Fearmonger: Y U NO WORK?!


Rules Questions

Scarab Sages

6 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

So, I've recently developed a huge interest in the Antipaladin class, and have been scouring the different archetypes looking for cool stuff. I saw fearmonger, and thought it sounded awesome.

Then I read the abilities, and, as written, they just... well, they don't work. There was one thread on this issue, and it never garnered much attention, but the rules brokenness of this archetype I would THINK would warrant an easy fix.

If you don't know about it, here's The Archetype. As you can see, you replace Touch of Corruption with a very specific effect... and then get a bunch of Cruelties that require touch of corruption to function. As it stands, all the archetype does is, basically, lose 2 class features (Touch of Corruption & Cruelty) to sometimes gain back HP from fear spells, a few times per day (and very little HP at that).

C'mon. This is a bit ridiculous. It's one of the more poorly worded archetypes, and I can't help but feel that a few minor word changes would make it actually usable.


Probably, the question is what the actual intent WAS. It's not entirely clear if touch of corruption was supposed to still work like normal, or if there was supposed to be a no-damage fear-inducing touch attack, or if the designer really thought that an antipaladin's spellcasting and fear-based spells would every in any way manage to make the fearmonger ability useful.

And if (any of the above), how that would interact with the Cruelties.

If you go ahead and assume that the character just still gets full Touch of Corruption, it ends up gaining a tiny amount of healing (negligible), being forced into certain selections with the Cruelties (low cost, for a low bonus) and it works. Probably underpowered, but whatever.


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Reading the abilities I would think that the last line of the ability should read something like "this ability replaces the heal undead function of touch of corruption" rather than "this ability replaces touch of corruption".

May want to ask on one of the "Ask [person at Paizo]" threads, though.

-TimD


To add further confusion to the fearmonger, it looks as if the archetype retains the channel negative energy class feature which is normally activated by two uses of touch of corruption.


Davor wrote:

So, I've recently developed a huge interest in the Antipaladin class, and have been scouring the different archetypes looking for cool stuff. I saw fearmonger, and thought it sounded awesome.

Then I read the abilities, and, as written, they just... well, they don't work. There was one thread on this issue, and it never garnered much attention, but the rules brokenness of this archetype I would THINK would warrant an easy fix.

If you don't know about it, here's The Archetype. As you can see, you replace Touch of Corruption with a very specific effect... and then get a bunch of Cruelties that require touch of corruption to function. As it stands, all the archetype does is, basically, lose 2 class features (Touch of Corruption & Cruelty) to sometimes gain back HP from fear spells, a few times per day (and very little HP at that).

C'mon. This is a bit ridiculous. It's one of the more poorly worded archetypes, and I can't help but feel that a few minor word changes would make it actually usable.

" At 2nd level, the first time in a round a creature fails a saving throw against a fear effect created by a fearmonger's spell, spell-like ability, or supernatural ability (including any ability that causes a creature to be shaken, frightened, or panicked), the fearmonger is healed of 1 point of damage per 2 antipaladin levels. "

Just get Enforcer feat.

The ability says: (including any ability that causes a creature to be shaken, frightened, or panicked)
Not any supernatural ability that causes fear (which is already mentioned) if you notice.

Then get the Damned feat that lets intimidate stack. Then you can hit people Intimidating them while healing.


Starbuck_II wrote:
Davor wrote:

So, I've recently developed a huge interest in the Antipaladin class, and have been scouring the different archetypes looking for cool stuff. I saw fearmonger, and thought it sounded awesome.

Then I read the abilities, and, as written, they just... well, they don't work. There was one thread on this issue, and it never garnered much attention, but the rules brokenness of this archetype I would THINK would warrant an easy fix.

If you don't know about it, here's The Archetype. As you can see, you replace Touch of Corruption with a very specific effect... and then get a bunch of Cruelties that require touch of corruption to function. As it stands, all the archetype does is, basically, lose 2 class features (Touch of Corruption & Cruelty) to sometimes gain back HP from fear spells, a few times per day (and very little HP at that).

C'mon. This is a bit ridiculous. It's one of the more poorly worded archetypes, and I can't help but feel that a few minor word changes would make it actually usable.

" At 2nd level, the first time in a round a creature fails a saving throw against a fear effect created by a fearmonger's spell, spell-like ability, or supernatural ability (including any ability that causes a creature to be shaken, frightened, or panicked), the fearmonger is healed of 1 point of damage per 2 antipaladin levels. "

Just get Enforcer feat.

The ability says: (including any ability that causes a creature to be shaken, frightened, or panicked)
Not any supernatural ability that causes fear (which is already mentioned) if you notice.

Then get the Damned feat that lets intimidate stack. Then you can hit people Intimidating them while healing.

That's a pretty odd parsing of that sentence. When you put something in brackets you are usually qualifying a previous statement.

In this case, that sentence almost certainly means: any spell, spell-like ability or supernatural ability that is either a fear effect or causes the creature to be shaken, frightened or panicked.

Enforcer doesn't fit into any of the above categories.

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