carn's page

My two cents:

A lawful good character considers obeying, enforcing laws and having them a good in itself and he thinks they are a requirement for a good world.

A neutral good character does not consider obeying, enforcing laws and having them a good nor an evil in itself and he does not think they are a requirement for either a good or an evil world.

A chaotic good character considers obeying laws, enforcing laws and having them an evil in itself and he thinks they are detriment for a good world.

If obeying/enforcing a law has in sum good effects, LG will be in favor of with all zeal and will consider any opposition to be near equivalent of evil, NG will be in favor of and CG will be sceptical of, since causing the good without using the laws would be even better.

If obeying/enforcing a law has in sum neutral effects, LG will be in favor of and will consider any opposition to be suspectible, NG will not care and CG will be against and consider anybody in favor to be suspectible (Here LG and CG can easily clash).

If obeying/enforcing a law has in sum bad effects, LG will accept a limited enforcement and strife to replace the law with a better, NG will be against and CG will be against with a zeal indistinguishable from the zeal of LG in the opposite case, cause he is in face of what he considers the devil himself.

In the above "law" stands not only for law, but institutions, governments and their ilk. Yes, this interpretation indicates that after freeing a city from the reign of devils, the LG might not throw the entire lawbook the devils enforced into the dust bin, but check for laws that can remain in place with modifications; CG would throw it into the dustbin without looking (assuming devilish lawbooks can be safely disposed in dustbins).

Lemmy wrote:

Hitting stuff is not the Fighter's problem... The problem is precisely his complete lack of viable alternatives when hitting stuff is not an option.

Options are the most valuable resource a character can have! Numbers are not nearly as important.

Giving Fighters bloated numbers does nothing to help them.

Nearly two years later and nothing has changed. No one's opinion has shifted. Some new faces came, some old faces left. The same discussions are being had.

Rather depressing link.

No, its 20 years. After reading AD&D base rule book conversation:

Carn, how do you feel about Paizo's deliberate inclusion of people of color and women in their products? Do you find it a cause for concern the same way you find the inclusion of LGBT people a cause for concern? Do you find it to be equally and objectionably "political"?

Besides there being no two sides about racism and male chauvinism, its not even impolite for racists and chauvinists, by doing what paizo does in this respect, it does not suggest racist and chauvinist are evil (Reason is that both chauvinists and racists effitively believe in differering "stats"; but "stats" are a matter of world design so a racists/chauvinist just notices that in Golarion there are no stat differences between white/non-white or male/female).

On the other hand, paizo clearly suggest that natural marriage proponents are evil. I do not mind people claiming that i am evil, i mind paying people to do so.

Some of Paizo's people are LGBT. They work on the game. They produce the product which you yourself presumably enjoy. Are they not allowed to include themselves in the product they are creating? Are the non-LGBT employees not allowed to create a product that reflects their own experience of the world, an experience which includes LGBT people?

In general i dislike transferring own experience of the real world directly to imaginary worlds with total different laws. It often does not fit.

For example, unless someone invented the pill in Golarion, it would be stupid to transfer today man-woman "courting" and "relationship" habits into Golarion. Without reliable contraception women just behave differently in respect to male advances. (I remember totally shocking once a male PC who tried to hook up with some NPC woman, that the women in question was actually thinking he was courting her for marrying - but in her experience there was no casual sex due to risk of pregnancy so she misunderstood what he wanted)

Last question. Do you feel that LGBT characters should not be included in the game?

I would prefer it in a less insulting way for natural marriage propenents. But probably thats not an option.

Upps,
"does taking this viewpoint cause harm to any individuals?"
does even call hereditary monarchy into question.

In hereditary monarchy its very important that either the ruler or at least some relatives have offspring and its crucial whom they have offspring with. A princess having a child with the stable boy is very different from having a child with the prince of the neighbouring kingdom, the latter could upset the entire political structure, as that child might have one day claim to both thrones. Same for the prince of course.

So royal children would be strongly encouraged to supress once in a while their personal desires and for the greater good of the nation have sex with someone politically fitting. Gender change would of course be discouraged, if the neighboring kingdoms dont have a fitting counterpart. And pure L and G would be a no-go (unless one has some complex magic involved). And at least upper classes would take the royal house as orientation.

Or in other words a hereditary kingdom has automatically "anti-LGBT law/customs" built in and any nation "that didn't support equality would be hard to justify as "Good"".

-> No "Good" hereditary kingdoms?

I don't see it as a political issue.

I am quite confident that i could find a few so called western democracies, in which currently some of the major political parties (meaning >20% of votes) are in favor of allowing gay marriage and some are against allowing gay marriage and in which laws regarding the issue have been passed in recent years or were at least proposed in parliament and failed, in both cases with considerable political discussion happening. I do not see why "political issue" is a wrong term. Its obviously a matter currently fought over in politics.

Anyone who feels that's a matter of opinion is quite frankly someone that isn't a welcome member of civilized society.

Ok, so Poland is not a civilized country.

Whether or not guns should be available to the public is an example of a political issue. Whether it's okay to shoot an innocent person in cold blood with one certainly isn't, and the same is true of bigotry.

There are people who see guns also as an issue with clear right and wrong. That does not change it into a non-political issue. And there are people who discuss it as a political issue when its ok to administer to an innocent and not consenting person a shoot of deadly muscle relaxant. So you view about what is non-political issue due to clear right and wrong differs from that of other people.

But whatever it is called, is not the thread question.

Questions are whether this "non-political" issue will continue to have its place in paizo publishing and whether other "non-political" issues might also get their place.

Please be specific as to what you consider the political issue to be.

Whether or not a society treats legally all possible consenting sexual relations exactly equally or not. And whether a society is absolutely neutral regarding all potential consenting wishes/desires in that respect or indirectly or directly prefers some via law/customs.

Deliberate exclusion of LGBT people sends as much of a message as their deliberate inclusion.

Exclusion would not need to be deliberate and therefore does not necessarily send message.

For example, in Jade Regent having a male PC relation to Ameiko was clearly an option authors had in mind. Yet they did not spend any thought on whether or not Ameiko would use contraception in the thrill of romance, how she would react to being pregnant, how one can access safe and legal abortion while crossing the crown of the world, whether giving the new born to some nice couple along the way is an option because it would be to endangered when going into the lions den or how Ameikos ascent to the Jade Throne is impacted by having a child with an outsider without any hint of imperial blood or impacted by their rivals through scrying finding oout that she had sex before marriage and killed the human being in hew womb who would have been next in line for the throne (depending on however these people handle such issues). By leaving this info out Paizo for example did not sent any message that people should not care about contraception and the risk of pregnancy or about abortion.

But if Paizo had included such stuff, it would have sent a message (the exact message depending upon what they would have decided upon).

So inclusion of something does certainly send a message, exclusion does not necessarily send one.

If you read some of the threads on the topic, you'll see that demographic arguments such as that one have received criticism.

Whatever method is used to decide, i do not care, its just whether this would be something kept in mind while deciding upon future NPCs.

I think the problem more arises from not feeling to be a true hero. Its somehow the idea, that the real tough heroes get along independent of what they have.

One seldom sees in movies a large dependency on items.

Even in fantasy literature its less pronounced, in LOTR people have maybe one magic sword, one magic staff and a magic ring or armor, but not 11 slots and two hands filled till bursting.

carn wrote:

And since the horse has better climb scores than the heavy armor paladin, its still unclear, why it should not be possible, simply a large net, tied on upper and lower floor and the horse can climb up and down on its own.

I suspect that a lot of GMs would balk at the idea of horses doing much in the way of climbing, regardless of their climb score. The equine body just isn't built for things like using handholds or scaling a rope.

I suggested using a net. Nothing prevents a horse from scaling an inclined net with the right loop size. Probably climb DC 5-15.

If your group is fine with that then more power to you, but not all GMs out there would allow it.

As i said above:

If a 61 HP char can jump from the tenth floor and the GM is fine with guranteed survival because rules say so, its rather bizarre to have problems with a horse with climb skill scaling an inclined net, since that is also allowed with the rules.

And it should be irrelevant that horses in this world seldom do this, because in this world no human has a guranteed survival when jumping from the tenth floor.

@Tarantula
You see, its a problem about GMs not allowing what is permitted by rules.

@Blueluck
You are right about the two approaches.

Someone in that thread also noted it:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?317715-Very-Long-Combat-as-Spor t-vs-Combat-as-War-a-Key-Difference-in-D-amp-D-Play-Styles
"I used to have what you'd call a "combat as war" style.

The problem was that eventually I started to recognize the man behind the curtain. I knew that I wasn't actually coming up with brilliant plans to defeat the monster, I was, at most, coming up with brilliant plans to defeat the DM. But that's like a four year old wrestling with his father- you only win if (when) he lets you win. "

As long as you can convince it that a greater evil can be thwarted with its help, I don't see why this wouldn't work (aside from unlucky dice).

Some people suggest that certain evils may never be done, even to achieve something good (think about torture discussion). Hence, the angel might depending on the respective gods stand on the issue of "the end justififes the means" react negatively.

I just noted that normal ranger gets enemy and terrain bonuses for companion:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/ranger#TOC-Hunter-s-Bond-Ex-

"A ranger's animal companion shares his favored enemy and favored terrain bonuses."

While the beastmaster lacks this text and says:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/ranger/archetypes/paizo---rang er-archetypes/beastmaster
". This ability functions like the druid animal companion ability except that the Ranger’s effective druid level is equal to his Ranger level – 3."

"This ability replaces hunter’s bond."

So per RAW beastmasters companions do not get favored enemy bonuses.

Whisper, note or go to another room.

You dare seperate RPG players bored due to GM hooked up in single action from the food on the table?

If this is a thread aboout idiotic abuse of magic to exploit physics, why not use an evacuated (easy to with magic) container with a portal in the bottom linked to the top. Drop a stone in it, wait a year, cast a portal into it with exit above the city you dislike. Maybe make a few careful test, to adjust time and rock size, will work some way to destroy the city without destroying the planet.

If so, then how would you compare Toughness to Dodge? To Lightning Reflexes (since that prevents damage)? To Armor of the Pit (tiefling feat granting +2 natural armor)?

I think few people carefully analyze their options.

Because the argument "do not get hit instead of more HP" is game mechanics nonsense. One always gets hit sooner or later. The only thing influenced by taking toughness or something else is the probability of getting hit.

E.g. level 5 fighter, +1 full plate, 14 dex (+2 AC), +1 natural armor, + 1 protection ring, feats and weapon choices tailored towards offense (e.g. two-handed, power attack, cornugan smash,...) has 24 AC.

With con 14 he is going to have 4*6.5(average roll)+10(level1)+5(favored class)+10(con bonus) = 51 HP

Average lev 5 monster has +10 to hit.

So AC 24, 51 HP fighter gets hit 35% of rounds.

Same fighter with dodge gets hit 30% of rounds. So he avoids 1/7 or 14% of the damage dealt by attacks.

Same fighter with toughness has 56 HP, so has 56/51=1.098 times the HP or 9.8% more HP. Having 9.8% more HP is roughly as good as evading HP damage 1-(1/1.098)=1-0.91=0.09 or 9% of the time.

=> Dodge better. (On the plus side dodge allows to avoid more often attack side effects, e.g. poison; on the minus side it doesnt help when flanked or flat-footed or vs HP damaging spells)

Sorceror lev 5 with con 14, dex 16, mage armor, natural armor +1, protection ring +1 (has no time to always cast shield):
AC 19, HP 35.

Without dodge or toughness gets hit 60% of time.

With dodge 55%. So dodge avoids 1/12 or roughly 8% of the damage.

With toughness 40 HP, thats 1/7 more HP, which effictively means 12.5% of HP dam avoided.

=> toughness better (Of course maybe the sorceror should not be hanging around where he gets hit. But if he gets hit, toughness better than dodge)

So the usefullness of dodge or toughness is highly dependent upon char build and role.

And James Jacobs of course had it right without doing the math, low HP chars with limited armor options who are going to get hit (which means especially enemy caster NPCs, no armor, low budget and the PCs are going to hit them) profit the most from toughness compared to other damage avoidance feats.

It doesn't really matter that much to be quite honest. Unless you're a sniping hill giant.

I am just suspecting i miss some rule. But maybe it is that way.

Also magic is size independent a lvl 5 blast sorceror titan will leave his fellow titans pretty unimpressed, while a lvl 5 ant blast sorceror would be regulated by a WMD treaty among ants. So strange size consequences of rules are not usual.

In some thread someone mentioned ahorizon walker build that is supposed to be good.

Looking at the horizon walker i cannot see it:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/e-h/horizon-wa lker

He is cool vs natives, but slaughtering the inhabitants of some place is quite limited adventuring approach as many encounters are with non-natives.

THe native slaughter approach would be 6 level rangers with some archtype losing favored enemy but not losing favored terrain. Then all added terrain bonuses in the same terrain. Then getting hands on either constant terrain bond spell item or a level 20 staff of the same preferably with extended duration and some low level recharge spell and whenever the horizon walker enters a new territory, he can massaker its natives with permanent +20 dam, to hit and stealth and +40 perception.

Should be pretty cool when clearing some demon plane (all natives there).

But i guess this thing is a bit too much cheese to be intended. So what does the good build look like?

- Invisibility is a really powerful effect for its level

But that doesnt mean the magic item prize is wrong per formula, then the spell level is simply too low.

It's a no-brainer "next buy" for my summoner, so it's not overpriced per se. Many items prices don't follow the guidelines. After all, Bracers of armor +4 should be 2K, not 16K, but Paizo values armor values higher than the guidelines. This is similar; being constantly invisible is invaluable.

Its not constant.

The synthesist is broken?

I think the reason that this line of thinking gives most people a head ache (myself included) is that players typically expect the game to work a certain way, by certain rules, and that when those rules are broken or bent it makes the game something that you cannot trust to be fair or balanced. Kind of like real life, but I'm not here for real life.

THe problem about cranewings attitude is that it destroys in the end what he cherishes probably very high. Immersion requires that there are certain laws of the world, which are consistent. Preferably, the rules are not in direct opposition to the laws of the real world, but that is often not avoidable for simplification reasons.

An example how i expect things to be with cranes attitude:

Party in one adventure pursues somebody, somebody to escapes takes a 100 feet jump towards concrete surface, takes 10d6 damage and happily continues to run away, while the party cannot pursue because stopped by some critters.

One or two adventures later one party member sees a good reason to make a 100 ft jump, sees his HP are fine and jumps. And then GM tell him:
"No, you cannot run, you have broken both legs and have serious spinal injury. What do you expect from jumping 100 ft to concrete floor?"
Player:"But i only lost 30 of my 80 HP and the last minotaur crit vs me was 50 HP and i walked, ran and fought afterwards for hours, before the cleric found time to heal me. Besides the evil guy from two adventures past has less HP and he could run."
GM:"That was then this is now, no do not check rules, things are as i say, enjoy."

Maybe RAI is as RAW and its meant as a discount because skill focus is not that awesome feat in itself?

So nobody houserules a refresh on the positive side? We all just harrass and ultimately murder our PC's, after talking to them about how disappointed we are that at, say first level, they can't just wipe out dozens of goblins in the first 15?

The problem is maintaining balance. A 5th level wizard has 3 level 3 spells. Assuming he can bring 1 to good effect in every combat, he is in 3 combats more effective than the fighter, who at 5th level has just boring +1 to hit/+3 dam from fighter special abilities.

So if there are just 3 fights a day, the fighter will not shine, as the wizard steals the show and fighter cannot do much besides fighting.

On the other hand, if there are 8 encounters a day, the wizard has to use less effective spells in some, while the fighter dishes out the same dam in each. Therefore he can bring his ability to good use.

Don't try to make money with your character by crafting, a GM will simply reduce the time-scale of the adventure to fix that.

Therefore i suggested seeling just to make up for material costs. Many GMs are going to accept that, as it does not drastically unbalance anything.

Don't forget there's no rule that says people have to buy your wares, GM can say they can't afford it or don't want it.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/#TOC-Selling-Treasure

So any thorp can buy at least a few doses of giang wasp venom. And "In general" means "Unless GM has good reason to rule otherwise", which i cannot see by seeling some poison to exactly replace material costs.

And that is not unbalanced can be seen from gripply alchimist:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/uncommon-races/arg-grippli

They get for equivalent of about 2 feats up to 6 daily uses of a poison with scaling DC without any time or material investment. I do not see anything wrong about gaining 5-10 non-scaling poisons per week for a 4 feat investment. (Its just a bit stupid if the only useful poison use would be for a sepcific class and uncommon race combination. Though that grippli ability is not bad, the scaling DC will allow the poison to useful through all levels.)

If you really want to use poison ask your GM kindly to include some decent ones in his loot tables.

Abilities that depend on the GMs kindness and memory absolutely suck.

Amuny wrote:

So I'm just here pondering: Did I miss something?

4 arms+ 1 tentacle = 6 attacks + 1 shield.

Cold immunity.

To correct my error:

Cold immunity + sleep immunity + paralysis immunity+ immunity vs non-lethal damage (not that cool but only 2 feats and you cannot die from cold or normal hot weather, thirst, starvation, slow suffocation)

I noticed that some abilities that are linked to critical hits have the wording "scoring a critical hit", while others have "confirming a critical hit".

Examples for the first:
all critical feats, magus arcana critical strike, shadow dancer lev 10 ability

Examples for the later:
Lev 10 abilities duelist, eldritch knight, lev 20 ability cavalier

The difference is of course about creatures with some or total resistance/immunity against crits.

At least with fortification the procedure is following:

Attack role-> if threat range make confirmation role-> fortification role

That effectively means that fortification does not prevent the critical from being confirmed. This is also visible from the lev 9 samurai ability:
" After a critical hit is confirmed against him, the samurai can spend one use of his resolve as an immediate action to treat that critical hit as a normal hit."

So with such critical damage avoidance abilities, the critical hit nonetheless is first confirmed, which should trigger abilities that trigger upon confirmation of a critical.

The effects of the confirmation due to duelist, eldritch knight and cavalier abilites also seem to be in addition to the effect of the critical. e.g. eldritch knight:
"he can cast a spell as a swift action. The spell must include the target of the attack as one of its targets or in its area of effect."

Its obviously not part of the critical strike damage, if one cast a spell with its effect being applied independently to the attack.

Question now of course is what about critical immunity. Are threats vs critical immune creatures confirmed or not confirmed?

Rules seem to indicate (from fragile armor description):
"Armor with the fragile quality falls apart when hit with heavy blows. If an attacker hits a creature wearing fragile armor with an attack roll of a natural 20 and confirms the critical hit (even if the creature is immune to critical hits), the armor gains the broken condition."

So critical hits can be confirmed even against critical immune creatures. Those critical immune creatures then of course ignore the crit dam and the effects from scoring a critical hit. But i cannot see a rule why they should be able to ignore the effects from confirming a critical hit.

So a lev 10 duelist wielding a scimitar (what else? feat dervish dance) with double threat range has a decent chance to reduce an adamant golems or a banshees speed by 10 feet, give him -4 to AC and/or -4 to all saves. (Bleed and ability dam do not work vs golem as far as i know.)
Correct?

Or is there any reason to ignore the difference between scoring and confirming a critical with abilites?

Its just interesting, because this would turn a high level duelist in my eyes into the most nasty close combat char, as he provides nasty debuffs to anything, as nothing is immune vs -4 to AC or saves and using a 15-20 threat range he is rather likely to succeed.

The Pathfinder Compatibility License contains a "no adult content" clause.

I always found it interesting (for a lack of a better word) that in RPGs there is no problem having evil guys murdering, torturing, dismembering, ... (long long list) their victims and display it all in a gruesome arrangement (e.g. jade regent 4 contains such a room, also a room with poor victims who have been tortured for months) and this is no problem.

But other things are off, although they are both legally and from a moral point of view less worse than what a normal BBEG des all day long.

racism (both human on non-human and human on human)

You think human-on-human racism is realistic in a world like Golarion?

As i read long ago in Shadowrun 2.0:
"What should it worry you that the skin of the guy next to you in the subway is slightly more tanned, when that thing over there" (a troll) " has fists as large as you head?"

Its not about burdensome, its about getting a good nights sleep without getting kinks etc.

And why should one get kinks from something that does not encumber one?

E.g. masterwork breastplate worn by a high level fighter has no armor check penalty. So his body movements are not limited in any way by the breastplate. Then why should he get kinks, which result from keeping up the same position for a long time without movement?
His movement is not limited, therefore no reason for kinks. One does not get kinks by wearing pyjamas, why should a high level fighter get it from wearing a breatplate in which he moves with as much ease as normal people move in pyjamas?

Beastmaster can split his levels to have several animals, e.g.:
"For example, a beast master with an effective druid level of 4 can have one 4th-level companion, two 2nd-level companions, or one 1st-level and one 3rd-level companion."

Boon companion:
"Benefit: The abilities of your animal companion or familiar are calculated as though your class were four levels higher, to a maximum bonus equal to your character level. If you have more than one animal companion or familiar, choose one to receive this benefit. If you lose or dismiss an animal companion or familiar, you may apply this feat to the replacement creature.

Special: You may select this feat more than once. The effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a different animal companion or familiar.
"

It is not obvious for me from wording, whether a lev 7 ranger (effective druid level for companion 4) could have 2 2nd level companions and use 2 feats to have 2 6 th level companions. Or it is, that his level is treated as 7 (4+4 maxed at 7) and he therefore can have a 4 and a 3 level companion.

Which is it and to deduce from the rules?