Is there anything in the game that would give broken bones to a PC? I found casting plaster in the APG, and wondered what it would be used for really since one of the noted uses was for casts of broken limbs.
I found that the rules for being drunk are in the GMG (you get sickened for one hour for every drink past your Con score), but there's nothing on how potent wine vs fine wine vs ale is, nor is there any rules for hangovers (alchemist's kindness from the APG is supposed to cure it).
Finally, is there anything a Rogue could do to increase the max dex bonus limit on armor besides using mithril? I have a rogue goblin NPC that has a really high Dex, and that means few armors can cope with his dex bonus to AC.
If I think up more questions I will be sure to ask.
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1) Might be part of some critical hit variant or the fluff of a monster special ability. I think that use of casting plaster is mostly just descriptive.
2) As far as I know, that's the extent of the intoxication rules in PF. There were extended rules in a 3.5 supplement, the Arms & Equipment Guide. IIRC, each type of alcohol had a Fort save attached, from 10 to watered-down ale to 12-13 for most wines to 15 for potent spirits. You made one save for each drink, with an increasing penalty for each drink beyond the first within an hour. If you failed the intoxication Fort save you took 1 dex and 1 wis damage. I believe the hangover was represented by the time it took you to recover the damage (which could, a little unrealistically, take days). This mechanic could be imported to PF as a house-rule with a little tweaking.
3) I can't think of anything general. Specific magic armours might help - Celestial Chain has a max dex bonus of +8, which brings you to Dex 27 safely. Catskin leather from Ultimate Equipment has no max dex bonus but it's only +1 shadow leather armour and thus might not give you enough protection at high levels. You could also switch to Bracers of Armour, which aren't restrictive. However, note that the max dex bonus on armour only limits your maximum dexterity bonus that can be applied to armour class: your attacks (ranged or finesse), skills, reflex save, initiative, etc still use your full dex. So compare the extra AC bonus from the more restrictive armour to the amount of dex bonus you're losing by wearing it, and you'll know whether it's worth it.
This number is the maximum Dexterity bonus to Armor Class that this type of armor allows. Dexterity bonuses in excess of this number are reduced to this number for the purposes of determining the wearer's Armor Class. Heavier armors limit mobility, reducing the wearer's ability to dodge blows. This restriction doesn't affect any other Dexterity-related abilities.
1) Nuts. Or would Con drain be considered broken bones? It couldn't be Con damage, since that returns at 1 per day easy.
2) Near as I know, that wouldn't work for most forms of alcohol in Pathfinder, since being outright drunk is Sickened 1 hour per drink over your Con score. They don't even assign potency guidelines to the alcohol in the core or APG books.
I dunno, maybe a lessened form of Sickened would do? Instead of -2, how about a -1 for the same amount of time you were drunk/Sickened? Or maybe just considered Staggered for that amount of time. What do you think? I'd like something official, but there doesn't appear to be anything like that.
3) How much would that enchantment be without bells and whistles? The character is a goblin Rogue with the Armor Expert trait, so he could wear mithril breastplate without proficiency, but his Dex bonus is too high at +6. Wearing a mithril chain shirt would be a waste of Armor Expert and doesn't give as much AC. Minus the masterwork chainmail and the +3, the price drops to 13,150 for flight once per day as a 5th level caster. How do I get rid of the Fly spell, so I can just put the enchantment on some other armor and get the +6 to max dex and reduce the check penalty by 2?
Best guess is that I could put the enchantment on a mithral full plate suit, and along with the Armor Expert trait, the goblin Rogue would be able to wear it without proficiency or penalty of any kind, and still be able to have a Dexterity of 28-29 with no problem.
4) There's items like Marked Cards etc in the APG, but no gambling rules nor anything describing effects of using Loaded Dice etc. Got any ideas? I read once that Pathfinder doesn't have anything like gambling rules, yet it has rigged gambling items for some unknown reason.
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1) Con drain, being permanent, tends to reflect severe trauma or supernatural assaults to your life force. Large amounts of ability damage would better reflect broken bones, and in fact the Bonebreaker and Neckbreaker feats deal Str or Dex damage (Str and Dex being more closely tied to mobility than Con).
2) The rules I described would replace those currently in use if applied as a variant. If you're looking for a quick modification to the existing rules, I'd go with the -1 for a time equal to the sickened condition. Staggered is generally more debilitating than sickened, so I would avoid applying that penalty to a hangover.
3) You're looking for celestial chainmail without the flight ability? Or an enchantment added to any armour that boosts max dex by +2? In either case the answer is however much the GM wants to price it as, since it's a custom item. Personally I might price the simpler celestial chain at about 18K, and the single enhancement to boost max dex at about +8K or a +2 bonus (which incidentally makes it even with just improving the armour enhancement by +2 until you reach +5 armour). The max dex bonus is a pretty significant limitation of heavier armour, so improving it should be expensive, especially if you're stacking that improvement with Mithral.
4) Easiest way to handle that is to use Profession (Gambler) checks to earn money from gambling, essentially by consistently winning more than you lose (taking 10 should not be allowed on this Profession check). Marked cards and loaded dice could give you a bonus on those checks by serving as masterwork tools. There are also more extended rules for gambling in some other d20 systems, including Star Wars d20, which could be converted to PF. These other systems are also skill-check based, but involve a bit more complexity in terms of putting up a stake for an evening of gambling, and include rules for opposed rolls.
You can use the Wound & Vigor rules from UC. Wound points represent broken bones etc, are difficult to heal and you get a penalty (staggered condition) after a few wounds. If you want more penalties than mix this rules with the Called Shots rules. Example: As soon as you get a wound point you role a dice to determine what limb is damaged and than apply the penalties from the Called Shot rules.
This is the most RAW i can offer to create some house rules. :)
From what I understand, it literally takes months to recover from broken bones, and the healed bone is weaker than regular ones for up to a year after it was broken (3-5 to be just like unbroken). Even someone with a really high physical stat, like Constitution 18, would heal up completely in about 2.5 weeks. Thus, large amounts of ability damage wouldn't cut it. It has to be something more serious than just ability damage to simulate broken bones.
http://www.doctorsecrets.com/your-bones/time-to-heal-broken-bone.htm
I did a bunch of math, subtracting the +3 (9000gp), the chainmail (250gp), and finally my best guess as to how expensive a one shot a day Fly spell cast at 5th level. I ended up getting a 7150gp cost to improve the max dex by 6, armor check by 2 (not counting masterwork), the arcane spell check by 15%, the weight by 10lbs, and reducing the weight class by 1 level. However, I could be wrong on figuring out Fly 1/day. The way I got that number was level 3 spell x caster level 5 x 2000, divided by 5 since it's one per day. Dunno if I am reading the formula right.
With gambling, it would mostly be either dexterity or wisdom related, not intelligence. That's my best guess. I think Profession skills are wisdom. I suppose you could add in your dex bonus as well, I dunno. So a masterwork set of gambling tools (dice, cards etc) would be considered cheating?
Ok so you dont want rules for a game .. you want the reality in rules? PF is a game, an abstraction of reality and i offered the only RAW that exists. If you want more create some house rules by yourself and than have fun with such a funny real realistic game. Dont forget .. there is a spell that heals everything in 6 seconds.
Hostility is not welcome, Eridan.
D20 is tough to do something like Broken Bones, lost eyes, etc, etc, because of the way Rules are (abstraction) and you have to rewrite a lot of the main damage rules to do so, never mind messing with the balance of the system. Other systems do this (GURPS for example comes to mind) but that would be learning a new system.
To do this you would have to come up with some type of crit system, or uses a Wounds/Vigor style system, and maybe even hit locations.
So, for the broken bones & intoxication rules, as others have pointed out, there's little support for such things in the RAW. So you either need to ignore those conditions for game simplicity or employ house rules or 3rd party supplements to scratch you simulationist itch.
I've employed Torn Asunder to expand crits to include broken bones and such. I haven't really needed to address intoxication in the detail you're seeking but I know the topic was covered in some d20/OGL supplements. The subsystems could port to PF with little or no modification.
When I think 'broken bones', the first thing that comes to mind is that there might be something like that in the Critical Hit Deck. Otherwise, I just imagine that you might find them in spells ... somewhere ... maybe.
It's a difficult thing to find what you're going to do to increase your Max Dex. Total AC from Dex + Armor is fairly restricted; you can increase it with Mithril, with the unique Celestial armor, and with the Fighter's Armor Training ability (3rd level).
I recommend that you look through Advanced Player's Guide on the off-chance that they have armors with a higher value of (Max Dex + Armor). More importantly, they should have Archetypes that focus on heavy armor that might help increase this value.
Failing that, I recommend that you invest in Bracers of Armor. They give an Armor bonus to AC but don't have a Max Dex. Unfortunately for you, they cap out at a low~ bonus. You might also look into shields, as long as your rogue isn't an archer or TWF.
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From what I understand, it literally takes months to recover from broken bones, and the healed bone is weaker than regular ones for up to a year after it was broken (3-5 to be just like unbroken). Even someone with a really high physical stat, like Constitution 18, would heal up completely in about 2.5 weeks. Thus, large amounts of ability damage wouldn't cut it. It has to be something more serious than just ability damage to simulate broken bones.
As the other posters have said, broken bones are not easy to simulate using current PF rules - ability damage is too fleeting, but ability drain is permanent. If you want something more realistic you're going to need to play with some part of the damage system. The Wounds/Vigor system that Malach mentioned is a good place to start with this - in this system, most damage goes to your Vigor first, but once those are gone (or when you take a crit) the damage goes to Wounds, which are much slower to heal. You could also slow down the rate at which ability damage heals nonmagically.
I did a bunch of math, subtracting the +3 (9000gp), the chainmail (250gp), and finally my best guess as to how expensive a one shot a day Fly spell cast at 5th level. I ended up getting a 7150gp cost to improve the max dex by 6, armor check by 2 (not counting masterwork), the arcane spell check by 15%, the weight by 10lbs, and reducing the weight class by 1 level. However, I could be wrong on figuring out Fly 1/day. The way I got that number was level 3 spell x caster level 5 x 2000, divided by 5 since it's one per day. Dunno if I am reading the formula right.
You're reading it right, but the formula is a guideline rather than a firm guarantee of accurate pricing. Be sure to get your GM's approval. 7150gp seems fair, though.
With gambling, it would mostly be either dexterity or wisdom related, not intelligence. That's my best guess. I think Profession skills are wisdom. I suppose you could add in your dex bonus as well, I dunno. So a masterwork set of gambling tools (dice, cards etc) would be considered cheating?
Yes, Profession is Wis-based. I'd let someone make a Sleight of Hand check for a bonus, but that would be cheating (not sure how you'd use Dex without cheating), and depending on the game maybe a Bluff as well. Using marked cards and loaded dice as masterwork tools would certainly be cheating. You might be able to think of a masterwork tool that wouldn't be, though it would probably be specific to the game.
Oh, I *am* the GM. No worries. The price should have been 7000gp though, as I forgot to subtract a bit of the armor.
So, that 7k is basically an arbitrary number, not based on any actual reasoning? How the heck can I figure out what a reasonable price is, then?
Right now, I am considering just having all forms of Con drain be considered simulating broken bones. Therefore, a cast might help the recovery if set properly. I might allow low level characters to use casting plaster to restore Con drain over months of time without recourse to high level Restoration spells. That seems to make sense.
I figured adding in one's Dex bonus would be considered cheating anyway (gambling). Really wish there was a coherent system to figure this out. Bluff might be useful in games like Poker and that liar's dice game. That's probably the roll one would make for a circumstance bonus to profession gambler.
Never tried the Critical Hit Deck (or fumble deck, for that matter). I just use the house rule that if you roll a 1, and then confirm the failure with a second roll, you hit yourself for damage. It's boring but it works.
1. I highly recommend you (the GM) controlling this. Unless you play in a sanctioned environment like Pathfinder Society, you have a lot of freedom. In my case I occasionally "save" a PC from death by instilling a serious wound that cannot be healed with just some cure light wounds. Such wounds are somewhat debilitating and can last from a week to permanent. Regeneration spell is one way to cure that kind of wound. For example, I let one character survive with a broken leg. That imposed a -10 penalty on his base land speak. It took a while, but he's now (ahem) walked it off... ;)
2. Can't help; again I recommend finding an arbitrary GM guideline.
3. I don't think it is a good idea to try to isolate the "high Dex" cost in specific armors. Specific armors like the celestial chainmail or plate are specifically crafted for the special effects they give - and I think a character will do well to simply save-up for the appropriate item.
Keep in mind that there's a reason for max-Dex in armors and a balance consideration of how much AC a high-Dex character can gain from armor.
What I'm looking for is perhaps a breastplate, chain shirt, or studded leather armor that allows this PC to use his +6 dex bonus to AC. Bear in mind that he's a Rogue, and so isn't going to be well protected in the first place.
Right now, I am down to either getting him a glassteel chain shirt (9,100gp, but has the same properties of a combined mithral and adamantine item, plus it cannot be rusted) but this would waste his Armor Expert trait, or somehow talk an Elf into making him one of those Darkleaf studded leather size Small (fat chance of that, he's a freaking Goblin, despite being CN), price 775gp.
Or, I could slap this enchantment on some mithral Full Plate, size Small, but it'd end up so damned expensive it wouldn't be funny anymore (10,500gp + 7,000 = 17,500gp).
The only other way I can think of is to get a mithral Heavy Shield, since it has no armor check penalty and thus requires no proficiency.
What do you guys think of my allowing Con drain to heal with casting plaster splints in a few months for those characters that get hit before they have access to Restoration?
You do realize that a normal mithril chainshirt will already allow a +8 dex bonus to AC?
Or if the Armor Expert trait is that important, the celestial armor still grants the trait bonus to AC (it is still considered medium armor even though it can be worn as if it were light armor). That is a dex bonus of +8 ontop of a +3 chainmail. As a bonus you get to fly a bit too. 22400gp is not asking too much, and gives the rogue incentive to save-up for the item.
Nothing requires the rogue to get use out of his trait all the time; if he spends 2 levels in mithril chainshirt to eventually get the celestial armor... that is a pretty okay deal.
No, a normal mithral chainshirt will allow up to a +6 in Dex bonus, not +8.
Anyway, I figure I can put the little goober into some Leather armor for now, and get him a masterwork heavy steel shield. His armor expert trait should negate that -1 penalty, meaning he gets the 2 points of shield AC without proficiency. That's pretty valuable, considering his AC is 19 and he only has 13hp now that he's hit 2nd level. Nearly died last game.
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Didn't you say that the goblin's dex bonus is +6, just enough for a mithral shirt? Or are you expecting it to temporarily increase from Cat's Grace? If the latter, the leather and shield is probably your best bet (assuming you can apply Armor Expert to shields).
So, that 7k is basically an arbitrary number, not based on any actual reasoning? How the heck can I figure out what a reasonable price is, then?
It's not arbitrary, and your reverse engineering was about as reasoned as it gets. However, following the rules closely can end up with some overpowered stuff, like the Bracers of Falcon's Aim which are generally considered a much better deal than similar items like the Bracers of Archery. That's why GMs are encouraged to always check the prices of any similar items that already exist to make sure that they're balanced. For the enhanced dex enchantment the closest you can get is Mithral, which costs 1K-9K depending on armour type. So the +2 dex enchantment should not be less than 1K, and probably closer to 9K so that (a) characters don't get a steep price break on the +2 dex benefit of heavy mithral armor by buying the magical version instead and (b) it reflects the increasing cost of stacking enhancements, since the enchantment will probably be stacked either with Mithral for +4 to max dex or else stacked with Adamantine for heavy armour granting DR and +2 max dex compared to standard.
Right now, I am considering just having all forms of Con drain be considered simulating broken bones. Therefore, a cast might help the recovery if set properly. I might allow low level characters to use casting plaster to restore Con drain over months of time without recourse to high level Restoration spells. That seems to make sense.
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What do you guys think of my allowing Con drain to heal with casting plaster splints in a few months for those characters that get hit before they have access to Restoration?
Might not make sense with the fluff sources of some con drain (ex: undead draining your life force), but I don't think it will cause problems in your game to let careful treatment restore ability drain over long periods of time - given the time-frame the PCs are unlikely to abuse it. You might think of similar treatment regimens for other forms of drain as well. Physiotherapy or mental therapy.
I figured adding in one's Dex bonus would be considered cheating anyway (gambling). Really wish there was a coherent system to figure this out. Bluff might be useful in games like Poker and that liar's dice game. That's probably the roll one would make for a circumstance bonus to profession gambler.
Bluff would be the non-cheater's strategy, that's for sure. Profession's the most coherent standard rule, though you could easily implement a table where your check result indicates what percentage of your stake you gain or lose - breaking even should probably be DC 15-20. Remember, they shouldn't be able to take 10 on this check because gambling always has some element of chance.
Got any ideas for detecting cheating, once we've defined what specific acts are considered such? We would have to declare which rolls were standard gambling, which ones would be cheating (assuming they add circumstance bonuses to the standard gambling roll). We already know using special equipment is considered cheating. Plus, we'd have to ID target DC's, assuming it isn't simply opposed by the other players.
Certainly is getting more complex fast.
As for undead or whatever draining Con, it could be defined as weakening one's bones (or breaking them), since that's where human blood comes from. That would mean if Con got drained, it would weaken one's bone structure, and thus increase the liklihood of breaking bones altogether. Still, casting plaster seems like a good idea to allow for healing of Con drain, although one would take temporary Strength damage during the healing process (casts immobilizing the limb).