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I am sure I have responded to a thread like this before but will do so again :)
My number one "why the hell did Paizo make the rule work that way?" thing is the fact that it is as easy, and often easier, to escape from being a grappled if you have the Pinned condition rather than just the Grappled condition.
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I don't understand the fuss about swimming in Full Plate.
Normal fighty folks (aka Warriors) of Level 1 or 2 can not swim in Full Plate. To do so you need at least a Level 3 Warrior with 13 Strength and all skillpoints into Swimming.
As far as my understanding goes, this char already borders the inhuman - a true "swimming in armor" specialist - now add rough water and he will sink after just a few feet...
If you start complaining that a 3rd Level Fighter PC with 18 Strength that trained swimming above all else can do so I am not getting you at all. 18 Strength is clearly inhuman so where is the problem?
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Hitpoints are not even worthy of discussion within this context. The theme of hitpoints has always been a mixture of resilience, luck and similar abilities which explains why there is no difference, rules wise, between being in the state of 1 HP to being in the state of 100% hitpoints.
Yes, that makes Cure Light Wounds a stupid name for a spell that restores full and total health to 90%+ of the fantasy worlds population and implies that HPs are actually wounds and only wounds but here you go.
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That said the perception rule of -1 per 10' is the only universal rule that certainly does not work and makes me scratching my head very shortly before changing it to apply only to thorough inspections rather than actually percepting something.
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That said the perception rule of -1 per 10' is the only universal rule that certainly does not work and makes me scratching my head very shortly before changing it to apply only to thorough inspections rather than actually percepting something.
I think this would only work if there was actually certain levels of Perception. To notice someone from 20 feet away is nothing, to read size 12 font from 20 feet away is a totally different story.
Anyone who says that 1d4 weapons (such as the sling and dagger) are weak is ignoring the fact that 99% of the world's population only have 1d4 hit points. If the only people who can reliably survive a hit from a sling are the superhumans, that sounds like a pretty darn powerful weapon to me.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Tangent, I think.
I thought the wound/vitality mechanic was best explained in the Stargate RPG.
When the Jaffa fires the staff weapon and hits the wall next to Carter, that's a hit doing vitality damage.
When the same Jaffa hits Daniel in the gut with the staff weapon, that's wound damage.
I don't mind the 'different spell list' mechanic. The Magus spells can all be cast in light armor, while the wizard spells have to deal with ASF. To me they're trained differently. Think of the wizard being 2e and the magus being BECMI. Each can understand what the other is doing, and even overlap in similar ways, but the magus *can't* use the wizard's spellbook and vice versa, they would have to pull out 'ye old translation guide' to transcribe a spell.
I would like a "Stupid move, you're dead." hard coded into the rules. It's like the rifts analogy of sticking a 9 MM in your mouth and pulling the trigger because you have enough SDC. Um, no, you're still dead.
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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3b) Similarly a wizard who casts a spell with no words or geastures can still fail to cast the spell because of that leather armour their wearing but not if their wearing a leather jacket and pants.
Er, no they can't:
Arcane Spell Failure Chance: Armor interferes with the gestures that a spellcaster must make to cast an arcane spell that has a somatic component. Arcane spellcasters face the possibility of arcane spell failure if they're wearing armor. Bards can wear light armor and use shields without incurring any arcane spell failure chance for their bard spells.
Casting an Arcane Spell in Armor: A character who casts an arcane spell while wearing armor must usually make an arcane spell failure check. The number in the Arcane Spell Failure Chance column on Table: Armor and Shields is the percentage chance that the spell fails and is ruined. If the spell lacks a somatic component, however, it can be cast with no chance of arcane spell failure.
Bold added by me for emphasis.
isnt this an old thread?
I will repeat my peeve
FLAT FOOTED TILL INITIATIVE
stupid stupid rule which assumes that battle hardened warriors facing a known enemy 50 feet away will sit there flat footed and get punched in the face because they rolled 1 lower on the initiative roll.
kind of breaks the whole concept of every one is acting at the same time and the turn based mechanic is just an abstraction.
Now that I think about it I also hate the
Fly Rules
they KIND OF make sense... but only in a simultaneous movement environment not in a turn based one.
I can't stand the rule that if you don't have a BAB of 1 or more that you can't draw your weapon as part of a move action. This only affects a sliver of adventurers (BAB 0 level 1 classes only) for 1 level. Just get rid of it and say you can draw a weapon as part of a move action. Period.
Flat-footed before you act in initiative. Someone said this already - I am just seconding it.
I can make a Reflex save vs a still, silent fireball cast by an invisible mage during a surprise round (getting my full bonus from Dex), but I can't use any Dex at all to my AC if someone charges at me from 60 ft. away in the first round of combat just because I haven't acted yet.
Due to the way Animal Companion rules work in Pathfinder--specifically the size change at a given level--a Goblin Cavalier cannot select a Goblin Dog as his bonded Mount at 1st level--at that point, the Goblin Dog will be Small, and therefore unridable.
Starting age rules.
The human wizard spends 20 years studying magic and knows 7 level 1 spells.
The Elven wizard spends 200 years studying magic and also only knows 7 spells.
But you say "Well he spent those 180 years gaining long-sword proficiency." But the human can use his bonus feat to gain proficiency with *all* martial weapons.
that isn't actually true.
Martial Weapon prof grants Prof with one single weapon not all martials.
Quoteth the Prd(eth)
Martial Weapon Proficiency (Combat)
Choose a type of martial weapon. You understand how to use that type of martial weapon in combat.
Benefit: You make attack rolls with the selected weapon normally (without the non-proficient penalty).
-S
How about that electrical attacks are perfectly safe to use under water?
Fighter multiclasses wizard. Regardless of having to buy the spells or not, he still learns the same amount in far less time than his single classed friend.
multiclassing in general is pretty silly.
I was born and raised in a barbarian tribe.
one day my friends and I fight a few giants.
I go home and rest.
in the morning I have gained a level of alchemist.
WTF?
Exactly, so the apprenticeships could be deemed 20-15= 5 years vs. 200-110=90. 5 and 90 certainly aren't the same, agreed, but it's better than 20 vs 200.
The poster who said 20/200 years was wrong. It doesn't take a human 20 years to becoma a wizard, or an elf 200 years.
The average human needs 7 years, while the average elf needs 35. At the absolute worst, the elf needs 60, and the human 12. Scroll down to Random Starting Ages.
Its even possible for a human to take longer to learn to be a wizard then an elf (12 years maximum for a human, 10 years minimum for an elf).
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real life relevant: Action economy. Check out the Commoner Rail Gun theory. (it involves the idea that passing an object is a free action and free actions are unlimited in combat)
I hate the commoner rail gun as an example. For the first 90% it has to use rules as written, ignoring common sense, so the commoners can all delay their actions and move the stone 1 mile in 6 seconds. Then, all of a sudden, it has to use common sense to say that a stone moving 600 mph should do a lot of damage, rather than consistently using the RAW to say it does about 1d2 damage with a 10 ft. range increment being thrown by a commoner, and using a penalty to hit for using an improvised weapon.
That being said, I have problems with action economy as well. In my understanding, the actions are all supposed to be happening more or less simultaneously, but the rules do not represent this well. In the games I've seen that do represent this better (GURPS mostly) combat drags insanely, though. I don't really know a better solution.
I've always interpreted the age-learning disparity thing between races as follows:
You need a certain level of maturity and experience in order to master certain things. Like magic. In particular, you need to have reached adulthood mentally and emotionally to have any reasonable control over your magic. This takes longer, physiologically, for elves than for humans. An elf aged 100 would still be considered young and possibly impulsive and unready to master power.
Imagine you when you were 16 compared to you when you were 25. Would you trust your 16-year-old self with cosmic power? (Incidentally, go watch Chronicle).
That takes care of most of the time-discrepancy. For the rest, I presume elven mages teach slowly and carefully. Because, seriously, what's the hurry? Better for your apprentices to know it well than to blow themselves up.
Short version: Giving people power is a self-correcting problem. If they don't have the wisdom, maturity, and experience to handle it they either manage to gain that wisdom quickly or they destroy themselves. It takes elves longer, objectively speaking, to mature into that wisdom.
I feel as if elves ALWAYS have to be houseruled to explain why they dont rule the world. Its simply makes no sense that creatures that are naturally more intelligent, longer lived and basically better in almost every way would not figure out how to controll the other shorter lived races.
in my games elves are handled in 3 ways.
1) they DO rule the world and every other race is some how subject to or constantly struggling against their ultimate rule. its fun because it creates a world where the elves (who are NOT evil) are still (rightfully) viewed as oppressors.
2) There are no elf females, Elves as most people would interact with them are all male. the female elves are actually dryads and thus elves are highly restricted to their home forests to protect the mothers and simply by nature of their being. the elves that exist outside of the forests are usually exiles of some sort and have only been out of the forest for 5 or 10 years or so at most leaving them just as ultimately mature and worldly as any other player. They also tend to age faster than elves in the forest and thus they do not live more than 50 or so years out of the forest.
3) elves are simply not as long lived as the books say. instead they live only about 1.5 times the life time of a normal human (about 90 to 120 years) the common belief that elves live almost forever is just a misconception enhanced by the elf custom of being named for their profession (so humans may know that an elf named Shavar has lived in the town for 400 years but not realize that 'Shavar' means diplomat in elven and the current Shavar is the 6th one to hold that post and name) On a side note dwarves have a different excuse for seeming long lived.
I feel as if elves ALWAYS have to be houseruled to explain why they dont rule the world. Its simply makes no sense that creatures that are naturally more intelligent, longer lived and basically better in almost every way would not figure out how to controll the other shorter lived races.
This is one thing that frustrates me intensely.
I reduce elven ages down to somewhat more than humans.
The additional explanation is also offered that elves are inherently crap at everything but think they are the pinnacle of creation. They have to fight an incredible weight of hubris to actually do anything worthwhile. Without being pushed by an outside force, they tend to stagnate and wallow in their own imagined glory.
Bats should technically be moving at half speed in caves because they have blindsense, not blind sight , and thus can't move at full speed because of unobstructed vision.
I feel as if elves ALWAYS have to be houseruled to explain why they dont rule the world. Its simply makes no sense that creatures that are naturally more intelligent, longer lived and basically better in almost every way would not figure out how to control the other shorter lived races.
I've always imagined it as being because elves don't breed as constantly as the shorter-lived races. For every elf there are a thousand humans and a million goblins.
Hard to take anything over when you are such a small faction.
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I have far too many to list them all, but here's some:
HP is supposed to be abstract, but then designed still insist using spells called Cure X Wounds, instead of other names to simulate the near misses. And of course, HP manages to trend into AC territory, since it's supposed to have near misses. But doesn't near misses fall into AC category?
Spell physics when an effect happens and needs to occupy the same area or go around something. Explanations for burst, spread, and emanations. And then have cone, cylinder, and other area of effects in a different field for spell details.
Attack of opportunities for moving out of a threatened square. Highly trained people in melee combat are skilled enough to move into a threatened square and not provoke, but not enough to move out except using a 5-foot step. For a system that has no facing, moving out of combat has "facing", since turning and running provokes. What about tactically moving out of the area? I can do that, but only in 5-foot squares or else I'm leaving myself open to attack.
all of these explanations about elves learning slower because they are not as focused due to their long lives seems to lack logic to me. But if it works for your world go for it.
as for me... it just doesnt make sense that a more intelligent extremely long lived race some how never bothers to learn, organize, or develope to any greater degree than the shorter lived less intelligent races they live around. but that's just me.
although if they are that flighty and lacking focus you would think that that would reflect in their day to day lives. they would not care about completing some adventure in any particular time frame... hell they should be FORCED to multiclass because an elf would not be able to concentrate on one school of study too long. And if he did adventure and became some high level master of a craft why would he basically forget all of that and wander back into the forest after the adventure is over.
If I have a 400 year old elf in my group could it be that 100 years ago he was a level 12 cleric but kind of forgot about all that and is starting over as a level 2 theif? what of evil elves that are possibly crazy by elf standards and seek power and control... with 500 years to prepare dont you think they would do SOMETHING with that time?
hp and something that would realisticly kill you instantly.
It's like a high level character can loose 10 liters of blood without dying.Also I always tought that it was double armor check penalty on swim, but couldn't find it, was that 3.5 only?
hit points represent toughness and your ability to roll with the punches. So 30 damage to a tenth level fighter means he moved at just the right time to take a nasty gash on his shoulder where it would have spilled the level two fighter's guts on the floor.
Full body calluses from a lifetime of wearing armor?
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I thought poking recruits in the eyes and eardrums with a pointed stick until they callused up was how the really experienced fighters separated the wheat from the chaff, but YMMV.
How do you describe a naked fighter being fully submerged in acid and surviving with no degradation of abilities?
strong of heart and bold of spirit.