Local culture vs. PFS culture, or, am I just asking about "table variance?"

[Jiggy]

If you're wielding your morningstar two-handed, it should always have the exact same damage mod as your greatsword; the only difference would be the dice (d8 versus 2d6).

[Christopher Rowe]

Right, but isn't it minus one because of being silvered?

[Jiggy]

D'oh! Missed the silver. I was thinking cold iron; that's what all my morningstars are. I silver my cestuseseses. Cesti?

[Christopher Rowe]

Jiggy wrote:

D'oh! Missed the silver. I was thinking cold iron; that's what all my morningstars are. I silver my cestuseseses. Cesti?

It's either cestoix or cestixes, depending on which hand you hold it in. I'm pretty sure I read that on a wiki someplace.

[CRobledo]

morningstar is bludgeoning. shouldn't it not have the -1 then?

[Christopher Rowe]

CRobledo wrote:

morningstar is bludgeoning. shouldn't it not have the -1 then?

It's bludgeoning and piercing, so I figured it took the reduction. Admittedly, I tend to fall on the conservative side of these things.

Ultimate Equipment wrote:

If a weapon causes two types of damage, the type it deals is not half one type and half another; rather, all damage caused is considered to be of both types. Therefore, a creature would have to be immune to both types of damage to ignore any of the damage caused by such a weapon.

I figure if I'm taking the "good" side of wielding a B and P weapon then there must be a "bad" side and situations like this are it?

[CRobledo]

Christopher Rowe wrote:

I figure if I'm taking the "good" side of wielding a B and P weapon then there must be a "bad" side and situations like this are it?

Well, not this one. As long as its B you don't take the -1 (and while we are on the topic, HeroLab agrees with me :P)

[Jiggy]

CRobledo wrote:

morningstar is bludgeoning. shouldn't it not have the -1 then?

If the rule was that weapons which don't deal bludgeoning damage take a -1 penalty, you'd be correct. But the rule is that weapons take a penalty if they *do* deal slashing or piercing, which the morningstar does.

Now, a silver mace...

[Christopher Rowe]

Jiggy's reasoning matches my own, he just, y'know, stated it with clarity and precision. According to my interpretation, HeroLab would be wrong in this case.

Obviously, I'd be happy to be proven wrong, as it would benefit Silas Coe, gentleman of the road, but them's the breaks.

[CRobledo]

After rereading it I'd agree.

What about something like a lucern hammer though, where you kinda choose which side you deal damage with, instead of both at once like a morningstar?

[Jiggy]

One would presume that attacking for P damage would take the penalty, while attacking for B would not.

[Christopher Rowe]

I agree with Jiggy (again!) that the lucerne hammer, and I suppose, the bec de corbin and other weapons that are blunt on one side and piercing on the other, would enjoy the benefits on the piercing side and not on the bludgeoning side.

In this particular case, however, hauling around a polearm as a backup weapon when Silas's primary weapon is already a greatsword seems a little unwieldy.

[Jiggy]

My fighter used to carry around a pair of spare greatswords (his main weapon is a flail), each covered in ghost salt weapon blanche. First time he encountered a shadow demon, he got two solid hits at 2d6+lots before switching to half damage with his magic flail.

[Some Random Player]

I have seen very few errors on HeroLab. Is it perfect? No, but no one's hand written PCs are either. That is what you get with a complex ruleset.

Quite honestly, if every one of your hand written PCs is perfect, you need to get out more.

The three people (GMs) who have criticized HeroLab as inaccurate in my presence and because of my use have been humbled by its accuracy. HL was correct, they were wrong in each case. There were an abundance of stars behind their names, too. I really wish I could remember all the specifics for the inevitable challenge to that statement.

I'm not calling them stupid. I'm saying HL is a great resource and sniping at it because some players use it as a time-saver is silly. It has been endorsed by Paizo and LW does a great job with updates and addressing bug fixes.

Will I occasionally do something wrong because of HL? Sure -- maybe. But HL is vastly more accurate than some people's memories who are just "fer danged sure" things work they way they think they do. And since I use it during the game I have HL and the SRD up in front of me all the time so I can cross reference them when necessary. IF needed, I have all the PDFs too. The difference for me will be I don't have to page through books to find anything - I have every feat, item, spell, etc. in handy pull down menus.

Until someone can show me a chargen that runs even close to HL in terms of functionality and expansions/updates, I will continue purchasing every update HL has available.

[CWheezy]

Pcgen actually works pretty well

[Jason Wu]

It has been my experience that while HeroLab does occasionally have errors, human beings tend to make even MORE errors.

If spotted, the important thing is to point the errors out so they can be corrected, not to insist that the whole system is unusable.

-j

[Thorkull]

CWheezy wrote:

Pcgen actually works pretty well

Sure it does, and the folks that work on it are awesome. It was my character generator of choice in 3.x, and when I started playing Pathfinder I initially tried to use PCGen. The problem I rapidly ran into was that, unlike the 3.x era, no one was keeping up with the extra materials and sources as they came out. So I tried Hero Lab, and I've been very satisfied both with the implementation and their ability to keep up with new releases.

[Nylanfs]

It's more of the following reasons
a) data monkey's get burned out/have to leave/ take a hiatus because of RL. If other data monkeys don't join to replace them there's a shrinking data team which makes it harder to get new material out.

b) LW pays for the privilege of having early access to the final version of books (by this I mean the license they have with Paizo letting them say they are the Official Character Generator, and Pizo getting a cut of the sales)

LW can also afford to pay people to error and data check their data and program.

[Thorkull]

That's why I said, "no one was keeping up." I'm aware that KW is a for-profit operation, and that PCGen is FOSS. That doesn't change the net effect. And given that the history of paid software generators is not exactly stellar, I think it speaks volumes about LW that they not only keep up with new releases but also work steadily to resolve bugs. That's why I owned a copy of HL even before I became a VC.

[Patrick Harris @ SD]

Patrick Harris @ SD wrote:

Again, the core assumption is assumed. You don't need to police it and players don't actually need to own it. It's the additional resources that need to be presented at the table.

I was mistaken.

[Alitan]

PS to Jiggy:

Cesti. The plural of cestus is cesti.

:)

"Cestuses." Hmph.