1A4Atheist's page

The thing is...

Ray of enfeeblemant is a penalty to strength, not damage. The spell effect does not stack, only the duration of the spell is extended. Even other casters do not increase the penalty. Eleven is the most strength penalty any single creature can suffer from Ray of Enfeeblement.

It seems your DM threw you a bone. Or the spell was misunderstood.

-Jack

edit: There is a discrepency between the short description on the spell list and the definition of the spell in PFRPG. The spell list says damage. The definition says penalty. The same discrepency is in the SRD. The general rule is that definition trumps lists or charts when there is a difference.

Thanks I hadn't seen that. I thought it was a little over powered but didn't think to hard about it.

So last game we ran into the white dragon... Im pretty sure the fight was annoying for our DM as it didn't go any where near the way he or I believe anyone else thought it would.

First the mage and my sorcerer were dealing with the heads when the dragon swooped in. The Druid was the only one to spot it and opened with a flame strike doing a bit of damage but not as much as he hoped due to the resistance fire. The dragon then breathed catching everyone but the mage and my sorcerer in the cone, damaging everyone else but the rogue.

Then we got a chance to respond. The mage and I both hit it with a maximized ray of enfeeblement doing 22 points of str damage. The rest of the party hit it with a couple of arrows and such not doing much but distracting it. I forgot what else happened exactly but over the next 2 rounds I hit it with 2 more maximized rays of enfeeblement (yay for a lesser rod) droping it to below 0 and making it completely helpless. After that it was just a matter of the rogue, fighter and druids bear finishing it off.

I had to bring this up because it is the first time I have ever in my 25+ years of gaming seen a dragon droped, effectively by a first level spell

Karui Kage wrote:

Armor bonuses are more powerful than a simple disguise change. AC is one of the core mechanics at the heart of D&D, so yes, a permanent AC boost is going to be expensive when it doesn't impart any penalty to armor check, gives an infinite dex bonus, no casting penalty, and can even work against incorporeal attacks.

*sigh* agreed ... but it would have been cool to have =)

IMHO AC is never a way to spend your money for mages getting it up high enough to be useful is VERY expensive, and even a 10% failure rate is not acceptable. I have found that good uses of mirror image and Displacement with a little dimension door to get you out of sticky situations is all you will need for the majority of encounters.

The only problem with these is that anyone with true seeing will blow right through your defenses. So you also need good levels in the appropriate (planes,arcane and nature) knowledges to know who to stay away from.

And always remember the orb spells are your friend.

Hope I'm not coming across like a nag, but the "trip when he stands up" AoOp confusion is part of why everyone thinks spiked chains trip builds are broken. That and the "multiple AoOp provoked by movement through threat" bit.

what do you mean by ""multiple AoOp provoked by movement through threat" bit."?

As I understand it you get an AoOp whenever a target leaves a threatened square as long as you have an AoOp available to use. So if target leaves 2 threatened squares and you have combat reflexes you can smack it 2 times.

Well, I firmly believe that if the rogue is flanking, no matter how the flanking is acheived, he can SA. The distraction caused by flanking applies to both flankers not just one.

For AoO, as I understand it, you can do anything you could do in a standard attack. For example, my fighter uses a full attack and (using 3.5) uses Improved Trip (do NOT like Alpha version of Imp Trip), the bad guy goes down and I take all of my four attacks then to hurt him bad. On his turn he tries to get up, so I use an AoO to Improved Trip him again, then use my ONE attack to hit him again. My next turn I probably just hit him a few times and try to disarm him.

ahhh Bull Rush WOULD be awesome for AoO... too bad... best for combatants who have some reach... I may House Rule that one in, just cause it is cool

bull rush would be awesome but check out this alpha rogue 11 fighter 1 feats combo.

feats
1st Combat expertise
2nd fighter 1 exotic weapon pro spiked chain
3rd rogue 2 (talent) weapon focus spiked chain and dazzling display
4th rogue 3 none
5th rogue 4 (talent) weapon finesse
6th rogue 5 stunned defense
7th rogue 6 none resiliency
8th rogue 7 none
9th rogue 8 (talent) improved trip and combat reflexes
10th rogue 9 none
11th rogue 10 none defensive roll
12th rogue 11 dodge

Edit: You guys Warhammer players? I mean no disrespect (I play 40k myself) but the use of "base to base" caught my eye. And the idea that flanking was an initiated state. Just curious. Welcome to the Paizo boards!

Im not really a Warhammer player, but he was. And I agree with your assessment of the rules, at least thats how I read them.

A couple of rules I was curious about.

Sneak attack
first do you get the sneak attack (SA) ANY time that an opponent is denied their dex bonus? My DM and I also disagree on the flanking part. He says that the rogue has to initiate the flank in order to get the SA. For instance if the rogue is in base to base with a monster, then another pc moves to opposite side in order to flank. the rogue doesn't get SA damage because he/she didn't initiate the flank. the rogue would then have to move away and then back to the monster in order to SA.

Also I am wondering what kind of attacks can be made with an Aoo? can you smite, SA or even sunder?

Right now we have the following:

Galstok (M)Shoanti Fighter
Jonas (M)Chelaxian Cleric of Cayden Cailean
Lucien (M)Half-Elf Sorcerer
Zalrid (M)Shoanti Druid
and Zenobia (F)Half-Elf Rogue

I am actually going for minimalism with this campaign by only alowing access to PHB, DMG and MM and anyhting introduced by pathfinder itself. All abilities scores are based on the Elite array as well. It is forcing the party to think tactically and work together instead of cross purpose.

So far so good.

Shut up nobody in your group gets along. Especially that damn Jonas... oh wait hes dead. nvm.