Well, I tend to think of it like the Force - other spell-casters are going to know what's happening, even if they don't know the precise spell. Mundanes, not so much.
My group ran it like 3.5 even though none of us even played 3.5.
My group ran it like 3.5 even though none of us even played 3.5.
And my group ran 3.5e like the FAQ.
I would think most groups would run it like 3.5...
After all, look at all the random places supporters have to point to to try and draw some conclusion. Not many average players I think would go to look at the Counterspelling Section to look at rules for Spellcraft... Heck, I think most people think of the sweeping arms and incantation as the "Hm I wonder what he is casting" signs...
It's never come up in my experience, as anyone who wanted to disguise their spellcasting either played a Bard and took Spellsong, or considered and rejected the idea of having to do Eschew/Still/Silent as too costly for a niche ability.
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Spells from like 7 and up should have to be taxing rituals that you can't do on the fly by simply reaching in a bag and throwing bat guano while chanting. I'm not averse to giving them some pretty below average marial prowess in exchange.
This especially. There are lots of (honestly overpowered) reality changing spells that I absolutely love, but think that being able to be cast by one dude with a standard action are ridiculous. We need more long rituals requiring multiple spell casters, and we also need more spells that @&$# up the people who cast them. Simulacrum would be (slightly) less ridiculous if you had to burn your constitution (and not allow it to be healed by conventional magic) or something to cast it. Spell casters should still be able to do epic crazy world altering stuff (because, let's face it, that stuff is awesome), but it should be much more difficult and taxing.
I'd argue that having even 1 rank in Spellcraft very much distinguishes you from being mundane.Given that skills usually represent what you know/what you've learned, whereas abilities represent what you can do, I'm of the opinion that having a single rank in a skill isn't quite a high enough bar to separate "those with a mystical ability to sense eldritch powers around them" from "the mundanes."
This is true for some skills (knowledge, linguistics, ...), it is way different for most of them.
For example skills like Craft, Escape Artist, Acrobatics, Profession, Heal, Disguise, Disable Device, Diplomacy, ... all represent things you can do.
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1. Casting in Combat.
(a). You can cast a quickened spell, and a normal spell -- both of which require you to pull stuff out of a pouch, wave your hands in secret signs, and recite the Gettysburg Address in pig Latin -- while tumbling across the battlefield at full speed. Meanwhile, if Fred the Fighter moves, he loses all but one of his attacks. WTF?!?!?!
(b). At low levels, it's hard to cast spells while people are swinging sticks at you. Good. But at high levels, it's a joke and you auto-succeed -- regardless of whether the people attacking you are mooks or world-class slayers. In other words, you automatically get better at casting while under attack, but the people attacking you somehow never get better at disrupting your casting. WTF?!?!?!
I think casting defensively should be DC 10 + the CMB of the person threatening you.
Yeah, I think most spells probably need to cost a move action plus a standard action to better balance with full attacks.
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There are two that really irk me:
1. The 5 foot step withdraw to cast. Wizard with a fighter on you, no worries just 5 ft step back and waste him with a spell... over and over again. Cheesy.
2. DR X/Magic. After 5th level this is pretty much a totally worthless ability regardless of the DR value. The plus to overcome the DR should scale with the value, i.e. +1 overcomes DR 5, +2 overcomes DR 10 (or +1 lowers it to DR 5, etc.
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This especially. There are lots of (honestly overpowered) reality changing spells that I absolutely love, but think that being able to be cast by one dude with a standard action are ridiculous. We need more long rituals requiring multiple spell casters, and we also need more spells that @&$# up the people who cast them. Simulacrum would be (slightly) less ridiculous if you had to burn your constitution (and not allow it to be healed by conventional magic) or something to cast it. Spell casters should still be able to do epic crazy world altering stuff (because, let's face it, that stuff is awesome), but it should be much more difficult and taxing.It's almost like these spells should have casting times longer than just a standard action, have components that are difficult to find and/or be cumbersome to use, be so difficult to maintain that any disruption causes you to lose the spell automatically, and require the caster to burn off something like experience points or years of their life in order to cast them.
...Nah. Who'd ever play a game where that was required?
No reason to get snippy now. However you realize even a full round action is still only six seconds to cast right? I'm not sure there is a single spell tha couldn't be cast in a reasonable way during combat. Shoot there's a bard archetype that at least somewhat understands what I'm thinking, you have to set up a tea party that takes a good while just to give your party a few kinda small buffs. This obviously can't be done in combat. How many wizard spells provide much greater benefit an can be done as a standard action or even less?
...Nah. Who'd ever play a game where that was required?
Admittedly I'd say many (myself included) wouldn't.
I'm sort of sad to see this post, this is probably the third time I've seen a post removal message like this. What have we become!?
Also, back on topic, I find the lack of support for throwing weapons disturbing. Maybe not a current rule that needs work, but additional rules to make a character based entirely on throwing weapons.
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Were they talking about the things that they loved about Pathfinder? I'm failing to see how it could have been off-topic if they were still complaining about this or that rule.
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Were they talking about the things that they loved about Pathfinder? I'm failing to see how it could have been off-topic if they were still complaining about this or that rule.
They were discussion more than one thing they disliked about the game! The thread's topic very clearly says "name one...and say why". If you have more than one thing you dislike about Pathfinder, you're off topic.
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How about the Swarm subtype? I love what it's trying to convey, but 'immune to weapon damage' means martials can't hurt it, and 'immune to effects that target a single creature' pretty much eliminates any chance they had to affect it with something other than an attack roll.
Even if you come equipped with splash weapons, you can easily use up your splash weapons before a swarm runs out of hit points. Or it might be resistant/immune to the energy type of splash weapon you brought (I'm looking at you, vescavors).
Changing the rules on the party is desirable, but swarms are the kind of thing that lead to arbitrary TPKs regardless of CR because you didn't bring enough specialized gear and eliminated the ability of half the party to meaningfully contribute. Or because the wizard's last fireball left the swarm at 3 HP and then the party was out of gas.
How about the Swarm subtype? I love what it's trying to convey, but 'immune to weapon damage' means martials can't hurt it, and 'immune to effects that target a single creature' pretty much eliminates any chance they had to affect it with something other than an attack roll.
Even if you come equipped with splash weapons, you can easily use up your splash weapons before a swarm runs out of hit points. Or it might be resistant/immune to the energy type of splash weapon you brought (I'm looking at you, vescavors).
Changing the rules on the party is desirable, but swarms are the kind of thing that lead to arbitrary TPKs regardless of CR because you didn't bring enough specialized gear and eliminated the ability of half the party to meaningfully contribute. Or because the wizard's last fireball left the swarm at 3 HP and then the party was out of gas.
I second this thought. The theoretical flip side of this scenario is golems. A good offensive caster is supposedly shut down by a golem if he doesn't pack several no-SR spells. However, the no-SR spells best used for this situation, like create pit or glitterdust or disable construct are all low-level and readily available to numerous classes. Golems having absolute trash for saving throws means it's quite likely any of these will end up shutting down the creature for the encounter so the party beatsticks can 'THWACK' it to death. A fighter going up against a swarm with even 5 points of resistance against whatever particular elemental damage is on his backup weapon, though, is just screwed. There's no "well you should have prepped better" or "well you choose a silly feat instead of a useful one", the game just expects that he's screwed. That's stupid and unfair. After all the hundreds, if not thousands, of new feats Paizo has put out, you'd think one or two would address this.
I second this thought. (edited for space) A fighter going up against a swarm with even 5 points of resistance against whatever particular elemental damage is on his backup weapon, though, is just screwed. There's no "well you should have prepped better" or "well you choose a silly feat instead of a useful one", the game just expects that he's screwed. That's stupid and unfair. After all the hundreds, if not thousands, of new feats Paizo has put out, you'd think one or two would address this.How about the Swarm subtype? I love what it's trying to convey, but 'immune to weapon damage' means martials can't hurt it, and 'immune to effects that target a single creature' pretty much eliminates any chance they had to affect it with something other than an attack roll.
Even if you come equipped with splash weapons, you can easily use up your splash weapons before a swarm runs out of hit points. Or it might be resistant/immune to the energy type of splash weapon you brought (I'm looking at you, vescavors).
Changing the rules on the party is desirable, but swarms are the kind of thing that lead to arbitrary TPKs regardless of CR because you didn't bring enough specialized gear and eliminated the ability of half the party to meaningfully contribute. Or because the wizard's last fireball left the swarm at 3 HP and then the party was out of gas.
Motion has been made and seconded. All in favor?
I agree. Swarms shouldn't be immune to weapon damage. Highly resistant, maybe, but not immune.
I agree. Swarms shouldn't be immune to weapon damage. Highly resistant, maybe, but not immune.
How many times do you need to swing a sword at a swarm of locusts to kill them all? While the answer is some number that is less than infinity, it is so large that nobody would ever, ever do it. Anybody who did would give up long before he could even see a difference in the size of the locust swarm.
Sure, sure, his sword kills a few locusts. Keep it up long enough and he might kill hundreds of locusts before his arm is so dead-tired that he can't even lift it anymore. But the locust swarm will not even notice the loss, won't look smaller, won't do less damage to local crops, won't be affected in any way.
The dead locusts on the ground prove that they are, individually, NOT immune to the sword. But the essentially unaffected swarm has, literally, suffered no ill consequences for that swordsman's best efforts.
That's practically the definition of immunity.
The abstract combat system we use cannot effectively draw a line between "immunity" and "Millions of rounds of attacks would eventually eliminate the swarm but thousands will not". That degree of "highly resistant" just doesn't exist in this system, nor should it.
So swarms just use "immunity" because it's simpler than tracking millions of sword attacks.
I agree. Swarms shouldn't be immune to weapon damage. Highly resistant, maybe, but not immune.How many times do you need to swing a sword at a swarm of locusts to kill them all? While the answer is some number that is less than infinity, it is so large that nobody would ever, ever do it. Anybody who did would give up long before he could even see a difference in the size of the locust swarm.
Sure, sure, his sword kills a few locusts. Keep it up long enough and he might kill hundreds of locusts before his arm is so dead-tired that he can't even lift it anymore. But the locust swarm will not even notice the loss, won't look smaller, won't do less damage to local crops, won't be affected in any way.
The dead locusts on the ground prove that they are, individually, NOT immune to the sword. But the essentially unaffected swarm has, literally, suffered no ill consequences for that swordsman's best efforts.
That's practically the definition of immunity.
The abstract combat system we use cannot effectively draw a line between "immunity" and "Millions of rounds of attacks would eventually eliminate the swarm but thousands will not". That degree of "highly resistant" just doesn't exist in this system, nor should it.
So swarms just use "immunity" because it's simpler than tracking millions of sword attacks.
That's all fine and dandy, but a swarm of the size you are describing is going to take up more that a couple 5ft squares anyway. Weapons dealing only damage dice with no bonuses to swarms is a pretty reasonable house rule though. Kind of represents the fact that you can only physically cover so much area with a swing of your sword, but probably everything in that area got squashed. Bigger sword = more things squashed.
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I agree. Swarms shouldn't be immune to weapon damage. Highly resistant, maybe, but not immune.How many times do you need to swing a sword at a swarm of locusts to kill them all? While the answer is some number that is less than infinity, it is so large that nobody would ever, ever do it. Anybody who did would give up long before he could even see a difference in the size of the locust swarm.
Sure, sure, his sword kills a few locusts. Keep it up long enough and he might kill hundreds of locusts before his arm is so dead-tired that he can't even lift it anymore. But the locust swarm will not even notice the loss, won't look smaller, won't do less damage to local crops, won't be affected in any way.
The dead locusts on the ground prove that they are, individually, NOT immune to the sword. But the essentially unaffected swarm has, literally, suffered no ill consequences for that swordsman's best efforts.
That's practically the definition of immunity.
The abstract combat system we use cannot effectively draw a line between "immunity" and "Millions of rounds of attacks would eventually eliminate the swarm but thousands will not". That degree of "highly resistant" just doesn't exist in this system, nor should it.
So swarms just use "immunity" because it's simpler than tracking millions of sword attacks.
None of us are high level martial combatants in a fantastical world where magic flows from every other hole in the ground. Real-world physics shouldn't be a factor when the other members of the party can do things like dodge the entirety of a nuclear blast, transform themselves into a creature of pure living fire, make their own personal demiplane with customized time settings, or restore to life people who have been dead for a century. Screw realism and screw simplicity. If I have to crunch a few numbers to be able to murder the hell out of a swarm of demonic gnats, so be it!
None of us are high level martial combatants in a fantastical world where magic flows from every other hole in the ground. Real-world physics shouldn't be a factor when the other members of the party can do things like dodge the entirety of a nuclear blast, transform themselves into a creature of pure living fire, make their own personal demiplane with customized time settings, or restore to life people who have been dead for a century. Screw realism and screw simplicity. If I have to crunch a few numbers to be able to murder the hell out of a swarm of demonic gnats, so be it!
Ah, yes, this old argument. Over and over and over with this. Every discussion on this forum about how something should work ends with this.
Yes, orcs should fart fireballs, fighters should belch prismatic lightning and hamsters should have vorpal teeth. Because magic.
You're right, you win, there's no arguing against logic like that.
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None of us are high level martial combatants in a fantastical world where magic flows from every other hole in the ground. Real-world physics shouldn't be a factor when the other members of the party can do things like dodge the entirety of a nuclear blast, transform themselves into a creature of pure living fire, make their own personal demiplane with customized time settings, or restore to life people who have been dead for a century. Screw realism and screw simplicity. If I have to crunch a few numbers to be able to murder the hell out of a swarm of demonic gnats, so be it!Ah, yes, this old argument. Over and over and over with this. Every discussion on this forum about how something should work ends with this.
Yes, orcs should fart fireballs, fighters should belch prismatic lightning and hamsters should have vorpal teeth. Because magic.
You're right, you win, there's no arguing against logic like that.
Wow dude, way to strawman argument. Evasion = 100% non-magical. Evasion can let you dodge the entirety of a blast of 10 lbs of C4 going off fifty feet away from you. Non-magical, absolutely amazing none-the-less. Now, why exactly is something similarly impressive but useful offensively against one small subsection of creatures somehow equivalent to every Tom, Dick, and Harry literally eating lightning and crapping thunder?
And what's wrong with small animals having vorpal teeth, anyways?
See, that's just it. Improved Evasion can let you dodge the entirety of a blast of 10 lbs. of c4 going off 1 foot away. How? No idea. Must be magic, because even encasing yourself in concrete wouldn't actually save you.
Oh, yeah, and because of this, all those other things should happen too. And level 1 rogues should be able to run around invisibly in broad daylight surrounded by people who can't see them, martials should topple armies by stomping their foot, and barbarians should be able to leap up to the sky to hack a dragon in half with an axe. Because magic.
And, yeah, a fighter should be able to hack a swarm to death with just a few swings of a longsword. Because magic.
This whole fallacy is illogical (as all fallacies are) and has no bearing on a discussion of game rules.
And what's wrong with small animals having vorpal teeth, anyways?
Nothing. It was hilarious. A perfectly laughable scene in slapstick silly movie. Flawless.
If your game is a laughable, slapstick silly comedy, then vorpal rodents and all the other stuff I mentioned should fit right in.
That's not the usual flavor for Pathfinder games, so that stuff doesn't usually fit right in, but it might work for some.
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Ah, yes, this old argument. Over and over and over with this. Every discussion on this forum about how something should work ends with this.
In a world where a well trained and experienced man can fight using only his fists against creatures with 16' to 32 ft. of height and WIN, how to chop a swarm is unrealistic or magical about it?
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See, that's just it. Improved Evasion can let you dodge the entirety of a blast of 10 lbs. of c4 going off 1 foot away. How? No idea. Must be because it's fun.
Oh, yeah, and because of this, all those other things should happen too. And level 1 rogues should be able to run around invisibly in broad daylight surrounded by people who can't see them, martials should topple armies by stomping their foot, and barbarians should be able to leap up to the sky to hack a dragon in half with an axe. Because it's fun.
And, yeah, a fighter should be able to hack a swarm to death with just a few swings of a longsword. Because it's fun.
Fixed that for you :P
To be completely honest, martial characters are already doing ridiculous things. I mean, a fighter can survive a breath weapon a point blank that is hot enough to melt rock, they can shrug off any disease or any poison, if you slice their throats in their sleep they wake up and kill you. You may as well give them similar abilities that even the playing field at this point.
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See, that's just it. Improved Evasion can let you dodge the entirety of a blast of 10 lbs. of c4 going off 1 foot away. How? No idea. Must be magic, because even encasing yourself in concrete wouldn't actually save you.
Oh, yeah, and because of this, all those other things should happen too. And level 1 rogues should be able to run around invisibly in broad daylight surrounded by people who can't see them, martials should topple armies by stomping their foot, and barbarians should be able to leap up to the sky to hack a dragon in half with an axe. Because magic.
And, yeah, a fighter should be able to hack a swarm to death with just a few swings of a longsword. Because magic.
This whole fallacy is illogical (as all fallacies are) and has no bearing on a discussion of game rules.
I'm actually talking about regular Evasion, which is only level two for rogues and monks. It's not magic, as least not as far as Pathfinder is concerned, as even a cursory glance at the game rules will indicate. Saying "It must be magic" is not only not helpful at all to the rules, it's demonstrably, factually wrong.
Again, no one's arguing for these other things you keep mentioning. The mechanics of Pathfinder simply allow for weird and amazing crap to happen, magic or no. Surviving a drop from 100,000 feet in the air, for example. Or punching out a blood-crazed polar bear. Or wrestling a giant squid into a knot. These are things that, on worlds like Golarion, you don't NEED any magic for. No reason this (fighting swarms) can't be another such example.
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I think houseruling stuff like cleave or whirlwind attack to deal full damage to swarms would be pretty reasonable.
I.e., anything that converts a melee attack into an AoE should work on swarms.
(I'd be reluctant to completely take away the single-target attack immunity, because that's exactly what makes swarms scary in the first place.)
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Wait - why don't your martials all just carry a butterfly net to deal with swarms? They work great against any fine/diminutive swarms. Tiny swarms you just beat to death anyway.
Once you have the swarm in your net (if you have an 18 STR you're at a +8 vs a rat swarm - +9 vs locusts - plus I'd think your buddies could aid you on the STR check) just put the butterfly net over a torch for 1 fire damage a turn or in a tub of water to drown them. End of story. Once I figured that out - swarms became MUCH less of a hassle.
Still annoying if you're dealing with something else at the same time - but on their own they're pretty easy.
I think houseruling stuff like cleave or whirlwind attack to deal full damage to swarms would be pretty reasonable.
I.e., anything that converts a melee attack into an AoE should work on swarms.
(I'd be reluctant to completely take away the single-target attack immunity, because that's exactly what makes swarms scary in the first place.)
Hmm, kinda torn now. I'm all for feats giving new options, rather than just being plain ol' numbers bonuses, and this would fit very nicely with that idea. Very cool visual, too, of a fighter just sweeping an axe through a square and slicing dozens of angry jungle mosquitos in half. It DOES bring up the odd question of why a mythic feat is required to do full damage against swarms with ranged attacks, though (Mythic Precise Shot), even ones which do bludgeoning damage. Also, there's a fine line between 'scary' and 'just plain annoying'. A monster trait that goes "nyah nyah I'm totally immune to your physical attacks despite the fact that that's all you're really supposed to do in this game" against roughly half the classes we have so far is kind of dickish and silly. Pathfinder is a team game and it's fine that some things (dimensional travel, summoning outsiders, making demiplanes, resurrecting the dead, etc) are the realm of magic only, but swatting the hell out of a swarm of bugs shouldn't be one of them.
A much simpler option would be just halving weapon damage a second time for swarms at sub-tiny size. That would be really, really easy and wouldn't require the investment of a feat that low level characters might not have taken.
See, that's just it. Improved Evasion can let you dodge the entirety of a blast of 10 lbs. of c4 going off 1 foot away. How? No idea. Must be magic, because even encasing yourself in concrete wouldn't actually save you.
Except Pathfinder doesn't use C4. It uses "cinematic" C4. Makes a big difference when figuring out who gets killed by it.
*milo checks the technology guide*
heh. Rogues Can dodge fission reactor explosions.
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See, that's just it. Improved Evasion can let you dodge the entirety of a blast of 10 lbs. of c4 going off 1 foot away. How? No idea. Must be magic, because even encasing yourself in concrete wouldn't actually save you.Except Pathfinder doesn't use C4. It uses "cinematic" C4. Makes a big difference when figuring out who gets killed by it.
Yup. As long as you're a main character, all cinematic explosives do is knock you down and maybe stun you for a minute. Unless you turn your back on the explosion and start walking away, at which point you gain total immunity to them.
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Yup. As long as you're a main character, all cinematic explosives do is knock you down and maybe stun you for a minute. Unless you turn your back on the explosion and start walking away, at which point you gain total immunity to them.See, that's just it. Improved Evasion can let you dodge the entirety of a blast of 10 lbs. of c4 going off 1 foot away. How? No idea. Must be magic, because even encasing yourself in concrete wouldn't actually save you.Except Pathfinder doesn't use C4. It uses "cinematic" C4. Makes a big difference when figuring out who gets killed by it.
Guys - DM_Blake is entitled to enjoy the way the Swarm rules work. This is just people's preferences and opinions, so there's no right or wrong.
I happen to be one of those who feels they are a bit OP. And since this isn't a Rules Forum, I'm free to say it's a Pathfinder rule I dislike.
I do agree that single-target attack immunity makes sense because killing a single mosquito each round doesn't do anything. But swatting at a swarm surely does something, even if it means a reduced damage roll. And some weapons should be effective to some degree against swarms, not this blanket "weapon = no damage whatsoever!". Piercing weapons, especially, I can see not doing anything. But blunt/bashing weapons, or smashing with the flat of a blade - yeah, they should do some damage.
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Wow dude, way to strawman argument. Evasion = 100% non-magical. Evasion can let you dodge the entirety of a blast of 10 lbs of C4 going off fifty feet away from you.
To be fair, I've actually done that without the benefit of evasion.
As for swarm rules, I think it varies. It would be nearly impossible to kill a swarm of fine sized flying insects. However, it'd be really easy to kill a swarm of spiders or other crawly critters (take shield, splat entire five foot square, step on escapees). Also the size of the swarm matters too, obviously. A giant apocalypse swarm is harder to kill than a single swarm of slugs or whatever.
EDUT: oops