Theodore Tibbitts's page

My biggest concern with the change to Manyshot is it is a nerf to Scouts, since a Scout with Greater Manyshot used to be decent. Now it's unclear what, it anything, Greater Manyshot does.

This 2nd level spell completely invalidates so many other spells, core and non-core, that it needs to go. It provides a safe haven that's nearly undetectable for an hour per level. Leomund's Tiny Igloo is the same level in Frostburn, but far more obvious, silly, smaller, and less defensible. Leomund's Secure Shelter is two levels higher, and again, less defensible and more obvious, albeit larger and with explicit beds. Modernkainen's Mansion is the only alternative that is in any way better, since you can explicitly prevent access to unwanted ruffians - but it's freakin' five levels higher!

Rope Trick should have a duration of one minute per level. Enough that it can be used to hide from pursuers, but little enough it cannot be used to rest in the midst of a dungeon. Because that's just ridiculous.

It seems to me like the Half-Elf is probably a slightly better choice than Human whenever you were going to take Skill Focus as a feat anyways and don't need more skill points for something specific. This is a vast improvement over it's status in 3.5, where it was never a better choice than anything, ever.

Still, I'd like to see it get a - little - bit more of a boost.

So, I'm trying out Pathfinder, and obviously the PhB races have been enhanced, with the conceptual reason of making them more appealing and balanced with some of the more powerful races in other books. Obviously, however, not all other races are equal, and so I feel that ideally a DM should make adjustments as necessary to non-core races to balance. It seems that the core races seem to follow the pattern of a bonus to a mental and physical score. My general rule of thumb was going to be 1) Reduce LA by one on LA races if it seems balanced to do so. and 2) Give LA 0 races that aren't significantly better than PHB races a +2 to on more score, typically a physical if they had a mental or a mental if they had a physical.

One of my player wants to be a Goliath. I feel like they are too good to be reduced to 0 LA. However, I'm not sure if they would stack up to a +2 LA equivalent, which is what they'd be if left where they are. I am contemplating giving them a +2 to Wisdom. What are your thoughts? Would this be a balanced addition? Should they be left as they are, as they are one of the races the PHB races are being balanced to? Thoughts?

Why a Sorcerer and Wizard can't cast this spell?

It sounds very reasonable and the fact that clerics can
make me think about it.

What your opinion?

I've always wondered if it was some sort of oversight that it was a cleric spell and not a sorcerer/wizard. It really doesn't make any intuitive sense to me for Clerics to have it, while it does for Wizards.

thanks for the quick reply.

i asked this question because my group's DM said that this spell was too powerful and it should need a touch attack roll to hit the target in addition to the reflex save.

for your question about 4 foot 2 inch wall, i think the ball shouldn't be able to climb a wall, but can roll over a obstacle that has a ramp. like motorbikes jumping over cars by using jumping ramps.

Flaming Sphere, to my mind, has always been a horribly broken spell... the other way. It's damage too low and it's save too generous. It just can't compete with any other comparable damage spell. Yes, it's max damage is pretty high, but with a reflex save to negate and divided into such small segements, you're lucky to do anything with it.

One thing that has struck me about the changes is that natural weapons are still granted with no specific limitations. I don't know how it's worked in other games people have played it, but it games I've played in, one of the most widely used aspects of Polymorph was turning into Hydras, Rukanyrs, Skybleeders, etc, and other creatures with truly heinously large numbers of natural attacks. While such perhaps should be allowed, I think it needs specific limits - for instance, each spell could specify how many natuiral attacks that spell can grant. Like Beast Shape I could say "This grants you one primary natural attack of the creature.", Beast Shape II could say "This grants up to one natural and 2 secondary attacks of a creature", Beast Shape III "This grants up to 3 primary natural attacks of a creature" and so on and so forth, as was considered balanced.