Fimir's page

Eric, human fighter, NG (lvl 0 - 6 ongoing campaign)
Twiceborn, dwarven cleric of Moradin, LG (lvl 1 - 14)
Rool, gnome enchanter wizard, NG (lvl 1 - 13)

2) Why not? A mirror or holy symbol is not an attack, the fear rests within the Vampire itself. So if the Vampire can see the mirror or holy symbol, he could be affected. The 50% chance would come into play if a Vampire on the material would encounter an ethereal cleric presenting a holy symbol or mirror.

3) Not sure, but he could not return from ethereal to the material or affect anything in the material home without invitation.

4) I would rule that once reduced to 0 hit point, nothing modifying hit points affect the Vampire before he returns to his coffin. I know the RAW only talks about damage, but we can deduce that the fast healing doesn't work as well, hence I would say that healing doesn't work at all untill the Vampire reaches his coffin.

The RAW doesn't go into details because for an NPC it doesn't need to be. I have a Vampire PC in a campaign I DM, and I had to make some rule calls to make the Vampire a bit in line with the classic image and expectations from popular fiction.

I'm having fun at het moment with Calliaste Shanda the Lillend. I figured that a celestial freedom loving creature who is also a bard would have a spiritual side, but she is also 'relentless against evil'. So when they first encountered her, I played the song 'Spectrum' from Florence and the Machine as her 'inspire courage' theme. It has this great mantra:
'Say my name, and every colour illuminates,
We are shining, and we'll never be afraid again'

So the party trashed her flying consorts with fire, but she got away.
She spied a few day on their activities (which the party missed because during that week they, nor their boggard organization, scouted the environs of the horn).

She appeared to the 'local heroes' on their way and warned them to protect against fire (favored by the party sorcerer and alchemist).
As the local heroes walked into the party trap in the caverns, the party overheard them mentioning the warnings from the 'beautiful dark-skinned elf with long white hair'. Calliaste was actually following the local heroes invisibly at a little distance. The trap was sprung and the sorcerer closed the entrance with Web, but the Lillend became visible outside the Web and supported the heroes with inspire courage (cue in Spectrum) and spells. Not that it saved the heroes, but the fire resistance and the fact that Lillend got away again pissed my party off.

So the next week, Zikomo Hears-the-Father approaches our villanous cabal, babbling that he had a vision: 'I saw a black skinned elf with long flowing white hair call out to the moon: My Lord, Prince of the Moon, I besiege thee for help. A dark and foul evil has once again taken root in the wild and beautiful caer bryr, and they kill fey and tree alike. I dedicate my dance and song to You, to give me council in this hour of need.'

So now, the party is facing the moon dogs. With preparation and luck, they foiled the infiltration attempt, but are still slow to muster their forces towards the combat. But again, Calliaste followed the dogs in and is providing support with song (cue in Spectrum) and spells. The party is really bent on her demise, so I'm curious if she'll be able to escape again...

Anyway, she has already a new surprise in the making for the villains. She has appeared to a tribe of Iraen barbarians a few times during the past weeks, and they are close to following their 'goddess' to purge the evil from the caer bryr. The party ranger/rogue has found their trails during a scouting yesterday, so if they play it smart, maybe they can ambush the Lillend then.

Calliaste turns out to be a great recurring opponent, and the party will get much satisfaction when they can finally take her out.

I agree about taking search out of perception too.
There is both a logical and a game balance reason, and for me that seals the deal.

Dodge (Combat)
You have mastered a defensive stance that allows you to easily react to your opponents.
Prerequisite: Dex 13
Benefit: You gain a +1 dodge bonus to your AC. As a swift action, you may increase the dodge bonus to AC this feat grants to +2. A condition that makes you lose your Dex bonus to AC also makes you lose the benefit of this feat.

The feat remains viable weather you use a swift action or not. Using a swift action however makes it better. There is a lot of good to this feat written this way and no drawbacks, whatsoever.

Great. I'm the original poster and I like this solution very much.

I hope Jason likes it as well.

Critical Feats

These feats are highly skewed towards large numbers of attacks per round (more chances to critical) and weapons with large critical ranges. I can see a resurgence of rapiers, scimitars, and falchions in the fighter crowds :)

My final gripe about these feats is the fact that it breaks the critical model by making the 20/x3 and 20/x4 weapons less significant because the higher crit range weapons are going to crit so much more frequently and the secondary effect is so much more powerful than straight damage.

I love the idea behind the crit feats but they have some serious issues.

Indeed, the carefull balance between the different weapons gets screwed up.

A solution could be for the feats to allow you to 'exchange' a point of critical multiplier for an effect. This is like the alternative sneak damage feats.
- With a x2 crit multiplier, you could blind someone in exchange for making the crit multiplier x1 for that attack, meaning no extra damage would be done at all.
- With a x3 crit multiplier, you could blind someone in exchange for making the crit multiplier x2 for that attack, meaning the extra damage from the crit would be smaller.

I agree that the skills are not balanced at all now.
Either combine some more skills or return to the D&D 3.5 list.

Assuming a Dex of 16 and using all 3 feats I can see 4 attacks in a round at +1, +1, -4, -9 to hit with 1d8 + 3 damage.

I think you are missing the point a bit.

The archer has 15 dex to start, +2 (human), +1 (lvl 4), +2 (gloves of dex +2) for a total of 20 dex. Suppose 14 str, a +1 longbow, weapon focus and specialisation, and off course weapon training.

Attack: 6(bab) +5(dex) +1(weapon) +1(focus) +1(training) = +14
Damage: 1d8 +2(str) +1(weapon) +2(specialisation) +1(training) = 1d8 +6.

So a full round attack with rapid shot and manyshot would look like this: +12/+12/+7. If the first attack hits, it will do 2d8 +12 damage. The other attacks do 1d8+6. If the attacks are within 30ft, point blank shot adds +1 to both attack and damage.

The melee fighter has 15 str to start, +2 (human), +1 (lvl 4), +2 (gauntlets of ogre power +2) for a total of 20 str. Suppose a +1 longsword, weapon focus and specialisation, and again weapon training.

Attack: 6(bab) +5(str) +1(weapon) +1(focus) +1(training) = +14
Damage: 1d8 + 5(str) +1(weapon) +2(specialisation) +1(training) = 1d8 +9.

Full round attack: +14/+9, damage 1d8+9.

The archer will do a lot more damage!

Now some people will ask for a comparison with a 2 weapon fighter. But to have greater 2 weapon fighting, the fighter would need dex 17! Either this means less str, or else a lot less hit points, which the melee fighter needs more than the archer to begin with. And if he does take 2 weapon fighting, he can only add half his str to his off-hand attacks. And it has to be a light weapon, further reducing his damage in both hands as he needs the same weapon to benefit from weapon focus and specialisation. I'm pretty sure the 2 weapon fighter will do little better than the sword and board.

First of all a question: What was the problem with Manyshot in D&D 3.5 to rewrite it completely in Pathfinder? Forgive me if I missed previous discussions on that.

The Manyshot feat as it is now gives too much power to Archer archetypes too soon, especially when combined with the new feat Deadly Aim.

At level 6, by combining Manyshot with Rapid shot, an archer can shoot 4 arrows with a minimum of feats. Only a -2 penalty from rapid shot applies. Only disadvantage with manyshot added is that the extra arrow can have no sneak or crit damage. It seems that 4 arrows a round is very strong compared to a melee fighter who takes much higher risk in close combat and has to get by with 2 attacks. The alternative being a heavy investment in 2 weapon feats with higher prereqs and penalties.

I would propose to at least put prereqs on Manyshot so that it can not be taken before level 11-15. Then it would still be very powerfull, but as it is written now, I think it is not very balanced.

I think the swift action is too heavy a requirement for Dodge as it stands now. There are a lot of better uses for a swift action, especially if players have access to items out of Magic Item Compendium, than to get a +1 or +2 bonus to AC.

I would either remove the swift action or improve the Dodge bonus a bit.

Along the same lines of the discussion here, I made a thread which analyses the advantages of the skill combination to the different classes.

here

The feat was too abusable. I'm glad this incarnation is gone.
While a weapon swap definately is something you can imagine, the implementation was all sorts of wrong.

What you could do is make a feat out of it that let's you swap a weapon as a swift action to surprise a foe. Effect could be to make opponent flat footed against your next attack. Something like a feint with an added bonus because you have a hand free that you don't use for a shield or a second weapon, but for the sole purpose of confounding your foes. But not something which could be used with 2 weapon fighting. You can only use 2 weapon fighting with 2 weapons.

Then you would really keep all the flavor you see in fiction. But also in fiction, the swap does not make the user making more attacks in the same amount of time. Look at the movies, it makes the user confound his foes!

I'll leave it up to others to make something out of it if they wish.

EDIT: Apparantly, I completely agree with Kalyth. I should read down the line of posts before I reply

I was coming on here to say the same thing - to me it seems false that I need a 13 INT to do Improved Trip - when the check to adjudicate it is based off of STR.

I understand not putting it under STR as it already has the Power Attack tree, or putting under Dex since it has the Dodge/Spring Attack tree.

So considering that these feat no longer have the amount of immediate impact as they once did in 3.5, I am convinced that the prereq is no longer needed. (not to mention the fact that Combat Expert - the prereq feat is no where near as good as it once was, either).

That being said - this is not a cry for making the Improved feats back to how they were - I'm all for the change to make them a little less lucrative - cuz we all saw how stoopid imp trip/disarm became with the cliche' uber builds that plagued the gaming groups. So I say leave the feats as it - just remove the prereq feat - especially for Trip/Disarm. Improved Feint - I can see with INT. Imp Grapple, I can see with Improved Unarmed Strike.....

Imp Overrun, Sunder, Bullrush - I can understand Power Attack.

But Combat Expert and a 13 INT for trip disarm just seems wrong (especially as I said - the feats are not as good as they once were, and the mechanic to resolve it is based off Str - not Int).

Robert

Well said, and a very balanced opinion.

I studied the new skill system a bit.
First of all, I'm a big fan of how the new system works, and the combination of skills results in them being more used, which is good in my opinian.

But for some classes the advantage is much higher than for others, and at the same time, some skill combinations have unexpected results for some classes.

I will give an overview of all classes for comparison with a few numbers:
1. How many class skills does the class have in d&d3.5? I excluded Craft, Profession, Knowledges and Perform because they are of lesser importance or have multiple uses.
2. How many class skills does the class have in Pathfinder? I also excluded Craft, Profession, Knowledges and Perform for the same reason.
3. How many ‘class combination’ gains are there. This number represents the number of class skills from D&D 3.5 you don’t have to put skills points into in PF because they were rolled up into a combination skill.
4. Finally a list of the D&D 3.5 skills which have become class skills in PF either by adding them or because they are part of a combination skill in PF which is a class skill. I also excluded Craft, Profession, Knowledges and Perform.

Barbarian 8 / 8 / 0 / Spot, Search, Tumble, Balance
Bard 21 / 14 / 7 / Forgery, Search
Cleric 4 / 6 / 1 / Gather info, Appraise, Speak lang, Forgery, Decipher, Sense Motive
Druid 10 / 9 / 2 / Fly, Search
Fighter 6 / 6 / 0 /
Paladin 6 / 6 / 0 / Gather info
Ranger 14 / 10 / 3 / Intimidate, (- Jump)
Rogue 25 / 16 / 8 / Speak lang
Monk 13 / 9 / 4 / Gather info, Search
Sorcerer 3 / 6 / 1 / Appraise, Fly, Intimidate, Use magic device
Wizard 3 / 4 / 1 / Appraise, Fly, Speak language, Forgery

Comparing column 1 and 2 we see the difference in number of class skills between D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder. A lot of classes have less class skills in which to invest skill points, with serious gains for Rogue, Bard, Ranger and Monk. Also note that the melee classes fighter and paladin have no advantage at all. They already have the least amount of skill points and for them there is no synergy.

Further, the rolling up of Jump into Acrobatics has some strange results: The barbarian can now all of a sudden Tumble through enemy ranks like the best of them. Not exactly what you’d expect Conan to do. But he must be able to make a large jump because he is so strong, that’s for sure. On the other hand the Ranger loses Jump, which is really weird considering that these guys move in wild lands where there is many a creek or crevasse to be jumped.

But I have a proposal to solve the above 3 issues all in one go: A new skill

Athletics (Str) = Swim + Climb + Jump. Class skill for Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Fighter, Mond, Ranger, Rogue.

This would remove Jump from Acrobatics off course. I would add Escape Artist instead. If you are lithe and agile enough to tumble, getting out of bonds or someone else’s grip should be easy as well. And it fits the same classes.

Acrobatics (Dex) = Balance + Escape Artist + Tumble. Class skill for Bard, Monk, Rogue.

The last change I would propose is to roll up Ride with Handle Animal. If the most useful skills Listen, Spot and Search get combined, then why not combine Ride and Handle Animal. All classes which have one of those as class skill also have the other, with the exception of the Monk, and I have no idea why the Monk should have Ride. The only difficulty is finding the correct ability for the combination. I would propose this to remain Charisma, which would be a small bonus for the Paladin, the class most associated with mounted combat.

Handle Animal (Cha) = Handle Animal + Ride. Class skill for Barbarian, Druid, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger.

The above combinations would be very beneficial to the Fighter and Paladin. This would also be a solution for quite a few people who have been voicing that those classes should have more skill points.

To conclude, I would also propose to make Knowledge (Nobility) a class skill for the Fighter. The Fighter is a formally trained warrior, as opposed to the Warrior NPC class. As part of that training, he would need to know about who’s in charge of a nation, and what the colors of the different hireling companies and regular armies are. I find it strange that the cleric would know this and the Fighter not.

Jason, I hope my effort to compile this is of use to you.

And to the community on this board: Please comment and discuss.