StabbittyDoom's page

I agree with Ashiel's reasoning. Which is why at my table we house-rule down many feats that exist just to unlock a fighting style to the minimum remotely reasonable level (including some being free). For example, TWFing is one feat for all three bonus attacks (gated by BAB of course).

The only martial that gets away easy is the two-handed fighter, needing only power attack.

Martial fighting styles and their basic feat requirements for approximately maintaining effectiveness:

• Two-Handed Fighting - Power Attack
  
• Two-Weapon Fighting (Strength-based) - Power Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting; recommend Double Slice and Two-Weapon Rend
  
• Two-Weapon Fighting (Dexterity-based) - As Str-based TWFing, plus Weapon Finesse, (Deadly Grace, Dervish Dance, or Slashing Grace)
  
• Sword+Shield TWFing - As other TWFing plus Improved Shield Bash; also highly recommend Shield Slam and Shield Mastery.
  
• Archery - Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Improved Precise Shot, Deadly Aim, Rapid Shot, Many Shot
  

And this doesn't even take into account feats like Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, or Critical Focus. A fighter of even the simplest fighting style (Two-Handed Fighting) can spend at least 8 feats on that style without gaining anything but more DPS (Power Attack, Furious Focus, Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec, Greater Weapon Spec, Improved Critical, Critical Focus). Weapon Focus is itself often the gate to more feats that the character will want to meet their style (e.g. Slashing Grace).

The fact is that, aside from fighters, most martials could spend literally every feat they ever get on doing nothing but pumping more to-hit and damage into their full-round attack and have absolutely no other tricks. And with the way the game is typically played, it's practically demanded of them.

Casters? I could spend all my feats on Skill Focus and still be at 80-90% of my potential power.

StabbittyDoom wrote:

Diego Rossi wrote:

StabbittyDoom wrote:

I'm not arguing anything, just tossing around ideas that might help the OP find a satisfactory ruling at his table. If you want to make a big deal out of the minutiae then you're on your own.

Minutiae? You are supporting a big rule change in the rule forum and call it "minutiae"?

We're talking about death, one of the least rules-explicit occurrences in the game. There are no rules. Even in a rules forum you have to fall back to guess work and fluff when that happens. I can't change a rule if it doesn't exist. (And don't even start on "then just do what the rules say even if it's dumb". Down that path lies taking actions while dead and similarly stupid stuff.)

And on top of that, I'm not even proposing to "change" these non-existent rules, just throwing out ideas for how the fluff/rules might interact were there to be specific rules. I'm not trying to be 100% rules rigorous here because it's impossible: we're already outside of that realm.

You are suggesting that we need to recheck targets after a spell or effect has been resolved. Show me a row of the rules that say that.

To make it even worse you suggest that is should be done on the whim of the person applying this non existent rule. "Rechecking applies in this situation, don't applies in another." Totally arbitrary.

And saying there is no rule addressing what happen to a spell when the caster or target dies is simply false.
Spell have a duration. As there isn't any rule saying "spell end on the death of the caster" spells with a duration don't end with the death of the caster, unless the specific spell say differently.

Allow me to reiterate: There are no rules for death. Any assertions about how rules should and should not work for death are invalid because it's unreasonable to expect that the writer of a duration-based spell had such interactions in mind, or even that the writer of duration-based rules in general had that in mind.

If this were law, we'd fall back to a reasonable expectations standard. Would a reasonable person expect to still be diseased if reincarnated into a new body? Probably not. Would they expect to still be cursed? Probably so. What if revived into the same body? They'd probably still expect to be diseased. What if revived from a finger of the former body? Now we're getting into tougher territory.

But this isn't law, so evidently we instead fall back to senseless mewling.

_Ozy_ wrote:

'a successful check allows you to continue grappling the foe' is singular both for the check and for the grapple, indicating that you need a standard action per foe.

If it said 'continue grappling all grappled foes', then it would work.

No, you are assuming it's for a single foe. It never states a single foe. It states "to continue grappling the foe", and if you are already grappling 6 foes according to my earlier logic, then you can continue to grapple each foe.

"The foe" refers to a single entity rather than a group in this case because it is referring back to the prior part of the sentence that says "an opponent", which is unambiguously a single entity.

Characters don't pick knowledge checks, knowledge checks pick them. No guessing involved.

I find it's just easier to announce which knowledge it is since there are usually 4-5 players each with an oddball spread of ranks (we don't usually have a single knowledge-monkey type). Sure, they *could* metagame, but the folks at my table make honest efforts not to and that is enough to make what metagaming does happen be an acceptable price for the time saved.

Then again, my table complains when the DM chuckles as he admits to making us do a perception check when nothing is there. "Awww, you're not supposed to tell us that!"

My group mostly plays with Golarion deities in Golarion. We did make a homebrew setting at one point, but only played in it a couple times. A few highlights from the pantheon, however:

• Only 13 true deities, but they allow themselves to be represented in multiple ways so mortals often believe there are many more deities. One of these 13 doesn't really take on followers.
  
• Deities have human-like personalities. Even the most evil god has a good side and visa-versa, they can make mistakes, have faulty memories, etc. Well, one of the gods has perfect memory, but that's kinda her thing. Speaking of gender, the gods don't truly have one, taking on forms as convenient for swaying followers.
  
• The reason they act indirectly is that last time they didn't the pantheon leader broke reality. The equivalent of daddy taking the toy when kids can't play nice. They now only compete via followers with strict rules on the power they can give out and how often they can communicate.
  
• Godless clerics are possible, but the reality is that there is still a god granting them their power, they just don't know it. (Even the clueless can be useful, yeah?)
  

Ever boil a pot of water? Measure how long that takes sometime. Now imagine boiling a 10ft diameter sphere of water with the same size of flame. That's how long heat metal would take to boil that water. The steam around the weapon itself is a VERY small portion of the water, too small to reasonably affect the orb within the time limits of the orb's duration. You could get rid of 100 gallons of water and the orb would still have literally thousands left (about 3800, to be more exact).

EDIT: Honestly, this is one situation where I wouldn't give a reward. Heat metal is expressly supposed to get *weaker* in water, and he's deliberately putting them in water. He's hamstringing himself.

Also: Everyone may as well stop talking about alignment detection/hiding. In the long run this strategy *will* fall apart, whether due to the paladin directly witnessing something, an unfortunate hit from a dispel magic, etc. And the undead themselves? That's proof of continued evil behavior right there.

There is no point in masking alignment as a "solution" to the OP's problem since that won't actually solve it. An undead-using cleric cannot hide.

Much better to make the alignment not matter, which requires that either the Paladin and Cleric share the same faith and thus the cleric is given a pass on the no-evil thing, or that they are working together against a greater foe (whose defeat marks the end of the campaign). Both require at least a touch of DM assistance/hand-waving.

How I see Prince of Knives right now.

Unless otherwise stated, abilities require line of sight to be activated on a chosen target. This means you cannot split hex based on the scarred individual unless you could also see the second target. They are, in effect, an invisible creature to you. If it required an attack roll then you'd have a chance, but would still have to blindly guess the correct square and roll a 50% miss chance on top of that. Scar hex bypasses this issue for the scarred individual, but not for anyone else.

That said, yes, you could use Scar on someone who's already scarred, but all this does is make it slightly more difficult to become completely scar-free. Well, that and it adds a new scar with an appearance of your choosing.

My top few:

Alignment - Doesn't really add much, IMO. It can be useful in certain kinds of games maybe, but mostly not. I feels like a legacy tack-on with little real meaning.

Proficiency - Why? What purpose does this serve? At best I can see MWP being one feat for all and EWP being one for a group. Armor and shields? Nope, just use it. Tower Shields? Maybe. Either way, it just puts certain kinds of gear behind feat walls. I want my feats to be spent on doing new cool things, not just grabbing the kind of sword I want.

Spells - And no, I don't mean vancian magic specifically. I've made my peace with that kind of magic. It's weird, but it works. My problem is with the overall design process of spells themselves. Which doesn't seem to exist (or exists only within subgroups of spells). Some spells give you startling diversity and power in one package, all decisions made just before you cast. Others seem to be so overly specific as to never be useful. Spells that affect the environment don't allow SR, unless they do, because why not. There's very little rhyme or reason. (SR itself is, I feel, a lame patch to spells being poorly designed.) And by the time you breach into higher level it becomes a game of "Spells can do that, but no-one else can. Because reasons."

Feats - There are too many filler feats. Things you must take to not-suck that prevent you from taking fun side feats. I almost feel like there should be a handful of extra feats just for things like precise shot, power attack, two-weapon fighting, etc, so that people can get their basic "I need this to do anything" feats without breaking the bank. Casters wouldn't get them because they don't need them: their style is implied by their spell choices. Feats should be for the cool things you can do *in addition* to smashing it with your favorite kind of weapon. In my group we just make most of the basic ones free to clear some space.
On the subject, we also ditched ability score prerequisites on feats. It has changed nothing so far.

The real answer is that it should not have been based on the wearer's manifester level and key ability modifier. Reason being that anyone can have a psionic tattoo, not just a manifester, so there won't always even be a ML.

That said, if you had to pick an ability score I would go with Wisdom since that's what the Gifted Blade archetype uses.

I would just overrule the whole bit about using the wearer's manifester capabilities and instead use the tattoos ML + the minimum score needed to manifest the power it's using. At best I'd let it be a case of use-the-higher, much like staves, but since the nearest standard item analog to tattoos is potions I'd probably leave it using the item's stats every time.

Another alternative is to say that he doesn't have normal explosive runes but a weaker alternative that only deals 3d6 damage. A sorcerer burning his highest level spells known on a trap spell is rather unusual, after all. 3d6 should be fine for any party at 3rd level, so long as no-one foolishly dumped con.

The key thing to remember for fairness: The DM doesn't kill players, players kill players. I don't mean PvP, but I mean when they do something they know could probably kill them and get punished for it. But the DM should not do something that will kill a player when they could do nothing to anticipate the danger.

If you do accidentally unfairly kill someone then you should apologize, have them "stay dead" for the scene, then say that they were actually at 1 from death and stable. Be upfront about the fact that it was unfair.

In this case I think using a weaker version of the spell is better than potentially killing the PCs on accident. Especially since there's no reason that the sorc couldn't have dozens more of those placed on his temple/home. They are permanent, after all! (EDIT: And it might be worth reminding PCs of this fact before they attempt to read anything in the sorc's home.)

Still about combat reflexes and AoO, What I want to know is, does a single "action" that involves multiple "acts" that provoke an AoO actually provoke multiple AoOs from the same creature?

Ex: An archer that fire 2 arrows (ranged attack action) in a barbarian's treat range, will he take 2 AoOs, one from each attack?

Yes. AoOs are provoked per act/trigger, not per action. So each time you fire an arrow is a separate AoO. Another example is casting a ray spell: it provokes once for casting and again for ranged attacking.

Charender wrote:

Because the player characters represent exceptional individuals. Seriously, you can have a wizard who can out think Einstein(20 int), a fighter who is almost as strong as Hercules(20 strength), or a cleric with wisdom greater than Solomon(20 wisdom).

Er, I know this is a bit off-topic, but...accordinto whom? Who says Solomon only had a 19 Wisdom? Who says Hercules only had a 20 Strength? Hell, who says Einstein only had a 20 Intelligence?

Keep in mind that true "genius" level is generally classified at 30 Intelligence.

Einstein wouldn't need 30 int. A 3rd level human expert with 16 int, Skill Focus, a trait, and Scholar would have a knowledge (physics) bonus of +15 (3 ranks + 3 class skill + 1 trait + 3 skill focus + 2 scholar + 3 intelligence). That's good enough to answer "really tough" questions on a 15. He's also have one other knowledge at +12, and could potentially have all the others at +10 (11 skill ranks per level as an int 16 human expert, with FCB). If you really want to push it, access to a good library can grab a +2, assists can grab a +2, and 18 int for a total of +20. Take 20 and you hit DC40, which is well beyond any normal knowledge check DC (though this does assume you can use knowledge as a retry-able "research" skill).

I can't say Einstein didn't have 30 int, but I can say that it wouldn't have been necessary. People can get amazingly good at things when they obsess over them.

Exactly how high someone like Hercules or Solomon would need to be is dramatically more vague.

EDIT: Genius is often born more of obsession than talent. Our instinct is to credit talent so that we don't feel lazy in comparison.

My opinion on historical accuracy:

1) Unnecessary details make a game go much slower. Most of the time historically accurate details are unnecessary.
2) Neither the DM nor the players likely know what they hell they're talking about anyway, so it won't be historically accurate even if they try.
3) When dealing with a fantasy world, historical norms cease to make sense. While this is not addressed in the system/setting to a satisfactory extent, that's simply because no-one (anywhere) has the qualifications to follow that evolution in a satisfactory manner. And even if someone did, most groups have house rules that would invalidate assumptions used to reach the conclusion. Thus, not worth it.
4) Little nods to history here and there are entertaining, but group and context dependent.
5) The best use for historical knowledge is to flavor an area so that players can quickly get an idea what it's (roughly) like, not to create total historical accuracy. (e.g. "This area is basically Victorian England, that one is basically revolutionary-era France.")
6) Adhering to high accuracy, historical or otherwise, takes a lot of effort. Too much effort.
7) Can you shut up about the propagation of middle eastern merchants into northern europe for five effing seconds so I can cleave this guy a new one with a blunt axe?

The only purpose that "realism" serves in the fantasy genre is as a shared point of familiarity from which we can then cliff-dive into varying quantities of absurdity.

To jump over a 10' gap you need to cross 10' with the jump (DC10) but move 15' (due to distance between starting and ending squares).

For a more in-world explanation: When you jump a gap you typically lift off from the edge of the gap, not 2-3 feet away. When you land, you only need to barely land, not land 2-3 feet beyond the far edge. There would be some non-zero amount above the 10' gap that you would need to jump, but that amount would round down to 10' since we only care about 5' increments. Even when you don't get a running start (by PF definition), you still take a step or two before lift-off, and a step or two to slow down, which comprises the other 5' of movement you must spend.

IMO the litmus test is as such: Is the direct effect of the thing a movement limitation? If so, FoM stops it. If movement is an indirect consequence then it does not stop it.

Paralysis is blocked because its direct effect is halted movement, the Str and Dex of 0 is an effective score precisely because it follows from a lack of movement rather than being the direct effect.

Having your strength or dex damaged/drained/penalized to 0 also halts your movement, but the direct effect is damage/drain/penalty, not movement stopping, so freedom of movement does nothing.

The examples FoM gives all give direct and explicit hindrance to movement: Paralysis, slow, web, solid fog, and grapple. None of them have such limitation apply indirectly.

"Enemy", "Opponent", "Foe", "Ally", etc are all relative terms that your character can decide at any time, and switch definitions from one ability to the next. Typically, however, you are always considered your own ally, and that is mutually exclusive with opponent/enemy/foe/etc, so I can easily see the argument that you can never be your own foe.

However! It would be totally RAW to punch your fellow party member in the face by declaring them an "enemy" for that attack. If they were in on the shtick they could possible even allow themselves to be flat-footed against it to make it easier, but you still have to make the attack roll and you'll still deal damage (potentially with power attack, and other, bonuses!), though I assume you'd choose to deal nonlethal. Pair this with a mummification alchemist friend and you have a good thing going.

And all that said, I would actually look at the impact before judging this too harshly. First of all, you're a bloodrager. Who's to say you aren't a little self-destructive? Secondly, you still have to hit your own (at least flat-footed) AC with the attack, sacrifice an attack against the enemy, take nonlethal damage that gains the bonus from your power attack (and rage and...), *and* spend your swift action. With that many steps between you and a low-level buff, I'd say go for it. I'm not even sure the math works out in this option's favor.

Actually, nevermind, found a part of the rules I didn't know was there:

In addition, other spells that change your size have no effect on you while you are under the effects of a polymorph spell.

This means that Enlarge Person, though not dispelled, has no effect when you Wild Shape, leaving you at perfectly normal wild shape stats. It wouldn't block wild shape at all.

Sucks for those that just want to use Alter Self to appear like race X while using Righteous Might, but works great for a druid that gets hit by reduce person (which would do absolutely nothing until they left wild shape).

Alchemist [Beastmorph+Vivisectionist] 10/Master Chymist X

Discoveries (feats spent here too): Preserve Organs, Mummification, Rag Doll Mutagen, Feral Mutagen, Vestigial Arms(x2), Tumor Familiar, Parasitic Twin, Tentacle, Wings, Phantom Limb

You are now a split-personality goblin with two claws, a bite, a tentacle, a rubbery mummified body, four arms (five if you count the ghostly one), bat wings, a tumor-like creature that variously merges and separates from you, and a parasitic twin that won't stop asking for someone named "Quaid". Oh, and you have pounce and grab. Process that one for a second.

It's cool, though. I'm sure neither of your personalities have weird fetishes. Especially not ones that involve 9 corporeal limbs and/or 1 incorporeal limb.

The worst part is.. that isn't even using any extracts. And it starts the weird early (lvl 2), scales it up to 11 (at lvl 11) and leaves you with a full 6 levels of maximum "WTF!?" for people to enjoy (if running a standard AP).

Fun fact: An alchemist with both Rag Doll Mutagen and Mummification is immune to falling damage. The former makes falling nonlethal, the latter makes you immune to nonlethal.

I really need to run this some day...

Nefreet wrote:

You can use the Run action with other forms of movement, such as Fly, Swim, and even Climb (so long as you have the relevant movement speed and a straight line to do so).

Neither the Run or Speed sections are limited to land speeds.

The only occasional restriction is that "You can't run across difficult terrain or if you can't see where you're going", and I believe with Air Walk you ascend at half speed, which could be interpreted as "difficult terrain".

EDIT: added more words.

Under the definition of the "Fly" spell, it reads "The subject of a fly spell can charge but not run."

And I see no other indication in the rules of Fly, Flying or Movement that a flying character can move any faster than their fly speed, with the exception of Air Walk, which reads "The subject can tread on air as if walking on solid ground."

Show me where you're getting this interpretation please, and I'll change my mind.

Because that's the default assumption. All movement modes can be used to run unless otherwise stated. And they are otherwise stated in at least some cases:

Swim: The skill entry describes that you must have a swim speed to run.

Climb: The skill entry says no run action, even with climb speed. However, using accelerated climb lets you move at double speed per action, which is effectively the same for an unladen character without special feats.

Fly: Neither the bestiary entry for "Flight (Ex or Su)" nor the skill lists any special exemptions. Therefor, fly speeds can be used to run. As long as it isn't the Fly spell or an ability based on it, since that spell does forbid the run action. A non-trivial portion of player-accessible flight references the spell, so many PCs may be SoL on running with their fly speeds, but not all of them.

Burrow: The "Burrow (Ex)" special ability explicitly forbids running or charging.

Any of those pain in the butt plotline bosses you have to die to in order to continue, like Beatrix in FF9, or the first time you fight Lavos in Chrono Trigger. If a GM pulls that crap he's kind of a dick. I don't care if you're using nonlethal and I'm destined to come back ten levels later and kill him, it's annoying as $#*+.

In more than one videogame as a kid I hit the reset button upon dying before I realized the truth, so yeah, I'm a little jaded.

Yeah, these are the bane of my existence. A couple times I've actually *won* those fights only to have the game give me a Game Over! Which is almost as bad as pretending I lost and moving on.

Well, obviously.

Alignment is tough to keep in a game, and I typically exclude it, but there are a few points that I always bring up for these things that eliminate 90% of the silly examples people use:

1) Alignment is a result of your actions, not the cause of them. Anyone can do anything they want regardless of their alignment. If this act is not in accordance to their alignment, then the alignment may shift, but nothing about being alignment X forces you to act like someone with alignment X. The confusion stems from the fact that all NPCs are assumed to have hit a stable alignment point whereby their alignment and their behavior are in harmony. And most PCs too. But players are allowed to do whatever they want and simply must expect that their alignment will follow them to their destination.

2) Chaotic doesn't mean "random". It means intuitive. You don't do things by the letter or based on concrete data, you do them by what feels like the correct thing to do. This often means flying in the face of tradition, outright ignoring the law, or even behaving in an apparently random fashion, but those are consequences of what chaotic is rather than a core part of it. And it isn't random, you just have an inarticulable way of looking at things.

3) Alignment doesn't shift for a single action unless that action is unusually extreme. Lighting an innocent person on fire and healing them just enough to keep them from death a while longer so that they suffer more, and doing so for the sheer pleasure of it, would shift anyone one step away from good. But kicking a puppy is unlikely to shift anything on its own. The sticking point is where to draw the line, and what counts as non-zero in the first place. (Incidentally, this is why I don't use alignment...)

4) You don't have to be Evil with a capital E to be evil in many traditional senses. BBEGs are as likely to be neutral as evil, and in rare cases might even be good! It's crazy world out there. Also, it's a common trope to mess with the head of the good guys by showing the antagonist performing good deeds, like charity work, and be doing such deeds in earnest. Then they turn around and try to kill some s*%# with minimal prompting.

The fact is, people need to describe what their character does *then* pick alignment, not the other way around. It would make things a lot easier. And this applies to both PC and NPC creation.

There are games where normal guys can leap over mountains, swing 20' long swords and can fart fireballs at their enemies. Such games EXIST.

THIS is not that kind of game.

The people who created this game had a choice: Make it one of THOSE games or make it THIS game. They chose to make it THIS game.

That's what the devs wanted, so that's what they made.

When I bought this game, I bought it because it was THIS game. I'm resistant to people who want to make it THAT game. It's not THAT game. I'm extra resistant to people who tell me I'm wrong for wanting to play the game the devs created. I'm extra resistant to people who tell me I'm wrong for wanting to play the game that I purchased. I'm most resistant of all toward people who tell me to get lost, abandon the game I bought because it's THIS game, that was created by its own devs to be THIS game - just because I disagree that THIS game should not be THAT game.

So yeah, when some dev publishes something that moves in the direction of turning THIS game into THAT game, I often look at it as cheesy. But that's just my opinion. An opinion, I believe, that I'm entitled to as a paying customer of THIS game. Despite that, I almost never ban anything for being cheesy.

But I do ban broken combos. And I do frown on players at my table who (cheesily) insist on looking for the most broken combos to give them an advantage over other players, usually by finding ways to play THAT game while everyone else is playing THIS game. That's the kind of thing I dislike and prevent. In my games. That I paid for. Because it's THUS game.

This game is many games. To claim there was a single solid "game" that the devs were making is disingenuous.

Your post largely sounds like "it's cheesy because I don't like it" to me. You shouldn't claim that the devs made THIS game and deliberately not THAT game, but that now it's THAT game despite it all being (largely) the same devs. At the end of the day, though, it's nice to hear that it seems you're willing to work with your players and allow such things so long as balance is preserved. And I hope your players return the courtesy by working with your campaigns rather than against them.

The fact of the matter is, any reasonably popular pen and paper RPG will be many kinds of games at once to many different people. This is fine, and we should embrace it. We should find better ways to describe the kinds of games we play in more explicit terms and be okay with the idea that not every rule is built to apply for every table or every kind of game. We should view the game rules as a tool, not a sacred relic. Sometimes the tool isn't perfect for the job, but that's what optional rules and house rules are for. Switching systems to play a slightly different game is overkill, especially when no-one at your table owns the books for any other game.

TL;DR - THIS game, THAT game; noodles, not noodles; only synergy matters.

In my experience, cheese has several incarnations:

1) Cheddar - This is your garden-variety "stop liking what I don't like!" cheese. It can be applied to monkey grip, someone who wants to TWF with a two-hander and kicks, or even just a monk with a sword. The most common cheese, it goes with virtually anything! Can be part of a balanced diet, but if taken to an extreme you can lose count of your calories pretty fast.

2) Limburger - This is the stinkiest of cheeses. It consists of deliberately misinterpreting rules to get what you want, and insisting on eating it no matter what. May or may not be part of a balanced diet, but either way it leaves everyone around you repulsed.

3) Mozzarella - Everyone loves mozzarella, but usually loves it on its own or as the central flavor rather than an accent to other things. Consists of swords larger than buildings, samurai cutting tanks in half, and some weirdo in tights with a dagger flute riding a dragon-robot into battle. Definitely not part of a balanced diet, but sometimes you just gotta have your cheese sticks!

4) Parmesan - A great cheese, but only when used appropriately. Consists of playing an Arthurian knight in an oriental setting, a samurai in the streets of New York, or other horribly mis-matched themes. When used correctly it brings an air of mystery to your diet, a flavor that stands out as special amongst the rest. When used incorrectly it's just foul. Either way, you don't' use much of it at once.

And of course there are so many more kinds of cheese, too many to count.

One (rarely important) addendum: See in Darkness is a supernatural ability, whereas racial Darkvision is Ex. This means an anti-magic field or a dead-magic zone shuts down See in Darkness entirely but leaves Darkvision untouched. So if you're in the odd position where such situations are common you may actually still want Darkvision.

You can use fabricate to craft anything that has a DC to craft or that the DM sets a DC to craft, so long as it's within the volume limit.

But there aren't any DCs for modern materials that I'm aware of, so any such DC-setting would be entirely homebrew.

Charisma and beauty correlate, but they do not have a strict causal relationship.

A character who is beautiful may be more likely to develop into a confident adult whose confidence is very attractive in the social sense, and thus they have higher charisma. But that is not the *only* path to such confidence.

Thus, many creatures that have high charisma are beautiful, moreso than those without. But there are still creatures, even humanoid ones, that are not beautiful but still have high charisma.

I find it strange how seriously y'all are treating this...

Way I see, it, there are two key possibilities:

A) The contradiction is plot important. In this case, there is an answer. Which means there's a DC to find the answer, and a plan for if they find it. If the player makes a correct blind guess then bypass the DC and move on with the plot. (Keeping in mind that their blind guess could just as easily have been wrong, and often is.)

B) The contradiction is not plot important. In this case, you make a quick joke of it, then move on. Don't dwell, don't punish, etc. Players often try to latch onto something irrelevant. Don't validate it by giving it any real table time, good or bad.

Now, you might get something that fits into B then decide to give it relevance, in which case you handle it as A (and may have to ad-hoc a DC or something).

Honestly, your initial reaction of "He gives a sound counter-argument that I can't think of right now. And we move on to..." isn't a bad one at all if the contradiction is not plot important. At worst I might add an opposed knowledge check to see who's right, then opposed diplomacy to convince each-other, but I wouldn't spend time on the explanations themselves. Obviously I would skip that entirely if they weren't trained in an appropriate knowledge.

Graceful handling of being outsmarted is a very important skill to have as a DM. No matter how smart you are, sometimes you roll a 1 and the player rolls a 20.

Never punish your player for attempting to participate in a constructive manner. For all that player knew that contradiction was plot important and should be pointed out.

For things like this it's best to be up front with your player: "That's a good point, but not really relevant to the plot so I don't want to spend time on it. Your PC is Int 8, so they probably just missed something in the conversation. The priests correct you by adding that missing bit. Moving on..."

EDIT: If it *is* relevant to the plot, make their understand or lack thereof based on a die roll. You can handwave the roll for those with big modifiers (like the guy with +15 to all knowledges), but for an Int 8 barbarian that's an unlikely scenario. And have a real explanation on hand. If it's plot relevant and you *don't* have one, then think fast, because the players deserve one.

Ok, let's say curse, blindness / deafness. Theses spells are permanent and do not allow further saves while not affecting the pc swift action. If there was a limitation for the ability to 1 single reroll per effect, maybe. But at 10 times per day, you get a cure disease, cure poison, remove curse, etc. all in one if we are the least honest about the odds of missing 10 rerolls in a row.

The point to elaborate is what is an ongoing effect, I did not find any definite answer on this. I can see spells like hold person, some poison and disease, qualifying for this as they specifically call for a new save.

An ongoing effect is any effect with a listed duration that has not yet ended. Something like "Fatigue" often has no save and isn't eligible anyway.

Yes, it's broad. And yes, it's meant to be. Unlike many heal/buff cleric domains, the effect is not guaranteed to work. The more likely it is to work, the less likely it is that you care.

Keep in mind that this is typically only given to a character who can *already* remove those things. All it does is save spell slots.

If you want to play a story-based campaign then you must acknowledge that this is that character's shtick. Having something they *can't* cure is the unusual case. Play off that, really let it hammer in how good they are at curing, then having the bad guy come up with a no-save curse that isn't too dangerous to high level folk but is brutal to your average joe.. and spreads. Now you have a story.

My answer as DM would have been something to the effect of:

"Your god, angered by your cavalier and lazy use of your divine as a crutch to avoid honest work, has revoked your paladin-hood. To regain your abilities you must atone for your sins by way of an Atonement spell and accompanying quest."

In all seriousness, Smite Evil is not an ability used like detect evil. It is used in battle to kill evil doers. I don't even let my paladins know if their ability worked until they actively attack the creature. My PCs fought a pack of chaos beasts that swarmed and slaughtered a caravan last night. He didn't know until he declared his smite and then laid into them. When asked if it worked I said "Nope, they're just Chaotic hungry."

This is what is known as a cop out. He may be using the ability somewhat casually, but he *is* using it towards the goal of fighting evil, albeit in an unusual fashion. Many good gods would actually encourage such usage as they prefer more subtle methods than stabbing everything in the face. He may have Detect Evil at will, but Smite Evil is a bit more accurate and sometimes you need the accuracy. (Detect evil doesn't even work on < 5HD, in most cases!)

I cannot express enough how much I hate the "Atonement" spell. Pay X gp and now you've made up for your crime? Violating your code as a paladin isn't a f#$$king parking ticket. (Yes, it has additional stipulations, but it still amounts to a fine.)

As a general rule, try to say "yes" to players. Get creative if you have to. If you're finding excuses to say no when something has not been an actual problem (and I don't count breaking your plot as a problem) then you're approaching things from the wrong angle IMO.

There is no RAW about the circumstances in which a character can and cannot tell that their abilities are working, at least no default rules (some might spell it out explicitly).

As a general rule, I tend to go with the idea that anything where you pick out targets lets you know pass/fail/SR/<no reaction>. Pass means they made their save. Fail means they failed their save and are affected. SR means the spell fizzled against their SR. No reaction means that something about your chosen target makes it invalid and the spell fails due to that. Immunities can register as a pass or a no-reaction depending on the source of the immunity. (EDIT: I typically exclude indirect attacks and ranged attacks from this paradigm. Indirect includes anything where the prime defense is a reflex save, though those are rarely targeted.)

But for an AoE spell where you don't pick targets? No information other than what your own two eyes give you.

Because a Paladin's Smite Evil is a targeted effect, I would rule that they can get "Pass" and "No Reaction" as possible feelings of success. This effectively lets them know if the creature is evil, but they're a Paladin FFS. That's their thing.

If you want something that hides from a Paladin, give them a custom thing that makes Smite Evil not work on them. Now the Paladin (mistakenly) believes them to be non-evil. I'm pretty sure there's already an item for this, but I can't recall where.

TL;DR - No RAW that I'm aware of says yes or no. But I'd go with yes, Smite Evil lets you know if it worked before attacking or being attacked. But it ain't because you feel the deflection specifically, it's the feeling of divine power flowing through you which doesn't happen if you smite non-evil.

By RAW: No. Celestial armor is a unique item. Any and all modifications to it are completely homebrew.

Since it's homebrew, I would (as a DM) say "Hell no." It already has the benefits of mithral, plus a bit more, and to stack mithral over the top of that again could result in armors the AC of full plate with no ACP, a max dex of +8, and 5% ASF, which cannot be considered a fair thing. I would simply rule it requires a very specific material set that cannot be replaced. I do typically allow upgrading the +3 or adding bonus equivalents, though.

dragonhunterq wrote:

_Ozy_ wrote:

Huh? The spell has an 'evil' descriptor. What do you think that means with regard to the rules?

So by that logic using holy smite on an orphanage or kitty sanctuary is an inherently good act? within the rules?

Casting the spell would be a good act, destroying the orphanage would be an evil act. Since doing good does not balance doing evil for a paladin, the paladin would fall just like in the infernal healing example.

Casting the spell is not a good act. It is an unaligned act. There is no rule anywhere that I can find that indicates casting aligned spells is automatically an aligned act. It's fine to play that way at your table, but the current forum name is "Rules Questions" not "General Discussion".

The alignment descriptors are an organizational tool for other rules to draw upon. They do not, of themselves, create any rules.

Good clerics cannot cast evil spells. Evil spells can be dispelled by Dispel Evil. Evil spells are detected by detect evil. There are probably other rules as well.

Point is, the descriptor doesn't do anything; other rules do things because of the descriptor. Alignment changing, near as I can tell, isn't one of them. Ironic though that may be.

Appreciate the information everyone. I'm not looking to "Shut Down" the Witch, just ran a game last night in which i was under the belief that certain creatures were immune to compulsions and mind effects. I was told that it would say under the description of the spell if that was so. When I tried to make a ruling of 0 for the time being so that we could move on, he became extremely nasty, and started acting horridly in the party, even after i had ruled that his way was right for the time being, until i could get more info on the matter. He left the game.

Well, you can't do much with nasty players. That said, having been in that position of being completely shut down before I know how that feels. It's like the DM coming in and saying "you don't get to play today".

The player wasn't wrong either: Spells and effects are usually very explicit about calling themselves out as mind-affecting and such. (Well, misc. effects aren't as consistent, but spells are.)

Though the situation wasn't your fault, I might still offer a suggestion for improvement: in the future try telling the player to look up the rules references between turns so you could look at them in 10-15s rather than several minutes. This means they are only shut down by rule 0 for 1 or 2 turns instead of an entire session. I've seen this technique used effectively in PFS before.

Sooo... As Heavy mithral armour counts as medium, shouldn't the mithral component for pricing the armour only cost 4,000 gp?

The purpose of this question is to highlight when mithral lightening actually counts. It is heavy armour, yet treated as medium armour when worn for determining movement penalties, class ability restrictions, etc.

You have to price mithral without including its effects. It's not mithral until after you pay the cost.

You are not confined by your alignment.

Your actions and intentions, determine your alignment.

Not the other way around.

Your alignment does not prevent you from taking actions, that may be considered "against your alignment", but if you do enough of these, your alignment may shift.

You should always ask "Is this what my character would do?", and never "Is this what my alignment would do?".

+1 to all that.

It's easy to forget this because once your alignment and personality match it becomes impossible to tell which comes from which, but it was always that your actions and intentions determined your alignment, never the other way around. So much so, in fact, that intentions alone are enough to trigger alignment detection spells (even if they do not cause an alignment shift).

This means that your true neutral character could 'ping' as any alignment depending on their current actions or intentions even if those acts do not cause a shift. Even a good character can show up under detect evil if they let their passions get the best of them and commit straight murder, while an evil character might ping as good if they protect the life of a stranger.

For extra fun, an LE character could theoretically ping as all four alignments simultaneously if they stuck their neck out for a stranger in defiance of the authority to whom they are sworn.

EDIT: Also worth noting is that not all characters necessarily have stable alignments. A character that floats between alignments due to changing circumstances is perfectly valid and though it is a bit odd, adventurers in general are odd, so it might not be so rare among PCs.

The spell cast is not the weapon-like part, the touch itself is. If you cast a melee touch spell you could, for example, give that touch to your familiar. Now you've cast a melee touch spell without making any attacks. On the flip side, your familiar can now make a melee touch attack without having cast a spell.

Weapon Focus (Melee Touch) isn't even technically about spells, it's for all melee touch. It just happens to be that spells are the prime source of such a thing.

Precise Strike only requires that you do not attack with a weapon in your other hand, not that you cannot hold one. As such spell combat's rule about the off-hand cast being treated as a weapon is irrelevant unless you attack with it. Using Spell-Strike transforms the attack into a weapon attack with the primary weapon, which also is not attacking with a weapon in the other hand and thus allows Precise Strike. Bizarrely, you could deny yourself Precise Strike by casting a fireball with Spell Combat as that is an "attack", and spell combat treats that casting as a "weapon", so now you've attacked with a weapon in your other hand even though that spell is not normally treated as a weapon at all!

It's worth pointing out that technically Precise Strike never references the term "off-hand" and instead uses "other hand", so discussions of TWFing become irrelevant as well. In fact, as worded, someone with Precise Strike could not even take their high BAB attack at +6 with their right hand then the lower one with their left hand at +1. At least not without losing the damage bonus.

Home games typically work because a DM can give the perception of risk without requiring real risk. It's one of the great tragedies of organized play that this is not truly possible as people can always read the adventure ahead of time and the DM is not allowed to fudge. (This could be done with APs at home games as well, but most DMs edit them whereas in PFS they are not allowed to.)

Those who complain about scenarios being risk free probably don't understand how probabilities work. If every scenario had a 10% death rate then you would have only a 3% chance of living to see 12th level. Even at a 5% death rate you still only have a bit over an 18% chance to see 12th level. People who want to see their victories come at least in part due to luck at looking at something more like a 10%+ death rate (more for non-optimized folk).

To go a bit more extreme, if you expect that an average scenario will include one death (call it 20% death rate), then you only have a 7% chance of even reaching 5th level, which is when many builds are just getting started. And virtually no-one reaches 12th (0.06% chance).

TL;DR - People want the perception of risk, but PFS makes it basically impossible to have the perception of risk without having real risk, which leads to lots of unlucky rocks-fall deaths that leave no-one satisfied.

meeko wrote:

I like to put it in perspective of IQ

IQ = int * 10

The average human IQ is about 100. an above average human is 110-120

"genius" begins around 130 (but that's just based off of the bell curve's significant figures.)

so your wiz with an int of 19 is quite literally a Einstein in comparison to the layman, as he should be. He has the mental aptitude to comprehend 9th level spells! s@~~ that can literally redefine reality.

It's even more crazy because Einstein should have 16 int at most (his IQ was 159 on posthumous analysis)

While I do agree that 10 int should equate to 100 IQ i think the scale should be toned down a little

16 Int, Skill Focus, max ranks, a trait (+1 and class skill), and perhaps one of the split-focus skills (like Prodigy) can stack up fast. You don't always need an int 30 to blow everyone's minds and move far beyond the normal. Which is exactly why comparisons to such people are often poorly founded.

A lvl 3 character with the above would have a modifier of +15, which is pretty dang good. That's 2 of 3 feats available for a human expert 3, but totally doable.

TL;DR - People like Einstein are just as much, if not moreso, a result of their hardwork and dedication as anything else. Or obsession

You know that guy who always gets the joke last, never seems to use long words, and always takes a bit longer to get s+~@ done.. but otherwise seems normal? That's probably where 7 int is. It's low, but not enough to be considered non-functional in any significant way. But you wouldn't ask him to be the one to hit the books, nor expect him to be very helpful if the whole party does so.

You'd have to drop into the 4-5 range to be considered obviously disabled, IMO.

Combat maneuvers only provoke AoOs from the one they target, not all in melee range.

Another example would be two 18-dex swashbuckler's with combat reflexes trying to disarm each-other untrained. You could end up unraveling 9 attacks.

But yes, you basically build a stack of attacks, then resolve them from the top down.

I once saw 7 attacks resolve in the same instant due to use of combat reflexes and outflank. Poor, poor Ogre. It died 3 times over. The original attack ended up hitting a corpse.

To be honest, even if that WERE the case for the majority of buyers (and I'm not so certain it is...especially if first printings are discounted), I wouldn't particularly give a damn. I have little to no sympathy for Paizo in this scenario.

They messed up. Badly. As far as I'm concerned every excuse they make for not both owning up to aid mistake, and taking steps to fix it, especially ones as flimsy as this, just erodes any community goodwill they may have built up over time. And rightly so.

+1

While I understand that they are a business, I absolutely do not understand how having an eratta PDF available invalidates the purchase of the book. If you're really worried, simply do not integrate it into the full book PDF until the old inventory is sold and call the eratta a "work in progress", updating it in-place until a real release occurs. This means the eratta could be trumped up as "not ready yet" by the FLGS but Paizo could still maintain good will amongst the players who pay attention to that sort of thing. Call it a transparency effort if you have to.

Point is, there has to be a way to resolve this that both meets the bottom line *and* keeps the player-base happy.

PS: I'm not sure how much selling existing inventory of ACG books matters when many of those that bought ACG may avoid buying the next book(s) for fear of the same lack of support. Myself included. Seems a bit counterproductive.

StabbittyDoom wrote:

I do loathe the tendency to say "just make it a feat!" for so many things. That's why I tossed in the bit about monk bonus feats and rogue talents. Others may also qualify for swapping that shtick in. It's not 3 feats at my table since I give weapon finesse for free.

I would like to point out that a dex focus like this is more than a sidegrade. It's a hidden upgrade. You don't upgrade your combat shtick, that's true, but you DO upgrade your initiative, reflex saves, and a couple useful skills. Other benefits are even less obvious, but they exist. A hair too much for one feat, maybe a bit light for two.

(he then said some other stuff too)

It doesn't give your character new functionality.

Gaining Power Attack lets you trade hit chance for damage. Gaining Two Weapon Fighting lets you make an extra attack with your off hand. Gaining Improved Trip lets you make trip attacks at a bonus and without provoking.

Spending 2+ feats to gain dex to both hit and damage allows you to make standard attacks with stats to back them up.

It isn't new it isn't an upgrade.

You've made an argument that the feat itself allows the build as a whole to have a "hidden upgrade," but none of that relates to the feat itself being a gate to a character being able to function doing standard actions.

I do applaud you for giving Weapon Finesse for free at your table. I've considered doing the same for Weapon Finesse, Power Attack, and Combat Expertise as I see them all essentially as foregone conclusions and the sooner they're given out the sooner most builds utilizing them can move on to interesting feats and therefore interesting gameplay.

Deadly Agility/Improved WF do enable certain things that would not have been possible before, such as an unarmored martial that isn't a monk or natural-armor-based. It also allows TWFing to be truly effective without the need for playing a class that bypasses those pre-requisites, and I'm sure there are other weird hidden "enables". These are not immediately made obvious, unfortunately.

As for the rest, my table is not run like my posts might suggest:

My freebie list contains Power Attack, Deadly Aim, Weapon Finesse, Agile Maneuvers, Combat Expertise, Eschew Materials, and Point-Blank Shot. And one skill focus related to the character's background.

Some feat lines have been merged as well to avoid feat taxing, such as the two-weapon fighting line (merged from 3->1) and the vital strike line (also 3->1).

I have a 10 page house-rule document that denotes a lot of small silly fixes, feat tax removals, AoO removal, magic item simplification, and lots of other things. (EDIT: Looks like it's 16 pages now, actually.)

While it is deplorable that feats are often spent on bonuses instead of truly new things, this is the design pattern Pathfinder follows and must continue to follow to remain internally consistent. The feats I propose are not what I would use in my home games as I am far more lenient and tend towards the philosophy that feats should enable new approaches, not simply give bonuses. And that's what these feats effectively are, simple numerical bonuses. they're cheaper than typical for such bonuses due to the catch-up effect, but still numerical.

You are judging the feats I posted here in the context of a home game, but there were not created for that purpose. They were created for a PFS-style "assume the worst" situation.

OMG those feats are so bad.

For the record, this does not qualify as constructive criticism.

Please expand.

(TL;DR for the OP - You're fine. At worst I would add a "your strength penalty still applies" line to avoid any huge strength dumping, but allow +50% on two-hand to make up for it. Also it makes elven curve blade not silly, and I really want that weapon to make sense.)

You could give dex-to-damage and dex-to-hit for free to all characters and it still wouldn't raise the power cap. Dex-to-AC is a not a real benefit below +8 dex bonus thanks to max dexterity on armor, a point which most characters wouldn't reach until you're high enough level that any martial focus is going to cap out at decent.

The real advantage to dex-to-damage is the ability to boost initiative. Given that it would take 2 feats to get good dex-to-damage, and 1 feat is a +4 (Improved Init), I think dex-to-damage is safe.

TWFing is a non-argument as it takes several feats and extra cash to make work, at which point it damn well better be a good shtick.

My version of dex-to-damage: You may use your dexterity bonus in place of your strength bonus for determining damage when attacking with weapons with which you can use the weapon finesse feat. This bonus is modified in the same manner as your strength bonus (halved for off-hands, +50% for two-handing, etc). Your strength penalty, if any, still applies to your damage roll.

Lord Vukodlak wrote:

Except for ONE LINE about armor proficiency it's copied and pasted out of the 3.5 SRD. So how it worked in 3.5 "armor proficiency" aside is very relevant because paizo didn't change anything else.

Perhaps the minor change was by design because Paizo didn't like that aspect of the rule, but wanted to maintain the rest. It could be significant that the example is now missing.

There is no (game rule) significance to the removal of the example. The example was omitted for legal reasons. The SRD did not have the example, only the print book, and only the SRD was published with the open license. Therefor, the example is copyrighted and cannot be carried forward. Rather than create a new example they simply omitted one entirely.