Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Sneak Peeks (Old thread)

[bouncyhead]

I assume you won't run the doses in parallel - that would get very book-keepy.

Unlike a disease, multiple applications of a poison can affect the same creature multiple times, requiring multiple saves.

Maybe I should keep my guesses to myself

That could get very nasty!

 

[Jason Bulmahn]

Maybe I should keep my guesses to myself

That could get very nasty!

This has actually been changed for the final game, to make things simpler. Multiple doses extend the duration and increase the DC, but you still only have to make 1 save per round.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

 

[Erik Mona]

In that quote by Erik, I think there's a fundamental difference between that creature and an Ailip.

In an encounter, there is absolutely no difference between an PF Ailip and a 3.5 Ailip. Damage and Drain will have the same effect on the battle.

It's the cleanup that's the issue a la the classic rustmonster. No chance to recover without the DM being "hands-on" in like providing a handy cleric waiting in the next room.

I agree with this. The in-encounter effect will be the same whether the allip is draining or damaging. It's the after-encounter BS that the new change makes easier for players of the appropriate level to deal with.

--Erik

 

[Rolflyn]

But there is a fundamental difference between a wis-drain and wis-damage creature at 3rd level: How you approach combat with it.

True if the DM just slaps it down as a random encounter, you are hosed with the wis-drain version. But if it is the wis-drain version is known ahead of time the party will approach it differently than the wis-damage one.

The wis-damage one is basically attack it and then cast some spells to heal up. Same as a hit point damage foe, minus the option to heal in combat and some chance of losing wisdom based powers.

The wis-drain one will be approached very carefully. The PCs will strategize far more. I've seen this in 1E where level drain was basically no save, permanent drain.

Replacing the CR3 allip with something of CR version doesn't address this because the higher CR version will have better defenses and better attacks. It will mop the floor with the party rather than present an interesting end challenge.

And house ruling it back to wisdom drain doesn't work too well either, because the players know that allips now aren't all that dangerous, and will charge in and get wisdom drained and be extra annoyed. Having an NPC say "well, this allip is different he has wisdom drain you cannot normally heal" is the only choice to get slightly back to the original situation.

Basically, the game has slowly gone from dangerous to inconvenient. 1E had (nearly) permanent level drain, item-melting rust monsters, and werewolves that couldn't be hurt without magic weapons. 3.0 moved away from a lot of this, where level drain had a save and lower-level solutions, where werewolves could be harmed if you just power attack for enough. 3.5 made werewolves even softer as DRs were reduced even more.

And now Pathfinder is removing some of the remaining danger in the system. I'm a bit disappointed. I was going to buy the book sight unseen, but now I'm a PDF, maybe-buy the book guy.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

But there is a fundamental difference between a wis-drain and wis-damage creature at 3rd level: How you approach combat with it.

True if the DM just slaps it down as a random encounter, you are hosed with the wis-drain version. But if it is the wis-drain version is known ahead of time the party will approach it differently than the wis-damage one.

The wis-damage one is basically attack it and then cast some spells to heal up. Same as a hit point damage foe, minus the option to heal in combat and some chance of losing wisdom based powers.

The wis-drain one will be approached very carefully. The PCs will strategize far more. I've seen this in 1E where level drain was basically no save, permanent drain.

Or, more likely, the players will act the same, and then feel like losers because they have literally no means of healing afterwards.

If it was one of those cases where they could heal afterwards but didn't prepare for it, or if they could potentially stop the damage in the first place, cool. But it's not.

Allip constantly hypnotises everything around it with a will save (There go the fighters), flies around while being incorperal (There goes the fighters), and is incredibly dangerous against targets with low will save (There goes the fighters). The only difference between the old allip and the new one is that, after the new one, the players catch their breath and rest up, while the old one just made them feel like losers afterwards.

But hey, by all means, explain to me how the change to the allip warrents a huge freakout and how players will all suddenly change their tactics now that they'll still have just as big of a chance to die as before. They aren't removing the wisdom damage for crying out loud, they're just preventing you from sucking for the rest of the week due to your DM not giving you a cleric twice your level to babysit you.

 

[Rolflyn]

But hey, by all means, explain to me how the change to the allip warrents a huge freakout and how players will all suddenly change their tactics now that they'll still have just as big of a chance to die as before. They aren't removing the wisdom damage for crying out loud, they're just preventing you from sucking for the rest of the week due to your DM not giving you a cleric twice your level to babysit you.

I did explain it: As long as every problem in the game is solvable by charging in, attacking, and then healing afterward, that is what players will do. Effects such as permanent level drain, wisdom drain, and equipment damage that come from well known sources such as wights, allips, and rust monsters, create situations where that strategy doesn't work well. I feel the game suffers without them.

And I fully admit that these tools can be misused by certain DMs. Perhaps a sidebar about how to use a certain monster would be in order.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I did explain it: As long as every problem in the game is solvable by charging in, attacking, and then healing afterward, that is what players will do. Effects such as permanent level drain, wisdom drain, and equipment damage that come from well known sources such as wights, allips, and rust monsters, create situations where that strategy doesn't work well. I feel the game suffers without them.

And I fully admit that these tools can be misused by certain DMs. Perhaps a sidebar about how to use a certain monster would be in order.

Except, if you charge in, attacking, and then try to heal afterwards, your fighter dies. And has been mentioned before, it still takes a long time to heal attribute damage - You aren't going to just sit down for ten minutes then move on. And besides, the monster is flying and incorporal. Yes, explain how the party just charges and attacks it.

The only difference between this Allit and the previous one is that you no longer need to beg your DM to include a cleric twice your level to show up to heal you. So I suppose this is a huge change if you love to heavily rely on DMNPCs, but for anyone else, it's not a change. At all.

Edit: Also, I think calling Allip "well known" is stretching it a bit.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

I have to agree the allip works exactly like it did before. All that has changed is it now matches the CR it was listed under.

 

[Starbuck_II]

Holy water, 25 gp for a flask, 2d4 dmg. Admittedly, 50% miss chance over and above hitting the allip's touch AC (15 in 3.5, 14 in Pathfinder). You don't need to be a paladin to throw these flasks, you know.

But thing is how much do you carry? You don't expect allips around every corner (unless your paranoid).

But I guess throwing holy molotov coctails and bathing your weapons in holy water go under the heading of outdated cheesy tactics, as anyone who's seen Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing can attest.

#1 Is legal, they can be thrown.
#2 is illegal. There are no bathing rules (for weapons/PCs). If they add them in Paizo books that'd be unique and cool I'd admit.
But otherwise we are in houserule territory.
I'm talking about the actual game: leave houserules at the door.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I noticed before - if these monsters presence is known beforehand (or can be known beforehand - sometimes players are just too stupid to pick up the clues, that's okay.), than you can deal with an Allip, or a Bodak, a Rust Monster, Basilisk or Medusa with interesting strategies.

Sure, you can use Holy Water and Oil Potions and Potion of Alchemists Fire against the Allip - if you knew that you might need them against it. But not every party spends its resources on this, and there are good reasons not to, since there are also tons of other things that might be useful. Holy Water isn't exactly cheap, how much is a party expected to carry around at 3rd level?