Nieran Codali

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148 posts. Organized Play character for Falgaia.



Scarab Sages

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Howdy howdy, Animist Board! This Saturday, I recently ran a party of e through a truncated run of Night of the Gray Death, Book 2. We ran 3 encounters (1 modified) from the module, utilizing expected gold for the chapter (Starting wealth for lv 16 and the war chest collected from Chapter 1), followed by a replacement final boss fight against an antiparty of 3 Lv 17 PC builds utilizing the bare minimum equipment. The party consisted of 2 Exemplars and 2 Animists, the first being a melee Sage Animist utilizing the tree stance from level 16 and a Monk Multi to Flurry of Blows, while I was running a second caster-focused Channeler Animist built by the same player as a GMPC. 2/3rds of the party played this module both on release and as part of a similar playtest for the Kineticist last year, while the third was playing blind.

I had not constructed this build, and was playing it as suggested by the player that did: by spamming focus spells ad-infinitum. Since this is a Core class, we ran it using Core refocusing rules, so with the assumption that we would be able to refocus for a full three FP between combats, time permitting.

tl;dr: It ended up being kinda disgusting.

Encounter spoilers below. Skip to the end for a tl;dr.

Fight 1

Spoiler:
Vs Guillotine Golem. Fight went about as expected for my GMPC; turn 1 I attempted to start up Earth's Bile, realized it was Ineffective, and switched to healing focus spell instead as a Chaneller on turn 2. (Other 2a turn 1 spent healing the Exemplar that had to hero point their first save vs Decapitation). Fight was mostly uneventful, but it is worth stating that resourceless continuous 9d4 x1-3 healing in a 10ft aura is incredibly goofy. Most Clerics will burn 3a to heal the x2 amount using actual resources; the fact you can do 9d4 healing in an aura as a 1a while still casting a spell each turn is insane. Related to that, out of combat healing was hand waived due to the same focus spell trivializing any and all HP damage, as this is the strongest out of combat resourceless healing in existence.

Fight 2:

Spoiler:
vs 3 Lesser Deaths. If you haven't read the Lesser Death statblock, do yourself a favor; go read it over and come back to this thread after having a laugh. Despite being a Moderate 17 encounter on the tin, this has consistently been the hardest fight in this chapter due to their auras of Misfortune, Haste spam, and 60ft range Teleporting Reactive Strikes that also trigger on a Concentrate and disrupt the action on a non-critical hit. This was definitely the easiest run of the combat we have played; while part of this was admittedly due to a very lucky Battle Cry from the Animist causing one of the Lesser Deaths to be fleeing turn 1 (somehow they aren't immune to Fear, lol), the other reason is more subtle and tied directly to the current way the Animist is built. Earth's Bile as currently written doesn't use Concentrate or Manipulate actions, meaning it doesn't provoke at all until you begin to Sustain. While this is already goofy, it's sustain also is enabling you to do cantrip damage for a 1a while most casters have to utilize a 2a cast to have a good turn. In a typical run of this fight, a Lesser Death will wait until a Caster beings to use a spell, React, and then disrupt the spell, ruining the caster's turn significantly. For Animist, since Earth's Bile x3 can be sustained multiple times off of separate castings, it eats multiple Lesser Deaths' Reactions in order to properly shut down the class, thus freeing the rest of the party to fight unimpeded or leaving the Animist to spam pseudo-fireballs constantly. We will return to this point later, but for now, know that this made me completely forego even thinking about casting actual spells due to the opportunity cost for doing so.

FIGHT 3:

Spoiler:
vs Gray Gardener Assortment. While this fight typically is vs 4 GGAssassins, I typically run it with 2, 1 Director General, and 1 Executioner, for a fight that lands somewhere between Moderate and Severe CR. This fight is intended to replicate a more "standard" combat experience, with enemies of varying CR that shouldn't be too difficult for a party to fight through. Everyone had a good chance to shine here; one Exemplar used their Thief of Moonlight Transcend to blind 3 enemies turn 1, the other was able to use a weapon transcendence to hit every enemy in the room with their throwing knife for a ton of damage as well after some clever positioning. Meanwhile, I continued to spam Earth's Bile and got the highest DPS turn out of the combat, dealing somewhere around ~200 damage to two targets on the second round due to mixed saving throws. As of this point, I still have not cast a spell other than the aforementioned Heal in combat 1 and Earth's Bile/The Healing focus spell.

Fight 4: No spoilers since it was a custom fight, vs Bard 17, Fighter 17 (Shatter Defenses Focus, Orc Duskwalker), and Kineticist 17 (Water focus with Metal and Air impulses mixed in.) Focused on the Animist's perspective, this went about as usual, using Channeler's Stance +2x Earth's Bile start to melt through the Kineticist's Wall of Ice opener.

If I was more familiar with the build and the type to metagame that this was the boss fight, I could have played more optimally; the character had Apparition's Quickening and hadn't used it yet, so it wouldn't have been out of the realm of possibility to Sustain twice, off a ghost and cast a Spell as the third action, allowing me to drop a Volcanic Eruption instead of just doing Earth's Bile x3 the whole fight (17d6 [avg.59.5] +20d4[50] +27 for 136.5 avg dmg base +Clumsy rather than 30d4+27 for 103 base) or mix in some extra utility spells, but as-is it still worked sufficiently for the combat. Additionally, having a sustain-only build meant that the Combat Reflexes Fighter with reach was unable to Reactive Strike, making it more difficult that usual to punish bad positioning (like the time I moved closer to the enemies to catch more of them in Earth's Bile x3). Even Grapple does nothing to impede this build. The best I could figure out over the combat was to Trip the Animist, as it shuts down Sustaining Dance while making them never want to stand up since Standing Up provokes and is a DPS loss over simply sustaining Earth's Bile from prone.

All-in-all, the build worked well in the fight despite literally only spamming Earth's Bile, and dealt enough damage to make the Animist into a priority target despite not using any actual spells and only being played with half my brain in between running three unique enemy characters.

Final thoughts: Earth's Bile is incredibly toxic to game health, even at high levels. Other options in the kit need to be incentivized; as-is, it is such a powerful and easy-access option that it disincentivizes active play for the Spellcaster and encourages getting into a rut and checking out mentally between turns. The Healing Focus Spell is not as bad but still toxic for similar reasons. Unless focus spell balance is getting significantly buffed in Core, the spells are just straight-up problematic. Possible suggestions would be to make it 2a, make the AoE target a set area that you cannot re-choose every turn, nerfing its damage, or making all of it persistent damage. Additionally, Apparition's Quickening is very strong, and probably should be limited to 1/hour as is to prevent the player from absolutely dumping on boss fights exclusively. As is, the class is suffering from success, most specifically in that their always-available options are too centralizing to encourage using daily resources.

I apologize in advance if any of my insights here have been already discussed in other threads; I had not intended to play the Animist for this playtest and only had the opportunity due to a fluke, so I haven't been keeping up with the discussions. I hope this is useful for furthering discussion.

Scarab Sages

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Howdy! I'm currently in the process of playing through/just finished a speedrun of the Slithering Module with an Exemplar. My build was running the following feats/options from levels 5-7:
-Noble Branch Ikon (Bec de Corbin, picked up Shifting at 6 to swap Polearms as needed; Born of the Earth Epithet later taken)
-Thousand-League Sandals Ikon
-Scar of the Survivor Ikon (With Mournful Epithet)
-Vow of Mortal Defiance (taken at fourth)
-Claim Domain Initiate (Trickery)
-Tested with both Motionless Blade for Level 6 and Reactive Strike at Lv 7.

Noteable character options that worked with the build were my racial feats (Orc Toughness, Mist child to boost Concealed miss chance to DC6 against me), the Tomb Born background (Reaction to Strike when hitting unconscious)

General thoughts:
-The class is fun! Rare for a playtest! I really enjoyed the more active thought required here in regards to most martials. One thing that stood out to me in character building and in play was that due to the class's action economy and base power, I didn't really find myself wanting to use many abilities outside of my core class option loops. Some more options for Weapon Transcendence would be appreciated for lower levels to add a bit more versatility. Maybe something to encourage doing Atletics checks with the weapon, so that you could Trip/Grapple/etc while still doing your rotations? Had a Necklace of Fireballs, didn't want to use it that much due in part to it not contributing to my Ikon cycling (and partly due to being limited to Polearms and not having the free hand).

-Not sure why Spirit Strikes come online 2 levels earlier than Weapon Spec. I'll take it I guess.

-Skills bad, not sure if I'm a fan of them being Paladin skills but I'm not too torn up over it.

Thoughts on the build feats:
- Mournful Scar is excellent and feels great as a survivability tech. Half Level*d8 healing plus auto Dazzle one target is amazing in 1-v-1's (especially with Mist Child boost). All around amazing option, and was effectively allowing me to 1v1 a Jungle Drake that had me grappled and flown away from the party. There was an extended section of Part 3 where I was in a grudge match with an Aurumvorax that had me grabbed and prone while the other party members were desperately trying to slow Cursebreaker; the Ikon effectively enabled me to tank it's insane rake for a lot longer than I was expecting.

- Noble Branch is kinda bad compared to the other weapon ikons. The raw damage with no save/no attack roll is neat, but the Transcend ability relying on your first strike having hit is bad. As-is, I'd much rather just have the Power Attack analog from the Hammer Ikon, since it does a functionally similar effect for the same functional action economy and still changes your ikon on a miss. There were a lot of rounds where I was forced with Branch to either waste my last action to swap Ikons, or attack with Map and be forced to stay in Weapon Ikon. Just feels like a weaker choice than Hammer and I'm not a fan.

- Thousand League Sandals are great, full-stop. GM thought they were maybe too strong when compared to similar effects; as-is I think it's fine since Loose Time's Arrow exists for similar action investment at level 3, without burning the party's Reactions; especially noteable for our Champion when they were using it to engage. Depending on the GM call, it can end up being a bit weaker if they don't let your party generate Reactions until their first turn, so YMMV a bit.

- Motionless Cutter is also bad. I asked the GM to retrain it out for the ole' reliable Reactive Strike between Parts 2&3 due to it requiring too much investment to function. Unlike a standard 3a, you have to already be in position for 2 (4?) enemies to be within your range while also being in Weapon Ikon already. This is already a lot of setup, but on top of that bad rolls ruin the effectiveness by stopping you from doing the full bevy of attacks. The one time I was able to use it through the difficulty of setup, I ended up only using it to chop down a single mook (the villain of the encounter used a Reaction to throw said mook in the way of my first strike, then bounced strike 2 to that same mook, strike 3 to a different mook, and strike 4 back to Poor Bastard) and it required burning a hero point midway through to get the last two attacks off. I'm not a fan of an ability requiring a hero point to feel reliable. As-is, I feel like there could almost be like a stacking damage bonus applied to the later attacks and it would still feel questionable.

-Due to circumstances, I was only able to use Born of the Earth once, but it was enjoyable in that instance.

Thoughts on feats I didn't take and why:
- Peerless Under Heaven: I hate it, read the thread, it sums up why. Flavor-wise it's the best for this character but it's transcendence is just... bad.

- Hurl at the Horizon: Would have taken but the lack of Returning made it a hard pass. I want to throw my polearm but not if it takes two actions to retrieve.

Wasn't interested in a ranged build, maybe later.

Will playtest more in the future. Good first impression overall!

Scarab Sages

I'll keep it quick:

Shifting Rune. Do you keep your Weapon Ikon benefit? My gut says yes as currently written, since it's innately tied to the weapon itself, but seems like an important point to ask.

Similarly, Modular would bring up the same question in regards to Barrow's Edge. Would swapping your Barrow to Bludgeoning keep the bonus?

Scarab Sages

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Run details:
Party comp:
Me (Weapon Inventor, Heavy Crossbow with d12 damage die. Construct Companion at lv1, Kickback Strike at 2, Ratfolk Familiar to assist reloading.)
Inventor 2: Same feat selection, also a weapon inventor, ran melee instead with a Halberd.
Fighter (Glass cannon Power Attack Build, was running -1 Dex and Con due to build flavor reasons. Could do big damage but spent a lot of combats on the ground.)
Warpriest Cleric (Big Magic Weapon combat buffer, utilized warhammer and shield/shield cantrip)
Cloistered Cleric (Healbot)
Witch (Big Winter Witch flavoring, eventually grabbed Medic archetype at level 2 iirc)

Fights were conducted with either additional goons to make up for the 6-player adjustment, or the Elite Template applied to solitary goons. The GM admitted that after part 1, he had adjusted the Elite Template to add additional HP above normal in place of adding the the enemy's AC, since we had some serious troubles hitting Elite Hallod.

We ran 9 fights in total, skipping most of the filler/fluff fights.
-Caustic Wolf Intro (More wolves, maybe Elite on Caustic Wolf)
-Goblin Chase (Skill Challenge)
-Galvanic Serpent (Elite)
-Hallod (Elite)
---
-Hole Menagerie Fight (3 orc caretakers, Stone Horse (probably elite), 3 Ice Rats)
-Orc Alchemist Lab (3 orc alchemists)
-Blood Ooze Fight (Sculptor, 2 blood oozes)
---
-Spite's Cradle Orcs (Gar and Graytusk with modified Elite template, roughly 12-14 CR1 orcs over the course of several rounds, don't try this at home, that many Ferocity procs is a pain)
-Basement Lab (2 Cinder Rats, 3 Alchemical Drudges r2, Modified Elite Amalgam r3)
-Vilree (Vilree, Behemoth, Dire Bat to make adjustment)

Thoughts from the run:

My construct companion was a much more aggressive combatant than the other Inventor's. Due to lack of healing options, it often was broken in combats after a few rounds, but still did its job well. The other Inventor's companion only was broken once by comparison (He ran it as a minesweeper in the Hallod fight, ate 2 spears). That said, I did discover two very important concerns that leads me to believe that Construct Companions need their death and dying rules revised.

First instance was in the Hole Menagerie Fight. Construct Companion went down to Ice Rats. Like any reasonable character, I tried to strike down the ice rats with my crossbow, and was successful. HOWEVER, these Ice Rats explode on death on adjacent targets, which unfortunately included my Construct. Due to failing its Reflex Save, the companion was destroyed through no fault of my own, from a whopping 2 cold damage. No more companion for the dungeon.

Second instance was Basement Lab. In this fight, my companion hit 0 due to persistent damage. This put me in a very tight spot. As the companion was still on fire, if left unchecked, it would be destroyed again at the end of its next turn, turning the companion into a liability. If I wanted to use it again in what remained of the dungeon, it would take assistance from the rest of the party to burn their actions to try and re-check to put out the fire, as if it returned to my turn and it was still on fire, it'd be done.

Honestly, these encounters make me concerned for Construct Inventors. Losing a companion due to accidentally getting its inert body caught in an AoE, an unknown effect going off, or even something as small as 1 point of Persistent damage feels absurd. Personally, if sticking with the Broken condition is to be a major part of the Construct Companion's identity, I recommend the fix of treating Construct Companions as other objects and shields are treated by giving them an effective negative HP pool, and treating their 0 HP point as a "broken threshold". Negative HP pool could be equal to half or 25% of their total HP, or something similar.

Aside from that, there weren't many unique takeaways. As a sniper build, this pretty much ran as expected, but kickback strike did feel a bit restricted in the more dungeon-y environments. Attack rolls were very feast-or-famine. I'd definitely appreciate an option to reduce a weapon's Reload by 1, but idk if this would be something needed at level 1 to make Inventors work. I did have a fun interaction in the Vilree fight where I decided to deploy at the front of the party adjacent to my companion, and used the Companion to provoke the Behemoth's AoO followed by using Kickback Strike to escape. Effective turn 1 face-tanking from a Ranged Character, something not a whole lot of other classes can really attest to.

Also, Megaton Strike at 4 feels incredibly late now that I realize Power Attack is available to Fighters at 1. Its just worse Power Attack at level 1 with the option to be used at Ranged; don't see why its locked out till 4 as-is. Might feel better as a level 2 feat.

Overall it was a good time; might make a writeup of the condensed module for others interested in running it in a convention setting in the future. This condensed version basically hit all the important setpieces in around 16 hours, which is pretty good time for a pf2 module.

Scarab Sages

Two parts.

Quote:

Uniquely Fatal - Feat 6

Prerequisite: Weapon Innovation
(Inventor trait)
desc. - Whether through innovation or clever application, you've discovered a new way to apply your weapon with maximum force. When you select this feat, choose 2 weapon groups that your Weapon Innovation does not belong to. Whenever you Critically Hit with a strike from your Weapon Innovation, you may instead treat your weapon as being in either of the chosen weapon groups for the purposes applying its Critical Specialization effect.
Quote:

Infinitely Fatal - Feat (Somewhere in the 10-14 range)

Prerequisite: Weapon Innovation, Uniquely Fatal
(Inventor trait)
desc. - Through your combat trials, you've learned how to maximize your innovation's most lethal elements in every conceivable situation. When attempting a Strike with your Weapon Innovation, treat a result of 9 higher than the target's AC as being Critical Success. Whenever you Critically Hit with a strike from your Weapon Innovation, you may select any Weapon Group for the purposes of applying its Critical Specialization effect.

Critical Specializations are nice benefits at the moment, but I feel they're a little underutilized in other classes. Since they're not an effect you can typically rely on, most of the time they simply end up being an added nicety whenever they occur and nothing more. I think the idea of having a versatile Critical Specialization can add some utility to an otherwise straightforward martial class, and while it would still be an uncommon occurrence, being able to choose what is more opportune in the instance seems like it could turn what would otherwise be a mild nicety to an interesting strategic decision.

Obviously this would need some form of internal testing to get right since (afaik) something like this doesn't yet exist in PF2e, but I think this sort of mechanic would fit the Inventor's flavor well while offering some unique combat options and utility to the class. At the very least, it'd help to fill Weapon Innovator's unique feat graveyard from Lv 4 to 18. Anyways, I'm down to hear other people's thoughts on the matter.

Scarab Sages

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Inventors seem to be a sort of Ranger-esque class. Is there any reason why they don't have 10 hp/level? They're still a Martial, even if they are big-brained geeks. They aren't a skills/utility class like Rogue/Bard/etc. This seems like a no-brainer to me.

Thoughts?

Scarab Sages

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Party:
Me: Inventor 10. Ratfolk with Rat Familiar, Heavy Crossbow Innovation and construct companion through feats, maxed for this level. Other feats that were relevant were Kickback Strike, Megaton Strike, and Clockwork Celerity. Was playing with the assumption that Familiar could reload the Crossbow with Manual Dexterity; if this is a bad ruling, the only change would be switching to Crossbow and reducing damage die to d10 from d12. Innovations were Complex Simplicity and Manifold Alloy, Offensive Boost was Piercing. Called the weapon a "Kinetic Railgun."

Gunslinger 1: Drifter, built to be a melee tank with decent DPS, a shield boss as a weapon, and a decent AC/HP.
Gunslinger 2: Pistolero Tiefling, used tail and wing shenanigans a lot. Air support, did a ton of Called Shots.
Monk/multiCleric: Tree stance tank, goal was to minmax AC and hold a frontline while offering out heal support when out of position. Mostly yelled "I AM GROOT!"
Alchemist/Witch: Toxicologist with cantrip support to amplify elemental damage, pretty solid support.

Enemy team: 2 Interlocutor Kytons and 2 Nabasu Demons.

Additional notes: Field was large enough that enemies could theoretically be out of 120' Crossbow Range. Basically a large arena map with scant cover and a area of rough terrain in the center.

Thoughts: Party functioned well despite lacking a dedicated healer. GM rolled very well, with the one exception being the round that the Monk was at 15 HP and somehow ate a full round from an Interlocuter where it missed three times in a row. I also rolled well when utilizing the Railgun, I think rolling 13+ for 90% of my attacks. Never critted except one time when a Nabasu had 5 HP left. No one went down, but the GM admitted afterwards that he had reduced the Interlocutors' HP by 32 apiece. Don't think it would have impacted the fight much, but would have likely been enough to down a few players. As-is, we managed to have no one drop.

Crossbow build was fun, but I realized pretty quickly that, while effective, I was not contributing much to the party outside of omnipresent range and damage output. More utility options would be nice for the class outside of the options that exist to add the Trip trait and its siblings to weapons. Alternatively, unlocking these options for ranged weapons like Bows or Crossbows could alleviate this somewhat. Companion did not share my luck with dice rolling, and never got a chance to roll damage once despite having a handful of attacks against both kinds of enemy. Mostly went turret mode, unloading a 28-30-ish damage bolt a turn and conveniently procc'ing weaknesses with Manifold Alloy.

Most satisfying turn of the combat was a round where an Interlocutor had managed to close the gap with my Inventor. Since I had a bolt pre-loaded from the prior turn, I moved 30' (fleet), shot the other interlocutor at roughly 70' away, and had Kickback Strike propel me to a full 85' away from the Interlocutor that had closed the distance. Eating its AoO and attack on its turn was rough (was at 22/126 HP since it crit the AoO), but felt good to launch myself across the field at mach speed. Companion used its free move to place itself in the path of the Interlocutor, forcing it to have to eat 3 actions to reach me. It chose to scrap the construct instead, which still ate a round and change. Joke's on him, it wasn't hitting anyone anyways.

Being 3 points of accuracy behind Gunslingers felt a bit off. Might be worth giving Weapon Innovators a bonus to attack with Overdrive active to compensate for their inherent lack of accuracy due to not having their key stat tied to Attacking otherwise, meaning their Strength or Dexterity is capped at 16 level 1. Thankfully didn't matter much this game due to my consistently good rolls when it mattered.

Megaton Strike was nice, but sadly dice were swingy and a bit below average on the damage. (10, 7, 5, 3 on 4d12)

Clockwork Celerity didn't activate this game, but in a following game I was able to use it to trigger Unstable additional uses 3 times in a row with impunity due to it not having any drawbacks for attempting the check. (1/125 odds) Its a nice feat but somewhat limited since it still suffers MAP. Other innovation types probably have the better versions. Adding Reload to the list of options for Weapon Innovator would be appreciated, since being tied only to Strikes dissuades people from using it alongside multi-action effects like Kickback Strike.

Cunning rune is solid on this class. If you're maxing Int anyways, might as well go Lore route and try to pinpoint weaknesses. Might be cool to spec the class, or, at least Weapon Innovators, towards trying to adhoc weaknesses for what they're fighting at the time since Lore synergizes well with their skillset. The flavor's even already there through the acknowledgement of the Ustalav Undead-slayer Inventors.

Overall, enjoyed my time with the build, but wish they had more utility options that involved their weapons, OR that weapon innovators just commit fully to using feats like Megaton Strike or adding additional damage through stronger offensive boosts, additional damage riders like Bleed, etc and being a full-on DPS class. Also, lucked the hell out that the GM blindly pitted us against monsters weak to Manifold Alloy, choice felt very vindicated. Fun class, a bit threadbare at the moment.

Next thing we'll be doing is a speedrun of Plaguestone, I intend to use the same character levelled down and with a flintlock musket for that. Should be a good time.

Alchemical Crossbow will be wild on this class in PFS play.

Scarab Sages

Before I finish my writeup for PFS 1-25, this came up during the session and I needed to ask the question immediately.

How does this work?

One of my Eidolons gets confused for 1 minute during a fight due to a crit-failed Will save.

1. Does the Confusion also affect the Summoner? (I'm assuming yes?)
2. Does the Summoner still Act Together? (I'm assuming no?)
3. How do you determine if the Eidolon or the Summoner acts during confusion with their shared action pool? Do you roll to determine who goes for each action or once for the whole set?? (I HAVE NO IDEA?)
4. Should I be punching my Eidolon? (I'm assuming yes?)

Please include this as an example of the shared action pool in the final release, or at least explain how the Eidolon action sharing and Confusion interact. Please spare others from the feeling of existential terror I experienced as the realization of what had just happened set in.

Scarab Sages

...Part 1.

Alt Title:
A Frankly Unreasonable Number of Entities Evict the Phantom of the Opera to the Sultry Sounds of Simple Plan.

Hey guys! I came by to drop off my first bit of actual-play data for the Summoner. The following document details the first portion of my 4-Lv8-Summoner Run of PFS 1-25, Grim Symphony. The document currently records all of the crunch of the scenario up til about 2/3rds of the way, as well as having links to view the (mostly accurate) builds for my four Summoners. Each one is heavily Archetype'd to try to fill a different weird combat niche while the Eidolons are about what you'd expect.

Link to the document is HERE, and I have included some comments as part of the scenario log whenever something happened to cross my mind.

I'll update the thread once we wrap up the scenario, but feel free to ask any questions or comments in the thread if you have them.

Opening thoughts, after building the party:
I don't personally feel like I had much incentive to pick Summoner feats over Archetype feats for most levels. Most evolutions don't feel like they would meaningfully contribute to combat, and the Eidolons are a pretty strong package by default.
As a result, all of the builds start with Dual Studies, and out of the remaining 16 feats from the set of 4, only 3 of the feats were selected from the Summoner pool.

It might be worth looking into making some of the earlier Eidolon evolutions either more powerful, or making them into stepping stones for more interesting feats later on that either add to the Eidolon's DPS or give them more unique options in combat.
That said, I'm pretty satisfied being able to archetype with impunity and not feel like I'm losing any combat prowess, but it does feel weird having not many class feats that catch my eye.

and a fun thing I realized while playing:
There was a point in the scenario where my Loremaster's scouting Eidolon had visual contact on an enemy. I hadn't realized it in the moment, but thanks to Share Senses, Summoner's have the ability to effectively double up on Exploration activities at once, since the Eidolon can stealth while the Summoner looks through its eyes in order to Search/Recall Knowledge about a creature. That's a pretty cool trick that I will be unlikely to forget moving forward, even if I only realized it afterwards.

Scarab Sages

Enough talk about how much of a detriment having two bodies on the field is; let's put it to use to instead create an interesting combat hypothetical for players that want to fight alongside their eidolons and not from behind them.

1st Level Feat Suggestion wrote:

Strike Together, 1Action
Summoner, Tandem, Flourish

You share a special bond with your Eidolon, perhaps stemming from a shared history of strife. You and your Eidolon each make a Melee Strike against the same target, each using your current multiple attack penalty. If the second Strike is made with a weapon that doesn’t have the agile trait, it takes a –2 penalty.

If both attacks hit, combine their damage, and then add any other applicable effects from both weapons. You add any precision damage only once, to the attack of your choice. Combine the damage from both Strikes and apply resistances and weaknesses only once. This counts as two attacks when calculating your multiple attack penalty.

Level 8/10/12/14 Feat Suggestion wrote:

 

Tandem Striker Adept
Prerequisites: Strike Together
Summoner

Time and experience have turned you and your Eidolon into a formidable duo. Remove the Flourish trait from Strike Together. When using Strike Together, it only counts as one attack instead of two when calculating your multiple attack penalty.

A better Double Slice where you get to fight alongside your Eidolon, however both of you are now on the front line and are now both likely targrts for the enemy, in addition to being further limited by Summoner's inherently bad combat proficiencies. However, it creates a unique frontliner playstyle wholly unique to the class for those willing to put it on the line.

Thoughts?

Scarab Sages

alt title: Hey Look, its V from Devil May Cry!

Hello everyone. After reading a few threads that brought this idea up in passing, I decided to build a rough skeleton for a dual-pet Summoner since it seemed like it'd be a interesting build to test.

The build is open for public viewing/commenting/copying on Google Forms HERE.

Build is designed to be played at Level 4/10/17 to provide a chassis to test low/mid/high tier play. Gold used for example purchases is balanced using the gold a PFS character would have that has acquired 9 treasure bundles per scenario. Sheet could probably be assembled somewhat better, as I merely borrowed a premade character sheet with minor editting, but I have tried to include hyperlinks to relevant AoN pages where I can, and any class feats pulled from the playtest have their rules listed in their hover-over notes.

To use the sheet, I've highlighted areas that may need to be modified using red and orange:

Red-bordered boxes: Requires manual editting, method typically explained in hover-over notes.
Orange: Uncheck or ignore if Level 4.
Red: Uncheck or ignore if Level 4/10.

Changing the Level on the cover page modifies the stats globally on the form, unchecking a training/proficiency box also updates stats where you'd expect it to. Use the tabs at the bottom to navigate the form. Skill feats have been left mostly unfilled barring the Medicine feats since I figured those are better left to personal preference of the end-user.

Feel free to make a copy of the Google Form and edit it as you see fit for playtest; this form is meant to serve as a rough skeleton in case anyone else wanted to try a similar build and/or didn't have the time to write up their own statsheet for a Summoner. If anything seems off in the build, let me know and I'll fix it on my end so it can be free of bugs on future copy-overs. I'll also accept any recommendations for updates to the build as I'm super-not-used-to minmaxing later levels; I have not played a high level caster before in PF2e so some of my spell selections especially may be questionable. I'll try to post any runs I'm able to make with the build in this thread as well for general playtest feedback purposes.

Enjoy!

Scarab Sages

Some questions I thought might be good to clarify early.

Eidolon wrote:
...Your eidolon benefits from the potency, striking, and property runes on your handwraps of mighty blows, and you can Invest a single magic weapon to share the benefits of those runes from the weapon as well, even though you normally can’t Invest a magic weapon.

1. If you're holding a weapon with the Spell Storing property rune, does this mean your eidolon now has 2 spell storing weapons equipped at all times? And if so, would a player be able to cast a spell into both, or would they share the Spell Storing rune between them and either attack hitting could proc the Spell Release?

2. Follow up question as it will come up with this build:

Spell Storing wrote:
...Activate: Single Action - Command; Requirements: On your previous action this turn, you hit and damaged a creature with this weapon...

Since Spell Storing takes a single action to activate, would it be useable through Act Together, or would being nested within Act Together cause Act Together to become "your previous action on this turn," despite still being in the process of carrying it out?

Presumeably any stored spells to be dropped during daily preparations due to the Invest requirement, but seems like it'd be a great way to make use of the summoner's limited spell slots that is definitely in no way stepping on any other playtest classes that currently exist. Assuming, of course, you are able to find a Spell Storing Weapon, since they are Uncommon and people like me are probably the reason Paizo staff made that decision in the first place. (I'm sorry.)

Scarab Sages

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Okay, so as much as I can't wait to run The Slithering for my home game group this weekend, there's one element to the scenario that I have a hard time coming to grips with while I'm prepping it.

Going to immediately launch into GM Eyes only spoilers from here, so please avoid this if you aren't planning on running it.

For GM Eyes Only:
I don't know if this will bug other GMs as much as it bugs me, but the idea that a high level Aspis Agent put in charge of a high-profile position would screw up in such a colossal way feels like a joke that would only go so far with my home game group. Add in that the final fight is against a random second that isn't built up much through the scenario while Tomil is pretty much the entire basis of why you go to Part 2, and the module feels like it sortof went out of its way to write its villain out of the plot. However, I think I've hit on an idea that can maybe get the best of both worlds here with a bit of homebrew. This is still a developing idea, but I thought I'd post the early seed here for feedback and post again once the ideas are more concrete.

The Plan: Everything up till and including Tomil's death goes as written. However, after he is turned into the Fuming Sludge, wheels start to turn. Tomil has connections (either in the Aspis or the Cult, which is my preference here) that have been made aware of his plan to release the Slithering. Upon his death and the curse backfiring, said connections arrange for a Reincarnation of Tomil, a ritual that is not only level-appropriate, but would also put his soul into a non-human body. Realizing what happened upon revival, Tomil rushes back to the city to keep abreast of the situation, re-asserting himself as the Aspis leader and (moving to hold the final dungeon until Cursebreaker could be neutralized as a threat) / (coming in after the encounter with Slime Whip once he hears about the Heroes' move to cleanse the city of the curse in a final attempt to stop it, Aspis already stationed there could be interpretted as a backup team to ensure the operation is not interrupted.) If he returns from the Cult, its possible he could maybe even run into the Heroes on the way back to Kibwe while they go to hunt down Cursebreaker, allowing him a chance to interact with the heroes before either side realizes the importance of the other.

Since its The Slithering and its in the appendix, I'm currently playing with the idea of making Tomil a Level 9 (tentatively Antipaladin of Angazhan, although I am considering other options that are more Int based as well) with Oozemotph feats replacing Ancestry feat picks (remnants of the curse interacting with the Reincarnation process). Level 9 works since Reincarnation works on Lv8 PCs and he could have levelled in the chaos of the Slithering while the PCs leveled twice. Reincarnation works especially well if the Cult initiates the ritual, considering Angazhan's anathema literally includes "Using Resurrection instead of Reincarnation." Cult could potentially see benefit in keeping him alive as a prospective future leader, especially with the oft-mentioned upheavals in Usaro. Oozemorph feats also open the door for Ooze Empathy at this level, so The Slithering could end with a fight against a humanoid Ooze and a real Ooze as an extra bonus to its existing flavor.

As for how his death would be discovered, my current seed there stems from another APG ritual: Heartbond. Give Tomil a romantic interest in the Cult/Aspis, make them be another human, have Tomil still have the Slithering contracted despite the new body (curses are hard to wash out of souls) and have the Heartbond be his minion in the finale, making the situation incredibly personal for Tomil.

Still has some kinks to iron out, but let me know what you guys think about the basic outline! Really looking forward to building a enemy fresh from the oven as well, so if anyone has any cool build suggestions I'd be open to hearing them as well at this point.

Scarab Sages

Hey all, getting ready to build a Time Domain cleric and had one definite Errata discovery as well as a few questions about whether or not certain rules from PF1 are still in the PF2 CRB, as I'm having trouble finding them for how they would apply to this- admittedly very unique- focus spell from the Time domain.

First, the spell in question, bold emphasis from me. Text is from Archives of Nethys, but I have double-checked my hard copy of Gods and Magic and can confirm the issues are in the print edition as well.

Stasis, from Archives of Nethys. wrote:

Incapacitation Transmutation

Source: Gods & Magic pg. 118
Domain: time
Cast: Two Actions somatic, verbal
Range: 30 feet; Targets 1 creature or up to 1 Bulk of objects
Saving Throw: Reflex; Duration varies

The flow of time congeals around an object or creature, holding it in place. The target must attempt a Will save (an unattended object automatically critically fails its save).

-Critical Success The target is unaffected.
-Success The target is stunned 1 as time thickens around it.
-Failure Time ceases to pass for the target for 1 round. It is invulnerable to all damage, it cannot be targeted or affected by anything, and no rounds elapse for any timed durations, conditions, afflictions, and other effects it has. While in stasis, the target can’t be moved, and it remains fixed in place, defying gravity if need be.
-Critical Failure As failure, but the target is held in stasis for 3 rounds. At the end of each of its turns, it can attempt a Will save to reduce the remaining duration by 1 round or end it entirely on a critical success.

First off, the errata question: The spell Stasis's overview states that it is a Reflex Save; however, every later mention of a saving throw describes it as a Will save. I'm assuming Will is the intended saving throw for this spell, as it is listed twice, but a confirmation one way or the other would be appreciated.

Second: Assuming that the target of the spell is correct in not specifying Unattended Objects (as the later mention of them could be referring to the specific instance where the target is Unattended), what saves would the Object use to resist the spell, since Attended Objects would presumably not fail automatically? I feel like I remember there being a ruling in PF1 where a held object used the statistics of its wielder for defensive purposes, but am unsure if that ruling still applies in PF2e.

Third: Another ruling that I am not sure applies in PF2e, but that I wanted to have confirmation on in advance: Could a willing target of this spell choose to fail/crit fail their saving throw, or would a willing target have to attempt the check and hope they roll low? asking as I could see a situation where a party member in dire straits might be in need of total invulnerability to make it out of a particularly rough encounter, or could for instance be Stasis'd until the fight ends to prevent them from bleeding out.

Thanks in advance for any advice or CRB rules text I may have missed.

Scarab Sages

So I have a Hydrokineticist that I used back during the playtest, and now that Occult has released, I've been looking to dust them off. As a good Hydrokineticist, I intend to grab Kinetic Healer at Level 2 for making the party happy, but the wording in Occult Adventures left me with a few questions.

Occult Adventures wrote:
"With a touch, you can heal a willing living creature an amount of damage equal to your kinetic blast's damage."

So that obviously implies the 1d6+1 per two levels +Con would be healed, but what this doesn't mention is whether or not Kinetic Healer heals based on you Kinetic Blast's current damage output or base damage output. For instance:

Elemental Overflow: Increases Kinetic Blast's damage by current burnx2 up to a cap equal to 1/3 Kineticist's level. In addition, starting at level 6, Elemental Overflow allows Kineticists with Burn to add a +2 Size Bonus to two physical ability scores, which can include Con, which would then increase the Kinetic Blast's damage by one point.

Would this bonus damage translate to bonus healing for the Kinetic Healer Talent? If not, then what about the temporary Con bonus?

Then there's stuff like Inspire Courage, which is a damage bonus that doesn't even come from the Kineticist. Would ally damage buffs also increase the net healing?

Finally, Occult Adventures added in a new magic item as well. The Kineticist's Diadem adds between 1 and 3d6 (depending on the variant) to simple and composite blasts that match the wearing Kineticist's type. Would these bonus damage dice also add to the Kinetic Healing?

Just wanted to check all of this before playing any games where it'll matter with the character. Thanks in advance.

Scarab Sages

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Simple enough question. Can a Druid with the Nature Bond class feature attuned to a Domain qualify for the Warrior Priest feat?

Warrior Priest wrote:

Prerequisites: Ability to cast divine spells, domain or mystery class feature.

Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus on initiative checks and a +2 bonus on concentration checks made to cast a spell or use a spell-like ability when casting defensively or while grappled.

Nature Bond wrote:
At 1st level, a druid forms a bond with nature. This bond can take one of two forms. The first is a close tie to the natural world, granting the druid one of the following cleric domains: Air, Animal, Earth, Fire, Plant, Water, or Weather. Druids also have access to a set of Animal and Terrain Domains. When determining the powers and bonus spells granted by this domain, the druid's effective cleric level is equal to her druid level. A druid that selects this option also receives additional domain spell slots, just like a cleric. She must prepare the spell from her domain in this slot and this spell cannot be used to cast a spell spontaneously.

Basically I'm just concerned that this doesn't count as the Domain Class feature since it is listed as part of Nature Bond.

Thanks in advance.

Scarab Sages

2 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

Fair warning, this is a wall of text. My apologies in advance, and thank you to anyone who has the patience to read it.

So I'm working on building a Dragon Disciple character, and naturally, the topic of what I should put on my Amulet of Mighty Fists came up after a couple hours of creating theoretical builds. For reference,

Amulet of Mighty Fists:
Ultimate Equipment wrote:

This amulet grants an enhancement bonus of +1 to +5 on attack and damage rolls with unarmed attacks and natural weapons.

Alternatively, this amulet can grant melee weapon special abilities, so long as they can be applied to unarmed attacks. See Table: Melee Weapon Special Abilities for a list of abilities. Special abilities count as additional bonuses for determining the market value of the item, but do not modify attack or damage bonuses. An amulet of mighty fists cannot have a modified bonus (enhancement bonus plus special ability bonus equivalents) higher than +5. An amulet of mighty fists does not need to have a +1 enhancement bonus to grant a melee weapon special ability.

My question stems from research I have done on two potential Amulet of Mighty Fists enhancements, Furyborn and Spell Storing. These abilities have each had prior discussion in the rules forum as they relate to the Amulet, and I found that the rulings most people resort to to balance these enhancements contradict each other.

First, Furyborn.

Furyborn:
Ultimate Equipment wrote:
This special ability can only be placed on melee weapons. A furyborn weapon draws power from the anger and frustration the wielder feels when battling foes that refuse to die. Each time the wielder damages an opponent with the weapon, its enhancement bonus increases by +1 when making attacks against that opponent (to a maximum total enhancement bonus of +5). This extra enhancement bonus goes away if the opponent dies, the wielder uses the weapon to attack a different creature, or 1 hour passes.

Debates in the past have questioned whether or not the Furyborn Amulet of Mighty Fists gets improved with each attack made rather than each weapon enhanced by it. So in other words, the difference between hitting with Right Claw/Left Claw and missing a Bite and getting two +2 Claw Attacks and one +2 Bite Attack versus only having two +1 Claw Attacks.

The arguments essentially boiled down to whether or not the Amulet of Mighty Fists counted as a singular weapon being enhanced with each strike or if it simply gave each of the natural attacks the Furyborn quality individually. Most people seemed to side with the latter, as it was the weaker option and more on par with the weapon enhancement as it appears on manufactured weapons.

Now, Spell Storing.

Furyborn:
Ultimate Equipment wrote:
A spell storing weapon allows a spellcaster to store a single targeted spell of up to 3rd level in the weapon. (The spell must have a casting time of 1 standard action.) Anytime the weapon strikes a creature and the creature takes damage from it, the weapon can immediately cast the spell on that creature as a free action if the wielder desires. (This special ability is an exception to the general rule that casting a spell from an item takes at least as long as casting that spell normally.) Once the spell has been cast from the weapon, a spellcaster can cast any other targeted spell of up to 3rd level into it. The weapon magically imparts to the wielder the name of the spell currently stored within it. A randomly rolled spell storing weapon has a 50% chance of having a spell stored in it already. This special ability can only be placed on melee weapons.

Debates in the past seem to argue that a Spell Storing enhancement stems from the Amulet itself, and that the Amulet does not grant it to each of the wearer's natural attacks separately. Again, this was decided because the alternative of having four fully stacked Shocking Grasps getting released in a full-round attack seemed fairly ludicrous.

That said, the two rulings begin to contradict each other. If Furyborn is given to each of the wearer's natural attacks individually, then the should hold true for Spell Storing, allowing each of a creature's natural attacks to hold a Shocking Grasp individually. Likewise, if the Spell Storing enchantment is constrained to the Amulet, then the Furyborn enchantment should likewise stack for each individual Natural Weapon hit.

My question is, simply put, which one is it? Does the Amulet of Mighty Fists grant its ability individually to each of the affected weapons, or does it rather allow each of the affected weapons to proc the ability from the Amulet of Mighty Fists itself?

I'm partial to the latter ruling, as it seems to make more sense that Furyborn, as the weaker effect housed within a +2 enhancement bonus, should receive the increased power over the superior Spell Storing buff, but I wanted to receive official clarification on this matter before bringing it to a game day, PFS or otherwise.

Scarab Sages

6-06: Hall of the Flesh Eaters Playtest
Party Composition:
Sorceror/3
Bard/2-Cleric/1
Magus/2
Cavalier/2
Kineticist/1 (My brother, playing a pyrokinetic Kitsune)
Kineticist/1 (Me, playing a hydrokinetic Gnome)

So recently, my brother and I built a pair of Kineticists to run side-by-side in order to test the two ends of the Kinetic spectrum, touch-based Fire blasts and high-powered water blasts. While I intend to attach full stat blocks for our characters down below, he was more focused on constant/sustained damage while I was trying to play an M1A1 tank with healing. For first level feats, I chose Medium Armor Proficiency to hit AC 20 while he instead took Tribal Scars for the +6 HP and +5 speed. Which made it hilarious when I was using a speed 15 Gnome in comparison to a Speed 35 Kitsune.

Anyway, we were using these characters in a run of PFS Scenario 6-06: “Hall of the Flesh Eaters.” Among our party listed above, the only really optimized member was our Magus, who was doing respectable damage most of the adventure, while our Cavalier seemed to forget he had Challenge as he never used it. During the scenario, I tried to write down as much useful info as I could in regards to what the party was doing, starting from the first major encounter onwards. I tried to write down attack rolls where I could, as I didn’t want to slow the scenario with my transcribing, but I made a point to record all hits and misses as well as resulting damage and effects that occurred within the scenario. Kineticist turns, or turns where the Kineticists were primary targets, will be bolded. In each combat, I’ll refer to enemy monsters by the first letter of their names followed by a number, as our GM clearly marked each enemy with markers as we engaged them. This way, players unfamiliar with the scenario won’t be spoiled as to the exact nature of each encounter, while people who are familiar with the scenario will be able to easily put the pieces together. Anyways, onto the round-by-round.

---------------------------

Encounter 1: vs K1, K2, K3, K4, K5, KC

INIT: (forgot to record exact numbers)

T1: Cavalier/2 (Cav) throws Alchemist’s Fire at K1. Although I did not record miss or hit on this one, I believe he missed, dealing one splash damage to K1 and K2.
T2: Hydrokineticist/1 (HK) fires Water Blast at K1 for 9 damage. (K1@-10)
T3: Magus/2 (Mag) attacks K2 for 6 damage. (K2@-7)
T4: Bard/2-Cleric/1 (BC) begins Inspire Courage, which most people promptly forget about.
T5: Enemy Turn. K1, K2 and K3 attack Mag; K2 hits for 5 damage; K3 hits for 7 damage. (Mag@-12) K4 misses Cav. K5 jockeys for positioning or did something else unremarkable, since I never recorded it.
(K)T6: Pyrokineticist/1 (PK) fires a Flame Blast at K1, using a point of Burn to activate Burning Infusion after having moved into position. The attack hits, dealing 4 damage and killing K1 before Burning Infusion takes hold.
T7: Sorceror/3 (Sorc) enters into melee with K4, hitting him for 5 points with his quarterstaff.
T8: Enemy Turn. KC attacks PK and misses.
T9: Cav attacks K4 for 2 damage. Wolf Companion attacks K4 and misses. (K4@-7)
T10: HK heals Mag for 7 HP with Kinetic Healer, HK receives 1 Burn. (Mag@-5)
(K)T11: Mag attacks K2 for 11 damage and scores a kill.
T12: BC fires a Lightning Arc (Domain Power) at K3, misses.
T13: Enemy Turn. K4 misses Cav, K3 & K5 miss Mag.
T14: PK passes Perception Check to notice that KC is different-looking. This is the only skill check the Kineticists made that is worth mentioning all scenario. PK shoots a Flame Blast at KC, hits 17 Touch, dealing 8 fire damage and causing KC to catch fire. PK ignores Burn, as his move was spent channeling energy.
T15: Sorc melees K4 for 7 damage. (K4@-12)
T16: Enemy Turn. KC successfully crits PK for a total of 13 damage. (PK@-13-1Burn)
(K)T17: Cav kills K4 with Wolf Bite.
T18: HK fires a Water Blast at K5 who is in melee. HK misses with a d20 roll of 2.
(K)T19: Mag attempts to use Spell Combat with Arcane Mark, but fails the concentration check. He attacks K5 with his sword, critting and dealing 20 damage for the kill.
T20: BC heals PK for 5 HP. (PK@-8-1Burn)
T21: Enemy Turn. K3 hits Mag for 2 damage. (Mag@-7)
T22: PK shoots a Fire Blast at KC, rolling a total of 9 to hit and missing outright.
T23: Enemy Turn. KC attacks PK and misses. PK’s Burning Infusion from T14 deals 4 damage to KC. (KC@-12)
(K)T24: Cav provokes an AoO from KC, KC misses. Cav, now flanking KC, attacks @13 and misses. Wolf attacks at 17, hitting and doing 6 damage for the kill.
T25: Mag attacks twice and misses horribly.
>T26: HK delays while BC attempts diplomacy versus K3.
T27: BC blows his Diplomacy attempt.
T26: HK shoots a Water blast at in-combat K3 @12, miss.
T28: Enemy Turn. K3 attacks Mag, misses.
T29: PK shoots a fire blast at in-combat K3, rolls a natural 3 and misses.
T30: Sorc fires sling at K3 in combat. The attack hits, but miss chance causes it to miss.
(K)T31: Cav attacks K3, critting with Wolf for the kill.

End combat.

-------------------------------

Since I’m a college student with limited free time, I’ll post up this first combat and continue this as I have time. This is about 33% of the notes I took, and I'll definitely post at least the other two primary combats time permitting.

Scarab Sages

So being interested in the Kineticist, I noticed something recently that might prove to be somewhat overpowered in the bookkeeping department.

Telekineticists and Hydrokineticists gain the ability to select Kinetic Healing as a Wild Talent at first level. If I'm reading this correctly, Kinetic Healing requires the either the Kineticist or their target to receive 1 point of Burn in order to receive a sizeable chunk of healing.

Kineticists also receive the ability to channel elemental energy with a move action, "allowing her to reduce the total cost of a wild talent used in the sameround by one point," presumably down to a minimum of zero.

Assuming Kinetic Healing is a standard action to use (since it is not listed in the ability's entry) then the Kineticist would be able to channel elemental energy as a move action to reduce the cost of this ability to 0 Burn, giving them an at-will heal with no out-of-combat drawbacks.

This seems more than a tad overpowered, as it provides a Level 1 Character to easily and completely top off the entire party's HP after every encounter with no drawbacks.

Ways to fix this to ensure the CLW Wand economy does not dry up:
-List the Kinetic Healing ability as a Full-Round Action, as it would then be impossible to channel elemental energy as a move action during the same round in which the ability is used.
-Simply state that one cannot channel elemental energy to reduce the burn cost of this ability.
-Treat it like the Witch's Healing Hex and put some sort of limitation to the ability's amount of uses per day per target.

If anyone has any thoughts on the matter or would like to point out something I missed, feel free to, as I could have very easily missed or misread something in this ability combo that makes it appear much more powerful than it currently is.

Scarab Sages

So I have a quick question that I can't seem to find the answer to. If you were, say, a Cleric, and you want to use one of your touch-attack based Domain powers, can you just substitute the touch attack for one of your normal melee attacks?

Example: If Bob the Cleric were to have a +6/+1 BAB and had two different Domain touch attacks, could he choose to use two touch attacks, or would he have to choose between attacking twice with his sword or using only one touch attack?

For all intents and purposes, I'm asking if touch attacks can be subbed in like a Disarm/Trip/Sunder maneuver.

While I'm here, I'm also curious as to whether or not a missed Cleric domain power counts as a wasted charge? I read somewhere that, at least for spells, the spell's energy only discharges upon a successful attack, allowing the caster multiple chances to hit without as much of a chance to blow a spell slot. Do Cleric domain powers work similarly?

Thanks in advance!

Scarab Sages

3 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

So, I recently saw the Dragon Disciple class as a great way to build off of the Bloodrager class introduced in the Advanced Class Guide playtest. Since Bloodragers can easily meet all of the prerequisites with ease, it seems like it'd be a perfect fit with the advancements of the prestige class, what with granting the Bloodrager even more bonus Strength, Con, HP while keeping up their spell progression at a reasonable pace. Plus, it just seems like a thematically awesome thing to work towards, essentially becoming a melee terror that form-shifts into a Draconic monster and proceeding to just destroy people with natural weapons.

However, there is one rule I'd like to ask about for errata's sake, as the Dragon Disciple was not made with the Bloodrager in mind. In the Dragon Disciple entry, they gain the following ability at level 1:

Blood of Dragons:
A dragon disciple adds his level to his sorcerer levels when determining the powers gained from his bloodline. If the dragon disciple does not have levels of sorcerer, he instead gains bloodline powers of the draconic bloodline, using his dragon disciple level as his sorcerer level to determine the bonuses gained. He must choose a dragon type upon gaining his first level in this class and that type must be the same as his sorcerer type. This ability does not grant bonus spells to a sorcerer unless he possesses spell slots of an appropriate level. Such bonus spells are automatically granted if the sorcerer gains spell slots of the spell's level.

This ability raises a few questions for me as a player. Bloodragers have their own bloodlines, accordingly known as Bloodrager Bloodlines. These bloodlines share the same overall classifications of all base Sorcerer bloodlines (Draconic, Aberrant, Abyssal, Infernal, etc.) Most of these bloodlines possess traits similar to the normal Sorcerer bloodline choices. Draconic is the one I'm focusing on here. In both cases, the character gains claws at level 1, energy resistance at level 3/4, a breath weapon at level 8/9, and so on. In addition, Bloodragers are a Sorcerer alternate class, being a mix of Barbarian and Sorcerer.

What I'm curious about is whether or not the Blood of Dragons ability should apply to a Bloodrager's bloodline. Due to the class similarities, and even sharing the Sorcerer's bloodline ability under a different name, it doesn't seem like it would be too far of a stretch that the abilities could be ruled as one in the same. Also of note, this wouldn't be without its drawbacks for the Bloodrager. If the Sorcerer bloodlines are treated differently than the Bloodrager bloodlines, then a Bloodrager could take a bloodline other than Draconic while still getting the sorcerer's draconic abilities through the Dragon Disciple class, effectively giving them two bloodlines. If they are considered the same and this class needs errata, then the bloodrager would instead have to pick the Draconic bloodline to enter the class, limiting their choices.

If anything, I'd like to see this get clarified, because either decision greatly alters how this class would be played.

Scarab Sages

So I was recently working on trying to make a Slayer build from the Advanced Class Guide, and I came across something interesting while doing research on cross-class options. From the Vivisectionist's Sneak Attack entry, it has the following description:

Ultimate Magic wrote:
At 1st level, a vivisectionist gains the sneak attack ability as a rogue of the same level. If a character already has sneak attack from another class, the levels from the classes that grant sneak attack stack to determine the effective rogue level for the sneak attack's extra damage dice (so an alchemist 1/rogue 1 has a +1d6 sneak attack like a 2nd-level rogue, an alchemist 2/rogue 1 has a +2d6 sneak attack like a 3rd-level rogue, and so on).

Herein lies my question. In this entry, it states that if the Vivisectionist receives Sneak Attack from another class, then that class's levels stack with the Vivisectionist's to determine the effective Rogue level for the Vivisectionist's Sneak Attack. For people who don't have the Advanced Class Guide, this rule seems faulty with the Slayer, as Slayers gain 1d6 Sneak Attack damage every third level instead of the standard odd-level scaling that Rogues get. However, these levels still grant a Sneak Attack bonus, and as per the Vivisectionist rules, these Slayer Levels would instead grant Sneak Attack bonus damage based on Rogue level progression.

I know that the Advanced Class Guide has some faulty rules still, so I wouldn't be surprised if something like this slipped through. I'm curious to know if I'm interpreting these rules correctly, because if so, a level 1 dip in Vivisectionist greatly increases the Slayer's power level. However, I'm assuming that the RAI for a Slayer was actually meant to be something along the following:

"If a character already has sneak attack from another class, the levels from the classes that grant sneak attack stack to determine the effective Slayer level for the sneak attack's extra damage dice (so a Slayer 3/Vivisectionist 3 has a +2d6 sneak attack like a 6th-level Slayer, a Slayer 3/Vivisectionist 6 has a +3d6 sneak attack like a 9th-level rogue, and so on)."

What do you guys think in regard to this? If this has already been errata'd, I'd greatly appreciate it if someone could point me in the direction of the ruling.


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