ColbyMunro's page

i've re-read and settled on some evidence that feels to me like the most appropriate argument for why your creature type wouldn't change with this spell.

"a creature with the shapechanger subtype can revert to its natural form as a standard action."

It would stand to reason that you can't change your type with this spell, as you'd also change your subtype, thereby rendering the line above useless.

All of what you are saying basically makes sense, and is well reasoned. I guess what's really sticking in my craw is that the spell uses the words "As beast shape III, except that you change the subject into a Small or smaller animal of no more than 1 HD." instead of "assume the form like beast shape I through III."

If it said "as per beast shape III except you force a creature to assume the form of a small or smaller creature of the animal type" it wouldn't stand out to me as so strange. It feels bizarre to me that you can't cast something like speak with animals on a baleful polymorphed creature, but i suppose it makes sense for balance reasons. Someone would probably try to baleful polymorph + awaken themselves and play the game as a really smart monkey or something.

Either way, it ultimately serves our interests if he is a a little bit dumbed down as we don't really need to question him on facts so much as we just need him to be able to learn new information. If we just wanted info, there's mind reading spells and whatnot.

But, I suppose if awaken wont work, we'll just have to find a headband of intellect or something. Doesn't solve the language issue (especially if we can't use speak with animals on him) but there might be some item-based work-arounds there.

I did find the Tauhoti animal statblock potentially intriguing (and hillarious, to turn a devil into a "round squirrel like creature.") With the +4 bonus to intelligence checks for recalling information/facts. That seems to mitigate the INT penalty completely, though their score is still low for ranks, language and probably just rational thinking skills.

Pretty sure it would work in the sense that the newt would be intelligent, but it would be a completely new intelligence, altogether. Like it would no longer be the devil you were trying to work with... it would be an intelligent newt with no memories of ever being a devil. It would hold no power it once did as a devil, no knowledge or experience would transfer from the devil to the newt... the new newt wouldn't even have the ability to remember yesterday [as it did not exist, yet].

i think this is actually contradicted by the fact that baleful polymorph states: "It still retains its class and level (or HD), as well as all benefits deriving therefrom (such as base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points). It retains any class features (other than spellcasting) that aren’t extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like abilities."

Doesn't work, because Baleful Polymorph doesn't change the creature type, and Awaken only works on animals (and trees).

the first sentence of the spell is literally "you change the subject into a Small or smaller animal of no more than 1 HD" Is there some part of the rules that i'm missing? If so I just want to see, so i know where i went wrong here. I've done some research since i originally posted this, and have seen a number of folks say that this is the case, but haven't been able to find the rule which makes it clear.

Also are there any other alternatives to boosting its int score?

My party is looking at options to make a devil more cooperative, and side-stepping the alignment issue has become our best working theory on how to handle him. We still need to talk to him though, so if anyone knows the answer to this that would be awesome.

If awaken is a no-go, any other suggestions on how to get his intelligence higher and teach him language, after we turn him into a newt?

Also, maybe a longshot but are there any good aligned animals with 1 or less hit dice?

Thank you everyone for imputing your thoughts. My DM does tend to be very permissive and generally enjoys when we get away with all sorts of OP nonsense, so I wouldn't feel bad about busting through a wall or something.

I have two separate features that grant me the ability to ignore hardness with my attacks. I'm trying to figure out if they stack or not, but I'm finding it difficult to find a ruling anywhere.

the features in question are "Stoneclaw Strike" and "Terrible Slam" which are from shifter archetypes, wild effigy and rageshaper respectively. (Technically the two archetypes should not be allowed to be taken in concert but the DM let me use both at the expense of some other shifter features and a bit of rewording on a few things.)

Do I just apply the highest instance of ignoring hardness? or do the two features work together?

Ok so here's the deal. We're playing a homebrew campaign setting where we found out that one of the best allies who could help us with a current problem is a high-level devil who lives on the moon. We've got about 2 months of in-game time to figure out how to reach her, or solve the problem ourselves with significantly worse odds.

The DM obviously put her there because he assumed it would be very difficult to reach her on a planetary satellite which is hundreds of thousands of miles away from us. However, our DM is the type of person who really likes it if we can find clever interactions between abilities to cheese the rules (RAW over RAI type of stuff.) He has even stated to us that if he was a player, he already has a solution to our problem through some strange/ silly rule interactions -- but he's not sharing it with us.

We're 5th level. Through some massive power buffs, we've gained access to every sorcerer/wizard spell and witch spell of a 3rd-leveled slot or lower.

We've also made friends with an assortment of powerful NPCs who have higher level spells, but to our knowledge none of them have spells like Interplanetary Teleport (or any 9th level spells, as far as we know.) We do have an NPC sorcerer friend who can plane shift, but he's expressed hesitancy to plane shift us to another realm and then to the moon because of potential mishaps. We're really unclear on how much of the moon is habitable, so plane shifting there might just send us to a part with no atmosphere.

Besides our archmage friend, there are a fair number of clerics and witches we could probably berate into casting spells for us, but probably nobody strong enough to cast a spell higher than a 4th or 5th level slot. Clerics specifically might not be thrilled about talking to a devil on our behalf, so Sending is probably off the table.

We're pretty consistently kept poor, so magic items are probably not the solution unless they're under 10k gold. And even if we could afford magic items, a shopkeeper in this world isn't likely to just have some Starfaring Robes lying around.

Additionally, as this game is kind of nonsense, 3rd party content posted on the SRD website is mostly allowed, but I hesitate to use it except as a last resort.

So I come to you, Paizo forumites, to ask for out-of-the-box solutions to this issue. And no, the peasant railgun will not work.

Ok, so... where to begin.

After a few years of hopping over to the 5e train, I was invited to go join my old pathfinder group I used to run while I'm back for about a month over the holidays. My DM is a good friend and used to be one of my regular players. He's the kind of guy who would show up to the table having taken a week-long Adderal fueled SRD dive and have some sort insane paladin/synthesist or magus/swashbuckler explosive crit combo character and break the game 5 ways from here to sunday.

It's not like he runs his games much differently than that though. He's allowed all 3rd party on the SRD. Let me repeat: All. 3rd. Party. That means feats, classes, races. Everything. Monster feats too. Worth mentioning that Power Attack and Combat Reflexes are just free feats every character gets. He's also allowing prestige classes to no longer be gated by the skill rank requirements, though all the other prerequisites are necessary. Also just the cherry on the top: everyone just gets a free +2 to one ability score.

So, it's been a few years since I've played pathfinder 1e, I've unlearned some of the rules. Given what I've told yall, how do you think I should proceed in starting the nuclear arms race that will be my character?

We're level 4, and I already rolled up my stats. They're pretty solid:

17, 17, 14, 12, 12, 12

Edit: As an aside, he's been actively challenging players to show up with broken characters, especially me, so I'm not actually working against the spirit of this game if it wasn't clear by the insanity of character creation.

So my DM gave me 50 point-buy to work with because we're bringing in a totally overpowered character for a few sessions (it makes sense for story reasons, this character is fast approaching godhood), but I'm curious how the point buy table would function past 18 in an ability score. Do you guys happen to have any ideas on what this would look like? Any advice is much appreciated.

That is amazing. It's a shame it takes till level 7 (if you are a human) to really come online though.

Talonhawke wrote:

Avoron wrote:

And the target would end up prone, which is nice.

Well they can make an acrobatics check to negate that and reduce the damage so not everything will.

Nope, that's only for when you intentionally jump down.

Acrobatics wrote:

When you deliberately fall any distance, even as a result of a missed jump, a DC 15 Acrobatics skill check allows you to ignore the first 10 feet fallen

Exactly! Now correct me if these don't stack but if you take the feats improved bull rush, merciless rush and a level in Siegebreaker you can add twice your strength +2 to any bull rush that succeeds by more than 5 as well. (it might be 3 times your strength damage? I'm not really clear on siege breaker's wording)

So, so long as you succeed by 5 and you're burrowing on hard ground, or earth gliding in stone, and they dont have 4 class levels in monk (slow fall) you get twice your strength damage plus a little extra for falling and the siegebreaker bonus damage and you knock someone prone. That's not a bad deal for a single combat maneuver. If you succeed by 10 and you aren't directly underneath (5 feet adjacent to the target, but still underground) you can still push them 5 feet in a direction and get the damage, prone and the benefits of a normal bull rush, albeit they only moved 5 feet. Placed well that could be deadly if you say, knocked them prone in between a bunch of your allies.

It's also super funny to me which is the main thing compelling me to try this.

So let's say you've got a burrow speed and you get under your enemy. Could you bull rush it from underneath and knock it straight up, or into an upward diagonal? It would be a real cheese build but it sounds so fun to basically only rely on falling damage to wound enemies.

Yeah the more I look at it the more it seems like ranged is probably the best option for me. Are there any benefits at all to other ranged weapons than bows or crossbows? I like the idea of a blowgun for my little brownie but I'm guessing it's laughably bad.

I'll point out the obvious by noting that flaming/frost/shock/corrosive weapons' extra damage is not size-dependent. Put on burst versions and be a crit-fisher and you'll be putting out pretty good average damage.

Any specific magic items you can think of which are worth taking a look?

I had a bard Dawnflower Dervish I ran as a npc for a while so I know how much pain it can deal at low levels, but it's getting quite a bit of its bite from the bardic performance. Dunno if those same feats would hold up as a choice for a mid-level hunter.

the Bladed Brush can get you a finesse reach weapon, which you can then plop slashing grace on. That way you don't have to enter enemies squares to attack them

DAMN! ok, now that is cool. Might go that route. It's a shame that it's four feats to really get it up and running though (I understand the whole game balance thing though.)

Dervish Dance feat to add DEX to damage maybe?

One less feat is really nice compared to the fencing grace route, but I tanked INT to 5 so those two ranks in dance are really gonna hurt me.

I should suppose I should mention that I'm basically planning on having my brownie hang out inside the T-Rex's mouth (getting in a couple of good hits from cover with and using the shield ally teamwork feat) or hidden within its armor most of the time. It's super silly but that's what drew me to this build.

about 60k. We're playing an "epic fantasy" evil campaign so its almost too much to really know what to do with, except we've got a few stipulations like we can't spend more than half on any one item. Disposable items might be the way to go here though. I do think I want to grab me a dire collar for the dino though.

It's such a big part of the game but wands have been something that i've never really found myself digging too deep into. I think my last character in this campaign had a couple wands of cure wounds but that's it.

Edit: Would agile maneuvers, weapon expertise, and a garrote get enough use out of the really high sneak or would that be the absolute wrong way to go? it's a pretty niche investment for such a feat intensive route but it seems like it could be really fun. Being an evil campaign and all it seems like it would give me some versatility to be able to kill quietly. I may have an issue justifying the two foot tall brownie garroting someone's neck height even if it was mechanically reasonable.

I'm building a brownie hunter and I'm curious if there are any solid ways to make her just a little more threatening than just her T-Rex animal companion (Which is plenty threatening, honestly.) I know the game isn't really built for tiny or large races but every once in a while you want to do something different and your DM gives you the go-ahead. We're playing 8th level characters and we've got a pretty large stipend of gold to spend on equipment. Feel free to think outside the box, but i'm mainly thinking about weapons and equipment here.

Here's # 3. As the "Con" indicates, this is a tough one to implement giving that Pathfinder has so many moving parts, and a GM would have to do a lot of work on the fly to adjust things.

3. Action Speeds: Many actions take time to complete. The speed of an action is a number that is subtracted from a character’s initiative count. The larger the number, the longer it takes the action to be completed. On a character’s initiative, he or she declares the action and the character is assumed to be in the process of undertaking it, but the action isn’t completed (and has no effect) until the speed-modified initiative count is reached. Light melee weapons have a speed of 1, one-handed melee weapons have a speed of 3, and two-handed melee weapons have a speed of 6. Thrown or ranged weapons have a speed of 4. A character with multiple attacks (whether from iterative attacks, natural weapons, or two-weapon fighting) takes one attack with the listed speed modifier and must then subtract from that modified initiative account the speed modifier for each subsequent attack. Spells that are standard actions to cast have a speed of twice their spell level, spells that are swift actions to cast have a speed equal to their spell level, and spells that are full round actions to cast are not completed until the caster’s initiative result on the next round. If a caster is injured or otherwise distracted while casting a spell, they must make a Concentration check as per the rules or lose the spell. Spell-like abilities and supernatural abilities have an action speed of 5. Activating a magic item as a standard action has a speed modifier equal to half the caster level of the item (rounded down). Movement, extraordinary abilities, free actions, immediate actions, and anything not discussed above have action speeds of zero. A character in the process of undertaking an action cannot take attacks of opportunity or immediate actions. If an action is begun but cannot be completed because of an intervening change...

I have a thread on this and like 90% of people hate it lmao. I think it's wonderful though. You certainly created a more complex system than mine though.

So I have this idea for a magic weapon which is kind of silly and needs some work, but I think it could be a fun gimmick.

The weapon is a discus (probably uses the chakram's stats (but is a nonlethal weapon) which when thrown imposes a -10 penalty or something similarly difficult to hit a creature with. Upon missing, the discus continues to sail into the sky with no sign of stopping, and the PC's watch as it flies out of view. Then, maybe many sessions later, at a point when s~#* is going really bad for players (such as a pc death or TPK) the discus returns, unerringly striking down a single creature for a decent amount of nonlethal damage and stunning a creature upon a successful save or knocking it unconscious if the creature does not save. The players probably have to be outside fighting a creature for this to work, it would be exceedingly silly for this item to be able to navigate through the halls of a dungeon to strike a creature... though I don't completely hate the idea of that happening.

I'm thinking the trigger mechanism for the discus returning is any time a player character goes unconscious the DM can roll a percentile die with a 10% success rate OR this can simply be the DM's decision.

The spells used to create the discus are probably some combination of spells like true strike, magic missile, and miracle with a particularly high caster level.

It needs work, but I feel that it could be fun to give players a get out of jail free card. It wouldn't be particularly reliable, and identifying it's exact properties should be pretty difficult, to avoid players thinking they could waltz in and take on the big bad because this discus is going to come in and save them. But, I want to know what you guys think! What should the exact statistics on this item look like? What should the save be to avoid going unconscious? Should I nerf its abilities a little?

To 1:

Gifts to on timers, but not xp; a free re roll for example. Hero point or something tasty.

I like the free reroll idea. That seems like a nice balance.

3 minutes of discussion before every round? Yeah, no thanks.

3 minutes maximum, though. Most of the time they finish this before the timer is up by a margin of a minute or two. I dont have a faster timer or I may have considered using that. When you take into account players who aren't ready to make decisions when using the standard initiative system, I think it roughly works out to about the same time frame. It certainly doesn't feel slower, and thats my main worry.

There's certainly the possibility of combat becoming too complex to run this properly at higher levels, but I've played at higher levels (9th was my highest level character) and I don't foresee that happening. I'll watch out for it though, and if it becomes an issue I'll report back. Some of my players leveled to 4 today.

Another issue with the 5% bonus is that you can end up with pcs on different levels very easily.

Is that inherently a bad thing? If you are running a west marches style game, this is perfect (and something i'll probably institute in the future.) Can we get a few more to parse tonight? One isn't going to do it for me and these guys are gonna keep posting their own house rules lmao.

So i've been doing this system basically since a week after I introduced this post, and I think most of my players seem to like it more. Nobody has asked to return to the original system or expressed really any concerns about it, other than to keep making it better. I actually had a DM who is usually one of my players apologize to me for not using it, which I think speaks volumes to it's playability (his campaign started before we began using this system, and we hadn't played since, and so he made the decision to keep the old system as a couple of players had taken classes with initiative features and the improved initiative feat.) I actually thought it was kind of silly he did that (it's his campaign after all, and I believe the ultimate arbiter of who decides what goes is the DM) until I sat down to write about it right now and thought about what that meant towards this system.

The thing about it being clunky or slow is basically on you as a DM. What I do to keep it fast paced is at the "discussion phase" I set a 3 minute timer in which players have to sort of race to decide what they want to do, declare and roll. Thematically, I feel this discussion phase is appropriate as the PCs are better fighters than us, and are somewhat attuned what decisions in combat their party might take, so the discussion phase is representative of a unspoken understanding with each other. After the round begins, players roll initiative and follow their set actions or make adjustments as their turn comes up. We only ever pause for crosstalk to look up rules. It's pretty intuitive if you assume things set at the same initiative order are happening simultaneously and if necessary you can do sub initiative rolls to decide how the turn will go down (say in the case that two people roll the same initiative and one is trying to run away and another is attacking.) I also just ask players to specify what they are holding their turn for if they want to delay so that I avoid the "delay to the end of the round every time" thing someone brought up in this thread. It's also worth having all the initiative rolls somewhere all the players can see to avoid confusion (I keep them on a white board behind my head.)

Honestly one of the things it does the very best is it keeps movement dynamic. Most people are going to fight the same way, unless their target moves from them first. Because of this, chase sequences and moving past someone's maximum range increment to get into melee combat with them becomes extremely fun. Ultimately, yeah It might not be factually accurate to what weapons actual speeds are, but I don't know that it really detracts from verisimilitude all too much. If this system gets anymore complicated we might as well just play second ed and give every weapon an initiative speed or however it is they did that.

I get that it's not for everyone though, I may have come off as if this was the greatest thing to ever hit dungeons and dragons, and it's not. It's not even particularly new, there was a similar version of this in 2nd ed as I already said. It is however something I appreciate though and I think it's a good house rule to have. I think SmiloDan, if you played this and felt it was shutting down your options to pick what to do on the fly, it's possible you weren't allowed to add dice to your roll after actions changed and your turn came up? that's a really big part of what makes this work. Nobody at my table has expressed any frustration with not being able to do what they want to do, except when it plays to the nature of the game (like a kobold ran away before they could attack it with a two handed weapon)

As for how to do improved initiative or class features, I gave improved initiative a 8th level prerequisite and it counts as -2 to your total. I do really like the idea of getting to roll a smaller count dice for each roll for improved initiative though, I may consider that, but it's not something I'll have to worry about for at least five more levels. Class features typically count as half the negative initiative of the system (with a minimum of -1) Generally this seems to work pretty well.

All in all I like it better than the typical system, but it just comes down to me feeling it's more dynamic. I have played as a player in this system by the way, and I like it just as much as I do as a DM, and I've also played as a player using the original system since I started this endevour and I can feel the drag that made me change to this in the first place more than ever. I honestly don't see myself ever running it the original way again. There are definitely some quirks that you have to houserule on the fly and you have to have a good handle on crosstalk (shutting it down if necessary) but overall it has a nice pace that seems about the same as a typical battle which is really neither faster or slower. Overall, I think it comes down to personal preference, I'm not going to say that this is for sure BETTER, and it definitely wont be the very first time it's run considering all the work I've done trying to get a handle on it.

It's worth a few games of trying it out though. Think of it like one of the marvel netflix shows, those always start out slow, and usually they get pretty good, depending on personal taste and who is behind the helm. But, much like trying to get someone into a show you swear is really good but drags the first few episodes, some people are never going to get past the initial drag or their preconceived feelings about it and that's fine, if not a little disappointing. I'd love to try to keep this thread on the subject of people who want to try this, people using it (which might just currently be me on this forum) and people who really get the rules helping to troubleshoot this system and make it work, but it's the internet so, y'know, that's probably impossible.

You should read gunnerkrigg court or american gods, it sort of deals with the same idea.

Why should it fake being a god? Assuming there's some method of ascension in your world, it's totally possible to become the real deal.

I think this individual should seek out a group of worshippers of diverse backgrounds. You'd definitely want to appeal to the bards and skalds because their regaling of the wonder of this being is going to draw in more believers. (i'm assuming this dieties become more powerful the more people believe in them) Bards, Skalds and other artists would also be useful in collecting texts and philosophies around the world and organizing their themes to fit in with the dictates of the leader. Getting them on board first is probably the first step, because the leader could sell them on the idea of creating the worlds greatest work of art (a god, literal perfection, seemingly what artists try to create in the first place.)

Bards are also useful because this endeavor is going to take money. Lots of it. And they can pull in the financiers with the deepest pockets.

Obviously with spells you can do a lot, so bringing in a couple level 10+ casters is going to be important, but you may also want to focus on the alchemists, mechanists and engineers of the world too. One thing that you can do, that gods are seemingly incapable of doing is maintain a physical presence in the real world, so perhaps constructing the perfect vessel for the new god is one way to go about showing what this being can do for you that others cant. There's no reason an egregor or tulpa can't posess this vessel and walk around amongst the faithful.

The occult caster better get used to the idea pretty fast that things are out of his control though, because he's creating a being greater than himself. There are plenty of stories of tulpas deciding they don't like strictly following the orders of their creator. If he gets with the program, he could potentially be a pope of a new world order. If he doesn't, you can read Frankenstein and amp up the stakes by about one thousand percent for what might happen to him.

The end result would be visible if this new god has the capability of bestowing divine power and spells on it's clerics and paladins, otherwise you've just got a very powerful entity.

So I ended up having a lot of fun making these. Potentially too much fun. Hangman is especially weird because I built her around some homebrew ideas made from other classes achetypes that do a similar thing and that might really overpower her.

So all the players can choose whom they want to challenge if any at all (though if they come under the pretense of fighting, at least one person is fighting one of these guys) They can also gather intel on each of these creatures fighting styles, if they look for that sort of thing, which may lead them into not making hasty decisions on who to challenge.
There's also three CR 3 creatures I have not made yet (one is a halfling bard with a pipe of the sewers, and two are ratfolk twins (a swashbuckler and a gunslinger) who fight together because being twins means you are bloodbound.

Anyways, does this all look too hard? I may have gone overboard with "interesting" features rather than "beatable." I could probably tone down some of the creatures ability scores if that seems necessary. Also I might have done some class stuff wrong, there are a lot of rules.

(oh and "Sage" is my world's lingo for "magic user." Also anything that refers to initiative you should ignore because I'm using a weird homebrewed version based on Mike Mearl's initiative system. The "At sea or camp" bits are for taking all these guys on at once, which honestly will probably end in a TPK if they don't run.)

Oh and because everyone's been asking about the arena, it's a floatilla on the sea surrounded by the arena walls. Some of it is uneven terrain because it's made of jetsam, but some of it is walkable. A 40 feet circle of it is "ground" consisting of some uneven terrain, surrounded by 10 feet of loose debris which the players can fall into (and uneven terrain for water, causing higher swim checks and lower swim speeds), another 10 feet is a water channel, surrounded by a ring of 5 feet of more loose debris and 5 feet of walkable terrain, which is bordered by the arena wall. Drawbridges lower the combatants onto the walkable inner portion of the arena, raising before the battle has begun. Also there is a net which is pulled taught 15 feet above the arena, so flying isn't especially useful. If the fight takes longer than a minute (10 rounds), the people running the battles will start dropping large numbers of rats into the arena, until about a minute an a half (15 rounds) when they coalesce into a rat swarm. (the arena doubles as the "Camp" in case the players feel up to the challenge of taking them on at once.)

Hey guys, I'm building a fourth level combat bard (probably a halfling) and I need some suggestions on what spells I should use as well as if there are any archetypes I should look at. I'd rather not use the dervish dancer or dervish of dawn archetypes because I'd like the versatility of being able to buff my teammates.

The goal here is to build a bard that can hold their own in single combat though. He's starting out with the pipe of the sewers, so he gets the benefit of rat swarms to help him. I'm thinking he may be built around demoralizing opponents, so are there any good feats to make that work?

What ways are there to make a combatant who is primarily a melee fighter interesting? A grappler? A tripper? I currently have a slayer who uses dirty tricks to bolster his sneak attacks, so maybe not that.

I'm thinking CR 3 or lower.

Dirty trick seems pretty open ended from the way it's written on the SRD. If I wanted to throw sand or mud at someone to use the blinding dirty trick on someone, could I do that at range? Would it be an improvised weapon or a ranged touch attack roll to determine if it even hits?

I'm building a catfolk slayer with the deadly scratch talent, and he's basically only useful when he's doing poison damage in combination with sneak attack. So, for your money, what are some of your favorite poisons to use in combat?

ColbyMunro wrote:

I have a monk with two natural attacks, one primary bite and one secondary tail slap, with an extra ki punch does he really get four attacks, with three of them being at his full attack bonus?

Considering your monk is "chained", you can't spend the ki point that way, since it only applies to attacks made under a Flurry of Blows. Flurry of Blows is an (ex) ability that demands a Full-round action, so if you flurry you cannot make extra natural attacks since you already spent all your actions for that round.

If you do not use Flurry of blows, you can, as a Full-attack action, make as many iterative unarmed strikes as you get based on your BAB, plus two secondary natural attacks (the bite and the tail slap)

Oh I meant unchained monk. Honestly if the DM allows it I don't know why anyone would play the "chained" monk, rogue or summoner. (there's definite benefits to "chained" barbarian, like the cmb/cmd bonuses from strength)

I was definitely considering basing individual fighters around a single combat maneuver, like a rogue, ninja or slayer who is all about using feints. I'll have to look into dirty tricks.

I'm bumping this, but I acknowledge that it is an absolute wall of text. Any responses here would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you SlimGauge. You are a great human and I appreciate you.

Alright that is all very helpful and more explanatory than d20pfsrd could give me. I promise I tried to figure this out on my own. I should really read the book more often.

So I have some players, level 2 to 4 who are coming up on a thunderdome sort of scenario soon, and I'm looking for some unique one on one fights that will challenge them, but if they're smart about it, not kill them (I tend to lean on the side of making creatures more difficult because I can always fudge monsters hp from behind the screen). Summoners, druids, rangers, shamans, wizards and witches are allowed to bring their companion creatures as they are "Blood bonded" and therefore count as one being (and if they're really smart about it, they might be able to bluff their way in to the stadium with two players, convincing the enemies that they are blood bonded.) It's an anything goes, deathmatch style fight. What creatures and classes would you bring to fight. How would you arm them? They should probably be sentient, and generally humanoid because that's sort of the genre I'm going for here.

It's also more than likely the players will get frustrated and simply try to storm the place, but I'm hoping for a few good fights.

Monsters with class levels are perfectly acceptable.

So, regarding full attack action and natural attacks, I have a pretty simple question. If you are making a full attack action, can you add all your natural attacks into the mix? If so, is the only difference between primary and secondary attacks the attack bonus? Is there a limit to how many natural attacks you can have this way? I have a monk with two natural attacks, one primary bite and one secondary tail slap, with an extra ki punch does he really get four attacks, with three of them being at his full attack bonus? Cause that feels like a lot for a fourth level monk.

or

can you only add secondary attacks into your full attack action?

any help would be appreciated on this topic.

So, I have a question regarding double move which seems hard to define exactly but you wizards probably know the answer.

So, if you want to use two move actions in a round that isnt moving a creature twice as far, can you? Let's say you want to move to a square and activate a style feat with unchained monk. Can you do that in one turn?

Alternatively, let's say you have the master siege engineer feat, which lets you load the siege engine with a move action instead of a full round action. Can you load your siege engine twice as fast by expending two move actions?

basically my question is, is the second move action actually your standard action under a different name, or can you replace your standard action with a second move action? Might be confusing wording. Sorry.

Shouldn't they move faster then their typical move action allows considering gravity and what not?

So I'm running a sort of piratey aquatic homebrew campaign, and I think it's sort of on theme to have pirates riding down on some special ropes from one location to another, but I'm having a little difficulty deciding how that works in the action economy. I'm thinking maybe it's a full round action to take a bent metal bar and hook it around the rope then jump. I'm also considering having a DC 15, acrobatics check, that on any roll below a 5 they fall (into water below), and anything above that they fall prone at the landing site.

This is an excellent cursed item. Make it appear to be boots of haste, then hit them with the slugginess when they put them on.

Also as an aside, this would be stupid but also amazing: if I have greater called shot can I use it with siege weapons? Please say yes.

I'm assuming you can use a deed and a called shot at the same time, but i'd like to make sure. Would it matter if you have the Improved Called Shot feat?

These constructs are only the pieces for the first difficulty of the puzzle/combat. I'd like to give them more abilities as the difficulty increases, so if you guys have any ideas, I'm all ears. Besides hp and raw attacking power, one thing I know will happen at higher level difficulty is increasing the caster level of the bishop's magic missile. I also really like the idea of giving the rooks Force Push as an SLA for their retaliation.

The opposed knowledge nobility check for low risk play starts at +1 at the first difficulty, then +5 at the second, and moves up by +5 every following difficulty level. As the creatures get locked into the final difficulty, they can not use low risk play for this final challenge.

So this is meant to be a centerpiece for a 20 floor megadungeon-esque tower (meant to be routinely visited throughout the game) and players are meant to return to this puzzle-fight multiple times. The ultimate goal is to put the king into checkmate which opens a portal like door to treasure rooms. The players must be able to navigate to him, or it was all for naught. It's probably broken to all hell, which is why I'm posting it here and asking for the expert's advice. So, my main questions are these:
-If you were a player how would you break this (keep in mind that nothing past the basic rules of the "King's Game" will be made aware to the players, and even then they must roll a DC 11 Knowledge (Nobility) skill check for their characters to understand the rules) and everything else must be found out through trial and error. It's important that the players be rewarded for their cleverness in "cheating" but it shouldn't be easy or without cost.
-As a dm who is probably more experienced than I, what would you change to make this flow more smoothly? What problems do you see arising from it being played as described?
-I currently only have the stats for the first level of the game. How would you increase the difficulty of the constructs as the levels progress, aside from having them hit harder and have more health.

The King’s Game Construct
At the top of the tower of the moon is an unusual forty foot square construction. On the western side, is a forty foot wide by five foot long stairway leading down to eight alternating black and white five foot square tiles, starting with black from the northernmost corner. A 35x40 foot acid pit is the rest of the square.

Starting Placement:
Stepping onto the western tiles can activate a number of Construct Pieces ranging from 35 to 28. It will also create 28 alternating 5 foot tiles of black and white. Eight of these tiles will be immediately adjacent to the western tiles. 16 tiles will be on the eastern side of the acid pit.

16 of these construct pieces are black. These pieces are eight Pawn Constructs, two Rook Constructs, two Knight Constructs, two Bishop Constructs, one Queen Construct and one King Construct. These constructs are placed in this order; 8 pawns in the second to easternmost row from top to bottom, in the easternmost row from top to bottom is Rook Construct, Knight Construct, Bishop Construct, Queen Construct, King Construct, Bishop Construct, Knight Construct and Rook Construct.

15 to 8 white construct pieces will activate depending on how many creatures step onto the first row of tiles. These constructs mirror exactly the constructs on the east, save for the fact that any creatures that step on the westernmost row to begin the Kings Game at approximately the same time will be “counted” as their constructs and will not generate white constructs for that tile. To activate the King’s game, at least one creature must step onto the white King Construct’s starting tile.If any creature steps into a western tile designated for a Knight Construct Piece, three of the five foot alternating black and white tiles will appear exactly two rows east of it.

Movement and Actions:
Movement in the Kings game works like this; Any creature (that is not a kings game construct) may move to any placement on the board available to them. However if they move to tiles not designated to their piece, some strange things happen (see below.) If a creature designated as a white construct has a move speed that is short of the total move it takes to reach the tile it desires to reach, the black constructs will wait for it to move to that location, delaying a turn. The creature who took the white King’s position may call out moves to any white construct on the board it’s movement allows (Using phrases like “Knight to F3 or Rook to B5”.) If a construct or creature designated as a white construct moves to a space occupied by an opposite colored construct, it will instantly destroy it.

Creatures may also take moves not typically allowed to them in chess. If any creature attacks a construct not within it’s capturable space, the black constructs takes their next turn as an immediate action. In addition, any black constructs will also return an attack if it is within their reach. White constructs may also be attacked. If a white construct is attacked, they do not retaliate, however the black constructs will take their turn.
On each white turn, all possible moves that creatures designated as constructs can make as their construct type raise the tiles out of the acid. This means that creatures can make movements not typically allowed for them (they can either walk to another tile, if the tile is adjacent, or make an acrobatics check to jump onto an available tile.). As soon as a creature does this, as an immediate action, the black constructs will take their next move. After this is resolved though, the creature may move with their normal designated construct’s movement without the black constructs taking a turn.

- Creatures may also stop in places which are not typically allowed movements in the King’s Game. If a Creature who took the place of a knight, stops one or two tiles short of a knight’s move, the black constructs will wait for them to move a the space they are supposed to move to. Here they may either take an attack on a construct, or wait out the timer and end their turn here. If the creature makes an attack on a black construct here, the black constructs take a retaliation and a move. If the creature attacks a white construct here, the black constructs take a move. If the creature waits out the timer the black constructs take their move.
- Any time a creature with the designated construct as a bishop moves onto a tile that is the “wrong color”, the black constructs will take their next move. The black constructs will take their move even if the creature designated as bishop moved onto a “wrong color” tile the last turn. Tiles will also not raise for a creature designated as bishop until it moves onto a white space.
- If a construct is attacked by range from a creature outside the King’s Game board, a black bishop construct will attempt to retaliate, and black takes a turn.
- Flying for more than six seconds will trigger the black constructs to take their turn. Landing after this will also trigger the black constructs to take their turn.

Unless the black constructs are taking a retaliatory action, they always move in their designated way after a white construct or creature designated as a white construct takes its move. If they capture a white construct, they attack it, destroying it, and they move into that construct’s square. If they capture a creature, the construct makes an attack roll against the creature. The creature’s tile then falls out from under it, but they may roll an acrobatics check to move onto an available square as the tile disappears underneath them (use the rules for jumping without a running start.) If the “captured” creature moves onto another tile, the black constructs will take another turn.

It should be noted that the constructs move with unnatural grace and speed, and can take multiple moves in the span of a split second, even if creatures try to move at the same time. If this happens, have the creatures roll initiative to determine which creature moves first.

Captured Creatures and Acid Pit:
A creature designated as a construct that is not the white king does not take acid damage when it is captured or falls into the acid pit. The acid instead moves around the creature with a subtle grace, protected by an abjuration effect similar to mage armor. Other creatures above the acid pit may note the effect of the acid moving around the creature with a DC 20 perception roll. This effect will not generate if all the white pawns have been captured or destroyed, and the creature will take acid damage as normal.

Swimming through the acid at this time is impossible as there is no mass to push against. If they wish they can attempt a DC 20 will save to negate this effect, but they will immediately begin to take damage. If a pawn becomes promoted during this game, the creature gets to take it’s place. If more than one creature became captured and fell below the acid, only one creature may take the promoted pawn’s place.

After the game ends or is forfeited the protective effect ends, and creatures may attempt to surface and swim to safety at this time, taking damage for each turn they must swim (as well as rolling swim checks)

Settings:
The Kings game has Seven settings, each unlocked with a different key, except for the easiest setting which needs no keys to be unlocked. Upping the difficulty of the Kings Game alters a few portions of the game, including the intensity of the acid pit, timer to make each move, the health points and damage output of each individual construct piece, and the location for which the gate spell takes you, although the win condition is always the same (which is to put the king into “checkmate” and be able to enter the black king’s gate-door.)

Boundaries:
At all times, the north, east and south walls are bordered by a spell similar to wall of force. This can be be bypassed by any object or creature moving with enough speed; which is about 100 feet per second (any attack roll over 14 can be assumed to be moving at this speed. It can also be assumed that they draw their weapons back fast enough that it does not get stuck in the wall of force unless they specifically request to try leaving their weapon in between this force.) Spells, also have no issue passing through this wall of force (and therefore disintegrate can not destroy it). If any creature that is captured attempts to leave the game using the stairs the west wall will generate a similar wall of force effect, just long enough to prevent it from leaving, sending it falling into the acid. Otherwise, (except on the hardest difficulty) it may leave onto the stairs, resetting the game and dropping all constructs and creatures into the acid.The DC to dispel this wall of force is 31 and Mage’s Disjunction will deactivate the entire board, preventing the Black King’s Gate door from connecting to it’s location.

Low Risk Play:
Creatures may also attempt to to beat the kings game by placing only one creature into the king’s position and keeping them close to the west boundary. Playing this way takes 1d4 hours playing a number of different games until success or defeat (it’s assumed that every time a creature comes close to defeat, they step off the game, resetting it.)
They can roll an opposed knowledge nobility check or an intelligence check at -10 against the Kings Game Construct in this way. For every 5 feet the creature in the King Construct’s position is willing to move away from the western border to achieve victory they add a +2. This leaves them this many spaces away upon a victory, and must use acrobatics to return to safety or fall into the acid (again, use standing still rules for this jump.) Creatures not playing may use the aid another action for this way of playing. A tied roll in this case means a stalemate.

Winning this way may not actually get the desired result, as the black king construct could very well be on the other side of the board. The door on the hatch will open, but if the creatures can’t find a way to enter, they can not get inside (though they will likely get to see what’s inside the door). To achieve a win condition of being able to enter the King Construct’s Door, by driving the king to their side, their check must exceed +5. If a second creature with the ability to fly takes a white construct piece and spends the game in the air, this check must exceed +2.

While this is a low risk way of playing, it is not a no risk way of playing. It is possible to make an oversight and become checkmated even when taking caution. If the check fails by 5 or more, the Black Queen Construct places the creature designated as the White King Construct in checkmate and takes an attack, then sending them into the acid. Make an attack roll as the Queen Construct, then roll acid damage for every turn the creature must take to swim to safety and then climb out.

The puzzle was inspired by this youtube video.

So let's say you cast invisibility on a covered wagon while you are inside. Would you disappear with it as if you were it's gear? (harry potter invisibility cloak style) My gut says no, and it simply becomes an old school wonderwoman invisible jet scenario, but I wanted to know if there was a hard ruling on this and I can't tell by the spell description.

I have a few questions or points to consider. It's an interesting concept, it just needs some refinement.

So the creature only takes the damage 1d4 hours later? Is that the intended effect?

How would you describe this to the players from their character's perspective? Just describing terrible wounds opening in their sides? How do you make it clear it was the monster and not some new effect?

Can the temporary hit points be dispelled or disrupted in some fashion? If so, could the monster really do damage by dispelling the granted hit points to do huge damage in one hit?

It sounds like this monster should be based around manipulating life force. Would it have healing spells for example? Be undead? Deal negative energy damage?

Tracking hits individually might work for you, but as a GM that sounds like too much work for me. Consider coming up with a simpler optional system for the lazy people. Perhaps also not rely on random durations, or make the durations closer together. Maybe 4d6 x 10 minutes (~140 with a bell curve)?

What does the perception check notice fluff wise? I don't think a will save makes sense here.

What good would blocking healing effects be if the party isn't taking damage apart from making the next few fights difficult?

How does this creature survive in the wild? Does it feed off negative energy with each hit, and flee when full? Is it undead/construct and doesn't need to eat or reproduce/reproduces through the spawn ability? Does it attack, flee, and then follow it's prey until they drop? Does it hunt in a pack?

How big is it?

And most importantly: what is the target CR?

Whoo, quite a few critiques, but good questions to ask. Ill answer in order.

1.) So technically the party already took the damage they were going to take, but yes it would appear as if they were taking damage from an unknown source 1d4 hours later.

2.)That's a good point, which would have to be written into the monster's abilities description. There are two ways to go on this one, either yes it can do a ton of damage at once if it's dispelled or disrupted, or maybe if the temporary hit points are disrupted the damage becomes nonlethal? Otherwise, if it's dispelled, perhaps you simply just get your hit points back. I'm not sure. My gut is that perhaps there are two variety of this monster, one which is much more dangerous and has the ability to cancel the temporary hit points all at once as a full round action (or multi round action) that provokes attacks of opportunity and requires concentration.

3.) I don't really have a good explanation for what this creature is, it's really more in the realm of a game mechanic than a fleshed out creature at the moment. Though I really like the idea of a teddy golem, I feel like the creature should be physically attacking the party members for reasons i'll explain next.

4.) A laziness option sounds good to me, I just think it would be really cool if the party starts to realize that all the attacks they took from that lame creature earlier are starting to affect them now. (Say the creature is some sort of extraplanar or ghost swordsman, and all the cuts you described them taking, which seemed harmless enough in the previous battle start appearing on them later)

5.) So maybe in battle with this creature they are only feeling split second aches, but the more perceptive characters can feel a pain masked by a warm numbness. A good sense motive check will probably reveal that it seems hungry and that it's looking at you like you are food. I think a heal check would result in the realization that this temporary well being won't last for long.

6.) That would be one issue, but also to make the party scramble once they've realized what's been done to them, and that they can't heal up the way that they normally do because this creature is still working it's ability on them, waiting for them to die from afar.

7.) All good explanations in question form. Like I said earlier, I don't really have a great explanation for this. There's likely a good reason it needs to resort to this sort of duplicity to be effective. My gut instinct is telling me that it feeds upon every strike, and unless something has starved it or manipulated it in some way it usually will just do a few points of damage here and there to passing strangers instead of going for an outright kill. An alternate explanation is that it's some sort of guardian of the threshold type creature, and it's simply preparing you for it's master.

8.) literally no idea. I will defer to others judgement on this one.

So I came up with basically one mechanic that I would think would be cool to build a monster around, and I was hoping we could all build off of it and make one together! Any ideas you guys have are welcome.

It's entirely possible that i'm not the first person to this idea, but i've not been through the entire bestiary so please tell me if it exists.

Basically the core mechanic of the creature would be this:

-every time the creature scores a successful attack against another creature, they deal damage normally, but for any amount of damage the attacked creature sustains, the attacked creature gains back the same amount of temporary hit points that last 1d4 hours. (I think it would be beneficial to track each attack's timer individually so that hit points drop off in a semi-random fashion after combat )

Two mechanics to make it especially nasty:

- it takes a decent perception or will save to notice that this is happening. (perhaps the creature's attacks come off as silly, non threatening or are stealthed in some way)
- the creature bestows a secondary effect upon a failed will save of the attacked creature that blocks conjuration (healing) effects (perhaps for 1d4 hours?).

This is just an inkling of an idea, and I really don't know how to build this creature out from here, but I think there is something really interesting here. How would you make this creature work, from lore to mechanics?

I'd allow it, so long as it's a boat suitable enough to call a place. Skull & Shackles pirate ship--sure. Canoe--not unless you're a termite.

Exactly the reason I was asking :)

It's a lot more powerful if it can be applied to some sort of moving vehicle. How would you rule that at your table?