Cattleman's page

I see that some people derive them from information about their God; and if that's the best answer I get then that's fine. But many of the gods, Arete for example basically just says "Tireless foe of <evil stuff>"

Thanks Arete. Thanks for nothing.

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So directing me to what books have codes, or example codes, or something.. these would all be great answers. Thank you for any assistance!

[Also-> Pasting codes of conduct would also be neat. I'm in the midst of trying to build one for a player or three, and if I had several examples I could mix and match a bit.]

I'm still stewing on how to properly make "Boss Battles" feel potentially brutal, but without killing everyone instantly.

I played the Dark Souls Board Game and I've been stewing on how to incorporate a bit of that "AoE you can see coming" but without doing it in card form and memorizing attack patterns. That said, I'm not sure how else you'd do it.

I've considered the Reflex Save "dodge roll" thing as a way to allow players more protection:

When fighting defensively, you may subtract 10 + Dex modifier from your AC, and add the remainder to your reflex save. You may take a reflex save to avoid hits your opponents land. If you are successful, you take half-damage. If you beat their total To-Hit roll by 5 or more, you ignore all the damage.

Something like that, because it allows your mediocre AC to have a chance of still dodging massive attacks.

I've also considered splitting the turn into smaller phases, allowing them to "see an attack coming" and move out of the way.
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That said, I'm looking for ideas. Maybe a "perception" or knowledge roll of some kind could let them see certain tells for the attacks it will probably do; allowing the party a certain prescience when rolling well, while giving them pause when they don't.

I did find the Dark Souls board game to be satisfying for the boss battles, and would hate to make a big impressive scene in the rpg less impressive than just playing a one-off board game.

[Note: I do realize that playing monsters "correctly" and in environments to which they're suited helps and I've been able to do some pretty cinematic things, but this particular "Avoid the big attack!" one is difficult to emulate.

Also, I read TheAngryGM so I've been kept up on his boss-battle implementation ideas; so this really is just about "big attack prediction" mechanics.]

I'm setting up an (avoidable) encounter with a Giant Spitting Cobra; which has a 15ft ranged attack and a 10ft reach.

My assumption (which may get ruined by any of a number of things) is that if they go to attack it it will have readied a spit-action, but if they close for melee they will trigger an AoO.

I'm 95% sure that it works. Heck, even if it was a 5ft ranged attack or a readied Bite attack, I feel like it would be allowed to bite when they get in range, then bite before they leave the square when they attempt to.

I think this is just an oddity with AoO's in general since it seems the creature all the sudden moves *way* faster, getting double it's actions for it's turn out of nowhere.

Long story short, if someone wants to quell the last 5% doubt and let me know that indeed the person passing through the 10ft threatened area and into a readied action will indeed be attacked twice, it'd bring me peace of mind.

So when a disease takes 2 consecutive saves, f.e. Red Ache; if you pass the first save do you still take that day's damage?

I could see it either way since you still have the disease (thus take damage) or that you don't (because you're fortitude is such that you didn't actually get hurt by it.)

My guess is that you don't, but I figured I'd verify before this becomes a thing; as I got a lot of Filth Fever and red ache in this campaign.

I was listening to a song (perturbator) about an Ai apocalypse kinda deal, and noticed that the motivations were about the orderly harmony of all parts involved, and realized this as Lawful.

This is also how things like Ants and other hive minds work; complete harmony with one another as part of a giant machine; which is essentially what Bureaucracy and laws are meant to do in the grand scheme of things.

Any thoughts on whether these hive mind style organisms should in general be treated as Lawful instead, given their orderly societies?

I was thinking applying a God of War/Dark Souls/etc approach to the game, where people could have the option of a simple Dodge rule.

The option would be something like:

When choosing to Fight Defensively you may choose to either add +2 to your AC or you may choose to attempt to actively dodge attacks.

If you choose to actively dodge attacks, subtract 10 plus your dex bonus from your AC for the round and roll a Reflex save for each attack roll an opponent makes against you; with a DC equal to the total attack roll of the opponent.

Now, that's fine and dandy; I don't think it'd unbalance too much as someone with a +9 reflex is not toting 20AC, and even if they are they're forfeiting a lot of it to max-dex.

Say it was Leather and a Heavy Shield for +4; this would (at 4th level) be about +13 to your check; where optimal armor is about 24. A difference here is that your dodge is much more subject to variance.

Any thoughts? I haven't found a system for this (and i'm sure it exists.)

Additionally, I could see it if Dodge was purely against the actual roll, giving a flat 50% success (maybe Dodge adds +1 to such rolls) as a way to give vivid dodging capability.

I realize many (many) topics have been on this. I don't want to get into the bowels of the Grab/Constrict/Release discussion.

Instead I want to talk on the rules for creatures like Otyughs, Dust Diggers, Chuuls, Shambling Mounds, and their many ilk. These creatures have multiple attacks and have grab attached to them.

It seems that a bit of rules have been clarified since the last time I was figuring this out:

As a standard action, you can attempt to grapple a foe, hindering his combat options. If you do not have Improved Grapple, grab, or a similar ability, attempting to grapple a foe provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver. Humanoid creatures without two free hands attempting to grapple a foe take a –4 penalty on the combat maneuver roll. If successful, both you and the target gain the grappled condition.

Now, as I remember it, there was some section about "if you'd like to attempt this without gaining the grapple condition, you may do so at a -20 penalty" but I can't find this anymore.

Given that it specifies Humanoid; it seems that this allows the above creatures to:

Attack, grab, constrict Player A; maintaining the grapple then
Attack, grab, constrict Player B; maintaining that grapple (and do so only with the standard penalties to attacks you'd take from being in a grapple.)

Note: it looks like it's only a -2 penalty to attack rolls while you're grappled.

I wish to treat my players fairly, so if the above scenario of grappling both Player A and Player B with a mere -2 penalty is incorrect; I'd love to know.

Please go with strict RAW here so I can see the rules quotes you may refer to. I am mostly thinking about this from the perspective that Dust Diggers and Octopi seem to be designed to grapple the whole party (and this fits with artist renditions i imagine they're based on) but the rules used to be too confusing to feel like you were fairly doing so.

A succubus, as far as I can tell from this:

"The kiss also has the effect of a suggestion spell, asking the victim to accept another act of passion from the succubus."

implies that a willing character will basically willingly drop a level (and probably gain a short-lived profane bonus beforehand as some kind of caress), and then will be chaining saves against the succubus afterwards as she continues suggesting that they engage more.

If you don't make it apparent to the character (and quite possibly even if you do) it's quite likely they are behind doors and will be drained to death without any real notice. Does this sound about right? Given that even a 7th level character who lost 2d6 Charisma and endures a negative level only has to fail ~6 times before they're completely drained, I imagine this is basically an insta-gib if it happens.

Just looking to verify that this is indeed how it *can* work.

I've been trying to find the best set of rules to build crazy monsters I have models for, but no rules for (*cough* old warhammer models *cough*) and I finally found a set that seem reasonable and should (?) be fairly balanced.

Normally (though not always) NPCs that I find online are CR: <Class_Level>-1; so I used that with the Eidolon rules (but with just the Eidolon and not the Summoner.)The first Eidolon I created seems alright in that vein, but may be a bit much (because honestly, the Eidolon rules seem a bit OP.) It certainly seemed way easier than standard build-a-monster rules though.

Any thoughts on continuing to use these for "build a monster" general skeleton?