Ant Haul


Rules Questions

Liberty's Edge

Does ant haul actually affect the penalty to movement for encumbrance by carrying capacity? Meaning if I have a character with 8 strength that is in Full Plate and a Tower Shield and has numerous other items that go beyond his heavy encumbrance limit and I cast Ant Haul on myself will it allow me to move normally?

I want to make sure my min-maxing is strictly rules legal.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
LordZod wrote:

Does ant haul actually affect the penalty to movement for encumbrance by carrying capacity? Meaning if I have a character with 8 strength that is in Full Plate and a Tower Shield and has numerous other items that go beyond his heavy encumbrance limit and I cast Ant Haul on myself will it allow me to move normally?

I want to make sure my min-maxing is strictly rules legal.

Of course it does. It would be rather pointless otherwise.

If you are in a medium or heavy load due to the sheer weight of the gear you carry, and ant haul raises your limits enough that you would be considered to be in a light load, you are then in a light load for all purposes, be they check penalties or speed.

Liberty's Edge

Would this also apply if you are over your normal maximum heavy encumbrance limit?


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
LordZod wrote:
Would this also apply if you are over your normal maximum heavy encumbrance limit?

Yes. If you are over your max load, and get back under the max load due to the spell, you can move again.


LordZod wrote:
Would this also apply if you are over your normal maximum heavy encumbrance limit?

Yes. You figure out what your new capacity is, look at how much your carrying, and then figure out if you're now light, medium, or heavily encumbered.

Shadow Lodge

LordZod wrote:

Does ant haul actually affect the penalty to movement for encumbrance by carrying capacity? Meaning if I have a character with 8 strength that is in Full Plate and a Tower Shield and has numerous other items that go beyond his heavy encumbrance limit and I cast Ant Haul on myself will it allow me to move normally?

I want to make sure my min-maxing is strictly rules legal.

As others have said, the weight would be handled, however your speed would still be slowed due to the armor, and you'd still have all the armor check penalties from the armor and shield. Ant haul just lets you carry more stuff than normal, it doesn't get rid of armor penalties.


Eric Clingenpeel wrote:
LordZod wrote:

Does ant haul actually affect the penalty to movement for encumbrance by carrying capacity? Meaning if I have a character with 8 strength that is in Full Plate and a Tower Shield and has numerous other items that go beyond his heavy encumbrance limit and I cast Ant Haul on myself will it allow me to move normally?

I want to make sure my min-maxing is strictly rules legal.

As others have said, the weight would be handled, however your speed would still be slowed due to the armor, and you'd still have all the armor check penalties from the armor and shield. Ant haul just lets you carry more stuff than normal, it doesn't get rid of armor penalties.

I think I've heard about this character in another thread. :)

Anyway, also note that the non-proficiency penalties would apply no matter what, if you're not proficient with tower shield or full plate. And that's regardless of whether you can move around in it due to Ant Haul.

The armor check penalty for Full Plate is -6, and for a Tower Shield it's -10. That's -16 (they stack). If you aren't proficient with them, then the -16 also applies to attack rolls as well (meaning you never hit unless you have a true strike going). That includes ranged touch attacks for spells. Oh, and all DEX and STR skills have a -16 penalty.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Eric Clingenpeel wrote:
LordZod wrote:

Does ant haul actually affect the penalty to movement for encumbrance by carrying capacity? Meaning if I have a character with 8 strength that is in Full Plate and a Tower Shield and has numerous other items that go beyond his heavy encumbrance limit and I cast Ant Haul on myself will it allow me to move normally?

I want to make sure my min-maxing is strictly rules legal.

As others have said, the weight would be handled, however your speed would still be slowed due to the armor, and you'd still have all the armor check penalties from the armor and shield. Ant haul just lets you carry more stuff than normal, it doesn't get rid of armor penalties.

Quite right.


I was told in another thread that that -16 penalty would also apply to CMB checks
not CMD checks.

So Lord Zod I would suggest 1 level of fighter or the Combat Casting Feat. I see grapples being a pain to escape, though they would still have to get past your CMD.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Red-Assassin wrote:

I was told in another thread that that -16 penalty would also apply to CMB checks

not CMD checks.

Yep. CMB checks are considered attack rolls. Therefore if you are taking penalties to your attack rolls due to non-proficiency, than it would definitely apply to your CMB checks as well (but not CMD).


Don't forget though, that you likely have NO Dex bonus to CMD thanks to the Tower Shield and Full Plate Mail. Remember, penalties to AC (including penalties to your Dex Bonus to AC) affect your CMD.

Liberty's Edge

For the time being I've gotten around this by taking Heavy Armor proficiency and downgraded my shield to get rid of the penalty to the attack rolls. I think the movement penalty is a decent trade off to having high AC. I got it OK'd to trade out my Toughness feat for that.

My min-maxing (probably) makes me a relatively terrible human being.


LordZod wrote:

For the time being I've gotten around this by taking Heavy Armor proficiency and downgraded my shield to get rid of the penalty to the attack rolls. I think the movement penalty is a decent trade off to having high AC. I got it OK'd to trade out my Toughness feat for that.

My min-maxing (probably) makes me a relatively terrible human being.

Not especially. PFS play is sort of pre-disposed toward power game/min maxing. The rules limit what the GMs can do, and the fixed APs mean that people never can build up a decent teamwork with each other, so, you have to min/max since you really can only count on yourself.


Be warned the next time you are surrounded by grappling demons. A single dump of fighter will give you these armor, shield prof and a combat feat as well as saves and weapon prof. Always a thought, since you playing PFS.

I am not sure I like the Tower shield to much, I think I like a darkwood heavy much better. The ar pen difference is huge.

Liberty's Edge

Indeed. As you said they probably should have tried to overrun me or "throw" me in to the water. I decided against the level of Fighter to keep my spell progression. Combat Casting is apparently a General Feat and not a combat feat so it's ineligible for the Fighter bonus feat so that affected my decision too. Now I can grapple them back since I don't have any more penalty to my attack rolls :)


Good strategy..


does ant haul take away the weight of the Shield? or is it also considered "armor" and thus ant haul like plate mail armor would not work.


Ant haul does not take away the weight of anything necromancer, it just makes you stronger for the purpose of calculations involving carrying capacity. If beinging physically stronger would not accomplish your goal, neither will ant haul.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Atalius wrote:
does ant haul take away the weight of the Shield? or is it also considered "armor" and thus ant haul like plate mail armor would not work.

One, holy Necro batman. Two, I don't understand your question. Ant Haul doesn't reduce item's weight. It just makes you able to carry more weight.


Indeed Atalius the Necro is here once again. Ya sorry for the lack of clarity ill try again. I mean I know ant haul doesn't work on body armor ie. plate mail, but would it work for a shield? or is that also considered "armor"?


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Ant haul doesn't do anything to a shield or armor, or even your character's underwear. All it does is increase carrying capacity. I'm assuming you are asking if it reduces Armor Check Penalty? As that was what was being talked about above. The answer to that is a solid no. As Armor Check Penalty has nothing to do with the weight of the armor/shield.


The text about armor is clarification about some things the spell does not do. It is not a limitation on the spell. Removing that text does not change the spell in anyway. The part that tells you what the spell DOES DO is "The target’s carrying capacity triples." Everything else is just examples of things it does NOT do. The list is not exhaustive. It triples carrying capacity, nothing more.


"It also has no effect on encumbrance due to armor. If the creature wears armor it still takes the normal penalties for doing so regardless of how much weight the spell allows it to carry." Would a shield be considered armor as well?


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

It does nothing to armor, to shields, or anything else but what Toasted put. It triples your carry weight. It doesn't do anything else.


Yes, that sentence is there. I saw it. I divined that you saw it, and that it was the cause of your confusion. They are telling you that "Gatorade fuels your body, not your car" and your responding "that means I can run my Jeep on Gatorade, right?" No. Not right.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Atalius wrote:
Would a shield be considered armor as well?

On page 150 of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, shields are included in the list of types of armor.


Thanks all. I understand.


I suggest you check out Effortless Armor and Lighten Object.
While they only last a minute per level, they do wonders on armor check and weight.

/cevah

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Rules Questions / Ant Haul All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Rules Questions