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I have a player who is playing a aasimar with the Deathless Spirit alternate racial trait. He was hit tonight with an assassin's death attack, and only survived because he claimed Deathless spirit gave him a +2 towards the save.

After reading the text, it felt to me like the bonuses are more towards Death Effect spells and spell like abilities, and not applicable in that case, but let him live due to feeling I might be nit-picking a bit.

But the question is this: Is there a difference between Death Attacks, and Death Effects (i.e. attacks vs spells), or is it really just the same thing?

One of my players is a android brawler with a high dex. I know he has boar style, as well as slashing grace, and prolly weapon focus unarmed strike. So, when he is using Boar style, his unarmed damage goes up nicely, and he tends to do the most dpr of the party, though he doesn't use the flexibility all to well. There was a few occasions where dodge, combat expertise, or other defensive feats would have been much better than power attack, but *shrugs* he hasn't died yet (though that may be because he is taking all the good loot that he can get his artificial hands on).

Reading the dragon section in the beasteries, I've noticed that dragons do not get a size increase to their scores. Instead their stats are increased due to age categories, and is mentioned on P. 92 of both Beastery 2 as well as 3. So if this is this true, would that mean they may not see a decrease in stats based on a lessening of size as well?

So, the idea is that a monk with boar style could deal 1d6+1d6+2d6+Str? Seems like a rather nice class fix, being that a multitude of creatures are immune to "bleed" damage.

It would be more along the lines of 1d6+ str + 1d6 + str + 2d6. That being said, in my campaign, I'm going to treat the style like rend, so /shrugs.

Well, no, it wouldn't be one grain at a time. It could be a block of the stuff... but it would take 10 minutes per cast, and the material only last for 7 hours before disappearing. So, if they where planning on sapping a wall, sure, I could go with that. Although the move earth ability doesn't create tunnels, so for sapping purposes, have the druid and someone with Know(Engineering) to go in, lay the charges (using burrow, of course), and hopefully leave a detonator of some sort, to blow the charge. That, I can see. But not knowing the scale of the compound, and the idea of moving a cubic mile of earth just being silly (as ye could just have the compound collapse into the hole, killing most inside of it) I can't really give any options that you may be able to recommend to the players instead of the current one.

And while they seem to be following the idea of recon that I and some of my fellow adventurers have used in the past (to our chagrin), as a new GM, I have little I could advise ye on in this matter regarding yer two wayward players. I've played with similar personalities in the past, that tried to bend the rules of the game to their favor, but such players rarely lasted long in such games I've played in, though from their choice or the DM's, I know not.

But it does give me an idea for a campaign setting I've been thinking on, involving a society based on ancient Rome, with the use of legions and such, but made of halflings and gnomes. The move earth spell just made me think of a scene where the adventurers (not sure if they would start as part of the society, or explorers from outside the nation) could watch as a legion builds a fortification, with the engineering corps riding ahead of the main body to use shape earth to make the raised earth foundation, and after the main body arrives, have some of the troops plant seeds or cutting around the perimeter of the area, so druids can use a ritual to make them grow into a stockade of living wood, with the soldiers helping to shape said trees as they grow.

I, personally, prefer either rolling stats over the standard point buy system. The campaign I'm currently running, I allowed my players to roll 2d6+6, reroll 1's, though that was mainly because we where running a campaign designed for a larger party, and since they was shy a player or 2, felt that allowing them average at worse stats might help. While the PC's are genrally powerful, there is little variation play wise in terms of power between the three, although one has colorspray prepped at all times, and at lvl 2, and bad will saves, the spell itself seems overpowered somewhat.

Rakshasha-spawn Teifling could work, if ye wanted a humanoid cat person, race if from Blood of fiends.

Ok... I think I hit a snag here. What if I want to play a dude that focus on building a solid defense with a full plate and tower shield that ends up adventuring?

1) The armor and shield are heavy, slow down considerably his speed and require a sturdier mount to carry the guy. Then again, warhorses in Pathfinder got a slight boost.

2) The armor and shield itself can impede him due to the weight, which might lead to medium or heavy encumbrance.

3) The whole set has a huge armor check penalty for a number of viable skills, in addition of a maximum dexterity bonus.

4) The armor and shield are only a portion of the kit, when you add weapons, items and such.

So... yeah... if I want to make a guy who's motto is "COME AT ME BRO!" while drawing his tower shield and bastard sword that ends up adventuring in random terrains, narrow passeways and other natural hazards, what do I do?

It seems like adventuring is made for PCs who prefer to travel light, hence my concern.

Well, lets see, for one, when ye can afford it, Mithral is a good material for weight reductions as well as the reduction of the armor check penalty and icrease to your max dex to ac limit. If you play a straight fighter, they have class features that also reduce armor check penalties, and eventually removes the speed reduction. And if ye don't want to play a fighter, dwarves don't suffer the speed reduction, either from weight or armor.

Although, for a 'knight' build (at least what I consider a iconic one), I tend to go for a large shield, and take the shield focus, and shield bash line of feats, as I've never liked the attack penalty of the tower shield. Although I did have a cavalier with a resizing shield, but not sure of the shield enchant was from 3.5 or Pathfinder...

I house rule it... (my players chars tend to drink a lot...)

1: the alcohol dc increases by 2 for each unit drunk in 1 period. 1 save per unit.

2: 1period is 1 hour minus con mod x 5 minutes (minimum 20 minutes)

3: a failed save cost 1D3 con AND 1D3 wis (yes, the lower con hits the fort. save...)

4: a con 0 you pass out drunk... A wis 0 and you are the conscious braindead drunk... If both con and wis reach 0 on the same unit you are poisened

5: if only 0 or 1 stat reach 0 you gain 1 (wis or con) per hour. If both reach 0 (alcohol poisoned) you regain 1 of each per day (spells like restoration will be used, or it may take weeks to get back to full strength)

I think I will try this next time

I'm currently running a skull and shackle campaign, and I have little experience in the use of poisons, and no real experience about the mechanics of alcohol in the game. The reason I bring this up, is that in the setting, there is a pirate game of drinking rum until there is only one standing, and that one is the winner.

The only downside, that I can see, is that failing fort save (which increases every round of shots) causes 1d3 con dmg, which, increase sequentially (I think) with every failed fort save. Ie: 1d3, 1d3+1, 1d3+2, etc... And since attribute damage is only healed 1 point a night, wouldn't that mean that it could take a week to recover from a single game, if not more? Or am I missing, or mistaken about something?

In the game, I just house ruled that it was short time, and they would be mostly recovered the next day, perhaps with a killer hangover (Fatigued, exhausted, or sickened based of how far they went).

Thoughts?

Not this:

** spoiler omitted **

If I wanted to play the Hulk, I'd play another game. I'm sure there's some sort of comic book superhero tabletop RPG out there somewhere...

I do have to point out that this is a 6th teir ability for champions, and from what I understand, going mythic basiclly turns you into a superhero. So in a world where one can buy magic items to fly, teleport, or whatnot, I see no problem whatsoever in being able to jump for miles. It doesn't let you be accurate, and can leave you suspended in air, possibly miles high.

By that point, one would almost be a demigod, so it seems fine. With the 1 minute sprint before the jump, it's not like it's really useable in combat.

Now for the OP's question, I personally would love to be able to make a swordsman (or swordswoman) which, at higher levels could slice a hole in the fabric of space to travel between points, either in one world, or between. Doesn't even really need combat usage, it would just feel like a cool ability to have.

I can always suggest cavalier, or samurai as well, just because cavalier is based around mounted combat, and samurais get mounts for free.

I have played as a dragonborn kobold cavalier during a campaign a few years ago (gm allowed some from 3.5), and had a blast being the small knight, shiny of scale and armor, riding around a dragon themed beastie with a burrow speed. GM even allowed for me to have an exotic saddle, and helm set up to allow for short, subterranean dives.

So, there's an option for you if ye want it as well.

Hmmm. Give's me ideas, it does... I've always liked the leadership feat, and such. Now if I could only get my gm to allow it, I would love playing a gnome or Halfling druid with an awakened stuffed bear as a cohort. Maybe take a awakened shrubbery, and have it wear the bear shell. Dunno, but thought it would be cute, and funny.

Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

pennywit wrote:

If a druid casts Awaken on a snake, and that snake takes the Leadership feat, will it be a Cobra Commander?

yes

Unless it's a Constrictor Chief, or an Adder Administrator, or a Boa Boss, or a Rattlesnake Ruler, or a Mamba Manager

Or maybe a sidewinder sultan, or pit viper president, or maybe a anaconda ace. A coral snake captain, garter snake general.

I have to agree with Relixander on this.

I'm not really sure what you are referring to as 'broken'. Although, all the campaigns I've played in, the followers never where really used, as they where always back in the home base, doing guildish things. My Cohort was the only one who ever made an appearance.

to be fair, now that I think about ti, it sounds like the rogue might have rolled a 2, but /shrugs.

"What the hell? How did you roll a 5 on your Will save?"

To quote.

Tangents can be fun!

I feel sad when one of the first things that pops into my mind is a awakened pink pony bard that breaks the fourth wall a bit too often.
Damn my friends and their influence... Although, come to think of it, it would be a way to handle a friend who has problems staying in character...

This is exactly why there are no living dinosaurs in my world. Having things set in the age of megafauna is one thing. Humans were around during their reign after all. Having dinosaurs is quite another.

There's not only the ridiculously vast period of time that separates them but to exist as part of a functioning ecosystem you can't just paste things together like that. To have dinos you need all the other things that support them. Which is a different set of factors from what you need to support large mammals. If both were artificially introduced into the same environment competition and natural selection would drive most of one or the other to extinction. That's exactly why the dodos are extinct. A foreign species was introduced and upset the balance.

Also going back to the issue of time. Even if some dinosaurs hadn't gone extinct they would have gone through 65+ MILLION years of evolution. They wouldn't resemble any of the species we're familiar with. Maybe they'd look like dragons. ;)

Except this is a fantasy world, and there's no reason they came about before the humanoid races, or that they are even from that world. There's also nothing saying there can't be a "Australia" of the world where either the characters, or the dinos live.

We are talking about a world that has many different sentinent species there, and if ye go with the gods creating the animals and such, then I can easily imagine (as I would do it myself) "Hmm, not enough dino, heres more..."

Both, for me, lol. It all depends on the character concept I'm going for, and what abilities, skills, etc. I want. I did have a level 12 whisper gnome ninja back when ninja was being beta'd (we where using both 3.5 and PF for sources in that game) and loved pretending to be a gnome playright dressed as a pimp, with a MW light mace that was styled like a fancy cane.

Current game I'm in I'm playing a bard 1/ rogue 5/ assassin 6, or some such, where the rogue was a step into assassin. But I have played rogue a few times, as I'm a skill ho, and like the options I've always had with rogues.

"When I pull this lever, you'll be as dead as the dodo!"

"Yeah? But I have a dodo companion; it's stood right here."

"EXACTLY."

This made me chuckle.

I would say, keep a few things in mind when you consider things:

A) It is your world, if you want dodos extinct, they will be. With the possible exceptions of undead, and planar dodos, in which case, the latter are extinct on your plane.

B) Extinction is a word that is freely banded about, perhaps a little too much, since it's usually applied when one thinks a species has died off. The problem that our real world scientist has discovered, is there is a chance, in some other part of the world, that creature may be a alive and well. I've actually thought about introducing endangered species as a invader species in another land where they have no natural predators, but that is an idea for another time...

C) If the character is trying to hide the presence of a race of species, this may be a way to do so, by claiming "Fortunetly, all those nasty drow have gone extinct since then..." or some such.

But all these are merely suggestions, for you to take as ye will.

The problem I see with this logic, is that you are playing a class that uses wisdom for your casting stat, and has good saves to begin with. The way you speak, makes me think you also have a item of wisdom, and a cloak of resistance. Which are all good things, admittedly. But you are also expecting the other classes, one already stated as being a rogue with poor will saves, to being able to make a DC 17 with a roll of 5~, meaning they needed a base of 12 to make that.

The thing is, even with 20k gold, melee classes tend to have other things they have to focus on to be good at their jobs, and they also have stat priorities they have to keep in mind. With yer rogue, he may have rolled, low, may have Wisdom as his dump stat, don't know, don't really care too much. He may have his needed feat list tied up to who knows what level, so on and so forth.

The point is, most players have a specialization they try to be the best at, which means they will have weak points as well. So don't ride them for felling one will save, that your character just so happens to be good at, or had a good roll for. I'm sure you will come across situations where they will exceed you in capabilities, though druid does seem to cover many areas in ability. And hopefully next time, they will have better rolls. /shrugs

I looked up the Snake fang feat, and as it is, if you hit with the AoO, then you get one immediate attack. Hence only the first one will spawn a additional attack.

I always love skill monkeys personally. But the most fun I've had with a character was with a Artificer Catgirl. Terresha was prolly the smartest char in the party, but CG as hell. It was funny when I created random potions of disguise self, or some such, and watched the party turn into random races/genders. And the fun little animal robots I built for fluff was great too. Part of the campaign had us sabotaging a ritual being held in a city. Built 3 or 4 mini-bullettes to dig tunnels to a temple, where we rescued a group of captured priestesses, and then brought the house down. I think they ended up as mounts for some of my followers to use, and eventually was left at a workshop I set up at a friends castle. Also had a full sized mecha-bullette called Big T, who acted like a big rig to pull my mobile home/workshop.
I love playing exotic races, or having a twist somewhere, like playing a LG Kobold cavalier, or a gnome ninja who tells everyone he's a gnomish playwright.