steerpike65's page

OK, I'm calculating as follows:

1. Perception DC 20 (it's dark underground, the mushroom cap is the same colour as the floor of the cave but it's a different texture): +0 CR
2. Disable Device DC 15 (it's a big mushroom cap, so can just be lifted off the top of the pit but it's size makes it awkward and it is rotting so could collapse causing a PC to fall in as it does so): -1 CR
3. Trigger (location) and reset (manual): +0 CR
4. Reflex save DC 20 (it's a standard enough 10 ft deep pit): +0 CR
5. Multiple Targets: +1 CR

All the above add up to a 0 CR but then the damage kicks in and the difficulty of getting out should be factored in (thinking on the comments above, I'm thinking a Rough Surface (DC 25) so hard to get out of).

Remaining factors to decide on:
1. Does not affect light/small creatures: -1 CR??
2. DC 25 Climb check: +1 CR??
3. 10d6 acid damage per round (average 30?? 35?? hp per round), which is +3 CR per round. Is 2 rounds reasonable for damage calculation? If so, CR 6??

The pit is covered by a mushroom cap so it's relatively easy to 'disable' if you see it - just move it off the top. I actually wondered if 15 was too high!! but it's a big, unwieldy, rotting mushroom cap so...

The mushroom cap is being crossed regularly by a Small race so it needs to be OK for them to cross - it's the 'bypass' (for now).

I'm really not too worried about the disable or Reflex saves, the size of the pit, etc. The pit has been created by the acid so would have smooth sides.

The PCs are 5th level so I'm hoping to hit roughly a CR 5.

I guess the real difficulty I'm having is the 10d6 damage per round. When looking at the trap CR calculator in the CRB the damage aspect is calculated at average damage - how do you calculate 'average damage' for 10d6 per round?

CR 1

How did you figure that? I suspect that may be a bit low for a trap that does 10d6 acid damage per round!

Any advice for estimating the CR of the below trap would be greatly appreciated:

Acid Pit Trap CR ??
Any object weighing more than 100 pounds causes the floor to collapse, dropping anyone in the area of the trap 40 feet into a pit with a 10 foot deep layer of acid at the bottom.
Type mechanical; Perception DC 20; Disable Device DC 15
Effects
Trigger location; Reset manual
Effect 40-ft.-deep pit (1d3 non-lethal falling damage plus 10d6 acid per round of contact); DC 20 Reflex avoids; multiple targets (all targets in a 10-ft.-square area)

Thanks.

Some dark, chthonic deities have a nasty habit of reducing their worshippers' Wis/sanity :0 ... so maybe this race has survived _because_ they have a bonus to their Wisdom. :)

LOL. Yes. Yes, it all makes sense now.

IIRC, if one Flags the opening post in one's own thread, one of the Flag options is to change the thead title.

Nope, that doesn't seem to work - no obvious option for thread title changing in the Flag options.

Small nitpick: That's not a build, it's a race. (You should change the thread title too) A build is a combination of race, class feat and perhaps equipment choices, i.e. a quick sketch of a PC/NPC statblock.

Bah! Semantics. I 'built' the race using the Advanced Race Guide point system, but I take your point :-)

How do you change the thread title? I want to change the Deep Elf wording as well so as not to confuse Bellona any more. :-)
EDIT: Searched and discovered it seems not to be possible to change a thread title (nor even a post after an hour) - that sucks.

(Calling them Deep elves threw me a bit at the beginning, because I was thinking of the neutral/good elven race introduced in 2e's Night Below box campaign.)

LOL. That must have surfaced from my subconscious, it's years since I read through that (never played/ran unfortunately).

I would be more inclined to give the race either Int +2 or Cha +2 (instead of Wis +2), but that is possibly more of a flavour issue.

I was seeing them as very alert, heavily linked with dark cthonic gods, underdark survival specialists. But I'm open to other thoughts.

Skill Training is a good option. I would definitely include Intimidate as one of the class skills, the other one would be up to precisely how you see these elves interacting with each other. Possibly Perception?

Already have a bonus to Perception in the traits so I think I will run with Intimidate and Bluff/Diplomacy. I like the concept of a more feral community, although the drow Houses concept would then get lost, which would be a shame.

I still like Sprinter. It's a good call-out to 1e Drow. Back then, the females were faster than the males (the equivalent of Move 40' instead of 30').

Meh. I'm not feeling the love for a sprinter trait in an underground environment. MMV.

Even with a low magic world/campaign (or maybe because of it), I think that Stonesinger is a good idea as an option.

That's a fair point and I have no magic-oriented abilities in the traits. It certainly meshes with the underground thang.

How about - after the ability score adjustments and darkvision/light blindness - offering a menu on which a character can spend the final 9 RP? The choices would then be:

Bond to the Land (Underground)(2 RP),
Poison Use (1),
Skill Training (Intimidate + your [GM's] choice)(1),
Sprinter (1),
Stonesinger (1),
Terrain Stride (Underground)(1), and
Underground Sneak (5).

That should offer something to just about every class.

I very much like the idea of the choices - that way, people that like Sprinter (like you) can still take it but it doesn't define the race.

Thanks for your input.

Is this for a Golarion Campaign?

No. Homebrew.

Thanks for the advice Bellona - I had originally had Cave Dweller instead of Poison Use but had looked at the Underground Sneak ability, which gave a Craft (alchemy) bonus, and started to think about the social aspects of Deep Elf life, realising I had very little about the way they interacted, and the Underground Sneak already provided three skill bonuses while the Cave Dweller trait only gave more skill bonuses.
I like the concepts of Mist Child (but Bond to the Land seems similar)and Stonesinger and Illusion Resistance(but my homebrew is very low magic so may be useless).
What do you think about using Skill Training to reflect some sort of social aspect? I'm thinking:
Bluff and Intimidate - for a more evil, 'might makes right' society
Diplomacy and Knowledge (nobility) - for a society where you have to be very careful of the nobility
Bluff and Knowledge (nobility) - for a society where it's all about scheming to get a foot up the social ladder
Diplomacy and Intimidate - where the society is about back-stabbing and assassination

Fair point Bellona. Here's the Racial Build:

Standard Abilities: +2 Dex, +2 Wis, -2 Con (0 points)
Bond to the Land (Ex) +2 dodge bonus to AC when underground. (2 points)
Darkvision (120 feet) Deep elves can see in the dark (black and white vision only). (3 points)
Light Blindness (Ex) Deep elves are blinded for 1 round in bright light, and dazzled as long as they remain in it. (-2 points)
Poison Use (1/day) (Ex) Deep elves do not risk accidentally poisoning themselves when making poison. (1 point)
Terrain Stride (Ex) Deep elves are not slowed by difficult terrain when underground, unless magically manipulated. (1 point)
Underground Sneak (Ex) +2 to Craft (alchemy), Perception and Stealth, additional +2 to Stealth underground. (5 points)

Miscalculated points, so had to take out low-light vision.

OK, there's clearly confusion being caused by me using an NPC class for a PC build, which is detracting from advice on the race build. Let's try it this way - what do you think of this Deep Elf PC?

Deep Elf Fighter
CR 1/2
XP 200
Male Deep Elf Fighter 1
CE Medium Humanoid (elf)
Init +5; Senses darkvision 120 ft., low-light vision; Perception +4
--------------------
Defense
--------------------
AC 15, touch 15, flat-footed 10 (+5 Dex)
hp 10 (1d10)
Fort +2, Ref +5, Will +1
Defensive Abilities bond to the land (favored terrain [underground])
Weakness light blindness
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 30 ft., terrain stride (favored terrain [underground])
Melee Masterwork Dagger +7 (1d4+1/19-20)
Special Attacks poison use (1/day)
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 12, Dex 20, Con 11, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 13
Base Atk +1; CMB +2; CMD 17
Feats Blind-Fight, Weapon Finesse
Skills Perception +4, Stealth +8, Survival +5; Racial Modifiers +2 Perception, +2 Stealth, underground sneak
Languages Common, Undercommon
Gear Masterwork Dagger
--------------------
Special Abilities
--------------------
Blind-Fight Re-roll misses because of concealment.
Bond to the Land (Ex) +2 dodge bonus to AC when underground.
Darkvision (120 feet) Deep elves can see in the dark (black and white vision only).
Light Blindness (Ex) Deep elves are blinded for 1 round in bright light, and dazzled as long as they remain in it.
Low-Light Vision Deep elves see twice as far as a human in low light, distinguishing color and detail.
Poison Use (1/day) (Ex) Deep elves do not risk accidentally poisoning themselves when making poison.
Terrain Stride (Ex) Deep elves are not slowed by difficult terrain when underground, unless magically manipulated.
Underground Sneak (Ex) Gain additional +2 to Stealth underground.

OK, so here's a revised version using the Elite Array (plus racial modifiers)although it was supposed to be a race for PCs so I really don't get the concern about the stats:

Deep Elf Warrior
CR 1/3
XP 135
Male Deep Elf Warrior 1
CE Medium Humanoid (elf)
Init +3; Senses darkvision 120 ft., low-light vision; Perception +3
--------------------
Defense
--------------------
AC 13, touch 13, flat-footed 10 (+3 Dex)
hp 5 (1d10)
Fort +2, Ref +3, Will +0
Defensive Abilities bond to the land (favored terrain [underground])
Weakness light blindness
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 30 ft., terrain stride (favored terrain [underground])
Melee Masterwork Dagger +5 (1d4/19-20)
Special Attacks poison use (1/day)
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 10, Dex 17, Con 10, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 14
Base Atk +1; CMB +1; CMD 14
Feats Weapon Finesse
Skills Intimidate +6, Perception +3, Stealth +6, Survival +1; Racial Modifiers +2 Perception, +2 Stealth, underground sneak
Languages Common, Terran, Undercommon
Gear Masterwork Dagger
--------------------
Special Abilities
--------------------
Bond to the Land (Ex) +2 dodge bonus to AC when underground.
Darkvision (120 feet) Deep elves can see in the dark (black and white vision only).
Light Blindness (Ex) Deep elves are blinded for 1 round in bright light, dazzled as long as they remain in it.
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in low light, distinguishing color and detail.
Poison Use (1/day) (Ex) A deep elf does not risk accidentally poisoning himself.
Terrain Stride (Ex) Deep elves are not slowed by difficult terrain underground, unless magically manipulated.
Underground Sneak (Ex) Gain additional +2 to Stealth underground.

No. Its not based on a Deep Elf from DCSS.

The Warrior clsss build was based on a standard 25 point build although admittedly most of the points were spent on Dex but not illegally AFAIK.

I decided I wanted a toned down version of drow for my homebrew that could be used as a PC without level adjustments or similar, with a look more relevant to living underground for aeons. I used the Race Builder rules.

Let me know what you think:

DEEP ELF
This pale-skinned elf stands in a battle-ready pose, his hair black as night, and eyes white and pupilless.

DEEP ELF
CR 1/3
XP 135
Deep Elf Warrior 1
CE Medium Humanoid (elf)
Init +5; Senses darkvision 120 ft., low-light vision; Perception +4

DEFENSE
AC 15, touch 15, flat-footed 10 (+5 Dex)
hp 5 (1d10)
Fort +2, Ref +5, Will +1
Defensive Abilities bond to the land (favored terrain [underground])
Weakness light blindness

OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft., terrain stride (favored terrain [underground])
Melee Masterwork Dagger +7 (1d4+1/19-20)

STATISTICS
Str 12, Dex 20, Con 11, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 13
Base Atk +1; CMB +2; CMD 17
Feats Weapon Finesse
Skills Perception +4, Stealth +8, Survival +2; Racial Modifiers +2 Perception, +2 Stealth, underground sneak
Languages Common, Undercommon
Gear masterwork dagger

ECOLOGY
Environment underground
Organization pair, squad (3–4), patrol (5–8), or war party (10–40)
Treasure NPC Gear (leather armor, light steel shield, dagger, hand crossbow with 20 bolts, deep elf poison [2 doses], 3d6 gp, other treasure)

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Bond to the Land (Underground) (Ex) +2 dodge bonus to AC when underground.
Darkvision (120 feet) Deep elves can see in the dark (black and white vision only).
Light Blindness (Ex) Deep elves are blinded for 1 round in bright light, and dazzled as long as they remain in it.
Low-Light Vision Deep elves see twice as far as a human in low light, distinguishing color and detail.
Poison Use (1/day) (Ex) No risk of accidentally poisoning yourself.
Terrain Stride (Underground) (Ex) Deep elves are not slowed by difficult terrain when underground, unless magically manipulated.
Underground Sneak (Ex) Gain additional +2 to Stealth underground.

I'm sorry, but that's plainly incorrect - the words may and include clearly indicate that other spells can be added to hallow rather than just those on the list - the list is not definitive.

Otherwise, it would read:
"Spell effects that can be tied to a hallowed site are..."

I was re-reading the spell description of hallow recently and took notice of the following (my highlights):
"Spell effects that may be tied to a hallowed site include aid..."
This implies that other spells can be tied to a hallowed site. Would plant growth be a spell that could be reasonably tied to a hallowed site and if not, why not?
Thanks in advance for constructive advice.

I'm not terrifically familiar with Hero Labs. What are the supposed ratings for Acrobatics, Stealth, and Fly? Is it possible that it's just retaining the size bonuses for them?

Acrobatics = +4 (+0 Jump)

Dex gives a base +4 to all three skills. Size gives a +4 to Stealth and a +2 to Fly. 20 ft. land speed gives a -4 to Jump.

So: yes, Acrobatics and Stealth are base modified by size and land speed respectively.

However, Fly seems odd. Should be (I think):
+4 Dex
-8 Clumsy
+2 Size

I think they used the Pixie's Good flight modifier (+4) instead of the Zombie's Clumsy flight modifier.

But thanks for the catch - seems they are showing those modified skills with 0 ranks other than those that are modified purely by Abilities.

I am trying to use Hero Lab to create a Pixie Zombie and coming up against some issues that relate to the PF rules for the Zombie Template (PF Bestiary I, p.288/9), which I need clarification on:

1. Hero Lab does not allow application of the zombie template to a pixie as the pixie has NG alignment. My understanding of the zombie template is that the base creature's alignment changes to NE. I am assuming that a base creature being NG does not restrict the use of the zombie template?

2. The Hero Lab pixie zombie retains Acrobatics and Stealth skills (as well as Fly) in the Statblock output. I was interested to read the following in the Bestiary Zombie template:
"Skills: A zombie has no skill ranks.
Feats: A zombie loses all feats possessed by the base
creature..."
I assume that even though it does not state outright that it's the case, the zombie loses all skill ranks possessed by the base creature too, due to losing all Int?

3. The Hero Lab pixie zombie retains all its spell-like abilities in the Statblock output - I assume this is incorrect (since it loses all Special Attacks and most Special Qualities) but could not find any entry in the zombie template where it states that a zombie loses all spell-like abilities of the base creature. The phrase at the beginning of the template creation section "It uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here" (italics mine) gave me pause for thought.

4. The Hero Lab pixie zombie retains its Languages in the Statblock output. Again, I assume this is incorrect due to lack of Int (especially considering the lack of Languages mentioned in the Human Zombie example).

Any help appreciated.

Yes, the PDF will be available separately. Only AP subscribers who preorder the print edition will get the PDF free, though.

A previous poster mentioned that if pricing followed standard procedures, the pdf would cost $42. Is there official confirmation of the price of the pdf for non-subscribers? Also, if the hardcover is being released mid-July, is there an expected official release date for the pdf? Thanks.

I have been having further thoughts on possibilities and am now thinking that the class abilities of the magic-using classes will be oriented towards limited 'x per day' useage of Manoeuvres and Declarations to create temporary and permanent Aspects related to their area of specialty - the advantage will be that these limited per day usages will not require a Fate point to activate. They will be effectively like Tagged Aspects.
As the class progresses, they will gain more of these usages (probably every 5 levels.
Any thoughts, please comment constructively. Thanks.

Check out the Midnight setting from FFG. Channeler might be another way to go and its a spell point system.

Thanks, I have the Midnight setting but I specifically want to design my magic system around Fate Points and Aspects, i.e. a Pathfinder/FATE synergy.

I should also have mentioned that I want to move away from the typical Vancian magic, i.e. spells, of D&D for these three classes and give them more flexible and eclectic powers (yet lower power, less flashy than D&D magic) - more like feats or class abilities.

I recently discovered and purchased the excellent 'Fate Points & Aspects for D20' from 4th Dimension Games after spending the last while using Strands of Fate (Void Star Games) for my gaming.

I'm thinking of developing a PF homebrew where I remove all the main spellcasting classes (and change the minor spellcasting classes to be non-spellcasting using archetypes). Instead, I want to replace the main spellcasting classes with three magic-using classes that depend on the use of Fate Points and Aspects for limited magic similar to the following PF schools/specialty:
1. Enchantment
2. Divination
3. Summoning (outsiders/undead)

I'd appreciate any ideas to help with balancing these classes against the other PF classes (and any other constructive thoughts/ideas).

My thoughts/concerns are as follows:
1. In Strands of Fate, I could control the amount of magic by requiring Fate Points to be spent to use magic. If I do this in PF, will this make the magic-using classes significantly weaker than the standard PF classes (who would have their FPs in addition to their class abilities)? If so, how do I balance this out? Extra FPs for these classes? That can only be used for magic?
2. If I don't require magic-using classes to use FPs for magic, how else can I limit magic? Fatigue? Limited 'x per day' class abilities? Social influence (e.g. fear of magic)? I don't like backlashes or insanity as this punishes the character too much in my opinion and makes the game less fun.

For those who want a free sneak peek at what Fate Points & Aspects are, visit:
Fate Points & Aspects for D20 Sample Chapter
Another free interesting take on Aspects for D&D (although for 4e) can be seen here:
Heroic Traits for D&D

Thanks in advance for any help.