Maybe I'm the odd one out here, but I'm actually really hoping that Starfinder class design is so far removed from Pathfinder that the current classes are not easy to use out of the box. Pathfinder's character balance (or more accurately, the lack thereof) is arguably intrinsic to the system, probably most strongly tied to the amount of options spellcasters gain against non-casters. Given the things that have come out recently (Advanced Weapon and Armor Training, Combat Stamina, etc.), it's clear that the PF devs are recognizing it and doing what they can to rectify it. I'm not expecting a second edition of Pathfinder, but I don't want Starfinder to be tied down to the old concepts of class balance when it could be an opportunity for a clean slate. The prevalence of technology has already been stated to obsolesce some of the simpler magics (Why take the time and dedication to learn to cast light when you could buy a flashlight?), so I'm really hoping that magic is fundamentally reworked, to evolve into a system that complements the new setting instead of overpowering it. I'm under no illusions that magic won't be present in the system, even if my personal tastes lean towards less common magic, but I really do hope the overall role of magic isn't as overbearing as Pathfinder, nor are magic solutions to problems the only solutions to problems at high levels. As for how non-magical PF classes shake out, they really should not be able to compete to Starfinder classes when they're both geared appropriately, in my opinion. As Sutter mentioned in his interview for Game Informer, a shirtless Barbarian running around with a longsword should have no chance against someone with an assault rifle. Maybe it sounds awesome that your Barbarian beats up soldiers with laser rifles, but what's awesome for one person is absurd and immersion-breaking to another.
Flesh to Stone specifies the target as "one creature". As objects are not creatures, the spell does not work on objects; ergo, the spell does not work on undead.There's no rule that states "object" and "creature" are mutually exclusive. Furthermore, even if they were, Undead are still creatures because the game defines "Creature" as "An active participant in the story or world". Being alive is neither a prerequisite nor a consequence of being a creature. Undead and Constructs are creatures despite not being alive while a mundane plant is alive despite not being a creature. An "object" is anything visible or tangible with relatively stable form. I'm pretty sure a person qualifies as would an animal and anything else corporeal. But there's no rule anywhere that sets up some dichotomy between object/creature. So you're incorrect on two fronts. No.
Spells with this tag, and ONLY with this tag, can be cast on objects. Undead have a clause that mention that they are immune to all effects that allow a fort save UNLESS they can be cast on objects. Flesh to Stone lack the (object) tag, so it cannot be cast on objects, so Undead are immune to it.
I gotta admit, I'm kinda bummed no one commented on my Aliens quote. ;) Pff, it never occurred to me. It's just common practice. We always have a synthetic on board.
I'll weigh in, as my party's Rules "Advocate", as the term seems to be (I've used Rules Librarian, but same dif). How citing rules comes across really depends on how you present it, how consistently you do it, and how receptive you group is to it. As people have said, being diplomatic is key to giving rules advice. As with any other kind of advice, if you make other people defensive, they'll be less likely to listen of you, regardless of whether you're right or not. Try not to be authoritarian and commanding - often, the best way to bring up something is too go "Are you sure that's how it works? I thought it was..." That way, not only do you ask from a position of wanting clarification, not laying down an order, you protect yourself from a backlash if you're actually wrong - nothing worse than being so sure you're willing to bet anything, only end up being wrong. It seriously damages your credibility, and makes it harder for you to explain things when you are right - after all, you got that one wrong. First impressions are very important. I'd say the key difference between a lawyer and an advocate is that an advocate is willing to correct things that would otherwise be in his, or his party's favor. If the GM forgets to full attack with a creature, or fails to notice that an ally will provoke from a reach weapon, or what have you, and you remind him, that instantly elevate you in his eyes. It shows that you're doing this out of a sense of fair play, not trying to squeeze every advantage out of every opportunity. Finally, despite being on your best behavior, some GMs just aren't welcoming to a rules advocate. Whether from a distaste for having to be tied to a book, or not liking someone knowing more than them at the table, wanting a focus on narrative while discarding consistency in the process, or what have you, sometime it just won't work. I'm not saying these types of playstyles are wrong, merely that they don't have a reason for not sweating the rules details, and that I, personally, would probably not enjoy myself in such a group. Reading your group is critical, and don't push too far - rules disputes are best solved by each side giving their argument, and a swift decision being made. Now, I play online, so I admit I have a bit of a bias - rules are easily available for anyone to check at a moment's notice. In a live game, make your case, give a page citation if you can quickly, and if you get ruled against, bring it up later. I find it's very important to know the limits of both the comprehensiveness of the rules, and your own knowledge about them. Be transparent when the rules are unclear, give your opinion on how you would rule, and leave it up to the GM. Try to keep your familiarity of the rules in mind; your group will be more forgiving if you get something wrong about scribing spells into spellbooks if you mention you're not certain. Conversely, if you're extra familiar with something, press for the GM to reread his notes to make sure they are accurate. In a game I play in, we ran into ghouls. When a knowledge check was rolled, it was mentioned that there were no special defensive abilities. I pressured him to double check, because I had run ghoul in a campaign once, and remembered they had channel resistance. He checked, and sure enough, they had it. One last thing to remember is that sometimes, things do break the rules in unique ways. It you run into a choker, I'm sure you'd be very surprised when it runs up to you, then full-attacks. A situation like this shows why it's so important to approach this from a standpoint clarification. Asking the GM "Really? Are you sure it can do that?" should be your first recourse. In this scenario, it'd be exactly right. He might tell you how it could do that after the session, telling you that choker's have a special ability that gives them an extra move action. But if you reacted going "Hey, you can't do that. You can't full attack and move in the same turn", then the difference between unknown monster ability and rule mistake become blurred.
Wait, so he's turning down extra levels, and he's not playing his character? I'll admit I don't have all the context or all the sides of the story, but from the description given, it sounds like the player is playing a character, specifically a dwarven paladin the seems to not have an interest in arcane magic. I see it as reasonable that he has no interest in giving his character arcane casting, being more devoted to divine magic or whatever. Taking arcane classes would definitely shift the direction of his character, quite possibly in a direction he doesn't want his character to go. I'm not familiar with FR, nor the items mentioned in specific, but this is just my instinctual reading of the situation. I agree that he's not forced to read them, so I don't get what his big deal is, but not just because the player doesn't like the apparent path for his character, doesn't mean he's not playing it. I dunno, just my perspective.
This thread is absurd. I'm sorry, but we don't need the rules to be written in legalese. The game is complicated enough, we don't need every sentence of how to hit a goblin with a sword to be written like a effing contract. The Smite Evil ability is a property of the Paladin, so it can be assumed that Smite Evil affects the Paladin, and only the Paladin, unless specified. There's rules as written, and there's applying even an once of common sense when making rulings. The reading that everyone gets level to damage is entirely redundant with the Aura of Justice ability. It can be reasonably assumed that the Paladin would not have been given an ability that does literally nothing, therefore, the reading that results in this must clearly be wrong. Just follow the logic to the conclusion, and you'll see why this is the only thread that's ever had this discussion.
Once a sorcerer has defined herself, she's stuck as she is. Paragon surge + Extra Arcana is a silly combo that I ban from my games (You pick a feat with paragon surge, the spell stay the same if you pick it again at a later time). Additionally, it means you need to be a half elf, meaning you miss out on to oh-so-touted Human Favored Class Bonus, unless you ALSO spend a feat on Racial Heritage (Half-Elf). As for retraining, you need 2 days per spell level, an amount of gold equal to 10 * current level * number of days spent training, AND a sorcerer at least 1 level higher than you. A 10th level Sorc who wants to swap out a third level spell has to spend 6 days and 600 GP to do so, assuming the GM lets you find a trainer. You need GM permission every step of the way.
To me, it seems like it'd be fine doing the same damage dice. Don't forget, lethal and nonlethal damage stack, and once they drop, thy're unconscious. If you can take the time for a CdG after the fight, it's functionally identical. Even if you want to make it more powerful, doubling the dice is quite excessive.
Wizards, who know at least 4 spells of a given spell level by the time a Sorcerer can know one.spells alone doth not a wizard make. Just going to address this one point: spells "doth", in fact, make a Wizard. Suppose a hypothetical Sorc just hit 6th level, and is drooling over his new spells. Which should he choose? Fireball? Useless if the party hits demons, or other things with fire resistance/immunity. Dispel Magic. Not so great against a horde of barbarians. Apart from a small number out truly standout, versitile spells (such as Summon Monster #), Sorcs can have a hard time covering all of their bases, especially shortly after gaining new spell levels. I have not played a Sorc personally, but I DM for one, and it is a well established fact that versatility, in Pathfinder, is power. Wizards have versatility in spades. If uses/day we're what was important, Fighters would be on top, with their unlimited 2d6+9. A comparable 6th level Wizard knows four 3rd level spells, and can cast them as often as that Sorc (Seriously, never ever play a universalist), and could even have non-combat spell for off-days.
Do they hang low? Do they wobble to and fro?
To a degree, certainly. Though tenuous, it can lend credence to one position over another. But for someone who had played a lot of 3.5, there's always the problem of minute changes that nobody notices. For example, I play in two live groups, one as a DM, and one as a player. In the span of a week, the statement "You're dead at -10" had come up in both, while it's actually "Dead at -Con Score" now.
From Animal Archive: This section presents new feats for animal companions and familiars, as well as for PCs that make use of these animals.Some feats might be available to other creatures that meet the prerequisites. Feats that are meant for familiars can be switched out for a familiar's default feats (as listed in the familiar's statistics) if the familiar meets the prerequisites. Such feat replacements must be made when the PC first acquires a new familiar, and-like all new feats from supplemental sources-the new feats should be approved by the GM before being integrated into play. Another option is to be be a Beast-Bonded Witch.
From the story given, it sounds like it's an opposed check, who ever rolls higher wins and the other does what they want. With this, you need to account for a low roll vs a high roll, plus mods. And besides, just the effect of saying, "okay, with my +20-whatever to diplomacy...", is the main point of the build, the sheer powerlessness of the other players. Do it once or twice, show that they literally cannot not do what you say, and get the DM to change the ruling. And even then, a 16 int is still respectable enough to get by, especially in an unoptimized group.
If you're sure you want to go through witht his, you can swap out Half Elf for Human. You can trade the bonus feat for Focused Study (3 skill focuses at 1, 8, and 16), and pick up Silver Toungued, for another +2. However, I don't recommend it. If you've talked it over with your DM, and your sure he won't change his mind, then a good shock like this might be enough to wake him up, but only do it if you're sure nothing else will work.
First death, 4 sessions in, though he was kinda asking for it: Name/Race Areous Zamarel(?), Human
Spoiler: but to summarize, she and two sailors had escaped in the starboard rowboat, but the party was right behind them in the other rowboat. In her description, I mention "fine clothing and almost crystalline goggles, suggesting a person of high status." The Bard, probably the most experienced player in the group, immediately noticed both this, and the fact that she was taking reach AoOs through the fog, and put 2 and 2 together. So, out on the rowboats, she puts up a hell of a fight, get 2 or 3 crit threats, drops the monk to 0, get bull rushed right into the mouth of a shark and still gets back up, and ends up with her and the sea witch in one boat, and the rest of the party in the other (the two boats are adjacent). The witch decides that she'll bull rush her off with her hair, since she had the prehensile hair hex active, and there had been 3 successful bull rushes to dump people in the water by this point, including one against the witch herself. She rushes, officer misses her AoO, and it's the shark's turn, who's been swimming around the boat for the last few rounds.
I gave her Fogcutting Lenses, since the reach on her boarding pike would be useless without being able to see anyone, and they had been tearing though the enemy crew, so I figured they could handle a challenge I roll the shark's attack, it hits (she had 1 hp before the hit). Does enough to knock her uncon and dying, so I say the shark bites off the top half of her and swims off. The Bard immediately says things along the line of "No, I want those goggles". The goggles, being worth over 8000 G, are way out of their WBL, so I was aiming to make sure they didn't end up in the hands of the party. The sea witch says she wants to make a wild empathy check, I tell her it doesn't work like that, since it only works like diplo checks to improve attitude, not make requests. The bard decides he's rowing after the shark, and he's getting those goggles. I look at the speed of the shark (60 ft) and the speed the boats have been going (30 ft), and say, yeah, sorry pal, you're not catching up to the shark. He replies, "Fine, I get out and I swim." Well, now you're catching up even slower. "No, it's coming towards me. I'm at 5 HP, it can smell the blood in the water." I'm a little confused by this point, so I just sorta go "okaaay," before telling him, the shark turns around and is now swimming at him. He rolls and attack, deal 7ish damage, out of the shark's 24, before I roll for the shark. Guess what? Natural F'ing 20. Could not have timed it better. Roll again, of course it confirms. I just sorta go "Oh no" (He going "Aw yeah" and laughing at this point) and roll how much he takes. Ends up doing 18 damage, which is enough to take him straight to dead. The rest of the party basically saw the shark breach, and then swallow him whole. Aftermath He was excited, and enjoyed his char's death, so that's fine. The rest of the party split up what would have been his share among themselves, and he's rolled up a NE Hobgoblin Barbarian/rogue, so it's going to fun next Saturday. Maybe I'll have another fun story to tell!
The problem is that by asking for initiative, is in my opinion, the DM is implying that a situation has arrived that requires initiative; that is, combat. To say "There's a dude, roll initiative," is disingenuous, and preying on players' expectations. Initiative is designed for combat, and combat only, and using it outside of combat raises problems (The Wizard with +11 Init and 7 Cha needs to start every social situation? Talking makes being flatfooted a non-issue?). You can argue that knowing initiative has been rolled is metagaming, but I really don't think so. If used only in active combat situations, then requesting initiative rolls become less metagaming and more DM shorthand for "Something has made a recognizably hostile action, everyone roll to see how fast you react." Is the action in question not recognizably hostile? Then it's a surprise round! There's not even a problem of "divination" of what your opponent's doing. Treat like an "old west" situation others have mention earlier. The turn based combat is an abstraction of many actions happening, almost simultaneously. It's perfectly plausible to say that, even though you in fact made the hostile action that caused initiative, you telegraphed it, and everyone else saw it coming, and reacted first. This isn't to say, however, that you should never, ever, make players take turn out of combat. Whenever there's a particularly complex situation, it'd make perfect sense to keep the players in a ordered fashion. For example, I'm currently DM Skull & Shackles. In the first book, each day, the players do jobs, and then take other actions, like examining rooms, or talking to people. I keep the players going in turn on a roster, just to keep track of them, and make sure no one gets forgotten. What I DON'T do, however, is tell them it's initiative. I'm very explicit that it's only for keeping track of them. When real combat breaks out, I don't use their tracking numbers, I make them roll real initiative. I told them they can perform their actions in any order they want; it really has no bearing on the game, and it's effectively happening simultaneously. As it happened, they had no preference either way, and just rolled initiative, but only as a decision making tool. And that's fine. If the players are in a room with a number of traps, for instance, all over the floor, it makes perfect sense to keep track of who's going first, since it'll affect who gets set on fire first. Just don't call it initiative, be prepare to throw the tracking numbers out if a proper fight starts, and initiative is really rolled. |
