Al-Khen's page

Thank you all for your posts.
Much to killing my hope, I guess their isn't something raw but rather gm basis.

This raised from the argument at one of the tables I play where the gm straight said that a tent or anything of a fabric material used as an obstruction was enough to stop daggers and bolts from going through till the fabric was destroyed - not anytime before.

They made an even farther out case wherein a paper wall would at least absorb the first attack aimed at a creature on the other side; regardless of concealment or cover bonuses, the paper wall would tank a heavy crossbow bolt before allowing you to get off a proper shot that wouldn't be glanced/deflected/eaten by the paper - that's if the paper was destroyed on the attack.

I decided to use "a wooden wall" in this case to cut through that ridiculousness and see if a raw feat/ruling/class-feature was available to shooting through something. I could definitely take my GMs argument and wait till brilliant energy becomes available, or abuse his wording and carry expandable fabric walls in my inventory but I think I'll try to find something else to play that will avoid trying to make my case again.

Thank you all again, you've been most helpful

As the title suggests, I was wondering if there was a 'raw' answer for hitting creatures behind cover by shooting through what they're using.

TL;DR:
'Raw', Can I shoot a goblin through a wall when I'm dealing ENOUGH damage?

Example:
Goblin is hiding behind wooden barricade (plank). Is there a raw rule that allows someone making a ranged attack, if they do enough damage, to surpass the hardness (and/or reduce the object to 0hp) to then have a chance - using concealment rules and the like - to hit the goblin?

I swear i remember there was something out there but now i cant find it. Thanks ahead for responses.

Hello all,

I Have been looking into third-party materials for awhile and, to not make this first paragraph extensively long, have been wanting to run a 'sim' in pathfinder wherein an ARTISAN (3rd-party class published by DROP DEAD STUDIOS) is to edge out his existence in the world.

If you haven't left yet, that means that i have some garnered *some* interest and hope you can give me advice.
I've wanted to play the Artisan class for a long time now and haven't had luck with any prospective GM's in my circles that have gotten past the first few paragraphs without going "this class is going to be broken, if not already is at 1st level." But i'm not here to gripe (a lot), this is indeed me asking the community for help in setting up an endeavor I've wanted to take, but haven't the firmest of grasps on where to start with SO many options.

The inkling I've had is this: Using the 'Mythic Game Master Emulator' (published by WORD MILL GAMES, a product that either takes a lot of hassle/choice away from DMs or scraps them altogether) and a Android Artisan, I've been wanting to essentially 'test run' the character, alone, through a scenario that I have mediocre control of.
That being said, I know finding a suitable GM or player to run this with would be way easier and earn more profitable experience with the character classes' pros, cons, and broken-ness -
I've already tried to get that; I'm now looking for what i think is the next best thing.

Need Advice Here - Getting on with it:
I need some help with the setup of it all. I have a few thoughts on how to go about it (presented shortly) but don't know which one to pick or if there is a better setup i haven't thought of (and not being Super self centered, thats why I'm here, 'cause, surely, there is one out there). So far, there are 2 topics i need talked though: Starting Scenario & Crafting system

TL;DR?
I need advice on a starting scenario: Settlement start, Stranded island start, Dungeon room start.
I also need advice on the crafting to use: Classic core or Dynamic Unchained.

Scenario wise, I've been looking at three starts that i wouldn't find terrible to sim outright. They're:
1) Thorpe's Architect -
Being that Artisan's are stupendous with all manner of crafting, it wouldn't be so out there that one, with a few hundred gold to his name, started a Thorpe. With this scenario, I wanted to aim at not only the hardy adventuring aspects of an artisan but also as to what his trade has calling to his name. In this, the artisan I sim would be a Thorpe's sole handyman for a very long time (including leader if need be but i'd deign no, he needs adventuring danger too, not just 'tower defense' type danger with always being home solving squabbles).
He would need to build the settlement, repair the settlement, defend the settlement, expand the settlement, and so on to ensure the community he starts doesn't disappear over night. I would bring in the Settlement rules for obvious reasons, But I'm not sure if should bring in Kingdom Building. The settlement rules allow for building and expanding - creating a community without too much worry to how its governed - but if i brought in Kingdom Building, it has its own huge way of expanding communities as well as mishaps and everything else.
Beyond the settlement, he must also provide for it. That could literally just be establishing trade and creating goods n textiles, but to throw more shoulder to the artisan, I was thinking that he/she would need to get all goods and worth from neighboring factions (hostile countries, wilderness/monsters, the underdark, etc.) making the artisan be in danger to simulate what regular ol'adventurers face.
Of course the character dying would mean gameover, but in this scenario, I would also scrap it if the settlement ever fell.
The settlement could fall from many things; Disease, undead, retaliation, coup, natural disaster, and so on.
If you think this scenario is a good idea, i need advice on: Whether or not to incorporate kingdom building, how to balance adventuring life and settlement life, how should the Artisan gain income, and any other changes you can think of.

2) Stranded -
Being alone, split away from everything you know, is something Adventurer's dread hearing about. Player's know it as the one simple rule to follow - Don't. Split. The. Party. UP!
In this scenario, i want to do just that. I want to take an artisan and huck them onto an island with limited starting resources, all of which is under 5 gold. This start is the more mechanic, most 1's and 0's, to the system start i can come up with. I want to test an Artisan's resourcefulness when it comes to being alone and without. Every single argument I've heard about the Artisan in play revolves around their gear and what they can make and who can use it (beyond no 3rd party material arguments, FULL respect there). That being said, there is not much thinking in running this.
All i need is to setup encounter tables, run ideas and figure out tables for available resources, make sure I'm not fudging, and perfection. The difficulty therein is, if i make everything only take time, there is no danger. Same scenario for a wizard is, "I just need to feed, water, and protect myself until i invent a spell that gets me off this rock", Which is almost the exact thing an artisan would craft towards.
There is also the fact, that like some classes, Artisans already have their skills chocked full into certain areas (like rogues with stealth, sleight of hand, and disable device, The artisan I'm aiming for is a 'craft-all', putting little out there for any skill other than craft). This doesn't warrant any change in difficulty, other situations don't ease up just because your not the right fit, but it does make it substantially harder for someone with few loose points than, maybe say, a druid all about survival to live with almost no starting resources on an island.
I need advice on this: How should I put more conflict into this start? Should I have timed disasters? Should i set a # of 'Items' in dangerous places that i need before certain amounts of progress can be made? Should adjustments be made to reflect the difficulty the 'Average' character would face? Any advice on this setup is welcome.

3) Just the room -
Every so often, a dungeon will rear its ugly head and pit every resource possible at a party and slowly but surely, whittle them down to the breaking point. It can even feel like your assault on a dungeon was nothing more than a scheme hatched against you to trap you firmly in it's grasp. What i'm describing, is where the party has been injured and hurt so much, where escape has been cut off, that they must hole up in a room somewhere to get their bearings.
With this setup, i imagine its going to be the most straightforward, murder-hobo, grindfestiest start i can devise. In this, a fully equipped, 1st level artisan is trapped in a dungeon room, and wave after wave of encounters is thrown at him. There will be reprieve as determined by the emulator and resources gained as determined by encounters and the emulator. I've thought very little about this start as it occurred to me i might as well be playing Munchkin and that the overall concept seems to have very little to think about and little to gain beyond "This build went this far, lets try again with something else."
If you find this rough concept entertaining and want to continue it and post advice, feel free to do so, please.

Crafting wise, There are two magic creation rules to pick from: Classic, represented in CORE, & Dynamic, represented in UNCHAINED.

I've looked through and read both, thoroughly, and would like your opinion in which one to use, as both have their merits.

With Classic: Crafting is straight and solid costs, varying little from item to item as the formula keeps them contingent on what lvl's are used or what the item does. Everything is craft-able, you just need to know the inherent limits imposed by the system and adjust difficulty, cost, and time for more exotic pieces.

With Dynamic: It uses the flexible system that classic has but has more 'challenges'. Dynamic crafting makes it significantly harder to craft at lower levels (as every failure of a challenge, that could require skills outside your set, results in higher costs and/or impurities - even complete failure), but makes it so that a talented, highly skilled group can create better items at a fraction of the cost.

I'd like to know everyone's opinion of both systems of those who have tried it and those who have not. I'd like to see everyone's math if your doing cost comparisons of the two.

If you have anything you'd like to give advice about, even if its homebrewed rules, or have new scenarios you'd like me to take a look at, please, do post.
As well, any and all questions are welcome too.
I just want to run a good sim - maybe even post play-by-plays of it here on the message-boards.

If you have no input, i thank you for at least reading all i had to write.

Multiple Similar Abilities: For items with multiple similar abilities that don't take up space on a character's body, use the following formula: Calculate the price of the single most costly ability, then add 75% of the value of the next most costly ability, plus 1/2 the value of any other abilities.

Your equation is wrong for multiple similar is wrong if it were multiple similar, which it is not, it would be
1800+1800*0.75+1800*0.5*23 = 23850 gp base

No matter whether its similar or not, I didnt apply it. It only works on slotless items. Plus, it isn't exactly different abilities (would you qualify a a slug of ammunition different from the others in the case it came in?) So different abilities increase wouldn't happen either.

“Other Considerations: Once you have a cost figure, reduce that number if either of the following conditions applies:”

Ah, my math was slightly sour then (That is if the discount happens before dividing the cost by two and multiplying by 25. It was a discount so I grouped the discounts together - maybe in the wrong area).

You can apply the highest reduction the item qualifies for ..

Source on that please...?

All three traits you listed are Magic Traits and while I am having trouble finding the source, it may be PFS, you are only supposed to have 1 trait from each category. So only one of the 5% discounts can be used. So

You are correct and rightly so. But not ever DM follows that as it would be a little cliche for a ppersons wizard who had very little contact with anyone, little combat exp, no religion to speak of, and so forth (if they made their character story that way), to be told they couldn't double up on magic traits. Very few GMs, in my own experience, follow this, but thats not to wave your correctness. You are correct and if I redo the math, I'll factor that in.

"The multiple similar abilities rule is specifically for items that don't use a magic item slot (such as staves), and can't be used for items that do use a magic item slot."

So its multiple different, not multiple similar so
1800+1800*1.5*24 = 66,600
66,600*0.95*0.70 = 44,289

Its not a case of using one or the other; its never that you use one or the other. It is a case of if your eligible for those discount or increase, you use it. Magic missile is not different from magic missile!

Its being crafted as an equipment slot item that breaks the rules for staff creation and uses the easiest to get and most versatile crafting feat. Its is most certainly multiple different enchantments and by no means meets the test for similar enchantments. Each enchantment adds to the intended effect and multiplies the action economy value, saying anything else is miss leading to people who don't understand magic item creation.

Please clarify that last point. We were talking about gloves, not staves, and it seems that you through in more stuff from before.

[Edit]:
I understand your stave comment now.
a buddy and I went into the math for staff and wondrous item creation because staves are the only reusable magic item that allows your characters ability scores to be factored in to what they cast.
And his question was why he wouldn't have a number of staves doing a spell instead of a WI that did a spell twice per day.
In the end, I showed him it was priced equally, the only difference was as pretty much any caster you wouldn't be able to stay on top of the recharging for the multiple staves at all. So while staves could be made at low costs and then you'd supplement your own stats for dc's and such, it was impossible to upkeep them to be usable as much as wondrous items.
IE: staves have their place and wondrous items have theirs (but in this case, oh, oh absolutely it breaks that that relationship... To an extent at least)

Not looking for hate, but putting the numbers down for effective crafting of the object and then what it would look like for making something comparable through comparing the effect to what tier of item it should actually be:

Assumptions - he's a dwarf wizard with 3 traits and a drawback; the three positives being Eldritch Smith, Hedge Magician, And Spark of Creation.
Each of those traits decrease cost by 5%, and through restricting the item to class, alignment, and skill (spell craft or use magic device or sleight of hand, etc.), the discounts added in are 30%, 30%, and 10% respectively.

Magic missile stacking on an item would technically fall under similar abilities (cause what's not more similar to something than the exact same thing; apples to apples, oranges to oranges and such), however, that discount only applies to a slotless items.

We have our discounts now. The item described was a command word magic missile stacked 25 times.
Thats ({1800 × 1×1 × .95^(3) × .7^(2) × .9}/2)×25
Which is 8,507.3034375 rounded to 8,507.3 GP + Scroll cost to facilitate each additional casting (using 25 scrolls to make cost more cut, less eratic, and buying them) for each day (9 days×25scrolls×25gp=5625)
Total cost is 14,132.3 GP

The item itself is command word Magic missile×25:
Thats 1d4+1 25 times to any combination of targets; minimum of 50 DMG, maximum of 125, a middle ground of 75-100 DMG. Thats coupled with a sub-effect of always hit (true strike) but can be blocked by shield and spell resistance. For the sake of argument (although almost any spell resistance would trump most of the DMG, or even a single shield spell IE a lvl 1 spell!), because of its high and auto hitting DMG, let's just say its on par with a lvl 9 spell (as some lv 9 spells get this high in DMG).

Our formula would be a little different then:
({1800×9×17×.95^(3)×.7^(2)×.9}/2)= 52,064.6970375 rounded to 52,064.7 GP give or take a bit if you wanted to add a truestrike effect (which I'd advise against as again this is already harder to dismiss than lv 1 cl 1 spells are).

With that in mind, I'd say this runs you the base cost of a comparable item price to craft. Its not that much better (by miles it isn't) but its still approximately the new cost that can then be modified further by the gm.

Hmm, interesting so far to say the least of it all.

Thank you all for the input.
(I was also sorta leaning towards the notion that if the item is no longer what it was when enchanted, it would lose its abilities or cease to function properly. Sort of clears things up now. At the very minimum, slotless items converted to other slotless items still function I guess.)

I'm looking for a raw ruling on this; if you'd like to input your own advice on the subject, it's much appreciated and I'll look over everyone's opinions but I would like a quote from raw if available. I've not been able to find anything myself and now resort to the message board.

Now, here's the predicament:
When does a magical item/weapon/armor stop being magical?
More specifically, does a magical object lose its magic when it changes from what it is to something it isn't?

Let me give an example as to what I'm looking for:
I have a club; its a +2 club.
I cast wood shape and turn it into a sphere.
Does that mean now I have a +2 sphere (Improvised as a shotput or something as close)?

Another example is a have a staff (custom made, doesn't matter, its a magical staff).
I cast wood shape and turn it into a sphere.
Does that mean I now have a wooden bauble that functions as a staff?

In the above two examples, I have turned two weapons into run of the mill items. Maybe they'd stop being magical as they no longer carry a weapon descriptor (albeit, its now at least an improvised weapon; I'm unsure if those can be enhanced if they're masterwork). Different examples then as follows:

I have a wooden ring with a constant or at use or command word magical effect. I cast wood shape and turn it into a slotless wooden marble. Would the magic placed stay on the item?

Another example; I have wooden bracers of +2 skill to whatever. I cast wood shape and turn it into a facemask. Does it stay magical?

Lastly, I'm curious of the standards of enhancements and to what they apply. If what I ask is vague, here is an example:

I have a set of armor that is wooden and has a +2 enhancement bonus. I use wood shape and and make it into a great club. Does the enhancement stay making the new weapon a +2 great club or does it lose the enhancement ( I already understand the enhancement doesn't still enhance what it already did { armor does AC, weapons do to hit and damage} i'm asking if the enhancement would stay and convert)?
{I also realize armor and weapon specific enhancement qualities dont crossover, I'm asking purely about the bonus}

In addition, if the magic is lost for one reason or another, would it regain its magical properties if repaired - I.E. Returning the object to its original state for its intended magical qualities?

Any sources you can provide with responses is greatly appreciated. And if your curious as to why I made everything wooden and used wood shape, its because it is the lowest spell available that changes an items shape permanently (unless I missed something else XD).