Shade of the Uskwood

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Organized Play Member. 10 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 1 Organized Play character.


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Scarab Sages

Diego Rossi wrote:
From what I recall, Golarion elves sleep normally. The rule for the generic Pathfinder elf is left vague for retrocompatibily with 3.5.

A quote from Elves of Golarion, p.5:

Elves of Golarion wrote:
Though elves are immune to magical sleep effects, the idea that they never rest is a myth. Instead, though they do not fall unconscious the way other humanoids do, elves may enter a deep trance that has the same refreshing effect on the mind as human sleep. An elf only needs to meditate in this fashion for 4 hours per day, though some prefer longer periods. During this rest, an elf performs habitual mental exercises, reviews old memories, allows his intuition to seek enlightenment, and so on.

So, actually elves don't sleep normally. They trance or meditate like they always did. A leftover from the old WFRP days, I guess.

Scarab Sages

First, thanks for the trouble of collecting all these guides in one post, thanks to the original writers for their work on them.

Could you also add links to their original guides? If an author updates their guide, it's up to date faster than your pdfs are - you'd also give them properly credit for their work.

Scarab Sages

Excellent work, Treantmonk, as always. You're writing such good guides, that I'm at a loss which class to play in our upcoming game... so many good options. Thank you!

Scarab Sages

Looks like I'm not the only one confused with the rules here, the opinions are divided in two regarding the tripping and special quality weapons.

Nidho, the weapon descriptions make a lot of sense. I understand it's a game balance issue, the reach weapons not being usable in the adjacent squares. I was just wondering, if it was possible to use the shaft of the polearm to beat the ones who get too close. Guess they're just too unwieldy in close combat.

Scarab Sages

I was looking through the special combat maneuvers and weapon tables, and came up with a question that I couldn't find an answer to, from the rulebook or the messageboard.

Is it possible to use other weapons to e.g. trip your opponents than the ones with the "trip"-special quality on the weapons table?

Weapon Qualities wrote:
Trip: You can use a trip weapon to make trip attacks. If you are tripped during your own trip attempt, you can drop the weapon to avoid being tripped.

The part of the book that describes the Trip action doesn't say anything about weapon qualities, just states that you can trip anyone with a melee attack. So, can you use a longsword for tripping, or does it have to be a flail?

Weapon Qualities wrote:
Reach: You use a reach weapon to strike opponents 10 feet away, but you can't use it against an adjacent foe.

How about weapons with the reach special quality? Rules state that you can attack a foe 10ft away, but not adjacent to you. Most polearms have this quality, but e.g. halberd doesn't. Can you use a weapon like glaive to strike an opponent that's standing next to you, and if not, why can you do it with a halberd?

Scarab Sages

I'd still like to go back to the conversation about Arcane Bond. While the extra 1 spell per day freely chosen from your spellbook seems like a nice ability, I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned another case where the bonded item is useful: being a store for additional magical effects.

As stated in Arcane Bond (PFSRD):

Arcane Bond wrote:
A wizard can add additional magic abilities to his bonded object [...] The magic properties of a bonded object, including any magic abilities added to the object, only function for the wizard who owns it.

A wizard can add different magical effects to his bonded item for only the fourth of their market price. With a finite number of magic item slots, a wizard with a bonded ring or amulet can wear plenty of different magical items in just one item. With most of these being of constant duration or activated as free actions, I tend to prefer bonded items to familiars. Especially when the crafting feats or Improved Familiar come to play (you don't need the first one, but may want to get the latter one).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from the wording I understand that it is possible to add multiple effects to one bonded item. Rules prohibit wands with different spells, everything else is fine.

Scarab Sages

erian_7 wrote:
Kor - Orc Scrollkeeper wrote:
I'm still exploring my options as to how to incorporate the traits into the design. The easy way would just to add a seperate traits page, however I suspect in most cases characters would only ever be starting with just 2 traits, and probably never acquire any more, so based on that, I have a plan on how to implement them. Buying additional traits via a feat through the Levels page will be very easy to implement. If I rely solely on my Levels page for traits entry, then the most traits I could make available at 1st level is 3 -- does anyone foresee any problems with this?
The Additional Traits feat specifically allows 2 more traits, so if someone takes that feat at 1st level, you'd need to allow for selection of 4 traits total. Right now, that feat is the only "official" way of gaining more than 2 traits, at least of which I am aware, and a character will not have more than 4 traits as it may only be selected once.

Well, that's easy to implement, you have all the necessary slots in the sheet already. You have 7 rows for feats, just make one Feature Type into "Traits", and change the three "Feature Selections" to be the traits themselves. If someone selects the Additional Traits feat (PF Character Traits PDF), he can select that as a feat normally.

Some of the points I brought up might be unreasonably situational, and I hope you understand I didn't bring them up in a malevolent way. I still think the sheet is pure awesome, and am grateful for your work on it.

About skill ranks:

Kor - Orc Scrollkeeper wrote:
Wickerman wrote:
The Skills-tab doesn't always calculate the amount of skill points properly. You see a blue 1 for one remaining skill point, and when you assign it, you get a red -1.
I've run a couple tests now and have not been able to duplicate this problem. Could you tell me what information that you had in the sheet that creates this problem.

I think it might have been due to my use of arrow keys while assigning ranks to the skills. I couldn't reproduce it myself a second ago either. Edit: and found out why: I had Scroll Lock on! Entering 1 to a field and moving to the next with arrow keys (instead of pressing Enter) can do this. Same with deleting a value (with Delete-key) and moving with arrow keys.

Perception scores:

Kor - Orc Scrollkeeper wrote:
Wickerman wrote:
Also, the boni from Bonuses tab don't add up to the character sheet, though visible on Skills tab (tested with Perception - wanted to add the Conspiracy Hunter trait from CoT AP).
I tried adding an untyped Perception bonus on the Bonuses page and it did show up fine on the Skills page and Page2. I will experiment a bit more though. I will also add "trait" as an available bonus type.

The elven wizard I was creating had a Perception score of 27 on the Skills tab. Trained Bonus +3, Magic Bonus +1, Misc Bonus +2, Wis +1; Bonus Total +7, ranks 20.

First +3 was the class skill (from the trait, selected through the Override Class Skill on the same tab), +1 Magic Bonus from the Trait: Conspiracy Hunter, input in the Bonuses tab as an Untyped Perception bonus, +2 Misc Bonus should be the racial bonus form being an elf, +1 from Wisdom.

Page1 on the character sheet gives me total of +24, with 20 ranks, +3 Misc, +1 bonus and +1 mod (captions above the fields).

Spell Penetration:

Kor - Orc Scrollkeeper wrote:
Wickerman wrote:
There's also no mention of Elven Spell Penetration anywhere, and you cannot add it through the Bonuses tab.
It does appear under "Elven Magic" on Page2. However, it should also be showing up under the "Spell Information" area on Page1. I will amend that.

Ah, I see it now, silly me. I wonder if you could fit in a box for SP on the character sheet? Is it even necessary?

Scarab Sages

Hi Kor!

Thanks for the great character sheet! I tried to build an elven mage on it, and ran into some trouble while doing so. I too would like to see traits implemented on the finished sheet, just like the good people above me. Here are some of the things I found:

Long list of stuff:


  • Hit Points are being calculated twice, if you first add a number to the 1st level "HP Roll" field, then click on the checkboxes above it to get a specific way of calculating them; you get the manually added number plus the amount listed with the checkboxes (Standard, Double, Racial etc). You cannot edit the HP Roll field at this point, but it still retains the same value it had.
  • Talking of the same page, it would be awesome to have some kind of a macro to fill in classes faster (think of level 20 Wizard: you'll go crazy with the drop boxes).
  • The Skills-tab doesn't always calculate the amount of skill points properly. You see a blue 1 for one remaining skill point, and when you assign it, you get a red -1.
  • Elves get a +2 racial bonus on Spellcraft to identify magic items, not Appraise. This bonus is not registered anywhere but the Page2 of the sheet (and for the wrong skill). [Edit: I found it, it's written below the skills in Page1]
  • +2 Bonus from Keen Senses is not added to the character sheet, though it appears on the Skills tab.
  • Also, the boni from Bonuses tab don't add up to the character sheet, though visible on Skills tab (tested with Perception - wanted to add the Conspiracy Hunter trait from CoT AP).
  • There could be an option for Bracers of Armor or enchanted robes in the Arms tab. 0.12 didn't calculate AC at all if the armor field was empty, but classes who generally don't use armor have to use the Bonuses tab to correct their AC on the sheet.
  • There's also no mention of Elven Spell Penetration anywhere, and you cannot add it through the Bonuses tab.
  • Improved Initiative -feat isn't being calculated correctly. Neither are the traits included via the Bonuses tab. You can manually add them through the Classes tab.
  • There's no good option to add a Headband of Vast Intelligence to a character - the skill ranks can only be entered through Bonuses or Skills tabs, and they don't register as Ranks there.
  • There's no way of adding gear to the different slots of Worn Magic Items yet.
  • Wearing a Headband of Vast Intelligence gives a huge amount of skill points for all levels to use. I guess it's up to the user to remember when he started wearing one, but it would be great if a system that recognized changing characteristics could be implemented.
  • Melee bonuses are calculated strangely. My wizard is proficient with both longsword and quarterstaff, but his attack totals are 11/6 with the sword, 7/2 with the staff. Does that mean he is dualwielding with the staff? If yes, can there be an option to force single-wielding staves?

Thanks again for the good work :)

Scarab Sages

AdAstraGames wrote:
If I could get my gaming group to agree to a house rule set that allowed something like Ars Magica's 'noun and verb' spell creation system, I'd be tempted to make a wizard...but a spell list where Web is a more generally useful spell than Meteor Swarm, where most of the spells are variations on "Attach condition X to target","Do Xd6 Damage to Target", "Give target buff/debuff"...meh.

I can completely relate to that. There's something so much grander in playing a Magus who casts Visions of the Infernal Terrors (Rego Mentem 30) on his enemies, incapacitating them with fear, rather than a Wizard casting Fear and scattering his enemies away. That being said, Pathfinder is quite a lot easier system to understand, and the amount of good work Paizo has been doing with the rulebook and all the adventure paths makes it a lot easier to organize and, most importantly, play.

After reading TM's guide, I'm looking forward to fielding my own elf wizard, and put all the GM's creatures to shame with brilliant battlefield control! Thanks for the awesome guides!

Scarab Sages

meatrace wrote:
grasshopper_ea wrote:
and the dimension step is definately great enough to deserve as a standard action as it doesn't provoke and so you're pretty much immune to getting pinned and thus get to live.

The MOVEMENT does not provoke AoO, the actual using of the spell like ability still does, and also requires a concentration check to use while threatened, etc.

Just wanted to point that out.

Quick quote from the Conjuration specialist powers:

Dimensional Steps (Sp): At 8th level, you can use this ability to teleport up to 30 feet per wizard level per day as a standard action. This teleportation must be used in 5-foot increments and such movement does not provoke an attack of opportunity.