Fuelharp's page

For the purpose of this question, you have character who is a Monk 6/Rogue 3.

If said character has Snatch Arrows, Deflect Arrows, and Throw Anything; When an NPC fires a bolt from a crossbow from 15' away, (and the monk is aware of said attack), he "snatches the arrow" and throws it back, now the question is, can he apply his sneak attack damage when he throws the crossbow bolt back at that NPC, IF in the intervening time between the moment of the capture of said bolt, and the throwing of it back, said NPC becomes flatfooted, immobilized, or otherwise loses his dexterity?

In my group, we long ago, said, yes, you can. By raw, I can't find anything saying otherwise, nor can I find any references to the same question on the boards here.

tl;dr

npc archer fires bolt, becomes distracted or otherwise engaged in such a way he loses his dex becoming flatfooted, can the monk catching the bolt hit him with it, and his 2d6 of sneak damage?

This proposal is a demonstration of that content, and if you think Tom's demonstration was the most impressive, why wouldn't you vote for him?

If you liked Scarlet God the best but didn't vote for Tom because the finished module will change due to circumstances outside of his control, you're just making it harder to see Tom's work on a 32-page Paizo adventure.

I personally don't doubt we'll see such a product, and that it'll show up sooner rather than later. But taking your vote away from Tom because of a future release he didn't know about?

That isn't helping Tom one bit.

I have to agree, it was a pretty Jerk/BS thing to do in the middle of a contest, no reason any of those comments about it needing revisions later that couldn't have come out AFTER the contest was over. If it'd been done to me, I'd have pulled my submission in disgust, or demanded extra time to revise it so it could be fixed so as not to disrupt future plans.

I've voted for you pretty consistently and didn't really notice until now, which I think is a good thing, while thematically it's good, the fluff is nice, but I think it needs more crunch, but with some good old shlacking of some editing it'll be a great module.

I created a similar construct in an Eberron game 3 years ago, and I love it. Go my vote.

Cool concept, although I don't dig the "hundreds of oversized bee's", but, you got my vote.

Name is cool, fluff is cool.

Ripping off Aliens to create a creature? Not cool.

been known to make alliances with humanoids devoted to vengeance, passion, or craftiness. Ardorwesps cannot speak, though they can communicate with each other, and usually understand one locally-spoken language.

This bugs me as well, you can't make an alliance with a humanoid if you can't speak, again to use the Alien analogy, it's a bug creature with wings and adamantine legs. how is it even remotely similiar to a humanoid? is it telepathic?

It really just entirely reminds me of the Dog Alien from Alien 4, only with wings. Sorry, cool concept, I'd have voted for if it didn't scream of the Alien movies.

I knew the 2nd week in mine wasn't going to be selected... it really had more to do with a distinct feel over what Clark was saying in the forums on this years contest, and after I re-read some of last years and the year before, it was really quite apparent mine wasn't going to cut it. There's a few reason why I say that, but I'll keep them to myself, you can gauge the temperature of the judges quite easily based on the forum posts if you go through some of their posts elsewhere on the forums, and the contests from the last 2 years as well.

Had I waited, I wouldn't have submitted mine, and would have come up with something FAR different.

Here's mine, I think I have a fairly good idea as to what points mine didn't make it in, and I pretty much knew 2 weeks into the initial foray that it wouldn't make it based solely on comments made by Clark in the forums and then me going back into the other years contests.

But, I could be wrong, and I'm interested in what ye olde judges had to say about it, and if you could, I'd def be interested in how you thought the overall write up was, a critique on the writing is what I'm after as well as the item itself.

I probably should have waited instead of posting it up the first day, but I would just have rewritten it a hundred times, next year, I'll be far more prepared. This is the first time I've ever submitted anything I've written. So please, be critical, you're not going to scare me off with a few scathing remarks.

Artifex-Gnomish

Aura strong conjuration; CL 13th
Slot -; Price 70,000 gp; Weight 3 lbs.

Description

A wily Gnome evoker born in the Elemental plane of Fire grew so sick and tired of always carrying his adventuring gear and crafting tools across the Material Plane that he didn’t want to leave home anymore. So he forged the fist sized brass orb before you, bringing his workshop, bed, and boudoir with him.

Like most adventuring wizards, they require a workshop with which to quietly study, research spells, create potions, write scrolls or craft items without having to haul foot across a league or two. With all the comforts of home, the Artifex delivers.

Once per day, speaking a word of command, the rune inscribed orb luninesces, fabricating a semi-permanent tower in mere minutes. Limited to a 40 foot square radius, it uses whatever non living or inanimate materials are available within 100 feet of its wielder.

Once inside, using a second word of command, the orb furnishes the tower with non-exotic, non-masterwork tools, materials, and other mundane equipment required, including food, drink, and bedding for 6 of his traveling companions, not exceeding a value of 1000 gp. Artifex fabricated materials leaving the tower, or the orb itself crossing out threshold, will cause all those created items to crumble into a fine ash within 1d3 minutes.

A final word of command can be spoken to disintegrate the tower, turning it into a cinder cloud of white ash for 1d3 rounds. Creatures and non-magical items inside the 40 foot area take 6d6 points of fire damage per round, (Reflex DC 20 half). If left unspoken, the tower will remain standing, bereft however of anything the Artifex fabricated within it.

Construction

Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, mage's magnificent mansion, major creation, fabricate;

Cost 35,000 gp

This was fun, I doubt mine got into the top 32, but I'm ok with it, I've got a killer one for next year already on the go, haha..

hope everyone had a good time, and for the love of god, please don't everyone hit refresh 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times, some of us have ridiculously bad wi-fi.. heh

Name your favorite wondrous item, from anywhere. If it isn't in the Pathfinder Core book, cite what book it's in and give a brief description of what it does.

Hook of Dissolution is a time honored fave of mine when playing LE Monks (from Book of Vile Darkness)

Horizon Goggles from Complete Mage was nice for one of my chars too

I doubt it's only me, but it's killing me waiting to wait another 11 days. I think the waiting is worst, then if I get rejected from the top 32. Anyone second me on this?

I already know mine will be rejected, if I'd waited 2 weeks I'd have come up with something better. After reading Clarks posts it's rather apparent that if simply removed any flavor references, which would have chopped mine down to 180 words, I think mine would be a decent contender, although I think mines well written and probably a little off on the gp value.

but hey, you never know, you might just get in, so chin up, and go play an MMO, drown your sorrows in pixelated cleavage.

Here's my submission for the Gag Thread. Although honestly, it's a cursed item and I think therefore it could be a theoretical real item. Friend of mine created this way, way, way back when we still played the Red Box. Still it's a classic, and I put it in most of my games.

Girdle of Dwarven Throwing
Aura faint transmutation; CL 5th
Slot torso; Price 1500 gp; Weight -

Description

This master work leather belt inlaid with jewels can only be worn by a dwarf or duergar. Once a dwarf or duergar puts it on, he find himself thrown across the room every 1d3 rounds unless somehow shackled in chains to a wall. The belt flings it's wearer in a random 1d12 (clockwise) horizontal direction up to 30 feet, if stopped, the character takes 1d6 points of damage per 5 feet remaining. The magic of the belt stops when it's wearer is unconscious, but will start up again once he or she is awake. Remove Curse will allow the character to remove the Belt, however the process destroys the magic within rendering it a normal master work leather belt.

Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, Fly, Bestow Curse; Cost 750 gp

As soon as I got the email about the contest I started to get to work on it, after 11 straight hours and 20 or so edits, I gave it to a few friends to look over, they said it was good, so I waited a day went back to it, and did another 20 or so edits, gave it out, got the "awesome" remark, and waited for it start, hit submit, and haven't looked back.

sometimes you just got to go with the initial vibe, spending too much time going over it a hundred times you just end up with nothing. There were a few revisions that completely changed what I did, but I'm happy with mine. early, late, do it whenever you're ready I say.

I'd say good-luck, but I wouldn't mean it, hehe, I aim to win.

pls det;et

Insert Neat Username Here wrote:

Rocks fall. Everyone dies.

Ah a classic.

Done that once or twice, stupid halfling rogue survived. But he got punted by the Hill Giant who started the rockslide in the first place.

Nasty things I've done as a DM;

Invisible Iron Pikes at the bottom of a 5 foot pit with a 2' wide walkway... tpk on that one, they weren't supposed to all jump into the pit to avoid the Walkway.

Symbol of Death hidden by an Illusion so obvious the party all make their saves and then Ranger, the Rogue and Fighter died. The halfling Cleric and gnome illusionist were pissed at having to carry the half giant, half orc and the 7' tall human all the way back to town to get them raised.

Young White Dragon with 6 levels of Ur Priest

I usually run 4 to 5 session "story" arcs within my overall campaign, and when we start at the beginning of a new one, I generally put the characters in the middle of something; you're in the middle of a Bar Brawl; you've just been thrown into Jail; you're Fighting unarmed with 10 monsters who are; "you're falling, make dex rolls"; "the tree you were sleeping under, just got kicked over by a hill giant, roll con"; you wake up, and there's a dead goblin in your bed; the vampire is sucking your blood, make a str check...

possibilities are endless. I always start things out with a bang, or least something interesting.

sorcerers need to be dropped from the game in their entirety, and paladins and rangers should lose their spellcasting ability, and....

everything has an opinion about "x" class being "x" over "x" and in my game "x" player always does "x" with it, so "x" tends to be gimped/overpowered etc...

#1 rule in the game. if you don't like it, house rule it..

I think the Pathfinder ranger is awesome, although I've always disliked the 'two weapon fighting' thing which is a direct rip of drizzt I had hoped someone would ditch it in favor of something more interesting. And I've never much cared for the spellcasting thing, which again, is a nod to Drizzt and his innate powers which in the books quite pointedly if one looks hard enough is why WOTC turned the ranger into a twin sword wielding faerie fire tossing.. er.. fighter. cause lets face it, even if you're gonna groan about Drizzt, you have to admit when you first saw it, it was fraking cool.

but, how paizo's made the current version of the ranger greatly lends itself rather easily to the Horizon Walker PRC out of the DMG 3.5, which I intend on taking my Half Orc ranger to after I do 3 levels of the Half Orc Paragon from unearthed arcana

ranks are how many skill points you've put into a skill, skill points are what you get every level, and Humans are the only ones who get +1 or One extra Skill Point to put into ranks each level.

the max ranks are level dependent.. a human fighter at level 1, can have up to 4 ranks in a skill, but a human fighter at level 5, can have UP to 8 ranks in a skill.

I'm a pretty good and pretty bad roleplayer, and when given "the run of the candy store" I admit I'll rape the ice cream dept, pillage the chocolate bar section and brutalize the employee's. I don't like Roll-Playing, it annoys me, and I don't like stupid things like a Paladin being given a +5 holy avenger at level 4 and a hippogriff mount, "because it doesn't say in the rules he can't have one".

that being said, every DM I come across I say up front, "I'm not a min/maxer, and while I don't admit to being a powergamer, I have read all the rules, and can come up with some really nasty surprises down the road, and some pretty brutal combinations. So, I'll give you the outline of my character, and a progression to level x, so you know where I'm going and what to expect. I will also present you with 3 or 4 characters, so you can peruse them at your leisure."

when I say I'm not a min maxer, I roll all my stats randomly, or get the DM to do it, just because I can get sucked into the whole min/max thing. and while it might seem to be powergamerish to create a Rogue/Monk/Ur Priest with the feats of Practiced Spellcaster, Improved Natural Attack and crafting things to turn me into "uber smack the badies around while being just as evil as they are and conning the party paladin that I'm doing what's right for the right reasons and even encouraging him to stop my evil ways", doesn't make me a munchkin or a powergamer.

It's all really subjective, I hate munchkins, and even if you do min/max you're only going to be able to do one thing very well, if you have a good DM min/maxers, powergamers and munchkins will leave the game very quickly. Hell I once had this wild rogue/fighter character that could beat the paladin, the monk, the meat shield and the wizard to a pulp, and in 6 months of playing that char every week, I got into 4 fights total, maybe 5.

So, yes, I'm a good roleplayer, and I'm a bad roleplayer. depends on the game, the dm and who's got the cookies and milk

Kin Kobaldts be hippehs?

nah, ornery orc kin be hippehs, kobaldts be yuppie scum!

3 suggestions for you, depending on what level you're on.

Dread Necromancer - Uber Badass Necromonger - coupled with some basic low level arcane spells via the sorcerer (mage armor, feather fall, rope trick, invisibility) you end up being just bad ass. Taking Scribe scroll and practiced spellcaster for the Dread Necro makes you particularly brutal early on.

True Necromancer - I think it's in Libris Mortis - Take some levels in Cleric and go... Sorcerer/Cleric for that just sounds absolutely nasty. and, of course, taking Practiced Spellcaster for this one is just. uber.
(Sorcerer 4/Cleric 3 -> True Necro)

Take all 3 levels of Human Paragon from Unearthed Arcana and on level 6 take a level of Fighter or Ranger to match up the pre-req's, and then go Ur Priest for 10 Levels from complete Divine. you could work a very nice storyline out of that. (Sorcerer 2/Paragon 3/Fighter 1 -> Ur Priest)

but if you're really set on the two you've got, Fiend Blooded is far more fun to play with than blood magus, and forget losing the level, it happens.

Lilith wrote:

From what I've found with my groups is people tend to play the same character type because they're looking or trying to do something with that archetype, and until they do, they're going to keep playing it.

I think that is the most insightful comment I've read here so far.

That's pretty much dead on how I feel about playing Rogues, Wizards, and combination's thereof, I had this great fighter character who I absolutely loved, played him in 4 different campaigns and then I moved on to other things. I personally like playing monster races but have yet to encounter a DM will to let me play a Goblin Artificer, or Hobgoblin Swashbuckler, or a Kobold Mystic Theurge, all of which I'd like to one day.

I'm pretty flexible with my current group, in fact my DM does 1-shots when he doesn't have anything made and we use pre-gen chars if our full group isn't around, it's alot of fun.

I downloaded a copy of 4e, and quickly decided I wanted the 2 hours of my life back from reading it.. then I gave it another chance, seeing as maybe I was suffering from the same syndrome as 3.0 when it came out, and bought the 3 core books.. after downloading FR for 4e, I'm..

using my 4e books as firestarter for my uncle's cabin woodburning stove.

I had a great character that I killed off simply because the game got completely stupid, the DM went nuts with a Pit Fiend showing up and NOT slaughtering us all, even though we were 4th level, and he adjusted a prc so i could get it earlier, the min/maxer in me giggled like a school girl, until about a month later I was completely bored with it, it came down to me simply not earning it, and i felt cheap using the bonus stuff.

the other main problem with that game though, was that none of the other characters had any reason to stick together, half of the players in the game didn't like the other half either, so all in all the game went south really quite quickly and the DM did an almost TPK just to end what should have been ended much much sooner. it never helped the dm was very much into home brew and the soured the campaign setting for us, but. BUT, he was probably simply the best storyteller I've ever played with, too bad he sucked as a dm.

I think honestly, if you're not happy with your character, or the game for longer than a couple of sessions, you should nuke him, and if the dm isn't happy with the game, he should nuke the campaign, but not drag it out into a tpk.

think it just depends, i would much rather my chars get killed off honestly for stupid moves and that lucky head shot the goblin happens to get off than a dm molly-coddling us.

this is d&d, not spin the bottle.

Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Planescape, were the bomb, and i loved them, then Eberron came out, and I was excited by it, and loved it, and lived/breathed it but honestly, and i've met Keith Baker, have a lot of respect for him, the settings gone to pot, too much of the same thing that eventually happened to the rest.

over saturation. I won't even get into the issues I have with who ever did the world maps and population calculations..

with Pathfinder, it's like they've looked at all the bad stuff people complained about, and made a very nice setting that i personaly love to death. and there is a very deep sense i feel, of being on the ground floor of Golarion, it's like being in a new relationship hehe, lets hope it doesn't turn into a psycho ex like Ravenloft...

So what do they do? The badly wounded barbarian decides to go to the temple, and the other one offers to escort him. The almost-out-of-spells wizard and the two halflings lock themselves in the bedroom to wait. No, seriously.

I would have said as the barbarians return to the hideout they find the spellthief, the wizard and druid's heads on pikes 100 feet from the now burning hideout...

object lesson the two barbarians will keep with them for the rest of thier days..

Banned classes? For my campaign, Bard is banned. Why? It's never made any sense to me why a bard would be traveling around having adventures instead of going from town to town telling stories/making money.

that's sort of like an old dm i had who hated wizards because he could never get why a wizard would go out adventuring. bards are the games jack of all trades of the game, the ultimate explorers, you need to experience life, experience the world, they throw spells, fight when they need to, have loads of charisma, they're entertainers, diplomats, spies, and honestly i don't think i could understand why a bard would want to stay put anywhere for long when there's an entire world out there to explore, and make tons of gold.

Any class from the forgoten realms.

you gotta remember than forgotten realms prc's are designed specifically for that setting, most if not all of them outside the realms would be way over powered, or not make much sense.

I just wanted to hear what some people thought. For me the original Ravenloft and Dark Sun boxsets were nearly perfect for me. I aways wanted to get into Spelljammers but it never seemed to work out.

spelljammer, dark sun and eberron in the beginning, now, pathfinder is my new drug of choice..

tunnels and trolls is taken, so maybe;

Snootchy Bootchy and the Goblin Gobsmackers.

It would make more sense if there was a cap to the number of times the skill could be taken, for example one per 5 int points. This would allow a 10 Int character to learn up to two more languages.

In my games language is really important, like some of the other guys who've posted, Common is used in our games as a Trade Language, regional languages are the norm, not the exception. In Eberron which we used to play rather exclusively, Humans were the ones who spoke Common as thier "regional Language" like english, and Undercommon was used as the Trade Tongue between the various races both demi human and monster.

My DM made a particularly good ruling after I abused the crap out of the languages in his game.. you start off with 2 languages at character creation, Common (spoken only, spend a point to be able to write in it) and your Regional tongue.

Plus each class have "class languages", you chose one of two and you're considered fluent in it. And you can spend 2 skill points to be fluent in (written or spoken) the other Class language.

After that it's based off your Intelligence Bonus which is 2 skill points (for both written and spoken), if you only spend 1 point for it, it's considered spoken only and only Conversational, at 2 points, you're fluent.

So it's possible for a character with an int 18 to start off with 8 languages, but thats the max he can ever learn until he raises his Int to 20, or he takes a feat the DM created called "bonus language" haha, I know, real original.

Barbarian - Giant or Orc
Cleric/Paladin/Favoured Soul - Celestial or Abyssal(know thy enemy)
Wizard/Sorcerer/Artificer - Draconic or Elven
Rogue/Bard - Gutterspeak or Undercommon
Fighter/Ranger/Scout - Orc or Goblin
Monks - Any two of the 4 Elemental languages (Aquan, Ignan etc)
Druid - Druidic or Sylvan

When i run a game I just make Paladins a 10 level prestige class which you can only get starting the req's are you need Leadership as a Feat, Lawful, 9 Ranks in Royalty & Nobility or Religion, 5 ranks in Ride and 5 Ranks in Diplomacy and you need to have a Patron (Church, or King).

Since it seems to me the idea of a Paladin is he's based off the Knights of the Round Table in my games anyways, being a warrior of the highest Calibre, only Law seems to me be the most required thing.

In any event the progression for BAB, Lay on hands, Smite, etc exactly the same as the normal Base, but for spells I just replace that with the Assassin spell progression since no one seems to have issues with that PRC from the 3.5 book, but of course the spells are that off the Paladin list, and it's Charisma based not Wisdom based, since most people who've played Paladins in my game play them as Lawful Stupid anyways. As for the Mount I base it on character level, not Paladin level.

Sounds like it might be easier to just ban YOU. :)

haha, he would but our games are far too much fun.

• I am no longer allowed to use Fabricate to make 40 foot tall stone collumns made from the stone surrounding the town walls and then leaning them in a staggered manner down the main path up to the town wall and then casting Mass Invisibility on them, then Permanency the day before the invading orcs arrive. Nor am I allowed to cast wall of fire in a manner to Herd said orcs so that that I can use gust of wind to topple them all on top of them.

• Just because the king said you were short, is no excuse for using fabricate to destabilize the local economy for the next 40 years.

• I am no longer allowed to cast Symbol of Blindness, Symbol of Pain and Symbol of Sleep on my Helm and hold up a a Squirrel in from of me to activate them when running into melee thus nuking the CL 16 drow warband we're fighting.

• I am no longer allowed to play a Half Elf Bard. Ever.

• I am no longer allowed to play a first level Human Rogue with an intelligence of 16, and put 32 skill points into languages, and use the remaining 16 to max out Sense Motive, Diplomacy, and Bluff, or take take skill focus feats for Bluff and Diplomacy or take a Flaw to get another bonus feat.

• Just because you're a 1st level Aristocrat doesn't mean you can hire an army of first level wizards with wands of magic missle.

  Nor allowed to con the Paladin and his group of holy warriors that only he can take on the Evil Great Wyrm who's terrorized your kingom for 500 years alone in a secluded ravine where you've put your army of 1st level wizards to take out the dragon once the dragon is down to 1/4 hit points and the paladin and his band are dead, thus allowing you to keep all treasure yourself.

  Also. 1st level aristocrats aren't allowed to hire dwarven craftsmen to build 200 foot tall statue in your honor and have a permanent scorching ray come out of it's mouth.

• I am no longer allowed to con every bard within 1000 miles to sing the praises of myself thus guaranteeing myself to be elected the Lord Constable of the surrounding lands and then running off with the all the peasants gold while tricking the local anti-hero in a carefully laid trap which he can't escape from because you don't bother telling him your plans, or letting him speak.

• No more setting up new religions thus making yourself a Demi God when you die.

• There's a reason no one tries to attract Bullettes. or Behirs.

• Just because you can hire the entire band of orcs to assault the town, doesn't mean you should just because the Tavern Owner spilled your beer.

• Allowing the Evil Bad guy to live because you felt he might have an Epiphany is no excuse for kicking him the balls or using Arcane Mark to put the words "I stop for Elves" on his forhead and using a permanent continual light spell on said words.

• Telling the dragon he's been living a life of sloth isn't a good way to get him on your side. nor is telling him he's got a missing scale over his heart to distract him so you can pocket some treasure.

my DM banned me from playing anything Monk/x, Cleric/x and Artificer/x (we used to play alot of Eberron, now that it's gotten pretty stupid/cheesy we've come to Pathfinder), and any kind of Paladin that's not LG (he's actually banned LG Paladins and uses the alt rules from Dragon issue 310), and pretty much hates it any time I multiclass without a huge backstory. He did ban me at one point from playing just an ordinary Fighter and once he made me an aristocrat character, my stats were all 11 and I was only allowed to advance as an Aristocrat or Expert, I pwn'd a dragon, he cried, honest.(I don't make ordinary anything).

He really hates me playing Rogue's and Wizards more than anything, I tend to mess up his finely tuned storylines by doing something completely unexpected. I'm actually banned from ever having the feats Enlarge Spell, Sudden Quicken, Sudden Silence, Master Linguist, Skill Focus: Bluff, Diplomacy and Sense Motive, and the Spells Fabricate and Mass Invisibility.

My DM made Sneak Attack a General Feat, and replaced the sneak attack rogues get with Feats from the Scout feat list in the complete Adventurer, if you want Sneak Attack you have to take it when you get normal feats, and the max dice for Sneak Attack/Death Attack etc is 6d6, and you can only use it once per encounter the idea being that once you've tried, you've alerted all foes that you're there, and if you miss tough luck.

That solved the problems with everyone taking a level of rogue at 1st level for the sneak attack bonus, and he changed all classes to 4 skill points per level. He also made some changes to skills in general, like hide and move silently are 1 skill now, spot and listen got merged, and ditto disable device and open lock.

Rogues in our games are much more balanced, and as a result aren't chosen a one of the munchkin/optimized first level classes, and fighters now tend to be far scarier in our games than before and forces rogues to be less front line. Of course that doesn't mean you can't make a kick ass rogue, you just have to more thought into what kind of rogue you want to be.

My group uses 3 methods;

1) Each stat starts off at 6 and then you roll 2d6, re-rolling Snake Eyes. makes for a pretty "average" spread and guarantee's you get no neg stats, racial's take place after, so if you play a goblin you aren't too borked.

2) Roll 1d10 add 9 - only used when a char is offed or the campaign is starting above 4th level

3) 78 point buy - this is often the most used in our group, allows the most customization, although 1 guy did put 13's across the board (me, hehe)