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I'm looking for opinions on what happens if someone interrupts your movement by using something like Pushing Assault or a Shield Slam when your movement provokes an AoO?

Do you simply continue your movement from your new location or does it interrupt your move action entirely?

I'm inclined to go with the former but I'm interested to hear what people think?

Covering Defense (Combat)

You are skilled at protecting yourself and your allies with your shield.

Prerequisites: Shield Focus, base attack bonus +6.

Benefit: When you use the total defense action while using a light, heavy, or tower shield, you can provide a cover bonus to AC against all attacks to an adjacent ally your size or smaller. This cover bonus is equal to your shield’s shield bonus and lasts until the beginning of your next turn. your shield does not provide a cover bonus to reflex saves.

I am wondering what all is included in determining your shield bonus? Initially I had thought it was limited to the base AC value of the shield in question. e.g. A heavy shield would grant a +2 cover regardless of the enhancements it possessed or the feats of the wielder.

However, my friend told me that the bonus is actually quite a bit larger.

Bonus (Shield)

A shield bonus improves Armor Class and is granted by a shield or by a spell or magic effect that mimics a shield. Shield bonuses stack with all other bonuses to AC except other shield bonuses. A magic shield typically grants an enhancement bonus to the shield's shield bonus, which has the effect of increasing the shield's overall bonus to AC. A shield bonus granted by a spell or magic item typically takes the form of an invisible, tangible field of force that protects the recipient. A shield bonus doesn't apply against touch attacks.

The definition of shield bonus seems to suggest that the shield's magical enhancement bonus would also apply? I then wondered if the +1 bonus from the Shield Focus feat would also apply as it also increases the AC bonus of the shield in question? e.g. A fighter using s +2 heavy shield with Shield Focus would be able to grant a +5 total cover bonus to an adjacent ally.

Can anyone tell me what applies and what doesn't to the cover bonus granted by Covering Defense?

A Tyrannosaurus animal companion has an ability called Powerful Bite which allows it to add double it's strength modifier to it's bite damage.

I am wondering what happens if you give the tyrannosaurus Power Attack as a feat? Does it get double the power attack damage bonus (-1/+4), or does it still only get the extra 50% (-1/+3)?

Thanks in advance!

I am starting a new campaign this week and one of my players had the rather unique idea of playing a neutral cleric of Sarenrea who uses Animate Dead and nercomancy in an attempt to "redeem" evil creatures by allowing them to serve a greater purpose after their death.

Personally I love this idea for it's flavor potential, the only problem is that worshipping a good aligned deity prevents him from even using raise dead at all. Not to mention that he can't take Command Undead if he wants to channel positive energy.

I am wondering if anyone has any thoughts on how I can allow him to play the character he desires? Should I simply house rule him as an exception to the spell alignment rules and say he has come to some sort of arrangement with his deity? Is it viable to use undead without having Command Undead? Or should we simply sit down and make an entirely new character idea that is less of a headache to implement?

Any advice would be appreciated.

One of my friends is currently running his homebrew campaign on weekends. This is his first time as DM and things have been going fairly well but he is having a really hard time presenting challenging encounters for our group.

He is forever complaining our group is horribly overpowered. In reality I would say most of the problems are based on his inexperience and not building/playing his encounters as well as he could.

As a result he has taken steps to counter our perceived excessive power in several ways.

The first being ramping encounters up so that the average seems to be about APL+4 and just awarding less experience than they are actually worth despite already having us on the "slow" exp progression..

Secondly, while out treasure is only a little below average we have not had any chances to sell any of it as of yet, even after finally making it back to town.

Now on their own these a certainly tolerable choices but my friend is getting frustrated with constantly boosting all of his encounters and is now looking to take the nerf bat to our party in a very unique way.

He has let slip that as part the plot for his campaign he had originally planned on granting each of us a minor class ability of a bard. However, in light of our current strength he instead plans on making everyone in the group (with the exception of our newest player) take a mandatory level in BARD within the next lvl or two.

Needless to say I was shocked when I realized I would lose a full level in one of the worst classes to multi-class out of and not even gain a single cantrip for it due to my 8 cha! The rest of our party wouldn't be much better off either. My friend said he was well aware of this and that it is his way or "reigning us in".

I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts on this style of player nerf, as well as advice on avoiding it? Maybe by presenting a better alternative to my DM?

I can post my build if anyone wants to weigh in on just how OP my char actually is? (I am generally cited as one of the two biggest offenders for character optimization)