Bizbag's page

flaming duck, ok so err... back that up. The DR chart CLEARLY and i mean very very clearly says equivalent bonus. FAQ talks directly to equivalent bonus and how it applies. So where are you getting this from.

The "equivalent" refers to the special material it is equivalent to. The text reads:

Weapons with an enhancement bonus of +3 or greater can ignore some types of damage reduction, regardless of their actual material or alignment. The following table shows what type of enhancement bonus is needed to overcome some common types of damage reduction.

A +1 Holy weapon does not have a +3 enhancement bonus; it's just priced like one.

I think the idea of opposing elements to be limiting on the imagination. The various mephitis and elementals provide interesting inspiration to fluff the weapons: a flaming/acid sword (vaguely fire/earth) could be dripping with caustic magma. A shock/acid (air/earth) could be a crackling dust storm that strips flesh (acid). I can't think of a great idea for a fire/cold one, but imagination is your limit.

Even could they take Scion of whatever it would still not solve the problem because the tail which they possess would still be explicitly deemed non-mechanical by RAW.

By RAW, any aasimar can get Tail Terror, whether through SoH->RH or an alternate SoH. That's immaterial because none of those abilities are what determine the presence of a tail. The issue is whether kobold-aasimar have tails.

You seem to believe that they do, but that the tail they possess is somehow unusable for Tail Terror, but I'm not clear why. Kobolds' tails are present by virtue of stated physical description, not a stat block entry, so there is no hard race feature to compare; only their physical description is in debate. The section on alternate aasimar says such brings are visually identical to their base race save for minor differences, of which some examples are provided.

I don't see how the text says that the tail a kobold-aasimar possesses is any different from the one a standard kobold does.

The Morphling wrote:

Wiggz wrote:

Emergency Force Sphere is infinitely more powerful and doesn't require a single feat to gain, much less 3 or 4...

Emergency Force Sphere can be used once per round, every round, an unlimited number of times, 24 hours per day, as a free action, and is available at level 1.

Stop using this as a comparable ability, it is making some of you sound very, very silly.

Actually, it can be used once per combat as an immediate action and will last the entire combat, requiring no additional actions to provide its full benefits.

How many combats a day do you usually see? 2-5 I'd imagine. So yeah, a typical Sorcerer (for instance) would have access to it as often as he needed - and rather than work just once a round, it works against EVERY attack that round, round after round, including against spells...

...on second thought, I think you're right - it does sound rather silly to compare the two.

We've had a party that included a Dervish with Crane Wing and a Summoner with EFS (via Eldritch Heritage/Arcane Bloodline)... which do you think came across as more 'over-powered'?

Is the example sorcerer standing still under his dome for the whole combat, doing nothing? Because as wall of force notes, and thus so does emergency force sphere, spells cannot pass through the dome in either direction. Also, he must wait for 7+ rounds for the spell to end, or spend a standard action to dismiss it.

Bizbag wrote:

Doomed Hero wrote:

I notice I still haven't gotten a developer response to the Kobold-Aasimar issue. :/

A kobold-aasimar could make use of Tail Terror. As written, they'd need Scion of Humanity, Racial Heritage, and Tail Terror to do so.

Of course, this itself requires an FAQ or errata in my opinion. A kobold-aasimar should be gaining status as a kobold and humanoid (reptilian) through the Scion of X feat, not status as a human.

What do you expect a developer to say, anyway? That certain aasimar can use Tail Terror?

No a Kobold-Aasimar could not use Tail Terror even with Scion of Humanity and Racial Heritage. For all mechanical purposes a kobold-aasimar doesn't have a tail.

As Stephen Radney-MacFarland mentions above, a certain level of common sense is expected to be applied. The block of text that allows for alternate-race aasimar indicates that, to the untrained eye of the common player races, they may be indistinguishable from standard members of the race. A lack of a tail would be pretty distinguishable on a kobold, troglodyte, or lizardfolk.

Tails are not an item listed in a statistics block, so we fall to the descriptive text to provide information. Kobolds, as we know, are described as possessing them, and the block of text for alternate aasimar describes such characters as being visually identical except for minor differences.

This creates a situation where, if one were attempting to maximize one's mechanical advantages, choosing to be a kobold aasimar could be a more optimal choice over a halfling. This is acceptable to me, because it requires the character to be, essentially, a kobold. PRG is a roleplaying game, not a Tactical Combat Simulator that shifts immediately from one fight to the next, and a GM should take a player's (apparent) race into account during their character's life.

In addition, as I mention in a previous post, I believe there is cause for an FAQ or similar developer input re: Scion of Humanity when combined with alternate aasimar. I think the simple adjudication that the Scion feat would map to your chosen race instead of just Human is preferable.

The most attacks I can recall a creature getting in one round (before haste and such) is a Kraken at 11. That means at worst, this feat resulted in a 9% reduction in damage, IF all of those 11 attacks hit you, which at level 15+ and with a +3 (at least) from fighting defensively, is unlikely.

So at worst, this feat was almost twice as good as Dodge, and exceeds twice its value when you include that it can defeat a natural 20 while Dodge cannot. The fact that it works against melee but not ranged mitigates it slightly, but melee attacks are more numerous and damaging in PRG, and natural attacks are almost never ranged.

In most other circumstance, this feat was anywhere from a 20% to 100% reduction in damage every round. A feat considered so good that it was considered worthwhile to multiclass only to access it. Or, to phrase it differently, "all the sacrifices I make by delaying my primary class, its abilities, and favored class bonuses are collectively worth less than the one feat I gain access to."

What's more, it all comes with the luxury of being able to decide to use it after an attack has hit.

So yes, I can see why the change was made. To borrow phraseology from elsewhere on the internet, it dominated the metagame. A talented GM could plan around it, but it meant that their encounter design philosophy would have to entirely revolve around that one feat - and it would unfairly punish any character who did not take it. When a single ability so dominates gameplay that its guaranteed presence is assumed, it needs to be altered. This is why Haste was changed from 3.0 to 3.5, for example - all players and GMs had to assume that casters could cast two spells per round, or three with a Quickened thrown in.

Personally I'd rule that as curing the damage, but the death state (technically independent of the negative HP state) still returning. So, the fighter will die again but at least their unsightly wounds have now healed somewhat :)

This. The fighter will gain the "dead" condition again when the effect ends. Falling to -con gains you the dead condition, but isn't a hard requirement.

Adamantine doesn't "subtract 20 hardness", so to speak, it's an all-or-nothing threshold.

So what exactly is your problem with it? It's too powerful? It's underpriced?

It is mechanically possible to have this armor exist by RAW, we have demonstrated that. It may be cheesy, it may be overpowered, but in this game a vanilla wizard at level 13 can be overpowered if you put it in the right gaming environment.

Power is relative, especially in a table top game.

I have no problem with Celestial Armor.

Allowing a player to make mithral celestial armor, however, when the armor is already the best light armor in the game, and the others are already mithral and can not be further improved, is a problem.

And do stop breaking out the "Wizards are OP, so it doesn't matter what rules we bend at lower tiers" routine.

It's really only potentially broken at the higher levels of the game, because yes, having a monster Dex bonus allowable is cool...but you have to have that monster Dex to take advantage of it.

i.e. most melee don't have the 20 dex to take advantage of Celestial Full Plate until post-10th, at least, and the 26 Dex for celestial mail is a LONG ways off.

Yes, it does mean that you could get your full dex bonus of 34 from celestial mail if you were a 20th level fighter. But that's a long, long ways off.

==Aelryinth

I disagree on this point. Unless I misunderstand you, you are saying it is not broken because it only has maximum benefit for particular characters.

I don't think that's how a judgment should be made. Fighters don't usually specialize in lighter armors and high dexterity bonuses to fill them; rogues, rangers, and bards are more likely to. For one of these characters, this armor already allows a Combined Maximum Armor bonus of 16 (8 armor, 8 dex). That's better than a +5 mithral chain shirt, which sports a Combined Max Armor of 15 (9 armor, 6 dex), and it's available for about 4000 GP less than the +5 MCS, and lets you Fly to boot.

In addition, for a dexterity-focused character, having a 27 Dex at level 12-14 is not out of the question (16+2 race, +3 levels, +6 item), and that's +8 right there. This armor is the single best available light armor in the CRB.

Is it broken? No, its net benefit is 1 AC over the next best light armors, and a 5 minute Fly isn't broken. But its full potential is not out of reach of tween level characters. Items and other game rules need to be judged by how they benefit those who make maximum use of them - which is why the Haste spell was changed from 3.0 to 3.5; not because of what it did for fighters, but for what it did to casters.

There is a running joke about things like "Yeah, my wife did give birth. Then we spent two hours watching the baby rapidly change race and gender." (Character creation screen.)

This one's been popular since TESV came out.

I know Paizo is trying to be politically correct with their attitude on sexuality, but does the Quantum Sexuality of NPCs bother anyone else?

I mean, have a smattering of NPCs with different sexualities assigned, seems totally fine. Have some characters be gay, some be straight, some be bisexual, some can be asexual. I really don't care. Honestly, I'm not big on sexuality being introduced into the game in the first place. I'm here to play Big Damn Hero, not Leisure Suit Larry. But having every NPC with quantum sexuality that reacts to whoever is trying to seduce them...that dog wont hunt monsignor.

I'm with you on this one. I'd be much happier if they had phrased it as "NPCs' sexuality is unspecified unless it comes up in a scenario, so it can go any way the GM wants." Which is probably what they meant, perhaps, rather than to say that everybody is actually a bisexual, which strikes me as rather unlikely.

Perhaps an (imperfect) comparison is in order. You meet a generic traveling human man on the road. What's his skin color? If it actually becomes important, it can be any shade from white to brown to black, as normal. It isn't *all* of those, of course, it is just *any* of those.

Also...thinking about it....the vague term 'charisma based skills' is used. +4 to intimidate? Oh my....

"Intimidating" is an ever-popular adjective to describe pretty girls, isn't it?

Mmmm. If Mind Blank even blocks out Wish and Miracle(Which is your God literally trying to find this dude), I'm inclined to believe it works on Supernatural stuff too.

That's my inkling, but probably only int the case of Su. abilities that specifically mimic spells.

The simple answer is that as a level 8 Abjuration, it's monstrously powerful at what it does. I tend to think of level 8 spells as the most interesting spells in terms of game power - level 9 spells are either "unimpressive damage spell" or "monstrous game breaker power".

Still, it's got a huge hole against being dispelled - while you are very hard to track down, anyone who proves highly resistant to divination paints a very large target on their heads for a Dispel. More so than most buffs, that is.

Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:

BigDTBone wrote:

Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:

Do rangers get their favored enemy bonus against someone with racial heritage?

Yes.

Is that clarified somewhere or just the general consensus? Just curious.

I think it is pretty clear just reading the two entries. I haven't asked for clarification or consensus just as have never asked for those things with being able to choose swim for skill focus.

Racial Heritage says you count as that race for any effects, not just ones beneficial to you. You're subject to bane weapons as well.

As to rangers, the ability simply grants bonuses. It isn't dependent on positively identifying their creature type. It's up to you to justify why that's the case; I can think of a few myself: "hmm, that guy's eyes flutter when he said that, just like a troglodyte does when he lies! [+2 Sense Motive]." or "This guy dodges the same way those damn dwarves do when you use an axe at them. If I lead him a bit-- aha! [+2 attack/damage]."

A double weapon is a single item, and a single weapon. You can wield a double weapon as if you were fighting with two weapons, and the rules say they are considered to be separate for the purpose of enhancing them, but it's one item. If you are disarmed of it, you lose both ends. If it's sundered/shattered, you lose both. If one end is a calling weapon, it can be summoned to your hand.

If this sounds confusing, the rule of thumb is that unless it is ability drain (a fairly uncommon ability), you don't have to recalculate your feats, skill points, bonus spells or long term ramifications in the middle of an adventuring day. You just apply the penalty to applicable rolls and move on.

Doesn't a human need to have some kobold blood (via another trait/feat) in order to select this feat. Couldn't that blood manifest as a tail or scales or some other non-standard characteristic. These features could even develop post-birth, maybe as a result of a traumatic experience, an exposure to magic, or even different foods and environment. There seems to be lots of roleplaying fodder here.

Certainly. However, it is being argued that taking one or both of these feats (Racial Heritage or Tail Terror) unambiguously grant said tail. Given that Racial Heritage makes no mention of physical traits in its rules section, and its fluff only refers to blood, I think that it does not do more than it says it does.

Tail Terror presumes the character is a kobold, so its text allows the character to make a tail slap attack with the tail that kobolds are depicted as having. Due to the text assuming the character possesses a tail, it refers to "your tail". It does not account for the possibility that the character may not have one. It is being argued that the phrasing "your tail" provides the character a tail regardless of whether they had one previously. It is this that I disagree with.

If you and your GM decide that your character has a tail, in preparation to take and use Tail Terror, I welcome the interesting concept. I do not agree that such an interpretation is RAW, intended, or permissible as a basic, default option for a player without said GM permission.

PatientWolf wrote:

Well said! A tail isn't just fluff if it is implicitly required for a mechanical effect.

Ooh! It's that invisible ink only certain posters can see again!

What does the invisible ink say in the prerequisites of Tail Terror? Since I can only see real rules, I can't read the invisible rules like you can. The feat says it requires a tail, then?

Fluffffffff.

So you don't need a tail to make a tail slap then? You can use a metaphysical phantom tail?

and as long as it didn't have any mechanical benefit

Having a tail becomes a mechanical benefit when you implicitly need to possess one to use Tail Terror.

While I don't object to customization, any player who excuses their tail as a nonmechanical benefit, then later uses it to their mechanical benefit, is a liar.

ryric wrote:

RJGrady wrote:

I'm really wondering how you can qualify for a feat called Tail Terror, unambiguously, and yet not actually have a tail.

In the same way you can unabiguously qualify to take a feat called Spell Focus yet not be able to cast spells.

Spell Focus only promises focus, not spells.

Tail Terror only promises a slap, not a tail to do it with.

If you have 100 horses in a row, can you move 200+ feet as free actions in a round?

If you have 1000 level 1 commoners in a row, all readying an action to pass a spear to the next, you can move items at nearly 600 miles per hour? It will revolutionize the industry!

Marked as wrong forum. This is no place to discuss what would happen if Zelda were really a girl.

Trolling is a art.

Ballpark, quick-and-dirty approximations for converting numbers:
1 mile = 1.6km; 1 km = 0.6 mi (use 1.5km or 2/3 mi if easier).
3 feet = 1meter.
1 square = 1.5 m
2.5 cm =1 inch
4 liters = 1 gallon
1kg = 2lbs

"Room temperature" = 20 C = 68 F
"Hot weather" = 30 C = 86 F
"Cold weather = 10 C = 50 F
"Freezing" <= 0 C = 32 F
"Boiling" >= 100 C = 212 F
5 degrees C = 9 degrees F (use 1:2 to approximate).

liches (lichii?)

"Lich" is not rooted in Latin, so the standard English "liches" is about as accurate as it gets.

As a DM, I disdain and dismiss the "Undead are always Evil" thing.

Evil undead are a majority, however. That doesn't mean that neutral or good ones cannot exist.

This is usually how I operate. I feel somewhat differently about liches than I do about, say, vampires or ghosts, though, because a lich only ever exists through the intentional, planned, and long-term actions of the spellcaster. The rituals that require it are unspecified, but are described to be heinous, sacrilegious, or otherwise inescapably evil.

The point being, someone who is so utterly self-devoted that they will cause harm to other people to extend their own life is someone who isn't big on feeling guilty over their actions.

This is not to say that it is impossible. But it's more comparable to a convicted serial killer repenting on death row, in a sense. It's very unlikely that anyone will believe they are sincere (the lich) but even if they are, there will still be any number of people who want their blood for their evil actions in the past, no matter whether they claim to have reformed. Without the protection of a penal system, the lich will be under attack by any number of adventurers - either they allow themselves to be destroyed, or continue to defend themselves and destroy people. This vicious cycle of paranoia is explicitly spelled out in the lich's entry in the Bestiary.

tl;dr - being a lich requires a commitment to evil that becoming another kind of undead does not. Even if they want to repent, circumstances are likely to drive them to madness and a return to evil.

Mage's disjunction can destroy the magic item, too. Nothing is permanent in Pathfinder.

True, but you have an item:

Or you have a permanent spell:
"Can be dispelled by almost every class that gets spells, and a common SLA, with a dispel check."

The spell is slotless, but far more vulnerable.

The simplest comparison, though, is resistance. Costs 2500 for the spell, or 1000 for a cloak. It's not just the slotlessness in and of itself, it's the fact that you can have infinite slotless effects, and true seeing is incredibly powerful when available permanently, rather than for a few minutes per casting.

I've just read Interview but going off of that I don't remember any "good" characters at all.

I think the good lesson to take from Interview is that evil people still have hopes, dreams, likes, dislikes, personal tragedies, good qualities, ordinary bad qualities, and everything else normal people do. They are murderers, criminals or monsters, but still people. Villains are most interesting to me when they are undeniably bad people, but have otherwise ordinary traits.

Bizbag wrote:

Undead are never truly free-willed, even if they are intelligent any under nobody's thrall. The infusion of their very soul with Negative energy permanently corrupts the spirit. They are never truly the same person they were when they were alive.

Campaign-world flavor. Not a rule.

Fine, if you want to say rules are all that matter, I can do that. Just like a lich's racial HD are changed to d8s, a lich's alignment is always evil. There are no mechanical rules for changing one's alignment that are not subject to to GM judgment and fiat, which the GM has the power to do anyway. If the GM says a fighter has a wizard's BAB, it is so; thus, any argument that exists solely because the GM can rule it true is invalid.

Thus, no lich is ever good through his conscious decision to change. It is only possible through specific mechanics that force alignment change, like cursed helms. Even in this case, the lich is not able to change his alignment from evil of his own free will.

Undead are never truly free-willed, even if they are intelligent any under nobody's thrall. The infusion of their very soul with Negative energy permanently corrupts the spirit. They are never truly the same person they were when they were alive.

In the remotest of possibilities, a lich might regret their acts and seek to become non-evil. Even then, there are some things for which the only atonement is death, especially for a Druid whose continued existence is a mockery of the natural cycle of life.

So yes, a lich might possibly atone, but you'd better have a rather extraordinary reason why you don't destroy your own phylactery and jump in the nearest volcano. Being afraid of death is perfectly understandable, but redemption requires a fundamental shift of attitude - and fear of death is what drove you to become a lich in the first place.

The skeleton template doesn't add or subtract to a creature's CR - it replaces it based on their HD; that suggests that they replace the creature's stats, not modify.

Also, natural armor is a tough hide or scales or such. What is a skeleton defined as lacking? :P

I have precisely zero care for the feelings of people who choose to be offended by something purely for the sake of being offended.

So you have precisely zero care for the feelings of the GM, whose very rules are the ones you agree to play by? Do you go out of your way to offend all your GMs for the sake of doing so?

"Caring what other people think" is actually a virtue, despite what pop culture may tell you.

If seeing a perfectly legal skill on my character sheet makes you so upset that you feel personally offended at the vile actions I have taken, you have far deeper issues to work through than handling a PFS table.

I suppose it'd have to be a perfectly legal skill first, wouldn't it? And since it's not on the list of pre-approved professions, you need permission from Guess Who. And given that the specific nonstandard choice you have made borders on outright mockery of those who prefer to take their games a bit more seriously, they are perfectly within their rights to be indignant and refuse you your roll.

This is especially because your defense of the choice involves telling the GM "I can do whatever I want and I'm implying you have mental issues if you don't agree with me."

If others are having that big of a problem with words that are on my character sheet, not theirs, they're the jerks.

A GM is a jerk for caring about words on your character sheet? When you are intentionally an knowingly choosing words that will cause a reaction?

Saying or choosing inflammatory words with the knowledge and intent of causing disruption is the very definition of trolling. And you admitted in your above post that you want to see people react to it.

I always figured that if someone went out of their way to finely craft a frying pan for battle, then more power to them, but it'd still be improvised/there'd be no proficiency to take (one or the other; either way it'd be -4). You'd just mitigate the penalty to -3.

And who am I to decide what a crazy wizard enchants as a flaming weapon once the weapon is masterwork? Maybe he thought it'd be easier to cook meals if he could activate the fire with a command word and it didn't burn you when you held the pan.

The best answer is to be a dwarf, really. Then any boosts to your speed are enjoyed in full.

It's all one attack, so it's a sum total of physical damage. Elemental damage is treated separately, but not sneak attack. Harry takes 37 points of physical damage, less 10 for DR. He also takes 6 electric damage, which he does not resist.

It's a lot like if you critically hit them - they don't get DR twice for that, either.

They do not lose their old judgments. However, the GW levels only stack for the judgments they can use in both classes.

It's just an example of unwritten rules use.

No, it's just a hyperbole you made up. They explained their logic when they made the Spikes FAQ, and many people, players and GMs, had previously inferred that such logic existed beforehand (given the specific math of strength bonuses and how they both resulted in 1.5x strength).

Your complaint is that that logic wasn't spelled out ahead of time, which it wasn't. You *also* seem to complain, however, that because it wasn't spelled out ahead of time, it cannot exist. Except that it can. It was inferrable before, but not a hard rule. It's a hard rule now.

Kryzbyn wrote:

So it's the "unwritten rule" bit that bugs you?

Absolutely.

I now say one cannot use Disable Device whilst on difficult terrain, as it is supported by unwritten rules.

Disprove this.

The burden of proof is on you first to explain the unwritten rules logic that would prevent such an action. "Unwritten rules" is not a blanket act of tyrannical rules developing, it refers to the logic that drives decisions when making rules.

Using a greatsword and armor spikes is unilaterally better than using a longsword and short sword. That's the basis of comparison. It has been shown to be not as good as virtually any other option, but you must compare apple to apples.

I cannot see any reason why one would ever encounter your example, so it is up to you to demonstrate why it would be disallowed.

No race grants you extra skill points.

Except Humans, of course.

There are two points of confusion here. One is between Skill Points and Skill Ranks. In Pathfinder, these are equivalent to one another, but not so in 3.5 - in 3.5, one Skill Point could buy one Skill Rank in a class skill, or 0.5 Skill Ranks in a cross-class skill. In Pathfinder, a Skill Point always buys one Skill Rank.

To the OP, what may be confusing you and your fellows is that in D&D 3.5, Skill Points were *not* retroactive. If your Int went up at level 4, you would have to calculate your skill points going forward from that point, which got *very* confusing.

Pathfinder's system is a little less "realistic" but far simpler; your total skill points is always equal to the sum from your classes plus (Character Level x [permanent] Int). Permanent increases to Int are uncommon enough that it's not too much of a bookkeeping headache, though.

But you, Bizbag, are not done! Now you decide when not to use these rules! Do you write these exceptions down or make it up on the fly?

Actually, yes, I do make things up on the fly, because it is my job as a GM to enforce or discard rules when they stand in the way of fun. The vast majority of the time, enforcing rules consistently is what makes the game fun. But in my experience, the LEAST fun part of the game is enforcing a rule - simply for the sake of enforcing it - when the results are illogical, paradoxical, or simply bizarre.

Do you know why I approach the game like this? Because the rules encourage me to, for one, but second, because I speak to the other players before games and between sessions - after all, a group of five people playing Pathfinder is not a Judge and Four Players, it's five players, all of whom want to have a good time (including the GM).

The fact that the very idea of making ad hoc adjustments to the rules, with communication with players and everyone's interests in mind, makes you so furious is what worries me. This has never been a declaration of a Rule Everyone Should Use, it started as just me sharing what I use in my game, to include a bit of randomness without it being slapstick comedy or crippling to gameplay.

Whereas the fighter fumbled his sword swing and sent the sword flying 15 feet away. Now he has to provoke AoO's by both moving AND picking up his sword, which eats his entire next turn. Or, alternatively, he can draw that non-magical, non-DR bypassing, backup weapon that he has and be only running at 50% effectiveness.

Just to use this as an example, I for one don't have things nearly so dramatic happen on a fumble. I've personally called it out as my fumbles never provoking an AOO to recover. Yours is not the only example in the thread that objects to severe, slapstick fumbles, and while that's a valid concern, it's not the kind of fumble most DMs on the thread seem to be using.

As to whether heroes fumble, I choose too see it as an abstraction, like most combat. A regular miss isn't just "you whiffed with your sword", it can be that they parried, or blocked you, or you hit the tough part of their armor. Plenty of heroes lose their weapon when sword fighting in movies; that can equally be the result of a fumble roll as a deliberate disarm attack.

It adds some variety to what can otherwise be a rather bland combat experience of "you stand there and roll dice until someone dies. Yeah, it penalizes Martials (or ranged characters) more than it does casters, but if it gets to the point where it creates enough of an issue to be detrimental to the group's good time, I'll drop the use of it. (Also, since I only let t happen once a fight, it may happen "sooner" for some classes, but not repeatedly.

"I'd tracked the thief to a dark alley. Really dark - the kind of place a guy doesn't want to get caught flat-footed in, you know? The kind of dark where a dwarf's darkvision still only sees black and no white, and you can't even see the results of your 50% miss chance rolls.

Still, I had to follow. If the dame's tip was right, the thief would lead me right to his hideout. He was apparently the kind of guy who had more Base Attack bonus than intelligence score, but it still made me nervous to be there. I was more nervous than a wizard making a fortitude save."

Regarding Weapon Finesse, it's important to note that I doesn't grant a bonus to attack rolls equal to your Dex bonus, it allows you to USE your Dex bonus. If another ability allows you to use the bonus, you don't apply twice, because you aren't being granted a bonus; just permission to use a different one.

By contrast, Divine Grace grants a bonus equal to your CHA bonus. An undead paladin (work with me here) would add his CHA to his Fort save twice; once as the base standard, and once because he receives a second explicit bonus equal to his CHA.

In symbol terms, WF says :
Instead of d20+X, you may roll d20+Y
While DG says:
You may add B to d20+C

Long story short, you can't use an attribute twice if the attribute is all you're using. I you are granted an extra bonus equal to your attribute bonus, you can use it (but I reserve judgment on specifics if more are presented.)

Check out this thread.

Oh, I see the problem now. I forgot Druids got WS at 4, normally.

Still, I can't imagine they get a normal WS at 4 then the updated one at 6. That'd mean they could be a level 5 bear at 5, but then only a level 4 bear at 6. Rules generally don't work that way.

Thus, I will pose this FAQ question:

Does a Wolf Shaman gain the Wild Shape Ability at level 4 or level 6?

I believe the only interpretation that makes any sense is 6, but there you go.

It seems pretty straightforward--except the coup de grace thing. RAW aside, is it really intended that you can coup de grace a troll and kill it for good without the use of fire or acid?

Probably not, since coup-de-grace is more about "execute them, even if the game mechanic says they have hit points". There's not much different about CDG'ing a troll than hacking at it five or six times, conceptually.

Conventional wisdom would say that the only thing Regeneration prevents death from is bodily damage; i.e. HP damage. Magical death effects would bypass that.

Otherwise regeneration would be a lot more powerful than it is, if it outright blocked all death except by specific types.

Also note that the Tarrasque specifically is described as having resistance to death effects. It wouldn't need to say so if it was already part of Regeneration.

The ARG could have added such a rule (though the Bestiary would be the proper place for it), but it did not do so. Rather it referenced a rule that does not exist.

So here is our sticking point. You think it matters if it was a rule before. I don't think it works that way.

This is how I imagine you seeing the text:
"This was the rule before, and it is unchanged."
Which would create a contradiction.

This is how I see the text, especially in light of the developer explanation:
"This was supposed to be the rule before, but in any case, it is the rule now."

Ssalarn wrote:

RJGrady wrote:

You're making a confused point. You can create a bastard word wielding 1st level teifling wizard. The fallout is when the Pathfinder community can't agree on whether that's legal or not.

Fortunately they can, because there's a rule covering that as of the ARG. It sure was nice of Paizo to recognize that there was a fuzzy area in the rules there and to clearly spell out how it works in the most relevant book from their core product line.

Except, well, no we can't. :), and not everyone even agrees that the ARG actually changes anything, much less overrules the Bestiary.

Funny thing is that this has now outgrown the original thread it was in, which was about unknown rules.

A developer shows up in the thread, and tells us that the ARG rule states explicitly what the rule is, where there may or may not have been one before, and you disagree with him? What are you disagreeing with? Are you saying the developer is wrong, and the ARG doesn't have the rule in it? Or are you saying that the ARG doesn't have Rule Authority over the Bestiary? Because no such hierarchy of rulebooks exists in the Paizo line, except perhaps for chronological order. Are you saying the word of a developer isn't proof of what the developers want?

It also doesn't even matter if anything was changed. It could be a new rule, out of the blue. It could say Humans now have hair on their brains, and it'd be true, because they published it. The new rule doesn't call out as modifying something, it just sets the rule.

However, that specific rule is not published.

Advanced Race Guide, p.215 - All 0-HD creatures gain their HD, BAB, skills, saves and weapon/armour proficiencies from their classes only and never from their types/subtypes.

There. They published it. It doesn't reference an unpublished rule, it publishes a rule. The developers may or may not have believed the rule to already be on the books, but it doesn't matter, because they put it on the books.

As a matter of fact, in this very thread, on this very page, a developer explains that they intended the rule to be on the books, but it wasn't on the books. So they put it on the books. They put it on the books in the ARG. Now it's on the books. Whether or not it was official before doesn't matter because it's not a conditional "if this is the case, it's still true" deal. It's a "this is the rule" deal. Those in the know realize that the rule is not unexpected, but I wouldn't matter if it was, because it's a stated rule.