Moondragon Starshadow's page

...This will be a knowledge nobility check.......

Knowledge local informs you that these people are nobles and probably have money. If you wonder what you already know about them, it's a nobility check. A successful nobility check may have cued you into information that would have avoided what is about to spew from General Vourne's mouth.

General Vourne looks at both Jimmy and Phaedra coldly. Robahl cringes. "Certainly not. I don't waste my time with fantasy and role playing. Lady, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with swords and bows. Who's gonna do it? You? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You have the luxury of working with pretend danger. My existence, while most likely grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties like this, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like 'honor', 'code', 'loyalty'. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline in a play! I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to people who rise and sleep under the blanket of the very security that I provide! I would rather you just said "thank you", and went on your way."

Just wanted to say thanks for the new version. Using Office 2007 and I had been stuck with the 6.2 version for a while as updates since then had crashed after just a few moments of use. The new versions 7.3 and 7.4 appear to be stable on my computer.

Great job!

My group just finished this part of the campaign. I would say that the setting of the campaign needs to be as dark and grim as possible. You are in a land full of devil worshipers and evil people. Tieflings are treated like cockroaches, and Halflings are nothing more than possessions. The more evil and over the top I made the setting, the more the players tended to get into the story of making it a better place.

I threw in a lot of "justified" killing of NPCs by other NPCs just to enhance the evil aspect of the city. I had bodies of tieflings piled up under one of the dottari's buildings as they were trying to exterminate them as part of the response to the Bastards of Erebus crimes. Stuff like that. A truly heinous setting.

So, I think that's the part about the first book that they liked the most. They also enjoyed fighting the Bastards, although their constant use of the Darkness spell made it a very difficult encounter for them.

What they disliked the most was how fast level 1 went by through the sewers. I made it so that they had a brief lead over the Hellknights, and each time they reached a special marking, they could spend part of that lead to increase the chance of reading the mark correctly. Incorrect readings resulted in more random encounters, but taking time would result in the Hellknights catching them. However, they were able to get the readings correct without spending much time and after 4 encounters they reached the exit. They suddenly were level 2 and they thought it was too fast. I agree. Giving them lots of XP just for entering and exiting the sewer seems too much.

They also disliked Palaveen's loot, which includes a potion of Disguise Self. This caused a lot of arguments about the legality of that potion, since the spell Disguise Self is a personal spell. That upset the rules-lawyer players so much that it frankly ruined the fun of beating the Bastards.

SUGGESTION ON HOW TO FIX IT

Similar to Ebay, you could have forum users with enough posts (say 100 post minimum) to hit a feedback button of some sort on an alias if they think they are being a jerk.

Now, when a forum moderator comes along and see a jerky post by someone, they can look up the alias and see how many people (and different posts) have been marked as a "jerk" post. If the moderator sees enough people and in multiple posts marked as "jerk" posts, then the moderator can send a message to that person and give them an official warning.

If a moderator finds a post they feel is over the line, but that person has rarely made other "jerk" rated posts, then perhaps the moderator cuts them some slack.

It's a self-policing mechanism, whereby the forum users can signal a jerk post, and if enough of them pile up and a moderator finds a post clearly crosses the line, they can step in. It would make it easier on moderators who might hesitate on a borderline post.

Now, as a reminder, the forum users have no power to enforce anything, they can just rate a post as a jerk post. The moderator can use that information in the future should something catch their attention as to how common those kind of forum posts are occurring.

Blah, that's probably a long-winded suggestion, but I think you get what I'm trying to say.

Currently there are two ways to get a campaign off your campaign list:

1) Have the GM remove you using the Edit Campaign information. This is great when GMs know to do this, or the GM is active. Gives the GM plenty of control. But there is no control by the player.

2) Find the gameplay thread on the main forum list and select "hide post" option. This is EXTREMELY hard to do if your campaign is old. The only way to find it is to do a search, but when you get the search result, it takes you directly to the thread itself, not the block forum listing that has the option to hide it. Thus, you are forced to scroll endlessly through the forums trying to find your exact campaign to then hide. It shouldn't be this hard.

The hide option needs to be in the thread itself, or there needs to be a way so that when you search for your campaign thread, it will give you the option to hide a campaign. Something. Anything, so the player can also manage their campaigns. Ideally, it should be on the campaign tab or in our account.

Thanks for reading. I hope this is fixed.

Rizzardo looks happy. "Uhhh, thanks."

"Wow, a real sword made of steel. Ssswwweeeeet!" Emerlos is obviously happy. He looks for a mirror to see what he looks like with a real sword. Rizzardo steps in front of him, and flexes. It's a fight for the mirror!

"Damn, this sword makes me hot! I bet I could pick up chicks faster than that blonde dude, what's his name?"

"Thesing Umbero Ulvaud, idiot"

"Ya, him. I hear he does like, a chick or two each performance. He likes the ones who like it in the butt."

"Oh, then why hasn't he asked you out yet?" They start punching each other again.

RAW, It's pretty straight forward that you're not allowed to do it. Sure, it's a Free Action you can take when you hit a creature with an attack; if it occurs outside your turn, you aren't given a special exception to take that Free Action outside your turn, since there is no clause explicitly stating it can be used with Attacks of Opportunity or otherwise.

Speaking sets the precedent that Free Actions are limited to be taken only during your turn, since it is the only written subject that signifies language stating you can do so outside your turn. Everything else which lacks such language would follow the same restrictions as nearly every other action type.

Please link where it says you must take a free action only on your turn. When you read the Free Action description from the PRD, it says no such thing. It seems that unless you have a link to the rulebook stating that a free action must be taken on your turn, you are assuming. Most actions occur on your turn, and free actions are done with normal actions, so obviously the vast majority of free actions occur on your turn. But, there is no stated restriction that a free action must occur on your turn. The restriction is that it accompany a normal action.

So, a normal action can be a melee attack. A melee attack is part of an Attack of Opportunity. So, please, provide your link that a free action must be done on your turn only.

Furthermore, to the post about pointing out feats that allow you to take free actions with a bow to do an AoO. The feat doesn't allow the free action, it allows the AoO. Because it allows the AoO, and the only way to attack with a bow using an AoO is to also draw the arrow, which is a free action. So, if the feat allowing an AoO from a bow required you to hit the creature with a melee attack with your bow (like swinging the actual bow), then you might imply you can't draw an arrow and shoot it in an AoO. But, that's not the case, you actually shoot the creature as an AoO, so you have to draw an arrow, which is a free action, which of course doesn't happen on your turn. Another way to think about it is the feat would say "You can make an AoO with your bow ONLY if you have an arrow already drawn and ready." But of course, it doesn't say that.

The reason it doesn't say that is because there is nowhere stated that free actions must occur on your turn. The only restriction is that it happens with a normal action. Stop reading stuff that isn't there.

Starglim wrote:

Moondragon Starshadow wrote:

The only problem is the word "normally" in the sentence. Why is that word even there? Are there non-normal actions you can take, and thus not permitted to use a free action? So, is an Attack of Opportunity a normal action, or a non-normal action?

Neither. An attack of opportunity is not an action.

The attack of opportunity rules say that an attack of opportunity is one melee attack. Melee attack can be found under the actions table as "Attack (melee)". Doesn't that mean that the attack itself is an action even if the attack of opportunity isn't?

Yeah, I would think that's the case. Furthermore, being able to make AoOs with a bow via feats or special abilities also suggests you can indeed take free actions as part of an AoO.

If I had to guess, I would say that when they wrote the definition of free action, they just inserted "normally" without really thinking about the consequences of that word OR it was meant as a catch-all just in case something weird came up, and as such they would probably make a specific ruling about it, so that the specific rule would overwrite the general rule. I'm probably going to assume the latter, and thus if the rules don't specifically state that you cannot take a free action, I'm going to assume you can take the free action. I'm going to assume that when they make an action that says "this action cannot include free actions" or something like that, then every listed action is indeed "normal". Thus, in a nutshell, you can indeed use grab with your attack of opportunity.

I realize that's not official or anything, but until we get something from Paizo, I think that is a clear reasoning.

QUESTION: Can creatures with Grab or Trip (or similar abilities that are triggered as a "free action" during an attack) use those abilities during a successful Attack of Opportunity?

I'll do you one better.

From the PRD on free actions: "Free actions consume a very small amount of time and effort. You can perform one or more free actions while taking another action normally. However, there are reasonable limits on what you can really do for free, as decided by the GM."

From that quote, nowhere does it state that a free action CAN ONLY be done on your turn. It might be assumed that's the case because on your turn is when you normally take another action. But that's not at all what it says. It says while taking another action. Is an Attack of Opportunity another action? Sure.

The only problem is the word "normally" in the sentence. Why is that word even there? Are there non-normal actions you can take, and thus not permitted to use a free action? So, is an Attack of Opportunity a normal action, or a non-normal action?

If it's normal, then you can do a free action. If it's not, then you cannot do the free action, and it solves all the questions.

As stated many times, the rules are written in plain english, not legal speak. However, every so often (like every other day) someone tries to read it like it's legal speak, and then complains it isn't clear, demanding an FAQ.

If I were a Pazio developer, and I saw people asking for an FAQ on what exactly does "wielding" mean, I'd shake my head and throw up my hands in frustration.

The example of Scepter of Heaven, which is supposed to be confusing, seems blatantly obvious. It acts as a morningstar, so it has to be wielded as a weapon. OMG, what does "wielded" mean. Really? Have we fallen so far that we have to actually ask these questions? If you had to just be wearing it, then they would have said wearing it. Nobody is wielding a ring of protection, after all.

If Paizo were to write the rules in legal speak, it would 1) be so incredibly long nobody would really know the rules accept for a select few and 2) would probably just be more confusing. The last thing anyone should want are for the rules to become more legal speak.

I'd like Paizo to focus on truly confusing things, like they did with charging while mounted, rather than junk like "what does wielding mean?" When games devolve into such nonsense, where there is a debate about common words, I would tell the player (or DM) that perhaps an RPG isn't for them, and suggest they play something like Candyland.

You can fly while paralyzed.

Remember, the rules are written assuming "normal" circumstances. In a normal circumstance, a creature is on the ground or swimming or using wings to fly. In that normal circumstance, a paralyzed creature cannot move, as movement is mechanical in nature. This kind of reasoning was discussed with touch attacks, as the developers "assume" you are holding the charge in your hands (a normal circumstance), not with your feet, hooves, bite attack, etc.

What if a creature only moved via teleportation using their mind? Paralyzation wouldn't have any effect, they would be a teleporting brick. Fly is exactly the same thing.

The fly spell, once casts, says it only requires concentration. It doesn't say you grow wings, or must flap your arms, etc. Thus, you would be forbidden from taking any kind of action that required something like that, but you could fly, like a flying brick. Had the fly spell said you grow wings, then no, you can't fly. If it said you must act like a bird, then no, you can't fly. Doesn't say that either. You just become a flying brick. Does it make sense? Of course not, it's magic.

You could try to do flying maneuvers, but since that would require a dexterity based skill check, you'd probably be at stiff penalties since I'd rule you have a dexterity of 0.

In rules discussions, while I know it's tempting to point at a specific few words and say "see, it says you can't move", one must remember it's made for normal circumstances. When you have a specific circumstance that overrules it, it overrules it. Fly is one of those specific circumstances.

Yeah, my monk at level 9 has an amazing 36 AC. He always runs in first since it normally takes a 20 to hit him. Then all the other players can attack.

So, you're saying that really high level spells can unbalance the game? That's a newsflash. Of course a spellcaster with access to lots of 9th level spells is probably going to win against just about any multi-classed character.

You could say put a lvl 20 druid against a lvl 20 Zen Archer Monk and see how that goes, or a lvl 20 druid against a lvl 20 Divine Focus Wizard.

Given the amount of time spent discussing level 20 performance on the forums, I must be in the minority of people who rarely play a level 20 character.

Now that I think about it - and I don't mean to sidetrack - What would a Druid's Touch AC be?

Let's say they are level 8, in Medium Air Elemental form(Wild Shape). Let's say they are Monk 4 and Druid 4 with Shaping Focus. They have some Lamellar Leather +1 with the Wild enchantment on it.

If the Armor is Melded and doesn't count as actually being there, but they still have an AC Bonus from it, would that bonus count as Touch or Flat-Footed?

My Interpretation:
Personally, I would assume it would be similar to Natural Armor in that sense, and that it would not apply to Touch AC. I am asking just to be sure though.

Similar to Mage Armor, touch AC isn't changed. It's not a deflection/dodge/dex bonus to AC.

I gave a lot of thought about it. On one side, are you wearing armor, yes or no? Yes. Then Monk AC is in violation, special properties or not. But, because of wild shape meld feature, the armor works like Bracers of Armor or Mage Armor, albeit just more powerful. And since neither of those violates Monk AC bonus, it should stand to reason that while in wild shape, the Monk AC bonus applies.

Furthermore, like Mage Armor and Bracers of Armor, armor with +wild negates all Dex limitations and armor check penalties while in wild shape form. This is why I would strongly agree that Monk AC bonus applies. I suppose had +wild armor limited the Dex bonus and also maintained its armor check penalty while in wild shape form, then it would also stand to reason that it would limit Monk AC bonus.

Hung Hei Kwoon places his hands together and places the tips of his fingers near his eyebrows and over his nose. "Nameste. Greetings and I welcome the divine in all of us. May the wind guide you to this thread, and may our posts flow like water."

I'll say this for the Pathfinder rules forum: it has some seriously smart people. My metaphorical 'tip of the hat' to the best gaming forum community.

I have learned in my many years that "common sense" is usually wrong. It is usually the least common denominator of information taken at face value rather than any sort of critical thinking applied to the situation at hand.

As I stated before, the question is much more basic than trip. It really is:

"What constitutes a successful hit/attack/maneuver? Is it the successful attack roll, or the successful application of the effect?"

That's an interesting way to put it. However, I'd have to go with successful application of the effect because of the feat Deflect Arrows. An attacker can make a "successful" ranged attack at a monk, but then he can deflect it. It specifically says that you treat the roll as not being successful, and thus does not trigger any kind of magical effect the ranged ammunition might have had.

So, rolling successfully was negated by not having a successful application of that successful roll.

Besides the "roll until you get a 20" thing, there should be consequences for taking an extraordinary amount of time.

You could play the "random monster wandering" encounter as a way of dealing with it without totally disrupting the adventure. An RPG should be a bit more "living" than a computer program dungeon crawl. Do the monsters really just sit in their room and wait for people to come in? If not, what do they do for food?

So, if players are moving through a dungeon at a decent pace, then play the campaign as designed. If they are taking a long time, taking lots of breaks, constantly taking 20, there should be consequences. Otherwise, you're running a campaign like a computer program.

No, you are all incorrect on how to solve the problem.

Let me tell you how to solve the problem.

Step 1: When game time starts, just start the game. There is no time to update a character, just say it must be played the way it is, and quickly move on in the game.

Step 2: Create a very difficult encounter that kills the player.

Step 3: Inform the player that the difficult encounter was designed to be overcome by a leveled up character, and you assumed he would have his character ready to go at the beginning of the game. Tell him he can spend the next hour or two making a new character, since that's the time it normally took anyway.

Repeat this as necessary for every player that isn't prepared.

It solves the problem pretty quickly.

As a fundamental supporter of the second amendment and owner of a firearm, there are also locations you cannot bring a firearm. You cannot bring a firearm to the Super Bowl. Sorry, can't do it. Does that mean you don't go to the Super Bowl if you get a ticket to go?

A lot of places I carry a weapon. We have coyotes and bad people can be anywhere, anytime. But, if the person or place hosting says no guns, then I leave the gun in the car. Same thing I would do if I was going to the Super Bowl.

Of course, I always like to think of why when I hear the "no gun" policy, and make sure there is a real reason besides "I don't like guns." So, here goes my theory. A person at a PFS game might experience a total party kill because of some random roll, a bad GM decision, or worse a stupid decision by a fellow gamer that you don't really know. That fellow gamer thinks it's funny that the entire party died. You've been working on that character for a long time, and this guy is laughing! GUN CHECK.

Same thing for the Super Bowl. Your team loses at the end and the other fans are just making a huge showing of it. You of course are wearing the team jersey of the losing team, and someone says "HEY LOSER YOU'RE NOT GOING TO DISNEY." GUN CHECK.

But if it's the shopping mall, I don't get the "no gun" policy. What exactly confrontational is happening at the shopping mall? Someone grab the last shirt on sale? Please. To me, this "no gun" policy is just anti-gun, so the heck with the rules, I'm carrying.

So, generally speaking, if there is high potential for non-illegal confrontation (name calling, or killing a player's imaginary character), the leave the gun at the door rule I can get. But when the only confrontation is likely to be illegal confrontation (robbing, assault, etc.), I keep my gun next to me thank you very much.

You roll once. The word "single" seems clear, and the only way it isn't clear is if you are really stretching things like Clinton. This game isn't written for lawyers, it's written in plain English.

The roll only replaces one other roll. If you do 3 scorching rays or whatever, and you would have to roll 3 times on your turn, you can't use that roll for all 3, you can only use it for 1 of the 3. It's clear unless you are again stretching to try to get something there that plainly isn't.

Finally, the roll is just the roll, it isn't the final result. The "result" it refers to is the result of the roll. If you have Bluff +4, then the roll of 10 on a d20, the "final result" is 10 + 4 = 14, not 10.

Again, the rules are written in plain English rather than legal writing. So you could try to parse the language but if you find yourself parsing every word, you're probably going to get the rule wrong. It's a decent rule of thumb for this game.

Base Druids Power by level:
1-3: Above average if they use their animal companion well, tad below average if they don't.
4-8: Way above average. The ability to do a lot of damage in melee, cast decent spells (mostly buff related), summon some okay animals and have a good pet is really powerful.
9-14: Above average: The shape shifting starts topping out and the spells aren't getting that much more powerful. Summoning becoming more important, while your pet is becoming less important.
15-20: Average: Pet is much less important, Wildshape topped out a while ago but still decent. Summoning becomes very important and some of your other spells.

So, it really depends but overall a Druid is a top-tier class in terms of power except for perhaps the highest levels. Then again, most campaigns don't get to the highest levels, so not sure how relevant that becomes.

By comparison, some melee classes do better at very early levels, and arcane casters do great at much higher levels. But the majority of the game is spent in mid levels, then Druid really stands out as overpowered.

1) This question has been argued pretty well by people on both sides, so I don't think you're players were trying to fast talk you, since I've seen passionate arguments for each viewpoint.

But, here's the issue I have. There are small, medium, large, huge elementals. They didn't just give them those names for anything, and they have listed size categories, and small air elemental is listed as "Small". Secondly, while the VOLUME of an air elemental might be larger, it still only weighs 1 pound. So, it seems strange that 1 pound of air in a whirlwind could pick up a large creature (e.g., a dire tiger is a large creature that can weigh roughly 6,000 pounds). Sure, the small elemental goes from 4' tall to 10-20' tall, but it's still just 1 pound of air. Finally, they list the size of the vortex in the same row as the size of the elemental being "small", so you would think they would probably give the vortex a different size category or make some note of it.

IN ADDITION, you'll note that the volume of the whirlwind is mentioned when it comes to the NUMBER of creatures it can hold, but I think it still requires the size of each individual creature to be the size of the elemental. I think this is because the amount of wind generated is only enough to lift creatures who weigh roughly what a creature should weigh at different size categories.

2) Save DC is 12 for small, 14 for medium, 18 for large, 22 for huge elementals. It is a vortex ability of the elemental (not of the druid), and there is nothing that seems related to the strength or some innate stat of the elemental (which wild shape only gives certain listed benefits/effects). It appears to be just a straight up ability from the vortex itself and thus it get's that elemental's DC saves as listed. So, I don't think there is anything you modify.

Another way to look at it relates to question #1. If you say a small elemental can only pick up small creatures, then does it really matter what the druid's strength is when in that form? What if the druid had a 30 strength, would it still only pick up small creatures because it's a vortex from a small elemental. If you say it's just small creatures because the vortex is what picks them up, not the strength of the elemental, then the DC is just what it is listed, no modifications.

If you decide a 30 strength druid in small elemental whirlwind can pick up things based upon the strength of the druid, then the DC would vary by stats of the druid versus what is picked up. That's a lot of work, and thus why I think the game tries to keep it simple with a specific size category and a specific DC save.

3) Yes. It says "when it comes into contact" the first save is to avoid the damage, not avoid the contact. So, when it comes into contact it "must" make a second save to avoid being picked up.

So, contact requires 2 saves, one for damage and one for being lifted. It's not if you don't take damage, you can't be lifted. If that was the case, it would read something like "on a failed save, the character must make a second save for..." and that's not the way it is written.

4)Encumbrance rules apply outside of the whirlwind form, since that's a function of the druid's modified strength. You wouldn't count the creatures in the whirlwind as additional encumbrance, as they are flying around inside (hence the static DC save). If you were to have a modified DC save for the whirlwind based upon the Druid's strength, then you could say that the weight would include the creatures inside. Can't have it both ways.

Hope that helps.

From my own perspective, with the rocket-tag style of play that happens because damage outstrips HP/defense at higher levels, epic fights are somewhat trivialized into who goes first.

Furthermore, the PC groups generally become more and more concerned about having the optimal balance, so someone has a really high Reflex save for finding traps, someone has a really high fort save, and someone else has a really high will save. While this is great teamwork and planning, it can trivialize challenges when the players put their super-easy save character against a particular challenge.

Well, what's the problem? Well, as a GM if you want to create a challenge, sometimes the challenge is near-instant death for many PCs in the group and a moderate challenge for the one-PC in the group optimized for that particular thing.

Plus, spells get to the point where you can avoid many challenges. Well, I know that's part of the game and people want their characters to survive, etc. I'm not trying to kill the characters in a game either, but I want them to sense danger. I want them to feel thrilled with victory and the story to have meaning needs meaningful combat and risk. It becomes very difficult at higher levels to create the correct balance between challenging a player group and out-right slaughtering them with minimal chance of success. If I create an encounter that the players feel was inappropriately difficult and they all die, they aren't going to be happy. If I create an encounter that is too easy, they'll go on their way but the story suffers.

How to fix it:

I think the White Wolf version of having to spend a lot more XP points to raise a skill that is beyond a certain point one way of preventing people with really high skills and make them just have a lot of average skills. This could be applied to a variety of character attributes, not just skills.

Second, while casters are relatively weak at lower levels compared with fighters, by the end of the game it is reversed. The primary reason for this is the amazing utility of the non-damage based spells. I'd like to see utility spells toned down at higher levels, but I'd also like to see the fireballs and lightning (damage-based spells) made a bit more powerful at earlier levels for casters. This would make Sorcs probably better than Wizards, so maybe give Wizards exclusive access to the fewer (but still useful) utility spells.

Third, I think damage resistance should be a total amount to overcome per round, and then additional damage beyond that amount is incurred. As it stands now, those with many attacks but with lower damage cannot overcome damage resistance, but those with fewer but bigger attacks can overcome it. It would allow for characters to all be useful in overcoming the creature's damage resistance.

Finally, as people keep pointing out how damage outpaces health/defense at higher levels. You'd need a way of allowing for various defenses to stack, or perhaps make defensive bonuses far cheaper than offensive bonuses.

Well, I play as a Dire Tiger druid, so let me give you what I find works and correct some of the strange responses given above.

First, you always charge and use pounce if you can for obvious reasons. Since you can grab on all 3 attacks, you always test for grab with the bite first, since if successful will allow you to continue to bite the creature as a free attack in the grapple (since the enemy is in your mouth, makes sense). Getting the grapple on the claws wont provide this benefit. Remember that grab gives you a +4 to the CMB.

Second, you don't get 5 attacks on a pounce. You get only 3; the rake is done the next round with the two claws while you grapple. So, if you grapple with the bite attack, you'll end up with 3 attacks even while grappling, which is of course awesome.

Third, pinning the creature is usually a good idea the round following your successful grapple. This not only removes the dex AC bonus, but also gives a -4 to AC on top of the dex penalty, making it far easier to dispatch by future attacks (including rake). Furthermore, if it is a spell caster type, it limits it to only verbal/mental spells. Any spell that has motion or materials is a no-go (compare to just being grappled, which is only a tougher concentration check). They are also unable to move you in their turn, which is what they could do if you just remain in the grapple condition, and possibly move you into a bad spot. Finally, the pinned condition says that they are limited in their actions, which is simply casting verbal/mental spells or escaping; they have no attack while pinned.

I believe if you decide not to pin your opponent (which I suppose you must have a really good reason not to do so), if you move them an ally would get an AoO depending upon where you move them. I don't think there is a melee penalty, but the ranged penalty for shooting a target engaged in melee certainly applies. There is no AC bonus for being grappled. You could argue that it would be extremely difficult to get a flanking bonus to a creature that is grappled, that would make sense. But that's about all I could think of.

But why you would chose to move around a grappled creature instead of just pinning the enemy and ripping its throat out is beyond me.

P.S. Don't grapple the Succubus. Just, not a good idea.

As someone who plays a druid and has searched this forum for a while on druids, let me help explain wildshape rules.

Multi-attack is when the CREATURE has a secondary attack. It has absolutely nothing to do with the number of attacks the druid has in her base form.

If you look at various creatures, some of them make multiple attacks all at their base attack bonus (make sure the creature itself doesn't have the multi-attack feat under it's listed feats), while other creatures makes some attacks at their base attack bonus and some other attacks at a -5 penalty.

If you use your wildshape that transforms into a creature that has additional attacks but at the -5 penalty, you can offset that with the multi-attack feat. But if you transform into a creature that has all of it's attacks at it's base attack bonus, then you don't need multi-attack.

For example, if you look at the Dire Tiger creature, it has 3 attacks: 1 bite at +18 and 2 claws at +18. If you look at the feats for the Dire Tiger, multi-attack is not listed. Therefore, when you wildshape into a dire tiger, you will get all 3 attacks at whatever your attack bonus is, even if you normally would only get 1 attack. This is the main point of your question.

By comparison, if you look at the medium dinasaur Deinonychus, you will notice that it gets 4 attacks: 2 talons +5, bite +5 and foreclaws +0. If you don't have the multi-attack feat, then the foreclaws are at a -5 penalty. If you have multi-attack feat, then you could attack with your foreclaws without the penalty. It's that simple. Notice that Deinonychus also has POUNCE. If you are using the Beast Shape 1 ability to transform to this creature, then you do not get POUNCE ability. You must have access to Beast Shape 2 (usually Druid level 6 or 8, depending on your archetype) to access this ability.

Just be aware that when you look at any animal based creature you transform into to examine its feats. You don't get the feats when you transform, so if the creature has multi-attack and you don't, or if it has improved critical and you don't, then you must make the adjustment to the creature's attack/damage profile. Only the special abilities listed in the Beast Shape spell do you get, and you only get them at the level prescribed in Beast Form.

To be even more clear, let's say you are level 4 and transform into a medium flying animal with a fly speed of 60' (good). You are restricted to a fly speed of 30' (average) per Beast Shape 1. Let's say instead you wild shape into a creature with the POUNCE ability. Under Beast Shape 1, you cannot access the creature's POUNCE ability, you must have access to Beast Shape 2 to get that ability. To figure out which abilities are listed, just look at the different progressions for Beast Shape.

The limitation of course is that you must be familiar with the animal to transform into that animal. How that is handled is up to your DM. Some would say it's just a Knowledge Nature roll, others would say it depends on your back-story and/or campaign.

You should obviously have Natural Spell as a feat ASAP. You get to access the material and divine focus parts that meld into your form.

The two biggest disadvantages for wildshape is that you cannot activate any item that melds with you, so if you carry a wand or a magic item that can do something 3x a day or whatnot that is useless. The other is that you can't talk in common unless you take beastspeech feat, so that limits your roleplaying abilities somewhat (or makes the game session easier if you have a low charisma, depending upon your point of view).

Finally, the best forms to shift into early in the game are the dinosaur (4 attacks with 60' movement! just try running away!) and the dire tiger (charge and pounce every time and enter grapple because each attack has the grab ability - listed as it qualifies for Beast Shape 2) I listed above. When you get access to vital strike feat (requires BAB +6) and combine it with improved natural attacks and strong jaw, the best creature to transform into would be Megafauna, Arsinoitherium. It is only large size, so it fits into most dungeons (or transform into a Huge Hippo as it has similar stats but can also grab/swallow/trample, but it's huge so it doesn't fit indoors). It does 4d8 damage, but with improved natural attack (gore), that would be 6d8. With Strong Jaw spell (4th level spell, so it requires 7 levels of druid to get this and you probably want to save it for really tough boss fights), that would become 12d8. With Vital strike, that would then become 24d8. Yeah, 24d8 + strength bonus. Then of course should you have 1 level of barbarian, you could take the Furious Finish feat, just enter rage right before you attack to deal max damage on your roll, so you should be doing around 200 points of damage in one blow. Booyah.

Yes, you do somewhat top out in melee around level 10, but then you get more spells to cast as well, and the spells at higher level are really good for druid.

Hope that answers most of your wild shape questions. If not, feel free to message me.

Reward extra xp for roleplaying. Changes behavior so fast you wouldn't believe it.