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![]() Peevenator wrote:
Hasn't stopped me from trying with just core anyways. ![]()
![]() MerlinCross wrote:
Me. It's never made sense they were non-lawful only. Given a reliance on tribal laws, superstitions, and taboos, it's never made a whole lot of sense. It's a hold over from back when Chaos and Law were the only alignments and the Barbarians were basically savage berserkers. ![]()
![]() Grumpus wrote:
Nah flatfooted does what flanking does now, there's no more losing dex to ac. ![]()
![]() Okay so... dornderger master does let you use a large sized flail two handed, for the same reasons exotic allows large bastard swords. Buuuuuut, those classes sadly don't help. You can use two handed melee weapons intended for a creature one size larger than you. Key word is intended. A huge dornderger is not intended for a large creature. Ironically, just taking the feat and using it without the class is superior to taking it with the class to avoid the additional penalties beyond the standard oversized weapon penalties. ![]()
![]() Samtron wrote:
Most people who can use Mithril Breastplates do so. It's mostly a question of what you're more concerned about, Flatfooted or Touch AC. However for extremely high dexterities, most will start looking to Celestial Armor due to being chainmail with +8 dex limit. ![]()
![]() bookrat wrote:
I could use all that gold to become a wealthy landowner, and use the remainder and profits to hire adventurers to solve my problems! ![]()
![]() You could use the Social conflict rules from Ultimate Intrigue. Ultimately though they don't really have much chance if the evil npc is present with a charm since they can just do a cha check vs 15 to get them to do almost anything. If he's not there, just use diplomacy as usual. Unless the villain poisoned the well against them the charmed people have no reason to treat them any differently. And if he did, it depends what he told them I suppose. That being said, some people are pretty unreliable even when charmed. Some villain got charmed and the spell says it makes him treat them as his best friend. And while he wouldn't kill his best friend who's endangering his business, he would surreptitiously point adventurers who might kill his best friend in their direction. Point being, it depends a lot on the circumstances. But yeah, if you want to make a whole thing of it, Social Conflict can work. ![]()
![]() And given the comparative rarity of combat buffs in the game, every +1 matters a lot more. Of course, depending on what the rules in the bestiary in October says about how ac is decided, it might throw the calculations off. Really annoyed that such an important book comes out two months later. If it comes out ac isn't beholden to gear but to cr or something it could change a lot. ![]()
![]() bitter lily wrote:
It's east of Taldor. But few go there because it;s in the middle of a desert. And the actual Spawn of Rovagug are generally a group project to take down as most are immortal natural disasters given flesh. Generally it;s more you'll wipe out his worshippors where you find em. Cus they're frigging nutjobs who want to murder everyone, and then die. ![]()
![]() Survival is very dependent on many factors, more than we can reliably all predict for. At best we can give you is some basic mechanical answers, but some things are very situation specific. AC won;t help you survive a desert after all, and flight won't keep you safe underwater. Generally speaking there's a few rules you want to follow that you want in general. Don;t take negative stats in dexterity, constitution or wisdom. The Paladin can get away with a low constitution or wisdom, but nobody else can. These stats affect all your saves, your hp, your ac, and your perception skill (the most important skill.) Tying to this, always take perception, even if it's not a class skill. Being ambushed can get you killed very fast, and as a pc, 95% of the time, you'll be the ambushee not the ambusher. This also let's you find traps which could be a big problem sometimes. Just because you can't disarm it doesn't mean knowing not to walk into it is not useful. Do not be the first to move into melee. This only applies once multiple attacks are a thing. How the game works is you can't move more than 5 feet and make a full attack. So if you run at them, you get one attack on them. Then they get all their attacks on you. Bad trade, right? There's nuance to this mind you. If you have pounce, then you want to charge every time you can, as if you get the full attack and take them down in one round, they do no damage to anyone. And classes with negligible physical attacks like primary arcane casters you can move into melee with without much concern. And Reach will force you to get in close, and take an aoo while at it, so be aware against large creatures you're in for a rough time either way. Flank, don't be flanked. Flanking gives a +2 to attack rolls and opens them up for sneak attack if it's at play. Try to position so you can flank, but avoid it yourself. That being said, make sure not to over extend. Your positioning matters, and getting yourself surrounded can get yourself killed with no way for your friends to help you. Focus defense over offense, but not to exclusion. Always get the best armor you can use, and if you get access to a shield it can be worth using. Armor and Shield enchantments cost half the amount weapon enchantments cost, meaning you get more defense than offense per cost. Just make sure not to ignore all offense, as someone with high ac and no offense is the equivalent of a stone pillar, and they'll sooner or later just start going around you. Be threatening enough to draw fire. Defense is not just AC. Saves, Resistances, Miss Chances and Immunities are all very important. Cloaks of Resistance are considered a "staple" item for a reason, without them you tend to fail saves way more. Unless you're a paladin or maybe a barbarian but they do stack so can still be worth it. Resistances help a lot against enemies who spam nukes for chip damage over and over. Eat enough fireballs and it adds up. Having 10+ fire resistance helps a ton. 5 resistance isn't worth all that much except at level 1-3 though when alchemist fire can be dangerous. Buffs or class features that block debuffs are also very important. Freedom of Movement and Death Ward are very important to have access too through one means or another. Fortifications popular for saving you from critical hits. Don't ignore consumables. Potions of healing aren't all that great but oils of bless weapon, magic weapon, or other potions and scrolls are all priced very reasonably compared to the permanent bonuses and might save your life and wallet in the long run if used properly. For healing, a Wand of Cure Light Wounds is usually the more economical answer. Mobility matters. If you can't reach an enemy you're not going to kill them, generally. Archery allows one to circumvent this to a degree but for all it;s power, archery has several hard counters out there that have to be accounted for. As such, make sure you have a method to get airborne. Not only will this save you from land targets who don;t have ranged answers, it let's you chase down the flyers. Swim speeds underwater are the same way. There's not many answers to burrowers unfortunately, so your best bet is to stay off the ground and try to force them to the surface or circumvent them. Not every battle has to be fought. While there are many times that leaving no enemies behind you is very wise, for unintelligent monsters like animals and creatures between you and a place may not have to be fought at all. Never underestimate the usefulness of means to circumvent danger to protect yourself and resources. Why travel through a desert when you can teleport to the other side? Why fight the beast in the moat when you can fly to the top of the castle? And so forth. Familiarize yourself with your enemies when possible. Knowledge skills help there, but asking experts, going to libraries and gathering information is very helpful. Bringing weapons that strike enemies weaknesses, enhancing defenses against the enemies strengths, and leveraging what you have is always better than running in blind. Just make sure not to specialize too hard. One trick ponies don't work well in the long run, and enemies are likely aware of their weaknesses too and may shore them up. Just because white dragons hate fire doesn't mean it will work, because that white dragon may well have a ring of fire resistance. So be ready to counter such things as needed. But one can continue with this for ages. That's how involved survival can be. Fact is, sometimes you'll just die to bad luck as well, and nothing can stop that. The trick is to try and tip the odds as far in your favor as you can. And that's always situational to certain degrees. ![]()
![]() Ashiel wrote:
For the record, long as you stick to the things you say you're about, I doubt many people will be that disappointed. Like all my games mostly consist of rushing from one plot point to another because if we take too long someone will b%!~*, but if we don't spend time roleplaying someone will b&@#$ and someone will b!~$& about a railroad and so on. I played several APs and it feels like a lot could be solved by slowing down and taking ones time with it yet we can't do that. So it's an endless cycle of complaints. So, you know, I have a very very high tolerance and severely doubt I'll be disappointed :p. Also cus it was asked, I... don't remember how I found this thread. I'm thinking I found it via Ashiel's profile. I am master stalker. I think I reach this thread via his profile more than any other way. ![]()
![]() Ashiel wrote:
I keep saying it. Three mile waiting list. Celebrity Ashiel, haunted forever. Have to hire an internet bouncer :p. ![]()
![]() Makes sense. That said polymorph any object is a very confusing mess right now in pathfinder. Though that raises the obvious question. What if I polymorph them into a giant block of stone then carve a stunning statues out of them. Will they look like the statue or will they look like something out of American Horror? If we body sculpt their corpse form, will their body still work when they revert? It's a bit... Grey area. Also cus I just noticed now, Klara, the reason why the worship of Nocticula uprising surprised me is Calistria exists and fills the same niche so there isn't much reason to do so if all one cares about is sex drugs and rock and roll. Urgathoa is there for the same reason if you want an evil version. This implies a different reason for the worship. Also that's a bit of a thing that irks me. There is... Way too many deities. Too many. Now having a diety for everything, fine. Having 5+ dieties for hedonism? Starts to get iffy because it takes away from a reason people would worship the evil ones except for those who are real hardcore into evilness. I mean Urgathoa and Calistria have just enough divide that I can accept it (particularily since Calistria feels like a kinda pointless diety anyways. Pun unintended.). But then you have Nocticula for the demons, Arshea for the angels, several of the various CG ones, one of the devil archdukes, and probably a few others if I hunt it out. And then honor, oh boy honor... Making evil dieties work as a major force requires them to have a realistic reason to be worshipped. But when good aligned dieties do what they do but good aligned, it just takes away why worship them. Though then again, I guess that could make some sense in the that's how you beat evil dieties. Invalidate them. Course why they would LET you do that... ![]()
![]() Fair few options I figure. The usual answers that make anyone good at disguise still work. Disguise self, alter self and so forth. Polymorph any object would be a superior but way harder to achieve option to begin with. Those less moral could also use magic jar. But specifically in dealing with the elixir... Disguise would be as good as ever probably, but one could use surgery too. Possibly fleshwarping or demonic implants too :p. Equip succubi bits, maximize femininity! ...Damn it I'm thinking of too many ways for a villain to do this stuff. Darn brain! Mm. Another method could be hypnosis perhaps. Or a modified version of that one psionic ability that makes everyone think you're beneath notice. Claim to be a tiefling, they're all mutants anyways. ![]()
![]() I sorta have a different take on this stuff. To me it seems a little weird, depending where you are, that it is considered unusual. One thing that the game has a lot of is shape shifters of various types and tokens. Tons of them. Never mind the illusionists and people with various items and so forth. The psychology of entities without a strong tie to a specific form is quite fascinating because of how hard it is for us to conceive of it. Now obviously regions that don't have a strong magical presence probably would find it weird, but areas that do often have to share space with creatures from beyond mortality in every form that may take, as well as people who generally defy gravity and so forth. Probably becomes about as remarkable as every other crazy wizard who does things for reasons. Might not be conducive to true understanding, but it'd be less remarkable, particularly since compared to the guy who animates hedge animals it's on the grand scheme way less flashy. But I definitely get the issue of Anevia and Irabeth. Anevia's origins just never came up for the pcs when I ran it. I didn't see a reason why she'd bring it up, and they never asked. Far as they cared, she's just a tomboyish girl who sleeps with the half orc lady who takes care of their city when they aren't there. They spent way more time wanting to get to know the CE Barbarian who surrendered to them in book 2 who I have absolutely no background information on and thus had to invent things for. Honestly, they never seemed interested in any of the listed npcs and gravitated to any I had to invent. Well cept the demon lord anyways. Who always seems to end up more popular than Iomedae from the threads I read. Funny how that works out. You've no idea how many faithful of the succubus queen I've seen since I ran that now. ![]()
![]() I had two. My first was Valerie Castell, a half-orc assassin cultist of Kabriri. She wanted to become a demon, so she decided on a crazy plan. She'd go and found a nation, and then tunnel all the way under the city and undermine the whole capital, so it'll collapse all the way into the Darklands, creating the world's largest open grave and full of food for ghouls, nice and mashed. she fully intended this to take a long time, so everyone who helped her make it would die of old age or be her undead servant friends and help her. Then she wouldn't feel bad about breaking what they made together. She was an ninja, bone oracle, Demoniac, shadowdancer. I wanted an sneaky character that can manipulate undead and such. She was kind to friends, vicious to enemies and enemies were anyone who messed with her friends. She was friendly and protective and often stalked others to watch over them. She used disguises liberally and posed as a noble to her own castle and balls to get influence and keep a thumb on the undercurrents of everything. She also loved eating people. She wore a magic hood that hid her features but made her teeth glow brightly whenever she wanted them too to give herself a means to terrify her enemies. Also when she first met all but one of the other npcs, she pretended she was a zombie for the necromancer. Because she could. Dedicated to it too. Told to eat the soup, face plant in the hot soup and held it. One doesn't get demon convertees from the undedicated after all. My second was in Ravenloft based campaign. Friedrick the Life-shuffler. Friedrick was a Lifeleech Soulthief Vitalist with an affinity for tarot cards. He didn't think he had powers, he figured it was the cards. To connect others to the Collective, they had to be carrying a card. Stealing life from others in Ravenloft is an evil act. Friedrich was good aligned. Because rather than steal life from others, he would give them his own, and take their injuries upon himself instead. Friedrich was very protective of others and tended to put them first. He came from a nation where it's people are strangled with taxes and had a very communal mindset to try and protect and help everyone. As the group he was in was really amoral, he was basically group conscience. Unfortunately this ended as after an mist incident they all ended up in a heavily psionic region, and in protecting the party, he was murdered by a blood elemental. In a sequel adventure however, he comes back, his body and mind fuzed and altered with the blood elemental into a woman with lots of hole filled memories, vaguely recalling a corruption of the name, so called herself Friedrica. Friedrica was a Crimson Countess Harbinger. Her collective was corrupted to instead of drawing others ills to her, instead drew their blood out to her. Friedrica was unstable and mercurial in temperament. She'd be calm one moment and amused another and cruel and aggressive the next. She often would say things she wouldn't get the full context of and just knew she felt a kinship with these people but not entirely why. Her urge to help others had changed to the eradication of threats to others in as brutal a fashion as possible. She was a tank of sorts. She built herself to be supremely durable and dodgy. The untyped endless damage on enemies around her that wouldn't end til she died put the fight on a timer. Enemies had to make a choice. Deal with the squishier enemies and constantly be stripped of their vitality, or try to focus down the incredibly evasive longspear wielding blood lady and ignore possibly more imminent threats. ![]()
![]() Rysky wrote:
Thats why devil binders are good aligned! He's not saying aligned spells aren;t aligned acts (in this case). What he;s saying is that negative energy=evil because only evil clerics or neutral clerics can channel negative energy is wrong. ![]()
![]() Flamephoenix182 wrote:
I prefer psionics myself as well, though Vancian has its place too. As for the druid's strength, the ac stacking is a little absurd, but this doesn't solve that problem if that's their goal. It just makes it annoying for druids who take the less optimal pure caster route. It punishes a playstyle that's already kinda hampering itself. Battledruids who can fall back on casting have no trouble with these issues. Incidentally the counter to druid ac stack is nuke spam and touch attacks. They can't deal with touch based assaults very well so spellcasters and summons and undead tend to have an advantage, as well as the usual spam em with alignment nukes. As for it being official, oh it's "official" in the sense of the source. It's not "official" in the sense that it's the final word. Hell they often go against their own errata's later on, like with the previously mentioned spell-like errata. It's a lack of consistency combined with often a lack of foresight. And if they want erratas, they have a place for them. People ask questions cus they want it clarified. They don't want rules completely rewritten suddenly. But that's often what they do get. And that's why a lot of us ignore it if we have the option. Least til it's written into the books themselves and make a lot of people sad. Also the druid thing makes no sense anyways. If the armors not on you anymore, why does it restrict my movement? If it's all part of my body, why does it still weigh me down? ![]()
![]() dysartes wrote:
The problem is that if something doesn't say it happens, it doesn't. Humans can't fly because it doesn't say we can. You don't get the armor bonuses. It says so. Unless you have the Wild enchantment. Then you do. The FAQ adds a bunch of unstated rules to a book that does not contain them. That's why it lies. The book does not say what the FAQ says it does. It's an Errata that isn't actually written into the books. Often when these FAQratta are made they make things worse to boot. And these "FAQ" aren't even solid, they change back and forth. Remember the spell-likes allow qualification for spellcasting? It went away after too. FAQ are supposed to be clarifications of rule text that are unclear. It isn't supposed to conjure up new rules out of the ether. ![]()
![]() Klara Meison wrote: What tabletop RPGs in particular and boardgames in general have you played in your life? TTRPGS Dnd (3e, 4e, 5e)
Board Games Chess
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![]() Ashiel wrote:
Yeah know how both of those can go. That said HotS is so team based compared to other MOBA's that it's way easier for groups to do well. I actually used to work on balancing for one of the first standalone MOBA's, HoN (Heroes of Newerth). It was purely a sorta fan thing that the devs allowed to do some things, but we held the devs to decisions and got to work on a patch, even if they refused to do a large portion of it :p. Frustrations with their methods and decisions eventually had our group fall apart though we still talk at times. So I totally get the emotions that led to D20 Legends. ![]()
![]() TheAlicornSage wrote:
Yeah, Poe's Law is a b~@!% online. Happens to all of us at some point. ![]()
![]() No, it's literally that. It is not better, it is a +1 to attack and damage. It going to multiple weapons is kind of a joke because as a fighter you are pigeonholed into using one weapon to keep up with the other classes. It doesn't matter if I have Weapon Training: Axes and can use all axes if I have Weapon Focus and Specialization in Battleaxe. Weapon Training may as well just say battleaxes too. This lack of ability to spread out and thus making almost all following Weapon Trainings useless is why Advanced Weapon Trainings can be a thing. Because they were dead space before so they gave them something useful to replace them with. I personally would consider taking one weapon training into a ranged option, or a melee one if I started on range, but otherwise the rest are dead space. ![]()
![]() Ashiel wrote:
Poke over to ULMF and check out Dark Gate if you like. Far from perfect but it might get you some ideas mechanically. NSFW obviously for those not catching onto context. Dark Gate's getting a v2 soon, though progress has been slow on the final bits. I myself been helping with world building in other groups there, but that's all in googledocs and such. ![]()
![]() Ashiel wrote:
I do most my not pathfinder via text. Course that;s all free form sos tory based and such. Not sure there's mechanics that could accept the uh... Activities some of the chars get up too :p ![]()
![]() Ashiel wrote:
Think I said it before but when that happens you're probably going to have a small army watching, including myself :p. Probably just as many wishing they could play haha. ![]()
![]() Well it hardly needs editing to make work out in a sense. Once there was a great goddess, who provided for her people all they should need. And the people were happy. Each week she would arrive and bestow bounties upon they. But one week, she did not come. The people waited, but soon their fear and rage took over. Where was she? What barred her path? Their ire became directed at those others whom the goddess shared her company with. Surely they had done something to keep her from them and hoard her bounties for themselves! And so enmass they lashed out, assaulting those chosen few the goddess associated with. When the goddess did arrive, she saw the carnage and was enraged by the harm her people had caused, and threw them out for their crimes, to become self sufficient and learn. But the people did not learn. Embittered, they chose instead to embrace the anger that had arisen rather than take responsibility. They would not grow, but take instead. If they were to be forsaken, then forsaken they would be. Yet in their hearts they would never forget what they had lost and never know peace. ![]()
![]() Ashiel wrote: Is there a typical party? It seems like people are downright allergic to things like humans, elves, and dwarfs half the time. To the point you just about need a warning lable on the character sheet: "warning: may contain core races". Suspect it's partly for the same reason of Fae Foundling. Want to be human paladin, but being a tiefling paladin is just so much better cus favored class. Some of it is just repetition. How many different games, rps, and so forth have you played some version of one of the core races now? They aren't just saturated in dnd, they are in fantasy novels and in games and so forth. Given an option to play something else, people jump on it, possibly without considering how it might be different. Some might simply be that the race itself matters less to them. I mean when you boil it down, funny looking human is a stereotype because they all are. The exotic races often are too but least with planetouched you often can look more like however you want too. ![]()
![]() Ashiel wrote:
The pathfinder updated version of the Advanced Bestiary lacks the Resistant to Blows ability, as does the Anniversary Edition stats, where he instead has 2 more monk levels, his ring of protection traded for a Ring of the Ram, reducing his ac to 29, -1 worse accuracy but two more attacks, and 10 less movement speed and more and different feats. He seems easier to deal with by a large margin, but that was a running theme of the Anniversary edition. Also, I know it specifies attacks, but you'd think attempting to coup the undead would end Halt Undead. I mean it's still an attack in the same sense invisibility would consider it for ending itself. I guess the question would be would it end when you attempt to do so, thus preventing it or would it end after the attack. berserker444 wrote: If you could have any race as a playable character race currently not available what'd it be and why? An actual decently made Gnoll race would be nice. And Lizardfolk. I don't count the ones in the ARG. Succubus would be interesting, always wanted to make a succubus berserker. Dragon is fun, though I do like In the Company of Dragon's Taninim for that so in a sense I already have it. Drider could be an interesting one too. Oh, but most of all, the various Lamia-kin. Except the Hungerer. I'm okay leaving that as being a nightmare. ![]()
![]() For even more context, that guy there doesn't even move. He's literally a tied up bundle. He has to fly everywhere. While he does punch people, I like to pretend he instead has his arms locked up too and he just body checks into people as a full body telekinetic beatdown. The stats were a bit different from that in the anniversary edition though. Also, something weird occurred to me while I was mucking about with magic jar and possession. Vampire's blood drain is SU. This means someone possessing a vampire can't drink blood, and the vampire cannot drink in an anti-magic zone. But can walk on the ceiling as spider climb is EX.
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