R.A.Boettcher's page

I have a question about the Alicorn Surge for the Magic Herd.

What exactly is the caster level bonus you receive from using it?

This is a great product but I have a question.

Alicorn Surge (Su): Once per day, a silvermane exemplar

can expend 2 alicorn points to use a spell or spell like
ability as if she were a higher level caster. The surge is
unpredictable, resulting in a scroll mishap unless a
Wisdom check DC 5 is made.

Can anybody tell me what the actual caster level bonus you are getting is? +1? +10?

Good to know. Now just waiting for Paizo store to catch up!

Missing Unquiet Grave discipline from Lords of the Night.

Otherwise very cool piece of work. Thanks.

And a small suggestion? List the discipline title over the maneuver lists. It helps me track what I'm looking for and looks more 'complete'.

OK...I get that a spell's line of sight would be interrupted by a Obscuring Mist if your target was standing at its center. Spells with attack rolls can still target the square and risk the 50% miss chance.

But I'm a little less clear on what happens if the 50% concealment is the result of a personal spell or class ability and its user is targeted by something like a mind -affecting spell resisted by a Will save? Say you are using the psionic ability Greater Concealing Amorpha (50% Concealment)...would that be the same as breaking line of sight for the Dominate Person spell?

If a creature has a gaze attack, like a medusa's petrification gaze, and than has a defensive effect like a Blur spell cast on themselves, does the concealment interfere with the gaze attack? Do targets of the gaze attack gain any bonuses to save or something like this?

I'll be damned. This is the same adventure I played on Myth-Weavers sometime back in 2011 as the Aegis Meryk of the Green Ribbon. I assume one of the illustrious authors was testing the adventure out back than before publishing?

I've seen the occasional European, Canadian, and Australian bemoaning the anti-gun stance of their own nations. It happens. None of these peoples are a collection of ants.

This is just my own observations trying to put these things into perspective as an American. As such these observations are very sweeping and should be taken with a grain of salt.

At the end of the day 'Western Culture' is an umbrella term for a variety of associated cultures with often stark differences. Europe's views on firearms were formed under somewhat different circumstances than the British-descended cultures of the Anglo-sphere (which itself has sharp divides). Its as much a viceral, culturally distilled reaction as it is an exercise in logic.

Continental Europe in the past often had governments that kept a close, disapproving eye on private individuals owning weapons. Inevitably the population absorbed the same attitude and didn't object strenuously when weapons were removed from the private sphere. To them it belonged to the military or law enforcement wings of their governments. It made sense in a way...didn't want troublemakers running amuck.

Of course this often went wrong in the worst possible way. Europe went insane twice in the previous century when its governments went to war and millions died, nations were ruined. The populations came to see violence, and by association things like guns, as something that should never be allowed, an evil no matter how you justify it. A low level pacifism across Europe is the result. Guns were a caveman legacy of a violent past. Civilized people don't need them.

This is utterly different from the American experience. Violence and the necessities of survival in a frontier made guns useful tools rather than machines of pointless death. Over time guns are seen as the tools of a responsible citizen. The culture has adapted to those times when guns are used violently with its own brands of civilized codes for the use of guns (notably self-defense). The logic makes as much sense as well as being a viceral, cultural thing as the European one. It comes with its own costs of course in the form of elevated deadly violence in crime and whatnot. American society, for the most part, accepts these costs for the above reasons.

Personally I think the circumstances that allowed a European pacifism dismissive of guns is slowly coming to an end with new external pressures. The Golden Age is over.

Does a shield proficiency cover both the defensive use and the shield bash use of a shield? Or do you need Martial Weapon Prof (Shield) to be considered proficient in the shield bash?

Thanks for your help.

Hmm...I guess this means you can't sub a grapple for a Attack of Opportunity either. Excepting special cases like your tetori monk example.

So even if you didn't have the Maneuver Master archetype you would never consider Grapple to be anything but a Standard Action? Its never part of a full round action?

Question about Maneuver Master: Typically Grappling is a standard action. Flurry of Maneuvers adds a bonus combat maneuver attack IF you are making a Full Round Attack. So should I consider Grappling a full round attack if the player wants to add the 2nd combat maneuver (he wants to grapple twice a round at first level). Or can't you do this with a Grapple since its a Standard Action?

Barbarian with beast totem, scent, regenerative vigor, and other werewolfy rage powers?

Thats essentially what the Wolfshifter base class suggested above is.

You might want to take a peek at Necromancers of the Northwest's Marchen der Daemonwulf if your still interested. Its a very interesting base class (the Lycaonite) and feat system (around 50 dedicated werewolf feats) that lets you imitate just about any type of werewolf from fairy tales or Hollywood.

http://paizo.com/products/btpy8igu?A-Necromancers-Grimoire-Marchen-der-Daem onwulf

This has been growing over the last few months as my PCs have levelled up. They're 9th-10th level now. And buffs, once a simple no-big-deal part of the game ("I cast mage armor before entering the cave") have grown from a nuisance to a PITA to something that's really starting to detract from the game.

[further stuff]

I'd recommend some of the other d20 systems floating around if you want to keep things somewhat D&D compatible. True20 and Castles & Crusaders are great for playing fast and furious games with that traditional D&D feel.

Luckily my own groups aren't so dead set on buffing up at every opportunity. We prefer a loose and fast style and only do the buffing for major encounters (well...some buffing gets through...but we don't maximize to insanity).

River Tam is essentially a NPC whose primary purpose is as a walking story hook for adventures and player character development. Her power level varied considerably in relation to the rest of the crew depending on the needs of the story. Much of the time her insanities rendered her helpless, at other times her powers came to the front and saved the crew.

To convert River over to Pathfinder terms you probably have to be satisfied with a rough approximation rather then a dead-on copy, unless you build River her very own unique monster entry. If you want to build her along the same lines as player characters? Let's see...

Psychic Warrior class from DSP's Psionics Unleashed at around 8-12 levels higher then the rest of the party she travels with.

River's PW Paths would probably be Brawler primary, with a healthy dose of the Assassin Path.

High Intelligence & Wisdom. High dexterity & High Constitution. All in the 15 to 20 area. She is a prodigy. Only her Strength & Charisma really falls into human 'normal'. The rest is inborn or a result of the experiments & training.

A wide selection of skills, much of it in Knowledge, Stealth, Bluff, and Sense Motive

Her powers and feats would settle around an intuitive kind of fighting style, avoiding any of the more physical powers that change shape or spit acid. Animal Affinity to further enhance her high scores, various clairsentience powers to 'read' the situation and opponents, Biofeedback to take a blow, Hammer for her physical punches, etc.

And last but not least a crippling insanity (delusions, paranoia) that can render her utterly useless in seconds. This is the main brake on River's power that will let her serve her purpose in the campaign without overshadowing the PCs.

OK...I have a barbarian who wants to specialize heavily in unarmed combat using the various rage powers. The one that seems ideal is the Brawler rage power because it grants you the Improved Unarmed Strike feat while raging.

But that leaves me with a problem. There are a lot of good feats that require Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite (Feral Combat Training comes to mind).

So I guess does my faux IUS feat from Brawler count for picking up these later feats?

It seems like such a waste to be forced to spend a feat slot on something I already get. And I do figure that any feats building off of Brawler would shut down if my character isn't raging at that moment.

Thanks much!

OK...this is more about a psionic power (DSP's Energy Missile) then a spell but it should all be the same!

Suppose a spell/power says this for Targets:

"Up to five creatures or unattended objects; no two targets can be more then 15 ft. apart."

Does this mean...

a Chain? That is you can select a chain of targets in any configuration as long as each is within 15' of the previous target?

or a Box? No two targets can be further then 15' from each other, which effectively means the two targets furthest from each other, and that each much be within 15' of all other targets?

Psionics!

(Though I still say a slot-based mechanic is a perfect mechanic for the wizard class.)

Exactly. Let the bookworms and the godslaves play with their limited powers! We have the power of the Mind!

Seriously though its an excellent system, and balanced to boot. Its the only major magic system in D&D that isn't hindered by legacy rules and spells, and has been rewritten twice to streamline it.

"Bracers of Throwing: 10,000gp (double the cost of the difference between a +2 weapon and a +2 weapon of throwing is my justification, it'll have some added power but nothing earth shattering and you can swap weapons)
It gives any weapon a 30ft thrown range if it doesn't have one and returns it to your hand at the end of the round, it can hold 4 thrown weapons inside it's vaguely claw like appearance (javelins, throwing axes, etc). Anything thrown from the gauntlet counts as a magic weapon but it has no enhancement bonus. Optional if you think it's not overpowered: +2 accuracy bonus to attacks with thrown."

A suggested magic item sent to me by a player. I'm not that familiar with the magic item rules so any suggestions on how to balance this would be appreciated.

A player of mine recently came up with this feature for his main weapon.

Sword of Morning: (+2000gp, the cost for a background)
Magic weapons sundered with this sword have half (unless you think full is good!) their GP cost applied towards gaining additional enhancement bonuses. Basically a cooler way to increase it's power instead of selling and recrafting new ones.

I suppose mathematically it works out. (the 'cost for a background' quote is the 2000 gp reward I give for a character background and description.) I'm just not feeling the love for it.

Are there any problems with this feature that I should be aware of?

Leopold wrote:

I'm very interested in a game ONLY with 3pp rules. That'd be terrifyingly awesome.

Testify, brother!

I allow 3pp material from only a select few publishers. In fact, I encourage it. It's my players who don't use it.

Yeah...this can be a problem in my games too. I've gotten a fair amount of success using Dreamscarred Press stuff in my game, mostly because its psionics revised, and players are already familiar with it somewhat.

But stray too far beyond the fold and the players become hesitant even with my encouragement.

I'll use 3rd party products all the time. I did have a player complain about it once but I pointed out that technically the Pathfinder game he loves is simply 3pp as well. He should be grateful I'm allowing it at my table! ;)

Overall you should find a couple good companies you like and trust and stick with their products. People tend to be more accepting of companies whose stuff they have experienced before. Still need to be careful of course...I usually like Necromancers of the Northwest products but their online articles like Races With Class are pretty terrible, for example.

If you have a problem player just point out that nobody is forcing him to play the product, or that everyone agrees with him that its a terrible product when he hasn't even looked at it.

DMs are a harder nut to crack. At the end of the day its their game and they have final say. Ask politely, maybe try to show him in a private moment and give him a chance to look it over away from the table.

What's old is new again! I had these exact same conversations regarding the various Merits & Flaws systems put out for White Wolf games (World of Darkness, Exalted). I just finally banned Merits & Flaws as a bad deal for the game as a whole (how many werewolves with immune to silver and wyrm emanations would you have on one continent let alone in one Garou pack?!?).

That said the WW systems had features of both Traits and Feats, they ranged all over the place in power. Pathfinder Traits don't have that problem since they are uniformly very minor additions to a character. I have some of the same complaints about it as I did for M&F but its much less disruptive. I can ignore it and let the players take their candy of choice. Its not worth angsting over.

Just the supplement I was waiting for! Rounds out the lycaonite nicely!

I do have a question about the Hybrid Fury feats though.

Improved Hybrid Fury adds not just one attack, but 1 Bite/2 claws at -5 to hit in addition to the hybrid's standard attacks?

Thats just....wow. So a 15th level Lycaonite Improved Hybrid Fury (plus the Improved Bite chain from the class) would have Bite +15/Bite +10/Bite +10/Bite +5/Claw +15/Claw +15/Claw +10/Claw +10, and if one of those bites and 2 of those claws hit you follow up with Bite +10/Claw +10/Claw +10.

A grand total of 11 attacks at 15th level. Is that the way its supposed to be?

Even a 15th level Fighter with Improved Two Weapon Fighting would only be scoring 5 attacks a round. That seems a bit much.

By the way Minneyar,

I'm not trying to be a dick to you. I know my posting style can be a bit harsh. I'm enjoying debating it is all.

No, and don't put words in my mouth. That's just a reductio ad absurdum argument. Darkvision is not a matter of how well you can see, it's a physical ability. The fly skill does not grant you the ability to fly, it affects how well you can fly.

It's hardly a logical fallacy when you're own position is defined as this:"That's applying real-world limitations to an intelligent fantasy creature in a world where impossible things happen on a regular basis..."

A human in a fantasy world is just as fantastical as any other critter populating it and subject to the same rules. If your position is that real-world limitations don't apply to the race in a world where impossible things occur regularly then nothing is off the table, even if there is a roll or rule directly contradicting it.

That said of COURSE my statement about humans and darksight or flying is absurd. It was to point out the conflict inherent in your position. Either all critters are able to equally do the impossible or or we take a more reasonable position where plausibility and vermissilitude have a say.

A centaur is not a horse. It's an intelligent creature that is capable of using logic and tools to help itself, and it has two grasping hands to help. It can climb, just exceptionally poorly.

On the other hand I DO see the comparison between a horse and a centaur as a valid comparison and starting point for discussion. Its clearly described as a horse/man hybrid afterall. Humans can lift their own weight on average and not much more. The horse half of a centaur is a substantial addition of unwieldy weight that the human torso must deal with. A human sure ain't freehand climbing a sheer cliff weighted down with an additional 800 pounds of weight. Not without special magics or circumstances anyway.

My example is not "marginally better than an olympic athlete," it's "regularly better than the best Olympic athlete ever." Add in Skill Focus and a few more levels and you'd have a jumper who can jump further than the best Olympic athlete ever without even trying, and on a good day they'd be capable of jumps that would literally tear a real human's muscles apart. I think that you're underestimating just how difficult a task with a DC over 30 really is.

Like I pointed out earlier there are arbitrary points where we draw the line on possible and impossible. I just shrug and accept the rules as written because its a servicable baseline and not worth arguing about. It doesn't irk my sense of plausibility the way a climbing centaur does. I don't allow horses to do the human fly and centaurs can't either to maintain some semblance of consistency, like I am doing by accepting the jump rules as written.

With those kinds of things in mind, I think that claiming it's simply impossible for a centaur to climb a sheer wall doesn't make any sense. That's applying real-world limitations to an intelligent fantasy creature in a world where impossible things happen on a regular basis, not to mention that a centaur has two extra limbs with grasping hands that a horse doesn't have.

So you allow your humans to have Darkvision if they just 'look HARDER!'? To fly if they just flap their arms hard enough and have the Fly skill (20 ranks baby!)?

Obviously the answer is no. Some things are just considered implausible or inappropriate no matter how you justify it. Different people draw different lines in the sand but generally there is always something that causes them to go "no way is that happening!"

And despite the high end nature of some of the skill rules they try with moderate success to be consistent and not too different from whats possible in the real world. Even your example jumper is only marginally better than an olympic athlete 10% of the time. Thats not exactly leaping mountains.

I suspect that horses and centaurs do not possess such superb climbing adaptations.

Not even close. Horses are big beasts and maneuverable enough on open ground. But they have fragile legs and aren't the most flexible of animals. They hate climbing.

As the DM in question for this Centaur player what got this all started was a 400' sheer cliff with a base Climb DC of 25.

I said it was impossible, both due to what I know of horses, and to save time on a task the Centaur was clearly going to fail even if he was allowed to make the many climbing rolls required.

Earlier in the same module I allowed the Centaur to (clumsily) scale a ditch and palisade arrangement of about a dozen feet in height.

IMO its not a matter of not allowing any climbing checks, but of degree. Sure...its subjective but thats why we have game masters. Centaurs aren't apes, nor are they even mountain goats.

Luckily my players created a work around solution with a few minutes thought. The druid transformed into a Huge earth elemental and transported the Centaur and the rest of the party easily and safely up the rockface.

Here is a excerpt from an old Dragon Magazine article (called The Centaur Papers) about the movement capabilities of a player character Centaur.

Though they are able to enter typical

dungeon areas, centaurs are not ideally
adapted to moving around in buildings and
diggings made by humanlike races. They
cannot move faster than 6" up or down
stairs, and are plagued by a host of other
problems. Narrow passages, tight turns,
steep slopes, low ceilings, and collapsing
stairs are just a few of these annoyances, not
to mention crowded bars, polished floors,
and small pottery shops, and to say nothing
of such horrors as ladders and rope bridges.
Centaurs may be prevented from entering
or leaving an area by local law, physical
fact, or nervous inhabitants. No inn will
give a room to a centaur anywhere other
than in a local stable or barn.
Outdoors, however, centaurs can handle
themselves as well or better than donkeys or
mules. If unencumbered by a rider, they
can move as far as a light riding horse in a
day, or as far as a human would, whichever
is greater. Movement over
marshy or snow-covered ground can be
tricky, though, particularly over the latter;
while humans can resort to skis and snowshoes,
there are no equine equivalents.
Climbing is next to impossible, indoors
or out. With the help of a crane (or a sling
around the rump and a rope to grasp), a
short cliff might be ascended, but under no
circumstances can a centaur actually pull
his or her unsupported weight up using only
the arms. Going hand over hand up a rope
or chinning on a branch or ledge is impossible
unless the feet can get a purchase so as
to support some weight. The best a centaur
can manage is to hang, and that only with
difficulty and for a very short time. Centaurs
can swim much better than they can
climb, but are not swifter in the water than
a human.

Typically the halfing rogue in my party uses his wolf animal companion (using a revamped Wild Cohort feat from 3rd edition) to provide both mobility and flanking. Its a clever set-up.

I know I could run a Rogue or Barbarian to screw up a Rogue's day but what about spells, feats, or anything else that can negate or reduce the threat of a Sneak Attack?

This is a very interesting thread for me since I just started a standard summoner (no archetypes) in a PBP game. Lots of interesting things to try out as well as to avoid.

For me the class is proving very interesting because:

1. I'm enjoying roleplaying the relationship between the Summoner and his eidolon. I've been modeling it somewhat on the relationship between a Dragonrider of Pern and his/her dragon but with my own twist. Svarog is a dour taciturn individual whose Eidolon, Zhernoboh, is a friendly scamp with a eye for games of chance and roughhousing.

2. While a summoner of course is excellent at summoning I want to play it as sort of an oddball frontline fighter so I build it that way. The other magical stuff is just a bonus. I like the versatility and in pbp where combat is light thats a big help, since I'm not concentrating on spamming Summon Monsters (thats a last ditch option for Svarog).

Otherwise I haven't really had a chance to playtest the character class and my guy is only first level.

Thank you much David.

Terrible Remorse, a spell from Ultimate Magic, was used for the first time ever in my games last night. But after the second fire giant got caught in a trap between either spending your action killing yourself if you fail a save, and doing nothing if you make the save, I had to question it. It seems like a terrible spell that will kill monsters automatically because even with a successful saving throw you are no better off than if you failed.

Is there any errata for this spell?

Thanks for the help guys!

Does the Eidolon evolution of the same name work the same way as the feat?

And secondly does the evolution stack with the feat?

I have a question about this feat...

Suppose I have a monster with a bite/claw/claw routine of 1d6/1d4/1d4 damage.

I want to raise my claw damage dice. Does it make the damage stats look like this:

1d6/1d6/1d6

or like this?

1d6/1d6/1d4

Essentially what I'm asking is does the feat raies the damage dice of a form of attacks (ie all claws) or just one of them (my right claw)?

How closely does this material cleave to the Tengu race as presented in the Beastiary?

My group uses the terms D&D and Pathfinder interchangeably. Though that's become a minor problem as we get new players that have never played before and know only Pathfinder.

This is a great product. It does a very good job of bringing us playable werewolves that feel like werewolves!

I can see that the Necromancer team has come a long way since their Vampire book. Its a much cleaner presentation with werewolf rules that feel solid and well thought out. It also has a wonderfully grim aspect to it with the corpse devouring feats.

One thing that bothers me is the night time transformations. Early on the DC20 Will save is formidable and will likely result in the player spending much of his time running around as a ravening monster and effectively out of the adventure. To compensate I would say that forcing a nighttime transformation should be limited to dramatically appropriate times rather than consistently every night. The sidebar even discusses hand waiving the transformations when they are inconvenient and this would just be one more step to keep it enjoyable.

I'm not bothered by the fluctuating scores of the lunar cycle. The record keeping isn't really that big a deal. You just chart the bonuses on your sheet and you just apply the appropriate ones. The bonuses and penalties will stay consistent for days which is sufficient to complete an entire adventure! I can see where it might become a problem with the players planning around moon phases but frankly that's a DM responsibility to make sure not everything can be done on the full moon.

The big spread of bonuses and penalties at high levels does make me nervous though. Given the severity of some of the penalties and the generosity of some of the bonuses can you really blame a player for planning around it? Thats like frowning at the archer for not purposely picking up a sword and charging into melee at every opportunity.

All in all I would give the book a solid 3 out of 4 stars.

A while ago I heard some interesting observations about prestige classes versus Archetypes.

Prestige classes offer cool interesting character options starting at mid-high levels (levels 7-10). Most players spend the bulk of their time at levels 1-10 so if a player 'saved up' for a prestige class he might get a level or two in before the campaign ended. Ultimately the bulk of the interesting stuff prestige classes offer is for higher level play and don't tend to see a lot of use as a result.

Archetypes offer cool interesting character options starting at first level which make them viable for a lot more players.

This is an excellent point. I get far more use out of archetypes then I ever will out of prestige classes.

That and I can't stand multi-classing, even into a prestige class. I want to run my coreclass all the way up without having to deviate.

R.A.Boettcher wrote:

What Type is the Kappa supposed to be? "Humanoid (Kappa)"?

Humanoid (kappa, yokai) would probably be the best designation.

We are defining yokai as humanoids with animal features and the designation will include kappa, hengeyokai (shapechanging yokai) and Tengu.

The Yokai subtype has lowlight vision; and survival and stealth as class skills.

OK...thanks for the info!

I might skip 'yokai' myself since it likely wont' see use beyond this supplement in my games.

A kappa has two arms, two legs, one head, and is bipedal - its a humanoid. Its just the type and subtype description, its still a kappa, though.

GP

Unless of course, your a mite, pixie, succubus, ettercap, etc, etc, etc! Lots of things have the basic humanoid config but don't have that type! :)

I was thinking it was a fey type myself considering its rather river spirit kind of nature.

How much like the "In the company of..." series is this book?

I've got no inherent bias against oriental flavor in my western styled games as long as its not too intrusive!

What Type is the Kappa supposed to be? "Humanoid (Kappa)"?

My apologies. It came to my attention yesterday that there were problems in the manuscript which, due to problems in communication between editing and layout, were not corrected. A corrected version should be put together sometime in the next few days and we will try to do better in the future.

The following is from my unedited manuscript so please forgive any grammatical errors:
"Kappa Net: A net on two stout poles, this weapon can be used to ensnare creatures the same size as the user or smaller. The kappa net follows much the same rules as a thrown net but is used to make touch attacks against adjacent opponents and the poles are the limiting factor in the ensnared creature's movement (replacing the rope). Additionally, the net does not need to be folded in order to be used. Those not proficient in the use of the kappa net suffer a -6 penalty to attack rolls when using it. Those proficient in its use suffer a -2 penalty to attack rolls when using it. "

Sobs quietly in the corner while clutching his printed & bound copy of 'In the Company of Kappa'.

Ahh well...it was only 6 bucks! :)