Tinskin's page

Ok, so everyone knows that you dont put a Portable Hole and a Bag of Holding together. But according to this

I ask because I keep my type III bag of holding inside my minor bag of holding inside my Handy Haversack (gotta keep weight down) and the party camps in a Portable Hole that we just found. I stay outside of the Hole every night keeping watch anyway but I wanted to be sure I'm not a Suggestion spell away from a TPK every night. Just because my DM isn't evil enough to do that doesn't mean I want to have that kind of sword hanging above our heads.

So I'm dreaming up a home-brew setting to run someday and I've come up with a town. In this town, and everywhere within a 10 mile radius of said town, conjuration doesn't work. Simply fails. Any kind of interaction with any other plane is impossible. This includes but is not limited to: Summoning, Teleportation, access to the shadow, ethereal, or astral planes, access to Extradimensional spaces, and even access to spells of the conjuration (healing) school. Even channel energy does not work as it draws power from the positive and negative energy planes.

The story behind this, as with many stories, starts with two wizards. An age ago in this place, two wizards of tremendous power battled. There are dozens of stories of who they were and why they were fighting. None can say which version, if any, is true. But there is one part everyone agrees on. One wizard, losing, desperate and reckless ripped open a tear between the planes with epic magic to call upon the aid of the Abyss. This ended for the idiot about as well as you can expect. The second wizard, though powerful, was unable to oppose the unending flood of demons and fled as they liberated his foe of his life and soul. For weeks demons poured out of the rift until the area was sealed off with epic magic. It has been nearly two thousand years since the battle and the land has healed from most of the ravages of the demons, but the dimensional ward still remains. To this day it seals off the barrier between the worlds with ultimate authority.

tl;dr two epic wizards fight, one idiot opens mini worldwound. The other one (maybe) slaps an epic dimensional anchor on the entire area and now conjuration doesn't work there.

Now lots of people stay as far away from this place as possible. Particularly clerics and casters of the summoning variety. But there are many who are drawn to this place. The place is saturated with magic from the ward and the after effects of the battle and the demonic invasion. Many plants that are useful as magical ingredients grow well here as a result. This is a good place for keeping things safe, the vaults here have the best anti-teleportation wards in the world. And I'm sure I'll come up with other reasons as to why this place would have a thriving trade town.

But enough rambling, on to the point.

What kind of alternate healing is there to the cure line of spells? I know of Troll Syptic but I was hoping for others. I could make something up but I would rather use something that already exists and will do the job if possible. The loss of healing wasn't the intention of this, but the ward needs to be very through for my plans. Instead of a temple there would be a hospital with doctors trained in the heal skill. Crazy I know.

Have you ever run or played in a place like this before? Did it make things more interesting or was it a train wreck?

Of course... Things around adventuring parties tend to go wrong... Even ancient epic magic. I'ts only a matter of time before someone uses something like the line in the last panel of this comic.

Ok, so as anyone knows the CMD of creatures can get dauntingly massive at high levels, which is bad when you are specialized in said maneuvers. My character has a decent grapple CMB but it is usually either 1. I can grapple/pin/knockout with one hand tied behind my back on a 2 or better or 2. I'm in full buffed up badass mode and struggling to lock big ol squirmy down before it can crush the tiny little human that thinks she can play with the big boys.

Or 3. They cast freedom of movement and I punch them till they stop moving so freely.

Oh, and this character is a Cohort from the leadership feat taken by my support focused Life Oracle. We basically treat cohorts as second characters in our group. It also seems to be a theme in our group to try and make the Cohort more dangerous than the PC that took the leadership feat and is two levels higher. Do I think it's an abuse of the feat? Absolutely. But with this DM the rules as intended are regularly abused in ways that I can not find an appropriate metaphor for without violating the rules of conduct of this site... The things he has thrown at us... I do know I'll try to get other groups I'll play with to avoid using the feat like this in the future.

Point is, I need higher numbers, and I know I missed something that I can still get for her. I could have min-maxed more for grapple but I wanted an option when I could not make a grapple. (Curse you freedom of movement.) So I only spent 4 feats on grapple and the rest on trip and damage. Most of my budget was spent on grapple focused magic items though. It would probably also help if she didn't have NPC stats and wasn't two levels lower than the rest of the party. But I find that it just makes what she can do on her own more impressive.

Here are the relevant numbers. All PCs are level 13, but we typically fight encounters that are cr 14-16. Because we have pretty high starting stats and some fairly powerful unique magic items.

Tamm: Half-elf Brawler 8 / Fighter (brawler) 3

Strength 20 [18 base +2 belt]
Relevant magic items:
Anaconda’s Coils Belt. [+2 competence bonus to CMB. +2 enchantment bonus to Strength]
Gauntlets of the Skilled Maneuver (grapple) [+2 untyped bonus to CMB]
Armor of Brawling [+2 untyped bonus to CMB]
Dusty Rose Prism Ion Stone set into a Wayfinder [+2 insight bonus to CMB & CMD]
Shirt of Immolation
Greater Magic Weapon +3 and Shield other are cast at the start of every day.

Feats: Improved Grapple, Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Weapon Focus (unarmed strike), Greater Grapple, Greater Trip, Rapid Grappler, Combat Reflexes, Weapon Specialization (unarmed strike), Pinning Knockout.

Base CMB: +17 [11 BAB, +5 str, +2 Dusty Rose Ion Stone]
Grapple: +29, +34 maintain [17 CMB, +2 Anacondas coils, +2 Brawling, +2 Gauntlets of skilled maneuvers, +4 feats, +2 Maneuver Training,]

With grab: (from using Martal Flexibility to get Final Embrace or from a spell.)
+38, +43 maintain [29 +4 grab, +3 enchantment, +1 weapon focus, +1 Close Combatant]
(Now, from what I have been able to find and from this blog post I think that you should not normally gain bonuses on grapple checks from attack roll bonuses to unarmed strikes. Grappling is a full body action and punching people is very different. But if your unarmed strike has grab then you are using your unarmed strike as part of the grapple. You get a +4 grapple bonus from grab, that is coming from your fists. Thus bonuses to unarmed strikes should apply to the check.)

Buffed potential: +43, +48 maintain [38, +2 enlarge person, +2 Blessing of fervor, +1 bless]

CMD: 33 [10, +11 BAB, +5 str, +2 Dex, +2 Dusty Rose Ion Stone, +1 dodge, +2 deflection]
Grapple: 48, 46 when grappled [33 CMD, +2 feat, +2 Maneuver Training, +11 favored class bonus. -2 dex]
Buffed potental: +52, +50 when grappled [38, +2 enlarge person, +2 Blessing of fervor]

My CMD was at first a bigger problem than my CMB. As a Half Elf I count as Human for meting the requirements of what abilities I can take. Including favored class bonuses. I found many CMB bonuses but if I had not found that loophole I would have been able to pin creatures with ease, but unable to keep them from easily beating my tiny CMD and escaping. Rope is not an option every time, and there has to be some way other then being a human or halfling to increasing my CMD so that creatures can not escape.

tl;dr How can I improve my grapple check and CMD further?

If you deal nonlethal damage with a weapon that has an additional damage effect such as holy or flaming is the extra elemental damage also nonlethal? Or is it added on as normal damage after the fact?

For example, say you have a Monk or Brawler beating some guys poor face in with Pinning Knockout after pinning him and has an amulet of mighty fists lighting said fists on fire. Or something similar. Is it nonlethal fire? and is the 1d6 result doubled with the rest of the damage of the punch if it is not?

Or how about if you are using a whip or sap with elemental damage on it. Is that extra damage leather or nonlethal?