Broad Education (Ex): A phantom thief’s broad studies with expensive tutors keep her up to speed in both martial and magical knowledge, as well as in her skills. She can select the combat trick, minor magic, and major magic rogue talents as many times as she likes, and she can select the Skill Focus feat as a rogue talent, also as many times as she likes. Finally, she can select a vigilante social talent instead of a rogue talent, except for social grace and vigilante social talents that would require her to be a craftsman or professional. For the purpose of vigilante social talents, a phantom thief does not have a vigilante identity and is always considered to be in her social identity.This ability alters rogue talent.
(Bolding mine)
Is the Phantom Thief supposed to count her rogue levels as vigilante levels for the purpose of selecting social talents, or was it intended that only three Vigilante Social talents were intended to be available/useful?
To the secret masters of the Pathfinder Society, particularly the pony-tailed one,
Any chance of getting Tears at Bitter Manor sanctioned a la Dragon's Demand? With the Campaign Cards shipping this month, I finally have all the pieces I need to run the module, which looks like it's going to be a blast. It'd be easier to dragoon convince some of the local players to sign up for the scenario if it also granted them PFS credit.
I know you guys are swamped with development work and that sanctioning stuff is low on the priority list, but even an ETA would be helpful.
My bard has a Circlet of Persuasion, which provides a +3 competence bonus on all charisma-based checks. Let's say I want to wear Bracers of the Glib Entertainer, which, among other things, provide a +5 competence bonus on Perform checks. Do the two items stack?
My gut instinct is no, as both bonuses share the same type. However, they're competence bonuses to two separate components of the same roll, so I'm unsure. I'd appreciate any insight anyone cares to offer.
I was playing my wizard in a PFS game earlier this evening and ran into the following interaction. I summoned a Hound Archon at a rather nasty Erinyes (SR 19), and had the celestial puppy go over and whack it. At this point, the GM informed me that I needed to make an SR check against the Erinyes, and if I did not make the SR check, the Hound would instantly disappear back to whence it came.
I can't find evidence of this in the rules for SR or summoned creatures, or in a search of this forum. The ruling was justified by making an analogy to the cleric spell Spiritual Weapon, though I have issue with that due to Spiritual Weapon having SR: Yes and Summon Monster IV having SR: No.
Anyone aware of a ruling, FAQ, or chapter I'm missing that says summon monsters have to make a CL check against SR or be unsummoned?
Thanks in advance!
Full Name
Miles of Magnimar
Race
Human
Classes/Levels
Rogue (Burglar) 1 HP 8/9 AC 16 T 14 FF 12 (Perc +6/+9 vs.Traps, Init +4) F+1 R+6 W+2
Gender
M
Size
5'11"
Age
28
Strength
11
Dexterity
18
Constitution
12
Intelligence
12
Wisdom
14
Charisma
10
About Miles of Magnimar
Character Sheet:
Miles
Male Human (Varisian) Rogue (Burglar) 1
CN Medium Humanoid (human)
Init +4; Senses Perception +6
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Defense
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AC 16, touch 14, flat-footed 12 (+2 armor, +4 Dex)
hp 9 (1d8+1)
Fort +1, Ref +6, Will +2
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee Dart +4 (1d4/x2) and
. . Rapier +4 (1d6/18-20/x2)
Special Attacks sneak attack +1d6
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Statistics
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Str 11, Dex 18, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 10
Base Atk +0; CMB +0; CMD 14
Feats Deft Hands, Weapon Finesse
Traits Jenivere Crew (Survival), Kobold's Neighbor
Skills Acrobatics +8, Appraise +5, Disable Device +14, Escape Artist +8, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +5, Perception +6 (+7 to locate traps), Sense Motive +6, Sleight of Hand +10, Stealth +8, Survival +7, Swim +4
Languages Common, Polyglot, Varisian
SQ trapfinding +1
Other Gear Leather armor, Dart (20), Rapier, Bandolier (empty), Grappling hook, Hammer, Hammock, Hat, Hip flask, Iron spike (10), Rope, Sack (empty), Shaving kit, Thieves' tools, masterwork, Trespasser's boot, Weapon cord, Whetstone, Wire, 12 GP, 6 SP, 3 CP
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Special Abilities
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Kobold's Neighbor +2 trait bon to Perception to find traps.
Sneak Attack +1d6 +1d6 damage if you flank your target or your target is flat-footed.
Trapfinding +1 Gain a bonus to find or disable traps, including magical ones.
Weapon cord Attached weapon can be recovered as a swift action.
Background:
Originally from Sandpoint and a childhood friend of Sandru, Miles and his family were located to Magnimar when he was 10. Unbeknownst to him, his father was a major informant for the Scarzini. His family was intentionally placed in a home beneath the shadow of Magnimar's bridge, not to be a major resource for the less than reputable denizens of Underbridge, but to be a quiet set of eyes and ears intended to spy out any opposition to Scarzini criminal control in Magnimar. Inevitably, Miles' father ran afoul of those he spied upon and ultimately betrayed, and they took their vengeance, waylaying him in the street one evening and beating him to within inches of his life with sacks loaded with bricks, horseshoes, nails, and other objects lifted off the street. Though they did not succeed in killing him, they did render him an invalid, made lame and an idiot. The duty then fell to Miles and his mother to care for his child-like father, who was unable to care for himself in any way.
Thus Miles took it upon himself to become an agent of the Scarzini, and over the next several years became one of the organization's more popular burglars. Not one for wetworks, assassinations, or open robbery, Miles preferred to be a tinkerer, familiarizing himself with a variety of different makes and models of locks and traps. It was often his role to accompany "enforcers" to the home of a Scarzini target and grant them entry so that they could threaten, intimidate, or sometimes murder their target. It was also his role to purloin what the Scarzini saw as its own property from the hands of those who didn't have anything better to do with it than keep it behind lock and key. And in spite of the criminal nature of his actions, he rather enjoyed the challenges set forth, and likewise had great motivation not to be caught: the resulting lack of income to his mother would surely see both she and his father into greater hardship.
When a break-in at a slum lord's home revealed something unexpected to Miles, the game changed. Amongst the slum lord's business contracts, which Miles was contracted to acquire, deliver to a forger, and then discreetly return, the burglar found an old contract for "mercenarial services to be hired in Underbridge" from several years prior. The document named his own father as the target. After completing the task, Miles spent a bit of time gathering information to uncover the truth: his father had discovered damaging intelligence to a Scarzini major domo (the brother of his old friend Sandru, in fact), and had apparently been in a position to blackmail him for a fortune. Thus what Miles thought had been his father earning his just desserts was, in fact, a calculated hit.
And so Miles calculated his response. First, he discreetly moved his mother and father out of Magnimar and to Sandpoint, hoping they could successfully hide out. Then he planned his own escape from Magnimar, as it would only be a matter of time before others became aware that he knew what his father had been beaten nearly to death for. Going by land through Varisia, he would still be somewhat within reach of the Scarzini, so he opted instead to join the crew of a vessel bound for Eledor, which promised to be both a nice vacation spot and a settlement rich in opportunities for someone with his skillset. Of course, Miles keeps these details from the rest of the members of the Jenivere crew whom he has been sailing with, preferring just to be known as "Miles, a dockhand from Magnimar". Knowing the price it could cost him to stowaway, he bade his time and took the longer approach of earning his crewmanship so at least to be overlooked in the grand scheme of things.
Johann Kurtzweil adopted the modern name of Tytalus and insinuated himself into his role as the new Minister of Magic with the kind of bluntness you might expect of a magician whose entire paradigm is based upon conflict and being victorious over a challenge. The story that he was a colleague of the late Collin Reyes was readily accepted after he used blood magic to force compliance, collectively addling the minds of the rather mundane councillors. Tytalus' reign was much sharper and more controlled than Reyes'; he proposed a great deal of legislation attempting to champion wizardry and the arcane lifestyle, the education and propigation of magical teachings for human males. He rather openly seemed to take a large role in the government, but mostly this is because he could not help himself - he felt the need to be in charge of things to ensure everything went according to his plan.
His plan was to pave a way for Collin Reyes to return to this time. He knew that the one thing a time-traveling Collin Reyes may have difficulty with after completing what Tytalus knew would be his plan for greater power is pinpointing the precise moment to return to Cordor. Tytalus first crafted a kind of metaphysical clock that he would wind through a herculean effort of sheer will. Being no chronomancer, he lacked the actual ability for time magic, but he forced it through with copious use of blood magic and personal sacrifice. This plan was interrupted by Ulrik Valis, who under most circumstances would not have been able to stand up to the power of an ancient Netherese magician of Tytalus' caliber...save for the fact that Ulrik, perhaps purely incidentally, opted to utilize the precise spell that would have an impact on the situation: a Bigby's Hand, focused upon Tytalus, that prevented him from bringing his hands together to close the virtual hands of the clock face. There was some suggestion that the deity, Azuth, may have had some influence over things in that moment, using Ulrik as an instrument of that influence. The resulting failure of the ritual threatened to tear the Keystone apart. Ulrik was slain, and Tytalus, in an act of the very same adherence to principle that guides the Arcanum, carried Ulrik's corpse to the edge of the danger zone, being torn apart himself by the sands of time as he did so. Tytalus died that day, but it would not be the last they would hear of him...
Little did Ulrik know at the time, however, that Tytalus had a backup plan. Taking advantage of the principles of sympathy between the blood in his own body, the blood in Collin's body, and the blood that would inevitably be spilled in Cordor (Collin's place of birth), Tytalus devised a standing magical effect that would cause the hands of the clock to turn one final time if fed enough blood. Hence the current race against building tensions and civil war to prevent that blood from being spilled on Cordorian soil, turning the clock, and creating a beacon for an extremely powerful Collin Reyes.
Meanwhile, Collin Reyes has discovered that he is not under the restrictions of the Tempus Claustrum ritual. The TC ritual binds the patterns of the magician to liminal time and prevents them from ever escaping. With Reyes no longer restricted, he found that he could not only view time from his perspective (greatly affecting his grasp of reality, incidentally), but could "step into and out of liminal time" at certain points through the timestream. Rather than just going wil-nil to places and creating all kinds of butterfly effect changes in the flow of reality - something he feared might bring the wrath of Inevitables and see him slain - he opted for something a little more planned, and a lot more diabolical.
Borrowing from arcane mythos, Reyes contemplated the origin stories of the First Magician, Adam Qadmon. The stories say he was the first magician in the world to have blood in his veins (probably a sorceror), and that he ascended the ancient tree Yggadrasil in search of great wisdom. Halfway up the tree, he encountered the sephiroth and the asephiroth, beings of intense light and seductive darkness who fought eternally against one another. Modern scholars of the esoteric interpret that this creation myth refers to celestials and fiends, or some protoform of either. Either way, the story goes that since Yggradasil was so massive, Qadmon's journey to the top was a quest
