Windquake's page

So fellow GMs...

In my game, a player has a Level 4 Paladin/Tier 2 Mythic and just got 5th level. He already has Combat Reflexes and Mythic Combat Reflexes and is looking at Bodyguard for his 5th level feat.

Combat Reflexes: Extra Attacks of Opportunity (limited to Dex bonus).
Mythic Combat Reflexes: Unlimited number of Attacks of Opportunity (but same basic rules apply - one attack per round per target).

Bodyguard: Use an Attack of Opportunity to perform an Aid Another (for +2 AC) when an adjacent Ally is attacked.

Obviously Bodyguard was written before the Mythic book came out, because Bodyguard puts 0 limits on it. So technically you could do this every attack, from every enemy, every round until you run out of Attacks of Opportunity each round, but with Mythic Combat Reflexes that never happens.

One one hand, it seems way cheesy and doesn't seem right (basically giving a +2 AC to an ally forever against melee attacks). But on the other hand, he must be adjacent to the ally and threatening the attacker, and make his AC 10 check, so maybe it isn't such a big deal.

What do you think? Would you be cool with it (and why) or would you reject this plan (and why)?

So I made a True Neutral Wizard who is specializing in the Necromancy School. As part of that, you gain some Channel Energy shots per day to use the Command Undead feat.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/arcane-schools/paizo--- arcane-schools/classic-arcane-schools/necromancy

Although it doesn't say so in the "Power Over Undead" description, we are assuming this is a negative energy channel of some kind. No where does it say that you have to be evil to be a Necromancer (which is a prejudice I, as a player am always fighting against), but the bonus feat says you have to channel negative energy...

After a few levels of the party getting our butts kicked, I decided to multi-class into Cleric to help heal. As I am a Neutral character and worship a Neutral deity, I get to pick. As my goal was to heal the party, I selected to channel positive energy.

So now I have both Positive Energy Channels AND Negative Energy Channels?

I didn't realize the conundrum until after we were already well into our next adventure, so I didn't do it on purpose or trying to game-break.

Basically I am using the Power Over Undead to take control of any undead we are fighting and forcing them to fight the other undead. Once the fight is over, we kill it too. Similar, I would think to how an Enchanter would using Charms and such. So, the GM is pretty cool with it, so it isn't causing a conflict, but what does everyone think?

Basically, the characters will come upon a dangerous thing and there will be an inscription that describes the "rules". I need something poetic to work in all the rules. I have tried myself, but I suck, so I am turning to you all for help.

Here is the story:
The characters will come upon "The Twin Colossus", which are two statues of Hydra...or is Hydras...whatever. One is a Pyro-Hydra, the other a Cyro-Hydra. They are basically guardians of a long forgotten path. They come to life when someone travels the area, unless someone follows the specific instructions.

Here is the information that I wish to have included:
-On the north side of the path is the Pyro-Hydra, named Oxor.
-On the south side of the path is the Cryo-Hydra, named Drohz.
-Together they are "The Twin Colossus".
-If the characters stray from the path, they will awaken (100%).
-If they stay on the path, and travel one by one, they have a better chance (basically 5% per 5' square and they have to travel about 50' on at a time).

So I need a poem or something that explains all of that.

Can you help?

So I was checking out this new Extract and the question came up...does it still do standard bomb damage?

I initially thought no, because it would be unbalanced to have a cage that has no save, no spell resistance and a touch attack.

But then I thought, it never says to forgo the damage, as some other spells and effects do, and you can only have one cage active at one time.

So basically this reduces the bombs to a "one and done" attack for the combat.

Thoughts?

Apologies, I searched the forums and didn't find this information anywhere.

So, when you drink the Feral Mutagen, it gives you a specific damage listing (it isn't based on size). However, the damage it gives, seems to be based on the next highest size.

So, I have a halfling (small size) alchemist. When I got the Feral Mutagen, I get claws and a bite. I will just focus on the claws for this example. The claws do 1d4, even though according to The Bestiary (p302) small claws do 1d3. Effectively, doing damage as a medium creature, but it isn't stated.

Later I got into the Master Chymist, and picked up the Furious Mutagen (APG p269), which says it increases damage "by one die step". It doesn't specifically say what that means, but I took it to mean like a size increase, so the claws would now do 1d6.

Now I have an alchemist of small size doing damage equal to large sized clawed creature, but no where does it explicitly say that.

So, if I get the benefits of Strong Jaw (APG 247), it says that natural attacks do "damage as if the creature were two sizes larger". Well, I am small, so that would make the damage as if I were large, which is 1d6, plus the Furious Mutagen, pushing it to 1d8.

Logically, the damage I am doing is already medium, with furious mutagen, up to large, and strong jaw would bump it up to gargantuan (meaning 2d6 claw damage).

What is going on?

I am sure this has been covered before somewhere, but I am unable to find it.

I have an Alchemist, who has the Feral Mutagen...
So it says he gains 2 claw attacks and a bite attack. So I have a few questions:

1) Would the 2 claws be at the highest bonus and the bite at -5 (unless I take the Multi-attack feat)?
2) Since my attacks are Natural attacks at that point, if I take Weapon Focus, is the type "Natural" or would it be "Claw" or "Bite"?
3) If I pick up Improved Critical, again would it apply to "Natural" or a specific attack, such as "Claw"?

Thanks!

So, I have a new plot I am going to try running in a few months. But, I have 3 different possible groups (college friends, work friends, family). There is little mingling between the groups.

Has anyone tried to run the same story/plot with multiple groups, one after another?

What were the pitfalls you ran into?

How would someone with Craft (alchemy) go about creating Alchemical Silver?

I have searched around, but have not found any good information.

Thanks all!

Obviously, a spell, such as Spell Turning works against Disintegrate, as it targets a single target. Also, obviously, it won't work against Fireball, as it targets no one.

Believe it or not, this question has never come up in my games...but what about multi-target spells, such as "Slow"? Although someone has to be named a target, so are other people. Does Spell Turning allow one person to "counter" the spell for everyone?

Thanks!

So, the characters are on the ground, and here comes a giant@$$ dragon. The dragon stays in the air swiping with its claws from 15 feet away.

The guys with the longswords become little more than meat targets, until one of the says, "I want to hold my action until the Dragon attacks, then attack it's claw/arm".

How would you rule that? Any penalties? I can't see where someone couldn't do that, I was just wondering if anyone has run that situation differently than what I expect (which is, they hold their action and smack at the dragon...).

So I have a 20th level Monk in my game, who also happens to have Monk Robes.

According to the rules, that increases the damage up 5 levels. While that is easy to figure out at lower levels, what happens after 20?

I am thinking this:
20th - 2d10 (as in the book...the patter is to repeat it 4 times)
21st - 2d10
22nd - 2d10
23rd - 2d10
24th - ????

I was initially thinking 3d6, as the patter seems to be d6, d8, d10, but 3d6 is actually worst on the max side compared to 2d10. So, I was thinking 4d6.

Does that sound right?

Now, what happens if an Enlarge Person is cast on them, making him Large?

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHhhhhh!

-Windquake

So, I am going to run a game, and I have most everything lined up, except for what you would think would be the easiest part.

I want to have the characters collect items that represent the aspects/domains of their deity (custom home brew mythos).

They deity they have has the following Domains: Death*, Nobility, Repose, Strength, & War.

I think the easiest is War. I could have them collect a sword, helmet, shield, or something like that.

But I wanted to get input on the other things. What do you think?

Windquake

*one thing to keep in mind...in my mythos Death and Undeath are as different as Life and Death.

So an Oracle's clouded vision allows them at the best they will ever do, see 60 feet (starts out begin only 30 vision).

Someone pointed out that you couldn't ever see a sunrise or know what the moon looked like. So that got me thinking, what happens at 65 feet. Do they see shapes, colors, is it like everything beyond that is in a cloud? Can someone literally just take a 5 food step back from 60-65 feet and just disappear?

This led into a conversation about some of the Mysteries and how they would be impacted, specifically the Heavens Mystery and a few of the Revelations that say things like:

Awesome Display: "...accurately model the mysteries of the night sky..."
Okay, you would have no idea that is accurate, but I suppose this one could be explained by otherworldly knowledge.

Guiding Star: "Whenever you can see the open sky at night..."
Well, then you are screwed if you have clouded vision, because you can never see the open sky, nor would you ever really know it is night, as you see perfectly regardless of lighting conditions!

Mantle of Moonlight: "Your innate understanding of the moon..."
You don't even know what it looks like! You can't spot it in the sky. You can't confirm the star charts that you look at are accurate. Someone could tell you it is a full moon and you would just have to take their word for it!

So, was it intended to be that way, so Clouded Vision would just basically exclude you from selecting the Heavens Mystery, or I am logicing it too much. Specifically with Guiding Star, that it would still count as "seeing" if you are exposed to the night sky?

On a side note, being able to fly (as a few Mysteries grant) while having Clouded Vision would really suck. You would have to remain low to the ground, otherwise you could easily lose your way, nor have any idea how far you traveled!

-Windquake

With all the "what do your players do to drive you crazy" threads about, I thought it would be good to start a fun player's appreciation thread.

What are some of the cool things your players have done that just made your day.

Obviously, I will start:
1) The players were evil soldiers (~12 level) sent to kidnap a rival king's daughter for a forced marriage. They were told to make it public, so the enemy kingdom would know the terror.
They spend a month integrating themselves around the city in preparation for the princess's visit via boat. As she stepped off the boat, the Cleric summoned a giant shark, the Druid had already wildshaped into a giant shark, and both were in the water under the docks. As she stepped off her ship, the invisible fighter bull rushed her off the dock into the water. The summoned Shark snapped her up (unharmed) and swam as fast as it could as the cleric jumped in. The Druid had summoned another shark, which snapped up the Cleric and followed. The fighter just followed the princess into the water and the druid-shark snagged him and took off as well heading to where the Mage and another Fighter waiting a bit away.
The evil Ranger of the group had stayed behind to help them incase the dock plan failed (to help them fight out). He appeared out of the crowd and announced he was good enough to track sharks in the water and jumped into a longboat, calling for some guards and good people of the kingdom to join him! Some guards and citizens jumped in and rowed after the sharks.
As other boats launched, the Ranger's boat was way out in front, and a few minutes later was heading to shore (by the rest of the party, with the now unconscious prisoner). The Ranger stood up in the boat and proudly announced that he knew the sharks went this way. One of the guards looked around, and seeing no sharks said, "how do you know?" And this next line was classic. The player squinted his eyes and with an evil sneer said "because of the blood in the water", took his sword and slaughtered everyone on the boat. They got away for the moment with their prize.

I told them beforehand if they came up with a decent sounding plan, I wouldn't get in the way, but they would have to make the appropriate rolls and such. They pulled it off beautifully and even now 10+ years later "because of the blood in the water" makes me smile.

2) A good party this time. They had a Fighter, a Monk, a Paladin, a Cleric, a Sorcerer, and a Rogue (all ~15th level). However, only the Sorc had any distance attacks. So near a cliff-side waterfall, they finally cornered the BBEG and had him at a disadvantage. He summoned his ace in the hole...his big ass green dragon. The dragon slaughtered the sorcerer first round and then while hovering starts breathing on them, while the rest of the party tried to figure out what to do. The Monk player asked how far the Dragon was from the waterfall, and I said about 50 feet. Suddenly the Monk takes off towards the waterfall. He climbed up the cliff to the top, which was about 150' up. Meanwhile the party was fighting defensively, which basically means they were dealing 0 damage to the dragon and absorbing lots of damage and taunting from the BBEG.
The Monk player says, "I would like to make a running long jump off the cliff to the dragon." I say "um...okay, that is like a DC 50 jump...maybe 55 to be sure". Then he says, "Cool. Then I want to hit it with a stunning fist." Everyone looks at him, and starts smiling. Someone says that if he misses, they are going to die.
The Monk take a running leap off the side of the cliff clearing the distance to the dragon and rolls a stunning fist attack, hits, and the dragon fails its save and crashes to the ground. The party absolutely destroyed the dragon before it could get back into the air.
Needless to say, the BBEG ran like a little girl.

So, what about your stories?

Sorry man! I didn't see any replies and I just realized I posted it in the wrong place! So I deleted it and there your reply is.

Please recopy it here:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/general/whatIsTheCoolestThingYourPlayersHaveDone

I don't know how to move threads...

So, if you have the Merciful Spell Metamagic Feat...it adds 0 levels to your spell, AND you have the Trait called Magical Linage. It says that for a single selected spell, consider it's level to be 1 level lower.

So now you have a non-lethal Magic Missile spell that is a 0 level spell. So, you could cast it every round, without limit, right?

Sure, I suppose it isn't huge deal, as it is non-lethal, and it is only a first level spell, but it just seems like that it should be possible.

Windquake

-----
"It would be a healthy exercise for every politician to look in the mirror every morning and remind himself that he holds office only because, in a two-man race against another mediocrity, a modest majority of those half-informed people who imagined that their votes mattered reckoned that he was the lesser evil. And they weren't too sure about that." -- Joseph Sobran

Okay, the subject line is exaggerated, but that is essentially what I am facing here.

This concerns a few feats and a trait.

Situation:
Select Ray of Frost as a 0 level spell. (No save)
Apply a feat called "Ray Burst"*, which does exactly what it sounds like, at the cost of 3 levels, the ray spell is instead a 30' burst.
Apply a feat called "Fell Drain"*, which at the cost of 3 levels, the spell, if damages someone, they gain a negative level.

At this point the spell is a 6th level spell.

Then there is a Feat called "Improved Metamagic"*, which reduces the penalty for a Metamagic feat by 1. The Wizard takes this feat 5 times, which reduces the spell down to a 1st level spell. The feat specifically states that you can't reduce the penalty below 1 level.

So now we have a 30' burst that pushes negative levels as a 1st level spell.

Now, here is where the fun comes in. There is a trait in the Advanced Player's Guide called "Magical Linage" (I think that is it) that allows you to consider a specific single spell to be one level lower when you apply metamagic feats to it. It give the impression that you apply this "one level lower" affect at the end.

If this is all true, the rules appear to allow a 0 level, 30' burst spell, with no save, that deals 1-3 frost damage, and if it damages, it applies a negative level.

As it is a 0 level spell, it can be fired off, every round.

Now, as a GM. I have already ruled that this WON'T happen, regardless of how the rules read, but I am curious to if there is a hole in the rules or if we are just reading it wrong.

The crux of the situation is, all the Feats seem to work together, and Improved Megamagic, actually says you can't reduce the penalty below 1. The issue seems to be the Trait.

*I am not sure of the original sources of these feats. I think one is from Forgotten Realms...one is from the evil book (Book of Ultimate Evil?). Not sure though.

Thanks everyone.

Windquake