Sophismata's page

It's still bad and a normal wizard makes a better seige engineer than this archetype.

Anything that just increases player +'s is easily worked with. The actual problem are those spells listed above (amongst others) that fundamentally change the way the game is played.

Mythic Heroism - you still go in dungeons, grab the Sword of Valour, fight the foozle. Mythic Cloudkill? The cloud will do the dungeon for you.

Not to mention a variety of unavoidable save-or-you-suck (sometimes with no save) abilities that hamstring poorly written mythic enemies.

Ummm… having your domain spells as SLA's is extremely strong.

Is there a nerveskitter alternative in Pahfinder? If so the sorcerers are very likely to win the level 1 fight, too.

4 summoners vs 4 sorcerers would be an interesting fight to model. I think we can all agree that at the first few levels, the summoners would roflstomp.

I disagree, actually.

rainzax wrote:

blackbloodtroll wrote:

I am fully aware my suggestion is not RAW.

I do intend to run it this way, in home games, to fully test it though.

It may be some time, but I do plan to give a review of the ruling in use.

what exactly is your suggestion?

My suggestion, is that one can use two-weapon fighting with any pair of weapons, regardless of handedness, but will only get x1.0 Strength to damage with the primary attack, and x0.5 Strength to damage with the Off-hand attack.

Why? Why would you complicate a very simple rule; what benefit does that bring to the game? If you're going to house-rule anything, just ignore the FAQ and play with the rules as they were written. Easy.

Inventing new terminology not covered by the rules purely to disallow an edge-case scenario is both confusing and bad practice.

Silent Saturn wrote:

So do bards and inquisitors count as gishes? They sound like they do.

Also, what did I do to deserve a poke in the eye?

No. They don't. because unlike the original gishes, they don't have command of Wizard spells. That's what makes a gish, a fighter with the full power of arcane offensive magic.

Actually I'd say the defensive magic is more key. It's one thing to be a fighting man. It's another thing to be an invisible, hasted, flying, greater invisible engine of death, wielding a black blade of disaster.

Oh, cool; thanks for the correction.

I can also say the line in the CRB was probably just the writer not realizing the implications of letting all toddlers, blind entities, and really stupid entities have 100% literacy. Just your speculation.

Wow, dude. You're taking this kinda personally. The reason that every speaking creature can read and write (unless they take class levels in Barbarian) is because the rules aren't designed to be an accurate model of society. There's no hidden conspiracy and no reason to get mad.

If you think it's dumb, change it for your game. Problem solved.

Let's save time and cut the B*ll. Do YOU believe that all human, elven, dwarven, orc, ogre, troll, gargoyle, etc toddlers get literacy the exact moment they start speaking?

Yes, of course I do - provided they have an INT score higher than 2.

Secret Wizard's right - RAW you gain the AC bonus of a Monk 5 levels higher. Which, in turn, grants Wisdom to AC.

Purple Dragon Knight wrote:

The entire conjuration subschool is a gaming table nightmare

Pits have been banned from all my campaigns - not explicitly, but as soon as one of my players puts that on his spell list, suddenly every spellcaster they encounter has a slightly tweaked spell selection that includes that spell. Fight fire with fire. The game grinds to a halt and the other players tell that player to stop using that crappy spell.

Isn't that really passive-aggressive and a bit dickish? "I won't ban this option, but if you pick it I will go out of my way to ruin your gaming experience as punishment!"

It's better to just ban it, so everyone's on the same page.

Anzyr wrote:

Zardnaar wrote:

Sophismata wrote:

Zardnaar wrote:

I more or less only allow the core rule book these days and maybe some limited stuff from Ultimate Combat/Magic. Doesn't bother me if a player throws a hissy fit because I will not allow stuff from the races or classes book.

Core is the most broken book.

True but it gets even more broken with certain things layered on top of it. Its not to hard jsut to say no to natural spell and metamagic rods or even wands of CLW.

If you think those are the only or even worst broken things in Core, I think I understand why you do not see the problem.

Well there are multiple other things such as Druids, certain spells and saving throws being screwy.

Remove all core classes from the game. Allow all the tier 3 classes introduced afterwards, instead.

Or take the DSP books, change "power points" to "mana" and re-fluff the powers.

Natural spell, metamagic rods and the like aren't the problem. The issue is a massive power and versatility gap between all the classes - a gap that is continually expanded upon with new books because of the fundamental problems with spells vs feats.

The dm that penalizes a monk for using a ring of force shield deserves a slap.

I also make the monk take the -4 proficient penalty on unarmed attacks.

I more or less only allow the core rule book these days and maybe some limited stuff from Ultimate Combat/Magic. Doesn't bother me if a player throws a hissy fit because I will not allow stuff from the races or classes book.

Core is the most broken book.

Arcane Strike (arguably) being better for damage than Power Attack does not invalidate Power Attack as a standard option on martial characters. It just serves to highlight the martial/caster discrepancy. It's also not RAW, since a character with an SLA doesn't really qualify for the feat until errata is released to amend the rules.

This topic has kinda diverged, but since Power Attack remains the easiest and fastest way to increase a martial character's damage it's pretty much standard on all martial characters.

Lord knows I see it on the vast majority of characters that do not have alternatives - ie, everyone without caster levels or precision damage.

Hmmm, you're the one throwing bold text statements in many of your posts and throwing made up stats to build false arguments, plus telling people that taking anything but your suggested builds is less than standard.

I haven't found any of Artanthos posts rude at all. Yours have been .....interesting though.

Power attack is a standard feat for all "martial" characters.

Yes, it seems to vary greatly from table to table. At our table, the Fighter is still far and away the most powerful PC, even unto 14th level.

Now yes, I played high level 3.5, and about 17th level, when the spellcasters get 9th level spells- they can certainly marginalize the martials then.

I regularly see the fighter marginalised from level 1. By level 12 you need to ask yourself what they're even doing in the party.

Rounds, like hit points, are an abstraction. 3.5 blatantly called this out for the jumping rules. Any concern over some silly high jump corner case is ridiculous, for a number of reasons.

That's a potential 6d6 extra, on top of the 3x +7 I am getting from 20 STR plus +4 STR for raging.

Should you be adding full STR to your secondary natural attacks?

Yeah, it does not have to be in a 5ft increment. GM's call on fuzzy distances; that's one of the primary reasons he exists as an arbitrator. In combat, you probably won't have the time to find the shortest point should it not be immediately apparent.

I'd avoid actually having 4ft wide objects as a feature on the battle map, though.

You need to actually wield the whip in order to threaten with it. It's the GM's call whether or not you may draw the whip in reaction to an event before that event occurs, but even if you do so you'd be forced to drop anything else you are holding in that hand.

A) DC10 (you are crossing a 5ft wide chasm)
B) DC20 (crossing a 10ft wide chasm)

Like with many elements of the rules, the jump itself is an abstraction. You are not necessarily jumping from one square to another, you are jumping as part of a normal move action. IE, jumping is effectively, but not explicitly, a part of movement.

Quote:

Flurry doesn't say it functions as TWFing rules, instead it references TWFing feat.

Only you could conclude that this means that Flurry doesn't function as TWF. The rest of us realise that, in order to use the feat, you must be using the TWF rules available to everyone.

The issue is the ambiguity involved in that implication. It is acceptable to claim that you are not using the two-weapon fighting rules, because the two-weapon fighting feat modifies only the off-hand and ambidexterity rules.

At which point the argument should end as it's an ignorant, but valid reading of the rules.

The problem comes from agreeing with the implication above, and then asserting that two-weapon fighting can be used when somebody is already treated as if they are using two-weapon fighting.

...

However, in this case, it looks more like original poster is being deliberately obtuse, than genuinely argumentative:

Sophismata wrote:

Remy Balster wrote:

Quote:

Starting at 1st level, a monk can make a flurry of blows as a full-attack action.

When doing so, he may make one additional attack, taking a –2 penalty on all of his attack rolls, as if using the Two-Weapon Fighting feat. These attacks can be any combination of unarmed strikes and attacks with a monk special weapon (he does not need to use two weapons to utilize this ability).

What does this bolded line mean?

[...] The citing of the Two-Weapon Fighting feat also implies the use of the two-weapon fighting rules that the Two-Weapon Fighting feat modifies.

There is an implication there, yes.

...

The argument breaks down like this:
1. Flurry means you are treated as if using the TWF feat.
2. Therefore, you must be treated as if using the TWF rules.
3. Therefore, you are treated as if making an off-hand attack.
4. Therefore, you cannot make an additional off-hand attack.

I'm actually more surprised that two 10th level characters didn't wipe the floor with the Adept, Fighter and Theurge. Ninja is pretty weak, but the Cleric should have been a strong contender; especially if there was a round to buff.

Sophismata wrote:

Remy Balster wrote:

Quote:

Starting at 1st level, a monk can make a flurry of blows as a full-attack action.

When doing so, he may make one additional attack, taking a –2 penalty on all of his attack rolls, as if using the Two-Weapon Fighting feat. These attacks can be any combination of unarmed strikes and attacks with a monk special weapon (he does not need to use two weapons to utilize this ability).

When doing so, he may make one additional attack, taking a -2 penalty on all of his attack rolls, as if fighting with two light weapons while using the Two-Weapon Fighting feat.

I believe the citing of the Two-Weapon Fighting feat also implies the use of the two-weapon fighting rules that the Two-Weapon Fighting feat modifies. While there is some rules ambiguity with the actual wording, fighting "as if using" the Two-Weapon Fighting feat does not make any sense without the implication that you are also using the two-weapon fighting rules themselves.

There is an implication there, yes. So, we look to see how the Two Weapon Fighting feat could even remotely be applied.

We punch a dude with two right hooks. That is our Flurry for the monk in question, so lets break it down.

He attacked twice with one weapon. Two weapon fighting rules don't apply.

Neither attack was an offhand attack. Two weapon fighting rules do not apply.

Nothing about two weapon fighting rules interact with this example in any way. So while there is an implication that they should, the fact is... that in this example... they don't.

Untrue, as the usage of the adverbial clause "as if" allows us to ignore the general expectation of an off-hand attack, or second weapon. We are forced to assume that the flurry is treated as two-weapon fighting, specifically.

The only rules stretch is in the implication itself - ie, that the reference to the Two-Weapon Fighting feat must imply a reference to the two-weapon fighting rules.

Assuming the PC's are caught in it (And they should be. Its AOE and I plan on going first for sake of the encounter), the mist has a secondary property. Its highly humid, and flammable.

Don't do that. It takes agency away form the players, and there are already rules that govern who goes first in an encounter.

Quote:

Starting at 1st level, a monk can make a flurry of blows as a full-attack action.

When doing so, he may make one additional attack, taking a –2 penalty on all of his attack rolls, as if using the Two-Weapon Fighting feat. These attacks can be any combination of unarmed strikes and attacks with a monk special weapon (he does not need to use two weapons to utilize this ability).

What does this bolded line mean?

I think the rules assumption here is...

I believe the citing of the Two-Weapon Fighting feat also implies the use of the two-weapon fighting rules that the Two-Weapon Fighting feat modifies. While there is some rules ambiguity with the actual wording, fighting "as if using" the Two-Weapon Fighting feat does not make any sense without the implication that you are also using the two-weapon fighting rules themselves.

Provided you can accept that implication, it then follows that you cannot use the two-weapon fighting rules a second time in conjunction with flurry, as you are already treated as using them.

Rakshaa wrote:

Thanks so much! :D

You are welcome. FYI: I added some info to explain my answers. Enjoy Sajan, I love playing him. (Got nothing against Lini either.)

She is hands-down the strongest character in the game at the moment. A lot of fun to play, too, and pretty thematic (Ezren also has a great theme going).

Akerlof wrote:

FAQ wrote:

Armor Spikes: Can I use two-weapon fighting to make an "off-hand" attack with my armor spikes in the same round I use a two-handed weapon?
No.
Likewise, you couldn't use an armored gauntlet to do so, as you are using both of your hands to wield your two-handed weapon, therefore your off-hand is unavailable to make any attacks.

Lame FAQ is lame. The whole point of armor spikes is to be able to do something exactly like that. Conceptually it makes sense, and it has even been mathematically proven that it's not even an efficient fighting style several times on these boards.

It's like the designers are limiting options just for the sake of limiting options--especially when it comes to martial characters.

Agreed, and the rules should be updated if an arbitrary decision like the above has to be made. FAQ's are for clarifying existing rules, not making up new ones. (Nothing in the TWF rules has anything to do with "hands". It's a blind ruling.)

Anyway, I'd still allow the cestus thing. I wouldn't play it, though, as I'm personally not a fan of characters that rely on specific equipment pieces.

Well, I'd let it work. RAW seems pretty clear, the key phrase is "free hand" and if you were to use a monk's unarmed strike or wear the cestus on the same hand that wields your primary weapon, you would have a free hand.

I haven't seen a ruling to the contrary, in any case. Personally I think the free hand requirement is kind of stupid anyway, unless the spell being cast has somatic components.

Sophismata wrote:

The game has been easy enough for our group to regularly empty every deck, skipping the auto-close from henchman in order to obtain more cards.

I have to ask: You didn't really mean auto close, right? Defeating a henchman lets you attempt to close, not automatically close. You still have to fulfill the When Closing requirement. Maybe you meant "early" close?

Yes, I did mean "early close". My mistake. It's the villain that auto-closes, so we normally either lose or evade that fight until the other decks are done.

Sophismata, how many characters are you using? I'm guessing you have to be in the 2-3 range. Even so, I am surprised you are able to empty every deck.

I imagine you're using a fair amount of Cures.

3 Characters: Druid, Cleric and Wizard. 5 heal spells, although they've become less important as our decks and stats have improved. It's probably significant that each of this characters can either self-recover discards or has an explore engine that is not built around blessings.

We tend to go through half the blessings deck. There's an average of 3 turns or so to clear all the loot from a deck (not the same as clearing every card due to spells letting us rearrange the deck). Note that we might augury to work out whether we want the loot, and then skip it; but we do check every potential spell, weapon, ally and item.

The game has been easy enough for our group to regularly empty every deck, skipping the auto-close from henchman in order to obtain more cards.

At this point our decks are good enough to close off every scenario long before the final turn, so there's very little pressure anymore when trying to finish.

It's still a fun game, though... just not too challenging. We think it will get harder as the Wizard becomes less viable due to higher checks to acquire boons. Although Lini has become unstoppable, so...

There's a thought, most of the difficulty considerations could be because of the characters people are using.

While I do think Wild Warden is stronger than Shapeshifter mostly due to the ability to take your animal bonus to +4, I'm not as psyched about the hand size part. Personally I think that 6 hand size is about perfect, 7+ is just asking to lose a lot of life if something goes bad. This is especially true for a character like Lini who doesn't start with armor, so all she's probably got in an emergency is one of those loot Medallions to protect her hand from damage. I might change my mind on that later depending on how the rest of the adventures go but at least for now the only character I've taken above 6 hand size (or intend to) was Ezren because you basically have no choice with him.

When you can cast Cure, damage is meaningless. I will often reset 4+ cards at end of turn with no concerns, because they shuffle right back into my deck. 7 cards in hand increases your options, and allows rapid cycling to ensure you get the cards you need. You can guarantee any specific card in hand within two turns, and with proper deck management you are an effective contributor during that time, as well.

Armour remains one of the worst card types, and in Lini's case even the items that mitigate damage are pretty bad. Masterwork tools or items that remove themselves are better options (eg Holy Candle).

I might start another Lini after I finish Seelah (I'm almost to part 2 with her) that focuses on melee (taking weapon training, adding weapons) and see how she plays that way.

I went the mêlée route, which at the end of Hook Mountain is amazingly solid.

With a Scythe, basic combat rolls become 4d4 + 5, which is an average of 16 (Scythe causes the d4's to average at 2.75). That's without spending any resources.

Shapeshift can improve it to 18.75, slightly under the tricked out Holy Light but doable with ANY card in hand. Also, every d4 added by another player (the most commonly added dice) will average to 2.75 and every blessing will be working off of d10's the second you shapeshift.

Given that Lini has no major weaknesses (skill points have gone into Str, Int and Con) she is a strong contender at every task, and can easily accomplish several explores every turn with her excellent access to blessings and allies.

Furthermore, due to 4 cures in the deck she can discard without fear, and thus rapidly cycle her hand until she has whatever cards she needs.

The next step is to max hand size before going back and upgrading the animal allies power to 1d4+4 (!). Odd that the Wild Warden role buffs what is inarguably the best power in the game, in addition to providing the higher hand size of Lini's two role cards.

Items include the Cloak of Escape and the Holy Candle, which conveniently remove themselves from her deck after use. In general, never pick up a boon unless another player wants it, or it provides an extra explore. Spells include 2 Holy Lights, 4 Cures (one of them major) and a Strength. A second Strength will eventually be added, replacing one of the Cures.

So once you have defeated the henchmen, do you then HAVE to immediately encounter the villain if they are in the deck?

No

Oh, I also had another similar question I forgot to ask. Regarding the monsters with a 'check then check'... if you fail the first check, do you then have to continue on to the next one?

Yes

So, Falling Bell at a location with Merisiel and Amiri, on Merisiel's turn:

[...]
Merisiel declines to evade it, encounters it, Amiri encounters it.

Mike, what happens if Amiri evades the falling bell? By the card's text, she is encountering the Falling Bell, so evading it should shuffle it back into the location deck (it's not actually a summoned card).

Of course, it is also banished if another character encounters and does not evade it. For sanity, the only sensible move is to banish the card unless all characters evade it, but there are potential rules issues because all the characters are effectively encountering the same card (other abilities could muck with this, too).

Evading the card generally prevents that card's effects from triggering. If you evade a Skeleton Horde, it goes back into the deck without being resolved.

It's still important to read the card, because cards can contain rules that override the general game rules.

The real Falling Bell ambiguity lies in the "shuffle the card back into the deck" part of evading, since the Falling Bell says that other characters actually encounter it, rather than summoning a copy of itself for those encounters.

Sophismata wrote:

I think you're crazy to ever give someone another item slot. 90% of items are way too conditional to be useful. This might change with additional AP's.

Have you gone through AP2? Remember, Loot cards are granted once and then are gone forever if you don't keep them in a character's deck. I'd say we're all going to be taking Item slots for most of our characters all the way through due solely to Loot.

There are only two loot items in AP2. I would not take either of them in preference to holy candle, thieve's tools, masterwork tools or staff of healing.

I think you're crazy to ever give someone another item slot. 90% of items are way too conditional to be useful. This might change with additional AP's.

Playing with two players is easy enough that you can empty every single location deck of boons. Whereas with 5 or 6 you generally need to close locations as soon as you fight the henchman.

I'm surprised about all the people hating on Ezren. I can see the point about higher number of player games, where you have 30 total turns to close 6 or 7 locations. But in that scenario you make sure you have augury, detect magic, spyglass, etc to manipulate your draws.

We've found Ezren to be extremely strong and he often manages to get additional explores.

Additionally, as the game continues to escalate the pool of magic attribute boons will gradually increase.

The only worry is that as the checks to acquire those boons also rise, Ezren may no longer be able to acquire them.

I've found Lini to be extremely strong. She will often explore 2 or 3 times and passes almost every check. The deck runs 4 cures and two holy lights, and uses some extremely aggressive card cycling.

To top it off, if a combat check goes badly she can casually discard her entire hand without long-term repercussions.

Note that playing her in a supporting role does reduce her capacity to do the above, but in the long term simply acquiring boons does support the party tremendously.

She's been a blast to play, and is easily my favourite character. I'm a big fan of polymath style characters in general, though. And you need to be willing to fail your combat check if the 3rd or 4th explore is a monster.

Otherwise the inclusion of the Wisdom check would make little sense -- you could never defeat it with Wisdom, only dodge it.

The Wisdom to walk away. Like with the Shopkeeper's Daughter :P.

Honestly, I'm far more concerned about the fact that Lini's hand size can never be increased that Valeros' starting hand size of 4.

Lini's hand size can be increased once she adopts a role.

Hmm... If I may play the Devil's Advocate for a second here, Nathaniel does have a point. Very few PACG cards have any flavour text. Most TCG's and LCG's include small phrases, sayings or descriptions of the characters, events and locations the game is built on. Boardgames like Descent, and Sentinels of the Multiverse have also adopted that design.

It would not go amiss to have that in PACG, as well - and would help with the theming for those, like myself, who have not played the actual RPG adventure path.

I don't think anything more than that was being asked.