Maerimydra's page

On page 33 of the ACG, under Quick Study (Ex), it is said that "An investigator can use his studied combat ability as a swift action instead of a standard action."

On page 34 of the ACG, under Studied Combat (Ex), it is said that "At 4th level, an investigator can use a move action to study a single enemy that he can see."

So activating Studied Combat is a standard action or a move action?

I wouldn't.

Among the 10 stat blocks for each monster, will there be at least one "grunt" NPC with levels in the Warrior class? As much as I like using humanoid monsters with class levels in my games, monsters with levels in a PC class tend to have way too much wealth for the challenge they pose to the PCs, resulting in a situation where the PCs end up with too much wealth for their level.

The Book of Elves, from AD&D 2nd Edition, had stats for "elven" dogs. They were like dogs, but cooler and more "elven", you know.

Kobolds can be commando kobolds that will automatically hit your tower shield-wielding, ring of protection-wearing, full plate-clad character with fire arrows.

Alchemist: I'll be honest, I'm not really a big fan of the Alchemist. I just never honestly saw the point in it. It's basically a class revolving around potion-brewing, with a little treading on the Barbarian's heels via its Mutagen feature. Ultimate Magic made it a little more attractive, but still, I would probably never play one myself. I suppose if you were determined to run a caster-free game it's a good finangle, but, yeah, honestly I see the Alchemist's various bombs and the like as something better off folded into the Gunslinger, or else used as part of a more "Mad Scientist" typed class.

I had mixed feelings about the Alchemist when I first read about it. Throw Anything and Bombs seemed to shoehorn the Alchemist into a "Mad Bomber" character type while mutagens presented a "Mr Hyde" alternative. Sure, you can indeed specialize in either of these two paths, and be very effective at what you do, but I discovered, with time and playtesting, that the Alchemist can be so much more. Ever heard of the Witcher? There's no better class than the Alchemist to mechanically simulate Gerald of Rivia. Since extracts can be used in heavy armor, playing an Alchemist is a bit like playing a self-buffing Eldritch Knight (Fighter/Transmuter) with no Arcane Spell Failure chance, more skills, poison use and energy damage-dealing, debuffing and battlefield control blast spells (bombs). Thanks to his 4 skill points/level, a usually high Int, a good selection of class skills, utility spells like invisibility and such, the Alchemist can easily fill up the "Rogue" slot in any given party. Need to unlock this particularly well locked door? Quaff a Dex-boosting mutagen and a Cat's Grace extract or potion you crafted and look at the Rogue cry (alchemy bonuses stack with enhancement bonuses). Furthermore, thanks to his ability-scores-altering class features, which are much more customizable than the Barbarian rage by the way, the Alchemist also makes the perfect 5th wheel of the party. The guy playing the Fighter in your party could not show up for the game tonight? No problem, just quaff a Str-boosting mutagen, an extract/potion of enlarge person and an extract/potion of Bull's Strength and crush opponents with DR\- under your mighty blows. The Wizard just ran out of fire spells to burn those annoying trolls? No problem, you have enough bombs to reduce them to cinder. Finally, the Infusion discovery let you buff your allies in never seen before ways. Truly, the Alchemist is a Jack or all trades at his core: whether you choose to focus on a specific aspect of the class, or try to expand even further his versatility, is up to you.

HobGoblin42, developer, said:

''I don't want to keep you guys from writing those excellent fiction, but the current unsettled situation with Chaos Chronicles is solely based on a conflict between us and bitcomposer. At the current state the completion and release of the game is uncertain since our last attempt to find some agreement failed due the disappointment that we haven't heard back from bitcomposer after holding a long (and constructive) meeting.

Obviously, the game won't be released in this summer because bitcomposer stopped the development earlier this year through an legal injunction(which has been recalled later). The next few weeks will finally decide if the game will see the day of light or not.''

So the legal disagreement is between COREPLAY and bitcomposer, also referred as ''s*@%composer'' by the RPG Codex community. Bitcomposer funded the development of the game, so if no agreement is meet, Chaos Chronicles could very well enter the realm of vaporware.

I hope that Pathfinder 2.0 will feature a major overhaul of the defense system. I would like to see a system where you AC would increase with your level and where armors would decrease your AC (or your max Dex bonus) instead of improving it. I prefer systems where armors and natural armor give you damage reduction. I also like where Project Eternity is going with misses, glancing hits and hits. Tell me, fellows paizonians, does such a system already exist?

3.5 classes that I really like and that I would play in a Pathfinder campaing (if allowed):

- Crusader (Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords)
- Dragon Shaman (Player's Handbook II)
- Favored Soul (Miniatures Handbook/Complete Divine)
- Knight (Player's Handbook II)
- Marshal (Miniatures Handbook)
- Scout (Complete Adventurer)
- Shadowcaster (Tome of Magic)
- Warblade (Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords)
- Warlock (Complete Arcane)

Yeah, I like having two ''casting'' stats as a concept because I think that this is a good fix to the martials/casters disparity. Like DeathQuaker, I think that the PF Oracle is too pigeonholey for flavor and that's why I still like the Favored Soul.

Personally, I find the Pathfinder method is far superior - with the only oddity being when two reach creatures (usually standing 2+ inches tall on the map), can't attack each other with one full diagonal between them. One side-step and their good. I play plenty of reach users, and it's not a big deal. Adds some nice tactical options too if you can lock-down a large creature.

And it is simple. You don't threaten the 15'/2-diagonal square. You *do* threaten if someone takes more than a 5' step coming through there.

In what way is it ''far superior''?

Just use the 3.5 exception. I never had any problem with it and I still don't understand why Pathfinder needed to have an errata for this. Not using the 3.5 exception is like trying to probe the mind of a Hound of Tindalos: it can make your head explode.

How do you move from being 15' away from someone to 5' away from someone without, at some point, passing through (ie, leaving) at point 10' away from them?

-Skeld

Quantum physics. :D

But seriously, I never heard of reach weapons not threatening the second diagonal square before. This is nonsense to me. IF that's not how Pathfinder reach weapons work, then I recommend everyone to use the 3.5 rule for reach weapons.

wolfpack75 wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Just how hard are the adventure paths

I personally think they are really hard, I've run two AP's about half way through and have had a lot of turn over in characters. I do feel that the player's lose interest as their characters continue to die and because of that I have to do a balancing act of propelling the story forward without making the players feel too safe.

One of the main problems I have with the AP's is the reliance on a single spell or skill check. A six adventure campaign shouldn't end because no one rolled high enough on a skill check or didn't have a particular spell. I am all for letting a combat encounter play out and if the party makes poor tactical decisions that they die from those decisions.

I am also all for the party having to deal with the consequences of no one playing a Rogue or healer, those are choices they need to live or die by, but requiring that someone in the party have access to 1 spell or that someone have 1 skill or the game ends is a poorly written adventure.

And I know I should have an example here but I am drawing a blank on a specific instance that has come up. I believe there was one in Kingmaker as they explored the empty town looking for a clue as to where everyone was...The adventure could have ended if they hadn't made a roll, I believe it was a Knowledge Check which can't be repeated once failed.

Anyway, I would like to see more modules which give more options for how to propel the adventures along and less reliance on 1 roll of the die determining the fate of the game.

My apologies for not having specific examples...

=Dan

In Carrion Crown, there's a door that requires a DC 28 STR check to open, and it's the only way to get in to continue the adventure. The GM had to fudge and then some to get our party through that door.

Couldn't you just hack the door to pieces?

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Chuck Norris qualifies for all feats regardless of prerequisites.

Chuck Norris doesn't even need dice. He auto wins.

Not against Bruce Lee.

It slipped under my radar too, so thanks for posting! I have always wondered if making a computer game based on the OGL 3.5e rules would be legal, and it seems like it is. That's awesome news!

It also depends on the level. Wizards aren't OP at level 1-2. ;)

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Don't you just love how the solution to all a martial's problems is 'there's a feat for that'?

It's almost as if martials didn't have a limited number of them, with fighters getting a lot more but are still limited.

it's as if pathfinder seems to hate martial classes.

I don't think they hate them, I think they just do not want to upset the more ''conservative'' gamers by changing them too much.

You can't take 10 on Stealth checks while sneaking around - the "can't take 10 when in dangerous conditions" clause applies, trying your best not to be noticed with the danger of getting whacked if you fail is pretty much a textbook stressful situation.

However, a Rogue might pick the Skill Mastery advanced talent and take 10s on Stealth. Come to think of it, that makes SM one of the better talents out there.

But then it could be argued that the various NPCs ''taking 10'' on perception checks described in past modules couldn't really take 10, since if someone is trying to sneak on them, they're in a ''dangerous situation''. It would also mean that you couldn't take 10 on your climb check when climbing, because it's ''dangerous'' to fall. You couldn't take 10 for your acrobatics (balance) check while crossing a rope bridge either, etc.

The "can't take 10 when in dangerous conditions" can be interpreted in a lot of different ways. To me, it applies when you're in the middle of a fight, when something is attacking you or actively searching for you (because it saw you going into hinding) or when you're taking environmental damage (ex: trying to climb out of an acid pit).

Maerimydra wrote:

solarius wrote:

Stealth doesn't make you silenced either.

house rule it whatever you like in your game, by raw an invisible mage IS a better scout than a stealth rouge.(still the same for higher levels, just need the wizard to cast some more spells or just send his pet)

sending a stealth PC ahead is a bad move, as after an unlucky roll you get surrounded by monsters while your party still waiting for you to report back. Stealth has been given more credit than it deserves but since it's off topic so let's just call it...

Why is the scout not just ''taking 10'' on his stealth check?

Take 10... aaaaand its a 34.

Plus the distance modifiers! :)

LazarX wrote:

Hicks bought it in the second movie, no? As to Newt, I understand why it was done, they didn't want a kid element/sidekick to soften the edges of the setting or plot for the third movie.

Dark Horse comics kept them both alive, and Newt existing damn sure didn't soften the edges there. If anything, Aliens fans would do better to follow the Dark Horse comics and ignore the post Aliens films.

The biggest problem with Prometheus was that people wanted it to be something that it wasn't and was never meant to be....an Alien film. It's tangentially connected to Alien, and it's set in the same world, but it's NOT an Alien film.

Prometheus was just a bad sci-fi movie, period. It pretended to be an Alien prequel to attract Alien fanboys (money grab) without bearing the Alien name, thus not associating itself with the declining Alien franchise which would have repelled those who know that nothing good can come from the Alien franchise nowadays. It's like having your cake and eating it too.

With this game and the awful Prometheus movie, I think it's safe to state that the Alien franchise is officially dead.

You grapple with a bow now?

The Archer archetype can at 11th level. :)

A Barbarian will drain the healing ressources of the party faster than a Fighter because of his abysmal AC.

You don't NEED a prestige classe to play a ''battle cleric''. A single level dip into the fighter class, selecting the right domains and high strength and constitution scores should suffice. However, an increased fighting capability is obtained at the expense of decreased spellcasting and energy channeling capabilities.

In our current campaing of Carrion Crown, we have a human cleric of Cayden Cailean with the Strength and Travel domains. He has a starting strength score of 18 and he took a single level dip into the fighter class so that he could wear a full plate and wield a lucerne hammer. He's a real beast and becomes even more powerful after casting Enlarge Person and Bull's Strength of himself. He even one shoted the first encounter of the 2nd module (CR = APL +1) while we only had 15 points to spend during character creation. How more powerful than that should a battle cleric be in your opinion? Brokenly powerful?

You can't flank yourself. So no. Also, I agree with Bigtuna: you should burn those "you hurt youself" cards and dissolve their ashes into a strong acid.

Granted, it's not that hard at higher levels, especially when your mods get nuts, but a level 1 wizard with the spell with a +3 int mod will have +4 to the check... and have to roll 17 or over to actually make that check. That doesn't seem particularly right to me.

Granted, but tossing 1st-level character into a deadly pit while they are flat-footed is not particularly right either, right?

Since you can cast Feather Fall as an immediate action and that you can use immediate action out of turn, just like when a pit is opening beneath your feet, the line from 3.5 is not required anymore. There's no concentration check required because you can use your immediate action to cast the spell before you start to fall, unless you want to cast the spell on the defensive to prevent provoking one or more AoO. However, I guess you can't cast this spell if you fall when being flat-footed.

P.S.: You have been rude toward Karlgamer, you should apologize.

The alignment of his character is unimportant, the way he plays his character is.

I once played a LE character that was the glue that kept the party together. He was also very heroic (at least in appearance) because he wanted to gain the admiration of the people, so that he could raise in power within the society by making strong allies that would help him and support him in return of his deeds. I also GMed for a LG paladin who wanted to kill a hermit wizard only to steal his magical stuff. Guess which one of these two characters was the most disturbing element for the party?

Now if this player ONLY wants to play evil characters, all the time and every time, that may be because he needs to rethink how he perceives good character. Maybe good aligned characters bore him because he sees them as one-dimensional lawful-stupid clichés, but in truth, a lawful good character can be as complex, unsettling and fun to play as an evil character.

Odraude wrote:

Chernobyl wrote:

Maerimydra wrote:

Alexander Augunas wrote:

Going into specific characters, taking two levels of Order of the Cockatrice cavalier drops the action required to a Move action. And gives you the feat for free, no less.

I thought it was a standard action for cavaliers of the Order of the Cockatrice.

its a standard action. and you guys supporting this are now talking about pumping 2 or 3 feats into a simple debuff...intimidating prowess, taunt, Gory finish...with three feats I could take weapon specialization, improved two weapon fighting, and double slice, and have a serious increase in damage potential. Or if you want more useful tricks - step up, following step, step up and strike. or Blind fighting. improved critical. critical focus.

It's a simple debuff that you can apply to a great deal of targets nearby. With only three feats, you can make it a swift action after you kill something, which you'll be doing a lot of. a -2 to saves and attack rolls may not seem like enough, but it's very helpful both to you and the rest of your party. Not to mention that you can't critical fail an Intimidate roll.

Besides, a fighter has 21 feats they can spend. I'm sure they can shell out two or three feats to debuff people around them.

And if we're talking about a waste of feats, why take the TWF chain when you can just get a Greatsword and use Power Attack to win damage everytime? ;)

because power attack goes without saying for a fighter. twf has more chances at crits (and if you're a double weapon user, you can still fight two handed if need be). and lets face it, you're spending 3 or more feats for a CHANCE to debuff the enemy. its not guaranteed. sheken doesn't affect casters who are fireballing or chain lightning-ing you. and its harder and harder at later levels when enemies are large, huge, or gargantuan. it doesn't work if you or the the enemy has concealment, or blind. It doesn't work on Mindless creatures...

Oh but shaken DOES affect the casters who are fireballing you: shaken casters will me more likely to fail the save or die spell of your fellow adventurer.

It is also a great feat to give to the BBEG.

... because it's too freaking heavy! Why would I put myself at medium load, thus reducing my speed and my max Dex bonus to AC, when I can already throw weightless bombs at my opponents?

An Alchemist

Grapple + pin + tie up, end of story.

1) ... after a direct hit on a medium creature?

X = Empty square
0 = Square filled by Fog Cloud
C = Creature

A) 21 squares
XXXXXXX
XX000XX
X00000X
X00C00X
X00000X
XX000XX
XXXXXXX

or

B) 25 squares
XXXXXXX
X00000X
X00000X
X00C00X
X00000X
X00000X
XXXXXXX

2) ... after a hit on a square intersection?

A) 12 squares
XXXXXX
XX00XX
X0000X
X0000X
XX00XX
XXXXXX

or

B) 16 squares
XXXXXX
X0000X
X0000X
X0000X
X0000X
XXXXXX

It's quite simple frankly: a double-weapon is always wielded as a two-handed weapon (and makes AoO as a two-handed weapon). You can chose to use it as two independent weapons only when you are making a full-attack action if you chose to take the penalties and extra attacks associated with TWF, but after the end of your full-attack action, you automatically revert to using your double-weapon as a two-handed weapon.

Ssalarn wrote:

graywulfe wrote:

Okay, to the people saying that the individual would fall immediately after movement ended, I have a question. How would you rule the following situation?

Player Q is on a rooftop, Q has a 30 ft movement rate. Q needs to jump a 30ft gap. Q is 50ft from the ledge. Q opts to double move, this gives Q 60ft of total movement for the round. Q moves to the ledge and jumps. Q makes his Acrobatics check and achieves a roll of 50. This means Q has succeeded at the requisite Acrobatics check and therefore has successfully jumped the gap. However Q only has enough movement to make it 10 ft into the gap this round. Would you rule:

A. Q's movement ends with Q midair and next round his first action must be movement that has Q complete the jump, landing on the other side of the gap.

B. Q's movement ends with Q in midair and he immediately plummets straight down.

C. regardless of remaining move Q's movement ends with Q on the other side of the gap

Q's jump cannot exceed his available movement, so he falls from the rooftops if he attempts to jump without enough movement left.

From the PRD:
"No jump can allow you to exceed your maximum movement for the round."

That produces a Wile E Coyote image for me. Common Sense would indicate that that is not the intent of that line in the rules. At least from my point of view.

In character, at the end of your turn, you don't wait numerous iterations of 6 seconds as every other participant of the combat does their actions. In character, at the end of your turn, you immediately begin your next turn. The rule you are quoting is there to prevent option C from being the result. Option A is the only remotely realistic result. To me, options B and C are not just wrong they are ridiculous interpretations.

Option A seems like the better, more realistic option at first glance, and it would probably be the one that I would use in my own game as a GM. However, it his also the option that players could abuse the most. Imagine a Monk that uses a standard action to punch a melee Figter in the face, then uses his remaining move action to move and jump, ending his turn in mid-air and preventing the Fighter from attacking him with his melee weapon. Even better, imagine a ninja that jumps and throws a shuriken in mid-air, ending his turn in an inaccessible square. o_O

I appreciate the consistency in the quality of the art, but it's not my absolute favorite style exactly. I like comic books and anime a lot but I prefer something different for fantasy RPG art. I can't quite explain why, and when I try to it I end up contradicting myself. One of these days I'll figure out how to put it into words.

I'm really excited to see what direction the new DnD goes with for art.

Yeah, the consistency in the quality of the art is what I like about Paizo, even if I'm not a fan their style. Unlike D&D 3.5, which had some very good pieces of art and a lot of very mundane, if not ugly, drawings, Paizo art is, IMO, rarely awesome, but it's also rarely ugly: it's consistently good and I prefer it that way. Advanced Race Guide is the first Pathfinder book that has, IMO, some very bad drawings in it, and I hope this will not become the new standard for Paizo.

One of my favorite artists working for Paizo is Tyler Walpole (he drew some monsters in the bestiaries, including almost all the devils in the first bestiary).

Damn you kais006! I hope that Zon-Kuthon will eat your soul!

Quickened Black Tentacles and Quickened Improved Invisibility are the best 8th-level spells out there.

What if tumbling would always provoke AoO but, for the purpose of those AoO, the tumbler's AC and touch AC would be his acrobatics check result? If the defender's attack roll result his higher than the tumbler's acrobatics check result, the defender would still need to hit the tumbler's real AC with the same attack roll result.

Do you think it could make tumbling viable from level 1 to 20? I checked the attack roll modifiers of some of the big monsters in the Bestiary, and it seems like it's way under their respective CMD.

I think I will give it a try.

EDIT: Alternatively, instead of throwing 1d20, the defender could "take 10" on his attack roll and if the tumble fails, the defender would have to make a real attack roll against the tumbler to confirm the hit.

Sub-Zero > Scorpion

I hope your build will succeed! :)

Of the things 4E did good, removing the paladin's lawful good alignment restriction was one of them.

Critical Fumble deck

Melee fumble = you critically hit yourself (this is an actual card)

1) Take that card

I use both decks in my games, but I replaced the confirmation roll for Critical Fumble with a Reflex saving throw with a set DC of 15 (this comes from D&D 3.0). This gives more importance to the less important saving throw in the game. This also means that the higher your level is, the lower your chance to fumble is. This also means that Bards, Monks, Rangers and Rogues are less likely to confirm a fumble. Now I don't care about Bard and Ranger, but this is actually a boon for Monks and Rogues, the unloved children of Pathfinder, when they are fighting Mister Big Stupid Fighter with low Dexterity. Furthermore, big stupid monsters like giants have bad Reflex saving throws, so the Critical Fumble deck has been more helpful than hurtful for my PCs until now. As for the Critical Hit deck, my players can choose to draw a card or not: there's no need to draw a card against a kobold.

One important thing however is that I draw cards behind my GM screen, and if I believe that what's written on the card is too goofy for the actual situation, I just draw another one.

Now I understand your hatred of Critical Fumble. I have played in a game where the GM made my character cut his own arm because of a fumble when I was a kid. That's not kewl man!

Sound Striker is a lousy archetype. It gains two new types of bardic performance, Wordstrike and Weird Words, but Weird Words makes Wordstrike completely obsolete as soon as you get it, even against inanimate objects. They should have just given it Weird Words at 3rd level and made it scales in a more elegant way, like 1 ranged touch attack per 2 levels, like a previous poster proposed. Or they could have given to the Sound Striker an ability that deals significant damage against objects. That would have allowed you to make a big stone explode only with the sound of your voice, just like Muad'Dib. :)

Kung Fu Hustle!

As a personal opinion, I have always thought that the whole ''evil cleric = negative energy and good cleric = positive energy'' thing was one of the worst design concept ever made in D&D. Evil races should have access to good healers too, otherwise they would have lost their battle against the force of good a long time ago.

And at higher level you will be able to do this :

Conjurer casts Gate. He then ready an action to dismiss Gate as soon as your opponent enters the portal. You Bull Rush your opponent inside the portal. :)

Elven fighter using a finessable spear = Prince Nuada from Hellboy 2.

:P

The fighter is fine.

Slow counters and dispels haste and vice-versa. The "counters" part I understand, but I'm not sure about the "dispels" part. Does it mean that if I cast slow on a hasten creature, that creature will become slowed (on a failed save) or normal (on a successful save)? In other words, does the "dispels" part requires a failed saving throw? Can a hasten creature become slowed with a single casting of slow? Can a slowed creature become hasten with a single casting of haste?

The class features of the rogue should be better (or he should have more of them) and the problem would be solved. There's no need of a full BAB progression if the class is done right.

Uncanny Dogde should add he Rogue's Wisdom modifiers as a bonus to his Armor Class, like the Monk or the Swordsage from Tome of Battle. Since the Rogue his designed to fight in melee (archer Rogues suck), he really needs to have a decent AC, so a class feature similar to Scoundrel Luck in KotOR (+2 AC at 1st level, +4 at 6th, and +6 at 12th.) would be welcome.

Rogue Talents should always (instead of just once) let you take a feat instead or a Rogue Talent. Skill Focus (Acrobatics) is a very "roguish" feat, so why can't I take it instead of a Rogue Talent? Speaking of Rogue Talents, some Alchemist's Discoveries are stronger than feats, so why most Rogue Talents are weaker than feats?

Something more: in almost all fantasy settings and games, the Rogue is always portrayed as the "quick" character. In D&D/Pathfinder, he his slower than the big bulky Barbarian and he act after the old grumpy Diviner. Give the Rogue a scaling bonus to his base speed and initiative!

Those are my suggestions on how the Rogue could be fixed.