Some GMs might be tempted to reduce the amount or value of the treasure you acquire to offset this and keep your overall wealth in line with the Character Wealth by Level table. Unfortunately, that has the net result of negating the main benefit of crafting magic items—in effect negating your choice of a feat. However, game balance for the default campaign experience expects you and all other PCs to be close to the listed wealth values, so the GM shouldn't just let you craft double the normal amount of gear. As a guideline, allowing a crafting PC to exceed the Character Wealth by Level guidelines by about 25% is fair , or even up to 50% if the PC has multiple crafting feats.
What are your thoughts on how to "handle" friendly NPC loot in APs? Should the party be compensated for not murderhoboing said NPC (for the amount that they would have gained by killing them)? Or should they kill all friendlies when they're no longer useful to claim their loot?
Are APs written with the assumption that the party will acquire the wealth held by friendly NPCs, or no?
Your shaman list is there it just doesn't have any spells, so RAW you can add spells to it. The issue is still the duration of the hex though.
This is the kind of RAW I like. It says you can "add the spells to the list of shaman spells you can prepare," implying you can now prepare shaman spells.
The duration part is solved by preparing your spells, then doing a 15 minute preparation following the 10 minute spirit invocation. That gives you 45 minutes to use said shaman spell.
If you pick Arcane Enlightenment, it doesn't really do anything for you.
But is this the intention? A few wizard spells for one hour isn't that powerful for the price of a feat. Why would they make it available to witches if some of the hexes won't work?
If you want to argue about RAW, any of the hexes that mention "shaman" don't work for a witch. So why does the feat exist at all?
Seems like it'd make more sense to FAQ Dreaming Secrets rather then Arcane Enlightenment, then. It's a more straightforward example of your issue--it renders a feat entirely nonfunctional (which is probably unintentional) rather than only nonfunctional in a very specific case (which happens on purpose all the time).
You're missing the point that Spirit Talker itself is unclear in its application to witches in general. Mark said they will not FAQ Dreamed Secrets because it's not a core book.
21 people marked this as FAQ candidate.
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Does it work, or not?
Most threads that I've seen on the matter seem to assume that it just works, which is probably the RAI, but the fact of the matter is that Spirit Talker is written weirdly because it includes witch as a pre-req, but doesn't explain how it can work for them. My assumption when using Spirit Talker on a witch is that all mentions of "shaman" in the hexes would be replaced with "witch," which clears up all the confusion, but this is not the case as currently written.
Then there's this FAQ, which makes things muddier.
I'm not here to debate whether or not it works as written, because it clearly would not given that Arcane Enlightenment specifically calls out "preparing shaman spells," which a witch cannot do (don't even talk to me about multiclassing; no one in their right mind is going to do that). What I'm looking for is FAQ clarification on this mess, because Spirit Talker's application to witches is filled with holes.
If something doesn't work for your game because you feel it's too powerful (or not powerful enough), then don't use it in your games. Let your players KNOW though as soon as you make that decision.
If this is a complaint about a spell making organized play games less fun for you, you should talk to the org play folks.
If you're trying to provide feedback on rules or asking for an "official ruling" then you need to do so in the rules forums and/or in the product that published that spell int he first place.
Have you ever considered just answering questions without lashing out at your customers and assuming that they have nefarious intentions? A simple "I don't know the spell, can't comment," would have been A+.
Yes. We hope to make the game more clearly written and easier to understand (without reducing player options, of course).
If instead you mean "Will James be allowed to answer rules questions?" I can't say. Even if I were, I probably wouldn't because I detest rules arguments and get annoyed with pedantic rules lawyering and arguments for argument's sake and folks mistaking their opinion for widely-accepted facts, so... maybe a better question is "Will James ever feel comfortable publicly answering rules questions?" I don't know the answer to that in the future, but for now, it's a No.
I appreciate your response, truly.
I think it's kind of a blanket statement to say that all rules discussion devolves into "rules arguments ... pedantic rules lawyering and arguments for argument's sake" though. I'm one of the moderators on the non-PFS Pathfinder Discord and very active in the rules discussions we have, and I can tell you from what I know about the community that the goal is not to be pedantic, but to establish some semblance of universal table expectations regarding confusing parts of the rules. It makes everyone's lives easier, and the goal is ultimately more knowledge for everyone.
Thanks for putting up with the nagging/non questions.
In my opinion, it should go books < James < designers in the sense that, if the designers don't make a ruling (seriously the FAQ system is awful), at least the players can have SOMETHING to go off of. I think you really do need to realize how critically-ignored some rules clarifications are (perception vs. stealth invisibility rules, for example, which has been a hot mess since the core rulebook was released).
Are there any plans to alleviate this problem in 2e?
I get the feeling you don't like rules questions. :)
Is that because you don't care for rules design that much, or that you don't want to be undermining the guys who are supposed to be handling that stuff?
I actually LOVE answering rules questions.
What I don't like is how folks treat those answers, or how people react to me, someone without the word "designer" in his title, publicly answering rules questions.
I'm in the proverbial spot of being between a rock and a hard place. I can't provide rules answers without folks assuming that they're "official" or even "errata," due to my position in Paizo's hierarchy, and so I can't because that could undermine the design team's goal of maintaining control over "official" rulings.
What would be so wrong with that, though?
In my opinion, it should go books < James < designers in the sense that, if the designers don't make a ruling (seriously the FAQ system is awful), at least the players can have SOMETHING to go off of. I think you really do need to realize how critically-ignored some rules clarifications are (perception vs. stealth invisibility rules, for example, which has been a hot mess since the core rulebook was released).
Are there any plans to alleviate this problem in 2e?
Also, for what it's worth, your engagement with the community is appreciated.
- Can he still cast fireball that day?
- Can he still prepare fireball tomorrow if the negative level is still around?
- Is his caster level check reduced if he makes one?
Rules questions should be asked in the rules forum; I don't answer rules questions here.
James,
Are you of the opinion that a dev will actually respond to rules questions, and the thread won't just devolve into a re-run of the last time this question was asked?
- Can he still cast fireball that day?
- Can he still prepare fireball tomorrow if the negative level is still around?
- Is his caster level check reduced if he makes one?
James, can you comment on this? The spell manifestations FAQ has really thrown a lot of people for a loop, and it's unclear how it interacts with invisibility.
How do you justify Sorshen being the second strongest Runelord when enchantment is mechanically very underwhelming? A huge chunk of the bestiary is immune to mind-affecting. Even worse, she's (presumably) a Thassilonian specialist in enchantment, meaning she can't use necromancy and transmutation, which are arguably two of the stronger schools.
Don't get me wrong; Sorshen is bae, but I'm curious how she rose to power, kept it, and will be challenging when she eventually shows up in an AP.
That's a lot of hyperbole. I'm not interested in an argument about which school of magic is the most powerful, because that's not a debate that I'm interested in trying to win. That's not how I play the game.
You don't need to mind control EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD. Just a few key players get you at the top of a pyramid scheme of power.
But beyond that, the fact that she's one of the strongest Runelords is not a factor of her rules, but a factor of everything about the character. There's more to the game world than the rules as they apply to PCs. Sorshen is not a PC. NPCs don't have to follow the same rules as PCs.
I doubt there's anything I can say to sway you to thinking that suddenly enchantment is the best, but that's not what I want to do with this stuff. I can only ask you to check out Return of the Runelords when it comes out and then make your own decision then. If you're running the game and it breaks your verisimilitude to have her be an enchanter, change it however you want.
I didn't realize there was any argument; I only cited the fact that much of the bestiary is immune to mind-affecting, and wizards especially have many, many methods for countering or avoiding that kind of magic.
As I said, I enjoy Sorshen as a character entirely, but I am curious how she managed to hold power over other spellcasters and become stronger than all but one other runelord when an enchanter would be at a mechanical disadvantage in a straight fight. Did she rise to power and stay there strictly through political subterfuge and surrounding herself with powerful allies through her charm?
How do you justify Sorshen being the second strongest Runelord when enchantment is mechanically very underwhelming? A huge chunk of the bestiary is immune to mind-affecting. Even worse, she's (presumably) a Thassilonian specialist in enchantment, meaning she can't use necromancy and transmutation, which are arguably two of the stronger schools.
Don't get me wrong; Sorshen is bae, but I'm curious how she rose to power, kept it, and will be challenging when she eventually shows up in an AP.
Your interpretation is overly literal and leads to a result that that way overbalances the smite ability. Smite Evil is already powerful enough for the paladin alone, but to extend it to everyone around the paladin and everyone who will ever fight the target of the paladin's smite evil ability is simply beyond the pale.
The same can be said for the Inquisitor judgment ability.
Being in the legal profession, I can understand the desire for absolute clarity in language, but absolute clarity in language does not exist. That is why there are principles of equity that underlie all law. It is simply not equitable in the game to interpret the rules on Smite Evil (and Judgment) in the way you suggest.
There is no interpretation. It's simply correct reading.
As I stated before, the purpose of this thread was not the argue smite mechanics because the original poster clearly said that he knew how it worked.
But alas, thread mentions A, asks a question about B, but the Paizo monkeys want to fling their feces about A instead. Typical.
The inquisitor's judgment grants a +1 sacred bonus on ALL attack rolls. There is no specified target and no range, which means that all attack rolls in the world receive this bonus for as long as the inquisitor is in combat. Isn't that amazing!?
</sarcasm>
No.
Smite wrote:
If this target is evil, the paladin adds her Cha bonus (if any) to her attack rolls and adds her paladin level to all damage rolls made against the target of her smite.
Uses her, then omits the possessive and simply says "all". The way that the target of the bonuses is indicated changes wording in very deliberate fashion. The sentence is also made up of two separate phrases.
Judgment wrote:
Justice: This judgment spurs the inquisitor to seek justice, granting a +1 sacred bonus on all attack rolls. This bonus increases by +1 for every five inquisitor levels she possesses. At 10th level, this bonus is doubled on all attack rolls made to confirm critical hits.
This not only says "the inquisitor" and nothing else, but the fluff text (the inquisitor is spurred) very clearly indicates that the inquisitor alone is spurred.
Looking over the aura of justice class feature and also the oath of vengeance archetype feature powerful justice it is very clear the intent of smite evil isn't to give the bolded benefits to the party out of the box but require the use of the two mentioned class features to do so.
Has there been any official developer response to this silly wording?
The question was not "lol dose this work". It has already been established that this was not the intended use of smite, but the way that it's written is extremely clear in that the effects (besides the bonus to the paladin's personal attack roll) apply to "all damage rolls made against the target of her smite".
There is no grey area. It means exactly what it says. The question was whether or not this has been addressed by anyone important (ie: not the self-proclaimed English majors in this thread).
You can make exceptionally deadly melee attacks by sacrificing accuracy for strength.
Prerequisites: Str 13, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: You can choose to take a –1 penalty on all melee attack rolls and combat maneuver checks to gain a +2 bonus on all melee damage rolls.
Power attack doesn't say you take a -1 penalty to all of YOUR attack rolls to gain a bonus on all of YOUR damage rolls. However, it is clearly understood that is the case because it doesn't state otherwise.
The rules are written with the assumption that players are not braindead and know how to interpret them. Just because something is *not* specified does not mean that the opposite is true, it simply means that they were trying to save real estate on paper in the Core Rulebook.
A trap, by definition, is something that you're likely to be unaware of and will therefore be flat-footed to. Any other ruling is a houserule.
If you can find an enchanter, you should be upgrading your existing +2 headband into a +4 headband by paying the difference, not by selling the +2 and buying a +4, unless of course the GM has determined that such enchanters are not hireable.
Makes me wonder why PFS provides upgrading for people who didn't pay a crafting feat tax.
It's assumed that a crafter in the group in a normal game benefits the entire group rather than just themselves.
However, in PFS you can't trade items with other players and crafting of mundane or magic items isn't allowed, so the upgrading route is the only real option.
Actually, Ultimate Campaign specifically says that crafters should only benefit themselves and their party by an additional 25% of the WBL. So if the WBL for them is 40k, the maximum benefit is either 10k for themselves, or 10k split across the party. Also, most APs don't give you the option of sitting around for three months between every dungeon.
Jacob Saltband wrote:
Can you give a couple examples of these party members are selling for half and then buying for full?
Example: wanting to go from a +2 headband or belt to a +4. Do you sell the 8k item for 4k, then buy a new one at 16k?
I'm using the anniversary edition, but I'm aware of the changes that were made (I tend to cross reference when I can).
Spoiler:
Obviously it's entirely possible that no one in the party is an elf or that Skinsaw will be obsessed with someone who's not vulnerable. I was simply thinking of some possibilities where tactics simply aren't in play because of circumstances.
As for Xanesha, yes, she does target the nearest PC, but again, this could be anyone (the AP does not specifically state what square she starts in). As for her AC, yeah, it was nerfed to hell, but there are still many things that keep her more than safe from martials: mirror image, charm, medusa mask, cure serious wounds. And in any case, although she is a melee fighter, she is a highly intelligent and cunning caster/rogue, so she's not going to just sit there and trade blows with the fighter. A DM who plays their NPCs like idiots is not doing them justice, especially a rich character such as her. Xanesha may have been nerfed, but she is still a very potential TPK waiting to happen, and the DM is doing his players a disservice if they don't play her to her full ability. The "combat tactics" section only goes so far.
Regarding Black Magga, you know exactly what I was getting at (I was using "fear" as the meaning of the word itself, not in reference to the fear effect). Regardless of whether or not it's a poison, it's still a powerful effect that can spoil a party quickly. One other thing that has merit is that a party with more bruisers and less "tanks" and "healers" is going to potentially take Black Magga out and get that 30k additional XP for defeating her. A fighter who's simply switching to a bow is not going to have the enhancement bonuses on that bow to bypass her incredible DR. However, a dedicated bruiser with caster support (haste, etc.) is going to destroy her, as is what happened in my campaign when the monk unleashed a full attack on her.
I'm currently running this campaign, and I have to say that RotRL is a very difficult AP. I would recommend classes with lots of oomph and lots of utility (dedicated healers need not apply). The traps are not deadly.
<Sigh>, what makes you think anyone else is doing that to the fighter. Fighters buy stuff to do that to themselves. They only need them for occasional fights too. Particularly in the AP he's talking about.
Look, if they were playing Kingmaker, I'd suggesting something other than sword and board fighter. There is far more open ground in that one. I'd go archer build or maybe something mounted as a fighter. But when Yumad came in and told the guy his party sucked and rebuild all of it, he was wrong for this AP. This thread was advice for a particular AP.
I don't believe the Tier system is even remotely accurate to anything like 90% of games. I believe most of the percieved power comes from GM's empowering certain classes and many, many people ignoring the fact classes can cover their weaknesses with gear. I think some aspects of teh game need to be cleared up for rogues to get more advantage from stealth. And that's about it. It is a team game. Most folks play it as a team. Many folk who play intelligently help their party members to minimise their weaknesses. When folks play as a team, and grow organically through an AP, all the way up into high levels, then you don't even have a Tier system. Especially now the Advanced book, and the Ultimate books are out there.
And as for taking him personally, yeah I probably replied to this one more than I should have. Lack of sleep, increased work load and tired of the same wrong arguments I guess. Now I have an agenda, but since this is an online Forum, I'll never achieve the...
Okay, I'll give you the fact that a fighter can potentially buff himself, but this does chew up actions where he could need to be moving in order to position himself to protect the squishies. The best synergy is the kind where one person can make an action and their spell target can immediately benefit instead of having to wait until their next turn. By that point, someone can already be dead.
LazarX wrote:
Maybe what you're forgetting is that the game IS built on cooperative play, not a collection of solo stars, The wizard who buffs his party with haste will generally acheive a lot more than one who grand stands with a lightning bolt. Simmilarly a fighter who protects his softies has a better chance of surviving the combat.
Absolutely. I wasn't try to refute this. The thing I'm trying to say though is that it may not be fair to force your party to synergize around one person. THAT in itself is spotlight hogging.
LazarX wrote:
Actually yes you can. If you trip your foes, you've prevented them from reaching your target. If you physically block the path, that's a deterrent to any but the most acrobatic. And if you place yourself in a spot where they can't take on their target without being threathened by you, then yes you can.
In this AP:
Spoiler:
Bruthazmus: prefers to attack elves. My party lost their witch because she was an elf, and there was nothing the party could do.
Skinsaw Man: 27 CMD, will attack his obsession target above all else. Could be your healer.
Xanesha: 35 CMD, can go invisible, has sneak attack, will ambush your casters if the DM plays her intelligently. Can also petrify.
Lucrecia: 36 CMD, same as her sister.
Black Magga: 42 CMD, constant invisibility purge for sneaky casters. Will fear the entire party then attack one at random. Can probably one-round a caster. Can grapple multiple enemies.
No warrior of any build will stop this.
Also, more often than not, the narrow corridors of this AP are excellent spots to ambush the party members at the back of the queue, whereas the fighter is probably all the way in the front. Oops!
LazarX wrote:
And that's not even mentioning archetypes that CAN give protection to adjacent allies.
This build is feat intensive and is BORING. No one wants to simply sit in one spot in full-defensive every turn. I would agree with you, however, if the casters took leadership to pick up a fighter dedicated to these feats (one of my favourite ways to protect myself when I play a witch or other squishy).
I didnt imply anything, that's what your argument was against sword and board fighters. Its a crap argument. And you posted it in your first or second post in this thread.
When you fight a BBEG who does try to ignore the fighter, then the party chages tactics. Enlarge the fighter, shrink the caster and have the fighter stand near the caster. BBEG cant avoid the fighter now, if he wants to target the caster in combat at least. And that's only one tactic out of infinite tactics available in combat with people who play as a team.
If the combat isnt on the ground, then the party deals with it by either - making the fighter fly (potion, or buff or equipment. All are valid).
- Taking on ranged options instead (which fighters can do even if sword and board, since they often have enough feats and options to focus on two or more wepon types)
- Bringing the opponents down as the casters job.
I'd like to point out that it's far more efficient to stop opponents avoiding the fighting types, if you're a caster. It means you cast only one or two spells then let your figher do the hard work. Far better than constantly trying to out cast or react to the BBEG. The smartest casters are the ones who realise that enabling their fighting types to get to and kill an enemy is the most efficient use of the spell economy.
Also, you mentioned earlier that Barbarian's are more efficient killers. Nearly every barbarian ive seen in play (inlduing PFS) is a healing sink. They take damage sooooo easily compared to fighters. This isn't more efficient. If the fight is over in 2 rounds but you took more damage, that's less efficient than over in 4 rounds but took hardly any damage. Easpecially if casters don't do something stupid like try to NOVA the combat.
True, one Barbarian build can maybe out perform an average fighter in terms of less damage taken. But that's only one build. How booooooring if you have to play a barbarian only one way to make an efficient tank.
I guess what I'm trying to say in all this back and forth between you is that you came in and derided his party for their build. You've done so using all sorts of reasons that have been proved numerous times on these boards to be complete fallacies. Believe what you will mate, but don't go sprouting your word as gospel in the face of many threads to the contrary.
So basically what you're saying is that the entire party should work to synergize with YOU to make YOU useful so YOU can protect them.
"Enlarge the fighter", "make the fighter fly", "change to ranged options", "enable their fighter types". You're really not making a good case for yourself here. All I'm seeing is how other classes can make you useful. A good class shouldn't need the entire party's buffs to be useful; that's WHY the tier system exists.
It sounds like the only person with "an agenda" in this thread is you. The fact that you take someone's opinion so personally is laughable.
I'm currently running RotRL and I have to agree with the poster you were responding to in that someone running dedicated healing is not going to make a huge difference in this campaign. My group also uses wands for topping up between combat, and one recurring theme in this AP is that a lot of the combat has the potential to get ugly if allowed to get past the first few turns. Thus, I have to agree that damage with support is going to be more successful than having a dedicated healer. (Good luck outlasting someone like Xanesha with PC heals, lol).
As for the "hurr durr martial classes" debate, a smart DM is not going to have his NPCs stand there like idiots while the warrior beats on them while soaking up damage from the casters. Any intelligent creature (casters especially) will know to target the squishies, and nothing a warrior can do outside of tripping or grappling is going to stop it.
See:
Lord Fyre wrote:
So, the healer should carry a few healing spells, just in case. Still, that is no reason to reduce the cleric/druid/oracle to a healbot.
This is 100% true. Read any reputable cleric guide (TreantMonk, anyone?) and the first thing they (should) say is that clerics/casters are NOT band-aids.
A group of friends and I are looking to get a weekly scheduled thing going. We've tried locally but haven't had any luck for almost a full year now, so we've resorted to looking online!
We're looking for a Pathfinder game, preferably run on Sunday afternoons/evenings (EST), using voicechat (ie: Skype) and other applicable tabletop tools. The logistics can be worked out later, but for now, is there anyone looking for a consistent, dedicated group of laid-back individuals to play with?
Additionally, I'm also looking to learn how to DM, so I would be more than glad to repay the favour once I feel comfortable.
I'm not partial to the play by post method either. i'm currently in two pathfinder games that are run over skype and using maptools, both of which are free.
These types of games pop up here and there. You just have to keep an eye out for them. The hard part is finding one that matches your schedule for days and hours.
Hey, thanks for the reply. It's cool to see that I'm not the only person interested in something faster paced.
In that case, I guess I'm looking then. Would anyone happen to be running or thinking of starting a campaign using these methods?
Been looking for a local campaign for the last few months and haven't had ANY luck whatsoever, so I've been thinking about what my alternatives are. I had a solid group last summer that got split up because of school/work commitments, but it was probably the most fun I've ever had.
Now, I've looked through a few of the threads here (they seem to be extremely active, which is cool to see), and I'm wondering how exactly Pathfinder is played online. I've heard of play by post/email, and that seems to be what the majority of the threads on here are about, but I'm not sure if it's for me. Are there any groups that use some sort of interfacing programs to tabletop? I'm looking for a bit more of an authentic experience and would hope to use voice chat during games, for example. Is this common?
Anyone that can offer some insight is welcomed. My ideal situation would be to set up a scheduled time every week to jump on Skype, get in a call, and play that way, if not on an actual table.
