Artoo's page

We decided to play through Arclord's Envy with a that specifically didn't include a cleric, or anyone with any class features specifically to help with healing and see how it went.

So we had the Amiri, Seoni, and Merisiel pregens plus a dwarf fighter and a halfling wizard.

So I've had two questions come up about the shield cantrip, the first is about armor proficiency: does some type of proficiency apply to the use of the Shield cantrip like when using a normal shield? My inclination is no, but I could see either shield proficiency or spell proficiency being applied.

My second question is about when it gets dismissed for 10 minutes. As it's written if it's ever used to block it will be dismissed for 10 minutes, regardless of the damage caused by the hit it blocked. But I'm wondering if the intent might have been if it's used to block an attack that meets or exceeds its hardness then it gets dismissed for 10 minutes. That seems a bit more in line with normal shield use to me.

So just to be clear:

Mergy: You think any condition ends along with the affliction? If that's the case, what's the purpose of the text I quoted?

Malk_Content: You think if there is a duration in the description of the condition you use that and if there isn't one the duration is the same as the interval of the stage that caused it? Can you actually point to anything that supports that? Because that get complicated with conditions that don't exactly have a duration, but sort of do, like frightened, what then?

Well if there is no exception listed (i.e the affliction states something like Drained(1 minute) you look at the general rule. The general rule for Drained is it reduces by 1 when you regain hitpoints by resting and when it reaches 0 it goes away.

Okay, so look back at my original question. Goblin Pox at Stage 2 gives the slowed 1 condition with no duration specified. The 1 round is for the stage's interval, if you are claiming that's the duration for slowed 1 then you've instead created a situation where the stage has no interval. The general rule for the slowed condition has no inherent duration or way of getting rid of it.

If you would like an example that has a condition with no inherent duration that doesn't happen to have the stage's interval right after it, here from the giant centipede in the bestiary:

Centipede Venom (poison) Saving Throw Fortitude DC 13; Maximum Duration 6 rounds; Stage 1 1d6 poison and flat-footed (1 round); Stage 2 1d6 poison, flat-footed, and sluggish 2 (1 round)

Stage 2 has flat-footed (for which the general rule includes no duration or way of getting rid of it) with no duration attached to it.

I believe when a stage is complete, you make a save. If you pass your condition improves (like stage 2 to 1), and if you fail, your condition worsens (like 2 to 3). If you're at stage 1 and you pass your save, the condition ends.

Conditions and Afflictions aren't the same thing. Conditions don't have stages, Afflictions do. Afflictions can cause conditions. What you're talking about is how Afflictions work. I'm asking about how the Conditions caused by Afflictions work. I quoted some text above that clearly states that at least sometimes those Conditions do not go away when the Affliction goes away, and I'm trying to figure out what those circumstances are.

Artoo wrote:

Would this count as information to the contrary Fumarole?

Conditions from Afflictions - Page 325 wrote:

An affliction might give you conditions with a longer or shorter duration than the affliction. For instance, if an affliction causes you to be drained but has a maximum duration of 5 minutes, you remain drained even after the affliction ends, as is normal for the drained condition. Alternatively, you might succeed at the flat check to remove persistent damage you took from an ongoing affliction, but you would still need to attempt saves to remove the affliction itself, and failing one might give you new persistent damage.

No that is just letting you know how to handle things when there is an exception, not that it is always the case.

So then how do you tell when it's an exception? The part I quoted indicated that if an affliction gives you the drained condition it will not go away along with the condition, what's special about the drained condition?

Would this count as information to the contrary Fumarole?

An affliction might give you conditions with a longer or shorter duration than the affliction. For instance, if an affliction causes you to be drained but has a maximum duration of 5 minutes, you remain drained even after the affliction ends, as is normal for the drained condition. Alternatively, you might succeed at the flat check to remove persistent damage you took from an ongoing affliction, but you would still need to attempt saves to remove the affliction itself, and failing one might give you new persistent damage.

I'm unclear on how long conditions that come from afflictions are meant to last. Let's take Goblin Pox as an example:

Your touch afflicts the target with goblin pox. The effect is based on the result of the target’s Fortitude save.
Success The target is sick 1.
Critical Success The target is unaffected.
Failure The target is afflicted with goblin pox at stage 1.
Critical Failure The target is afflicted with goblin pox at stage 2.
Goblin Pox (disease) Level 1. Goblins and goblin dogs are immune.
Stage 1 sick 1 (1 round); Stage 2 sick 1 and slowed 1 (1 round); Stage 3 sick 1 and can’t reduce its sick value below 1 (1 day)

So this has the potential to apply two different conditions: sick 1 and slowed 1.

Sick can usually be removed by spending an action and succeeding at a save, so I'm assuming that it sticks around until that's done. Is that incorrect? Does recovering from the disease also remove the sick condition? If it does, that almost makes it beneficial to fail the initial save then succeed on the second one rather than just making the initial save since now it wouldn't cost you an action to get rid of the sick condition.

Slowed has no inherent way to be removed, though. Are you stuck with it until you can find some magic or item or something that gets rid of it, or does it only affect you while you're in stage 2? If slowed only lasts while you're in stage 2 does that mean you also recover from sick if you recover from the disease? If not, why not?

Water elementals have this ability:

The elemental’s touch puts out non-magical flames of Large size or smaller. The creature can dispel magical fire it touches as dispel magic (caster level equals elemental’s HD).

So it's not unreasonable that it could just move into a square to extinguish it, or maybe even 4 squares at once. The caster would need to know aquan in order to ask it to do that, though.

Slippy sidles up near Cylipsti, "What's going on then? Did the portal do this to you? Is it draining colour from you to power itself? That's really strange. Colour as a power source. I wonder what people could accomplish with that."

"Thanks! I certainly hope he's not dead or gone. We need to talk to. So I hope you don't need to eat your hat either."

Slippy bounces down the path to town with childlike energy as he expands on his theory, "I hope it's a portal to some strange demiplane. Like that tapestry that I hear is hanging in some basement or something in the Grand Lodge. And the demiplane will be full of exciting new discoveries! What do the rest of you think it is?"

I am sure this is just me not reading closely, but what happens if the Abrikandilu attacking the control panel is left alone long enough to potentially start destroying it?

It's on page 15, every full round action that they spend sabotaging the device makes it require one additional charge to fire.

Hey, I was looking at the Robe of Stars and in this part of the description:

It enables the wearer to travel physically to the Astral Plane, at will and on command as if using the plane shift spell. Once he has done so, the wearer can also return to his plane of origin on command, also as per the plane shift spell.

I'm not sure what it means by Plane of Origin, as I can see two possible interpretations:

• The Plane the wearer was on before activating the robe
  
• The home plane for the wearer
  

Does anyone have any input as to which of those would be the correct interpretation?

If he can why is it not the same with manyshot on a xbow or a bow? Both are targeted at 1 target and leave control of the character.

Manyshot isn't really a comparable situation. It's one attack that fires two arrows, not two attacks.

The wording of the shield champion's Returning Shield actually does seem to support the interpretation that you can't actually have one thrown shield hit the same target more than once.

That said, I don't think it's particularly unbalanced to let it work like any other ranged attack and let it hit the same target repeatedly and then redirect to a different target if that target dies or gets knocked out. It's a bit strange, I agree, but then so it the whole ability. If you'd like some reason to justify it, maybe he threw the shield just right so that if Target A collapsed and fell out of the way when it would have gone to hit him again it instead ricochets to Target B.

Is it normally a permanent effect that would invalidate the spell if it couldn't carry over?

- Secret chest. continual flame. masterwork transformation all functionally don't work if they go poof.

I can't say I follow your reasoning here. How does the "You can just recast it" reasoning not also apply to Secret Chest, Continual Flame, and Masterwork Transformation?

Weapon Focus (Grapple) isn't a thing, grappling isn't a weapon. Typically Weapon Focus (Unarmed Strike) would apply for grappling, but probably not if you're using a different weapon to grapple with.

You'll probably want to get Gauntlets of the Skilled Maneuver.

You'll need to get a ruling on this from your GM but maybe Dueling on your Dan Bong. There's two different weapon qualities with that name, I'm talking about the one from the Pathfinder Society Field Guide, check the link. It specifically doesn't allow grapple, but that's because grapple isn't something you typically do with a weapon.

No. There are no rules at all for oracles losing their powers.

No

At 1st level, a magus learns to cast spells and wield his weapons at the same time. This functions much like two-weapon fighting, but the off-hand weapon is a spell that is being cast. To use this ability, the magus must have one hand free (even if the spell being cast does not have somatic components), while wielding a light or one-handed melee weapon in the other hand. As a full-round action, he can make all of his attacks with his melee weapon at a –2 penalty and can also cast any spell from the magus spell list with a casting time of 1 standard action (any attack roll made as part of this spell also takes this penalty). If he casts this spell defensively, he can decide to take an additional penalty on his attack rolls, up to his Intelligence bonus, and add the same amount as a circumstance bonus on his concentration check. If the check fails, the spell is wasted, but the attacks still take the penalty. A magus can choose to cast the spell first or make the weapon attacks first, but if he has more than one attack, he cannot cast the spell between weapon attacks.

Emphasis added above. Spell Combat only allows the magus to make all attacks with a single weapon associated with a hand.

This FAQ clarifies that the attacks must be made with the weapon mentioned in spell combat

This FAQ specifies that natural weapons associated with a hand can be used.

Even attacking once with a single claw is a bit iffy as you didn't start Spell Combat with that claw.

Snowlilly wrote:

Except, in the case of Calcific Touch, the spell is still in effect. The spell is based on duration, not number of creatures touched (with the limitation of 1/round.)
You cannot target more creatures than you have rounds of duration, but successfully touching a creature is not what brings the spell to an end.

It doesn't bring the spell to an end, it applies it to the target (discharges). And at that point, you are no longer holding the spell. You don't get to apply the spell with successful touch attacks for the entire duration of the spell.

That is what is meant by "You can make touch attacks round after round until the spell is discharged".

Calcific touch does not have the caveat that it can be used to touch multiple targets for it's entire duration like Chill Touch. It is a one target only spell.

I don't think the spell actually supports your interpretation. For starters:

Target creature or creatures touched (up to one per level)

It's clearly able to be used against more than one creature.

"How are you grappling a huge creature when you're size tiny?" is a good question.

If by good question you mean it demonstrates the rules error you're making, then sure. There are no size limitations for grapple.

Now, this particular error isn't directly relevant to the conversation here but I do feel it demonstrates a common issue that I see when people complain about rules lawyers. Someone is making an incorrect assumption about the way something works. There's no rule that says the opposite of what they're assuming, because there's no need for it. There's a rule that says: X does Y. There's no rule that says X doesn't do Z. Because why would there be? But they still want to see that in order to believe they're incorrect.

A big part of the point of PFS is that things should work more or less the same regardless of what table you're sitting down at. That's why the GM is always right mentality doesn't work there. In a homegame you can discuss house rules you want to use and everyone should know what those are going in. If you're GMing in PFS and you are making a ruling based on an incorrect assumption you are changing the way the game world works for the players. That means choices they've made, based on their understanding of the way the game world works might have been entirely different.

So my advice: Be ready to accept that you are incorrect in your understanding of some parts of the rules. Remember that trust at the gaming table goes both ways. The players should trust that you're trying to run a fun, fair game. But you also need to trust that the players aren't there trying to ruin everything for you.

Weapons are somewhat loosely defined, but as a general rule if you don't make an attack roll, it's not a weapon. It's not based on the type of damage it does.

I'm not familiar with this particular spell, but in general spells that affect an area aren't weapons.

What do you expect this combat maneuver to do?

A 3rd level cleric with a readied action to cast silence on the sorcerer's area when he begins casting a spell.

This doesn't actually work because silence is a 1 round cast time. The other suggestions are solid, though.

Deific Obedience requires three ranks of Knowledge (Religion) which makes it impossible to take it at first level, as your build indicates. I don't think there would be any issue if you just swapped it with Steel Soul in your build, though.

I don't think this qualifies, even if you actually take the Item Mastery feat. It says it causes the item to cast Dimension Door. You still don't have the ability to cast Dimension Door any more than if you're wearing a Cape of the Mountebank

Those all seem reasonable although I personally don't like Divine Protection. You might be interested in Divine Interference. Although it require Caster Level 10 so you would need to rearrange your feats.

If you find there's certain spells you end up using all the time Minor/Major Spell Expertise are useful.

I can't do any damage, my rolls aren't high enough to hit even a miserable goblin, be it in melee or at ranged.

Is this important? Do you want to be dealing damage? Or do you just feel like you should be?

I don't have enough spells to be a good buffer at low levels, but I know that this will change at higher levels.

This is an unfortunate reality of the way spellcasters work in Pathfinder. You can try getting Pearls of Power, Wands or Scrolls to help mitigate this.

Also remember to use Bit of Luck or Agile Feet, they only last a round, but used at the right time they can be very useful.

You can also just try to provide flanking. Pull out a weapon and stand beside an enemy and you've potentially just given an ally +2 to hit.

Along similar lines you can make aid another attempts to provide a bonus to hit or to AC for allies.

My greatest concern with my actual build is that I don't know how to build my character in the future, which feats should I take to be a good cleric.

You don't need any particular feats. Most of what will matter is what spells you have prepared and how you use them. But here's a few possibilities:

Channeling feats: Selective Channel, Extra Channels, maybe some others. These aren't amazing but in the right circumstances can save your party.

Crafting feats: Craft Wondrous Items, Craft Wand, Scribe Scroll, etc. Getting items cheaper is always useful.

Metamagic: Extend, Reach, Quicken, etc. Exactly what metamagic would be most useful will depend on what spells you prepare. For a buffer Extend is probabably the best one you can get. Although keep in mind you can also get metamagic rods.

Like said before, I think you'll be able to contribute just fine with the set up you already have. I played through all of Rise of the Runelords with a fairly similar character and never felt like I couldn't contribute.

What exactly make you feel like you can't contribute right now?

I'm failing to see how this is backed into a corner. You won't personally be killing much, but you should be more than capable of contributing in combat.

Bit of Luck is amazing. Granted, it's more useful once you get to higher levels and you're rolling more d20s every round, but dropping that on the heavy hitters in your party once they're in position will be quite useful.

Agile Feet can help them get into position.

You may want to consider getting a longspear so you can threaten from reach to possibly make it easier for you to provide flanking or possibly aid attack rolls in situations where it's not too dangerous for you to do so.

Like with most characters focused on spell casting your effectiveness at low levels might seem limited because you'll run out of resources quickly but as you level up and get more spells that will change.

I also agree it should be a runestone. An arcanist doesn't expend prepared spells, so there's not anything to recall with the pearl.

There's no special rules for non spell touch attacks. A touch attack is a touch attack. If a particular ability uses a touch attack, it will say so.

The things you're asking about, I don't believe that are any written rules for them so you would have to work it out with your group.

I would say that if you applied a contact poison to something that wouldn't immediately absorb it you would still need to hit regular AC as things that impact regular AC like armor and shields would reasonably protect against poison. If you tried to apply it directly to your hand you would be affected by the dose of poison and there's nothing left over to affect anyone else. If you're immune the poison just doesn't do anything to you. It doesn't mean that it will still be active.

Trying to apply acid and then attack with it... I just don't see how that would work. Whatever you apply the acid to would be affected by the acid.

Either way, it would not make you threaten if you wouldn't threaten anyway.

I don't think there's a 100% complete list anywhere, but there's various efforts to do so.

One of the more recent ones I've seen is this map

To answer your second question, they should be pleased to hear that more people are gaming and having a good time. If you reach out to Venture Officers they'll try to help you out as much as they can, but it's not at all necessary that they be directly involved in every single location.

Thanks everyone. Yes, even all 8 of you that are actually the same person.

Kensai replaces your 9th level arcana, you won't be able to pick one there.

cerhiannon wrote:

Scrivner lets you use Profession (Scribe) and gives a +1 bonus. It does not let you use Linguistics for day job rolls.

** spoiler omitted **

I did see this one, and found it oddly written. You already CAN use Profession (scribe) for your day job roll. Why did this have to give permission?

Assuming cerhiannon's quote above is accurate, it doesn't. It says "If you use ranks in Profession (scribe) to calculate your bonus on Day Job checks..."

I'm failing to see how this would matter. Is your GM telling you when it's your turn(or various other things that typically happen once initiative is rolled) before asking for initiative? Because even if the GM doesn't say "Roll Initiative" he's still going to have to tell people it's their turn, etc.

MichaelCullen wrote:

I intend on wearing a large lead cone with shrink item cast on it. This way if I end up in some kind of anti magic field the cone grows to real size and provides a shelter to block line of effect, allowing me to teleport out.

Pretty sure this won't work. Antimagic Field doesn't say anything about line-of-effect. You're still in the effect's area; you won't be able to teleport. Giving yourself an instant cover against ranged attacks is OK, I guess, though you're putting a lot of faith in your GM to assume the cone would land perfectly straight up with no complications. Instead, I recommend you pick up a couple Scrolls of Spellbane, and include Antimagic Field as one of the spells to not function against you.

Antimagic Field is an emanation, emanations are blocked by total cover.

The way you're talking I feel like you're misundertanding something:

Neither spell combat nor spellstrike grant an extra attack of any kind. Casting a spell with a range of touch grants a melee touch attack as a free action on that round. Spellstrike allows a magus to replace that melee touch attack with a weapon attack.

I strongly recommend reading the guide that KingOfAnything linked to. It's a great explanation of how the Magus works.

While not something I think should be for free, I think it fits the topic: Point Blank Shot should just not exist. If everything that requires it instead required a BAB of +1 that would be reasonable.

Here's a basic estimate:

+8 from BAB
+5 from Strength (By level 8 in a grapple focused build you've probably got more than 20 strength, but I'm being conservative)
+2 from Improved Grapple
+2 from Greater Grapple

That's +17 already. That's before magic items, of which there are a few . So I'd say that +15 at level 8 is low.

Really good stuff in here. Thanks!

Quote:

Spell-like abilities are much less noticeable. If someone goes through the effort and gets Charm Person as an SLA with Minor Spell Expertise or Spell Hex, I'll let them cast it without being noticed.

I did not know that SLA's didn't involve all that glow stuff. That's pretty cool.

SLAs in general work like spells except they don't have verbal, somatic or material components. That's it. So they're still just as identifiable as a silent, still, eschew materialed spell.

That said, your original premise is baffling to me. Why would spells become ineffective just because the target knows you're casting a spell?

Person A casts suggestion on Person B. B sees this happening. One of two things happens:
- Person B fails the will save. They get the brilliant idea of following whatever the suggestion was. It doesn't matter that they saw A casting a spell.
- B passes the will save. They get a funny feeling right after noticing A casting a spell. They react accordingly.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Gregory Rebelo wrote:

Rhode Island has been added, as well as southeastern Massachusetts. Wish I could figure out how to edit the descrition box once it's submitted, but c'est la vie.

Despite a GIS degree, putting something up on the web is new to me. I have about 5 more minutes of experience with the program than you do

Allow members to change entries, in addition to adding entries

Is set, and should let you edit entries if you're logged in.

It isn't letting me edit, and I am logged in.

I work in GIS as well. :-D

You may need to click on the "Map Access" in the top right and enter the password then click on unlock to edit after logging in.

Artoo wrote:

weewilly wrote:

hardcore necro....currently playing a Kensai in a game closing in on 13th level, is it just me or is this ability functionally useless(Iaijutsu Focus i mean)? Getting INT to damage is nice and all but should apply whenever the opponent is denied their DEX to AC no just when they are flat-footed, the way the ability is worded it sounds like they think getting to attack in the surprise round is a common thing when usually all you can manage is moving(which allows you to draw your weapon negating the need of the "swift" action), granted a Kensai will generally be able to get that INT to damage once per combat with their initiative bonuses but this whole flat-footed nonsense just needs to go away.

The ability already allows you to always act in surprise rounds. That's pretty big all by itself. Also, you can cast greater invisibility. It's not that difficult for you to be attacking flat-footed targets.

Flat footed is not equivalent to DEX-denied. You are flatfooted before you act in combat, against an invisible creature you are merely DEX-denied. If you want to get a lot of flatfooted in, I'd suggest the Shatter Defenses feat.

Huh, I thought invisibility actually used the term flat footed. My mistake.

hardcore necro....currently playing a Kensai in a game closing in on 13th level, is it just me or is this ability functionally useless(Iaijutsu Focus i mean)? Getting INT to damage is nice and all but should apply whenever the opponent is denied their DEX to AC no just when they are flat-footed, the way the ability is worded it sounds like they think getting to attack in the surprise round is a common thing when usually all you can manage is moving(which allows you to draw your weapon negating the need of the "swift" action), granted a Kensai will generally be able to get that INT to damage once per combat with their initiative bonuses but this whole flat-footed nonsense just needs to go away.

The ability already allows you to always act in surprise rounds. That's pretty big all by itself. Also, you can cast greater invisibility. It's not that difficult for you to be attacking flat-footed targets.

Artoo wrote:

Spark Monkey wrote:

been about six months sense this was up visible...

I'd be interested in any PFS legal ideas for giving a PC the Scent ability. Especially if it's an Alchemical item...

I know:

a) Alter Self (2nd level spell) to something like Bugbear.

b) Hounds blood - but that mainly works for Gnomes...

c) Crypt Breaker Alchemist Draught.

d) 1/2 Orc alternate racial trait.

??? any others???

Rhinarium paste, although it's unfortunately only legal for ratfolk PCs.

Thanks!

what book is it from?

Oh! and Ratfolk can also get it as an alternate Racial Trait

It's from the Monster Codex.

been about six months sense this was up visible...

I'd be interested in any PFS legal ideas for giving a PC the Scent ability. Especially if it's an Alchemical item...

I know:

a) Alter Self (2nd level spell) to something like Bugbear.

b) Hounds blood - but that mainly works for Gnomes...

c) Crypt Breaker Alchemist Draught.

d) 1/2 Orc alternate racial trait.

??? any others???

Rhinarium paste, although it's unfortunately only legal for ratfolk PCs.

In an attempt to return to the original topic...

Is the real point of contention here description vs "reskinning"?

Let me ask this: Can anyone tell me what a Celestial horse looks like? No? This isn't described specifically in the rules anywhere?

Is there anything saying that a Celestial horse doesn't have avian features? Is there anything saying that they can't?

What exactly is it about this that is rubbing people the wrong way?

What part of the FAQ do you find vague? Here's what I'm seeing that seems pretty clear:

You may choose a specific type of animal companion from any of the base forms listed on pages 53–54 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook or a legal Additional Resource but may not use stats for one base form with the flavor of another type of animal.

Emphasis added by me. Are you trying to claim that a gryphon and a horse are the same type of animal? Because that's quite the strech.

Also:

A player may not re-skin items to be something for which there are no specific rules

I'm pretty sure there's no specific rules for fledgling gryphons.

unfortunately, it's not possible to pick 9th level! XD

For example: if I pick a 4th lv spell from druid, I will be able to cast that when the inquisitor will be able to cast 4th level spells (so something like 10th class level) and inquisitor spells reach till 6th level.

"Little background: the master gave us the possibility to create our personal races. But only the description! He . So yeah, I have this cool thing, but right now I am at lv 4 (with a permanent negative level D:) and I can't use this feat properly (I asked to give me some time to think about them).
And I am "vurnerable to resurrection": it means that both positive and negative energy damage me: I can be healed only by my spells and by party's healing spells (to give me the chance to survive)."

So yeah: my intention is to be a tank. So have support spells. But maybe is better to complete the party with the spells which aren't in the arcane class lists.
Protections and shield on others I think that both alchemist and arcanist are able to pick them..

Ah, spell like abilities do not typically require the ability to otherwise cast spells of that level, so that's an important clarification. Will it also use your inquisitor spells/day or will they work like standard SLAs in that regard and have their own pool of uses?

Do you know if your Alchemist or Investigator has or is planning to take the Infusion discovery? That will have a significant impact on what your party in general has access to.

Any spell of any level from a divine list is really abusable. Just pick a few 9th level cleric spells.

Some stuff that would be more reasonable:

• Protections from (Pick an Alignment), possibly the communal versions
  
• Resist Energy (Or Protection From Energy)
  
• Summon Monster (Maybe have it scale up as you level)
  
• Compel Hostility
  

David knott 242 wrote:

It looks like you get both bonuses.

You don't because that would be double dipping. There is no such spell in the game that adds twice to the same attribute.

There are plenty of spells that modify something by a fixed amount plus some amount based on your caster level. Barkskin and Shield of Faith for example.

maneuverability was a game mechanic in 3.X, now it's just a fixed modifier to a creatures's fly skill.

Right. So why would the Pathfinder Fly spell mention that it grants good maneuverability if it doesn't apply that fixed modifier to the creature's fly skill?