Rats Archive's page

A couple of folk wrote:

Dismiss spell

Create Pit is not dismissible.

I have to admit, when I read this I thought "No way" and set out to prove you wrong. When I didn't see the (D) on d20pfsrd, I thought, wow, somebody must have transcribed it wrong, no wonder that guy thought it wasn't dismissible. So I cracked open the hard copy of APG, and lo and behold, you were right after all. Spells in the create pit chain aren't dismissible. Egg on my face I guess.

Kind of disappointing really, it can end up being a real waste at higher levels to split up an enemy group, then wait for the pit to end you you can finish the fight. /shrug

Don't shove everyone in the pit. Let's say you come across 5 enemy guards; instead of catching all of them in it (which depending on spacing might be very hard to do anyway) aim for 3. Your 4 on 5 fight just became a 4 on 2 fight, and when the meat-shields and DPS in your party focus fire, it quickly becomes a 4 on 1 fight. This will end a round or two later with pretty predictable results.

By this time it's possible that someone might be out, or nearly out of the pit. Consider hitting them with a ranged attack to try to knock them off the wall, or getting help shoving him back in. It's great fun, and good damage to boot.

Set the meat and DPS of the party up in a flanking position around the hole, and dismiss it (no sense in wasting the duration of buffs waiting on your own spell to end). When the elevator hits the top floor, the party takes their readied actions on the already wounded guards and suddenly the 4 on 3 fight becomes a 4 on 2 fight again. And we know how that ends for the guards...

Alternatively...Summon Monster III-V: Lantern Archons

TL;DR: No need for expensive alchemy or wasting additional limited daily resources, Make big fights into many small ones and then let sword-swingers earn their keep.

I have always had trouble understanding alignments and what they means so I was wondering if people could help me out.

Now good and evil seem pretty self-explanatory but then comes to the question what is more important in deciding good or evil intentions or affects. The obvious example of this is Ozymandias from the Watchman Graphic Novel his intentions are purely benevolent so you could at a stretch call him chaotic good but he destroys thousands of lives in the attempt to secure a future for the world.

In the real world, one of the biggest questions in the field of ethics boils down to what you are highlighting here. In consequentialistic ethics, only the outcome matters. If more good things will result from an action then bad things, you ought to do it. This is the ethics Ozymandias uses at the end of the film, and many will also recognize this as the moral philosophy proposed by John Stuart Mill.

The counter to this is deontological ethics; intentions and motivations are what make actions good or evil, even if the outcome ends up being terrible. This is the ethical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, an is also seen in a very skewed (read: insane) form in Watchman as the character Rorschach.

Some games do a very good job exploring in depth these kind of ethical questions, where grey areas are likely to crop up. D&D/Pathfinder are not one of those games. Instead the ethical code most befitting these games is divine command theory. Basically things are good or evil because some superbeing says so, or just as a result of the way the fundamental rules of the universe work. Lying for example is chaotic behavior; it doesn't matter to whom you are lying, or why, or what the outcome is, lying is simply chaotic as a matter of catagory. Some behavior has qualifiers, such as killing innocent people is always wrong, but killing evil people who want to harm innocent people is always good. The reason that these games take this path is simple, not everyone has a background in philosophy, and it's not fun for most people to spend the night fighting with their friends over largely unanswerable philosophical questions. By using divine command, the Game Master can simply step in and give a ruling, without needing to go to great lengths to justify his call. Consider the section of the rulebook that focuses on alignment as a set of guidelines when making your calls, and if a declared action might be fuzzy ethically, have the GM make his call before the action is set in stone.

Now another interesting question is the true lawful one if you have a police officer who follows the letter of the law in a democratic country he would be considered lawful neutral to good but the same officer obeying the laws of a totalitarian regime would he be classed as lawful evil?

No, the cultural and legal norms of a society have nothing to do with ethics as viewed univerally. Those norms only inform the members of that society how the society as a whole feels about actions, and uses the language of morality to express those judgements. For example, causing undue suffering on the unwilling will be declared evil in a good society, but may be normal in an evil one. No one in the evil society is likely to speak up and decry such behavior as immoral, they may not even consider it immoral, if they have internalized the societies norms. But in either society, it is evil. Members of the evil society may disagree, but in this case, they are wrong.

Now this is an interesting question what about a spy master who serves a state one who is loyal believes in what he does but will do anything to protect his country what alignment is he? He breaks laws all the time, he carries out evil action but he obeys his code and believes in the rightfulness of his actions.

Assuming the government he is working for is good, or at least neutral, I would probably say that he is lawful neutral. Yes, he breaks laws, but lawfulness as a function of ethics is not concerned with lawfulness as a function of governance. Ethical lawfulness is, as you put it, following a code, particularly a very narrow one which frequently constrains the characters action and informs both himself and others clearly as to what he will do. It is predictableness in pattern, both in action and belief. If the code is not narrow, and only occasionally shapes his decisions he may be true neutral, or if the code only exists as a justification for immediate whims and will be soon discarded, he may be CN.

Presumably he is also perfectly willing to do good actions to further the goals of his state, and as such is probably neutral. Whether an action is good or evil is irrelvent to him, therefore in his apathy he is neutral. If however his nation were evil in nature, as opposed to our assumption above, then he is probably LE. He would be engaging in evil actions, for an evil power, and would presumably only be performing good actions when it would be expedient. Granted the option, he would just as soon choose an evil solution.

I hope you find this response to be of use, and if there are more questions on this topic, I will be glad to give my 2 copper.

Long story short, the way the game is set up, the math starts to break down at higher levels. The first attack of every sequence might always hit, but the last one will almost always miss. You character might always fail level appropriate Fort save DCs, but always save against Ref save DCs. Fights become incredibly short in character, but drag on for hours out of character.

HP makes sense at lower levels, because as you become more skilled, it's reasonable that your character can mitigate the damage an identical attack better, resulting in less damage as a percent of overall HP. At high level, you can swim unbuffed in lava or sky dive, sans parachute.

The design goal of epic was never to make big numbers bigger, but to make your character feel more powerful and stand out as something more than mere human (or elf, halfling, orc, etc). Mythic is after that same fundamental goal, without the negative externalities that resulted from epic.

Nothing short of completely rebuilding the game from the ground up would make the math work. It just isn't worth it.

A day is not long enough to get information out the the GS and give them a good shot at getting in the first wave, I would expect more heavy public outreach in a week or two.

I don't know how much attention you pay to other kickstarters, but looking through kicktraq it seems clear to me that if you're going to raise a lot of cash, you need to have a great first 24 hours. For example, project eternity hit their Funding goal of $900,000 in the first 24 hours. Wasteland 2 and Doublefine had similar early blowouts. If the first day isn't so great, people worry that it's a waste of time or that the project is somehow untrustworthy and that drags all donations down. I think that they're going to hit their goal in time, but what I really want to see is for them to triple it instead.

For that to happen, minutes matter right now.

I have no problem with them telling Goblin Squad members about the kickstarter being up, in fact I'm glad they did. They can throw it up on a special forum, they can send e-mails out to current members, both very good ideas. But unless the plan is to only get donation from current members, they should you know, do everything they can to mention it to everyone else too.

As you've pointed out, GS members have now been informed; is it ok for them to let the cat out of the bag now?

Rats Archive wrote:

I only found out about this by the tiny advertisement on the side of the screen...

I see that you're not a Goblin Squad member. The Goblin Squad was promised priority access to information and opportunities in PFO. They delivered on that by notifying the Goblin Squad members first, before they tried to bring in the masses. This is a feature, not a bug.

"We want your money!" shouldn't really be treated as privileged information. If they get a chance to carve it into the moon so that any schmuck with two eyes can find out about the cash drive, they should. If you want to sell privileged information, you need to tell potential buyers that they can buy access to privileged information.

Rats Archive wrote:

2) The kickstarter itself doesn't appear to be leading with its best foot. Instead of details about cool features...

There is a year's worth of blog posts at goblinworks.com/blog about those "cool features". Maybe it's reasonable to expect people to use the existing resources, rather than expecting GW to have a crystal ball that lets them know which particular bit of information is important to each customer.

Excellent. Now let's get them take the highlights of that blog and staple it to the front of the presentation instead of the back. Give people a reason to dig for details and they will. Maybe it's reasonable to expect sellers to sell their product too.

Rats Archive wrote:

No offense to the CEOs, COOs and other people involved in the project, but Bulman and Jacobs have built a rapport with the community by frequently addressing us directly, in published works and on the forums.

Are you actually trying to say that Ryan Dancey and the rest haven't? Have you looked at the PFO Forums?

I'm saying if you want to get free media attention, you need to use people or features that can get free media attention. Open up any pathfinder book and odds are the first two names you see in the are Bulmahn and Jacobs. Open up any AP and count who gets named and how often in the forward. Dancey might be building a name for himself, but personally as an outsider looking in, I haven't heard of him. And that's ok. He will make some waves during the project I'm sure, but until the kickstarter gets a foot in the door and has some media attention lined up, let the game make some waves first.

I have to admit, I'm a bit worried about how the launch of the kickstarter is going, for a few reasons:

1) It doesn't seem to be drawing the same reaction here on the Paizo forums as the mythic playtest, which had several large threads before it's launch, and now has it's own subforums here to discuss it publicly; similar to other playtests. Meanwhile, I only found out about this by the tiny advertisement on the side of the screen, and I could find barely a trace of it mentioned via the search features. If it's not going to get it's own forum can we at least throw up a sticky on the general subforum declaring the big news?

2) The kickstarter itself doesn't appear to be leading with its best foot. Instead of details about cool features that might bring in new investors, such as player run settlements, player crafted buildings/structures, and dungeons, the presentation on the kickstarter page seems more like a meet and greet/where we are in the process i.e. the tech demo is good. Dropping names works better when you have a "rockstar" on the team, one, or perhaps a handful of big industry names who inspire awe just by showing up. Tim Schafer has that rockstar quality when it comes to adventure games, Tim Cain, Brian Fargo, and Chris Avellone have that when it comes to old school iso-rpgs.

At Paizo you have Jason Bulmahn and James Jacobs as big-name notables. No offense to the CEOs, COOs and other people involved in the project, but Bulman and Jacobs have built a rapport with the community by frequently addressing us directly, in published works and on the forums. And when they address us they are talking about the game, gamers, and gamer culture, i.e. things we like. Other people are really important in the process, but their knowledge is hyper-focused on finance, art, etc. which has great outcomes but is a snooze fest to hear about. Since your rockstars aren't taking the helm on this project, maybe someone new will break out and become noteworthy over the process of making the game; like Paul Barnett did when working on WAR. But until then focus on the game primarily until someone stands out on their own .

3) The game is set in the River Kingdoms, on the Crusader Road if my quick research is right. Kingmaker is probably the most popular AP so far. The AP after next is set at the end of the Crusader Road, the Worldwound, and also looks like it is going to be crazy popular because of the tie-in with the Mythic rule-set. If the project is going to be dropping names, drop those. Make the community already familiar with Golarion take note by piggy-backing on the popularity that that corner of the world already has. To those not familiar with Golarion already, cross-promote by explaining why those names are interesting and worth exploring farther with an MMO. “Being the Master of All you Survey” and the “Epic Struggle Against Hell On...well, not Earth per say, but You Get The Idea”, doesn't just appeal to tabletop gamers, it will catch the eye of others as well. And as a result you might pull in customers for the tabletop game even if the MMO doesn't become a hit, if you can sell the world itself to new people during the brief time you have their attention with kickstarter.

All that being said however, I have high hopes for the project and want to see it blow up and become the next mega-funded kickstarter game. Any negativity I have expressed is only because I want so much for there to be an MMO that has the same level of quality that Paizo has developed a reputation for. For that to happen, this kickstarter has to make some noise, and the sooner the better.

tl;dr: Scrooge McDuck should be envious of the warchest for this game; can I get an Amen!

Full text of ability:

Feat of Constitution (Su): You can expend one use of

mythic power to attempt a feat of Constitution, gaining a
+20 circumstance bonus on any one Constitution ability
check. Alternatively, you can use this ability to gain a
+20 circumstance bonus to your Constitution score for a
number of hours equal to your mythic tier, but only for the
purpose of making Constitution checks against heat, cold,
fatigue, and exhaustion.

As far as I can find there are no Constitution checks against heat or cold, they require Fortitude saves instead. Only fatigue, exhaustion, suffocation, thirst, and starvation seem to require Constitution checks. I imagine the intent was to give a +20 on those Fort saves. Anyway, just a minor issue I wanted to make note of.

That's what it looks like to me. If true, it makes great cleave (and probably whirlwind attack for that matter) useless, but it doesn't appear to be out of line with the other mythic feats in power either. My guess is it's intentional.

Yeah, be a catfolk to increase your speed while charging and take the run feat in there somewhere. You'll actually have an additional boost to your result with the higher speed, an additional +4.

Ok, well that would get us up another 8, nice finds. And if we assume your max distance is limited by your base speed as the Ninja class suggests, that would let us get up to 200 max.

How does leaping roughly 60 feet straight up seem lackluster? That is SUPERHUMAN... just sayin'

Yeah, and if this wasn't a mythic ability I'd be saying it goes a bridge to far. But it is a mythic ability, with just about everything else I could think of added on to help it be even more legendary, so yeah, I want to see fireworks with it. The thresholds I'd like to be able to hit is ~75 ft with a notable investment of short and long term resources, and at least 120 with significant amount of resources. The reason being, that if 75ft is short range for a high level spellcaster, it should be within the threat range of this ability. and if a full move straight up (120ft) is enough to make the average mage feel safe, they should be able to get surprised by someone who has literally build their character to do that.

cp wrote:

I think the idea of someone jumping 200 feet in the air removes versimilitude (1); additionally it competes with people that have taken flying as a focus(2) - those that fly by shapechange, racial ability or what have you.

(1) Removes verisimilitude? The thing trying to be replicated is the deeds of Mythical beings, not Everydayman. If anything, it should break your concept of verisimilitude even more.

(2) By design. Its express purpose is for your melee guy to be able to jump up and knock those cretins out of the air. So he can roar "Immune to melee at level 5, my ass!!!". It must be able to accomplish this design goal, and we are looking for ways to make it do that.

This. In particular, I don't see flying being a difficult thing that needs heavy investment for some classes. Spellcasters fly, and can do so from an early level, with little cost in both short and long term resources. If everyone had to play a Aasimar, take 2 feats and wait til level 10, or everyone had to play a particular class to get flying, I might have more sympathy for balancing the concerns. This is a tool to help give melee characters, a chance to compete.

Crap, forgot a line in the lvl 10 ninja ki pool:

At 10th level, she also reduces the DC of Acrobatics skill checks made to jump by 1/2 (although she still cannot move farther than her speed allows).

I guess that means that we could only go 160 feet max in any direction? I don't see that rule anywhere else, but I can understand limiting the distance to your max distance on a normal charge.

EDIT: Oh, and in the distance above, I forgot that the dc would get reduced for long jumps as well, so technically if it wasn't for the normal movement range limit, it would have been 669 ft. lol

EDIT 2: Changed 180 to 160, forgot we had to give up 10 ft of base movement by giving up monk levels.

You could probably get higher with a Ninja with

High Jumper (Ex): When a ninja with this trick makes a high jump, the DC for that jump is half the normal DC. The ninja must have the acrobatic master trick before taking this talent.

Ah, you are quite right; in fact we can go even farther: The ki pool ability of the Ninja also cuts the DC for jumps in half. With High Jumper and the Ninja Ki Pool, the DC becomes a grand total of 1 per foot. So for a lvl 10 Ninja/10 Monk/MT 10 Champ:

Max Ranks: +20
Class Skill: +3
Dex 46 (18 base, +2 racial, +6 Enhancment, +5 Inherent, +5 Level, +10 Mythic): +18
High Jump class ability static bonus: +10
High Jump ki bonus: +20
Fast Movement (with Monk's Robe for extra movement), (speed enhancement bonus): +20 (racial bonus)
Skill Focus (acrobatics) feat: +6
Acrobatic feat: +4
Aerial Assault champion mythic ability: +100 (circumstance bonus)
Acrobatic (mythic) feat static bonus: +2
Acrobatic (mythic) feat auto 20 bonus: 20

End Result: 223 Feet horizontal/vertical. A much more mythic distance, and you get 20d6 extra damage on the charge. That's good with or without a lance.

I wanted to see what the absolute maximum result to actrobatics could be, and I came up with 237 for a lvl 20 Monk/MT 10 Champ:

Max Ranks: +20
Class Skill: +3
Dex 46 (18 base, +2 racial, +6 Enhancment, +5 Inherent, +5 Level, +10 Mythic): +18
High Jump class ability static bonus: +20
High Jump ki bonus: +20
Fast Movement (speed enhancement bonus): +24 (racial bonus)
Skill Focus (acrobatics) feat: +6
Acrobatic feat: +4
Aerial Assault champion mythic ability: +100 (circumstance bonus)
Acrobatic (mythic) feat static bonus: +2
Acrobatic (mythic) feat auto 20 bonus: 20

End result: 59.25 feet straight up. Or a 235 foot charge across a chasm.

I like the idea of it being a skill check over a flat bonus, because it lets you add your other bonuses into the result. While I can see a need for a piece of scratch paper for first figuring out your bonus, in game it's fairly easy to add 100 and then divide a result by 4 if you already have the normal bonus to jump recorded on your character sheet.

The 235ft distance charge seems epic enough, but the high jump does seem lackluster. Perhaps Aerial Assault could also change the DC when it's used? If the DC to high jumps was also halved, we'd get 119.5 feet up, which feels more epic. The downside to increasing the height too much from a game balance point of view however, is a pretty signifigant increase to damage.

There is a non-linier growth in the force required to lift more massive objects farther from each other, and it is not associated with the objects height. I'm actually surprised the terrasque can jump that high. Consider the difference in your ability to jump compared to a flea, or a cat even. Small things jump disproportionately well. /shrug

For general background music we use the soundtracks from the Myst series of computer games. They're good because there are rarely sudden jumps in volume or tempo, which can often be distracting when deep in roleplay mode.

"The king quietly dips his head in sorrow, the loss of his kin to much too much to (BUMBADADA BOOM BAM BAM BAM TA DA!) SOMEONE TURN DOWN THAT MUSIC!"

The Arcanum soundtrack is also good, but is really heavy on the violin. You might use it for a particular town to give it a certain "vibe".

Midnight Syndicate unfortunately tends to have a lot of dips and rises of volume, but it does make for some good dungeon crawling background music.

A uniform is just a set of clothes that matches what other people are wearing. I'd just use a set of traveler's outfit for basic troops, explorer's outfits for elites or well funded basic troops, cold weather outfits for militaries who live and fight in cold climates, etc. No need for a seperate entry, just make the already existing outfits match. Not unless you were looking for camo gear with some sort of mechanical benifit anyway.

As far as being free, well everybody gets 1 free set of clothes at character creation, (priced 10gp or less).

My group is about 95% pathfinder, with just a dash of 3.0/.5. There are some things that are too good to let go. Things that typically show up in our games are:

• Obtain Familiar
• Stronghold Builders Guide
• Power of Faerun
• Weapons of Legacy
• Arms and Equipment Guide (for the rare item that doesn't have a price in pathfinder)
• And increasingly smaller parts of PHB2 & DMG2

Mostly, its the mechanics that pathfinder hasn't yet explored that gets us to go back. Most character concepts are possible now with just straight pathfinder, so we don't typically need to go back for the feats/classes/spells (obtain familiar excluded, our party seems to love cute, tiny animals).

While we're giving out product advice, don't forget that the second kingmaker adventure has rules on building a whole nation, including cities.

What kind of incentives can a PC give to NPCs to convince them to move to an unsettled area and begin a community?

Two conditions need to be met before people will come to the settlement: First, it needs to be safe for them to do so. No wandering monsters, bandits, or other local governments can pose a serious immediate threat to the community or people won't stick around.

Secondly, there needs to be some hope of solid economic return. Blacksmiths and bakers won't show up unless there is enough demand for their services. The first people you're likely to attract are farmers, provided you offer them more ariable land at a lower price than they could get elsewhere, and services that cater to travelers such as an inn.

Is there anywhere that relative costs are listed or can be calculated for the time and construction of buildings and structures via skilled laborers/craftsman experts and their needs?

See the books listed above.

Assuming that he intends to keep adventuring and leave the hamlet/community to fend for itself, what kind of defenses both marital, trap-like, and magical should he give it?

If the community is going to thrive, he, and most likely the rest of the party are going to need to stay close, or at least make frequent visits back to deal with issues that the settlements passive defenses can't handle. A few guards, supplemented with a town militia will suffice when it is small, but as it grows consider investing in walls, towers, and even a standing town watch.

Assuming he intends to use the Common Laws of the country it's created in, how would he go about establishing his community as a legitimate settlement to other NPC towns/cities? Any special NPCs he should hire or entice?

Unless the settlement is being built in the middle of nowhere, some noble probably has a claim to the territory. If you want legitimacy (and friendly, or at least not hostile neighbors) you'll need to talk to them. Even if the claim is tenuous, you will want to consult with the local nation's head of government as well, or at least a high level functionary.

Ah. Actually the druid section says Bestiary re: war trained, which leads nowhere. I checked the unofficial FAQ to see what the deal was and found this quote:

Q: I was trying to stat up a horse animal companion when I realized under druid animal companions, the advanced horse section says special ability: war trained (see Pathfinder Bestiary). I looked, but did not see anything. What exactly is this referring to in the bestiary?

A: (James Jacobs 11/25/09) War trained is actually detailed under the description of the Handle Animal skill. Of course, there it's called "Combat Training. " It's one of the "general purpose" trainings you can give an animal. Horses in particular gain a special benefit once they're combat trained-their hooves are from that point treated as primary weapons, not secondary ones.

So in the interest of saving face, I mantain that RAW, hooves are secondary attacks, but Jacobs gives good advice and you should do it his way just 'cause. ;)

The single biggest feat to take is Uncanny Concentration as it will allow you to ignore riding-based Concentration checks. This is a must-have by level 3 if you are planning to ride the eidolon full time. Mount Evolution is required in order to ride the eidolon at all, but that shouldn't be a big concern at a mere 1 evo point. Also, keep in mind that you won't be able to ride an eidolon until level 8 if you are a medium sized creature.

I could maybe see taking uncanny concentration, if it didn't have a pretty useless feat as a prereq. The DC is 10+spell level for normal movement, or 5 higher if your mount runs. Meanwhile you add your level+RCM to the d20 roll.

For starters, you will almost never have the space or the need to have your already fast mount run all out. Even if you do, you'll just end up putting yourself out of spellcasting range for most spells. The check for vigorous movement will be more common, but the check isn't very difficult, and you will autosucceed not long after you can take the "must have" feat.

Admittedly, the going is a bit rough at the begining, but I have found that I rarely want to move more than a 5' step and cast a spell in the same round. If something gets within threat range of me, I typically either move and shoot, or step and cast a save v. suck. At level 7 it will be a non-issue in any case.

Another option for the eidolon, rather than Climb, is to get Fly. The Flight evolution is fairly expensive, however, so you might need to wait on that.

Also you can't get Flight until level 5. Long term, flight is the way to go, but for the first 4 levels, climb can be very useful depending on what kind of terrain you find yourself in. In some games, swimming could be a better choice, but most games don't spend a ton of time near bodies of water.

Mounted Combat is very useful for maintaining your eidolon's health. If you're feeling particularly frisky, Skill Focus: Ride and Trick Riding are available, but neither are necessary.

Mounted combat might be worth it, if it weren't for the fact that if they can attack the eidolon, they can attack the signifigantly more dangerous squishy riding on top of it.

Can you please clarify if you are using your eidelon as a mount, or if you just plan to be mounted (on an actual mount like a horse)?

Ah yes, that would help. I assumed that you were using the mount obviously.

Starglim wrote:

Melee bite +3 (1d4+3), 2 hooves +3 (1d6+3)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
=====
Statistics
=====
Str 16, Dex 13, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6
Base Atk +1; CMB +5; CMD 16 (20 vs. trip)

Bite and hooves to-hit should be +4 each, since it has 1 BAB and +3 str. Nothing else stands out though.

You forgot -1 to hit for size.

Also, the hoofs are secondary attacks for the record. Here how you know:

1) Do not look in the bestiary. Burn your copy if necessary.
2) Does it say anywhere in the the druid animal companion section anything about a special quality called Docile? No? I couldn't find it either.
3) Then how is it making its hoofs primary attacks?

I apologize for being so over-the-top, but it is important to remember that companions and their bestiary equivelents have nothing in common whatsoever. I've been having this same debate on a weekly basis for a month now.

A more in depth conversation about the difference between companions and store bought mounts is going on over here.

I'm actually doing something similar with my summoner right now. Yes, you really do need the mount evolution even if you aren't going into combat with it, otherwise it will be an "inappropriate" mount and at best subject you to a -5 penalty to ride checks. Ride is worth investing in; arguably necessary in fact. Mounted combat less so, on account of you being able to use your mount's mobility to help keep out of the melee, with flight for example. If you have a spare feat, you could take it, but something non-mount related would probably be better. Most of the mounted combat tree involves getting in there and mixing it up, or kiteing slow enemies with a bow. The Extra Evolution would be a better choice, as an example.

At low level, I found it necessary to have the increase stat (str) evolution to avoid encumbering the eidolon. For the eidolon skills, invest in the climb skill heavily if you intend on giving him a climb speed, as many of the DCs are really high, and the bonus for climb speed isn't enough to allow him to climb anywhere, anytime.

For feats, my eidolon is working up the bodyguard feat tree, as your mount is always ajacent to you the bonus to AC is worth it. Also remember that you can give the eidolon your hp, but not the other way around. You want any enemy lucky enough to get close to be in melee to be attacking him instead of you. This isn't strictly necessary however.

Any other questions?

stat out a horse companion to 7'th companion level then compare it to a bestiary heavy horse. This is like comparing the big cat companion at level 1 to a bestiary lion. Things are weaker at level 1.....you are new to your field!

The difference being of course, that while a companion big cat is weaker than the lion, nobody else in the party is going to have a tamed lion. ;)

Now lets check the stats you posted...well, I can't think of any reason besides cost to get a heavy horse that isn't combat trained, besides a small price difference. So let's assume the h. horse is combat trained, which will mean its hoof attacks aren't secondary attacks; Melee bite +5 (1d4+5), 2 hooves +5 (1d6+5).

Let's also skip over the feat choices for purchased horses debate, and assume that the heavy horse doesn't have light armor proficiency. That would mean that it could wear armor, but it's armor check penalty would apply to it's attacks, and that's not something we want obviously. So instead of chain shirt barding, we'll give him leather barding, which will lower his AC to 17.

Looking at the two, it seems that the the animal companion has the advantage in defense generally, with a 4 higher AC, 14 more HP, although the heavy horse has an edge in saves, each being 1 higher. The edge is small though, because the companion does have evasion, which helps even the score on that account.

On offense, the h. horse shines however, with three attacks at +5 and each attack having a +5 to damage. While the companion may be more effective against targets with DR with its bite, the secondary attacks lag far behind, even with power attack.

Note, that at this point, the Animal companions is the more expensive of the two however, as the cost of his heavier barding more than makes up for the initial cost of the combat trained heavy horse. Still, at level 4 their seems to be a equilibrium of sorts, in that there is a sound reason to prefer either option, depending on what you want out of your mount.

But lets bump the level up to 5, as that's when the paladin will have to decide if he wants an companion in addition to his trusty H. Horse. We'll also make a few alterations here and there, to try to get as much as we can out of the Horses.

So it looks like even at level 5, the h. horse has the advantage when it comes to offense, although the gap is closing.

@Urath Warhorse is a holdover from earlier editions. When I say warhorse, what I mean is a combat trained horse, sorry for the confusion on that account.

EDIT: Forgot size penalty to attacks.

Rats Archive wrote:

-- snip --

Search the forums.. there were previous threads raised on this topic.

The Heavy Warhorse reference has caused a good deal of confusion. The Paladin gets the same Horse as the Druid (and Cavalier... ) he can't actually take a Heavy Warhorse as his Divine Bond. It might also be in the FAQ for the Core Rulebook, but I am not sure of that.

Yeah, that's what we figured on the third section's mechanics, even mentioned so. But what do you think about about that, or the other points raised?

To be clear, I did a search before posting, and I'm not asking about how the rules work, which is what the handful of other threads address. I'm asking about what other people think about the possible merits and flaws about how the rules work.

So tell me, what do you think about horses? :)

Banned at the home table, on the grounds that it is both rude and distracting.

The way I describe most table problems to new players is to use sports metaphors. Playing the game is like signing up for a sports group; it can be great fun, but you are also making a commitment. You don't no call, no show on a day when your team plays, because not showing up might very well mean that your team forfits and loses. You don't get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of a play (i.e. it's your turn). And you don't play on the computer or send text messages, when you should be cheering your teammates on and keeping an eye out for any competitive advantage you might bring to your team.

If you can't meet the commitments required, that's ok, the team won't hate you or begrudge the fact that you are doing something else...so long as you don't sign up for the team. Once you sign your name on the dotted line though, other people are counting on you; you'd better deliver.

What my group has been doing for the last few years is before anyone makes their own character we all agree to some general theme. These themes can be mechanical or story based, but help bring the group together and generally give a focus to what the party as a whole wants to accomplish. Then players come up with their own sub-goals that drive towards that objective.

Examples include: Everyone is a dwarf, Spartans, everybody has a spell book, we are all from country X, everybody is a rogue, everyone worships x deity, etc.

As a particular case study, we played a group of characters who all were heretical followers of Anachtyr, a Forgotten Realms deity of justice. The heresy? We didn't support the churches tacit acceptance of slavery. Our characters included a paladin, cleric, inquisitor, and a courtroom wizard. Right from the get go, we threw in some starting cash to buy a team of oxen, a wagon, a portable altar, and a few dozen holy texts and holy symbols to pass around. In central city that we based ourselves out of, our first mission involved clearing out an evil cult disguising themselves as a legitimate church, and when we were finished, we established a church to Anachtyr. Our group set up codewords that used our shared religion as a cypher. In town we fought (metaphorically) with other established churches and the city leaders over subjects like zoning and converting citizens. We formed close ties with the local militia and guards.

We did all of this because we wanted to create a holy army to return to our homeland and overthrow not only the nations leadership, but also our own religion. To "purify" the faith by flame and sword if necessary.

The central theme not only helped the players make their characters fit well with each other, but also with the greater game world. And by having a theme, we cued the GM into what we wanted as players, so he could customize adventures and rewards to our long term objectives.

The group I'm playing with has both a cavalier and a paladin, and we have run into so small problems regarding the mounts. We're level 2, and the cavalier is using the horse animal companion from the druid list, while the Paladin is using a purchased heavy warhorse that he intends on making his Divine Bond. Here are some of the things we've noticed:

1) Heavy warhorses are incredible combatants at low level, getting multiple attacks with attack bonuses and damage in the ballpark of PCs. In a stand up fight, the H. Warhorse would beat the cavalier hands down, and would give the paladin a run for his money. Yes, yes, the characters are smart enough to not get in stand up fights with their own horses, but my point is that the H. Warhorse is a formidable combatant in it's own right. Even more so with a rider to negate hits via mounted combat.

2) The Cavalier is feeling that his special mount is being overshadowed by the store bought mount right now. While everyone in the party agrees that the Animal Companion will eventually be better than its for sale equivalent; it still seems weird that there is such a gap at low level. For example, the Animal Companion's hooves are secondary attacks, and always will be, even though it is combat trained. (This is because the bestiary horse has the special quality docile, which the Companion horse does not have, RAW). The difference in abilities is so wide that the cavalier is considering getting a H. Warhorse as well, and using his Companion as a gear mule until higher level, when it might actually be able to compete.

3) Under the paladin's divine mount, it mentions that paladins typically use H. Warhorses as their mounts, but they use the rules for Animal companions. Is that what the Animal Companion is suppose to be imitating? If so, ability score wise it falls far short. Or is the implication that it is possible to get the horse Animal Companion with the advanced template added to it? I assume neither, but it will cause an awfully big change in the H. Warhorse's stats, as it will immediately have most of its stats and attack bonuses lowered significantly, in exchange for a few feats. Again, while the Animal Companion version will eventually be better than the H. Warhorse, level 5 might not be the tipping point, so the paladin may end up with a second horse as well.

4) The effect that they are having on combat is distorting what kind of challenges are appropriate for our level. Today we fought 3 CR2 Boars, which at our level should be a respectable fight. The horses, particularly the H. Warhorse, did half the damage for the encounter. If not for a connection with a lance charge, they would have done more. The DM dropped the xp award by about 20%, and honestly, none of the players particularly disagreed. The benefit they are providing us far out stripes the cost of acquiring them.

So, what kind of experiences have everyone else had with Animal Companion mounts and/or purchased H. Warhorses? Is there some downside to the H. Warhorse we've overlooked, or some clever way of building the Companion to catch him up to the Warhorse? At what point do you think the balance will tip into the Animal Companions favor? Any other thoughts?

EDIT: Punctuation.

Do you roll your characters?

Depends on who in the group is GMing, but it is usually an option. I prefer the organic system: 4d6 drop lowest, stats are rolled in sequence; 1st roll is str, 2nd dex, etc. One stat can be rerolled, and two stats can be switched with each other. The end result is slightly higher than average stats with less control over where they are.

Is your answer the deefault of your gaming group?

Nope, each GM creates the rules for the game they're running.

How long have you been gaming?

14 years

What system did you first game in?

2nd ed. AD&D

/raise hand

Not only have I taken a social or skill feat before, a majority of my feat and trait choices tend to be non-combat related.

Improved familiar and leadership can be used as ways of improving a characters combat abilities, or to shore up weakness with your party. They can also be used in a social way to give you new friends to plan pranks with, for example. I'd say their classification as "social feat" or "non-social feat" depends on how the player is using them.

I was curious about that myself, then I saw this Rogue Talent:

Deft Palm (Ex): A rogue with this talent can make a
Sleight of Hand check to conceal a weapon while holding it
in plain sight, even while she is being observed.

I'm not sure if this lets you conceal a weapon while still holding it (look, I found a quarter behind your ear), or if it lets you conceal it somewhere on your person even though you were obviously holding it in your hand moments before (you think it is in this hand, but tada, I have cleverly hidden it beneith my top hat).

If the first one is the right interpretation is correct, it would seem that you could use underhanded, because it is concealed, but doesn't need to be drawn, so you can use it during the surprise round.

Magicdealer wrote:

He can keep calling all the new animal companions he wants. The dm can restrict the choice to what's in the area, and basically just keep handing him the same animal companion sheet if he really wants :/

If the dm is being particular about what you get, you can ask him to change. If he doesn't want to, you can accept it or you can find another table to deal with. Trying to hit the "reset" button by summoning new companions doesn't work very well if your dm is already trying to shoehorn you into a particular creature.

You know where this leads right?

To someone leaving the game (either player or DM) because the DM wanted, for some reason, to make the character weaker by having a worse animal companion than the player can get.
And anyway if you follow the rules about animal companions you really can't do something omgtoopowerfull!!!!!! with that.

The situation is already going that direction full tilt when the player started throwing out Animal Companions to try to force the GM to give in. You could argue that by returning the same ACs that the GM isn't helping, but he's not making it any worse either.

Instead what either the player, the GM, or anybody else including but not limited to their kindergarden teacher should do is step in and have them discuss it like adults instead of trying to browbeat each other into submission.

As it turns out, it has a much better end result; as my own situation can attest.

I think we can say without much contraversy that cutting people is evil, and cutting helpless people is doubly so. And yet if a helpless, dying man shows up on a surgeon's table, not only is it morally permissable for him to cut the dying man (i.e. not evil) but it is morally required that he use his abilities in regards to cutting to try to save the man's life (i.e. good).

The distinction is clear, because while cutting always hurts, it is not always a harm. The surgeon need to do damage to the body in order to help it get better. The cutting is not done for the benefit of the surgeon, but for the good of the patient. The surgeon of course limits the amount of cutting he needs to do in order to achieve his goal of helping the patient, he is not given a carta blanc, each cut must be justifiable in some medically relevent way.

Compare this to the situation presented above. The evil druid is dying, and the player can save him, but only by doing bodily damage. This damage is not a harm however, because it is being inflicted for the good of the druid, not for the benefit of the player (arguements about altruism aside).

My only possible complaint is that more might have been done to minimize the damage that needed to be afflicted, but obviously that would be very hard to do when the prisoner has the ability to drastically change his size and shape.

TL;DR: Not evil.

I actually agree with Omelite here. It's less like choosing the sorcerer's spells and more like adjucating the result of the player's choice. For example the sorcerer chooses to have prestidigitation as a cantrip, he even chooses when he casts it and what he wants the effect of those choices to be, but ultimately the GM is responsible for determining the result of those choices.

The player can choose to have an animal companion, he can even choose what kind he wants, but the player does not control the results of that choice.

That being said, my group has decided to allow the player to choose skills and feats, with the typical executive veto granted to the GM.

Ah, good point with the more powerful choices. I was so busy considering the horse (the arguement is actually over a cavalier's mount), that I didn't consider some of the nastier animals and their starting feats/skill points.

There is a fight brewing with my gaming group over starting animal companions, in regards to whether or not the player gets to choose its starting feats and skills.

I personally am of the opinion that the player should get to choose because:

a1) The character can choose whether or not to accept a particular animal, and animals like people, are not homogeneous.

a2) The core book came out well before the beastiary, so for some time players had no alternative but to make choices for their first level companion anyway.

a3) The human alternate racial trait "Eye for Talent" causes a change in the animal companion because the character has a talent for picking favorable abilities.

a4) It just seems more fun.

On the other hand, the GM disagrees:

b1)While the animal's status as a companion will obviously change its developement, a starting companion has yet to deviate from racial norms.

I am hoping for a direct mechanical mention of starting companions and their skills and feats, either from published material or "the Word of Dev". Failing that, please sound off on your opinions on the issue.