Lap-Lem's page

The usage of or makes this a confusing question. The rules were poorly written in this case.

30 feet (average maneuverability) if wearing light armor or unencumbered

Are you wearing light armor? no, are you unencumbered? yes. Therefore your speed equals 30

20 feet (poor maneuverability) with a medium or heavy load or medium or heavy armor

Are you bearing a medium or heavy load? no (we'll assume). Are you wearing medium or heavy armor? yes. Therfore your speed equals 20

Your speed would simultaneously be both 20 and 30. because they used 'or' in both cases. poor, poor writing. One of the two has to be an and if any sense is to be made out of this. Currently they put it on us to make one of their ors an and. and which one you choose will determine which side of this arguement you are on.

It sounds like the story arc of the campaign involves his character, would I be right to assume that? I know quite a few people who hate having the story "be about them". This could be the case, You can always test it out by having a session or two where you completely ignore this character and his development, concentrate on another PC and don't even mention the guy for a sesson or two and see if he gets back into it. Let him work his creative juices trying to get his character to fit into the 'action' without you telling him how he fits. Make him tell you the story of why he is helping out Bruno McGuffin, and not letting them deal with it themselves while he does his traveling thing.

It sounds like the guys your best friend and you want to do something special by putting his character in the spotlight, and this in turn is making him feel put on the spot and uncomfortable. I don't know enough to be sure about this, it's just soemthing that sprang to mind due to past experiances I have had of a similar nature.

Ultimately, make sure not to stand in his way. If he is absolutely miserable playing this PC, take it over as an NPC and let him roll up a new guy. In the end everything else should be secondary to having fun. And if he has regrets he can always take the PC back with renewed vigor.

Doesn't look like the regeneration can be overcome with an energy type. But bring the wearer to negative hp, walk up and take the rock floating over their heads and they are dead. At 1 hp per hour they are not going to jump back up on their feet in time to do anything about it. What source is the cracked Pearly White Ioun stone from?

I think the main concern is why there was a TPK and the DM wants to continue on. I have no experiance with your DM or group, but I have had a DM who worked in a very similar fashion. He liked to put the group in unwinnable situations and kill us all off. The End Boss for the entire campaign would visit us at level one and kill us all quickly, leaving us on the ground at -9 HP to slowly heal up. He did it becasue he thought it added suspense and a sense of how bad and evil your end boss was. SO when you leveled up and fought him without the deck stacked and killed him you'd all be twice as excited.

I hated it, it annoyed me. Even once I got used to seeing Big Bad McEvil for the fifth time as he killed me. But, that's just the way that DM rolled, that's how his games worked. It sounds to me like this DM is the same type. He didn't kill you because he hates you, or is being mean. He's giving you a reason to hate this Rakshasha so in a few levels when you meet him again you'll want payback.

I think what the suggestion spell means, and what is harmful or not harmful is an irrelevent question in the situation. The spell is poorly phrased, pehaps on purpose to leave it open to interpretation. I think it's more important to see what your DM is doing, outside the rules and books, and decide if it's something you can get on board with, or if it's not the gameplay style that is for you. There are no wrong answers as long as you are having fun.

Lap-Lem wrote:

Keeping track of party loot, writing it down, itemizing it, and splitting it so that it is fair for every party member is a tough and thankless job, made even worse when you are generally ignored, then yelled at because one person feels that someone else has better stuff then them so it is obviously your fault as it is your job to be their mom and make sure their underwear is on the right way around every morning.

My advise it to stop telling jokes when she is talking and telling you how much your cut of the loot is, she isn't your mom. Or is she your mom? even so, it's time to cut the purse strings and put on the big boy pants. If you cannot be arsed to listen when she tells you what your cut is, then knobs to you, you can collect pretty stones.

Most adults do loot seperation this way, with one party member acting as the accountant. regardless of the actual division. As adults we need to learn to respect this position and actually listen and write down the numbers they spew out so we have loot to spend. As opposed to telling penis jokes.

I will ignore the attitude presented in this post and simply state, that I do not ignore her. I am usually very quiet during the games and she is loud and obnoxious enough to get me yelled at by my downstairs neighbors each time we play. She has only one time announced our shares, which is why I currently have ~100g, when I ask her about what the shares are supposed to be she says "We will split it later." and the number of the shared split is never stated.

Do not pretend to know the game that I am in, and stow the attitude.

My tongue was in my cheek, but you also made it sound like she was giving loot out after encounters and you were neglecting to write it down until an oppertunity to shop was at hand, where you asked for an accurate itemized list.

It still sounds to me like this is about WAY more then the dividing of loot, it sounds like your problem is with her and not her method of dividing loot. There's a good chance that there is no clean solution to this problem and your best bet might be to gracefully bow out of of gaming with this group of friends for a short time. I would suggest lying and claiming that life is to busy for you at the moment to meet for gaming. That leaves you open to join the group again if everyone else becomes tired of her antics and kicks her out.

Keeping track of party loot, writing it down, itemizing it, and splitting it so that it is fair for every party member is a tough and thankless job, made even worse when you are generally ignored, then yelled at because one person feels that someone else has better stuff then them so it is obviously your fault as it is your job to be their mom and make sure their underwear is on the right way around every morning.

My advise it to stop telling jokes when she is talking and telling you how much your cut of the loot is, she isn't your mom. Or is she your mom? even so, it's time to cut the purse strings and put on the big boy pants. If you cannot be arsed to listen when she tells you what your cut is, then knobs to you, you can collect pretty stones.

Most adults do loot seperation this way, with one party member acting as the accountant. regardless of the actual division. As adults we need to learn to respect this position and actually listen and write down the numbers they spew out so we have loot to spend. As opposed to telling penis jokes.

Also keep in mind, just because people know that the alignments exist doesn't mean they have the first clue where they actually fall on the alignment scale. That Lawful Evil Baron that taxes his subjects to death to fund his war against the neighborring peaceful kingdom. That guy would tell you he's Lawful Good. Not to fool you, but because he is convinced that what he is doing is right and justified. No tyrant has ever thought they were evil. Even when they were.

The LG Paladin that litters one day by accident may have a crisis of faith and is now convinced that he is Chaotic because he, heaven forbid, broke the law. The guy is still LG, but that doesn't mean he's aware of that fact.

Meanwhile the CE brigand leader who assassinates merchants and fences their goods for his personal gain may have a Robin Hood complex, believing his deeds are helping the less fortunate and proclaiming himself to be CG or heck even NG.

In a world where real actually physical demons and angels walk on the same ground you and I do, you can bet your sweet patoot I am going to believe in the concept of absolute Good, Evil, Chaos, and Law. How can you deny something that is physically staring you in your face, and potentially evicerating you.

Also doen't the Hippo have a swim speed? (if it doesn't it should) Even without, it should be assumed you are fighting one in the water, and that makes it intrinsically more difficult to fight. sure the T rex may win on land, but that's because land isn't where a Hippo lives.

A Man In Black wrote:

Hydro wrote:

Command is, however, and it's also a pretty good spell.

In its best form, it costs one creature one round of actions. That's not "pretty good".

Approach: Triggers attacks of opportunity.

Drop: Situational but I've seen it save encounters.
Fall: -4 to hit and AC for a round.
Flee: Triggers AoO, and with some tactics costs the target two rounds.
Halt: Costs one round of actions.

It's the spell's versatility which makes it worth taking. Sure, cause fear makes them flee for significantly longer, but that's the only option.

tejon is right, cause fear doesn't do crud if the guy with the artifact you need is already running away to regroup/escape. Command can make him come to you, or just stand there and let the fighters kill him. If your DM is running the enemies well Command can come in really handy. 1 Kobold running away from the party is going to tell his 1,000 Kobold friends, and that could make things messy.

A reflex save does not require that you move (as in move on the field) as there are no rules in place for moving your fig if you succeed. Reflex save means you shield yourself from the brunt of the blast, maybe you raise your shield, or even just your cloak to reduce the effect. Space, walls, and floors have no effect on shielding yourself from damage.

Think of it this way, Roguey McRogurson sees the wizard cast a spell and a ball of red light shoots out. Roguey has seen this before and on instinct he drops to the ground and curls up in a little ball, back facing the source of the blast. That was a successful reflex saving throw.

Kolokotroni wrote:

Unless they are physical materials IE pigment, they HAVE to produce light or they cant have color. You are either a physical thing (reflect light) or produce your own to have color.

The material components are red, yellow, and blue powder or colored sand. Since they don't glow/blow up/burn, I'd lean toward the spell not producing light, but it's not clear either way.

That's pretty telling actually, since Red, Yellow, Blue are primary colors for pigments. Red, Green, Blue (technically Cyan, Magenta, and Green?) are the primary colors for light.

Power Attack is uber? Its one of the most overlooked feats in my group, but the more I post on Paizo the more I am finding that my group's play style tends to be very different than everyone elses experience.

I'm probably going to houserule this one.

Quijenoth wrote:

It also prevents min-maxing the damage vs AC ratio.

A number of my players have used complex excel spreadsheets or elaborate charts to work out what the best modifier to take vs a certain AC.

Really? That seems... unnecessary. Are they supposed to know their opponents AC going into a fight?

It's hard not to eventually figure out. When player 1 misses on a 20 and player 2 hits on a 21 you know the AC is 21. At least in the games I've played there's always been at least one player that wrote down the lowest to hit number that scored, as well as the highest number that missed.

This is kind of silly. The concept is ridiculous. What is being said is me and my friend are standing in a room, and my friend wants to go through a door into another room. I don't want him to go into the other room. (for whatever reason) So I stand in his way.

You are actually arguing that because he's my friend it is impossible for him to push me out of the way. As if some magical force, we'll call it the magical forcefield of friendship, is preventing him from putting his hand out and moving me to the side so he can go into the next room.

However if Captain Evil my nemesis were there, he could push past me, because the magical forcefield of friedship wouldn't stay his hand.

That's ludicrous.

You CAN try to stop a friend from entering a room. That friend CAN try to push you out of the way if he is so inclined. Heck you can try to bop your friend in the nose for pushing you, IT'S POSSIBLE, there is no magical forcefield of friendship. You've been lied to all your life.

Lap-Lem wrote:

A gauntlet is a glove, you provoke because wearing a glove isn't really changing anything from having a fist. A spiked gauntlet has a blade attached to it, it may only be a few inches but it's a blade. Saying it provokes is the same as saying a dagger provokes, it doesn't provoke just because it is small.

You have to realize spikes, on gauntlets and armor, are not studs. They didn't go buy this stuff at Hot Topic. They are strategically placed blades in the armor that can be used to cause cuts and wounds.
You cannot swing armor spikes around, however you can swing your gauntlets around. (and yes spiked gauntlets would include cestus type weapons,as well as punching daggers unless you want to add different rules for those for flavor)

Punching daggers actually are a seperate weapon entry, and one I didn't have as much problem with.

And the cestus in the video linked to is actually what I see as about the same as spikes on a spiked gauntlet. About an inch in size. Yes you can swing them around slightly easier.

I guess another way to look at it is remove the gauntlet and the spiked gauntlet from the equation,

When you punch without IUS what is it that makes you provoke an AoO?

why does that immeadiately go away by putting spikes on the gauntlet.

I always saw it as when punching without you leave openings your opponent could strike at, which adding spikes wouldn't change, you'd still leave the same oppenings

the other poster says that the increased threat of damage is what makes the opponent not take an AoO which I can see, but then why would a monk or someone with the feat not provoke before they hit with their first strike.

And yes I have my mind made up before I posted, but I can be swayed by arguments. this one being one of the most convincing, but it merely has me on the fence, not convinced.

Why does a claw or a bite not provoke? all you add is an inch long spike. Bears do not have Improved Unarmed Strike, yet they do not provoke when punching you. That's beacuse they have claws.

In 'reality', sure a spiked gauntlet is not much better then a gauntlet and maybe will provoke an AOO, but so would a poorly executed lunge with a rapier. Or someone closing in to attack with a dagger. The 'reality' in this particular incident has had to go away in order to simplify rules. After all you don't want to have to make multiple die rolls to see if your attack left your flank open.

In the end adding spikes makes it a weapon, adding claws or great gnashing teeth does the same thing (however then the weapon is natural). You are perfectly justified in house ruling it however you want, it's your game. But the ruling in the book makes sense when you compare it to similar things.

A gauntlet is a glove, you provoke because wearing a glove isn't really changing anything from having a fist. A spiked gauntlet has a blade attached to it, it may only be a few inches but it's a blade. Saying it provokes is the same as saying a dagger provokes, it doesn't provoke just because it is small.

You have to realize spikes, on gauntlets and armor, are not studs. They didn't go buy this stuff at Hot Topic. They are strategically placed blades in the armor that can be used to cause cuts and wounds.
You cannot swing armor spikes around, however you can swing your gauntlets around. (and yes spiked gauntlets would include cestus type weapons,as well as punching daggers unless you want to add different rules for those for flavor)