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58 posts. Alias of Threeshades.



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Hello everyone. It has been a long time since I've been active on these boards. I only really discovered PF2e's strengths due to recent events.

As I am someone who likes homebrewing creatures and NPCs for public use (and does so professionally as well) I decided to build a little spreadsheet tool to help make the process a little easier.

You can find the sheet at this link (copy it to your own drive if you want to use it):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1k2UYUK2zWNcLjABknKo1z4cjADUxGHsjb7M 68jpRaBU/edit?usp=sharing

    What this sheet does:
  • • It lets you define a level and gives an overview of all expected creature statistics (from extreme to terrible) for that level.
  • • It provides a one page overview of all the guideline statistics you need so you don't have to search several large tables for the appropriate values.
  • • It allows you to fill in your desired ability score modifiers and returns the full bonuses and DCs for all proficiency levels the creature might have based on these modifiers and its level, removing the head math needed if you want to make these statistics consistent with proficiency levels.

    What it does not do:
  • • It does not take your creature's complete statistics and abilities and somehow divines an appropriate level. Even if this were the way creature creation guidelines were intended to be used, it is beyond the scope of my excel wizardry

A Quick user guide:
Only the white cells are meant to be edited by hand. Only fill in your desired creature level and ability score modifiers.

That is all. I hope people will find this useful. :3


Hi,

I've been starving to play 5th Edition D&D from anywhere else but the DM's seat for a while now, and Play by Post or text based RP is just not my speed. So Im looking for a group that meets online and plays preferably over voice chat.

I decided to post here because even on some group finder online services I just couldn't find anything at all.

So if you happen to be running an online table or are part of one and have maybe room for one more passionate roleplayer, I'd appreciate an invitation.

As far as mediums go, I am fine with Discord, Google Hangouts, Skype, Teamspeak or really anything. If you happen to use one of these, I also own Tabletop Simulator and Fantasy Grounds, and am also happy to play on any free virtual tabletop.


Hey everyone, I'm looking for a any webcast format playing Shadowrun, preferrably 5th edition. Particularly one where both GM and players are experienced and take their game seriously enough.

After playing for a while with my group i just and us always messing something up. Besically never being able to complete even a basic run without tripping some alarm or garnering some unwanted attention, I just wonder if the game is really supposed to be this hard, we just don't know how to play the game or maybe out GM just overdoes it on the security measures.

so I'd be glad if someone could point me some good examples of play.


This is probably wishlisting of the highest order, and I'm almost 99% sure that most if not all of these are going to be an integral part of the new edition just as much as they were before, in part because one of the stated design goals is to keep the game recognizable, which it might not be anymore if these were actually put into practice. But i'd like to express these thoughts anyway. I just want to put the thought out there and why I think they don't benefit the game.

1. Per Day/Rest Features
Abilities that rely on a number of uses per day/rest, including pool mechanics, like grit and magus arcana, set a prerequisite number of encounters per day in order to balance the game. The current system assumes that a party will have about 3 combat encounters each day. This means players have to ration their limited use abilities between these encounters. If you only have one encounter a day, a class that primarily relies on limited use abilities can blow its full potential on that single encounter with extreme prejudice quickly becoming more powerful than any other. Meanwhile, if there are significantly more encounters the same class would become spread extremely thin being barely able to contribute while those who don't have this restriction can just keep going and going.

I used to run very typical dungeon crawling campaigns, but later I shifted toward a less combat-heavy style and it quickly became apparent that some characters could exploit this to generate massive damage output.

If we removed the per day restriction it would not only de-gamify some of the mechanics ("What do you mean, you're too exhausted to get angry anymore? You seem perfectly spry to me!"), it would help accomodate for more varied styles of play.

2. Classes
This is the big one. Classes exist to balance different types of characters by moving them along a certain predefined path of traits as they level up. Yet at the same time the game has mechanics such as multiclassing and archetypes so that people can build their characters outside these predefined paths. Over time this has lead to 41 different classes (not counting unchained variants) each with anywhere from a dozen to 50 or more archetypes. Some of which are expressedly designed to combine one class with another. Feats allow characters to tap into class features from other classes as well, so at this point, I have to wonder, why even bother with classes in the first place?

An open character building system is, it seems, what Pathfinder secretly really wants. Start off with a number of build points, and let players buy feats and class features from these.
Spend build points on gaining more skill ranks, more hit points, better spellcasting, better combat proficiency etc. And each level up the character gains new build points to spend. You could run this along certain automatic gains per level, such as a minimum hit die and a minimum amount of skill points per level and a choice of one saving throw increase for example.

This wouldn't only open up a more versatile and less convoluted path to getting the host of abilities that the player really wants for his character, it would also allow for a variety of other things:

  • You could spend part of your build points on your ancestry, if you want to play a more powerful race, or gain extra build points from your ancestry if you are for example a kobold, which may have very low inherent abilities. This would free the game of the constraint of having to have each race/ancestry being exactly equivalent in power. 3rd edition tried to adress more powerful races with level adjustment, which didn't work, with this more flexible system it's much easier to adjust for a more powerful creature.
    You could even bake ancestry completely into this buildpoint pool. Your character buys her ancestry from the same starting pool from which she chooses class features. It also opens up the ability of building your own 100% legal ancestry from various features instead of buying a one of the pre-build sets (human, elf, gnome, goblin...)
  • You could choose to use build points to improve your base ability scores. Or reduce your base ability score total to gain more build points
  • You can spend build points on feats when you want them, rather than being roped into taking them
  • You can have ancestries in the game which naturally have certain features that would otherwise be class features. Like say we gave orcs the inherent ability to rage. This way an orc can still be built to match the barbarian character-type without having redundant features that don't add to each other.

You can still have certain predeterminations, like the distinction between arcane and divine magic. Make a player choose how they cast magic, inherently like a sorcerer, through study like a wizard, through art like a bard, dedication or worship like a cleric and so on.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I realize how deeply these go into what the game is to us, and before anyone says that i should look for a different system. I have. But I never found one that did it well enough. I like the depth of pathfinder, and most games that i found which deliver on the open character building and lack of per-day abilities that i crave, usually either lack the depth of gameplay (for example magic is barely distinguished from mundane skill usage) or are so irredeemably overruled that they are more bookkeeping than gameplay. So I thought instead i'd express how i would feel about making these changes to a system i actually like.


This may come off as nitpicky. I like the new website and forum layout, it got a desparately needed do-over without becoming completely alien in the process. I do however have one tiny pet peeve.

So while browsing the messageboards, at the top of the page you have this:

Community / Forums / Paizo / Website Feedback

Each of these points is a clickable navigation link and I make frequent use of these, as I do in any forum that has them. But because I'm used to using them from other forums, my instinct is to click on the very first item to get back to the main overview. On this forum however that leads to a blank page with nothing but the head and footer of the website.

So unless the intention is to have something there in the future, could you possibly make the "Community" part of that line not a link?

I keep accidentally hitting it and because for me the loadtimes on the website are not super optimal that is actually a lot of wasted time. If not, I guess I'll just have to learn to break a habit.


This question came up when a friend of mine reported that his summoner had lost her eidolon in their last session of Rise of the Runelords.

According to him, the eidolon was killed in combat (which normally means you can resummon it the next day with half its HP remaining) while they were

Spoiler:
(forgive me for this, I don't now the AP myself and I'm only reporting on what I remember that he told me) in a tower with a runewell which traps the souls of creatures that die there.

Now I argued that his eidolon shouldn't be trapped this way for two reasons.
Firstly, because as a summoned creature, it doesn't die even when reduced to -Con HP, only its summoned form is destroyed and the eidolon returns to its place of origin.

Secondly because Outsider traits say that no soul is released when an outsider is destroyed, so the well would have nothing to trap.

Also the fact that there are no rules in the summoner class on what happens, should the summoner actually lose their eidolon. Whether they get a new one and how, or if they have to recover it or anything, so I would assume the only way to effectively lose an eidolon would be to retrain all your summoner levels away.

I don't know the GM, and wouldn't be able to tell how well they know the game, so I assume either of us could just be mistaken here. As far as I'm aware the GM let my friend just make an all new eidolon with which he seems fine, so I guess it's no harm done, but still I would like to know if it should have been possible in the first place to lose the eidolon.


Hey everyone, I'm looking to expand my collection of Gargantuan size DnD Dragon minis, and I am not really sure what to think of the Attack Wing minis regarding size.

So far I have the white and black D&D Icons dragons, the red and green Pathfinder Battles, as well as the named Blue PF Battles dragon (whose name eludes me right now, the one with all the jewelry, from I believe Shattered Star), as well as the centerpiece the Gargantuan Red Dragon from the D&D Icons line. There are two reasons why I'm only interested in Gargantuan or larger miniatures, one being that in games i just use pawns for anything of Huge size or smaller and as decoration, smaller miniatures wouldn't stand out enough among all the stuff cluttering my place.

So, from Attack Wing I know there are various dragons which are clearly significantly smaller than any of the aforementioned ones, but there are also Tiamat, Bahamut, and some other premium series dragons, of which I know about a Brass and a Silver one. Not sure if there are more. To my understanding Bahamut and Tiamat are comparable to the Pathfinder Battles Gargantuan dragons, so my question is here, how do the Premium dragons from Attack Wing compare to existing Gargantuan dragons.


Having played my home campaign up to 5th level so far I have not really encountered any glaring balance issues between my player characters, but there are a few things I'm considering tweaking a bit about the so far officially published player options.

I wanted to throw them out here to get some feedback. Which of these are unnecessary, go to far, or not far enough?

Italics have a hopefully short explanation of my reasoning

RACES
Dragonborn Gain darkvision 60 ft.; Breath Weapon deals 4d6 damage at level 6, 6d6 at level 11, and 8d6 at 16th level dragonborn basically have no racial features outside of their breath weapon and resistance. And the breath weapon rapidly becomes irrelevant because its damage scales so slowly for a limited use ability.
Orc Lose the Int penalty. I like orcs, and i think they can and should be more than brutish idiots, especially as player characters. Also their racial stats are kinda weak altogether

CLASSES and CLASS OPTIONS
Barbarian (Frenzied Berserker) Frenzied rage is no longer a separate step to rage. When the berserker enters a rage, it goes into a frenzied rage automatically. It doesn't suffer exhaustion at the end of the rage. Totem Warriors get to choose between resistance to virtually everything, massive mobility and granting Pack Tactics to their melee friends, and then have multiple choices again as they level up, while the berserker has to rev up for two rounds to get a bonus attack and then has to sit on a level of exhaustion for the rest of the day, making it effectively a once per day ability. And being able to use your action to intimidate one enemy isn't exactly impressive either.
Sorcerer Sorcery points are replenished on a Short or Long Rest. Sorcerers do not have anything that replenishes on a short rest, aside from spending hit dice for HP, but being an arcane caster you would expect to have less need for that anyway. I haven't seen sorcerers in action too much, but the talk of the town seems to be that they are still lagging behind wizards a bit, so a straight buff wouldn't be too bad, but this may be a little too strong.

As far as rangers go, i will stick with the unearthed arcana version.


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Good morning everyone,

I'm proud to announce my project, which consumed the better part of the last year of my life is finally finished and available on the DMs Guild

The Critter Compendium

The book features a professional, handcrafted layout. It contains hundreds of monsters, both from previous editions of the game and entirely new. There are several appendices covering various types of zombies, skeletons and elementals that add variety to these creatures. Additionally you will find a number of easily applied templates that change the nature of a creature, such as half-celestials, fiends and even a template that allows you to turn any creature into a legendary encounter.

While DMs gain a big roster of new monsters, players gain new types of skeletons and zombies to create with necromancy, options for familiars and beast companions, as well as suggestions and easy ways to adjust class options based on the monsters found in the book, such as cosmic dragon bloodline sorcerer origins and obyrith as warlock patrons.

I look forward to hear what you all think about it and I'd be happy to answer questions about it as well.


I was not sure whom to write to about this topic, or under which adress (since many paizo employees cannot be reach via private message)

I have a question about the legality of converting creatures from the Paizo Bestiaries to different systems and publishing them.

In my case, I made conversions of the qlippoth from Bestiary 2 as well as the Outer Dragons from Bestiary 4 to 5th edition and had the idea of publishing the conversions on the DM's Guild.

I understand that obviously the artworks are not usable and some specific creatures from Pathfinder such as the Sandpoint Devils or Daughters of Urgathoa are protected since they use proper nouns specific to Pathfinder. But for my subjects I couldn't find anything in the OGL or the copyright notice in the beginning of each book. Nevertheless I want to make sure I do not infringe on Paizo's copyright if I do this.

As an additional note, I would like to add that I made minor changes to the naming, calling the converted qlippoth obyrith and the outer dragons cosmic dragons, I also use my own artwork which features strongly altered appearances of the creatures in question.


So I don't know if I'm the only one who cares, but a lot of monsters in 5th edition changed sizes. And here I don't mean all the former colossals becoming gargantuan, or smaller than tinies becoming tiny, which is of course only because the size spectrum has been reduced. And even the changes to the carious age categories of dragons I can understand.
But there are a lot of other creatures in the Monster Manual and Volo's Guide that have changed sizes since 3rd edition.

Here is what i can think of:
Aboleths, Bulettes, Nalfeshnee and Glabrezu demons went from Huge to Large
Balors, Hill Giants, Fire Giants, Frost Giants and Stone Giants went from Large to Huge.
Yeth Hounds grew from Medium to Large.

What really bothers me about this is that all this really means is that I have a lot of Pawns that are just the wrong size for the 5e incarnation, and I can't be the only one (especially thinking of people who invested in plastic miniatures).


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To possibly nobody's surprise, this idea is inspired by the Numenéra setting, and the setting would essentially be the same: Earth, millions of years in the future after several civilizations have risen to unimaginable heights of technological sophistication and then inexplicably fallen from the face of the planet. Through some unknown mechanism some of the life of the planet as we know it today has been brought back from extinction, including humankind. There is no magic but there is plenty of technology that people alive in this world barely understand, that it would seem just like magic to them.

But it's not just like its inspiration: this setting has all the D&D staples: dungeons, dragons, beholders, mind flayers, fey, fiends, celestials, undead, divine and arcane "magic", innate spellcasting

Let me go through how some of these could work (many of them are taken straight from numenéra, but just reiterated here for those who are not familiar with that setting)

Magic: Anything that is labelled as magical in the game is actually just highly advanced technology. Magic items are technological artifacts. A +1 longsword could be a vibro-blade or an edge suffused with a subtle energy current. Spellcasters have somehow found a way to enforce their will upon nanomachines that have basically become an ever-present part of the atmosphere over the millennia.
Either they can do it instinctively, like sorcerers and bards, or they have studied mental techniques to have the machines respond to their thoughts and actions, like wizards. Some others unwittingly found a way of manipulating the machines through pure conviction, believing themselves to be blessed with these abilities by a higher power through their faith. These are your divine "spellcasters".
Some creatures have been genetically manipulated in ancient times to have such abilities, perhaps they produce their own nanomachines even, or have inbuilt devices that produce the effects. These are creatures with innate spellcasting.
Among other things, technology could produce energy and discharge it in many different ways, creating lightning, fire, and other such effects, it could produce holographic illusions, and it could reach into parallel dimensions and phase a creature out of being fully corporeal, move it to a different place or even alter its physicality through shifting reality slightly, essentially shapeshifting it.

Aberrations: Aberrations are alien creatures from distant worlds that have come to or were left behind on earth.

Beasts: Animals that are either naturally evolved or artificially altered to a minor extent, or perhaps brought back from extinction through technological matters. These are the more or less natural fauna of the world.

Celestials and Fiends: As physicists theorize there are far more than the three or four dimensions we can see, there may be alternate realities out there. Some of these realities are remarkably similar to ours in some ways, yet fundamentally different in others. In three of those realities the world went a similar way technologically as in ours, but the creatures living there took on bizarre forms. All of them populated by uniquely powerful beings who have mastered the secrets of travelling between realities. But while the denizens of one world are benevolent and seek to improve the lives of their own people and those of other realities, the other two are interested only in destruction and domination respectively. These are the creatures we commonly percieve as angels, demons and devils.

Constructs: Robots.

Dragons: Eragons were the product of a long and dedicated process of artificially splicing creatures from earth's evolutionary history to create something uniquely great. Because they retain specially engineered genetic code from almost the entire natural history of the planet, specially engineered to be stored within them, dragons can breed with almost any other earth creature.
Why they were engineered this way is unknown, perhaps to serve as biological weapons, or maybe as living genetic libraries. Whatever the case, dragons are utterly unique among lifeforms on earth and might hold the key to much of its lost history and the mysteries of its present.

Elementals: Elementals are essentially nano swarms that attach themselves to matter such as earth or water and animate it, or they manipulate fire or air to make those their body. Some organisms from parallel dimensions have been infested with such swarms for generations and had their physicality altered by them over time, becoming things like xorns and salamanders.

Fey: In another bizarre reality nature and technology have fused in harmonious ways and the capricious denizens of that world, known commonly as fey, sometimes find their way into our world.

Giants and Humanoids: Humans as we know them went extinct millions of years ago, but other species arose. Life from other planets and other realities was spirited to earth. Somewhere along its long history another species replicated the human species as well. Evolution and artificial engineering saw the rise of other creatures much like them

Monstrosities: As civilization after civilization left its mark upon the world, strange creatures were left behind, some are fusions of natural organisms, others are randomly mutated by strange pollutants and their strains stabilized. Monstrosities are the living relics of these events.

Oozes: Hyperevolved or engineered mucus, gray goo and other such things.

Plants: Plant creatures are much like monstrosities but they were created from flora rather than fauna. Some plant creatures, particularly awakened plants, have been infested, animated and lent a facsimile or consciousness by the nano-"magic" that created them.

Undead: When nanomachines are manipulated to infest corpses, they can preserve and animate these bodies to a false state of life. With more sophisticated methods, they can even download the consciousness of a living being and either bind it to the body they are infesting to create a sentient undead, like a lich or a vampire. Or the consciousness is downloaded into a swarm of nanomachines that has no body to be bound to. The consciousness takes over and projects a hologram of what it believes itself to look like around the swarm and becomes essentially a ghost. Some of these consciousnesses are corrupted and deteriorate into monsters like wraiths or allips and their projected image changes with that.

Psionics: Psionics could arguably be transferred as-is. Whether it should be regarded as scifi or fantasy is I think up to opinion.

So mechanically nothing would change, really the world is just technological rather than mystical and it would probably show in its visual appearance, looking a lot more like Numenéra than a medieval fantasy setting.

What do you think? Did I evoke your imagination at all? Would you be interested in playing in such a setting, perhaps even DMing it (no this is not a recruitment, I'm just curious)?


Google Docs Link

This is a list of weapons I homebrewed for 5th edition. Some of these only exist because I needed to port the favored weapons of some of the deities of my homebrew setting. Others have more specific uses.

For one there are the balanced and oversized weapons, which exist to slightly improve the martial power of strength based characters, since Strength has not nearly as much out of combat use as Dexterity I decided it would be nice if it distinguishes itself in-combat from its rival stat a bit more.

You're free to comment, either here or in the document or use any of these for your own game.


Monks are already MAD while wizards are SAD, and then there is the ever reviled dump stats. But instead of making classes sadder, and ending up with a bunch of characters who all seem to have only one or two functional ability scores, what if we went the other way?

First remove all semblances of weapon finesse and dex to damage feats and abilities (like dervish dance, fencing/slashing grace) and composite bows.
Instead we implement the rule that all attack rolls, melee, ranged, touch, ranged touch, use Dexterity + BAB
And damage rolls with melee weapons, bows, thrown weapons, and any other type of ranged weapon that relies on the wielder's own strength to propel its projectiles always add the strength modifier to damage. Crossbows still don't get anything but crossbows instead have a fixed damage that is higher than it currently is.

Now we do something similar for spellcasters. All spellcasting related numbers are still based on the regular spellcasting ability, except for spells per day.
-A learned spellcaster's (any Int or Wis based spellcaster) force of personality determines how much magic power they can focus each day and so spells per day are based on Charisma.
-Intuitive spellcasters (Cha based) however, who are surrounded by unchecked magic, must focus their minds to ration and gain more use out of their innate magic power. Divine spellcasters' spells per day are based on Wisdom and arcane spellcasters' on Intelligence.
-The exception to this are Paladins and Rangers, their magic is focussed on their roles as holy warriors and wilderness survivalists, so paladins gain spells per day based on Strength and rangers based on Dexterity.

To alleviate this need to spread ability scores more, Point buy gets more points per tier but any ability score above 16 becomes even more expensive.
So in the end there will be no more rogues too weak to stand, fighters who are too uncoordinated to take two steps without tripping over their own feet, and spellcasters have to make a more use of their full breadth of mental ability.

For the sake of this discussion let's ignore any non-core classes and focus only on core.


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I think the general consensus is that Pathfinder is largely a better system than 3.0 or 3.5 were. That is why we are all here after all.

But are there any things that you feel were better in the 3rd editions?

For me personally it would be that I feel fights seemed to last a little longer in terms of the number of rounds. But this could also be due to the relative inexperience with character optimization the group(s) I played with had when we were still playing 3rd.

So I would like to hear what everyone else's opinions are. Is there anything you found more fun or better designed in 3.0 or 3.5 than in Pathfinder?


This is just this simple question: Which of the Archdukes of the Nine Hells and the Demon Lords in D&D are copyrighted by WotC and which are "public domain".

I'm pretty sure for example Baalzebul, Mammon, Orcus and Baphomet are free to use, since their names are taken straight out of Mythology.

But I'm not so sure about all of them.


So i've seen some discussion previously on how passive perception is supposed to work, especially with the observant feat around. So I wanted to open this can of worms here once again and give my idea how to handle it in a way that makes sense:

-

Reading the PHB, it seems like the idea is, if a character is not actively looking for something or someone, the DM is supposed to compare the Perception DC to the character's Passive Perception. If the character does actively look, he or she makes a Perception check.

Now this is already strange because that would mean a character with, say, a +3 Perception (and consequently 13 passive) who is not actively looking for something is 100% assured to find anything hidden with a DC of 12 or less. Now if the same character is actively trying to find it, he has a good chance of missing the thing, because the roll could come out below the DC.

This only becomes wierder with the observant feat, which adds +5 to the creature's Passive Perception and nothing to active rolls.

-

So eventually I came to the conclusion that the only way to really make sense of this is if you always apply Passive Perception AND on top of that a creature can make a roll if it is actively looking out.

For example: our +3 Perception character is exploring a dungeon expecting traps, so the player makes active perception checks. He comes across a trap that is hidden with a DC 10 and rolls a 3 on the d20 (+3=6), the active check wasn't enough but because the passive is also in effect he finds the rather shoddily hidden trap. Later he comes across a DC 18 trap, his passive is not enough to spot the trap, so he better hope he rolls a 15 (+3=18) or better on the d20 if he is still looking for traps. If he has stopped actively searching for traps, he will not get a check and automatically miss this one.

-

This is how I have come to handle Passive Perception and active checks. It does mean that anything hidden with a DC 9 or less is basically obvious to anyone who isn't distracted or somehow impaired (disadvantage reduces passive by 5) or fairly oblivious in general (due to a negative Wisdom mod and no proficiency in Perception)

How do you do it? Do you think my way of doing it is correct? Or did I just state what was already obvious to you?


Two of my players just asked me about an idea they had. One is playing a paladin, the other a druid (with a barbarian dip for the rage bonuses).

Their idea was that the paladin player would take the Mounted Combatant feat and the druid wildshape into a large animal that can carry him. Which would mean that when the paladin mounts the druid, the paladin whould for one get advantage on attack rolls against anything smaller than the druid's wild shape, the paladin could redirect any attacks aimed at the druid to himself and the druid would essentially have evasion.

I looked over the rules for mounted combat and the feat's description and saw no problems with the RAW. But I felt that, aside from the advantage on attacks the rider gets, the feat exists to allow a level 10+ character to ride into battle on a regular warhorse without the horse just being pounded into paste by a single attack from a CR appropriate enemy. So I decided to rule that you can only apply the effects protecting the mount if you are controlling the mount (as per the mounted combat rules, where a mount can act independently on its own initiative or be controlled by the rider and act according to the rider's inputs on the riders initiative).

I thought it made sense this way because it's the rider's feat and it doesn't magically makes the mount better at avoiding damage, but the rider is guiding the mount while controlling it.

Since the druid is an intelligent creature, the paladin would not be able to control it like a horse and not be able to apply the mounted combatant benefits, except for gaining advantage on attacks. I felt this was appropriate, using the existing rules and more in spirit with the feat's intention and it doesn't turn the two of them into a symbiotic tank.


So I've been scratching my head a little bit. I want to make proper stat blocks for some monsters which are supposed to be proficient with tools, most commonly thieves' tools.

The monster manual says in the introductory section, that a monster is considered proficient with whatever tools, armor or weapons it has. The problem with that is, that while weapons can be inferred from their Actions and armor and shields from their Armor Class entry, there is as far as I could gather nowhere in the statblock that denotes what tools a monster has. I've checked the Monster Manual, Player's Handbook and the one Campaign module book (Hoard of the Dragon Queen) I own, and I couldn't find any precedent for a monster or NPC stat block with any tools or proficiencies therein. The closest thing would be the magic items listed under a Special Equipment point in some named NPCs' stat blocks.

Is there any official statblock anywhere that gives a precedent on how to properly denote what tools and/or tool proficiencies a monster or NPC has?


I've been confused about the elemental language(s). The PHB lists Primordial as the language of elementals, and the Elemental Evil Player's Guide has genasi speak Common and Primordial, but when I go through the Monster Manual, all creatures with the elemental type actually speak or at least understand Aquan, Auran, Ignan, or Terran, depending on their element(s), which aren't mentioned in the PHB as far as I know, and not a single one actually knows Primordial at all.
In fact the only creatures I find there, who speak Primordial, are night nags and krakens.
I even checked the Monster Manual Errata if the languages are maybe an unintentional holdover from older editions.

Can someone shed some light on this? What exactly is Primordial and how does it relate to Aquan, Auran, Ignan, and Terran?


So the plane shift Zendikar and Innistrad articles have inspired some people around here to work on some mechanics that tie MTG's color system into the mechanics.

I would like to present my approach here

This is based on the Spell-lists as colors that Laurefindel took the time to compile. This lists which spells are associated with each color. (some spells being associated with multiple colors and as a result appearing multiple times)

I wanted to make the system so that similarly to the card game, the fewer colors you use the more easily you can cast your spells but also the less varied your options become.

Alignment
One important part of my system is that the classic DnD alignments have been replaced with the five colors. A character can align with any number of colors from a single one to all 5. What exactly each color means for your alignment I don't want to go into right now. This is just important because the magic system hinges on the fact that you choose a number of colors for your alignment.

Magic
Characters use the same spell lists for their class as normal however they can only learn, prepare and cast spells associated with one or more colors in their alignment. Meaning the fewer colors your alignment includes (this only applies to spells you gain from the Spellcasting or Pact Magic class feature, features that spells to those spell lists (like Domains and warlock Pacts) and the Ritual Caster and Magic Initiate feat, racial spells and spells gained from other class features can be used as normal), the fewer spells are available to you.

To compensate for this drawback I want to give spellcasters with fewer colors other advantages. So any spellcaster gets the all the benefits from the following list given for their number of colors and higher number of colors (so a 2 color spellcaster gets the benefits for 2 colors, 3 colors 4 colors and 5 colors). These benefits only apply to spells from your Spellcasting feature, Pact magic feature, Magic Initiate feat or Ritual Caster feat.

  • 5 colors No benefit, you cast spells the same way as a normal spellcaster in 5e
  • 4 colors No benefit (yet, the limitation to spell lists isn't severe enough for me to come up with a benefit that is subtle enough to balance it out)
  • 3 colors +1 bonus to Con saves to maintain concentration on a spell
  • 2 colors +1 bonus to spell attack bonus and spell save DC
  • 1 color Your spells gain an additional benefit based on your color from the list below.

  • White Spells you cast, that restore HP, restore 1 additional HP to each target.
  • Blue You gain a +2 bonus to Spellcasting ability checks you make as part of a spell. (like dispel magic and counterspell)
  • Black Undead creatures created or controlled by your spells have advantage on Dex and Cha saves and checks as long as they remain under your control.
  • Red Spells you cast that deal damage, deal 2 additional damage of the same type to the target or all creatures in the area of effect. (but not to secondary creatures affected that are not the primary target, such as creatures adjacent to the target of a green flame blade spell)
  • Green Creatures summoned by your spells have advantage on Str and Con saves and checks.

    -------------------------
    I am not sure if these benefits are overpowered in exchange for the limited spell list. It was difficult to come up with only slight benefits that are good enough to warrant limiting your spell list, but also a stacking system that doesn't basically incentivize only two options because there is only one benefit to be gained.

    I'd love to hear feedback if you think this system sounds fair to you or if a mono colored spellcaster us useless or overpowered.
    If you have alternative ideas how spellcasters could benefit from using fewer colors, I'd also like to hear it.


  • This is the discussion thread. I put a little essay into the campaign info tab for you all to read, some of the information is not new and some is just for overview.

    Dot away.


    The weather has been gracious for travelers lately, the skys clear and the wind mostly at your back. Each of you, for their own reasons, has been travelling in the direction of a small town in the Greenfields known simply as Greenest. Roiling fields of green grass gently wave over low hills with barely a tree or rock dotting the landscape. Another day of walking is coming to a close as you approach a fork in the road.
    In the distance not far from the roadside you notice a light, mirroring the warm orange and yellow of the sky. No doubt a fellow traveler is lighting a fire to make camp for the evening, perhaps you may join them for a night. One might never know what dangers the darkness holds and there is safety in numbers.

    As you approach, an old man looks up at you. The lone camper at this side is a fair skinned human, still blessed with a full head of long white hair, albeit somewhat messy, probably from the trek, and a short trimmed sliver and white beard. Though his skin is wrinkly and mottled from age, his eyes are still sharp and his posture, though weary, betrays no frailty.

    The fur clothes he wears as well as the bow and shortsword leaning against the log he is sitting on suggest he is a hunter. Behind him a small tent made of animal hides has been raised and lies empty, save for a hide bedroll and a worn-out leather backpack.

    He pulls the stick with which he has been stoking the campfire in front of him out of the flames and gestures for you to come closer as he speaks with a Jovial tone, his voice raspy but still strong: "I didn't expect to meet anyone today. But come have a seat, pull up a log." he breifly looks around himself before continuing "If you can find one."

    We will be starting with a little preamble to allow players to roleplay and establish relationships between characters before we start into the module proper. You will not have to use trail rations or anything until the actual start of the module, which you will be able to tell has begun when you actually see the town of Greenest

    Each of you may arrive at the camp individually or in groups, it's up to you.

    When you post, please describe your character's appearance, you may just copy and paste the description from your alias, or weave it into your introductory text more organically, I'll leave it to you.


    Due to a quick idea I had I came up with a whole setting for 5e which i've been designing mechanics for over the last couple of days. The setting is a sort of over the top futuristic setting somewhere between cyberpunk, the postapocalypse and some fantasy, taking a lot of inspiration from action movies especially from around the 80s.

    I created a rogue archetype, a barbarian path and a sorcerous origin for this setting, on which I would like some critique.

    A few pieces of relevant information:

  • This setting does make use of the Unearthed Arcana Modern Magic rules
  • I homebrewed modern firearms to deal damage more in line with regular weapons from the PHB, in order to maintain the balance when it comes to damage and hitpoints.
  • The burstfire quality on firearms can be used in an alternative way that allows characters to apply strength to attack and damage, by stabilizing the weapon against its own recoil and pelting targets with multiple bullets. Doing so consumes 5 shots per attack and uses a much shorter range than normal.
  • The monster manual in particular gets a lot of reflavoring, Monstrosities are genetically engineered creatures, Aberrations are alien life forms and constructs are futuristic robots. Beasts will generally reflect cybernetically enhanced animals, while the occasional normal animal or even humanoid will be represented by a much weaker statblock (the whole idea is that the scale in this setting is different)

    Primal Path: Bulletmonger
    When you get angry, your enemies better seek cover, because the lead content of the air is about to spike. A bulletmonger wades into battle, machine guns tucked under his arms spitting a constant hail of bullets at the enemy, the bark of the weapons only matched by the angry scream of the bulletmonger himself.

    Rage Gunner
    Starting at 3rd level, when you choose this path you gain the damage bonus from your rage ability when making strength based attacks with ranged weapons that have the burstfire quality.

    Bulletstorm
    At 6th level, when you use a weapon with the burstfire quality while raging to cover an area, the save DC becomes 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength modifier or 15 whichever is higher. Additionally you can scythe an even larger area with bullets. Instead of covering a 10 foot cube, your attack becomes a cone with a range equal to the weapon’s short range. Doing so expends 20 bullets. If your weapon is holding less than that amount you cannot use this attack.

    Deafening Noise
    At 10th level, while raging, whenever you use the burstfire quality of a firearm you are wielding, you and your allies gain advantage on saving throws against effects based on sound until the start of your next turn.

    I Don’t Need Two Hands to Kill You
    At 14th level, you can ignore the two-handed quality of firearms while raging.

    ----------------------

    Roguish Archetype: Hacker
    You are an expert at electronic subterfuge. If someone needs a file retrieved from a secured mainframe you have the skills to obtain it.

    Bonus Proficiencies
    When you choose this archetype at 3rd level you gain proficiency with hacking tools. At 6th level, you may choose proficiency with hacking tools as one of your expertise choices.

    Hack the World
    Starting at 3rd level, your hacking skills become so advanced they seem like magic to the common observer. While wielding your hacking tools, you can reproduce the effect of technomagic spells. You can cast these spells as though you were a warlock of a level equal to your rogue level who knows all technomagic spells but no others. Instead of needing spell components, you simply need to interact with your hacking tools for the casting time. While this ability reproduces the effect of the spell it is not considered magic and thus is not subject to dispelling, immunity to magic or other effects influencing magic spells.

    Master of Machines
    At 9th level, as an action, you can use your hacking tools to influence robots and cyber animals and temporarily mess with their electronics. A robot or cyber animal of your choice you can see within 30 feet of you must make an intelligence saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier) or become blinded, deafened, charmed or frightened by you (your choice) for one minute. The creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

    Violent Shutdown
    At 13th level, you can use your Hacking tools to attempt to completely shut down a robot, cyber animal or electronic device. You can make attacks against electronic devices and robots within 30 ft, using your hacking tools as a two-handed weapon that you are proficient with and uses your intelligence bonus to hit and damage. The attack deals 1d6 lightning damage and always qualifies for sneak attack as though you had advantage on the attack or an ally was within 5 feet of the target.

    Ability
    I haven't had a good idea for the 17th level ability yet. Feel free to make a suffestion

    ----------------------

    Sorcerous Origin: Nanomachines
    You don’t strictly use magic though it looks like it to the untrained eye, instead your body is infused with a swarm of high tech nanomachines which can perform a wild variety of functions, from projecting holograms, carrying objects through the air, to warping space time in order to teleport you or others over any distance or even repathing neural connections to give you control over the mind of another creature.

    Technological Affinity
    At 1st level, the machines in your body guide you to almost instinctively interact with technology. You gain proficiency with hacking tools.

    Digital Memory
    At 1st level, your nanomachines can attach to the wiring of electronic devices, allowing you to transfer data between the device and your own memory. As an action you can access any electronic device within 30 feet and maintain this access as long as you maintain concentration. While you have access to the device you can browse files on it as long as these files are unencrypted and not hidden behind a password protected log-in that you cannot access. You can download files from that device in your own memory as if it were a data storage device. You can also upload files from your own memory to the device. Each individual file requires an action to upload or download. You can access files stored in your memory seeing or hearing them as a vivid memory. You can also use an illusion spell of 1st level or higher that can produce the necessary features to make the file viewable to others. (For example a silent image spell could display a text or picture file or a video without sound for others to see, while a major image could display a video with sound or even a full Three-Dimensional simulation)

    Electrostatic Recharge
    At 6th level, whenever are hit by an effect dealing lightning damage from a source other than yourself you may as a reaction gain lightning resistance against this effect. If you do you may also immediately spend sorcery points to create a spell slot and the sorcery point cost of creating this slot is halved (rounded up).

    Grey Goo
    At 14th level, you can use an action to spend 2 or more sorcery points and command your nanomachines to collect into a liquid mass. You summon a grey ooze within 5 feet of you that has the construct type rather than ooze and is friendly to you and your companions. For each sorcery point spent beyond the first 2 the ooze has 5 additional hit points. The goo acts on your turn. It obeys any verbal commands that you issue to it (no action required by you). If you don't issue any commands to the goo, it automatically takes the dodge actions. When you cast a spell from your sorcerer spell list, or use a Sorcerous Origin ability, you can measure ranges and radiuses from the goo instead of yourself. The grey goo may also deliver touch range spells you cast from your sorcerer spell list. Use your spell attack bonus and save DC regardless of wether you cast a spell from yourself or the goo. The goo lasts for one hour, until it is destroyed or you dismiss it.

    Evolving Goo
    At 18th level, your grey goo is no longer limited to a 1 hour period. When you summon it, you may summon it as a black pudding instead. The goo uses its reaction to split automatically if it becomes subjected to slashing or lightning damage, it cannot be prevented from doing so unless its reaction is already spent. If the goo splits, you must use your concentration to remain in control of both parts. If your concentration is lost, one randomly chosen goo becomes hostile toward every other creature except for other grey goos that are not under a character’s control. You cannot maintain control of more than two goos. If a goo splits further, randomly determine one goo for each you have above two to become hostile (this can even be one that has not just split).
    You can command a goo under your control to merge with another. If you do you cannot use your spells or origin abilities through any of the goos involved in the merging this turn and the goo you commanded uses its action to try and envelop another goo within 5 feet. If the target is hostile, your goo must make a strength check opposed by the hostile goo’s strength check. If it wins, it merges with the split goo, if it loses, the attempt fails. A goo can only attempt to merge with a goo of larger size if the target is not hostile.
    When a goo successfully merges with another, they become one goo again growing by one size category, if both goos were the same size or maintaining the size of the larger goo if they are different sizes and its hit point total becomes the sum of both goos’ totals. The GM may allow hostile goos to merge with each other, but a hostile goo will not attempt to merge with one that is under the control of a character.


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    I spent a lot of time yesterday going back and forth on acharacter build, not being able to decide whether I wanted to use strength or dexterity for my melee stat. So I got the idea to lay out the pros and cons for each. I aim to help people new to the game, especially those coming from Pathfinder or 3rd edition, who might think this: "If I can just use a finesse weapon with dex to both damage and to hit, and it also adds to my AC and so many skills, why would I ever build a strength character?"

    In Pathfinder this would be a very legitimate question. Dexterity adds to your AC, ranged attack bonus, Initiative, Acrobatics, Escape Artist, Disable Device, Fly, Ride, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, CMD and one of your Saves

    While Strength only adds to your melee attack bonus and damage, Climb, Swim, CMB, CMD and Encumbrance (which barely anyone uses)

    So allowing the same thing in Pathfinder would make the Strength stat obsolete for anything other than roleplaying purposes. At first glance you get a similar impression in 5th Edition DnD, but it is not quite so.

    Dexterity adds to the following in 5e:
    - Finesse and ranged attack and damage
    - Initiative
    - AC
    - Dexterity saving throws
    - Acrobatics
    - Sleight of Hand
    - Stealth
    - The most important functions of Thieves Tools (so the equivalent of disable device)
    - As well as various more situational uses

    Strength is used for these purposes:
    - Melee and thrown attack and damage
    - Strength saving throws
    - Athletics
    - Carrying capacity
    - As well as various more situational uses

    Now at first glance strength seems less useful because it is less varied in its application. The latter is true, the former is not.

    Athletics represents not only the equivalent of climb and swim as well as the jumping use of acrobatics, but is also basically your CMB in this game. You use it to shove, grapple and so on and doing so no longer provokes attacks of opportunity in 5th edition.

    The Dexterity bonus to AC seems to be a must have at first, but when you begin to understand how AC works in 5th Edition you will notice that dexterity is highly optional. In fact you will usually have the highest AC if you use options which completely ignore your dexterity bonus. At early levels a heavily armored character will start out with chainmail armor which gives them a flat AC 16, while a lightly armored character will start out with leather armor and not have a Dex bonus higher than +3, so their starting AC is 14. As the game progresses a lightly or medium armored character will reach a maximum of AC 17 (12+5 or 15+2) since all ability scores cap out at 20 (+5), while a heavily armored character will reach an AC of 19. This is not counting shields or magical armor which are equally accessible to both. So for the best possible armor class dexterity is not needed at all. It is only relevant for a character who either needs to be good at stealth and still have a reasonable AC, since heavy armor imposes disadvantage to stealth, or doesn't have proficiency with heavy armor.

    TL;DR and conclusion
    So when is each ability good for you?

    Dexterity:
    - Ranged options have a higher range to them and better damage
    - More likely to go first in combat
    - Better at sleight of hand and acrobatics
    - Much better at stealth
    - Do not require proficiency with medium or heavy armor (though this also means AC will not be as high as it could be)

    Use dexterity if your class only gets proficiency in light or no armor or if you want to build a stealthy or primarily ranged character. It's basically a no-brainer for rogues, monks and many melee paths for spellcasting classes (Warlocks with pact of the blade and bladesinger tradition wizards for example). Barbarians are the big exception here, though they only use light, or more often no armor at all, their rage ability only works with attacks that use strength, so they are better off going primarily with strength and keeping dex secondary or tertiary.

    Strength:
    - Melee options have more variety (versatile, heavy, reach weapons are almost all non-finesse) and damage
    - Better at climbing, swimming, jumping, all of these are one skill too!
    - Better at "combat maneuvers", which you don't need any more investment in, other than the skil which also has the above uses
    - Can carry more stuff, including that heavy armor you will want to use.

    Use strength if you want to be a frontline melee character, if your class grants you proficiency in heavy armor or is simply a barbarian who needs to use strength to benefit from their rage ability, or if you want to be able to blast past terrain obstacles. Especially paladins and fighters focused on melee who want to deal as much damage as possible and have the option to trip, grapple or push around enemies are safe in the assumption that strength is their best bet, so long as they don't need to be stealthy or good at acrobatics.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Addendum

    the Quality Build:
    This is a term I lifted from the Dark Souls community, not sure if it is ever used in other contexts but it refers to a character buillt to use both dexterity and strength. I haven't spent much time thinking about this third option yet but I believe it is also a viable method by which to build your character.

    When using point buy you spend almost the same amount of points bringing two scores to 14 as you would raising one to 16, that is if you use a race like humans or half-elves who get an increase to two abilities or their choice or to Strength and Dexterity each in particular. However it is 1 more point from the buy pool and you have to park both of your ability score increases on dex and str, so you will have a little less for everything else.

    A quality character would benefit from all the advantages of both Dex and Str characters (long range firepower, high damage and varied melee options, all skills function decently, decent initiative) however at the cost of ever so slightly reduced numbers on all of it (at least at early to mid levels before they start reaching 20) and perhaps also on numbers pertaining to abilities outside of Str and Dex. A barbarian might go down this road since their unarmored defense does benefit from AC, and they generally cannot use heavy armor even if they are proficient with it, simply because it interferes with a lot of barbarian abilities, while at the same time they still need to use Strength.

    I'd have to build a lot of test characters to say anything definite on this idea.


    1 person marked this as a favorite.

    Hey everyone

    I've been wanting to play HotDQ for a while now, just because I like dragon themed campaigns, unfortunately when i got into a game running the module, the DM's style didn't really agree with my sensibilities, which might be in part due to the combat heavyness of the material but I still think it can be run differently. So I decided to DM it myself.

    A few things about my DMing style:
    - It's been a long time since I last GMed a PbP, and I have yet to get my feet wet in it on this board, so far I've only participated in PbPs here as a player.
    - I like to be descriptive, both with the action and the environment, and I like my players to be as well. The game should be immersive. It's okay if you're not very good at writing things like this, I will add some flavor to your actions in combat if you cannot come up with something. Though, please try to write more than "[name] moves up to the drake and attacks.". This also means that if detailed descriptions of violence don't agree with your sensibilities I recommend not applying.
    - I prefer challenging combat scenarios, which is why I will likely max out the numbers of enemies on the randomized encounters in this campaign. I may experiment further with the challenge but because I haven't much experience with DMing 5e in particular I will be merciful if it ends up almost killing a PC. For now.
    - I don't want my players to feel limited, especially the ones who don't have a long lists of spells to choose from in combat. Which is why all the combat action options from the DMG (pages 271, 272) are in effect and players are encouraged to try anything that would conceibably possible in real life (and then some, if you've got the skills for it.) I reward clever use of your abilities, resources and the environment so if you see an opportunity to do something that seems more beneficial than just attacking something, even if the rules don't cover it, go for it.
    - I would like to see one post a day, though I understand there may be slow periods, and activity in a long running PbP slows down with time, longer absences should be announced beforehand if possible. I will message anyone who disappears for about a week without a word, if after two weeks there is no response, they will be replaced, though I will write their characters out of the story in such a way that they can rejoin should the player return.
    - XP are too unwieldy for my taste, you will level based on story progression.

    You are welcome to apply if you've played HotDQ before, but I'd strongly prefer players who haven't finished it yet and aren't currently in a game running the module.

    We would play PbP, here on the Paizo boards.

    Character creation guidelines in case there is enough interest (so I don't have to put it in a later post that people can't find):
    Sources All options in PHB, Elemental Evil player's guide and SCAG are open, you may also use the Oathbreaker Paladin Oath and Death Cleric Domain, Eladrin subrace and Aasimar race from the DMG. Additionally I'll allow all options from Unearthed Arcanas Underdark Characters, Classics Revisited, That Old Black Magic, Waterborne, Feats and the Favored Soul sorcerous origin and Spell Less Ranger from Class Design Variants.
    Some of the options in Unearthed Arcana also are in SCAG, in such a case use the one from SCAG as it is the more up to date version.
    Starting Level and Wealth 1 and you may choose to pick from the starting equipment of your class or buy equipment from the average starting wealth of your class. If you choose to buy equipment, you get a spellcasting focus or component pouch and a spellbook you need for your spellcasting for free. If none of these apply to your class you may choose a single weapon, armor or shield worth up to 15 gp for free.
    Alignment Any is open, keep in mind I expect you to work with the group in fighting the minions of the Dragon Queen. A bit of party conflict is the spice of roleplaying but don't become disruptive.
    Ability Scores and HP 27 point buy and use the rounded up average HP per level given for your class, don't roll.
    Backgrounds You may mix and match elements from different backgrounds to create a custom background if you want, and also take the module specific Background features.
    Trinkets You may take any number between 0 and 3 trinkets, choose them freely or randomly generate them. They will likely not be of any story significance though, unless I happen to be inspired by one of them.
    Character formatI'd like you to make an Alias with a profile layouted like this example. I want to be able to look up you character's stat information quickly and for that uniform statblocks are tremendously helpful. If you want to be especially DM friendly you can also add spoilers with descriptions of you class features, feats, spells etc. but that is hardly required.

    If interest persists through the module I might also continue running the campaign through Tyranny of Dragons.

    I'm also open to any further questions, in case I missed something in the essay above or you just need some other information.


    So I have my 5 or 6 PF Pawn boxes and my 4 erasable flipmats. I'm prepared for all manner of battles. Except if there is a gargantuan or colossal monster involved.

    Are there some affordable minis above Huge size I can get for the many different gargantuan and upward monsters that fill the Bestiaries and Monster Manuals of the world? Or do I have to go with expensive (sometimes not even) fully detailed minis if I don't want to just put a small cardboard box on the table as a stand-in?


    Beast masters are not very good, they have to spend their action to get their beast companion to do anything other than wandering around the battlefield and watching, they don't even automatically take the dodge action. As long as you don't tell them what to do they just take everything an enemy might throw at them. And if that weren't enough the companion doesn't even get to use their full attack power if it has multiattack and doesn't get the extra damage from Hunter's Mark

    What if we take the beast companion rules though and read them a little differently?

    It explicitly says the companion does nothing unless you order it to take the attack, dash, dodge or disengage action.

    What if we simply assume the beast will continue executing the command it got until the conditions are no longer met. That is to say, it's target is dead/disabled, it has reached the point it needed to go, it is no longer under threat of attack or within the melee range of an enemy.

    This is not supposed to be a discussion about the RAW and/or RAI, simply an idea to make the Beast Master archetype a more viable/attractive choice, without having to actually write homebrew rules, by simply reading into the rules a little bit.

    Similarly you could interpret spells like specifically Hunter's Mark in such a way that the beast companion being your class feature is effectively a part of "you" for spells that benefit "you" without "you" being the spell's target. Because you deal the damage when your class feature hits. (Perhaps more of a stretch, since the ability to share spells implies the beast is not affected by spells that target you unless you want it to, but certainly helps the archetype's case)

    What do you all think, would this be a helpful addition to improve the archetype or would it break the action economy, or still not make the beast master a good choice?


    2 people marked this as a favorite.

    First off apologies if this shouldn't go in this subforum.

    My name is Tobias Beis and I am a learned print media designer living in Germany, currently suffering from a lack of open positions in my chosen professions in my area. So I was considering putting my professional skills to use with my passion for roleplaying games.

    I have yet to have professional experience designing rules, I have written homebrew rules and setting details for both Pathfinder and 5th Edition before, as well as compiled them in illustrated and professionally laid out pdf documents.

    For anyone interested This is one such document I made in compliance with the Pathfinder fan license (Google Docs link)
    I also have another document with monsters I converted from Pathfinder to 5th edition, which I don't want to post publicly since the art assets used would probably not comply with the open content license of either system. I simply made it for private use.

    I also have various other homebrew rules work in progress which I currently plan to eventually publish under the PFRPG fan license or the DM's guild.

    Finally I also do Illustration (Deviantart link) in both digital and traditional media.

    The difficulty of my situation is that I am not aware of any 3rd party publishers in Germany so a work relationship would probably only be possible over long distance.

    So I was wondering if anyone had some advice on how to get into 3rd party publishing, either independently, as my own publisher, freelance or employed with another publisher.

    Also if I piqued somebody's interest I'm willing to privately share more of my work, such as the aforementioned monster conversion and my work in progress rules.


    Hey everyone, I just went over the weapon table in the Player Handbook, curious if I could extract some sort of system out of the table, by which one can homebrew their own weapons and keep them all at about equal usefulness to what already exists. And I found this relatively simple solution. Feel free to let me know what you think.

    Weapon Creation Guidelines
    To create rules for a new weapon, you can either take an existing weapons rules and slightly alter its weight and cost and perhaps change the type of damage it deals. If the weapon you want to create does not quite fit with any of the existing weapons, you can use these guidelines to help make your weapon balanced with existing weapons. These guideline uses a scoring system called quality points (QP), to determine the weapon's overall quality (its net "power level").

    - A weapon with 3 or less QP is either a very primitive weapon or perhaps a tool or farming implement repurposed for fighting, rather than something designed specifically for combat.
    - A weapon of 4 QP is normally a typical simple weapon, created for combat, or at least some form of killing other people, but still easy to use.
    - Weapons with a score of 5 or 6 QP are martial weapons. Weapons designed for warfare and requiring some measure of advanced training to use proficiently.
    - A weapon should not exceed 6 QP. A weapon with 6 QP should have some sort of special drawback that puts it at a disadvantage to other weapons, that ensures the weapon is only superior within a limited range of use. For example the Lance, which by these rules is worth about 6 QP (even after calculating in its drawbacks) has disadvantage against foes within 5 feet of the wielder, making it typically a one-use weapon that has to be replaced with another weapon that can be used properly within 5 feet reach. Alternatively if you cannot think of a fitting drawback you can rule that a 6 QP weapon is especially difficult to master and requires the wielder to attain proficiency in it through the Weapon Master feat.

    Step 1: Classification
    Choose whether your weapon is a melee or ranged weapon. Thrown weapons can be classified as either, usually the weapon is classified for its primary use. (Darts are designed primarily to be thrown and are classified as ranged weapons, while daggers are primarily designed to stab in close quarters combat, and so are classified as melee) Mechanically there is no difference.

    Step 2: Damage
    Choose which type of damage your weapon deals, bludgeoning, piercing or slashing. Then choose the damage die it uses. Each type of damage die has a QP value that is added to the weapon's total QP as seen below.

    Dmg | QP
    1 | +0
    1d4 | +1
    1d6 | +2
    1d8 | +4
    1d10 | +5
    1d12 | +6
    2d6 | +6

    Step 3: Weapon Properties
    Pick which weapon properties, if any, are appropriate for the weapon. The following section explains how to apply these properties. Some properties can only be applied to either ranged or melee weapons but not both, while others have different costs depending on which classification of weapon they apply to. Each property in the PHB has a certain QP value it adds to the weapons total QP as seen below.

    Melee weapon
    Property | QP

    Finesse | +1
    Heavy | +0
    Light | +1
    Reach | +1
    Thrown | +1
    Versatile | +1
    Two Handed | -1
    Special | *

    Ranged weapon
    Property | QP

    Ammunition | +0
    Finesse | +1
    Heavy | -1
    Light | +1
    Loading | -1
    Thrown | +1
    Two Handed | -1
    Special | *

    Finesse. A ranged weapon cannot have the finesse property unless it also has the thrown property
    Versatile. To determine the damage die for a versatile weapon wielded in two hands, use the next higher damage step in the table under Step 2. (for example a versatile weapon with 1d4 damage would deal 1d6 damage when wielded in two hands) A weapon with the versatile property cannot also have the two-handed property.
    Heavy. A weapon with the heavy property cannot also have the light property. A ranged weapon that has the thrown property treats the QP value of the heavy property as +0.
    Ammunition. A ranged weapon automatically has the ammunition property, unless it has the thrown property.
    Thrown. A weapon with the thrown property cannot have the ammunition property.
    Special. Special properties can be any number of special abilities or drawbacks. The QP value of this quality can be positive or negative and has to be determined on a case by case basis with the approval of the GM.

    Step 4: Range
    If the weapon is a ranged weapon or has the the thrown property it also has to be assigned a range. It can be assigned one of the following ranges.

    Range | QP
    5/15 | -1
    20/60 | +0
    25/100 | +1
    30/120 | +1
    80/320 | +2
    100/400 | +3
    150/600 | +3

    Step 5: Total QP and determine Category
    Total up the weapon's QP and determine by this total whether the weapon should qualify as a simple or martial weapon.

    QP | Category
    up to 4 | Simple weapon
    5 or 6 | Martial weapon
    6 | Requires Weapon Master Feat unless it has a specific drawback

    Certain characteristics automatically qualify the weapon as a martial weapon even if its QP total is below 5. If one or more of the following applies to the weapon, it is a martial weapon even if it has 4 or less QP:
    - 1d8 die, without the two-handed property.
    - 1d10 or higher damage die.
    - Reach property.
    - Range higher than 80/320.

    Step 6: Name and other qualities.
    Lastly give the weapon a name and choose an appropriate cost and weight. For this you can compare it to existing weapons of similar design and add to or subtract from that cost and weight.
    You may also want to determine whether certain feats or class features that list specific weapons they apply to should also apply to the weapon you created.

    Examples
    The following section breaks down some of the weapons from the PHB ad shows a few sample weapons:

    Club: 1d4 damage (+1QP), light (+1QP): Total 2 QP
    Dagger: 1d4 damage (+1QP), finesse (+1QP), light (+1QP), thrown (+1QP), range 20/60 (+0QP): Total 4 QP
    Spear: 1d6 damage (+2QP), versatile 1d8 (+1QP), thrown (+1QP): Total 4 QP
    Light crossbow: 1d8 damage (+4QP), ammunition (+0QP), loading (-1QP), two-handed (-1QP), range 80/320 (+2QP): Total 4 QP
    Flail: 1d8 damage (+4QP): Total 4 QP
    Greataxe: 1d12 damage (+6QP), heavy (+0QP), two-handed (-1QP): Total 5 QP
    Lance: 1d12 damage (+6 QP), reach (+1QP), special (Disadvantage at 5ft reach ~-0.5QP; Two-handed while not mounted ~-0.5QP; sum -1QP): Total 6 QP
    Longsword: 1d8 damage (+4QP), versatile (+1QP): Total 5 QP
    Pike: 1d10 damage (+5QP), heavy (+0QP), reach (+1QP), two-handed (-1QP): Total 5 QP
    Whip: 1d4 damage (+1QP), finesse (+1QP), reach (+1QP): Total 3 QP
    Longbow: 1d8 damage (+4QP), ammunition (+0QP), heavy (-1QP), two-handed (-1QP), range 150/600 (+3QP): Total 5 QP

    New weapon samples
    Arming sword (Martial Melee Weapon).
    This sword has a blade of similar length to that of a longsword, though slightly shorter and its hilt is designed exclusively for one-handed use.
    - Cost: 13gp | Damage: 1d8 slashing | weight: 2.5 lb. | Properties: Light
    - 1d8 damage (+4QP), light (+1QP): Total 5 QP
    Elven curve blade (Martial Melee Weapon). This elegant sword's blade is slender and gently curved. Its curved grip is long enough to allow both hands to slide up and down to flexibly adjust the wielder's hold on the weapon.
    - Cost: 65gp | Damage: 1d10 slashing | weight: 4 lb. | Properties: finesse, heavy, two-handed
    - 1d10 damage (+5QP), finesse (+1QP), heavy (+0QP), two-handed (-1QP): Total 5 QP
    Greatbow (Martial Ranged weapon). This massive bow is slightly taller and much thicker than a longbow, designed to shoot what amounts to more of a short javelin than an arrow. Before the wielder can shoot the bwo, they must use an action to plant the bow firmly in the ground. If the bow is moved it has to be planted again before it can be shot again. The wielder also uses their Strength modifier for attack and damage rolls, and cannot choose to use Dexterity.
    - Cost: 150gp | Damage: 2d6 piercing | weight: 4 lb. | Properties: ammunition (range 100/400), heavy, two-handed, special
    - 2d6 damage (+6QP), heavy (-1QP), two-handed (-1QP), special (use action to prepare for shooting -1QP; use str instead of dex +0QP; sum -1 QP), Range 100/400 (+3QP): Total 6 QP


    While the content of the 5e Monster Manual is as good as ever, I've perhaps come to be a little spoiled by Pathfinders abundance of monsters (with now 5 core books full of them and pretty much anything that isn't in those but exists in print somewhere else, collected on d20pfsrd)

    So one monster manual seems very slim in comparison. So I've been trying to look for sources of monster stats in 5e.

    Google in general wasn't very cooperative, it mostly gave me the Monster Manual or articles/posts about it as results.

    I know Kobold Press is working on the Tome of Beasts, which looks awesome from what I've seen in previews but I couldn't even find any info on when it is going to be released.

    Also I've been browsing the relatively fresh Dungeon Master's Guild, but most content there is very small and fragmented and/or just contains variations on existing monsters (like monster races with different "classes" than the ones in the MM)

    And finally I found 5th Edition Foes by Necromancer Games, which looks pretty big but what I've seen of its contents is bothering me, and perhaps irrationally so, but the stat blocks are written more in a 3rd edition layout and some of the terminology seems like 3rd edition too, and doesn't actually mean anything in 5th edition (for example some creatures have spell-like abilities listed, rather than innate spellcasting), which in turn makes me doubt that the designers fully grasped how this edition works. If someone has perhaps used this supplement before, could you give some insight on it?

    .

    Other than these, does anyone know any good monster sources for 5th edition? Preferably big collections, like some sort of 3pp Monster Manual (like what 5e Foes and Tome of Beasts intend to be)

    (also I was planning on using Qlippoth in my upcoming campaign, if anyone has seen any converted that would help too)


    Hi everyone, a few questions came up for me regarding wild shape:

    Firstly I have some issues understanding how skill and saving throw proficiencies work

    Quote:
    Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the beast, but you retain your alignment, personality, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. You also retain all of your skill and saving throw proficiencies, in addition to gaining those of the creature. If the creature has the same proficiency as you and the bonus in its stat block is higher than yours, use the creature’s bonus instead of yours.

    As far as I understand the attacks in my wild shape forms are always made at the total bonus in the animal's statblock, no matter how high my normal proficiency bonus is, I use that of the animal.

    Let's say my druid normally has STR 10, WIS 16 and is proficient in athletics (so a total +2 to athletics) and not proficient in Perception (so total +3 perception) and now I wild shape into a tiger (Str 17, no proficiency in athletics, but proficiency.)
    What are my bonuses in these skills?
    • is it +5 Athletics (+2 proficiency +3 Strength) and +5 Perception (+2 proficiency +3 Wisdom)?
    • or is it +3 Atletics (the higher choice of the tigers STR without proficiency and my normal form's proficiency without a STR bonus) and +3 Perception (a draw between my normal form's WIS without proficiency and the tiger's Proficiency +1 WIS)?

    Also another question is, some animals have skill or attack bonuses that don't make sense.

    For example black and brown bewars have 1 less in their attack bonus than would be expected from their STR scores. The brown bear has +4 STR, but both its attacks only have a +5 total attack bonus. Which doesn't make sense because as far as I could see a proficiency bonus of less than +2 is unprecedented anywhere and their perception suggests that they do get +2 proficiency (it's +3 at a wisdom bonus of +1)

    Is this a mistake? I couldn't find it corrected in any Errata.

    Conversely Panthers, Tigers, Lions and Sabertooth Tigers have a +6 Stealth bonus even though their Proficiency bonus everywhere else cannot be higher than +2 and they all have a DEX bonus of +2.

    How does this work in wild shape? Are they just assumed to have a +4 proficiency bonus to stealth, or a an additional +2 bonus of some kind?


    I haven't started my 5e campaign yet and I'm already beginning to come up with homebrew ideas, some of which are just more options while others are balancing attempts, which is just slightly worrying because one of the reasons i switched to 5e is because I wanted to get a way from the four pages of balancing homebrew rules I wrote for Pathfinder in part because there are some players that are new to d20 games, so here's hoping I don't come up with (much) more.

    So here goes

    CLASSES

    Druid
    Druid Circle
    The druid chooses her druid circle at 3rd level, and all druid circle features gained at 2nd level are instead gained at 3rd level.
    Seeing how most classes choose their big class specialization at 3rd level (fighter, rogue, ranger archetype, bard college, monastic tradition, primal path, sacred oath) and how normal wild sape seems like enough of a gain for 2nd level, I feel like the druid circle feature would fit much better at 3rd level, especially when looking at the circle of the moon: The moon druid gains the ability to turn into a CR1 beast rather than CR1/4, and at 6th level this changes to the maximum CR of beast being equal to one third of her druid level. If the circle feature is gained at 3rd level instead of 2nd, the beast CR = 1/3 druid level rule is consistently applied throughout all levels with the circle. It also removes the point at which the moon druid is probably the most over-powered compared to equal level peers. Because at 2nd level she can turn into an animal that attacks like a 2handed fighter using trip attack every turn (sanse the superiority die and combat style bonus) and gets 5d10+10 HP on top of her normal hit points. At higher levels the amount of damage her wild shape can deal and absorb becomes less disparate.

    Ranger
    Ranger's Companion
    You can choose a beast with a CR 1/2 or less. At 6th level this maximum increases to CR 1 and the companion may be large size and at 10th level to CR 2. If not commanded to take an action, the companion will automatically use the Dodge action. If commanded to attack, the companion may use the multiattack action if it has this action available.
    Additionally to all benefits listed [in the original Ranger's Companion entry] your companion gains the following benefits based on your level and the animal's CR:

    CR 1/4 or less | Ranger Level 3: Your companion benefits from your Hunter's Mark spell the same way you do | Ranger level 6: You can order your companion to attack as part of your own attack action. | Ranger level 10: Your companion's attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.
    CR 1/2 | Ranger level 3: none | Ranger level 6: Your companion benefits from your Hunter's Mark spell the same way you do | Ranger level 10: You can order your companion to attack as part of your own attack action.
    CR 1 | Ranger level 3: n/a | Ranger level 6: none | Ranger level 10: Your companion benefits from your Hunter's Mark spell the same way you do

    Bestial Fury
    Starting at 11th level, your beast companion can make two attacks when you command it to use the Attack action or if it uses the multiattack action it may choose one type of attack it makes during a multiattack and attacks with that attack one additional time.

    The changes to the ranger basically just improve the damage output of your companion to make the Beast Master archetype a worthwhile combat option compared to the Hunter and the change to how a companion uses multiattack is there because animals with multiattack would otherwise not be able to use as much of their potential as animals without the ability (who usually instead have more damage or extra effects, up to and including a bonus attack stacked onto their single attack). And the addition that it will automatically use dodge if not given any other command is just there so the animal doesn't just stand around like some sort of machine lacking input, but has some basic form of autonomy. The probably somewhat confusing list of extra benefits (which I would have posted in table form if it were possible) is there to make it a viable choice to have lower CR beasts as companions, if you want to keep for instance your dog or wolf for flavor reasons.

    FEATS
    Combat Style
    You are trained in advanced combat techniques, gaining the following benefits:
    • Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
    • Choose a fighting style from the Fighter's class feature. You gain the benefits of that style. You cannot choose a fighting style you already gained from any other source and conversely cannot gain a fighting style from another source that you have already gained from this feat.

    FIGHTING STYLES
    the following fighting style is available for Fighters, Paladins and Rangers:
    Versatile Grip: You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls made with weapons with the versatile quality you wield in one hand and a +2 bonus to damage rolls made with weapons with the versatile quality you wield in two hands.

    That's all I have for now, feedback would be appreciated.


    Long title, but I don't know how to make it shorter. I'm looking for mythological creatures with bestial aspects that are created from regular human beings being transformed into such a creature. Either by infection, some sort of curse or even willingly accepting the transformation.

    The most obvious example would be werewolves, but also wendigos fit the bill, and to a lesser extent vampires (though the connection with bats is actually more modern than the vampire myth itself)

    What I'm not looking for are animalistic creatures that have the ability to take on a human form, like selkies and kitsune, but creatures that were once normal human beings and somehow became afflicted with their animalistic state.


    I'm toying with the idea of running a 5e game with a setting similar in theme to Bloodborne, so a victorian era styled dark gothic horror setting focussing around themes of lycanthropy, eldritch horrors and lots of blood.

    I'm not a hundred percent sure yet I want to commit to this, because it has been a long time since i tried GMing a PbP game, and I would have to build up some basics of the setting first.

    Should this happen however, I'd say I would allow all PHB options, except for races which would probably be limited to humans, tieflings and shifters from the Eberron Unearthed Arcana article and the gunslinger martial archetype from Critical Role.

    As I said I'm not sure I will go through with this yet, I just want to see if people would generally be interested in this.


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    I've been thinking about how Pathfinder would work with miniatures but without any grids, neither hexes nor squares. Instead using an inch tape measure.

    If you measure it in 1 inch representing 5 feet I think it would work just fine. The usual miniature bases (or at least those of the PF cadrboard pawns) have a diameter of 1, 2, 3 inches respectively. So the bases are perfectly adequate in representing the space it occupies, you can freely draw lines and place cones and radius AoEs. You might need a template for the latter perhaps, or at least it would help. With 1 inch bases a player can also move their character edge to edge if they want to make a short move and don't want to use a measure.

    The only part i think needs more explanation would be AoOs for leaving a threatened square. But i think rewording it to "Moving more than 5'/1" within or leaving a hostile creature's threatened space" should do the trick.

    The advantage of such a system would be that movement and ranges would be represented more realistically. You don't move inexplicably slower if you don't go straight in one of the 6 basic directions given by your adjacent hexes, or inexplicably faster if you're using squares but not the 1.5 squares for diagonal movement rule and you don't have to do the additional head math of counting 1.5 squares each diagonal step or rather remember when to count 2 squares for diagonal steps of you're making a longer move if you do use the 1.5 square rule.

    I don't think using tape measures or similar implements should be much of a problem, since I have played the Warhammers before where you push around significantly larger numbers of miniatures with tape measures.

    Has anyone ever tried this? What are your thoughts? Any gameplay problems you see coming up?


    I'm trying to come up with a time domain for clerics for my homebrew setting but I don't understand the balance of 5e enough yet to make informed decisions.

    I already picked a list of domain spells that seems to fit, because they all somehow involve or can be reflavored to involve manipulation of spacetime:

    1st - expeditious retreat, feather fall
    3rd - gentle repose, hold person
    5th - haste, slow
    7th - dimension door, freedom of movement
    9th - hold monster, modify memory

    But this part was easy, i just needed two spells each of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th spell level, which is not a problem, considering that spells in 5e are the same spell level for all classes that can use them.

    So what I need is a 1st level ability, a channel divinity ability for 2nd level, a 6th level ability, a divine strike for 8th level and a 17th level ability.

    I've been thinking about one of these giving one or more subjects the ability to slow down their perception of time momentarily giving them speed advantage on a single ability check, save or attack roll until the beginning of the clerics next turn (or perhaps for a longer time, similarly to bardic inspiration). But that's really all i've been able to think of so far that would definitely be in line with 5e abilities in power and design philosophy.

    So I would appreciate some help, I feel quite lost.


    I've had very limited experience with 5e so far. I've turned the core books upside down a few times now, but in actual playtime I haven't got too much in. I've been trying to get a feel for the new system from PbPs but so far i've only gone through a few encounters with 1st level parties had two battles with a tenth level party. So I cannot really say too much.

    I am currently in the process of writing a campaign to play locally and I cannot decide whether I want to run it in PFRPG which is definitely not a system i'm going to abandon completely or if I want to go with 5e DnD.

    So I've been trying to make myself a list of each system's strengths over the other. One thing i cannot gauge yet is how well balanced 5e is.

    So on the risk of kicking loose a "martials can't have nice things" debate, I would like to ask for other peoples impressions and experiences. How do you feel about class balance, and balance between magic-using and non-magic-using characters?


    So yesterday it was my birthday and my girlfriend woke me up with a present.

    As a bit of background story, I've been super hyped for Dark Souls 3 lately even though I have yet to finish my first DS1 playthrough, on which by the way I did not manage to save Solaire from the chaos bugs. So after I was forced to put him down, I was stricken with grief, I picked up his shield and decided to take it all the way to the end of the game and use it to defeat Gwyn in his honor.

    So anyway this morning she gives me this little box with a tiny hand made card on it.

    I open to read what's inside

    With my curiosity piqued I take the box and open it

    To find it full of tiny, hand made dark souls

    But then I look deeper and notice something, there is a single, big bright soul among them

    But whose soul could that be? Which soul could possibly so grossly incandescent?


    I take it out and see the sunbro emblem, it's a little Solaire soul!

    This little present was so sweet that I just needed to share it with people.

    To see all 12 dark souls/humanities and solaire's soul in detail please head over to my girlfriend's tumblr (maybe give some likes and reblogs too)


    Playing Fallout 4 I found myself kind of liking the mole rats. They are a lot less ugly than in the previous Fallouts and at the same time more terrifying and yet kind of adorable. So I decided to make some dire mole rat stats for Pathfinder.

    DIRE MOLE RAT
    This hairless wrinkly rodent is about the size of a small dog, it has tiny, beady eyes and large incisors.

    Dire Mole Rat - CR 1
    XP 400

    N Small Animal
    Init +3; Senses Scent, Tremorsense 30ft; Perception +0
    ------------------------------
    DEFENSE
    ------------------------------
    AC
    15, touch 14, flat-footed 12 (+1 size, +3 Dex, +1 natural)
    hp 13 (2d8+4)
    Fort +5, Ref +6, Will +0
    ------------------------------
    OFFENSE
    ------------------------------
    Speed
    30 ft., burrow 30 ft.
    Melee bite +2 (1d4+0)
    ------------------------------
    STATISTICS
    ------------------------------
    Str
    11, Dex 16, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 10, Cha 3
    Base Atk +1; CMB +0; CMD 13 (17 vs. trip)
    Feats Toughness, Diehard (B)
    Skills: Stealth +8, Perception +0
    Languages none
    SQ Hold Breath, Pain Immunity
    ------------------------------
    SPECIAL ABILITIES
    ------------------------------
    Pain Immunity:
    Dire Mole Rat lack pain receptors and as a result are incapable of feeling pain. This makes them unusually resilient to damage for creatures of their size and renders them immune to pain. As a result dire mole rat gain Diehard as a bonus feat and are immune to any special abilities or effects based on pain.
    ------------------------------
    ECOLOGY
    ------------------------------
    Environment:
    underground
    Organization: solitary, pair, pack (3-6) or colony (1 dire mole rat queen and 6-20 dire mole rats)
    Treasure: none

    Dire mole rats are remarkable for their exceptional resistance to pain which makes them particularly persistent foes to deal with. They live in large underground colonies centered around a single reproducing female, while the large majority of individuals are infertile and act as workers, much like ants or termites.
    Dire mole rats are not predatory, but feed on underground plants. However they defend their territory fiercely and see anything encroaching on their dens, intentionally or otherwise, as threats, which they relentlessly assault through subterranean ambushes.

    Dire Mole Rat Queens The queens of dire mole rat dens are larger and stronger than their more common kind. A dire mole rat queen can be represented by a dire mole rat with the giant creature and advanced simple templates.


    So as we all know (or most of us, as sometimes a case crops up where somebody interprets it differently) when you score a critical hit, you multiply the number of weapon damage dice and any bonuses (from strength, magic improvement, power attack etc.), but not any extra dice (like flaming, vital strike or sneak attack)

    This results in weapons with high crit ranges being generally considered superior to their peers since that one extra crit in 20 attacks the falchion gets over a greatsword with all those bonuses adds a lot more to the character's average damage, than those 2 extra damage points per regular hit, the greatsword would give you.

    What if we took a step in the direction of how crits work in 5e, (but not go all the way, because in 5e crits are almost the direct opposite: you multiply ALL the dice but NOT the static bonuses) and have critical hits only multiply the weapon damage dice and nothing else?

    Of course this would mean an all over nerf for martial combat in general, which of course we don't need, but let's just look at the problem in a context where magic doesn't exist. Purely looking at the balance between weapons.

    Would it make for example falchions and greatswords about equal in power or would it underpower falchions in comparison to other weapons of its size and type? How would the other types of crits fare, like greataxes and scythes for example?


    Those among you familiar with swords in real life might know that longswords and bastard swords are kind of the same thing. Comprising the so called hand-and-a-half swords that have historically been used primarily in two hands, but can at least hypothetically be wielded in one hand.

    So I've heard people say that what we call a longsword in Pathfinder would rather be an arming sword (or knights sword), a sword which actually is designed for one-handed use. But remember that a longsword can still be used two-handed in Pathfinder to get an extra .5 STR bonus to damage. An arming sword would have to short a handle to really make use of a second hand on the weapon.

    So I looked up the descriptions of both weapons in the game and compared them simply to what's on Wikipedia (because I'm lazy, and I thought that'd enough research for classifying fantasy weapons).

    The Longsword's says description says it is about 3.5 feet long and according to the weapon profile it weighs 4 lb.

    The bastard sword's description puts it at 4 feet long and 6 lb. weight.

    According to wikipedia a longsword is between 39" (3.25') and 51' (4.25') long, and weighs 2.4 to 4 lbs.

    Then I looked at another sword that is very popular to have in Fantasy RPGs but at least by name is conspicuously absent from Pathfinder, the scottish Claymore. Which in reality is calssified as a longsword but is known to be on average larger than a longsword to the point where most RPGs treat it as a type of greatsword, which in reality is much larger than a claymore. Claymores according to wikipedia are 47" (~4') to 55" (~4.5") long and weigh 4 to 6 lb.

    So I put it to you, should you even care, that the longsword is actually meant to be what we historically know as a typical longsword, while the bastard sword is meant to be a larger version of the longsword, such as the claymore. They just wanted a broader term for it than "claymore" (which incidentally is also the name of a broad-bladed, basket hilt sword from a later era in history).


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    So one reason why casters can be problematic is that they are balanced to have a limited supply of high power, while martials generally have an unlimited supply of average power, but when it comes to in game practice, groups will often stop to rest as soon as the caster(s) run(s) out of spells, effectively making that balance point nonfunctional.

    So I was thinking perhaps spells per day should be removed. Essentially a spellcaster can cast as often per day as they want, but instead they have to succeed at a check to cast each spell. Replacing the smaller number of higher level spells per day with a higher DC.

    I'm thinking a caster level check DC 10 or 15 + double spell level. But how this would incorporate concentration checks and Spell Resistance I'm not entirely sure. Rolling three checks at worst would be a bit unelegant.

    Arcane spell failure from armor could instead increase the spellcasting DC by +1 per 5% of spell failure chance. In fact I think it should, it makes success slightly harder than rolling an independent percentile roll for failure chance which I think would be necessary. My reasoning here is that the reason spellcaster players avoid even low arcane spell failure chance like 5 or 10% is that it is a potential waste of their limited resource. If the resource is unlimited, the arcane spell failure chance needs to be a little more severe in order to deter spellcaster from using armor.

    Any input on this idea would be appreciated. Why you think it could or might not work. Any ideas for spell resistance and concentration etc.


    Really quick and dirty question. I'm trying to level up my pyrokineticist and was hoping to find a more interesting 3rd level feat than a second instance of toughness.

    The feats say "with a ranged weapon". Kinetic blasts are spell-like abilities that do ranged attacks.

    I know I cannot use deadly aim because that doesn't work with touch attacks.

    But are Point-Blank and Precise Shot usable with Kinetic blasts?


    I was wondering, has anyone ever seen a character actually counterspell something?

    You have to know (and have prepared if you're a prepared caster) any spell you want to counter and expend one of your own uses of that spell. But in order to do that you have to ready an action. So you have to gamble your own turn on the chance that your opponent is going to cast a spell that you have ready and that has you within its range on their next turn and then still have to succeed at a spellcraft check.

    This seems like such an unlikely gamble that I don't ever see a counterspell happen in an actual game of Pathfinder. And in my hisory of playing 3rd edition since 3.0 through PF I have never seen anyone even attempt to counterspell anything.

    So what about you? Have you ever seen someone attempt a counterspell? Did it work? Was it worth it?

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