Michael Miller 36's page

Not sure if its been posted yet (not scrolling through 900 pages!) but the entry for Wyrwood http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary4/wyrwoof.html#wyrwood is broken. you get the message The requested URL was not found on this server, or you do not have permission to access this area.

Anyone in the St. Louis area looking for a game? Currently playing weekends in South County with the Skull and Shackles adventure path. Looking for 1-3 additional players (have 2 at the moment) Right now we play every sunday from 2-8, but thats flexible, saturdays or sundays are fine for us.

If your interested and want more information, please email me at Stlnatural20(at)gmail.com

I generally rule that ammunition is unusable on impact. ammunition that misses has a 50% chance of such, though a arrow or bolt that missed may be truly gone for practical purposes. Special ammunition (such as silver or adamantine and such) might be unusable, but often the head might be salvageable. For example, an adamantine arrow might not be usable, but you might be able to recover the head of it, which could then be reused. For simplicity's sake I generally let special ammunition recovered in such a way to be repaired for half the original cost. Even sling bullets and shuriken can be deformed and damaged which would affect their flight capabilities.

Ultimately its a judgement call, and whatever you and your players (or you and your DM) is happy with is the right answer.

grafikie wrote:

then you are limited to the dex mod of the tower shield at +2 which renders the armor training for any other armor. with regular training you are using a non limiting shield (heavy or light) which does not interfear with your dex. hence i beleive it should be applied to both (for book-keeping sake) but take the lowest dex mod (be it from armor or shield) which would benifit the tower shield specialist. since that person is a specialist.

Huh, I didn't realize that tower shields had a dex mod like armors, in that case I am inclined to agree with you for the sake of fairness and not nerfing the tower shield specialist.

I was in the same boat, and it took me a 3rd look before I realized this (rarely used tower shields because of the penalty to hit in past games). As his DM in our session yesterday I pointed out that RAW, it only applies to armor (which is silly, since the extra bonuses you get from the specialist do not even count since it goes above what you can even use with the tower shield), but that I believed RAI should grant you a higher AC, which is the WHOLE FRICKEN POINT of a tower shield specialist. So in my games I'm going to go with what I believe is the intent of the archetype, but it WOULD be nice to get some official clarification either in a post or in errata.

I call our sundays "D&D night" But typically I call the game we play Pathfinder. For 4th edition i refer to it only as Dungeons and Dragons. While we haven't played a 4th edition game in a while, because we have on occasion played it we try to differentiate between the two. Some of my players call both D&D, but for the most part we use 3.5 (for old rulebooks, feats, and such), pathfinder (for anything paizo produced, the setting, or the general ruleset we play in), or dungeons and dragons (4th edition) to refer to the various games.

Zuxius wrote:

Ok, original question.

How many bullets can a revolver get out in a single melee round???

Pepperbox: 6
Revolver 2-3???

Huh? How are you figuring that? You can't shoot either gun more than your iteratives plus one for Rapid Shot. Unless I'm missing something?

he's probably referring to the fact that unlike revolvers most pepperboxes had the option of shooting off ALL the barrels at once and not just one at a time.

I'm pretty sure the ones in the playtest can only fire off up to as many attacks as you would get.

We went in thinking it would be fun, and we indeed DID have fun for the first couple of levels but its quickly becoming monotonous. If we had more down time, encounters other than combat,combat,combat or a reason to be there other than just ZOMG! Orcus might be awakening! we might be having more fun I think.

The one player who IS having a decently good time is brand new to gaming so even the dungeon crawl is new to him, he agrees though that he had more fun in the Council of Thieves AP, and now the Rise of the Runelords AP we run in alternating sessions.

For now I'm hoping it gets better, if it wasn't for the fact that the game is hosted at my place I'd likely have dropped from the sessions we play Rappan Athuk. As it was we didn't even get a chance to really sell/buy gear until we pooled enough stuff to pay for an item to let us teleport once per day

Honestly I don't have a problem with a challenging encounter, or even occasionally an encounter that you really shouldn't be fighting at all if you have any marbles in your head. The problem I have with this adventure is its NOT an occasional thing, it happens quite frequently and even when we have withdrawn (usually on round 2 after we realize we're overmatched) we still often lose a party member or two. I don't mind an encounter that makes you think. I don't mind an encounter that makes you plan. But encounters that are designed to do nothing but wipe the party are frustrating.

If theres groups out there that like this AP, good for them, but at least with out group the only real fun we've been having is between sessions writing up characters. As to if this is the fault of the players, the adventure, or the DM (or some combination of all 3) I can't say but theres my thoughts on it. I can say that this is the first Adventure our group has ever run/played and been thoroughly disenchanted with it. Obviously others experience may vary.

agreed about the mostly uninspiring. It also gets old constantly writing up new characters. I tend to put quite a lot of thought and work into my characters both in concept and background and with only a few exceptions like to play the same ones for the duration of an adventure. With Rappan Athuk we're all on our 2nd characters at least and some of us are on our 5th and this is only at 10th level. Some of this is due to the overall lethality of the dungeon, others is poor dungeon design (which also contributes to the lethality). Frequently to descend you must first defeat one level, then go back up to a previous level fight your way past a challenge to find the way to another. All too often you run into something far beyond what you should way too early, including a monster that we ran into at 3rd level with epic DR.

I think most players that rave about this AP are ones that ran it early in their gaming experience and they have nostalgia for it. For our group we're starting to hate the name and have really only kept going because we like the DM. The only bright side of it so far is that its given me the chance to try out some concepts that I probably never would have run in a more role play type enviroment.

We haven't made it to the boss fight yet but my group is currently playing through Rappan Athuk. There is a "plot" in that your trying to prevent the rise of orcus, but not much beyond that that i've seen. So far its been a mostly tedious sludge of combat after combat. It has had its bright spots and some fun encounters though I really don't see the appeal to it. I like dungeon crawls as much as the next guy but this one seems never ending.

We've only gotten to 10th level so far but my opinion of it so far is that if your a roll player who likes optimized characters and lots of combat go for it. If your a role player and you like the out of combat interactions and what your able to do in between adventures take a pass on it unless you intend to break it up into many smaller dungeons

I had a fun moment in my RotRL game...

hmmm, interesting. We've always allowed disintegrate against golems in the past, never noticed til now that its a spell specifically mentioned in the clay golem entry. That does suggest you may be right. Makes golems a bit more useful. Up til now we've lost 2 in our Rappan Athuk campaign to disintegrate spells

MicMan wrote:

Zarathos wrote:

One can argue pro and con what 4th edition is... ...It can be a fun game for what is, in the same way as a board game like Risk.

This!

Was that really necessary? Seriously, what did that add to this thread?

I apologise if I seem touchy and maybe threadcrapping, but I do find the continual little digs at D&D 4e to be something that sours me on these forums - especially when they are completely unnecessary to what the thread is talking about.

I am happy to civilly discuss the merits of 4e in appropriate threads if people want to (and recently have) and am open to genuine criticisms (I have a few myself).

Sorry for the tangent (this was the sort of thing I was warning the OP about) :)

Agreed. I'm not a 4e player (tried it, but didn't like it) however i have no problem with those who do. Theres room in the hobby for all of us. Doesn't matter if you play 1e, AD&D, 2e, 3rd, 3.5, pathfinder, 4th, Conan.... the important thing is you have and give the old imagination a spin.

Welcome to the boards Zarathos, we're glad to have you! (Just try to ignore the occasional bouts of nerd rage we geeks are prone to ^_^ )

Golems are immune to any effect that requires a fortitude save UNLESS THAT EFFECT ALSO WORKS ON OBJECTS. Disintegrate DOES work on golems. Bestiary page 307

if we go by the skills needed to craft a flesh or carrion golem, put a few ranks in craft (leatherworking) or the heal skill. you wouldn't need a ton of ranks in it and so long as you got a 15 or so total you have a decent trophy

an inquisitor can change his/her judgement as a swift action. You get one swift action per turn. If he activates the judgement, he cannot change it that round. CRB p188

as far as fast healing goes, i would treat it like any other effect, it triggers at the start of the round (IE on his turn) so he only gains the benefit of the fast healing if he has it up when his turn comes around. I would then allow him to switch judgements but not allow him to benefit from the altered until it was again his turn.

Can you please hold this so it ships with the campaign setting this month? I'd rather get the AP a bit later than having to wait til next month for the campaign setting :)

I had originally gotten my copies through my subscription, but the originals got lost in a house fire, rather than try to reacquire them at astronomical price since I had PDFs already I had them printed all 6 volumes in one bound book at FedEx Kinkos, cost me $56. Bound all in one volume makes it fairly easy, and with the plastic cover and comb binding it should hold up for a good long time.

While buying the PDFs and then having them printed would cost you a bit more, it'll likely run you less than trying to acquire them all in hardcopy (plus should you need to you can print extra of relevant pages should you need to)

@ Chris

Working on it.

Now the question is, how much more would you be willing to pay for better quality?

How about this? Say Paizo pays a living wage, about $30K a year. No one should lose their job over this. If it costs more than $30k a year extra to use a different printer, you don't do it.

Sound fair?

I for one would not be willing to pay much more than the already $40-$50 per book, and I might be wrong but with the current economy I doubt many others are going to be willing to do so either.

So basically what all of you are saying is that numerous people have an issue with it, so let's ignore it and move on.

I'm not saying let's stop buying Paizo products. I'm not saying it's all junk. I don't understand why everyone in my physical reality has a core rulebook that is falling apart and yours' are not, but I don't think people are really being objective about the quality issue.

All I can say is that my experience says otherwise.

Thats not what people are saying, they're saying that while there are some issues they are the minority. Typically if you have a satisfied customer odds are you won't hear anything, but a disgruntled customer will raise enough hell to make you think that everyone who deals with the business is treated horribly.

As far as the binding and print quality goes, my group has 5 people in in it. Between us we've bought at least 2 copies of every book paizo has put out aside from the APs (I'm the only AP purchaser since i'm the dominant DM) In some cases like with the core rulebooks, the APG, and bestiaries we all have our own copy, plus a spare CRB just in case. Of all of these the printing issues we've had have included:

1) Gods and magic had a section fall out - This was a print run issue and paizo fixed it by replacing it without demanding the damaged book, said book is still being used as an extra copy without further damage

2) one of our core rule books had a repeated section and was missing another, amazon replaced the copy

3) one of the bestiaries had a warped cover (this was more likely due to Barnes and nobles shipping, rather than paizo)

this is THREE issues out of god knows how many books we have between us (Just a quick count on my shelves reaches 99, not including a few that i have on loan to players) and 2-3 years of them being in business. considering that both my bestiary and CRB are from the first print run as well (which is more likely to have problems being while they were still working kinks out) and are holding up despite being dropped, knocked off the table, pressed flat and frequently had books stacked on top of them while open during flipping between entries I'd say Paizo does pretty good compared to most in the industry. You say listen to the fact all these others have complained, I say considering the fact that so many rise to the defense shows just how small a percentage the mistakes are.

Add to that the fact that when they DO fall a bit short they do everything in their power to rectify it puts them lightyears ahead of the competition. I doubt White Wolf, WOTC, or any other company would so quickly replace a book at their own cost without question

]

But the problem is that for all other classes and mechanics, something HORRIBLE going wrong on a 1 is a houserule. Here it is being written into the rules themselves either as a balance (a balance for what, I have no idea) or to make them more realistic or at least more unique.

I can definitely see your point there, and hopefully they'll make it a suggested optional rule instead of automatically built in. In the PFCS, I made a gunslinger from Alkenstar who used both the exploding dice AND the misfire rules and it balanced out nicely.

I think i would be more comfortable with a misfire on a one, and an actual damaging effect if you CONFIRM your one, in other words, two ones in a row, a much lower chance, but still there. You'd still misfire on a one and have to spend a round clearing your weapon (or use grit) but you'd only suffer damaging effects on 1 shot in 400 rather than 1 in 20

My group has a lot of fun, but then I'm lucky (or cursed) in that out of a group of 5 players, all but one of us takes turns DMing an adventure they have in mind, It tends to make the players a bit more understanding of the DM's workload and frequently we pitch in and will help stat up a monster or NPC for the DM if he or she asks.

Course this goes in the other way too, a DM player can be one of the most persnickety rules laywers out there!

Or, you can just make a Lightning reload in the image of the Crossbow Mastery feat from the APG :

Quote:

Lightning Reload (Combat)
Prerequisites: Dex 15, Point-Blank Shot, Rapid Reload, Rapid Shot.

Benefit: The time required for you to reload any type of gun is reduced to a free action, regardless of the type of gun used. You can fire a gun as many times in a full attack action as you could attack if you were using a bow. Reloading a gun for the type of gun you chose when you took Rapid Reload no longer provokes attacks of opportunity.

The problem is this feat will surely become mandatory for any Gunslinger except if multibarrels guns become available.

I would rather see multibarrel guns instead of revolvers, such as the pepperboxes or the triple barrel guns the chinese warriors of Tzun Tzu used (forget their name, saw them on an episode of "deadliest warrior")

I personally wish they'd throw the misfire mechanic out the window in its entirety.

Take a Wizard who happens to roll a 1 for his Scorching Ray - does the spell explode in his face due to a lack of concentration? Or the Alchemist even - each time he mixes his highly volatile mixtures in the middle of battle, does he have to roll to see if it explodes in his face? Heck, is there a d% chance of a Cleric trying to channel energy to have his/her deity say "screw you" and deny them their divine power?

Ranty, I know, but I just don't like the mechanic. It would be an interesting way to balance guns, if they were that powerful to begin with.

I don't even know if I should get started on the ammo thing.

I DO think the ammo is way to expensive. I could see 1-5GP per powder shot MAYBE, but the lead balls shouldn't be too costly.

As far as misfire goes, it kinda goes hand and hand with the musketeer/early firearms imagery. They DID misfire a lot, and you see it quite often in movies. Its true that wizards and clerics don't have horrible things happen to them when they roll a one (though they do waste the spell), I AM in favor of the alchemist's elixirs (especially the bombs) going bad if they roll a one. I've even made that decision when I've played one, having one of my incendiary bombs go off in my face and having to drop and put myself out before calmly getting up and resuming the fight. "What? huh? oh yeah...I'm fine...nothing to see here!"

So many have mentioned time and time again in this thread about Paizo putting books and content out to make money. first and foremost, Paizo is a company in it to make money for both themselves and their employees. We as consumers of their products get the benefit of said product.

With that being said, people have mentioned the books are coming out way to fast for them and they have class bloat. Both of these simply are not true. A year apart with the APG and the Core Rules book is not to fast for one. For two 12 classes plus the Magus class, 8 months after the APG is released is STILL not to fast. The Ultimate Combat books with Three "Alternate" classes is not asking to much not to mention it is going to be another 4 months after Ultimate Magic is released. So we have 13 base classes and 3 "Alternate" classes in a matter of 3 years and some of you in this thread are complaining about class bloat.

Paizo has mentioned many times that they are going to try and keep a balance on them as much as they can but they STILL have to release products and find ways to put content in said product. Hell James Jacobs has come in this thread and said as much and people criticize him because they are not doing enough for some of you. In three years time WotC has put out way more product that Paizo has with way way to many classes in their books and yet People are still playing it. Buying their books as they are released.

The main reason I moved to Paizo is because of the fact that Paizo actually cares enough to ask our opinion and playtest and plan their products beforehand. They also do not want to move to fast without keeping us in mind when they release a book, even going so far as to push the release dates back a few months to try and make sure said product is the best it can be in their eyes. Paizo can not nor should they try and please everyone of us that buy their product and like it or not the products they have put out have pleased the majority of the people that have bought them. With that being said...

I can see this as a "darned if you do, darned if you don't" situation. On the one hand you have two rather different (and i'm not sure exactly if they go together) concepts in the firearms and oriental flavored stuff both in demand (and both rather highly debated and a bit of a hot topic amongst us geeks) for the Paizo treatment. I'm kinda glad they finally did it, though I'm not sure they need whole classes, but thats another topic.

Does a game company need to produce products to survive? Absolutely. Do I want them to continue to produce great games? Absolutely. I'm a big fan of paizo, and I've lobbied hard both for my group and my FLGS to come around to the Paizo/Pathfinder bandwagon (FLGS finally did, so I'm able to get most of my stuff through them now, yay!) At first blush I'm not a big fan of this book, which is a first for me for a Paizo product and I'll admit I came off possibly a bit snarky at first. I apologize for any nerdrage ^_- .

Hopefully I'll be wrong and this will be a great book and a wonderful addition to my gaming collection. Maybe I'll be right and I'll want to slap anyone who tries to bring it to my table. Either way, in retrospect I suppose its good to get both controversial topics in one book and risk ONE bad book rather than two poor sellers. Paizo does good stuff, and I'm sure even one of their flops (if this book is one) will be better than most companies successes.

I know this is going to sound utterly revolutionary, and thus will be immensely "pooh-poohed" by the vast majority here, but....

If you don't want to buy a product...don't.

If as GM/DM you don't want a particular class in your game...don't.

If as a player, you REALLY REALLY REALLY want to play that new whateveritis all nice and shiny and new, but your DM/GM wont allow it...find a new game or change your mind until next time.

Griefing the interweb to whine about something we as consumers are given the power to regulate and control anyhow is kind of silly.

Now, using your time to say...make suggestions on how to modify something...that is a much better thing.

Of course, its my 2cp.

I agree with you, and I WILL be voting with my dollars as I imagine others will be too. That being said we DO have the right to voice our opinions if we can do so in a civil manner, and Paizo should know that at least a portion of their customers are against things such as this. That being said, if enough DO want it, fair enough. All it really means is that I might have to start treating Paizo books like i do 3.5 and approve it before its used in game whereas before anything Paizo produced got an automatic pass.

James Jacobs wrote:

The topic of "class bloat" is (and has been for some time) something we've been wrestling with and talking about for a while now. Feedback from the playtests is certainly going to help us come to terms with the question, and more to the point, inform us as to whether or not we've hit the saturation point for full classes (be they called base, core, or alternate... it's all the same).

Here's some feedback:

The oracle filled a mechanical gap, the magus (with an overly-complicated pool mechanic) patches a gap. The antipaladin squeaks through due to gaming tradition. The alchemist is at least its own niche. The cavalier, inquisitor, summoner, and witch base classes are pure bloat and should never have been published, and there is no need whatsoever for gunslinger, ninja, or samurai (the last being bloat upon bloat).

So stop already.

+1

I have to say I'm in the "no" crowd and its a bit surprising. Up til now I've loved everything paizo has put out and bought it, either in book form, pdf form, or both. This is the first book that i've looked at an thought "Do I really want this at my table?" "is this a product I want to invest in?" With the previous books its never been "do i want this" its been "Oooo...cool, now how soon can I afford to pick this up?"

I'm probably not your market obviously. I hate rules and class bloat, If it can be done with the base classes and a few feats and a bit of imagination I don't think it needs a new class. I would have rather seen the firearms rules folded into a one page or so entry in the campaign setting and the oriental stuff folded into the Tan Xia book when it comes out then this. As it is, you've got a product that is a bit hit or miss with both the target demographics. Those who want guns and those who want oriental flavored items. Its trying to appeal to both, and I think it'll fail to appeal to either.

I was initially interested in it for the gunslinger, I like a bit of firearms in my RPG, but this is going to be a product that I'll have to pass on, and will likely not be allowed at my table.

Do dancing weapons get to make a single attack or multiple attacks? The text says full BaB but doesn't specify one or the other.

It would get multiple attacks based off the BAB. once the BAB goes beyond 5, secondary and tertiary attacks are possible, attack progression is like this

+6/+1
+11/+6/+1
+16/+11/+6/+1

I'd probably prefer either round, or squarish with rounded edges

Theres a few possibilities....If an image would print out at proper size (1'x1') (2'x2') ect, then i would have no problem putting the images onto cut pieces of wood, and it would allow me to create with a little preparation a dragon, a mob of zombies, kobolds, ect. I could see this becoming a problem for creatures of SMALL size unfortunately though.

The wood base thing has worked so far in my gaming group, one of our players has a bunch of mage knight miniatures that don't quite fit on the 1x1 grid, so he's removed some of thier bases and replaced them with balsa wood squares. A similar system should work for art. I've tried to resize, crop and otherwise print out art that i've screenshotted from PDF's with very minimal success so if someone DID go through the effort to make it work I'd definitely happily pay for it, either in physical or digital form. Digital form would be more practical though since that way you would not have to pay for 50 kobolds if you never use them, but could print out 20 storm giants if you got in a crazy mood.

Cardboard could work as well as a base, if be a bit flimsier. Cut a section from a pancake or cereal box and use a small plastic tab attached to one side to move or easily pick them up. I'm pretty handy at improvising solutions, i just stink horribly at manipulating the image i need to form the base of the project.

I'd probably buy a physical product like this, I'd DEFINITELY buy PDF type products along those line. This is one of my goals to eventually do, create stand ins for the monsters my gaming group uses instead of resorting to using random mini's or dice boxes.

Depends on the game... in the Ptolus game i played in we tracked rent (actually living expenses, which included rent)

We generally don't focus too much on sleep in the game, but if we're in the wilderness or in a dungeon we do take turns on watch in case of encounters.

As far as food/water, we generally hand wave that unless we're in a situation where it would likely be hard to find, such as in a desert or arctic enviroment.

nonmagical, nonmasterwork ammo we don't generally track (though for specialized things like the ammo for my Alkenstar character i did, since he pretty much had to make all his own firepower)

Firewood and torches we don't focus on too much, but then for the most part my group tends to pool resources for everburning torch, or darkvision.

I'm kinda anal myself as far as what i write down on my character sheet myself, such as rope, ink, parchment, vials, ect, but thats mainly for my own benefit, sometimes while we're brainstorming i'll look over the inventory and get a crazy idea for how to use some of the junk i'm carrying.

I've been in some games where they track EVERYTHING, and some where they track very little. My advice, is if you feel you might be missing out on the fun, try tracking some, and see how you like it. Often in a wilderness or dungeon campaign the "camp time" is a good chance to RP for a short bit. It also depends on how much time you have for a session, how often you can get together. If your gaming time is limited then handing shopping/roleplay out of session (perhaps through email/chatroom) might be the best thing for your group

I think if that were the case they'd get stuck with a bunch of out of date AP's stuck in their warehouse. why would anyone buy Second Darkness, Curse of the Crimson Throne in their 3.5 versions when could buy a full book of all of them updated to pathfinder?

If they redo or reprint Rise of the Runelords (and i hope they do!) They should wait til the book is completely out of print, THEN re-release it, possibly in one big volume or in the current 6-book format (whichever is cheaper)

Doing anything else would be shooting themselves in the foot. The PDF's aren't a bad deal, Fed Ex kinko's can print out the PDF's with a nice binding very reasonably if you do it in black and white. The finished price is only a few bucks more than the printed AP would be. Final cost is something like 23 bucks with PDF+print and binding.

The outcast king was a definite threat to our group even with an artificer and a necromancer with minions helping out. Fortunately one of our attempts to make a dust of disapeance had resulted in a dust of sneezing and choking so making use of that saved our bacon, stunned him for enough rounds for us to finish him off.

We'd probably have still made it out, but likely would have lost at least one of the PCs

My group finished the book with the play in it last session and we had a blast with it! despite noone having ranks in perform (act) with more than a few lucky rolls we got through the play unscathed and quite well known.

between the play and the dungeon its the most fun I've had in a pathfinder path so far.

On the runecurse.... my character got it, and we managed to get out of the dungeon without it going off fortunately, I was feeling quite a bit of dread when we got out, but with a bit of guile I passed the runecurse off to Thessig the prima donna actor who had taken quite a dislike to my character. Pawned it off as a fan letter. Don't know how long it'll be before the runecurse triggers, but it was another fun moment :)

Can't wait to see whats waiting for us in the next installment!

Nothing wrong with wanting to go first in a round, especially if your a rogue, or a polearm monkey with high dex and combat reflexes. Highest dex modifier i've seen so far is in my current group. We have a player with a +15 initiative. +9 dex modifier (with items) +4 for improved initiative and the reactionary trait for another +2. theres nothing RAW saying improved initiative can be taken twice, but nothing really gamebreaking to do so if your group or DM wishes to allow it.

Typically though, once you get past a +10 initiative mod, its just overkill :)

in legacay of fire players guide (3.5) the weapon had both reach and trip, but in Adventure's Armory (Pathfinder) the weapon was powered down, presumably to bring it in line with weapons like the spiked chain which also lost its reach abilities in the new addition.

Bryan Bloomer wrote:

And more importantly, what can we men do to garner your interest?

Stop making gender an issue.

+1

Gender I don't think is an issue really. Granted there are stereotypes but with MMORPGS and other console based gaming becoming more popular I think many of them are going away.

What prevents some people (not just women) from joining up with a game like this is the stereotype the GAME has, not the player your trying to attract. As someone above said hygiene is a big factor. Showering and watching crude behavior is a good way to keep any player. Male or female. Granted men are less likely to be offended by farting, scratching and body odor, its not endearing to ANYONE.

I never really understood the "women are not gamers" attitude until recently when i was looking to various other gaming groups and was shocked there weren't any females in the group, or were surprised that 3 out of 6 of my players were of the fairer sex. (that was 3 years ago, the demographic has changed a bit as people come and go, but we still have 1 out of 4 players female).

I think a lot of it comes down to attitude. You go into the situation treating them as different and they're going to feel alienated even if you do your best to make them welcome.

I would also like to see them reprint the first pathfinder books, the Rise of the Rune Lords again but up to date in Pathfinder rules :)

They already have stated that they have no current plans to do so. That doesn't mean they WON'T, but its unlikely at this juncture.

You can mostly run the 3.5 AP's as are with very few tweaks, and FedEx Kinkos will print up the AP for you for about 10 bucks a book if you don't mind it being black and white, and they'll put it in a nice little spiral binding.

Michael Miller 36 wrote:

If the problem is non enhancement bonuses, or weapon enchantments itself, then the rule needs to specify that. As it is the way its worded also includes Divine Bond. The ruling either needs to exempt class abilities from them or specifically include them. As it currently stands the paladin has been hit twice with two different errata while two classes with similar abilities have been left untouched.

It was specifically supposed to affect Paladin and Arcane Archer. I believe it also affects bows transfering to arrows. I wish they included how you handle that though, I think the Paladin should be able to override existing bennefits so long as the total is still under +10.

One of the orriginal posts where they commented on it is in this Divine Bond over 9000 thread.

Hmmm.. after skimming that thread (mainly looking for the official responses rather than the bickering that almost ALWAYS results from rules questions lol) it does seem that they're specifically calling out magical bonuses. This DOES annoy me a bit since it seems they're getting rid of the main advantages of those classes.

Sounds like house rule time.

If the problem is non enhancement bonuses, or weapon enchantments itself, then the rule needs to specify that. As it is the way its worded also includes Divine Bond. The ruling either needs to exempt class abilities from them or specifically include them. As it currently stands the paladin has been hit twice with two different errata while two classes with similar abilities have been left untouched.

Looking at the Adventurer's armory, thistle arrows are listed as doing bleed damage for 1d6 rounds afterwards.

Does this mean a longbow fired thistle arrow does it's normal (d8 + whatever) damage on impact and then the normal arrow damage (d8) for those extra rounds?

The "Bleed" condidtion in the core rulebook doesn't specify any amount of damage.

Bleed damage if i recall correctly is generally 1 point of damage per round until a DC15 heal check is made or 1 point or more of magical healing. There are some abilities that inflict higher amounts of bleed, but unless stated otherwise this is likely 1 point per round.

This "nerf", most certainly comes from a balance issue, as well as being a rules clarification. It doesn't only affect the paladin, it affects all instances where you can go above +10, especially the more infamous and prevalent casting of greater magic weapon to exceed the +10 limit.

But what he's pointing out is it doesn't counter the NONMAGICAL bonuses that definitely still give an equivalent bonus to hit. what about the ranger or fighter with a +10 weapon that with weapon training or favored enemy bonuses now have an +15 or +14? why should they benefit from their class abilities but the paladin be denied them simply because its from a divine magical source? If its considered a balance issue, than it should be levied across the board, not aimed at just one class.

one thing i see a lot of people missing, is that the bonus to deflection and to hit is NOT against everything. Its against the target of the smite.

In addition, while smite evil is in effect, the paladin gains a deflection bonus equal to her Charisma modifier (if any) to her AC against attacks made by the target of the smite.

this might be why a lot of people are thinking smite evil is overpowered. Keep it mind it also doesn't stack with things like ring of protection so at higher levels your really not getting the AC bonus. (though personally i think the bonus to hit is more important)

That being said, I'm relatively okay with the change, but like many i'd have prefered aura of justice to go away instead.

Please link for me the crossbow mastery feat? I am teh fail in my google skillz.

Are you not entertained?!

http://www.archivesofnethys.com/feats.htm#crossbow-mastery

Crossbow Mastery (Combat)
Source Pathfinder Campaign Setting p218

You can load crossbows with blinding speed and even fire them in melee with little fear of reprisal.

Prerequisites: Dexterity 15, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Reload, Rapid Shot.

Benefit: The time required for you to reload any type of crossbow is reduced to a free action, regardless of the type of crossbow used. You can fire a crossbow as many times in a full attack action as you could attack if you were using a bow. Reloading a crossbow for the type of crossbow you chose when you took Rapid Reload no longer provokes attacks of opportunity.

Special: A ranger with the archery combat style may add Crossbow Mastery to their bonus feat list at 6th level.

it can easily do so, you just have to be smart and utilize a terrain. most villians are smart, they need to be played that way. Use terrain, don't be afraid to run. Have a backup plan. If the BBEG has been watching or had any of his minions escape, be prepared for the parties tactics. It can be doable, the main disadvantage is the players are typically 4 people (or more) dissecting a problem, the DM has to do it on his own. It takes practice, but its definitely possible. Dragon fights for example optimistically should never land to fight a powerful party UNLESS they are at a disadvantage already (or all ranged, or all spellcasters for example) via low hit points or terrain.

there are lots of ways to make a fight iconic and challenging, its all in how you look at it.

if your gonna order more than one roll, you might want to order it directly from the gamingpaper.com website since for a 4 roll pack shipping cost is reduced. Your milage may vary, but i've found this to be an excellent product, especially for maps you end up reusing multiple times. You don't have to redraw constantly or tie up a battlemat, just a small section of cheap graph paper. Holds up pretty well to abuse too!

My group doesn't generally force a player to take the adjustments, but we do make sure that if you make a character that takes the bonuses s/he better make sure to take all the penalties to come with it. So if you haven't taken any modifiers (and the DM isn't forcing you to) than i wouldn't worry about it. but if you DO get any of the bonuses, you should take the penalties. If he forces you to take any of the penalties, make sure you get the bonuses.

For a cleric the bonus to wisdom could be helpful, but make sure you watch your strength, that'll affect how heavy of armor you can wear. Theres a spell in Defenders of the Faith called "Curse of the Brute" that allows you to boost one physical stat at the expense of a mental one for short times as well

Just take the weasel, add the giant template to it, and voila! Dire Weasel :)