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Does anyone know if the1 square = 5 feet scale on the Dead Man's Drop map is a mistake? The Map references 50 and 30 foot waterfalls but the map doesn't seem to even come close to depicting them as that big unless I'm just reading it all wrong somehow.
I'm prepping to run an encounter from RotRL and the map is drawn so there are smaller pillars centered on grid intersections. If you need to see what I'm talking about google Lamashtu's shrine map and it should be the first image that comes up. Would these count as obstacles for 2x movement in that square. Would moving between two of these pillars be enough to count as squeezing for a medium creature?
The entry for slings say that you can fire a sling with one hand, but that reloading requires two. Light shield hand IIRC can't use weapons but can hold items.
Assuming that you start combat in range of the enemy with a Gaze and it is aware of you. You know that the creature has a gaze attack, either from previously encountering it or someone else making a knowledge check. Can you do it against the initial saving throw at the start of your turn in Round 1, or do you have to wait and do it later in your turn, so you'll only be protected starting in rou8nd 2?
How did it play? I'm a bit worried that giving it flying kick might be a bit much. If you have the statblock on hand, would you be willing to share?
I had planned on testing out shields later in the playtest, specifically seeing how they held up against people using two handed weapons, but never really got the chance for various reasons. My main concern was that, beyond low levels, the defensive boost was just not going to be enough compensate for the smaller damage dice on one handed weapons once magic +X weapons entered the equation. Just hoping to see what experiences everyone else had.
Half the character creation time was spent figuring out what mundane gear to buy or not and how the bulk all added up. It really bogs down character creation IMO. Just give us a few set of options with thematically appropriate mundane items grouped together along with their bulk (both individually and as a total) and the price so people who want to just get started adventuring can have an easy option to copy quickly to their character sheet.
Watching a game on Youtube. Level 12 Barbarian rolls a natural 1 on a Fort save against a Lich, is permanently paralyzed and the player is then left to sit there doing nothing with no chance to shake the negative ability off and nothing their teammates can do to help them, even after the fight is over. Who is this good for? How does this make the game more fun for anybody? Why isn't there a new save each round? The normal failed save is just 1 round, why is the crit fail INFINITELY more than that?
Say you take a level 15 Fighter and swap out his normal weapon and armor with +1 versions, does this character have a hope of meaningfully contributing, do they become a liability to the party?
Since the Bag of Holding makes the entire Bulk system irrelevant after no investment other than a little gold, we should add a bag of Resonance that contains a bunch of extra resonance that characters can use for free each day.
Clerics and Sorcerers get 5 Skills! 5! Alchemists and Wizards are limited to 2, but as INT based characters they'll almost always be adding +4. Bards are now Full casters but still get 7 skills! How does this make sense? Why are Fighters, Barbs, and Monks getting such a pitiful number of skills? Why are they so much worse at skills than every caster in the game (other than the Druid, who has been bumped down to 3 after initially being at 4)?
You can make an attack of opportunity against someone in your reach who is casting a spell. Sounds good. Except that in the action system combined with AoO being locked to only one class the spell caster will just move away before casting their spell. Then I thought it would synergize well with No Escape, but that uses up your reaction, so you can follow the wizard and then ... stand there and do nothing while they cast a spell in your face. To top that off you can only use it while raging. How are you even going to get to use it? How often are spell casters going to be dumb enough to cast a spell while standing next to a guy with a big weapon.
Shouldn't they be before character creation? I know that building a character is the exciting thing, but don't you have to know what the various actions and they like are to have a decent understanding of what many of the various feats and class features are actually doing for you. This is what I found when reading through the rules, I was having a rough time wrapping my head around the avalanche of information, particularly the walls upon walls of different feat options for each class/skill. Actually stopping and reading the Rules of Playing the Game section made it much easier to read the rest of it.
I'm not talking about some complex hybrid class using bits from 10 different books. I'm talking a basic Rogue who dual wields short swords OR a Ranger focused on using a longbow. Almost all of the feats that boost these styles are Fighter only. Why?
How does this work, since Unchained Rage provides Temporary Hit Points and False Life also provides Temporary Hit Points? Do they stack? Do you just use whichever pool is bigger?
I don't see the old 1d4 rounds later listed in any of the dragon entries, so am I just missing it or is it not there?
Players are likely going to want compensation from the town if the Sheriff and Mayor ask them to do stuff for them over and over.
Have an unRogue player using Major Magic Chill Touch, just trying to make sure I have down how it works. Round 1: Rogue uses Chill Touch as standard action SLA, makes 1 free touch attack as part of the casting of the spell.
If the Rogue uses TWF, what happens? Can they use Chill Touch with their off hand attacks as well as their main hand attacks?
Every time I'm running a game the following happens:
To save myself I'm going to make a quick reference sheet: The Varisia, Birthplace of Legends book has a list of times (by road) with a couple that are relevant Sandpoint to Magnamar: 54 Miles, 3d,3h (20'), 2d,2h (30'), 1d,3h (50') Sandpoint to Turtleback: 501 Miles, 31d,3h (20'), 20d,7h (30'), 12d,5h (50') I figured that I'd go ahead and ask in case anyone here has already done the work and wants to share. I'm looking for times between cities, and also times between different areas around Sandpoint. Sandpoint to Habes, to Thistletop, to Foxglove Manor, ect ...
I've seen comments on gunslingers that range from "They almost always hit, but don't do that much damage per hit. The guy playing if felt under powered and switched classes!" To, "OMG the gunslinger took down my CR+4 dragon in one round! BROKEN!!!" I've never had one in a game I ran or played in outside of a few low level games, so I'm curious as to everyone's thoughts on gunslingers are and how they compare to other martial characters (and, particularly against archers).
A while back I ran Black Fang's Dungeon (The BB adventure) for 4 new players using the Iconic pregens. We're all back together and ready to make a go at Rise of the Runelords, however, they all rather liked playing as the iconics from the BB so want to continue using them in RotR rather than making new characters. So now I want to come up with some compelling backstories and sidequests to tie them into the town and the NPCs, but am mostly drawing a blank on what to actually do. Kyra is the easiest backstory as she's simply traveled to Sandpoint in preparation for the Temple Dedication to see the new shrine to Sarenrae Ezren, he arrived in Sandpoint a few months earlier, striking up a deal with Ilsoari Grandethus to teach him wizardry in exchange for Ezren serving as a teacher and scholar at Turondarok Academy. Valeros and Merisiel I have no idea what to do with. So, yeah, any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
I don't normally use minis in my games (mostly stick to pawns and other markers). However, I recently got the game Mice & Mystics as a gift, it includes a set of plastic miniatures that are unpainted. I'd like them painted but don't want to buy all the supplies just to paint one batch of minis (and, then, likely, never paint again), I also have light nerve tremors in my hands, so painting would probably be more difficult for me than it would be for most. So I'm interested in seeing if there is a company or service that I can send/take them to, have them painted, and then shipped back to me.
I'm thinking of using Stamina/Combat Tricks from Unchained in my next game, looking for some opinions of the more interesting/powerful options.
I recently ran Black Fang's Dungeon as a sort of impromptu adventure after a family birthday party. 3 players who had absolutely no experience with tabletop RPGs and a 4th player who has some previous experience with Pathfinder (My younger sister, two of our cousins, and their friend). All of them in the age 13-14 range. We used the pregens. I did make a few changes/corrections:
2. Since Ezren is set up as a Blaster and caster level 1 blasts are decidedly underwhelming, I let the player add one extra missile when using Magic Missile and use 3d4 dice when using Burning Hands. (I did the same for Fatmouth's magic missile later). 3. I also noticed as I was explaining Power Attack to the Player running Valeros that the PreGen Fighter's attack block is incorrect. He has a listed attack of +4 with his longsword (+3 with Power Attack) but it should be +5, (BAB +1, STR Mod +3, Weapon Focus +1), this was a pretty important catch as the Fighter barely hit enemy AC several times during the adventure. I know mistakes happen, but kind of sad to see that one in particular slip by. 4. Kyra, as a Cleric of Sarenrae, should be adding her level to Channel Energy to harm undead. I also made her CLWs 1d8+3 (for similar reasons to Ezren's changes). If you just want to see how the fight with Black Fang went, skip ahead to THE MAIN EVENT. I let the players talk and roleplay a bit and figure out their characters. At The Goblin Ambush they easily dispatched the two Goblins who attacked, Merisiel easily picked the lock on the chest without bothering to look for the key, she ended up claiming the masterwork dagger. They encounter the Magical Fountain and figured it out pretty quickly, The first 3 characters offered up a piece of gold, rolled well, and each got their choice of +2 for the rest of the adventure. Kyra's player, however, felt that she wouldn't offer up gold to another god so refused the fountain, I explain that Sarenrae and Desna were allies, but she still didn't think it felt right. I awarded her a Hero Point. They followed the noises to the Goblin Feud, after Merisiel stealth'd up to the entrance to the next area and peaked around the corner to spy on them. And then kept spying on them causing me to act out a 5 minute, 4 sided Goblin conversation in Goblin as Fatmouth squabbled with the other Goblins and berated them for not looking for his toy. This was, apparently, quite funny. The party argued about what to do, Merisiel and Valeros favored a sneak attack on the distracted Goblins. Kyra and Ezren thought the other Goblins would turn against the chief and side with them because he was being mean. - So they enter the room "Who you? Blah blah blah" Valeros steps forward, says who they are, why they're there and tell the Goblins to let them pass and there will be no trouble.
Me: “The Earthlings continue to resent our presence. You said we’d be greeted as liberators!”
This was a back and forth fight, with spells and crits landing on both sides, and Meri dropped into negatives and Val running after being hit with a Cause Fear, eventually Fatmouth was the only one left standing on his side with one hit point remaining, he offered to surrender, give the party a "healing stick" from his treasure chest and telling them the dragon's secret weakness if they'd spare him and heal his subjects. The party agreed. Kyra used channel energy on the party and the goblins before using the wand of CLW to patch up Merisiel some more. The players grumbled when they realized Fatmouth had an entire chest full of treasure, but 2 NG and 1 LN PCs couldn't justify going back on their truce with the goblins to take it from him.
The party explored the dungeon behind them before heading toward Black Fang. At the Gemstone Alter, My father and all his siblings are huge Indiana Jones fan, so my sister and cousins had seen all of the Indiana Jones movies many times and got the riddle right away. Kyra taking the Energy Heart on the sound logic that, with her low reflex save and as the cleric, keeping her alive to heal the others was the best move. Merisiel got hit by the Spider and its poison in the surprise round "What kind of monster sneak attacks someone!?"
Ezren scored a crit with Hand of the Apprentice for near max damage, allowing them to make short work of it. Meri decided that she was going to hold the dragon toy hostage unless Fatmouth paid for it. At the Deadly Pool they faced the Reefclaw in the "Battle of epic futility" as everyone, including me, rolled low over and over. Unsurprisingly Valeros took the Dragons Bane longsword. The party returned to the Goblin throne, Merisiel tried to negotiate 100 gold for the toy, Fatmouth had talked her down to 75 but, thinking himself clever, offered her a pearl instead (75 gold coins must be worth more than one tiny pearl, sucker)! The Levitate potion took care of the cliff leading to the Haunted Crypt. The party got their introduction to damage reduction as a sneak attack resulted in a net damage of 2. But 5 damage on a Channel Energy knocked out two skeletons straight away. Ezren hit the remaining skeleton with a ray of frost, but dealt only 1 damage. This was something of an ongoing joke, as Ezren often hit and dealt significant damage to the enemies but never seemed to be the one to land the finishing blow. Val finished it off. *THE MAIN EVENT*
"It's still alive?"
Black Fang went next, moving back and to the side a bit to allow him to catch Val, Kyra, and Ezren all with his breath weapon. 11 damage. Val was left with 1 HP, Ezren made his save, left standing with 2. Kyra failed her save and should have been left in negatives, but the Energy Heart absorbed 10 points (strategy pays off!)
Kyra moved forward and cast a CLW on Val, rolling a 1 on the d8, she asked if she could use her Hero Point to reroll and did, rolling a 6 instead. Round 2:
Merisiel's turn, no flank, Val down, Ez low on HP, so of course NATURAL 20 on her attack. Natural 19 on the confirm roll. Remember the house rule about sneak attack trigger on a crit? 11 damage. Ezren cast a magic missile from a wand, rolled minimum damage, but that was enough to drop Black Fang into negatives. Kyra healed Val back to positives with her last spell. INTERLUDE, back in the goblin throne room, Fatmouth had realized that he'd made a bad deal and was angry, he and the other conscious goblins prepared an ambush for the returning longshank invaders. Back in the den, The party decided to take Black Fang's head back to the town to prove the threat had been dealt with and raided his treasure horde. Fatmouth and his remaining Goblins positioned themselves, waiting for the moment to strike as the party were vulnerable climbing down the cliff. Valeros and Kyra tossed Black Fang's head they were carrying down the cliff ahead of them, it landed at Fatmouth's feet with a THUD, and the goblins quickly scratched their plan for attack and welcomed the conquering heroes, offering them back the dragon toy as a sign of peace between their two tribes. The players had a lot of fun and I had a lot of fun running it. We're setting up a continuing adventure in Sandpoint.
I'm going to be running RoRL again (my last attempt got in to book 2 before the group fell apart), one of my players suggested using Spheres of Power in place of the normal spellcasting system. Of my players 1 (the one suggesting SoP) is experienced with PF, the other 3 have little to no experience with tabeltop RPGs, other than me recently having run the beginners box adventure for them. While I know the basic concept of SoP and it seems appealing to me, I have no idea if this would be a good match for new players or how much work it would be to convert the enemy spellcasters over. Advice?
So far my list is Combat Expertise, Deadly Aim, Power Attack, Shadow Strike, Strike Back, and Weapon Finesse.
This is a basic idea that I've never got around to trying out and would like some feedback on. Instead of providing AC a shield provides a chance to block or parry an attack of 5% for each point of AC the shield would provide. Shields can only be used in this way by characters who are proficient with them. Anything that would increase the AC provided by the shield increases the chance of blocking an attack by 5% per point of AC. So a basic heavy shield would have a block chance of 10%, a +5 heavy shield would provide a block chance of 35%, a +5 heavy shield on a character with Shield Focus would provide a 40% block chance, and so on. Thoughts? Criticism?
I'm about to build a PFS legal monk and am trying to clarify if something is actually a house rule we've been using or some obscure ruling: Can a monk use their Flurry BAB to qualify for feats? (ie. take Power Attack first level as opposed to waiting for third)
I've seen a lot of people suggest combining the Improved/Greater feats into one, this makes a lot of sense but I've been thinking of something a bit different to give players more options. 1. Any character who takes Combat Expertise, Power Attack, or Improved Unarmed Strike automatically receives all the Improved [Maneuver] feats that list that feat as a prerequisite. So, yes, this means that taking CE nets you Improved Disarm, Trip, Reposition, Dirty Trick, and Steal (and any others that I'm forgetting). 2. Any character who takes the Greater Maneuver Feat gains an additional +2 bonus at BAB 12 and again at BAB 18. 3. Add both STR and DEX mods to CMB. 4. Remove size limits on what you can attempt a maneuver against. If you can make the check against something the size of a skyscraper you deserve to succeed. What does everyone think?
Any way to do this? I have a character built primarily for archery who is finding himself in underwater combat quite a bit.
It seems that Natural Attacks got a significant upgrade in PF with the changes to natural attacks. They also seem easier for PCs to get access to. Is there a compelling reason that these changes were needed, is there a significant reason not to go back to 3.5's one is Primary the rest secondary natural attack rule?
The basic idea I'm shooting for is to provide a way for characters to start out with whatever base weapon they want and not feel like they're gimping themselves for not going for the max crit range or the like at the end of the game. The rough idea is to create higher levels of masterwork that a master workman/smith can add on to an existing weapon, this can be fluffed as improving the grip, making small adjustments to the balance of the blade, special honing techniques, and use of special alchemical agents to improve the weapon. Basic formula for price is Masterwork bonus Squared * 300. The standard masterwork weapon (+1 enhancement bonus to hit) is treated as Master Work 1. Adding any of the following would increase the Masterwork bonus by 1 each: Increase Critical Threat Range by 1 (to a maximum of 18-20) (This would stack with keen and other effects that alter threat range. Increase Critical multiplier by 1 (to a maximum of x4). Increase Damage to 1d8 (or equivalent for small or large weapons). Increase Damage to 2d6 (or equivalent for small or large weapons). Add Reach Property (treat as a +2 bonus). Thoughts? Criticisms? Falafel?
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/h-l /ki-mat Two questions; 1. Can a Ninja use the item to regain Ki? 2. Is it really supposed to take an hour to use? That seems like an incredibly steep amount of time in the middle of an adventuring day to stop the action so a Monk can get 1 Ki point back.
20 point buy, the hardcover/core books is in, anything else is subject to DM approval. So far I've got: Human Cleric of Sarenrae
Feats: So far I have Heavy Armor Prof and Extra Channel but am open to changing them. The rest of the party is an Inquisitor of Pharasma, a Fighter, and an Archeologist Bard. The Race and the Deity are set (part of already submitted backstory). Also, on the Domains we use a house rule that Clerics use their domain slot to spontaneously cast their domain spells rather than preparing them.
Okay, so I recently played a Ranger from level 1 to level 8 in a 3.5 game. My first favored enemy (Orcs) was never used once. My second FE (Undead) was chosen because we were fighting undead at the time, I got to use it for two sessions, at which point we were pretty much done fighting undead. So, in months of playing, I got to use the Ranger's iconic ability in two sessions, now, sure, it was pretty good* for those two sessions, but isn't it just ridiculous that a ranger can, theoretically, go from level 1-20 and NEVER get any use out of the ability if the DM doesn't decide to throw one of the handful of enemy types at you, or go in and alter the adventure path? *And even when the Ranger is supposed to be getting his chance to shine against his favored enemy, the Barbarian is still getting his rage boost against those enemy's from rage, the PF Rogue can still sneak attack them, the PF Fighter still gets his new boosts as long as he keeps using his weapon, and the casters are still casting. So, really is the FE boost even doing anything more than, temporarily, bringing the Ranger up to par with what the other classes are doing all the time? When I heard of Pathfinder I was sure that something would have been done to address this, but it seems not. Even the Ranger's new abilities like Quarry and Master Hunter seem to work off of Favored Enemy. Shouldn't there be some other mechanic for the ability than waking up each morning and hoping that you face off against that one type of enemy you happen to be good against? For example, the ranger getting to mark X# enemies a day as his favored enemy the same way a Paladin gets a certain number of Smites, or the ability kicking in under some condition that the Ranger can actually control (like Sudden Strike or Skirmish)? Is there some obvious balance thing that I'm missing that makes the Ranger's favored enemy more valuable than it seems relative to the other classes' abilities? |
