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While these may be to late to change, I want to mention this anyway. The shot pattern on a shotgun is about the size of a large dinner plate. A 30-foot cone is going to scatter the pellets so wide as to not seriously injure a target (making it ineffectual as a hunting weapon). A better way would have been to allow pellets to reroll the miss chance from concealment.

The blunderbuss was not really designed to fire a slug. It should really only fire pellets. It aslo had about a 5' shot pattern at 60 feet, so using a cone-shaped attack works for it. The same could be said for a dragon pistol or a sawed-off shotgun, since they would have a wider shot pattern because the smaller barrel length.

This order went from a preorder to a backorder and finally to a pending order, that has been pending for some time (with the date pushed back yet again).

Can anyone tell me when this is likely to ship? I originally ordered it for a birthday gift. That birthday has long sinced passed and the person I was giving it to has been patiently awaiting for me to get it.

Last night we ran a one shot since we were going to be down a player and did not want to wrap up Curse of the Crimson Throne without him. One of my players took over GM duties and I got to play a human rogue 1/alchemist 5. The other two PCs were a dwarven monk 5 and a dwarven barbarian 5.

Having the Brew Potions feat is nice. The potions of lesser restoration help against the creatures we faced (a yellow musk creeper and a dark stalker). I was able to do passing duty as a cleric without needing to take the infusion discovery. Interestingly, we noticed that by RAW, an alchemist can brew any potion (some at a higher DC) since crafting potions do not require you to actually know the spell used in the potion.

I really like the addition of the Precise Bomb discovery. I was able to drob a bomb on a baslisk (for 15 damage) that was in melee with the barbarian without harming the dwarf.

Rogue has a good class synergy with the Alchemist. I was easily able to create a physician that easily double as an assassin if he needed to. As it was, I got a 1d6 sneak attack to back up the few occasion I was caught in melee.

Adding my Intelligence bonus to holy water damage aganist a shadow demon was nice too.

A couple of questions did crop up though. Does an Alchemist's bonus to splash weapons (from Intelligence) apply to splash damage as well as the direct hit damage? We ruled no, but a clairification might be nice.

Does the Precise Bomb discovery apply to the splash damage from other splash weapons? By RAW, the answer is no, but it would be reasonable to allow it.

Does the swift alchemy ability include crafting poisons? RAW applies only to alchemical items, but I plan to allow it as a houserule at the very least.

Given magic and monsters, how would warfare adapt and change? Would mages be used in massed groups as artillery, or assigned to individual units for counterspelling and protection? Would standard castle designs be effective against griffon cavalry or spells like stone shape and passwall? Would sappers be replaced with a druid or wizard casting move earth?

What are everyone opinions and ideas on the subject?

I noticed the prestige class was missing the Hit Dice (which I presume is a d10), class skills, and skill points. Has there been a clairification with the missing info?

I have looked in the other threads and have not seen any answers.

The price of the Horn of Valhalla needs reworking. A once per week item that cost 50,000 gp?

Based on a quick calculation, a one use per day, no item slot wondrous item that casts summoning monster VI cost just over half the price of a Horn of Valhalla. That is 1d3 hound archons (from summon monster V) each day vs. 1d4+1 5th level construct bararians each week for about half the price.

A board post malfunction did a double post. Nothing to see here.

Most monsters with the swallow whole ability end up with high CMB totals (due to size and Strength). I am fine the CMB for grappling, but it might be better to shift the swallow whole ability to a Reflex save instead of a grapple check. A fail save would still leave the target grappled.

To illustate my idea, I have converted to SRD creatures, the behir and the tryannosaurus to Pathfinder using the rules in Alpha 2 and my suggestion for a Reflex-based swallow whole ability. Take a look at the write up for both creatures and post your comments.

One thing, I treated improved grab as the Improved Grapple feat for giving a +2 to grapple checks.

BEHIR
CR 8
Often N Huge magical beast
Init +1; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, scent, Perception +5

DEFENSE
AC 20, touch 9, flat-footed 19 (–2 size, +1 Dex, +11 natural)
Hp 94 (9d10+45)
Fort +11, Ref +7, Will +5
Immune electricity, cannot be tripped

OFFENSE
Spd 40 ft., climb 15 ft.
Melee bite +15 (2d4+12)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks breath weapon, constrict (2d8+8), improved grab, rake (1d4+4), swallow whole

TACTICS
During Combat A behir usually bites and grabs its prey first, then either swallows or constricts the opponent. It can employ its claws only against foes caught in its coils. If beset by a large number of foes, it uses its breath weapon.

STATISTICS
Abilities Str 26, Dex 13, Con 21, Int 7, Wis 14, Cha 12
Base Atk +9, CBM +19 (+21 grapple)
Feats Cleave, Great Cleave, Power Attack, Skill Focus (Perception), Skill Focus (Survival)
Skills Climb +16*, Stealth +5, Perception +5, Survival +5; *Behirs have a +8 racial bonus on Climb checks and can always choose to take 10 on Climb checks, even if rushed or threatened.
Languages Common

ECOLOGY
Environment warm hills
Organization solitary or pair
Treasure standard
Advancement 10–13 HD (Huge); 14–27 HD (Gargantuan)
Level Adjustment —

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Breath Weapon (Su) 20-foot line, once every 10 rounds, damage 7d6 electricity, Reflex DC 19 half. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Constrict (Ex) A behir deals 2d8+8 points of damage with a successful grapple check. It can make six rake attacks against a grappled foe as well.
Improved Grab (Ex) To use this ability, a behir must hit a creature of any size with its bite attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it establishes a hold and can attempt to constrict the opponent or swallow the opponent in the following round.
Rake (Ex) Six claws, attack bonus +15 melee, damage 1d4+4.
Swallow Whole (Ex) A behir can try to swallow a grabbed Medium or smaller opponent. The target is allowed a Reflex save (DC 19) to avoid this. A failed save leaves the target grappled, though the attempt to swallow does not count as maintaining the grapple. The save is Dexterity-based and the behir has a +4 racial bonus to the DC.

A behir that successfully swallows an opponent can use its Cleave feat to bite and grab another opponent. A swallowed creature takes 2d8+8 points of bludgeoning damage and 8 points of acid damage per round from the behir’s gizzard. Swallowed creatures can attempt to free themselves by inflicting 25 points of damage to the gizzard (AC 15) with a light weapon or unarmed attack. Success results in a gag reflex that immediately expels the swallowed creature.

A behir’s gizzard can hold 2 Medium, 8 Small, 32 Tiny, or 128 Diminutive or smaller opponents.

TYRANNOSAURUS
CR 8
Always N Huge animal
Init +1; Senses low-light vision, scent, Perception +17

DEFENSE
AC 14, touch 9, flat-footed 13 (–2 size, +1 Dex, +5 natural)
Hp 191 (18d8+90)
Fort +16, Ref +12, Will +8

OFFENSE
Spd 40 ft.
Melee bite +20 (3d6+13)/19-20
Space 15 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks improved grab, swallow whole

TACTICS
[Before Combat[/b] A tyrannosaurus is a large ambush predator, using dense foliage to hide its large size.
During Combat A tyrannosaurus pursues and eats just about anything it sees. Its tactics are simple — charge in and bite.

STATISTICS
Abilities Str 28, Dex 12, Con 21, Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 10
Base Atk +13, CBM +24 (+26 grapple, bullrush)
Feats Intimidating Prowess, Improved Bullrush, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Natural Attack (bite), Run, Skill Focus (Perception), Skill Focus (stealth), Skill Focus (Survival), Toughness
Skills Intimidate +9, Stealth +5, Perception +17*, Survival +8; *A tyrannosaurus has a +2 racial bonus to Perception checks.

ECOLOGY
Environment warm plains and forest
Organization solitary or pair
Treasure none
Advancement 19–36 HD (Huge); 37-54 HD (Gargantuan)
Level Adjustment —

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Improved Grab (Ex) To use this ability, a tyrannosaurus must hit an opponent of up to one size smaller with its bite attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it establishes a hold and can try to swallow the foe the following round.
Swallow Whole (Ex) A tyrannosaurus can try to swallow a grabbed opponent of up to two sizes smaller. The target is allowed a Reflex save (DC 20) to avoid this. A failed save leaves the target grappled, though the attempt to swallow does not count as maintaining the grapple. The save is Dexterity-based.

A swallowed creature takes 2d8+8 points of bludgeoning damage and 8 points of acid damage per round from the tyrannosaurus’s gizzard. Swallowed creatures can attempt to free themselves by inflicting 25 points of damage to the gizzard (AC 12). Success results in a gag reflex that immediately expels the swallowed creature.

A Huge tyrannosaurus’s gizzard can hold 2 Medium, 8 Small, 32 Tiny, or 128 Diminutive or smaller opponents.

-A NOTE OF THE TYRANNOSAURUS-
The pathfinder skill and feat systems gave the creature a lot more skills and feats to play with. I tried to match it to the most recent views of this creature as an ambush predator, while staying close to the 3.5 version.

Strength of the Abyss lists the inherant bonus topping out at +6. Wish gives a +5 maximum inherant bonus to ability scores. Is Strength of the Abyss correct or do inherant bonuses top a +5 like in 3.5?

I had a chance to run a small playtest this past Saturday. The party consisted of three 10th level characters, a half-orc cleric, a human fighter, and an elven rogue (build as a ranger).

This post will relate specifically to the combat and magic. I will post the impressions on feats and classes in their respective forums.

The playtest consisted of 6 encounters built using the pathfinder Encounter system. Four of the encounters were of average difficulty. The last one was the equivalent of a hard/epic by the creature’s CRs. The encounters were:

APL –3: Chain devil and two shambling mounds
APL –2: Two red slaad in rough terrain
APL –1: Two mind flayers
APL: Bone devil
APL +2 : 11th level lich cleric of Urgathoa, two specters, and one dust wight (MM3)

Average Party Level: 9th (3 10th level characters)

ENCOUNTER 1
The Chain devil and shambling mounds were little more than a speed bump. One shambling mound managed to get a hold result on the fighter. With the shambler’s reach, I ruled that the fighter could close on it, but if he did so he would not be able to move away. That was fine, as he manage to kill the creature on his turn.

This was the first encounter that included grappling. The Shambling Mounds had a CMB of 14 [6 (BAB) + 5 (Strength) + 1 (Large size) + 2 (for treating the improved grab ability as the Improved Grapple feat)]. Compared to the Fighter’s CMB of 16 [10 (BAB) + 2 (Strength) + 4 (Defensive Combat Training feat), this meant that the shamblers still had a chance to grapple, but not as great a chance as they would against a creature of their CR. I had ruled they could constrict on a "grabbed" result, but that never came into play. Overall, the grapple rules worked here.

ENCOUNTER 2
The two red slaad were quickly reduced to one when the cleric succeeded with a dismissal. This left the fighter trading blows with the remaining slaad for a couple of rounds. The rough terrain and cave walls slowed the cleric down a bit and the rogue had a hard time lining up a clear shot with his bow.

The slaad did manage to successfully stun the rogue and fighter with its croak at one point, but died from the cleric’s great axe the following round.

ENCOUNTER 3
The two mindflayers surprised the party as they were recovering from the slaad fight, and promptly mind blasted them. The Fighter and Rogue were stunned for 5 rounds. The cleric lost initiative and failed a save against a suggestion to leave. As it was pointed out the suggestion was to leave and not to leave and not come back, the cleric exited the cave and then ran back in to try and save the other characters.

This should have been a TPK. It wasn’t. A couple of things worked in their favor. The characters were still in rough terrain, so the Illitihids were not quick to get to the rogue. The Fighter was not so lucky. It was at this point the new grapple rules broke.

Stunned characters are not helpless, so the flayer made for tentacle attacks. Two hit. It them tried to grapple. Under the 3.5 rules, a stunned character cannot make an opposed grapple check. The pathfinder system does not use an opposed check, so the Fighter’s CMB was still 16. I did impose a –2 penalty (the AC penalty from being stunned) to the CMB, so it became a 14. A mind flayer has a base CMB of 9 [6 (BAB) + 1 (Strength) + 2 (for treating the improved grab ability as the Improved Grapple feat)]. It gets an extra +2 for every tentacle that hits, so in this case the modified CMB was 13. The Mind flayer could not succeed unless it rolled a 16 or better (DC 29), and that only got a “held” result. Even with the +5 each round from the fighter being unable to escape, the best the flayer could do would be a slow climb up the grapple chart.

Round 1: A roll of 16+ gets a “held” result.

Round 2: A roll of 16+ improves to a “grabbed” result. A roll of 11-15 keeps the “held” result. A lower roll and you loose the hold.

Round 3: A roll of 16+ improves to a “grappled” result and the flayer has reached the brain. A roll of 11–15 and you keep the “grabbed” result, a roll of 6–12 and to drop to “held.”

Round 4: If the flayer has rolled 16+ for three straight rounds (without being killed by someone else), a roll of 11+ this round gets the brain.

In all honesty, the mind flayer should have had a nice meal. However, since the Pathfinder grappling system dose not currently address stunned opponents, going strictly by the RAW, the stunned fighter managed to fight off the mind flayer long enough for the cleric to kill both of the mind flayers by himself.

Now during this time, the mind flayer did make additional tentacle attacks to try and upgrade his grapple check and I continued to deal damage from the tentacles that had already hit (without new attack rols), but a series of bad attacks rolls prevented any success before the cleric killed him (Mind Flayer’s have low HP).

However, 4 rounds is a long time in combat. That was more than enough time for the cleric to kill both mind flayers.

So, while the new grapple system tends to work, some issues need to be clarified, such as how Stun affects CMB. I probably should have also allowed the mind flayer to use its Dexterity instead of Strength for its CMB, but this would have increased the chances by one.

ENCOUNTER 4
The bone devil was a straight up fight. Good use of sneak attack by the rogue and the cleric’s great axe made the difference. The Fighter failed the fear save and was out of the fight. Both the cleric and fighter took 6 points of Strength damage from the poison, which drug the fight out some. This encounter was a good challenge for three 10th level characters.

ENCOUNTER 5
This encounter took place in an open graveyard. For this battle, I gave the dust wight a 25% resistance to sneak attacks and the Lich a 50% resistance. The specters kept their undead immunity to sneak attack. The PCs were also fully healed and rested. They knew they were facing undead, but not what types.

The Specters engaged the PCs first but a turn attempt sent them fleeing (and out of the fight). The cleric next engaged the dust wight as the rogue used gravestones to set up a ranged sneak attack. The fighter moved toward the lich. The lich advanced and hit the party with a rebuke (which completely healed the dust wight and hurt the cleric and fighter, though both saved for half damage). The fighter engaged the lich on the next round. The lich counter attacked with its touch attack backed up by a bleeding touch from the death domain. This prompted another turn attempt, this healed the fighter (ending the bleed damage) and caused the dust wight to flee (though it was killed by the rogue’s sneak attacks a few rounds later). The Lich was unharmed due to turn resistance (+4 to the save and 8 points of positive energy resistance). The Lich responded by casting flame strike the rogue and cleric, but it was too little, too late. Without defenders, the battle went downhill for the lich.

An 11th level lich, under the Pathfinder rules, is only a CR 11 [(Class level –2) +2 for the template]. The specters and dust wight are all CR 7. This should have been between a hard and an epic encounter, but it was only marginally more challenging than the bone devil. With the two specters being removed from the battle by the cleric’s turning, the remaining encounter (a dust wight and lich) became a more balanced fight.

Overall the encounter level system seemed to work well. The fear effects of turn can seriously affect and encounter though. The lich encounter also did not devolve into the cleric and lich trading turn and rebuke for damage/healing. I was a fraid it would and was very pleased it did not.

I had a chance to run a small playtest this past Saturday. The party consisted of three 10th level characters, a half-orc cleric, a human fighter, and an elven rogue (build as a ranger).

This post will relate specifically to the skills and feats. I will post the impressions on combat and classes in their respective forums.

Skills
While we had no real problems with the skills themselves, a couple of observations were made. The upside is that the current Pathfinder system does make it more likely that non-rogues are good at a few roguish skills, such as Stealth and Acrobatics. The playtest fighter had both skills and used them to good effect. The downside came from the rogue’s massive skill selection. I cover this in my post on the Races and Classes forum, but the gist is that the rogue currently steps all over the ranger. I am not sure if this fault lies with the skill system or rogue class.

Feats
Most of the feats were well received, though there were some exceptions.

Combat Expertise: As it is currently written, this feat is nearly useless. The less intelligent you are, the less useful the feat becomes. Why would a character with an Intelligence of 13 waste a feat to take Combat Expertise? If they fight defensively, they get a +1 dodge bonus. Dodge already gives you that and it is a stepping-stone for Mobility and Spring Attack.

Combat expertise also now requires you use a melee weapon. Can a wizard still use the feat when casting a touch spell? If so, this becomes a excellent feat for them in some cases, otherwise we could not see much value to it.

Overhand Chop: This feat becomes useless after a character gains their second attack. No one is going to trade the possibility of damage from a second attack for the 1 to 3 points of additional damage that Overhand Chop adds.

The general suggestion on this feat is to allow it to be used while charging. That will still give it some limited usefulness at later levels. Another possibility is to have the attack daze an opponent for 1 round.

Power Attack: Power Attack has the same problem as Combat Expertise. It is all or nothing and favors high strength opponents. At least it serves as a stepping-stone to Cleave.

The current version of Power Attack also causes some minor problems with backwards compatibility when some monsters in adventures and sourcebooks already have lesser levels of Power Attack figured in (the mountain troll from the MM3 comes to mind).

Turning Smite: This feat raised the question on if a cleric could make a touch attack against an ally to hit him with the healing effects from turn undead. This would seem to be allowed by the wording of the feat.

I had a chance to run a small playtest this past Saturday. The party consisted of three 10th level characters, a half-orc cleric, a human fighter, and an elven rogue (build as a ranger).

This post will relate specifically to the races and classes. I will post the impressions on combat and feats in their respective forums.

CLERIC
The cleric was relatively straightforward. Despite some concern of the domain abilities, they really were not a big impact. Instead, what became obvious is that the half-orc makes a hell of a good cleric build. The racial strength combined with the BAB made the cleric as effective as the fighter (and in some cases more so). The half-orc used a shocking great axe in combat. Combined with power attack, he dealt comparable damage to the fighter.

FIGHTER
Creating the fighter character actually raised a couple of questions. The fighter was built as a human fighter with heavy blades as his main weapon training. This raised the question regarding the human racial familiarity. As a human fighter, can Exotic Weapon Proficiency (bastard sword) be taken as the racial weapon familiarity? I allowed it, as I did not see it to be a problem. However, this may need to be clarified in the race section because it could just as easily have been ruled that as a fighter he was already proficient with bastard swords (as a two-handed martial weapon).

ROGUE
This class caused the biggest discussion on class abilities. There was some concern that the rogue talents were too much. They weren’t. What became obvious though, was that the Pathfinder rogue makes a better ranger than the 3.5 ranger.

The character was built as a woodland scout. The character’s 1st level skills were (with a 14 Intelligence): Acrobatics, Appraise, Climb, Disable Device, Escape Artist, Linguistics, Perception, Stealth, Survival, and Theft. The remaining five skills were: Deception, Disguise, Knowledge (dungeoneering), Swim, and Use Magic Device. All rogue skills, so they are at max ranks using the Pathfinder skill system.

The rogue talents selected included fast stealth, quick disable, ledge walker, improved evasion, and surprise attack. Combine these abilities with a good selection of bow related feats, the new d8 hit die, sneak attack, and uncanny dodge and you have effectively a ranger. In fact, compared to a 10th level 3.5 ranger, the pathfinder rogue in “ranger” configuration is a better character (even with the 3.5 ranger having a slightly better BAB and Fort save).

Since the Track feat was rolled into Survival, what do people think about rolling Urban Tracking into Gather Information (from Unearthed Arcana)?

I was discussing the idea of combined skills with some of my players last Monday and the issue of Invisibility came up. Under the 3.5 rules, invisibility provides a +20 DC modifier to Spot checks (as well as a host of other rules to notice an invisible creature)

I know that under the Pathfinder rules, invisibility gives a +40 bonus to Stealth check if you are immobile and a +20 bonus if you move. Does this apply against listen based checks to hear an invisible opponent? Does an individual make two checks, one to spot and one to hear? Or is it one Perception check with the Stealth check modified by the roll against one form of perception (i.e., PC Perception roll of 20 against a target's Stealth roll of 20, 40 against sight due to invisibility)?

I guess the main question is how would the invisibility rules work with a single Perception skill? Also, would it be better to replace invisibility with a thematically similar ability that modifies Stealth evenly against all senses, allowing for one skill check to attempt to locate the "invisible" target?

I stumbled across something in the Unearthed Arcana that has me confused and I would like to get your take on it.

Page 213 introduces an optional level independant XP award system. The question is, is it OGC?

My guts tells me it is not, but the open game content disclaimer does not list it as non-OGC. From what I can make out, only the githyanki/githzerai, slaad, and yuan-ti bloodlines are listed as non-OGC.

Now it made fall under the d20 trademark, but again I am not sure. So, if anyone can weigh in on this, I would appreciate the information. With the ongoing debate over 3.5 and 4e, I found the alternate XP system interesting and wondered where it might fall in the rules.