Tophyr's page

My group went into an evil temple one morning, fought their way through 3 encounters before lunch, then decided right before the boss encounter at the end that they had blown their wad on the first few battles and should pick a corner to rest and get back all of their limited-use abilities.

In 3.5, this was easy. You rest 8 hours, 12 or so if practically everyone's a caster and you need to set watches, and hey look it's tomorrow already. But in Pathfinder, a lot of classes can refresh their slots with just an hour of meditation or whatever in the morning. The alchemist is even more muddy, as his extracts last a day, but can prepare them in the field as necessary. The only limit on when and how often is that it says "per day." So what exactly constitutes a "day"?

Does a sun have to make a full revolution about the current plane of existence? What about planes that don't have a discernible day/night cycle? Or planes that do, but which are far greater/lesser than the standard 24 turns of the hourglass? Is it a new day any time you sleep for 8 hours? Am I being too literal and picky about my "days"? Is someone going to say that it depends on what Bill Clinton's definition of "is" is?

My group was getting way too used to being fully rested and prepared before every encounter, so I decided to hit them with the good ol' 4-per-day. They've succeeded with flying colors... at cowering in the corner until their powers return. As the DM, I find it somewhat ridiculous to storm 3/4ths of the way through a temple then take a nap on the floor and expect the rest of the world to freeze around them. But I don't want to have the big bad come out and just steamroll them in their sleep either. I'm looking for a definition of "day" here that lets them regain some measure of their usefulness while not requiring a great suspension of disbelief for the daily routines of the remaining forces inside and around the temple.

So, we all know the rule when you deal double damage twice: rather than 2 x 2 = 4x, it's base damage + twice your base damage again, for a total of 3x.

But what about when you deal double damage, and something else takes double damage? For instance, the Litany of Righteousness spell states:

If the target is evil, it takes double damage from attacks made by creatures with a good aura.

So, if this spell is affecting a creature, and I crit that creature, how much damage do I do?

I would assume that there is a difference between "damage dealt" and "damage taken." Just like when factoring DR, you total your damage to be dealt, then the target figures out how much of that damage it takes. Therefore I would say that if you have a 2x crit, you double your damage, give the total to the target affected by Litany of Righteousness, and then the target doubles that number for a true 4x multiplier.

Has there been any official statement on this one way or another? It makes sense that it would work like an energy vulnerability, in which you figure up the damage, and the target takes half again. Then again, is that how crits with energy damage vs an energy vulnerability work, or have I been assuming that as well? If that's how it works, Litany of Righteousness with some keen falcatas would be a pretty devastating combo.

What kind of reach do Animal Companions have? The Bestiary lists reaches for the regular creatures, but the general rule concerning AC stats is to ignore the creature's regular stat block in the Bestiary and use only the listed Animal Companion statistics. However, nothing is said concerning reach. The rule that would cover it is vague:

Creatures that take up more than 1 square typically have a natural reach of 10 feet or more, meaning that they can reach targets even if they aren’t in adjacent squares.

Emphasis mine. The corresponding table says the reach for a Large creature is 10 ft. or 5 ft. depending on whether the size's subtype is "(tall)" or "(long)." Even then it says that exceptions exist. Since no specific reach is listed and a size subtype isn't given in the AC stat blocks, what is RAW for AC reach? Does it vary by creature, or are they all 5 ft., or all 10 ft.?

I'm assuming that RAI, taking the regular creature's stat block and comparing base vs reach will shed light on whether that type of creature is "tall" or "long," which would then be used to determine whether the Large size AC version should have 10 ft. or 5 ft. reach. But, I can't find a rule that says it is or isn't one way or the other.