Exavian's page

For touch spells the spells database shows 172 spells with a range of "touch." The database only shows 38 spells with a range of "touch" with "none" for their savings throw entry.

Not a perfect measurement though, and it leaves out Ranged Touch spells.

50% - Combat
20% - Story
20% - Player Discussion
5% - Role play
5% - Food

Only one person in my current group is much of a roleplayer and he's DM at the moment. Some of us can enjoy the occasional bit of role playing but we all have the most fun during combat and what I called "Player Discussion" which consists of everything from planning out our day to discussing how we'd like to respond to a major event in the storyline.

Some people would call parts of "Player Discussion" role playing but I wouldn't as the discussion is done out of character. Our characters rarely interact with each other "in character." Occasionally when in the middle of talking to an NPC some "in character" talk between PCs will happen but that's pretty rare.

No one in my group has ever seen a problem with a Lawful character of any sort looting a body or taking the gear of a dangerous captive.

We play 25 point buy.

We used to roll for stats but we stopped because one of our players is very lucky. He has more than once rolled three 18s on a character, so instead of dealing with that we just buy stats. Everyone seems to like that better anyways.

You only take the penalties if you attack with two weapons that round. He should not take the penalties for a standard action attack after a move.

That's what I thought, thanks for the reply.

I just wanted to be certain on this one.

Since the Spells section in Wizard does not contain the information of Specialization, and the Arcane School section does, do spell progressing prestige classes still progress the bonus spells from specialization?

Along similar lines, and also to be certain, do such prestige classes progress the school powers from the Arcane School section?

Woo! It does look like it, hard to tell exactly with just Youtube though. I hope it proves to be true.

This insinuates that a Lawful Good character goes about promoting "Good" is a "Lawful" manner.

In my opinion it is more a violation of a Paladin's Code of Conduct to let the situation be than to allow the prisoner's to be sold as slaves.

I apparently cannot type when I'm hungry.

Sentences should read:

This insinuates that a Lawful Good character goes about promoting "Good" in a "Lawful" manner.

In my opinion it is more a violation of a Paladin's Code of Conduct to let the situation be and to allow the prisoner's to be sold as slaves.

15% of Character Wealth by level gets us to a +1 Animated shield (16,000) at about 12th level.

Was there a change to Animated Shield? In the Beta it's only a +2 bonus, and a +3 shield costs 9,000 GP, not 16,000.

I have not read the entirety of this thread, sorry if these got posted earlier, but it seems that everyone is focusing very much on their takes on these paragraphs, but not the paragraphs themselves.

PFRPG's Definitions:

"Law" (From "Law Versus Chaos")

"Obedience to authority" seems to be the three words that are the controversy of this paragraph.

"Lawful Good"

This insinuates that a Lawful Good character goes about promoting "Good" is a "Lawful" manner.

Paladin "Code of Conduct"

It seems to me that a major part of the discussion going on are when "respect legitimate authority" and "punish those who harm or threaten innocents" clash.

A Paladin comes across a group of slavers, in a country where slavery is legal, who have prisoners that they are going to sell into slavery. In my opinion it is more a violation of a Paladin's Code of Conduct to let the situation be than to allow the prisoner's to be sold as slaves. The Paladin has to make a choice, and which choice would Iomedae want the Paladin to make?

I suppose that I will also come back to the question of "Does Lawful mean that every law must be obeyed?"
No. The law must also fit in with the remaining portion of the character's alignment. A law that states everyone must pet and love kittens won't be followed by a Lawful Evil character, just as a law that states everyone must eat innocent babies for breakfast will not be followed by Lawful Good characters.

Backswing allows for a full attack? Hmm. Well, that's slightly better.

Two-handed weapons allow you to have all the benefits of one-handed fighting (higher AC and all that) with none of the drawbacks (lower damage output). Yes, the changes to Power Attack made one-handed fighting more viable, but why would you when you could just have a floating shield?

What would be the point of Backswing if it did not allow for a full attack action? :D

So you're belief is that you loose nothing by Two-Handed fighting because you can simply get an Animated Shield? Understandable.

It would seem to be that the inherent problem here is not that Two-Handed fighting is too potent, but that Animated Shields make Sword & Board obsolete.

There are the obvious limitations of needing to be an appropriate level for a +3 piece of armor to be available, but that's not that high. Even making Animated a +5 bonus only delays it's acquirement by a few levels... Something else would be required.

I suppose this is what house rules are for. Hopefully further changes to this will be made.

Trust me, I don't consider Weapon Specialization to be a good feat. But even on a full attack, if each attack hits, it only adds 8 damage, 1 more than the extra 7 damage from Overhand Chop on a single attack.

Yes, Pathfinder does make it harder to get a high strength. You could squeeze out another 4 if there is an 18 starting and a +2 racial mod, but not all characters will have that.

And Backswing will add an 22 damage (33 total) on the first hit of a full attack at +11 BAB. Nor does Backswing lessen the potency of a full attack, keeping the chance to crit just as high. 22 extra damage instead of +8 from Weapon Specialization. Not great still, and probably a bit underwhelming, but that just brings me back to my point which you did not address...

What are the advantages of Two-Handed weapons over Sword & Board with the changed Power Attack? With your example of a 32 strength the greatsword will give you 15 strength damage compared to the 11 from a longsword. 4 damage a hit is not much by the time a character can actually have 32 strength.

Four. Points. Of damage. And I'm talking level 20, when you have a +8 modifier to your Strength score.

Compared to Weapon Specialization which gives 2 points of damage? And I'd assume that most Fighters have a Str higher than 26 at level 20, especially Two-Handed users, especially with buffs from the party.

Backswing also gives 3x Str Modifier if the character has +11 BAB, so a 26 Str character would gain 12 damage on the first attack.

I'm not saying it's an awesome set of feats, I'm not even saying it's a great set of feats. I'm merely saying it's not ENTIRELY USELESS.

No hard feelings in all of this, I'm just trying to get a feel for where your coming from. Your previous posts in this thread make it seem as you like the changes to Power Attack so that it does not favor Two-Handed weapons over One-Handed weapons, which if fine. But you also believe the other feat options for Two-Handed weapons are sub-par. Where do you feel Two-Handed fighting still gets power from?

A standard action to add twice your Strength modifier to damage instead of 1.5 times your Strength modifier? That extra four points of damage isn't helping anyone.

And you use it before you actually get any extra attacks, which means it's extra damage. Then Backswing is similarly extra damage for free once you gain extra attacks at 6 BAB.

Overhand Chop is also useful for when you cannot full attack, which is very often.

It's at the costs of Feats, but for a Fighter that is often not much of a cost.

The Overhand Chop tree was completely useless in Beta. The only part that wasn't a complete and utter failure was Devastating Blow, and that failed because it turned all fighters into scythe fighters.

I fail to see how it was completely useless. It's not amazing certainly, but it had the potential to add some damage, which is never a bad thing.

Exavian wrote:

But I'm failing to see why I would want to give up a shield for a very minimal damage increase.

Devastating Blow!

Hmm, the Overhand Chop tree does give another boost to Two-Handers, not a huge one, but a decent one. Devastating Blow itself greatly shines with scythes and greataxes, but greatswords get a boost out it when you cannot full attack.

Indeed. What I am unconvinced of is the usefulness of a Two-Handed weapon over Sword & Board with this system. Two-Weapon Fighting has it's very deadly uses still. But I'm failing to see why I would want to give up a shield for a very minimal damage increase.

does that make it sub-optimal?

No, it makes it balanced. It would be a darn shame if everyone only played a two-handed fighter. No one would ever want to play a cleric then!

Making something balanced doesn't make it sub-optimal, but does make the character itself more versatile (in other words he now has more options).

If an alternative is clearly superior then I'd say that makes something sub-optimal. This version of Power Attack seems to make the benefit of Two-Handed fighting too small to warrant using it.

And if the only Fighter anyone ever played was two-handed I'm certain many people would still play a Cleric. Very certain.

Trust me, I would love for sword and board to be exactly as viable as two-handed. This seems too small of a benefit to lose a shield.

However, I could not be seeing the big picture. What other the other advantages of a Two-Handed weapon in such a system?

Is this going to make Two-Handed fighting sub-optimal now?

If something has 18 Str and Power Attacks for 4 using a Longsword the damage would be 1d8+12.

If something has 18 Str and Power Attacks for 4 using a Greatsword the damage would be 2d6+14. An average of 3.5 more damage, only 2 of which comes from the actual Two-Handed mechanic. Seems pretty minimal.

Armour of Faith: I'd provide a level-based cap or make it a hgiher level ability. As it stands it's too good for a 1-level dip just to get charisma to AC. Somthing like "This bonus cannot exceed the character's Avenger Level/2" that way the character has to continue taking Avenger levels to gain it's benifits and it scales a little as well as a bonus.

I seriously don't see how this is too potent of an ability, even for first level. A Monk gets this but with a better stat(at least Wis can go to Will Saves) and a scaling bonus on top of it.

Armor of Faith (Su): As long as the avenger is not wearing any armor they receive a bonus equal to their Charisma bonus + ¼ their avenger level to their Armor Class, in addition to their Dexterity bonus.

Very similar to the Monk's ability now, I like it.

My LG Ranger had a favored enemy bonus +11 vs Undead and my chance of knowing what a particular undeads weaknesses were worse than our party wizard or cleric.

I'm not saying I should get plus favored enemy bonus on all Knowledge(Religion), K(Outsider), etc. rolls. Just when seeking knowledge on a particular critter. It just seems fair.

-Swiftbrook
Just My Thougts

Ok, now that makes more sense. Not a bad idea actually, I dislike bonuses that apply to a skill sometimes (hearing based Perception checks for instance), but if we are going to have one, then I think that you have a good though.

I've played a Ranger in 3.5 Living Greyhawk for the past 5 years. I've looked over the Pathfinder RPG Ranger and I like the improvements. I would like to make one suggestion:

For Favored Enemy, add: "A Ranger adds the Ranger gains a +2 bonus on Bluff, Knowledge (Favored Enemy), Listen, ..."

A ranger studies his favored enemy so well, he get's all these bonuses. His knowledge of his favored enemy should also increase.

-Swiftbrook
Just My Thoughts

I think the idea behind the Bluff and Listen and stuff is the reflect that. There aren't Knowledge(Human)and Knowledge(Goblin) skills.

I can tell you this is not the case. Not from what I have saw, it did stop the rogue/anything with 2 points dipping. You still see it but never for points. I really have not seen it lessen any of the classes, it was an artificial balance that really did nothing.

Not trying to be unfriendly, but I can't figure out what you are attempting to convey here, the grammar is a bit too far off. There's a couple of things that could mean, and I don't want to misinterpret.

Mistwaker: I personally am not attempting to argue that any classes need more skill points, or that they shouldn't get them. I'm merely attempting to say that giving a class more skill points is a bonus to that class. If you feel the that the balance of the classes is a bit off, feel free to tinker with it.

I completely agree with you on the consolidation of the skills, it helps out the Rogues and Bards a lot, and not so much for Fighters. I run a house rule where Swim, Climb, and Jump into a skill called Athletics. It's something small, but I think it helps.

So a bard, barbarian, Druid, ranger and monk already makes the Rogues skills pointless?

I think you missed what he was saying. It's not that it would make a Rogue useless, it would be an adjustment to the balance of the classes. If we assume that the classes are all properly balanced, if you add something to a class (such as more skill points), you change the balance. The class gets a boost of extra skill points, and everything else gets nothing, making them a weaker choice in comparison. It's not necessarily a huge boost, but it is a boost.

I prefer my games closer to Robert's than the other end, whether DM'ing or just playing. Especially with the Pathfinder Beta rules though, most of the people in my group are pumped to take item creation feats, and in our current campaign (low-magic that it is) my character has multiple.

In the few campaigns I've run, my worlds are very magical, where simple magic gear and items are also simple to attain. Custom magic items are what's special in my campaigns, and they can often be very potent. Hunting down a very specific and potent magic item could be painstaking, but a level 10 PC trying to find a +2 Longsword will have an easy time.