Pathfinder Is Still Bad

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Mon Sep 19, 2016 5:52 pm

Kaelik wrote:
virgil wrote:You must be thinking of a different earth elemental.
Wholly fucking shit. No wonder everyone thinks Fighters do Rogue damage, they just fucking halved the HP on all monsters just for shits.

TIL Pathfinder elementals are outsiders.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Sep 19, 2016 6:23 pm

nockermensch wrote:
Kaelik wrote:
virgil wrote:You must be thinking of a different earth elemental.
Wholly fucking shit. No wonder everyone thinks Fighters do Rogue damage, they just fucking halved the HP on all monsters just for shits.
TIL Pathfinder elementals are outsiders.

Looking at it, this is why their HP is so different. Pathfinder did away with the elemental type altogether, for reasons unexplained, which caused a cascade effect. Something similar happened with their decision that Armor Check Penalties weren't going to have exceptions - ALL Dexterity based skills were affected. This made heavy armor people suddenly have great difficulty with Ride because of the ACP, which Paizo did nothing to address until they made the Cavalier base class with the class ability to circumvent this.

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Sep 19, 2016 6:49 pm

virgil wrote:
Kaelik wrote:The Shadow thing's concealment exists or whatever, but Earth Elementals punch people from under the ground, so I'm not that impressed. Being immune to ranged attacks and full attacks is pretty good.
In the history of never have I seen a DM besides me actually use an earth elemental in that way. Even were it to, it's running at a 50% miss chance because it's only using tremorsense to see, which makes its comparative DPS even lower to that of the triceratops.

I played 3.5 LG often with a guy who has a Bonded Summoner with an Earth Elemental Companion (he used this character for the LG RHOD module). Typical tactics that multiple different DMs allowed was for the elemental to glide in earth with just enough of it sticking out of the ground to see around. The mechanical treatment of this was to treat it as having Cover (+4 AC, +2 Reflex saves). I'm not sure if it was the best ruling, but it was consistently used and seemed a fair compromise between total cover tremor sense ambushes and nothing at all.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Mon Sep 19, 2016 9:01 pm

virgil wrote:Pathfinder did away with the elemental type altogether, for reasons unexplained, which caused a cascade effect.

They made it an elemental subtype, because you can't have elementals who are not outsiders. Or because you can have elementals that are also some other creature type. Some bullshit. You're absolutely right that it caused a lot of math changes for no reason. You can no longer just hunt elementals with one favored enemy, you have to get whole swathes of outsiders too.

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Thu Sep 22, 2016 5:38 am

I just finished Doom 2016, and I'm wondering what's the best way for a DMF to heal himself after killing an opponent. I've found a couple of ways, like:

- Greater Daemon Totem (5 hp when you kill an intelligent opponent with at least half your HD)
- Feast of Blood (need to rip out your opponent's guts and then eat them as a full round action)

Are there any better ways?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Sep 22, 2016 5:57 am

Be an orc. If I recall correctly, Colonialist Racism: Pathfinder EditionOrcs of Golarion has a feat for orcs that heals them when they kill someone.

Edit: Ok, I dug it up on d20pfsrd.com. Fire God's Blessing heals an orc that has it 1 hp per turn when they deal fire damage to an opponent. If they set someone on fire, they get a hit point each turn the fire burns for.

So, not the best, necessarily, but it's a way, and conceivably you could get a GM to approve healing hp=damage dealt instead of just 1. Then you run around and hit people with a torch until you can afford a flaming weapon.

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Thu Sep 22, 2016 8:43 am

I'm kind of locked into a human Red Sonja clone, but I'll keep your suggestion in mind. Orcs in general have big bonuses for hulking out.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Thu Sep 22, 2016 8:58 am

Half-orc barbarians can take feasting bite which triggers on a critical rather than a kill. On the plus side you can take the animal totem line and get pounce with it, unlike the daemon totem line. On the minus side Red Sonja likely shouldn't have fangs like that.

If you can get specific magic items a bloodletting kukri gives you a couple temp HP each time it does bleed damage, which is each crit from it on a creature which can take bleed damage. If you can get a way to increase bleed damage you'll get more temp HP.

Slade · Post by **Slade** » Thu Sep 22, 2016 2:22 pm

Silent Wayfarer wrote:I just finished Doom 2016, and I'm wondering what's the best way for a DMF to heal himself after killing an opponent. I've found a couple of ways, like:

- Greater Daemon Totem (5 hp when you kill an intelligent opponent with at least half your HD)
- Feast of Blood (need to rip out your opponent's guts and then eat them as a full round action)

Are there any better ways?

Inquisitor can do it with archetype:
Sin Eater: you only gain 1/2 as a full rd action though (1 minute required for full effect)
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-cl ... /sin-eater

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 2:08 pm

erik wrote: Melee you are looking at an average of 25 damage per round. The scary thing is if it crits because that is a dead pc. Otherwise it is just a big stupid pile of HP and focus fire damage.

Note that the one in the adventure does double that damage because it's pseudo-hasted:

it has one gore attack at +18 for 2d10+15 damage. +1d6 negative energy, because why not add insult to injury. but is that all, I hear you ask. nope. it attacks as if hastened. so it has actually two of those attacks.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 2:56 pm

hogarth wrote:
erik wrote: Melee you are looking at an average of 25 damage per round. The scary thing is if it crits because that is a dead pc. Otherwise it is just a big stupid pile of HP and focus fire damage.
Note that the one in the adventure does double that damage because it's pseudo-hasted:
it has one gore attack at +18 for 2d10+15 damage. +1d6 negative energy, because why not add insult to injury. but is that all, I hear you ask. nope. it attacks as if hastened. so it has actually two of those attacks.

Which is only relevant if you stand adjacent to the giant mindless melee bruiser.

In which case, maybe you are mindless too? Certainly doing that would disqualify you as "Any creature that can think, learn, or remember"

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 3:37 pm

Exactly - it only gets the second attack on a full attack. Its tactics are to attack when first able so it doesn't close to 5 feet and screw you with its huge reach. If you wait around for a full attack then you deserve what you get. It sounds like its mindless trait and the circumstances it presents in makes it a super easy encounter. Just ranged kill it before entering its kill zone. If it notices you before you notice it then you've done fucked up. Hide 80 feet away behind an illusion and it has no reason to give chase as you plink it to death. Or redeath. Whatever.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 5:21 pm

The room you encounter it in may be 100'x100', but there's a roughly 50' square tank of water in the center. I'm not sure that you can maintain an 80' distance and LoS at the same time.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 5:48 pm

virgil wrote:The room you encounter it in may be 100'x100', but there's a roughly 50' square tank of water in the center. I'm not sure that you can maintain an 80' distance and LoS at the same time.

Then I refer to the previous thing about it being a Huge creature, and there being doors. It literally has to break down the walls to get to you, and when it spends it's standard action breaking a wall, you can spend that round killing it.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 8:39 pm

Prak wrote:Be an orc. If I recall correctly, Colonialist Racism: Pathfinder EditionOrcs of Golarion has a feat for orcs that heals them when they kill someone.

Edit: Ok, I dug it up on d20pfsrd.com. Fire God's Blessing heals an orc that has it 1 hp per turn when they deal fire damage to an opponent. If they set someone on fire, they get a hit point each turn the fire burns for.

So, not the best, necessarily, but it's a way, and conceivably you could get a GM to approve healing hp=damage dealt instead of just 1. Then you run around and hit people with a torch until you can afford a flaming weapon.

If you're trying to stack up healing from fire; and you only get 1/HP per round per target on fire; you're going to want to set lots of people on fire to make it worth your while.

Some ideas that come to mind: throwing alchemists fire into areas you've previously thrown lantern oil on (in order to catch more than 1-9 targets w/ fire damage); disposable (or all metal) flaming javelins w/ alchemists fire strapped to them, having a wand/item of Produce Flame(?_? Not sure if it's in PF), and/or repeating crossbows with Flaming Arrow cast on all of your ammo (also not sure if this D&D spell made it to PF).

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 9:13 pm

It occurs to me that you still heal even if the creatures on fire don't take any fire damage, so a stable of fire elementals that you light on fire, who intentionally fail their saves against putting out the fire every round, can give you [whatever your max HP is] healing per round.

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Fri Oct 07, 2016 7:11 pm

Determined: As a standard action, the samurai can spend one use of his resolve to remove the fatigued, shaken, or sickened condition. If the samurai is at least 8th level, he can alternatively remove the exhausted, frightened, nauseated, or staggered condition.

Find the joke. no really, there is a joke in there.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Oct 07, 2016 7:27 pm

Rawbeard wrote:
Determined: As a standard action, the samurai can spend one use of his resolve to remove the fatigued, shaken, or sickened condition. If the samurai is at least 8th level, he can alternatively remove the exhausted, frightened, nauseated, or staggered condition.
Find the joke. no really, there is a joke in there.

Oh God... what is it with people and writing fucking "spend an action to cure the status effect that takes away your actions" thing

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Oct 07, 2016 7:38 pm

Considering that the writers get paid by word count you'd think they'd throw in something that explains that they can use this even if they can't normally take a standard action. Or something to that effect but worded better.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Oct 07, 2016 7:42 pm

Not if they have a word limit and needed to cut something.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Fri Oct 07, 2016 10:49 pm

And for this ability, it's not like it needs to cost an action anyway. "Once per round as a free action" would work just fine.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 12:35 am

Kaelik wrote:It occurs to me that you still heal even if the creatures on fire don't take any fire damage, so a stable of fire elementals that you light on fire, who intentionally fail their saves against putting out the fire every round, can give you [whatever your max HP is] healing per round.

Makes one wonder if the healing effect has any limits on distance. If it doesn't (or worse, the limits are something BS non-limitation like "Must be on Same Plane"); one could see barbarians outmatched in ability to soak damage per round.

Wiseman · Post by **Wiseman** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 2:32 am

I could see that working for a villain concept. Say the Orc Fire King is believed to be invincible. Every wound heals near instantly, no matter how serious, and he's just about unstoppable. The PCs are alerted to the source of his power. A fiery dungeon filled with dozens if not hundreds of fire elementals that he has use this feat to bind to him, all supplying him with power. Now, with each elemental the party destroys, he is weakened...

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Oct 31, 2016 11:02 pm

Anyone want to make Jason Buhlman make the worst/most broken 5th level Pathfinder character you can conceive of?

Proceeds go to a good cause, and effort goes to a potentially amusing one.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Oct 31, 2016 11:10 pm

He seems to believe people want him to play their cool character and be strong. Even though no one should want that.

I think the winning character is one level in every single thing that you can find that increases movement speed, then have high AC and saves, (multiclassing 5 levels, so that part should be easy). Then give him an 18 DEX/CON, and then he has to play that pathetic character while everyone else actually does things.