Bad Sintax's page

You can't ready an action outside of combat and you don't need to. If you are aware of the opposition, and they are not aware of you, you get a surprise round. If you are aware of the opposition and they are aware of you, for instance, on either side of a door, presumably they would be readying an action as well. So when you are readying an action and they are readying an action, what do you get? Initiative.

Flat-footed before your turn in the initiative is reflective that the person was able to move faster than you, even if you were expecting it.

As far as I am concerned, any nods to reality need to be thrown out the window by the fact that you can reload and fire a muzzle-loading early firearm multiple times in six seconds. If you are willing to accept that as reality, then maybe in that reality a bayonet doesn't need to have brace.

Why it is flawed? Usually your class determines what weapons you use, not your race. Do the same things as a kitsune that you would as a human, or half-elf, or gnome, or halfling as a sorcerer at lower levels.

I will be buying 5e simply because after reading the basic rules it seems like the best way to go when I want to run a no-grid, fast moving throwback to the games I played and enjoyed in first edition with fewer trips to the rulebook required. 3.5 and Pathfinder especially are not conducive to a grid-less game, in my opinion, and you are therefore chained to a map.

When I first began playing using first edition, we never had a grid or map, rarely referenced a rulebook, and the "builds" we had were just our characters and the way we played them. That was what I fell in love with.

When I play PF, it is a totally different experience. I enjoy it of course, but it is definitely different. I love the complexity and variety, but I don't care how much system mastery you have, the more comlplex the game, the slower it becomes.

I think WotC made a great call with this new edition...if you want to sell more than McDonalds, you don't make more hamburgers, you make subs.

And yes, I hated fourth edition.

I think most "good" religions would agree that the preservation of life overrules the sanctity of the dead. In which case, as long as the paladin does not kill to cannabilize (which would not be preserving life), he would be free to save his own life by eating the flesh of others in an emergency situation.

The "good" choice being choosing to continue to live, rather than choosing to die. Many religions view life as a sacred blessing that to throw away by choice would be considered evil, and in fact worth a damnation to hell.

For me, nostalgia overrides the current games. They don't seem to be quite as fun in your 30s as they were in your teens.

NES: Super Mario 3, Contra
SNES: Super Empire Strikes Back
486: Tie Fighter (and Xwing, but man, Tie Fighter was awesome! Disney, can we get an XBOX One remake, please?)
Playstation: Final Fantasy VII

When originally conceived, according to the tapes of the writing conferences between Lucas, Kasdan, and other producers in the early 80s (see the making of Empire and Jedi books that are fantastic), advanced force users like Yoda and the Emperor didn't use lightsabers. Notice that Yoda didn't have a lightsaber sitting around in his hut on Dagobah and the Emperor laying the smack down on Luke with his force lightning. Not to mention Yoda doesn't do any lightsaber training on Dagobah, implying that Yoda didn't really see it as an important part of his Luke's training. In fact, he even tells Luke not to bring his weapons under the evil tree because he "will not need them."

He was never "supposed to be a badass with a lightsaber," that was only said in Episode 2 to set up the frog fight. He shouldn't have needed a lightsaber.

When he drew that thing out, it immediately diminished the character. And in Ep. 3 when the Emperor pulled his lightsaber out, same thing.

It made them the same as the other Jedi, when they should have been head and shoulders above.

And my 2 cents, Ep 2 is the worst of the series, based on story, writing, and dialogue alone.

"I killed innocent women and children."

"To be angry is to be human. Let's get married."

Pounce allows the creature to take all his attacks on a charge, including rake attacks, if it has rake. So yes, it would be bite, claw, claw, rake, rake on a charge.

Basically, the rakes are the hind legs...also why you can do the rakes in a grapple - front legs holding on, damage with bite, rake with 2 hind legs.

Pathfinder Tales Superstar - a compilation of the best short stories submitted by amateurs, judged by the fans and a board of Pathfinder Tales authors.

As a GM, I always rule that the reach of your lance keeps your mount from attacking, whether that is in a charge, ride-by-attack, or a regular attack.

If the PC is not using a reach weapon, and charges an enemy, I rule that both the PC and the mount could attack with the charge bonus (assuming the handle animal check can be done as a free action - so cavaliers and druids, mostly). Same would be true if the mount had reach.

If the PC does a ride by attack, and does not have a reach weapon, I rule that only the PC gets the attack. Never had a mount with spring attack, so it never came up. I would probably say you can't combine a charge with spring attack, so no attack from mount (the +2 has to come from somewhere). Plus, spring attacks limit the movement of the utilizer to its speed, which would significantly hamper the whole point of a ride-by-attack.

In addition, if you want to charge and go through the space of the enemy, you use the mount's CMB, so the Mount needs Improved Overrun (and Charge Through if wanted later). If you want to Trample, however, the PC needs the feat, not the mount.

Ride check is only to attack while your mount is attacking. Handle Animal directs the mount to attack. If you direct your mount to attack and fail your ride check, you can't attack (you spend the round trying to remain in the saddle).

YMMV on all of this. As written, ride-by-attack doesn't work because, as you posted above, someone forget to read the rules on charging and Ride-by-Attack when switching from 3.0 to 3.5. I usually house-rule the 3.0 rules for charging so that Ride-by-Attack can work.

everything i am seeing here is leading to

rebuy everything as pdf
or
invest in portable bookcase

And that seems to be ok with everyone, which i find odd. I cant be the only one who thinks this is just not the right thing to do to people who bought something but just dont want to lug it everywhere
....

What is seems to me is that some people want to build characters using the pfsrd and then do not want to buy the materials that those character elements come from.

If everyone did that, paizo would swiftly be out of business and we wouldn't have PFS.

As a GM, I bring a Core rulebook and the appropriate bestiary. If a player wants to run something not in Core, they bring the appropriate materials. It is the only feasible way to handle it.

This came up in a table I was in during GenCon in which the player was running a rule incorrectly and then argued with the GM about it. The GM asked, well, let's take a look at the rule and we can see. The player said, "Well, I don't have it with me!" She couldn't even remember what book it came out of.

And that is why you need to have the materials with you if you want to play them.

Speed would be listed in the animal companion's stat block under druid, or in the Bestiary stat block for the appropriate animal.

For example, a horse's speed is listed as 60 ft. So that means that a horse can move 60 ft in one movement action.

http://combatmanager.com/

I use it on a laptop in home games, and use it on my computer when running VTT games over skype.

It. Is. Awesome.

I had a player quit because one of the other PCs (a paladin) threw his super powerful evil sword into the elemental plane of water, never to be seen again. Even though when that player used the sword it would attack any teammate he was adjacent to (home-brew). It would also heal him of half the damage he dealt (it was Stormbringer, basically), including against his teammates. ("oops," was his typical response.)

He rage-quit and said, "I'm completely worthless now! I don't have any healing!" The rest of us tried to tell him that most fighters don't have any healing, but he wouldn't have it.

I even gave him 150K the next session to spend on a book legal weapon, but that ended up being his last session. He just missed that damn sword too much.

Plus, hello? Your characters and the BBEG are fighting for their lives...they aren't thinking about loot. Not sundering stuff because you want it later is meta-gaming of the worst kind - thinking you are in a game instead of a desperate battle in which you could die. The characters and your opponents should be doing every thing they can to make sure they live and the other dies, including sundering or any other nasty trick they can think of.

You are nicer than I would be. I would say use the exact stats for a scimitar and skin it as a katana.

He can call it whatever he wants as long as the stats don't change.

If you don't, you might run into unintended bumps down the road that you will have to deal with.

Besides, he is just saying, "This is a cool feat, I want it to do more damage." I have players ask that all the time. You can be sure if you allow it for one, you will have to allow it for all. As GM you have to decide for yourself where to draw the line.

If it is soley about flavor, ie a western vs eastern thing, skin it.

For cleric, I always think of the Hospitaler character played by David Thewlis in Kingdom of Heaven. Sure, it is a historical film, so obviously he doesn't cast, but he is clearly seen as the spiritual leader of the group of crusaders. But, you know, with a mace and he hits stuff.

If you have access to a computer, I love this combat manager. http://combatmanager.com/

Always remember that you are not the PCs enemy, you are there to make their adventures as cool and fun as possible. However, that does include having consequences for their actions. Otherwise, it is boring.

If by an Inquisition you mean "an official investigation, especially one of a political or religious nature, characterized by lack of regard for individual rights, prejudice on the part of the examiners, and recklessly cruel punishments," how do you think a paladin could be a member of it?

It goes against everything paladins stand for.

The Good always comes before the Lawful. That's what makes them good.

Just because a paladin grows up in a country where slavery is legal, does not mean the paladin would be okay with it. That would be LN, possibly LE. Alignment is not subjective. Read Faiths of Purity for more info.

I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. A PC trying that in any of my games would find himself quick on the southward slide out of any alignment ending in G.

Big time.

Those examples are all simply bad player examples. "Good" characters who hunt chromatic dragons just for their hoards? That would be evil.

Characters who hunt chromatic dragons to stop them from eating villagers? That would be good.

Plus, hunting down a band of orcs who has already raided a village is definitley not doing it because they "might." It is doing it for what they already have done. If a human village and an orc village have co-existed next to each other for years without incident and one day a group of adventurers decided to kill the orcs, that would be evil.

What always cracks me up about the people who bemoan “lawful stupid” or that paladins are dumb, is that, based on the game rules, good and evil are not subjective, they are objective. So torture is evil. Period. A paladin would not be able to follow his/her code and torture someone/something, without losing his/her paladin status or powers. No matter what the subject is, or what the end result would be. That's the "lawful" part.

However, that does not mean that a paladin wouldn’t sacrifice his or her powers for the greater good. That's the "good" part. Break the law and pay the consequences. The problem is that while a lawful good Character might do that, there are very few Players who would do that. And that is where we get the problems.

When the characters are more selfless than the players, you run into these kinds of discussions, like I want to torture something evil for the greater good but keep all my paladin powers. Doesn’t work.

Lawful good is supposed to be truly good…not subjectively good. So all the comparisons to crusaders and such do not apply. But when you have a selfish player playing a non-selfish paladin, guess what? You get a selfish paladin – which shouldn’t exist.

And if the undead are abominations and need to be ended or released, then why would you waste precious time torturing them? I can see that point, as long as you "put them down" immediately, in which case, you would not be able to torture for information. In that view, any time you spend torturing the undead for information is time that the soul of the departed is also being tortured by existing in their abomonitive state, so then in effect, you are torturing an innocent for information. At that point, because you could release them from their suffering, but choose not to, you are responsible for their pain.

Based on my own group discussions and the discussions that I have read on the message boards, my interpretations of mounted charge, which come up a lot with my cavalier character, are as follows:

There are basically three options for a mounted charging character that has the feat Ride-by-Attack:

1. Charge directly at the target – If using a lance, deal double damage, however if the character is on a mount without reach (such as a horse) the mount does not get an attack since it cannot reach the target and the character must stop at the nearest square it can hit the target. If using a weapon without reach, the character may have the mount attack at the end of the charge, using the charge bonus. If dealing with a target larger than medium size, the charge can be directly at any portion of the target.

2. Ride-by-Attack – Charge in a straight line (towards, but not necessarily directly at the target, which is what Ride-by-Attack modifies), hitting the target at the nearest point, and continuing on the straight line of the charge which should be next to the target, but not over it. Because the mount is using two actions to move, or because it can’t move-attack-move, the mount does not get an attack. However, if the mount has the feat Spring Attack, it may take a single attack if directed by the character with a successful Ride 10 check (unless of course the mount never gets within reach of the target, based on its trajectory). (Hasn’t really come up yet since I can’t see burning three feats for my mount for it to get a single attack on a charge.)

3. Overrunning charge – Charge directly at the target, make the character’s attack, then attempt the overrun using the mount’s CMB, not the character’s. If successful, the mount overruns the target, with the possibility of the character using the feat Trample. Because the overrun attempt is a standard action, it does not get an attack, with the exception of the specifically stated “free” hoof attack in Trample.

These options retain the flavor of the mounted knight while keeping the RAW.

Looking for official clarification, if anything is incorrect.