cuatroespada's page

my guess is that they were just assuming you were still using a manufactured weapon (in which case your primary natural weapons are treated as secondary) because there's little reason for, for instance, the -5 if you're not.

but you're right that technically it gives you a crap bite attack that is worse than the default.

by the strictest RAW interpretation, they definitely stack, but the feat imposes a hard cap on your sneak attack dice pool that can supersede the benefits of the spell. in the OP's example, the character would only get 4d6 sneak attack dice total.

that said, it seems like a safe bet that the feat was intended to work like boon companion and similar feats to help you catch back up to a full rogue (at the expense of a feat) without surpassing them rather than imposing a hard limit on your sneak attack dice from all sources (which is sort of unprecedented in this sense).

it seems as though there may be an underlying assumption that permanent bonuses are considered first. if this were the case, the wording on the feat is consistent with the effects provided by similar feats in that it would limit your base abilities not how much you can benefit from temporary effects of spells and the like. *shrug*

the bottom line is that they stack, but RAW the limit imposed by the accomplished sneak attacker feat limits the benefit of the sense vitals spell.

a bunch of stuff that helps him/her divine RAI that is irrelevant to a discussion of RAW.

i believe the confusion is that there was a FAQ that said Titan Maulers could not wield two-handed weapons for creatures larger than their size because it originally didn't say they could. i believe Titan Fighter always had this language, though, and since then, there has been an errata adding it to Titan Maulers as well.

Imjah raises his arm, sending the hawk back to either its master or its tree.

"No, it is not the chalice we seek," he responds. "We do have reason to believe the chalice is not here, but I expect Miss Sarvio would like to see that for herself."

The way I would handle this is that if to allow you to avoid being in combat but are unable to do any kind of activity. You cannot delay an action an enter combat if something happens. You are treated as if are in the surprise round and are not aware of the combat. If you want to take any kind of action you have to wait until the next turn. You are also not allowed use skills that require any sort of activity and the DC for any passive skill increased by +5. You also cannot take 10 on any skills. You are considered helpless until your initiative at the beginning of the next round after you decided to act.

Since you are helpless your DEX is considered 0. This means you take a -5 penalty to initiative and reflex saves instead of getting your normal bonus.

why are so many GMs so adversarial? choosing not to participate in combat is allowed by the rules as Azothath clearly explained. also, it is not the same as failing to wake up, so why would you punish your players for it? your players aren't having badwrongfun and don't deserve to be punished just because they aren't doing what you want or expect them to do.

are you intentionally ignoring the context of my comment?

so no dazing fireballs? because the fireball spell creates an explosion a bead that explodes, and it's the explosion that does the damage.

Most GMs would sensibly rule that a Grease spell cast on a creature on fire is going to have no effect as the spell doesn't say it will smother fires, use Create Water.

Call of the Void has similar issues.

you call this sensible, i call it nonsense. create water also says nothing about smothering fires. if you let it work, it's because you're treating the conjured _____ as actual _____, not because you're following the spell description, which is correct because conjuration spells move real things from one place to another. so when you hit a burning man with grease, it's either flammable grease or it's not (unspecified so GMs discretion). if it's flammable grease, it ignites. if it's not flammable, it should smother the (non-magical) fire (unless it's somehow capable of allowing air to permeate it, but not because it's "magical" grease because that's not how conjuration spells work). similarly, call of the void creates an aura of vacuum around you. if there isn't oxygen and living creatures have to risk suffocating, then there isn't oxygen to support a fire. that is being sensible. the thing you said is being inflexible and nonsensical.

hey! i'm no slower than Sigurd! he's wearing medium armor!

never jump in pre-coffee.

life has me by the balls right now so i've just been avoiding posting anything... :p

No.

Doesn't have anything to do with PC motivation for me. An adventurer is someone who goes on adventures. Nothing more, nothing less. Which is exactly what PCs usually do.

Anything beyond that is your interpretation.

considering language is a cooperative process, i think the point was that "adventurer" doesn't actually tell us anything useful.

You can't Cleave and Vital Strike at the same time, for starters. I would be surprised if you come across something that lets you, and I would request its source, so that I could examine it for a possible character build. Otherwise, I'm calling shenanigans.

he already addressed this...

Weapon Trick allows you to combine cleave and vital strike in a limited way (scroll down to two handed weapon tricks and look for Cleaving Smash). it helps when you actually read the OP.

yeah... some people here tend to read what you want, and then tell you to do something else that they think is better rather than tell you how to do the thing you want to do the best way they can think of.

You do know that the optimizer is being an ass? If he can't be happy unless he is the one who is shining the whole time he really shouldn't be playing a cooperative game. I don't think anyone has forgotten him... but he is the antagonist in this story. He becomes the reason the rest of the table is not having fun due to his lack of empathy for his fellow players.

you do realize this is an assumption you're making about the optimizer based solely on the fact that he's optimized, right? that's messed up.

Absolutely agree. Every player should be engaged to their satisfaction. If you WANT to be disengaged and only roll dice, I can handle that. I'll be disappointed, but I can work with it.

every player but the optimizer it seems... he or she should apparently be willfully dissatisfied for other people's perceived satisfaction. (note: i'm not saying other people's satisfaction isn't important, only that this conversation seems to be forgetting that the optimizer is also a player who should get to enjoy the game.)

also, on the subject of team sports/games... the performance of the team is what's important not any individual's "feeling" of contribution. if the team is doing well, everyone on the team should be glad the team is doing well... because it's about the team not you. so the idea that someone would be upset because despite having been successful at whatever the group's goal was (be that winning the soccer game or finding the macguffin and stopping the bbeg) because they felt they didn't get to shine (not because they were disappointed in their own performance but because they didn't get attention) seems wrong to me. that's like the goalie being upset that he didn't get to make (and potentially miss) a bunch of great saves because the rest of the team was doing really well... he should be glad the team was doing so well.

TheAlicornSage wrote:

"nobody stops the legion of bronies from enjoying it."

Not for lack of trying. :(

Give no f***s, enjoy what you like. :P

qft

As to people saying "It is a player issue". Of COURSE it is. And OF COURSE one cannot come up with rules to completely solve the problem.

But the problem is significantly exacerbated by the rules system. When the rules allow such a HUGE power discrepancy between two characters that, on the surface, are essentially functionally identical (lets say mid level characters designed to blast their foes into oblivion with area of effect damage) there is a fundamental problem in the rules.

+1

this is what i was trying to say. because it seems we're implying that the guy that does have system mastery and recognizes the trap options, is a jerk for wanting to do well and not wanting to hold back and possibly die. we're assuming his motivation is "i'm a power gamer, and it's only important that i have fun roflstomping scenarios. everyone else's enjoyment is secondary." when the motivation could simply be "character death isn't fun. pfs groups being the p&p equivalent of pugs, it's difficult to know whether or not we'll survive. i'll just make sure i'm as good as i can be, so i can contribute meaningfully to our survival."

obviously, there are players that the first motivation applies to, but that's when you talk to your player because that is a player problem. there are also players that the second applies to and those are not problem players. they are players that recognize that the power discrepancy allowed by the rules can easily and unexpectedly result in their demise and plan accordingly.

What else is "making the options in the game more comparable" other than a form of forcing equal power levels?

Pretty much every way of doing this involves telling players they HAVE to build their character this way or that way.

That is simply unacceptable.

And it's all to stop what amounts to a handful of problem players, whether they use "too powerful" or "too weak" builds. You'd be affecting, restricting, far more people than just this handful.

I admit I have some personal hangups about this kinda thing. To me it's a sort of passive-aggressive form of problem-solving. It's throwing up new rules to avoid having to directly confront the issue. If it's a rule, after all, it's not ME saying these mean things, it's the rules!

Instead of sitting down and talking, maybe helping these problem players either to get better at build mastery, or learn to read the other players at the table so they can tell when they're overshadowing. And potentially running the risk of hurting someone's feelings or causing a ruckus.

It's trying to solve what amounts to a social contract issue, with legislation. That never really works.

-j

i'm still not sure how it's restrictive to make all the options things that are actually useful (not necessarily to the exact same degree) instead of producing feats like prone shooter that people waste resources on and never benefit from? how is it telling people they're playing the game wrong to make the things they want to take worth taking? the problem is that you and i literally disagree about what the problem is. i disagree that a player wanting to do well at the game and not have his character die is a problem. i also, don't think people wanting to choose flavorful options is a problem. the problem, as i see it, is that the game deliberately makes flavorful options mechanically inferior to such a degree that they're crippling (because that resource is not going to something else) and that risks getting other people's characters killed.

honestly, i don't think the demands of the bechdel-wallace test are much to ask. obviously, you can have a good work without women in it at all (just as you can have a good work without any men in it). but what it does is highlight how superficial portrayals of women are when they are there. it's not about saying "you need to have more women having conversations" as much as it's about saying "you need to stop portraying woman as so shallow and one dimensional". i think that's fair. if we're going to generally portray men as having motivations that aren't women, shouldn't we do the same for women?

triangle playing half-orc bard raised by elves in a 3.5 FR game.

Waltz of the Winds!

fantastic show, really hoping they get another season, certainly left us an opening for one

also

** spoiler omitted **

yeah, this series was excellent and my friends and i are excited about season 2. i'm glad they'll be continuing the story too. i really appreciate the characters.

Firefly Animated Adventures Teaser Trailer!

I didn't know this was a thing! Did you know this was a thing!? Why did no one tell me this was a thing!?

WHAAAAAAAAAAAT!? I'm dead.

niiice. did you play Chrono Trigger btw? talk of floating cities always reminds me of Zeal (technically a floating kingdom with multiple cities) before Cloud City. there's a city like that in my setting, but it's mostly a giant school for the psionically talented.

cuatroespada wrote:

36. 20 at character creation, +5 from leveling, +5 inherent (there are a few exceptions here), and +6 enhancement. then there are temporary increases like size bonuses. also this is assuming you're using a +2 race.

edit: i'm pretty sure you can get higher with specific builds but i can't think of them right now.

Hm. Orc with peak Str (22) + 20 levels of Barbarian (+5 from bonuses) + Strength manual (+5 inherent) + max Strength belt (+6 enhancement) + Enlarge Person (+2 size) = 40. And when those 20 levels turn into rage, +8 from Mighty Rage means Str 48.

i was only pointing out that 36 is the highest any race with a +2 in any one stat can get as any class. 36 is the baseline for a maxed stat (what you'll wake up with most days because i definitely mentioned there were temporary bonuses like size). i also pointed out that with specific builds you could surpass that to various degrees depending on the ability you're maxing but i was at work so i didn't have time to think about them.

You could also go Bloodrager dipping into Dragon Disciple for 4 levels and Improved Eldritch Heritage (Orc).

Advancement: +5 STR (actual increase)
Orc Bloodline: +6 STR (inherent bonus)
Belt of Strength: +6 STR (enhancement bonus)
Dragon Disciple Ability Boost: +4 STR (actual increase)
Greater Bloodrage: +6 STR (morale bonus)
Enlarge Person or Alter Self: +2 STR (size bonus)
Total bonus: 29 (or 51 STR for the above orc)

is improved eldritch heritage worth it for 1 more STR over a manual/wish when it's not getting you to an even number? and couldn't you get more (+4 or more alchemical) by also dipping a level of alchemist and drinking a mutagen (possibly someone else's that's more better)?

also @some other people,

So what is the highest everyone can get a character's ability score up to? Dexterity is the main one I am wondering about but I am curious about the others too.

this is clearly not just about dex.

@OP the answer is, yes, a character can make use of that +12 max dex bonus heavy armor you're talking about. but out of curiosity, how are you getting that max dex bonus up to +12? lots of materials will take you from +1 to +3 and then armor training will get you to +7. what else am i missing for the other +5?

"3.x (and by extension Pathfinder) also uses both philosophies... certain parts of the ruleset are intended to be strictly permissive."

Not really, first of all, the second philosophy is not permissive, strictly or otherwise, it is restrictive. A good way to rewrite the second philosophy is to say "players can not do anything unless the rules say they can."

pardon my misuse of jargon. you obviously still knew what i meant and said nothing to counter the argument other than "not really". a human cannot have a tail that could be used with racial heritage and the kobold tail attack feats (despite some actual humans having tails, it being a fantasy game, and a two feat investment one of which explains your anomalous anatomy) because the rules don't say you can.

"The more concise and well written the rules are, the less need for GM rulings"

On the contrary, less rules equals more rulings, and more rules equals less rulings...

that is what he said... read it again.

also, nothing you've said changes that your rulings involve things that aren't in the rules (the rules aren't balanced around and don't require you to make a will save to resist pain nor do they really define pain) and that makes them house rules when you start applying them consistently. there's nothing wrong with your house rules. but they're house rules.

no one has argued against the idea that there is a structure available upon which to base rulings, nor have they argued that you can't add house rules based upon said structure. with whom are you arguing what and why?

guess i'll just remember to cast a few good spells to offset the evil ones then... hooray for pointless bookkeeping!

i actually think everyone wants the first one and some of us also want the second one.

cuatroespada wrote:

i shiver with antici...

SAY IT!!!

...pation.

but i like princes... some of them are cute (i'm looking at you, Prince Harry). of course, dragons are all cute, so...

well first edition was significantly more narrative. as the rules got more complex, illusions became weaker because people wanted concrete mechanics for dealing with them, but they don't really work well like that. the devs intentionally left illusions kind of vague so we could be more narrative with them but many people want to constrain everything to a strictly permissive and comprehensive ruleset. at least, that's how it seems to me.

wait... volume 3 happened and i missed it!? *becomes an hero*

Bulbasaur!

also, not sure if you care for rap/hip hop but sampling video game music is cool.

All That

Amanda Bynes on All That

cuatroespada wrote:

skizzerz wrote:

I'd likely add an extra 20% to the total cost to account for that shift, however.

i'm genuinely curious and not just trying to be argumentative, but how do you not see this as a badwrongfun tax? if you agree that the slot is thematically appropriate and they're not actually gaining more slots or somehow stacking bonuses that they couldn't normally stack in this way (like if they were making a bunch of dodge bonus magic items) why would you charge them extra?

Normally, the addition is +50% if you're adding an ability to a different slot than it's normally in. What it basically comes down to is that certain slots are intended for certain types of powers, both in terms of what can be done and how powerful that is. The intention is for players to have to make tough decisions for better items.

For example, getting a Shield Bonus to AC is normally a "Ring" power (as in the Ring of Force Shield). If you use that power in a slot which normally isn't used much, like the Wrists slot, then you're also giving the player the ability to equip a third ring-type power. The extra GP cost here is, basically, making them pay for the advantage they're getting... which is quite fair. Characters shouldn't get to equip more of a powerful item type at no cost to themselves - that's not how the system was designed.

It's also letting them cheat the feat cost if you allow them to use the feat for the slot they're crafting for instead of the feat the ability is normally in. In our example here, using Craft Wondrous Item instead of Forge Ring means they're getting a power normally restricted to one feat with another, making the feat they've gotten more powerful. And Craft Wondrous Item is already pretty darn powerful. That's why it's a good rule of thumb to require that they have both the feat the power is normally associated with and the feat for the type of item they're actually making.

eh... i don't agree with paizo's overall balancing philosophy so...

also, i prefer to use a BiP system so magic items can do cool things instead of providing necessary stat increases. makes a lot of the above irrelevant. i do get what you're saying though.

i don't know how i didn't think of this before, but you should have called the thread

>> Ask Ashiel (That's Me!) Anything << (all that!/amanda bynes reference for the uninitiated)

Claxon wrote:

What if, and this is a big "what if", we reduced the clerics spell list but vastly changed how domains worked. So that domains determine the majority of the spells available to you (as a simple example, if you have the Fire Domain you got access to Fireball (and pretty much any fire spell) and could cast them out of any of your slots, no more restricted to domain slots). Then because the spell list is weaker, we could potentially give more class features similar to Oracles revelations.

But if you're getting lots of spells from Domains that can be bast with any slot, then your spell list ISN'T worse, in fact it will be better because players can optimize spell list alongside feat/archetype build etc. I'm not AGAINST that approach to spell list/domains, but it's not grounds to give Clerics MORE powers on the side as well.

eh... worse and better are subjective here. you're trading versatility for specific power or utility. you become better able to specialize and less able to do whatever is needed on the fly. so i don't know if "better" is quite appropriate.

oh... i thought you knew what he meant. hence my ridiculous comment. lol

cuatroespada wrote:

you had me at chrono cross ost... <3

i didn't like the game as much as chrono trigger, but the soundtrack was exemplary. ditto to the CT OST (especially the orchestrated versions for the PS remake).

Yessssssssssss to all of this.

please tell me you've heard the relevant OC Remixes. there are others but those are my favorites.

cuatroespada wrote:

or you know... let your players have awesome characters and throw awesome villains at them to compensate...

+4 AC is "awesome"? Since the counter is +4 to attack, +4 to attack is "awesome"? I love math way more than the next person, and even I don't think that "slightly higher numbers" is awesome.

Unless you mean "slightly higher numbers than the rest of your team", which I can't describe my opinion of without violating the rules of the forum.

and i can't describe my opinion of your comment without doing the same. let it suffice to say that that wasn't what i was getting at, and you seem like you're being deliberately obtuse.

>Combined with the increased cost to create "next-gen" games and the costs to hire voice actors and the like, we're getting progressively shallower games because making games that are both really rich and also really stunning is much more costly in time, money, and resources than it once was.

Check out Witcher 3. You can do that, you just have to work hard enough your balls drop off.

playing this now. so far so good.

you had me at chrono cross ost... <3

i didn't like the game as much as chrono trigger, but the soundtrack was exemplary. ditto to the CT OST (especially the orchestrated versions for the PS remake).

i knew what you meant, TOZ.

i'm in an all dwarves gestalt kingmaker right now! just started but having a blast.

BUY MY BEARD!

The problem with the Hillary thing is that she knowingly lied while sworn underoath

isn't this the reason her husband was almost impeached?

cuatroespada wrote:

if you believe an illusion, you act as though it's real. you would not reach into a bush that looks like a rock because your brain is telling you it's a rock, it feels like a rock (if using a spell with a tactile effect), and your brain stops your hand at the surface of the rock unless forced externally.

The problem with that is though, what if you have reasons to question whether it is real?

So you say "I'm going to try to break this rock with my weapon" to determine if it's real, what happens?

This is the problem with Illusions, if you interpret them one way they become near worthless and if you interpret it the other way it can become too powerful (not allowed to try to break the rock, thats silly).

if you're not just trying to break the rock as a meta gamey way to get around your failure to notice it's an illusion, and you try to break it with something that isn't your body, that thing goes through the rock. if you try with your body, you get another save and if you fail, you are convinced you can't. at this point i think its arguable whether or not your body goes through the rock or (as i describe below) your brain, still convinced the rock is real, convinces you that you hurt yourself and/or stops your body before going through it.

But if you sit on the rock, you'd be in for a surprise!

Really though, there's nothing stopping a character from pushing against a real rock (or real wall) so there would be nothing to stop a character from pushing against an illusion.

correct. nothing stops you from pushing against the rock. your brain stops you from pushing through it. you'd be miming but you think it's a real rock.

alternatively, if you think your body goes through the illusion, that's fine, but it doesn't change that you failed your save and are convinced that didn't happen. onlookers, however, aren't and are free to try and convince you otherwise.

if you believe an illusion, you act as though it's real. you would not reach into a bush that looks like a rock because your brain is telling you it's a rock, it feels like a rock (if using a spell with a tactile effect), and your brain stops your hand at the surface of the rock unless forced externally.