Huh. Just checked my 3.5 books, and it seems you're all right. Ranger, Assassin and Shadowdancer are the only ones who get it now.
Wow. It simply boggles the mind that you have to spend (some would say waste, considering Combat Reflexes and Mobility is among the requirements) 5 levels worth of feats to dip in a different class to obtain the most iconic sneaking ability in the game.
Suddently understand the "Rogues suck" thread more. Just... wow. Rogues are bad at stealth, how intuitive is that conclusion?
Thanks, I guess my wife's character is just gonna suck then. Gonna ask the GM if we can change around Skill Focus: Stealth for Nimble Moves, which seems abundantly useful, and focus on combat and trapfinding.
If HiPS is all you want then going for 1 level dip in Shadow Dancer isn't worth it. Now getting Darkvision, that's handy. Shadow jumping, shadow companion is good. Evasion stacks so not bad. I have an inquisitor I'm planning on taking 4 levels of Shadow Dancer with. Not optimal but fits the character concept.
And the 'spells > skills' argument begins anew.
To be fair it really isn't an argument. Everyone agrees spells > skills, it's just that some people artificially create a lot of false reasons the spells wouldn't be used.
Thanks, I guess my wife's character is just gonna suck then. Gonna ask the GM if we can change around Skill Focus: Stealth for Nimble Moves, which seems abundantly useful, and focus on combat and trapfinding.
or you keep that feat, and get this:
Hellcat Stealth
You are difficult to see in the light.
Paizo Peripheral
[This content is from Paizo, however it is not part of the Pathfinder Core Rules.]
Prerequisites: Skill Focus (Stealth), Stealth 6 ranks.
Benefit: You may make Stealth checks in normal or bright light even when observed, but at a -10 penalty.
Normal: You cannot make Stealth checks while observed.
While it's not HiPS, it still makes hiding a lot easier
And the 'spells > skills' argument begins anew.To be fair it really isn't an argument. Everyone agrees spells > skills, it's just that some people artificially create a lot of false reasons the spells wouldn't be used.
The reverse also holds true. There are plenty of times when people assume that the caster will have that spell prepared.
In other words, the spell effects are often better than the skills but the availability of the skill is better than the availability of the spell. It's a quality verses quantity issue. Having high skill modifiers is more reliable than maybe having a higher magical bonus sometimes.
What can you do with a skill that you can't have a wand for?
Use Magic Device
Wands while pretty cheap don't exactly grow on trees until pretty high levels. The wand of vanish is pretty cheap but you'd burn through it pretty quickly if you needed to scout extensively or conceal an entire party. Those are resources that are generally better directed at providing CLW and utility scroll support rather than spamming invisibility effects.
Invisibility is a great effect (perhaps too good) but there are a ton of ways to foil invisibility both magical and non-magical.
Hellcat Stealth
You are difficult to see in the light.
Prerequisites: Skill Focus (Stealth), Stealth 6 ranks.
Benefit: You may make Stealth checks in normal or bright light even when observed, but at a -10 penalty.
Normal: You cannot make Stealth checks while observed.
Good find. What book was that located in?
And the 'spells > skills' argument begins anew.To be fair it really isn't an argument. Everyone agrees spells > skills, it's just that some people artificially create a lot of false reasons the spells wouldn't be used.The reverse also holds true. There are plenty of times when people assume that the caster will have that spell prepared.
In other words, the spell effects are often better than the skills but the availability of the skill is better than the availability of the spell. It's a quality verses quantity issue. Having high skill modifiers is more reliable than maybe having a higher magical bonus sometimes.
Seeing as how a good wizard always leaves a few spell slots open, yeah, you basically have whatever utility spell you need ready to be prepared at any time.
People around here kinda forget about that.
Seeing as how a good wizard always leaves a few spell slots open, yeah, you basically have whatever utility spell you need ready to be prepared at any time.
People around here kinda forget about that.
You don't always have the time to fill the slots, and amount spells known by the wizzy depends from DM and campaign too.
People around here kinda forget about that ;)
Even if I kinda agree on the fact that some spell is too much "I Win" compared to the skill - see FoM vs Escape Artists.
Of course, escape artist cannot be dispelled :)
We played with her as a Rogue/Wizard, and she is not only AS good in mundane skills (cat familiar grants her bonuses in stealth, perception and sense motive), she was able to DO stuff when it wasn't all about traps or skills. Next level she goes into Arcane Trickster, and can deal with traps at a safe range. At lv8 she picks up Revelation, gets a +7 to disable device when facing a horrid trap, and her middle finger to her old self is complete.
Sure, her progression is about the same as a bard until 12 or so, but she said she is fine with giving up a few circumstantial talents, 4 BAB and 3d6 sneak attack in order to cast lv8 spells by the end of the adventure path.
Made her selection of spells revolve around utility, single target damage and buff/debuff, so the lower int and caster level doesn't hurt her so much. Now she just needs some downtime to make some scrolls and such, and she will be golden.
I removed a post (and replies to it) that used unacceptable language.
You don't always have the time to fill the slots, and amount spells known by the wizzy depends from DM and campaign too.
Seeing as how a good wizard always leaves a few spell slots open, yeah, you basically have whatever utility spell you need ready to be prepared at any time.
People around here kinda forget about that.
It takes minutes to fill the slot. And wizards are best at buying time.
As for spells known, how, exactly? Unless you still play by the rules that wizards cannot buy scrolls because for whatever reason every single wizard is a jerk who refuses to share any knowledge ever, every wizard in the world.
As for spells known, how, exactly? Unless you still play by the rules that wizards cannot buy scrolls because for whatever reason every single wizard is a jerk who refuses to share any knowledge ever, every wizard in the world.
Actually, it's a bit worse than that: you also have to decide that every wizard in the world is too stupid to see the value in scribing a level X scroll of a spell they know and trading it to a second wizard for a level X scroll of a spell they don't know. Both wizards get to learn a new spell of equal power and everybody wins.
Since every wizard in the world has scribe scroll and has above average intelligence it's hard to justify that.
It takes minutes to fill the slot. And wizards are best at buying time.
As for spells known, how, exactly? Unless you still play by the rules that wizards cannot buy scrolls because for whatever reason every single wizard is a jerk who refuses to share any knowledge ever, every wizard in the world.
You just described two situations I'm perfectly fine with and allow, generally, in my games. Just not always.
Sometimes you don't have seconds to do something, barring minutes. You could have a scroll - assuming your backpack is still there for an enormous amount of reasons.
About buy scrolls - as an example, I don't have magic items shops in all my settings. I like this "open source" concept of magic, but not every wizard in the setting could agree. Or wizard could be very rare and make this unlikely. Or when two meet, it's more likely they fight.
I re-state it.. I generally allow all of these things in my game... in the same way, I don't see, in my games, spell trump skills every single time, stealth included.
@dire mongoose: what I said above. You are very optimistically assuming no cultural, personal, or chance barriers among this exchange :D
@dire mongoose: what I said above. You are very optimistically assuming no cultural, personal, or chance barriers among this exchange :D
Nope; I'm just assuming those barriers won't exist for every wizard in the entire world. Certainly they will exist in some cases.
To put it another way, if you're trying to keep a secret, you need everyone to keep their mouths shut. That's a high bar to clear. Ten people know a secret and eight of them are really good about not sharing? You don't have a secret anymore.
@dire mongoose: what I said above. You are very optimistically assuming no cultural, personal, or chance barriers among this exchange :D
If you have different parameters to Golarion, your point becomes moot, unless I unwittingly have stumbled into the home-brew thread? Nope.
Cultural barriers exist for the feebleminded. I have a hard time imagining a character with INT high enough to be relevant consider cultural norms before his own potential. Enlightened and intelligent people tend to look past the "Dem darr book-smart adventururrs inn't welcum aroun' hurr." of the unwashed peasantry.
The "chance to find an item" thing... I can sum it up in four words: "ALL OF MY HATE", because nothing makes me rage more than "Oh, there is a X percent chance that you can't buy something completely trivial well within the city's GP limit even if you multiply it by 50!". To me, that is the equivalent of walking into New York and find that there is not a single store that sells foreign books. Actually, we had this happen in Eleder when we played, and the alchemist that played for two sessions could not find scrolls of "Cure Light Wounds" and "Endure Elements." and yes, Eleder is hotter than sin, and endure elements is considered a must-have in the player guide. It made me go "Wait, wat?"
Personal barriers, I can relate to. But only if there is a just cause, like the player wizard is particularly abrasive, like cha7 or of a race/culture reviled in the community in question.
Nope; I'm just assuming those barriers won't exist for every wizard in the entire world. Certainly they will exist in some cases.
To put it another way, if you're trying to keep a secret, you need everyone to keep their mouths shut. That's a high bar to clear. Ten people know a secret and eight of them are really good about not sharing? You don't have a secret anymore.
Of course it will happen. but I wouldn't lighthearthly assume it as a default because a lot of things can make it not trivial.
If you have different parameters to Golarion, your point becomes moot, unless I unwittingly have stumbled into the home-brew thread? Nope.
I use Pathfinder for my own setting. I don't see how this makes my game.. well.. less "game" O_o
Cultural barriers exist for the feebleminded. I have a hard time imagining a character with INT high enough to be relevant consider cultural norms before his own potential. Enlightened and intelligent people tend to look past the "Dem darr book-smart adventururrs inn't welcum aroun' hurr." of the unwashed peasantry.
It depends from how you imagine the concept of magic, and how this concept is perceived by people in the world. And cultural barrier could be an ancient hate, grudge, or something like this. Things needing WISE people, not SMART people :D
The "chance to find an item" thing... I can sum it up in four words: "ALL OF MY HATE", because nothing makes me rage more than "Oh, there is a X percent chance that you can't buy something completely trivial well within the city's GP limit even if you multiply it by 50!". To me, that is the equivalent of walking into New York and find that there is not a single store that sells foreign books. Actually, we had this happen in Eleder when we played, and the alchemist that played for two sessions could not find scrolls of "Cure Light Wounds" and "Endure Elements." and yes, Eleder is hotter than sin, and endure elements is considered a must-have in the player guide. It made me go "Wait, wat?"
I doubt there is a fantasy equivalent of new york. And mind it, I generally allow players to find what they are looking for - if is really something rare, a bargain with a temple, a rogue guild, a wizard academy is enough. I just find odd assume magic-mart.
If you do, don't be surprised if magic shifts from mysterious and powerful to trivial and mundane.
Personal barriers, I can relate to. But only if there is a just cause, like the player wizard is particularly abrasive, like cha7 or of a race/culture reviled in the community in question.
More common that you think, if, apparently, every wizard dumps every ability barring int and con ;) (Joke, not toward you)
I doubt there is a fantasy equivalent of new york. And mind it, I generally allow players to find what they are looking for - if is really something rare, a bargain with a temple, a rogue guild, a wizard academy is enough. I just find odd assume magic-mart.
If you do, don't be surprised if magic shifts from mysterious and powerful to trivial and mundane.
That right there is completely fair. Make the city come alive with fluff about how you obtain items, that's all good in my book. What I loathe is the experience equivalent of shattered disbelief by making the most sought after commodities unavailable. It can't be justified in my mind, and it ejects me from the immersion like a jet going down in flames.
That right there is completely fair. Make the city come alive with fluff about how you obtain items, that's all good in my book. What I loathe is the experience equivalent of shattered disbelief by making the most sought after commodities unavailable. It can't be justified in my mind, and it ejects me from the immersion like a jet going down in flames.
Well, I try to follow guidelines from the books (more or less). But yeah, negating PCs what they want AND every possible way to circumvent problems, is mere railroading.
And lesser commodities should be there. I just wanted to suggest that the game could support different worlds, even different from the ones I'm running now.
What about a shattered, post cataclysm world? If wizards are rare scholars of the ruins of the past, there are few chances to meet another one and to find goods in general.
Of course, you have three ways at that point: ban the class (a thing that I generally avoid) slightly rework it (say, add more spells automatically discovered) or use plot, quests and similar stuff.
I'm there to make PC have fun, not to harass them (even if, sometimes the two things COULD overlap).
Limited access to magical resources is okay if you remember that the vast majority of the population is operating on the barter/silver piece economy and even the cheapest items represent massive savings.
In previous editions individuals with class levels instead of 0-level NPCs were the exceptions and casters were the exceptions of exceptions. Combined with a pretty weak item creation system and it was easier to make the assumption that magic items and spell acquisition was about looting dungeons and possibly trading with fellow adventurers.
3.x pretty much abandoned a bunch of the 1e-2e model, it's still got the pig farmers operating at the silver piece/barter economy level but it pretty much assumes that PCs will have access to level appropriate resources such as spell scrolls, wands, potions, etc early on and better items soon after.
The preponderance of the magic mart is a useful conceit that allows people to get the items they need without the DM having to customize loot bundles or forcing someone into being the artificer for the entire group. While item creation feats have a nice benefit in terms of resources many of the feats are undesirable even though the items associated with them are necessary.
Personally, I think the game benefits from outsourcing magic item creation but I do like elements of the 1e-2e rarity system as I think it brings more verisimilitude to the setting. Further if the PCs have to actually make expeditions to get rare/powerful items and spells to exotic locations (underdark cities, planar locations, booming metropolis, etc) that encourages the group to actually expand from the simple village/small town start to a more epic and grandiose storyline.
I also like to separate the magic item from it's gold piece value. For me at least the idea that you can walk into a store with hundreds of thousands worth of GPs even in the form of gems/etc is not really in keeping with the feel/tone that I like for a setting. I'd much rather the GP value be represented by some sort of magical unobtainium (4e uses something like this- really smart) that enchanters use in order to fuel the manufacture of magical items. Adventurers can either trade existing items with other enchanters or they can harvest this unobtanium in order to power new item creation.
The exact form of the Unobtanium can take any number of actual forms but I also like it if it's in the form of some substance that fuels divinity. That way there is incentive to collect a ton of items in order to fuel ascension if you allow for that sort of mechanic.
Man, this discussion WENT places! :)
Heh, basically every contentious thread revolves around the relative power of magic and spells to the other subsystems in the game.
@ Vuron: actually, the Unobtainum thing is a good idea.
One of my campaigns (the 3.5 one)actually has sort of magic marts.. or at least, crafting, even "on-demand", is more common.
Why the world is not submerged by magic items? Crafting needs reagents (idea from an optional rule, components for XP, had a Dragon magazine dedicated article too).
Get reagents can be very, very dangerous. Hence adventurers.
Of course, I didn't use it to ENTRAP my players - the campaign is a bout a group of adventurers/traders/crafters!
Unobtainium, is that a 4e word? or something you dreamed up?
if its so unobtainable, how does one get it?
I like the idea of burning/consuming vast amounts of magical items to "ascend" in power/divinity. Would explain super-dragons with uber mystical hoardes (other than rudimentary greed), and consuming them to create "lich hood" I also like.
Dang a demi God of dragon liches would need to swallow up a whole campaign of magic items!
I like anything that makes magic items more rare, I think the exp drain to make magic items being taken away was a tragedy for the gaming world.
but what does this have to do with hide in plain sight?
and for the record, hide in plain sight is semi new in the game (all things considered) so why would something as timeless as the rogue/thief backstabbery stealth guy, be rendered usesless with out it?
I think it's a rather stupid ability personally, it's neat for the shadow dancer and quite limited there, but the assassin/ranger having it is a bit much....
and for the record, hide in plain sight is semi new in the game (all things considered) so why would something as timeless as the rogue/thief backstabbery stealth guy, be rendered usesless with out it?
Well, is not a matter of raw power only.
A thing I love of this game is to use classes and multiclasses to represent a kind of character.
What the Rogue represents? If I think to rogues, I see a thief, or a pirate, or a ninja, or an apothecary, a geisha, an assassin, a ganster, an investigatori, a whip-using archaeologist.. and the list could go on for long.
Some of these don't fit with HiPS, but I think some do.. so I ask, why multiclass to take it?
Said this, yeah, no strict need of HiPS for a functional rogue.
And the 'spells > skills' argument begins anew.To be fair it really isn't an argument. Everyone agrees spells > skills, it's just that some people artificially create a lot of false reasons the spells wouldn't be used.The reverse also holds true. There are plenty of times when people assume that the caster will have that spell prepared.
In other words, the spell effects are often better than the skills but the availability of the skill is better than the availability of the spell. It's a quality verses quantity issue. Having high skill modifiers is more reliable than maybe having a higher magical bonus sometimes.
Seeing as how a good wizard always leaves a few spell slots open, yeah, you basically have whatever utility spell you need ready to be prepared at any time.
People around here kinda forget about that.
I wasn't forgetting that you can take 15 minutes to prepare a spell in an unused slot. I am reminding people that you don't always have even 15 minutes to do so. In addition, there are times when you need the spell more than once in a day. Finding treasures, opening locked doors, sneaking around, etc, all require a lot of spell uses. If you just let the guy with the skills handle them, you can use those slots for better things.
I wasn't forgetting that you can take 15 minutes to prepare a spell in an unused slot. I am reminding people that you don't always have even 15 minutes to do so. In addition, there are times when you need the spell more than once in a day. Finding treasures, opening locked doors, sneaking around, etc, all require a lot of spell uses. If you just let the guy with the skills handle them, you can use those slots for better things.
I know the rogue discussion got closed but you don't need to drag it in here ;) kinda off topic anyway
Actually the iconic "ability" was pair of Hide In Shadows and Move Silently, now paired together as Stealth. Hide in Plain Sight wasn't thrown into the game until 3.x. Back in first edition even assasins had to rely on shadows and cover.Huh. Just checked my 3.5 books, and it seems you're all right. Ranger, Assassin and Shadowdancer are the only ones who get it now.
Wow. It simply boggles the mind that you have to spend (some would say waste, considering Combat Reflexes and Mobility is among the requirements) 5 levels worth of feats to dip in a different class to obtain the most iconic sneaking ability in the game.
I know, but back in first edition, you had facing and common sense, meaning you could sneak up behind someone. Also there was not even an attempt to "balance" the game like there is today.
Makes me long for 2e, where they just admitted that the thief was crap, so he needed like half the XP of the other classes. When the fighter was lv5, the thief could easily be 9. And he'd still lose in a fight.
Makes me long for 2e, where they just admitted that the thief was crap, so he needed like half the XP of the other classes. When the fighter was lv5, the thief could easily be 9. And he'd still lose in a fight.
But since (for a while) the XP you needed for each succeeding level doubled, that only put the thief at most one level ahead.
Makes me long for 2e, where they just admitted that the thief was crap, so he needed like half the XP of the other classes. When the fighter was lv5, the thief could easily be 9. And he'd still lose in a fight.But since (for a while) the XP you needed for each succeeding level doubled, that only put the thief at most one level ahead.
Did we play the same game? I vividly remember the thief table being 2-3 levels ahead even past 10th level. Also, he got XP for gold, and thus got more XP than any other class on top of that.
It probably got mentioned, but just in case: get Hellcat Stealth (Cheliax Companion). It is in most ways superior to HiPS.
I wasn't forgetting that you can take 15 minutes to prepare a spell in an unused slot. I am reminding people that you don't always have even 15 minutes to do so. In addition, there are times when you need the spell more than once in a day. Finding treasures, opening locked doors, sneaking around, etc, all require a lot of spell uses. If you just let the guy with the skills handle them, you can use those slots for better things.And the 'spells > skills' argument begins anew.To be fair it really isn't an argument. Everyone agrees spells > skills, it's just that some people artificially create a lot of false reasons the spells wouldn't be used.The reverse also holds true. There are plenty of times when people assume that the caster will have that spell prepared.
In other words, the spell effects are often better than the skills but the availability of the skill is better than the availability of the spell. It's a quality verses quantity issue. Having high skill modifiers is more reliable than maybe having a higher magical bonus sometimes.
Seeing as how a good wizard always leaves a few spell slots open, yeah, you basically have whatever utility spell you need ready to be prepared at any time.
People around here kinda forget about that.
+111!!1!!1one1one
especially true if your GM is determined to not let you have 15 minute adventuring day. Being a good wizard is about knowing what to expect and using the appropriate resources carefully, unlike the rogue/fighter types whose much maligned extraordinary abilities can be used as many times as he likes.
It probably got mentioned, but just in case: get Hellcat Stealth (Cheliax Companion). It is in most ways superior to HiPS.
I know. Would have been taking it if she didn't go for Arcane Trickster. Though the -10 would be really harsh, since we can't make items to mitigate the penalty. The GM houserules that we can't create permanent magical stuff, and buying even cheap stuff is unreliable at best, as he wanted to make a "have to make do with what you find" campain.
Did we play the same game? I vividly remember the thief table being 2-3 levels ahead even past 10th level.
The teen levels are actually where the thief finally could get ahead, since the XP for each level stopped doubling and went to a flat cost with the thief having the lowest.
Also, he got XP for gold, and thus got more XP than any other class on top of that.
I tended not to use the XP-by-class optional rules, since they really, really tended to favor the spellcasters in most of our games. 100 XP per spell level cast tends to get crazy fast and pretty soon the wizard's getting 10,000 XP every day of his life whether he's adventuring or not.
Back on the original topic, I think it's bears mentioning that if the cloak does indeed grant concealment it can be trivialized by the Blind-Fight feat, where-as if it doesn't you don't seem to be able to overcome the miss chance at all.
Huh. Just checked my 3.5 books, and it seems you're all right. Ranger, Assassin and Shadowdancer are the only ones who get it now.
Wow. It simply boggles the mind that you have to spend (some would say waste, considering Combat Reflexes and Mobility is among the requirements) 5 levels worth of feats to dip in a different class to obtain the most iconic sneaking ability in the game.
Suddently understand the "Rogues suck" thread more. Just... wow. Rogues are bad at stealth, how intuitive is that conclusion?
Thanks, I guess my wife's character is just gonna suck then. Gonna ask the GM if we can change around Skill Focus: Stealth for Nimble Moves, which seems abundantly useful, and focus on combat and trapfinding.
O.o
Awfully quick to dismiss the rogue. Just because it can't hide in plain sight? That is a silly way to approach a class. You should possibly closely read the Stealth skill again. As I'm quite sure you're missing something. Also. There are tons of modifiers to increase it. Especially if you have the advanced players guide.
Huh. Just checked my 3.5 books, and it seems you're all right. Ranger, Assassin and Shadowdancer are the only ones who get it now.
Wow. It simply boggles the mind that you have to spend (some would say waste, considering Combat Reflexes and Mobility is among the requirements) 5 levels worth of feats to dip in a different class to obtain the most iconic sneaking ability in the game.
Suddently understand the "Rogues suck" thread more. Just... wow. Rogues are bad at stealth, how intuitive is that conclusion?
Thanks, I guess my wife's character is just gonna suck then. Gonna ask the GM if we can change around Skill Focus: Stealth for Nimble Moves, which seems abundantly useful, and focus on combat and trapfinding.
O.o
Awfully quick to dismiss the rogue. Just because it can't hide in plain sight? That is a silly way to approach a class. You should possibly closely read the Stealth skill again. As I'm quite sure you're missing something. Also. There are tons of modifiers to increase it. Especially if you have the advanced players guide.
I'm pretty sure I know how stealth works. The idea was to have a character that could use stealth in combat, sneaking around in the bushes is irrelevant 95% of the time for an adventuring rogue unless the party can stealth equally well. The ONE time the scouting rogue is spotted is the time it dies, since it is the weakest class in the game when it comes to holding it's own. Might work in city-based campaigns like Curse of the Crimson Throne and Council of Thieves, but since skills are balanced in PC-race vs PC-race terms, anything really dangerous will spot the rogue nearly automatically, and for a lot of the monsters with scent, blindsense, tremorsense, whateversense and so on, you can remove the "nearly".
This is not just a rules observation, this is experience from play in a published adventure path, where my wife made a stealth-optimized rogue, and she was bored out of her skull waiting for higher level talents, and then we realize that HiPS is not an advanced talent. If the GM had not let her rebuild into an Arcane Trickster build, she would have scrapped her character and made a diviner, and do the "scouting" without putting herself at risk of dying every time.
Sure the Hellcat Stealth would have been great if she had access to magical items to boost her stealth, but the GM is running a "You get what you find" approach, banning item creation, and rules that you can't buy stuff reliably in cities no matter the GP limit, we can't assume she will ever get even a +1 to stealth from anything but her racial bonus and skill-focus, meaning the -10 is devastating.