Kaelidin's page

Kaelidin wrote:

What would happen is pretty clear, but the real question is are you ok with the outcome?

My guess is if using it as a trap or an attack the only things preventing the player from falling in is a dice roll. It is a very real potential of save or die, or go on an adventure to recover. Is the plot of the adventure ok with that sort of outcome? If so then please see the best arrow ever.

Link is dead and I'm really curious.

Strange the link still works for me, but anyway here is another link.

What would happen is pretty clear, but the real question is are you ok with the outcome?

My guess is if using it as a trap or an attack the only things preventing the player from falling in is a dice roll. It is a very real potential of save or die, or go on an adventure to recover. Is the plot of the adventure ok with that sort of outcome? If so then please see the best arrow ever.

Vestiges of old DnD live on...

Spells used to take time units to cast, you start casting on your initiative and would finish casting after those time units were up (initiative count) So a level 3 spell usually took 3 units to cast, wizard starts to cast on his initiative and 3 initiative counts later spell occurred. Interrupting during that casting count down was how you interrupted. PF and such got rid of that but seemed to want to keep spell interruption a thing so spells were made interruptable because there is some assumption that you can tell Mr/s wiggle fingers is intending to do some magicy stuff on their turn so you can interrupt them.

Perhaps it would have been better if spell casting and martial combat weren't treated the same by "ready action" rules, but RAW says the are.

The nitpicky point that I guess we ignore in our games is the "if able" of the attacker. So in the example the fighter moves up and intends to harm the kobold, who then pokes and ducks back from the fighter.

Now yes if you assume the fighter is unable to continue the kobold just pulled off quite the deed. But let's say the fighter only moved 15 feet up, and has plenty of movement, declares attack and kobold moves. The fighter never rolled the dice (if he did the kobold is hit when the dice are rolled the deed is now part of history), so why can't the fighter just move up 5 more feet using the movement distance he still has banked? This is how it would resolve in our games. If you step back from a charge you very likely will still get hit as the charger likely still has 5' more to spare, stepping aside though would cause a miss, a walk up and swing is controlled enough (and doesn't get hit bonus or distance bonus) so that the warrior can adjust his tactics.

The level of detail is "move up and attack" not move to square A3 and attack A4. Show your route and DM will do the readied, fighter still is "moving up and attacking" he just goes to a new location. I dont' think it makes sense if fighter is wanting to move up 30 feet, wizards spell makes the ground disappear 20' feet ahead of fighter but the fighter "HAS TO" keep moving to his death because he can't possibly stop moving forward. Declaring action should not allow you to change your action but it should allow you to modify the specifics of where or what as you go. If I have potion in hand and it is destroyed by interrupt, and I have quick draw you better believe I'm quick drawing another potion and drinking it, I can't change to an attack but I can still try to complete my action with options available.

I do think that adjudicating this way still gives ready actions benefit because if that fighter doesn't have any more distance in the tank then they certainly are standing there looking sad. It also wouldn't take away movement options from readied actions. It also doesn't feel so silly that the kobold knows this is the real attack and not just the pokes and feints that are a part of combat and pauses time. But I do agree that table variance would exist with the RAW because exceptions or more examples of allowable readies weren't given likely due to assumptions or word count.

I do find humor in the silliness that interrupting actions pausing time, the absurd example of when you shoot or cast at someone 60 feet away and their readied action is a double move to next to you, effectively teleporting for AoO (if you read that as acceptable use).

I've really wanted to run/play in a church themed campaign where the entire group are all of the same religion, and likely religious themed classes doing some sort of pilgrimage or something. Spreading the influence of their deity one mile at a time or something.

So many moving parts!
I do hope a clear FAQ describing how spell casting is "perceived".

Personally I think a lot of difficulty here is thinking "visual" = "perception". A blind fighter still would get the opportunity attacks on a spell caster. I do agree that RAW says to identify the actual spell requires pretty specific criteria and a spell craft roll, I personally think those specific criteria can be made impossible via certain spell/feat/meta choices.

The other part of the discussion that is much less clear to me is how is the spell casting "felt" or perceived in some manner so people know a spell is really happening so all these other chance opportunities can actually occur. During casting do visual effects happen? Is there a sort of "pressure", like a rapidly changing barometer, which Golarians have gotten used to identifying since magic is so omnipresent? I don't know what the intended RAW is but it sure seems like something has to be there so all the AOO, spellcraft and counterspelling can happen.

I wonder if maybe the GM is part of the old thinking that only items that drop from the book or the random loot tables is what the party will acquire? If that were the case, not having everyone using the same weapon type could be wise, but again with the magic marts that are in the PF setting I don't think it is as much an issue.

Overly defensive GM perhaps, or he really wants every body to have a well defined niche, even though you would fill it better than the current occupant.

I wish they would make a sticky for this. I've been wanting to get Kingmaker forever, but the cost per book is more than a hardcover corebook from my searches.

Like 5 years after release they do a hardcover omnibus of the 6 books and call it a day. Personally I wouldn't need the supplemental materials like separate maps, cards character portfolios etc, just the books in 1, hardcover or soft isn't as important to me either.

I do hope that Paizo looks at it as an opportunity and does so, or at least flat out say no, so at least we know to look for other means.

I would wonder about a LG deity with followers as powerful as PCs and NPCs can get wouldn't open up the floor for "suggestions".

- Like stop the bad guy
- Find the truly good and bring them to ____
- Find the truly good and place divine tags on them so if/when they die they go to heaven.

Perhaps giving a new "mercy" power explicitly for creating a divine link to those good citizens. Paladins too weak to use it may have different errands to run like find the good and bring them to the more elite paladins who can cast the blessing/mercy. This campaign idea is really fascinating to me to be honest. It dovetails with an idea for an all religious campaign where the party is all divine classes of the same deity sent on a pilgrimage/quest for the good of the whole religion. Using it as an opportunity to combine warpriests, clerics, paladins, inquisitors etc.

I also support the idea that Paladins can't really be pragmatic about good. They have extreme problems trying to do the "greater good" or the "little evil leading to bigger good". Of course that moral conundrum can either be a limiter to player agency, or a great story telling opportunity.

MMCJawa wrote:

Scythia wrote:

This goes to the question of what matters more in alignment issues, action or intention.

You won't find consensus on this issue, it's the same one at the heart of several alignment debates. If you're running, do what's best for your game.

Hell...I think this has been a topic in philosophy four a couple of thousand years, with no firm consensus on the issue.

True,but it's specifically reared it's head in the "does casting an [evil] spell make you Evil" threads, especially in regards to Infernal Healing.

Personally I always thought that Paladins and Clerics ping alignment so easily because they are "anchored" into a plane/power that radiates that alignment so strongly. The person may not have to match the alignment they ping in such cases, but if the devotee's alignment gets too off the mark they can't sync up with that anchor and thus lose their benefits. Paladins have a much narrower band to sync up whereas Clerics only need to be within 1 step.

I do take as supporting evidence that some spells will cause you to temporarily appear as a specific alignment regardless of usage/intent or personal alignment. The taint of connecting to that other plane/power covers over your natural alignment.

Is alignment only a factor of your actions or is it your intentions? In real life there is certainly a lot of debate on the subject, and certainly I've been taught (through my own life's journey with religious upbringing) that doing good, wanting to do good and also not having evil thoughts are all important. I won't get into how much turmoil the "judgment on thought" brings about.

But in Fantasy settings, the afterlife and Gods are not based on faith, their existence are proven facts, so of course the "how you are going to be judged" is probably a lot more clear too.
Someone trying to be good because of fear of the "reward of evil" may not altruism as their motivation but they are sincere but not natural at it; and I think that would at least make them neutral if not actually good.

At least in this fantasy setting it is well known their is an afterlife and you will have to take part in it. Having that ambiguity removed you won't have people "publicly doing good" and when unobserved doing terrible things. There is no place you are unobserved when it comes to the outcome of your alignment and destiny, so you always have to be on proper behavior. Think what you want, but do as you should.

The takeaway from the discussion I think may be that being really evil can have its rewards if you want them, and so does being good. What is absolutely the worst case scenario for you is to be "petty evil". Petty evil gets a terrible afterlife options for perhaps only brief benefit in life. I could only believe in that sort of evil person being due to circumstances or mental issues rather than an active choice. Like the brigand may have needed to eat one bad winter and a series of bad chances and choices took him down evil's path, rather than actively trying to seek out and be the worst he could be. I would fully expect any such person who had been enlightened to work at putting their evil past behind them and try to "pay off" their evil with good if given the opportunity.

At least that is my 2cp

May I have a code as well.

Best wishes on the project!

I think that bodyguard does "provoke" you leave your self exposed while trying to ward off the bad guys attacks against your ally. Therefore your ally can make a free AoO against you. Yes your ally against you since your action "provoked" the AoO.

Stop being silly and trying to get a mile from an inch.

Those are fantastic, that party really must have good player cohesion to keep the story going so well when their PCs are so at odds. Sounds like a lot of fun!

Personally I would hope that the decision for a new edition would only be made if the current design space doesn't allow them to expand with new settings/ideas without breaking or unbalancing things. If the decision is strictly a financial decision for the company that likely wouldn't please many people, due to sacrificing artistic and creative integrity.

In a new edition I certainly would love if all the adventure and settings stuff was able to be seamlessly used. Perhaps standard methods for converting stat blocks and other numeric things. I wouldn't mind rebuying the core rule books as long as the larger investment items aren't needed to be repurchased.

Now I would love to buy a full compendium of all classes/archetypes, spell list, feats and clarified rules in some handy editions just for ease of transport, but that only works when the system is "done". Though I know online that stuff all exists on the PFRs20.

Can we get anniversary editions, like how ROTRL was done, of the APs around 5 years after they are first published? I for one would certainly buy them.

Outside the gaming discussion, and into how humans make categories.

Labels are how we separate and quantify. We naturally seek to cram things into small boxes so we can understand and be comfortable with them. We could be 99.99% the same and that last .01% being different will be the labeled group you belong too. Labels are used to create our in and out groups, when the flavor of the day is to fear/dislike one of those labels we start to have problems. At some point we do have to get to where the labels of yesterday are pointless and we are just "people" then we can be inclusive rather than exclusive to people that are slightly apart from us.

A silly example group of labels:
Man, American, white, 30~40yo, college, religious, watches tv, plays group organized table top game PF, dislikes wizards

Man, American, white, 30~40yo, college, religious, watches tv, plays group organized table top game PF, likes wizards

These groups would fight over liking wizards or not, even though the bigger picture they are pretty much the same group from an outsider perspective.

@thejeff : I agree with you in the idea that telling a character story that traits of the character to give a reference point do have to be used. I do prefer my fantasy to use more blank slate characters so I can mentally fill in parts I would prefer. To me characters are just people, straight, bi, gay, other all just people, I don't really care about the labels. Maybe that is a privilege thing that I am getting to enjoy "just because" I happen to identify somewhat closely with a well represented set of characteristics. Using Dumbledore again as an example, in his author's mind he was gay, but realistically no real "come out and say it" was done, as his intimate life wasn't intended as part of the story. His gender and how he gender identified admittedly was known (or was it...).

I do cringe when I read stories written where it feels a character was made just to fill in a set of check boxes rather than the character and story fitting together like a .. well.. 'like a well told story'. I think Paizo works hard to not make bad stories both for business and because they have a vested love of stories as well.

I suppose the reason I'm even chiming in at all is I've had discussions about sexuality fairly often in my personal life, and have basically come up with the conclusion of "what get's your motor humming is no business of anyone else's unless you make it so". Don't identify yourself as a single bullet point as that shouldn't be all you are.
People should just be people, someday we'll get to that point as a society again; before it was assumed normal was everyone being straight and narrow, now we are going through changes and expanding what people can do and be, and someday the definition of what is "normal" will include everything talked about in this thread and likely other unique traits.

I still want to see the characters that other players have in their own "mind's theater" because there really won't be enough official characters to even do minimal service to all the races/countries/classes/genders/self-identifiers we have, from a game standpoint the classes races and countries have a very important mechanical component in giving ideas how to play said adventurer types with your own twist on a character.

I can definitely understand the frustration of losing some opportunity costs due to circumstances out of your control. I would be quite put off from organized play if I died due to (perceived) GM-being-mean or inattentive.

Around here there is 1 (known) PFS session a month, meaning 1 character would take many years to get to Seeker. If that character died it is a loss of a lot of time, in a home game I can pick up at a similar level with the group and at least keep playing at that level. If I had many sessions a week losing a dozen chronicles wouldn't hurt so much, but 1 per month is a lot of life time invested, and any time your long term goals would have been better served by not attending (losing everything regarding that character because you attended) a session is a pretty sad state of affairs.

You feel you are charging your smite, but whether it does anything additional than a sword to face...

How many bad calls should a Paladin have before his Deity takes away some toys? If your avatar can't make a good decision on who gets the holy smite stick perhaps he needs to go back to the Paladin College.

Or you kill a 401k stealing executive on his way to lunch.

To me the point of the characters are to have a personality to hang a story on. Gender and sexuality for me aren't really a main focus of what interests me in the character. If the fact that the character is ___ race ___ gender ____ sexuality from ____ moves the story along or enriches it then that is great, if it is just a foot note you likely trying to wedge something where it may not need to be. If you manage to tell a whole story and the protagonist is still kind of a "blank slate" that you can insert your own thoughts and interpretations onto that is even better as it can be an identity for anyone. Some examples would be stories where the main character isn't really given a good description, in those cases it is entirely the scenario that is pushing the story rather than the character fitting some niche.

I'm not sure if I would really be interested in a set of stories where the only interesting thing is how "progressive" the character is, that would feel cheap and tacked on to me. But if that story could only be exist due to those special circumstances of that character then that is awesome; bring on those diverse characters! I do want to see players own character creations, telling their own stories and giving life to their personas, I don't think we need to wait for official works to fill in our desire for new interesting protagonists.

I've had a lot of characters I've written stories of and in my mind they are a certain "type" (M/F/Other, H/B/LG/other; more complexity than being just a series of labels) , and any particular difference in how that "type" would change the story has not come up in their adventures so it wouldn't be in the story except as a foot note, so it isn't there at all.

So if someone dies by Shadow Str drain, is brought back to life via resurrection or something. Goes on their merry way to a long life of living, is str drained by poison years later, instead of falling uselessly weak they die because once in the past a Shadow molested them.

I don't assume the above is the way anyone would play it. Once you die the shadows ability drain *special* is expended and doesn't linger on past being brought back to life. So once alive again it is just 0 str penalty not penalty + shadow *special* .

What if the scenario was changed a bit:

Party is captured and separated from all their "stuff". Dumped out in some demi-plane alone (each party member a different plane). So each party member is naked and alone. A party of 4 (lvl 10) will be coming to kill the members for sport and entertainment. Escape is a door out of the plane that leads them back to their stuff and their party, players are alerted that this is the goal to escape.

Scenario A: All members are left as is with no knowledge that the hunters come but otherwise are left as is.

Scenario B: Members are mind wiped so no spells remain memorized, also have no knowledge of what is to come from the hunters.

Scenario C: Members know they will be hunted, but keep their memorized stuff.

Scenario D: Members know they will be hunted, but lose their memorized stuff.

B and D are just rude to wizardly types for sure, but since that was one of the classes discussed in the what if scenario...

Personally, Breath of life should work as it is the entire point of the spell.

You would have 0 Str of course upon breathing again. You wouldn't fall back dead (due to shadow str drain), as you already died and had that status ailment cleared. You would just be at 0 str with all that would entail. Shadows wouldn't infinitely be spawning with every casting of Breath of Life as you cartoonishly wake up and die over and over.. common sense is still assumed every edge case cannot be explicitly written, we as reasoning people can fill in the blanks a bit.

GM disallowed something that should have worked (BoL), unless shadows explicitly state breath of life won't work.

Unarmed attack = Unarmed Strike. They are 2 terms for the exact same thing, as illustrated in the unarmed attack description from Ashiel.

I would rule a monk wearing gauntlets uses their Monk unarmed attack die, with the added benefit of now causing lethal damage with the unarmed strikes due to the gauntlets.

As for whether you are considered "armed" I would say that no, gauntlets on their own do not make your "armed" just more dangerous. Your class and your feats or some sort of magic stuff making you an armed when not wielding a weapon. Specifically weaponized hand coverings being worn like spikes or brass knuckles or cestus or something may make your armed for the case of for and against AoO opportunities.

Dot

It really does sound like a case where a bit of discussion with the player is in order, just be honest with your concern. If the player wants to try it out, let him; he will get the opportunity to see how the class could work better by actually doing it. Giving him the chance to rebuild or make a new character is certainly a possibility especially in Kingmaker (from what I've read about it).

I also like the storytelling opportunities with the "green knight trope" challenging the paladin, but I would suggest talking with the female PC prize and paladin about it to make sure they are on board to do some storytelling rather than roll-playing. Point is to have fun, some players don't mind doing a bit of a show if it enhances the story and fun factor.

Be honest, don't pull punches or do special favoritism unless that is going to be the way you run your world, consistency in DMing is the required stable physics of your campaign, don't be schizophrenic.

Perhaps their culture wants their children to "find themselves" by trying out everything, and once the elf has figured out what they really want to do they "magic out" all the distracting other learning so you can be the idealized version of what you want to be.

Though that idea is very similar to the screwing around for a hundred years or so until you buckle down and apply yourself.

Hoping to pick up my Dead Tree version tomorrow or Friday, I am excited!

I work at a company that every once in a while a big hands on, "every body pitch in" to do assembly line work for shipping, or building something for a con. So exhausting, but some of the most fun times too; to see the normally standoffish front office employees and upper managers getting lapped in the folding and envelope stuffing. Those diversions from normal work are one of the things I look forward too.

Good times good times. Looks like you all earned some happy memories there. Hope the convention gives you just a enough challenge to make you feel you earned it, and smoothly enough that you know you did a good job planning and executing.

Them tripping wouldn't cause problems.

The prep they do when the adventure day starts is just mixing catalysts and ingredients, not final ready-to-explode-bombs.

Also the little bit of Alchemical magic (madness?) that is put into the bombs on the round they are prepped and thrown is what causes them to be "explody".

I envision that even if they mixed by someone dumping all the powders and liquids into a cauldron likely wouldn't have the same impact as the alchemist doing their precision mixing and adding in that little touch of what makes the alchemist better throwing splash weapons than everyone else.

Citizen
Countryman
Settler
Yeoman
Freeman
Commoner

I wonder if tiny farms or homes outside a settlement would be possible, and as a game mechanic they can only fall if the sovereignty of the hex was taken over. In the real world with consequences for attacking the ruling power would take much effort in eradicating potential village raising groups. In the game there is no way to keep them down via martial force or threat of martial force; due to that a bit of game hand waving would be needed.

Urban sprawl would be out of place, but it would be realistic for there to be small homes not in a settlement, and certain number of homes in the settlement. If a settlement population gets big enough then it should get bigger geographically so that those homes are POIs. They should have taxes, costs and such for their maintenance. Perhaps they are the "family" home of which you the protagonist is the bulk earner. It would help flesh out the NPCs in the area as perhaps being related to players somehow, and frankly I want to be a part of the logistics chain rather than the hero in armor, giving me a village to tie to helps me get "into" the role. With that I wonder if the outside of your home at least has to be from a template designated by the settlement because even if it were possible to do, I wouldn't recommend allowing players to design a house from the ground up. The reason to not allow player building shape/skin is the TTP factor (Time To Penis), being about 5 minutes in any MMO or multiplayer scenario.

Unfortunately since it is video game some will want to wardec another community just because it is fun and enlivening to their own gameplay.

The consequences at most being loss of some in-game efforts all in the name of having fun. The number of times I an "innocent" civilian in eve got blown up because of nuisance wardecs is quite high and I was not even very active. I did leave the corp a few times to avoid the brunt of some of the wars we "earned" though.

In PF say your leader says some mean things at a moot with other such leader type, the citizens under than leader may not agree with what was said but they may pay in their virtual blood for his faux pas, just like in popular culture and human history. Ultimately if war is to mean anything it has to be total, it has to be gritty and it needs to have possible loss or else why have it as the final option when all means of arbitration fail?

I like rolling because it is fun, but dice hate me nowadays so I end up being really crappy character with rolling.

What I did recently is I had the entire party do the rolling out method (4d6 drop lowest) and allowed anyone to use the array that was rolled of anyone else. This way the party could maintain power level balance with each other and players could get that rush moment of trying to roll "The Awesome". The high roller ended up rolling a 27 point buy character and everyone chose that of course.

Personally I adhere to the idea that elves are able at an earlier age, but they aren't yet seasoned to the point where the Elvish Society deems them worthy of speaking in public.

A parallel I draw from this is human history. Humans in less than desirable situations/cultures could do all the adult things in their early teens normally, up to starting families, taking over the family business and so forth. But more recently with a higher desire for culture and education, and also more favorable circumstances to allow a longer childhood I would say that some people aren't quite ready to start their long career lives until late 20's to early 30's (like Doctors they have a long seasoning period).

Another example is the Lord of the Rings mythology, look at the Hobbits, there were many references to how old the hobbits were before their society deemed them worthy of being "adults" that had little to do with their physical development.

I am sad that the referenced story about the lost Elf having a physical maturing that took decades in that city, it kinda set, a distasteful, idea in stone.

The trope that I've often seen in the Fantasy series is that elves are wise, and patient. Never prone to hasty choices and ultimately being very conservative. Humans dominate because of passion, that passionate zest for life feeds the human psyche allowing them to make leaps of progress that allowed them to spread over the world. Learning-wise that passion would likely translate into being very fast learners, making intuitive connections that speed their learning. Elves are smarter (capacity) but humans being more clever allow them to "fill" their learning capacity much faster.

-- Now the question from me is, if Elven maturation rate is more a cultural than a biological thing, what would happen if a human baby foundling was raised in an Elvish society? A geriatric just getting ready to start their career, or would exceptions be made? Or conversely if the maturation is all biology, how would the Elvish parents react to this human maturing like a weed?

I cut my RP teeth on 2nd Ed, and I loved every moment of it.
I liked the themes that demi-humans were much more powerful (levels ahead) of humans early on with their bonuses, but then had to work past their level caps, it gave a good choice between short or long term goals. Thac0 wasn't terrible but it could have been done a little cleaner.

Pros:
1. Every class had its well designated niche, if you want roguish things done you need a rogue, not just someone with some levels and a high int to buy the skills to cover it.
2. You did feel pretty epic when you were at high levels, and the adventures tended to pan out to be greater stories than what the adventure had on paper, likely due to the "free lancing" the party and DM had to do to keep the game running forward.
3. The setting boxes, so many awesome things there, I wish I had the time and talent to fully convert a few of my favorites over to PF to run, Night Below & Ravenloft being top of my list of wanting to relive again.

Cons:
1. If your stats sucked you certainly were stuck as far as character development
- NonWeapon Proficiency were so few in number and improving them so hard coupled with the inconsistency of wanting to roll LOW to pass it was certainly more awkward of a system than the more expanded skill systems of later games.
- Having 18/00 strength was near impossible to attain, but getting it literally made your martial class character levels better and much more potent than any lower strength character.
2. Inconsistent die roll targets. For attack rolls you want to roll high, for NWP you want to roll Low, for Saves you want to roll high, some of the d100 charts would fluctuate target high or low. Would have been nicer if everything did flow in 1 direction (up = bonus, down = penalty).
3. Book Keeping, players had to keep track of their xp and gains very closely to know when they leveled up since there were bonuses, penalties and different growth rates for every race/class/situation. I liked the idea that rogues get levels faster than wizards, and the themes of Druids having to do story mode to advance to high levels, but game mechanics intrude a lot on those ideas.
4. Book bloat, nowadays like 10 "kit" books would be rolled into 1 book for pathfinder, and having so many settings to support led to a near impossible 'keeping up' scenario.

Later games mechanically do run smoother and consistently, but I do feel a little of imagination and uniqueness may have been lost with the smoothing over the edges. Of course maybe it is just a heavy nostalgia of younger days with more free time and a better tolerance for inefficiency than I'm allowed nowadays.