I've always kind of had a problem with defining when the AC can "Defend" a PC. How does the animal know when to defend you and when it's not an attack. If you have your AC on "defend" (which makes sense to me)
Since real world police dogs without mystical links, room temperature IQ's, and the ability to speak with their owners make that distinction all the time, I'd imagine they decide if their owner is being attacked the same way anyone else does.
A family member trains his g. shepards in schutzhund and it is incredibly silly to think that a trained guard dog would not immediately attack any perceived threat to itself or its master. The dogs have been trained to not wait for a command to do their job, in fact, thats mostly what their job is, to defend against/attack anything that may threaten their space. If you don't want your attack animal to attack things, that is what the leash or fence or whatever else is for, to stop them from killing all sorts of things the trainer doesn't want them to kill when the master isn't right there to stop it from doing so. If a bear, dragon, or humanoid unknown to said AC approaches and initiative is rolled, that AC should automatically act to defend itself and its master (initiative shouldnt even need to be rolled for this to happen)... it's often on the trainer/master to stop them from attacking, not the other way around. If it is truly just a guard animal, it very well may just alert, and not attack, but if it has been trained to be aggressive towards perceived threats that cross the ACs threshold of "too close to me or my master" it shouldn't need any handling for it to bite, claw, or do whatever else it does. This would seem to me to be common sense... you don't buy a guard dog expecting it to sit and look pretty until you let it know something is afoot... it lets you know something is afoot, and you need to let it know to chill and look pretty if you don't agree.
Secondly, the idea of an attack dog not attacking undead, or a construct or something... Well trained guard dogs will attack all sorts of stuff that they see as a threat, living or not. Covered in flesh or made of metal, it doesn't really matter. If they think cars are a threat, they will bite cars... if they think trees are a threat, they will bite trees, and I personally haven't met many dogs that didn't find weeks or months old rotting flesh to be anything but a great snack lol.
As a mystic theurge you should have spell slots out the wazoo. Quicken is the best meta for perfection so you can sling 2 spells a round and not run out of higher level slots imo. Glitterdust or create pit are both great options.
Once any npc fodder goes into negative hps i dont roll stabilization checks but do keep them alive till they bleed out, big bads i roll stabilizations.
The DM i play with most often uses dead at-1 , which i dont like as much, as it makes the undead seem less unique (death throw wise)
More importantly, after having stated several times now how you believe paladins should act, and to what standards they should be held, what are you adding to the ongoing conversation. You (and I) and others believe the paladin should fall, maybe for different reasons, but we all get that... why do you continually try and hammer home the point? You arent bringing anything else to the conversation or helping the OP any more than you were 4? 5? Posts ago?
Im NOT telling you to abandon thread, but please for the sake of the discussion move on from your original point.
Dimension door is not limited to places you have been... you are thinking teleport. You may DD right into the middle of a castle wall, or table, etc on the other side of the door you are trying to bypass, and will just be shunted to the closest free square and take damage.
Some nifty ideas, but if i remember correctly OP stated the entire town was full of undead, that they had to fight/move through a mass of zombies and skeletons just to get to this point, which was also in the party's eyes at least partly why they couldnt just walk off with the dominated villagers.
I am on my phone, so linking sucks a bit.... here is the spell text
You instantly transfer yourself from your current location to any other spot within range. You always arrive at exactly the spot desired—whether by simply visualizing the area or by stating direction. After using this spell, you can't take any other actions until your next turn. You can bring along objects as long as their weight doesn't exceed your maximum load. You may also bring one additional willing Medium or smaller creature (carrying gear or objects up to its maximum load) or its equivalent per three caster levels. A Large creature counts as two Medium creatures, a Huge creature counts as two Large creatures, and so forth. All creatures to be transported must be in contact with one another, and at least one of those creatures must be in contact with you.
If you arrive in a place that is already occupied by a solid body, you and each creature traveling with you take 1d6 points of damage and are shunted to a random open space on a suitable surface within 100 feet of the intended location.
If there is no free space within 100 feet, you and each creature traveling with you take an additional 2d6 points of damage and are shunted to a free space within 1,000 feet. If there is no free space within 1,000 feet, you and each creature travelling with you take an additional 4d6 points of damage and the spell simply fails.
The caster of the spell loses his turn, but others dont.. the spell repeatedly uses you referring to the caster specifically
Are synthesists not allowed as pcs? Or, are all pc classes not currently being played unknown quantities in the game world? Or am i reading that completely wrong and you are saying the Players themselves have no knowledge of summoners/synths?
EDIT: if its the 3rd option i follow ya, but if a class can be picked to play, isnt it something pretty much everyone should know about IC? You dont say "well none of you are fighters, so you dont know what a fighter is.".
The spell stops all actions of the caster after completion of the spell effect, but does not effect those you bring with you :). In this case the sword carries the paladin, then the paladin would full attack
Unless the characters were wearing "Goggles of Metagaming", I hardly see how they could have known all those details.
Anyway, Paladin should definitely fall for his failure to even try to rescue the innocent villagers and the whole part of the party who agreed to this abomination of an action should move one step towards an evil alignment.
Sorry what details should have been fuzzy? What exactly is metagamey about this parties position?
Dimension Door is a bit OP, but would probably be one of the most powerful when wielded... the paladin could jump through doors and walls, bypass enemies at will with no AoOs, and generally move great distances every round, and still full attack since he would just be carried with the caster... the caster meanwhile couldnt have done anything else anyway, and therefore loses nothing by casting. Instant flanking, ganking of casters or archers, and escape every single round of the day... too much me thinks :)
Perfectly fair, but if he is obviously a vamp, obviously a synth, and radiates as a strong aura, im not sticking around to see if he has intentionally gone down a much less powerful path :)
Especially when he is not just a bbeg, but THE bbeg of the storyline, and he casually waltz'd in like he owns the place.
Whatever you do, dont trust ongoing.magical effects and worn items to help sway decisions... good chance a court of nobles wont let you in with magic items, or if they do, certainly not any magic items/spells that may force them into a position they dont want to be in... (aka +20 diplomacy ring would definitely not be allowed). Whatever the plan, it needs to stand up to scrutiny, and be free of simple tricks... you are in a room full of tricksters, they know all the easy ones.
I am still reading through the thread, but really wanted to toss in a response to the last bit here... hopefully im not just stomping all over an already beaten down point. The vamp was a synth. The party was 4th level... that means the vamp is pretty much garaunteed to hit every round with it, and every other round, kills a party member...
4th level character down 10 hps from an energy drain + the damage from at least 3 attacks (again that was assuming a first level synth, not a 6th? i think you said). The carnage could have been unbelievable unless they killed him in just a couple rounds... do you even risk that as a 4th level party not knowing enemy stats/levels? I would run like a b****, no matter the character. This guy potentially has HPs out the arse, regeneration, the ability to dominate party members, and can tear apart any one of them in 1 round. Screeeeewwwww that :P
The wizard is immune to negative levels as a Dhampir. So he only has to worry about natural attack damage.
Which is in the range of 4d6+40 or so from the 4 attacks a synth would get, and while the hps of the eidolon covering may not be extreme at this point, the vamp can shovel hps it's way because of regen, and should have a pretty hefty ac, from a good base ac b/c of eidolon evolutions, +6 from vamp, and any spells he cast before walking in casually to a situation he knew, with no limit to his casting time before hand... Any of the characters should be scared in that situation. All they knew from the paladin is this is a powerful foe due to his aura, they don't have knowledge of levels to go by, but "strong" + vampire + synthesist is nasty.
Serum wrote:
Quote:
Again, even being a very lenient DM, those powers aren't coming back. lvl 4 commoner, roll a new character.
Wait, you completely ruined a player's character, and you're being lenient? What would you do as a harsh DM? Expel the player from your table?
No, the point is, even when i let players do what they want the vast majority of the time without hitting them with the "DM stick of you are doing it wrong" (and i mean, they can do whatever... sandbox, open world, etc), a God wouldn't stand for one of their champions to just lay down and cry about the situation they are in, right in the beginning of the situation! That goes for a paladin as well... if the paladin in question had just tossed up their arms and exclaimed "we're all boned, he is a vamp!" and proceeded to throw down weapons, let whatever happens happen to other party members, and pray to their god to give them the strength to not just sit there crying... they aren't a paladin any more.
Because that behavior is EXTREME... i mean, other than openly revolting against your own God, what would be more extreme than that. You are given any number of gifts directly from your god, on a day to day basis. You are expected to do ~something~ with those gifts. At the point the cleric sits and prays, the other party members are either still standing up to the BBEG, or are fleeing in relatively safety! I mean, the vamp takes his time playing with the paladin's mind... time is passing in which there is no clanging of steel, no cries of death (until villagers start walking into the prismatic wall), and no threats being leveled as far as we know... and yet, there is gods holy vessel, prone on the floor crying like a child for his/her mother. So again, yes, loss of clerical ability.
All the cleric had to do was SOMETHING. run away to regroup and fight another day, fine. Stand with the paladin and co, fine. Pray while standing with party members or running to regroup... fine!
To follow up on my post, any involved in burning the remaining villagers become evil... they chose to kill innocents instead of let the BBEG know they have something he wants. Did they realize they all just successfully ran from him with nary a scratch on any of them? Oh no, he knows they have something he wants...
Crazy what the cleric did. Loss of cleric powers. Again, even being a very lenient DM, those powers aren't coming back. lvl 4 commoner, roll a new character. So that leaves, in my opinion, a paladin in need of an atonement (which really shouldn't be a big deal), an ex-cleric (no god puts their trust in those who are supposed to be champions of said god but instead cower and beg for help in times of crisis), and a bunch of evil guys. Paladin can potentially continue to work with them for the greater good, may need to atone afterwards if they stay evil, instead of actively working towards redeeming their lost virtues. If the paladin atones, then helps the rest 'atone' for their actions, thereby becoming neutral/good characters once more, I would toss that paladin a god-cookie in the form of a boon.
Okay, back up and awake after doing my morning rounds. A few things:
-I really like the non-mechanical ideas you've guys thrown out there as to how to make the consequences of their actions stick. Between the Vampire spreading word of their failure, PTSD for their actions, the literal ghosts of their villagers selves haunting them, and relieving the events to given a chance at redemption... I think I will definitely be able to sort out something cool for all the players.
-As for the Cleric, yeah hammers gonna come down hard on her. I was annoyed by the player's actions and given their god's disposition I think that they will likely be stripped of their powers worse than the Paladin will.
-On that point, you guys have convinced me to punish the Pali, but again I don't know if a complete fall is appropriate. She at least tried to fight. She DID try to stop them from jumping into the prismatic wall but she's a Gnome & couldn't even grapple them well. She also did NOT approve of them burning everyone to death, she was just outvoted and frankly overwhelmed at this point. I'm thinking, in addition to the above ideas, I will partially strip her of her powers upon meeting with her an agent of their deity, who will express their disaproval but offer a means of redemption(ie, killing the Vamp & freeing this nation attacked by undead).
-As of the negative levels thing, there were 2 dhampir's in the party, the NPC & the Wizard. They wouldn't have been too penalized by fighting the vamp, sine they're essentially immune to negative levels till they get killed by them.
And lastly thanks to those who defended me in my absence, it's appreciated.
I am still reading through the thread, but really wanted to toss in a response to the last bit here... hopefully im not just stomping all over an already beaten down point. The vamp was a synth. The party was 4th level... that means the vamp is pretty much garaunteed to hit every round with it, and every other round, kills a party member outright due to negative levels if they arent already dead from damage. I have to assume he is using multiple natural attacks in synth form, as any natural attack can trigger the energy drain, not just a slam... and even at 1st level synth that gives him a potential 3 natural attacks plus his slam, all that can trigger energy drain, but also that does damage... 4th level character down 10 hps from an energy drain + the damage from at least 3 attacks (again that was assuming a first level synth, not a 6th? i think you said). The carnage could have been unbelievable unless they killed him in just a couple rounds... do you even risk that as a 4th level party not knowing enemy stats/levels? I would run like a b****, no matter the character. This guy potentially has HPs out the arse, regeneration, the ability to dominate party members, and can tear apart any one of them in 1 round. Screeeeewwwww that :P
Now, them burning villagers? Evil. Issue i have here is the paladin at that point has 2 options, allow it to happen, or try to stop it by any means necessary. The first really calls for him/her to fall, even by my very loose standards of what causes a paladin to fall, and the latter forces PVP... something that pretty much everyone on the boards knows is a horrible idea for 99% of parties. No win situations suck, it doesnt matter if the GM or the players cause it to happen, end of they day they suck. I would allow the paladin to atone simply because it is was a no win scenario by that point, that was not caused by the paladin.
Dimensional anchor would be great for a holy avenger
Stoneskin is a great buff to be granted by a high CL caster, especially if it can be recast at will... constant DR 10/Adamantine for the pally.
True Form could be devastating for enemies, and not a spell many would keep on their list unless there was a specific threat.
Dimension Door, Confusion, Crushing Despair, Resilient Sphere, Telekinetic charge (many lols had with that spell used on the paladin), Enervation, all are fun/interesting options.
EDIT: I think i like telekinetic charge the best tbh... it may not be "the best" spell, but it really makes sense for the most holy intelligent weapon. Paladin wants to get in front of a creature to stop it from charging party members? voom, he is there, and gets an extra attack on top of his full attack. Paladin is making a "bad choice" in the eyes of the sword? voom, the sword helps you make the right choice lol :P
Find another of noble birth in this kingdom that is known to frequent libraries or have a library of their own, which many nobles should have... Use Alter memory on them and plant an old tome/your forged documents on their desk/on their person. The memories implanted should pretty much include him coming across a few books/pages/etc a while ago, and compiling said data together because he decided it to be interesting, but set it aside as he had never heard of such a family member surviving. Obviously don't have images of the Lady in question, but have the family tree that you forge that would very plausibly lead to her being a member of such a family (hair color, general family traits, height, build, etc etc). Give an older family member in the lineage her name, or her name as a middle name, that sort of thing. Have him "remember" hearing about her, and "remember" going back to check the documents again... he has "been studying the material very closely, and believes she just might be the daughter/grand daughter/great grand daughter/ whatever of this family." Lastly, have him "remember" that he was about to approach her at his earliest convenience, and make him understand he was excited to find a once lost noble family back in their midst.
She just has to tell her own story, as the members of her family are the people in the forged family tree. No lies, no deception on her part. Also, all the pushing for her "return" to nobility will come from a member of the nobility itself, and not from some outside force.
Love the patchwork zombie idea... would have the golem in a seperate room, with a few intellegent undead in the doorway, hallway at a 90 degree angle to the door that stretches a few hundred feet... intellegent undead shouting out what to manufacture next... the pcs cut down most of the zombies when they see a huge hand reach through the doorway and grab one or more of the intellegent undead (golem ran out of zombies in immediate area), screams as he dissapears back through the opening then quickly silence, other intellegent undead fight pcs, with a couple newly formed int undead coming through the doorway a couple rounds later, though obviously much less intellegent. When they move into the room there would be a few more zombies the golem is manufacturing, plus, if the golem can grapple a pc, swallow whole, w/ automatic pin on pc from manufaturing equipment inside him. 3 rounds later comes out dominated with an obvious mechanical device on their head. X damage destroys device, but also hurts pc, pc staggered for 1d3 rounds after device destroyed....
Thats my thoughts on that one :)
Shocking webs fired by mechanical spiders, sticking clouds/cloud kills (depending on level) emitted from the walls as they get close to exit.
The issue with swimming being automatic (in my opinion) is that if someone doesnt know how/has never tried to swim, they often panic when they find themselves in water over their head, and sometimes in water shallower than that. They flail and expend great amounts of energy instead of treading water. While panicking, they breathe heavily, and often take in water as they don't consistently stay above water. Panic is their undoing.
On the other hand, a great swimmer often is pretty decent at jumping, or climbing (as long as we aren't talking about technical climbing), as they have awesome endurance and athletic ability.
But again, that is just my opinion/my experience, and don't want to be seen as arguing the point, when you have created some fantastic house rules :)
If they grew up in a coastal port city, they should get a conditional modifier +5 to swimming. A desert nomad would get -5.
There are 430,000? or so swimming related deaths a year, the top 3 age categories who die in water are very young, very old, and 18-36 (prime of your life)... being near water has nothing to do with your ability to swim. Many many many die from overestimating their ability to stay above water every year. Without proper training humans just do not know how to swim, unlike many other animals. That does not mean no human can swim without training of course, it just means that many fail to do so.
We drink when we play, have a lot of fun, and dont go off half cocked killin everytbing tbat moves or maki.g decisions tbat endanger the characters... but maybe thats because we are actual adults and dont do stupid things for attention.
Boot him if this is even semi common behavior. If he is a friend, tell him to knock that s*** off if he wants to keep playing with yall. As far as in game... as a player i would try to hunt down the assassin and disable/kill him to drag him back into town. Have the group offer reparation via a quest to help the town or the family members of the victim pro bono.
Even though it wasnt your fault you were associated with him and therefore need to prove to the town that that is where the association ends.
But are those things inherently evil acts? They're not evil, they just use "dark" powers to do good things.
As far as the pathfinder system goes yes they are evil, create undead has the evil descriptor in the spell, cook people also specifically says its an evil act to perform the Hex or eat what's made
By that logic casting something like Spear of Purity repeatedly would make you good even if you were a child raping psychopath.
Whew! thank god, i was really worried i was in trouble for a sec there!
The issue with swimming being automatic (in my opinion) is that if someone doesnt know how/has never tried to swim, they often panic when they find themselves in water over their head, and sometimes in water shallower than that. They flail and expend great amounts of energy instead of treading water. While panicking, they breathe heavily, and often take in water as they don't consistently stay above water. Panic is their undoing.
On the other hand, a great swimmer often is pretty decent at jumping, or climbing (as long as we aren't talking about technical climbing), as they have awesome endurance and athletic ability.
But again, that is just my opinion/my experience, and don't want to be seen as arguing the point, when you have created some fantastic house rules :)
I like a lot of what you have thrown out there Mortuum. Only thing I would push back on, and only because I think it adds cool flavor, is Athletics should have some extra one-time skill point investment if the character wants it to include the swim skill. As in, you can put 20 ranks over 20 levels into the skill but still not be able to swim well. But, with a small investment... 1 or 2 skill points (or something like that) that do not add to the current ranks... the skill now includes swim. The chance of drowning is a very real possibility for many people in this world. A 1 or 2 skill point investment isn't really taxing for most characters, but it does highlight the investment needed to learn to swim. It also could be given for free by a DM to a character who grew up on the water, or in certain campaign settings (pirates on the open sea and such)... but I know folks who grew up on lakes/oceans that never learned to swim... so I personally would shy away from that tact.
As far as my own houserules, I don't like Pathfinder's treatment of horses, so modified the stats to create representations of groups of breeds by job type while sticking as close to the rule set as possible.
(this was before the combat training (CT) clarification that combat training did NOT in fact give light armor prof, which i still think it should so war horses have the ability to wear heavy barding, so i didn't change the text)
Remodeled Horse stats:
Donkeys/mules/ponies would use the current stat block for ponies [2HD],
Horses/camels (riding) would still use normal for horses [2HD],
War pony would use rebuilt advanced template and gain 1HD, Combat Trained (per CT), Endurance (b), Light armor prof (per CT), lose run (b), have 2 feats to put in whatever you want (medium and heavy prof as examples).
Horses (work) +1 HD, toughness (b), lose run (b), endurance, great fortitude.
Warhorse/war-camel gain +3HD (total 5HD) use rebuilt advanced template, Combat Trained (per CT), Endurance, run (b), Light Armor Prof (per CT), have 2 extra feats.
I also greatly simplified barding to contain a single stat block for each armor type (light, medium, and heavy). I did this because many human armors cannot function properly as barding equivalents. Full Plate barding simply cannot be worn by a horse, protect the horse in the same fashion, and allow the horse to still move it's legs. Same goes for hide armor, chainmail, etc etc. descriptions are written with horses in mind, but should be remajiggerfied for any animal capable of its use. Weights listed are for large creatures, modify accordingly.
Barding:
Light Barding = +2 ac, -1 ACP, Max dex 4, Weight = 30 lbs. Light barding consists of cloth and leather straps, and a protective blanket that lays across a horse's back and drapes down their sides to approximately the stirrup.
Medium Barding = +4 ac, -2 ACP, Max dex 3, Weight = 50 lbs. Medium barding contains Light Barding, plus additional protection along the chest and flanks, usually consisting of woven cloth or leather.
Heavy Barding = +7 ac, -4 ACP, Max dex 2, Weight = 100 lbs. Heavy barding contains both Light and Medium Barding, plus metal plates covering the head/snout, shins, and rump. Leather chest guard is also reinforced with metal plates.
All barding but light must be removed each night or the animal will become fatigued. Only Heavy Barding contains metal plates, and therefore can be made of mithril. Mithril reduces weight and ACP differently for barding than for armor, as follows: 25% weight redux, -1 ACP check, Cost for large creature = +9,000 gp. Any other modifiers not listed works as in the special material section.
Yes and no... a fighter can be hit with a stick to wake him up, or a heal to bring him back from negatives and he is just as effective at his job next round, whereas the summoner is either without his eidolon for the combat, or uses a spell to summon it back for a short period ~ thereby doing nothing else that round.
And being 4'2" or 6'2" is a disability or weakness how, exactly?
Being 6'2" carries very little in the way of weakness/disability, whereas 4'2" humans often face issues with stunted skeletal growth and potential torso cavity space issues due to organ size vs chest cavity volume.
If your friend is one of the lucky few nowadays that, while being 4'2" has no physical deformity/growth issue, then awesome! But most ppl of that stature no longer fit the normal human stat array. Same on the other end of the scale (7'2" or so and taller)
How is the summoner out BCing the "BC" of the group? Does the BC know he is the BC? Lol...
It sounds like there are some major issues within the group that have nothing to do with the character make up.
If 2 characters are battlefield control it should work even better, and the only way the summoner is controlling the battlefield is if he is dedicating himself to it... he wouldnt have enough spell slots for buffs in that case... or the wizard isnt focusing on battlefield control, which means he isnt the BC.
Personally i would pair down the pc load to 3-4 total, and only run 1 yourself if needed... it makes dming a lot less time consuming imo. As this is a custom setting you can easily tailor the encounters to a smaller party, and would probably benefit a lot from doing so. 3 quests with 6-10 encounters each is way way harder to plan out against 6 pcs vs 3.
Past that, if your player is having fun with any/all of those ideas, run what you enjoy most! It is important that you both have a good time, not just one or the other.
Dont try to plan too far ahead with any one story line... in my opinion, the single greatest trait a dm can have is the ability to improvise. In large part that alone should ease your burden.
I would probably push that down to 25% health instead of 50%. Hps are an abstraction, and it can be reasonably assumed that at 50% hps you arent 50% dead, just running out of energy to continually deflect blow after blow, and at that point weapons start to do real damage. To each their own as far as how they envision it, but 50% is a pretty low bar to hit, and penalties will make a big difference in how the game is played. If 25%, then those with diehard, etc would not become injured (in my mind) till they pass their normal 25% by the number of hps they have from 0 to death (so if 25% of normal health is 20, and con is 16, they wont be injured until they hit 4 hps). That makes diehard a better feat than it is now, which imo is warranted anyway.
Edit: 2ndly, i agree action economy should not be effected... a -2 to hit and damage, -5 to skill checks isnt insanely harsh, but enough to make a difference.
Or you roll because you enjoy rolling.... or because you are a serial killer who loves to take chances... i suppose it doesnt really matter WHY people use the table, does it..
If i were to change anything i would expand the tables a bit, higher and lower (males 4' 7" - 7' 2), with a large number of d4s rolled to try and bring the numbers as close to average as possible. Anything above or below those numbers arguably require stat adjustments separate from the normal human stat array... i dont think the shortest man in the world could just as easily lift as much weight as an average human, move as quickly as a human (base speed 30'), etc etc. Also maximum lifespan is heavily effected at extremes while still working within the confines of our human anatomy. A gnome may have proportionately smaller organs, but a midget still has a full sized humans organs crammed into a small torso.
There are obviously problems at the other end of our real life scale as well... often such extreme heights are caused by gigantism, not normal bone growth... so enlarged joints in the hands, knees, elbows, etc make all movement/life in general quite painful, as well as difficult. Many with gigantism cant even fully close their hands to make a fist, so holding onto a weapon when it strikes an object would be difficult at best.
Tell them there is something very odd about the zombies skin... when they examine them, tell them the extremely dense skins are sewn up around those bodies loosely, and could be removed and worn as full plate +1, but they would look and smell like zombies. Give some extra xp for the encounter... i wouldnt go overboard... and see what they do with it :)
If they put em on you should have towns people freeeeak out... the mad doctor obviously created these abominations....
Selling them should be nearly impossible. Also, % chance zombies ignore the wearer? :)
Edit: also, they have to wear the skin armor as a one-zy! (How do you spell one-zy???)
I think the point is valid, a quadruped pouncer eidolon will outdamage a THF in the first round if
within pounce range but not adjacent
Has a free lane to charge with
Is given the vast majority of a summoners amount of funds. (Not actually needed, but to hit is definitely more of an issue for eidolon without magic items or buffs)
But that doesnt bother me any more than any other pouncer, or caster spells pretty much 4/5+. I quite enjoy summoners/eidolons, but they arent adamantine golems.
Seems like the description is only half written... maybe it is supposed to lose reach being shorter? I could see the price being cut to reflect that.... but i do agree that the cost is probably just incorrect.
My archer paladin was way more "disruptive" than my synth. Then again, my life oracle seemed to cause the most annoyance with all of his different detection abilities... far and away the biggest issue i have come across is that rogues and monks are straight away worse in a party than most any other class. Straight class, not dips. If those 2 classes were brought up to spec (a few great redesigns of both classes have been posted on these boards) then i just dont see this being a big issue.
The spell states it transfers damage dealt, not the actual damage to the caster.... if a shielded character sticks his finger in a candles flame, half the fire doesnt appear on the casters finger, he just magically recieves half of the damage the flame causes to the shielded fellow. Therefore, resistance is futile (For the caster).
We often argue who is to get what item, but the argument is nearly always
"no no, you take it if you can use it, I will grab the next X, Y, or Z"
"but it looks like YOU could use it more, i mean, look at the piece of garbage you are swinging/wearing/carrying"
"please, this thing has gotten us out of more jams that you have deaths, and that is a LOT of jams! YOU take it, we all know you could use it!"
"Bite me."
"..... So you are tak-"
"yeah, yeah.. but you get the next one."
For our games, cleave is nearly useless. Very few enemies bunch up, they usually.spread around and attack all party members they can... for other groups im sure it is an excellent feat. :)
I chose to comment on the 2nd post that you added, not the OP, because it sums up your feelings on the system better than anything you posted previously or since.
Once again, the game IS NOT MEANT to model real life physics. The changes being discussed make most fights stupidly trivial. I would never spend money on a magical sword if i could throw a bottle of acid and a Molotov at an enemy each round and do 1d6+8d6 per bottle at 8th level. I still have a sword, but i would almost never use it. I would also stock up on tanglefoot bags and the like, because pulling a flying dragon out of the air means it will probably die. Also, where are the bonuses to damage from lateral movement? How many feet will something move across the ground due to its inertia from flight before it comes to a halt? What damage does surrounding terrain and creatures within the impact zone take, and how is that calculated?
All of those questions are in my opinion valid when you are trying to bring realism to environmental damage.
Also, throw anything, ki throw, and telekenesis become some of the most powerful abilities you can have.... toss em straight up! Because none of your rules change how the rest of the system works.
Do you know what the system is worst at? Damage vs death. There is no penalty for being at 1 hp whether or not you only normally have 2 max or 2,000,000 max. Again, that is the system. Massive damage rules are terrible for even mid level play. Those 3-7 lvl npcs dusting off an 80 foot fall is because of how the system is designed at its core. To change damage vs death is to change the idea of hps in the first place. There are systems that allow for such... this isnt one of them.
Lastly, i did read the rest of the thread, and didnt feel i had anything more to offer that others had not already talked about. I could have +1'd someone, or piled on, but didnt feel it was needed.
You dont want pcs to become demi gods just because they have advanced far enough in levels... problem is that is SPECIFICALLY what this game does, and allows for... it makes higher level characters effectively demi gods, and asks in return that they combat and overcome demi god like challenges... if you dont like that, then this isnt the game for you.
On a side note, about the 100 ft drop thing... a woman went skydiving from 3000 ft, and fell to the ground when her parachute did not open. She survived that fall... others have survived construction accidents when metal rods, huge nails/spikes, and/or blades have entered their brain cavity, or gone through their entire body... maybe you cant explain such a thing, but it still happens way more often than you would imagine. And we cant even use magic!
Btw, i personally dont often visualize fighter/casters a big bulky fighting machines, so i would definitely lean towards a DD build, but that is just how i see that type of character without fleshing it out for a particular concept... depends on your style is all im saying, both are viable.
I think you are looking at it the wrong way... a good option is not a trap... a trap would be something that seems to be good, but isnt. If given a choice between agile and DD, and it seemed that DD was better, but then could only be used in 25% of the situations agile could be used because of some semi obscure rule, that would be a trap. Nothing in DD is tricking you, it is straight away a solid build choice, mostly because it eliminates MAD, and most characters on the boards are built around point buy, where MAD characters suffer the most when theorycrafting (Aka you cant say a randomly rolled character wont have the stats to pull off a MAD build).
DD is the furthest thing from a feat trap, it is an over utilized build option on these boards because of the parameters in which these boards operate.
1st ed, belt of Cloud Giant str = in todays game a 35. And effectively about the same.
A 1st level PC could have a str of 18/00 which was = Ogre str, or in todays game 21. Again, for all gaming purposes, about the same.
Thus, your initial proposition is false. Sorry.
Friend, not only did I play and DM back in those games, I wrote stuff for the game.
But, to get that 18/00, first you had to roll an 18 (on 3d6) on the very first roll you made for ability scores (roll 3d6, assigning them in order). THEN, if you were playing a Fighter, Paladin, or Ranger, you could roll percentile dice. Every other class didn't get percentile strength on a 18. And you had to roll 100 on those dice.
In the years I played 1st edition (from '86 until 2000), I never saw anyone roll an 18/00. Even after we 'loosened' the rules and let people assign their rolls to their stats (instead of going in order) and adopted 4d6 drop the lowest. Oh, we had 18/xx plenty of times, but never once an 18/00. Closest we came was this one guy who rolled one die at a time and got excited because he rolled a 10 on the first . . . and a 1 on the second. 18/01. Man, he was frustrated.
MA
First character i ever played, 2nd ed- rolled an 18/00 in front of the dm (was required to ake chars in front of him individually)... eventually got his str to 19 at some point... was the coolest thing ever :P. He ran a gladiator tournament as i had made a dwarven gladiator... almost won the entire thing at 2nd level facing off against 5th level opponents... 18/00 was massive...
The issue with crafting being dm choice is this... many of the DMs i have played with or have heard about that dont like crafting usually also have their own ideas of what should and shouldnt exist in tbe world (item wise).
I, as a player, also have an idea of what i want my character to accomplish both in terms of goals, and gear as well. That does NOT mean i am building the entire character around a single item, just in the general sense i want him to be a lightly armored swashbucker duel wielding scimitars that can jump crom spot to spot with ease and tumble out of danger, or a heavily armored small humanoid wielding a spear that talks a mean game, or etc etc... all of those builds require a certain amount of magical item input to make them viable as levels progress.... this is not just my opinion, but how this edition of the game works. At 12th level, if all i can muster is a +2 item to dex and no other acrobatics bonuses, that swash buckler is going to be pretty bad at his job.
Some DMs will provide items that help the character, and some wont- either because they roll randomly, use the items already laid out in a module, or possibly feel for whatever reason that the character doesnt need those items. It is the 2nd set of DMs that make the game quite a chore to play when item creation is also nixed.
The answer to this, btw, is not "find a different dm" as is so often suggested on these boards...i believe the answer is already built into the game as it stands, magic item creation is available to all who qualify. It is up to the dm as to what he will and wont allow as far as custom magic items.
I absolutely do agree that the language could be cleaned up though.
And, btw, to illustrate my point, my 8th level gnome would be wearing non masterwork leather, and weilding a non masterwork dagger if it werent for his item creation abilities (both non magical and magical), because those are the only small items that have dropped in 8 levels of play, and none have shown up in town(s).
"A character who has no air to breathe can hold her breath for 2 rounds per point of Constitution."
It says if they dont have air to breathe they can hold their breath... it does not cover the ability or lack thereof to hold ones breath in the first place. If you cannot hold your breath for whatever reason then that line does not matter. Or are you suggesting that someone with lungs full of liquid are perfectly fine for just as long as someone who takes a deep breath first?
