Cibulan's page

Cibulan wrote:

I'm no expert but I don't believe Narya granted immortality. Gandlaf, as Istari/Maiar, was already immortal (although bound to a specific physical form much like Sauron, the Balrogs, etc.). Furthermore, Narya was one of the three Elven rings of power which would make the immortality redundant. The three rings definitively had some preservative powers for Elrond and Galadriel used them to keep their communities pure while all other Elves were fading.

Certainly in the First Age, Olurin (Gandalf) wasn't bound to a particular form - he was bound to the world. Most of that order could change forms, pretty much as they pleased - as could Sauron, until he got that power taken away for being naughty...

Right, but even bound they were still immortal. His immortality was not connected to the ring he possessed.

I'm no expert but I don't believe Narya granted immortality. Gandlaf, as Istari/Maiar, was already immortal (although bound to a specific physical form much like Sauron, the Balrogs, etc.). Furthermore, Narya was one of the three Elven rings of power which would make the immortality redundant. The three rings definitively had some preservative powers for Elrond and Galadriel used them to keep their communities pure while all other Elves were fading.

It was the closest thing they had to an Iksar that I liked.

Apparently I cannot add you as players until you post in the game thread, which we can start once Cili joins up.

This is the thread for campaign discussion. Please talk freely here and ask any questions.

This thread is for in-game posts only. Please use the out of character text format (see bottom) if you need to say something out of game. We will begin shortly.

A ring of spell knowledge is only a storage space; the wearer must still encounter a written, active, or cast version of the spell and succeed at a DC 20 Spellcraft check to teach the spell to the ring.

Identify a spell as it is being cast 15 + spell level

Learn a spell from a spellbook or scroll 15 + spell level
Prepare a spell from a borrowed spellbook 15 + spell level
Identify the properties of a magic item using detect magic 15 + item's caster level
Decipher a scroll 20 + spell level
Craft a magic item Varies by item

Decipher the Writing: The writing on a scroll must be deciphered before a character can use it or know exactly what spell it contains. This requires a read magic spell or a successful Spellcraft check (DC 20 + spell level). Deciphering a scroll is a full-round action.

Deciphering a scroll to determine its contents does not activate its magic unless it is a specially prepared cursed scroll. A character can decipher the writing on a scroll in advance so that she can proceed directly to the next step when the time comes to use the scroll.

So following the item's description (specific rule), you make a DC 20 Spellcraft check. There is nothing about activating magic scrolls. Looking at Spellcraft, the closest application is "Decipher a scroll". Switching to Scrolls themselves, it clearly state deciphering the scroll does not activate it.

The only language about destroying a scroll comes from the section about adding to a Wizard's spellbook. That is in no way a general rule.

Jiggy wrote:

LazarX wrote:

General rule for learning spells from scrolls means that the spell gets used up. UNLESS the items says that this DOES not happen in it's text, than that rule applies.

Where is this general rule? I know a couple of classes specify it, but if it was a general rule, it would be somewhere else, and I wasn't aware that it is.

Those "couple of classes" are every arcane class that uses prepared casting and records spells in a spellbook/familliar/whathaveyou. That qualifies it as a general rule, and the rule that's most applicable to this question. It also keeps this item under sane limits of control.

Those classes all deal with prepared casters adding to their pools. This is completely different. It's class features versus magic items. Prepared versus spontaneous. Apples versus Oranges.

What usually happens for me is one of two things.

1) At low level I keep read magic memorized because there is a definite chance of failure on the spellcraft check to decipher scrolls that I may want to use immediately after finding.

2) At higher levels my spellcraft has gone well beyond the check DC. Ie: My 8th lvl wizard has a +17 spellcraft so I can decipher up to lvl 7 spells without failure by taking 10 (DC 27 check). So at this point I don't really need read magic as a spell slot. For those lvl 8 and 9 spells I may find (very doubtful at lvl 8) I can hold off and memorize read magic the next day to decifer them.

This.

As for Sorcerers, read magic makes way more sense for them than Wizards. A) Sorcerers are not going to have as many skill points typically so keeping spell-craft maxed is more difficult, and B), they get way more cantrips (especially if they use human-alternate favorite class bonus for the first three levels).

Since there are not that many great cantrips, it's easier for Sorcerers to use one of their many spell known slots on read magic whereas a Wizard only ever gets four cantrips to prepared.

I don't bother using it after level 5 or so:

20 int (assuming a +2 headband by here): +5
skill rank 5: +5
Class skill: +3
Take 10 = 23

3rd level scroll DC 20+3=23

After 5th level it gets even easier. Even before 5th, I may use it but I wouldn't prepare it for the day; if I find a scroll, I'd try rolling and if that fails prepare it the next day.

My stable/staple cantrips are: detect magic, prestidigitation, mage hand, and ghost sound.

Don't track weight, arrows, rations or anything like that. It doesn't add anything to our games. We want to play fantasy, not accountants.

If I remember correctly, the Dragonlance campaign setting had the best explanation for this (to me).

The gods gain their power from mortal worshipers. The god then grants power to mortal clerics to do their bidding; a self-reinforcing cycle is formed whereas the more people that worship a god, the more the god can do for them (via a cleric), which increases their worship further.

The gods most people want to pray to (healing, sun, farming, etc.) are stronger than gods less people want to pray to (disease, storms, etc.).

I think Poison Ivy is more of a Sorceress with the Fey bloodline, considering she isn't particullary fond of animals, can't wildshape and is not a very good melee combatent. And more importantly, remember her focus on enchantment and hot... err... high Charisma score.

Now that I think about it, many Batman villains could make cool PF characters...

Magus: How about the protagonist from BioShock?

I am currently playing an Urban Ranger as the Batman in my Monday night game. His name is Nolan Bale, aka, the Wyvren.

We fought a cleric this week who hit me with a fear spell (rolled a 1), later my GM said we may have just witnessed the birth of the Scarecrow.

Cibulan wrote:

This isn't rocket surgery:

-Racial Heritage makes you count as a Kobold for feats.
-Tail Terror has the prereqs of BAB+1 and Kobold.
-Racial Heritage satisfies the Kobold requirement.

Ergo, yes a Human with both feats can have a tail. It's a two feat investment and it satisfies all RAW requirements, don't try to parse the feat fluff descriptions.

The whole point of the Racial Heritage feat is to make you more than Human.

Benefit: Choose another humanoid race. You count as both human and that race for any effects related to race. For example, if you choose dwarf, you are considered both a human and a dwarf for the purpose of taking traits, feats, how spells and magic items affect you, and so on.

Don't see anything about growing a tail...Just effects that relate to that race. I would say no.
FAQ?

It clearly states that you can use it to meet racial feats. It's the Tail Terror feat that grants the attack with a tail, not being a Kobold.

A Kolbold without the feat has a tail but cannot attack with it. With TT, he can attack with it. A Human with both feats gets a tail attack, rationalize that however you want but it is RAW and within the RAI.

This isn't rocket surgery:

-Racial Heritage makes you count as a Kobold for feats.
-Tail Terror has the prereqs of BAB+1 and Kobold.
-Racial Heritage satisfies the Kobold requirement.

Ergo, yes a Human with both feats can have a tail. It's a two feat investment and it satisfies all RAW requirements, don't try to parse the feat fluff descriptions.

The whole point of the Racial Heritage feat is to make you more than Human.

This kills the RP of using any body part to fight unarmed, but only if you use the spell. If you use the Amulet of Might Fists (like you are supposed to), then it is not a problem.

But then you're paying extra for the role-playing fluff that the 3.5 version had baked in.

Count me in the, "unarmed strike is one weapon" camp. Monks can flurry with it because they're special (any combination, despite SKR's redefinition of "any").

The best advice I can give also has the side-effect of powering up casters a bit:Recharge Magic.

I used this variant rule when GMing Carrion Crown and although it made the party wizard slightly more powerful, it wasn't intolerable. There are a couple of limiting factors:

-same action economy (one spell per round)
-higher level spells recharge slower so you can't just spam your best abilities

I mainly did it so that the party healer could heal more effectively. I, as a GM, have no problem with the PCs getting back to full health between fights. That's my opinion but it might not be to your tastes.

The net effect is that the party does not feel so rushed because of the game's resource management. There are people that swear that resource management is part of the game (almost a mini-game) and would hate this idea but my players and I do not enjoy this style of play (we don't track weight, or number of arrows, or amounts of bat guano, etc.).

Ravingdork wrote:

Tels: People actually tried that with Heighten Spell? Even I'm not that cheesy!

Ya, there was a minor blow up about it a while back. I thought it was rather dumb myself. Just people trying to get extra cheese out of their spells.

I myself genuinely didn't know, it was always rather ambiguous in its wording to me so I'm happy to see a clarification from JJ.

Cibulan wrote:

I played a Witch from levels 5-12 who abused Slumber and my recommendation is, don't take it. ...snip...

** He loved throwing single, big dumb powerful magical beasts at us. This allows slumber's no HD limit to shine and they tend to be weak on will saves. And even if they weren't weak, the evil eye/misfortune combo softened them up.

After our Witch Slumbered a big bad nasty beast (purple worm? that giant hot millipede thing that lives in cold places and I can never remember what they're called?) and the barbarian coup de graced it to death, one of my groups came up with this house rule:

a coup de grace is an auto-crit (with a crit card). no fort save.

It makes Slumber still a great hex, but /usually/ encounters are such that either the target has a chance of being woken up by a minion, OR if he's a single enemy, he's badass enough to at least survive a single crit, even from the halforc with a greataxe. It keeps things fun.

Conversely, it really helps out the party when the ghouls show up.

Yea I guess it can be solved via house rules, but so can most problems. Better to just not use it, and that's from my experience (not theory crafting) but your mileage may vary.

AS for the 1/round per level of Slumber, it'd be rough for a level or two but levels 5+ (when I played a Witch), the duration was never an issue. At later levels you can even take feats to allow you to try again if they save the first time and to slumber two enemies at once. My team was coordinated enough to figure out to protect me, and coup de grace the enemy in a timely manner, even eating AoO's was worth it most of the time.

I played a Witch from levels 5-12 who abused Slumber and my recommendation is, don't take it. It is really that good. Maybe my GM just gave me too many monsters that were weak to it** (there's always a style thing at play), but the evil eye, misfortune, slumber combo trivializes the game. We had a purple worm attack us, I put it to sleep in round one.

After I committed to not use slumber anymore (actually turned from Witch to Wizard with GM approval), everyone at the table had more fun.

** He loved throwing single, big dumb powerful magical beasts at us. This allows slumber's no HD limit to shine and they tend to be weak on will saves. And even if they weren't weak, the evil eye/misfortune combo softened them up.

Forget fireball, use Snapdragon Fireworks.

Edit: wouldn't work with your admixture school though but still worth considering. You could use Elemental Spell.

I enjoyed playing my negative energy, madness/repose domain cleric. I used touch attacks with the madness/repose and de-buffed the enemy easily. He was well loved by the party, the mages got the save or sucks off better, or the fighter only had 1 attacks to worry about.

But that is the only type of cleric i like. Healbots are hideous IMO. And i hate the idea of casting 1-4 spells prior to getting into combat, so melee clerics don't appeal to me. If it wasn't for the de-buffer, i would not touch the cleric with a 10' pole.

The other problem the cleric has is a lack of zest when gaining a level. Paladins (as an example)get mercies, grace, enchanted weapons, etc everytime they gain a level. This gives you something to look forward to. Clerics get an extra spell, and upgrades to abilities they got at 1st level. that isn't very exciting.

I had a character that was very similar to that except he was a Witch. I find that any concept (even healbot) other than armored priest can be done better by the Witch class.

In our group, it's mostly because the players view clerics as 'the bible thumpers'. Considering that none of them are overly interested in the religion aspect of the game, it tends to be overlooked.

That is my feeling as well and most of my group's. I also cannot stand Paladins.

Looks awesome so far but I would have rather had a la carte abilities rather than locking a PC down into one of 6 paths. But I always have to complain about something ;)

Even if some god doesn't chose to smite you, very few adventurers don't need the occasional healing.

I don't think my cleric would continue to heal someone who either professed to not believe in gods or insisted that my god was just a inflated ego bully.

That's why I love white-mage style witches, none of that divine hang up for healing.

Clerics have been my favourite class for 30 years. But I can see why some people aren't interested in them:

(1) Out of the "original" four classes (fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric), the cleric is by far the least represented in fantasy fiction.

(2) Some people aren't interested in playing spellcasters, and even if a person is interested in playing a spellcaster, wizards spells are more flashy on average than cleric spells.

(3) Some people don't like the fluff of being a flunky for a higher power.

This.

I just can't get into that, I try sometimes but it's a big issue to me. With a Wizard, I can feel like the power is "mine". The smarter, harder working the wizard is, the better at magic he is. It speaks to the "pull yourself up by the boot-straps" metaphor we have in the US.

In contrast, clerics seem meek and servile to some nebulous being. Perhaps not surprisingly, I prefer campaign worlds where gods are either dead or absent. Having the divine interact with the physical in a half-ass way doesn't jive with me.

Not that my opinion is definitive or anything. Just my personal preferences.

Cibulan wrote:

I'm not sure where in 3.5 Umbral Reaver got the quote from seeing as I do not have access to it all now.

3.5 Rules Compendium.

Ah, I checked the SRD and couldn't find it (like Buri). I didn't doubt it for a second because it jived with what I remember, but citing sources and all...

No mention of the quote from the JJ thread above nor "dexterity bonus" in the combat sections of the SRD reveal anything about failing a perception check means you're denied dex to AC.

Where else would it be?

I have discovered where the confusion stems from.

3.5 has the following text:

Quote:
If you're successfully hidden with respect to another creature, that creature is flat-footed with respect to you. That creature treats you as if you were invisible.

If you are hidden, they are flat-footed; if they are flat-footed, they are denied dex bonus to AC; if they are denied dex, you can sneak attack.

I'm not sure where in 3.5 Umbral Reaver got the quote from seeing as I do not have access to it all now.

If number 2 is true then I'm at a huge and fundamental disadvantage here on the boards and in every game session as is every other person who doesn't have a D&D background. I have no option but to assume that if it's not in the Pathfinder core rules then it doesn't exist.

Here's a litmus test I'm holding myself to: would you try to argue this in PFS game? I'd ask you the same.

I don't mean this in any, way, shape or form to be insulting, but you are at a disadvantage. Pathfinder is great, but it was built on something else and there quite a few of these little issues. For example, 3.5 considered all of a monk's unarmed attacks to be from one weapon source but that language was dropped from Pathfinder and caused all sorts of weirdness (see the monk threads). The CRB here has some issues with wording a prime example is the two-weapon fighting with natural weapons language. The CRB says one thing, the Bestiary says another. Paizo has said that the Bestiary is the correct version.

The Paizo team didn't build Pathfinder from the ground up like most systems are, it's essentially a collection of "house" rules to be added to 3.5. That was the vision, the goal when they made it. They made it because people wanted to keep playing a 3.5 like system instead of 4th edition; however, in time, it grew in popularity until it brought in people like yourself.

There are calls to make PF v 2.0 for this reason. They did their best (and an awesome job indeed) to try to cover everything, but a few things slipped through the cracks and when that happens most people fall back to 3.5 (like JJ did/assumed).

And to answer your question, I would try to argue it in PFS and I would use 3.5 as my evidence. Whether the judge would buy my evidence or not, I can't say. I guess it'd depend on if he played 3.5 or not.

I think your position may be right (without looking into it more myself) RAW with the Pathfinder CRB, but don't be surprised if GMs who played 3.5 (like myself) ruled otherwise.

Even in a surprise round it's not guaranteed. Stealth simply improves your chances by basically acting like a huge neg to someone's perception. In a surprise round initiative is most important as everyone starts being flat-footed. Stealth does nothing to ensure that either that your enemies are denied dex or flanked or even that you act first in a surprise round.

For rogues, there is one talent that let's you treat surprise round initiative as if you rolled a 20 but also states you can only make a ranged attack. So, I guess you could potentially snipe and re-stealth.

You can still be detected even with invisibility but you still gain sneak attack because having the invisible condition states your opponents are denied dex to AC and not simply by virtue that you can't be seen.

I think some of us are making two assumptions that you are not Buri.

1) We assume the enemy is failing the perception check that stealth forces, ergo, the enemy is unaware of the rogue. The allows the rogue to sneak up as long as he maintains cover/concealment. This gets us into position.

2) In 3.5, being unaware of your opponent made you open to sneak attack (Reaver linked to it above). James Jacobs said that they didn't intentionally change this, so we assume it to be true. You may be right that the exact language for this is not included in Pathfinder, and that'd be an oversight. To me, since Pathfinder comes from 3.5, anything that was true in 3.5 but not specifically changed by PF is still true but it may not be RAW.

So we assume two things, stealth can make your opponent unaware (because they failed the perception check), and being unaware makes you vulnerable to a sneak attack. That is JJ's interpretation and I agree with it considering PF's legacy use of 3.5 rules.

It's not sufficient to say any amount of concealment or cover lets you use stealth. For example, blur grants you concealment yet you can't use stealth if you're being observed. You would have to completely break line of sight to ensure you can actually become stealthed to your target.

Yep, no arguments about that.

If I'm understanding you right, you're saying that it's impossible to use stealth to gain a sneak attack other than the surprise round in a combat.

I would correct that to say, other than the opening surprise round, it is frakking hard to use stealth to gain another sneak attack, but not impossible. It is so difficult that it not worth attempting in most situations. There are other, better methods of gaining sneak attacks after the surprise round.

As I said, using stealth alone will not get a sneak attack. You're talking about moving behind cover and using very situational tactics which is outside stealth itself.

Moving behind cover and situational tactics IS stealth. You cannot have stealth w/o cover/concealment so if you're defining this as not needing any outside situation other than a move-action stealth check, then you're setting stealth up to fail.

I don't think anyone has a problem with sneak attack working in surprise situations. However, after that single surprise round, it is impossible to use stealth alone to gain another sneak attack.

I disagree. It would be impossible (debatable) using Blur alone; however, if the rogue moves behind cover and is unobserved, he could begin the process over again within the same combat.

For example,

-rogue using natural cave formations to sneak up on a monster. Sneak attacks beginning combat.
-fighter charges in and engages monster.
-rogue runs off, re-establishes stealth using full rules while fighter continues melee.
-rogue stealths in, monster fails perception check (too busy fighting).
-rogue sneak attacks.

The rogue could use Blur and a Bluff (distraction) to rehide behind cover or something as well. Note this depends on the cave formations remaining in place so that the rogue is unobserved while re-attempting stealth.

What makes this tricky is that I don't think the rules ever define what constitutes a "combat" so the rogue could "leave" the fight to re-stealth and get another surprise. I don't believe you're going to have any RAW about when/how a "combat" ends (they assume it's after someone dies or something). 4th edition would define it after a short rest (5 minutes) but that's not Pathfinder.

Then, upon that attack, stealth ends because it describes itself as being impossible to be used while performing that action.

Right.

I believe the sequence would be move action (stealth), opposed perception check (fail), end move action (end stealth but still unobserved and in striking position), attack (opponent denied dex)--> sneak attack. Opponent is now aware of rogue, combat begins per usual.

Umbral Reaver wrote:

James Jacobs on the topic.

See my quote about attacking. A rule that attacking and benefiting from stealth and a rule that stealth can not be used while attacking can not co-exist together.

Perception has a number of uses, the most common of which is an opposed check versus an opponent's Stealth check to notice the opponent and avoid being surprised. If you are successful, you notice the opponent and can react accordingly. If you fail, your opponent can take a variety of actions, including sneaking past you and attacking you.

Stealth itself doesn't allow sneak attack but what stealth does force is a perception check, and a failed perception check DOES allow sneak attack.

Edit: removed the surprise round stuff, I think everyone understands that.

But honestly guys. look at the posters here. It's *DMs* who want to limit the magic their players get. Players- by and large- LIKE magic.

Every time I join a new campaign I always try to convince the DM to play E^N so I don't think your generalization is fair. What is more fair is to say that people that champion E^N want to use both as a player and a DM. We're just fans, period.

Still don't know why it's called Epic 6. Kind of a misnomer if you ask me.

It's called Epic 6 because the system demonstrates that level 6 play can be just as "epic" (as in cool) as level 20.

As the original author noted, most monsters from real world mythology fall into this range. These monsters were epic to our ancestors and any farmer in the game that sees the party battle a griffon in the middle of his corn field is going to have his mind blown the same as if he saw them fight a demon (typical of high level play).

It's all about calibrating expectations about what is "epic", ignoring Epic rules.

Hey there Everybody,

Couple of quick points,

There are some swaths of this thread filled with some vitriol that is totally unwarranted. Play nice or we will have to close this thread down and issue some timeouts for folks.

I get the frustration here behind the monk, and I get some of the math problems. There are some fundamental issues with a few of the class features that we will be looking into in the future, but this class is probably one of the trickiest to balance. They are modestly capable in a lot of things but (despite their thematic focus on unarmed strikes), they are really not a master of any of them. This is a problem with no easy solutions. We will be looking into a few fixes in the coming months, one of which will probably involve reevaluating the previous ruling regarding flurry of blows.

All that said, I gotta ask for some patience here folks. The design team is rather slammed at the moment trying to get caught up on a number of issues and this is one of them. We will get there, just give us some time and above all...

Play nice..

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

I'd suggest just picking one or two things the monk should be good at and then really, really sell that to the community. Being mediocre at a lot of things is a problem. Even the supposed "jack of all trades master of none" class (Bard) really has one specialty: buffing.

Cibulan wrote:

StreamOfTheSky wrote:

The monk has a 1/365 chance of dying on the day of the competition. Not odds I'd want in real life, but as a game character, pretty good chance of living long enough to kill the fighter first. :p

True, true, but like I said, that depends on the Monk reaching venerable at the most convenient point in his life for this hypothetical showdown. If he reached it say, 7 months, before the fight, he's got a much higher chance of dropping dead on that day.

The whole situation is about what is "convenient" for the day (cover, crits, etc.) but at least none of the Fighter builds (so far) play anything like Russian-roulette with the Grim Reaper. That is where the objection is coming from.

It's just like the Fighter having just the convenient equipment. He shouldn't have an armor or the weapon he has Weapon Training in, right? That would be too convenient. It doesn't matter that it's his class feature.

If we're denying Monks class features based on convenience, we do it to the Fighter as well. How about that?
Lets be honest here. We're comparing (or whatever we're doing here) Monk and Fighter. For the contest to be fair both should be at their fullest potential, even if that means agreeing on some conveniences.

First, you wildly misinterpret the benefit of that class feature. Second, you cannot seriously compare picking equipment to picking age.

Agree to disagree. No one is going to convince you otherwise, and likewise most of us aren't going to accept your reasoning.

The monk has a 1/365 chance of dying on the day of the competition. Not odds I'd want in real life, but as a game character, pretty good chance of living long enough to kill the fighter first. :p

True, true, but like I said, that depends on the Monk reaching venerable at the most convenient point in his life for this hypothetical showdown. If he reached it say, 7 months, before the fight, he's got a much higher chance of dropping dead on that day.

The whole situation is about what is "convenient" for the day (cover, crits, etc.) but at least none of the Fighter builds (so far) play anything like Russian-roulette with the Grim Reaper. That is where the objection is coming from.

Ok, the monk is venerable.

"When a character reaches venerable age, secretly roll his maximum age and record the result, which the player does not know. A character who reaches his maximum age dies of old age sometime during the following year."

Round 1, Monk drops dead of old age. Fighter wins.

Oh wait, he JUST reached venerable right? He's got another year? How convenient... /sarcasm

Stunning Fist advances with a Monks Level.

At 16th level you get to Paralyze for 1d6+1 rounds and that makes you helpless and ready for a coup de grace. And with 20 tries even a 20.25% chance will realize sooner or later.

At best you're gambling the Fighter's 30% chance to crit (falchion) versus the Monk's 20+% to paralyze. If/when the Fighter crits, the Monk dies (stunning critical).

In my current game, my players are level 11. While I throughly like Pathfinder, it still has the same problem of Save or suck spells, which are quite frustrating when designing encounters. It's fun when the players can pull a clever trick; a desperate banish on an enemy demon to save the day. But when you expect every encounter to go the similar way, it becomes very frustrating for me as the GM.

Witches are a particular problem here. Their hexes pass through spell resistance. Slumber has no HD cap and goes on will. Ice Tomb locks away an enemy until everyone else is dead, and goes on fort, with nothing what so ever that gives you immunity to it! Feats can make the witch drop several opponents a round, or try again should she fail.

The wizard is problematic as well. Pit-spells lock out opponents entire fights - those are a little easier to avoid than the slumber though, a lot of things can climb out, fly, teleport etc.

Does anyone have advice how to handle the abundance of save or sucks that my party has, aside from throwing nothing but golems at them?

I used to play a Slumber Witch levels 5-10. I ended up converting him to a conjurer Wizard because the Witch's powers were trivializing encounters. Most of the issue in our group was that the GM did not target me, and I took the right precautions when he did.

My biggest advise from personal experience is to really enforce the range limitations of the hexes. Slumber et al have a 30 foot range which leaves the Witch vulnerable to a charge. My GM never used charges and I was always flying/mirror imaged.

Mundane characters are mechanically obsolete by around 6th level. Read up on the "quartiles of D&D" stuff for 3E. By ~level 6, PCs have powers that are plainly beyond real life human capability. If the noncasters are still held to those standard past that point, they are doomed to fal far behind and be obsoleted by the casters.

Don't call it flight if it bothers you. Treat it as super high jumping combined with channelling inner ki to gracefully float back to the ground at as slow or fast a pace as you wish, changing the pace of desecent or even halting it completely to hang in midair for a combo attack, as you see fit. It ends up working close enough to real flight (n tactical situations) without actually being full-out "flight."

But for gods' sakes, give them something!

Why not just re-skin/re-fluff the magus, inqusitor, synthesist, alchemist, or bard to get the same effect? I understand the mechanical arguments about the martial-caster disparity, but you're describing a different genre of fantasy. That's more anime than Tolkien*. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it's just a different set of expectations.

*Yes I understand that high level martial characters have abilities outside the realm of reality or Tolkien fantasy, I've read the wonderful essays on the subject.

Cibulan wrote:

That's all well and good (pretty much true), but Fighter also exists to serve the niche of "I want to be bad-ass without being magical". That is a legitimate character archetype. There's really no way to make a non-magical flying fighter.

non-magical...flying...fighter...? How the hell would the fly without magic if they didn't have wings?

Cheapy, you are agreeing with me. StreamOfTheSky wanted flying, wuxia fighters. She wanted to "smash" the ceiling of the current fighter. I countered that there needs to remain a completely mundane fighter to fill a niche/archetype. Hence:

"They (devs) won't let non-casters have nice things like flying".

"Uh, if they start flying, they're using some sort of magic and can't be considered non-casters".

That's the point I was trying to make.

Cibulan wrote:

It’s been also used to mock or provoke another user in online conversations.

I mean, it is the internet, so yeah. But I feel like some think I'm on some kind of Jihad, when I'm...well...responding to provocation.

Well there are different levels of provocation. "Where is Your God Now?" is a tongue in cheek provocation. He could have as easily said "Come at me bro!", but that doesn't mean he wanted to fight you physically. I just didn't want you thinking that person was attacking your spirituality or something.

This all started with "where is your god now" being typed at me in all caps, so forgive me if I think the who thing has gotten hyperbolic and needs to be dialed down a notch.

You do realize that saying that was a joke right? Where is Your God now?

In discussion forums and message boards, the phrase or image macro can be used as an expression of disbelief or shock over an image, video or link that’s been previously posted. It’s been also used to mock or provoke another user in online conversations.

And here it is, demonstrating my exact issues with Fighter!

People don't mind as much if the monk or ninja or hell even the barbarian or rogue get supernatural abilities to do stuff like make shadow clones or sunder a spell, or the like. But Fighters are expected to remain "realistic."

Which, when combined with the maxim that "Fighters have to be the best class at fighting" leads to the existence of the Fighter as a class becoming an oppressive yoke around classes with actual flavorful and interesting abilities from ever becoming anywhere near balanced with spellcasters, who unlike them are NOT expected to be comparable to the fighter.

The Fighter class is the glass ceiling of D&D. It needs to be smashed.

That's all well and good (pretty much true), but Fighter also exists to serve the niche of "I want to be bad-ass without being magical". That is a legitimate character archetype. There's really no way to make a non-magical flying fighter.

Cibulan wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

As is Signature Deed in all likelihood (and combined with Secret Stash, can give you unlimited ammo).

Secret Stash Deed wrote:

The grit cost of this deed cannot be decreased by the Signature Deed feat, the true grit class feature, or any other similar effect that reduces the number of grit points you spend to use a deed.

Damn, missed that. Ah, well. C'est la vie.

Haha yeah, I do that all the time.

As is Signature Deed in all likelihood (and combined with Secret Stash, can give you unlimited ammo).

The grit cost of this deed cannot be decreased by the Signature Deed feat, the true grit class feature, or any other similar effect that reduces the number of grit points you spend to use a deed.