Oh Celestia ... the returning weapon ability and all the garbage around it with timing and having to wait a round and ... gah ...I wonder if that's an outgrowth of the rule-makers having Marvel Thor's interaction with Mjolnir in the back of their minds.
Probably. Not denying that it makes a degree of sense, but it's really annoying and doesn't do much to make thrown-weapon characters viable. Heck, I may just go the 4e route on this and say any magical thrown weapon automatically returns.
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This also gets compounded with the abstraction of HP. Losing HP doesn't necessarily mean physical damage was done...Trivially easy to disprove. Injury poisons always call for a save, regardless of how much damage they inflict, ergo some damage MUST have been done.
This is why I said 'doesn't necessarily mean', not 'never means'.
Oh Celestia ... the returning weapon ability and all the garbage around it with timing and having to wait a round and ... gah.
It comes back immediately, and you can throw it again immediately if you have another attack coming this round.
Seconded; the way returning weapons work essentially makes throwing weapon builds completely nonviable once you get to a level where magic weapons are expected PC gear.
Things I have come to find absurd:
- Having both natural armor and armor in the game and the fact that they stack. If I managed to bypass the plate armor you are wearing but not bypass your scales/skin/aura then why bother including the plate armor? This one just doesn't make sense to me. Either way it is armor, so why not just have one armor score and go with which ever is highest? Cut down on the numbers.
- 20+ bonus types...why? Can't we just simplify things and lump them together as race, class, arcane, and divine bonuses? Makes things much simpler than having deflection, natural armor, luck, profane, holy, enhancement, etc.
- (This started with 3.0) Just about everything about monsters. We have what, at first glance, looks like a really neat thing: monsters work like characters...except they don't. How does a monster take levels (HD) in monster (if this was Monsters Inc. it would be a different story)? Why do monsters have separate attack types and actions that work differently from weapons? Why do they have different hit die types not by class/function but by the race itself? Do we really need all of these separate rules for monsters?
- (This applies to many RPGs) Attributes - why do we go through a lot of effort to generate a number (the attribute score) just so we can generate another number (the attribute modifier)? Why not just generate the modifier?
- Schools of magic - they were clunky in AD&D, more clunky in 3.X and baked-in clunky in Pathfinder. I would just as soon get rid of them.
- The 3.X and Pathfinder skill system - this is not so much absurd, as I am confused as to its purpose. What are we trying to emulate? Everything a character knows? All of their specialized knowledge? The unique things they know? I feel like it was created without deciding what exactly it's purpose was and therefore kind-of-sorta-tries to be both.
- Wizards can fly around and still cast earth-shattering/reality-altering spells but a dude with a sword can't run up and try to hit a dude more than once
- Shields, why do they suck?
- Exotic weapons, why do they exist and why do we spend a feat to be proficient with them? Wouldn't the list of exotic weapons be based off the campaign setting? Aren't kamas and sickles the same thing?
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Things I have come to find absurd:
[list]Having both natural armor and armor in the game and the fact that they stack. If I managed to bypass the plate armor you are wearing but not bypass your scales/skin/aura then why bother including the plate armor? This one just doesn't make sense to me. Either way it is armor, so why not just have one armor score and go with which ever is highest? Cut down on the numbers.
I'm guess because the guy with armor and scales is harder to stab than the guy with just armor, which makes sense. But then, if that were true, mage armor would stack with armor, which isn't true.
So yeah, this is weird sometimes, in that the game allows certain things to stack because they make sense that way and don't matter for PCs, but then other things don't stack in a largely gamist way because it would make things too easy for PCs.
20+ bonus types...why? Can't we just simplify things and lump them together as race, class, arcane, and divine bonuses? Makes things much simpler than having deflection, natural armor, luck, profane, holy, enhancement, etc.
I like having a bunch of bonus types: It gives room for some things to stack without letting everything stack.
I'm kind of of the mind that sentient humanoid-ish creatures needn't have super amounts of natural armor in most cases. It's pointless and like Set has pointed out, the moment lizardfolk or troglodytes or pretty much any humanoid with lots of natural armor dons some real armor they become really tough. Since I'm a big proponent of sentient creatures not acting stupid, this is one of the things that can crop up in a game.
For example, if you encounter a troglodyte in my games, expect their warriors to do things like don some armor, even if it's nothing but some leather or studded leather. If it happens to be chain-mail or similar you can expect something like 22 AC without anything but armor and natural armor. That's pretty potent AC for what amounts to a CR 1-2 creature. :P
I don't think it's a problem with natural armor so much as it is an issue with creature design. I don't mind certain giant brutish creatures of legend having tons of natural armor (dragons, hydras, and similar things spring to mind) but y'know, I think a lot of beasties should probably have less natural armor and just be bigger damage sponges.
Ice Tomb
Pondering walking over to pick up my weekly lottery ticket, and am wondering how much of the winnings it would cost to pay Paizo to just take it out of the next printing...
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Y'know, this thread has convince me that Natural Armor should have a maximum. Skin just doesn't get any harder after a certain point. So I looked at the dinosaurs, who seem to max out at +14 or so, and thought about capping it at +15, but thought about Dragons and other creatures who could reasonably be tougher than that and upped it to +20.
From now on, any excess Natural Armor above that I'm changing to a Deflection bonus (stacking with any they already have naturally). And on Dragons specifically, I've decided that the progression should be more natural than that, and that they're already overtly magical, so I'm having half their Natural Armor (rounded down) simply be converted to Deflection bonus (which neatly maxes the toughest Dragon at +20 each Deflection and NA). This makes creatures who I change thus tougher on touch AC (much tougher in the case of older dragons), but also unable to effectively use Rings of Protection. That works for me, especially in terms of making ancient Dragons not pushovers to Touch Attacks.
So, thanks for a new House Rule! :)
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'Miss-fu' hit points are pretty absurd, IMO (how do you heal a miss?). I'm glad that's not really what D&D, d20, or Pathfinder have ever really seemed to encourage to me.
Despite the fact that HP were expressly and consistently described that way since at least 1e?
Sorry, but if a giant throws a building-sized rock at you, that kind of falls apart.
'Miss-fu' hit points are pretty absurd, IMO (how do you heal a miss?). I'm glad that's not really what D&D, d20, or Pathfinder have ever really seemed to encourage to me.Despite the fact that HP were expressly and consistently described that way since at least 1e?
Sorry, but if a giant throws a building-sized rock at you, that kind of falls apart.
By the same token though, when you take HP damage from standing in Lava you are literally taking physical damage. The Lava can't "miss" you when you are standing on/in it. But if you are a high enough level martial, you can easily stand in lava with nary and issue.
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I never said losing HP *never* meant you weren't taking physical damage. But if two guys are having a basic swordfight, it's entirely possible neither will make physical contact with one another until that one final strike which ends the duel.
And falling into lava just means you're dead, barring a really high fire resistance or immunity, IMG.
Stuff like this is why I'm seriously considering using Wounds and Vigor in my next game, though. Lava and such would just directly attack wounds.
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Are there specific ones or even entire sections that you simply dispense with because you find them ponderous, convoluted, detrimental to flow, nonsensical, irritating or just effin' stupid? Do you rewrite, hand-wave, rule ad hoc, or ignore?
Please don't attack others' comments. Simply list those YOU dislike and why.
Spell Resistance. It, in my opinion, is hold-over from older versions of the game and at bets sits around collecting dust, at worst slows the game with another unnecessary layer of dice rolls.
A long time ago we simply made Spell Resistance a monster ability/trait that granted a +4 bonus to saves vs. spells and spell-like abilities. We've never looked back.
Martials have to overcome AC and then Damage Reduction where appropriate.
Casters should have to overcome Saves and then Energy Resistance where appropriate.
Spell Resistance and its related feats are just an unnecessary stumbling block/tax. When retro-engineering game design to determine how needed a thing actually is, I always ask myself 'if this rule never existed, would there be an outcry for it?' and in the case of SR, I think the answer is a resounding no.
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By the same token though, when you take HP damage from standing in Lava you are literally taking physical damage. The Lava can't "miss" you when you are standing on/in it. But if you are a high enough level martial, you can easily stand in lava with nary and issue.
I ran a game where my player was almost offended when his gnome paladin survived being thrown in lava and actually managed to trudge back to solid land, his armor glowing white hot. The fact that I didn't just straight up kill him was such a jarring blow to his suspension of disbelief that I generally just have total immersion in lava kill characters if they don't have spells or armor abilities in place to allow them an excuse for surviving, or if they're of a level sufficiently high enough (15+) that we've left the "normal" physical laws so far behind that a dip in lava doesn't seem like a big deal.
Spell Resistance. It, in my opinion, is hold-over from older versions of the game and at bets sits around collecting dust, at worst slows the game with another unnecessary layer of dice rolls.
A long time ago we simply made Spell Resistance a monster ability/trait that granted a +4 bonus to saves vs. spells and spell-like abilities. We've never looked back.
Martials have to overcome AC and then Damage Reduction where appropriate.
Casters should have to overcome Saves and then Energy Resistance where appropriate.
Spell Resistance and its related feats are just an unnecessary stumbling block/tax. When retro-engineering game design to determine how needed a thing actually is, I always ask myself 'if this rule never existed, would there be an outcry for it?' and in the case of SR, I think the answer is a resounding no.
Hear, hear! Spell resistance is an...adequate mechanism for making a monster hard to charm or slap with a save-or-die like slay living (just buffing saves has some weirder math than a second die roll). But for making a creature with fire resistance even harder to hit with a fireball is just insult to injury.
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'Miss-Fu' HP explains injury poisons just fine. In that instance, under those circumstances, physical damage was taken. You really don't get what 'not necessarily' means, do you? Quit acting like I'm saying never, please.
It's simple; you look at the result, then narrate based on that result. If someone loses their massive damage save and dies, then they were hit. If they succeeded, they weren't (or were grazed/glancing blow/whatever). If you get swallowed by a purple worm, then yes, you were actually hit. You could have leapt over the tail swipe, though, merely exhausting yourself and your overall defensive capabilities (HP).
It all depends on the specific circumstances; the nature of the attack, what the defender does or is capable of, etc.
Just as losing HP doesn't mean damage was taken, regaining HP doesn't mean physical damage was undone. Cure spells and such could rejuvenate the recipient, undoing the fatigue that makes it hard for you to keep your guard up and dodge attacks. It could be Warlord-style morale-boosting, where you're still hurt but fight on.
No you didn't, but you are refusing the rever. Losing hp always means you are taking physical damage. In your example, that only works if they always miss until one does enough damage to go from full hp to 'I give up!'
I said nothing of the sort, though I admit to some ambiguity in my phrasing. Mechanically, they would both be losing HP during the battle with mechanical Hits (attack roll => AC). Narratively, they would be parrying, blocking, dodging, and so forth with little more than a scratch until the fatal blow is struck (HP reduced to negatives).
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They don't really mean anything more or less than that, and they can signify anything from a general wearing down of your stamina in a fight to brutal horrific gashes all of your body. As an abstraction, they're whatever seems right for the moment, or whatever they need to be due to other rules interactions (like poison).
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I don't like the ability adjustments based on age. This age discrimination has no place in today's gaming. I want to play a grizzled middle-aged warrior and not suffer a penalty to my physical stats.
I am not arguing that a decrease in physical stats and an increase in mental stats makes some real world sense. I just don't think we need it. So, I am arguing that it is unnecessary, although not absurd.
Plus, it eliminates being able to make your wizard really old for a cheesy buff. Your characters age becomes a role-playing decision only.
I liken it to 1e when female characters couldn't have as high a strength as male characters. Sure, in the real world the strongest men are stronger than the strongest women, but I'm not here for the real world. The powers that be at some point decided that this was unnecessarily restricting of female players/characters and I feel they should do the same for our elderly or even middle-aged players/characters.
Hear, hear! Spell resistance is an...adequate mechanism for making a monster hard to charm or slap with a save-or-die like slay living (just buffing saves has some weirder math than a second die roll). But for making a creature with fire resistance even harder to hit with a fireball is just insult to injury.
Not quite Ross- it's "just adding yet another %$#@! die roll to slow down combat". ;-)
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They don't really mean anything more or less than that, and they can signify anything from a general wearing down of your stamina in a fight to brutal horrific gashes all of your body. As an abstraction, they're whatever seems right for the moment, or whatever they need to be due to other rules interactions (like poison).
Exactly. I prefer the narrative freedom. If Mr. Burly Barbarian wants to stand there and take it, he can. If Mr. Dodgy Swashbuckler wants to evade it, he can. Mr. Wizard can put up short-lived mystic shields. Mr. Cleric's god can intervene to protect him.
One thing that bothers me about Barbarians is rage starting at +4/+4. It makes them a very attractive dip for fighty/stabby types, because one level of barbarian gives you a great movement buff all the time and +2 to hit and +2 (or more) to damage on demand.
I'm not sure the best way to reconfigure them, but a level one barbarian should only get +5 movement speed (or maybe none at all), and rage should start at +2/+2.
"On demand" until you run out because you only have 6 rounds a day with a dip.
+2/+2 Rage is really not worth having.
Rules I dislike
Muchkining is frowned upon.
Dmers that disallow metagaming. Obvious Metagaming doesn't seem right, but players can and should be allowed sly metagaming.
"On demand" until you run out because you only have 6 rounds a day with a dip.
And you can't just go 'one round and done' for momentary bursts 'cause you get fatigued afterwards.
Rules I dislike
Muchkining is frowned upon.
Dmers that disallow metagaming. Obvious Metagaming doesn't seem right, but players can and should be allowed sly metagaming.
I don't even know what this means.
I'd take 2 levels, personally. Enough rage rounds to last 2 combats easily, and then I can get extra rage power (and uncanny dodge ain't bad). And getting fatigue immunity isn't that hard either, after a certain point.
A two-level dip in Barbarian is a great move IMO - if you take the Berserker of the Society trait, you'd probably looking at maybe 8-10 rounds of Rage at least, and that's more than enough for two average combats... plus you'll get a useful Rage power as well.
I know of a Skull n' Shackles group that required (by unanimous consent) every member of the group to take 1 or 2 levels of Barbarian before continuing on in whatever class they chose. It was kinda cool - it tied them all together thematically and with SnS's many 1 encounter days, it proved very effective as well (especially with a Savage Skald on board).
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Boiling water deals boiling damage. By RAW, you can boil a red dragon to death.
Fire Resistance 1 makes you immune to lava/magma.
I don't even know what this means.Rules I dislike
Muchkining is frowned upon.
Dmers that disallow metagaming. Obvious Metagaming doesn't seem right, but players can and should be allowed sly metagaming.
My guess would be "It's a troll, use fire!"= bad
"Hmm, we can't seem to kill it- I know let's burn it!"= good.
One thing that bothers me about Barbarians is rage starting at +4/+4. It makes them a very attractive dip for fighty/stabby types, because one level of barbarian gives you a great movement buff all the time and +2 to hit and +2 (or more) to damage on demand.
I'm not sure the best way to reconfigure them, but a level one barbarian should only get +5 movement speed (or maybe none at all), and rage should start at +2/+2.
Yeah, I always thought those things are weird too. Especially comparing the barb's fast movement to the monk's -- one has to really earn every 5 feet of extra speed, while the other gets a lumped 10 feet right off the bat! Granted, the monk eventually becomes the Flash, but it's just so asymmetrical for no good reason.
All things told, the barb is simply an extreme case of front-loading.
"On demand" until you run out because you only have 6 rounds a day with a dip.And you can't just go 'one round and done' for momentary bursts 'cause you get fatigued afterwards.
Six rounds is along time, combat-wise. If you play it safe, 1st level rage is essentially an encounter-long ability.
Fire Resistance 1 makes you immune to lava/magma.
"Lava Effects
Lava or magma deals 2d6 points of fire damage per round of exposure, except in the case of total immersion (such as when a character falls into the crater of an active volcano), which deals 20d6 points of fire damage per round.Damage from lava continues for 1d3 rounds after exposure ceases, but this additional damage is only half of that dealt during actual contact (that is, 1d6 or 10d6 points per round). Immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity or resistance to fire, lava or magma."
so= no.
Six rounds is along time, combat-wise. If you play it safe, 1st level rage is essentially an encounter-long ability.
Which is a far cry from 'on demand', was my point.
I know of a Skull n' Shackles group that required (by unanimous consent) every member of the group to take 1 or 2 levels of Barbarian before continuing on in whatever class they chose. It was kinda cool - it tied them all together thematically and with SnS's many 1 encounter days, it proved very effective as well (especially with a Savage Skald on board).
We did this once for RPing reason, and it also worked to slightly nerf spellcasters- and at the same time make them more survivable.
Which is a far cry from 'on demand', was my point.
Six rounds is along time, combat-wise. If you play it safe, 1st level rage is essentially an encounter-long ability.
Ah. I think I read Ross' 'on demand' comment quite a bit more conservatively than you did.
"Damage from lava continues for 1d3 rounds after exposure ceases, but this additional damage is only half of that dealt during actual contact (that is, 1d6 or 10d6 points per round). Immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity to lava or magma. A creature immune to fire might still drown if completely immersed in lava (see Drowning)."
Fire Resistance 1 makes you immune to lava/magma.
"Lava Effects
Lava or magma deals 2d6 points of fire damage per round of exposure, except in the case of total immersion (such as when a character falls into the crater of an active volcano), which deals 20d6 points of fire damage per round.Damage from lava continues for 1d3 rounds after exposure ceases, but this additional damage is only half of that dealt during actual contact (that is, 1d6 or 10d6 points per round). Immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity or resistance to fire, lava or magma."
so= no.
Ah. I think I read Ross' 'on demand' comment quite a bit more conservatively than you did.Which is a far cry from 'on demand', was my point.
Six rounds is along time, combat-wise. If you play it safe, 1st level rage is essentially an encounter-long ability.
Indeed: My point with 'on demand' was that it wasn't always-on (compared with fast movement). It was also that it is activated as a swift action. Getting a bull's strength and bear's endurance for the rest of the encounter, possibly more than once a day (plenty of fights don't last three rounds) is a pretty good ability.
I was not trying to say it was an 'at-will' ability. But a Brb1/FtrX has it on tap anytime he really needs those hit points or +2 to hit and +2(+3 if THW/TWF) to damage.
That HAS to be an error.
A red dragon that can swim through lava is harmed by sunbathing in the desert.
"Damage from lava continues for 1d3 rounds after exposure ceases, but this additional damage is only half of that dealt during actual contact (that is, 1d6 or 10d6 points per round). Immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity to lava or magma. A creature immune to fire might still drown if completely immersed in lava (see Drowning)."
Fire Resistance 1 makes you immune to lava/magma.
"Lava Effects
Lava or magma deals 2d6 points of fire damage per round of exposure, except in the case of total immersion (such as when a character falls into the crater of an active volcano), which deals 20d6 points of fire damage per round.Damage from lava continues for 1d3 rounds after exposure ceases, but this additional damage is only half of that dealt during actual contact (that is, 1d6 or 10d6 points per round). Immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity or resistance to fire, lava or magma."
so= no.
See, dude, that's why you don't use the non-canon PFSRD as a source for things like this, I used the actual Paizo cite.
So, still wrong.
"Damage from lava continues for 1d3 rounds after exposure ceases, but this additional damage is only half of that dealt during actual contact (that is, 1d6 or 10d6 points per round). Immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity to lava or magma. A creature immune to fire might still drown if completely immersed in lava (see Drowning)."
Fire Resistance 1 makes you immune to lava/magma.
"Lava Effects
Lava or magma deals 2d6 points of fire damage per round of exposure, except in the case of total immersion (such as when a character falls into the crater of an active volcano), which deals 20d6 points of fire damage per round.Damage from lava continues for 1d3 rounds after exposure ceases, but this additional damage is only half of that dealt during actual contact (that is, 1d6 or 10d6 points per round). Immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity or resistance to fire, lava or magma."
so= no.
See, dude, that's why you don't use the non-canon PFSRD as a source for things like this, I used the actual Paizo cite.
So, still wrong.
Actually, the d20PFSRD is the more accurate resource, the SRD is rife with errors.
For example, if you open up your physical copy of the Core Rule Book and flip to page 444 it actually says, "Immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity to lava
or magma."
Now, I only have the 1st and 4th printing of the CRB so I downloaded the errata pdf for the 5th printing and double checked and nothing was changed that I could find. So, RAW, if you have fire resistance 1, you are immune to lava/magma. Obviously, this is a mistake, but it further shows that the d20pfsrd is the more reliable resource in transcribing the rules.