Björninn's page

Detect Magic (pg 267) and Arcane Sight (pg 244) have a slight discrepancy. Detect Magic reads:

you can make Knowledge (arcana) skill checks to determine the school of magic involved in each. (Make one check per aura: DC 15 + spell level, or 15 + 1/2 caster level for a nonspell effect.)

while Arcane Sight reads:

If the items or creatures bearing the auras are in line of sight, you can make Spellcraft skill checks to determine the school of magic involved in each. (Make one check per aura; DC 15 + spell level, or 15 + half caster level for a nonspell effect.)

Has it been clarified if they are suposed to be different, if spellcraft is the one to use in both or if knowledge [arcana] is the new skill check for both?

There's nothing to indicate that magical bonuses increase one's CMB. You could always create a magical special ability like disarming or something (+1 ability (gives +2-3 to disarm attempts).

If you can empower static numbers which are based on CL then alot of spells become unbalanced or wierd. Greater Magic Weapon will then be able to give a weapon a +7 enhancement bonus. Also duration is a number that's variable in that sense.

An empowered magic missile will then do (1d4+1)x1,5 = 5,25 on average which is higher than the maximized version. It's opening a box of hurt to allow the empowerment of constants...

I'd say it works just like empower and just increases the dice roll. Wikipedia defines a variable as

A variable is a symbol that stands for a value that may vary; the term usually occurs in opposition to constant, which is a symbol for a non-varying value, i.e. completely fixed or fixed in the context of use.

So the die is the variable and the added value is a constant that's fixed in the context of use. That bonus is always the same value for all casters of the same caster level. If you could empower the caster level bonus in ray of enfeeblement you should also be able to empower the bonus received from spells such as magic vestment.

I'd say the writer simply expected everyone to understand how it worked by adding the word empowered to the description. He failed to realize that players are evil beings who want to send their DM's to an early grave with loophole rule bending.

Scientists don't like it when things don't conform (as the universe has resisted for a long time to do).

This does raise the very important question, are all these half humans fertile? This question is obviously of great importance! If I remember correctly the mule from Darksun wasn't.

When I think of it though. Maybe the Gods are behind all this inter-racial possibilities. Gods tend to be dirty bastards.

Im talking laws of science "real world stuff". If two races can have fertile offspring together then they are the same race according to "real world stuff"

Other "real world stuff" is for example casting delayed blast fireball followed by force cage (the solid version). The fireball after exploding will burn most of the oxygen inside, thus causing the person to suffocate. We wrote this off with "because it's magic" but fire isn't a substance it's just an effect.

Also there have been times when the west has not wanted to acknowledge humans as humans. When they discovered the Native Americans the church faced a problem. How could there be humans on the planet yet not know of God. Thankfully they decided that the natives were human.....

But the point is: You are half-orcs and since orcs (who come from god knows where originally (where do humans come from to begin with?)) are geneticly stupid you will have a lower intellectual capacity then regular old humans. Not because of where you were brought up but simply because of your race. This might be the case though, that orcs are simply intellectually inferiour. In that case sooner or later someone will do what Irikos did in Athas, and finish them off.

[WARNING: RANT] Why can't the core rules and the campaign settings be completely separated? Many DM's have their own campaign. They have taken the time and expended the effort to create a coherent universe for their players that has absolutely nothing to do with the commercial campaign settings (e.g., Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Faerun, etc.) or the characters that exist within those campaign settings (e.g., Mordenkainan, Otiluke, Leomund, etc.), yet these places and names constantly appear in core rulebooks throughout the history of D&D. I was hoping that Pathfinder would refrain from this. For the most part they have; however, I see one glaring example (i.e., the Pathfinder Chronicles Deities listed with the Cleric Domains). Listing those deities was wholly unnecessary to the core rules. The domain descriptions were enough. The power sources for those domains are best left to the DM to decide.

I think it's also to do with the creators fondness for the names. The name of spells for example. A lot of people probably use and know the names of countless spells named after characters they've never heard of (Bigby, Leomund and Rary to name a few).

And you think about it a 20th level Fighter wielding an axe could dish out about 100 points of damage with one critical hit. Plus Power Word: Kill sounds cool and gives mages an edge. "Does that evil wizard have power word kill? No he only had meteor swarm, so I only take 24d6 points of damage, phew!"

I always found it somewhat borderline to have a player race receive a -2 penalty to intelligence. We have orcs which can have offspring with humans (although I'm not sure if they are sterile or not). And this offspring is naturaly more stupid than regular humans. Not because of their chaotic nature and culture but because they have inferior genes or something. If this were 2 different human races the internets would be on fire.... but then again I've found that trying to apply real world stuff to D&D often ends in scratched heads.