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@Ibid - So I glanced at the investigator's stuff that you get for 2nd and 3rd level. I would agree that at first glance it doesn't look like you are giving up very much, especially if your goal is to gain more effectiveness as an archer.
Rule #1 - Have fun. You obviously have Ibid's character in spades, but if you aren't all that excited about the crunch, then change it. What we think is unimportant to a very large degree. Role and Roll are two sides of the same coin. We all love Role, which is why we are here doing what we are doing. You've got that nailed. But its silly to think that Roll isn't a part of the fun.
I say go for it. My personal opinion is that I feel like the ranger (guide) makes the most sense. I haven't spent a ton of time looking at it mechanically, but I think that seamlessly fits the theme of who Ibid is and what he does.
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Now - for the game.
To split the party, or not split the party...
There is a part of me that wants to do everything, and succeed across the board (Meta)
Cyrus has a nagging feeling that they won't be able to do everything in time, and is worried about the lodge being attacked while they are still out trying to set up its defenses.
Steve the player is worried about character death, which seems inevitable every time you split up the party...
So I think we should figure this out now, just so we can at least say we made an informed decision before the clock runs out on us.
For what it's worth, Cyrus is brash and not always thinking ahead - and so votes to split the party to get more accomplished. 2 groups maximum, evenly divided. Steve the player is happy to be talked out of this risky decision...
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@Ibid: Investigators take about 5-6 levels to get anything decent in combat, and even then...
I think skill monkeys have just as much to add in PFS as combat wombats (™), but it can be more frustrating to be less effective in combat than in social situations (after all, you can still speak in social situations, even if your rolls suck).
As Cyrus said, totally up to you... but after a few more levels of investigator, you get some neat and tricky abilities. Just not much for combat.
@Ibid: I understand your point. Higher tier scenarios start to demand more from the characters, and the optimization disparity starts to show as well. Although it's nice to see an archer who doesn't explode the encounter on turn one :)
Investigators can be quite bests in combat, although I haven't seen archers (other than Ibid). Mutagen, extracts, and studied combat are what boost the combat effectiveness. But as Steve said, important bit is to have fun. And if making Ibid more effective in combat makes playing more fun for you, go ahead and retrain (not that you'd need permission anyway).
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I will say that Ibid's knowledge and skills have served us very, very well. Really, this group does not lack for much of anything, and if you want to focus more on Archery, that's cool. Just don't lose the flavor of Ibid...
Another option would be to look for an archetype that does what you want better. I kind of like the Sleuth archetype, seems pretty fun.
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... Remember there is no valor in dying ... for no reason. Flight is an .... acceptable course of action. You don't have to be fast, you just have to faster than ...."[/b] Finarin looks at Haafiz. "Well good luck my friend."
Legit laugh out loud... Good thing I wasn't enjoying a beverage, or I'd be cleaning it off my screen.
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Thanks everyone for the thoughts on retraining Ibid. For those who mentioned RP and such, I will say that my plan is not to retrain/rebuild Ibid as a anti-social loner who doesn't work well with others, he'll be the same RP-Ibid as before, just hopefully a little better in combat rounds :)
So, thank you again for all the help and discussion. It was very helpful for me to see your thoughts and such. I think I will go ahead and retrain Ibid after this scenario and swap out his 2nd and 3rd levels of investigator. I'm excited to see how it goes after that.
Plus I want to make sure Ibid is ready and can contribute to a fight at higher levels when stuff gets crazy. Also, I want him to be ready for whenever Steve and I finish the story arc for Cyrus and the old man.
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I cooked that one up during my 40 minute mri. Do you have any idea how hard it is to "don't move your leg. Not even a millimeter.".
All I wanted to do was move my leg. A lot.
I know when I had an MRI for my knee, the more I thought about trying to not move my leg, the more it felt like it was moving.
If we ever make it to gencon at the same time, I've got a funny story to tell you about when my results came back and were completely wrong... but that's a story for another day.
Hope your knee stuff is going ok!
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"don't move your leg. Not even a millimeter.".
You should have occupied yourself with converting that to inches... and then wondering why such a progressive nation who doesn't even use the full English dictionary anymore still uses the Imperial system of measurement.
Also, f*cking classic quote from Finarin. It's starting to feel like we're getting "back to normal" for the Drongos... erm... my character choice notwithstanding.
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Linked to under GM Karma's tagline! :-)
And here.
The combat map is on the second slide. Good luck, and sorry I can't be there with you! Trying to rake in the success conditions and all. ;-)
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- As always GM is right although I do not see anything that says the special qualities don't contribute to the overall enhancement bonus. Regardless you are correct that even with a +4 weapon it still doesn't overcome hardness. Guess it goes back to Jack and Damien's debate about constructs.
- Yes I used an arcane pool point for an additional +2
- The attack was 1 attack with two different damage types as the spell is delivered through the scimitar.
Sorry that I muddle things up. I really hoped I one-shotted it. I thought that last thingy in the lava room took x2 from electricity. Must be a different thingy.
Ok, so first I add up the weapon damage and energy damage, and reduce the hardness only once.
The electricity seems to work well, but this thingy had a thingy, because thingy.
I'd be curious on the other's take on the weapon enchantment bonus and DR. Not just because of this, but also otherwise. I have many characters with +1 weapon and special qualities, but I've always thought +1 is +1 in every respect (except price)
Hardness is nasty. But many have adamantine weapons on these levels, so it's not as big deal as in tier 1-5.
BTW, I'm trying the round tracker on campaign description. That way you'd see right away whose turn it is. Let me know if it takes too much space on your listing.
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I really wish someone would clarify this whole hardness crap - there are so many questions that are confusing.
Gunari mentioned in the gameplay that the weapon damage and spell damage would go through hardness separately. I think I disagree (but can be shown the error of my ways, if I am wrong)
Spellstrike (Su): At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of "touch" from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack. Instead of the free melee touch attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell. If the magus makes this attack in concert with spell combat, this melee attack takes all the penalties accrued by spell combat melee attacks. This attack uses the weapon's critical range (20, 19–20, or 18–20 and modified by the keen weapon property or similar effects), but the spell effect only deals ×2 damage on a successful critical hit, while the weapon damage uses its own critical modifier.
Emphasis mine.
The way I read that, a single melee strike delivers both types of damage. 1 strike, therefore, it should only have to bypass hardness 1 time. The way that is worded, the damage is delivered through the weapon, not in addition to the weapon. Maybe it is semantics, but I think it is important.
In my opinion, hardness should only be applied once. Additionally, as I mentioned in Damo's question thread (that hopefully makes it to FAQ status) energy damage should not be halved then have hardness applied. That is for objects only, not creatures/constructs/animated objects.
Just wanted to get my thoughts out there. As always, GM Rulings Rule.
Even with the emphasis, it doesn't clearly say the spell damage is added to weapon damage before reducing hardness. I tried googling for it, but couldn't find anything. I suppose it is a rare case, happening only when a magus is fighting a robot :)
In any case, it is not object, so energy damage is not halved. For now I've calculated the damage so that hardness is only reduced once. I'll sleep on it, and see if there's any reason to change my ruling.
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First, GM is always right. So no matter which way you rule GM, you are right.
Thanks Steve for the reference there. As I make one attack roll for both the scimitar damage and electrical damage, I am not sure how hardness is subtracted from both as it is one attack.
Hardness: Each object has hardness—a number that
represents how well it resists damage. When an object is
damaged, subtract its hardness from the damage. Only
damage in excess of its hardness is deducted from the object’s
hit points (see Table 7–12, Table 7–13, and Table 7–14).
So my one attack causes damage.
BEGIN RANT - this is the problem I have with Pathfinder and modern RPGs in general. There is soooo much stuff out there that has this or that, and everyone thinks that it is so cool to take away what your character does best to 'see you be creative'.
I spent hours, days, weeks crafting my PCs so that they do incredible things. Like inflict 92 damage with a level 1 spell on one attack.
I miscalculated my advancement and had to shelve Finarin and play the Investigator Pregen Quinn for a scenario. He has a +1 sword cane, cold iron sword cane, silver sword cane. Is this what Pathfinder encourages? Three flipping swords? He would have needed a 4th for this scenario. Why do I want Finarin to have a silver scimitar, a cold iron scimitar, an adamantine scimitar, and my normal, +1 keen scimitar?
Again GM, you are right and I appreciate you taking time away to run games for our pleasure. If I came across as an ass, I am sorry. I was so excited with my attack and to have it almost completely nerfed gives me sad faces.
Where the hell is Fastius when you need him?
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"Ask and you shall be found... wanting..."
So, let's break things down.
First, on negating DR.
From the PRD on magic weapons.
A magic weapon is enhanced to strike more truly and deliver more damage. Magic weapons have enhancement bonuses ranging from +1 to +5. They apply these bonuses to both attack and damage rolls when used in combat. All magic weapons are also masterwork weapons, but their masterwork bonuses on attack rolls do not stack with their enhancement bonuses on attack rolls.
...
Some magic weapons have special abilities. Special abilities count as additional bonuses for determining the market value of the item, but do not modify attack or damage bonuses (except where specifically noted). A single weapon cannot have a modified bonus (enhancement bonus plus special ability bonus equivalents, including those from character abilities and spells) higher than +10. A weapon with a special ability must also have at least a +1 enhancement bonus. Weapons cannot possess the same special ability more than once.
So, from here, you can see that enhancement bonuses are separate from special abilities (such as Keen). The total modified bonus is only used to determine the cost of the weapon.
Second, from the glossary in the PRD
Weapons with an enhancement bonus of +3 or greater can ignore some types of damage reduction, regardless of their actual material or alignment.
Note: As Keith said above, it is damage reduction, not hardness. Only adamantine weapons (such as Cayden's Churchkey or my own Final Arbitration) overcome hardness up to 20.
So, on to the scimitar and shocking grasp.
Spellstrike (Su): At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of "touch" from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack. Instead of the free melee touch attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell. If successful, this melee attack deals its normal damage as well as the effects of the spell. If the magus makes this attack in concert with spell combat, this melee attack takes all the penalties accrued by spell combat melee attacks. This attack uses the weapon's critical range (20, 19–20, or 18–20 and modified by the keen weapon property or similar effects), but the spell effect only deals ×2 damage on a successful critical hit, while the weapon damage uses its own critical modifier.
Let's break this down... instead of the free touch attack, a magus can deliver the touch spell with his weapon. This allows him to get the wider critical range (which is why almost all magi use scimitars, kukri, and rapiers). If he hits with the weapon, the touch spell deals its effect in addition to the weapon damage.
So, for Finarin's attack, the weapon damage was 28 damage. The shocking grasp dealt 64 points of electrical damage. They are different sources, and different types, so apply DR and/or hardness separately.
Let's say, for example, that the creature had DR 10/- and electrical resistance 10. With that, it would be pretty clear to all (I would hope) that the physical damage is reduced by 10 (to 18), and the electrical damage would be reduced by 10 (to 54). Hardness, in this case, deals with things much the same way... reducing all (non-adamantine) physical damage by 10, and all energy damages by 10.
So, for that attack, Finarin dealt 72hp of damage... which is amazingly effective! I hardly call that nerfed!
Sorry about the wall of text... but someone asked for an Auditor, as I recall.
Where the hell is Fastius when you need him?
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Another quick note for Ibid...
Weapon Blanches only work against Damage Reduction, not Hardness (which does tend to make adamantine blanch mostly worthless).
The blanching gives the weapon the ability to bypass one kind of material-based damage reduction, such as adamantine, cold iron, or silver.
This is why people now tend to buy durable adamantine arrows when they can (assuming they have the right books). They are reusable, and are actually adamantine, thus they will penetrate hardness.
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Thanks for the breakdown there. I see what you are saying, but that is a great case for never having this type of creature in Pathfinder. So if I had instead enchanted my scimitar to one of these: flaming, flaming burst, frost, icy burst, shock, shocking burst. So hardness would apply to the base scimitar damage, the icy burst in the form of cold damage, and then to the shocking grasp or electrical damage? Hardness would apply to all 3 damage types?
They are different sources, and different types, so apply DR and/or hardness separately. ... it would be pretty clear to all (I would hope) that the physical damage is reduced by 10
My reference to the CRB said hardness applies when an thingy takes damage. IMHO, that means my attack did 92 damage. In one attack. So hardness should take out once from that damage.
It is tough in this situation since we are speculating on what thingys this thingy has.
So, for that attack, Finarin dealt 72hp of damage... which is amazingly effective! I hardly call that nerfed!
Gearsman (-30)
That is a nerf. It negated 62 hps of damage. Over 2/3. :-(
Actually, the -30 is when hardness was reduced only once. And I'm somewhat leaning to Jack's interpretation on the hardness. I put the question to the rules forum, but if I'm not getting an answer before the creature would be otherwise destroyed, I'll keep my original ruling (which is more favourable to you)
Remind me to describe the creature after the scenario, so you'll know why the attack made much less damage than Finarin thought.
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Jack (and Keith and JyrI) are correct on the hardness. John is right that it is an absolute b!&@#, but there you have it. Hardness on creatures is f@!!ing awful - and that's when they're not having the energy damage halved.
When you hit with touch spells, you typically only do spell damage. The magus is reminding you to also do weapon damage - not saying that the damage is coming from a single source (you deliver the touch spell, and you deal weapon damage). It is the same for the icy burst or flaming burst properties... on the plus side, imagine how cool dealing lightning, fire and physical damage must look! Also on the plus side: improved critical, keen.
HOWEVER there is a property of hardness that calls for a GM ruling about whether or not certain damage types or weapon types bypass it (eg. fire vs wood, axes vs wood, acid vs metal.... electricity vs robots?). It is entirely Jyri's call about whether or not to also reduce the energy by hardness.
I totally also agree about the silliness of carrying around multiple weapon types (but I try to have fun with it by not using my primary - something, admittedly, that a dex magus - or any dex melee character - would find harder to do given the feat chain you need).
As for -30 hp, Jyri said above "thingy"... also, we really shouldn't know it's at -30. None of us have the technologist feat, so we can't know what thingy is.
This brings me to a massive gripe about technology in PFS. I'm fine with tech in my fantasy, but when you need an entire feat just to interact - it's not worth it for the few scenarios that deal with technology. Worse, there don't seem to be any boons out there that allow you to make those skill checks "as though you had the technologist feat". It's just poor.
That said, I believe Ibid can (perhaps with inspiration) make knowledge skill checks untrained. That should give him at least 1d20+INT+1d6 to figure out more about this thing.
I hear your feedback, and swear I'll never run another scenario with robots to you again :)
Yeah, hardness sucks. Why couldn't they have used just DR/adamantine instead with ER?
And I'm with Damo that the Technologist feat sucks. It would be fine in a dedicated campaign, such as Iron gods. But in PFS where you might come across technology once or twice during your career, it's waste of feat. Having said that, it's quite nice that the monsters can keep some secrets from Ibid for a change. And I did roll untrained Knowledge for him, just didn't roll too well.
Ugh, and now there's a hot debate on a ruling, which makes me wonder if Cyrus should've gotten that AoO against the Kellid or not. Sigh...
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Yeah, hardness sucks. Why couldn't they have used just DR/adamantine instead with ER?
THIS!!!!! This would solve ALL the problems. (non-animated) objects have hardness. If it is a creature/monster/construct/animated object it changes to DR Adamantine. Everything gets simpler.
Ugh, and now there's a hot debate on a ruling, which makes me wonder if Cyrus should've gotten that AoO against the Kellid or not. Sigh...
Uhh... where? I wanna shout some more!
Seriously though, please don't take anything I have said (or the tone, intended or unintended) as a referendum on you - I get the awkward position you are in. If they would just answer these questions in FAQ format at least, we could have something to refer to.
This is almost as confusing as what is a catch and not a catch in the NFL.
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@GM Karma -
So I counted it out, I could spend a ki point and do a double move and end up relatively close to where I marked on the map if I just ran around the stairs. Jumping is way cooler if possible, but in the end it won't make a difference mechanically (other than ending location).
Just wanted to let you know in case it helps make your decision easier.
10ft boots of swift furyI was also confused on these, since the HeroLab one-liner in your statblock doesn't include this. I looked up the item and saw the full block though.
"Boots of swift fury While raging, +4 def to AC vs. AoO from moving through or out of threat area, or casting spell."
Same here, I was just looking at the profile.
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I think that's because hero lab doesn't include full magic item descriptions under "special abilities" - it just adds enhancement bonuses to the right places, and puts situational stuff there. I could be wrong, but it seems to be the case. Silly Hero Lab.
I've noticed this too. Its why there was the issue with Pooka's day job check... Hero Lab doesn't put a lot of the minutia/breakdowns in the info.
All my profiles are "customized" anyways from the hero lab default layout. I think I am going to try to find ways to show how and why things add up the way they do to help avoid questions in the future. The hard part is, it just means it takes that much more time and effort to make sure that all the numbers are right, and that many more numbers to screw up when I am translating information...
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@Finarin & @Karma - I am going to make a guess here that the gearsman had a force field. Many of the robots do, especially in the higher tiers. Force fields make them immune to critical hits, as well as giving them temporary hit points. When the force field goes down, then the immunity to critical hits go away.
I don't know for sure, of course, but I am guessing that this is what was going on (i.e., it was not hardness that screwed you, Finarin, since the force field take precedence over the hardness -- first the force field takes damage until it goes down... the remainder goes against the hardness, then the robots hit points.
All damage dealt to the wearer of a force field is subtracted from the temporary hit points it grants first. As long as the force field is active, the wearer is immune to critical hits (but not precision-based damage, such as sneak attacks).
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So in the hardness vs DR confusion, I thought that something with hardness also has hp, like a sword or a door. Like 10 hp per inch. Does this thingy work like that? Can I sunder it? Would that even be beneficial?
Since a robot is a creature, you sunder it by dealing damage ;)
Seriously, though... no you cannot. At least as far as I know.
@Gunari: Hush, no spoilers, you didn't make the Kn. check ;)
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Not true. You can also get a saving throw if you "study it carefully" - which is about as vague a description in RAW as it can possibly get. As a GM, I always assumed this is what anyone did automatically upon being told something is illusory (or realising the spell just cast was of the illusion school)... same as stating you are disbelieving an illusion in older school D&D. This is what Haafiz was attempting.
RAW, scroll down to "illusion" -> "saving throws".
Since it is listed under saving throws and saves are actionless, I've always ruled that "study it carefully" is too. You could rule that studying it carefully is a move action (like a perception check), a standard action (like most things that don't have a stated action time) or more, but it's up to you. Suffice it to say you don't need to touch it (at range or otherwise) to disbelieve an illusion.
I did a fair bit of digging about this before running an illusory battle in Isle of Dread. While it's not PFS and I could rule it any way I liked, I still wanted to be sure that I was being fair to those involved. There is no clarification to "study it carefully" that I've found. Expect table variation in PFS, then, I guess... but it's up to you!
Good call. I've been trying to study the subject as well. I came into conclusion that I'd like my PFS games without illusions... A lot of space for interpretation.
This longish analysis is pretty good guideline. Although I didn't read through all the comments to see if all commenters agreed.
So:
-Haafiz and Finarin have a reason to believe the wall is illusion, since they identified the spell being cast.
-They tell the others, so everyone has a reason to try and disbelieve it. So they can "study it carefully" as a move action
Of course Gunari ran straight through it, and that could technically be "proof" of illusion for anyone observing. (But would he have tried to move through it without spending the action to disbelieve it first?)
No worries, Cons can be really busy. Unfortunately I don't know Raven well enough to bot him, and I didn't want to put him front line (being only level 5)