Adam Olsen's page

Looks good overall, but class tables are unusable on my phone. Very low resolution screen (320x240) using Opera Mobile on Android. For Barbarian it only shows up to the Ref Save column. With some poking and prodding it'll scroll a little bit back and forth, but it's extremely sluggish (one or two pixels ever second) and I can't get it to do it consistently; most of the time it wants to scroll the page instead.

Our group has found Vital Strike to be very useful. Why? Because it doesn't compete with full attack! It's used in those common situations where the next opponent is more than 5' away and you don't have a straight line to them. Vital Strike is just gravy.

Adam Olsen wrote:

The rules don't explicitly say, but the common interpretation is that it's continuous.

I'm not arguing against the "common interpretation", I'm only pointing out that the rules do specify how the caster level should be used.

Yes, when the item doesn't otherwise say you fill in the blanks using the spell.

However, the item does say. "This apparently normal hat allows its wearer to alter her appearance as with a disguise self spell.". It doesn't say you cast disguise self, just that the effect is similar. The item's own description implies a single, continuous effect, with no limit on how long you can use it.

A common, intuitive interpretation is a self-evident correct interpretation.

There's no rule saying you can't move around when dead either. Shall we argue about that too?

I agree that in general it's not worth the effort to track such things. But it's better (IMO) to say, "the rule is that the item must be reactivated when it runs out" and then let it slide, than it is to house rule it away entirely.

Quote:

I'd say my character refreshes the disguise once every minute, so he has 10 spells going at once. If someone cast Dispel Magic on me they'd have to remove all 10 effects before anything happened.

Yep, you could. And someone who's game says that such items have effects that are continuous can still do exactly the same thing. So what's your point?

On the contrary, the common interpretation is that you can end the effect, or change the parameters, but there's no sane reason to have multiple effects. It'd just be weird.

Clearly, the caster level of an item determine the duration of the power (spell effect) of the hat of disguise. Since the spell duration is 10 min/level and the CL of the hat is 1st, it lasts only 10 minutes.

The rules don't explicitly say, but the common interpretation is that it's continuous. There's really no point making the player refresh it every 10 minutes except if you want to screw them over somehow.

And if that were the case I'd point out I can have multiple effects in play at once, they're simply don't stack; only one takes effect. I'd say my character refreshes the disguise once every minute, so he has 10 spells going at once. If someone cast Dispel Magic on me they'd have to remove all 10 effects before anything happened.

The game designers are not willing to add text for obscure situations like this. As such you only have Rule 0; there is no RAW to draw on.

Nondetection protects against active divinations. Scrying, detect X, etc. These spells actively seek out information. See invisibility is a passive divination; instead of going out and "pinging" like the detect spells or hunting down a target like scrying, it affects the caster, giving him immunity to the invisibility type of illusions.

Where does it say Detect Magic is "pinging"? The only thing I see a fixed range and area of effect, but Darkvision has a fixed range too.

True seeing affects the visual input itself, not the thing seen.

Darkvision affects the visual input itself, and it's a Transmutation spell. True seeing, see invisibility, and detect magic are divination spells. There's a clear thematic distinction between the two.

The houserule our group is starting to experiment with is to drop the racial HD, then replace the LA with racial negative levels. These negative levels cannot be removed, but do not count when considering death by level drain.

That imposes some significant penalties, but doesn't prevent the usage of level-appropriate spells (his key mechanic), nor from exploring other level-appropriate options like feats or prestige classes.

Level 7 party, level 7 character, level 7 cleric. This should be a golden rule.

Adam Olsen wrote:

What you're not allowed to do is create a CL 20 item when you're only a 3rd level caster.

Actually, the whole point is that you are allowed to. It's just likely to be cursed, because the DC is either 30 or 35 depending on which RAW you read.

Under 3e you weren't able. My reading of Pathfinder is you still can't, although that much is under debate.

However, what you could do in 3e is take an item with a CL 20 and, if you met the other prerequisites, make it as a CL 1 item. This is what the Monte Cook comments refer to.

Dropping the CL to 1 makes most crafting checks trivial, so surely the Pathfinder authors didn't have it in mind, but they didn't remove it either. Neither did they fix items that have nonsensical CL's; all metamagic rods have the same CL 17, be they a Lesser Metamagic Rod of Silence (3000 gp) or a Greater Metamagic Rod of Quicken (170000 gp). The two point in opposite directions, so surely at least one of them will be errata'd.

Oi, I'm getting repetitive. Hopefully I'm clearer this time.

Arakhor wrote:

As Monte Cook said on his site about 3e item creation, the caster level is never a requirement, unless it specifically notes it after the word "pre-requisites". The listed CL is only ever the average caster-level of a generic item of that type.

Except that in one place the Pathfinder rules specifically states that CL must be met by a magic item's creator.

I'm pretty sure 3e had a similar requirement. What you're not allowed to do is create a CL 20 item when you're only a 3rd level caster.

For balance, I'd say a diminishing xp debt. Say, 1000xp at first second and third level, 1200xp at fourth and fifth, and 1500 and 6th level, then calling it good.

What that really works out to, in terms of how far into the next level before you get to level up (ie a fractional level adjustment):

• 2nd: 0.333
  
• 3rd: 0.5
  
• 4th: 0.5333
  
• 5th: 0.55
  
• 6th: 0.491666
  
• 7th: 0.36875
  
• 8th: 0.2458333
  
• 9th: 0.19666
  
• 10th: 0.118
  

I do like spreading abilities over multiple levels though. Reduces the bump at first level where you really overshadow other players.

More or less the idea, yeah =) The math I was toying around with (its late, and its been a hectic day, so my habit of doing math with pencil and paper is getting in the way) gets a little more complex with that, since I'm trying to work out a way to give a discount for spreading things like stat bonuses across multiple levels if neccessary. But thats details =)

By 3.5's progression, the amount of LA your XP debt translates to only drops by half when you go from 11th level to 21st level.

Which is fine when you only had +2 LA at 1st level. You can basically write it off. Not so fine if it's +5 at 15th level. ;)

On the concept of level drop though...its why I like the idea of xp debt..its a way to fine tune a races cost more than flat LA and negative levels. A race who has to pay an extra 800 xp every level for the first 4 levels effectively has a -2 LA, but its spread out a little more, and lets a player keep up a little better by not being as far behind...he still pays it all out, but over the long haul, when his racial abilities have been caught up to by class abilities and magic items, he's a little behing the curve, but no so much that its a bad character option.

I duuno...not saying its the right way or the best way, but while I think a system like that might be more work to get set up, and balanced out, I think once its been done, it could be applied easier to new stuff.

The alternate way of looking at it is that don't level up until the session after the rest of the party... more finely tuned, yes, but a possible nuisance during gameplay.

And if you're applying a flat debt to Pathfinder's XP system it quickly becomes irrelevant. 10k is huge when you're trying to reach 2nd level, but is only 1% of what you need to get from 19th to 20th.

Which is why it's probably easier to just dictate levels you reduce your LA at. Maybe at 4th, 9th, and 15th. That'd make my troll (now 20th) have a +2 LA (or -2 negative levels).

Eh, kind of. I look at it this way...

LA never seemed to work. It hurt alot at low levels, at high levels, it didn't matter as much, and in the mid levels it was a wash. On the other hand, xp debt can work.(kinda drawing on 3.5 here, but I'm pretty sure a similar evaluation could be made for PF) If you look at a race/template whatever that has no racial hit dice, most of them you could recreate as magic items. Evaluate how much xp it would cost to make, dock a similar amount, minus a bit for spreading it out. A little more complex, maybe, but easier doesn't always equate to better, since whats powerful at one level doesn't always mean squat at another. And alot of races have powers/abilities that are good at low levels, but at high levels, are very reduced in usefulness, or rendered irrelevant by magic/saves/whatever.

Like I said, its an idea, I was just tossing out there...I really didn't liek the LA system, since in my experience, LA, while simple, never worked as intended, possibly due to trying to oversimplfy a complicated issue.

Huh. It's an interesting idea. I'd still use negative levels, but comparing to items would be a way of estimate how much LA/negative levels you should have. Needs a little fudging for ability bonuses though, as they stack with normal enhancement bonuses — maybe a 2x or 3x multiplier.

Since pathfinder totally changed XP what you'd have to do is go off 3.5's progression. Take the GP market price, divide by 25. Your current level requires level*1000 xp to go up, so dropping to the previous level requires (level-1)*1000 xp of loss.

For instance, if your character is 10th level, and you have a +6 to all mental stats, that's a headband of mental superiority +6 for 144k. Fudge that x3 to 432k. Divide by 25, gives 17.28k. That's almost perfect for a 2 level drop.

That about what you were thinking of?

I'd start by eliminating Int from the skill point formula. It can be the modifier on specific skills, just like wis and cha, rather than being a super-modifier for everything.

Compensate by giving wizards a knowledge boost, either with bonus ranks just for knowledge, or through bardic knowledge.

Then you can boost all the classes by +2/level or whatever.

Could add a feat for +1/level. I'd also consider moving Disable Device to int, especially since any character can use it on non-magical traps!

For the downside, start them off with an xp debt (say, one half the xp required to become 2nd level) and take up a trait or even two (Or shift them up a track on the XP chart...I dunno its a thought). Maybe (since half dragons this way are pretty butch) hand the other players some gold.

XP debt is just level adjustment that you reduce as you go up. Except level adjustment is easier to understand and thus easier to evaluate the balance of.

(negative levels are similar too, but they only reduce your rolls, not your character options.)

But how would you explain how to judge what feats should do. Remember we're trying to hammer down solid guidelines that still leave it in the hands of individual GMs and not solid RAW rules like Savage Species did.

You'll never get full rules. There's simply too many odd abilities out there to list them all. However, you could probably do some point system for the ability scores themselves, then have suggestions and examples for all the odd abilities.

For me the idea of replacing racial HD with actual class levels throws the balance off as even if you stagger the hefty abilities bonuses and abilities monstrous races gain naturally you now have them with also all the class features of a base classes on top that. Whereas the racial HD leave a lead and marker for the powerful abilities.

Then again I'm very preferrable to non-racial HD powerful races having to take NPC classes. Their powerful abilities taking the space for class features of core classes. And with no major lag in HD or saves (which was a common problem with purely LA monstrous races and templates)

NPC classes just means you're limited to warrior or expert. You're still can't take any of the class abilities, feats, or often prestige classes that are appropriate for your level. Can't even be a proper caster. That's still half the lag you had before.

You could try to thin out the classes, aka making the race an alternative class feature, but that requires some specialized manipulation. The generic alternative to that is.. feats.

What we want to accomplish here is to allow certain things to progress as normal, while only providing a minimal overall balancing factor. It's simply more fun to have full caster progression. This includes not only key mechanics like BAB and feats, but also any class feature.

Deleting racial HD (allowing any class) and applying the LA as permanent negative levels seems like the only general solution here.

A more specialized solution would be to move racial abilities into feats. Give 1/day detect thoughts free to start with, boost to 3/day with a feat, then have a second feat for at-will (possibly with a minimum level.)

The difference of permanent negative levels over level adjustment is normal feat progression, normal spells-per-day progression, and normal meeting of feat/PrC prerequisites. However, your saves will likely be worse, and if you don't have full BAB your attack rolls will be worse. Do I have that all right?

I'm currently playing a troll with a custom prestige class (modeled after the 3.0 dragon disciple; essentially an advanced troll.) Despite his reputation as being overpowered, I recently found out he does significantly less damage than a core THW fighter. The fighter also has more skills, more feats, and more maneuverability (smaller is better!). All the troll has is regeneration.. certainly nice, but not so game breaking.

Probably just the damage output that needs to be balanced.

Unless Jason wants to confirm otherwise I don't believe there has been any change on that front. I checked back in my copies of the Alphas and Beta, and don't see it. It was discussed during test and the big long debate on the skill system, but there seemed to be enough resistance to the idea that it wasn't implemented.

Headband of Vast Intelligence use special rules applied by items themselves not an actual system wide Retroactive INT rule like there is for Constitution and HP. It is actually that kind of special rule that I'm thinking of applying to monsters as well.

It has been mentioned repeatedly in other threads. Permanent boosts to intelligence are retroactive. Any boost that has lasted 24 hours is considered "permanent". The wording on the Headband of Vast Intelligence is to prevent abuses of this, ie removing and reapplying to change which skills you select.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/glossary.html#ability-score-bonuses, under Ability Score Bonuses. Note the mention of "skill points" in the "Permanent Bonuses" paragraph.

My understanding, inherited from 3.5, is that an item's caster level is an arbitrary choice. You can set it as high or as low as you want, within the limits of your real caster level. Only a few things (weapons, scrolls, etc) set hard limit.

Unfortunately, since pathfinder now uses the caster level for a crafting DC (rather than just dispel resistance and some durations), the ability to set arbitrarily low caster levels makes that crafting check irrelevant.

You could house-rule it otherwise, but there's a few items that don't have sane caster levels. Why is a Bag of Holding type IV the same as a type I? Why is a Belt of Giant Strength +6 no higher than of +2, while being so much lower than a Belt of Physical Perfection +2? Bracers of Armour are another good example.

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For an alternative houserule, it might be better to focus on cost. Use 25% of the wealth-by-level guidelines as the modifier to the DC for that price; e.g, 15,000 gp fits within 10th level, giving a +10, so it's DC 15.

As an aside, I'd much rather a curse kicks in *before* failing outright. I'd rather deal with an item that turns my hair blue or makes the air warm; need a more appropriate chart for minor curses though, eg failing by 1 or 2 rather than by 5.

My Universalist is a Necromancer, just don't tell him!

After hemming and hawing for months I finally accepted that pathfinder wants me to become a specialist. What I did was sort my spells by school, so I could see which schools I know & use. Abjuration only had Shield (used once or twice) and Enchantment had Hold Person (never prepared), so I ended up picking them as opposed schools. Divination (Detect Magic/Read Magic/Identify, nothing higher level) and Illusion (Greater Invisibility for the party's rogue) were a close second.

For focused schools I could have picked Conjuration, Evocation, Necromancy, or Transmutation. Any of those would have filled lots of school slots, effectively increasing my spells/day. However, I've been using Summon Undead III (I know, really conjuration) a lot, and recently made good use of Enervation+Ray of Enfeeblement on a dangerous monster, and it fit the character well, so I went with Necromancy. Haven't decided how much I'll use it to upset the party's Paladin. }:>

I do think there's a problem with the Wizard, but it's that specialist and universalist should be in different classes. If you want to play a Wizard, suck and up and play a specialist. Otherwise I'd rather a hypothetical Loremaster base class, focusing on knowledge, books (make them relevant somehow!), and perhaps item creation.

There's no way Paizo would have made a Loremaster base class and called it the Wizard. It's simply too different.

Is Life Sight a free action to activate? Swift maybe? Also, is it continuous or non-continuous?

Change Shape, Elemental Wall, and Aura of Despair also don't mention what's required to activate them.

My original interpretation was that you couldn't combine them. Charge gives you an "attack", rather than the "attack action". I'd really like to see an official ruling or errata though.

Rearranging the messageboards is one of the 22 items on my Gen Con todo list.

Is this why my RSS feeds are broken? i.e. http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/general/isGrapplingMutual&xml=atom is now full of unrelated posts. If so, could you setup a redirect to the current URL?

I appreciate that it may not be worth an example, but saying the second version trumps is admitting that the first version is wrong. It leads to the wrong ideas and undermines the whole point of summarizing normal behaviour in Quickdraw.

Having some form prioritization may be useful when attempting to reverse engineer a released produce that cannot be corrected, but it shouldn't become an excuse to design contradictory rules into a new product.

Quickdraw's Normal section says "or (if your base attack bonus is +1 or higher) as a free action as part of movement". This implies a Charge allows it.

The Combat chapter says "If you have a base attack bonus of +1 or higher, you may draw a weapon as a free action combined with a regular move." This implies only a normal Move, not a Charge.

Besides making the terminology consistent, explicitly stating that charge is or is not allowed would help.

There's two reasons why medium or heavy armour slows you down:

1. Your hands and feet change speed and direction a lot more than your torso, so weight on them requires a lot more energy than weight on your torso.
2. Stiffer materials on your joints resists bending. Bulkier materials force your limbs into less efficient paths.

Have somebody in tights and wielding a longsword go through a 60 second combat routine. Then have them try it in full plate. You'll notice a significant speed difference.

You could argue Pathfinder's speed difference isn't realistic... but we don't care. Our imaginations only need it to be plausible, not bulletproof.

Note that your real life movements are not necessarily a Pathfinder move. Moving 30 feet and attacking isn't a gentle stroll — It's ducking and weaving, moving around obstacles, with brief sprints thrown in between. Running eliminates that (you don't dodge blows), which is why it's so much faster.

A few places refer to "opposition schools", while the Wizard class and Wish/Limited Wish refers to "prohibited schools".

I found page 72 ("opposed schools"), page 194 ("opposition schools"), and 196 ("opposition schools").

I think that this in part might get more of a response during the Magic Items playtest in the first half of February.

Ahh, I didn't even realize there was a schedule.

The results of my google-fu, in case anybody comes looking later: Official Playtest Schedule

Nobody? :/

Adam Olsen wrote:

Hardcoding the skills encourages min-maxing, penalizing normal players.

There's also a creator's paradox. Creating an item that grants skill bonuses normally requires 5 ranks in that skill (although headbands have omitted that detail.) If it overlaps you'd never fully benefit from the items you create.

I disagree with your first sentence entirely -- in fact, I think you have it exactly backward, and your illustration is an example of that. Not hardcoding the skills is what leads to min-maxing. A wizard played by a "normal player" won't find enough benefit in his hand-crafted +4 headband to make the 3 skill ranks invested worthwhile? Really? No, a min-maxing wizard-player would have a problem with that.

That said, I've always been in favor of item-creation allowing the meeting of prereq "by committee." As long as everyone spends the time required, and the group as a whole can meet the prereqs, I say go for it.

Imagine a character has been played for a while and finally reached a point where they can craft a Headband of Vast Intelligence +6. They value knowledge skills, so of course that's what they augment with the Headband. Unfortunately, their worst skills already have half ranks (as they've made great use of them during play), so they only gets half the benefit from the Headband.

Conversely, imagine a game is started at higher level. The player picks out a Headband of Vast Intelligence +6, and since they wants to make use of knowledge skills they picks several of them. However, they puts no ranks into those skills, as that'd be redundant.

Creating a character at high level encourages min-maxing, giving greater benefit. An organically developed character is penalized in comparison.

Personally, I think the best way to handle Int-boosting items is to say that every item that boosts Intelligence must have a "hardwired" set of skill ranks in it. That way, when you find a +4 Int item, it gets written like this:

headband of intellect +4 (Diplomacy 2 ranks)

Did you mean Intellect +4 (Diplomacy and Perception)? Otherwise it wouldn't scale with level.

Makes it a bit more complex to write out the item, but no more so that things like ioun stones or strands of prayer beads or neclaces of fireballs.

You could even say something like this: All items that boost Intelligence provide the appropriate number of ranks to Perception unless otherwise indicated. (I chose Perception simply because it's a simple and common skill... any baseline skill would work.)

In this case, it'd certainly be possible to find an Int-boosting item that overlapped with ranks you already have, and if you're already maxed out for your level, the item's ranks would be "wasted." I'd be okay with that, since that's basically how these items end up working in 3.5 already and the game hasn't broken for it.

But the whole point is to simplify it, making it work like other bonuses. Overlaps or other weird special-cases don't do that. If you really wanted a fixed bonus you'd grant a normal skill bonus (like a ring of climbing), not ranks.

Hardcoding the skills encourages min-maxing, penalizing normal players.

There's also a creator's paradox. Creating an item that grants skill bonuses normally requires 5 ranks in that skill (although headbands have omitted that detail.) If it overlaps you'd never fully benefit from the items you create.

1) Allow Int-boosting items to grant skill rank bonuses, thereby making it so ALL stat boosts from these items work the same, rather than having an awkward rules exception for Intelligence.

Have you considered making the skill restriction a generic rule on p 388 instead of specific to the headbands? Something like "The choice of skill ranks to gain is persistent. A player cannot swap Intelligence boosting items and hope to gain a different skill each time."

Indeed, under the current rules a high level character could have a selection of +2 Int items that each grant a different skill. Dungeon crawl this week? Knowledge (dungeoneering). Found a Gate? Knowledge (planes). Etc.

A permanent bonus to Intelligence could, in fact, cause you to gain skill points ... in the future, not retroactively. (And, as noted in the paragraph on 388, whatever skill points are thus gained should be tracked, so they can be removed if the permanent bonus goes away.) You could immediately gain skill modifiers, though.

Again, there is nothing about "retroactive" skill point gain. Pathfinder does not change this rule from 3.5, thankfully. Again, the fact that the headband of vast intelligence provides a skill (at rank equal to HD) is evidence that retroactive skill points are not intended. Why would a headband allow "double-dipping" of that sort?

Personally, I think that skill points and permanent -- but not really permanent -- INT-boosts are problematic enough that the whole issue should just be sidestepped by saying that skill points are based solely on non-boosted INT, and once gained, can't be lost. Keep the skill associated with a headband, though ... that's a nice little addition.

If you gained future skill points then a 1st level character with an INT boost would be double dipping as they leveled up. That's definitely not the case. The INT item dictates which skill you get. It is effectively retroactive.

BTW, a boost to INT does not grant retroactive skill points. (If I'm wrong about this, please post the page number. I believe the confusion comes from the seventh paragraph, right column, on 388, but notice that neither that paragraph, nor the "Intelligence" paragraph it refers to, says anything about retroactive skill points. Pathfinder has not changed this from 3.5.) However, an INT-boosting item instead grants an associated skill, which (aside from the lack of choice and the possibility that it's duplicating a skill you already have) amounts to the same thing.

Again, that associated skill replaces the "retroactive skill bonus" a boost to INT would have given you ... it doesn't add to it. Again, a good idea: an INT-boosted character gets a mostly complete boost, but it stops the problem of doffing and donning an item to shuffle "retroactive skill points" around.

My only disagreement is one of terminology: they do grant "retroactive skill points", but they dictate how they're applied. Note that page 388 says "This might cause you to gain skill points", and this is the typical source..

Preventing abuse is good, but I think overlapping with existing skills is pretty likely, so if/when it comes up in play I'll be arguing for a house rule to make it cascade through several skills.

First item: there's a loophole in the costs. If you want a staff that has a single 8th level spell you can stick on two 9th level spells at 10 charges each and lower the cost from 48000 gp to 37910 gp. Needs careful wording to fix, but no deep game implications.

Second item: I think the costs for multiple spells in a staff is too high. Rather than being 75% and 50% it should be more like 50% and 25%, or maybe a flat 25%, or go even lower. Consider that, rather than adding an entirely new ability, you're extending the existing spell pool to have an extra ability. You're still limited to the (now rather small) capacity of that pool, and it should be the dominant factor in the price.

The base price should probably be increased to compensate. This pushes staffs further from wands, which is a good thing IMO. If staffs were intended to be "wands, only better" then why separate them in the first place? This could also make the level limit on wands unnecessary, as you have to pay for the mechanical benefit of staffs.

Third item: How the heck does the Staff of Power break down? Due to the aforementioned loophole the costs are ambiguous.

It's a hard line to walk. Consider 3.5's spell chains, which generally sucked.

An alternative here is to cluster all the bows together. i.e., you have a Bows section with a small common description, immediately followed by each of the bows, followed by the next clusters (polearms?). Visual cues are key to pulling this off, so that you can immediately perceive the sections and not be lost in the masses of text.

Well, the most obvious benefit is, when the bonus is considered 'permanent' you can qualify for Feats that require an ability score that you normally don't have (and with the item, after 24 hours, you effectively have).

Other effects are for spellcasters, who can memorize spells as if having their 'new' ability score.

A bigger example is Int boosts now give you retroactive skill points. IMO that's the biggest reason for the 24 hour delay and calling it "permanent". I don't think any other meaning (like stacking or persisting after the item is removed) is intended.

why is not legal? it makes sense, in order for me to knock a foe down i need to hit him with my body, which has spikes on it, its like a slam attack how else do they get on the ground when i overrun them? you could make a touch attack if you thought it was needed(but if you do that then i would allow the touch attack even if you fail CMB as you still attempt to overrun and are stopped again them using your spikes)

Hrm. Rereading the rules.. my literal interpretation (that they only give extra damage when using the Damage action) doesn't make sense.

You can have spikes added to your armour, which allow you to deal extra piercing damage on a successful grapple attack. The spikes count as martial weapons.

The martial weapons bit throws everything off. It simply has no relevance if they're not being used as a weapon.

That is a wonderful method of simplifying things. And I agree with you on the "round down" thing... Almost everything else is "round down" so why should any of these be different (in fact, why not just make everything "round down" period?)

The convention is "round in favour of the defender", which typically means taking less damage. My proposal would defy that convention.

I only suggest rounding down to make the common speeds line up as before. Otherwise I'd suggest rounding up.

New Note 86

I'd love to see this clarified. I would expect that all the boosts go on first, then the penalties somehow.. but the penalties involve fractions and crap, which sucks if there's several of them.

Page 143 (under "Bonuses to Speed") says the modifiers go on before encumbrance; however, encumbrance IS a modifier. At a minimum it should say "other modifiers" (but "bonuses" is better.)

How many distinct penalties are there?

• Encumbered/medium armour (2/3, rounds UP)
  
• Disabled (1/2)
  
• Blinded (1/2)
  
• Entangled (1/2)
  
• Exhausted (1/2)
  
• Acrobatics (1/2)
  
• Climb (1/2 or 1/4)
  
• Fly (1/2)
  
• Heal (1/2 and 2/3 mentioned)
  
• Stealth (1/2)
  
• Survival (1/2)
  
• Swim (1/2 or 1/4)
  
• Caltrops (1/2)
  
• Tanglefoot Bag (1/2)
  
• Grapple (1/2)
  
• Air Walk (1/2)
  
• Blink (3/4)
  
• Fly (1/2)
  
• Grease (1/2)
  
• Ice Storm (1/2)
  
• Levitate (1/2)
  
• Sleet Storm (1/2)
  
• Slow (1/2, rounds DOWN)
  
• Spike Stones (1/2)
  
• Storm of Vengeance (1/4)
  

Different kinds of penalties:

• Terrain. Increases costs for a square, rather than reducing your speed
  
• Solid Fog. Caps speed at 5 feet
  
• Polymorph subschool. These replace your base speed. XXX before bonuses?
  

So there's a variety of different multipliers (1/2, 1/4, 3/4, 2/3), as well as rounding both up or down.

I propose a simple alternative: replace 2/3 with 3/4, declare all rounding to be down (minimum of 5 feet) (so encumbrance at common speeds is the same as before), then say that a combination of two or more penalties gives you 1/4 movement (except 3/4 and 3/4, which gives 1/2).

With that we only need to add a couple more columns to the table on page 124 and we'd be set.

Steven Hume wrote:

my 1st lvl fighter took improved overrun and doned spike armour so now when i run over foes i get to roll my spike armour dmg and since there is no att roll just a CMB if i make the CMB their on their ass AND take dmg from spikes so every combat i use overrun to start and knock foes on ground then barb comes up and finishing them, works great with our group(too great my DM says heh)

I'm not sure if this is a legal use of the armour spikes, can someone clarify?

I don't believe so, but I wish it was. I've got a character with enchanted spikes for asthetics, because they're impossible[1] to use effectively.

[1] Meaning I could bash them with the spikes for 10 damage OR hit them with my claws for a bajillion damage. It's even more bizarre if I get swallowed..

I am anxiously awaiting the opening of the "Combat" section of the playtest (which they should really have focused on before the individual classes, but I digress...) so I can get some clarification on what affects a CMB roll:

-True Strike?
-bardic music?
-Bless?
-Prayer?
-Haste?
-Weapon Focus?
-flanking?
-etc., ad nauseam

-Magic weapon used for sunder/disarm

The latter (turning the weapon's attack bonus into a defensive bonus) would need to be explicitly stated regardless. Masterwork weapons too.

As a side note, rather than "special size modifier," what if we just say CMB = BAB + STR - Size. That also seems to get around the need for a new rule. Just a thought...

Aye, but hopefully worded a little more obviously than just flipping a sign. ;)

Speaking of which, does an amulet of natural attacks give a bonus on CMB? The answer there could give a clear reason to integrate or separate the mechanic.

The "special size modifier" on CMB is the reverse of normal, meaning a Colossal creature gets a +8 on CMB compared to a -8 on attacks.

I agree with you on "attack roll" being ambiguous.

So... here are some thoughts. We are considering changing PA to a set scale, where you subtract X and add 2X to damage, regardless of your weapon or other factors (following KISS). X might slide up as you gain levels, but it would not be a variable, which causes too many issues. Here is my question... what should X be. My current thought is to start it out at 2 and have it increase by 1 for every 5 of your BAB. Thoughts?

My approach, in addition to the set scale, is to make it a penalty to attack and AC. This lets the damage bonus be higher than would otherwise be balanced, which keeps it viable at higher levels against high AC opponents.

It's about situational recklessness, not optimizing DPS.

The Summon Monster family should have the duration changed to 5 rounds + 1 round/2 levels, so that Summon Monster 1 is useful.

(Using it at 10th level to set off traps is a creative secondary usage. It doesn't replace the need for a core usage.)

[Not sure if this is the right forum or not. It clearly says to post in the rules forums, yet there is no appropriate rules forum. Hopefully I'm not supposed to go away and check back in 6 months for new forums. x_x]

Given that both get the "grappled" condition and various other bits of wording I thought that once you started a grapple, you and your target are both grappling each other. However, this interpretation leads to some very confusing problems (if they fail a grapple check they get booted out of the grapple?) I now suspect that the intent is for grappling to be one-sided, ie a grappler and grapplee. Which is it?

Assuming it's one-sided, the wording on a failed roll isn't explicit enough. It'd be better to say something like "After the initial round you must make a check to maintain the grapple, as a standard action. ... Success allows you to do one of the following actions (as part of the standard action), while failure (or inability to make the check) releases your opponent and ends the grapple."

Again assuming it's one-sided, renaming Grapple to Grab would help make it clearer.

Escaping a grapple should explicitly say "grapple or pin", if it does escape a pin. Actually, it should also say if you need to escape the pin as one action, then the grapple as a second, or if you get both with a single action. Perhaps append "If you are pinned a single check allows you to break both the grapple and the pin."

Armour and shield spikes seem useless defensively, yet that's where I'd want them the most. I'd expect them to be triggered any time someone grapples me (or improved grab, or swallow).

Adam Olsen wrote:

And that's if you want a weapon. If you use an amulet, ring, wand, staff (not quarterstaff?)

I think the staff they refer to is one of a magical nature using buttons or command words such as a "Staff of Reincarnation", a large wand of sorts. Usually beating someone with a highly magical Staff or Wand results in bad things for the user and the recipient. A 'Quarter Staff' is a weapon, and is only magically enhanced to be a better weapon.

A staff is typically a long, thick wooden pole. It weights MORE than a quarterstaff.

Although it's easy to imagine a staff being very fragile, it's just as easy to imagine it being tough and built like a quarterstaff. Or alternatively, a quarterstaff that is a staff.

It doesn't really matter to me if the official rules prohibit using a quarterstaff as a staff though. Our group has given up on the standard item creation rules, and since our attempts to find or create a specific system have failed, we're going for a bare minimum of rules with ad-hoc balancing (when there isn't a decent guideline.)

Another comparison might be a Wand vs. a Club. While whacking someone with a slender piece of wood (aka Wand) might sting and be a potentially dangerous explosion, it is not a weapon as far as enchanting is concerned. (at least not in the existing D&D world)

A wand is tiny at 1/16th of a pound, compared to 3 pounds of a club. Think "toothbrush".

Yeah; using squares is a poor choice because not only does not everyone use squares in their games... but not all maps use the same size squares. It'd be weird if suddenly your spells had larger areas of effect simply because a map used 10 foot squares.

Alright, so we need two versions of the web enhancement: one in feet, the other in meters. Still vastly less effort than doing two versions of a printed book, and gets you 80% of the benefit.

Edit: Not to mention that's *IF* they produce a web enhancement of a spell list. Given our tendency to add various third-party spells there may be no reason to have an official one. Maybe it should be a community project to have such a list.