Trayce's page

Hey guys,

My group is starting a short game that will be low level + mythic levels. We've decided to go with a pirate theme.

The group so far has a sea singer bard, an evil alchemist and an oracle. We have one other player undecided and myself, who was leaning towards a druid build - either undine adept or a shark shaman. To be honest I was leaning towards shark Shaman and go caster, but I'm having doubts after seeing the rest of the party go more or less completely support.

I'd rather not go completely marshal character, but could you suggest other build ideas that might fit in and benefit the group? Our only rule so far is no lawful characters (it is a pirate campaign after all)

So I'm running Carrion crown for my group, my first adventure as DM. I've had the group running through the town and thrown pretty much every event the book has suggested, bordering on railroading the group from entering the prison proper before they've encountered the bulk of the suggested events. Note that I'm running with a group of 4-5 players. I'm noticing 2 things that are bothering me:

1) I've had to start drastically ramping up the encounters as they're extremely underpowered - even for level one. I'm not playing with min maxers, but 2-3 flying skulls - even in a burning building - is about a half hour encounter that leaves the players board and unfulfilled.

2) Even with ramping up the encounters (and therefore subsequent XP) and borderline railroading them into going through the majority of town events before entering the prison, and despite the fact that the AP mentions that the players should be level 2 by the time they hit the prison, the players are still several encounters short of level 2.

Am I calculating XP wrong? If a monster gives out 200 XP and I include 5 of them, each of the 5 players should get 200XP right? (200 * 5 / 5 = 200) - or am I not supposed to devide it up (e.g. each player gets 1000 XP for that fight)

Or is that AP particularly underpowered at level 1?

EDIT: one last gripe: the XP gains for the research left me particularly angry. Without really trying, they got the main NPC to look it up for them and got a whaktonne of XP for it. While I like that they got the XP, it would have been better if the records actually required some work - like winning over an NPC or something.

Again, see my clarification. The only fix we seem to need to fix this longterm is to play and let him see for himself: He's used to playing with Min/maxers and trolls so of course there will be a learning period as he figures out how best to run a game with a group that isn't actively trying to do either. It's not a one sided story: he needs to adapt to us, and we need to adapt to him. If my complaints sound fermiliar, maybe you should have a close look at my reaction to it rather than trying to just blame the other guy.

Anyways, I'm looking at Ranger as part of the equation: Trapper looks like a good combo for exactly what I'm looking for. Any other suggestions? Perhaps some good Ranger options?

1) You don't need a "face" as you already have three charisma based characters, one of whom explicitly has that role.

2) You want a highly durable character. That can be done any number of different ways, but playing a rogue is not a good start!
3) You want to handle traps.
4) Your party already has arcane and divine spells, and you don't seem interested in playing a full caster.
5) You're starting at 6th level, high enough that characters relying on a few feats already have what they need to be effective.

I suggest a ranger, with either the the Urban Ranger or Trapper archetype. You get trapfinding, evasion, d10 hit points, full BAB, high fortitude and reflex saves plus WIS to boost your will save, lots of skills, and bonus combat feats.

I there are lots of excellent builds, like a Hobgoblin Dervish Dancer, Flying-Charge Hippogriff Rider, Thunder and Fang TWF, or the classic Archer. And, because you have a strong framework, you're never overspecialized. (the melee builds are good with bows, the archer can melee, the mounted combatant is good on foot, etc.)

My hero. Why didn't I think of that?

To clarify: So far no one has died. I'm biased in this case: our GM likes to embrace RNG - throwing difficult random monster encounters at us more often than not to the point where just travelling from town to town is an exercise in surviving monsters, monsoons and dysentery. My GMing style is more the opposite of this: to avoid random, meaningless death somewhat. Everyone has to have a line drawn in the sand on the subject, I just prefer mine to be a lot closer to things not being difficult unless there's a reason for it. Either way, I'm not anywhere near ready to walk away from the group over such issues and will do my best to enjoy it.

Either way, I think the best way to do this is to pick up a character that can fill in some party weaknesses - mainly trapsense and knowledge checks seem to be helpful at this point. I'll let the monk be our primary damage dealer along with the summoner and her summon.

I'm not sure fox form would be all that great to be honest - aside from an increase in my base speed and gaining scent when I do it, carrying gear would be a problem, and being a fox in battle might be kinda bad compared to standing in the back with a short bow. I don't think it'd actually get used in practice.

To clarify, I don't care to go completely min/maxed, but being relatively effective is kind of important to me.

To be clear, durable in this case doesn't mean high hit points. I need a character who can avoid traps and get out of sticky situations rather than just muscle through them, which is why I'm considering rogue or a roguish character. Coming up with better ways to control the flow of battle also seems like it'd help, which is why I'm considering bard.

To be honest, I'm leaning towards Archaeologist or sandman bards - but both seem to give up their party buffs in order to avoid traps. I'm trying to figure out what way to go, or if there's another way - such as a rogue archetype that'd help, or perhaps some blend of rogue multiclassing that'd be fairly optimised to pull it off.

OK, so Im playing in a campaign with a GM who likes really knuckling down on the rules - he tends to call out anything the players do as too powerful, and then throw optimised monsters at us that we can just barely handle. He's the type of guy who will use the random monster encounter tables and sucks to be us if it throws something too powerful at us. I've discussed it with him (that sometimes fighting a fight that we can handle without a tonne of difficulty can be fun, not every fight needs to be a boss fight) but at the same time, I've come to the realization that its how he likes to play, so I should probably get used to it.

So, I'm planning out my next charactor after my current halfishly optimized Magus dies. With him gone we'll have a group around level 6 consisting of a monk who likes to run ahead, an extremely defensive paladin who has no spells due to archtype, a summoner and her brutish playing the face of the party with her axe wielding summon, and a healing oriented oracle.

We have no central castor, nor any trapfinders short of letting our monk trigger everything.

I'm leaning towards either a rogue, or a Kitsune bard with one of the rogue like archtypes. I'll let someone else take on the job of item identification and do the scout thing with trapfinding, and hopefully use the bards skills to get out of trouble and be an alternate face of the party as well.

Any thoughts? Suggestions for hard to kill characters?

I was more looking for advantages to use as opposed to the traditional magus builds. So far, the only real advantage I can see is shield bonii vs. armor (you can sleep in light armor, so it's more convenient) and that a normal Magus would have trouble finding a hand to carry a staff in. I'm trying to figure out if there's any tricks I can pull using this archetype in particular though.

So, I went with a Staff Magus for a game and am about to rapidly level from 3 to 6 thanks to a deck of many things. I chose this build knowing that it was not an ideal build (crit fisherman)... but someone pointed out that with wand mastery, you could effectively dual weild with a staff in your casting hand, so I'm wondering if there's a way to make it work. I realize this is a situational - when you have a magic staff (not yet) and are specifically casting from it while full attacking, or else not casting at all that round (so far, at the low levels that seems to happen a fair bit.)

So far, I think the major problems are flexibility (dropping / putting away your off hand weapon when you want to cast the old fashioned way) and of course the two-weapon fighting feats AND the additional penalty to two weapon fighting + spell casting.

I want to ask though, is there any way to use this to my advantage realistacly? I'd assume that even with the feat, a quarterstaff still isn't a light weapon.

So, I have a fetchling staff magus with meh stats. I'm hitting level 3, and it's beginning to seem like I need to min max a bit more if I'm going to survive. I'm thinking of taking Wand weilder and Familiar for my Arcana and feat at level 3 - Wand weilder so I can add some wands and cast magic more regularly, and Familiar because my perception is really low, and a boost while on watch at night might be for the best.

I'm doing this to try and optimise a bit better since so far I've had a hard time keeping up with the group and have nearly died already. Would anyone suggest anything more optimal? My thoughts are that Wand Weilder will be useful both now (start using wands to augment my low spells per day) and later, when I start using magic staffs after level 10. My plan is also to take Imp familiar later and get a Shikigami familiar since they seem like they'd be useful for the whole survival in the wild aspect of the adventure and covering the weaknesses of the Magus. Beyond that, I'm thinking 'craft magic staves' and otherwise all metamagic feats and arcana's going forward.

Any suggestions? Does this seem to be the most optimal build for what I've got so far? And yes, I've seen the guide. I'm looking for more specific advice, since min/maxing seems to be necessary.

I see nothing wrong with the other way around too. I'm playing a charactor who needs higher perception and possibly some survival skills if he's going to survive, so he recruits an animal and grants it some abilities to partner up with him. Later, I'll take the advanced feat and summon a more powerful 'pet' to replace my first familiar. It's not a lack of RP: in my mind it's kinda like recruiting an underling.

Now, it's up to the GM what happens fluff wise too. Perhaps my old familiar remains inteligent and heads off on his own, becoming a minor npc with his own goals and asperations. Perhaps he decides to hold a grudge and becomes an enemy spy, or remains on good terms and stays at my makeshift home, minding the place while I go adventuring - no longer a familiar, now just a particularly smart pet. Perhaps he returns to being an unremarkable creature.

Essentially, I see no reason every spellcaster has to have some deep, meaningful connection to their familiar plot wise. Cant some of us consider them a simple means to an end? Almost like apprentaces or hirelings: a short term partnership that ends when a better option is available.

OK, so I started a new campaign a few weeks ago and rolled up a Magus (with essentially a 20 point build, despite it being rolled stats)

I'm currently leveling to 3 and trying to chose an Arcana and Feat, so I thought I'd ask for some input on what others would do. I went with the Staff Magus archtype and have an int bonus of +2 so far.

Now, the thing is, I'm playing with a more challenging GM. I always seem to get ambushed in the middle of the night (no perception skill) so I'm actually considering taking the extra trait feat and taking something that makes perception a class skill, along with possibly survival since so far it's necassary to forage for food. I'm hoping my DM will allow that, especially since my backstory makes it somewhat appropriate.

As for Arcana's, considering my archtype, I thought I'd take Wand wielder so that I can cast from wands and staffs, since nothing seems especially useful yet. I'm hoping we'll find somewhere where I can buy wands and get a wand of shocking grasp for the foreseeable future. The shield Arcana would be a runner up, except my int bonus is currently only level 2, and the magus archtype grants me shield bonuses instead of heavy armor later anyways.

Runner up ideas for feats so far seem to be dodge (to help me survive) and weapon focus. All the Arcana's seem to suck imo, short of Arcane Accuracy. I don't have a big pool yet, and +2 int isn't much of a boost, but I could see it being useful in the right circumstances.

Any thoughts? Recommendations?

Only if they're teeny tiny webs since Spark specifically designates that it only works on Fine-sized objects.

I think that's Raw vs. Rai nitpicking. I think most gm's treat spark like the free ranged lighter spell. Otherwise you get into the following argument:

"I light the curtains on fire!"

"The curtains are too big"

"Fine, I light /the edge/ of the curtain on fire"

- At most, I'd argue the fire from a spark spell takes an additional round.

That said, I'd probably your GMs call. I'd personally say yes though.

Why not create a shade/Liche template? You can create a watered down/beefed up version of the current templates to get the ball rolling. I think there's also a shadow template in the fetchling statblock

I don't think there are any people claiming that there aren't some pretty ugly rule contradictions that Paizo needs to sort out. Even Paizo reps have admitted this and promised response.

The issue is, what the heck is taking them so long?!? In any other company, fixing defects in your current product takes precedence over putting out new product (unless said new product fixes said defects)

I quite enjoy pathfinder, but I gotta agree with RD here. Not as a threat, but as a warning to Paizo: this is the way systems die. This is a good way to kill your company, and a rookie mistake. Make addressing problems in the ruleset the priority, not a priority, or you are leaving cracks in the foundation of your product. And remember: being overly specific with rules is what got 4E.

My advice: Read the Dresden Files.

Personally, I really like having the BBEG turn out to be a powerful fairy who uses politics and such to try (possibly with much success) to trick the heroes into doing her bidding.

Actually, I may run a campaign like this. Hehehe.

This is good advice. I've been playing a Str based staff magus at level 2 and I'm quickly learning I should give up on major damage dealing and focus on defense for a while. I'm slowly wisening up and figuring out that shield and possibly control spells should be my bread and butter until much later... although at level 2 shocking grasp still has the most damage potential in a round for any member of the party so far (even when several others are at level 4 already)

Live charactors deal the most damage. Remember that...

Haha, I've seen this before, but never to this extreme.

I consider myself an avid roleplayer. When I make a new charactor, I write up a detailed background (usually 3 to 5 pages describing who he/she is, what they look like, and their history/how they got that way.

But then I sit down at the game table and I give the short version. A one minute description explaining a characters appearance and mannerisms and maybe some of the details he'd easily have given out.

Later, I'll go on to act it all out. I wont tell anyone /why/ he was soo freaked out by seeing that weird symbol on the wall, or why he chose to sleep in a tavern rather than get free lodging at the rich family's home. Hopefully, if the GM is actually interested in RP, he'll give me a situation where it'll become appropriate to explore those reasons.

To me: this is how you RP in this type of game: Sit down in advance and figure out the who, what and why's... and then act them out and let people figure it all out from bits and pieces of the story, like a good auther would do when writing a book.

One action does not make an alignment shift, sure. But what about 20 murders? What about repeated acts of cowardliness?

Yeah, this is a major thing, maybe even worth breaking out the insanity rules(nightmares, indications that if the party doesn't atone they will have a permanent alignment shift). Heck, have the BBEG find someone to cast nightmare to torment the party even further. Break every single one of the PCs. Have inquisitors looking for them. Have them find that towns have barred their doors against them. Let them find out that villainous acts have consequences the hard way. When they are thoroughly broken, have the vampire come back and give them an offer they can't refuse.

Then retire all the fallen PCs and run a campaign to fight the BBEG and his new minions.

This is exactly what you don't do. Railroading into retirement because you can't think of how to respond is soo wrong. Your campaign took a grittier, seedier turn: have them forced to either embrace their mistakes, or repent from them. For now it looks like your PCs don't even fully realize they dun screwed up.

Again, my answer to this would have the consequences manifest and give them a choice in charactor: repent, or embrace their new, darker path. Call them all in to answer one at a time in charactor. Make them relive the event one at a time: the paladin must be held to atone for his cowardice - ask him why he didn't lay down his life to stop the vampire. Which does he value more, his life or his faith? Why did the cleric merely pray? Does he not know that the gods help those who help themselves? Why did the ronin run in fear? etc. etc. For the rest, give them the third degree: "You're the big damn heroes, ACT LIKE IT!" etc. etc.

I like calling in bigger forces like the gods so you can actually have them show the event and watch their actions - perhaps show them possibilities of how things could have gone differently. Point out that if the Cleric had stood up to fight, his god would have helped - but not so long as he lay sniveling on the ground. Point out that if they had left the villagers to live, they would have put themselves in a more dangerous position, but the villagers could have been saved once the vampire was eventually destroyed. Etc. and so on.

The nice bonus to this is: if the players enjoyed this session so much, reliving it from a new angle will probably be just as much fun.

My take:

Clearly, the party should be punished for their actions: especially the paladin. In this situation some devine intervention should be happening. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing. This could be a wicked oppertunity.

Personally, I'd walk the middle ground between the 'it was a dream' scenario and the worst case scenario of stripping the paladin and continuing down this path.

So my personal suggestion would be something along the lines of the next session opens with the entire party pulled into a quasi real dream with avatar of the Paladins diety manafests and strips him of his powers in a brutish and nightmarish way - making him relive his mistakes so he knows exactly why and makes it clear he has no intention of easily forgiving this one. And then he turns to the rest of the party and begins to prepare an even worse punishment for their actions - and Pharasma intercedes and defends the party. Give them a one shot quest at their current levels to redeem themselves - and if they succeed, return the Paladins powers to him.

Use this session to teach the party that they are the G** D*** heroes and they had better act like it, or the gods themselves will prepare their punishment themselves.

I think I'd rather see him as a god then a playable charactor... sort of seen as a bit of chaotic good god.

Chaotic good? Yes. He always seems to do the right thing, even when he realises that he has to let something bad happen in the short run to have an ultimately good effect.

I'd also make him be seen as sometimes a trickster, sometimes a fixer of problems. Tends to be worshipped by travelers and Gypsies, and outsiders - he (and any symbols relating to him) are considered bad luck by most populations. (Thus the lonely part, and seems to fit the bill)

His agents tend to seem weak and mundane, only showing their true power when absolutely necassary.

I have this problem too. I tend to favour the 'normal sounding short form' method as it seems like the most realistic method. It's also kind of hard to pin down names based on whats given in the books. I wish rather than suggesting 5-6 names for each sex, they'd give a brief description of what sounds are common for racial names. E.g. Elves favour Sy's, V's and L's, while dwarves favour sharper K's, B's and D's. Orc's favour short, one sylable names but otherwise are the same as dwarves. Gnomes like to rhyme their names, etc.

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but has anyone found any good android apps to aid pathfinder games that they can recommend? I'm going at this from the point of view of a player. Personally I'd like a tablet version of Herolab, but I'd be happy with something that helped me track my charactor sheet and let me look up rules quickly I think :p

I'm also an aspiring developer, so if I can't find something, I may just build it instead. Feel free to suggest tools and features you'd like to see in such an app.

My advice - don't give or let someone who barely understands the rules a summoner. Building Eidlons is tricky enough even with someone who has expirience playing them. Unless you want to be looking over her character sheet every level and she is also comfortable with being looked over all the time (even then it's still probably best if you have Hero Lab to validate the Eildon).

I agree, but it's not my call. I've done all I can to recomend another class, but she's pretty insistent. I'll just have to help her build it and hope for the best. On the upside, I don't particularly mind helping, and I have herolab to help keep everything legal. I also think it'd be a good learning experience for her, and I want to make sure she actually has something interesting to roleplay - which is the reason for this thread :)

The other nice thing is yes, she wont play the class well enough to break it.

I kind of like the 'lost a bet' idea. Still thinking though.

I'm gearing up for a new game, and my friend who isn't exactly a pro is looking to play a summoner. She's not a complete newb, but in my opinion she's still lacking in the roleplaying area, and can be a bit of a misfit when it comes to remembering all the rules. She's only ever played rogues and Rangers, and our last game she did a whole lot of 'I steal the shiny thing because that's what rogues do.'

So, I'm kind of looking forward to giving her a charactor that should force her to play out a different, more complex personality. In the mean time though, I'm trying to come up with ideas for her to use as an eidelion. I'd rather convince her to go with a theme rather than just try to power game some sort of speghetti monster that doesn't make any sense.

So far, the only idea that has shown any promise is building essentially a Grim Reaper that follows her halfling summoner around, and play it out as a sort of 'I have no idea why he protects me, or seems to be at my beck and call, but I'll go with it' sort of theme, and let the GM figure out the rest. I'm looking for other interesting themes though... any ideas?

As an addendum: compare this to riding around on your two wheel bike on one tire, or steering THAT with your knees. You might be skilled enough to do it, even for extended periods of time: doesn't mean it's not exhausting.

There aren't rules against it, but you're right. You don't walk around constantly with your weapon drawn in a fantasy world. Why? It screws up maintenance, but more importantly, it's effing exhausting! Ever swung a sword? or a full sized composite bow? The're heavy!

Want a simple answer? Running around with your weapons constantly drawn causes fatigue penalties. Each hour of walking with weapons drawn counts as hustling. Same with mounts: while trick riding might be possible, doing so for extended amounts of time is tiring to the animal. If that seems iffy to you, then make it tiring to the rider instead. Do you have any idea how tiring steering a horse with your legs would be after a few hours?

Modern day combat is not equivalent to swords and horses. Guns are theoreticly lighter and easier to use then a good old fashioned two-handed weapon.

Try not to be mean about it, but shut him down on this one imo: he's poking holes in the logic of a fantasy game: it's your job to justify the setting.

Well, firstly, it sounds like she's already borderline neutral, rather than evil. That said, if you want to give her potential, I'd suggest giving her a soft spot. Considering the backstory, I'd suggest she go looking for an orphan to take under her wing in her spare time. Have her start visiting orphanages in her spare time, looking for children who could learn magic. Even if she can't find a protege, she'll likely run into children in need and can spend her spare time helping them teach the horrible adults a lesson, or whatever other small help she can be.

Besides that, it'd break the prestige class, since you no longer have claws.

Yeah. Depends on the monster. Is it a big dumb monster who wants to eat the PCs? Is it defending itself or its young? is it some sort of demon?

Also, it's worth noting that a round is six seconds - not a lot of time to stop and consider the consequences of carrying out the rest of his attacks.

I don't think the succubus was really a Dues Ex Machina. That usually refers to a 3rd party intervening and completing the story for the heroes. If anything, the Succubus story is probably a 'kudos' moment for Naztek - He actually made a meatgrinder experience into an interesting plot point, and I'd personally encourage using defeats not as a 'game over' moment and more as encouragement to succeed in the future.

D.E.M. moments are more like when the party is about to be defeated, and then someone shows up to make it a victory, and I'd highly suggest never doing that.

Either way, the secret to all of this is the same as when cooking goes bad: never admit you screwed up. Burn the muffins? Tell 'em they're chocolate cookies. Party loses a fight to a pack of kobolds? You were looking for a reason to run an 'escape from kobold slave market' module anyways. lol.

Or makes for a good plot when the adventurers have to break into this space in order to free one of its inhabitants and must figure out who has the rod to escape...

Or better yet, have the BBEG do that to try and get an ingredient for his evil plot...

I see two ways I would try to handle this.

1) Put your main game aside for a session or two and play some one shots where TPKs are going to happen if players try to meat grinder everything. Make a point in a one shot where it wont hurt your main game.

2) Bring in an NPC who ROFLstomps the party with non lethal. Have him teach them a lesson.

Alternatively, sounds like you need to take back your game. Discuss this with your group that you don't want to play a complicated version of descent - if they try to meet every challenge with force, they will fail their quest - and not necessarily because they get TPKed.

Also, maybe it's time to show them some of the other ways they can fail without TPKing the party.

Yeah, Moms can work for certain builds, but by itself (without specifically building around it) the loss of flurry hurts for the monk class.

My dragon Disciple was going for a four level dip into MoMS to take dragon style and one other, the idea that full round attacks would be using natural attacks anyways so the loss of flurry would pretty much be wasted anyways. Situations like that is where MoMS shines.

Eldritch Heritage could work, if I can get decent Charisma. I might have to work something out with my GM to transform a quarterstaff into a magic stave at level 11 or so since I'd be transforming one type of bonus into another... Which at that point I might as well just become a crafter and use the feats to benefit the group and potentially turn a profit.

I guess I need to touch up on my item creation feat knowledge. Can I use scrolls and such to craft staves without knowing all the spells on the list? Hrmm...

Well, the downside of that is you can only use one spell using spell combat - which effectively gets you a second attack, but that's it. With TWF, you could theoretically get a third, but it's not worth it unless you have some pretty crazy stats to support the MAD build.

I think touch of fatigue would be my goto to be honest, but I cant see using an Arcana to get some wizard cantrips being worth it.

Admixture wizard seems like a thought, but I don't see it being worth an extra level of waiting on spells. I'm drooling at the thought of the bonded staff ... are there no other ways to gain a bonded object that a magus could use?

Hmm, there's a couple there that'd be pretty nice actually. And I don't necessarily have to get every TWF feat (considering 3/4 BaB progression...) Enruned great weapon, and TWF would basicly make me effective enough to get by for a while.

It's a tough choice though, as two weapon fighting would still effectively require a high dex, strength and Int, and I'd take a -4 to even my primary attacks when I use spell combat (-2 when I don't.) It might be more beneficial just to go the straight strength > Int > Dex build unless I get really lucky rolling stats.

So, If I go staff magus, I should probably pick up crafting feats for staffs. Also, strength builds are my friends, and probably metamagic feats. Expect to be a second class fighter when I run out of spells?

I've seen the guide. Build wise I'm looking for more advice on the particular archtype. How best to build around using a quarterstaff as a weapon? Should I go TWF? Disregard the weapon and aim for a strength build?

As for charactor ideas, I'm trying to flesh out a personality too. I'm thinking maybe a fetchling - I like the idea of a wise man of the wilderness - perhaps a hermit who's joined up with some adventurers for some reason, or a traveling salesman... I like the mystery but want to avoid becoming the anti-social guy of the group. Hrrm.

OK, so I'm trying to come up with a potential new charactor for my next game. I'm leaning toward a staff magus - I've never used staves before and would kind of like to try, and playing a new class will be a nice change of pace.

So, I need two things: suggestions for personalities, and suggestions for how to build him combat wise. I kind of like the idea of a warrior who actually has a collection of magical staves strapped to his back at all times, but unless our group has no dedicated wizard, I don't see this being feasible. If it is, I was entertaining the idea of either taking a cohort to craft staves for me later, or become a traveling crafter.

I'm guessing all races are options at this point, so long as I avoid major min/maxing and anything that's obviously broken.

This thread makes me giggle.

This simple answer is yes. Anything living can have an unarmed strike as per raw I believe, even constructs and slugs. A snake could whip you with its tail, jump on you, etc. AS a GM I'd still require you to be able to describe some ways that the creature in question could realistically attack you with just it's natural body.

The more complicated answer is how would you animate a cannonball? It has no arms or legs, no mouth and essentially no way to interact with the outside world. Congrats: it's sentient but unable to manipulate the world around it (and yes, in this case I'd personally rule that it has no unarmed strike. Or a landspeed for that matter.)

*looks up line of effect rules*

Ah, see what you mean. Even so, I'd personally rule that having line of effect when you start casting a spell is enough, mostly to avoid making EMF too powerful. It's not meant to become a wizard duel 'gotcha' spell, just an emergency tool in the case of falling debris or possibly surprise ranged threats. Trying to go all counter spell is clearly not its intention.

That said, even if you rule that it does work that way, I see no reason why line of effect couldn't target the edge of the sphere rather than its initial point. I'd say it gets shunted.

wow, reminds me of playing Magic: the gathering.

What makes RP sense? I see nothing in the create pit description that says EFS would stop them from targeting that area. In my mind, you'd just end up with a pit with a dome over top of it. You'd lose the 'watertight seal' due to the land no longer being reasonably smooth, but otherwise EFS is not a viable defence against create pit.

Yeah. Wisdom is kind of vague to understand. This is why I like people trying to figure out how to RP charactors with certain dumped stats: gives me a chance to try and figure out how certain stats actually work.

Basicly, think of Wisdom and Intelligence as going hand in hand. Intelligence is your book smarts: knowing why fire is hot, or how to do advanced math problems. Wisdom is your street smarts. It's how to get things done. Wise people think outside the box: they might not now exactly how many apples they have, but that doesn't matter because they know they have enough to feed their family for a week.

An intelligent person knows how to pick a lock. A wise person knows that it's easier to go around the side and find an unlocked door.

An intelligent person knows that he can feel if a fire is hot with his hand. A wise person knows it's a batter idea to check carefully, in case something is really hot.

erm... I like the lie to me reference.

I know many people who I would say have low charisma in real life, and many who have high charisma. Charismatic people aren't necessarily attractive, or well dressed. They just have forceful personalities and a lot of self esteem.

If you play D&D, you likely know at least one person who is a mild example of this: smart (int), savvy (wis) but uncharismatic. Maybe they don't have any tact, or any self esteem, or are incredibly selfish and push people too far. Just take this to the extreem

Agreed.

Normally, the rule seems to be that delivering the touch must be deliberate and expected. You actually will the spell through your fingers (or claw, or leg, or whatever) into the target. It requires a little more that just making physical contact, or the rules would have a subset setup for what happens when you miss, but then the enemy hits /you/.

That said, I think grapple would be a special case. I'd personally rule that if you are in a grapple and holding a charge, touch attacks are auto successes even if you aren't in control of the grapple.

This is my problem too. I want to be able to print stuff off (I have the idea of having a computer on the gaming table) and possibly put it in a book. I'm actually thinking of building a web application that'll help me write campaigns and navigate via a virtual map for generating adventures, then have it print off a pdf to put in a binder.

My personal preference would be to have a huge binder, and organize everything using encyclopedia like tabs - e.g. one tab for each important NPC, one for each section of dungeon, or city, or etc. This way I can keep everything for future reference.

In the future, I might divide all the info into 2-3 binders. Maybe one for NPCs, One for dungeons and one for the persistent world

So, obviously, people have very skewed views on the monk class. I've seen more than one GM try to avoid or ban them because they don't fit the preferred swords and sorcery theme, and more than one player RP them as a looney old man that sputters off goofy sayings and punches things.

Suffice it to say, not particularly fond of this line of thinking.

I'm currently playing a monk/sorc/dragon disciple who will become a natural weapon fighter as soon as his claws start outdoing his unarmed strike. I like to play it as a martial artist of sorts who focuses on discipline and control (RP wise) - I generally picture someone dressed in adventurers robes who is more of a brawler then a swordsmen, rather than a bald headed weirdo who fights while imitating monkey noises.

So, the question is, how do you RP your monk? Any existing fictional characters you tend to get inspiration from?

@Staz:

I think the point is this system doesn't get rid of magic items, so much as it makes other properties more important. You don't buy a +1 shovel: you buy a flaming shovel for an equivalent price. If anything, it puts more focus on the remaining magical qualities and makes magic items all the more interesting and unique.

Hard to tell if this has already been said, but there should be an equivalent choice to split up ability score boosts. Generally, you can get a little more bang for your buck boosting 2-3 ability scores a little then boosting 1 a lot, and this should be reflected in an option. Would help out the MAD classes a bit.

E.g. you could focus all of your ability score boosts into strength, or dilute them into strength and dexterity and get the same overall cost efficiency as if you weren't using the system