endier's page

The PC's (perhaps except the Paladin) have turned against Undrella and have to face the consequences. Let her side with Kardswann again (at least give him the info, that the PC's are coming and offering the scouting mission).

That handsome Paladin may be able to turn her away from Kardswann but he has to be really interested in her, not only bluffing.
(Be sure giving her some ranks in Sense Motive).

Be open for ideas how they can fool Kardswann again, but if they make another blunder, consider finishing the PC's off.
Or let the Gnolls capture them. The Carrion King needs slaves...

Similarly, can multiple tanglefoot bags stack? I remember the line that bonuses of the same type do not stack, but penalties do. So could say a mob of level 1 commoners throw them at a dragon to make it paralyzed?

No, Penalties no NOT stack. Being hit by 2 Rays of Enfeeblement also do not stack Strength penalty.

You should consider that in a medieval city there was a good number of fields and vegetable gardens near the houses, and most of the houses were 1 or 2 story buildings.

So probably most of the block is fields, gardens and streets.
Still large, but the constructed part not so big at it can seem.

Sorry to correct you, but in medival town or city, space was precious as it had to be protected by a town wall. There were no gardens and fields inside a town (exception are the parks and meadows of the noble villas).

The statement that the most of the houses were 2-story is correct.

Posting the particulars for mass combat are found on the mass combat sticky thread here.

I don't want my several players that sneak on here to be able to figure out what Pitax is up to two chapters in advance though.

A few posts down there are more on sieges and stuff too.

E-mails will be sent out today as regards the awesomeness of Pitax playing by the same rules as the PCs. ^_^

Hmmm, I didn't got any email, perhaps it was never sent or it was deleted by my spam filter...

please try it again here:
endier (at) gmx (dot) de

If it is simply to much to post here, simply put it onto a filehoster and post the link.

I am interested in all rules/settings Ideas you have...

Turin,

This Casus Belli thing and warfare for a cause (and if it is only that you back down from a claim on a province) has a typical Europa Universalis feeling. Nevertheless I agree with oyur approach and you also should observe what happens if an agressor who stated a Casus Belli "The area of <insert province name> was claimed by us since generations" and waged a successful campaing.
If he only demands the province with the CB for peace then all neighbours would accept this and treat the agressor with no big suspicion.
Another thing would be, if the CB was a mere "You didn't paid back the loan I gave you 3 years ago" and then demands 7 hexes in a peace deal.

Without the magical item Economy, Armies would be supported thusly:

GENERIC ESTATE ITEM

20 Acre Tennant Farm
POPULATION: 5 - Peasant Family (5)
EXPORT: 2 Tons (4,480lb) Wheat Surplus
IMPORT: 22 Tons firewood/year, Guild Produce

60 Acre Knight's Estate
POPULATION: 10 - Knight (Light Horseman) & Family(4), Servants (5)
EXPORT: 6 Tons Roofing Thatch
IMPORT:45 Tons Firewood/year, Guild Produce

6 &1/2 Acre Bishop's Vineyard
POPULATION: 5 - Servants
EXPORT: 1512 Gallons White Wine
IMPORT: 22 Tons Firewood, 1 Ton Wheat, Guild Produce

1600 Acre Woodlot
POPULATION: 5 - 1 Woodsman, Family (4)
EXPORT: 263 Tons Firewood/year
IMPORT: 1 Ton Wheat/year, Guild Produce

So a 1600 acre woodlot would support up to five Knights estates with firewood. A second Woodlot supports 11 Tennant Farms with a grain surplus supplying both woodsmen, leaving a 20 ton grain surplus which is traded/used to support the Knights in Battle.

So lets say this 115 population 'isolated farming village' works 5.8 square miles of land. and ships its grain to the Guild town where the Bishop governs. This small amount of grain surplus supports 20 families. Nine such rural farming villages support the Guild Town (945 pop) along with 18 more Woodlots supporting it with firewood and would provide the Bishop with an army of 45 Knights. Effectivly two 8-mile Hexes of light wood (one dominated by our Market town). Thats pretty much a Bishop's Estate.

From where did you get these figures from ?

The additional question is:

Do those feats like Shield Mastery, Spield Specialization and their greater cousins apply to Animated shields ?

A good nerf to Animated shields is to rule that such feats only apply to shields worn at the arm.
I can also cope with an increase of the cost to +3.

And yes, rule out that you can't use Bashing with an animated shiled, neither adding dancing shield Spikes.

In Pathfinder it was decided to put all Stat-booster items (like Headband of Intellect, Periaph of Wisdom and Cloak of Charisma) into a Headband Item. For the physical stats the same goes for the Belt.

Although it is a nice Idea to free up the Item-slots for more stylish items, the other side is that you have a problem with using Stat-boosters found in loot and interchanging them in the party.

Example:
The group defeats a BBEG with a Cha+6 item.
It is likely that the party's sorceror will get that. So far so good.
Assumed that this soc already had an Cha +4 item, he would give that one to the party's cleric to boost the healing powers. But the cleric already has a Wis +6 item.

In 3.5 the cleric simply put on the cloak of cha +4 and all are happy.

In Pathfinder, the cleric has a problem, as he can't use that headband of cha +4 (he already has a headband of Wis +6).
In that situation the good intention of putting all stat-booster items into head or belt location becomes bad.

So in the higher levels good stat-booster items will become useless as they are not interchangeable.

My suggestion:
Make these stat-booster items modular.
Allow that a Belt of Physical Perfection +4 (Str +4, Con +4, Dex +4) can be split up, mixed with +6 or +2 items etc. And yes, they can be upgraded individually.
This will also imply that the Itemcosts of such things are not 144K for a Perfection +6 item but only 108K (3 times 36K).

Example:
The party cleric has a Wis+4 and Cha +2 item, the Soc a Cha +4.
They defeat a BBEG and get a Cha+6 and Int+2 item.
They split that up into a Cha +6, which goes to the soc, the Soc's cha+4 goes to the Cleric, the Clerics Cha+2 and the Int+2 items goes to the party's rouge.

This will combine the good intent of Pathfinders item slot conservation and the versatility of 3.5 regarding stat-boosters.

Perhaps change the bonus for wildshape to be a polymorph bonus so it could stack

Full ack.

Perhaps all the "Form of the XXX" Spells shoud provide polymorph bonus.

Hi Folks,

While reading the part about combat maneuvers and the CMB, which I think is a wonderful idea, I stumbled over this passage:

When performing combat maneuver, you must use an action appropriate the maneuver you are attempting to perform. While most combat maneuvers can be performed as part of an attack action (in place of a melee attack), others require specific actions. [...] When you perform a combat maneuver, make an attack roll and add your CMB to the result plus any bonuses you might have due to specific feats or abilities.

Does this mean that spells like

Same question to feats and abilities:
Weapon Focus, Melee Weapon Mastery, Weapon Training of Fighter, Favored Enemy of Ranger, Smite Evil of Paladin, Bardic Songs, etc.

All these gives bonus to Attack rolls.
So do they also give bonus to maneuvers like Grapple, Trip and Disarm ?

What about weapon enchantment boni ?
They also gives a +x to attack (and damage)...

What about the defensive position ?
Do these spells /abilities / feats give their bonus also to resist being tripped/disarmed/grappled/overrun/whatever ?

As Kvantum correctly pointed out, Divine Favor also gives you CL/3 luck bonus to attack and bonus. My Bad.

Divine Power gives you the same bonus as Divine Favor, only the cap is removed (or set to 6, I don't know).
The Bonus to Strength checks and Skills is a nice treat but not a real incentive. That extra attack is one...

On the other hand Divine Favor is a first level spell with the same bonus, only capped at 3.
The bad thing is that cou can't combine it. In 3.5 you could.

In the low and mid levels, where I have to learn the 4th level spells with care, my normal pics would be Deathward and Freedom Of Movement.
With the bonuses Divine Favor gives me, I will consider Divine Power useless until CL 15. And when Divine Power gets rocking, Divine Favor is useless...

BTW: afaik both spells are personal.
If one of the two is not personal but touch range, a Cleric would mind learning both spells as he can give his Fighter-buddy an additional boost... but then Prayer /Recitation becomes useless as they also bestow luck bonus.

So my impression is that they shifted the Divine power effects and unintentionally nerfed it.

My suggestion: Change the type of bonus Divine Favor/Power gives or (if this is too good) make one of the two spells a touch one.
I prefer Divine Favor as this does not make the spell absolutly usless in higher levels.

Hi Forum folks.

I just stumbled over the reworked Divine Power spell (Cleric 4), which gioves you an CL/3 Luck bonus to Attack and damage.
(And an extra Attack if doing a full attack afaik).

The good old Divine Favor does the same (except the extra attack) with a fixed +3 luck Bonus.

So why on Earth (or whatever world we live on) should I use the divine power spell, if I can get a better result with a 1st level divine Favor ? (Based on a CL 7 cleric. If you are Lvl 12, you get better results, but this I expect from a 4th level spell...)
Why has the divine Power changed ?

In addition Divine Power bonus is a luck bonus and so it does not stack with Prayer/Recitation.

My suggestion is to make the Divine Power an Insight bonus
(There are only a very limited number of spells, which gives you an insight bonus on Attack and Damage).

Russ Taylor wrote:

Krome wrote:

So why would any one complain about spamming trips?

Because none of those other abilities put the prone condition on you, and being prone is one of the worst things that can happen to you in 3.5E. Taking out the AoO for standing up would help, if they did that I'd support putting the free attack back in.

there was a feat called kip up or free stand i belive that allowed you to stand up from prone as a free action.

people are forgetting that performing the trip is now a lot harder.

the Giant with a strength of 24 (+7) and a base attack of oh lets say about +10 has a BMB of +17 oh and i forot his size of Huge gives him another + 8 is it? thats a 25. add the base DC of 15 means your DC to trip this brute is a 40!!!!

In Pathfinder, size Huge gives only a +2.

Nevertheless, you need to have a +14 on your CMB to have a 5% chanche and you need a +23 on the CMB for a 50% chanche.
Lets try to get a +23:
BAB +12 as a fighter 12.
Strength 24 (=+7). Beginning with 17, 3 Attribute raises and a +4 Stat booster.
Improved Trip = +2

Sum = 21.

So you need an enlarge Person (+1 Site, +1 Strength) to reach the 23.
On the other side You will have a normal attack bonus of
BAB 12, Strength +8, Focus +1, Melee-Mastery +2, Magic Weapon +2, Size -1, Greater Focus +1, Training +2 = +27 !
It is way more efficient to make a normal attack (even with power-attack) than to waste an mattack with a maneuver with 50% chanche of success.

Let me summarize the changes:

a) The Prerequsites have been changed a bit.
- Combat expertise (which has a Int prereq of 13) has been removed.
- Improved trip still has the Int 13 prereq.
- Combat expertise has been nerved (a bit to much imho).

Net: One feat gain.
But I don`t get the reason, why Trip should have Intelligence as requisite. When I practised some Martial arts some days(ehm, years) ago, I found that trying to trip somebody needs technique (dexterity/feat) and Strength (CMB), but no Intelligence.

b) The range of possible results has been narrowed from -19 to +19 (possible 39 results, Gauß-distribution) to 20 results, equal distribution. So they changed the altering factors accordingly, which seems to be logical (on the first look). On the second look however you get this effect:
- On DnD3.5 a +4 modifier changes the probability of an successful trip (after having been successful with the touch attack) of equal strength characters by a bit less than 20 % (Exactly it would be 5%+4.75%+4.5%+4.25% = 18.5%) from 50% to nearly 70%. If the base probability is higher, the net gain is reduced accordingly. So a small risk is given even with high positive modifiers.
- In Pathfinder, a +2 modifier changes the probability plainly by 10%.
This can give you (against mooks and goons) a 100% success chance while against boss fights, trip is a wasted feat.

Net: In addition that the modifiers are nerved, the basic probability has been changed by flat -25%, too. That is too much, if you take both into account (lesser effect of modifiers and lesser base chance)

c) Effects of being tripped against other combat maneuvers, which doe similar effects. (Grapple and Bull-rush are taken out of scope, as they are different in use and intention)

Being tripped by the DnD3.5 maneuver allows the tripper to do an extra attack. Thats quite strong, as you already have a -4 to AC due to being prone. Getting up provokes an AoO and costs a move action. There are some tricks and feats, which lets you stand up without provoking an AoO. Some even as free action.
Let me compare it with successful results of other maneuvers:

- Disarm: A disarmed fighter looses its weapon, which drops to the filed, where he is standing. Picking it up costs the disarmed one a move action and provokes an AoO. This cannot be avoided. So it is a bit more powerful as trip. In addition, if you are being disarmed by an unarmed fighter, he has you weapon.
Alternatively the fighter can draw a new weapon (also move action, but without AoO), if he has one . OK, here quickdraw eases life somewhat.

- Sunder: Nearly same as Disarm, with following alterations:
1) Weapon is destroyed: You have to draw a new one. If you don`t have one spare weapon, your bad.
2) Weapon is damaged: Weapon gets the broken condition. This hampers your fighting abilites not only for this encounter, but for longer.

Net:
In Pathfinder you loose the extra attack with trip. This seems to be OK, as the other maneuvers don`t give you an extra attack if the stunt was successful.

Putting all pieces together:
As all meneuvers are done via the CMB, it is OK, if the all meneuvers do the same net effects (in impact). So Trip is now back in line with other maneuvers.
but the base probability has been toned down so much, that it is useless to try a maneuver to an opponent (with say 30% success chance), if you can normally hit him with a 70% chance.
Actually maneuvers are inappropiate choices for fighter characters, especially when they have the rare event of having an AoO.

So my opinion is:
- Increase the base probability by reducing the CMB from 15 to 10 or 12.
- Increase the Feat Modifier from +2 to +3
- Reduce the effects of the Defensive Maneuvers feat from +4 to +2
- Reduce the effects of the Stability-racial ability of the dwarf from +4 to +2
- Alter the effects of Size category from exponential to linear. (A Gargantuan fighter has a -4 to CMB against a Colossal one, while a small fighter has only a -2 to a large one. The relative Mass relations are: Garagatuan to colossal: 8. Small to Large: 27-64. Please fix it.
- reduce the effects of having more than 2 feet from +2 to +1
- Allow additional feats like Greater tip/disarm etc, which gives you additional +2 on the CMB.

Comments welcome.