OneHandedSquire's page

No worries. Believe me, I really don't want to go RAW RAW.

Yeah, thinking about it there's nothing that says "same attack method," but I do think that block throws a little bit of doubt on the notion. I do think the RAI should allow this, I'm just trying to point out the benefits of being a wary GM, I guess.

Well now, don't dismiss me out of hand. You want more reasoning? When you start an attack, you've got to pick your primary attack if you're fighting with more than one weapon, yeah? Naturally you've got to pick that at the start of your attack or you could just just say I made my primary attack with my polearm, now I'm making my primary attack with my unarmed strike. Doesn't work. So since you've declared that, those are the conditions we're under. You could say that we're threatening with our off-hand pole-arm, I suppose, but that would destroy your attack bonus.

I realize it's a bit of a stretch, but I think it's a valid point. This whole situation is reaching one way or another.

Like I said earlier, I'm inclined to go with it since I'd have to really nitpick to disallow it. But if I saw a build that somehow abused it (not that I can imagine one off the top of my head), I could make a RAW argument against it.

Cleave

Can I take a 5-foot step in the middle of my attempt to use the Cleave feat, to bring another foe within reach?

No. Cleave is a special action and the conditions for that action are checked at the moment you begin your action. At that moment, all of the available targets are checked to make sure they adjacent to each other and within reach. You cannot take a 5-foot step in the middle of the action and check conditions again. If you do not have two targets within reach, adjacent to each other at the start of the attack, you could not even attempt to make an attack using Cleave.

So in the case of your cleave attempt, conditions for your action were checked when you attacked with an unarmed strike and valid targets were checked per an unarmed strike, not per a polearm attack. In other words, you can't change your primary attack method and check again, quick draw/free actions/whatever be damned when doing cleave attacks.

But yes, from a what makes sense in reality and adds to the fun and flavor of the game, I think it should work and the feat itself says nothing directly contradictory. If it's not breaking the game, I see no reason to call you on it.

If you want to get painfully literal, it's perfectly valid to target inanimate objects or an empty square. That would theoretically make attacking at a range in the dark impossible.

Well if you want to take a really literal RAW interpretation (something I'm usually against but this is your party), page 213 of the Core Book says:

"A somatic component is a measured and precise movement of the hand. You must have at least one hand free to provide a somatic component."

By that definition: no hands, no spell. In that light, even Natural Spell specifically lets those who normally use hands not use them.

One other thing that might be worth considering is that if you're giving non-humanoids class levels they still have to abide by things like material components and focus components. While there's nothing RAW that says they can't manipulate these things, it might stretch suspension of disbelief. That might seem trivial but the RAW at least imply the accepted laws of physics where some things would be difficult, if not impossible without opposable thumbs. Of course, Eschew Materials could be a big help.

No, nothing like Monkey Grip has been published by Paizo.

But, you might want to look at Half-giant from the Psionics Unleashed material which is at least endorsed by Paizo and just updates the Half-Giant race from 3.5's XPH.

Half-Giant is already a lot like what you're describing, truth-be-told. But they have the "Powerful Build" ability which treats them as large for a few purposes, including which weapons they can wield.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/races/half-giant

I guess it would also be worth pointing out a couple of other conditions that might apply. On page 292 of the Pathfinder Bestiary, the size table caps tiny creatures at 6HD. Assuming I'm not capped at 3HD as per "Building and Modifying Constructs" would this be the upper limit for construct "racial" HD for my homunculus? Would that change if I could apply, say the Giant template?

I'm guessing there has to be an upper limit to the HD you can give a homunculus. It wouldn't make sense otherwise. When your building character is level 5, yeah, 4000gp to add 2HD is a gross expenditure for little benefit, but extrapolate to high levels when you could easily dump in 100,000gp for 50HD? Seems totally unreasonable.

Sorry for all the questions. I'm just not finding clear rulings for any of this. Specific answers to any of my questions would be wonderful!

Thank you in advance!

Well, there's no hard rule to apply here for or against it.

To me it doesn't seem unbalancing as you're not actually getting any more attacks than you should, just stretching the versatility of your feat a bit.

However, it definitely violates the flavor of the feat.

Cleave: "You can strike two adjacent foes with a single swing."

Cleaving Finish: "When you strike down an opponent, you can continue your swing into another target."

And, it seems like it might fall into "rechecking conditions" from the editor's note:

"Can I take a 5-foot step in the middle of my attempt to use the Cleave feat, to bring another foe within reach?

No. Cleave is a special action and the conditions for that action are checked at the moment you begin your action. At that moment, all of the available targets are checked to make sure they adjacent to each other and within reach. You cannot take a 5-foot step in the middle of the action and check conditions again. If you do not have two targets within reach, adjacent to each other at the start of the attack, you could not even attempt to make an attack using Cleave."

You could argue that because Cleave et al. are meant to build off of a single standard action, you can't try and switch weapons in between from an unarmed strike to a polearm, even if you are already holding the polearm.

Ultimately, I think this just has to be GM's call. I'd probably allow it myself after looking at your build to make sure it doesn't do something else inadvertent.

It is true that any custom magic item needs to be approved by your GM, but I might be able to at least suggest a price range for you:

Back in 3.5 there was a side bar for Body Slot Affinities which suggested increasing the base price by 50% for an unusual body slot. You can find it here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#bodySlotAffinit ies

Pathfinder did away with this, for whatever reason, but I think it's a good guide in this case since you're stacking a unique ability that offsets one of the main drawbacks of being a spontaneous caster. I'd probably rule this isn't even possible, except there are already several ways to offset limited spells known (being a human sorcerer, taking feats, etc), so I think the 50% increase would be fair way to use gold to do it.

Again, this doesn't appear in the Pathfinder RAW, but it might help your GM set a price.

Yes, you are usually allowed to make all of your natural attacks as secondary natural attacks in addition to your normal iterative attacks (those attacks you get for having a high attack bonus using manufactured weapons or unarmed strikes).

Secondary natural attacks are made at a -5 penality (-2 with multiattack) and if your creature is using one of its arms/tentacles/whatever to wield a weapon it can't use that appendage to make a natural attack with. You can find all of this on page 182 in the Core Book.

Oh, I guess I should also mention I'm interested in how these questions apply to building a new construct as much as advancing one that has already been built in case that wasn't clear. Sorry! Maybe I should have title it "Building an Advanced Homunculus."

So then, should I apply relevant HD and templates and use CR to calculate its cost and ignore the specific cost in the homunculus entry?

What of its HD limit or lack thereof? If I use that to calculate the cost am I subject to the HD ceiling, whereas the other way it's unlimited since specific rules typically overrule general ones?

Sorry if I sound a bit lost and have a lot of questions. Construct creation rules seem a bit rough around the edges, but I'm doing my best to follow.

Hello!

I'm playing around with making a crafter wizard and looking into building some constructs. At the current level for our game, homunculi are the obvious choice, but I've hit a bit of a snag.

Since the character is all about creating life, I'd like to dump a lot of resources into my little beastie and make it a major focus of my character, but the rules for how to do so are a little unclear. Obviously I can pay 2000gp and add HD or strap whatever gear I please on the little guy, but it seems like there might be some other options based on the "Building and Modifying Constructs" page here: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/building-and-modifying-constructs.

For instance, the page describes pricing new constructs by CR. Could I choose to give my creation class levels, calculate the CR adjustment and the price based off of that? While it makes sense from an in-game perspective since the homunculus is intelligent, I'm guessing no for balance reasons and because nowhere is it stated homunculi can advance with character levels (also the old 3.5 rules give advancement by HD not class).

Assuming that's right out, could I give it the advanced template? It specifically mentions on the above linked page not to use CR to calculate the cost for this, but nowhere can I find a cost for applying this. Is it possible at all for a homunculus to have? If not, which constructs can it be applied to?

Could other templates be applied to it? Would the cost for these be based off of CR or something else?

The page also clearly mentioned adding enhancement bonuses to armor class and presumably (perhaps a big presumption?) a construct could utilize any gear it could reasonably equip, but is there a way to directly increase things like natural armor or is it just a matter of relying on items or templates?

Lastly, is what I'm attempted to do even feasible at all? The homunculus entry in the Bestiary/SRD suggests that homunculi have no ceiling to how far you can advance them (i.e. as long as you've got 2000 more gp, you can throw on another HD). But the page linked above states the following:

"Because a construct’s size is limited, a Hit Dice modification cannot increase its size. Therefore Hit Dice modification can never increase the base construct’s Hit Dice beyond 50% of its total HD. Some constructs have a defined cost for increasing Hit Dice. To calculate the cost per Hit Die of other constructs, divide the construct’s construction cost by its existing Hit Dice."

Does this apply to all constructs, including the homunculus: effectively limiting them to 3HD (half of what they were allotted in 3.5)? Or do entries with "open" wording indeed have an open ceiling to their total HD?

Thank you in advance for all your helpful advice!