Doll, Soulbound

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It goes beyond circumstance bonuses: the entire book needs half as many player options, and each of them need to be twice as powerful as the current ones. None of my choices feel exciting.


I've been playing in an unintentionally low-wealth game for the last few months (gm decided most gear was rare and hard to build). Darwinian character selection has proven the most successful characters to be the wizard, monk, and alchemist. The monk is a psychotically effective tank with spell/extract support, and the vivisectionist alchemist build has pulled impressive rogue DPS thanks to monk flanking and stunning fists.

While alchemists do require a fair amount of equipment in general, its all cheap stuff. The most extensive alchemical kit costs less than a single +1 suit of armor, and gets you everything you need to brew for levels and levels.


Thank you for that comprehensive assessment of the situation as it stands, Bobson. The two options for damage progression mean things get a bit fuzzy in the middle there, and although right now we're sitting pretty comfy at 4d6 as an answer, I'm trying to establish precedent for when the large monk is at a base 2d8, etc.

I think we'll go with the INA chart, as you suggest.

Since we're on the topic, does anyone know of any other gimmicky ways to increase *effective* natural weapon size? Any other spells, equipment, etc? This game is just about the roughest we've played and every edge is important - not to mention funny as hell.


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

So, my group's running a game with a slightly wider range of races than normal. Of primary concern for this game is the Large monk in the party.

Here's the thing: at level 4, this monk does 2d6 with unarmed strikes. Party cleric is all too happy to lay on an Enlarge Person, bringing the monk to 3d6 per blow. What happens when the alchemist gives the monk an infused extract of Animal Aspect (gorilla)... are we seriously looking at 4d6 base unarmed damage for this character?

I'm sure there's another one or two ways to increase effective character size for weapon damage out there, too. How have other people addressed this sort of thing stacking? It's not a conventional +x bonus with a stacking or non-stacking type, and there's no official Pathfinder chart to tell where damage goes once you're 2 or more steps over medium.

Side note: Large race aside, is this merely potent, or is it overpowered? As we're ruling now, with just these buffs, at 4th level the monk flurries at +6/+6 for 4d6+6 damage. Ki flurry just blenders foes into the dirt.


Ditto what Anetra said. It's unclear what exactly is gained by adding the bardic performance nomenclature to the Spellsong ability.

If you cut that part from the spell, what you are left with is: "If you do not move this turn, increase your caster level by ~2 (or sometimes more)." That's not really very impressive for a 9th level ability (which, per sorcerer precedent, should increase at 13th and 17th, rather than 17th and 20th).

Shattersong is mostly just very narrow; there are a few sonic spells that might get a bit of a damage bump, but at 15th level a sorcerer has a hundred better things to do than just deal damage. It's hardly worth worrying about. Frankly, I'd say the real issue is that it's not very musical or bardlike, doing extra sonic damage to things...


It sounds like fun, but you'll have your work cut out for you. Depending on the group, much of d&d's appeal is the flashy items, magic powers, and exotic enemies. Removing so much of that will be pretty trying for players unless you can make the grittier, less flashy encounters and environment compelling.

Amusingly enough, the notion of heroic rarity is actually the basic assumption of the game. If you look at npc level distributions for settlements, the high-level characters represent less than a single percentage of the populace. If it doesn't seem like that to the PCs, it's because they're consistently tangling with the mightiest foes they can find (at least, that's how a good GM would run things).

I try to run my campaigns in this fashion. You start at low levels, magic is genuinely rare, and your foes are mundane - wolves at night, goblins in the henhouse, a gang of street thugs. As they get up towards middle levels, say 6+, you start introducing/allowing the more exotic magic, and the enemies diversify to suit - a wrathful treant, a succubus mob boss, dragons. You get the gist. The thing to address is that low-magic human adventuring capacity pretty much tops out around level 5. One guy might be able to take on a grizzly bear, or 4-5 unskilled swordsmen, but that's the peak of conventional ability - going beyond requires both magical heroes, and magical foes.

Thus, the biggest trouble I expect you'll encounter is finding decent, logical fights for the party. A level 1 group expects to fight wolves and mooks, but what happens when they're reaching level 7-8 and you run out of 'normal' monsters? Having the party repeatedly encounter bunches high-level npcs actually works against the theme you're going for, because each bout diminishes the pc's sense of heroic isolation.


Those suppressing fire feats are kind of elegant, but they want for some clarification. For instance: When do enemies take damage from your fire? Is it at the end of their turn? At the beginning of your turn? More importantly, what happens if (when) someone charges you and interrupts your full-round action with melee beats? Time delayed combat moves are pretty hard to manage that way.

Generally, the notion of going "Okay everyone in that cone: I'm going to be shooting at and around you, so find cover or charge me now" seems a bit silly. Of course, the notion of creating 'cover fire' with something as slow-firing as a bow or crossbow is kind of silly too; the strategy doesn't really make sense on a single-combatant scale unless you're packing firearms.


Kelso wrote:

Maeloke:

I see what you're saying, but in the system I describe, their is no competing item with the bonus gained from spending these points. I am eliminating all items that do what is offered in the system. A player might choose to spend money on a potion, scroll or wand of Cat's Grace, but there is no item that gives an "all-the-time" bonus to Dexterity.

I could easily remedy the issue of cheaper bonuses by making other bonuses of the same type more expensive. If a player spends points on a bonus to Strength, bonuses to Dex and Con would cost 50% more. I wonder though if that's really necessary. I'm already limited the PC to 75% of their wealth. Power gamers usually spend 100% on these sort of bonuses.

Hmm... perhaps I'm misunderstanding. Your entry for stat bonuses:

Kelso wrote:

Ability Scores: [+1/1] [+2/4] [+3/9] [+4/16] [+5/25] [+6/36]

The costs and bonuses must be paid for and applied to each ability score separately (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom & Charisma.) Unlike the standard magic items, this system allows PCs to purchase odd bonuses.

I read that to mean you can pile on permanent-type stat bonuses as you like. It seems like those are just as essential to character power levels as magical weapons, so I'm not sure why you're talking about reverting to single-use items.

Anyhow, PF requires certain sacrifices to keep up with stat equipment - like how there's no way to have +4 str/+2 dex, even if that's optimal in a character's price range. That was how it worked in 3.5, but I rather like that Pathfinder requires some thought and tradeoffs.

On the other hand, of course, PF single-stat items are substantially cheaper. I suppose that your system uses the 3.5 price points strikes a balance between the two, but it does take you a bit away from the pathfinder baseline most of us are working from.


It's a nothing ability. It provides a touch of utility for inventive characters in the right scenario, but is generally pretty frivolous. Good for flavor though.


I'm with kelso. Did a hundred different rolling methods, including optional rerolls, multiple sets, the works... and finally decided the best way to keep things where I wanted was to just go with the point buy.

As me and my players are powergamers, I roll with 25 points. Characters are tough, but hardly invincible.

Back in the day, I ran a couple of fun low-magic campaigns using d10+8, an idea ripped from the Conan RPG. Everyone was good at everything, which compensated a bit for the terrible equipment :D


I've run without traditional alignments in a number of games over the years, and pathfinder has definitely been forgiving to that choice.

As others have observed, the paladin gets a bit nerfed, and a couple of class abilities no longer make sense (ki strike lawful). For the paladin in my current game, we agreed on the universally smite-viable targets:

-Supernaturally evil creatures, such as demons, devils, and those with the fiendish template. Anything with the evil subtype.

And circumstantially, these other groups might apply:

-Persons and creatures that pose a deadly and immediate-to-soon threat to innocents. This covers the orcs raiding your town, or the wererats dragging folks into the sewers.
-Persons and creatures that are a perpetual threat to innocents. This covers the red dragon that routinely empties the nearby village of it's maidens, and the lich emperor bent on conquest.

Needless to say, the pally doesn't get to use her smite very often. That's okay, because she's still the most dangerous member of the party, and as long as the party behaves itself, the big bads tend to be valid targets.


Different weapons for different folks. Rogues like the paired short swords, while the fighter rocks a greatsword.

The point you should probably just address is: Why would a character's intended *use* of an item affect it's value from an abstracted wealth standpoint? In standard d&d using regular gold pieces, a character might choose between a +4 keen scythe and a matched +2 flaming bow and +3 flaming longsword. Why make stipulations about which one is in which hand, how often it's used, etc? Just say 'a weapon costs x' and leave it at that.

One issue you are going to have to deal with is the elimination of item slots. Stacking +6 str, dex, and con is far cheaper with your system than in normal pathfinder, where you have to pay for a single belt of physical awesomeness. Or whatever that item's called.

In general, this'll be an issue - items that normally force a player choice will no longer do so, and traditionally 'slotless' items lose their extra value.


I share your misgivings, hogarth, but I suspect it'd be fairly balanced to have single-class characters use fast xp, and 2-class gestalts using slow. The HD and spellcasting differential would become pretty telling at that point.


Heh, happy birthday. Have a good one :D


tejón wrote:
@Maeloke - to be honest, I want to shy away from the "necromancy = undead" trope. I much prefer it as the general manipulation of life essences. (I still think it's a travesty that the cure spells were moved to Conjuration!) But I suppose nothing's off the table just yet...

Fair enough, necromancy = undead is more than a bit overdone.

But what about that deathless idea? You can't tell me that's not pretty cool. While it's undead-type behavior, its not really an undead ability. It feels necromantic, and it gets you away from the necromancy = afflictions scheme. Frankly, the necromancer already leans pretty heavily on the status ailment thing, and it'd be nice to get some diversity in there.

I guess if the idea doesn't seem as awesome to you as it does to me, that's fine. I'll be more than happy to use it in one of my own creations :D


In Pathfinder, each dose of poison you take raises the fortitude DC by 2. It also extends the duration (since poison in PF generally runs over a course of 4+ turns, rather than twice like in 3.5).

I recommend looking at the SRD.


tejón wrote:
What you posted sounds dreadfully overpowered. :) Something defensive could probably work, though... thing is, it runs into the same issue of providing no out-of-combat utility. Abjuration lets you run through a burning building, evocation lets you hold back a flood or (with the proposed change) hopscotch a chasm, transmutation can get nearly anywhere... necromancy just hurts people. It's functional, but not really fun. Hell, even in combat it's not half as fun as the others. Tactical utility, that's what I need to be considering. Hmm.

Yep, I know it's a bit overpowered - it's a proof-of-concept, rather than a balanced ability. I listed off the full-spectrum of immunities because, well, it's supposed to be useful. At lower levels, odds are you won't really care about them except poison and maybe stunning. At higher levels, you're getting a very brief death ward effect, and that's only ever really useful against undead and, well, other necromancers.

Anyhow, I'd generally say the acquisition of undead traits is pretty fair, if you think of it paralleling abjuration's ability to occasionally nullify an attack type used by foes. It still lacks out-of-combat utility, of course.

I was and am trying to think of a way to use undead's lack of breath, sleep, and food, but unfortunately that stuff's relevant over minutes or hours, rather than rounds.

Ooh, okay, this is probably a bit wacky, but I think it'd be a lot of fun:

Deathless (Su): As a swift action, the iron mage can separate his soul from his body for a number of rounds equal to 3 + his intelligence modifier. While the effect lasts, the iron mage cannot die from hit point damage or death effects. If either effect would kill him, his body becomes a corpse until the end of the effect, at which point he returns to life with 0 hp. More than 75% of his body needs to be intact for this ability to work.

Combat uses are obvious. Noncombat uses: go down that cliff the *hard* way! Survive your own execution! Terrify children at birthday parties!


Hm... welp, you're right about the force field having unpleasant side effects. In the interests of awesomeness, I'd be for amending the ability to read: You create a luminous block of force of dimensions 5' by 5' by 4". It can be placed in any position within 30 feet with any orientation you please. It otherwise behaves as a wall of force and lasts for a number of rounds equal to your intelligence modifier.

My point about necromancy isn't that fatigue is underpowered - it isn't. What's underpowered is allowing a save against a low-power ability like fatigue. Especially right now, when you're charging a whole fight's worth of witching for that -1 to attack and AC, for enemies to have a good chance to ignore it is decidedly unappealing.

I think we feel the same about necromancy - as things stand, the ability just isn't as interesting or versatile as the other disciplines in the cycle. The nonlethal damage makes it somewhat attractive from a straight combat perspective, but it's still very dull, and I'm trying to come up with something cooler with some non-combat utility.

Although the fatigue bit is appropriate and aggressive, how would you feel about a more defensive ability? Something like:

Mantle of the Grave (Su): As a swift action, the iron mage can cloak himself in necromantic power. He gains immunity to death effects, disease, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and stunning for a number of rounds equal to his intelligence modifier. At 11th level, this ability also grants immunity to ability damage, ability drain, and energy drain. At 20th level, this ability grants immunity to any effect that would require a fortitude save, unless it would also effect objects, and he counts as both living and undead (whichever is most favorable) when exposed to magical effects that target one differently (such as inflict spells). Using this ability costs 3 rounds of witching.

Scroll of levitate is a far cry from proper flight, Tejon :). I don't think dropping the speed is really the solution you're looking for; the point is that a 60' chasm is supposed to be an obstacle until level 5, and a fly speed is going to eliminate that. Anyhow, a very brief fly speed of 10 or 15 isn't splashy or fun at all.

I still think a bonus/access to more mundane travel speeds (base, climb, swim) is perfectly acceptable until level 11. A swift climb speed of 30 would be phenomenally handy in all sorts of fights.


Hrmmm... I like the new versions for power level distribution, but I mourn the loss of the clean, short, original versions. I have this feeling you've gotten dragged into piling on the power and complexity for all the schools because you're married to evocation's darn wall of force. We all know it's circumstantially good, but the resulting amendments to the whole cycle are kind of getting out of hand.

5 rounds of witching for the level 7 abilities is... no good. I know you're looking at the witching pool as this huge thing that the IM can just burn away, but there isn't actually that much, and the core classes who gain this sort of pool - barbarian and bard - don't have *any* abilities that cost them rounds of rage or performance. By charging witching, all you do is open the door for characters going nova and burning a whole day's worth of power in the space of two rounds - and they won't be impressive rounds, because the powers *aren't* really potent, just expensive.

Feats that burn rounds of witching would be a different matter.

I dunno. I think it just damages the playability of the class to force them to burn the candle at both ends in order to use low-to-moderately powerful abilities that should simply be character-defining. Imagine making a dragon bloodline sorcerer burn spell levels in order to activate his claws, for instance.

Abjuration: Who's to stop you from saying *this* wall of force can be horizontal? What harm does it cause (that you're not already courting with your other abilities, at least)? That stipulation has always been obnoxious, especially for those of us who spend our time on planes with no official 'up'. And chasm hopscotch would be sooo cool!

Necromancy: It doesn't feel like its worth 3 rounds of witching to fatigue an enemy if they get a save. On the other hand, level 20 necromancy is crippling like no other. Exhaustion with no save is brutal and a worthy capstone.

Transmutation: New expedience is, um... suddenly very good. It puts you in a hard position, because while you have to have the fly speed to be consistent with your theme, Paizo designs adventures with the expectation that characters don't fly before 5th level. Perhaps you could open up climb and swim at level 2, and then allow burrow and fly at level 11?

All: I like that you've finally found a place to put in capstone abilities :)


Its shaping up very nicely!

I should point out that your extra text about natural attacks switching from primary to secondary when used in combination with weapons may be unnecessary - it seems it's embedded in the universal monster rules.

I would probably remove the Dragon Smell feat. Depending on the rules rigor of the game, scent is actually a very potent special ability; automatically being aware of hidden enemies within 30 feet means a character with scent is almost impossible to ambush, an ability many would kill to achieve.

Blindsense is even more cheap. Leave that kind of thing for in-class capstones, rather than feats on the side. If they can already pick up darkvision and blind-fight, that seems like more than enough to me.

Like Nether Saxon, I'm a bit leery of the breath weapon, now I actually look at it in context. I feel like we might be giving paladins a bit too much ammunition, between the eminently favorable base racial abilities, plus the handy breath weapon feats... str & cha is exactly what paladins want, and that breath weapon shores up the paladin's "weakness" (read: balanced match) against hordes of lesser enemies.

The fix for this might be as simple as raising the level for extra breaths to 7 or 9. At that point, the party wizard is graduating from fireballs to the real battlefield-warping spells, and it's less toe-stompy for the tanks to be spitting fire at swarm-type enemies.


On one hand, I'm inclined to argue that increased speed is one of the few aspects of Pathfinder that's difficult to abuse - a character pulling spring attack shenanigans with a move of 180 or whatever is only marginally more of a hassle than an archer or a wizard tossing middle-range spells.

On the other hand, I'm starting to think pushing up the 2nd level effects in power and cost might be the wrong direction to go. I like them as supplemental tactical options for each school, but when we're talking about massive speed bonuses and swift walls of force 10 squares long, they're becoming defining class features.

I guess mostly my issue is with the cost; 3 rounds of witching is a big chunk of daily power (3/~8) for your 2nd level iron mage, and rather than make the power seem *worth* that kind of expenditure, it might be better to tone it back down to 1-2 rounds of witching and adjust power levels down to suit. Remember, if they're cheap, a character can theoretically do them over and over and over - get your force wall 1-3 squares at a time, rather than the whole block of 10 at once. Also, if they're cheap and less battlefield-warping, characters will be inclined to use them as a matter of course, rather than waiting for the one fight when they're convinced they're essential for victory. A power characters feel like they have to hold back is a power that doesn't get used enough to be exciting.

I have visions of leapfrogging across a chasm with little force wall platforms, but that kind of thing doesn't seem reasonable when I need to be holding it in reserve.


Up from 2 rounds to 3, huh? Hmm... that's getting a bit pricey. It's a funny thing, because it makes different amounts of sense for the different schools. Evocation's wall defines the battlefield and abjuration trumps an energy-focused enemy, so they're both very effective as 'fire this once on round 1, then win the fight before the duration ends' abilities. On the other hand, necromancy's targeting means you're more likely to want multiple uses per fight, and transmutation's +speed utility is pretty darn marginal when compared to the others.

I think I preferred abjuration when it was just an emanation centered on you. I'd rather be consistently safe myself than have to track 'shielded' terrain when the fire elementals come calling. Covering buddies within 30 ft. is nice, but it's not worth giving up the ability to charge and keep your protection - especially when you're paying so many rounds of witching for it.

If you're keeping the 3 rounds of witching expense, I'd vote to give transmutation *at least* +5 ft./lvl to all movement types. That's splashy enough to be tempting in the right circumstances - like when you wanna show up the darn monk what keeps outrunning your horse. At level 20, you'll have guys breaking 100 mph for the 4-5 rounds the ability lasts. That's darn cool!


Generally, I like your structure here. The race itself isn't overpowered, and your feat options are reasonable, if actually a bit *underpowered* in places. I would suggest consulting the core sorcerer entry, specifically the draconic bloodline, for ideas as to where to make different feats and abilities available.

Specific observations:
While it's evident Blood of the Great Wyrm is a gateway feat, it's a pretty pointless one by PF standards. I would replace the +2 to one skill with resistance 5 to the dragon's energy type. The resistance feats would add to this resistance - perhaps to 15, and then to 30.

Template your breath weapons pathfinder-style, rather than using 4.0's bland "X by X squares" system. Sorcerers get either 30' cones or 60' lines. To not tread on their toes, I would suggest going to a 15-20' cone / 30-40' line. Breath weapon damage should be d6/level; adding Con is an artifact of 4.0 that we don't need. If you want to make Con relevant, make it a prerequisite for Improved Breath Weapon (I'd say 15). Greater Breath Weapon is misnamed, as it only gives more daily uses, rather than improving the weapon itself - call it Extra Breath Weapon, in line with the PF feat naming schemes. It's utility is also a bit too variable (its way too good with con 16+), so I would recommend having it grant a flat +2 uses/day.

I wouldn't make improved/extra BW prerequisites for each other; they focus on different aspects of the ability, and a character should be able to select which focus they prefer.

I like the Dragon Wings feat, but you need to specify maneuverability in the entry. Dragon Flight is *almost* too good, but the feat tax is high, and as long as the maneuverability is average or below, it's probably okay.

The natural attack feats seem alright, but you should specify whether the attacks are primary or secondary. Specifically, claws should be primary (since they replace weapons), and the bite a secondary attack (since it's in addition to weapons). I might ease off the full d4-d6-d8 and d6-d8-d10 damage scaling; the Improved Natural Attack feat from the bestiary fills the role and makes things much less cluttered.

For that matter, the bulk of your feats overlap with bestiary ones. Ability Focus = your Improved Special Ability, Improved Natural Armor = Dragon Hide, etc. I suggest reading through them.

Multiattack is irrelevant as a feat. All creatures can attack once with each natural attack they possess as a full attack action. The bestiary Multiattack reduces secondary attack penalties from -5 to -2, which would be applicable to a dragonborne's bite attack.

Lastly: Put some minimum level restrictions on those feats so they don't overshadow class abilities. Wings should be 5th, and full Flight ought to be 9th or later. I'd put the breath weapon at 3rd or 5th- it's earlier than the sorcerer's one, but it's got a reduced range to balance that a bit.


Vanday wrote:

Hello!

I really like the look of this class, I think that the flavour is awesome. However, I have a question for you: How would you handle an Iron Mage who wants to advance his spellcasting at the expense of his martial ability? The other way arouns is easy to implement - he simply takes fighter levels and gets the drawbacks as well as the benefits. Multiclassing with wizard would not be so easy, as the spell progressions do not stack. Do you have any idea how to address this discrepancy?

As I'm not sure whether Tejon is watching this end of the forums right now, I'll try and field this.

Advancing spellcasting with the hybrid classes has never been especially effective. Bard, paladin, and ranger all suffer from the same problem, stuck with spell progressions designed to remain well behind the full casting classes.

Asking how the Iron Mage becomes more gishy in the spellcasting end of things is much like asking how a paladin becomes more cleric-y. The base classes simply aren't designed to play well together that way, and the IM is based pretty clearly on their precedent.

That said, one might fairly easily design a class that gains full spellcaster advancement on alternating levels. Tejon's class here is a bit far developed for that treatment, but...

Dang, new project time.


Vorpal weapons are the least of a character's worries at high levels. By the time a fighter with vorpal weapons can autokill a single enemy 30% of the time with a full round action, the party wizard's autokills 35-60% of the time with a standard action. Hell, at that point the wizard can *quicken* save-or-lose spells.

4-5x crit range is a dangerous place to go. Just think of the fighter with his dual +4 thundering nu-vorpal short swords: d6+28/17-20/x5 plus 4d8 on a critical hit. He's got a 20% chance per swing to crit with those suckers, to deal 'round about 175 damage on a hit. And with TWF he's got what, 7 attacks to do that with? Total damage for a round starts to average more than 350. You've got a better than 35% chance to crit twice, and that's more or less instant death to any CR below 21. All told, you're in effective autokill territory with a full attack more than 50% of the time, regardless of saves and appropriate anatomy (head to sever). Fighter toe-to-toe damage output is already off the charts, and changing the vorpal enhancement just pushes them over the top; increasing threat range by 2 makes vorpal a must-have enhancement for anyone who can afford it.


VoodooMike, consider me an ally in your battle against the broken races that persistently appear on this board. The only real flaw with your system is that by making race creation tools transparent, you enable a certain amount of validated munchkinery for people designing their own races.

But hell, they were going to be doing it anyway, so who cares?


Senevri wrote:

Uh, you're presuming damage follows a linear scale instead of, say, logarithmic.

Consider a shortspear: It deals 1d6 damage, weighing 3lbs. Longspear weighs 9lbs (thus having linearily triple the energy when thrust at speed X), and dealing 1d8 damage, not 3d6... Also, tank armor (presuming 12in thickness) would have 400ish HP and probably 15ish hardness. Good to keep in mind.

To be fair, nobody ever said every weapon is thrown or thrust or swung at the same speed. Lighter ones result in faster swings, while heavier ones get the same impact energy from a lower velocity. Weapons are just objects designed to optimize the hurt a wielder can transmit with the force of their muscles. Really, the baffling thing is figuring out why the big weapons do so much more damage.

I know there's a degree of historical precedent for it, but I've never been convinced it wasn't simply a product of medieval penis compensation.

As for your formula for tank armor - object hardness and hp is a very abstract system created by D&D people to quantify interaction rules for certain, regularly occurring substances. One can hardly expect it to remain accurate when applied to real life. Moreover, supposing 12 inches of solid steel plate is *ridiculous* for most tanks, ancient or modern. Composites and spacers and all the other impact-resistant nonsense means that a calculation using a single material is largely meaningless.

And... weapons still manage to penetrate them, so clearly we have the appropriate tools. With game rules, 400 hp armor necessitates the existence of 450 damage rockets - or in this case, slug throwers. Personally, I'd sooner avoid that realm.

Majuba wrote:
I prefer "Which is heavier, a pound of gold or a pound of feathers?" Anyone know?

Definitely the pound of feathers.

No wait! The gold. Gold is heavy. Silly me.


L1 human fighter (str 16 racial-> 18, dex 14, con 14, TWF, dodge, power attack, scale mail):

AC = 18 (2 dex, 5 armor, 1 dodge)
CMB = +5 (4 str, 1 BAB)
CMD = 18 (4 str, 2 dex, 1 BAB, 1 dodge)
HP = 13 (10 class, 2 con, 1 favored class)
Attack = long sword +2 (d8+6/19-20) and short sword +2 (d6+4/19-20)
Avg dmg (vs AC 11) = 12.54 per round

L1 bear fighter (str 16 racial-> 20, dex 14 racial->12, con 14 racial ->16, power attack, scale mail):

AC = 18 (1 dex, 5 armor, 2 natural)
CMB = +7 (5 str, 1 BAB, 1 racial)
CMD = 18 (5 str, 1 dex, 1 BAB, 1 racial)
HP = 14 (10 class, 3 con, 1 favored class)
Attack = 2 claws + 3 (d4+7) and bite +3 (d6+7)
Avg dmg (vs AC 11) = 20.13 per round

Even without the bite attack in there, the bear is at least as good as the human in every respect, and better at offense. He does more damage with only his claws, so when you add the bite, he outdamages the human by a mile. And hey, he can't be disarmed and doesn't have to pay for his weapons.

This completely disregards scent, incidentally.


LilithsThrall wrote:
Maeloke wrote:
I'd just like to say it warms my heart to see a bunch of math geeks getting together to figure out how to blow things up with D&D rules.
Math is a bit player in a question like this - mainly because there are so many data points (from shape, composition, and angle of the target to range, barrel length, and skill of the shooter) that this kind of problem doesn't break down into math. If you want to know how much force such a bullet would hit with in a vacuum given a certain propellant, that's fairly easy. If you want to know how much damage it does, that's a completely different animal.

Oh, I know the results are hardly going to be completely scientific. I'm just delighted by the community applying various bits and pieces of physics and weaponry knowledge in a collective attempt to answer the question "What would that hit look like in-game?"

So wonderfully geeky.


I'll clarify:

Current weight = original "build" weight * (current height / original height) ^ 3

Translates, with your numbers, to:

Current weight = 190 lbs * (current height/6')^3

Order of operations means you do the parenthetical work first, then cube that result, then multiply it by 190 lbs. For instance, try when she's 12 feet tall:

190 lbs * (12'/6')^3 = 190 * (2)^3 = 190 * 8 = 1520 lbs

and when she's 21 feet tall:

190 lbs * (21/6)^3 = 190 * (3.5)^3 = 190 * 42.875 = 8146 lbs

The +50% weight added in the giant description accounts for the issue Kaisoku brought up - to support that kind of weight, a giant's bone and muscle structure would have to be significantly more dense than "normal" for a human. We can add that to the formula as a linear modifier, to get a result like:

Current weight = (190 lbs * (current height/6')^3) * (.8 + .2 (current height/6'))

Which will result in a final 21' weight of 12219 lbs.

For my part, I gotta say 190 lbs sounds pretty beefy for a teenage girl, even one thats 6-foot tall. Formula can be adjusted for any weight, so adjust as you see fit.


I'm with Hunterofthedusk. This race is broken good for melee combat.

If you really want to pile all those starting abilities on, they need some crippling handicap to go with - I'd recommend a -4 penalty on attacks with manufactured weapons, owing to the clumsiness of bear hands (heh).

They'll still come out as very powerful rogues (and, oddly, monks) but that's just going to happen with those ability scores and the natural attacks.

Otherwise, you should note that the only theoretically balanced race to get a +4 strength are orcs, who get it at the expense of -2 to *all* of their mental stats, and they get no constitution bonus from the deal.

As for scent... it really is just too crazy useful. Maybe you'll be fine using it in your own games, but it should definitely be off-limits as a base racial ability in standard games.


What you need to factor in is that for every double in height, a humanoid (or really any creature) increases its mass by a factor of 8. At ~24' tall, a giant will have a mass 64 times that of a 6' tall human of equivalent build.

All you need to do is plug that into your formula for height increase. I don't know that it's worth all the effort you're putting in - you'll have to start addressing where the hell this character is finding all that extra mass, for instance - but you can pretty much do it like this:

Current weight = original "build" weight * (current height / original height) ^ 3


I'd just like to say it warms my heart to see a bunch of math geeks getting together to figure out how to blow things up with D&D rules.


Density just tells us how little or big the bullet is. This in turn will tell us how spread out the point of impact is, and therefore how much area the force is distributed over.

Iridium is really dense, consequently smaller bullets (for 1kg, hence the choice of metal), consequently smaller area of impact. It's pretty academic to think of the strict striking area of damage between different types of slugs - they're all pretty small.

A better experiment is to consider this in terms of real-world firepower. Gun experts will tell you a .22 is dangerous but lacks stopping power, a .357 is potent, and a .50 really knocks people around. The actual projectile from a .50 cal is somewhere around 25 grams of metal, so... 1/40th of a kg or so.

The 'average' fired 120mm projectile weighs 6-10 kg, and has a muzzle velocity of 1500+ m/s. So actually, the item we're discussing here is substantially less powerful than a solid shell from an M1A1 - 1/20th the power of such a shot at the upper end, but still 40x the energy of a heavier pistol.

Obviously it's still more than enough to blow away your average PC, or put holes in buildings, but I'd say it's hardly the "obliterate a city block" kind of blow suggested by some.


Mirror, Mirror wrote:

Is there a difference between kenetic energy and joules?

Wikipedia

Kinetic energy is measured in joules, and the formula for kinetic energy is indeed 1/2 * mass * velocity squared.

The entry for kinetic energy on Wikipedia should clarify the derivation that's got you confused.


Hah, man, I hate to dog you again Speaker, but I'm with G85: I can't stand roll-under systems. Barring wacky indie games whose whole point is self-conflict, making a check whose against one's own statistics to accomplish external actions is insufferably silly. I've played a number of systems using it (gurps, tri-stat, etc), and it has never played naturally.

--Ok, that's not true; a friend once ran a pokemon tri-stat game for laughs, and every check was to see whether or not you believed in yourself enough to succeed. It made all kinds of sense there.

At any rate, if I come to the rules section of a book and find out that's the primary mechanic, I usually just put the thing down, because clearly the designers and I are not going to get along. It just isn't worth the effort of retooling those kinds of systems.

... and I am totally off topic. Whoops.


Sounds like you're getting to the right power level for most of their abilities, but I'm with those voting to spread out the stat bonuses. Between the useful weapon proficiencies, large build and the bonuses to CMB/CMD you're talking about, these guys are already the best brute melee race available. Throwing both str and con bonuses on top of that edges into wish-fulfillment munchkinry.

Tank classes already neglect dexterity a lot of the time, so while you're spicing things up for some builds, you're just handing things to others on a platter. I understand your point about casters having especially well-fit races, but you're building this race a bit too close to optimum for melee. Orcs are presently the best option for chopping people up, and they net a *penalty* to ability scores.

VoodooMike's suggestion seems solid: +2 str, +2 wis, and -2 int is a perfectly acceptable, powerful representation of the race, while not pushing them too far into the realm of optimization.


First, I recommend you take a gander at Pathfinder monk multiclassing restrictions - you'll find there aren't any. In fact, at level 20 you may as well go chaotic, because you retain all monk abilities and chaotic characters have more fun ;).

As for your class: I can certainly see the idea you're shooting for here. Were it my project, I would generally try to fudge together the dragon disciple class and the half-fiend template.

What you should keep in mind that while dragon disciples score pretty crazy bonuses to ability scores, they are never in *primary* ability scores for the classes that transition well to the PrC. Giving sorcerers bonuses to str and int is cool, but their primary stat is charisma, with secondary emphasis to dex and con (for optimal builds, at any rate). Even gishy multiclass fighters sacrifice a whole lot of melee progression in order to gain those strength bonuses. Your class here is very definitely *not* putting this sort of restrictions on admission, so you should take care to not make it too attractive to melee types.

Anyhow, my more specific recommendations are:

-reduce HD to d10. This copies fiends just as the dragon disciple copies dragons.

-Straight rip off the spell-like abilities for half-fiends, or at least crib heavily from them. If you make the class entry level 8, you can cap out with a nice level 9 spell devastator attack at the appropriate level.

-Have a more gradual increase in fiendish resistances, perhaps starting at 10 and growing to 30, rather than getting them all at full strength at level 1.

-Generate more specific rules for the fiendish companion. I'd probably take notes from the shadowdancer's shadow companion for this. You may end up wanting to cut it entirely, in favor of a leadership'd demon of some sort.

-Otherwise sprinkle fiend-type abilities through the progression- darkvision, poison resistance, and smite all come to mind.

-Possibly rejigger those ability score increases. You're heavily frontweighted for your favored class, which is nice for you but bad for the overall appeal of the class.


Hunterofthedusk wrote:

I just don't see why you need to split wisdom into two parts- Having wisdom is described as having insight and strength of will (among other things), so why would those two things (that are both attributed to wisdom) be split? Do you see a lot of people that are perceptive that get fooled easily?

Most Will saves are against illusions and enchantments. Which stat (insight or willpower) do you use for those saves? How would you justify willpower being the stat used for these saves? Do you split will saves into categories (willpower vs fear, insight vs illusions), and if so, how does that help?

Oh heck, I wouldn't actually be inclined to split them in the present system. Everything that could be either insight or willpower is lumped into wisdom and will saves, and it'd be crazy tedious to separate them out.

G85 is the one who wants to start parceling out stats, and I'm simply pointing out that wisdom one of the ones that really begs for that kind of treatment, if he's already doing the work.

Still, doesn't it ever bother you that a character can interact with an illusion, discern it's falseness, but still fail the will save? I always found that one a bit hard to deal with.


Hunterofthedusk wrote:
I've always seen the mixture of willpower/perception as being rather accurate, actually. The person that has good perception also happens to be good at seeing through the veil of illusions and recognizing what is real and what is false.

Call me dense, but when I read that, I don't see anything that screams 'willpower'. Just a lot of perceptiveness.

Break it down this way:

Willful people are driven, work harder than others to achieve their goals, and won't take no for an answer. They are no more difficult to trick than the average person, but they resist temptation, corruption, and coercion with their conviction.

Insightful people are perceptive, pick out details that other people miss, and process those details in a more sophisticated fashion. They're more likely to see through a bluff, but that's irrelevant when you put on the thumb screws.


I'm with Sir Frog and jocundthejolly on the strength front - controlling the swing of a heavy object requires strength no matter how you look at it. I'm sure we all agree that, once you've got the whole 'lifting and swinging' bit down, coordination is essential for landing a hit. Both factor in, and the abstraction of which does how much is a fairly academic exercise that most of us would probably sooner gloss over.

If you're into splitting stats, though, consider splitting wisdom into insight and willpower. I hate hate hate that strong-willed characters are also innately perceptive. That's darn silly.

If you're into adapting rules from other game rulesets, I can't recommend Savage Worlds enough. In that, you work from 5 core attributes:
Agility = Dexterity
Smarts = Intelligence
Spirit = Force of will and personality
Strength = Strength
Vigor = Constitution

With charisma as a side note denoting particular attractiveness or an especially sociable nature.

Now, I'll grant you it maintains the separation of strength and vigor you've been trying to eliminate, but combat skills in that system operate off of agility for accuracy. In exchange, strength plays a much greater role in melee damage dealt.


Hey, now there's some damn elegant class kits. You've even put abilities in at appropriate levels - a nuance that is lost on many.

The swashbuckler seems a bit on the squishy side, which is sad since he gives up so much sneak attack damage. D'ya think he could stand to get armor training as fighter, too?


My general response: I like the ideas here, but because they're all passive, the sum is way too potent. Damage reflection is cripplingly powerful and obnoxious to keep track of, and instant blindness for attacking the dealer? Yuck.

Coupled with the staggering miss chance he builds up - 5% per level - means that you're doing a ton of math for every fight, and all it'll tell you is that the dealer takes no damage, and everyone else is blind, shaken, and half unconscious. And that's without the karma dealer taking actions - those he can spend doing full-time healer duty, or whatever else the party needs that isn't combat-oriented.

I think KenderKin's gish comment is centered on the fact that, as far as we can tell, this class has full cleric spellcasting and much of the monk's combat ability. Clearly the flavor is different, but that's not necessarily obvious to those of us looking just at power interactions.

At any rate - full cleric spellcasting on top of all that insane defensive stuff is flat-out too good. Build in a mechanical reason for the class to not abuse it's powers, and things might be better. For starters, I might suggest having them treat every creature as though they were effected by sanctuary.


To lay out Sean's suggestion with complete clarity:

Wuss Template
'Wuss' is a simple template that can be applied to any creature.
Rebuild Rules
CR: Reduce CR by 1
AC: Reduce natural armor bonus by 2 (to a minimum of 0)
Ability Scores: Subtract 4 from all ability scores (to a minimum of 3).


I like your ideas; your aims for the race are modest enough to work with.

Specific observations:
-A racial climb speed is powerful, but hardly a game breaker. For the sake of flavor and simplicity, put it in and see how it plays. I expect you'll find it's no big deal.

-Utility webbing should probably be largely relegated to racial feats. Base, I might give them a 3/day ranged touch attack that can initiate a pull maneuver (a'la cave fishers). Make it short-ranged and dissolve quickly.

Then, you can have a feat to, say, extend the range and make it function as silk rope. A second feat could give you 6 uses/day, and a third could accomplish the tanglefoot effect. Make all three prerequisites for the full-blown web ability.

-Racial poison is something to be really careful about - you'll have a number of sneaky folks attempting to spit poison onto their weapons, so you should carefully specify it denatures too quickly if not delivered via the bite. Also, I'd suggest reducing the damage or giving a finite number of uses per day - 3 at most.

-I'd lose the blood drain rules, as it's out of line from normal pc race principles to include hefty drawbacks of that nature, and it adds a whole layer of rules complexity and another potent attack. If you want them to be creepy blood drinkers, just mention in flavor text that they prefer to draw their sustenance in that form. Make a racial prestige class to go all-out on the blood drinking.

-If the race still seems too powerful, drop an ability score modifier. PF has set a general precedent of +2/+2/-2, but there are bestiary monsters that break that pattern, and it's a good way to keep power level in check.

-When in doubt, ask yourself whether one of these spider-folk would be too powerful as a barbarian, because that appears to be the class with the best synergy.


Wow, you get to be gestalt in a party of normals? Brutal.

As for your options: Crossing a tank class with monk doesn't really net an exceptional gain for you. Monks already flurry as though they had full BAB, and you won't be wearing armor, so you're already out the two most relevant strengths of fighters and paladins.

If you're sure you want to go that route, though, I think I'd go with fighter. Focus/spec/weapon training (unarmed) is a recipe for crazy blender fists, and you'll be an absolute terror with combat maneuvers. You'll have more feats than you could possibly use, since the monk comes prepackaged with so many.

The paladin is probably more resilient in the long run, but much of that defensive utility overlaps with the monk, wheras the fighter nets greater utility out of the monk's better saves, mobility, and exotic defenses like diamond soul. Besides, your party already has 2 clerics, and it'll hamper your character to have to toss points into charisma as well as wisdom and the physicals.


While we're talking about APG classes, what of the alchemist? The opportunities for self-buffing and healing are pretty ludicrous, and with the right discoveries *cough*mutagen*cough you'll put barbarians to shame.

I have no idea how you'd explain the alch/monk gestalt with regards to character identity, so that might be an issue.

Oh hang on... science + fisticuffs = Sherlock Holmes!


I like it, but I don't see it as a end boss kind of thing for a 6th level party. Critical factors here include the 34 HP and 19 AC. Even with DR 5, the poor fellow very nearly goes down in a single round to a pair of charging fighters. He's got a lot of very cool special attacks, but I honestly doubt he'll get the chance to put them to relevant use unless you're setting him up in a heavily unbalanced strategic situation.

As for those special attacks:

Soul shattering gaze works like a hybrid gaze attack/frightful presence. I'd take a look at the universal monster rules and pick one of them to go with, rather than riding the line.

Caustic spittle could probably be broken down into tanglefoot bag+flask of acid. That would give characters a reasonable escape method, which is otherwise absent from your rules.

Kinetic blast seems misnamed, since it doesn't do damage and requires a will save, rather than fortitude.

Reaching Limbs is unnecessary - natural attacks can generally just be given a reach, and they work at any range within it.

His melee attack is potent, but seems almost irrelevant. +6 to hit a level 6 character? You'll be lucky to land a single blow on the party before they've dished out the hurt.

Anyway, the overall concept and collection of abilities is cool, but the creature just doesn't have the HD to support the breadth and power of said abilities. Give it another 2 or 4 HD and all those area-of-effect abilities will last long enough to be relevant, and he might be able to land a shot on a party member or two before going down.


The Speaker in Dreams wrote:
Dropping 'always on' DR to level 1 seems ... interesting, but probably a bit much. I was trying to tone down the level dip effect there, so I'm not sure it'll help much.

The notion is simply to make the barbarian more resilient from the start. Giving a flat progression and having it double in rage just feels less finicky to me than saying "ok, you get -this much- DR from rage, and then you consult the table and add -this much- DR for your level". It's potent, but then, it's making up for the barbarian's unremarkable damage output at early levels, plus the removal of con bonuses from rage.

The Speaker in Dreams wrote:
Problems w/roused anger - yes, you can do it while fatigued (though not exhausted), and IF you do, you end exhausted and are out for 10 minutes/1 ROUND of rage. It's a heavy, HEAVY penalty to work with if it's your final battle period, fine - won't have an effect. If you're just getting going, this is major in restriction/activation. The fatigue immunity is granted, but ONLY if you use this first (which means you're fatigued up front, and then you use it, and then you deal with the cripplingly long recovery time).

You're right, it's a pretty killer backlash. So why not amend it? Reduce the exhausted period to 1 minute per round spent in rage; nobody would bat an eye. It still prevents a character from re-raging in that time (which was the point), and it doesn't cripple the barbarian for an hour of recovery.

The Speaker in Dreams wrote:
If you've not followed the other threads, you've missed part of the progression. I originally targeted 3 spells that would provide those effects and just made a blanket immunity to THOSE spells up front. It was later suggested that to target the condition would be, mechanically, more simple, and I agreed. The problem with the spells in question is that they work with NO save at all! NONE! In addition, 2 are area of effect spells that will instantly work with NO SAVE! These are major spells, IMO, for de-buffing and flat out neutering ANYONE in the AoE. Fatigue reduces your actions and movement abilities. Exhausted does the same and with even more crippling options and stat penalties. Those are very good spells, and for everyone else, it's just a problem. For a barbarian, it prevents the use of his ONE class feature if he's not already using it. The immunities are designed around that idea - to keep the barbarian raging, and not get screwed out of his power boons. I didn't want to screw spell casters, either, so if this happens before a barbarian can get the rage off, they're ok ... BUT Barbarians now have Mettle, so this would grant them a save (where otherwise targets are not able to), and they can avoid the effects entirely, or deal with some reduced effects if they blow the save. However, with the immunity in rage, and the mettle effect I want them to have a chance to be able to use their powers (as those particular spells can spell doom to their abilities otherwise).

I agree with whoever it was who suggested immunity to the condition(s), rather than immunity to the spells.

I hardly think it's screwing over spellcasters to give barbarians an optional power to become immune to certain spell effects. Check out the paladin's mercies- it's exactly the same sort of thing. Or consider, what happens when the rogue gets tripped a couple times in a fight? She decides to take the Stand Up talent, and suddenly it doesn't matter when she's tripped- she's back up in no time.

You seem to be artificially building up this tension in the first round of combat, like "Oh, if the caster manages to get ray of exhaustion off first, then he can totally cripple the barbarian" as though that's *common*. All I'm seeing is the encouragement of certain very corner-case anti-barbarian tactics.

The Speaker in Dreams wrote:
Many things could *probably* go into a rage power function, but I'd much rather not make it situational or dependent upon a particular barbarians' rage power selection. If barbarian's want to bite people - go for it, they've got 7, fully open rage powers. Who says I'm denying that?

I just keep imagining 2 of the 3 rage powers you've removed as "rage while fatigued" and "rage while exhausted". I thought one of PF's great achievements was affording characters more options than they'd had in the past. What your rebuild does is corner barbarians into giving up some of those options in order to become "more functional" against tactics that they may never face.

Giving them the option means they can take 'rage while fatigued' if they battle a lot of ambush necromancers, but can otherwise put their powers towards more splashy stuff.

The Speaker in Dreams wrote:
On the bonuses, again - check the earlier threads. It was more or less universally panned that extra stat gains on those really high levels was a bad idea. So ... stat gain was dialed back and rage damage entered the picture.

Yeah, I don't really think it's a good idea to jump their strength much beyond RAW. Just seems more organic and balanced than the rage damage bit. Is it really necessary to make them that much more *damaging* than they already are? RAW buffs to strength make them nearly match a fighter with his favoritest weapon, only with every weapon. Your progression makes them even better at those top levels.

I mean, I'm cool amping them up as the *toughest* class, and they should be great in combat, but I just don't think it's fair to also make them the best damage-dealers of all. Pretty sure that's what your rage damage does.

The Speaker in Dreams wrote:
Maneuvers - yes, I'm aware of the bonus of Enlarge Person. Maneuvers still remain highly situationally useful.

I beg to differ. A character who knows their maneuvers can *destroy* opponents. Dealing with a fighter? Disarm! Fighters themselves are only immune to that with a single weapon at level 20, and brute-type monsters never are. Prior, you can make a disarm attempt for *every single attack you get*. You only need to succeed once and that combatant has halved their damage output or worse. This is even more true of rogue types, since they're terrible against maneuvers. A grappled spellcaster is a dead spellcaster; combat casting is immensely difficult, and if they haven't cast Freedom of Movement, or have had it dispelled, then they're going to die. Divine casters are especially vulnerable here, because they have precious few evasive spells to work with. In fact, monsters across the board are really vulnerable to grappling. With a character built to do it (it's only a few feats) they menace just about everything in the Bestiary.

In short: maybe in your games maneuvers are only "situationally useful", but in my games, they win half the fights. And the barbarian is absolutely the best at them.


Ooh, very spiritual. I like it.

Dunno whether I'd actually make rules up to represent the building of wacky spiritual chimeras, but it sounds like a fun credo for a cult or arcane academy.

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