What makes it not that bad is that it offers flexibility:
* Defensive: You can drop it over an ally who was dropped-neg a long distance away, protecting them as a sort of poor-man's Emergency Force Sphere + concealment + bug-out kit. And there's no 3% destination failure chance: they will go to the temple of your choice for immediate healing.
* Offensive: it's a save-or-suck paralyze and teleport (without error) of an enemy to a place you are familiar with. (And note that an environmentally "safe" destination doesn't mean that it's proscribed from containing a hostile reception committee. For example, it won't physically hurt a demon for it to suddenly arrive in Heaven and melt-out in front of a barracks full of angels in need of spirited sparring partners.
Can’t teleport them to another Plane, but the point still stands. If they aren’t a caster, it’s as simple as teleporting them behind bars or to the bottom of a very deep hole. If they are a caster, you probably shouldn’t be casting a spell that grants a Will save anyway.
Ice Crystal Teleport specifies: "You can only send the target to a location with which you are very familiar."
Teleport then specifies: “Very familiar” is a place where you have been very often and where you feel at home.
So, unless you live on the bottom of a hole or feel at home in prison, no teleporting people into confinement. You can pretty much only bring people back to your home with that.
And on the defensive side - the ice has 3hp per caster level. And it takes 1d4 rounds before it teleports. That won't protect anyone unless the enemy is already ignoring them, in which case there are better methods.
You do not increase anymore the dying value by hitting a dying character? Seems so because of the two following rules:
Yep, it's a problem.
And the other big problem is that Administer First Aid doesn't have a DC of 15 anymore, it's now the recovery DC. It's better if PCs don't even try now. Or ever.
On the plus side, it gives you an option to increase the Dying condition on such "impossible to kill" characters the OP mentioned.
Just have the monster "Administer First Aid" to the character and have it voluntarily critically fail the skill check.
"Critical Failure A creature with 0 Hit Points has its dying condition increased by 1. A creature with persistent bleed damage takes damage equal to the amount of its persistent bleed damage."
(I am not sure if you can actually voluntarily crit-fail, but...)
Thing is though, you still need to, as a cleric, be perfectly okay with the premise that in the grim dark fantasy of Golarion there is only war and the kid with the notched kitchen knife is just as worthy of getting split in half as the local demon. It's for that reason I find the idea of CG clerics of Gorum incompatible. As a good person that philosophy should be utterly abhorrent.
Pretty much this.
It's possible to use war to fight evil, which is good, but to be a representative of Gorum, you need to fight wars just to fight wars. Otherwise, you're misrepresenting him in a way that bars you from being a cleric.
It's perfectly fine for a chaotic (or even lawful) good person to give a prayer to Gorum before a battle, but all in all, PF2 seems to step away from "Clerics are the gods tools to fulfill tasks, and it's fine as long as they do a job that kinda aligns with the god's agenda" and towards "these people live their mortal lives as the god would, they are the mortal personifications of their gods".
Which means clerics are now tied a lot closer to their gods than they were before.
For one, temples are not staffed entirely by non-clerics, but it is reasonable to assume that clerics head those temples and made the distinction.
Differing one step in alignment doesn't mean ignoring an aspect of you're Gods portfolio. In the case of an Asmodeun, being accepting of slavery in Glorian is shown to be compatible with neutrality (see Abadar and the city of Abselom. Also, slavery is absolutely evil and IRL I would consider anyone who tolerated it to be), so a LN cleric could accept that in an ordered hierarchy slavery has its place but it wouldn't be their focus, social order and contracts could be their focus. The restrictions on Asmodeus' worship seem especially strange to me, given the work done regarding Cheliaxians and Hellknights. I always got the impression that he was much more of a Law deity than an Evil one, at least that was how he was perceived on Glorian, and this was something he actively encouraged.
The part about non-clerical members of temples was just to point out that there's a difference between regular followers of a deity, and, well, clerics. Not everyone worshiping a god is equal, or treated equally by the god. And in any case, I still continued by explaining that even then, while some aspects of worship can be empathised, none can be ignored, and if a calistrian lets you go after a slight without at least some kind of revenge, no matter how petty, then yes, in Calistria's eyes, they're doing it wrong and don't deserve to be a cleric.
Pathfinder allows you to be lawful neutral and tolerate slavery. Abadar fears that chaos and wars would come from outright banning slavery - he values order over freedom, after all - and while Absalon hasn't outlawed slavery, they still don't really like it. Both are taking the lazy "not our problem, let's hope it just goes away" approach, which is bad enough, but can still be argued to be "neutral" (of the "not feeling strongly either way" kind that enables evil to do its thing).
But Pathfinder doesn't allow you to be lawful neutral and promote slavery. Asmodeus and his (true, clerical) followers don't think "slavery has its place", they think "slavery is the only true form of order, everything else is mad chaos". But even that isn't the core problem.
Asmodeus is not a fan of fair social contracts in any way, shape or form - if you aren't trying to entrap your opponent (and everyone is your opponent) in loopholes and fine print, Asmodeus is going to tell you that you're doing it wrong. Ceaseless strife for personal enrichment at the expense of everyone you deal with isn't a neutral position.
Someone who is merely a dispassionate, but fair enforcer of the rules, is "kinda okay with slavery, sometimes", and worships Asmodeus has misunderstood him on a level that bars such a person from being a cleric.
Compare Abadar, who literally has a spell ("Fairness") that forces people to trade fair, even if they could get a legal advantage. Abadar also hates bribes and corruption, which Asmodeus (or at least Cheliax) openly encourages. Meanwhile Asmodeus has ruthless exploitation under all circumstances as his core tenet, and I don't see promotion of such a morality as compatible with neutrality.
technarken wrote:
Wouldn't it make a lot of sense for Pharasma and Nethys to be Alignment: Any for clerics, considering their lack of concern for morality in most cases?
While it makes sense for them to grant lesser blessings to anyone independently of alignment, it also makes sense for them to reserve the position of cleric to only those who only care for [the advancement of magic/the circle of life, death, and fate] without the constraints of either morality or personal gain (read:true neutral).
Except that all the lore I have read indicates that Calistiran temples usually Do choose one of those elements over the other. So long as you don't actively deny another part of the portfolio (for example, A Calistrian advocating against vengeance or preaching abstinence) then I don't see why it would be a problem. Why would Sarenrea refuse a cleric who was more focused on healing people than hunting Rovagug cultists, or vis versa? Pharasman temples also explicitly divide aspects of their portfolio among its priests, with separate clerics for Midwifery, funerary rites and prophecy.
For one, temples aren't staffed exclusively by members of the cleric class. There are adepts, experts, and others that have lesser restrictions and are free to ignore some parts of their church.
On the other, there's a vast difference between "ignoring a part of your deity" and "focusing on a part of your deity".
You're free to focus on the importance or order, hierarchy, and contracts, but you can't ignore that tricking, controlling, and ultimately enslaving the people around you (through order, hierarchy and contracts) is an essential part of Asmodeus' tenets, because according to him you're either a slaver or a slave. (In fact, you're usually both, but to different people.)
Pharasman temples divide the jobs, but there's still a difference between "I focus on this part because others do the other parts" and actually ignoring it. If there's just one pharasman priest in a village, he has to take care of all three aspects. Only when there are enough people to take care of everything can he leave parts to others - he still can't ignore them, he can simply rest in the knowledge that another expert is seeing to it.
And even the "vengeance-aspected" calistiran temples use lust as a means to achieve vengeance, and even the "lust-aspected" temples will "screw you" in a distinctly less-pleasant-than-usual way if they feel slighted by you, they just differ by the lengths they go to. (Where a lust-temple might be satisfied with causing you (painful) public embarrassment, a vengeance temple won't rest until they've ruined your life.)
I think this mostly limits cherry-picking single parts of deities, which... I don't have a problem with.
Can you "worship" Calistria if you just want revenge, and don't care about sex (or the other way around)? Sure. But to be a cleric, you should value both.
Can you "worship" Asmodeus because you really like order, contracts, and hierarchy? Definitely ([IC]In fact, you should![/IC]). But you can't be his cleric if you don't try to build contracts full of loopholes to use to your advantage and to the enslavement of everyone else.
A cleric isn't a pal who has something in common with a god. They're supposed to be exemplars of the deities' tenets. You don't get to be a cleric if you just see eye to eye with a god on a few points, but disagree on others.
And even temptation/redemption has its limits - where's the temptation if you get the full power of a priest on a silver platter? Where's the redemption if you can just stay true neutral without ever bothering to become neutral good?
But most of all, you don't get to be a cleric if you're still a "work in progress". A cleric is supposed to be an example to others, after all!
And even though Nethys approves of all magic, and thus of everyone who uses magic to whatever end - to be his cleric, you need to have the same single-minded dedication to magic beyond alignment as he has.
There's a place for people on the path of redemption/temptation to get lesser powers that become greater the closer they get to the ideals of their gods, but they shouldn't stand as equals to true believers, because they're not.
Spells suffer from all kinds of limitations and restrictions such as immunities, saves, attack roll requirements, components, etc. They are a limited resource and if you blow your compliment of them in a few battles you suffer serious combat impairement. Also, you should not be a one trick pony and have the ability to use spells for other purposes so you are MUCH more limited in your options and a miss on a target is a big deal.
Martial attacks suffer from all kinds of limitations and restrictions such as resistances, miss chances, attack roll requirements (heh), and melee attacks suffer from further requirements such as positioning and being in immediate enemy vicinity while ranged attacks can be completely shut down by the weather (or some spells).
In addition to that, some martials like barbarians need to spend various limited resources (like rounds of rage) to be competitive, making any lost round twice as painful, while those that can technically swing their swords all day only get the chance to do so during combat - the ten thousand sword swings they might do out of combat aren't relevant.
And that's just if they're willing to be one-trick-ponies - if they want to do anything except hit point damage, they have to spend far more permanent resources like feats on it just to stay competitive in one or two extra tricks.
But it's casters that are limited because they don't have infinite spells per day?
The way that you focus only on caster restrictions while ignoring martial restrictions, in addition to the "ignore martial characters" in the title makes you look like someone who has no idea how martials are played in practice trying to dictate rules for them.
(I mean, you seriously listed "attack rolls" as limitation of spells? Something that's needed for every single martial attack of any kind?)
Long story short, the "false equivalency" begins at the premise of the thread. Spells and martial attacks were never equal to begin with, so having attack rolls work like saving throws makes no sense. (Which, by the way, is a defense you're using whenever someone brings up "Well, then critically succeeding on a saving throw should penalize the caster!")
I can't help but admire how the topic name essentially reads as "Ignore the people who actually have to deal with the problem."
That being said...
Talek & Luna wrote:
Real easy. "Ryan, I see you rolled a 1 on a D20. That is a critical failure. You lose one action. Ok, Bob what are you doing this round?"
Next
"Hey Ruyan, after one action to move, you lost the rest of your round to a failed attack. I hope you had fun not doing anything meaningful and ending up as a target next to the enemy.
Okay Bob, what is your caster who AoEs entire groups so there's always someone bound to be hit, who has more than enough resources for the entire day, and never has to worry about backlash because critical save successes don't work that way going to do?"
Caster resource expenditure is only relevant if they aren't expected to use these resources in every round of combat. So, unless "the casters ran out of resources, now they're just sitting there being useless" is their equivalent of a critically failed attack roll, in addition to all the positioning and only occasionally useful actions martials suffer more from than casters, your suggested "skip a turn, be useless" only affects martials.
It really does feel like "Ignore martials, I need them to suffer" is the appropriate reading here.
(Unless your casters spend 10% of all combat out of resources (martials would have a 5% chance for two missed actions, so they'd lose about 10% of their actions), in which case everyone suffers, but at least equally?)
Mr. Risner, even when I agree with you on something, apparently I can't agree with you on the "why":
James Risner wrote:
The FAQ says "in any case," which in the thread was meant to block the issue even when not using retraining.
"In any case" is followed by "you cannot use rule elements from a prestige class to meet the requirements of that prestige class." Which is indeed prohibited in any case. But no one is trying to fulfill Prestige Class prerequisites using the Prestige Class' levels, so this is as relevant as "In any case, I like eating chocolate."
James Risner wrote:
Is forbidden in Feats, a similar mechanic with prereqs.
I'm pretty sure I can come up with a bunch of things that are prohibited in one place but allowed in another if I go looking for them.
James Risner wrote:
Forbidden by core "You must be able to qualify for this level before any of the following adjustments are made" (taking additional levels in a PrC you no longer qualify).
This is after taking the class. No one is trying to meet prerequisites before taking a class level (except dragonhunterq, who thinks this only applies to the first level. I disagree, it applies to any level. But not to the continuous function of a level that's already taken).
James Risner wrote:
Forbidden in 3.5 Complete Warrior as a global rule: 'A character who no longer meets the requirements of his prestige class not only can’t advance any further in that class, but he also “loses the benefit of any class features or other special abilities granted by the class.” (CW 16) You retain Hit Dice (and the hit points derived from), base attack bonus, and base save bonuses granted by the prestige class.'
Which is an entirely different rule system. You don't see me digging Mind Rape out of its grave, either.
James Risner wrote:
I would say we need a FAQ for this, but I think I've only seen 3 threads on this issue. So it isn't something we should burn a FAQ.
And we're back to agreeing again! Except maybe for details for what exactly happens when you cease qualifying.
I'm thinking that ceasing to meet prerequisites should have a similar result as being an ex-[cleric/paladin/whatever], but maybe/probably also affect (Ex) abilities gained from the class.
You would keep BAB, saves and HD, maybe also proficiencies, but not much, if any, else. But that's not spelled out anywhere.
Honestly (Checks whether he should switch back to the Rajnish alias for a post that starts with "Honestly", but decides against pulling a TOZ), without the conversation around the FAQ, I wouldn't have been sure about that.
What actually convinced me that it applies to Prestige Classes as a whole was the sentence "If you can't meet the requirements for a prestige class without using rules elements from that prestige class, you no longer qualify for that prestige class." (because it's worded generally, not about retraining, and if you don't meet the prerequisite with the Prestige Class levels, then you certainly don't meet them without them, either), but that sentence never made it into the FAQ.
Without that, looking at the FAQ itself, it's just a bunch of "If you retrain..." rules.
(And if I didn't think losing access to a Prestige Class when you cease qualifying was reasonable, I'd point out that it still doesn't actually say what happens when you cease qualifying - it still only says what happens if you stop qualifying due to retraining.)
The reason that FAQ got modified multiple times is people kept saying it didn’t say they couldn’t. Just like this thread.
The first instance of the FAQ just says that you still need to fulfill the prerequisites. That does not prevent a Prestige Class from fulfilling its own prerequisites - if a prestige class needs five BAB, and gives you five BAB, you still fulfill the five BAB requirement.
The second instance, "A Prestige Class can't fulfill its own prerequisites", fixes that problem, but still doesn't stop you from retraining into a second Prestige Class and have the two Prestige Classes fulfill each other's prerequisites.
That's the loophole they fixed in the third instance.
But yeah...
James Risner wrote:
The ”in any case” means however it comes to be that you don’t meet the prerequisite the same happens. So it covers the case of retraining without using the word retrain. Such as the ability discussed here.
It's not outright stated, but I'd agree that it is strongly implied that you lose access to your Prestige Class levels if you cease to qualify for them.
Technically still only implied, since another possible interpretation is simply "You aren't allowed to retrain into an illegal build" (Since literally every part of that FAQ is about retraining), which would still allow other effects to change your build without affecting Prestige Classes.
Can I... use my prestige class levels to meet the requirements for that prestige class?
No.
If you can't meet the requirements for a prestige class without using rules elements from that prestige class, you no longer qualify for that prestige class.
FAQ updated: "In any case, you cannot use rule elements from a prestige class to meet the requirements of that prestige class."
But yeah, I'd count that reading as legalese cheese.
Retraining: Can I retrain out of my base classes and use my prestige class levels to meet the requirements for that prestige class?
No.
The retraining rules say, "If retraining a class level means you no longer qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other ability you have, you can't use that feat, prestige class, or ability until you meet the qualifications again." Therefore, if you retrain out of the base class and that causes you to no longer meet the requirements of the prestige class, you no longer have access to the class features from that prestige class, and therefore can't use that prestige class to meet the requirements of anything (including itself).
Update 10/16/13: In any case, you cannot use rule elements from a prestige class to meet the requirements of that prestige class.
Update 10/16/13: New ruling: You cannot use retraining to replace a base class level with a prestige class level.
The problem here is that it says "If retraining a class level means you no longer qualify [...]"
It doesn't really say anything about what happens if you stop qualifying for reasons other than retraining. (Or for retraining anything but class levels, if we're extra picky.)
Can you extrapolate from that? Probably. Is it reasonable to lose access if you stop qualifying? Most likely. Is it actually stated in the rules? No, not really.
In either case I don't see a problem with it. You are getting bonuses from two different sources.
On the other hand, this opens up the question why one good and one evil source can work together with each other, while two good or two evil sources can't.
And why good and evil get their own bonus types, while axiomatic, chaotic, and neutral don't.
