phyxion's page

Batman doesn't bring people explicitly to the guillotine. Guillotines that eat souls, to boot. And for no better reason than they *may* be related to someone.

Don't know if this has been mentioned upthread, but has anyone noticed that super mutants are all male?

Makes the meat bags that much creepier ...

Technically they're neuter. Some can identify as female (see for example, Lily and Tabitha from New Vegas), but that's an affectation as they all lack any secondary sexual characteristics. Basically the same reason they're all buff and ripped.

GreyWolfLord wrote:

Krensky wrote:

DM Beckett wrote:

Up until recently, (and I guess that even only matters if you accept Disney's word on that), the EU WAS canon.

No, it wasn't.

Before Disney's statement canon was Episodes I through VI and the Clone Wars movie and show.

Actually, in that regard, you had different levels of Canon.

The Movies were the core Canon.

The show was actually NOT as Canon as the movies, and was more on the EU level of Canon.

I believe the books were next in Canon.

After that came the Video Games and comics if I recall correctly.

Each level too precedent over the ones below it if there were questions of what was correct.

Completely, utterly, wrong.

Just maybe, you could benefit from reading this: Star Wars Canon. Because GreyWolfLord is in fact correct.

Philo Pharynx wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

I do believe that some folks are tired of 1st level adventures, but given customer feedback and looking at sales and play data from our products and the PFS program... well, that data tells a very different story.

You done loads of AP's that go from 1 to teens. Does your data say that doing one will sell so poorly that it's not worth trying once?

Kinda tells us this yes. As you've pointed out, we've done lots of them. They work. VERY well. Not super interested in trying to "fix something that's not broken."

If folks WANT us to do an AP that starts at higher level... please let us know! (Or if you want us to never do that and stick to starting at 1st level, let us know that too.)

Some of your customers (and I have probably 80% of the hardback line and a couple of the APs plus the Hero Lab files for everything, though I buy the books locally) ARE asking for higher level APs, and have been for a long time. I personally have been asking for this for at least a couple years. I notice there are numerous threads posted on these forums asking for such a thing, only for the very idea to be stomped on by others, or for Paizo folks to say "nah, we don't plan to do this because X".

So, here's my last grasp at this possibility - YES, I want some APs that don't start at level 1-4. YES, I want some APs that go all the way to 20, or even beyond.

I'm sick to death of starting every new story as a pathetic dirt farmer with single digit hit points. I'm sick to death of seeing class capstones and 9th level spells listed in the rulebooks and then never getting to use them. I'm sick to death of being told "that will never happen, so stop asking for it", or "you don't really want those things you're explicitly asking for".

I don't understand the logic of making rules for something and then never giving your customers the chance to use them (in your official APs, to say nothing about PFS). I don't understand the logic of saying there aren't enough monsters to make high level APs, when there are as many bestiaries as PF has - it seems like it would be a relatively simple thing to have developers make 1 high level critter instead of 2 or 3 more variations on things we already have. I don't understand the logic of asking folks to let you know something we have already been saying for years.

I don't understand what still needs to happen for high level APs to be scheduled/produced.

I have one GM who really likes having "background" music during games. It invariably is either too loud and thus distracting, or too quiet and we can't tell it's actually playing (so why even have it).

Like chase scenes, it's a good idea in concept that almost always falls flat in practice.

It's a type of cheese, much like Elminster.

Here are some thoughts I've had on this issue:

1. Like Anzyr and KC mentioned above, cunning heroes (like rogue) should have some ability to "unweave" or otherwise disable / circumvent magical protections. This feels to me like it should be a fairly fine-grained ability, so maybe a skill. Probably not just disable device though, since so many other classes get that. Should be a rogue and rogue-lite class feature (rogue-lite at a penalty). Seems like this maybe should be its own minigame, like decking in Shadowrun (although, not to the point where it bogs things down while everyone else has to wait to play). There should be metamagics that make this harder or impossible to pull off. Edit: LoneKnave's idea about "magic-breaking" tools is a good one.

2. In order to "unweave" magic, you need to be able to sense it. Not sure if this should be baked into the perception skill, made its own skill, or maybe even done through alchemical means. Maybe all of the above. Normally its own skill, rogue talent (or trait, really, this is kinda weak to be its own talent) to let you use regular perception, and a couple alchemical items to let you use perception or just flat out give you the Sight. (Alchemical items kinda needed here since this ability should be shareable.)

3. Brute heroes (fighters and such) need to flat-out be able to cut through spells tossed at them, using only their blade. Probably something innate to the class instead of a weapon enchantment, this should be doable even after picking up a chair leg in a bar fight. Maybe cost a feat, gain the ability to, as an immediate action, (a) make a spellcraft check to identify incoming spell effect (wait, is this already a free or non action?), (b) attempt to "attack" it once identified, or do so with a penalty if the spellcraft check isn't high enough. Might be neat to have blades and blunt weapons affect certain spells differently - blades cut through while blunt weapons smash it aside. Could make for a neat "fizzle / misfire" table for disrupted spells.

4. Stealth needs to work, and there needs to be a way for a stealth character to help the rest of the party not suck at it (as Anzyr painted so vividly above). There are already ways for paladins (as an example) to "steal" the rogue's stealth ranks and share it with the group, but nothing intrinsic to the stealth class itself? Seems wrong to me. This should be something with a resource cost, like alchemical items.

5. Monks need some love too, in this arena. Maybe give them a separate SR for hostile spells only (or cost a feat to be able to select which incoming spells are affected by their SR). Probably should include their Wis mod as a bonus to the SR rating. They'd need spellcraft to identify incoming spells as well.

6. Casters have too many scaling factors, and they're too SAD. Int casters should have their save DCs affected by their Wis mod, Wis casters by Cha mod, and Cha casters by Int mod (or something like that anyway... not the same for everyone). There should also be no bonus spells for high casting stat (they already sort of get more spell slots simply by being able to cast the higher level spells at all).

I'd suggest you get together with the other players in your group and simply have the entire party ask for extra rum rations. After you're all dead of con damage, maybe the GM will rub a couple brain cells together and dump the grog thing entirely.

I'm not deluded enough to believe Paizo has any interest in any of these things, but here is what I'd love to see in a new version of Pathfinder:

1. Editing that values clarity (unambiguous wording) instead of only low word count.
1a. Writing/Editing that understands the actual written mechanics of the game, eliminating for example feats that have no actual effect, or feats that actively penalize you.
1b. Writing/Editing that recognizes that Words Mean Things. Stop overloading words (character level, class level, spell level). Use keywords/tags instead of leaving it to the GM/players to figure out which things count as X (such as fear effects).

2. Playtesting by groups including optimizers, to find imbalances and missing/broken rules before publish.

3. The death of Vancian casting mechanics. Go with spell drain, mana points, cooldowns, whatever... just get rid of spell slots entirely. It's a bad mechanic and the major contributor to the "15 minute workday" problem.

4. The death of the "martials can't have nice things" problem arising from the mindset that martials have to be "realistic" even though casters can bend reality over their knees even at low level.

5. The death of "zero to hero" character advancement. Beginning characters should be competent and should have meaningful options in every major area of play (combat, non-combat, and affecting the story).

6. A challenge rating system that works.

7. Support for so-called "high level" play, meaning APs or at the very least modules intended for all levels for which there are published rules. If the Core Rulebook shows a progression to level 20, then by all the gods there should be things to DO at that level (and ways to actually get there, instead of stopping at 14th like almost every AP does).

8. GMing advice that doesn't include suggesting the GM should cheat. Not even "call it fudging instead".

9. Even power scaling between classes. No more quadratic wizards. Spells should not scale on SIX axes at once (# of slots, spell level of slots, save DC, duration, range, and damage) while martial abilities only scale on three or less (damage, chance to hit, save DC sometimes). Alternatively, give martials nice things that scale the same way spells do.

My last "monk" was an armor-wearing sword-wielding mounted warrior who used a small but helpful selection of spell-like abilities to supplement his marital prowess.

This is quite possibly the best typo ever.

The GM should realize that starting characters at level 12 was a terrible idea. That's just where the system starts to break down. That's a big part of where this problem is coming from. Also, PCs created at high level are invariably inferior to those leveled up. This supposedly 'experienced' GM ought to know this.

Just go with it. Seek out the TPK. Don't let the GM hand-wave away the TPK. Next campaign, your GM should start everyone at first level.

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

Seriously, that might be true for your group and your campaign. Don't make the mistake of assuming everyone else plays the game just like you do. Some of us are absolutely sick of starting every game at level 1 and having to scrabble for every single copper and hit point to make it up to the level where we can actually consider ourselves heroes. It's even worse when every AP stops right at the point where we start getting the actual fun toys, like the ability to significantly impact the story and/or the game world.

It was not "clarified". It was justified in sloppy wording based on a torturous interpretation that no rational English-speaker could accept as the actual meaning of the words printed in the feat text.

Now, I did say that the way it's worded probably is not the way it was intended (and even gave a few different possible wordings that are better than what's there now). I agree that it currently is significantly stronger than what the writer(s) intended. However, sloppy reading does not excuse sloppy writing. It needs to be either errata'ed or accepted as written, like many other bits and bobs in this system.

Similarly, the Foe-Biting mythic property actually does double the damage. Read the wording:

When this item deals damage, its user can use mythic power to double the total amount of damage it deals.

That's not increasing the multiplier, that is dealing *double the total amount of damage*. Explicitly. There is no other reasonable way to read that text.

If that is not what was intended, then the wording needs to be fixed so that it matches the intent. Again, sloppy reading does not excuse sloppy writing. The rules do what they explicitly say they do. If you want more justification for why that would actually do twice the damage, remember the PF override philosophy: specific overrides general. In general, double a double equals a triple. In this case, you double *everything*, not just the base damage. More specific means the ability wording takes precedence.

Many people could benefit from this feature, myself included. Should be relatively easy to implement, as well.

This is a horrifically bad idea on many levels. The entire point of having individual states in the first place is so that the government (of each state) can be tailored to the needs and preferences of that state. If you don't agree with what your state provides/requires, you either move somewhere you like more, or you work to change the system in your state. Having one big monolithic government morass would only guarantee misery for everyone.

My take on backstory is that it's generally not worth the effort, for two main reasons.

First, my experience has been that most GMs will use your backstory to force you into things you wouldn't otherwise do. Some family member gets kidnapped, or your hometown gets razed, or some other similar tragedy occurs. If I take the time to write up a family and hometown, it's because I want to have a family and hometown, usually so that I can go visit or retire there. If the GM is going to take that away, where's my incentive to spend the effort to write it? If it's only going to be used as a lever against the player/character, why doesn't the GM write it up himself?

Second, starting at first level is really not that interesting, especially after you've done it a half dozen times already. Low level characters have few interesting options, in or out of combat, and when someone insists that your backstory has to match what you would have been capable of at (or worse, before) level 1, the scope of that story is extremely constricted. There's only so many things a Ftr 1, or a Rog 1, or even a Wiz 1, can plausibly do, and after the first few they start to blend together.

Now, if I were able to start at say, 3rd or 5th level, my character would have interesting choices to make. It could actually do something interesting, and that would be worth writing about. However, PF and in particular the Paizo APs do not encourage that. Every campaign, for some reason, has to start with dirt farmers, street urchins, and "wizards" who have 4 spells and then they're unable to meaningfully contribute for the rest of the day.

I wish that weren't true, but that's been my experience for the past several years.

Was playing in a game a few years back that centered on recovering a lost ally from a previous campaign. Apparently in the original campaign she was a paladin who got killed and later reincarnated in Ravenloft, but came back as an erinyes and then got sucked into hell.

Party jumped through hoop after hoop to get her back, and along the way we found out that the "agent of your deity" that the cleric had been Commune-ing with for information has been lying to us the whole time.

So, we teleport to Celestia or Nirvana or whichever plane it was, and the guy decides he has to stop us from actually talking to Sarenrae and being able to straighten things out. Dude's a Solar, roughly 8 CR above the party, and he has friends along. We try to talk him out of whatever he's up to, no luck. We're all wracking our brains trying to come up with some way around this guy without him killing us all (and we're all paladins and clerics, so we don't really want to kill him if we can help it).

And then, I notice the 1st level sorcerer bloodline power on my character sheet, that I had never used and didn't expect to... Corrupting Touch, which makes the target radiate an aura of evil as if they were an evil outsider. I tagged him with it, and the GM allowed that to let Smite Evil and such work on him. It was a short fight after that.

Does Celestial Poisons work with Poison Bombs? It says "poisons the alchemist administers to a weapon" but from Bomb class feature, "bombs are considered a weapon". If you're changing the bomb damage type to a poison effect (which Cloudkill is), it seems to me that you'd pretty clearly be adding poison to a weapon.

If a creature with the Pounce ability gets hit with a Slow spell and then makes a charge as a standard action (thus being limited to only their base movement rate), do they still get all the attacks from Pounce?

It seems weird that when you're limited to either one standard or one move action, you either stand in place and make one attack, or you can move up to your base speed... or if you have Pounce, you can do both and make 5+ attacks.

Quote:

And a news flash for you: I have played good characters and, once, a Paladin. I have it on the authority of the folks I was playing her with that she was, in fact, an awesome Paladin. So, no, I'm not missing an opportunity. I'm choosing the exercise my options the way I want to. Have played good characters before and they are, simply, not interesting.

I am working on stamping out a prejudice: the one that says evil PCs are badwrongfun. It's for the greater good. [/sarcasm]

Well, fair enough. It was only a suggestion; you can play what you want. : )

But, that's the point, isn't it? You can play what you want, but if anyone else plays what they want then you refuse to play if you don't like their choice!

There's a difference between these two things:

1. Choosing not to play a good character, or not to play in a game with good characters

and

2. Stopping the rest of the group from playing that game.

Surely you can see this? Just because one person doesn't want to participate in a particular game, doesn't mean every other potential participant must immediately stop.

Lord Twig wrote:

So it sounds like this has been mostly answered, but I wonder about types of DR other than Bludgeoning/Piercing/Slashing. Namely, if I hit a bunch of Dretches with an Ice Storm, how does that deal with their DR 5/cold iron or good and Resist cold 10?

My current understanding is that the 2d6 cold would be reduced by 10 and the 3d6 bludgeoning would be reduced by 5, as ice is neither cold iron nor good. Is that right?

Yes, just treat the spell's damage like weapon damage.

This seems to contradict the PRD text on Damage Reduction, which states (in part): Spells, spell-like abilities, and energy attacks (even nonmagical fire) ignore damage reduction.

Is this errata to how DR works, and those things now no longer ignore DR?

In an effort to relive some of my own "golden years" of gaming, I've brought forward some concepts from other games and mingled them with bits and pieces of Pathfinder to create a necromancer class with an entirely different flavor from what is already available. It uses a "new" spellcasting mechanic to replicate draining your own life to cast spells (and draining the enemy's life to replenish your own), a minion that is intended to harass and hinder the enemy, and a dazzling array of debuffs and control abilities that make your teammates more effective.

I invite all of you to peruse, analyze, criticize, optimize, even abuse this class. Tell me where it's weak, where it's strong, where it's broken. A good deal of effort went into designing this class, and I believe it's solidly in between tier 2 and 3.

Here's a breakdown of the philosophy and intent behind the class:

Primarily I wanted a class that feels like the Everquest necromancer. That entails 3 things - first, having a pet that can either tank or DPS (DPR in this case, I suppose), with spells to augment/select his role. Second, DoTs (damage over time) and debuffs - few actual direct damage spells, very few area spells. Mainly status ailments, like sickened, frightened, nauseated, etc. Some spells that do damage but not quickly (and this is tough to balance, given the average 5-round-long combat in 3.5/PF). Some thematic utility stuff. Also, *specifically*, decent control spells for use against undead. Third, the ability to manipulate HP - healing and lifetap/lifedrain. That's where the casting mechanic comes from - in EQ, necros have a spell line called Lich, which puts a skeleton (or other undead) illusion on them and drains their HP in exchange for faster mana regen. Basically they're casting spells from their own life force, but at a measured rate. This works side-by-side with their lifetap/lifedrain abilities, allowing them to keep up casting (at a non-peak rate) pretty much indefinitely. Sure, they can do some burst damage, but it leaves them low on options until they've had time to regen. In the middle of a tense fight, that's generally a poor choice (but it IS at least an option).

For this concept, I looked at a number of existing classes. None of them had the feeling I was looking for (I know this is pretty subjective, but even with massive reskinning the mechanics just wouldn't allow what I was going for to be effective - even the coolest concept ever isn't much fun if it can't perform in-game). I looked at Druid, Summoner, Cleric/Wizard/Sorcerer/Oracle, Witch, and Alchemist (even a few third-party classes), and didn't find a way I could mix and match to get what I wanted without a lot of difficulty and just general sloppiness. One of my side goals in this was to not slow down play too much. The "archetypal" necromancer from D&D-style fantasy is a guy who has legions of the dead at his command. In-game, however, this has several drawbacks. First, the sheer number of minions required to be effective (using the standard available undead types) is rather high, and this not only stretches the action economy but slows things down for everyone at the table. Second, it's entirely dependent on GM largesse (what creatures are available to be animated and how much onyx is available for purchase/looting, etc). While I don't think anyone in my current group would intentionally gimp a character, it's all too easy to forget to make allowances to let the character do their shtick, and if we get stuck in the wilderness for weeks, or end up racing the clock for some reason, it's entirely possible for multiple levels to pass by with no real advancement (and likely a loss, as the minions would be ablating in combat) in that realm, resulting in wasted character options. Best to simply avoid the possibility.

So, in order to reify this concept properly, I've taken bits and pieces from several classes and put them back together in (what I think is) a coherent fashion.

First, the basic caster concept. Spontaneous casting (doesn't have to memorize spells or worry about a spellbook), no armor, simple weapons. Limit the number of effects known (simplifying decision making in play but increasing challenge when selecting effects known), limits "innate" offensive/defensive capability. Good will save (have to be strong-willed to resist corruption and control life force), good fort save (necro casting is based on his own life energy, so he has to be healthy and full of vitality), poor reflex save (no need to be fast when you have undead to do all the scut work and fight for you, and crawling around in musty damp tombs isn't good for the joints).

Second, the skeleton pet. I took the base idea from here: UA Necromancer Variants, added some buff abilities from the Summoner spell list, added some more buff abilities to match the buffs in EQ and provide some actual utility. Now there's a "sticky" mechanic that lets him tank, along with a few other things. He's commanded (mentally) by spending a move action, so he doesn't ravish the action economy - selecting new targets, positioning, etc. It is completely controllable; it's made with a tiny shred of the caster's soul so it's immune to turn/rebuke/command. It's not truly mindless, but it has no preservation instinct of its own (it does defend the caster if he's injured, etc). Since it's a basic skeleton, even with more HD it sucks combat-wise, so it can be equipped with items of its own (weapons and armor only). It already does get HD advancement equal to the caster, and there are plenty of buff effects he can put on it temporarily to make it good at things (at a cost!), basically granting templates and abilities to it for the duration of the spell. I really don't want to have the same sort of complexity as there is in, say, the eidolon, so I steered away from build points type of improvements for this. It's not really "undead", anyway, more of a homunculus (essentially a constructed body with a little of the caster's life force powering it).

Third, the casting mechanic. Vancian magic just doesn't do it for me. I tend to play spontaneous casters if I play caster at all, since memorization is bloody annoying (and makes very little sense to begin with, given a bit of thought). So, spell points/pool. Problem there is, it gets ridiculous because of the way spell slots work, plus the fact that damage spells are horribly underpowered. So, limited pool (like ki points, basically) that gets bigger as you level, so you can do more before you need to tap into your life force. Since it IS life force, I based it on Con. Added a class ability to regain pool by spending HP (which is always risky in combat, especially with the d6 hit die of casters), also scaling up with level. The balance point here is being able to use two of your highest level effects before needing to recharge (sometimes 3 if you have pact going before you start using the effects, which gives you 2 rounds worth of regen while you cast), or several lower level ones if you don't "need" the extra oomph, or a couple of "maintained" effects and one big one every few rounds, etc etc. Interesting Choice is the primary concept. Speaking of maintained effects - added an option to let necromancers sustain some effects (generally buffs/debuffs) at an ongoing cost. They're limited in several ways: first, the point cost - you spend casting pool points every round to keep the effect going. Second, pool size - as small as the casting pool is, you just can't have a bunch of effects running at once. Third, every sustainable effect is single target. Finally, hard power limit - you can only have a number of effects sustained equal to your casting stat mod. That done, I provided a limited way to mitigate the sustain cost, since the class is themed around DoT and debuffs - a focus item that can sustain one instance of a single effect at no per-round cost. The effect it sustains is chosen at creation, and only a limited number can be used at once (*very* limited). Sustain effects are much like concentration-duration spells, they work as long as you pay their cost every round, and then (some of them) for a little while after that.

Fourth, the "spells". I use quotes because these effects are balanced differently than the normal spell system. They're balanced against what a Fighter can do, using level appropriate equipment and abilities. In point of fact, they're balanced noticeably *below* what a Fighter could do, specifically because the necro gets a pet that can keep him out of melee (up to a point). Fighters, of course, do less damage than rogues (only when SA'ing) or barbarians or paladins (only vs undead/evil) (or clerics/druids, if they're built for melee) or rangers (vs favored enemy). So, this class won't be putting anyone out of a job damage-wise. Most of the better necro effects are spread across multiple rounds (like the Darkness line that reduces movement - limited utility but it's something that can be maintained, at a continuing cost, as long as necessary and as long as the caster has HP to burn for it). Nearly everything scales with level, but in a much more limited fashion than normal spells. And of course, he chews through his own HP like candy to maintain casting, so *every* cast is a risk. The effects on the Veil Magic list balance out moderately (slight but noticeable) more powerful than the equivalent wizard spell *at the level it becomes available*, but they do not scale up as much, so the power curve drops behind at higher levels. This also has the pleasant side effect of encouraging the necromancer to use higher level effects, with their corresponding higher cast cost (hooray for self-balancing!). This is sort of a "dark side of the force" flavor - quicker, easier, but not really more powerful.

As an aside here, I think, after looking at a *lot* of math, I found the source of the "quadratic wizard" problem. It's because *everything* about spellcasting scales with level. The number of spells you have per day (including activated items and bonus slots for casting stat), the difficulty in resisting the spells (spell penetration, spell focus, casting stat mod increase), the effect of the spells (damage dice, empower, maximize), the power level of the spells (spell level), the sheer versatility/number of different effects that become available, eventually the number of spells you can cast in a round (quicken, familiar + wand, contingency). Not only does a caster become more powerful as he levels, he becomes more powerful *faster* with every level. I think I've mostly alleviated this with the necromancer, since the effect of the spells doesn't increase nearly as fast, or as much, as standard ones. The versatility is also greatly reduced, since Veil Magic has extremely low overlap with other spell lists in terms of available effect, and no overlap at all in terms of "spell list" per se, so a necromancer would need UMD to use pretty much any wand/scroll (and likewise, other classes would need UMD to take advantage of any Veil Magic items; I actually lean towards Veil Magic effects not even being allowed as scrolls/wands, though some would be okay as potions/staves).

Fifth, thematics. The necro is focused around manipulating life force in its raw form, so of course he gets healing effects. Nothing even close to what the cleric gets, and even if it was, the cleric really shouldn't be healing 95% of the time anyway, it's so massively underpowered compared to his other options. No channeling ability, so no elemental wackiness; no lay on hands; just the pure transfer of life energy (most of it stolen from monsters/enemies anyway), and always at the cost of some of his own (the casting cost, or simple direct transfer). He also gets some limited versatility by way of "undead-like", poison/cold/ghost/scary-type stuff.

One thing I've been pleasantly surprised by, is that as I flesh out (ha!) the effect list, I'm finding that there is plenty of variety in terms of saves, durations, schools, etc. I had been a little concerned that everything would end up being necromancy and conjuration.

So, that's where it's all coming from. Now to see if it gets there...

Class writeup
Tables, minion stats, effect list (note there are multiple tabs on this one)

I certainly sympathize with Paizo in terms of being only human. We all are. However, when it's pointed out (with supporting math) that certain options are not just "less than optimal", but outright not worth taking or not functional/possible as written, that should be AT LEAST officially acknowledged. I would personally prefer the issue be fixed, but at minimum it should be acknowledged in the FAQ/errata.

And anyone who puts forth the argument that some players "have no ability to make logical conclusions on their own", well, that's entirely spurious. As someone who's paid several hundred dollars to Paizo in exchange for their RPG books, I expect the rules to be functional, internally consistent, and entirely without "trap options".

I don't think anyone is claiming everything must be perfect out of the gate. However, once the problems are pointed out, and mathematically proven to be problems, they *really* ought to get fixed. That's what I (and presumably hundreds of others) am paying for. Acknowledge the problem, publicly, then fix it. Take the time to do it right, but DO IT. Your loyal fans and customers are watching eagerly.