Ravingdork wrote:

I imagine it will be categorized, much like you describe, while 2E will take up the main forum pages.

I expect Pathfinder to take the backseat once the new edition comes out, though I hope that there still will be activity here.

I expect that depends on which system is the most popular. Given that Pathfinder players are (historically) people who didn't like 4e, and Pathfinder 2.0 seems to have borrowed quite a lot from 4e I'm really not sure which way that will go.

Blood Casting (Su): At 4th level, the bloodrager gains the ability to cast spells while using bloodrage

It's possible to interpret that as "...only while using bloodrage" or as "...even while using bloodrage". Nowhere in the text does it explicitly say that he can cast spells outside of bloodrage, so I can certainly see the confusion, though personally (absent later clarification) I'd assume that spells can also be cast while not raging.

I find that very strange, indeed.

It's like naming a language "bi-lingual". But ok. :D

I think it's more like calling a language "pidgin" or "creole". I took it as implying that it's a composite language, mostly understandable by everyone in the region, but not native to any of them.

The majority of the Ranger abilities would probably be appropriate so it might be possible by creating a new archetype instead of an entirely new class.

To be honest, I'm kind of surprised there's not a Barbarian archetype to handle this.

An unarmored, full BAB melee class that focuses on natural weapons (claws, bites, tusks, etc...). The natural weapons must always be available to use (whether they're permanent or activated doesn't matter as long as they're available in every fight and scale to always be useful).

Ranger with the Natural Weapon combat style?

Well, I'm not using the stock deities, so it's hard to give specific examples, but I wasn't just thinking of "paladins of deity X fight with a longsword" - as you say, they probably do anyway; but rather "paladins of deity X fight in this particular way". As it stands, any paladin can basically add any ability onto their weapon with no thought for how it fits with their god's portfolio or personality.

I've done something similar in 3.0 before, where it was basically just a matter of creating new weapons about on par with a Holy Avenger, each with their own unique abilities and feel. But Pathfinder basically says that any weapon held by a paladin is a Holy Avenger. Making it more flexible was definitely the right thing to do, but I feel this goes too far.

Really, what I'm looking for is flavour, more than anything else. I'm not entirely sure if I would want to balance it so that the god whose favoured weapon is a knife would get a slightly more powerful set of options than the god whose favoured weapon is a greataxe, so that they end up even; after all a god who tells his followers to fight with a knife probably isn't putting his full emphasis on toe-the-line combat.

But at this stage I don't even know if I'm approaching this from the right angle; What I really want is a way to make paladins of different gods distinct from each other.

(Desna is chaotic and has a starknife as her favoured weapon; did you mean Irori?)

I'm in the planning stages of a campaign right now, and one thing I'd like to do is to tweak the Paladin's Holy Bond ability, as it applies to improving weapons.

As it stands, it feels too generic to me; any paladin can improve any weapon with any ability. I would like each deity to have its own flavour, that their paladins fight with a specific weapon that has a specific set of powers (not necessarily ones that are in the rule book). But I'm not sure how to make sure that this stays balanced. Does anyone have any advice?

OK, I like that. Thanks.

OK, so MWF gives them three off-hand attacks. Makes sense. And using a non-light weapon in one of those hands (for example, using a two-handed weapon) would mean you don't get the extra reduction in the penalties.

Do Improved and Greater TWF have Multiweapon analogues? If not, once you hit 11th level, a two-weapon fighter is hitting as often as a four-weapon fighter. But I suppose the latter has saved a couple of feats. And what benefit is there for anyone who isn't a multi-weapon fighter? 8RP's is a lot to sink into something that will only benefit one style of one group of classes...

I know you can create potions and the like with less than your full caster level* (to keep costs down), so I see no reason you couldn't cast the same way. But I can't think of a good reason to do so.

*Potions of Cure Light Wounds are invariably created with a caster level of 1, even though the creator has to have a caster level of 3 to brew potions.

I recently got the ARG, and I'm interested in creating a four-armed race for an up-coming game, but I'm unclear exactly how this would work mechanically.

Assuming the character has TWF (MWF?) would they get three off-hand attacks? Would all three off-hand weapons need to be light? Could they fight with a two-handed weapon and two light weapons? If they don't have TWF, what benefits would they gain from the extra arms?

This costs 8 race points, meaning it's going to be pretty much their only advantage, so I'd expect it to be fairly significant, but I can't work out exactly how it works.

I'm sure this is addressed somewhere obvious, but I've not been able to find it. Thanks for your help.

Other notes: Clustered Shots is in there WAY too late. i would take it ASAP, at level 7 if the DM allows (you can only use Clustered Shots when full attacking; when you full attack you have full BAB and thus qualify at level 7).

For all other purposes, such as qualifying for a feat or a prestige class, the monk uses his normal base attack bonus.

You can't use your FoB BAB to qualify, so you can't pick it up until 8th.

I'm running into the same problem, and I'm inclined to take the broader view, but some official clarification would certainly be helpful.

I'm pretty sure it's limited to spells the dead caster could cast at the time he was killed. That's how I run it anyhow.

Would that mean that a wizard who casts all of his spells before dying would not be a useful target for this spell? That seems to limit its utility to sorcerers (who, so long as they die with a single high-level slot available can grant their entire known spell list) and people who are killed before they know what's happening.

And what if the target didn't immediately go from positive hit points to negative Con? That would mean that "at the time he was killed" he was unconscious and unable to cast any spells...

Hey there. I've been planning on a melee build for my next character, and the idea of a flail-and-shield fighter specialising in manoeuvres is a tempting one. I'm also thinking about taking a 2-level dip (at levels 2 and 3, or maybe 2 and 4) into barbarian; I think ~8 rounds of rage, fast movement, uncanny dodge and a (sucky) rage power is a decent trade of for a feat and a level of weapon or armour mastery.

So, I'm looking at starting with something like this at 1st level:
Weapon focus (flail), Combat expertise*, Improved trip

Having read through this thread, lunge + whirlwind attack looks like something I'd want to pick up. I thought about some shield-fighting suff, but that looks like it's just going to use too many feats, so I'd rather concentrate on manoeuvre and battlefield control (step up, stand still, spellbreaker...) feats.

Anyone have any thoughts?

* With the trait Threatening Defender, to make it worth using in its own right, as well as as a perquisite

Well I managed to get Monks of the Open hand (sic) to work by replacing the class abilities in the ability tables, adding Improvised weapons as a group and putting in the improvised weapons in the weapons table.

Also adjusted the weapon proficiencies, free feats and a few other odds and sods, including reimplementing something that seems to have disappeared between versions although it is calculated, just no longer displayed - Weapon proficencies ... I put them at the end of the Class abilities block.
This 'hard codes' the monk to be only of that type unfortunately but I suppose if there was going to be a long delay between versions it would do.

I've done the same thing with the Zen Archer. Not the easiest thing to do, but it seems to work. I'm eagerly awaiting 9.4, though....

For the nujmerous "Extra" feats I generally build in three levels--e.g. Extra Rage I, Extra Rage II, and Extra Rage III--with the higher levels requiring the lower. As these are selected, I build in automation to update the appropriate class ability, etc. I haven't built in the Extra feats from the APG as yet--those will be coming once I get the alternate race and class material in place.

I've noticed a bug with the "Extra" feats:

If you buy Extra Stuff I, and it's followed in your list of feats by, for example, Improved Initiative, it gets recorded as "...Extra Stuff IImproved Initiative...", which gets read as Extra Stuff II, and gives you credit for having it twice...

Eternal life? I hate to rules lawyer here, but it says nothing about eternal youth, does it?

In Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away, there's a scene where Warlock, the main protagonist, pulls a skull out of his pack, and declares that its owner had cast a spell that meant he couldn't die... which meant he'd been pretty annoyed these last 30 years...

How about Gem Powered Armored Transports, or GPAT's. Basically big, mechanical, armor plated vehicles, based mainly off of animals and vermin, that run off of enchanted gems. Ever read Dinotopia: The World Beneath? That is the main inspiration.

Note: Combat versions available as well.

Dark Sun had giant beetles that were killed, turned into zombies, and hollowed out to be used as war chariots...

Ah, I missed the bit about the save being a full-round action. Given that, I think I'd agree that it remains balanced.

The big difference seems to be that (until your Dex disappears, at least, you can still attack / cast spells / drink potions / whatever, so long as you don't move.

Overall, I like the idea, but I'm going to have to think about whether or not Hold Person would remain worthwhile...

Huzzah and hurrah!

Tangent:

And yes, this identify block doesn't make sense. It's GM fiat, pure and simple. It should not be impossible - after all, it's still magic, and while they did things differently, they still use magic. Most of the underlying principles are there. So it's difficult - maybe really difficult - but not simply impossible. Especially once someone becomes more and more familiar with the magic after studying what they've already found, making notes, and all that.

I decided a while back that magic items had the equivalent of a "comment block" - the creator would explicitly encode the item's name, function, command words and so on into the magic that created it, and it was this information that Detect Magic and Identify would read.

Most of the time, this was perfectly accurate, but rarely an item might have "hidden" features that weren't described (or no description at all), or an item might be described as something else, for whatever purpose. So I also added higher-level, longer-casting-time spells that would deconstruct the magic used to create it, and give precise, accurate descriptions that couldn't be fooled by such basic tricks.

I found that worked pretty well for keeping magic items a little... unknowable.

Anyone happen to know if there is anyone working on adding the advanced players guide to this sheet? I'd like to use the sheet for my invulnerable rager (barbarian) but I can't figure out how to add the abilities and such to the sheet.

That is coming, I understand. But in the meantime it is possible to tweak the sheet to reflect a specific build; I did it for my Zen Archer monk.

The bulk of the work is on the ClassAbilities tab. Find the class ability you lose, and replace the name and description with what you get in its place. That can get more complicated than I've made it sound, especially when you have abilities that vary with your level. Invulnerable Rager looks like being pretty simple to change; I don't think there's anything more you'll need to do than that.

Personally, I love heavy crossbows. Or at least, I want to. But needing to spend a feat in order to fire once every round makes them a pretty crappy option...

Light crossbows aren't so bad (but not as good as a longbow), but I can't figure out why anyone would ever want a heavy crossbow.

Mongoose Publishing had an excellent sourcebook for this in the form of Encylopaedia Arcane: Constructs. It's for 3.0, but shouldn't need much tweaking for use in Pathfinder.

http://www.ebookee.com/Encyclopaedia-Arcane-Constructs_12005.html

If you are using the formating type of "Text" it will treat everything in the box as text and not evaluate anything. Copying and pasting content from another cell will copy the formating along with it. Generally, the default format is "General".

Yeah, it's set to "general".

V0.9.1:

I have a monk wearing a ring of jumping, and I'm trying to get all of his jump modifiers to appear under "COND MODS" for acrobatics (P-Front, CD60).

I've entered the formula:
=CONCATENATE("+", 5+Lvl_Mnk+((INT(MV_Land_P/10)-3)*4), " jump")

But it doesn't get evaluated, instead putting the text of the formula in the output. Using the Evaluate Formula provides the output "The cell currently being evaluated contains a constant".

Cutting and pasting the formula somewhere else (for example, Getting Started H50) makes it work exactly as expected, so the formula itself seems to be fine.

Is there some odd formatting applied to this cell that stops the formula from being evaluated? And if so, how can I remove it?

Thanks for your help.

I just did not use that feat in my original post because I don't really expect to use the familiar to use scrolls, just magic items like wands. I expect a wizard to have a high enough spellcraft to now have to worry about activating things blindly.

It's odd, because you started off specifically talking about having familiars using scrolls.

DC to activate blindly is 25, so (assuming the familiar has a 10 Cha), the wizard is going to need 15 ranks of UMD to give it a 50% shot. Which means he's going to need to be 15th level before this become remotely plausible, which doesn't strike me as a good argument in favour of familiars being effective. If you're specifically talking about wands, the DC is 20, so that's plausible at 10th level.

Personally, I'd be disinclined to allow familiars to use wands, though I can't articulate a good reason. It just feels wrong. But, having said that, I'm not sure why thumbs are a necessity; If you're going to allow a familiar to use a wand, why not let a toad hold it in his mouth? While I agree that a viper would be better at intimidating than a toad, or that a monkey would be better at picking pockets than an owl, I don't see why "make a spell trigger activation action" falls into the same category of requiring a specific phenotype.

Well, sure. If the familiar is going to hide at the back, and not do the one combat-related thing it can do (deliver touch attacks), then it's fair to say that it's unlikely to become a target. But it also significantly reduces the value of having a familiar.

If the familiar has opposable thumbs he can use scrolls. Now if the wizard took a toad I would say the DM would be right to say no. I never said all familiars were created equally.

Well, if it's a raven (unlike every other familiar), it can actually say the words that make the spell happen. Theoretically, at least - I doubt that they're actually written in Common. But ravens don't have thumbs so they can't hold the scroll. I guess they'd have to find somewhere to put it down, and then maybe weigh down the edges with a couple of rocks.

Except that ravens (like everything else that can be a familiar) are illiterate and can't read what the scroll says. That strikes me as being a fatal flaw in your familiar / scroll scenario....

The only enemies that don't fight logically are animals. Even a really dumb humanoid will go after the wizard or fighter first.

You're a human fighter with a sword. There's no humanoid bad guys within attack range of you, but 20 feet away there's a rat that casting Shocking Grasp on your friends. Why wouldn't you deal with that threat while you can?

Also, what's illogical about quickly reducing the number of enemies if the opportunity presents itself?

I'm talking about warning signs like "Does not grant power of flight" on Superman costumes

Despite having made it onto the cover of a book about stupid warning labels, no-one's ever been able to find an actual example of that label.

Oh, and as for George Reeves, his suicide was pretty typical.

I'm talking about "Warning: Hot" on a a cup for hot coffee.

When spilling coffee on yourself results in third degree burns because it's 20 degrees hotter than coffee is normally served, and it turns out that the company has been quietly paying off previous victims and clearly knew exactly how dangerous their coffee was, some hefty punative damages and a warning label seem entirely justified.

BTW, how many have seen the movie Idiocracy?

[url=http://xkcd.com/603/]

IQs have been increasing by 3 points per decade, and there's no sign of that trend reversing. Your kids are going to be smarter than you are, and the people they compete against in the job market are going to be smarter than the people you compete against.

I had a GM who (under 2ed) loved wishes. He pushed them on players every time there was the remotest justification for them.

(as an aside, he was also hugely keen on the Deck of Many Things, for exactly the same reasons)

And then, every single time, he interpreted the wish to be as annoying, dangerous and worthless as possible. If you just made a simple, off the cuff wish, he'd screw you over for not wording it precisely enough. If you spent the time to try and make it say exactly what you wanted in unambiguous language, he'd complain lawyering wishes pissed him off, and screw you over for it. If you decided that you didn't want a wish (because, in this universe, every single story involving wishes must surely be a cautionary tale), he'd assess a hefty XP penalty for poor roleplaying.

One time I wished for a cheese sandwich, figuring that the GM wouldn't screw me over with that one. Result? "Oh, you didn't say you wanted it not to be poisoned. Roll up a new character." I came to hate wishes with a passion, and was very pleased when 3ed specified specific limits for what a wish could and couldn't do.

Moral of the story: Let players get good things with their wishes, more often than not. If they wish for something wildly inappropriate, then take liberties with it, but don't make every single interaction with wishes be a negative experience.

Yeah, I think classes are pretty well covered after APG, but some new official races would be a good thing.

Fair counterpoint Marc.

Everyone is aware theres a spell thats merely level 2 that lets everyone within a radius be treated as the rangers favoured enemy right?

Wow, that screws over Instant Enemy (3rd level, affects a single target) from the APG.

I would say the spell you're thinking of is significantly overpowered.

You will never, ever have enough candles so as to make it bright. Bright means the level of light emitted by the sun on a clear day in a field without any cover of a tree canopy. That's really, REALLY bright, ok?

The light emitted by the sun is not a trivial number of lumens. The light emitted by 100 candles -- even burning at both ends -- on the other hand, is trivial in comparison.

Direct sunlight is about 100,000 lux (1 lux = 1 lumen per metre squared). The brightness of a candle varies, but we can approximate it to one candlepower, which is 12.57 lumens (one candlepower is the amount of light emitted by a candle of fixed composition and size through a window of 1 square foot in a sphere one foot from the wick). So, you would need about 8,000 candles per square metre to approximate the brightness of daylight. On a cloudy day, the ambient brightness will be 5,000 ~ 10,000 lux (I wouldn't have thought this fell into the "dim light" category), which is the equivalent of 400 ~ 800 of our standardised candles per square metre.

Arguably, this is physically possible, but it's certainly not practical.

What I do.

So, the monster that the ranger has the most practice against, and probably has the best character-driven reason to be fighting against (because he became an adventurer after orcs murdered his parents) is the one that he's always going to be least effective against? That seems backwards to me.

And the refocusing doesn't make much sense from a role-playing point of view; having a favoured enemy ought to take something mroe than thinking about dragons for a few hours and them bam! you're an expert on how to kill them...

InsideOwt wrote:

Dragonborn3 wrote:

InsideOwt wrote:

Numbers/Signs/Symbols

Sigils maybe?

Glyphs?

Runes?

Semiotics.

I think he means that rangers will start off with one favoured enemy at +1, and end up with five favoured enemies, each of which is at +5.

Is that right?

There shouldn't be, anyway, if Tain Xia is the China analog.

My understanding is that Tian Xia is all of East Asia, and only those ignorant occidentals think that it's a single monolithic nation. Xa Hoi looks like it's meant to be a Vietnam / Laos analogue, for example.

Therefore, Japan-specific things will fit neatly into Tian Xia, even before we point out that it's a fictional place and can have ninjas if the designers want them.

As for the other point, Power Attack effects all of your attacks equally, it doesn't change the ratio because its an iterative attack etc.

Yeah, that wasn't meant to imply that the modifiers would be different for different attacks, but to point out that there are other BAB-based effects that key off the FoB BAB.

Having been thinking about this for a while, I'm leaning towards the -2/+4 interpretation. My main reason for this is the iterative attack progression for FoB. The two-weapon fighting based attacks appear when your normal BAB is high enough to qualify for the feats (i.e. levels 8 and 15); but the standard iterative attacks appear when your FoB BAB is high enough to generate them (i.e. levels 6, 11 and 16).

This implies to me that features that are calculated from the BAB at the time the attack is made (such as iterative attacks or Power Attack effects) would use the FoB BAB rather than the regular BAB.

Does that make sense to people? Any counter-arguments?

Dazzling Display has been brought up many times. I agree that you can infer things from it if you choose, but it's at your own discreation

You are not arguing.. it's not an argument against... it's conjecture and opinion :))

No one can tell me that the Paizo writers are innocent of errors; they put out an errata to Pathfinder already. That means they are mortal and fallible.

No one should be expected to know what a skill does by reading a feat's description. Are you understanding this?

The official position of the designers is that, without this feat, you can only intimidate one person at a time.

Q: What is the difference between the Dazzling Display feat and using the Demoralize Opponent of the Intimidate Skill? It seems both affect all opponents within 30'. Is Intimidate supposed to be worded to affect only one?

A: The intimidate skill says "If you are successful, the target is shaken for 1 round." which means its affecting a single target. Where the Dazzling Display feat is affecting ALL targets with 30ft.

A 4th level monk has a BAB of +3, which means that Power Attack will give him a -1 to hit and a +2 to damage. However, when using Flurry of Blows, "for the purpose of these attacks" he has a BAB of +4. Does this mean that if Power Attack is used with a FoB it gives a -2 to hit and a +4 to damage?

It does say that "for all other purposes, such as qualifying for a feat", the monk uses their listed BAB, but this isn't a case of qualifying for a feat, but adjudicating its effect.

I realise that there are very few circumstances in which this would come up, and I think that either interpretation would be valid, but what do you guys think? Are there any good arguments either way?

Constitution damage. Regeneration shouldn't be able to heal that, right?

I've just started playing a monk with the Zen Archer build (APG p115), and I've managed to change most of what needed to be changed (side note: The feat list constructed in Class Abilities D96 seems to reference non-existent cells), but I can't figure out how to set it up so I can use Flurry of Blows with a bow. Can you give me a hint about where to start? Thanks.

Figured it out! By going to DataEquipment and setting the bows to be 1-handed and giving them the special ability of "monk", it all works nicely.

For some reason, the Ki Pool monk ability isn't wrapping in the Class Ability box, so I can only see the first few words of the description. Any idea what I can do to fix this?

Thanks.

I have set one weapon slot to unarmed and turned on flurry of blows yes. Why do you say "two weapon slots?" This monk is a dex monk with Weapon Finesse, so maybe something happens with Weapon Finesse turned on.

As it says in the FAQ sheet: "Flurry of blows works exactly like two-weapon fighting in PRPG. As such, you need to use two weapon blocks for a flurry of blows, with one set to Wield As: 2-Wpn Primary and the other set to Wield As: 2-Wpn Off-Hand. In the Combat Options for each weapon block, set one of the options to Flurry of Blows and you're ready to go. This is especially important for monks that might use a mix of unarmed strikes and weapon attacks."

Definitely very glad this exists, and looking forward to the next iteration.

I've just started playing a monk with the Zen Archer build (APG p115), and I've managed to change most of what needed to be changed (side note: The feat list constructed in Class Abilities D96 seems to reference non-existent cells), but I can't figure out how to set it up so I can use Flurry of Blows with a bow. Can you give me a hint about where to start? Thanks.