AncientSpark's page

Wielding is sort of nebulous in PF, but lets assume wielding means you have to be able to actively attack with it, not just holding it.

So supposing a class feature requires you to "wield" a specific weapon and that weapon is unarmed strike, does this mean these features apply even if your hands are full with other weapons? Even if you don't attack with unarmed strike that round?

Suppose you attach a ranged only magic property to a thrown weapon, but that property would be beneficial to melee combat. Is the user allowed to use that ranged only property in melee combat?

The example that came up was using the Driving weapon enhancement, which allows ranged weapons to bull rush within the first ranged increment, to allow the user to use their weapon bonuses when bull rushing in *melee* combat.

The Grenadier's Alchemical Weapon ability reads:

"At 2nd level, a grenadier can infuse a weapon or piece of ammunition with a single harmful alchemical liquid or powder, such as alchemist’s fire or sneezing powder, as a move action. This action consumes the alchemical item, but transfers its effect to the weapon in question.

The alchemical item takes full effect on the next creature struck by the weapon, but does not splash, spread, or otherwise affect additional targets..."

It's obvious that stuff that falls under Alchemical Creations works, but some preliminary research suggests that an Alchemist's Bombs are not supposed to work with this, RAI.

So what is supposed to be the limit of this ability? Is it any item that can be created by the Craft (Alchemy) skill, but not (Su) abilites granted by classes?

Suppose you have a Spell-like ability and you have a second ability that says "When you cast a spell", does the spell-like ability trigger that ability?

To further expand on this, suppose the spell-like ability now emulates a spell on a divine list; would this trigger abilities that say "When you cast a divine spell"?

An example would be triggering the Glorious Heat feat with a fire spell-like ability.

Yeah, you're wrong. If the party takes heavy damage in one combat and then needs four or five minutes to heal themselves up, it is totally reasonable for occupants of the next room to come and investigate.

This assumption that you can always heal up all damage you have received in one encounter assumes always perfect conditions for the party.

This kind of thinking always boggles my mind on how people think it's a reasonable counter to system mechanics.

First, there is a wide gap between "reasonable counters every once in a while" and "reasonable counters to every use of the mechanic". Is it reasonable for you to get ambushed while CLW spamming every once in a while? Sure. But it's not going to happen every time. Heck, I argue that in a practical sense, where there's a wide variety of environments, RP situations, and enemy types, it makes no sense for it to happen a lot of the time; pretty much, that sort of behavior would be constrained to areas where there are allies within a reasonable area, which isn't actually all that common outside of enemy strongholds and dungeons.

You make the argument that CLW doesn't happen in perfect circumstances, which is true, but the fact that it's true is not relevant, it's how reasonable are those "perfect circumstances" to occur in most games and how much disruption it takes to knock players out of those perfect circumstances.

It's the same argument that makes "burn the wizard's spellbook" as a counter make no sense. Attempting to counter broken mechanics itself inflicts a cost on the game, whether it's interesting gameplay or game planning or player satisfaction or DM-player relations, etc. You always hear tales of DMs making unreasonable restrictions on players but those tend to occur because the DM has a perception of what is broken or not and, regardless of whether they're right or not, it doesn't matter because what's important is the effect of that "game break fixing" on player enjoyment.

Secondly, if I'm going into a game where I know that I'm only going to have limited CLW spam time, that isn't going to prevent me from keeping around a CLW wand. What I'm going to do is keep only a couple of healing spells for out of combat and then use my CLW wand in the remaining time. So this doesn't stop me from abusing CLW wands as a way of saving healing spells entirely, it just mitigates the effect.

The reason why is because the major effectiveness of countering CLW spam is the uncertainty of ambush. If I spam CLW and get ambushed suddenly, that's effective in getting me to stop CLW spamming just in case because I don't know the timing. But that's only effective a couple of times. Once I'm aware that there is a specific amount of time that I usually have before I get ambushed when CLW spamming, the DM has to either make the time before getting ambushed so short as to be impractical for gameplay (as in argument 1) or they have to allot a certain amount of CLW time as a compromise for reasonableness, which means I STILL have my CLW spam up to the amount of time that usually occurs.

So why go through all the hassle of putting it on the DM to moderate healing in such a roundabout way such as in-game time? It's much easier to moderate healing through a more visible point-to-point system that has little cost to RP and can be set in a very clear manner ahead of time, so it's much clearer to all players and the DM how much healing the party should expect and much more amicable when the DM has to fix how much healing the party has. Time is not easily moderated, arbitrary points with little RP impact IS easily moderated.

That's why Resonance makes much more sense as a way to control healing.

Now, whether the implementation of Resonance as a whole is a good system remains to be seen from the numerics standpoint, but saying that CLW spam was counterable by circumstance in the original PF is not practical to actual gameplay.

My bad, I'll have those changes.

The Rogue Dirty Trick is mostly a problem where you can't get the initial Dirty Trick, though. I agree that once you land one Dirty Trick, landing more and scoring tons of Sneak Attack damage is very easy.

Hey guys. On a whim, I decided to write up a handbook to the most creative combat maneuver in the game, the Dirty Trick! In the vein of the sadly outdated Trip handbook, I'm hoping this will give people some ideas of how to build a Dirty Trick character.

This is my first handbook, so feel free to leave any comments below.

Here it is!

Okay, well that seems crazy crippling. You can essentially sit there and extend Blind ad nauseum plus a second condition and just utterly debuff one enemy into oblivion.

The feat Kitsune Tricks reads:

While you are using the Kitsune Style feat, you can apply two different conditions with a single dirty trick combat maneuver check. Removing both conditions imparted in this way requires only one action.

How does this interact with features that interfere with removing specific conditions of Dirty Trick? For example, Superior Dirty Trick extends how long it takes to remove one specific condition or the Underhanded Trick rogue power prevents enemies from removing the Blind condition for 1 round.

Two Weapon Feint reads:

While using Two-Weapon Fighting to make melee attacks, you can forgo your first primary-hand melee attack to make a Bluff check to feint an opponent.

Question 1: There are ways to attack with two weapons as a standard action, such as the Dual Strike Weapon Trick feat.

As a standard action, you can make two attacks, one with each weapon you’re wielding, applying the normal penalties for two-weapon fighting to each.

Can Two Weapon Feint be used with this?

Question 2: Twinned Feint reads:

Benefit: As a standard action, you can attempt to feint against a foe within your reach. If you succeed at the feint, you can make an additional feint attempt against a foe that is adjacent to the first one and also within reach. You can attempt only one additional feint per action with this feat. When you use this feat, you take a –2 penalty to your AC until your next turn.

Special: If you have the Improved Feint feat, you can use this feat as a move action instead.

Can this be used with Two Weapon Feint?

The trademark ability of the Duettist archetype of the Bard reads thus:

Performing Familiar (Su)

At 4th level, a duettist’s familiar learns how to create supernatural effects with its performances, just like its master. The familiar can use any of its master’s bardic performances, but only the familiar or the duettist can have a performance active at any given time, not both. If one is performing and the other starts a performance, the previous performance immediately ends. Each round that the familiar performs consumes 2 rounds of the duettist’s bardic performance.

In this case, does the familiar using Bardic Performance trigger other effects dependent on Bardic music that the master has? For example, can the master using spells that end Bardic Performance like the Finale spells? If the master has feats like Master Performer or Lingering Voice or Discordant Voice, do they trigger off of the familiar?

Ranged Feint reads:

You can feint with a ranged weapon by throwing a thrown weapon or firing one arrow, bolt, bullet, or other piece of ammunition; this feint takes the same action as normal to feint, but depending on your weapon, you might have to reload or draw another weapon afterward...

...Normal: You can feint only with a melee weapon, and only against a creature you threaten with that weapon.

And Twinned Feint reads:

As a standard action, you can attempt to feint against a foe within your reach. If you succeed at the feint, you can make an additional feint attempt against a foe that is adjacent to the first one and also within reach.

From what I'm assuming, the bolded part in Twinned Feint is there to prevent shenanigans of allowing you to feint at ranged without the Ranged Feint feat. However, does that mean that if you DO have Ranged Feint, it does not apply to Twinned Feint?

The Blistering Feint feat has, as part of its text,

"Anytime you successfully feint a creature while using such a weapon, you may deal its fire damage to the enemy."

I have two cases where a character has a weapon attack that does entirely fire damage.

1) The first is 3rd Party, from Dreamscarred Press: The soulknife's "Fire Blade" ability:

"When the soulknife makes an attack with her mind blade, she can choose to have it deal fire damage instead of its normal damage."

2) The second is the Alchemist's bombs, which is even less clear because it says Vital Strike only applies to the first die of damage and it's not clear if they're "wielding a weapon that does fire damage".

What is the damage dealt by Blistering Feint in these two cases? Do you add the ability modifier because it converted all the damage to fire? Do you add other effects? Since it's not an attack, I imagine you cannot add conditional effects like Sneak Attack, but what about morale bonuses to weapon damage rolls?

Suppose a target is denied their Dex bonus to AC already, but you have some effect that triggers off a feint (in this example, your team has Improved Feint Partner). Is it possible to feint that target again?

Yeah, the main feature of Tricks is that they're emergency support buttons. They are designed to not be placed not only on yourself, but also your allies. The main feature of the class is not the tricks, it's the Hypnotic Gaze + spell-list centered on Will saves, but tricks are a bone to throw to the Mesmerist so they can still contribute something in combat while they're fishing for a save-or-suck.

That's also why they're a free action to activate so that they don't mess with your main combat pattern.

AncientSpark wrote:

The problem is the width of the niche and the effort needed by the campaign to adapt to the class.

But you're missing my point altogether, I don't want nor need to be inclusive, I am always exclusive. I run themed games, always. I hate kitchen sink settings and all-inclusive campaigns. It isn't always the same classes, monsters, magic items, and spells - every campaign has restrictions, and there will be different restrictions in different games. I don't try to think how I can make an allowance for a given published concept that a given player wants - if I stated no gunslingers or no samurai up front, then that's what it means, and no exceptions.

Of course, I have an existing table of players that are excited about playing themed games, so I'm not in a position of lacking players, so having to accommodate their wants in order just to get them to participate in my game. I don't need that, so no need to accommodate, ever.

Right now I'm working on a gothic horror, old west setting for Pathfinder (for publication), where the advanced gun rules are the order of the day. Every class will have an archetype with some level of firearms use. You could choose to play a character with no firearms skills in the setting, but it would be kind of stupid (not impossible, but stupid, just the same). Additionally, its a humanocentric setting - the only playable race are humans.

No, you're missing the point. If you run a game where Secret Identity is useful, it's useful to *everyone or no-one* because the campaign theme is specifically weighted towards that, so you're incentivized to make Secret Identity a globally available ability. Under that case, why are you making it a class? Classes are bigger deals than feats or systems because you have to commit more of your levels you run? I mean, they don't make "Caravan master" a class for Jade Regent because everyone should have incentive on participating in caravan shenanigans regardless of class, right? Wouldn't that be the case for Vigilante for Intrigue-based games?

Yeah, it's cute that you can run a game where everyone has a gun archetype and make it work, but that doesn't mean that the gun archetype is useful *only in that circumstance*. It's useful in all sorts of campaigns and it's useful in games where there are mixes of gun users and non-gun users. It's useful if you're the only gun user and it's useful if you're in all gun games. That doesn't apply for Social Identity, unless the DM specifically weights the game towards a Social Identity-based Intrigue game.

I mean, you're raising all this hubbub about class inclusivity, but tell me, what's the difference if they made Social Identity a system vs a class? Wouldn't it still be the same for intrigue-based games like you're clamoring for?

As a guy playing someone with a masked identity (masked avenger swashbuckler) in Iron Gods right now, I can say with some authority that it neither requires taking over the campaign nor foisting an alternate identity on the rest of the group. It requires a certain amount of flexibility on the part of the player and some thought beforehand on why the PC would be interested in traveling with the rest of the party, but that's a good thing to do with any character, so I don't feel like it's demanding too much.

Would you notice any difference if Social Identity read "+20 to Disguise"? Could you give an example? It's not just that the ability isn't useful, it's just that it's nothing more than a numerical bonus unless the DM throws more towards the player's alternate identity, which leads to the above circumstance.

AncientSpark wrote:

The whole "whether the skill bonus is worth a feat or not" is barking up the wrong tree, in my opinion. The problem isn't whether a social identity is mechanically balanced or worth it, the problem is that the social identity is trying to encompass a playstyle that only certain campaigns will even be interested in.

Isn't that true of any class that some playstyles or campaign flavors aren't optimal for a given table? I mean in a Dark Age setting gunslingers don't belong, as simply firearms don't exist. If you're running a Plieostocene Epoch game where everybody is a cave dwelling barbarian, most weapons and armor don't belong.

So if there exists a class that fits a flavor that isn't included in your game, any class is subject to not belonging. I don't see the Vigilante as being especially unusable versus any other class or class concept for many games. Some classes just don't fit every table's needs.

The problem is the width of the niche and the effort needed by the campaign to adapt to the class. Gunslinger has one problem with it, that it relies on a technology not available to every campaign. But, in truth, there's not much work that you need to get it to work if you wanted to; you just say "Guns have been invented" and you don't have to change plots or give extra focus to the Gunslinger's character events, etc. And you don't have to say any more about why a character has a gun besides "That's what he was trained with" (although you certainly could).

Social Identity requires more campaign weight. For one, having a alternate identity that a character relies on constantly doesn't mean anything if that identity isn't pressured. There has to be a reason why the character has to keep their adventurer identity hidden and then that has to bring at least some focus into the campaign or else it's just a Disguise bonus. For example, in superhero comics, alternate identities exist to either protect people the hero knows or because they exist outside the law, which makes it a major comic book focus. The plot of comic books warp around the idea that its hero has an alternate identity.

Then you have to ask the question of why does the vigilante have to hide and the others don't? Again, think of the gunslinger; the reason why the gunslinger uses guns and the others don't is because it's either not widely available or the other characters were not trained in it. But, for the vigilante, there is no such easy reason. The other adventurers are in plain sight and, presumably, they will have similar enemies to the vigilante due to being in a party. Why is it that only the vigilante has to keep up an alternate identity? Do you have to make vigilante only enemies for the character in order to force alternate identities? If you do, isn't that forcing a class into a story role where it really shouldn't require one?

See what I mean? The gunslinger has very little pressure on what the campaign means as a whole. Yes, it might not fit in every campaign due to iron-clad flavor reasons, but it's relatively painless to insert into a game as well, because the party dynamic or the campaign events are not warped by their introduction. The vigilante warps required campaign and character events because Social identity, in order for it not to be "just a Disguise bonus", gains a lot of event and flavor implications.

I mean, to take your example of it fitting a campaign, the vigilante requires more events centered around the idea of the alternate identity. And if such a situation occurs, then why don't you just make it available to everyone, since it's a major campaign theme? Why restrict it to a class and instead just make it an alternate system?

The whole "whether the skill bonus is worth a feat or not" is barking up the wrong tree, in my opinion. The problem isn't whether a social identity is mechanically balanced or worth it, the problem is that the social identity is trying to encompass a playstyle that only certain campaigns will even be interested in.

Why will I care to detail out an alternate identity for a game where the DM will not let me explore it? Most Pathfinder games just aren't going to run into a situation where your alternate identity will be pressured or questioned any more than a normal Disguise check. In such situations, the whole alternate identity ability just boils down to a raw Disguise bonus check and it doesn't let you do anything new besides a very high bonus to your Disguise check.

Only a very specific campaign will there be a difference between Social Identity, as written, and a raw Disguise bonus. In such a case, it works better as a campaign specific system instead of a class, an ability, or even a a feat.

From what I understand, Sneak Attack usually is not affected by multiplicative effects. For example, you can't Empower or Maximize the Sneak Attack dice occurring on a spell.

But if the target is Vulnerable to your Sneak Attack damage type? For example, the Shaman Flame Curses a target, then the Arcane Trickster Scorching Ray's it and triggers the Sneak Attack? The Sneak Attack damage becomes fire due to it triggering off a fire spell and, thus, the target is vulnerable to the Sneak Attack damage. Is the Sneak Attack damage multiplied then or not?

You probably meant "not optimized" for two levels, but if you really meant "useless" you're exaggerating, and if you don't see the wisdom in 'paying' for the privilege to use Dex to damage in the form of waiting two levels, then don't: from now on only play characters that have high STR and can dish lots of hurt right from level 1. You *have* a choice.

So, in other words, you mean a Swashbuckler is essentially the same as an NPC class for levels 1 to 2 and you're okay with that, because universal options ensures people can do the bare minimum.

The thing is that classes already pay for Dex to damage; you burn two feats and your weapon selection is limited down. And that's okay. The real problem I have is, when, I have to essentially ignore my entire class to contribute at all at levels 1-2 and rely on universal options.

Here's a question: If a player new to Pathfinder joins your game and says "I want to play a piratey swashbuckling scoundrel" and you show him the Swashbuckler and he agrees. Then you tell him that you do no damage with their main style for levels 1-2, do you think he'll find that fun? Do you think that your explanation that "it's a payment for Dex to damage" will enrich their gameplay?

I actually agree that I don't mind Dex to damage having opportunity cost, that being two feats (Weapon Finesse + one of the Dex to damage feats). What personally drives me nuts is that Dex to damage isn't playable from level 1 without Human, since Dervish Dance requires 2 ranks in Dance and Slashing Grace/Fencing Grace requires Weapon Focus as well as Weapon Finesse.

Is that just me or does that bother anyone else as well?

Skalds starts song and fighter accepts

Fighter's turn, fighter accepts song again and is raging
skald is still raging and so is fighter

That's why the quote confuses me because the quote specifically says that the raging song's effect on the ally ends at the end of that allies' turn. This would imply that the third line is not true, because by the time the skald's turn comes around, the fighter is no longer in rage because the fighter's turn has ended.

I was searching through the forums and some people discussed using the Skald's Raging Song + Amplified Rage teamwork feat to grant massive Str bonuses. Since I'm playing in a gestalt game soon, this seemed like an interesting combination to try out. However, I noticed that the skald's raging song notes:

"If a raging song affects allies, when the skald begins a raging song and at the start of each ally's turn in which they can hear the raging song, the skald's allies must decide whether to accept or refuse its effects. This is not an action. Unconscious allies automatically accept the song. If accepted, the raging song's effects last for that ally's turn or until the song ends, whichever comes first."

So, from what I'm understanding, since Amplified Rage requires two people to be raging at the same time, this is only applicable to allies and only during their turn; the Skald is raging at all times, so for allies during their turn, they can accept the Raging Song. However, their rage ends immediately at the end of their turn, meaning that when the Skald's turn comes, the Skald is the only one raging.

Is that correct?

I still don't get why that third attack is so game breaking.

Because the swift action is balanced on the caveat that the action does not interfere with your other actions. Would some abilities still be usable? Maybe, but you'd have to look through each ability separately and rejudge every ability to determine this. Tactician is much weaker, Studied Combat is very weak until later levels, Brawler's Martial Flexibility is significantly worse because Swift Action Feat generation is weaker, and many Swift Action spells no longer have any point (Every Alchemist who wishes they could use Burst of Speed knows what I'm talking about). And, granted, if you're at early levels, a -10 attack isn't that effective, but you really aren't being creative enough if you can't come up with other uses for the extra action (Changing Move to double Move, for example, is potentially very useful).

Your example, with the Warpriest and the Magus, has a crucial misunderstanding in my opinion. There are two aspects to Swift Actions in the original system:

1) Swift Actions do not interfere with other actions.
2) You only get one Swift Action per turn.

The problem you attribute is entirely a product of the second problem, which was a necessary patch to combat action economy creep. None of these problems are inherent to the first aspect, that Swift Actions are free and the abilities are balanced with the assumption that you don't spend significant time finagling with buffs in the first round, except for the fact that the first aspect semi-necessitates the second. We see this with gish patterns, where many gishes jump through millions of hoops to ensure that they spend minimum time in combat actually buffing and that the only in-combat buffs they run are extremely powerful, comparatively.

If you patch the new system with "the first swift action is free", then this problem goes away, because if you want, you can make sacrifices to get all your Swift Action buffs ready, but the classes that were dependent on at least one Swift Action aren't hosed into making significant sacrifices in their first round to get their class in order. And the idea that this makes "non-Swift Action using classes non-viable" is foolhardy, because making punishing the Swift Action using classes makes THOSE classes non-viable.

kestral287 wrote:

Entire classes depended on the swift action.

Pretty stark difference, that.

That's a bit of a stretch considering that you can still play those classes and they still function exactly the same with the sole exception being the sacred cow of the full round attack, since that is the one thing everyone is upset about who has a problem with this system.

Again, the swift action was a bad mechanic, the only reason it existed was because you otherwise couldn't do a full round. But the full round was also a bad mechanic which pretty much everyone on these forums universally agrees with.

You can't get rid of full rounds and keep swift actions, because it just turns the new system into the old one again. At that point, why bother playing this new system?

That literally has nothing to do with it. If we were all using the old system, but changed all the swift actions to standard actions, everyone would still "Full attack on round 2", the difference would be "Move + Buff" vs "Move + Attack" on Round 1.

And there's still plenty of reasons to use the system even with an extra swift action. Double movement + Standard Action Attack without terrible Charge rules, encouraging in-and-out mobility, making spells rightfully worth more time than a basic attack, actually functional run-and-gun gameplay for archers, maneuvers being incorporated into an actual full-round sequence rather than being stuck into the "Can I use a maneuver as an attack? No? Then it's kind of unusable", previously weak actions that were standard actions being more useful (such as Channel Energy), allowing multiple attacks at low level, culling multiple attacks into something more manageable, allowing characters with weaker to-attack rolls to convert their normally useless latter iterative attacks to maybe something useful, separating BAB determining your number of attacks out (which always was annoying), and so on and so forth. None of these benefits suddenly become invalid just because, say, the Investigator still doesn't have to spend an action to actually get their required combat bonuses to be a decent attacker.

Again, swift action has nothing to do with full attack, it has everything to do with the fact that swift actions were worth less than move and standard actions and were balanced with that in mind. For example, almost no one uses Tactician in early levels as a Cavalier because standard action giving everyone a teamwork feat wasn't worth 1 attack (and yes, not a full attack. Again, most people would just go "Move + Tactician" replacing "Move + Attack". And this is at low levels, so the full attack argument is meaningless because full attack doesn't mean anything at pre-6 levels). Once it became a swift action, it became much more attractive because you don't sacrifice as much to do it.

AncientSpark wrote:

Would you spend Fervor to cast a spell as a standard action...instead of just using the standard action to cast the spell?

casting a spell is 2 acts btw...

My bad, keep equating action to standard in head still.

Kudaku wrote:

AncientSpark wrote:

I haven't really read much of the thread, so I haven't gotten a chance to parse a lot of the discussion, but re: swift actions, is it really that bad to modify the system from "3 actions" to "3 actions, plus a free swift action"? Then you'd erase a lot of the problems that seem to be passed around.

Not really. I haven't playtested this yet, but I'm probably leaning towards doing just that. I'm assuming there's a reason why Stephen didn't want to make swift actions a separate action. Tricky part is figuring out why. :)

Because out goes against the intentions of the system.

Get over the swift action people. It has always been a bad mechanic, the only reason it exists was because power creep made doing things as free actions ridiculous. 3.5 gave away a lot of abilities as free actions to allow you to full attack.

Under the new system, the full attack no longer exists, nor should it.

Just because full attack doesn't exist under this system doesn't mean that swift action shouldn't be part of the system. The reason why swift action buffs are allowed to be swift action is because they simply aren't worth the time of a standard attack. That does not change between this system and the original system; if they were, then there would be no reason to have swift action in the first place and all such buffs would be standard actions, like a lot of standard action spells.

Would you spend a Ki point and a standard action to get an extra attack...instead of just using the standard action to get an extra attack? Would you spend Fervor to cast a spell as a standard action...instead of just using the standard action to cast the spell? That's effectively what you're saying are fair trades because "Swift Action should require an action under the new system".

I think people are most upset be those "optimized" builds go right now the window, you can not longer 1 round the BBEG (although you probably could) so people don't like it.

If you don't want to adopt the system then don't, move along to another thread and let people who want to use the system and discuss the merits of it.

I know this is the first I have talked in the thread and I have been reading it since the launch of the thread, I am waiting for the PDF to be available to buy and put it into practice. I even think it will be good for helping introduce children to the system.

I think there's a difference to be had when people complain about not being able to one- shot BBEG and when people complain that a basic ability is rendered almost completely non-functional, such as with Warpriest swift-action casting or Magus Arcane Blading or the vast vast majority of swift action spells.

I think, after looking through the system, is that many abilities simply just no longer work or have radically different uses when using the new system. Which would be fine if many classes weren't built around the assumption that certain abilities are swift action. So rather than go through and house-rule every ability that could run into this problem, wouldn't it be easier to simply just add a swift action onto the 3 actions? Then you get both the advantages of possibly more mobile combat AND you don't have to run through and houserule a lot of different abilities.

EDIT: And, if it's such a problem that you NEED to nerf Swift Action casting specifically, then just say "Quickened lowers spells from 2 Actions to 1 Action" as the only exception to the added Swift Action and you get a very targeted nerf. Yes, it's another houserule, but it's not like it's a complicated one to add onto the system.

I haven't really read much of the thread, so I haven't gotten a chance to parse a lot of the discussion, but re: swift actions, is it really that bad to modify the system from "3 actions" to "3 actions, plus a free swift action"? Then you'd erase a lot of the problems that seem to be passed around.

So I have this Halfling Cavalier (Daring Champion), who gains Precise Strike. Precise Strike specifically says that it does not allow natural attacks, which naturally disallows unarmed strike, even if I convert my unarmed attack to piercing with something like Snake Style.

But what if I'm wearing a gauntlet? A gauntlet says "This metal glove lets you deal lethal damage rather than nonlethal damage with unarmed strikes. A strike with a gauntlet is otherwise considered an unarmed attack."

So, a) If the gauntlet counts as I'm using an unarmed attack, does this mean that it's compatible with Snake Style (which converts the attack to piercing) and its later iterations like Snake Fang? And b) If it does, is this compatible with Precise Strike, because the gauntlet is manufactured, even though it "counts as unarmed strike"?

My intuition says this doesn't work because you can't have gauntlets steal some characteristics of unarmed strike and not others, but on the other hand, it already does by existing (for example, you can Magic Weapon a gauntlet). Thoughts?

AncientSpark wrote:

Powerful for early game. After a certain point, you're not going to be that hard pressed for money to just buy additional enhancement gear and skill gear. Animal Focus will always only be a money saver, so if you're only dipping for Animal Focus, you're only saying that you just want a little money and that money savings isn't proportional to your level.

A ring of regeneration costs 90Kgp. Fast Healing 1 isn't as powerful but it duplicates most of the ring's powers. From the CR, a slotless widgit of infernal healing would cost 16Kgp. The dip also lets you duplicate a slotless amulet of natural armor +2, 16Kgp. or add a +2 bonus to certain abilities. Adding a +2 ability boost to an ability boosting item costs 6Kgp, but this is slotless so double the cost.

We're not talking about it taking hundreds of gp to duplicate these features, but tens of thousands of gp. I don't think that's "a little money".

It sounds like you're dipping for the Vermin archetype. Which I, admittedly, kind of skipped over, cause I have zero experience with it. It does strike me silly that the Vermin focuses are way better than the regular Animal Foci, but, eh, I guess you have a point there.

TL;DR about Hunter's Tricks and Primal Companion base forms; no one really knows. Both of them are improperly explained. These are both pretty serious FAQ candidates.

Marcus Robert Hosler wrote:

Rynjin wrote:

And I'd hardly call a boost to anything from attack, damage, or AC to things like checks to overcome SR, Damage Reduction, or DR bypass "nearly nothing".

Getting a +5 weapon by level 9 as a swift action is kind'of ridiculous. Lol DR and AC. Throw on arcane accuracy for another +4-9 to-hit depending on level. By the time you do get a +5 weapon, you're such high level that your buffs give you all the extra to-hit you need.

Man, compared to trying to bork a rogue to competent, rofl-stomping as a magus is almost easy.

The paladin also can increase his weapon bonus when he knows what's coming, and in the highly likely event that it's evil in PFS +4-7 to hit and + Level or double level to damage as well as DR bypass and +4-7 to AC. In the also highly likely event (I haven't seen a PFS paladin without it) that they have oath of vengeance so they get free smites.

In what world is bane or +X Weapon enhancements even close to that.

The WP is almost the exact same problem. That's why I'm annoyed.

I don't think anyone really argues with you that Smite is ridiculous and nothing really matches it's raw power in WP or Magus. But you're also forgetting that Smite is a highly variable ability that isn't always applicable.

I mean, consider this: at level 5, a Shocking Grasp will do 13.5 average damage. In order for Smite to deal the same amount of bonus damage, you have to do around 2.5 additional attacks. Considering that, at this point, Paladins have 2 smites per day and Magi have 5-6 Shocking Grasps, a Paladin will have to perform 12.5-15 attacks over two combats in order for Smite to catch up to Shocking Grasp. That's actually pretty favorable considering two combats

Yes, Paladins are more accurate and yes, Paladins are inherently less risky, tougher, and have better base stats. They also don't have additional casting ability, only have one real trick in terms of attack without really much in the way of additional options till higher level casting. Then further consider the fact that Shocking Grasp scales FASTER than Smite in terms of burst damage due to Intensified Spell until level 10, leaving Smite only better because it persists across multiple attacks. And this is using all level 1 and 2 spells, leaving the Magus with even HIGHER utility past level 7 when level 3 spells come around! AND, may I remind you, this is all discounting items like Pearls of Power, which Magi can use over and over again to further extend their combat time, which is especially relevant because Magi don't have to buy weapons ever due to the Bladebound archetype.

Yes, if you're going to compare pure beat-stick power with stats, Paladins win because they have abilities that last all combat, and yes, Magi are less reliable. As it turns out, though, Magi have also many more powers than Paladins due to Arcana and higher caster level. They also have high scaling abilities that are far more scaleable at higher levels than Smite is (Spell Perfection anyone?). Come 13th level, a Magi can start pulling out Maximized Intensified Shocking Grasps, worth 60 damage each, which requires more than 4 different Paladin attacks to equal; that's a significant amount of attacks. By that point, 1st iteratives will almost always hit, but 2nd and 3rd iteratives are still lagging behind, to the point where getting 4 attacks out against an enemy will take a significant amount of time.

Alexander Augunas wrote:

Here is an important clause to note that will likely ruin the OP's day.

In the Advanced Class Guide, on Page 8, we get the following paragraph:

Parent Classes: Each one of the following classes lists two classes that it draws upon to form the basis of its theme. While a character can multiclass with these parent classes, this usually results in redundant abilities. Such abilities don't stack unless specified. If a class feature allows the character to make a one-time choice (such as a bloodline), that choice must match similar choices by the parent classes and vice versa (such as selecting the same bloodline).

Nope! Parent classes have been errata'd away!

Uuuuh, where has it been errataed? It's literally been less than a week, I really doubt any errata exists dude.

The Divine Hunter is mostly because, if you're Ranged, you're looking to skip Teamwork feats, leaving the comparison between Divine Hunter and Sacred Huntsmaster/Preacher. I think that skipping Preacher's Determination is way more plausible in these cases and that, combined with the fact that double Animal Focus is actually more useful for ranged characters (Dex/Str plus spending money on magic ammunition) than melee leaves Divine Hunter in a better spot compared to Sacred Huntsmaster because they gain double Animal Focus faster. Also consider Divine Hunter can still take Primal Companion as well. Plus, if you're skipping teamwork feats, you're also skipping Improved Share Spell, which lowers the value of the Inquisitor spell list.

Now, if you're still sticking with teamwork feats despite that, then yes, Sacred Huntsmaster still blows Divine Hunter out of the water.

Honestly, I don't think the Skirmisher issue is going to get resolved without some FAQing/DM fiat. We might as well let it lie until then, although I think the consensus is "it's not broken to let it happen unlimited times per day".

Speaking back on the Hunter power level, I think that the best options for "hunters" in terms of class/archetype are the following:

For melee: Use Primal Companion Hunter or Sacred Huntsmaster. Don't use base Hunter, as Primal Companion is potentially insane and the accelerated Animal Focus has nothing compared to the Sacred Huntsmaster superior spell list and additional features
For ranged: Use Divine Hunter or Primal Companion Hunter or Sacred Huntsmaster/Preacher combo. Since teamwork feats aren't as powerful for ranged, I don't think Primal Companion Hunter as much appeal here...maybe someone can come up with a list of usable teamwork feats for that?

Is this a reasonable list?

Is one Rage Power REALLY going to break your CAGM build?

I think the largest difference between the classes is base optimization level. Basically, instead of needing enough system mastery to decide on which rage powers to take, you get a preselected list of sets of fairly good options. Then, at the highest level of optimization, the barbarian can do certain tasks better than any bloodrager, due to access to the extra rage power feat. The bloodrager will have more options, due to spellcasting, but can not reach the peak in certain areas, like human superstition builds.

Actually, it's even worse than that because Primalist says "Hi".

The comparison between Ranger skirmisher's uses and animal companion uses isn't really that useful in terms of power level. I don't know about the intent per say, but, in all honesty, none of these tricks scream out "broken!" if they were used an unlimited times per day. Probably the best one would be perma-entangle, but even that's not TOO insane and more an outlier than anything.

Hm, a lot less clear. If it weren't for the fact how crazy good the ability is, I'd say the intent is to replace all occurences of "swashbuckler" with "magus" for the purposes of that ability, otherwise most other deeds sound pretty strange as well: a magus takes Dodging Panache, and "when an opponent attempts a melee attack against the swashbuckler, the swashbuckler can as an immediate action spend 1 panache point to move 5 feet"... so the magus can't benefit from Dodging Panache, since there's no swashbuckler to spend the point?

That's different because it looks weird to write "the character" instead of "the Swashbuckler". Level clause is important in including abilities. It's...not exactly written in the rules, but you'll notice that when there are instances where a character gains the ability of another class, they often include "they count as x level", such as Hunter's Animal Companion gained from the Druid or similar ideas.

The BR get's superior spells at lower spells Ala the summoner (Wall spells as 3rd and 4th level slots). The blood rager is an almost strictly better magus.

The paladin has unrivaled unique spells in hero's defiance, holy sword, and LoR. It's save class feature made a feat is considered one of the most broken feats in the game by a lot of people. It's almost strictly better than the WP once you consider available options such as the oaths and the ability to drop channeling for a domain.

The ranger get's an animal companion which is the single biggest non Leadership DPR increase in the game along side great skills.

Full BAB 4th level casters have "fourth level magic" in the sense that the spell level is labeled 4. In the same way that summoners have "six level casting" because dominate monster is a "6th level spell".

You do realize that if you were measuring it from a pure spell level perspective, Magus and Warpriest look EVEN MORE favorable to 4-level casters, right? Because they get, in effect, Quickened Spells, which would mean that they are effectively 10 level casters, right, which "would put them above 9-level casters"? Not only is your method very silly, but it's silly in a way that doesn't even support your argument.

Magi aren't overpowered, per say, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Warpriests aren't necessarily better than Paladins, but you have to do waaaaay better than that in order to explain why they aren't overpowered.

Also, animal companions being a big DPS boost, HA! If that were the case, then there wouldn't be this big hubbub about the Hunter being underpowered because their animal companions are way better than even the Ranger's.

Nope. First, Amateur Swashbuckler can only grant you 1st level deeds. Precise Strike is 3rd level. Second, Amateur Swashbuckler does not include a "you count as a Swashbuckler of x level" statement so even if you could take Precise Strike, you wouldn't add any damage because you don't have a Swashbuckler level. It's the same reason why a Magus with the new Panache arcanas can't do this either (although it's less clear in that case since it does include a "as long as a Swashbuckler of the Magus' level could use that deed" statement, which is closer, but still not the same).

Being able to switch among +2 enhancement bonuses to certain abilities, darkvision, +4 competence bonuses to skill checks, is a very powerful class ability for a one-level dip into Hunter. You can leave it at 'bear' for +1hp/level in your off-hours, which is almost the same as Toughness.

Powerful for early game. After a certain point, you're not going to be that hard pressed for money to just buy additional enhancement gear and skill gear. Animal Focus will always only be a money saver, so if you're only dipping for Animal Focus, you're only saying that you just want a little money and that money savings isn't proportional to your level.

As for all the talk about Hunter being worse than Ranger at pure combat, that's 100% true. It's why that to get a good Hunter, what you need to do is to use what Hunter DOES have, namely teamwork feats. Unfortunately, with the lack of good Teamwork feats for ranged, this leaves ranged Hunters a bit out in the cold, although you could still abuse certain tricks with the few good Teamwork feats you could get. For example, Improved Share Spell with Bow Spirit and Bloodsworn Retribution is pretty reasonable.

Another thing that I'm surprised people aren't talking about; isn't Primal Companion archetype utterly insane compared to Animal Focus? I don't see why you would EVER play a base Hunter over Primal Companion archetype at any point.

Because a fighter with 4 attacks with a falchion and improved critical has an 82% chance of threatening crit...with his whole full attack. And he confirms with his highest BAB. The feat was written around boring old 20/x2 unarmed strikes (an flurry without anything like improved critical gets close to a 30% chance of a full attack crit...slightly saner). This feat is patently broken with anything else.

Plus, pummel is part of a chain that also gives you what is essentially pounce, since Pummel charge lets you charge while you pummel.

That, and how are you delivering the potential of a sword blow with a punch?

Unlikely it'd be broken until very high levels when dealing with crap iteratives. Basically, around mid level, a Pummel crit with 3 attacks (say rolling an 20, 10, 10), all hitting, is 12d4 + 2x static bonuses. A 3 attack full attack with 1 of those being crit (that being the exact same roll sequence as in the Pummel example, rolling an 20, 10, 10) assuming all hits, would be 8d4 + 4x static bonuses. The difference of 4d4 damage is 10 average damage, so your 2x static bonuses would have to reach 10 damage to break even. That's basically nothing. Plus, this is discounting the fact that the full attack sequence can crit more than once and pull ahead even harder; assuming you're a crit based build, this is way more likely that multi-crits is very useful, even when not considering further damage.

That is underplaying some of the advantages of Pummel (getting around damage reduction and putting crappy iteratives to use) and Pummel Charge (which is MUCH stronger and basically what makes Pummeling Style worth it), but pure damage is not the reason why Pummeling Style is interesting at all, even if you were to use it with a weapon.

EDIT: Never mind, I thought it worked like Dead Shot. Apparently it adds Static bonuses on each success too...that IS dumb.

It largely boils down to the fact that Barbarian was already a strong character and Bloodrager makes relatively few sacrifices to the Barbarian (just a few rage powers and hit die size) in exchange for spells and maybe even more powerful individual abilities. Primalist to poach the best Barbarian rage powers even gets around two of the playtest problems with Bloodrager (unable to get the best rage powers and unable to get around a set progression in bloodline).

I mean, in practice, it doesn't really matter that much either way. By the time you're level 8, you have enough minutes per day in you that you probably perform most options. The real problem with Animal Focus is that you generally have to build your equipment around Animal Focus under the assumption that you have the most optimal Animal Focus for combat active, meaning you skip the enhancement bonuses on your equipment, most likely. As a result, Animal Focus grants very little in-combat versatility because you're stuck with one mode or else you're shooting yourself in the foot pretty severely.

This means that Animal Focus' versatility comes from different uses in-combat and out-of-combat, but this brings up another problem; almost all the bonuses in Animal Focus can be copied through spells. Hell, most of the bonuses can be copied through items and pretty cheaply too. It begins losing steam quickly once the mid levels come around because anything it can do out-of-combat is pretty irrelevant; at best, it's a minor boost that you don't have to stress your slots/preparations that hard, but most of said spells will occupy your lower level slots anyway.

Thus, what Animal Focus really boils down to is a versatility tool early levels, but a pure money saver in mid-levels. And that wouldn't be such a problem if it weren't for the fact that AC also starts to fade off in mid-levels, meaning that worthy uses of the money you save start to become scarcer (having personally experienced this with my Bladebound Kensei Magus, this absolutely does happen when you get a heavy amount of "free equipment"). It doesn't mean Animal Focus is absolutely useless (far from it; I'd argue that it's probably better than, say, Favored Enemy without liberal use of Instant Enemy), but it's certainly worse than a lot of static bonuses like Weapon Mastery. The reason why weapon boost-style abilities are great like Magus' Arcane Pool or Warpriest's Sacred Weapon is because they stack with the base enhancements of the weapon up to a total of +10, meaning that you have to get to extremely late levels before you run into stacking issues, so you can just buy a normal set of equipment and on TOP OF THAT, add this great bonus, but that just doesn't happen with Animal Focus in the same way.

I think that's actually a big part of the Hunter from what I've seen; it's great at early levels. Animal Companion is already a stacked early game mechanic because of the base stats, but once mid-levels come around, not only does Animal Companion fall off, Animal Focus becomes less and less relevant (and the supposed boost of getting a Second Focus isn't even that good; you'd probably add some Con for some HP which is a decent band-aid, but isn't make-or-breaking like a beefy attack/damage boost) and the spell disparity between Hunters and other casters become really felt. At this point, you really gotta abuse your only real advantage (Teamwork feats) to your maximum potential.

That's why it feels so annoying to me that the Sacred Huntsmaster is better in this regard than Hunter, because one of the best new Teamwork feats (Improved Share Spell) is actually kind of crappy with the Hunter's natural attack focused buff set unless the Hunter is also natural attack based. Compare this to Inquisitor's, who can use Divine Power or Righteous Might to boost both the character and the companion at the same time.

At 8th level, whenever a hunter uses her animal focus ability, she selects two different animal aspects for herself instead of one, and can assign two aspects to her companion instead of one. As with the companion’s previous aspect, the second one does not count against the minutes per day a hunter can take on an aspect.

Again, unclear. Note that it says "As with the companion's previous aspect", which means that the COMPANION'S second aspect works like the previous one, NOT the Hunter's.

Bob Bob Bob wrote:

Rynjin wrote:

Plus, it's only minute per level. My Inquisitor is rocking +30 movement speed from Expeditious Retreat (hour/level), Scent from Bloodhound (hour/level), Darkvision (Vampire, but available to nearly every race in the books), and yeah you get the picture.

Just need to point this out, Expeditious Retreat is min/level. You'd want Longstrider for hour/level, but it's only +10 feet and Inquisitors don't get it.

Also at 8th level a Hunter can have one animal focus on for as long as she likes. taking on an additional focus for one minute per level per day. If she has no pet she can have two constant foci. in addition to the short period one.

At 8th level, whenever a

hunter uses her animal focus ability, she selects two
different animal aspects for herself instead of one, and
can assign two aspects to her companion instead of one.
As with the companion’s previous aspect, the second one
does not count against the minutes per day a hunter can
take on an aspect.

It's a little unclear, but I'm pretty sure what's intended is that the COMPANION'S second focus doesn't count towards the minute limit and that the second focus still counts against limit.

AncientSpark wrote:

LazarX wrote:

The Hunter is one of the most adaptable characters out there.

Have a sudden need for Evasion, Darkvision, a faster run speed?, a boost to the physical attribute of your choice? Assume an animal focus and it's yours.

These are all great...at low level. Once you reach higher level, well, at least during combat, you're gonna have low level spells to burn to substitute and even if you're in pressing need, your equipment set is probably built in such a way that you're probably going to have one mode of Animal Focus and not really much to maneuver around in otherwise.

I LIKE the Hunter, but it is pretty damn mediocre.

I've had a blast at playing the play test version up to 6th level so far. With the changes, the character is getting a whole lot better. Maybe we should actually have some people PLAY these characters through levels before predicting the gloom and doom?

Well, it's a matter of comparing them. Plus, the fact of the matter is that the quantity that you're trying to espouse about (the versatility of animal focus) was available all during Playtest. I USED it during Playtest. I know how it works.

Before I got the ACG, I was raising my sleeves ready to say how Hunter is usable. Now I'm basically going, again, "Why wouldn't you use Sacred Huntsmaster?" due to archetypes being not in playtest, but in release.

The Hunter is one of the most adaptable characters out there.

Have a sudden need for Evasion, Darkvision, a faster run speed?, a boost to the physical attribute of your choice? Assume an animal focus and it's yours.

These are all great...at low level. Once you reach higher level, well, at least during combat, you're gonna have low level spells to burn to substitute and even if you're in pressing need, your equipment set is probably built in such a way that you're probably going to have one mode of Animal Focus and not really much to maneuver around in otherwise.

I LIKE the Hunter, but it is pretty damn mediocre.

It's marked as private so accounts need to request access.