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I agree. As long as the spell affects an area, which both of those spells do, it should be fine. They only affect a very small area, but they still affect an area and not a specific target.

Didn't you already ask this a few days ago? The answer is still yes. You need to meet all of the prerequisites. One of them is bab +2 or 1st-level monk, not just being a 1st-level monk. The only way to get rid of Dodge as a prerequisite is to be a Master of Many Styles. The bonus feats they get let you ignore prerequisites (with a few limitations).

According to Treantmonk's bard guide, you have a decent start at a controller bard. I think he would switch your Int and Con scores, though. You should check out his guide. He only uses core stuff, as his guides are severely outdated, but you can use his guide as a starting point.

Also, from my experience, nets are pretty darn awesome for battlefield control. Enemies either have to waste a turn getting it off of them, or deal with the penalties. Either way, you get an advantage.

For story purposes, I chose a rapier as my arcane bond. No one even realizes she's a wizard until she starts blasting people. Anyway, I put the defending weapon property on it since wizard AC is usually pretty bad, and I never use the weapon for hitting. With that weapon property, now her AC is only a few points behind the rest of the party who wears armor. It's a pretty expensive, time consuming option, and doesn't even start paying off until 6th level, though.

It does not say that a 1st level monk can forgo all of the prerequisites. You need either a bab of +2, or to be a 1st level monk. If you want to ignore prerequisites, you need to be a Master of Many Styles and use your bonus feats. Basically, being a monk gives you earlier access to the style feats since their bab progression is slower, but you still need to meet the prerequisites.

Ninja'd by the website... It deleted one of the three other identical posts I responded to. =\

I didn't look at the builds, but there is really no need to. I don't see the point in dipping into Monk at the very end of your campaign. If you dip at all, I'd do it as early as possible to benefit from the Crane Style feats. Really, you would only need a one level dip. The second level would just give you a free feat versus another level of performance and spellcasting. However, since you would have two medium bab classes, waiting to meet the bab prerequisites for the feats might also not be worth it. Still, if you are set on having the feats at all, I'd say do it as soon as possible.

Yes. Your first unarmed strike for the round gets Str x2 (as you said), and every other unarmed strike afterwards only gets Str x1.5.

When reading about this class, it seemed pretty cool for sea/storm-themed spellcasters. The only real problem is the Storm Shape ability. It relies upon unarmed strike damage and Strength, which most spellcasters will not have. I was confused as to which class this prestige class was made for. It seems like a Cleric or Druid. It doesn't seem like there is a best option for optimization. In fact, I wanted this prestige class for my Air Wizard, but it just seems all wrong if you aren't somewhat Strength focused. My GM thought it fit my character concept really well, so we hombrewed the doodie out of it to better fit the Wizard. That might be what you have to do as well, assuming that you can. =\

I've never been able to play this character, but I did a build that consists of Ninja with two levels of Shadowdancer. That way they get Hide in Plain Sight as early as 6th level. Both classes also get a lot of skills and skill points. Ninja tricks and rogue talents can make it easier to stealth/snipe and sneak attack from range. If your GM is awesome, s/he will let you take Rogue archetypes for the Ninja that swap out the same abilities (like the Scout). I'd also stick with a normal bow instead of a crossbow. You don't have to waste feats or actions in order to reload it, and base weapon damage doesn't make much of a difference when you're sneak attacking.

I've never played a wizard before a few months ago because all of the bookkeeping was a huge turn off for me. Well, I decided to expand my horizons and I'm really glad I did it. The bookkeeping IS annoying, but you really do start to feel like a god after a while. Why just today I pretty much ended combat with a carefully thought out chain lightning spell, as well as fireball and fog cloud.

That's what my GM let me do for my Archaeologist. He also let me ditch all of the more obvious bard spells (like solid note and allegro) for some more thematically fitting ranger spells (like gravity bow and detect snares and pits).

Read it again. Everyone on these boards will tell you that you're wrong. =)

The two paragraphs for oath spells seem to contradict one another. The first paragraph says it "adds one spell to the paladin's spell list at each paladin spell level she can cast". The second paragraph says "she may prepare any one of her oath's spells in that slot" when you have multiple oaths.

I always assumed they were just added to the paladin's spell list, and prepared like regular paladin spells. Now I'm not so sure. Is anyone else reading it the same way as me, or is it just me?

I would argue that positive and negative energy are not elements, therefore they cannot be influenced by the elemental sorcerer's bloodline arcana. However, an umbral dragon has a negative energy breath weapon. Then again, the umbral dragon is weird.

They only have spells for the purpose of making extracts, so you don't actually cast them. These work like potions, meaning they only affect the person drinking it. Also, they become useless when not in the possession of the alchemist who made them, so only the alchemist who made them can drink them. At least, as far as my understanding of the alchemy ability.

I had an alchemist in my group up until a little while a go, and even though he provided some decent support in combat, was not able do to anything by way of spells for the rest of the party. They are definitely a "selfish" base class. Certain archetypes, like the chirurgeon, do overcome that issue a little bit (as far as cure spells are concerned).

This may or may not be helpful, but I'll tell you what my GM did for us at the beginning of our campaign. Keep in mind this is Eberron, though.

We were all traveling on the same train to different destinations. There was a murder mystery in which we were all suspects. When we found the real culprit, the train was soon after attacked by an airship. The train was derailed by the attack, and while we were salvaging the wreckage and helping the other survivors, we were ambushed by a goblin army.

It might just be a more extravagant version of "you all meet in a bar", but it seemed to get the job done. The fact that we were all survivors of a crash, which led to more shenanigans, gave our characters a chance to bond immediately, and spawned reasons for us to want to stick together, rather than go back to our own separate lives.

I just finished building a paladin character with a katana. I saw the thread title and got excited... Then read it, and became very sad.

I would think it means once per round per conductive weapon. And applying the same effect twice would only be limited by the ability itself, not the conductive weapon property. In the case of both touch attacks, I'm not sure if the rounds would stack if using the same ability twice.

However, if you are two-weapon fighting with two spellcasting classes, how the heck do you cast spells? I would think having a free hand to cast spells would be more beneficial than this conductive two-weapon fighting business.

I doubt your character is a dwarf, but there is also the Stonelord archtype from the ARG. It totally replaces the charisma-based class abilities.

I'm sure it was a typo, or was taken out in editing to create space to fit the text on the page. If the ability stacks levels for uses per day, it only makes sense that it stacks for rounds per use. Also, since you get the ability twice, it would seem that you do get two teamwork bonus feats, but I guess that depends on your GM's interpretation.

The easiest case of level stacking would be cavalier 1/tactician 5, since that is when the stacking first comes into effect. Your cavalier level would be considered 6 for stacking purposes. That would give you two uses per day, and six rounds (3 + 6/2) per use.

As far as tactician-like abilities go, I much prefer the holy tactician's battlefield presence. As long as you can deal with the lawful good baggage, you get a lot more out of it. You get more teamwork bonus feats, and you can change the applied feat as a swift action. Sure, it costs a standard action to use in the first place, but it also doesn't limit you to uses per day or rounds per use. And if you can make it to level 20, you can apply different teamwork feats to different allies.

What are your starting stats? This will help let us know which feats should be bonus feats in order to ignore prereqs. Also, I'm assuming you want Dodge, Combat Reflexes, and ranks in acrobatics anyway? These are all prereqs, but if you don't want any of them, letting us know that will help as well.

Artificer's Touch is a spell-like ability, so it will provoke AoOs no matter what as long as you are in combat and adjacent to an enemy. I don't think you can combine this ability with the Improved Sunder feat as the ability is not a sunder combat maneuver.

Metal Fist, however, turns your fists into bludgeoning weapons. You can then use your fists to make a sunder attempt. This action would still provoke an AoO, but in this case the Improved Sunder feat would deny the enemy the AoO.

Concealment only matters if an attack roll is involved (basically). If you're casting a reach cure spell, the only things that matter are line of sight and line of effect. As long as you can see the target, and you can draw an unbroken line from your square to theirs, then you can cast the spell. Otherwise, the spell fails.

Concealment doesn't necessarily mean that you can't see the target, just that they are obscured somehow. If someone is blurred, it's harder to hit them, but you can still clearly see them to target them with a spell (unless it involves an attack roll). You can't see an invisible creature at all in order to target them with a spell. You'd have to correctly guess what square they're in and hope it works, unless you have true seeing or see invisibility.

An oracle, witch, or paladin would all be good choices for a secondary healer, but a good archer? Paladin is the only one that stands out to me because of the full bab, divine bond, and smite evil.

If you choose paladin, take the hospitaler archetype. You can channel positive energy as a cleric without expending lay on hands uses, but you will always be 1d6 behind the standard ability. You also get mercies. Clerics usually have to learn spells for those kinds of effects. Seapking of spells, if you hate preparing them, the paladin doesn't get too many anyway. Just learn and prepare all cure spells if nothing else. If you go this route, a guided weapon won't mean much to you as wisdom won't help you much and you can focus on strength/dexterity and all of your abilities are charisma-based.

I do agree that more feats should be included. Arcane discoveries were a nice touch, but still... Anything with an arcane caster level or that directly relates to spellcasting in general (like spell focus) should be made available. I personally hate scribe scroll, as my group can easily buy any scrolls we need, so my GM was kind enough to let me swap it for eschew materials.

I think my GM has been doing it wrong, and that is also where my confusion is coming from. So, even considering a high Dex and Combat Reflexes, you can enter an enemy's threatened area, use up all of your movement to dance circles around them, and still only provoke one AoO from them in that round, right? At least, if all you're doing to provoke is moving.

CRB wrote:

Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn't count as more than one opportunity for that opponen

Blerg. I was misremembering Combat Reflexes. It lets you make more AoOs per round, but I guess not towards the same opponent in a round. *shrugs*

Actually, the larger creature would get an AoO for every threatened square the medium creatures leaves in order to approach it. The medium creature would have to leave three threatened squares in order to be adjacent to it, so it would provoke three separate AoOs. And since the larger creature has a high Dex and Combat Reflexes, it would definitely get those three AoOs. Keep in mind, though, that if this larger creature has a 20ft reach due to a reach weapon, that it would only get one AoO when the medium creature leaves the outermost threatened square.

Edit: Misinformation. =\

Normally I would agree with you, but for this hex it still only applies to touch spells. It's not like the Elemental bloodline where it would effect all spells with an elemental descriptor. How many spells would this hex effect? And even then, should a witch be engaged in melee in the first place to benefit from this?

What Grick said.

Also, I think this is a terrible hex anyway. It would only apply to a very small number of spells, it's only +1d4 cold damage which is negated on a successful save, and you would have to be engaged in melee to benefit from it at all.

True seeing let's you see things as they really are (with some limitations). It doesn't give you the ability to see things no matter what. If you are blinded, then how can you see things at all to see them as they really are? I think your GM was just trying to pull things in his favor.

Then house rule it. Either the penalty stays at -5 when you reach 20th level for this feat with DR 10/-, or the penalty increases to -6 with DR 12/-.

I know that already. I just didn't point that out to the OP because it's easier to view them differently since they almost do the same thing.

And improved whip mastery let's you make AoOs out to your natural reach +5 feet with a whip. You need that feat if you want to do it.

Also, a scorpion whip only does lethal damage, otherwise it functions as a whip, so no AoOs. The opportunist talent wouldn't work unless you could normally make an AoO with the weapon that round. You'd have to invest in the whip mastery feats.

You can trip with a whip without any feats. All weapon finesse does is let you use dexterity instead of strength for the attack roll. Agile maneuvers would only let you use dexterity on combat maneuvers that don't use your weapon.

Answer 1: No, they can't. The text of challenge doesn't go out of its way to make this point clear, but it's still pretty obvious this is ability is supposed to be one opponent at a time.

Answer 2: Moot. If they can't have more than one challenge at a time then there are no stacking bonuses, and that means they can't have more than one sworn defense at a time either.

If blinding a creature stops a gaze attack, it would probably say so in the rules for gaze attacks, or somewhere in the creatures stat block. It doesn't. The creature still has eyes when blinded and you can still look into their eyes. They only difference it would make is that the creature couldn't actively choose to look at someone with the gaze attack, but there is still the danger of being affected by their gaze. You would have to cover the creature's eyes somehow, which it does specify in the rules.

This is how my GM ruled it when our party fought a medusa, anyway. It seems unfair, but it makes sense. Still, if you're the GM, it's your call one way or the other.

Battlefield control wizard might not be ideal depending on the spell. There are a lot of people, and any area effects might mess up the party as well if not carefully executed. They could focus on summoning, but you already have a summoner and a lot of bodies. I think adding more bodies will slow things down. A blaster wizard might be good depending on what the sorcerer is doing.

Bard isn't a bad idea. In fact, it's great. You could also suggest an evangelist cleric instead. They get bardic performance, but with diminished channeling. They also get to spontaneously cast enchantment spells for some potential battlefield control. I can see some interesting back stories for this kind of character, too.

As LazarX said, you hold your weapon in one hand, and cast with your free hand. The real setback to the locked gauntlet is the full-round action it takes to utilize it. If you are concerned about losing your weapon, a weapon cord is a much better option. Even then, if you plan on using wands or doing anything at all with that other hand, your spell casting with somatic components is shut down until you free that other hand.

A lot of people go familiar over arcane bond, but I chose a weapon for my wizard because 1) it made sense with her background story, 2) I get a "spontaneous" casting of any spell in my book, 3) I can provide a flanking bonus if absolutely necessary, and 4) I have the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat for my bonded weapon. The last reason is great because I plan on applying the defending property to my weapon to boost my AC. I know this doesn't have much to do with your post, but I'm justifying reasons for having a weapon over other arcane bonds or familiars, and maybe giving you reasons you haven't thought of before.

Both have about equal access to the toughness feat, however, casters have a variety of options for temp hp. Wizards also have an edge in magical Con boosting, especially if they take craft wondrous item as a bonus feat.

In terms of actually taking damage, fighters have the hands down advantage in terms of AC, however casters generally rely on spells such as mirror image and displacement. Casters can also keep a decent AC through the lower levels with mage armor, shield, and protection from evil. Later in the game, casters are only truly squishy against opponents with True Seeing, which is fairly uncommon.

To back up your debunking, my 10th level wizard has almost 100 hit points. More than that if I cast false life. That's using your same generous mathematics, too. In a party full of d8 and d10 classes, I have the second highest amount of hit points. My AC stinks, but flying at will (air school) and turning invisible takes care of that. And as far as protection spells go, every time there is some magical energy damaging trap, the party turns to me to slap on protection from energy and do their dirty work. I don't mind, though. I'm a badass teenaged female half-elf wizard. =)

To add to Ravingdork's comment, just look at the other arcane discoveries. Golem Constructor and True Name specify that you can take them multiple times. Opposition Research does not.

Since the mercy part is the same for both paladins and merciful healers, you could say that channeling replaces lay on hands for those feats and effects. However, after reading some of those feats and effects, they don't make as much sense with channeling. If it were me, I would have just left that text out of the merciful healer's ability. The thought makes sense since the abilities function similarly, but actually putting it into practice seems a bit confusing. (Just like with paladins and anti-paladins.)

On a side note, there is a merciful healer npc in my group, and there seem to be many other feats better suited for this archetype. Any of the channeling ones come to mind, as well as the reach metamagic feat. Also contingent channeling, which you must be a merciful healer in order to take anyway.

Silly house rule, unfortunately. Double movement is only for moving through enemy squares. This part of the rules is covered under the Acrobatics skill.

I've never been a fan of familiars. For story purposes, my wizard uses her birth father's rapier as her bonded weapon. She's taken maybe one swipe with it as an AOO the entire time I've played her. The way I see it, the weapon can be another source of AC. I can upgrade the weapon to have the defending weapon property, and still benefit from having a +x weapon. Pair this with the Arcane Builder discovery, and you can craft in no time (well, less time). Also, fortunately for me, I don't have a jerk GM who tries to steal or sunder my sword. Disarms wouldn't work too well anyway since she has a weapon cord.

Thanks for backing me up, guys. I was almost 99% sure I was correct, but that 1% of doubt gets me every time.

I haven't been able to play it yet, but I made a fighter (archer archetype) build that utilizes Combat Reflexes, Combat Patrol, and the Snap Shot feat chain. The idea was to set up a perimeter (Combat Patrol), and use combat maneuvers in place of my AOOs to disarm and grapple opponents with my arrows.

I know grappling is a standard action that can't be done in place of an AOO, but the archer archetype has a slight implication that a grapple with an AOO is possible. The text says that you "perform this action with the bow", and that "it uses up arrows as normal." I might be reading too much into this, but if you're using a bow to fire an arrow to grapple, it seems that it would still be considered an attack action, and therefore can be done in place of a normal AOO. Does this sound right, or would it still be considered a standard action? I'm fine with it either way, as I can still trip opponents with AOOs using arrows. I just wanted to know what others think.

You know being able to save wealth with a class ability is hardly a Magus only thing. Sure when it is with ones weapon its obvious. But lets take fly for instance. Any class able to fly without an item is saving money compared to the classes that need a fly item.

Speaking of free flight, my party's magus is also a hexcrafter with the flight hex. But I'm a 10th level air wizard, and the alchemist morphs into a weird elf-like creature with wings. Sure, saving wealth with class abilities isn't magus-specific, but it sure seems like they can do it better that the rest.

I think this thread officially derailed. =)

My GM lets us flip flop and introduce new characters every so often, and for those secondary PCs, he never allows us full character wealth. He makes us one level poorer, as he feels our main characters should be more powerful. I know these are replacement, and not secondary characters, but if you think the full WBL is too much, just scale it back. If it ends up being too little, throw some extra loot their way to make up for it. I know it's an AP, but ultimately you're running the show, so you can make adjustments as you see fit.

I know someone on these boards who would tell you that fighters should never get supernatural abilities through an archetype since they have none to begin with. I don't disagree with you, though. That's why I tend to favor gishes. =)

The question remains, what about the tricks I take as a shadowdancer? I assume I only use SD levels for those

Ah, I knew I was forgetting something. The ability says it functions as the rogue talent class ability, so I would assume you use your rogue level. This also seems like an oversight to me. It should flat out tell you that you use x levels for rogue talents. However, this was created with only core material in mind, so the thought may have never occurred to them to add specific text. I say the levels should stack. It just makes sense if they're giving you the same class ability but from a different source. (Just like sneak attack or uncanny dodge from different sources.)