Avatar-1's page

About Avatar-1

I mostly play and GM online games.

We have a great chat room where people like to join, come in and talk Pathfinder surprisingly incessantly, everyday.

We also have other people who join, ask if anybody is around (or just don't say anything), and then leave after anywhere between a few seconds and maybe 10 minutes. We usually alt-tab back or come back from the game we were playing or come home from work two minutes later and make the usual running joke about people who join and quickly leave. Stick around! Say something! Alt-tab and do something else until someone gets back to see you.

I also look after the D&D and Pathfinder Online page on Google+, although it's been a bit neglected of late. Follow it anyway, because when something is posted, you'll want to see it.

I hate Synthesists, and I dislike Tieflings.

But you know what I don't hate? I don't hate vests.

Table Variance
Here's how I make rulings based on rules that commonly have table variance:
- Wrist Sheathes (& Spring Loaded): can contain wands and scrolls, but not rods. Swift actions don't provoke.
- Swift actions: never provoke, unless the wording of the action explicitly says they do.
- Animal Companions (& Eidolons etc): go on their own initiative; you can delay if you want to go on the same initiative. If you're mounted, you can start on the same initiative, but if you dismount, I'll ask for a companion initiative roll at that time to see if the companion rolls a lower initiative (higher doesn't raise its initiative, however).
- Readied Actions & 5-foot steps: You can ready an action to 5-foot step to a particular square if you're about to be attacked, but the attacker can change their action considering your readied action has now taken place, including attacking you in your new square.
- Large-size swarms shape themselves only when they can't be in a 2x2 square, such as when moving down a 5ft corridor. When they clear the corridor, they'll shape back into a square as soon as it's feasible.
- In the unlikely event that swarms overlap, they cause damage to everything in their squares, including each other. If you somehow cause damage to a single swarm that is overlapping another swarm, one of the swarms chosen at random will take the damage. With regular AoE damage, you'll damage both of them at the same time.
- Harmful Gaseous Spells (eg. Stinking Cloud): You can't get through them by holding your breath; this is (probably) represented by the fortitude save you get. It's a different story if you have something like a Necklace of Adaption.
- Dropping Weapons Involuntarily: If you fall unconscious, you release your weapon. If you come back to consciousness and then stand up from prone in the middle of combat, you can pick up your weapon with you as a free action that doesn't provoke as if it never left your hand, so long as the weapon never left your square (standing still provokes as normal). The same applies to the bad guys.
- "Centered on you" target spells: the FAQ only applies to large and larger-size creatures. A small/medium creature casting a centered on you spell picks a corner, and the spell applies to their square plus 3 more squares, to make a 2x2 emanation.
- Readying a 5ft step when a creature attacks: You can do the movement, but if you're no longer in reach and the creature has movement left to step in a little more and attack you, it's free to forego the attack that triggered the readied action, and do so.
- Kneeling action: Kneeling is a move action that doesn't provoke, and standing from a chair is a free action that doesn't provoke. This isn't mentioned in the rules, but is a takeaway from this link from 3.5. Prone-to-kneeling or standing from a low chair is a move action that provokes.
- Multiple Rerolls: If you have several ways to force a reroll (either on yourself, on an ally, or on an enemy), you can only force the reroll once per dice roll (and not once per dice). The same applies with enemies on you and your party.
- Sleep effects: Unless the spell/hex/effect says you fall prone, you do not fall prone.
- Paralysis While Flying: If you're using magical flight, you can still make a fly check to hover (only, you cannot make any other movement except to voluntarily fail the check) - this is a mental action. If you're using wings to fly, your wings are paralysed, and you fall as if the means of keeping you in the air are no longer doing so.