Enkili's page

For the next game I'm running I am considering just giving out certain feats to anyone who meets the prereqs. I guess I'm wondering if anyone thinks this is a terrible idea and why. I get tired of the entirely formulaic characters when there are so many interesting feats out there, and this should allow characters to branch out. Most of the feats suggested have a penalty to use.

Combat Expertise - isn't a great feat by itself (usually just a gateway) and it has a penalty to actually use.

Power Attack and Deadly Aim - there is a penalty to use these and they are almost a feat tax on melee and ranged combatants.

Vital Strike feats - allows for scaling damage for high BAB, even when hitting a moving target.

Two-Weapon Fighting feats - two-weapon fighting damage on a full attack scales fairly close to the two-handed weapon fighting and it requires feats and it does MUCH less damage against a moving target when he can only make one attack. Why not?

Point Blank Shot - mostly something for the ranged attackers and why shouldn't you do a little more damage up close.

Metamagic Feats - these all have a penalty to use (higher level spell slot) and in some cases no one thinks the penalty is worth the boon especially if you have to spend a feat first.
Heighten, Maximize, Silent, Still, Widen

If you think this is the worst idea ever let me know why. If you think it's great, and should go even further with more freebies, tell me which ones.

My old game group is restarting a game that has been in hiatus for around a year now and changing from 3.5 to pathfinder. In the old game I played a monk, and in the rewrite a few questions came up.

First off, comparing Touch of Serenity to Stunning Fist, Touch of Serenity sucks. Serene creatures can't attack or cast spells, but suffer no other penalties while stunned creatures can take NO actions AND are denied heir dex bonus AND take a -2 to AC. That is until I noticed Touch of Serenity does not contain the line, "Constructs, oozes, plants, undead, incorporeal creatures, and creatures immune to critical hits cannot be stunned." Does Touch of Serenity affect all of these types? Most of these things generally don't have to worry about will saves, so was that line not included because of that effect? It doesn't actually say it is a mind-affecting effect, but is it implied? If it does affect those creature types, how do you justify the serenity effect on constructs (and oozes for that matter), flavor-wise?

Second can you mix the two (and some of the other monk feats) on the same target? If one fails can you try the other?

I guess that's it. Any general advice for a Pathfinder monk?

This may have been covered before, but on abilities like Improved Iron Will can you reroll a natural 1 since you automatically know the result regardless of the DC? Can you force a re-roll on an opponents natural 20?

Quick question about antimagic field. Is it completely useless for something Colossal? It's a 10 foot emanation centered on the caster, but a colossal creature is larger than the field. The real question is - for larger than medium creatures does it emanate from the center or the edge of the creature?

I anxiously await the Gamemastery Guide and Advanced Players Guide, but if I recall there was an announcement of about three hardcovers a year for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. I am a little curious if anyone out there thinks Paizo will reach that goal for 2010. I may have missed the announcement of the next book after the APG, so if I did could someone tell me what's up next.

I know that the APG is still under testing and the publishers might not want to announce the next book until that's done. I remember James Jacobs posted something about not announcing APs more than a year out to keep people talking about the ones to be released in the near future, but I am hoping there will be another supplement before February 2011. What's up next?

Thank you for your time.

I was working on a nice high level bad guy for my players last night and wanted a high charisma divine caster since she was going to be focused on devil summoning. I decided to go Oracle and then Diabolist from the Book of the Damned, but then I saw the big problem with Oracles - multi-classing.

I'm sure this has been brought up before, but the Oracle is the only class that gives a penalty for taking a single level of it. You can be a Bbn1/Brd1/Clr1/Drd1/Ftr1/ex-Mnk1/ex-Pal1/Rgr1/Rog1/Sor1/Wiz1 and whereas you would generally suck it's not like you suddenly go deaf.

There is an easy work around as you can take a low penalty curse. Haunted is a really nice one for NPCs since it has no real penalty in the short run, or for this case Tongues adds to the flavor a bit and again poses no penalty if I take Infernal as my battle language.

My problem is that it is an easy to deal with penalty if you know which direction the character is going in the long run (or if you are making a high level character), but does a first level character know what he's doing years down the road? If I plan on focusing on the Oracle path then poor sight or deafness aren't bad choices. I like to offer my players options in terms of flavor prestige classes and then you might be stuck in Oracle rather than switching classes.

There is another thread on penalizing multi-classing, but the Oracle is certainly penalized more than any other class.

I'm not one to complain and complain without offering solutions, so here's my suggestions

1) The simple solution would be to make the bonuses associated with the curse based on character level not class level. Some, like Haunted again, pose a major problem, by offering a 5th level or so spell you can't cast.

2) Rather than giving the poor first level character (he's flimsy enough by being first level) a big penalty, ramp up the penalty. As you embrace more of your gift your curse manifests stronger. Instead of deaf for example put a limit on the range the character can hear and a -1 initiative penalty, then reduce that range to zero when she gains Tremorsense.

I can see a problem with number 1) when a 5th level whatever with 10 levels of a prestige class decides she wants Blindsight, so takes a single level of oracle and skips all the "hard levels," but even then there were always some prestige classes that provided a major bonus with one level and no penalty. Mindbender comes to mind.

When using a staff you use your caster level and Save DC. For the DC, UMD allows you to emulate an ability score, so I'd assume that would allow you to increase the save DC, but what about caster level? Can you use the "emulate a class feature" ability of UMD to fake a caster level? There is the note in the core book that you use your caster level if higher than that of the staff. Does a rogue have a caster level of zero, or can he fake it? If he can, is there a limit?
I'm tempted to allow the UMD to emulate a caster level, but limit it to a max of the number of ranks in the skill. In theory a bard with a good charisma, max ranks, skill focus, and magical aptitude could emulate a caster level of 20 (DC 40 UMD) long before level 20.

opinions?