Augmented Gearsman

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Hey All,

Quick rules question. When a ghost possesses a creature via malevolence does it keep its deflection bonus equal to its charisma modifier?

Please present some rules text with your answers, I can't seem to find anything dealing with this and it doesn't seem obvious from the writing of the template (assuming I didn't skip a line or something) if the deflection bonus is tied to the creatures physical form or if its just something that any creature with the ghost template gains upon becoming a ghost.

Thanks in advance


Hey All,

I'm playing in a high level campaign and I've recently noticed the spell "Parasitic Soul" found HERE.

I'm looking for any suggestions on what creatures would make good forms to take. I'm especially looking for things with good physical stats and good automatic abilities (since the above spell acts like magic jar).

Thanks in advance!


Hey all,

I have a question regarding the Demonic obedience feat which can be read HERE, and how it interacts with the Demonic Obedience performed to Mestama, which can be found here HERE.

My question relates to the second boon, specifically when you become a ghost. What do you think would happen if you didn't complete the boon each day after becoming a ghost. Do you turn back into a person? Or am I missing something about this boon not needing to be done every day like the boons for Deific Obedience.

As an additional note, I would really prefer RAW answers if possible.


Hey All,

I have a quick question around Demiplane creation. As per the spell when you create a demiplane it has a limited duration unless you cast the spell again or use permenancy. From Create Lesser Demiplane:

Rules Quotes:

Lesser Create Demiplane wrote:


If you are within the demiplane, you can add to its area by casting the spell again. Alternatively, you may cast this spell again to reset the duration of an existing area to that of your latest casting.
Lesser Create Demiplane wrote:


You can make this spell permanent with the permanency spell, at a cost of 17,500 gp. If you have cast create lesser demiplane multiple times to enlarge the demiplane, each casting's area requires its own permanency spell.

Additionally, create greater demiplane allows you to add traits. The specific trait I am interested in is Timeless option on the Time Trait:

Additional Rules Quotes:

Greater Create Demiplane wrote:


Alternatively, when cast within your demiplane, you may add to your demiplane (or remove from it) one of the following features (or any of the features described in create demiplane) with each casting of the spell, in which case it has an instantaneous duration.
Greater Create Demiplane wrote:


Time: By default, time passes at the normal rate in your demiplane. By selecting this feature, you may make your plane have the erratic time, flowing time (half or double normal time), or timeless trait (see Time).
Time Trait wrote:


Timeless: On planes with this trait, time still passes, but the effects of time are diminished. How the timeless trait affects certain activities or conditions such as hunger, thirst, aging, the effects of poison, and healing varies from plane to plane. The danger of a timeless plane is that once an individual leaves such a plane for one where time flows normally, conditions such as hunger and aging occur retroactively. If a plane is timeless with respect to magic, any spell cast with a non-instantaneous duration is permanent until dispelled.

So my question is as follows: What is the final duration of create lesser demiplane if I take the following steps, in order

1) I cast lesser create demi-plane with its standard duration
2) I cast create greater demiplane and use that casting to apply the timeless trait. As per the rules this casting does not have a duration, but is instead instantaneous.
3) I cast lesser create demi-plane to reset the duration of the casting in step 1. Alternatively I cast lesser create demi-plane to add an additional portion to my plane.

From my reading of the rules it would seem that the duration of create lesser demiplane is now permenant. This comes from the fact that the duration of create lesser demiplane is non-instantaneous, and the timeless trait states that:

Time Trait wrote:


any spell cast with a non-instantaneous duration is permanent until dispelled.

I can see how one might consider the original lesser create demi-plane to not be affected by the timeless trait, as it was cast before that trait was placed on the plane. To account for that, I have added the possibility of instead casting lesser create demi-plane to add an additional portion to the plane (since the duration of additional castings for this purpose is tracked separately from the original casting).


Hey All,

I'm trying to figure out how to resolve an attack made by a ghost with a ghost touch weapon against an incorporeal creature. From the following I would think that I would resolve all attacks as touch attacks

Quote:

An incorporeal creature’s attacks pass through (ignore) natural armor, armor, and shields, although deflection bonuses and force effects (such as mage armor) work normally against it.

but at the same time the entry for ghost touch says that a weapon is both incorporeal and corporeal, so I'm not 100%.

Additionally, is it mentioned anywhere if incorporeal creatures get any stat as a bonus to damage (since they no longer have a strength score).


Hey all, quick question.

Say a pc or npc has a clone made and preserved (say via Unguent of Timelessness) when they were young.

Time passes, they age and accrue mental bonuses and physical penalties. They then die and are returned to the clone.

What happens with these penalties and bonuses? I can see the physical penalties being removed because the body is young, but would the mental bonuses also be lost?

As far as I am aware, mental bonuses from age come from experiences and the like, so flavor wise I would think they would stay, but it seems kind of powerful. Is there any stipulation in the rules as to what happens?


Hey All,

I am DM'ing a higher level campaign where the BBEG has access to the magic jar spell and a number of minions and followers.

Taking the restrictions of the spell into account:

Quote:
If you are successful, your life force occupies the host body, and the host's life force is imprisoned in the magic jar. You keep your Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, level, class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, alignment, and mental abilities. The body retains its Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, hit points, natural abilities, and automatic abilities. A body with extra limbs does not allow you to make more attacks (or more advantageous two-weapon attacks) than normal. You can't choose to activate the body's extraordinary or supernatural abilities. The creature's spells and spell-like abilities do not stay with the body.

What would be the good options for creatures/followers/things to possess, assuming that there aren't really any limitations and that the follower is willing?

I would like suggestions that are either powerful, or based on interesting tricks and mechanics I could pull off that my players wouldn't expect.

Thanks in advance!


Hey All,

I'm going to start a level 20 campaign soon. I've never played that high and would appreciate some character builds/progressions to get me thinking! Please keep the following in mind:

1) The players I'm playing with are going to be moderately/significantly optimizing, so I would appreciate similar suggestions that will remain able to contribute at level 20 in and out of combat given that fact. Feel free to go as far as possible with this, as I can always dial it back to match the group.

2) I know that the wizard trumps pretty much everything at later levels. My group already has more than one wizard so I don't really want to go that route (though other casting classes are ok).

3) No summoner

4) Dips are ok as long as they help more than they hurt.

Thanks in advance!


Ok, a few questions about the spell. Bear in mind that I know this is easily mediated by a GM, but I think its fun to discuss.

The relevant text is below

Magic Jar says the following about a body you possess.

Magic Jar:
Quote:


By casting magic jar, you place your soul in a gem or large crystal (known as the magic jar), leaving your body lifeless. Then you can attempt to take control of a nearby body, forcing its soul into the magic jar. You may move back to the jar (thereby returning the trapped soul to its body) and attempt to possess another body. The spell ends when you send your soul back to your own body, leaving the receptacle empty. To cast the spell, the magic jar must be within spell range and you must know where it is, though you do not need line of sight or line of effect to it. When you transfer your soul upon casting, your body is, as near as anyone can tell, dead.

While in the magic jar, you can sense and attack any life force within 10 feet per caster level (and on the same plane of existence). You do need line of effect from the jar to the creatures. You cannot determine the exact creature types or positions of these creatures. In a group of life forces, you can sense a difference of 4 or more HD between one creature and another and can determine whether a life force is powered by positive or negative energy. (Undead creatures are powered by negative energy. Only sentient undead creatures have, or are, souls.)

You could choose to take over either a stronger or a weaker creature, but which particular stronger or weaker creature you attempt to possess is determined randomly.

Attempting to possess a body is a full-round action. It is blocked by protection from evil or a similar ward. You possess the body and force the creature's soul into the magic jar unless the subject succeeds on a Will save. Failure to take over the host leaves your life force in the magic jar, and the target automatically succeeds on further saving throws if you attempt to possess its body again.

If you are successful, your life force occupies the host body, and the host's life force is imprisoned in the magic jar. You keep your Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, level, class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, alignment, and mental abilities. The body retains its Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, hit points, natural abilities, and automatic abilities. A body with extra limbs does not allow you to make more attacks (or more advantageous two-weapon attacks) than normal. You can't choose to activate the body's extraordinary or supernatural abilities. The creature's spells and spell-like abilities do not stay with the body.

As a standard action, you can shift freely from a host to the magic jar if within range, sending the trapped soul back to its body. The spell ends when you shift from the jar to your own body.

If the host body is slain, you return to the magic jar, if within range, and the life force of the host departs (it is dead). If the host body is slain beyond the range of the spell, both you and the host die. Any life force with nowhere to go is treated as slain.

If the spell ends while you are in the magic jar, you return to your body (or die if your body is out of range or destroyed). If the spell ends while you are in a host, you return to your body (or die, if it is out of range of your current position), and the soul in the magic jar returns to its body (or dies if it is out of range). Destroying the receptacle ends the spell, and the spell can be dispelled at either the magic jar or the host's location.

First, if I am a creature such as an outsider, can I use this spell? The text says my soul leaves my body, but outsiders do not have a separate soul. Their body and soul are one unit.

Second, If I take the form of a body with multiple natural attacks, say an octopus, can I make some or any of them? The spell text says that "A body with extra limbs does not allow you to make more attacks (or more advantageous two handed attacks) than normal."

I believe that the spell is saying that you can't make more weapon or unarmed attacks because of the extra limbs (what I think is probably the RAI). But it could be read to mean that if I took over an octopus I could only make a number of natural attacks with its tentacles equal to the number of attacks I can normally make?

Also in the above case would natural attacks that don't come from limbs (I am assuming that a head isn't a limb) still be confined?

Taking this to the extreme, if I had no natural attacks before, would any natural attack granted by a limb be unavailable to me, as long as the creature had more limbs than I, since these would be attacks above and beyond what I could normally make, granted by a creature with extra limbs?


The spell text, and lich text prompting my question is as follows :

Text from the Magic Jar spell :

Quote:


By casting magic jar, you place your soul in a gem or large crystal (known as the magic jar), leaving your body lifeless. Then you can attempt to take control of a nearby body, forcing its soul into the magic jar. You may move back to the jar (thereby returning the trapped soul to its body) and attempt to possess another body.

The spell ends when you send your soul back to your own body, leaving the receptacle empty.

Text about a lich's phylactery :

Quote:


An integral part of becoming a lich is the creation of the phylactery in which the character stores his soul. The only way to get rid of a lich for sure is to destroy its phylactery. Unless its phylactery is located and destroyed, a lich can rejuvenate after it is killed (see Creating a Lich, below).

The above text prompts a few questions.

1) As the soul of a lich is stored in its phylactery is a lich ever capable of using the spell (is it possible to remove a soul from its phylactery, or use this spell without the soul component)?

2)If the lich is capable of casting this spell, would said lich be able to do this anywhere or only near his/her phylactery (to have access to his soul or is the link between the body and phylactery enough)?

3) The spell lists several cases that can result in the death of the caster. Most of these cases relate to the soul of the caster being unable to return to its body if the possessed creature is slain. If one of these conditions is met then what would happen to the lich.

Death conditions for reference

Quote:

If the host body is slain, you return to the magic jar, if within range, and the life force of the host departs (it is dead). If the host body is slain beyond the range of the spell, both you and the host die. Any life force with nowhere to go is treated as slain.

If the spell ends while you are in the magic jar, you return to your body (or die if your body is out of range or destroyed). If the spell ends while you are in a host, you return to your body (or die, if it is out of range of your current position), and the soul in the magic jar returns to its body (or dies if it is out of range). Destroying the receptacle ends the spell, and the spell can be dispelled at either the magic jar or the host's location.


The feat text is below:

Quote:


You benefit greatly from your healing, be it from spells or natural healing.

Prerequisites: Con 13, Diehard, Endurance.

Benefit: When you regain hit points by resting or through magical healing, you recover additional hit points equal to half your Constitution modifier (minimum +1).

If a PC takes the Fast Healer Feat and then becomes undead, does he/she lose the ability of the feat? Or does the feat function but instead rely on the charisma score of the character? I tend to think it would still function RAI, as charisma is used for HP and Fort Saves for an undead, but I am unsure about a RAW interpretation.


If a lich uses magic jar to possess and control a body, and then that body dies while out of range of the magic jar, say both the jar and the lich body stay in the lair, what happens?

Also can a lich even cast magic jar as its soul is in its phylactery?


This may be a question with a fairly obvious answer, but if reduce person or some other polymorph spell is used to make a target smaller, and then said target is placed in a box sized to its new dimensions, what occurs when the spell ends.

I would assume if the box was wood or some other such material there might be a strength check to break out, but what if the material is very strong or if that target fails the check?


The spell forbiddance states the following

Quote:


forbiddance seals an area against all planar travel into or within it. This includes all teleportation spells (such as dimension door and teleport), plane shifting, astral travel, ethereal travel, and all summoning spells. Such effects simply fail automatically.

Does this mean that a character could plane shift out of a forbiddance spell, or teleport out of one? or do those cases count as using extra dimensional travel within the forbiddance spell?

I can see either ruling, but I am inclined to say that a player could travel out of one, as the spell elaborates by saying into or within as opposed to saying all travel is restricted (as in the spell dimensional lock)?

please advise


Just as the question asks, does a lich's phylactery need to be on the same plane as the lich to restore said lich upon destruction. I can see this going either way but I can't find anything RAW that dictates one way or another. For further reference, the text on a phylactery is shown below.

Quote:

An integral part of becoming a lich is the creation of the phylactery in which the character stores his soul. The only way to get rid of a lich for sure is to destroy its phylactery. Unless its phylactery is located and destroyed, a lich can rejuvenate after it is killed (see Creating a lich , below).

Each lich must create its own phylactery by using the Craft Wondrous Item feat. The character must be able to cast spells and have a caster level of 11th or higher. The phylactery costs 120,000 gp to create and has a caster level equal to that of its creator at the time of creation.

The most common form of phylactery is a sealed metal box containing strips of parchment on which magical phrases have been transcribed. The box is Tiny and has 40 hit points, hardness 20, and a break DC of 40.

Other forms of phylacteries can exist, such as rings, amulets, or similar items.[/quote}


Simple question, when a calling spell, the gate spell for instance, is used to call a creature, say a solar, does that creature come with the items listed on its monster entry (bow, sword, and plate)?

Additionally, if that creature is killed does it drop said items? I ask because when a called creature is reduced to zero hp it is killed, not simply returned like a summoning spell. Furthermore, would killing said creature yield xp?

For further reference, here is the text on calling spells:

Calling: A calling spell transports a creature from another plane to the plane you are on. The spell grants the creature the one-time ability to return to its plane of origin, although the spell may limit the circumstances under which this is possible. Creatures who are called actually die when they are killed; they do not disappear and reform, as do those brought by a summoning spell (see below). The duration of a calling spell is instantaneous, which means that the called creature can't be dispelled.