Kyra

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107 posts. Alias of Dean Kimes.


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bookrat wrote:
SmiloDan wrote:

What about a paladin/warlock multiclass to Divine Smite with warlock spell slots over and over and over again?

Doesn't work. Divine Smite specifically calls out Paladin spell slots.

Completely incorrect. A multiclass Paladin/Warlock can use warlock slots for divine smite just as a multiclass Paladin/Wizard can use any of his spell slots for divine smite.

Verified in sage advice: http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/05/12/covert-warlock-spell-slots-to-sorcery-p oints/


Lamontius wrote:

they should not even be trying in the first place

best case scenario is the dragon is indifferent in attitude and has a fairly low CHA for a dragon. Only then would 0diplo fighter person have a small chance of success.

any other scenario and 0diplo fighter person has a 0% chance of success.

if your character has no mechanical basis for making brilliant speeches then you are not able to get a mechanical benefit for making brilliant speeches

True, but they could have a story based mechanical benefit that isn't reflected in the character's skill bonuses. For example, the 0 diplo fighter in question may have learned that the dragon is searching for something and having information on that might give him a mechanical bonus based on circumstances rather than raw ability.

This is a good justification for the role-play, then roll scenario, if the character role-plays hinting at having the info they get the bonus, if they forget to mention it, they do not get the bonus.


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We generally roleplay first, then roll. Usually the players in our group are pretty good about not making up some eloquent speech when the character has a lousy social skill, and a couple of the players aren't generally able to do justice when they play a character with a really high social skill.

This has resulted in a few hilarious exchanges, like the time a fairly capable rogue named Lambert was trying to bluff his way through a city watch at a gate after curfew. He came up with a really good story, and then rolled the dreaded one. This prompted him to add, "so what do you think guys? Can I pass by now already? I'm really going to be late and miss my chance to break into Pasketti's Jewelry Emporium if you don't help me out."

The entire table busted out laughing and the poor unlucky rogue is still lamented to this day whenever a 1 comes up in a social roll as everyone calls it "Pulling a Lambert".


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There are two that really irk me:

1. The 5 foot step withdraw to cast. Wizard with a fighter on you, no worries just 5 ft step back and waste him with a spell... over and over again. Cheesy.

2. DR X/Magic. After 5th level this is pretty much a totally worthless ability regardless of the DR value. The plus to overcome the DR should scale with the value, i.e. +1 overcomes DR 5, +2 overcomes DR 10 (or +1 lowers it to DR 5, etc.


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Kirth Gersen wrote:

1. Casting in Combat.

(a). You can cast a quickened spell, and a normal spell -- both of which require you to pull stuff out of a pouch, wave your hands in secret signs, and recite the Gettysburg Address in pig Latin -- while tumbling across the battlefield at full speed. Meanwhile, if Fred the Fighter moves, he loses all but one of his attacks. WTF?!?!?!

(b). At low levels, it's hard to cast spells while people are swinging sticks at you. Good. But at high levels, it's a joke and you auto-succeed -- regardless of whether the people attacking you are mooks or world-class slayers. In other words, you automatically get better at casting while under attack, but the people attacking you somehow never get better at disrupting your casting. WTF?!?!?!

I think casting defensively should be DC 10 + the CMB of the person threatening you.

Yeah, I think most spells probably need to cost a move action plus a standard action to better balance with full attacks.


Heh, heh, touche' Scythia!


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If you want a more mechanical answer, it takes 2000 lbs of force to turn the anvil. Str 20 (lowest str that can get a DC 25 check alone), maximum lift, times 5 since only "pushing" it.


If someone is taking 20 on moving the anvil, I see no reason to require those assisting to roll.

the DC is really useful if there is some reason the PCs need to open the door in a hurry, otherwise its fairly irrelevant.

The text though makes me think that the author intended that it was not possible to assist someone in turning the anvil (because it is inset and not large enough for more than one person to manipulate at a time).

This makes the door quite difficult to open without the aid of buffing and possibly a guidance spell as well. That may be intentional. If getting the door open is not required to complete the adventure then leave it as very difficult, hopefully with a nice surprise behind it if the party does manage to open it.

Without knowing more about the adventure, I would probably leave it that way and if someone insisted on taking 20 would likely make sure at least one "random" encounter came along while they were trying. I'd also probably give dwarves a racial bonus of +4 to open it (assuming it was made for dwarves by dwarves).


I agree, it makes little to no sense that the shaman list is lacking spells that both parent classes can cast, especially the disease related spells.

Also, Crashing Waves hex is useless without taking another hex to specifically get damage dealing spells with the water descriptor. Why have a hex that enhances water descriptor spells your class doesn't even possess?

I don't think this spell list was well thought out, it needs to be errata'd.

The limited ability to "snag" spells from other lists is kinda cool, but it is really limited unless you are a human or half-human and then it is only cleric spells below your spell level max. That's more about the favored class option being OP than the class being OP.


TotallySrsYo wrote:

I think combat expertise is best feat. In fact, every combat feat should have combat expertise as a pre-requisite. After all, if you don't have expertise in combat, how can you perform great feats in combat?

PS: See alias.

Lol, love the avatar! First post that has actually cheered me up re: Combat Expertise, congrats!


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As an AC boost, its horrifically poorly scaled. Every 4 levels it gives you an extra +1 AC, whoop-de-do, even a wizard gets twice that much increase in to hit every 4 levels, and most everyone else, including a power attacking fighter get 3 times the to hit boost that you get in AC boost...plus you take a -1 to hit to boot. Yuck!

Maybe if it was -1 to hit and +2 to AC per stacking, at least then it would keep pace with the wizard trying to smack you with a sword...

Better AC option: Dodge for +1 AC with no to hit penalty, and Crane Style for +4 AC (with 3 ranks of Acrobatics) and -2 to hit. Total of +5 AC for -2 to hit...so much better than Combat Expertise.

Sigh, guess there is no hope for my hate to end. sigh.


I almost never play a character that has any Combat Maneuvers unless they come as a class feature because of how much I hate wasting a feat on Combat Expertise.

Anybody got some inspiring tactical ideas or interesting stories on why this feat is just too awesome to hate or do I have to continue belaboring that I will never get to play a "maneuver monkey" because I can't bear taking this crummy feat...


So we decided to make Chill Touch and Frostbite work like Produce Flame, in that it lasts 1 min/level and each hit reduces the duration by 1 minute. Removes his other problem with it in that it couldn't be dispelled since the duration was instantaneous, even though you could still be using its effects an hour later.


Torger Miltenberger wrote:


You don't think there are non blaster spells that can benefit from metamagic?

You don't think being able to apply them with no spell level increase is a net gain in power?

If that's true then ok... but we have very different thoughts on power levels.

- Torger

Sure, but it's only 1 spell. I don't think getting cheaper metamagic on a single spell is a big deal. Especially when a magic item lets you do it on any spell 3 times a day.


We've never had any issue with traits breaking anything. Then again we don't allow campaign traits unless they are from the campaign we are playing. Still, rerolling one save per day hardly seems broken considering an entire party can be rerolling every save if they want to and have a witch or shaman handy. Also having one spell that has lessened metamagic costs doesn't sound onerous either, the really good spells you could put it on mean you may never live to see the day you can actually use the trait. Or are DM's no longer killing anyone ever? Did I miss a memo?


Darkfire142 wrote:

I as a DM refuse to allow players to play the summoner class. The reasons are as follows:

Really, this was all I needed to hear to confirm my belief that they are broken and shouldn't be allowed:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2l7ns&page=1033?Ask-James-Jacobs-ALL-your-Q uestions-Here

Paizo Employee James Jacobs Creative Director Jan 12, 2015, 06:38 PM James Jacobs

Derek the Ferret wrote:
James - Say I'm a Fighter 9/Synthesist 1 and I have my fused eidolon out. What would my BAB be? +1 or +10?

Wouldn't matter in my case. I don't allow summoners in my game, and if I did, I wouldn't allow synthesists.

If JJ agrees they should be banned, that's more than enough proof I think.


We were just about to rotate back to this campaign so I was looking to see if any reply had occurred. I did FAQ this in one of the threads. I see that official responses are few, probably because trolls are plentiful.


I'm hoping they meant to say "This replaces the Spirit ability and alters the Hex ability." Otherwise it makes no sense since the only thing the Hex class feature does is grant you the ability to use hexes, which this also does.

On shaman's taking witch hexes, the name of the shaman he is Witch Hex, and I believe as it is written you can only take Witch Hex once, meaning a regular shaman can only get one witch hex, while an unsworn has access to them all. Of course, an unsworn cannot currently get any shaman hexes, though I expect a witch hex called Shaman Hex will be added at some point that would allow an unsworn to get one Shaman hex that isn't tied to a spirit.


Jiggy wrote:

Arkadwyn, you should check out this FAQ, as it contradicts your assertion.

You should also not embark on necro-crusades where you dig up multiple years-old threads just to spam assertions of your rightness over everyone.

Not my intent, was actually just reading every thread on this in an attempt to find something that officially dealt with the conflict between what is written as RAW concerning multi-touch spells and the FAQ. There is nothing there to suggest it was only meant to apply to friendly touch spells, though I agree that it makes sense for the spell to allow multiple touches over several rounds. The next obvious question is how many rounds can I hold those multiple touches? Why hasn't this ever been errata'd so as to be clear?

My position was in line with the FAQ all along, however my DM refuses to acknowledge the FAQ because it contradicts a rule that has never been errata'd. However, when I pointed out that by that logic a magus gets one free touch per level then in that one round, thereby gaining an extra attack per level, his response was to outlaw the magus class and force me to retire my character.

I was just hoping to get an official response that would remove the contradiction between the FAQ (which not everyone considers canon) and the un-errata'd rulebook. So sue me for being thorough.


What about an alchemist acquiring Frostbite? They already get Elemental Touch at the same level as other casters, it would seem in line with their abilities to be able to get Frostbite (or Chill Touch) as a 1st level spell if they research it.


From what I can see the Fighter has the best general AC and damage output, the barbarian has the best staying power (hp) and more out of combat abilities, the brawler is the most flexible at dealing with odd tactical situations due to martial flexibility, and the monk is the most overall resistant to being neutralized due to high saves, immunities , and high touch AC.

I think there are situations where one of the four completely outpaces the others, but across the board they all have situations where they flourish and others where they struggle.


Nefreet wrote:
I've never thought the Sohei could flurry in armor, but I clicked the FAQ anyways. If they could, I bet you the supply of +1 Mithral Brawling Chain Shirts across Golarion would sell out overnight.

Now that brawlers can flurry in mithral chain mail, finding +1 Mithral Brawling Chain of either sort is quite difficult. :-)


Kchaka wrote:

I could help with insightfull information, but let's just face it, this thread is beyound hopeless by now.

Make up your mind on what you think is the right ruling and be done with it, because some people here will clearly never submit to the other opinion.

Realistically a gauntlet is nothing more than a metal skin for your hand. It makes perfect sense that striking with it is considered an unarmed attack, its just your fist with something hard on it, it doesn't have pokey bits, you don't hold it, etc. Why would it stop a monk from flurrying? A cestus doesn't, its a monk weapon and the most advanced form of combat gauntlet. Why does a gauntlet provoke and a cestus does not? Because a cestus has bits designed for parrying, a gauntlet is just a metal glove. If you're going to ask this kind of question then ask why can't I slash with my shortsword or stab with my longsword? Both have sharp edges and sharp points.

I see no reason why it shouldn't be ruled as read, an attack with a gauntlet is otherwise considered an unarmed attack. Otherwise being as in "other than it does lethal damage". I would rule that a monk can use a gauntlet to flurry, its damage does scale with his unarmed attack, etc. however he cannot do non-lethal damage with it unless he takes the appropriate penalty.

A monk with his hands tied behind his back can use his unarmed strike normally, but he wouldn't be able to use his gauntlets to make those strikes as his fists are unavailable.


Curious if there is any official clarification in the book regarding Shamans and Improved familiar. Can they A) take Improved Familiar because Spirit Animals are treated as familiars, or B) Not take Improved Familiar because they can only replace their Spirit Animal with the same type of animal?


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It's the difference between role playing and roll playing. A role player doesn't care if he is sub-optimal, he expects the story to be catered to the characters in the story, not some theoretical optimal party of characters.

As a DM I always try to put situations into the game that make it apparent that while mathematically it might be better to be geared towards a single specialized set of abilities, in life you are much more likely to need to be more well rounded because there will be situations where your best abilities may be completely useless.


Still wishing they would errata or faq this. The kensai is so potentially cool, but the tradeoffs of perfect strike (yuck) for spell recall and then a not really much better fighter training for spell knowledge, (not to mention completely losing your 10th level ability as an effective one) is just too much.

The flavor is great, but getting 2.5 pts or so more damage is not worth losing an extra shocking grasp, or whatever spell you need more of. and getting fighter level feats at level -3 instead of level/2 but only for 1 weapon isn't an upgrade of the ability it effectively replaces, and it causes loss of an extra ability.

And Critical perfection for a magus arcana? also really bad trade-off. Better would be if this replaced the 10th level fighter training, that would make more sense.


It's also at the head of the section on the different downtime activities, but that leads me to believe it is only as specifically spelled out in that section. Which naturally doesn't spell out earning capital and instead refers you back to pg 177.

Kind of like when an Index entry instead of giving a page number says see another index entry. What idiot writes those?!? Grrrr.


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

So your answer to #2 makes sense. It means that owning an appropriate business makes it easier to earn capital, which again makes sense. Now if I could figure out #1, and also now #3 below

#3: The rules say you can use capital for it's purchase value in place of gp for any appropriate downtime activity that forces you to spend gp. So if I have 1 Goods in the bank, can I go earn capital for Labor, gain 2 Labor, and use the 1 Goods to pay for earning the Labor (by giving out goods to the prospective laborers, like giving everyone who helps you move beer and pizza)?

Sounds reasonable, which in part is probably what scares me about it. :-)


So, two of the downtime activities don't seem to make much sense to me. The first is promoting a business, it seems like it allows you to make a skill check to generate a few extra resources over a period of 1d6 days. The problem is you could earn the same amount of extra capital in one day by taking the earn capital action. Iis this action just written really poorly or is it useless?

The second one is running a business. Taking that action lets you make a capital check for your business at +10. The problem is, again taking the earn capital action on your own is far more productive, your business will gain 1 less resource, but you will gain at least one resource if you have no skill bonus so at worst it is a wash, and usually you will generate more on your own than giving your business +10 will.

Hoping someone can give an official clarification on these.


No, No, no. The witch or any other caster can attempt up to one touch per level (assuming they can reach that many targets) during the round of casting. After that the spell is expended and unused touches are lost. This is pretty clear from the PRD.

PRD: "Touch Spells and Holding the Charge: In most cases, if you don't discharge a touch spell on the round you cast it, you can hold the charge (postpone the discharge of the spell) indefinitely. You can make touch attacks round after round until the spell is discharged. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates.

Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets as part of the spell. You can't hold the charge of such a spell; you must touch all targets of the spell in the same round that you finish casting the spell."

You must touch all targets of the spell in the same round that you finish casting the spell. Pretty succinct.


According to the PRD, the effects of multi-touch spells do not last past the round of casting, they cannot be held and all touches must be used in the round cast or they are lost.

PRD:"Touch Spells and Holding the Charge: In most cases, if you don't discharge a touch spell on the round you cast it, you can hold the charge (postpone the discharge of the spell) indefinitely. You can make touch attacks round after round until the spell is discharged. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates.

Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets as part of the spell. You can't hold the charge of such a spell; you must touch all targets of the spell in the same round that you finish casting the spell."


Oly for attacks made that same round. From the PRD: "Touch Spells and Holding the Charge: In most cases, if you don't discharge a touch spell on the round you cast it, you can hold the charge (postpone the discharge of the spell) indefinitely. You can make touch attacks round after round until the spell is discharged. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates.

Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets as part of the spell. You can't hold the charge of such a spell; you must touch all targets of the spell in the same round that you finish casting the spell."

Thus any potential touches you didn't use are lost at the end of the round.


Chimerical wrote:

Hey crowd, just wanted a rules check on the Frostbite (UM 221) spell and how it works with the Magus class.

Frostbite is an instantaneous touch spell that has at the end "You can use this melee touch attack up to one time per level."

Basically, I want my math checked on the following, assuming a 3rd level Magus who hits all the time:

Round 1: Using Spell Combat, Magus casts Frostbite and gets a free melee attack with his weapon for casting a touch spell, suffering a -2 penalty. He hits, and does weapon damage plus Frostbite effects. Then he takes his regular Spell Combat attack, and hits, doing weapon damage plus Frostbite effects. (Frostbite gives 3 melee touch at his level, Spellblade allows weapon to deliver touch)

Round 2: Magus makes a normal weapon attack, and does weapon damage plus the final third Frostbite effects.

Is this correct?

Am I correct in thinking that if the Magus were to try casting Shocking Grasp with Spell Combat before attacking on the second round, that would discharge the final Frostbite effect?

Finally, only slightly related, am I correct in remembering that if no other movement is done, a 5-foot step may be taken in between attacks during a full attack? Thus allowing a Magus to, for example, cast Burning Hands using Spell Combat, then step up and make his weapon attack?

You cannot Hold the Charge on Touch spells which allow multiple touches. All touches must be completed in the round the spell was cast or are lost.

From the PRD: "Touch Spells and Holding the Charge: In most cases, if you don't discharge a touch spell on the round you cast it, you can hold the charge (postpone the discharge of the spell) indefinitely. You can make touch attacks round after round until the spell is discharged. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates.

Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets as part of the spell. You can't hold the charge of such a spell; you must touch all targets of the spell in the same round that you finish casting the spell."


Zonto wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
The important thing is to make sure that a ninja can never take the Pirate archetype.
Thankfully there's no Robot archetype for the rogue either!

Wish there was, then I could play Bender!


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http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2k2i5?Why-are-weapon-energy-effects-command-wor d#20

Jacobs specifically states that the effect stays on until you turn it off, not until you turn on something completely different.


loganstarr wrote:

did you ever find the post?

James Jacobs Creative Director Oct 20, 2009, 12:01 AM | Flag |

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Post #7 in "Why are weapon energy effects "command word activated"?"Add to: New List Comment:
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2 people marked this as FAQ candidate. +

While it's a command word to activate or deactivate a weapon like a flaming or a frost weapon... once activated it stays on. Sheathing it suppresses the energy automatically, and when you draw the weapon later it's ready to go. You'd only want to turn off the energy effect, as a previous poster said, when you're facing something that using that type of energy against is a bad idea.

from

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2k2i5?Why-are-weapon-energy-effects-command-wor d#20


Why in the name of all that is holy would you base the hex size on something that doesn't correlate to the movement rates for overland travel in your own game??? This hex size makes absolutely zero sense. 12 miles center to center, now that would make sense, though 6 miles center to center would be better.


Doesn't say it can only be used in a charge action so you could also use it to escape by riding through a house, or to circumvent a defensive wall, or to avoid a large chasm. I'm actually much more interested in all the non-charging actions this could let you perform!


Don't forget you need Skill Focus: Perception as a prerequisite to Eldritch Heritage (Draconic).


Neo2151 wrote:

Then how does a Magus or Rogue hit? Legitimate question, btw.

This question has been bugging me for a while, what with all the "Monks are bad" threads we see popping up all the time.
Everyone knows the Rogue is bad, but most of it's problems are Special-Abilities-related, since they're not a class meant primarily for combat.

We've had this problem for some time in my campaign, the rogue hits fairly often, but even the cleric is more likely to hit than the monk on any single attack. The reason is simple enough, both rogue and cleric have a weapon with a better plus to hit than the monk.

The cost for an amulet of mighty fists is extremely prohibitive compared to that for a single magic weapon. Also rogues often shine outside of combat, which a monk seldom does unless something needs jumping over, most of their skill areas are already covered by a rogue, and generally better covered.

A magus will pretty much never miss if he really needs to hit. With Spell Combat and a few cheap L1 Pearls of Power the magus can almost always have that True Strike available when he needs it, and he can use the +20 on his attack in the same round thanks to spell combat.

A monk Ki power that allowed them to add their Wisdom bonus to hit for a round would be a good addition I think.


Yeah, it doesn't really make sense that if they had called it Mymidarch Armor Training and repeated all the verbiage, then it would stack because it is an untyped bonus, but because they tried to save page space they just referred back to the fighter ability, it doesn't stack.


11 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Answered in the FAQ.

Does the Armor Training from Fighter 3 stack with that from Myrmidarch 8? Probably not a build a lot of folks are doing, but one of our players is currently an F3/Myr7 and is wondering if he will get to improve his Armor Training from fighter when he gains it as Myrmidarch 8. I am inclined to say "Yes" but wondered if there was an official answer.


Yeah, this is one of my few beefs with the magic weapon and armor system in 3.5/Pathfinder. Wish they had changed it. Adding flaming to a weapon is pretty much equally effetive whether added to a +1 weapon, or a +5 weapon. If anything, it's less useful to add it to a +5 weapon, because by the time you can afford a +5 weapon, adding 1d6 to your damage is fairly inconsequential. I'd rather see all of the special abilities have fixed costs with a modifier for stacking fixed cost abilities. Say +5000gp for flaming, then to add shocking to that costs an additional +5000gp (x1.5 for being the second fixed cost enhancement).


Something Wicked This Way Comes is still one of my favorite stories, ever since the first time I read it in middle school. We will not see his like again...that generation of writers is passing from this realm and our days are sadder for it.


2 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

I'd love to see an official answer on how chill touch (and other instantaneous muti-touch spells) works. I have yet to find two DM's who run it consistently going all the way back to early 3.0. It's one of the most poorly written, either highly abusable or useless (depending on interpretation) spells ever propagated from one edition to the next.


Oliver McShade wrote:
Zeldenhandel wrote:

Racial heritage allows a character to take feats and prestige classes as if he were another race as well as human.

Do the elf blood and orc blood racial traits have the same effect?
Could a half-elf character for example take "elven accuracy"? Or "racial heritage: orc" even? (being descended from an elf and a half-orc perhaps?)

In a Logical World ... they should.

But in Pathfinder, i can already tell, they went a different direction, when they came out with the APG.

So think of them as different races now.

So you get double the vulnerability but generally speaking, none of the optins of either race? Since bad effects that affect a particular race (bane, favored enemy, etc. are much, much more common than beneficial one, that definitely makes this ability fall into the Weakness category rather than Strength. No other races have a built in weakness like this.


Hunter ranger could be tracking down someone who burned the witch's home to the ground, and in so doing, wanders onto the lands of the barbarian rancher's tribe.


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My problem with limiting it is that the example given is that a monk can always make his or her full attacks regardless of how many of her limbs etc. is impaired/unavailable. If that is true, how can it not be all the attacks with any of the monks many weapons...I always thought of it as monk hits you with numchuks, swaps them to other hand and hits you with that hand, rinse repeat...it fits the genre of the kung fooey classic imo.


I would like to point out that it is highly unlikely the weaponsmith can actually sell 2 martial weapons a week, even in a big city. So while he theoretically could make that amount, it is much more likely he spends most of his time making much less doing weapon repairs, sharpening weapons, etc. At a guess, I'd say his yearly wage is likely 1/10th of what you have here due to most of his wares sitting on the shelves for a couple of months. Same for the armorsmith.


Personally I like the idea that they are refugees of the Sodden Lands, having fled when the Eye of Abendigo appeared, they no longer have a homeland to call their own.

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