Kaiin Retsu's page

Kaiin Retsu wrote:

TomatoFettuccini wrote:

Think Brotherhood of Nod's stealth tank combined with the Obelisk of Light

Look up RenegadeX, it is a free remake of CnC Renegade, you might like it! Love the reference though. My question is though, what is the theme you are looking for? I still think Katanas go well, and anything with a high crit rate and the burst energy types just for the fact that it keeps the theme of blades and magic.

Thanks for joining the conversation Kaiin, but you've been part of the thread since almost the beginning. I've been pretty clear about what I'm looking for. Just scroll up a bit.

Lol I know that, but I meant like what part of the theme do you want specifically? You dual wield while having the options to do other kinds of damage. You want versatility. What kind of versatility? What do you want to broaden more than you already have? If you do not have a specific part of the build you want to build off of, I do not know what else I can say. Of course, I still suggest getting Darkleaf Quilted Cloth armor, I think you will find in the end, no matter what enhancements you add to your armor, it will be a bit more powerful than Darkleaf Leather.

Think Brotherhood of Nod's stealth tank combined with the Obelisk of Light

Look up RenegadeX, it is a free remake of CnC Renegade, you might like it! Love the reference though. My question is though, what is the theme you are looking for? I still think Katanas go well, and anything with a high crit rate and the burst energy types just for the fact that it keeps the theme of blades and magic.

You kind of linked it at the end of the part where it is said, but that is a pretty good explanation of the Kraken Style lol.

That kind of depresses me to see something that could be perfectly logical and a great asset to any grappler build be already told that dev intent was to make a worthless ability no one would ever want to use. Makes me wonder why the devs would ever want to release such an ability that has no true use over other builds. I mean, come on, either just raise the extra damage or something, but the odds of anyone using this against a caster will ever get to the true 'suffocating' phase is basically nonexistant. Unless of course you are roleplaying a 1v1 arena and you sit there for 15-20 rounds until you finally win...

Actually, Inlaa, technically something like that will exist as is, but involves the real undead, and a completely harmless and good necromancer who is just practicing his arts peacefully, so it will be one of those rumors that the undead are all over this place, a marsh, and that some evil wizard is controlling them. So I have worked that kind of thing already in, just not children lol. I think if they kill him, there will be some kind of diary that they find that outlines how he is trying to create a new form of medical magic using necromancy and other magical effects.

Goth Guru, your number 2 is actually almost hinting at a major part of what story will exist. With that, the number 3 definitely gives me some good ideas on how to add to the story. Again, I want to omit the details on that in case they ever find this lol. So thank you for the suggestions!

11 and 12 already taken care of, more or less at least lol. 13 is a must, but I have not worked much with stuff off of the coasts yet, but definitely a major part of the realm. 14 can make for a great event or storyline if they go to the single city it is likely to take place, and 15... not really feeling it, although a good idea, I think my players would kill the children and that would not be a good thing... As for the bounty posters, I think I might add some bounties in to the realm, make some PC styled NPC's instead of NPC levels, and have it be someone they can hunt, and the long time goes, the higher the bounty gets due to crimes committed. Thanks again for the continuing ideas!

Oh my bad, I thought the Rapier was a 19-20 crit range! Haha well then, don't I just feel foolish now.

You can use finesse on a rapier but not on a katana. On a dex build, that means you hit less often and do less damage.

That is where Effortless Lace comes in, it makes any one handed weapon of appropriate size become a light weapon, and able to apply Weapon Finesse to them. The Laces are cheap and affordable too, so long as his DM gives him the opportunity to buy them.

kestral287 wrote:

He'd have to dip Swashbuckler to make use of the katana, and frankly... neither Impacting nor Energy Burst is very good. He already rolls fistfuls of dice between Spellstrikes and Sneak Attacks; consistent damage and accuracy boosts hold greater value for him.

Mechanically, the easiest Dex to Damage via feats available for most classes is Fencing Grace, and with Effortless Lace it can support TWF. But... we're well beyond the point of trying to figure out the mechanically preferential option.

Actually, no, I wouldn't. He's a ninja, so he already has proficiency with the katana. It would be a matter of taking Slashing grace, or putting agile on it and taking Weapon Focus for it. The only thing that wouldn't apply is Weapon Finesse because it's not a light weapon.

Ok, now I just read Effortless Lace. OMG, twin katanas here I come!

At least someone understood what I meant! The katanas will end up with a higher damage cap due to the crit range. While yes, the Rapier would take a bit less effort to get to their damage cap, they would still peak lower than your average dual wielding damage from dual katanas. After he goes through the effort, and spends a little extra time devoting to it, the katanas will hit at the same rate while doing crits twice as often. I will admit this though, I forgot that generally speaking, I would do this with a Fighter where, with the final weapon crit range and autocrit confirm, you are getting 2d6+mods(15-20/x3+2d10). It is a much more efficient system with a Fighter due to Fighter feats and class abilities.

I'm a ninja in training, zam. That is why I say zam, zam.

Sorry, could not resist the urge to say this. Kudos to those who get it!

Supposedly, at least the shorter version (hankyu) and I think even the longer version (daikyu) were used for shooting from horseback. Somebody was using the former in one of the videos I linked earlier. So not totally incompatible with mobility. They sure do look hard to use, though -- hence they should be designated as Exotic Weapons. (And having them trade some firing speed for power, but still being faster to fire than a Crossbow, or at least faster than a Heavy Crossbow, sounds totally fair.)

The thing about being used on horseback is that everything that was designed in early Japanese warfare was meant for horseback. A little known fact about the worldwide popular ancient warriors called Samurai, is that they started off as mounted archers. The large bow was usable from horseback, and basically made a moving turret. However, if the horse was not perfectly trained to keep its direction, or if the samurai did not have enough room to draw and fire with the horse moving in one direction, it was a useless tactic. The bow takes about 3-4 seconds to take a fast shot that will not be perfectly accurate. I know, with the fact that it is a game and not real life, that they would probably raise this to the same of a normal bow, but it still is sad to see such a beautiful design marred by the want to make things simpler. The designers not even giving it its own actual stats is probably worse than allowing people to shoot 4-6 arrows in 6 seconds.

Your best bet is to find your local gaming stores and ask around there. Besides this, http://www.meetup.com/ might have a local group of people on there for you. This will require you to do the searching for it of course, but I am sure you will find one! Good luck, and happy hunting!

I love these! After I actually fleshed out my map, I began filling out its kingdoms, and how they interact. I already have a plethora of kingdoms, and your Gamarok idea is a great mix in a certain area of the map already. Granted, it will be changed slightly, but I would never have thought of this until reading that! As for the Kingdom of Eldwyr, I love it! I think this might go in almost word for word, minus some things that I will change according to how I would have put it in, but that is great! Talk about creating animosity between the races! Sweetun will have to wait a bit, I have not fleshed out the area where I think that could work, but I love the idea, definitely. It is great to see this response after the last few hours of doing this myself!

Soooo, how about that Kraken Throttle eh? I heard thats totally a thing to discuss in this topic, not the nuances of how you objectify(haha get it?....) the use of a spell......

All the wording of "at least" means that there is a minimum of 2 hands needed for a bow. There is no actual numerical number that goes up and down, just the fact that every bow can not have less than 2 hands to use it. I still believe that a Large Longbow is unwieldly by any medium size creature, but if you look at the rules, something is clearly missing to make it so.

6) What's a fantasy map without a seer's hut in a remote location that cannot be accessed magically? Bonus points if the seer is a monstrous creature like a gnoll or a dragon.

....

9) Look, there BETTER be a dragon cave somewhere on this map, okay?

Funny thing is, as is, these two, combined, have something to with what story there will be, if the players so decide to follow it. Some of these ideas are perfect, and actually fit well in certain areas of the map that I have yet to contemplate at all! I am being vague about everything because I do not want said players to come on here and read about a realm they are going to explore.

Hmm, deja vu or there's another thread floating around on a similar subject. Anyway, lets apply some much needed logic and correction here.

This is actually the source to the second topic that you first chimed in on. I still do not agree that the 'penalties' removed should allow the player to use a large longbow, unless 'oversized limbs' refers to arms that will drag on the ground as you walk. Then maybe, yeah, you would have the capability to draw the Large Longbow back enough to fire it effectively.

Okay so I am going to be DM'ing a new realm with 4 new players to the tabletop gaming scene. My wife has never played any form of DnD or Pathfinder, but her friends are slightly experienced as far as I am aware. I am not 100% sure on what their experience is however, yet it seems minimal. So, when I decided I would want to DM for them, I decided I would create my own realm, with my own pantheon, and my own changes to current, and some new, races. I also decided that this particular 'campaign' would not be a campaign at all, but an adventure that I tailor to the players as we go. We will be using Roll20, since 3/4 players live in another state, and I will be making a lot of tables to reference in order to react to what they want to do, instead of leading them down a path.

There will be an overall story, if they so choose to go through it, but I will not force that upon them. As it stands right now, I am creating the half of the continent that they live on that the setting will take place in, initially at least. I am looking to get some creative advice to how I can change things around as is. Already I have made a custom race for Anthromorphs, so some of the players could use it if they want. I am already aware that they would want to make one, so I am infusing it in to the realm as is. Something major that I am changing is that Elves, for the most part, favor the water over the land and thus mainly have the Spirit of the Waters alternate trait. In order to get the normal traits, they would have to be from a specific grouping of Elves instead of the general race.

Humans, Elves, and Dwarves, along with my custom race currently named Nyrashi(the name is a derivative of their Goddess, Da'nyra- Queen of the Hunt, Nyrashi meaning Of the Hunt) are the main races across this continent. Of course the standard races still exist past this, but I think the Featured Races list might be limited severely. Anyway, the social interaction is basically as follows:
Main Elf Society keeps to itself, but is always open to outsiders and trade in the favor of knowledge.
Nyrashi keep to themselves among the forests of the realm, although not exclusively to the forest. They are very religious society that Druids and Shamans are often their village leaders, and thus emulate the withdrawn standard of Druidic societies.
Humans vary from kingdom to kingdom. This is one of the main things I would like some feedback on. The kingdoms will be spread out, but I have yet to come up with a good idea for the kingdoms. Most of the human race lives in smaller settlements and live off of the land peacefully.
Dwarves are completely xenophobic. They do not trust outsiders at all, and keep to their mountains. I do not think I will let a PC be a Dwarf unless their backstory really removes them from the Dwarven Society. They sometimes trade with humans, but very rarely. I think I will make a human kingdom somewhere near the main Dwarven strongholds for this purpose.

As it stands, I am not looking for help as far as story, but suggestions for more social interactions from the main races, for types of locations I should incorporate in to the map, and any ideas for kingdoms that are not cookie cutter Tolkein Fantasy or the like. I just figure, with all the different minds and perspectives on this site, I can get a more diverse feel to this realm as I create it! Please and thank you for your input!

But the target line specifically states "one creature." EDIT: Damn spider fiend ninjas!

I do not think an 8 minute delay counts as a ninja, just saying lol

That said, there is no mechanical construct for "temporary damage dependent on condition" in Pathfinder.

For one, everything you just responded to me had nothing to for with your option 1, just option 2. However, I just in good faith could never say someone who was grappled for 2 turns is sitting permanently at 0HP unless someone helps them. It is completely illogical for what the move itself is doing. Suffocating kills without damaging the person. Why should they be dropped to 0HP, from lets say 45HP, just because they were grappled for 2 rounds? Where did that 45 points of physical damage come from? It is not magic, so that is not the answer, so tell me how do they magically disappear? I understand this is not written, but this is what needs clarification. As written, right now, the feat makes no sense as to how it is supposed to work.

Mr. Weapons Expert, what are the chief differences between your yumi and a daikyu and hankyu? These latter two are already in the game system. A yumi sounds to me just like a longbow or daikyu. Please, enlighten me more.

Weapons Expert? I said I am a weapon fanatic and collector, never an expert... Thanks for having a high opinion about me....?

Anyway, sarcasm aside, I had no clue that Daikyu and Hankyu were already in the game... That kind of depresses me as to how they describe them. The Daikyu is a Yumi, the large form of them and generally what people are referring to when they say Yumi. It is much larger than a longbow and the way it is fired is quite different, so I would never want to say it is 'equivalent to a longbow' as the PRD states. The Hankyu is well enough in the game, it is essentially the shortbow for Japan. It too is considered a Yumi due to its construction, but it not what people are generally talking about when they say the term Yumi. Well, I guess my rant is invalid, and all of you who wanted the Yumi in the game, they already are in the sense you can name your Longbow as something foreign instead...

For the two of you who want me to clarify why I say the unconscious state is temporary:

Unconscious: Unconscious creatures are knocked out and helpless. Unconsciousness can result from having negative hit points (but not more than the creature's Constitution score), or from nonlethal damage in excess of current hit points.

Kraken Throttle says they drop to 0HP and fall unconscious. While whether or not the HP is temporary or not is debatable, but to me, as a DM I would say that the person never took damage and thus was only temporarily damaged to 0. If the choke is then released while the person is at 0HP, regardless of whether or not the person gets their health back, they are conscious according to the definition of Unconscious. Hell, if it were not for the feat saying they were unconscious, they would not be until they are already dying and at -1HP. Honestly, I can see the fact that you can attack them at that point and move on. Once they are to the dying phase of the choke, they would not regain consciousness due to the fact that this is when anyone would be unconscious.

In order for the rules to explicitly specify every esoteric possibility that could come up at any time, ever, it would take a book weighing approximately 12 metric f~%!tons. The problem that people have is that they can't wrap their minds around the idea that RAW can be implicit as well as explicit. Implicit doesn't automatically mean "not RAW" or "RAI". Implicit RAW is just as valid as Explicit RAW.

Regarding the issue at hand, there is no explicit rule to apply, but there are implicit rules which I outlined in my post. If you want to go with absolute explicit-only rules, then you cannot wield a weapon not designed for your size (or virtual size in the case of Tiefling, Redcap, Centaur, etc) at all because...

I just want to show you that I completely already agree with you, just the fact that it is still unclear how it will be handled.

It says regardless of size, it requires two hands to use. I think everyone here is forgetting how a bow is named. A shortbow is about 3ft in length, for a medium sized person. This is roughly half the height of the average medium creature, a little higher than half, but roughly. A longbow is about 5ft in length for a medium sized creature. This is roughly the height of the character(which by the way, OP, why not just use a flavored Longbow to be a bit larger than the person instead about their size anyway?), of course this is a little smaller than the average medium character, but is still about their height.

What would the height of a Medium Shortbow be compared to the height of a Small creature? It would be about the same size as a Longbow for a Small creature. What would the Medium Longbow be compared to the height of a Large creature? It would also be about the size of a Large Shortbow. Honestly, a little shorter than what their shortbow would be. This being said, I maybe could see the ability to use a Large Shortbow, but it would be treated as a longbow for the sake of using it as a Medium sized creature.

At this point, you are not getting a damage increase, so is there a real reason to doing this? A Large Longbow would be about twice the height of the standard Medium sized creature. It would be somewhere between 10-12ft tall. A medium sized creature could not draw the bow to get the strength needed to deal damage. I do not mean the character would not have the strength, but the strength of the bow comes from drawing the bow back to a certain distance. This distance on a Large Longbow would be longer than the Medium creature is tall. It is impossible unless you have Mr. Fantastic's powers...

That being said, how is the ranged weapon going to count? Will it count not at all, like you suggest, or will it be as I said before in this quote? A Large Shortbow becomes a Medium Longbow and a Medium Shortbow becomes a Small Longbow. That is what needs to be clarified, in my opinion.

If you want high AC and arrow deflection, for most classes it would be better to aim at Missile Shield, which requires shield focus and allows a larger shield to be used.

The problem is that while those deflect feats negate manyshot, they do nothing against rapid shot. So with haste, he still has 2 shots left at his highest iterative after the first got deflected, while the other characters only have 1 at their highest iterative. Assuming the lower iteratives fail, thats still 2 hits for the ranger and 1 for the other chars. It DOES negate two hits courtesy of manyshot always being on the first attack, so it helps, but it's not optimal. But thanks for bringing it up!

I was avoiding the higher AC of a larger shield. The point of raising the AC but not going overboard would be to make the archer want to use Pinpoint Targeting, when they get it. However, you do not want to raise the AC so high that other members of the team have a hard time hitting it too. Missile Shield and Deflect Arrows work in the same way with two different setups. I just think opening up the melees ability to still wreck him is hard to do, so I decided to offer Deflect Arrows instead. Also, the point of deflecting it either way is because Pinpoint Targeting basically makes a ranged touch attack as a standard attack action. Only one shot per round to use this ability, and one shot per round can be negated.

The issue with comparing this feat to similar mechanic spells, is the amount of usage per day. A caster can only cast so many spells per day, while this feat is unlimited usage per day.

Honestly though, why would it make sense for someone who has trained their physical body to be able to do something physically to be able to only do it a certain amount of times a day? Energies of the mind and body are one thing, they can be limited before rest, however, a simple maneuver of the body can be repeated until exhaustion. If anything, there needs to be a fatigued and exhaustion limit to how many advanced combat maneuvers someone can do before their body gets tired. This might break other aspects of the rules, however, so I doubt this would ever happen.

The thing about the Yumi bow, and even Longbows..., is that it is a stationary, be post up in a single position, and fire type of weapon. If anything, bows of such a large stature were designed as basically human turrets. You gained the power and range for lack of mobility. Usually such weapons were used from the parapets of a wall or in a large formation, behind the infantry or cavalry formations. They are completely illogical for close range combat, and it kind of irks me to see the longbow already bastardized in a way that allows a single person to fire off 6 rounds, plus some if you include AoO's, in a 6 second round. For this reason, I hope Pathfinder never bastardizes something as magnificent as a Yumi.

The Yumi is an ingenious weapon that was designed with elegance and death in mind, and I would prefer it does not get ruined by shooting 6 arrows out of it within 6 seconds. The amount of time to shoot such a bow is quite staggering actually. You can fire it semi-quickly, but you have to first draw your arrow(which is pretty long), notch it to the bow and draw the string back(which involves a process of holding the notched arrow above the head and pushing the bow out, then drawing further back with the arrow, this allows the user to use their maximum arm span for the draw, which takes usually a couple of seconds and a lot of concentration), and then the user must aim, and due to the fact that the arrow was just lowered to their view, they can not aim before this. This is basically a full round action if it is done quickly. I, myself, am a weapon fanatic and collector, I love the art and science of warfare, and would not want to see such a beautiful part of history bastardized...

The issue is, as we have been discussing in another thread Kazaan, that there is not spot actually written where it explains this. Trust me that I agree with you Kazaan, I actually went in to a long tirade about how the sizes of the weapons compared to the sizes of the wielder interact, but this does not change the fact that it is not in the rules. As far as the rules say, bows require two hands to wield no matter what size they are. The issue with handedness is the fact that a certain Tiefling trait allows you to wield a large weapon without penalties, and according to the rules, any bow of any size only requires two hands, so they are not actually listed in the penalty section. Like I said, I completely agree with you, and I can not see how it could be any other way, but it is true that the rules do not specify.

You absolutely can choke and do something else if you have Greater Grapple, and any character that invests two feats in a grapple-related combat style will take Greater Grapple ASAP - level 6 for a fighter, tetori, or maneuver master monk; 7 for a brawler (but 6 using Martial Flexibility); 9 for other monks.

Rapid grappler lets you do up to three things.

It's also not at all clear that if you give air to a creature that has dropped unconscious due to suffocation they immediately become conscious with no HP loss. In fact, since suffocation mentions dropping to 0 and then to -1 HP I think it's more likely that you do not regain consciousness. Otherwise it would merely say you become unconscious the first round after failing your Con check, and die in the third round.

The Kraken Throttle specifically states that you can chose to choke the enemy instead of any of the other actions. If you perform any other action, you release the choke and have let the enemy breath. The fact that they take a breath any round you do not maintain the choke means that they have the status of suffocate removed from them. If the status is gone, which while breathing you can not be suffocating, that means all temporary effects from the status are also gone. The concept of 0 hp is the fact that this is the unconscious HP level. The -1 says they are dying and then the following turn they die. If the status did not drop them to 0 HP and then -1 HP, they would have no reason to die.

Once they breath, and their brain starts getting oxygen, they regain full consciousness. Honestly, they should restate the way they are unconscious. Someone whose brain is receiving no blood, which causes hypoxia(lack of oxygen and will be caused by the stopping of blood flow to the brain), will not fall completely unconscious in this amount of time. What the author seemed to forget that when you suffocate someone, it is actually a heart and lung trauma in which the heart and lungs basically panic because of the lack of air. The state of panic makes the heart beat faster, increasing blood pressure, and drains the body of what oxygen it has even quicker. If the person is calmed completely, they can survive much longer. However, this entire time, the person suffering will be in an AMS, Altered Mental Status. They will not be unconscious, but basically semi-conscious. The second their lungs can take a breath, the body starts recovering instantly because of the raised blood pressure, pushing the new oxygen to the many areas of the body. Just because the creator of the feat did not take the real world anatomy and medical functions behind the ability in to the ability description does not mean that it should not, and probably will, work this way.

I would definitely drop the PA and Cleave. The biggest hill to climb as any TWF or MWF(which you can do if you get the Half Orc with Toothy as Brad suggested) is the chance to actually hit with your extra attacks. Personally, I like Fighters, either the base class or the archetype, for TWF. The amount of feats required to truly balance a TWF and be able to do more is only covered by the Fighter, in my opinion. I believe that mainly because of the scaling factor in how quickly you can get those feats compared to the free combat style feats of a Ranger. This of course depends on whether or not you have the stats for the feats innately, due to the fact that you can bypass the prereqs required with a Ranger.

If it is the animal companion, the versatility of spell casting, or some other reason you are tied to the Ranger, then I guess I will not convince you otherwise. You should really focus on taking Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization regardless, but with Fighter you can take both levels for the extra benefits. Something else that I personally like with the Fighter is that you can take Weapon Proficiency with Wakizashis, dual wield them with either Keen enchantments or just get improved critical for them. At level 20, this will give you a 1d6+modifiers (15-20/3) which with a heavy Str build, you should have a pretty good chance to hit. With automatically confirmed crits, on average, 1/4 attacks will crit. This can and usually will up the amount of damage you can put out, seeing as how the TWF maxes at 7 attacks per round, which is almost averaged to 2 crits per round.

In case you forgot, to add to what Charon's Little Helper just said, you can not pin, attack, move, or otherwise do any other action than choke the person you are grappling, or the choke is completely lost.

Seafaring campaign? Use a Merfolk. +2 to Natural Armor to start off with and the ability to take Improved Natural Armor feats. A standard fighter at lvl20 built a certain way and with certain items can easily have an AC of 77.

So the game designers never considered this loophole.

Why am I not surprised.
Getting a clear answer to a question like this requires an individual DM to take a stance. There is no "RAW" answer.

I would just go with the ability as stated, and let the PC use large weapons as if he himself were large.

But it is pointless to look for a RAW answer. There is none.

YMMV.

That is the issue, the ability never says this. It only says without penalty. Honestly, if Ranged weapons are not considered in to size change factors, then maybe it is just completely excluded. Maybe there is no way to use a ranged weapon outside your size. Of course, as you said, there is no true RAW answer to this and will come to the DM to decide what they want to allow.

Ohhhhhh. Derp. Okay, I didn't say the whole thing here because I did earlier. The progression is:
1) Free action to release grapple
2) Standard action to punch 'em in the git
3) Move action to move on to the next target

Just a misunderstanding~

Yes, I think you are misunderstanding what I meant. As a free action, you let go of the grapple while they are unconscious. They suddenly gasp for air and recover their consciousness. The temporary HP of 0 is now back to their previous HP amount and you lost your chance to kill them. Even if this is not how it works, you could not complete this as you wrote.

Assuming they do not wake up when you let go and they no longer have the status of 'suffocate,' you still need to complete a Grapple Check, which is a move action, to continue your grapple, and then chose to continue the choke to knock them out. At this point, normally when you grapple an opponent, you used your move, and you get an attack action, however, with this particular feat, you choke instead of doing anything else. This means the choke itself is an attack action.

Now if you use your free action to let go, you just stopped yourself from killing them and they recover while you have nothing left for yourself to do since you already used your move and attack actions to continue the grapple and knock them out. Seeing as how there is no time on when the person regains consciousness, and the unconscious state is brought around by the status effect from the grapple, that means as soon as the grapple, and the status effect, is lifted, the person no longer suffers from the effects. Well, except for death of course.

There is always the option of just making your own campaign designed around your PCs and the backstories they want. Talk to them, ask them what they want to do as Drow. Make a campaign around that.

Divvox, sorry I can not quote what you said, I am on my phone, when you said you could take a free action to attack them at 0hp and you are good to go.

At no point did you do damage to your opponent in during this maneuver. Their HP drops to zero with no damage done. Would that not be temporary hit points until the choke ends, either in death or release? As soon as you release the hold, you no longer are suffocating the enemy and they are breathing instantly. Obviously this feat needs some serious rewording and expanding, but I think the way it is designed is neither OP nor really needs a higher feat level. However, I think the BAB needed should be a +6 or more just because it is a more complex maneuver that you are essentially taking two attacks by grappling and choking in one turn. I already forgot the prerequisites, so if that is it, I apologize, on my phone and at work lol.

LazarX wrote:

If the weapon requires two hands for a large creature to use, there is simply no way you can use it as a medium one. It may be stated only specific for melee weapons, but the logical extension takes to ranged two handed weapons which by their nature are more bulky to wield than one handed melee.

Logic doesn't get you there.

Proof: Large composite shortbow, STR 12.

That item meets none of your concerns, yet still falls into your "logic" trap.

However, a Large Composite Shortbow is essentially a Composite Longbow according to my comparisons in actual sizes of the bows by ratio.

The melee weapon I mentioned is still a "two handed weapon" so it would still get the x1.5. A greatsword no matter what size category is and will always be a two handed weapon, but it might be wielded with more or less effort. If you could clarify as to why it wouldn't, I'd be interested.

The rules for not being able to wield the weapon say if it changes from the three listed categories, then you can't wield the weapon. The longbow isn't in any of the categories, and never changes from the categories.

Sorry I missed this. You are just completely wrong on the Two Handed concept. A one-handed sword wielded with two hands gets x1.5 because you are using two hands. Not because the weapon is two handed, but because you are using two hands. The x1.5 has nothing to do with the weapon category, just the fact that you are applying more effort using two hands on a single weapon as opposed to using one. This is just accepted as a general benefit for all melee 2 handed weapons because you are automatically using it in two hands.

A bow isn't listed as a two handed weapon. It's a ranged weapon that says you need a minimal of two hands to use.

It says regardless of size, it requires two hands to use. I think everyone here is forgetting how a bow is named. A shortbow is about 3ft in length, for a medium sized person. This is roughly half the height of the average medium creature, a little higher than half, but roughly. A longbow is about 5ft in length for a medium sized creature. This is roughly the height of the character(which by the way, OP, why not just use a flavored Longbow to be a bit larger than the person instead about their size anyway?), of course this is a little smaller than the average medium character, but is still about their height.

What would the height of a Medium Shortbow be compared to the height of a Small creature? It would be about the same size as a Longbow for a Small creature. What would the Medium Longbow be compared to the height of a Large creature? It would also be about the size of a Large Shortbow. Honestly, a little shorter than what their shortbow would be. This being said, I maybe could see the ability to use a Large Shortbow, but it would be treated as a longbow for the sake of using it as a Medium sized creature.

At this point, you are not getting a damage increase, so is there a real reason to doing this? A Large Longbow would be about twice the height of the standard Medium sized creature. It would be somewhere between 10-12ft tall. A medium sized creature could not draw the bow to get the strength needed to deal damage. I do not mean the character would not have the strength, but the strength of the bow comes from drawing the bow back to a certain distance. This distance on a Large Longbow would be longer than the Medium creature is tall. It is impossible unless you have Mr. Fantastic's powers...

So... Can I add my STR bonus?

And what about GRAPPLE ATTACK - what is it? When aintaining grapple as a free action - is it a grapple attack? And will I deal extra damage?

And what about wild armor in wild shape? Can I use armor spikes on my armor when in the bear form, for example?

I suppose I need to just tell you what is in the PRD instead of saying what to look up...

Armor Spikes are not armor itself. They are a Martial Light Weapon. Like any light weapon, you can use it as an off handed attack for the purpose of two or multiweapon fighting. Any time you make a successful grapple check, there are a few options available to you as to what you do next, to include doing damage if you have a damage source. This all depends on the feats you have taken, of course. There are some fighting styles that give you special actions to take on a confirmed grapple check. However, if you have Armor Spikes, a weapon used for grappling, then you get to do 1d6+ your modifier for any weapon of the martial light weapons category + any enhancements to the Armor Spikes themselves, not the armor. Anything else you would like to know?

Well it says you can as in you do not have to? ... I will admit it is written poorly. However, it is not written poorly enough to have it possibly mean that you can use any large weapon. "You can use large weapons without penalty" means the same thing as "When you use large weapons, you do not incur a penalty." They never breach the rule about whether or not you can use the weapons themselves, just whether or not you get a penalty using them. I do not see how it can be seen any other way honestly.

Divvox, you quoted Brain in a Jar with these additions:
Round One: Grapple -can't be dispelled and grease probably won't help. Body Shield reduces the likelihood anyone will hit anything but the grappled target.
Round Two: Maintain or reposition (0 HP) -reposition action to run away from opponent's allies, can't be dispelled and grease probably won't help. Body Shield reduces the likelihood you'll hit anything but the grappled target.
Round Three: Maintain (-1 HP) -can't be dispelled and grease probably won't help. Body Shield reduces the likelihood you'll hit anything but the grappled target.
Round Four: Maintain (Death) -can't be dispelled and grease probably won't help. Body Shield reduces the likelihood you'll hit anything but the grappled target.

I think you need to go back and read the feat itself.

While using this style, you can choke your opponent when you successfully maintain a grapple instead of choosing to damage, move, pin, or tie up your opponent. This suffocates your opponent. The grappled opponent can take a breath during any round in which you do not maintain the grapple.

You can chose to choke your opponent on a successful grapple instead of choosing damage, move, pin, or tie up the opponent. At any point, if you make another grapple check to maintain, but chose something else besides the choke, you just released the choke completely. However, maybe it would be smarter to grapple an opponent, move them away from their allies, hope their allies do not realize what you are doing, go for the choke on another confirmed grapple, and then sit there for 3 turns, immobile, choking an opponent and hoping its allies do not swarm you to take you out. This seems quite the amount of work to do something that a single spell is capable of doing, saves or not.

I think it is possible that when a special ability says you can wield large weapons, it means that you can wield large weapons.

Why are you still warping what the ability says? It never says that you can wield large weapons. The rules say that. Not the Tiefling's trait. The trait simply states that it takes away the penalties for doing something that incurs a penalty that already exists in the rules. If you had a more solid argument other than saying something repeatedly that twists the words of the trait, then maybe I would lean your direction.

Hell, at first I was leaning on the side you are leaning towards. However, I then actually read the trait, word for word, and word for word never does it solely say you can wield large weapons. If the ability was supposed to let you wield large weapons as if you were a large creature, it would say that. There would be no need for the added "without penalty" due to the fact that if you could just wield a large weapon as if there was no size difference because of your arms, you would not have a penalty to begin with.

Tiefling

Variant Abilities table (1-100)

#16: "You have over-sized limbs, allowing you to use Large weapons without penalty."

Source: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/featured-races/arg-tiefling

It does not say you can use large weapons. It says you can use large weapons without a penalty. If it said something along the lines of "You can use any large weapon without incurring a penalty" or "For the sake of your weapon, you are treated as a large creature" or "Allows you to use large weapons without the restrictions of size" or anything to these effects, then yes. However, it says "allowing you to use Large weapons without penalty." This takes the penalty away from having a large weapon, and only has an effect on the penalty. There is no penalty for using a two handed large weapon because you can not innately equip one.

The ability says you can use oversize weapons, and clarifies that you have no penalty when doing so. It is fairly clear that you can use large weapons.

It is fairly clear that you can use large weapons with no penalty. However, it never says you can use oversized weapons. Any medium humanoid can use a one handed or light large weapon, but not a two handed large weapon. Nothing in the trait says you can equip large weapons as if you are a large creature. You are a medium creature that can use large weapons without a penalty. It is quite clear that it does not give you extra abilities to use extra types that you can not normally use.

As someone who has participated in MMA in real life, I can say, without a doubt, that this move can make sense as an instant suffocation. It is called Kraken Throttle. It uses Kraken Style. When using said style, "You savagely squeeze and twist when grappling." If you savagely squeeze someone, you will pull the breath from their lungs. If you manage to get your hands around their throat, or arm or what have you, and begin to choke them in this fashion, they will not have a breath inside them to hold.

Now, that is just my opinion on how it makes sense in a real life situation. If you want to talk RAW vs RAI though, there is nothing in wording that says anything about holding their breath. You make a grapple check against your opponent, which allows you to do something to them. In this case, you throttle their neck and suffocate them instead of moving or damage them. When suffocating, you fall unconscious. It does not specify a certain amount of turns for such a thing. Being someone who used to be a Combat Medic in the Army(where I did the MMA), I know that if someone who is suffocating and is unconscious takes a breath, they will regain consciousness.

If you were to fail your second grapple check(which should be stated, gets harder over time to fail since you get a cumulative bonus), the enemy takes a breath and is back in the fight. At this point, however, what do they return to? I would assume that they would go back to their health before falling unconscious, seeing as how you are doing no damage. Basically, as it is written, this move will kill an enemy in 3 rounds. I do not believe it takes effect the round it first happens, all it states is the first round. You inflict the status upon your enemy in during a round, and coming the first round in which you have this status effect, you fall unconscious.

To me, this does seem a little too powerful for how early you can possibly pick it up. However, there is 3 rounds where your enemies allies can move to stop you from doing such a thing. It does not take long to kill someone who has no blood flow to their brain, especially when it is physically being prevented completely, and not just slowed or partially stopped due to medical reasons.

I will admit that in RAW, that handedness is not addressed, which would mean that only a weapon that someone your size could actually wield would be usable. In fact, maybe that is exactly what the author had in mind when they wrote it. To me, however, I always pictured some slender Tiefling (Neeshka to be precise) with large gorilla like forearms and hands. Of course, this would make little true sense and would have plenty of penalties like I said before. So maybe the way it is supposed to be is a Tiefling with just beefier muscles that allow them to swing a large one handed sword as a two handed sword, seeing as how their hands themselves are not bigger.

I would have to also agree with Ravingdork. The only thing I think is written wrong on the tiefling variant is that it only says large weapons. There are other variants that alter the size of a Tiefling, as in making them abnormally short so they count as a small humanoid. If you were to combine having oversized arms, you would have arms that become the next size increment. This means a small Tiefling should be able to use medium weapons and a medium Tiefling should be able to use large weapons.

However, think about this for your player. Do they want to have a small slim body with the arms of Hellboy just to make it possible to use a large bow? If the character is themed off of someone, I do not think this will be aesthetically rational for their design. Also, just a thought, shouldn't this alternative trait give some kind of penalty for something? You have arms that are basically the size of your body, there must be something penalized for that...

While I like to be right, that actually makes less sense, because armor spikes don't normally work on shields.

Deadly spikes and bladed projections extend from some shields, transforming such pieces of armor into weapon in their own right. Shield spikes turn a shield into a martial piercing weapon and increase the damage dealt by a shield bash as if the shield were designed for a creature one size category larger (see "spiked light shield" and "spiked heavy shield" in the Martial Weapons table). You can't put spikes on a buckler or a tower shield. Otherwise, attacking with a spiked shield is like making a shield bash attack.

An enhancement bonus on a spiked shield does not improve the effectiveness of a shield bash made with it, but a spiked shield can be made into a magic weapon in its own right.

This is the same thing as Armor Spikes, just applied to shields.

Armor Spikes wrote:

which allow you to deal extra piercing damage on a successful grapple attack

So, the argument is that you do extra damage on a successful grapple check. If someone makes a successful grapple check against you, then that's a successful grapple check, and you inflict the damage.

It is not a grapple check, it is a grapple attack. -YOU- deal extra piercing damage on a successful grapple -ATTACK-. It is an attack action to grapple someone and get this damage, and not a reaction to someone else grappling you. It is not a defensive action, it is an attack. On your turn you attack. How can that be interpreted any other way besides the way it is written? To top it off, Grinding even furthers the RAW by saying "This special ability counts as armor spikes for the purpose of making attacks on the wearer's turn." Why would it not say it counts as armor spikes in general? Making armor spikes in to a defensive thing instead of a -WEAPON-(which it is a Light Martial Weapon and that is all that it is but in the form of an armor attachment) makes an Enchantment completely useless, so if you use RAI to make it so you can use them for defenses, you are breaking the rules to make your own shortcut.

I thought about rapier, but in the end, a single hit with my katana set up will peak better than dex added to attack bonus for the rapier. Being a +15/+10/+5 set up, mainly your first attack is your only real damage source. With a +5 modifier to the katana, your attack bonus will be +21 with no other equipment, even against the highest CR monsters, you can still hit without a natural 20(such as a Tarrasque which has an AC of 40, so a 19 would hit, 20 would crit). This means you will still be able to hit with it against most enemies. However, with just a few different pieces of gear towards the higher levels, you can actually add this up to at least a +25 to hit, using the appropriate belt for both Dex and Str, and a Pale Green Ioun Stone(I think that is the color). Seems pretty capable of hitting anything within its normal crit range at that point, even at the highest monster AC's. Of course, would these be helpful against an AC heavy tank that another PC made? No, but that is the point of diversifying, is it not?