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I feel like we gamers could be making much more meaningful connections here if not for certain policies that I'm probably not allowed to bring up.

What do you folks think? Are we really happy staying at arm's length during times like these?

On a lark I dropped the first sentence of the grapple rules into Transformer to see whether it could come up with a better version:

As a standard action, you can attempt to grapple a foe, hindering his combat options.

As a standard action, you can attempt to grapple a foe, hindering his combat options. He takes a –4 penalty on his Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution checks. This grapple does not take effect on grapple attempts made against an opponent who is immune to grappling maneuvers. He falls prone as an immediate action or ends the grapple at any time. A grapple cannot grapple another character or creature with the same creature type or subtype. If you grapple the affected creature this way (in the example above), you do not grapple their allies while grappling them, and your actions while grappling this creature don't cause them to take extra damage. If you are caught by this ability, the character with the higher Strength score gains temporary hit points equal to your Strength modifier. This ability uses your Strength bonus and is usable once per round.

Horseback Sprint (Su): At 11th level, your horseback sprint provides a way to bypass the movement penalty associated with your natural movement. If you gain a rank in any one martial artist specialization, you can attempt a DC 15 bull rush check against your target's Strength score to try to get out of a bull

I'm implementing this in my home game immediately. My players won't be able to stop trying to get out of a bull! Not being able to grapple other creatures of the same type is a bummer, though. I guess it keeps you from exploiting grappling your friends for at-will temporary hit points.

Greetings!

I seem to remember a creature that's basically a humanoid outline of pure void (kind of like painting a person Vantablack) and that didn't eat food but instead absorbed color. Is my memory playing tricks on me again or is this a thing?

Greetings!

Behemoths have the unstoppable defensive ability, but they have no mythic rank in their description and thus not appear to have any mythic power to expend on it. What am I missing?

Thanks!

What if they're just misunderstood? Couldn't an antipaladin be neutral? Maybe they had good reasons to become puppy-kicking villains?

...Bahahaha! I can't do it. Ahahahahahaha!

This question has come up in the past, but I'm not sure it was ever definitively settled.

If a creature begins casting a spell while invisible, are the spell manifestations visible?

There are some published scenarios, including one in Rise of the Runelords: Anniversary Edition, that do not work as published if spell manifestations are able to give away the presence and/or location of an invisible caster, but that could me a matter of said scenarios being published before the spell manifestation FAQ. Regardless, I'd like to know how much encounter redesign is in my future. : )

When casting summon monster, summon nature's ally, or other similar spells that allow selection from a table of options, when does a caster "lock in" her choice of which monster to summon? Do you declare "I'm casting summon monster ii to summon 1d3 dogs", or do you declare "I'm casting summon monster ii, finish casting the spell next round, and then say "I choose 1d3 fiendish dogs" or "I choose a small air elemental" as it resolves?

Barring definitive text and/or reasoning, I'm inclined to allow the latter. The caster is already unable to choose placement definitively until the spell resolves since in some cases she doesn't even know how many creature's she's summoning. It seems simpler to make all of the necessary choices at once. (Note that targeted spells fit this paradigm--a caster need not select a spell's target(s) until she finishes casting the spell. Unfortunately, I can find no text one way or the other with respect to other decisions.)

Suppose a wizard 7 has an imp/quasit/archon/whatever familiar. An enemy cleric casts dismissal on it. The familiar fails its saving throw.

Is that pretty much it? Time for a new familiar, or a scroll of plane shift/lesser planar binding/whatever to get it back?

Bonus points if it's a witch instead of a wizard--they just lost their spellbook. o_O

Most of my players are new to Pathfinder, and I decided to let them explore the character building process as much as desired, helping out when they had questions like "how do I make a character who does X" or "too many feats zomg". This mostly worked out okay--we have 6 20-point buy characters doing an AP, so even unoptimized characters should have a decent chance.

That said, I'm a bit worried about the party half-elf, a falconer ranger. They wanted to play an archer (or crossbow user), but they put nothing into Strength (10), so composite bows won't do much without some sort of Strength enhancement. The idea was likely to fit the archetype of a lithe elf raining death from afar using precision alone, but with all the Dex to damage options out there bows are still pretty much "Strength or go home".

If our archer starts to feel lacking in the combat department, what should I advise? I'm open to inventive solutions so long as they don't seem too deus ex machina, like finding a special agile longbow or something. (Though I thought I remember some module or other having an otherwise illegal agile weapon because the designer thought it was cool....) But I'm also open to advising the player so long as it doesn't break his character concept.

I'm having fun tracking the actions of my players as we go, to the point where I'm looking for ways to make the system more impactful. But that's a topic for a different thread!

In this thread, let's share some interesting incidents you or your players experienced that resulted in a change on the sin point chart.

To start:

---

In our second session, the players rescued a certain nobleman (whom we are all almost certainly familiar with) from "certain goblining!" . . . Only, when they approached the very vocally grateful noble after defeating his oppressors, instead of helping him to his feet, our intrepid fighter frisked him, found his money pouch, and gave it a significant squeeze. After that, the fighter demanded payment, with most of the rest of the party agreeing that they deserved a nice reward for saving this guy. (Keep in mind: the town was still under attack, with goblins running amok and setting things on fire!) Naturally, the noble obliged with a modest amount and promised further reward later at the local inn.

Then the nobleman saw that his hunting dog was grievously wounded by the goblins and begged the PCs to save him. They did . . . and demanded more payment. : )

Later, at the inn, the noble offered to take the party on a boar hunt in the Tickwood Forest. The party was less than impressed with this as a reward*, so instead I used the opportunity to have him give the party a piece of jewelry that might serve as a valuable plot hook and/or piece of intel later.

The fighter got dinged for a point of greed. I didn't ding the others as they were more or less just going along with the idea--as well as giving the noble a hard time because they didn't like him--but going for a random attack victim's purse seemed exactly like the sort of thing that would warrant a point.

* Paraphrased reaction: "Oooh, you mean I get to hunt innocent wildlife with a real member of the privileged class? My dreams have come true!" (I wonder how often this happens in other folks' campiagns...!)

Greetings!

Is there any published mechanic for fooling someone who has readied an action into taking that action--whether it be a feint, some other bluff mechanism, or another thing entirely? Naturally this only makes sense for certain conditions--"I ready an action to shoot any dragons that teleport in" would be impossible in most situations (though an illusion spell might be interesting!).

If not, I'm considering just calling it a feint or Bluff-vs.-either-Sense-Motive-or-Perception check depending on the condition in question.

Thanks!

The text has tactics for the Big Bad, and the AP as a whole gives enough information to roleplay said character well enough. What doesn't get a lot of description is his weapon, the Burning Glaive. It's intelligent, can communicate via speech and telepathy, and has a dedicated purpose. It even has dancing! It's almost an NPC in its own right.

For those of you who've finished this AP, how did you (or your GM) roleplay the weapon? Was it ever at odds with Karzoug? Did it attempt to confound the enemy with major image, or did it just silently chuck a fireball each round on his behalf? If your party was victorious, what was the weapon's fate? Did you destroy it, leave it where it fell, or even assume mastery over it?

Not a single Pathfinder grippli in sight. Yeah, there's Stonehaven, and a few from Reaper, and some goofy froggy folk from Dark Sword. But Pathfinder gripplis are special. They're tree-froggish. They're really small. It'd be nice to have even one official mini.... *sniff*

/rant over

Greetings!

I'm still digging through a lot of community-created stuff, but one thing I haven't found yet is rumor tables for Sandpoint, especially appropriate tables for Burnt Offerings. Do any such tables exist?

While I'm on the subject, the Sandpoint settlement statistics lists the town has having the qualities "prosperous" and "rumormongering citizens". I've found the stats for the former but nothing about the latter. Is it simply descriptive or does the town's penchant for gossip have ramifications other than "the GM might drop more rumors than usual"?

Greetings!

We've just started RotRL:AE. It'll likely be a session or two yet before the players reach significant challenges, but I'd like to get a read on problem points.

The gist is, while we have 5 PCs in the party, there's not much in the way of spellcasting ability:

1. Gnome fighter, no archetype yet
2. Half-orc warpriest of Anubis (probably the most capable caster in the party)
3. Half-elf falconer ranger who's considering trading away spellcasting for something else as her player doesn't care for it
4. Dwarf skald built for melee with relatively low Charisma
5. Grippli swashbuckler (inspired blade for Dex-to-damage, might retrain to mouser if she can acquire D2d through an alternate approach)

The warpriest gets a good spell list but gets it later than expected, meaning recovering from certain ailments is going to be a challenge without a lot of potions/wands/scrolls. Arcanewise, a lot of the good utility spells that offer information, flying, and the like are going to be delayed or even off-limits.

I've read the AP up to partway through Chapter V, and this looks pretty gnarly for a party without at least one full caster.. What do you folks think? Should I make any major adjustments to compensate, or let them rise or fall on the strengths of their characters and their teamwork?

(But not in thread titles. That apparently makes golem angry.)

Nope, this isn't another They Changed It Now It Sucks thread. : D

The new layout is actually kind of nice--which I hate to admit since I reflexively hate on site style changes--with two caveats:

1. Post text is just too small. Please don't make me zoom in my browser text or change screen resolution to read posts on this site when I don't need to on others. I have crap vision, but not that crap. (Note: by "post text" I mean the text for already-made posts, not the post entry field I'm typing in right now--that field is just fine.

2. User-posted links are impossible to discern from regular text. This makes posting references in, e.g., rules or advice threads difficult--we would now have to call out our links with "<--- click that thing", which just seems unnecessary. Not saying they have to be the standard blue/purple or underline stylings, but <gratuitous agile hat on> as a poster, I'd like posted links to be easily discernible from non-link text so that I know when a poster is referencing external content <gratuitous agile hat off>.

On a related note, the site is running silky smooth this morning--a welcome change from the last few months. Thanks for all your hard work! 👍

(edit: Oh boy. Brace yourselves. Unicode emoji is coming. ⚠ ⚠ ⚠ )

Regarding the agile thing, I'm so sorry...!

Greetings,

I could have sworn that in the last couple of months a feat, rogue talent, or some other thing came up that granted the character a gp pool for unspecified equipment in a similar vein as the Pathfinder Chronicler's deep pockets class feature. However, searching through my post history for this has so far proven fruitless. Anybody know what the heck I'm talking about?

This page from the PRD has a table mapping object size to falling damage. The animate objects spell also mentions object sizes, but it's unclear whether it really refers to the size of the object or the size of the creature the object becomes.

Textwise, is there such a thing as object size? Note that this isn't about the creature size a weapon or armor is designed for--I'd wager that the object size of a sling bullet would be different from the object size of a suit of full plate armor.

This has implications of calamitous import should I go through with my plan to research an anvil chorus bard spell.

Bob is having a bad day. Bob took 2 points each of Strength and Wisdom damage, 4 points each of Dexterity and Charisma drain, got hit by two bestow curse spells causing his Constitution and Intelligence scores to decrease by 6, got a big kiss from a vampire bestowing two temporary negative levels, and got his feet popped off before his tormentors finally put him out of his misery.

Fortunately, Bob's friends eventually arrived to exact revenge for Bob and recover his body. Unfortunately, Bob's friends don't include a cleric or oracle. They do have a salve of the second chance, which they hastily slather on Bob's battered corpse. Bob reincarnated as a troglodyte, because that's how Bob's luck is rolling today. Naturally, this bestows two permanent negative levels on Bob.

Q:. Which of the above unfortunate afflictions still afflict Bob post-reincarnation?

A third-party site show that the hundun from Bestiary 5 has Befuddling Strike as a feat, and befuddling strike is listed under Special Attacks with a number of uses per day similar to how Punishing Kick is listed. Its Unarmed Strikes ability explains that the ability grants the hundun the befuddling strike rogue talent.

The text for Befuddling Strike is as follows:

When the rogue deals sneak attack damage against an opponent, that opponent takes a –2 penalty on attack rolls against the rogue for 1d4 rounds.

Does a regular ol' hundun have any means of dealing sneak attack damage, or was this a mistake?

My reincarnated druid is a bit of a schismatic of the Green Faith--he sees little use for the constant power struggle and listening for days on end to the "Will of the World", instead focusing on protecting the cycle of life and death and meditating on the "Will of Life", a practice he believes to be closer to the roots of the Old Faith. (Think about the philosophical differences between Qui-Gon Jinn and the rest of the Jedi, for example--this character is more of a "living Force" sort.) As the embodiment of reincarnation, he views the usual pantheon of deities (especially Pharasma) with a mixture of amusement and grudging respect but notes that even they are not immune to this cycle. A bit of a scholar, he's also not above looking outside the realms of druidic lore for more insight into the nature of life--he is fascinated by samsaran history, leshies, and the phoenix, for example.

So, Summon Guardian Spirit. Is there an improved familiar that meshes well with the focus on life and reincarnation? What's a good fit for this one? Maybe the nosoi psychopomp as a constant reminder that death awaits everyone, that some day even he, a being who travels the paths of death and returns with identity intact. will have to submit fully to the waters of oblivion before returning with a blank slate? Sadly, there's no "lesser phoenix"-type creature for this, else it'd be perfect.

When a classless monster takes a PC class level as their first class level, do the monster's ability scores immediately change from the base array of (11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 10) to the elite array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8)?

This has ramifications for, e.g., cohorts and long-term allied NPCs/hirelings.

Edit: Fixed elite array (thanks, Jeraa).

What is a death effect?

The Special Abilities section mentions "Death Attacks" but doesn't define them, and most spells commonly considered death effects don't fit the "In most cases" line.

The Magic section has a sub-sub-section on the [death] descriptor that suggests that any spell with the [death] descriptor is a death effect, but it also says that such spells cause immediate death--when, in fact, surprisingly few [death] spells cause immediate death even on a failed saving throw. But many spells commonly considered death effects don't have this descriptor, and supernatural and extraordinary abilities don't have descriptors.

A short list of potential argument-starters:

• disintegrate (not [death]; doesn't kill unless 0 HP)
  
• slay living ([death]; doesn't kill, moderately easy to survive a failed saving throw)
  
• finger of death ([death]; doesn't kill, quite difficult to survive a failed saving throw)
  
• suffocation (not [death]; kills, albeit slowly)
  
• stricken heart ([death]; doesn't kill, barely damages at all)
  
• enemy's heart ([death]; doesn't kill or damage, only does anything if you perform a coup-de-grace (see below))
  
• deadly juggernaut ([death]; doesn't kill or damage, just gives you buffs if you kill something otherwise)
  
• phantasmal killer (not [death]; kills on two failed saves)
  
• aqueous orb (not [death] or even necromancy; kills if target can't hold breath, such as if the target is asleep)
  
• power word kill (OK, some are pretty obvious)
  
• An assassin's death attack ability (oh come on, it's right in the name)
  
• A rogue's capstone ability (kills on a failed save)
  
• A coup-de-grace (kills on a failed save)
  
• The optional "massive damage" rule (kills on a failed save)

Is there any chance that the Powers That Be could define this term that strikes fear into the hearts of players everywhere--something up to which we can clearly hold a spell or ability and state, "Yep, that was a death effect" or "Nope, that just up an' killed 'im"? Note that the ramifications of this definition go beyond "can't use raise dead".

...Or would your head being within one foot of the cliff cause the join stone's orbit to be interrupted?

Similar question: What about sleeping? (Assume horizontal sleeping on a flat surface, not Batman-style.)

It's been a while since I last made an item crafter, so just in case I missed an erratum somewhere in the last couple of years:. There's nothing preventing a Wizard 3 from making a handy haversack at level 3 with a DC 8 (3 + 5 for missing spell prerequisite) Spellcraft check other than time and funds, right?

So I made my first Time Lord reincarnated druid character, and if all goes well, Taluv will reach level 5 shortly, at which point the many lives feature kicks in and he'll become a living embodiment of the cycle of life and death and so forth and so on. In addition, at 7th level I'm likely to pick up Experimental Spellcaster (Purify [life]) to ease the transition from lifetime to lifetime. So, time to have some fun with this otherwise non-optimized, Con-dumped caster build!

Here's some ways I've thought of already:

[list]

<this space intentionally left blank>

TL;DR looks like that "one of these years" trip to PaizoCon isn't going to happen for me. Not after I hear about how one of my friends was treated by its attendees, and not after I hear that PaizoCon staff basically blew it off. No, I'm not going into specifics--that isn't the point. This is b&+~#&@#, and I want no part of it.

Short question for GMs: do your NPCs/monsters use Intimidate against PCs and, if so, in what capacity?

Greetings!

So, the returning weapon property makes a weapon return just before the thrower's next turn. Naturally, this is terrible for anyone wanting to throw iteratively.

Then there's the blinkback belt, which solves this problem for the general case of throwing weapons so long as the bearer has Quick Draw and keeps those weapons stowed on the belt.

Questions:

1. Are there any specific magic weapons that support iterative throws without a blinkback belt and Quick Draw?

2. If one were to price such a weapon, what would be a good price? I could upper-bound it by simply adding 1.5 times the cost of a slotless blinkback belt, but that doesn't account for the price of bypassing the Quick Draw requirement. I'd even consider pricing it by effective enhancement bonus, but the existence of the blinkback belt makes me think this would be overkill.

Thoughts?

I don't see it on the footer any more, and it seems like we need it more than ever.

Reach weapons use the ranged weapon rules for determining cover. Normally, Improved Precise Shot would get around this (at the cost of one feat and a useless-for-melee feat tax), but those feats specify that they only work for ranged weapons.

Are there any other abilities or rules that a reach weapon user might have to ignore the soft cover provided by allies between the reach weapon user and the target?

(Note: Teamwork feats and other solutions that require the ally to have a particular ability aren't much help here, as I have no opportunity to coordinate character creation/advancement with my allies.)

Suppose a new PFS player with only the Core Assumption wants to play a wizard in PFS. Can the wizard learn and cast summon monster I given that the player doesn't own a Bestiary?

...and I haven't done this PFS thing before. It always seemed a little distasteful due to the particular strain of house rules designed around table invariance. However, I understand the reasons behind these decisions, and I like to try things that challenge my preconceived notions. And people have a lot of fun playing it. So since there's an event coming up, I figured, why not give it a shot?

So, I read over the Guide to PFS Organized Play, made a character using the Additional Resources page for reference, packed the hardbacks used by this character, printed a badge, and . Is there anything else I need to do to prepare for the event? Do I need to post this character sheet somewhere official or convert it into a particular format, or is a Hero Lab printout sufficient?

Thanks!

Greetings,

So, since I like challenging my preconceived notions every once in a while to maintain an open mind, I'm making a PFS character--a summoner, to be exact.

I'm not really interested in making a crazy-multiattacking-glass-cannon type, though. I'd settle for one big bite. However, it has been brought to my attention that Bestiary feats such as Improved Natural Attack are not allowed for eidolons, which makes me a sad panda. So I'm a little concerned about the viability of such a build.

So, we have bite (improved), the improved damage (bite) evolution, large (eventually), ability increase (Strength), and the ability to cast enlarge person on the eidolon for another boost. Anything else that can beef up this bite before I start shopping for defensive and utility measures?

Amulet of mighty fists is probably out since it's a single-attacking eidolon. I don't think I could justify the expense. I might get a bodywrap of mighty strikes, but even that is pretty expensive.

On a side note: How often do swimming and breathing underwater come up?

Pretty much what the title says. A lot of folks on the board plan their builds all the way out to 20th level (or 11th level, for PFS players). But, I wonder, do any of you just pick a character concept, draw up the 1st-level sheet, maybe have some idea where you'd go barring unknown campaign-specific influences, but otherwise just play it by ear with no further planning?

Reading over this monster, especially the Ecology section, it seems apparent that, swallow aside, it is intended to be able to lift up and hold a PC whilst defending itself from the rest of the party. Yet as many rules threads have borne out, this is impossible--maintaining the grapple is a standard action, meaning that the tree cannot otherwise attack without using the ridiculous "let go and full attack again" behavior.

So, rules known, how do you fellow GMs handle such a situation when the RAW seems to contradict the intent and flavor of the creature?

Or, the typical modern version of the Dead Man Writing trope. In more modern settings, this is generally recorded as video or holography. What's the simplest way for a character to prepare an animated visual message for someone to view in the event of his demise?

Greetings,

Was there ever any official response as to how this deed works with

• feats/abilities that grant extra attacks, such as Rapid Shot,
  
• haste,
  
• a double-barreled firearm, or
  
• two-weapon fighting?

As it is, I'm not certain how to run this deed, and it makes a rather large difference. I have my own interpretation based on the text, but it's on pretty shaky ground, and it's unclear whether the text took things like the above into account. On top of that, there's the "full-round attack action = basically a full-attack" ruling a while back that complicates things a bit.

Thanks in advance!

Greetings,

GM question:

Suppose the party ends up fighting an anachronistic creature from/on another plane with typical futuristic "energy weapons", such as a blaster or a (frikkin') laser beam. What type ought such a weapon have? Fire (like scorching ray)? Untyped energy? Some other specific energy type?

Are there any such creatures or weapons already published in a first-party source? I know Pathfinder has some anachronisms, including firearms, spacecraft, and even nanites, but I don't know of any "energy weapons".

(Note that we're not considering weapons that disintegrate, stun, or otherwise have effects other than straight-up damage.)

Greetings,

1. Suppose you put more than one kind of ammunition (say, alchemical cartridge) in the same pouch. Is there any penalty to your action economy to draw a particular type, or could a gunslinger with the usual feats and abilities still reload correctly as a free action?

2. Some clothing or gear contain multiple pockets, such as a backpack or adventurer's sash. Does the sash count as one container for the purpose of spells targeting containers (such as abundant ammunition) or does each pocket count as the container?

3. The endless bandolier and beneficial bandolier have loops to hold individual cartridges. Do these count as individual containers or does the entire bandolier count as a container (or neither)?

Greetings,

These have come up separately many times, but to my knowledge none have been conclusively answered.

"Spell Storing" armor property:

Questions:

1. The text says that "the armor can cast the spell on that creature as a swift action if the wearer desires". Is this swift action really taken by the armor or is the wearer intended to expend a swift action?
2. As this is a swift action, this ability seems to be unusable when an enemy hits the wearer during the enemy's turn. Is this correct?
3. The stored spell is a touch spell. Does activating this ability require an attack roll, or does the melee weapon contact provide the required touch?
4. If activating the ability requires an attack roll, does the armor make this attack roll or the wearer?

Thanks very much!

Greetings,

Our group has a few questions about the Teleport ability in the section on legendary items (Mythic Adventures).

***********

1. When the item teleports "as the spell", does that mean it can take other creatures along with it given sufficient caster level (per the spell)?

2. If 1 is "yes", does the item itself count as one creature or is the item's bearer included as part of the first creature?

3. If 1 is "yes", what is the caster level of this effect?

***********

Relevant citations follow:

Teleport ability:

Teleport spell:

So, what are the various ways a gunslinger can shoot incorporeal creatures for full damage? So far I've come up with

If you, Human McFighter, fell an orc, can you then move through his square unhindered, or would the unconscious/dying/dead foe count as an obstacle?

What about three orcs killed (sequentially) in the same square?

Greetings,

If a boar (hp: 2d8+9) has the awaken spell cast upon it, it gains two hit dice for a total of four. Does this mean that, in addition to the normal ability score adjustments for the awaken spell, it gains +1 to the ability score of its choice per the usual rules of advancement, or do the extra two HD not count for this purpose?

Thanks in advance.