Euryale's page

Thanks for the insights! I take it Inevitables are no more? If so, what about Axiomites?

I've looked around the Rules Question board and elsewhere online and I've yet to find anything that properly explains what dizzying defence is actually meant to do.

At 15th level, while wielding a light or one-handed piercing melee weapon in one hand, the swashbuckler can spend 1 panache point to take the fighting defensively action as a swift action instead of a standard action. When she fights defensively in this manner, the dodge bonus to AC gained from that action increases to +4, and the penalty to attack rolls is reduced to –2.

At first it seemed pretty straight forward - you get to make all of your attacks at a -2 penalty but get +4 to AC as a swift action (basically improved fighting defensively). However, looking at the fighting defensively as a standard action rules, the whole fighting defensively thing seems kinda weird; for reference, these are the fighting defensively as a standard action rules:

You can choose to fight defensively when attacking. If you do so, you take a –4 penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC until the start of your next turn.

For one, I'm not sure how this is meant to work as if you've spent your standard action to fight defensively then you can't attack besides AoOs; the rules (RAW) don't say you make an attack, just that your attacks are at a penalty and this costs you a standard action (a bit like the problem with monkey lunge).

With dizzying defence making it a swift action, couldn't you apply the penalties after you've attacked (meaning the penalties are just for AoOs)? I've also heard people say it gives you an extra attack as a swift action - I don't think this is right as fighting defensively never says it gives you an attack, but I'm not sure as it's suggested a lot that it does. Is it just improved fighting defensively?

An FAQ on this would have been really appreciated from Paizo.

Euryale wrote:

I remember we had a game about a year ago where the party set off to kill the Tarrasque. They started at level 20 and got normal wealth per level and all classes could be chosen. One of the players chose to play a level 20 commoner (a very angry barmaid whose bar had been crushed by the Tarrasque) and she spent all her money on magic adamantium beer mugs.

Hmm, how'd it work out?

They probably did the most damage to it (most of the party by the point of meeting the Tarrasque were split up), but they still died (along with everyone else but the sorcerer who teleported away)

I remember we had a game about a year ago where the party set off to kill the Tarrasque. They started at level 20 and got normal wealth per level and all classes could be chosen. One of the players chose to play a level 20 commoner (a very angry barmaid whose bar had been crushed by the Tarrasque) and she spent all her money on magic adamantium beer mugs.

Personally, I feel more Unchained books would be the way forward; having variant rules that can be used (optionally) to fix problems in the system seems like a better way to do things than making a new system that runs a risk of dividing fans. I think Unchained Magic and Unchained Combat could really help with many of the complaints without forcing changes on those who like the current rules and those who don't feel comfortable playing anything but what's in the CRB.

I'm no expert, but Pathfinder as a system seems to work as intended at a very base level - it just has a lot of problems that many would liked ironed out (such as martial-caster disparity). I don't think ironing out those problems requires a rework of the entire system more so than Unchained-style rules that target them precisely.

Any time a class feature mentions level, unless it specifies otherwise, it means class level.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/classes.html#multiclassing

PRD wrote:

Note that there are a number of effects and prerequisites that rely on a character's level or Hit Dice. Such effects are always based on the total number of levels or Hit Dice a character possesses, not just those from one class. The exception to this is class abilities, most of which are based on the total number of class levels that a character possesses of that particular class.

Cheers :)

Just checking as one of my players asked and I couldn't find any clarification online: are the deeds a gunslinger can do detirmined by gunslinger level or character level?

The text in question is "A gunslinger can only perform deeds of her level or lower". It sounds like it's character level to me, but I'm not certain if there's something obvious I'm missing.

Thanks

Thanks guys :) it's one of the first times we've gotten high enough levels to buy enchanted items, so I was pretty confused by exactly what added up with what.

I tried to find a straight answer for this but I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for.

As far as I know, weapon enchantments do stack. However, there are a few things I'm unclear on:

1) let's say that a barbarian wanted a greatsword with +1 flaming and +1 frost. Does this cost an extra 4000gp (because the two +1 abilities are 2000gp each) or does it cost 8000gp as the two +1s add up to a +2 bonus?

2) let's say this barbarian wants a +1 flaming and a +1 frost sword, but only has 2000gp on him. He goes with flaming and then loots a few villages and comes back with some more money. Could he add the +1 frost bonus to his flaming sword, and if so, how much for?

EDIT:

3) another question I was just discussing with the GM. The defending weapon enchantment says:

A defending weapon allows the wielder to transfer some or all of the weapon's enhancement bonus to his AC as a bonus that stacks with all others. As a free action, the wielder chooses how to allocate the weapon's enhancement bonus at the start of his turn before using the weapon, and the bonus to AC lasts until his next turn. This ability can only be placed on melee weapons.

If there was a +1 flaming and +1 defending sword, could the weilder add 2 as a bonus to their armour class?

I checked through the notes, and I am 99% sure that we have had no intelligent undead, never mind good undead; all undead have attacked the party, or in one case, fled.

I do think I know where the confusion came from, though; the player and I have often discussed that we don't like all evil undead, especially for intelligent undead - I could have well said in one of these conversations that not all undead in the quest are evil by default. I can't remember saying this specifically, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if I did.

It wasn't unfair, but as a voice of dissent? I think it was poor DMing.

There is a place for silly or even asinine behaviour in light-hearted campaigns. However, that doesn't mean you are immune to the results of your actions. There are consequences to acting in a stupid manner, including wasting combat turns. All of THAT said...

I would probably have flubbed the dice rolls to let the companion live, barely. But I know many are against their DM's doing that. Ultimately, I do understand his frustration. Sometimes a lucky crit with a power-attacking scythe one-shots your character. But there are no levels where being one-shot feels satisfying. Being dead isn't entertaining, and skipping the worry and suspense of combat to a final conclusion is underwhelming and hollow. It may not BE unfair, particularly to optimizers, but when a 'force' simply attacks and ends something you've invested time and effort in, it FEELS unfair. Even if they had not chosen to waste their turns, you put them in a scenario where a single pounce would end some of them, and you picked the member of the party it could. It would have been a hollow victory REGARDLESS of how they acted.

Thats why I make my dice rolls behind a screen. So that when my attacks kill a party that has played smart and do everything right, that last attack doesn't do QUITE enough damage, or one iterative misses that shouldn't have. And I get it, sometimes you misjudge the CR, and you end up with more damage coming out than you expect. But at that point, you have a decision to make as a GM: Am I here to facilitate my players, or the rules? As GM, what I say GOES, and everything I do adds up to that feeling of victory after a tough fight, with treasure and MacGuffin in hand, their wounds aching but their hearts fierce after conquering the dragon. I have failed as a GM if my players feel hollow when the game ends.

I do agree with this, and this is why I think I may have been a harsh - it wasn't the killing of the animal companion, but the fact that it died in one shot. The fact that I roll in the open, however, stops me from fudging dice rolls.

I'm not entirely sure of how to remedy the possibility of luck screwing the players (or the monsters, though I don't mind that as much) without rolling behind a screen, which I don't like doing (and I don't think the players like me doing either).

*****

I didn't make this thread to beat on the players, mind you. I really do want to know a good way around luck haxx, as well as if repeating this situation (if it ever comes about) would be unfair. I don't want to sour any player's experience, and to be honest I'm new-ish as a GM, and most definitely new as a 'harsh' GM, so I will screw up a lot - it's just about keeping these screw ups to a minimum :P

Euryale wrote:

Dave Justus wrote:

I will say one thing it seems you could improve a little. It seems the characters didn't have the clearest feel for the situation. While it isn't wrong necessarily to describe it as a ""skeletal creature with short arms and large jaws" but equally you could add "its eyes glowing with unnatural malevolence" or something to give a clue that this is a mindless evil thing.

I did describe is as more than just a skeletal creature with short arms and a big jaw, to be fair, but you're right - I should have probably added another hint on how it was evil (glowing eyes I'd a good idea).

Though in this world, I don't think I've had non-evil undead yet, if memory serves correctly. I don't like the idea of all undead being evil, but most are. They know raising undead is evil.

In a way, your response makes my point.

Some of your players at least seem to think they have had encounters with non-evil undead, so what they think their characters have perceived and what you think you have described doesn't match.

I personally have issues doing this as well at lot of times. It is easy to say give better descriptions and communicate more, much harder to do it in the middle of running a game, checking the numbers and dealing with everything else. Recognizing that I fail to do it sometimes, does help me improve.

You have a point there - if it's causing confusion, I should put more effort into describing events and creatures. I used to describe places (or big spectacles) in a fair amount of depth when the players came across them.

I think writing out even just small paragraphs to read out that describe not just the key physical aspects, but its mannerisms so the players can get a sense of what the creature is all about.

Mind if I ask what you usually do to get around the problem?

I will say one thing it seems you could improve a little. It seems the characters didn't have the clearest feel for the situation. While it isn't wrong necessarily to describe it as a ""skeletal creature with short arms and large jaws" but equally you could add "its eyes glowing with unnatural malevolence" or something to give a clue that this is a mindless evil thing.

I did describe is as more than just a skeletal creature with short arms and a big jaw, to be fair, but you're right - I should have probably added another hint on how it was evil (glowing eyes I'd a good idea).

Though in this world, I don't think I've had non-evil undead yet, if memory serves correctly. I don't like the idea of all undead being evil, but most are. They know raising undead is evil.

Euryale wrote:

tehgamingsnorlax wrote:

CorvusMask wrote:

tehgamingsnorlax wrote:

(This isn't set in golorion, undead are not automatically evil.)

So are the undead in general intelligent in that setting? .-. Or at least have animal like behavior?

I mean, like, even if golarion skeletons weren't evil, they are still mindless in "Kill everything that is alive" way <_<

We've communicated with skeletons before so I thought it was a possible and given I couldn't really fly away being inside a 10 ft tall cave I hoped ID be able to stall it at least

Had you? I can't remember you communicating with skeletons, but I might be wrong.

Skeletons in asguard's mortuary responded to us

They didn't.

CorvusMask wrote:

tehgamingsnorlax wrote:

(This isn't set in golorion, undead are not automatically evil.)

So are the undead in general intelligent in that setting? .-. Or at least have animal like behavior?

I mean, like, even if golarion skeletons weren't evil, they are still mindless in "Kill everything that is alive" way <_<

We've communicated with skeletons before so I thought it was a possible and given I couldn't really fly away being inside a 10 ft tall cave I hoped ID be able to stall it at least

Had you? I can't remember you communicating with skeletons, but I might be wrong.

You didn't mess up, your players kinda sound like a bunch of idiots.

They're not usually this bad, and the Grippli player is often good at strategizing. I suppose it should be noted that these are the first players/animal companions I've ever killed. Normally I don't really like doing it, but I was told by two of the players that I need to be more harsh (and one of them said that I shouldn't be afraid to kill characters). The session before this session I put them against greater challenges and they nearly all died, but didn't, so I was hoping they'd be used to it being slightly more challenging; it could be that there was a disconnect from my view of harshness and their ideas of what they could get away with, and that might have been why this happened.

Euryale wrote:

The last session I ran was quite a bloody one, and a PC and animal companion died.

/.../

The problem came because, through two very lucky dice rolls, the animal companion was killed in one shot. The grippli was given chance to run away (which they did) and the raptor did not follow.

Wait. Did you kill a player character or not?

I did, but not the one with the animal companion - I forgot to mention this, sorry.

The PC that died, died because a contract devil offered them a bag of holding (something that PC had wanted, and the devil knew this) in exchange for a favour - the devil explained that he could not force them to make the contract. The PC jumped inside the bag of holding when it was in the devil's outstretched palm, and then the PC started demanding more from the devil. The devil told them to get out as they had not yet accepted the contract, and demonstrated his power (intimidation with flashy effects), the PC then demended more from the devil. The devil explained that he could kill him by cutting the outside of the bag, but the PC did not get out, and then the devil closed the bag. The PC managed to get it open again (I let them make a strength check) and instead of jumping out, they again asked the devil for more stuff. The devil closed the bag and stuck his claw through the fabric.

The player seemed okay with this, and agreed that he probably deserved it.

The last session I ran was quite a bloody one, and a PC and animal companion died. The problem is that I'm not sure if I'm being to harsh on the players, as the player whose animal companion died felt as if it was unfair. I know this would normally be a discussion to have with the player in question, but I've already asked them and we can't come to an agreeable conclusion.

Background info:

Level 4 party, only two of them were in the area as the party had split. The two party members were a grippli charging build on a roc, and a dwarf Warpriest.

An undead megaraptor (stats reduced to 20hp and 14AC) rose from a pile of bones. The grippli got the higher initiative, then the dwarf, and then the raptor. The grippli decided to try to diplomacy the raptor, and the dwarf ran. The raptor was unintelligent undead, and pounced and rolled a 17 and 18 against the roc with its talons (2d6+6 each), and killed it.

The problem came because, through two very lucky dice rolls, the animal companion was killed in one shot. The grippli was given chance to run away (which they did) and the raptor did not follow.

***

I felt bad for killing the roc, but I'm not sure what else I could have done. What I want to know was if this was too harsh, and if lucky rolls came up again and could kill a character/companion, what to do?

I think that flaws are actually pretty good for a character to have, when applied within reason. For example, the person whose character has the crippling fear of dragons should tell the players as soon as their character is introduced. If they encounter a dragon, the player shouldn't choke up and let everyone die as they run for the hills, but instead use their weakness as a workable alternative; if the group wanted some loot from the Dragon's horde, the scared character may suggest waiting until the Dragon has gone out to hunt instead of rushing in there to fight it. If they do end up fighting it, depending on their class, they could try to employ sneakier methods for dealing with the Dragon (eg, using the liar's traps against it, or using illusions/summons to draw its attention elsewhere so the team can get into better positions).

I once played a cowardly character who was a bow using ranger. They often tried to dissuade the team into rushing in to fight, and would prefer diplomacy to fighting. But if the team did ever get into combat, she would provide ranged support away from the main fight, chipping off health with her bow and getting her murder happy octopus closer up; she managed to save the team twice through this.

I think near any flaw can be integrated in a way that isn't damaging to the overall structure of the group, even if that flaw makes the character less useful than they could have been.

My Unchained book isn't to hand at the moment, so this is from memory, but bear with me. If I remember correctly, you pick a variant multiclass at level one, and depending on which one you pick, you get certain abilities reminiscent of the class's abilities. These abilities come in place of some of your feats (I can't remember which feat numbers at the moment).

The sorcerer variant multiclass works a bit like Eldritch heritage, but without the need for charisma. You would not cast like a level 7 sorcerer (you wouldn't get any casting ability), but you would gain some bloodline powers in place of some feats.

The class features gained through variant multiclassing are set, and I think can be found online. For example, picking a Magus would give you certian specific (and usually toned down) class abilities in place of feats; you don't choose which abilities, they're given for you. Variant multiclassing does not affect BAB, health, or saves.

I think, when all is said and done, 1:1 power would be dreadfully dull. I think imbalance is fine and can make a game more fun, so long as one or two classes/playstyles don't totally outmatch everything else. At higher levels, full casters can cross the line and invalidate other classes, which sucks. However, full casters aren't born with no other choice to be class-role vampires - if a full caster is spoiling the game for others, changing their spells to something less overshadowing/more complementary to the group can work to alleviate this.

In a game like Pathfinder, everyone should always be able to feel as if their character is contributing; even if their role could be taken up, doesn't mean they have to be.

Apocalyptic Dream wrote:

I'm seeing nothing from the way that you describe this guy that suggests he can remotely handle evil.

I propose a hypothesis: The degree to which a person wants to play evil is inversely proportional to that person's ability to play it well in a cooperative tabletop RPG.

Replace evil with chaotic neutral, and you've got the first group I played with. We had three evil characters that weren't any bother, and then this one chaotic neutral who betrayed the group.

The next adventure, the same player wanted chaotic neutral again, and he was also planning to kill the rest of the group; possibly most annoying was the fact that he wanted his character to fight a very powerful arcanist who we were in dire need of talking diplomacy with (they way more powerful than all of us combined and had an army) as he was bored with his character - this is despite the fact that doing so would either get everyone else killed, or totally derail the plot. I also played CN here, and while I wasn't planning on any backstabbing, I fully realise now that I was a little turd to some party members, as my character was a bluff build who would blame anyone but himself, including the party (in hindsight, I should have toned it down to NPC only, but back then I thought it was great fun).

The adventure after that, we had two players who are usually well behaved play CN ratfolk. They loot-whored like crazy, and rarely co-operated to help other party members, and finally one sacrificed the other to a coup de grace.

In the beginning of the campaign I'm currently running, chaotic neutral struck again, but was snubbed out before causing any damage. The player who backstabbed and planned a backstab in the first and second adventures asked to play a CN cleric who was worshipping the opposite god to everyone else; worshipping this god as a cleric is pretty much impossible in this campaign, as there are times the god willbe directly opposed. Judging his past reputation of CN, I decided to just say no.

So yeah, I think your hypothesis has some ground, but I don't think it's an evil-only club (as you said later). I'd actually suggest that 'evil' could be replaced with 'a special snowflake alignment' meaning one which is generally not allowed, or one that is a loner/outcast/the opposite to the rest of the group.

(Perhaps it might seem strange that I'd have asked the original question at all (and wouldn't just give a flat 'no' to the player) considering my past experiences with backstabbing, but I did so to see if there was any way that it could be done well. At the moment, it certainly doesn't seem so.)

I've always liked lawful neutral, and then lawful good. LN more so because it blends into most groups exceedingly well, and it gives your character a good set up for moral frameworks.

So I would want to ask, what reason would an evil PC, who is cooperating with good PCs in order to accomplish some sort of mutually agreed upon goal, have to attack the people with whom he or she is cooperating? I can see going behind their back to cut deals that benefit you, trying to cheat the other party members out of a fair share of the loot, stuff like that.

As far as I can gather, he was wanting his character to work for a lich (a villain established in the plot already); for whatever reason, he was looking to trick the party into following him into the lair of the lich. The players are about levels 3-4, and so obviously cannot fight a level 15 lich.

The workaround I had in mind when this was mentioned by the player was that he'd be betrayed by the lich as soon as he handed in the party (she's not the most trustworthy of people, and by then she'd see him as a loose end), and the characters would all be locked up in the same prison/necromancy experiment chamber, and they'd have to figure out a way to escape together.

Obviously, this isn't perfect, but it was the best I could come up with to keep people on the same team if a betrayal ever did occur.

This idea may not be what you're looking for exactly, but I thought it'd be better to share just in case it helped.

So, he has a "pull" towards the quest. The pull, at the beginning of each life cycle, is mental. An annoying gibbering in the corner of the brain - difficult to ignore. Slowly, it would become physical as well. As he aged past his mortal time, his insides would rot, and in their place would form the feeling of multiple spindly legs dashing around where his stomach was; this feeling would grow and grow, furthering the strength of a push towards his goal. Later still, the feeling would spread into the other parts of his rotting, corpse like body. Insects of all different species would crawl through his tear ducts onto his pale, rot-riddled face. If he still hadn't completed his task, the insects would burst through his body in one excruciating act, and they would devour it. A short time later, they would remake the body as if it was new, and he could look forward to the entire process again. Even being slain would not set him free, for no matter the death, he is recreated.

Had an evil character once. Full on face stealing serial killer. He worked fine in the party even after they found out what he was, mostly because I gave him an RP reason not to kill / harm the party, and also had a decent enough reason to work with them.

I don't see him killing party members and it going well, despite what everyone says. Even if someone says they're fine with it, once their character is dead, they may change their tune and feel extremely disappointing. Especially if they really like the character in question. I'd advise against that overall.

As for non-lethal, I guess it could work if it doesn't happen a lot. If they're bonking each other over the head every session, then it'll get not only silly but likely unfun and become a competition with each other instead of focusing on any story.

Lastly, betrayal can be alright if planned well, however, you may want them to give up the character after betrayal, or else you'll have a lot of side whispering with each group, solo crud you have to deal with and in the end, they may not even be the big bad, so you'll be taking the focus off of the story.

I think evil characters can be great fun, but only if planned well and even more so, only if they can work as a team or its meant to be pvp, all against all from the get go.

I think the other players are happy with a lawful evil character, and they (as well as I) think it'd be quite interesting to have someone less morally conscious help the party in their quest for law. I think this will be fine, so long as the player is sensible and doesn't treat 'evil' as another word for gotta kill em all. If this became the case, and it upset the other players, I'd have a word.

Kind of strangely, on a side note, those PvP rules were made because the party wanted PvP, but a few others and I didn't because every other time it had happened, it ended badly for everyone; the rules were a kind of half way between. Luckily in this campaign, I've never needed to implement them, and I hope I never will. I feel the same as you in that even if giving consent to a duel to the death, it's all fun and games until you're favourite character is dead.

Yeah, if he betrayed the party, his PC would gain the N affix immediately. At the moment though, I'm not letting him - maybe later when he's been in the group longer and it's fully discussed with everyone, and they're all 100% happy, but not now.

I personally don't think Pathfinder is bloated. I mean, sure, there are a few less than useful feats or abilities in the books, but I believe the vast majority of material can be useful. It can be daunting to see the sheer number of feats, but I think it's better to have the ability to ignore them for the first few games, and to slowly bring in new books as confidence grows, than to simply not have them at all.

I played 5e recently, and it made me realised how much I like the number of options in Pathfinder; I used to think that Pathfinder was bloated, but after seeing some interesting (and non-optimised) builds, coupled with finding 5e way too bare bones for my liking, I think it has a good number of options.

Lots of good advice

Thanks.

I don't think the player himself is a jerk, but I'm kind of getting a feeling for his play-style , and I think it's quite 'total personal freedom based' - eg, a person should be allowed to play chaotic evil drider vampire because they want to, even at the expense of the group. I persuaded him to tell the others that he wanted to play evil, and the others have basically said that it's fine, so long as it's lawful evil. I also decided to get rid of CE, NE, and CN for this campaign because a few of the others weren't happy with the idea of someone playing with those alignments, so nipping it in the bud now is probably the safest thing to do. Suffice to say, I don't think any of them would be happy with betrayal from what they've said, so I doubt I'll let him do it.

All but three (including myself) players haven't played Pathfinder for a substantial amount of time, so reflecting on the situation and things that people here have said, I don't think betrayal would go down well, and I don't think the group is mature enough to deal with some of the more morally questionable alignments (not to say all of them are in this boat, but there are a few that I believe may equate chaotic evil to murder everything in sight).

I'll see the group in person tomorrow, so I'll ask them again, and I'll talk to the player to see if we can come up with something that will be fun for the entire group. Thanks again, everyone!

Thanks guys. I've since spoken to the player about it, and I'm trying to work things out with him (either decided to not play a character with a contrasting alignment, or to tell the others what he plans to do and see if they're happy with it).

We're playing a lawful campaign at the moment, as such characters are asked to be one step within lawful neutral. The player is new to Pathfinder (though has played a lot of 3.5) and he's said that he likes playing characters that don't fit in with the group (and I *think* he may have said he doesn't like playing lawful characters); his first character was CG, and while I probably shouldn't have been as lenient, the good half of the alignment made me think it wouldn't be too much of a problem, and it wasn't. He later wanted to make a second character (the one being discussed), and again he doesn't want them to fit in, but this time he doesn't want them to be goody-goody either. Besides the evil character, he also had an idea for a CN character, which I am also unsure about because they'd be worshipping a CN god (whereas the rest of the team worships the same LN god), and CN has quite a reputation for being the fourth (and worst) evil.

I'm wondering if there's a good way to appeal to his wish to be different (as to not spoil his fun) and a way to implement that character in a way that wouldn't disrupt the party. I know I could give him an ultimatum of "play the way the campaign was meant to be played, or get out", but I'd feel that'd be way too harsh as he hasn't done anything wrong, and it wouldn't be fun for him. Any advice for him to make a character that doesn't share the same viewpoints as the team, but who doesn't clash with them either?

A Magus uses intelligence to cast, and can use strength to hit and hurt (I know a lot of people say the dex based dancer magus is better, but strength is still a lot of fun).

So, in the group I GM for, one of the players wants to play an evil character who will have goals that will most likely go against the party. We have a few house rules on PvP:
-nonlethal PvP is okay, so you can knock someone out. Only time this isn't okay is in the middle of an encounter (because a knock out could mean Dragon food)
-lethal PvP is okay, so long as all involved agree with it, and what it could mean for their character
-betrayal is okay so long as I'm informed beforehand, so I can prepare. Betrayal in this sense isn't literal stabbing in the back, rather leading the party/a character into a less than ideal situation (that I'll create, so it's not totally damming and some could stuff can come out of it)

Basically, with those rules in mind, I'm looking for advice on how best to handle an evil PC who will most likely betray the party - tips on what restrictions to set would be appreciated as I've never GM'd for something like this before, and have only played in a game where a Stabby McBackstab couldn't keep it in his sheath (a boss fight isn't a fun time to be colour sprayed - this was not following the aforementioned PvP rules), and I don't want it becoming like that.

The player hasn't written a backstory yet, so I can't give much more information, but they do know the PvP rules, and so I reckon they'll be looking to set up a betrayal.

There are already several threads on this. Let me save you the time.

There is also value to Dave's interpretation, as that is the normal ruling. But the wording on the feat "stacks" implies otherwise. Thus, the rules change to restrict you to your character level +1 applies.

Thanks for the link :)

The ruling stated that a character could not have an animal companion whose HD was more than one above the character level. Does this mean the character could have a level 26 (21HD) animal companion at level 20? Not really unbalanced that late on, but I could see it causing trouble at level 12 or something, when you have a level 16 animal companion (13HD).

A player and I were looking at the feat animal ally:

Prerequisites: Nature Soul, character level 4th, must not have an animal companion or mount that advances as an animal companion.

Benefit: You gain an animal companion as if you were a druid of your character level –3 from the following list: badger, bird, camel, cat (small), dire rat, dog, horse, pony, snake (viper), or wolf. If you later gain an animal companion through another source (such as the Animal domain, divine bond, hunter's bond, mount, or nature bond class features), the effective druid level granted by this feat stacks with that granted by other sources.

At first it seemed simple enough, but then it was pointed out that, by RAW would it be possible to have a very high levelled animal companion through this. The reasoning was that your animal companion is 3 levels lower than your character (so a level 4 fighter with this feat could have a level 1 dog), and that the druid level from this feat stacks with other animal companion classes. So let's say the fighter character is level 5, and he took is 5th level in Hunter. His character level -3 is now 2, and his Hunter level that is stacking is now 1, meaning that the animal companion should be level 3. If this character went to level 20 with all of their levels in Hunter, their Hunter level would be 16, and their character level -3 would be 17, and if this stacks, then the animal companion level is 33.

This isn't to say this is how the feat was meant to work, or that it should ever be allowed to work that that, but is it a valid interpretation of RAW?

Thanks guys :)

I know that people generally accept that spellstrike can be used with a two handed weapon, but what about spell combat with a one handed weapon that you use a free action after casting the spell in your off hand to grip with both hands, gaining a 1.5x strength bonus.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but would it work for a Magus to use spell combat to cast a spell with their off hand (which is free), use a free action to grab their one handed weapon with two hands after casting the spell (so in between the full round action), and attacking with 1.5x str. Basically, is the casting of the spell in spell combat simultaneous with the attack, and could I interrupt it with a free action to grab my sword with two hands?

Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere, but when looking for it, I couldn't find an accepted conclusion.

Thanks, I've now told him that.

Can they make juju zombies from animate dead?

A player in one of my games wants to play a Juju Oracle, which I'm fine with, but I'm not totally clear on if he can control his juju zombies without a command undead spell.

Sorry, it's probably got an obvious and easy to find answer, but I've heard people say yes and no. He says he can, but I'm not sure where he got that from. The undead he's control are devils, so they wouldn't be very happy about him killing them and forcing them to be his undead slaves.

I've seen a lot of people claim that CR isn't actually very useful when determining the challenge of an encounter, especially at higher levels. But I'm not sure how true these claims are; at high levels, yes, CR does get thrown out of the window pretty quickly, but what about lower levels? And at what level does CR become obsolete?

Titan maulers are really fun, if only to imagine a character wielding two weapons that are twice their size.

I had a horribly statted ranger (it was my first time, so I was pretty much like 'oh, charisma sounds important, and I won't use strength so I'll put nine in that') but I managed to make her work by giving her octopus companion tridents in all eight of his tentacles - not strictly sticking to the rules, but it did let her have a decent damage output.

Euryale wrote:

Lucifer has some scary numbers (CR 39, AC 74, 943HP, and +71 to hit on his first trident strike being pretty daunting), as well as his nasty gaze effects, but his lack of immunities makes him less threatening. Going in melee combat and expecting to win would be foolish, but you can hope he rolls a few 1s when trying to dominate him so you can try to make Luci your bodyguard. That said, so long as the DM plays him smart, he's a toughy.

If we're factoring in things like immortality, then there would be a draw - with the Great Old Ones, the Tarrasque, and a few other nasties meeting at a stalemate and then deciding to go for tea. Or maybe a nap.

The problem is that spell casters can easily take out lucifier due to his lack of defense

Very true, and quite unfortunate. Though, if he was allowed to summon all of the arch devils (something he can do once a week) and they obeyed him, then he'd be quite a bit harder.

Lucifer has some scary numbers (CR 39, AC 74, 943HP, and +71 to hit on his first trident strike being pretty daunting), as well as his nasty gaze effects, but his lack of immunities makes him less threatening. Going in melee combat and expecting to win would be foolish, but you can hope he rolls a few 1s when trying to dominate him so you can try to make Luci your bodyguard. That said, so long as the DM plays him smart, he's a toughy.

If we're factoring in things like immortality, then there would be a draw - with the Great Old Ones, the Tarrasque, and a few other nasties meeting at a stalemate and then deciding to go for tea. Or maybe a nap.

I'd like to see weapons have a bit more variability, enough so there aren't any weapons that are clearly inferior to all of the others; I just see, or in least the games I play, that everyone chooses the same weapon and it comes to a point where you forget about the weapon (as well as its design) and just think about the number of dice you'll roll. It's only a small change, but I would enjoy more creative uses of certain weapons.

Also, like most, I'd love to see feats culled so only the actually useful ones remain, and certain skills like power attack can be pulled off by anyone - as someone already said, they're rarer than spells but often a lot worse. I feel that feats should be achievements - they should actually live up to their name, and not just be 'I can swing my sword harder'.

12. Making all three of their characters designed to kill the party. Even after they were told it was a douche move the first time (double points for only coming to one adventure after their first character). In the end it just devolved into an argument, and they were asked to leave.

On the topic of role play vs roll play, I don't think anyone should be saying "no, your group is playing this wrong", especially when the group has fun with that particular style; it is a game, after all, and so even if the GM controlled all of the characters and the players just rolled when instructed, if the players enjoyed that then the GM is successful for that group (though I doubt many groups would like this - it's an exaggeration).

I think right or wrong in this context is largely group-dependant. If the majority of players and the GM like to make the role-play dependant on the sheets, then it's 'wrong' for a player to play their 5 intelligence orc like an Oxford professor if the people at that table don't enjoy that. Similarly, it's not 'wrong' if the people at that table are fine with that way of playing.

Personally, I'm fine with the players playing however they want in the games I GM (so long as it doesn't turn into a one player show), but in a game I play in, I like the more sheet dependant RP. Luckily, this doesn't cause m/any problems as everyone seems happy to play the character as the sheets would suggest.

I ran the first segment of the game, and it went a lot better than I thought it would; all but the commoner stuck to simple tactics (eg, running up and hitting the Tarrasque), and the commoner's grand plan of magic jaring the Tarrasque didn't work unfortunately as the turtle of death passed the save. As for tactics and difficulty, they nearly died to a level 15 wizard, and didn't manage to damage the Tarrasque at all (but this was probably because one player wanted to sacrifice the other players to Satan), so they didn't have an easy time.

Overall, everyone seemed to have a good time, but the general consensus was that the rounds took too long (as we had to search spells very often) and we didn't know the characters well enough to decide strategy. As such, I think we're going to be playing a level 1 adventure in Hell (dying will be bad for their health as well as their power) that'll eventually build up to a high level adventure, but probably not a level 20.

Thanks again for the tips everyone :)

I don't know if this is a common occurrence in groups, but the discussion of whether we should allow PvP in our group came up, and it made me wonder what the general consensus was on the matter. I personally dislike it as I think it can get out of hand (with people making characters specifically to get revenge on the character who killed them, and sometimes simply fun being ruined because of one That Guy), but others in the group have argued that it adds more to the realism of the adventure.

Please note that this isn't me asking for advice on PvP in the group I play in (that's all sorted), but rather what do people think of player versus player combat in general?

I would ask the Level 20 Commoner to make up a back up character.

d6, no good saves, and +1/2 BAB??? At least Perception is a class skill, so he can see what will kill him....

They made a backup character, along with everyone else (so if they die in the middle of a session and they can't get home, they can jump in straight away with their secondary character instead of being forced to simply watch combat they can't take part in).

I think min-maxing is fine, so long as the rest of the group is fine with it; by this I mean, if a character is min-maxed for maximum damage and all of the other players who want to do damage are totally overshadowed, there's a problem. But if everyone wants to optimize, then that's fine. This just comes down to playing a team game - if you overshadow everyone in combat, it's probably only you who's having fun in combat, and that's not great for a game.

There was this one guy in our group who used to love min-maxing to get the big stats, but the game we were playing had very little combat in, and he'd dumped wisdom and intelligence for physical scores so he came out worse off, to a point that he couldn't really do anything; my point is, min-maxing can be a bad idea if you don't know the game your playing.

I personally try not to min-max if I can, as I like to have my character close to their sheet so dumping mental scores is never great, but that's just personal preference.

As others have mentioned, it's best to stick to the tried and tested methods at level one, especially as a newer GM. Unfortunately, ideas that sound good on paper don't often translate well to the field (believe me, I'm quite experienced at being overambitious).

However, that doesn't mean you can't make something like a goblin encounter memorable. As other people have mentioned, traps and puzzles are a cool thing to have, and can break up combat nicely. If you have a long running story, such as an evil Dragon terrorising a kingdom (yeah yeah, I know, very cliché), maybe have that Dragon appear: they've defeated the goblins, and as they turn away from the encampment, they hear the sound of thunder building in the air; the darkened clouds split and a Dragon cloaked in lightning flies out, and towards the city. Something like that would mean you wouldn't have to rely on the party's CR abilities, and could set up the scene for a battle much later on.

Euryale wrote:

Turin the Mad wrote:

*...Monsters that are rampaging throughout their favorite city from any previous campaign works wonders to (a) add that extra touch of emotional investment; and (b) to hopefully provoke " Hey, we LIKE that tavern! Nobody trashes OUR TAVERN!! " reactions. Hopefully, this means that they're savvy enough to save their highest level/day goodies for the more important foes.
*Play big or go home. Early on trashing their favorite city/tavern/whatever is the starting point. Later they need to be galavanting to all kinds of exotic locales. Some of them should be deadly or potentially so if they don't prepare accordingly.

Thanks for the advice :) these two parts in particular reminded me of something; the commoner's tavern was destroyed by the tarrasque, and in a half lucid thought I wondered if the tarrasque could wield/throw the flaming remains of the tavern, and then this somehow made me think of Mogura wielding the tarrasque. I don't think I'd do something like that, but if the players are after something a little... Different, well, you never know.

Give the Tarrasque a "HULK SMASH!" type of thing, complete with bonus feats with Catch Off-Guard, Throw Anything, Improvised Weapon Mastery and Mythic Improvised Weapon Mastery/Throw Anything. *Pouf*, the Tarrasque can pull a "Hulk" (TWF or otherwise with chunks of burning building, PCs, monsters, whatever's at claw) and make a spectacular mess of things.

Edit: if you want to get really nasty, have the kaiju/Spawn of Rovagug use chunks of environment as siege weapons. LOTS of damage with no save often on an area template. ;)

That's a pretty awesome idea ;) I think I'll be giving the Tarrasque something akin to the Honkytonkineer's planar leap; it wouldn't be tearing through the fabric of reality, but it would be putting that absurd acrobatics skill for jumping into use. Plus, having the Tarrasque goomba stomp a city to death sounds fun. It would only be able to use it a certain amount of times, but I'm hoping to shock the players the first time the turtle of death descends from the skies to obliterate the environment around them.

I'd also like to use the environment in a very destructive way, so the kaiju/spawn idea sounds great for that.

To shorten turns, I have asked everyone to create a list of their likely summons and give them stats, so we don't spend too much time waiting for people to find what they're doing. Also, most of the mooks are the same, and will be going off the same initiative, so I won't have to bog down the adventure with rolling 25 initiatives and keeping track of them all.

And about the likelihood of the players playing rocket-tag, I think that at first they won't. As the only way they've played the game so far (in other adventures) is run up, stand their for full attacks, hope not to die, I don't think they'll think of anything too fancy at first. Maybe they'll adapt their strategies and start thinking up new ways to abuse the wizard's spells, or maybe they'll all die because they challenged Lucifer to a staring competition :P

I'm hoping that the fight against the Tarrasque on Saturday sheds light on the team's ability (the monk, the mongrel mage, the skald, and the commoner are coming to that), and then I'll have the time to adjust encounters as to make them both challenging and fun, but mostly fun.