Farabor's page

So I've only bought and read the first adventure, and it looks like there's only the initial show in the timeframe of the adventure. Several of my players are very interested in playing SimCircus, so I was just wondering how many actual performances can they expect to have? Is this something that I would just add more of in between the 6 adventures?

Perfect, thanks for all of the very constructive feedback.

I'm just starting the first adventure in the arc and I have players who want to further build their backstories as part of growing up in the Celestial Menagerie. In the first part of the AP, it gives 3 members of that circus and says that more will be detailed in the second adventure. I'm not ready yet to buy that (I want to make sure my group finishes and wants to continue from the first).
Are there any notable performers and/or other circus-folk for people to hook their backstories in?

Couldn't find this answered elsewhere....in the affliction rules is the following:

"If a failure or critical failure would increase the stage beyond the highest listed stage, the affliction instead repeats the effects of the highest stage."

My question is, lets say the max level is 3 and you fail at 3 and would go to 4. Do you go to condition stage 4 that has the EFFECTS of stage 3 (So you still need to recover from a stage 4 affliction), or does your stage number stay at 3?

It looks like they are cumulative. The encumbrance penalty is actually phrased as increasing your armor check penalty by 2, or giving you a penalty of 2 if you don't currently have an armor check penalty. As such, it seems both rules as written and rules as intended imply that the speed reduction from being encumbered also stacks with that from heavy armor.

I'd be far more okay with this if heavy armor only reduced speed by 5 and encumbrance only reduced speed by 5. This is something that should happen anyway because heavy armor is way too punitive as it currently stands. With both speed penalties sitting at 10, it's brutal.

Agreed, that's how I read RAW...but yeah, what with full plate being 4 bulk, even a max strength fighter has to be careful with carrying extra stuff to avoid being at a crawl

Speaking as both a player and a DM, treating time as an infinite resource strikes me as lazy. The PCs don't operate in a vacuum. Things react to their presence, NPCs have their own time schedules in which they make patrols/etc....

Right now, in my pathfinder I campaign, we just finished a mission to save some children from an evil cult. We didn't even take the time to loot everything, we had so much time pressure.

Sure, sometimes there won't be any time pressure at all...but in my experience, that should be the exception, not the rule.

So, in PF1 (And 3.5/3.0), you took the worse of the two penalties from your encumbrance and your armor. So far, it seems like in PF2, they combine. Is this the case/supposed to be the case? Is a fighter in full plate who is also encumbered moving at the speed of a snail?

I couldn't figure out the right sub-forum for this. Anyone have a clue on what the land speed of a laden camel should be? And no, I don't know if it's African or European!

I couldn't figure out the right sub-forum for this. Anyone have a clue on what the land speed of a laden camel should be? And no, I don't know if it's African or European!

So, when a barbarian gets knocked unconscious while in a rage, then gets woken up by the friendly cleric later that round, how does that work?

Is his rage ended? If so, does he still suffer from the round of fatigue? IF not, can he immediately re-enter a rage next round?

I'm about to run it, and I was confused at the fighter only nature as well. Guess I'm not the only one.

So I just skimmed the 2.1 document (Yeah!), and I was wondering if a change log is available? I.E. a list of where the document has changes from 2.01 to 2.1?

As always, great food for thought. A couple of comments:

Liveoak: This spell specifically requires a healthy, Huge Oak. Obviously this is DM and campaign specific on just how available these are....but I know that if a player was recasting this every day because he kept getting his treants killed, I'd certainly start limiting the availability...

Summon Monster 1 Riding Dog...there's a recent post on the rules forum about downgrading it to the normal dog.

So, finally got around to buying and flipping through a dead tree format of the Bestiary. First two questioned popped up on everyone's favorite pal, the Rust Monster.

1: Its antenna is listed as a primary attack, yet only has an attack bonus of +1, 5 less than its claws, as if it was a secondary. Err?

2: Its carapace is listed as having the rust effect, yet I don't see anything in the rules about applying the rust effect to metal weapons that strike it. Double Err?

You have to choose one. You could be crazy and choose one then ignore it and never do your faction missions.....but that'd limit your buying ability and bonus equipment pretty steep.

So, finally taking a look at the rules for item creations...I highly advise craft wand on a bard, considering you can easily keep grinding out level 1 wands without even taking downtime (Using the craft during adventuring rules, easily taking the +5 spell DC). Your level 1 spells are quite good at CL 1 ...and 50d8+8 healing for 375gp can't be beat for pretty much always being at full health between encounters without using up any of your combat resources.

Zurai wrote:

Bogmoll wrote:

the only big complain I have gotten so far is the change to exp, my players are not happy about the slower progression.

Assuming you're using the "medium" column on the chart, there should be no noticeable change in progression speed. The numbers are very carefully balanced to be identical to the 3.5 numbers (13.3333... encounters of a level equal to yours per level).

Your correct I think the problem lies in that the numbers have changed and none of my players have bothered to do the math, witch is not a surprise really.

XP is no longer a resource that can be spent on anything, it just accumulates until you level.....which makes it even easier to use my favorite XP method...don't hand it out at all. Tell the party when they level :).

There's a reason why all my evokers take whatever skill will cover knowledge:Geometry...

Ah, yes, sorry. I forgot we house-ruled all those away. The Strength check on entangle is especially stupid, because it's fairly easy to get it to "impossible".

On the plus side, while they didn't change the escape artist table, they did change the text on the pathfinder entangle to make it less utterly broken....all the rolls to get out of it are now the same as the original save DC, not crazy high 20+s for a level 1 spell.

Basic example: The DC of a CL 5 Wondrous Item would be DC 10. A Wiz with a 18 Int has (+4) ability modifier, and presumably 5 skill ranks of Spell craft, for a total skill of 9. They only need to roll a 1, and automatic failure actually only applies in combat and saves (but I houserule it in anyway). Using the other methodology, the DC would be 15, and the wizard would have to roll at least a 6..

Your example missed out on the +3 trained class skill modifier...level 5 wizard, 4 int, 3 class skill, +12 spellcraft. So would only need a 3 to succeed on a 15.

On a side note....I haven't looked up the rules in detail. Is there anything to indicate that you can't take 10 during item creation? I mean, it's not in a stressful/combat situation (usually...)

Farabor wrote:

The current system (since 3.0), onward, supports a simple int check the same way as every other d20 check.....roll 1d20, add your int mod, try to reach a DC.

The problem with this is that unless you're a Wizard, your int mod is going to be +1 or +2 at most. That means the result of the roll is entirely random. That's just pure silliness. There's a reason that there's no such thing as a pure-stat check in the default rules. Stats are always added to some other scaling modifier to determine your bonus, never used by themselves (the obvious exception of untrained skill checks just prove how silly it is to treat memory as an untrained skill check).

Rolling under your ability score provides a means to roll a viable stat check. It's unfortunate that stat checks rolled the normal way just are not viable in a mathematical sense, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Umm...Just to contradict you, there are several places where pure stat rolls are made. Strength check DCs to destroy objects/break free from entangle/etc. Constitution checks to stabilize.

I know in 3.5, there was a whole second in the rules talking about the philosophy of when to have something be a stat check vs a saving throw vs a skill check, for how much you wanted levels to impact the relative ability of people to make the roll.

The silliest part of this spell/ruling, is that you can take a hair off yourself, then cast alter self to turn into...yourself. And get a +2 dex or strength bonus. Now, system wise, this isn't at all broken for the level of the spell..but it is pretty silly.

On the other hand, it's been discussed on the previously mentioned thread _why_ they did it like this, and for simplicity's sake, its a good implementation.

Thanks for the input!

I was originally going to do it as an Int check, but that is always a pain due to new role players and being told to always roll OVER a target number and now being told to roll UNDER a target number ... it's just confusing for some people.

Really like the gut-check mechanic. Thanks!

Never, ever have someone do roll 'under' their stat.....that's going back several editions to the land of craziness. The current system (since 3.0), onward, supports a simple int check the same way as every other d20 check.....roll 1d20, add your int mod, try to reach a DC.

Thanks for stepping up to the plate! One of these years I may actually dip my toe into one of these.....but for now, perfectly happy to make use of all your efforts, and just add my commentary :).

First, on your skill list, I feel that perception should probably be added. It's just one of those pathfinder skills that every character should see about squeezing points into. Especially since if you're playing at later levels, where the stat modifier and the class skill become less and less of a factor compared to # of ranks.

Second, commentaries on the Elementalist bloodline:

I'm aware that both you and Treatmonk don't like blasters...I'm aware of the math and the arguments behind them. I'm also aware that if a player does want to play that kind of char, they're going to come to one of these two classes to do it in, and it's worth at least a comment.

Given that, There's one minor feature and one major feature of the Elemental bloodline to point out. The minor is you get burning hands and scorching ray as whatever element you chose, not fire. The _major_ is the bloodline arcana I feel you highly undervalue. You get the choice of changing the element of your blast spells at cast time, each time. This effectively doubles your blast spells known for versatility in getting past resistances....and since as a sorcerer, you're only going to know a few blast spells total..even for a non blaster type, it's quite useful. Say your element is electricity...take a fire blast spell, a cold blast spell, and an acid blast spell as your 3 different blast spells at different levels....and if any of those aren't appropriate, you can sub it to one that is. Since as far as I can tell, Energy Substitution hasn't made into pathfinder, this is pretty unique (For games not using 3.5 content)

I would like clarification on the "Wizards and Their Spellbooks" section of The Guide.

1. Does successfully scribing a scroll found during a scenario remove it from the wizard's chronicle? That is, can a wizard scribe a spell then ALSO buy the scroll of that same spell? Should the GM cross it off the chronicle?
2. Would successfully scribing a scroll during a scenario remove the scroll from OTHER characters chronicles, since it was consumed?
3. A general chronicle access question: Can multiple consumables be bought when listed on a chronicle? When a potion of cure moderate wounds is listed on the chronicle, does that mean we can buy just one or do we have the option to buy two or more, assuming we can afford it?

I know the answer to 3 is yes, as I've explicitly had that answered..unless an item is listed as limited on the sheet, you can buy as many copies of it as you want during the current/previous two chronicle sheets. I've also been told that even if an item is consumed during a mod, you shouldn't take away its treasure value/access on the sheet, so I'm 99% certain that the answers to 1 and 2 are no.

Well, just to share....

I play a level 2 melee battle cleric in PFS...and I suffer the 1 AC hit of using a buckler instead of a large shield, specifically so I have the option of using that hand (and losing the AC), if I need to cast. Still, I spend quite a few rounds with nothing in my other hand so I can keep that AC...I do a lot of sheathing, redrawing, switching, and other oddball stuff....

Personally, I find that aspect of playing the character fun. It adds the need for a lot more thought and planning to deal with the limitations of needing that free hand. As for game balance....I think it's perfectly balanced to say you can't cast when gussied up like a line combatant. If you're a primary caster and want your AC, just don't have a melee weapon out. If you're a primary melee combatant and want the option of casting, suffer the 1 AC hit and use a buckler....so in an emergency you don't have to drop something to free up your hand.

Farabor wrote:

As per rogues taking extra feats instead of talents, no can do, more than one combat and one general feat.

page 68, rogue talents: A rogue cannot select an individual talent more than once.

That text is included in the description for Rogue Talents, but NOT for Advanced Talents. Also, the wording for the bonus feat for the advanced talents implies that it may be taken repeatedly.

I just reread the rules....and all it says on 'advanced talents', is that starting at level 10 you can take them in place of regular talents. Nothing to indicate whether the that's intended to follow or not the rule on regular rogue talents. However, the Skill Mastery Advanced talent does specify that _this_ special ability can be taken multiple times, which leads me to believe that in general, you cannot.

Typically, you start with 2 traits, one of which must be a campaign trait, the other can be any one of the other 4 types.

Also, I'm pretty sure one doesn't have to be from the campaign specific list...I know in PFS it doesn't (Though the wording on the 2.01 document was very poorly done, IMO, and gave me that impression.....)

Between only needing a single rank to get an extra +3 in a class skill, and the combination/elimination of skills.....I personally think there's plenty of an increase of skills for everyone. Even my int 7 human cleric is liking his 3 skill points per level very much :).

As per rogues taking extra feats instead of talents, no can do, more than one combat and one general feat.

page 68, rogue talents: A rogue cannot select an individual talent more than once.

LazarX wrote:

Quite frankly after a certain point, parties don't need to be showered with treasure. D+D scenarios and playing style still seem to be influenced by the old paradigm that experience depended on treasure that was looted. Other fantasy RPGs like Amber, Ars Magica, practically any superhero rpg aren't bound by this incessant need to feed greed. In a heroic campaign... defeating the big bad should be it's own reward.

And that' why they're guidelines.... not rules.

Agreed.

That is why made sure to specifically use the term guidelines.

My point was more in response to a GM trying to shaft his players by using the bonded item as a loop hole.

So, to clarify the intent of the statement that started this diversion.....

There's times where as a DM/GM/what have you, you've got this wonderful idea for this neat challenge for the party to have to overcome...but then you hit that "Ut oh, afterwards the party will end up with the Thing of Doom! that made it challenging" problem...which can quickly build into an arms race. Players defeat X, take X's stuff...now you need Y to be even more powerfully armed to challenge them....a few cycles of this can lead to very silly games.

This happens to be a built in mechanic in the game that lets you avoid that arms race while still challenging the party with something that you ordinarilly don't want in player's hands.

It's a tiny bit off topic, but one of the "Evil" (TM) things about arcane bond magic items is the 'usable only for creator'. Nice for the GM who wants to make a nice challenging fight for his party, without then giving them the Amulet of Roxxors that made the fight challenging in the first place (And thus making it even harder to challenge in the future....)

As for finding a game, looking over the Grand Lodge forum is a good start...and for those interested in online play, there's also the google group for the pathfinder society online collective to check out.
(I'd link, but I'm lousy at HTML code)

I've been in groups that have done it just about any way imaginable, from the totally free-form, to the absolutely down to the copper 'everyone ends up with equal value' method.

Really, depends on your group. My favorite, of course, for dealing with 'party/group funds' method, is the halfling rogue method. It goes as follows: You need something that you think should come out of party funds and not yourself, so you ask the halfling rogue for it. You don't ask him where the money came from......

First off....I come from the school of thought that says the CMB/CMD mechanic is one of the _best_ things Pathfinder has done to change the system. Why?

First, on the theme of simplify/standardize. By that metric alone, any individual small 'hiccups' in specific circumstances, I'd forgive.

Second, oh god, on the grapple rules. Finally a rule set for grappling that doesn't make me want to throw up.

Third: About the difficulty, and why you get more for CMD than you do for CMB, there's an old bit of advice from a GURPS book on nonstandard tactics like "throwing sand in face", that, to paraphrase, went like this:

You want to encourage cleverness and the occasional nonstandard tactic...but you can't make them too good, or fighters would stop carrying around swords and would start carrying around little bags of sand. Any mechanic for nonstandard fighting techniques that becomes overall better in most circumstances would become _standard_, and thus defeat the point.

As it is, a fighter who's optimized for a specific technique can get quite good at it (As shown by the math ahead)...and someone who's not optimized...shouldn't have a good shot at it, or once more, people would stop hacking at each other with swords and start doing "fill in too easy combat technique here"

I heard about the Initiate of Mystra, but I never seen a build with it. What book is it in?

Players Guide to Faerun (The 3.5 update of the FRCG)

The term "class skill" meant a lot more in 3.0 and 3.5 than it does in pathfinder. _All_ "class skill" means in pathfinder is that if a skill that you have ranks in is on the class skill list for _any_ class you have, you get a one time +3 bonus on that skill. (No matter how many class skill lists it shows up on). That's it.

This allowed them to both eliminate the *4 at level 1 skill mechanic (And still have a total effective +4 at level 1 in class skills), as well as the "at what different levels did your multiclass character put his skillpoints in his various abilities"...which helps a lot on simplifying things.

On another simplification, they also give you retroactive skillpoints if your int goes up (from wish/level bumps)...so you don't have to keep track of at what levels that occurred at, either.

Share Spells: The wizard may cast a spell with a target of “You” on his familiar (as a touch spell) instead of on himself. A wizard may cast spells on his familiar even if the spells do not normally affect creatures of the familiar's type (magical beast).

Antimagic Field
Area 10-ft.-radius emanation, centered on you.

There is no target "you" for the spell so by RAW it does not work. My question to Paizo is, was Share Spells intended to work on any spell that could only affect the caster or did they intend for it to only work if it had Target: You in the description.

Since I brought it up in the other thread, figured I"d comment on my own RAI on this side..

I think that if you allowed AMF to emanate from a familiar, it becomes ungodly powerful, as opposed to ungodly powerful with equally difficult to deal with consequences for yourself.

(on a completely non pathfinder note....if you want to see one of the most broken 3.5 feats to deal with AMF....look up "Initiate of Mystra". Enough said.

Just as a comment on this.....if you play with a regular group of people...$4.00 is a lot less if you divide it amongst 5 people :). No reason why the DM should be footing the entire bill.

You will only find everything on a body if you strip it naked, inspect every stitch of fabric for hidden compartments, and then do a cavity search on the corpse. And even then a determined smuggler would find ways to make things difficult, especially given the ease of magical healing making surgical insertion far less of a problem than it might be.

This is where your profession: meat butcher comes into handy...what, noone's ever carved up the dragon's gut to see if it had loot there :)?

So...about this whole "Antimagic field on your familiar" idea. Are you sure this works? Share spells lets you cast a spell that you normally target on 'you' on your familiar instead. AMF doesn't _have_ a "target" field. It doesn't say "target self". It merely has an area that emanates _from_ you, under the area field.

My one trick pony: dragonslayer rogue.

4

* Granted the one loaded with summon spells may well be the party cleric, who has reason to take School Focus: (Conjuration) anyway, given their ability at higher levels to spontaneously unload mass heal spells4

Clerics=spontaneously cast 'cure' spells, not any spell that happens to heal HP damage (like Heal, etc.)

Cure spells=spells with the word 'cure' in the name.

Monkey familiar. And a bunch or ranks in UMD. And the Tongues Spell.

Opposable thumbs are a winner *every* time.

Which brings up the obvious question....

Would you like to touch my monkey?

I think its pretty clear....

That people can't agree on either what the RAW or RAI are for this.

Conclusion: There's obviously imprecise wording that leads to people seeing completely different things from the same sentences.

Suggested solution: Make the language more explicit/change the wording/etc.

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Okay, you can all go back to your repeated assertions now :).

Quote:

I Mostly DM, but when I do rarely play, I choose a character based on a concept as opposed to an abstract 1.35 rating better than something else.

I agree. But I also think it's good to be aware of what racial strengths and weaknesses are.

....My 3.5 halfling barbarian/ranger/fighter worked quite well, thank you very much!

(Groups most fearsome fighter/damage dealer...course, it helped that he was bloody crazy)

So.....was in a mod where people were riding camels, and pondering whether to ride them into combat....of course, the difficulty of non battle trained mounts came up....

So of course, what people now need are...

Battle Camels!

No Search skill? Which skill is supposed to replace it? I've seen that Perception allows to find secret doors or passages, but what about looting bodies or searching a specific item in a treasure chest full of objects, for example?

Just as a side note, there's now a use of appraise for finding the most valuable item in a treasure chest....(to which there have been other conversations here). But yeah, for a specific item to look for, perception it is.

I'm running a long preprinted module arc, and I'm using a very simple method of XP....the party levels when they need to, to be at the appropriate power level for the next set of challenges. Who needs numbers :)?

So, on the 'will/should' the GM do various things to target different players stuff....

That's so particular to individual groups playing style that there's no way to even consider the question having a universal answer.

As such, the only time it should even be considered is for non steady group based play, IE PFS/organized play.

Just to play devil's advocate here....

I've oft been of the opinion that as long as option A isn't strictly superior in at least 90% of the cases to option B, then Option B is quite viable.

There's quite a few character concepts/rules/builds that would benefit more from Half-Orc than other classes....mostly because of the combination of 30 ft land speed and da rkvision, the only PHB class to do that. This makes them very, very nice for any of your stealthy types who actually want to be able to move....rogues, rangers, monks....

Are they 'better' at these classes than other races? Depends on your build and role. So, in conclusion, since there are viable reasons to play just about any race for at least some builds/concepts, have at it!