PrinceRaven's page

You know what'll discourage the spamming of it? Remind the Paladin that every time they use Detect Evil they provoke attacks of opportunity, it takes them 18 seconds of standing and staring to narrow down the aura, and if a high enough evil cleric is in the cone they get stunned.

The Order of the Godclaw is full of Lawful Evil Hellknights who count Iomedae and Torag as two of the five deities they venerate.

If you believe my regular playgroup I play exclusively bards. My dozen or so bard characters are, of course, bards. But also my druid is just a bard that likes nature a lot, my witch is a creepy debuff bard, my oracle was Princess Mononoke as a genderqueer bard, my swashbuckler was just a bard who really liked stabbing things with his sword (wink wink nudge nudge say no more). Even when I play other RPGs like World of Darkness; my werewolf, my vampires, my hunter; all bards.

An Ampoule of False Blood can do it, all you need is 20,000 gold and a blood donor with the Imperious bloodline.

PrinceRaven wrote:

Also, paladins should never fall from a catch 22 unless they deliberately take a third even worse option.

That's 100% wrong. I've seen option 1, 2 and 3 make the paladin fall. Some games it's only a matter of WHEN a paladin falls, not if.

"Oh no, you didn't save the innocent villagers!! Fall!
"Oh no, you attacked the natives that are fighting back against the invading people!! [the villagers] Fall!!!

Failure never makes a Paladin fall, alignment shifts and committing evil acts make a Paladin fall. Picking a side in a battle where no one's the good guys is neither of these things.

I feel like there's a difference between "tricking" the party and putting innocent people in front of a party that thinks NPCs only exist as bags of loot and XP or servants and having them stand up for themselves.

Also, paladins should never fall from a catch 22 unless they deliberately take a third even worse option.

I think we can all agree that having the burden of proof has never stopped people from believing whatever they want to believe.

Also the Pathfinder gods are actually lizard people who are keeping our characters' brains in jars and all of Golarion is just a mindscape they're kept in.

The gods exist, but they're undeserving of worship.

The gods exist, but I am not beholden to them, they have no right to judge me or interfere with my life/soul.

The gods exist, but they're not really gods, they're just very powerful souls who can mimic godlike abilities.

The truth of creation is hidden to us and the things claiming to be gods are charlatans taking advantage of our faith.

The gods don't exist, any proof that they do is just part of an aboleth conspiracy.

Killing a good person is an evil act because you're taking their future from them and causing pain to their friends and family by robbing them of a loved one.

Isn't it a little ridiculous to give someone the ability to check for something invisible, which is usually limited to a standard action that checks two squares and requires a touch attack per square, as a free thing for the 4-8 squares that constitute their normal movement without requiring a roll?

You can over many rounds slowly change the outer surface of the wagon to look and feel like jelly.

Swashbuckler is a fantastic dip for DEX oriented melee characters, giving you Weapon Finesse, the ability to parry or dodge attacks, and qualifying for feats like Combat Reflexes and Combat Expertise with CHA instead of INT just off a single level.

If my party is facing a greater old one in actual combat I have failed as a GM.

Between the kanabo, naginata, yuri and yumi bow the samurai had a variety of really good weapons they could use quite effectively on the battlefield.

Then they had the katana, which was basically there for the symbolism, duels and executing prisoners.

Personally, I think comparing them to bastard swords is an insult to bastard swords.

On the plus side, they were really good at killing unarmoured peasents with makeshift weapons and poor training. And they looked cool at the samurai's hip while they used their superb mounted archery skills when they actually needed to fight in real battles.

I will re-iterate, yes, slaughtering innocent orc toddlers is pragmatic, but nothing says an Evil act being pragmatic makes it not an Evil act.

I think the consequences pretty clearly weigh in favor of this being neutral. It is very likely that at least some of the orcs will grow up and go on to kill, probably in greater numbers. This really hinges more on the methods and intent.

Just because something is pragmatic doesn't mean it isn't Evil. You could even argue that Evil is the most pragmatic alignment, not letting things like morality interfere with what has to be done for the greater good.

I'm saying that killing orc children in this scenario, where the alternative might be to transport them several days or even weeks journey, to an appropriate place to be raised, is not going to result in an inevitable slide into a CE, NE, or LE alignment. I think it's within the parameters of an act of selfish prudence. I think sufficient justification can be made that a Good character could do this occasionally and remain Good, with the understanding they would take pains to avoid being in this situation again in the future.

"I swear, my character's Good. I mean, every now and then he slaughters the innocent, but only when it's convenient. Those toddlers were probably gonna end up Evil anyway. What? What do you mean 'slaughters the innocent when it's convenient' is under 'Evil' in the rulebook?"

*In all seriousness though, IS there a right or wrong answer?

Yes, it's in the rulebook under "Alignment."

So what you're saying is that:

a) No one in the entire village would agree to look after the orc children.

b) Everyone in the village is Evil (and racist) enough that they'd kill toddlers on sight just because of their race.

c) The character in question couldn't be bothered look after the toddlers themself.

d) Every single orc in the entire orc village has been exterminated, no non-combatants existed or were spared, no warriors escaped the slaughter.

e) These are only two villages around, the last outposts of humanity and orcity in the entire land, meaning there's no one else who could possibly look after the toddlers.

f) The wilderness surrounding these villages are so hostile there's absolutely no chance of these orc toddlers surviving, but not hostile enough that a human village can still make a living there despite constant predations by a nearby orc village.

Am I the only one who finds this incredibly contrived?

I know commoners get a bad rap but I'm pretty sure a village full of them could take on a few orc toddlers.

I have met several people who have been or would be diagnosed as sociopaths that would be less likely to fall under an Evil alignment than several people on this thread.

Yes, cold-blooded murder of innocent and defenceless children is Evil with a capital E, why is this even a discussion?

Although, to be fair, I once read a thread where someone tried to justify genocide as a Good act.

My advice: Stop being a jerk and let him play the character he wants to.

The balancing factor in Pathfinder is that it costs you at least 2 feats to get Dex to damage instead of getting it for free. Even then you aren't going to be out-damaging a strength build without an extra source of damage.

PrinceRaven wrote:

Kevin99 wrote:

I can't believe this is even being debated. Just for balance, Strength has to have the most important role in damage.

And apart from casters and alchemists it does, despite DEX-to-damage feats already existing.

Very limited feats like that exist. The balance problem becomes much bigger if it's extended to far less limited feats.

Oh no, Dex builds might be able to wield a weapon 2 handed, receiving absolutely no benefit from it unless they don't dump Strength and spend a third feat on power attack!

Oh no, Dex builds might be able to wield a shield other than a buckler!

Oh no, Dex builds can spend a third feat to slightly increase their damage by getting exotic weapon proficiency!*

Oh no, Dex builds can use mechanically less effective weapons like daggers and shortspears!

Allow me to tell you something that may shock you, for a mere 6000 gold, all these things are possible via Agile weapons anyway, and I've yet to see them break a game. You know what breaks a game? Spells like Summon Eidolon, Glitterdust, and Black Tentacles.

*which Strength builds are also capable of doing, yet rarely do for the same reason Dex builds won't: it costs a feat, and they have even less feats than the strength builds.

That doesn't appear to be the case in 5th edition, despite the preaching in this thread of how important it is to keep dex-to-damage out of people's hands so those poor 2 handed strength fighters don't end up being replaced by the clearly massively advantageous sword&board and TWF builds.

Because if there's one thing we know about Pathfinder, it's that those 3 fighting styles are in a delicate balance, with no single one being massively more powerful than the other two.

A balanced party with no one particular character hogging the limelight because their character is too powerful, or someone not having any limelight because their character is too weak, will always lead to a more enjoyable game in my experience. It is unfortunate that to achieve that you must sacrifice a great degree of build diversity.

At no point have I or anyone I know ever said "I really enjoy the terrible balance issues in this game, they make it much more fun" without heavy use of sarcasm.

Nearly any Bard archetype that trades out Inspire Courage.

Better than which feats? Lots of them are better than Elephant stomp, I'd hesitate to say any are better than Power Attack.

Having consulted the scripture (Book of Exalted Deeds/Vile Darkness) I have determined that the following are evil:
- Necrophilia
- Animating the dead
- Creating undead
- Cannibalism
- Damning or harming souls
- using the dead bodies to bring despair to others (e.g. parading their staked heads in front of their family homes)

Other things you do with dead bodies are not evil.

Which stops them from doing all the summoning stuff people are complaining about.

Lots of people are complaining about the Summoner because the class is a) more powerful than any class not named Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Druid, Witch, or Oracle, b) able to summon lots of things (imagine that) which slows down the game if the player isn't competent enough... just like a conjuration Wizard, and c) requires a lot of bookkeeping, leading to players making mistakes.

So with a) obviously there are plenty of powerful classes other than Summoner, I don't see why it's an issue. With b) that's kinda the whole point, the Summoner summons things. Plus thanks to the Eidolon blocking Summon Monster X while its out and Master Summoner being banned, the Summoner is going to be summoning a lot less than a conjuration Wizard.
With c) yeah, it's a legitimate point. But is it really worth banning the entire class just to save the GM a little bit of auditing work?

The group falls into a pit and no one brought rope and a grappling hook.

When the Lawful Good Paladin thinks that Knee bashing someone with a Tower shield or leg-breaking criminals is a not only good, but lawful practice

Judge Dredd-style Paladins are the best kind of Paladins.

I can't really find any justification to deny this working apart from "not on my table", which is GM shorthand for "that's perfectly legal, but I don't like it so you can't do it", which isn't allowed in Pathfinder Society.

And you have to arm your fellow party members with your own backup weapons.

Quote:

You are either Atheist or you venerate a deity if you aren't a worshipper.

you mean agnostic or atheist? Atheism is the belief in no god, not believing in a god isn't the same thing.

Or you believe that they are simply beings living in a different plane, not divine or deserving of worship.

Party balance is a thing for dirty non-Bard peasants.

... and your bard's wand of CLW is the only healing in the entire party of 6.

I have to hand it to not-that-kind-of-bard, that's the most optimised-to-be-useless bard I've ever heard of.

If you have a tablet, I highly recommend this
You can apply the celestial/fiendish templates and toggle Augment Summoning on and off which is awesome.

If you deliberately made a character so that you could roleplay as a jerk, the act of making said character violates the "don't be a jerk" rule.

If you are going to be summoning anything, have some way to easily reference their statblocks, generally print them out or spend a couple of bucks on the app.

Perhaps the diplomacy roleplaying discussion should be moved to a separate thread...

You're a bard, two other players are bards and the NPC guide is a Bard.