I'm sort'v wondering if there's any reason for Pathfinder changing constructs and undead to be vulnerable to critical hits. While I understand that rogues had a rough time against those enemies, I'm sort'v failing to understand why a rogue can now bare-knuckle an iron golem into pieces (I'm always reminded of this scene from Galaxy Quest when I imagine it, really).
Where exactly IS the particularly vulnerable spot on a stone golem that a rogue can poke a dagger into in order to make it fall to pieces? Which bone do you jab on a brontosaurus skeleton to one-shot it as a level 20 rogue?
If there's some sort of justification beyond "we didn't want rogues to cry" then I'm all ears, but at the moment I don't really see why I'd want to adjust the rules for my campaign.
eh first off ya need to bypass the DR 10 not always easy without weapons made for that, so your Rogue say level 9 when this guy would be a challenge is doing..humm 5d6 or so. I am not a great math guy bu thats around 17 hp+ weapon..yeah congrats ya did 9 hp or so unless your packing +4 weapons ya have issue
And unless your golem is round it has joints. A golem is a magic construct ya do enough damage and the magic fails..ya know make it into little bits and there is nor form to hold the magic any longer.
And it was not just 2 or 3 critters, but about a 4th or so of most monster books ya were useless on. And ya know ya hurt the party as a whole and not just one player as encounters are based on the group so if ya run a encounter based for 4 folks and your 2 rogues are useless..yay TPK is the most likely outcome. I am sure others will drop by and explain it better, but those are the main points of the change for me
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Where exactly IS the particularly vulnerable spot on a stone golem that a rogue can poke a dagger into in order to make it fall to pieces? Which bone do you jab on a brontosaurus skeleton to one-shot it as a level 20 rogue?
You know where your arm connects to the shoulder? Hit it there enough and the arm comes off. As for a skeleton, are you serious? Take off its head! Break its spine! Shatter the right bone and make it fall over, render it unable to walk! The only thing that really makes sense to be immune to crits are elementals and incorpereal beings. Things that are pretty much made up of one type of matter, be it ectoplasm, fire, or ooze.
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Where exactly IS the particularly vulnerable spot on a stone golem that a rogue can poke a dagger into in order to make it fall to pieces? Which bone do you jab on a brontosaurus skeleton to one-shot it as a level 20 rogue?You know where your arm connects to the shoulder? Hit it there enough and the arm comes off. As for a skeleton, are you serious? Take off its head! Break its spine! Shatter the right bone and make it fall over, render it unable to walk! The only thing that really makes sense to be immune to crits are elementals and incorpereal beings. Things that are pretty much made up of one type of matter, be it ectoplasm, fire, or ooze.
+1 on this. If it has parts, it has weak ones. They may not be as obvious as on a living creature, but that's why you're a rogue.
Besides everyone knows when fighting undead,headshot and the doubletap.Rules to live by
eh first off ya need to bypass the DR 10 not always easy without weapons made for that, so your Rogue say level 9 when this guy would be a challenge is doing..humm 5d6 or so. I am not a great math guy bu thats around 17 hp+ weapon..yeah congrats ya did 9 hp or so unless your packing +4 weapons ya have issue
So one vote for "it made rogues cry". Not all parties had a rogue to begin with, and it wasn't critical hits that were key to taking down enemies in the first place. If golems were proving to be too difficult to beat it would seem more rational to REMOVE the DR in favour of straight HP (thus, combat would involve wearing them down) instead of just making all constructs suddenly vulnerable to criticals and sneak attacks.
You know where your arm connects to the shoulder? Hit it there enough and the arm comes off. As for a skeleton, are you serious? Take off its head! Break its spine! Shatter the right bone and make it fall over, render it unable to walk! The only thing that really makes sense to be immune to crits are elementals and incorpereal beings. Things that are pretty much made up of one type of matter, be it ectoplasm, fire, or ooze.
Oh really? Are we cutting the tendons that don't hold an undead skeletons arm on? What is it you imagine sits between a skeleton's arm and a skeleton's shoulder to keep that arm in place, exactly? Do you envision a series of ropes keeping an animated statue's lower leg attached to its upper leg? How exactly is a skeleton's head more vulnerable than its foot? Because it holds its EMPTY EYE SOCKETS that it somehow needs to see, or its empty cranium in which its especially vulnerable lack-of-a-brain sits?
Tell you what. Take a steak knife and then take a WHOLE WEEK to examine a local marble or metal statue for its vulnerable point, and then make it crumble in three stabs, please. Maybe try that at the local dinosaur museum on the skeleton of a massive extinct beast of your choice. Obviously a rogue doesn't get the benefit of a week to line up their stab, but if it makes you feel better, have a friend stand on the OTHER SIDE of the statue or dinosaur skeleton so that it is too distracted to defend itself.
And last time I checked a clay golem was made up of one type of matter (hint: its clay). By pathfinder rules, if you have improved unarmed attack, a rogue can punch down a castle wall - I mean, if being made of stone doesn't make you immune to critical hits or sneak attacks then we can assume the castle walls are being denied their dexterity bonus on merit of being.. y'know... walls.
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eh first off ya need to bypass the DR 10 not always easy without weapons made for that, so your Rogue say level 9 when this guy would be a challenge is doing..humm 5d6 or so. I am not a great math guy bu thats around 17 hp+ weapon..yeah congrats ya did 9 hp or so unless your packing +4 weapons ya have issueSo one vote for "it made rogues cry". Not all parties had a rogue to begin with, and it wasn't critical hits that were key to taking down enemies in the first place. If golems were proving to be too difficult to beat it would seem more rational to REMOVE the DR in favour of straight HP (thus, combat would involve wearing them down) instead of just making all constructs suddenly vulnerable to criticals and sneak attacks.
I smell a fair amount of anger and resentment at rogues in general.
You know where your arm connects to the shoulder? Hit it there enough and the arm comes off. As for a skeleton, are you serious? Take off its head! Break its spine! Shatter the right bone and make it fall over, render it unable to walk! The only thing that really makes sense to be immune to crits are elementals and incorpereal beings. Things that are pretty much made up of one type of matter, be it ectoplasm, fire, or ooze.Oh really? Are we cutting the tendons that don't hold an undead skeletons arm on? What is it you imagine sits between a skeleton's arm and a skeleton's shoulder to keep that arm in place, exactly? Do you envision a series of ropes keeping an animated statue's lower leg attached to its upper leg? How exactly is a skeleton's head more vulnerable than its foot? Because it holds its EMPTY EYE SOCKETS that it somehow needs to see, or its empty cranium in which its especially vulnerable lack-of-a-brain sits?
Tell you what. Take a steak knife and then take a WHOLE WEEK to examine a local marble or metal statue for its vulnerable point, and then make it crumble in three stabs, please. Maybe try that at the local dinosaur museum on the skeleton of a massive extinct beast of your choice. Obviously a...
And we just hit a 10.0 on the anger meter.
Joints hold the bone in place, if you shatter the joint, no movement can occur with those bones. If you're going to argue that medical truth, let me take a sledge hammer to your knee caps and lets see how well you walk away from that.It goes beyond the tendons that make it move, the joint is the fulcrum upon which the force must be applied to move in the first place. It is the hinge that allows your leg to extend or bend.
But you don't really care, if you did you wouldn't be confrontational, and also wouldn't act nearly as snide.
You're crying over a rule change that most likely caught you off guard, and you want Paizo the big bad meanies that made your ability to screw over rogues limited, to undo the "unfair" and "unnecessary" change.
I just don't get the rogue hate. Its as if rogues aren't magically lumped in with all the other melee classes and sucktastic after level 10 in 3.5. Its like rogues have the panacea that makes melee not suck anymore, and therefore the fact that casters dominate the game with their ability to control the battlefield, MAGICALLY stops working after level 10 with a rogue in the party.
so you vote they are Immune to all none magic damage, that seems to be what ya are saying....after all ya know your sword can't really hurt it. Which might be a fine rules, save it totally screws any party that is not almost all spellcasters
I think DR (which is the hardness of the object, really) handles that aspect, or just having a large number of hitpoints, requiring that they literally break the construct into pieces through constant damage. Alternately, if you're fighting a big monster you can't seem to hurt... you LEAVE THE AREA. I understand that die-hard hack'n'slash parties refuse to end any fight until the enemy is dead, but that isn't a mandatory part of the game.
If you can't come up with a way to beat an enemy, then come up with a way to bypass the enemy. I don't see why the game has to be dumbed down such that bull-headed players can ALWAYS beat every creature they happen upon. This isn't 4E.
I smell a fair amount of anger and resentment at rogues in general.
Yes, you caught me... a rogue killed my father and I'm on a mission to get the class removed from the game, hence, it's a matter of my hating rogues not a matter of my taking issue with rule changes I fail to see a worthwhile reason for.
Joints hold the bone in place, if you shatter the joint, no movement can occur with those bones. If you're going to argue that medical truth, let me take a sledge hammer to your knee caps and lets see how well you walk away from that.It goes beyond the tendons that make it move, the joint is the fulcrum upon which the force must be applied to move in the first place. It is the hinge that allows your leg to extend or bend.
What joints? Undead skeletons are held together by magic - the same thing that makes a stone golem able to bend its stone arms. The only "medical truth" I'm arguing is that statues don't HAVE vulnerable spots you can stab with a knife that'll give a similar effect to being hit with a tank shell, and under PF (unlike 3.5) they all seem to.
But you don't really care, if you did you wouldn't be confrontational, and also wouldn't act nearly as snide.
True, I could be dismissive and talk about anger toward rogues instead. Thanks for the congeniality lessons.
You're crying over a rule change that most likely caught you off guard, and you want Paizo the big bad meanies that made your ability to screw over rogues limited, to undo the "unfair" and "unnecessary" change.
No, I'm asking someone to give me a good reason to USE the rule. As it happens, I'm not obligated to use any part of the pathfinder rules that I disagree with, but I always want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Most game designers can justify their design decisions, and those that cannot are simply poor designers whose decisions are worth ignoring.
The only person who seems interested in ad hominem attacks is you, Dissinger. As snide as you seem to find my responses to people's examples, you'll find they ARE aimed at the examples, not the people. When you lose the ability to focus on the topic and have to lash out at the person, that's when you should worry about that anger scale of yours.
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The way I see it, Pathfinder interprets magically animated creatures as being helped by the magic, not completely formed through it. Thus the creature still relies on joints and such to properly apply force so that they can control their environment. With this in mind it is perfectly reasonable for a rogue to be able to target a joint that the magic relies on to weaken it (forcing it to compensate). Think of it similarly to a rogue's capability to disarm magical traps, if you want.
EDIT: You can also see it as the rogue targeting "key points" that the magic flows through to accomplish its animating. Same end effect.
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If you can't come up with a way to beat an enemy, then come up with a way to bypass the enemy. I don't see why the game has to be dumbed down such that bull-headed players can ALWAYS beat every creature they happen upon. This isn't 4E.
And I don't see why you should make a class 100% useless because you decided to use one of the one in four monsters that make it impossible for a rogue to do meaningful damage.
Also, I wouldn't flame bait 4th ed like that. People round here don't do the editions wars anyways.
Yes, you caught me... a rogue killed my father and I'm on a mission to get the class removed from the game, hence, it's a matter of my hating rogues not a matter of my taking issue with rule changes I fail to see a worthwhile reason for.
And there we go, you admit to anger towards rogues. Admission is the first step towards acceptance. If you felt the rule change wasn't needed, you are perfectly free to house rule it away. No reason to act so confrontational about it.
"It's a matter of my hating rogues not a matter of my taking issue with rule changes I fail to see a worthwhile reason for."
Screams that you've made up your mind. There will be little to no chance of changing your mind.
Joints hold the bone in place, if you shatter the joint, no movement can occur with those bones. If you're going to argue that medical truth, let me take a sledge hammer to your knee caps and lets see how well you walk away from that.It goes beyond the tendons that make it move, the joint is the fulcrum upon which the force must be applied to move in the first place. It is the hinge that allows your leg to extend or bend.What joints? Undead skeletons are held together by magic - the same thing that makes a stone golem able to bend its stone arms.
And you'd be wrong, skeletons are ANIMATED by magic. They are held together by completely natural means. Hence why so many skeletons still manage to stay together, despite long since having their skin rotted off.
Also it could be argued that a golem should be covered in runes and sigils that animate it. If you mess with those, you'd be just as likely to interfere with the magics running it, as the fighter who bashes it to tiny bits.
Deanimating it is yet another means of overcoming the challenge.
Which you seem to be all for, the overcoming challenges outside of normal means.
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Wow, somebody got way defensive. I'm sorry if it seemed like I was attacking, I was just emphasizing. And I suppose I should have said 'one type of malleable matter'. A stone golem can't reform that arm when it breaks. An earth elemental just forms another one.
But as Dissinger said, you've made up your mind about this rule. I feel like all you wanted out of this thread were yes-men to validate your opinion. So I've given my reason for it, and I'm tapped out. Peace.
I was wondering the same thing than the author of the thread and I see some valid points justifying this change in pathfinder.
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Go, play a rogue/scout/ninja in Age of Worms under 3.5 rules. Come back and tell us how much fun did you have.
Also - undead critical immunity was part of the justification of giving them crap BAB, D12 HD and non stat HP bonus. Which was a craptastic design, because it led to undead with inflated HD (in order to get anything close to solid HP and attack bonus). Unfortunately, inflated HD meant inflated ability DCs and whole host of other problems (ever seen a default 3.5 Dracolich - a CR 23 creature with 200 HP ?) With So, Pathfinder ditched the crit immunity while scaling undead to med BAB and D8 with Cha bonus.
The way I see it, Pathfinder interprets magically animated creatures as being helped by the magic, not completely formed through it. Thus the creature still relies on joints and such to properly apply force so that they can control their environment. With this in mind it is perfectly reasonable for a rogue to be able to target a joint that the magic relies on to weaken it (forcing it to compensate). Think of it similarly to a rogue's capability to disarm magical traps, if you want.
This seems too post hoc to me. If you cast "Animate Object" on a statue, it is ostensibly a solid stone object that can bend as though it were alive despite the fact that stone wouldn't normally move in that fashion. Does this mean that a statue without any inherent joints cannot be animated, or that the magic creates vulnerable joints in the statue in order to make them exploitable? An animated object remains a construct.
Also, what is the material difference between a stone golem, an animated stone statue, and an earth elemental? Two are vulnerable to critical hits and one is not. Each is, again, ostensibly made entirely of stone - how do some things made of stone have weak spots and others lack them?
And I don't see why you should make a class 100% useless because you decided to use one of the one in four monsters that make it impossible for a rogue to do meaningful damage.
I don't remember rogues being 100% useless in 3.0 or 3.5, frankly. I'm not "making" them anything - I'm questioning the logic of changing these particular paradigms. One typically assumes that there is a non-arbitrary reason for making changes.
Screams that you've made up your mind. There will be little to no chance of changing your mind.
Obviously my default standpoint is the one I originally expressed - that I don't see a reason to make constructs and undead (or plants, really) vulnerable to critical hits. I don't, however, discount the possibility that there IS a good argument for it. That you don't feel equal to the task is more your problem than mine - if you feel responding to me is a lost cause then I suppose I can stop holding you at gunpoint and forcing you to post in this thread.
And you'd be wrong, skeletons are ANIMATED by magic. They are held together by completely natural means. Hence why so many skeletons still manage to stay together, despite long since having their skin rotted off.
Really? Where did you find this information about animated skeletons? I sincerely do not recall the rules about bones requring intact ligaments in order to have animation potential. I suppose its possible that necromancers carry around rubber bands in case some of those ligaments have degraded, however.
As for skeletons "staying together" - if you mean "in the real world" then yeah, I'm going to again question the source of your information. Soft tissue (ligaments included) is pretty much gone after a year - certainly after two, and some of it will have degraded after only two or three months such that it is rare to be able to move a body as a single piece three months from death. While there are certainly some abnormal circumstances where decay can be postponed for varying amounts of time, those are the exceptions not the rule.
Also it could be argued that a golem should be covered in runes and sigils that animate it. If you mess with those, you'd be just as likely to interfere with the magics running it, as the fighter who bashes it to tiny bits.
Or covered with cottage cheese and cheerios! I've never seen anything that suggests they're be more likely to need those runes and sigils than cool-whip and/or finger-paint, so... argue away, but what I'm really hoping for is a BASIS for these beliefs.
Anointing the object with fragile sigils is, again, not one of the listed components of the "Animate Object" spell - no material component at all, and you don't have to touch the object.
Wow, somebody got way defensive. I'm sorry if it seemed like I was attacking, I was just emphasizing. And I suppose I should have said 'one type of malleable matter'. A stone golem can't reform that arm when it breaks. An earth elemental just forms another one.
I don't think you're attacking - I'm simply pointing out what I perceive to be logical flaws in the arguments you're using. When debating a concept it helps to take other people's assertions to the next level and see how they fare with that, rather than letting them get away with just saying "well, the elephant rides on the turtle's back, obviously". We're both "emphasizing" our points.
Ok, so the new assertion - elementals can just form new limbs... based on what? They have no fast healing or regeneration that I'm aware of, nor are they incorporeal. In fact, unlike a construct they have a constitution score, meaning they have some form of metabolism that can be disrupted or targeted. An earth elemental can, thus, catch a bad case of the sniffles, but can't be backstabbed. A 20-foot-tall metal statue, on the other hand, has metaphysical kidneys.
Put two roughly equal people against the object and compare the number of swings it takes to break it. One person aimming his swings at probable weak points vs someone just trying to hit it anywhere. I bet the person aimming at weak points can do break it in fewer swings.
Again, I give you a week to analyze those statues with any equipment you'd like, but you have to destroy it with a steak knife in only a few stabs. That's us simulating "sneak attack" potential in a construct... hitting it in better spots than others is simulated by high damage rolls and high attack rolls.
I disagree with you. Wood, Stone, Iron, Bone, etc are not pure uniform materials. If you take two different cubic feet of granite from a mountain they are going to have different striations. Which would result in them breaking differently depending on how they are struck. I think most sculpters will tell you this.
I hate to call a straw man argument here, but... while I agree that if we built a 15 foot tall statue made completely out of DIAMOND that there would exist some spots weaker than others, I still remind you that "weaker" is a very, very relative term. Its great if we're wielding shaped explosive charges, but a different story if we're planning to bare-knuckle box with it.
An Iron Golem (CR 13) has a default 129 hp and DR 15/adamantine. A level 13 rogue has 7d6 of sneak attack damage and typically 1d3 of unarmed strike damage with improved unarmed strike. That means it is possible for that rogue to PUNCH that 12-foot tall, 5000 pound metal statue to rubble in 5 bare-hand hits.
How weak do you imagine these "weak spots" to be in wood, stone, iron, and bone, exactly?
You're arguing real world physics in a game where a random guy can rub a pinch of bat guano between his fingers, say a couple of words, and create a twenty foot fireball out of nothing?
It was just a balance change. The developers probably felt that Rogues were underpowered in quite a few encounters and felt a change was warranted. It's not like Sneak Attack is a completely overwhelming ability, anyway.
You're arguing real world physics in a game where a random guy can rub a pinch of bat guano between his fingers, say a couple of words, and create a twenty foot fireball out of nothing?
I'm arguing physics in response to people trying to use physics to explain the change. That said, why don't we say that all the swords are made from tapioca and a warm hug heals 5d6? Because we actually DO care about the plausibility of things within these established paradigms. We agree to suspend our disbelief on various topics, but that doesn't mean that "anything goes" just because something else happens to go.
It was just a balance change. The developers probably felt that Rogues were underpowered in quite a few encounters and felt a change was warranted. It's not like Sneak Attack is a completely overwhelming ability, anyway.
Everybody is underpowered in quite a few encounters. Wizards weren't having a field-day when it came to golems either, and there wasn't any class that was stellar when fighting a beholder.
As for sneak attack... well, with two-weapon fighting and short swords that 13th level rogue can potentially dish out 24d6 damage each round without expending any resources in the process. I haven't run into many people who honestly felt that the rogue class was sub-par back in 3.5.
Uhm, a guy decapitated a lifesize statue of Margaret Thatcher with one blow from a golf club. If that's not a critical hit, what is?
Sadly, I can't find any reference to this in order to look into what that statue was made out of. A lot of modern sculpture is made from softer materials to reduce construction time and the difficulty of sculpting it.
That said, lets imagine that you used a VORPAL golf club on a golem and whacked off its head. Under PF rules the loss of its head has no effect on the golem... nor would it on a skeleton. No change in its effectiveness whatsoever (core rulebook, p 472).
Guess what happens when you hit an iron golem, or a skeleton, with a wounding weapon...
Also, what is the material difference between a stone golem, an animated stone statue, and an earth elemental? Two are vulnerable to critical hits and one is not. Each is, again, ostensibly made entirely of stone - how do some things made of stone have weak spots and others lack them?
A stone golem or animated stone statue is fashioned out of rock. An elemental IS rock. If you hit a meatball with a hammer, it's going to break. If you hit a piece of ground meat with a hammer, it's not going to break because it's still going to be ground meat.
The elemental is the "spirit" of the rock, sort of, and it can bend however it wants to. If you animate a statue, the arms are going to be arms. Cut of an arm - he can't use that arm. Cut of the head - it can't use the head. An elemental doesn't have specific arms or heads, even though it might resemble something that has.
I think it's a very fair change, especially when it comes to undead. If there's SOMETHING a zombie or vampire is vulnerable to, it's critical hits (shotgun in the head, stake through the heart).
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You're arguing real world physics in a game where a random guy can rub a pinch of bat guano between his fingers, say a couple of words, and create a twenty foot fireball out of nothing?I'm arguing physics in response to people trying to use physics to explain the change. That said, why don't we say that all the swords are made from tapioca and a warm hug heals 5d6? Because we actually DO care about the plausibility of things within these established paradigms. We agree to suspend our disbelief on various topics, but that doesn't mean that "anything goes" just because something else happens to go.
We also want people to have fun while playing, and not to sit frustrated at being unable to meaningfully contribute to a vast majority of combats in an undead/construct-themed campaign. Like I wrote above, go play a Rogue in Age of Worms, a critically acclaimed campaign. You're not going to have much fun, if any.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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Well, if Rogues get Trapfinding then they need some sort of rationale to 'see' magic that mages can't. IMG they are trained to watch patterns of dust following lines of force, to spot little chalk marks that the wizard thought he'd rubbed out, whatever springs to mind. Yes mages are very careful drawing and rubbing out patterns (don't want to get possessed, do we) but once they've done it properly they don't always hide the evidence perfectly.
So, in my game, a rogue fighting a corporeal undead or construct, strikes for these weak spots. Assuming he has a magic weapon, then I throw out words like resonance and interference patterns. I have him wipe his blade in chalky paste and stab leaving a mark that relinks two parts of a magic symbol that should be separated - weakening it back to the original state. Whatever I can think of, or the player can think of... because I like the rogue to get his sneak damage in.
There's no point in justifying it beyond my liking it as a GM and the fact that I think it's fair, but I sure have fun explaining it.
Look up fracture mechanics. Hard solid objects such as stone and metal always have imperfections in their structure. Hit something in the right spot with the right amount of pressure and it will crack. A critical hit, to me, is just that. Hitting a weak point.
As a DM I hate idle players.
Idle players are bored, and bored players are disruptive.
That's why (in my 3.5 campaign) I made sure there were things like construct bane weapons and anti-undead crystals (can't remember the actual name right now).
There's no rogue in my campaign, so that doesn't matter.
Originally I was against this change, but these days I'm all for it. And besides, you can still use elementals or oozes if you want uncrittable creatures.
Like shoggoths. Nasty buggers, those.
I think VoodooMike's favorite stuffed toy as a kid was sneak attacked into fluff by a Rogue.
Elementals, separate from golems, are made of generic matter. A constant quantity, but of no particular form.
Called shots and specific hit locations on a target hasn't existed since 2e. While flavor wise one can argue that indeed the shoulder hit causes the arm to fall off, but as far as I know when you deal 90 hp of damage, specific limbs falling off doesn't exist in D&D/Pathfinder.
While vorpal still exist, a sword of sharpness disappeared with 3e - so there is no specific weapon that takes out limbs, not anymore anyway. So you can argue all day about targetting specific locations, but again, this mechanic doesn't exist in the current rules.
I often play rogues or monks that against certain kinds of monsters are completely ineffective, so in those instances, I kind of stand aside and let the fighters and magic-users do all the hard work. If my DM told me we were playing an undead/construct heavy campaign setting, I probably wouldn't play a rogue or do my best to coerce the DM to have more non undead/constructs for a more even playing environment.
With those kinds of character classes, my big problem as a player recently is that we are at epic levels of play and most of the opposition created by the DM is primarily colossal targets. My monk is great at tripping, but I can't reliably trip a colossal monster. At this stage, I feel truly impotent - I think that's a DM problem more than a system problem.
I have a real pet-peeve with involving real world physics in any RPG, unless a system allows for that. When arguments start about how joints work in a skeleton - I say, that real world physics which has no place in the game.
Regarding this thread specifically, I hate all the "immune to critical hits" monsters in the game, it really sucks. Taking away critical hits immunity from undead/constructs is a good thing, IMO, and perhaps not far enough, in that more monsters should lose this immunity. Considering there are a bunch of critical hit feats available especially in PF this immunity nullifies a good chunk of feats, which I see is wrong.
Anyway from the OP, I would like to see the argument by the designers on why they changed this - though I'm not against the idea.
GP
The biggest reason is the rogue, yes.
But, the issue isn't "gee, he can't SA that undead so he's useless for this battle".
The issue is "We have an undead /themed/ campaign and the rogue is boned. For. The. Entire. Thing."
-that- is what they want to get away from. They don't want an entire class negated by a relatively common campaign theme- that of thwarting an undead critter's evil plot of world domination.
A much better solution to "well throw in living creatures to your undead campaign" is to negate the actual problem. That of undead being immune to SA in the first place.
Its not "the rogues are whiny so lets fix the rules".
Its "the rogues are ineffective against a foe that is commonly the center of entire campaign arcs, and that should not be".
-S
Does anyone remember whether undead and constructs were immune to a thief's "back stab" ability?
Also, I wouldn't flame bait 4th ed like that. People round here don't do the editions wars anyways
Have we met?
Go, play a rogue/scout/ninja in Age of Worms under 3.5 rules. Come back and tell us how much fun did you have.
Actually, I'll take you up on that- I'm working on an Age of Worms conversion for either Dark Sun or Dragonlance(it's currently low in my list of things-to-do, so low that I have to check which setting it is), and it is going to involve a lot of work. I'm interested in this and I'll check and let you know if I chime in with you on this or not.
Yes, you caught me... a rogue killed my father and I'm on a mission to get the class removed from the game, hence, it's a matter of my hating rogues not a matter of my taking issue with rule changes I fail to see a worthwhile reason for.
I'm arguing physics in response to people trying to use physics to explain the change. That said, why don't we say that all the swords are made from tapioca and a warm hug heals 5d6?
Ok, so the new assertion - elementals can just form new limbs... based on what? They have no fast healing or regeneration that I'm aware of, nor are they incorporeal. In fact, unlike a construct they have a constitution score, meaning they have some form of metabolism that can be disrupted or targeted. An earth elemental can, thus, catch a bad case of the sniffles, but can't be backstabbed. A 20-foot-tall metal statue, on the other hand, has metaphysical kidneys.
Goddamnit, stop being so funny. These posts made me bust a gut laughing. I want to go around hugging people now and seeing how long they take to expire or maybe punching "The Thinker" in the kidney and see if he falls to the ground in agony.
In terms of the topic at hand, I'm not sure how to handle this. Maybe having certain types of golems be immune to sneak attack might help? I dunno. I did sense a bit of a "let's give the rogue something to do in melee" when I looked at the Pathfinder rules regarding the change to sneak attack, but hey- they didn't exactly give wizards the ability to make any weapon they hold +1 just by concentrating enough. Perhaps they should have made it a feat instead to keep carbon copy rogues from just diappearing at the start of the combat and reappearing over yet another corpse, lather, rinse, repeat.
Well, if Rogues get Trapfinding then they need some sort of rationale to 'see' magic that mages can't. IMG they are trained to watch patterns of dust following lines of force, to spot little chalk marks that the wizard thought he'd rubbed out, whatever springs to mind. Yes mages are very careful drawing and rubbing out patterns (don't want to get possessed, do we) but once they've done it properly they don't always hide the evidence perfectly.
So, in my game, a rogue fighting a corporeal undead or construct, strikes for these weak spots. Assuming he has a magic weapon, then I throw out words like resonance and interference patterns. I have him wipe his blade in chalky paste and stab leaving a mark that relinks two parts of a magic symbol that should be separated - weakening it back to the original state. Whatever I can think of, or the player can think of... because I like the rogue to get his sneak damage in.
There's no point in justifying it beyond my liking it as a GM and the fact that I think it's fair, but I sure have fun explaining it.
I just thought this was damn cool. Nice.
The biggest reason is the rogue, yes.
But, the issue isn't "gee, he can't SA that undead so he's useless for this battle".
The issue is "We have an undead /themed/ campaign and the rogue is boned. For. The. Entire. Thing."
-that- is what they want to get away from. They don't want an entire class negated by a relatively common campaign theme- that of thwarting an undead critter's evil plot of world domination.
A much better solution to "well throw in living creatures to your undead campaign" is to negate the actual problem. That of undead being immune to SA in the first place.
Its not "the rogues are whiny so lets fix the rules".
Its "the rogues are ineffective against a foe that is commonly the center of entire campaign arcs, and that should not be".-S
Your argument leads to whining for rogue afficionados, however.
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We should make elementals crittable, so I can sneak attack the ocean.Would you get wet, or would the ocean get you instead?
I think that only applies to Chuck Norris.
TriO wins; thread over.
-Skeld
*tips hat* I'll be here all week.
Edit: I've also heard it said that Undead should never have been a creature type in the first place. It should have been a subtype that caused the creature to take damage from positive energy and be healed by negative energy. That would have solved the 'no Con so they need lots of HD' problems. And seriously, everything else in the creature type could have been handled with special abilities.
• Darkvision 60 feet.
• Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms), death effects, disease, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless).
• Not subject to nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain. Immune to damage to its physical ability scores (Constitution, Dexterity, and Strength), as well as to exhaustion and fatigue effects.
• Cannot heal damage on its own if it has no Intelligence score, although it can be healed. Negative energy (such as an inflict spell) can heal undead creatures. Positive energy (such as a cure spell) deals damage to undead creatures. The fast healing special quality works regardless of the creature's Intelligence score. Not at risk of death from massive damage, but is immediately destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points.
• Not affected by raise dead and reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures. These spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead.
• Undead do not breathe, eat, or sleep.
Does anyone remember whether undead and constructs were immune to a thief's "back stab" ability?
Oopsy, that should have been, "Does anyone remember whether undead and constructs were immune to a thief's 'back stab' ability, back in 1e or 2e?"
We should make elementals crittable, so I can sneak attack the ocean.Would you get wet, or would the ocean get you instead?I think that only applies to Chuck Norris.
TriO wins; thread over.
-Skeld*tips hat* I'll be here all week.
Edit: I've also heard it said that Undead should never have been a creature type in the first place. It should have been a subtype that caused the creature to take damage from positive energy and be healed by negative energy. That would have solved the 'no Con so they need lots of HD' problems. And seriously, everything else in the creature type could have been handled with special abilities.
• Darkvision 60 feet.
• Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms), death effects, disease, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless).
• Not subject to nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain. Immune to damage to its physical ability scores (Constitution, Dexterity, and Strength), as well as to exhaustion and fatigue effects.
• Cannot heal damage on its own if it has no Intelligence score, although it can be healed. Negative energy (such as an inflict spell) can heal undead creatures. Positive energy (such as a cure spell) deals damage to undead creatures. The fast healing special quality works regardless of the creature's Intelligence score. Not at risk of death from massive damage, but is immediately destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points.
• Not affected by raise dead and reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures. These spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead.
• Undead do not breathe, eat, or sleep.
When was this thought up? 3.0, 3.5, 3.75 or 3.P?
EDIT- I ask because this would be WONDERFUL for my homebrew and I don't want to step on any toes.
Was anything immune?
Have to take a look. Be back in a few :)
Edit: I've also heard it said that Undead should never have been a creature type in the first place. It should have been a subtype that caused the creature to take damage from positive energy and be healed by negative energy. That would have solved the 'no Con so they need lots of HD' problems. And seriously, everything else in the creature type could have been handled with special abilities.
I like this rather a lot.
And I could use a 5d6 healing hug right about now. Someone get on that.
Wow. What a lot of, ah, discussion.
The way I'd call it, a stone golem is stone that is animated by magic; it has to bend, and this means it has to either soften to bend or else bending generates faults in the stone. Either way, weak points you can insert a sharp point in and twist.
Similarly, with skeletons and the like, I'm guessing if you prise apart the joints far enough the magic animating them will fail.
Now with elementals, they are amorphous conglomerations of material animated by the elemental spirit. No particular part of them is vital, so it's hard to do much other than generally try and hack lumps off them.
This hulking, roughly humanoid creature of dirt and stone explodes up from the earth, faceless save for two glowing gemstone eyes.
Oh hey, look... an earth elemental is NOT made up of nebulous and generic earth material. In fact, the ONE LINE description includes no less than three different materials. The elemental plane of earth is not an entire dimension of generic-but-totally-consistent material. Under no past cosmology has it been that the elemental planes, or their denizens, are made from generic matter.
This is what I'm talking about when I say "post hoc" answers - you're trying to invent an explanation to support the status quo. If Paizo declared oozes to be vulnerable to critical hits and sneak attacks then one of you would say:
Well, as single celled animals they obviously have to have a nucleus, and damaging a cell's nucleus would disrupt or destroy normal cell function, so obviously hitting it in that spot would deal far more damage than other places. Anything that has one spot that damages it more than others is obviously vulnerable to critical strikes!
or if they said that Fey were immune someone would say:
Well obviously fairies are made of pixie dust, and there is no part of a collective of dust that is more vulnerable than any other. Obviously.
While I'm thrilled that we're all aware that all solid objects have some spots that are weaker than others, they're not SO WEAK that you could shatter granite with a q-tip, and that's what we're talking about in terms of game mechanics.
Again, under Pathfinder RAW taking the HEAD off a golem or an undead (except a vampire that has a special vulnerability to it) has ZERO effect, so we're obviously not going for headshots here. The vulnerable spot on a zombie is apparently not the head. Maybe the left nipple?
Likewise, given that an Iron Golem's DR is 15/adamantine, under PF you could feasibly, as a level 3 rogue, stab the golem once and then hang out and wait for it to bleed to death because you've chosen the bleed rogue ability. In fact, a level 1 rogue with an adamantine dagger is guaranteed a kill if he or she can hit once and then escape without being turned into a thin paste, since you can take bleeding attack at level one. Skeletons are similarly prone to bleeding...
Now, not that I think rogues need to be effective against every enemy since that isn't the case with the OTHER classes either, but I don't think that the game world needs to be changed in order to accommodate the class... it would seem more rational to change the class in order to accommodate what you perceive to be a weakness in that class.
No the assertion is they don't have limbs. They have slam attacks. Part of their body impacts the target to do damage. Just as a gelatinous cube has a slam attack. An Earth elemental isn't made of stone (you'll notice its not DR/adamantine or Hardness X.) It made up of earth, whatever earth happens to be around. Weather its solid granite or pacted dirt. Chopping off its head is no different then taking the same mass out of it chest or leg.
Uhm (looking in the Bestiary) I see limbs. Having limbs is part of what being roughly humanoid is all about. Its also "made up of" multiple types of earth material in the description. Chopping off a skeleton's head likewise has zero effect, so why is the latter vulnerable to sneak attacks and the former is not?
So can the fighter or monk. Hell a strong enough aristocrat could do it. Honestly walls are pretty crappy defenses against humans unless you defend them.
Not so. Given that unarmed attacks do 1d3+Str damage, you'd have to be a fantastically strong fighter to overcome the hardness of that wall. A gnome rogue with a strength of 3, on the other hand, could feasibly punch the wall down much faster due to his INCREDIBLE ability to see punch-vulnerable spots in the stone. Seriously?
And damage rolls... well you might be right. Oh... wait, what is sneak attack.... part of the damage roll. Holy cow. So if you hit with a sneak attack you have a bigger damage roll.... and that represents doing more damage or a more effective strike. Right on. I think we agree.
How obtuse. 10d6 of extra damage is not just "better damage", it is situational precision damage, or it'd be on every attack. Apparently you sincerely believe that you can distract the statue of liberty and thus make her more vulnerable to damage. Go for the torch, Maezer.. its glowing, contra-style, so its obviously her weak spot! I'll keep her busy!
I find it really hard to believe that you think attacking with random strikes is going to be able to achieve the same results exact results. Based on that I'd have to wonder why any destruction oriented engineers exists, if there is no difference between randomly striking and using percision methods.
I've addressed this several times already, and you don't seem to be listening. Yes, on solid objects there are some spots that are weaker than others RELATIVELY SPEAKING, but the key term is relative. You're talking as though "weaker" means "trivially weak". There are no trivially weak spots on a slab of granite even if there are spots you'd have an easier time breaking the stone if you had specialized stone-breaking tools or explosives. Your steak knife is going to snap against every single part of that stone block.
How weak is Bone, Wood, etc? There is a reason martial artists can break multiple cinder blocks in a single strike. Much less wood. If they strike at a different angle they probably fail to break a single one. By striking at a flaw (or if you can get luck an critical hit a flaw at random) you can expect to deal a great deal more damage.
See, now you're very seriously resorting to straw man arguments - I notice you're leaving "stone and metal" conspicuously absent in your retort. When I was involved in martial arts I was one of those people who did board breaking demonstrations, and I guarantee it had nothing to do with flaws in the material, and that no amount of practice would have allowed me to break a steel beam with my fists, feet or elbows. I'd just have more broken bones in my hands than I already do.
That said, you'll notice it is the rogue, not the monk, that is "breaking things" in PF.
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Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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Go, play a rogue/scout/ninja in Age of Worms under 3.5 rules. Come back and tell us how much fun did you have.
Also - undead critical immunity was part of the justification of giving them crap BAB, D12 HD and non stat HP bonus. Which was a craptastic design, because it led to undead with inflated HD (in order to get anything close to solid HP and attack bonus). Unfortunately, inflated HD meant inflated ability DCs and whole host of other problems (ever seen a default 3.5 Dracolich - a CR 23 creature with 200 HP ?) With So, Pathfinder ditched the crit immunity while scaling undead to med BAB and D8 with Cha bonus.
Um, I did this. I played a Rogue for the entire Age of Worms campaign. No Prestige classes, no cross-classing. I had a blast! My PC was constantly biting off more than he could chew, but used strategy and tactics to contribute to the party's success. He just had to become a bit of a team player. Lots of Use Magic Device, lots of trap-setting, and a whole lot of scouting ahead so the party could develop a plan of attack before encountering the bad guys. Lack of effectiveness in one aspect of the game does not mean the class/game design is broken.
On the other hand, I agree whole-heartedly with Paizo's rule change for sneak attacks. My gaming group never did understand why you couldn't sneak attack an undead creature. Everything has a weakness, it's just a question of finding it...
Sneak Attack:
I'll admit, I'm somewhat in agreement with the OP.
No, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Yes, the only reason for the change seems to be to give Rogues something to do.
Before I read your arguments, I would have used the rule as-written. I'll admit, I'm on the fence now, and may be reverting to the 3.5 rules on this.
Age of Worms:
I've never played this, but I keep hearing things about this adventure, over and over again, that I think is bad design. I hear that having good Will saves is not just a good idea but critically important, Rogues get hosed, parties need to be min-maxed to survive...and a host of other complaints.
Why exactly is this "critically acclaimed?" It doesn’t sound like an adventure I would want to buy, much less something I would use as an example in an argument.
What is the good in this adventure? I keep hearing bad stuff about it. I'm not being snarky, I really want to know. There has to be SOMETHING good, or people wouldn't keep playing it.
Rogues and magical traps:
I always saw this as the rogue looking at the whole situation and thinking "This looks too easy." Kind of like how Indiana Jones just knows that there is a trap in the room, and instinctively knows what to do to avoid it. I never saw this as the rogue being able to see patterns of magic that a spellcaster can't see.
Elementals:
I'm trying to remember my Philosophy 101 class in college. I think it was Socrates that had the concept of "perfect forms". Perhaps it was called something else, "ideal forms" perhaps. Regardless of what it was called, the idea was this:
Every "thing" in the world, from governments to apples, was an imperfect copy of it's ideal form. Everything had a flaw, however minute or minor that flaw may be. It could never be as perfect as it's idea.
Perhaps the key to understanding elementals is that they are not from this world. A water elemental is a "perfect" water, with no trace amounts of anything else in it's body. They are more pure than even distilled water. The same holds true for the other types of elementals. So therefore, an earth elemental SHOULD be without flaws, whereas a statue, or block of granite, or golem is not 100% pure and DOES have flaws. Flaws that a rouge may be able to exploit.
Sneak Attack (again):
Which brings us back to a statue or a wall. Just because it can't move, is it supposed to be LESS vulnerable to sneak attack? If so, then Hold Monster should stop sneak attack as well.
So, on the one hand, golems are not as perfect as elementals, and DO have flaws. Which seems to be an argument for sneak attack. On the other hand, a statue, wall, door, all have flaws also. But how big are these flaws, really? Furthermore, I don't want the rogue going crazy on all the doors and statues in my adventures.
Perhaps the best answer is to drop the HD of the creature (the size of the die, not the number of dice) one step, and make them immune to crits again.
Perhaps another answer is to only give the rogue 1/2 his sneak attack dice against constructs.
This hulking, roughly humanoid creature of dirt and stone explodes up from the earth, faceless save for two glowing gemstone eyes.
Oh hey, look... an earth elemental is NOT made up of nebulous and generic earth material. In fact, the ONE LINE description includes no less than three different materials. The elemental plane of earth is not an entire dimension of generic-but-totally-consistent material. Under no past cosmology has it been that the elemental planes, or their denizens, are made from generic matter.
I'm no geologist, but I assure you "dirt" and "stone" are rather nebulous terms. And, actually, so is "gemstone."
While I'm thrilled that we're all aware that all solid objects have some spots that are weaker than others, they're not SO WEAK that you could shatter granite with a q-tip, and that's what we're talking about in terms of game mechanics.
Speaking of absurd things that are in the mechanics that I don't see you whining about - stone/iron/ice golems not being immune to ranged weapons (no ranged weapon will ever put out enough force to pierce any of those), anyone but Monks being able to hurt an armored foe with an unarmed strike even with Improved Unarmed Strike (I don't see Improved Whip Wielder), pretty much anything a Bard can do, etc
The vulnerable spot on a zombie is apparently not the head. Maybe the left nipple?
Or maybe the joint. The joints are always weak points. Always.
Likewise, given that an Iron Golem's DR is 15/adamantine, under PF you could feasibly, as a level 3 rogue, stab the golem once and then hang out and wait for it to bleed to death because you've chosen the bleed rogue ability. In fact, a level 1 rogue with an adamantine dagger is guaranteed a kill if he or she can hit once and then escape without being turned into a thin paste, since you can take bleeding attack at level one. Skeletons are similarly prone to bleeding...
Well, by RAW, unless Golems are alive, you can't. But let's not let facts get in the way of hating Rogues.
it would seem more rational to change the class in order to accommodate what you perceive to be a weakness in that class.
Ok, I change the class to give it the ability to sneak attack golems and undead. I win.
See, now you're very seriously resorting to straw man arguments - I notice you're leaving "stone and metal" conspicuously absent in your retort. When I was involved in martial arts I was one of those people who did board breaking demonstrations, and I guarantee it had nothing to do with flaws in the material, and that no amount of practice would have allowed me to break a steel beam with my fists, feet or elbows. I'd just have more broken bones in my hands than I already do.
1) Cinderblocks are stone. And other types of stone ARE broken in martial arts demonstrations.
2) Ice is also broken3) Metal is at least bent.
5) The force of the damage exploits defects or flaws in the material. What you used in martial arts in board breaking was probably a soft wood that is easy to break. And it is a processed wood. You arn't breaking through a tree trunk or anything.
Edit: I've also heard it said that Undead should never have been a creature type in the first place. It should have been a subtype that caused the creature to take damage from positive energy and be healed by negative energy. That would have solved the 'no Con so they need lots of HD' problems. And seriously, everything else in the creature type could have been handled with special abilities.
I like this rather a lot.
And I could use a 5d6 healing hug right about now. Someone get on that.
I also took the Drowsy Grapple feat, which makes you fall asleep when I hug you should you fail a DC 15 Will save. Start rolling, Kuma.
Any part of any object that is less thick and sturdy than other parts of the same object could be referred to as a "weak point" without any mental gymnastics.
Ultimately, game balance is both the goal and the forte of the paizo staff. And although there are a lot of colorful examples using physics and fluff, the rules were changed because they were judged to be imperfect in the past. Same reason for merging skills into things like "perception". (Which was much more of a boon for everyone else than it was for rogues, imo.)
OP, you sounded pissed from the start of this thread and people responded to that. If you don't like it then maybe you should consider being less aggressive.
3.5 rogues were by far the easiest class for a DM to completely dismiss. Human rogue at low levels? It's dark, you're done. ANY rogue in heavy fog? No sneak attack. Golems or undead? Done. This might not have been a problem for everyone but it was a substantial problem for most who were trying to play a rogue. (Can't sneak in light, can't sneak attack in darkness, etc.) The interesting thing was that rogues weren't weak, they just had crippling weaknesses. Like superman. Except that kryptonite was supposed to be rare, while undead pop up in every neighborhood cemetery.
So there's your reason, completely divorced from any statuary theories. I'm genuinely sorry if it bothers you but it was a changed for a reason (and a good one). If you don't like it, you can go back to any previous edition rules you like; but speaking for myself I don't like it when DMs use homebrew rules changes as requirements rather than options because it forces everyone to kowtow to someone's personal preference.
This hulking, roughly humanoid creature of dirt and stone explodes up from the earth, faceless save for two glowing gemstone eyes.
Oh hey, look... an earth elemental is NOT made up of nebulous and generic earth material. In fact, the ONE LINE description includes no less than three different materials. The elemental plane of earth is not an entire dimension of generic-but-totally-consistent material. Under no past cosmology has it been that the elemental planes, or their denizens, are made from generic matter.
I'm confused ... I said they were made of amorphous conglomerations of material, which this actually describes accurately, unless that wasn't directed at me?
This is what I'm talking about when I say "post hoc" answers - you're trying to invent an explanation to support the status quo.
Actually, back-engineering someone else's logic always sounds like that. It's the way they chose to do things, it can be justified, you can change the rules in your game if you want to.
:D
I also took the Drowsy Grapple feat, which makes you fall asleep when I hug you should you fail a DC 15 Will save. Start rolling, Kuma.
I think I failed... I demand a Fort save!
