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I really like the idea. I can't see an issue. I'll probably add it to the list of things I offer to rogues.


sleepydm wrote:


When I offered my little sister (16) a chance to play, I tried to make it all contractual. "Ya gotta promise that if you play, you'll understand the rules, know what your character can do, make an effort, be self-motivated, yaddayadda." I said this many times in many variations, and there were "yes"'s all around. A few days ago I was riding her like a horse trying to get her to finish. quizzing her on various things like range increments, feats, class abilities, etc. I couldn't imagine why there was all this resistance to finishing a task, expected weeks in advance, that ought to take at most an hour, tops. It wasn't even a spellcaster.

How did you accomplish this? When I rode my sister like a horse, all I got was placed on this registry that keeps me from getting jobs.

In all seriousness, if you are playing on line. Be ready for SLOW play.


For a tank, I would take at first level the following.

Combat Reflexes
Toughness
Shield Focus

Dodge as a feat is kinda meh. You gotta think, by the time you are at level 3 or so you should have enough resources to put on full plate. This means by level 3, with Armor Expertise you will have a 21 AC, without a shield equipped. If you decide to go Tower Shield (and I feel any TANK should) you're looking at a 26 AC (due to Shield Focus). I would also look at feats that gave me bonuses to my CMB, and the feat Stand Still.

Also, Step Up is a great feat for annoying casters. As a tank in Pathfinder, your job is to make it a chore to go past you and attack your allies.

LVL 2- WF Longsword
LVL 3- Stand Still
Lvl 4- Step Up

For the tank I have built (with much worse stats mind you) I am able to hinder most any creature. I like to stand a few feet in front of the ranged casters and damagers, and any creatures that pass me get wacked a few times due to Combat Reflexes. My Dex is only a 14, so I get 3 extra swings a turn. Not only this, when I get into melee range with a caster or ranger, I can constantly annoy the piss out of them using Step up. It's actually quite a fun build, and a great way to annoy the piss out of your DM and his battle plans.

However, Take Iron will early. Eventually you become an easily controlled Tin Can, and Iron Will/Improved Iron Will will save your ass many times.


So, if a touch attack is a free action, would the following scenario work.

Say I am playing a magus. I have prepared Shocking grasp twice in a day. My group is walking into an ambush, and I make the perception check to perform an action during the surprise round.

Could I cast Shocking Grasp during the surprise round, hold the charge, make a touch attack on the first round AND recast and use Shocking grasp on the same target twice. The way I see it, if a touch attack is a free action, this should work.


I am having some issues in my brain about casting a spell with the range of touch (not ranged touch).

Here is how I understand touch spells (not ranged ones), and I wanted to get clarification for each of these points. Some players have brought up some issues with my logic, and I wanted to have an answer by next session.

1. Do spells with the range of touch provoke attacks of opportunity?
2. Can the spell be cast, and used as part of a touch attack within the same standard action?
3. Should I miss my touch attack, is the spell used up?
4. Should I decide to store the spell, will touching anyone trigger the spell? Or do I have the option of using it only when I decide to release the power? For example, could I shake hands with a local merchant with a stored spell, only to use it right after to blindside a thief?

I thank everyone in advance for any help.


"While that feat can work out well enough, think about the fact that your party was getting by just fine without a cleric before.

There's no need for her to channel mid-battle, she can just kick ass with bow or spell mid-battle, and then channel afterwards."

Well, it really wasn't working out that well before. They were completing the challenges I was setting up for them, but it was almost always down to the final roll of the die. There were 3 situations in three 5 games where all that was left standing was the rogue, at less than 5 health, and a creature, at less than five health.

I like the quick channel feat, I think I may end up using that instead.

Quicken channel is something else I really like. i will have to create that one. I think I might just make Quick Channel the prerequisite for Quicken Channel (which I may have to rename to not confuse anyone). That will give her a bit of versatility she is lacking right now, and at least let her deal a little bit of damage.

Thanks for the input all.


So, my wife decided to create a cleric and put her orc barbarian away. In the game I am running, there seems to be an instance in almost every session where the players are low on health, low on supplies, and looking to sleep for 3 weeks in a dungeon to heal up. So, she has built her cleric, and our first session was last night.

My wife did not enjoy playing a cleric...

Every time she had an turn, she was forced to channel energy instead of firing her bow. While the group fared much better, I could tell she was quickly losing interest. So, what I am trying to do is create some sort of feat or something that will allow her to still attack when she heals.

She played a cleric in 4th edition, and I think she was thinking that healing would be something that she could do to supplement an attack.

So, my idea for a feat is as follows.

Battle Cleric
Prerequisite Channel Positive Energy 2D6 class feature
A cleric with this feat may choose to use her channel positive energy class feature as a move action by rolling one less D6 for the heal.


Arikiel wrote:
Weasels are related to honey badgers.

Honey badger don't give a s!&+


I have a few rules when awarding XP.

Full XP is only rewarded when the challenge has been conquered completely. I will, however, hand any xp out to a surviving group for every part of the encounter they did defeat. So, if there is a Lich, 9 zombies, and 4 skeletal ogres and they run from the Lich, leaving 2 zombies and 1 ogre alive. They would receive the XP from what they defeated. However, the Lich (if possible) will refill his ranks if they can make another attempt at him again.

In your example, it seemed they were in a very tough spot. They not only had enemies to fight, but had some tough terrain. In this situation, I would award them some "ad hoc" experience awards. I wouldn't take from the encounter for anything they didn't drop, but I would reward the cool things that they did. The party obviously did some awesome stuff there.

Here is what I do in these situations.

I take each awesome action that succeeded, and award 300 group XP. I then take the total amount of xp, multiply that by the EPL (in my current parties case, 3) and get a total amount handed out to the group. I then split it between the number of party members, and you have yourself some ad hoc awards. As a DM I hate screwing my players over when things just don't go their way, especially when they made an encounter especially bad ass.


I don't know much about #2 and honestly don't care, but #1 has me thinking a bit.

I have a general rule, and did in 3.5 for "spells". Magic missile is whatever color the caster wants it to be. Often times instead of saying "The Orc casts Magic Missile" I will say "Angry, red, jagged streaks arc from the orcs fingertips and hit you in the chest, you take 2D4 damage". This is obviously MM when the players really think about it, but I just set it apart from what they do. I made it "Sound" evil. The same goes for everything else. Burning hands I make like a fire breath or something similar. So while 4e had some neat things for each creature (and I really think had better stat blocks for monsters), there is no reason you can't flavor your things in any way.

Hell, it doesn't really change the game, so my necromancer has Magic Missiles that look like flaming hell skulls and a Ray of Enfeeblement that looks like a wraith ripping into someones very soul. I have found that when you do this sort of thing, other players follow suit with their abilities and it adds a lot of spice to a gaming session.


Sorry for bumping this, but I wanted to run some stuff by you guys see what you thought.

1) As I was saying before, don't necessarily like tying characters to mounts unless they want to. So what I have done is made some home rules for Samurai, taking away shield Prof and forcing Lawful status upon them. I am keeping the UC Samurai in tact, other than those changes and calling them Yabusame style.

2) Daisho will be an archetype for them. They will now, instead of a mount, recieve the Two weapon fighting feat for free at first level (even if they don't meet requirements), and a masterwork Katana. I figure since this is pretty much similar in gold cost to a mount I wasn't changing much. They now receive at level 5, instead of mounted Archery, a bonus feat from the two weapon fighting tree.

3) Jo will be another archetype. This is a 2h weapon focus. So they will receive Power attack and a masterwork 2h weapon (Konobo, Nodachi, Naginata, Yari). Instead of the mount and relevent special abilities. At level 5 they will receive a bonus feat from the Power Attack Tree instead of Mounted Archery.

Wanted to get an idea what people thought about this. It seems to balance out ok from what I am looking at. I just had a player that really wanted to play Samurai, but didn't like the idea of being mounted (especially since my campaign will take some early emphasis on Naval Combat situations, and others that won't necessarily involve overland travel).


In my home game Samurai are part of the Edo Elemental Clans far to the west. They often trade with the Freelands (where my game takes place). After giving the overview, low and behold I had a player go "I wanna be a samurai". Cool, so we look up samurai, and it made my face hurt. I don't like the Samurai class as done in Ultimate Combat as a template for Cavalier. So I decided to rework an Elemental Samurai of my own into things. This will be my first time making my own class.

I'm not sure if I should just make a template to overlap over fighter, with forced prerequisites like Lawful only, No shield proficiency, etc, or just use my own class ideas.

I'd like to hear feedback on the little bit I have had time to flesh out these last two days and see if there is an issue.

Alignment: Any Lawful

Hit Die: D10

Weap and Armor Proficiency: Samurai are proficient with all Light and Medium Armor, but not with shields. Samurai are also proficient with All simple and martial weapons, as well as Katana, Wakizashi,Tanto, Nodachi, Yari , Naginata, Jute and kanabo. (Where not a rule for a weapon, I will make any of these Samurai weapons a Masterwork counterpart of a similar ruled weapon. Such as Kanabo being a MW Great Club)

BAB Progression +1 per level (as fighter)

Saves +1 all at level 1. They will then increase by +1 every odd level.

I have two different versions of Samurai, much the same way that Ranger has two styles. Yabusame and Daisho. Yabusame begin play with a Heavy Warhorse and all barding needed. Including a MW Yumi (Longbow). Daisho begin play with a MW Katana and MW Tanto or Wakizashi.

This is what i have now, I have just started working out feats and progression to level 20. Feedback would be greatly appreciated (I am not giving the samurai much more than the choice of Yabusame or Daisho at level one to reflect the amount they are being given here. Either style also begins play with either Mounted Combat or Two Weapon Fighting, depending).


Razz wrote:

No pun intended but I have a big problem with this spell.

A player casted it on an ally. Problem is, there isn't enough space. But it's not from objects or room size --- it's because of creatures being in the way for him to take up a 10 foot space. The spell says make a Strength check if objects were in the way, but nothing for creatures.

So what happens? I doubt he stops growing, I doubt he's constrained, also. I don't think it allows a free bull rush or knocking everyone prone. There's gotta be some ruling on this somewhere?

It would be an opposed strength roll against the creatures. If the character wins, he pushes them out of the way (moving them back until he fits). If he does not win, they still move back, but instead of being knocked back one square, they may move without provoking, and reposition themselves as they please.

This is not in the RAW, it's just what I did when I had a guy surrounded by skeletons. It was simple, efficient, and kept play going.


AH, magic enhancement, never thought of that. I should have though...

I suppose that the higher crit multiplier overrules the monk unarmed? Or does the crit multiplier of the monk override the punching weapon?

As for the bard, my wife wanted to make a bawdy tavern singer, and wanted to use a fiddle. I have considered allowing her to just pluck a few in sing (she took sing too), but it seems crazy to me to hamstring a character for wanting a real performing instrument. I think I'll just let her play inbetween turns and so long as she does once per turn as a free, she maintains.


Thanks. I have not used CAD software in years, and I never photoshop. But I assume I can pick it up eventually. Any other suggestions?


QUOTE="bugleyman"] 1. The concise and clear action types, and the ability to "downgrade" any action for the next, "lesser" type. So clean in play.

2. Fixed hit point progression. Just way too important to be random.

3. Consistency between spell levels and caster levels. A 4th level wizard should cast 4th level wizard spells.

4. Pared-down list of actions which provoke.

5. "Warlordish" leader of men in the core.

6. Point-buy as the default stat generation method.

7. Concise yet specific wording (at least in theory).

8. Some sort of mook or minion rules.

9. Bloodied.

1- I see no real reason for this with the rules for Pathfinder. You can already make a double move as a standard action, and there aren't a lot of "minor" abilities. Plus, this would absolutely break quickened spell, allowing someone to conceivably cast 3 spells in a single turn by "downgrading" their standard and move actions to swift. You would have to account for that sort of thing.

2- This is half the reason I left 4e. I enjoyed it at first, but the more I played the more I said to myself "Wow, i've done this all before".

3- No, I can't condone this. I don't like the idea of having to make 20 levels of spells. You'd have to separate everything again and rework all your spells.

4- I think the list right now is fine. Most of them can be gotten around by a feat/class ability.

5-Yes, the Warlord was awesome. I also have an issue with the only type of healing being divine, or a Bard that takes cure spells. I've always seen HP as a more "fatigue" type thing. The ability to bolster your allies so they shrug off attacks is awesome imo.

6-I don't see how they need to define a "base" stat generation tactic. IF you wanna point buy, point by with GM allowance. IF GM wants randomized characters, the GM gets it.

7-I don't have a problem reading the book, but I will agree with an earlier post, defining the monster abilities in the stat block helps with game prep.

8-I love mooks and minions. I'd love to see a decent homebrew of this. It makes fights a bit more epic with 4 or more enemies for the XP amount of one. It also makes a level 1 wizard with Burning hands feel like a boss.

9-At first I was like ooohhh yeah bloodied, then I was hmm.. wait... now I'm like.. no bloodied. It basically has players sit around a table and go, we did 98 damage when he bloodied, he had 84 before. That means his total hp is somewhere between 170 and 196. Dailies now.

I will add one though, one thing I really thought made the game simpler for DMs.

Passive Skills. Passiver perception and "insight" (which would be sense motive). Instead of me rolling twice, having a non active player take 10 and making a defense makes stealth situations a lot faster. Also, it makes lying a lot easier. If they actively wanna Sense motive or percept, I can THEN roll it and say yay or nay.


I am a terrible map maker. By terrible map maker, I mean that I have a map for the world building I am doing in my head, but beyond that I'm about as artistic as a meth addled orangutan. So I was wondering if anyone could suggest a decent piece of map building software (not dungeons, overland type maps). Perhaps some Cartography software that could be used for fantasy world buiilding?


The problem is it would really, really break monks. So you would have to make the feat unusable by monks as the very least.


1: The bard- My wife is playing a Bard in our home game. She has decided to play the fiddle as her instrument. Now, according to the game rules she is able to maintain her spell song ability by using a free action each round. However flavor wise she would be playing a fiddle the entire time. How does she go about playing the fiddle, and stabbing someone with her dirk in the same round? Is all the has to do is pluck a string or two to keep the magic going?

2: The Monk- weapons like Brass Knuckles are "monk weapons". Wtf is the point of a Monk getting these? BK are still bludgeoning damage, do less then the Monk's unarmed strike, and cost money. I'm just curious why make such weapons Monk Weapons when they are entirely useless, at least in my estimation.