Broken Arrow's page

oooh I hate not being able to do a 1.524 metre step diagonally!!

I agree with the comments so far but also add in a component of experience vs how exotic the trap is. If it's a basic pit trap - the perception check is enough to know where it is and hence how to walk around it. Something more exotic... they know where the trigger is but don't know how it works or what the effect may be. Something extremely unique... they may only get a gut feeling the corridor ahead is trapped.

These descriptors lend themselves to part of the reason for the DC of the applicable disable device check.

Hey Moospuh - just trying to add some flavours to the previous post as I would also suggest going with either an aberration or an outsider (demon or elemental)

Silent but Deadly: the creature is an ambush predator and gains +10 to stealth when in a sewer environment.

Verbal Diarrhoea: as a swift action when attacking, the creature emits a stream of offensive noises. All living creatures within 60' who can hear it and fail a DC 15 will(?) save, experience severe stomach cramps and their movement speed is halved. Creatures who have no need to eat/lack a digestive system are immune.

Splatter Suit: a layer of excrement coats the creatures skin. Any one striking it in close melee (within 5') comes into contact and must make a fortitude save or become sickened. Anyone using a blunt weapon suffers a -2 penalty to the save due to the extra splatter effect (eww!)

Sphincter of Death: upon the death of this creature, the noxious gases within it are released all at once requiring all creatures within a 20' radius to make a DC 16 fortitude save or become sickened (creatures already sickened become nauseated). Furthermore, any naked flames within the area of effect ignite the gases causing an explosion (6d6, DC 16 reflex save for half).

Melee Attacks - it's bite could cause 1d2 con damage - making fort saves even harder.

Ranged Attack - go with the above.

Defensive - DR 5, immune to crits/sneak

All of these together make a pretty freaking nasty creature! Pick and choose as suits your PC's levels...

Have fun!

@ Snorter

I have opened my first ed books for the first time in 25 years...

Damage multipliers first appear in the Experts Player Book (p.10) for the lance which was usable only by fighters :)

Nothing more appeared until the Masters players book (pp.20-21) where the first weapons table appears. Previous to this version, there weren't enough weapons to justify a table!!

Under the "Special Effects" column, the dagger receives x2 (20) for a skilled dagger user, and the threat range increases through to x2(17-20) for a dagger grand master.

No other weapons had this though lances have the "charge" x2 damage and tridents got the "skewer" special effect (which was the precursor to the first bleed effect).

Trip down memory lane...

SO on one hand, your assertion that double damage didn't appear in 1st or 2nd ed are wrong, but on the other hand, they didn't apply to all weapons.

Cheers all for the advice.

Anguish - very true about the planned encounter. I like to have a few highly visualised planned encounters and just pray that one of them come's off as intended! If not, I lament how cool it would have been with a fellow player/GM. :)

Thanks for the thoughts Anguish (and the much better wording than I used!)

I was hoping to swing it all as a surprise round attack - trying to mimmick what it looks like in real life (their strikes are damn quick!!) but this may be pushing the limits of fairness.

I may rework the stats a bit to pump it's initiative up. That way it can spring out, grapple in the surprise round and if it "wins" initiative, move back into it's lair before the rest of the party reacts.

Not at all. I was just thinking in terms of feats due to my searching for an existing ability!

Hey all,

I've put together a pretty nasty haunted mansion for my players to explore and almost finished stocking it. The mansion has a good ol' food lift running from the kitchens on the ground floor to the top floor.

The play I'm hoping for is; the PC's look around the room, one of them approaches the lift and triggers the spider's tripwires. The spider leaps out, snatches the PC and disappears back into the shaft in the blink of an eye.

As there's no stats for a trapdoor spider that I can find, I've built my own. I'm looking for advice on a suitable monster feat to achieve the intended effect.

Trapdoor's Strike
If the intended prey in unaware of the spiders' presence and triggers the tripwires, the spider may move up to it's speed and bite in the surprise round. If the prey is at least one size smaller, it may instead move up to half it's speed, snatch the prey with a successful combat manuever check and move back into it's lair as part of it's surprise round. The prey gains the grappled condition.

I know the wording is still a little loose - but any thoughts on the basic idea, mechanics or "fairness". The spider will be CR5.

The problem with pursuing revenge is you'll be the one who the others think is the dick... regardless of history.

Normally it's a function of the castles planned population. Assuming the builder/owner had a plan - s/he would ask themselves;
How many people do I need to fulfill the castle's purpose?

From this question stems a hundred others such as how far away is my nearest ally, how big an army do I expect to defend against, what is the killing ratio provided by my planned defences etc.

From these questions you can see that the world dynamics will determine castle size. If the castle is needed to defend against armies numbering in the thousands or maybe tens of thousands then the castle will be on par with today's castles. If the armies are in the hundreds of thousands then it will need to be much larger than today's castles.

Just because you can get the druid to build a stupid massive castle, doesn't mean it'll last beyond the first battle ("You 100 men - go defend that 20 mile long wall..."

Of course if you throw some typical fantasy components into the armies such as golems, undead, giants, dragons and magic, the tactical considerations go nova and I am way too lazy to think about how they would affect castle size!

Broken Arrow wrote:

Just to be clear - I'm not opposed to including a gay iconic - my position is a preference for no sexual references.

A sexual reference can be as innocuous as "Bob is married to the local seamstress, Jane." That sentence gives you a basic idea of the relationship between the two, including the fact that both of them are attracted to the opposite gender. The Paizo folk haven't written anything explicit about any homosexual relationships.

I'd wager that you do want sexual references, since a world in which the authors aren't allowed to tell you who is married to whom would really feel like it had some awkward gaps (not to mention throwing a wrench into tons of adventure plot elements). But for some reason you're objecting to innocuous references to homosexuality, while at the same time offering no objection to innocuous references to heterosexuality. It's a puzzling stance, and I've asked you a few times now to explain how you reconcile it without revealing bigotry as an underlying motivation.

Quote:

I'm happy that the materiel was silent on the matter - I can add what fits my campaign world.

AGAIN, by that logic the campaign setting (and adventure, and novel, and chronicle, etc.) authors should leave out as many details as humanly possible, because you like it when the material is silent on characterization. Because if they don't mention anything about vocal timbre, skin color, gender, sexual orientation, hair length, eye color, personality quirks, or preferred shampoo scent, it gives you more flexibility to fit your campaign world (as if you are powerless to change those things as a DM).

So an explanation is needed, here, and you continually refuse to provide one.

Quote:

The rest of your post is pretty much what I predicted - your ability to twist words to conform to your suspicions.

I haven't twisted anything. If I wanted to twist what you said, I'd already be calling you a bigot. But I'm not,...

Firstly - I was seriously under the impression that this wasn't limited to the comics. I don't read them. I believed this was a case of all the material from here on in would change/add these new features.

Second - as I've posted previously, the references listed by another poster seemed fine. Again I was imagining something a little more explicit (and by that I'm not referring to porn.)

Lastly - my refusal to give you an exanation is simply there isn't anything deeper and your opinion of me seems already set. Does every question that leaves your mouth have to have an ulterior motive? (Or perhaps the fact that I play PF with some very young players does provide me with an unterior motive for not wanting sexual references?)

Anyway, you've continued to press your suspicions for long enough and found nothing. The only "evidence" of bigotry you've uncovered required some very convulated and selective examination of individual sentences and on occasion even individual words. You are simply over-examing everything I say, disregarding what doesn't fit your preformed opinion and I am at a loss as to how to convince you otherwise.

Yeah - my poor choice of words Mortuum.

@ The Jeff: I must admit, I was imagining more explicit descriptions than these you've provided. Certainly descriptors along these lines wont require me to explain the birds and the bees to the younger players!

@ Scott Betts.

Glad to hear I haven't used any bigoted words.

Just to be clear - I'm not opposed to including a gay iconic - my position is a preference for no sexual references. I'm happy that the materiel was silent on the matter - I can add what fits my campaign world.

The rest of your post is pretty much what I predicted - your ability to twist words to conform to your suspicions. I know a simple refutal of your assersions wont satisfy you, but it's quite clear nothing will.

My real motive? When I see people saying - "By the way, we've suddenly decided that each of our iconics is going to represent a minority group" - my instinct is that it's PC driven. As I've mentioned previously, I was happy to hear many didn't take it that way and they appreciated what they felt was a genuine move by Paizo.

I simply don't have any deep-seated ulterior motive for my original post. Your attempts to attribute anything sinister in my posts reflects more about your character than mine.

Don't like anything published in a Paizo product? Rewrite it at your table, or spend your money elsewhere. Maybe try letting Paizo know by telling someone who works there instead of identifying yourself to the community as someone incapable of taking a marker to your own books. (And Paizo'll probably politely accept and discard your reasoning anyway as long as they're making enough money and/or believe they're doing the right thing in the end.)

The only value in threads like this one is to populate ignore lists.

So you're basically saying...

Don't like rogues? - rewrite it.
Think pally's are OP? - change it.
Believe color spray should be level 2? - house rule it.

Certainly there'd be fewer discussions. Oh wait, you've participated in many of these type of discussions.

John Kretzer wrote:

I have to completely disagree here. This is not a batter question. It is baiting. It is so you can cornor him or her...and declare Broken Arrow as bigot or whatever label you want to throw him into a group.

Which fails on so many levels...

1) Treating people as 'groups' instead of inviduals is why we have racists and bigots today. Commiting the same sin to somebody who disagrees with you does not make you a better person.

Since when is calling someone a bigot for their bigoted actions or words the same as using racist/homophobic/whatever stereotypes? There's no such thing as the sin of accurately labeling someone.

I'm not throwing him into a group and then judging him based on perceptions of that group. I'm trying to expose his rationale, and use that underlying rationale to ridicule his position.

He is demanding justification for things that require no justification, so instead of providing him with the justification he claims to want (which, mind you, plenty of people have given him already), I'm more interested in finding out why he is demanding justification for something that doesn't require justification. I think that's far more interesting, because it gets to the heart of why he cared enough to question it in the first place.

So calm down.

Sorry - AFK for some time.

Yes it is a baiting question - but one I'm happy to address.

1. Please quote my "bigoted" words.
2. You're here to ridicule my position as opposed to enter into a discussion. This says to me you aren't actually prepared to listen so much as simply looking to twist my words to what you want to the inevitable cry of "redneck!"
3. No, Paizo don't have to justify their position. But this is a discussion board. Paizo, as a diligent and forward thinking company, is open to discussion regarding their products.
4. My ulterior motive of calling it PC BS? Because I hate PC BS. Adding one of each type (which is where the thread was going) smacks of PC as opposed to genuine interest in the inclusivity of their products. The logical conclusion of my question can be seen in the previous 50 or so posts. Why include LGBT? Why not include the others? Why include it at all? People are free to add their own flavour. If anything, it's more restrictive. If I want to play a lesbian-paladin, why is paizo telling me she's actually waiting for gender re-assignment? It simply seemed to me that LGBT was more about winning PC points.
5. Plenty of people gave me justification AFTER I asked the question. That's the whole point. I even favourited a few. They made me realise some of the players appreciated Paizo's efforts and felt more included as a result. Amazing what an open discussion yields.

Thanks to TWP, John Kretzer and Odraude for your candid answers. (Thats some evil sh!t you experienced Odraude...)

@JonGarrett

I guess my point in essence is that they were never described as heterosexual in the first place.

It's not a question of providing a more rounded offering of iconics by the addition of LGBT attributes - it's giving them any sort of "mature content" (to steal a phrase from another thread) at all.

Wohooo touchy touchy. Well, if you're calling the description of their LGBT attributes as "PC BS" that kind of constitutes your "coming out" as to what you really are despite all these refined words you're using.

I am calling PC BS (politically correct bull sh!t for the previous poster) on the generic addition of one of every type of LGBT to the iconics. It's got nothing to do with my LGBT preference or bias.

It's not being touchy to respond politely to such a poorly veiled attempt at branding me. Refined words? Obviously a relative term.

My assumption used the USA because they represent the most reliable statistics - not that they were the best representation of demographics. SE Asia apparently represents the highest proportion of transgender surgery but the data is unreliable. However, even in SE Asia, the transgender population is under 1%.

Gorbacz, I read many of these threads but contribute to very few. I have respected your opinions but your belicose cry of redneck and narrow-mindedness was perhaps your poorest post I've seen from you. You completely failed to address my question in favour of a passive aggressive attack. I am neither of these things let alone an American.

Mikaze, my point is why say anything at all about their sexual orientation? How is remaining silent on the iconics preferences be construed to mean the game treats LGBT as outsiders? And yes, they are "that rare". Loosely, less than 1 in 20 for sexual preference, less than 0.01% for transgender.

My points remain;
1. statistically, it would be an anomaly for the 21 iconics to have so much representation of these minority groups
2. The description of LGBT attributes in their backgrounds smacks of PC BS.
3. These particular descriptors are unnessary in PF

I want it to be very clear - I am not pushing anti-LGBT sentiment, I am pushing the sentiment that it is an un-necessary to describe the iconics sexual natures.

My question is... why? What possible reason do the developers have for including transgender or sexual orientation in the back story? Considering pure statistics - out of 21 (or whatever) iconics it's most likely that at most only 1 (assuming golarion society reflects USA) are gay and none of them are transgender.

From another thread, it's pretty clear the consensus of gamers do not protray sex in their games (it's a fade to black moment even if it does occur).

James - I would love a real explanantion of why you would throw this out there? The majority of your gamers clearly don't need this for their games, and the rest smacks of PC running stupid.

36. Install henchmen in governments world-wide and simultaneously ask the question "If a Paladin Tells a Lie to a Devil to Protect His Friends, does he Fall?". The resulting chaos should allow a level 1 PC to walk in and take over the world.

You need to change your name to Epic Time Commitment!

I have been trying (without much luck) to put together an "ultimate" tracking beast. The intent is a creature who serves a master much like a tracking dog but across the planes. The creature would be capable of over coming simple abilities/spells that a quarry may use to conceal their trail. Once the quarry is cornered, the beast would need to be able to trap/slow it's quarry and call it's plane travelling master.

I imagine the beast would be a CR 8 - 11 - or perhaps lower and used in packs rather than an individual. I don't see the beast itself as being overly dangerous to a party - it is a flusher rather than a hunter.

Thanks in advance if you choose to build it!

This is going to be awesome... I can't wait for the OP to return and tell you all that she is the GM's GF.

Oh yes - my two cents - how over sensitive can you mob get? There are a number of players out there who turn up because their good mate, cousin, brother, wife convinced them to. Sure they enjoy it to some extent, but if that SO wasn't there, nor would they.

Acknowledging this doesn't disparage the rest of you awesome people who are there for amongst other things, glory and riches (aka beer and chips).

We have two chicks at a table of five. One was a pain in the a$$ but we can't get rid of her because she's the GF of one of the other players. It's just an unfortunate fact - see it that way rather than as some attempt to objectify females.

I will admit that every so often over the years, I keep throwing that "strange and curious" door way into a dungeon or whatever hoping that the players will enter it *this* time! Unfortunately now the doorway has become the players "hey, we do some really dumb things - but entering *that* doorway is stepping over the line even for us!!"

It's getting to the point if they actually do enter the door, I'll just TPK the lot of them to teach them a lesson. Well... I'm not that kind of GM but it sure is tempting!

I can picture it now...

PC's enter door; "Helllllllooooo! Is anyone there?"
BBG; "You've no idea how long I've been waiting to do this..."

After reading MM's rant on his players being (for want of a better word...) idiots and screwing up his campaign, I was inspired to start this thread -

What are some of the coolest ideas you've had that your players screwed up?

My Contribution;
I once spent a week designing a side encounter (a door way to a pocket plane) that was fully kitted out, awesome custom traps, full descriptive environment, a sweet boss encounter (complete with humourous twist) and a nice selection of booty. I was so proud and couldn't wait for the PC's to enter the unmissable, strange looking doorway that their normal curiosity would compel them to enter...

They saw it, they argued for half an hour about entering and they f*$$%&*%# well decided to keep walking!!

I wont slam you for that AD! I'll second you... to a point!

It's nice to have the occasional quest for a major item but it's just not part of my typical campaign.

Level appropriate "generic" magic such as rings of protection, cloaks of resistance etc should just be available. I have magic shops if the PC's are working near civilisation. If not, an encounter built into the campaign which results in options for magical trade. (Last one saw the PC's intervening in the sacking of a Mercane's trading caravan.)

Finding someone who can upgrade your [insert really cool custom magic item here] with some extra [insert awesome upgrade here] is more tricky - it may require doing favours for people in high places in order to gain a valuable contact or letter of introduction.

I base this distinction on human behaviour in the RW. People appreciate things more if they have to jump through a few hurdles!

I've just read this thread in it's entirety and have come to this conclusion;

Your blind belief that you are right is threatening my sanity square :P

WRT the phase spider... surely you can only threaten squares you can immediately attack not use a free action and attack or a move action and attack otherwise you add a whole level of broken.

This is opinion only - but based on similar circumstances;
1. You don't threaten the adjacent squares you last pounce attacked to but you do threaten the squares around your finishing position.
2. If you atacked and moved away, you don't threaten the squares adjacent to where you attacked but where you finished your turn

Otherwise, considering Phase spiders can phase into ANY square on the battlefield, the interpretation you so eagerly lapped up would mean they threaten EVERY square on the battlefield.

How about these?

Or how about something like this.

Holy crap that's a long blade!! (Or is the dude weilding it a dwarf?!) :)

Having trained and competed in martial arts, I whole heartedly agree with the -4 mod. When you are trying to spar with a partner or the comp rules are light strikes only, it is actually harder. You hold back a bit of your strength and speed and often don't take openings that would lead to hitting a sensitive area. This goes for unarmed and practice blades.

I'm a big fan of the WoT series and love the flavour of this spell.

At the height of the war entire cities were erased from the pattern and reality almost unraveled. In the end both sides agreed to stop using Balefire and outlaw it's use. Kind of like biological warfarebeing banned and condemned in our society.

The use of this spell should attract the attention of Inevitables, The Aeons or other such arbitors of reality.

As to the mechanics of the spell, some suggestions;

1. In the book, most users of the spell were only able to erase several seconds of the victims past actions. I would suggest no more than 1 round per 4 levels and it doesn't happen at all if the save is successful. This also avoids the DM having to do lots of messing around.
2. As described above; I would also consider making it a will save rather than fortitude.
3. To be true to the book, it would be a save or die spell. It doesn't damage you. It erases you.

@Goth Guru - the memory of that person and their actions actually remain - so you do remember why you cast the spell.

I have skimmed most of the threads so forgive me if this has been raised already.

Evil is determined by society. When you move from one society to another, the shift in values means a shift in the perception of evil.

What is good and evil other than opposite perspectives of behaviour? Evil people rarely believe they are in fact evil! They justify their actions and in most cases believe that they are in the right - as they see it.

Somebody I can't recall once said; "No army on this Earth, has ever marched into battle believing that God is on their enemies side." Not totally applicable to an RPG setting but you get the point.

From a practical view point, I allow paladins to determine what is evil and therefor what is affected by their smite. And before you all attack me for that - remember there is a difference between evil and not good (i.e. Neutral)!

Additionally, this is balanced by the fact that they have to hold themselves to the same moral code they are holding the enemy to. E.g. If they designate an enemy soldier evil simply because they killed an allied combatant of the PC, then by definition the Paladin is committing an evil act if he does the same with all the repercussions due to him.

253. Your non-adventurer wife just heard about the ring of "Free Action" you always wear when leaving the house and took it the wrong way... now you get to halve your characters WBL.

Your PC's are relying on their intimate knowledge of these levels now. They are coming to think of the level as almost safe, controlled... tamed! They have likely become complacent!

1. The Priests of Orcus are meant to be active in the dungeon. They would obviously come to know about the PC's freely roaming their dungeon. The priests logically would set a few surprises for the unpalatable to the PC's: A deadly ambush? A new deadly trap in an area that was previously safe?

2. What happened to Dungie? If I recall he's the unbeatable dung monster on level 1. If the PC's are just avoiding his slow movement, remember he is a master of ambush.

3. the Priests of Orcus decide to gate in a horrid demon into level 1 to deal with those pesky PC's...

4. Levels 1 and 2 are subject to continuous effects - meaning the PC's will eventually succumb. If the -2 penalty is not a deterrent, you may want to consider a taint system.

Hope that helps!

Yes all forms of the spell can be dispelled - when casting on self, the spell descriptor says;
"This application of permanency can be dispelled only by a caster of higher level than you were when you cast the spell."