Our group tries to stick to the rules as written as much as possible.
In looking at the Druid animal companions, there are changes between monster stat block and the animal companion that end up being very significant.
One example, Warcat animal companion.
Size Medium; Speed 40 ft.; AC +4 natural armor; Attack bite (1d6), 2 claws (1d4); Ability Scores Str 15, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 2, Wis 11, Cha 5; Special Attacks rake (1d4); SQ low-light vision, scent.
Size Large; AC +2 natural armor; Attack bite (1d8), 2 claws (1d6); Ability Scores Str +8, Dex –2, Con +4; Special Attacks grab, pounce, rake (1d6).
vs the monster entry
Melee bite +22 (2d6+12 plus grab), 2 claw +22 (1d8+12/19–20 plus rend)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks pounce, rend (2 claws, 1d8+18), trample (2d8, DC 30)
The change of Rend to Rake allows the 5 attacks when pouncing. (bite, 2 claws, 2 Rakes)
The change of Grab from the bite entry to the special attacks entry allows the initiation of Grab on all attacks instead of just bite.
Looking at other animal companion entries these changes look to be deliberate.
Relevant rules:
Pounce: When a creature with this special attack makes a charge, it can make a full attack (including rake attacks if the creature also has the rake ability).
Grab: If the grab was not intended to apply to all attacks, then why not create the stat block like other animal companions
Grizzly Bear: Attack bite (1d8), 2 claws (1d6 plus grab) )
Giganotosaurus: ( Special Qualities grab (bite). )
Chimpanzee: Attack bite (1d6), slam (1d4 plus grab);
edit:
Yes, variations of questions on grab have been discussed many many time.
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Apaizo.com+grab+rules
"The proclamation the First" makes me think of Chairman Mao's crusade against sparrows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign
The rationale was that the sparrows were eating seeds and that killing them would increase crop yields. "By April 1960, Chinese leaders realized that sparrows ate a large amount of insects, as well as grains.[3][2] Rather than being increased, rice yields after the campaign were substantially decreased."
I read "A People's Tragedy" about a year ago and there are a large number of themes and ideas that can be culled from this book. One area that I hope that the story arc covers is how revolutions can easily go very wrong. The good guys are not the only ones who are going to be working to overthrow the Thrune dynasty.
Revolutions are very dangerous events that can quickly spin out of control of those who initiated it. One area that is made clear in A People's Tragedy is that the Bolsheviks really didn't represent the will of the people. It was a small cabal that managed to usurp the revolution for their own purposes.
What does your paladin and rogue do when they see a helpless Asmodean lawyer about to get lynched by an angry mob? And what if that lawyer's family gets targeted next? Can you keep the passions of the people stoked against their oppressors without them boiling over in the worst ways possible? Can you get Kintargo out of the frying pan without condemning it to fire at your own people's hands? Will there be people from Andoran and Galt coming in to sway the nature of the struggle one way or another?
This is looking to be a very complex AP, morally, ethically, socially, and politically.
That is if it is done well! What evidence do we have that this will be true?
Just a suggestion here, listing everyone's e-mail in plain text is an excellent way to increase their spam e-mail.
Listing e-mails in plain text may be a conscious choice on your part but if I have to publicly list e-mails I either put them in images or Cyrillic homoglyphs.
I was thinking the same thing. You'd make more on your return selling off certain items individually on the bids and anything that is left, you can regroup them for bulk sale.
There's only a couple books I need; I have most of what you already list.
I thought about doing that but time and space are bigger issues for me than the extra money I would get. Work is hammering me and I don't want to sacrifice any more time with my family than I already am.
Annoyance with the direction WotC has taken lately is another reason I wanted them off my shelves. Maybe it was not an entirely rational decision...
I can't break the lot since I went through a re-seller.
I do have more that I will treat more carefully, 1st and 2nd edition D&D, WEG Star Wars, Dragon and Dungeon Magazines and Glorantha books.
Maybe if your other players are feeling a bit of class envy you should let them roll their piece of the ranger's damage output. Then your group might get the idea that it's not the ranger being over the top but a team effort.
I like this idea. I probably won't make them roll it out explicitly but pointing out to them that it really is a team effort is a good suggestion. You make sure that not all the glory goes to the Ranger with this route.
I agree and Id go further and say that if the cleric and the sorceror were built decently they would have WAY better things todo with there time, also how big is the party? cause if you have to caster buffing a ranger who is keeping the baddies at bay? this combo actualy seems really weak unless their are also 3 fighter keeping mobs off the support teams nuts.
The party is huge, 8 players on average and they do an excellent job of blocking. I have to adjust all of the fights by quite a bit.
Shouldn't all 5 arrows deal the same damage because no sneak attack or crit damage was involved? Deadly Aim and Point Blank shot are not precision based damage as far as I know. Which is to say that creatures immune to crits still take each type of damage.
1d8+3d6+10= 4.5+10.5+10= 25x5= 125 average if all five hit
I thought the damage was precision based. The feats don't explicitly say precision based but from the wording of the feats I understood them to be.
Here is the situation. We have a 9th level elf ranger in the campaign created with a 20pt pathfinder buy that is dominating the fights with the amount of damage he is doing.
RangerBuild:
Str 14
Dex 22
Con 12
Int 12
Wis 12
Cha 8
Magic Items:
Efficient Quiver
Longbow +1 (Composite/Shock/Strength Rating+2)
Longsword+1
Ring of Protection+1
Snakeskin Shirt(+2AC/+2DEX/+2 SAVvsPOISON)
His attack with his bow (< 30') is 18. A standard course of action is for the sorcerer to cast Haste (player figures with the extra Ranger attack this is best damaging spell) and the cleric to use his good domain to make the Ranger's bow Holy.
This results in the following full attack:
14/14 Rapid Shot + Many Shot
14 Hasted Attack
9
The other day, all of the attacks hit an ogre barbarian.
4(d8 + 8 + 3d6) + d8 + 3 + 3d6 =
18 + 32 + 42 + 4.5 + 3 + 10.5 = 110 points of damage on average...
Actually, there was critical in that...but that is overkill for my question.
The holy doesn't happen that often. The haste happens a lot with the sorcerer casting it. The first time I saw this happened I was suspicious about the stacking of Many Shot with Rapid Shot but it seems legal. Part of the problem may be that the Ranger is fairly optimized but the other characters are not. I'm sure that folks could come up with some 9th level [put your class here] builds that could show the same damage potential.
I'm inclined to leave things as is. I was wondering what other folks have thought about the current archery rules/feats and if they have made any adjustments.
I created Stone Giant Summoner for the Rise of the Runelords campaign.
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **...
check the morningstar for your giant, it should be adjusted for large sized, therefore it should be doing 2d6 base damage instead of d8... unless you really do want an undersized morningstar for the giant summoner.
Yes, I've been really scrimping on the magic rewards for the party...so I figured I needed to provide some goodies to them. I did choose a normal sized weapon on purpose.
Seems a bit insane that the party will have to do (325 + 152) points of damage to take this guy out due to Life Bond. OTOH he doesn't do a huge amount of damage...a good chance the party (a virtual army) will meet him tonight.
I think that the CR is off, any other questions or if you notice other mistakes, let me know...
thanks
Hawk Of May.
p.s.
Looking at spells, I noticed he can't cast 5 level summoner spells due to a 14 charisma...
Edit: Took W Sepulcher's advice, large Morning Star and corrected damage.
An eidolon grows in size, becoming Huge. The eidolon gains a +8 bonus to Strength, a +4 bonus to Constitution, and a +3 bonus to its natural armor. It takes a –2 penalty to its Dexterity. This size change also give the creature a –1 size penalty to its AC and attack rolls, a +1 bonus to its CMB and CMD, a –2 penalty on Fly skill checks, and a –4 penalty on Stealth skill checks. The eidolon must possess the Large evolution before selecting this evolution, and the bonuses and penalties stack. The summoner must be at least 11th level before selecting this evolution.
To use Strength as the example, this means a huge Eidolon has a total of +16 Strength bonus from the Evolutions plus another 4 str bonus from the 11th level summoner?
I've had a Kinkos store refuse to print out a Paizo PDF. I went into the store with my laptop and showed them the site and the fact that all of the PDFs are stamped with my name. That might be more work than you want to put into but it worked for me.
Dinosaur (Deinonychus, Velociraptor) 9th Level 8d8+32
Bab: 12
Statistics: Size Small; Speed 60 ft.; AC +2 natural armor;
Attack 12, 2 talons (2d6), 10, bite (1d6), 10, 2 claws (1d4);
Ability: Str 20, Dex 18, Con 19, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 14
Special Qualities: low-light vision, scent, pounce, multi-attack
Feats: Weapon Focus (Talon), Improved Natural Attack(Talon), Armor Prof (Light), Run
Skills Acrobatics +10 (+22 jump), Perception +14, Stealth +15;
Kobold 9th Cavalier, Order of the Sword
Str 16, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 8;
+1 BreastPlate, +1 Heavy Shield, Javelin of Lightning, Potion of Barkskin +3, +1 Lance
Challenge +3d6; Oath Of Loyalty (to Tribe), Oath of Vengence (Humans)
AC: 24 ((+1 Breatplate 7), size + 1,Natural Armor + 3,shield + 2,dex +1,dodge)
Handle Animal (Cha): 11, Intimidate(Cha): 11, Ride (Dex): 15 (9 + 3 + 2 (Skill Focus) + 2 (Dex)) (-3 Armor Check 1/2 for Mounted Mastery for -1? -2?).
Attacks, +1 Lance (d6 + 3) 14/9, Lance Charge 16/11 (3d6 + 24 (+ 3d6 challenge), 20x3)
Order of the Sword: By My Honor (Ex), Mounted Mastery (Ex)
oath, order, oath, Oath
Feats: Dodge, Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack, Skill Focus (Ride), Spirited Charge, Trample While, Weapon Focus (Lance), Mobility
I created a 9th level (Kobold) cavalier for the fun of it and because I needed more monsters to create a challenge for the party. The encounter consisted of 3 Stone giants and the Kobold Cavalier. Essentially the party neutralized the Cavalier with spells while dealing with the Stone giants.
Round 1: Mage acts first casting 'Black Tentacles' on 2 giants and the cavalier. The giants get themselves out of the tentacles. Heavy armor and Melee types (Dwarf Paladin, Dwarf Cleric and Human Barbarian) close in. Cavalier fails to get out of the tentacles.
Round 2: Mage casts haste. Melee begins between giants and the party. Cavalier extracts himself from the tentacles.
Round 3: Mage casts fly. Melee continues between the party and giants. Kobold calls out challenge, charges the dwarf cleric with a Ride by Attack and misses. Out of Game the group asks if the Kobold is a cavalier. I dodge the question but give a description of the Kobold with the Sihedron Rune on his shield.
Round 4: Mage decides to cast Hypnotic Pattern the Kobold...Kobold fails his save. (I'm thinking I made a mistake here. Hypnotic pattern affects a max of 10 HD. When the Raptor saved against the spell that used up the spell, it does not continue on until the 10HD max is reached.). Melee continues...
Round 5: I rule that as long as no one bothers raptor mount it will not go out of its way to attack anyone. Kobold is still out of the battle. Melee continues between party and giants but will be over soon.
Round 6: Mage decides to magic missile the raptor mount. Since the mount could not attack the mage I ruled that it ran off in a direction that took it the farthest away possible from party.
The party turns its attention to other urgent matters (i.e. more giants elsewhere). Overall a pretty anti-climatic introduction of the cavalier into my campaign.
Thanks all for the feedback. Much appreciated. I've committed to playing the "Rise of the Runelords" through with the rule-set as is.
The group is usually pretty sharp about blocking paths and not letting any one character soak up too much damage.
The comment about economy of actions was spot on. The more monsters path rather than bigger monsters sounds like the way to go. I'll post again once I've had a chance to try that out.
A preface first. We have a good sized group of folks that meet and play Pathfinder (currently) every two weeks. The part consists of:
2 Clerics, 1 Ranger, 1 Beast Master(adjusted from 3.5: Druid 4, Fighter 1, BM 2), 1 Rogue, 1 Sorcerer, 1 Wizard and 1 Barbarian. Everyone is 7th level. Most of the characters have decent hit points (I allow one roll for HP or take the average
Both clerics have "Selective Channeling", 14 Charisma and the Heavy Armor Proficiency. The ability to heal all 8 characters for 4d6 of damage ten times a day is making most of the combats a pushover for the party. That is an average of 1,120 (8*3.5*4*10) hit points healed per day. I'm having a tough time creating reasonable encounters.
An example of the problem is the fight with Grazuul in "Hook Mountain Massacre". The ogre's leading up to this fight were mere speed bumps. For this battle I added a bigger brother to Grazuul:
Drazuul Male Troll; Large Giant Giant6 Fighter6 Barbarian1
HitDice:(6d8)+(6d10)+(1d12)+130 HitPoints:206
Initiative:+2 Speed:Walk 40 ft.
AC:20(touch 11,flat-footed 18)
Attacks:*Bite+15;*Claw+20/+20;Damage:*Bite1d6+4;*Claw1d8+11;
Vision:Darkvision (90 ft.), Low-lightFace/Reach:10 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks:Rage, Rend
Special Qualities:Fast Movement, Giant Traits, Regeneration, Scent
Saves:Fortitude:+22,Reflex:+6,Will:+3
Abilities:STR 28(+9),DEX 14(+2),CON 30(+10),INT 6(-2),WIS 8(-1),CHA 6(-2)
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (Bite), Improved Natural Attack (Claw), Power Attack, Weapon Focus (Bite, Claw), Weapon Specialization (Claw)
Alignment:Chaotic Evil
CMB: 21
CMD: 28
Possessions: Chain Shirt
I warned the group that I would probably kill someone with this fight. I should not have worried. Although it was a tough fight the only real threat of death came from one the trolls attempting to drag one of the dwarves into the water. I think the party felt justifiably good about beating this fight. The ranger's favored enemy did help in this case.
It makes me wonder if the channel energy ability was really pitched towards the average party size of 4 and not the kind of group we have (i.e. 8 characters). I'm hoping that as the party gains levels the effect of channel energy will have less of an impact. Scaling encounters in 3.0/3.5 was something I had to do for this large group but the channel energy SU ability just seems to have made it worse.
Josh, hopefully this is an appropriate place and way to ask about some aspects of scenario submissions. And if this is the case of "not seeing the forest for the trees," I apologize.
Thanks in advance for any answers you can provide.
I'm curious about what is considered important in detailing the encounters also. My entry had no tier descriptions at all associated with each encounter and focused exclusively on what I thought would add details to the story. Given the guidance, I was thinking (which might have been completely and totally wrong) that tiering was something that could always be filled in later in submission process.
The best way to frame it is that the ruling classes of Cheliax believe they are the ones in control of all the devils. They bind and control devils and even have the upper hand in most deals with them.
People might say that the Chelaxians are eeeeevil, but the Chelaxians would respond:
"Devils are evil, and we bind them, control them and give them purpose for a greater social good. Because of this people can farm, have families, trade and live in peace and prosperity. Would you let these innocent people go to war just because you disagree with our choice of beast of burden?"
This is taken from someone commenting on Glorantha regarding Chaos and Nuclear Power but I think it applies here. Summoning and Controlling devils is just like dealing with Nuclear Power: great stuff as long as you don't get any on you.
It is very important to Chelaxian society to make clear that you are the one in control when summoning devils . Failure to maintain that control is a great shame (this is talked about in "Bastards of Erebus";
Bastards of Erebus wrote:
A tiefling, however, represents a loss of that control—either in using one’s power to satisfy pointless desires or an instance of the slave becoming the master.
I've always limited Detect Evil to work on creatures, spells and locations that are supernaturally evil. The Detect Evil spell in the Patfinder rules moves a bit in this direction. A human rogue that is LE but lower than 6 Hit Dice does not detect as 'Evil'. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells---final/detect-evil-1
I'm pretty sure that we'll be seeing more of this here in the US in the coming years. A couple of years back (2007 I think) there was a case that was upheld wherein a manufacture argued and won that they had the right to establish/control the selling price of their product.
AJC
This might be related but not exactly the same. Warner Brothers, Fox and and Universal Studios have all taken steps against RedBox ($1-per-night DVD rental kiosks). So far these steps have been in the realm of the marketplace like refusing to sell to RedBox and forcing their distributors to not sell to RedBox. This forces RedBox to buy their DVDs at the full retail price.
Fox and Universal have been sued by Redbox over allegedly violating antitrust laws. (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/08/13/business/AP-US-Warner-Bros-Redb ox.html?scp=1&sq=redbox&st=cse)
Given the susceptibility of the American System of Government to lobbying and special interests I would not be surprised to see some law regarding this in the future.
However, as a DM, I had trouble adjudicating the Perception skill when used like Search. The Search skill implied that the character was touching objects in order to find things. Perception doesn't indicate that so I have to ask the player if they are doing so.
Now that three skills (Listen, Spot and Search) have been collapsed into the Perception skill it seems to be in the "Must Take" category.
Lets take a perception check on that oak chest the players have found. The way I'm handling it is the DM's common sense takes precedence unless the player specifically says "I'm only looking the chest over.". The GM decides what five senses applies to the Perception check. This should handle about 90% of the situations you would run into.
In this particular case, the perception check on that oak chest would imply touch.
HawkOfMay.
p.s.
I'm not sure what you mean by "Elf Wizard's Sight" bonus. Are you talking about an Elf' "Keen Senses" racial trait?
I'm tired of seeing, "4th Edition is not Dungeons & Dragons." Fortunately or unfortunately, it is. For those who think it isn't, obviously you don't like the direction it took, but there are some facts you have acknowledge, even if you don't like it.
"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true."
