Nekyia's page

Hey everyone,

I seem to have found an incongruity in CotR that doesn't make much sense to me. Tanagaar's third Celestial Obedience boon grants +3d6 sneak attack and +2 damage per SA die with piercing weapons (pg. 25). However, in the table at the start of the book, Tanagaar's favored weapon is listed as the kukri, which is a slashing weapon. Why is this the case? It doesn't make much sense to me to have a deity's favored weapon be excluded from their own obedience boons...

Thanks in advance.

Nekyia wrote:

wraithstrike wrote:

I would not allow it. You can't go back in time and learn stuff in my games. I know that is not what you said, but mechanically it is the same effect.

Do you allow increases to Intelligence to retroactively grant skill points as well, or do you run it the 3.5 way?

If you knew that skill ranks from int are retroactive, why didn't you just tell him to get +2 int?

I pointed out above that the character in question already has a +5 inherent bonus to Intelligence (as an epic character with all the ludicrous amounts of wealth that entails).

You can provide your own flavor for it. I would say your new intelligence allowed you a new and profound understanding on the issue.

[...]
Stopping a volcano is a one time deal, not something you can always do. One big affect will should be better than an ongoing lesser affect. Even assuming the GM allows the wish to stop the volcano, most won't just let it go like that. You would have to wish for a specific affect that helps you to stop the volcano or save people in its path. I don't think the wish spell should stop a volcano just by saying you want it too.

Ah, okay, fair enough.

I would not allow it. You can't go back in time and learn stuff in my games. I know that is not what you said, but mechanically it is the same effect.

Do you allow increases to Intelligence to retroactively grant skill points as well, or do you run it the 3.5 way?

I would say no. It might be OK to grant this but not retroactively because you really didn't experience the time in order to get more skill ranks. At most it would just be from that point on.

Also you would need to word it very carefully unless you are just going to cheat and meta-game it. If you tried to word it in reality then you might inadvertently turn yourself human. If that happened doing the retroactive thing might more acceptable because the wish spell backfired.

The character in question is certainly canny enough to word such a wish with absolute precision. The thing is that an actual increase to Intelligence DOES grant retroactive skill points, with no real explanation for it.

I wouldn't grant such a wish. At least not from a ring. That's a god-level wish.

Would you care to expand on that, please? I'm not necessarily content with the balance aspects of such a thing (hence the topic!) but I'm not quite seeing how gaining 1 skill rank/level (gained a maximum of once - hence why I framed it as obtaining the Skilled trait instead of simply gaining one's HD in skill points [which would be blatantly imbalanced]) constitutes a "god-level wish".

This would be a legitimate use of a wish, but I would consider it to be creating a greater effect than the standard uses. So what I would do is have it automatically reincarnate you as a human. This would mean that you will lose all other racial traits and abilities, but gain those of a human. Now as a side benefit you are now a young adult human. I would say that since a wish was used you would not gain the two negative levels.

I would think that gaining one's HD in skill ranks is worth less than, say, stopping an incoming volcano, duplicating any spell below 8th level, or increasing one's attributes; increasing one's Intelligence by 2 is guaranteed to give 1 skill rank per level retroactively in PF - but that requires two wishes. However, a single wish asking solely for the skill increases of such a thing would sound like it would be worth less than an actual Intelligence bonus, since it grants no other benefits, like raising spell DCs, bonuses to relevant skills, etc.

However, I'm definitely biased (being that I'm the one who wants it!) and I already have a +5 inherent bonus to Intelligence from a +5 tome of clear thought (an epic character, you understand!).

Say I have a non-human character who obtains a ring of three wishes. Would it be a viable use of the wish spell to permanently (acting as a spell with a duration of 'instantaneous' rather than 'permanent' - wouldn't want this dispelled, of course!) gain the benefits of the human Skilled trait (1 skill rank per level), effective retroactively?

Thanks.

Perhaps coroner. That office, though obviously it has changed a lot, has existed in Britain for nearly 1000 years. In Hamlet the Gravedigger mentions coroner's (in)quest when he talks about Ophelia's strange death, so that goes back 400+ years.

Aha! Thanks, I can't believe I'd managed to miss that.

Thanks everyone!

Hey everyone,

I was just wondering what a good name for a use of the Profession skill centered around forensic investigation would be ('forensic investigator' sounds anachronistically modern) or even if such a skill could be better represented by other skills.

What do you all think?
Thanks in advance.

And once you start hitting level 18+ (or worse, epic levels!) it's probably more efficient to just calculate the averages for damage (eg. +1d6 sneak attack deals 3 damage, +2d6 deals 7 damage, +3d6 deals 10 damage [rounded down from 10.5], etc.) and use those.

Playing my favorite character, an epic-level Rogue/Ranger/Shadowdancer/Swordsage that can max out at 20+ attacks per round (30+ in two levels) dealing +12d6 sneak attack damage each would otherwise require literal buckets of dice. :P

There are dozens of threads on these boards from people complaining that their PC was under a Misdirection, or Undetectable Alignment effect, but still had a bad run-in with a paladin, and that's not fair, because they should be able to do whatever they like and the paladin can't stop them unless they radiate evil and I want him to fall but my GM won't do anything about it so I'm writing here so I can get some strangers to agree with me so I can throw it in his face and if they don't make him fall I'll hold my breath until I go blue and you think I won't but I will and you'll see and then you'll be sorry.....

The best part? This actually makes a lot more sense than the original post!

You mean a trained fighter (trained enough to make his living with a sword) is assumed to keep his back pointed in the same direction for a full six seconds - during combat???

hah hah

*wipes tear from eye, tries to catch breat*

..hold on, I've got a reply..

bwa hah hah

..just gotta..

*holds gut*

can't breath

hah hah hah

..stop laughing

Well, if we suppose that said fighter assumes he's only fighting one opponent, ie. in the context of a duel, or if he's focused on something (perhaps he's reading a map?), this hardly seems as guffaw-worthy.

Paizo's guide to Qadira has a prestige class called the "Daivrat," which also gets a small genie companion that fetches spells. It's in the Pathfinder RPG system.

Yup! OP mentioned it in the initial post, so he knows about it already. :)

@Nekyia, GREAT LINK! Thanks a bunch!

As for the ride issue, I *think* what I might do is allow the player in question to have camels and horses and then have him make Ride checks at a higher DC for more exotic mounts. I mean, the care and feeding of a horse and camel are pretty similar... But an elephant? Not so much. A griffon? Not even in the same ball park.

@Evil Lincoln, I have most of the LoF AP and I'll probably run it up to a point. What the heck, 'Howl of the Carrion King' will likely take a heck of a long time for them to get through anyway.

I always assumed that since Ride stopped being keyed to individual animals it became a more general thing - ie. 'this is how you ride a wide variety of animals' - though things like elephants and such may be a little more contentious. I'd vote that Rule of Fun takes over and say that their natural aptitude lets them ride such creatures at no penalty given sufficient time to practice (if they're just jumping on them with no prior experience, a Ride check DC increase would be appropriate).

Also, having ridden a few camels, they don't appear to be a drastically different experience to riding a horse. :)

Actually, I think I'm inclined to agree with you at this point. Though I have no problem with arguing that a ranged weapon magic ability works when using the weapon for a melee attack, I'm not willing to argue that for non-magic stuff. Feats like Point-Blank Shot work with ranged weapons, not ranged attacks, and it would be silly to apply PBS for a melee attack made with a dagger.

PBS wouldn't apply to melee attacks with a dagger, yes, but they would apply to ranged attacks with it. Look at the Invisible Blade prestige class in Complete Warrior - it requires Far Shot and Point Blank Shot and is a class exclusively focused on the use of daggers. Using Rapid Shot with a thrown dagger (ie. throw a dagger as part of the additional attack granted by the feat and take a -2 penalty on all subsequent attacks, be they melee or ranged) is also apparently a valid combination; I believe James Jacobs weighed in on this somewhere, but I don't have a link, sorry.

Nekyia wrote:

By RAW, this doesn't work...

I think it would be more accurate to say that the RAW is silent on this issue.

Fair enough. :)

Bascaria wrote:

Similarly, if your knife is enchanted to avoid miss chances on a ranged attack (let's call it +1 seeking dagger), and you make a melee attack, you don't get the seeking bonus.

You're correct that a knife enchanted to avoid miss chances on ranged attacks would not get that benefit in melee. However, a seeking weapon is not enchanted to avoid miss chances on ranged attacks. It is enchanted to avoid miss chances on attacks.

"The weapon veers toward its target, negating any miss chances that would otherwise apply, such as from concealment. The wielder still has to aim the weapon at the right square. Arrows mistakenly shot into an empty space, for example, do not veer and hit invisible enemies, even if they are nearby."

Nothing in that ability description suggests that the enchantment is limited to ranged attacks.

This was actually the same question I was asking at the start of the topic, for those exact same reasons. I would posit that allowing it to function for both melee and ranged attacks would render daggers/other melee weapons that can be used in range overpowered in some respect - ie. such an ability is exclusive to them (and such a useful ability, too!) for melee weapons. Granted, it would make daggers more useful vis-a-vis short swords, but at least to me it appears contrary to RAI (the topic was just to confirm such misgivings).

This class gets all kinds of hate. Is it just the fact that a straight rogue can fill the same archetype better? Is it that there's no real gameplay need for the class, or that it makes for boring gameplay, or what? Is it any good as a strictly NPC class?

Keep all their abilities and give them back spells and they'll STILL be weak, given the power boost every other class received. Assassin was one of the few classes actually reduced in power by Pathfinder (IMO, of course), since pretty much all the new abilities they obtained piggyback off their pitiful-DC death attack ability.

Especially on character creation, I view WBL as the retail value of stuff that they currently have. Things like MIC and sleight of hand are ways to increase your wealth once game play starts. I assume that your character got their WBL by doing what-ever they usually do before the campaign started. If it's thievery, then that's how much you managed to steal before the campaign started etc.

Agreed; the same premises should also be applied to crafting and other such things. :)

Ok, so I decided to put a game together in my area and after consulting some of the interested parties we all decided to do an Arabian Adventures theme, a' la Sinbad.

Rather than reinventing the wheel, I got into my boxes of old gaming stuff and pulled out my TSR al'Qadim setting. There were a couple of reasons for this. First, it neatly dodges the whole issue of Islam v Christianity and/or the Crusades. Secondly, they're waaaay better artists than I am.

What I'm wondering is if anyone has some input on converting AD&D al'Qadim Sha'ir class into a Pathfinder format.

This is a class that uses a minor genie familiar to go 'fetch' spells for the caster. It is somewhat similar to the Daivrat from the Qadira sourcebook, but adjusted to be a basic class.

One of my players is running a human sorceror with the Efreeti bloodline who wants to prestige into the Daivrat, but if I can save him some time by tooling the Sha'ir to fit, that would be better.

Second question: How do other GM's handle the Ride skill with alternate animals? Do you apply any 'adjustment time' or skill checks to a Western style knight trying to ride a camel, or worse, and elephant?

Thanks all!

1) If I'm not mistaken, the Sha'ir class was updated to 3.5 in Dragon #315 and the Dragon Compendium. This seems to be the correct link, get it before it's gone. :D

I use a Sleight of Hand discount. If characters have Sleight of Hand, I give them a 100% discount to represent having stolen their gear.

"So I stole all my gear from an archmage; do I get another 880,000gp of stuff now? Okay, here's 880,000gp of stuff. I stole that from the herald of a deity. Uh, so I guess I get another 880,000gp of stuff?" :D

That was not what Drejk was saying though, he said you can not place it on a dagger because it is not a ranged weapon, but rather a melee weapon that can be thrown.

I am assuming an arrow counts as 'not effective' in melee though, even if you can stab people with it as an improvised weapon

Oh, you're right. Apologies for the miscommunication.

Seeking has been confirmed to be a viable property for a dagger, though - note the gauntlet of infinite blades in the Magic Item Compendium, for instance, listing a +3 dagger of seeking as one of the available options. I am not aware if such a weapon appears in an official adventure path, though - but that section of the rules has not been changed between 3.5 and PF, so it can be assumed to operate in the same fashion.

Poit wrote:

I don't see how common sense means that a seeking weapon doesn't ignore miss chance in melee.

The seeking ability must be placed on a ranged weapon. That is to say, a weapon must be capable of making ranged attacks in order to accept the seeking ability.

However, "must be placed on a ranged weapon" and "only works for ranged attacks" are two completely different statements. There is nothing that suggests that the first statement implies the second.

You are right on the second part but wrong on the first part. Being able to make a ranged attack with a weapon does not make it ranged weapon:

Quote:

Melee and Ranged Weapons: Melee weapons are used for making melee attacks, though some of them can be thrown as well. Ranged weapons are thrown weapons or projectile weapons that are not effective in melee.

Dagger is effective in melee and thus classify as a melee weapon. Which makes seeking incompatibile property for a dagger. Which also partially solves the initial question.

However, it does not answers similar question: "if I use seeking arrow to stab someone in melee do I benefit from seeking property?"

It would be the same answer, being that an arrow used in melee is treated as an improvised weapon equivalent to a dagger - ie. if the arrow, like the dagger, is not being used for a ranged attack, the seeking property does not apply.

17 FAQ Candidate votes and counting!

EDIT: Make that 18!

CRB, page 166 : "Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit."

Keyword is "innocent". If your enemies (let's say the Ogre species) are not innocent, you can do with them as you please and still stay quite neutral (even good in fact).

It all depends on what you consider innocent of course.

Whoa, if I can "do with them as [I] please" can I torture them for no reason and then kill them slowly because they're jerks?

Or am I misreading?

Nimon wrote:

Jadeite wrote:

Nimon wrote:

Rich Parents ia another broken trait, hope it gets scraped too. Traits should be a simple situational bonus, not ammo for power gamers.

Unless you stop playing after level 2, no power gamer worth that title would chose Rich Parents instead of a trait that grants a bonus that is relevant for the whole career.

Being able to afford multipul MC gear at level 1 is power gameing. Really traits are only good for the first 5 levels, after that the small bonuses become insignificant.

I disagree, there are lots of traits that are meaningful all the way through level 20. For instance the traits that add skills as class skills. That is useful for many characters throughout their whole career.

Traits dont HAVE to be so situational they stop being useful after level 5, its just a matter of designing and choosing the right ones.

I agree.

Getting some extra money at first level (which becomes absolutely insignificant at higher levels) versus getting a benefit that will help you through your entire career? That's what power gaming is called now? Come on, guys, that's just not reasonable. If you play all your games at level 1, sure, that's sound - but past that it becomes utterly meaningless to get an extra 800gp (assume an average of a 100gp budget). At level 20 (the end-point for most optimization) you have 880,000gp - 800gp is a drop in the ocean.

No thanks, I'd rather take something actually useful, like say Warrior of Old (initiative bonuses never get old!) or something along those lines.

Agree with the call for civility but not for the threadlock, since most people in the thread weren't looking for a fight.

Though a move to the homebrew section might be in order if the current direction holds true.

The thing is that the question was resolved ages ago - the OP's GM allowed it, and he's going ahead with the concept. As things stand they've simply degenerated into outright offensive name-calling and flaming - hence why I'd like it to be locked and all the flamers flagged.

I find WoP uninteresting. It is a limited way to put spells together instead of relying on the plethora of already published spells. It is still fully vancian. If you see a spell put together with words of power that you can't do with meta magic then simply design a new spell and you can do without WoP entirely.

And for Wuxia:
I know many many players that like to play Fighter and Barbarians simply because they don't like to handle a plethora of abilities (aka spells).

Oh, definitely - replacing base classes with Tome of Battle content would be a poor idea for exactly that reason. I just like to have the option available for those who are willing to deal with the increased complexity. :)

...? I don't understand why you're saying this to me like its not something I don't know.

I am simply making a point, not casting aspersions on your intelligence. Games of all sorts, of course, are games, and the goal of a game is enjoyment.

Yeah...that was the point I made earlier. I'm talking about the consequences of playing D&D and applying modern moral theory, instead of the pre-modern morality that the game's metaphysics imply.

I can't really figure out what your position is, since you seem to have done a complete 180 since your previous post. You're completely contradicting yourself in your last comment.

This is an erroneous assumption. My position, despite what your satire makes it out to be, is not 'every good character must act like some crazy Exalted Good character from the Book of Exalted Deeds and behave exactly in line with contemporary philosophical tenets'. What I have been saying is that morality in a 'serious' D&D/PF game is not 'the Bestiary says this guy's race is Always Chaotic Evil so it's okay to commit genocide against them'. You seem to be positing, however, that there are two options; contemporary ethical relativism and objective, black-and-white 'this guy is always evil' ideals, ie. players have to consider the morality of everything vs. players do not have to consider the morality of anything (the evidence I use to support this idea is that you seem to be decrying any consideration of ethicality as something the "...players just have to muddle through figuring out which ones are which"). What I am saying is that this is an intrinsically-false dichotomy. In fact, your idea of a 'cosmic' and 'personal' morality (which is an idea that I really quite like!) is what I'm saying - the two schools of thought may indeed coexist.

This doesn't make any sense. You're not applying any coherent moral theory here.

If the blackguard is objectively evil because he has given himself over to the Dark Side, then you (as an agent of Good) are justified in killing him simply for existing. It's irrelevant what he does, because he's evil by his nature, not his deeds.

You would only need justification if you were applying modern moral theory that recognized the blackguard's right to existence as a fellow sentient. It only matters that the blackguard is threatening to attack if the blackguard has a right to exist, which implies a non-objective definition of good.

And how exactly do you deem the blackguard irredeemable without first attempting to redeem him? You ever heard the phrase "He who fights monsters must beware, lest he become a monster himself?" The first step on that road is declaring that you get to decide how many chances someone else gets to redeem themselves.

False. Suppose you as a Paladin walk into a city and use Detect Evil on a random civilian. He registers as Evil, but all accounts say that while he is a selfish individual and uses his cunning to get deals better for himself (without outright cheating), he values stability and fairness, and treats his subordinates and customers well (on the rationale that this is good for business). He has not killed anyone, or committed any 'evil' deeds besides looking out for himself first. Can you just go 'oh well, radar says he's evil, guess I've gotta stab him to death lol'? Obviously not. Now suppose this man is a blackguard of Asmodeus. He has trained in martial ability and has even received Asmodeus' dark gifts, but is not some psychopathic killer - quite the contrary, he is a valued member of the community. Does this change anything? LN clerics of Asmodeus exist. LG PALADINS of Asmodeus exist. Claiming worship of a power that is actually evil (ie. an objective evil) does not necessarily mean that all its servants are objectively evil.

This is what I'm saying in a nutshell; objective evil does exist, but it does not imply that all evil is by necessity objective. Suppose you live in a completely mundane, backwater village who has never even heard of the gods (or otherwise dismisses them as outright folklore) - is the local cut-throat thug evil because he is a servant of a dark god? No, clearly not. Objective and relativistic evil co-exist in these settings.

This thread shouldn't have even reached two pages. You can't gain bonus spells of a particular level without being able to actually cast spells of that level (hence why they are called 'bonus spells'), and no amount of zany rules lawyering will change that. Simple. Easy.

That's because, and I mean no offense, you're not really thinking very hard before stabbing.

If being good in the D&D alignment system is the same thing as being good in actual modern moral theory, then being a good person in D&D works pretty much the same as being a lawful...

There is a notable distinction between a "role playing game" and a "simulation". In an RPG, I take on the role of a character, but ultimately it is a game (ie. liberties can be taken for the purposes of enjoyment). A simulation is a fully-accurate reconstruction of a given situation (ie. liberties cannot be taken, even if removing them would be 'fun').

Bear in mind that 'good' in the D&D alignment system is NOT the same as being good in modern moral theory - whereas in the real world 'good' and 'evil' are relativistic concepts (that is, defined by their opposition to one another), 'good' and 'evil' in the D&D cosmology are objective (that is, there are gods that embody 'good' qualities and those who embody 'evil' qualities. A servant of an evil god hoping to spread that god's doctrine (ie. perpetrate said 'evil' qualities) is a viable target. The conflict of 'should I try and redeem this evil guy' is the difference between being good (by killing him to stop him from doing evil) and being good (perhaps better; redeeming evil is 'worth more' than simply destroying it).

No, actually, you can't. He has to actually attack you, and you have to be unable to prevent his attack by nonlethal means.

Which means that you have to parlay with the blackguard, attempt to convince him to change his mind, capture him by the least harmful method available if he refuses to change his ways and insist on doing harm, imprison him under the least intolerable conditions necessary to prevent harm to others, and give him genuine opportunities to reform himself.

The blackguard has identified himself as a threat to you, and is thus a legitimate target. By definition, a blackguard is a servant of an objective evil. While a Paladin can't simply become an 'evil radar' - ie. "you're evil so you're dead" with no other reasoning - the blackguard has already identified themselves as a threat to you. If you deem him unredeemable, there is no sense parlaying.

No, actually, you can't - not unless killing them is the only possible way to stop the spread of the disease. Which means that you have to parlay with the cultists, attempt to convince them to change their ways, capture them by the least harmful method available if they refuse to change their ways and insist on doing harm, imprison them under the least intolerable conditions necessary to prevent harm to others, and give them genuine opportunities to reform themselves.

False. If parlaying with them and trying to redeem them takes a longer time than slaying them (not because it is more efficient, but rather because delay will lead to even more people dying in the streets), there is no sense becoming Lawful Stupid and letting innocents die. If you ask "what are you doing?" and they reply "spreading a disease for our dark master" they have identified themselves as a threat to the people, which as a Good character is by extension a threat to you.

You can pretty much guess what I'm going to say at this point. Short form: No, you can't. You have to do all the same things modern police forces are expected to do, because that's the ethical way to treat other sentients -- even if they are evil and up to no good.

See above. D&D 'good' characters are not modern police forces, nor are 'good' and 'evil' inherently the same thing, as it appears your satire is designed to force me to admit - but I've not denied this since the beginning of the discussion. What I am saying is not "LOL YOU NEED TO REDEEM EVERYONE WHO CAN POSSIBLY BE REDEEMED EVEN IF IT HURTS EVERYONE AND MAKES THE GAME MISERABLE" - but rather that there are deeper ethical concerns than simply storming into an orc lair and killing everyone. The possibility of there being, for instance, a Chaotic Good drow does not invalidate the evil of most drow. Suppose I make it my mission to fight the drow - now, sinking the entire city into the ground because 'dem drow's evil' is NOT a good act. Fighting a warband of drow that raided elven villages a week ago? This can be a good act. Loosing a magical blast that kills everyone in a drow city? Not a good act. Hunting down the matriarch of an evil drow family to stop her minions from attacking people? Can be a good act. I say 'can be a good act' because motivations are not necessarily clear - if I'm just doing it because it pays well, that's not inherently 'good'.

EDIT: I do appreciate the effort it takes to create such a satire, though. Bravo!

I still see the reply, with the quote man.

Oops! Don't know how I messed that up, sorry.

Whopper wrote:

I'd like to craft some items with darkwood. I've seen no rules on obtaining the material or costs. Any sources or advice on how a campaign should handle this? Just house-rule it? Use a survival skill to locate it in areas where it's known to be found?

Hmm, depends on the world. In my campaigns, there are NPC lumber merchants who can get darkwood for you. It would be a low DC Gather Information check in a town or city. A small town might not have anyone with darkwood in it, so you'll have to order it from a nearby town or city.

Travelling to areas where darkwood is found, probably is a no-go in my campaigns, because we're talking thousands of miles. But if you can teleport. Anyways, it's relatively easy to get it from merchants.

My best source on price is 3.5 Arms & Equipment guide, which says darkwood can be bought for 10 gp/pound.

AEG is 3.0, but yeah, it should be a reasonable cost. Darkwood isn't super rare, so it can be assumed that a town or city should have some darkwood around.

@Crimson Jester: Done. :)

Nekyia wrote:

Deathless from Book of Exalted Deeds/Eberron Campaign Setting. Baelnorns from Monsters of Faerun. Good Liches from Libris Mortis. Et cetera.

But, to be fair, all those monsters are fairly ridiculous and have no place in a serious game. :P

I guess what it comes down to for me is: in a game in which my good elf ranger who spots a drow before it spots him can't ever pre-emptively attack it because it might be good, I'm probably just going to play a neutral or evil character that doesn't care.

It's hard enough to play a character who tries to do the right thing even with a fair bit of GM help and encouragement; with circumstances conspiring to make my good alignment a lead weight tied to another lead weight tied around my neck, I'd just rather not play the good alignment. It doesn't seem fun to me.

I agree, but this is one of the caveats of playing a 'realistic' game. Being good is really hard! It's the same problem I had while playing Infamous on PS3 - if you're the good guy, you've constantly got to be aware of civilians, lest you blow them up with your crazy powers, while the evil guy can simply blow up everyone in town and not give it a second thought. This, I feel, is what makes a role-playing game a role-playing game - the capacity to take on a role where doing otherwise might not be beneficial.

However, it is indeed a pain, even in realistic games, if your GM makes playing a good guy an exercise in patience like "a lead weight tied to another lead weight tied around [your] neck". I enjoy playing the good guy, even when it leads to ethical dilemmas, but not if the game makes it profoundly unfun to do so. If your GM makes all the enemies evil then throws one random good guy in the bunch just to spring 'HA! You killed a good guy! Alignment shift!" on you, it becomes unrewarding to not be an evil character (eg. 'You killed an evil guy in this bunch of good guys! You are now... uh, more evil."). I don't mind, for instance, having to do some research on a potential villain before setting out to slay him, or even having to consider taking a villain's life if he can be somehow redeemed, but these moments should be few and far between if only for the sake of having fun.

hello all,

sorry its been awhile, things took a little turn for the worse for a moment. Good news is that the doc thinks I'm out of the woods concerning the copious amounts of venom that was pumped into me during my experiment. Also good news is that I have several roommates now. Bad news is that they are all suffering multiple snake-bites from what they describe in their more lucid moments as;

An Metal Snake God of Death

yeah...totally my bad ya'll

From what I can make out of their venom-induced fever gibberish though, it seems the armor is holding up well, though Slith may have modified it, as one of the guys here is sporting some wicked stab and puncture wounds not attributed to snake fangs and keeps muttering about; "oh why God does it have spikes, why God, why?" Could be that Slith has found my blue-prints for Snake Armor V.2, but I would think that such metalurgical feats beyond a snake...but then I thought a snake would be unable to function in armor as well, and we all know how that turned out.

anyways thanks for listening, so far these guys have been pretty out of it, I'll keep you posted.

NOOOO WHAT HAVE WE DONE

If I got a composite bow, say with a +2 strength rating, can I have a player, via using a craft bow skill, modify an existing bow to a +4 rating?

I figure you'd simply just use the price difference of a +4 vs +2 bow in terms of the crafting rules.

If not why?

If so why?

By RAW, this doesn't work - composite bows are built from scratch to accommodate a user of a certain strength, and attempting to modify it afterwards would probably destroy the weapon.

However, Pathfinder Society Rules allow you to do it as you've suggested.

As for my personal opinion, I'd go with the latter - it's a game, after all, and there's no sense restricting the player from doing so, especially if they've picked up the relevant skills.

Cartigan wrote:

Charender wrote:

Nekyia wrote:

Look at, say, the Nalfeshnee (Bestiary 65) - I could reasonably look at such a creature and say 'hey, that thing is huge but it has tiny wings; its flight is likely to be ungainly' with a degree of certainty while knowing as a player that it has poor flight maneuverability.

One problem, based on common sense observations a human cannot fly. Yet, what in the manuverability of a wizard using the flight spell? The creature may look like it can't fly well, but in a world full of magic, looks can be decieving.

Your point being what? Because magic exists, logical deductions can't be made at all? More like, the deduction becomes "Either that thing can't fly, or it flies magically. Which means it can use magic! Run away!"

Woops, didn't use a Knowledge roll. I know nothing but stuff about pig husbandry.

I think the mistake is that you assume that all of this happens in a vacuum. Campaigns happen in a living breathing world full of distractions, lies, rumours, and half-truths.

Most of the time, you don't have a lot of time to observe a creature, and make logical conclusions about its abilities. While a combat may take hours to play out, 5 rounds is 30 seconds. Most fights are over within that time.

You see a monster, you have a moment to observe it, and try to remember everything you know or have heard about creatures matching that discription. That may include rumours you have heard that are not true. Maybe you have heard a false rumour that undead must be killed by silver. Maybe you have heard that demons can be hurt by someone pure of heart, which is only partly true. Maybe some drunk dwarf in a bar told you the story about the time he killed a troll, and you think he was exaggerating about the troll's healing capabilities as drunken dwarves are prone to do.

I am a rapier using weapon finesse fighter. I see a skeleton, and I immediately swap to using a mace because I have a hunch it will work better. Nevermind...

We all agree on what constitutes obvious metagaming; that is, acting on knowledge that the character simply cannot or is very unlikely to have within the bounds of reason.

These examples illustrate my point perfectly (thank you!). An intelligent fighter might, however, know that blunt weapons affect brittle substances to a greater extent than sharp weapons (eg. trying to smash glass with a mace is far more effective than doing so with a rapier). There is, in this case, a precedent for such a thing based on knowledge the character could conceivably know. An intelligent fighter who knows nothing about lycanthropes could not, however, just pull out a silvered weapon specifically for that encounter, because there is no stimulus that makes such a thing reasonable - that is, the character could not conceivably know about a lycanthrope's weakness to silvered weapons.

A good way to add wuxia-esque elements to a Pathfinder game organically, I find, is to incorporate 3.5's Tome of Battle - allowing martial classes to pull off crazy extraordinary or magical stunts. I'm of the mind that though Tome of Battle's classes were tougher than the Core base classes in 3.5, the power boosts the latter group received puts them on par with ToB.

Please no comments like 'BUT TOB WAS LIKE 4TH EDITION AND THAT'S BAD'. :)

Mikaze wrote:

One of the major forces for good in the world are a band of undead privy to the secret history of the world and tasked with protecting the current inhabitants from fiendish infiltration and other supernatural threats.

Even your undead can be potential good guys?

I really can't imagine how I could ever enjoy a game set in a world like that. It'd be impossible to just go out and have adventurers, unless I played an evil character. In fact, in a world like the one you seem to be describing, I would pretty much have to play an evil character to have any fun at all.

You guys must go session after session after session without combats. Great if works for you, but just sounds tedious as hell to me.

Deathless from Book of Exalted Deeds/Eberron Campaign Setting. Baelnorns from Monsters of Faerun. Good Liches from Libris Mortis. Et cetera.

Not being able to indiscriminately slaughter a creature because its stat block says 'always chaotic evil' may be a hindrance for 'kick in the door'-style campaigns, but it's really not that difficult to establish a character as 'evil'. Blackguard tells you that he's going to kill you and then your family? You can kill him. Cultists spreading a horrible disease in the streets? You can kill him. Vampire turning people into his spawn in the hopes of taking over the city? You can kill him.

This isn't to say 'no ethical concerns, fight some monsters and take their stuff' isn't a valid (or fun!) way to game, but it doesn't strike me as boring to have to think before stabbing.

Though comparably minor, I'd still like to see resolution for this issue in the interests of curiosity and clarity. :)

Apologies for the thinly-veiled bump.

Charender wrote:

Nekyia wrote:

Look at, say, the Nalfeshnee (Bestiary 65) - I could reasonably look at such a creature and say 'hey, that thing is huge but it has tiny wings; its flight is likely to be ungainly' with a degree of certainty while knowing as a player that it has poor flight maneuverability.

One problem, based on common sense observations a human cannot fly. Yet, what in the manuverability of a wizard using the flight spell? The creature may look like it can't fly well, but in a world full of magic, looks can be decieving.

Your point being what? Because magic exists, logical deductions can't be made at all? More like, the deduction becomes "Either that thing can't fly, or it flies magically. Which means it can use magic! Run away!"

Woops, didn't use a Knowledge roll. I know nothing but stuff about pig husbandry.

Friend, we may be agreeing, but there's no need to exaggerate people's arguments into strawmen. He's simply saying that 'the character's observation may not be correct', which is a legitimate caveat I addressed in my previous post.

Nekyia wrote:

Look at, say, the Nalfeshnee (Bestiary 65) - I could reasonably look at such a creature and say 'hey, that thing is huge but it has tiny wings; its flight is likely to be ungainly' with a degree of certainty while knowing as a player that it has poor flight maneuverability.

One problem, based on common sense observations a human cannot fly. Yet, what in the manuverability of a wizard using the flight spell? The creature may look like it can't fly well, but in a world full of magic, looks can be decieving.

Oh, of course! I'm just saying that it's a matter of possibility - eg. "I suspect, based on such evidence, that this creature here is going to be poor at maneuvering while flying, if it can even fly at all!" That is, it is not unreasonable for a character to make such a supposition, hence the above example of a smart character who hasn't borne witness to such supernatural means of flight. Even if a character is experienced with such spells or abilities, it likely doesn't mean that they're going to say "welp, can't make any assumptions based on what I observe because this stuff is crazy" - just that in most cases such observations have at least some grounding in fact (ie. the supernatural is supernatural - that is, not the norm!).

Party loot...

Currently we have 3 major items that are considered to be party items.

Folding Boat: this is a useful item, I think it could legitimately be claimed, but it works as a party-use item.
Bag of Holding, type IV: strongest player is carrying this thing. Again, I think it should be claimed but they're not having it.
Wand of Dimension: currently carried by the Witch. She says "I'll use it for the party, but it ain't mine." I get that. It's like when the Fighter buys a wand of Cure Lights for the Cleric.

Our current method of treasure distribution is to add up the entire resale value of all items and divide the product by 5. After that, people start "buying" items (at wholesale prices) from the pile. They get whatever they want plus the remaining cash. It's a little sterile, but it works.

Items that just "work" for a particular character might not be "bought and sold" using the above method. I don't know how that's gonna work out, but I think we can avoid hard feelings with judicious use of diplomacy. :)

Remember that WBL is a baseline of fairness, not a hard cap on how much an individual character can have. Bringing in a new character with normal WBL is fair relative to a party of similarly-equipped adventurers. In an organic game, characters can trade items, decide to equip one character better than the others (for instance, loading up the party Fighter with gear if the other members are casters) so long as the overall distribution (wealth divided by number of party members) is somewhere around the baseline of WBL. So long as you're within, say, plus or minus 25% of standard WBL (a fair amount of leeway in any case, though less than WBL is inadvisable for inexperienced parties), things should be relatively balanced in accordance with official adventure paths.

I've probably misunderstood you and am preaching to the converted, but eh.

mdt wrote:

Brian Bachman wrote:

Nekyia wrote:

Suppose you're a first-level adventurer who's never seen any unusual creatures - just the stuff we see every day like birds and cats and dogs. Suppose then you are shown a Nalfeshnee, and are very intelligent. Based on the creatures you have observed, is it reasonable to say 'those wings don't look like it could support the creature's weight?'

In which case, the more logical thought would be: "Those silly little wings could never support that big piggy-looking thing. It must be some kind of weird flightless bipedal bird-pig." Which would be your last thought is you encountered a Nalfeshnee at first level, because it would be devouring your entrails before you could do anything else.

Give that man a cupie doll. :)

But he used logic. You've already implied no one is allowed to use logic without succeeding at a Knowledge roll first.

Painting someone's position to be the most extreme version possible (like changing "some of X should be tolerated" to "we should do X as much as possible") is pretty bad form.

Let's be fair, shall we?

Sure, as long as you made encounters comparably weaker to compensate and allowed me greater leeway with build cheese. Alternately, if you simply gained bonuses as a factor of experience like, say, 3.5's Vow of Poverty, that would require less rebalancing.

Nekyia wrote:

>'can I give my snake companion armor'

>165 posts

guys

guys

seriously

Really of all the threads on this board you find this one unreasonable?

Well, it's the thread with the highest post count on the front page, and is an extremely minor issue... :P

Brian Bachman wrote:

Nekyia wrote:

Suppose you're a first-level adventurer who's never seen any unusual creatures - just the stuff we see every day like birds and cats and dogs. Suppose then you are shown a Nalfeshnee, and are very intelligent. Based on the creatures you have observed, is it reasonable to say 'those wings don't look like it could support the creature's weight?'

In which case, the more logical thought would be: "Those silly little wings could never support that big piggy-looking thing. It must be some kind of weird flightless bipedal bird-pig." Which would be your last thought is you encountered a Nalfeshnee at first level, because it would be devouring your entrails before you could do anything else.

Give that man a cupie doll. :)

Well of course! I'm positing a hypothetical scenario (hence 'suppose [x]') to illustrate the argument. It is very much dependent on circumstances, which makes my point hard to make since I'm coming up with these on the fly (poor maneuverability! ;D).

I could look at a manticore and say 'hey, that thing has a big spiked tail, don't go behind it or it'll hit you with it' despite knowing it uses the tail as a ranged attack because I've read its Bestiary entry just as easily as I could draw the opposite conclusion because this might be what my character is thinking.

If I go up to a Nalfeshnee I could say 'well, it probably can't fly, but there would be no reason for the vestigial wings because [x] - if it can fly, it's likely to be ungainly, so my wizard friend can fly up and outmaneuver it'.

tl;dr surely you know what I mean by now, as flawed as the examples are

>'can I give my snake companion armor'
>165 posts

guys

guys

seriously

Nekyia wrote:

Brian Bachman wrote:

Alexander Kilcoyne wrote:

Nekyia wrote:

As such, I think it's really dependent on the player. A player using an 8 Int Barbarian shouldn't be employing any out-of-character knowledge. A player using a 20 Wis, 20 Int Wizard really should be allowed to use some out-of-character knowledge to account for the Sherlock Holmes-level deductive ability such a character would doubtlessly be possessed of (unless, again, your GM really plays up having high stats as more than just some numerical value).

This should be represented by high amounts of skill points (check) and high modifiers to them (check); and a roll for that matter.

Yup. The High Int represents potential, not knowledge.

Well, presume I'm playing a high-Int rogue, for instance. Suppose I encounter a creature I've never seen before, and I have poor Knowledge skills. Can I look at a creature and say 'it appears to have an unusual system of organs - likely that a sneak attack would be ineffective' if I know such a creature is not vulnerable to sneak attacks? Or 'the wings on that creature's back are too small to assist it too much in flying - its flight is likely to be ungainly' if I know a creature has poor flying maneuverability? These don't require the kind of specialized expertise represented by a Knowledge check - rather, they are deductive conclusions based on reason rather than a particular field of study.

If you can come up with a logical reason like that, you have more chance of my allowing it than you do if you go: "Ooh, I know that armor-clad figure coming toward me is actually a construct, so I can't sneak attack it." Or: "That's obviously a manticore and the Bestiary says they have poor maneuverability. Oh, and their spikes have incredible range so we have to close."

It's still a gray area, but I'd likely give some leeway to someone with a high Int character, so long as they weren't being too specific or spouting off about things that would be...

This is exactly what I'm saying, thank you! :)

Jiggy wrote:

mdt wrote:

Nekyia wrote:

I agree - it becomes a sort of meta-metagame; consciously trying to avoid metagaming is a metagame of the metagame.

/dizzy

So, the argument is, because it is hard not to metagame, we should just ignore metagaming entirely, and everyone should metagame to the hilt, so everyone has whatever knowledge their player has, and we just toss the skills overboard? What about people metagaming by reading APs ahead of time and making all the right choices at all the right times, even if it doesn't fit their character background?

Painting someone's position to be the most extreme version possible (like changing "some of X should be tolerated" to "we should do X as much as possible") is pretty bad form.

I didn't say he said it, I asked if that was the argument. I still ask that. Since it seems to be part of the thread. Either the skills mean soemthing, or they don't. The argument became not 'how much knowledge can you have without actually putting in ranks' and instead became 'you cna't not metagame, so quit stopping others from metagaming'. And now, believe it or not, osmeone in the thread has said 'If you stop me from metagaming, you are metagaming, stop telling me what my skills represent!'.

So I stand by the question, is that what the argument is, that if you can't avoid metagaming you should go full hilt? Or should we have some threshhold above which we should say 'No, this far and no further' with metagmaing?

Nekyia's post is just the one I responded to, the question was not directed purely at him, but at the side of the thread who says you can know internal organs without seeing them, or that saying the game has too many examples of things that fly fine with small wings to use small wings to estimate how well something can fly is metagaming (which is a logic fault if I ever heard one).

Suppose you're a first-level adventurer who's never seen any unusual creatures - just the stuff we see every day like birds and cats and dogs. Suppose then you are shown a Nalfeshnee, and are very intelligent. Based on the creatures you have observed, is it reasonable to say 'those wings don't look like it could support the creature's weight?'

I've already described why "if you can't avoid metagaming you should go full hilt" is a faulty argument - metagaming is unavoidable unless you're playing with first-time players. For a first-time player to look at the Nalfeshnee and say 'hey that doesn't look like it could fly well' is not metagaming, but rather an empirical observation. Once your players know how things work, such an observation can become metagaming. I already described how saying that as an 8 Int rogue would amount to something the character might not be able to do (ie. making the connection between 'small wings' and 'giant body' because the character is stupid) - this is not 'going full hilt' - and a smarter character could reasonably make such an assumption without any specialized knowledge.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say 'because there are so many creatures with unorthodox means of flying and they clearly violate reason' is in itself a form of metagaming - returning to the example of the 1st-level adventurer who has never seen supernatural creatures, such a character has NOT seen creatures with such means of flight, and thus is bound by what amounts to real-world logic.

Charender wrote:

TLDR 1 level of fighter is no better than 1 level of ex-paladin

Side question ... what is TLDR?

It stands for "too long; didn't read" - when used in such a context it implies "if you didn't read the rest of this long post, here's what to take from it". :)

Nekyia wrote:

Dipping into ex-Paladin?

"Hey guys I want to join your order I vow to uphold the principles of law and good and all that and I really feel I would benefit from the training oh hey level up thanks by the way I'm a sociopath and I'm going to kill you all stabstabstabstab"

That is one way to view it. Another is:

"James knew he wanted to be a paladin most of his life. He joined the order of light the moment he could afford the training fee's. He graduated with his class and went on his first crusade within a week of gaining his shield. What happened to him in those months shook his faith forever. The bloodshed, the cries for help to his god that went unanswered as his fellows fell around him.

He lost his faith. And while his heart never turned to the darkness he could never again find that light that had once been there inside him. He turned from the path of the Paladin and set off to find a new purpose."

Some Paladins jus don't make the grade. Like not all candidates become Seal Team members. They are good at what they do but some just aren't good enough. But they don't become raving murderer's because of it either.

Rememeber there are EX Paladins and then there are ANTI Paladins. Some of the first are the second but not all.

But that's not as hilarious! :P