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Ran into this issue during the playtest adventure. The rogue took 2d4 of persistent damage. Failed 4 flat checks at 20 because we were fighting the fire elemental which had caused the fire damage with the initial attack. Combat ended so I spent four more rounds spending an action and not rolling a 15 or better and continued to suffer persistent damage. She might still be burning now, but the DM wanted to move on and there is no other means in the rules to get rid of it or for another PC to help out.

Totally ridiculous as written.

Not at all happy about the change. If you are seriously trying to improve the game, how about banning gunslingers and the other classes that wreck modules? I have seen far more classes take the enjoyment out of my games than I have seen classes.

"Oh, we're going to send you on a mission that could literally be done any night at all, that could be done SO much safer if you had time to figure things out in advance, but we're not going to so much as TELL you anything about it until LITERALLY THE MOMENT WE'RE FORCING YOU TO GO."

That's one of my biggest complaints with PFS scenarios in general. There are too many where the VC has known about the problems for days or weeks, but they call you in at midnight and you have to start now.

Rivalry's End was a major disappointment. Season 4 has in general has been a major disappointment. I can think of plenty of bad season 4 modules, but I'm having a tough time thinking of any which really impressed me. (I've probably played 3/4 of them).

IMO, the problem with Gunslingers is less that they target touch AC and more the damage type they are given and critical multipliers. With the touch AC to confirm critical hits, no firearm should have more than a x2 critical multiplier. However, you have idiocy like a d12 musket which does 4d12 on a critical and you aren't subject to the risk of getting into melee where you could be attacked.

The Grit, etc. are annoying, but the fundamental problem is that the firearms are too good for a setting where bows and armor are still expected to be viable.

Great discussion, everyone. Now, riddle me this: Enlarge Person and Animal Growth essentially do the same thing, so why the wide discrepancy in their spell levels?

Because those spells are remnants of 3.0/3.5 and earlier D&D. The Share Spells changes for PF are what create this situation. Earlier editions, it just meant one casting of a spell would cover you and your companion, as long as you remained within 5 feet of each other. It didn't allow you to ignore the target type.

I have a Sylvan Sorcerer who just made level 7 in PFS and can have a huge pouncing tiger for the Season 4 meatgrinders.

I can guarantee you that negative publicity and a poor public perception of the company's leadership and direction will impact their ability to gain that funding and will affect the launch of the game.

And the Ryan Dancey name has a bad association for a number of long time D&D players due to his takeover and attempt to cash in on Livng City by turning it into a MMO model. It's easy to see this as another attempt to cash in on enthusiastic gamers.

Oh, and as for encounters in which the players have to fight the bad guys in the terrain that is completely set up to destroy the players,(Hello last fight of Golemworks), that's just incredibly cheesy. You wanna make it tough? Fine. But do it in a way that isn't terrible.

Yes. One module where the bad guys use darkness to harass the party is one thing. When it becomes an every module thing - I've seen it in about 4 of my last 8 modules, it becomes a trite piece of DM cheese.

Also, I learned in my most recent module that I had to suceed in both the faction missions I was given in order to get my AP and the other was for mission completion. That's assinine since most of the two mission modules had an easy one and a very difficult one. So anyone playing the modules these days are going to get boned. The last module I played, along with being poorly written, confusing, and having a totally maxed out boss with terrain advantage and all his buff spells up and running is the first module where I have earned zero PA.

My last two modules have been Rats 2 and Dahlsine Affair - if those were my first two, I would have given up on PFS.

If anyone has a problem with diffuculty, rate scenario's.

If anyone likes the difficulty, rate the scenario.

The problem with rating the scenarios is that they are subject to interpretation by individual DM's. Some DM's are very adversarial and use metagame knowledge versus the players as well as selectively ignoring the rules when it is to their benefit.

Should I give "Module Name Omitted" one star because it was among the worst five experiences that I have had in over 20 years of organized play going back to Living City days when I know that my experience could have been totally different with another judge?

That's not fair to the author.

I'll second potion of fly. Another addition is potion of Darkvision. That has come into play a number of times in recent modules.

I have my concerns about the title. It is over the top and could bring another wave of anti D&D publicity if the wrong parent runs across it.

But we need better quality pre-gens. The current ones are laughably bad. We spent the best part of an hour debating which level 7 pregen to add to our three player 7-11 table.

I had Merisel 4 go from full health to -40 in one swing. Subjecting new players to feeling useless and the snide remarks of the other players who are stuck with them isn't good for retaining new blood.

I'd like to see all guns banned from PFS. There is nothing more ridiculous that a X4 critical that uses a touch attack. And I have seen it multiple times in a single PFS game.

I've seen girlfriends as spectators without any real problems so far. However, if his GF is coming from overseas and he's not going to skip gaming for a week to spend time with her, I don't think the relationship is going to last. (You didn't say how long she would be in the US). I would be very surprised if either of them actually shows up for the game, so I wouldn't worry about it.

It may be time for a new setting, though I would love to see some Greyhawk, Ravenoft, Planescape, and a personal favorate, dragonlance materials. Eberrona and FR have just done to death, and honestly, in both cases, I think that those two settings need at least a full year of "okay everyone hates what we did with FR in 4E, how are we going to fix that", AFTER we get some other settings, before they are even broached.

I definitely think that WotC needs a new campaign setting and they need to develop and focus on it for several years, if they hope to convince the long-time players who left when 4e came out to take a look at the new edition. I have Forgotten Realms books from many editions in my bookcase and a new one would just reinforce the idea that WotC is reselling the same material which I've already paid for multiple times.

Of the actions you listed, killing the prisoner after you promised not to was definitely chaotic and some would consider it evil. However, the dead ranger was the responsible person, so he has no grounds to argue that the party is acting evil.

Turgan wrote:

If he wants to play a wizard, let him. In our group, new characters usually come with one level less than the survivors.

In my opinion that's the worst idea that ever started to spread through the rpg community.

And I for my part stopped playing with GMs who do that, some time ago.

I disagree. I was in a game where we started with 3 players and added two later. Our DM didn't necessarily provide the magic items the players wanted. So when two players joined the game at level 4 using the PC wealth chart and free choice of items they were significantly ahead in terms of useful gear for their level. Then two of the original charaacters died and came back at the same level with their choice of equipment.

Characters should not be better off for dying.

Honestly, if you can't come up with your own powergame characters, you probably won't be able to understand how they work or convince your DM that you aren't cheating. I've seen lots of people at conventions using builds that they got off various boards and they have no idea what they are doing and are less effective than a more straightforward build.

I have a barbarian/oracle of battle who would be much happier with the urban barbarian archetype. He's one game away from his first Rage Prophet level. Paizo keeps putting new options out and as long as they keep doing so, there are going to be things which people would have chosen if they were available at the time.

Unfortunately, almost two and a half years of unemployment followed by an over 1,000 mile move for a new job have put conventions out of my reach from a time and money standpoint. The bulk of my PF play is PFS, so there is no real reason to purchase the Advanced Race Guide until such time as I can use it in PFS. I was hoping for more openess when the ARG was released, since some individuals have been playing with new races gained from boons for almost a year now, but that hasn't happened.

I can certainly see the desire of Paizo to encourage purchase and play of their modules by making them eligible for PFS rewards. However, the reason that I am no longer playing Living Forgotten Realms is because characters should begin at level 1 and advance from there. If you are playing a "PFS" module for level 7 characters, then you should have a level 7 character - whether from PFS scenarios or PFS approved Paizo modules. If you advance a character to 7th or play a pregen, the rewards from the module should not benefit your character because you didn't earn them.

It's a matter of extreme. A cavalier with no feats usable while dismounted is essentially playing a warrior NPC class when dismounted.

How about the rogue who can't sneak attack because the module features elementals as opponents? How about the illusionist who can't use their illusion spells versus undead, plants and so forth.

It isn't just cavaliers who can be neutered by modules, it happens to every class. If PFS is going to make special allowances for cavaliers while ignoring the equally disruptive issues for other classes, it's only going to increase the resentment against the cavaliers.

First and foremost, the Pathfinder Society should present a level playing field for all classes. No class should receive special dispensation because a module is a poor fit for their abilities.

All this talk about DDI reminds me that Pathfinder needs a tool as easy to use as the 4e character builder. I've never used Hero whatever (can't remember the name), as I really don't feel like paying that much, and while I like PCGen, I've always found it slow and hard to extend.

Hero Lab is very good. One thing you need to keep in mind is that it is a one-time purchase, unlike DDI where you pay every month. I've been unemployed for over two years and Hero Lab was worth the money for PF core rules, UC and UM. I'm not spending the money for the other miscellaneous PF products, but what I have works fine for PFS and non-adventure path home games. I can sort of make it work for the one 3.5 game that I am still playing: it just requires some creativity.

Threads like this bring out the need for an ignore option.

The existing player who is going to cheat, as referenced by Mike, is going to cheat no matter what the rule says. So the only people who are going to get screwed are the new players who are forced to play a pre-gen due to the convention or game day schedule.

There is no reason to have a rule which hurts honest players while not impeding cheaters in the slightest.

I can't even begin to imagine what sort of abomination of a character they were playing that necessitated them constantly rebuilding their character. The chances of any given character being affected by a particular bi-monthly (not monthly; it may even be quarterly, now) update is fairly low, and the chances of that happening both repeatedly and significantly enough to necessitate multiple instances of character rebuilding strikes me as ludicrous.

Is there any reason we shouldn't chalk this one up to hyperbole?

I'm sorry, I must have missed the post where you were appointed the Supreme Arbiter of all things 4e. Because it's true? Because it is happening? They were playing reasonably high level (16-18) characters, so there is a lot of room for unwanted changes. They also tend to optimized characters, so attempts to stamp out exploits in the rules would also hit them hard.

If the pace of revisions has slowed since Essentials was released, they have yet to return to 4e. Personally, I have no idea how magic missile could go from requiring a to-hit roll when the rules are originally released following extensive playtesting to auto hit with absolutely no playtesting years later. There is a serious disconnect when fundamental sysem rules change without rhyme or reason.

My reference to the digital rules is because these individuals rely on the character generator to make the necessary updates.

Where I am more pessimistic with current 4E designers and/or Monte, is if they have any interest in continuing forward the basic design principles of 4E when it was first released. I hope they do not use Pathfinder rule set as a gauge for success. I believe it is all the other stuff to support the Pathfinder rule set that makes Paizo successful.

A big chunk of what is killing 4e is a lack of consistency. I know some people who like 4e, but even they have given up on the system because the rules change monthly. They were having to constantly rebuild their characters. While that is good for WitC's digital sales, it isn't appreciated by the customers.

I think the problem is that the marketing types have taken over and no one is enforcing a long term view of the game. It's too late for 4e, but perhaps Monte can have a impact on 5e. I'm not optimistic, because I am not seeing any signs that the management attitude has changed. I've gamed with Erik, Jason, SKR, Dave Gross, SRM and probably others at Paizo over the years, so I have far more confidence that they will be responsive to their audience.

The other thing you will run into is that players will want to use the scent abilities of their character, familiars, and animal companion against the bad guys. You need to run it the same for both sides. Typically players expect to be told if anything approaches within 30' when they have the scent ability.

That is one of the worst tradeoffs for an archetype ever. We'll give you Celestial and take away Divine Grace. It doesn't matter if the rest of the archetype is totally over the top, I'm never going to take it. Flying mounts and such are back loaded and losing divine grace may well prevent you from getting there.

Here is the upgrade info from the society guide:

"For ease of play in Pathfinder Society, a masterwork
item can always be upgraded to a +1 item without paying
for the masterwork cost again. Instead, you pay the
difference between the cost of the +1 item and that of the
masterwork item. This rule also applies to upgrading
from a +1 item to a +2 item and so on—you never have to
repay the original cost or sell your current item for half
to upgrade to the next step."

Going from a +1 to a +2 weapon is a 6,000 gold upgrade. If the campaign admins wants the players to use the full value for access purposes, they need to make that clear in the document.

Gorbacz, while I appreciate your concerns (and share them to an extent) there are a couple of points to consider. Less outside input means less output. As you pointed out Paizo is relatively small. Also less outside input equals fewer creative voices. Finally, less output may leave Paizo unable to sustain it's current size which could lead to even less output and lower quality. I think oversight by the main (Paizo employee) designers over outside contributions provides the best compromise to allow quality output at a good rate. My 2 cp.

I would rather see less quantity than lower quality. There was a thread about the increasing number of editing and design problems in UM shortly before UC was released. Unfortunately, UC is more of the same. The problems primarily are with the feats and Archetypes because they are never playtested and subject to the greatest abuse when combined with other game mechanics.

Your summoner could fill the front line role with his eidolon. The same is true for the druid's animal companion. You really need to find out what they are planning before you can make any decisions.

The cleric channeling ability handles in combat healing far better than the oracle. It also allows you to use your spelll slots for something other than cure spells.

A usable artificer base class.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Yes. If you have one class replace another then either something is broken with the new class or the old one.

...and if it's a problem with the old one, then that old class is better off being replaced.

Most of the time it is power creep in the new classes. Although Paizo spends a lot of time on playtesting, no one is looking at whether Ninja obsoletes Rogue, but lots of people want the most powerful ninja character they can get and bring up perceived weakneses during the playtest.

Barbarian - Wild Rager Archetype -

Uncontrolled Rage (Ex): A wild rager’s rage functions as normal, except that when she reduces a creature to 0 or fewer hit points, she must attempt a Will save (DC 10 + the barbarian’s level + the barbarian’s Charisma modifier) or become confused.

I have no idea why a Charismatic barbarian would be more likely to be confused. I'd probably go the opposite because we really don't need any more 7 Charisma barbarians. I really have no idea what the developers intended here.

FYI - The 3.5 Frenzied Berserker is back for everyone who hated it.

1) How do you calculate a saving throw DC for the Oracle revelations?

Fire Breath says the save DC is Charisma based, but doesn't address the level of the ability. Spray of Shooting Stars doesn't say anything about the saving throw DC.

I used 10 + Charisma Mod + 1/2 Oracle level for a game last weekend, but it would be nice to have an official answer.

2) Can Moonlight Bridge be used as a wall?

The relevant text says that the 10' wide bridge starts adjacent to your position and extends in any direction for 10' per Oracle level. It certainly sounds like a way to get a wall of force at low level.

If an oracle has one of the mysteries (Lore or Nature) which allow Charisma to be used in place of Dexterity for Armor class, is this subject to the maximum Dexterity allowed by a type of armor?

I can see this going either way: if you are supernaturally aware of your surroundings, then limited flexibility of your armor is inconsequential. On the other hand, if the limited flexibility is merely a proxy for "encumbrance", then wearing full plate could reduce your awareness of your surroundings by more than leather armor.

A search didn't find anything and this wasn't covered in the APG playtest FAQ.