And of course, this side-trek gives the DM a week to think up an answer!
Word!
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Pseudo-dragon familiars can deliver touch spells from their masters, and can benefit from 'personal' protections and buffs cast from them, too.
So it's easy to imagine a dragon telling its master "I smell an imp outside", and the master goes "Oh, yeah? Well give him this from me!" <cast spell>.
Also, why worry that the explanation could be superceded later?
Pick an answer you like, for now.
Who says all pseudo-dragons use the same method?
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OK! I'm convinced! :)
The best way to combat the rules when they start pushing around the flavor is to invent more rules!
SO!
One of the upcoming blogs will reveal the secrets on how the pseudodragons of Korvosa can stand up to those mean imps. BONUS FLAVOR! BONUS CRUNCH! ONLY ON PAIZO.COM!
Mr Ambassador you're really spoiling us.
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There are many on this forum that will say "I buy the Pathfinder Adventure Paths so I don't have to make up my own stuff." Whether it's lack of time or not being very good at it, there are those people that don't want to fix things themselves or have the experience to recognize problems. Others just need things spelled out for them. :)
A good example would be a certain boss fight in a certain past issue that would have go better for many groups if their DMs didn't go by the book and just inserted a side quest or two before letting them get anywhere near boss building. But since many DMs have their own ideas about giving out XP, I don't think side quests would have helped either.
Though inexperience isn't a fault. Thanks to the generous posters on this board that was one pitfall I was able to avoid.
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Didn't miss it, but you can hardly expect Paizo to include a sidebar in the adventure for those wishing to play pseudodragon characters. While it sounds like a fun idea (and yes, I have ran a player with a pseudodragon character before), it is a bit out of the ordinary and probably not something the game designers thought of.I think this falls into the area of GM - player responsibility to come up with a solution that fits their individual campaign. If James and Co. can give us their answer, great, but I'm just saying that it's not a campaign-stopping logic pit that can't be overcome.
Agreed.
That’s not what I had an issue with, more with SirUrza’s comment (which you seemed to agree with – though I could have been mistaken) that Mary was metagaming. She had quite clearly explained why it was relevant to her character, and by implication why her character would know about this.
I do not by any means expect Paizo to be holding the DMs hand through every possible character concept and situation (particularly non-core ones), but this is a question that goes beyond a particular character concept. It’s a pretty major (and I must say, flavourful and cool) piece of “fluff” that does not appear, at this stage, to have any official “crunch” to support it.
A good DM should be quite capable of coming up with a solution for it – as evidenced by this thread. However, if there is an official take on the crunch, it would be good to know. As far as I’m concerned, had James or Mike said “no official answer, any of the solutions in this thread sound cool,” that would be good enough for me. As it is, they’ve gone a step further and said they’ll have an official solution, which is great – and I think all Mary wanted to know.
A one player to one GM dynamic is almost certainly going to be significantly different to anybody else's experience.
This is certainly true, but I ran a 6 player group all through graduate school, and a 3 player group for a couple of years after that. It's quite possible to have more than one player and still have high demands for logic and consistency.
The 3 player group was amazing in their willingness (in fact, eagerness) to go very slowly through adventures. They liked to split up, and then when they got back together the players would listen to each PC's report on what they'd done--even though the players were all in the same room for everything and had heard it directly. Discrepancies between what the PC said and what the players knew to be true were a major source of humor value for that game. I've never seen anything like it. But to run for them I found it necessary to be scrupulously careful because they paid so much attention to detail. If anything was out of place, they took that as a clue and they were all over it.
The 6 player group was all college kids and spent a lot of social time together, meaning a lot of time to think about the game. They were more distracted in actual play (six players is a lot) but still very quick to pick up on clues.
In any case, I don't think anyone really suffers from having illogical elements fixed, do they?
Mary
This is certainly true, but I ran a 6 player group all through graduate school, and a 3 player group for a couple of years after that. It's quite possible to have more than one player and still have high demands for logic and consistency.The 3 player group was amazing in their willingness (in fact, eagerness) to go very slowly through adventures. They liked to split up, and then when they got back together the players would listen to each PC's report on what they'd done--even though the players were all in the same room for everything and had heard it directly. Discrepancies between what the PC said and what the players knew to be true were a major source of humor value for that game. I've never seen anything like it. But to run for them I found it necessary to be scrupulously careful because they paid so much attention to detail. If anything was out of place, they took that as a clue and they were all over it.
The 6 player group was all college kids and spent a lot of social time together, meaning a lot of time to think about the game. They were more distracted in actual play (six players is a lot) but still very quick to pick up on clues.
In any case, I don't think anyone really suffers from having illogical elements fixed, do they?
No, no they don't suffer. Good counter point.
I guess you go to show that there are lots of different group dynamics. I only meet bi-weekly, and the players have limited social communication in between sessions. They also have different drives and expectations, which I have to juggle. (Action tactics guy, and a heavy duty role-player)
I guess my comment didn't really apply too closely, but I read most of your posts. I have to wonder at how very different your experience is sometimes. The time he refused to level struck me as very interesting. I understood why, to a degree, but the balance of power was different than what I'm used to being described by any others.
But back to the topic at hand, yes, there's no harm in having something offically fixed if the Editor-in-Chief is so willing and inclined.
The Boss offered after all. No one can take that back but him.
You should also encourage your GM to post his issues with the Module. It will help James Jacobs when editing future modules.
In any case, I don't think anyone really suffers from having illogical elements fixed, do they?
Of course not. However, you'll agree that there's a difference between illogical elements and a part of the campaign that is not been elaborated upon.
Creative Director
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As far as I’m concerned, had James or Mike said “no official answer, any of the solutions in this thread sound cool,” that would be good enough for me. As it is, they’ve gone a step further and said they’ll have an official solution, which is great – and I think all Mary wanted to know.
Honestly... this is right on. ANY of the solutions here work. I'll be trying to get my own solution on the matter up on the blog, but that might take a few weeks, and I might just NEVER have the time to do so. I never imagined that someone would want to play a pseudodragon character in the adventure; had I thought this would be an option some players would like to try, I probably would have looked more closely at it. But honestly, if you're allowing a player to play a pseudodragon, you as the GM are setting yourself up for a LOT of work. The game assumes players are Medium or Small bipeds. Tinkering with that core assumption is going to disrupt plots and adventures and rules; the GM in this case is going to HAVE to do a lot of work to make things fit. Adding onto that a cool, flavorful "fix" for how pseudodragons can hurt imps is a drop in the bucket at that point.
I like the image of off-duty pseudodragon familars sneaking off to lead packs of less intelligent, wilder cousins on daring, ninja style raids against isolated imp encampments. All the while, their clueless masters snooze, never learning of the heroic adventures of their absent lackeys.
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honestly, if you're allowing a player to play a pseudodragon, you as the GM are setting yourself up for a LOT of work. The game assumes players are Medium or Small bipeds. Tinkering with that core assumption is going to disrupt plots and adventures and rules; the GM in this case is going to HAVE to do a lot of work to make things fit. Adding onto that a cool, flavorful "fix" for how pseudodragons can hurt imps is a drop in the bucket at that point.
There goes all hope of having a loremaster pseudodragon named EGG as the 12th iconic
*le sigh*
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My vote? Pseudodragons have evolved tiny breath weapons. In the campaign I DM, my PC has a pseudodragon who insists that he's a real dragon. Very big on a dragon's privileges. He desperately wants a real breath weapon to stop the teasing of the sorcerer.
And if he can scrape together enough XP, just one level of sorcerer would get this pseudodragon... burning hands!
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This is too big an issue to just brush aside as flavor.
Big? No. Tiny. :P
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Creative Director
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"Imp Report to THE BOSS :
Most [insert long winded string of titles] , your strategy is glorious
We have sacrificed as planned by you the weakest and less deserving imps ( aka stupidest) imps of our brood during staged fights with the pseudo dragons .
Pseudo dragons and humans are convinced our forces are defeated while we continue to increase our numbers in secret.The final strike is near when our numbers will be sufficient to owerwhelm the stupid goody-goody pseudo and rule the SKIES of Korvosa
All hail PAZUZU ! "
HA! That imp would be so deported back to Hell for an infinity of torment and torture for hailing a demon! :)
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I like the image of off-duty pseudodragon familars sneaking off to lead packs of less intelligent, wilder cousins on daring, ninja style raids against isolated imp encampments. All the while, their clueless masters snooze, never learning of the heroic adventures of their absent lackeys.
Now that's just hilarious.
I thought a bit about why this issue bothers me so much (it's not just that my PC is a pdrag). It's mainly my own past history with DR.
We played SCAP a few years ago and it was a truly miserable experience, in large part because of DR. It has an episode where the PCs are suddenly trapped somewhere where nearly every creature has DR, at least five different kinds; most have high SR as well. Only one PC out of six was able to function in this environment, and it was incredibly demoralizing. Session after session, five PCs could not contribute; they looked like low-level henchmen of the one effective PC. Up until that point, play had been very balanced, but DR suddenly threw everything out the window.
We've also had problems with DR in other games. My GM ran Hangman's Noose as a lead-in to CotCT and the same pattern of only one PC being able to contribute reappeared in many of the fights there.
So when I hear "Why stress about this? It's no big deal" my emotional response is that it *is* a big deal. If the game designers are casual about DR and don't pay attention to how much and what kind they are slinging around, it's a potential gamebreaker for me. So I really, really want them to pay attention. And I can't help thinking that if you are paying attention to this issue, you won't put pdrags up against imps that they can't possibly hurt.
I really wanted to like SCAP. Great PCs, interesting situations, awesome NPCs, some wonderful roleplaying moments. But the overall gaming experience was so awful, I swore at the end never to play in another AP. My GM has talked me around with regard to CotCT...but suspecting that the same thing is likely to happen again just leaves me depressed.
I do want to say, though, that having prompt and responsive answers from the staff is *awesome*. I never expected that, and I appreciate it very much.
Mary
Only one PC out of six was able to function in this environment, and it was incredibly demoralizing. Session after session, five PCs could not contribute; they looked like low-level henchmen of the one effective PC. Up until that point, play had been very balanced, but DR suddenly threw everything out the window.
We've also had problems with DR in other games. My GM ran Hangman's Noose as a lead-in to CotCT and the same pattern of only one PC being able to contribute reappeared in many of the fights there.
You should probably talk to your DM, since this issue has been a thorn in your side repeatedly. As a DM, I have always assumed that cold iron and alchemical silver weapons were commonplace and encourage my players to equip their PCs accordingly; I suspect that is the accepted norm among 3.5 campaigns. If your DM feels otherwise, you will want to find some compromise with him to prevent future issues of that sort.
I don't think there's a PC in either of my groups that doesn't carry 5 of the following:
1. A missile weapon
2. A blunt weapon
3. A slashing weapon
4. An alchemical silver weapon
5. A cold iron weapon
6. A light weapon
7. A weapon suited for tripping or disarming
8. Fire
Obviously, these are combined into as few weapons as possible:
The druid has a sling with cold iron and silver bullets, a cold iron sickle, and a club; the cleric has a longbow with cold iron and silver arrows, "serpent-tongue" (slashing) arrows, a morning star, and a dagger; the fighter has an alchemical silver flail as a back-up weapon; etc. They also carry alchemist's fire and flasks of lamp oil (Once they're burning from the alchemist's fire, the lamp oil is much cheaper...) to torch those foes that weapons won't hurt.
I do enforce encumbrance, too. It makes for some careful compromises as they try to balance the benefit of multiple weapons vs. the weight penalties.
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I can understand Mary's frustration. In a game I play , the DM makes it exceedingly difficult to obtain DR overcoming items. Cold Iron and SIlver weapons are not only slightly more expensive as per rules, but are almost never available. The best weapon we have ever found from this DM is a +1 brilliant energy battle axe. We get some buff effects from items but offensively next to nothing. When we were lvl 20 we had a heck of a time facing demons and devils and all kinds of baddies. On the other hand we did become rather creative with ways around our weaknesses. We always won, but had to work REAL hard to do so.
SO, DR can be a major issue. Personally, I would rather DR eliminated in 4E.
You should probably talk to your DM, since this issue has been a thorn in your side repeatedly. As a DM, I have always assumed that cold iron and alchemical silver weapons were commonplace and encourage my players to equip their PCs accordingly; I suspect that is the accepted norm among 3.5 campaigns.
The PCs carried cold iron and silver weapons.
The module required combos like silver+holy, cold iron+lawful, magic+adamant+blunt, which they didn't have. The only solution the PCs could find was to load everything onto the high-strength fighter, who could hurt enemies whether he could bypass DR or not.
At lower levels, yes, everyone could (and should, in my party's case) have had at least three or four weapons each, covering all damage types and if possible both materials, and magic--then you pray it won't be something weird. But the designer needs, I think, to take some care not to write unfair deathtraps, especially at low levels. There have been an awful lot of DR-related TPKs in _Burnt Offerings_ because creatures with DR appear early and are quite powerful.
Mary
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Creative Director
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One thing to keep in mind about DR is the implied power level of a typical game. The game itself assumes that PCs of a certain level will have access to magic weapons or special qualities, and it builds its monsters to follow those assumptions. If you have a game that has a lower level of magic or makes things like adamantine really rare, then you'll just have to keep in mind that that makes certain monsters a lot more overpowered than the game's designers originally anticipated.
If you play with a DM who runs low level/quality gear AND high level magic monsters, it's time to find a new DM.. I don't care how good he is at story telling, he's breaking the system.
What if he throws a quasit against a low level party exploring a giant ruined head?
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If you play with a DM who runs low level/quality gear AND high level magic monsters, it's time to find a new DM.. I don't care how good he is at story telling, he's breaking the system.What if he throws a quasit against a low level party exploring a giant ruined head?
Going by the DMG, an alchemical silver dagger is 22gp and silver arrows/bolts/sling bullets are fairly inexpensive (+2 gp). Cold iron weapons are double normal cost. Even a 1st level character can afford some cold iron or silver ammunition and/or weapons as part of their starting equipment. Silversheen is, or should be, a relatively inexpensive and common magical item. (As a side note, the party does have the opportunity to pick up a silver weapon as treasure before meeting Erylium in Burnt Offerings)
The majority of DR reads "cold iron OR good" or "silver OR good," which means the DR is bypassed by a weapon that meets either requirement. The 2nd level cleric spell align weapon grants a weapon an alignment quality to bypass DR (as does the 1st level paladin spell bless weapon). Holy and unholy are more problematic (unless there is a paladin who can cast holy weapon), but 1) anarchic, axiomatic, holy, and unholy are +2 enhancement weapon qualities and 2) creatures requiring such properties should only be encountered after the characters are 10th level or higher (when such weapons should be available to the PCs). Adamantine is a common requirement to bypass the DR of constructs, so the party should have at least one adamantine weapon when they find one as treasure or can afford the extra 3000gp.
The whole point behind the change in the DR system between 3.0 and 3.5 was to eliminate the "one weapon for every encounter" syndrome, where DR became meaningless when PCs upgraded their weapon's "plus" as high as possible.
The whole point behind the change in the DR system between 3.0 and 3.5 was to eliminate the "one weapon for every encounter" syndrome. . .
In my experience though the reverse has happened. In 3.0 it was theoretically possible for a hero to wield his signature weapon against all foes, presuming it was sufficiently magical. In 3.5 everybody needs a golf bag full of options.
@ Robin :
I just want to remind you that you are DMing me in RoRL, so don't post potential spoilers here ... I'm glad to know that if we found this Adamantine Longsword, that's because we have to fight a golem or a wizard with Stoneskin ...
I also want to remind you that I may DM you in CoCT and so you have nothing to do here ...
The whole point behind the change in the DR system between 3.0 and 3.5 was to eliminate the "one weapon for every encounter" syndrome. . .In my experience though the reverse has happened. In 3.0 it was theoretically possible for a hero to wield his signature weapon against all foes, presuming it was sufficiently magical. In 3.5 everybody needs a golf bag full of options.
I agree. My players tend to carry the weapon golfbags around too. They even joke about needing to get a cohort to act as the caddy.
I agree. My players tend to carry the weapon golfbags around too. They even joke about needing to get a cohort to act as the caddy.
Yep. And NO ONE has anything with a bonus higher than +1 anymore, because it's totally cost inefficient (those higher plusses really cost some loot; and worse, in my campaign, the character pays full XP for all magic items, as if he or she had crafted them). So by mutual consent, I think we'll all be going back to something like the 3.0 model, except as follows:
+1 beats /magic (obviously)
+2 also beats /silver
+3 beats /silver and /cold iron
+4 beats /any material but adamantine
+5 beats adamantine
Alignment and type (bludgeoning, etc.) DR from 3.5 will remain unchanged, however.
One thing to keep in mind about DR is the implied power level of a typical game. The game itself assumes that PCs of a certain level will have access to magic weapons or special qualities, and it builds its monsters to follow those assumptions. If you have a game that has a lower level of magic or makes things like adamantine really rare, then you'll just have to keep in mind that that makes certain monsters a lot more overpowered than the game's designers originally anticipated.
This is one of the things that makes APs really problematic for parties of more than 4 PCs. There is not enough treasure to go around, and everyone is underequipped all the time. In theory having more people should compensate for having less equipment, but in practice it doesn't always work that way.
We found there to be stronger and stronger pressure *not* to do special materials, but instead to have every combat PC be a high strength, two handed weapon, power attack character, and spend the money on +6 Str and as many plusses to damage as possible for that character. All the fighters end up looking exactly the same. A character like this laughs at 15 points of DR and can handle 20 fairly well. But it's really disappointing when a system seems to offer so many interesting options, and then the game shuts down all but one of them; and that was very much our experience of SCAP, both in my campaign and in the GM's multiplayer campaign.
Mary
This is one of the things that makes APs really problematic for parties of more than 4 PCs. There is not enough treasure to go around, and everyone is underequipped all the time. In theory having more people should compensate for having less equipment, but in practice it doesn't always work that way.
If you have more than 4 PC's, the encounters should be scaled up slightly and the treasure also increased by the GM. I regularly have 5-7 players and have not had a problem scaling encounters and loot to fit throughout SCAP, AoWAP and STAP.
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Creative Director
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This is one of the things that makes APs really problematic for parties of more than 4 PCs. There is not enough treasure to go around, and everyone is underequipped all the time. In theory having more people should compensate for having less equipment, but in practice it doesn't always work that way.If you have more than 4 PC's, the encounters should be scaled up slightly and the treasure also increased by the GM. I regularly have 5-7 players and have not had a problem scaling encounters and loot to fit throughout SCAP, AoWAP and STAP.
Correct. We pick four because that's the number the system's built around. If you have more than that, you absolutely SHOULD increase the amount of treasure handed out, especially if you want to avoid problems later on with under-equipped PCs versus monsters that assume the standard level of gear.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
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I agree. My players tend to carry the weapon golfbags around too. They even joke about needing to get a cohort to act as the caddy.The whole point behind the change in the DR system between 3.0 and 3.5 was to eliminate the "one weapon for every encounter" syndrome. . .In my experience though the reverse has happened. In 3.0 it was theoretically possible for a hero to wield his signature weapon against all foes, presuming it was sufficiently magical. In 3.5 everybody needs a golf bag full of options.
Wow I couldn't DISAGREE with you and tbug more.
In 3.0 the DR values were so high (10/15/20/30) that unleass you had the correct +x weapon you were ineffective. In 3.5 the DR is more varied but the DR values are SO much lower (5/10/15) that at the CR a Ftr/Bbn/Pal, etc faces them they should be able to damage them WITHOUT the correct weapon. If the DR is only 10 and you average 25-30pts of damage per hit it's not a killer, just inconvenient.
As for having a weapon with an enhancement bonus above +1, in 3.5 this works extremely well for characters who are built for Criticals because the flat plus multiplies. Obviously Fighters with Improved Critical or a keen weapon benefit greatly but a Paladin with a +3 Lance and Spirited Charge is loving that flat plus (and his Smite damage)!!!
Wow I couldn't DISAGREE with you and tbug more.
Wow indeed. Thanks for sharing your different experiences.
It seems to me that pseudodragons, due to their previously mentioned advantages over imps (speed, telepathy, blindsense) would be able to detect/annoy/avoid the imps as need be, even if they cannot damage them. However, being good creatures, they would naturally want to confront the imp population.
What if the pseudodragons had an ongoing deal with an organization in Korvosa? The humanoids stay hidden and snipe targeted areas at the command of the pseudodragons during battle (via their blindsense and telepathy), such that the tiny dragons (being the attention whores they are) get all of the public credit. In return, the pseudodragons might give exclusive consideration for companionship to those in the organization. Or some other similar arrangement?
If such an arrangement had been around for a while, the imps may begin to associate the very appearance of a clutch of pseudodragons with pain coming from unforeseen directions. The imps would likely rather flee than face such an ambush.
I have not read the section on this yet, so I can only make some guesses and assumptions.
1) Imps
a) Don't breed, so there is a finite number of them.
b) People dislike them, after all they are evil and most people are not.
2) Psuedo-dragons
a) Do breed, so they have a big advantage in numbers.
b) Are probably pretty loved by the populace, a kin to the way people love dolphins and hate sharks.
3) As the rules stand, this means that the imps are always going to be able to kill the psuedo-dragons at will.
Last year while in the foot hills of Wales, I watched a flock of Starlings take on and drive off a Buzzard. This was done by repeated use of their faster movement, agility and numbers. The poor buzzard, just gave up and went home in the end. This would be my take on it, the imps are controlled by where they can go and what they can do, if they trespass on the psuedo-dragons territory, they get mobbed in large numbers. they are most likely invisible, so if they retaliate they become visible and that attracts the attention of the humans, who can hurt them and probably consider them a nasty infestation, where as the psuedo-dragons are probably seen as lovably characters. Again I am assuming that the humans have grown up in a symbiotic relationship with the dragons, who probably do a mighty fine job of keeping vermin under control.
A second take on it would be to consider how honey bees deal with wasps. The wasps can literally, sting the bees to death and bite them in twain. The bees can't hurt the wasps, their sting can't penetrate their armour and their bites are too weak. The bees know this and swarm the wasps, in real life they actually cook the wasps in side an oven of bees. In this analogy I would suggest that the psuedo-dragons could grapple flying imps and cause the writhing mass to fall to the ground. Does Damage reduction negate falling damage? The fall will kill psuedo-dragons, but I assume if the imps are killing them, the sacrifice of enough of them to kill one imp is probably a sacrifice they will probably make. If the fall is low enough to allow the imps and dragons to survive, the imp is on the ground in a mass of writhing grappling, pinning psuedo-dragons. Humans can then join in.
My experience of SCAP was that the golfbag of weapons just wasn't possible; you needed too many different kinds. The only remaining option was to do a ton of damage with each blow. Too bad for the PC paladin and dervish and rogue and cleric, who didn't do 20+ with each attack. Too bad for the fighter if he needed to use a missile weapon, too.
Even 5 points of DR can be a severe shutdown. The first fight where the PCs saw that (on a flying foe with very high AC and strong attacks) the fight went 70 rounds; the PCs were pretty much ineffective. They would hit with arrows occasionally and do 2-3 points of damage. They spent most of the fight running away and drinking potions; it was only the fact that they had, if I recall correctly, 58 curing potions that prevented a TPK.
In our recent 1st level game the rogue and bard were using rapiers. Five points of DR plus immunity to sneak attack shut them down pretty completely, and at least 8 monsters in the module had that much.
I'm not sure what the right solution is. I didn't like 3.0 DR: either you had the countermeasure (and everyone did) or you were useless. 3.5 is different but not, in our hands, noticably better; there is way too much pressure to play a two-handed-weapon specialist. In RotRL we capped DR at 5 and found that it was somewhat problematic, especially for the conjuror: a lot of the creatures she could summon were very weak without their DR.
Mary
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IMO, the 'golfbag of weapons' solution isn't a solution at all. It's the junkiest idea from 3.5, making a dozen different flavors of DR.
And the designers had the stones to claim that they were doing this to *get rid of* what they called 'golf bag syndrome.' I just don't know where their heads are sometimes... "Yes, we've invented this neat phrase for a problem that doesn't actually exist. Now lets revise the rules to create the problem!"
DR/Magic is good. DR/Bludgeoning, Piercing or Slashing are good.
Everything else should be an 'or.' DR/Magic *or* Silver.
When I see a monster that says DR/Magic, Silver *and* Good, I want to find the designer and make him fight one of those. With a pencil.
I have not read the section on this yet, so I can only make some guesses and assumptions.
1) Imps
a) Don't breed, so there is a finite number of them.
b) People dislike them, after all they are evil and most people are not.2) Psuedo-dragons
a) Do breed, so they have a big advantage in numbers.
b) Are probably pretty loved by the populace, a kin to the way people love dolphins and hate sharks.3) As the rules stand, this means that the imps are always going to be able to kill the psuedo-dragons at will.
In this analogy I would suggest that the psuedo-dragons could grapple flying imps and cause the writhing mass to fall to the ground. Does Damage reduction negate falling damage? The fall will kill psuedo-dragons, but I assume if the imps are killing them, the sacrifice of enough of them to kill one imp is probably a...
I don't see the pseudodragons as 'beeing' so opposed the imps that they are willing to die in mass quantities to kill an imp. That's just too hardcore for my worldview, YMMV.
Imps are lawful evil. That means that they cooperate and can form plans. I propose that the imps just let everyone think that the pseudodragons are keeping them it check. That's just what the imps want everyone to believe!
So you want DR to be useless. Unless it has a chance to actually stop some damage sometimes, you might as well ignore it.
As long as the damage reduced is low enough that it is just an inconvenience (or even a huge inconvenience) and does not amount to invulnerability, it's okay.
So DR 5 to 15 with things you don't necessarily have at the level you usually get to fight this critter is okay: If you happen to have the material, it's great (and more so because it's not a foregone conclusion), and if not, you can still damage the critter.
On the other hand, something that never comes up (but if it does, you have no chance to do any damage) is basically wasted paper and ink.
So you want DR to be useless. Unless it has a chance to actually stop some damage sometimes, you might as well ignore it.
As long as the damage reduced is low enough that it is just an inconvenience (or even a huge inconvenience) and does not amount to invulnerability, it's okay.
So DR 5 to 15 with things you don't necessarily have at the level you usually get to fight this critter is okay: If you happen to have the material, it's great (and more so because it's not a foregone conclusion), and if not, you can still damage the critter.
On the other hand, something that never comes up (but if it does, you have no chance to do any damage) is basically wasted paper and ink.
Yes, actually, I do. I think the function of DR could be better served with a high AC and maybe some fast healing or something. Weapons with the right material would give bonuses to hit and prevent the healing. That way everyone could still participate in a battle.
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Do the psuedodragons count as good for purposes of overcoming DR? I seem to recall them (with no factual data to back me up) being good creatures...
Just as a reminder of something Sean said way back in post #3...pseudodragons are Always NG, therefore their natural weapons count as good for purposes of ignoring DR.
The ACTUAL problem that the 'drags have is the imp immunity to poison. Otherwise, they'd just sting the imp asleep and drop it from a height. The fact that they can legitimately damage the imps for a tiny amount of damage apiece does make the Pseudodragon Swarm idea quite viable though. Or a few pseudodragon commandos with a level of rogue for sneak attack leading the charge.
Personally, I plan to go with the silver tower spikes myself, cause that's just awesome ;)
Do the psuedodragons count as good for purposes of overcoming DR? I seem to recall them (with no factual data to back me up) being good creatures...Just as a reminder of something Sean said way back in post #3...pseudodragons are Always NG, therefore their natural weapons count as good for purposes of ignoring DR.
Except that that's wrong. Unless it says in the Combat section before special attacks (or, in the modern stat-block, has the "aligned strike" special attack), a creature's natural attacks don't overcome any type of damage reduction except for slashing, piercing and bludgeoning.
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Beat me to the post; generally the creatures who bypass DR due to having fixed alignment tend to be extraplanar entities, for whom their alignment is part of their physical makeup.
Simply having an firm alignment restriction isn't enough; if it were, all 1st-level monks would have Ki Strike (Axiomatic Fists) right out the gate. There'd be no need to acquire the ability at 10th level.
Simply having an firm alignment restriction isn't enough; if it were, all 1st-level monks would have Ki Strike (Axiomatic Fists) right out the gate. There'd be no need to acquire the ability at 10th level.
Right. In order to overcome alignment-based DR, you must either have the relevant alignment subtype (Like Devils have the Lawful and Evil subtypes), or a special ability that specifically says so (Like Ki Strike (Law), align weapon, or a Holy sword).
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When I first read that section, I thought that the flavor really popped out at me. It was just a really cool idea. Then I started thinking about the mechanics of it and quickly realized that they probably did not add up. So I went back to thinking how cool the flavor was.
Now with that said, any time there is a really interesting flavor item, including some additional mechanics or other information is a good thing and is greatly appreciated. My thought is that this is sub-type of p-dragon that has evolved to hunt imps. This should lead to an interesting p-dragon write up. I have some ideas, but I would like to read the official Paizo version, as it promises to be a good one :)
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Creative Director
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You know... the more I think about it, the more I think that the best way to handle this situation is on the imp side. These imps are basically escaped imps who have been dwelling in Korvosa since they first started leaking out of the Academae. I'm starting to think that the way to fix the problem, therefore, is to introduce a new variant of imp called the Korvosan imp. It's got the same stats as a normal imp except that it's got the native subtype instead of extraplanar, and its long exposure (and perhaps even birth) on the Material Plane have robbed it of its damage reduction and fast healing. Which more or less would drop them down to a CR 1 creature, and would make for cool imp on pseudodragon dogfights.
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You know... the more I think about it, the more I think that the best way to handle this situation is on the imp side. These imps are basically escaped imps who have been dwelling in Korvosa since they first started leaking out of the Academae. I'm starting to think that the way to fix the problem, therefore, is to introduce a new variant of imp called the Korvosan imp. It's got the same stats as a normal imp except that it's got the native subtype instead of extraplanar, and its long exposure (and perhaps even birth) on the Material Plane have robbed it of its damage reduction and fast healing. Which more or less would drop them down to a CR 1 creature, and would make for cool imp on pseudodragon dogfights.
Call 'em Gremlins or something. Maybe they're even part-Imp / part-something native, and the few Imps that did make it through are the distant parents of the critters that the Pseudo-Dragons are so handily fighting...