I make sure all the dice are the "right" way up when not actually being rolled (ie highest number uppermost), but only when I am playing a PC. When I am GMing, I leave them as they fall, and if they happen to be too close to all showing the highest numbers I deliberately knock a couple over so they are not. No real reason; just how I like to do things.
As for the Knowledge checks, why aren't all the examples you listed DC 10 (or even less)?
It is perfectly possible for most people to manage to get by in game life by taking 10, since a DC 10 check covers a lot and and doesn't require any skill points invested to know.
I used the lowest as examples because even those are supposedly beyond someone who does not have a rank in the related skill, because all Knowledge skills are Trained Only. As in, they cannot be attempted without at least one rank in the skill. You apparently cannot know what a dog is without Knowledge: Nature any more than you could decipher a spell without Spellcraft or make a forgery without Linguistics. The villagers cannot take tens on skills they are blocked off from using entirely.
"Supposedly" in your post, but not in the actual rules. Dogs are common animals, so the DC to identify a ordinary dog is 5. As has already been pointed out once in this thread, that is well within the range of knowledge checks that can be made untrained.
There are plenty of oddities in the knowledge-skill system, like DC being tied to CR meaning that horses are harder to identify than dogs, and older versions of the same dragon are harder to ID than youger dragons. But your example is not one of them.
Should they be treated as having vulnerability to fire? That would make sense.
Big trees in general are much less vulnerable to fire than people are, and people do not have vulnerability. If anything, fire resistance would make more sense for the vast majority of trees that fire vulnarability.
The teacher resumed her position on customary rock, and sat quietly waiting for the class to come to order. One of the older cecaelia children spotted her first, and told the two next to her, who passed it on. The teacher watched the ripple of attention spread across the class, and then spoke. “Good morning children.
“Yesterday, we spoke off the people of the Archipelago. This morning we are going to spend a little time on the religious beliefs common to those people.
“Let us begin with the Minds of the Mountains. Each island has its own god or spirit, named the same as the island itself. Nobody is entirely sure what the Minds of the Mountains are, can be communicated with if you know how, and they are able to empower clerics (and druids) just as well as the more identifiable gods worshipped elsewhere[8]. The Minds are worshipped henotheistically, with each follower placing one Mind above all others (usually that of their home island), although paying respect to the Minds of other islands one visits is of course always good form.
“The worship of the Minds, and indeed the Minds themselves, seem to be unique to the Vuori Archipelago, and is common amongst all the civilised peoples here”, the teacher continued, “henotheism is also practised by…”. She trailed off, realising she had lost much of her audience. “My apologies, I should explain. ‘Henotheism’ means that your faith recognises multiple divine entities or equivalent, but you pick one in particular to be the target of your worship[9]. Contrast with ‘pantheism’, whereby your faith includes multiple gods but they are worshiped collectively.”
Shifting her position on the rock, she stretched her wings out to catch more of the morning sun, and mentally reached out to the children who had been looking confused “if I use a word you do not recognise, it is okay to ask. Raise a hand if you are worried about interrupting”, and received a telepathic chorus of “yes teacher” in reply.
Speaking aloud again, she said, “Now where was I? Oh, yes, other henotheistic religions. The cults of the Elder Dragons are similar in that one usually picks one to follow, but they are not usually associated with a particular geographical area. – there are those that claim the influence of Dragons is stronger at certain locations close to where they sleep beneath the world, but locations are always vague and often vast.
“The two faiths I have mentioned so far are common among all the civilised peoples of the Archipelago, but there are two more which are more particular. The duergar, especially those of the capital who do not have a Mind to worship, worship a dwarven pantheon in a collective fashion. As an offshoot of the Thentari[10] dwarves, they combine this practice with a kind of ancestor worship.
“And finally, among the sunsouls there is the worship of the Solar Triumvirate – three sungods imported from three different pantheons worships elsewhere in the world. Whether they should be worshiped pantheistically or one should pick a favourite is a matter of considerable debate and some conflict among devotees of the Triumvirate.
“And those are the four major religious groupings of the Archipelago, although syncretism is…” this time several hands shot up. “Syncretism is combining the beliefs and practices of disparate religions traditions”, the hands went down again, “and it is not uncommon in the Archipelago.”
Spotting the tell tale signs of a shoal of tallfins[11] just out beyond the reef, the teacher stud and dismissed the class. “Time for lunch, I think. We will reconvene this afternoon”. With that, she took wing, skimming low over the waves towards the shoal, intent on catching a tasty fish or two for lunch.
That’s all I have got do far. I need to put some thought into what the threats would be – all the PC types basically get on with each other, so I need an external threat (or several) or there would be no need for adventurers!
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glass.
Footnotes:
[8] Most of the rest of the world works on standard D&D style henotheism or pantheism, with gods as identifiable beings into whose realms you could theoretically drop in for tea and biscuits, and generally such a patron is required to gain most kinds of divine magic. But there are a few corners of the world where people worship other patrons, which show all the signs of being true deities apart from the fact that nobody knows what (or where) they are. This is an example of my trying to have my cake and eat it with Pelhorin (one of many).
[9] Possibly a touch more specific than the real-world definition, but it suffices here I feel.
[10] An extant dwarven culture/subspecies that until just now I had neglected to name.
[11] Tallfins are a species of fish common in the archipelago, and one of the teacher’s favourite foods.
Just a minor point, but in (I think) round two of the first combat several people tried to intimidate wendigos. One failed due to fear immunity, but everyone else succeeded. Was there some reason why that wendigo in particular was immune ot fear, or was something else going on?
I think it is probably little early to say. Remember how in the very early days of 3e, there was a concensus that the Monk was overpowered...and that turned out to be slightly off.
Yeah I'd have thought 2e pf would be much more the speed of a 5e preferring group than 1st ed pathfinder.
If they were doing both from a standing start. But the OP's group is already familiar with PF1 whereas they would need to leant PF2 from scratch (and buy new book yet). I can see how starting over would be a tougher sell than continuing with PF1, even if the former would be a better fit on paper.
That said, possibly silly question, but is there no possibility of finding/joining/forming a second group that will play PF2?
Whenever these types of post show up theres 2 extreme sides to them that I find hilarious.
One group strongly cast down any resemblance to 4e. More times than not in a confrontational kind of way. I get it though, 4e is the reason why PF exists in the first place. Would it be betrayal if PF took from 4e?
The second group is excited by the fact that PF2e shares similarities with 4e. After all this group probably loved 4e and was sad that it was no longer supported. 5e certainly didnt resemble 4e. This group probably finally feels like they have a game they can get behind and supports their style of play.
I straddle both groups, but fit into neither. I love (not past tense) 4e, and run a fortnightly game. I have played the playtest and a little of the finished 2e, and look forward to playing more and to running it. But so far I see very little resemblance. Or perhaps I should say, I see superficial resemblance, but very little that goes beyond that.
The skill system sounds the same at the 1-sentance-description level, but diverges rapidly and wildly as you soon as you start to add more sentances. Unlike Deadmanwalking, I would say the same applies to the multiclassing system. They are feat based, but the massive differences in the underlying feat system imply a significant difference to start with, an then you get to things like how multiclassing interacts with slot-based classing (which 4e does not have) and paragon path multiclassing (which PF2 does not have, because it does not have paragon paths or any direct equivalent).
On the subject of the feat system, PF2's feat system does overlap with 4e's power system, but a lot of what would be powers in 4e would be focus powers or slot-based spells in PF2, and conversely they obviously cover feats, whereas 4e's feat and power progressions were separate.
There actually seem to be two different discussions going on in this thread. How much resemblance PF2 bears to the D&D 4e as actually published, and how much resamblamce it bears to the 4e that exists in the collective imagine of the Internet (and in edition-warrior talking points). Although those two things bear very little resemblance to each other, neither of them are particularly close to PF2 IMNSHO.
EDIT: I will admit from what I have seen the stat blocks look a little 4e-esque, and when I get to run it it might feel more like 4e from the GM side. As I said at the top of the post, I have not run PF2 yet so I was mostly speaking from the players' side of the fence.
I'm probably thinking of Forgotten Realms, but isn't the onyx/purple skin a symbol of an evil curse? Drow which have the curse removed have different skin tones.
That is Forgotten Realms. It was a plot pont in 3.5 if I remember rightly. They’ve mostly ignored it in recent years (albeit because they ignore most lore for 5th edition).
I think that is backwards. Indiviual elves becoming drow (with an acompanying colour change) is a Golarion thing.
In FR, drow may or may not have changed colour at the time they were cursed (the lore is inconsistant - in some places it says that they did, but in others it says that they were already known as black elves due to their skin colour prior to the fall), but there has never been any mention of it on an individual basis.
EDIT: I had not read the novels someone mentioned upthread, but that does not really contradict anything I have said. Just one more inconsistancy for the pile.
EDIT: Decided it was too long and split it into two posts. This is the second…
"The Sunsouls live high in the mountains. On the larger islands with multiple peaks, they farm and hunt in the high valleys, but on the smaller one they have to descend into the dangerous coastal jungles, braving the giant insects, the jungle wurms, and worse. Ghosts and banshees are not just tall tales your parents tell you to scare you into eating your fucales...they really are out their". The children shuddered, one or two submerging themselves entirely. "Fortunately for the rest of us, they generally do not leave their haunts.
"And finally, to the duergar. They build the only true cities of the Archipelago, within and below the great mountains we all call home". As befits their talents and resources, they conduct most of the heavy industry here in the archipelago. They make the tablets and styluses with which you are taking what I am sure will be excellent notes.
Of course, they also make metal items, although those tend to be of more interest to the Sunsouls. Steel does not go so well down here amongst the waves, and the metals that do tend to be rather expensive. Stone and ceramics fair better. In addition to their industrial activities, the duergar are the foremost practitioners on the Archipelago of the mesmeric disciplines. Such abilities usually only affect the mind or the perceptions - telepathy not unlike my own (albeit with a different underlying mechanism) is common - the duergar have developed methods of effecting gross physical transformations of their own bodies[6]"
Suddenly, she stood up on all fours and stared into the distance, out to sea to the southwest. "The greatest academy for such things for many leagues, possibly in the whole world, is in their capital city of Ferroth. One of only two structures of the region not built on the island-mountains, the city is built upon and within a great structure of unknown metals and other materials. It origins are said to be a mystery even to the duergar, but many of the materials[7] the duergar use in their tools and weapons were discovered there."
The teacher surveyed her class once more. "I see your attention is starting to wander, but that is probably enough for today. You may go. I am sure all but the youngest of you will have chores to do at home before dinner. Tomorrow we will speak of religion." And with that she leapt off her customery teaching rock and climbed gracefully into the late-afternoon sky. As she did so, trying not to let on that she was still keeping careful watch of her charges, and would continue to do so until they were all safely home.
And that is it for now. I did intend to include everything I had come up within one post, and maybe a few more Joyce Grenfel-isms, but this post is plenty long enough already. Both in words & composition time - I've been at it all afternoon.
What do people think so far?
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glass.
Footnotes:
[6] As mentioned above, "they're evil" does not cut it to distinguish the duergar from the other dwarven species, but I do rather like the "psionic" angle, even if I am not particularly enamoured of any particular set of psionics rules.
[7] It is, of course, a crashed starship. Given that sea water features heavily in this sub-setting, I thought equivalents of wood and steel that would not rust or rot would be useful, and ceramics seemed to fit the bill.
With a flap of iridescent wings that were reminiscent of both reptiles and butterflies, the teacher alighted on her usual rock, and surveyed the betentacled humanoids splashing around in the tidal pools surrounding her. Despite being children, the cecaelia were already larger than her, while the few juvenile grindilow[1] in the class were around the same size. She clacked her stinger against the stone for attention, and spoke[2]."Gather round, children, it's time for your next lesson.
"As you may remember, earlier we spoke about the common peoples of the wider world; humans and elves dominate so many places, but as far as we know none have set foot in the Vuori Archipelago since the Elf Wars[3]. This afternoon, we will be looking a little closer to home, looking at the peoples of the Archipelago in a little more detail. The grindilow and cecaelia often live together, in towns such as this one. The cecaelia mainly range out to sea, hunting and farming amongst the kelp beds, while the smaller gindilow work inwards into the sea caves. The popuation balance of the two peoples within the towns and villages depends on the local resource balance."
She clacked her stinger again. "Stop that Terryn. You are distracting your classmates." She smiled at the look of chagrin on Terryn's face, and that of surprise on the other children's. "You are wondering how I knew? You forget, I am a dragon. I have senses that you do not." In truth, it had little to do with her draconic blindsense and much more to do with her many decades of teaching experience, but telling them that would not have regained the attention of the class so effectively.
She stood up on her rock, raising herself up to her full 15 inches. "That seems like and excellent point to segue into the discussion of my own people. There are those that call us pseudodragons, but like most of my people I prefer the term 'dragonet'. In addition senses we have already touched upon, we obviously have a rather different body plan - fewer tentacles, slightly more wings and stingers". She grinned, an incongruously cheerful grin given the sharp teeth on display, and gave each body part a flourish as she mentioned it, then sat back down on the rock and curled up in the sun.
[i]“We live pretty much everywhere, generally amongst the other peoples. In the towns of your people, the subterranean cities of Duergar, the mountaintop villages of the Sunsouls[4]. We often act as advisers, diplomats, and priests. And of course, teachers". She grinned again.
"Some choose to live alone in mountain caves or jungle clearings. These are often claim to feel a deeper connection to the Elder Dragons[5], or at least to be seeking it.”
EDIT: Decided it was too long and split it into two posts.
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glass.
Footnotes:
[1] I do not do "always evil" for mortal species (that is what fiends are for!). I do not do it to normal goblins, and I am not going to do it to sea-goblins-with-tentacles.
[2] The PRD says pseudodragons "only vocalize in chirps, hisses, growls, and purrs", but if they are going to be a PC species these ones should probably speak, especially as I am casting them in a priest/advisor role (they could do that telepathically, but somehow it does not feel quite right).
[3] I am approaching this as a new continent (or rather "continent") in my existing homebrew, Pelhorin. The Elf Wars were an early event from the wider world's established history. The current people of the Vuori Archipelago do not know this, but a great and ancient magical working steers elves away from the islands by various means. As a side effect, to a lesser extent it does the same to humans and many other humanoids. It has a strong effect on most geniekin, but the Sunsouls are immune due to their relatively large native populations.
[4] Looking at the Ifrit entries on AoN & PathfinderWiki, the sunsoul varient looks interesting, and seems to fit better with what I had in mind that the original version, so in they go.
[5] Another existing detail from Pelhorin, elder dragons are inspired in part by Runequest dragons and in part by an old half-remembered TSR novel (A Token of Dragonsblood), oh and a plot point in a non-Paizo AP I played a while back. They sleep within the world, but interact with it in their dreams. In Pathfinder terms, they are draconic demigods, and in 4e/5e terms they are also Warlock patrons. They are one of the few extant being that can empower both.
Thanks for getting PF2 into the tracker. It's awesome. Will you be adding the 1-00 Origin of the Open Road? I'm only seeing the three regular scenarios from launch.
I was just coming to ask about this, so it seems like it is in hand (albeit not fixed yet). Also the site seems to be having a bit of a go slow at the moment, although that may be my dodgy hotel WiFi.
Not sure yet how pseudodragons are going to fit in, but the others seem to suggest an archipeligo of mountainous (possibly volcanic) islands in a warm shallow sea. I have a few thoughts, but it will be a while before I can sit down and force them into shape to type up (I am playing and GMing all day tomorrow, but hopefully I will have time after I get home on Monday).
Paizo's unwillingness to make a proper Theurge is understandable, given that a class that does justice to the concept of "combining the two most powerful classes in the game" would be... problematic, to say the least. You certainly wouldn't be able to just make a base class that gets 9th level progression out of both the Wizard and the Cleric lists without creating a special tier zero all to itself.
I don't know. I am playing Kobold Press's Theurge class which gets 9th-level casting in both Cleric and Wizard, and does not seem overpowered compared with the straight Wizard in the party so far (although admittedly we are only second level so neither of us are setting the world alight yet). It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Anyway...
Loved: All the (good) options, especially if you factor in 3rd-party and "3.P" stuff. PFS. Paizo's social awareness when it comes to products.
Wanted: A Medium that did not suck at low levels (the playtest version had some nice ideas, but suffered the same issue as the published version IMO - picking something new to be good at every day is cool. Picking something new to be slightly less terrible at than everything else (but still useless), not so much. Also a decent defender class or two (aside from the Path of War Warder, which is cool) and maybe a martial healer.
"Hated" is too strong a word for anything to do with an RPG, especially one that I play and enjoy, but I disliked: All the options that were a waste of ink. How wonky the game's maths could get. The nuke-the-site-from orbit "balance" fixes for things like the Jingassa of the Fortunate Soldier. Paizo's social-awareness missteps when it comes to cons.
Will miss: I am going to interpret this as "will miss when playing PF2", since I don't expect to actually plan on stopping PF1 any time soon: Attacks of Opportunity. PF1-style Paladins. The breadth of options (although that will of course come back in due course.)
PAO can definitely be cast on any willing target. Depending on how you interpret this passage:
"Unless otherwise noted, polymorph spells cannot be used to change into specific individuals. Although many of the fine details can be controlled, your appearance is always that of a generic member of that creature’s type. Polymorph spells cannot be used to assume the form of a creature with a template or an advanced version of a creature."
...you could argue that Azlanti are advanced humans, but I think that refers to the advancement line in the Bestiary entries, rather than anything that is better. If you would allow elves to be polymorphed into drow (and I would), then this should work too.
OTOH, I would rule that they would need to know a little about the Azlanti (what they looked like at least) before you could polymorph someone into one. After all, the spell is Transmutation not Diviniation.
You cannot make permanent with permanency, but that does not matter because PAO will be naturally premanent on its own (assuming you consider half-elves to be mammals).
All that said, what are they hoping to achieve by doing this? I don't have my books in front of me and cannot find the Azlanti package online, but IIRC the main thing they have going for them is better than normal stat boosts, which PAO will not grant anyway. Unless I am missing something nothing in PAO, Greater Polymorph, or Polymorph changes anything about what ability score mods humanoid forms get, so it all comes back to what Alter Self grants.
It seems to me that all they would gain for their trouble would be a +2 size bonus to Strength and funky purple eyes. Oh and de facto immunity to Balefull Polymorph (but also Enlarge Person).
They apply separately against DR, but what happens when they do not have DR? Do you suddenly do both sources?
Even in combinations where Sneak Attack from two classes do apply, they absolutely do not apply separately against DR (either from each other, or from the weapon's base damage).
Does the fame requirement only apply to purchases with pp?
Almost the opposite. The fame requirement does not apply to purchases with PP.
It is the third way of bypassing the fame requirement, in addition to the two that TriOmegaZero listed (being on the always available list, or listed on a chronicle sheet).
You learn something new every day - I was about to say that metamagic rods did not increase the vasting time, but fortunately I checked first, and they totally do!
They don't stack, but they don't need to stack. They're two separate abilities that both trigger off the same effect and happen independently of each other. You hit an enemy and assuming you meet all other conditions, you apply sneak attack and precise strike damage.
The definition of stack is "combine for cumulative effect". If you are adding both of them to the same damage roll then by definition you are stacking them. Which is fine in the case of Sneak Attack and Precise Strike, but that seems like a bit of a red herring to the question of whether Sneak Attack stacks with other Sneak Attack.
One question that I do not think has been answered yet: What are the other players playing? Presumably since Wizard is fixed, their original classes are also, even if you do not know yet what they are adding to it, right?
Requirements to use Detect Magic as a trap detector:
1) Standard action every round.
2) The person using it must be in front of the party.
3) The area being explored must not have any other magic.
#1 may slow the group down.
#2 means that if there is someone else with magic on them in front the detector must wait three rounds in order to determine the location of magic sources. Imagine doing that every 3 rounds. We move, detect, detect, detect. Repeat.
#3 is basically the same as #2 but may also mask the aura of the trap.
I know this post from a while ago, but I did not see this pointed out: Regardless of whether there is anything else in the cone or not, it takes three rounds to get to the locations of magical auras (beyond "somewhere in the cone"). If you are looking for magical traps, the location is quite an important piece of information.
Mystic Theurge (or any other "advance two classes" PrC) is not allowed in gestalt.
Also, with the possible exception of the first one (I do not know much about Mesmerists), all those combinations seem to be about as MAD as it is possible to get. Do you have some archetypes in mind to switch the stats around?
Oh, i didn't realize that. I was going to have one side be Witch with the other side Oracle into Theurge. Oh well.
Syries wrote:
My ideas aren't super MAD. My Bloodrager/Alchemist idea has just a 14 Int and 12 Cha, for example.
Presumably those are starting stats and you will be putting resources into boosting them later, otherwise you will be limited to level 2 Bloodrager spells and level 4 Alchemist extracts. Even if you are fine with that, it still indicates that classes' different stat requirements are forcing some tough choices...IOW, MAD.
Dragonborn3 wrote:
The Gestalt Rules have this to say on Prestige Classes.
-snip-
It also says:
Prestige classes that are essentially class combinations-such as the arcane trickster, mystic theurge, and eldritch knight-should be prohibited if you’re using gestalt classes, because they unduly complicate the game balance of what’s already a high-powered variant. Because it’s possible for gestalt characters to qualify for prestige classes earlier than normal, the game master is entirely justified in toughening the prerequisites of a prestige class so it’s available only after 5th level, even for gestalt characters.
I haven't been in a gestalt game yet but I definitely want to try sometime. My current list of characters I'd want to try are U.Rogue/Mesmerist, Kineticist/Cavalier, Bloodrager/Alchemist, and Oracle/Witch->Mystic Theurge.
Mystic Theurge (or any other "advance two classes" PrC) is not allowed in gestalt.
Also, with the possible exception of the first one (I do not know much about Mesmerists), all those combinations seem to be about as MAD as it is possible to get. Do you have some archetypes in mind to switch the stats around?
It looks like I am going to be GMing again the nest time we do a gestalt weekend session, so it will be a while before I get to play in one, but I would rather like to try a Warblade*//Wizard.
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glass.
(* D&D 3.5 class from The Book of Nine Swords - we do "3.P" for these kinds of games.)
One other thing that I do not think has been mentioned yet: Archetypes only affect the particular class they modify, not the character as a whole.
By way of example, a Rogue with the Bandit archetype gives up the Uncanny Dodge ability. If they multiclassed as (say) Barbarian, they would get Uncanny Dodge right on schedule unless that also took a Barbarian archetype that swapped it out (Scarred Rager perhaps).
What are the current legal races for Society? My GM said there should be a PDF with them but I can't find it.
I'm planning on making a monk based on a fanfic character I came up with who is basically a maned wolf beastman (GM already said I can reskin a Gnoll to look like a maned wolf instead of a hyena, just can't chance his stats any).
Can I play a Gnoll or, if not, a Kitsune, under current society rules?
As other's have already said, you can play a Kitsune but not a Gnoll. However, you cannot do the bit I bolded, and your GM does not get to tell you that you can. Things in PFS have to look like what they (mechanically) are.
Thanks guys. I do not really get on with online play, unfortumately. But I was able to spend the bank holiday Monday GMing chapter 1 of Feast of Dust, so mission acomplished.
I love to be your guinea pig for that!! So for a 4 class gestalt what kind of character would you be looking to see i can try and make one...
Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I don't get on with online gaming so unless you live somewhere near me (central England) that's unlikely to happen.
In other news, since getting three people together for a day's gaming is a lot easier than five or six, we have experimented with using gestalt and a couple of other tweaks to play modules with two players, starting with Chapter 1 of Feast of Dust
Specifically, said tweaks were +1 level compared with the minimum for the module (so level 12 in this instance), 35 point point-buy with an extra +2 (not stacking with racial bonuses), and four extra skill ranks per level. We are probably going to up that to to six bonus skill ranks for the next chapter, as the party was still struggling for skills (although to be fair neither character was remotely Int based), but aside from that it worked really well.
Today I started runing a high-level mini-campign (specifically, the Feats of Dust module, although that is not particularly relevent to the questions).
One of the players was playing an Elemental Sorcerer, and after the session wrapped up and we were talking about what he gets next level, and he gets Elemental Body III as a bloodline spell (already having I and II). He commented that they were badly worded to the point of being non-functional, and after looking them up I could not really disagree. I did think their might have been some errata since our very old CRBs were printed, but the PRD seems to have all the same issues.
Elemental Body I says you can assume the form of an Small Elemental. And then says "If the form you take is that of a Small air elemental..." etc.
Elemental Body II says you can also assume the form of a Medium Elemenal, but then each elemental types is "As Elemental Body I, except (better bonuses). Conspecious by its absence is any indication when those bonuses apply, so it inherits the if-you-choose-Small from EB I.
As written with EB II you gain the better bonus if you assume the form of a Small elemental, but just the base stats from the Polymorph Subschool when you assume the form of a Medium elemental. The same problem propegates through EB III and EB IV. This is clearly not intended, but unless I am missing something it is how it is written.
The intention is presumably either that you gain the bonuses for the spell you are using regardless of which size you select (with the only differences between size being damage and things auotmatically modified by the size modifier), or you use the bonuses appropriate to the size you select regardless of spell, but I have no idea which.
For that level you are pretty much looking at Curse of the Riven Sky (levels 9-11), Emerald Spire 12 or 13 (9-11), 14 o 15 (10-12), 16 (11-13) or Feast of Dust (parts 1 or 2). There will be AP segments which count as well.
Thanks andreww. Feast of Dust seems like a winner, assuming I can find sufficient players...
andreww wrote:
If you want to do Eyes of the Ten you must be on exactly 33xp.
I did know that, but I wasn't sure if it also applied to All for Immortality. The implication her is that it doesn't, right? (Although if my plan comes to fruition I will have exactly 33 XP anyway, so I guess it does not really matter).
I have a character that has been stuck at 11th level for literally years, and with this being the last season of PFS1* I would like to get a crack at at least one of the seeker arcs sooner rather than later. Obviously, a 3 XP module would do it in one hit, but the trouble is finding enough players locally with high-enough level character to join me.
What would be a good module? Preferably one that can support slightly lower-levelled players be get me a level 11 chronicle sheet if I run it?
I have already played The Ruby Pheonix Tournament (that's how I got to 11).
Well, we know male harpies and dryads are gonna be a thing in PF2. I'm cool with this.
Generally, I'm cool with magical monsters being single gender as well, simply because magic is a sufficient explanation for this...but it tends to get weirdly one-sided with the vast majority of seductive ones being female and similar issues. That I'm not cool with at all, so the change seems generally positive to me.
I was just going to say something similar. Always-female fantasy species would be considerably less problematic if there were not so damn many of them.
Failing that, the original Swordsage from Tome of Battle for D&D 3.5 (the book on which Path of War was very loosly based) is pretty much an initiator-monk. Aside from a few tweaks for skills that no longer exist and the like, it should work fine with Pathfinder.
I have volunteered to make characters for a couple of extra players who may be joining a Shattered Star game I will be playing shortly. If they do join, we will have quite a large group, which obviously has an impact on character choices. Pet classes are not so favoured, while anything that buffs the whole party is great. Bards or skalds are an obvious example of the latter, as are cavaliers for the Teamwork-feat granting (with an archetype to lose the mount).
And then I got to wondering, are there any Bard or Skald archetypes that do anything interesting with teamwork feats (preferebly without losing Bardic Performance or equivalent)?
On a largely unrelated note, are there any ways to build a character who punished enmies for attacking his allies, like a D&D 4e defender, or a PF2P Paladin (but hopefully better implemented than the latter)? I am aware of the Warder class from DSP's Path if War, but are there any other options?
I ran Age of Worms with gestalt characters - initially because we thought we were going to have a small group, although it did not turn out that way. I have played a couple of short term minim-campaigns but sadly never a full longe term campaign in it. If I was to run or play Pathfinder with a 3 or 2 person group, I would definitely use/suggest gestalt again.
I also have this idea bouncing around in my head for solo games with four-class gestalt and some other tweaks, but nothing has come of that yet.
Add me to the "it does overcome DR" pile. If it said "as Greater Magic Weapon" or similar, it would inherit the restriction but it doesn't so it doesn't. Nor does the ability quoted above include any restrictions.
If there is any general rule saying that temporary enhancment bonuses do not count for overcoming DR, I am not aware of it and nobody has yet managed to produce a citation (plus the specific restrictions on GMW and GMF imply there is not such general rule, or they would be unnecesary.)
Absent any restrictions on what it does stated in the description itself, a general rule for temporary enhancement bonuses, or inherited from elsewhere, and enhancement bonus does what an enhancement bonus does.
And that include overcoming DR just as much as it includes adding to hit & damage rolls.
Just to add another box to the alignment bingo, I would be inclined to say true neutral.
I agree that having a personal code does not make one lawful, but conversely I would say that not deferring to authority you perceive as corrupt does not automatically make one chaotic. Also, I would say his current distrust of authority is a reaction to his being being too trusting of his superiors when he was in the military.
He is generally pretty careful to avoid colateral damage, and killing evil people is not generally considered evil in D&D/PF, so true neutral.
Although that is not factoring in the torture (partly because prefered to forget about it), so that probably tips him over in NE.
I don't know yet how functional it's is going to be, but we are starting s Shattered Star campaign in honour of the recent Humble Bundle and our party is looking like being a Theurge, a Path of War Warder, a Scarred Witch Doctor, and a D&D 3.5 Spellthief.
Although to be fair the players of the latter two are wavering, so we might end up with and Occutist Arcanist or Saurian Shaman Druid and one of the Occult Adventures classes instead.
If the bad guys are aware of you and you aren't aware of them, they ought to be getting a surprise round, so you shouldn't be acting at all.
Yes, but the mechanic for that is rolling our perception vs their stealth, not rolling inititive and hoping the bad guys don't roll too low. In the cases I am talking about, we had already passed that stage (or possibly skipped it entirely - as I say there are many instances of this against multiple games and editions).
Matthew Downie wrote:
But if you can act before the enemies appear, and you don't have a useful general-purpose 'Haste'-type spell to cast, you can either Delay until you see an enemy, or ready an action to attack any enemy who appears.
Spells are a limited daily resource - at lower levels very limited. I do not want to waste a haste spell if it turns out that our ambushers are three slightly-arthritic kobolds. Conversely, if I am high enough level that I can chuck third-level spells around with abandon, and the big bad and her three toughest lieutenants just walked in I might want to use something more dramatic. Similarly, given near-zero information, I cannot word an appropriate readied action. If I wanted to gamble, I would be playing Blackjack not RPGs, so I am limited to delaying and whatever resources I spent on getting decent inititive area wasted.
And not all games are as flexible as Pathfinder when it comes to messing with the initiative order. Shadowrun for example has no delay option for example IIRC.
And even if none of the above were true, we would still have the fundamental truth that initiative roll represents how fast you react to something. You should never be in the position where the GM cannot tell you what you just reacted to!
The poor ruling was letting us get away with this instead of figuring out a way to get most of the platinum out of our hands. We shattered wealth by level.
I disagree. Much better to own the mistake and run with it than to abuse GM fiat to try to weasel out of it. I had a GM do something similar once:
Back in the early days of 3.5, the group I was in defeated a big draconic thing (a dragon with a couple of templates - the details are hazy). We were in the middle of nowhere with not much available transport, so the GM decided that this was an opportunity to give us a seriously epic treasure hoard - several million gp worth. At best he expected us to scare up a couple of wagons and cart out a fraction of it, which would still have been a decent haul for our level, but he had forgotten we had recently acquired: a) a castle, with a temporarily empty treasury, and b) a pair of ring gates, one of which was in the aformentioned treasury.
Needless to say, wealth by level went out the window, but I can't say the campaign really suffered for it. And the extra money meant we could do extravagant things like buying a +6 Cloak of Charisma for my Wizard. And really doing up our castle.
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Anyway, my least favourite GM ruling is not that terrible in any single instance, but it happens way too often and its really started to grate over the years: GMs calling for initiative rolls at the wrong time. It plays out like this:
* GM has some bad guys waiting to burst in on us or some such. Calls for inititive rolls, and rolls for the bad guys.
* Through invested resources, "lucky" dice rolls, or both, I get a high inititive score (often several other PCs too).
* My turn comes up before the bad guys. The GM was planning on having the bad guys burst in on their turn, which has yet to occur. Therefore I have no targets and no information about what we are facing so cannot even buff with any confidence. I essetially have to skip my turn, and ask the GM something like "so, I reacted incredibly quickly to...nothing?"
* The bad guys get to actually take their turn, and effectively get the drop on us as a reward for rolling poorly.
Yeah, I already had everything but Mythic Adventures and We Be Goblins 4, and I really don't need an extra copy of everything else to clutter up my already cluttered gaming library! It was an incredible deal, though!
SS is Serpent’s Skull. S&S is Skulls and Shackles. I've seen S* used for Shattered Star.
Thanks Matrix. I was more concerned about SS being Schutzstaffel than another AP, although that is a good point too. Hopefully everyone won't read S* as a wild card...
Do the players know who the final fight of Rise is against? If they do then I can't think of too many other spoilers in the early portions of Shattered Star.
Thanks! I asked the same question over at RPGnet, and got largely the same answer, so it looks like we should be good to go as long as they have figured our who is doing the rising (which should not be hard given the information they have already uncovered).
We have not actually played for a few months as we have been going through Doomsday Dawn, so I was due to send them a "story so far" email anyway. So I have sent them list of what the definitely know, and asked them how much beyond that they have figured out.
But it looks like we should be go for Shattered Star! Thanks again!
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glass.
PS Is there an accepted abbreviation for Shattered Star? I am already getting fed up of typing it out, but for obvious reasons I do not want to abbreviate it to SS!
I am thinking about buying it myself, but in the meantime one of my players has bought it for another, and the latter is getting ready to run Shattered Star for us. I have actually just posted a question about it in the AP forum, but it seems like it might be more relevant here. Hopefully nobody will mind if I leave a link to the question here.
I am currently running Rise of the Runeslords for my group. In the light of the humble bundle offer, one of the other players has offered to run Shattered Star. We are only about halfway through RotRL, so if we wait until we are finished it will be a long time before we get round to playing Shattered Star, which would be a shame since one of the other players bought the bundle as a gift for the prospective GM. So I am thinking about alternating sessions of the two.
This would also have the advantage of reducing pressure on the pair of us - GMing weekly canbe stressful sometimes.
However, my understanding is that Shattered Star is a sequel of sorts to Rise of the Runelords, so spoilers are a concern. Would playing or prepping/running Shattered Star give rise to spoilers for RotRL (or vice versa)?
Hopefully it goes without saying, but just in case it doesn't: Please no spoilers for either in this thread.
Benefit(s): While using a tower shield, add the shield’s bonus to AC (including its enhancement bonus) to your CMD against bull rush and overrun combat maneuvers. While using this style, you can use a tower shield to grant you total cover along one edge of your space as a move action.
This adds an untyped bonus to your CMD. They would stack on bull rush and overrun combat maneuvers.
I disagree. Absent any text to the contrary, "your shield's bonus to AC" is a Shield bonus. Two shield bonuses do not stack. Not that this matters because you only have one bonus to add, you could not add it twice even if it was untyped.
Will check into this, far as I know you were still extraplanar if you were fully on the transitive planes (ethereal, shadow and astral if your home plane was the Material (but it's been years since I had my head wrapped around 3.5 the way it was 'back in the day'). Happen to have a link to the 3.5 rulings about it?
I'm going to rage against one of my personal pet peeves. Tanks. Tanking is a MMO term that people drag into Pathfinder.
No. "Tank" is a D&D term in common use years before MMOs were even a thing.
Meirril wrote:
For something to be a Tank you really need an ability to force an opponent to come to you or stay with you. 4th edition D&D had that for 'Tanks'. It is the only addition of D&D with real tanks.
No & no. Old-school tanks were just able to take hits their teammates couldn't, and could take better use of the attack-of-opportunity equivalent.
The term may have gained extra connotations in an MMO context, which is why D&D 4e defenders are not MMO tanks (or old-school tanks). They do have abilities that give the monsters (and their controlling GM) difficult choices, but generally do not force anything.
Meirril wrote:
One last thing. Pathfinder generally works better when you don't pile all of the damage on one player.
For the record, this is also true of D&D 4e. The exact numbers are different of course, but defender take more than their fair share of the damage. But not all of it, or they will end up dead in short order.
My play of Mirrored Moon went rather differently, it sounds, but we have a similar complaint about the research-point system. By luck, we found the bad guys' base almost straight away which got us enough research points for the boss lady to commit her mecenaries, which then immediatey started decaying (the points, not the mercenaries), so we had to set off to launch the attack immediately otherwise we would have lost half our forces on route (we had managed to recruit the giants* on our way back, but going looking for other allies would have been self-defeating.
I was a player, not the GM, so I don't know how explicit it is but our GM's reading of the module was that re-scouting the camp would not refresh the research points even though the stated reason for the decay was that things could have changed.
I'm not sure what difference it would have made if we had had more allies, but possibly it would have prevented the TPK that ensued - although to be fair that was partly due to terrible rolling on our part and red-hot rolling on the GM's. The last time the big bad used its breath weapon, it managed to catch all four of us in the area and three out of four roll 1s (the fourth also failed, but at least not critically). Which killed the cleric outright (he was already WOunded 2), and took everyone but me down too. One crit with his melee attack later and I was down too.
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glass.
(* Were the cyclopes? Something like that anyway.)
