Gherrick's page

Suggestion on weapon usage: I would REALLY want to see a total revamp on this. Something like a custom dialog that only enables the valid options. In the dialog, you would see all the different options, much like the "Buffs" tab, just a lot smaller.

The main reason is to allow adding some restrictions on options such as class, level, feats, etc, and to support more than two "uses". "Handedness" would be one separate option (dropdown or radio group), if the weapon supports multiple handedness (I think light weapons do not). Then a section for special attacks (FoB, PBS, et al), when you meet the prereqs.

Also, if you are feeling especially ambitious, improving the interface for general equipment such that you don't have to edit your inventory right on the character sheet, but inside some other tab. This might allow an easier time with containers, since the user won't need to worry about shifting lines down to add more room (or similar sheet logistical acrobatics).

Dex Kensai Magi can get some insane defenses, making them viable front-liners. My group has two front-liners, with the other being a full plate fighter wielding a two-handed dorn derger. Makes for a good balance, with one having a great touch AC, and the other having a solid flat-footed AC.

I'm not sure where the confusion is. Overrun requires you to enter the square of the target, while charge requires you you stop before their square. Since the combination is allowed via RAW (see overrun rules), only interpretations that validate the requirements of both actions should be considered. Resolve the charge first, then continue with the overrun.

IMO, Paizo would be better served by making the mounted charge it's own action, rather than trying to blend it with the standard charge rules. Have it so to charge while mounted (et al), you merge actions of the rider and mount (so it isn't two actions but only 1). I believe this is intent of the "act in unison" part of the FAQ clarification. The next step is to clarify which traits/feats/class features that affect mounted charges and how. For example, which feats work and don't work unless the rider or mount has them, etc.

"Draw a line that goes by the target, not through him", this is the ruling I will be using in my game, it works, it's not game-breaking (at least, not yet) and it's easy to explain.

And that verbiage should probably exist in RBA as the rule-change to clear up any doubt.

Perhaps just tweak the ratio of Int bonus to skill points. Try using a 2:1 ratio of Int bonus.

I agree that charge through + elephant stomp essentially forces you to abandon the original charge + overrun (if you stomp the mook), but that is precisely because of the wording of elephant stomp. You could wait and stomp the charge target if the overrun check meets the requirements. This works because ES replaces the normal overrun results.

As for the charge+overrun combo being a "super move", as you mention the requirements are fairly steep, combining quite a few feats to be able to pull off consistently.

Core feats:
Power Attack (Str 13) / Improved/Greater Overrun

Ignore difficult terrain:
Nimble Moves (Dex 13) / Acrobatic Steps (Dex 15)

Ignore mook:
Charge Through

Important but not critical:
Combat Reflexes (Dex 14+ to be useful)
Elephant Stomp

I'd restrict the alternate attack progression calculation to BAB + weapon enhancement bonus + (greater) weapon focus (and possibly weapon training), and not cap number of attacks.

So, a level 20 fighter with weapon training 5, greater weapon focus, and a +5 weapon would have an effective BAB of 32, giving a base attack progression of +32/+27/+22/+17/+12/+7/+2 = 7 attacks. How is this any more potent or time consuming than a caster that uses an AOE spell than affect 7+ targets?

Personally, I would only apply this rule for *melee* attacks. Ranged combat has enough advantages that this boost isn't necessary.

We have all failed to see the obvious, and I finally realized the correct interpretation of resolving Charge+Overrun:

Resolve the charge first, THEN the overrun. Here is why:

* The target of charge is a creature
* The target of overrun is a space somewhere past a creature, not the creature itself (the overrun check is to complete the "pre-goal" of getting passed the creature, much like an acrobatics check for preventing AoOs during movement)
* Charge+Overrun is simply combining both goals into a single action (the overrun effectively becomes a free action).

P . . T . . O

If P wants to Charge+Overrun T to get to square O, the charge restrictions only apply to the line between P and T. Once you arrive at T, you finish the charge maneuver and proceed with the overrun maneuver (which means moving through T's space if successful).

IF there is a creature between P and T, you can still charge+overrun T IF you have Charge Through, because that feat gives you the exception needed for charge to bypass the restriction of having a clear path.

How many people have already stated they would GLADLY play money for a revised core rulebook that fixes the many long-standing open rules questions (mounted combat, charging, overrun, et al)?

And if it takes as much manpower as SKR implies to address these rules issues, then I have say the process is greatly flawed/inefficient. I am a web developer, and I think I can understand some of the challenges involved. From my own experience (~20 years), I have gained a great amount of specialization in "process (re-)engineering". I think Paizo should consider investing in some internal process re-engineering to allow their content that shows up in different media (SRD, PDF, print) to require less overall manpower to create/maintain.

I suspect that Paizo's current process for building pdfs is to use the Adobe suite as their core toolset (which seems a common practice). IMO, Paizo would be FAR better off looking for alternatives. There has been technology to convert html/xml to pdf for several years now (and it is pretty good). Hopefully Paizo isn't having the same rules text stored in multiple formats, because that would make maintenance a nightmare. It would explain (to me at least) why certain issues have yet to be addressed in any publicly-noticable way (looking directly at the charge/overrun/mounted combat rules here).

Just making rage a swift/immediate action instead of a free action to turn on/off would "fix" the issues of rage cycling multiple times a turn, if that is against the RAI. Personally, I agree that simple changing the 1/rage to X rage rounds per use will address the majority of balance concerns.

Gherrick wrote:

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Right. It's impossible to ever have total parity between the two camps. So if I were to make a feat letting wizards quicken all their spells as for free and another one that doubles their caster level for all spell parameters....

Who cares, amirite? I mean, so long as it isn't perfectly balanced, why should we care about balance at all? It's not like we're going to completely fix the problem no matter what we do, so f*** it. It wasn't balanced before, and wasn't balanced after. And all decisions on balance are clearly Boolean true/false.

** spoiler omitted **

Oh, I absolutely care about balance, make no mistake. I'll add a corollary list of necessary adjustments that would allow a semblance of balance:

* martials can move and still get melee iterative attacks (pounce would provide a different bonus). Archers still have the stand still to get iteratives.
* most of the martial maneuvers do not require a feat, and provoke AoOs only on a miss.
* arcane casters should be far more restricted in spell selection
* divine casters should not instantly gain access to all their spells
* removal of spell effects scaling on caster level. Base it purely on spell level. Heighten Spell is inherent metamagic, not a feat.
* spells that act as skill-replacements (detect X, knock, invisibility, et al) become skill-bonuses based on spell level (~ +2 * spell level, and allow the caster's casting stat to substitute for the normal stat for the skill).
* metamagic feats would need another "cost" instead of spell level adjustment. Probably a limited number of uses per day. Quicken would be 1/day, but ones like Maximize/Empower would be 2 and 3 per day, respectively. Metamagic rods can go bye-bye, IMO.
* spells must be completely reorganized. In general, have spells affect a maximum of 1 target per spell level. The larger area of effect spells need to do considerably less damage. The overall damage should be roughly equatable to martial damage of the same character level. That is not to say the same, but at least not an order of magnitude more, either.

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Now, are ANY of those changes EVER gonna happen? Nope. Thus, yes, I have concluded that 3.5/PF will always be unbalanced between the martial classes and casters, and will just enjoy what I can out of it.

There cannot exist any level of parity why these to game rules exist:

* arcane casters that can learn unlimited number of spells

* divine casters that have instant access to all spells available for their level

* non-casters that must allocate limited character resources (feats) to gain new abilities.

Since I do not expect the above to ever change, I conclude parity is and will always be unobtainable.

Hmm, instead of skill ranks or class level, perhaps BAB + WisMod would be a better baseline for perception. Still allow for Skill Focus(Perception) for an additional bonus, and traits/racial bonuses as well.

Mounted combat. I wish it was more simplified the whole who is charging, what actions you can take, what constitutes the penalties and bonuses of a charge stuff makes it rather unappealing.

Definitely my current #1 most aggravating subsystem currently. I just want a way to have my character charge while mounted. Not my mount charge, and the rider goes along for the ride. Streamline the entire mounted mechanics, even so far as merging the action economies of the rider and mount.

A few ambiguities regarding mounted combat--ambiguities that are easily resolved by a GM--are no big deal.

Huh? The entire mounted combat subsystem is overly complicated and convoluted. If any aspect of it was "easily resolved by a GM", I seriously doubt there would long threads like this one discussing the issue.

IMO, PF would be best served by a complete overhaul/streamlining of the mounted combat rules, including charging while mounted. This would force a re-examination of all the related traits, feats, and class features, but I think it would vastly improve the quality of the game.

The dwarven longhammer is the exception, it's a really cool weapon in that it's the only bludgeoning reach weapon.

There's also the lucerne hammer.

Is it too much to ask the devs to rewrite the entire mechanics of mounted combat to be less convoluted? Even a list of feats that do/do not work while mounted (or only work if the mount has them). The feats are inconsistently worded, which is the primary reason for these debates.

For example, Greater Overrun on the rider works (via ride by attack) *if* the rider is considered charging, since you can do an overrun as part of a charge. Otherwise, if the mount gets Greater Overrun, it is effectively the same as Trample, except the mount can use a non-hoof attack.

Personally, I am strongly disappointed in Paizo's dev team for not addressing this issue better. I've had a character concept that I was able to recreate in 2e, 3.5e, and 4e, but currently not in PF. I just want to make a human dire wolf rider (inspired by the Wolf Nomads of Greyhawk). Cavalier as a class works fairly well, but none of the orders have any primal/barbarian feel to them (so I'll have to create my own; kinda a bummer, IMO). The Beast Rider archetype, IMO, is a complete mess and needs another go around of development. Why not allow the size medium mounts to carry a size medium character as long as the carrying capacity works? Why does the BEAST rider even HAVE to pick a horse or camel at level 1!? Talk about limiting choices, and I'm not seeing a good reason for it.

I'm all for balance, and some critters are certainly too strong to give out too early, but sheesh. Maybe just disable the special features of the mount (i.e.: wolf trip) until level 7 (or use the horse stats but allow it to be reflavored in organized play). And for pete's sake, allow flying mounts at the higher levels! A high level (15+) cavalier riding a pegasus, griffon or hippogriff is fairly iconic, and far from overpowered.

So blunt weapons need something besides threat range to be viable. How about this:

Spell Combat using a blunt weapon allows attacks to target touch AC, but the weapon damage is halved unless the attack hits the target's normal AC.

Wow, I didn't check the date on this thread at first. Why is it taking SO long to get this question clarified? I have a cavalier build that I thought was cool and functional, but this thread has me questioning if I'm working the feats correctly.

If I'm understanding the more powerful interpretation in this thread, given this scenario:

[You on a mount]----[mook]----[target]----[end charge]

having the feats below (important parts bolded) would yield:

Charge Through on mook, for an unavoidable Overrun CM check that would trigger an AoO on a success (vs Greater Overrun) and not prevent the charge. Beating the CMD by 5+ also means the target is knocked prone (before or after the AoO?).

Continue to target, perform another unavoidable Overrun CM check vs the target, getting another AoO (if you have Combat Reflexes) vs target. Beating the CMD by 5+ also means the target is knocked prone (before or after the AoO?).

Perform your normal attack (vs prone?)

Ride By Attack to a safe distance away. This could include up to a 90 degree turn at any point in the charge, via Wheeling Charge, as long as each part of the move is at least 10 feet.

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Granted, there has been an ENORMOUS amount of feats taken to get these results, so I'm wondering if this is indeed a valid interpretation.

The exact nature of the spellbook is highly mutable. The suggestion for metal pages works well, as does any waterproof medium. Lots of creative alternatives, such as using wood that has been alchemically treated to resist water damage, or etched crystals that need to have Light cast through them like a projector to see the notes (might be a bit distorted by the water, however)?

32AC at level 6!? I'd like to see the build. I can't even begin to think of how that is possible.

I didn't realize how different the reach rules are for PF. Damn, but I prefer the 4e simplicity of concentric circles, and to hell with the diagonal distance issue. It just isn't worth it, IMO.

I played a dwarven wizard for a Kingmaker campaign, and he did just fine (never did finish it, though, a real pity). I had more HP than some of the melee characters because I just focused on Con and Int. I also carried a battle axe, heavy pick, and warhammer just for fun (and used it a few times, can't recall if I ever hit, lol).

Point is, Dwarves rock :)

I am looking for additional rules for player skills impacting the kingdom building process. So far it feels like my only contribution to the kingdom building process is my Int mod, and my skills lie wasting away. Do player skills truly play no part in building a kingdom in the core KM rules?

I'm playing a dwarven wizard (earth specialist), who has taken ranks in knowledge (engineering), profession (engineer) and profession (architect). He's a builder in his heart, but the need to learn more about the arcane drove him to the adventuring life (not to mention his family "insisting" he be the one to go on this venture, since having a dwarven wizard at court was a touch embarrassing to his family).

When building this character (knowing next to nothing about the mechanics used for KM), I thought it would be awesome to have a dwarven-crafted city or two with crazy-good defenses (I just got done playing with Dragon Age expansion that allowed for a dwarven-built castle). Talking to my GM, it looks like there aren't any inherent rules for building superior versions of improvements, like a "king's road" that would maybe improve the economy/stability (faster travel etc), or provide faster troop movement (like the Romans). How about superior walls that add additional defense to a city?

My DM has allowed me a Profession skill check to increase the effective city size on the Kingdom Improvements Per Month chart for a single category. Each category had a different base DC, and I essentially got an additional shift for every 5 the result was above the base DC. So far I was able to build a few extra roads or claim extra hexes in a single turn, but all it effectively did was have us burn through our resources that much faster (which is probably why he didn't mind it so much).

Being a long time fan of the "earth" caster archtype/specialist (long before Avatar: tLA), it has bugged me to see it modeled so oddly. I really wish the damage type was physical instead of acid, for starters. While I really like Stone Call, there is a serious lack of spells that focus on doing physical damage or otherwise manipulate soil/stone/et al. Earthen Grasp and Stony Grasp could be converted, although I think they should be levels 1 & 2, not 2 & 3.

Has anyone felt similar to this that has already recycled or created more "earthy" spells and special abilities?