Avon Rekaes's page

On an entirely different note, a thought just occured to me. The Helm of Opposite Alignment affects the ethical component of your alignment as well as your moral one. So what would this society do about a Lawful Evil person? Hell, as a Lawful person, he might even submit to the Helm out of self-interest (it being the best option for him to get back to his life without jail time or what-have-you). But now he is suddenly Chaotic Good, and probably feels intensely violated by what just happened to him, since Freedom of Choice is probably one of the cornerstones of the CG alignment.

Now, he fully embraces being Chaotic Good, and part of that is clinging to his new-found conviction to the right of personal freedom with a passionate intensity. He does not want to go back to being Lawful Evil, but he does want to stop any and all future uses of the Helm. (Being Good means you are altruistic and you think of others, so he would want to spare everyone else the intense violation he feels.) Now this country just turned a selfish, manipulative person into a Freedom Fighter, and made a much bigger problem for themselves.

Which is to say, they probably shouldn't be changing anyone to Chaotic alignments.

Red has the shortest wavelength in the visible spectrum? Since when?

Derp, sorry, got my science facts mixed up. It is the least energetic, so that would make it the longest, right?

Anywho, so, yeah, I do have to own up to not noticing the bit about the starmetals. What threw me was I was reading this from the Pathfinder Reference Document, where I thought they had removed most campaign setting details. I wasn't expecting non OGC stuff to be informing the content.

I understand that the choice was made to make tech seem alien in yet another way. I can understand why that choice was made, but I'm not sure I agree with it. It forces players to devote additional headspace to this alternate color scale, and that seems like just more mental arithmetic that's unnecessary.

You made identifying items in PF easier than 3.5 for exactly that reason. Because it was a hassle and dumb to make players jump through hoops to figure out what's better than what. If you have a color scale in place to easily grade tech, just make it one every player will recognize, so there are no hoops to jump through, having to learn a scale that is completely arbitrary. (And it is abritrary, your assignment of which starmetals go where on the scale is simply a design choice, adhering to no laws of physics or universal constants. It's an artistic decision with no reasoning behind it other than what makes internal sense to the fiction, and is therefore arbitrary.)
That's why it doesn't make sense for universal application in the PRD. This weird alien color scale only makes sense to one alien culture using made up magic materials as its basis. If you wanted to include this stuff in a PF campaign set in a homebrew setting (or another publishers settings), you'd need to import all this color business into it, or go through and manually change it all to a different one.
When all along, a color scale based on UNIVERSAL SCIENTIFICALLY MEASURABLE DATA, ie, visible color spectrum and wavelengths, has existed.

So, sure. I can understand how this makes sense for the Pathfinder Campaign Setting now. It just isn't as useful as it could be to people wanting to use it as a "tech source" for other PF games.

I'm sorry. This is dumb. But I have to vent.

The technology color scale is screwed up in so many ways. In order of lowest level to highest, it goes Brown, Black, White, Gray, Green, Red, Blue, Orange, Prismatic. I'm sorry, but this is complete gibberish. Let me tell you how many ways this makes my head asplode.

Headsplosion 1: The inclusion of Prismatic if both Black and White exist makes my head asplode because color either goes subtractive (like light waves), in which all colors combine to make white, or additive (like with pigments), in which the addition of certain colors makes black (like how some color printers can simulate black ink if you run out).
So Prismatic is supposed to be "all colors", but that should be either Black or White.

Headsplosion 2: If we go by the placement of Prismatic at the highest level to mean that this is an subtractive scale, where all colors equal the best, you must subtract colors from the high end to give you individual colors.
Which means that Black should be the lowest value, where there are no colors left to subtract. But Black is after Brown. Which brings me to..

Headsplosion 3: The inclusion of both Brown and Grey in a chromatic scale is nonsense, because grey only exists in monochrome scales. There is no color grey. If you add a color, or hue, to grey, it becomes a brown. (Try mixing random paints willy nilly, you get a muddy brown color). There ARE certain pigments that when mixed can give you a grey (which is why grey paints exist), but that is actually the carefully formulated combination of many pigments, and not a color all on its own. At the very least, grey should be below Brown, as it contains "less information" than a brown would. (A brown contains a hue and a shade, where a grey just contains a shade.)

So here we are so far: Keep "Prismatic" just because you want to be fancy, fine. But then White should be second highest. Black should be lowest. Grey should be second lowest, and Brown should be after that.

But what are we left with?

Headsplosion 4: THE ACTUAL ORDER OF REAL COLORS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE EITHER! Green, Red, Blue, Orange? What? How do you even? Colors are actual measurable wavelengths! You can put them in a sequence! Scientifically! Red has the smallest wavelength! Then Green! Then Orange! Then Blue! This is not a subjective decision by a culture, this is SCIENTIFIC FACT! Even if you decide to jump to an additive scale for the colors, why are Orange and Green, both non-primary colors, at opposite ends of the sequence? And with the subtractive scale, you're jumping all over the place!

Just.... ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

I'm not even going to begin to fathom why you didn't just go Black, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, White, Prismatic. You picked your odd color choices, so be it. But it should have looked like this:

Black, Grey, Brown, Red, Orange, Green, Blue, White, Prismatic.

That at least would have made some sense.

Athaleon wrote:

As I said earlier, it may sound harsh, but if you want to play Strength based melee, you can play literally any other melee class. Though it should ideally support many different builds, this ought to be the one Dexterity based melee class.

I mostly agree in principal, but I hope that at least some of the archetypes allow for alternative weapon choices (two handed swords only, for instance, or possibly heavy blades only). Meanwhile, I think perhaps the deeds should be reworded to specify light blades; as in the Fighter weapon group. The saber or cutlass could easily be rapiers reskinned as cutting weapons, or if you have your own homebrew stats you could just add them to the light blades group, and as such they'd be included in all of the deeds.

I heartily agree. Let's change the Swashbuckler to using "light and one-handed weapons of the blades weapon group (as per the fighter's weapon groups)". This can only add to the "Fighter half" of this hybrid class, and reinforces the actual archetype the class is trying to represent (all dex-based sword fighters) rather than one specific example of that archetype (rapier fighters, and doing it poorly at that).

Don't like how that would include the Swashbuckler being able to "fence" with a longsword? Well I don't like how the current Swashbuckler is able to "fence" with a morningstar or trident.

Take your pick.

I am also voicing my desire for a Two-Weapon Fighting Swashbuckler build/archetype. I mean really, the rules for using a light weapon in your off-hand making TWF easier (less penalties) is based entirely off historical warriors that were more Swashbuckler than Fighter. Saber and main gauche? That's totally a swashbuckler thing to do. Florentine style. Two-Weapon Fighting is an "archetype" (in the English dictionary sense, not a game term) of the Swashbuckler, so let it be part of the class.

Regarding the ability (or inability) to crit with Precise Strike: How would it stack with the ability to spend one Panache point to double damage? I believe the reason it is listed as precision damage (and thus doesn't double on a crit) is because it can be doubled at will, as long as we have panache to burn. Making it non-precision damage (and thus capable of multiplying on a crit) would probably require the removal of the ability to double it at-will.

As for the comparison with the Smite Evil ability or the Cavalier Challenge ability (both of which add level to damage), it doesn't work for a reason: Those are limited by uses/day, whereas the Shwashbuckler is limited by monster vulnerabilities only. As a matter of fact, I'd rather have the Swashbuckler be Calavier/Gunslinger (Rather than Fighter/Gunslinger) just for the Challenges alone. Throw that glove around!

I would rather remove the doubling-damage-for-a-panache and let the Precise Strike damage multiply on critical hits, so that it encourages builds with x3 crit modifier weapons. The weapon selection is already severely limited for the Swashbuckler, but if we allow more options to get their maximum effectiveness, then so much the better.

As for the unlimited use of Precise Strike... I know this might sound insane... but the limited daily uses of abilities aren't really an issue. A class's damage math is balanced for when they are running at maximum effectiveness. Play the game with unlimited barbarian rages, smites, a ranger getting his highest favored enemy bonus against all creatures, and with sneak attack working on everything without needing to flank it or deny its Dex. It will not break the Challenge Rating system, because characters are assumed to activate everything they need to beat an encounter.

That being said, taking away limitations like that would be bad for the game, because it removes interesting tactical and strategic gameplay. So I am not suggesting doing that.

But where limitations don't make sense, they shouldn't be there. A swashbuckler should be able to land his precise-strike damage all day long, like a Rogue can land sneak attacks all day long. The rogue is limited to flanked and denied-dex targets purely for flavor reasons, because the rogue is supposed to be a dirty fighter that gangs up on opponents or shivs them from ambush. A swashbuckler just fights with his flourishy, dexterous style, all day long, so there is no flavor basis for limiting the damage. And the reason why a precise strike damage should multiply and sneak attack should not, is because one is a static bonus to damage, and the other adds dice. That is the only reason from a mechanical point of view.

There are 3 Precise Strike abilities in the game. Duelist, a Feat, and the Swashbuckler. Two of the three are strictly called out as Precision damage, the third isn't, RAW, called out as being precision damage.

Here's an interesting thing. The 2 abilities that are explicitly called out as being "precision damage"? They are bonus damage DICE, and no one here is arguing to have bonus damage dice multiply on a critical hit. Do you know why? Because from a non-flavor-purely-mechanical point of view that would be broken.

The other ability that's not explicitly called out as "precision damage" is the duelist's Precise Strike. Do you know why people are saying it shouldn't count as precision damage? Not because they are munchkins, trying to pull one over on the DM, or because they are terrible rules-layers, trying to enforce an unrealistic black-and-white interpretation of RAW with no room for real-world logic... but because from a non-flavor-purely-mechanical point of view it would NOT BE BROKEN TO THE GAME'S MATH IF IT DID. It also makes a unified, simple, rule for how crits work. "Flat bonus multiplies, additional dice do not" Period. Done. End of story.

For proof of how unbroken it would be for a Duelist's precise strike to multiply on a crit: see Smite Evil, which does multiply. If you can explain to me why a Paladin isn't being a munchkin when his +1 damage per class level multiplies on a crit, but a Duelist is, then you will have taught me something. Little hint: The limitation on evil targets is purely flavor-based and has no bearing on system math.

For proof of how arbitrary it is for a flat-bonus to be labeled as "non-multiplying" (ie, "precision damage"), please provide the counter-argument for why a Ranger's Favored Enemy damage bonus (which represents knowing a creature's weak points and how to strike them) multiplies on a critical, while a Duelist's/Swashbuckler's Precise Strike (which represents being extremely accurate with all finesse-type attacks) does not.

The only reason Favored Enemy multiplies and Sneak Attack doesn't is because Favored Enemy is a static bonus, which wouldn't break the math of the game to multiply, and Sneak Attack is bonus damage dice, which would break the math of the game to multiply. There is no other reason.

I would still like a Developer response to what "1d6+11" would do on a crit for swashbucklers. As Malachi Silverclaw has already pointed out twice, there is no quick way to figure out critical damage for a swashbuckler using precise strike by reading his stat-block. A DM would have to reverse engineer it by subtracting the NPC's swashbuckler level from the "+11", then take the remainder and multiply that, then add back the swashbuckler level. This is a hassle.

If Smite Evil multiplies on crits, as a 1-for-1 scaling damage bonus from another class, then so should Precise Strike. Just remove the ability to double damage for a panache entirely, and let it multiply on crits already.

If the ONLY reason it's not being multiplied on critical hits is because the ability is flavored as being precision damage, then change the flavor. Or change it to bonus damage dice. Not letting a flat-damage bonus multiply is unheard of and it makes DMing npcs that do it a headache because of the "how much damage does this do on a crit" problem.

There really is no defensible justification for denying flat damage bonuses to be multiplied on a crit.

THANK YOU. This is what I was trying to say the other day, but people got hung-up on the definition of "precision damage".

I think you are tilting at windmills if you expect the devs to allow precision damage of any type to multiply on a crit.

So then.. lets not call it precision damage? All previous precision damage is bonus dice, which cannot under any circumstances multiply on crits, and I would never suggest them doing so.

Why is a static bonus to damage not multiplying? It breaks previous rules assumptions for little reason. Unless I'm missing something, there is NO other static bonus to damage in the game that does not multiply on critical hits.

The Duelist PrC's Precise Strike does multiply on critical hits, and is not called out as precision damage. But even if it was, as you said there is no rules-element to the wording of "precision damage" in the PRD, so there is no rule stating, hard and fast, that "precision damage never multiplies". Therefore the Duelist's precise strike, which does NOT have a clause disallowing multiplication on critical hits, would multiply on critical hits, whether it's precision damage or not.

Could anyone explain to me a mechanical reason why the Precise Strike damage does not multiply on a critical hit?

As far as I know, all non-dice bonus damage multiplies on crits, such as from Power Attack. I think even the Duelist's version of Precise Strike multiplies on crits. So why is the Swashbuckler's bonus singled-out? The part about it being "precision" damage is a little iffy for a reason, because the only precision damage we've seen before have been bonus damage dice, right?

Tried to do a thorough search before making this thread, but couldn't find anything on it, so here we go!

I started DMing with 3.5, moved onto 4e, and have recently returned to my first love in the form of Pathfinder.

While I have come to terms with preferring the verisimilitude offered by 3.5/Pathfinder's simultationist design philosophies, one thing I really miss about 4e's "game-ism" is the encounter design. In other words, I really miss minions. Using lower-CR creatures just isn't a satisfying answer to the problem either, as they just end up missing a lot and generally not being much of a threat.

So I want minions.

I've thought things over, and I came up with the Minion subtype/template. Let me know what you think.

Minion Subtype: Minions represent creatures that, enmass, can still threaten player characters with their strength and skill (rather than luck, i.e. hoping to roll critical hits), but are ultimately small-change and can be taken out easily. The minion subtype can be added to any creature, and provides the following traits:

• Chump (Ex): All minions have 1 hit point. They retain their number of hit dice for determining their vulnerability to certain spells and effects, but these hit dice never increase their hit point total to greater than 1. Minions can never benefit from effects or abilities that grant them temporary hit points.
  Minions always deal minimum damage with any attack or ability they have, including bonus damage dice (such as from sneak attack). This applies even to ability damage, ability drain, bleed damage, etc.
  The Difficulty Class for any ability a minion might have is reduced by 5.
  
• Minion Resistance (Ex): Minions reduce all damage dealt to them from any source (weapons, energy attacks, force effects, spells, etc) by an amount equal to 1/2 their Constitution modifier + 1/2 of their CR. If the creature has preexisting damage reduction or resistances, use those against applicable attacks if the reduction in damage is greater. (For example, a CR 10 construct minion has Minion Resistance 5 to all damage, but might have DR 10/adamantine against weapon attacks. All non-adamantine weapon attacks would have their damage reduced by 10, but all damage from any other source, including adamantine weapons, would be reduced by 5). Any immunities possessed by the minion still apply.
  Minions never take damage from an effect they have successfully rolled a saving throw against. Spells or abilities that impose conditions or other effects beside damage on a successful save, such as some that allow Fortitude (partial) or Will (partial) saves, still impose those effects on minions.
  
• Gang Up (Ex): Minions always appear in gangs of four. Four minion versions of a creature are equal to one normal version of a creature in terms of Challenge Rating. Minions never appear alone, so they do not have individual CRs.
  A gang of four minions have treasure equal to a single non-minion version of the same creature, divided evenly among members of the gang.
  

I've never seen an enhancement bonus to AC (generic). It's always an enhancement bonus to an armor or shield bonus.

The target of the spell shouldn't matter. The Arrow and the Bow example is the best comparison:

A +1 Arrow does NOT have "an enhancement bonus to the arrow's attack and damage".
A +1 Bow does NOT have "an enhancement bonus to the bow's attack and damage."

A +1 Arrow DOES have "an enhancement bonus to attack and damage".
A +1 Bow DOES have "an enhancement bonus to attack and damage".

The enhancement bonus is to the same thing, therefore it does not stack.

A suit of +1 Fullplate DOES NOT have "an enhancement bonus to Armor Class".
A +1 Heavy Steel Shield DOES NOT have "an enhancement bonus to Armor Class".

A suit of +1 Fullplate DOES have "an enhancement bonus to the armor's Armor bonus to AC".
A +1 Heavy Steel Shield DOES have "an enhancement bonus to the shield's Shield bonus to AC".

The enhancement bonus is to different things ("Armor bonus" and "Shield bonus"), therefore it does stack.

The spell Magic Weapon DOES NOT give "an enhancement bonus to the weapon's attack and damage."
The Fury of the Abyss ability DOES NOT give "an enhancement bonus to your character's attack and damage."

The spell Magic Weapon DOES give "a weapon" an "enhancement bonus to attacks and damage."
The Fury of the Abyss ability DOES give "your character" an "enhancement bonus to attacks and damage*."

The enhancement bonus apply to the same thing ("enhancement bonus to attacks and damage"), therefore they do not stack.

*The Fury of the Abyss ability actually only applies to melee attacks and melee damage (as well as CMB checks but that's irrelevant). Melee attacks are a kind of attack, and are therefore a sub-set of "attacks". The bonus still applies to the same thing, "attacks", just a specific kind of "attacks". This IS NOT THE SAME as the "Armor bonus" and "Sheild bonus" situation. Shield bonuses are not a subset of Armor bonus, and Armor bonuses are not a subset of Shield bonuses.

So, I'm solid on the order of operations when leveling up.

1. Select Class. Must meet prerequisites for taking class prior to this step.

2. Apply Ability Score increase if any.

3. Integrate new class features, then roll for Hit Points.

Then we get to...

4. Add new skills and feats.

But what if the feat you want has a skill rank prerequisite? Is the order "4a) add new skills; 4b) add new feats"? Is it interchangeable? Simultaneous?

Essentially, can I meet a skill rank prerequisite for a feat at the same level I want to take the feat?

For example, I'm 2nd level and want to take a feat that requires 3 ranks in a given skill when I level up. My max ranks are 2 right now. Then I level up. Can I put the 3rd rank in the relevant skill, and then take the feat?