ignimbrite78's page

Afternoon Sara, my copy of PFRPG #67 arrived today, please do not ship a copy of 67 with 68. Thank you!

Hello,
I have been eagerly awaiting my print copy of PFRPG #67 and it has been 14 business days. Shipping does not usually take this long to get to me. Was there an error in the shipping or was the item accidentally returned to Paizo?
Thank you

Technically I believe it goes by type, no they would not get it against and undead version. I've always disagreed with this fact, especially playing a dragon hunter that is supposed to be going up against dracoliches. But in the end it's the GMs decision, I think giving it on a case-by-case basis is a good idea.

I would agree ... go by the base type. A hydra skeleton is a skeleton and therefore undead and the ranger would get favoured enemy undead, but not any others. And they certainly wouldn't stack if the ranger had both favoured enemies. It's about knowing how to hurt a specific type - a hydra's weak spots are a little different to a skeleton of a hydra. anyhoo, back to work

I like the idea of opposed rolls for invisibilty type spells. I have often toyed with modifying a bunch of spells to function with opposed caster level checks, but never got around to it because it increases the amount of rolling in a game without actually adding a whole lot to the overall experience.

If you wanted to change things up a little bit you could say that the "see invis" type spells only pierce spells of their level or lower. Therefore imp invis will not be pierced by see invis, but it would be pierced by true seeing.
This is reminiscent of the light vs dark spells which is a pretty standard set of rules.

thank you thank you thank you

I am pretty sure that is the correct trilogy - I read it 10 years ago I think so my memory is a little fuzy. It was about the time I too read Magician series and Daughter of the Empire series by Fiest -> such good books.

thanks again, now i just need to find a library or store that stocks it.

Armin van Buuren's State of Trance radio broadcast

Hey all, I read a book a while ago and I forget what it was called or the author. I think that the title had the elements involved, e.g. fire and ice or something like that.

The basic premise is that there are alien sybiots that grant 'magical' powers to rare humans. A computer onboard the ship controls pretty much everything including the introduction of the symbiot. Multiple symbiots grant greater powers but there is more conflict between the symbiots.

Any ideas as to who the author or book might be?

For the sake of simplicity over realism I would have ruled that you can only fall 200ft per round, although I think the Sage may be more accurate. Terminal velocity for a human is just over 1,000 feet per round; if you deliberately dive you can increase that to 1,750 feet per round. I'd go with the Sage on this one.

I actually built a dragon around doing this; he would stage the fight on a beach, fly over to kick up sand while using breath weapon, turn around and pick up a character, then fly upward and/or or out to sea before dropping him (20d6) while breathing ice on him. I never used it because I thought it would be an utterly nasty move to dump an armoured character in water a mile away from the fight.

HAHAHA teach them to wear heavy armour. mmmmm perhaps a little *too* mean.

Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:

Umm - where do have PCs only fall at a rate of 60' per round? Last time I dealt with this we had a much higher number - though I think we worked it out at the actual rate of a fall.

When fly is dispelled, you get 1-6 rounds of 60 foot per round descent, as described under the fly spell. It explicitly says this happens whether the spell ends normally or is dispelled. As far as how fast you fall if you AREN'T protected by that, it's close to 600 feet in the first round.

Ah yes forgot about that little caveat. Antimagic field does not have the same slow falling effect though [snicker], but it is much higher level and there are probably much better options at that level.

wizards had a looong article on aerial movement and they ruled that you fell 500 feet in the first round and 1000 feet every round thereafter. It also goes into pretty good detail about pulling out of a dive and intentional dives etc.
All about Movement (Part Five) http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040706a

had a suggestion for dragons facing flying PCs - Dispel Magic. Use a targeted or area Dispel Magic to strip off that pesky Fly spell. It is a loooong way down without that Fly spell and the falling damage will probably incapacitate them.

So what about a continual flame torch? If it is in the PCs belt or in a common sack is it effected by a targeted dispel magic?
Say a sorc makes the torch and carries it around with him is it effected by a dispel magic targeted at the sorc? Or is it an object that must be dispelled seperately?

bump ...

... what I was curious about was if he can blink back to ethereal between attacks in a full round attack?

I was going to have a readied action to attack the blinker when he materialised. so i guess the idea would have been - can the blinker say the AoO fails b/c he decides to blink when he wants to blink?

when using greater blink do you vanish to the material plane between attacks on a full round attack or can you only move between the material and ethereal planes a certain number of times per round?

thanks in advance

oooo I *love* time stop - I am going to be DMing a collosal red dragon and he is going to have time stop on his spell list... breathe fire, PC's react, time stop, wait for it, wait for it, PC's react, breathe again ... rinse and repeat till protection from fire is out or the party is dead.

AH I am looking forward to testing that out.

is the hafling using his body as the weapon? you could him as an improvised weapon ;)
Other than that I am thinking that you might just get the extra +1 or 2 for being on higher ground. Or maybe treat it as some sort of charge attack ...

Since blink specifically states that targets are flat-footed (unless they have true seeing or some other method of detecting the individual when ethereal), greater blink would follow the same rules. To make it worse, give the rogue a ghost touch weapon...

thanks for that - he will habe true seeing, the one thing that i was curious about was if he can blink back to ethereal between attacks in a full round attack?

However I think that bypassing natural armour might be too much. After all the description says that it bypasses nonliving matter and a really thick hide is living matter. So perhaps an in house addendum to the rule ...

-Clarification-

Brilliant energy bypasses nonliving matter. Therefore, perhaps it should bypass the natural armour of a living creature. The natural armour of living creatures is from a really tough hide and therefore living and bypassable ...

This little option would help to alleviate some of the problems with dragons and giants etc. And if you used that option I would keep the enhancement at +4.
Still useless against most undead etc but you cann't have everything.

stirges!

+4 does seem to be a smidge high. I suppose that game designers decided that most parties would be fighting ~50% of battles with armoured foes so having that ability would bypass a bunch of challenges.

However I think that bypassing natural armour might be too much. After all the description says that it bypasses nonliving matter and a really thick hide is living matter. So perhaps an in house addendum to the rule ...

Which book is greater blink in? It's not in the PHB, but I think I've seen it somewhere.

Spell Compendium, the cursed spell compendium, page 32

hey all,

looked around and didn't find anything that really addressed this issue:

does a level 20 rogue who is under the effect of greater blink get to sneak attack every attack?

I know that normally only your first attack gets sneak attack (unless flanking) when you either cease to be invisible or cease to be ethereal. The question revolves around the dubious wording of the greater blink spell. As I read it a character under the effect of greater blink is in control of when they are ethereal; so they can blink back and forth between ethereal and material between each sneak attack, thereby leaving their opponent flat-footed for every attack.

Any help with this would be appreciated.

we are plowing through city of the spider queen and our dwarven defender and human cleric (usually under the effect of righteous might) both have really high ACs. The dwarf in his defensive stance gets his AC up to about 35 and that was for a level 10 PC. The level 4-9 drow fighters and wizards have no BAB to speak of and have no way to touch the dwarf, they even have a hard time hitting the cleric. I think that their bonuses to hit fall in the range of +7 to +14.

I think that the ability to increase AC, compared to BAB, is a little skewed and might need a minor adjustment. Ridding the system of one type of AC would go a looooong way to equalising the imbalance. e.g. limiting natural armour to monsters that have thick skin might be a good idea or tossing out deflection bonuses. Either one would decrease a typical tanks AC by 10-20%.

I think that all the bonuses that the elemental savant obtains as it progresses - i.e. becoming immune to crits and sleep etc, are totally worth blowing a feat. Consider that the spellcaster only loses one spellcasting level for all of that gain ...
If you tried to do achieve the same level of immunities by expending feats you would not get anywhere close to what the PrC gives you in terms of freebies.

That being said, perhaps the suggestion of retraining would be a 'nice' thing to do. Perhaps a free Spell Focus (evocation) to replace the now defunct Energy Substitution would be appreciated. Or something else, say access to elemental familiars without taking Improved Familiar ...

I don't buy the tattoo as holy symbol argument. You might as well just give clerics the feat that lets them cast without somantic components if you are going to allow that. The divine focus functions under the rules as a way to prevent clerics from casting spells. Making it so that it can't be removed takes away a limit on the cleric's power. At my table, I call that meta-gaming.

You think as I do. Personally I think that DMs don't steal spell books and destroy divine focii often enough when dealing with overpowered caster (but that is a whole other can of worms). The critics may argue that is wizards can use their bodies as spell books (tattoo variant) then a cleric should be able to blazen their shield or hand with a holy symbol.

Holy Symbol, Silver or Wooden

1. Require a craft check to make an adequate holy symbol. Such a holy symbol would be the same as the one you purchase at a store and would have the same effect. I'm guessing your character doesn't have access to the appropriate materials/skills, but this would be the optimal situation.

2. Let someone jury-rig a holy symbol. That's what you're trying to do. I'd probably give the holy symbol a spell failure chance, somewhere in the 20-30% range, but let the jury-rigged holy symbol work. Maybe on a roll of 00 it breaks or attracts divine wrath.

Edit: As for the praying out loud to regain spells, I would think it would be required. The way the 3e preparation system works is that a caster pre-casts 99% of the spell. That way, in the heat of combat, all they need to do is finish the casting and the spell takes effect. So, whatever the components are to cast the spell would also be required to prepare the spell. I'd probably go so far as to say this includes attuning the appropriate material components so that they are ready to use at that time as well.

I agree. The craft check seems especially appropriate - and adds value to those little used craft skills.

Also the act of preparing does seem to imply pre-casting, so it would involve the use of the holy symbol plus any verbal, somantic, focuses or material components necessary to complete the spell. But ... you could argue that it is just mentally reminding yourself what you intend to do during the day - kinda like writing out a to do list ...

I like it and if I remember when I start a new campaign I might just include it as a house rule

behemoth wrote:

Need some clarification around this ability...

Pierce Illusion (Su): You have the ability to penetrate illusions and disguises at will. When ever you see an illusion or disguise spell of any sort, you immediately make a Will save to see through it.

Sounds to me like the INTENT of this ability is to see the true nature of something or someone that others may be trying to prevent you from seeing - i.e., the character is so adept at noticing the slightest flaw in any illusion that he is a master at exposing such tactics.

In that respect, all illusions and spells that add to a disguise check would obviously be affected, but I'd go further to say that any illusion that makes something appear as if it were something else would also be affected.

However, since Blur, Displacement and other concealment-granting effects aren't making the target appear to be something else - they merely make them harder to focus on/accurately target - I'd say the ability does NOT apply. In addition, I believe Blur and Displacement do not grant Will saves to avoid the effects, so where would you base the DC which the CI would have to make?

IMHO, unless the spell allows a spot check and/or Will disbelief save, the CI does not get to use this ability.

Chris

I concur.

I would also like to add a question:
if memory serves spells like ilusionary wall require interaction for the Will save; does this mean that pierce illusion allows a save to see through the illusion without interacting? It kinda reads that way ...

well we have been taking about 5 or 6 sessions to complete each adventure and we don't play every week, so it is taking FOREVER! Arggghh.
It can be sooo frustrating for me to DM because I can see the players start to lose interest in a given adventure after the third session and I have to cattle prod them every now and again to keep momentum going. That being said I think that they do enjoy the sessions as a whole, esp with all the socialising ...

I'm just about to run the adventure in Eberron. I think that my group is going to breeze through it, even though they are down a PC ...

However I see this as a good thing as they got hammered in TFoE; three PCs died in that adventure at one time or another. So I think that they could afford to have a lighter adventure. I am going to try and introduce a much larger diplomatic/roleplaying component to this adventure as the previous two have been very much hack and slash. So instead of fighting their way through the lizardfolk lair perhaps they manage to persuade someone to bring them before authorities and the shaman catches them en route and intervenes and smoothes everything over. Anyway ...

IMO I do not think that the adventure needs to be tampered with. Just hand out the correct XP for overcoming the encounters and let the chips fall where they may ...

I would like to second the Radiant Servant of Pelor - it has insane healing abilities and great turning undead abilities.

You would have to adapt it to the Sovereign Host or Silver Flame.

With Life Sense 60' a bunch of the feats seem redundant or at least really sub-par. Alertness is a minimal benefit at beast. Blind Fight seems really bizarre - what can blind a wraith? It detects you by life force and moves through walls! The Spring Attack also seemed a little unnecessary. Its incorporeal - it seems out of place to have it dodging in and out to fight PCs. Their not supposed to be able to effectively fight back - cowardly incorporeal undead just does not really sit right with me.

Anyway I like your wraith a lot - my high AC pcs are doomed to stumble upon a lot of powerful incorperal undead during their careers and I might well throw this nasty into the mix.

Thanks for the comments and the vote of confidence,

However the spring attack and incorporeal nature is a perfect fit. They hide in the walls spring out, attack and then retreat into the walls. With abnormally high INT and WIS it makes perfect sense for the wraiths to use advanced tactics. They want to slowly wittle down the PCs and turn them into mithral.

Although I did not include it in the original post I was going to have the mithral wraiths be dwarves that became too obsessed by mithral - eventually they starved to death and became the mithral wraiths. When they encounter PCs they want to add the PCs to their collection by turning them into mithral statues.

I'm going to assume that when/if this dexterity drain is healed, the character loses the natural armor/mithral-ness? If not, heck, find me a caged one and let it drain me near to death, then somebody cast restoration (well, greater restoration) on me!

*Runs around all shiny and mithral*

Ummmm yes. I suppose that I should have specified that ...

I just had an alternate option - make the damage permanent. Perhaps with the option for a Wish or Miracle to reverse the damage.

any thoughts?

Hello everyone, I recently had a brainstorm and came up with a new breed of undead and wanted thoughts/opinions. The general concept was Midas's golden touch meets Dread Wraith. So I designed a dread wraith that slowly turned beings into mithral statues instead of dealing CON damage. The base stats etc for the wraiths are the dread wraith and I changed a couple of little things without modifying the CR.

Here it is:

Mithral Wraiths; CR 11; Large undead; HD 16d12, hp 104; Init +13; Speed fly 60 ft. (good); AC 25, touch 25, flat-footed 16; Base attack +8; Attack +16 touch melee (2d6 plus Mithral Touch, incorporeal touch); Space/Reach 10’/10’; SA Mithral Touch; SQ darkvision 60’, daylight powerlessness, Incorporeal traits, Lifesense 60’, Undead traits, Unnatural aura; AL LE; SV Fort +5, Ref +14, Will +14; Str -, Dex 28, Con -, Int 17, Wis 18, Cha 24.
Skills: Diplomacy +9, Hide +24, Intimidate +26, Knowledge (religion) +22, Listen +25, Search +22, Sense Motive +23, Spot +25, Survival +4
Feats: Alertness, Blind-fight, Combat reflexes, Dodge, improved initiative, Improved natural attack (incorporeal touch), Mobility, Spring attack
Mithral Touch (Su): Living creatures hit by a mithral wraith’s incorporeal touch attack must succeed on a DC 25 Fortitude save or take 1d8 points of Dexterity drain. This attack hardens the skin of the creature, for every two points of Dexterity drain the target’s skin hardens and gains +1 natural AC. When a target’s Dexterity reaches zero he has been totally transformed into mithral and dies. The save DC is Charisma-based. On each such successful attack the mithral wraith gains 5 temporary hit points.

Hi everyone

I'm in Vancouver the next for months. Yeah I know, not a lot of time, but I'd love to meet some gamers and game, if only a little.

Hope everyone knows where SFU is ;-)

Heya

oh yeah, we live in Vancouver,
ciao

crappy, well thanks phil, our master of many forms will be most dissapointed with his war troll of chillblain :)

it is 50 hp i beleive as the con bonus goes from 0 to +5 and level 10.
but yes i beleive that if you change you die. kind of like the barbarian coming out of rage - see other discussion.

my imperfect recollection is that the rage expires at the end of the encounter or when rounds run out. the 'end' of an encounter is kinda DM discretion. if a DM wanted to be a hardass he could declare the encounter over when the last villain collapses. Personally i'd be tempted to have the barbarian hack at the last corpse it killed (owing to residual anger and frustration that there is nothing left to kill) until either the rounds ran out or it receved healing from the cleric.

Now the main issue i can see is metagaming...
say your greater raging and you have these extra 33 hp plus say your real 5 hp (total 38) - to the cleric you might actually look good, compared to the mage who only has only 5 hp left. Who does the cleric heal first? the apparently raging and 'healthy' looking barbarian or the weak and very wounded mage? Without a status spell it might be a close call. Maybe you say that you always heal a raging barbarian first....

the metalbard is correct. but your hp do change because you CON changes. so if you CON goes from 14 to 6 you are going to lose a shed load of hp (until you change back) and the reverse holds true for increasing your CON - you get more hp.

maybe you could use sleight of hand versus a spot check to determine if the opposing spellcaster recognises that you are casting fireball...

maybe allow a reflex save and then ask for a jump check to see if they actually clear the surface of the water...

ok, if you *want* to get technical the damage dealt is a function of the radius, actually it would be proportional to the inverse of the radius squared, considering a rasius unit is 5 feet for D&D.

within 5' it deals full damage (1/(1*1))
between 5' and 10' it deals (1/(2*2)) = one quater damage
between 10' and 15' it deals (1/(3*3)) = one ninth damage
feel free to argue with my math, i am tired and cannot add 2+5 at the moment.

you can see that it bleeds out very quickly and the potential for damage is very limited.

heck if you want to toss around lightning bolts etc you could also apply the same principle.

Luke wrote:

Thanks all. My Rogue/Necromancer just got a little more powerful. That's a good thing. Our three character party is gonna get its stuff kicked in at some point if we don't get better faster.

Thus proving once again that the rogue/fighter..rogue/wizard..

rogue/sorcerer or rogue/ranger are the 4 best class combos in the game.

I always am unsure whether to stop at rogue 2 or go to 3 just to get a few more skill points and that extra die of sneak dam.

always level 3, the damage and skill bonuses far outway the extra whatever from other classes.

hey,
feodal!? I thought that it was feudal. Is there a difference? Or is this the difference between US and UK spelling?
igi

remember wild wild west? maybe reanimate a huge monstrous spider and slap full plate and various projectile weapons on its frame, then have skeletal halflings fire the projectiles (ballista or giant sling shot alchemist fire).

Alternatively, make a large collection of 'undead' that will help build homes etc for the poor get them to do all the grunt work.

Who says that necromancy cann't be used in a beneficial manner?

igi

ignimbrite78 wrote:

cheers talion! I am off to the field for the next 4 weeks but i'll check in when i get back.

Actually, if you don't mind driving out to the suburbs (Coquitlam), I believe one of my players might be looking for players to restart his own campaign... I'll point him towards this thread at our next session.

mmmmmm actually no car for me, the 'burbs are bad. Could you point your player to the wotc community classifieds instead?

btw to all interested we are having a 'meet and greet' for anyone interested in joining/making a group in Vancouver. Details are on the wotc community classifieds under the " Vancouver BC Looking for game" thread:

"Here is the plan:
Anyone interested in meeting up we *should* be meeting at 7pm on Monday 1 May at the Starbucks @ 682 Broadway West, Vancouver."

cheers talion! I am off to the field for the next 4 weeks but i'll check in when i get back.

Hey all,
I just moved to Vancouver and am looking for people to play D&D with. I DM and play. I am interested in running city of the spider queen or sons of gruumsh or AoW or anyone of my homebrew campaigns that never really left the ground. Also interested in playing, I like a mix of combat and roleplaying. Will be living on west side of Vancouver.
If anyone wants to get in touch with me feel free to email me and be sure to include D&D in the title, otherwise it might land in the dreaded junk folder.
ignimbrite78@hotmail.com

Haven't given much thought to armor yet, may find a way to make the charge permanent in armor or just leave armor as is in DMG. Any suggestions would be apprec.

FH

What about making gems that confer the ability for elemental damage resistance that can be plugged into the armour. So you start with a basic set of MW or better armour and you plug in your green emerald that costs 18,000 gp and the armour now has acid resistance 10.

emerald = green = acid
ruby = red = fire
saphire = blue = cold
pearl = white = electricity
diamond = colourless = sonic

Superlative humour, bravo!

couple of thoughts for and against:

No! Personally there is no way I would buy into this as a player. It is the equivalent of buying a new weapon every 166 rounds of combat.
And damn it *another* thing to keep track of as a player, so now I have varying attack rolls, damage, hp, AC *and* the number of charges on my weapon?
And I was a little unclear on the whole activation aspect: was it a free action to activate the weapon for a whole round or a standard action?
And can you upgrade from masterwork to exquisite? Otherwise you have to ditch the weapon and buy a new one whenever you want to upgrade to the next band of enhancements - this adds more cost to the PC.

Yes! As a player I think the idea of being able to adjust your weapon on the fly to overcome DR or energy resistance is a great idea.
As a DM it might be nice to be able to hand out stuff that actually requires maintainance and therefore curtails wealth and power of a character.

Summation: I think the flexibility is cool, but the inherent drawbacks are too great to make this playable.

igi

One question regarding touch attacks. Is a melee touch attack bab + str bonus or is it bab + dex? I can't see how str would help you with a touch attack.

I have always used your normal attack modifier - so if you are a weapon finesse kinda PC then you use Dex, otherwise Str.