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hariustrk wrote:

Vic Wertz wrote:

Stuart Laird wrote:

So any idea if and when these will be in stock anywhere again?

We are reprinting them.

Also, in case you missed the news, Pocket Editions of the GameMastery Guide and the Advanced Player's Guide are coming in May.

Any idea when the re-print is coming? I missed the first run but would love to have one of these.

I second that question. I would love to get my hands on the Core Rulebook Pocket Edition. Can we get an estimate on when it will be available again?

I would third this request, when will the Core Rule Book Pocket Edition be available again? There is obviously demand for the product that is being unmet.

The ioun stone grants a spell-like ability. That is nothing like a wand. There are no 'additional requirements' for activating a SLA... if you have the ability, you can use it. It's a standard action which provokes.

That said, in order to activate the ioun stone in the first place, the familiar would have to hold and then release it... potentially impossible for some familiar types.

Couldn't the Familiars Mage just set the stone in motion around his Familiars head as long as it has an INT of 3+

The Caster Level would be the Familiars HD

And if you look up Ioun Stones and look under "Facts about Ioun Stones"
The only requirements to use one are to have an Int of 3+ and a Head for the stone to orbit. For all the game is concerned the "cat" for example could pick the stone up with it's mouth and just open wide to get it started I would say.

Why not a Bullrush attempt? Maybe give the Angel the miss chance due to being invisible.

I think it would make sense to do that because he has the momentum due to intending to move beyond where he meets resistance.. and of course it would provoke an AoO because he is not aware of the Angel.

I could see that or the Acrobatics check... but I would give the Angel a free AoO regardless for the simple fact the Angel has the element of surprise.

Why not a Bullrush attempt? Maybe give the Angel the miss chance due to being invisible.

I think it would make sense to do that because he has the momentum due to intending to move beyond where he meets resistance.. and of course it would provoke an AoO because he is not aware of the Angel.

I could see that or the Acrobatics check... but I would give the Angel a free AoO regardless for the simple fact the Angel has the element of surprise.te the name of this action, you don't actually have to leave combat entirely.

Restricted Withdraw: If you are limited to taking only a standard action each round you can withdraw as a standard action. In this case, you may move up to your speed.

Take it however you like, I take it as 'a creatures space is not an open location'.

While I sorta agree with you there, how do you explain making Acrobatics checks to Tumble THROUGH an occupied square if there is not enough "open space" for 2 medium creatures?

Better yet, if a Medium Creature fully occupied (hahaha NO) a 5 ft. square, why can you move THROUGH an ALLY with movement as long as you do not stop there?

If you are confused about this, draw out an actual 5' square on the floor and stand in it.

Now... if you embedded a wand inside that staff......

That seem pretty easy actually.. at any given round you would choose either A or B:

A: Attack and or use powers of the Staff as normal

or

B: Use charges off the wand as normal

But not both, unless of course the wands spell requires an attack roll, then you could use the Staff to hit them to pass the Wands magic along.

BUT... Heres the kicker..

What if you put a Staff in a Staff?

WITHDRAW is a COMBAT ACTION and implies you must be in combat to do so as per the CORE RULE BOOK on Full Round Actions in COMBAT.

Look at the Description for the Withdraw Action:

Withdrawing from melee combat is a full-round action. Blah blah blah...

It is in the first four words of the description there "MELEE COMBAT" that is pretty clear to me.

Anything else you are doing when not in MELEE is just MOVEMENT that does not require a special action.

the WITHDRAW FROM COMBAT action only exists to show your focus on "getting away" so you do not Provoke the AoO from the first square of movement... in all other ways it is just like a double move with the exception it requires a FULL ROUND ACTION.

Why would you restrict yourself to a double move as full round action if you were not in a threatened square to begin with? < I think that is the better question.

And the table in the prd for UE puts the gauntlet under light weapons not unarmed strikes.

This is only true if you partially read the PRD page you linked, if you were to fully read the page and get to the Description of Gauntlet it would let you know that it is still considered an Unarmed Strike.

I find mistakes like this happen a whole lot when people get in a hurry and refuse to fully read what they are looking at. A little patience can go a long way to fully understanding something and not seeming foolish.

So according to that FAQ I posted above, you CANNOT Crit a SWARM, you CANNOT Flank a SWARM, you CAN Sneak Attack a SWARM.

the Sneak Attack link

If you go there you can find an FAQ covering this very specific topic, and as it is open source I will post it here:

Precision damage (such as that dealt by a rogue's sneak attack ability) applies to more creatures than it did in previous editions of the game.

Some may balk at this but it can easily be imagined or explained as the rogue having found a weak point in the undead's "body" (such as a zombie's head) or even finding a crack or flaw in a construct's "body."

There is some degree of confusion as to what should separate a "critical hit" from a "precision-based attack" but in any event, in some cases they are treated differently.

Critical Hits

The following creature types (or subtypes) have immunity to critical hits (that is, they do not take any additional damage from critical hits):

Aeon (subtype): "Immunity to cold, poison, and critical hits."
Elemental (subtype): Elementals are "not subject to critical hits or flanking. Does not take additional damage from precision-based attacks, such as sneak attack."
Incorporeal (subtype): "An incorporeal creature is immune to critical hits (unless the attacks are made using a weapon with the ghost touch special weapon quality.)"
Ooze (Type): <Oozes are...> "not subject to critical hits or flanking. Does not take additional damage from precision-based attacks (such as sneak attack.)"
Protean (subtype): (50% chance to ignore, see below*)
Swarm (Type): "A swarm has no clear front or back and no discernible anatomy, so it is not subject to critical hits."
Precision-Based Damage (like Sneak Attack)

The following creature types (or subtypes) do not take additional damage from precision-based attacks (such as sneak attack):

Elemental (subtype): "<An elemental...> does not take additional damage from precision-based attacks (such as sneak attack.)"
Incorporeal (subtype): "An incorporeal creature is immune to precision-based damage (such as sneak attack damage) unless the attacks are made using a weapon with the ghost touch special weapon quality."
Ooze (Type): "<An ooze is...> does not take additional damage from precision-based attacks (such as sneak attack.)"
Protean (subtype): (50% chance to ignore, see below*)
Creatures Immune to Flanking

Opponents do not gain any special flanking bonuses against the following creature types (or subtypes):

Ooze (Type): "<An ooze is...> not subject to ... flanking."
Swarm (Type): "A swarm has no clear front or back and no discernible anatomy, so it is not subject to flanking."
Elemental (subtype): "<Elementals are...> not subject to flanking."

*Special: Proteans have a special ability called "Amorphous Anatomy" which might protect them: "<Amorphous Anatomy> grants <a protean> a 50% chance to ignore additional damage caused by critical hits and sneak attacks,"

While I appreciate every piece of advice I have seen here, and plan on using a few I find to be awesome ideas... in reply to all the "speak to your player and find out blah blah blah blah."

This game has been ongoing for a while as I stated in the OP and every time a spider slipped by me that player ran from the table in REAL FEAR.

That is not my intent as a GM, I want my players to know the can join my games and feel safe while having fun.

I do not wish to torture my players by exposing them to near debilitating phobias in a game that is supposed to be fun.

Outside of that I really do appreciate the suggestions, I find it nice to have a Forum like this where you can get multiple viewpoints on something because often someone will suggest something you never even thought of.

I never thought to ask about Clockwork types of arachnids and thanks to the suggestion I'll ask my player about it.

If this was just a CHARACTER Phobia I would abuse the living daylights out of it! But to clarify this is a PLAYERS PHOBIA and I am not a certified anything on how to treat such things so I do not view "killing your phobias in a game" as "cathartic" as much as "pushing deep seated buttons of fear in your player" and that is not my intent.

** spoiler omitted **

It's a two handed weapon, but it doesn't state it's being wielded in one hand. Per the FAQ, I think it technically allows 1.5 STR damage. It is similar to how using a lance on horseback works in that you are leveraging the mass of the shield to make up for the lost hand.

That FAQ you linked to does not agree with what you are saying, it says literally "If you're wielding it in one hand (even if it is normally a two-handed weapon), treat it as a one-handed weapon for the purpose of how much Strength to apply, the Power Attack damage bonus, and so on."

That says you treat your Two Handed Pole-arm as a One Handed Weapon when applying Strength modifiers. Now I do not have access to the Complete Armorers book atm so the feature there may be an exception to the FAQ.

I do not mind a little work to drop in a replacement. And of note, with pre-published material sometimes swapping creatures on the fly is easier based on other creatures in the area.

As an example:

If the "area" includes mostly creatures that use similar attack methods, just add more of the same. It only gets time consuming when you do not have other creatures around. I know I can pre-read and completely scrub spiders out of any adventure, but anyone who GMs knows, sometimes just saying "every spider gets turned into X" really doesn't work out well.

Eventually I will just take all spider abilities and just change the insect that are attached to and remove spiders from my entire campaign, but that will take a bit of time and of course diligence.. just looking for things like Avr suggested till then.

I like the hissing centipede suggestion as it keeps the creature types similar in nature and easier to swap. I guess I could just compare the different spider types and create sudo-templates for other vermin to keep the trend there. That would help make quick swaps out I think.

In games I run I typically make a few adjustments:

When rolling HP, if you roll <50% take half (i.e. if you roll a D6 and roll a 1 or 2, make it a 3) This helps keep PCs survivable in combat without horribly adjusting game balance.

Defender wins/loses: I poll the party at start and apply the choice for the entire campaign (i.e. Creatures AC is 22, do players need to get exactly a 22 [defender loses] or do players need to hit 23+ [defender wins])

Hero point adjustment: If a player is adjacent to another player, within reason they may spend Hero Points to affect the other player.
(I do this because my party tends to be short a player [2-3 rather than 4 players]

Outside of that I try to keep to Pathfinder rules unless a player requests some other house-rule and can convince all players and me (GM) that it is a good change. Any such change requires 100% of my players to want or will be vetoed by me.

//edit// I forgot I use the triple 20 insta-kill feature, but include a triple 1 suicide feature. These things happen so rarely it just adds random bits of awesomeness/hilarity.

I love Pathfinder and have been involved with a weekly game for roughly the last 12 months or so with no end in sight. The AP/Adventure I am running does not really matter, the crux of the point is as follows:

I have a player in my weekly game that has a very extreme phobia of spiders.. and I know I can literally just swap out creatures for an equal CR.. but I feel doing that can ruin the encounter.

Spider encounters typically are put in so players can deal with mobility issues (web) or poison issues (duh.. spider), or even "it keeps getting to high in the webs for me to hit!!!"

Having said that, I am just looking for reasonable replacements for spiders I can use on the fly to maintain the intent of the encounter without completely having to re-balance every spider encounter I see in printed materials (I am a semi lazy DM that loves Adventure Paths and Modules but am finally branching out to make my own as well).

Anything I create I can just not put spiders in easy peasy at design.. any help is appreciated.

TL;DR My player has arachnophobia that I do not wish to abuse, keeping the difficulties of poisons, webs, or climbing creatures, I am looking for advice on what creatures I can swap spiders for on the fly.

I have to say, as the last adventure in STAP is in 150, looking it over it seems to be absolutely awesome. Great work on the Adventure path, and looking forward to Pathfinder.