Chemlak's page

"Hey, you should talk to Kwoka." - Frong

"Why do you wanna talk to Kwoka?" - Frong

"Listen, listen, listen..." - Kwoka

Since I was on particularly bad form for yesterday's Band of Bravos stream, my good friend and player ChaoticK was asked to hit me. Repeatedly. With his car.

So he did.

Best. Audience. Ever.

Full disclosure: I've been wanting to move my weekly War for the Crown game over to 2E for a while, now, but I've been a bit reluctant to do so because one of my players is playing a Swashbuckler, and was very firm with me that he couldn't get the "feel" of the character right with a fighter or a rogue in 2E, so he didn't want to convert until we had a suitable class.

So when the APG classes were announced, I was excited, and as soon as the playtest dropped, we converted his 1E character over as best we could and launched into a series of test-case combat encounters to see if he could get a proper feel for it. To help out, I converted the rest of the party (cleric, rogue, bard) as well, and ran them as a whole party using the sort of tactics the players had used in the combat encounters of our game.

The encounters I ran were against a variety of foes, including undead, goblinoids, giants, and gnolls - I tried to find foes that made thematic sense together, but also different threats and styles of combat.

This was conversion of a 7th level party, and the results were positive:

There was only one encounter where the party were seriously outmatched, and that included a succubus that the swashbuckler immediately engaged while the rest of the party dealt with her gnoll thralls. The swashbuckler was immediately shut down by the succubus' Embrace and Passionate Kiss abilities and my careful consideration was that the passionate kiss is overpowered.

Every single other encounter, whether against foes with ranged attacks, melee attacks, special abilities, whatever, the result was that the swashbuckler danced around the battlefield almost at will, setting up and delivering finishers to deadly effect, and utterly blitzing in teamwork with the rogue.

This is not to say that there weren't challenges: in one battle, I rolled something like 4 natural 20s over the course of three rounds, and none of the PCs rolled above a 10 on the dice (we play using Roll20 and I had rolls set publicly, there was no fudging or cheating on this at all).

The fact that the swashbuckler went haring off on his own created a few problems, not least that it meant the cleric had a hard time getting close enough to heal him (and he really needed it on occasion).

My conclusion from this set of test encounters is that the swashbuckler fits into the roll of melee specialist extremely well. The cycle of ability use to sustain panache works very well, and means that the bonus damage from precise strike isn't overboard, though we did feel that finishing follow-through could be a feature of panache rather than a feat and not unduly unbalance things.

Since I started writing this, my players have told me that they're happy to convert to 2E, so we'll see some real play in the not-too-distant future.

Ugh.

Just a reminder to people, flag and move on, please don’t reply to the spam posts, it makes it harder to moderate.

Hopefully the +5 spambane banhammer of smiting is ready for action.

I've so far flagged two posts which are advertisements for an organisation allegedly in an antipodean country who provide assistance with writing... things.

It looks like these are being appended to existing discussions, rather than new threads.

Just wanted to let people know so that we can keep an eye out for it.

I just received (and completed) the survey about Paizo/Pathfinder that was sent by email, and I'm really glad to have been able to provide some feedback about something I really love.

There is, however, a small error in the survey, specifically Question 40 (which Pathfinder lines do you subscribe to?), which is, for some inexplicable reason, missing the Roleplaying Game line as a response option. That being the only line I subscribe to, I was a bit surprised, and ended up having to say "I'm not sure".

Argh, Battletech, my other, other weakness.

Yeah, I can see me buying this soon. Shame the PDF is only available through DTRPG (who I refuse to give money to) or Battlecorps (who have a ridiculous 5-day download time limit). Still, can't get hardcopy of this or Interstellar Ops on Amazon.co.uk, so looks like Paizo gets that sale.

So, neurohelmet on, fusion reactor powered up, ammo bins full, PPCs charged, here we go!

This thread came about because of a discussion that cropped up in Mark Seifter's AMA thread.

The basic point of discussion is whether the DC calculation for a Prestige Class (10 + class level + ability modifier) is too low.

My belief is that it is actually "correct", because under fastest entry to a PrC the DC at level 6 is 11+ ability mod (which does suck a bit), and scales up to 20+ ability mod at 16th level, which is 2 higher than a 9 level spellcaster of the same level, so it starts of lower, caps out higher and faster, so is pretty well balanced against spellcasting and other SLA/Su ability DCs.

I'll leave it to others to give the opposing assertion, because my personal bias would come through and I don't want to dismiss that perspective out of hand or accidentally through my word choice.

The one that appears at the bottom of every page on the site, still reads ©2002-2015, should probably be updated to cover the current year, too.

Minor, I know, but it might matter.

Right now, the top three threads on Product Discussion (Armor Masters Handbook, Ire of the Storm, and Heaven Unleashed) all show last post by Chris Lambertz at 8.00pm... which is an hour away. (They don't have the usual "yesterday" date, so it "must" mean today. In an hour.)

I'm guessing moderation of some sort, but it looks really strange.

This is a spin-off from the Hot Button Topics thread here: it was noted by some users that Rules Questions can get rather unpleasant at times, and Chris Lambertz said that there's some ideas floating around Paizo on making it less volatile.

This thread is for the community (and Paizo staff, if they want) to weigh in on how the Rules Questions forum works, and how it doesn't, and perhaps formulate some ideas for change.

if someone asked me what part of these message boards I have the most mixed feelings about, it's probably Rules Questions. On the one hand, it's an immensely valuable resource, where anyone can ask any question about the rules and get a (for the most part) coherent response from the community. On the other hand, if a discussion becomes controversial, it can be a festering pit of hatred, fit to put anyone off visiting this site ever again.

Over the last few years since I became active on the boards, I've lost track of the number of people who have made an "I'm out" declaration, or "don't go there, ever" statement about Rules Questions. I'm ashamed to admit that I can recall at least one discussion where I was involved in a heated debate, and I got ridiculously angry at the people I was (and there's no other word for it) arguing with.

It really doesn't take much browsing the subforum to find a thread where one person pretty much calls another an idiot (almost any thread which exceeds 100 posts will have an example). And that is not the sort of environment I like spending my time in, much as I enjoy a good rules debate (and there have been a few).

I don't know if there's an easy fix (I doubt it), and the only suggestion I can come up with to help is for the board members to adopt a "FAQ and move on" attitude once it becomes evident that community discussion is going nowhere. The hard part being the word "evident".

The last thing any of us want is for the hard-working community team to have to spend time policing threads, but are there any quick wins that the community can suggest to ease the tension that can creep in? A new "Rules Discussion" subforum, perhaps?

I'll admit, I'm not strong on ideas to improve things, but if you have an idea, please make it known.

Please don't:

1) Bring up specific rules discussions
2) Name names
3) Disrespect other people's ideas

The current policy on these message boards is that it's okay to post threads (typically in Off Topic Discussions) to talk about politics and religion.

My question to everyone is whether it's a good idea or not?

Generally speaking, politics and religion are touchy subjects, mostly because they revolve around an individual's ideals and beliefs about how the world does and should work, and people are stubborn creatures who react poorly to their beliefs being questioned or ridiculed.

With these message boards, Paizo have created a very tolerant, welcoming community, and one of the key features of that is the "anything goes" nature of the forums as long as we all respect each other's rights to our beliefs, opinions, and feelings. Because of this, I understand why Paizo don't necessarily want to get heavy-handed with certain discussion types.

On the other hand, it is almost ridiculously easy for a troll to set off a full-blown flame war (and a smart troll can do so almost imperceptibly) that can damage relationships and damage the reputation of Paizo.

So, in the interests of keeping these message boards a safe, fun place to hang out or visit, do you think that Paizo should implement a rule against threads dealing with politics and/or religion?

I come to these boards to have fun. To chat with like-minded people about something we all have in common: a love of Paizo's products, and excitement about roleplaying in general. I don't want to have my joy at visiting this site marred by partisan threads about subjects which are deeply emotional and divisive. I think that such a ban would not actually detract from these boards at all. If I want to discuss how I feel about Christ, or why I'm ecstatically happy at the UK's gun control legislation, I'll take it to a place more suitable, not to a forum for a game I play for fun.

All thoughts and opinions are, of course, welcome, but please don't:

1) Actually discuss politics or religion.
2) Name names.
3) Try to argue with someone else's opinion on this subject.

This thread is to help Paizo with decisions about their web policy, nothing more.

Thanks.

I don't want to abuse the FAQ system, but historically there have been a lot of questions on how certain aspects of the Ultimate Campaign Kingdom rules actually work, spread all over multiple posts and threads, so I decided to create this thread to hold the questions (and hopefully get FAQ flags).

I believe that I already know the answers to these questions, and I am more than happy to discuss them (in excruciating detail, if you really want), but I am purposefully putting only one question per post, in the knowledge that the FAQ flagging system works best with straightforward, unambiguous, concise questions.

Terrain Improvements marked with an asterisk can share a hex with other terrain improvements. Can they share a hex with themselves (aka can I put two farm improvements in a single hex)?

It could be that I'm being blind, but I can't find the Great Old One subtype (introduced in Bestiary 4) in the Creature Types section of the PRD, and there aren't any subtype links from the ones in Bestiary 4.

If two checks succeed, the trade route is established; Economy increases by 1 and Treasury increases by the RM + 2d4 BP per 5 BP invested in the initial trade expedition. For example, if you invested 5 BP in a trade route with an RM of 2, Treasury increases by 2 + 2d4 BP.

If all three checks succeed, the trade route is established and is a great success; Economy increases by 2, Fame increases by 1, and Treasury increases by the RM + 2d4 BP per 5 BP invested in the initial trade expedition.

What would be treasury increase for a trade expedition that had 15 BP invested (assuming two or more successes)?

Would it be RM + (2d4 * 3)

Or (RM + 2d4) * 3?

I suspect the former, but it's not completely clear, and the example isn't entirely helpful.

I'm posting this because it came up in the Ask Jason Bulmahn thread in OTD, and because I can see arguments either way.

A quick recap of the issue: monks and brawlers are not able to flurry with every weapon on their respective proficiency lists. While I'm certain this is intentional (Sean K Reynolds weighed in on the point that not all class features need to function or synergise with all other class features), there is an argument that can be made that it over complicates bookkeeping (is proficient Y/N? Is flurryable Y/N?) and (potentially) weakens the classes.

Thoughts and arguments either way, please.

Note: I do not have a horse in this race, I am perfectly willing to be swayed either way.

I have just hosted the latest version of the Ultimate Campaign Kingdom Tracking Spreadsheet, and have also released another sheet which includes the first set of alterations to incorporate Ultimate Rulership.

Please follow the download links in the thread post linked above, and report any bugs, make any requests, or generally tell me what you think in that thread, too.

As a general rule, bonus feats granted by class features don't need to meet the prerequisites of the feat, but it's usually spelled out pretty clearly in the class feature.

What about the fighter? The bonus feat class feature lacks the wording about bypassing feat prerequisites, but if the general rule (not spelled out anywhere that I can see) is to bypass, then that would mean they can.

Can anyone point me to a rule that restricts fighters in this way? Or better yet, provide the rules which mean that bonus feats don't generally bypass prerequisites?

I have to be a little cagey, here, but I rather urgently need to get a message to Jason Bulmahn regarding the Minotaur Games products he produces.

Can anyone advise me of the best way to contact him privately?

Many thanks.

I considered putting this in rules questions, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't belong there since it's not really covered by the rules as far as I can tell, but my interest stems from the section in Awarding Experience which says that pure roleplaying encounters grant XP as an encounter of CR equal to the APL.

So, what constitutes "pure roleplaying"?

Is it any encounter where no dice are rolled?
Is it an encounter where only social skill checks are made?
Is it something else?

Thoughts and opinions welcome.

I'm personally edging towards something along the lines of "any encounter where no player-driven dice rolling happens" or some such (I'm struggling around NPC-driven dice rolls), but I thought I'd throw the question out there and see what you all think.

Over in this thread I noticed something interesting: projectile weapons do not appear to confer energy damage effects (such as flaming) to their ammunition.

Here are the relevant chunks of rules text:

The enhancement bonus from a ranged weapon does not stack with the enhancement bonus from ammunition. Only the higher of the two enhancement bonuses applies.

Ammunition fired from a projectile weapon with an enhancement bonus of +1 or higher is treated as a magic weapon for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction . Similarly, ammunition fired from a projectile weapon with an alignment gains the alignment of that projectile weapon.

Upon command, a flaming weapon is sheathed in fire that deals an extra 1d6 points of fire damage on a successful hit. The fire does not harm the wielder. The effect remains until another command is given.

The interesting points are that a) non-magical ammunition does not actually become magical, it is treated as magical for overcoming DR, b) aligned projectile weapons fire aligned ammunition, and c) nothing is said about energy effects.

I will say that I do not believe for one second that a +1 flaming longbow won't do +1d6 fire damage, and since the flaming property (on which all the other energy properties are based) may sidestep the issue by just saying it does extra fire damage, and since a projectile weapon's damage is done by the ammunition, not the weapon itself, the extra damage must logically be applied to the ammunition, but it is of considerable interest to me that a non-magical arrow fired from a +1 flaming holy longbow is a) non-magical but overcomes DR as though it were, b) [Good] aligned and c) incapable of possessing the flaming property because it is not a +1 or higher weapon.

Thoughts and opinions, please!

(Again: I believe that the arrow should deliver the extra fire damage.)

Consumption: Consumption indicates how many BP are required to keep the kingdom functioning each month. Your kingdom’s Consumption is equal to its Size, modified by settlements and terrain improvements (such as Farms and Fisheries). Consumption can never go below 0.

The old Kingmaker rules had consumption equal kingdom size plus districts minus (the effect of) farms. The above quoted rule just says "modified by settlements". Is this meant to be just number of settlements, regardless of their size, or should we still be using the number of districts?

A few people have mentioned that Mythic Flaws don't seem to mesh well with the whole "greater than normal" scope of Mythic play, and I got to thinking about it (in my copious free time).

Some people think they're overboard, some people think they're unbalanced, and it occurred to me that a trick may have been missed in the design of them (or more specifically their implementation).

An idea that popped into my head was to make Mythic Flaws optional, but have them carry a tangible benefit, too.

The two ideas I had were for each flaw to have an associated Mythic feat (or one of a selection of feats) that you can gain for taking a particular flaw, or to gain a number of uses of Mythic power (the number being dependent on the flaw).

Obviously, I am not a designer, and I don't want to suggest that there is anything wrong with Mythic Flaws as they are presented, but I thought I'd throw this idea out there for discussion.

I had reason last night to take an in-depth look at stealth, perception, invisibility, combat modifiers, and everything associated with them, and I came to the conclusion (which I hope is wrong) that after the first full combat round, stealth is effectively pointless for Rogues attempting to sneak attack.

Ignoring the sniping option (which has its uses, certainly), by RAW (and if you don't use the Hidden condition created for the stealth revision test), once all combatants cease to be flat footed, the circumstances by which an opponent can lose their Dex bonus to AC all rely on factors completely separate to the use of the Stealth skill.

I would appreciate it if anyone could prove me wrong, by pointing out the rules which allow a Rogue who is using Stealth alone (assuming successful checks) to sneak attack an opponent.

Of course, if I'm not wrong, it would be useful to know that, too.

I have a player who wants to add Fortification (Light) to his existing magic armour. The party is 10th level, and the party wizard has Craft Magic Arms and Armour (cue numerous jokes from one of my players about wanting to cut off his limbs to get magical arms...).

Either I'm being blind, or it's just unclear - I can't find anything in the item creation rules that would prevent a 10th level wizard from crafting this enchantment, even though he doesn't match the caster level (13th) for it (except for the possibility of failing the check to craft it, of course).

Can he do this? What will the DC be to craft it (you can safely assume he doesn't meet the spell requirement, either), if he can?

Homebrew campaign, and I'm taking over GMing (one of the other players and I trade off every level) soon.

The party is currently woefully underequipped, which I will be (hopefully) rectifying, but the hand-over situation means that the party will be on the move when I pick up the campaign.

They are 10th level (but equipped like 8th), and will be travelling on foot/horseback across a grassland region, heading towards the coast. There is a war on, too, with hordes of Hobgoblins, Orcs and some custom races in the area.

I want them to have a reasonable encounter on their way to their destination, but I don't want (perhaps ridiculously) to include anything related to the war, which removes most humanoids and giants from the list of viable foes.

So, the advice I'm after is, what would you pick for CR 9/10 encounter with those restrictions?

The question is in the title, really. To cause Regeneration to stop functioning, does the attack have to cause any damage to the regenerating creature?

The reason I ask is that I was skimming through Bestiary 3 (as you do), and came across the Thalassic Behemoth, which has Regeneration 20 (fire) and immunity to (you guessed it), fire.

Further, the Regeneration ability is misleading in two more ways:

1) It consistently refers to "attacks" that overcome it, but doesn't mention whether those attacks actually have to hit the target.

2) Regeneration stops functioning "on the round following the attack" - I've always treated this as "until after the creature's next turn", but it could validly be interpreted to mean that if the regenerating creature has its turn after the attack that overcomes its regeneration but in the same round, it still regenerates that round.

Thoughts, please.