Smaugnolia's page

I almost conpletely agree. While I thibk the rules are sufficient for early languages one learns, I think there should be some ramp up or specialization to represent your character just getting better and better at learning languages, because it is a skill you get better at as you work at it.

As it stands, obe of my favorite pathfinder characters I've ever played was an odd little woman who was a wizard and ahyperpolyglot, but this was because of her job working at a unuversity as a professor of linguistic anthropology. I feel the old skill system had a much greater ability to diversify a chararacter's skills to represent backgrounds like this

What you're describing is manually coded language, like I said before. Manually coded language is more similar to a writing system than to sign language, with sign languages being full distinct languages in their own right, not simply a coded form of a spoken language spoken nearby.

ASL isn't really clearly "associated" with english, except by some exchange of loanwords and proximity. Other sign languages exist in other English speaking countries, and ASL is more closely related to non-English languages than it is to English.

The point I'm getting at, I guess, is that they're distinct languages. The amount of knowledge you have to absorb and effort you put in is the same as learning any other language. Given that sign languages tend to not be closely related to the languages they're in physical proximity to, it seems odd to have a feat that just doubles the number of languages one knows, with languages it would be entirely possible, or likely, to not be related to any of the languages you know. There's already a feat for learning languages, why not just use that?

The skill feat "Sign Language" states that you learn the sign languages associated with the languages you know, but that doesn't really make any sense. Sign languages are full languages on their own, with their own grammar, vocabulary, and structure separate from spoken languages, and their ancestries are typically very separated from those of spoken languages. American sign language's closest relative isn't English, but French sign language, and Finnish Sign Language's closest relative is Swedish Sign Language, despite Swedish and Finnish languages not being related. The rules should handle Sign Languages just like they would any other language, there's no reason for this feat to exist that I can see.

A real world concept more similar to this idea would be Manually Coded Languages, which are ways of conveying spoken language through signs, but are not sign languages, any more than written languages are a language separate from their spoken form. Sign Languages are specifically distinct natural languages. Maybe they should make a "manual code" feat?

I will try to explain, but I know this post does it better: Psionics is Overpowered! (Except when it isn't)

From the very same thing you linked,

The psionic classes were balanced based upon the general guidelines that parties should have four encounters per day of an equal challenge rating to the average party level, or two encounters per day of a challenge rating two higher than the average party level. In situations where a manifester only has one or two encounters in a day’s time, they have the capacity to out-damage the majority of the other characters without fear of running out of power points.

In a game I play in I've asked the GM if we could use psionics for characters, and he has adamantly refused. He says he's seen psionic characters wreck and ruin other games he's been in by making all the other party members useless. In search of the source of this problem, I found sources saying that psionics were balanced around an assumption that characters would encounter 4 at-CR encounters, or 2 CR+2 encounters, in each day of action. The games that the GM runs, and the ones in which he experienced psionics being overpowered, are usually far more roleplay driven, and have few combat encounters, with typically a single at-CR or CR+2 encounter in a day where any action even happens at all. This let the psionic character in his previous game unleash a volley of nothing but highest-level and max-augmented powers in every encounter, and resolved all combat nearly instantaneously, making all the other players feel useless.

In games where one is far less likely to have a large number of encounters in any one day, could one slow down the progression of power points/day that a psionic character gets, so that power points still have to be considered and conserved even with one or rarely two encounters? How would you go about doing this?

In my time playing pathfidner, I often find the most fun and intereting spells aren't ones that are most mechanically effective that you bust out during combat. An obstruction, a few points of damage, a buff, all very useful, and they make up the majority of my prepared spells so I can deal with combat when it comes, but I usually have the most fun with non-combat spells, things I can do out of combat that have fun applications. This like my wizard picking up her entire wagon and running flying away with it, or using her blood to turn a stick into a masterwork club.
I usually play wizards, to this ends, but more and more I look at clerics and wonder what fun they can have. So, I want to ask, what are the cleric spells that you have the most fun with? What do you enjoy casting the most?

A while back I was reading on some forum (It was either for pathfinder or 3.5, I forget which) and on this forum there was a build described that could get effectively hundreds of hours of mage armor a day by rules exploits. However, part of the build involved seemed to involve the assumption that if one casts mage armor (or any spell it seems) multiple times, that their durations all stack, and one does not begin to run down until the previous one is exhausted. Nobody in the forum seemed to disagree with this logic, but I can't find any mention of anything like this in rules for pathfinder or 3.5. Is this an obscure rule? A common house rule? just plain wrong?

Are there any official rules for damage done by non-magical lightning?
Say one of your player's characters is standing on a mountain during a thunderstorm in wet copper armor swinging a sword around shouting profanities and insults about the gods, if she gets hit by lightning not made by a "call lightning" spell or the like, how much damage would it do? Is this just left to GM fiat?

For example, if I want a weapon that has a +1 Enhancement bonus (+1 cost) and make it dispelling (+1 cost) do these stack together? In my group there is some discussion, and some people believe this is a +2 weapon with a +2 cost modifier, while others believe special qualities and enhancements are separate, and they would just pay the +1 cost twice.

In a game I am currently playing a sylphan wind mage (School of air), and have been wondering about the spell list. Every even numbered Summon Monster spell appears as a school spell for the arcane school of air, and the other elemental schools' lists. I always interpereted this as being you can prepare that spell in the school slot, but have to summon an air elemental with it. Looking around I am having trouble finding anything that states this explicitly though.
I assume I'm playing in the spirit of the rules but is there anything mechanically keeping me from using my school slots to summon grizzly bears?

I find it unlikely you could use this for the planar binding ability, for balance reasons, but when you summon or otherwise encounter the demon, can you still use the "mispronounciation" thing? Where you misspeak their name (as a move action) and they become sickened and staggered for one round?

The wordcasting system, as interesting as it is, seems to have been slightly left to rot by Paizo. This gives me a small thematic problem in a campaign I wish to run.

I want to run a stone age campaign, I haven't decided on paleolithic (old stone age) or neolithic (new stone age) yet, but I believe paleolithic.

I want to give the idea that arcane magic is as of yet very unrefined. Spells, except those crafted by higher powers or earned through intense focus (bloodline spells, witch's patron spells, do not exist as they have not yet been created. Wordcasting seems very good for giving this idea, but I do not know if I want to use the system RAW in its current state, as I have seen recommendations against ever using it by some people, and it has not been revisited since its creation. Are there any good third party expansions for the system?

I always found it a shame that Perform (Keyboard) was seemingly always delegated to playing large, hulking, immobile fixtures like harpsichords and pianos, and never saw much time in the lime light as, say, a bard's primary performance in the heat of battle.

In my pathfinder campaign, I'm letting one of my players, a bard, use one of my favorite instruments, a good old wheel viola, aka hurdy gurdy or ye-olde keytar.

Anyone else like having bards with hurdy gurdies or other uncommon instruments? Any favorite examples?