As I read it, you would be wrong (or, at the least, it's ambiguous enough that neither reading can be discounted). "Choose one of the creature's natural attack forms (not an unarmed strike)" reads to me as reiterating the rule that "unarmed strikes do not count as natural weapons" to avoid confusion. The monk's unarmed strike is a specific exception to the rule that unarmed strikes are not natural weapons, being specifically called out AS a natural weapon for the express purpose of applying effects that affect natural weapons. You're welcome to disagree, and I understand the nature of your disagreement, but I don't agree with it.If INA worked, then is the Titan Strike mythic feat for non-monks only? I thought that was the whole point of the mythic feat (for monks)...I'd be surprised seeing someone spend two mythic feats to get it that WASN'T a monk.No, as far as I'm concerned they stack.And you would be wrong.
Monk unarmed attacks count as unarmed attacks, manufactured attacks and natural attacks. INA can only be applied to a natural attack, but it can't be applied to an unarmed strike. Monk unarmed strikes are natural attacks, but they are also unarmed strikes, which INA expressly prohibits being applied to. You would need text saying something along the lines of "Monk unarmed strikes don't count as unarmed strikes" or "Monk unarmed strikes can be enhanced by effects that enhance natural attacks, even if they can't normally be applied to unarmed strikes". Otherwise, they are still unarmed attacks, and INA is a no-go.
The line isn't there as a reminder. It's there specifically to prevent Monks from using it for unarmed strikes.
How do I know this? James Jacobs explicitly said that they would be adding an errata in to prohibit monks from using INA for unarmed strikes. That unarmed strikes exception didn't used to be there, and INA used to be legal to take before they added that exception.
I don't think that it can be any clearer than that. The only way your interpretation works is if the writing of the feat was atrociously terrible (which isn't completely impossible), but we know that this isn't the case and the literal interpretation of the feat (natural attacks that aren't unarmed strikes can have INA) is the correct one because the Creative Directer said that a Developer was inserting that unarmed strike text in explicitly to stop monks using INA to get bigger punches.
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How do I know this? James Jacobs explicitly said that they would be adding an errata in to prohibit monks from using INA for unarmed strikes. That unarmed strikes exception...
And you just blew my mind. Not knowing about that board posting, I have been giving all monk characters that feat for the past six years!!!
Reading through the history of posts, it looks like they flipflopped themselves on this issue several times. In my opinion, they did an extremely poor job "patching" in that line. Monk unarmed strikes have always been special which is why they do more damage and nobody else's does. If the intention was to prevent monks from taking that feat, it should have said "including monk's unarmed strikes." It does seem that was their intention. I maintain a literal reading, not knowing the history behind it, can reasonably lead to the opposite conclusion.
I think they are wrong myself. Bloodragers, barbarians, witches, and synthesist summoners can all get natural attacks in various ways and still take that feat. It's only fair to allow monks to take it too.
I remember for a while that they were not allowing monks to make flurry of blows attacks with the same weapon. Then they flipflopped on that too. So there is hope this will be reversed again.
I'm going to continue with what I believe is a literal reading and keep giving it monks (and brawlers). I know for a fact it hurts nothing.
I think they are wrong myself. Bloodragers, barbarians, witches, and synthesist summoners can all get natural attacks in various ways and still take that feat. It's only fair to allow monks to take it too. ). I know for a fact it hurts nothing.
The difference being that for the most part monks are the only ones from that list where their natural attack damage scales with their level.
That said, a natural attack warpriest could, potentially, use INA.
*Checks Bestiary I -IV and Core Rulebook PDFs*
Doesn't look like that errata ever made it into the books. That makes it pretty unofficial at this point.
*Checks Bestiary I -IV and Core Rulebook PDFs*
Doesn't look like that errata ever made it into the books. That makes it pretty unofficial at this point.
If you are referring to allowing INA to improve unarmed strike, the Bestiary First Printing to Third Printing (v1.2) errata says this:
Page 315—In the Improved Natural Attack section, in the Benefit paragraph, add “(not an unarmed strike)” to the end of the first sentence.
Is that what you mean?
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Odd that, that hasn't made it into any of my PDFs or the PRD.
EDIT: It is reflected in the PRD after all. Nevertheless, there are some instances of designers saying something is going to officially change, they don't, and people still point at their posts.
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I find it irritating that the longspear is a two-handed weapon, considering that an actual spear of that size can be wielded with one or two hands...which is the definition of a one-handed weapon.A person can hold a longspear in one hand easily enough, but wielding it effectively, however, is an entirely different matter.
7ft - 8ft spears can be used easily and quite effectively one-handed with a shield (either overhand or underhand). That's how spears were primarily used throughout history. Granted an 8ft spear would not have been called a "longspear" but just a spear. A longspear would essentially be a pike which would absolutely be used two handed.
D&D/Pathfinder weapons are not terribly accurate from a historical perspective.
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Retraining it's one of the few things I dislike in the system. I don't see why I need to spend money to retrain something that is not working for my character. Not only that it guarantees myself at least to use online guides to build a character. To avoid taking something that one may have to retrain at later levels. It
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I've recently been looking into the rules for high-level Paladin abilities as part of a game I'm involved in that's starting to get into the higher levels, and well, I've been completely boggled by the incredible awfulness of the Paladin capstone: the Banishment effect that applies whenever you hit an evil outsider with a smite attack. Particularly the fact that it ends your Smite after it's resolved, one way or the other, and can't be turned off.
So yeah. Are you in a situation where you don't want to do an all-or-nothing "hail mary" against the save of the demon you're fighting? Well, too bad! Rules say after 20th level Paladins don't get the option of full-attack-smiting evil outsiders anymore. Or even hitting them more than one time per smite. Just one hit, and have it make its save, and that's all you get anymore. Hope you set up your Paladin like a SoL-based sorcerer instead of, you know, a martial!
Worse, there are all kinds of situations where you wouldn't want to do a Banishment even if you thought you could land the save. Devil has a plot MacGuffin you're trying to get? Well, you better not risk using your iconic class feature on it anymore (especially since you'd only get one hit's worth of Smiting one way or the other). You want to actually kill (and loot) the demon you're fighting, instead of mildly inconvenience it and lose the treasure? You don't even want the Banishment to stick.
Most hilariously of all, the ability specifically applies the Banishment effect to whenever the Paladin smites an evil outsider, with no exception for if they have, say, the native subtype, or for whether the plane you're actually doing the smiting on is the outsider's home plane. Both of those are cases that would cause any Banishment spell cast on them to automatically fail, no save required. So if you're fighting a Balor in the Abyss, or fighting a Tiefling Antipaladin... well, enjoy having your smite canceled every single hit in exchange...
Yeah, that's pretty stupid. I've always just made the banishment an at-will thing and ignored the fact that it ends the smite.
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Huh.
Never liked Paladins, don't see a reason to start now.
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But targeting Touch AC - in a system where the base assumption was Touch AC is a gate to effects (spells, supernatural touch attacks, etc.), not repeatable high damage - makes them very powerful. ** spoiler omitted **
I misread it the first time as targeting flat-footed AC (too fast to dodge), not touch AC (cuts through adamantine armor like armor), and thought that was cool, so long as it was specifically said to be not accurate enough to allow for sneak attacks. That would, of course, end the 'scoffs at +30 natural armor' problem, but make bullets much more effective against critters that get all their AC from a high Dex, like Will O Wisps. Which doesn't actually bother me, since I hate those guys! :)
I do like SKR's opinion on absolutes. I remember a minor hubbub when 4e fire elementals were given a lot of fire resistance, but not fire immunity, since they were 'made of fire' (which they are obviously not, since they have solid bodies for all mechanical effects, and can even be grappled, by someone with the stones to try that...). Even if they *were* made of fire, that wouldn't necessarily make them immune to fire, just as I'm made of meat and bone, and not at all immune to attacks by other creatures made of meat and bone, and my body contains acids and gut bacteria that could do me all sorts of harm if they got on my skin.
Blanket immunities are definitely a pet peeve, for me, since they shut down entire builds. My least favorites are the ones that don't necessarily make sense, such as creatures that are of a type that gets free immunity to mind-affecting traits, because they are mindless, but aren't actually mindless, and therefore shouldn't have that immunity.
Also nonabilities. Zero scores in Con and Int annoy me, from both a mechanical standpoint (since they snowball into later design weirdness, like undead having high Cha scores because their hp are now based on Cha, or various archetypes or PrCs having explicit abilities to override these blanket immunities and affect undead with X or mindless vermin with Y), and a 'fantasy realism' standpoint (since bugs can craft things, intimidate things, learn and remember things, do math, etc. and aren't any more 'mindless' than half the people I work with, who *also* seem to run on preprogrammed decision trees or response menus, that rarely, if ever, relate to what you said to them).
Ugh. Hate nonabilities. If a skeleton is smart enough to understand my necromancers spoken commands, if that spider is smart enough to build a web or rear up and threaten an intruder, then they should have at least a 1 Intelligence. And if a construct or undead or robot or car or whatever has parts that are more important (gears, structural bones, inner mechanisms, fuel lines, etc.) that can be targeted and affect it's function (a leaking brake line, a blown out Achilles tendon, a punctured tire, a foot pierced by caltrops, what's the real difference, mechanically?), then it's able to be sneak attacked, able to be critically hit, and might as well have a Con score, even if the word 'Constitution' might be more fussily called 'Durability,' in it's case.
Retraining it's one of the few things I dislike in the system. I don't see why I need to spend money to retrain something that is not working for my character. Not only that it guarantees myself at least to use online guides to build a character. To avoid taking something that one may have to retrain at later levels. ItIndeed, the price is there for the players who deliberately build with retraining in mind, taking something that's better now and retraining it for something that's better later or is a prerequisite for a feat they can only take later or something like that.
The retraining rules should have included a note to GMs that if a player made a mistake with a character choice they should be able to retrain for free [and that the GM should make sure to provide sufficient downtime without penalizing the party via plot.]
I think the idea behind adding a cost to retraining was also to prevent things like a fighter swapping out their feats/abilities all the time. "Oh, this next sessions gonna be in a wide open plain? I better become a bow fighter. Now we're going to a dungeon where all rights will be in 30' or smaller rooms? Better retrain to be a reach specialist."
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I think the idea behind adding a cost to retraining was also to prevent things like a fighter swapping out their feats/abilities all the time. "Oh, this next sessions gonna be in a wide open plain? I better become a bow fighter. Now we're going to a dungeon where all rights will be in 30' or smaller rooms? Better retrain to be a reach specialist."Retraining it's one of the few things I dislike in the system. I don't see why I need to spend money to retrain something that is not working for my character. Not only that it guarantees myself at least to use online guides to build a character. To avoid taking something that one may have to retrain at later levels. ItIndeed, the price is there for the players who deliberately build with retraining in mind, taking something that's better now and retraining it for something that's better later or is a prerequisite for a feat they can only take later or something like that.
The retraining rules should have included a note to GMs that if a player made a mistake with a character choice they should be able to retrain for free [and that the GM should make sure to provide sufficient downtime without penalizing the party via plot.]
Now imagine a hypothetical 'fighter' class got dozens of feats at a time with no prerequisites and were allowed to retrain every day for no cost! That would be even more ridiculous.
Just think of the absurdity of a hypothetical class....let's call it the, oh, wizzurd...no...wizard. Yea, wizard! It gets lots and lots of class features that it gets to swap out every day. It has choices for its swap-able class features for almost any situation, and they don't have long chains of prerequisites the way feats do. And since we're on a hypothetical train of imagining obscenely broken class mechanics that no one would ever put in a game, let's just say that this 'wizard' 's swap-able prerequisite-free class features are more powerful than anyone else's class features, on TOP of being swap-able.Surely the designers were wise enough not to put something like THAT in the game. That's why the made sure that any character who wants to change out their build choices needs to pay a huge cost to do it.
I think the idea behind adding a cost to retraining was also to prevent things like a fighter swapping out their feats/abilities all the time. "Oh, this next sessions gonna be in a wide open plain? I better become a bow fighter. Now we're going to a dungeon where all rights will be in 30' or smaller rooms? Better retrain to be a reach specialist."
I don't see Wizards, Clerics or Druids need to expend gold to change their prepared spells everyday...
I would almost bet money that the only reason the Gunslinger targets Touch AC at all is because he was originally supposed to Flat-footted AC, but then -- Oh no! Rogues could get automatic sneak attack! We certainly can't have that!
I would almost bet money that the only reason the Gunslinger targets Touch AC at all is because he was originally supposed to Flat-footted AC, but then -- Oh no! Rogues could get automatic sneak attack! We certainly can't have that!
I'd say it was because "Ignore up to n points of Armor, Shield, or Natural Armor bonus to AC" would have made things more complicated in a complicated system. Or maybe, like CMB/CMD, it was designed solely with Medium Sized Humanoid versus Medium Sized Humanoid in mind.
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I would almost bet money that the only reason the Gunslinger targets Touch AC at all is because he was originally supposed to Flat-footted AC, but then -- Oh no! Rogues could get automatic sneak attack! We certainly can't have that!
No, they borrowed the firearm mechanics from a campaign setting book. The Inner Sea World Guide introduced Alkenstar firearms as a novelty where you can target touch AC but the weapons were expensive, risky, and could only be fired as a standard action. Ultimate Combat foolishly built upon these rules and let you full-attack with them. They should have ignored Inner Sea World Guide's guns and made firearms work like normal ranged weapons but with a few neat perks like Dex-to-damage.
I'd say it was because "Ignore up to n points of Armor, Shield, or Natural Armor bonus to AC" would have made things more complicated in a complicated system. Or maybe, like CMB/CMD, it was designed solely with Medium Sized Humanoid versus Medium Sized Humanoid in mind.
This system is already complicated enough, a "Armor Penetration" value for Firearms won't hurt.
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I'm inclined to agree that the current firearm rules are absolutely abysmal. Firearms cost an arm and a leg while also requiring a massive feat sink and a near-mandatory 5 level dip in a specific class; yet despite this they're just crossbows with the "fragile" weapon property and a pointless gimmick of targeting touch AC, which doesn't even make sense.
In Paizo's defense however, "firearms" is the worst f-word you can say to some roleplayers, who insist black powder technology has no place in systems like Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder. It seems like a great deal of care was taken to make sure this crowd didn't get offended, considering the above reasons combined with the baffling errata the gunslinger has received (in the case of abundant ammunition, indirectly received).
A much more reasonable ruleset for firearms would be that they basically function like exotic crossbows, with higher price points and automatic dex-to-damage, and no misfire because it's an awful mechanic.
I lean more towards your viewpoint, personally, but some people say they are WILDLY overpowered... which to me seems odd...
Expensive, sure, unreliable, absolutely...
Overpowered? Tell that to the guy flying around and dropping fireballs from the sky.
I dislike how low the base value is for settlements in Pathfinder, especially compared to 3.5e. I mean, it means the Magic Mart thing is reduced severely, but my settings were high magic so I have to bump up the values by a giant amount.
I'm inclined to agree that the current firearm rules are absolutely abysmal. Firearms cost an arm and a leg while also requiring a massive feat sink and a near-mandatory 5 level dip in a specific class; yet despite this they're just crossbows with the "fragile" weapon property and a pointless gimmick of targeting touch AC, which doesn't even make sense.
In Paizo's defense however, "firearms" is the worst f-word you can say to some roleplayers, who insist black powder technology has no place in systems like Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder. It seems like a great deal of care was taken to make sure this crowd didn't get offended, considering the above reasons combined with the baffling errata the gunslinger has received (in the case of abundant ammunition, indirectly received).
A much more reasonable ruleset for firearms would be that they basically function like exotic crossbows, with higher price points and automatic dex-to-damage, and no misfire because it's an awful mechanic.
I lean more towards your viewpoint, personally, but some people say they are WILDLY overpowered... which to me seems odd...
Expensive, sure, unreliable, absolutely...
Overpowered? Tell that to the guy flying around and dropping fireballs from the sky.
Early firearms? No. Advanced/modern firearms? Hell yes.
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I lean more towards your viewpoint, personally, but some people say they are WILDLY overpowered... which to me seems odd...Expensive, sure, unreliable, absolutely...
Overpowered? Tell that to the guy flying around and dropping fireballs from the sky.
I don't consider them overpowered. So much as the mechanic they use to hit touch AC is way too easy to bypass. At the very least I would have uses flat footed AC. If a campaign has many large sized creatures in it. The Gunslinger is never going to miss. I know I ran Rise of the runelords and the player was one shotting giants with his musket. Mind you part of it was my fault for allowing a weapon that does x 4 on a crit. As well as the player being a optimizer. I had to double and triple the HP because he was almost never missing.
Compared to what a optimized Wizard run by a player who knows what he is doing. Not even close even with Advanced Firearms. Greater invisibility plus fireballs or summon monster means the Gunslinger is at a disadvantage. That's why it's hard to take some in the hobby seriously when it comes to them saying stuff is overpowered. The gunslinger is broken and/or overpowered. But the wizard surely not it's magic the wizard is supposed to be broken and overpowered.
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I lean more towards your viewpoint, personally, but some people say they are WILDLY overpowered... which to me seems odd...Expensive, sure, unreliable, absolutely...
Overpowered? Tell that to the guy flying around and dropping fireballs from the sky.
I don't consider them overpowered. So much as the mechanic they use to hit touch AC is way too easy to bypass. At the very least I would have uses flat footed AC. If a campaign has many large sized creatures in it. The Gunslinger is never going to miss. I know I ran Rise of the runelords and the player was one shotting giants with his musket. Mind you part of it was my fault for allowing a weapon that does x 4 on a crit. As well as the player being a optimizer. I had to double and triple the HP because he was almost never missing.
Compared to what a optimized Wizard run by a player who knows what he is doing. Not even close even with Advanced Firearms. Greater invisibility plus fireballs or summon monster means the Gunslinger is at a disadvantage. That's why it's hard to take some in the hobby seriously when it comes to them saying stuff is overpowered. The gunslinger is broken and/or overpowered. But the wizard surely not it's magic the wizard is supposed to be broken and overpowered.
There is a reason for Touch vs Flat Footed...
Since the rounds are sub sonic and actually kinda slow (for a bullet), they are in fact dodge-able. But due to their mass (muskets would go all the way to 70 or 80 caliber... which is rediculous....) they have alot of KE so they punch through armor (well that is the thought process. It kind of depends on angle of attack as well since they are prone to Ricochet due to their lower velocity). Also you can throw off the aim of a firearm by being a moving target. Hitting a moving target is fairly difficult for a firearm (even with modern firearms, people sometimes have difficultly hitting moving targets with accuracy without lots of training and practice). Now hitting a BIG target much easier. After all, the joke is "not able to hit the broadside of a barn." If you miss something bigger than a barn.... well... you suck...
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That's a good explanation as any other pixie. My other issue is that if one type of ranged weapon works differently than they all should IMO. Bows should have better ranges. Crossbows bypass DR. It just that all of sudden guns worked differently. They should have had all of them target regular AC. It's very easy to hit Touch AC with few exceptions.
Early firearms? No. Advanced/modern firearms? Hell yes.If you consider advanced firearms to be overpowered, I'd hate to see what you think of composite longbows.
I've had a character that did archery with a composite longbow and one that used advanced firearms. Both were the same BAB and similar build, with accuracy boosting spells and a good Dex mod. The latter build was far more likely to hit on any attack roll. As in, natural 1s were pretty much all that would stop him. Oh, that character was ALSO doing Rapid Shot and Deadly Aim pretty much all the time whereas the former only did so when he was fairly sure it was a low AC enemy or he was getting a situation boost to accuracy of some kind. I base this view on experience, sir.
Yeah, having gunslingers is much improved by using armor as DR rules. You just have to tweak those heavily so they are more usable.
What I don't understand is people complaining about black powder in settings with technology that came far, far after guns were being used for warfare.
It mostly boils down to the fact that a lot of people believe guns=end of all things medieval. The reality, of course, was considerably more complicated.
There is a reason for Touch vs Flat Footed...
Since the rounds are sub sonic and actually kinda slow (for a bullet), they are in fact dodge-able. But due to their mass (muskets would go all the way to 70 or 80 caliber... which is rediculous....) they have alot of KE so they punch through armor (well that is the thought process. It kind of depends on angle of attack as well since they are prone to Ricochet due to their lower velocity). Also you can throw off the aim of a firearm by being a moving target. Hitting a moving target is fairly difficult for a firearm (even with modern firearms, people sometimes have difficultly hitting moving targets with accuracy without lots of training and practice). Now hitting a BIG target much easier. After all, the joke is "not able to hit the broadside of a barn." If you miss something bigger than a barn.... well... you suck...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the fact that musket bullets are made out of un-aerodynamic lumps of lead that would deform on impact lessen their penetrative ability considerably? It's one thing to talk about punching through a single layer of metal armor, but hitting touch AC means going through through that, tough hide, effects like mage armor, etc. If the standard for punching through all of this is a large gauge round with lots of power behind it, then an adamantine arrow launched from an adaptive composite longbow by someone with a double-digit strength mod should go all the way through dragon scale as well. It doesn't, though.
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The idea that the act of spellcasting creates an observable stimulus of some kind. It is impossible to do any form of stealth casting without significant investment at high levels.
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The idea that the act of spellcasting creates an observable stimulus of some kind. It is impossible to do any form of stealth casting without significant investment at high levels.
Unless the spell itself has an inevitable visual effect (fireball makes a ball of fire, create pit makes a pit, etc.) I don't hold that spells have an observable effect. Unless otherwise specified, you don't throw magic sparkles when casting dominate person or any other spell. You still have the vocal and somatic elements, of course, but those can be dealt with. Yeah, I know people will argue this to death with me, but I've yet to see a compelling argument to the contrary.
Unless the spell itself has an inevitable visual effect (fireball makes a ball of fire, create pit makes a pit, etc.) I don't hold that spells have an observable effect. Unless otherwise specified, you don't throw magic sparkles when casting dominate person or any other spell. You still have the vocal and somatic elements, of course, but those can be dealt with. Yeah, I know people will argue this to death with me, but I've yet to see a compelling argument to the contrary.
They FAQed it a few days ago. They ruled in favor of magic sparkles.
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Unless the spell itself has an inevitable visual effect (fireball makes a ball of fire, create pit makes a pit, etc.) I don't hold that spells have an observable effect. Unless otherwise specified, you don't throw magic sparkles when casting dominate person or any other spell. You still have the vocal and somatic elements, of course, but those can be dealt with. Yeah, I know people will argue this to death with me, but I've yet to see a compelling argument to the contrary.They FAQed it a few days ago. They ruled in favor of magic sparkles.
Fair enough, still not gonna use 'em in my home games.
Ugh.... that is so stupid...
So how are they going to explain Spellsong? If magic creates very obviously magical effects, how can you possibly hide it in a simple violin song? or a speech? How can you possibly HIDE THE MAGIC?
This is dumb....
The idea that the act of spellcasting creates an observable stimulus of some kind. It is impossible to do any form of stealth casting without significant investment at high levels.
Does ranks in the stealth skill count as high investment now?
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The idea that the act of spellcasting creates an observable stimulus of some kind. It is impossible to do any form of stealth casting without significant investment at high levels.Does ranks in the stealth skill count as high investment now?
Not sure how stealth could hide obvious arcane visual crap, unless you're casting from a hidden spot and they can't see you at all. The Jedi mind trick doesn't work too well if both Obi-Wan and the stormtrooper are suffused by visible arcane energy.
EDUT: I kinda like how the Dresden Files handles visible magic. Unless you're using a special sense, or creating an obvious effect (e.g. Fireball), magic is only visible when being used inefficiently (e.g. losing energy as light and heat rather than whatever you're trying to do with it).
I guess this was inevitable:
The idea that the act of spellcasting creates an observable stimulus of some kind. It is impossible to do any form of stealth casting without significant investment at high levels.
And this:
They ruled in favor of magic sparkles.
And this too:
still not gonna use 'em in my home games.
And even this:
Ugh.... that is so stupid...
I mean, it's not like we have an active thread, right now, that just today has had about 300 posts of people complaining about this FAQ. I suppose it was inevitable that it would end up here too.
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I do love how the PDT took the time to slip an advertisement for Ultimate Intrigue into that FAQ. I guess it's another case of "We nerfed it, but now you can un-nerf it if you give us $40."
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Ugh.... that is so stupid...
So how are they going to explain Spellsong? If magic creates very obviously magical effects, how can you possibly hide it in a simple violin song? or a speech? How can you possibly HIDE THE MAGIC?
This is dumb....
Maybe because Spellsong is a feat. You know, those things that represent spending extra time training to do something special that other people don't know how to do. Like when a fighter takes Power Attack to learn how to hit things harder - nobody else can do that unless they also spend the time to learn this feat.
That's what feats are for - specifically, to allow your character to do something that otherwise breaks general rules. You know, like taking a penalty to attack gives you bonus damage on your attack rolls - totally breaking the general rules of attack and damage, but that's what the Power Attack feat lets you do, break the general rule.
So take the feat and learn how to do something special. Something that other people cannot do. Learn how to break the general rule about visible spellcasting.
(Side note: doesn't the fact that there IS spellsong feat PROVE that you, and everyone else, CANNOT hide their spellcasting through other means - and that it was even true before the fact?)
(Second side note: can we now take this back to the actual open and ongoing thread where people are discussing this simple clarification and how it ruins Pathfinder?)
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Not sure how stealth could hide obvious arcane visual crap, unless you're casting from a hidden spot and they can't see you at all. The Jedi mind trick doesn't work too well if both Obi-Wan and the stormtrooper are suffused by visible arcane energy.
The spellcraft check still has the penalties relating to perception, so if it's dark and stuff or your in a crowd ect. there is no reason you cannot use the stealth skill to hide yourself and thus your casting.
"We nerfed it, but now you can un-nerf it if you give us $40."
I think it was more "Here is the rule we actually answered years ago but you didn't believe us, and yes we acknowledge the fact there are abilities that hide it, specifically mentioning Ultimate Intrigue because it was during that's playtest when the first ability that did it was revealed."
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(I'm actually in favor of the magic sparkles; helps reduce caster narrative disparity.)
(Not so keen on Power Attack being a feat though.)