Pathfinder: the Lowdown

[virgil]

The advantage would be cost efficiency, because enchanting a shield costs half as much as enchanting a weapon, let alone a weapon that's +2/3 greater than your shield's enchanted for; which also helps with that whole DR penetrating thing. You could also enchant it as a weapon with just the defending enchant (so +8k), and turn all of the attack/damage bonus from the feat into potentially a large enough AC bonus to care about. Since you're also proficient with TWF, dual-wield shields for extra savings and possibly enough damage to make a difference. You technically get a free Bull-Rush with every attack, using your attack bonus instead of your CMB, but you'll likely opt out using it except in select situations.

It can be worth a feat slot in PF. TWF relies on getting bonus damage on your attacks, which this feat gives you. In aggregate, I think you'd actually have better attack/damage/defense than my old archer if you used the non-errata'd Shield Master, which you'd need to offset the loss of range and ability to ignore miss chances.

[virgil]

They did have a final answer as to what happens if you have natural attacks and weapons, and how the attack routine goes down. You simply add the two sets together and automatically consider all of the natural attacks as secondary attacks. Unarmed strikes are in the 'weapon' category for this.

Therefore, a shifted druid w/armor spikes or a polymorphed monk get their full normal iterative attacks, then slap down however many natural attacks their creature form has (I suggest the chimera or dire tiger).

[hogarth]

They did have a final answer as to what happens if you have natural attacks and weapons, and how the attack routine goes down. You simply add the two sets together and automatically consider all of the natural attacks as secondary attacks. Unarmed strikes are in the 'weapon' category for this.

Therefore, a shifted druid w/armor spikes or a polymorphed monk get their full normal iterative attacks, then slap down however many natural attacks their creature form has (I suggest the chimera or dire tiger).

But note that: "A monk with natural weapons cannot use such weapons as part of a flurry of blows, nor can he make natural attacks in addition to his flurry of blows attacks."

[virgil]

And there I was, poised to believe there might somehow be a silver lining to the monk.

[Roy]

When is there ever?

[Username17]

When is there ever?

Never. But every so often they realize that something awesome they were giving Druids could be used by Monks to almost catch up and they have to nip that shit right in the bud!

-Username17

[Roy]

When is there ever?

Never. But every so often they realize that something awesome they were giving Druids could be used by Monks to almost catch up and they have to nip that shit right in the bud!

-Username17

Like, holy shit OMG really?

...



Ya know, they should just cut the crap. Any enemy over level... let's say 6 has a statblock that looks like this.

You suck, reroll (Ex): Range: 1 mile, passive aura effect. You instantly die, and your character sheet spontaneously combusts. There is no saving throw to avoid this effect. Only NPC classes* can be affected by this. If this ability attempts to affect a PC class** this ability instead affects the user. These effects are resolved simultaneously, therefore it is possible for this ability to affect some targets before the user's death.

* - Adept, Aristocrat, Barbarian, Commoner, Expert, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Warrior.

** - Bard***, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard.

*** - Well, they're certainly better than the non casters. And they get save or dies. Maybe that's still not good enough to play the same game, but they might be ok.

[tussock]

OTOH, here's a method that works for natural weapon monks, basically.

Armour spikes act like "armed" unarmed strikes, same as the spiked gauntlet, because otherwise it's fucking stupid. Well, it's still stupid, but not stab-yourself-in-the-eye-with-a-pencil stupid.

To use an unarmed strike replaces any one claw or slam attack, just like using a weapon does. Using flurry replaces two of them, just like TWFing does. Further natural attacks are the same as usual, and reduced to secondary as needed.

Body types without claws, slams, or weapon attacks must forgo some other natural attack to use unarmed strikes, typically a tail or bite, as they're assumed not to have any other useful appendages to strike with (and humping monsters to death is more with the pencil).

You can't flurry when a body type has only a single natural attack like a T-Rex, but you do gain 1.5x Str on your base attacks. Or not. That's right, but it's a nerf.

[FatR]

Posed the question about SD in their GM thread. No answer as of yet.

Out of morbid curiosity, can you give a link, please?

[TOZ]

I don't think fbmf would appreciate that, but I can copypasta.

What exactly is the purpose behind Alistraxia's inclusion in the adventure? I think it can be used for plot hooks to build off of, but it seems rather weak.

In my opinion, the nefarious marilith was included in the final adventure to show the PC's that even with the power they have honed and amass, they are still no match for a Demon Lord of Golarion. Going into the final part of the AP, my character's chests are puffed up so large they are about to float. Just about everyone has an AC over 30 now and our archery focused fighter can dish out over 100 points of damage dependably each round.

So they fight valiantly against Allevrah and her forces, come out the other end victorious to find a demon lady that they cannot and should not kill. And what does she do? She explains that her evil masters are all powerful and that they are amused by todays events. Basically telling the PC's hey, you guys put on an entertaining show! What? Why am I not upset? Because all that you've done doesn't matter one iota in my master's plan. And oh by the way if you feel like giving up and joining the wining side, take the formula for plucking stars and hide it in a major library. All will be forgiven and hey, maybe we can hang out some time. mwuhahaha.

Okay, I digress, but Paizo makes use of this tactic twice in the AP. Once at the end to show the party that the Demon Lord hasn't been stopped, hell hasn't even missed a step. The other time is in AP 4 when they confront Alcanviss Vonnarc. She plays the same game but with the angle of the omnipotent power of the drow race.

I honestly, see the purpose for both encounters, but don't expect them to make your PC's happy. Their intended purpose is quite the opposite.

That's what I love about RotRL and LoF, in the end you get to kick the booty of the BBEG and it's over, the end, no dark masters or evil twin brothers.

CotCT doesn't let you kill the *really* BBEG, but in the end the players should hate Miss I so much that doing her in is even more rewarding.

SD drops the ball, as in the end it's the good old "oh she was just a meaningless pawn of greater evil, now so long suckers !". And unlike Ileosa, you don't get to dislike her nearly enough.

So no official reply, but some community opinions.

[Roy]

Wait a minute. What level was this again? Over 15 right? Which means a hundred damage a round is trivial, and an AC of 30 means they all get hit on negative 10s or negative 15s by everything right?

Of course they got treated like disposable mooks, they are.

Now if only I still had the statblock for my Mariliths lying around.

[Username17]

An out-of-the box, naked Marilith with no equipment has an AC of 37 and six attacks at +25 and a CL 16 blade barrier. However it is equipped with "1d4 Magic Weapons" in addition to having standard equipment. Given that those are all Major Magic Items, a bog standard Marilith has a minimum of +3 weapons off that list. The average result is actually having a +4 weapon with 2 special abilities. So yeah, her first attacks are going to be hitting on a 1. But let me tell you, the eighteenth attack only hits on like a 12+.

-Username17

[Roy]

AC 37? I see 29 and Unholy Aura, which is 33. Where is the other 4 coming from?

Also, I only see 10 attacks. 4 with primary sword, one with each of the other five swords, and a tail. It's a moot point, because anyone that thinks an AC of 30 is good past about level 7 or so is going to be long dead before she gets to the attacks with penalties anyways.

When I rolled up the first one she ended up getting a +3 Flaming Burst and a Luckblade, the other four got her at will Magic Weapon cast on them.

I forget what the second got, but it was a lot of stuff pertaining to critical hits like bursts, maiming, etc.

In any case the main point I was making here is that adding '12 levels of Rogue' doesn't actually boost the Marilith's capabilities much at all, while supposedly doing so. So she's treated as 12 levels higher but really doesn't have much to show for it except some HP, and about +9 to hit. Of course then again, if the characters are so incompetent so as to think 100 DPR is actually worth a damn at these levels, they are probably so incompetent so as to not pack the obligatory Heavy Fort, and an extra 6d6 or whatever will mow the gimps down.

Also, you can identify the worst DMs very easily. They're the ones who try to make encounters 'impossible' by just throwing lots of levels at it because they don't know how to make encounters actually difficult, and they don't know how to write properly so they have to try to randomly cock block you with uber NPCs. Any competent player makes a total joke of their campaign as a result.

Normally that drek was reserved for the Forgettable Realms, but apparently the Paizils want to move in on their territory.

[Username17]

AC 37? I see 29 and Unholy Aura, which is 33. Where is the other 4 coming from?

Blade Barrier, which she has up continuously, provides a +4 Cover Bonus to AC.

Also, I only see 10 attacks. 4 with primary sword, one with each of the other five swords, and a tail. It's a moot point, because anyone that thinks an AC of 30 is good past about level 7 or so is going to be long dead before she gets to the attacks with penalties anyways.

Good point. I forgot that they mysteriously didn't give her a source of pounce or even Improved Multiweapon Fighting.

When I rolled up the first one she ended up getting a +3 Flaming Burst and a Luckblade, the other four got her at will Magic Weapon cast on them.

Was it an Anarchic Luckblade? I fucking love it when the chart generates the really crazy crap like that.

In any case the main point I was making here is that adding '12 levels of Rogue' doesn't actually boost the Marilith's capabilities much at all, while supposedly doing so. So she's treated as 12 levels higher but really doesn't have much to show for it except some HP, and about +9 to hit. Of course then again, if the characters are so incompetent so as to think 100 DPR is actually worth a damn at these levels, they are probably so incompetent so as to not pack the obligatory Heavy Fort, and an extra 6d6 or whatever will mow the gimps down.

That's my impression. I wouldn't actually walk into a 16th level adventure without having Padding or Daistanna of Heavy Fortification. That crap costs like 36k, it's literally chump change to characters of that level. But we already established that she'd be hitting 9 or 10 times a round (even people who got the obligatory displacement would be chastized to note that Mariliths ignore displacement), so the extra 183 damage per round from just the sneak attack would hurt.

But yeah, it's kind of weird. If you aren't shitting yourself because you're dealing with "a Marilith" then you aren't going to be shitting yourself just because she has sneak attack. I mean fuck, that's not even enough Rogue Levels to bypass Uncanny Dodge, so whatever.

Also, you can identify the worst DMs very easily. They're the ones who try to make encounters 'impossible' by just throwing lots of levels at it because they don't know how to make encounters actually difficult, and they don't know how to write properly so they have to try to randomly cock block you with uber NPCs. Any competent player makes a total joke of their campaign as a result.

Normally that drek was reserved for the Forgettable Realms, but apparently the Paizils want to move in on their territory.

This is very true.

-Username17

[hogarth]

Blade Barrier, which she has up continuously, provides a +4 Cover Bonus to AC.

That's bizarre. So she spends her entire day walking around like:

Round 1: Move 40', cast Blade Barrier around self.
Round 2: Dispel Blade Barrier, move 40'.
Round 3: Goto 1.

And even then she still only has Blade Barrier up half the time.

(On a side note, the PFRPG marilith can only cast Blade Barrier 3/day.)

[Roy]

I can't see her actually doing that. The Marilith is a beatstick. If she spends all her time surrounding herself with a Blade Barrier, then the PCs can just stand back and wreck her shit. After all, it's bad enough she can't even fly or use ranged attacks at level 16. I haven't even touched on how offensive it is to not be able to do it at level 28.

Come to think of it, it's hard to justify why she'd use it at all. Action Economy. She's better off just auto attacking, and piddly shit damage is not going to discourage escape, even if you're still doing that by retreating with your legs. If nothing else, it's less painful than letting her get double digit attacks on you.

Anyways when I made mine, they had some of those skill tricks. Some of which help with charging. Cleric tried to hold her off with a Blade Barrier, but she just Twisted Charge Pounced through it and ate the 10% damage. Luckily the Cleric was not a gimp, and survived with like 20% health.

As for the Luckblade, no. I just rolled on the default chart, it went to 'named item' and then to 'Luckblade, 1 Wish'. Technically a Luckblade is a shortsword, but I made it a longsword because that's what she fucking uses.

Anyways, the first Marilith was dealt with pretty easily once the party had the others under control, and the only one that died was a cohort (who did not have heavy fort, and was subjected to multiple criticals).

The second one was a lot more hardcore with fucking Master of the Unseen Hand and Extraordinary Concentration to make that a Swift action. Also, I think the dice gave her two different +10 weapons, or something amazing like that. Though granted they weren't very good +10 weapons, since one was a Vorpal, and the other had a bunch of crit stuff but still. Lol, she never even got a turn. Which just goes to show beatsticks are never level appropriate at those levels, because she totally got wrecked by Maze + a full round of actions from everyone before she could act. Wizards for the win. And ya know what? That's fine with me.

Oh and if you want to try to make Mariliths level appropriate despite the fact they aren't, Scimitars and Blood in the Water works decently.

[Username17]

It depends on how you think Blade Barrier works, because it's frankly unclear. In previous editions it was clear that you could cast your starting point of Blade Barrier on a person and then the hole in the middle would simply follow them around. 3.5 "standardized" the nomenclature of Blade Barrier and in so doing made it unclear whether that could still be done, because there's no fucking target line in the spell. But it's still a 6th level spell, so I'm going to assume that it's still better than fireball and thus still does the thing it used to do (albeit with a nerfed killzone).

Which is to say that you determine the effect on the time of casting, which would be to make the hole in the middle 10' across and then go on a fucking rampage because there's portable cover and a 16-die brutality zone all around the Marilith.

-Username17

[hogarth]

It depends on how you think Blade Barrier works, because it's frankly unclear.

"An immobile, vertical curtain of whirling blades shaped of pure force springs into existence."

Yup, clear as mud.

[Roy]

If Blade Barrier could follow you around it certainly would be useful both in that way and in general. But it doesn't, so it's not worth casting by the Marilith, and not really worth casting in general.

Though as a result of this conversation I am considering changing that, just so the spell can be useful again, if I ever run another PnP game to do so. It's not as if a few D6s are significant, or even that big of a deal. Even if the PCs haven't casually gotten Evasion to just not care about nickels and dimes.

[Username17]

This is D&D. "Immobile" on a spell means that you can't change the center of the effect. Whether that center can itself be on a mobile object or not is variable. But most things can be.

If you cast Blade Barrier in the middle of a ship, it moves with the ship. It does not buzzsaw through the length of the ship as it moves past. On the other hand, if you cast it on the surface of the water, it will chew through the whole ship as it sails. The static position is always relative to the thing you're targeting as the middle. When you target a point on the ground it continues to rotate around the center of the planet and the sun along with that point on the ground.

So the most plausible reading actually is that you can cast it on a person or a helmet or something and then have it stay immobile relative to them. But yes, putting the word "immobile" in there gives the impression that it was being nerfed to only be allowed to be targeted on large objects like trees and houses and points on the ground. But it doesn't actually say that.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Whether that center can itself be on a mobile object or not is variable. But most things can be.

If you cast Blade Barrier in the middle of a ship, it moves with the ship. It does not buzzsaw through the length of the ship as it moves past.

It pretty much HAS to work the way you put it: otherwise, the movement + rotation of the planet would seriously cause all those immobile-point-in-space spells to rapidly race off in a direction that seriously may as well be random. See: immovable rods smashing holes in PCs, fortresses, planets and space ships.

Seriously. It makes no sense if you attCLANG!

What the fuck was that?

[RandomCasualty2]

It pretty much HAS to work the way you put it: otherwise, the movement + rotation of the planet would seriously cause all those immobile-point-in-space spells to rapidly race off in a direction that seriously may as well be random.

Well planetary rotation is pretty much always ignored. It is magic after all, and what happens is storytelling convenience, not science. Besides, it's fantasy, so the sun may well revolve around the earth. Many primitive cultures believed that.

[Psychic Robot]

I understand that folks like kobolds... but as with pretty much EVERY MONSTER IN THE BOOK, they're built to be monsters. Not Player Character races. I can't say this enough, it seems.

In the kobold's case, it's meant to be a very fragile and wimpy monster, something that 1st level characters can fight several of at once. That means that in order to fill that niche and requirement, it HAS to be a pushover. That's what being a kobold means, really.

If you want tougher kobolds, fortunately, you can just stack class levels on them until they're wherever you want them to be. And if you want to play a kobold as a PC, well, you might be able to talk your GM into letting you take a bonus feat or something to offset the fact that your baseline racial abilities aren't as good as a core class, I guess... but until we officially do the Kobold Heroes Handbook, there's not really an official "patch" to make kobolds viable PC races. Because that's not what we need them to do in the core game.

In Pathfinder, kobolds are offered as a playable race, but they suck because they're in the Monster Manual. Except Pathfinder loves goblins for whatever reason, even though they're in the Monster Manual.

[Username17]

It pretty much HAS to work the way you put it: otherwise, the movement + rotation of the planet would seriously cause all those immobile-point-in-space spells to rapidly race off in a direction that seriously may as well be random.

Well planetary rotation is pretty much always ignored. It is magic after all, and what happens is storytelling convenience, not science. Besides, it's fantasy, so the sun may well revolve around the earth. Many primitive cultures believed that.

Yeah, but unless you want to figure out what anything would look like in a non-relativistic universe, we're still at the point of "immobile" walls of blades or fire getting carried along with a boat.

Or a marilith if so desired.

Remember that the reason walls of stone don't move with a wagon they are cast upon is because it's an instantaneous spell. So it just reverts to actual stone that can be pushed or not based on its physical properties. Walls of Iron work the same way. Duration based effects move with their point of origin if their point of origin appears to move in one reference frame or another.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty2]

Yeah, but unless you want to figure out what anything would look like in a non-relativistic universe, we're still at the point of "immobile" walls of blades or fire getting carried along with a boat.

Or a marilith if so desired.

Well, one could say that Wall of blades attaches to terrain, but I don't think that letting it attach to a creature is a good idea at all. But honestly, I'd probably get rid of all manner of attachment anyway and just say that it's immobile like the spell. You really don't gain anything from letting the caster choose a point to anchor the spell besides making it more powerful. It could totally still chew through a ship, since the caster could just choose to make it anchor to the earth instead of the ship and do all the shit that chews up a ship that normal people could.

Really, I'd just say it anchors to the earth, and the earth is considered immobile for D&D purposes.

That's the simplest thing, otherwise you give the spell way more functionality than intended.