Walking Dad's page

Hi, I usually play PBP on ENworld and I'm a great fan of the Living Worlds here.

Would it be possible to start a Living Golarion Forum there? We would only link to the wiki and the official PRD, but I wanted to ask about legal issues first. So, can we use Golarion background information there?

Thanks, WD

BTW: The thread on ENworld is here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/talking-talk/271165-lew-pathfinder-rules.html

From the SRD:

This spell summons a natural creature. It appears where you designate and acts immediately, on your turn. It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.

What includes communicate?

Handle Animal?

Wild Empathy?

Speak with animals?

If it is the last case only you have to cast the spell or use the spell-like ability for every order you give. Not very effective.

Don't forget the negatives.
They will profit less from the new turning check (I think)

They are vulnerable to rust, woodrot, repel stone and metal.

And if you use "Eberron Spells" like the repair spells, you should also include the anti-construct spells.

And the typical nightwatch warforged fighter has no ranks in spot/perception and neither low-light nor darkvision. Not a very effective guardian.

I don't like them!

Why?

Just read:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/sw20070322jc101

under: What's Wrong With Vitality Points and Wound Points?

I would like to add some telekinesis to your bonus spell list. It sounds more like a telepath bloodline as it is.

VERY GOOD WORK!!!

There was a very good "Find the anime influence" thread on ENworld...

I and all people I spoke personally about it liked it, too.
(There is still the problem with WR's feet, but when I see the rest of the atrwork, what the heck)

Just one more thing about anime: look at "lone wolf with cub" and "pokemon" and say this is the same...

Crossposting:

My ideas for a monk fix:

Add new light armor:
Robe +0 AC -Max Dex -ACP 5%SF 30 ft.
Special: This armor counts as unarmored for monk-ability purpose.

Add to improved unarmed damage:
For melee weapons you can use in flurries, you can choose to deal unarmed or standard weapon damage.

Now, fighters and monks are compatible, monks don't have to use armor bracers

and

they can do damage AND hit in combat.

Thoughts?

I think the Monk should use weapons. There is virtual no real martial art that tells you to ignore weapons.

With my rule fix there isn't a point to do this in d20, either.

You are right. My slight fix to mke monks wanting to use weaoons

Add to improved unarmed damage:
For melee weapons you can use in flurries, you can choose to deal unarmed or standard weapon damage.

My ideas for a monk fix:

Add new light armor:
Robe +0 AC -Max Dex -ACP 5%SF 30 ft.
Special: This armor counts as unarmored for monk-ability purpose.

Add to improved unarmed damage:
For melee weapons you can use in flurries, you can choose to deal unarmed or standard weapon damage.

Now, fighters and monks are compatible, monks don't have to use armor bracers

and

they can do damage AND hit in combat.

Thoughts?

Add new light armor:
Robe +0 AC -Max Dex -ACP 5%SF 30 ft.
Special: This armor counts as unarmored for monk-ability purpose.

Add to improved unarmed damage:
For melee weapons you can use in flurries, you can choose to deal unarmed or standard weapon damage.

Now, fighters and monks are compatible, monks don't have to use armor bracers

and

they can do damage AND hit in combat.

Thoughts?

My preference is barbarian and fighter for half-orcs favored classes, with rogue and cleric a runners up.

To me druids are protectors of the wild, while orcs (and half-orcs by extension) are rapine despoilers of the wild. Druidic half-orcs being fairly common just don't fit for me.

I tend to think of "uncivilized" half-orcs as being barbarians and more "socialized" half-orcs as being fighters or rogues.

The orcs and half-orcs of the Golarion setting are rapine (don't like this or the rape half-orc fluff) despoilers?

Or in the eberron setting?

TO YOU orcs (and half-orcs by extension) are rapine despoilers of the wild.)

Go, go druid HOs (stop doubling some classes as favored and ignoring the rest (two bard, two cleric; no monk, no druid)

What about the UA (and other) material in the SRD? Will it be included in another book?

I have a vision of making a battlesorcerer with the abyssal or draconic bloodline

Spoiler:

My gaming group is discussing what sources to use when we start Curse of the Crimson Throne. We're going to use the Pathfinder RPG rules of course. But then, the question came up about which other 3.5e books to allow? We've historically allowed "all WotC books" which has ended up in quite a mess.

Here's my cut at rough classifications of the extant player-oriented 3.5e books. What do other Pathfinders think?

The True Scriptures

The Old Testament
The first "Complete" series (Warrior, Divine, Arcane, Adventurer) -
good additions, needed some more p-classes etc.
Tome of Battle: the Book of Nine Swords - just too much fun to leave out. If it and SW:Saga were really guiding 4e more than mini gaming and DDI were, I might have gone ot it instead.

The New Testament
Frostburn, Sandstorm, Stormwrack, Cityscape, Dungeonscape
Book of Exalted Deeds / Book of Vile Darkness
Libris Mortis, Lords of Madness
Heroes of Battle, Heroes of Horror
Planar Handbook
IMO, all 12 of these add flavor and distinctive things for given campaigns without being overpowered.(except vow of poverty).

Apocryphal Writings - of questionable power level
Player's Handbook II, Unearthed Arcana - yay substitution levels!
The second "Complete" series (Mage, Scoundrel, Champion) - this one goes to 11
The "Races of" series (Stone, Destiny, Wild, Dragon) - bah
Miniatures Handbook - more 3.0, mostly superseded by various 3.5es
Spell Compendium - feel the power!
Magic Item Compendium - more power power power

False Prophets - ultra cheeeeeeeze
Expanded Psionics Handbook - like magic, but better!
Draconomicon, Dragon Magic - fetishist fodder
Weapons of Legacy - actually more gimped than powerful.
Magic of Incarnum, Tome of Magic - no
Drow of the Underdark- spare me
All Eberron Sourcebooks- besides power, not appropriate for a diff campaign world
All Forgotten Realms Sourcebooks - the place where all the worst (aka
best) builds on the Wizards CharOp boards derive their power...

I don't like your list:

The first completes were faulty. (For example, the Hexblade and the Samurai are horrbly underpowered.
I like ToB, too. But there is much controversity.
Book of Exalted Deeds / Book of Vile Darkness are broken. (It is much to easy to heal ability damage. And ravage: Poison but goo??)
Your "Apocryphal Writings" alongside the rulescompendium are the most essential books in addition to the SRD and the first completes.
Psionics is not broken!!!!!! Play it and USE the rules. Than have a opinion.
I like most of your other "False Prophets", too. (For example: the artificer is great for any steampunk setting).
But you are right about the Weapons of Legacy.

Regards, WD

I made an alarming discovery; the beast shape I (and other form changing spells) don't say anything about natural weapons, nor does the druid's wild shape give any indication, what happens. Claws, bite, gore, tail, or all of those?

In case I missed a spot, please tell quick. A player was making a druid character for the playtest when I found this out.

For all the faults of the beast shape spells, this information is contained in the polymorph sub-school text. In short, you get them.

If they made Selective Turning and Quicken Turning combat feats it would solve the problem. After all you can only use one combat feat per round, from what I know.

Only in Alpha 1.0. The rule was dekleted in later versions.

About overpowered: The radiant prestige class on itself is overpowered , too. Only goodys for loosing one HP/level? Yes, I'm in!

How many enemies do you faced? Because Selective Channeling only allows to ignore Cha mod creatures.

But you are right. Perhaps Selective Channeling is overpowered.

I just put a "increases the spell by +1 level" on Natural spell (with the ability to add it on the fly in animal form). It's still worth taking, but doesn't make it "must have".

Also, I like to see less stress on the druid using shape change for combat, and it being also far more viable for other uses. It shouldn't be the druid's standard fallback method for combat. A humanoid druid chunking spells and swinging a scimitar should be no worse or better than an animal-shaped druid.

Just different.

Best fix for natural spell? Emphase that the druid cannot communicate with the other players. If you make it meta-magic with a +1 penality you support extensive pre-buffing before the change.

And in alpha, it isn'nt really good to wildshape, even if you retain spellcasing. At least at lower level, your AC goes down. If you have found a magic weapon or use normally shilleagh, your damge goes down, too.
It has only utiliy for a quick movement boost. At it doesn't increase your landspeed.

I like to play druids, and I will not take the SRD Natural Spell in Pathfinder. It's just not worth it. CoDzilla (Cleric or Druid zilla) is dead. Long live Co zilla (Cleric only zilla)!

Okay, if we want to fight in polymorphed form, we need to deicde how effective we want this to be. I'd say a level 10 wizard ought to be able to go 50/50 against CR 8 monsters in monster form: that is, he should fight as well as his martial cohort.

The obvious way to do this would be for him to literally become a CR 8 monster, playing the state straight out of the book, with active buffs *and* items going away. Possibly CR 7, to reflect the advantage he gets from picking a form after seeing the enemy.

If total character replacement is off the table, then we need to do actual playtest characters. I Present:

Human Transmuter 10 (28 point buy)
Str 10 Dex 14 (17) CON 14 (18) Int 18 (22) Wis 12 Cha 8
HP 90 AC 19
Feats: Toughness, Magic Stuff
Possessions: Belt of health +4, Headband of Intellect +4, Ring of Protection +3
Active Spells: Mage Armor

With Beast Shape 3 (Huge Animal)
STR 16 DEX 11 AC 22
Natural Weapons +6 , +4 to damage.
He's got probbably a claw/claw bite going, with possibly pounce, improved grab, or some poison or webs.

The thing that jumps out at me is that his to hit and AC are mad low. This Wizard has a solid buffer of hit points, but is likely to get shredded extremely quickly. He also has extreme difficulty hitting level-appropriate enemies. Either or both of these can be partially corrected by layering buffs on. If he has displacement and stoneskin he has a lot mroe staying power. But he's going to have extreme difficulty getting his +to hit high enough for his attacks to matter.

And this is a wizard (who get full use of this spell, druids are prohibited from changing into magical beasts).

Another problem:

At 8th level, a druid can use wild shape to change into a
Huge or Diminutive animal creature, a Medium elemental,
or a Small or Medium plant creature. When taking the
form of animals, a druid’s wild shape now functions as
beast shape III. When taking the form of an elemental,
the druid’s wild shape now functions as elemental body II.
When taking the form of a plant, the druid’s wild shape
functions as plant shape I.

What if I want to take the form of a medium animal with burrow?

Please change your wording to:

At 8th level, a druid can use wild shape to change into a
Huge to Diminutive animal creature, a Medium elemental,
or a Small or Medium plant creature. When taking the
form of animals, a druid’s wild shape now functions as
beast shape III. When taking the form of an elemental,
the druid’s wild shape now functions as elemental body II.
When taking the form of a plant, the druid’s wild shape
functions as plant shape I.

And there is the same problem in the spell description, too. People want to take small or medium forms with higher spells to get the larger list of abilities!
It makes no sense to have to change to a dire lion, because you cannot ever pounce as a leopard!

I've never liked 3.5's Furry Superfriend, but in most games the Menagerie was a bit disruptive. I think a good compromise would be be to allow the Animal Domain power to summon additional creatures every X levels.

There is a problem

This spell summons a natural creature. It appears where you designate and acts immediately, on your turn. It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.

The spell conjures one of the creatures from the 1st-level list on the accompanying Summon Nature’s Ally table. You choose which kind of creature to summon, and you can change that choice each time you cast the spell. All the creatures on the table are neutral unless otherwise noted.

What means communicating with an animal? Handle animal? Speak with animals spell?

Unfortunately, not every class needs that twist. The druid was a very solid, playable class in 3.5. In some cases, it was significantly better than a number of other classes. Much of what I did was to reign it in a bit and to make it a bit easier to use. Otherwise, you are right, the power level did not change too much.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

I know CoD zilla. But you improved the clerics power and nerved the druid.

- Give landspeed.
- Let them use beastshape full, without the no magical beast restriction (make it at least a feat.
- Give one domain for free. Give another option for nature bond (like an totem spirit)
- add bestial, elemental and plant shape spells to the druid list! It makes no sense to only be able to use them through wildshape.

on wildshaping druids:

Give them at least new feats to enhance their wildshaping. Like

- something akin to augment summoning that boost ability scores

- feats to allow to wildshape into other types
(Dragon of nature: can use wildshape to use dragon form)

- and give morphed character some landspeed! (Your dwarf turns into a gepard with 20' movement.)

I suggested the same in another thread.

Should we write a petition?

I as well would like to see a 'natures touch' or something that allows a druid to do a bit more healing without spells like the cleric. Perhaps a "druid may spend a use of his wild shape to grant living targets within 30ft fast healing X for X rounds". Maybe tie the Xs to level or wild shapes current power?

This sounds good! But there is a problem with the level 20 power. Why not give the druids a turn/rebuke animal/plant power like the turn undead of the cleric taht gives this fast healing. This could be an alternative to spontanous summon or a new option for the nature bond.

Some things about druids:

- Make druid the favored class of half-orcs instead of cleric.

- Let beastshape users get landspeed, please. A gnome or halfling transforming into a wolf with land speed 20ft? No, please.

- Give him one domain for free. You nerved wildshaping and his casting/day.

- Let druids use beastshape III to take magical beast forms. Don't nerv wildshape in regard of a wizard casting a spell.

On domains avaiable to druids: Change the first plant power, please. Make it like a ranged attack, that entangle a fow for one or two turns.

I vote for 4/6/8, too.

I don't like the fey bloodline. Make a plant and a fey bloodline please. The powers are to "plantish" and not enough fey-like.

Ah, Sunday. Only a few more days left until release 2 gets posted (crosses fingers). Here is yet another exciting preview.

Spoiler:

Polymorph, and all of the abilities based off it such as Wild Shape, have undergone a wide variety of changes in the upcoming release. First off, polymorph is no longer a spell, it is a subschool of transmutation. While I am not going to get into all the specifics right now, there are now a large number of spells in this new subschool. Here is one of the more basic ones.

BEAST SHAPE I
School transmutation (polymorph); Level wizard/sorcerer 3
CASTING
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (a piece of the creature whose form you plan to assume)
EFFECT
Range personal
Target you
Duration 1 min/level (D)
DESCRIPTION
When you cast this spell you can assume the form of any Small or Medium creature of the animal type. If the form you assume has any of the following abilities you gain the listed ability: climb 30 feet, fly 30 feet (average maneuverability), swim 30 feet, darkvision 60 feet, low-light vision, and scent.

Small animal: If the form you take is that of a Small animal, you gain a +2 enhancement bonus to your Dexterity and a +1 natural armor bonus.

Medium animal: If the form you take is that of a Medium animal, you gain a +2 enhancement bonus to your Strength and a +2 natural armor bonus.

Not surprisingly, the first ability of wild shape is based off this spell.

Enjoy

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

Sounds a bit like a combination of the shapeshifting ability from PH2 and the polymorph sub-school from the spellcompendium.

I miss burrow speed and natural armor.
And higher level spells / wildshape uses should really give more abilities like pounce, rake, imp grab, poison,...

I love your fey-gnomes. A much better niche, than "thr other smal guys, short dwarfs, mechanics".
I love the druid class, too.

The next character I would like to play:
Gnome Druid
Gnome Warlock (fey ancestry)

One of my most fun characters was a paranoid gnome illusionist.

One thing, dear paizo, change the favored class for gnomes.
Or give more than one.
Or use the old system.
I liked, that the old system only penalized multi-, but ot single classing.

I really liked their take on the "Track" feat. Perhaps something like:
If you are trained in Disable Device, you can use Perception to detect traps.