Zach Klopfleisch's page

Organized Play Member. 88 posts (1,020 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. 1 wishlist. 9 Organized Play characters. 1 alias.


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4/5

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Fargo isn't really small, there's a significant gaming culture here, but we topped out at around 3 tables worth of potential players and are now down to about 3-4 tables a month. We are small enough that there's a core of "everybody knows everybody, at least from reputation" people that make up half to two thirds of the potential playerbase. Here's some stuff I've learned from starting from scratch as an outsider:


  • Note on terminology: I say "will destroy your lodge" a lot here, what I mean is "will cause your lodge to stagnate, not necessarily stop being able to run games (though that's a possibility.) But lose players and keep it from growing, which in turn keeps players from progressing their characters, which loses players, etc.
  • There are a common set of problems that everybody has to deal with, but the causes and therefore solutions to those problems are unique to your situation. For me, this is the biggest issue I have with people from large areas saying "here's what you need to do..." A problem player is a problem player, sure. But dealing with a problem player requires a completely different perspective when they're one of the three players who you can count on to show up, and if he and his buddy leave there's a good chance that half your games won't even kick off. More on that specific example later. The key point is that what you have is all you have, it's more like a home game in that there's no fall back: If venue/player/gm doesn't pan out, then you don't have PFS. There's more flexibility than a home game because you don't need as much table continuity, but the added PFS rules balance that benefit out by creating their own problems.
  • One bad GM can destroy your lodge. People will stop coming if they don't like a GM. They don't even have to be bad bad, they can just be bad at prepping or bad at managing time or easily distracted. People will stop coming because playing with that GM isn't fun enough to warrant their time, even if they really love Pathfinder. If you have 15 tables a week, people avoiding someone who GMs once a month isn't an issue, if you have four tables a month, it can be catastrophic. And if you're like me, you won't find out until wayyyy after the fact.
  • One or a few bad players can destroy your lodge. Just like a bad GM, the players aren't necessarily jerks, they might even be the nicest people in the world, but they're annoying to play with. They might not be prepared, they might not understand the system, they might be bad at math, they might just be painfully slow on the uptake. But people will stop coming because these players make the game unfun, or at least less fun than the alternative.
  • Cliques will destroy your lodge. I've seen two types of cliques: Intra PFS cliques are players who prefer to play together, so they don't show up if their friends aren't coming. And they tend to level together, so it can make scheduling tougher. Also, you can get cliques of "bad" players that are perfectly fine but other players don't like playing with, so people will actively avoid them. Even without trying, they can push people not in their clique out of PFS simply because their style becomes the dominant style and that doesn't mesh well with other players. The other type, Inter gaming cliques, hurts when you've already got cliques in your gaming community and PFS ends up becoming part of one, which excludes the others. This can be subtle, especially if you're an outsider trying to start something up.
  • Your group may be better suited as a jumping off point for home games. But home games can also destroy your lodge. Partly this is an extension of the above: If a group of friends start playing PFS scenarios as home games, they can make scheduling downright hell. It's great to get people playing regularly, but it can also leave a few players stranded because they can't get into home games. The best players to build a community around, because people like them, are the first players to get a home game going: Because people like them.
  • Coordinator burn destroys your lodge.[/i] Scheduling and dealing with people takes time and effort and isn't necessarily a rewarding activity. But people willing to step up and do that work are even rarer than people willing to GM, so it's also a lot harder to rotate. Also, in a small area, whomever starts the group gets to be known as the contact for the group, so you'll still be stuck with a lot of the communication even if you do manage to hand over the reigns.
  • Scheduling sucks after a while. It's a math problem: You have a limited set of scenarios, and you can only run scenarios that nobody at the table has played before. Large groups solve this problem by bringing new players in to play at low levels, graduating intermediate players to high levels, and older players filter in on the new content. That's not an option when you have one or two tables a month.
  • [/i]Boons are at best rare, but more likely these mythical things that other people have which let them do things your players want to do.[/i] When people ask about playable races, I don't even mention boons anymore because pretty much nobody goes anywhere they can get them. Somebody will inevitably pipe up about boons, though, and that leads to a 5 minute explanation of something that's, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant.

If you take anything away from my rant, please be this: Small lodges have problems that look similar to some of the problems big lodges have. But listen carefully before you make a suggestion based on your experience, because the cause and likely solution to that problem is probably going to have to be unique to that specific situation. I can't think of anything the overall organization can do to address a lot of the problems I've seen, except to make scheduling easier and get boons and GM rewards out to the hinterlands. Unfortunately, I don't have any solutions to those issues.


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Don't worry about roleplaying him "as an inquisitor" instead of "as a cleric." The class name doesn't really matter. Just roleplay him as you described him: As far as everyone knows, he's a stern and proper champion of justice for the city. But at night, he's the leader of a murder cult.

Roleplay him with that in mind and you're golden.

The Charm Monster spell on him shouldn't affect his relationship with Norgorber. After all, he's still murdering people and running the cult, Norgorber doesn't particularly care how the victims are chosen or why or what happens to their souls once they die, he's just happy that there's some murderin' going on. Probably, you never know with Norgorber. (But that's a different aspect :P )


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So, at level 10 you're looking at, what, +2 Katanas?

That makes your attack bonus 7 BAB + 4 Str + 2 Weapon +1 Haste = 14

Assuming Effortless Lace on your offhand, always having Haste from your boots and a flank, you're looking at an attack routine of

+14/+14/+14/+9/+9 (1d8 + 6, 15-20/x2, +5d6)

Looking at the statistics for CR 12 monsters, you'll be facing a median flat footed AC of 25, 23 after the penalty for facing an invisible attacker.

You need to roll a 9 or higher for your first 3 attacks, and a 14 or higher for your iteratives. That gives you a 60% chance to hit with your primary attacks, a 35% chance to hit with your iteratives. Your average damage with sneak attack is 28, your average crit with sneak is 38.5, and since about 30% of your hits will be confirmed crits, your damage is a weighted average: .7*28 + .3*38.5 = 31.15 damage/hit on average.

So, you're looking at hit rates of 60%/60%/60%/35%/35% on a full attack, or .6*31.15*3+.35*31.15*2 = about 78 damage/round.

That CR12 monster has a median of about 161 HP, so knocking off just shy of 50% of his HP in one average full attack as a 3/4 BABer seems quite good to me. Of course, this is ignoring DR restrictions and assuming you'll be invisible and flanking every full round attack.

So the build seems fine, damage-wise. Double Slice is only adding 2 damage/hit on two of your attacks, or about 2.4 damage/round. So something else would certainly be worthwhile there. I'd go with Toughness as well: You've done a lot to shore up your Will saves, but your HP is still low.


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Stephen Radney-MacFarland wrote:


That is at least why I supported the answer how it stands. No FAQ needed.

Good gaming!

The thing is, this is the perfect candidate for a traditional FAQ. Sure, it doesn't change a rule, but it explains the rule. And the question is certainly asked frequently.

But the explanation is buried 262 posts in to a non stickied thread. That makes it hard for experienced forum goers to find the ruling, and all but impossible for new players who really need the clarification.

Searching for Can I take 10 on climb checks? yields 3,300 results. And until I posted that phrase here, this thread with the actual clarification doesn't even show up until the bottom of the first page, and no post referencing the PDT explanation shows up in the first five pages of results.

FAQing it would make it available to even the newest players in seconds.


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Claxon wrote:

So long as you're not making an attack with your shield or shield arm and only use two "hands" worth of attacks then you are fine.

So yes, you can wear a shield and get the shield bonus and attack with your longsword and armor spikes.

For what it's worth, armor spikes do not count as being wielded in a hand, but take up a "hands" worth of effort to attack with.

Tl;dr: You should be fine.

I would disagree with that, based on this FAQ:

Armor Spikes: Can I use two-weapon fighting to make an "off-hand" attack with my armor spikes in the same round I use a two-handed weapon? wrote:


No.
Likewise, you couldn't use an armored gauntlet to do so, as you are using both of your hands to wield your two-handed weapon, therefore your off-hand is unavailable to make any attacks.

You can use the same logic to read that as "you are using both of your hands to wield your shield and weapon, therefore your off-hand is unavailable to make any attacks."

Think of is as having two hands worth of stuff you can do. Wielding a shield takes a hand, making an attack with a main hand weapon takes a hand, making an attack with an off hand weapon takes a hand (and armor spikes are treated as an off hand weapon if you're using a main hand weapon), making an attack with a two handed weapon takes both hands. (Some things add an action you can take, such as the helmet that grants a gore attack or the iron beard that explicitly grants an extra attack.)

So, shield, main hand, armor spikes: Pick two.

For PFS, at best expect table variation. There will certainly be some people who won't allow you to TWF and get the shield bonus, while others might well allow it.

I'm not sure that Improved Shield Bash would work, either. The way it's written says flat out no, since you're not making a shield bash. But the spirit might be "yes." Again, table variation, and I'd personally be much more likely to allow it in a home game than a PFS game.

If you only plan on playing this character in your local PFS group, talk to your coordinator/GMs for a ruling. If you're planning on going to cons, traveling, or have a really large PFS presence in your area expect to not be able to do your schtick at every table. For best results, explain what your character does before the game starts to get a ruling right off the bat instead of breaking the flow of the game on the first combat.


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Page-Bound Epiphany is the second spell I mentioned that helps you on knowledge checks.

Kreighton's Perusal is the other one.

Other cool spells are:

Cultural Adaptation from Humans of Golarian, which allows you to speak a language with a native accent.

Sure Casting from the Pathfinder Society Primer, gives your next spell a +5 bonus to overcoming SR.

Aram Zey's Focus from the Pathfinder Society's Field Guide gives you trapfinding and bonuses to disable device for a minute/level.

Twisted Futures from the Gian Slayer's Handbook prevents the target from using "roll twice (or more) and take the better result" abilities.


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One of the biggest issues I have with claims of historical accuracy is that they're almost universally focused on limiting martials. You can't play a Cavalier who charges in our game because stirrups weren't invented yet. You can't use the mechanics of the Ninja class because we're in Europe, even though your character is flavored as a Teutonic spy. Wizard wants to focus on illusions and Shadow Conjuration? Go for it!


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Probability of rolling at least one crit threat on a 19-20 weapon in three attacks:

1-0.9^3 = 27.1%

Probability of at least 1 crit threat on a 19-20 range weapon in three attacks with 1 roll:

10%

(Extreme case: Hasted Greater Two Weapon Fighting with Keen Kukris, your probability for rolling a crit threat goes from 92% to 30% per round. This kills crit based builds.)

Probability of rolling at least one higher than natural 1 in three attacks:

1-.05^3 = 99.9875%

Probability of missing all three attacks on a natural 1 when rolling once:

5%

I wouldn't want to play this way just on crit threats and auto misses. But, you've also got the fact that your attacks are no longer independent of each other. Sure, average damage stays the same, but the variability of your damage increases. You're back to level 1-5 where a single bad roll means you've wasted your turn.Your average damage per round stays the same, but combat isn't a monte carlo simulation going through 10,000 iterations to compute an average, it's just a couple rounds where the fewer rolls you make, the more likely extreme events are going to happen.

If you want to speed up combat, take the other suggestions: Pre-roll attacks and damage, write up a cheat sheet with your different possible attack and damage bonuses, get a calculator. Then have your player tell you the results, not make the rolls, on their turn.

4/5

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Andrew Christian wrote:


There are many, many, many stories of all the horrible atrocities that corporations inflicted upon their rank and file. And some still exist today after hundreds of years.

So it is absolutely probable that a corporation such as the Pathfinder Society and the Decemvirate could continue to be successful without any kind of external or internal oversight.

This is actually more common, especially the further back in time you go, than you are making it out to be.

a.) How many of those atrocious companies were successful for long.

b.) More importantly, what kind of workers were they oppressing?

Almost universally it was unskilled labor that was cheaper than raw materials at the time. In many cases, laborers who were legally tied to the land and not allowed to leave.

That's not what PFS field agents are. They're much more valuable: Exceptional people to begin with, the Society spends three friggin years training them before they go out on missions, dedicating three of their most senior Venture Captains to training and other agents to assist in that training.

Pathfinder agents are not cheap to replace, and even in the absence of OSHA, firms treat expensive, difficult to replace resources much better than cheap, easily replaced resources. Even if the dark ages carpenter beat his apprentices, he still treated his tools very well because those were expensive but apprentices were cheap. PFS field agents are expensive capital. Oliver Williamson's The Economic Institutions of Capitalism has a chapter on labor, unions, and contracting that is applicable here.

Why would the Decemvirate put up with a labor union? Because agents are expensive and they can't micromanage their VCs to ensure those agents aren't wasted. It's called the Principal-Agent problem: How does the Decemvirate ensure that VCs and agents are acting in the way they want them to, instead of following their own interests? Sic someone on them whose incentives (at least in one area) line up with the Decemvirate's. Torch has other, nefarious goals as well? How better to keep your eye on him than keeping him in your own organization? Two birds, one stone.

Finally, there's playing your subordinates off against each other to ensure none become powerful enough to challenge you. This isn't just a fiction trope, it's how Japan and the English Monarchy (for just two examples) actually operated for centuries.

Or, you can disregard the whole body of human knowledge and just make your characters cartoon villains who do bad things just to be bad and still manage to run a successful organization for centuries. Because who cares? It's fiction! But that really grinds on my suspension of disbelief.


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tonyz wrote:

Read the Ride skill carefully -- there are lots of things people can do. (don't forget about armor check penalties applying to Ride).

A Cavalier on his bonded mount gets to ignore armor check penalties to Ride.

Mounted Combat is a bit of a mess. It's best to talk with your player beforehand and come to an agreement on how things work. Anything you're really unsure about is likely to be just as unclear on the forums. So doing things the way they work for your group is about as good as you're going to get.

Here's my run down of most of the contested or confusing rules:

Charging while mounted. FAQ Basically, all the restrictions that apply when charging on foot apply when charging on a mount: No Charge + Vital Strike. Contention: ALL RESTRICTIONS apply when charging while mounted, and some people contend that it's a move action to use Handle Animal to instruct it to attack instead of a free action to guide the mount, so you can never charge unless you're a cavalier. This shouldn't apply to your PC if he's a cavalier since it's a bonded mount and even Handle Animal commands are free actions if they're trained tricks.

Charging, when does it end? I rule the charge ends when the PC attacks (unless he has Ride by Attack.) So, if he's using a lance and his mount doesn't have reach his mount won't get to attack and the charge stops 10' away. Some people argue that your mount will charge until it hits the enemy and the PC takes his attack on the way in. Feel free to choose which rule to use. Controversy: If you stop when you attack, not when the mount attacks, this makes it an invalid charge so your mount can't charge when you have a reach weapon.

Charge Lanes, what's the "nearest square?" I think the currently mostly accepted RAW is that, when you charge, you HAVE to end up in the square most directly adjacent to your target. I.e. draw a line from the center of your square to the center of your enemy's square and you end up in the last square that line goes through. That means that 90% of the time the target is in your path and you can't move on with Ride By Attack. Even if, say, you're shifted by one square away from a straight line to the enemy. There may be some newer rules interpretations, like in Melee Tactics Toolkit or the new Rules cards that give you more flexibility over that, choosing any square that's adjacent to the enemy and not on the other side. I would suggest you make your own call on this, and let your player know, so that everyone will know whether Ride by Attack will happen very often or not.

Lance damage. Lances are special: You get 1.5 Str to damage and -1/+3 Power Attack damage even when you're holding them in one hand while mounted. Shield + Lance is very effective. Power Attack FAQ. The Two-Handed Weapon rule says "...Apply 1-1/2 times the character's Strength bonus to damage rolls for melee attacks with such a weapon." Every ability that allows you to use a larger weapon in one hand explicitly says "you only get 1 times your Str damage" except the lance which implies that you do get 1.5x Str with the lance. If you want to rule otherwise, let your player know.

Trample Feat Does your mount need the Improved Overrun feat to not draw an AoO? Whose CMB do you use? The rule of thumb I learned was "use the rider's numbers" when doing something mounted. But, again, that's a call you'll want to make if your player picks up this feat.

Ride Checks Just a reminder, but you do not auto fail skill checks on a natural 1. So once your PC has a +4 bonus to Ride, he won't need to make a roll to guide with his knees because he can't fail. But he will need to make a DC 10 Ride check to fight while mounted, or he spends the round trying to control his mount. I'd suggest both of you reading through the Ride and Handle Animal skills carefully. Also, you need to train the "Attack" trick twice if you want your mount to attack anything other than an animal, humanoid or magical beast.

Escape Route and adjacency Do a PC and a mount count as being adjacent? They share the same squares, so if they're adjacent Escape Route means they'll never take an AoO for movement. I don't think the forums have come to a consensus on that, and I'm not seeing a FAQ at first glance. You'll need to make a decision before your player spends resources on it or any similar feats.

I love playing mounted characters, it's a lot of fun. But there are a lot of undefined areas in the mounted combat rules. As long as you and your player are on the same page, which pretty much means you both trust the other not to screw you over, you shouldn't have a problem. But spending 10 minutes to come to an agreement on how this list works will go a long way to making sure everyone has fun. I'm sure there are unclear rules that I missed, so when you run into something that's unclear, I'd suggest you and your player talk it out and come to a ruling then stick with it. Don't worry too much about being right or wrong based on RAW or the forums, because 9 times out of 10 the forums will violently disagree on what RAW is.

Also, Howie23 has a great link to a series on how mounted combat worked in 3.5. It would be worth your time to read through that, if you're up to it.

<edit> Forgot one: Animal Companion archetypes from Animal Archives These, especially the mount related ones like Charger and Racer trade out Share Spells, but Cavalier mounts don't get Share Spells. The author mentioned on the forums somewhere that he meant for the archetypes to be available to Cavaliers and the requirement was an oversight. Your call on whether or not you want to allow them. </edit>


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zauriel56 wrote:

what feats or abilities/class features exist that cause enemies to attack you? I want to play a tank in the sense that he forces enemies to target him before targeting the spellcasters, or at least gives penalties to enemies who don't focus him.

I know there is antagonize, but beyond that I don't really know.

There are a few ways to force enemies to attack you:

Antagonize - Uses your own standard action and only works once
Compel Hostility - Needs to be cast as a standard action first, then the enemy gets a save.
Caustic Slur - The opponent gets a save and is treated as if he's power attacking you, and you need to be a gnome, ranger, with the enemy type as your favored enemy and it uses a standard action.

There are some ways to penalize your enemy for not attacking you:
Boasting Taunt - A Barbarian rage power.
Lock gaze - Wizard/Magus/Witch/Inquisitor spell that gives allies concealment if the enemy fails its save.

There are ways to protect an ally:
Murderous Command - Like Compel Hostility, but with the added benefit that the enemy attacks one of their own party members, not one of your party members. Standard action, though.
Shield Other - Split damage between you and an ally within 30'.
Aid another - Increase an ally's armor class. This sucks because it takes your standard action and is only +2, but...
Bodyguard - Allows you to use Aid Another to defend an ally as an AoO. This synergizes with some cavalier bonus abilities, such as the Order of the Dragon or Order of the Lion.
Benevolent Armor enchant - Increase the benefit of Aid Another to increase armor class by the enhancement bonus of your armor: An Order of the Dragon using Bodyguard and wearing +3 Benevolent armor increases his ally's AC by 6.
In Harm's Way - Allows you to take a hit for an ally, need to be adjacent to both the ally and the attacking enemy. Bodyguard is a prerequisite.
Stand Still - Allows you to make a CMB check instead of an AoO to prevent an enemy from moving any further. Requires the enemy to draw an AoO. Combat Patrol will increase the area you threaten AoOs in.
Pretty much every Combat Maneuver - These take specialization and aren't going to be universally useful.

I'm sure I missed some, these are off the top of my head.

Rather than thinking "How can I tank like I do in another game?" you would be better served by thinking "How can I protect party members?" Because this is Pathfinder, not other games, and it's got its own mechanics. So strategies based on its own mechanics are much more likely to be successful than trying to shoe horn in strategies from other games.

Secondly, you should ask "Who really needs my protection?" The Wizards and Sorcerers are only actually squishy for a very short time. Once they get mirror image, they're pretty solid, and a flying, invisible, blinking wizard with Emergency Force Sphere prepared is arguably the least squishy character in the game. Divine casters have decent hit points, can get good ACs and have solid protective spells themselves. Rogues, Inquisitors, Alchemists, etc, on the other hand, can be really squishy. (Though sometimes they can also be really sturdy, depending on how they're built.)

Finally, what's really dangerous? Hit Point damage actually ends fights, but the most dangerous things to a party are often not HP damage: Fearing the damage dealers away, paralyzing party members, dropping a couple people into a pit, dropping a cloud to sicken the party, blinding people, etc. Those aren't things you can tank. The longer the enemy is up, the more chances he has to pull off a game changing ability. So the faster you end the encounter, the less likely the enemy can pull a victory out of the jaws of defeat. That means trading your actions to protect another PC might help save that PC in the short run, but it might contribute to giving the enemy a chance to use their combat ending ability later on. That's one of the reason many people are against specializing in tanking and in combat healing at the expense of offensive capabilities.

The challenge of Pathfinder combat is fundamentally different than the challenge of video game combat which uses tanks. You overcome video game challenges by successfully responding to stimulus while still doing your class's schtick: "Don't stand in fire." Pathfinder, however, is a strategy game against intelligent opponents. You overcome challenges in Pathfinder by out thinking your opponent. Pathfinder combat is more like a chess match than a WoW boss fight, "tanking the Queen" is a non sequitor in chess. One of the most powerful things you can do in chess, and in Pathfinder as well, is to make your enemy respond to you instead of doing what he wants to do. That's not available in a scripted video game encounter, and trying to tank the way you do in a video game not only gives up that option, it hands it to the other side.

Or, looking at it another way: Pathfinder combat is pretty much always PVP. Nobody builds a "PVP tank" that does nothing but stand and take hits the way a PVE tank does in any game that I know of.


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That Crazy Alchemist wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
It's obviously just a coincidence that every time they "trip up" it's a caster option (Sacred Geometry, for example), not a martial one.
I've noticed this too. My guess is the dev's like to play casters and that unintended bias slips into their decision making. (But seriously what were they thinking with Sacred Geometry...)

I think it's more that it's easier to assess martials' options than casters' options: It's why we have massive threads on DPR, but very few, if any, empirical threads about maximizing spells. Simply put, you can create a DPR formula, so you can plug a potential martial ability into it and see whether or not it ends with something outside the normal range. There is no "magic effectiveness" formula because magic is so flexible and can affect the game in so many different ways, so you've got to use your judgment. (Notice that magic power creep is never about the amount of damage a spell does, the slip ups always happen with other features.)

I can give you a very clear, very specific set of circumstances in which Power Attack is better than Weapon Focus and vice versa. But how do I even go about defining when and how Grease is better than Silent Image?

4/5

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redward wrote:


*Call out natural 1s and 20s. You don't need to calculate your save on either.

Call out the result of all of your dice rolls, definitely make natural 1s and 20s clear, and if you rolled something so low you're sure won't hit, at least say something like "I rolled a 3, I don't think I have enough modifiers to hit with that." I've seen a lot of players shortchange themselves because they roll low and simply say "I miss" instead of adding up their attack, especially players who are used to playing at low levels and without a lot of buffs. (I've seen other players' PCs almost killed because of this, because the damage that was foregone would have been enough to significantly shorten a fight.) I've also seen crit threats miss.

--Make up some notes on what your attack bonuses are in certain situations. It speeds your math up immensely, and makes you more confident in your result.

--If you aren't good at math, get a calculator. It's better at math than people who are good at math. =D

Let other people make rolls. If someone asks to make a knowledge or perception check, let them make the roll initially and wait until the results are announced before making your own roll. They thought of it, you didn't, let them have the recognition for their good work.

4/5

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dwayne germaine wrote:
Odd, I've never questioned that the "must use the re-roll result" meant anything other than that you couldn't use another re-roll on the same check.

I always read it as only referring to the two rolls in question, to expose the character to the same penalties for failure that a normal roll would:

I'm disarming a trap and roll an 8, which I don't think will make it. So I reroll and get a 3: That's almost certain to set the trap off for missing by more than 5 so I want to take the 8 instead. The "must take the result of the second roll even if it's worse" verbiage doesn't let me reduce my exposure to danger this way. It doesn't have anything to say about other abilities or effects to modify the roll, such as another reroll ability.

If you read the "must take the result of the second roll" so strictly that "must" means you cannot use another ability to reroll, wouldn't that also mean that special abilities like Gallant Inspiration aren't applicable to rerolls? That doesn't make sense because the spell is completely silent on when it can be used other than that it's an immediate action that happens after a roll fails, and it's explicitly intended to convert failed rolls to successful rolls.

The writers are also very conscious of word count, "you must take the result of the second roll" is much more parsimonious than "you must take the result of the second roll unless you have a spell or ability that allows another roll or modifies it in some way." That more than doubles the word count for a rare corner case.

Rerolls are expensive resources, if a player wants to burn multiple on a single roll, why not let them manage their resources?


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Shar Tahl wrote:
As for the OP, and I am not sure if it was said before, but isn't the Cavalier class the proverbial knight?

Not according to Knights of the Inner Sea, which breaks knights down into 3 types with common classes for each. Cavaliers are but one of many classes which make great knights: (pag 5)

Heavy Knights: "Fighters, Cavaliers and Paladins make up the majority of heavy knights..."

Thaumaturgic Knights: "Magi, Clerics, Wizards, and Sorcerers make excellent thaumturgic knights..."

Unhindered Knights: "Rangers, Inquisitors, Bards and Monks who follow a knightly code can often be classified as unhindered knights..."

If an official Paizo publication is calling Bards and Wizards who follow a knightly code "great examples" of types of knights, I see no reason why anyone would take issue with a sub class of the cavalier who has a horse animal companion a knight. The only way Paizo could be clearer about saying "you do not have be constrained by the fluff of your class" than citing Wizards and Bards as great examples of knights would be to say it explicitly.


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Name of PC: Ena
Class/Level: Alchemist 7
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: (Staggered) Xanesha: Vital Striking, Power Attacking Longspear crit
Story: The whole party had a bad day at the old clocktower, but Ena had the worst. First she got a bell dropped on her, not really a big deal, just a little healing required. (The Warpriest got missed by the bell but fell through the hole, luckily for him feather fall was available.) Next, to build up suspense, I gave them a perception check and told them they saw something moving around trying to cut another bell down. That got the group moving, but Ena had Spider Climb, so she went straight up at a 30' move speed while everyone else was going around at 20' speed. That ended up with her flanked and taking a heavy pick crit. (I rolled different random weapons for the Faceless stalkers just to keep things interesting, ended up with a heavy pick, siangham and naginata, who would have guessed I'd be rolling 20s that day.)

After withdrawing back to the group, finishing off the faceless stalkers, and healing up, they head up to the top of the tower. Instead of a demon flying around, I had Xanesha major image up a succubus and use ventriloquism to chat up the party. Being the good adventurers they were, the party spread out and slowly moved up to surround the succubus, with Ena taking the lead chucking a bomb at her. The promptly failed the Will save to realize she was bombing the Succubus and the party collectively groaned as the succubus took off and started summoning a Babau. Ena got another bomb off, again failed her will save, but "made the succubus lose her spell." At this point the succubus sort of just hovered in one spot staring kind of vacantly for the next 3 rounds, but Xanesha got a solid sneak attack from invisibility in against the Warpriest. The fight doesn't go well in the first two rounds, everyone but the priest fails their save against the spear and take -2 to everything, making it hard to hit Xanesha (who was fully buffed with 7 mirror images up.)

The Warpriest went down, but the fighter shoved a potion down his throat to bring him back up, and he healed himself. Both the fighter and ranger got tripped when they drew AoOs moving in to attack her, and the ranger got overrun (but missed his AoO) when she needed some space.

Things were looking a little grim, with the Warpriest low and the ranger at 3 HP, when Ena got back into the game. She'd climbed 20' up the statue and chugged some buffs, and then hit Xanesha with a frost bomb, staggering her. With Xanesha staggered, the Warpriest healed himself up and all the images gone, things started looking up. Unfortunately, Ena was only a 5' step away from reach and all the others were right in Xanesha's face.

So, 5' step, Vital Strike, Power Attack: Natural 20. Confirmation roll: 19. Longspear: The only x3 crit simple weapon = 6d8+ 60 for a total of 86 damage. Ena is no more.

Next round, right before the Warpriest can heal the ranger, she uses the mask on him. He has a ton of bonuses to his saves, probably needs less than a 5, maybe only a 2... rolls a 1. Just the fighter and ranger, she successfully casts defensively and the fighter (almost fresh HP) fails his save verses Suggestion. Instead of basically ending the game right there, I tell him not to use his Step Up line of feats, and we go back and forth another round or two, both of us missing for the most part. But a lucky crit knocks Xanesha down to 10, so I take a withdraw action, get part of the way down the tower and go invisible to get away.

Now, Ena being the devout follower of Callistria she is, is out for revenge and I've got to come up with some sort of sleuthing adventure for the group to track her down.


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Since First Edition has been mentioned numerous times, here's why the book says they have to be evil:

AD&D First Edition Assassin wrote:


Assassins are evil in alignment (perforce, as the killing of humans and other intelligent creatures for the purpose of profit is basically held to be the antithesis of weal.)

Ahhh, 70's fantasy prose.


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Here's the actual FAQ: http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fn#v5748eaic9p1m

FAQ wrote:


Rogue: Does the dodge bonus from the “offensive defensive” rogue talent (page 131) stack with itself? Does it apply to everyone, or just to the target I’m attacking?

There are two issues relating to this rogue talent.

One, in the first printing it provided a +1 circumstance bonus against the attacked target, which was a very weak ability. The second printing update changed it from a circumstance bonus to a dodge bonus, but accidentally omitted the “against that creature” text, which made it a very strong ability.

Two, it doesn’t specify whether the dodge bonus stacks with itself, and because this creates a strange place in the rules where bonuses don’t stack from the same source but dodge bonuses always stack. While we haven’t reached a final decision on what to do about this talent, we are leaning toward this solution: the dodge bonus only applies against the creature you sneak attacked, and the dodge bonus does not stack with itself. This prevents you from getting a dodge bonus to AC against a strong creature by sneak attacking a weak creature, and prevents you from reaching an absurdly high AC by sneak attacking multiple times in the same round.


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In order for it to be fair, the GM needs to find a way to communicate to the players that they aren't supposed to fight the enemy. Walking through a dungeon full of skeletons, kicking down a door, and finding a Vampire as level 2 PCs isn't fair. Getting a request from the village elders to go up to the baron's creepy manor and ask him to intercede with the duke for a temporary reprieve in their taxes because they've had a horrible harvest due to a drought, and finding out the baron is a vampire? That's fair.

If you want level 2 PCs to fight a CR 10 anything? No, that's not fair. It might be "realistic" because vampires are always running into low level schlubs, but it's not fair because the PCs are supposed to be the heroes of the story, not schlubs.


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TheCowabunga wrote:
But at level 5 clerics can cure cursed items. It looks like even with what little quest the gm gives us we will have this robe soon at lvl 5 or 6

At level 5 or 6 most of your PCs will have 40-60 HP while the cleric is healing 2d8+6 (if it uses his caster level), about 15 HP on average. CR 5 creatures should average about 20 damage on a successful full attack, so he's got enough healing to neutralize a trivially easy encounter, but CR 7 creatures are hitting for about 30 so he's extending a fight by about a round if the enemy focuses on one of your tougher PCs while he does the MMO healer thing.

That's going to get a lot weaker really fast.

On the other hand, by using it out of combat to heal people up, he gets to use his actual spells for actual stuff instead of being an HP battery. That's going to make things more fun for him, and if he's any good, it will have far more impact on your combats than 2d8+6 will.

I don't see a huge problem with this: It won't be effective in combat healing for long, but it will be a potentially huge quality of life improvement for the Cleric if the rest of the party expects him to be the party's HP battery. And it will save a lot of money on Cure Light Wounds wands for out of combat healing.


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Aldizog wrote:

Limiting full attacks to a 5' step was intended to let fighters protect the squishies. If the troll is engaged with a fighter, it can do a full attack, or it can disengage, move, take an AOO, and get only a single attack against the wizard. So those engaged in melee get some "stickiness" because an enemy gives up a fair amount of damage potential to move (in addition to taking the AOO).

...

This is the main reason I like the full attack action as a full round action instead of letting characters get a move and full attack in at the same time:

It forces players to make a meaningful choice: Stand still and do max damage, or move and do less damage? Choices make games interesting.

This leads to more tactical options: Delay to let the monster come to me so I can full attack but it can't? Make a standard attack with a reach weapon then move away and draw an AoO to make the enemy come to me, equalizing the number of attacks a strong enemy gets? (Or at least minimizing a multiattacker's advantage.) Stand still, full attack and try to kill this less dangerous guy, or move and single attack the more dangerous guy behind him? These are the kinds of decisions that make game play interesting.

Another thing to consider is that allowing movement + full attacks is much more advantageous to monsters than to PCs at low levels. My 3rd level Fighter gets his "full attack" regardless of whether or not he moves, but now the Ghast gets his full attack against me every round no matter what I do.

Martials do need some more options than just stand and full attack, but they should still have to make a tradeoff to do their maximum damage to one target. Something like the Dervish Dancer's Dance of Fury, allowing them to make their full attack while moving as long as they move between each attack would be a good start. That would allow martials to engage multiple mooks without giving everyone Pounce + Wheeling Charge.


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NobodysHome wrote:

Aforementioned telescope enthusiast built his own mahogany table with built-in 55" flatscreen TV, but the problem with TV monitors is that you have to protect the screen, so there's some distance between the screen and the minis = parallax issues. (I sit at one corner of the table and always see the figures as "in the middle of nowhere" instead of in a square.)

Parallax is something I've been wondering about. We were planning on building a table with an inlay for a Chessex map that would let us put a piece of Plexiglas on top to be flush with the table surface. But that would put the minis nearly an eighth of an inch off the grid. (The do-it-yourself plans got cancelled when we finally got honest with ourselves and acknowledged that a.) we don't have the tools, time, or working space to actually build something, b.) it would probably cost as much to build as to buy, and c.) needed a conventional dining room table in the first place. Maybe in a couple years...)

Don't you have problems getting your minis in the right place with overhead projections, though? Shadows and all? Or are you all moving things around sandbox general style with extendable back scratchers and the like?

I really like the idea of using Roll20 to show the exploring positions, and then drawing out one room at a time for combat. That's readily achievable.


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tony gent wrote:
I'm not talking about how well players build there characters but how much they feel the need to brag about it

Judging by the amount of "Back in the day I had a super awesome character that did <long, rambling story about how awesome a character was>..." I regularly hear from old timers: Not much has changed.

How those conversations go almost certainly has changed since different systems have fundamentally changed what a character is. What we remember of those conversations is certainly clouded by selective memory of the good things. And some people certainly are more competitive like this than others so the amount we see at any time can vary. But bragging about characters? Yeah, that's basically how the Epic of Gilgamesh came about: "Our first king was so awesome that the gods themselves created a super man just to take him out 'cause they were jealous. And what did Gilgamesh do? He hooked that guy up with a chick and they became best bros." <100% guranteed accurate translation from the Assyrian.>


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You can actually find the turnover point algebraically.

The damage formula is h(d+s)+tchd.

h = Chance to hit, expressed as a percentage
d = Damage per hit. Average damage is assumed.
s = Precision damage per hit (or other damage that isn't multiplied on a crit). Average damage is again assumed.
t = Chance to roll a critical threat, expressed as a percentage.
c = Critical hit bonus damage. x2 = 1, x3 = 2, x4 = 3.

We can separate d into w and x for {w}eapon damage and {x}static damage. Using your examples:

Dagger = h(2.5+x+s)+0.1*1*h*(2.5+x)
Sickle = h(3.5+x+s)+0.05*1*h*(3.5+x)

Then just set them equal to each other and solve for x:

h(2.5+x+s)+0.1*1*h*(2.5+x) = h(3.5+x+s)+0.05*1*h*(3.5+x)
<math>
0.05x = 0.925
x=18.5

So, if you had a static damage multiplier (Strength, Power Attack, Weapon Training, etc) of 18.5 and the same attack bonus, you would do the same average damage over time with a Dagger and a Sickle.

As a rule of thumb, you can use the following heuristic, all else being equal (attack, weapon damage enchantment, precision damage...):


  • Each increment in the crit range increases the average damage by 5%.
  • Each increment in the crit multiplier increases the damage by (crit multiplier-1) times the crit range in percent.

So, the weapons break out as:
20/x2 = 5%
19-20/x2 = 10%
20/x3 = 10%
18-20/x2 = 15%
20/x4 = 15%
17-20/x2 = 20%
19-20/x3 = 20%
15-20/x2 = 30%
19-20/x4 = 30%
17-20/x3 = 40%

To compare weapons, find the difference in damage multiplier and the difference in damage dice, then divide the damage difference by the multiplier difference to find out what amount of static damage makes them equal. (Use the absolute values so you don't have to worry about negatives.)

The standard is Greatsword (2d6 = 7 average damage, 19-20/x2 = 10%)
And Falchion (2d4 = 5 avg dmg, 18-20 = 15%)

7-5 = 2, 0.15-0.1 = 0.05, so 2/0.05 = 40

Check the math: (Let's say a 75% hit rate)
Greatsword: 0.75(7+40+0)+0.1*1*0.75*(7+40) = 38.775
Falchion: 0.75(5+40+0)+0.15*1*0.75*(5+40) = 38.8125

Close enough for government work. All things not being equal, like different attack bonuses and precision damage (say, comparing a +1 Keen Falcata to a +1 Flaming Greatsword,) make this rule of thumb break down a little. But solving the equation will always work.

Statistics comes in if you're asking the question "at what level of damage will I be able to actually see the difference between a Sickle and a Dagger; or a Scythe and a Ranseur in normal play?" Crit multipliers and different numbers of damage dice will shift the distribution of damage, so you aren't comparing two simple normal distributions. If I were really into it (and better at programming,) I would create a histogram of the two weapons damage ranges, then look for big gaps. But setting the graph up might be a little tricky.

In any case, the biggest difference between high and low crit range weapons is in what you can do with crits: Butterfly's Sting, Grit/Panache, Spellstrike, Blinding/Deafening/Stunning/sickening/etc critical are all so powerful that the weapon damage itself is pretty meaningless. What's a couple points here or there when we're talking about a 10% or even 20% higher chance of changing 10d6 into 20d6, or stunning an enemy?

4/5

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BigNorseWolf wrote:
eternallamppost wrote:


The question for whether or not we ban something is not "what is it adding?" The question is "What is it hurting?" and the answer here is not much.

Its a two parter. What does it add to the game VS what does it hurt.

In this case its hurting the low level play in some areas where the trend catches on. As it seems to add nothing to the game even that localized damaged to the game seems to call for a ban.

Disruptive characters are a player problem, not a mechanics problem. How many people spending two PP on combat trained tigers would not have some other disruptive character if the tiger was banned? Banning these isn't going to prevent a player from rolling up a Heaven's Oracle or 20 Str 7 Int/Cha Barbarian in response. (Dumped mental stats for troll value more than resource allocation.)

Furthermore, banning an option instead of talking to players about it directly is sort of passive aggressive and catches those players who don't abuse the options as well. I don't even want to troll, but every time something I want to use gets banned because people don't like it, I just want to go out and make a character that takes the fun out of the game for the naysayers using just CRB options.

Again, disruptive characters are a player problem, not a rules problem. Banning one option won't prevent these players from being disruptive, heck, banning everything but the CRB won't even do that.

My vote is to leave things as they are. Keep these options available.


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Jiggy wrote:
Paladin of Baha-who? wrote:
If your die consistently rolls low, replace it. Many game-store dice are not properly weighted, simply due to poor manufacturing standards. While rolling low and missing an attack you would have hit without power attack is frustrating, a genuinely fair die will result in power attack producing significantly higher average damage output over time. Keep in mind that a run of bad luck, or a bad roll at a crucial time, doesn't invalidate the overall statistical benefit of power attack.
If you're rolling the die enough to actually have a good idea of whether it truly rolls low, consider diversifying your hobbies. ;)

My other hobby is statistics, so identifying whether any of my d20s are biased is diversifying my hobby! :P


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More or less necessary:

-18 Str (Unless you go archer)
-Power Attack

That's really it, class features provide the rest. You fall a bit behind full BAB characters, especially at levels where they get iteratives and you don't, (because Inquisitors have enough bonuses that they actually hit regularly with iteratives.) But you catch up again in a couple levels.

Extra stuff to make you a monster, in no particular order:

-Fate's Favored + Magical Lineage (Divine Favor): Quickened Divine Favors at 10th or 11th level for +4/+4 imo is a better use of 4th level spell slots than Divine Power as a standard action, especially when combined with...
-Boots of Speed: Free action Haste. Nuff said.
-Sanctified Slayer archetype is probably a straight damage increase, though it reduces your flexibility to deal with multiple situations like overcoming DR or Self Stabilizing through fast healing. Cornugon Smash + Shatter Defenses might be really good on this build: Power Attack then Power Attack + Sneak Attack then ...
-Rage subdomain
-Enough Dex for Precise Strike
-Not too much Wis, 14 or 15 is plenty
-Judgment Surge
-Extra Bane depending your group's style: 15 minute working day or in it for the long haul with tons of hard encounters before a rest. In the latter case, this might be in the "necessary" category.


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Well, the Isle of Kortos is large enough to have a mountain range, so it's entirely reasonable to believe that there are artesian wells, underground rivers, an aquifer of some sort feeding the city.


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Imbicatus wrote:
Blakmane wrote:
Arturus Caeldhon wrote:
I'm glad for this. It destroys a lot of terribly cheesy builds.
Care to name a single early entry prestige that is better than the base class it draws from?
Devil's Advocate: Evangelist.

The Evangelist prestige class was released a year after the original FAQ went into effect. If Evangelists were overpowered due to early entry, that says a lot about the writing, editing and development of the book, but nothing about the value of using SLAs for early entry.

If a rage power were created today that said "you receive the benefits of one third level spell while raging," and everyone picked Haste, would that be a problem with Haste or the rage power?


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UnArcaneElection wrote:

^And they should have said something about whether they intended to fix the problems that the old FAQ bandaged.

Well, the professional way to do something like that (reverse the FAQ to make room for a replacement) would be to announce the change, explain how it's necessary in order to clear the road for a better fix, and time it to make the least impact on the player base.

Instead, they made an unannounced change to the FAQ on a Wednesday afternoon, there was one vague comment from an individual developer buried in a player created thread that isn't even in the Rules forum, and the only product I can see this change clearing the road for is two months out (and doesn't mention anything about prestige classes.) You've also got the creative director on the record as hating the previous rule and taking credit for creating a prestige class almost a year after the ruling was created with requirements that can be met for early entry despite the fact that he is vehemently against it.

Paizo's treatment of this specific situation does not inspire confidence in me that they will address our concerns at any time in the future. Much less do so soon.

4/5

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Andrew Torgerud wrote:

@Zach - sub-optimized is not a crime. I'm sorry if the 'group two' characters who retrain would not be maximized/optimized on stats. but that does not negate they have the option to finish out the same PrC path via normal entry.

I am looking forward to high tier games with my standard path mystic theurge. I will be happy to tell you about it next February :D

Hey, I'm the last guy to call sub-optimized a crime. My first piece of advice is that if you're on par with Valeros or Ezren, you're doing fine. For the first year I ran games up here I provided the encyclopedic rules knowledge it took to put mechanics behind what my new players envisioned in their heads, to give them the PC they wanted not the PC I wanted them to play.

I don't do that anymore. The rapier wielding Paladin/Duelist or the Monk/Cleric who basically just buffs and aids his allies, the 16 Int Universalist Wizard, they're OK for a level or two but they start to get unfun when you move up to higher tier games. I've seen too many new players get frustrated, some even gave up, because their character just weren't very fun to play. It wasn't that they weren't keeping up with the 20 Str Bloodrager, it was because they were doing 1d6+3 damage against mooks that had 40 or 50 HP.

You don't have to be optimized to have fun, but there is a lower bar on effectiveness in order to have fun. (There are exceptions, but those are actually advanced topics, not something to wander into or try as a new player.)

So, if you had two or three levels on a PC that you planned to enter into a prestige class early on, it's bound to be frustrating. You weren't building an intentionally weak character. Moreover, this change is likely to feel punitive because you were intentionally building a very moderately powerful character, just to have the option banned and get stranded in something that has now gone from moderate to weak. You just went from carrying your weight to being carried. Not everyone likes to play that kind of PC, not everyone can pull it off successfully, and I'm pretty sure nobody wants to do it unintentionally as the result of someone else's decision without notice. After all, I would certainly make different choices (some of which cannot be retrained into, like race, traits and stat assignments,) if I were building for a normal entry MT than I would if I were making an early entry version.

Finally, there's been a lot of complaints over the power gamers. The type of people who are actively rude towards players who bring unoptimized PCs to the table. (It's one of the reasons people are excited for the Core Campaign, for example.) You know what just happened? The power gamers who weren't jerks; the power gamers who applied their skills to underpowered options instead of overpowered ones; the power gamers who could sit down at a table full of folks that think 20Str is a minimum for a meleer and demonstrate how non-standard, non-OP options can be both fun and successful: Those folks are the ones who just got the rug pulled out from under them. Not the jerks running off new players for making a Harsk clone.

Nobody who's building Mystic Theurge, Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster is in the "If it's not over powered, it's not playable" group by definition. But it's easy to come to the conclusion that they're getting treated as if they are.


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Helikon wrote:
Simple answer. Why was a prestige class not worth taking without a loophole?

Keep in mind that most of the prestige classes affected by this: Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight and Mystic Theurge were options available from level 1 back in AD&D 1st and 2nd edition days. They were called Magic User/Thief, Fighter/Magic User and Cleric/Magic user respectively, were quite popular, and surprisingly enough, entry was limited by race. (Which is perhaps why I never had any trouble accepting that only certain races were eligible for early entry.)

Combining these things are iconic to the system, they're what I grew up playing, and weren't actively unfun to get into or play. They were simply normal. 3rd edition changed multiclassing, making these types of characters impossible to create, but the prestige classes brought them back, in theory. This FAQ made them actually playable, though still at a lower relative power level than their original incarnations: The original Cleric/Magic User would be roughly 1 level behind either a pure Cleric or pure Magic User, for example.


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The shield adds 25,000gp to your budget.

Ring of Spell Storing with a Quickened Shield would make up 4 of the AC. Would your PCs likely do something that the Ring of Freedom of Movement would negate? That would be a net of -10,000 for swapping the rings, leaving you with 15,000gp to work with.

Swap out the Headband of Inspired Wisdom +6 for a Headband of Mental Prowess +4 (Int and Wis) gain you 4,000gp, and let him qualify for Combat Expertise. That would give you +5 to his AC at the expense of -5 to attack. Are your PCs the high AC types where the reduced attack bonus would significantly reduce the danger? (Hmmm, Furious Focus and a Spring Attack build might be the way to go if you do this...)

That would also leave you with 19,000gp of budget for extra stuff. Like upgrading his cloak to a Major Cloak of Displacement (it's cheating a little, but not much.) Especially if your damage dealers don't have Permanent True Seeing.

Alternatively, you could swap his Str and Dex around, make Chellan an Agile Elven Curved Blade, and give him Mithral Full Plate. Armor training 4 + Mithral brings the max dex bonus to Full Plate up to +7, leaving him 1 AC shy of where he was with the shield. Also, it reduces the damage from +13 to +9 from his stat, though he still gets the +15? from Power Attack, putting him more in line with where his damage was when wielding a one hander. Also, that increases his initiative to +13-ish, giving him a better chance of getting to act.

If you go with rebuilding him, the first time I looked at the Viorian I thought a Duelist would be a good fit. Now that the ACG is out, Swashbuckler would do really well, I think. For a two handed weapon wielder, a Warpriest of Lamashtu could be downright scary: Chellan doing 2d6 damage with a 15-20 crit range and an extra +4 worth of enhancement bonuses that can be added as a swift action...


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Latrecis wrote:


I'd ask her what she wants to play. If she's not sure, have her read the player's guide and see if you can tie her to some of the NPC's in Sandpoint.

If she doesn't know the game very well, she won't necessarily have a good idea of what she wants her character to do. So you might want to ask her leading questions rather than just "What do you want to play?"

Things like
In combat, do you want to:
-Do you want to kill enemies? Control the battlefield? Support the team?
--Kill enemies by smashing them with a pointy stick? Shoot them full of holes from a distance? Blow them up like a Hong Kong fireworks display?
--Control the battlefield by...
--Support your allies by...
---So on and so forth.

Out of combat, do you want to:
-Be a social butterfly?
-Know all the things?
-Hang back and let others take the lead?
-Perform feats of physical prowess?
-So on and so forth...

Starting with broad questions and then narrowing down the specifics can lead you to good classes, builds, even personality choices like deities and traits that will be fun for her to play.

What I see your group being weak on are 1.) Knowledges and 2.) Possibly social skills, depending on whether or not your Sorcerer wants to be a face. So, depending on what she wants to do in combat, classes like Bard, Inquisitor (Conversion domain), Investigator or Alchemist (especially Mind Chemist) would all fill both of those out of combat roles. (The latter two using something like Clever Wordplay to get Int instead of Cha for Diplomacy.)

4/5

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GM Lamplighter wrote:

I don't think the goal should be for scenario writers to make it easy for fighters to solve puzzles. The Lore Warden archetype exists for the Pathfinder Society. Should they also adjust combats so a low-strength rogue with a dagger can defeat every enemy?

First off, Akerlof = Me, didn't mean to sock puppet myself, just forgot to change my default avatar.

The thing is, good game design allows everyone to participate as long as they don't actively choose to disable themselves, at least most of the time. That means combat challenges should be designed so that rogues can feel useful and non-combat encounters should be designed so that fighters can feel useful.

That doesn't mean that every combat encounter should make a Rogue who dumped Str as successful as a Barbarian, and not every non-combat encounter should make a Fighter with 7 int as successful as a Bard. But most encounters should be designed so that a Rogue with 14 Str can participate and a fighter with 14 Cha and a trait can as well.

The game is designed to limit the number of out of combat skills martial characters have, that's a constraint scenario writers need to work with in order to keep those players involved. After all, if I'm building a fighter with 14 Cha, I'm sacrificing a quarter of my potential combat stats in order to be well rounded enough to take part in the non-combat portion of the game. If the writers don't reward that investment, they're punishing me simply for playing a fighter and next time I won't even bother with trying to be well rounded.

John Compton wrote:


Is this to say that challenges such as those in The Blakros Matrimony and Library of the Lion, which call on all of the PCs to attempt skill checks, are well received? I ask this regarding the structure of the challenges and not quite so much the particular blend of skills involved.

I've run 4-5 tables of The Blakros Matrimony and The Merchant's Wake, and each time the players had fun with the skill mechanics. The overall mechanics and narrative of influencing people at a party multiple times were not necessarily universally enjoyed, but the mechanic of "Use diplomacy at DC A or use this other skill at DC B<A, and you get a bonus for each n you exceed the DC by" was well received.

The good things about those scenarios are:


  • Diplomacy was always useful. So, if you have limited skill resources, and pick diplomacy as the one or two skills you can heavily invest in, you got to contribute in a meaningful way.
  • Other skills provided alternative ways to get the same result as Diplomacy. One of my players went from accepting that The Merchant's Wake wasn't going to be a particularly good scenario for her PC to being a rock star when she found out she could use Profession: Pastry Chef (which her character's RP was entirely based around) to advance the group's goals.
  • Heavy investment in a skill paid off. One of my times through The Blakros Matrimony, the Dervish Dancer Bard carried the group and _almost_ singlehandedly assured the party got the maximum number of boons.
  • A modest investment in a common skill was still valuable. One of my Merchant's Wake groups succeeded in getting all the boons/influences despite not having a single "face" type character. Three or four of them had at least a couple points in Diplomacy, and through carefully applying their skills managed to successfully influence everyone they could.

The philosophy behind how skills were used in these scenarios is exactly how I think it should be done: A small number of core skills are always useful, allowing characters with limited resources to contribute. Bonuses are given to characters with very high scores in some skills, but characters with more modest scores (though not untrained) can still consistently contribute beyond assisting. A broad range of skills are available to be used in a way that is complementary or parallel to those core skills, but not instead of them.

<Implementing the philosophy in unique mechanics, narratives and situations is bound to be tough and not universally successful. But I laud the effort made so far trying to do new things and will continue supporting even the failures to encourage the risk taking necessary to develop new cool things.>

Imagine Blakros Matrimony if you took out the option to use Diplomacy, Bluff or Intimidate because those skills are over represented. How many groups would be successful? Even skill monkey PCs like Bards and Rogues would be of limited use. How would you feel if you played a Fighter or Barbarian and invested a significant portion of your available skills, along with some stats that aren't even useful to you in combat, to be a well rounded character: How would you react to the writers effectively saying "No matter how hard you try to be well rounded, we're going to write scenarios that just don't let you participate unless you pick a certain class."

The goal is not for "scenario writers to make it easy for fighters to solve puzzles." The goal is to write scenarios so that players who spend at least some effort to participate outside of combat have a chance to, regardless of their class.


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The Cube of Rubix wrote:

Which SRD?

Fencer's Grace on PFSRD

Because it is on that SRD

d20PFSRD is a third party website with no relations to Paizo. The PRD is Paizo's own site, linked directly to the left of here, and only includes the non-Golarian specific hardcovers.

4/5

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EricMcG wrote:

Core is optional, so I am still trying to get my head around the issue you are having.

Core creates the same set of problems as mixed high and low level characters create: It's not going to be an issue if you hit a certain threshold of players, but below that threshold you're at risk of getting stuck in a perpetual 1-2 loop.

You run into problems with a small group, say 3-4 regulars that show up every time and 6-8 people that show up, say, once a month. The regulars will relatively quickly level up to 3 or 4 or 5, but there are always a couple players showing up to round out the table but only have a 1 or a 2. So, unless you grow large enough to expand to two tables, your regulars are stuck effectively abandoning their PCs and starting over every time they level out of content.

Now, with Core, instead of 2 possibilities (high or low) you have 4: High or Low Classic and High or low Core. That means, if you're trying to run everything, the odds of having everyone at the table high enough to run something other than 1-2 are halved.

That's what people are worried about.

The key to running a successful PFS game day will be careful scheduling by the coordinators. Coordinators will need to schedule their games more carefully to ensure that people can level their characters and see higher level content. That's going to be tough, because there will be some players who don't care about higher level play, there will be some who want the simplified game Core offers, there will be some who want to continue growing their current characters.

Coordinators will be tempted to try pleasing everyone. The set of cases where that isn't possible has just increased because the set of options has increased: In order to please players who want Core games, coordinators will either need to run more games or convert some Classic games to Core. Not everyone will be able to expand the number of tables they offer, due to time, personnel, space, and any number of other constraints. Not everyone is capable of stepping up and coordinating extra games. If you offer Core games but do not expand the number of tables you schedule, you have to offer fewer Classic games.

Offering Core tables will not reduce the opportunities for Classic players everywhere. Plenty of places have plenty of resources to add some Core tables without impacting players who want to go to Classic games. Some places will have new players come in to swell the ranks, or new coordinators and GMs stepping up. That's great.

But offering Core tables without paying close attention to the effects can be detrimental in some cases. Again, the same problem that crops up with single table groups who can never get out of 1-2s will show up with small groups that try to do both Core and Classic games. What's the magic number to be big enough to support both campaigns? Nobody knows.

Core can be good for the group overall but still negatively impact individual players. Core could be a huge success, you could double the number of players and re-energize the existing player base. But if too many people switch to Core games that there aren't enough people at the right level to kick off Classic tables, there will be people left out in the dark. I'd hate to see my Harrower get stranded at 7 because everyone switched over to Core for a year, for example.

I'm sure that Core is going to be good for the campaign as a whole. But coordinators need to be careful with their scheduling, especially coordinators with smallish groups, or they might end up getting stuck in a loop where the consistent players can't advance because the inconsistent players are scattered with too many characters and too few chances to catch up in level.

Here's what I mean by "coordinators need to be careful with their scheduling." I currently schedule and GM 6 game days a month, most of them are two tables: One at 1-2 for new players and one alternating between 3-7 and 5-9 to keep experienced players advancing and sophomoric players on track to becoming experienced. I don't have the time to offer more game days, and don't currently have enough GMs to add a table without burning people out. So, if I were to start running Core games as part of my normal game days, I'd have to convert one of my Classic tables to Core. Core will only be 1-2 for a while, but I can't completely replace my 1-2 table because that would strand my newer players who are just getting a chance to advance. I can't replace the higher level table because that would end advancement for my most loyal players. So what do I do? Alternate 1-2s between Core and Classic? That doubles the amount of time a new player takes before they get a chance to play with the "big boys." Alternate Core with the higher level table? That disincentivizes people from leveling up and stretches the big goal, Eyes of the Ten, much farther into the future. Run Core in place of low one week and high the next? Then we're playing more Core than either Classic.

The best I can do as a coordinator is talk to my players, explain the options that I see, and solicit feedback. Maybe someone will step up and start running Core themselves. That would be awesome. Maybe we'll just run Core at the big once a month event our game store puts on, as an advertising thing as much as anything else. I don't know, and the attitude I'm taking into it is "First, do no harm." If I were a player, I think I would prefer for my coordinator to have that attitude than "Check out this awesome new shiny, it's gonna be awesome!!1!"


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BigP4nda wrote:
Akerlof wrote:
Think of Leadership as medieval fealty: The baron owed fealty to the duke and followed his orders. The knights owed fealty to the baron and followed his orders. When the duke went to war, the baron brought his knights and they all fought for the duke, but if the baron was killed, his knights were under no obligation to continue fighting for the duke.

So as long as my cohort is alive and recognizes me as his leader, his followers will also listen to me?

Kinda like when your mom leaves and says "big brother's in charge now, so listen to him" or when your boss gets onto you when his boss is there because anything you do is gonna come back to him?

EDIT: this is automatically considering the fact that I wouldn't order them to do anything that would cause them harm

No, it's more like your mom walking up and telling your brother's friends to mow the yard. Your brother's friends recognize your mom as an authority figure important to your brother, so they probably won't tell her to get stuffed. But they're not going to hang around doing someone else's chores, either.


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I rebuilt Nualia as a Warpriest as well, but tried to stay closer to the original intent rather than completely optimize her. It's surprising how close her rebuilt unbuffed numbers came to the original buffed numbers: Her AC is 1 higher, her attack bonus is 1 lower and for 2d4+5 instead of 1d10+4 (0.5 points more on average), she has 1 more second level spell slot and a couple more hit points.

Then she can buff herself and there will be a significant difference: Keen weapon from her Sacred Weapon ability, +2/+2 from Divine Favor, all of her self targeting spells as swift actions so she can actually use them without dying to action economy.

I'm really looking forward to seeing this fight, especially since the Wizard's only spell left is Darkness, the Warpriest only has 1 spell left, and the Alchemist used up all her bombs on the Yeth Hounds in the chapel.

My Nualia build:

Nualia: CE Warpriest 6

Init +5, Perception +5

HP 51 (61 with False Life)
AC 19, Touch 11, Flat Footed 18 (7 armor, 1 natural, 1 Dex)
(AC 21, 13, 20 with Shield of Faith)

Fort: 7, Reflex 4, Will 9

+1 Falchion +9 (2d4+5 18-20/x2)
--+1 Falchion +7 (2d4+11 18-20/x2) With Power Attack
--Potential Buffs:
----Divine Favor +2/+2
----Keen: Crit Range 15-20 from Sacred Weapon
----Blessing of Str: +3/+0
----Blessing of Chaos: +0/+1d6
----Bull's Strength is already included

+1 Claw +7 (1d6+3 20/x2)
--+1 Claw +5 (1d6+7 20/x2) With Power Attack
----I made the altar in the temple a magical altar to Lamashtu out of Inner Sea Gods. If you perform Lamashtu's devotion at that altar you gain the benefit of Magic Fang for the day. Really fits well here.

Str 13 (17 with Bull's Str), Dex 8 (12 with Cat's Grace), Con 13, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 17
--I swapped her Con and Str scores to make Power Attack legal, but kept her stats the same otherwise.

Blessings:
-Strength: +3 attack for a swift action
-Chaos: +1d6 vs law for 1 minute for a std action
----I used the same blessings as her original domains instead of trying something else.

Spells:
Exactly the same a her original spells, except she adds Grace as an extra 2nd level spell.

Feats:
-Weapon Focus Falchion
-Lamashtu's Mark
-Obedience (Lamashtu) -- Another flavorful add, grants +1 Natural Armor
-Power Attack
-Toughness
-Improved Initiative

On the whole, she's got really similar capabilities to the original on paper. but she'll get more of a chance to use them since she can do a lot of stuff as swift actions. I'm hoping it will be a good challenge but not overwhelming for my PCs. Especially since they don't have much in the way of resources left.

CWheezy wrote:
I think having her not use the claw and bastard sword combo is a flavor failure. Yes it is not good, BUT it is super cool and she will still do a lot of damage to the PCs anyway

I switched it to a Falcata because one of my players uses Falcatas. With all the Lamashtu stuff floating around, he's really hoping to get a nice one at some point in time. So I figured it would be a great way to put some usable loot in the game instead of giving the head Lamashtan a weapon that will just get sold off.

I'm still trying to figure a way to let her use the claw. And if I didn't have a player who uses a Falcata, I probably would keep the Bastard Sword or something similar.

4/5

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It depends on the situation and the tactics as written. Sometimes the tactics explicitly state that a monster will pick one PC and focus on them to the exclusion of others. (This even occasionally shows up in tier 1-2.) Sometimes the most intelligent thing for an intelligent enemy to do would be to kill that downed Barbarian because the summoned monsters will only last a couple rounds and can't touch him anyway, the other PCs aren't much of a threat, and although the Cleric is out of the fight for the moment, the Bard/Ranger/Paladin/Druid/Inquisitor/Alchemist/Witch/Oracle/Investigator/Sk ald/Shaman might bring him back up. (This is within the purview of a GM judgment call. I generally wouldn't want a GM doing that at an event I organized in a 1-2 [though context matters,] but I feel it would be perfectly reasonable for a GM to do that in an 8-9.)

There is no rule preventing GMs from killing characters.

On the other hand, it's not a competition between GMs and players. Good GMs won't go out of their way to kill PCs just to ruin someone's day, and an environment where GMs do so is a lot more likely to die out.

There's no way we on the forums can tell you whether or not the GM acted inappropriately. You need to talk with your local venture officer or the coordinator of the event, they can then talk with everyone who was involved and get to the root of the situation. You can also start avoiding that GM: Tell your coordinator that you don't want to be seated at his table, and why.


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Zhayne wrote:
plusonetshirt wrote:
I was not aware of the OGL. So does anyone still play D&D 4.0, I heard it was more like a MMO on a tabletop,
You heard incredibly and painfully incorrectly. It's no more an MMO than any other edition of D&D has been.

I picked up a 4th Edition PHB when it came out because I was tempted to get back into D&D. I had played Basic, AD&D, and 2nd Edition, but missed 3 and 3.5 (and my only other RPG experiences were Mechwarrior, Ars Magica, and a very little Rifts.) But I was also playing WoW at the time. What I saw when I read through the book were:

--Explicit roles for PCs, including tank, damage dealer, and support.

--Classes explicitly limited to choosing between one or two of those roles, without any real wiggle room to make them work against type.

--Each class has abilities on various cooldowns.
---Resource management via cooldown rather than Vancian casting.
---Abilities from different classes very clearly balanced to have the same effect as similar level and cooldown-length abilities of other classes playing the same role.

--Two full chapters on combat. (AD&D had half a page on combat in the PHB, and only a little more in the DMG.)

These were features I'd seen in MMOs but not in any RPG, certainly not in D&D. That initial shock turned me off to the game.

4th Edition was created with a much more modern understanding of how adventure games work. It uses a lot of features of MMOs, I don't think because it's trying to copy them, but because those features make the game mechanics work better. More coherently. AD&D is a basket case: There's no consistent logic for the rules, they're just a collection of solutions to problems that got patched in as needed, without any apparent thought for how they work as a system. 3.0 and the D20 system was an attempt to provide an internally consistent system, but it kept a whole lot of baggage from the original editions. 4th Edition was a rebuild from scratch using the state of the art at the time.

The problem with 4th Edition was that it lost the feel of the earlier editions. Mechanically, it's a better game than the earlier ones, hands down. But they threw the baby out with the bathwater and lost the feel of the game.

5th Edition is looking like an excellent evolution. It's again taken advantage of what we've learned about how games work, and made a coherent rules system implementing that knowledge. But it's also reached back to the early days and tries to create the same play experience of 1st or 2nd Edition. It's not a "rules light" game (D&D certainly never was,) but it really emphasizes and enables the narrative, in the same way that AD&D did.

Personally, my sweet spot right now is Pathfinder/3.5. I love all the character building options, I love Mathfinder, I'm comfortable with the level of intrusiveness of the current rules, and can build my narrative using those rules. Luckily, you're starting in a time where you have some great options: 4th Edition for a more tactical game, 5th Edition for that good old fashioned D&D feel with a modern rules system, and Pathfinder/3.5 for a really solid balance in between.

4/5

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DruidBrod wrote:
Thank you very much guys. Now that we have this we just need to get our Captain registered. Here's hoping we get it off the ground before Sunday!

You don't need any official venture officers to run games, if that's what you mean. Just register an event, which is actually pretty easy:

Whomever is taking charge just needs to go to http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety then follow the link in the gray bad up to for "My Pathfinder Society."

Assuming you have a PFS account set up (it should prompt you if you don't), you will there will be three tabs under the blurb about the Pathfinder Society: "Player," "GM/Event Coordinator," and "Sessions." Pick the GM/Event Coordinator and click the "Create Your Event" button.

This pulls up a page that looks big and intimidating, but there really isn't all that much to worry about.

1.) If this is just a few friends getting together for a home game, make sure to uncheck the "Event is Public" check box in the Restrictions section. That way it won't be advertised on the Paizo site and you won't have random people showing up.

2.) Aside from having a name, date and location, you don't really need to enter much info. It's best to be as accurate and descriptive as possible if you want to create a public event that will attract strangers, but if it's just a group of buddies, that's about all you need.

3.) Once you've entered the information that you want to, hit the "Save Changes" button and you've created your event. The event will now show up in your "GM/Event Coordinator tab of My Pathfinder Society."

4.) After the event, you'll want to report your players' participation. You need their PFS number, their character number (-1 for first character, -2 for second, etc.), their faction, how much prestige they earned, and whether or not they died. To report this information, just click on the "Report" link and fill the information in in the blanks provided. Make sure to choose the correct scenario name at the top.

4.a) Each scenario has a session sheet that you can pass around for players to fill this out (the GM fills in the prestige at the end). Or you can print those session sheets out by clicking the "Download Session Sheets" link next to the event name in "My Pathfinder Society." Or you can just have people write their info down on a piece of paper, or report it while everyone's at the table. Whatever method works for you.

5.) Finally, make sure everyone gets a chronicle sheet. There are instructions for filling those out in the Guide to Organized Play. (Pages 35-37, they have pictures!) The chronicle sheet is always on the last page of the scenario. If you're running an AP or module, the chronicle sheet can be downloaded from Additional Resources. Modules will be in the side bar on the right, Adventure Paths will be in their entry of the Additional Resources.

I wrote a lot of words here, which makes it look complicated. But that's mainly because I can't use pictures here. If I could show you my computer screen, it would take about 30 seconds to explain. It really is trivially easy to both set up and then report.

4/5

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I don't think I've actually read the fluff description for any of the classes. All a class is to me is a bundle of features that define what my character can do. Therefore, I don't feel like there are any classes that don't fit in PFS: I'm as likely to come up with a Samurai concept that works perfectly with the campaign fluff as I am to come up with a Rogue, Bard or Wizard concept that wouldn't do at all.

So I have a samurai from Minkai who was sent off to join the PFS as a political move to gain the favor of Amara Li. Mechanically he's a fighter.

I have a semi con-man fortune teller who may or may not be ethnically Varisian. He joined the PFS because you'll never get rich just reading cards, he needs the connections he can get through the PFS to make it big. And knowing everything about everything is sort of his schtick, so digging through ancient ruins is interesting and profitable. Mechanically he's a Wizard/Harrower. (Sometimes he "reads" the cards, sometimes he really tells the future. Usually depending on which is more profitable in the long run.)

I have a Gnome who joined the PFS because the Silver Crusade seemed like a group that A.) Has a decent number of members, B.) Often become a captive audience, C.) Won't run him out on a rail, and D.) Really needs to hear the teachings of the Lantern King. And besides, Pathfinders get to travel! Mechanically he's a Cleric, Evangelist archetype.

Some of my character concepts start as a mechanical idea, some start as a personality idea. None of them really care about what class the book says they are, they just do what they do.


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Torchlyte wrote:

Akerlof's interpretation is one that I'd considered as well, but I don't find it convincing. Even if you are a Wizard 1/Magus 1 your character is a (1) wizard and he or she is (2) preparing a spell.

People generally believe that a Spellslinger can use Arcane Gun with other classes' spells, but that ability specifically references the Spellslinger as the one who can use it.

Or go look at the Arcane Trickster:

Arcane Trickster wrote:
Tricky Spells (Su): Starting at 5th level, an arcane trickster can cast her spells without their somatic or verbal components, as if using the Still Spell and Silent Spell feats. Spells cast using this ability do not increase in spell level or casting time. She can use this ability 3 times per day at 5th level and one additional time per every two levels thereafter, to a maximum of 5 times per day at 9th level. The arcane trickster decides to use this ability at the time of casting.
It's pretty obvious that this ability applies to spells that the AT gains from other classes.

Arcane Trickster, as well as other prestige classes, are not very good examples:

How many spells, and what levels, does a 5th level Arcane Trickster get? Is Scorching Ray on the Arcane Trickster spell list?

The problem with your reasoning is that, as a prestige class, the Arcane Trickster doesn't grant any spells at all. Instead, it advances another class's spellcasting level. So, Tricky Spells cannot be referencing class specific spells, because there aren't any class specific spells for the Arcane Trickster. In order to do anything, Tricky Spells has to apply to another class's spells, and since the number of uses per day is tied to your Arcane Trickster level, rather than character or caster level, it makes sense to reference "Arcane Trickster" instead of "You" in this context.

That's fundamentally different than the how a Wizard or Magus works.

You mention the Spellslinger, look at what the arechetype says:

Arcane Gun wrote:


A spellslinger can cast any ranged touch attack, cone, line, or ray spells through his arcane gun. ...

It clearly says "any ranged ... spells..." rather than "ranged ... Wizard spells..." or something of the sort. If casting Reach Harm wasn't intended, then that's a poorly written archetype. Plain and simple.


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That's not right, remember to read the rule in context: It's a Wizard class ability talking about a Wizard's ability to prepare spells:

Arcane School wrote:


A wizard that chooses to specialize in one school of magic must select two other schools as his opposition schools, representing knowledge sacrificed in one area of arcane lore to gain mastery in another. A wizard who prepares spells from his opposition schools must use two spell slots of that level to prepare the spell. For example, a wizard with evocation as an opposition school must expend two of his available 3rd-level spell slots to prepare a fireball. In addition, a specialist takes a –4 penalty on any skill checks made when crafting a magic item that has a spell from one of his opposition schools as a prerequisite. A universalist wizard can prepare spells from any school without restriction.

If he's preparing Magus spells in a Magus spell slot, he's not a Wizard preparing spells: He's a Magus. He has a level of Wizard, sure, but that doesn't have anything to do with his Magus class features. He uses the Wizard rules, and only the Wizard rules to prepare spells in his Wizard spell slots. And the Magus rules, but only the Magus rules to prepare spells in his Magus spell slots.

That means no bonus spells for Magus levels, as well as no double slots for Magus spells from his Wizard opposition school.

Compare the general Wizard school wording to the Admixture school wording:

Admixture School wrote:


Versatile Evocation (Su): When you cast an evocation spell that does acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage, you may change the damage dealt to one of the other four energy types. This changes the descriptor of the spell to match the new energy type. ... You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Intelligence modifier.

Look at the difference: "When you cast a spell..." compared to "A Wizard who prepares spells..."

That's what the FAQ is talking about. The rules about opposition schools and extra slots are only for Wizard spells prepared in Wizard spell slots and have no impact on other classes' spell preparation.


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No votes for Polypurpose Panacea yet? Bored? Cast a spell and ride the trip for an hour or two.

4/5

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Jenter, the Happy Swordsman wrote:

Here's a situation that's been in the back of my mind for a while, but now seems appropriate to the discussion:

This alias is my 3rd-level bloodrager. Sooner or later, he's going to hit 4th level, and gain some spellcasting ability. There's a good chance I'll take burning hands as a spell known, to deal with swarms and whatnot. At that point, I fully expect to encounter some disbelief from GMs when I cast it (for reasons you'll see in a minute).

Now, there's two ways the GM could handle it. Have a look:
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **...

That would be awesome... If that were the situation I were having a problem with.

In fact, I wouldn't be having a problem if that were my situation.

Here's the problem I'm having:

Player: Yikes a swarm/troll/whatever! Okay, I cast burning hands.
GM: Wait, weren't you raging?
Player: Yeah, why?
GM: You can't cast while raging.
Player: <blinks>
GM: It should be in the Rage description of the class.
Player: Spends about a minute fiddling with a stack of books...
{alternatively, Player: Oh yeah, it totes works, something special about Bloodragers, I remember now!}
GM: For the sake of brevity, and because it appears you're the only one in the party with an AoE, and since it won't make any real difference right now, we'll just say you can and look it up after the fight. So, since you're standing in the swarm you'll need to make a concentration check, DC <x>. And then what's your save DC and damage?
Player: <blinks, if we're lucky actually starts looking at their character sheet.>
GM:Step 1, just step over here so you aren't in the swarm. Also you can aim the cone this way so you don't hit allies. The save DCs are on the upper right corner of the back of your character sheet. Remember when I explained how to fill it in?
Player: Oh, a level 1 spell is DC... 13. And Burning Hands does 1d4 per level. <rolls 4d4>
GM: Wait, aren't you only 4th level?
Player: Yeah...?
GM: So isn't your caster level is only 1st? You don't get any spells until 4th level like a Ranger or Paladin, and in those cases you don't have a caster level until you can actually cast spells.
Player: <blinks> But I'm level 4.
GM:But you just got spells this level, like a Ranger or Paladin, shouldn't your CL be Class Level -3?
Player: <blinks> But I'm level 4.
Player2: I think I heard <other player, not even here today> say something about Bloodragers casting at full level.
GM:OK, this is one we've got to look up because it will actually make a difference.
Player: Spends a minute or two finding the Bloodrager entry and passing it over to the GM.
GM:*reads* Okay, it doesn't say you're at -3 CL, {does it say anything at all about Caster Level in the entry? I honestly haven't read it.} Is that another ACG editing error? That doesn't sound right. Whatever, we'll roll with it. Now I have to go home and look up the forums to find one more ruling.

That's what I'm dealing with. Your very own example demonstrates why I'm having problems keeping up: Understanding the Core Rules of the game isn't enough anymore because some of the new things being published intentionally break them. So I can't rule based on my previous knowledge, I have to take the time to read up on the new stuff specifically. And, because there are new elements that don't follow the pattern laid down by older elements, while at the same time there are legitimate editing errors, I can't rely on my previous experience either way, I have to take the time to look it up.

And now they have 6 more classes and how many feats and spells coming out?

4/5

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Jiggy wrote:

I'm not saying we should treat players like they're perfect; I'm saying we should treat players like they're on the same tier as GMs.

Players come from the same pool of human beings as GMs. Players' experience levels can range from "newbie" to "been doing this for 40 years", just like GMs. Players' IQs and rules-fu run the exact same ranges as that of GMs. Players have the same variety of motives, expectations, preferences and playstyles as GMs.

Neither pool is more or less deserving of "innocent until proven guilty" treatment than the other; all I'm advocating is acting on that reality.

You seem to be under the misconception that I'm arguing some theoretical point.

I'm not. I'm expressing the frustration and explaining the real problems I'm running into with the real people I really GM for.

I spend a ton of my own time helping my players out. I go to the game store on off days to help them create characters. I field questions from GMs at all hours to help them prep scenarios. I get pulled away from the table I'm currently running to answer rules questions and when a PC dies I'm called in to make sure everything was kosher. I listen to their gripes about other players and how they spoil the fun by exploiting or appearing to exploit the rules, and watch some of the people I enjoy playing with the most walk away because that makes the game un-fun for them.

And I'm having trouble keeping up with the rules expansions to answer their questions.

This is causing troubles for me and for my players. Real, actual, non-theoretical problems. It's bogging down games while people argue over rulings. It's making it harder for me and my GMs to manage tables and try to make sure everyone is included. It's making GMing less fun and more of a chore.

Jiggy wrote:

There's some misinformation here:

First, the Strategy Guide contains nothing new at all. It's more like "here's how to use the CRB".
Second, Unchained is mostly a bunch of houserule suggestions; not likely to be an issue for PFS.
That leaves ISG, ACG, and OA. I don't remember when the ISG came out, but come on, the ACG and OA are exactly a year apart, which is what you said yourself was fine.

You're welcome to your opinions, but when it comes to actual facts, let's at least be honest, okay?

That's a very confident statement. Look at the Additional Resources entry for the Monster Codex, there's actually a pretty good amount of material being added for what I expected to be a GM resource like the NPC Codex or GMG.

I have absolutely no idea what will be in the Strategy Guide or Unchained. (That's actually part of the problem, there's so much new stuff in the pipeline I can't keep track of it.) But I seriously doubt that there won't be anything new from either of them. I'm still fielding regular questions about retraining from Ultimate Campaign, after all.

Regardless of what actually gets included from either of those resources, the perception is that there's still a lot more coming down the road. And even if neither of them have anything new, releasing OA a year after ACG is really pushing the ability for the community up here to build up the institutional knowledge to help players with it before they've gotten an entirely new set of mechanics thrown at them.

On top of that, it seems that there are a lot more gray areas that require interpretation or judgment calls in the ACG than in previous books. That might be my inexperience talking since I wasn't playing when APG came out. But it's certainly requiring more work from my GMs and me right now.

I love the ACG, I think Paizo is going in the right direction with the new classes. I know a lot of people have wanted to get psionics classes so the OA is a big deal. But they seem too close together, especially with the big releases around and between them. ISG was the release before ACG, so it was out roughly 3 months before ACG and we're still finding stuff in it. (Checked Amazon, ISG was May, ACG was September. So about 4 months.)

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