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Maniacwyrm wrote:

Ah i see, so unless i can extend the duration it will be a temp buff. Sad but a +6 to dcs is still pretty ok.

Is there any way to increase the duration?

You are an arcanist, yes? The Spell Tinkerer exploit can increase the remaining duration by 50%. You can't use it on a given spell more than once, so for practical purposes you'd have to cast each spell (and immediately tinker it) every 12 hours to make sure there's always at least one casting that has been in effect longer than 24 hours. That gets expensive in terms of spell slots and arcane reservoir points.

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6d6 for large. 8d6 for Huge.

size changes and damage dice progression FAQ

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Did some more digging and it looks like it's just editing errors.

The Advanced Player's Guide table of feats explicitly says that the benefits of Elemental Fist only apply to unarmed strikes. The expanded feat description omits that specific limitation, but it is in the book.

As for the Elemental Strike question, here's the full text of Elemental Fist:

Quote:

Source Advanced Player's Guide pg. 158

You empower your strike with elemental energy

Prerequisites: Con 13, Wis 13, Improved Unarmed Strike, base attack bonus +8.

Benefit: When you use Elemental Strike pick one of the following energy types: acid, cold, electricity, or fire. On a successful hit, the attack deals damage normally plus 1d6 points of damage of the chosen type. You must declare that you are using this feat before you make your attack roll (thus a failed attack roll ruins the attempt). You may attempt an elemental fist attack once per day for every four levels you have attained (see Special), and no more than once per round.

Special: A monk of the four winds receives Elemental Fist as a bonus feat at 1st level, even if he does not meet the prerequisites. A monk may attempt an Elemental Fist attack a number of times per day equal to his monk level, plus one more time per day for every four levels he has in classes other than monk.

The text "Elemental Strike" in that description has has to be an error and it should say "Elemental Fist." It cannot be referring to the Elemental Strike feat, since Elemental Fist is in Advanced Player's Guide (released August 2010) and Elemental Strike is in Inner Sea Races (released September 2015).

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Sidebar on page 241 of Ultimate Campaign:

Quote:

Recruiting Armies

If you are a leader of a kingdom, that fact is sufficient for you to recruit armies from your citizens. If you are not the leader of a kingdom, the GM may decide that you need to achieve some sort of in-game accomplishment to earn the respect and renown needed to raise an army. Being able to recruit a monster army usually requires a special quest or adventure; you can’t simply recruit an army of goblins to serve you because you’ve found a tribe of goblins or know they live in your kingdom.

You can raise a new army unit as an Improvement Edict (Table 4-4 on page 209, footnote 1).

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Yes, you are correct.

It can lead to some weirdness, though. If you take Scorpion Style with a monk bonus feat, you use Charisma instead of Wisdom for those calculations. If you then take Gorgon’s Fist with another monk bonus feat, it’s Charisma as well. But if you take Gorgon’s Fist with a regular (odd-level) feat, it would be Wisdom-based.

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Derklord wrote:

...(about Eclectic and Esoteric Training)

It's not easy to do, though. Your character needs to be at (and occasionally return to) one of a couple certain spots on Golarion, pay a fee, pass a skill check to enter (fairly easy with take 10 though), and then you need to do some checks and tasks, which have a limit to how often you can attempt them.

Basically, you need in-game years at low levels to make use of this option.

Sorta yes, sorta no, sorta "doesn't matter." Spoilering because it's a digression from the main intent of the thread.

Many details about the process of gaining Fame with a Guild:

Derklord is 100% correct that (if you're following the system as presented in the book) it is a pretty complicated and lengthy process.

Take 10 is . . . well, it's variable by GM. This really, really isn't the place to debate it at length. I'm not trying to force a viewpoint on anyone. I just want to point out that some GMs will consider the potential of expulsion from the Guild (or not being admitted in the first place) to be a significant enough threat to disallow taking 10. Those GMs probably aren't reading this thread, we don't need to litigate this tiny part of the overall discussion once again. Pointing out various parts of the Skill Check rules isn't going to result in anyone saying "I was wrong." Just be sure you know your GMs viewpoint.

As for the "in-game years at low levels" - yes, it is in-game years. But ISM has a sidebar on page 21 that basically boils down to "Don't get hung up on how long the semester is. Let your players make approximately 5 Education checks per character level." Doesn't really matter how long it takes in-world. Assuming you can pass those checks (which you should be able to pass, though without Take 10 you may need to invest heavily in traits and equipment) it should take you one level from enrollment to have Eclectic Training and 7 for Esoteric.

The bigger problem is that joining and staying in a Guild is EXPENSIVE. Using the Kintargo Opera House as an example, the entrance fee is 500 gp and the tuition is 200 gp/semester. Those 5 checks per level take 5 semesters. That's 1000 gp you have to pay the Guild every level. So you're not going to be joining as soon as you create your character. Probably level three at the absolute earliest, but that's sinking a lot of your expected wealth. Assuming everything works out, you are looking at level 10 as the earliest you can get Esoteric Training. Maybe a little earlier if the GM really works on Extracurricular activities for you.

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Cornugon Smash is the one that gets mentioned the most because it's the easiest to trigger. You just have to damage the target with a power attacking.

Most of the others have conditions that are harder to meet (confirm a critical, opponent is flat-footed, you killed one of their allies, etc.), have limited uses (Omen trait is once per day), and may have other limitations as well (Helmet of the Golden General is an intelligent magic item - and even if your group allows that, the +17 to intimidate is not at all a sure thing by the level you can afford a 62,000 gp item).

I tried for years to come up with a PFS-legal Deadly Stroke build and the only other reasonable option I ever found was the Viking archetype for the fighter. Either option takes two rounds - Intimidate and hit for Shatter Defenses in first round, Deadly Stroke in second - but that's way better than the three or more rounds other methods could take.

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DKP.

In all seriousness, a bidding system can work if the players really are in conflict about who gets what. They bid a generic out-of-game currency (points) and whoever bids the highest gets the item. Everyone starts at 0 and gets more negative as they get more items. Whichever bidder starts least negative gets the item.

Example:
So if Aisha, Bernard, Calvin, and Dora want the same item, they bid. Dora ends up getting the item for 75 points. Their new point totals are
A = 0
B = 0
C = 0
D = -75

If another item comes up that both Aisha and Dora want, Aisha gets it. It's usually a good idea to put in a minimum bid (say, 10 points) so that Bernard can't just wait until everyone else is at -25 points and then get the next 25 items by bidding one point on each.

The much easier way to do it is to keep a running total of the total treasure earned and how much of the total treasure each party member has taken/spent. Whoever has taken the least gets first dibs. The downside to this method is that the classes that don't *need* as much gear (wizards/sorcerers) tend to always be first in line for the cool and unique gear because, for example, the inquisitor has been spending to upgrade her belt, headband, cloak, shield, sword, bow, etc.

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Senko wrote:
The reddit one is interesting but I think the whole thread made a mistake in the maths of the plane. They're working off the assumption one casting will get them .9 to 2 acres (which I like as a size) but the actual spell produces 4,000 square feet (ignoring height) when an acre is 40 thousand square feet so the spell is actually generating a tenth of an acre if you can find a way to widen the spell which given its +3 and a 9th level spell I don't see happening.

The 9th-level spell (create demiplane, greater) gives you 20 10'x10' squares per caster level. Assuming a 20th-level casting that's 400 squares, or 40,000 square feet. Just under an acre.

Widen exists as a (very expensive) Greater Metamagic Rod.

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Whoops, I missed the word "Unchained" in your post. Never mind the stuff about "giving up" powers.

I would still use the "prepare spell-likes every day" approach. One slot for each time he had taken the Qinggong power ki power. If he took Qinggong power at 4th, sudden speed at 6th, and Qinggong power again at 8th he would have two "slots" to prepare. One 4th-level Qinggong SLA, one 8th-level or lower SLA.

Still much better than the base unchained monk.

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Tom Marlow wrote:

So I have a player (A unchained Monk Librarian) that wants to make a “Spellbook” of Qinggong Monk Spells that he can cast from the book by paying the relevant Ki costs/being the relevant level for utility and RP purposes.

Would this be overpowered if I allowed it?

Let me make sure we're understanding this correctly. He wants to have a "spellbook" with all/some of the Qinggong spell-like abilities that duplicate spells? So from the 4th-level Qinggong list it could include augury, barkskin, burst of adrenaline, burst of insight, calm spirit, feather step, hydraulic push, ki arrow, message, psychic reading, scorching ray, and true strike. But not Death from Above or Ki Stand, etc.?

Then he can cast any of those by pulling out his book and spending the ki points for that SLA?

And he gets to access all those just by giving up slow fall?
----------
It's definitely a power increase. Not many Qinggong monks are going to give up diamond body for a self-only restoration because you won't need that very often so you choose a more commonly useful option like ki leech. But if you can write both in your book you might as well.

Is it overpowered? Nothing is overpowered if you are balancing your campaign for its existence. It's way better than the alternative for the monk, but maybe still OK on that front. To me the bigger issue is that it's a better way of casting spells than a spellcaster. A wizard can have many more spells in his book but has to choose which ones to prepare well in advance of casting. A sorcerer has more spells on her list to choose from but would have less overall spells "known" than this monk. This is the best of both worlds.

Maybe you could let him make this book but then require him to "prepare" his spell-likes every day with an hour's meditation, just like an arcanist. One SLA per ability he had given up. So if he gave up slow fall and high jump he could prepare two SLAs from the 4th-level ki power list. Giving up wholeness of body would be another SLA from the 4th or 6th-level ki powers.

It's still much better than the base Qinggong but it's not stepping on the toes of the casters as much.

Quote:
If not how should I go about managing the “Transcription Cost” for each spell/the cost of the book itself?

Same cost as if a wizard was scribing it. If the specific spell is not on the wizard spell list, use the lowest spell level of a 9-level caster (cleric, druid, psychic). If it's not on any of those, move on to the 6-level casters, then the 4-level casters.

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CRB page 208 wrote:
You can cast a spell at a lower caster level than normal, but the caster level you choose must be high enough for you to cast the spell in question, and all level-dependent features must be based on the same caster level.

An 8th-level wizard could cast phantom steed at CL7. He could NOT cast it at CL4 (because that is too low for the wizard to cast it in the first place).

As Melkiador said, there’s not any advantage to doing it. It is still a recognizably phantom horse. You can always ride it slower if you want to pretend to be bogged down in the difficult terrain. Other than deliberately giving someone a stunted version of a spell (spellcasting service provider with tiered pricing options?) the main reason for doing this is to reduce the lethality of a level-based spell like fireball.

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All spells have some kind of “manifestation” to let onlookers know ‘Hey! That guy right there is casting a spell!’ Without some form of feat, class ability, etc. that specifically disguises the source the caster will be noticed.

Extremely relevant FAQ includes the phrase “[options for concealing casting] will always provide an onlooker some sort of chance to detect the ruse.”

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PFS was/is its own special brand of stupid. At public game days you are rarely sitting with the same characters or even players as the last time you were there. Which means that when you do something foolishly risky that turned into a flawless victory last time you did it (because your party meshed perfectly with it) there’s a pretty good chance you are going to be in real trouble this time.

And then there’s the players who avoid metagaming vs. those who can’t help themselves. . .

I was playing a scenario I had previously GMed, so I knew everything that was coming. I tried not to take the lead in making decisions, and let the table know that I wouldn’t be using player knowledge. The party comes to the base of a 200’ cliff. We’re all between levels 8 and 10, so even though only one of us has a flight ability (the witch) we’re all carrying at least one potion of fly. Conveniently, someone has left a rope hanging down. Hmmm, we’re trying to find people who probably don’t want to be found. Should we climb the rope they left or expend some consumables?

The debate goes on for half an hour. No one wants to be the first to make a decision. Just endless rehashing of “what if we get attacked” vs “I only have one fly potion with me.” Finally I had had enough and declared “look, everyone make their own decision. I’m going to climb the rope.” (Not at all an unreasonable decision for an inquisitor/monk of Irori.) Everyone except the witch, who had a negative climb skill, decides to climb as well. Even the cleric took off his heavy armor with large ACP to climb.

As I knew would happen, we get attacked as soon as one of us reaches the 100’ mark. As PCs are falling unconscious from damage - then falling to the base of the cliff - several of the players were shocked that I would have made the dangerous choice. “You’ve run this before! I only climbed because you did, so it must have been safe!”

Spoiler:
The other thing I knew was that my character had a very high flat-footed AC, could slow-fall, and was really good at climbing. Using the rope was a reasonable choice for me with or without player knowledge. Though a couple of the other players didn’t want to accept that logic.

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Senko wrote:
Temperans wrote:
Heather 540 wrote:
All classes get different exps when leveling up. Why would a PrC be any different? Are you talking about gestalt?
In case of gestalt, yes you can get two prestige classes.
I vaguely recall a rule on gestalt that you can't take two prestige classes when leveling up, essentially they take both slots.

Gestalt rules were an optional system for 3.5 that never made it directly into Pathfinder, so this is really a homebrew/ask your GM tangent. Especially since the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana gestalt prestige class description was basically "GM should make up prestige classes and decide if they are so powerful they count as one or both gestalt slots."

d20srd wrote:
First, you can create narrowly specialized prestige classes, and they’ll still be compelling choices for PCs because the characters can simultaneously advance in a regular class while taking levels in the prestige class...Second, you can create truly outrageous prestige classes-but add the additional cost that such classes take up both class choices for gestalt characters.

That's probably what you're remembering, Senko.

The closest Pathfinder had to Paizo-published Gestalt rules was Variant Multiclassing rules in Unchained. There were no rules for VMC prestige classes.

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Table 8-2 in the Core Rulebook page 183:
Casting a spell or using a spell-like ability provokes an Attack of Opportunity.

It's using the ability that provokes, not the components. (Tangentially, a spell-like ability has no components at all, whether it is arcane, divine, or psychic in basis. CRB page 221 and Occult Adventures page 144.)

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JDawg75 wrote:
I don't actually need to worship Gorum to benefit from Gorum's Swordsmanship do I?

You do not. You do, however, have to be Chaotic Neutral. The version of the feat that appears in Weapon Master's Handbook (where Gorum's Swordsmanship is) is different than the version that initially appeared in Divine Anthology.

Weapon Master's Handbook page 10 wrote:

Although each deity’s divine fighting technique is primarily preserved and passed on by her faithful, worship is not required to learn one. Instead, these fighting styles simply require a certain manner of looking at the world and specific combat training.

Divine Fighting Technique (Combat) wrote:

You have trained in the fighting technique of a deity.

Prerequisite: Same alignment as chosen deity.
Benefit: Select a deity. You can use that deity’s fighting technique and receive any benefit for which you qualify, as described in the Divine Fighting Techniques section below.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Each time you take this feat, it applies to a new deity’s divine fighting technique.
Divine Anthology page 28 wrote:

Anyone faithful to a deity can learn that god’s divine fighting style by taking the Divine Fighting Technique feat (see below).

Divine Fighting Technique (Combat) wrote:

You have trained in the divine fighting technique of a specific deity.

Prerequisite: Must worship a single patron deity that has an established divine fighting technique.
Benefit: You can use your patron deity’s fighting technique and receive any benefit associated with that technique for which you qualify, as described in the Divine Fighting Techniques section below.

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MR CRITICAL wrote:
wym lose defenses like wat??
Fused Eidolon wrote:
He counts both as his original type and as an outsider for any effect related to type, whichever is worse for the synthesist.

To take just one example: undead are immune to stun. Outsiders are not.

If an undead synthesist gets hit with a stunning effect, he can be affected because that is the worse outcome.


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CorvusMask wrote:
I mean it doesn't HAVE to be a deck possibly?

"Have you tried not being a deck?"

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Braininthejar wrote:

A fighter charges at a monster with reach.

He provokes an AOO for "leaving a threatened square"
The monster decides to trip him, but doesn't have improved trip.
Does he provoke an AOO for that?

(basically, is the fighter still considered to be in the square he is attacked for leaving, when the monster's trip is resolved. If so, the monster's trip would not provoke an AOO because the fighter can't threaten him yet)

The monster is technically "provoking an AoO" but the fighter can't take the AoO since the fighter is still in the square he is leaving and therefore the monster is not in the fighter's threatened area.

Most of the time this a distinction without a difference but there are a few edge case abilities and feats where an ally of the fighter may be able to take an action in response to the monster provoking.

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Starfinder CRB page 414 wrote:
Curing an Affliction: . . . Poisons and drugs work differently—fulfilling the cure condition (or reaching the end of a poison’s duration) removes a poison from the victim’s system, but she remains at the same step on the track and recovers gradually. For every day of bed rest (or two nights of normal rest), a victim moves one step toward healthy. This rate of recovery is doubled by successful Medicine checks (see Long-Term Care on page 143), though tenacious poisons might require a longer recovery period.

I'm not a fan of the terminology of afflictions in Starfinder. Just like you, when I read "cure" I think "all better." But what "cure" really means is "the poison is removed and will not alter the subject's condition any further." Any negative effects already inflicted (like moving down the Constitution Poison Track) are still in place on the victim. Then the victim gradually gets better by resting.

Radiation is particularly confusing:
A very early, low-level, Season 1 Starfinder Society scenario had a radiation effect. And no one, I mean no one, was running it properly. When I finally understood exactly how radiation works I did some probability calculations and figured out that one out of every three groups would need at least one remove radioactivity if the encounter was being run properly. Which was well beyond the purchasing power of a level 1 or 2 character. So. . . dead.

I know the author and jokingly questioned: "Did you mean to kill so many PCs this early in the campaign?" She herself hadn't really understood the rules and didn't realize how deadly the situation was. Neither did the developer for the scenario.

Which is a long-winded way of saying: No one should feel bad for misunderstanding radiation rules.

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I get that people really want their intelligent animal companions to be independent actors. But we have clear language from Ultimate Campaign explaining how it is supposed to work. Going backwards to the CRB or Bestiary to attempt to poke holes in Paizo’s own logic is just arguing for the sake of arguing.

Ultimate Campaign has a lot of good clarifications on a variety of subjects scattered throughout the book. But for a variety of reasons they don’t get referenced as often as they should.

reasons:
1) The biggest reason is accessibility. A lot of people simply don’t know about them. The clarifications in UC are written in a narrative structure. Often as sidebars. This doesn’t lend itself to easy input, categorization, and indexing on the various online reference documents. I know the info about Companions and the clarifications on Magic Item Crafting aren’t on Archives of Nethys. Pretty sure they aren’t on d20pfsrd either.

2) Many of the UC sections are written in a more casual “here’s how you’re supposed to handle it” tone than a lot of the other books. Which is uncomfortably close to explaining “RAI” for those who prefer very strict and logically complete rules.

3) Minorly, there are always those who came up with clever, power-increasing exploits and simply don’t want to accept that Paizo designers are saying the exploit shouldn’t be allowed. So they either ignore UC or try to argue that UC didn’t completely close off their ideas by trying to find the tiniest cracks in the language rather than accepting Paizo meant what they wrote.

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Ultimate Campaign page 143 wrote:

Increasing an animal’s Intelligence to 3 or higher means it is smart enough to understand a language. However, unless an awaken spell is used, the animal doesn’t automatically and instantly learn a language, any more than a human child does. The animal must be taught a language, usually over the course of months, giving it the understanding of the meaning of words and sentences beyond its trained responses to commands like “attack” and “heel.”

Even if the animal is taught to understand a language, it probably lacks the anatomy to actually speak (unless awaken is used). For example, dogs, elephants, and even gorillas lack the proper physiology to speak humanoid languages, though they can use their limited “vocabulary” of sounds to articulate concepts, especially if working with a person who learns what the sounds mean.
An intelligent animal is smart enough to use tools, but might lack the ability to manipulate them. A crow could be able to use simple lockpicks, but a dog can’t. Even if the animal is physically capable of using a tool, it might still prefer its own natural body to manufactured items, especially when it comes to weapons. An intelligent gorilla could hold or wield a sword, but its inclination is to make slam attacks. No amount of training (including weapon proficiency feats) is going to make it fully comfortable attacking in any other way.
Even if an animal’s Intelligence increases to 3 or higher, you must still use the Handle Animal skill to direct the animal, as it is a smart animal rather than a low-intelligence person (using awaken is an exception— an awakened animal takes orders like a person). The GM should take the animal’s Intelligence into account when determining its response to commands or its behavior when it doesn’t have specific instructions. For example, an intelligent wolf companion can pick the weakest-looking target if directed to do so, and that same wolf trapped in a burning building might push open a door or window without being told.

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Mechanical Pear wrote:
Temperans wrote:
Neither Stunning Fist or Quivering Palm use ki or are actual "ki strike feature", but they work. Why wouldn't UMonk be able to use Style Strike?
They work because it's specified, in the text, that they can work. Style Strike wouldn't, because you can't use style strikes with weapons, and this feat doesn't say that this changes.
Unchained Monk wrote:
At 5th level, a monk can learn one type of style strike. Whenever he makes a flurry of blows, he can designate one of his unarmed strikes as a style strike.
Ascetic Style wrote:
While using this style and wielding the chosen weapon, you can apply the effects of feats that have Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite, as well as effects that augment an unarmed strike, as if attacks with the weapon were unarmed attacks.
Belafon wrote:
It's worth noting that Ascetic Style was never made PFS legal. Partly because it's too powerful, but also because of the entirely predictable arguments about what counts as "augmenting" an unarmed strike and what was possible thanks to the "Special" line of the feat.

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Senko wrote:
Belafon wrote:
Chell Raighn wrote:
So... If I'm understanding this right... basically when it comes to spells I'm supposed to load up on scrolls, buy Pearls of Power at every chance, use Wands with Wand Wielder, take Spell Scars arcana, and/or dump everything into Int to make the most of my spells per day... Oh and buy a Ring of Wizardry ASAP...

Nah. You’re “supposed” to use less spells than a base magus.

If the loss of spellcasting is a huge deal for you, play the base magus. Every archetype has trade-offs.

Honestly I don't really understand that decision. The whole point of magus is to blend spells and combat yet this archetype drops spells (as in drops some spells for less of them not drops the whole spellcasting ability) for as far as I can see the ability to use a katana and play a crit heavy build. Don't get me wrong I can see how it can be a powerful build if you know what your doing it just feels like it losing a bit of the flavour of the class.

I'm asking this in a "gently probing" way. This isn't intended as a mean-spirited attack in any way.

There are fighter archetypes that give up armor training or weapon training (or both). Is that a loss of flavour? The carnivalist rogue sneak attack progression at half the rate of a base rogue. Does it give up some of the flavour of the class? A sensei monk can't make a flurry of blows. Is it a different flavour from the base monk?

I'd actually say "yes" to all of those. They do lose some of the flavor base class is known for. But that's the entire point of archetypes. They are designed to fill a different niche than the base class. As part of that design they gain some new abilities but have to give up some from the base class. In many ways the Kensai is one of the archetypes that hews closest to it's base. It keeps spellcasting, it keeps arcana, it keeps spell combat and spellstrike. It can't cast as many spells, that's the tradeoff.

I get that you want a full set of spells. But the diminished spellcasting - like that of the myrmidarch or kapenia dancer - is a reasonable tradeoff to keep much of the flavor of the magus while adding new abilities. Kensai isn't for someone who wants the normal magus spells per day. That's OK.

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Chell Raighn wrote:
So... If I'm understanding this right... basically when it comes to spells I'm supposed to load up on scrolls, buy Pearls of Power at every chance, use Wands with Wand Wielder, take Spell Scars arcana, and/or dump everything into Int to make the most of my spells per day... Oh and buy a Ring of Wizardry ASAP...

Nah. You’re “supposed” to use less spells than a base magus.

If the loss of spellcasting is a huge deal for you, play the base magus. Every archetype has trade-offs.

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Chell Raighn wrote:
Help me understand how this archetype is supposed to work… I really want to try and play one, but it just seems like it loses out on so much of what makes a magus a magus and gets so little in return…

You've got the gist of it.

The kensai is super-focused on doing a lot of damage with a particular weapon type, and doing it before the bad guy gets a chance to act. They give up some of their magical abilities to get to that niche. There are some really strong kensai builds, some really poor builds, and a lot that are pretty decent.

There's three common ways of building a kensai to not be a glass cannon.
1) Super-dexy. Most common, you saw this one right away. Use a finessable 18-20 weapon. Weapon Finesse, Piranha Strike, etc. The difference between a wakazashi (1d6) and katana (1d8) is only an average of one point of damage so you don't have to jump through hoops to try to get the most damaging weapon.

2) Spend money and feats to get armor. Not commonly done, because you need a lot of feats (armor proficiencies, arcane armor training) and mithral armor.

3) Spell combat a lot of defensive spells (blur, mirror image, etc.). You're usually going first so it's not hard to get them out. You can be a strength/mixed build much easier this way.

The important thing to remember is that while a base magus may be spellstriking an empowered shocking grasp every round, the kensai will mostly be using arcane mark and and defensive spells. But the kensai should be doing way more weapon damage, thanks to the feats and improved crits.

Unusual builds:
There's plenty of these, including several variations I've seen on an area-control kensai using reach weapons and Greater Trip who treat their spellcasting as incidental, not core to the character.

edit: It's also worth noting that by about 7th or 8th level, a kensai can have a fistful of pearls of power (1). 1000gp isn't peanuts but it's not that expensive either.

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Derklord wrote:
It's a little bit more complicated in that the author's intend is not the definitive RAI. There's a sort of hierarchy of who's intend matters most, and the author is at the very bottom, below the editor(s) and the design team.

So many problems with this statement. Starting with this bombastic assertion- pulled from one persons opinion of what the hierarchy should be, noting that the Design Team is the definitive RAW source, brief digression to note that the designers openly stated they rarely gave a pass over softcover material, and moving through the editors whose role is to check grammar, not rules/lore (maybe you meant developers?). But most importantly the author’s intent IS the definitive intent.

I freelanced a tiny bit for Paizo during 1E. When I wrote, I wrote what I intended. If a developer made a change they would communicate back what the change was. Or, far more likely, tell me what the problem was and ask me to change it. Even if there was no communication (never happened to me) I could easily look and see if changes were made. When Alex says “I meant for it to work this way, do that unless the designers say they want it to work another way” - that’s the intent.

Saying that the author’s intent, the person who came up with the idea and visualized how it was going to be used (maybe not visualizing some possible misuses), doesn’t matter unless someone higher up a made-up priority chain happens to publicly agree that the author knows his own intent. . . that’s an argument that can’t hold up.

Still chuckling at the idea that editors are farther up this “intent” hierarchy.

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Mechanical Pear wrote:
I want to use a one-handed waveblade (a large waveblade) What's the easiest way (or different options) to get rid of the -2 penalty? Effortless lace would work, but it says it's only for one-handed weapons.

Irongrip Gauntlets will do it.

The only other ways to completely get rid of the penalty (for a light weapon) I know of rely on a particular result on a "random" table.
-Tiefling variant ability 15 (out of d100) is to wield oversized weapons with no penalty
-Ogrekin template adds a beneficial deformity and a disadvantageous deformity. Random result 1 (out of d6) on the beneficial table will give lets you use oversized weapons and

It doesn't eliminate the penalty completely, but the Giant-Blooded trait reduces the penalty for using oversized weapons in half (so -1 instead of -2 for using a large waveblade).

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Gathlian Vigilante (Masked Maiden) = AC 28

Build:

Feat = Armor Focus
Trait = Defender of the Society

Small = +1
Gathlian = +1 natural
Gray Maiden Plate = +9
Tower Shield = +4
Dex = +1
Defender of the Society = +1 trait
Armor Focus= +1

Ideas:

That's only one trait. I feel like I should be able to find a trait that either increases your Max Dex or gives you an enhancement bonus to natural armor. (Blighted Physiology does not stack with the Gathlian's natural armor bonus.)

There are plenty of traits that give you situational bonuses (fighting defensively, etc.), but I am trying to stick to the original idea of "no activated abilities."

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(Flagged for Movement: Even though it isn't very busy the Community Use Forum is where people with the best knowledge would be).

Short answers: Using Paizo maps depends on where it has been published. If it's in the Community Use Package (I know an overall map of the Inner Sea is in there) you can use it, or if it was published on the Paizo blog. But you can't pull out a map of, say, Andoran, from Inner Sea World Guide and use it. Unless that map was published in the blog as well.

CUP wrote:

You may use the contents of the Community Use Package as well as the cover images on Paizo products on the Community Use Approved Products List below.

...
You may use any of the text or artwork published in the Paizo Blog or Web Fiction, with the following exceptions: . . .

For your second question, you CAN make your own maps as long as they look different from the Paizo maps. They can have the same points of interest.

CUP wrote:
You may not use artwork, including maps, that have not been published in the blog, although you may create your own interpretations of material presented in our artwork and maps, provided that your interpretations don't look substantially similar to our materials.

"Substantially similar" is vague (deliberately so), but basically an outside observer should be able to look at your map and the original and immediately identify them as being in two different styles.

You are absolutely allowed to reference and build on locations

CUP wrote:
You may descriptively reference trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, artifacts, places, etc.), locations, dialogs, plots, storylines, language, and incidents from products listed in Section 1 of our Community Use Approved Product List below.

As always, be aware that the terms of the Community Use Policy require that whatever you create be absolutely, 100%, free to everyone.

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Rival Guide is exactly what you are looking for. Several groups, ranging from low level all the way up to level 18-19 members.

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All this was said above but I'll summarize the reasons a GM might disallow crafting here.

1) Requires more "paperwork," especially if time has to be tracked vs. in-game deadlines.

2) Can increase player wealth, especially if a large amount of treasure found is in the form of full-sale-price trade goods (diamonds, gold, etc.)

3) Requires GM to reactively decide what is allowed (player wants to craft "X") rather than proactively (you find item "Y"). Depending on the group, this can result in negative feelings.

All the PF1 campaigns I have played or GMed (outside of PFS) allowed crafting. However time spent crafting was time the BBEGs' plans were advancing unchecked. . .

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Gary Bush wrote:

The rules say that if you spend resolve you recover all stamina after 10 minutes. The boon allows you to do that for an ally instead.

Don't see anything confusing there.

The short description on the OPF site doesn't give any details about how or when you can use the boon. Is this restoring all the stamina in a 10-minute rest or is it more like an Envoy's Inspiring Boost? Does it take some kind of action to use your Resolve to stabilize them?

OPF Guide wrote:

Encouraging Resolve

(Slotless Boon)
Prerequisites: Advocates Tier 2
Cost: 4 AcP

Benefit: Spend Resolve to restore an ally's Stamina points or stabilize them.

The only way to find out exactly how it works is to spend 4 AcP. (Or ask on the forum.)

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Minigiant wrote:
Belafon wrote:
Minigiant wrote:
An Oracle Build

There's an interaction of Oracle and Storm Kindler I saw that was kinda interesting. Take Eschew Materials and the Deaf curse. The point, of course, is to be able to cast spells while Storm Shaped even if you don't have the druid levels required to take the Natural Spell feat. You can search out spells without somatic components, but you probably want Still Spell as well. You don't even have to be full oracle, you just need one level.

The particular player I saw was an arcanist with Still Spell and the Metamixing exploit. Cast and still be able to move around sucking up enemies!

Storm Shape is not a polymorph effect, does it even need still spell to cast?

Somatic Components require precise movements of the hand and require at least one hand free. It's not only when under a polymorph effect. A whirlwind is a whirlwind, and as such doesn't have limbs capable of those movements.

Minigiant wrote:

I was thinking about this, if this is right then Deaf for still spell is great.

Divine spells rarely have material needs to Eschew Materials isn't needed. Is there an equivalent for focus?

If you are going pure oracle don't forget that oracles do not need to provide a divine focus to cast spells that list divine focus (DF) as part of the components. But since their spells are divine, they don't need to provide materials either if the component is M/DF. There are still divine spells (and especially mystery spells) that have material components but, yeah, as long as they take care when selecting their spells an oracle may not need Eschew Materials.

The Silent Spell ability from the deaf curse does not increase casting time, but using Still Spell on a spontaneous spell does make it a minimum of a full-round cast. That was the cleverness of the metamixing exploit on the arcanist.

Quote:
Edit: Would the Birthmark Trait work?

This is debatable. I had a different player for several sessions who was a cleric-based Storm Kindler. She, of course, wanted to know about channeling. I ruled that a birthmark would be too discorporated to function as a holy symbol while in Storm Form. She was OK with it, because it was a logical follow-on from an earlier ruling I made that the bad guys couldn't grapple her in whirlwind form.

Storm Form requires many judgment calls. There are too many edge cases that aren't directly covered by the whirlwind rules. Just try to go over as many as you can think of with your GM before it pops up in combat.

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Ran a quick spreadsheet because I was curious. The short version is:

With your bonuses (and any higher bonuses) the roll from Incredible Healer is always going to result in more than your base amount of healing. +11.5 avg right now and going up as your bonus goes up.

Your normal healing from Signature Skill (Healing) is always going to result in more healing than the roll from Incredible Healer until your heal skill bonus gets insanely high. (+36 for a 10 HD creature. . .if you roll a Nat 20. +40 for 11 HD, +44 for 12HD, etc.)

Incredible Healer and Heal Skill Unlock don't stack in any form, so there's no point in having both. Take the Skill Unlock if allowed.

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Nuclearspatula wrote:
Diego Rossi wrote:

Your Healer's Hands, Knowledge (Planes) included, is the "normal amount". You replace it completely when you use Incredible Healer.

So you cure 25 points when using Healer's Hands and 31 when using Incredible Healer.

Can use both feats together though? So when I use Healer's hands, if I take 10, I still get to heal the person 31

That is correct, 31 instead of 25, though I would question whether or not 6 hp per use is worth a feat.

If your GM allows it you might want to take the Signature Skill feat and get the Heal Skill Unlock instead.

You could also invest in a Healer's Satchel which, if you make DC25, adds double your wisdom modifier instead of just once.

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The Karyukai Tea Set is very expensive, but if you can make a DC 30 diplomacy check (DC 26 if you are willing to spend some money) it's a 12-hour greater heroism for you and your allies.

The problem is that many of the bonuses we are listing are morale bonuses. For example the channel feat you were thinking of (Beacon of Hope) is a +2 morale bonus. Which means it doesn't stack with heroism, prayer, etc. So we need to hunt for the "best" luck bonus, competence bonus, sacred/profane bonus, etc.

And the definition of best is going to vary by poster. I think you are just looking for buffs that are solely dependent on your character, that it doesn't matter how your allies are built.

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I mean you could always say that for you "taking up the bow" is a symbolic gesture and that your talents lie in complementing those who are true masters of ranged combat. Ketephys is a god of God of forestry, hunting, and the moon, which doesn't necessarily demand being great at archery. No one expects every cleric of Gozreh to spend feats on trident combat.

Mechanically there just isn't a great way to make a cleric archer. Inquisitors, yes. Warpriests, definitely.

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2-13 Murder on the Throaty Mermaid

(I'm normally opposed to spoilers, even ones from more than a decade ago, but considering the rust monster is on the cover of this scenario...)

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I am a very cynical person, and on top of that have had conversations with (though am not friends with) people who make a living in corporate legal gray spaces. In particular the space of “we know what we are proposing is legally wrong, but not wrong enough that we could be disciplined for trying it.” And what they do is try to make the cost-benefit analysis from the viewpoint of anyone they are taking advantage of come down to “we would probably win in court, but even if we did it isn’t worth the effort it would take. Let’s just accept what they are offering.” Think of health insurance horror stories you have heard.

From that viewpoint, it’s worth it for Hasbro to try to push the boundaries. Because there is a huge set of roadblocks to be thrown up to encourage settling and acceptance.

1) Who has the money to fight this in the first place? Paizo and maybe a couple of other companies.
2) If a lawsuit is filed, we can file for a preliminary injunction forbidding them from using the OGL while the lawsuit is ongoing. Don’t know if we will get the injunction but if we do, we win. There’s no way they can survive for the years we can drag this lawsuit out if they aren’t publishing. They will have to settle.
3) If we don’t get the injunction, we start a laborious discovery process. Whatever we can do to drag this out and hike up their legal costs.
4) After a month or so, once it’s clear this is going to take a while, we propose a settlement. We drop the lawsuit, they publicly agree to accept the terms of the 1.1 OGL. In a contract covered behind an NDA we privately agree not to require any money from them (or just a pittance), regardless of how much they make.
5) This is actually what we’ve been after all along! Once Paizo and a few other big publishers have publicly accepted 1.1, we’ve reset the expectation and everyone will agree to 1.1. Thanks to the NDA’d contracts we aren’t making money off the big ones (for now) but we have set that bar for everyone else AND for the future OGL 1.2.
6) They aren’t dummies, they can see how this plays out. Most likely the big guys will go straight to negotiations.
7) Our real worry is some little guy fighting “on principle.” But if we can delay that confrontation a few years, we can point at the precedent of the 1.1 license being in use for a while and agreed to by all these entities.

The people who come up with these plans are the real-life equivalent of RPG “rules-lawyer” players.

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You know what? I just re-read the whole thread, closely parsed Xenocrat's post, then went back and read the item one more time, and I was completely missing something.

Efficient Bandolier wrote:
This bandolier fits over any Medium creature and contains five compartments, each corresponding to a specific type of weapon: melee weapons, small arms, longarms, heavy weapons, and explosives. Each compartment contains an extradimensional space designed to house up to 1 bulk of ammunition or batteries (for this purpose, 10 batteries or pieces of ammunition with no bulk count as having light bulk).

Now I'm really uncertain and confused. What's the point of the bolded section (bolding mine)? My "Five Missiles" strategy doesn't seem to work if I can only put a missile in the heavy weapons pocket. Even though it doesn't explicitly say they aren't interchangeable, the designations sure point that way. But then where do batteries fit? . . .

OK, I'm with everyone else now. This item had to have been written with an earlier version of the rules than those in the final published book. Maybe a system where ammo retrieval was more laborious and definitely one where ammo was less interchangeable.

Spoiler:
I know James Jacobs was very anti-easter egg/joke reference in Pathfinder (though some were slipped in), but Starfinder is generally a much more playful setting. Even though it certainly didn't happen, I'm now picturing the designers and developers sitting around a table late the night before the final draft is due:

"OK, we need one more item, we're all tired, loopy, and highly caffeinated and/or slightly inebriated. Here's the deal. Everyone write up an item that sounds useful but turns out on really close examination to be as close to useless as possible. You have 5 minutes. Cleverest idea gets published!"

"Hmmm, here's one that lets you carry two more bulk but is two bulk itself. Here's a weapon that targets grid intersections. . . oh, only the intersection, it doesn't hit the surrounding squares at all. Here's a bandolier. . . wait, this is actually useful, and only 2000 credits! Why wouldn't I buy it?! Oh, I see now, no one is actually going to be carrying around 5 different types of weapons. Oh, and it doesn't actually take any action to retrieve ammo, so that doesn't help, and as for the ammo weight issue. . . you know what? We have a winner!"

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Damnation stride

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Can you post the name of the scenario in a spoiler? And the source of their ships. (Prestige buy?) Trying to think how this would possibly have an effect on play. If it’s a combat that takes place on the PCs ship I would say “sure, you’re taking your ship.” And when combat breaks out “we don’t have an exact map of your ship, so we’re going to use this one as a representation.” (Which just happens to be the map from the scenario.)

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I actually consider it better for melee classes than the PF1 haste (in their respective systems). Even for ranged combatants, it’s quite useful. You can reposition while taking a full attack to get into (or out of) range or to close on an objective. It lets you move (a long distance) and take a full attack. With Starfinder’s more prevelant ranged combat, that’s hugely helpful.

It’s proportionately equivalent because (in general) PF1 full-round attacks have a lot more attacks to start with.

Haste circuit, on the other hand. . .

Spoiler:
Isn’t that good. It takes a swift action to activate. Since in Starfinder a full attack takes up your standard, move, and swift that means you can’t full-attack the round you activate it. Or the round you deactivate it. Meaning if you want to use it three times in a day you’re only getting full benefits for one or two rounds each time and not on the round you flip it on.

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It completely comes down to your character, party, and campaign. If you’re playing a TWF full BAB class (say a ranger) in a PFS game and you almost always play with a bard whose first round is “good hope as a standard and then I inspire courage as a move” then you’ve got really good chances to hit, even with iteratives. Power attack is adding damage.

If you are playing a rogue in a challenging homebrew campaign with no party buffers, then power attack reduces your chance to hit, and isn’t that much damage in comparison to the sneak attack you are aiming for, anyway.

There isn’t a straightforward right answer for every situation. It is worth noting that what you are asking is almost equivalent to “why would you ever combine Rapid Shot and Deadly Aim?”

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David knott 242 wrote:
I really wanted that Starfinder flamethrower.

I know, right? “Kids love this one!”

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This is one of those “don’t make it harder than it needs to be” situations.

As Ryze said, the missiles damage the creatures that are valid targets, fail to leave your hand for the ones targeting items, and cause a will save for the illusion (which will either reveal it to be an illusion or look like it does damage. It’s the simplest solution that doesn’t result in rules-argument-lock.

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By the way, it's interesting to note that even PFS (normally a more restrictive play environment) decided to ignore the rule at the heart of this thread

Ultimate Wilderness - Companion Archetypes: Animal companions can trade out the multiattack ability when qualifying for an archetype, even if multiattack does not benefit them; this is a campaign-specific decision that contradicts the details on page 186.

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Quote:
At 11th level, a paladin can expend two uses of her smite evil ability to grant the ability to smite evil to all allies within 10 feet, using her bonuses.

You use the paladin’s Charisma bonus to determine the attack bonus and AC bonus.

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