Yaakov'Tovah's page

Those are racial traits, not race traits. It's every bit as confusing and particular as those seven words make it sound.

Racial traits: components of a race's stats.
Race traits: a category of traits, like combat or faith, but available only to members of the listed race (or a member of any race with the Adopted social trait).

For example, humans' bonus feat, elves' keen senses, and dwarves' stonecunning are racial traits. World Traveler, Warrior of Old, and Tunnel Fighter are race traits.

That said: if your group will let you get away with spending half a feat to get a feat, don't let me stand in your way. ^_^

Ever more making me believe that the writer's really need a thesaurus XD this get's confusing at times.

What's weird is that my group's before introduced me and worked this way :/ but I guess everyone is prone to error. I'll have to discuss this with my DM and see how he wants to do this since everything's pretty set in stone now, but thanks for the crucial feedback.

Yaakov'Tovah wrote:

At the time, I had Magical Talent, Nature's Mimic and Convincing Liar as my traits. I decided to drop Convincing Liar and instead took Adopted, of course for the Human Trait of an additional feat.

unfortunately that's a different type of trait - they are racial traits that you auto get for being the race, completely separate from the traits that you get 2-3 of, so you can't get an extra feat from human with adopted, you get race traits, that require you to be that race (or have adopted) to pick them

Example: Bonus Feat is a Human Racial Trait of the Feat and Skill category, whereas Aspiring Bard is a Race Trait that requires the Human race to be chosen
Confusing wording yeh - but that's the distinction

Is there a FAQ or errata for that? This is how I was introduced to it and have seen many a group work with this. The most rule mongering people I've known use it too.

On page 59 is states, for Adopted, "You were adopted and raised by someone not of your race, and raised in a society not your own. As a result, you picked up a race trait from your adoptive parents and society, and may immediately select a race trait from your adoptive parents’ race."

I would assume race trait would mean the racial traits for the type of race one is adopted from and while there are different brackets, yes, they are all racial traits.

Perhaps this has been a misconception or an implied ruling or poor wording on the writer's part. I'm aware that the books sometimes mix words together and expect people to know the difference when there may be confusion, but if this true, than a lot of people are doing it wrong apparently and needs updating for clarification o_O because just reading the plain text on the book would have me believe I could choose any of those racial traits I desired from humans, whether it was the basic, skill and feat or alternative.

Wanted to say thanks again to you both for the input and wanted to update on what I came up with xD

So I decided to keep the Time Oracle as my choice of class. After a bit of discussion of how the Oakling would fit as one, as well as one set within the DM's world, he allowed me to have a +2 CHA instead, but only if I took the penalty to STR.

At first this sounded fair. So I built the Oracle, but halfway into it I realized that Oracles are almost like glorified Clerics, which means that penalty to strength hampered a bit of my capability in combat with him. We already rolled stats and the STR penalty was at 8, which means a -1. It's not huge, but feels very lacking.

To remedy that, I wanted to give him more options, so I dug around in the Ultimate books and found a wonderful feat: Eldritch Heritage.

I found that my character nearly had all the skills required to take any of the Bloodlines, but was caught between Celestial and Dragon as my most desired facets.

At the time, I had Magical Talent, Nature's Mimic and Convincing Liar as my traits. I decided to drop Convincing Liar and instead took Adopted, of course for the Human Trait of an additional feat. At level 5, this means I had 4 feats to burn and decided to immediately burn 2 of them on both Bloodlines.

To get around the penalty however, I needed a good physical option as a last resort. With all of the simple weapons as default, I was immediately looking into Martial Proficiency and decided Rapier would be the nice balance for this character's flavor and strength reasons. I have a 14 Dex, so taking Weapon Finesse for the last slot was a must, but it needed more...oomph.

With starting gold at 10,500, I looked into options for a Rapier, and settled on making it out of Bloodcrystal, but also enchanted it with Wounding. It's funny as heck because Bloodcrystal says that when it hits an opponent suffering from Bleed, they take one extra damage and Wounding says when it hits an enemy, it gives them a Bleed stack and can become cumulative. It's not the strongest weapon ever for a little over 9k Gold, but it certainly is *ahem* bloodthirsty xD

And for my flaws, I went with Loner, Warded Against Nature and Mark of Slavery. With DM's approval, I want his backstory to be that he was found by a slightly crazy Human Sorcerer/Alchemist fellow while he was still a seed and did sadistic experiments on him, hence why he's a freak of nature for an Oakling xD

It sounds crazy...but I know I could really do far worse if I really wanted too.

i may have a solution for circumventing the racial penalty to charisma, but it will require you to consult your DM

D20pfsrd wrote:

Note [3PP] indicates a source other than Paizo. Consult your GM before choosing.

Aged [3PP]

Source Oracle’s Curse, copyright 2014 by RJ Grady, published by Tripod Machine.

You became an oracle late in life, or perhaps you aged and grew wise at an unnatural rate.

Effect

You are a venerable member of your race. However, your physical abilities are affected as though you were old, rather than venerable.

At 5th level, your physical abilities are affected as though you were middle-aged, rather than old.

At 10th level, you are immune to magical and non-magical disease.

At 15th level, you will never die of old age and you are immune to death effects.

not only will the boost to your charisma (not to mention other mental stats) help overcome the racial penalty, the curse fits really well thematically with the time mystery.

even if your dm doesn't let you take it, you could still probably start as an old or venerable member of your race anyways.

That seems like a very good option for me. There's a couple cool other Curses, but that seems to be the good ticket if I were to run with the Time Based Oracle. Definately like you said, that fits really well.

Thank you for the input :)

As for C, an undead army is ridiculously powerful and not recommended unless you want that kind of thing, and perhaps weird for an oakling.

Either of A and B would be just fine. Druid naturally fits with an oakling, but time oracle is indeed pretty cool. Perhaps your character sees time more as the trees do, the long game.

Except of course that oaklings have a CHA penalty normally, so druid or cleric is far more optimal. Menhir savant plays *very* similarly to a regular druid, so if you want something new I'd suggest cleric, except again negative energy channeling is cha based.

That is true isn't? The penalty to CHA might be off-putting, especially if I'm not rolled properly for it...hmm...if the score is high enough to compensate for the penalty, that might still be an option, but if not, it probably would be best to go Druid or Oracle.

I'll have to discuss with the DM if I can roll stats before choosing my class. Don't like doing it that way, but my dice are kind of my fate here. Thanks for the response!

Hello all, I wanted to grab some additional input for a Pathfinder campaign I'll soon be joining.

Without getting much into it, I wanted to play something I generally have next to no experience using. Checking out RPGBOT gave me a lot of insight in what I *could* use, but I don't have much time dissecting all the options in sufficient detail for me to make the best choice.

We have a few days to decide and gather around to roll out our characters, so I have some time to decide, but not as much as I would've liked to fully explore my options.

My quandary is this: Which one should I be? I have potentially three choices I'm looking at. I could either be;

A) Druid, something I've played before, but with the Menhir Savant Archetype, something I haven't done before, as I've only ever played vanilla Druid.

or

B) Oracle with Time Mystery, which looks pretty awesome on the surface.

or

C) Cleric, going through the Death Domain. I never played a negative Cleric and have always been tempted to give a shot, but most DMs have shot me down before. Can't imagine why (sarcasm). This DM is open to the idea, so I don't know.

For additional context, we're starting out at Level 5 and I've worked with the DM to determine that my race would be an Oakling, because I wanted to be a Dryad but wanted some way of circumventing or completely ignoring the whole, "locked to a tree", restriction. I know for certain we will have a Monk and Samurai in the party, another is undecided and I'm fairly certain one of us said they'd be heals, so I shouldn't have to worry too much about needing a healer.

Help deciding would be fantastic, or, if you have an idea that might be awesome for me to try out, that'd be awesome! I've tried pretty much every standard class before, so I'm looking for more archetypes or weird choices, but not so weird they're useless. Bonuses for awesome flavor to characterize, as I like having good role-playing options beyond, "I feel the burning desire to bury my axe into it until our problem is solved."

Unlikely. We're probably not on speaking terms right now.

Nuuuuuu!!! I needs mah pictures! D:

Or if you want the official site, HERE.

On the surface it doesn't seem to be much more different, but I don't know if there's something left out from the book or if I'm just too tired to see it.

Everything you said pretty much nails it, but he never insinuated that he had size changes or anything particularly special. Unfortunately I don't know what gear he had, only that he was level 10, Human, and was supposedly doing 8d8, plus strength, total worth of damage by the time he was done, which is, plainly put, crazy.

In comparison, my Drow Monk at Level 10 had 4 hits and could expend 1 Ki Point to make 5 strikes. Medium Creatures as a Monk do get 1d8 by level 4, but by 10, he should be doing 1d10. That's where it falls apart. Whether normal or Unchained.

And like you said, the only way he could gain three extra hits would be to use Four Winds, but Unchained Monks can't go into Four Winds.

The more I think about it, the more I have to wonder what other miscalculations, or rules levies if the DM was explicitly involved, occurred in this campaign of theirs.

Yaakov'Tovah wrote:

That's the kind of thing I wish I could read Unchained for to fully comprehend how they deal with it.

Would this help? One of many great things about Pathfinder is that Paizo puts near-everything online!

I did look that over before, but I like having the full book. It's all in the details that may or may not be there and I like being able to read the book so there's no question about things.

I appreciate the link though :D it was the first thing I turned too initially.

Monks are great (my personal favorite class), and they can definitely be made capable if you do it right, but one of the things that puts them apart is that in order to make them good you have to have waaaay more system mastery than most other classes.

Eh, to a degree. Only if you want to be Mr. Trick-Tricks-n-Suplex. Building for damage output is actually pretty simple and actually stops being useful right around 11 to 12, provided you have the robe. Had I kept playing with my group, I would've started specing into Fighter to up his crit chances.

Yaakov'Tovah wrote:

NewXToa wrote:

Well, I'm sorry you lost a player over such a weird rules misunderstanding, but it's probably for the best. I hope it doesn't cost your friendship too :/

I hope so too. He's not a bad dude, just gets a bit testy. He will, hopefully, come around, but I might have to consider if it'd be healthy for the group if he attempts to return, if he ever does.

I wish you the best with that! He just needs to learn not to be stubborn and trust a DM's rule-based ruling. You seem really reasonable, and were even willing to consider this claim.

Monks aren't so powerful, even with Unchained, but with eight attacks every round... it'd be a supremely capable class, what with all the crits it'd be pumping out.

Ooooooh I wouldn't say that ;D my own Drow Monk at his height was a force to be reckoned with. He was only second in DPS to the party's Barbarian which...got really, really ridiculous, especially when the spell casters beefed her size increase and strength increase spells.

My own Monk's damage output, at minimum damage, if all five blows connected, was 120, to a max of 191, and that's not if any of them crit. And he only got that way because of Monk's Robe and getting Greater Magic Fang +5 permanently enchanted upon himself. Fun stuff when you got the gold xD

That's the kind of thing I wish I could read Unchained for to fully comprehend how they deal with it. What I do know about Flurry is that it can't be combined with Two-Weapon Fighting, because the description itself says that a Monk's strikes acts as if he already has Two-Weapon Fighting and, with his natural or monk weapons, is considered to have no off-hand. Taking the feats, technically do nothing for a Monk.

I wish I could read the book further. He might have some validity, but the way he words it, leads me to think otherwise.

...Maybe his DM played 5e? :)

According to him, his DM has played for 15+ years. Any player worth his salt would be able to distinguish rules and, frankly, if there are mistakes, they'd be in reverse to earlier versions, in my mind anyway.

Well, I'm sorry you lost a player over such a weird rules misunderstanding, but it's probably for the best. I hope it doesn't cost your friendship too :/

I hope so too. He's not a bad dude, just gets a bit testy. He will, hopefully, come around, but I might have to consider if it'd be healthy for the group if he attempts to return, if he ever does.

I forgot about extra attack from Mythic, which by his logic would provide the extra 2d8. As to his ability score modifier, I think his STR is 18.

Yaakov'Tovah wrote:

my fists deal 2d8 damage for the first hit +8 strength modifier,

The 2d8 came from the weird terminology and math he's using, and I believe he is combining two "attacks" into one "hit". That means the +8 he mentions is also from two "attacks", and therefore one "attack" would have a +4 modifier, or a STR of 18.

In other words, he things FoB functions like Manyshot and Rapid Shot combined, except that the Manyshot portion applies to every attack he makes that round.

Essentially, which without even looking at his sheet, I don't know if he even had Mythic levels yet, as he was just introduced.

I think I understand what you're saying.

You're saying that he's saying that he gets two Standard Actions from his BAB at Lvl. 10, and also Flurry of Blows? If so, that is not how any of those things work and I'm really worried that his old DM allowed it.

Basically, you only get one Standard Action per round in Pathfinder, but you can forgo your Standard Action and Move Action ("Full Round Action" altogether) to get a Full-Attack Action, which would give him two attacks. With the Unchained Monk, however, he can get three attacks at that level if he uses Flurry of Blows, INSTEAD of the Full-Attack Action. He can get four if he spends Ki on it.

Basically, unless he's doing Mythic shenanigans, he's only getting four per round max, each doing 1d10 damage if they hit.

EDIT: Actually if he used to play 5e, it would explain this whole confusion. He's probably thinking that the FoB is merely extra attacks, and that Standard Actions are the same as 5e Attack Actions, which he would get two of at that level, in addition to the Flurry.

Precisely, and I did my best to break that down, but he got mad, said his other group was more fun and stopped talking.

Also, playing 5e is probably out the window as Pathfinder seemed to be his introduction to D&D. He was aware what it was, but if I recall correctly, he never played, so Pathfinder was his entry, so I do not think the 5e rulings are to blame here for his confusion, I think it's more either ignorance or his DM, or both, that are the cause of this.

As has been said, 4 attacks are possible (3 from Flurry at +10/+10/+5 BAB, plus one from either a mythic point or a Ki point).

A base damage per attack of 2d8+STR is also possible with mythic feat Titan strike (turning his damage die from medium 1d10 to large 2d8).

His Strength might look high, but if he started with an 18, +2 from Human, +2 from 4th and 8th level advancement and a +4 belt (expensive but could be his GM is generous) he'd be at 26 which would be the +8 modifier.

Might be his game-language isn't what we expect it to be, but the math can work out.

That seems to be the best case, but the crux of his argument seems to be this weird second string of Flurry of Blows he says he's getting from, what seems to be, nowhere. The BAB seems to be what he's thinking he's getting it from, but trying to explain BAB, the difference between Standard and Full-Round actions, just fell on deaf ears with him.

If nothing else, it seems more damage was done trying to dispute his Monk rather just staying out of it, which may have been better, but sadly I'm the debating type and his game language about gives me an aneurysm. Weird considering he was playing a Wizard just fine, prior to this, but I guess that's over now :/

I have no idea what he's talking about, and I think you're right to question whether he has actually read the rules.

A 10th level UnMonk should be getting 3 attacks when flurrying: two at full BAB (one from existing and another from FoB) and one at BAB-5 for having a high enough BAB.

You should probably help him review how action economy and iterative attacks work.

Also, I'm not sure how he's getting a +8 STR modifier. With a STR of 16, his modifier is 3, and even if he's adding the STR mods of two separate attacks together there's no way to get 8 by multiplying 3 by any whole number.

Best I can tell, he's replaced the extra attacks from FoB and high BAB with "motions". These motions seem to be equivalent to standard actions in his mind, and in his mind FoB seems to be a standard action as well. Even if that's what he's doing, his math is still coming out with an extra two d8's.

Basically, he is wrong and you are right.

That seems to be the jist of it and I've attempted to help him out, but it had the exact opposite effect that I hoped for. He doesn't want to rule check at all, claims his DM knows better and, adding insult to injury, he's leaving my own group completely to simply play at that group.

It stings, but if he's gonna be that negative about rules criticism, I don't believe he should be in my group anyway. Between the community's answers and his opposition, I get the impression that my question has been sufficiently answered to sate my curiosity for a while.

Thank you all again for your time into this matter.

I'll go ahead and type out what he said and it makes even less sense than what he originally said to me. I'm gonna break it up for easier reading.

"--at the 6th level you gain a second full motion, first full motion flurry of blows, my fists deal 2d8 damage for the first hit +8 strength modifier, 2nd attack of flurry of blows 2 d8 and as is stated in the flurry description you add strength again, so first full motion 4d8.

And 16 strength bonus, since im at tenth level i have a second full motion based of my second bab score, so i flurry one more time as a single standard action so i do 4d8 and another 16 strength totallimg 8 d8 damage +32, so to reiterate 2+2+2+2=8 and 8+8+8+8=36 dealt over two full motions which i had gained the second at 6th level."

At this point, I question if he really read the rules or not, but maybe you guys can make more sense of this than I can.

Not sure what your question is, but there is no known way in pathfinder for monk unarmed to increase to 8d8 for a medium sized monk.

Thank you for your reply. I figured as much, but I of course don't know everything about the game, so I needed the info, and I apologize for the confusion. I'll make a more concise question then.

Is there a way, between the Core rules and the Unchained Rules for Monks, with maybe a max level of 1 or 2 Mythic Levels, that would allow them to either:

A) Reach the criteria for base 8d8 damage, that is 8 individual strikes, by Level 10?

or

B) Be able to make more attacks than Flurry of Blows or normal standard attacks would allow?

I hope that cleans up the query considerably.

This should be a no-brainer, but I need additional opinions and information about this question.

A couple days ago, a friend of mine, who also takes part in my own campaigns, joined another group and made a Level 10, Human Monk using Unchained rules, to be entered into a Mythic campaign. We were regaling about Monk usage, when he claimed he would be rolling 8d8 per his usual attacks and it raised an alarm bell.

Being an avid Monk user, it threw up a red flag, that he shouldn't be rolling that many dice for his level. His explanation was that in addition to his standard attacks, his two fists, he would go into Flurry of Blows.

I KNOW this to be wrong, as they are separated as Standard and Full-Attack actions, that they shouldn't be able to do that. According to him, this DM has been playing D&D and it's forms for 15 years and supposedly condones this and plays this way. I believe he even mentioned once that they're supposed to take up the movement part of turns, which also is bogus as far as I'm concerned on the matter.

This sounds exorbitantly unorthodox and we had a bit of a heated debate about it. Being at work, with only phones to check up on rough details, we couldn't reach a conclusion and he seemed to be in a huff about it, so I dropped the conversation.

This problem still bugged me though, so I finally dug into the Pathfinder rules and, based on pages for combat rules 181-184 of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, as well as the Flurry of Blows rules on page 57, detailing that they are a full-attack action, it supports my argument.

However, I won't say I'm completely right until I have all the information. As of now, I don't have a way of physically looking at the Unchained Rulebook for Monks and, while I seriously doubt the book would change combat rules on how Monks work, as well as just throwing out old combat rules entirely, I needed to post this up to sate my curiosity and, potentially, put this issue to rest.

Any and all information is appreciated. Please, thank you and blessed be.

I don't see why people complain about it if it's involved...

Maybe it's because I involve myself in these things to escape my reality for a bit, so having an immersive experience helps with it. I personally would not make hazardous effects happen as a DM unless players blatantly ignore times when they should be eating or drinking, and it accrues over time.

It's not really tedious to me. Tedious is something like the Vow of Cleanliness for the Monk that forces himself to religiously clean his body, equipment and garments throughout the day else he breaks his vow. Good role-play opportunity, but after hearing it for the 30th time, unless that player truly gets creative with the process, it gets old. It's best to take the trait that lets you have a cantrip and get Prestidigitation to deal with it.

Whereas with food, a bit more personality comes out. Are you an obnoxiously picky eater who can't have food groups touching each other on the plate? Or are you just an animal at the table, ripping off a ham leg and noisily eating it, slobbering on everywhere as you do?

Now that I think about it, it really forces another aspect of inventory management. They may dislike it, but hey, adventuring isn't luxurious and just because it's a game, I don't believe reality should be ignored. I might force them to have some kind of meal to have the benefit of something like rest. Buffs/debuffs I can't really see happening unless some kind of drug is involved.

Thank you both kindly for the information.

I haven't had the chance before to really delve my characters into upgrading their critical stats, so the numbers somewhat confused me at first. I was pretty sure that this is what it meant, but I figured I'd be better safe than sorry and incur my DM's wrath the next time I saw him xD

I appreciate the timely responses :)

This is probably a stupid question, but I need clarification on what precisely this does in a particular instance.

Source: Pathfinder Core Rulebook Page 127

"Improved Critical (Combat)
Attacks made with your chosen weapon are quite deadly.
Prerequisite: Proficient with weapon, base attack bonus +8.
Benefit: When using the weapon you selected, your
threat range is doubled.
Special: You can gain Improved Critical multiple times.
The effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it
applies to a new type of weapon.
This effect doesn’t stack with any other effect that
expands the threat range of a weapon."

I understand the implications of what it does, but I have a bothersome question that I've searched and searched around for but it either has never been directly asked or perhaps it's really as simple as it seems and I'm dumb.

Nevertheless! I have a Drow Monk. As a typical, Medium size category monk, his Unarmed Strikes have forever been locked at merely x2 on 20 with not a lot of ways of advancing it. When I get to it, I've been thinking about taking this feat since his fists do ridiculous damage with Monk's Robe at 2d6 and +5 permanent enchantment from Greater Magic Fang, but here's my question; it doubles the range, but if the range is 20, does that mean it's an inert feat? Does it become 19-20 or 18-20? For the life of me I can't figure out what it means, so I turn to the community for an answer.

Please and thank you.

Here's the thing, D&D/Pathfinder, was originally built to not just be about slaying dragons and gaining epic treasure for your avatar, it's about living another life. It's about making another identity, living vicariously through a new lens and combating a world to make your way in it.

Too many players think all there is to these worlds is combat.

Major media is mostly to blame for this and there's nothing like a good boss fight, most certainly, but that is not what playing this game is about. There's no "beating" this game or seeing how much higher you can make your numbers compared to everyone else. It's a social gathering to have fun and experience something fantastical.

I would honestly love to have more pacifist characters in campaigns I've been in and one's I've DMed. It makes interactions between characters much more meaningful and fruitful. It makes the world we're participating organic, not filled with umberhulks and die-hard powerful magic users. When you really think about it, that's not realistic at all and the game shouldn't be about killing the biggest and baddest thing you can find. What becomes of the game after that?

If you want to make a character that lacks combat skills, but is the person that ensures everything else, from lodging to getting your job contacts, to good food and good discounts or leads on beneficial equipment, go right ahead. I've known several people who play things like Bards solely to be the manager of the group and only minorly contribute to combat, if anything.

If players have a problem with a pacifist in the party, quite frankly, they are not thinking about playing Pathfinder/D&D for what it is. They want to play another experience of World of Warcraft where they want to crunch numbers and crunch baddies and that's it. Some of it is understandable and there is plenty of that to do in the world, but it's not the ONLY thing to do. Both the players and the DM should be able to compensate and make the avenue accessible.

After all, this is the pure RPG experience. It means, Role-Playing Game, not Hacker-Slasher-Game. If the people playing or the DM rolling it up doesn't like a perfectly fine and realistic route that should exist in their world, it is not your fault, it is their own for not being open enough to the concept.

And to my final point, I play a Mythic Drow Monk who has the Vows of Peace and Truth. Once those two turns are up, he easily becomes as damage heavy as our Barbarian in the party, only nonlethal to the beings that can be expected to be coerced and I just got him to the point where I can start Intimidating the hell out of everything. Dazzling Display during total defense maneuvers is the best way for me to express that, "I do not want to hurt anyone, but if you make me, than be prepared for some whoop ass!"