one of my PCs is getting into the business of raising the dead to do his mildly evil bidding, so I've been thinking about this question a lot.
Largely, I think that for game purposes, limiting mindless creatures to the description in animate dead is a good idea. ie they understand exactly 4 commands. Attack, follow, stay, stop. You can combine attack with follow to make it guard you or attack with stay to make it guard an area.
It follows the commands to the best of its abilities, but if it loses line of sight of the target, it resets (eg in the closed door example above, it just goes back to its starting point and continues to carry out its instructions).
Obviously not a complete set of rules for mindless creatures, some of which are naturally mindless and mange to live out their entire existences in that way. But it seems to work for necromanced undead.
Thanks for this one! Lots of good stuff in that one. Some of the advice would never cut the mustard with our DM (like buying summoner-created wands of haste... good luck!), but it looks like a good resource nevertheless.
My party is having some issues with this book.We're not really a sandbox-friendly party, my players are more interested in a good solid plot and a lot less of wandering about aimlessly.
However, they did spend a good chunk of book two raiding ships and villages and amassing an amazing amount of wealth, e.g. the captain used a +3 weapon and a celestial armor at level 7 (MSRP: 40k) among others. There's really no mechanism to restrict them from doing so in book 2, so they just kept going...
However, once they got bored of collecting expensive items and moved on to book three, we've had 2 party wipes in this book.
First, they desecrated the body of Capt. Jalhazar and got themselves cursed, then forged on to fight the aboleth. Well with a -4 to saves, 3 of them got dominated and kill the last one. End of party. Woo!
After making new characters, they forged onward through the fetch quests. They discovered that Zarskia was behind the plot, infiltrated her residence, quickly dispatched the guards and the kamadan... and then got promptly slaughtered by Zarskia. She was fully buffed listening to them rush through the house, so she pretty much killed one character per round with her bombs since she does (6d6+4)*3 for an average of 75 damage... as touch attacks... with no save. They never even saw her since nobody had anything to counteract greater invis.
Now my players are grumbling that I am intentionally killing them. Any advice would be welcome!
Thanks for the replies everyone! I thought the pathfinder's kit included a grappling hook. Oops.
I was thinking a lvl 7 with about 25k gold total, so I think the decanter of endless water is over budget, but the any-tool and robe of twine are pretty cool.
What kind of things would you consider good practice to carry for any character (at mid-levels).
Off the top of my head my list for a prepared adventurer would look something like this:
Pathfinder's kit (covers food & water)
2x 50 feet of rope
3x sunrod (if no darkvision)
potion of see invisibility
potion of water breathing
potion of fly
scroll of protection from energy
2x potion of cure serious wounds
wand of cure light wounds
granted, not everyone will be able to activate the scroll or wand, but we're assuming that you are traveling with companions that can do that for you (they're both common spells).
Does anyone know of a checklist like that out there?
Only if you wish to use those options. It has always been the intent that these rules reference closed content with the expectation that the user owns the sources. Kirth does not advocate piracy or copyright infringement.
Roger, not interested in pirating anything here, I was just wondering if someone had done a rewrite similar to what was done with the feats.
Thanks for the rules rewrite, I recently discovered this thread and the associated rules set. We're probably going to be trying out an adjusted adventure path with these rules to see how it goes.
Is there a description of the non-core spells somewhere? The feats are all nicely rewritten and organized, but the spells (eg in the bard expanded spell list or the monk spells) just reference sources. Are we going to need to find a way to have access to those sources before we can play, or is there a document somewhere out there for this?
I like the trap the soul suggestion, but that does require quite high end magic. Hmm...
The problem I have with all of the suggestions to knock out or disable the PC that is possessed is that doesn't force the ghost out. Everyone assumes the ghost will leave once the PC is unconscious, but he doesn't have to. An intelligent ghost is free to stay in the PC's body even if he is knocked out, which is a great strategy for him to wreak havoc on the party when they are sleeping for example. Our DM is the evil genius type, so that's the exact scenario I see playing out if we were to disable a possessed PC without getting rid of the ghost. Leaving the possessed PC behind as I suggested above is the only safe strategy that doesn't lead to an easy TPK. It seems that we're still at the situation where there are no actual options to expel a ghost. It sounds like an exorcism is in order, but as far as I can tell, the only person who could do it is a specific inquisitor archetype, which is a rather limited means of solving the problem.
Owly wrote:
Also, reread the definition of Protection from Evil: it allows a second saving throw at +2, and prevents the ghost from exerting mental control (time enough to tie him up).
I double checked protection from evil and it explicitly states "This spell does not expel a controlling life force (such as a ghost or spellcaster using magic jar), but it does prevent them from controlling the target." So it's definitely not a solution.
I would say yes, pretty much all other creatures stack their casting with like classes. The other question is whether it would count as a key class for the purposes of CR, but within the scope of your own campaign, that may not matter!
From everything I can tell, there IS no way to get rid of a ghost that is possessing a party member, as all the suggestions have focused on prevention. Protection/magic circle is just a temporary delay if cast after the initial possession and channeling/cure spells won't do anything since we have already decided that it loses the undead type when it possesses the victim.
I guess the best plan of action that I can see from this discussion is that if we get ambushed by a ghost and someone fails a save vs possession, the best plan of action is to abandon that PC and come back with stacks of magic circle scrolls and a new PC next time.
The mental immunity is due to having "Undead traits" which is part of the creature itself. Unless he believes the fighter gains all undead traits after bonding with the ghost that doesn't make a whole lot of sense eh?
Except it acts like the spell and the spell itself states that it can be dispelled.
Aha, when you put it like that, it makes more sense to not carry over the immunities. Though frankly, I'm not sure what we would have done if the hold person/fascinate had succeeded. The ghost's ability does not seem to have a duration, so it seems like it could just wait out any disabling effect. Any advice on what to do after we disable the possessed character?
As for the dispel, I'm not sure our DM will buy that, since the spell description states "Destroying the receptacle ends the spell, and the spell can be dispelled at either the magic jar or the host's location." It seems to specifically state that the spell can be dispelled in both locations, implying that if the effect can be achieved in other ways (ie not through a spell), it may function otherwise. Definitely worth a shot though!
awp832 wrote:
Even with this ruling, it shouldn't have been hard for you to incapacitate the fighter. I don't understand what you guys were doing for 10 rounds. No matter how stacked your Fighter is, it's 3vs1. Wail on him a bit, and mix in some nonlethal damage in there, he'll go down, he'll be unconscious but otherwise okay.
When the ghost abandons this host, the cleric (who likely has the best will save) can heal him up and get him back on his feet.
Now, as far as dealing with the ghost, magic circle against evil. Now that you know what you're up against; there's no excuse. Stay close to the cleric and you can't be possessed. Metamagic rod of extend spell if you want it to last even longer than it already does.
Furthermore, beating the ghost in combat is not important. You merely need to survive and escape. There is no real reason to fight it at all. Even if you defeat it, it will rejuvinate in 24 hours. They don't have life sense, so go mass invisible and bypass it, or teleport past it, or use one of the myriad of adventurer's travel tricks.
Find the reason your ghost exists, and solve the mystery. This isn't a combat problem. You need to spend time gathering information and figuring out why the ghost haunts this world, then you can help it move on to the afterlife.
I think we were mostly at a loss for what to do even if we disabled him. We tend to pool our party wealth to fund the more gear-dependent characters, so our fighter was reasonably dangerous for us to fight in melee, even 3v1, since one unlucky swing and we'd have another dead character. The ranger had just started to shoot him in round 5 or so, but he was having trouble hitting him, so it was dragging on for several rounds.
Good advice about avoiding the ghost and trying to solve the root problem instead. We'll definitely do that as soon as we've reassembled a worthwhile party.
Any advice for protection down the line? We can't have an active magic circle 24/7, so should we just resign to losing a party member whenever we face a ghost? I guess I'm trying to figure out what we can do for damage control once someone is possessed. Knocking them out is a fine idea, but there's nothing requiring the ghost to leave at that point?
maybe I'm overthinking this. Might be a "take your licks and move on" kind of scenario I guess! just seems goofy to have an enemy that doesn't seem to have a way to defeat them other than just avoiding them... it seems like any intelligent ghost can wait out a party relying on magic circle etc to protect them.
Round 2 ya screwed up. The effects of fascinate and Hold person CAN effect the body. Just because a ghost is possessing you doesn't change the body itself.
The fighter doesn't stop being Humanoid for the Hold Person to take effect.
Also Dispel Magic can end the effect as well.
Thank you for the reply.
Our DM ruled that the ghost would keep its mind-affecting immunity since magic jar states that you keep your own mental abilities. This made sense to us, since conceptually it's the mind of the ghost in there... it shouldn't be any more susceptible than normal to things that affect the mind - ie mind-affecting effects like hold person and fascinate. Is this commonly interpreted differently?
The magic chapter of the CRB explicitly calls out that supernatural abilities are not subject to dispel magic, so it was ruled that was out of the question also =(
Having recently run across a ghost using malevolence for the first time, I am left befuddled by the encounter. It takes one of the most poorly defined and easily abused spells in PF (magic jar) and removes its most obvious weak point (the lifeless body of the caster), and then combines it with the inherent mind-affecting immunity of undead.
The encounter went something like this (party is fighter, ranger, bard, cleric):
round 1: ghost wins initiative, moves adjacent to the fighter and easily possesses him. rest of party stand around looking at each other and wondering what will happen next (nobody managed to identify the ghost properly)
round 2: fighter begins wailing on his own party, who now realizes that something is wrong and tries to disable the fighter. fascinate and hold person fail utterly as the undead controlling the body is immune to their effects. Unfortunately, the cleric doesn't have protection vs evil prepared.
round 3: luckily the party has recently found a wand of levitate so the bard start UMDing it on party members to get out of reach
rounds 4-6: everyone gets safely in the air after running away from the fighter. The cleric channels a couple of times to try and harm the ghost, but it's hard to tell if it has any effect. The ghost is frustrated and begins attacking itself. The party watches helplessly.
rounds 7-10: fighter kills himself... ghost exists the dead body and lunges for the ranger, instantly possessing him. The bard dismisses the ranger's levitate
later rounds: the bard and cleric watch the ranger kill himself just like the fighter did. The bard drinks his potion of invisibility, and the cleric gets lucky on his will save, so the two of them run as fast as they can for as long as they can, thankfully losing the ghost somewhere along the way.
so with half the party dead and no plan for next time, we're at a loss. What can we do against a malevolent ghost? We can't dispel the creature's ability because it's supernatural, and there doesn't seem to be much we can do to expel it from the host once it's established. I understand protection vs evil will prevent possession, but there doesn't seem to be an easy easy way to get a constant protection vs evil effect. I'm not sure if we're misinterpreting something or if malevolent ghosts are intended to be essentially save-or-die type of encounters. Does anyone have any suggestions or clarifications for us?
I know it's an old thread, but I wanted to add a vote to this being really rough. We're currently at 3 party wipes on this island. We haven't even gotten to the cove or the shipwreck.
What happened:
The three ghouls instantly paralyzed 2 party members on the first round and easily dispatched the rest. The ankheg ambushed us just as someone messed with a head and the swarm plus ankheg EASILY wiped the party - one person survived by using up all of the alchemists fires we found. The speed of the swarm and the total inability to damage it made this encounter a total joke (party was barbarian/ranger/oracle/sorcerer). Being out of alchemist's fires, the botfly swarm + ghast encounter made quick work of the party.
I am sorry to necro yet another thread. It seems clear that you can dispel a spell effect on the target only as indicated by the phrase "Repeat this process until you have dispelled one spell affecting the target"
However, it seems to make a special exception for summoning spells... The relevant line is "If you target an object or creature that is the effect of an ongoing spell (such as a monster summoned by summon monster), you make a dispel check to end the spell that conjured the object or creature."
So if there are 3 bone devils summoned by a Summon Monster VII spell in front of you - if you cast Dispel Magic to dispel one of them, strict reading of the rules says that you would "end the spell that conjured the creature", which implies that the entire spell ends. This seems like a specific exception to the above. Thoughts?
I realize this is an old thread, but it has some relevant information to my question. Does anyone else have a different opinion on the UMD + staff question? My reading of the rules disagrees with what's been said in this thread
PRD wrote wrote:
Emulate a Class Feature: Sometimes you need to use a class feature to activate a magic item. In this case, your effective level in the emulated class equals your Use Magic Device check result minus 20. This skill does not let you actually use the class feature of another class. It just lets you activate items as if you had that class feature. If the class whose feature you are emulating has an alignment requirement, you must meet it, either honestly or by emulating an appropriate alignment with a separate Use Magic Device check (see above).
I would argue that a caster level is definitely a "class feature" of a casting class - if it's not a class feature, what else is it?
And the UMD description clearly indicates that you can activate items as if you had that class feature, but can't use the class feature otherwise. Which is within the bounds of what one is trying to do when using UMD.
Those taken together seem to indicate pretty concisely that staves can be used at higher caster levels via UMD.
What about taking a normal full attack rather than using flurry? Corrupting touch seems to rule it out (it's explicitly a standard action to use despite the fact that it's a touch attack). Draining touch doesn't state anything other than it's a touch attack.
The corrupting touch says it's a touch attack but used as a standard action, so I don't think it's viable for that. The draining touch says it's a touch attach but doesn't say its a standard action to use, so it makes me think that it is doable?
A pixie's invisbility (not natural invisibility) reads: A pixie remains invisible even when it attacks. This ability is constant, but the pixie can suppress or resume it as a free action.
Can it also remain invisible when it uses its spell-like abilities? Or is attacking a special exception in this case? To me it doesn't make a lot of sense to retain invisibility when attacking but not when using SLAs, but RAW appear to imply that scenario.
Am I missing something about Heroic Finale? It gets a blue rating, but involves burning a standard action, a 4th level spell, and an ongoing performance to grant your ally a move or a standard action. Without being an immediate action where you could use this to save allies or interrupt enemies, I am not sure I see a huge advantage to giving an ally a standard action essentially in place of your own. At least not at the cost of a 4th level spell!
I've looked through a few other threads about these kinds of things, but most of them seem to be focused on grappling as PCs. I've actually found that the biggest problem I have is for grappling with things that are supposed to be good with grappling! EG mr giant octopus who gets to make a single attack with grab, grapple his prey, and then be relegated to making a single grapple check per round instead of his normal 9 attacks!
The initial version can also be found in the spoiler below, though the formatting on the forums makes them a bit hard to read!
Alternate Grapple Rules:
You can maintain grapple either as a standard action or in place of an attack. Regardless of the method of maintaining the grapple, you may only make 1 grapple attempt per opponent. Additionally, you may only attempt to start a grapple with 1 opponent per round. This allows you to grapple or attack multiple opponents (within reason), but never more than you have attacks. Each grapple beyond the first inflicts a cumulative -5 to all attack rolls, CMB, and CMD. This overrides the penalty for iterative attacks (if any), but stacks with the -4 penalty if you do not have two hands (or an appendage with the grab ability) free to grapple.
If you choose to maintain in place of an attack, roll your grapple check without bonuses. Success indicates that you maintain the grapple and are able to inflict damage or pin the opponent as described below.
If you choose to maintain as a standard action, you get a +5 on your grapple check and can inflict damage to your opponent, move the grapple (taking up your move action), or pin the opponent.
Failure in either case indicates that you are unable to maintain the grapple and both you and your opponent lose the grappled condition immediately. All grapple dependent abilities (eg constrict, rake, etc) can only trigger once per round and only trigger on checks to maintain to grapple, not checks to start it unless otherwise stated.
Greater Grapple gives you an additional +2 as before, but allows you to start a grapple in place of an attack and allows you to make attacks of opportunity while grappling instead of its normal effect.
Sample combat rounds
Creature with multiple natural attacks w/grab (eg giant octopus)
Round 1
Takes full attack
Makes first attack
Gets free grapple check from grab ability at +4
Successfully grabs an opponent
Immediately gains grappled condition (-4 dex, -2 atk, no AoO)
Makes subsequent attacks at a -2 for grappled
Deals damage, but cannot grapple again
Start grapple with 1 opponent per round max
Round 2
Chooses to maintain in place of an attack and takes full attack
Makes grapple check in place of first attack
Grapple check at a +2 (+4 grab, -2 grappled, no bonus) to maintain
Succeeds and deals normal damage + constrict
Makes second attack at a -2 for grappled
Gets free grapple check from grab ability at +2 (+4 grab, -2 grappled)
Successfully grabs second opponent
Immediately gains -5 to atk, CMB, CMD
Makes subsequent attacks (at -7 for grappled + multiple grapples)
Round 3
Continues to maintain grapples (forced to do so in place of attack) and lash out with other attacks
Makes grapple check in place of first attack
Grapple check at a -3 (+4 grab, -2 grappled, -5 mult. grapples) to maintain
Succeeds and deals normal damage + constrict
Makes grapple check in place of second attack
Grapple check at a -3 (+4 grab, -2 grappled, -5 mult. grapples) to maintain
Succeeds and deals normal damage + constrict
Makes subsequent attacks (at -7 for grappled + multiple grapples)
etc... remember that the octopus’ CMD is at -7 at this point (-4 dex grappled, -5 mult. grapples), so his grasp is easier to escape than it would be otherwise.
I am looking for feedback, suggestions, and concerns about these rules, since I would love to be able to use them against my players without breaking the game too horribly!
You do already have to make a melee touch attack on the target to inflict this effect, so buffing up your touch AC and staying away from the cleric would both be good ways to avoid being afflicted with this condition. There is nothing in the description of this power that indicates that it is meant only as a buff to allies.
There is indeed nothing in the description to indicate that, but if you look at pretty much every other 1st level domain power (touch of law, destructive smite, etc), they all have a very mild power level as well as having one specific use.
This one is both hugely powerful and hugely versatile.
There is really no reason that this one can't be both, it would just make this domain much more powerful than pretty much every other one out there imo.
I thought this was discussed to death for some reason, but I can't seem to find any of the threads...
Can the vision of madness domain power be used on enemies?
Vision of Madness:
(Sp): You can give a creature a vision of madness as a melee touch attack. Choose one of the following: attack rolls, saving throws, or skill checks. The target receives a bonus to the chosen rolls equal to 1/2 your cleric level (minimum +1) and a penalty to the other two types of rolls equal to 1/2 your cleric level (minimum –1). This effect fades after 3 rounds. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.
It seems a little crazy to allow a lvl 10 cleric to be giving enemies -5 to atk and saves in exchange for a +5 to skill checks... with no save! It seems like it's easily fixed by only allowing willing targets or allowing the target rather than the caster to choose which of the three to augment. Alternatively, it could be allowed a will save if cast on an enemy.
The only thing you could potentially compare to it is a high crit range weapon, like a scimitar. In which case you are giving up 25,000 gp per weapon (assuming +5), 2 points of attack, 8(!) points of AC, the ability to reflect missiles and rays, etc... for critting more often.
If you think that's a good trade, that's all you.
One way or the other, we play at a strictly no-cheese table, and this certainly falls into that category.
Every DM I've played with has explicitly forbidden this (including me). The shield feats (shield bash, shield master, etc) were clearly - at least to my gaming groups - meant to make up for the relative offensive loss of using a shield. It's silly to exploit it and make shields the ultimate of weapons...
Pretty much this. I'd use Insight as a more official term (since I don't think there is an Intelligence Bonus to AC), but Insight bonuses apply to all concepts of AC, including CMD.
I've never personally handled the ability like this, but being a smart individually usually means the person has a lot of insight about them in regards to discovery and capability with knowledge and ingenuity, so the term "Insight" would be best in terms of official ruling.
Until errata'd, that's how I'd go in terms of RAI. I will FAQ it, since it should be stated for buff stacking purposes.
This seems to make the most sense to me. I have been interpreting it as dodge to avoid stacking issues, but insight does seem to make the most sense. (It won't stack with the 1 AC ioun stone then, but that's not a big loss)
The magus can expend 1 point from his arcane pool as an immediate action after hitting a target with a weapon attack, granting him a premonition of his enemy’s intentions. The magus gains a bonus to his AC and on Reflex saves equal to his Intelligence modifier (minimum 0) against attacks by that opponent until the beginning of his next turn.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of guidance here. It appears to be an unnamed bonus to AC. Does this bonus apply to touch AC? What about flat-footed? Does it add to CMD?
Based on the description, it makes the most sense to me to treat it as a dodge bonus (added to touch and CMD, not flatfooted, denied if dexterity is denied). Any other interpretations out there? I tend to interpret things more liberally than my DM, so I would love to see how others have played this!
James Jacobs later reversed that ruling about the spellcasting, based on the reasoning that spell levels are essentially class features for casters much as bonus feats are for fighters. So if fighters don't lose access to their feats when they get negative levels (which they don't), casters should not lose access to their spells. I can sort of see the reasoning there, on both sides, so I guess this is an area that requires GM discretion!
Someone in my group suggested a houserule that would allow you to cast spells that you lost access to as if they were lower level (for the purposes of DC and level-dependent variables only). EG if you are a 7th level wizard with 4 negative levels, you could cast a fireball, but it would be the equivalent of the highest level available to you (2nd) and so would do 3d6 damage and have a save DC of 12+int. It's an interesting middle ground.
As for the HD question, it would be really nice to see some sort of official word on that, since the negative levels entry makes NO mention of HD at all (other than dying when neg levels = HD). Does that mean that negative levels don't affect hit die calculations, but only affect LEVEL dependent variables? That creates all sorts of weird problems when you energy drain something that has spellcasting which is not tied to class levels (angels and fey come to mind), since it wouldn't reduce their caster level (since it's dependent on HD and not level!).
1. Does reducing caster level mean that a caster loses access to higher level spells?
Negative Levels wrote:
...Spellcasters do not lose any prepared spells or slots as a result of negative levels...
vip00 wrote:
2. How do negative levels affect HD dependent effect?
Negative Levels wrote:
...The creature is also treated as one level lower for the purpose of level-dependent variables (such as spellcasting) for each negative level possessed....
Hope that helps.
All found in the glossary of the PRD, 2/3 of the way down the page in case you need it for future reference.
I'm not sure I follow...
You don't lose prepared spells or slots, but that doesn't answer the question of whether I can still cast spells that I don't meet the minimum caster level for. EG normally the minimum wizard level to cast a fireball is 5, so if I am a 7th level wizard with 4 negative levels, can I still cast a fireball? My caster level [a level-dependent variable] is now 3...
The second one is also unanswered. Level-dependent variables are affected, I understand, but what about HD-dependent effects such as cloudkill? There is no mention of it at all...
So I tried reading through all the threads about negative levels and I'm left with two questions!
1. Does reducing caster level mean that a caster loses access to higher level spells?
2. How do negative levels affect HD dependent effect? EG if I'm 7th level and get hit with an enervation for 4 negative levels, am I suddenly effectively a 3 HD creature and subject to automatic death from cloudkill?
Not to necro AND derail a thread at the same time... but how do misses count with hammer the gap? So if I am a flurrying monk, and I have 5 attacks... say I hit with the first, third, and fifth. Do I get no bonuses from hammer the gap since that calls for CONSECUTIVE hits?
So I thought that 3.5 had a rule that if you had DR/XX, you automatically overcame DR/XX on other creatures. Is that no longer the case in PF? It seems to explicitly call out certain ones that overcome - eg magic overcomes magic, evil subtype overcomes DR/evil. So if two flesh golems with DR/adamantine are fighting each other, do they bypass each other's DR?
Grab says that the creature using it "may start a grapple." So you use the rules for a grapple. No where does grab say it replaces anything, therefore all the normal grapple rules still apply.
And it doesn't have to always make sense. The rules are an abstraction. Having one attack doesn't just mean that the snake only strikes once per round, it means that amongst all the confusion of the battle with feints and clear misses, it gets one really good attempt in. Maybe once it has an enemy wrapped up, it can get two good bites in.
At the point where you're telling me that the rules don't need to make sense, this conversation is over, since I'm interested in interpreting the rules in the way that makes the most sense possible, making our views incompatible.
If you want to review previous discussions about this, feel free to read up here: http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz2sdv&page=1?Grab-the-grapple-actions
This has been asked so many times, I don't understand why Paizo won't address it formally. There are so many questions about the whole mess. Including apparently whether the Grab ability on its own lets you automatically deal damage in addition to the damage deal by a grapple check normally (new one to me).
The grab rules very plainly say that on a successful grapple check a creature with grab deals damage for the attack that established the hold and deals constriction damage as well. That's it. It explicitly calls out where the damage comes from.
There is no mention of additional damage from the "option from making the grapple". It makes no sense on a common sense level either. Why would a snake (with only one natural attack, a bite) deal damage from it's bite twice on a successful grapple check as well as the constrict?
The first two are automatic. The third is your option for maintaining the grapple. You still get to do that as part of your grapple action. You could instead pin or move if you wanted, but since we're comparing it to a full attack, I assume the damage is the relevant part.
My whole point from the getgo was to point out that you're leaving out parts. If you still want to melee with a Chull, that's fine. Just make sure you know what you're comparing it against.
At this point, I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree about what "better" means with grappling. Even if melee were strictly better in damage for all circumstances, I think it's worth grappling in a lot of cases for the control options it gives you. And even if grappling were strictly higher damage, it wouldn't be an all the time thing either, because some targets are bad news to have in a grapple even for a specialized creature.
Just know how your tools work, is what I'm saying.
Actually, you should review how your tools work.
Relevant Rules:
Grab ability excerpt: A successful hold does not deal any extra damage unless the creature also has the constrict special attack. If the creature does not constrict, each successful grapple check it makes during successive rounds automatically deals the damage indicated for the attack that established the hold. Otherwise, it deals constriction damage as well (the amount is given in the creature’s descriptive text).
Constrict ability excerpt: A creature with this special attack can crush an opponent, dealing bludgeoning damage, when it makes a successful grapple check (in addition to any other effects caused by a successful check, including additional damage). The amount of damage is given in the creature's entry and is typically equal to the amount of damage caused by the creature's melee attack.
The grab ability explicitly states that there is no additional damage. Thus, a successful grapple check deals your basic claw damage and then deals the additional damage per the constrict ability.
Note that the constrict ability explicitly says that the damage is in addition to any other damage done by the grapple check while the grab ability does NOT. Thus you automatically deal damage with the appendage that you grabbed with on successful grapple checks instead of the normal damage/move/pin choice not in addition to. If you are adding extra damage, you are house-ruling something completely different.
As for grapple being sometimes better and sometimes not, that is a problem in it of itself. I as a DM try to play the monsters according to their Int scores, so Int 1 animals and magical beasts built to grapple aren't sitting around with an abacus figuring out how to maximize their damage, and are instead massively crippling themselves by grappling in all situations. The system should allow even these creatures to benefit from their abilities when they use them.
Does the "cumulative -5 to all grapple checks" stack with the cumulative -5 penalty already accounted for by the fact that they're iterative, or are you just restating it?
Good question. I was writing that with an eye towards monsters with multiple natural attacks that wouldn't be taking a penalty otherwise. I would say that it's thus not cumulative with iterative attack penalties, since I don't want to penalize humanoid grapplers even more.
I'm looking for feedback on alternate grapple rules. I've been reading through old grapple threads and having some good discussions in a new one and I think I have a rule set ironed out, but would like some community feedback as to whether these are too easily abused and/or would break grappling creatures.
The main ideas of the rules are to provide more flexibility in grappling, eliminate the controller/defender imbalance, and remove the incentive for some creatures to grab-constrict-release as an optimal tactic.
These rules only apply to the rules pertaining maintaining the grapple. Whether similar changes could be applied to initiating the grapple is a different story, though feel free to comment on that as well!
Alternate Grapple Rules:
You can maintain grapple as an attack action or a standard action.
If you choose to maintain as an attack action, roll your grapple check normally. Success indicates that you maintain the grapple and are able to inflict damage or pin the opponent as described below.
If you choose to maintain as a standard action, you get a +5 on your grapple check and can inflict damage to your opponent, move the grapple (taking up your move action), or pin the opponent.
Failure in either case indicates that you are unable to maintain the grapple and both you and your opponent lose the grappled condition immediately.
Note that all grapple dependent abilities (eg constrict, rake, etc) can only trigger once per round.
You can grapple multiple opponents within reason, and never more than you have attacks; resolve all grapples individually (you must use the attack action option above for this), and you take a cumulative -5 to all grapple checks for each grappled opponent beyond the first. This stacks with the -4 penalty if you do not have two hands (or an appendage with the grab ability) free to grapple.
You're leaving 14 points of damage out for the grapple numbers. You still get to inflict normal damage along with the constrict and the grab/mandibles. It's close, but it still puts maintaining a grapple higher and you still have a non-trivial chance to paralyze.
And while 28 AC is high, 22 AC is about the minimum I'd expect out of a decent front-line fighter. And as you said yourself, that person is going to have a two-handed weapon or two weapons. That's precisely the kind of person you want to grapple since it restricts their damage considerably.
Yeah, you'll do more average damage with the grab-constrict-release routine as long as they've got an AC of 20 or less. But those are going to be spellcasters and ranged attackers against whom grappling has even more advantages when it comes to action restrictions.
First of all, you're admitting that a grapple-oriented character does more damage with grab-constrict-release than actually GRAPPLING, even from an optimistic point of view. The system is already broken at that point.
Second, no I'm not leaving 14 damage out of anywhere since a grapple check results in claw damage (2d6+7 = 14 avg) + constrict (2d6+7 = 14 avg) for a 28 average, exactly as stated above.
Third, I'm not sure what exactly a "decent front-line fighter" is, but typical front-line characters in my recent parties around this level include a lvl 7 barbarian with AC 21 (+8 armor, +2 dex, +1 natural, +2 deflection, - 2 rage), a lvl 7 paladin with AC 23 (+11 armor, +1 deflection, +1 natural), and a lvl 7 magus with AC 22 (+5 armor, +6 dex, +1 deflection). That's not counting monks, rangers, and rogues running similar or lower AC. Unless you're running a specifically AC-oriented build (like the cleric in the previous example), I doubt you're gonna have the equipment for anything beyond this at this level.
Of course it's going to get stomped if it goes up against a whole crew of adventurers alone. What CR-appropriate single monster won't?
Okay, look at it this way. Using Mathias' cleric's stats up there, you attack with your Chuul. You've got a 35% chance to hit with a claw and a 95% chance to connect with the resulting grapple for a combined likelihood of around 33% to get your constrict. That's an average of 4.9 damage per claw and 4.66 damage for the constrict. Let's call it 9.5 damage. Do that twice and you're averaging 19 damage a round from the claw-grab-constrict-release game.
Now let's say you've got ahold of him with a grab. You roll once to maintain the grapple. This roll will only fail on a 1. You're looking at a 95% chance to put down 6d6+21 damage automatically. That averages around 40 damage a round.
Say you don't use grab. You just grapple normally. You've got a 95% chance to get him. Then use your move action to stick him in your mouth. That's 24 damage on average in the first round from constrict and tentacle acid. Then you maintain the grapple the next round doing both the constrict and the acid tentacle damage along with the damage from one claw as part of maintaining the grapple. That's 38 damage per round plus a pretty decent chance to paralyze.
All this costs you is 2 AC from the dex penalty.
Clearly the most effective way to "grapple" with a grapple-specialized creature is to actually grapple!
It scales even better against fighters. They still won't have enough CMD to reliably shake a grapple attempt but they'll probably have higher AC against your claws.
Err, first of all, I don't know a ton of lvl 7 front line combatants with 28 AC unless they're set up to be all AC, which is very very few fighters. Most front line combatants have an AC around 22ish at this level, which is where you're going to be with a two-handed weapon or two weapons without a ton of buffs.
So it's got a 65% chance to hit someone at 22 AC on any given round, dealing 28 damage per swing (ignoring the 5% chance to fail the grab). So that's two swings at 65% for 28 each for an average damage of ~36/round. Or grapple with an almost sure success to inflict the claw+constrict once, dealing an average of ~28/round. So wait, where's the advantage of grappling?
If you bring in OTHER special abilities, like the tentacles, it actually gets WORSE, since the wording says you transfer a grappled victim to the tentacles, thus releasing him from the claw. So the victim now takes the mandible damage with constrict, an average of a massive ~25/round and a ~30%ish chance of paralysis (assuming good fort save).
So 25 damage/round grappling vs 36/round with constrict-release. Huh?
Against my current 7th level cleric with an AC of 28 and a grapple CMD of 14, the rounds could look like this. I will use average damage for this. It has 6 more initiative than me so it's probably going first.
Surprise Round: Chuul grapples and constricts 14 dmg to me.
Round 1: Chuul maintains grapple 19+5 against my grappled CMD of 12. 14 more damage to me with constrict. Chooses to damage dealing 14 more damage. Moves me to its mouth as a move action where I must now make a DC 19 fortitude save, which I can fail 30% of the time. Even if I don't fail that, I take 10 more damage from the mandables.
My round 1:I'm not escaping.
I have now taken 52 damage. Next turn, I will have another 30% chance of being paralyzed and an auto 10 more damage at the beginning of its. After which if I fail the paralysis, I am cou de gras'd... or... I make it and just get killed the old fashioned way.
My comrades must make it to me through difficult terrain and do 85 damage to the critter by round 2 or I am rolling a new character :-p
The Chuul could instead choose to move with me back into the murky water it came from 10 feet at a time, gaining miss chance and lowered damage from underwater combat.
My AC is pretty high for level 7, but if it clawed me and then grabbed in the surprise round... I'd be dead before I got a turn. :-)
I am built to be a tank, most other characters would be dead earlier. I don't mind my encounters a littler harder than normal though, maintaining a grapple as an attack action instead of a standard action seems cool for creatures with the grab ability.
Yes, it has been pointed out previously that grappling creatures do GREAT one on one with a caster without support since grapple negates casting most of the time. In a real party situation, unless something really gets the drop on you (in which case it SHOULD wreak havoc on your party), casters aren't going to be sitting in the open all alone with no support, so the scenario given above doesn't play out great as soon as there are other characters swarming the chuul that is mysteriously unable to attack them with its completely free claws because it's got a paralyzed cleric in it's mouth.
Realistically, I just want to get away from the most effective way of "grappling" being attack-constrict-release. It just doesn't feel like it's in the spirit of what's meant to happen in the game.
Having the option to either maintain grapple as an attack equivalent (effectively giving up one attack's worth of damage to hold down an opponent) or conduct the grapple as written (dealing damage, but giving up other attacks) seems to give grapple the power and flexibility it's meant to have without going overboard. We'll see with more playtesting!
I've started running my games where maintaining grapple replaces a melee attack with the natural weapon/hand that the grapple was initiated. Otherwise, you conduct your attacks normally (with the grappled penalties). Additionally, any special attacks that trigger in grapple (constrict, rake, etc), can only trigger once per turn.
Okay, I am sorry for bringing this up yet again, but it just seems like there's some horrific disconnect between what I have in my head and what happens in the game.
Let's take a grapple-based creature: a chuul (has grab on both primary natural attacks, has constrict).
So in combat, if it hits with it's first attack, it gets to deal damage, make a grapple check, and if it succeeds, it additionally deals constrict damage. (Based on info here and here)
At this point, it has to make a choice. Either it is done for the round, since it's used it's standard action to attack and it's now the controller of a grapple, where it can't take additional attacks by the RAW. Or it can let the grapple go as a free action and take its second attack of the round, potentially doing the same thing as above. It would then remain grappled for the rest of the round. So that's 8d6+28 damage assuming it can hit the target's AC at a +14 reliably (not usually a huge issue at level 7) and succeed on CMB checks at a +19 (same deal).
Assuming it's target didn't break out, on round 2, it could either use a standard action to maintain the grapple, and deal it's claw damage with the constrict for a 4d6+14 damage or it could let go as a free action and repeat what it did above for twice the damage (good trade, assuming it can hit on 10 or less - again not usually an issue at this level)
Well what about it's paralytic tentacles? It's apparently a move action to transfer the victim up to it's mouth and hold him there, but if the chuul does that, he will have to continue grappling and forgo his normal claw attacks.
This seems WRONG! Why would taking advantage of an ability the creature has (paralytic tentacles) put it at a huge disadvantage vs just releasing and attacking repeatedly? How come the most effective way of grappling is by letting go and grabbing repeatedly? This is true for almost every creature that grapples as a primary means of attack - releasing and grabbing is better than continuing the grapple since you lose iterative attacks...
What's more, the grapple controller loses ALL attacks and still has to make the grapple check to hold the target (dealing damage once, if at all) while the target can continue to take its full attacks freely as long as it's with a single handed weapon. Doesn't it seem like being the controller of a grapple should put you at an advantage, not a HUGE disadvantage?
How can all this be remedied? I would suggest making the grapple check to maintain grapple an "attack" equivalent instead of a standard action, and limit grapple-dependent effects (constrict, rake, etc) to triggering once per round on a successful grapple check. I would also say that the +5 to maintain grapple only applies IF you choose to only grapple that round. I think that would be much more balanced as that both solves the "constrict 5 times a round on each attack" problem and the "omg I'm grappling, but it's horrifically crippling!" problem.
Am I seeing something wrong? Am I doing something wrong? Do you think my solution is balanced?
I'm working on a modified version of the rules, based heavily on Hassy's edition. I've simplified it down by eliminating a few choices and skewed it heavily towards rural development vs urban. My group has a tendency to build up cities instead of exploring, so I feel like creating more incentive to settle new land instead of building up a single city makes more sense for a feudal-style kingdom.
To that end, I made every 250 population cost 1 consumption, which means that every explored hex or every 10 units worth of modifiers built in a city costs 1 consumption. This puts a huge cost on expanding because you constantly cripple yourself with extra consumption - to counter this, I reduced prices on almost everything across the board, since BP will be hard to hold onto at this point. Also, most economic developments in rural hexes are more cost efficient than building them in the city, which means that most developments in the city will be towards loyalty and stability, which is fine with me - cities become a cultural and military focus, with most of the country's economy generated in the countryside. This seems appropriate for a feudal-style country.
Here's my modified set of rules for anyone that likes to actively discourage overbuilding towns. These will likely change with more playtesting!
I would say that if the PCs want a big badass army they have to actually prepare to have one -- build barracks, make sure they have stables and smithies, maybe a few more war-related buildings, build temples to war gods, that kind of thing. They'd have to do a lot of training (meaning armies on active duty, meaning paying for them) -- historically it took about a year to train a full-time professional soldier. (Today we can do it in six months or so, but guns are simpler than muscle weapons, and a long-service sergeant is still a lot more capable than a buck private.)
Generally I'd say militia are level 1 warriors, trained soldiers are level 2-3, veteran soldiers are level 4-5, and Caesar's Tenth Legion is level 6. Nobody has armies of 10th-level fighters. And veterans need experience -- there's only so much you can do with bloodless training.
Population 10,000 doesn't mean a 10,000-man army -- generally you can't get more than about 10% of the population into an army before your society collapses into total failure, because the army guys are often the young healthy _productive_ parts of society. (There are some exceptions to this rule, most of which amount to "very ugly situations".) I came up with a rough rule of thumb that the PCs could raise 100 troops/hex -- total. Casualties come off that limit and take lots of time to replace, years for new soldiers to grow up. So far it hasn't been an issue because the PCs have maintained a nice army that's deterred quite a few would-be attackers, but we're starting War of the River Kings and there should be some interesting fights coming up.
That sounds like a pretty reasonable estimate for the 250/hex total population in rural areas... how do you justify the idea that a 10,000 person city can only produce 100 soldiers though?
A quick side question to all this... I have been looking through the army creating rules and there's a quick note in the sample armies section that says:
Sample army note:
The availability of armies for conscription by the PCs depends upon their acts and successes in the Kingmaker Adventure Path to this point. You can also allow your players to customize their own armies, using the rules above to build whatever type of army they want (subject to GM approval, of course!). None of these armies have a starting morale listed, since that depends on the result of a Loyalty check when the army is first conscripted.
So how exactly do I determine the availability of armies? The rules for custom armies above tell me nothing about costing the armies appropriately or what kind of loyalty checks are there to make... The sample armies seem to indicate that their availability is based on the size of the kingdom... why can't you conscript people from the cities? You can easily have a city of population 10,000+ with a kingdom size of 10 (eg 2500 rural population). So I'm a bit confused on how that works.
Additionally, What if my PCs want an army of 100 lvl 10 fighters instead of 2000 lvl 3 warriors? How do I cost something like that? What are the loyalty checks to be made? Are there any guidelines around for this?
