Sloanzilla's page

Vampire Touch just because it is often poorly used in Adventure Paths. There seems to be a tendency to give it to mid level BBEGs to use once they are losing in a combat. If a BBEG is vampire touching while outnumbered 4 to 1 he is prolonging the inevitable.

Wait, silent image and enlarge person are being listed as "worthless spells"?

It is opposite day already? Why not throw in haste for good measure?

stray goblin arrow :( he didn't get very far

Oh yeah, and Vancian casting. In fact. That's the top one.

I'm going to triple down on the argument that it being "for the greater good" is a rationalization.

I'm still in the "it's evil" camp, but the argument that it is not significantly different than numerous other "not evil" actions such as charm person is a good one.

I also disagree with the statement that lots of little evil does not add up. In fact, lots of little evil implies a deliberate decision to do evil over a long period of time, which I believe to be very much as significant as one evil act of the moment.

Cool character concept, either way. I also don't fault the paladin for disliking it. Sounds like everyone is roleplaying well, and either an alignment switch or lack-of-alignment switch could be defended. (Though I still vote evil!)

Nox Aeterna wrote:

Well , as long as the guy made himself useful , i dont mind.

But if someone comes up with some crazy concept that does not help and wants to be protected during fights ... well , he better pray , cause there is 0% chance im risking myself for him.

Better dead and making a more useful char next time.

Here is my take. I want you to play what is going to be most fun. If I had to pick between two new players.. One with a fighter that kills everything in one round. (Oh look you got him again, yea we beat the bad guy and get the foozle) or a player playing a gnome chef with no redeeming combat or social value, but has everyone laughing their buts off all night, then good bye fighter. I'm not in it for the win. There are video games for that. I here for the good time with friends or strangers, and the person that is best at that gets to be at my table, even if they can't make a character that manages to tie his shoes right.

If your your playing a drunken paladin that drops his sword at the climax of a battle, but starts the whole sweaty palm joke that has us all almost off our chairs by the end of the night your good. no optimization needed. if all 40 hours I put into my character are like that I'm having an awesome time. Even if I have to go through 20 characters cause they keep dying.

Posting again because I love this post. Bring on the gnome chefs and have fun.

lol, Order Of The Stick fan? Me too!

I did a home brew monster called a "beerholder" once. Everyone correctly agreed that was a really lame idea.

when I rule the universe I'm going to say nuts to copyright law and let them have beholders and stuff

don't forget Djinn Mustard

this is clearly an issue of the crossbow industry needing better lobbyists

It makes no sense, but I really want to say "I've got your giant gulf in system mastery right here!"- so I did

I find playing with "non experts" to be more fun than playing with heavy mix-maxer optimizers. I don't dumb it down, but I do try to play supporting characters to encourage everyone to get to shine and so I don't steal the show.

1. You actually play with wizards who aren't conjurers! It's madness. You get elven fighters and regular monks instead of six armed synthesists and zen archers.
2. Not everyone has a seven dump stat!
3. They keep magic items they find instead of selling them in some grind to buy what they decided they wanted to begin with.
4. Sometimes, people miss saving throws. It's fun!

The gap (between my game knowledge and their game knowledge)can be frustrating and you do have to reign it in a bit or the other players get frustrated, but overall I prefer it to the uniformity of playing with a bunch of system experts. Playing with newer players is like hanging with the muppets instead of the master thief guys in the Great Muppet Caper. They may have a finely honed machine, but you guys have a bunch of dudes having fun.

ahhh, that's much better

Silver dragons went to a lot of concerts in the 60s and 70s, so they developed an immunity to most mind altering substances.

There are a couple points at the tail end of the 2nd Carrion Crown module famous for being TPK spots.

And actually the module's other biggest traitor is also vertically challenged. <5 feet= TRAITOR

Would be kind of funny if the most LGBT-friendly campaign in RPG history somehow then drew the ire of a little person group.

I'm going to also assume most gay couples in real life consist of one plucky rogue with a troubled past and one holy person.

Favored Enema (grape jelly)

"They are capable of running for Congress" joke goes here

Silver bludgeoning weapons have no damage penalty

I too hate that argument

After reading this and the enlarge person thread, I've decided that the temporary bonus rules are dumb and I will be ignoring them

I'm dealing with this as the one good party member in a campaign right now.

The OOC lecture I get is basically "that's great that YOU want your character to be lawful good. I don't want MY character to be good, so don't interfere with my right to play."

The obvious response is that while you have every right to play a childkiller, I have every right to play a character who actively works to prevent childkilling. It does not matter if you have a PC or an NPC flag above you- and I'm under no obligation to not interfere just because YOU want to play a psychopath.

Party tension is not always a bad thing. It's a good roleplay opportunity. PVP should be avoided, but not at all costs.

thanks for both responses, and lol at "rocs die"
- and I really like Reynard's ideas and will probably use them.

Yeah, I know about falling rules and was doing that already, but was wondering how it might work if I didn't house rule the dimension door part.

1. Dwarf teleports 50 feet above a griffon- plummets down and hits griffin for 5D6 damage and takes that as well. His turn is over.
2. Griffon's turn is up, there's a dwarf on his back, or is there? The dwarf never made a grapple, but he is falling very rapidly right at the center of the griffon's body. It would be strange to not have the griffon impeded or moved.

So even if I decide in future campaigns that dimension door does end the round, I think I'll probably at least have the falling armored dwarf (if he connects) get a bull rush attack to push the flyer down some distance. Unless it is a huge flyer.

Oh, and no feather falling ring- he's just crazy and has a lot of hit points.

Their small farming community is a day or two ride north of the planet's worst undead infestation, a week's ride south of the planet's worst demon infestation and maybe three days ride east of the planet's worst orc infestation. I'd be a jerk too.

Most of them really:
Shield, Mage Armor, Exp. Retreat, Grease, Color Spray, Comprehend Languages, Enlarge Person, Feather Fall, Create Pit, Glitterdust, Mirror Image, Invisibility, Resist Energy, Detect Thoughts, Rope Trick.

I can only think of a few arcane spells (mostly evocation types) that stop being useful at higher levels.

Inquisitors of Shelyn are fun
- "this art is terrible! someone must pay!"

how come you can roleplay a crazy rapist, pillager, but I'm not allowed to roleplay a guy who tells you that your crazy rapist pillaging is wrong?

there's a strong, well-documented misconception that "chaotic neutral" means "chaotic evil and crazy"

I'm pleased to see people mentioning dragon shaman, as I always thought it was perhaps the most underrated class.

Not uber powerful, sure, but gave you a lot of good options. Kind of an inquisitor build in some ways, and fun to play. I ran one in a L5 one nighter campaign and was easily the star of the show.

kudos for putting 3.X's first ever useful appraise roll in!

Can we also bring our problems to the 400 post, stickied GM discussion thread at the top of this forum? :)

"Green is da best" could also be "Orcdor"

lol, love it.

for some reason "Vikings..."Witchs...Cavemen" was my favorite part

if we're going back to 3.5 there was this one undead with an "aura of drowning" that more or less killed everything around it who didn't make a DC Absurd fort. save. I think it was called "Drowned" and it was like CR 7 or something close.

Done before I'm sure, but anyway.
IMO

1. Shadow demon
2. (tie) Ghoul, Phase spider
3. (tie) Gibbering mouther, wisp

Actually, most demons probably belong on the list.

On a second run-through, and I just realized how difficult the morale saves are to make, as written.

The only potential boost is a +2 from having an entertainer, which you are less likely to get quickly. (The bard has the hardest diplomancy rolls, among other things.)

Sasha, Ishrirou and Aerys all have -1 will saves, though Aerys has bravery and I suppose this is a type of fear effect. . But they are also all shaken.
So on the first day, without an entertainer, Sasha and Ishri have a 15 percent chance of moving up to normal and a 60 percent chance of getting "below a 5" and moving down to frightened. Aerys is 5 percent better and an entertainer makes everyone 10 percent better.

A panicked Sasha or Ishri (-3 to will saves, due to shaken condition)can very easily get morale-locked- and bounce between panicked and feared throughout the adventure.

Because the "rise" of the runelords would be less impressive with a shorter weapon?

DM- “You find a gold statue of a dragon and a gold statue of a lord.”
Player- “Appraise the dragon,”
DM- “It’s worth 250 gold,”
Player- “Appraise the lord,”
DM- “Hallelujah!”

I kind of hate appraise just because it is DM unfriendly.

"You think that bracelet is worth 30 gp" means I have to keep track of that.

My players are much more interested in the faction/tribe dynamics than the dungeon crawl, so I'm slowing Book 4 quite a bit- probably to six months. They will basically do "Kingmaker-lite" interactions for a week or so before heading to the next vault. Edo Kline can wait!

I think one of the most interesting dynamics is how the tribal guys survive "civilization" being in the area- having a high level druid who can cure disease obviously helps.

So I've had a lot of issues with the government faction (who brought colonists and chickens) trying to impose its will and the tribal guys telling them to buzz off and the adventurers having to referee type stuff. I game with a bunch of lawyers, so they are drawing up all kinds of accords and MOUs and so forth. lol

The only people in the hobby that complained about the book were those who liked playing casters.

Why do some people make broad declarations like this? Have you interviewed every single person who liked and didn't like the class to verify your hypothesis that 100 percent of the people who didn't like it typically play casters?

Some of us, self included, thought Book of the Nine Swords was a goofy, Dragonball Z-esque system that totally changed the mechanics of the world and also made half the classes obselete by basically disguising magic classes as martial classes. Please allow me the courtesy of having a different opinion than you without feeling the need to generalize and subsequently dismiss that opinion. (The only people who don't agree with me just like casters)

It's worth noting that Pathfinder isn't just a "rules patch" to 3.5.

It is also a living, breathing world and system that introduces gobs of new adventures, concepts, artwork and regions. After several years of the whole "we don't sell new adventures" policy, the Adventure Paths, especially, make me very happy.

In all honesty, I like 3.5's rules about as much as Pathfinder's rules and feel each has some advantages, but Pathfinder is the clear winner because of Adventure Paths, a much better customer service approach, and so forth. I can go in one of the AP threads right now and there's a pretty good chance the guy who wrote the damn thing would answer my question. That's good stuff.

As for the OP- I would like a revision that fixes some of the grammar mistakes, errata, etc. It doesn't have to be .5 or even 2.0, but I would just like a little more fine tuning.

Part of the problem has been skill point creep, however. Let's say every class but rogues only received 2 skill points per level, and they still received 8. I'm not saying that is what should happen, but they would certainly become a somewhat more attractive option. Contrary to popular belief, Pathfinder has a very friendly skill system. Cross class skills have only a 15 percent penalty, and you can usually get around that with traits or cosmopolitan. A 10 int human can get 4 points per level, if they give up on the hit point buff. Skills used to be a rogue's forte- but there has been enough power creep- enough giving everyone more to do- that their niche has been eliminated.

Again, I'm not saying we should nerf everyone else's skill list at this point, but it is fair to say that a more inclusive skill system has hurt rogues.

I utterly agree on their lack of defensive abilities. You've got the guy who is scouting ahead by himself and likely to roll the most dice- and he's probably got the worst defenses (in net terms of AC, saves and hit points) in the game. I've considered building a rogue that ignores two weapon fighting and other combat novelties to focus on scouting, but by midlevel 2/3 of your average dungeon encounter has tremorsense, blindsense or scent 90 percent of the time, so why bother? I'd actually be OK with some sort of improved dodge ability- and I'm generally against adding more toys.

didn't read every single post, but it sometimes seems missed by many that they are in many ways the best defensive class in the game.

Sure, their high smite damage output is often balanced by rage, favored enemy, etc., but it often seems like direct comparisons overlook the fact that.
1. They have the best saves in the game.
2. They are immune to 1/2 the game's nastiest effects.
3. They can heal themselves as a free action.

I know most comparisons tend to focus on offense, but the fact that they are very difficult to kill, IMO, is a huge factor. Also, the "overcoming DR" element to smite is a huge outside of the box factor that negates the puzzle element of many combats.

So I'm in the minority, but yes, IMO, paladins are a bit overpowered and yes, IMO, some alignment restrictions balance that somewhat.

I wanted to thank the designers of this module for making an item most rewarding to the rare roleplayer who decided to make a rogue worshipper of the lawful good farming God. I shall give it a place of honor next to my Ki Mat of Rovagug and my Abadar Rage Belt.

Considering getting corny

1. Stoner druid guy with dog animal companion
2. Really dumb blond guy paladin
3. Attractive redheaded female bard
4. Brainy female wizard

Agreed: a no save, no SR daze in a 4v1 situation is decent.

A fire extinguisher isn't the most useful part of an aircraft carrier, except for when there's a fire. Sometimes you just gotta heal.

I'd say "running the math" and "breaking down each choice to make sure you make the optimal decision each time" are probably at least first cousins. But I agree with the second half of your post in that I'm so very glad I don't play with a bunch of bozos who make sure every single thing they do each gaming session is the optimal choice of that moment.

Insisting that there is always something better to do than healing does not make it so. It's theory-crafting (much like communism or the trickle down effect) that sounds wonderful on message board arguments but have no basis on the fact that a well placed heal has saved a TPK on a number of occassions I can think of over the past two months even.

Most of the other arguments have been made, but it's probably worth again noting that most of the time a cleric is healing it is not during the first round of the first combat in a day. He's cast some of those spells, and some of his remaining spells may just not be that useful for the situation going on.

I also still can't help but think that there's a little bit of a psychological dymanic here. Everybody knows that clerics heal and wizards cast fireball, so "us veteran players" have to somehow show that we are of a higher caste than those newbies, so we turn our noses up at such expectations.

Cleric: "Hey Paladin at -5 hp, you should flee!"

Paladin: "...."

Cleric: "Look, I'm not going to heal you, because a bunch of people on a message board ran the math and it makes more sense for me to summon something or attack."

Paladin: "...."

Cleric: "Look, you don't have to be a jerk about this. I'm sorry, but you will just take another 90 damage this round if I heal you. It's apparently, according to message board research, not worth my time, despite the fact that offsetting the bad guy's action when we outnumber him 4 to 1 with just one person seems pretty useful. So please flee while I tank."

Paladin's character "Um, I'm unconscious?"

Cleric's character "Oh yeah."