My2Cents's page

If you are on a mount do you use your stealth skill or the mount's?

Played with a guy who had improbable dice luck in college. We tried most the solutions proposed but none of them worked. Finally set up an experiment 144 throws with randomly selected pairs of 6 sided dice, 12’ across a concrete floor with a minimum of one bounce, then off a steel wall back a minimum of 3’. Got 58 double 6’s. The only conclusion we could propose was either he was telekinetic or a luck nexus.

And on top of that he was a tactical genius, and a GREAT guy. He eventually solved the problem by GM most the games.

"Spell shot"

Can it be launched from a sling?

There are 2 schools of tactics for pre-cannon sea battles.

1 – Ramming vessels - Historically these tended to swamp in rough water and were never used in the open ocean. They were the principle warship of the Mediterranean Sea. A strike from the ram of one of these vessels wasn’t capable of cutting a ship in 2, but would rupture the hull and sink most. Ramming vessels were all purpose built.

2 – Boarding – This was the standard method of combat in northern Europe and most other areas. The Romans also defeated the Carthaginians with this tactic. The vessels grappled each other and it basically became a land battle. Whole fleets would do this on occasion resulting in fairly large and complex battlefields, I think ~400 vessels was the record. The Vikings would sometimes lash their longboats together before they attacked in order to provide a more secure footing. Purpose built warships for boarding combat would have features like tall fore and aft ‘castles’ to provide secure positions for archers covering the main decks and boarding devices like the Roman corvus which would lock the vessels together as well as assist boarding. But generally most the vessels used were just commandeered merchant vessels full of troops and lacked any such features.
Note also, a mobile reserve on ships that had not attached itself to the mass of vessels, or managed to cut itself free, can quickly land reinforcements or attack at any point on the perimeter of the mass. A ships company that has moved a vessel or 2 away from their ship can easily find they are cut off from their vessel, or it has been stolen.

If you want to use the stealth skill while mounted do you use the mount's skill level or the rider's?

As a sort of intermediate class from what you have been using, how about the Celestial Commander variant of the Summoner.

You don't get the eidolon, but you get 5+charisma free summons/day, medium armor proficiency, medium BAB, and if you are starting at 3rd level you will also have Augmented Summons and Superior Summons for free. But the real fun part is that the Celestial Commander is a divine spellcaster with an arcane spell list.

This is a power vs. precision thing.

Arcane magic has a lot of power but limited precision. All the control comes from the user, that is why spells have to be learned. It is limited by the users ability to understand all the details involved, so destructive effects are much easier than constructive. Consider the classic fireball spell which probably works something like: set up an enclosure then open a portal to the plane of fire, siphon off a bit into the enclosure, then close the portal, transport the enclosure to the designated point, and release.

Divine magic, especially healing, uses little power but usually a lot of finely detailed work, so complex in fact that it is beyond the capabilities of mortals. What a divine caster does is trading his work (religious devotion) for a deity/superior being/immortal whatever for spells/favors/tools that she uses to carry out her tasks. The actual fiddly bits of the spell are handled the deity. This also why divine casters do not have to learn their spells, when they cast the spell they supply the power but the deity, for whom the details are trivial, who directs it. Look at the classic healing spells, they have to, as a minimum, line up and reconnect capillaries, muscle fibers, bone cracks, and nerve axons. Most of these are too small to see with the naked eye, and there are literally thousands of these to repair even in a simple cure light wounds spell.

You could make a potion of Calm Animals into an oil for external application, then pour it on a rag and smear it on the animal's muzzle. You would probably want to restrain the animal first of course.

I don't think light armor proficiency is necessary since I can just get mithral and everything will be okay.

Check the rules:

When worked like steel, it becomes a wonderful material from which to create armor, and is occasionally used for other items as well. Most mithral armors are one category lighter than normal for purposes of movement and other limitations. Heavy armors are treated as medium, and medium armors are treated as light, but light armors are still treated as light. This decrease does not apply to proficiency in wearing the armor. A character wearing mithral full plate must be proficient in wearing heavy armor to avoid adding the armor's check penalty to all his attack rolls and skill checks that involve moving. Spell failure chances for armors and shields made from mithral are decreased by 10%, maximum Dexterity bonuses are increased by 2, and armor check penalties are decreased by 3 (to a minimum of 0).

You still need the proficiency to avoid penalties.

Of course, if you have the funds and since you are undoubtedly going to equip your familiar a masterwork saddle, have it enchanted to provide a continuous Mage Armor effect. Check with your GM, he may require you to use the more expensive costs for Bracers of Armor, but the upside is that allows you to gradually increase it to +8.

I disagree about the heat source being a problem. It does not state what kind of heat source is required so a candle would be sufficient. Perhaps a flameless heat source (alchemy) could be required.

The heat source generally needs to more than symbolic, so a candle is insufficient.

Armor and weapons typically would require a way to heat the metal to temper it. So a forge with bellows or a high temperature alchemical heat source should be required.

Potions probably only need to simmer, so a charcoal brazier or spirit-lamp should do nicely. If you are working on the trail you could use the campfire, but the uneven heating would require you to keep an eye on it to avoid boiling over.

For rings a spirit-lamp with a blowpipe would be the tool of choice.

Ahhh, so when you asked about permanent enchantments you were actually asking about Custom Magic Items using continuous or use based pricing. Gotcha.

Custom Magic Item pricing is more art than science and as such you will not really get a solid answer on how to price those things.

- Gauss

Actually I am asking how do you resolve the differences in the different pricing calculation systems, one for magic items, and a different one for magic weapons and armor when they cross over into each other’s territory on a full time, rather than a part time from an external source (spell caster) basis.

Is it prohibited to build in spells on magic weapons and armor that do not use the +Bonus system?

My2Cents:

How exactly are the spells Lead Blades or Effortless Armor becoming permanent? They are not an eligible target for the spell Permanency.

- Gauss

I meant by means of a continuous enchantment.

Would this be resolved as an unlisted +Bonus cost (weapon enchantment method), or a simple enchantment cost?

For weapons and armor, how is a permanent enchantment handled that effects it operation?

Like lead blades on a melee weapon, or effortless armor on a suit of armor.

The rules state that any magic item that is not a potion, scroll, or have limited charges can be intelligent, but the only intelligent item rules are for swords and armor, which use a different system for calculating costs.

If I wanted to say make an intelligent Headband of Inspired Wisdom, how should the cost be determined?

I ment 1st level human fighters.

Could you provide the str, dex, and con statistics for your orc?
Better yet, the hit points, defense, offense, and damage assumptions?

Assuming you are using the common orc template, the orc does an average damage of +4 points damage (+1 for falchion vs. +3 for 2-handed str bonus) versus an equivalent human (i.e. str 17 (orc) vs. str 13 (human). More importantly, with a minimum damage of 6 and an average damage of 10, there are very few fighters that the orc cannot kill with a single blow landed. The human fighter, on the other hand, does a minimum of 2 and an average of 5.5, and is far more likely to need to land 2 blows to kill the orc.

See if you can plot the number of blows landed for the human and orc in the fights they win and also in the fights they lose. I’ll bet the majority of the fights that the human wins are the ones where they are never hit.

If the GM is willing, give it a Purpose (something along the line of “Protect me!”), then you can access the ‘Special Purpose Item Dedicated Powers’. Go for ‘Item can use a 5th-level spell at will’ and Telekinesis. Also take Senses 120’, and Blindsense so you cannot be snuck up on. Great for keeping people away from your spell caster while he is busy getting ready to ruining their day, or any other time you can justify using it.

Just cost it as a masterwork weapon with the Transformative special ability.