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My apologies, but I don't really take percentiles of that nature seriously once dice get involved.
And as far as I am concerned, using "this is only worth considering when 9th level spells are online and you have gold coming out of your ears" as the baseline for item pricing is mindbogglingly stupid.
Then why did you do that?
My apologies, but I don't really take percentiles of that nature seriously once dice get involved.
What does this even mean? I hope it doesn't mean that you think probabilities don't matter in play. That would be just silly, because probabilities matter about as much in Pathfinder as they do in gambling. You might not take them seriously, but that doesn't reflect badly on probability.
And as far as I am concerned, using "this is only worth considering when 9th level spells are online and you have gold coming out of your ears" as the baseline for item pricing is mindbogglingly stupid.Then why did you do that?
...
I don't even...
*sigh*
Lets be direct. Do you rationally disagree with what I say, and if so then what in the above analysis do you disagree with?
And since this is Mark's thread, I am going to ask him a question too.
Mark, since the value of AC effectively scales as levels increase due to the scaling of the Big 6, any defensive item will eventually be trivial in cost once a half dozen or so levels pass by. On that basis, what level would you consider 1/day crit negation to be appropriate for a PC to have, and what amount of AC should they have to give up for it. Likewise, at what level should the price of 1/day crit negation be trivial (aside from the opportunity cost of not using another item in that slot)? Lets assume for this that you can't swap out duplicates to get more than 1/day.
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I think it might be best to leave this alone and let Mark answer questions on his own thread. Plus it saves the Mods trouble of having to delete messages should they venture into arguments here.
On topic:
Mark, have you ever played dungeon crawl games like Dungeons of Grimrock? Did you like them?
The crit negation depends heavily on the game and type of enemies you meet. I can assure you that in Giantslayer, it´s one of the best defenses and blessings you can get, because once a giant crits you, you´re pulp.
Question to Mark:
The new PrC player companion is awesome, but i noticed one thing. Most/all DC´s of special abilities say 10+class level+stat mod. The way i read this class level refers to PrC class level here, because it´s not character level? Aren´t those DC´s a bit terribly low?
Considering most PrC´s come into play at level 7 and the special abilities some levels later often, DC´s are often likely to be 10+3+6 (assuming an invested optimized stat mod here)=19, while a good save on level 9 is supposed to be 12. This makes for a rough 60% to save.
Now, often the stat mods are from "secondary" stats for PrC´s though, which leads to lower mods and lower DC´s, say a 16. That´s close to a 25% chance on a good save.
Was that the purpose?
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The PrC's have always been "10+class level+stat mod".
As an example look at the assassin prc.
(DC 10 + the assassin's class level + the assassin's Int modifier)
Yes, I agree the DC is low, and I don't care for it either.
It's been that way since 3.5
PS: I am aware that I am not Mark. :)
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Well for some classes it´s even low success chance for a low save.
I just wonder about that.
Not thinking everything must be a really high DC or optimized, but once a class ability you get middle-late game only has a success chance of 25-50% or lower, i´m not sure how that is meaningful.
Might not see everything there though.
The new PrC´s offer really interesting stuff i think, so it´s a little sad to not see it work often, because i think it would enrich the game actually.
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Mark, any chance I could get my question about the Psychokineticist answered before the character is introduced into my game? I'd prefer to avoid having to get them to change it post-introduction because lowering the penalty caused too much of an unforeseen problem. Thanks.
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I think it might be best to leave this alone and let Mark answer questions on his own thread. Plus it saves the Mods trouble of having to delete messages should they venture into arguments here.
Precisely why I didn't respond myself.
However, to the question of why not up the price, I believe the common answer is that the items are already on treasure tables at the current price, and repricing would invalidate those tables, which are much more difficult to properly errata than just changing what the item does.
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Mark, any chance I could get my question about the Psychokineticist answered before the character is introduced into my game? I'd prefer to avoid having to get them to change it post-introduction because lowering the penalty caused too much of an unforeseen problem. Thanks.
If it's time sensitive, I can't give a full answer now (I have too much of a backlog I'd have to answer first), but for a quick response, I'd say if you're going to buff the character, since you're in control of your encounters in a home game, perhaps remove the penalty on skill checks and just be sure to include Will saves regularly, but don't halve the Will save penalty (other than from stats, save bonuses often go up roughly twice as fast for the same or similar resource expenditure as hp do). Just be careful: The key wrinkle you'll have from the psychokineticist compared to a normal one pacingwise, even without houserules buffing it, is that if you ever have a fight that will clearly be the last one of the day (the boss, the PCs using camping abilities to ensure no ambushes, etc) and there aren't any Will saves in the encounter, the psychokineticist can nova burn until she hits her limit without consequence (whereas a normal kineticist could also nova burn but would become fragile in so doing). Fundamentally hp are an important resource in almost any combat encounter whereas Will saves are often even more deadly when they arise, but they might not come up at all.
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I love how that's not the full answer. ^_^
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I think it might be best to leave this alone and let Mark answer questions on his own thread. Plus it saves the Mods trouble of having to delete messages should they venture into arguments here.Precisely why I didn't respond myself.
However, to the question of why not up the price, I believe the common answer is that the items are already on treasure tables at the current price, and repricing would invalidate those tables, which are much more difficult to properly errata than just changing what the item does.
Also, if they're already in adventures, the original version is "the party has an overpowered item which increases effective WBL, as long as they keep it, but at least if they sell it they get peanuts because it's underpriced so they're going to keep it and at least deal with the inefficiency in not having an item totally optimized for their PC", changing to true price leads to the worse "WBL is just way off in the adventure now either way you slice it, especially with a crafter, since the item is at its usual cost, so the party could sell it and then craft an item more tailored for their group at the same value", and changing the effect of the item to fit the value leads to "The party has gained what was expected for their level, whether they keep it or sell it". TOZ's reason and the one I just stated were ones I hadn't realized that the other designers pointed out (and I realized they were right as soon as they did) because my first aesthetic thought for items was to keep the effect the same and adjust price, so I was curious why they were changing the item instead.
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Manifestations of Spell Casting: what form do they take?
As has been made clear in Ultimate Intrigue, spell casting has inherent manifestations that make casting apparent even when a spell has no components. Part of this justification is that spell casting is always depicted visually in the art we find in the books.
Spellcraft, states that
this incurs the same penalties as a Perception skill check due to distance, poor conditions, and other factors.
In order to determine what modifiers apply, we need to know what forms these manifestations take.
Are they visual (almost certainly), if so do they create light?
Do they have a scent (the smell of ozone, or sulfur)?
Do they make noise (a buzzing or the singing of angels)?
Do they raise the hairs on the arms of those nearby?
We need to know these in order to know when a spell craft check is possible.
For example, if spell casting manifestation is only visual, you could not make the check without line of sight.
If there is a sound component, you could make spell craft check through walls. (at a +10 to the DC per foot of thickness)
Besides any sound component to the manifestation, what else can go through total cover? Can a deaf wizard attempt a spell craft check through a wall, because he feels his hairs tingle?
What are the penalties to spell craft for missing inputs from certain senses? (are the checks even possible without certain senses?)
As one last aside, if the manifestations produce light, (as they appear to do in the art) does casting give away your location if you are invisible? Invisibility does not generally stop the emanation of light. (An invisible burning torch still gives off light, as does an invisible object with light or similar spell cast upon it).
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Curious as to how exactly Anger Inquisition's Divine Anger works in regards to what it increases and stacking with Barbarian.
At 6th level, you gain the ability to rage like a barbarian. Your effective barbarian level for this ability is your inquisitor level – 3. If you have levels in barbarian, these levels stack when determining the effect of your rage. You do not gain any rage powers from this granted power, though if you have rage powers from another class, you may use them with these rages. You can rage a number of rounds per day equal to your Wisdom bonus, plus 1 round for every inquisitor level above 4th.
1)"Your effective barbarian level for this ability is your inquisitor level – 3. If you have levels in barbarian, these levels stack when determining the effect of your rage."
So would a Barbarian 1/Inquisitor 13 gain Greater Rage? Different ability than normal Rage I know but that's the only level dependent effect of "Rage" that I know of.
2)"You can rage a number of rounds per day equal to your Wisdom bonus, plus 1 round for every inquisitor level above 4th."
(I'm assuming that was supposed to say above 3rd)
What happens if you take a level of Barbarian? Do you get just one round of rage? 4 + Con?
The PrC's have always been "10+class level+stat mod".
As an example look at the assassin prc.
(DC 10 + the assassin's class level + the assassin's Int modifier)Yes, I agree the DC is low, and I don't care for it either.
It's been that way since 3.5
PS: I am aware that I am not Mark. :)
It's actually an approximation of general ability DCs (including spells).
The base DC formula is 10+ 1/2 HD + ability score modifier. The highest DC a PC can generally get is 20+ ability mod, at 20th level.
Spells approximate this since spell level is approximately half the caster level the spell comes online at, but caps out at 19+ ability mod.
You could scale the DC by 1/2 HD, but no other class works like that: even a wizard's spells scale approximately to half class level, which would be a good first approximation for calculating them, but then you get the horrible situation where a character with 10 levels in a core class and 10 levels in a PrC has no abilities at all whose DCs match up to other characters. By choosing to make the DCs scale with class level, the DC doesn't stay too low at high levels (and actually beats spell DCs above PrC level 5 if the PrC is obtained as fast as possible).
To compare: rogue 5/assassin 10 against wizard 15. All else being equal, assassin's DC is 20 + ability mod, while the wizard's is 18 + ability mod.
TL;DR + class level might look low, but it isn't.
PS, also not Mark, but I figured this out years ago and like to share it.
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Curious as to how exactly Anger Inquisition's Divine Anger works in regards to what it increases and stacking with Barbarian.
At 6th level, you gain the ability to rage like a barbarian. Your effective barbarian level for this ability is your inquisitor level – 3. If you have levels in barbarian, these levels stack when determining the effect of your rage. You do not gain any rage powers from this granted power, though if you have rage powers from another class, you may use them with these rages. You can rage a number of rounds per day equal to your Wisdom bonus, plus 1 round for every inquisitor level above 4th.1)"Your effective barbarian level for this ability is your inquisitor level – 3. If you have levels in barbarian, these levels stack when determining the effect of your rage."
So would a Barbarian 1/Inquisitor 13 gain Greater Rage? Different ability than normal Rage I know but that's the only level dependent effect of "Rage" that I know of.
2)"You can rage a number of rounds per day equal to your Wisdom bonus, plus 1 round for every inquisitor level above 4th."
(I'm assuming that was supposed to say above 3rd)
What happens if you take a level of Barbarian? Do you get just one round of rage? 4 + Con?
I believe the barb level for rage is for rage powers. Because greater rage is a separate ability and not a progression of rage. Yes, rage powers are separate too, but they are the only thing that are based off of barb levels.
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I believe the barb level for rage is for rage powers. Because greater rage is a separate ability and not a progression of rage. Yes, rage powers are separate too, but they are the only thing that are based off of barb levels.Curious as to how exactly Anger Inquisition's Divine Anger works in regards to what it increases and stacking with Barbarian.
At 6th level, you gain the ability to rage like a barbarian. Your effective barbarian level for this ability is your inquisitor level – 3. If you have levels in barbarian, these levels stack when determining the effect of your rage. You do not gain any rage powers from this granted power, though if you have rage powers from another class, you may use them with these rages. You can rage a number of rounds per day equal to your Wisdom bonus, plus 1 round for every inquisitor level above 4th.1)"Your effective barbarian level for this ability is your inquisitor level – 3. If you have levels in barbarian, these levels stack when determining the effect of your rage."
So would a Barbarian 1/Inquisitor 13 gain Greater Rage? Different ability than normal Rage I know but that's the only level dependent effect of "Rage" that I know of.
2)"You can rage a number of rounds per day equal to your Wisdom bonus, plus 1 round for every inquisitor level above 4th."
(I'm assuming that was supposed to say above 3rd)
What happens if you take a level of Barbarian? Do you get just one round of rage? 4 + Con?
Uh, Greater Rage kinda is a progression of Rage (and based off a Barbarian's levels). But yes both it and Rage Powers are separate abilities from Rage. So one really isn't more viable than the other.
Rage powers aren't determined by your "Rage level" but your Barbarian levels. "When determining the effects of your rage" It's weirdly worded since the only level dependent ability of Rage itself is how many rounds you have of it.
The PrC's have always been "10+class level+stat mod".
As an example look at the assassin prc.
(DC 10 + the assassin's class level + the assassin's Int modifier)Yes, I agree the DC is low, and I don't care for it either.
It's been that way since 3.5
PS: I am aware that I am not Mark. :)
It's actually an approximation of general ability DCs (including spells).
The base DC formula is 10+ 1/2 HD + ability score modifier. The highest DC a PC can generally get is 20+ ability mod, at 20th level.
Spells approximate this since spell level is approximately half the caster level the spell comes online at, but caps out at 19+ ability mod.
You could scale the DC by 1/2 HD, but no other class works like that: even a wizard's spells scale approximately to half class level, which would be a good first approximation for calculating them, but then you get the horrible situation where a character with 10 levels in a core class and 10 levels in a PrC has no abilities at all whose DCs match up to other characters. By choosing to make the DCs scale with class level, the DC doesn't stay too low at high levels (and actually beats spell DCs above PrC level 5 if the PrC is obtained as fast as possible).
To compare: rogue 5/assassin 10 against wizard 15. All else being equal, assassin's DC is 20 + ability mod, while the wizard's is 18 + ability mod.
TL;DR + class level might look low, but it isn't.
PS, also not Mark, but I figured this out years ago and like to share it.
It is low. Your idea works with classes, but not PrC's who start behind classes.
As an example a witch who is level 10 will have a formula of
10+5(half class level)+int mod(highest stat)
Her highest level spells will be
10+5(highest spell level)+int mod
That is appropriate.
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For a PRC that starts at level 7 the formula would be
10+1(half class level)+(whatever the 2nd or 3rd highest stat is)
That makes it lower than the DC for a 1st level spell.
The PrCs state "class level" for DCs, which by my knowledge refers to the levels you have in the PrC.
Character level is a different thing, but is normaly called out as "character level", there´s some proof for that.
Wraithstrike is right i think (hence i asked that question in the first place), quite some of those abilities are lower than first or even cantrip level spells. And most of them are limited in a way which doesn´t make building your character mainly around them anyhow viable. You also would have to get there and contribute something on the way.
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Very interested in continuing this discussion as design philosophy - should we take it to Pathfinder RPG General Discussion (it's not rules or advice, as such), rather than extending the back and forth in Mark's thread?
Well another week passes holding strong for Scorpion Whip clarification next week.We are getting close to a FAQ on scorpion whip. It is fairly likely to be next week if I don't manage to sneak a super-deluxe FAQ blog in there (which is unlikely to happen, but surprisingly possible).
Been over a year and I just thought about this did we ever get that FAQ?
Been over a year and I just thought about this did we ever get that FAQ?Well another week passes holding strong for Scorpion Whip clarification next week.We are getting close to a FAQ on scorpion whip. It is fairly likely to be next week if I don't manage to sneak a super-deluxe FAQ blog in there (which is unlikely to happen, but surprisingly possible).
Lol, curious where this will lead this time^^
@PrC DCs: Sure can do! You wanna open a thread and participate?
Or just interested in getting it out of here?
There´s certainly enough banter in this thread already from other high frequency posters though...
I´m hoping Mark can share some insights on this and help understand another part of the game better. He´s the best go to person in that regard for me at least and always has awesome explanations!
Hey Mark, that big question, rant and stink I made over the "rules for casting aligned spells affecting your alignment" bit I made a few pages back? You can ignore that now. I won't be around to read your response.
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Been over a year and I just thought about this did we ever get that FAQ?Well another week passes holding strong for Scorpion Whip clarification next week.We are getting close to a FAQ on scorpion whip. It is fairly likely to be next week if I don't manage to sneak a super-deluxe FAQ blog in there (which is unlikely to happen, but surprisingly possible).
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[Tiny creatures] must enter an opponent's square to attack in melee. This provokes an attack of opportunity from the opponent. You can attack into your own square if you need to, so you can attack such creatures normally.
When Tiny or smaller creatures enter an opponent's square to attack, can that opponent provide soft cover to them from enemies in adjoining squares? Or, similar to facing, are the Tiny creatures presumed to be occupying all parts of the square for the purpose of attacking from different sides?
Tiny creatures have a space of 2-1/2 ft, and four can fit in a single square. I presume, from the attacking rules, that a Tiny creature can also fit in a Small or Medium enemy's square, despite the fact that the enemy has a space of 5 feet. Can two Tiny creatures simultaneously attack a Small enemy and occupy the same square? Is there any limit on how many creatures of various sizes can share the same square, i.e., one Medium and one Tiny, one Small and two Tinys, etc.?
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Does this FAQ mean that if I full attack with a kinetic blade only the first attack gains bonus damage from things like inspire courage?
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Due to a recent(and bad) FAQ on spells, spell-like abilities, and feats, the Kineticist gets pretty boned in the case of Kinetic Blade, since no matter how many attacks they make they would only get the bonus from Power Attack(for example) once and can't even benefit from haste's extra attack.
Was this intentional, do you think, or a knee jerk reaction to Paladins using Magic Missle to Smite Evil?
Ninja'd because I spent too long thinking on wording.
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The problem is that people are insisting on treating complex subjects as simple ones. You can't just define kinetic blade and similar effects as 'always manufactured weapons' or 'never manufactured weapons' because that term has been used dozens of times by authors who never even considered the possibility of kinetic blade because the ability didn't exist yet.
The FAQ attempted to provide broad guidelines, but inevitably the same refusal to apply 'common sense' to the rules that necessitated the FAQ in the first place is now making a mess of it as well.
Inspire Courage affects the wielder. It provides a morale bonus. Thus, logically it should not matter whether you are wielding a physically manufactured or mystically formed weapon. Ditto haste... it allows you an extra attack because you are moving faster. That won't help you fire more ray attacks than the spell specifies, but it will allow you to attack more with a weapon held in your hand(s).
If people could just apply logic most of the FAQs would never be needed in the first place, but as it is the only REAL way to answer many of these requests would be to completely rewrite the rules with a massive library of rigidly defined terms and an OCD level of attention to specifying the results of every possible combination.
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Does this FAQ mean that if I full attack with a kinetic blade only the first attack gains bonus damage from things like inspire courage?
This is a misunderstanding of the FAQ (it in fact specifically calls out inspire courage damage as an example where damage applies to special abilities). The only time that the FAQ says to use weapon as shorthand for manufactured weapon is with the precise phrasing "with a...weapon". If it doesn't say "with a", that paragraph doesn't apply. I have absolutely no idea why the words "with a" were correlated with shorthand for manufactured weapons, but they were (for instance, you'll often see things like "with a melee weapon, natural attack, or unarmed strike").
@Casting or use, there's a PDT post on this in the FAQ thread with an example of how to apply that (the question was about produce flame but would apply to flame blade, kinetic blade, and the like). The illustrative example in the PDT post was a spell called scorching ray artillery that let you shoot out three scorching rays per round as a standard action for 1 round per level (plus one barrage of three rays immediately upon casting). You would apply bonus damage to only one ray out of each barrage of three, but every time you used the ability. Similarly, if you made a flame blade or kinetic blade, you'd apply damage on each attack.
Basically, in most cases, the FAQ helps kineticists in games where GMs were refusing to allow inspire courage and the like to add damage to a kinetic blast due to the "weapon damage roll" clause in inspire courage (in the FAQ thread, several people said their GM did this) by explicitly saying that you can. If your group was already allowing this, the FAQ probably doesn't affect your kineticist at all except in weird circumstances (Like if you attack with a kinetic blade but have a manufactured weapon in your off-hand that you don't attack with, your foe couldn't use Hold the Blade from Dragon Empires Gazetteer to disarm the off-hand weapon after your kinetic blade attack).
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The problem is that people are insisting on treating complex subjects as simple ones. You can't just define kinetic blade and similar effects as 'always manufactured weapons' or 'never manufactured weapons' because that term has been used dozens of times by authors who never even considered the possibility of kinetic blade because the ability didn't exist yet.
A corollary to this is why a "wielding" FAQ is going to be a massive headache; it was clearly used in more than one mutually-exclusive way in different places, so the FAQ would be massive and possibly could only be done as a one-by-one review of every "wielding" in the game.
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The problem is that people are insisting on treating complex subjects as simple ones. You can't just define kinetic blade and similar effects as 'always manufactured weapons' or 'never manufactured weapons' because that term has been used dozens of times by authors who never even considered the possibility of kinetic blade because the ability didn't exist yet.
While I agree with you, the trouble is that after a while things become really complicated when we do this. We have an FAQ on how special abilities that grant attacks work, but not every special ability that grants attack works that way and sometimes they work like weapons but sometimes they don't and that's kind of confusing. The risk is that after a point it's more about memorizing exceptions than leaning on general rules.
Plus it creates its own separate issue where old abilities don't work with the new rules and we have to figure out if they were ever supposed to. Haste only effects natural or manufactured weapons, but back when the CRB was printed those were really the only weapons that existed, so should it work on them?
There are other spells that specify 'manufactured', but many of them are worded that way to prevent abuses with natural attacks and things like mystic bolt and kinetic blade so thoroughly mimic manufactured weapons maybe they should work too? Or maybe not.
There's also the question of weaponlike spell effects that mimic specific weapons: The Flame Blade spell specifically functions as a scimitar and the Mindblade Magus can create a weapon of their choice. You could argue they count as manufactured weapons because they mimic a specific weapon, a flame scimitar is still a scimitar so it follows all the same rules a scimitar would, but you could also argue that they're spell effects and therefore follow the rules like those do.
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Hey Mark, a friend brought up an interesting question. The paladin's mount gains SR, and nothing in the paladin class says it can bypass the SR of it's mount. So by the rules does a paladin have to bypass SR to cast heal mount on their mount if they don't want to have the mount spend a standard action to lower it's SR?
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A corollary to this is why a "wielding" FAQ is going to be a massive headache; it was clearly used in more than one mutually-exclusive way in different places, so the FAQ would be massive and possibly could only be done as a one-by-one review of every "wielding" in the game.
I'd like to bring up another wielding question ;)
I want my Magus to wield a polearm and Spell Combat without resorting to a 2 level dip in Titan Mauler Barbarian. Can I do this with:
Weapon Trick Choke Up
Additional Prerequisite(s): Acrobatics 1 rank, Climb 1 rank
You can take a –2 penalty on attack rolls and damage rolls until the beginning of your next turn in order to choke up on and wield a two-handed polearm sized for you in one hand, as long as you do not make attacks with your other hand.
it seems like it may conflict with:
Spell Combat (Ex): At 1st level, a magus learns to cast spells and wield his weapons at the same time. This functions much like two-weapon fighting, but the off-hand weapon is a spell that is being cast. To use this ability, the magus must have one hand free (even if the spell being cast does not have somatic components), while wielding a light or one-handed melee weapon in the other hand. As a full-round action, he can make all of his attacks with his melee weapon at a –2 penalty and can also cast any spell from the magus spell list with a casting time of 1 standard action (any attack roll made as part of this spell also takes this penalty). If he casts this spell defensively, he can decide to take an additional penalty on his attack rolls, up to his Intelligence bonus, and add the same amount as a circumstance bonus on his concentration check. If the check fails, the spell is wasted, but the attacks still take the penalty. A magus can choose to cast the spell first or make the weapon attacks first, but if he has more than one attack, he cannot cast the spell between weapon attacks.
I know Spear Dancing Style and Quarterstaff master are a way to do this...however I'm interested in a STR based Kensai build. Just not sure if I can do it without the Titan Mauler dip...
Thoughts???
Go to Magus-question-Can-Spell-Combat-be-used-with Discussion thread with varying opinions.
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Another question for you! This one about an Alchemist; Beastmorph to be exact. I've searched and searched and searched and couldn't find an answer for this, so I was hoping you could help.
Beastmorph has Beastform Mutagen, Improved BM, Greater BM, and Grand BM.
Do the abilities stack? So does a level 14 Beastmorph Alchemist get 1 from Alter Self, 2 from Beast Shape 1, 3 from Beast Shape 2, and 4 from Beast Shape 3? Or does it replace the previous one, giving only 4 abilities at level 14?
Thanks for taking time to look over this! And I hope you've been having a good week!
Edit: Almost forgot! How are the abilities, such as Poison and Web, calculated? Using the monster rules? Or do you treat it as a SLA and use Cha?
Seems like they replace each other.
As for DCs, it's an interesting open question when you aren't flat-out using a spell, since the rules for spell DC directly apply to spells.
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Hey I have a question. So you're the kineticist guy. Does all kineticist material now go through you, or do other members of your team review kineticist material and make decisions without consulting you?
(This may not really be applicable if your work environment isn't set up to ever have the opportunity of my situation coming up.)
People each use their expertise for every aspect of the rules when they're the lead (so when you see something that's not in RPG line, check who's the lead developer and that's who did all the rules development on that book; the design team wouldn't have seen it), though I have an open offer to take a glance at kineticist stuff which means I sometimes do see that (for instance, John had me glance at elemental purist and I highly approved of the whole impossible infusions thing and the cool capstone).
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Would you (and your team) ever consider relaxing archetype stacking rules to allow for more combinations?
I see a lot of my players frustrated by archetypes that don't stack for seemingly nonsensical reasons because while the things they replace technically stack, they do so in tangential ways that don't hold up under less legalistic and more logical scrutiny.
Combinations like Bladebound and Hexcrafter, which both alter Arcana but in a way that does not conflict meaningfully at all. Or Shadow Caller + Broodmaster Summoner, one of them changes the mechanics of the eidolon and the other changes its appearance, but that still makes them incompatible.
And so on.
Obviously since it's a home game I can just houserule the silliness away and I've even Society play let characters like that slide just because the RAW is drifting toward drown-healing levels of silly in many of these examples, but still curious if the design team has ever looked at fixing these problems.
I'm in favor of allowing stacking case-by-case if the interactions seem to bypass each other to me, but I also agree with the other designers that there's no real way to make that the general rule (I had an attempt, but there were lots of holes).
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Hi Mark! Long time no questions :P
Here's a quick one: Do the extra dice from Kinetic Fist get multiplied on a critical hit? From what i heard, "extra dice" to an attack are never multiplied on critical, but I can't find the source of that rule anywhere (I might just not be looking hard enough though...). I can see how this makes sense with stuff like Bane and Sneak Attack, but considering how the extra dice on Kinetic Fist are essentially an Ascetics main source of variable damage, it didn't make too much sense to me.
How would you rule this, conforming to PFS standards?
I think conforming to PFS standards that they generally don't get multiplied on a hit, but I wouldn't be particularly averse to allowing it myself. Given unarmed strikes have such a small crit range, it's not going to have a large effect on expected damage like it would if we were talking kukris.
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Any rumours of kineticists getting a talent that opens crafting feats like Spell Knowledge for Alchemist?
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It's insightful to read your analysis in the ways in which the C/MD can manifest itself. Much if not all of it seems accurate. The part I was hoping you'd cover is how/what Paizo is doing to mitigate it. However, I get the sense based on your posts that within Paizo, there isn't a core belief that a problem exists, or rather C/MD is not a systemic problem, it's an emergent property based on play style: Group A experiences this because they do X and Group B does not experience it because the do Y.
One thing that's always important to note is that the company is not a monolith in terms of our playstyles. Different staff members come from all sorts of backgrounds (and from around the country) and have very different game styles, so they have different ideas of how the game plays. Furthermore, the best way to address the most egregious problem components is going to be to remove or ameliorate the problematic mechanics that are causing issues (as opposed to releasing new things that are just as problematic for more classes, which levels the playing field but in a way that's even more problematic), whereas given player build choice, new material can't remove options very easily.
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Is a mooncursed barbarian with the tiger animal supposed to be unable to shift until 11th level?
That seems weird. :/
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What happens if someone with source severance (arcane, CL 18) walks into a wall of Suppresion (CL 19)? What happens to other spells in the area if they are CL 20?
(Wall of Suppresion does not effect spells with higher caster levels but source severance does)
According to antimagic field (which source severance mimics but wall technically doesn't), two such effects don't interact with each other. That said, that rule was written before the idea that there might be something like a selective AMF-like effect, so I'm not sure if the RAW for AMF is relevant. The question then becomes if you can anti the anti so you can anti while you anti, which is going to depend on group interpretation if not going by the AMF rule. Antimagic is super-confusing!
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Mark, could Pazio make official rules for firearms constructed from special materials. Firearms made of mithril and adamantine should be more resistant to misfires and explosions from misfires.
In real life most misfires were caused by repeated reloads being fired at ounce. It has been found that muzzle loaded fire arms being fired in mass formations that sometimes an infantry man might not realize that he had not fired his weapon and continued to load it, until it misfired and exploded. The only misfires that I know of that were caused by material failure were in the civil war were caused by a unscrupulous contractor that produced muskets made of cheap metal that had a high misfire rate and repeatedly exploded killing many union troops.
Most material failures in modern fire arms are caused by hot loading bullets. putting more powder in a round than the weapons breach is rated for.
Misfires are an important balancing factor for guns (depending on who you ask, they either are what brings the touch attack into balance or are still not quite enough to do so), so I wouldn't recommend removing them for special materials. Perhaps these guns have a fundamental flaw related to the way Golarion works (it could also explain how gun tech has stood at a standstill for so many years).
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Hey Mark,
An inquisitor's Bane ability says that it can only be used as follows:
"At 5th level, an inquisitor can imbue one of her weapons with the bane weapon special ability as a swift action... This ability only functions while the inquisitor wields the weapon."
Would an inquisitor with Improved Unarmed Strike be able to apply this ability to their unarmed strike?
Thanks!
"Wielded" is a pain in the butt, but I would definitely allow this effect; otherwise what's an inquisitor of Irori to do?
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Hey Mark, another question for when you get back, if you'd be so kind.
I took an "uncommon" trick for handle animal that is not on the list. Namely, it is to have my animal move in response to a common event, in this case my character making a melee attack. I have Speak With Animals and my animal companion has an Intelligence score of 3, so my rationale was that I use SWA, explain to my animal companion what I'd like it to do, and during the downtime train it to execute that maneuver (ready to flee in response to my finishing to attack).
This is a Pathfinder Society game, and my GM has stated that this was not allowed, as custom items are not allowed, and ergo custom animal tricks are not allowed. Could you please confirm or deny what he said? Heck, would this even require a trick, or could I "communicate" that intent by guiding with my knees?
tl;dr: In Pathfinder Society, are you allowed to train an animal to do tricks not on the handle animal trick list?
EDIT: Would giving it a point in Linguistics to have it understand Common make any difference?
Your GM is right that custom animal tricks are not allowed in PFS. That said, given that it's a free action to ask your animal companion to perform a trick, you could just ask it to move with the regular move trick no problem.