Hyla's page

I guess its a reasonable houserule that immune to stun incorporates immune to daze. That makes undead, constructs and elementals immune to it and the optimized dazing spell less of a no-brainer.

Stunned is effectively a more serious version of dazed.

Are creatures who are immune to stun (e. g. undead) also immune to daze?

Are you serious?

I feel that with the favoured class skill rank and the auto +3 on favoured skills a lot has been done to alleviate skill point scarcity with the 2/level classes.

More isn't really needed.

Just don't dump INT, for gods sake! ;) And also realize that not every skill needs to be maxed out.

Physical attacks against you miss 50% of the time before rolling against AC.
You gain +2 to attack rolls against creatures who can't see invisible.
Single target spells against you fail 50% of the time before you get to save against them.

Note that it makes absolutely no difference if you roll the miss chance before or after an attack roll or save.

Take a longspear, which gives you reach. Then go for combat reflexes and trip.

How many points do you get for attributes?

You're wrong, Hyla. The stated example is suggesting that a dragon (high int and wisdom) not immune to acid takes a swim in an acid pool, referring to it as a cool refreshing dip in water.

Any explanation you come up with that doesn't account for that is wrong, and the onus is on you to explain why, not anyone else.

Where is this example stated? Not in my core book, thats for sure.

Anyway, by your reasoning you can just about force the target to do ANYTHING. I mean, stepping into a an acid pool is suicide. What IS unreasonable, if not that?

And: Whats the difference between dominate monster and suggestion, then? Only that you need to spend a (very) little amount on thinking on how you word your suggestion? If you can just invent random environmental changes (bow on fire, acid = water), you can make ANYTHING sound "reasonable".

Yes, giving up your only effective weapon against an enemy you are currently in combat with is "obviously harmful". Suggestion would not have worked.

As said repeatedly: Nerfing the ability during a campaign in which we have a paladin as a PC is out of the question for me. I will not even suggest it.

Icyshadow wrote:

Some people see it as an incentive, others see it as a punishment. Circumstances need to be taken into account (busy week, lack of energy etc.) and losing out on stuff because of bad luck is punishment. Then again, there's also the chance me and the few others here who disagree with you might just be cynical/pessimistic in comparison to you.

Warning! Tangental Rant Ahead!

** spoiler omitted **

Since auticus' players continue to play, it's clear they don't have an issue with the house rules. Since his house rules don't impact anyone outside his group,* more power to him.

*** spoiler omitted **

Playing RPGs is not a job.

I find that limiting. Last character I played had no detailed family background, and we decided on the spot that another character is a cousin of his and thus provided strong motivation for working together.

If we both had detailed family backgrounds written down, that would not have been possible.

Same with a lot of situation in the game. It helps to be able to decide on the spot that your character has a certain history / opinion on sth. and thus drive the game forward.

I did; and seriously angry lady, an hour is not that much time, even if you have a full job and kids. Heck, you got almost 1000 words bickering at me :).

Well, priorities. I am a DM myself and put a lot of work in the game. I do not necessarily expect the same from my players though. As long as they arrive on time and put effort into the game as long as they sit at the table, thats fine with me. I someone wants to be more active and write a character bio or a campaign journal - very good.

BTW: I find detailed character bios to be counterproductive. A few bullet points, expanded upon when the need arises, suffice and are more flexible.

Hyla wrote:

auticus wrote:

Yeah. Really. I prefer low-heroic games.

I did not mean that, but the fact that you penalize players who do not put a character bio with at least 1000 words on paper (do you actually count the words?).

It's not a penalty. Everyone starts at 10-point buy. You get rewarded for putting in extra effort. Just like you get bonus xp for putting in extra effort. Don't put the effort in, you don't get the extra stuff. It's a choice.

Counting words in a document is as easy as copy/paste and having word tell you how many words it is. I'm a professional writer... 1000 words is a handful of paragraphs.

I don't buy in to th e"you're penalizing me" mantra. That's like me telling my boss I feel I am being penalized because a coworker got a raise for putting in extra effort and I feel entitled to a raise too even though I didn't do anything extra to warrant it.

Semantics - its a penalty, and a hefty one.

The boss / coworker analogy you are creating frankly disgusts me. Its a game you play with your FRIENDS, who might be hard-working family persons and put a lot of effort in keeping the game evenings free.

You are massively disrespecting players like these with your ruling.

I can understand that; you're a GM trying to create a fantastic world and spending a LOT of time putting it together. You want to know the players so they feel more connected. I always request bios; but sometimes players are lazy, and it makes me feel cheated after all of my hard work that they won't even write a basic background. So I think it's the perfect encouragement; really you can look at it as a 15-point buy world where if you're too lazy to even do a little background setup for your character you are penalized 5 points.

Sorry, reading stuff like this always makes me angry. Some players may have a time-consuming job and a family - they may have a hard time keeping that one evening free every other week.

Wow lol this makes me laugh a little. We use the 10 point buy and if the player writes a 1000 word bio they get to use the 15 point buy.

Wow. Ehm.

Wow.

Really?

Hyla wrote:

Just to chime in:

I've taken the wording "melee weapon attack" to mean that things like bite, gore or claw attacks can't be deflected. Have I been mistaken? Has this been clarified?

Bites, gores, and claws are still natural weapons, and are used in melee attacks, making them melee weapons. Nothing in Crane Wing's text says it only works on manufactured weapons.

Why then put "weapon" in that sentence?

No, I believe that is to exclude natural weapons.

Again, has this been clarified?

PS
See also PRD, natural weapons:

You can make attacks with natural weapons in combination with attacks made with a melee weapon and unarmed strikes, so long as a different limb is used for each attack

See? natural weapons != melee weapons.

Actually, if you are strong enough and know how to swim, you can swim with 65 pounds of metal on. I've heard of soldiers swimming in full kit, which can weigh up to 100 pounds. It's not easy, and I sure couldn't do it, but it's doable by others.

Note that density is a huge issue! Metal has very very high density. A modern soldiers equipment maybe much less so. So a lot of the 100 lb. you are talking about could be compensated by buoyancy.

Anway no one could realistically hope to do something that resembles swimming with full plate armor on. Not a chance.

Third, the players are now public enemy number 1. Inquisitors will be dispatched to hunt these players down, especially your apostate cleric. Bounty hunters, mercenaries and witch hunters will follow their trail, from this point on your players should feel hounded. On top of all of this, expect Pharasma to send her own extraplanar forces to stop the PC's.

While I agree with the rest of your post, I disagree with this paragraph.

If every evil act would meet such swift and potent repercussions, there would be no need for heroes in Golarion.

Maybe there will be a bounty, most likely the church of Pharasma is now the enemy of that PC. But the Goddess herself sending extraplanar forces, he being hunted by hordes of witch hunters and inquisitors? Where were those guys when the PCs took on the temple of Urgathoa? And why should they come on running now? There are a LOT of bad guys in Golarion, your PC is not the only one.

@Cutlass

OMG you are so awesome a TRUE roleplayer (TM) playing since the seventies o wow o wow I am so lucky that you chose to answer to my thread you are so wise the munchkin bane super martial artist combat veteran thank you thank you thank you

@Rest
Thank for you opinions and advice. The first session went well, the GM really brought Carrion Hill (or Aashügel, as we called it) to life.

The other players created a Paladin of Iomedae (associated with the city watch of Aashügel and cousin of my character) and a Half-Orc Barbarian (Caravan Guard) and they did a good job keping me out of melee.

We did not make it very far into the adventure though, because or play time was unfortunately limited. The first combats were quite easy and yielded a surprising amount of loot.

Now we are back to RotR for a while (and I am back to GMs duties), but we definitely plan to finish the module some time.

Does this discussion need to be in three different threads??

Please just die already, thread. Please.

3.5 Loyalist has proven again and again that he is impervious to math & rational arguments. Let him continue in his little world and PLEASE let the thread die, you all.

See, that's not quite right. It says anytime, the reference was found; but it doesn't say stack as many sneak attacks as possible, abuse items and buffs and spells to allow even more.

Its not abuse. Period. Its the way the game is meant to be played.

I now also remember the "multiple spells for high BAB" thread started by you. You obviously have only a very tangential grasp of the rules and not much experience with canny players and challenging, tactical combat.

You are one of the types who don't like "too powerful" player characters, optimization, and rules in general.

Please note that the overwhelming majority of players play a quite different PF game than you. Your houserules (multiple spells for high BAB, nerfing the rogue to death, ... I am sure there is mor insane stuff going on), would kill the game as most people here play it.

What ticks me off though, is that you seem to think your queer way of gaming is somehow superior. Its not. Its actually inferior, because we can have fun on both levels: tactical, challenging combat AND great stories and character play. You pretty much destroyed the first part with your tinkering with a ruleset you do not have a clear grasp on.

The rogue already is arguably the weakest core/base class in the game. Why cripple him further?

If you want to have him only ONE sneak attack echt round for "flavour" reasons, you could give him 1d6 sneak attack damage per rogue level.

Hyla if you want more than guesswork, show the point buy, show the wealth for the character, show the character sheet.

Can't show you the sheet, but I will try to give the most important stats as I remember them:

PB 20.

Gnome.

Str: 10
Dex: 18
Cha: 22

His weapon: a small +1 giant bane longbow
(using dragon bane arrows)

Relevant feats:

WF (Longbow), Rapid Shot, Manyshot, Deadly Aim.

Buffs on him at the time: Haste.

That would make his attack progression somewhat like:

+23/+23/+23/+18/+13

with 3d6 + 12

Or

+20/+20/+20/+15/+10
(deadly aim - I think he used that)

with 3d6 + 20

First attack would get another +9 dmg.

The dragon had AC 24, buffed to 28.

One attack missed, no crits.

Total dmg (four hits): 12d6 + 89 (mean 131, max 161). Dragons HP: 136.

EDIT: Forgot the size bonus, edited it in.

As others have said the dragon was played stupidly and it died stupidly.

Thats simply not true. It was not played "stupidly". It was an open field battle, in which the bad guys arrived (teleported in) buffed and thus even had an advantage on the party.

I can imagine no possible scenario where this dragon (alone) could have presented any challenge whatsoever against the party.

As soon as the paladin would have gotten his full attack - bye bye dragon.

To your haste comment: What do you think the dragon should have done if not use its melee attacks? Cast level 1 Spells? Use its scaaary acid breath with *5d6 acid damage* (an archer paladin WILL make a reflex save vs DC 20....). Pleas, do tell me, which powerful tactic I have failed to employ.

EDIT:
Oh, I just realized that one could interpret haste as non-applicable to natural attacks (and also not to monk unarmed attacks, since "holding a weapon" is spelled out explicitly). I don't use it that way in my game - a dragon gets an additional attack when hasted.

For the purposes of this contest, though (specifically the "create a wonderous item" round), you'd surely have to agree that Sean's opinion is one of only a handful that actually matter.

Of course. Though I have to admit that it puts me slightly off that one of the most important Paizo employees in official function as contest judge calls certain playstyles that are completely within the published rules (see Matthew Morrises posting) "cheating" and "lame".

Am I alone in that I find it immensely silly that in the vale there is a mountain that stands more or less by itself, is AS HIGH AS THE MT. EVEREST, but somewhat under 10 miles wide???

I realize that Golarion is a fantastic setting and I am not demanding total geographic plausibility, but that mountain is really straining my suspension of disbelief.