Jordan Barlam's page

One thing that I've never been clear about for tower shield. First, it says that it grants full cover against "attacks". Then, it says that "targeted spells" can still affect the user.

What about targeted non-spell effects like a Witch's Hexes? Can those target someone using the tower shield for cover because they aren't "attacks" or can they not because they are not "targeted spells"?

I've been looking at the vigilante for a while and something about it has been bugging me. After looking at it for a while, I think that I figured out what really bugs me.

As many people have noted, trading most of your class features for a handful of +4 skill bonuses and the ability to play nice with townsfolk isn't quite a fair trade. I understand that this is made to model things out like Zorro and Batman... which made my real issue with the class all of the more visible.

My real problem goes a little like this:
-Bruce Wayne knows kung fu.
-Clark Kent has super strength.
-Don Diego de la Vega is awesome with swords

The big reason that we don't see secret identities do awesome stunts in most medias generally isn't because they can't and isn't even necessarily social pressures forcing them to keep their identity secret. Most superheroes we'd consider to have levels in this class would probably jeopardize their secrecy if it was the only way to protect their own lives, the lives of their friends and families, or to protect the cities (or worlds) they've spent their lives protecting.

The biggest reason that this doesn't end up happening in many of these situations is... well... narrative in nature. Superman always has enough time to escape to a phone booth (to use the old standby), batman can always find enough time to change, and so forth.

This class both requires a full 5 minutes to change identities and literally makes it impossible for a player to sacrifice its identity to save its own life. The first makes using your social guise a huge gamble if there is any risk of combat (by the time someone sneaks off and changes, for example, an ambush encounter is probably long over) and the second seems thematically... wrong.

While I am far from an expert designer, what I would suggest is something like this:
1. Assuming your social persona takes away the intimidating benefits of the renown class feature but retain the use of your other class features.
Explanation: Ultimately, the only thing that assuming a social disguise really takes from you is the ability to make opponents quake in fear.

2. If you use those class features in front of a creature, you permanently lose all special benefits of your social guise against that creature.
Explanation: Fighting an opponent means trading the numerous bonuses of your social disguises for being able to remove your kiddy gloves. Fighting doesn't automatically give you an intimidate bonus (millionaire playboy who knows martial arts =/= Terror of the night batman) and likewise doesn't shift your alignment or "identity" to that of your vigilante, though people will be unable to look at you in the same light in the future even if you help them.

3. It is assumed that the vigilante is skilled at making excuses and selling alibis, making it hard for someone who knows your identity to convince others. Those being told that you are more than a simple socialite (even from a reputable source) only gain a +4 bonus on their opposed perception check.
Explanation: As this change actually lets a player jeopardize their secret identity, this last change covers the situation of a survivor trying to ruin your education. The +4 bonus is intended to mimic the +4 bonus that someone can lend other observers against illusion effects, though increasing it to +6, +8, or even +10 may incentivize players to actually use their vigilante persona.

Of course, all of that is my own personal opinions. Would want to hear more of what others have to say.

What I would really like in a bestiary 5 is an exploration of thematic monster groups in a similar manner to outsiders.

Right now, every outside type seems to have a CR 2 improved familiar, a CR 20 "boss monster", and several intermediate monsters. While this allows demons or devils or aeons to appear at any general level of play, however, it is pretty poor at helping you create a campaign centered around a type of creature. As your party grows from low to mid-levels, for example, it is hard to justify your players no longer running into rot-fiends and start running into rage-fiends (examples) as there may be no innate relationship between them.

Compare that, say, with the relationship between skums, faceless stalkers, aboleths, and shoggoths. If you made a CR 11-13 emissary of shoggoths and a low-level familiar aberation used by the aboleths as organic power sources, we would have a similar distribution and there would be the makings of a campaign within the distribution. The mindflayers of thoon were my favorite part of the MM V for the way they did that.

I'm not saying that there should be TOO many of these or that all of them should stretch from CR 2 to 20 but that unrealated creatures can form a thematic progression (such as the otherworldly allies or masters of a creature or the constructs first created by a certain species).

To be clear, I am not suggesting that anybody EVER use the skill as the OP dictates. That interpretation obviously leads to a slew of problems and I've always played with the skill using a stance very near what Hawkwen Agricola suggests (I actually agree with him completely).

This was merely posted as a question of RAW (slippery, squishy mess though it is). Pathfinder has done quite a good deal to help solve this type of issue from much of what I've seen and I was just hoping to see if this potentially dangerous ambiguity had actually escaped notice or if I was simply missing something.

I know that animals (even dire ones) aren't too big of a deal in most campaigns and are quickly outclassed by all other manner of foe. Even so, what I think I'm seeing here is so mind-boggling that I had to make sure that I'm not making a mistake.

Namely, I see absolutely no restrictions on using the handle animal skill to push animals. While the skill makes a couple of references to domestication here and there, absolutely nothing in the skill actually seems to state that it can only be used on domesticated animals or outside of combat or that an actively hostile animal has ANY degree of resistance against the attempt.

No, as far as I can tell, as soon as you can manage a DC 25 check reliably, you effectively have permanent mind-control over an entire type of creature (and all creatures with 1-2 Int as soon as you can manage DC 30) as you can simply order the dire animal/dinosaur to run away or something as a full-round action.

This is stupid. I know this. I doubt that I know any DMs who would actually run things like that. Even so, this is so head-scratchingly bizarre that I'm really hoping I'm wrong here and that one of you guys can tell me what on earth I'm missing. So many skills have been fixed that this seems like an odd thing to have missed.