Bardic performance days: "At each level after 1st a bard can use bardic performance for 2 additional rounds per day."
Does that have to be levels in the bard class or can i just take one level bard and then all the rest in another class?
Like bard1/ninja10?
When a class has a duration based on level it is always referring to class levels unless it specifically calls out "character levels".
I think what you mean is, "When a class has an [b]ability[/]b based on levels..." but yeah, any time a class ability calls out levels it ALWAYS refers to levels in that class unless it specifically says otherwise (such as Improved Uncanny Dodge) or if it specifically says "Character Levels" as opposed to just "levels."
Other examples are level pre-reqs for class abilities. A barbarian has to be eighth level, for example, before he can take Improved DR. That means eight barbarian levels, not Wizard 7/Barbarian 1.
I have some questions as to exactly how Scent works. I know there have been threads on this before, but none of them seemed to give an definitive, official answer and considering I need this for Pathfinder Society play I need to use the official ruling.
In our Pathfinder Society game we have a player who is a Level 1 Druid and took the snake animal companion. This snake has the scent special quality (as per the Druid section in chapter 3 of the Core Rulebook). The player argues that the ability is automatic, and anything within 30 feet his snake can smell without a check. Quite frankly this seems obscene and after reading the rules on it in the Bestiary I'm still not sure if he's correct or not.
The interpretations I've seen on the forums with my searching are ether automatic or something along the lines of 'it still requires a check, but it is able to preceve things that have a scent where it normally wouldn't, for example in total darkness'.
If I could I'd opt for the latter choice, but as a Pathfinder Society event am I even allowed to do that? What is the official ruling?
It automatically knows something is there if it is within 30' (60' if it is downwind from the source of the smell, 15' if it is upwind). It does not know WHERE the source of the smell is, just that there is a creature within 30' of it. The snake can then spend a move action to make a perception check to pinpoint the creature.
There are ways around this, as well, such as the spell Negate Aroma
I suppose this is really more of an aesthetics question them. I like your point that the initiative is an abstraction of real time, and considering that everything takes place inside of 6 seconds, it seems to me that there's little time to consider whether or not one is going to charge an opponent or not.
What about the action of readying a spear against the charge though? That's something obvious isn't it? Since it requires bracing the spear against oneself or the ground in order to deal the extra damage. An opponent can still drop their spear and avoid the charge of course, but it seems to me that it should be apparent if an opponent is set for a charge, whatever other actions they take.
I've taught people to use spears as my day job - and swords.
If you're right handed, you usually use a pike or 8' spear in a two handed grip, with your right hand back on the butt, and turn your body sideways to the target. You have a low squat. You're usually choking on the spear to conceal how much reach you have. If you have to be mobile, you'll be standing a little higher, which reduces your striking range, but usually, you'd model a group of guys with spears as taking Move-and-Ready actions.
From the perspective of the person coming at you - there's a thicket of spears, that may thrust out and hit you before you reach them - one spearman by himself is toast. Three spearmen will drop you before you get to any of them.
To brace the spear, you take your hand off the back end and slap it down while shifting your weight to your back leg. Viewed from the side, this is obvious. Viewed from the front, it is NOT obvious, and takes about a quarter of a second.
The other problem with charging spears is this: Horses are self aware, and know they can die. They have several million years of evolutionary instincts to shy away from sharp things poking into their faces especially when they're charging at it at a full gallop.
So just to be clear, as this is something which has come up in my games as well, and the experience of someone who actually knows what they are talking about is valuable, when talking about the "real" action of bracing against a charge, a skilled pikeman can take a spear from the "I can stab at someone normally" stance to the "I am braced to receive your charge" stance in a quarter of a second, and someone charging at them full gallop would struggle to notice this.
So in game, if someone braces against a charge, this does not include the physical action of bracing the weapon, but merely preparing to make that shift in stance. Then, once the charge has happened and the horse and rider are committed (leaving aside the willingness of the horse to charge at a sharp stick), the spearman shifts his stance.
In other words, you don't know that they have braced against a charge until it is too late to stop or their spear is already in you?
OK...this is more about a psionic power (DSP's Energy Missile) then a spell but it should all be the same!
Suppose a spell/power says this for Targets:
"Up to five creatures or unattended objects; no two targets can be more then 15 ft. apart."
Does this mean...
a Chain? That is you can select a chain of targets in any configuration as long as each is within 15' of the previous target?
or a Box? No two targets can be further then 15' from each other, which effectively means the two targets furthest from each other, and that each much be within 15' of all other targets?
Less of a box and more of a circle with a 15' diameter. But yeah, every single target has to be within 15' of every single other target. If any target is more than 15' from any other target, then the targets are invalid.
I know this is an old topic, but I'm trying to find out if the loophole I found is legit.
If a witch, Wizard or Magus took Preferred spell; does that qualify them for DD's spontanious casting requirement?
As a DM I'd allow it, but if I were to build for somebody else's game or a society session, would this be considered legal? If I don't get a response, I'll post this quandry as a a topic.
I don't think it meets muster for PFS play. I certainly would not allow it. Your game is your game, you don't need anyone else's blessing to validate it.
I am just checking, in case I brought this build to another table for myself to play. As a GM of my own game, I decide things on a case by case basis. If the general concensus is that this is a no go, then I'm not going to make the build.
Dragon Disciple says that you have to be able to cast 1st level arcane spells spontaneously, not just one 1st level arcane spell. Possibly if you took Preferred Spell twice, applying it to a different 1st level spell both times, then it would maybe pass muster, but that is a pretty heavy feat investment where the feats won't be giving you all that much. And I don't play PFS, but it seems likely a complete no-go there.
The Invulnerable Rager Barbarian archetype also specifically applies his DR at 2X base value against nonlethal. That's the only example I know of in which DR on its own is specifically more effective against non-lethal (barring the hypothetical existence of a creature with DR/lethal)
An oracle changing his type is not an ordinary animal, so the Int drop does not apply.
Any text to support this? No sane GM would play it this way but I think it happens by strict RAW.
The capstone gives you all the traits save those delineated in the capstone. Ability scores are not so delineated so you drop to animial intelligence. Note that Plant type makes no mention of ability score changes so you keep full int when you change to plant.
Because the rule says that the animal gains those traits, unless noted otherwise in the creature's entry. Your entry (your character sheet) pretty clearly states that you have an intelligence score higher than 2, so you get exempted from this, just like your alignment doesn't auto-shift to true neutral.
However, also please note, I'm not even sure that ability grants all traits, but rather, I think it only grants "superficial physical characteristics." I'd be curious what exactly that entails. The fact that they are "superficial" suggests that you gain nothing with mechanical benefit aside from a new type, which can be great for things like animal growth and avoiding pesky hold/charm/dominate/etc. person spells, but you don't gain all of the immunities or vision boosters, for example.
If a sorcerer with the earth elemental bloodline were to scribe a scroll of his 3rd level bonus spell, a special version of scorching ray, would it produce the special version of it? That is, would a spell read from that scroll produce a ray attack of earthen fury (instead of fiery)? Since the spell is still called "scorching ray" would a wizard be able to learn that spell from said scroll?
I'm guessing that the scroll would still produce the same effect, but a wizard wouldn't be able to learn it (even though it bears the same name).
I suppose a clever GM could name each individual spell from the various elemental bloodlines something different as a means of distinguishing them for this purpose (ie: scorching ray becomes tempest ray, earthen ray, and spraying ray)
My guess would be that it is just a normal scroll of scorching ray (or burning hands at level 1). I would use Spell Focus, and Augment Summons as the precedent for this (and the various other subsequent _________ Summons feats), which is to say an effect modifying existing spells without metamagic not modifying those spells when they come from a spell-completion or spell-trigger item created by a caster with those feats. So, if you make a scroll of Scorching Ray* it turns out to just be a scroll of Scorching Ray.
* which deals acid damage and has the [acid] descriptor.
On the other hand, since the descriptor is being changed, you could argue that Scorching Ray* is in fact a distinct spell. If cast from a scroll it would deal acid damage and have the [acid] descriptor. However, Scorching Ray* is on no class's spell list, except for the appropriate elemental sorceror, and so anyone trying to cast it from a scroll would need to make an appropriate UMD check and no wizard could scribe it into their book without researching the spell themselves.
and the Illusion of a cavern floor? otherwise why is the area of effect so big?
would you be able to see the translucent outline in the area of the Darkness spell, which you know blocks vision?
The area of effect is so big because
Silent Image wrote:
You can move the image within the limits of the size of the effect.
It's a long-range spell, but if you drop the image of a guard dog next to yourself, and want it to chase someone away, then it can only chase as far as the area of effect, not the full 400+ ft range of the spell.
You can create an image of a single object, creature, or force of size up to your available area of effect. You can then move that image around inside that area of effect, but cannot move it beyond those bounds. So if your image takes up the whole AoE, then it can't move at all.
If you accept my premise that figment, pattern, and phantasm illusions continue to function in areas of darkness, then yes, you would continue to be able to see the outline on a successful disbelieve save. If you don't accept that, then no, you wouldn't be able to. Nothing about the interaction with the visual centers of the brain or darkness (magical or otherwise) changes when you disbelieve.
why do all the work yourself? turn your players loose on this one. have them sketch you several campsites and tell you how they are going to defend them. Be sure to have some of the bad guys stumble into their defenses - just because you know the defenses are there doesn't mean the bad guys do. And you can be sure at least one of your players will have fun laying this out is great detail.
This is one of my favorite tools as a DM. If the party rolls particularly well on a survival check to find a campsite or ambush site, then I hand them the markers and tell them to draw it. I might tell them generally what sorts of things they are allowed to have, but they get to define their own battlefield.
If they have been scouting as well and know what is coming at them, it can be particularly gratifying.
As a player, there are a few things you can do mechanically, and a few things you can do non-mechanically.
Mechanically, you can roll survival and appropriate knowledge skills to find a safe campsite and learn what monsters might be in the area and how they track, then plan accordingly.
Non-mechanically, if you don't set a fire, then you are less likely to attract monsters. If you put yourself on top of an open hill, then you will be harder to surprise, but also much easier to spot. If you build your camp inside a huge tangle of vines and trees, then you will be much harder to spot, but also easier to sneak up on if you are spotted.
If you have enough darkvision characters to have at least one per watch, then do so. Keep any animals in the center of your camp so that brigands or carnivorous animals can't make off with them, bypassing your guards. A few hunting dogs can also make a great alarm system.
If you have access to magic, rope trick is a fantastic one. If you can afford it, sticking a stone of alarm to the end of the rope can help, but you risk running afoul of curious woodland critters if you have a particularly pranksterish GM or are anywhere near fey.
However, there are no hard and fast rules for random encounters, so there are also no hard and fast rules for how to reduce them. The best you can really do is talk to your GM, see what he recommends, and if he is hesitant, then roll some dice to justify getting the information.
I didn't choose necromancy as an opposed school just so I could pull off thread necros this bad...
Since the topic is pretty much exactly what I wanted to use, my question is simply one to lay out exactly how the smite good/evil versions granted to summoned monsters in the Bestiary works (specifically, animals with the celestial/fiendish templates making them magical beasts):
-
-
* +cha to hit, +HD to damage (this part is simple, now we reach0.
* No matter what the summoned creature's HD, its natural attacks NEVER count as magic with regard to harming incorporeal creatures.
* Even if it possesses DR good or evil, and even if it is using its smite ability, the creature's natural attacks NEVER bypass DR good/evil, the only benefit of smite is in the bonuses to hit and damage.
-
-
Having not seen a good, clear statement addressing the above in the Bestiary FAQ or on the Paizo blog, I'd like to post it here and see if most of the feedback is in accordance with the above.
All that the template says is:
Celestial Template, Special Attacks wrote:
smite evil 1/day as a swift action (adds Cha bonus to attack rolls and damage bonus equal to HD against evil foes; smite persists until the target is dead or the celestial Creature rests).
So no, the template smite evil does not confer the ability to bypass DR or deal double bonus damage on the first hit vs. evil undead/dragons/outsiders. If the celestial creature has 5HD or more, then it gets DR/evil (5 or 10, depending on HD), which means it would get past someone else's DR/evil.
picture a section of cavern floor, with several pits etc. Drop a Darkness in the middle of it. Now enter a Dwarven Wiz. with the spell Minor Image (or even Silent Image). He creates the illusion of a cavern floor (four 10'cubes +one 10' cube per level area), which is exactly what he sees with his dark vision. His companions can move thru the area with no problem? as long as they miss the save vs. his spells. The halfling gang attacking them though are hosed. Cause they MADE thier saves....?
Again, remember that silent/minor allows you only to create the illusion of a single "object, creature, or force," so first you have to get the GM to sign off on the idea that the cavern floor fits that description. The spell doesn't jut let you fill a bunch of 10' cubes with whatever illusions you want.
Second, even if an illusion spell is successfully disbelieved, remember this:
Illusions and Saving Throws to Disbelieve wrote:
A successful saving throw against an illusion reveals it to be false, but a figment or phantasm remains as a translucent outline.
So the halflings would continue to see the illusion, they just would know it was an illusion. They could think, "how helpful of that enemy to show us where the pit traps are," or could cautiously fear that the pit traps are, in fact, beneath the illusions of solid terrain, while the illusionary pit traps cover safe ground.
wow... (now to add a tangent line to start additional conflict) what about Minor Image over the area of the Darkness spell - cast by someone with Darkvision so that he can give his companions the exact layout of the area complete with the monsters in it.... "Just shoot where you think you see them!" "Wait! I'll Magic Missile the one in the back!"
can you target a Magic Missile at the Minor Image of a monster that is laid over the actual monster that is concealed by a Darkness spell....
I would say that the functionality of illusions in the area of darkness is a huge grey area. Just the fact that you are seeing an illusion of something in the dark might gives someone cause to disbelieve the illusion.
It is definately not black and white....
Of course not. If it were black and white, that would mean you have darkvision, and the whole point is moot.
They'll have to make their saves again next round, too. Since the poison has a frequency of 1/round for 2 rounds, that is. The duration of poisons stack, so if they fail both their saves next round, its 2d3 hours. Getting another dose of the poison and failing those saves also stack, should these archers really want them unconscious for a while.
Not quite.
He already said they failed both saves. On the first failed save, you take 1 Con damage. On the second failed save, you fall unconscious for d3 hours. There are no more saves. That's it.
And the rules for adding doses aren't quite just "it stacks." Rather, when you receive multiple doses, the DC to resist the poison increases by 2, and the duration of the poison (not it's effects) increases by 50%. So 2 doses of blue whinnis would turn it from a DC 14 to a DC 16 save, and increase the frequency to 1/rd for 3 rounds.
On the third round, there would be another save at DC 16 against the secondary effect of unconscious for 1d3 rounds. However, since effects do not stack with the same effect from the same source unless specifically stated, this would not increase the duration of the unconscious effect. Rather, you would roll 2d3 and take the highest to see how long you would be unconscious for.
wow... (now to add a tangent line to start additional conflict) what about Minor Image over the area of the Darkness spell - cast by someone with Darkvision so that he can give his companions the exact layout of the area complete with the monsters in it.... "Just shoot where you think you see them!" "Wait! I'll Magic Missile the one in the back!"
can you target a Magic Missile at the Minor Image of a monster that is laid over the actual monster that is concealed by a Darkness spell....
I suppose it depends on how loosely you define the "object, creature, or force" which minor image allows you to create. Also note that the spell allows the creation of only one such image.
I suppose you could create an image of a specific enemy in a specific spot to be targeted, but I doubt that your control over the image would allow you to so perfectly mirror the enemy's movement there to get past the total concealment issue. RAW certainly not. If one of my players did this, I would probably let them treat it as 20% concealment, rather than 50%.
And magic missile would be a non-starter. The missiles would, by definition, go for the parts of the image where there is no actual monster there to interfere with their ability to hit their target without fail. Because if they hit the monster, then they have NOT hit the image, which they can't do.
EDIT: Also, magic missile has to target a creature, which an illusion is not.
So again, the light levels do not matter at all. All that matters is that the target have the mental capacity to see in general, not the situational capacity to see something in front of them at that exact moment, because there is nothing there to see, or to be hidden by darkness.
In your reading then a creature that has been Blinded can be affected by Color Spray? (Because it has the capacity to understand sight?)
This sounds like adding a layer of complexity that way beyond the scope of what we are discussing.
If you can't see an illusion: color spray, mirror image, then you can't be affected by it. It would have no impact on you.
Look at color spray and you'll see that it is an actual cone of colors.
Thus the description:
A vivid cone of clashing colors springs forth from your hand, causing creatures to become stunned, perhaps also blinded, and possibly knocking them unconscious. Each creature within the cone is affected according to its HD.
Or, since we know that an illusion (pattern) spell creates a false sensation already, it could be saving words and actually be intended to be read more as "A vivid cone of clashing colors appears to spring forth from your hand, etc."
EDIT: Compare this to, for example, Suggestion. If you read the Suggestion description, you will notice that it never at any point ever says that the target of the spell actually has to do what is suggested on a failed save. That seems like a critical piece of information! It is, instead, carried in the spell descriptor (compulsion) tag.
And honestly, I don't know how it would interact with someone being Blinded per the spell. If they have been blinded by losing their eyes, I think it would still work (just as they would still be vulnerable to, for example, phantasmal killer, as they would still see that phantasm despite not having functioning eyes. But blinded by the spell? That I can't give an answer to, and I'll admit it is a weakness to my reading, but I don't think it changes the facts of what the spell descriptors mean.
Remember that color spray is a mind-affecting, illusion (pattern) spell.
Let's look at what that means.
Mind-Affecting wrote:
Mindless creatures (those with an Intelligence score of “—”) and undead are immune to mind-affecting effects.
Illusion wrote:
Illusion spells deceive the senses or minds of others. They cause people to see things that are not there, not see things that are there, hear phantom noises, or remember things that never happened.
Pattern wrote:
Pattern: Like a figment, a pattern spell creates an image that others can see, but a pattern also affects the minds of those who see it or are caught in it. All patterns are mind-affecting spells.
Figment (since it is referenced in Pattern) wrote:
Figment: a figment spell creates a false sensation. Those who perceive the figment perceive the same thing, not their own slightly different versions of the figment. It is not a personalized mental impression. Figments cannot make something seem to be something else. A figment that includes audible effects cannot duplicate intelligible speech unless the spell description specifically says it can. If intelligible speech is possible, it must be in a language you can speak. If you try to duplicate a language you cannot speak, the figment produces gibberish. Likewise, you cannot make a visual copy of something unless you know what it looks like (or copy another sense exactly unless you have experienced it).
Because figments and glamers are unreal, they cannot produce real effects the way that other types of illusions can. Figments and glamers cannot cause damage to objects or creatures, support weight, provide nutrition, or provide protection from the elements. Consequently, these spells are useful for confounding foes, but useless for attacking them directly.
A figment's AC is equal to 10 + its size modifier.
I put all the text there so that I could not be accused of taking anything out of context, but I want to highlight two lines. The first is from Illusion, and it says "They cause people to see things that are not there." The second is from figment, which says "a figment spell creates a false sensation."
Remember, that patterns function as figments, which means that it creates a false sensation. So when it says that a pattern is "an image" it might better be put as, a pattern spell creates the false sensation of an image which is not really there.
In other words, the image itself does not exist, and so is completely unaffected by the prevalent light levels. The spell doesn't make a pattern in real life which is then seen, affecting the minds of those who are targeted by it. The spell affects the minds of those who are targeted and causes them to see a pattern which doesn't exist, distracting them in some way via the visual center of the brain.
So again, the light levels do not matter at all. All that matters is that the target have the mental capacity to see in general, not the situational capacity to see something in front of them at that exact moment, because there is nothing there to see, or to be hidden by darkness.
However, if the bonus is all the time, this feat is simply better than all of the other feats that grant skill bonuses - since they only give +2 to 2 skills, not three. I know when I read this, I had assumed that it meant when on a water vessel or natural body of water.
Of course it's more powerful. You can't take it until level 5.
And it has 5 ranks in a non-too-useful skill as a prereq, and the skill bonuses don't double upon getting 10 ranks, like all other feat skills do.
Concealment does not protect you from AoE's or cone(also a form of an AoE) spells. If you are in the area you have to make the reflex save.
The 50% miss chance only applies to attack rolls.
For spells that force you to choose a target you simply can't select a target with full concealment.
Targeted spells are spells like magic missile, and charm person which have the word target at the top and tell you to select one creature or person as an example.
so i am confused by feats and spells here. so could a baddy with improved blind fight target something in deeper darkness (from dim light) with a cone or line? Does it need to make a perception to find them?
Rules text below put in spoiler tags to avoid wall of text.
Blind Fight and the subsequent feats in that chain only affect melee attacks, so they will not help your baddy make AoE spell attacks at all. The only spells they will help with are melee touch attack spells.
For spells, there are two types that it seems like you are interested in. One is targeted spells, such as Magic Missile, the other is untargeted spells, such as Cone of Cold. The way you can tell the difference is if they have a "TARGET" entry in the Effect section of the spell description.
So Magic Missile says:
Magic Missile:
EFFECT
Range medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Targets up to five creatures, no two of which can be more than 15 ft. apart
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance yes
While Cone of Cold says:
Cone of Cold:
EFFECT
Range 60 ft.
Area cone-shaped burst
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw Reflex half; Spell Resistance yes
Note the lack of a target entry in Cone of Cold. It is an untargeted spell.
What this means for casting in areas of magical darkness or where you otherwise have limited perception relates to this paragraph from the "Aiming a Spell" section of the Magic chapter:
Aiming a Spell:
Target or Targets
Some spells have a target or targets. You cast these spells on creatures or objects, as defined by the spell itself. You must be able to see or touch the target, and you must specifically choose that target. You do not have to select your target until you finish casting the spell.
So, if a spell is targeted, as Magic Missile, then you must be able to see or touch the target. In total darkness, if the target is right next to you, then, you can cast a targeted spell and then attempt a touch attack against the target (if it is a touch range spell, then you can make that attack for free as part of casting), but it will be subject to the 50% miss chance granted by total concealment. Also, since that touch attack would be a melee attack, it would benefit from the blind-fight feat chain.
If the target you want to hit is not adjacent, then you can't target them because you can neither see nor touch them.
If the spell is untargeted, then you CAN affect the area where you believe the person you want to affect is. Here's that paragraph:
Aiming a Spell:
Area
Some spells affect an area. Sometimes a spell description specifies a specially defined area, but usually an area falls into one of the categories defined below.
Regardless of the shape of the area, you select the point where the spell originates, but otherwise you don't control which creatures or objects the spell affects. The point of origin of a spell is always a grid intersection. When determining whether a given creature is within the area of a spell, count out the distance from the point of origin in squares just as you do when moving a character or when determining the range for a ranged attack.
So for cone of cold, your starting point is defined as one of the corners of your square, and it goes out in a semicircle from there to a range of sixty feet. If you think that the enemies are all thirty feet from you to the northeast, then you cast the spell and direct it to the north east.
You plot out the cone on the mat to see what squares it affects. Any creature in those squares is affected, regardless of your ability to see them. They receive no miss chance, because a miss chance only applies against a targeted attack, which this is not.
If you do not know where the enemy is and cannot see them, then you can attempt to pin point them with perception using a move action. If you succeed, then you know where they are, but you still cannot see them, so targeted spells are still a no-go. But, it makes your untargeted AoE spells, like Cone of Cold, much easier to aim because you know it's a sure thing to get them in it.
EDIT: fixed a typo and a erroneous use of the word target for touch.
EDIT 2: The point about making a touch attack to target a non-touch range spell is my interpretation of how it would work, but usually runs into action economy problems for non touch range-spells. It might be safer to say that if you want to target someone in total darkness with a targeted non-touch range spell, then you would have to be grappling them first.
So then, if you wanted to have Abundant Ammunition on both your black powder and your bullets that would require two uses of the spell right? One for each container.
Since it targets "one container" then yeah, it looks like you would need two castings (barring the possibility of just tying your bullet pouch to your powder horn, claiming the efficient quiver as precedent).
It seems like a reasonable english language argument to say that only the shot and not the powder is ammunition, but the powder is defined in the rules as ammunition, and that leads to issues with an abundant ammo'd cartridge pouch.
If you pull a cartridge out, does the whole thing count as ammo, or just the shot that is in it. So if it is just the shot, does only that get conjured into the pouch? And if it is the whole cartridge, what is the difference between that powder and the powder on its own in the horn?
Ammunition: Firearm ammunition takes two forms: either black powder and shot (either bullets or pellets) or cartridges. Unlike other types of ammunition, firearm ammunition is destroyed when it is used, and has no chance of being retrieved on a miss. No part of a cartridge can be reused to create new cartridges. Firearm ammunition cannot be treated with poison, unless you are using a pitted bullet.
So I would say yes, you can cast abundant ammunition on a powder horn or a bullet pouch.
Description
As a free action, the wearer can click her heels together, letting her act as though affected by a haste spell for up to 10 rounds each day. The haste effect's duration need not be consecutive rounds.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, haste; Cost 6,000 gp
The reason the item says CL 10th is because it allows the wearer to use Haste up to 10 rounds per day. In order to achieve 10 rounds of haste requires a person to be a 10th Level Caster. It is totally plausible to craft these at a lower CL but then the duration per day would be lessened as well.
Quote:
The DC to create a magic item increases by +5 for each prerequisite the caster does not meet.
Would that +5 allow you to then create a longer duration item?
To the first part, not really, no. Even when the effects of the item are clearly derived via spell effects dependent on CL, it doesn't matter. If someone made this at CL 5 or CL 20, it would still cost exactly the same and operate for 10 rounds per day. The ONLY effect that caster level has on a wondrous item is determining how strong of an aura it projects and how hard it is to dispell.
Now, if your GM is letting you make custom magic items, then you could make your own boots of haste which operate for a different amount of time per day. That, however, would be reflected not in the CL of the item, but rather in the cost of the item. The formula for these boots is
3 (spell level of haste ) X 10 (caster level of haste--not of item's maker) X 2000 (use activated spell effect) X 1/5 (1 use per day) = 12,000 GP.
If you wanted boots usable 20 rounds per day, then it would cost:
3 (spell level of haste) X 20 (caster level of haste--not of item's maker) X 2000 (use activated spell effect) X 1/5 (1 use per day) = 24,000 GP.
Note that you can make either pair of boots at whatever caster level you want. If, however, you don't have the CL to caste haste at the required level, then you increase the DC by +5 for failing to meet the "casting haste" requirement.
EDIT:
You could also get the 20 rds/day by going:
3 (spell level) X 10 (caster level) x 2000 (use activated) x 2/5 (2 uses per day) = 24,000 GP
OR
3 (spell level) X 5 (caster level) X 2000 (use activated) X 4/5 (4 uses per day) = 24,000 GP
Note that they all wind up at the same cost. However, you could make the CL 5, 4/day boots at a lower caster level, thus possibly avoiding the +5 DC.
Hi guys, recently I heard (or misheard) on a popular Pathfinder podcast that the Caster Level listed for magic items can be ignored for the purpose of crafting Magic Items, is this correct?
For example Boots of Speed have a CL of 10th yet both requirments Craft Wondrous Item and haste. can be gained waaay before 10th level.
What gives?
Reebo
The CL listed for magic items is for reference only if that item is bought from a store or randomly rolled. It is not a requirement for making the item. Most magic items do not have a caster level requirement. There are exceptions (such as magic arms and armor having a CL of 3 x enhancement bonus), but if it is an exception, then there will be a CL listed in the REQUIREMENTS line of the magic item. If there isn't one there, then there is no CL requirement (besides the implied on in the spells required for the item--i.e., if the item requires fireball, you have to be at least 5th level to cast fireball).
I have always treated it as a percentage roll. For example. If the wizard has 5 images (for a total of 6 options), I would just roll a 1d6 and say that on a 1, it hits the wizards, 5-6 hits an image and destroys it.
If there are 5 total for example, you could still roll 1d6 and just reroll 6's.
Happler and I do this exactly the same way... Add whatever number of images + the actual caster and roll a die closest to that and if you roll 1 it hits the caster, anything else is an image.
--Vrocktoberfest
I do the same thing, but have the player call out a number as the die in the air. If they get it right, then the wizard is hit. Gives them a bit more of a feeling of agency.
If the roll is high enough to hit the caster assign the caster a number and roll a die based on the number of images plus the caster. EX: a Wizard has six images plus himself for a total of seven targets, assign the wizard #1 and roll a eight-sided die, ignoring eight. If the number rolled is a one it hits the caster, if not it hits one of the images.
Now my question is, what if the roll is high enough to hit an images AC but not the casters?
They all have the same AC. First you roll to see if it is a hit at all, using the wizard's AC. If it hits, then you roll to see if the target was a figment or the real wizard.
Thanks, I was confused with all the talk of Monk Weapons, etc...
I agree that IUS wouldn´t get around the -4 penalty, to say so would require considering IUS to both simultaneously NOT be a weapon (to allow grabbing the weapon) and being a weapon (to avoid the penalty). Both of those aspects of unarmed Disarm are right next to each other, as mentioned, and since IUS is such an obvious, core part of the rules, if you weren´t meant to apply one of those aspects (while applying the other), I would imagine it would say so directly.
But here is the argument for why IUS would get around it.
You can grab the weapon if you disarm without using a weapon. IUS is not a weapon, thus if you use IUS to disarm, you can grab the weapon.
The -4 comes from attempting to disarm a foe while unarmed. It's a bit subtle, but there is a distinction. And IUS says:
Improved Unarmed Strike wrote:
You are considered to be armed even when unarmed—you do not provoke attacks of opportunity when you attack foes while unarmed. Your unarmed strikes can deal lethal or nonlethal damage, at your choice.
The clause after the hyphen, I think, is just a clarification of one implication of this, not the sole implication of being considered armed even while unarmed. IUS does not, however, make your fists into manufactured weapons (which I think we can safely read "without a weapon" in the disarm rules to mean "without a manufactured weapon").
So, with IUS, you are considered armed when using your fists, but your fists are not manufactured weapons, and thus you would be able to grab the disarmed weapon automatically, but you would also not be making the attempt unarmed, thus no -4 penalty.
Kaisc006: You seem to be quoting me... but aren´t actually, that´s what Submit2me wrote.
Anyhow, besides the 2 points I made, I think that technically you can´t GRAB THE OPPONENTS WEAPONS as part of the Disarm... Not even Greater Disarm does that, and although I have a feeling there exists SOME Feat to let you do this, I don´t think you will be doing it at 2nd level... at least without a lenient GM. Per RAW, if the weapon drops in an adjacent square you can pick it up, but that would be a Move Action and not be something you can do mid-Full Attack/Flurry and continue attacking.
It comes down to this line:
Disarm wrote:
If you successfully disarm your opponent without using a weapon, you may automatically pick up the item dropped.
I'd say that "automatically" means "without spending an action" in this case. But you'd be eating the -4 from this:
Disarm wrote:
Attempting to disarm a foe while unarmed imposes a –4 penalty on the attack.
As a random side point, just to be clear, IUS does not get you around that -4 penalty, correct? Or does it? I can't decide. It says that you are considered armed even while unarmed... so you aren't unarmed and don't take the -4? Or you are still unarmed so you do?
EDIT: Ninja'd on point 1. I've managed to talk myself into both positions on point 2. Anyone who knows more than me want to help?
post claiming you should raise CR for creatures outside of their natural habitat
How on earth are you getting "creatures out of their natural habitat means higher CR!" out of that rules quote?
It specifically says that creatures are designed assuming they have favorable terrain, and that if the terrain is especially unfavorable to the PCs, you can give them extra XP. The Abyss is much, much more favorable to the Shadow Demon than the prime material plane is. Thus, no XP bonus is warranted.
Your logic would mean that encountering skrags in the middle of the desert would be +1 CR. After all, who expects the Skrag Inquisition in the middle of the desert, where their regeneration shuts off automatically and they have no way to turn it back on?
Encountering the Shadow Demon on the Prime Material does not place the party at an extreme disadvantage. It's pretty terrain-independent. It's certainly less dangerous there than on its home plane, where magic to bless weapons is hard to cast and all non-chaotic and/or non-evil entities get stacking -2 penalties to all mental ability score checks (such as, say, concentration checks to cast those bless weapon spells...).
Because the fact that the shadow demon is unexpected, in this particular instance, combined with the fact that the party has had no chance to resupply for a great amount of time and so would not have been able to get what, at that time, should be "standard" gear gives the shadow demon an advantage unaccounted for in the rules.
The shadow demon is outside it's favored terrain, AND that provides a novel benefit to the monster. Thus, higher CR.
It appears from the text that you can send a fireball into an area that has "line of effect", if not line of sight as per p215.
For any spell that targets a creature or object, it says on p214 that you must be able to see or touch the target, and you must specifically choose that target.
So really, the mage barrier is a pane of glass. As long as you have at least a window separating you, a mage cannot cast a fireball on you, but could target you with a "targeted" spell, because he can see you. Hmmmmm
Interesting, this is making magic a bit more interesting based on how the spell reads. I never paid that much attention before. I like it.
hehehe, now to craft the ultimate encounter......
Fair warning, while a pane of glass will stop MOST instantaneous duration spells, it won't actually stop a fireball, because fireball has specific wording in it saying that if the AoE radius encounters a barrier, and the damage is enough to destroy that barrier, then the barrier is destroyed and the damage continues to anyone behind it.
Fireball wrote:
If the damage caused to an interposing barrier shatters or breaks through it, the fireball may continue beyond the barrier if the area permits; otherwise it stops at the barrier just as any other spell effect does.
The line about being about to define the area of effect without seeing it, I believe does not apply here. I would apply it in two situations. The first is teleport and similar spells, where you have to define the area where you are going.
The second would be casting in darkness, while blind, or while under some similar effect which denies sight while not breaking line of effect.
For example, let's say that a deeper darkness spell creates an area of supernatural darkness around you. You can't see anything, but you know that the caster who put up the spell is eighty feet to your right and thirty feet up. You could cast a fireball, defining that as the target, even though you cannot see that area. If there is a wall between you and there, however, then your fireball will explode when it hits that wall.
Its a pretty good spell. Cast Mnemonic enhancer in the evening, memorize +3 spell levels.
Sleep 8 hours, then prepare your spells as normal, including the 4th level slot expended >8 hours ago on mnemonic enhancer. You retain the extra 3 spell levels until that evening.
Do this for each of your 4th level slots and you can prepare a fair number of extra spells.
OK... so thread necromancy is fun.
Just to point out to anyone thinking about doing this multiple times, remember that mnemonic enhancer has a 10 minute casting time.
Whether or not a warning is given is not factored into CR so that can't really be counted on.
In the CR system no, but a GM prepping an adventure should be counted on to understand some warning should be given. There's no excuse for the GM not looking how a given encounter will interact with the specific group they have, it's one of their job requirements.
--Vrocky Road
The CR system assumes that you will only be encountering the monster in an area where it would naturally be and that the terrain will not favor either group disproportionately. If either of these isn't the case, then the GM is encouraged to adjust the CR accordingly. If you are in a shadow demon's natural habitat (THE ABYSS!!!!!) and aren't prepared for DR cold iron or good, then you are willfully unprepared. If you encounter a shadow demon outside of it's natural habitat, then either you should have gotten warning, or the CR should be increased accordingly.
EDIT: "Accordingly" means CR+1, which means that the shadow demon is now an APL+3 encounter for our 5th level friends. An APL+3 encounter is one where a full party wipe is a realistic possibility. In fact, 50% of APL+3 encounters should end in a party wipe.
So, any outsider encountered on the prime material plane is CR +1? You think they'd mention that in the stat block or something, seeing as the VAST majority of all encounters occur on the prime material plane.
CRB, Designing Encounters wrote:
Ad Hoc CR Adjustments: While you can adjust a specific monster's CR by advancing it, applying templates, or giving it class levels, you can also adjust an encounter's difficulty by applying ad hoc adjustments to the encounter or creature itself. Listed here are three additional ways you can alter an encounter's difficulty. ...
Unfavorable Terrain for the PCs: Monsters are designed with the assumption that they are encountered in their favored terrain—encountering a water-breathing aboleth in an underwater area does not increase the CR for that encounter, even though none of the PCs breathe water. If, on the other hand, the terrain impacts the encounter significantly (such as an encounter against a creature with blindsight in an area that suppresses all light), you can, at your option, increase the effective XP award as if the encounter's CR were one higher.
Meeting a shadow demon outside The Abyss, where you would expect to find one, and without any indication that there are Shadow Demons running around would be unfavorable terrain for the PCs. They are out of their natural environment, which gives them a previously unaccounted for advantage (being unexpected). If the party has reason to expect them, then this would not be the case.
It is in the realm of GM interpretation, but any outsider encountered in the material plane where:
(1) the party did not have cause to expect that outsider, and
(2) this places the party at a significant disadvantage, and
(3) the disadvantage could have been easily mitigated had the party been expecting that outsider,
So how easy is it for an alchemist to end an effect on herself? I'm thinking of things along the line of gaseous form, which one might need for one or two rounds, after which it's a liability, and you want it over. However, elixirs/formulae are along the lines of potions, which don't seem like things you could end at will.
Can an alchemist end an effect at will? If so, is this addressed in the rules?
If the spell has the [D] tag on it's duration line, then the alchemist can dismiss it, just like any other caster can.
The way I have always played it is that the magic handles the ordering of the summoned creature.
The reason is because the handle animal check is fine if you have a pet and have been teaching it tricks over weeks but it falls very short if you are trying to (As a free action) order 1 or more summoned monsters around.
If you have 3 creatures summoned does it require 3 separate checks?
How long does each of these checks take to perform?
What if you get lucky and roll a large number of summoned creatures like 5? How long do each of these free/swift/standard/move action Handle animal checks take to perform?
It takes weeks to teach an animal a trick like "attack", and even then it doesn't happen all the time unless you have 9-12 ranks in handle animal. Now let's look at the summoned creature, you have seen this creature for ~1 second, and in the remaining 5 seconds of that turn you are expected to successfully tell it to perform a trick that it hasn't been trained to do (Attack, Flank, Trip, Grapple). It just seems a little far fetched, even for a D&D/Pathfinder game.
If a wizard has to use a full round to summon the creature, and the next round he has to tell the creature to attack, if he fails he has effectively wasted 2 full rounds of combat and one round of that creatures brief life. He has also wasted a portion of his spell.
If you are a summoner this means that every skill point you have will be tossed either into linguistics so that your summoned creatures can understand you, or into handle animal so you you can hope to control any non-elemental you summon.
It has always made sense to me that the extra planar being that you have chosen to summon to you is loyal to and can understand you unless specified otherwise.
It is loyal, and will attack to the best of its ability unless you tell it otherwise. You need ranks in Handle Animal to train or raise animals, but not to handle or push them. That you can do just as a charisma check, and it is just a DC 10, which is eminently achievable, and even easier with a few ranks.
If you want to be summoning lots of stuff, though, a few ranks in linguistics to cover the elemental languages and handle animal to cover the animals would not be ill advised. Most alignment outsiders will speak common, so you are probably alright on that front.
And again, I think it is safe to assume that if you are summoning an animal for combat that you will get a combat trained animal.
You can only handle 1 animal at a time. If they are trained in the trick it is a move action to handle. If not, it is a standard and the DC goes up to 25.
Whether or not a warning is given is not factored into CR so that can't really be counted on.
In the CR system no, but a GM prepping an adventure should be counted on to understand some warning should be given. There's no excuse for the GM not looking how a given encounter will interact with the specific group they have, it's one of their job requirements.
--Vrocky Road
The CR system assumes that you will only be encountering the monster in an area where it would naturally be and that the terrain will not favor either group disproportionately. If either of these isn't the case, then the GM is encouraged to adjust the CR accordingly. If you are in a shadow demon's natural habitat (THE ABYSS!!!!!) and aren't prepared for DR cold iron or good, then you are willfully unprepared. If you encounter a shadow demon outside of it's natural habitat, then either you should have gotten warning, or the CR should be increased accordingly.
EDIT: "Accordingly" means CR+1, which means that the shadow demon is now an APL+3 encounter for our 5th level friends. An APL+3 encounter is one where a full party wipe is a realistic possibility. In fact, 50% of APL+3 encounters should end in a party wipe.
If I summon Celestial Dogs and I speak Celectial, can I order them to do things other than attack? For example, attempt trips or disarms or attack the spellcasters instead of the warriors?
Yup!
Summon Monster wrote:
If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.
So are they considered smart enough to understand me?
Oh, woops. Should have actually read the whole post. Sorry, no.
Being celestial does not give the dogs higher than animal intelligence or a known language. You would need to use handle animal to direct their actions. I think you can safely assume that the dogs you summoned are combat trained, so you would be using the DC 10 "handle" action to direct them. It's a move action to do. The DC goes up by 2 if they are injured. 2 intelligence is the higher end of the animal intelligence binary, so I don't think it is too much a stretch to say that you can direct them to disarm or trip rather than attack.
Now I'm really excited about the idea of a 2nd level cavalier who throughout the entire day just shouts out encouragement every 12 seconds telling his friends how awesome they are and how they can totally do this!
If I summon Celestial Dogs and I speak Celectial, can I order them to do things other than attack? For example, attempt trips or disarms or attack the spellcasters instead of the warriors?
Yup!
Summon Monster wrote:
If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.
I agree with Talynonyx. The standard action cost is the balancing point.
Also, based on the 4 orders I just randomly looked at, it looks like the 2nd level order ability is generally not a times/day ability, but rather is instead either an always on or a standard action at will.
Or you could simply use the holy water, or that wand of magic missiles. Or the fighter's cold iron weapon (and he should really have one by then). Now it being +1 could be a bit of an issue, but that's why he should have an oil, scroll or wand for the caster by now.
At 5th level you've got 10,500 gp worth of stuff. For a fighter I would be expecting a +1 main weapon, as well as a cold iron and silver weapon (possibly mithril if he's desperate for damage) ending with a ranged weapon that's +1 as well, a +1 armor, perhaps a +1 ring and some potions and oils. Excluding the potions and oils he's got 8.5k stuff there, leaving enough room for a wand of magic weapon and a nice stock pile of potions as well as mundane gear.
The shadow has 3 attacks that do 1d8 +1d6 cold -- not a lot of cold there and it is rather possible the cold damage won't be happening.
With the (now) +1 cold iron weapon the fighter can kill the shadow demon only losing out damage to the incorporeal part.
The solution cost under 100 gold pieces as an oil and under 800 gold pieces as a wand which he can continue getting use out of for a while.
And this is ignoring stuff like channeling against alignment, the paladin's now ghost touch weapon that he's smiting with, the bard's abilities that would add in, the magus's... etc.
All in all it's not an overwhelming challenge unless the party goes in willfully unprepared for adventuring.
The wand will struggle to bypass the SR. Cold Iron is a special material and not common at low levels.
The wand of magic weapon never touches the shadow's SR, and while MAGIC cold iron might be rare, common cold iron isn't (and that's where the wand comes in).
Cold Iron costs twice as much as normal, meaning you can get a back-up cold iron longsword for a mere 30gp. It only gets expensive when you start enchanting it. Alchemical Silver is slightly more expensive with a surcharge of 20/90/180 gp for a light/1-H/2-H weapon. So, for 135 gp the fighter can have a backup cold iron longsword and a backup alchemical silver longsword. Then the wand of magic weapon takes care of the +1. That is a total expenditure of 885 gp (750 of which does not count against WBL). Failure to take these basic steps by level 5 is making yourself intentionally unprepared.
The CR system does not assume absolute knowledge of what you will come up against, but it does assume basic preparations. It also assumes a relatively even playing field. In an uneven playing field, the GM should up the CR accordingly (and total ambush from an incorporeal CE outsider with strong DR and SR without any warning that such a thing might be around would be an uneven field).
There are some monsters where this causes issues, because their CR pegs them as being right on the line of gaining a seminal ability (flight, for example, or dimensional anchor) which is specifically tied to a level. I don't think this is one of those situations, though.
A creature with this special quality ignores damage from most weapons and natural attacks.
Damage Reduction, just as making a Reflex save for example, is a way to avoid damage. It helps answer the question: do I take damage, and if so, how much?
Paizo said wrote:
Even when hit by spells or magic weapons, it takes only half damage from a corporeal source.
The incorporeal rules read as: when you take damage from a corporeal source, you only take half. You don't take half hypothetical damage; you take half damage when you are dealt any. It's like you had double HP against physical attacks.
DR makes you ignore damage, ergo not have it dealt. Since you don't get half damage you ignore, I would apply DR first to see what's the damage, then half the actual damage dealt.
But the argument can be made just as easily the other way, and that's where the confusion lies.
DR ignores damage, but that doesn't mean it isn't dealt. It just means it doesn't get taken out of your hit point total while incorporeal halves damage received (as in, half the damage is never received). So if the big guy swings his sword for 30 damage, that is first halved (because half of it never hits) to 15, and then reduced by 10 (because 10 points of damage received can be ignored) to 5.
To look at it another way, DR says that it takes a fixed amount of force to break through your tough hide or overcome your body's natural wound closingness or cause actual damage to your skeletal body or whatever. Incorporeal says that half the force of a blow is never transferred from the weapon to the target. Of the half which is transferred, it still has to get past that natural toughness or regen or boniness or whatever it is.
Tough question. I would definitely not compare the halving of the damage to making a successful save for half damage. I don't think they are comparable. The saves occupy a different, special place in a character's ability to survive, not merely a function of a body type.
I can see good arguments for applying DR first or halving the damage first. I think my rule of thumb would be to apply them in the order that doesn't suit the defender best, but the PCs in the story. I'm quite content to stack the odds in the favor of the players, particularly when the combination of the two defensive powers is substantial.
But remember that one of the goals of 3E, way back when, was the creation of a unified core mechanic. This meant, on the small scale, that everything is resolved by d20+mod vs. DC. It also means, though, that you don't need 2 rules when 1 will do. We can all agree in the case of save for half and energy resistance that you do the dividing first and then the subtracting. Why do we need the exception here?
And "favor the players" is a great starting point for an off-the-cuff response during gaming when a fast answer is better than a fully researched answer, and it might be a good spot for your group for house-rules as well, but it isn't supported by the rules themselves, and I know that for me, at least, I'd be pretty upset with my GM if I knew that he was applying different rules to me than he was to his baddies.
EDIT: fixed a REALLY stupid typo in the first paragraph to make my argument not inane.
"A cavalier's levels stack with any fighter levels he possesses for the purpose of meeting the level prerequisite for feats that specifically select a firearm, such as Weapon Specialization."
Does this mean the cavalier needs at least one lvl of Fighter to stack onto to qualify for weapons specialization? Or as long as it's firearm related, the cavalier lvls count as fighter lvls?
I think this is good candidate for FAQ. This exact topic has bounced around a couple other threads (including the samurai playtest) and I don't see that it has ever really been settled.
A number of people (myself included) agree with Name Violation's reading, which is that "levels stack with any fighter levels" means that your cavalier/samurai levels count as (and are added to) existing fighter levels when qualifying for feat prerequisites. So a 1st level fighter/3rd level samurai (1+3) and a 4th level samurai with no fighter levels (4+0) would both be able to take the Weapon Specialization feat for their katana.
However, as Cheapy pointed out, you could also easily read this as an ability that requires you to have fighter levels to use. Your cavalier/samurai levels don't count as fighter levels on their own, they only do that if you have at least one level of fighter to add on.
Personally, I agree with the first interpretation because I think it makes the most sense for 5 reasons:
** spoiler omitted **...
I think reason 1 is the most compelling. It has been repeatedly stated that Pathfinder wanted to end the ridiculous builds that plagued late-era 3.5 and end the practice of the 1/2 level dip. Of the dips, the 2-level fighter was one of the worst in it's ubiquity and the fact that nobody ever wanted to take Fighter 3.
The end of the multi-class builds is one of the reasons that prestige classes were phased out in favor of archetypes and was the impetus behind the favored class changes, the addition of capstones, and the removal of dead levels.
If this ability only works if the musketeer/samurai has levels in fighter, then it means the devs made a conscious choice to go completely against their previously stated design goals and not just encourage multi-classing, but practically DEMAND a 1-level fighter dip in order to use the class's abilities.
Missed this last post. Posted before I read your post.
I do change my mind sometinmes you know :-)
Again, as the designer was you intent with infusion:
Alchemist drink CLW and can the cast it on friend?
AS I said again. This would indeed fix the problem
1) Move to friand. Move action.
2) Draw and cast the spell by drinking the elixer = standard action.
Another question.
Does casting the spell provoce AoO? If so, how to you avoid it? There is no word on cocentration checks.
I know this isn't probably done, but if you could give Sean or Jason a nod. Infusion OR Breath of Life is really unclear.
Intent was that when an alchemist uses an infusion, he can do one of 2 things:
1) Cast the spell as an infusion, then carry it around or give it to someone else to use.
2) Cast the spell as an infusion on a legal target as a standard action (effectively replacing the "drinks the infusion himself" part with "anoints or doses the target with the infusion").
Option 1 above provokes an AoO when you create the infusion, and again when you drink it.
Option 2 provokes an AoO from the alchemist when he imparts the effects of the infusion to the target.
And ANYONE can give Sean and Jason a nod. That's what the FAQ button is for. Don't be afraid of it; just because you don't receive immediate feedback that the question has immediately been brought to our attention and that we're dropping everything to address the issue immediately doesn't mean that we ignore it.
Thanks for all the answers!
*looks around sheepishly and hopes you don't notice I was the one who originally disagreed with you*
This makes sense, and clears up what was my original issue with the "using an infusion is a move+standard" response. There is one thing which I don't get, though, which is the distinction between an alchemist "pre-casting" it as an infusion, which would make it a move action to draw, and an alchemist doing it "on the spot."
Since it takes a minute of work to make an extract, we can assume that if the alchy is doing all of this within the 1-round timer on Breath of Life that he has already got the extract prepared. So what's the meaningful difference, then, between the two options? Is there ever a situation where the alchemist would have to spend the move action to pull out the infusion, or is it only that if the alchemist gives the infusion to somebody else, they have to spend a move action to get it out?
And FWIW, I -- and many others I am sure -- love seeing you on these boards, and wish that we (taking blame where it is due) hadn't done so much to scare you and the other devs off so much. In my games, and I think I speak for many on these boards on this point, I will just house-rule something like this to make the most sense. The problems arise, though, when we are playing in someone else's game. For me in particular, I am the most knowledgeable about the rules in my group, and when someone else GMs, they look to me for rules interpretations often, and they are less confident in their ability to house rule, since it takes a fair bit of system mastery in order to change the rules without worrying about it coming back to bite you a few sessions down the line.
That, for me at least, is why I tend to push back against your answers on here. Not because I disagree with you or think the answers are problematic, but because it helps me figure out how to respond to them when I bring your answers.
1) Casters shouldn't all have to take Spellcraft to cast on the defensive/not lose a spell when hit with damage or in a storm. As is, you're intentionally gimping yourself if you want a Cleric or Druid who casts off simple faith or a Sorcerer who casts "from the hip." There has been talk of moving this use of concentration into a different system entirely, which is fine, but then there's still...
2) Backwards compatibility. Concentration is very important to the Expanded Psionics Handbook, and the Tome of Battle makes good use of it as well. While most of the skill consolidations are a simple enough fix ("It says make a Tumble check? Well, roll your Acrobatics."), Concentration was basically eliminated, which means you would have to shoehorn gaining Psionic Focus or using Sapphire Nightmare Blade into other skills that don't really fit and/or aren't class skills for most of the classes that would want to use them.
3) To a lesser extent, Concentration is also useful to rogues who might want to use their skills in combat, at least hypothetically. Since Pathfinder also seems to be in the business of shoring up the weaker skills, it would be a good idea to change the rules for interruption to apply to all actions, which suddenly makes AoOs against movement a much bigger deal to avoid (which makes sense: "Oh, you tried to run by my fighter but got hit in the face with a greataxe? Sorry, that knocks you on your ass"). This would make it a useful skill for everyone.
Sorry, but I think this is important. Getting around Arcane Spell Failure is just not worth spending the amount of effort 3.5 and the Pathfinder Beta require.
As-is, the fighter's a bit meh, even with the Pathfinder changes. Extra combat feats just aren't that cool; of boy, I deal +2 damage. However, if there were a slew of high-prereq tactical feats, not only would fighters have cool options in combat, but they would be able to pull off all sorts of things that no one else could (they could at least get a couple of these tactical feats, whereas everone else would have to settle with one).
With the removal of Concentration, Spellcraft becomes a necessary skill for the Sorcerer to max. If he doesn't take it, he won't be able to cast defensively, and any goblin with a readied action can interrupt his spells with a bowshot. Now, while my preference would be to return Concentration (since removing it a) screws up Pathfinder's backwards compatibility with both the Expanded Psionics Handbook and the Tome of Battle, and b) means you can't have a sorcerer who doesn't understand the minutia of how his spells work without seriously underpowering yourself), in lieu of that, I think it is necessary to let the Sorcerer apply his Charisma modifier to spellcraft checks (though he still has to use his Intelligence modifier when deciphering magical writing and so one). This could be accomplished with a new class feature at 1st level:
Intuitive Understanding: Magic strikes a concordant note with your soul, and you "get" it like a musical savant might "get" a piano. You may add your Charisma modifier to Spellcraft checks instead of your Intelligence modifier. You must use your Intelligence modifier when making spellcraft checks involving magical writing.
Pg 51:(School powers): These should probably be listed along with the Wizard class description, since they are exclusively part of his class abilities.
pg 194-5:(Abjuration school): Their level 1 ability seems kinda pointless. Also, their abilities seem altogether too concerned with personal safety against energy attacks. The whole point of playing an Abjurer is to can protect multiple people against all sorts of threats, not just yourself against one (one that isn’t even all that big a deal at higher levels). Personal safety is well and good, after all, but fairly pointless if it’s all you can do. Throwing an aegis over everyone, though, is very useful (as long as it isn’t a piddling +1 to +5 AC at the cost of your standard action each round. If the wizard is going to have to dedicate his concentration to holding up a protective aura, it should be more impressive than making the dragon’s worst attack miss).
pg 195:(Conjuration school): Summoning Master: It could be argued that I could summon a creature just before going to bed, have it guard us, and then summon a second creature the next morning, giving me two for that day (as well as a guard for a second night). I’m not sure if this is overpowered per se, but it’s still something of an exploit. It does mean that the Wizard would never have a good reason to not use this just before going to bed, because then he’d pretty much always have a creature at his side as well as another loaded and ready to go if things got heavy.
pg 196:(Illusion school): Invisibility Field: combat at higher levels is fast, brutal, and as frequent as the party feels like. As such, I don’t see a high-level party fighting for much more than 15-20 rounds in a day, which means an Illusionist can easily be invisible for all of them. This doesn’t particularly concern me, only that it’s so easy for them to do. If they had to use a swift action every round to maintain the invisibility, or if it functioned as invisibility rather than greater invisibility, it would give a definite downside to using this as your regular MO.
pg 196:(Necromancy school): Deathless: this is a type of creature in Eberron, and for that reason I would suggest changing the name here to avoid confusion.
pg 195:(Transmutation school): Fluid Form: isn’t Flight with speed 120 feet strictly better than Climb with 60 feet? Also, a maneuverability rating isn’t listed for the flight gained.
pg 196-7:(Universal school): Hand of the Apprentice: just a nitpick on the wording: “You must concentrate on the hand each round or it returns any items it was holding to you and then winks out.” This means the same thing but doesn’t have the weird image of, “it winks out. Wait, no, it winks back, returns your sword, as if it had forgotten, and then winks out,” that the current syntax implies. Metamagic Mastery: This ability is much more powerful than the comparable Sorcerer metamagic ability, which is just unfair given that if anyone should be good at using metamagic, it’s the Sorcerer. The wizard gets to use this many more times per day that the sorcerer does, and he doesn’t even have to pay for the increased spell level! He should at least have the time increased and have to lose a prepared spell of the appropriate level. As written, he could Quicken 9th level spells, or even make them last 24 hours if he’s using the Persistent Spell feat from Complete Arcane (he could even use the same trick that the Conjurer is using and make one 9th level spell persistent before he goes to bed and another upon waking on days when he knows he’s going to face a BBEG).
Here are just a few minor suggestions I had about this or that Bloodline ability. In general, I'd like the feat lists to be expanded a bit, but I don't have any hard suggestions just yet.
Pg 43: (Abyssal) Claws: Still not entirely sold on the idea of sorcerers being encouraged to enter melee combat, but that they progress is nice. Also not sold on Strength of the Abyss, though it’s an interesting idea for roleplaying purposes.
Pg 43: Arcane): Metamagic Adept: The time increase is still unnecessary, but now that all sorcerers can cast a Quickened spell right off the bat, it’s not such a big deal. New Arcana: It would be pretty cool if the sorcerer could pick any spell to add to his spells known, though he would have to pick it up at the highest level it’s listed for if it’s not already on the Sor/Wiz list.
Pg 45: (Celestial): Ascension: Doesn’t this just scream “unlimited use of Wings of Heaven”? I mean, it’s not like all-day flying is hard to get at 20th level, and it fits the ability so perfectly.
Pg 45: (Destined): Within Reach: This could use a better name, like “I can’t go out this way!”, “This Isn’t How I Die!”, or something like that.
(As a corollary, it would be good if save-or-dies in general to simply drop you to -7 or so and bleeding. That way, the DM can actually use them against the PCs, and the PCs can get hit by them without having to roll up a new character or go through the hassle of getting rezzed).
Pg 46: (Draconic): Breath Weapon: I’d like to see this more closely resemble actual breath weapons. Perhaps it could deal ½ sor level in d6s, but he could use it every 1d4 hours at 9th level, every 1d4 minutes at 17th level, and 1d4 rounds at 20th level?
Pg 47: (Fey): Laughing Touch: This should be a [Mind-effecting] effect, if not have a save.
Pg 48: (Undead): One of Us: This could be worded better: it seems to be trying to say that you don’t have to rot, but technically all it says is you don’t have to look like you’re rotting even though you are.
This isn't as big a deal as it was in 3.5 now that sorcerers can use Quicken, but still, why keep it? Why is it a bad thing for sorcerers to be good at metamagic?
This single change will go a long, long way towards bringing parity between the sorcerer and the wizard. Staggered casting says "training-wheels caster," the guy who doesn't want to play around with serious magic whom you point at a problem and have him fireball it away, and that is not the image the sorcerer should have.
At the very very least, please give the sorcerer his bloodline spells known when he gains the new spell level. Otherwise, he only has the one spell choice, which means he basically has to wait yet another level before he's casting his max-level spells truly spontaneously.
Howdy, all. I'm running a Pathfinder game right now, and one of my players really wanted to play a bard but wasn't going to ever use her Inspire abilities. She's very evil, and more than a bit insane, and the whole making people fight better thing just really wasn't for her, so I cooked up these quick-and-dirty alternate bardic songs for her. The campaign isn't going to make it past 11th level, so I didn't bother with the progression past that point, but I figured I'd post this anyway, just to give people ideas.
This bardic music progression totally replaces the bardic music in the beta (but no other class features of the bard). Also, “will save” = 10 + ½ Bard level + Cha mod, but “will save vs perform” = perform check result.
Anyways:
1st: countersong (as Beta),
Distracting-> Distract (force enemies to make two saves vs. illusions, must succeed on both),
fascinate (as Beta),
inspire courage+1 -> incite paranoia (cause everyone within 45 feet to feel paranoid. group makes one save, PC-class characters make another. Paranoid characters take a -2 penalty to Will saves to resist fear and charm effects, AC, and all charisma-based checks, but get +1 to damage, initiative, and reflex saves. Also, characters that fail their save must make another save after one minute or start a riot if the bard is still playing. Characters must make a spot check opposed by the Bard’s Perform check to find the source of the paranoia)
2nd:
3rd: Inspire Competence -> Mar competence (enemy takes -3 to a specific skill, makes will save vs. perform to notice penalty)
4th:
5th: Inspire Courage +2 -> Dirge of Doom (as Beta, from 8th level)
6th: Suggestion (as beta)
7th:
8th: Dirge of Doom -> Frightening Tune (as Beta, from 14th level), discordant performance (as beta)
9th: Inspire Greatness -> Break Mind (can only be used on a helpless enemy, 1 hour play time, enemy must make will save vs perform or be confused permanently)
10th:
11th: Inspire Courage +3 -> Paralyzing Show (as Beta, from 14th level)
In any case, I know this isn't perfectly balanced, and I'm not suggesting it be used as written. I'd just like to get the wheels turning on other possible bardic musics, so bards can choose.
Given that all the casters get at-will cantrips, I'd be in favor of letting the Rogue's Minor Magic give him a cantrip at will. (Though in this case, Major Magic should probably jump to 3 times per day, if not 4, since it's only technically worth 720 gp according to the item creation guidelines vs the at-will-cantrip's 900).
Currently, this ability is basically totally useless. "Under rare circumstances, you take a bit less damage from a rare circumstance which is rarely dangerous anyway."
My suggestion is to change it so that 4th level monks can slowfall any distance as long as they're within arms reach of a wall, and let the listed distances reduce damage from freefalls (so a 4th level monk takes freefalls as if they were 20 feet less, a 10th level takes freefalls as if they were 50 ft. less, and a 20th level monk doesn't take freefall damage at all). This A) is actually kinda useful, B) in't the least bit overpowered, C) doesn't especially effect backwards compatibility, and D) is really really cool (if I do say so myself).
Timeless Body is a cool ability, conceptually, but the only time it's really going to be useful is if you start at 17th level or above and play a monk who rapidly gained levels and then waited thirty years to adventure again. I don't think there'd be any balance reason to not have it retroactively remove aging penalties. Also, it would be perfectly fine to let the ability also prevent you from dying due to old age, since that's only ever useful for roleplaying purposes (the image of the thousand-year-old human monk who's still goin' strong is just *so cool*).
Ok, I like that the bard has offensive uses for his bardic music as well as party buffs. However, what if you have a bard that doesn't care for one or the other set? I'd like to see a choice progression for bardic music, kinda like Rage Powers.
The paladin's spellcasting is so pathetic you have to remind people that they have it at all, and they still promptly forget about it. The spells they get are also usually not very useful, even the 4th level spells. So, I propose we let them cast spontaneously off their whole list, like Beguilers or Warmages. Also, it would probably be good to change their caster level to "paladin level -3." Finally, let's remove Remove Curse, Neutralize Poison, Break Enchantment, etc from their spell list, since that's what the LoH specials are for (though specify that they are still treated as having those as "spells on their list/spells known" for all other purposes).
It kinda annoys me how Paladins can only call their mount once per day. I mean, the mount is cool, but is it really so powerful that we need to keep it on such a tight leash? What exploits arise from letting them have their mount whenever they want instead of having to marshal it carefully?
As it stands, you'd have to be a fool of a druid to not take Natural Spell. It's the example people use of things which violate "Feats Should Be Nice, Not Required." As such, I'm for either removing it (if we think it's too much to be able to cast spells while in the form of a fire elemental), or just letting them do it automatically.
As written, these abilities leave sleeping Paladins vulnerable for some reason. I certainly agree that a sleeping Paladin shouldn't confer these benefits on his companions, but he also shouldn't lose his fearlessness, immunity to compulsions, or DR (especially DR) just for catching some ZZs.
You know, I think it would probably be ok for this ability to erase past age penalties. I mean, there are really only so many ways for this to go:
1) Character reaches Timeless body when old, it confers no (or greatly reduced) benefit.
2) Character reaches Timeless body when young, campaign skips forward 30 years, character gets bonuses to mental abilities.
3) Campaign starts high level, choice between #1 and #2 is entirely up to the character.
Now, the difference between #1 and #2 is certainly pretty big. However, #2 is entirely possible, and the game doesn't seem to be discouraging it in any way. So, all not removing past penalties does is penalize players in position #3 for picking #1, even though #1 is far more likely of the two options. I mean really, how believable is it that someone got to 17th level by the time they were 30 and then did nothing for twenty years? I can certainly see it happening, but it's a fringe case and certainly shouldn't have significant mechanical preferencing.
Also, I think it would be a very cool but essentially impotent change to remove the clause about the druid still dying when his time is up. Dying when your time is up is a pretty useless ability, really, since it can almost never come up. It just means that if you want to play a high-level druid who's been around for thousands and thousands of years, you can do that.
(These suggestions also apply to the Monk's Timeless Body).
This might just be a prejudice of mine, but it seems to me that the divine casters should, as a rule, be worse at casting than arcane casters. So, how about if we split their casting between Wis and Charisma? They need at least 10 + spell level Wis to cast those spells and get bonus spells based off their Wis, but Cha determines their save DC? This way, it's a lot harder to play a cleric who's good at everything, and he'll generally be worse off that the arcane guys. (We could also do something similar with the druid, though Charisma wouldn't work as well, nor Int, and the physicals are certainly out, so he might need a different fix).
So, the fighter's shtick is that he can be pretty much any type of combat character, right? And fixing him through new class features is difficult because every fighter prestige class assumes he just has a bunch of feats, right? So, why not fix the fighter by rigging the feats so that there are a bunch of really cool, really nasty feats which require fighter level 5+ or 7+? It's generally been my complaint for fighters that you run out of all the feats you at all actually want around 12th level, if not before, and then have to start picking up stuff like Improved Disarm, which you probably won't ever use since your character doesn't really roll like that. Wouldn't it be cool if a 15th level fighter could pick up a save-or-die feat of some sort? Or maybe high-level fighters can can automatically block attacks sometimes? I dunno, but frankly, I'd be ok with letting fighters stumble upon some borderline-overpowered feats once they get out of dip territory, and perhaps some even better ones once they hit PrC range.
One suggestion that has consistently come up every time I've ever seen rangers discussed is a spell-less variant. Some people just really hate the idea of their ranger casting spells. Now, fixing this is tricky, since spells add a lot of versatility and you'd have to give them some pretty potent abilities to compensate for that. Here's what I've got so far (it's very, very rudimentary, really just a list of ideas):
Expertise
Rangers are masters of something. Point is, they get new uses for their iconic skills, mostly in Favored Environments, but I don't want to put too much of a stress on that.
Heal (No one ever takes this, because magical healing is always so much better, but Aragorn used it to great effect, and since he's pretty much the ranger, I'd like to make it worthwhile for the Ranger)
-Restore hit points after 5 minute’s worth of care if he’s in one of his favored environments
-Cure ability damage after an hour’s worth of care if**
-Bonus when treating poison or disease if **
Search
-Can find magical traps if**
Survival
-Set good trap really easily in **
-Set alarms
-Duplicate Commune with Nature in **
-Hide from Animals
-Cover tracks
-Endure Elements
Stealth
-Immune to Scent and leave no scent trail
-Nondetection
Perception
-Always get a Perception check to notice ingested poison, don’t get poisoned anyway unless you fail by 10 or more.
-Gain effects of Scent
-Gain Low-light vision, or Darkvision 30 ft if already has Low-Light vision, or add 30 feet to Darkvision if already has that
I like that the Pathfinder ranger has Favored Terrain built-in, but I've never been a fan of Favored Enemy. Not that I think it should be removed, just that I want to be able to build a ranger without it. So, what would people feel about giving the ranger the option to take something instead of Favored Enemy or Terrain? Possibly he only chooses one of each each time he would get either, and then the class is rebalanced to take this into account?
Now that casters cast 0-level spells as many times per day as they life, might it be a good idea to let the Gnome do the same with his racial spell-likes?
Something that's been bothering but I've had little hope of effecting, how do we feel about that second +2 to an ability that the races get? I mean, the reason given is that it balances the core races against noncore races, right? Well... which races, specifically, are so much more powerful than the core races?
Is there any reason why this can't just be replaced with Die Hard? He's still underpowered, and making racial ability worth a feat would go a goodly ways towards fixing that.
Tin and fiddles! The board ate another post! Grrrrrrr.....
Ok, so, I think physical attractiveness should be struck from the description of Charisma. Here's why:
1. Charisma is a casting stat, yet it makes no sense for physical attractiveness to hypothetically effect casting. Life, if two sorcerers who were otherwise identical except for their *ahem* feminine assets (let's say they were on just on the opposite sides of the border between Char 19 and 20) were to cast a fireball, the sorcerer with the greater *ahem* endowments would hypothetically net at least a few more degrees of heat (which leads to funny jokes about "wow, you're so hot!" but when the laughs die down it just leaves you wondering why) and can cast another spell per day or so (which leads to the uncomfortable question of where exactly they store those spell slots). Additionally, if you were to specifically make yourself ugly (you wore a bad cut of clothes, put on makeup, maybe styled your hair like something from the 80s) your Charisma wouldn't go down. Makeup might give you a penalty to certain social rolls, but that would be at the DM's discretion. You certainly wouldn't have fewer spells to cast, and your save DCs wouldn't drop.
2. Physical beauty is subjective from person to person. While you can sometimes push this into the epistemological ether of the die roll, there will still be cases where a given character simply doesn't find another attractive (not "you're ugly," just "You're blond, and I prefer brunettes"), and yet they still face the same bonus.
3. Physical beauty is subjective from species to species. Humans will not find ilithids attractive who won't find beholders attractive who won't find orcs particularly attractive who won't find dwarves attractive, and so on. While there could be some cross-species attraction, it will generally be rare, especially when crossing the barrier between types, like between humanoid and aberration.
4. Some species are clearly [i]not attractive[i], and yet they have high Charismas. Like the ilithid. If he were the only instances, it might not be that big a deal, but when monsters seem to have high Charisma scores without any regard for how attractive they are, it strains credibility.
5. Charisma goes up as you adventure (ie, if you put the level increases into it). Are we to assume that a life of eating hard tack, sleeping on uneven stone floors, getting into fights all the time, taking scars and getting beat on, and generally running yourself ragged... makes you more physically attractive?
6. Charisma goes up as you age. Now, I don't want to get into an argument about whether or not age makes people more attractive, but the general consensus of modern western culture (the culture most cultures in D&D, whether consciously or not, are based on) seems to not that it does not. In general, though, it seems odd that a seventy year old would have an easier time seducing someone than a twenty year old.
All in all, I think it makes far more sense to leave how attractive a given character is up to the player. If they want to stress it, maybe they could take an "Attractive" feat or something, but building it in to Charisma just doesn't make sense.
Personally, I'd prefer this to be built-in to the class feature, but barring that, here's a feat to give the monk's Slow Fall some extra coolsauce.
Monkey Master Falling Wall Technique [GENERAL]
You have mastered the special methods used by sensei monks to slide down whole buildings and leap off bridges.
Prerequisites: Slow Fall class feature
Benefit: You can fall any distance without taking damage as long as you are within arms reach of a wall or other similar standing surface. When freefalling, you now take damage as if the fall were the listed slow fall distance shorter than it actually is (which means when you get "slow fall any distance," you can freefall any distance without taking damage).
Normal: Only falls made within reach of a wall have their damage reduced.
Parry (Combat)
You are better able to use your weapon prowess to defense yourself.
Prerequisites: Base Attack Bonus 11+
Benefit: Whenever you take the Total Defense action, you gain a +3 dodge bonus to AC against melee attacks for each weapon with which you could have attacked.
Additionally, while making a full attack, you forgo one attack (usually the attack with the lowest attack bonus) and gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC against other melee attacks until the beginning of your next turn. If you are fighting with two or more weapons, you can forgo one attack per weapon, gaining an additional +2 per attack forgone.
Improved Parry (Combat)
You are incredibly well trained at batting aside attacks.
Prerequisites: Parry, Base Attack Bonus 16+
Benefit: Whenever you take the Total Defense action, you gain a +4 dodge bonus to AC against melee attacks and a +2 dodge bonus to AC against ranged attacks other than spells for each weapon with which you could have attacked.
Additionally, while making a full attack, you get two fewer attacks (usually the attacks with the lowest attack bonus). Until the beginning of your next turn, you gain a +4 dodge bonus to AC against other melee attacks and a +2 dodge bonus to AC against ranged attacks other than spells. If you are fighting with two or more weapons, you can also choose to forgo up to two attacks per weapon, gaining an additional +2 against melee and +1 against ranged per attack forgone.
What do you think? I'm a little concerned that this could result in frighteningly-high AC, but then again, you are losing attacks, and at this level, attack bonuses usually far exceed AC anyway, so maybe it's not such a bad thing.
This has been a perennial problem for every DM I've gamed under as well as for every game I've DMed: what are the mechanics for convincing someone that you're telling the truth when you are telling the truth? It has something to do with Sense Motive and Bluff, but the problem is if you run it like a normal Bluff check, a person who sucks at reading people is more likely to get the picture than someone who's great at it, and if you run it in reverse, having a high Bluff check is bad. Anyone have any ideas on how to adjudicate this? Preferably, there'd end up being a sidebar in the eventual book on this, since it's a pretty common occurrence, I've found, and tricky to work around.
Hello, all. I stumbled upon Pathfinder yesterday, and I have to say, I’m very impressed and excited! I was tremendously disappointed by 4e but also rather annoyed with the number of house rules I felt I had to drag around to make 3.5 as good as can be, so it’s really nice to see it all integrated together like this. That said, much as I like the changes, there are some I have suggestions/criticisms regarding. I decided to do it page-by-page, and it ended up coming out to this. I know it’s rather a lot, but for every change I took issue with here, there are at least two or three that I really like.
Anyway, let’s begin:
Pg 7: Charisma should not be physical attractiveness. Leave that up to the player. Perhaps there could be an “Attractive” feat for players that want to stress it, but it doesn’t really make sense in a slew of cases for the stat itself to equal hotness. Also, Charisma should have a built-in bonus other than adding to skills (but I already have a thread on this: ).
Pg 8-9: Dwarves. They need to be streamlined a bit. They just have too, too many abilities, and it seems inelegant. Specifically, I’d ditch “Hatred” and “Defensive Training.” The same for gnomes, too.
Pg 10: Half-orc: Orc Ferocity: I’d take away the “once per day” thing, as if they get knocked before 0 twice in one day, they probably deserve the extra round (perhaps once per encounter?). Also, I’m not convinced the half-orc is balanced yet. The reason they were so much less spectacular than the other races in 3.5 was because +2 to strength was deemed just too good. However, +2 to Int is probably better for a Wizard than +2 to Str is for a melee character, and more to the point, Humans and Half-elves could put their +2 into Str if they wanted. Upshot: half-orcs need a little more love.
Pg 12: Barbarian Rage. Love the change, but it might be worthwhile to state that barbarians above 1st level get (2 + Con mod)*Barb level + 2 rage points. Also, it might be nice for there to be a way for a barbarian to psyche himself up and regain some of these rage points, possibly with a feat.
Pg 14-15: Rage abilities: Clear Mind should be Ex, I don’t think Elemental Rage makes much sense, Low-Light Vision is probably only worth 1 point, Renewed Vigor seems like it should have a use cap and doesn’t need to be supernatural (while HP does partially represent physical damage, 1d8+Con mod at 6th level isn’t enough to require the points healed to equal physical damage), and Terrifying Howl definitely shouldn’t be supernatural. Finally, Mighty Rage should probably only cost 3 rage points per turn, though honestly, I don’t see a problem with both rage improvements being free.
Also, there should be a feat that gives the Barbarian extra rage points.
Pg 16: I love the Bard picture. As for the mechanics, I liked Bardic Knowledge as it was, what was wrong with it?
Pg 20: Uhhhh, Deadly Performance is way, way too good. Performance checks can get really, really high, and I just don’t see how anyone except maybe a Cleric or Druid will have a high enough Will save to have a decent chance to not keel over. I mean, it’s going to be *at least* 1d20 + 26 (read: 36.5 average), and most people probably won’t have a much higher Will save than +15, if that.
Pg 24: Not a critique so much as a suggestion: perhaps druids could also choose to form a Nature Bond with a specific location instead? More useful for NPCs, but it would be cool if , for example, the party came up against a druid in her glade and wished they had lured her out of it first.
Pg 27: I dunno, but it just seems to me that the Fighter needs just a little bit more, especially now that feats are more common. Maybe more fighter-specific feats would do it.
Pg 30: It isn’t totally clear that he can’t spend, say, 2 ki points to get 2 extra attacks, or 15 ki points to get 15 attacks. I think it’s pretty obvious what the intention is, but an extra sentence to nail it down could avoid confusion. Also, ½ monk level rounded down or rounded up? Finally, I don’t think Slow Fall is so powerful that it should have the additional requirement of being within arm’s reach of a wall. It would be pretty cool, actually, if he never takes damage if he’s within arms reach, and can fall the listed distance in freefall before he risks taking damage.
Pg 31: Abundant Step is cool, but I’d rather it could only move the monk Close Range away at caster level = monk level.
Paladin: I was kinda disappointed that it didn’t follow the trend of giving classes X points to spend and keeping the Smite Evil uses separate from Lay On Hands. I guess it kinda makes sense, but still
(Also, in the final release, my hope is that the Paladin description will be careful to oust the “detect *THUMP*” paladin as a fraud and charlatan.)
Pg 32: Divine Bond: It’s a tad unclear what “bonus” means, as well as whether or not, say, Flaming and Holy cost the same number of points. I can infer that that’s what the section’s trying to say, but it isn’t totally self-evident. Also, there isn’t actually a duration listed (1 minute per Paladin level is technically only the amount of time the weapon glows, since it says nothing about the abilities), and it also doesn’t say anything about whether or not two uses of the ability can stack with one another, in which case a 20th level Paladin could potentially have a +24 weapon for 20 minutes if he blew all 4 uses. Finally, how this interacts with the base weapon’s enhancements is a little unclear: it says “doesn’t stack,” but implies that only enhancement bonuses don’t stack, that you couldn’t turn a +5 weapon into a +10 weapon, but you could turn a normally +5 flaming freezing electric holy weapon into a +5 flaming freezing electric holy brilliant energy speed weapon. This is fine, but it needs to be clearer that that’s what it’s trying to say.
Pg 33: Why not let the Paladin call the mount more than once per day? He can enhance his weapon more than once per day, and frankly, the mount strikes me as less dangerous in general. I don’t even see a problem with letting him call it as often as he wants.
Aura of Resolve: should function on the Paladin even if unconscious.
Pg 34: Aura of Righteousness: should function on the Paladin even if unconscious. Holy Champion: the Paladin should be able to choose whether or not to banish the outsider.
Pg 36: It would be nice to be able to play a spell-less ranger.
Pg 37: Hunter’s Bond: neither bond functions for a solo ranger, which is unfortunate since if any class lends itself to the antisocial personality type, it’s the ranger. Maybe the hunter could choose to be really good with poison? Or trapping? Or even better at hiding? I dunno, something.
Pg 38: It’s a little unclear exactly who sneak attack affects and who it doesn’t. I take it zombies still don’t have to worry about it, but it looks like it requires a DM call.
Also, it would be really nice if there were an option for a sneak-attack-less rogue.
Pg 39-41: Certain Rogue talents should be able to be taken multiple times. Combat Trick should certainly be ok, and the same goes for Minor Magic, Major Magic, (either 2 extra times per day, or another spell) and Resiliency (use it more times per day). The same goes for Improved Talents: Defensive Roll (more times per day), Opportunist (more times per round), and Feat. Also, Skill Mastery should give her 3 + int bonus number of skills, so if her Int goes up or down after taking this, it changes the number of skills she can take 10 on.
Pg 42: Ah, the Sorcerer, my old friend. How long and hard I’ve argued to make you better.
Let me give you a little history: over on the WotC boards a few years ago, the chic thing to do was post a Sorcerer fix. It seemed more people wanted to do that than everything else combined. Anyway, when the smoke cleared, it seemed to me that there were four main problems with the Sorcerer:
1. Staggered spellcasting. You know, how all the real casters get the new spell level at caster level (2*spell level -1), but sorcerers have to wait that extra level. It’s arbitrary and unnecessary, so remove it.
2. Too few spells known. One more spell known per spell level gives them enough chutzpah to get along. The bonus spells from bloodlines help, but first, they shouldn’t be even further staggered, and really, I think the bloodline abilities are enough by themselves to get it across that sorcerers get their power from their genes. Also, 6 spells per day is much more than they need, so it’s ok to drop it to 5/day, or even 4.
3. Metamagic time increase. Also arbitrary, also unnecessary. Let the sorcerer be good at metamagic out of the box, it won’t break anything. At the very least, let them finally use Quicken spell.
4. Material components and scroll use. They really just don’t make sense for the sorcerer. They should have to be trained in Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft at least before they can use Scrolls. Since Pathfinger doesn’t have XP costs, I don’t see how we can remove pricey material components, but it would be cool if there were some way. I dunno.
Also, we found that giving sorcerers a slightly altered Thematic Spell (from Magic of Faerun) was a great way of making each one distinctive. For those of you without an obscure 3.0 Faerun book, Thematic Spell basically means all the sorcerer’s spells have a similar *ahem* theme (like darkness or tiny flying skulls), or something happens to the sorcerer’s appearance when he casts (ie electricity crackling, floats off the ground an inch, clothes float, eyes glow, etc etc). He also added +1 caster level to ½ Sor level spells.
Anyway, those are my suggestions towards fixing the Sorcerer.
Pg 43: Abyssal level 1: pretty much useless. When is it ever a good idea for a Sorcerer to go into melee combat? Same with 9th level.
Pg 45: Celestial Wings: there’s no listed action to activate this. It’s Su, so I suppose it’s a Standard Action, but it should probably be stated here too. Ascension: if the Sorcerer has tongues, he should be allowed to swap it out for free. Within Reach: As a bigger change, I’d suggest making all save-or-die effects merely drop you to -9 hit points and falling. With that change made, though, Within Reach would need to be made a little better. Destiny Realized: just make all critical threats against the sorcerer automatically fail (it’s simpler, not much more powerful, and doesn’t actually grant immunity).
Pg 46: Claws: Also useless. Breath Weapon: this would be cooler if it was ½ caster level and instead useable once per hour / once per minute / once every 1d4 rounds.
Pg 48: Incorporeal form: also doesn’t have a use listed, and probably should. One of Us: it gives you leeway re: appearance, but I don’t see any harm in tossing out a few more suggestions on how it might manifest.
Pg 49: So… a bonded object is basically +1 spell slot? But any spell the wizard has in his spell book, right? Or does “any spell the wizard knows” refer to spell mastery-ed spells? Also, specialist wizards should take a -1 caster level to all non-specialist-school spells (with Universal being tuned down a bit, consequently).
Finally, Sorcerers and Wizards were fine with a d4 hit die. Standardization of hit dice is nice, but not super important, particularly since Barbarians break it anyway.
Pg 52: I’m torn on whether or not to add Climb and Swim together. On the one hand, they clearly represent very different things. On the other hand, they aren’t really powerful enough to justify keeping apart. My inclination is to bite the bullet and add them. Other than that, I like the changes.
Pg 62: Perception (Scent) looks too easy to me. Maybe it’s just that I have a terrible sense of smell, but I’d think it should be +1 per foot rather than per ten feet.
Pg 68: Arcane Strike: Would be nice to be able to burn spell slots to add to attack and damage.
Pg 70: Cleave: I never had a problem with it before. It was just a fun feat for the fighter. (Same comment with Great Cleave later).
Pg 76: Channel Energy: Should probably only heal half the amount of damage it deals.
Pg 77-8: Grapple: looks good, but also has a lot of “if-then” statements, which are tricky to run.
Pg 81-2: Abjuration: I like Protective Ward, but would like it a whole lot more if it were what the specialist ability were based on. Like, it starts giving more and more bonuses as the wizard goes up in level. Maybe it gives a bonus to saves as well and energy resistance and spell resistance/immunity or something.
Also, with respect to all of these Specializations, the spells definitely shouldn’t be spell-likes. If it has a pricey material component, they should have to pay it just like normal.
I’m not going to comment on the Cleric domains, largely because clerics don’t interest me, and that’s a lot of information to go through. On a skim, though, it mostly looks ok.
Pg 100: Breath of Life: The healing shouldn’t be able to bring someone above 0 HP, and it should be able to fix death effects (setting the person at 0 HP). Also, good clerics should be able to spontaneously lose a 5th level slot to use this.
Pg 101: Darkness and Deeper Darkness: Aww, I really liked that darkness spells shut down darkvision. It was one of the funnest parts about them! At least let deeper darkness do it…
Pg 104: Find the Path: Why not just make it easy to counter this spell? I mean, the only problem with it is that it makes the concept of “lost city” absurd, right? Maybe the spell works through a sympathetic connection to maps, so if there isn’t a map to the place, it can’t get you there (uncommon/rare maps might require a check or something, and you only get a vague direction or something).
Pg 117-8: Slay Living: Um… it just deals damage, so the title is a total misnomer.
Pg 118-9: Wish: Inherent bonuses shouldn’t take away from one ability score, nor should you need to cast them in immediate succession.
Pg 142: Just to check, is magical item creation the same, except no XP cost?
Allright, that’s it. I’m sure there are other problems, but I tried to limit myself to aspects of the game I feel I have a good hold on. Thank you!
Now, there are classes that specialize in each of the abilities, but each of them also has built-in reasons for wanting them to be high. While not everyone needs every ability, they are universally punished for dumping any given ability... except for Charisma. Here, let me show you:
Strength: Encumbrance, melee attack/damage, CMB, skills useful to everyone.
Dex: AC, Ref save, ranged attack (including some spells), skills useful to everyone.
Constitution: HP, Fort save, buffer from death vs. con damage/drain (vs mere KO in the case of the other ability scores)
Intelligence: skill ranks
Wisdom: Will save, skills useful to everyone.
And:
Charisma: ...
Nothing not role-centric. Only characters with Cha-centric abilities and the face character have any reason to have Charisma above 1, and that's not a fair comparison since all the abilities have class abilities based off them. A fighter with a Charisma of 1, for example, isn't any worse at what he does than a fighter with a 10 or an 18 in it, but he can't get away with a score of 1 in anything else without paying for it (Dex means his AC and Ref save are suffering, Wis and his already-poor Will save is even worse, Int 1 and Int 8 aren't any different, true, but Int 8 and Int 10 are, and obviously he can't dump Str or Con). The same goes for the Wizard, Barbarian, Rogue, Druids (Wild Empathy excepted), Clerics (Channeling excepted), Monks, and Rangers (Wild Empathy excepted), and if a Sorcerer could get away with switching to Int, he would be a fool not to.
In other words, I'd like to give Charisma a few more built-in benefits, at least one that everyone would like. Thoughts?
