David C Smith's page

I know HeroLab should not be used to determine whether a rules question is official or not, but I thought I would give it a shot and see what happens.

I created a Bloody Skeletal Adult Gold Dragon using HeroLab. It removed the following abilities: Fly, Frightful Presence, Low Light Vision, Swim, Water Breathing, Blindsense, Breath Weapon, Change Shape, and Dragon Senses.

All spells and SLA were kept on the character sheet. I read through the changes that doing that skeleton and bloody added to the base character and neither are mentioned.

Like I said, HeroLab should not be used as official, but it is a good indicator that that might be the correct view.

I always find it difficult (not that I won't mind you) to talk to players about character actions that don't affect me "as DM". I prefer to handle those situations PC to PC. If you go to a player and say "look, YOU keep looting during combat, why?" the player will probably get defensive and take it personally even if you are just trying to address an issue for the rest of the group. "That is what my character would do" is the most common response, and I agree it is not the correct answer.

Now imagine if after the battle the paladin or barbarian goes up to you "Excuse me Magus" (well the barbarian wouldn't say excuse me) "Why did you leave Fred's back exposed during that fight to check that body of the fallen mummy?" Harder to say "that is what my character would do" during that conversation.

Perfectly legal tactic, you just have to make sure your readied action is stated for the wolves attack and not when the wolf moves.

When I am outlining a new campaign, I first try to outline what I am going to allow. For my normal home campaign, I have several restrictions, but I am always forward with the players about them up front (ask them about the great gnome plague).

When I ran the Worlds Largest Dungeon, I allows anything from the core rulebook plus a list of additional books.

There is nothing wrong with restrictions as long as you are up front about them at the beginning.

As the OP, I have read with interest most of the discussions on here about monks and I believe a lot of what was said about my "reactions" was true.

I have never allowed monks in my campaigns, not because I thought they were broken but because I didn't think they fit the "feel" of the campaign. That being said, in this latest campaign I allowed them, I pretty much allowed anything in any of the core and official pathfinder books.

I will admit now that my knowledge of the monk is extremely limited because of this. I have taken a look at the actual build and believe my first impressions were exaggerated and that I need to evaluate my opinion on this character.

I thank everyone for the interesting discussions.

David