Axl's page

Waveblade is in both the close and monk weapon groups.

Leadership feat can grant a young dragon as a cohort.

Okay, thanks Derklord.

Is this really correct? It seems like a grey area.
It looks like the game author didn't even consider Combat Expertise & Int 13 as the default pre-reqs for (some of) the Improved Manoeuvre feats.

You get a total of +1, because both bonuses are trait bonuses, which don't stack with each other.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Okay. Darkleaf cloth hide shirt would be okay, right? (This is for a multiclass druid-sorcerer to reduce arcane spell failure.)

Thread necromancy: can druids wear darkleaf cloth studded leather armor?

Armour spikes?

This is one of the (few) situations where a summoner is viable.

Another possibility is to ask your GM to let you play a gestalt (i.e. two classes in the same character). Although this doesn't give you the power of two characters, it allows you to be more flexible, with more options in any given situation.

The feat that you quote seems to be different from this version of savage critical.

In any case, the bracketed part would apply to Bless Weapon spell, Unstoppable feature of destined bloodrager, Weapon Mastery (level 20 feature) of the fighter, skewering weapon enhancement, pendant of the blood scarab, or disposable weapon.

I don't think that it would apply to coup de grace, because cdg does not have an attack roll, and therefore cannot roll a natural 20.

The bracketed part seems to be redundant though, because all of these effects do say that they confirm the critical. I think that the feat is just poorly worded.

No crit
No effect

We are discussing if the amount of damage done is also based on the players caster level, would a level 10 wizard using a staff of Fire create 8D6 fireballs or 10D6 fireballs when expending two charges from the staff of fire?

10d6

The staff of fire uses either the wielder's spellcaster level or the staff's caster level, whichever is higher. In this case, the wielder's spellcaster level is 10.

Wizards of the Coast answered this question in an official FAQ.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2017/01/Main35FAQv0630 2008.pdf

The answer is yes (page 23). While this FAQ is specific to 3.5 D&D, I see no reason to disallow it from Pathfinder.

If you really want to have some fun, figure out who is denied Reflex saves.

No-one is ever denied a Reflex save. Sleeping/immobile/helpless targets effectively have a Dex of 0, which gives a -5 modifier. This is added to the class bonus and other bonuses (Resistance, etc.). A natural 20 is always successful.

As well as dwarves & elves with their special exotic weapons, halflings get the halfling sling staff, half-orcs get the orc double axe, and gnomes get the gnome hooked hammer.

Tengu get the two-bladed sword, the elven curve sword and the bastard sword.

There are probably other racial exotic -> martial weapons too.

If I were writing the rules I'd allow butt strokes with pole arms up close.

O.o

That's a completely different form of roleplaying.

My overall concern with Reach Weapons is the fact that you need to switch to a different weapon when the enemy is next to you.

Armour spikes will at least threaten the 5-foot range until you can step away.

The answer is B.

To Dekalinder: the presence/absence of precision damage should be determined before any damage dice are rolled. Against a monster immune to to precision, you roll 1d6 pierce plus 1d6 fire. You do not roll 1d6 pierce, 1d6 fire, and 3d6 precision pierce, and subsequently declare immunity to precision. (Well, you shouldn't. When I played a rogue in a tabletop game, I used red sneak attack dice, a green corrosive [acid] die and a white base damage die in case the GM forgot to tell me in advance.)

If your target has, say, DR 10/bludgeon, you will subtract the 10 points of DR from the total of the 4d6 pierce. You don't subtract 10 from the 1d6 pierce, and again from the 3d6 precision pierce. If the 10 points of DR reduces the total of the 4d6 pierce to 0 or lower, then the fire damage does not take effect either.

Critical Fumbles are the worst thing Paizo has ever published. Worse than the crane wing errata. Worse than the playtest arcanist.

I would argue that the Powerful Sneak rogue talent is the worst Paizo rule. (I played a rogue character for a year, so perhaps I am biased.) But I agree that critical fumbles disproportionately hurt melee characters, especially two-weapon fighters and monks.

Aioran actually makes a fair point. However that interpretation creates an anomaly depending on where in the initiative order the cleric is acting.

If the cleric is acting at the end of the initiative, her Bit of Luck activates immediately. If the cleric acts at the start of the initiative, Bit of Luck will take nearly six seconds before it starts.

Casting Bit of Luck on, say, a friendly fighter would have significant implications depending on where in the initiative order the cleric is acting. For this reason, I think that it more sensible to interpret the duration as "starting immediately for the next six seconds".

To Zhayne, the analogous term would be "For the next day", not "For the next 24 hours". Today is one day. "The next day" could be interpreted as tomorrow. However this interpretation, while reasonable, runs into the same anomaly as a Bit Of Luck.

While many players seem to like very high ability values, I find that it makes encounter CRs more difficult to gauge as a GM. If I want PCs to be more powerful, I give them xp/levels & loot.

In your case, where your allies go insane and focus fire you, only the highest relevant bonus counts.

Er, he was talking about the enemy's allies. :-)

That's an interesting and creative use of the spell.

Although a level 9 cleric dealing 1d8+9 damage (halved with a successful save) to each undead creature in a 30 foot diameter area with a level 5 spell seems somewhat underwhelming. Add in the friendly healing and the general versatility of the spell, though, and I could see potential if you know that the group is about to go into an undead-infested dungeon.

That's right, Blake.

(As RumpinRufus mentioned, this can be overruled with Quicken Spell-like Ability.)

Do polymorph/transmutation spells that change you into an animal change your type to animal?

I had a look at the druid's wild shape and Beast Shape spells. Unfortunately those effects do not change the druid's/spellcaster's type.

Good find but sadly it still wouldnt work because its not just any animal can go in there, its an animal you the character have bonded with.

The text of the item states "The wearer can speak a command word to magically store an animal to which he is bonded, such as an animal companion, a familiar, or mount."

In this case the "wearer" is indeed bonded to the "animal". The requirement is met.

Following the words "such as", three examples are given. However these examples are not exclusive of other possibilities. (Interestingly, familiars technically are "magical beasts", not "animals".)

A level 20 nature oracle can change his type to "animal". He can also gain a bonded mount, and the mount has Intelligence of at least 6. The mount could certainly learn to speak languages.

This would actually work for a level 20 nature oracle.

(There must be other ways to become "animal" type.)

The ninja's vanishing trick is like the Invisibility spell.

The Invisibility spell explicitly drops if you make an offensive action. Therefore an attacker with Invisibility spell or vanishing trick will deny Dex bonus to AC on the first attack of a full attack. (The attacker will also gain +2 to attack on that attack.) However after that first attack, the spell/trick dissipates. On subsequent attacks of the full attack, the defender retains Dex bonus to AC.

So the major argument here is:-

Does alchemist's fire deal 1 damage, or 1d6 + 50% damage?

Just Fireball it!

Personally, I would allow a minimum of one hit die.

Technically, there is only one "shield slot". The wielder would have to allocate one shield to that slot, and its shield bonus to AC to would apply.

It seems reasonable for the wielder to have a second shield in the other hand, but its shield bonus would not apply. It also seems reasonable to allow two-weapon fighting with two shields - they are listed as martial weapons.

A question remains: whether a wielder could change that allocation of his shield slot on the fly. This would require a ruling by the GM. There is nothing in the rules to guide this. Personally, I would allow it at a free action during the wielder's turn.

I like the half-orc ranger with a double axe. Solid damage with the axe and the occasional awesome critical. No need to worry about Dex prerequisites with the ranger's two-weapon fighting style.

Correct me if I'm wrong but why wield two short swords? The penalty for two weapon fighting is -2 & -2 if you have the TWF feat, a 1 handed weapon in main hand and a light weapon in the off hand. So if you are TWFing it's like longsword in one, short in the other. There is no point in TWFing with 'just' two light weapons.

It is good for characters who aren't proficient with longswords, such as rogues.

It is also good for weapon finesse builds, such as many rogues.

(And the efficient use of feats that Jeraa mentioned.)

"So when a barbarian with a 18 str rages his str is only 22 temporary str and some stuff like skill checks or his carry capacy may not change."

I don't think that's right. Raging gives a (temporary) morale bonus to Str & Con. I see no reason why this shouldn't increase his skill checks (Climb & Swim) and carrying capacity.

"Neither do his rage rounds go up."

That is correct, because the barbarian class's text explicitly states that temporary boosts to Con do not increase the number of rounds of rage.

With a non-reach melee weapon, the shikigami cannot attack an adjacent foe. With a reach weapon, it can attack an adjacent foe, but this would not provoke an AoO anyway.

As a tiny creature with reach 0 feet, I suppose that it would need a reach weapon (e.g. longspear) to attack an "adjacent foe" in melee? Why would it provoke an AoO for making the attack?

"Well, for one, magical beasts are treated as having magic weapons, last I checked."

That's wrong.

"Ditto elementals, mostly on the "ignores your DR because its dealing elemental damage, which is not subject to DR but 'resistance to...'""

Physical attacks deal physical damage. The earth elemental's slam attack is a natural attack that deals bludgeoning damage.

"Mithral Breastplate I believe is also -0 ACP out of the box."

Mithral breastplate has -1 ACP. Mithral armour is inherently masterwork, so you don't get the masterwork benefit on top.

With armour expert trait, the mithral breastplate's ACP would reduce to 0.

"Of course, DR/magic is basically worthless."

Draco18s, would you like to comment on aberrations, animals, constructs, elementals, magical beasts, oozes, undead, and vermin?

I use the old Living 3.5 system (Ciaran Barnes's version 1).

d6 = 4 hp
d8 = 5 hp
d10 = 6 hp
d12 = 7 hp

This keeps characters balanced in line with the expected CR of monsters, and it prevents the high hit die classes (barbarians, etc.) from greatly outstripping the wizards & sorcerers.

Mithral chain shirt. Not proficient? Who cares.

Until your teammates can afford to buy the mithral chain shirt for you and persuade you to wear it, you're gonna have to wear the hide armour. Suck it up - that's the point of the true primitive archetype.

DR/magic is useful at low level. Also, it is useful against several monster types such as animals.

To Ornery Hobbit, Invincible armour can give you DR 10/bludgeoning or slashing, which would protect against pierce damage. It is expensive though: 137,650 gp. I am not sure how to break down its cost into its component parts.

Gendo wrote:

I have always hand;ed evasion that if an explosion is centered on you, or you are adjacent to the epicenter of the explosion, evasion gets overcome. But, that's a houserule.

...Why?

Because monks and rogues are overpowered.

"I don't want to get bogged down in a sub-debate" - Gaberlunzie

Isn't that the purpose of the Rules forum?

Okay, that's a good point.

"The intent is for it to stay permanent" - Wraithstrike

The expectation was that the cleric's alignment would not change. The possibility was not considered when the rules were created.

It is up to GM discretion. Personally I would just let the cleric channel positive. Requiring an Atonement spell also seems to be a reasonable option.

Axl wrote:

The ape is not a mount. Therefore it does not wear barding.

Really, the only difference between barding and regular armour, is that when the creature wearing the armour happens to be a mount, its armour is called barding.

Let me repeat myself. There is no barding or mount referred to by the Armor For Unusual Creatures table. The relevant issue in determining cost/weight is whether the creature is Humanoid or Non-Humanoid.

I'm not sure why you directed that comment towards me. I agree with you.

The ape is not a mount. Therefore it does not wear barding.

Really, the only difference between barding and regular armour, is that when the creature wearing the armour happens to be a mount, its armour is called barding.

I feel like paizo is trying to come up with rules that micromanage the game so that bad dm's can't fail. Never going to work and the good GM's aren't going to play that game.

Matthew Downie wrote:

Dasrak wrote:

Being able to overcome problems that were formerly difficult for you is a natural part of character growth in Pathfinder, and spellcasters overcome their problems with magic. Taking this away essentially pulls a substantial part of the character growth of spellcasters. You could well create a game system where such powers don't exist, or are incredibly rare, but that wouldn't be Pathfinder. High-level characters with the right tools for the job should be able to trivialize problems; it's okay to be a world-changing power at these levels, and to a degree it's actually a problem if you aren't.

It wouldn't be Pathfinder 1, that's for sure...

But my preference is for a game where interesting problems are not trivialized as soon as you hit level 9, to the extent that stories have to be rewritten to accommodate it:

Week 1:
GM: "You must fight your way out of the slave-pits of Khazar..."
Wizard: "Teleport."

Week 2:
GM: "You have been hired to carry a valuable cargo across the perilous Sea of Scimitars..."
Wizard: "Teleport."

Week 3:
GM: "You must rescue the priestess from the city prison..."
Wizard: "Teleport."

Week 4:
GM: "It's a race against time! Can you bring the priestess to the temple in time to prevent the ritual? The Bladehawks will be trying to thwart you at every step!"
Wizard: "Teleport."

Week 5:
GM: "You must cross the Plains of Desolation and cast the evil artefact into the Bottomless Pit."
Wizard: "Teleport."

Week 6+:
GM: "There is a dungeon full of monsters. You must kill them all."
Wizard: "Finally, a challenge worthy of my skills!"

I mean, it's hardly as useful as you claim, if you as a GM tailor your world around the knowledge that teleportation magic exists (a more than reasonable thing to do), and keep in mind that short-circuiting a journey could lead to other potential issues. Here are example responses for your Week 1-5 entries:

Week 1:
GM: "Because they realized you...

Why does everyone forget Gm's have a job as well your examples are what lousy GM with no imagination does.

Week 1:
GM: "You must fight your way out of the slave-pits of Khazar..."
Wizard: "Teleport

or. You wake up with no access to your magic. You don't know why but you realize you and your party have to fight your way out of the slave-pits of Khazar without any magic....

Week 2:
GM: "You have been hired to carry a valuable cargo across the perilous Sea of Scimitars..."
Wizard: "Teleport."

or....
as you cast your telport you feel a strange tugging sensation and realize someone is interfering with it. As your vision clears you've arrived but the cargo is missing......

Week 3:
GM: "You must rescue the priestess from the city prison..."
Wizard: "Teleport."

or.
as you teleport into the priestess's prison you see the priestess on the floor unconscious. you smell a faint mildly annoying smell. Make a 45 fortitude check vs a poison called the lily of the abyss. (if you've got level 9 spells they've got mythic poison)

Week 4:
GM: "It's a race against time! Can you bring the priestess to the temple in time to prevent the ritual? The Bladehawks will be trying to thwart you at every step!"
Wizard: "Teleport."

As you foolishly teleport into the stronghold of the bladehawks thier leader points his finger at your priestess and she vanishes as the disintegrate spell erases from existance. With horror you see yourselves in the crystal ball on the alter. he's been watching you the entire time.

Week 5:
GM: "You must cross the Plains of Desolation and cast the evil artefact into the Bottomless Pit."
Wizard: "Teleport."

You cast the artifact into the bottomless pit with relief. The job is finally done. Then......you hear a loud almost hysterical laughter. you turn to see orcus rising from the depths holding the artifact in his hand. You have brought the prophecy to pass. You realize the priest was right. The artifact should have stayed locked in the temple vault.

Week 6+:
GM: "There is a dungeon full of monsters. You must kill them all."
Wizard: "Finally, a challenge worthy of my skills!"

The dungeon is large and it will take many days and is the demiplane of the mad mage. The magics of the demiplane only allow you to enter at the entrance and exit at the exit. Till you win through you'll be trapped unable to contact anyone, or leave the plane. good luck adventurers.

repost from another thread. relating to healing wands and costs. Note Potions cost even more. 50 cure light potions are 2500gp and it's 50 items to carry.

I've been trying to wrap my head around why resonance is needed.

Cost for wand of clw 2225. By my calculations a 6th level party of 5 that loses half their hit points per 6th level encounter will blow through a CLW every 3 encounters. Those three encounters should net around 6000 gp of treasure. so the wand will use more than 1/3rd of the treasure you obtain. that doesn't include scroll or other items that will be used. At 10th level a wand is going to be used up in one encounter that should net 5800 gp. so it actually costs more to use the wand at higher levels vs amount you should be netting.

a Wand of Cure moderate wounds is 6750gp Does 4 times the healing so it should make it through 4 level 10 encounters that would net 22400 gp.
4 1st level wands needed to do the same would cost 8900 to healthrough that many level 10 encounters.

A Wand of Cure Serious wounds is 11250 would heal through 6 encounters for a cost of 11,250 vs 6 CLW at 13350.

This doesn't even address the fact that the CLW is nearly useless during combat at level 10.

now the argument that no one is going to use a staff with only 10 charges that cost 30k holds some water. But being rechargeable by the caster, one could make the argument that it is more cost effective in the long run.

If the Christmas tree effect is that bad remove stat bonuses from magic items.

Or better yet fix your magic item creation rules that have always been half done and make them appropriately expensive. Then you could fix how cheap low level magic items are.

As far as the healing problem, not a problem. If characters have that much stuff, npc have that much stuff. As a Game Master the balancing factor for all of my games is if the players can do it the NPC can do it.

Since 1st edition people have complained about imbalances between classes, magic items etc. For example if a Game Master doesn't let the fighter get good magic items at high level a mage wins every time. If that's happening too much it's not a game flaw it's simply bad GM'ing. The Game Master has always been the person who was supposed to balance it all out.

As a GM Resonance feels like a system to micromanage the Game Masters.

As a player it feels like an attempt to prevent you from using the stuff you find.

This seems to be an attempt to force everyone to play low magic nitty gritty games. What if we don't want too?