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Can someone explain why is it that D&D and Pathfinder, by extension, feel the need to make divine casting so much better than arcane casting?

You could argue that arcane casters had a monopoly over the spell-like ability style of casting pioneered by the bard and sorcerer, but this is no longer the case, since the sorcerer's style of casting has divine caster counterparts.

Some people have insisted to me that the additional power of arcane spells means that the class that casts them needs to be weaker. But i really don't see this amazing extra power that requires a smaller hit die, lower base attack bonus, less weapon and armor proficiencies and a limited spell list to choose from while in play. Oh, and arcane spell failure chance (which, like, half of the available arcane casters do away with through class abilities anyway.)

It just seems like a LOT of gimping over a minuscule power difference.

Some early firearms where made of bamboo and fired rocks.

I see no issue, though i would be partial to either: increasing misfire rates, treating them as already having the broken condition (like the fire lance) or make it so they only target regular AC regardless of distance.

A more accurate comparison to the fighter would be a cavalier or samurai. Paladins and rangers are half divine casters and not full martial characters. As such, you are comparing apples and oranges, not unlike comparing half arcane casters (such as the magus or bard) to a full arcane caster or a full divine caster (such as the cleric or druid)to a half divine caster.

In the end, if a class were to truly be far beyond inneffective, you are free to pass it off to the role of NPC only class and ignore it.

And then, you have to wonder about Monks. Everyone complains they are worse than fighters while we have a thread about how fighters are worse than everything else...

I do think a cleric will have a bigger impact on the course of a game than a paladin in most campaigns, but he can not readily have all things a paladin has at all time.

We are on the same page, then.

You are trying to argue what is or is not reasonable. What is reasonable, and what is a rule are two completely different things.

No, not really what i was arguing at all. I was arguing that the cleric makes a better holy warrior than the paladin and was met with a " at 20th level, the paladin can do all of this: *insert stuff*"

To which i tried to point out the disparity of the comparison when the cleric has access to high level spells.

To which you said "You can't use use those spells to do those things."

To which i replied "Yes, you can do both those things."

To which you replied "But only if the gm allows, you are arguing what is reasonable for the gm to allow and what isn't!"

See? The conversation is going somewhere else entirely.

stuff

The cleric can summon creatures, heal more times per day with higher numbers than the paladin, deal damage with spells, enhance his weapon on the spot and pretty much anything you need for the encounter.

In fact, summoned archorns can cast buffs, mass cures and other utility spells on their own, further widening the gap.

I really hope you aren't unaware of the ability of the cleric to do all sorts of things outside my extreme example. It's the reason why he doesn't get a top off ability at 20th level.

My original point was that you were comparing a half caster to the fighter, which is a full martial class while ignoring all the other things he can do.

Just like you are ignoring the cleric's large pool of spells to choose from to say "The paladin is better in a fight" you are also ignoring the wide variety of effects that can be gained from feats and the static bonuses a fighter benefits from that a paladin does not.

A fighter can master multiple feat trees throughout his career. He can ignore damage reduction, deal additional damage, increase his defensive capabilities and even gain special attacks that can only be used x amount of times per day, just like other classes.

People tend to brush this aside with "anyone can get those feats" but tend to forget that not everyone can actually get as many. Not everyone can simultaneously benefit from all the feats a fighter can.

Quote:

A miracle can do any of the following things.

Duplicate any cleric spell of 8th level or lower.
Duplicate any other spell of 7th level or lower.
Undo the harmful effects of certain spells, such as feeblemind or insanity.
Have any effect whose power level is in line with the above effects.

Alternatively, a cleric can make a very powerful request. Casting such a miracle costs the cleric 25,000 gp in powdered diamond because of the powerful divine energies involved. Examples of especially powerful miracles of this sort could include the following:

Swinging the tide of a battle in your favor by raising fallen allies to continue fighting.
Moving you and your allies, with all your and their gear, from one plane to a specific locale through planar barriers with no chance of error.
Protecting a city from an earthquake, volcanic eruption, flood, or other major natural disaster.

In any event, a request that is out of line with the deity's (or alignment's) nature is refused.

A duplicated spell allows saving throws and spell resistance as normal, but the save DCs are as for a 9th-level spell. When a miracle spell duplicates a spell with a material component that costs more than 100 gp, you must provide that component.

Even with the 25000 gp you don't get to do "anything". The spell says you can make request. It never says those request get an automatic yes. Even if the GM allows you to cast all those spells at once which is doubtful*, spending 25000 gp everytime to make it happen gets expensive.

*A 1 time magic item that duplicated all of those spells would cost more than 25000 so I am doubting the GM is going to give you a free pass if you try to do it all the time. Those examples(which are not guaranteed) involving stopping natural disasters are likely 1 time request.

Those are examples. Not a definitive list. And insta reviving all of your allies during a fight is also way beyond the cost of 25,000.

Besides, this is a tangent within a tagent.

Getting your buffs all at once is hardly something more powerful than insta-reviving all of your allies, as is one of the examples given in the spell description when using the 25,000 GP offering. And Gate specifically states you can call a creature of up to your CL in HD and keep it under control, or call a creature of up to twice your CL in HD (But it does whatever it wants, leaving you immediately included) and then attempt to negotiate for it's service.

alternatively, you could use greater planar ally and receive a very similar effect, but it is limited to 18HD. So, you can't call a Solar Angel and ask it to help.

The example used a 20th level paladin. and those spells are available to a 20th level cleric.

This is not GM fiat. Gate does allow the cleric to pull in powerful creatures and miracle, with 25,000gp investment, does allow for your deity to intervene.

In a single round of combat, at 20th level, as a Paladin I can:

*His class abilities*

A 20th level cleric can cast miracle with a powdered diamond and ask his deity for his enemies to just die on the spot. Or maybe ask his deity to give him all of those mentioned bonuses for the duration of the fight.

Alternatively, he can cast gate and pull in a creature with up to his caster level in HD (more if he feels ballsy) and ask it nicely to dispose of whatever it is that's bothering him.

Cleric:
divine bastion against evil - check
a leader who can buff party members - check
heal yourself and others - triple check
create customizable magic weapons - check
cast spells - infinity check
remove conditions - checkaroo
deal tremendous damage - check
enjoy various immunities and ridiculously high saves all with full BAB - Plenty of spells to make up for this one.
armor and weapon profeciencies - all the ones you will ever need

I'm not seeing how the paladin is better than the cleric at these things. In fact, this has always been an issue of mine: How the paladin is less good at being a divine warrior than the cleric.

But if you want to be a divine bastion against evil, a leader who can buff party members, heal yourself and others, create customizable magic weapons, cast spells, enjoy various immunities and ridiculously high saves then a Paladin may well be the choice for you.

The cleric is better at doing all those things, though.

The situation is obviously contrived. How did the civilian get there, and how long was he there? How did this monster end up trapped in the room in the first place if the civilian could enter, and then how did the Paladin find a way in as well? Just not a very believable situation.

Easy: They are all in a dungeon pit. probably got there through the big bad's trap door of doom. It's a classic situation.

Though admittedly, killing one creature to save another seems pretty crass to me, the monster does have a right to its life too. And you can still grapple for sub-dual without trying to kill outright.

There is nothing in the paladin's code about pacifism, respecting life or bloodshed. People need to stop sticking their own amendments into the paladin code.

In fact, the code encourages the paladin to punish those who harm or threaten the innocent.

paladin can't be neutral good, or chaotic good or lawful neutral or neutral or whatever else other than lawful good.

A fighter can.

If you are roleplaying, the other classes won't always fit your concept. On the other hand, the fighter will ALWAYS fit your martial concept (A lot of feat intensive builds are only possible with a fighter, too.)

(And i have to wonder what kind of games people are playing, where people complain about sharing resources with other characters and where you can only heal and buff yourself.)

Maybe we just need to balance everyone around the fighter instead of the other way around.

The fighter just needs to get good magic equipment and get the greedy casters to buff him instead of themselves. Then he can be as awesome as everyone else.

Yes there is when those options are clearly superior to the standard table... when those options bring in new classes, new spells, new races aimed at players because the books they're in are sold as player supplements. When players buy those supplements, there's more pressure to use them.

You aren't competing with other tables in terms of character power. If you are, then that's a flaw in how you play. Not the system.

Also, -1 for "we should allow players to play whatever, even if it doesn't fit in with the world and game's intended power level.". The type of GMing that brought about 4.0's "balance".

I say we should replace CRB gnomes with an updated version of the lizard kobolds.

I already replace all gnome NPCs with kobolds anyway. Short, mechanically and sorcery inclined lizard is usually more interesting than short mechanically and sorcery inclined people. It also stops players from confusing them with short elves or halflings.

Now that i think about it. I haven't played gnomes at all, ever. Or even GM'ed one...

I don't hate them, though.

What you are talking about is an issue with the playerbase, not the product.

Powergaming isn't encouraged by there being a new class or options in a book. In fact, those options don't even have to be allowed at the table.

Plenty of these "powergaming" options presented in 3.5 were accompanied by plenty of fluff to accentuate them as roleplaying choices. The fact that a player looks at these choices as nothing more than just numbers to crunch is not an issue with the system itself.

In a normal d20 system, if you want your short guys to be fast, you either: make them faster than 20 through paying a cost or make them be on the lower end of medium.

Next thing, you guys are going to be saying that you know a guy over 9ft tall who's really slow and that all large creatures should start out with 20ft speed.

my 11 year old cousin is faster than me, she has more energy, she requires less room to manuever, and she is much more agile. she can also jump higher and farther than me, and beat up/wrestle heavyweight boys twice her size. and she's not even 5 feet tall yet.

i see her as proof that physical attributes shouldn't be tied to size. such as speed, agility or strength.

So, she wrestles guys twice her size? That's 8 foot tall men! HOLY SHMEAGOL!

Also, anecdotal evidence translates poorly when speaking gaming. You could have really low strength scores of 6 or 8 while the small creature has an 18 to strength, which with it's -2 penalty, still translates to a solid 16.

Then again, almost every single rules set for creating small anythings in D20 systems sets small critter's speed down and larger creature's speed up.

A three foot tall human DOES move slower than a seven foot tall human.

Arguing that it isn't fair is like arguing that it's not fair for medium creatures to have all the same disadvantages when compared to a large creature.

Or that it's unfair for a large creature that a huge creature has all the same advantages over him as he does over a medium creature.

Slippery slopes and all that.

I do find it odd that slow was a trait separate from being small, as, like i (and other people) said before, it's one of the staples of the d20 systems.

Hmm, well...

Races: never halflings or half-orcs, only tried one gnone (for one session), and humans are boring; I'd like to try something exotic for a change, such as a tiefling or genasi, but nobody seems to allow them.

Classes: fighters are boring; don't even know why bards are in the game; don't understand what rangers are (wierd cross-breed class); avoid wizards, clerics, and druids (because I hate the spell-slot system); never barbarians.

Weapons: I think polearms are cool, but awkward to carry and use in the game; same goes for most two-handed weapons.

Sounds like you should probably be playing D&D 4th edition.

On topic: I rarely play paladins, this is because i tend to stress the self righteous side of lawfulness, usually being a judge and executioner of all things evil. And GMs tend to think it's wrong to cut the heads off of the captured orcs who burned down a village.

Good thing we have cavaliers now.

They probably should just make a lot of the monk's special abilities a pool to choose from, like many of the other classes.

Afterall, the monk archetypes that do away with a lot of the forced choices seem pretty good...

As for one quote contradicting the other, i guess. I'm just saying that the first form would make for a nice and simple rules text over what we have in the core rulebook.

Aaaand this is why I love Cavaliers. An Order of the Cockatrice Cav would use that evil weapon all day and all night while bragging to the innocent victim he saved (or didn't, whatever) about how awesome he is:
"Did you see that?! I mean did you seeeee that?! I rocked the **** out of that monster. Never saw it coming. Oh yeah. OH YEAH!"

Heck, an Order of the Shield, Order of the Star or even Order of the Sword cavalier gets to slay the monster AND keep the weapon to do whatever with it later.

Hrm... Why are we still playing paladins? Cavaliers can easily fit the same concepts, the penalties for messing up are a lot less harsh and they are not as subject to being screwed by the GM.

I was working on converting some 3.x material into pathfinder, so i was brushing up on the differences when i stumbled upon this:

Flurry of Blows. Treated as two weapon fighting with no off hand and BAB equal to Monk level instead of 3/4 level.

I think this is the simplest explanation of it, heck, this is probably how it should be written in the book.

It's simple and elegant beyond all the text in the rule book. By there being no off hand, you can attack with whichever hand you want. Which has been everyone's assumptions all along.

A monk applies his full Strength bonus to his damage rolls for all successful attacks made with flurry of blows, whether the attacks are made with an off-hand or with a weapon wielded in both hands.

Also, if you are not meant to use Flurry of Blows without two weapons, why is the bolded line there?

How are the guns weaker than crossbows? They have similar damage dice, they are touch attacks, and make better use of deadly aim than crossbows.

They are touch attacks... within the first range increment, which is more often than not, 10 to 20 feet. Enjoy standing in front of the threat just so you can deal somewhere between 1d4 to 1d8 damage. Though i guess there is that one that deals 1d12 at 30 feet... Or the other two that make all other firearms useless by being the only two worth a dam

Compare to the firearms in sorcery and steam or D20 modern and you will understand pretty darned quick that the firearms in pathfinder are a mess.

Incredibly underpowered for their price, you are better off buying a wand and getting some skill points in use magic device. Afterall, a wand of magic missile keyed to 3rd level caster is a mere 2250gp (About one and a half times the cost of a single firearm) and it strikes unerringly with two 1d4+1 missiles at 130ft.

Guess what? That out damages and outranges almost all firearms (With the exception of the broken ones that don't follow the rules) and you get to shoot it FIFTY times.

Best part? You don't have to spend a million years or a million feats learning to reload the things or trying to be able to have access in the first place.

The only way these terrible guns would do is if they were a cheap alternative to spells or something. As is? It's like charging 3,000 gp for alchemist's fire.

In fact, it is! you can throw those buggers at twenty feet for touch attacks with the appropriate feat, dealing similar damage to most one handed firearms at similar range. 1d6 and an additional d6 for the fire which can force opponents to loose a turn. In fact, even without the feat, you are better off throwing alchemist's fire at 20gp a shot than firing guns at 11gp per shot + gun investment of almost 2,000 gold.

Guns, as written, are only useful for archetypes revolving around them or the gunslinger (Which has been flavored poorly, a western themed shooter with flintlocks? urgh...). Which was a poor choice.

At least, a crossbow can be fired at targets hundreds of feet away, and they are simple weapons to boot! almost any range you can fire the crossbow at is already past the touch range of the gun anyway. Don't forget, if you are 20 to 30 feet from an opponent, you are a mere move action away from their melee anyway!

Oh, and a crossbow is only 50gp upfront with a 1sp per shot cost. Unless you are hamming it up with the culverin or hackbutt; or using the gunslinger, you are better off using a crossbow.

Code of Conduct: A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class features except proficiencies if she ever willingly commits an evil act.

Additionally, a paladin's code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and class features (including the service of the paladin's mount, but not weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies). She may not progress any further in levels as a paladin. She regains her abilities and advancement potential if she atones for her violations (see the atonement spell description in Spell Lists), as appropriate.

Note that there is nothing prohibiting bloodshed in the paladin code. Also note that there is nothing about killing in self defense either.

A GM can tell you it's a gray area if he wants, but there is nothing in RAW supporting his call if he tries to take your abilities away.

You are not willfully committing an evil act, you are not disrespecting legitimate authority, you are not being dishonorable (lying, cheating, using poison), you are not refusing help to those who need it and you indeed punished those who harmed or threatened the innocent.

In fact, the player could argue that the mind controlled townsfolk are a threat to other innocent folk who may stumble upon the town and he has cleansed it of it's taint.

Calling the actions of the paladin evil in this case is the equivalent of calling the protagonist from a resident evil game evil on the basis that they kill townsfolk who have been infected by a parasite/virus and are trying to murder everything.

Two aid another actions and that 1st level soldier will have a +6 to hit with his gun/musket/whatever. That's a pretty good chance for three CR 1/3 mooks leagues under the PC's level of 6.

Besides, absurd touch ACs where the staple of D20 modern, and guns worked pretty well there. The problem is that pathfinder guns are weaker than crossbows for a hundred times the cost.

As for guns exploding? It seems it was actually fairly common when guns were new and of shoddy craftmanship while being loaded with guesswork powder charges.

Something that is clearly not the case on the campaign world, as guns are common.

Most NPCs don't have heroic levels because they don't have the motivation to adventure. They do what they can to survive, and their training and life experiences accrue them levels. Or do PCs never gain experience for their non-combat successes?

Tim,the soldier on leave, who's barely in his mid twenties is as likely to hit the deck when he hears a robber shoot into the air as is Clark, the barkeep who's in his late fifties.

Bob the farmer has a family back home he values way more than the orcs attacking the next town over, those orcs are "someone else's problem"

Similarly, the monsters with class levels shown in the bestiary represent the lowliest threat the PCs would normally face.

Of course there is an orc woman with commoner levels tending to the babies back home, of course there is an orc barbarian 4 leading the village back home and of course there is an orc warrior 1/expert 2 being his right hand man.

The world isn't a collection of clones. Everyone has varying levels of skill and experience. It's just rare for an NPC to gain enough experience to keep leveling once the next level is almost twice the amount of experience he has gathered in 30 years of being alive.

A world where everyone is a 1st level commoner is a much stranger world, actually.

As for mechanically? A third level adept doesn't stand much of a chance against a first level wizard...It's the point of NPC classes. It gives the NPCs skills and some amount of combat ability without outshining the PCs. A first level bard is much more interesting than a third level aristocrat. And let's not forget that NPCs use 3 point buy for their ability scores and never gain full hit dice...

By level 2, players outshine most level 4 NPCs all across the board.

A scenario should never be: You either die or stop being *insert alignment/class*.

Allow aid another actions on firearms. Fluff it as NPCs standing in lines or clusters and doing volleys.

That's what Star Wars saga edition did in order to have low level mooks be able to hit higher level PCs occasionally.

Player wants to do something completely inefficient and time wasting.

GM goes out of his way to stop the player from doing that inefficient thing because it's not in the rulebook.

GM suddenly becomes a video game and unable to do anything outside it's script.

Doesn't the sohei archetype address the hitting and enhancement problems with it's ki weapon and weapon training abilities?

What if you gave a regular monk those? (Taking away things where appropriate) What happens?

Don't forget, monks can't benefit from armor and shield special abilities. That means that monks miss out on a lot of the neat abilities their buds can experience in addition to the same magic equipment the monk can normally wield.

I remember there being a prestige class that couldn't wear magic armor or wield magic weapons back in 3.5. The benefits gained by the class were substantially more powerful than the benefits gained by monks at higher levels. This should speak volumes about the matter.

Also, i'm troubled by the fact that the ninja is better at using Ki than the monk. (Ninjas even gain access to it earlier by a few levels!)

The distinction between humanoid and monstrous humanoid is vague at best, and can best be defined by a creator call on "should enlarge person work on this?".

Considering Trolls (even the multiple headed ones) are humanoid and not monstrous, retaining the monstrous type at all in Pathfinder is a bit of a farce...

But Trolls, specifically, are humanoids because giant got folded as a subtype of it and stopped being it's own thing (A move i consider to be odd). Still,if the distinction is not going to be made, may as well fold monstrous humanoids into humanoids as well.

My only issue with the artwork is that it doesn't look humanoid enough, it looks like what i would expect a monstrous humanoid to look like. That is, humanoids look more like humans with a couple of distinctive features (strange ears, unexpected skin textures, tails, etc.), where monstrous humanoids look like animals or creatures with slightly humanoid features (such as hands or upright postures)

Or maybe the distinction is something else now? I'm a little confused, since this implies there is no real distinction between monstrous humanoids and humanoids other than "this one takes class levels more often than the other one."

Never,ever,ever, ever, EVER pick a paladin, lawful good cleric, lawful good monk or well, just don't take lawful good. It seems 50% of all GMs are out to take your abilities away, 35% have their own specific view of how morality works and will step on your toes over everything you do and the rest are probably handwaving alignments anyway.

Asking about how the GM handles alignments tends to get you a fairly generic answer that won't really reveal the underlying issues until you have been playing for a while (GM: You killed the evil creature i was going to have be recurring/Did something unpredictable! AH! You stop being lawful good and lose your powers!!).

I don't have many guidelines when making characters for new groups other than not using such classes. As everything else usually gets explained fairly well if you ask.

"Dropping" something on someone/thing's hand is mechanically the same as handing it over. You can't hand over things for free (No action cost).

Hate to toot my own horn, but seriously, the Sprite is pretty damn close to a gnome in spell-like ability, glows like Tinkerbell or Oona,(can serve as a mobile light source) requires little-to-no changes to be a playable race, and is a small fey with wings incredibly similar to a pixie. I doubt there would even be any kind of CL changes. Add the Sorceror class with the Fey Bloodline and you can basically obtain spells to get the spell like abilities of a pixie without the second guesses, ability modification, or trying to get your hands on older race rules. Plus the monster description is here on this site.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary3/sprite.html#sprite

This indeed seems to be the perfect choice. They get something like, str-6,dex+4,con-2,int-2, which isn't particularly great and a set of spell-light abilities that are pretty much in line with anything a low level spell caster would have. (At will level 0 spells and a 1/day level 1 spell)And flight isn't all that unbalancing. Everyone is jumping, levitating and whatnot a few levels in and a diminutive creature with a -6 str won't be carrying party members across chasms.

In fact, these guys are so meh in terms of power, that they are available as familiars.

I have no idea why everyone is so hung up with the pixie, when there is a viable option right there.

If i remember right, Machetes used to be reskinned scimitars in some versions of the rules. I guess someone wanted to give them access to machetes at some point.

Or maybe these druids hail from the middle east.

Trouble is it doesn't really carry through when you're talking about melee weapons. From the perspective of a roman soldier wielding "advanced" gladius's, heavy shields and fighting in tight formation that Falcata is pretty damn terrifying as the naked raging celt hacks his shield apart from outside his short swords reach.

Likewise even the most heavily armored knight and horse combination is easily stifled by a group of pikeman whose tactics predate european civilization by magnitudes.

These are factors that are difficult to reflect in stats. And really should not even be tried.

These are often weapons with specialized uses that don't exist in the game system. A lone soldier with an unwieldy shield meant for phalanx formations is much less of a challenge than one with a shield designed to fight on their own. Yet, P&P design philosophies would probably make the shield meant for phalanx formations superior in every way to the regular shield or the same with additional bonuses.

Basically, i agree with you. These are factors that shouldn't be pushed into the stats.

Um, outdated is not the same as "worse".

A longsword might be strictly worse than a falcata but for the millions of worshipers of Iomedae it really is one of the best weapons about despite having better options around. Same with Scimitars and Sarenrae.

It would be like making all WWII era guns better than modern guns in a modern setting.

D20 past solved this by simply having most older guns be pretty much the same as their modern counterparts with minor exceptions.

A google search later and the falcata is described as an axe with a cutting haft that can't be held by the blade for leverage. I don't know how this translates as anything other than "axe reskin"

Those arguing against druids with handaxes should remember that the druid gets two harvesting related weapons: the scythe and the sickle.

Oh no doubt. My concern is with mechanics. PAthfinder is a poor system to simulate real medieval melee combat. So I for one am of the idea that grouping weapons together under groups of stats works more efficiently. SAves space on statblocks.

Agreed. Having all similar weapons born of a common stat block is no different than having all town guards come from variations of warrior.

It's a game.

Even a casual dip into sword history and technology will show you how poorly the PF and D&D game rules have mapped real swords into game terms.

As near as I can tell the "longsword" of D&D was modeled on fantasy literature, not on actual military technology.

And fantasy literature is modeled on real world matters. How closely differs from author to author, though.

A viking sword and other longswords considered "barbaric" by most of europe would be a bastard sword in terms of D&D mechanics. A long sword, per D&D stats and terminology seems to refer to later era hand and a half swords and most two handed swords that could be wielded in one hand that feature straight blades around 3 feet long. The D&D greatsword refers to zweihanders and the like.

The problem is not the system stating these weapons poorly, but rather, stating weapons that were considered outdated by then with more attractive or strictly better stats.

While you can "thrust" with a longsword, they were, in fact, designed and trained to be primarily slashing weapons.

Depends on the era. Broad bladed hacking longswords were common through some periods while slimmer piercing ones where common during others.

In modern longsword fencing (which is based on, but may not be completely accurate to the combat styles of the era) There are multiple pommel, crossguard, broadside and thrust attacks. And apparently, you can even wield a longsword upside down and use it as a hammer.

In fact, if we go by the descriptions on era appropriate texts, the longsword probably should have a trait where you choose one or two weapon qualities out of a list (Such as double with a bludgeoning pommel, trip or disarm for prominent crossguards, or the option to deal slashing or piercing damage with the blade) to represent different variations.

Well, Gentle Repose refers to the corpse as an object.

Don't know it if it's anywhere else.

It would still rot, though. Unless you take measures to preserve this, it would waste away normally.

But yeah, it would be a plain construct per the animate object rules and in no way related to the undead.

Kinda like a flesh golem, i guess.

Gatebreaker ballista bolts are still only 30 pounds. A cubic foot of oak weighs 60 pounds green and about 45-50 pounds dry. A bolt 1 foot in diameter would be hundreds of pounds, not 30 pounds. Even gatebreaker bolts are only a few inches in diameter.

Also note that gatebreaker bolts have 200 hit points. OBviosuly bolt hit points are not based on their thickness, as that would put a gatebreaker bolt at 20 inches thick.

That's the HP for the entire engine, not just it's bolts.

Raw materials tend to have different HPs from what an object made out of it would have. I'm mostly using the hp/inch as a guideline to throw guesses out.

It still comes to the same conclusion: It's really hard for a low level character to pull this off. And it would probably still be pretty hard for an experienced adventurer.

The character is also forgoing better alternatives, like full defense or cover in favor of stopping a single ranged attack with a near impossible roll.

The whole braced against a wall or suffer penalties sounds restrictive.

Double Hackbuts have a built in brace (like siege engines) and don't require you to have appropriate terrain around you.

Per RAW, the carriage is an integrated part of the weapon and the thing doesn't occupy extra space and isn't slowed down due to it's method of maneuvering.

You can house rule these things, of course, but the rules treat it as a regular weapon you spend a full round deploying the first time. And there is nothing saying you need to fold it up ever again, so, by RAW, you can deploy it when you bought it and never worry again.

The cart and everything are just fluff for "Spend full round action deploying weapon so it doesn't penalize you, use as normal firearm".