Bladeace's page

Do what's role play appropriate.

That may be your wizard charging for his time - he likely values his spare time!
Or it may be your wizard doing favours for the people who he has a close relationship with!

Monsters will get reach too soon enough :).

As for the paladin having to drop his spear or retreat if you get close to him, my understanding is that he can merely take a 5 foot step back and still attack? So the 'retreat' option is actually a non-issue unless he has no room behind him.

If they are using min-max'ed chars and you're stuck to putting things of their CR against them I think you're just not going to be able to cope. I haven't played any PFS games though, so don't put much stock in anything I've posted :).

I think that after you retro-actively changed it so that they were illusions of children instead of real children you really hurt your ability to punish their choice.

As someone mentioned above, they can easily claim that they knew the children were illusions. Then it's the word of scared children vs the heroes (who did after all save the children!). Will this tarnish the heros repuation? Of course! Simply having the accusation made will have some people doubt the heroes - even after the heroes come back with the 'well we knew they were illusions!'.

You could try zone of truth them or something - have an 'inquisition into the event'.

Perhaps a better way to handle it (if you wanted to be able to punish them) would have been to have some of the children be illusions and some not (so the gnolls had kept some children 'in reserve' - good hostage taking strat).

However, now that it's happened the way it did (with no actual harm coming to the chilren and the day being saved) I think you've got to lie in your bed as much as the players - and that bed is such that nothing bad really happened...

A good inbetween could be the rumours I mentioned above. The perants of the children (or the aunt/uncle in the case of the court wizard) could have heard from the children that the PCs seemed willing to murder them... Not enough to actually do any legal action to them unless you zone of truth them - but enough to have a 'behind the scenes' influence.

Independant of this I'd say don't run the PCs out of town and ruin the campaign over this.

If you want to lower its combat use so much then it becomes a weaker spell, IMO too much weaker.

This dosen't mean your fix can't be done, it just means it needs a buff in other areas as well as a nerf in the combat use area.

So I would say do one of the following (AS WELL AS YOUR CHANGE):

Lower it to a second level spell (so now you can levitate and cast spells at enimies OR get full fly but not be able to cast spells at enimies - sounds like both spells still have a place to me!).

Raise its duration (if it's an out of combat spell then maybe let it do a little more, 10mins a level instead of 1min a level).

Alter your change to lower it from a standard cast to a swift instead of raise it from a standard to a full. Now it is an escape spell in combat (which might not be something you're happy with) but still not something that can turn you into a ariel gunship.

Hello,
am I right in thinking that rogues can't take 10 on use magic device checks even with their advanced rogue talent that allows them to take 10 on skill checks? I thought I should double check before discounting the option.
Thanks!

If someone has a 9th level spell they can cast as a spell like ability does this count for getting feats?

The feat in question is 'epic spellcasting' (from the 3.5 epic handbook).

Clearly magic is the ultimate combat.

Seriously, how could 'ultimate combat' ever mean its a book for sword swingers O.o ... sword swinging and bow shooting is not ultimate. Throwing fireballs and turning people into frogs is ultimate.

I think that the centaur should be cut as much slack as is possible.

For example, he should be able to use a rope to climb by 'walking' up the wall. On very steep but not quite sheer hills and mountians he should be able to 'mountian goat' style climb it.

However, when it comes to actual walls and sheer surfaces without the aid of any rope or similar device I think there should be absolutely no way the centaur can climb.

Try to add agile weapone property to your short swords,

20 dex would be +5 damage per a hit, at a cost of making ti a +2 sword
After that I would get the Sword of Subtul upgrade to your swords,
Which would add +4 to hit and +4 to damage to your attacks
Tottle cost 52k (40k for subdue)+4 to hit with each sneak attack, and +8 to damage per a hit.

TYVM to everyone here! A lot I have to look into, you've all been very helpful and I'll come back with more to say after I've properly looked through all this :D.

The agile enchant for my mainhand is a definate! :D. For my offhand I don't think it will be worth it because it only adds half dex (whereas +d6 elemental damage would add a higher average unless I manage to get to +8 dex).

However I still don't know where the Subtle upgrade comes from? Anyone know? Also, is it called 'Sword of Subtul' or Subtle? What book?

Hello, I’m playing a rogue and I just hit level 8. I’ve been having the problem that the party’s druid, monk and barbarian are vastly out damaging me.

I’ve got weapon finesse, two weapon fighting, 18 dex and a +2 dex belt as well as two +1 short swords (I’m hoping to add D6 elemental damage to each of these soon – when I get the funds).

So I’ve got two attacks with each at +10 (+4BAB +5Dex +1enchantment) to hit (+11 when flanking) and doing 5D6 damage for each attack (+1 from the short sword enchant, but no additional from strength).

The barbarian just left the party (his character has been building towards alcoholism and depression for a while now and it has succumb), so his damage doesn’t matter I guess.

The monk does his flurry of blows and gets five attacks (including his ki point attack though – but he has been using this most of the time), three of these attacks are at +13 to hit (not including flanking or anything) and two are at +8 to hit. Each of these attacks does D10+D6+6 damage.

As this compares to me, each of his attacks does an average of 15 damage if it hits and each of mine does an average of 18.5 damage. However, I get only two attacks and they are at +10 to hit while he gets three attacks at +13 AND two attacks at +8.

I compare even worse to the druid who also has pounce so he can do it on the charge (as well as a host of druid spells of course) and an animal companion which is also doing a lot of damage. I don’t have the druids numbers to hand, but he is doing more damage on average (even factoring in miss chance – he has good to hit). Later on I may be able to get the exact numbers off my druid friend, depending on if the specific numbers matter.

Now, that isn’t to say my rogue doesn’t have some other advantages (I have fast stealth), but the druid especially has more ‘out of combat’ advantages then I do. But any ‘other’ category advantages I have should also be measured against the fact that my damage is sneak attack damage with very significant restrictions while their damage is something they can do to pretty much anything.

I guess what I’m asking here is if this problem is common, or if it may have something to do with me building my rogue incorrectly or them building their characters especially well. If this is a common problem then perhaps some info on if I catch up at later levels would help. However, if this is a problem with my rogue build I will post up more details on what I’ve chosen exactly.

Overall, because of the significant restrictions on when you can sneak attack I feel that when I can sneak attack I should be doing the most damage. Certainly not less anyway.

Cheapy that's a nice spell you've made up there - perhaps too high on damge for its level?

However, I do like the idea of having two versions of this spell - one that does less damage but gets through spell resistence and one that does more damage (half peircing half force) but ignores spell resistence. Any ideas on how to accomplish this?

Hi, thanks for the feedback.

I’m not really sure where to go with that advice though, not that I don’t appreciate it because the comments seemed concise and intelligent.

As I mentioned in my post these spells are for my background – so abandoning them simply isn’t an option and I didn’t get the impression from your posts that you thought they were so dysfunctional that I had to do so…but I did get the impression that I needed to do some work on them.

I’m fine with force spear II, III and IV (I like the roman numerals, thanks) not being very usable when you first get access to them (just use the lower level ones!). Having a spell as underpowered simply doesn’t bother me – overpowered or mechanically queer is a problem but underpowered isn’t. Also, I’m introducing feats that apply to these spells and I can make these favour the levels of the spell that are otherwise not desirable.
However, it is not required that I have the higher level versions at all.

Should I change the spell to Conjuration and drop the piercing element of the damage? It is important that the spell continue to ignore spell resistance and damage reductions. Should the amount of damage change? However the damage changes it is important that it continue to scale up every level.

I was contrasting its damage to shocking grasp, shocking grasp did D6xCL and had +2 to hit against metal wearing targets. The force spear has D4xCL but is a range attack (still touch though) with medium range. I considered the medium range worth losing this +2 to hit vs metal and a reduction to a D4 die size.

I’m aware that this leaves the ‘ignore spell resistance/DR’ aspect of the spell unaccounted for and this could be a problem. What should I change to counter this? Have it scale to a maximum of 4 dice instead of 5? How much do I even need to be worrying about this, it’s hardly going to be game breaking when the casters will all be buffing/debuffing instead most of the time – it is mostly a ‘flavour’ spell…

Hmm, help me out here guys. You two that have replied so far seem pretty ‘onto it’ and this spell has become important to my setting, could you help me to develop it into a more usable format?

Hi guys, this is something I'm planning on using for a campaign I'm DMing. These spells make a lot of sense for the particular background I'm using, but I thought others might like to take a look. Interested in any feedback.

Force spears
A branch of offensive magic spells developed to be used by low level magic users to combat targets with magic resistance or immunity. The caster creates a dense spear of air and throws it at the target, releasing all magic from the spear before it hits its target but leaving the spear with penetrating force.

Force spear 1
School: evocation (force); level 1 sorcerer/wizard
Casting time: 1 standard action
Components: V, S
Range: Medium, 100ft +10/level
Target: 1 creature
Duration: Instantaneous.
Saving throw: none; Spell resistance: No (can affect creatures immune to spells).
Make a ranged touch attack against one enemy within this spells range. If you hit this spell deals 1d4 piecing and force damage per caster level to a maximum of 5d4.

Force spear 2
School: evocation (force); level 2 sorcerer/wizard
Casting time: 1 standard action
Components: V, S
Range: Medium, 100ft +10/level
Target: 1 creature
Duration: Instantaneous.
Saving throw: none; Spell resistance: No (can affect creatures immune to spells).
Make a ranged touch attack against one enemy within this spells range. If you hit this spell deals 1d4 piecing and force damage per caster level to a maximum of 10d4.

Force spear 3
School: evocation (force); level 3 sorcerer/wizard
Casting time: 1 standard action
Components: V, S
Range: Medium, 100ft +10/level
Target: 1 creature
Duration: Instantaneous.
Saving throw: none; Spell resistance: No (can affect creatures immune to spells).
Make a ranged touch attack against one enemy within this spells range. If you hit this spell deals 1d4 piecing and force damage per caster level to a maximum of 15d4.

Force spear 4
School: evocation (force); level 4 sorcerer/wizard
Casting time: 1 standard action
Components: V, S
Range: Medium, 100ft +10/level
Target: 1 creature
Duration: Instantaneous.
Saving throw: none; Spell resistance: No (can affect creatures immune to spells).
Make a ranged touch attack against one enemy within this spells range. If you hit this spell deals 1d4 piecing and force damage per caster level to a maximum of 20d4.

This is something I am currently trying (in a more primitive form as I have only recently expanded it out into what you see below) in a group I have just started GMing for.
(However, I cannot claim credit for the core idea - which originated from a group discussion)

The Proposal:

During levelling from level 1 to level 20 in pathfinder you gain 5 attribute points (one every 4 levels starting at level 4). Using these 5 attribute points you could raise an 18 to a 23(1) which is the equivalent of an additional 26 points(2) of ‘point buy’(3). I propose that these 26 points be given out spread over all levels and as ‘point buy points’ instead of a simple ‘+1 to an attribute’.

The allocation would be as follows(4):

Levels 2-4 grant 4 points, spread with one point gained at levels 2 and 3 and two points gained at level 4.

Levels 5-8 grant 5 points, spread with one point gained at levels 5, 6 and 7 and two points gained at level 8.

Levels 9-12 grant 5 points, spread with one point gained at levels 9, 10 and 11 and two points gained at level 12.

Levels 13-16 grant 6 points, spread with one point gained at levels 13 and 14 and two points gained at level 15 and 16.

Levels 17-20 grant 6 points, spread with one point gained at levels 17 and 18 and two points gained at level 19 and 20.

Partial stats would be dealt with simply, although a slight amount of book-keeping would be involved here(5). The points would have to be spent upon level up and in the cases that they can’t purchase a full extra stat they would purchase the appropriate proportion of a stat. For example hitting level 2 and investing your point in strength, which you already had at 15 (before racial modifiers) would only net you half a point of strength which would do nothing(6) until you invested the rest of the required points into that stat and raised it to a natural number.(7)

1: Remembering that wishes/books can only grant 1-5 stats so there is an advantage to having a 23 even if you cannot raise it any further through stats gained from levelling you can push it up to an even number higher then you could otherwise attain via use of tomes or wishes.

2: Assuming that the cost of stats continues to rise at the rate used for stats from 14-18 (which is 4 points to move from 18 to 19, 5 to move from 19-20, 5 to move from 20-21, 6 to move from 21-22 and 6 to move from 22-23). Racial modifiers are not considered, as with the standard point buy method.

3: However there is the significant restriction that these points cannot be spread which means that in all cases that they are not raising the highest possible number that you could have they are granting significantly less point buy. Insofar as my proposed method of redoing those stats should seek to not change the existing ‘balance’ this is a very large weakness in my proposal. However, I would contend that as the most powerful characters (full progression casters) tend (when min-maxed) to gain the most from spending all that they can on their main casting stat. Because of this I would argue (not here though, it is too wide a subject) that this particular balance alteration caused by my proposal has a positive effect on the ‘lower tier’ while enabling the higher tier to gain relatively more from non-optimal choices and so is a positive balance change.

4: The allocation is not even (which would be 1.36 ‘point buy points’ per level) so that the link to the current 1 attribute point per 4 levels is carried over. That one attribute point, if used optimally on the highest possible stat that you could have, is worth an increasing amount as levels go on (as outlined in footnote 2). If you prefer a more even spread based method I would recommend 1 point at every level with an additional point at levels 4, 8 and 12 and two additional points at level 16 and 20.

5: This could easily be recorded on the sheet to the left hand side of the attributes section. In the case of players with varying abilities to manage book-keeping I would recommend the DM having a single page in his folder/ect devoted to this task where he can record everyone’s choices and tell them when they have gained an attribute point. The GM doing this book keeping would also introduce the possibility or altering the amount of point-buy given (to taste) and not actually telling the players how much of it they have, you would instead only ask them what ability they think their character may have improved upon as a result of his adventures.
The racial stat modifiers chosen (in the case of human/half-orc/half-elf) would also need to be remembered as these are not considered when spending point buy points.

6: Some GMs may wish to take advantage of the now possible fractions of stats. This could be done as simply as allowing them to decide ties in cases of opposed checks or in many more complicated ways as decided by the GM. I will not touch on this here, or state that I condone doing so, as this is a separate branch of house ruling that could be involved, complicated and controversial.

7: This system could also be used to alter the base point buy used over time. You could have your PCs start with a 10 point buy and tell them that over the first 10 levels (for example, the actual level and point buy raise used is up to the DM and group to decide) they will be raised to a 25 point buy. The 25 points would be spread out (evenly or otherwise, up to the GM) over the first 10 levels and be given to the players in addition to those points they gain from the system I have just proposed. There is also the possibility of telling them that they could ‘earn’ their way up from 10 point buy (to a max of 25 or lower, usually) by doing particular things or by acquiring particular magical elixirs (or whatever, the possibilities are immense).

How large of a stone(/or another material if better bang-for-buck) could you buy for 10,000g?

In a 'standard' situation I guess...the city is large but not massive, but on the other hand the guy has the blessing of the king which helps.

Thank you!

If a wizard has prepared some cantrips and then loses his spellbook can he still cast the cantrips he had prepared no matter how much time has passed?

Or does he have to have prepared cantrips that day to be able to cast them?

Thanks for the clarification guys. I was going to go into house rule options (I think that this is something I'd like to house rule) but I thought that this probally isn't the thread (because of the subforum it's in).

I've put a new post up over here:

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/houseRules/houseruleFeatChange&page=1#1

Hello,
I am new to pathfinder (was playing 3.5 off and on for the past 3ish years with a group of mates and we moved over to pathfinder around a month ago) and I will be DMing a campaign starting this Saturday. This will be my first time GMing a campaign (although I have DM’d one off sessions before, although only a couple of times). I’m sure I’ll be all over these boards this week as I look for feedback for my material and house-rules.
For now I want to ask for some input on a house rule to the ‘Master Craftsman’ feat. I have independent motivations for something like this based on my campaign, but for now I’ll leave those out as I think that this change is a fair change to the feat without my campaign specific considerations. However, I’m basically here looking to see how people feel so if you disagree please put a post in!

What would you think of the following house rule?

Master craftsman: +2 competency bonus with X crafting skill and you can use either craft magic arms and amour or craft wondrous item when creating items of the type appropriate to X crafting skill.
Pre-req: 5 ranks in the appropriate craft and a purple hat that has been worn on a monkey for at least seven consecutive hours*.
Now it is still a lot worse than the caster version (it only applies to a part of the feat like now and as discussed in this thread: http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/rules/craftingMagicItemsQuestion) but you sink only a single feat into it instead of multiple. I think that this is fairer. In addition you don't have to wait until level 7 to get it, though you still have to wait until later then a caster.

Keen to hear feedback, I know it won’t fit some campaigns (who want to, for 'fluff' reasons keep crafting to the wizards/ect) but from a balance point of view I think casters get quite enough without having to make the non-casters take two feats, a skill AND still not be able to use all of the crafting feat.
Basically, I can’t see any reason to make it take two feats when it’s already considerably worse because of other considerations.

Thanks for any feedback!

*Note: as a final note, I’m thinking I’ll drop the purple hat requirement… Maybe…

You can't, you need the "Craft Magic Arms and Armor" feat. All your Master Craftsman skill does is have the Ranks count as prequiste for the level requirement for the "Craft Magic Arms and Armor" feat and force you to use the particular Craft skill to make the checks. Now I understand that it might not make sense but if you look at the Oathbow prerequistes again, it doesn't say you even need a Craft skill.

But dosen't this still mean that if I have the master craftsman (weaponsmithing) feat and the craft magic arms and amour feat that I can create magic amour using my weapon crafting skill for the roll?

So my master ability to create weapons means I can create magic amour....

Really?

Ruleswise I'm starting to think it works this way. But as for 'realism'? .... how does this work?

I just asked a Craft Wondrous Item question myself but to answer your question I looked at the prerequistes for an Oathbow

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons#TOC-Oathbow

Looks like all you need is the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat, you must be an elf and it costs 13,100 gp. Does that help?

I was just reading the feat Master Craftsman over again and it actually seems like I might be able to use my craft magic arms and amour feat to craft amour.......... and use my craft: weapon skill to do so.

This seems absured though... The way I read the rules seems to back this up, but it also dosen't make any sense that I can craft magic amour with my craft: weapon skill.

I have taken the master craftsman on my rogue (my craft skill is weapons) and I have also just got the 'craft magic arms and amour' feat (just hit level 7.

I just want to check I understand this right, does this allow me to now craft magic weapons?

I assume yes, but am I also right in thinking that if I wanted to craft magic amour of bows I would have to not only take the appropriate craft skill but also the master craftsman feat for them.

This is how I think it works... but this would mean I would require four feats and (high) ranks in four skills in order to make full use of my feat 'craft magic arms and amour'. I understand that there is an element of 'well non-casters should have a hard time making magic items here' but shouldn't the requirement of a skill (casters use spellcraft - but they are taking that anyway) and an extra feat already cover this?

If I've understood things right here I'm feeling a little shafted... If I haven't understood things right thank you very much for setting me right :).

The Gamemastery Guide and the two Bestiaries are what you'd want to look at; also you can check out the PRD.

Thanks, I found some stuff but ... nothing all that helpful unfortunately. Cross referencing everything from the bestiary should do what I want, for example:

Temperate forest, CR1 creatures:
then I'll list themall

Temperate forest, CR2 creatures:
...

And so on. I can build random encounters from this I think.

Hello, I'm wondering if anyone has compiled a 'basic' random encounter table that includes the basic creatures?

Basically I'm looking for all the creatures in the Bestiary 1 sorted into both their CR and their usual habitat. I'm away they are already separated into both of these separately (there is a list for them by habitat and a separate list for them by CR) but before I combine the two I thought I'd check if someone else has.

Failing that, is there any 'bland' random encounters tables setup and available on the website? I have my own ideas I'd like to add to a random encounter table so I don't necessarily want a complete one - just one with the basics so I can stick to just adding the 'fun stuff'.

If this doesn’t exist, should I perhaps post up what I create so others can go over it? Is there a player made section of this website where such a thing could eventually be added up for people like me?

P.S very new to pathfinder (incase that isn't obvious!), I only just purchased all the pdfs last night. Thanks for any help, I'm sure I'll be back for more discussion!

This is the thread that I was talking about from the myth-weavers site:

http://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?p=4064386#post4064386

It's a thread I started asking what was better between D&D 3.5 and D&D 4.0 and also if I was going to stick to D&D 3.5 if I should go to the Pathfinder RPG.

The thread got quite long quite fast (up to 11 pages and still going by the looks), I guess they like talking about that! I started this thread after I first came to this site and decided not to just streight up buy the Pathfinder RPG books.

Most people in that thread responded badly to mentions of Pathfinder, but also the overall feel didn't completely put me off trying it.

D&D 4.0 might be looking the best for me so far, but I'm still far from commited on that one. I love the idea of melee classes being more balanced with the casters. That's a big deal to me and from what I've heard so far it seems pathfinder RPG has a big problem in that regard like D&D 3.5 did?

ithuriel wrote:

Yeah- amazon has the advantage of having distribution centers on multiple continents. If the Australian center doesn't have what you want they will let you order it anyway for normal shipping price and then they will ship it to the Australian warehouse with their next bulk restock shipment. It may end up taking you much longer than you expected to get it, but it will arrive with less shipping cost.

The way Amazon is configured is based on what site you order from. If you place an order on the main .com website, the items are all from a facility somewhere in the US. Co.uk order come from one of the UK warehouses. .De and .Fr come from warehouses in those countries. Same with the .CA and .IT.

When items are shipped out of those countries, (such as US to NZ) they go by various international shipping methods. There's no crossover of inventory from the different sites.

I'm not actually purchasing from games workshop.

As a side issue that fustrates me a great deal, games workshop charge a massive markup for all their products in NZ and AUS (as do most gaming companies). For those that aren't aware of this it's quite the interesting phenomenom. I can order warhammer from overseas (UK or US), pay postage and consistantly get it for 40% or more cheaper then buying it from my store 10 minutes drieve away.

I can buy wow online from the blizz store or order it from another games company in the US and get it nearly half the price of buying it from the mall I live 200 meters from.

Well, all that does sound reasonable and that online price calculator backs it up.

Interesting point - it's a heck of a lot cheaper for me to post to you then it is for you to post to me? Like... less then half the price. Having seen that online price calculator for your postal service I appologise for my earlier posts. I hope you can understand where I was coming from considering that I when I post things to the US (second hand warhammer was the last thing I posted, heavier and larger then this book) they come in at significantly under that price.

Sounds like your international mailing companies are ripping you off?

Is it legal to simply purchase the PDF and print off my own copy at the university (free printing!) then get it bound there? I looked into that and it looks like including the cost of the PDF ($10 right?) that would come in at around $20 US.

We'll, I do have to conceed that I perhaps unfairly used the NZ postal system (what it would cost for me to send the book of that exact dimensions and weight back too the US) which obviously this site cannot use.

But also as stated I am have ordered from the US a fair few times, amazon for example will post this book to me for $12.49 with the D&D 4.0 or an old D&D 3.5 in the same price bracket. Blizzard will ship out however many of their books I want (interested in the diablo books before d3 comes out, as a side note) for under US$20 and even warhammer ship out their massive new hardcover rule book for under $20 postage.

I don't know any of the details about your postal and if there are invoices that can be posted or something of the like I'm not close minded - however I have checked up and found this exact item on offer for the same price but with shipping around a third of what this site offers.

When several sites are offering shipping on the exact same or similar sized items for consistantly under half the price of this site I obviously extremely inclined to beleive this site is attempting to 'rip me off' by trying to make profit on the shipping side of things. If I'm wrong - great, I dunno post up some invoices or something.

As a side note, this rule system isn't getting very good reviews from the Myth-weavers website - but I'm not sure exactly why yet...

Sorry - I meant leaving the site without purchasing anything and in anger, not leaving the site ever to return.

I only have one shipping option and I live in New Zealand - though as I checked the cost of the postage for a package of the exact size and shape of this book. Also I order things from US and UK often, sometimes with no postage charge (warhammer for example charge no postage, other gaming products and book sites do charge postage but usually 10-15 US$ sometimes 20).

I actually managed to find another site selling these same books with far cheaper postage – but honestly, I hold grudges.

If it’s a glitch then I’ll reconsider and will probably order some (as I was about to), but if the site is genuinely only giving the option of $US48 postage then I’ll just ‘miss out’ as you’d put it (or perhaps, ‘vote’ my disgust with my wallet as I’d like to put it).

I came to this site to buy the hard cover core rule book, I was at the checkout and had my credit card out.

Only to find the cost (in US$) not the 50 I expected to spend, but 97!

The postage charge was only a few dollars less then the book. Very confused I went to find out how much it would cost for me to send the same package - under $20.

Why does the 'handling' part of 'shipping and handling' apparently cost more then the shipping part?

Disgusted, I am now leaving this site and will not even be purchasing the PDFs.