Pozuket's page

I'm going to be running a fight with an ecorche later this week, and I've got a question about its stats that I just can't figure out or find any previous answers for here. I'm hoping someone has some insight to offer.

Special Attacks bleed (1 Con drain), rend (2 claws, 3d6+11 plus bleed and seize skin)

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Seize Skin (Su)
Whenever an ecorche damages a target with its rend ability, the target must succeed at a DC 25 Fortitude save to resist being skinned alive. Those who fail the save become staggered and take 1 point of Constitution drain per round. Both of these effects are permanent but can be removed with a regenerate or heal spell (or 1 round of regeneration). ...

The rend damage says it does damage, bleed, and triggers Seize Skin. Seize Skin also has a Fort save against bleeding. Is it supposed to cause the bleed only on a failed save (i.e. rend itself doesn't trigger any bleed)? Are they supposed to stack on a failed save (despite bleed not normally stacking)? Does it just always cause the one point of bleeding, and just have staggering as an extra effect?

My suspicion is that, given how deadly bleeding Con is, that it requires the thing to actually take your skin (rend and you fail your save) before the bleeding starts, and that the mention in the Special Attacks line is just a reminder. But that's not at all clear.

I'm running my group through The Harrowing, and even though we haven't gotten very far, I've already run into a few things I can't figure out. I'm hoping someone has either run into these, or can point me at some examples.

Storykin: If a storykin is destroyed "their essences float intangibly through the realm". Does that mean that the body dissolves/melts on death, or is it just the animating force that leaves it? Related: Can PCs tell that storykin are not normal humans or monsters?

Harrow cards: If a card is relevant, but has no obvious effects (such as giving the PCs a bonus to saves they haven't made yet, or penalizing the monster if the PCs do something they haven't tried), should I just tell the players, or make them figure it out (and thus possibly miss out)? I know either one could work, but I'm hoping that one or the other has worked better for people in the past.

Finally, any character references or advice for RPing Brambleson? I have a hard time wrapping my mind around how he talks and acts.

I'm getting ready to run my players through Heroes of Undarin, and the rules for creating characters for this chapter are confusing me.

1) What is the 100 gp the characters start with for? That seems way too high for only purchasing mundane items. But the "Allocating Magic Items" section says "These are your options. Period."
2) Is there a reason for characters to avoid doubling up on ancestry or class? Or is that just a general "we want variety" line?
3) If there is a good reason, do the half-human heritages count as human for this purpose?

Last week my group started Mirrored Moon, with the DC changes from the 1.4 update. I have a party of 6, but the two who are doing the searching have perception modifiers of +14 and +16, and survival modifiers of +10 and +15. (Everyone else is lower.)

Under the old numbers (DC 25 perception or DC 23 Survival), they needed to roll a number between 8 and 13 (depending on player and skill) in order to succeed, which makes critically succeeding and getting the important clues to a location possible.

Under the new numbers (DC 30 Perception or DC 27 Survival), they need to roll between an 11 and a natural 20 (depending) in order to succeed, which puts critically succeeding almost out of reach.

Are my players just significantly less optimized than they should be? Am I missing some key modifiers? Or did it just get that much harder to actually do this?

When trying to get to the Chessex page in the store (from this one), I get asked to log in even if I'm already logged in (as if accessing account information), and then it just keeps redirecting to the post-login page over and over.

I'm rather confused by when the message boards uses a secure HTTP connection and when it doesn't. For example, the top level page of the messageboards (https://secure.paizo.com/paizo/messageboards) is secured, but the level one down from it (http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizo) isn't. Making new posts is, and quick-reply posts to a secure URL, but viewing threads is still regular HTTP.

Can we get an all-https version? Are there technical reasons we can't?

The Ultimate Campaign rules for Exploration Edicts say:

If you are not traveling with the explorers and they have a hostile encounter, you may have the expedition attempt a Stealth check (DC 10 + twice the encounter’s CR), using the worst Stealth modifier among the expedition members.

But how are you supposed to know what the Stealth modifier of the expedition is? There's nothing about choosing members, or what type of stat blocks to use, or anything else like that.

Ever since the Kingmaker rules have come out, I've had a desire to play a game about kingdom building, rather than a game which involved kingdom building. One where the PCs were secondary to what the kingdom as a whole was doing. With Ultimate Campaign (and possibly the Ultimate Rulership and Ultimate Battle addons), it's now actually feasible to try something like that.

So, this is an interest check and idea thread for a Pathfinder-ish kingdom game. Players would be playing as a Kingdom, or at least its entire leadership council. Kingdoms would be placed in the same area of the world, but far enough apart that they could (probably) expand for a while before running into each other. Where these kingdoms come from is open for negotiation: You could start as vassals or explorers from a shared starting kingdom, journeying out into the unknown by land or by sea; travelers from another dimension which just appear in the middle of nowhere, either intentionally or by accident; or simply be the leaders of native populations that all decided to start banding together into a kingdom around the same time.

This would probably be roleplay-lite. There is a frame story set by the origin, and I may create events related to it, but the focus is more on the numbers and kingdom growth than character interaction. Negotiations would get at least RPed on at least a basic level, and I'm open to the idea of the leaders having some way to remain in contact even if the kingdoms themselves are not. In the same vein, events would require some description of how they're being handled, possibly with some small interactive scenes, but it wouldn't be the primary focus. Leadership characters would not necessarily need to be fully statted out, and kingdom players could choose any or all of them to RP as appropriate to the scene.

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If this type of game interests you, read on:

I would probably be looking for 2-5 players who could all commit to at least one kingdom-month's post (that is, one Kingdom action) per week. It's slow, but Kingdom turns can have a lot more going on than a combat turn. I'm certainly open to faster posting - that's just the lowest minimum I'd be looking for.

If this still interests you, or you have suggestions on how to run it, or ideas for any of the things that are are vague now, let me know!

Is it just me, or has the voting link disappeared? Voting's not closed until 5 (EST), but I can't find the link to go cast my vote.

The Witchfire is a CR 9 incorporeal undead that gets to make an 8d6 damage touch or ranged touch attack as its main attack. I assume, since the power itself is not described anywhere, that this is just a standard natural attack, and follows all the rules of them. (The "Witchflame" power specifically describes the fire effect, not the attack itself.)

So, question #1: Is this actually a natural attack? And by that, could the witchflame use it as part of an attack sequence with manufactured ghost touch weapons, with the usual -5 for it becoming a secondary natural attack?

Then, if so, that leads to question #2: Can Vital Strike improve this attack? After all, if you can give it to a monster to improve its bite attack, you should be able to do so to improve any natural attack...

Apologies if this has been asked before, but I didn't see it anywhere.

Rage and Bloodrage specifically prevent all things that require concentration. Usually, that also includes spellcasting, but Blood Casting specifically overrides that for the Bloodrager. However, it doesn't specify whether or not the Bloodrager is able to cast defensively (which requires a decision to make a concentration check), or in any other situation where they have to make a successful concentration check to be able to cast (grappled, taking ongoing damage).

I also wonder whether there's a case to be made for allowing Spellcraft to be used in a Bloodrage, but I think that may be going too far.

First of all, thanks to the design team for the New FAQ Sticky!

Two pieces of feedback that I hope someone can edit:

1) The link to the FAQ goes to an invalid URL which is not visible externally.
2) It suggests posting "In the appropriate forum", but currently (as far as I'm aware) the FAQ button is only available in the rules forum. Perhaps replace the wording with links to the appropriate forum(s)?

I just want to complement the web team on their ability to do relatively painless upgrades to the forum software, especially in light of what's going on over on the WotC forums right now.

I'm not an active user over there, but I do have an account. A few days ago, I got an email saying there was going to be an upgrade in 3 days, and all posts from the two weeks prior would be lost. Additionally, the "upgrade" apparently (based on skimming the feedback thread) removed a whole host of features, broke many pre-existing posts' formatting, and is rife with bugs and questionable design decisions.

In contrast, the last major upgrade to the Paizo forums preserved all existing content, added new functionality without removing anything, and had a minimal set of bugs which were quickly resolved.

So, thank you for handling everything so well!

I'm splitting this out into a separate request thread, because I think it's a really good idea.

Adam Daigle wrote:

Patrick Harris @ MU wrote:

<old quotes and responses>

It looks like you went through that thread to find employee posts. I just want to be clear that my post was about a year and a half before I was hired on here. (You can also see posts by Ross Byers when he *was* an employee [and directly worked on the website], but it doesn't look like it because he no longer has the golem icon.) Also, my post was more about consoling a friend of mine that arguing for or against an ignore feature. But, if you go further back on other threads on the topic you can find that I wasn't for it then.

Heh. So at least my interpretation was not entirely inaccurate.

You guys should really consider locking in the Golem icon for posts made when people are employees, and not showing it from when they weren't. It gets pretty confusing when I'm looking at old stuff--like posts from Mark Moreland complaining that there wasn't a blog post on any given day.

I've encountered this myself, where the de-goleming (is that a word?) has led to confusion about what was an official response or not.

Why are we prompted to reenter our password when switching to the Campaign tab? As far as I can tell, there's nothing special about it that you can't just pull up via navigating the message board.

The iPhone is not ideal for browsing these forums, but it works tolerably well. However, I've noticed two odd behaviors:

I'm trying to make sense out of how buildings help you earn capital in the new UCa rules, and whenever I think I've wrapped my head around it, I find another cross reference which throws it all up in the air again. I hope someone can make sense of it for me.

Determine Building Income: Attempt a capital check (see the Earnings section on page 92) for each building you control in the settlement that generates income and is able to provide you benefits. Add the results of all of these checks together, then divide by 10 to determine how many gp you earn that day. For example, if your total result is a 47, after dividing it by 10, your earnings come to 4 gp and 7 sp.

This part seems straightforward enough. I have two buildings, so I roll two checks as per whatever the rules on page 92 might say, add them together, then divide by 10. Assume they have a +5 bonus, and I take 10. I end up with (15+15)/10 = 30/10 = 3. Simple.

Determine Other Income: If any of your other downtime activities generate income (such as using skills to earn capital), you collect that income during this step.

So far, so good. This clearly refers to making skilled labor checks, even though it doesn't reference that page.

So lets go to page 92...

This entry indicates what bonuses the room or team gives to its building’s or organization’s checks made to generate capital. Buildings and organizations act like characters in that they can attempt a check each day to earn capital performing skilled work (without costing you any downtime).

Still good, maybe. The rooms in the building contribute to the modifiers it uses for making the check from Income phase - Step 1 above.

Moving on.

If the room or team’s Earnings entry says “capital” and a number, it can contribute a bonus on the building’s or organization’s skilled work check for any type of capital (gp, Goods, Influence, Labor, or Magic). If the Earnings entry lists specific types of capital, it can contribute a bonus on its building’s or organization’s skilled work checks only for capital of those types. You can apply each room’s or team’s bonus to any one listed type or capital each day or divide it among multiple listed types of capital.

Ok, only the rooms which actually add to a specific type of capital (or all capital rolls) add to those specific types of capital. Straightforward enou.... Wait. What's that bolded section? I can divide it up? But the building only gets to make one check. Why would I want to?

If you have multiple buildings or organizations in a settlement and they can generate the same kind of capital, you don’t have to roll for them separately— you may add all their capital modifiers together and attempt one check for that kind of capital.

Now I'm more confused. Not only did the last one imply you might make more than one check per building, this is now implying you can make less than one check per building too. Given that each check involves adding a number from 1-20 (or just choosing to add 10), we're now looking at either d20+5+d20+5 (as above), d20+5+5 by combining them, or something like d20+3,d20+2,d20+3,d20+2 by splitting them. All as valid options, despite the fact that 10+5+10+5 > 10+5+5

Well, maybe the example will clarify...

... If you wanted to use the Bar’s bonus to contribute to generating Influence and use the rest of the rooms’ bonuses on gp, you’d attempt one skilled work check for Influence with a +10 modifier (the Bar’s bonus) and another skilled work check for gp with a +31 modifier (the total bonuses from the Common Room, Lodging, and Stall).

So this is clearly a vote in favor of being able to split it up, and having the building making multiple checks. And since the DC to get a point of a type of capital is 10, and my building can take 10, then by splitting it into even a +1 bonus of a type, I can automatically get one of each capital per day, without noticeably affecting my primary type of income. And then I can do it again for the next building. And the next one. Or I can combine all the buildings and make a single roll and get less!

And then I have the option to add these to my own roll instead of having the building roll. Does it count for both? Neither? Gah!

Please... someone help me make this make sense!

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

That question (like many that arose from the "any questions about magic item crafting" thread I started) is important enough that it belonged in the FAQ where everyone could read it, not in a book of campaign options that many people wouldn't know was the place to find rulings on how the default crafting system is supposed to work.

I can understand that, but I think there's a flaw in the assumption that the FAQ is the more accessible thing in terms of what players KNOW about. I think far more Pathfinder players read the rulebooks than even know the FAQ exists. Is there a reference to the FAQ in the rulebooks? I don't see one. I mean, in my groups, most of us are experienced players, but out of about 12-15 of us who play Pathfinder, only two of us visit the Paizo boards or site at all generally outside the PRD--and AFAICT the PRD doesn't link to or reference the FAQ either.

If the ruling had been listed briefly in UCa, for that matter, it would have ended up in the PRD where even people who had not bought the book would likely eventually see it.

Can't change anything now, but a comment to the staff in general that if you are relying upon the FAQ to make common rulings and suggestions known to ALL players, then you need to advertise the FAQ's existence much more broadly and make it more accessible. As it is, most people probably think that link to "Help/FAQ" is the SITE FAQ only, not the rules FAQ, and the rules FAQ links are tiny and not front and center.

I'm quoting DeathQuaker here, because I want to make sure the web team sees this. I strongly support her feelings.

Some additional points:

I'm trying to find a module I can use as the base for running a particular location in my Kingmaker game which isn't very fleshed out, and I'm hoping someone can recommend something useful.

Given the existing build-up, I need a tower which is warped, chaotic, possibly evil, or simply tainted by the Lovecraftian horrors of the Great Dark. Or some combination thereof. Ideally, it will also have a mage of some sort inhabiting it, whom I can swap out for the NPC that I need to put there.

Aside from that, pretty much everything is up in the air. I can do a great deal of adaption once I have a base to work from, and all I actually need is the tower, although if the module has threads I can tie in to the campaign, I'm not adverse to using the whole thing.

Level range would ideally be in the 8-12 area, using the Pathfinder rules, but I'm willing to scale it up or down as needed, or convert from 3.x, although the closer to ideal, the better (obviously).

Anyone have a suggestion?

I'm making a character of a Tiny custom race, who will have Alchemist levels. Does being non-Medium affect bomb damage? My instinct is that it would, but since Hero Lab doesn't reduce it, I went looking to see if it was addressed anywhere, and it isn't.

So now I'm wondering...

Is there any way to group downloads together so that I can download them all at once? I've got all the files from the the PDF Superpack in My Downloads now, and I'd really like to not have to click each one, wait for the page to refresh, wait for the download to start, and then move on to the next.

I understand that Paizo needs to watermark each file, so external mass-downloaders (such as FlashGot) can't handle the links directly, but some functionality to either download the entire Superpack as one file via the pledge screen, or to check which files in My Downloads I'd like to get and have a "Download all selected" button, would be greatly appreciated.

Animal Archive introduced the Familiar Spell feat, which lets you imbue a spell into your familiar. One of the limitations on it is:

A familiar spell uses up a spell slot 3 levels higher than the spell's actual level. Your familiar can store a number of spell levels (including this modifier) equal to your caster level, but no spell's adjusted level can exceed half your caster level.

Normally, this means you can't use this feat until you're 8th level, at which point you can store a 1st level Familiar Spell in your familiar (8/2 = 1+3).

Animal Archive also introduced the Familiar Metamagic Rod which lets you cast "up to three spells per day that affect his familiar as though using the Familiar Spell feat."

So the question is, what is the spell's adjusted level while the familiar is holding it? Does the rod bypass the "no spell's adjusted level" check? That would let even a 2nd level caster grant a spell to their familiar. Or does the spell's adjusted level include the increase, even though the rod accounted for it instead of a higher-level spell slot?

Effectively, what is the "adjusted spell level" for a spell cast with a metamagic rod? The rods specifically say they don't adjust the spell slot of the spell, but nothing about its level, beyond what the standard metamagic rules say.

Currently, if you open a bold or italic tag in one paragraph and close it in a later one, everything works as you'd expect - everything is bolded / italicized as expected. However, if you do the same with an OOC tag, the font color reverts back to black at the end of the paragraph.

Example:

Starting bold.

Ending bold.

Starting OOC

Ending OOC

For years, I've been using Flyby attack as "As a full round action: Move, take a standard action, move." I just took a closer look at the text, though, and discovered that it wasn't at all clear, and the Pathfinder version is also self-contradictory.

Flyby Attack [General]

Prerequisite
Fly speed.

Benefit
When flying, the creature can take a move action (including a dive) and another standard action at any point during the move. The creature cannot take a second move action during a round when it makes a flyby attack.

Normal
Without this feat, the creature takes a standard action either before or after its move.

Flyby Attack

This creature can make an attack before and after it moves while flying.

Prerequisite: Fly speed.

Benefit: When flying, the creature can take a move action and another standard action at any point during the move. The creature cannot take a second move action during a round when it makes a flyby attack.

Normal: Without this feat, the creature takes a standard action either before or after its move.

The SRD version doesn't have an action type specified for using the feat, leading to three possible interpretations:

The PRD version also doesn't have an action type, and doesn't change the wording of the benefit itself. However, it also adds the descriptive text that reads "before and after". This adds a fourth scenario:
4) Standard, movement, standard.

At this point, I'm completely confused. Help?

While using the Shaitan Style and Elemental Fist feats to deal acid damage, you gain a bonus on acid damage rolls equal to your Wisdom bonus. Further, if your Elemental Fist melee attack misses while you are using it to deal acid damage, you still deal 1d6 points of acid damage to your target.

Creatures that take acid damage from your Elemental Fist attack must succeed at a Reflex save (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Wis modifier) or be staggered for 1 round.

Does the reflex save from Shaitan Skin trigger from the acid damage of a missed Shaitan Style + Elemental Fist attack?

I've never really liked the mass combat rules as they were released in Kingmaker. The River Nations book helped, but it was still built on what I considered to be a flawed concept, and introduced a new set of flaws as well. I'm not going to bash on specifics here, but my primary complaint is that it's too abstract. Two armies of the same CR are going to be almost the same mechanically, and in-battle tactics consist of matching your opponents changes to their strategy track. It feels like the equivalent of opening the Bestiary to the Average Stats By CR table and saying "There's a monster in front of you. It swings at you and hits. Do you want to swing at it?"

Instead of this, I set about looking for alternatives.  Building upon a set of rules created by sirmattdusty and the excellent concepts in Warpath, I assembled a set of Revised Mass Combat Rules. It features combat which is much closer to the tactical combat of a standard Pathfinder game, armies that are as different as any two characters, and the Kingdom-based tie-ins to actually make what you build matter for what you can recruit. 

I certainly won't claim that these rules are perfect. In fact, I haven't even playtested them yet. This might end up being a total mess of overcomplexity and fail.  By posting the rules here, I'm hoping that some of you will take a look, try it out, and give me feedback.  Do the rules make sense? Are there gaping holes? Is it possible to game the system to extremes? Are they fun?

Please let me know what you think!

Please note: there are references in these rules to the revisions I've made to the kingdom building list, which I will be posting as well. They should be entirely comprehensible without that, though. If not, let me know that too.

I'm curious how posts on which people have hit the "FAQ" button look on the other side of the screen. Not necessarily anything like "We put a shiny unicorn next to any threads which have a FAQ in them", but in terms of the numbers.

Are FAQ-clicks counted per thread or per post? Does whether or not the clicks are on the first post in the thread matter? Is there a list of the top-FAQed threads/posts? Or just an indication on the thread list of a FAQ? Or is there nothing beyond what we users see, and it's just a question of whether a system developer happens to look into the thread?

I'm not looking for this to game the system or anything - just to understand it. My assumptions (based on how I'd do it if I were to build it) are that there's a list of top FAQed posts, and each post that gets clicked (possibly above a threshold) shows up on it. If two posts in the same thread are both FAQed, they'll both be on the list separately. But that's all just guessing.

This thread inspired me to consider making yet another offline PRD reference app. I do application development for my day job (including data storage, web scraping and full-text search), so my skills are in the right line for doing this, but I don't have any iOS experience yet.

My preliminary plans include:

• Tree-based browsing and lists
  
• Full text search, filterable by the sections of the PRD you want to search (so just search feats, or feats and classes, or everything, etc).
  
• Dynamic filtering of spells by school, level, save / resistance status, and class.
  
• Favoriting of pages for quick reference.
  
• An automatic process on a server somewhere to automatically crawl the source material and parse it for updates. (I don't yet know if this will be something that can be pulled down from the server by the app, or if I'll need to submit an update to the app store to push it.)

Longer term plans include a feat-finder / mini-character sheet, where you can enter some basic information about your character (probably race, stats, BAB and current feats) and automatically get a list of all feats you qualify for. I'm also considering implementing a global preference to turn certain books on or off, and if they're off they will never show up in lists, and show up at the end of search results in a greyed out color.

I'm not sure yet whether I'll be parsing the official PRD or d20pfsrd.com for my data (if the latter is even allowable). The former is more official, but the latter is much better linked and organized. I might make it a choice within the app, with one (your choice) being free and the second as an in-app purchase (and the ability to switch back and forth once you've bought the second).

Given all that, is this actually something that's needed? Would people be interested in something like this? Any suggestions? Other features missing from the current options?

Well, now my PCs are about to assault the Spriggan-held fort, but the spriggans know they're coming. I need to figure out what they'd do in order to prepare. Simply treating it as if the alarm was sounded doesn't seem sufficient, since they should be able to attack the PCs as they're tring to climb up. In addition, the spriggans as-written (or even as modified by the 6-player conversion, which gives the a fighter level and crossbows), aren't really going to pose a threat without a major terrain advantage and decent tactics.

Anyone have suggestions or successful modifications to this encounter area?

One of my players just took a Blink Dog as his cohort with Leadership. We then realised that with an at-will quickened dimension door (at CL 7), the blink dog could travel 680 feet as a swift action each round. Turning that from feet/round into MPH gives a speed of 77.2 MPH. This doesn't factor in the double move (+80'/round -> 86 MPH) or run (+160'/round -> 95.5 MPH) the blink dog can make between blinks.

I'm pretty certain this makes blink dogs the fastest creatures on Golarion, hands down. And because it's a spell-like ability, they can do it all day without getting tired. Obviously, it's not as fast as communication via magic, but it certainly can do a lot for ordinary communications. As a Mdium creature with a strength of 12, a blink dog can carry 43 pounds of stuff in saddlebags. That's a lot of paper notes or small valuables. Plus, blink dogs are generally LG, so you can trust them with your stuff, and they're never in one spot more than 6 seconds (1 round), so they're really hard to ambush and waylay.

All this leads to the question: Why isn't Golarion's (or any other setting's) equivalent to the Pony Express to hire a whole bunch of blink dogs to carry the mail?

Here's a random request: Could we get a parallel to the smurf logic applied for the word "cheese" (and cheeze) too? Possibly just for the Rules forum, if that would cause problems for PbP games and other general discussion... It might improve the atmosphere in there a bit, and if it doesn't, it'll still be amusing!

At 4th level, when a kensai hits with his chosen weapon, he can spend 1 point from his arcane pool in order to maximize his weapon damage. Don’t roll for damage—the weapon deals maximum damage. This affects only the weapon’s base damage dice, not additional damage from sneak attack, magical weapon properties, spellstrike, or critical hits.

When you use the attack action, you can make one attack at your highest base attack bonus that deals additional damage. Roll the weapon’s damage dice for the attack twice and add the results together before adding bonuses from Strength, weapon abilities (such as flaming), precision-based damage, and other damage bonuses. These extra weapon damage dice are not multiplied on a critical hit, but are added to the total.

Would Perfect Strike maximize all the weapon dice from Vital Strike, or would it just maximize the first set? I suspect it's the latter, but I feel like it could be read to be the former.

My group has just finished about a year's worth of kingdom building, and has 40-some hexes, consisting of most of the stolen lands. They have four cities of various levels of construction, with their capital about to need a second district soon. They have kingdom stats in the upper 50s, and a pretty decent economy.

Meanwhile, Varnhold has covered 19 hexes, and has a single city, with a single 21/36 (59%) full district. (I'll leave aside the difference between the "official" size of a block compared to what's in the Varnhold map.) It's kingdom stats, assuming a +1 mod in each position, low edicts, NG alignment, and a farm everywhere they could stuff one, are in the high teens. (E19, L15, S21).

Given the kingdoms were started around the same time, that's a pretty huge difference. Can it just be chalked up to the conflict with the Nomen? If so, how do I justify that there aren't more defensive buildings? All the money went into the army (which then disappeared with the rest)?

I think it would be nice to have a warning if you're about to make the first post on a thread that's more than X months old (3? 6? 12?). Just an extra checkbox saying "Yes, I do intend on reviving this thread" or something.

Bull rush says:

For every 5 by which your attack exceeds your opponent’s CMD you can push the target back an additional 5 feet. You can move with the target if you wish but you must have the available movement to do so.

Does this mean you can start a bull rush, and have them continue moving back, without leaving your starting square?

Does this affect your ability to push a subsequent creature?

The 3.5 bull rush (which behaved entirely differently, even besides CMB/CMD) says

If you beat the defender’s Strength check result, you push him back 5 feet. If you wish to move with the defender, you can push him back an additional 5 feet for each 5 points by which your check result is greater than the defender’s check result. You can’t, however, exceed your normal movement limit.

Clearly you have to move with them here. But the Pathfinder version doesn't make that clear. So, can I send someone flying with a bull rush, while staying put? And if so, does that make Awesome Blow only useful for the fact it does damage?

I haven't been paying a great deal of attention to the various discussions of the synthesist, and there's been enough that a simple search doesn't turn up answers easily. I checked the FAQ, but it doesn't have answers for me. So if these questions have been answered before, you can just link me to the post...

1) If you're wearing a physical-stat boosting item, does the bonus transfer to the fused form, or is it overridden?
2) Can you put gear on the eidolon-shell which disappears when the shell does, and reappears when it is resummoned? Does it make a difference if it's slot-based (such as a ring), physically attached (such as a belt pouch), or held (such as a weapon)?

I just want a sanity check on this before I use it:

Assuming a troll had cleric levels and could cast shield other, the troll cleric could cast it on all his companions, then hide himself nearby, and he'd effectively be doubling the health of all his companions.

Every time they took damage, he'd take half. Because it loses its type, it doesn't disable his regeneration, even if it's fire or acid damage. Because his regeneration is still up, he can't die from hit point loss. So he could take around 60 damage per companion, go down to -300 or so, and 6 minutes later (5 hp/rnd = 50 hp/minute) he'd be awake again. Provided the party didn't find him and touch him with a match, anyway.

Currently (at least in Chrome), when you go to another page of comments/posts, you jump to the top of the page. This is perfectly fine under most circumstances, but on the comment threads for blog posts (some of which could be really long, like the Paizo history one), it would be much nicer to jump to the top of the comments instead of the top of the blog. Any chance of getting that tweaked?

Since a lot of the buildings in the base kingdom rules (not to mention the additional ones people have devised) have very little to differentiate them, and often there's a clearly superior choice. For instance, the Smith, Mill, and Tannery all cost 6 BP, give +1 Economy and +1 Stability, and take up one block. But the Tannery and Mill both have placement restrictions, while the Smith doesn't. Meanwhile, a Granary provides +1 Loyalty and +1 Stability, the same bonuses as a brewery, but costs twice as much.

One solution is to make house rules about the number of each type of building that can be built in a district or a city, or to make it a plot point if they build some weird mix. ("City full of graveyards? A high-level necromancer moves in and takes it over. You lose the hex until you kill him.") However, the solution I'm considering designing would tie each city in with the Gamemastery Guide's settlement stat blocks.

Each building would then have some effect on its settlements' stats, in addition to the effect it has on the kingdom. The Smith might give +1 settlement-Economy in addition to the kingdom economy & stability bonuses, while the tannery might give +2, and the mill +1 s-economy and s-society (better bread = more culture?). The Granary might increase s-economy, while the brewery increases s-economy and crime. Obviously, the buildings couldn't directly give +1 or 2 to a settlement stat, or you'd quickly end up with cities with ridiculous modifiers ("In our city, the corruption is so high that even the most blatant liar can tell a guard that he's a four-headed undead troll in disguise as the guard's long lost brother and be believed." Ok, maybe that one's a bit over the top) Maybe divide by 4, so +/- .25 as a basic change, and going up from there.

I'd also want to tie the settlement size to the buildings that were built, either number of buildings, or have a Growth value for some buildings (city sizes up at X number of growth points), or just base it on the base value of the buildings that are actually built (which would bean that a settlement which has nothing but an alchemist and an adjacent house in it would be considered a small town, while a settlement with 5 smiths, 2 theaters, a cathedral and an arena would still be a thorp).

Doing this would also let the PCs choose what type of government to allow/enforce in any given city - do they appoint a council, or put one guy in charge? Do they let the mages from the recently-built caster's tower take over? It'd also give you a good way to bring in the settlement qualities (chosen by the GM whenever a city grows based on events and buildings built), which could, in turn, provide some flavor to each city to keep them from being "Forest City #3".

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Has anyone worked on something like this before? Does anyone see problems with it? Suggestions?

I know a PM system is on the drawing board, but as a lighter-weight alternative (or addition), would it be possible to have a way to flag a post or thread for another user's attention?

For instance, if I'm posting in a thread where someone posted 6 months ago saying they were working on something. They've never come back to post it, but they're still active elsewhere on the forums. I could hit a "Notify poster" button on their last post, and they'd get a little (dismissable) indicator somewhere to remind them to look back at that thread. Or they could just dismiss it if they aren't interested.

Another situation would be if I was posting (for example) in a thread about a rules question, and I want to flag it for Ravingdork's attention to get his opinion. He'd get the notification, and could either look at it or not, but he'd at least be made aware of it. You could limit it to notifying people who's handles you mention in your own post, to avoid just spamming everyone.

Anyone else think this might be useful? Or have any other use cases?

I think there's something broken with the links left behind when a thread is moved. When I click on them, I just end up on the general messageboard top-level page, although the "last post" link works fine

Example: In this forum there's currently a link to the (moved) "Where does the money go?" thread. The main link is http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz4wey?Where-does-the-money-go, but the "last post" link is http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz4wb3?Where-does-the-money-go#11. The former doesn't work, but the latter does.

So, I was just looking at random item generation, and I realized that while rings, rods, and wondrous items say

Special Qualities: Roll d%. An 01 result indicates the wondrous item is intelligent, ...

weapons and armor don't have any chance of randomly being intelligent. Obviously, it's up to the GM to allow intelligent items in the game at all, but if I'm specifically rolling up random results, I don't have a path to give weapons (the most common intelligent item I've seen) intelligence.

Am I overlooking something?

So I was just looking at the Dimensional Agility chain of feats, and I realized that there's not really many builds that it works for.

First, here's the chain:

So, to take Agility and start the chain, you need to be a 12th level monk, a 10th level bard or magus, a 8th level sorcerer, or a 7th level wizard, witch, cleric (travel), or summoner. Since you can't get the feat on an even level, that means 13, 11, 9, or 7.

Of those classes, all of them could benefit to some extent from Agility, although the ones for whom it's a standard action to cast dimension door (everyone except the magus and the monk), there's not a great deal of benefit to be gained.

Assault is an entirely useless feat for anyone who doesn't ever charge (wizard, sorcerer, witch, summoner) or anyone who can activate Agility and still be able to attack afterwards (magus & monk). That leaves bards and clerics who melee as the only ones who might benefit from this feat, but it's required to go further up the chain. The magus and monk might choose to use it on occasion, if they have some benefit to charging, and don't need the full distance they'd get by using Assault, but under normal circumstances, there's no point. Even for those who could potentially benefit, the next feat in the chain is much more effective. In my game, I'm probably going to house rule this feat out of existence.

Dervish is a very nice feat for melee builds, aside from the requirements. The witch, and wizard, who could be getting this at 11, don't meet the BAB requirement of +6, and don't really have any use for the feat. The sorcerer (or either of the others) at 13 has the BAB, but again doesn't have much use. The travel-domain cleric and summoner do have the BAB at 11th level, as do the bard and magus (at 15) and the monk (at 17). All those (except the summoner) could also find this feat useful (assuming the cleric and bard are melee).

Maneuvers is obviously useless to anyone who doesn't perform combat maneuvers normally (wizard, sorcerer, witch, summoner), and the BAB requirements would keep the half BAB classes (wizard, sorcerer, witch) from taking it until 19th level anyway. The 3/4 BAB classes (magus, bard, monk, summoner, cleric) could get it as early as 13, except it has to be two levels after Dervish. So cleric and summoner at 13, magus and bard at 17, monk at 19. Of those, only the monk is actually likely to be making lots of maneuvers.

Savant is the "ultimate" feat in the chain. It's on the same level as Maneuvers, requiring Dervish, and has the same BAB requirement, but it's more generally useful. Everyone benefits from flanking if they make attack rolls, and you're not taking this feat if you're not attacking. So the 1/2 BAB classes are excluded for the same reasons as above, and the 3/4 BAB classes could take this at 13, 17, or 19.

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So where does that leave us?

Witch, Wizard, Sorcerer: No point in going beyond Agility, but Agility could be worth picking up if you want to run away after teleporting away, or if you plan on regularly quickening your dimension door spells. Even then, you have to wonder if it's worth a feat.

Travel-domain Cleric: In theory, this could be good. However, you only can do this once a day unless you take the Theologian archetype to prepare your domain spells in regular slots, sacrifice higher level domain slots to dimension door, or just burn through a lot of divine dimension door scrolls (which are hard to come by and may necessitate you scribing your own). Plus, on top of that, you need to be a melee build cleric with either one or no other domains. Doable, certainly, but probably not worth it overall.

Bard: A bard can cast dimension door more than a cleric, and there's certainly viable melee builds for one. They also don't get much use out of Agility on its own, so they need to make a 2-3 feat investment minimum, starting at 11 and using up your 13th and probably 15th level feat slots before this becomes really viable. Still, it's certainly a viable option, especially for a sandman build.

Magus: A magus can make slightly better use of these feats than a monk, since he's already melee focused and can already dimension door as a swift action (as part of Spell Combat). So he can make full attacks with only Dimensional Agility (which makes Assault useless), although Dervish lets him teleport mid-attack and not take the -2 to attacks for spell combat. Definitely a good choice, although whether it's worth the feats is up to you.

Monk: Ah, the monk. The class this feat chain seems to be built for. The class qualifies so late that they get every single feat at least two levels later than everyone else, and are the only class that can't take both Savant and Maneuvers. Also, the phrasing on Dervish ("You can take a full attack action") means that by RAW you can't flurry while using any of these feats, which means using your lower BAB and not getting the extra attacks. Like the magus, the monk benefits from Agility and finds Assault useless - he just doesn't get Agility until two levels later (after PFS caps out, for what it's worth). With a touch of house ruling to apply RAI, this is a viable option, but it's not as amazing as it's intended to be.

Summoner: Why am I putting the summoner last? Synthesist builds. The synthesist summoner gets lots of castings of dimension door (unlike the cleric), can take Agility starting at 7th level (unlike the bard, magus, or monk), and can be a (literal) monster in melee (unlike the wizard, sorcerer, and witch). A synthesist at 11 can take Dervish and have 5 natural attacks plus 2 weapon attacks (more with TWF, obviously), as just an ordinary full attack (no conflict with flurry of blows). At 13th level, when a monk is just starting to take these feats, the synthesist can be flanking with himself, for that extra bonus to hit. This is by far the best build for these feats I can see.

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So what does it mean that a chain of feats which seams specifically geared towards the monk (and to a lesser degree the magus) is best used by a specific type of summoner?

The Hound of Tindalos has an ability called "Ripping Gaze" which does damage. As far as I know, its the only gaze attack that actually does damage rather than causing a status effect. Does it really do damage to anything that looks at it? How do you describe something like that to your players?

The Calm Emotions spell says

This spell calms agitated creatures. You have no control over the affected creatures, but calm emotions can stop raging creatures from fighting or joyous ones from reveling. Creatures so affected cannot take violent actions (although they can defend themselves) or do anything destructive. Any aggressive action against or damage dealt to a calmed creature immediately breaks the spell on all calmed creatures.

This spell automatically suppresses (but does not dispel) any morale bonuses granted by spells such as bless, good hope, and rage, and also negates a bard's ability to inspire courage or a barbarian's rage ability. It also suppresses any fear effects and removes the confused condition from all targets. While the spell lasts, a suppressed spell, condition, or effect has no effect. When the calm emotions spell ends, the original spell or effect takes hold of the creature again, provided that its duration has not expired in the meantime.

Does this mean that the affected creatures can't make any attacks? If so, why does it even matter that the morale bonuses are suppressed? If not, what does that line mean?

My players just rolled up an Assassination event, which (randomly) targeted the kingdom's Royal Assassin, a LN inquisitor of Pharasma. Any suggestions for interesting things to do with this setup? I could just build a NPC rogue/assassin of two levels higher than her, and have it attack her on the rooftops one dark night, but I'd like to at least consider some more interesting options. Any ideas?

Since VoodooMike posted a great Race Building Guide over here last year, which I particularly like, I figured I'd write up a comparison to the current playtest rules. Unfortunately, I ran out of time yesterday to work on it, and probably won't have a chance any time soon to finish it or do any really detailed analysis, so I'm posting what I have, and someone else can pick it up and continue.

Keep in mind, that VM's guide (VMG) is not as extensive as the new guide (ARG), and uses a lot of "Something around this power level" values. It's also calibrated on the assumption that the core races are 10 points each (although Halflings are only worth 5 under it).

I'll break this down in the order that the ARG has it.

Step 2: Racial Traits
Type Trait: VMG does not address racial types directly. However, the abilities you would get from each racial type would get scored, although constructs and undead are too much for it to cleanly handle. I used the half-construct and half-undead instead. Here's how much each type's abilities would cost under VMG (displayed as (ARG cost / VMG cost) )

Size Trait: Once again, VMG doesn't specifically address size. I can't even do a good comparison, because the +2 size bonus could cost anywhere from 4 points (if the race would otherwise have a penalty to that stat) to 10 points (if it's stacking on top of an existing bonus), and the size penalty could be from -1 to a -4.

Base Speed Trait: ARG give this a -1. VMG gives it a -4.

Ability Score Modifiers Trait: Another fairly easy-to-compare set. Both sets break the physical and mental down into two separate categories. The VMG assumes that each race has +2 to a stat of one category, and both a +2 and a -2 to the other category (Designated: +2::+2/-2). Any adjustments from that cost or provide points. Once again, the costs are (ARG/VMG)

Language Trait: VMG doesn't address language at all, nor give it any weight.

Step 3: Racial Abilities
One limiting factor in the ARG is that you're limited to 3-5 abilities, while the VMG lets you have as many as you want (within your chosen budget). That makes VMG points more valueable here, since you can't be caught with points you can't spend under that system.
Ability Score Bonuses: These are all a flat +2 to a stat for 4 RP under ARG. Under VMG, each step could cost anywhere from 4 (if applied to a penalty stat) to 10+ (if applied to an existing bonus). Since in ARG they also cost a slot, they're probably roughly even.
Defense Racial Abilities As before, (ARG/VMG) for costs.

I'm prepping the Stag Lord's fort (6-player version) for my players for tomorrow. Once combat starts (whether from an all-out assault, or from being detected as infiltraters) how do you keep them from having to fight off all the bandits at once? Or are they supposed to all gang up on the PCs?