Avon Rekaes's page

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.

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.
  

So, I'm really pleased with the Swashbuckler. With the errata that clarifies they always get Precise Strike if they have at least 1 panache, they're easily my favorite new class of the bunch.

I do have one concern, and it may be a small one. Swashbucklers actually make poor firearms users. While they can take Amateur Gunslinger to get 1 deed and 1 grit, they are forever barred from multiclassing with Gunslinger. I feel like this is a mistake, as the Swashbuckler is perfect for exactly one-half of the typical pirate character. I was hoping to make a character that fights with a rapier in one hand and a pistol in the other, which seems like it was the intention behind the Swashbuckler, but the execution specifically bars the Swashbuckler from being as good at it as it could be.

I'm hoping that there will be an archetype for the Swashbuckler that lets them use panache for firearm deeds. Because right now, the ideal character I want to make is a multiclass Swashbuckler/Gunslinger, but that option isn't allowed by the alternate class rules.

So, I seem to remember some rule about the damage needed to cut free of being Swallowed Whole needed to be done in one attack. But as I read through the rules text in preparation for my next session, I can't find anything about that.

So... if the cut-free damage threshold is, say, 18, and a character does 10 damage with one attack, then next round 8, does he get free? Or does it need to be 18 damage in one attack? 18 damage in one round? Not sure how to run it.

Hello everyone!

So, my players ran across an evil summoner with an eidolon modeled after a bearded devil. The party paladin used Smite Evil on the eidolon, and asked if it was an evil outsider so his smite could do double damage.

I allowed it during the game, but I got to thinking. The double-smite-damage only applies to outsiders with an evil subtype, not merely evil-aligned outsiders. I read and re-read the summoner description over and over, but it only says the eidolon has the same alignment as the summoner, not that it actually gains those subtypes. Is there a ruling on this somewhere?

Then I got to thinking even more. Do eidolons have ANY subtypes? If they don't, doesn't that make them immune to a ranger's Favored Enemy bonus too, since there's no subtype for them to pick?

So, I was running a session last weekend, and had this situation come up. The PCs crashed a cult ritual, and the cult leader had her audience under the effects on an enthrall spell.

The party cleric had the bright idea to cast an enthrall spell of her own, to sway the cult in her favor. It caught me off guard, so I wasn't sure how to adjudicate it.

At the table, I made a snap-judgement to keep the game moving and called for an opposed caster level check. But now I'm wondering what the actual correct ruling should have been.

So.

You're a low-level rogue with a potion of invisibility. You drink the potion, get +20 to your stealth. But then let's say, you roll a 2 on your stealth check.

Still pretty high, but let's say the opponent is a couple CRs higher than the party, and has a huge Perception check, and they beat it.

So they've managed to pinpoint the Rogue's location. But the Rogue is still invisible and has total concealment. Can the Rogue still be the target of single-target magic spells cast by the opponent, like Charm Person? Does the 50% miss chance apply to non-attack spells (again, like Charm Person)?

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?