, though most of those could be controlled for, without having to use actual Victorians.
For example: If it's the sedentary or the "plugged in" nature of modern life, then you could compare modern groups who are more or less sedentary/plugged in. If the more group tests better on intelligence, but worse on reaction time, then you confirm that.
Nor is there a claim that reaction time is intelligence, just that there is a correlation between simple reaction time tests and measures of intelligence in humans. Theoretically based on faster brain processing times.
I don't know if any one has studied it, but the correlation may exist in other species as well. But the larger difference between our intelligence and that of other species is brain size and structure.
I see where you are coming from here, but has anyone proposed a theory explaining why there is a correlation between the two? That seems to be an important missing bit of data.
Yes. This isn't a new thing. This paper isn't proposing the link between reaction time and intelligence.
See above. The Jeff maintains that it's somehow species-specific, but I remain unconvinced, insofar without a mechanism we have no way of drawing that line. Does it work for chimps and humans, but not cats? Housecats and mountain lions, but not dogs? At what point of divergence does this hypothetical species delinator kick in?
Really all I know about this is that there is a claim of a correlation between these two things:
Quote:
Simple reaction time measures correlate substantially with measures of general intelligence (g) and are considered elementary measures of cognition.
Assuming that this would be the only factor and that animals with much smaller and simple brains must be smarter than us if their reaction time is quicker is just mind-boggling to me. Of course brain size and structure dominate. But within a species, where the brains are similar, this effect could be noticable. I'm no expert, but this seems obvious to me.
Reaction time =/= question answering speed, though.
True, but does the simple ability to react equate to intelligence? There are many animals in existence that have lightning fast reflexes. Are they by definition smarter than us?
No, of course not. No one has claimed that.
Nor is there a claim that reaction time is intelligence, just that there is a correlation between simple reaction time tests and measures of intelligence in humans. Theoretically based on faster brain processing times.
I don't know if any one has studied it, but the correlation may exist in other species as well. But the larger difference between our intelligence and that of other species is brain size and structure.
"They back up their claim by suggesting they know the reason for the decline in intelligence—smarter people having fewer children, while the less smart, have more."
Which would, to a large degree, be offset by the well-established regression to the mean (given the comparatively few intervening generations -- we're not fruit flies)? Also, the heritability of IQ itself is something we have a poor handle on: summary.
P.S. Paywalls suck; reading the paper would be 10x better than reading a summary of a summary of an abstract.
The article does link the abstract. I didn't really pay a lot of attention to the Daily Caller write up.
Just going by that, I'd assume their suggested mechanism is the weakest part of the paper. It's a possible explanation, but not something their study was designed to test.
EDIT: Out here in the wilds of science-land, when someone makes an easily-mockable claim we expect three things:
(1) Data; (2) methodology; and (3) an explanation of WHY it is the way it is.
Assuming (1) and (2) check out, the omission of the 3rd criterion is enough to provisionally reject the hypothesis until one is offered and tested.
In this case it's worse, because we're left with TWO claims (1. people are dumber now, and 2. reaction time is a valid measure of intelligence), and we have no explanation for why either one should be, far less both.
Really? And you expect all this in the abstract? In a form understandable by lay people? Or in a news article about it?
Or have you read the actual paper and found it to be missing these things?
Just from my reading of the abstract, I think the claim of this paper is only the first.
Your #2 is treated as assumed, that is taken from other research. A quick Google shows that there has been other work done on this and that it doesn't seem too controversial.
As for the 3 things you expect, assuming the Data actually show something and the methodology holds up, you don't get to reject that just because it can't be explained yet.
"I did these tests expecting X, but got Y instead. I don't know why.", is actually good science. You don't reject the Y because it isn't explained. Now other people know to start trying to explain it.
I have a total of one (1) observation (my cat is both faster and smarter than Mrs Gersen's cat), so it must be true! (Seriously, though, glossing over an unfounded claim in an abstract isn't too convincing.)
Agreed. If I was actually reviewing that study for peer review, I'd look at it more closely. Like actually reading the study itself :)
OTOH, I wouldn't expect the abstract to defend that correlation. The paper itself should, probably by referencing the literature where it's been studied in the past.
Then your analogy makes even less sense, though it stays amusing.
Because that's what the study is claiming. They're not "completely redefining the trait being measured", they're using something known to correlate with the trait.
Abstract wrote:
Simple reaction time measures correlate substantially with measures of general intelligence (g) and are considered elementary measures of cognition.
And they're doing so, I assume, because we have reaction studies from the Victorian period, but not worthwhile intelligence ones.
I deliberately picked a terrible analogy -- in fact, that was kinda the point. But my amazing BMIQ(tm) has allowed me to infer that you might be taking this more seriously than I am...
Not really.
It's just one of those studies that's easy to mock, but there may be more there than there seems at first glance.
if there is work linking reaction time to stimula to intelligence, which the abstract claimes, then there may be something to it.
Obviously, this probably doesn't correlate across species, so the cat's reaction time is irrelevant.
1. Correlation =/= causation.
2. General correlation between variables =/= statistics regarding one variable automatically transferring to the other.
3. I fail to see how species would be at all relevant, assuming it has (a) some intelligence (not much, but some!) and (b) reaction time. The neurochemical processes in a cat's brain and a human's brain work pretty much similarly.
1. I said nothing about causation.
2. It depends on how strong the correlation is and how broadly distributed across subgroups it is. If the correlation has only been studied in recent years, of course, then it may not have held in the same way in the past. They could have been faster without being smarter.
3. Among cats, the correlation may well hold. Smarter cats may react faster. That doesn't mean that a fast cat will be smarter than a slow human. The processing speed may be there, but the rest of the infrastructure isn't.
Then your analogy makes even less sense, though it stays amusing.
Because that's what the study is claiming. They're not "completely redefining the trait being measured", they're using something known to correlate with the trait.
Abstract wrote:
Simple reaction time measures correlate substantially with measures of general intelligence (g) and are considered elementary measures of cognition.
And they're doing so, I assume, because we have reaction studies from the Victorian period, but not worthwhile intelligence ones.
I'm not so sure about this. It sounds stupid on the face of it, but if there is work linking reaction time to stimula to intelligence, which the abstract claimes, then there may be something to it.
Obviously, this probably doesn't correlate across species, so the cat's reaction time is irrelevant.
And if you can show that BMI correlates to intelligence, then it might be worth using it as a proxy for intelligence, since it's so much easier to measure. Without that, it's worthless of course.
While I dont know if they actually need to be 'random' I think non set peice encounters are an important part of the game. First and foremost not every encounter can be something dms spend hours planning. That just isnt a rational use of a dm's time. Sometimes you just need to pop a few monsters in a clearing and let the party go at it. Its important in fact to do this given the expections of 3-4 encounters a day. If the party starts retreating after 2 encounters every day to rest, its time to park a few 'random' encounters their way to keep their resources appropriately taxed for the day.
This argument always bothers me.
If the party feels their weakened enough after 2 encounters that they need to rest, but finds when they do so they're threatened by a couple more encounters, why is the expected reaction to push on farther so that they're even more weakened when they retreat to rest? Shouldn't they be saving even more resources for the now expected randam encounters?
That is the point, the party should be forced to concerve resources. Too often encounters are 'too easy' because characters will expend large amounts of resources on a single encounter, then retreat to rest. They are SUPPOSED to need to concerve their resources for unexpected encounters and not be able to dictate the pace of the adventure. That's the dms job.
If you are saying that the party will stop even earlier because they now feel they have to concerve more, the point of random enocunters is to shock them out of the behavior. After they have been forced to deal with a couple encounters past their 'comfort zone' they will realize that they can better manage their resources (hopefully) and go longer over the course of the day without having to rest every 15 minutes.
Yeah, I kind of get that's the theory, I just can't see how it works. At least without some metagame assumption that you won't use random encounters if they keep pushing on long enough to make you happy.
I much prefer reactive settings to random encounters as a way to set the pace. I'd rather have the party worrying about what the inhabitants of the dungeon are doing to refortify or seek them out while they're resting, than about something unrelated wandering upon them in the night.
If there's always a good chance something dangerous will hit them while they're resting, then they won't dare even use up resources in the serious encounters where they're supposed to. After all, even after 5 or 6 encounters and then beating the epic BBEG fight, you could roll a couple APL+ encounters while trying to rest.
Is the thought process really supposed to be: We fought a couple of fights, were low on spells, so rested and got smeared by some randoms in the night. Obviously we need to use up less in each fight, but then do more fights so we're still just as used up when we get attacked in the middle of the night?
Our premise is, "the OP has exactly the game he wants. Paizo could also make a new game that other people would prefer -- one that the OP would be in no way obligated to switch to (except for some sort of neurological compulsion that could easily be cleared up with a session or two of therapy)."
The response is, "No! If I have the game I want, no one else is allowed to have theirs, if the same company produces it! (If a different company produces it I guess it's OK.)"
Help me. I'm at a loss.
A better response:
"If Paizo moves to PF 2, then Paizo stops making stuff for PF 1. I like getting more stuff for PF 1. Therefore, I do not want Paizo to make PF 2."
While I dont know if they actually need to be 'random' I think non set peice encounters are an important part of the game. First and foremost not every encounter can be something dms spend hours planning. That just isnt a rational use of a dm's time. Sometimes you just need to pop a few monsters in a clearing and let the party go at it. Its important in fact to do this given the expections of 3-4 encounters a day. If the party starts retreating after 2 encounters every day to rest, its time to park a few 'random' encounters their way to keep their resources appropriately taxed for the day.
This argument always bothers me.
If the party feels their weakened enough after 2 encounters that they need to rest, but finds when they do so they're threatened by a couple more encounters, why is the expected reaction to push on farther so that they're even more weakened when they retreat to rest? Shouldn't they be saving even more resources for the now expected randam encounters?
The movie was a great "Tony Stark techno thriller" movie but a really bad "Iron Man" movie. And I went to see an Iron Man movie.
If the movie was billed that way, I would have just saved my money and waited for the DVD. It would be like going to a Superman movie and having a Clark Kent news drama where less than 5 minutes he was Superman. Likely a decent movie, but not what you want to see when you go out to a Superman movie.
I think to be fair, we'd have to compare it to Superman spending a lot of time as Clark Kent while still pursuing the story movie - and isn't that largely the successful Smallville?
But a lot of the point of Smallville (and Lois & Clark, I believe) is that it wasn't billed as a Superman!!! show.
Spoiler:
And, in this case, it's not so much that he spent a lot of time without the armor being clever and accomplishing stuff anyway. It's that even in the climatic scenes, which were all about the big armor battles, it still wasn't "Tony in the Armor doing great superhero deeds".
If the GOP's attempt to impeach is seen by the public as political, then it will likely backfire on them.
This would be true even if there is substance to the charges - a.k.a.: Bill Clinton.
Except that the GOP are so completely sealed in their bubble that they would never have any notion that it might backfire. They're gonzo. I'll be willing to bet someone will at least make a motion before the year is out. Probably a teabagger.
Kinda like Dennis Kucinich did with Bush in 2008? Or John Conyers did in 2005? Or like the New Mexico Democratic Party put a plank in their platform demanding Bush's impeachment in 2006? Or like the Vermont Democratic Committee voted to call for in 2007? Or like the Vermont legislature voted on in 2008? Or like the New Hampshire legislature also voted on in 2008? The point is there was not a whole lot of faux outrage over people talking about or drafting articles of impeachment when it was Bush in office. And honestly, No smart Republican would vote to support articles of impeachment against Pres. Obama, because Pres. Biden would be an even bigger train wreck.
Irrelevant, really.
Barring something truly major, there is absolutely no chance of a conviction before 2014 and only after if the Senate has a major swing in the mid-terms. Don't worry about President Biden. (Though there's an outside chance he could run and win in 2016.)
But I wouldn't be at all surprised if the House voted on and even passed articles of impeachment, if they can get any traction with any of these charges. And not just the stupid ones. It's a political calculation. If they did hold such a vote, many Republicans who voted against it would face primary challengers attacking them for it. There's been so much energy invested in painting Obama as illegitimate, corrupt and un-American that a good chunk of the Base wouldn't accept anything else.
Yeah, it might well backfire on them. It's not like the GOP hasn't done anything that would backfire recently. And it might not hurt so bad in the long run.
Not every random encounter has to be a fight. Especially those way out of CR range ones.
If you roll up a dragon for a low level party, they can just see him flying overhead. They don't even have to run away, just don't try to draw it's attention.
They get a bit of "There's dangerous stuff out there", without taking up much time or resources.
And there's a big difference between the government banning you painting your house flamingo pink and your neighbors shunning you (and maybe your business) if you paint your house flamingo pink.
Or, to go back to the business at hand, between the government forcing Rush Limbaugh off the air because he's an offensive a!+##$# and people complaining to his advertisers and him losing revenue because he's an offensive a!~#&+$.
I'm also worried that this module will "wussify" dragons. Of course, there's more than one way to defeat a foe than fight them, but if that's how the dragon is defeated...
I would count on the author Mike Shel to deliver a satisfying conclusion.
The dragon, an aficionado of Taldan high culture, agrees to cease his depredations if the party can get him season tickets to the Oppara Opera House.
However, getting those tickets is an incredible challenge.
Wussified, indeed.
And then the difficult task of convincing the opera house manager to allow a dragon to attend, and figuring out the logistics of getting a grown dragon good seating.
It's a challenge unlike any you've faced before. :P
Let's ask the NYT's legal counsel during the Pentagon Papers!
It's a silly comparison. The two cases are so completely different it doesn't even make sense.
The Pentagon Papers was a release of essentially political information the public needed to know to understand the war that had been kept secret by the government. It was a huge embarrassment for the government and changed the politics of the day. Classic whistleblowing, in spirit in not in law. And it was known who did it. Anything Nixon did in response was done in retaliation.
This was the about the release of information that jeopardized an ongoing investigation, not for political purposes or to reveal government corruption or wrongdoing, but just as a regular news scoop. Nor had anyone taken credit for the leak, so finding out who did it might be critical to preventing further leaks.
That said, the Obama administration has been very harsh on leaks and whistleblowing, but I'd point more at the treatment of Manning and possibly of Assange than at this scandal
Overall, I think Matthews is right. Even though, as wolf and meat point out, you can argue the scrutiny is deserved because almost everyone abuses that particular tax exempt designation, the public doesn't care about that. They don't because the IRS is the most feared agency in the federal government. People put up with it because they trust the agency plays fair.
But calling that trust into question puts into jeopardy faith in the federal government. The left is frustrated by this and because Obama doesn't seem to be willing to fire people. He probably doesn't like direct confrontation.
There are reports that the scandal was brewing for awhile, but Obama says that he only just learned of it. If true this means his people shelter him from bad news and confrontation.
Management 101, if you can't handle firing people, then you have to give the power to someone else who will do the job.
Firing people? You mean like Steven Miller, the acting IRS commissioner and Joseph Grant, commissioner of the agency's tax-exempt and government entities division?
Technically they resigned, but at that level that's pretty much how it works. Or does Obama really have to hold a press conference and say "You're Fired" for it to count?
Or should he have fired them before the audit and investigation was done? "Oh there are rumors of scandal, fire someone!!!"
I do agree that this is going to hurt, mostly because people already dislike the IRS and are willing to believe bad things about it.
As much as I'm amused by Cordwainer Bird, the name also always reminds me of Cordwainer Smith. Who was absolutely brilliant and unlike anything else in SF.
But, yes, Harlan has his brilliant moments as well. Both in his fiction and his essays.
It just goes to show how thoroughly even we are indoctrinated. Whatever you make, you earn. And that's how much you're worth.
Unless of course you're poor. Or union. Or government. In which case you don't really earn that much. You just steal it from real hard-working Americans.
I'd still like to see a breakdown on numbers, but I think that goes a long way to show that it wasn't politically motivated.
I'd still like to see a more detailed breakdown on groups selected for the special processing and on the ones the auditor didn't find sufficient documentation for.
Of course, chances are slim this bit of evidence will hit the pundit circuit, the main news shows or come up in the Issa's committee hearing.
Because you specify, no modifiers and no stealth use for both Notices, this doesn't address the question of whether any modifiers, including stealth apply to the Notice DC.
It also doesn't address the question of a pinpoint DC that isn't based on Stealth.
It's really hard to come up with concise questions that nail down what we really want to know.
I'm hoping Wraithstrike is right and they already plan to address this.
How don't the spot checks match up with PF? If I missed something let me know what it is. Every thing I have quoted with reference to spot has matched up.
Again from that same article:
The Table under Spot Check DCs
<Reformatted to hopefully make readable here>
Invisible Thing Notice DC Locate DC
Active Creature 20 40
Living Creature 30 50
Holding Still
Inanimate Object 40 60
Obviously PF only has immobile and active. And doesn't allow notice on non-active, while 3.5 made it harder. Nor does the 30 DC for holding still match the +40 for not moving.
And just above it says explicitly
Quote:
The DC for actually pinpointing an invisible thing's location so that you know where to aim an attack is 20 points higher.
So if I rolled a 20 on my reactive Perception check and got a total 45, beating the DC 20 to Notice and the DC 40 to Pinpoint, you would just tell me there was something around?
And I would have to use a move action to have any chance of pinpointing it?
I would say: You get a reactive Perception check to the stimulus of an active invisible creature. Depending on your roll you can Pinpoint, Notice or fail entirely.
If you Notice (or fail and have some reason too), you can take a move action tointentionally searhc and make another check.
That seems to match the RAW just as well, considering the Invisibility text says nothing about active or reactive.
What "DC 40 to Pinpoint" are we talking about? Are we still discussing a stealthy rogue who gets a 20 on Stealth + 20 for invisibility?
(see, that's why it's a bad idea to include a stealth result of 20 with all the other +20 modifiers flying around this discussion, it's hard to tell them apart, we should use a Stealth roll of 19 instead, it's much clearer that way).
I would agree, one check is all you need.
If there is an invisible critter within 30' (let's say 25 feet away), using stealth, with no bonuses or penalties for moving (so he's slowly moving at less than half his speed), let's say his final result on his Stealth check is 19:
DC to Notice: 20
DC to Pinpoint: Stealth +20 (invisibility) + 2 (distance) = 41
At this point I was ignoring stealth and working with either my or Wraithstrike's approach, which without stealth and within 30' give the same DC for Pinpointing.
Let's say an invisible creature, moving less than half speed, not using stealth within 10'. So there are no speed, distance or other modifiers from the table.
DC 20 to notice. +20 to Pinpoint = DC 40 to Pinpoint.
I think you would have the Pinpoint DC the same as the Notice if he's not using Stealth? Or 2 higher in your example, since you only count Distance for Pinpoint not notice?
We do agree on how the checks work. One reactive check can get both. You can use an active one to retry if you have reason. We just don't calculate the DCs the same way.
I'd say if you make the notice check by 20 points, you've already pinpointed. No need for another check. You could also make a Notice roll as an active check. Perhaps you'd noticed someone earlier, but are trying to see if he's left the area.
Not that it's really a Notice check. You roll a Perception and if you beat the Notice DC for an invisible creature within 30' you know "something's there". You beat it by 20 and you know where.
I agree with this. However, I believe a PC gets a reactive perception check to notice when an active invis creature is <30'. They can certainly make an active perception check at anytime to see if they think the creature is still there and might even pinpoint him 50' away if the result is high enough.
thejeff wrote:
So if I rolled a 20 on my reactive Perception check and got a total 45, beating the DC 20 to Notice and the DC 40 to Pinpoint, you would just tell me there was something around?
No, I would say you pinpointed them based off the result of your roll. If you only got a 39, you would get a hunch, and if you got a 19, you wouldn't get anything.
If you got a 39, you could then choose to use a move action and make another perception check, hoping to pinpoint the thing you have a hunch about.
Yay! We agree.
It's so rare in this thread, I like to point it out.
One amusing thing about the AP scandal. Back when the leak occured Republicans were screaming for an investigation. Now they're screaming about the investigation.
Right. You don't get a passive perception check to notice them, but if you take a move action to make an active perception check, you might just happen to pinpoint them.
Except that's not the distinction between Notice and Pinpoint.
It's not that one is passive and the other active. It's that one is harder than the other.
Or at least that's the subject currently under contention.
It's certainly true that the RAW does not say you get a Notice check free and you must take a move action to have a chance of Pinpointing.
From the perception skill:
"Action: Most Perception checks are reactive, made in response to observable stimulus. Intentionally searching for stimulus is a move action."
From the invisibility section:
"A creature can generally notice the presence of an active invisible creature within 30 feet with a DC 20 Perception check."
I read this that when an active invisible creature is within 30 feet, you get a reactive perception DC 20 check to notice it.
If you want to make any perception check beyond the reactive one, it is a move action.
So if I rolled a 20 on my reactive Perception check and got a total 45, beating the DC 20 to Notice and the DC 40 to Pinpoint, you would just tell me there was something around?
And I would have to use a move action to have any chance of pinpointing it?
I would say: You get a reactive Perception check to the stimulus of an active invisible creature. Depending on your roll you can Pinpoint, Notice or fail entirely.
If you Notice (or fail and have some reason too), you can take a move action tointentionally searhc and make another check.
That seems to match the RAW just as well, considering the Invisibility text says nothing about active or reactive.
Pretty sure pinpointing does not imply noticing. Pinpointing is a thing you can do if and only if you already know there's something there. You have to have noticed (or otherwise been informed) to attempt it.
So you would say it's impossible to perceive an invisible creature more than 30' away?
Quote:
A creature can generally notice the presence of an active invisible creature within 30 feet with a DC 20 Perception check. The observer gains a hunch that "something's there" but can't see it or target it accurately with an attack. It's practically impossible (+20 DC) to pinpoint an invisible creature's location with a Perception check.
There is nothing in the rules text about when either check is allowed. Other than the "within 30'" part for notice.
All it says is that "It's practically impossible (+20 DC) to pinpoint".
I'd say if you make the notice check by 20 points, you've already pinpointed. No need for another check. You could also make a Notice roll as an active check. Perhaps you'd noticed someone earlier, but are trying to see if he's left the area.
Not that it's really a Notice check. You roll a Perception and if you beat the Notice DC for an invisible creature within 30' you know "something's there". You beat it by 20 and you know where.
Yeah, the difference there is that Nixon's enemies list was a real thing, that he used to attack his political enemies. Not suspected terrorists, justly or not, but domestic politicians, reporters and activists.
Obama has a kill list, which I think is a bad thing. But it's not political rivals, it's been used solely on people affiliated with terrorists. Very loosely in some cases. With bad intelligence in others. Again, I think it's a very bad thing. But not something Darryl Issa needs to worry about, no matter how many investigations into Obama scandals he cranks up.
Right. You don't get a passive perception check to notice them, but if you take a move action to make an active perception check, you might just happen to pinpoint them.
Except that's not the distinction between Notice and Pinpoint.
It's not that one is passive and the other active. It's that one is harder than the other.
Or at least that's the subject currently under contention.
It's certainly true that the RAW does not say you get a Notice check free and you must take a move action to have a chance of Pinpointing.
You can't just look at the Hide rules, because Stealth is a combination of Hide and Move Silently.
The wording in the invis(PF) matches the spot checks, since PF does not have them seperated we have to go by what we have.
3.5 gave you the option of the spot or listen chick so even meeting the lower DC would work. That lower DC is what you should expect to see in PF.
PS:I did not check the listen section since the numbers dont match up between 3.5 and PF like spot does.
Actually the Spot check section doesn't match your version of the PF rules.
The Notice/Locate goes up for holding still, which you have said doesn't happen.
The Pinpoint tracks directly as +20 to Locate.
You can't ignore the listen section. The skills were merged together. When you use Stealth while Invisible in PF, it's much more like Move Silently than Hiding. You don't need something to hide behind, like you did in 3.5, for example.
The Listen section does match the PF rules, just without any bonus for being invisible, since that doesn't matter to listening. There is a +20DC to Pinpoint someone using Listen. The DC to notice is just the Move Silently check with movement/noise modifiers.
When they rolled them together they made it one check, with a base 20 to notice, like the Spot check and kept the further +20 to pinpoint.
A creature blinded by darkness can make a Perception check as a free action each round in order to locate foes (DC equal to opponents' Stealth checks). A successful check lets a blinded character hear an unseen creature over there somewhere. It's almost impossible to pinpoint the location of an unseen creature. A Perception check that beats the DC by 20 reveals the unseen creature's square (but the unseen creature still has total concealment from the blinded creature).
That's interesting. It needs a little work: How does it interact with creatures who can't make Stealth checks, for example.
The difficulty to Notice is lower, only the -4 to Perception, but that's not a bad thing really. Sneaking by someone without alerting them would rely on Stealth even if you're invisible.
The interesting thing from the POV of this discussion is that almost the same language is used as the invisibility section we're talking about: "locate" instead of "notice", "over there somewhere", "almost impossible to pinpoint" and the same +20 DC modifier to pinpoint, but here they make it clear that the Pinpoint is +20 to the Locate Perception check.
This also matches with the old 3.5 rules, where the Pinpoint was definitely a hard +20 to the Notice.
No it does not.
They said the hide check hide check +20 for being invisible. I thought I quoted that. That is why for PF I said it was stealth +20(for being invisible).
There is no quote in the link I provided that adds the 20(for notice) to the 20(pinpointing)+stealth check.
Quote:
As noted in the description for the Hide skill, you gain a +20 bonus on Hide checks if you're moving and +40 on Hide checks if you're not moving.
See it says the same thing I said. You get a +40 to hide(PF Stealth) if you are not moving, and a 20 if you are moving.
In 3.5 using Hide while invisible was a special thing, often not usable or useful. You needed cover or concealment beyond invisibility.
3.5 Invisibility and Hiding:
As noted in the description for the Hide skill, you gain a +20 bonus on Hide checks if you're moving and +40 on Hide checks if you're not moving.
To make a Hide check at all, you need some sort of concealment or cover, and that applies even when you're invisible and the creatures trying to spot you can't see invisible things. Invisibility gives you total concealment, but spotting something invisible carries its own Spot DCs and you can't make yourself harder to see without a little extra help from your surroundings.
When making your Hide check, apply all the modifiers that normally apply to the check (such as Armor Check penalties and penalties for your movement). Perceptive readers will note that you're effectively paying a double penalty for moving here because the bonus for being invisible is lower and you take a Hide check penalty for that movement as well. That, however, is the nature of invisibility in the D&D game. Any movement makes you easier to spot while you're invisible, whereas your speed makes it harder for you to hide and the effect gets worse the faster you go.
But I was specifically referring to the Spot Check DCs and the Listen Check DCs discussed in that article. Look at the tables for each. Also note this
Quote:
the basic Spot DCs noted in the Dungeon Master's Guide are for merely noticing that there's something unseen somewhere within 30 feet. The DC for actually pinpointing an invisible thing's location so that you know where to aim an attack is 20 points higher.
The Listen doesn't say it that explicitly, but the table does show in each case a Listen DC to Locate that is 20 more than the Listen DC to Notice.
The Spot Checks are against flat DCs, with a distance modifier. The Listen ones are against Move Silently with various modifiers. Both use a +20 to pinpoint.
It's not clear how Hide interacts with that. It is never mentioned in the context of Notice/Pinpoint
You can't just look at the Hide rules, because Stealth is a combination of Hide and Move Silently.
Yeah stealth helps when you don't move, but is not your buddy when you do move, and it is strange, but only within 30 feet
Wait, what do you mean "only within 30 feet"?
What do think the DC to pinpoint an invisible creature 40' away would be?
Continue assuming moving less than half speed and 10 Stealth result, to keep things simple.
Both sneaking and not sneaking?
I was saying the DC to notice is limited to 30 feet per the rules.
Outside of 30 feet it is not even a factor since you can't notice anything outside of 30 feet.
+20 for moving+4(distance modifier)+10 stealth roll=34
no stealth roll-->+20 for moving +4 distance=24
You can't really add the +20 for pinpointing outside of 30 feet if they don't apply outside of 30 feet..
I think this nonsense is why they will be giving us something official soon.
Now if they intend for it to always apply they should say , but the +20 for pinpointing always applies, but it is not written that way.
So you actually do think the RAW makes it easier to Pinpoint people farther than 30' than closer? At least if they're not sneaking.
I was just saying the notice DC only comes into play within 30 feet. That is all.
I disagree. I feel that 1 of 2 things is correct when the invisible creature is more than 30 ft away. Either you cannot notice ir pinpoint them at all. Or, the base DC20 to notice is increased by 1 per 10 ft beyond 30 ft and the +20 to pinpoint is added as well.
It makes absolutely no sense that outside of 30 ft you can pinpoint but not notice.
So, by my interpretation:
Notice invisible creature within 30 ft: DC 20
Notice invisible creature 30-40 ft away: DC 21, adding another 1 for every 10 ft beyond 40 ft
Pinpoint invisible creature: +20 to whatever the notice DC would be
Stealth: add stealth check + 20 to notice/pinpoint DC depending on which you are attempting
Apply all other modifiers for movement/talking/combat as normal.
I think Jeff agrees with me about all of that except the extra +20 on the stealth check. Wraithstrike seems to be saying that the DC to notice an invisible creature more than 30 ft away is 0 and then you add the appropriate modifiers for pinpointing, stealth, movement, etc.
I'm undecided on the more than 30' away issue.
The RAW is quite clear there is no chance to Notice more than 30' away.
I can't decide what that means for Pinpoint. It seems strange that there would be no way to detect someone more than 30' away, even if you could locate them easily if they were closer (Assume high Perception and them running or something to have negative modifiers).
It also seems strange to only be able to locate them exactly, with no chance of knowing they're out there somewhere.
Yeah stealth helps when you don't move, but is not your buddy when you do move, and it is strange, but only within 30 feet
Wait, what do you mean "only within 30 feet"?
What do think the DC to pinpoint an invisible creature 40' away would be?
Continue assuming moving less than half speed and 10 Stealth result, to keep things simple.
Both sneaking and not sneaking?
I was just saying the notice DC only comes into play within 30 feet. That is all.
But the Pinpoint DC doesn't change, right? (Other than a distance modifier)
So at 45' you'd still have
Moving at less than half speed in both cases
Without Stealth,
Pinpoint DC 40 +4 = 44
With Stealth = 10
Pinpoint DC 30 +4 = 34.
Low Stealth hurting when you move is still strange outside of 30'.
Unless you're doing something like not using the Notice DC as a base for Pinpoint outside 30', which makes Stealth better, but also means it's easier to Pinpoint someone not useing Stealth outside 30' than closer. Which makes no sense.
So looking at the actual AIG Audit, this is how the IRS scandal breaks down:
298 cases were sent to the team of specialists for further processing as potential political cases.
96 of these had "Tea Party", "Patriots" or "9/12" in their names. The other 202 did not.
Of those 298, the audit determined that 91 applications did not have indication of significant political campaign intervention.
Note that the EO disagreed with these findings:
Spoiler:
We discussed our results with EO function officials, who disagreed with our findings. Although EO function officials provided explanations about why the applications should have been identified as potential political cases, the case files did not include the specific reason(s) the applications were selected. EO function officials also stated that applications may not literally include statements indicating significant political campaign intervention.
According to EO function officials, organizations may not understand what constitutes political campaign intervention or may provide vague descriptions of certain activities that the EO function knows from past experience potentially involve political campaign intervention. In these cases, the EO function believes it is important to review the applications to ensure that political campaign intervention is not the organization's primary activity. To provide further assurance that Determinations Unit employees are handling tax matters in an impartial manner, it would be helpful to document specifically why applications are chosen for further review.
The issues seem to be more about documentation than actual lack of reasons.
What I couldn't find in the report was anything about what percentage of those 91 were conservative Tea Party groups, compared to the percentage of other groups. Nor could I find anything about the other groups that weren't selected.
If all 91 that might not have deserved the extra scrutiny were Tea Party groups, that's a good sign of bias and potentially a serious problem. If none of them were or if a similar percentage to other groups were, then it really wasn't.
The shortcut of assuming Tea Party groups needed a closer look would be valid if the all did have the warning signs that they were supposed to be checking for.
