Revel's page

I found that the link to my guide was broken along time ago due to a google update so I have a new link. I'd appreciate if someone would update it with the link below. Also I've included a link to the discussion thread as well since it doesn't appear to go anywhere anymore either.

Revel's Guide to the Monk

discussion thread

First, thanks for all the information, it’s given me a lot to chew on.

To those who stated you cannot compare a druid to an inventor, I respectfully disagree. I don’t look at 1 for one comparisons but broad strokes. I mostly ask, does this character (in this case the inventor) seem competitive in combat? How about out of combat? And finally, do they have any areas they can stand out and “shine” compared to another class.

With that is mind you can compare any two classes. Basically though, I just want to know if a class is fun to play and carries their own weight in a party.

The druid was a logical comparison because I know it well and they are both pet classes (at least the versions I was most interested in looking at). When comparing the construct to the animal companion (because really what else to you expect me to compare it to?), the animal companion seemed more durable (better reflex, armor class, and can be healed more easily) but the construct looked like it did a little more damage.

Overall I still believe this but this thread has given me several things to look at and reread. It seems the construct can be pumped up a bit more than I had first realized. To start with when calculating damage I somehow completely missed the Offensive Boost. Also, I read Megavolt and didn’t care for it so I think I missed or glazed over the upgrade Gigavolt which makes it much more impressive.

This threads given me alot of ideas to look at so I think I’m going to sit down and try sketching out an inventor from level 1-20. They seem interesting enough to be worth the time. With that in mind I have some more questions.

1) While it’s still 4 to 6 weeks out it looks like the group will probably need a rogue. If so I’m planning to take Reverse Engineer so I can deal with traps… but the 2nd level class ability has the prerequisite: expert in crafting which I don’t (and can’t) get till 3rd level, is that a mistake?

2) Can you activate megavolt and gigavolt for your construct? The wording seems to imply you can, so you could have your construct attack twice and then you could use megavolt/gigavolt to release a bolt of lightning from the construct. Am I reading that correctly? It seems important since if that’s not possible the ability seems less useful to me and may or may not be worth the investment depending on the build.

3) What feats or abilities, if any, would you consider must have’s for construct focused inventor?

4) What are your opinions of the armor and weapon inventors? I suspect I’ll stick with construct if I go with an inventor but you never know. I like a wide variety of play styles so it’ll be dependent on whether or not a particular character concept strikes a chord with me or not.

Sooo... apparently the link has been dead for along time now but I never got on Google so I didn't know. Getting my Gmail for the first time in years I expected trash but had 20 or more share requests... umm, whoops?

So hopefully this fixes it. If not please let me know and I'll try again.

Revel's Guide to the Monk

First a little background. The group I’m in currently is nearing the end of an adventure path so I’ve been looking at possible classes to play. I was going to make a druid, which has always been one of my favorite classes, and try out focusing on shapeshifting but it looks like we will probably be doing Agents of Edgewatch next sooo… yeah I through that idea out.

Then after reading several other classes I looked at the inventor. I’ve never played a character like this before and thought the steampunk feel could be fun and would fit in well with the city. I started getting an idea I liked where my inventor would have a “wolf” construct and use her abilities to support it in battle.

Honestly I would have preferred to focus on the construct and support but after reading through it I realized the inventor is built a bit more like a front liner with good armor and weapon proficiencies. Not quite what I was looking for but that’s fine. So, as a test, I tried sketching out a 20th level construct companion and compared that to my druids’ wolf companion which brought up some questions.

As far as I can tell the wolf animal companion seems just as good as the construct. Both have different strengths and weaknesses but they seemed about equal. Which while not quite what I wanted that’s fine and I could work with it. Except looking at the inventor they seem strictly weaker than the druid.

Hit points and saves are about the same. But my druid maxed wisdom and was a full spell caster whereas the inventor appears MAD and has nothing that I see that will be anywhere close to the power or flexibility of full spell casting.

Now they don’t have to necessarily be as “strong” as a druid but I want to know they will be able to carry their own weight and be able to “shine” from time to time. Right now I’m not convinced, especially at high levels. So what experiences has everyone had? Am I missing some critical ability or abilities? I read everything in one go so I know I’m experiencing a bit of information overload but I wanted to ask rather than going back and rereading especially if I’m wasting my time.

Any insight would be appreciated, especially if it includes actual play experience.

Alright, so I’ve been the forever DM for a group but recently had a player who, like you, stepped up to run a campaign. We started with a couple short one shots where she got her feet wet and she is now running Age of Ashes, so as you might gather this thread amuses me. Hopefully I can give you a couple pointers :)

First, the difficulty can be a little wonky at times, most fights are perfectly fine, but occasionally there is one that doesn’t seem balanced right and could go very bad very easily. However, since we had done a few one shots with the same characters our group actually started at 3rd level so we had no problems, in fact I asked her to bump up the monsters a little until we were close to the correct level (the advanced template works well for this).

With this in mind I would consider either starting the group second level or running them through a short group of encounters and leveling them to second them (even if they wouldn’t quite have enough experience from the encounters). This way you can play the rest of the modules pretty mush “as is” without being overly worried about some fights being to lethal. Don’t worry, there will still be challenging fights.

As the group adventures, if you use experience points they will naturally grow closer to the right level over time since higher level characters get less experience from lower level enemies. If you aren’t quite ready for this you can always give them a little extra experience once in a while to keep them about a level ahead until you feel comfortable enough to let the groups’ level drift into place (they’ll likely remain about half a level ahead but that’s perfectly fine)

If you don’t use experience points but instead use milestone leveling, just keep the group leveled one level higher than the module suggests until you decide otherwise.

Note if you have more than 4 people in your group these measures may not be needed since the extra support from the other characters may make up the difference all by itself.

If you want to run a couple encounters to level the group to 2nd level before starting, read over the players guide for Age of Ashes. The town the players start in often hires adventurers to deal with local problems so it’s really easy to create a problem and have the town offer a reward for the players to go handle it for them.

Btw, for your reference, my group has been using experience points, we started Age of Ashes at 3rd level, ended the first book 1 level higher then suggested and are currently on the first half of book 3 and at the suggested level, though I suspect we might still might be about half a level higher and thus may level a little earlier.

Also, as someone mentioned above, use the forums. Since I’m playing in it I don’t look at the one for Age of Ashes but there are quite a few resources in the adventure path threads as well as tips on how to deal with issues that may come up.

Whatever you decide to do, please remember the only thing that really matters is that everyone’s having a good time. Good luck.

Well I can’t speak to all of the investigators abilities as I haven’t read through it well enough and haven’t had a player run one before but as far as “That’s Odd” goes, noting that something is out of the ordinary does not mean you understand its significance. For example consider an investigator enters a room and notices some marks on the floor over by a painting.

Is there a secret passage there? Perhaps part of the wall moves and caused the marks.

Is there a loose stone or other secret compartment that is over there are the marks are because someone recently accessed it?

Did someone move furniture that was once there? Perhaps a chair was moved elsewhere to conceal a bloodstain.

Did a creature come out of the painting and the marks are from it coming and going at night?

In other words keep it vague. Think in terms of a murder mystery in which “ideally” the significance of the clues noticed may not be apparent until much later in the story.

Based on what Rysky pointed out you don't "have" to say anything except that something feels off or unusual about a certain area of the room though personally I'd prefer giving some sort of hint as in the example above. Still if you aren't sure how to to it without giving out to mush information it does give you an out of sorts.

Since others have already said most of what I would I'm going to look at it a little differently. If I were to run an encounter based on what you seem to be aiming for I might approach it something like this.

********

While traveling through the wilds, you and your party hear a shrill scream and the sounds of battle on the road up ahead.

GM: What do you do?

Once the players reach the area – Arriving on the scene, you find a carriage propped on its side with two shattered wheels, horses maimed and tangled, from inside you hear what sounds like a young girl in hysterics screaming the name Jhonas. Around the carriage warriors and elementals fight and its unclear at the moment who’s winning though the bodies of several warrior lay strewn around the area.

GM: Everyone make a perception check.

If made – Through the carriage door you catch a glimpse of the girls tear streaked face wearing clothes befitting a noble. She appears to be looking down at something as she cries, her eyes looking a bit wild. Again, you hear her as she screams the name “Jhonas!”

(continuing)

Ten feet or so from the carriage are two injured fighters, possibly guards, armed with swords standing among a pile of earth and rock. They are turning to face an earth elemental. Itself only 10 or so feet from them and quickly closing the distance.

Elsewhere along the road you see a few other elementals fighting more warriors. Near the tree line one of the elementals stands before several identical men in dark robes interposing itself between them and the fighters.

GM: (checks to see if any of the PC’s are seen if necessary)

If any of the PC’s are seen by the fighters – One of them notices you and hollers, “Help us take down these blasted elementals.”

GW: what do you do?

********

GM Notes – When the young noble girl’s carriage was waylaid, she was traveling with the driver, a butler, and a wizard. Upon being attacked the driver was killed almost immediately and his body has fallen on the other side of the carriage. The butler drew a crossbow kept in the carriage for protection and attempted to use it for shelter while protecting the girl. Meanwhile the wizard who was also riding up top enjoying the weather has been using defensive magic like mirror image and summoning elementals while trying to draw the enemy away so the others could escape.

Unfortunately, the enemy was more numerous then he realized and the butler has been mortally wounded from a pair poisoned crossbow bolts. Additionally, the wizard is rapidly finding himself out of his depth as he is running low on spells.

Immediately before the PC’s arrival two of the assassins will have dispatched an elemental guarding the carriage and Jhonas will have ordered or conjured another to replace it before they could get any closer to the young girl, they are there to kill.

Assuming the PC’s join in wiping out the elementals Jhonas will assume, wrongly, that they are with the assassins and hence not say anything to them. Meanwhile, once they have things in hand, the assassins will take the opportunity to go, open the carriage door, and promptly slaughter the occupants.

********

Immediately upon seeing the young noble girl slaughtered in front of him, Jhonas screams “NO!”, looking around pale and angry he swears “If it’s the last thing I do I’ll see all of you pay for this” he then steps around a tree and vanishes.

GM notes – Jhonas uses the cover of the tree to conceal whatever spell(s) he uses to escape such as dimension door, invisibility, teleport, etc. Once gone he will report what has happened and the PC’s may well end up responsible for a young noble's death and branded a criminal.

The "guards" then thank the PC’s for their "assistance" before turning their weapons on them.

********

I believe that ties most things up nicely though with players you never know how things will play out. Players like to do unexpected things… but then that’s half the fun :)

If the players save the girl, good for them. I think most plots still work fine it just changes how everything goes afterward. They wouldn’t be wanted criminals they’d be heros that could be hired to hunt down those responsible etc.

I will mention that I'm uncertain how well this would work in 2e since the wizard has to sustain the summoning spells so he couldn't have more then 2 elementals if I understand correctly. I haven't ran into anyone using summoned creatures in my 2e game yet so I'll let you check and figure out what you'd need to do.

Maybe I missed this but I have a question.

Where does your gods anathema fit on the codes of conduct? It seems like they would have to be included somehow. For example, what if a paladin of Shelyn where put in a situation where they had to lie to save a great historical piece of art? What takes priority? How about if an innocent would come to harm, what if the lawful authorities have decided it must be destroyed, etc.

Unless your gods anathema is included on the chart I’m still seeing plenty of “paladin falling” threads in the future.

I really like this blog post, there is lots of good information and I really like what you seem to be doing with spells. I do have 2 questions though. First, I don't understand why, under regeneration it doesn't simply read

Heightened (+2) Increase the regeneration by 5.

If spells only go through level 10 it wouldn't change anything and would seem to be more consistent with the other spells (well, based on my sample size of 3 spells anyway xP). Additionally, if there is any chance spells can go past tenth level, such as when characters go beyond 20th level (if that is possible, which I really hope it still is) then I think it would still scale fine and would be a nice option to have available should you even choose to use it.

The other question is simply is there any chance of getting a blog post on magical traditions, essences, and meta magic in the near future :)

Has anyone heard how a characters base attack bonuses work yet? I was thinking about it and how they are simplifying and streamlining rules where they can, such as merging several things under the feat umbrella, and it occurred to me that your base attack bonus represents nothing more than your skill with weapons.

With that in mind, will it work like other skills? Will everyone have the same bonus before modifying it with proficiencies, etc. (i.e. a base attack bonus equal to your level)? Would that be a bad thing if it does work like that?

I had a momentary, knee jerk reaction that I wouldn’t like it, but then I started warming up to the idea a little. I don’t believe that a character that does not invest in the appropriate feats, etc. will never be so good that overshadow one that did and allowing it could make for some interesting builds.

For example, a wizard that invested their skill feats in weapon proficiencies and took appropriate class feats could potentially make a good fighter/wizard or magus. What does everyone else think? Would it be too good if it did work like that, or would it just open up more possibilities for character builds?

As far as actually playing the game goes what I find fun is:

1) When I surprise the players, usually with a big reveal and they think it’s cool.
2) When the players surprise me by doing something clever or putting things together sooner then I thought they would.

Basically, as DM/GM I run the game and already know the area, encounters, NPC’s, story, etc. so the only thing that really makes it worth doing is seeing things unfold in unexpected ways and seeing the players having a great time.

Having said that I still prefer a 50/50 split between playing and running games, unfortunately it tends to be me running the game 90% of the time.

To be honest I'm not convinced there is a nice equation that describes the pattern of increase. Looking at the numbers and how it increases in an excel spreadsheet show some weird jumps where it either jumps up by a lot more then it was or even decreases how much experience is required for the next level.

It kind of feels like someone was playing with an equation but wanted the numbers to look nicer so they manually adjusted them for various reason such as wanting them to be rounded off nice after the increases, but then needed to pull the increase back into line after doing that.

Being a math person I'm curious myself, but at least initially looking at it I'm not convinced there is an equation that will do what you want. Maybe an equation with a list of rules... maybe.

@Shiroi:

Interjecting reality can be fun provided the group is OK with it and what is being interjected is, in fact some representation of reality. In the years I've been playing I've noticed when numbers start climbing it's good to convert those units into something we are more familiar with to gain a better perspective.

Having said all that, just so you know, 330 feet per 6 seconds is about 37.5 miles per hour, so a speeder chase it is not :)

Also for a little more perspective, when I googled it I found that most birds appear to typically fly in the 10~40 mile per hour range. Hope that helps.

Actually, I was going to agree with everyone else at first, but after thinking about it I’m not convinced that making someone forget something would be overstepping, it’s pretty close but it’s not necessarily an unreasonable suggestion. A person can absolutely make themselves forget something, ever heard of a suppressed memory? A better example is hypnotism where the hypnotist tells their “victim” upon awakening you won’t remember any of this and then they don’t. I frequently compare the suggestion spell to being hypnotized but being magical it’s faster and has a better chance of working.

Now with hypnotism it doesn’t always work, many people still remember what happened after “waking” from a suggestive state, and those that don’t usually regain their memory over a period of time, usually within a few hours if not a few minutes of being released from it. Also, it suppressing anything that affected a large span of time in a person’s life, like that they had a brother or sister, would fail, but I could see it temporarily causing them to forget something that just happened.

Naturally when the suggestion spell ended they’d remember again and act accordingly, but I think whether or not it works may be dependent on the GM’s discretion and what exactly you asked them to forget. Personally, as long as it was a recent event “just happened” and not terribly traumatic I think I’d allow it. Again, with the caveat that no matter how you worded it would not be permanent, it’d just last until the spells effect ended, so 1 hour / caster level.

There's a thing common to fantasy that irks me, but seems to be nearly unavoidable. It's the unrepeatable act.

…stuff…

I dislike these as well. In my games they do not exist. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t stories and such, but rather that the stories rarely tell everything. To use your own example, a story may tell of how Bess the Blacksmith acquired a great dragon's heart and used it to heat her forge and then forge a sword that was forever as hot as a dragon's fire, setting ablaze all it touches and granting its bearer immunity from all forms of fire.

However, it may have neglected to mention that she had been a master smith, that she had to make special preparations to prevent the forge it from literally going up in flames, that the sword she made represented an accumulation of work and experimentation with many failed attempts, that her final attempt taxed her so greatly she nearly died, and finally, in creating the blade so much magic and essence was drawn in from the heart itself that the forges magic was weakened to the point that a second such blade may have been impossible.

For the most part, it’d take some time to do between adventures, but if a PC wants to pursue such an activity in there off time, I let them. First they have to research the truths behind the legend and figure out how they are going to replicate the feat, they may even take an idea and decide to make something new or try to improve on the design, but they may also fail and need to try again several times before they achieve their goal depending on just what they are trying to do and how difficult it is.

******

Also if you are looking for direction I’d like to hear more about the martial arts. Being a martial artist I’m always interested in what others come up with, both the fluff and the mechanics.

@bigrig: I apologize, I misread your post, you meant that there was no specific rule to even override the general one. I read that as you saying that specific rules do not normally override general rules when they conflict. At the time I had not even formed a solid opinion one way or the other I just didn't agree with your argument... but then I didn't read it right either <sigh> *deletes needless paragraphs*

Now as to the actual rule and how it works. So far as I can tell I agree with everything Tyrannon said here:

"This rest is treated as 8 hours of sleep for such

abilities. This rest doesn't refresh uses of mythic power
or any mythic abilities that are limited to a number of
times per day."

In bold. Now, (to play devil's advocate), it does say it counts as 8 hours. Therefore, would that not mean, that since it

counts as counts as 8 hours, it overcomes the "You cannot regain spells you have cast within the last 8 hours."

If so, then the mythic point rest/ recovery counting as 8 hours of rest also clears as it would, by default rest rules

(correct me if I am wrong Rynjin [you do know your rules mate]) the 8 hour recent casting limit?

In italics: This, by RAI (to me only), seems to outline the limitation of the rest. Using my brain to make my mind up &

reading comprehension to understand the intent, this gives the guidelines on what is not covered. Which is anything based off

of Mythic power. Therefore, to me, it would potentially allow the recent casting limit to be overcome.

So to my mind the only real question is was it the intent to allow spell casters to overcome the spells per day barrier or not. That I'm less then certain of. I suspect that by RAW probably not but by RAI maybe. For me I'll probably allow it with my normal caveat which is that you can't sleep when you just aren't tired :)

Consequently, blowing your spells and trying to go back to bed an hour after you got up simply won't work. But that houserules territory so I won't bother going any further into that. I've most been following this thread because I have a group that is mythic tier 2 and wanted to have this fully thought out before they hit tier 3 :)

This power does not have words that say the specific overrides the general.

Therefore, it doesn't.

As far as I'm aware, any time their is a conflict specific rules always override general ones. It doesn't need to be explicitly called out over and over again. It may be nice when it does but it isn't necessary.

I understand how it could have been seen to be to powerful. The idea of some low level character defeating a T-rex single handedly was always weird. Yes I know GM's can avoid situations like that, but that does mean that the feat was fine as it was. I can avoid almost any situation and am more then capable of challenging any player I GM for. That doesn't mean everything in pathfinder is perfectly balanced does it?

Now having said that lets take a detailed look at crane wing.

Requirements:
- BAB +5 or monk level 5
- Dodge
- Improved unarmed strike
- Crane style
- Must have a hand free
- Must be fighting defensively or using total defense

Benefits if fighting defensively:
- gain a +4 AC bonus against a single attack that may or may not hit normally

or

Benefits if using total defense:
- block a single attack that would have hit
** "Hidden" cost - cannot attack that round or make any AoO

Out of curiosity, does anyone think that sounds worth taking? I have no problems with the idea that a change needed to be made but I respectfully disagree with the extent to which it was taken. Now I play a home game with house rules so I'll deal with it in my game however I see fit, but I thought I should express my opinion in the hopes that it will be changed to something that I will not feel the need to house rule.

I usually describe it as an highly interactive choose your own adventure where the players make choices bases on their characters capabilities and the game master describes the results of those choices, followed by some random example of play.

Though now I may also send those interested a link to this thread to see how other players describe it :)

hey, have you seen the "judo master" monk?...

No I haven't, I've seen ki throw used and thought a little about something similar but never fully pursued it, I'll have to look at and see how it shapes up if I can find it on the forums.

Also, Perfect Strike cannot be used with temple sword, so the final build that you posted has some issues, unless I am missing something.

*sigh*

It appears you are correct, I didn't realize they spelled out only specific monk weapons that it could be used with, that's disappointing.

warning minor rant:
so the weapon adept, an archetype that is supposed to be specifically focused or being good with monk weapons, can only be use perfect strike for five monk weapons? What's the point in that exactly, to give them an ability they can't use most of the time? Stunning fist would be better at least getting a ki focus weapon would let you use it with whatever you wielded.

I sincerely hope that was a mistake and someone meant for them to be able to at least use it with whatever weapon they used with way of the weapon master. *shakes head*
/rant

Well, my opinion of perfect strike not withstanding, I don't need to change much, they just can't use perfect strike with their temple sword. That does hurt but they are still effective. I do agree though a similar build made using the hungry ghost monk may be better... depends on what you want to play, ki mystic has some fun support options but can't be used with hungry ghost monk, so it'd be more of a damage dealer then a blend.

I'll have to think about that and tweak the guide a little. I am however going to wait and see if any other problem crop up first. I'd prefer to only have to fix it once. Particularly since I have to add a new link every time I do.

@Adokas: Well you never know, I could, and the description and reviews were interesting, but before I'd think about incorporating it I'd have to buy it, read it, play with some builds, and finally do a write up that would probably need a separate section since it's a 3rd party publisher.

So while it's possible it wouldn't be for some time if at all. It does look interesting though so maybe, but I don't know if and/or when I might do. Certainly no time soon, I have other things I need to be focusing on atm.

Actually I already had that as part of the guide though it'd have been nice to know about back when I made it originally xP

On a side note I also include the archetype combination possibilities for the racial archetypes in the advanced race guide which don't appear to be included in the threads you link.

Thank you though, maybe I'll look through it later to help me check to see if I made any mistakes on mine when I was doing.

Update

So I spent so time updating and adding a few things to my guide. It now includes the following in addition to what was there:

- a brief description of each race from the advanced race guide
- a look at the seven race specific monk archetypes
- four functional but not necessarily optimized example builds at the end
- a couple minor alterations to color coding after having play with some of the abilities some more.
- a slight change to the color coding format for races

since I don't know any way to preserve the old link here is a new link to the updated version of the guide.

As always, constructive opinions are welcome. Let me know if you disagree with anything and, more importantly, give reasons why so I can look it over and make changes if needed.

@ Durngrun Stonebreaker: Alright, I think I understand part of the problem, the way you run charm person seems odd to me. I think I get what you are trying to say but I don’t think I can agree with it and I suspect others feel the same way which is why so many people have a problem with what you are saying. Let me see if I can explain.

I just see it as sort of a magical lie. That's why there is a charisma check (to convince them to do something they normally wouldn't) instead if a bluff check. The spell is compelling the person to follow your commands, just making them more receptive to your requests.

First the charisma check is because you are not lying to them, you are trying to convince them to do something. If you do lie you will in fact need a bluff check as well. Also, if it is supposed to be some sort of magical lie it seems to me it should be a bluff check rather than using saving throws and charisma checks so I’m not sure I understand the first part of your argument.

Second, how does it make someone more receptive to your requests? To me this sounds like a drug impeding a person ability to think or reason somehow. I don’t understand how this would translate to the equivalent of a lie.

The lie in the case if Charm Person is the caster is your friend. In my games this is all that Charm Person does, magically convince that person the caster is their friend. Everything after that follows from that lie.

I don’t know about you but I’m fairly certain I couldn’t walk up to anyone, lie that I was there friend, and get them to just believe me and I would challenge even the best con artists out there to do it and be suddenly considered a person’s friend just the same as if they’d known them for years, they may be treated similarly, but to be truly considered the same as a real friend, I seriously doubt it. So once again I am back to seeing it as a drug rather than a lie. For me at least I just don’t see how it can be treated the same as a lie.

In short, the way I see it, you are magically altering an individual’s state of mind. A lie can be believed or not, a person has a choice. You are removing the ability for a person to even make that choice which basically strips them of a portion of their free will. I don’t really understand how you can think of it as a lie. Lies do not take away free will, drugs however can, which is why I believe this is far more similar to a drug then to a lie and consequently why I’m having difficulty seeing your argument that it could be merely the same as a lie.

In fact I'll even take things a step further and say that even if you are the best con artist on the planet and can in fact convince someone absolutely that you are their friend or even their very best friend it is still not the same thing. The end result may be the same, but one way you are taking away free will and the other way you are not. For me at least that distinction makes a tremendous difference.

Note that Flurry doesn't treat you as full BAB for attacks, just CMB. So it puts you behind on attacks from a normal monk.

Not sure what you are trying to say here. Yes you are correct, but if you chose to be a maneuver master you generally don’t want to be attacking normally or you’d have chosen a different archetype and when you do you can still mix attacks and the maneuvers from flurry of maneuvers which imo more than compensates for the loss. Did you mean that you felt it should be specifically noted under flurry of maneuvers?

I can do that, after the current semester is over I’m thinking about revisiting the monk guide and touching it up. At that time I will read through the comments and start tweaking the guide. I also would like to add the race specific archetypes from the advanced race guide.

Also you mention that you can use Reliable and Meditative Maneuver together, but you can't. They both take a swift action.

Ouch that’s disappointing… I have always played that you could trade a standard action for a move action or a move action for a swift action but apparently that’s not the case. That was not meant to be a house rule but I’ve played that way so long I think I’ll have to add it now. Will plan to fix it in my future update. Let me know if you spotted anything else and check back around New Year’s hopefully I’ll have a link to a revised version.

*****

There are several other responses above I haven’t had time to read but I will in the future, I have both school and work so I really haven’t had time to do anything but when the semesters over I’ll be revisiting this thread and looking to do a fresh update on my guide so if anyone has any corrections or suggestions let me know and hopefully I’ll have an updated version ready for New Year’s, at least that’s my goal.

Well, I believe things should make sense so I’m normally alright making judgment calls like this or playing with others that do. However, in this case I have two problems. First, any time I make such a call I always allow the player(s) to change their action. This is only fair since they have a right to expect things to more or less follow RAW unless informed otherwise ahead of time. I’d like to have everything in house rules but that simply isn’t realistic. There will always be occasions that you didn’t think of so you have to be able to deal with them and move on.

Having said that, your GM seems confused. The way he envisions a wyvern isn’t accurate. First, a wyvern is only 8 feet tall, the other 8 feet is just tail, and it’s entirely possible to wrestle and pin someone that big, very difficult of course, but still possible, so you should definitely have been able to pin a wing and ground him or at least severely restrict its movement. Having it do nothing was not only a blatant disregard for RAW but also how things should have worked.

Second 120 feet per round is all of about 14 miles per hour… uh, yea that wouldn’t have impeded you at all, especially when you can move at nearly 23 miles per hour yourself.

So in any case, as a GM I’d probably have kept to the RAW on this one, though I may have said you couldn’t completely pin it. Still it wouldn’t have been going anywhere fast. Now having said that, as a player I’d have politely objected and give my reasons why and, if he still kept to his ruling which did not follow RAW and was not at all what I expected, asked to change my action. Then I’d have argued more after the game once I figured out things like its actual size and speed in hopes or reversing any future ruling to that effect.

I’m going to expand on my answer a bit. As far as I am aware there is no single spell or ability that would allow it though it may be possible to boost a spell high enough I'm not sure. Having said that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Now several people have mentioned GM fiat. That’s essentially true since they’d have to say whether or not your idea would or could work. However, I dislike that phrase since it tends to be referring to a GM ignoring existing rules or doing something that makes no sense other then it’s what they decided would happen.

This isn’t exactly that kind of situation. There are perfectly valid, albeit powerful spells that could conceivably work but if and how it would work is something the GM will have to ultimately say. Much like a character spontaneously wanting to swing from a chandelier during a bar fight. You should be able to try it, but the GM has to decide if it’s possible, for example can the chandelier support your weight to start with, and if so what are the mechanics, skill checks, etc. that will be involved.

My suggestion would be talk to the GM and simply ask if something like a wish/miracle in conjunction with a true resurrection could work or if, using a skill like knowledge (arcana), you could figure out what might. Perhaps he’ll decide that a wish could tie several resurrection spells together and as long as you have enough total caster levels to reach 1,000 years back. Or maybe he’ll make a judgment call and veto it altogether. Ultimately however I believe you are going to have to take it up with your GM.

Oh and also their actually may be several ways to do it depending on what's allowed, such as using various 3rd party material, but I'm keeping away from that at the moment since idk what's allowed.

Sure, it's ultimately up to the GM as to whether or not it would work but personally I would allow a carefully worded wish or miracle used in conjunction with true resurrection to work without any problem... provided that the person being rezzed want to return that is.

That last part would be a pretty big catch. After being in the afterlife for 1,000 years who'd want to come back? Unless their afterlife has been horrible for some reason they aren't likely to have any reason to return.

At 1st level, 2nd level, and every four levels thereafter, a master of many styles may select a bonus style feat or the Elemental Fist feat

This part means that you may select a style feat such as snake style or grab the elemental fist feat without paying any attention to their requirements. It does not let you grab someting like snake fang without having it's requirements, that'll come later... sort of.

He does not have to meet the prerequisites of that feat, except the Elemental Fist feat.

This means that the only prerequisite you must meet is the Elemental Fist feat. So, for example, if you want to take djinn style you must have grabbed the elemental fist feat first. It does NOT mean you have to meet any of the prerequisites for elemental fist.

Alternatively, a master of many styles may choose a feat in that style’s feat path (such as Earth Child Topple) as one of these bonus feats if he already has the appropriate style feat (such as Earth Child Style). The master of many styles does not need to meet any other prerequisite of the feat in the style’s feat path

Finally this means that a master of many styles may ignore any of the prerequisites of a feat in a styles path provided that he has learned the appropriate style first.

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So at 1st level you could take the snake style as a bonus feat and at 2nd level you could grab snake fang as a bonus feat, but you could not take them both at 1st level since you only have one bonus feat.

Alternitively you could start with your other class, grab two levels placing 2 points in sense motive, and then level dip grabbing snake style as your normal feat and snake fang as your bonus feat. That way you can avoid taking more then a 1 level dip in MoMS if that's what you want.

Explosive decompression causes him to take 3d6 hp damage (no save) on the first round of exposure. (This is taken from Distant Worlds.)

I’d probably allow a reflex save for half myself. I would think that if a character immediately expels the air from their lungs they should take little or no damage. The reason for reflex rather than fortitude is that it’s a question of how fast you react and exhale rather than physical endurance.

There is no air to breathe but he can hold his breath for (Constitution score x2) rounds.

As you mention a little later I’d definitely reduce this to their constitution score in rounds rather than double that. Without air in their lungs they definitely shouldn’t be able to hold their breath as long.

I like your idea to let them hold their breath normally and take explosive decompression damage each round. If you do that I wouldn’t allow any save for half damage since their choosing not to exhale. However I think I’d force a fortitude save each round to determine if they are able to keep holding their breath.

Sound does not travel, so V component spells could be hard to cast (if not impossible)

I’d lose the ambiguity, spells with V components would definitely be impossible to cast. A silence spell is much nicer to a person and still prevents them. Also remember that anyone trying to hold their breath normally will be taking constant damage and require concentration checks to cast anything.

One could also argue for the Staggered condition, possibly as a result of the explosive decompression.

Perhaps anyone taking damage from explosive decompression gains the staggered condition for one round? Not as sure about this but it sounds like a reasonable rule.

i could write it in monkey blood i guess. but we have no way to collect any wood, short of deadfall. That and it seems we managed to get nabbed again.

Well it doesn't have to be wood either, but the idea is there, wood was just something that is tends to be readily available. I'm curious where are you now that you can't find any wood? A daggers all you'd need to "collect" some provided their is a tree in the area.

Of course the blood skin and bone of your enemies would work too but that seems a bit morbid... but hey, if it's all you got >:)

But then if you just got caught again you may have to wait a bit but I'd keep it mind.

yea... something like that, shoulda been said at the get go. i've played nerfed char, so i dont mind too much, assuming eventually i'll get access to paper, so i can write my memorized spells down so i can use them more than once.

Just curious… who says you have to use a book or paper? Why can’t you grab some wood, a dagger, and carefully etch your “spell book” using makeshift components? Granted the cost would still have to be the same. Perhaps you would need to treat the wood or some such but for 40 gold worth of components is there any reason why you couldn’t create a makeshift book in the interim?

I have always been under the impression there would be nothing wrong with this, spell books are simply used because they are more convenient but with only 4 spells using 4 good quality boards cut to the right size should work fine. Certainly I allow my players to do so if they need or desire to. Or would that be a house rule? (And if it is maybe you should still ask your GM about it they might agree)

Well, for my dream game room, it’d do something along the lines of the following:

A spacious room with a nice thick carpet on the floor, a dimmer switch to adjust the lighting as desired, and several outlets for laptops and the like.

In the center, a solid hard wood rectangular table that has plenty of room for everyone and comfortable chairs.

Along the outer wall, waist high bookshelves running the length filled with all the appropriate books with a large tinted window that has a nice view and a thick curtain that can cut off all nearly all the light from the window when closed.

Along the inner wall, the door people come in and a large white board with dry erase markers, erasers, and magnetic clips for maps, etc.

Along the DM’s side, a projector in the corner, and a walk in closet with materials, minis, flip mats, etc. that are nice to have on hand but not necessarily always out.

Finally, along the wall opposite the GM, a mini fridge and small table for drinks, snacks, and other goodies, like pizza, maybe even a small microwave for reheating the pizza later in the evening.

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Not that I’ve ever thought of this before of course, this is all just off the top of my head and all *cough* ;P

As for where I actually play, in the past it’s been the living room or dining room, usually at someone else’s house or my room on my computer when playing online with some of my friends who have moved away, assuming we can get our schedules to match up.

Well several good possibilities have been stated already but if you just feel the need to be able to defend it by RAW refer to this thread and keep in mind that everything stated would apply to a spell like raise dead as well.

Just decide if you should make it, and thus her, a little higher level, modify the spell in some way, or leave the sorcerer version the same as the cleric equivalent.

Okay, let's back up a little bit because people still aren't able to explain, in game mechanics terms, why the +5,000gp cost for raise dead is appropriate.

Umm… I’m pretty sure I did. Though you may disagree with me.

So let's slightly alter the question:

Why is the cost for raise dead 5,000 gp? Why isn't it 100 gp, 1,000 gp, 7,350 gp, 10,000 gp, or 20,000 gp? Why is 5,000 gp the appropriate additional M cost for this spell?

For the same reason restoration costs 100 gold when used normally or 1,000 gold when used to remove a permanent energy level. Because whoever wrote it at the time felt that that amount would bring it in line with the power level it was set at. I’m not saying I agree with the cost. In fact, I think if it were reduced I'd be perfectly happy with the change and might even prefer it, but in any case I’d bet that’s why it’s written how it is.

I also agree that there may be other ways to alter the spell and remove the cost but I’m not sure how I’d handle it or if it’s needed.

And why is raise dead so costly but teleport and plane shift are not? They're all the same spell level.

But raise dead does more then either teleport or planeshift. I see the cost as the balancing factor. You made a statement ealier…

It is literally easier and less expensive to instantly transport eight people to the outer plane where your dead friend's soul is than to call that dead friend's soul back into its natural body. That doesn't make sense to me from a game mechanics standpoint.

At first as was floored, I thought, he’s right if you can cast a spell and go straight to your friends soul the reverse should be any harder. Then I realized that’s not quite right. Yes, you can go to that plane but once you get there you’d have to use a divination spell like scrying to locate your friend, followed by either some overland travel or a teleport spell to reach them.

So raise dead essentially locates the soul on another plane, planeshifts it to your currently plane, teleports it to the body, and then brings the person back to life. Ya, I’m ok with the gold cost now.

Earlier you stated…

Either raise dead is on par with other 5th-level spells, or it isn't. If it is, it doesn't need a costly material component. If it isn't, then it shouldn't be a 5th-level spell.

I suppose my response would be that it is, in fact, more powerful then other 5th level spells. But as to removing it I disagree. First, as you pointed out some nasty spells like disintegrate become available and a single bad save can ruin a Players day. I believe their needs to be a way to undo the problems that can occur when the dice gods frown on you. The 5,000 gold piece cost is there to justify making such a powerful spell 5th level.

Secondly, on the fluff side, it makes sense that someone could have reasonably found out a way to cast a more powerful spell by using pricey components that a higher-level spell simply wouldn’t need. And if you existed in such a world and possessed the skill wouldn’t you want such a spell available to you even if it was costly to use?

Having said that I agree with a lot of what has been said and would like really like to see the resurrect spell have the option to use it as a normal raise dead spell without the any material component. I believe I will add that into my games from here on. I may also extend breath of life’s “resurrection” window a little too, possibly to a flat two rounds to allow some breathing room, or perhaps to something like 1 round per 2 caster levels. I’ll have to think about it.

Unintentional bad pun there but I’ll keep it cause it made me chuckle.

Incidentally this is one of the most interesting debates I’ve read in a while :)

If your DM’s allows a minor overhaul swap your intelligence and strength and then apply reduce your wisdom by two (I’m guessing you have 2 points their from leveling but maybe not) and increase your strength to an 18. This will help your attack rolls considerably.

Next I’d look into attribute-enhancing items. Monks can benefit significantly through them and the more you enhance your attributes the stronger you’ll be. Again, make sure strength is boosted if you can but don’t neglect the others. If possible boost all your physical stats and your wisdom.

I would also suggest retraining Djinni style and taking Marid spirit instead and continuing with Marid coldsnap later down the line. Potentially entangling your target is nice and increases the chance that the following attacks will then hit, you can always be using marid style gaining the benefits such as cold resistance and reach. Later when you get whirlwind attack you’ll be able to make a single attack against every opponent within reach (10 feet when using Marid style) which could be fun if you still want to go that route.

Finally, if are allowed to do a little rebuilding and you get your strength up ditch weapon finesse since it’ll be useless. Instead I’d suggest either deep drinker for the extra ki during combat or spring attack to get closer to your goal of getting whirlwind attack.

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If you can’t fix your monk or would rather not I’d suggest a ranger. It can be good in melee, has decent saves, plenty of skill points to play with, and I just think they are a fun class to play, of course they can all be fun but we each have our favorites :)

In my personal opinion there really isn’t any clear distinction between the two. The characters a GM creates are simply other characters in a story. Flushing them out simply makes for a better more vibrant story with a world that has more depth to it. I have been GMing over 20 years and work in much the same way, in act based strictly off of what you’ve said in this thread I’d say we have very similar style. Now if I were to define a GMPC as a separate thing I would say that they are characters that have a fully flushed out character sheet AND that have become part of the PC group that adventures together.

As far as warning signs go, I have to say, no they are not any kind of a warning sign. GMPC’s, as I'm defining them, are merely another tool in the GM tool belt. They can be used to flush out an incomplete party in small groups of people, to provide abilities that the party current lack so that they can face an upcoming challenge, or even as simply a way to nudge the party in the right direction or create a greater degree of interactivity between party members and add more role-playing opportunities.

That said, they are a tool that can be easily mishandled. While there is nothing inherently wrong with using them in the story or even having one of them take center stage for a bit, as with any good novel or movie, it’s important to make sure that these occurrences are brief and have a reason to occur within your story. The player’s characters, and not your NPC’s, GMPC’s, or whatever, are the main characters in the story and other characters (of any type) should not overshadow them.

Basically, the danger comes from those GM’s that stop making the story about the player’s characters and the decisions they make. If this happens, most players are likely to start feeling like they are just along for the ride and that can kill a game. But as long as everyone’s having a ball playing and likes were the game is going you shouldn’t concern yourself with the opinions of others.

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Having said that, keep in mind that as you can see on this thread, there is no clear definition of what a GMPC is. In fact I almost started arguing with Evil Lincoln after reading his first post but after reading the rest I realized our only real difference of opinion was in our definitions. It’s not in any dictionary that I’m aware off and while definitions of different individuals are often similar, a small difference can lead to a large misunderstanding. This is likely why in some threads you can see such different opinions on them.

Help me understand what it is about these rules that is going to "fix" high level play. By my understanding, the game breaks down severely beyond 12th level (give or take a couple of levels, depending on who you ask). If mythic levels are taken alongside normal class levels (gestalt style?) and that increases the APL of the PCs, how is this patching that issue up?

Well, the way I understand it, and mind you this is just a guess based on everything I’ve been reading on these boards, it will help by allowing lower level characters to fight higher level opponents. This allows a GM to play with a group that say, doesn’t have teleport yet despite being the equivalent of 12th level characters (8 class levels plus 4 mythic levels).

The powers granted, and again this is just speculation, seem to be geared towards strong abilities that give characters fun things they can do without necessarily opening up the harder to deal with abilities such as teleportation and scrying (or at least not till they’d have it anyway through class levels). While a character still eventually gains these abilities, the creatures they are fighting will be considerably higher level by the time they have access to them and thus it’s easier for a GM to adjust, creature will have more options to thwart them, etc.

Again this is all speculation at this point, I’m really hoping one of the developers will hop on now that the weekend over and tell us everything that was said so we can get a better idea of how it all is suppose to work. I’m in the group that thinks it could be good or bad, it remains to be seen. That said, paizo has a pretty good track record so I’m cautiously optimistic and crossing my fingers.

I think the problem I was trying to articulate (and rolled a natural 1 on that attempt) is that, if these problems are perceived by so many already then adding such high numbers to the game at any level only serves to make it worse. On the surface anyway.

I mean, 3d6+wtf cure light wounds spells (I think I read this on the first page of the thread)? That's a ridiculous jump.

As for the powerful cure light wounds, remember the lower level characters wouldn't have access to higher level magic so the magic they did have would need a strong enough boost to compensate. After all my understanding is that the mythic levels grant hit points etc too so your lower level healing spells would need the boost to keep the party healed.

You will probably want to add a little more fluff to a few of the abilities but hopefully this works well for you.

I played with your idea and added another possibility, hope you like them :)

This amuses me. I have always enjoyed interesting and different ideas provided they are implemented well. May I make some suggestions/alteration? Never mind, I’m going to regardless ;P

The following are your ideas but with some changes to each, use anything you like and don’t if you don’t. I’m just having fun thinking about how I might use your idea should I even choose to xP

Ok, I may have overdid a little. These are, I think, a little stronger then you intended. But hey, I was having fun xP

As far as mastery and how that’s attained, if you like the idea I’ll leave it up to you. The idea of story driven abilities made me think it’d be fun if, at higher levels, when the abilities weren’t all that powerful anymore they could get a nice power boost. Hopefully you find some of this useful/usable but either way it entertained me for a while and that’s what’s important right? ;P

I have just found, Yet again anecdotal evidence, that area of effect heals are seriously lacking in power by the time you get them.

For example:
Healing math

This means that the only times the Cure XXX, mass heals do not outpace an average damage fireball ever for single target.

It also means that that they under the old rules average less than half of an at CR monsters average damage.

In my opinion that makes them completely worthless, as why should you have to blow an 8th level spell slot to "mostly" undo what a 3rd level spell can do?

How are you getting from point A to point B here? I agree with you that the healing spells could use a bump in power and never argued that, the point I was trying to make is you are close to giving them to big of a boost in power.

Using only your rules for enhancing cure spells works quite nicely, if you stop there. As I said above the cure light wounds, mass spell would heal 1d8+18 for an average of 22 health per person using just this enhancement and nothing else. This means it would undo most of the damage with a single casting even if everyone failed their save. And those that made their save would be healed for all of damage taken. And this is a 5th level spell, not 8th level one.

Also you aren’t taking into account resistances and abilities like evasion and improved evasion that can seriously hurt the ability for AoE spells to do damage in the first place but have no affect on the players that are being healed. In actual play 22 points per character is good and probably will eliminate the vast majority of the damage dealt by a typical fireball. With your cure critical wounds, mass spell at 5th level you could likely ignore the damage for 2 fireballs without any difficulty and this is simply too much in my opinion.

You seem to have this idea that mass cure spells should be able to at least equal the damage being dealt to the party and that line of thought goes to a bad place, I’ve been their. It’s a world were instead of fighting and defeating the enemy you simply outlast them… whoever runs out of healing first losses. I did not find that particularly fun. Healing spells should be weaker then the damage spells of the same level or the party will fight one fight and if the enemy has even decent healing, win through attrition, and then rest cause their low on healing magic. I can’t reiterate enough I have both been in and ran games were healing was made too powerful and it did not go well. Combat can get ridiculously long, many good tactics are rendered pointless, and the combat itself just stops being fun.

The Aoe numbers look great, however if you ever need to heal more than 4-5 people at a time your party is seriously bloated. This does not mean badwrongfun, it simply means that according to normal average party size you will never reach anywhere near your max number of targets.

Umm... I’m guessing you are again taking about without the changes to cure spells because in my post above I already showed that it only 2 to or 3 party members being healed will net you more healing then even the single target heal spell. Also, 4-5 people does not mean your party is seriously bloated a standard group is assumed to have 4 people and I find most groups have a mount, animal companion, or other creature such as an eidolon. So a normal sized party can often end up with 4-6 members.

More importantly there are a number of situations that you can really get some mileage out of the mass cure spells. Have you never defended an inn, keep, or castle against opponent were their were NPC’s around that could greatly benefit from the healing? How about fighting in a war against an opposing army? I’ve done both, more then once, and while the situations may not be common they aren’t all that rare either… at least they haven’t been for me. Remember the spell doesn’t have to only target party members. Oh, I can’t believe I almost forgot an example… How about when you are fighting undead? Heal the whole party and deal some damage to the enemy at the same time. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a campaign were undead were not encountered.

Anyway I apologize if any of this sounds argumentative. It’s hard to tell on the Internet sometimes. I like playing with house rules and have played with healing spells myself. A little improvement is good but I found the long drawn out battles that result from over doing simply aren’t any fun and I’m hoping you can learn from my mistakes :)

1) Healing changes

I agree that cure spells tend to be lacking and need enhanced but would simplify your changes to them to just; all cure spells have the bonus healing due to the characters level doubled.

I’m not sure why you think mass cure spells are a trap you can try and say that they don’t heal as well but that’s not accurate. How much net healing you can gain is considerably higher. For example at 9th level a cleric has both critical and cure light wounds, mass. Cure critical would heal 4d8+18 for an average of 36 hit points, while the cure light wounds, mass spell would heal 1d8+18 for an average of 22 health per person. Heal just two characters and you net an average or 44 hit points worth of healing and, theoretically, you can heal up to 9 for an average or 198 hit points worth of healing. Now I’ll grant you that a situation like that will rarely happen but still healing 2 or 3 party members at once and from a distance without having to take attacks of opportunity etc is pretty nice, I certainly wouldn’t call it a trap.

As for heal, I believe most people will agree that it’s one of the most powerful healing spells in the game and probably over powered for its level. That said, I would personally just lower the healing to 7 hit points per caster level and leave the rest alone. I think that would be sufficient to bring it down to a more appropriate power level.

For a comparison consider heal and cure moderate wounds, mass both gained by a cleric at 11th level. Heal would allow a single target the cleric touches to be healed for 77 hit points and remove an array of different effects from them. Cure moderate wounds, mass wound heal 2d8+22 for an average of 31 health per person affected but could heal the entire party simultaneously granting a net healing from 31 to 124 depending on the number of party members effected. This healing could be done from 50 feet away without endangering the cleric and could heal for significantly more if there are more characters in the party or if NPC’s, animal companions, etc, around that need healing as well.

2) I require from my players a written background, of at least one paragraph.

Sounds good to me.

3) I have banned leadership and antagonize. (I hate these feats, I may be wrong.)

I see no problems with this… and you can’t be wrong, it’s your opinion and you have a right to it.

4) I have removed the faction requirements for "Master Performer and Grand Master Performer."

Not sure where these are from so I have no opinion.

5) I require all players that choose to play paladins to sit down with me and hammer out the details for their particular paladin’s code before play starts.

Sounds good. In my opinion paladins are always need a sit down with the GM to be sure you’re both on the same page as to how they should behave and what acceptable.

6) Magic item creation and use changes

Not sure about your reasoning here. You say quote realism as being one reason you did. That way you don’t have to mysteriously arrange for an enemy to just happen to drop a certain magic item… except what the chance a person is going to be walking around with unused imbues? Seems awfully unlikely to me unless they happen to be an enchanter. Honestly I’d consider a different approach.

Perhaps allow skilled artificers to swap permanent enchantments for a fee. That way if you find a flame sword you can have it added to your +3 axe and either loss a bonus to the axe and pay a small fee or add both together and add a significantly larger fee. Something along these lines would probably be more realistic then a bunch of enemies that got imbues but never actually got around to using them.

7) Players need to fill out the following questionnaire. Vague answers are ok, this is just to get the player involved with the character as a person rather than a collection of stats.

I would divide it into 2 parts, physical description where all of the “questions” must be answered, and the other half where I’d ask for something like answer any 5 of the following 10+ questions. That way theirs some wiggle room. I for one enjoy developing my characters but never do it all at once. I get ideas that I use for starting points and then flush them out more as I play. So a detailed, or large questionnaire, would bother me quite a bit since you wouldn’t have given me the time I need to “feel out” my character.

8) I give one free Hero point to anyone who fills out the questionnaire and then types a back story that is at least one page double spaced size 12 times new roman font.

I see no problems with that. Can I assume you still get this upon completion even if you don’t get everything filled out until several sessions in? As I mentioned above I doubt I’d be done on day 1 and would be irritated if I were penalized for taking a few game sessions to get a good feel for my character.

While your system my be forgiving there are a number of situations that can arise that can make retrieving a body within the specified time impossible, if it can be done at all. Since the consequence of this if permanent character death I would rather not play with those rules myself. A few examples include falling of a cliff, falling into a pit of lava, being completely disintegrated, teleported into a trap, or plane shifted to a hostile environment.

The main problem I see is that as characters get higher and higher level the chance for something like this happening to them continues to increase. If I played a character to, let’s say 15th level, and then got plane shifted to the plane of fire by a prismatic spray and died permanently as a result, I would not be happy. The longer you play a character the more you tend to get attached to them (in my experience anyway). Normally, high levels means you can usually recover a lost character but with these rules it just means a higher chance for permanent death.

Personally my preference would be to switch your minutes to rounds to add a sense of urgency in combat to hurry and heal a fallen comrade and then make the resurrection type spells more costly, possibly even requiring a successful save to be brought back to life with a DC the increases the longer you have been dead. That way high-level characters aren’t killed permanently due to a bad die roll in an unfortunate situation.

Another way to speed things up is to share NPC's AC with the players, this is one less piece of information that has to go back and forth between you and the players.

I do that as well, though I never give the information until after a player has committed to attacking them. My players sometimes ask questions like, "I'll attack the golem with my longsword, what's it's AC?" I find it's easier to let them know then to have to figure out which attacks hit and which don't by asking me each time.

Revel wrote:

Group initiative - everyone rolls normally to start things off but I always do all of the enemies together and once they have gone it simply cycles back and forth between the party and the enemies with the party going as a group without regard for the order in which they rolled initiative. That way you simply go with whoever is ready and keep the game moving.

I was very excited to try this method, but in practice I don't think it worked out for me. The players ended up discussing who should act first, and it became harder for me to track who had acted vs. who had not.

Am I missing something that makes this technique work? Or is it just not for me?

I can see how it could be problematic if you and your group aren’t used to group initiative but I’ve found the solutions for those two particular problems, both are fairly simple and have worked well for me for many years.

First, inform your group that you’ll be using group initiative and that they are welcome to collaborate and strategize with one another… However, and this is very important, when you ask “Who’s ready?” you expect someone to step up and take their turn. If no one does you can and will skip the players turn and they can try again during the next round.

Then when it’s the parties turn give them a brief moment (how brief is entirely up to you) and then ask who’s going. If no one steps up to go simply say the following: “Well, if no one’s ready I’m going to go ahead and go again, anyone?” I don’t think I have ever needed to skip the players’ turn to get them moving and once a group gets used to it you only have to ask that question once in a while to get things moving. Usually, if you do, it’s because things are not going well and they’re uncertain how to salvage a bad situation. If your feeling generous, give them a little extra time to strategize otherwise repeat the statement mentioned above.

As for tracking who’s gone… don’t. If you know everyone’s gone great start the creatures turn. But if you aren’t 100% simply ask “Is that everyone?” If your group says yes, or if no one responds, go ahead and go. It isn’t your responsibility to ensure that they have gone it’s theirs and if they aren’t paying attention and haven’t gone they lose out.

To sum it up, you are giving the players the opportunity to work together and strategize but in return you expect them to be prompt and take responsibility for whether or not they have gone. I’ve been using this for many years and never had any real problems. Once in a while I have to give a warning that I’m going to go if someone doesn’t step up and start their turn but so far I’ve never had to actually had to actually skip the whole group. That said, I have on rare occasion skipped a player that was to busy talking or otherwise not paying attention when I asked if that was everyone was done. But they know that’s their responsibility and I’ve never had any arguments from my players about it, at most they look sheepish and that doesn’t generally happen again for quite some time.

Anyway, hopefully that helps, if not perhaps it’s not for you. Though if you haven’t tried the things I mentioned above I’d give it another try before deciding, expect it to take a session or two for everyone to get used to it, but probably no longer then that, good luck.

edit: added the quote I was replying to xP

Would they still try and alter animals around giving them different traits to enhance them?

I’d say it’d depend on their alignment. A good druid would be more prone to protect or relocate existing aberrations in an attempt to give them a chance to shine. An evil druid might have no problems experimenting and trying to help nature along, so to speak. A neutral druid could go either way but wouldn’t want to risk hurting the animals or plants he wanted to modify and would want to be sure he wasn’t doing more harm then good so it’d take him longer if he did at all. At least those are my views on it.

If in fact it was a Alien druid what might his wildshape be and animal companion options be.

Most likely those abilities would replicate natural creatures from the world/plane that he originates from. You’d have to have an idea what those would be first of course which would probably take a bit of work. To simplify you might try creating a template and say that for the most part similar creatures exist but have the template applied to them then fluff the appearance a bit and your good to go. If you try something like that don’t forget that the template shouldn't really make the creatures stronger just different. Otherwise the entire power would need to be rebalanced.

Aberrations don't have to have anything to do with dungeons. Here’s one way you could play it…

Druids that command aberrations view them as simply a step in the evolutionary chain that may or may not become the norm depending on how successful they are, how many others are born with the aberration, and blind luck.

Say a fish is born with gills that allow it to walk on land, albeit in a limited fashion. None of the other fish can, obviously this fish is an aberration to the norm. But its ability allows it to forage for food where other fish can’t and escape purely aquatic predators. It manages to not only survive but also thrive and has young that inherit the same ability. Years later it’s now a new species of fish.

An aberration oriented druid looks for creatures that are unique or have unique traits and tries to give them the chance to shine, grow, and thrive without being done in by some random misfortune thereby allowing nature to grow, adapt, and strengthen more rapidly.

Short version: They are about evolution.