Craig M's page

I think an important thing to remember that smite is not the only class ability paladins have. Sure, the pure damage numbers may not end up grossly favoring the paladin over the fighter...but that's pretty much the fighter's only thing. (I know the fighter gets a ton of feats, but most of these get used improving the damage output when the damage comparisons are run between the fighter and the smiting paladin.)

The paladin has spells, weapon bond, mercies, swift action self heals, and vastly superior saving throws. I've seen the latter two in particular mean the difference between victory and defeat in numerous battles. I think it's when smite is looked at in the context of all of the class abilities as a whole that its boost seems a bit much to many people.

I really like some of the suggestions that have been offered (limiting the Aura of Justice/DR boosts/double damage aspects). I'll offer one of my own concerning the infamous "Archerdin": Smite damage only applies to one missile attack per round. The paladin's holy resolve is still being brought to bear, but it is only at its most powerful when the paladin is directly confronting his or her foe, close enough to almost tangibly feel the evil. This still leaves missile attacks viable, but reserves the greatest effect of smite for up-close, personal combat (as the flavor has always seemed to be been intended).

We actually had a similar situation come up against an aberation with long tentacle attacks. At the time we ruled you could ready an action and attack a tentacle at -4, to reflect the smaller size and the quickness of the attack action. That worked for us.

But, it comes down to an argument of rules versus logic. If something can touch you, then logically you can touch it, and it seems reasonable to extend that touch to an attack action (while possibly making the attack action more difficult than normal). The readying rule seems tailor-made for this sort of situation as well.

I like the cat example from earlier. To take it a step further: one reason kicking it is easier is because (presumably) you have shoes on. Any time you use an unadorned body part to make an attack against anything that is prepared for you and capable of inflicting damage, you risk having that body part be injured. A bee can't reach me, but if i swat with an open palm it I might get stung.

I'm a fan of monster movies, but having read the description of the movie I'm hesitant to give it a try for 2 reasosns; 1. It's an old movie. I'm pretty spoiled due to the fact that I hardly watch anything older than an 80s flick and when I do watch an older movie it's only once in a blue moon. 2. It sounds rather uninteresting.

So I'm hoping that my fellow Paizonians can help me understand why I should move past these two issues and give it a try.

I saw this movie maybe 10-15 years ago, so I don't remember a ton of details. The feeling I came away with was that, if you were bored and found it while channel surfing, you'd be entertained and wouldn't feel like you had wasted your time. On the other hand, I would not go out of my way to see it - it was remarkably cheesy in spots. It's not a "typical" monster movie, but I can't really tell you that it's much better or worse than one.

Craig M wrote:

Our group used a house rule for this. We decided that for ability checks, your bonus was equal to (Score - 10). It's pretty close to doubling the normal ability bonus.

What about just doubling the ability bonus? So a Str 16 w/ +3 would add +6 and a Str 18 w/ +4 would add +8. You could even let Str 17 add +7 to make odd stats matter more. That would at least keep ability bonuses in the same range as skill bonuses and make for really easy math.

That's what (Score - 10) comes out to. :)

One nice thing about handling it this way instead of using a bell curve or a different die is that it lets you stay in the d20 framework, while making attribute score variations much more significant for those tasks in which the attribute score is the only significant defining factor.

Our group used a house rule for this. We decided that for ability checks, your bonus was equal to (Score - 10). It's pretty close to doubling the normal ability bonus.

This worked really well. There is still enough of a random factor in play to make some difference, but the odds of the STR 10 farmer defeating the STR 18 weightlifter in an arm-wrestling match shift downward significantly. It also allows odd-numbered ability scores to have a slight effect.

To us, at least, it even intuitively meshed better with the skill system. For skill checks, you have an ability score that influences the result, but also an element of training that at high levels can dwarf the effect of the natural ability. Using this ability check system reflects that your raw attribute is more important in this sort of check, and essentially doubles it (you more-or-less get attribute bonus + attribute bonus, instead of attribute bonus + competency level).

Craig M wrote:

Hello -

I had a set of Indigo Moonstone dice that was supposed to go out with my last subscription item (order 1295470) but for some reason did not get included in the shipment (it didn't say why on the invoice, just that they were not shipped). Can I get these added to order #1304984?

Thanks!

Done!

Thanks,
cos

Thanks much and Happy Holidays!

Hello -

I had a set of Indigo Moonstone dice that was supposed to go out with my last subscription item (order 1295470) but for some reason did not get included in the shipment (it didn't say why on the invoice, just that they were not shipped). Can I get these added to order #1304984?

Thanks!

Just dealing with the direct effects of an item, a +1 item is worth 50% of a +2 - for half of characters out there, it provides a +1 modifier, where the +2 does the same 100% of the time...

...Of course, given more than a single buyer, most sellers could find an odd strengthed customer, who would be willing to pay just as much for the odd bonus as the one right above (same effect to them after all), so should be able to charge the same price.

From a pure demand/immediate rule mechanics standpoint, the +1 item would cost exactly the same as a +2, but would have only half the number of prospective customers (the Odds would buy it at full price, the Evens would have no need to at any price).

However, this totally misses the point. The cost isn't based on whether an individual would gain a +1/2/3 to his or her ability modifier; it's explicitly based on the square of the bonus multiplied by 1000. Economics don't play a role in magic item costs per RAW. As a DM it would be completely reasonable to make a +1/3/5 item (perhaps much) more difficult to find for purchase, but that's a matter for each individual campaign. Per RAW there is NO reason such an item should be considered illegal or unfair.

Craig M wrote:

I emailed Customer Service about this last week but never got a response so I thought I'd try posting here. Everything in the order was correct, except that instead of receiving the translucent moonstone (indigo) dice block (CYC06514), I received some opaque "toxic" dice. I was just wondering how I can go about returning this item and receiving the proper one.

Thanks!

I will put a replacement set of dice in with your GM Screen shipment. I have sent you a new confirmation email for this order which should reflect the changes.

Thanks,
cos

Great - thanks for the quick feedback Cosmo!

I emailed Customer Service about this last week but never got a response so I thought I'd try posting here. Everything in the order was correct, except that instead of receiving the translucent moonstone (indigo) dice block (CYC06514), I received some opaque "toxic" dice. I was just wondering how I can go about returning this item and receiving the proper one.

Thanks!

You only have to keep track of one number, true, but now you have to keep track of whether or not the troll or demon or whatever was hit by a regeneration-nullifying damage type the previous round, which is almost more of a pain. Two numbers wasn't a big deal to me, but instead of the second number, you essentially have a switch that can be set to either on or off based on whether a certain kind of damage was dealt the previous round. I personally find this more confusing rather than less - maybe that's just how my brain is wired, though.

I tend to agree with ByronD on the fluff/lore/descriptive aspect as well. Maybe it had become a crutch, but I'd frequently clue players in to the presence of regeneration by saying something like "the cuts from your sword seem to be closing very rapidly, but the burns from the fireball still look painful", or something. It just seems weird to describe it now: "It looks like the 3 points from the acid arrow last round knocked out its immune system, because your sword blows aren't sealing themselves up right away." And I never minded the coup-de-grace acid splash either - I just chalked it up to applying it to the neck wound or in the eye or something equally crippling.

I dunno. It's not a huge deal, obviously, but it's a little bit of a head scratcher in that it was a change that didn't seem to be called for very vocally in the community. I'm not complaining too much - I like the vast majority of the changes Pathfinder made to 3.5 - but maybe that's why this one stuck out so much to me. :)