Takilla's page

Let me bring this back from the dead. Medusa's wrath reads:

Medusa’s Wrath (Combat)
You can take advantage of your opponent’s confusion,
delivering multiple blows.
Prerequisites: Improved Unarmed Strike, Gorgon’s Fist,
Scorpion Style, base attack bonus +11.
Benefit: Make two additional unarmed strikes as part
of your full attack action at your highest base attack
bonus. All of your unarmed strikes must be made against
a dazed, f lat-footed, staggered, or stunned foe.

Now, to me that means a monk can do the following:

1. Flurry and use a Ki point to add an additional attack to it.
2. First strike is a stunning fist.
3. Enemy is now stunned.
4. I'm still in my full attack action and I'm now facing a stunned foe. I can make two additional attacks on top of the 2 I already have from flurry and using a ki point (4 more attacks).

Is that not right? The feat doesn't say the unarmed strikes must be made against an opponent that is "stunned prior to your turn" it just says "a stunned foe."

If the intention was that you can only use it if someone else is helping you ... that's sort of dum isn't it? One of the monks main strengths is supposed to be to get to an enemy that is hard to get to and keep them busy right?

Thanks for the info guys ... I think I'll look into Runelords then. I didn't specify it, but I will be GMing for the next few levels for our group. We trade off the GM duties so we can all play. Runelords does look really cool.

I was thinking of buying the books for one of the pathfinder adventure paths. My group has been playing with pathfinder and just using modules we make up or other free stuff. We're on 6th level now and we want to continue but we'd like to get a really good quality campaign that fits together. We're pretty combat/tactics oriented so I'd like a module that has that but also some of the other type of encounters as some of us like those too.

Can anyone recommend one of the adventure paths? Is it a problem to jump in the middle of one rather than start it at 1st level? We're pretty gamist leaning ... how hard are the pathfinder modules?

Thanks in advance for any tips =)

Krensky wrote:

Crusader of Logic wrote:

I am ignoring Krensky entirely as he is completely falsifying my position by claiming I said things I did not and are in fact the opposite of what was said. Unless saying that whichever DM is Rule 0ing is not professional is somehow an insult to professionals? Eh, I'm not even going to think about that logic fail too hard.

I did nothing of the sort. However, let me simplify.

You are an arrogant prick. Your posts are invariably snarky and often downright insulting. You misused logic constantly, insist anyone disagreeing with you is an imbecile or worse, and your comments add nothing to the discourse.

Arrogance is more confidence than is warranted. This is not the case.

No redeeming correctness whatsoever.

Not to waste more space but I felt compelled to weigh in for CoL. His (I'm guessing he's a he ... but not assuming) manner of addressing people is not likely to win him any humble-guy-of-the-year contests. In any case: I've always thought that being "humble" (which has the connotation of being the opposite of arrogant and which I was lovingly taught to be in my wonderful years of Catholic school) never really made sense. To wit: if I was the fastest dude on the track team by far (and I was =P), I should never actually say that to anyone as it was "arrogant" to do so. Basically, if someone asked me "so who's the fastest on the team" I was supposed to lie to that person or avoid the question to save other people's feelings. I always thought that was stupid. So I don't blame him for getting fed up with some people and simply telling them the truth about how he thinks.

To put it in a way I'm sure CoL would be proud of: anyone here who has read his posts, thought about them critically, is intelligent, and understands the subjects being addressed would have to conclude that he has contributed quite a bit to the discussion despite his (perhaps somewhat understandable?) contempt for some of the, shall we say, "less thought out" responses.

Oh, and I would say his posts are variably snarky at worst =). In my view people are waaay too easy to offend and get defensive waaaaaaay too easily. RPGers especially. Myself included.

In any case: I do largely agree with CoLs (and many other's) assessment of the balance issues ... and I have seen it in the game I play in and the game I DM: for those of you that only honor that "real (fake?) world" experience. We're already thinking of ways to houserule it so that everyone is contributing on somewhat equal levels. I really don't see how some people can say that a guy that can cast a wish spell is "just as good ... but different" from a guy whose sole ability is swinging a sword.

Crusader of Logic wrote:

Fortitude saves:

Reflex saves:

Will saves.

In summary, Fortitude effects take out dangerous casters quickly. Will effects take out dangerous non casters quickly. Reflex effects do nothing unique or useful as they are far inferior against either of the above.

Clerics and Druids get good saves in both the categories that matter, which is part of the reason why they're so good.

And Direct-Damage Reflex-Save Targeting spells are good against all Casters in general,

when used as a delayed action provoking a signifigant Concentration Check... ???

Hmm, I'm guessing the better option would be cast an SoD/S or two instead? After all, their fort save isn't likely good, and if it works they're dead. Whereas even if the blasts hits, they fail their save, and all the damage gets through any defenses (energy res), they could still be fine and able to respond next round, though they would almost certainly lose their spell.

So I guess it's sort of academic in that sense. In reality a decent blaster is going to be able to handle a caster around their level almost as well as the SoD/S caster. I mean I'm looking at it like this: run an encounter with a caster 2 levels over the party's ACL 100 times. It's not like the blaster is going to lose it for you 9/10 or something. Most likely the party (if it's well built) would end up winning the encounter:

- with blaster - 76% of the time
- with SoD/S - 84% of the time

Or something like that. So it's not like SoD/S would be an autowin button ... it's just better based on the options.

Takilla wrote:

Double Slice (+2 to off-hand attack)

Plese note that Double Slice, in the full description, says that you can add your full Stength bonus to the off-hand weapon damage instead of the usual half Strength bonus(in this case, unarmed Monk attack) (page 85). Probably, the brief description in the table is from a precedent version of the feat.

Takilla wrote:

Weapon Focus (unarmed)

I would personally go for a 1st level Monk with 10 Strength and 16-or-more (the more, the merrier) Dexterity for a Two-Weapon fighting build, taking Weapon Finesse instead of Weapon Focus. The feats for this kind of build are really Dexterity-dependent (17 Dexterity for Imp.TWF, 19 Dexterity for Great.TWF), and since Wisdom is essential for a Monk (and Constitution is NEVER a waste), this pretty much leaves Strength with very poor bonuses - and so, better pumping Dexterity and taking Weapon Finesse (since now it CAN be taken at 1st level, because it has no more the silly "BaB +1" requirement that every 1st level Rogue hated so much...)

Well, I rolled really well, so I do have 16 for all the physical stats and 19 for wis ... otherwise I would have.

The problem with monks + two-weapon fighting is that monks aren't that great at hitting opponents anyway. For you're level 6 monk, you're already taking a -1 penalty for flurrying, so putting an additional -2 penalty on for two-weapon fighting is tough for a class that only has medium BAB.

True, but for taking out lower AC foes, and disarming and such, I think it could allow good flexibility. Against higher AC foes, I guess I'll just try to stun them and let other people wail away.

Yes. Attack the Giant's Will save, then make the death official while he cannot respond.

I see, I didn't take it that far. So, of course after I get the hold monster off: which, if I quicken the spell (two casts ... normal and quick), and boost the DCs, is very likely. Everyone piles on and does a coop de gracie (sorry, it just sounds better that way) and he's deadski. I suppose that does make sense.

Ogres have bad Will saves. Say you blind 3. Ok. Only one is still capable of posing a threat to your party. The other three are easily hit, have a hard time hitting back... they're practically as good as dead. So have everyone beat up on the one fine one, then you still have 4-5 rounds to kill off the others.

Alternately you Fireball, do your minor to moderate damage, do not reduce their ability to fight but do piss them off. Guess what they're going to do next.

Good point ... one thing though. I just randomly picked an example of what battle might look like later and what my wizard might want to do. So here's the thing:

Me: 12th level wizard
Him: Storm giant

Now, I'm thinking of casting baleful poly or flesh to stone or some other SoD. It seems to be like he has a really really good chance of saving. Maybe I just took a bad example but it seems like having a +17 fort save would mean he's going to ignore me like 65% of the time or so (my DC is maybe 24 or so?). That doesn't seem like real good odds. I could easily cast 2 spells that don't affect him at all. Now going after his will save seems better ... but then I'm not going to really kill him with those spells am I? Am I just missing a bunch of DC buffs or something? I don't think I'd feel too confident going against him and just casting SoD.

The only way you are making a blasting caster that is remotely useful is via maximum optimization. Every book under the sun, lots of metamagic cost reducers so...

I see, so it appears it's simply a matter of relative effectivness and which spells will give you the most bang (even if "bang" just means blinding someone) for your buck. I have to say I was sort of leaning toward SoS/D (as being optimal) but didn't want to go for it. We had one encounter when my Wizard was level 4 where I used sleep and glitterdust and basically took 80% of the baddies in the final battle of the dungeon out of the fight for long enough to take out the big guy without his minions to help. I suppose as we fight enemies of higher levels this trend will just get worse.

One caveat though. Let's say you're a 6th level wizard:

If you're fighting big tough guys, EG a hill giant, blasting is clearly not as good. However, if you were fighting a bunch of smaller guys, EG 4 ogres. I'd be inclined to think that it's a draw. At least with a fireball you're very likely to take off 1/2 their life (even if they save) and you could possibly kill them all. With 2 fireballs, they're probably all dead. Whereas with a slow/scare/glitterdust or whatever. You may only affect 1 or 2 ... so it's not as effective in that respect. I don't know though, it's pretty complicated in some situations and tough to say for sure which is better.

Crusader of Logic:

Just started playing again after an 8 year hiatus. I've found this discussion quite interesting. In particular: your argument that the most powerful (to the degree that it is near broken) and useful character in the game (in general) is a well built wizard type. It seems the main premise is that primarily going after a monster's hps is not the optimal way to attack them as ... what? their stats are easier to take out? Or it's easier to put some debuff on them that is better? In any case that seems to make sense. So I suppose my question is: what is a well built wizard? From your posts: it seems like it would be this:

1. Have high int (or whatever ability gets your DCs up)
2. Have feats that improve DCs for spells and spell penetration
3. Have magic items that improve your DCs or allow you to cast SoS/D spells like crazy.
4. Every tough battle just cast your best SoS/D, don't blast as it's suboptimal.

Does that cover it?

Just out of curiousity: what spells are we talking about here? For instance: what are the best spells for levels 1,2,3,4 in your opinion?

As an aside: I suppose SoS/D stands for Save or Suck and Save or Die correct?

One more thing, I'm not so much interested in optimizing my wizard to the nth degree as I am with having fun. If I can sort of break the game with SoS/D stuff ... I just won't do it. Does that make sense for my char? Nope. Will it allow us to continue playing and using the book mods without changing them completely? Yes. Will that be more fun? Well, probably =).

I myself thought this was not possible (due to poor wording in the rules). Of course, some feats like that you mentioned are obviously sub-optimal with "Monk/Two-Weapon Fighting".

Hmmm...so in other words, while I could take the feat and get the +1 to AC you feel that this would not be as good as some other feats I could take. Care to share? I was thinking of replacing double slice with something defensive and I don't see much else for feats that would help me much. Basically, I'm building a level 6 monk from scratch.

Weapon Focus (unarmed)
Deflect Arrows
Two Weapon Fighting
Stunning Fist
Double Slice (+2 to off-hand attack)
Pain Touch
Improved Disarm

Improved Natural Attack (but not till level 7 ... I'm level 6 now).

I've read that monks can use the two-weapon fighting chain of feats if they wish with their unarmed attacks. Is this "officially" true? One thing that's bugging me is that some of the two weapon fighting feats say:

TWO-WEAPON DEFENSE [GENERAL]
Your two-weapon fighting style bolsters your defense as well as your
offense.
Prerequisites: Dex 15, Two-Weapon Fighting.
Benefit: When wielding a double weapon or two weapons (not
including natural weapons or unarmed strikes), you gain a +1 shield
bonus to your AC.
When you are fighting defensively or using the total defense
action, this shield bonus increases to +2.
Special: A fighter may select Two-Weapon Defense as one of his
fighter bonus feats.

Is this yet another case where the monks unarmed attacks are an exception to the rule?

If you're concerned about her apparent wealth level compared to the other PCs because she carries self-crafted items and thus has more wealth than she "should" at her present level, you should read this article by yours truly:

linky

Ok, so I'm not out of my mind, that makes sense. I'm thinking since in PF it isn't costing her exp though she should maybe do something to make up for that as well. Maybe have her Exceptional Artisan feat give her that or something. Thanks for the info.

Ok, so I'm playing a wizard in our campaign. My thinking was to basically specialize in making useful magic items for the party and myself. There are several of us playing but it's me and 2 other guys trading off on GMing every couple levels. Not ideal really but it's working ok ... that way one person doesn't have to GM the whole time and can play a char.

The other thing we decided was that we weren't going to just follow every module or just throw in random magic items as that basically results in the chars selling off 90% of the stuff they get to buy stuff they really want ... which is dum. So we're basically taking the advice from the Magic Item Compendium published in 3.5 and the GMs are placing magic items in the treasure that they think the players will actually want that will keep their wealth levels about right. So here's the problem: if my wizard makes items she can make them at half price. So if you look at her wealth level in terms of item worth ... it looks like 16000 ... but she really only received 10000 worth of stuff but used the extra gold to make stuff. So basically: how would the GM place items for her when it's her turn to get something? If they consider he wealth 16000 ... she shouldn't be getting anything. Does that make any sense? Any ideas on how to handle this?

Takilla wrote:

I was saying: I'll give you the choice, but if you leave your armor on you will be fatigued the next day as the rules state."

I misunderstood your intial post then. It looked like you weren't telling him about the penalties in advance, and made him decide to wear armor or not, without mentioning them. If you did, in fact, specifically tell him about the penalties before he made the decision, then he has to live with them. If you didn't, he shouldn't.

Well, I basically let him retroactively decide whether his character had his armor on or not after seeing a gargoyle coming at them. So, I was being a litte nice there =)

If the player is unaware that sleeping in armor applies penalties, but the character would know it, it's sort of up to you to clue him in, rather than let the penalty pop up later as an unwelcome surprise. No player will have perfect knowledge of every rule.

I see your point ... but you're missing one thing. Just as a player isn't going to have knowledge of every rule ... the DM can't go through every rule with every player. But you still need to enforce them. It's not like I was saying "oh, your char is a highly experience fighter who is too dum to know that he shouldn't sleep in his armor." I was saying: I'll give you the choice, but if you leave your armor on you will be fatigued the next day as the rules state. This is the same choice he would have had had he known about the rule in the first place. I don't have a problem with him saying "well, I didn't know about that, I guess we'll just say I wasn't sleeping in my armor so I dont get fatigued."

But he wasn't saying that, he was saying: "eh, I don't agree with that rule and your an ass for even bringing it up. I'll sleep in my armor if I want and get no penalties thank you." Just as ignorance of the law is not a defense in court, ignorance of the rules should not give one an advantage. IE: I didn't know that wizards have spell failure from wearing full plate ... so I'll go ahead and wear it with my wizard and have 0% spell failure...cool?

The GM is just as entitled to fun as the players. Why should you be the only one jumping through all the hoops?

Heh, that's something I didn't even think about. Good point...I'll have to keep that in mind.

Talk to your players. Does your friend know his min/maxing is taking away from your fun of the game? If he does and does not care, he is only shooting himself in the foot. If you are not having fun too, you are going to quit running. And then he will have to find some other GM to bully.

I tried that, he's basically like "oh, you don't know what you're talking about, it's still a challenge!" Well, it frankly isn't ... and that makes it sort of boring, at least to me.

My guess is Ability Scores are the culprit. Add up the value of your PCs abilities with the Pathfinder Point Purchase system, and if they come out to more than 25 points, then by-the-book ECLs will need help to work. Even lower totals can be problematic, because context is everything. This might not be as simple as "+1 APL," you need to start thinking about the individual abilities at play.

You're right, I basically let them do 4d6 and then gave them 10 points on top of it. The 10 points wasn't a big deal but you can't do anything about high rolls ... and they got them.

Also, I recommend a careful reading of the Encounter-Building section of Pathfinder Beta, it is a superior system, and some of the changes are subtle so I didn't catch them the first time through.

Will do.

Resist the temptation to exploit PC weaknesses. Try to create interesting situations the way they would unfold (within reason, it's fantasy after all), and let the PCs crash...

Yeah, I mean my thought is to give them some encounters that play to some of their strengths and some that play to some of their weaknesses, and some that are in-between. I'm going to slowly ramp up the CR until I find a spot where it's actually tough.

I would hesitate to offer advice without know the ages of the participants.

Care to share?

All over 25 ... the ones I'm friends with are the only ones I'm having problems with ... the others it's smooth sailing. I guess it's really that they feel comfortable enough with me to yell/argue with me all they want that is one of the problems.

Calling you names it inappropriate. I smell deeper issues here.

If your players do not like the way you run the game, they have three options. They can discuss their grievances maturely with you after the game. They can run their own game the way they want to. They can politely remove themselves from an intolerable situation.

Heh, yeah well that reminds me. There are all kinds of arguments in game, and then the next day, practically without fail, I get emails saying "great job GMing last night it was a lot of fun. That was a very interesting/creative encounter."

Go figure =)

Thanks for the input guys. I'll definitely take that to heart. I need to be more firm and basically say "ok, you made your argument and that's it." I think I'm going to let the player trade in his chainmail for a chain shirt as well, that will get rid of that problem. I also need to try to stop it from being an adversarial thing as well. I guess I'm used to that sort of style and so I'm kind of doing it myself (as much as I try not to).

As for the haggling thing, you're right, I'm just going to tell them: this is how it is, you won't always get a discount.

With the night attack, I wasn't really trying to attack them when they were weakest per se. It was really just (what I thought would be) an interesting encounter. The last two nights I left them alone to sleep peacefully anyway =).

One thing that I didn't mention though that toyrobots made me realize: I'm having a hell of a time making encounters that are challenging but not so much that 1/2 the party dies. The player who has the fighter I mentioned earlier is on 4th level and basically takes any advantage he can think of to up his damage output and AC and everything else. He's got like +11 to hit and +9 to damage and 21AC. Now, I don't really have a problem with that necessarily, and of course you want your char to be powerful. But, it makes it really hard as a DM to try to come up with something that will challenge the group but not kill them. I mean with a regular party of 4th level chars I might think that 3 ogres (CR 3) would be somewhat challenging. But our dear fighter only needs like a 5 to hit and can kill either of them in a couple hits even without cleave. On top of that, there are 3 other chars to help him out. So I sent 4 ogres after them, thinking this has to be a challenge, but between bad rolls and the fact that they only need like 8 to hit it was yet another joke encounter. So when it comes down to things like "ok, I'm going to just swap out the chain mail for a chain shirt to remove one of the only weaknesses my char has for free." You could see where I'm a little reluctant to make an overpowered char even more overpowered. Let's face it, I can't have every encounter with "flying/incorporeal/will save attacking/special advantage that makes it hard to melee them" creatures =(

Warning ... GM venting ahead =)

I just started GMing again after not playing for several years. Our group started in 3.5 and then went to Pathfinder and it's been fun for the most part. We decided that we would each take turns GMing so we can all play. I've tried to be up on all the rules and run things in a fair way. However, no matter what I do our group ends up arguing about things quite often. Example: there is a fighter in our group that chose to get some chainmail armor +1. Well, he didn't realize that this would make his movement decrease (PH 123) and that if he slept in it he would be fatigued the next day (PH 122). This was the second time this has been brought up in our group. I had an encounter set up where they would get attacked at night. I basically just told him: "I'll let you decide now whether you slept in your armor or not, we can discuss the rules on this later, so we don't have to stop play." Well after about 5 more minutes of arguing and asking me to show him in the book where it said that he agreed that he wouldn't have slept in his armor. Then said: "why the heck do you keep springing all these unfair rules on me!?"

This happens quite a bit. If I follow the rules to the letter, and they don't like them, I get yelled at for that. If I mess up and don't know the rules, I get called out for being an idiot and not knowing what I'm doing. I even make up new rules sometimes that do nothing but benefit the chars and (I hope) add to realism and I get reamed for that sometimes too. Example: I allow the chars to use diplomacy to haggle merchants down in price. The one time I told them: hey this guy isn't going to give you hundreds of gold off. I get yelled at for "oh, come on I rolled good you have to let me get a discount you're sooo unfair!"

I remember reading that if stuff like this happens you should simply tell the player "hey, this is how it's going to be for now, rather than look it up and stop play I'm going to make a judgement call and we'll move on." Well that has not worked for me once =(. Any ideas?

Armor bonuses are more powerful than a simple disguise change. AC is one of the core mechanics at the heart of D&D, so yes, a permanent AC boost is going to be expensive when it doesn't impart any penalty to armor check, gives an infinite dex bonus, no casting penalty, and can even work against incorporeal attacks.

*sigh* agreed ... but it would have been cool to have =)

LOL so 16000 gold for a 1st level spell effect....but only certain 1st level spell effects apparently?

EG:

Hat of Disguise: This apparently normal hat allows its wearer to alter her appearance as with a disguise self spell. As part of the disguise, the hat can be changed to appear as a comb, ribbon, headband, cap, coif, hood, helmet, and so on.

Faint illusion; CL 1st; Craft Wondrous Item, disguise self; Price 1,800 gp.

Seems a little weird.

In any case I guess it makes sense when you think about the whole monk thing. Ok, so I guess I'll just get the Mithril shirt which costs 400 less and does the same thing basically? Not to mention with that option I can enchant it later and pump it up even more. I really only wanted it for the coolness factor ... the number will be the same ... except for the 400g I'll save and the annoyance of the spell failure of 1 in 10. But I'd rather have the protection all the time and not have to ask how many hours it's been since I cast mage armor every 10 mins of game time =(.