General Discussion

[Armando]

Re: D&D

Ok. I've gone over a good deal of d20srd.org and I still have a lot of unanswered questions.

Combat Statistics :: d20srd.org
...
Attack Bonus = Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + size modifier
...
When you hit with a melee or thrown weapon, including a sling, add your Strength modifier to the damage result.

Where's the Strength modifier table and how do I interpret the Size Modifier table? Whose size are we talking about? Likewise, where's the Strength modifier table for damage?

AC = 10 + armor bonus + shield bonus + Dexterity modifier + size modifier

Where's the info on the Dexterity modifier, how does my armor limit my Dexterity modifier and how does the size modifier work on AC?

What's the difference between Feats and Skills?

What's the AC penalty for using armor or shields you're not proficient with? The site only mentions that there's a penalty but I can't find how much.

Skill points at 1st level = (2 + Int modifier) ×4.

What's the Int modifier and how do Skill points work?

The Paladin and Cleric classes have to prepare spells ahead of time. Does that I mean that if I have five level 1 spells a day I have to declare ahead of time (as an example) that I'm going to cast Spell A three times and Spell B two times?

I NEED NUMBERS

[Taskmage]

Re: D&D

This is why I support more streamlined recent editions. This shit's so arcane even Armando is throwing up his hands. I'd have the same problem except I'm not even trying to understand. I expect to tell Yyggy what I want to do and let him sort out the bullshit.

[Yygdrasil]

Re: D&D

Your stat modifiers are the bonuses you get based on your ability score.

Take for instance... a score set like TM's.

Str: 10
Dex: 16
Con: 12
Int: 10
Wis: 10
Cha: 14

Your modifiers are the bonus scores that you get based on those stats. You get a +1 for ever 2 points over a score of 10 and -1 for every 2 points below 10... 10 being the median.

In otherwords... the table looks like this:

8 (-1)
9 (0)
10 (0)
11 (0)
12 (+1)
13 (+1)
14 (+2)
15 (+2)
16 (+3)
17 (+3)
18 (+4)
19 (+4)
20 (+5)
etc...

That's what the ability modifier slot is for to the right of each of your stats.

Apply those modifiers in each of the areas on your character sheet when they're asked for.

---------- Post added at 07:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:38 PM ----------

What's the difference between Feats and Skills?

A Feat is a special ability that is typically chosen to augment and enhance your current class. Take for instance... Dodge. If you look at the player's handbook under Feats, many other feats that are very powerful require the prerequisite of having Dodge learned first. Think of it along the lines of a Skill Tree from Diablo 2. In order to get the Whirlwind for Barbarian... you had to put a point into shitty abilities.

The only difference in D&D is that all the abilities are typically related to one another in a way that makes that stackable and offer you a lot more options during battle.

Dodge is great for a rogue or other evasive classes because it allows you to add +1 to your Armor class. The requirement to take Dodge as a Feat is that you have a base score of at least 13 DEX.

Other Feats are less of a direct enhancement and more of an ability so-to-speak that you can use during battle... like Cleave. You might want to look that up if you're leaning toward a melee class.

Skills on the other hand... are based on your class. You can see your class specific skill list by checking any of the Class sources. Here are Cleric and PLD for you.

Class Skills
The paladin's class skills are Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (nobility) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).

Class Skills
The cleric's class skills are Appraise (Int), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (history) (Int), Knowledge (nobility) (Int), Knowledge (planes) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).

A skill is basically ANYTHING YOU DO. Treat them on as broad a spectrum as you can imagine. Say you're playing a Cleric... and the party is talking to someone in a bar and you just get a bad feeling about him. You could make a Sense Motive check on him. It's like scrutinizing someone you're talking to.

You'll then roll a D20... like with anything... and depending on the difficulty (determined by me) you'll either succeed or fail. Your success depends not only on the number you roll... but the modifiers that you place on top of that roll.

For instance. Say that exact scenario happens and you roll a 10. I've determined ahead of time that the challenge of that attempt was a 12. You didn't succeed. However. You'll notice in that list that each skill has an ability attached to it. Sense Motive is WIS. Now as I explained before... your modifier is based on that table above... and you'll have that modifier applied next to Sense Motive on your Skill section... along with any ranks that you've put into that skill.

Add together your modifier, ranks and any other special bonuses (sometimes racial or situation or enhancement based) and you add that number to your roll.

So lets say you're level 1 and you have 1 rank place in Sense Motive. You also have a Wisdom score of 14 which gives you a +2 Wisdom modifier. That's a total of +3

Now you add that +3 to your roll of 10 for 13. 13 is higher than my difficulty for your attempt... thus... you succeed.

The Paladin and Cleric classes have to prepare spells ahead of time. Does that I mean that if I have five level 1 spells a day I have to declare ahead of time (as an example) that I'm going to cast Spell A three times and Spell B two times?

I NEED NUMBERS

Preparing spells ahead of time is simple. Its just like you described. You know that at level 1 you have 5 level 1 spells that you can cast. Pick them out and write them down on some kind of notebook. Don't put them in your character sheet... it'll just get erased and re-written... a lot.

Preparing spells ahead of time instead of letting you pick any level spell you want at a whim 5 times a day does 2 things:

It makes the Player try and pick things that are going to be useful... and it prevents a LOOOOOOT of downtime in a game while you "pause" combat to pick JUST THE RIGHT SPELL by reading them all while we wait.

[cidbahamut]

Re: D&D

This is why I support more streamlined recent editions. This shit's so arcane even Armando is throwing up his hands. I'd have the same problem except I'm not even trying to understand. I expect to tell Yyggy what I want to do and let him sort out the bullshit.

It's not that bad if you can get your hands on the actual player's handbook.

Shit, the first table in the first chapter explains exactly one of the things Armando is looking for: Table 1-1: Ability Modifiers and Bonus Spells.

That said, telling Yyg what you want to do and letting him sort it out as the DM is probably the best approach for folk unfamiliar with the system.

@Armando: Feats are like special traits/abilities you can acquire. They let you do things like be more badass with a certain weapon, do trick shots with ranged weaponry, craft magic items and so forth. There are some that are more mundane in that they grant you passive bonuses to certain skills.
Skills are more mundane routine tasks that you carry out. For example, if a Bugbear is sneaking up on you brandishing a cudgel, you'll be required to make use of your Listen skill in order to detect him.

Bleh, I'm not very good at explaining this. I guess it is pretty obtuse.

---------- Post added at 08:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:01 PM ----------

...and Yyg beat me to the punch anyway.

[Murphie]

Re: D&D

I'm leaning towards Druid or Cleric, btw. Depending on what Armando chooses. I'd go Paladin, but that seems too obvious.

I usually played Fighter/Mage combinations back in the day, but I'd rather keep things simple.

[Taskmage]

Re: D&D

Mostly I'm just trolling Yyg, cid.

[cidbahamut]

Re: D&D

Yeah, but Armando seems genuinely frustrated.

I really do recommend getting the player's handbook if you can find a copy for cheap.

[Yygdrasil]

Re: D&D

To explain skills a little bit more. The difficulty of any action that you make a skill check on is decided by the DM. This rating is called a CR (Challenge Rating). I usually pick them out ahead of time... but if you or someone in the party is spontaneous... I'll have to pick on the fly. Here's an example:

Say you're next to a mountain. The cliff side next to you is really steep and covered in jagged rocks. You want to know if something worthwhile is on top of it... I mean hey... it's only 30 feet up.

You would make a Search or Spot check (perception in Pathfinder). I'll have described the cliff to you in detail by now, but based on a few factors... like whether the sun is in your eyes... whether there's an obstruction in your way... or high winds, I'll determine how hard it would be for you to see anything that might be on top and give it a CR. If something is simple it'll typically be a CR of 5-8. Some obstructions would be around 10-12. All aforementioned conditions currently in place... the CR would probably be 20.

So say you succeed and I tell you that you can see something golden shimmering from the top of the cliff. Impulsively you want to climb the steep rock face.

Now you make a Climb check.

Considering the condition of the cliff, I give it a CR of 18. Let's say you roll a 17 (bonuses included). I would tell you that you make it about half way up before losing your grip and beginning to fall.

I'll tell you to make a reflex saving throw to see if you can catch your balance before falling. I set the CR to 12.

A level 1 Cleric has a +0 to his reflex saving throw. However... you're allowed to use your DEX modifier on all Reflex saving throws (as you'll note on your character sheet).

You roll a Reflex saving throw (on a D20) of 11... shit.... not enough. But hey! Your DEX is 14 giving you a modifier of +2 that you can add to that 11! Now it's 13 and boom... you grab hold of the closest branch sticking out of the cliff wall and catch your balance... just barely.

Now lets say you get to the top and there's a huge bear guarding a golden idol. Crap... everyone else is down at the bottom of the cliff and you're alone... no spells prepared... nothing. Crap.

You COULD attempt to make an Intimidation Check to scare the bear away.... OR you could make a Perform check to play dead and hope it goes away.

If all else fails you could make an acrobatics check to dive off the cliff into the river below.


I'm getting into my DM mode again..

[Armando]

Re: D&D

Ok. Things are starting to make sense. I still want to know in what way armor and shields limit my Dex modifier for Armor Class (both with and without proficiencies.) I would also like to know if stats other than HP go up when I level (in the case of HP it'd be the Hit Die plus my Con mod...+1 if I have 12 Con, right?) I'd also like to know how to multi-class.

EDIT: Oh, yes, and I still need to know how using Skill points works. You know, the deal with my Int mod.
EDIT2: And what determines how many Feats I can have per level? I know some classes get certain Feats by the default, but beyond that...

[Taskmage]

Re: D&D

Ok. Things are starting to make sense. I still want to know in what way armor and shields limit my Dex modifier for Armor Class (both with and without proficiencies.) I would also like to know if stats other than HP go up when I level (in the case of HP it'd be the Hit Die plus my Con mod...+1 if I have 12 Con, right?) I'd also like to know how to multi-class.

This page addresses the latter two questions: Character Advancement - Pathfinder_OGC

[Armando]

Re: D&D

K. So outside of class-related bonus feats, I get to pick one feat every other level starting at level 1. And I get a +1 to a stat of my choosing every 4 levels starting at 4. What's this about about an EXP penalty when multiclassing?

Favored Class: Fighter. A multiclass dwarf’s fighter class does not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing

[cidbahamut]

Re: D&D

Yyg...I need to know more about your campaign world so I can figure out what bonus languages my character might realistically know aside from Common.

[Taskmage]

Re: D&D

I think I can answer the dex bonus question. My halfling has a +3 dex bonus, so unarmored his AC is 10+3=13, because my agility is reducing my chance to be hit. If I put on scale mail, which has a +5 AC bonus and a max dex modifier of +3, my AC goes to 10+3+5=18. If I put on banded mail with a +7 AC bonus but a max dex bonus of +1, it's actually a wash because although the third term goes up to 7, the second term is now limited to 1: 10+1+7=18. If my character was less dexterous, it would be an improvement, but because the heavier banded mail is preventing my character from leveraging his dex defensively as much as he otherwise could, going from scale to banded mail would not be an upgrade for me.

I'm sure there was a more straightforward way to explain that, but the exhaustive demonstration helped me, too.

---------- Post added at 08:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:40 PM ----------

I too wonder about this multiclassing penalty. I think it wouldn't apply to me anyway since rogue is a favored class to halflings, but I'd prefer to know just the same.

[Murphie]

Re: D&D

I am drowning in feats and ability choices. Also, choosing which element or aspect of nature I want to have affinity with.

[Taskmage]

Re: D&D

I'm going to have to make a list of the feats and rogue talents I want to pick up eventually. I keep running across cool ones but I know I'm going to forget about them before it becomes important again.