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This came up last session. Bad guy casts a spell and I went to use the Order of the Warrior - Honor In All Things ability to boost the save. Quote: Whenever the samurai makes a skill check or saving throw, he can call upon his honor as a free action to grant him a +4 morale bonus on the roll. Oops. It's a free action, not immediate action. To my knowledge, the only free action that is usable when it isn't your turn is "Speak". 1) Is this how others understand the ability? 2) Is this the intent of the ability? Seems like only being able to get a boost to your saves on your turn really limits the usefulness. Wanted to double check that the nerf is by design.
Sorry if there's already a thread that covers it, but my search-fu failed. I'm trying to figure out what rolls I need to make each round to attack from the back of a combat trained horse as a samurai, and what happens if the rolls fail. This is what I have so far. Let's say you want to charge a humanoid foe. 1) Roll a DC 5 Ride check as free action. Failure = use one hand for rest of round 2) Roll a DC 10 Handle Animal check for the animal to use the Attack trick as a free action, attacking with a charge. Success = charge. Failure = no charge. What are your options after a failure? 3) Assuming you succeeded with the charge, make a DC 10 Ride check so that you can attack with the horse as you reach the target. Failure = no attack for you. Do you get your standard and move actions then anyway? Now, what happens if you are facing an undead foe, and the horse isn't trained for that. Can you charge? I don't think you can. Charge is an attack option, and you can't charge if your horse doesn't. This is what I think happens. 1) DC 5 Ride check to steer with knees. 2) Horse double moves towards target (no roll needed). 3) Make a single attack w/no charge (no roll needed). Do I have it correct? Thanks.
Just wondering if the starting gold was correct. Gunslinger is 175 and Samurai is 105. My gut is that those values are backwards. Cavalier (and other heavy armor classes) are 175. Gunslinger is a light armor class, so 175 seems a bit off for them too. Is this correct? I see there is no FAQ for UC yet. Thanks.
This came up in another thread, but it got me thinking. There is no Protection from Neutral spell in the core books, but should there be? In 3.5, good/evil/law/chaos protection spells worked vs. neutrals anyway for 2/3 of the benefits. That changed in PF, and now all benefits are alignment specific. Is it an oversight that you cannot protect yourself from neutrals, or is that intentional?
I was thinking about readied actions today, and it occurred to me that you can ready Total Defense as an action. It's a standard action, and you can ready any standard action. If you ready Total Defense as an action in response to any attack, you get the full benefits of Total Defense AND you still threaten until you are attacked. Seems that if you are thinking about going Total Defense, you should always do it as a readied action. Only downside I can think of is that it would possibly change your initiative, which you may or may not want. If there was a situation where the DM rules you couldn't react to the attack (maybe flat footed vs. an invisible attacker), then the dodge bonus wouldn't have likely applied anyway. Is there anything I overlooked?
Is it a valid tactic to drop prone while levitating? Being prone gives you +4 AC vs. ranged attacks, which is why it is interesting. The prone condition says you drop to the ground, so I can see where this may not be allowed. What happens if you are prone and then levitate? Do you still retain the prone condition and need to stand up, or are you considered upright automatically?
In looking through the CMD rules, I just noticed that untyped bonuses don't help you. Quote: Some feats and abilities grant a bonus to your CMD when resisting specific maneuvers. A creature can also add any circumstance, deflection, dodge, insight, luck, morale, profane, and sacred bonuses to AC to its CMD. Any penalties to a creature's AC also apply to its CMD. This means fighting defensively (a single attack AC bonus is untyped, but a full attack grants a dodge bonus???), using a defending weapon, etc. don't add to your CMD. Is this right, or am I missing something? Normally untyped bonuses are preferable, so this has me confused.
This has been clarified in a FAQ by SKR, but I'm wondering how people apply the ruling. The FAQ states that you have to use a defending weapon to gain the AC bonus. At what point are you considered using it? Is intent to use it good enough? Say you charge an opponent and declare at the start of your turn to use the bonus to AC. Along the charge, you take an AoO. Do you get the bonus? You haven't used the weapon yet, but you will when the charge resolves. What if you simply move and an opponent had a readied action instead? By getting within melee range, you intended to make the attack, but as a result of the strike, you may choose not to. How about getting attacked during the initial movement as you perform a Spring Attack? If you Aid Another to help someone else's to hit or AC, is that considered using the weapon? I'm trying to get a sense if people interpret the ruling to be: As part of your first attack with a defending weapon, you may move some or all of the weapon's enhancement bonus to your AC until your next turn Or, if it is more loosely defined as: At the start of your turn, you may move some or all of the weapon's enhancement bonus to your AC until your next turn, as long as you make an attack with that weapon by the end of your turn. If it is the latter, it seems like there could be cases where you claim the bonus, but then are unable to actually use the weapon (spellcaster webs you as readied action, fall into a pit trap, etc). How do people handle this?
If you are poisoned and then you become immune to poison by drinking a potion of gaseous form, what happens? I assume you'd stop taking poison damage at that point. What happens to the poison duration? Does it become suspended, keep counting down each round, or are you free of it immediately? Do you get to keep making Fort saves to try to beat the poison while in this form if the poison remains, even though you (presumably) don't take damage from failed saves?
I know this will come up in our group eventually, so I'd like to get some preemptive Net wisdom first. Here's the relevant part. Quote: Energy Body (Su): As a standard action, you can transform your body into pure life energy, resembling a golden-white fire elemental. In this form, you gain the elemental subtype Quote: Elemental Subtype: An elemental is a being composed entirely from one of the four classical elements: air, earth, fire, or water. An elemental has the following features. 1) Does this make you Humanoid (human, elemental)? 2) Do you retain all of your armor and weapon proficiencies, and retain full use of those while using Energy Body? 3) Can you cast spells, speak, etc, while in this form? 4) If you had an affliction that the elemental subtype is immune to, what happens? The last one is the most interesting to me. Last session, my character was poisoned. If I were to acquire the elemental subtype, does it: 1) Suspend the poison effect and duration. When the subtype disappears the duration continues as per normal.
My answers are: 1) Yes, you are a Humanoid (human, elemental). At one point I thought it might include "fire", but you don't automatically gain the "fire" subtype.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Even better with citations. Thanks much.
I'm prepping for an upcoming game, and I plan to play an Oracle of Life. Since perception isn't a strong point for the Oracle, I was thinking about how to deal with random encounters at night. Looking at the Life Link revelation, it looks like the bond lasts until either party dies, the distance goes beyond medium, or the Oracle breaks the link. So, it would continue even if the Oracle is sleeping. The concept of a "sleeping" character isn't crisply defined in the rules, but creatures under the effect of a Sleep spell are automatically awakened if they take damage. So, my question is, if an Oracle of Life has a Life Link with all of the guards standing watch, and one of them takes 5 or more points of damage, would the Oracle automatically awaken at the start of his turn when the Life Link inflicted damage on the Oracle? I think the answer is yes. Another question is related to damage type. Generally you don't track the type of damage after it was applied (energy, weapons, etc). Once you are damaged, you are damaged. I'm not suggesting some cheese related to energy resistance or DR. But, lethal and non-lethal damage is tracked separately. Would the Life Link preserve the lethal vs. non-lethal type of damage in the link? I doubt this would come up much, but I could imagine a case where a linked target chooses to self-inflict >= 5 points of non-lethal damage to himself via unarmed strikes to send a signal to the Oracle. Since you heal the same amount of both lethal and non-lethal damage with a single spell, the Oracle may choose to wait to heal that until he also takes lethal damage. Final question. If you had both lethal and non-lethal damage, which type is healed first by Life Link? I think the reasonable choices are, oldest damage first, most recent damage first, lethal first, or non-lethal first. Picking one of the types first requires the least amount of bookkeeping, and going with lethal first is most beneficial to the linked target, which is probably what I'd rule for simplicity. Thoughts?
When do GMs have players roll for afflictions that have frequencies of 1/day? 24 hours to the minute of the contraction? Midnight or another defined time each day? After they rest for the day? Randomly during the next 24-period? Also, how do you handle players who want to cast spells in preparation of making those saves? Normally I'd just have them roll first thing in the morning after resting, and wouldn't allow them to cast Resistance (or other spells) beforehand. They don't have an atomic clock to know the timing that precisely, and I feel the save is an abstraction of the body resisting the affliction over the entire course of the a day. A spell at the last minute doesn't help much. Anyway, I've got a situation where rolling first thing after resting might be real bad for the PCs, and I'm not sure my usual approach is appropriate. I've got 4 PCs that have a total of 6 afflictions between them. One of the afflictions (CoT Runecurse to be exact) may result in an overpowering devil arriving to kill one of the characters after several failures. If I roll for the afflictions just after they rest, they won't have spells prepared and may not be in armor unless they choose to be fatigued the next day. If I have all afflictions save at a specific time of the day, they can plan ahead and fully rest and study before making the saves. That seems to be stretching things a bit if the players know "affliction save time" is 10am, so they go to bed at 9pm to get 8 hours of sleep over 3 watches, and have exactly one hour to prep spells. The option that is the most intriguing to me, but the most bookkeeping is to roll randomly to determine the time at which the next save for the affliction will occur during the next 24 hour period. They may get lucky and it will be several hours into the day. Or, it could be middle of the night with one guy on watch. I don't want to arbitrarily screw over the players, but I also don't want to set a goofy precedent, or special case afflictions due to circumstances. So, how do others handle affliction saves like this?
Next session, my group will likely meet up with Szasmir, and I thought I'd ask others to see how they are treating Anvengen's Edge. Are PCs actually taking it?
Spoiler:
Since it will undoubtedly result in a negative level for whomever is carrying it, are PCs actually taking it? My group has a Wayfinder that has an Ioun stone that counteracts the effects of one negative level. I haven't decided yet if I'll allow that to work for Intelligent items with incompatible alignments. pg 553 wrote:
It might be too powerful if there is no negative level attached to it, but they may leave it if it does give them a negative level they can't deal with. Is Szasmir exceptionally strong with it?
Spoiler:
Assuming they fight Szasmir, and he uses Divine Favor ability at CL 13, is he too dangerous wielding essentially a +4 keen glaive at that point? Is it overpowering in the rest of the Knot? Spoiler:
For those that keep it, is the weapon getting a lot of use in the rest of the Knot? I'm a little concerned that access to Divine Favor at CL 13 might be too unbalancing for 4th level characters, with or without the negative level. I'm dreading the half-orc barbarian raging with power attack, +3 divine favor, cleave and reach mowing down anything in his path. Are people finding that is happening in their campaigns? Thanks.
I asked this in another thread, but I'm not sure it was seen, so I thought I'd repost. In room F27 on page 44, it looks like there might be some placeholder text there. Spoiler:
the pit fiend’s face fills the mirror and unleashes a blast of despair and hopelessness into the viewer’s mind. This causes ability damage or another effect I couldn't find what the effect was. Did I miss it somewhere? Left to my own devices, I'll probably do this: Spoiler:
Mirrors 1-6 each do 1d6 points of stat damage with mirror 1 affecting STR down to mirror 6 affecting CHA.
Mirror 7 inflicts a negative level Mirror 8 makes the viewer panicked, possibly causing them to flee into F28. But, I'd prefer something more official. Thanks.
I've been looking through the CoT AP, and I've noticed there are some places where the party *must* locate a secret door to continue. This got me thinking about secret doors in general, and wondering how others manage them. In 3.5, using the search skill to check a 5'x5' section of wall took a full-round. In PF, you can use perception as a move action, but there is no guidance as far as how much area you can examine with that action. Any thoughts for how much area you can search in PF? How do others handle secret doors? Do you require active searching on every wall square, or have them revealed with much less effort? More importantly, what do GMs do when a party *must* find a secret door, but didn't take any actions to find it, or rolled too low to notice it? Clearly at some point you have to throw them a bone, otherwise the party may resort to taking 20 on every flat surface throughout the dungeon, or decide there is something they need to do elsewhere and move on. <rant>
I'm still months away from running this encounter, but I'm trying to get my arms around some of the logistics. Distance?:
Using the 1 inch = 1 mile scale, it looks like the Wave Door is actually 3 miles from Delvehaven and 1/4 mile from Wart Rock. The original text suggested it was 1/4 mile from Delvehaven and 100 yards from Wart Rock. What do people suggest for reconciling the distance here? Getting There?:
Going with the distance as per the map, that seems way too far to get a party there and back reliably via magic at 5th level (fly, water walk). Seems like the options are to go by land up and around, or by boat. If they go by land, I measure it being at least 20 miles from Delvehaven, assuming there is a bridge or another way to cross the river just off the map. That's going to be a good two-days travel, there and back. Definitely doable, but not real convenient. Also, since they don't know exact details of what they are looking for, they might have to spend a day or two so resting to recover spells while they search the water for the landmarks to locate the Wave Door.
The alternative is to go by boat. I don't think the party will want to hire sailors or have anyone else know what they are up to, although I could see them enlist some Children of Westcrown. This really limits their choices to something like a rowboat or raft. A rowboat seems most likely. That will seat 2-3 people, so a typical party will need two. A rowboat can move at 1.5 miles per hour, so it will take 2 hours to get there, and another 2 hours to return. How do people plan to handle the travel to the door? Getting a boat?:
How would you handle acquiring a boat? Seems like the options are to steal, rent, or buy them from somewhere in the Imperial Marina. I think all of them could attract attention, especially since they'd want to use them at night, and they clearly aren't geared for fishing. Encounter in a boat?:
Assuming they end up traveling by two boats, how can you avoid a TPK?
Looks like a typical rowboat is 8-12 feet long and from a bit of searching, a 10 foot rowboat is about 3 feet wide. Should you consider a PC squeezed at that point, since they don't have full range of motion in the rowboat? Seated in a rowboat, they should be denied their Dex. What about if they stand? What kind of checks should they make to retain their Dex and not fall overboard or capsize the boat? What about shadow attacks? Seems like the best thing for them is to make touch attacks through the bottom of the boat. PCs would have total concealment, but the shadows would have total cover except vs. readied actions. The shadows aren't geniuses, but they aren't mindless either. What about PC attacks against shadows attacking that way? Seems like there's a significant risk of damaging the boat (I'm looking at you, half-orc barbarian with a great axe). How would you handle collateral damage and the possibility of them sinking their own boats? Or just punt?: The easiest solution is to say the destination is only 1/4 mile away, so a party of 5 can get to the area with a single casting of Water Walk from a 5th level cleric. They still may need another casting or two in order to find the door and return though, and will be sad whenever the spell runs out if they aren't paying real close attention. How many castings they need depends on how well the search goes. They'd effectively get 3 attempts per time the spell was cast.
I'm hesitant to change the distance from the scale of the map, although the adventure was written before the map was given a scale, so the author likely didn't expect it would cause nearly so much grief for the party. How do people plan to deal with this segment?
Breath of Life is a 5th level cleric spell that can bring a character back to life if they died within one round of casting. One question I've been struggling with is how does a character know in game when another character just died? Do GMs allow meta-gaming, and let players announce when they die and by how many hit points, or does a cleric need to cast Status on the party in order to make Breath of Life useful? It seems that you almost have to meta-game the PC death event in order to make Breath of Life work. Otherwise the poor cleric has to devote several 2nd level spells to Status over the course of a day, or cast Breath of Life whenever a party member drops for any reason. If they spend a round to do a Heal check, or take some other action to assess the condition, the spell can't be cast in time. Best I can come up with is to allow some kind of passive Perception check in conjunction with a Heal check as a free action to observe a fatal blow being struck during combat. How do people address this issue in their games?
I'm about to start running this AP, but I think my players will want a bit more crunch in levels 1-3. So, I've been looking at different ways to connect the stories between the two. I want the PCs to have a strong historical connection to Westcrown, but I also like the premise of the Crypt of the Everflame, which works best if the PCs are from Kassen. The best I've been able to come up with right now is to start the AP with sections 1-3 as per normal, but delay the rescue of Arael (his status is either held up in courts, or he hasn't been taken yet), so his rescue isn't time critical. Instead, 4 of the Children of Westcrown are not present when the PCs arrive in the hideout. The missing Children were raised in Kassen, and they were given the honor of participating in the annual rite before they leave for the big city of Westcrown. Janiven has decided they hold promise and already recruited them, but they haven't arrived in Westcrown yet. After the PCs rest and recover, Janiven gets word that there was some recent bandit activity around Kassen. Being concerned for their well-being, she asks the PCs to go to Kassen, secretly follow and observe the 4 Children, and make sure they are able to complete the honorary task safely. Of course, once they get to the Crypt, things go wrong, and the 4 Children end up being taken instead of (or addition to) Dimira. Then the rest of the adventure plays itself out as written, more or less. What I like about this it is bonds some of the Children of Westcrown with the PCs, and they will definitely look up to them moving forward. The PCs can also choose if they want to go public with their involvement when the get back to Kassen, or allow the Children to be the focus of attention. Both options have benefits. Any thoughts or suggestions about improving this, or using a different link? It feels like between the two pieces, it could be a dynamite start to the AP.
Not that people are likely to play Universalist Wizards any more, but I do have a question about Hand of the Apprentice that I'm looking for some guidance on. Mainly I'm trying to figure out if range increment and thrown weapon penalties apply. Here's the line that I'm considering. pg 82 wrote: This attack is treated as a ranged attack with a thrown weapon Does this mean that a wizard carrying a quarterstaff, attacking a creature 30 feet away would take -8 in penalties to use HotA (-4 for throwing a weapon not normally thrown, and -4 for two 10' range increment penalties). Or, does HotA allow you to throw any weapon without penalty up to 30 feet away? I can see arguments for both points of view, although I'm leaning towards the latter since HotA is not nearly as overpowering as it was before.
I'm reading through the rules for creating wands and adding new abilities, and I wanted to get some other opinions on this to see if I'm reading this correctly. Looking at the rules as written, it seems there is nothing preventing you from adding another spell to an existing wand. The crafting rules don't stipulate that you start with a non-magical item, and the rules for adding a new ability indicate you can add abilities w/o restrictions. For example, if you have a wand of fireballs, it appears you can also turn that same stick into a wand of lightning bolt. They are independent, and each have 50 charges for each of their spells. The cost of that is 5625 for the fireballs and 5625 for the lightning bolt. Normally there isn't a big advantage to doing this, aside from avoiding rummaging through your pack when you need a wand with a different spell. But, this changes quite a bit in the context of a bonded object that is a wand. In this case, you could have a wand of fireballs and wand of lightning bolt for 5625 for the both. Is there something in the rules that I'm missing? There is a phrase in the SRD that a wand is a baton that contains a single spell, but I don't know if that description is strong enough to prevent using that stick to function as a separate wand. You'd end up with a wand of fireballs with 50 charges, and a wand of lightning bolt with 50 charges, both sharing the same baton. Thoughts?
I'm sure my group is sick of hearing me harp about this, but I thought I should get this on the radar for something to be addressed in an update. Here's an illustration of the size issue with HotA. Lets say you have 3 universal wizards: a tiny grig, medium human, and huge titan. They each have a 3 lb medium club, and are all proficient in the weapon. The grig and titan can't use the medium club in melee because it is too big/small. Now the grig casts enlarge person and the titan casts reduce person. The small grig can use a medium club two handed, and the large titan can use a medium club as a light weapon. In both cases, the club is the wrong size, and there is a -2 penalty for melee attacks. The question is, in which cases can the caster above use HotA with a medium club, and at what penalty? If you interpret HotA as an extension of the caster and only allow the spell to work with one handed weapons, then: medium human: no penalty
The part that is unsettling to me is that in all cases, the weapon and the spell strength are the same. The spell effect is independent of caster size and STR. It's simply telekinesis of a non-magical object up to 5 pounds. Furthermore, the caster is not actually wielding the weapon. It's being manipulated magically. There are a few ways to make this more internally consistent: 1) HotA creates a medium sized hand that can wield light or one-handed medium weapons. Large light weapons and small one- and two-handed weapons can be used at a -2 penalty. In this case, the human, grig, and titan can use the medium club w/o penalty regardless of size. The 5 pound limit could be retained. Small spellcasters would be forced to carry a medium weapon if they wanted to avoid the -2 penalty though, which is bad. 2) HotA works with any weapon up to 5 pounds. Caster size is irrelevant. The weapon category is based on the size of the wielder and there is no wielder. This means you can use a medium mithral greatsword as a medium human. If you are not proficient, you take a -4 penalty. This opens the door to serious abuse (Gargantuan mithral siangham???). 3) HotA creates a hand of the size of the caster, which can wield light or one-handed weapons of that size, with no weight restrictions. Smaller/larger weapons can be used at a -2 penalty if they are not two-handed for that size. Now a titan can wield heavier weapons, and a grig will wield lighter weapons. The spell strength adjusts based on the caster size. In this way, all casters can use their normal weapons effectively. I think #3 most closely matches the spirit of the ability, and makes it so it is usable by any creature, regardless of size. To me, the intent is to give a wizard a ranged attack option relative to the weapon they carry. Thoughts? |