Bihlbo's page

5 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists.


RSS


Devil's_Advocate wrote:
I have been a huge fan of the original Everquest, so recently I looked online to see if it's still possible to get a hold of the EQ RPG books. However, I read that they were based on the 3.0 rules system. Is it possible to convert 3.0 games to Pathfinder?

The original EQrpg was indeed written before the 3.5 revision, but for the most part it's OGL, not the core rules. This means that most of the game is using information you can only find in the EQrpg books, so the classes and all of the magic (even the mechanic for how many spells one can cast) is all different from 3rd edition and by extension Pathfinder. That's not to say it couldn't use a facelift - the skills are a complete mess and there are a couple of classes that suffered greatly in the conversion from the online game to the d20 product.

The EQ2rpg book(s?) are both interesting and infuriating. See, they introduced a cool new way of character progression that better mimicked the online game (start as an archetype, advance to class, then to advanced class) and all "class" abilities were selected from a broad list, allowing for incredible variation. In some ways it looks more like 4e in this regard. EQ2rpg is absolutely not a 3.5 product, and it would take much more work converting it to Pathfinder than EQrpg.

However, the core book for EQ2rpg did not feature any spellcasters (so about 3/5ths of the options for character advancement). They did finally print a EQ2rpg Spell Guide, which is now nigh impossible to find in print (I've seen only one and if I'd known how rare they'd become I would have got it). So while you can still buy the pdf, you only have the option of playing the game neutered with a dead tree book, or playing the game with full rules but with pdf restrictions.

Still, even though mechanically EQ2rpg is probably objectively better than EQrpg, the first iteration has far more complete options for reference material (none but the core and spell guide were ever made for EQ2rpg), especially in setting reference. They actually succeeded in making Halas and the barbarians very interesting, and overall the writing is quite good on those books.


Starglim wrote:
Charging in and of itself does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Moving out of a threatened square as part of a charge does.

What supports this? What of the issue of how Charge is described, as an action that allows movement? What is it about Stance A that doesn't agree with the rules or how the rules are intended to be read?


This is a very serious problem that just popped up in our group. Skeletons charged a fighter using a reach weapon and the "Does charge provoke an AoO?" question came up.

Rules reference:

Table 8-2: Actions in Combat, p183 wrote:


Full Round Action (Charge) -- Attack of Opportunity* (No)

* - Regardless of the action, if you move out of a threatened square, you usually provoke an attack of opportunity. This column indicates whether the action itself, not moving, provokes an attack of opportunity.

Charge, p198 wrote:


Charging is a special full-round action that allows you to move up to twice your speed and attack during the action.

Which of the following two stances is how the description for Charge is intended to be read?

Stance A
A charge never provokes attacks of opportunity, regardless of moving out of threatened squares. A charge is defined as an act that moves the character and results in an attack, with modifiers. Because the chart says a charge does not provoke, and the charge is an action which includes movement, this is a specific rule that breaks the general guideline of "movement usually provokes".

Stance B
A charge does not make a character immune to attacks of opportunity. Actions like Bull Rush specifically point out that the movement that results breaks the general rule of "movement usually provokes." Charge does not. Also, charge says it allows movement, and requires movement, therefore you cannot charge without performing movement. The rules clearly state that though the attack at the end of the movement does not provoke, the movement is still subject to the rules.

NOTE: We're stuck at "You just think that's how it is" going back and forth. We have agreed however that if the rules were used or a developer chimed in, we'd have something stronger than opinion to change our minds. So if your replies cited rules it would be extremely helpful.


From the searching I've done in the Pathfinder materials, weapons with the "reach" quality (except the whip) double the wielder's natural reach. So a Medium humanoid's reach with that weapon is everything 10 feet away, and of course not the squares adjacent.

The question we've run into is how you determine where 10 feet from you lies. The first square diagonal from you is 5' but the next is 15', using the normal method of determining distance. So that means the corners are clipped off of what would otherwise be a 5 square-wide ring around your character.

However, under "Big and Little Creatures in Combat" in the D&D 3.5 DMG on page 29, in the Natural Reach portion it says the following:

DMG wrote:
The exception is a creature with 10-foot reach. It threatens targets up to 2 squares away, including a 2-square distance diagonally away from its square.

I haven't found the same exception in Pathfinder rules, which leads me to believe that it was either intended but not included as an oversight, or we are supposed to use the normal distance rules to determine reach, even with this narrow and problematic distance of 10 feet.

Who can help me find an official rule that answers this question?


I think it's a mistake to improve the dagger. If you look at the features of the weapon compared to the features of other weapons, the dagger is one of the best in the game, even better than most exotic weapons. Just keep in mind that doing lots of damage doesn't make a weapon automatically better than another. If the longsword could be easily hidden and had a range increment it would be on-par with the dagger from a balance perspective. But it's not, it's inferior.

Add to this the fact that it's a Simple weapon. It's not SUPPOSED to be better than a short sword, even though it is. If anything I would weaken the dagger by removing the greater crit chance and range increment, to make it more balanced to other Simple weapons.

I highly suggest that if you want the iconography of a dagger-wielding assassin you instead use alternate daggers (like an Exotic kryss) or add dagger-specific feats for assassin-types.