Ravendark's page

Do flying creatures get +1 to hit when attacking ground targets for "being on higher ground?"

It came up a game ago when my summoner's eidolon swooped in and unleashed a flurry of four claw attacks against a foe.

Also, can a PC character get the same bonus if they jump at a foe?

Yes and yes. It should be this way after all.

The feat is unique.

It can kill creatures with regeneration or even worse regeneration and diehard which are opponents that just won't go down.

Also it can kill frenzied berserkers,creatures with healing contigent spells or abilities and silver dragons with the courage ability.

As a bonus it also trumps the infamous Delay Death/Ferocity of the Beastlands combo that lets you live through infinite damage.

And all of these without being a spell of even supernatural.
It doesn't close in an antimagic field,it doesn't have spell resistance (so a pit fiend with diehard can't laugh at it),it has a damage based save and it doesn't trigger ANY immunities the most important set of defensive abilities.

It's a treasure.

There is a note I remember near the concealment rule that lets you circumstantially reduce or add concealment.

In deem light when you are right by your opponent it would be logical for him or you to not have concealment for each other but that specific circumstance could not be covered explicitly, the same for a thousand others I can think of right now.

All they could do was give you the choice of reducing concealment at the DM's discretion to cover it all.

As for the cover yes you can sneak attack but not make attacks of opportunity.

The point being Raven that combat called shots remove limbs by accident as part of trying to cripple a limb.

IE Damn that T-rex is fast shoot his legs. Called shot crit 1/2 hp in damage. DAMN you blew its leg off.

Punishment is more like its been described super sharp weapon brought down on the joint and then healing applied. Severing a limb on purpose at this time has no rules severing one cause you did massive damage does.

I see your point Talonhawke but the only official rules we have that allow body mutilation are the called shots otherwise no limbs can be severed.

Why do I have to create houserules or become unreasonable and use something like "THE VICIOUS PlOT EFFECTSss" in order to have something so simple as the effects of cut members to occur in a vicious fantasy setting while there are perfectly official alternate rules that have effects for exactly the same thing?

All it takes is three miserable lines.

Ravendark wrote:

As for the hp to inflict limb-severing injury they are the same for a dragon and a commoner.Obviously some have to take more damage from others in order to lose limbs (or at least they should) (or less in the case of a halfling or even more in the case of a colossal adamandine golem) I thought that half hp was a really good start.

In addition we have countless examples of commoners in both fantasy and human history that lose a hand or arm without it resulting automatically to their deaths.With this you can have no handicapped beggars that are unable to outlast a lion at damage absorption,and the guys that execute the limb severing penalties in medieval societies must be supermen.

I say all these could be avoided with a simple line that states the opposite as an option.

The handicapped beggar who can outlast a lion at *anything* is not a commoner, he is a Hero. In Pathfinder terms, no one in the whole world has a Commoner level of more than 6, and even that's incredibly rare. Commoner levels represent someone thoroughly unremarkable and pretty helpless against the big scary things out there.

Getting a hand cut off as a punishment for a crime is simply a different beast than having your hand cut off by a rampaging monster, or chomped, or blown off by a Gunslinger. Those 'executing' your limb are generally trying not to kill you outright, since it's limb loss, not death you've been sentenced too. The victim will likely be restrained and helpless, so a proper, clean cut can be lined up, and it can be cauterized with immediate rapidity. Whereas if it happens in combat, the blow generally comes from something trying to murderize you, the cut is likely to be far less clean, there's nothing to help you with the shock or quickly staunch the bleeding.

Or to be more blunt: losing a limb as punishment or in backstory isn't a called shot. It's a plot effect.

You don't seem to understand the sarcasm I used for the beggar that has to withstand a cut hand from the avaricious noble that cuts his hand on a whim with his sword in the middle of the street while his guards watch out for him.

That beggar assuming that system would need to be tougher than a gorilla to not die at that exact moment not a minute later not from system shock but by pure damage as the average damage done by lighting is 45!

On the other hand (pardon the pun)the noble would have to deal half the man's hp in a single blow.That's universes more reasonable than to have to blow the man up to cut his frickin hand of.

Also...

People, beware of "plot effects" they will cut your hands on a whim without any rules involved,they will murder you without care of your hp total and rape your children without reference to the grapple rules.Nobody is safe from... "The plOT effECTSsssss".

That last one must be a joke.

Yes I think that solves the problem.Give the dudes scythes...
Are you kidding me?

Besides the coup de grace action would require the people about to take the penalty to succeed at a DC60 fort save (in the least) or die at that moment.
So no supermen executioners but ultramen prisoners.

If it's an optional rule meant to add realism logic should be made an option .

It only takes three sentences one line each to correct everything gone terribly wrong in the called shot system. Its a shame for a such a good idea to become useless for three miserable lines.I would write them myself but I can't, please do something.

Has any designer seen this post and more importantly will some thing be done for any of the three points?

On a sidenote is there a reason that there minimum damage for the severe called shot effects?Is there some delicate balance that I am unaware of that would be disturbed if the minimum was just half the creature's hp in one strike?

As for the hp to inflict limb-severing injury they are the same for a dragon and a commoner.Obviously some have to take more damage from others in order to lose limbs (or at least they should) (or less in the case of a halfling or even more in the case of a colossal adamandine golem) I thought that half hp was a really good start.

In addition we have countless examples of commoners in both fantasy and human history that lose a hand or arm without it resulting automatically to their deaths.With this you can have no handicapped beggars that are unable to outlast a lion at damage absorption,and the guys that execute the limb severing penalties in medieval societies must be supermen.

I say all these could be avoided with a simple line that states the opposite as an option.

There are three topics that are particularly upsetting about the called shots system.One of them I think is unintentional.The other two are clearly intentional but I think that at the one's consequences aren't.

1)The limb severing effects of called shots has a fortitude save meaning that undead and constructs are immune to it.

I think this needs a little clarification as I can't see why a skeleton can't be disarmed (literally).

2)Why does a called shot needs deal at least 50 points of damage to have severe effects on somebody?Isn't half the character's hp enough and logical for a threshold?That actually means that no man under 50 hp can have his limbs severed (no commoner for example).And there is no option to ignore this part of the rule.Please at least make some clarification on it,it really ruins so many good stories that could be told with that.

3)The third is about the touch attacks that become normal attacks when used as called shots.I understand the balance issue that many see with this but the magic bonuses were the same and got an option of ignoring the part of the rule that made them nontheatrical if you could add a part that lets you ignore that part of the rule like the magical effects have it would be great.

Not sure what lubrication has to do with being gay, I assure you straight people use it too. :)

As for the spell i recall it, I don't know if it was a April fools edition of a old dragon or maybe a web page or something. But i do seem to recall the spell.

I think it was on a web page that had similar joke spells like Morderkainen's Unfaithful Wife.I have certainly seen it again too.

Lol. That's pretty funny.

When I first saw this thread I thought "I didn't create this thread, what the heck?"

My handle used to be Ravendark on the v3.5 forums before my brother jokingly changed it to Ravingdork (and I decided to keep it). :)

You're always throwing me through a loop Ravendark.

The name Ravendark comes from a mix of the surnames of my favorite two characters:Akira Raven and Darioth Darkborn.I know it must be confusing but please bear with it.

That spell used to be called Mordenkainen's lubrication. It was changed due to the fact that Paizo doesn't have rights to use the name Mordenkainen.

I hope you are joking but I 'm not sure so.. The spell is called Morderkainen's Lucubration.Check the meaning of both words and add the meaning of the first in gay content.Then add the fact that it is a NE elven wizard doing this kind of thing to his opponents.

In the Rival guide on page 13 there are the detailed stats of an NPC named Echean.

In his spell list on the 6th level spells there is a quite disturbing (the guy is evil)name of a spell named mage's lubrication.

The book is the first dndish book I've seen to include gay content (page 8 Exander Runthorn) so this mistake would be funny to actually be intentional.

There is no reason to stop him or feel uncomfortable with him making this character. If he wants to play him let him do so and you might have some unexpected,fun,roleplaying experience with him trying to be creative on how to survive.

You should not be afraid of cases someone wants to play a weird character quite the opposite.In fact I can't think of many people who would want to play such a character so it's a rare fun opportunity to break the cliches that shouldn't be passed on.

I forgot about the ranger's alignment.Well,it really depends on his thoughts when he committed the crime.In fact there are situations when a nonevil person commits an evil act.The slaadi for example as described in planescape are chaotic neutral to the point that they could eat you alive just to check out your taste (I bet if you tasted good they would share you with you)but they weren't truly evil.The mindset behind the act defines it up to a point so check the mindset behind it.If it was malicious don't rush to change that character's alignment as such changes are usually gradual (a guy that commits murder doesn't completely change instantaneously and may latter regret his actions or try forgetting about the past).

At first you have to look at the crime scene.
Did the victim die suffering and cursing its murderers or did it have a swift end in a single clean blow which would suggest it didn't even realize it?

Depending on the amount of hatred it now bears on the perpetrators it might not come back,come back as a ghost or even better come back as a revenant which fits the theme better.

If you decide that the he doesn't have a good enough reason to rise as an undead clinging to life using sheer hatred against his killers as a moving force,you could find out who would be interested in the demise of the victim.If there is none you may should just let it go.Otherwise play the NPCs as if they were PCs and let them investigate the murder with what resources they are willing to spend.

It isn't good to metagamely punish the players creating enemies that shouldn't exist just to thwart them.It will give the impression that the world spins around them and will jerk the fun out of the game.
If though it suits the situation to have mighty forces to hunt them down don't pull your punches (actually for the same reasons).

Fair warning: this post touches on real-world science. If you think about it too hard, your game will explode. Your copy of the Core Rulebook will literally disappear with a flash of light and heat as if the binding were made of guncotton. Actual learning may be involved, provided we remain calm. Proceed at your own risk. ;-)

So, many people were confused at first when they saw the alchemist. It didn't seem like a particularly powerful or synergistic class, and some people were put off by the idea of 'bombs' in a fantasy setting, while others thought the daily use limit was unrealistic. We're mostly past that now, but the presence of alchemy raises a host of setting integrity problems.

Some elements of the alchemist seem derived from his mythical background (I.e. immortality, lead into gold, creating homunculi and simulacra), while others (smoke bombs, explosive bombs, stink bombs, poison bombs, acid bombs) I could make (and have made) cheaply and easily in my garage (though notice I did not say 'safely' or 'wisely', so imitation is a form of flattery I can do without.)

Meanwhile, even experts with no PC class levels can use the craft (alchemy) skill. Now, the crafting rules are a sore point, so I won't go into how 'nushadir' (APG 185) is literally ammonium chloride (sal ammoniac in old-timey speak) and compare the crafting rules to actual historical processes, since that would just be rubbing salt into the wound.

So, since alchemy and chemistry (albeit lacking a theoretical framework) are a part of most fantasy worlds, how far have they gotten? This is important because many chemical milestones (nitroglycerin, smokeless powder, the disinfectant properties of limewater and Condy's crystals, even the current high-end military explosive Cyclonite) were (or in the case of cyclonite, could easily be) discovered by guys dicking around with random chemicals that were definitely known during the medieval period (if only by Moslems).

True, a wizard with a wand of fireball could shut down any nascent...

I'd like to use chemistry and technology in general if I could use it without changing the rules.Although with the circumstance bonuses and penalties rules there is little impossible to do. Do you have to propose DCs for craft alchemy for example that will give the acid flask a circumstance bonus on dmg or do you want to define the "acid" into "sulfuric acid" or "hydrochloric acid" and give them circumstance bonuses and penalties to damage against specific creatures?Do you propose that we could get bombs by assigning circumstance bonuses and penalties to damage done with gunpowder an if we up the dose? What are your rule suggestion for the use of real world knowledge in rpg?

Interesting story.The one I can't clear out is if he (the dwarf) did this based on out of game situations or in game ones.

If the dwarf was being played like a zealot of his religion I would ask for the reason of why didn't he do this in the first place (kill the girl from the start)if he couldn't I would cut him xp for not killing the girl from the start and give him for killing it at last.I wouldn't had cut him xp at all (and just have given him) if he had a reason why he didn't do this from the start.As the dwarf was a wise person I might had cut him xp if he hadn't a good reason for doing it right there (in front of the governor)and not roleplaying his dwarf's stats properly.

Otherwise the same as the plot went through at least at the first scene: the guards would have tried to lock him up or more logically for most nations of the past kill him outright and if he survived he survived.Radical beliefs can make you enemies easily as your acts seem erratic before the eyes of the common beholder.It is fun to play that kind of guys but it's hard too.

Yes the CR decreases by 1 after "the party" achieves its third level.

The only thing you should think about is what is considered to be "the party".

If the subjects constituting "the party" are turned against each other or perhaps do not level up at the same time what do you do?

My personal answer to that is that they level up as if they were a "one man party".
So for every 3 levels anyone gains he gets a free racial CR discount with the minimum of half his original.

I already said that the CR system is not perfect so many opinions might arise.

I don't think you should be referring to creatures directly as written from the book as they have starting abilities of 10s and 11s and terrible choices done for them.A bright,simple example is a Pit fiend with the diehard feat, many death ward spells on it and good spellcasting management can't lose to this guy (It won't go down not even to the uncosiousness) and will defeat him sooner or later.Don't think so simply at high levels, see the potential.Achaekek and the others have a ton of spellcasting abilities to buff them up.Also some creatures are just weak for their CR.Ahh and again my opinion.

If you are playing with the epic level handbook and generally 3.5 CR22.
If not CR23.
The CR is an imperfect system so opinions may vary.
It depends very much on what variety of options the spellcasters-manifesters of the game have.

On a sidenote:
1) A 17th lvl wizard with ice assassin can make a ton of guys like him and turn them against him or make efreety with simulacrum and wish for him to come until he loses the save so he can trap him or take a boust to his CL through items and spells, call him with gate and make him rape,kill and eat himself in the 30 rounds duration.
2)A Pit Fiend Archduke with the master of magic ability and built from ground up mops the floor with him.
3)Same for a built from ground up Balor Lord.
4)Elysian Titan sage the same.
5)Gold,Red,Silver and Umbral great wyrms from ground up the same.
6)Pleroma aeon and Dragonal agathion from ground up the same.

The Tarrasque has too much CR compared to what other things in the system have for its abilities most likely to the fact that it doesn't fricking die.

First I am sure I am not thinking hardness but natural armor.
The point is that the designers have obviously thought that guns can penetrate through almost anything.

A fullplate armor gives a +9 to AC and a tower shield gives a +4.With a +3 bonus (a medium to high bonus) each the collective bonus to AC would be 19.I just chose 20 as the base in order to express the great penetration but in a more realistic example base penetration 10 would be enough.Although this would mean that the gunslinger wouldn't do what he was intended to do (penetrate everything).

To make the penetration of weapons a level based ability and not let them have penetration themselves is plain wrong both logically and from the intention perspective.

Wouldn't it be better for the general gun rules to let the guns ignore ridiculously (20-40) much of the armor/natural armor and shield bonuses of their targets but not all.

My motivation is not balance issues,(I would shot balance repeateadly in the head at any given opportunity at my games as I think it plain wrong to enforce it),but logical ones.

It's logical that a gun should have nontouch armor class penetration like 20 or so (varying with the types of the guns and situations like double for two handed, half for light and +4 per +1 magical bonus and -2 per range increment above first)but if it flat out ignores the nontouch armor class a creature with 100 NA shouldn't get hit as easily as the same with 10 NA.

Layer after layer after layer of plating should stop a speeding bullet eventually or at least they should slow it down.Also there is no reason the bullet bullet shouldn't penetrate after the first range increment,it should just less.

It is relatively easy to implement this logic to firearms (it can be done in basically three lines)and the ammount of simulation it adds makes it worthwhile.

Can it be made official?Even as an optional rule.I think that after a time most of the people who implement guns will be using it.

I wonder if anyone of the designers has seen this thread.
It really contains something that needs correction.
Will there be any other version of the gunslinger (a non-immortal one)?

The gunslinger does have grit (always 1) with this combo so the rewrite doesn't do much.

And the suicide bomber is just one of many examples for instance you can grapple a foe and let the wizard carpet the area with meteors.

Besides the cheat death ability doesn't make a lot of sense.
Even if it was one time per day you could throw yourself into disaster only to emerge alive and all because you cinematically survived.Again I say I don't have any problem with an undying character (and I find it silly for him to be so to have to be incompetent) but the ability clearly isn't well thought as it isn't supernatural in nature.

Everything I've written so far is not the intention of the ability's writer and all I say is that it shouldn't find it's way to the official version of the gunslinger as anything more than than an optional rule like the daring act if it doesn't become supernatural somehow.

For e record any ability letting you cheat death without taking into account the situations it can be used on ends up with ridiculous effects.

For example if the cheat death ability is controlled one can try to explode himself in order to kill his enemies and stay alive.

Its the dream of the suicide bomber.And killer of any kind of simulation even if we talk about fantasy rpg.

I just found what you are talking about but that was a thread that started with the idea that cheat death works by itself which can be wrong and I didn't say that. I instead coupled it with the true grit ability.So far no debunking has prayed it's fangs on this.

And yeah its crazy thank you very much but it has to be changed.

Really?! Where and how?

"Cheat Death" allows a gunslinger to not be killed by a situation that would reduce him below zero hp.It requires you to spend grit equal to your remaining greet for the day.The effect reduces him to hp equal to the grit spent.
"True grit" allows a gunslinger to spend one less grit for any two deeds that require grit MINIMUM 0.
ENTER HIGHLANDER (THE GUNSLINGER VERSION).
When highlander is reduced to lower than 0 hp he can spend all his grit except one to avoid death and remain alive to a number of hp equal to the grit he spent.
Then when again reduced to below 0 hp he can spent all his remaining grit minus 1 (0 causing him to remain at 1 grit)to remain at zero hp automatically.
When he takes strenuous actions or again gets battered he would get below 0 hps so he spends all his remaining grit (1) minus 1 (0) to stay at 0 hp forever and act normally no matter what happens.
It takes no action from his part and makes him invulnerable to all damage and to irrelevant situations that have to do with damage like drowning .

This is fairly specific to what's going on in my game, but I'm hoping someone here can point me towards something for this.

In the game I'm playing in, one of the members of my party currently has acquired a magic graft on his arm. It's fairly powerful, and (as a graft) can't be removed. That said, it's a powerful item, and can cause serious damage.

Long story short, in the event of any sort of intra-party fight (or him turning evil, etc.) I want my arcane spellcaster to have something up his sleeve to remove this graft from that character. Since it's part of his body, that seems to mean severing his arm.

My question is, what in the rules will let me do that?

Now, to be clear, what I'm really asking for is if there's some third-party spell (or magic item, or monster) out there somewhere that does that. I know that there are ways to sidestep the problem, such as just killing him and cutting it off (which I don't want to do), or using some optional third-party rules for severing limbs in combat (which my GM won't allow), but that's not what I'm looking for here.

I'd also like to avoid discussion regarding how to not have things get to the point where I'd need to forcibly take the graft from my fellow party member; I'd like to avoid that also - I'd just like to have that ace up my sleeve as a backup.

To reiterate, the best bet is a spell that's specially-designed to remove limbs from someone. Second-best is if there's a magic item that can do it. Third best is if there's a monster (that I can use magic to summon) that can do it.

Does anybody know of anything like this?

If it helps there is a spell in book of vile darkness named "grim revenge".Its on page 97,4th level sor/wiz requires an undead component(but can be found on a wand) and among other effects (basically 6d6 damage and a special wight summoning) it severs a hand from the target (which then fights like a wight).

How's this for a confusing gray area?

I want to use REACH SPELL with the TELEPORT line of spells, however, said spells say you must be touching your target(s) to teleport them with you.

Is it in keeping with the rules/intent to assume that REACH SPELL allows you to teleport your entire party from short, medium, or long range without the need for bodily contact?

You will see a catchphrase like "the creature you touch" and "the creature hit by this ray" in almost any spell with a range of touch or in spells that materialize rays.That's because every part of the spell's text assumes that it has the range it has.When that changes it's only natural that some other changes must occur.

On a sidenote with the same logic the maximize feat goes like saying you take maximum variable numeric effects for the spell but on the spells it says you roll to see the results.

This kind of logic shouldn't be RAI as it opens as many doors to the realm of madness as can be counted and isn't definitely RAW as in metamagic feats it says that they modify the spells they are put on.

Yep.You are coping a great wyrm gold dragon.A great wyrm gold dragon you'll get.Just like when coping a greater barghest:you won't get a normal barghest but a greater one with half HD.

Dragons don't have progressions.At least not in the racial class sense.
At some point they get older and that leads to certain bonuses (size,abilities spellcasting...)one of those bonuses happens to be HDs which are then cut in half in order to be put to the simulacrum.

A way to make progression of dragons that one could urge would result in ability loses by copying would be to divide them in HD progressions and spread the abilities between the HD.This time nothing is based on HD (that are the only thing that is halved)but instead on age categories (which remain intact by the spell).

Another way is to specify in what HD of the age category does the dragon gain the ability and at the same time break the categories in HD like this:"When he reaches HD 30th a great wyrm gold dragon gains the ability..."If he had the HD(through advancement for example) but not the age category he would be barred from having the ability.If he had the age but not the HD(which is the result of copying it with a simulacrum) he would be barred from having the ability again.

None of this exists of course so simulacrum is a super strong,super cool(literally,it is made of ice and snow) spell in pathfinder as written.

Glad I helped.

Read the first sentence of my last post.

Then learn to fly or bye bye..

(Seriously though,as a DM I think it is appropriate to stick with the rules otherwise we have no need for supplements or dice at all,you just do what the DM tells you to.If that doesn't work for you its Ok but that's my view of the situation.)

Then copy an advanced speciment or one that got levels after its HD.You got the same thing.

Furthermore what you say is as subjective as it gets.
Besides the wish spell-like ability and the "noble" status are not based on HD or levels .A Djinni with levels can be stronger than a noble Djinni without levels but will never have the innate abilities of a noble. So its rather like a racial distinction than a social one).

So there is no "appropriate" or "inappropriate" level for both of them unless there was some kind of advancement through HD written in the rules.
As it is now a baby noble Djinni has the wishes normally.

By the same token with which one can say "The Djinni got it's wish sp as it matured" one can say that "The Djinni actually had 30 wishes per day but it lost them as it matured".

In both cases you create house rules.

Um, the game developer himself said that's how you should probably halve it.

However, in the case of a rogue 6/assassin 6, I think it would be best (and in keeping with developer intent) to end with a rogue 6.

Good for the game developer to shed some light on the issue but logic should be consistent with itself (the spell doesn't give that meaning which is shown in the rogue-assassin case).

Then what is this?

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/glossary.html#appendix-1-special-abiliti es

The fact that in the creature the text explains in detail some of its special abilities in order to be more accurate doesn't mean it includes them all.

No, they don't. A PC plays an active role in the world, things that the PC imagines do not. You are being ridiculous.

As I you should notice they are playing the same role as a dead creatures or creatures in temporal stasis.Maybe even more important (like the raven in kingmaker adventure path).So the definition is pretty open ended to include all of the above.Think before you flame.

By the PRD, The Fool means "Lose 10,000 experience points and you must draw again." There is no mention of level loss.

So if you lose enough xp to be of lower level what do you do?Play some drama queen action and keep playing?

I will not even tread on your logic of someone losing one level of each of his classes as that doesn't give the appropriate result,he has to lose more levels than his xp would dictate.

And I 'd really like to see that "logic" working on a rogue5/assassin5 character.You see logic must be consistent with itself.

First, simulacrum is not a case of level loss, so discussion of level loss is basically irrelevant to this discussion. Neither the character nor the simulacrum loses any levels; the simulacrum is merely created with half the levels of the character.

Ok this is even better.When you create something from scratch.Do you

In the end you suggest a course of action and when one shows you the madness that is reached through the same logic you come back saying:"If your DM would do that you have a big big problem."Implying that it is ridiculous to do it but failing to see that it all derives of the same logic.Even if the one is not as obvious it is as ridiculous as the other.

The definition given in the core includes wondrous creatures,imaginative and dead creatures,products of madness and imaginary friends as everything plays an active role in a story or world.The definition clarifies that it includes PCs,NPCs and monsters but the doesn't limit itself to that.So no restriction here the definition includes them and the spell lets you copy them all.

The whole situation arose when someone took the liberty to consider that the creatures duplicated could lose even non level/HD-dependent abilities which I do not believe to be the case otherwise a fire elemental can lose its fire subtype a fish can drown and other such hilarious examples.As written it means that the creature has half the corresponding special abilities for its HD/lvls,thus abilities that are affected by them.

There are situations where a player can lose levels in 3.75 and one of them is drawing the fool card from the deck of many things.Would you have a character lose a level in a nonlinear fashion in a situation like this (like a cleric losing his first level or a dragon losing his's lower caster levels from HDs and not the higher)?

Secondly if not when losing a level,when creating a duplicate of a creature with HD would you then consider a nonlinear fashion of reducing the creature's HD?Things like the dragon with the 19th level of sorcerer and not the 10th become possible this way.Remember if the one thing can be done so can the other.

It is like asking if you can be a 20th level cleric without first being a 19th.It is not mentioned but it creates problems if done otherwise

Finally I copy a efritty that took its 18 levels after its HD.As simple as that.If I don't get the wishes screw them I have dragons with 9th level spells (and not 5th and lower) at my disposal and I am 200th level in at least one class from lvl1.

The definition of a creature as someone participating in a story or world does not exclude an imaginary creature (as it can actively participate in a story and world the same way a dead creature does) and the fact that it includes PCs,NPCs and monsters doesn't mean that it is limited to that and thus excludes all else.In fact given the definition an imaginative creature is a creature nonetheless.So no restriction here.

If a player draws a fool card from the deck of many things (one of the level losing ways still in the system) and lose 10000xp which would conclude in him dropping a level while he has 3 levels of cleric would you consider that he loses the 1st and 2nd level of cleric but he keeps the 3rd?I don't think so.It's because levels drop and rise linearly.

So when you create an illusory duplicate of something you are not limited in the linear reduction of levels?So if a creature gains 6 HD and then the assassin prestige class the duplicate could end up as 3HD/3assassin or worse yet would a dragon have only the bonuses and spell from the advanced age categories and not the lower?Even in a mixed situation of acquisition of HD and levels such as the ones noted in your post,the drop must be linear else crazy things like that can occur.

At last I don't copy a creature that gained it's levels before full maturing.I copy an effrity that first took 8 HD and then 18 levels.

So in order to stop a wish factory without assertion to knowledge one should:
1)Accept that simulacrums of creatures mysteriously lose their abilities even the non level-based ones.
2)Accept that the simulacrum can only duplicate existing creatures instead of any creature as noted in the spell (imaginary friends and products of madness fit the definition of the creature in the core just fine).
3)Accept that there isn't,wasn't and will never be any advanced creature of any race that has wish as a spell like ability.
4)Accept that there isn't wasn't and will never be any creature with the wish as spell like ability that gained levels after it's HD at least equal to them.
And
5)That creating a duplicate of a creature can sometimes lead to specimens of creatures that have only the high level abilities and not the low level abilities as the reduction of levels and HD isn't necessarily linear.

Ravendark wrote:

If they advance by level AND knowledge is not a factor,they can create them.

How you cut a monster with levels in half is a matter of GM discretion, and accordingly so is what special abilities are appropriate. A standard 10 HD efreeti who advanced with 10 levels of fighter is, by my judgment, much more accurately modeled on the half as a "5 HD outsider with 5 levels of fighter", which means he doesn't have 10 HD of efreeti, which means I have plenty of reason to say he doesn't have the amount of efreeti to qualify for the wish power. If you make different choices, simulacrum can be a serious problem . . . but that's, IMO, mostly a reason not to make that other choice.

Ravendark wrote:

Secondly,if again knowledge is not a factor,the creature doesn't have to exist(as long as it is backed up by the system and therefore could exist).

No. If knowledge is not a factor, simulacrum is still limited to creating duplicates, which means an original must exist. You can't make a duplicate of something that doesn't exist, since you're not duplicating anything. That the game mechanics do not forbid something is not proof the something actually exists.

(I note it is also pretty difficult to explain how your character would go about trying to make a duplicate of something your character doesn't know to exist. Sounds to me like a recipe for expending the material component and getting nothing, since you're duplicating nothing.)

I am duplicating something.A creature of my dreams or imagination or design.If knowledge doesn't count as a factor in knowing how to make it,I can.Where does it say that you have to duplicate an EXISTING creature again?I'll tell you nowhere.It says that it must be a duplicate of something but that something doesn't have to be real.

Secondly the idea of creating something with half HD and half levels is totally incorrect according to the system.It is like making the duplicate of an Assassin 6/Rogue 6 character and getting the results of an Assassin 3/Rogue 3 character or better yet the duplicate of a 20th lvl wizard with only the high level abilities and the 5th and above level spells and not the low level ones.The phrase half levels or HD doesn't mean that you get to mysteriously wipe the levels or HD in any order you wish.There are rules for reducing HD and levels and those write backwards.

If you insist in your theory then that means that the trick with the 20 lvl wizard can be done as well.

Ravendark wrote:

The reason it is laughable is it doesn't accomplice what its inventors wanted it to accomplish and the reasons that it is infuriating is that it keeps coming after being debunked as useless again and again.

Strange. Every time I tell a player, "No, that doesn't work, there are no 20 HD efreeti in this game world," my ruling stops that from happening. Not a single failure yet.

Maybe you missed page 5 of the GameMastery Guide, where it mentions the GM is the game designer? And thus, logically, as fully authoritative as Jason Bulmahn or James Jacobs when issuing as ruling?

(NB: Actually, there might be some 20 HD efreeti in a game I run. But they wouldn't have 20 Outsider HD, they'd have 13 Outsider HD like a noble efreeti, maybe a couple other Outsider HD, and then class levels. So the result, after halving, would be say, 8 Outsider HD and 2 fighter.)

First they can have actual levels and not HD as mentioned in your post and every single mine.If they advance by level AND knowledge is not a factor,they can create them.

Secondly,if again knowledge is not a factor,the creature doesn't have to exist(as long as it is backed up by the system and therefore could exist).

So yes,it doesn't work at all if you don't consider knowledge as a factor which is another limitation altogether.Unless the player has enough good faith in you to not search it more thoroughly.

Ravendark wrote:

The reason it is laughable is it doesn't accomplice what its inventors wanted it to accomplish and the reasons that it is infuriating is that it keeps coming after being debunked as useless again and again.

Aside from that D&D is not necessarily a cooperative game.It actually has no set roles and the players could even be opposing forces if they wanted to.It can be challenging and entertaining in a variety of ways and not only the "let's get in the dungeon" way.I personally find pretty challenging and entertaining the way a simulacrum can be played through.

It's not only about power it's about the flavor balance kills.The only people I've heard talking about the "win" situation are people who don't know the rules good enough and are pissed of by others knowing them better and want to accuse them somehow.In fact nobody wants to "win" the game but it is only natural for someone both in and out of game to want to raise his station and power,otherwise there wouldn't be strong and weak people in the fantasy stories we run-its the direct effect of some accomplishing it far better than the others.

Moreover what makes you think I'm a player when I'm actually a DM?

My apologies for my somewhat thin-skinned response to what I perceived to be your overly dismissive and insulting post. If I misjudged your intent, I have wronged you, sir.

We seem to have vastly different playstyles and assumptions about the game. To me the game is, or at least should be, cooperative. I'm not fond of campaigns that place players in opposition to each other or encourage PvP action. But that's my personal taste, and your point that different playstyles are just as legitimate is excellent and conceded.

I'm not certain I understand the point you are making regarding power and flavor.

Your point about "win" and not knowing the rules and being pissed off by people who know them better strikes me as provocative and insulting if directed at me, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume...

Yes,you guessed right.Neither this nor the previous poster had as a purpose to insult,mainly to alert radically.The first in order to stop seeing the same damned thing come up again and again (it really got annoying).The last part about the "win" situation was to alert about what impression the phrase gives:At least to me it sounds bad. I use to not make assumptions about people I talk with so I didn't actually know if you where one of those people or not.It was something like a test if you will.

It is a fact that we do have different play styles but it is a fact that we do have the same also (I also play the way you probably play AND the other way around).

The part of balance VS flavor is inappropriate to discuss in another guy's thread.

Saying you need knowledge of a creature isn't really a limitation. The player will just make a knowledge check and say he knows what he needs to know. What is the DC for a noble djinn? 23 if you consider it a rare creature like the tarrasque? Even a player who doesn't have ranks in knowledge (planes) could easily invest several ranks at his next level up and easily make that DC.

The only thing the GM has as a defense is his fiat. That's why people are calling it broken as written.

Knowledge checks can be modified through the rule of circumstance bonuses and penalties where the DM can give a bonus or penalty of any amount to a d20 roll.So 23?No in my campaign it is 1023 as djinis are really cryptic and almost nonexistent in the universe just to set an example.

Apart from that what does it make you think that by "knowing" someone specific to copy completely with magic the only thing you have to do is a barely successful knowledge check?

I acknowledge it as an option but it isn't necessarily the case.

One could argue that you have to know every ability of the creature and every single ability there is to know adds 5 to the DC.

Wet another could argue that you need to know personally the individual in order to know it's character that it's part of it that its part of knowing it.

See the word "know" has a pretty heavy meaning if taken a better look at as the githzerai Zerthimon would add.

So it is one of the two things that are actually DM's discretion.

The reason it is laughable is it doesn't accomplice what its inventors wanted it to accomplish and the reasons that it is infuriating is that it keeps coming after being debunked as useless again and again.

Aside from that D&D is not necessarily a cooperative game.It actually has no set roles and the players could even be opposing forces if they wanted to.It can be challenging and entertaining in a variety of ways and not only the "let's get in the dungeon" way.I personally find pretty challenging and entertaining the way a simulacrum can be played through.

It's not only about power it's about the flavor balance kills.The only people I've heard talking about the "win" situation are people who don't know the rules good enough and are pissed of by others knowing them better and want to accuse them somehow.In fact nobody wants to "win" the game but it is only natural for someone both in and out of game to want to raise his station and power,otherwise there wouldn't be strong and weak people in the fantasy stories we run-its the direct effect of some accomplishing it far better than the others.

Moreover what makes you think I'm a player when I'm actually a DM?

I keep seeing the same argument popping here and there again and again although it has been addressed many times over with different examples.

The infuriating argument is this:

"The simulacrum of another creature has the half of the abilities a normal creature of it's kind has due to it having half the HD from a fully grown speciment.As such it doesn't have the spell like abilities of it's normal species " Then they go on happily houseruling the issue.

The basic flaw this laughable limitation exhibits (other than the fact that it is a stretch to the rules that creates unnecessary houseruling where it shouldn't exist and with no guidelines whatsoever) is that it doesn't accomplish its purpose:
Overall reduction of power for the simulacrum and prevention of wish factories.

So as noted before by me and later from a person called pad300,you can create a simulacrum of an efreeti with 8 levels at more or less the same level as you can the plain efreeti.The same is true for other creatures like solars and pit fiends so no way around it here.

The only limitations that are truly at the DM's discretion are:

1)The knowledge of the creature which as noted above could only be losing a spot check against a disguise (too badly),but can range as I'd like to add to the point it requires you to have perfect knowledge of a specific creature through decades of study before being able to copy it with a simulacrum or anywhere between the two.

or

2)The fact that the simulacrum has it's own mind and can turn against you either indirectly or by making itself immune to getting the commands (through becoming deaf or casting a silence spell at you for example).The last thing is a terrifying proof that the risks the spell are many to the recipient unless he is devious enough to evade them.How does he do that?With interesting role-playing of course.

That's not true.
The simulacrum first and foremost has it's own personality as it has intelligence,wisdom and charisma.There isn't anywhere saying it has no initiative on its own right.In fact it can turn against you given time and clever preparation (becoming deaf or casting silence to you for example).

Although it is constantly under your absolute commands you have to find a way of communicating them to it.Permanent telepathic bonds would be sufficient to make an army of simulacra and send them on a crusade in the dungeon where the poor monsters live their lives peacefully eating non-simulacrum using adventurer flesh.

At WotC I am Darioth.

When you wrote "They either no longer exist,or didn't exist to begin with"are you by the second half implying that they existed only in my imagination?!
The voices where right,I'm mad it seems MUUhahahaHA.

Well in the case it meant something other than an error of expression I'd like to know what (seriously I can't figure out).

A..about the simulacrum efreeti not gaining its wishes/day.Although HD don't play any role with the wishes the efreeti gains,if one is willing to rule-lawyer it to that level, there are funny ways to pass through these hilarious limitations with ease.Copy an advanced efreeti/an efreeti with levels would be some of them.

Also the nickname is a mix of my two favorite dnd characters' surnames:
Raven and Darkborn.The second one's full name is Darioth Darkborn which I usually use as a nickname except on this site.I didn't mean to steal anybody's nickname,it was just a change of pace.

Also the infernal contract (and wish as it happens) and the sceaduinar's ability "void child" are from pathfinder and are truly effective measures to stop it theoretically.At least for some.Moreover I don't see how the third weakness of the simulacrum (personality) doesn't apply to strict pathfinder play.

Aside from those simulacrum is a great roleplaying opportunity and gives great new opportunities to create memorable stories.It adds a chaotic element in the possibilities of a campaign that seems rather charming. I think it's great to use in a campaign if one is not afraid of power and of the "bad" players "destroying" their "beautiful" (streamlined) storylines.