<absolutely true stuffs>
Bah. You don't even need one nat-20 to evade a nuke, just situational awareness of what direction the blast is going to blow you.
Caveat: fast-regen is nevertheless highly advisable.
(Slim Jim's likely house-rule in the event of atomic game weaponry: The gamma/neutron flash at the moment of detonation is a 1,000d6 fire and poison omnidirectional ray (-1d6 per 10' of line-of-site distance or 1" thickness of stone walls; metal barriers ten times as effective, wood half as effective). Basically, you'd spontaneously combust where you stood before the blast-wave even arrived. In the improbable event you survive the charbroiling, fast-neutron bombardment has turned your body into Swiss cheese at the molecular level anyway, and your organs all shut down within days if not hours. --People did survive within a few hundred yards of the WWII bomb epicenters, but they were underground or behind multiple stone walls. Anybody in direct line-of-sight had their chromosomal structure obliterated, and were dead men walking.)
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Hell, this is a game that screws up longswords.How did it screw up longswords? Please explain.
Longswords should (and very obviously so) be damage type "P or S" (Piercing or Slashing). In two hands, they have the Blocking property, and masterwork longswords are finessable (well-made examples weighed under 3 lbs). And, while certainly not possessing the length of a halberd, you would be an absolute fool to try and fight an opponent wielding a longsword in reality if all you had was a shorter one-handed-hilt slashing weapon (e.g., a saber, cutlass, or scimitar). Slashing swords are effective against unarmored targets, but are almost wholly worthless versus armor of any type in reality. (Comics and RPGs wildly overrate the utility of slashing. The mythical "Lone Wolf and Cub" Dōtanuki that can chop through iron helms or a ship's mast is pure BS, or at least a magical adamantine weapon) The seemingly crazed swinging around you see in longsword techniques aren't actual attempts to strike the opponent, but maneuvers to breach his guard to permit a lethal piercing strike.
[img=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wow9NZa7RfU]str[/img]
There are only five videos on Szermierzy's channel, and everyone into medieval RPGs should view all of them. The forms shown are from the Italian master Fiore dei Liberi's "The Flower of Battle", a 600 year-old manuscript which has become the basis for a very recent (mostly within the last two decades, especially the last five years, from dissemination across the internet) re-learning of medieval longsword techniques forming the foundation for "HEMA" (historical European martial arts).
With a lethality responsive to construction and training (i.e., knowledge of how to employ a two-handed finessable weapon for offensive power as well as defense), longswords were the apex Western sword, and priced accordingly. But in the fantasy worlds of D&D and Pathfinder, 1st-level characters starting with one throw them away almost immediately...because the "Sword, Long, S, d8" weapon description is over forty years old at this point, dating from a time when the only "longsword" a game-designer could lay his hands on was a chunk of crap ground out of a junked truck's leaf-spring that felt like swinging a brick tied to the end of yardstick. You know, even the one-handed Viking "arming sword" (the prototypical d8 slasher) which developed into the longsword) merits more love than that.
training
The counterpoint to this is that the historical examples can be explained by 'training' feats like Weapon Versatility [deal S/P or B damage] and/or Advanced Weapon Training like Fighter’s Finesse.
So are the examples you have the result of the weapon itself or training that could be applied to any weapon? Should it be a blocking trait to the weapon or is it an ability like Opportune Parry and Riposte? With Blocking only being a +1 while fighting defensively, it's hard to point to something and claim it means blocking.
So it seems to be a difference in opinion on what properties are the weapons and which is the wielders abilities more than a "screw up".
...are the examples you have the result of the weapon itself...
The weapon. You do not want to get poked with this thing. Unlike slashing swords, these were designed to penetrate armor.
A longsword was longer than an arming sword, but shorter than a "hand and a half" bastardsword (which itself was a relatively trim 3.3 lbs.) The more finely made the sword, the lighter it was, and the better the steel, the sharper could be its point rather than having a round-nose "spatula" tip. (Even greatswords could be made with piercing points, and often were.) -- A longsword did not weigh more than a rapier (this is one thing 2e D&D got right, even though it made them both a ridiculously bulky 4 lbs.)
The notion that European medieval swords were unwieldy metal bashers (in contrast to, say, the oriental swords that are constantly gushed over) is pure bunk. This is a good article on the subject, by a weapons historian.
The weapon.
I understand that's what you think but I'm unconvinced that it's the only VALID answer and that's what I'd need to conclude 'they screwed up'. A pointy end doesn't mean that the optimal way to use the weapon is stabbing [especially without a metal gauntlet on]. I can also pommel strike with that longsword too but I don't think that means the weapon should include B damage.
Secondly, this is a roleplaying game not a reality simulator: even if you were 100% correct on real life longswords, pathfinder isn't meant to follow 100% real life in almost every way: it doesn't realistically mimic blood lose, falling, cube law or hundreds of other things: this is because of fun, balance and personal opinions of the creators and that's all that really matters for figuring out 'if they screwed up'.
PS: This will be all I post on this topic as it's off topic to the thread. This should be moved to a new thread if you wish to continue.
The weapon.I understand that's what you think but I'm unconvinced that it's the only VALID answer and that's what I'd need to conclude 'they screwed up'.
"They"? Nobody's naming names here, Greystone. I previously wrote: "...this is a game that screws up longswords., and that screw-up dates to 1974 when an early Renaissance longsword was first erroneously given the attributes of an 8th century spatha, and hasn't changed since.
its a terrible item not because of how it allows evasion with everything but because its cost is to damn high 25k for this kind of item is to muchWhich is why its a terrible item.Ring of evasion is treated as evasion, so it turns off in heavy armor.I am honestly not sure how true this is. Rogue evasion doesn't work unless you are in light or no armour. The gunslinger evasive ability (which grants evasion) has no armour limitations. Animal Companion Evasion has no armour limits. Ranger Evasion allows for medium armour. The ring doesn't include any limits.
The ring is on the expensive side, but it scales with level, at least. It's difficult to give a scaling item a fixed price that is fair for a broad level range. At level 20, evasion potentially shields you from like 50-55 points of damage (balor goes with a booom, ancient red dragon uses breath weapon). That's nearly a third of your health (assuming d10+3 HP per level), for just ~3% of your WBL. While the ring competes with other rings, at least with crafting you can bypass this and add evasion to another ring - for some extra gold, of course.
And since evasion usually needs at least 2 class levels, with few classes actually having it, it shouldn't be too cheap either. Especially not in a superior version that works with full plate.
I thought I'd pop in to follow up on a couple of questions / comments that arose from the thread.
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"The gaming group must have had serious interpersonal issues among the players & DM."
All too true I'm afraid. It took a bit to get those worked out.
"Why not let him climb the waterfall and fall into the water below?"
It was frozen on the side of a "glacier", not truly a glacier in the literal sense, but close enough for the campaign setting. The base of the waterfall opened onto a large relatively flat plain. The area had not always been frozen so, and the "flat plain" was actually a frozen lake.
The "water" below the waterfall was frozen solid as a rock, much like everything else around it, and thus offered no water to dive into. Much of the area around the waterfall I had described to the party as slippery as hell, complete with crazy penalties to combat, movement, etc etc due to slipping and falling all over the place.
NOTE: This scenario was played out relatively early after 3.0 was launched when much of the later rules for fighting on slippery surfaces were not really fleshed out yet, so much of it we made up as we went. Yes I gave the party full disclosure on how I was ruling on "slippery", etc. and they accepted that ruling at face value.
I even went to the extent of telling the gnome rogue in the party (you knew it had to be a rogue right?) "If this goes wrong your gonna get screwed." What he didn't know was the destruction of the water fall was already written into the game as a background battle. I thought the party would use the waterfall battle as a distraction to use one of server alternate routes and just go around it.
Background: The NPC party mage was shooting fireballs at the hobgoblins stationed in a look out position at the top of the waterfall. The outpost offered an excellent view of the frozen lake / plain below. It was the NPC party mage that actually caused the waterfall to shatter.
It is also worth mentioned that the rogue was using Invisibility (ring) and an Amulet of Non-Detection, as such the NPC mage had no idea where he was when the fireballs went off. Yes, the rogue was repeated warned of this fact.
"Why railroad the party into going up the waterfall?"
I. Did. Not.
They chose this route (against my asking them not to) instead of taking one of several alternate routes which were fully mapped out (and they were aware of that fact).
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Anyway, Thanks to everyone that weighted in on the original question about how they rule on Evasion / Ref Saves in general. Truth to tell I didn't see any real surprises (I thought there would be a MUCH wider range of answers offered).
Before anyone asks, yes I typically roll with Ref / Evasion working pretty much the same way we have been discussing, I was just curious if any one knew of some cool way of ruling on some of this that was more outside of the norm. Evasion vs Medium & Heavy armors being a good example of this. I never had any idea on that one. Thank you!
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With the roof collapsing I can easily imagine that there might be pockets where a piece of roof hits another or the wall, and an unrealistically fast rogue might be able to dodge into one. Basically with imagination all these 'problems' go away.
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I feel like unless the building is being professionally imploded by a team of engineers, it's not all going to fall down evenly or all at once. Part of the ceiling is going to fall in, leading to diminished structural integrity, leading to more parts of it falling in, etc. So the rogue with evasion goes though a process of moving from the spot that is suddenly unsafe to somewhere momentarily safe, repeating until the dust settles. Considering I've played basically this exact sequence in a number of video games, I'd totally let a rogue pull it off with good rolls.
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I was just curious if any one knew of some cool way of ruling on some of this that was more outside of the norm.
Then why didn't you simply ask that instead of saying that it has always come across as grossly unbalancing at your table?
With the roof collapsing I can easily imagine that there might be pockets where a piece of roof hits another or the wall, and an unrealistically fast rogue might be able to dodge into one. Basically with imagination all these 'problems' go away.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ByWallThatIsHoley