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I know this has been discussed before, but I couldn't quickly find a thread about it, so I made this one, hoping that I can point people to it in the future.

I was in a game recently where we faced a monster that did fire damage to weapons that struck it in combat. It was something like 1d6 fire damage. When I explained that this doesn't do anything, by the rules, I was met with derision and incredulity.

When I showed the actual text, there was still a general feeling of "there must be an FAQ" and "this has to be a mistake".

So here we go, from the SRD:

"Each object has hardness—a number that represents how well it resists damage. When an object is damaged, subtract its hardness from the damage. Only damage in excess of its hardness is deducted from the object’s hit points."

"Energy attacks deal half damage to most objects. Divide the damage by 2 before applying the object’s hardness. Some energy types might be particularly effective against certain objects, subject to GM discretion. For example, fire might do full damage against parchment, cloth, and other objects that burn easily. Sonic might do full damage against glass and crystal objects."

"Objects take half damage from ranged weapons (unless the weapon is a siege engine or something similar). Divide the damage dealt by 2 before applying the object’s hardness."

"Certain weapons just can’t effectively deal damage to certain objects. For example, a bludgeoning weapon cannot be used to damage a rope. Likewise, most melee weapons have little effect on stone walls and doors, unless they are designed for breaking up stone, such as a pick or hammer."

"Objects are immune to nonlethal damage and to critical hits."

"Each +1 of enhancement bonus adds 2 to the hardness of armor, a weapon, or a shield, and +10 to the item’s hit points."

"Certain attacks are especially successful against some objects. In such cases, attacks deal double their normal damage and may ignore the object’s hardness."

Now, putting all this together; if I strike a creature and my +2 longsword takes 4 fire damage, that damage is halved to 2 and then reduced by the sword's 14 hardness to 0; UNLESS the GM rules that steel swords are vulnerable to fire, in which case it takes 8 fire damage to it's 25 hit points.

There is no guideline to what is vulnerable and what isn't other than common sense (which is, sadly, not that common; the GM in this case ruled that a wooden shield was vulnerable to fire, "because wood", despite the fact that wood can actually be quite hard to set alight, but even then, a +2 heavy wooden shield has 35 hit points, so it's not exactly easy to destroy this way.

But he was still very put out by the fact that, unless "steel" is vulnerable to fire, the monster's special ability only really affects Monks and natural weapons.

If there are more comments about this aspect of the rules (including anything I may have missed), please share them, so future generations can be enlightened.

For an upcoming Skulls and Shackles game, I'm looking at the Tempest Tamer Druid, which seems like it's a perfect fit. The only problem I've noticed is that "Tempest Wild Shape", since it has a different name, might not be considered the Wild Shape class feature (so no Natural Spell).

I then thought, "well, ok, I'll just take Eschew Materials at some point", but then it occurred to me that Eschew Materials only covers my not needing Material Components for spells- it doesn't obviate my need for a Divine Focus.

And since my Divine Focus, as a Druid, is a "sprig of holly, or some other sacred plant", the normal things I'd consider to work around this problem, like a Holy Symbol Tattoo, or the Birthmark Trait might not work.

I considered just having a second Spell Component Pouch (with a sprig of holly inside) that I throw down and then have to pick up after turning into a Water Elemental (assuming the GM is OK with the idea of a Water Elemental handling material components, lol), but I was wondering if there was some other way to cast spells needing a Divine Focus when taking on Elemental form that I might have missed.

If an Arcane Trickster delivers a touch range spell with an unarmed strike against an opponent who is flanked/denied Dex bonus, can they add Sneak Attack damage twice with their capstone ability?

"At 10th level, an arcane trickster can add her sneak attack damage to any spell that deals damage, if the targets are flat-footed. This additional damage only applies to spells that deal hit point damage, and the additional damage is of the same type as the spell. If the spell allows a saving throw to negate or halve the damage, it also negates or halves the sneak attack damage."

The GM of my campaign has been building some custom races and feats for his next campaign, and asked me to stress test them. The one I'm currently wrestling with is a Str/Int Oni-style race with telekinetic abiilities. They have a racial feat that allows them to gain a telekinetic "arm" that functions much like the vestigial limb of the alchemist. It can't wield weapons, but it does gain a slam attack that automatically hits, and deals force damage equal to your Int modifier. The arms have "-" for Strength and can only lift 5 lbs. (similar to mage hand). The feat can be taken multiple times to get more arms.

This seems ok, but I've been wrestling with how it could be abused. I know that using the slam to make combat maneuvers is something that will immediately need to be patched, so now I'm trying to figure out what kind of build could really monopolize on this ability. Using the limbs to deliver touch spells seems like a decent option, so I thought maybe a Magus build would be good.

The idea of spending a few feats to add more slams to add your Int in damage multiple times to a full attack might be reasonable, but I'm not certain how much Int you'd need to have to make this worth a feat.

So right now, the only other uses are the normal ones you'd like an extra hand for, such as wielding an especially light shield, reloading firearms, or just holding a wand/potion/divine focus while your hands are already occupied.

If anyone can think of a truly inspired use of this feat, I'd appreciate it.

I've run games myself, and I well know the desire to houserule things to fit your personal vision. But the GM of a game I'm currently in seems to have no real sense of how Pathfinder is intended to work, and he's constantly trying to get rid of things that he doesn't like, and replace them without any idea of what the impact will be.

For example, he hates items with +x bonuses with a passion. Especially weapons and armor. He also hates weapon and armor special abilities. So he created his own system of combining special materials (all of which are ridiculously rare and hard to work with) and specialized "designs" that only certain smiths know how to make. Now, looking at the possibilities it would be simple to make some truly gamebreaking stuff, but we rarely encounter a crafter who can create what we want, and even if we did, the pricetag is far greater than "boring normal magic items". If we deal with a smith who can't make what we want, we can sacrifice an existing item that has a special design so he can learn it. Now we're out an item with no compensation other than now this guy can make similar items for us.

As far as found items, we often come across strange weapons and armor with bizarre combinations of abilities, and rarely are we even proficient with them. For example, we once found an enchanted bone spell storing boomerang, and he couldn't comprehend why we weren't excited by it. I pointed out that 1) nobody in the party could use a boomerang, 2) neither of the spellcasters (a bard and an oracle) had anything particularly interesting to store in the boomerang, and 3) we didn't have a dedicated ranged character anyways (no point blank/precise shot).

"Well that shouldn't matter, the Fighter has a 15 Dexterity and a full base attack, so he'd be fine throwing the boomerang."

But why though?

"Well, you could put cure light wounds in it, and then it'd do damage to undead."

I should mention the boomerang didn't have returning or anything, so we'd have to constantly go fetch this overpriced monstrosity each and every time it was used. And then, when we tried to sell it, we kept getting told we'd have to go to the capitol, because no local merchant could afford it (reasonable, but kind of obnoxious- why let the party claim treasure they don't really have a use for, and then not let them trade it in, all the while claiming "I give you guys lots of treasure, you're above WBL").

Now he's decided he hates the magic system in general. This isn't particularly irksome, I agree with his general problem- that there's spells for darn near everything, and certain casters will almost always have a "magic bullet" available for any problem.

He wants casters to be specialists, with thematic spell lists. I pointed out to him that there's a big issue with this- the game is designed so that some problems have almost no solutions BUT magic, and if your caster doesn't have those solutions on hand, you're pretty much doomed.

We had a long argument about why an Oracle isn't as good a healer as a Cleric, because he's convinced Life Oracles are better than Clerics in every respect. Unfortunately, it's hard for an Oracle to have "cure status ailment X" on tap, as they have limited spell slots, while a Cleric can just pray for whatever he needs after a rest.

Anyways, he just handed me this long half-baked document that he wants to implement, that will force casters to choose a specialty (or 2 if your class has access to level 9 spells). But with a caveat that if you choose "opposed" specialties, you'll get a special advantage, but a disadvantage as well.

In addition, he's completely reworked spell resistance. Now your spell resistance is basically temporary hit points versus spell damage, so if you have SR 22, you ignore 22 points of spell damage, like it's some sort of ablative armor. You recover SR at a rate of 1 point per minute.

I think he was inspired by the system used by Divinity 2. Lord knows how this is going to interact with Spell Penetration or Elves. There's also some nonsense about how you can use your spell resistance to ignore status effects based on a "severity rating"- as I understand it, dazzled is equal to 3 points of "damage", while frightened is equal to 5 or something.

Also, he hates damage to ability scores (who doesn't?) but he's decided to replace them with a static penalty that persists until you get the damage healed. For example, if you have any Strength damage, you deal half damage with weapons until the Strength damage is recovered. If you have any Wisdom damage, your saving throw bonuses are HALVED until it's recovered.

Immediately I realized this is going to largely favor monsters over players, but he's like "oh you're just worrying too much".

Oh about the specializations- they're divided into "elements" of magic that he's come up with for his game world, such as Darkness, Light, Fire, Cold, Earth, and...Mystic (I have NO idea). He's assigned a school of magic to each one. You can also "double specialize" in one element for greater bonuses.

The first example is Fire/Evocation, which increases all damage dice of spells to d12's, AND to increase spell damage caps by TEN. Double specializing allows you to ignore all fire resistance, and treat fire immunity as if it were fire resist 15. Probably fine, because ok, sure, a 20d12 fireball sounds scary at level 20, but it's only damage.

Then there's the "Mystic" double spec, which increases save DC's of spells by SIX.

I can provide more information if desired, but these are just the highlights. At this point, I'm not sure if there's anything I can say that can convince him that he's warped the game in ways he cannot begin to comprehend. But I feel this is all going to end badly. Either way, I'm curious what other people would do- leave the game? Fight the insanity? Find some way to abuse the system and enjoy the (likely very short) ride?

Not really a rules question, but I'm kind of confused. I have a Bonded Witch who selected a Wand as her Bonded Item. Looking at the spells I can cast with it, I noticed the level 9 spell is an Empowered and Maximized Fire Shield.

Fire Shield does 1d6 damage, +1 per level, max of +15. Empowered increases the random part of the spell by +50% and Maximized...maximizes it.

So as I understand it, all of this ensures that the most powerful spell I can use from my wand is a 24 damage fire shield.

I'm...not sure what the point of that is, so I'm wondering if I'm missing something?

A little confused by this spell. It says it can "cause one nearby corpse to animate for a brief moment" except...

The duration is instantaneous. While it doesn't talk about what happens after it makes a trip attempt, if it grapples someone, they stay grappled until they either break free, or destroy the corpse (which has 12 hp and DR 5/slashing).

So does this mean that after it's initial attack, the corpse just remains animated until someone bothers to kill it?

Friend of mine plays a Spiritualist, and he just hit level 7. And I was seriously underwhelmed.

At 7th level, he gets a 2nd-level spell as a SLA 1/day? Eh, ok, but...

Wait a minute. It targets Will, which is the best save for the undead creature it targets. It's a SLA, so the save DC is Charisma-based.

On a Wisdom-based caster?

Am I missing something here, because this seems especially bad.

Way back in the 80's, when I first got serious about playing AD&D, I was introduced to that wretched type of monster, the "gotcha" monster. The doppleganger. The Mimic. That plant monster that looks like a cute bunny rabbit on a tree stump. Gas spores that look like Beholders. Cloakers.

It's quite the tradition, and many of these creatures still exist in Pathfinder. And I hate them all, so very, very much.

When I run my games, I want to let my players make informed decisions. I don't want them finding themselves over their heads because they didn't know a monster had a strange immunity or defense, or that had a particularly lethal attack.

This is why I always allow them to roll monster knowledge. But after awhile, even though some of my players have invested in knowledge skills, I feel the die rolling to find out what a monster can do slows down play.

And they can still fail, and find themselves screwed over when they discover "yes, it's an animated object, so it has hardness, not DR", or "oh the monster is immune to that spell", while they're being beaten into a bloody pulp.

I've actually toyed with eliminating monster knowledge and just telling them what they need to know. But still reward people for actually having the skills to know about the monsters. I'm just not sure how to do that, or if I should even try.

So I'm curious how other GM's have, or would, handle this topic.

Thank you in advance for any replies!

I mean, I know it doesn't. I just read another thread where someone brought up that it doesn't (as an example of abilities that don't stack), and rather than derail that thread, I made this thread.

Is there some balance issue I'm not seeing here? Because it appears (to me) that there aren't many ways to get multiple Channel Energy powers that wouldn't be counterproductive in the long run- so what really would be the harm if they did stack to determine effectiveness?

(The only exception I can see to that is one of the Shaman archetypes that appears to give you two different Channels on the same class progression, but I'm not sure that's intended to begin with.)

I mean, yes, you'd get more uses of Channel if you were, say, a Cleric/Oracle (Life), and so if they stacked you'd be more effective than a straight-class healer, but...so? You're giving up higher level spells and other abilities for a very niche advantage, right?

I had a much longer post, but I decided just to get to the point. I spent a good two hours last night looking for new monsters to challenge my players with- the last batch were basically laughed off.

I finally stopped after reviewing the 50th monster, 4 above their CR. So few monsters even seem to meet the bars presented in monster creation, and I don't know why. Something that's supposedly "big and evil and heinous" (the CR 9 Nuckelavee) has a +11 to hit. What?

Oh sure, it has a mean breath weapon, but it'd get used once and then it would curl up and die. Am I missing something?

I'm confused, I thought a natural 20 on a CMB roll automatically succeeded?

Looking for advice, this is a long post, but I wanted to give as much information as I can about the situation.

When I play games, especially ones like Pathfinder, there are things that GM's do that I don't like. Being stingy with wealth, banning player options, using overpowered enemies, and being quick to rule against the players when they encounter something they think is "too strong", or, my personal favorite "doesn't make sense".

In a game with huge flying dragons, no less.

So when I GM, I try to give the players every possible break I can. After all, I'm not their enemy, I'm there to create stories and scenarios they can interact with. I roll openly, and I don't (often) fudge. I spend a lot of time creating what I feel are appropriate encounters.

And I try not to sweat the fights they blow through- there's always more enemies, after all.

But lately, I've been slipping, and it's bothering me. I fudged a few die rolls last session, and I used some dirty tactics. The whole time, I was convincing myself that it was their own fault, for charging straight on into a bad situation, but in retrospect, I wonder if maybe I'm to blame, since I usually don't play hardball without warning.

One of the characters died, and I felt so guilty about it, I allowed them to be revived almost hassle-free.

Somehow, in my quest to be the GM whose game I'd love to play in, I've started losing control of the game. I currently have a level 6 Swashbuckler with a +17 to hit (+21 due to gang up and outflank), and even the CR 9 "boss" I plan on having them fight at the end of the current arc seems...inadequate.

So here's what I've done so far:

*allowed players to roll stats. This makes them stronger than the 15-20 point buy the game is built around, but not as much as you'd think. Generally, I could build characters of similar combat effectiveness with a 20 point buy, but they'd be far less well rounded. I mostly allowed this because a few players had some MAD character concepts, like our Warpriest and Enlightened Paladin.

*maximum hit points per level. In the past, we've always had crazy house rules to prevent people from getting low hit points, and it occurred to me to just cut out the middleman. Especially in light of the party composition- you might think a Paladin and a Warpriest could mitigate damage as well as a Cleric or Oracle, but that is not the case.

NOTE: by "mitigate", I don't mean combat healing, since that's usually an emergency tactic. There's a lack of other kinds of spells, such as "buffs" and "debuffs" as well. The Warpriest is designed to self-buff to overcome a lower BAB, and the majority of the Paladin's Lay on Hands are self-targeted.

*automatic bonus progression. I adopted a bonus progression I found on the forums, before I saw the Unchained rules, but it's close. I didn't reduce party wealth, however, because once the "big six" are off the table, most magic items tend to fall into "cool trick" or extra utility- a good deal of cash has been spent on bags of holding and heavyload belts, for example. There are a few outliers, like ioun stones for +1 insight to attack rolls that I didn't foresee.

*in light of the lack of a full caster (the party's actual makeup is Lore Warden Fighter, vanilla Swashbuckler, vanilla Warpriest, and Enlightened Paladin), but the higher base numbers the party has, I consider the party's ECL to be 7 instead of 6. I use level appropriate enemies, for the most part, to avoid having them face casters with 4th-level spells, or enemy specials they have no way to handle, and pad their numbers with things like the Advanced template.

Bruiser type enemies will get a level or 2 of Fighter, that sort of thing. I'm careful not to put enemy AC's out of the Warpriest's attack bonus- at worst an enemy might require him to roll a 12 to hit, and I feel bad about that, since a lot of his spell slots tend to go towards other characters, instead of giving him the self buffs his class is reliant on.

This has, however, ramped up enemy damage a bit. Granted, yes, I gave them maximum hit points, but a few sessions ago, they were fighting undead miners with picks, and a lucky crit took the Fighter from almost full to "oh man, I'm glad we had that Breath of Life scroll!", due to the high static damage the enemies had.

Which has become a trend, really. The Swashbuckler dances through fights, rarely taking any damage, and doing almost as much damage as the Fighter. The Paladin can absorb lots of damage, but is lacking offensive punch. The Warpriest struggles to keep them alive (or hit enemies). And the Fighter...dies a lot.

Last session, they took on some cultists, and while the individual enemies were weaker than they were, they got overconfident, and started a second encounter right on the heels of the first, which got them overwhelmed by enemies.

Including a summoned Bone Devil, who used his spell like abilities to wreak havoc with them. Halfway during the fight, the cultists decided to retreat into narrow tunnels, and the Swashbuckler complained about me being soft "they were going to win, why would they retreat?".

This during a fight where the only damage he took was from moving through the frigid air left from a broken Wall of Ice.

Anyways, that's enough for one post, I can answer specific questions about party makeup, what abilities they have that have proven hard to deal with fairly, and enemy abilities and tactics later. I really could use some help here, and I appreciate any advice that can be given.

Skip to end for actual question, I just wanted all the facts and speculation in the first post.

Relevant Text:

Made by Bless Water, a Transmutation (Good) spell that states:

"This transmutation imbues a flask (1 pint) of water with positive energy, turning it into holy water."

Possibly Relevant: Empower Holy Water http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/e/empower-holy-water

Following the "Infernal Healing Pricing" thread, an argument broke out about the nature of 'unholy water' (and by extension, holy water). Holy water deals damage to undead and evil outsiders. It doesn't say "outsiders with the evil subtype" (though obviously, such outsiders are legitimate targets). Nor does it state anything about the alignment of a undead creature.

It works equally well on a CG ghost as it does on a typical Efreeti.

The question revolves around whether or not holy/unholy water is aligned. The spells that allow for it's creation are, but nothing in the text states that it is. It's easy to infer that something called "holy" should be good, but a LN Cleric of a LN God could make either holy or unholy water, in theory.

ACTUAL QUESTION: making holy water uses a Good spell. This can be construed as a Good act. Is the holy water inherently Good? Is using it inherently Good? Even if used against a good-aligned undead such as a ghost?

Example but possible campaign spoilers. You have been warned!

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/magical-beasts/greymalkin

I tripped over this creature and thought it sounded like an interesting (annoying as hell) encounter. The problem is...it's spell-like ability of constant- mirror image confuses me.

I think, based on the rules for constant spell-like abilities, that it automatically recasts the spell every turn as a swift action. Or maybe it can only do that when it runs out of images?

That's probably the best interpretation, but I wanted to know how it was intended to work.

We're starting a new campaign, and one of the players asked if this combo would work for his Urban Bloodrager.

Relevant text:

Bloodrage-

Controlled Bloodrage-

Opportunistic Gambler-

Heart of the Fields-

So the question is, can he enter a Controlled Bloodrage to gain, say, +4 Dexterity, end his rage on the next turn, ignoring the fatigue, and keep the +4 Dex for 1d4 rounds, and enter a new Controlled Bloodrage for +4 to Strength?

So my GM randomly said he was allowing Merfolk characters. It's not an aquatic campaign, so there's no real reason to do it, since despite having a very nice suite of bonuses, the low movement is a real penalty. I'm the kind of person though, that when presented with a disadvantage, I want to 'solve' it, so I immediately started looking into options (Air Elemental Bloodrager was one I thought of right off the bat).

But that takes til level 8, so I started looking around at other ideas. I thought the idea of a Merfolk Monk was particularly loopy, and I started looking into it. The only sticking point was I don't like unused bonuses, and Monks don't use Charisma.

Then I found the Kata Master, and at first, I was like, sweet...oh wait. I'm going to end up wanting a lot of stats now. So I considered asking my GM if he would allow a Kata Master that runs off of Charisma instead of Wisdom for other Monk abilities, but before I did, I wanted to get some opinions about how balanced using Charisma for AC bonus, Stunning Fist, and the like would be.

It seems like it would be ok, I mean, we are talking about a Monk here, but maybe there's something I'm not considering.

Appreciate any comments.

By taking the Arcane Exploit: School Understanding, the Arcanist gains one ability of a Wizard Arcane School, and uses it like a 1st-level Wizard. If one were to select Necromancy, and take Power Over Undead, you can use Command Undead just as a 1st-level Necromancer can.

Further, you can expend a point from your Arcane pool to consider yourself a Necromancer equal to your Arcanist level for a short time.

My question is in regards to the limits on the power of undead commanded. Command Undead states that "You can control any number of undead, so long as their total Hit Dice do not exceed your cleric level."

So without spending a point from your Arcane Pool, it seems that you can only control 1 HD of undead at a time. By spending a point, your "wizard level" increases to equal your level, but only for a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier.

So what happens when the effect expires? Does your limit on undead you may control revert to 1? This seems to make the ability painfully limited for an arcanist, but I'm willing to accept that Necromancy is just a bad choice for this exploit.

(Power Over Undead, as it's written on pfsrd, never states that a Necromancer uses their Wizard level as their Cleric level for this limit, although I assume that's implied.)

One of the things that I find rather annoying about Pathfinder is that many of it's damage dealing spells pretty much still do the same amount of damage as they did back in 2nd Edition AD&D. In 3rd Edition, this was more or less okay, as saving throws had also changed in ways that allowed you to build a caster whose spells were much more likely to succeed.

The problem I see now, however, is that enemies have a lot more hit points than they used to. Even if the enemy doesn't save against a spell like fireball, the damage tends to be fairly light.

Now, I know there are specialized builds that abuse metamagic reducers, bloodline arcana, and crazy caster level boosting to deal reasonable damage- I just don't think such extremes should be required.

In my friend's Pathfinder game, we have an Ifrit Fire Sorcerer, whose Charisma is 22 (I think) for sorcerer purposes. Our last session was particularly twinge-worthy, watching him try to hurt things with flaming d4's (burning hands).

The GM and I had a talk about it, and he agrees- damage spells are too weak, especially if the party encounters higher CR foes.

The problem, as we both see it, is we don't know how much better spell damage should be, compared to enemy hit points.

Ideally, since spell slots are limited, a spell should have a noticeable impact on an encounter. Damage spells rarely do so, a fact that is pretty much common knowledge, to the point that people are often advised "not to blast".

I don't know how to make damage spells more viable without resorting to heavy optimization. We discussed increasing the damage dice, trying to make metamagic easier, or introducing items (like 4th Edition's implements) that improve the caster's abilities.

We got nowhere. The spells need to be better against monsters, but not so good that enemy casters become an even worse threat than they already are.

If anyone else has thoughts on this dilemma, I'd love to hear them.

Got into a debate over this spell; in order to disguise herself, our Sorcerer cast this spell to make her appear to be a nine year-old girl (which, according to a website we checked, would put her about the same height as an adult dwarf, so approximately Medium-size).

It was argued that the sentence "The target cannot appear so much younger that it changes size." doesn't necessarily refer to the character's Size, but means no change in height is allowed (so about 15-16 years old is the minimum age for the Sorceress).

Size is defined in the rules, so I think the spell should be interpreted that way, as opposed to a "common English" reading of the spell, but I thought I'd see what other people think.

I'm currently running a game where all the PC's are elves. We had a discussion about what "Elven Immunities" actually grants a save against.

As I see it, it applies to any spell of the Enchantment school, as well as any ability that references such a spell, such as the domination of a vampire (as dominate refers to the spell dominate person, which is an Enchantment spell). Further, since Charms and Compulsions are a sub-set of Enchantment, I believe the bonus applies to all Charm and Compulsion effects as well.

I think some of my players are concerned about corner cases- for example "Most emotion spells are enchantments, except for fear spells, which are usually necromancy"- they infer from this that non-fear Emotion spells should be covered by Elven Immunities as well.

I concede that this might be a possibility, but I've found the Emotion descriptor to be haphazardly applied to various spells and effects- sometimes it's present where it should be and sometimes it isn't, and I have no way to be sure if that's an oversight or not (such as a fear effect that doesn't have the emotion descriptor).

Basically, I have two questions here- Am I correct about the scope of the ability, or is it broader/more limited than I think it is?

Second, how do I fairly rule in corner cases (such as a mind-affecting, emotion effect, for example)?

Elven immunities is very good and seems to grant a +2 bonus to most Will saves- I don't want to take anything away from that, but I don't want to be forced into pausing the game to deliberate if it applies to various monster abilities (which are not always clear about how they interact with other rules).

Was over on the GITP forums earlier, and I saw a thread where someone said that a Gated-in demon having an available Wish SLA was unlikely.

But is it, really? I mean, maybe it's just my personal experience, but I can't think of a time when I encountered something that had an ability, like, say, spells, and it didn't have it's full allotment!

I recently encountered a Hoar Spirit, which has Cone of Cold 1/day. While the damage was low due to the Spirit's lame Caster Level, the save DC was annoying, since CoC is a 5th-level spell.

At the table, players even speculated on why monsters like that always have their full charge of abilities. After all, the whole point of most sessions is to drain the players pools of resources- it's almost unfair to play a caster, and have to carefully ration out your top-level spells, then get into an encounter with an enemy caster who spams his top-levels.

I've had GM's claim that the reason for this is that all of the abilities an enemy has is part of their CR- if you fought a Hoar Spirit who couldn't Cone of Cold the party, he would be less of a challenge.

So here are the questions I have about this:

1) If it's reasonable that a monster has it's full retinue of SLA's/spells/etc.. whenever it's encountered, why have abilities that are 1/year at all?

2) Further, if it doesn't have it's full arsenal, how much less of a challenge is it, really? Could we have templates like "Half-Charged"?

3) If a GM wants to say that a Gated-in Efreeti doesn't have a Wish available, is it really unreasonable for a player to expect to occasionally fight Efreeti who are fresh out of Quickened Scorching Rays?

I could go on, but it just seems like a strange situation where a 9th-level Wizard is expected to burn 25% of his resources or so in an at-level encounter, but it's somehow perfectly fine that he encounters 4 10th-level casters with their full arsenal of spells in a given adventure.

If anyone wants to share their thoughts on this, I can't wait to read them.

After weeks of work, I started a Pathfinder campaign on Sunday. The characters are the young scions of Elven noble houses, who were forced to flee from an undead army.

They were teleported away to an uncharted island, where they were marked by an ancient prophecy (setting up later events) and forced to figure out how to survive.

The session was going well, when, during a fight with a pack of wild dogs, the Paladin decided to stand his ground and was felled by a critical hit.

Now, I usually let the dice fall where they may; being an adventuring type is dangerous, and death should always be a possibility, though I much prefer when it happens because of player decisions, and not random chance.

But here's the problem. I sort of painted myself into a corner here- there's no civilization and no NPC's who can raise a dead character. And I can't really justify a new character showing up on a "deserted" island.

So if I let the death stand, I basically have to tell the player he can't participate in the game for a session or two, which I'm not happy about.

Some of the players stated they'd be OK with a "miraculous" recovery, but I don't want to set precedent here- what happens the next time someone dies? Or the time after that? Where can I draw the line?

I was contemplating a house rule like "everybody gets one", ie, you can cheat death one time...but I'd already been very lenient with this same character earlier in the session, where he'd been paralyzed by a stingray while swimming, and by all rights, should have drowned.

I'm curious how other GM's would handle this problem, and I appreciate any feedback.

I'm going to s block all the relevant text that I've found before asking my question.

But wait, there's more!

A multiclassed Bloodrager/Barbarian has two separate abilities, bloodrage and rage. They do not stack, and such a character would have two 'pools' of variant rage.

An Urban Barbarian gains the ability to rage and gain a +4 morale bonus to Dexterity. Is there any reason a bloodrager/(urban) barbarian can't use both bloodrage and controlled rage at the same time?

Over the years, I've found that while it's easy to make very effective characters, those characters tend to be rather bland. My favorite (and to my friends, most memorable) characters, are those that are somewhat flawed, but still manage to work.

Usually these flaws come from suboptimal choices, like the time I made a Halfling Fighter who eventually became the most lethal archer anyone had ever seen, despite my entire gaming group saying that I was going to suck because of my 'nerfed' damage.

Sometimes, however, these experiments don't work so well, like my current problem.

The GM for my group went on a rant once about how Elven barbarians both don't "make sense", and "couldn't work". So when his new campaign started, I showed up with Rand, son of Raff (actually a bloodrager).

Rand has a less than stellar 14 Strength (18 when raging), but a higher Dexterity. I took Weapon Finesse and wield an elven curve-blade. At first, it didn't go too badly- sure I only had 6 rounds of rage, but at level 1, we didn't fight that many encounters. I had decent to hit, AC, initiative, and reflex, and when raging did decent damage.

Then more players joined the game, like a Dwarf Barbarian with 15+ rounds of rage, who does something like double Rand's damage, and has an archetype that lets him use heavy armor.

With the addition of more players, the GM's enemies started to get tougher, and we were expected to slog through more encounters each day. And somehow, Rand has become less relevant as a result.

I really like the character, and I have a backstory the GM claims to enjoy, but I'm starting to feel like a second stringer.

I'm not sure there's anything I can really do that doesn't involve multiclassing- and that would kill my hopes of getting useful bloodrager powers any time soon, but I'm open to suggestions.

I'd really like to salvage my character somehow, rather than ditch him in favor of a more typical melee brute, or some other class.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

This is a base class I've been working on for my campaign, and I think it's finally ready for critique and/or suggestions.

The Grimblade

EDIT: added bonus combat feats and altered Greater Malison progression. Removed reference to Trapfinding on class table.

While looking over the Advanced Class Guide, one of my players and I stumbled across the Woad Painting Kit, an alchemical item that allows you to paint material components directly onto your flesh, as well as to create elaborate designs that allow you to cast a spell without needing it's Somatic components.

My player remarked: "Huh, that's a neat idea. I wonder if you could get something like this in a tattoo- that is, have a tattoo done for a specific spell so you can cast it without needing it's Somatic components."

I liked the idea, but I ran into two problems.

First, how much do I charge? To use the item to let you cast a stilled spell once costs 300 gp. I considered pricing it as a magic item that grants a feat (not unlike a slotless Metamagio Rod), but the effect would be permanent, but also restricted to one specific spell, and I wasn't sure how to best price that.

Also the question of how many such symbol tattoos (I like to think of them as 'spell circuitry') one could have. I don't think an unlimited amount would be broken, but if the item costs too much, the point would be rather moot.

If anyone else thinks this idea is neat, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you'd price such a thing.

Potion Rules:

From these rules, I can't see any reason why a modified spell can't be made into a potion, such as an extended mage armor potion, as long as you can cast extended mage armor.

This brings me to the Brown-Fur Transmuter:

So is there any reason a Brown-Fur transmuter can't make a Potion of Enlarge Person that grants a +4 size bonus to Strength? Or a Potion of Beast Shape?

Blindsense (ex)

Blindsight (ex)

Scent (ex)

Tremorsense (ex)

Reading all of these, side by side, blindsense states that it allows you to pinpoint the location of creatures you cannot see as long as you have line of effect to them without a Perception check, but you still treat them as if they cannot be seen.

Blindsight takes that one step further, where you 'see' them clearly.

Scent allows you to pinpoint the location of creatures when you are within 5' of them, otherwise you have to make a Wisdom check to track them source of the scent.

And finally tremorsense...does what, exactly? It says you automatically pinpoint the location of any creature in contact with the ground, but it lacks the clarifying text of any of the other sensory abilities I've listed. It seems to work more or less like blindsense, except it doesn't work against enemies not in contact with the ground, but I've seen massive table variation on that point, enough that I'm confused myself.

It's really that lack of similar text to blindsense that's confusing me- where blindsense calls out that you still suffer miss chance and are treated as blind if attacked by a foe you can only detect with your blindsense, tremorsense, again, doesn't say that at all.

Something I've noticed is that the majority of buff spells tend to have issues when used in play. It's rare that I see casters given the time to cast many spells before an encounter starts, and the action economy to cast buffs in combat basically means that it's pointless to use more than one.

The durations of the spells are often too short to last more than one encounter, making the difference between 1 round/level and 1 minute/level practically nil.

This is especially bothersome in the case of arcane casters, who rely almost exclusively on defensive buffs to make up for a lack of armor.

In my own games, I'd like to come up with rules to make using buff spells more efficient. Extend Spell only really helps with the longer duration buffs, and Quicken Spell comes into play late.

I understand why self-buffing casters need to be limited, to avoid things like Cleric-zilla builds, but it seems like there should be a happy medium.

One thing I was considering was allowing casters to expend an additional spell slot to further increase durations or reduce the casting time (full-round to standard, standard to move, for example).

The real issue I have with durations expressed in units of time is that I never saw the point for meticulous timekeeping, and saying things like "it takes you a minute to cross the clearing" seems to arbitrary.

Often, a "game day" in most of my sessions consists of a few separate encounters, often spaced tens of minutes to hours apart, which makes all but the longest duration buffs basically last one fight, leaving no real difference between things like Displacement or Alter Self.

I'd appreciate any insight on this topic, especially if anyone else has run into the same problems. I'd like to see casters actually consider giving the martials a Bull's Strength to be worth it, but they often complain that most battles are over before they feel expending the spell slot was necessary.

Something about this Revelation confuses me.

[qoute]Mantle of Moonlight (Su): Your innate understanding of the moon renders you immune to lycanthropy. Additionally, you may disrupt a lycanthrope’s connection to the moon with a successful touch attack. This action automatically forces the lycanthrope into its humanoid form, which it must remain in for a number of rounds equal to your oracle level. Upon reaching 5th level, you can use this ability to force others into a rage, as per the spell. Using this ability is a melee touch attack. You can use this ability once per day at 5th level plus one additional time per day for every 5 levels above 5th.

Ok, so the Revelation has no level requirement, so one could take it at first level. It goes on to say that you can force a lycanthrope into it's human form.

At 5th level, you can force others into a rage.

However, it says you can use this ability once per day at 5th level...?

I think what this is trying to say is that the Rage ability is usable 1/day at level 5, and that you can use the ability to disrupt lycanthropes at-will. That's what makes the most sense, at least.

Any clarification on this would be appreciated.

The FAQ states:

If I have Weapon Finesse, can I apply my Dex bonus to my combat maneuver checks instead of my Strength bonus??

It depends on what combat maneuver you're attempting. Disarm, sunder, and trip are normally the only kinds of combat maneuvers in which you’re actually using a weapon to perform the maneuver, and therefore the weapon’s bonuses apply to the roll. Therefore, if you're attempting a disarm, sunder, or trip maneuver, you can apply your Dex bonus instead of your Str mod on the combat maneuver check (assuming you're using a finessable weapon, of course). For other combat maneuvers, you use the normal rule for determining CMB (Str instead of Dex).
The Agile Maneuvers feat applies to all combat maneuvers, not just disarm, sunder, and trip, so it is still a useful option for a Dex-based creature that uses combat maneuvers.

Is this a special rule for Weapon Finesse, or a general rule (ie, if attempting a combat maneuver with a weapon, you use whatever stat you're using to hit with that weapon to calculate your CMB)?

For example, a Sensei Monk can use Wisdom to hit with his unarmed strikes. If he was attempting to trip a foe, would he calculate his CMB with Wisdom instead of Strength? Why or why not?

Had a strange issue come up in game last night. We were trying to sneak up on an Orc stronghold without being noticed by sentries. My character tried to spot the sentries on the walls. The GM had me roll Perception, I got a 25.

He then stopped, referenced his table, and then told me it was impossible, because we were 750 feet away from the walls at that time, and the Perception rules state that every 10' you are away from the thing you're trying to perceive adds +1 to the Perception DC.

At this point, our archer blinks and says "wait a minute, the maximum range increment of my composite longbow is 1100 feet- I'd take a hefty penalty, but I can shoot at a sentry on the wall...but what you're telling me is that I couldn't anyways because I couldn't SEE anyone at that distance?"

Are we interpreting these rules correctly, because it seems extremely prohibitive. A 5th-level Wizard couldn't actually target anything accurately with Fireball at it's maximum range (600 feet, if memory serves) because there's no way he could make a Perception check at a +60 DC?

So I'm in this weekly Pathfinder game, which generally runs by RAW, but the GM occasionally makes strange rulings about things he believes are "too good".

He's not terribly consistent about this, since often he allows some very broken stuff (like Scarred Witch Doctor) into the game. So it always comes as a surprise when he randomly decides to nerf Armored Kilts, or rules against allowing a 5-foot step between Whirlwind Attacks (I'm aware that could be the intent of WA, but nerfing WA doesn't make much sense when you're at the same table as a Monkey Goblin Cavalier who charges for four times the damage you deal...).

Anyways, I was helping a friend make an Intimidation build for her character, and when we submitted it, the GM said the following about the Enforcer feat:

"[I feel that Enforcer's shaken duration is too good] So I am houseruling that the duration will instead just be increased by 1 round by the feat. Honestly getting the free intimidate check by itself is well worth the feat, the duration bonus is just gravy. The good news is that it doesn't make any sense to me that the shaken effect from the Intimidate skill can't ever stack with other shaken conditions to make someone frightened. I may increase the DC for intimidating a shaken person to make them frightened or something, but for now we'll try it out where it stacks as normal."

At next level, my friend is going to take a level of Thug Rogue to get Frightening. While Enforcer would make getting 4 rounds of shaken trivial, the GM's ruling is going to make things much worse.

DC's to demoralize are pretty low, and it's easy to have a high Intimidate check (by level 3, my friend will have +17). So DC +5 isn't going to be hard, which, with Frightening as-is, and this house-ruled Enforcer will have the effect of making an enemy frightened for 1 round, and then with a move action (Viking Fighter 2), she can demoralize the target again (still only needing DC +5) to make them Panicked.

My actual question is how to handle this, because I'm not sure. Part of me says I should tell the GM now. But at the same time, his random "houserules" on stuff that really doesn't need house-ruling is starting to bug me, and I'm just imagining the amusement I'll get out of watching him back-pedal on his decision.

So if you were in my position, would you take the high road, or just smile and wait?

How would I go about applying the Ability Focus feat to Bardic Performance? Would it be "Ability Focus-Bardic Performance" or do I have to select an individual ability, like "Ability Focus-Suggestion"?

(I put this together for a friend, who wanted to play the biggest, meanest bully around. It's all theorycraft, I've never used this in play, so I have no idea how good it is. If anyone can recommend ways to improve the build, or can comment on how useful it is, I appreciate it!)

The Barbaric Bully

"He's big, he's dumb, he's got the IQ of gum, he's got the brain about the size of a sourdough crumb! But he'll beat on your head, like a big-bass drum! His behavior is truly unruly; He's a Bully!"

—Phineas and Ferb, "He's a Bully"

There's a few ways to go about building a Barbaric Bully. The first choice to be made is that of race.

The Human Bully

The Human Bully is the easiest to build right out of the gate, thanks to the bonus Feat gained at first-level. You aren't going to need a lot of skill points, so lowering Intelligence to 8 won't hurt you much, thanks to the racial skill bonus.

The Half-Orc Bully

You're one Feat down, but Half-Orcs gain a +2 to Intimidate that mostly makes up for it initially. Further investment will get you the best possible Intimidate, but you probably don't need to go quite that far. Darkvision and the other racial traits are useful as well.

The Half-Elf Bully

This seems like an odd choice, but the free Skill Focus (for Intimidate, naturally) is almost as good as Intimidating Prowess by itself. You'll be doing some multiclassing, and the Half-Elf makes that hurt the least. Finally, the bonuses against enchantment is golden, as you're going to have a weak Will save.

Ability Scores

Strength: at least 16 post-racial is ideal. You shouldn't need more than this, but it certainly won't hurt.

Dexterity: you're going to be wearing medium armor, and possibly light, if you give yourself more Rogue levels. So at least 12, more if you can spare the points.

Constitution: you're likely to gain Rage at some point, and that means you're going to want at least 12 here. 14 is probably better.

Intelligence: your best dump stat. It means that you'll be very limited in skills at first, but Rogue levels can more than make up for this.

Wisdom: definitely don't dump this, and if you can spare a few points, the more the better. Again, Will saves are a weak point for you.

Charisma: depending on how soon you get Intimidating Prowess, you don't need a lot of Charisma. A 12-14 is probably more than enough.
Feats:

Weapon Focus: you really only need this as a prerequisite for Dazzling Display. If you plan on using Bludgeoner, take a bludgeoning weapon. The Warhammer will serve you well.

Dazzling Display: as a full-round action, you can use Intimidate to demoralize all enemies within 30'. This is your big dance number, and it's best to be used as soon as you can hit a large group of enemies.

Intimidating Prowess: think of this as part of the engine that powers the Barbaric Bully. Adding your Strength to Intimidate checks allows you to have higher Strength than Charisma. It won't do more than Skill Focus at first, but as you rise in level, it's going to get better and better, especially once Rage is on the table.

Bludgeoner: this lets you deal nonlethal damage with a bludgeoning weapon without penalty. By itself, it's only marginally useful, unless you want to take prisoners. However, it opens up a great combo with...

Enforcer: whenever you deal nonlethal damage with a melee weapon, you can attempt to demoralize the target as a free action. If you succeed, the target is shaken for a number of rounds equal to the damage dealt. If you score a critical, a successful demoralize shakens as above and frightens the target for 1 round. I can't stress how badass this Feat is. Taking it at first-level instead of Dazzling Display is quite possibly a better deal- but being able to demoralize groups of enemies is amazing as well.

Power Attack: this nets you some bonus damage, but the penalty to hit might not be worth it. The real reason to take this is...

Cornugon Smash: if you hit an enemy and gain the bonus damage from Power Attack, you can demoralize the target as a free action.

Skill Focus (Intimidate): should be self-explanatory.

Weapon Specialization: more damage.

Shield Focus: more AC. Dodge would be slightly better if you have the Dexterity for it.

Improved Initiative: especially once your build gets rolling, going first can become important, as you quickly become able to frighten enemies in one round.

Iron Will: your Will save sucks. This isn't going to solve your problems, but it can't hurt.

Traits:

Love Lost. Not only does it give you +2 Intimidate...your backstory writes itself! I'll copy the text here:

Someone you loved was knifed to death in a dark alley one night. You were called to the scene by the guard to identify the body, and as rough as that was for you, you also noticed a ring was missing from the body. Whoever murdered your loved one stole that ring—you’re convinced of it. You’ve done some investigation on your own and recently found the ring for sale at a local merchant. Although, to your great frustration, you can’t afford yet to buy it back, the merchant did tell you from whom he purchased the ring. It seems likely this criminal is the one who killed your loved one, or at the very least knows who did. The only problem is finding him.

Reactionary: +2 initiative is nice.

Strong-Willed: this will help with most of your Will saves.

Levels

For first-level, I suggest Fighter, with the Viking Archetype. The Viking gives up heavy armor and tower shields at first-level, and doesn't get anything at first to replace that, which is bad. But there are good reasons to pursue this Archetype.

Feats: Weapon Focus, Dazzling Display, Intimidating Prowess*

Skills: Intimidate

Second-level we move into Rogue. The Thug Archetype gives up Trapfinding, and you won't miss it. Instead you get what is probably the most important ability the Barbaric Bully can get.

Frightening (Ex): whenever a thug successfully uses Intimidate to demoralize a creature, the duration of the shaken condition is increased by 1 round. In addition, if the target would be shaken for 4 or more rounds, the thug can instead decide to end the shaken effect to make the target frightened for 1 round.

Frightened is a lot like shaken, except the target will flee you as best as they possibly can on their turn if able. This means they won't be attacking anyone, and they will very likely provoke attacks of opportunity as well.

More on this later.

You also get Sneak Attack, for a little bit of bonus damage.

Third-level, I suggest taking your second level of Fighter. This gives you Fearsome.

Fearsome (Ex): at 2nd level a viking can make an Intimidate check to demoralize an opponent as a move action.

At this point you probably have Enforcer, so you can potentially Intimidate the same enemy twice in a turn, much to his dismay.

Fourth-level. There's a few options here. Rogue 2 will net you Evasion, but keep in mind that's only useful if you plan on wearing light armor. As a thug, you get Brutal Beating, which lets you sicken enemies when you use Sneak Attack- which is nice, but Sneak Attack isn't a guarantee. You also get a Rogue Talent, though the best use of this feature is to get another Combat Feat (or Intimidating Prowess if you haven't gotten it yet).

Fighter 3 will get you Shield Defense, which increases your AC by 1 when you use a shield (as a Viking should!). Likely the better course of action.

Fifth-level. Fighter 4 will give your Viking the ability to Rage. Not bad, although a Barbarian level would give you more. On the other hand, if you're worried about your damage, Fighter 4 qualifies you for Weapon Specialization, which is another +2.

Sixth-level and beyond. At this point, it comes down to whichever class offers the more benefits. Past level 4, it's better to be a Barbarian than continue as a Fighter. More Rogue levels will net you skills and useful abilities, but you already have the important stuff.

If you do decide to become a Barbarian, I suggest taking a look at Drunken Brute. Being able to down a potion as a move action makes carrying around useful potions (Bull's Strength, Enlarge Person, Cure X) worthwhile.

How this works-

So the idea with this build is to demoralize your enemies. A lot. Normally, using Intimidate to demoralize is a standard action, but this build is based around getting more and better ways to accomplish this task.
At first, your choices are going to be “move and Intimidate” or “use Dazzling Display”. You might have to charge on occasion to get closer to enemies- that's ok. Not doing damage, even if you're applying a solid penalty to enemies isn't going to make the fight any shorter, after all. So don't be afraid to attack a weakened foe.

This gets easier at higher levels, when you have options to deal damage and scare your enemies spitless.

Demoralize: make an Intimidate check. The number you want is at least equal to the target's level/hit dice+Wisdom modifier+10. You'll note that many enemies have a fairly lower defense against Intimidate, which you can easily hit. This might make it seem like your insane Intimidate bonus is going to waste; I assure you, it's not.

When you succeed on demoralize, your opponent is shaken for one round, plus 1 round for every 5 points you beat their defense by. So, let's say you want to demoralize a level 2 Hobgoblin Warrior.

His defense is likely no more than 12-13. At level 1, you can easily have a +10 (or more!) Intimidate. On a roll of 10, you get a 20, which beats his defense by 5 points. This means he's shaken for 2 rounds.

This becomes important once you hit level 2 and get Frightening, which not only extends your durations, but gives you an important option to upgrade shaken to frightened.

Normally, fear effects stack, that is to say, if an enemy is shaken, if they are shaken a second time, they become frightened. If frightened, they become panicked. Intimidate cannot “improve” someone's state of fear by itself, so unless someone in your party likes fear magic, you're on your own.

Every full 4 rounds of shaken duration you would give someone lets you frighten them instead. So the faster you can do this, the better.

Another thing to note is that each time you demoralize an enemy, their defense against you increases by +5. Since it might take more than one attempt to frighten them, the higher your check, the better.

Example: at 2nd-level, you attempt to demoralize another Hobgoblin Warrior. You again roll a 10, beating his defense by over 5 (but not over 10). This would cause him to be shaken for 3 rounds (thanks to Frightening).

Next turn, you can demoralize him again. He currently has 2 rounds of being shaken. If you want to frighten him, you need to beat his defense by 5 or more. If you do, you make him frightened, and his next turn is going to suck.

By about level 3, you'll have multiple ways to demoralize in the same turn. With Enforcer, it's practically guaranteed that you will be able to frighten a target simply by hitting them (!). Then you can demoralize someone else as a move action (as long as they are within 30').

This might be all you need, making Cornugon Smash overkill. On the other hand, nothing stops you from hitting an enemy, using the free demoralize from Enforcer to frighten them, and then use Cornugon Smash to also render them shaken. This way, even when they come back, they'll still be shaken, and it'll be child's play to frighten them again.

It's worth noting some enemies will be immune to demoralize. Undead, constructs, plants, and vermin will be your big offenders here. Nothing you can do about it but just wade into melee and start smashing things. It sucks, but you'll still have good AC, hit points, and possibly the ability to rage.

Also, size matters. It's harder to Intimidate things bigger than you are. You should be able to handle the penalties, but Enlarge Person is a nice buff for you, so maybe invest in a potion or three!

Magic Items

Cruel Warhammer. A +1 is equal to a +2 weapon, so it's not cheap at first, but it's ability is golden. Basically, if you hit someone who is frightened or shaken with a Cruel weapon, they also become sickened for 1 round, just making their life suck more. This is something you want as soon as possible, so save up! If your GM likes to control how often you get magic items, smile sweetly at him and try to impress on him how much you really really want this!

Oh, as an added bonus, if you knock an enemy out with this weapon, you get 5 temporary hit points!

Circlet of Persuasion. A fairly inexpensive item that gives you +3 to Charisma checks. Like Intimidate.

Anything of Strength. With Intimidating Prowess, more Strength = better Intimidate.

Beyond that, the usual magical armor, shields, cloak of resistance, amulet of natural armor, and ring of protection will serve you well. Just try and get the good stuff as soon as you can. And don't forget potions, especially if you become a Drunken Brute.

I'm about to start running a new Pathfinder campaign, and I've been giving some thought to how hit points are generated.

Pathfinder assumes that most NPC's have very average hit points; there seems to be some variance, but for example, many monsters with a d8 hit die seem to have 4 or 4.5 hit points per die.

Many monsters seem to have much higher hit dice than their CR, as well as healthy sources of additional hit points from Constitution (or Charisma in the case of undead), bonus hit points from type (constructs), or the Toughness feat.

Characters are assumed to have maximum hit points at level 1, and then roll each hit die at subsequent levels. In the past, I've been very generous about re-rolling low hit die results, but I recently watched a GM in action who was very strict about it. He might let you re-roll a "1", but only once.

Our Fighter, who ended up with several low hit die rolls, was very put out by this, and there was grumbling all around the table (save for our Ranger, who never seemed to roll lower than a 7 for the entire campaign).

The GM's theory was that, if you are generous with hit die rolls, then the balance of the game shifts- the players are now more survivable than the core rules presume, and this affects the difficulty of encounters.

On paper, at least, this seems to be a credible theory. Certainly, if you started to roll monster Hit Dice, more durable monsters make encounters harder simply by being able to deliver more damage to the party (which can quickly lead to unwanted TPK's).

My question, then, is what is the best method to determine hit points? Assume average die rolls? Stick with strict hit die rolling?

What happens if you just maximize hit die rolls? How much easier or harder does the game become?

On a similar note, what happens with higher point-buy, when players feel they can place more points in Constitution?

Just wondering if anyone else overthinks these things like I do.

And if they do, thanks in advance for any responses!

Last year I started a campaign using Pathfinder. I'd both played in and run games with the 3.5 rules set extensively, so I thought I could treat Pathfinder as the same game.

I was in for a rude awakening.

Pathfinder, I realized, is a lot less forgiving to a generous GM, who doesn't mind giving characters higher bonuses and extra feats (as I had been, during my 3.5 days).

I was surprised by more powerful feats, and easier access to "use stat X for Y" traits. I conceded defeat when a Monk (a Martial Artist, no less) ran roughshod over what I'd thought was a very dangerous encounter.

I then joined another Pathfinder game a friend was running, to see how he handled the problems I'd encountered. Right off the bat, he insisted on point-buy. I discovered that characters in Pathfinder can be very effective with a 20 point-buy, but are also very specialized.

A character could be incredibly effective in an encounter, only to be marginalized in another, and rendered completely useless in a third.

Part of this, I feel, had to do with the inability to have good tertiary attributes. Our Fighter, for example, had 16 Str, 16 Dex, 12 Con, 13 Int, 10 Wis, and 10 Cha. A worthy stat spread for combat, but not much else.

The game is predicated on a group of specialists, each contributing uniquely, but in actual play, it's hard when all your eggs are in one basket, as it were.

I'm about to start a new game, and I'm wrestling with how to generate characters. Die-rolling is heavily favored by my old gaming groups, and it does have the potential for more well-rounded characters...but by the same token, it can create lackluster characters, as well as imbalance among the party.

Point-buy is an elegant solution, but it leads to very specialized characters with nearly ludicrous weak points. My desire for more diversity originally led me to think "well, I could just use higher point-buy, like 25 or 30", but then I reflected on what my fellow players had done with their 20 points.

Wizards with 7 Strength and 20 Int, Clerics with 20 Wis and 7 Int...I don't mind people having strong suits, but obviously no one was concerned about over-specialization. And if I give people more points, they'd probably just have higher secondary stats. Instead of a 16 Dex on a Wizard, maybe they'd have an 18? Instead of a 12 Con, maybe a 14?

Which brings me to the forums, wondering if other people have tackled the problem of stat diversity, or if I should just give up and love the min/max.

Thanks in advance for replies!

Something that has always bothered me about this ability is that it implies that you have great familiarity with/hatred for/special training regarding a particular species. Many monsters, however, have disguise abilities that make it difficult to determine what they are.

It's true that Favored Enemy grants you the ability to identify a foe, but I don't believe a Knowledge check will (or should) allow you to realize that Mayor McCommoner is actually a Doppleganger or similar creature.

Many GM's will give the Ranger his bonus damage in secret, perhaps assuming that on some, subconscious level the Ranger realizes he's not fighting whatever he thinks he is, I suppose. Which doesn't make too much sense- you'd think you'd realize that you're dealing more damage to someone!

The opposite can come into play as well- a Ranger with Favored Enemy-Kobold who attacks a shapechanged demon, should pretty quickly realize his anti-kobold tactics aren't working, no?

Obviously, a GM should not deprive someone of a class feature or bonus, but at the same time, it's hard to justify the existence of a bonus that's functionality has no bearing on character knowledge.

Ranger 1: "Aha, the mercenary is a Half-Orc, I get bonus damage! Except that I do not? What trickery is this?!"

Ranger 2: "Darn, I only get bonus damage against Goblins. Wait, I seem to be dealing more damage to him? Sweet!"

*(Actually a disguised Hobgoblin)

No real question, other than me wondering how other people feel about this- it bugs me, but maybe everyone else is okay with it.

All apologies if my questions have been addressed previously; searching several pages of the forums revealed many threads about the feat, but nothing that I found helpful.

First, the feat itself:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/metamagic-feats/toppling-spell-metamagic

First point of confusion:

Looking at the Trip maneuver, I notice it states that you cannot trip something more than one size category larger than yourself. RAW would imply that this limitation applies to Toppling Spell (with, say, Magic Missile), but should it?

I've seen several spells that allow you to make combat maneuvers against enemies, but size modifiers aren't always taken into account, leading me to assume that most spell effects are considered to be "medium-sized" unless otherwise stated. Is that a prudent point of view to assume, or should a Halfling Wizard be incapable of using Toppling Spell to affect an ogre?

Alternately, could a Human Wizard who casts Enlarge Person on himself be able to trip Huge enemies with Toppling Spell?

Second point of confusion:

Toppling Spell states that "If the check fails, the target cannot attempt to trip you or the force effect in response."

Again referring to the rules for Trip, it states "If your attack fails by 10 or more, you are knocked prone instead."

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Trip

Trip according to the SRD makes no reference to the idea that an opponent can counter-trip you in the first place (perhaps an oversight from 3.x?). I'm assuming that the point of the text in Toppling Spell is that failing by 10 or more to trip an enemy won't result in a prone spellcaster, but that's not actually what RAW states (and I want to nip any such rules debates in the bud well in advance).

Any help on this topic is appreciated.

I would appreciate any advice that can be offered for this build.

I'm about to join in a new game that, I'm told, is likely going to span levels 1-6, so I needed a build that came online early.

I decided on a Halfling Fighter [Unarmed Fighter Archetype]. I don't have attributes yet, because I'm awaiting the DM's decision on what point-buy we will be using.

My intended feat progression is as follows:

Level 1: Improved Unarmed Strike (bonus from archetype), Crane Style (bonus from archetype- I do not need to meet the requirements), Cautious Fighter.

Level 2: Blundering Defense.

Level 3: Weapon Focus-Temple Sword

Level 4: Dodge

Level 5: Crane Wing

Level 6: ? (currently thinking Deflect Arrows or Uncanny Defense, not sure which is more useful).

The purpose of this build is to fight defensively to generate a luck bonus to AC/CMD for adjacent allies. With all feats and 3 ranks of Acrobatics, I'll get +6 dodge bonus to AC for -2 to hit, granting adjacent allies +3 luck to AC/CMD.

I originally wanted to use Helpful (Halfling) and Bodyguard, but the only way I could do that is to take Combat Expertise at level 3 or 4, and I wouldn't be able to get Bodyguard until the game is nearly over- I'm not sure if that would be worth it.

I'm going with Temple Sword because the Archetype's version of Weapon Training only grants it's bonuses with unarmed strikes and monk weapons- the archetype gives me (as near as I can tell) proficiency with the same exotic weapons the monk has proficiency with.

Traits: allowed, but I'm not yet sure how many we will start with. I was debating on Rice Runner to get Acrobatics as a class skill, to increase my mobility on the battlefield. I've also debated trying to fit Skill Focus in the build somewhere to make this more viable (although I could also take Mobility as easily, not sure which is the better path- I need 3 ranks of Acrobatics either way). Outside of that, I'm not sure what else would be helpful.

I'm not going to be able to use Weapon Finesse early if I want to start granting my allies bonus AC as soon as possible- even though I take a -2 to Str, thanks to the size bonus, I won't be losing out on attack over a race that gains no bonus to Strength. Not great, but there it is. My hope is to end up with 14+ Str and Dex after racials, and hopefully enough Con to grant a few bonus hp.

Even if Acrobatics becomes a focus, I'm thinking to give up the halfling +2 bonus in order to get 30 ft. speed- I think I'll end up needing the extra speed far more.

And that's about it, I figure at level 1, with studded leather, I'll have an AC of 15+, which will rise to 20+ w/ fighting defensively (although my chance to hit is probably only going to be +2, I don't think that's good enough, but it is what it is).

I can quickly upgrade to chain shirt and masterwork temple sword, from there my priorities will be magical armor, and a +2 Str belt. Then ring of protection +1, amulet of natural armor +1- you know, the basics.

And that's it. I have no idea if the build is viable for play or not with such a narrow window. Thank you in advance for comments.

I've recently started game-mastering a Pathfinder game, and in between learning exactly what's changed from 3.5 the hard way ("What do you mean, Manyshot just gives you another attack per round?"), things were going rather well...until...

Some of my players decided that having a really high AC was a great idea. Now, I know what some of you will say, that focusing on defense at the cost of offense isn't something I should be worried about, but my issue stems from the narrative- yes, I could have enemies ignore high AC characters, but there are really times when they shouldn't...plus, let's face it, there's only so many times I can beat the Rogue into paste before it gets old.

Now, I know several tricks to get around AC, but I can't use these all the time, if only because it gets old, and it isn't really much fun. I've had Dire Tigers grapple the Paladin, blasted the Monk with Stone Call and Ice Storm, and hit the Battle Oracle with rays and Shadows.

However, the characters that are starting to annoy me keep getting BETTER at doing so, and I'm starting to run out of tricks.

Last night, I had them "encounter" an enemy much too high level for them (a CR 11 Splinter Drake with the Giant template)- they heard it coming a mile away, and it was initially not interested in them- to the point that even when they attacked it, it just hit them with it's breath weapon and continued on it's merry way.

But of course, rather than avoid it, the Sorcerer thought hitting it with an acid fireball was the way to go. During the fight, several of the "high-AC" characters DID, in fact, get beat up, thanks to the high attack bonus of the drake, which was rather satisfying...but then the Rogue ended up in it's path of destruction and was obliterated, with no real chance of survival.

The character's first instinct was to abandon the party, and flee, but the player didn't feel comfortable with that notion, and decided to stick it out. His reward for being a team player? Dropped to -15 in two hits.

The party won, of course, which really leaves me confused. A few party members have managed to achieve defenses that require either very specialized foes, or enemies 5 CR above the APL to actually target- and even with the supposedly reduced offense, can still beat such enemies.

I've gone over the sheets, and it's not due to any mistakes or bookkeeping errors that I can see. Everything is legitimate, and they're only a little above WBL (mostly due to being able to challenge more powerful enemies before I thought they could).

I want to keep the game fun long enough for us to break out of the rut our games have been in for awhile, that is, namely, the minute you start getting to levels above 7, the odds of the game continuing start to drop quickly, but this problem is only going to exacerbate itself over time. In the next post, I'll go over each character in turn, and highlight the issues I'm having (and vent some frustration). I appreciate any advice in this matter.

Well, save for "these options are weak, LRN2GM" or "this mechanic is perfectly acceptable and is baseline". I'm aware that there are MUCH more problematic things in the game, and that these issues are avoidable- but the game I want to run does demand that not every enemy will have the perfect tactics to deal with the characters, which means I do, more often than not, have to attack a character's strong suit.

If a GM decides to use more than 15 point-buy for his campaign, or races built on more than 11 RP, how do you adjust CR to take that into account?

At what point would you say a character is stronger than normal for his or her level (enough to make equal-CR creatures less challenging)?

Among my gaming group, some of the players accept point-buy (even if they don't like it very much), and some are very vocal about their dislike of it. While it can be fun and exciting to get great stats for your character, it can also be disheartening to roll badly. Worse is trying to adjust your game when one character is simply outperforming another.

Despite this, rolling remains popular. I'm thinking to start my own Pathfinder game soon, but I'm unsure of how to balance characters built on higher point-buy values or using uncommon races.

Or, if I decide to allow die rolling, how to balance the game for a party who, if they were forced to use point-buy to create their characters, would weigh in at 50 points and up (in a friend's Pathfinder game, I calculated my Sorcerer is worth 55 points, and I don't even have the highest stats in the party- this has had the result of the GM using some crazy encounters to field what he feels is an appropriate "challenge").