cthos's page

Goblin goblin goblin?

The people who keep re-electing him, I reckon.

Well, since he works for the MPAA now, no one has been re-electing him...

There's no way to do what you're suggesting RAW, simply because you wouldn't be able to move away after it was cast. But the speed of a magic missile? Depends on the level.

At 1st level, it's range is 110 ft, which means it's capable of moving that distance in a single round (6 seconds) putting it at 18.3 fps.

At 20th level, the range is 300 ft, which is 50 fps.

Since Pathfinder doesn't cut combat rounds into shorter time increments, you can't use this in any way, but there ya go.

Having an idea stomped on is not cool as a player. I do understand that as a GM having players always minimize encounters is not fun either. At the level where reverse gravity comes in having opponents who can fly or cast dispel magic should be an option though.

Definitely, and I'm not out to stomp on the idea, but it has become one of their default "I Win" situations. I am just looking for a couple of outs which would be surprising and make them switch to another tactic so that it isn't "Oh, they can't fly? Okay, the Wizard's got this, everyone else drink some tea."

Let the players have their fun for a little while. If they fight in a room then nothing in the spell restricts them from moving back and forth by using the walls and ceiling. All Reverse gravity does is change "up" an "down". It does not restrict backward and forward movement if there is something to propel off of.

All it takes is one baddy to escape so the other bad guys know to choose their terrain carefully.

He will only use Reverse Gravity if they wind up in a position where they're hovering off the ground helpless because they don't have a surface to stand on.

I wish I could make sure that they're always encountered indoors, with 10' ceilings, but that's not an option some of the time.

I also recommend archers. Perhaps even archer barbarians with spell sunder.

But once the Hungry Darkness is triggered, the archers no longer have line of sight to said Wizard (Unless they Spell Sunder). Who is also quite prone to Dimension Dooring away.

Spell Sunder.

Not a bad idea. More NPC Barbarians are a good thing.

So, one of my players has discovered a rather devastating combo.

Take Reverse Gravity on NPCs who cannot fly, either through magic or naturally. Regardless of if they have managed to grab onto something or not, they are effectively immobilized.

Follow this up with Hungry Darkness from Inner Sea Magic. Regardless of how many hit points these NPCs have, they're taking 2 CON damage a turn, which means that generally they have between 6 and 10 rounds to get out, but since they can't move, the PCs can stand back from a distance and giggle while their enemies scream in agony.

So, besides giving everything flight, or making everything undead, what other options do I have?

Snap Shot, from UC, lets you threaten with a ranged weapon at 5' and the Improved version increases that to 15'. It would seem that this would allow you to provide flanking, but not to take advantage of it, since you are not making a melee attack, and only melee attacks can take advantage of flanking.

That's the one I was thinking of. But yeah you're right, the flanking rules state you must be making a melee attack.

I think the Daggermaster (or whatever it is called) Archtype in Ultimate Combat has a way of Threatening at range, which by the wording of flanking would allow them to be considered flanking if they had an ally who was on the opposite border of the creature, but it wouldn't count the other way around (i.e. wouldn't work for the friend who was providing the flank).

The first paragraph of the Ultimate Combat entry states, "All material from this book is legal for play except as noted below."

Cool, thanks Mark, I'm not sure how I overlooked that!

(Nervousness about potentially GMing PFS incorrectly probably).

Quick question! The Additional Resources post has confused me a little bit on Ultimate Combat. It states that Advanced guns are unavailable, and that you can buy all mundane bullets, etc.

However it is silent about the other Weapons/Armor in that chapter. Does this mean that they are all allowed, or that they are all banned?

Thanks!

(I did a search for this topic, but couldn't find anything. Apologies if this is a duplicate).

If you've gone to the lengths of refusing to heal a party member, why are you still in the party as that character?

I just noticed this thread had been revivified!

Anyhow, I hadn't refused healing, it was a suggested action by one of the other players for something a Good Aligned Cleric should do. I strongly disagreed with that assessment, so I added it in for commentary.

If we talk about the drow who were torturing you that's justice. If they would surrender by themselves then killing them would be evil according to the Book of Exalted Deeds, but still probably not enough to let a cleric loose anything (Paladin could be another question). However if you would consider diplomacy failed for all drow you meet in the future and kill them on sight, that would be probably evil. ;-)

Actually, funny you should mention that. One of the ones who had tortured us survived, and is now the cohort of one of the members. I've not started working on redeeming him yet, I was waiting on a specific power...

Edited to correct spelling of "started"

cthos wrote:

We hang out a bit longer, goblin comes back, gets the Cleric with 2 more arrows. Barbarian takes out goblin, who is bleeding out on the ground but still alive. Crusader stabilizes the goblin.

Okay, here's the dilemma. Barbarian decides to curb stomp the goblin. Cleric (me) chooses not to stop him from doing so. Is this an evil act? Would it be grounds for losing Cleric abilities or spells?

Not really, I think it's a bit disturbing to kill someone who's helpless when someone else has made the effort to stabilize him, but that's maybe just be.

The Barbarian has always had a hatred for goblins, he just doesn't have much occasion to show it. In this particular instance, I didn't do anything to stop him from stomping the goblin, but I didn't tell him to do it, nor did I take action to kill him myself after he had been stabilized (and he was stabilized by the character which had just a few minutes prior hunted down and killed a fleeing goblin..).

Edit:

A good alignment doesn't mean that you have to be saint towards monsters. Only being a paladin or exalted character makes it necessary to be a saint. But then not only towards monsters but towards everybody. Like the barbarian you fought side by side with while refusing to heal him.

I actually have never refused to heal him, that was just a suggestion offered by another player as to how a good character would act. Which I disagree with. I was just making sure that I wasn't crazy for disagreeing.

cthos wrote:

Little backstory. Party gets ambushed by a couple of goblins. 2 of them are killed within the 2nd round of combat.

Couple of goblins attack, 2 of them killed. The 3rd one must be a mirage.

Then no problem of alignement...

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/couple

Look at the Idiom section, #14:
"—Idiom
14.
a couple of, more than two, but not many, of; a small number of; a few: It will take a couple of days for the package to get there. Also, a couple."

But if you prefer, 3 goblins attacked. :)

Edit: Sorry, I reread what I had written and that might have come off a bit jerkish. (I have a thing for grammar) I chuckled when I read the quoted post.

Thanks everyone for replying, it has been quite informative!

Charender wrote:

Reforming evil is a greater act of good that slaying it, but nothing requires you to reform evil.

Sarenrae does. Her teaching is that essentially everything can be redeemed. She doesn't require redemption mid-combat or for creatures who embody evil (demons and devils and such), but a prisoner shouldn't be executed, according to Sarenrae.

But it also says that once diplomacy has failed, then her clerics can tear up the battlefield. Is the goblin redeemable even when he squandered a second chance? How far does a cleric have to go to stop the 9 ft tall dwarf barbarian (don't ask...) from stepping on the goblin which has tried to kill the group twice?

Also, if I recall correctly, servants of Rovagug are to be killed on sight (Could be wrong though, thoughts are a bit hazy). If this is the case, how can that be construed as a good action?

In the event that letting goblin get curb stomped is an offense, how big of an offense would you consider it to be?

Okay, so I'm playing a NG Cleric of Sarenrae here, and I'm having an alignment problem, and need a community opinion check to see if I'm not seeing something here.

Little backstory. Party gets ambushed by a couple of goblins. 2 of them are killed within the 2nd round of combat. The third one keeps shooting said Cleric with arrows, and the Cleric cannot get to him. Goblin gets frightened by the Bard and Barbarian and runs off. We basically let him go. (The Bard sent something after him). Cleric does nothing more aggressive once he's taken off.

We hang out a bit longer, goblin comes back, gets the Cleric with 2 more arrows. Barbarian takes out goblin, who is bleeding out on the ground but still alive. Crusader stabilizes the goblin.

Okay, here's the dilemma. Barbarian decides to curb stomp the goblin. Cleric (me) chooses not to stop him from doing so. Is this an evil act? Would it be grounds for losing Cleric abilities or spells?

Additional alignment/deity questions:
1. After being tortured by drow for 2 weeks, is it okay to consider diplomacy failed and not offer them surrender?
2. Refusing to heal a party member who is helping you fight through a bunch of evil monsters, because he generally slices said monsters in half and doesn't bother seeing if they're alive or not (the aforementioned barbarian), is this considered a Good act and within a NG alignment?
3. Another goblin is blinded by a holy spell. We leave the goblin helpless in the woods, but still alive. Good act, or evil act?

I'm really having trouble buying that having a "Good" alignment means you have to be a saint towards monsters.