jhunterj's page

It's not stated that I am not invincible and not a god, so therefore I must be.

Going to go to a PFS game and tell them I'm a deity.

That's my point. "The rules don't state your character is not invincible, and yet your character isn't invincible." is the same as "The rules don't state that combat rules don't apply to trap attacks, and yet the combat rules don't apply to traps."

The eventual official answer (if there ever is one) might go either way, but it won't be driven by the "unless you can show me where it says that traps do not follow standard combat rules in a rulebook" demand, since that leads to silly results, like your example.

There is no such thing as outside or inside of combat. There is no combat flag, this is not an MMO.

There is some kind of thing like a combat flag. It drives the Inquisitor's Judgment duration and the Cavalier's Challenge duration, for example.

Not applying regular combat rules to traps is houseruling unless you can show me where it says that traps do not follow standard combat rules in a rulebook. FAQs and personal opinions of developers are not relevant and are RAI.

(a) I don't have to convince you (nor you me). Barring an official answer from Paizo, traps in my games go off basic AC, and that's my reading of the rules as written.

(b) Your criterion is extreme (and not RAW). Show me where it says not to have traps roll for initiative. Show me where it says traps do not flank. Show me where it says that characters don't have to make an acrobatics check to move through a trap's square. The rules do not list all the things that you don't do.

Show me where it says that traps do follow the standard combat rules in a rulebook. The combat rules talk about "everybody" (not "every trap") and "combatants" (not "traps").

These arguments are both valid if you don't choose to use standard combat rules with traps. Since certain traps make attack rolls with assigned attack bonuses, I see no problem with applying the standard combat rules to them.

I choose not to house rule other standard combat rules onto traps. I don't have traps roll initiative, for instance, nor allow them to flank, nor take a penalty for firing into melee. I see no problem with others' house rules that select other combat rules (such as the ability to catch characters flat-footed) to apply them, though, but I don't see the advantage in adding it.

The traps in pathfinder aren't usually Indiana Jones traps, you do not have time to react to a scythe sweeping out from a slot in the wall or an arrow firing from a concealed hole any more than you have time to react to a person hiding in a bush sweeping a scythe out at you or firing a crossbow from said bush.

And I think this is the core of my disagreement. Traps in Pathfinder do give you time to react, either through a saving throw or through a melee or missile attack vs. your AC. Sometimes that AC would explicitly be your touch AC and sometimes explicitly your flat-footed AC, and where it's not specified, it would be your normal AC. None of these reactions mean that the trap's weapon is lumbering slowly towards you.

Ravingdork wrote:

But there's nothing in the rules that explicitly state this, at least, not that I'm aware of.

Most of the time the rules say it targets your AC or saves, not flat-footed AC or saves--hence the need for a little clarification.

I would try to use common sense. ...

but also

Melee is supposed to be a lot more dynamic and fluid than the "stand still and spam full attack" result that we the players see,

Right, melee is more dynamic and fluid, and combatants are more dynamic and fluid than mechanical traps. Combatants might catch you flat-footed. Flat-footed is for when you're "unable to react normally to the situation", and when you trigger a trap, you can react normally to the situation, as unhealthy as that situation may be. Unless a trap specifically denies the target its Dex bonus, my common sense leads me to roll its attack against "normal" AC, remembering that the AC and attack mechanics already abstract away a lot of that "stand still and watch the trap's weapon come at you" result that the players see.

Right, traps don't have stealth, they have a detect DC. The character triggering the trap has already acted this round, since the trap fires with them in initiative order (if the trap is a combatant, the trap readied its attack until just after the character's action on its trigger).

I see and understand the reasoning for a house rule to use flat-footed AC, but I haven't found anything in the rules about it.

But continuing this line of thought:

What if you trigger a trap while in a combat? There's now an arrow flying at your head; if it was fired by a trap, flat-footed AC, but if it was fired by an enemy aiming at your head, regular AC?

Does the trap worry about firing into melee?

If a rogue readied an attack with the condition of the trap going off, do they get sneak attack damage if they attack when the trap goes off, since you're denied your Dex bonus?

Just had this question come up. You can't treat traps like creatures in the same situation, unless you're going to have the trap make a stealth and perception check to see if there's a surprise round, and then an initiative check. RAW, I'd say it's just an attack (no slot in the turn order, and goes off of normal (not flat-footed, not touch) AC unless the trap explicitly notes being a touch attack or denying the target their Dex bonus.

With the new Egyptian gods recently posted in the Paizo blog, my imagination was off on applying some of the PFSRD prestige classes to their worshippers. In particular, the Dawnflower Dissident (of Sarenrae) in Paths of Prestige became the Dissident of Dawn in the SRD. "Must worship Sarenrae" became "Must worship good god of brightness, daylight, or the dawn", which fits Khepri well.

Except that Khepri's favored weapon is the sling, and the rest of the Dissident's generic write-up continues its focus on the scimitar (which isn't really tied to the flavor of the Dissident).

The "Burning Blade" power can easily replace all instances of "scimitar" with "the deity's favored weapon". But that leaves the feat prereqs (Dervish Dance and, redundantly, Weapon Finesse). I thought about replacing them for Khepri with something like Sling Flail or Juggle Load, but that path would mean coming up with some feat appropriate to the favored weapon of each good sun god. So I'm considering instead simply dropping the feat prereq.

What alternatives might I be overlooking?

May we request "subdomains for everyone" here? Khepri would have Freedom, of course, and also ___?

Anyone can take ranks. You just don't get the class skill bonus. One language per rank.

... and they appear to jump to 34 hp in the rest of the section. Those should be 26 hp Elites too.

I was using PCGen to recreate the Black Claw Elite (kobold warrior 4s) from Dungeons of Golarion, and I found a few things:

Their Initiative is +5, not +1 (Dex +1, Improved Initiative +4).

Flat-footed AC is 15, not 14 (AC 16 less Dex +1 = 15).

They seem to have taken both Extra Hit Point and Extra Skill Point as a Favored Class Bonus for each level of Warrior. They need to lose a total of 4 among their hp and skill ranks in Craft, Perception, and Stealth. (Or they can have Int 12, which may be better.)

Their CMD is 14, not 15 (+4 BAB, +1 Dex, -1 Size).

Cheers!

If my Bardic Knowledge bonus is equal to half my Bard level (minimum 1) and I take Bard as my Catfolk's Favored Class and always select the Bardic Knowledge Favored Class Bonus from the Advanced Race Guide, do I get:

Level/Knowledge Bonus
1/1
2/2
3/2 (3 bard levels = 1.5 bonus rounds down so my bonus 1, 3 Catfolk selections equals 1.5 bonus to the bonus of 1, equals 2.5, rounds down to 2)
4/4
5/4
6/6
etc.

or
1/1
2/2
3/3
4/4
5/5
6/6
etc.

RAW seems to me to yield the former (since the Catfolk Favored Class effect adds to the bonus, not to the Bard levels for determining the bonus), even though it "looks" wrong.

Much as I like the idea of those mats, the bonus associated with them sounds horrible. While in Munchkin getting a +3 bonus on attack rolls when you flash you Munchin panties (I made that up) might be fun, in the context of this game I just find it wrong. Ah well.

Yep, it seems out of place here. But since this is a cooperative game, I suppose you can always agree to use the bonus even without the pad, or agree not to use the bonus even with the pad.

If you rolled to defeat Zerren and had to start over, do you have to again roll to defeat him and also again roll 1d6 to see if you start over again (and possibly again and again and...)? Or is it supposed to limit it to one "do over"?

As it stands, the spreadsheet feels pretty "done" to me. I'm probably not going to mess around with it anymore. However, if anyone has suggestions for more features, columns, variables, etc, I'd be happy to hear them.

I changed the "=1" in Difficulty.B11 to just "1"; I don't think it makes a difference.

I also tried to figure what "spread" of Easy/Average/Challenging/Hard/Epic encounters to use to end up with an average of Average. 11/17/3/2/1 (or about 32%/50%/9%/6%/3%) would do it for level 1, although it won't work for other levels. If you want to fit them into the 20 needed for a medium-paced campaign with 4-5 party members, you could drop the Epic and use 10 Average encounters, 6 Easy, 2 Challenging, and 2 Hard.

That makes sense. (And I hadn't even considered the rules-twisting 30-level smite interpretation!) :-)

Thanks

The source of this question is from a whim; I was creating a Champion of Irori without any Paladin levels: Fighter 3/Monk 4/Chevalier 3 can meet the prerequisites. Maybe non-optimal, but I now need to know:

Champion of Irori gets an additional use of Smite Evil even though it's not "his paladin's smite evil ability" (text from the d20pfsrd site). That's an easy enough call to make.

Do levels of CoI stack with the Chevalier's level (3 for Chevalier 3 + X for CoI X) for smite damage? Or, since the Chevalier's smite is based on character level, is it 10 (Ftr3 + Mnk4 + Chev3) + X for CoI X?

I'll assume the same answer (whichever it is) applies to Ki-Pool-triggered smites as well.

Thanks,
jhunterj

But don't forget you flip the initiative marker (step 3) right before you draw (step 4). So the side that most recently had the initiative in the volley step will win, because they won't have initiative in the draw step.

New Stonehenge rule question:

In chariots of Stonehenge, you can play a block crystal, a trilithon card and a number card to place a trilithon. Actually the rules say 'the' trilithon.

Is it the trilithon matching the player's colour, or the trilithon matching the trilithon card colour?

The trilithon matching the player's color. The color on the trilithon card does not have any effect in this game.

Can a player move through their own colour trilithon?

Yes, at no penalty

Can a player play more than one trilithon card over the course of a race, and what is the effect?

No.

What I mean is that the rule should be "When there is a tie, all tied players advance their glory." I think this is a logically intuitive rule, but it's very slightly not what the rule says, and it's definitely not what the example says.

Mike

I don't think that's the logically intuitive rule, especially in a game anthology that include Bruno Faidutti's political game where tying for the lead is worse than coming in third alone. We played it (or started anyway) by the written rule (since we didn't read the example at all), which drives a strategy of placing other's guards on a Trilithon to force the leaders to tie, thus helping yourself to a share where your were way behind.

Another question: in a four-player Ghost Knights game, how exactly are the initial guards distributed? Four cards each of four colors unevenly to five trilithons? Four cards each of five colors, and place out "neutral" guards? Four of four evenly to only four trilithons?

Thanks,
Hunter