In much the same way that signature skills imposed cliched play styles on classes, there is a limiting force in the inability to choose where the starting class-given ability boost goes. Some classes already have two choices, but it'd be better yet if all classes could apply their single ability boosts to any ability score they choose.
Alternatively, the same effect can be achieved by allowing archetype dedication feats to reallocate that ability boost. Either way, this opens up a little more customization without unbalancing anything.
So, my group has been excitedly prepping for Return of the Runelords, and my wife expressed an interest in playing a Gray Maiden, as she likes the idea of and the lore behind them — an idea shot down immediately by our GM, who cited this blog post as proof-positive that the archetype is overpowered. More specifically, he quoted Mr. Mark Seifter’s comment that Gray Maidens have “the potential to be slightly too powerful”.
Full comment here:
Mark Seifter wrote:
I have my eye on it; when I designed the Gray Maiden prestige archetype, I was worried it had potential to be slightly too powerful while being subtly so, since much of its power is in things like proficiencies and endurance numbers rather than in more wahoo or obvious things. But I did want a chance to test a pretty high edge (without being obviously problematic) version of what a prestige archetype could do and see what happens. If it gets to be a must-take for characters across the spectrum of classes that want things like master Fortitude and legendary armor proficiency, we'll take note accordingly, whereas if it wasn't enticing, we might not get good data on how to improve it.
My question to you all is, in what way(s) are Gray Maidens overpowered, or even potentially so? The issues Mark mentioned specifically are, in the end, not terribly powerful: master fortitude is something most of the martials get anyway (paladin at L7 as an innate class feature, barbarian at L7 as an innate class feature, fighter at L10 after feating into it, monk at L7 if chosen over master reflex and master will); the legendary armor proficiency Gray Maidens can feat into at L18 is tied to Gray Maiden Plate, which is a remarkably bad choice over half-plate. Paladins, meanwhile, get [untethered] legendary armor proficiency a level earlier as, again, an innate class feature — not to mention, legendary proficiency is, in its quantified form, only a +1 over master proficiency anyway.
Of the seven archetype feats following the initial Gray Maiden dedication feat, three comprise the Gray Maiden Plate chain and can, again, be safely ignored. “Scars”, which gives slash resistance equal to con mod, and “Unbreakable”, which gives de facto toughness and diehard (and stacks with those feats), are worth pursuing, provided the Gray Maiden’s base class doesn’t offer something better in the class feat slots they would occupy. “Erinyes Blood” is both fun and interesting (Rage-lite with a potentially higher price), if not in the slightest bit overpowering. Similarly, “Scarlet Rose Devotion” is nice, but not at all overpowering.
As far as I can tell, the archetype offers, at best, increased survivability — but not even close to a game-breaking level thereof.
Tiny and smaller creatures: In the section on Tiny and smaller creatures, it says that entering a creature’s space provokes an attack of opportunity, but typically 5-foot steps don’t provoke an attack of opportunity. If a Tiny or smaller creature took a 5-foot step into a creature’s space, would it provoke an attack of opportunity?
Answer to the FAQ:
Yes. Even with a 5-foot step, a Tiny or smaller creature entering a creature’s space provokes an attack of opportunity (unless it is using a more specific ability to avoid the attack of opportunity such as the Monkey Shine feat). This doesn’t mean that a Tiny or smaller creature entering a creature’s space and moving out of a threatened square with a move action provokes two attacks of opportunity from that creature, for the same reason that moving out of multiple of a creature’s threatened squares in the same move action doesn’t provoke two attacks of opportunity.
Given that, my current understanding is that no application of acrobatics (neither acrobatics vs CMD nor acrobatics vs CMD+5) can circumvent the AoO provoked by a tiny (or smaller) creature entering the space of larger creature. Further, since entering the larger creature's space is decidedly different from moving through the larger creature's threatened area, the Mobility feat (which addresses only the latter) does not apply. In the same vein, the bonuses granted by the Underfoot feat do not apply to an AoO provoked by entering a larger creature's space.
Similarly, the five-foot step granted by the Sidestep feat provokes an AoO if used to enter a larger creature's space, regardless of the feat's text.
Meanwhile, small+ creatures can still move into, through, and out of an opponent's space (the size of the opponent being irrelevant) without provoking any attacks of opportunity by succeeding at an acrobatics check against the opponent's CMD+5.
There's an alchemist discovery from page 116 of the Advanced Race Guide called "Rocket Bomb". My reading of the Additional Resources page indicates it's society-legal for all alchemists, but I'm hesitant to accept it, as it may be an oversight. I've tried searching to see if it has been addressed, but to no avail; ostensibly, its legality or non-legality is very clear to everyone except me. Is there something I'm missing?
From the Additional Resources Page:
Note: Alternate racial traits, racial archetypes, racial evolutions, racial feats, and racial spells are only available for characters of the associated race. Racial equipment and magic items can be purchased and used by any race as long as the specific item permits it (for example, only halflings can purchase and use solidsmoke pipeweed).
Discoveries are absent from that bit.
Further down on that page:
Goblins: all alternate racial traits, goblin discoveries, favored class options, archetypes, equipment, feats, magic items, and spells except vomit twin are legal for play.
Hello! I recently ran Shades of Ice II: Exiles of Winter and feel that, perhaps, our GM was a little unfair with a ruling. I'm relatively new to organized play, so I'm hoping to find some guidance here.
Spoiler:
The incident in question occurred at the end of the scenario, in the white dragon's room.
With the rest of the party waiting in the slaves-chained-up room, hesitant to step into the icy room beyond, our archivist decided to take a closer look at the runed door therein. He stepped into the first square of the room and, when nothing happened, stepped closer yet to the door. When he was ten feet away, the dragon swooped down and one-shot him (ice breath), bringing the archivist down to -10hp or so (whatever the numbers were, he was two rounds away from death). So far, so good.
Our witch, per witch/familiar mechanics, cast cure moderate wounds and designated her centipede as the deliverer. The centipede then stealthed up (a ~60 check, when all was said and done), went over to the archivist, and delivered the spell.
Now here's where it gets, as far as I know, shady. Upon the centipede's delivering the spell, the GM said the dragon noticed the delivery; the dragon then swooped down and grappled the centipede, bringing it back up with her into the frost clouds above.
Some players objected, saying the delivery of the spell should not have broken stealth, and I silently agreed. Our GM argued that any spell going off would be accompanied by a light, which, in this case, broke the centipede's stealth. (He also ceded that without that mechanic, the dragon didn't have high enough of a perception check to meet the centipede's stealth.)
Was our GM right in this? I can't find any rule, official or otherwise, that argues either way -- that the delivery of the touch spell would break the centipede's stealth, or that it wouldn't. Help, please?
And, if our GM was wrong, is there anything we can do now to retroactively fix our scenario, or its consequences? (The session took place this past Saturday, July 12.) If he wasn't wrong, I humbly apologize for wasting any readers' time (but would still like to know where to look for rules clarification!).
In the end, he let our witch bargain for the centipede's return (2000gp was the dragon's price), but I can't help but feel that she was, quite frankly, cheated out of 2000gp. (And that the group as a whole was cheated out of a fight, though I may have been the only one who wanted to continue at that point.)
Thanks for any response!
PS -- Our GM also gave us a copy of the scenario after the session.
Spoiler:
Curious, I flipped to the white dragon encounter and read under the "During Combat" portion that "The moment the PCs enter, Aralantryx shrieks in anger, swoops down, and blasts the PCs with her breath weapon." In our session, the dragon waited until our archivist was pretty far into the room -- more calculating than angry. Again, I'm new to organized play, so I won't presume to know; is this okay?
