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Is there a weapon in Pathfinder canon for grabbing and holding/dragging people around, sort of like that hook thing they use for pulling Gonzo off the stage on The Muppet Show?

The mancatcher isn't quite what I have in mind, though it's close and could be pressed into service if there isn't a better answer.

Going back to 3.0, my groups are consistently confused by DR. It seems very simple to me, but no matter how many times I explain it and/or get them to read the explanation in the book, they keep having the same questions over and over. I answer them, they get it for the rest of that session, but it never sticks. A week later the same people are asking the same questions as though that conversation never happened.

One issue is that I seem to be the only person I game with who gets the notation. Over and over, people are confused by the thing after the slash being what *overcomes* the DR, not what they get DR *against*. Even PCs who themselves have DR of some kind have repeatedly had this issue.

(I do not, as I have sometimes heard, ever describe say DR 10/Magic as "DR 10 against magic". When I catch my players doing this I try to discourage it. At one time I figured this was the source of the confusion. It's not; avoiding that language makes no difference.)

Another recurring problem is that, even when they get what overcomes the DR they're dealing with, they never never never seem to understand that the weapons they have aren't that thing. "But it's magic, doesn't that count as silver? But it IS made of steel (that's the same thing as cold iron, right?)! Why does it matter that it's not adamantine, it's magical/flaming/has a picture of a unicorn on it!" I'm exaggerating, but only slightly. Even when I temporarily get them into a state where they can accurately state what the relevant rule is, they keep, driven as far as I can tell entirely by wishful thinking, trying to make that rule have all kinds of exceptions it doesn't have.

Thirdly, once I *do* get them to understand the notation it just creates a new problem with those PCs I mentioned who have DR of their own. When someone has a DR type other than "magic", they keep wanting it to work against spells no matter how many times I repeat that DR only applies to physical/weapon damage, because "it doesn't say magic gets through it!". In this case sometimes I can't even get it through their heads for the duration of that session. I get someone to temporarily understand this and they're asking the same question again later that same session. AAAAAARGH!

These are not, in a general sense, dense or stupid people. They're smart, well-educated, and in some cases otherwise quite rules-savvy. Most of them have little trouble using sound tactics and sometimes they pull something genuinely brilliant out of their hats. They just DON'T GET DR.

I conclude that the notation must be at least partially at fault. Perhaps in some cases my explanations are too, but I mean... DR is not that complicated a concept, there's only so many ways to explain it and and I'm pretty sure I've tried them all. It doesn't seem to make a difference, at least not a *lasting* difference. In any case the bulk of the problem is not getting them to understand any particular explanation at the time, it's getting them to RETAIN that information.

Has anyone else had this issue and come up with some brilliant solution that solved it in a lasting way? Or think they might have one regardless of their personal experience of the issue, or lack thereof? It's frustrating me out of all proportion to its seriousness (if I'm honest it's a much smaller issue than I'm making it sound, I'm just grouchy about it right now) and I'm tired of answering the same questions every week.

With Bestiary 6 coming soon, I've got the series on my mind right now. I mostly get along okay just using d20pfsrd.com for monsters, but sometimes there's just no substitute for an actual book, y'know? The thing is, there's just enough of them out now, especially with the new one on the way, to make it confusing to try to figure out which I should be getting.

Obviously the first one is your source for staple go-to critters and classic D&D monsters. But what factors are there that would make me want to choose one of the other four (soon five) over its rivals? For example:

1. Are there any major themes running through them? Like, I've heard #3 has more monsters based on non-Western sources and also more fey than the others, that sort of thing.

2. Any major changes to the design philosophy or underlying math over the course of the series? For example, I remember that in the first two Monster Manuals for D&D 4th Edition, the monsters tended to have too many hit points and do too little damage, whereas with MM3 they started to mostly get it right. Has anything comparable happened in the Pathfinder world?

(One reason I ask: My experience with trying to run modules, some official and others converted from 3.5, is that monster accuracy is reasonable only at very low levels. From about level 6 up some Pathfinder monsters hit on a 4 and others miss on a 15 and very little seems to be in between. Save DCs are even more extreme with most ridiculously low, a few that basically say "you save on a natural 20", and literally nothing in the middle. Wondering if that's been fixed.)

3. Would any of them make a particularly good alternative to Bestiary 1, i.e. a good baseline set of monsters for a somewhat non-standard campaign?

4. Are there any ranges of CRs that some bestiaries are particularly good for or neglectful of? Like, with some books for other, related RPGs you notice there's essentially nothing for characters above level 10 or so that isn't a demon or a dragon; any such issues in Pathfinder?

Right now I'm leaning toward getting #1 for the basics and #3 because both of the points mentioned in item 1 above are big selling points for me. But I would be very easy to persuade away from this and toward other volumes, especially given answers I like to questions 2 and 3 above.

So, I writed a thing...

In the second post of this thread, I'm going to paste in the Warblade rewrite for Pathfinder that I've been working on. This was originally for one of the games I run, where my sister is playing a currently 9th level Warblade so it's going to get playtested, though arguably not in the most rigorous fashion. I figured having done all that work, I might as well share it more widely and, in the case of this forum, with people who probably know Pathfinder better than I do and might be able to constructively criticize it. Or just swipe it for their own (private, non-commercial) use, that's cool too.

I am obviously only 20% done the War Mastery abilities. I've done the Iron Heart ones as proof of concept. That discipline includes Punishing Stance, in which my sister's character probably logs like 90% of her combat time anyway, so it seemed like the highest priority for my own purposes. Everything else is feature-complete, but not necessarily 100% final. If you see something that strikes you as horrible, let me know, you might very well be able to get me to change it.

Pathfinderizing the Warblade probably didn't need to be as big a job as I made it into. For a more minimalistic conversion, just change the levels of the bonus feats, do something about Concentration, reword Battle Skill, and Bob's your uncle. However, this would have left a few things that I was never entirely satisfied with and/or that didn't seem to mesh with the Pathfinder way of doing things:

• The lack of all-simple-weapon proficiency, in what are obviously meant to be a bunch of highly skilled fighters, always bugged me. It probably won't make much practical difference; maybe it'll help a Warblade here and there through those tough early levels.
  
• I never liked the very narrow selection of bonus feats.
  
• There were still a number of levels that, while not technically dead (you always get at least a new or upgraded maneuver), were kinda on life support. I added things to fill them that might also help fix some of the things that annoy my sister regularly with this class.
  
• The levels at which the original Warblade gained new stances made NO SENSE when you looked at them next to when new stances became available. Originally I was just going to introduce swaps at the levels where new ones become available, I ended up going slightly more elaborate.
  
• Stances don't scale and BTB you never get to change them. War Mastery let me both partially fix this AND fill three of the aforementioned dead levels. (Path of War stances already scale a little, so I will NOT be introducing War Masteries for those disciplines.)
  
• Speaking of which, I wanted to allow some, but limited, access to the new disciplines from Path of War. (I also adopted a few other conventions from there, like whenever I needed or wanted a number, I made it "two or your (in this case) Intelligence modifier, whichever is more" any time that seemed like it would yield reasonable answers.)
  
• The designers have expressed misgivings about four features of the original Warblade, feeling they go too far in making the Warblade an almost-strictly-superior 3.5 Fighter: the d12 hit die, the ability to meet feat prerequisites as a fighter, the ability to change the "targets" for feats like Weapon Focus, and the recharge mechanic, with some doubt being expressed as to whether the latter even needed to exist. In the end I nerfed the latter three rather than removing them entirely; as for the d12, I'd be more likely to give that to fighters than remove it from warblades if I thought it was creating a problem in the relative power of the two. In the case of the feat-swapping thing, I may have nerfed it so much and in a sufficiently complicated way that it might have been better to remove it entirely.

A couple ideas were borrowed from two other Warblade rewrites I found on GitP's forum. I'd credit the OPs for those ideas if I could remember who they were. (If one of you is reading this and it bothers you, please let me know and I'll revise this post accordingly.)

Anyway. Enough "designer's notes" and similar crap, let's get to the actual class writeup.

Just FYI, my latest "This Week at Paizo" e-mail begins: "Dear Paul", and addresses me as though I were new to that mailing list. My name isn't Paul and I've been receiving those e-mails for years. What's up with that?

I figure this might be a good place to find people with this kind of interest, so:

Has anyone got recommendations for books of mythological or fictional creatures that might make good sources of inspiration for RPGs, NOT including books specifically written for tabletop RPGs?

For example, Borges' Book of Imaginary Beings is a particularly well-known, and by all accounts very good, book of the sort I have in mind. I plan to get it at the next opportunity and certainly don't mean to dis it by saying this, but it's also 46 years old. I figure other good work of that sort must have appeared since. Amazon will help me figure out what EXISTS but is much harder to use to get a feel for what's GOOD, especially for a relatively narrow purpose like that.

So. Anyone familiar with a book of this sort they'd like to recommend OR (less, but still somewhat, helpfully) one they'd particularly like to warn people away from?

A wave of hot, foul air heralds the arrival of a rippling yellow egg-shaped mass topped by a mushroom-like growth, floating lazily through the air, its many tendrils wriggling unsettlingly.

Pilobolus CR 6 XP 2400
N Large plant
Init +0; Senses Blindsense 30 ft; Perception +7

----- Defense -----
AC 15, touch 9, flat-footed 15 (+6 natural, -1 size)
hp 65 (10d8+20)
Fort +9, Ref +3, Will +4
Defensive Abilities contents under pressure; Immune blinded, gaze attacks, plant traits; Resist acid 10, fire 10
Weaknesses congeal

----- Offense -----
Speed 40 ft., climb 40 ft., fly 30 ft. (good)
Melee 3 tendrils +12 (2d4+5 plus grab)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks constrict 2d4+5, contents under pressure, feed

----- Statistics -----
Str 20, Dex 10, Con 15, Int 4, Wis 13, Cha 5
Base Atk +7; CMB +13 (+21 grapple); CMD 23 (25 vs. grapple, 27 vs. trip)
Feats Body Shield, Death from Above, Flyby Attack, Greater Grapple, Improved Grapple
Skills Stealth +0
Languages Pilobolus

----- Ecology -----
Environment any underground
Organization solitary, pair or colony (3-8)
Treasure incidental

----- Special Abilities -----
Congeal(Ex) If a single attack deals 21 or more cold damage to a pilobolus, the gasses within it lose much of their potency. It immediately drops any creature it was feeding on, and for the next 1d4 rounds it loses its flying speed and its Feed and Contents Under Pressure abilities.
Contents Under Pressure(Ex) If a single attack deals 21 or more non-cold damage to a pilobolus, its internal gasses jet out through a short-lived rupture, dealing 2d6 acid and 2d6 fire damage to all creatures in a 20’ cone (Reflex DC 17 half). The pilobolus goes flying 1d6x5 feet in the opposite direction and drops any creature it’s grappling or feeding on. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Feed (Ex) A pilobolus can transfer one Medium or smaller grappled creature from a tendril to the sticky membrane on its underside and begin feeding. Creatures stuck here retain the grappled condition, while the pilobolus does not. At the end of each of the victim's turns, the pilobolus deals 1d6 each of bludgeoning, acid and fire damage to a victim who remains stuck. There is room on the underside for one medium creature, or two small creatures, four tiny creatures etc. It only constricts creatures there isn’t room to feed on.

When an aberration falls prey to russet mold, far stranger things than vegepygmies can emerge. Among these is the pilobolus, a semi-intelligent fungus that feeds by exposing organic matter - preferably freshly killed humanoids and animals - to a caustic mixture of gasses via a membrane in its underside. The feeding process causes more and more of these gasses to build up, heating as they go, until most of the creature’s body is a ten-foot wide balloon-like chamber filled with these dangerously hot substances. Lighter than air, these gasses allow the creature to fly through the huge caverns they typically call home. After a lifespan of about a year, this chamber builds up so much pressure that the pilobolus explodes, spreading spores far and wide.

The pilobolus language consists of tendril gestures and clicks. They can’t see, but their awareness of vibrations in their surroundings is so keen they seldom have cause to regret this. They must have some sort of creative drive, as they leave behind whatever they can't digest in interconnected geometric patterns; if they have treasure it will normally be found here. They are approximately 12’ tall excluding tendrils but can weigh as little as 250 pounds.

Near the end, it says "lair" where "layer" was clearly intended. This could be misleading to people less knowledgeable about Golarion, though it's probably obvious to people who know the setting. (I didn't as of 10 hours ago but I've been boning up on Golarion since learning I'd made the top 16.)

Inside the Glacier

Aura Moderate Transmutation; CL 11th
Slot Armour; Price 22,350 gp; Weight 30 lbs.

Description
At first glance, this +2 Breastplate appears to be made from pale blue crystal. On closer examination, this proves to be constantly flowing ocean water, powerfully enchanted to retain its shape. The Flowing Fortress' armour check penalty does not apply to Swim checks, and upon speaking a command word, the armour flows on or off the wearer, so it can be donned or removed in a single move action from up to 10' away.

While wearing the Flowing Fortress, two other commands, usable a total of three times per day in any combination, can be used to transform the wearer's body into water:

Melt: As a move action, the wearer melts into a puddle. In this form, the wearer moves 10' faster when flowing downhill, gains a swim speed of 60', can flow through even the tiniest cracks, and gets a +8 circumstance bonus on Stealth checks. The wearer can see and hear normally but can't speak, attack or cast spells. This form can be maintained for up to 10 minutes at a time.

Gush: As a standard action, the wearer turns into water, shoots up to 40 feet at a very high speed in any direction including straight up, then resumes normal form. This could, for example, be used to cross a small chasm or quickly get on board an adjacent ship. Any creatures or movable objects in your path are affected as though you had cast Hydraulic Torrent (APG) at a caster level equal to your character level.

Construction
Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armour, Control Water, either Elemental Body (any) or Fluid Form (APG); Cost 11,175 gp

How do you remove an item from a wishlist? Sorry if this seems like a stupid question, but I can't find a way to do it. The usual method in an interface such as yours is to set the quantity to zero, but in the case of this Web site, that doesn't work. The item remains on the wishlist, with a quantity of zero showing. How do you remove an item entirely?

Just an observation regarding the above order, which was placed November 9 and still hasn't shipped. I get that you've got a big queue because of the sale and all, and I don't expect my answer regarding that to be any different from everyone else's.

The question is actually when you're planning on shipping Pathfinder Adventure Path #76 to subscribers. It's been well over a month since the previous issue shipped, the next one must be coming soon, in fact I'm surprised it isn't out already. Would it make sense at this point to ask that that issue be included when my order finally ships, or would that just delay it even further?

I like the idea of a 3.75 but I'm not sure how much emphasis on backwards compatibility is actually reasonable. No less than Erik Mona has cited huge stat blocks for high-level monsters as a major problem with 3E and 3.5E, so I would think (especially as a publisher whose business revolves, to a significant degree, around adventures) that fixing this would be a high priority. But whether that goal can coexist with backwards compatibility is unclear at best.

Similarly, the difficulty of running high-level games and the extreme slowness with which they proceed is another area that is especially relevant to an adventure publisher and yet, seems to go unaddressed in the changes released so far. I think this was given as a reason for keeping adventure paths down to 15 levels or so from here on in. While I don't think shorter adventure paths are in any way a bad thing, it occurs to me that fixing these problems would be in your own best interests, increasing the variety of products you can support reasonably, while at the same time fixing a widely-held pet peeve.

You might not want to go here but I think magic item dependency is another area that could use a level of change that may not comport with your goal of backwards compatibility.

In short, I think you may end up wanting to de-emphasize backwards compatibility on pain of producing something that doesn't fix enough of 3.5's widely-admitted problems to be worth the relearning.

Or maybe I'm not quite clear on what exactly is meant by backwards compatibility here. Has this actually been defined at any length anywhere? If not, spelling out exactly what you mean by that is something you should do sooner rather than later.

Is there any way to create a "wish list" of products available through this site that I'd like to get, preferably such that it's visible to friends and family members who might wish to use it to order stuff for me as gifts?

I'm just finally getting around to reading through the whole AoW series at once (well, the 5/6 of it there is so far). In chapter 7, Eligos, murdered at the end of chapter 5, turns up alive, having been raised by Agath. I'm just wondering how important this is - does he serve any important part in the plot for the rest of the campaign? I'll get the answer eventually as I have all the issues in question, I'm just looking for a quicker answer than I'll get that way.

The reason I'm asking is, I want to run the AoW in a setting where raising the dead is pretty much impossible (there are instead numerous mechanisms for keeping PCs from dying in the first place). This rather goes against the grain. Would I hurt anything by dropping him entirely, or would I be better off replacing him with a different NPC?

Just reading through The Whispering Cairn for the first time, and I have a question. How exactly do the extended fingers on the carving on the sarcophagus in area 7 "represent a clue to the location of the true tomb" (page 23, first paragraph under heading "The sarcophagus")? I don't see the connection.