Mirror, Mirror's page

The process is as follows:

You cast Shadow Evocation.
If the effect interracts with the target, they get a WILL save to disbelieve.
If they succeed, they will take 1/5th the damage.
They next get any save that may be applicable based on the spell being emulated, but the spell level is that of Shadow Evocation, not the emulated spell. Results for this save are as normal.

Therefore, if you use Shadow Evocation to cast Fireball:

They get an initial WILL save, followed by a REF save for 1/2 damage. They take full damage if they fail both, they take 1/5 damage if they make the WILL and fail the REF, they take 1/2 if they fail the WILL and make the REF (none if they have Evasion), and they take 1/10 if they make both (none if they have Evasion).

BTW, that second save is a killer, so it may be better to use Evocation spells with no saves.

Bards are a force multiplier. The greater the initial force, the greater the multiplied value.

IF the Bard were weak at anything, it would be buffing the CASTERS. Who generally don't need the buffs. So no big deal.

A Bard means the Wiz can focus on battlefield control, the cleric on debuffs, and everyone else on killing the enemy, since the Bard is the best party buffer around.

When is the Bard OP? Probably when he takes leadership, has a dedicated abjurer anti-spell cohort, and lots of followers with Brilliant Energy bows (boosting touch attacks is SO much easier than regukar ones).

It was 3.5, but we had a plan:

All cleric, all the same god (so the recitation spells and such would be maxed)

Cleric (Archery focused with Zen Archery)
Cleric (Stealth focused with Trickery Domain)
Cleric (Buff focused)
Cleric/Hospitalier (SOMEBODY better be a fighter!)
Clr/Wiz/MT (For some arcane support)

Basically, healing is not even an issue, the entire party can melee (sans the MT), the first round everyone can group-buff, and the second the party goes to town. Not a lot of blasting, but who needs it?

Myself, I notice a certain trend with my d20's:

On some days, my gamescience clear, spotted black, spotten blue, and marbled red will roll very well. Like average 15 well. On these same days, my solid red, white, blue, and runic gencon dice will roll junk. Like average 6 junk.

Then, on another day, I notice the opposite trend is true. The exact opposite. Surely, I think, this must just be random chance...

So, I started last year tensing my dice before the game starts. I roll them all, and see if they line up into neat sets. Admittedly, there are occasionally days where the dice are random. But most of the time, the dice actually DO roll into sets.

As a player, I just pick which set will be the good roller's that day. And I am almost always richly rewarded. As a DM, I purposly choose the poor rollers, and I openly roll. This always confuses people, since they play with me in other games where they have seen those exact same dice roll extremly well.

Now, perhaps there is nothing to all this, and it's just the result of selection bias. I would like to believe that. However, I participate in close to 3-4 games every week, and this trend has brought up/down my average considerably. So much so that the others have noticed the trend themselves.

I can't think that this is somehow cheating, and I challenged the two physicists and the two engineers to explain the science, and we have been currently unable to, except for a theory that the materials are semi-permiable and temprature, humidity, and barametric pressure are influencing the dice somehow. For now, they still allow me to use the system, since it is not fool-proof.

FWIW.

If you check the rules, you may notice something:

Masterwork ammunition is damaged (effectively destroyed) when used. The enhancement bonus of masterwork ammunition does not stack with any enhancement bonus of the projectile weapon firing it.

I know I have brought this up before, but my reading of this is that masterwork ammo gains the damaged condition and are not truly destroyed (just effectively, as in you cannot use it when damaged). This would allow a Mending cantrip to repair non-magical masterwork ammo and Make Whole to repair magical ammo.

That is my take, at least.

Mirror, Mirror wrote:

I think the real reason you can't get "fine" form from the spells is because that would allow the caster to sit on the Paladin's head as a flea. No real chance to attack or detect, and Druids can still cast spells as flea's.

You could even hide among other fleas, like on the Ranger's dog or the Druid's own Wolf. It's basically just too exploitable.

That's really good point!

What about the Swarm suggestion?

I think BS-IV should be high enough to justify a mediun swarm. You can get into places similar to a Gaseous Form, but have a variety of drawbacks. Druids can still cast, and I suppose you could hide yourself among a Summon Swarm spell, but it still is just prime for a Fireball.

Seeing as how no medium swarm is going to be effective in combat vs CL appropriate encounters, I think it's just fine. And very cool.

Mirror, Mirror wrote:

If that were true, why does the Wiz rank as tier 1 and Sor as tier 2?

As I mentioned earlier, this is because a lot of players have absolutely -no- clue how to build an effective Sorcerer.

And while I actually DO agree, it is a valid point that having access to more spells, and the ability to change your spell layout, is a substantial advantage the Wiz has over the Sor. For instance:

Situation changes unexpectedly! Sor finds himself without many effective spells. Wiz also finds themselves with fewer effective spells. The difference is the Sor has been choosing the spell list over their entire career, and only getting to change out one spell every 4 levels. The Wiz has more spells to choose from (assuming spellbook # spells > Known spells by level chart), and got to re-select his entire spell list that morning.

Can the Wiz be more screwed than the Sor? Yes, certainly. Is it also possible that the Wiz could be relatively unaffected, since they chose spells that synergized with more static elements (like PC abilities or terrain) rather than generally useful or specifically powerful spells? Again, yes.

To put it into another analysis, the Sor, done right, can be just as powerful as the Wiz. The Wiz, almost anytime, can be just as good as the Sor. The set of Sor's that are just as good a Wiz is smaller than the set of Wiz's that are just as good a Sor. Therefore, Wiz must have an inherrent advantage (unlimited spell access > spont casting).

The DEGREE of difference does not have to be large at all for this to still be true. In fact, it needs only to EXIST.

Wait, you mean the Pants of Alluring Charisma is NOT core PF?

I love it!

The druid is forced to teach the secret druid language

Instead he teaches the wizard
pig-latin or goose-latin druidic.

uoyah areya everna oingay otay etgay waya ithway isthay......

My thoughts exactly.

I start by teaching Sylvan. When they catch on, I sigh and explain THE SECRET:

There IS no druidic language. It's just a secret handshake. Sylvan, with an accent. A Texan accent. Back in the early days of the grove, someone came up with it as a way to talk among adults with the awakened animals and 3+int animal companions listning in.
*bluff check*

If the sense motive reveals me, I say that the think about the texan accent was a joke, but the rest is true.
*bluff check*

ad nauseum.

Or a Chaotic Good Assassin who gets requests to dispatch evil guys, infiltrates them to learn if they really are worthy of being killed, then performs the deed.

The requests come from ordinary people who have been horribly wronged or have witnessed a grave injustice.

Actually, that sounds an awful lot like an Anime theme. Is there a series like this I may have seen?

Some odd answers here...

My take: The spell is cast on the character, not the armor. It's sharing the hp damage a character takes, not acting like a field of energy absorbing the damage. Thus, option 2 is actually correct. After DR, you halve the damage, and apply that to the cleric and the target.

Otherwise, why not gain SR and have it negate the damage from the spell while still shielding the target? It's the reverse effect, and clearly NOT the intention of the spell.

The good people here have made a 3.0 edition of the game. I'm sure only a few tweaks could generate a PFRPG version.

The major rule I made for my own spelljammer games was that wildspace blocks LoE, so you cannot fireball enely ships unless your air envelopes touch.

And what's wrong with space hamsters and Giff?

That's fine but don't be surprised when people continue to glaze over and skip your posts once they see your name/avatar.

Isn't that attitude rather counter-productive? If you only want to hear what you already believe to be true, why not just sit in a room and talk to yourself? Why go to a public messageboard and glaze other other's posts?