ZeroCharisma's page

Rebuke Death is fine, but it doesn't seem as powerful as a lot of the other 1st level domain powers. I would like to see something slightly better, perhaps additional use(s) of channel energy or an aura of vitality (all creatures within 30' heal 1hp/rd for a number of rounds equal to your caster lvl, 1x/day per + of charisma modifier) or even somethign nice and simple such as faith healing: use holy water (giving it a material component) to heal a party member for oh let's say 1d6 hp, perhaps scaling it somewhat for later levels.

I am not saying these are the best fixes but I am curious about how people feel about this and would be interested in suggestions on the matter. I merely provide them as examples of something I view as more equivalent to the ability to chuck flaming bolts at will.

I'll try out some options as soon as I can and post if I have anything to add to the discussion.

When we played Monday (my experience as a Barbarian is briefly discussed elsewhere) we had a three man party. Our druid bemoaned his lack of healing skills.

Our cleric was absent and so we had to make do. Our method of coping was to mitigate damage with high AC and mobility, but wounds were still struck, twenties were still rolled and healing needed to be done (twice for NPC's no less).

The player who played the druid was advocating channeled energy for the druid. I think that's extreme. While it would be nice to have more healing if you play without a cleric you must be willing to address the lack of healing by being more cautious, sneaky or just planning more. As it was, the druid scribed several scrolls of cure light before we began and we were fine. I only took 4 hp of damage all session.

I believe that Healing domain should possibly be made available to the druid as a choice, representing their attunement with the rejuvenating powers of nature. It may be worth replacing the first level healing domain power as well, as it is a little weak comparatively.

I like it, don't get me wrong, but in a campaign where stabilize is available as a cantrip it's less than an optimal choice IMO. Maybe have the first level power read:

"You gain one additional use of channel energy (positive only) per day. If you do not have the class ability to channel energy you gain one use per day per charisma modifier."

Maybe a little OP, but... It would certainly heighten everybody's enjoyment.

The Cleric is still the best combat healer there is, so, play without one, but expect that you may have to do less encounters per day and be wise about placing yourself in harm's way.

I welcome discussion on this subject.

While my character in this and last week's session is not your typical bare-chested behemoth barbarian, I thought I'd share some of my thoughts so far.

My character is a dex-based (DEX 17) barbarian (Shoanti- Wind Clan), built using 27 point buy (old 3.5 point buy, not shiny new Paizonian pointbuy, which I prefer) providing ranged support, generally at the beginning of a fight, until I can identify the best target for my melee, at which time I bring my dual wielded longsword and Klar (Two Weapon Fighting and Double Slice for feats)into the fray. Tymmyk happens to be a fairly smart Barbarian as well (INT 12) so he is cautious about allowing his emotions to get the best of him.

While this might not be the build everyone wants to play in the Barbarian class, it is versatile, fun and helps conserve the rage points.

The rage mechanic works quite well IMO. The points prevent wasted rage and allow me to get a little extra oomph for the last few moments of a key fight. There's nothing quite like the raging double slice to finish off a bad guy. When I am ranged support I only need my dex, but I wind up being quite effective in close combat as well in spite of the low str (13 atm).

There is virtually no problem with downtime between encounters because I only rage for a round or two max. I have become adept at avoiding damage through mobility and in the rare instance that we get encountered while I'm still breathing heavy from my last rage, I have my longbow and a move nearly double most opponents we face atm.

At 2d level I got my first rage power. I chose the strength surge ability to augment my admittedly low physical strength in grapples and for the occasional stubborn door. Altogether a workable build. We three-manned the sandpoint glassworks with myself a fighter and a druid.

I would like to play-test he Barb at high levels because it seems like with how expensive the abilities get, I might have to be even more conservative, but I still had plenty to do, and the only combat round I spent out of combat, I was spiking a door and retrieving my bow.

Obviously I have a major weak spot (Will Saves) but I enjoy playing characters who have a few less than optimal attributes for the DM to prey.. I mean play with.

Are barbarians still illiterate in PFRPG?

It does not explicitly say it in the class description but I wasn't sure if that was one of the "if it hasn't been explicitly changed" things or if they are no longer illiterate.

We have spent the last two Monday nights indulging our curiosity about the new PFRPG system within the sprawling streets of Korvosa, ala Nic Logue's new instant classic, "Edge of Anarchy", Chapter 1 of CotCT. Very little adaptation was needed for the first part of this adventure, proving that PFRPG, is as promised almost entirely backwards compatible.

My basic blanket change was to give all the antagonists their racial HP bonus (seeing as that was the system elected by the players for PC's) as I felt that to be fair and balanced, and necessary as the PC's pack a not insubstantial extra punch. Aside from that, little was needed to balance the encounters.

The group consisted of the following on Week 1: (followed by their background trait ala the campaign setting)
Halfling Wizard 1 (Conjuration, Familiar) -Tortured
Halfling Rogue 1 -Missing Son
Half-Elf (haven't seen one of those in a while) Cleric of Serenrae 1 (Sun and Fire)- Dropout
Dwarf Fighter 1 -Personal Addiction (alcohol)

on Week 2 we added a Human Fighter 1 but he won't be a regular part of our playtesting group

Week 2 everyone leveled to 2 about 3/4 of the way into the session. Everyone was ecstatic at their new skills and abilities.

Nobody kept detailed notes, although notepads were at everyone's sides. Mostly I suspect that this was due to the fact that there were zero disagreements, disputes and very little confusion and flipping (electronically) through the rules.

I feel that all of the players were very happy with their new toys and while the Fighter (Teela, a female Dwarf) didn't have too many new abilities (yet), the novice player controlling the warrior felt unabashedly free to Grapple, Disarm and Bull-rush enemies at will, often choosing such maneuvers instead of traditional chop-socky.

Play proceeded briskly in spite of our liberal beer policy and spirits were high. The casters loved being able to be effective in every combat and I found they both moved and thought more tactically because their off turns didn't consist of "I reload my crossbow, shoot and... miss. Pass!".

There was no group tension (rather rare for our group Im ashamed to say), and when they decided to rest after 6 encounters it was a tactical decision with the group in 100% consensus.

Combats on average lasted a round or two longer, but flowed more efficiently. Everyone felt more involved and less discussion dammed the flow of combat to combat.

Non-combat encounters also seemed to be slightly more fluid, perhaps because PC's had often selected RP skills such as professions, interpersonal and even the revitalized intimidate skills to bolster their arsenal of options.

The series of encounters that follows the Fishery set-piece went smoothly with nobody bored and almost everyone contributing. The players felt freer (IMHO) to come up with creative and non-mechanical solutions.

Next week we will head further into the adventure and I promise to try to find a serious critique or two of the rule-set (I have been trying) but mostly I feel that many of the changes are similar to house-rules I already had in effect or changes we had discussed many times around the table, making us eager to try them out in a codified context. The blush is still on the rose for us after two 4-6 hr sessions.

The consensus was that it was very enjoyable, well paced and so far there is nothing to really remove or redact aside from the changes made in the updates. We will see what happens at higher levels, but I remain optimistic.

We all universally look forward to the upcoming additions and appreciate the hard work and graciousness of Paizo in providing us with this unprecedented opportunity to participate in the process. Thanks and great job.
So Far, So Good,
-ZC

This may sound like a stupid question, but one of my players put me on the spot when I said there were Illithid runes inscribed on a door to a dungeon. He said that Illithids don't have their own language, citing in the MM (which a player has no business citing at my table IMHO) where it says that mind flayers speak undercommon but communicate with eachother telepathically. He was upset because he has taken undercommon as a language and is frustrated that I am perhaps not letting him use his abilities to full (he ought to just be happy that I let him take the abjurant champion prestige class in the first place *wink*)

My immediate and final ruling was that mind flayers needed a written language for various reasons like any other intelligent species (and so the doors and other works of art or symbolic locations would be inscribed in alien, Illithid runes), but spoke undercommon for trade, ordering around thralls and communicating with adventurers unfortunate enough to encounter them. A point which I hope to drive home with him soon when his dominated self is running around being commanded in undercommon.

In my heart I believe I have seen Illithid listed as a language, but didn't want to interrupt the game to look through the books for something to support my belief. Can anyone help me out here?

P.S: I don't mean to sound like a jerk DM, and I hope I don't. I just get frustrated and appreciate the help and clarification I can find here. IMO, nobody is perfect (even DM's) and I can always use the input one way or another.

I apologize for the sloppy formatting of the first spell above. I cut and pasted it from the player's email, and I didn't realize bracketed text would be read as formatting by the site and that the text would be broken up like that.

Furthermore, when I went to hit "preview" I hit post instead. Then, I thought the site had swallowed my post, so I said, forget it, I won't bother with it, as it was a long post. I can't edit it anymore, so I think you can muddle through and figure out the energy substitution stuff and I apologize for the messiness of the formatting.
Thanks,
Syl

I purchased this game at a Kay-Bee Toys closeout sale back in '98 or '99 for under $2.00 as a matter of principle (Old Avalon Hill games for under $15 are an auto-sale for me). I also got London Burning and Advanced Third Reich for the same price at the same time. It went unpunched and unplayed and moved with me to several different homes in several states before the other night when we finally unpacked, punched the tiles and set it up.

What a great game! Everyone who played was hooked from the first minute. You play one of six spacefaring trading races and start with a transport and between 60-120 spacebucks ($20 for each player in the game) and must build your empire to $2000 by moving around the galaxy, discovering new cultures, buying cheap and selling dear. On the surface the mechanics and rules are deceptively simple. You move by rolling dice, buy goods and build space stations and factories and occasionally encounter hazards and penalties (which you can buy equipment to deal with) but the charm of the game rests in its subtleties. If you can establish a quick route between cultures and demand gets spiked in one of them for a product the other has, you can quickly amass the needed money, upgrade your ship and/or purchase items you need.

There is a roleplaying component because of the ship upgrades, cultural differences and the general flavor of the game, but it is essentially a very intriguing and early take on the "Tycoon" genre. It is so addictive that we wound up playing until 5AM the first night (two games, 3 hrs for the first, 1 1/2 for the second) and 4AM on the second night. We got together a little while ago for a night of pure MoV and got in three games with average time including setup at between 1 1/2 and 2 hrs. the game is whimsical, non-combative and nicely paced. All in all a good entry-level game for AH. While not as complex and compelling as Kingmaker or ATR, this game will be replayed many times, I believe.

If you can find a copy of the game and enjoy Sci-Fi settings and trading games, I highly recommend this game. We have become utterly geeked out on it, and as a bonus, my fiancee actually likes this game as well- she usually only plays Munchkin and Carcassone with us. This is her first foray into "serious" gaming. Maybe next I will be able to get her to play Advanced Third Reich... Heh heh heh.

On a side note if anyone knows where i can get a copy of Kingmaker by AH, please let me know. It used to be my favorite game growing up and I would love to play again. I would be willing to trade other AH games or buy it.

In a recent encounter, a player of mine used the spell Bands of Steel on a Druid in human form. On the subsequent round I wildshaped into an eagle and the player claimed that the bands contracted to fit the new form. I did not argue strenuously to the contrary or use my DM fiat, because you have to pick your battles, so we wound up compromising. We decided that the eagle was entangled, rather than immobilized, requiring a subsequent DC 13 escape artist or strength check(good luck, birdy) to escape.

I was unfamiliar with the spell because I don't own the Complete Arcane (although I am borrowing it from someone) and upon further review of the description outside of the game, I began to favor my initial instinct more and more. It is a conjuration, and very few conjuration spells change their nature after they are created. The spell creates steel bands which are not known for their elasticity, so if they would still be in human form and medium sized, the druid in eagle form would be able to fly out the top, correct?

I realized afterwards that I could have wildshaped into a large creature, practically negating the spell, but we live and learn, don't we?

I could use some help with this call, as it is one of the player's favorite spells and I expect it to be used fairly often in combat. I am okay with that, but I want to give my mooks a fighting chance too. If anyone has any clever or creative suggestions in regards to circumventing this spell with minimum effort, please feel free to elaborate.

In addition, I am going to go ahead and assume that Freedom of Movement would grant immunity to this spell. Can anyone help me affirm that or correct my assumption if that is the case?

Now that football season is all but over for us J-E-T-S Jets, Jets, Jets fans, I am thinking a Sunday night NWN game would be kinda fun, and I have had a hankering to re-run my "classic" mod Ascent to Kol Guath and it's sequel (the originally named) KG II, which together take the PC's from 1-20. I have been somewhat disappointed by NWN2 and am thinking I would like to revisit the original with a group of dedicated D&D players.

One guy from my PnP group is definitely into doing it, but the mod almost certainly requires 3 or 4 players (preferably the classic party or variation thereof) to complete without characters getting mauled. I believe that if I posted the game online some of my old guildmates who still play might be inclined to join us.

I am a little rusty with the DM client, but if anyone is interested I would be delighted to catch up and I think the mod itself is quite immersive and large enough that my withered DM skills would be lost in the background *g*. Although the 3.0 rules require some sacrifices in character creation, I think fun could be had by all. I don't believe I used many, if any haks to create the mod, and all you would need is an updated install of HoU NWN. If there are haks, I could readily make them all available or post links. Let me know if anyone here is interested. I would have to hold the party size down to six total if it comes to that due to my less than optimal DSL, but we'll see if it comes to that at all.

Thanks for checking this out in advance and hope to "see" some of you online. If this generates enough interest we could begin tomorrow night, after the Jets' presumably crushing defeat. I expect, more realistically to begin next week.

Anyway, this was inspired by the other thread on core feat combos, which had gotten a little distracted because of a question about tripping (tripping can often be distracting, or so I have heard). Reading that thread, I realized that many different interpretations of Attacks of Opportunity exist and many different rules and feats affect it and are affected by it.

I have a specific situation which I would like an opinion on, but I would also like to hear more discussion on and friendly debate over the nuances of this particular facet of the game.

My question is: Are attacks of opportunity never possible when unarmed? The SRD leaves the door open with this:

If you’re unarmed, you don’t normally threaten any squares and thus can’t make attacks of opportunity.

It says normally, implying there are exceptions.

The other day, I had a fighter NPC who kept getting disarmed and tripped, reducing his effectiveness dramatically. He was standing there when the chain wielding Fighter in the party moved past him and began climbing up the side of a slippery stone flight of stairs. I wanted to rule that, because the Chain wielding Fighter is essentially helpless while climbing, I could punch him as an AoO (he doesn't get an AoO against me because he is climbing)...or use my shield as an improvised weapon for the attack. Climbing is one of those special situations, where a creature is virtually completely helpless, and I thought in fairness, that I was entitled to the AoO.

The player objected and started getting rules-lawyery on me, so to avert crisis in what was otherwise an excellently smooth and conflict free session, I simply moved on. I feel I cheated myself though, and I realize I could have forced the issue, but I am not that kind of DM (usually). Even with a penalty (which I would have been happy to apply), a free shot is just that, a free shot. And at the very least, he should have been able to use the shield. Lord knows Spiky McChain Boy would have taken every last combat reflexes feuled AoO on my guy, had he tried the same maneuver.

I highly doubt a trained (8th level) fighter would have just stood by and let the other guy go up the stairs towards his friends without at least a swipe. The player's cockiness is part of the problem, as he sees this character as untouchable (ironic because he has died three times, three times more than anyone else in the campaign) and superior in build to the other player's characters.

Hi all, and thanks for dropping by. I have been having a hankering to play classic old school Axis & Allies and (dare I dream) a game of World at War (Xeno's expansion to A&A). I wonder if there is any interest in the area for such shenanigans. I have one or two guys ready to play, but I prefer to play with a full five players. Let me know what your thoughts are. I could host, or we could grab a table at the local comic book shop if people are more comfortable with that.

I am a decent player but have not played in a long time. I own the original A&A (two sets for double blind play) World at War and A&A Europe. I enjoy these types of strategy/war games, but it is tough finding good players to play with.

I favor initiative right out of the RAW: Static until a new combatant enters the fray or the combat situation changes drastically.

I even bought the dry erase board (shown here: http://www.readyandwaiting.biz/products.htm) by Ready and Waiting, put out in a package with little magnetic tags for players and their ongoing effects. This is, by my own admission, also due to the fact that as a DM, my least developed skill is keeping track of initiative.

However, more DM's than I care to recount, in my experience, love dynamic initiative. It is said that randomness favors the players, so I am curious why DM's seem to prefer it so.

I would like to hear some thoughts on initiative and perhaps some anecdotes on how it is handled in your group. Are there other static-heads out there? Are there creative ways to meld the two? I would like to hear both sides. Thanks in Advance.

"When it comes to dealing with the law of averages, it's best to be an habitual offender"- Walter Slovotsky

Sorry to come back so soon seeking more input, but I really enjoy the intelligent repartee this site offers, and I have another, more general topic with which I could use some input, namely: Treasure distribution.

All too often, I find that treasure in my campaign gets whacked up according to who is the most vocal, manipulative or insistent, rather than who is most deserving. Certainly, I find that treasure doesn't always end up where I imagine it when I design the adventure;
so, in two parts:

a) What's a DM to do to facilitate and see that there is some justice (I try not to be the sixth player during these times, but often find myself piping up "shouldn't the druid get the gauntlets of Ogre Power?") or should I just let the chips fall as they may?

b) please share any anecdotes of treasure distribution, horror stories or great moments in teamwork so I can see exactly how disfunctional my group is on a relative scale *grin*
TIA,
-Z

Greetings all,
I have a question which I hope you can help me with. The Fighter in my campaign is using a spiked chain, and for reasons which we will not go into, I want to teach him a lesson about not packing a spare weapon.

Since he is an inveterate rules lawyer, I can anticipate that when the moment comes for me to attempt to sunder the spiked chain, he will go a little North Korea on me. I wish to seem erudite, informed and composed during this event, so, without further ado, my question:

What is a spiked chain considered for sundering purposes? It's not a metal hafted weapon, blade, or hafted at all for that matter...

My vote is treating it as a chain (hardness 10, hit points 5) and including the bonus for a +1 magic item to bring it to hardness 12, hit points 15.
Does anyone have any input or opinion regarding this matter?
Thanks in Advance,
-Z