Roberta Yang's page

Use Crane Wing as printed in your physical book and ignore any nonsense errata someone might have made in a drunken rage.

Let's hope the Pathfinder Society Field Guide never gets reprinted. A useful fighter archetype? Inconceivable!

At 3rd level, a lore warden chooses a combat maneuver. He gains a +1 bonus on all CMB checks made to use that combat maneuver and to his CMD against that combat maneuver. Every four levels thereafter, he chooses an additional, different type of combat maneuver and extends this +1 bonus to maneuvers of that type.

This ability replaces armor training 1, 2, 3, and 4.

The bookkeeping for History of Scars is a pain but at least you're probably taking a lot of damage naturally over time anyhow. The converse feat, Healer's Touch, is unbearable though:

Prerequisites: Cure a cumulative total of 1,000 points of damage for other creatures using healing spells. Dealing damage slows progress toward this goal achievement; for every 1 point of damage you deal to another creature, reduce your cumulative healing total by 2.

Benefit: When you cast a healing spell to heal a target other than yourself, the spell is maximized as though using the Maximize Spell effect. This does not increase your casting time for the spell. When you cast a healing spell to damage a target, the spell is not maximized but its saving throw DC increases by +4.

You need to be specifically using your spells (instead of channel energy) for healing, so your spell slots are being used on cures instead of other spells... but you also can't hit anything for damage, so you can't contribute that way either. And unlike History of Scars, you can't ignore the drawback because the ratio is against you instead of in your favor.

The result is that merely wanting to take this feat forces you into a very strict and boring healbot role for multiple levels, complete with heavy bookkeeping for extra aggravation.

Achievements like this are a really stupid idea and I have no idea why Paizo keeps trying to bring them back every couple of years.

While I'm generally on board with the arguments about the rogue being underpowered, it seems clear that Trap Finder is a campaign trait and outside the context of Mummy's Mask, we shouldn't be assuming it will be available. The blurb on the store page for People of the Sands even uses the words "campaign traits".

Campaign traits aren't restricted to the associated campaign, they're just tailored to particularly suit it.

Semi-related question: Would it still break Invisibility if you failed the caster level check to actually dispel any effects?

The text of Invisibility wrote:

For purposes of this spell, an attack includes any spell targeting a foe or whose area or effect includes a foe.

It's such a small amount of damage that I doubt it would make much difference.

For purposes of this spell, an attack includes any spell targeting a foe or whose area or effect includes a foe.

Are rogues cheaper than other classes? Did rangers and bards become paid DLC at some point?

I'd totally use a rogue in this game type that bears zero resemblance to anything that could ever appear in PFS. What's that? A vivisectionist? Don't be ridiculous, those aren't allowed in PFS so they don't count!

So in a set of circumstances where the character in question has to infiltrate a social party, inside an anti-magic field of some kind, sneakily sneak himself away, find and disable various traps, which are magical since he needs to justify Trap Finding, and subdue mooks that are just strong enough that a normal attack won't kill them but just weak enough that a sneak attack will... The rogue might be the right class for the job.

As long as the GM is enforcing PFS rules.

That's not really a particularly strong argument for the rogue.

Conversely I could argue that the Life Oracle is an excellent damage dealer - as long as he only fights undead, which are all low level, and attack in giant packs, and have taken commoner hostages that are interspersed within the giant packs of undead and would die instantly to any traditional aoe attack.

The rogue also needs to be high enough level for Trapfinding to even be usable. The weakest magical traps have DC26 to spot and DC26 to disarm, and failing the disarm check by 5 makes it blow up in your face. At low levels you're as likely to set off the trap as you are to actually disarm it.

We also need to not use traits (so nobody else can pick up Trapfinding or a couple of class skills) and ban the Silent Spell feat.

An Inquisitor with the Conversion inquisition gets to use Wis instead of Cha for several Cha skills, which makes for a good face.

Bards can absolutely keep up with everyone else in combat, especially in a party like yours with multiple other martials.

Summoners are quite fiddly and tend to outshine other players, especially new players.

For your other undecided players, I'd recommend barbarian over monk and paladin over fighter. Fighters are a serious one-trick pony class where the "trick" is "I get +1's to hitting people with one specific type of weapon", and Monks fall behind in power quickly unless you minmax the hell out of them with several non-core sources.

No no you see rogues are the only class that can use stealth nobody else is allowed to do that!

But a smart fighter is also a trope

Tell that to Paizo. Maybe they'll try supporting it at some point.

.... no one ever writes a good story about the guy with the 10 int and strength and his average day at an average job.

Try reading a book that doesn't have a half-elf wizard on the cover.

What ability score governs the ability to love?

Dexterity and Constitution.

It all makes sense now

Roberta Yang wrote:

Marthkus wrote:

Likewise though dumping down to 7 is silly and reprehensible.

Tell me more about the morality of having a below-average stat in an elfgame

Hrm.

Taking a course of actions precludes the ability to take alternate courses of action. Given than there are untold numbers of potential actions you exclude when taking any action, and the likelihood of one of (or many of) those not taken actions to lead to better results and greater overall happiness, then it can be assumed that in all likelihood any action taken is not the maximally good option, and if morality is defined as choosing the best possible action which achieve the greatest good, then all actions are morally wrong, in all likelihood.

Or some such nonsense.

Are you actually a computer mainframe from a 70s b-movie that gained sentience

Likewise though dumping down to 7 is silly and reprehensible.

Tell me more about the morality of having a below-average stat in an elfgame

Are characters not limited to one AoO per opponent per round in Pathfinder? The wording of the FAQ question that Roberta linked and the ensuing discussion seem to imply that one could have two AoO's against the same opponent if they had both Greater Trip and Vicious Stomp. Did AoO's change that significantly from 3.5 to PF or have I misunderstood the discussion?

The limit you're probably thinking of is that even with Combat Reflexes you can only make an AoO against the same opponent once per round for moving out of a threatened square:

Combat Reflexes and Additional Attacks of Opportunity

If you have the Combat Reflexes feat, you can add your Dexterity modifier to the number of attacks of opportunity you can make in a round. This feat does not let you make more than one attack for a given opportunity, but if the same opponent provokes two attacks of opportunity from you, you could make two separate attacks of opportunity (since each one represents a different opportunity). Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn't count as more than one opportunity for that opponent. All these attacks are at your full normal attack bonus.

This does not apply to Vicious Stomp and Greater Trip, only to moving out of threatened squares.

Vicious Stomp has Combat Reflexes as a prereq.

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5ldw0?The-FAQ-That-Time-Forgot

The Greater Trip feat allows you to take an attack of opportunity against a foe that you trip. The Vicious Stomp feat allows you to take an attack of opportunity against a foe that falls prone adjacent to you. If you have both these feats and trip a foe, do you get to make two attacks of opportunity (assuming that you can)?

Yes, the two triggering acts are similar here but they are different. One occurs when you trip a foe. The other occurs when a foe falls prone. It requires a large number of feats to accomplish, but you can really pile on the attacks with this combination.

In other words: yes, Vicious Stomp works when someone falls due to tripping, yes, Greater Trip lets you make an attack of opportunity against someone when you trip them, and yes, if you have both you get to make two attacks of opportunity.

I'm not sure who you'd expect Vicious Stomp to not work when someone is knocked prone involuntarily. How often do people decide to drop prone of their own accord while an enemy is already standing next to them?

It's just a theory, but I think one of the reasons some people take such a pleasure in exposing the rogue's weaknesses (and lack of strong points) is the fact that many rogues are played extremely obnoxiously.

Nah, most of the people complaining about the rogue are rogue players - or, at this point, former rogue players

When did the Rogue have any edge with Social Skills?

It has "rogue" written at the top of the character sheet. To a lot of people, that counts as a class feature.

"Rogues can be effective, just forget about Dex and max Str and two-hand a greatsword" is a much better argument that something is seriously wrong with the rogue class than anything I could ever come up with.

Trapfinding would be garbage even if magical traps were a thing. Oh, good, at first level I can disarm magical traps. But the weakest magical traps are DC26 to spot and DC26 to disarm, and go off in your face if you fail the disarm check by 5 or more. Good luck getting that +16 bonus to Disable Device at first level if you want to try disarming magical traps without being just as likely to set them off on you as you are to actually disarm them.

Yeah, at higher levels it's actually physically possible to use because the DC's scale up very slowly, but long before then you have better options, like Dispel Magic, Spell Sunder, Summon Monster I to set it off harmlessly, or "TOG SMASH PUNY TRAP".

New contender, I just found this: Fury's Fall

If you want your DEX to your CMD for trips, chances are you have Weapon Finesse already, and trips are one of the combat maneuvers called out as allowing weapon finesse to work when using them (along with disarm and sunder, I believe).

Silly.

Fury's Fall doesn't replace your Str modifier, it just adds your Dex modifier as well. Weapon Finesse replaces your Str modifier with your Dex modifier.

"Rogues are uniquely good at UMD because everyone else is so good at having actual class features that they don't even need to bother putting ranks in UMD" - an actual argument people are making in Rogues' favor

If "7 makes you Literally Subhuman" doesn't look like what I described then I dunno what to tell you

Roberta Yang wrote:

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Jacob Saltband wrote:

So people constantly use the ONE person who views things this way(admittedly extreme) as an example of everyones view who disagrees with them?

It's easier to disagree with a straw man than an actual person.

Remy's not an actual person?

Remy may be the only one asking for a check to know what grass is, but other people have said things along similar lines. For example, quite a few pulled the "There are no 7's in the basic array so 7 Int makes you literally the stupidest human who has ever lived in the entire world and so you are superhumanly mentally disabled!!" nonsense.

Give some quotes from earlier posts on this.

Gladly.

Yes, but no one has a 7 on that scale, without racial minuses.

Sarcasmancer wrote:

What's so bad about dumping to 7 vs dumping to 8?

I haven't read the whole thread, but I wanted to reply to this in particular.

An 8 is within the realm of "normal" in the game world. The teeming masses have (pre-racial) stats ranging from 8-13 (also including a 9). Even the heroic, PC-classed NPCs include an 8.

(Of course, some people will label even this representation of a normal person as "min-maxing", but whatever.)

This means that a 7 is something that, among the general populace, is only achievable by members of a race with a penalty to that stat. That is, one-third of the dwarven population has CHA of 7 or less, but a human with 7 CHA is a statistical outlier. (One might then imagine a 7 CHA human's companions making remarks like "Geez, it's like working with a friggin' dwarf!")

Now, to be clear: a 7 in a stat is still an entirely functional individual on the whole. I mean, for any given stat there's a race whose penalty means that a third of that race's population has a 7 or below in that stat, yet they all have functional societies. But it does take you across a threshold from "completely normal" to "noticeably different".

So based on what's in the books, that's the difference between 7 and 8: humanoid norms versus "Seriously, do you have a nagaji uncle or something?"

Nobody has a 7! A 7 makes you so dumb you don't even seem human!

Jacob Saltband wrote:

So people constantly use the ONE person who views things this way(admittedly extreme) as an example of everyones view who disagrees with them?

It's easier to disagree with a straw man than an actual person.

Remy's not an actual person?

Remy may be the only one asking for a check to know what grass is, but other people have said things along similar lines. For example, quite a few pulled the "There are no 7's in the basic array so 7 Int makes you literally the stupidest human who has ever lived in the entire world and so you are superhumanly mentally disabled!!" nonsense.

A montage begins. The wizard crafts a completely new set of magical gear for every single member of the party. The paladin heads off to Cheliax and smites every single villain there, ultimately turning it into a good nation of peace. The crafter manages to get halfway through crafting one mithral fullplate. The orc dies of old age.

With 9 Wis, you cannot answer simple questions about professions, like "Do bakers bake bread?", even though all the 10 Wis normals always can. It takes so many skill points to put one in each profession that even by twentieth level you still won't know as much about the jobs of people in your town as any normal first-level person! Surely that means 9 Wis makes you... double-retarded???

Tune in next week and I'll count how many times you would need to take Weapon Focus to offset the -1 penalty of 9 Str with every weapon. The upshot is that a 9 Str character barely even has usable hands with opposable thumbs.

I think it opens up creativity and makes the caster more of a Doctor Who and less of just a boomstick.

I agree, the problem with the casting classes is that they have too little to do out of combat

Do I come across as a 7-9 int?

Do you really want me to answer that question?

Roberta Yang wrote:

Wizard is in the CRB.

"Obviously it wouldn't apply to NPC encounters because the NPCs with class levels and equipment could benefit from the additional books as well. But when fighting monsters and NPCs in modules where the additional books aren't used..."

Try again.

What are you even talking about, what does that have to do with my post at all?

You were asking about PC's getting stronger by book allowance, I was pointing out that the strongest class is in the core rulebook. This has zero to do with NPC's or whatever you're on about now.

"Hey, oaf, you're carrying my wallet."

Tada, encumbrance problems solved.

Roberta Yang wrote:

If you dump Int to 7 on your fighter then you deserve to sit out for large parts of the game because you need to pay the price you munchkin!!! *rolls up wizard with no consequences and dominates the game, dumps str to 7 because it makes no difference*

Which is exactly what no one is saying. But congratulations on getting to be snarky.

That said, the wizard's low Strength choice could come back to bite them in any number of ways. When he's the only one to have to drag someone out of combat/danger. When people are trapped and he's out of spells and has to help pull them out. Carrying things. Climbing. Appearing weaker.

It goes for any stat, Roberta. Your choices should impact your character for good or bad.

The difference is that according to this thread a fighter with 7 Int is expected to be crippled in every interaction at all times whereas a wizard with 7 Str is expected to be maybe inconvenienced in corner cases.

But for some reason the fighter (who is playing a weak MAD class) is seen as a munchkin for dumping Int whereas the wizard (who is playing a god SAD class) gets a free pass. I have never seen anyone complain about wizards not roleplaying their 7 Str, or demanding that the wizard make a DC 10 strength check to uncork a potion.

Why sit out the game? Why not fail some checks once in a while as you contribute to discussions and planning (which doesn't always require checks)? Go with the flow, no need to be apart from parts of the game because you have 7 int. I certainly never read that anywhere else. You must have this int score to play your character? Laughable.

Responding to knightnday's assertion that those damn Int 7 munchkins "cheat" because the alternative is to be left out.

If you dump Int to 7 on your fighter then you deserve to sit out for large parts of the game because you need to pay the price you munchkin!!! *rolls up wizard with no consequences and dominates the game, dumps str to 7 because it makes no difference*

I don't know why you'd be surprised at scores of 9 or lower being so common. You know the truism that "50% of people are below-average"? Well, it's a bit lower than 50% here because ability scores are atomic rather than continuous so quite a few people are exactly average, but the outcome is the same: being mildly below-average isn't some rare crippling disease spoken only of in legends.

Who said anything about being blind? Walking without tripping is something "everyone can do" even with eyesight, therefore by your assertion the DC absolutely must be 10 because that is the DC of everything that "everyone can do".

Based on 3d6 die rolls, more than 1/3 of people have 9 Dex or less. Based on the basic array, 1/3 of people have 9 Dex or less. Scores of 9 or less aren't rare, they're everywhere - the average person has two of them.

First assumption: The DC of something 'everyone can do' in a non-stressful environment. (Very easy task) is DC 10.

DC to walk without tripping and falling: 10.

Have 9 Dex (as more than 1/3 of all people do)? Enjoy tripping and falling on 50% of all rounds.

7 Int fighters are crazy broken. Anyhow, I cast Time Stop,

Look, a guy with Int 9 doesn't know how to eat food and needs to be force-fed in order to not die. Why? Well, Int 10 people know what food is, so at Int 9 they don't. That's because knowing what food is, let's say, a Knowledge check with DC 0. By which I obviously mean DC 10. By which I obviously mean maybe DC 6? Stop quibbling, I think my point is clear. RELATIVE. DIFFERENCE. QED

Maybe people start heckling because you say things that aren't true and then defend it by saying "Well it wasn't actually meant to be true, I was just saying it! Why doesn't anyone listen to me?"

Vivianne Laflamme wrote:

Odraude wrote:

I feel like in a world of magic, the DC for knowing what a potion is would be less than 10...

Well it was DC 0 back when Remy Balster thought that worked for their argument...

I was showing the relative difference. But no one seems to understand what the relative difference is..

"Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement"

You are correct that having under 10 Int prevents you from autopassing DC 10 Knowledge checks.

You are incorrect that knowing what a potion is is a DC 10 Knowledge check. 10 is the DC to identify iron ore by sight or place someone's accent as Tian Xian, not to know how to walk and chew gum at the same time.

5 minutes ago you said the DC was 0. What made it jump 10 points all of a sudden, other than you making nonsense up to support your rapidly-eroding position?

It seems fishy to take 10 on a knowledge check, honestly, seeing as how you cannot retry it and that is motivated by:

Try Again

No. The check represents what you know, and thinking about a topic a second time doesn’t let you know something that you never learned in the first place.

Being able to retry only matters for Taking 20, not Taking 10.

Regardless, as evidenced by the text you quoted, a failed Knowledge check represents what you never learned, not what you just forgot. As long as any other party member has talked about potions at any point in the campaign, you know what they are.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that being told "make a Dex check to avoid tripping and falling" at random intervals is more reasonable than this "DC 0 Knowledge" stuff.

Assuming once again a 3d6 role for ability scores, only 1 on 3 people have no scores of 7 or lower at all.

If a score of 7 is crippling then most people are crippled.

Assuming a 3d6 roll for stats, 1 in 6 people have a score of 7 or lower in any given ability score.

Do 1 in 6 people have trouble remembering their own name?

For sorcerers there's also the Elemental bloodline.

Oracles have a Revelation for each element.

Druids and Inquisitors can choose from elemental Domains too.