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Our group is gearing up to do a campaign in a western fantasy setting - taking place in an alternate US timeline - with guns and magic and all the fantasy creatures/races, and we ran into a few questions involving the guns everywhere setting rules as they specifically apply to the Gunslinger class.

1) The Guns Everywhere setting says it replaces a Gunslinger's "Gunsmithing" ability - which grants them their starting gun - with "Gun Training" instead, however - even with the new 10% reduced purchase prices - the group's gunslinger couldn't even afford to start off with a gun at all (because Gunsmithing explicitly said it was what gave them access to their starting gun). Is this a misreading of the rules, or is it deliberately intended that a Gunslinger - under the Guns Everywhere Rule - doesn't even get to have the entire point of their class until 2-3 fights in (or more, depending on how things go)?

2) The Mysterious Stranger archetype claims to replace a Gunslinger's first "Gun Training" with "Stranger's Fortune". However, it was assuming that the player wouldn't get their first "Gun Training" until level 5, when they now actually receive it at level 1. Would a player with the Mysterious Stranger archetype receive "Gun Training" at level 1 and "Stranger's Fortune" at level 5, or would they receive "Stranger's Fortune" at level 1 - because that's where their first "Gun Training" comes into play - and then get their first "Gun Training" (that they get to keep) later on at level 5?

For anyone wondering, this is the rest of the group:

Half-Elf Rogue
Gnome Bard
Halfing Ranger
Tiefling Barbarian
Kitsune Cleric


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Thanks everyone for all of the quick responses.


We recently tried using Herolab to keep track of character sheets, and noticed a discrepancy in its calculation of CMD that went against everything in the book (and we spent hours looking at it under the assumption it might be right). After doing tons of testing to see where the error was coming from, we discovered it was adding 1 to CMD when you took the Dodge feat. The Dodge feat says it gets a +1 Dodge Bonus to your AC, but says nothing about CMD. Is CMD supposed to also benefit from the Dodge Bonus? I guess this conceptually make sense since dodging is important in grappling, but it goes against the actual writing of the rules. I am hoping for a more official response here than a statement of gut feeling, so please be ready to cite some ruling/rule which says that Dodge bonuses count to CMD.


To Knight Magenta:

I did change the ability modifiers to your suggestion so they don't have the +1 Strength bonus anymore. It's now +1 Dex, +1 Wisdom, -1 Charisma to all skills, just as you suggested. I am still debating the other suggestions given heavily based on your arguments and the arguments of our group.

To Drejk:

We are aware of them, actually. Someone in our group is even playing a Kitsune Gunslinger, of all things. However, the Nagaji unfortunately were not what the person wanted at all. The person was specifically hard set on not a scaley person, but something more like a centaur except with a snake lower half.


I think most people's fears with Climb Speeds come from not being very familiar with the rules and failing to apply them correctly:

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/skills/climb.html

POINT 1: A creature with a climb speed has a +8 racial bonus on all Climb checks. The creature must make a Climb check to climb any wall or slope with a DC higher than 0, but it can always choose to take 10, even if rushed or threatened while climbing. If a creature with a climb speed chooses an accelerated climb (see above), it moves at double its climb speed (or at its land speed, whichever is slower) and makes a single Climb check at a –5 penalty. Such a creature retains its Dexterity bonus to Armor Class (if any) while climbing, and opponents get no special bonus to their attacks against it. It cannot, however, use the run action while climbing.

POINT 2: A rough surface, such as a natural rock wall or a brick wall, has a DC of 25. As this is clearly more than 10, they will have to roll for it. They do have a far better chance than normal of making it, but it s not a guarantee.

SIDE NOTE: We've found that if you actually enforce every last flight rule in the book, b&*@*y dice have a way of making fliers have flight technicalities all the time. They must always move more than half their speed every turn or roll a check (hovering can be bad), they can not fly up at more than a 45 degree angle without making a check, they must spend two movement units (rather than one) to go diagonally, turning 90 degrees is a flight check, turning 180 is an even bigger flight check, wind is a flight check every turn, getting hit is a flight check. Once you factor all that in, you have to ask yourself if the given situation is worth risking it.


Thanks for catching the part about Standard Modifiers. The rest of the suggestions are currently being looked into (such as replacing Sprinter with something else). As for the Monstrous Humanoid part, we had been having spells like this still work on them.


One of the players in our group recently wanted to play a character that looked half snake and half person, but on an actual human scale (the stats for Marilith and Lillend Azata both make it clear they're giants based on the stats of their weapons), as well as without having it be some kind of angel/demon. Using the Advanced Races creation rules from the beta document made available, and a standard race 10 RP point buy set up - as well only options that weren't in advanced or monstrous categories (monstrous humanoid is not the same as a monstrous category selection) - we were able to put this together:

JUNGLE SNAKE PEOPLE

Type: Monstrous Humanoid (Reptillian)

Size: Medium

Land Speed: 30 ft.
Climb Speed: 20 ft. (+8 Racial Bonus on Climb Checks)
Swim Speed: 30 ft. (+8 Racial Bonus on Swim Checks)

Ability Modifiers: +2 Dex, +2 Strength, -2 Intelligence

Languages: Draconic, those with high intelligence scores may choose from the following: Common, Orc, Gnoll, Giant.

Racial Abilities:

- Jungle Snake People have Dark Vision 60 ft.
- Jungle Snake People have a +4 racial bonus to CMD against Bull Rush or Trip.
- Jungle Snake People always have Stealth and Perception as class skills.
- Jungle Snake People get a 10 ft. Racial Bonus when using Charge, Run, or Withdraw.
- Jungle Snake People can hold their breath while swimming for 4 times their constitution before they are at risk.
- Jungle Snake People may carry objects with their tail, but never to wield weapons. They may use the tail retrieve small stowed objects on their personage as a swift action.

POINT TALLY: (includes justifications)

- 0 Points: Standard Abilities (chosen to best balance with other players races)
- 2 Points: Monstrous Humanoid (includes Darkvision 60, they definitely have a specific animal feature rather than being completely humanoidish)
- 0 Points: Xenophobic Language (they don't get out much)
- 1 Point: Stability (It's not impossible to knock them down, but harder than normal without legs)
- 1 Point: Climb (all other similar monsters in the book had one)
- 1 Point: Swim (various similar monsters in the book had one)
- 1 Point: Sprinter (While doesn't normally go faster than other player races, can speed up in certain circumstances)
- 1 Point: Stalker (They are a race that most often hunts for food in a jungle)
- 1 Point: Hold Breath (The race often swims in jungle rivers and are very good at holding their breath for distance swimming)
- 2 Points: Prehensile Tail (There's little point in making a race where the point is a snake tail unless it does something)

TOTAL: 10 Points

The general idea of the concept is something like a tribal village of hunter/gatherer people deep in the jungle that happen to have a snake tail instead of legs. We're currently in the process of writing up an official lore information section, but I was wondering if anyone had thoughts on this so far. The name given might not be the actual final name when we're done, and we are definitely open to suggestion. We are especially open to suggestion if someone has a better idea for the set of languages available.


One of the players in our group recently wanted to play a character that looked half snake and half person, but on an actual human scale (the stats for Marilith and Lillend Azata both make it clear they're giants based on the stats of their weapons), as well as without having it be some kind of angel/demon. Using the Advanced Races creation rules from the beta document made available, and a standard race 10 RP point buy set up - as well only options that weren't in advanced or monstrous categories (monstrous humanoid is not the same as a monstrous category selection) - we were able to put this together.

JUNGLE SNAKE PEOPLE

Type: Monstrous Humanoid (Reptillian)

Size: Medium

Land Speed: 30 ft.
Climb Speed: 20 ft. (+8 Racial Bonus on Climb Checks)
Swim Speed: 30 ft. (+8 Racial Bonus on Swim Checks)

Ability Modifiers: +2 Dex, +2 Strength, -2 Intelligence

Languages: Draconic, those with high intelligence scores may choose from the following: Common, Orc, Gnoll, Giant.

Racial Abilities:

- Jungle Snake People have Dark Vision 60 ft.
- Jungle Snake People have a +4 racial bonus to CMD against Bull Rush or Trip.
- Jungle Snake People always have Stealth and Perception as class skills.
- Jungle Snake People get a 10 ft. Racial Bonus when using Charge, Run, or Withdraw.
- Jungle Snake People can hold their breath while swimming for 4 times their constitution before they are at risk.
- Jungle Snake People may carry objects with their tail, but never to wield weapons. They may use the tail retrieve small stowed objects on their personage as a swift action.

POINT TALLY: (includes justifications)

- 0 Points: Standard Abilities (chosen to best balance with other players races)
- 2 Points: Monstrous Humanoid (includes Darkvision 60, they definitely have a specific animal feature rather than being completely humanoidish)
- 0 Points: Xenophobic Language (they don't get out much)
- 1 Point: Stability (It's not impossible to knock them down, but harder than normal without legs)
- 1 Point: Climb (all other similar monsters in the book had one)
- 1 Point: Swim (various similar monsters in the book had one)
- 1 Point: Sprinter (While doesn't normally go faster than other player races, can speed up in certain circumstances)
- 1 Point: Stalker (They are a race that most often hunts for food in a jungle)
- 1 Point: Hold Breath (The race often swims in jungle rivers and are very good at holding their breath for distance swimming)
- 2 Points: Prehensile Tail (There's little point in making a race where the point is a snake tail unless it does something)

TOTAL: 10 Points

The general idea of the concept is something like a tribal village of hunter/gatherer people deep in the jungle that happen to have a snake tail instead of legs. We're currently in the process of writing up an official lore information section, but I was wondering if anyone had thoughts on this so far. The name given might not be the actual final name when we're done, and we are definitely open to suggestion. We are especially open to suggestion if someone has a better idea for the set of languages available.


Malafaxous wrote:

Here is how I handle it:

If the crit says normal damage, then it is handled as one crit multiplier less (x2 becomes x1, x4 becomes x3). Double crit is normal crit for the weapon. x3 crit is one crit up from the normal crit (x3 becomes x4, x4 becomes x5...)

But I am my groups GM... so it is my house rule.

That is pretty much word for word on what was probably going to be done in this group as well as things currently stand.


This question regards this product:

http://paizo.com/products/btpy872f?GameMastery-Critical-Hit-Deck

A GM I know is getting ready to force the Game Mastery Critical Hit Deck on everyone in the group, the problem is that I play a gunslinger. He's originally started by saying following the exact wording of the cards is exactly how they're meant to be used. The problem is that the cards generally talking about rolling 2x damage, or in some cases only 1x damage, on a critical and gaining some sort of status defect along with it. I pointed out that this is essentially a massive [expletive] penalty on my character because my guns do 4x damage on a critical, and this would be stripping many of the perks from my character on a critical with rewards that do not justify what I'd lose - since he is insisting that the cards saying 1 or 2x damage means that's exactly what Paizo wants them to do - when I'd still have to be reloading my gun every other turn as well. I am arguing that these cards - as proved by the introductory text in their included rules - were only ever intended for someone who was wielding a 2x damage weapon, and that using them in relation to a character with a 4x weapon is just damage castration. He finally accepted that they were written assuming that everyone always has 2x weapons and then blamed me for playing a gunslinger, at which point I stopped him by pointing out there are many non expanded book weapons that already naturally have higher critical ranges. Anyways, this leads us to the current problem as he wants to run the deck no matter what, what would an equivalent scaled range be on someone who's weapon rolls 4x on critical. Some of the cards mention 1x and an effect, but the effect was never written assuming you'd be giving up 3 dice of damage - instead of just one - to get that effect. Some mention rolling 3x - with no tacked on effect - as if it was an extra special critical, when that too would still be a penalty to a character who otherwise does 4x every single critical.

He agreed immediately that any card that says 2x would probably really be 4x for a Gunslinger. The disagreement comes in on how to handle cards that say 1x and 3x. Would you make it be 5x when the card says 3x, or 6x? WOuld you roll 2x or 3x on a card that says 1x (on the basis that the perks on the cards were never assuming they'd cost someone 75% of their damage total)?

Or are the cards meant to be taken hyper literally, meaning I have just permanently lost 2x to 3x my critical damage every time I roll a 20 because the GM found a deck of cards at the gameshop that I soon may want to burn?


The rules say that a Kitsune's Bite Attack counts as secondary attack if they're holding a weapon, I get the logic if they're trying to dual attack in a given round. However, assuming they never use their manufactured weapon that round - and only bite - then wouldn't their bite still be the primary weapon. I have someone insisting that they have to take penalties to the attack roll for bite - as if it was an off hand weapon - so long as they're holding anything at all, even if that's the only thing they do that turn.

He's using this part here from the Dragon Empire Primer:

A kitsune has a bite attack in its natural form. This bite does a base of 1d4 points of damage on a hit. This is a primary attack, or a secondary attack if the kitsune wields a manufactured weapon.

I am arguing here that wielding means using, not merely happening to be touching with the character's hand.


I have a friend who is claiming the part about the RAISE DEAD penalties that says "A character who died with spells prepared has a 50% chance of losing any given spell upon being raised." is claiming that means the character is either permanently loses spells from the list of spells they know or the number of spells they can prepare in a day, for all time marching forward, even if level loss is later restored with a Restoration Spell. I am instead arguing that the specific loss stated here is only from their spells prepared that day, and has no effect whastoever on the next day.

He is being completely bonkers, right?


FreelanceEvilGenius wrote:

As a suggestion for a name for the race how about

Flederkin (altered from Fledermaus, which is german for Bat)

I now finally get that character's name from "The Tick".

All of the suggestions will be taken into account if we ever actually return to the idea that was being worked on, and some of the suggestions here were very good ones. I actually originally intended to go more in depth on rules for flight and gear, but then the entire larger concept that this was a part of basically had the group's interest in it lost (I think this is the de facto fate of all conversion projects). I will admit that the feedback here was far more positive in general than I was expecting.

Thank you all for your time.


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For a while a group I was in was trying to adapt material from an original story to pathfinder while maintaining balance, the idea quickly fell apart and was forgotten (way too much work). Some people in the group have been pushing me to post one of the few things that actually was completed here. Feel free to comment, rip it apart, or whatever:

BAT-FAIRY

Type: Humanoid

Racial Stat Mods: -2 Strength, +2 Charisma, +2 Dexterity

Size: Small (+1 BAB and +1 AC, -1 CMB and -1 CMD, +4 Stealth Checks)

Land Speed: 20 (-4 to all jump based acrobatics checks)

Flight Speed: 40 feet, must use flight checks for all non-trivial momvents made during combat (-4 if Encumbered). Their wings were not built for extended flight, at least not as larger creatures gauge distance, and every turn spent flying after the first requires a DC-10 Constitution check that increases by 2 with each successive check in a row. A Bat-Fairy can not fly at a running speed, but the character can still - unlike running - attack at the end of a flight movement.

Flight Proficiency: Bat-Fairies are generally adept in how to use their wings effectively and gain a +2 to all actions involving the Fly skill.

Racial Hatred: +1 Attack Bonus Against Fey Creatures

Combat Training: Gets a +4 Dex Bonus for AC purposes against Fey Creatures, lost if in a situation where Dex doesn't apply.

Elemental Proficiency: Bat-Faries get a +1 to DC level needed to perform a saving throw against Ice, Electrical, Fire or Acid type spells cast by them. Bat-Faries only get one of these, the type gained must be chosen permanently at Character Creation.

Low-Light Vision: 2x Vision distance from Light Sources in Darkness.

Culture Notes: Traditionally speaking, bat-fairies are strictly vegetarians. Bat-Faries are, despite common misconceptions, not Fey creatures. They do not appreciate being confused with a fey creature, and are generally hostile towards Fey creatures - partially because of the long running misconceptions - whom they consider themselves far more civil than.

Appearance: Bat-Fairies appear sort of like tiny elves with large bat-wings, or at least large compared to the size of their body frame. When closed, the folded up wings look much like a hoodless cloak covering the Bat-Fairy.

Starting Languages: Bat-Fairies begin speaking Common and Bat-Fairy. Those with high intelligence mods may chose from the following additional languages: Sylvan, Gnomish, Elven, and Auran.