In the interest of converting a module or AP to PF2, will there be a quick cheat-sheet for converting statblocks on the fly included with the playtest? Even something like, "we're shifting CRs for xxxxx type of creatures up/down by 1" or "increase/decrease monster HP by xx%". I could see my players being interested in running one of the We Be Goblins modules with the new rules to see how it goes. Some of them have already expressed approval for the action overhaul.
Also, with 1/4, 1/3, and 1/2 CR no longer existing, will there be a trait or icon that some creatures get as a red flag for GMs? Something to warn them that, "hey, this thing is weak on its own but put a few together and it gets out of hand faster than some other weak creatures"?
Blog wrote:
For instance, it's pretty unlikely a nalfeshnee's call lightning is a good idea for a CR 14 monster to use in combat, and it doesn't have much of a noncombat application, either.
This may have already been solved in development, but how about an ability for monsters to use such signature abilities as reactions instead of using up their actions? Opening up the AoO space to more flavorful abilities like that would really keep players on their toes.
What if I throw the fire at it really really hard and it made it more difficult to hold its form? Or perhaps the "new fire" started replacing the "old fire" in the elemental ship of theseus style and the fire elemental was struck with sudden existential dread?
The first part sounds like you're introducing partial force damage, which would apply in full. It'll just ignore the fire portion.
Actually, there already exist bombs that deal non-fire damage, or some combination. Sonic in particular jumps out as appropriate.
EDIT: To make my position clear, I'm fine with elementals having immunity or super resistance to their own element. Overcoming such immunity sounds like an actual Mythic ability or at the very least a high-level feat or archetype/prestige class ability rather than "I'm a great wizard/sorcerer so my fire can burninate anything".
So, a body (defined by race) should not determine alignment?
I don't care to get myself involved in the tribal or determinist portions of the thread but this question jumped out at me.
The answer is yes, body/race does not determine alignment. In PF1, types and subtypes can determine alignment, but the humanoid and monstrous humanoid types don't. Even angels, devils, etc. aren't alignment-locked, despite their statblocks giving that impression. The evil subtype and good subtype are almost always applied to those outsiders, but by the rules, they don't actually have to be, and even if they do get applied, they aren't a permanent alignment.
PRD wrote:
Evil Subtype: This subtype is usually applied to outsiders native to the evil-aligned outer planes. Evil outsiders are also called fiends. Most creatures that have this subtype also have evil alignments; however, if their alignments change, they still retain the subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects a creature with this subtype as if the creature has an evil alignment, no matter what its alignment actually is. The creature also suffers effects according to its actual alignment. A creature with the evil subtype overcomes damage reduction as if its natural weapons and any weapons it wields are evil-aligned (see Damage Reduction).
The statblocks are only suggestions. Not every orc is evil, but for the sake of there being common villains to fight, nearly all orc societies tend towards evil. They do this by continuing to self-select, killing the "weak" orcs that stray out of line, just like most goblins and hobgoblins do. They're all capable of goodness, it's just hard to be good when doing so puts you in mortal danger. The same is true of "common" humanoids in Cheliax, Irrisen, Nidal, Razmiran, etc. Which is why those are great places for player-controlled heroes to visit. =]
I haven't played any 4E and don't own the main books, but I do own a few modules from it, so that's what I'll be looking through to compare with your points.
TheAlicornSage wrote:
Okay, so the reason the new edition worries me,
D20 was always about being descriptive and giving tools that you could pluck and manipulate at need to serve any situation, and even had the expectation of the rules being bent in favor of narrative.
4e is a good example of the opposite. 4e has no tools for description of the world. The numbers in 4e do mot relate to anything at all, I.E. the difficulty of a trap depends on your level, not the skill of the trapmaker.
4e is however, a good combat minis game. It became a good combat minis game because it didn't even try to be useful in way other than act as a combat minis game.
With the caveat that I don't have the rules in front of me, or experience at the table, I don't see evidence of this in my 4E modules. For example, my copy of Halls of Undermountain has information on the world above, backstory and NPC's, as well as possible story hooks and advice on how to improvise more of these elements. Pages 14-15 (devoted to GM advice) mention at least 6 different times some variation of "you can and should add, remove or modify anything you want in here, to fit your group's needs/preferences and flesh out the details." Traps early in the book tend to be low-level, while traps later in the book are higher level, just like in a Pathfinder module. Room details and statistics seem to be presented similarly to the Emerald Spire PF1 module. There are suggestions on how certain factions of NPC/monsters might react to non-combat solutions or taking someone captive instead of killing them, as well as history and motives for quite a few of them, which an enterprising GM could easily expand upon. One module may be better or worse than another, but from my surface-level reading of it, I can't see anything about this that would prevent me from GM'ing the way I do PF1. The stat-blocks are formatted differently than what I'm used to but apart from that, it could easily have been released this year from Paizo instead of 6 years ago from Wizards.
It may or may not be true that the players and GMs who gravitated towards 4E were more preoccupied with tactical board-game-style combat than others, but that seems from my view to be their personal preference and not a hard limitation of the system.
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My concern is that as pf2 heads away from d20 that'll go towards 4e, and lose more and more usefullness in these ways,
-it'll lose connection between numbers and the world milieu,
-it'll be more like legos and less like clay in terms of the scale at which flexibility is found.
-it'll try so hard to always have answer that it becomes harder to cobble together an answer when the system does fail to provide.
-it'll string things together so tightly, that it becomes a nightmare to make adjustments. I.E.,will the classes be so dependant on the class feat trees that it becomes impractical to alter a class to fit an individual's concept (not the greatest example given archetypes, but I figured simple and hopefully clear).
Basically, my concern is that it will become so much a game, that it's utility as a mere tool gets hindered.
Other systems, such as Savage Wirlds, Fate, Champions, Rifts, they all are less capable as tools than d20.
This bolded part, I believe, is the crux of this discussion. It seems most of us here view these RPGs not as singular tools that must be taken or left exactly as they are, but toolboxes or bags full of a variety of tools that can be picked and utilized as needed and as preferred. Many people even mix and match these tools from different systems entirely, collecting all of their favorites into one box or bag and discarding the parts they don't like. When I heard about the Advantage/Disadvantage system used in 5E, I thought that sounded cool and decided to let each of my Carrion Crown players have one non-combat skill of their choice be used with permanent Advantage. I know PF1 already has some abilities that grant the roll-twice-take-the-higher benefit, but the idea of allowing it on a regular basis hadn't occurred to me. They can still roll terribly, but it makes the clue-gathering phases of the campaign go a little more smoothly and doesn't hurt game balance. We also usually ignore the weight of any object that weighs less than 5lbs, with the tacit understanding that nobody tries to get too carried away with collecting junk.
At one point in a different campaign, one of my players had the idea to make their wolf companion try to cover for their poor stealth roll by pretending to chase a cat outside the building. I rolled a d100 and sure enough, there was actually a cat for them to chase. There's no rule in PF1 for that, but nobody needs permission to make the game more fun for the people playing.
The rules may say to use the Climb skill to scale a cliff, but someone can just as easily use a Survival, Knowledge: Geography or Nature check to find an easier path; a Craft or Engineering check to make a ladder; or a ranged attack roll to attach a grappling hook and rope. The rules present open paths with signs, not narrow hallways that must be traversed.
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D20 is not only the most capable as a mere tool, but it also is highly popular. I can find people to play it, and even when they don't play my way, we can still play together, and when I gm (in person at least) I can give an exoerience beyond the mechanical.
If PF moves away from that, then I can no longer play my way with others who don't play my way. I'll be forced into playing their way or playing by myself.
Edit: I play with d20 for it's utility as a tool and the ability to play others who aren't like me. Removing the utility from the system removes all the reason I even use a system at all.
"Most" is a strong word, much like "best" but I don't think a semantic argument is helpful. I understand the desire to keep the player-base from fragmenting, but I'm hopeful that what you're worried about won't happen. Looking forward to the official Playtest to start so we can see for ourselves. =]
Maybe in 16-24 years, Captain Brown Bear. Even if they do continue making the hardcovers, there are 7 other APs between Throne and Shackles, and they don't put one out every year. My experience with modules and AP's is that I use a lot of print-outs, notes and scratch-paper even with the books I own physical copies of, so I wouldn't let the PDF format stop you from getting this one. It's good. =]
I think I see where the confusion was, graystone. I don't want to put words in LazarX's mouth but from my first reading of your earlier post I thought you were talking about allowing a human with Racial Heritage to use it to get the native outsiders' feats, which wouldn't be technically allowed (though I would personally allow it if the character in question were the "human" descendant of such an outsider from a previous campaign). It's now a bit clearer that you were talking about a native outsider character qualifying for Racial Heritage to take something like, say, an elven feat. I haven't bought Inner Sea Races yet so I'll take your word on the trait's wording. That does open up some interesting possibilities, especially if you threw in a sorcerer bloodline or two. With many of these features, there is the implication that the mixing of bloodlines happened many generations ago and are just rearing their head now, so it could certainly work.
As an aside, my family tree has something like 20 different countries represented on it (just for ancestors alone, not counting cousins), so I've come to embrace the idea of being a mutt. :P
The idea of a human with half-elven blood was one that especially popped out at me while compiling the list. Here could be someone who felt attached to their family origins but wouldn't be seen as "part of the club" anywhere they went. They certainly wouldn't be accepted as being elven and they wouldn't be seen as half-elven, but neither would they feel human. Hmmmm… I may need to introduce them as an NPC.
Non-mint is normally 25% off, which is why the $19.99 would normally be $14.99. At 50% off, it's now $9.99, so I don't see what the problem is?
@Mine…
Chances are someone bought the last couple non-mint copies. I happened to notice the discount a few days ago, before they posted the blog, and bought some stuff. Since then, at least one of the items I bought is no longer available in non-mint and a couple different items did become available.
Speaking of which, there went a couple hundred dollars. xD
Inspired by the recent kitsune thread over in the Rules forum, but in an effort not to clog it up more than it already is, I figured I'd go ahead and make a list of Racial feats and whether or not I personally think they are usable with Racial Heritage. To save time and space, I will exclude all feats from non-humanoid races as being obvious (with few exceptions where it may be in question), including but not limited to: aasimar, fetchling, gathlain, ghoran, ifrit, oread, suli, sylph, tiefling, and undine. Most of these are straightforward enough that I just provide a one word answer but notes are provided where I think them appropriate. As you may notice, Orcs and Half-Orcs have the most racial feats, but giants tend to have the most powerful. Fortunately for game balance, most giant feats have been written to require the giant subtype rather than just the race (so I didn't include them in the list), but there are still a couple very powerful options. Goblins and Ogres also get a bunch of nice feats, as do gnomes and dwarves.
Feedback is welcome but please note that I intentionally started this thread in the General Discussion section. =]
Adaptive Fortune: No, it requires a racial trait.
Agile Tongue:
Your long pink tongue is capable of manipulating small items and even stealing objects.
Prerequisites: Grippli.
Benefit: You have a prehensile tongue with a range of 10 feet. You can pick up items weighing no more than 5 pounds, make Sleight of Hand checks, perform the steal or disarm combat maneuvers, or make melee touch attacks with your tongue.
Yes. It's funny, but humans can indeed have long pink tongues, plus gripplis are humanoid and have no racial traits or abilities that mention their tongues being special in any way that a human's couldn't be. If anything, it's actually more plausible that a human could use Agile Tongue than a grippli because gripplis are only about 2ft tall while humans are roughly 3x that amount. Strange anatomy either way, but I know which body I'd think more likely to have 10ft reach.
Amplified Rage: Yes.
Ankle Biter: Yes.
Arcane School Spirit: Yes.
Arcane Talent: Yes.
Attuned to the Wild: Yes.
Aversion Tolerance: No, vampires are no longer humanoid; they have become undead. I won't mention any further vampire feats.
Bat Shape:
Your powers of transformation have been honed to the point where you can wholly become a bat.
Prerequisites: Cha 13, werebat-kin.
Benefit: You can take the form of a bat whose appearance is static and cannot be changed each time you assume this form. You gain a +10 racial bonus on Disguise checks to appear as a bat. Changing from werebat-kin to bat shape is a standard action. This ability otherwise functions as beast shape II, and your ability scores change accordingly.
If you wear a bat pelt (see page 31), you may choose to adopt a form resembling the bat whose skin you wear instead of your normal bat form.
By technical reading of the rules-text, someone could say yes, but the flavor-text strongly implies that the intent is no. The first line says "your powers of transformation" and "wholly become", heavily implying that you must already have the ability to partially turn into a bat. There is some debate about how important flavor-text is for determining how feats work, but with intent this blatant, I would personally say that using Racial Heritage to acquire this feat would be against RAW, and would require a house-rule to allow.
Battle Singer:
Your battle songs can drive your fellow goblins to new heights of frenzy.
Prerequisites: Goblin, bardic performance class feature.
Benefit: When using bardic performance to inspire courage in allies, you can choose to sing in Goblin—allies who do not speak Goblin gain no benefits from this performance. Allied goblins who hear your battle songs become more energetic and brave, and thus add the bonus granted by your inspire courage ability to all saving throws as a morale bonus.
Yes. The feat is even helpful enough to tell you how it works in combination with non-goblin allies.
Beast Rider: Yes.
Bewildering Koan: Yes.
Black Cat:
Bad luck befalls those who dare to cross you.
Prerequisites: Catfolk.
Benefit: Once per day as an immediate action, when you are hit by a melee attack, you can force the opponent who made the attack to reroll it with a –4 penalty. The opponent must take the result of the second attack roll. This is a supernatural ability.
Special: If you take this feat and don’t already have all black fur, your fur turns completely black when you takes this feat.
Debatable. Humans usually don't refer to their hair as fur, but I don't know of any scientific or logical reason why they wouldn't be equivalent. I would allow it.
Blood Beak: No, it requires a racial trait.
Blood Drinker, Blood Feaster, Blood Salvage: Yes. Gross, but yes.
Blood Tide: No, sahuagin are not humanoids, they are monstrous humanoids. I won't mention any further sahuagin feats.
Blood Ties: Yes.
Blood Vengeance: Yes.
Bloodmarked Flight: No, it requires that you use a racial ability to function.
Blundering Defense: Yes.
Born Alone:
You are so tough and vicious that you killed and ate the rest of your litter while still in the womb.
Prerequisites: Orc.
Benefit: Whenever you kill or knock unconscious an opponent with a melee attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution bonus (minimum 1) until your next turn. These temporary hit points do not stack. You do not gain this bonus if the opponent is helpless or has less than half your Hit Dice.
Debatable. Humans don't usually refer to their young as a litter but the term could be used (probably with disparaging intent) to describe twins, triplets or more. Since the flavor-text and name of the feat do not have any impact on the actual functionality, I am inclined to allow it. It appears to be simply a suggestion of backstory instead of a required backstory.
Born of Frost:
You exude a chill that can harm other creatures.
Prerequisites: Frost giant.
Benefit: Your natural weapons and unarmed strikes deal an additional 1d6 points of cold damage. Creatures that strike you with natural weapons or unarmed strikes take 1 point of cold damage.
Yes, frost giants are humanoids and anyone can deal unarmed strikes or gain natural attacks. The feat does not require a specific feature of frost giants.
Breadth of Experience: No. Even though it is possible for a human to live past 100 years of age, it is very unlikely. There is no way to reconcile that with the feat saying, "still young for your kind".
Bred Commander: Yes.
Brewmaster: Yes.
Brutal Grappler: Yes.
Bullying Blow: Yes.
Burn! Burn! Burn!: Yes.
Burrowing Teeth: No, it requires Tunnel Rat, which in turn requires a racial trait.
Carrion Feeder: Yes.
Casual Illusionist: No, it requires a racial trait.
Catfolk Exemplar:
Your feline traits are more defined and prominent than those of other members of your race.
Prerequisites: Catfolk.
Benefit: You can take the Aspect of the Beast feat even if you do not meet the normal prerequisites. Furthermore, your catlike nature manifests in one of the following ways. You choose the manifestation when you take this feat, and cannot change it later.
Enhanced Senses (Ex): If you have low-light vision, you gain the scent catfolk racial trait. If you have the scent racial trait, you gain low-light vision.
Fast Sprinter (Ex): You gain a 10-foot racial bonus to your speed when using the charge, run, or withdraw actions. If you have the sprinter racial trait, your racial bonus to speed when using the charge, run, or withdraw action increases to a 20-foot bonus.
Sharp Claws (Ex): If you do not have the cat’s claws racial trait or the claws of the beast manifestation from the Aspect of the Beast feat , you gain the cat’s claws racial trait. If you have either the cat’s claws racial trait or the claws of the beast manifestation, your claw damage increases to 1d6.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you select it, you must choose a different manifestation.
Yes, but without other means, a human cannot benefit from the first choice. Nothing stops the other two choices from working.
Caustic Slur: Yes.
Cautious Fighter: Yes.
Childlike:
Your resemblance to a human child tends to make others trust you, perhaps more than they should.
Prerequisites: Cha 13, halfling.
Benefit: You can take 10 on Bluff checks to convince others you are telling the truth, so long as your story makes you appear innocent. You gain a +2 bonus on Disguise skill checks to pose as a human child, and ignore the check penalties for disguising yourself as a different race and age category while doing so.
Yes. It might sound funny at first but there are actually quite a few adult actors who are well paid for their naturally youthful looks.
Chilled Rock: No, it requires a special ability.
Claw Pounce:
You can charge and make an attack with your paws.
Prerequisites: Str 13, Dex 15, Nimble Striker, base attack bonus +10, catfolk, cat’s claws racial trait or Aspect of the Beast (claws of the beast manifestation).
Benefit: When you make a charge, you can make a full attack with your claws.
Normal: Charging is a special full-round action that limits you to a single attack.
Yes, but only if you first take either Catfolk Exemplar to gain the cat's claws racial trait or take Aspect of the Beast.
Cleave Through:
You are ferocious at hewing smaller opponents.
Prerequisites: Str 13, Cleave, Power Attack, base attack bonus +11, dwarf.
Benefit: When using Cleave or Great Cleave, if your initial attack hits, you may take a single 5-foot step as a free action before making your additional attacks. If doing so places a creature within your threatened area, that creature becomes a legal target for your additional Cleave attack(s) as long as it meets all the other prerequisites.
Normal: You may only make additional attacks with Cleave against creatures you threaten when you make your initial attack.
Yes, but on an unrelated note, this feat's flavor-text seems to imply that your targets should be smaller than you, which I'm not sure is actually intended as a rule. It's especially awkward considering some GMs might rule that dwarves are smaller than most other medium creatures.
Cloven Helm: Yes
Combat Distraction: Yes
Commander of Goblinkind:
You employ ruthlessness and malice to command other races of goblinoids to do your bidding.
Prerequisites: Cha 13, hobgoblin.
Benefit: You receive a +5 competence bonus on Knowledge (local) checks and Charisma-based skill checks regarding other goblinoids. If you have the Leadership feat, treat your leadership score as 2 higher when taking followers or a cohort with the goblinoid subtype.
I don't think so. It speaks of "other goblinoids" in the flavor text AND the Benefit text. While you count as a hobgoblin for the purposes of taking feats, Racial Heritage does not actually grant you other subtypes so you do not become "goblinoid".
Cooperative Rend: No, it requires a special attack.
Corrupted Flesh:
You have sickened, rotting flesh from some deformity or vestigial limb that has turned fetid and necrotic, yet refuses to heal or fall off.
Prerequisites: Con 15, 6 HD, ogre.
Benefit: You gain the stench special ability (DC 10 + 1/2 your HD + your Constitution modifier).
Yes, ogres are humanoid and this ability only adds a special ability; it does not require any.
Courageous Resolve: No, it requires one of two racial traits.
Dangerous Tail: No, the flavor-text says you train your tail to become a weapon. It does not give you a tail to use.
Dark Adept: No, the flavor-text AND the Benefit text speak of "additional" and "new" spell-like abilities. As a human, you don't have SLA's for the feat to add to. If those two words were not there, I would say yes.
Deafening Explosion: Yes.
Deathless Initiate: Yes.
Deathless Master: Yes.
Deathless Zealot: Yes.
Demoralizing Lash: Yes.
Dented Helm: Yes.
Derro Magister: No, the flavor-text AND the Benefit text speak of "additional" spell-like abilities. As a human, you don't have SLA's for the feat to add to. If those two words were not there, I would say yes.
Desperate Swing: Yes.
Destroyer's Blessing: Yes.
Dire Bat Shape: In my opinion, no. See "Bat Shape" above for my reasoning.
Discerning Eye: Yes.
Diverse Palate: Yes.
Dog Killer, Horse Hunter: Yes.
Dog-Sniff Hate: Yes.
Draconic Aspect:
You possess some of the qualities of your dragon ancestors.
Prerequisites: Kobold.
Benefit: Your scales take on the color and some of the resistances of one of the chromatic dragons. Choose one of the following chromatic dragon types: black (acid), blue (electricity), green (acid), red (fire), or white (cold). Your scales take on the color of that dragon, and you gain resistance 5 to the dragon color’s corresponding energy type.
Special: If you have the dragon-scaled racial trait, your scale color does not change and you gain a +1 natural armor bonus instead.
Debatable. Humans generally don't have scales, but it could be argued that some skin conditions (or inherited genetic traits) could grant them. Personally, I'd probably allow a player to take this, but I'm not confident that it would be RAW.
Draconic Breath: Debatable. See "Draconic Aspect".
Draconic Glide:
You possess draconic defenses and wings that allow you to glide.
Prerequisites: Draconic Aspect, kobold.
Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus against sleep and paralysis effects. You grow a pair of wings that you can use to fall and glide at a safe pace. You can make a DC 15 Fly check to fall safely from any height without taking falling damage, as if using feather fall. When falling safely, you may make an additional DC 15 Fly check to glide, moving 5 feet laterally for every 20 feet you fall.
Special: If you have the gliding wings racial trait, you don't need to make a Fly check to glide, and you can move 10 feet laterally for every 20 feet you fall.
Debatable. See "Draconic Aspect". It does not depend on any pre-existing feature of kobolds and instead specifically causes you to grow anatomy that you wouldn't otherwise have.
Draconic Magic: Debatable. See "Draconic Aspect".
Draconic Paragon: Debatable. See "Draconic Aspect".
Drow Nobility: No, it requires the ability to use drow spell-like abilities.
Earth Child Style: No, it and its enhancement feats require a racial trait.
Earthtouched: Yes.
Effortless Trickery: Yes.
Elven Accuracy: Yes.
Elven Battle Training: Yes.
Elven Spirit:
Although you are of mixed heritage, you are closer to your elven relatives and the magic in their blood flows freely in your veins.
Prerequisites: Half-elf.
Benefit: You possess the elven magic racial trait of the elves, granting you a +2 racial bonus on caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance. In addition, you receive a +2 racial bonus on Spellcraft checks made to identify the properties of magic items. Alternatively, you can instead gain any one racial trait that elves can exchange for the elven magic racial trait.
Special: You can only take this feat at 1st level. If you take this feat, you cannot take the Human Spirit feat.
Yes, and this seems to actually be a way to open up access to some other feats that require elven racial traits.
Empathy: No, its function specifically requires that you have a special quality.
Exile's Path: Yes.
Expanded Resistance: No, it requires a racial trait.
Extra Croaking: No, it requires a special ability.
Extra Feature: No, it requires a special ability.
Extra Gnome Magic: No, it requires racial spell-like abilities.
Fast Change: No, it requires a special ability.
Feline Grace.: Yes.
Ferocious Action, Ferocious Resolve, Ferocious Tenacity: No, it requires a racial trait.
Ferocious Summons: I think so. The flavor-text references ferocity but doesn't seem to require the racial trait. Anyone can be fierce.
Fetid Breath: Yes, see "Corrupted Flesh".
Fight On: Yes.
Final Embrace, Final Embrace Horror, Final Embrace Master: No, naga and serpentfolk are not humanoids. Serpentfolk are monstrous humanoids but that's not the same thing. I won't mention any further serpentfolk feats. You may be able to find another way to gain the constrict special attack to qualify (such as with the Anaconda's Coils), but not through Racial Heritage.
Fire God's Blessing: Yes.
Fire Hand: Yes.
Fire Tamer: Yes.
Flame Heart: Yes.
Focusing Blow: Yes.
Foment the Blood: Yes.
Fortunate One: No, it requires a racial trait.
Fox Shape: Debatable. I think so.
Giant Killer: Yes.
Giant Steps: No, it requires a racial trait.
Gift of Sight: Yes. Gross, but yes.
Gluttonous Gobbler: Yes, ogres are humanoids and it is easy to become large.
Gnawer: Yes.
Gnome Trickster: No, it requires a racial trait.
Gnome Weapon Focus: Yes.
Goblin Cleaver: Yes.
Goblin Gunslinger: Yes, but it's almost definitely not useful. It would only do you any good if you were first reduced in size.
Gore Fiend: Yes.
Gray Dwarf Magic:
You gain a new spell-like ability from the list of duergar racial traits.
Prerequisites: Duergar.
Benefit: Choose one spell-like ability that is usable once per day and is granted by a duergar racial trait you don’t have. You can use that spell-like ability once per day, with a caster level equal to your character level.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Each time you do, you must select a spell-like ability that’s usable once per day from a different duergar racial trait.
Debatable. The flavor-text says you are gaining a "new" spell-like ability, which can be read to mean you must already have at least one SLA. The rules-text, on the other hand, seems more lenient in that it only says you gain one from a trait you don't have, which you obviously satisfy. It seems technically allowable but against RAI.
Great Hatred: No, it requires a racial trait.
Great Rend: No, it requires a special attack.
Greater Drow Nobility: No, see "Drow Nobility".
Groundling: No, it requires a racial trait.
Grudge Fighter: Yes.
Guardian of the Wild: Yes.
Guardian of Tradition: No, girtablalu are not humanoids. They are monstrous humanoids. I won't mention any further girtablalu feats.
Half-Drow Paragon: No, it requires racial traits.
Halfling Slinger:
You have honed your racial talent for slingcraft.
Prerequisites: Halfling.
Benefit: You gain a +1 racial bonus on attack rolls made using a sling.
: Yes, I believe so. The flavor-text mentions racial talent for slingcraft but slingcraft isn't actually a racial trait. There are some sling-based traits but they aren't called out as being required.
Hard-Headed: Yes.
Helpless Prisoner: Yes.
Hobgoblin Discipline: Yes.
Horde Charge: Yes.
Human Spirit: Yes. Funny, but yes and it seems to stack with a human's extra skill ranks.
Icy Stare: Yes, see "Born of Frost".
Improved Drow Nobility: No, see "Drow Nobility".
Improved Low Blow: No, it requires a racial trait.
Improved Stonecunning: No, it requires a racial trait.
Improved Umbral Scion: No, see "Drow Nobility".
Innate Flexibility: No, it requires racial spell-like abilities.
Invoke Primal Instinct: Yes.
Ironguts: Yes.
Ironhide: Yes.
Keen Scent: Yes.
Kobold Ambusher: Yes.
Kobold Confidence: Yes.
Kobold Sniper: Yes.
Lead From the Back: Yes.
Leaf Singer: Yes.
Ledge Walker: No, it requires a racial trait.
Letter Fury: Yes.
Life-Dominant Soul:
You gain unusual resiliency from your mortal heritage.
Prerequisites: Dhampir.
Benefit: You are healed by channeled positive energy used to heal living creatures and channeled negative energy used to heal undead, but both only heal half the normal amount. You still take damage from positive energy used to harm undead, such as that from channeled energy and lay on hands.
: No, I don't think so. The rules-text says "you still take damage from positive energy used to…". Since you aren't actually a dhampir, this rule isn't met.
Life's Blood: Yes.
Light Step: Yes.
Lingering Invisibility:
You remain briefly translucent after losing invisibility.
Prerequisites: Duergar.
Benefit: When your invisibility ends, you gain concealment for 1 round per minute of duration the invisibility effect had remaining (minimum 1 round). This only occurs if the invisibility is from your racial spell-like ability or a spell you cast. Effects that negate invisibility negate this concealment.
Yes. It says it can be from a racial spell-like ability OR a spell you cast. You can easily do the latter.
Long-Nose Form: I don't think so, as humans generally don't refer to themselves as having a beak, which is a major part of the feat. Yes, there is slang but no, I wouldn't allow it.
Lucky Halfling: Yes.
Lucky Healer: No, it requires a racial trait.
Lucky Strike: No, it requires a racial trait.
Mage of the Wild: Yes.
Magical Tail: Debatable. I think so.
Master of Wonders: Yes, the Wonderseekers accept members of other races.
Merciless Magic: Yes.
Merciless Precision: Yes.
Mighty Bite: No, it requires a special attack.
Mixed Scales: Debatable. See "Draconic Aspect".
Mother's Gift:
You inherit a special boon from your hag parent.
Prerequisites: Changeling.
Benefit: Your dark legacy manifests in one of the following ways. You choose the manifestation when you choose the feat, and once selected it cannot be changed.
Hag Claws (Ex): You gain a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls with your claws.
Surprisingly Tough (Ex): Your natural armor bonus increases by +1.
Uncanny Resistance (Su): You gain spell resistance equal to 6 + your character level.
Special: You can gain this feat up to three times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, you must select a different manifestation.
Debatable. The flavor-text refers to your "hag parent", not "ancestor" as Racial Heritage implies. Logically, your parent would count as your ancestor but why would a hag have a non-changeling child? How would that work? There's no strict ruling to be had here and it is up to the GM. Regardless, only the third option would normally work for a human, as they don't have claws or natural armor to buff.
Multitalented Mastery: No, it requires a racial trait.
Natural Charmer: Yes.
Natural Jouster: No, centaurs are monstrous humanoids, not humanoids. I won't mention any further centaur feats.
Neither Elf nor Human:
You have removed yourself from your heritage so thoroughly that even magic does not recognize you.
Prerequisites: Exile’s Path, Seen and Unseen, character level 11th, half-elf.
Benefit: You are not considered elven or human for the purpose of harmful spells or effects based on your type, like a bane weapon or a ranger’s favored enemy class feature.
Yes. Funny, but yes.
Night Stalker: Yes, if you can get darkvision and large size.
Nimble Striker: No, it requires a racial trait.
Noble Spell Resistance: No, see "Drow Nobility".
Ogre Crush: Yes, if you become large.
Orc Hewer: Yes.
Orc Weapon Expertise: Yes.
Pack Rat: Yes.
Pass for Human: Yes. Funny, but yes. Regardless, this doesn't actually provide any benefit to most humans because they already look like a human. The Disguise bonus is only for appearing as a human instead of your actual race. The only instance where this would actually help you would be if you took Racial Heritage: Half-Elf, Exile's Path, Seen and Unseen, Neither Elf nor Human, and Pass for Human. This would lead to you appearing to be completely human while counting only as a half-elf for the purpose of bane effects and favored enemy bonuses. Devious, convoluted, and apparently legal. To take it a step further, you could start as a half-orc because they're allowed to take feats intended for humans, like Racial Heritage. ;P
Quick at Hand: Yes.
Raging Brute: Yes.
Raging Regeneration: No, it requires a special ability.
Razortusk: Yes.
Realistic Likeness: No, it requires a racial ability.
Redeemed Kobold: Debatable, see "Draconic Aspect".
Regenerate Muscles: No, it requires a special ability.
Resilient Brute: Yes.
Resolute Rager: Yes.
Risky Striker: Yes.
Roll With It: Yes. Funny, but yes.
Saddle Shrieker: Yes.
Savage Critical: Yes.
Scaled Disciple: Yes.
Scavenger's Eye: Yes.
Sea Hunter: Yes.
Seen and Unseen: Yes.
Shadow Caster: Yes.
Shadowy Dash: Yes.
Shared Insight: Yes.
Shared Manipulation: Yes.
Sharpclaw: Yes.
Sharptooth: Yes.
Shatterspell: Yes.
Sleep Venom: No, it requires a racial ability.
Slurk Rider: Yes.
Smash: Yes.
Smell Fear: Yes.
Snapping Jaws: Yes.
Sociable: Yes.
Sonic Croak: No, it requires a racial ability.
Spider Climber: Yes.
Spider Summoner: Yes.
Spirit of the Wild: Yes.
Spit Venom: Yes.
Sprinting Troll: No, it requires a special ability.
Stabbing Shot: Yes.
Steel Soul: No, it requires a racial trait.
Stoic Pose:
You can hold yourself as still as a statue, evading detection.
Prerequisites: Svirfneblin.
Benefit: By spending 5 rounds finding a suitable location, you can hold yourself so still that you appear to be a Small object such as a pile of rocks. This allows you to make a Stealth check without cover or concealment, as long as you do not move or take any other actions.
Debatable. It says you can appear to be a "Small object" and it capitalizes the word small, meaning that it is referring to the game term. Humans are generally Medium, so I would rule that you would need to be reduced in size before gaining the benefit of this feat, by RAW.
Stone Awareness: Yes, stone giants are humanoids.
Stone Magic: No, even if you had a way to survive long enough, as a human you would not have a way to gain the stone giants' spell-like abilities the rules-text references this feat being in addition to.
Stone Singer: Yes.
Stone Soul: No, humans don't have a natural armor bonus to increase.
Stone-Faced: Yes.
Storm Soul:
Your attunement to storms grants you immunity to some of their effects.
Prerequisites: Cloud or storm giant.
Benefit: You gain immunity to electricity.
Yes. Powerful, but yes.
Storm Warrior:
Your weapons channel the fury of thunderstorms.
Prerequisites: Storm Soul, cloud or storm giant.
Benefit: You can transfer the power of storms from your body to any metal melee weapons you wield, dealing an additional 1d6 points of electricity damage.
Yes. Powerful, but yes.
Stunning Croak: No, it requires a racial ability.
Sure and Fleet: No, it requires a racial trait.
Sure on Ice: Yes.
Surprise Strike: Yes.
Swift Kitsune Shapechanger: No, it modifies a special ability humans don't have.
Swift Swimmer: Not unless you can gain a swim speed.
Sympathetic Rage: Yes.
Tail Terror: Debated in the past, but generally agreed to be no. Humans do not have the right kind of "tail" to slap with, regardless of how strong it became. You would need another method of gaining a tail before being able to benefit from this feat.
Tangle Feet: Not unless you reduce your size to Small or smaller.
Tantrum: Yes.
Taskmaster: Yes.
Tenacious Survivor: Yes.
Tengu Raven Form: Yes, see "Tengu Wings".
Tengu Wings:
You can grow wings that allow you to fly.
Prerequisites: Character level 5th, tengu.
Benefit: Once per day, you can sprout a pair of giant black crow’s wings, granting you a fly speed of 30 feet (average maneuverability). This spell-like ability otherwise functions as beast shape I (though you do not gain any other benefits of that spell) with a caster level equal to your level.
Yes. This doesn't call out any part of tengu anatomy that humans do not possess and instead causes you to grow new anatomy as a new spell-like ability.
Terrorizing Display: Yes.
Thrill of the Kill: Yes.
Throat Pouch: No, it requires a racial ability.
Threatening Illusion: Yes.
Tough as Iron: Yes.
Toxic Recovery: No, it requires a racial trait.
Trap Wrecker: Yes.
Tree Hanger: No, you have to have a proper tail, which this feat does not provide.
Tunnel Rat: No, it requires a racial trait.
Twin Thunders, Twin Thunders Flurry, Twin Thunders Master: No, it requires a racial trait.
Umbral Scion: No, see "Drow Nobility".
Uncanny Defense: Yes.
Unusual Heritage (Changeling):
Your heritage is strange or difficult to trace, and people fear your otherworldly powers.
Prerequisites: Changeling.
Benefit: Your mother was part of a powerful hag coven, and it shows when you are near your kin. As long as you are within 30 feet of at least two other changelings, you gain a +2 bonus on concentration checks and dispel checks. If at least two of these changelings also have this feat, these bonuses increase to +4.
Special: This version of Unusual Origin is a teamwork feat.
Debatable for the same reason as with "Mother's Gift". If you can get past the story-strangeness of a hag being a human's mother (or your human mother being part of a hag coven), this otherwise would work. It's up to the GM.
Unusual Heritage (Dhampir):
Your heritage is strange or difficult to trace, and people fear your otherworldly powers.
Prerequisites: Dhampir.
Benefit: Your undead progenitor left you with more than a hint of vampiric nature. You gain a natural bite attack that deals 1d4 points of damage. Once per day upon making a successful bite attack, you can choose to deal an additional 1d4 points of bleed damage to the creature struck.
Special: You can only select this feat at 1st level.
Yes.
Unusual Heritage (Gillman):
Your heritage is strange or difficult to trace, and people fear your otherworldly powers.
Prerequisites: Gillman.
Benefit: As a so-called “Low Azlanti,” you have abilities supposedly tied to mysterious ancestors who still watch over you and your ilk. Your divination spells and spell-like abilities manifest at 1 caster level higher. In addition, once per day while fully immersed in water, you can cast augury as a spell-like ability.
Yes.
Vampiric Companion: No, it grants traits to your animal companion or familiar related to your own weaknesses, which humans don't have.
Vandal: Yes.
Vast Hatred: No, it requires a racial trait.
Veiled Vileness: Yes.
Vestigial Head: Yes.
Vulpine Pounce: No, see "Swift Kitsune Shapechanger".
War Singer: Yes.
Warleader's Rage: Yes.
Warmonger: Yes.
Well-Prepared: Yes.
Witty Feint: Yes.
For those of you who believe that killing the ape is a good act, how do you differentiate between a good act, a neutral act and an evil act in that circumstance?
I'll go ahead and address this because while I didn't say it was necessarily a good act, I did say I could come up with justifications for how members of any alignment could be justified in killing the ape.
Chaotic Evil: It looked at me funny.
Neutral Evil: We can't leave witnesses.
Lawful Evil: Anyone who attacks me dies.
Chaotic Neutral: They're running off with our loot!
Neutral: It's an enemy and it hasn't surrendered.
Lawful Neutral: They'll probably be a threat later. Better to deal with it now.
Chaotic Good: It's injured, just lost its only friend, and we have next to no hope of getting through to it. We have to put it out of its misery.
Neutral Good: We managed to defend ourselves against this threat but the next people to encounter it might not be as strong as we are. We must do it for the public good.
Lawful Good: Its master was evil and taught it to do evil. Though ultimately not its fault, we must stop it, tragic though that may be.
If it's all the same to everyone else, I'll stay out of the real-life analogies. All I will say is that I would expect many different beliefs and opinions on this topic, and that the GM should try to work with the players to craft a story they all can enjoy.
I have no idea why your GM is skeptical about it but I also don't see why an argument would be necessary. I'd recommend sidestepping the whole thing and ask them if they'd allow you to use the feat Additional Traits to pick up Magical Knack later.
If you really want an argument, here's what I'd point out:
• Magical Knack doesn't provide any benefit to any 1st level character regardless of class choice. Clearly, it being immediately useful is not a prerequisite. If it were, its use would be restricted to campaigns where everyone started at a higher level. That being said, the flavor-text references your childhood, implying that this should be a trait you have almost your whole life. Why would it be impossible for your character to have had that childhood?
Asking the developers to either chime in or let me post their answer I told you about above. Let you all know when they do.
Well, I was wrong. The official ruling says that the feat does not grant shape shifting, so a human with kitsune racial feat can NOT take Fox Shape. Here is the message I got.
REDACTED
Sorry for misleading. I'm man enough to post when I am wrong.
Thats not an official ruling though, is it? He even states he would bar it based on story and flavor which would vary wildly from game to game. he is not basing it on any rules aspect aside from rule zero which doesnt stretch beyond his own gaming table.
Personally i disagree that having supernatural ancestry would somehow not allow you to also manifest some kind of supernatural effect related to your ancestry.
Correct, that is not an official ruling, and I'm reasonably sure he wouldn't have wanted it posted here. James Jacobs has repeatedly said he doesn't want to be dragged into rules debates. That private message appears to be meant as advice from him in his capacity as a very experienced GM rather than as an employee of Paizo. He specifically says that he's speaking personally and sharing his opinion only. Bulmahn, Radney-MacFarlane and/or Seifter would probably be the people to check with.
For clarity in regards to the RAI argument, James Jacobs was indeed one of the writers of the APG and the Dragon Empires Gazetteer, as well as working on the AP which most heavily involves kitsune, but he is not listed as being one of the two authors of the Dragon Empires Primer, which introduces the Fox Shape feat. In his role as Creative Director he may have looked the feats over, we don't know, but he didn't write Fox Shape, so we should try to keep our questions pointed towards the design team.
Well if there were a hypothetical race called wyvernslayer and you could show us a feat like this, then yes you could…
Quote:
Dragon Slaughterer
You can slaughter dragons in addition to your other special attacks.
Prerequisites: Str 21, base attack bonus +11, wyvernslayer.
Benefit: You can slaughter dragons of a specific chromatic color, which cannot be changed each time you fight. Your bite attack’s damage is reduced to 1d3 points of damage on a hit, but you gain a +10 racial bonus on Intimidate checks made to demoralize a dragon. Slaying a dragon is a standard action. This ability otherwise functions as Mythic Deadly Stroke.
The wyvernslayer race has a racial ability that allows them to deal extra damage to wyverns and drakes, otherwise functioning as Vital Strike. This feat is presumably meant to upgrade that racial ability but no part of its prerequisites or language precludes a human from taking and benefiting from this feat with Racial Heritage.
Regardless, I again encourage people to hit the FAQ button on the original post. =]
Advanced Player's Guide (which introduced Racial Heritage as a player feat) was released in 2010. Dragon Empires Gazetteer (which introduced the Kitsune as a playable race) was released in 2012; the same year as Dragon Empires Primer (which introduced Fox Shape as a player feat).
I'm unaware of any Paizo-released alternate race trait that swaps out Change Shape, so I don't know what you two are talking about in regards to that, but Racial Heritage did exist at the time Fox Shape was released, and it would be very simple for its prerequisites to have been (or still be) modified to preclude this whole argument.
Whether it was an oversight or intentional cannot be determined by us. It can only be determined by the PDT, so I encourage everyone to FAQ the first post in this thread instead of bickering further. We've stated our various points of view and I don't see any further progress being made.
I'll allow it in my games and I think it's obvious enough that it doesn't need to be FAQ'd, but since there is legitimate debate about it, I'll go ahead and follow Liz Courts' advice to FAQ the OP.
I encourage others to do the same instead of repeating themselves in frustration. =]
One of the (many @_@ ) flip mats I've bought is the Urban Tavern, which has 3 different taverns depicted, 2 of which are on the same side with a thick black bar dividing them. Another flip-mat example could be level 1 of the Emerald Spire, which depicts a small area at a different elevation than the rest of the map.
Regardless, I enjoyed examining and reading the descriptions of this year's entries. Thanks for all your efforts, everyone. =]
What are you planning on doing about the other random effects? The Stinking Cloud, Heavy Rain, summoned rhinos and elephants, butterflies that blind everyone, monstrously overgrown grass, the fact that every object nearby would be turning ethereal, or the fireballs? Even though your GM gave you Leadership, that doesn't give you control over their actions; they're still NPC's. As soon as something unpleasant happens, they'll probably want to stop doing it, and the effects above aren't even getting into some of the weirder house-rules with Rods of Wonder. Some GM's have custom lists of random effects, and I know I'd certainly make such a list if a player came to me with this idea.
So to answer your question, I would advise telling your GM that you are ready for any and all terrible consequences of your actions that they choose to throw at you. They'll probably jump at that. =]
A Ring of Feather Falling only costs 2200gp. At level 15, I would expect everybody to keep one in their pocket just-in-case. With a fall of that height, you'd have plenty of time to put it on during the fall unless you're incapacitated already and if less than 1% of your WBL is too much for you, switch it to a 50gp potion.
Still, if you want the martials to have an easier time of it, no problem, just do it. Give them Air Step or Wind Walk if you like. Sounds fun to me, but not everyone wants that.
I'm pretty sure the divine spell-casting class you're looking for is the Oracle.
Quote:
Although the gods work through many agents, perhaps none is more mysterious than the oracle. These divine vessels are granted power without their choice, selected by providence to wield powers that even they do not fully understand. Unlike a cleric, who draws her magic through devotion to a deity, oracles garner strength and power from many sources, namely those patron deities who support their ideals. Instead of worshiping a single source, oracles tend to venerate all of the gods that share their beliefs. While some see the powers of the oracle as a gift, others view them as a curse, changing the life of the chosen in unforeseen ways.
Role: Oracles do not usually associate with any one church or temple, instead preferring to strike out on their own, or with a small group of like-minded individuals. Oracles typically use their spells and revelations to further their understanding of their mystery, be it through fighting mighty battles or tending to the poor and sick.
Just write your back-story such that your character thinks of themselves as being cursed and manipulated by these powerful beings, and not buying into their divinity.
An atheistic Cleric doesn't work in my view but yes, the argument could be made that atheism itself counts as a "divine concept worthy of devotion". I'm not interested in that argument because I think it's contradictory but the CRB specifically advises you to work with your GM to go down that path. So… ask your GM. =]
Secondly, DON'T PANIC. This can all seem intimidating up-front but it mostly boils down to rolling a few dice and basic addition.
Thirdly, the Core Rulebook (abbreviated CRB) doesn't actually have everything you need to run the game unless you want to play with custom-built NPC's as enemies, without monsters. Thankfully, this website has most of the text of the rulebooks available for free! On the left side of this page, right under the search bar, there's a link called Rules Archive (PRD). From there, you can access the rules on all the monsters in the Bestiaries, NPC Codex and Monster Codex. One of the helpful links for you would be the Bestiary Encounter Tables, which lists some example random tables for low- and mid-level encounters based on location. Or the Bestiary Monsters by Terrain link.
For your particular example, you could scroll down those pages to the parts with "Forest" in the name and see what types of monsters they suggest. Or on the second link there's a list of monsters suitable for "Any" terrain. The CRB Gamemastering section has advice on how to pick appropriate challenges for your party based on their levels.
Let's suppose your party consists of 4 player characters that are all level 1. You might decide to throw a Wolf at them to start with. It's CR 1, so it's an average fight for the players, not difficult unless they get really unlucky, and it'll be good practice. Or you could try a small party of 3 Goblins or 2 Giant Centipedes. The CRB page I linked above says how to adjust the CR and the XP based on how many enemies there are. As a general rule, fights against 1 enemy are relatively easy because the players outnumber them and can therefore make more attacks and cast more spells per round than that single opponent.
Assuming you pick 1 Wolf as your first encounter, here's basically how it works:
1.) The GM describes the location that the players are at. In this case, you can describe the road, forest, weather and anything else you think is important for now. Try to keep it relatively brief.
2.) Let the players talk to one another in-character and get into the mood.
3.) Once you think it's time to start the encounter, decide whether or not the wolf is going to try sneaking up on the players or is just hanging out.
-Option A: If the wolf is trying to sneak up and attack the party, you can roll a d20 and add the Stealth bonus (+6) to the result. Make a note of what that total is and ask the players to roll a d20 and add their Perception bonus. If any of them have a Perception total equal to or higher than the wolf's Stealth total, it means their character notices the wolf — describe it and what it's doing. Ask the players what they want to do. If nobody rolls high enough on their Perception, skip straight to step 4 below.
-Option B: If the wolf is not trying to hide, describe it and what it's doing straightaway. Ask the players what they want to do.
4.) Have everyone roll a d20 to determine Initiative. Roll a d20 to determine the wolf's Initiative as well. Note everybody's Initiative on scratch paper in order from highest to lowest. If the wolf managed to sneak up on some or all of the players, there's a Surprise Round where the wolf and anyone who noticed it gets to make 1 move OR standard action. After that, normal Rounds with all actions available start and turns progress normally, with whoever has the highest Initiative total going first, and progressing down to the next, then the next and so on. Once everyone has taken their turn, that Round is over and you start a new Round.
5.) When it's someone's turn, you ask them what they want to do. It's their character and they get to decide what to do, but it's the GM's job to make sure what they're doing is allowed. For instance, if they wanted to Move closer to the wolf and Attack it with their sword, that would be fine so long as they're close enough to reach. If the player wanted to Run somewhere and then Attack, that wouldn't be allowed because Running takes a Full-Round Action, which doesn't leave room for an Attack.
6.) Let's say Player A Moves up to the wolf and Attacks. They roll a d20 and add their Attack Bonus (usually Base Attack Bonus + their Strength Modifier, but small or large characters get some penalties or bonuses because of their size). You check the wolf's statistics from the Bestiary to see that it has 14 AC. If the player's d20 + Attack Bonus is 14 or more, they succeed and roll for damage. You can describe how little or how badly hurt the wolf is after the blow, or how it managed to dodge the blow if the player doesn't roll high enough. If they were using a longsword and managed to hit the wolf, they would roll a d8 and add their Strength modifier to the damage.
7.) Let's say the wolf attacks Player A. The wolf's statistics say, "Melee bite +2 (1d6+1 plus trip)". This means that the wolf attacks with its bite and adds +2 to its d20 roll. If it succeeds, it rolls a d6 and adds +1 damage, as well as getting to attempt a free Trip Combat Maneuver. The Combat page explains how Combat Maneuvers work. Whether it succeeds or fails, describe what happens to the players.
8.) Ask the next player what they want to do, and so on. Practice makes perfect, so running through a few sample fights like this can help you learn the rules as you go. Good luck. =]
Long answer: The rules have to support multiple play-styles and allow each group of roleplayers to find their own entertainment. To quote the very first part of the Core Rulebook…
Quote:
The Most Important Rule
The rules presented are here to help you breathe life into your characters and the world they explore. While they are designed to make your game easy and exciting, you might find that some of them do not suit the style of play that your gaming group enjoys. Remember that these rules are yours. You can change them to fit your needs. Most Game Masters have a number of “house rules” that they use in their games. The Game Master and players should always discuss any rules changes to make sure that everyone understands how the game will be played. Although the Game Master is the final arbiter of the rules, the Pathfinder RPG is a shared experience, and all of the players should contribute their thoughts when the rules are in doubt.
In other words, some people on this forum say that things should be kept realistic but you don't have to agree with them or accept their opinion as fact.
A necklace of strangulation appears to be a wondrous piece of magical jewelry. When placed on the neck, the necklace immediately tightens, dealing 6 points of damage per round. It cannot be removed by any means short of a limited wish, wish, or miracle and remains clasped around the victim's throat even after his death. Only when he has decayed to a dry skeleton (after approximately 1 month) does the necklace loosen, ready for another victim.
Creation
Magic Itemsnecklace of adaptation, necklace of fireballs, periapt of health, periapt of proof against poison, periapt of wound closure
Methods of dealing with the Necklace of Strangulation, just with the CRB:
1.) It's a quest! Your PC's have heard about the murderer and their methods, and have time to prepare themselves as they attempt to bring them to justice. When dealing with a Banshee or Siren, you'd bring some form of silence, right? Similarly, they'd probably bring some form of protection presented below if they knew about it ahead of time.
2.) Sunder attempt and hope you don't roll a 1 on the attack. I'd say a reasonable approximation would be the manacles from this table. 10 hardness and 10 hitpoint. Increased or decreased as appropriate for your story. It'd be mean to make it out of adamantine, but mithral might make sense.
3.) Armor that covers the neck would stop it, because the necklace specifically only works "when placed on the neck". It's up to the GM's discretion whether it would strangle through simple cloth, leather or even chainmail, but solid plating should definitely keep you safe and prevent the necklace from triggering at all.
4.) Gaseous Form says that "the subject and all its gear" are effected. It's up to GM discretion, but I'd rule that the necklace is the enemy's gear (a weapon) unless the PC accepts it due to another effect. An example effect could be Beguiling Gift. At that point the necklace would travel with the character in Gaseous Form, and would still kill them because it's continuously active. If the PC did NOT accept the item and are actually being attacked with it, I'd allow it to simply fall to the ground if Gaseous Form were cast on them within the round. I would allow Wind Walk, Ethereal Jaunt or Etherealness to do the same. I'd even allow Reduce Person or any of the teleportation spells to let you slip away, for that matter. Again, I would rule it would have to be cast the same round the necklace was put on, so if the NPC murderer did it in a surprise round, you're out of luck.
5.) I would rule that Dispel Magic could suppress the necklace for 1d4 rounds, as it says, but remember that the DC is 11 + the item's CL (which is 18), resulting in a total DC of 29. At level 9, you'd need a natural 20 to succeed. If you did succeed, I'd rule that no further damage was dealt during those 1d4 rounds, but you couldn't remove the necklace.
6.) Break Enchantment says that in the case of permanent magic items, it does not remove the curse but does free the victim of the effects. This is up for debate but I could see it keeping the necklace from tightening or dealing any damage to the person currently wearing it. Break Enchantment would not allow its removal, so the PC would have to walk around wearing it until they found another method to use in conjunction with it.
7.) Antimagic Field would suppress the necklace for its duration.
9.) Tree Shape would render you immune to the necklace for its duration. Someone could even "prune" you to remove the necklace, and then repair the damage via Regenerate, because nothing about Tree Shape says you're expelled if you take damage, as Meld into Stone does.
11.) Stoneskin would protect you from damage for as long as it lasted, with its 10 points per level.
12.) Transmute Metal to Wood followed by an easier sundering would work, as far as I can tell, so long as you overcome the SR 38 of the necklace, which is very unlikely.
13.) Disintegrate should work. The necklace gets +11 on its saving throw, and has the hit points and hardness discussed in #2, above.
14.) It's overkill, but you could use Trap the Soul, which doesn't say anything about taking objects along with the body.
15.) Just heal the damage faster than it deals it. 6 damage per round? Not that tough to get. The necklace doesn't actually say that it has any other effect than straight damage, so you only have to make fortitude saves for holding your breath if the GM says you do.
16.) The NPC didn't actually put the necklace on you because that was just an illusion/simulacrum/summon or because you sneaked up on THEM and/or were watching your back.
I would not allow:
A.) I would not allow Remove Curse to work against the necklace due to its wording. It doesn't say that it can remove curses from magical objects, which the necklace qualifies as. Yes, the Pathfinder rules make distinctions between magical and non-magical objects, and I think it applies here. For the record, I'd say all of the Specific Cursed Items are immune to Remove Curse unless otherwise specified, as in the case of Boots of Dancing or Bracers of Defenselessness.
I don't own the PDF version of the Beginner Box, but I have run the physical version. Do you have a printer and 3 or 4 friends to play with? Included in the PDFs should be example characters for your friends to choose from. These characters are simplified versions of the iconic classes, designed to ease you into playing Pathfinder with just a few rules at a time. Either before or during the time your players are deciding which characters to play, you should read the Game Master's Guide included with the Beginner Box. You should also read the Hero's Handbook, then give a copy to the players. These books are basic, but they have a lot of good advice to help you along the way. After reading those two books, read the adventure (sometimes referred to as a module) so you'll know what to expect along the way. With the physical version, you'll have a folded map to play on, which is very handy, but I'm not sure whether you'd be able to print it out because it's pretty large and would use a lot of ink/toner even if you printer could handle something that big. You can get graph paper at most hobby stores though, and use that to sketch out a copy from the PDF.
The basic idea of playing Pathfinder is that you're trying to tell a story with multiple storytellers and a healthy dose of luck from the dice. If you're the GM (Game Master), you provide or describe the setting and control the NPCs (Non-Player-Characters, including monsters and animals). Your players act out parts, as if they were making a movie or stage play, with everyone improvising along the way. The basic interaction goes like this:
1.) GM describes where everyone is at the beginning (in the case of the Beginner Box, outside the cave) and why they're there (in this case, investigating Black Fang). The PDF should make it clear which parts of the book to read out loud to your players when describing each room, as you reach them.
2.) GM asks the players what they want to do. Only one person should speak at a time, but what order they go in doesn't matter when you're not in combat. The players will almost assuredly ask to do things that you don't know the rules to, and that's fine. If you don't know the rule and don't know where to find the rule in less than a minute, you can make what's called an ad-hoc decision on the spot. Think about whether the thing they're trying to do would be believable in the story. Most of the time, you should allow them to attempt it, using either a skill (if there's an obvious skill to use) or an ability check (if you can't think of an appropriate skill). If what they're asking sounds really easy, just let them do it without having to roll, or only having to roll a 5 or better. If it sounds more difficult, you can set the difficulty check (usually called DC) to any other number you want, but make sure to decide what that number is before asking them to roll.
3.) After telling them what to roll, they do so and add the appropriate bonuses or penalties. For instance, they could have asked whether they can climb a wall. You could have thought about it and said, "Sure, the stones provide pretty good handholds, but it's a little damp and slippery in this part of the cave so I'll set the DC at 15. Roll a d20 and add your Climb score." If the total is 15 or more, they succeed. If it's less, they fail and someone else gets to take their turn.
4.) Relax and try to have fun. It can be nerve-wracking to learn a new game as complex as Pathfinder but remember that it's still just a game and it's okay to make mistakes. When in doubt, err on the side of fun for your players and yourself. It's not supposed to be a perfect simulation of real-life adventure. It's a fantasy, ready for your creative input.
Step 2: Get Mythic Phantasmal Killer and Mythic Wish.
Step 3: Cast Mythic Phantasmal Killer, Augmented so that it bypasses immunity to mind-effecting. After the Tarrasque fails its Will save, Cast Mythic Wish, Alter Fate as an immediate action and choose to make it roll a 1 on its Fortitude save.
Step 4: Congratulations! You've successfully caused the mighty Tarrasque to die of fright. It will now be too embarrassed to regenerate. Probably.
Having an item in your equipment means that the item is attended. Picking up an object means that the object is attended. Sitting on a plate means the plate is attended. The only way this would work would be if the fox were inanimate, either by paralysis, petrification or death. Then someone else could use Mage Hand on the plate, cage, box, harness or even body.
What you want is beyond a 0th level spell; it's a 1st level spell called Floating Disk. It won't fly to great heights, but it's reliable and lasts for hours.
All the things that were listed with a CHA of 1 all seem to be a type of animal, so I'd play it like that. You are now, essentially, a really really smart animal. Just imagine what your dog might do, in regards to what people think of a socially normal, and so something similar. An animal wouldn't care about pooping in public, or wearing clothes for anything but protection, or killing and eating the nearest tasty looking animal when it got hungry.
You have no force of personality, so you might not ever tell people what to do. Maybe you just start doing something when it's time to do it and never bother to ask people about it, because it no longer occurs to you. You might just take things because you want them, only regarding how it might affect you if you do, and not if it would upset someone, much like how a dog will try and steal your sammich, or a crocodile might eat your dog.
No, the basic dog from the Bestiary has Cha 6. I haven't found any animals that have only Cha 1. The OP's character is in the realm of oozes, mindless undead and soulless constructs. A Cha 6 would be an interesting challenge that would have multiple real-world and fictional examples to pull from but a 1? There's no point even trying, in my opinion. Luck of the die is all well and good, and it may have been a fun encounter for the party, but if the GM actually said that it was permanent and couldn't be Restored, it's time to roll a new character.
Looks like they have Cha 2, Rynjin. There are some vermin with only 1, but those aren't much better than the oozes and constructs, from a RP perspective.
Honestly, I'd switch my alignment to TN and tell the GM you start hugging and/or trying to eat every nice thing and punching and/or trying to eat every not-nice thing, without a care in the world. While your party is busy putting you down or institutionalizing you, roll a new character. I don't think it's worthwhile to actually spend any time or effort on playing a character with 1 Cha. =/
I agree with ryric's interpretation if the board were laying down when the spell was cast on it, but if the board were being held up during the casting time, I think the pit could travel with it, as per the spell's clause referencing a ship's deck, which can clearly move and even become vertical. The surface only has to be horizontal at the time of the casting, by my reading.
So if I put a solid board across the top of the pit so I can walk across it, it doesn't work, because the pit then becomes part of the board?
Does it have to cover the entire pit to do that, or would blocking half of it have the same issue?
What if you put something that isn't flat on top of it? Does that create the desired trap?
If I were the GM, I'd allow someone to cross the pit on a board, but if there was anything in the pit and under the board when the spell ended, it/they'd rise up through the board and end up standing on top of it, unharmed. Because magic. Imagine it as a wobbly extra-dimensional elevator.
If you want to make a pit into a trap, do it the old fashioned way and throw alchemist's fire or acid bottles into it. A wall of fire would also work, as would making a relatively small wall of stone and then pushing it over so that it falls down the pit on top of your victims.
EDIT: I already know how I'd rule it, but I hit the FAQ button anyway; couldn't hurt to get an official ruling.
Absolutely undetectable by any means, even by the gods. Things you do can be seen but cannot be traced back to you. AoE can still harm you so there is that. Here's a post on it by Paizo Designer Stephen Radney-MacFarland.
Sadly speak with dead requires the dead to physically speak.
In my experience that is pretty hard to do when one lacks a head.
Good point, I forgot that clause. Find a wizard and whip out a Magic Mouth spell first, then. It works on objects, which a corpse is. Some room for interpretation there, but it works by RAW. ;D
Yeah, I wouldn't punish them or waste the gold. Making the NPC unwilling to come back is fine, but have the cleric they go to perform a Speak with Dead spell first. It has no material cost, so it'd be pretty silly for any cleric to cast Resurrection without checking first.
If you just tell them their gold is wasted without any warning, they will be entirely justified if they feel betrayed by you, and that's not a place you want to be in as a GM.
If it's a physical trap then you can sunder it as an object, with hp and hardness as appropriate, but if it's a magical trap it could be harder to determine. Basically, deal with it on a case-by-case basis, but err on the side of letting players do reasonable things. It sounds like they've already taken some damage from the trap so its purpose has been fulfilled. Let 'em smack it and move on. =]
One of my players tried to stop, drop and roll on a spider swarm to save the rest of the party, but he didn't actually die from it. He got poisoned pretty badly and had to be force-fed a potion of cure moderate wounds though.
@bookrat: The extra skill ranks seem pretty blatant there. Personally, I tend to fall on the side of thinking it'd be nice for a few extra at character creation but it honestly looks like the player was getting 2 (class) + 1 (favored) + 5 (amount of Int above 10) + 1 (I have no idea where they'd get this one) each level. That's pretty nuts.
@necromental: Looking at the stat sheet does a few things, actually: It tells you what their weakest save/stat/AC is; It tells you what any special abilities or feats it has; It tells the GM that you don't trust them to properly adjudicate a Knowledge roll; It tells the other players that you're willing to metagame instead of playing with the team. It's not the worst thing in the world, and I'd forgive and forget, but some people would take it very seriously.
So far, I believe the closest I've come to cheating was in one of the first sessions of Pathfinder I gm'ed, when my players voluntarily sought out a tavern to stir up some trouble. I hadn't planned anything for such an encounter (Yes, I should have known better. xD ) so when it came time to bring out the tavern's bouncer, I just pulled the stats for a CR 5 Expert Bodyguard from the PRD. The party consisted of 5 characters, all level 4, so I figured it would be a winnable fight, but tough. However, due to how new we all were at PF, it actually didn't take long for the bouncer to subdue them and hand them over to the town watch.
Does pulling a tough encounter out of thin air count as fudging?
Are there any plans to produce modules that take place in Golarion's past? For instance, a module where you play as an Azlanti or Thassilonian in ancient times?
Spoiler:
Second Darkness - The Armageddon Echo touched on one possible way to explore such topics but it could also be played straight.
Perhaps a semi-annual module line about some of the legends that have been built up over the years. One-shots like those could also be a great way to have mythic characters be pitted against mythic monsters without breaking current plots.
Why would you throw vanilla Kobolds at a high-level group when you could throw Kobolds with class levels at them? You can apply class levels (or templates) to any creature in the bestiary if you want it to be a challenge for higher levels, so I honestly don't see why you'd need another system to do the same thing while losing all the flavor and nuance of custom encounters.
Bounded Accuracy just sounds like rubber-banding to me. It has its place I guess, but I don't like it, personally.
I would rate all of the non-mythic wishes of listed bestiary creatures as being pretty much the same. When I referenced higher-tier powers, I was talking about things like, for instance, the King of the Efreeti or the Queen of the Marids or the General of a deity's Solars. If you did a big favor for such a character and were rewarded with a wish, wouldn't you expect it to be more powerful than one from the standard example creature in the bestiary?
As an example, suppose a character wished for an oasis in the desert they were traveling through. Seems reasonable so I'd grant that wish, no problem, but it'd be a relatively small oasis, probably capable of supporting a hamlet. If the character were friends with the Queen of the Marids and she were the one granting the wish, the oasis would be much more impressive and probably capable of supporting a whole town or city.
Here's something to consider from the description of Solars:
Quote:
The oldest solars predate mortality and are among the gods’ first creations. These strange solars are paragons of their kind and have little direct interaction with mortals, focusing on the protection or destruction of abstract concepts such as gravity, dark matter, entropy, and primordial evil.
This heavily implies that there are varying strengths of Solars and that not all of them appear exactly as the stat block says they do.
Setting aside literature and other examples of storytelling to focus on actual game rules, one example would be the Harrow Deck of Many Things, an artifact. If you draw the Winged Serpent it grants this effect:
Quote:
The character is granted a single wish. This wish functions similarly to the spell wish when it comes to affecting rules and statistics, but can also change reality in ways outside the bounds of the spell’s effects—such as rerouting a river or ending a war. The GM decides what the wish can and cannot accomplish.
Also, there is of course the spell Mythic Wish, which is clearly more powerful than the regular Wish because it has access to all of its normal powers and then some, including (but not limited to) the ability to alter the immediate future when it isn't even your turn.
In fiction, there are multiple tiers of wishes, depending on who is performing the magic. I might rule that a sufficiently powerful entity could do it for story reasons but I would not allow just anyone with a Wish spell to completely succeed. I'd be more inclined to put that kind of power in the realm of Miracle, requiring the approval of a deity-level power. A story could certainly be built around trying to make a Simulacrum truly alive and it sounds like fun, but I'd want more than just a single casting of Wish, able to be performed from a scroll or item. If it were that simple, everyone would be doing it.
