Does the ice bow have an enchantment modifier?
Yes, +1
What a cliffhanger to leave us on!
Just waiting on Arjax
I think Arjax is waiting on you, since he has two bad people go before his init.
Ogre and shadow are charging in, drow is keeping her distance.
Did Bjorkus manage to oil up before initiative or is that his first action?
You should always be oiled up.
I agree, since it was that action that caused the combat to begin.
It's part of his perform skill.
Yes, you completed pouring out the potion, and THEN combat begins
Lindale what are you doing?
Thought ogre and shadow go before me
I plan to activate judgement(smiting) and copycat.
Are there any feats or things we can take to protect ourselves from your random injury system?
Some of the effects have been fun flavor but others are crippling. Fatigue on a barbarian is a good example.
Also, I thought you said endurance would be a good fit for this campaign? If it's not used for resisting pain, how is it a good fit?
Off the top of my head I cannot think of any feats to help with this. I can think of some magical armors that could help, such as stanching. Honestly you're lucky you're still standing, when most people break half their ribs they can't even move.
Endurance is going to help A LOT in the next arc of the campaign, so much that everybody is probably going to glare at you jealously.
Could you cook up a homebrew feat?
I'd like to reduce my chances of being randomly crippled.
I'll work on it, only seems fair. I'll make sure I have it up before you hit lv 3
Cool. Thanks.
This is an excellent time to ask this question: "Stoneblood (Ex): At 3rd level, a stonelord's vitals begin to calcify and her blood transforms into liquid stone. She adds her paladin level on checks to stabilize at negative hit points and gains a 25% chance to ignore a critical hit or precision damage. This does not stack with fortification armor or similar effects. At 9th level, this chance increases to 50% and she becomes immune to petrification. At 15th level, this chance increases to 75% and she becomes immune to bleed and blood drain effects. This ability replaces divine health and her mercies gained at 3rd, 9th, and 15th level."
I think this will give me a percentage chance to avoid location hits just as it does critical hits and precision damage (ie being hurt in a specific spot). In fact, it's one of the reasons I took this archetype after you told us about how awful your crit tables and location damage are. But, now I want to make sure we are on the same page about this protecting me from that sort of nonsense.
Heh. I suppose that's what I get for not asking enough questions.
Had I known how punishing this was going to be, I would have built Bjorkus to be immune to crits.
Oh ya, I consider these effects precision damage. Those abilities would certainly help you.
It's a dangerous world out there. As far as I can tell you get a location hit, if you hit with one less than your crit range.
I think every attack is a location hit.
Maybe I'll retire Bjorkus and bring in an alchemist. They can have 75% fortification at level 4.
If we make it to level 20 I will laugh at all rogues and crit-based fights.
There may even be slight scoffing.
No, it depends on how much damage you do. The ogre nearly rolled max on his damage (and 2d8+7 is nothing to laugh at)
Is it? I've only noticed them based on crit range, but perhaps I'm mistaking correlation for causation.
Sure but taking a lot of damage should be punishing enough. Bjorkus soaking that hit and standing should have been an inspiring moment.
Instead I was forced to limp away.
Oh, it really is adding insult to injury.
Literally.
Surviving this room will be impressive, that drow has a couple of levels on us and the only people capable of even hiting the shadow are Lindale, Psotheos, and Gabriel, if he smites, and they only have 50% odds to hit it with any given attack. And we cannot really engage either until this reaching ogre is dealt with. I was a sad panda that he didn't have to waste his next round beating the drow. That would have been inspiring, but that round was a no-good-very-bad-day for us.
Bjorkus is essentially out of the fight.
I can inspire for a couple rounds but that's it.
Bard loving is never to be overlooked in value.
Heh. Well Bjorkus has three rounds left.
I'm disappointed to see that barbarians have no rage powers that grant protection from precision based damage. Omen, would Uncanny Dodge and/or Improved Uncanny Dodge help?
Rerolling alchemist is looking better and better.
Why did Toramin's icon move? He has reach.
Don't give up on Bjorkus, I entreat you. There will always be some terrible thing happening that some other kind of character could handle better. (Unless you are a Wizard, and then you can handle any situation.) I'm enjoying the bond that develops between characters. :-)
Also, drow abilities. AT will!
We can make new bonds! =P
Sure there's things that other characters can handle better but Bjorkus as I'd planned him will never be able to function well with the mechanics that Omen's setup. I need to find a way to fit the square peg into the round hole or get a new peg.
Moved him on a whim, I moved him back.
Do my rules seem unfair or unrealistic? IMHO, if an ogre does 80% of your health with one hit than it's going to screw you up. Remember your opponents suffer from the same consequences.
Also, I had a stroke of inspiration driving home regarding the feat, *ahem*.
Grit Your Teeth
You have a remarkable tolerance for pain and can shake off debilitating effects.
Prerequisites: Endurance, Con 13
Benefit: You gain a +4 bonus on saves and checks to resist or overcome debilitating effects caused by damage to your body (through any means). In addition, if you suffer from an effect that causes a penalty to any roll, the penalty is reduced by 1
Tell me what you think. I'm open to debate on this, including the flavor (description) and the name of the feat.
Also, thinking about it logically, barbarians should have a natural resistance to some of these effects. I would say unless something is major (such as an arm being lopped off) you should have a class bonus against such things.
My thoughts are adding your barbarian level to these checks/saves. Thoughts?
Thanks for working with me to make these homebrew rules work.
You should see what happens when you crit on a called shot. Con BLEED. Enough said.
The way I see it, getting hit hard by the ogre is punishing enough. There's no need to add extra penalties on top of that.
Shadowrun has a functional injury system because it's nearly impossible to die in it. Cumulative penalties are a way of making combat scary.
That's unnecessary in 3.5/Pathfinder.
I think as a whole I'm going to tune down on the debilitating effects, just make them only happen as rare circumstances when an extraordinary amount of damage is dropped.
I agree with Bjorkus that they are pretty rough, but I feel that this is all-part-and-parcel of this campaign. You spent several paragraphs in the recruitment thread telling us how gritty and painful your combats are. So I guess it's a feature and not a bug? That being said, I totally support there being homebrew feats to address this homebrew problem.
Yeah, we were given more or less full disclosure, but it should say something when the melee all looks for ways to opt out of said system.
Damage alone is enough. If you want to tack on more, please be clear on the massive damage/precision rules you're using to accrue additional effects; after all, your monsters may just receive the same treatment from us someday.
Well I have a couple adjustments to help with the unrest about the precision rules, more detailed in previous posts.
1) Less likely, only on truly staggering blows or special situations.
2) Allowing "tougher" classes to have some natural resistances to these abilities. I'm actually thinking of allowing you to add your BAB to these saves to represent your martial prowess.
3) Making the effects less debilitating, having them more for flavor and less for the combat penalties. For instance, instead of breaking your jaw and being unable to cast spells, you knocked out a few teeth and you spit blood every time you speak.
I apologize for any unbalance this homebrew rule has caused. Are you happy with any or all of these adjustments to it?
That is a logic that I cannot argue against, Bjorkus. I'm convinced. :-)
I think the more pressing topic is what happens in round 2. Everybody has posted.