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I've seen a number of posts about the order of attacks between readied actions and attacks of opportunity, but I don't see one covering this situation.

A sorcerer is standing in a corridor next to a door (not at the door -- the next square over). He readies an action to cast a spell on the first thing that comes out the door.

A bad guy comes out the door. Who attacks first -- (a) the sorcerer with his readied action, or (b) the bad guy with his attack of opportunity vs. the spell-casting sorcerer? Any rule references would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Familiars (and other small animals) get to use Dexterity instead of Strength for Climb (and Swim) checks. You also only get the class skill bonus if you have at least 1 rank in the skill. If you have 0 ranks in the skill, you do not get the +3 class skill bonus.

Acrobatics = +2 Dex, +8 racial = +10
Climb = +2 Dex, +8 racial = 10
Escape Artist = +2 Dex, +1 rank = +3
Stealth = +2 Dex, +4 racial, +8 size = +14

The skills are correct as is.

Quote:

Presented here are the base animal statistics for all of the most commonly used familiars—of course, these statistics can also be used for normal animals as well. Small animals like these use Dexterity to modify Climb and Swim checks.

Ah, perfect. Thank you!

The Bestiary entry for the weasel familiar lists its skill modifiers as: Skills Acrobatics +10, Climb +10, Escape Artist +3, Stealth +14; Racial Modifiers +4 Stealth, +8 Acrobatics

However, when I calculate them from scratch, I get:
- Acrobatics = +2 (Dex) +8 (Racial) +3 (Class Skill) = +13
- Climb = -4 (Str) +8 (Racial [climb speed]) +3 (Class Skill) = +7
- Escape Artist = +2 (Dex) +1 (1 Rank) = +3
- Stealth = +2 (Dex) +4 (Racial) +8 (Size) +3 (Class Skill) = +17

I stumbled across this trying to determine where the weasel's one skill rank lived, after reading the rule about familiars using either their ranks or their master's ranks, whichever is greater.

What am I missing?

I think Zyrxog has a big enough ego that he'd be embarrassed that he had the PCs in his lair but failed to complete the job of eliminating the "small minds". I think he would try to find an opportunity to strike the PCs on the surface. Maybe he recruits some more drow first to keep an eye on his brood.

To understand the impact of all 4 characters making 4 checks I dusted off my statistics and validated with a simulation.

4 mummies is a CR 9 encounter. Let's assume a standard APL 9 party made up of a fighter 9, cleric 9, rogue 9, and wizard 9. Let's also assume that in addition to their class bonuses for will saves, each also has a +5 bonus due to ability scores, magic items, buffs, etc. This means that the will saves for the fighter and the rogue are +8, and for the wizard and cleric are +11.

By my calculation the wizard and the cleric survive 4 consecutive despair checks 41% of the time, and the fighter and the rogue survive 4 consecutive despair checks 18% of the time.

What's worse is that the whole party remains in tact (everyone passes all 4 checks) only 0.5% of the time, and a TPK occurs (all four characters fail at least 1 check) 23% of the time.

Seems kinda harsh. Am I missing something?

A party of four characters walks into a room containing 4 mummys. All four characters are within 30 feet of the monsters. Is each character making 4 checks vs. the mummys' despair aura for a total of 16 checks?

"Despair (Su) All creatures within a 30-foot radius that see a mummy must make a DC 16 Will save or be paralyzed by fear for 1d4 rounds. Whether or not the save is successful, that creature cannot be affected again by the same mummy's despair ability for 24 hours. This is a paralysis and a mind-affecting fear affect. The save DC is Charisma-based."

If so, it seems to me that a group of mummys has a good probability of paralysing an entire party.

Thanks in advance. I'm having difficulty in finding a rule reference on this.

The BEST way to handle this is to send normal giants after them, let them feel awesome for a bit, and then send the barb/2's above after them...bigger encounter, more xp, and without all their buffs, they are in trouble! Only the dwarves could do this, should be what they are thinking.

I like this. Thanks for the help.

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, it is the idea to balance the coolness of the dwarven ability with giving the PCs a challenging encounter.

So where a stone giant might normally be a good level 8 challenge (4,800 XP / CR 8), should I instead treat him as a 3,200 XP / CR 7 monster and add levels / pets to bring the encounter back to a CR 8? The design question is then how much do I discount the giant's CR to account for the dwarven ability?

I'm liking the non-giant pet/friend idea. Could get the PCs thinking "Ha, this giant can't touch me. But on the other hand his bear is a real pain."

I'm running my players through an all-dwarf campaign, i.e., they're a party of 5 dwarven characters all from the same Barrow. The adventures so far have been loosely-coupled around protecting the interests of the Barrow and the dwarven king.

The group is all level 5 now and I'm working them towards playing a conversion of G1-G3 Against the Giants that I'm working on. I'm planning on taking them there once they reach 8th level.

Play last weekend got me thinking. In their current adventure they chewed through a band of ogres easily, primarily due to their dwarven training ability which gives them a +4 dodge bonus vs. giants. The ogres struggled to inflict any damage on them.

When I take them through Against the Giants, should I increase the encounter difficulty to compensate for the dwarven training? Would a CR 1 increase be sufficient? Or CR 2 or more? I considered putting some type of effect in place to negate that training, but that seems too heavy-handed to me.

Any advice would be appreciated.