This last weekend I began the Rise of the Runelords campaign with our local group using the Alpha 3 Pathfinder rules. The group is made up of several seasoned RPG’ers, (most of which have been playing since basic) and a high school student who just started playing D&D 3 years ago. Everyone seemed excited to be playing, but that might be because we haven’t been getting together to play as often as we used.
Character creation was fun and exciting again, as players were looking at the future possibilities for their characters and what back stories they could come up with using the information on Sandpoint and the Players guide for RotR. For character creation, I made a couple of adjustments to the current Alpha 3 rules.
First, I gave all characters max hit points plus Con modifier plus Con score for first level. The group voted and decided to take LG average for future hit points instead of rolling, thus not allowing me to roll for the monster’s hit points as well.
Second, I allowed players who created a human to take a proficiency in any weapon of their choice. I had two players take advantage of this, one (a ranger) took Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Greatbow), the other (a rogue) took Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Spiked Chain). Thus far, neither character appears to have an advantage; however, the rogue didn’t roll very well on his attacks and missed a lot. This may become more advantageous as he gains levels. Other than the increased damage die, the ranger doesn’t gain a significant advantage. I believe that a better compromise, since I don’t like the way the human weapon proficiency feat works now, is to allow a human to gain weapon proficiency in a martial weapon (as it is currently written), unless they already have that from their first level class abilities, then they would be allowed to gain a weapon proficiency in one weapon of their choice.
As a side note, I did have players who decided to try new things they never have had a chance to do before, like make a Barbarian Sorcerer Gnome with the Fey Bloodline, or use new feats like the .
During the adventure the hardest thing we came across was the Combat Maneuver Grapple. We came to a conclusion in the ensuing discussion, but felt that maybe there should be a little better clarification of the rules for grappling. Here are a few questions that came out of our discussion.
How do you handle grappling when a group of creatures gang up on one character?
How do you decide who is in control of the grapple? And how do you gain control from the one who is in control?
Are all creatures who are participating (willing or not) in the grapple considered in control, or does the creature who was grappled have to make a CMB check to wrestle control of the grapple from the creature who initiated it? Or can the creature who was grappled just make a CMB check to move, damage, or pin the creature who initiated it? Do you only get one attack as a standard action in a grapple, even when you have multiple attacks available?
Can you fire a ranged weapon into a grapple without penalty to hitting your own party member? Or is there an even % chance that you will hit any one creature in the grapple?
I guess we would just like a little more clarification on the grapple rules, maybe an example or two. Even though we have all these questions about grapple, we still felt that having only the creature who’s turn it was rolling made it easier to run.
We also were wondering about using weapons you are not proficient with to attempt a Combat Maneuver. For example, if I use a whip and I am not proficient in its use, do I take a penalty to trip attempts? As I read the rules right now, there is your BAB + Strength + size modifier, nothing noted about weapons. We assumed that you would still get the bonus from the weapon for trip attempts and would take the penalty for not being proficient, but we just wanted a clarification.
The group also decided that they like the idea of one square of movement equal five (5) feet, whether you are traveling in a straight line or moving diagonally. It makes it much easier to count and even us seasoned RPG’ers have a hard time remember which diagonal we are on at the end of a 12 hour game session.
A question about cover bonus from ranged attacks came up. If you fire a ranged weapon down a line at a creature and the line goes between two characters/obstacles do all 4 lines to determine cover count or only 2? For example, if I am shooting a goblin in square 1 and I am 4 squares away in a straight line, and there is another character directly between us in that line of squares and a character next to that character and I choose the front corner of my square to shoot from, where two of the lines go directly down the crease between the squares, are they blocked or not. I will attempt an illustration to show what I mean.
|G|X|
|X|X|
|C|C|
|X|X|
|A|X|
Another question that came up was the description under Knowledge (arcane) talks about using it to determine the abilities of monsters. Has this changed, so that it is now the only Knowledge that allows this for all monsters, or is it still the same as before where Knowledge (nature) lets you know about animals, Knowledge (religion) lets you know about undead, etc…? And while discussing this, we thought that maybe, in an effort to decrease the number of knowledge’s (which we felt was too large, especially for a wizard who only gets 2 skill points), maybe you could get rid of Knowledge (dungeoneering) and possibly put more of them together, like Nobility and Royalty with History. Move the creatures (oozes) that you can learn about through dungeoneering into arcane, and the spelunking information into Survival. Just something we thought would help.
We also were playing an LG mod the next day and encountered a creature that could cast Meteor Swarm. After arguing about this spell for quite some time, we came up with a couple of things that may not have been covered yet. We were able to blind the creature before it was able to cast the spell, which is why we had a long argument. For spells like Meteor Swarm that do a ranged touch attack with a ray we didn’t see how it should still be allowed to pick a point/character to attack when it cannot see where it is aiming. However, since Meteor Swarm is a ray, and requires a ranged attack, which you can do blind, the creature was able to target a character. Perhaps we just missed something, but we would also like to see Meteor Swarm go back to the old style and be two different types of damage, ½ bludgeoning and ½ fire.
Finally, during the first encounter in Burnt Offerings, one player chimed in that it would sure be nice if he could get everyone to move out of his way so he could charge a goblin. So we came up with a spell that we would like to propose. Think Andre the Giant in “The Princess Bride”.
Clear the Path
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Language-Dependent, Mind-Affecting]
Level: Brd 1, Clr 1, Pal 1, Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: Swift Action
Range: Up to a 60’ line
Target: All living creatures
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
You shout out a loud command and all creatures along the line feel compelled to move out of your way. Unless prohibited by an obstacle, terrain, or another creature, creatures along the line must immediately move 5 feet away from (perpendicular to) the line of effect and allow you to move through.
He is the OP. Shieldknight is an alias of Mark Larson. This type of confusion is part of why I don't like MUPs...
OOT: Yeah, would be nice to have a way to change the default permanently, at least. ... IS there a way to change the default?
I like the spell, but imho it should be 2. level (but for the bard, maybe), as a swift action and with multiple targets...
Sorry if there was confusion about who was the OP.
Besides that, it would sure be nice to have some answers to the grappling questions mentioned. If there is another thread that talks about it, I apologize, but I haven't found one that talks specifically about the points I brought up.