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... your party has a wizard who refuses to use his spells because he them for the BBEG.
...you party can't progress through the dungeon because the rogue won't open any locked doors for fear of magical traps. (The GM had to tell him No. Seriously you need to unlock those doors.)
... the same rogue opens a door(different adventure)gets attacked by enemies it can't see, and exclaims well I can't see what I'm fighting in here so lets move on... opens another door, initiates another combat, and splits the party. (We did survive, but two characters dropped into negatives)
... your Bonekeep table has to play up because of one high tier player skewing the APL. (This was actually a lot of fun, but still qualifies as "trouble"

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the GM says that only your PC's own damage modifiers get multiplied on a crit, not bonuses from Inspire Courage, Good Hope, Magic Weapon, Greater Magic Weapon, etc.
Especially when you party has a bard, a buffing cleric, and one single melee damage type...
This is where you report the GM to the VO.

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kinevon wrote:This is where you report the GM to the VO.the GM says that only your PC's own damage modifiers get multiplied on a crit, not bonuses from Inspire Courage, Good Hope, Magic Weapon, Greater Magic Weapon, etc.
Especially when you party has a bard, a buffing cleric, and one single melee damage type...
No, this is where you sit down with the GM after the game to discuss the rules in a friendly and constructive manner. In the game you have stated that you disagree with the ruling but want to discuss after it unless it is a life or death situation.

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Imbicatus wrote:No, this is where you sit down with the GM after the game to discuss the rules in a friendly and constructive manner. In the game you have stated that you disagree with the ruling but want to discuss after it unless it is a life or death situation.kinevon wrote:This is where you report the GM to the VO.the GM says that only your PC's own damage modifiers get multiplied on a crit, not bonuses from Inspire Courage, Good Hope, Magic Weapon, Greater Magic Weapon, etc.
Especially when you party has a bard, a buffing cleric, and one single melee damage type...
I meant after the game, and if the GM refused to listen.
I have seen so many local PFS GMs make calls that are just not supported by the rules. AoOs for entering a threatened square, AoOs for taking a 5 ft step if you 5ft step into a flank, not allowing prestidigitation to clean things, not allowing bonuses to crit.
In all situations, I don't stop play over it and accept the ruling at the time, but it's a bad call and a bad play experience.
House rules are well and good, but not for society play.

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kinevon wrote:This is where you report the GM to the VO.the GM says that only your PC's own damage modifiers get multiplied on a crit, not bonuses from Inspire Courage, Good Hope, Magic Weapon, Greater Magic Weapon, etc.
Especially when you party has a bard, a buffing cleric, and one single melee damage type...
That was an example pulled form another thread on the boards, and, during the discussion of this, it came out that the GM is the VC for the area.
And the VC mentioned that there, apparently, has been some discussion on the hidden boards about the meaning of the word "usual" in the Critical Hit material in the CRB.
I didn't play in that specific game, mainly due to time constraints, but I do know both the GM and the player who was asking about it.
For your information:
From the Damage chapter of the CRB, under Attack Actions:
A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together. Unless otherwise specified, the threat range for a critical hit on an attack roll is 20, and the multiplier is ×2.
It is the use of "usual" there that caused the confusion. After all, your Strength mod is one of your usual bonuses, but the +X from an Inspire Courage is not.

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Imbicatus wrote:kinevon wrote:This is where you report the GM to the VO.the GM says that only your PC's own damage modifiers get multiplied on a crit, not bonuses from Inspire Courage, Good Hope, Magic Weapon, Greater Magic Weapon, etc.
Especially when you party has a bard, a buffing cleric, and one single melee damage type...
That was an example pulled form another thread on the boards, and, during the discussion of this, it came out that the GM is the VC for the area.
And the VC mentioned that there, apparently, has been some discussion on the hidden boards about the meaning of the word "usual" in the Critical Hit material in the CRB.
I didn't play in that specific game, mainly due to time constraints, but I do know both the GM and the player who was asking about it.
For your information:
From the Damage chapter of the CRB, under Attack Actions:
Quote:A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together. Unless otherwise specified, the threat range for a critical hit on an attack roll is 20, and the multiplier is ×2.It is the use of "usual" there that caused the confusion. After all, your Strength mod is one of your usual bonuses, but the +X from an Inspire Courage is not.
That is the most unique interpretation of usual I have ever seen. The only damage that is excluded from multiplication on a crit is precision damage and is explicitly stated as doing so.
If inspire courage wasn't a usual bonus, then when would it apply to damage? In 15 years of 3.x, this is the first time I have ever seen this type of claim.
Edited to be less inflammatory.

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That is the most idiotic interpretation of usual I have ever seen. The only damage that is excluded from multiplication on a crit is precision damage and is explicitly stated as doing so.
Actually, additional weapon damage from certain feats and magic enhancements, like Flaming, do not multiply either.
Note: I am not defending the GM, I am simply pointing out that more than just precision damage does not get multiplied on a crit.
IMO, "usual" should be replaced with something to say only damage that does not exclude itself from multiplication on a critical.
I still want to know how GM would handle a party using ,magic weapon or [/i]greater magic weapon[/i] on their weapons would be handled.
This actually was something that happened in a recent game I played, with one of the casters providing the two weapon users without +5 weapons GMW to +5.
Of course, it was in Tomb of the Iron Medusa, so fairly high level...
And I didn't bother trying to figure out what that +4 bump to my weapon did to my Trip and Disarm CMBs, since the weapon is PSFG Dueling.... I didn't bother, because they are already so high on that PC that it seldom mattered... Maybe when disarming against a target with two weapons, or weapon and shield...

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When one of the players announces that he has all the stats for Weapon HP and Hardness so he can Sunder without taking time to look up stats.
Not sure why that is a bad sign. Sunder is great in PFS as it debuffs the enemy and you can still get the weapon/armor off the chronicle sheet. Someone who is prepared to use it quickly would be welcome.

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Game Master wrote:A gentle, friendly bludgeoning to the skull is also appropriate, in that situation.Why is this not a catchphrase in our area?
"Excuse me, I'm going to go deliver a GFBS."
My monkbarian does this, but you wouldnt like it...Usually ends up a bloody mess all over the wall, even with non-lethal...Pummeling Style is pretty brutal.
Hillis Mallory III wrote:When one of the players announces that he has all the stats for Weapon HP and Hardness so he can Sunder without taking time to look up stats.Not sure why that is a bad sign. Sunder is great in PFS as it debuffs the enemy and you can still get the weapon/armor off the chronicle sheet. Someone who is prepared to use it quickly would be welcome.
As a GM for a sunder character in our area(while at a con), Sunder is great until you sunder the Barbarian's clubs and they switch to Claw, Claw, Bite all at full BAB instead of Club, Bite-5 and nearly TPK the party.

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Hillis Mallory III wrote:When the GM announces that he has all the stats for Weapon HP and Hardness so he can Sunder without taking time to look up stats.Fixed.
I always have a sunder table with me as a GM.
Where can you find a sunder table? I actually spent some time trying to find the hit point values of various weapons a while back and rolled a nat 1 on my IRL Perception check.

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Imbicatus wrote:As a GM for a sunder character in our area(while at a con), Sunder is great until you sunder the Barbarian's clubs and they switch to Claw, Claw, Bite all at full BAB instead of Club, Bite-5 and nearly TPK the party.Hillis Mallory III wrote:When one of the players announces that he has all the stats for Weapon HP and Hardness so he can Sunder without taking time to look up stats.Not sure why that is a bad sign. Sunder is great in PFS as it debuffs the enemy and you can still get the weapon/armor off the chronicle sheet. Someone who is prepared to use it quickly would be welcome.
Well, that is an unfortunate situation, but if they were two-handing the club and the club was magical or they had two hander feats it still might have been better overall, depending on total str bonus. I grant there are times where it's better to not sunder weapons.

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James McTeague wrote:Where can you find a sunder table? I actually spent some time trying to find the hit point values of various weapons a while back and rolled a nat 1 on my IRL Perception check.Hillis Mallory III wrote:When the GM announces that he has all the stats for Weapon HP and Hardness so he can Sunder without taking time to look up stats.Fixed.
I always have a sunder table with me as a GM.
Page 175 of the Core Rulebook has the basic stats, but you have to do actual math to get special materials and enhancements.
*Add +2 for each +1 enhancement bonus of magic items.
*Add 10 hp for each +1 enhancement bonus of magic items.
*The hp value given is for Medium armor, weapons, and shields. Divide by 2 for each size category of the item smaller than Medium, or multiply it by 2 for each size category larger than Medium.
*Hardness is determined by material, but hafted weapons are based on wood unless it is a metal-based haft.
*To get the base hp of gear, determine thickness based on the common hit point value, then divide into the base material hp/inch. now figure the new hit points based on the base value for the new material. Allow me to quote from General Dorsey's post in 2010:
The weapon starts at 5 hardness and 10 hit points. Making it a +5 weapon adds 10 hardness and 50 hit points. Making it adamantine changes the base hardness to 40 so it's now hardness of 50. The hit points would have to be determined by thickness. The original item was iron or steel so it had 30 hit points/inch of thickness. Since it had 10 hit points, it is roughly 1/3 of an inch thick. Apply that to the adamantine and you get 40/3 = 13 (remember to round down). Now add the 50 additional hit points and you get 63 hit points.
So the +5 adamantine two-handed hafted weapon has 50 hardness and 63 hit points. It would take a +5 or better weapon to sunder it as well.
As for the conditions, the item is broken when it has taken 32 points of damage. It is destroyed once it hits zero hit points. This is going to be a tough weapon to harm.

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WiseWolfOfYoitsu wrote:Well, that is an unfortunate situation, but if they were two-handing the club and the club was magical or they had two hander feats it still might have been better overall, depending on total str bonus. I grant there are times where it's better to not sunder weapons.
Imbicatus wrote:As a GM for a sunder character in our area(while at a con), Sunder is great until you sunder the Barbarian's clubs and they switch to Claw, Claw, Bite all at full BAB instead of Club, Bite-5 and nearly TPK the party.Hillis Mallory III wrote:When one of the players announces that he has all the stats for Weapon HP and Hardness so he can Sunder without taking time to look up stats.Not sure why that is a bad sign. Sunder is great in PFS as it debuffs the enemy and you can still get the weapon/armor off the chronicle sheet. Someone who is prepared to use it quickly would be welcome.
Masterwork Greatclubs, but getting 3 attacks vice 1 with an iterative meant more chances to hit, and my dice were rolling high-ish. I always roll out in the open for anything that isn't a hidden check, so they were getting beat on pretty well. Of course the sundering character opted to sunder armor instead once he realized that the creatures were actually unhindered by losing their weapons. Losing the AC made the difference in the end, allowing the players to be victorious.
Lesson learned by player: Don't always sunder the monster's weapon if they have natural attacks.

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Page 175 of the Core Rulebook has the basic stats, but you have to do actual math to get special materials and enhancements.*Add +2 for each +1 enhancement bonus of magic items.
*Add 10 hp for each +1 enhancement bonus of magic items.
*The hp value given is for Medium armor, weapons, and shields. Divide by 2 for each size category of the item smaller than Medium, or multiply it by 2 for each size category larger than Medium.
*Hardness is determined by material, but hafted weapons are based on wood unless it is a metal-based haft.*To get the base hp of gear, determine thickness based on the common hit point value, then divide into the base material hp/inch. now figure the new hit points based on the base value for the new material. Allow me to quote from General Dorsey's post in 2010:
General Dorsey wrote:...The weapon starts at 5 hardness and 10 hit points. Making it a +5 weapon adds 10 hardness and 50 hit points. Making it adamantine changes the base hardness to 40 so it's now hardness of 50. The hit points would have to be determined by thickness. The original item was iron or steel so it had 30 hit points/inch of thickness. Since it had 10 hit points, it is roughly 1/3 of an inch thick. Apply that to the adamantine and you get 40/3 = 13 (remember to round down). Now add the 50 additional hit points and you get 63 hit points.
So the +5 adamantine two-handed hafted weapon has 50 hardness and 63 hit points. It would take a +5 or
Though Dorsey seems a bit off on some of his numbers.
"Weapons and armor normally made of steel that are made of adamantine have one-third more hit points than normal. Adamantine has 40 hit points per inch of thickness and hardness 20." ~PRD

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WiseWolfOfYoitsu wrote:
Page 175 of the Core Rulebook has the basic stats, but you have to do actual math to get special materials and enhancements.*Add +2 for each +1 enhancement bonus of magic items.
*Add 10 hp for each +1 enhancement bonus of magic items.
*The hp value given is for Medium armor, weapons, and shields. Divide by 2 for each size category of the item smaller than Medium, or multiply it by 2 for each size category larger than Medium.
*Hardness is determined by material, but hafted weapons are based on wood unless it is a metal-based haft.*To get the base hp of gear, determine thickness based on the common hit point value, then divide into the base material hp/inch. now figure the new hit points based on the base value for the new material. Allow me to quote from General Dorsey's post in 2010:
General Dorsey wrote:...The weapon starts at 5 hardness and 10 hit points. Making it a +5 weapon adds 10 hardness and 50 hit points. Making it adamantine changes the base hardness to 40 so it's now hardness of 50. The hit points would have to be determined by thickness. The original item was iron or steel so it had 30 hit points/inch of thickness. Since it had 10 hit points, it is roughly 1/3 of an inch thick. Apply that to the adamantine and you get 40/3 = 13 (remember to round down). Now add the 50 additional hit points and you get 63 hit points.
So the +5 adamantine two-handed hafted weapon has 50 hardness and 63 hit points. It would take a +5 or
Though Dorsey seems a bit off on some of his numbers.
"Weapons and armor normally made of steel that are made of adamantine have one-third more hit points than normal. Adamantine has 40 hit points per inch of thickness and hardness 20." ~PRD
I see where you're getting the numbers you're getting, but a sword isn't an inch thick in most cases. Thickness is derived from the "common" list using iron or steel as the base. If a sword has 10 hardness and 10 hit points, such as the base "common" two-handed sword, then we can infer that the sword is 1/3 of an inch thick. This is because Iron or Steel has 30 hp per inch of thickness, while this sword only has 10.

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Fomsie wrote:I see where you're getting the numbers you're getting, but a sword isn't an inch thick in most cases. Thickness is derived from the "common" list using iron or...WiseWolfOfYoitsu wrote:
Page 175 of the Core Rulebook has the basic stats, but you have to do actual math to get special materials and enhancements.*Add +2 for each +1 enhancement bonus of magic items.
*Add 10 hp for each +1 enhancement bonus of magic items.
*The hp value given is for Medium armor, weapons, and shields. Divide by 2 for each size category of the item smaller than Medium, or multiply it by 2 for each size category larger than Medium.
*Hardness is determined by material, but hafted weapons are based on wood unless it is a metal-based haft.*To get the base hp of gear, determine thickness based on the common hit point value, then divide into the base material hp/inch. now figure the new hit points based on the base value for the new material. Allow me to quote from General Dorsey's post in 2010:
General Dorsey wrote:...The weapon starts at 5 hardness and 10 hit points. Making it a +5 weapon adds 10 hardness and 50 hit points. Making it adamantine changes the base hardness to 40 so it's now hardness of 50. The hit points would have to be determined by thickness. The original item was iron or steel so it had 30 hit points/inch of thickness. Since it had 10 hit points, it is roughly 1/3 of an inch thick. Apply that to the adamantine and you get 40/3 = 13 (remember to round down). Now add the 50 additional hit points and you get 63 hit points.
So the +5 adamantine two-handed hafted weapon has 50 hardness and 63 hit points. It would take a +5 or
Though Dorsey seems a bit off on some of his numbers.
"Weapons and armor normally made of steel that are made of adamantine have one-third more hit points than normal. Adamantine has 40 hit points per inch of thickness and hardness 20." ~PRD
I'm pretty sure he is talking more about the hardness fifty than the HP. The example says that adamantine changes the base hardness to forty, which is in fact twice what adamantine's hardness actually is, twenty.

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Hillis Mallory III wrote:When one of the players announces that he has all the stats for Weapon HP and Hardness so he can Sunder without taking time to look up stats.Why is this bad?
It often requires a bit of recalculation on the DMs part to figure out the new attack and damage routines.

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blackbloodtroll wrote:It often requires a bit of recalculation on the DMs part to figure out the new attack and damage routines.Hillis Mallory III wrote:When one of the players announces that he has all the stats for Weapon HP and Hardness so he can Sunder without taking time to look up stats.Why is this bad?
So will lots of other debuffs.
This afternoon I had the experience of seeing my friend's barbarian take apart an old adventures. You know what sundering will really throw a GM off his game? Sundering an evil cleric's holy symbol.
Figuring out what spells he can still cast, that's time-consuming.
That said, served him right for negative channeling us.

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BigNorseWolf wrote:blackbloodtroll wrote:It often requires a bit of recalculation on the DMs part to figure out the new attack and damage routines.Hillis Mallory III wrote:When one of the players announces that he has all the stats for Weapon HP and Hardness so he can Sunder without taking time to look up stats.Why is this bad?So will lots of other debuffs.
This afternoon I had the experience of seeing my friend's barbarian take apart an old adventures. You know what sundering will really throw a GM off his game? Sundering an evil cleric's holy symbol.
Figuring out what spells he can still cast, that's time-consuming.
That said, served him right for negative channeling us.
just swap all the spells to Inflicts - starting with the highest levels..

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kinevon wrote:For your information:
From the Damage chapter of the CRB, under Attack Actions:
Quote:A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together. Unless otherwise specified, the threat range for a critical hit on an attack roll is 20, and the multiplier is ×2.It is the use of "usual" there that caused the confusion. After all, your Strength mod is one of your usual bonuses, but the +X from an Inspire Courage is not.That is the most unique interpretation of usual I have ever seen. The only damage that is excluded from multiplication on a crit is precision damage and is explicitly stated as doing so.
If inspire courage wasn't a usual bonus, then when would it apply to damage? In 15 years of 3.x, this is the first time I have ever seen this type of claim.
Last month had a GM rule that no bonuses are multiplied on a crit, only the base weapon dice, based on his interpretation of that passage. This was only the second worst rules interpretation of the session so we didn't bother calling the VL who we'd already had to bother once.

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Ascalaphus wrote:just swap all the spells to Inflicts - starting with the highest levels..BigNorseWolf wrote:blackbloodtroll wrote:It often requires a bit of recalculation on the DMs part to figure out the new attack and damage routines.Hillis Mallory III wrote:When one of the players announces that he has all the stats for Weapon HP and Hardness so he can Sunder without taking time to look up stats.Why is this bad?So will lots of other debuffs.
This afternoon I had the experience of seeing my friend's barbarian take apart an old adventures. You know what sundering will really throw a GM off his game? Sundering an evil cleric's holy symbol.
Figuring out what spells he can still cast, that's time-consuming.
That said, served him right for negative channeling us.
After some pageflipping, that's indeed what the GM did.

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My experiences with other PC's sundering has been that they've taken turns sundering a variety of the BBEG's stuff while that BBEG and his minion continued to wreck face. One of the people at the table ended up dying because the fight dragged on too long. As far as I'm concerned, sundering is inefficient, it slows down the game to check item hardness table then figure out HP then to figure out what happens if a caster has his X sundered.
Back on topic:
...and everyone asks where your pants are.

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Two 8 year olds at the table, but there's that one guy at the table who can't clean up his language despite all the gentle nudges in all the land, which merely cause him to double down. Not f-bombs, mind you, but not necessarily 8yo appropriate language.
Until you find out that the two tykes have mouths on them that would not only make a pirate blush but they know exactly what the words mean.

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...Rowdy Roddy Piper shows up and is all out of bubblegum.