Khazrandir's page

Dwarves are famously "Slow but Steady":

Slow but Steady

Dwarves have a land speed of 20 feet, which is never modified when they are encumbered or wearing heavy armor...

Increased gravity on worlds will double (or more) the weight of characters and their equiptment:

High Gravity

On high-gravity worlds, characters are burdened by their increased weight, and their physical abilities are affected accordingly. On a high-gravity world, where the gravity is at least twice as strong as standard gravity, a character (and her gear) weighs twice as much as on a standard-gravity world, but she has the same amount of strength. Such characters move at half speed, can jump only half as high or as far, and can lift only half as much...

My question: Does it make sense for dwarves to retain their 20ft move speed in high gravity? Other impacts of high gravity would remain, but maybe those sturdy dwarves would power through the gravity's effect on movement.

As written, it seems (to me) that dwarves suffer movement penalties just like anyone. I just think it would be cool and fun for their movement to not be hindered. I'm curious what others think, though.

Example encounter:

Shipments of Magmaforge Firestout stopped when a haunting presence claimed this brewery. Driven mad, the surviving dwarves drink heavily and attack intruders with raised mugs.

The haunting presence covets its dwarf playthings, taking actions to hinder outsiders, such as toppling barrels and spouting slippery beer from spigots.

Choker of the Queen Bee
Aura faint transmutation; CL 6th
Slot neck; Price 6,200 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Description
From this blackened iron choker hangs a detailed bronze figurine of a crowned honeybee.

When this collar is worn, the bronze bee springs to life and latches itself to the wearer, embedding its stinger deep into her neck. The wearer's throat fills with swarming bees, doing no harm but giving her voice an aggressive buzzing quality that grants a +2 competence bonus on Intimidate checks made using her voice.

Once per day as a standard action, the wearer may consume a small part of the swarming magic, coating her throat in soothing honey. For the next hour, she instead gains a +2 competence bonus on Diplomacy checks made with her voice, and is treated as if under the effect of the honeyed tongue spell.

Finally, the wearer may release the entire swarm as a full-round action once per day. The bronze bee burrows into her neck and out of sight as thousands of bees pour forward from the wearer's mouth in a 15-foot cone. Those caught in the cone take 4d6 piercing damage. A DC 16 Reflex save halves this damage. These bees then disperse immediately. Using the choker in this way removes all its magical effects until the next day, at which point the bronze bee figurine reappears.

Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, summon swarm, honeyed tongue; Cost 3,100 gp

I recently came across this question when selecting a class feat for my TWF ranger at level 10. The general advice I had seen was that TWR is a better choice than GTWF. I've been looking into this issue in detail, and I'd appreciate any additional advice, comments and/or insights on this issue.

With some spreadsheet math, I've come to the following conclusion:

TWR almost always increases single-target damage more than GTWF.

Did I say that TWR > GTWF for everything, or that choosing GTWF is badwrongfun? No, absolutely not! In fact, my ranger will likely take GTWF for some specific reasons.

I'd like to share my fun spreadsheet calculating the damage from a full attack. (It's locked, so just click "File->Make a Copy" to change stuff around) Hopefully it may help inform decisions between these feats for other people. I've left the file as fairly bare-bones, without much frilly formatting to make it look pretty. Hopefully this doesn't bother anybody, and helps make it more easily customizable.

The spreadsheet allows someone to input their attacks, damage, crit bonuses, multipliers etc. and calculate their full-attack damage average on a single target. You can put different bonuses in each row, to directly compare.

By playing with the spreadsheet and adjusting AC, enemy DR, attack bonuses/damage, crit stuff etc... you can see that in most cases, TWR will perform better than GTWF, agreeing with what I interpret as the conventional wisdom on the forums.

However, there are cases where GTWF is the better option! The first that comes to mind is multiple enemies. This spreadsheet has no way of calculating it, but it stands to reason that if you needed to kill 15 level 1 human commoners (Why? You monster!), having more attacks is always for the better. Another obvious reason to choose GTWF is because it's just so cool to attack so many times, raining down blows on the enemy!

Curiously, another case I've seen where GTWF is better is when the enemy has an extremely high enemy AC (or you have low attack bonuses). In this case, you're basically fishing for crits, so it's very unlikely that TWR damage will ever appear. However, it's nice to have that additional attack from GTWF to keep on fishin'.

So, those are my thoughts on GTWF vs. TWR. Have I missed anything important?

P.S.
My dwarf ranger chose GTWF despite this math for the flavor reason of it seeming awesome, and the math reason of more chances at stacking Twin Thunders against those evil giants! This dwarf in RotR isn't so fond of those giants.

Hello! Does anyone know if the +2 bonus to attacks of opportunity for the Flying Blade weapon can be added to a maneuver CMB roll such as Trip?

It seems as if, under these rules, that if an enemy provokes an attack of opportunity by moving through squares threatened by the character wielding a Flying Blade, that character may attempt to trip the enemy in place of an attack of opportunity, and have a +2 bonus on his/her CMB check to succeed in tripping this nefarious enemy invading his/her personal space!

This seems like a nice benefit, (though not against flyers, ranged weapons, oozes, larger enemies) and I thought I would seek advice/clarification on this issue from those more informed. Am I missing anything?