ntgtoowc's page

It's a simple question, I think. If you have spellcasting from a legendary item, can you take Mythic Spellcasting to make those spells that you cast mythic?

Hey there, all. So, first, spoilers for Shattered Star.

It's a simple question- is The Crow needed for anything else in the campaign? I ask because, uh.... I destroyed it. The entire piling was reduced to rubble after the events of the first book in the game I run. I haven't read all six books yet, so can someone tell me if the Crow is needed for anything later? Then I can begin to read up and make plans for later stuff (which I'll have to do custom), otherwise I'm gonna just keep prepping for book two and such. Thanks!

ntgtoowc, does your GM at least let you parry the confirmation roll if your result is higher than the confirmation?

As far as I'm aware, no. I haven't had the chance to test it, the situation has never come up thus far.

If I had to put my money on a guess, I'd say no, though.

ntgtoowc wrote:

my GM's stance is that the nat 20 is an attack roll, and he knows that the parry is also an attack roll- he just says my attack roll, regardless of the result, cannot beat any nat 20.

So your parry roll is an attack roll, and a nat 20 on an attack roll is unbeatable...

What happens if you roll a nat 20 on the parry?

Since the result of your parry is what matters, a parry cannot crit- a natural 20 doesn't change the outcome. We (my GM and I) both agree on this. The issue came when I asked what happens if my result is higher than an enemy's, when said enemy rolled a natural 20. Despite my result being higher, I cannot parry a 20.

Whew, a lot to respond to. Thanks, all of you. First:

Regardless of all that, I would challenge the OP to review their own behavior, and make sure they're respecting the complexity that they are adding to the game. Normally, a GM can roll a handful of dice, adjudicate, then describe the action. Swashbucklers (and others, like Misfortune Oracles), break the game flow. Every *intention* to attack has to be declared, with specificity and a pause to allow the swashbuckler to respond. If the GM moves a mini/token up to the PC, rolls a die and shouts with glee, "Threat!", and the swashbuckler calls out "Wait, I'm parrying!", it gets really frustrating and bogged down. Even the slightest hint of holding the parry until the target actually hits is corrosive to trust.

If you're doing your best to keep things moving and transparently aboveboard, then I'd suggest keep pushing a bit on your GM, even though I share his sentiments.

Thanks all for making me look closer at this, I'm reconsidering my own hesitance to allow this.

TL;DR: There's good reasons for your GM to be hesitant, and you should check your own behavior, but in the end you're correct.

I understand that playing a swashbuckler can and does interrupt combat in a different way than most othercharacters. And I will plainly state that iw ait for the GM to announce an attack against me before I parry- the exact way this goes is thus- "Alright, one attack against you." "I attempt to parry." (The parry fails or succeeds, whatever) "Okay, it attacks you again." "Another parry."

I do not nor have I ever waited for an attack roll to parry. I do not intend to wait, and frankly it's a bit rude that you would implicate this. Having said that,I hold nothing against you, because you say you've been playing for 14 years or more- I've been in the game(s) half a year, max. I fully acknowledge there are other swashbucklers that would abuse this ability. Thanks for the info of the semi-relevant change, also, though my GM's stance is that the nat 20 is an attack roll, and he knows that the parry is also an attack roll- he just says my attack roll, regardless of the result, cannot beat any nat 20.

Next:

I've actually never had a swashbuckler player, but if I did, I would insist they give me a statement up front, something like:

I will attempt to parry every attack from that glabrezu (or any glabrezu, etc). OR I will attempt to parry the 2nd and 3rd attacks only each round.
I will attempt to only parry the first attack from the enemy fighter.
etc.

And each round they would have to announce something different if they wanted to change, otherwise I'd assume they were using the same strategy as the previous round.

This is the sort of thing though that some computer automation would be great for if there were such a product for it. Swashbuckler player gets an indication that creature X makes an attack against them. Do they want to parry? Yes/no. Then once they respond the rolls are revealed. Then the next attack (if there is one), same thing, and so on.

Frankly, as the swashbuckler, if you insisted on that from me I'd refuse. My mind washes back and froth all the time, I run out of panache pretty fast all considered, and I have a damn good AC. I parry here and there, and again I do ALWAYS party before the attack roll is made, but it's not and it shouldn't be up to you when I parry.

I think it's more than fair to say you're attacking someone, and give them a second- just a second, maybe two- to reply, before then moving forward with the roll. We're not computers, we're people, and our moods dictate our actions far more than sheer logic might insist it does.

Next:

OP&R is the ultimate ability of the class and intentionally changes the flow of combat, because in the theater of the mind that's exactly what fighting a swashbuckler would be. They entirely change your course of combat. It's very "Brienne vs Arya." She swings at Arya and Arya simply sidesteps and tings her sword a little for fun... This immediately throws Brienne off. THAT is what fighting a Swashbuckler in pathfinder is supposed to feel like. You are no longer fighting, you're a play-thing for the Swashbuckler to enjoy. It's a HORRIBLY limited class as far as things you can do...if someone is dumb enough to fight a Swashbuckler in melee, let us have our fun! We've been waiting so long for it!

First, I don't know that I'd insist that OP&R is the "ultimate ability" of the class, but it is damn good and I love it a lot. But second, FINALLY someone who really gets it. It's not that I want to f~~! with the DM, nor that I never want to be hit period- I wanna shake it up, I wanna make the monsters/enemies lose confidence, I want to be showy and flashy and cool in combat! If all I do is melee, then I'm gonna do the best motherf#+$ing melee you've ever seen and I'm gonna do it as well as I can, all the time.

Finally- as I said at the very first post, I've accepted that this is a ruling from my GM. I'm not fighting it anymore. I might show him this thread sometime, but I'm a little worried it might make him mad that I created it in the first place, so I also might not. Regardless, I'm still playing the game and I'm having a wonderful time in each and every session.

My GM is a great person and a wonderful friend I enjoy talking to, and I'd not let something this small make a great game turn to trash. Please don't insult them. Thanks for all your comments, also! I'm still looking over the thread and will keep answering what's asked when I can.

ntgtoowc wrote:

Java Man wrote:

Does your GM also rule that nat 20s cannot miss due to concealment, mirror image, invisibility, entropic shield etc?

No, all that still works. My gm is totally understanding of concealment and miss chances, and mirror image.

How does your GM rule nat 20 vs Deflect Arrows?

Since it straight-up negates an attack, he's fine with deflect arrows erasing any attack, even a natural 20.

Does your GM also rule that nat 20s cannot miss due to concealment, mirror image, invisibility, entropic shield etc?

No, all that still works. My gm is totally understanding of concealment and miss chances, and mirror image.

Like the others have pointed out, how does your DM handle nat 20's with Mirror Image or Displacement? Does he also rule that the General Rule of Nat 20's are Automatic Hits that trumps the Specific Rules of these spells?

Answered above, and only that the specific rule of OPAR doesn't trump a nat 20. It was stated that, and I'm paraphrasing, since a nat 20 is an auto hit on my AC, all my party does is make an attack roll against that attack roll. It doesn't change the auto-hit nature of the 20.

Funnily enough, mirror image did come up in the argument, based on the FAQ. My GM said that they'd hate to end up killing our wizard because a nat 1 killed a mirror image and that lead to it. When I asked if they were fine killing me with a nat 20 I should by all rights be able to parry, they responded that if it came to that, they'd fudge the dice.

Honestly, that made me even more incensed. I don't want fudging. If you're gonna fudge it, why not just accept that I can parry a 20? What's the difference?

Does he treat a nat 20 on a parry as an automatic success?

Or do you still need to beat the opponent's attack result?

BTW rolling a nat 20 after the opponent has rolled a nat 20 happens 1 time out of 20 rolls. Not that rare.

No, a parry cannot critically succeed. I asked that in counterpoint to a nat 20 succeeding against me- I was told that since it's about the results, no, I cannot nat 20 and aprry someone with a nat 19 that has a greater result.

And yes, in the grand scheme it's not rare to roll two nat 20's in a roll from seperate dice, uts just more about specifically it happening then.

In the end, I'm an adult, and they're the GM. I'm frustrated at the ruling, I disagree with it, I think all evidence points to my side being correct in both a rule and an FAQ sense- but I'll get over it. I really enjoy my GM, the other players, and the game we're in. It's super fun! This is just one raisin in a massive chocolate chip cookie.

To be perfectly fair though, if you're fighting an APL=CR or APL+1to+5=CR monster/NPC and they roll a nat 20 vs your OP&R, it's going to defeat your total attack result almost every time. You'd have to roll an 18 or higher to even come close to an APL+=CR monster's total attack result that rolls a nat 20 + whatever their modifiers are, and if the creature is larger than you, you take a cumulative -2 penalty per size category to your total OP&R result. So this situation where you can possibly defeat a natural 20 with an OP&R is slim, if not impossible.

The chance to roll two nat 20's in a row is 1/400 chance.

As an example with an equally-sized monster vs. you that have equal attack roll modifiers: if you are medium-sized and have a +15 to attack, and the medium-sized monster also has a +15 to attack, then your chance to OP&R any nat 20 vs. that creature is impossible. Even with your OP&R result of 20+15=35, the creature's total attack result is also 35, and you have to BEAT that result, not meet it.

If the medium creature has a +13 to attack and you have a +15 to attack, you can only defeat a nat 20+13=33 with your OP&R if you roll a 19+15=34 or 20+15=35. Your chance to OP&R a nat 20 can only happen with two possible rolls, a 19 or a 20. The chance to roll a 19 or a 20 for an OP&R and then your DM rolls a 20 in response is about 1/200. So this is not impossible, but it's extremely rare.

But if you consider large, huge, gargantuan, or colossal monsters, you're looking at a -2, -4, -6, or -8 to your total OP&R result, now the chance of you doing this vs. a larger creatures with similar attack bonuses gets impossible real fast.

So if you're fighting a larger monster that you think can pulverize you, use every edge you can to beef up your attack bonus so that way you can defeat a monster's automatic hits/critical threats with OP&R. Drop Power Attack/Piranha Strike, flank, be in range of your bard's inspire courage, use high ground, and don't forget to debuff their attacks with knocking...

Okay, so, specifically, the issue is thus- my GM has ruled that if he rolls a nat 20 to attack me and he confirms, it hits. Doesn't matter if it's the BBEG, doesn't matter if it's a gobnlin with a dagger. Even if my result is greater, it hits me because "Natural 20s are an auto-hit, you can't parry them." I'm not concerned with beating the attack, because I have a pretty good atk bonus and I can reasonably parry a lot of stuff. I'm concerned with the simple fact that my defensive move now has a glaring error that ANY enemy can exploit, 5% of the time, no matter if I'm level 1 or mythic 10 level 20.

Any other number, I can parry just fine. Even if they crit on 15-19, they've ruled that parries will work if I beat the result. But not 20.

I have an issue, folks. The issue is as the subject describes- whether or not a swashbuckler can parry a natural 20.

Now, before anything, I'll say that I had a good, long discussion about this with my GM, and he ruled that in fact, you cannot parry a Nat 20, because it automatically hits. Simultaneously he ruled that I cannot counter that with a natural 20 on the Larry's attack roll (and cited that it would be so incredibly rare that it would never happen, declining to argue more about it).

I respect him a great deal, and I'm more than fine to go on playing with him because I greatly enjoy the game we play, the people we play with, and him as a friend, even though I both don't like and personally disagree with the ruling he's made. Personally, I find that the text of the swashbuckler's Parry deed (The swashbuckler makes an attack roll as if she were making an attack of opportunity; for each size category the attacking creature is larger than the swashbuckler, the swashbuckler takes a –2 penalty on this roll. If her result is greater than the attacking creature’s result, the creature’s attack automatically misses.) and this FAQ post are on my side, and I did mention them both to no help for my argument.

However, for future's sake, I'd like a clear answer. The base question: Can you parry a natural 20? The followups: If you can't, why not? Since it's an attack roll, why doesn't a nat 20 on the parry auto-parry? A natural 20 is an auto-hit versus AC, does a parry change that or is it an additional effect?

Thank you to anyone who answers, for either side. I've seen many forums threads about this in previous years, but never a clear answer.