One of the anathemas for followers of Sarenrae is: lie.
So say the party wants to a Mission Impossible style mission where they have to infiltrate an enemy fortress. This might be to try to rescue a prisoner or effectively assassinate an enemy leader (even if the enemy leader is APL+2 with multiple guards protecting them that's still effectively an assassination mission...even if the enemy leader is 100% definitively a very, very bad person).
To do so, the party probably needs to bluff their way in and/or disguise themselves (mundanely or with magic like Veil).
At what point along the line is Sarenrae going to say "This is too deceptive/untruthful/etc" and be significantly unhappy?
And I'm not exactly convinced that letting the other PCs do all the talking, for example, is really in the spirit of Sarenrae's anathema.
On the flip side, I'm not sure Sarenrae would say "The only allowable course is to march up to the entrance of the fortress, declare a challenge, and defeat the entire enemy army in open and honorable combat." That seems very lawful stupid.
Let's say the party wants to infiltrate an enemy camp.
They walk up out of the forest to a perimeter guard and are like "Hey, we're totally one of you and also we're hungry, is dinner ready yet?"
At this point two things might happen (I think).
1, the party may need to roll an Impersonate check to convince the guard they're legit, and they'd get a +4 bonus from the Veil spell.
2, if the guard is highly suspicious and is wondering if this is some kind of weird trick, he gets a perception check against the caster's DC to see through the illusion. This is due to the guard engaging with the illusion and trying to figure out if something is off here. On the flip side, a guard 50 feet away who's watching this out of the corner of his eye but otherwise not really paying attention would NOT get a perception check to see through the illusion.
The party is level 14 and part of a coalition between celestials and devils to stop a demon lord.
Prior to the remaster, the Barbarian was LN and everyone else (Bard, Oracle, Fighter, Rogue) was NG or CG.
The infernal duke who is their main contact in the Hells offers them a job. An unknown party broke into a vault of his with infernal aid and stole a damned soul for unknown reasons. He's tracked the guilty party to a spot on the mortal plane and will pay the party to retrieve it (rather than needing to use his own forces) and the party agrees to his terms (gold for retrieving the soul, bonus gold for the head(s) of the thief or thieves).
The party winds up in a forest near a remote log cabin.
They decide to send the rogue to go investigate the area.
He rolls a critical failure on stealth when approaching, then tries to cover it with a deception check to imitate a bird...and also critically fails that.
This alerts the occupants of the cabin and a man wearing leather armor and holding a scimitar comes out along with a woman dressed in robes. They start searching the area.
The rogue uses his cloak to go level 4 invisible and makes a perception check to notice anything unusual. Critical success. He sees a black jewel on a metal chain around the man's neck.
He tries to sneak up and steal it before the invisibility wears off. Success on the approach. Fails by 1 on the Thievery check (which had a -5 penalty because the man was on guard and was only possible to attempt because of the skill feat the rogue had).
Man grabs gem with free hand to protect it and initiative is rolled. The rest of the party is still like 150 feet back hiding.
Man manages to spot rogue and attacks twice but misses.
Rogue books it back to party as invisibility wears off.
Bard starts singing with inspire courage and party members start running to attack with weapons drawn.
Woman opens up with long range AoE spells as the party charges and the man stands next to her to protect her.
Party gets to melee range and fights. The rogue tries to stab the woman a few times and when he does so he's almost overwhelmed by feelings of guilt as visions of angels and redemption play out in his head. I say he can resist the visions but it'll make him miss his attack or he can power through but become enfeebled. He decides to power through both times, but his strikes also do a lot less damage as a chunk of it gets resisted.
A round or two later the fighter strikes the man at low health and I say the man falls over dead as a result.
The next round the rogue uses Opportune Backstab to finish off the woman and I say she falls over dead.
Then the party goes "Hmm, wait a second, should we have taken one alive? Maybe that would have been a good idea," the bard goes "Yeah, especially since one of them was using Champion reactions," and the rogue goes "Can I retcon my last strike to be non-lethal?"
I say fine, but in the future you need to actually use non-lethal.
The Oracle following Sarenrae (in terms of ideals, not literal class powers) then wants to heal the man to keep him from dying and I said I already stated he died a round and a half ago when the fighter smacked him.
I said if he really wanted to try to preserve the man's life that I'd let him use his Shock to the System spell (https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1320) with a 50% chance of it working (since it normally only works on someone who died within the last round and it had been longer than that). The oracle said he didn't want to use significant magic like that and he was fine with the guy being dead in that case and I double checked that with him before moving on.
The party discusses whether to cut off the heads of the man and woman now to take back to the infernal duke. The Barbarian bounty hunter is all in favor, the Oracle is uncomfortable with killing the woman they deliberately didn't kill (with a retcon) in combat. And at a minimum the Oracle wants to look around first before doing anything.
The party leaves the dead man and the unconscious woman (for the moment) and went into the cabin where they saw it had been set up as a small shrine to Sarenrae.
Some additional information below in the spoilers for those curious, but my main question at the moment is this: should I have used the death and dying rules for the two soul thieves in this scenario? If so, why? If not, why not?
---------------------------------------
Other Details:
The two thieves were a Redeemer and a Sorceress (Imperial bloodline with Arcane tradition), both following Sarenrae.
The soul in question was their father, an evil warlord who was justly damned.
The siblings had a pipe dream and almost certainly overly idealistic hope of figuring out a way to somehow redeem their father and made a deal with a rival infernal duke for help breaking into the first infernal duke's vault.
In retrospect, I didn't make it clear enough that the visions of redemption were linked to the man doing something like channeling holy energy to protect his sister or something. I overlooked that in the moment and that was a significant mistake in retrospect. Got caught up describing the visions themselves. At least one person in the party still realized Champion reactions were going on, though.
The main enemy here was lack of information and confusion, which the party escalated when the rogue tried to steal the soul and then the party kept escalating into a fight. No one tried to calm things down and the rogue ignored the visions of redemption (or thought they were a trick, perhaps). De-escalating the situation would have been on the party.
From the siblings' perspective, an invisible thief tried to steal the soul and then when that failed several other people jumped out from the bushes and launched themselves to attack, with a 99.99% chance that the attackers are working for a lord of the Hells.
Ironically, if they had just knocked on the cabin door and asked to talk it would have become very clear who was what very quickly. That said, I don't really fault the rogue for trying to steal the item initially.
I was actually hoping the party would gain the two as allies to help with several matters, such as protecting an secluded Sarenrite temple the party is using as a home base for the forces they've been gathering. So in that sense the NPCs are "significant," but saying "This NPC is dying instead of dead" also tells the party OOC "Oh this NPC is actually significant and you just didn't know it."
The initial infernal duke has no idea who the thief or thieves are or why they stole the soul (other than a rival duke aided them). He figured it was probably some evil mortal(s) trying to do something nefarious with it. Which wouldn't morally upset the duke, but the thief or thieves still stole the duke's property which isn't acceptable, obviously, and that needs to be punished.
Edit: the Redeemer never wound up using his Lay on Hands which didn't help. I wanted to but never got a reasonable chance. If the sister had gone down first I would have let him try to heal her, which is the main thing that has me wondering if I messed up here.
It seems like most places on the Plane of Fire deal 4d6 fire damage each round outside of a safer haven like the City of Brass.
The best fire resist spells and gear seem to only have 15 fire resist and 4d6 each round would obviously wear a PC down within like 10 minutes in most cases (average is 14 but you'd have rolls above the 15 resist mark at a reasonable rate).
Seems like there's a lot of debate over how exactly it works, particularly in reference to whether the caster knows the save result of the people in the area.
But it could possibly have an extremely large effect on the world and how justice systems work (or evil kings forcing potential rebels/traitors into such zones constantly).
For those who have allowed it, how did it work out?
For those who didn't allow it, are you happy with the result?
It also seems like other effects like Dominate (also Uncommon) can have similar effects -- dominate a suspect and order them to tell the truth about whatever happened. If the suspect perceives it as a self-destructive order and doesn't respond, then that'd be evidence of at least some kind of guilt presumably (or at least a path to investigate down). Obviously rife for abuse, of course.
Say a PC casts Heroism or Mage Armor on themself and walks into a room with an NPC wizard/cleric/bard/whatever, someone with high magical ability.
What would be the quickest and/or most reasonable way for the NPC to figure out out effect(s) are on the PC?
Baseline seems to be Detect Magic plus 10 minutes of trying to identify each individual effect which obviously isn't great, especially if there are multiple such effects.
So "Sound Body" appears to be replacing "Restoration."
It's a quicker cast time with no daily use limit but now requires a counteract check.
This leads me to two questions:
1, say someone in a level 13 party gets drained by a level 16 Warsworn. The drain is DC 35. It looks like the only way for the party to remove that drain with Sound Body is to use a rank 7 Sound Body spell and get a success or use a rank 5-7 Sound Body and get a critical success. Is that correct?
2, say someone in a level 13 party gets Drained 2 by a Warsworn and Drained 2 by an elite Bodak. Are the drained sources now tracked differently? Does the caster using Sound Body have to specify which drained source they're trying to counteract? And which drained would go away first when resting?
In Pathfinder 1 there was apparently something along the lines of "the prospective revivee knows the name, alignment and patron deity of the cleric casting the spell to raise him and has to decide whether or not he'll come back on that basis."
I haven't been able to find any information along those lines in Pathfinder 2. Is that info specified anywhere or is it GM's call or?...
"Immunity to critical hits reads “When a creature immune to critical hits is critically hit by a Strike or other attack that deals damage, it takes normal damage instead of double damage.” This means what it says: The attack deals normal damage instead of double damage. Other effects specific to a critical hit still occur, such as critical specialization effects and extra damage dice from traits like deadly and fatal. You also still have the option to use abilities that trigger on critical hits, like the vorpal rune’s reaction (though many creatures immune to crits also don’t need heads to live, lucky devils). Your GM can still say no to extremely strange consequences of this rule on a case-by-case basis."
The last line is my concern here.
My players were were level 11 and facing a Carnivorous Blob (https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=755) which is a giant flesh eating ooze.
First of all, I was confused about how it could split if it was immune to piercing/slashing so I ran that aspect of the encounter incorrectly (since I had seen other oozes that weren't immune to piercing/slashing and the idea of the two halves creature hitting just as hard and taking up just as much space individually despite being cut in half seemed weird to me). So whoops.
So let's review some crit effects.
1, the party had a number of Flaming runes -- it sounds like I should have basically had the persistent fire damage apply from the very first hit (because basically everything crits against an ooze).
2, the barbarian crit with a halberd. While it was immune to the damage (and should have split, whoops again), should the ooze have been moved 5 feet?
3, the fighter crit with a maul. This was the party's most effective weapon against the ooze, but should the ooze have been knocked prone?
I assume anything related to #1 (like a Frost rune or whatever) is the same.
I'm mainly concerned about #2 and #3. Both seem like they might fall into the "your GM can still say no" category given the opponent is an ooze.
No, this isn't trying to trap a player of mine or anything, if anything it's the reverse.
Say the party captures an extremely unrepentant, I dunno, Orc who has definitely done Evil things.
What would quality as failing to strike down evil in this circumstance? The Orc might have surrendered (just to try to save his skin) or been knocked unconscious by the party.
Obviously if the party woke the orc up and healed it and said "Go have fun killing more people" then that wouldn't fly.
However, if the party agreed to let the orc go in exchange for valuable information then Sarenrae really doesn't seem to be the type to go "No, you failed to strike down evil by not killing the orc." But if the party just decided to execute the (unrepentant) orc for his crimes I don't think that would bother Sarenrae either.
I realize part of the whole point is that edicts/anathema establish boundaries of behavior rather than The One True Path, I'm just trying to get more opinions on what boundaries the "Fail to Strike Down Evil" sets.
P.S. Also obviously if an ancient red dragon landed and said it was taking the orc with him as his new warleader the party wouldn't be required to try to fight the dragon in a suicidal battle.
Does something like Leather Armor (4 hardness, 8/16 BT/HP), which has a reasonable chance of being broken by one Corrosive Rune crit, have the same hardness/BT/HP if it's +3 (and/or has other runes)?
Ditto weapons -- it looks like a +3 Major Striking Longsword would still have 5 hardness, 10 BT, and 20 HP and thus get instantly broken upon hitting a Balor once (Flame Aura does 20.5 average fire damage to a weapon striking the Balor).
Am I missing some relevant rules here? It seems like even a High Grade Cold Iron sword (10 hardness, 20 BT/40 HP) would still break after two hits.
"If forced movement would move you into a space you can’t occupy—because objects are in the way or because you lack the movement type needed to reach it, for example—you stop moving in the last space you can occupy. Usually the creature or effect forcing the movement chooses the path the victim takes. If you’re pushed or pulled, you can usually be moved through hazardous terrain, pushed off a ledge, or the like. Abilities that reposition you in some other way can’t put you in such dangerous places unless they specify otherwise. In all cases, the GM makes the final call if there’s doubt on where forced movement can move a creature."
So if someone is standing at the edge of a cliff, someone who succeeds at a Shove action could presumably push them off the cliff to their instant death.
What about something like the Polearm critical specialization effect?
"The target is moved 5 feet in a direction of your choice. This is forced movement."
And before you say "Ask your GM" I am the GM.
If the PCs were standing on a high bridge and an NPC got a lucky natural 20 with a polearm, I suspect they wouldn't be happy with the effectively instant death that would result (assuming it affects someone who can't Grab an Edge successfully).
Basically most things have traits that help determine what spells/abilities/actions fall into a certain category but I'm not seeming to find anything like that here (and searching this Rules Discussion hasn't helped either).
So I'm trying to wrap my head around NPCs lying to the PCs and how the PCs can try to detect it. And having to explain to my players that they can't be living lie detectors on every individual statement.
What's the expected way of doing this and which skills are involved exactly?
Say a level 3 Rogue has +11 Thievery (3 + Expert + Dex) who also is Trained in Crafting with a Repair Kit.
There's a Superior Lock of DC40 which requires six successes.
On a Natural 20, we get a 31 which is a Failure which then becomes a Success.
On a 19 or less the lockpicks just break and need to be repaired (10 minutes of Crafting).
So 5% of the time the Rogue gets one success, or roughly every 200 minutes -- call it 3.5 hours to round up.
Which means if the level 3 rogue has a week of time he could spend 3.5ish hours a day and unlock a Superior Lock after six days (on average) at no expense other than the initial purchase of Thieves' Tools and Repair Kit (though he needed to repair his lockpicks like 114 times total).
Is this correct?
The rules also say
"Locks of higher qualities might require multiple successes to unlock, since otherwise even an unskilled burglar could easily crack the lock by attempting the check until they rolled a natural 20"
So this conclusion seems odd to me...granted, taking 21 hours of work isn't "easily" but still seems the Superior level 17 lock should keep the level 3 Rogue out.
Is there a way to use Acrobatics to reduce falling damage taken without taking the feat [url]Catfall[/url]?
One of my players is a bit annoyed that a level 6 rogue with Expert Acrobatics can't drop 8 feet without taking damage and falling prone as far as we can tell RAW...though maybe we're both missing something.
How many actions would it take to unequip/drop a broken shield and equip a new one?
I'm guessing one action to unstrap, free action to drop, one action to retrieve the new shield, and one action to strap it in place? So three actions (plus a free action)?
If the party captures a prisoner and wants to bind them with ropes or chains or something, what's the DC for the enemy to escape?
I saw something about thievery DC but does that mean if a fighter untrained in thievery wants to tie up a prisoner the DC is 10 + ability modifier to escape or something? That's not going to hold anyone past the first few levels.
If a character with a bow is opposite someone wielding a melee weapon, do they automatically count as providing flanking because the bow user can make an unarmed strike?
I realize that the flanking bonus wouldn't apply to bow shows made in melee.
Is all armor just interchangeable between races now and full plate doesn't have to be fitted?
If the Half Orc Fighter kills the evil Halfling Warlord, the Half Orc can just strap on the Halfling's Full Plate no problem? No issues with size, frame, or fitting?
I have a player who basically wants to be a monk who (in his words) can also be a backup healer.
Monks look like they can only heal themselves with Wholeness of Body so we're gonna need to look at multiclassing (I don't think Battle Medicine once per day per person will satisfy him either).
Monk -> Cleric gets no Divine Font and gets literally one level 1 Heal at level 4...that seems very underwhelming.
Cleric -> Monk is what we're working on right now...catch is his unarmored defense and attacks never seem to progress past expert.
Though, yes, he does have full cleric spellcasting obviously. However, I feel like he'd rather give up some of that spellcasting power for more melee power/defense as long as he has a few good healing spells in his back pocket.
Is there a better way to accomplish this? Are we missing things?
P.S. He gets Deadly Simplicity making his fists 1d6 (same as the monk archetype) but seems he'd still take a -2 penalty for making lethal attacks until he takes the monk dedication at level 2?
I have a ranger in my game who is feeling clunky when trying to draw and attack with weapons while dual-wielding.
He does have Quick Draw.
But say he moves up, Hunts Target, and Quick Draws...he's now out of actions and still only have one weapon. Or I guess he Quick Draws twice and then gets no benefit from Hunter's Edge (Flurry) meaning he has to Hunt Target next turn?
Are we misunderstanding the rules here? In 1E I thought you could just draw two weapons at once.
Kind of what title says. I switched the Orc Warrior's Necksplitter (advanced, d8, forceful, sweep) for a Longspear (simple, d8, reach) and from what I noticed I think that might have been a bad idea.
Seemed it made encounters significantly more difficult with the reach plus attack of opportunity.
I thought it was was safe since I was going from an advanced to a simple weapon...
I'm running a new campaign in PF2. I've never run/played it before and neither have my players. We're a few sessions in and I'm noticing a handful of problems that are popping up and would like some advice/suggestions.
Party is...
Ruffian Rogue (using gauntlets which just seems to be a self-nerf right now)
Flurry Ranger (using shortbow with animal companion)
Paladin
Crane Monk
Universalist Wizard
Angelic Sorcerer
First of all, Goblin bow crits are often one-shotting players from across the map. The average damage is 12.5 (2d6 + 1d10) but last session our monk with 19 HP went from 100% HP to dropped in one crit (rolled 5/5/9 respectively for 19 damage). It ain't just him, either, multiple 16+ damage crits have dropped our two casters on round one of a combat over the last few sessions.
And my players are specifically raising the complaint that they don't feel heroic when they haven't ended a fight without someone on the ground. And I doubt they'll feel heroic if it's the six of them beating up two goblins...and even just two goblins could still drop one or more people with some lucky rolls.
So not sure how to approach this. Trying to avoid house rules or adjusting stuff for a while but I feel very tempted to raise the damage goblin bow damage by 1 and remove the Deadly d10 or something.
Second, there's a Divine Sorcerer in the group who is seeming very ineffective outside of three Heal spells per day. Stats are 10/12/14/12/12/18.
He has a sling but has been very hesitant to use it (I had to correct his attack bonus from +1 to +4 since he forgot it was Trained I think) and his only combat cantrips are Divine Lance and Shield (nothing like Stablize either which would have helped). And maybe it's due to getting sniped a few times but if he's more than 30 feet away he often doesn't want to approach to Divine Lance...so sometimes entire rounds of combat go by without him doing anything. It's to the point where I feel I should balance around 5 PCs rather than 6, for example.
Hell, even the sling seems like a poor choice for someone with 10 strength...seems a crossbow would be much better.
I just thought the character power floor was supposed to be a lot higher in PF2 but this character in particular seems to be struggling. Also seems to be using the 3 action Heal at times when I think the 2 action Heal would be much better...so maybe tactical choices/ability is a big problem too.
I know nothing about Kineticists other than I've heard they have a pretty high power floor (meaning it's near impossible to make a truly bad one). The campaign I'm running is mostly CRB/APG/ACG but I said, sure, we can try it when a player asked if he could play one.
Then he started talking about doing 175.5 damage as a full attack against touch AC at level 9.
That's enough to kill many/most CR12 monsters in one round effectively guaranteed (only misses on a one).
Is he misunderstanding some rules, are my expectations skewed, or is something else going on?
So I'm running a game that has three Pathfinder characters at level 10. A bard, a monk, and an inquisitor. Another player wanted to join using a third party system called Spheres of Power/Might. And I am definitely regretting allowing it as an experiment.
Now I 100% do not think this fourth player is trying to break the game -- in fact, I know he's deliberately not using all of his abilities as much as he could (such as only buffing his pet with group buffs rather than the whole party). So the following stats are AFTER his attempts at self-nerfing...but I still have the other players asking stuff like "Are you going to have to buff the enemies to withstand those 2, putting myself and the others at a disadvantage?"
Because, frankly, his character (especially his pet) still seems insane. Especially in a game where the allowed default content is CRB/APG/ACG, everything else per approval (though most items from UE allowed).
The actual question that I'm trying to figure out, though, is what kind of stats his pet in particular should have at this point relative to what I SHOULD expect in default Pathfinder. I have some ideas of my own but wanting to get input from others on what the end goal should be. No actual knowledge of the third party content is necessary, that's why this isn't in the third party section.
Basically I'm asking "How powerful should a level 10 summoner's pet be" so I can figure out how much to adjust this guy's character by whatever means necessary.
If you're curious about his character's abilities, a summary is below...
The character is essentially a summoner with an eidolon except under the Spheres of Might/Power system. The party is currently level 10.
The summoner has the following abilities which all draw from a pool of 19 points, most abilities cost 1 point but some are marked as 2 points:
- Can give his huge pet Evasion, Compression, and +4 Initiative
- Give anyone Displacement (50% miss chance) for 1 minute per level (2 points)
- Give anyone Greater Invisibility (2 points)
- Store up to 180 healing pre-combat and release as much as desired as a standard action (1 point per 55 healing stored)
- Give out effectively Stoneskin for free (no material cost), DR 5/- that absorbs 100 points at caster level 10, eventually DR 10/- that absorbs 200 points at level 20
- Can give out essentially Mass Bull's Strength except he can pick any two of Str/Dex/Con and it lasts 10 minutes per level on all targets (2 points)
- Can set up wormholes allowing 5 feet of movement to teleport between two points (six wormholes maximum currently)
- Can give out +2 AB/Saves (untyped) to all good creatures (or +4 AB/saves to his pet specifically) within 75 feet of the spot where the spell is cast (Totem) (2 points)
- Passively gives pet 2 AB/AC (Phalanx) if he or another designated party member is adjacent to the pet
- Can give pet his actions without costing points, such as saying "I skip my turn and my pet takes two full round actions" -- can also give out just a standard or move or attack of opportunity
- Gave his pet an extra four feats passively
The pet has the following abilities:
- Permanently huge with a bipedal form wielding an earthbreaker, 15 foot reach
- Can issue a mass challenge (not Cavalier ability) to cause all creatures within line of sight to gain +2 AB to hit the pet but -4 AB against any other target
- Can change the first 40 damage taken per round into non-lethal damage AND only take it at the end of his turn
- Can Greater Reposition (target's movement provokes from allies) as a move action and if successful can also make a free Trip or Disarm attempt and then take a normal standard action
- Can rage 8 rounds per day for 4 Str/4 Con/-2 AC
- Has 160 HP (maximized HP in the game) with normal buffs and raging, could get 25ish AC while raging with Phalanx buff mentioned above and a few items (amulet of natural armor, ring of protection, bracers of armor, etc)
- Has +30/+25 AB and 38 CMB with standard self buffs with only mass +4 AB/4 Saves consuming an action in combat from the summoner (so no flanking, bard song, heroism, or anything similar from other party members)
- Hits for 38 average damage with his huge +2 earthbreaker without Power Attack (while raging)
Say you have a medium size creature with 30 AB and 30 CMB baseline. They also have a +5 weapon and Improved Disarm. We'll assume it's NOT a trip weapon to simplify things (so let's say it's a greatsword or greataxe or earthbreaker or something similar). This means they attack at +35 and disarm at +37, since they can use a weapon to help disarm.
Simple enough.
Now let's say they suddenly grow to Colossal size (normally -8 AB, -8 AC, +8 CMB, +8 CMD).
This means they now attack at 27 due to the -8 penalty.
But what do they disarm at? Specifically in regards to how weapon enhancement bonus interacts with the AB penalty but CMB bonus.
I have a NG Inquisitor claiming that it's okay for him to use the Confess spell since it lacks the evil tag of Interrogation.
I'm not really seeing the difference between...
A, casting Confess on someone
and
B, put someone under a truth telling spell (assume they fail saves for something like Zone of Truth or whatever) and then torturing them if they don't answer questions
Sometimes a character ends its movement while moving through a space where it’s not allowed to stop. When that happens, put your miniature in the last legal position you occupied, or the closest legal position, if there’s a legal position that’s closer."
So say our roguish hero (who has 30 feet of movement and this is his SECOND move action) tries to tumble through a mass of hobgoblins to the square he thinks is empty (fortunately his acrobatics skill is crazy high so he can move at full speed) but instead contains an invisible hobgoblin alchemist?
He used 25 feet of movement to get there but can't stop there. Does he...
A, get shunted back 25 feet (50 feet of movement for his second move action)?
B, get shunted forward 15 feet (40 feet of movement for his second move action) and gets to freely move through more enemies he might not have been able to tumble past?
So just to get this out of the way up front: I'm aware that some of my house rules/campaign specifics have skewed the balance in this case, particularly in three ways.
1, this campaign is intended to go to 20 and Shield Master (usually) requires level 11 minimum. So campaigns at lower or mid levels will never see any issue.
2, I'm effectively using some of the Two Weapon Warrior/Unchained Action Economy rules, meaning a standard action or attack of opportunity can strike with both weapons
3, I tried to reduce some feat taxes (like Weapon Focus and Two Weapon Fighting scaling automatically into their more powerful versions at higher levels)
That aside, I'm currently relatively happy with the balance between 2H, dual-wielding, and sword and board.
- 2H is better at dealing with damage reduction and damage shields
- Dual-Wielding is better at dealing with mirror images and has higher DPR against lower AC enemies
- sword and board has less damage but better defense
...but then using a shield to attack comes into play and presents a problem because it deals more damage than a "normal" dual-wielder while having the same defenses as "normal" sword and board. Basically seems to make both obsolete.
Shield Master makes this problem even worse since you can get a +5 Heavy Shield that gives 7 AC which is also enchanted as a Holy Axiomatic weapon for 5^2 + (5^2)*2 = 75k when normally that would cost 162k for a +5 Holy Axiomatic offhand weapon that gives *zero* AC.
This has probably been traditionally seen as "balanced" due to weakness of default dual-wielding and extra feats required, both of which are reduced in this case.
Imagine if a person with a 1H does 100% damage and has 100% survivability
2H is 150% damage and 100% survivability
Dual-wielding is 150% damage and 100% survivability
Sword and board is 100% damage and 150% survivability
Ideally I'd like Shield Bashing to be like 130% damage/130% survivability but instead it's like 175% damage and 150% survivability -- more damage than dual-wielding and the same surviviability as a "normal" shield user.
And again, level is a big deal. At level 1 you're giving up damage on the off-hand and a feat to gain 2 AC or something -- not a big deal and honestly not very good. But that radically changes past level 10.
And the player entering the campaign who wants to bash with a shield is starting at level 12, so the whole "He had to wait for this to pay off" argument doesn't apply (I don't even agree with that argument regardless, but still).
TL;DR: I want to figure out a way to allow him to shield bash without making "traditional" dual-wielders or sword and board users feel obsolete.
Player asked what stops the party from knocking out foes and placing them under geases to help defeat their previous master (or something similar). 10 minute casting time is circumvented by, y'knowing, the enemies being unconscious.
Though maybe they have to be conscious at the time the spell finishes? So could revive them at that point or just have them tied up or something I guess -- same principle, same end result.
A level 12 caster can make a 30 foot radius circle around enemies with Wall of Blindness/Deafness -- can you alternatively make a square with sides of 60 feet each? That affects a much larger area.
Casting
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M/DF (a small piece of obsidian)
Effect
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Area 20-ft.-radius burst
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw Reflex partial, see text; Spell Resistance no
Description
You convert a thin layer of the ground to molten glass that cools quickly. Creatures in the area take 1d6 points of fire damage per two caster levels (maximum of 10d6) and become entangled. Any creature within the area that makes a successful Reflex save takes half damage and is not entangled. An entangled creature can attempt to free itself by spending a move action to attempt a Strength check or Escape Artist check (the DC equals the spell’s saving throw DC).
The ground is covered with slippery expanses and sharp shards of obsidian. The area of effect is difficult terrain, and the DC of Acrobatics checks within the area of effect increases by 5. A successful DC 15 Acrobatics check is required to run or charge across the area. A creature that falls prone in the area takes 1d6 points of damage from sharp obsidian.
-------------------------------
For reference, the Entangle spell:
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, DF
EFFECT
Range long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
Area plants in a 40-ft.-radius spread
Duration 1 min./level (D)
Saving Throw Reflex partial; see text; Spell Resistance no
DESCRIPTION
This spell causes tall grass, weeds, and other plants to wrap around creatures in the area of effect or those that enter the area. Creatures that fail their save gain the entangled condition. Creatures that make their save can move as normal, but those that remain in the area must save again at the end of your turn. Creatures that move into the area must save immediately. Those that fail must end their movement and gain the entangled condition. Entangled creatures can attempt to break free as a move action, making a Strength or Escape Artist check. The DC for this check is equal to the DC of the spell. The entire area of effect is considered difficult terrain while the effect lasts.
If the plants in the area are covered in thorns, those in the area take 1 point of damage each time they fail a save against the entangle or fail a check made to break free. Other effects, depending on the local plants, might be possible at GM discretion.
--------------------------
For example, there's a level 12 Arcanist in the group with 26 Int. If he casts this spell and uses Potent Magic, enemies have to make a DC 10 + 4 + 8 + 2 = 24 Reflex Saving throw.
If they fail, they're rooted in place literally forever unless they make a DC 24 Strength check (so anyone with 18 Strength or less literally has to roll a natural 20) or make an Escape Artist check (so someone with that skill could get out fairly easily).
So first of all, I get that we're not talking about a full caster and by that logic anything martials do isn't overpowered and so on. But let's lay that aside because right now I'm looking at balance within martial characters.
The campaign is limited to CRB/APG/ACG with everything else per approval.
The character in question is a Beastmorph Vivisectionist. The player said he wanted to play a Beastmorph Alchemist and that Vivisectionist is the only other archetype he could that gave up bombs to boost melee ability. I've heard horror stories about the combo and I know Vivisectionist is banned in PFS for just being a better rogue, but I've given rogues some major buffs and looking at the Vivisectionist figured it might be okay. Plus, the player promised not to make a natural attack monstrosity, said he'd have Bite/Claw/Claw from Feral Mutagen.
So...first combat with the new character he uses Monstrous Physique and turns into the form of a CR20 Euryale. So he now has Bite/Claw/Claw at full BAB and then *six* more Bites at a -2 penalty...since he claims that he should be able to take Multiattack. That's 9 attacks independent of items or race and is available as early as level 7.
But...but...thinking about it, it's not necessarily that character specifically. Any Alchemist can transform like that at level 7 apparently, and secondary Bites aren't all that impressive. The problematic part is adding in Sneak Attack per bite. Hell, even a Rogue could UMD a level 5 wand of Monstrous Physique and get much the same (qualifying for Multiattack is in theory even more of a question).
But maybe part of the problem is also just how natural attacks work. A Vivisectionist with daggers (or some other weapon, doesn't matter) would be attacking at AB -2 twice (so something like +20/+20 just to make up a number). A Vivisectionist with Feral Mutagen on the exact same character would be attacking at +22/+22/+22 -- so 50% more attacks and no -2 AB penalty per attack. This problem just gets worse when you add in another six attacks all at +20 in this case -- the same base AB of the dual-wielder.
It's still early and I haven't had any coffee, so I'm not sure I have any real conclusion here other than this whole thing seems very problematic compared to other martial characters which are supposed to be comparable.
Obviously many creatures at high end have immunity to level drain -- but I'd rather not go that route. Is there a way to mitigate creatures with otherwise extremely good defenses from being drained to death from Enervation spam?
I'm working on four hours of sleep here but I've been drafting something to send to my players. Party is level 11 in a campaign that's been going on about 2.5 years, planned to continue to 20. The game is primarily focused on difficult combat and a recent boss fight the players lost has had me thinking about some things.
The boss had some custom mechanics (similar to legendary/lair actions in 5E or boss mechanics in video games) and while I try to telegraph stuff, I don't think that's going to work 100% of the time. Either I won't make it as clear in-game as it needs to be or the players will misread the situation or both. The question then is how to handle the resulting TPK (or at least near TPK).
Note that I do come from a background of being a high end WoW raider for years.
Looking for feedback/suggestions on the below. And/or overall advice.
I think we need to decide on some general principles going forward. Without risk of death/loss, I feel the game has less meaning. On the flip side, if there's, say, four boss fights per level and you succeed 95% of the time, that's likely several more TPKs by the end of the campaign (this is assuming you never die to lesser encounters which technically could also happen). There's at least three main options:
1, "IT WAS ALL A DREAM!" I don't really like this option, I think it cheapens death and makes failing meaningless.
2, reset but with consequences. people have mentioned the Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor. In this case it would probably be something like the encounter you just wiped to getting a small boost across the board while you get a second chance. If you die again, it gets boosted more. if this happens a few times it's going to become impossible and it becomes a TPK. So you get a few chances but that's it -- and it's a bit harder each time.
3, TPKs are TPKs. If the party is wiped out, that's that. New party (or if one person escaped then most of a new party or whatever).
Part of the concern here is also disruption of plotlines. If one person dies (falls into lava and there's nothing left to rez, let alone raise dead) then that can already disrupt stuff and that's "good" because death should be meaningful...but it's a far cry short of jettisoning every NPC connection/character arc and resetting with a new party. Let me know your thoughts (or if you have other ideas).
"A kalavakus can attempt to enslave the soul of any mortal creature within 60 feet as a swift action. The kalavakus must have line of sight to the target. The target can resist this special attack with a DC 18 Will save, but is staggered for 1 round even if the save is successful. If the save is successful, the creature is immune to this ability for 24 hours."
Does this mean that if the party encounters a Kalavakus at 9 AM and it uses Enslave Soul on Bob that Bob is then immune to ALL uses of Enslave Soul by EVERY other Kalavakus they might meet that day?
Normally this type of ability says something like
"An opponent that succeeds on the Saving Throw is immune to that same creature's frightful presence for 24 hours."
But this ability lacks that clause...even though Enslave Soul is only a penalty against the specific Kalavakus.
