Sironu

Alexander Augunas's page

Contributor. Goblin Squad Member. Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber. ***** Pathfinder Society GM. Starfinder Society GM. 6,460 posts (7,242 including aliases). 28 reviews. 1 list. No wishlists. 29 Organized Play characters. 4 aliases.



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I know a lot of people are excited about getting another nature / divine spellcasting class, but the flavor of the animist just SCREAMS "binder" to me in a way that Secrets of Magic's Pactmaker archetype just doesn't. This class does everything I'd want a binder to do, and I kind wish this could BE the creepy guy who makes weird pacts with strange entities they don't really understand.

I feel like this wouldn't be super difficult either. Most martial classes can pick Strength or Dexterity as their Key Attribute. What if this class could pick Wisdom or Charisma, and if you picked Wisdom you used the divine spell list and if you picked Charisma you used the occult spell list? It's an easy enough house rule I suppose, but there's nothing quite like the rule being ubiquitous in the book, eh?

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Title says it all. I'm getting ready to play my exemplar on Saturday, and this is by far the coolest class in this game. It literally has everything I wish other martial classes had:

1) It's not weapon locked. I know there's concerns about it not having an unarmed attack ikon yet, but Mike Sayre's comments make it pretty clear that it's on the table. That means this is one of the only martial classes that has support for every possible weapon style. Most other classes get locked into specific weapons like an MMORPG classes, and the exemplar can just do anything and has support for everything. I would like to see this as the standard for PF2 classes going forward.

2) Cinematic as Hell. The class just DOES cool things and makes you feel cool as you level up. I'm a big fan of the ability that just drops lightning bolts onto people. It's also got a ton of neat feat options.

That's it.That's all I've ever wanted. This is by far my favorite martial class, and I can't wait to report back on it after our game on Saturday!

4/5 5/5 * Contributor

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Name's in the thread. Why do I need to Play Pathfinder 2E to play kitsune, grippli, hobgoblin, or kobolds in Starfinder? Like, I get that it's supposed to be a cool crossplay thing, but now I feel like I have to use my Achievement Points for Pathfinder to play what I want to play in Starfinder. It just feels bad.

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James and I asked John tons of evolutionist questions! Check ‘em out here in our hour-long interview!

Obviously because of the nature of the interview, we couldn’t ask every question we got and at this stage of the Playtest, the Star Chamber hasn’t been able to thoroughly assess feedback yet, so we’re hoping to have either John or Joe (perhaps both) back for our October or November show once the data’s been reviewed for an update on how the playtest went. But since it’s still going, please continue to give your feedback because it is being listened to!

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So much great stuff out this week. Thanks for the shout-out, Aaron and Katina! <3

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Hello! I'm working on building a summoner for our Know Direction Secrets of Magic Playest game (LIVE at https://www.twitch.tv/knowdirection on Wednesday, 6pm PST). Obviously I'll give my full feedback on the summoner at the conclusion of the episode after I've gotten to play it, but I was working on my build and was interested in the Synthesist feat. I had a few questions about it.

Synthesist wrote:

You can manifest your eidolon using your own body as a vessel, taking on their form. When you Manifest your Eidolon in this way, you become your eidolon, rather than them manifesting as a separate creature. While manifested in this way, you use your eidolon’s statistics. Your eidolon can act, but you can’t except to use Manifest an Eidolon to unmanifest your eidolon. When you do, you remain behind in one square your eidolon occupied when you unmanifested it.

Since you can’t act, you can’t Cast Spells, activate or benefit from magic items that normally benefit you and not your eidolon, perform actions that have the tandem trait, or use other abilities that require you, and not the eidolon, to act. Your eidolon isn’t limited by their distance to you, and you can’t be separately targeted. When you reach 0 Hit Points, your eidolon unmanifests from your body, leaving your unconscious body behind.

1) When I synthesize with my eidolon, does that glowing rune mentioned by my Manifest Eidolon action still manifest?

2) What does "use the eidolon's statistics" means, and what happens to the summoner's statistics? Does my eidolon still benefit from my magic items, for instance?

3) What, exactly, are the intended benefits of merging with your eidolon? The only benefit I can see is that if you both were caught in an area effect, you would only take damage once rather than twice. Otherwise this doesn't seem to do anything.

4) Are there any obvious design reasons that this doesn't just let you use the better of your proficiencies and your eidolon's proficiencies, grant you your eidolon's attacks and abilities, and apply your eidolon's evolutions to you?

Right now synthesist basically turns off 2/3 of your feats (skill feats, general feats, ancestry feats, and all class feats that lack the eidolon trait) and the option has zero synergy with, well, anything. Like if I were to take a dedication feat, I would basically never want to synthesize with my eidolon or I'd lose that crucial part of my build. To me, it seems like the downside of not being able to get that extra action(s) per round using tandem feats is enough of a drawback.

Thanks! Hope that was useful feedback.

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ALL MY YES.

Contributor

Quick question:

PF1 had an FAQ that clarified about how weapons work when you use them to perform combat maneuvers; you essentially make an attack roll with a weapon you're wielding. Starfinder doesn't appear to have this rule, going so far as the rules text for things like the trip weapon property doesn't say that you're tripping with the weapon, just that if you're wielding the weapon when you trip someone you get a bonus.

This leads to a weird question with the vanguard. Going off of the base combat rules, combat maneuvers require a melee attack roll and melee attacks specify that they are base attack bonus + Strength modifier. While you can build a big, beefy vanguard by default their entropic strike is an operative weapon, which means it adds Dexterity to the attack roll instead of Strength. But by default, there's no rule that says I can use my Dexterity for my combat maneuver attacks instead of my Strength, leading to this weird case where the combat maneuver class doesn't have as good a bonus as it probably should. (Even going so far as the the Key Ability entry for the vanguard never mentioning that you might want a high Strength modifier for your combat maneuver attacks.)

So, is the intention that vanguards can attack with combat maneuvers via entropic strike, making them operative weapons? Or are they supposed to invest in Strength?

Contributor

Hey all!

I was writing a thing for Everybody Games and I noticed some text that confused me a little.

Starfinder CRB Page 74 wrote:


A drone is considered a construct with the technological subtype for the purposes of spells and effects targeting it.

Does "effects targeting it" include effects that a construct would normally be immune to? Specifically, do drones have standard construct traits, as defined by the construct type graft?

Starfinder AA Page 134 wrote:


Traits: Darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, construct immunities, unliving; set Constitution modifier to —; must have either the magical or technological subtype; if the construct is mindless, set Intelligence modifier to — and add mindless.

Specifically, I ask because if the answer is "No, they only count as constructs for spells and effects targeting constructs," then they technically don't have the construct immunities or unliving universal creature rules, which opens up a whole lot of wonkiness.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

So excited for this!!! But I'm not seeing a link to the submission form.

Contributor

Hey Paizo.com!

Everybody Games just launched a new Kickstarter for a 3PP product we're calling the Advanced Occult Guide. It's equal parts a compilation and an expansion on our popular Occult Skill Guide products, and includes a trove of neat new occult content including:

— 3 classes (Elementian / Shapeshifter / Zoomer)
— New themes and spells
— An expansion of our occult ritual rules.
— Corruptions
— Monsters
— And more

We've gotten a trove of all-star authors to help us with this product, including Owen K.C. Stephens (former Starfinder Design Lead), Chris S. Sims (former Starfinder Developer), Liane Merciel (author of numerous Pathfinder, D&D, and Warhammer books), and many of your favorite Starfinder RPG authors, like Sasha Laranova Harving, Hilary Moon Murphy, Matt Morris, and more. We even got Perram (from Know Direction) to agree to write that cute little "shrink devil" we gushed about in an early episode of Know Direction: Beyond!

Check out our Kickstarter HERE!

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Hello, fellow investigators!

As a forward, the investigator is my favorite PF1 class and I had a lot of expectations going into it for the playtest. I've already submitted my feedback, which was based on a game I got to play with Paizo developer Luis Loza and other fine Know Direction staffers. If you want to read more of my thoughts on the APG classes so you can confirm how I don't know anything about Pathfinder Second Edition, you can check out my APG Analysis blog HERE.

With that out of the way, I ended up playing Take the Case wrong for about 3 hours in that adventure. Human error is absolutely a factor, but I like to think that a major reason I flubbed so badly regarding Take the Case is that to an extent, the ability doesn't really work like what its name says on the tin.

For a bit of background so you don't need to watch a four-hour video to get my points, we played a neat little adventure written by Paizo developer Ron Lundeen called Vanquish the APG. It was fun; I recommend it to anyone looking for a quick scenario. The opening scene of that adventure involved us needing to investigate a burned-down temple, so I being the canny investigator promptly told Luis that I was going to spend 10 minutes to take the case of the burned-down building.

You can see my error here. I original thought that when you Took the Case, you got to pick an actual event or occurrence that you investigate, and your bonus applied to that one specific case. As you all probably know, that is NOT at all how Take the Case works. Instead you have to spend 10 minutes looking over one specific creature, object, or small room.

After figuring out my error and correcting it about halfway through the adventure, I can definitely say that while a +1 bonus didn't really fun to begin with (more on that in a different thread), needing to spend 10 minutes to investigate one specific thing isn't really "Taking the Case," and is significantly less fun than taking an actual case. It's a ton of waiting around, not really doing anything, and constantly not having your bonuses when you're otherwise really like to have them. I generally don't like the Take the Case mechanic as written because the entire design paradigm seems to be based around making the base action as limited as possible while slowly using class feats to open it up to more usable levels. To put another way, Take the Case fails to meet expectations by default and only becomes fun when you invest in it rather than being fun by default and becoming more fun if you invest in it.

I'm interested in hearing what other people's opinions are regarding Take the Case on this, the final day of the Playtest. (Sorry, I've been swamped!)

Contributor

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Hi everyone! I'm Alex, and I hate Rogue's Dodge.

It started out innocently enough. One of my players took Rogue's Dodge for his rogue character in my Age of Ashes campaign, and MAN, let me tell you, that feat is like the worst feat I've ever seen. It's so bad that my players have made a meme out of tracking how often it actually affects my poor player's fate.

For those who don't know, you use it as a reaction when someone attempts an attack against you, and it gives you +2 to your AC against the triggering attack. On paper, this sounds amazing. In practice, the feat isn't worth it's ink. Allow me to explain.

Since the feat is giving you a +2 bonus, you might think, "Oh, that's a 10% increase to the chance that I won't be hit. That's great." It can turn a Critical Hit into a Hit or a Hit into a Miss. However, since a Critical Hit is attack result = your AC + 10 and a Hit is attack result = your AC, there are actually only four die results wherein Rogue's Dodge actually benefits you.

Let's say you have AC 20 and your opponent has an attack bonus of +12. This means your opponent Hits you if they roll an 8 or better or Crits you if they roll a 16 or better. Since Rogue's Dodge gives a +2 circumstance bonus to AC, using Rogue's Dodge changes those numbers to 10 to Hit or 18 to Crit. In effect, that means Rogue's Dodge only stops a Hit if your opponent rolled a 8 or a 9 (because now they need a 10 to Hit you) and it only turns a Hit into a Critical Hit if your opponent rolled a 16 or a 17. If your opponent's result is 10 through 15, surprise! Rogue's Dodge didn't change the outcome of your opponent's attack. Likewise, if they rolled an 18 or better, Rogue's Dodge did nothing.

TL;DR this feat makes me angry because it's a reaction that never really has more than a 20% chance to do anything. My players track the success/failure rate of Rogue's Dodge, and it's currently at 1:8 (meaning 1 meaningful use to 8 failed ones); this is out of a sample size of about 24 currently and actually fits the napkin math.

So, why am I posting this? Well, the new swashbuckler class literally got the same feat but with a different name (Nimble Dodge), and I'd like to raise awareness that this feat is awful so hopefully we can get an errata someday; at the very least, make sure the swashbuckler also doesn't suffer a very ineffective feat. Peace and love!

Contributor

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Very cool, guys!

@Erik: Pffft, I always end up doing loot when I play. That means my bard in Reign of Winter and my soldier in Dead Suns! XD

Contributor

Hey everyone!

I ran SFS #1-26 for a witchwarper character yesterday, and some rules questions came up regarding the infinite worlds class feature and its interactions with flying creatures and incorporeal creatures. As many of you know, by default flying and incorporeal creatures ignore difficult terrain, as referenced in this rule:

"Flying and incorporeal creatures are not hampered by most difficult terrain, though a dense tree canopy or web of chains might count as difficult terrain for flying creatures."

This makes it seem like the intent is for infinite worlds to be ineffective against flying and incorporeal creatures mechanically, but its flavor seems to suggest that it might be intended to work against flying and incorporeal creatures, especially since infinite worlds references "debris in the air" and the warping of space-time. Some clarification on how infinite worlds is supposed to work against these creatures would be useful.

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Is it me, or is the biohacker like the soldier in that it doesn't gain any insight bonuses to skill checks? I feel like they should get an insight bonus to Life Science and Physical Science at the very least. As of this current iteration, a biohacker could never be as good as an operative or an envoy at the science officer ship role, which feels weird considering this is the high-science class.

Contributor

Hey! I've been reading over the witchwarper class in hopes of getting to play one in the near future, and I'm a huge fan! One of my favorite elements is the inclusion of cool ways to "warp" enemies, and the resize creature paradigm shift is totally within this ... paradigm. (See what I did there?) I dig it .... conceptually.

But in practice? What is this paradigm shift even supposed to do? Starfinder worked SO hard to decouple size from stats that it seems like the size shifting aspect of this ability doesn't really matter at all, and this ability is more a way to inflict the shaken condition on an enemy with a flavor component to it. Are there inherent benefits / penalties to having your size changed in Starfinder that I'm not aware of? Also, if you use this ability to shrink an ally, are they shaken too?

I sort of think that this is a paradigm shift that would be better off if it got made into a 1-6 variable level spell so the whole "getting shrunk" was allowed to have some real teeth and/or sense of ramp-up with level. Shrinking someone by one size category isn't really impressive if they're just as strong, just as fast, have an identical AC, and so on. (And if you're immune to fear, being shrunk does NOTHING to you.)

Great class overall; looking forward to getting to play a witchwarper soon!

4/5 5/5 * Contributor

Hey everyone!

I couldn’t find any clarification on this, so I have a quick question. I got the Skitter Shot Boon back in June and was doing Society paperwork this weekend when I came upon a question. One of the conditions on the Boon state that you can check boxes whenever you GM at an event that recieved Regional Support or Event Support. The Boon doesn’t clarify if you have to be running Starfinder to check a box on the Boon or whether simply supporting the convention is enough.

This same question goes back to basically all avenues of play. Can I check boxes for any OP scenario I play in or run, or do the games all have to be SFSOP? Have John or Thursty made a ruling about this that I’m not aware of?

Thanks!

Alex Augunas

Contributor

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Hello, everyone!

I hope I'm not speaking for myself, but one thing that I REALLY liked in the Playtest Rulebook was how archetypes were presented, especially the cavalier archetype. Pathfinder 1st Edition had a LOT of options that basically opened up mounted combat with an animal companion to any class, and the cavalier archetype does that really well too—effectively distilling the entire cavalier base class down into a single archetype that's appropriate for anyone.

This got me thinking, "Why isn't this idea implemented more uniformly across the Pathfinder Playtest?" Let me explain my thinking.

In Pathfinder 1st Edition, classes very rarely made you commit to specific fighting styles or abilities; classes like the cavalier, samurai, and gunslinger are exceptions rather than rules. If you wanted to specialize in, say, swordsmanship, you picked feats and other special abilities that anyone could take and used them to be the greatest swordsman in the land. Classes were largely about getting a related suite of abilities that supplemented or enhanced the fighting style that you built with your feats.

Currently in the Pathfinder Playtest, the opposite is true. Support for specific fighting styles is built into the classes, as opposed to being a thing anyone can qualify for. This has several problems. For one, without the appropriate list of fighter feats, a fighter can't really be as good at two-weapon fighting or archety as a ranger, even though the conceptual fantasy of a fighter (a master of weapons) versus a ranger (a master of the hunt) is very different. When there's crossover, what we've seen happen is that feats from one class are simply copy/pasted into a new class, usually at a prohibitively higher level (for example, the barbarian gets attack of opportunity, copy and pasted from the fighter).

In my opinion, this exacerbates several problems with the class system.

  • 1) Classes require you to invest in specific fighting styles, limiting player choice.
  • 2) As time rolls on and the design team eventually decides to expand more fighting styles into other classes, what will likely end up happening is a slew of "copy/paste" feats, where a rogue will get something that says like, "This feat lets you shoot two arrows at a time, as a ranger's double shot" or something similar. Psychologically, the community will react to this with shouts of, "Paizo is out of ideas!" even when the intent is simply to expand what classes have access to which fighting styles.
  • 3) Wordcount that could be used to develop more content is wasted copy/pasting feats.

An easy way to fix this issue is with the archetype rules currently in place in the game.

Picture this: instead of the current system, where every class has fighting styles pre-added to it, each fighting style was encapsulated by an archetype that only required you to take one or two feats before moving on to the next one. For example, let's say you want to be a two-weapon wielder. Currently you basically need to play a ranger for that, because the ranger class has all of the two-weapon fighting feats. But what if instead there was a Two-Weapon Wielder archetype that anyone could take that offered the Double Slice feat as its first entry feat, then gave the archetyped character the ability to pick options like Twin Parry, Twin Riposte, and so on.

Now, this approach does have a single problem: it would require a complete overall of the fighter class, as currently the fighter class has the same exact problem that it had in 1st Edition: the class has no identity because when you get right down to it, all it really does is get feats that other archetypes grant sooner.

Well, what if we play with this aspect of the fighter? What if the new archetypes had a fighting style tag, and the fighter got to automatically begin play with one fighting style archetype at 1st level? The fighter could automatically take feats from their chosen fighting style archetype sooner than other characters; maybe they reduced the level requirement by 4 levels or something similar, to a minimum level requirement of 1st level. Suddenly this would fix ALL of the potential issues with the archetype system: it would give the fighter an identity, remove the need to endless repackage the same feats in future books with a twist, and overall make archetypes an even more integral part of Pathfinder Playtest by essentially making an archetype a packaged feat chain, an inherent "progression list" that serves as a continent way for players to reference similar abilities across multiple levels and give new players a clear path of progression for their characters, so they know that if they want to pick up two axes and hack people to death with them, well, they could do worse than to pick the Two-Weapon Wielder archetype.

What do you guys think? I'd love to hear your thoughts as the Pathfinder Playtest enters the final month of its development.

Yours Truly,

Alexander Augunas, the Everyman Gamer

Contributor

Howdy, everyone!

We've got a new project to share with you!

If you've ever felt like trying to come up with cool, skillful scenes for the Starfinder RPG was too ambiguous or you just wanted a good guide to help you do it, check out this project! We're looking to build an entire book of helpful rules and subsystems to make your Starfinder RPG experience out of this world! (And possibly this galaxy; who can say?)

Contributor

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Everyman Gaming's releasing our first-ever prewritten adventure this holiday season! To commemorate the occasion, we created a trailer that you can watch here!

Let us know what you think in the comments below, and look forward to our release this holiday season! :D

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We interrupt our usual stream of Everyman releases (which will resume as normal later today) to bring you this special announcement:

We got your feedback about a Skill Challenge Handbook-style product for Starfinder, and you overwhelmingly told us to bring it to Kickstarter! But we didn't want to ask you for money and then just make a shot-for-shot remake of our best-selling Pathfinder supplement. So instead, we took the best skill-based content from a number of our products (like Ultimate Charisma, Microsized Adventures, and Childhood Adventures) and combined them all into a single product—the Starfarer's Skill Guide!

We're currently working with Rogue Genius Games to put the finishing touches on our Kickstarter Campaign, but it all means nothing without YOUR support! So keep your eyes peeled in a few weeks for the official start of our Kickstarter! Until then, stay tuned....

In the meantime, check back at our Facebook group (or here on Paizo.com) for more announcements relating to our Kickstarter!

Contributor

Hey Starfinder RPG fans!

We've gotten a LOT of requests for us to update our Skill Challenge Handbook to the Starfinder RPG, and while I'm not cool with simply rehashing a book by changing a few words here and there and reselling it, I can get behind updating a whole bunch of different skill-based rules to Starfinder in a future book....

At least, that's the logic behind the Starfarer's Skill Guide, an upcoming EMG Starfinder release that I'm currently working on! It converts the Leadership, Reputation, Relationship, and Psychological Maneuver systems from Ultimate Charisma, the Skill Challenge rules from the Skill Challenge Handbook, and the scale and crush combat maneuvers from Microsized Adventures, while springing in a few class options themed around the new content in the book in the form of archetypes, feats, and class options.

So far work's going okay on it, but the one thing that's becoming pretty clear is that this book is going to require a fair bit of new art, so I'm currently spit-balling ways to raise it. What do you think? Kickstarter? Indy Go Go? Wait for X months for me to raise the money naturally, where X is equal to 12+?

Let us know what you think at Survey Monkey! (If you want to post comments or questions here, please feel free to as well.)

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Debuting tomorrow, Everyman Gaming is releasing a new line of Starfinder compatible products entitled the Star Log.EM series. Star Log-EMs are mini products that contain a thousand words on a specific topic of Starfinder design.

You can get a quick look at tomorrow's new product, Star Log.EM-001: Exocortex Options here!


So what if someone wanted to play a Space Goblin right out of the gate? How would they acquire such a boon to play one? Would they need to? I've always been a bit fuzzy when it comes to how some of these work in Pathfinder.

Contributor

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Today, our friendly neighborhood Endzeitgeist reviewed Everyman Gaming's biggest book ever, the Dynastic Races Compendium! This was our big Kickstarter project last year, and we were thrilled to have Endzeitgeist review it. Want a snippet? Check it out below!

Endzeitgeist wrote:
Alexander Augunas’ Dynastic Races Compendium ranks as one of the best racial books I have read for any iteration of a d20-based game. While not every little component herein is pitch-perfect, the holistic vision exhibited herein has managed to take 4 races I did not like in their original iteration and made me really cherish them – never before have Kitsune, Samsarans, Wayang or Nagaji felt so alive, so organic, so worthwhile. Fans of these races will consider this a no-brainer anyway, but frankly, this is worth getting if you’re like me and hated crunch-only races, if you always wanted races to make sense. The depth of the cultures herein make them all practically demand being included in your game – their unique outlooks and worldviews, their cultures and traditions practically jump from the page. The prose is captivating and, even better, the crunch supports the complex and rich cultures presented within this book. In case you haven’t noticed: This should be considered to be a “This is how it’s done” for racial books; this attention to detail and realism, in lack of a better word, is what makes races work, what captures the imagination.

View Endzeitgeist's complete review before it goes live on Paizo.com HERE!

Learn more about the Dynastic Races Compendium HERE.
Purchase the Dynastic Races Compendium at Paizo.com HERE.

Thank you, everyone, for supporting Everyman Gaming LLC!

Contributor

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Huzzah! Thanks, Rick!

It's been a LONG time coming, but we've FINALLY got print books for the Grimoire of Lost Souls in the Paizo store!

If you missed the Kickstarter and want a copy of this gorgeous, full-color book, now's the time to pick one up! If you participated in the Kickstarter, never fear—your book is already on its way to you!

If you're new to the schtick, Pact Magic is an interactive magic system where you seek out and summon powerful, otherworldly spirits and bargain with them for power. Gone are the days where you simply "know" your spells, as a binder of spirits you'll need to wrest every spell-like and supernatural ability you desire from the greedy grasps of the spirits that empower you. So gather your totems, practice a ceremony or two, and prepare for your Pathfinder RPG game to never again be the same with the Grimoire of Lost Souls!

Contributor

12 people marked this as FAQ candidate. 2 people marked this as a favorite.

Hello, everyone! I'm looking for opinions to settle a question that may or may not turn heated, so let's try to NOT get heated, okay? Okay.

So, spell-like abilities. According to the rules, they're spells except in the circumstances where they're not spells. There have already been three separate FAQs issued regarding how spell-like abilities interact with other effects. I have a question regarding such an effect.

How do bonuses to spells (such as caster level and save DC) apply to spell-like abilities, if at all?

Let's say I'm a Level 5 kitsune sorcerer. I took Magical Tail as my 1st-level and 2nd-level feats, so I have charm person as a spell-like ability. Do I get to add my racial +1 bonus on enchantment spell saves to my spell-like ability's save DC? Moreover, if I take Spell Focus (enchantment) as my next feat, do I get to add my new feat's bonus to my spell-like ability's save DCs?

Now, before you start posting your answers, please read on—I have some different evidence I'd like you to consider before you answer.

Exhibit A—FAQ, August 2011
Here's our first bit of evidence, an FAQ on whether or not you could use a spell-like ability as justification for casting a spell on your spell list.

The answer was ironclad:

August 2011 wrote:
No. A spell-like ability is not a spell, having a spell-like ability is not part of a class's spell list, and therefore doesn't give the creature the ability to activate spell completion or spell trigger items.

So, that seems pretty final, right? Spell-like abilities are not spells, and Spell Focus and the kitsune racial trait specifically say that they only apply to spells. This seems straightforward.

Except its not.

Exhibit B—FAQ, February 2015
Here's our second bit of evidence, the Augment Summoning feat.

The answer was also ironclade:

November 2013 wrote:
Yes.

This ruling has interesting parallels that we can cross-apply to my case with charm person and our kitsune sorcerer. First, the wordings of both feats are essentially the same: Augment Summoning notes "summon spells" while Spell Focus notes "spells of the chosen school." Second, both feats provide a numeric bonus to some aspect of the spells (creatures conjured or the effect's save DC).

Ultimately, this looks like a case of, "If a feat supplements a spell, it also supplements any spell-like abilities that meet the feat's criteria." This supports Augment Summoning supplementing summon nature's ally and summon monster spell-like abilities. This is further supported by a FAQ made in February 2015 regarding how a dimension door spell-like ability could be used to meet the prerequisites of a feat, provided the feat specifically called out that spell. (To avoid debate, that FAQ currently applies solely to meeting the prerequisites of the feat, it does not discuss effects at all, which imply that the feat already works with the "effects" of the dimension door spell-like ability, which is what we're talking about here.)

So, what do you guys think? I think its pretty clear where I stand, but no matter your stance (for/agree/disagree/against), I'd appreciate an FAQ boost by clicking the FAQ button above, and some civil discussion down below. And hey, guess what? If you provide good evidence I PROMISE that you can change my mind. For realzies. :D

Thanks for listening to my rambling, everyone!

Contributor

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Hello, Paizonians!

Everyman Gaming's first-ever Kickstarter (in conjunction with Rogue Genius Games) was a SMASHING success, and today the fruit of our labors is ready for consumption!

The Dynastic Races Compendium is now available at Paizo.com!

If you were a fan of our Kitsune Compendium or Samsaran Compendium, prepare to have the bar for race-themed books set even higher for you! This 164-page tome has EVERYTHING you need to include kitsune, nagaji, samsarans, and wayangs in YOUR campaign setting as fully fleshed-out and developed races! Included within are the race's biology, culture, ethnicity, religion, favored class bonuses (one for every Pathfinder PFRPG class), alternate race traits (over a dozen per race), new archetypes, class options, feats, spells, and more!

So what are you waiting for? Explore the ancient histories and mysteries of these races today!

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