What started me writing my own stuff was making a rules-light game based on Eternal Darkness.
I couldn't quite get it all done right back then.
I have one I'm working on right now that has many inspirations, and will be introduced to people in stages. Stage one has a lot to do with Monster Hunter.
But I always had one in mind that was an over-the-top crossover with Street Fighter and F-Zero. High octane racing action and overly competitive personalities breaking each others machines and resorting to fisticuffs frequently.
I'm not exactly trying to prove anything to you, just to tell you about what I've experienced. Take it or leave it.
I'm sorry, but what?!? Of course you are trying to prove something...otherwise why are you even wasting your breath? If all you wanted to do was provide a useless data point with no details, you were done with that goal on your first post and no more needed to be said. You continue to reply because you DO want to prove a point. Either provide what was asked for, or stop replying because honestly until you actually do give what was asked for, your not gonna prove anything to us, and you will just get more logic loop holes you post pointed back at you.
*sigh*
I was never on a mission to prove to anyone that the premise of the thread is true, only that I felt like it was. When I started to post on my experience, questions were asked. Fantastic, a discussion.
I said pages ago that posting the offending synthesist would go beyond the scope of what I intended to do here, which was simply to share and talk about it (plus, expounded on my view that theorycraft is nigh useless and wouldn't solve anything anyway). But if you really really want a build, I've given you enough information to make one just like it over the course of my posts on this thread.
Being of opposing viewpoints doesn't mean we're antagonistic, man.
I'm honestly not sure how the people that complain about synthesists screw it up so badly on these boards. I've rarely found anyone at my table that can't do simple addition and subtraction and can't read what they're doing.
Once the stats are written down, a eidolon (synthesist or no) requires way less book looking up than a regular spell caster.
EVERYTHING and eidolon has available is in the description and very clear. It's the people who select large and then give bonus str for only 2pts rather than 4pt, or select armor bonus more frequently than the ability allow for that "break" the eidolons.
As far as your ban pile, if this made it in but nothing else, you're playing with a odd group and are just knee jerking it.
Either that or you let the "I can't kill it" comment be the only thing you focused on. You still haven't really clarified what guidelines you let your players use to build and what they get beyond standard. Because standard wise, there's just no way this wrecks like you have claimed.
We really really want to know how this eidolon was actually built and why the other characters weren't as strong or more so in their own way.
The reason I've not mentioned any extras for characters as far as guidelines or general rules it's because there aren't any. For this game, I literally said, "20 (or 25, I can't remember) point buy, no necromancers, and it'd work better with the whole horror theme in mind." So my friend decided on a Jekyll/Hyde synthesist sort of thing, and that was that.
Odd or not, calling it a knee jerk is disingenuous. This was from 1-13, and for almost the entire thing we were trying to figure out why it was he was so much stronger than we intended him to be. Dismissing my group as a whole as being off or not playing right or simply exaggerating is not constructive. Tell me my experience is illegitimate, and I can easily tell you the same, and we'd get nowhere doing it.
I don't have the sheet handy, sorry about that, but with such freedom as some would call it, just figure some of the best options possible for what I told you already and the build is done.
In general, I would much prefer to deal with non-proselytizing theists than proselytizing atheists.
The difference is, on the whole it's "OK" to be a theist in the U.S., but not an atheist. The proselytizing atheists are attempting to shift public perception to the point where people who actively disbelieve don't have to pretend to be religious just to avoid being branded as "obviously immoral deviants." They do it on the internet because it's harder for people to kick their ass there, and because there's an illusion of anonymity, so they don't feel like they'll get fired from their jobs for not being members of the God club.
I'm familiar with those folks and it's an initiative that I'm one hundred percent behind. The Atheists that I would like to punt into a lake are the ones that complain about the Christmas Tree at City Hall.
+100
Christmas Trees are quite harmless, even beautiful, and socially prevalent enough to not be Christian-specific. Every atheist I know in person loves a good Christmas Tree.
EDIT: and of course the pagan thing. That's not really what comes to mind when I see one, though.
Most definitions of religion that I've seen call it a system.
What you are describing might more precisely be called 'organized religion'. However, let's say a single person has a view of 'God' which is unique to themselves with no formal institutions, possibly even just a simple belief in a 'higher power' with no further detail. Is that not a religion?
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Atheism is, at most, one part: There is no god.
I take it you haven't met many 'secular humanists'. There are groups that have organized belief and value systems extending well beyond disbelief or uncertainty about the existence of 'divinity'. Some are very much like any organized religion... right down to community outreach, spreading the faith, congregational meetings, et cetera.
Quote:
(other types of atheism wouldn't even have that)
Another part of the problem... 'atheism' means a lot of different things to different people.
Thus, it really becomes a matter of how we define the words 'religion' and 'atheism'. Personally, I prefer;
religion - 'belief in something on faith'
atheism - 'belief that there are no divine or supernatural powers at work in the universe'
By these definitions, 'atheism' is a 'religion' because the belief that 'there is no God' is based on faith rather than something which can be proven. However, other equally valid definitions of either term exist which would change the analysis.
This is therefor a wholly semantic question and can be truthfully answered with both "yes" and "no"... it's all a matter of framing. Arguing the answer without understanding each person's perceptual framing is thus pointless.
To be clear: atheism is not a religion. It is not a "belief" that the divine does not exist. It is a statement, proven by observations and backed by facts, that any given supernatural explanation for existence, life and the universe does not suffice in light of a natural existence.
That the understanding most atheists have that a natural explanation for all the universe will emerge sooner or later (taken as a matter of faith) is simply because our understanding of the natural world continues to expand over time, and the room in our worldview for gods continues to shrink. To say that a god handles the unexplained means s/he handles the gaps of our understanding until we fill those voids ourselves.
I agree, let's get a consensus on the terms. If anything can be placed in the religion pile, organized or not, you can also probably place passionate hobbies of any kind in there, too (Paizo-ism), and that weakens the definition IMO.
Killer GM: My roommate had near TPKs several times in one game with a bunch of new players (aside from myself), and every character died (aside from myself). The short of it is his games tend to be lethal for what may seem like no reason at all, but this game cemented his status as the most lethal of GMs that rotate at our table, as well as the surprising resilience of my wizard/shadowcaster/noctumancer, Wyvernjack.
Funniest Death: Same killer GM, running a different game (Eberron? I forget), characters falling all over the place. The middle of battle, our friend finishes up his new character and we're in need of some help. So skip introductions and here comes this dude busting through the doors and valiantly declares his immediate assistance in our struggle. Wielding a huge hammer of a weapon he swings. Rolls a 1. FUMBLE house rules, confirm the fumble, draws a card. Critical hits himself. His weapon was a special type that had a variable crit multiplier modification. Normally, it was an X4 weapon, this mod made it a X1d8. Rolls an 8. Critical hit himself for 8 times damage and dies. We never even knew his name.
The whole "monks got no AC" is becoming really old. An optimized monk may reach 45 AC at level 12 and still have a correct offense or a perfectly good support role.
Seriously this.
My group just wrapped up a Savage Tide game, and my monk had the highest AC in the party by a good margin (63 at its highest). I was pretty well out-damaged by the fighter and alchemist, but I was basically untouchable, immovable, never provoked, and quite easily made every save. Defense only gets so far in this game, but if you have the correct idea for your role (supporting offense, moving anywhere in the battlefield and knocking on noggins when you have to show why you're up there), people will be impressed by your resilience in the most dangerous of circumstances (as in, right in front of the BBEG stopping him from stomping all over the party).
I just played a monk for the majority of a 1-20, and I had fun doing it. I think that means I win. a.k.a. monks are not bad.
There's an old canard about democracy - that it's two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for dinner.
Sorry, but I have to bump in for this.
Only a strict democracy actually works in this fashion. The US does not have a strict democracy, nor did it ever. It was framed, at least, as a democratic republic. Meaning sure, there are votes that do things and elect people, but the republic part meant that there were protections that the government couldn't put to vote, as things they simply couldn't touch.
I mean, notice how Bush Jr.'s proposed Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage went nowhere. It wasn't supposed to, as it's something the gov't should not touch. It's technically a family law issue anyway, which was delegated to state powers.
There are some quotes by famous philosophers that deride democracy, including this quote I imagine, but it doesn't confront me because I know they're talking about a strict democracy.
Okay, so I've given it some thought, and I'd need my own ability for the dependency thing, so here's my crack at it:
Moonlight Dependency: A Lotus must spend at least 1 hour each night exposed to natural moonlight. A dark, overcast night isn't enough for the Lotus. Without this exposure, a Lotus will be fatigued the next day.
-1 RP
So, if combined with the Light Blindness Standard Ability, that's another -2 RP, bringing it down to 17 RP.
I wonder if adding another, flavorful ability would make it too complex?
EDIT: and I'm going back and forth on whether they should have vulnerability to fire. If so, another -2 RP to 15, or about as balanced as a drow from an RP standpoint.
I have a homebrew setting I'm still working on, and I recently did a bit of development on a "race" that would appear to my group as either allies or enemies depending on the direction they took themselves. I made it before, just not with the race builder, so it wasn't quite fleshed out as this. Please note that this isn't available to the PCs to play (yet), so I'm mostly here for some feedback and if I made this thing the right way.
A bit of setting: This world has a massive surplus of souls. There is no reaper, and no place for them to go, aside from residing in a realm closely tied to the material one. Reincarnation does happen, with flashes of previous lives occurring mostly in dreams.
The Corpse Lotus is a specimen found in the easternmost Silmiean forests and marshes. The close proximity to the furious Savage Lands provides for massive overgrowth in the flora and fauna there. Combined with the massive border defense that Silmieoss has kept ongoing for ages, many corpses have been laid bare for consumption by the wildlife found there. Many of the souls of those lost, however, have not moved on from the primal, ancient forest. Driven by duty, loss, or even hope, these souls have manifest themselves in the local flora, becoming not quite a normal plant, but not an undead in the normal sense either. The "Lotus" are people in spirit and plant in appearance, though their very source is from beyond the grave.
Type: Plant (half-undead)
Immune to all Mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms)
Immune to paralysis, poison, polymorph,
sleep effects, and stunning.
Darkvision 60ft.
+2 on saving throws vs. disease
They don't sleep, no penalties from energy drain, and are harmed by positive energy and healed by negative energy.
Prior to Ultimate Combat, if I wanted to make a fighter, it would be a 2H Fighter. Now, if I make a fighter, I make the kind of fighter I would like.
I would agree that there isn't much love for the vanilla 2H fighter, but if you actually do things other than that, even other 2H fighting with maneuvers or reach or something, you'll find something worthy.
2H fighters are boring but effective. Ultimate Combat is the spice that broadens your idea of effective fighting. Ultimate, indeed.
I would actually hate the book if it were filled with feats like, say, Supreme Weapon Specialization or something like that. I don't need that, it's not interesting, I could have made it myself, and it feels lazy. That there are so many feats in the book and not one of them looks like that is pretty good to me.
Thanks for the effort, but it wasn't needed. We've already proven that the touch AC mechanic isn't broken, and that the crafting of guns using the rules provided make NO MONEY at all. This thread is over.
I hate to sound like I'm losing patience, but it needs to be put out there. Thanks for the discussion, but if there were any doubts, we all put our heads together and figured it all out.
The numbers add up, the rules all fit, there's no exploitation to be seen here. AKA not broken.
Nice to deal with someone who feel like talking about things instead of blowing up about stuff...
1) If you say so, I'm kinda sick of arguing about this.
2) Why should I? It was all about DPR, DPR, DPR. The DPR calculator doesn't address this, the archer could have someone cast warp wood on his bow in the first round so then what doesn he do? IF,IF,IF. You (not you specifically) were claiming that the archer just flat out owns the gunslinger on DPR and that blanket statement isn't true.
3) Sure you may START at more than 20', and have to close the gap like a melee character, so your first round won't be a full attack but that doesn't automatically gaurantee the archers first round will be a full attck tound either.
4)Im not 100% against the touch attack mechanic, I just think there are better ways to implement it. Not as a feature of the guns but as a class feature of the Gunslinger. This would keep guns out of the hands of most people since they are...
I think that sometimes the archer owns and sometimes the gunslinger owns is probably a good thing. That tells me that they play differently, and not just in a new skin. So, in some cases, sure, the gunslinger does have an advantage. But, and the big one, it's certainly not all the time. That, more than anything, is what I expected, and received, by having a new class dedicated to a form of combat already in the game.
DPR unfortunately doesn't include misfires in its calculations, but I'm sure there's a math genius who can put it together so it does. Bottom line, though, is that DPR is the best estimate with what we have. I'm glad you started to use it.
There were times, when playing the gunslinger, that I couldn't close the gap, or doing so would have been hazardous to my health. That flies in the face of what an archer plays like. Since an archer has no reason to step up into potentially threatened areas, this was quite the wake-up call when my dwarf gunslinger died at the jaws of a large crocodile (my bane, it seems, as I lost a few characters in the jaws of crocodiles. Captain Hook status I guess).
If a chump misfires even once with a firearm, he's not using it for a bit. I imagine, for a chump, that a gun would be expensive. Knowing this, without proper feats, he stops firing that gun or else lose it, since it needs repairing and normally takes quite a bit of time to do that.
I'm not that worried. We've come up with some pretty contrived scenarios in some other threads that were meant to take the touch attack mechanic to its extremes. Even then, it showed that there were better ways to handle the most favorable of scenarios. I can't remember the names else I'd point you there.
Progress Report: Crane Style Monk w/archetypes in PF Savage Tide.
spoiler:
So we came across this Titan crocodile thing. We succeeded perception, so no surprise round. Rolled initiative and I got pretty low, and the croc is first. He charges in to me, as I'm taking point, with a critical bite and takes out more than half my HP. As my turn comes up, I activate Slow Time to get a few standard actions to buff up my AC, close in and make one defensive attack (I was already in Crane from the previous battle which took place moments before). Perfect, because on his next turn he rolls another critical threat. Deflected! I don't have the 3rd feat yet, so I just block. His next roll on his full attack is a 1, so he's done. The croc gets confused this round, so he'll attack the last person to attack him. We've dealt with confusion a lot this game, so the fighter delays his attack the next round so the croc can target me since I've been up in there defensive flurries around blocking the occasional hit (my AC went up by 10 if I remember correctly, so I deflected 3 attacks overall).
So it saved me, kept me in the game, and I made out to be an imposing force between the party and the baddie. PERFECT! That's exactly what I wanted to be doing, and these feats help facilitate that.
Great defense. So far, that's all I've seen. Wait 'till next odd level to get the last one, to see if that changes my play a little bit. But one extra attack from a monk usually isn't the end of the world.
A hilt is not a detachable on demand, replaceable part of a sword. Nor is an arrow. The magic on the arrow applies when it is launched, not a moment before.
The only analogy you could make to a sword would be if someone had a chain gauntlet attached to it...and by your argument, that chain would now have the sword's magic, and be untargetable and unsunderable. Which also makes no sense.
The CMD would be the same for bow or string, but one destroys the bow, the other just makes it momentarily unusable.
I can't believe you're sticking to this.
There are no rules attached to bows regarding their strings, at all. The story is just that, a story. It doesn't mention in the story that whoever destroyed the bowstrings was ignoring the Pathfinder rules for sundering a weapon. You made that connection yourself.
There are no rules, and no precedent for the rules to suggest your view of sundering works in Pathfinder. I get the feeling we're playing completely different games.
I ALREADY mentioned mob situations. I already mentioned missile and magic. I'm referring to melee combat.
If by mentioning them you mean completely disregarding them as viable alternatives, I suppose you did.
As mentioned before, grappling doesn't use a weapon, though natural weapons could be seen as qualifying, so you may have a point there.
Once again, this is posing a battle that really doesn't happen that often. It's a corner case, and one where the player shines. What's the problem with that?
How many monsters have no solution to this? Please, test this out with a real game first before making claims like this.
You know what, I'm going to do just that. I'll take the feats for my monk in my Savage Tide game, and if it changes my mind, and the feats are too good, I'll be the first to jump on this thread and eat crow.
I think the take-home message here is that in artificially-constructed duels, this series of feats create a powerful, though not insurmountable obstacle. Otherwise, the feats do great defense, but far from invincible. In other words, good feats.
This is a weird thread to me; most feats worth complaining about usually have some great offense of some kind. This is rare to think such a defense is powerful, as this game is very much an offense and tactics game.
I have no problem with first and thrid feats from the Crane but second one with its ability to outrightly negate one attack is leaving a bad aftertaste... It can be taken at 5th level which means that it can be used in one-on-one fight before mutiple attacks are even possible. Hello, unhittable duelist.Anything that negates hit just so should be more limited in its usage (like two or three times per day or at the expense of some resource, like Ki points).
I have a solution for this problem, it's called a bow.
Which part of the term duelist is hard to understand (well, except the one where they used the name for prestige class that focuses on single one-handed piercing weapon)? Duelist is someone who fights in duels: one-on-one fight. Unless the duel is ranged then bow is out.
Yes, after a few levels second attack comes into the equation but there is a small gap for 4-5 level characters where you can throw a duel that cannot be won.
This game is not a PvP arena. Enemies will likely not fight fairly (or 1 on 1), so while a duelist may make the effort to duel, as it were (and why not? This is where they shine), enemies of said duelist may have no incentive to allow this to happen.
I've seen this sort of argument before. The game is not a vacuum of ideal scenarios.
I'm sorry, Mok, and everyone, that this discussion has derailed into "tier wizard" territory, and of my contribution to its thread-jacking. I think we've all started to chase down animated, invisible, hasted goalposts, and it's getting us nowhere.
For the high levels, prismatic sphere/reverse gravity.
I am not sure I understand this. Would you fly above the target and then cast this? Or would it assume you are next to the target when you cast the orb?
The idea is to conjure the sphere above them so the whole sphere is there. Then, reverse gravity is there to make sure they pass through the top and bottom twice each, for four prismatic wall effects in quick succession since reverse gravity is dismissible and doesn't allow a save for itself most of the time. Of course this doesn't work on flying creatures so the target is fairly specific at those levels, but I thought it was fun nonetheless.
Oh, and the Aqueous Orb + Hideous Laughter combo is awesome. +1
