Bubbles the Magnificent's page

Thank you Manly-man and pH

2a) Isn't the pull instead of the grapple?

Upon successful hair attack, a WHW can roll to grapplewith her hair as a free action

Thank you ^_^

I've built a character around the White Haired Witch archetype because I believed it to be playable in PFS.

Source material comes from a 3rd party book but the pfsrd site categorizes the archetype as Paizo origin on the witch's page.

Can I use this archetype in PFS play? I've seen other threads where they mention PFS for the WHW and nobody has come out and said it was illegal for play.

I'd prefer not to rebuild.

I've read some of the posts re: WHW & Grapple/Grab mechanic and noticed there haven't been clear replies from the Dev team regarding the rules for this archetype.

This is my attempt at getting an answer.

1. Assuming extra attacks with the hair, (bab iterative attacks or flurry of blows: monk dip, etc) is it possible to grapple multiple opponents?

1. a) Does maintaining the grapple for the WHW require a standard action to do so? Seems the WHW can move to pin only one opponent in the subsequent round(s) in this case...

If you do not release the grapple, you must continue to make a check each round, as a standard action, to maintain the hold. If your target does not break the grapple, you get a +5 circumstance bonus on grapple checks made against the same target in subsequent rounds. Once you are grappling an opponent, a successful check allows you to continue grappling the foe, and also allows you to perform one of the following actions (as part of the standard action spent to maintain the grapple).

2. Does the Grappled opponent appear in the square adjacent to the WHW?

If you successfully grapple a creature that is not adjacent to you, move that creature to an adjacent open space (if no space is available, your grapple fails).

2. a) Would make the Pull ability gained at WHW level 6 be made redundant?

Pull (Ex): At 6th level, a white-haired witch who successfully strikes a foe with her hair can attempt a combat maneuver check to pull the creature 5 feet closer to her as a swift action*.

3. Does the WHW hair affect creatures of any size? Or those sized the same & smaller as the WHW?

As I thought just wanted to make sure there was not some detail I was missing as it is a powerful combo.

It doesn't crit + d4 damage dice + save for half + negates bull rush on save, makes it not that great. You're looking at something like 10 or maybe 15 extra damage on one hit.

As a magus, most of your swift actions should be accounted for already:
1. The swift damage enhance from the Arcane Strike feat.
2. Dimension Door swift cast from the Dimensional Dervish feat chain.
3. Quickened and intensified bad touch spells.
4. Accurate Strike arcana
5. Arcane Accuracy arcana
6. Spell Shield arcana

Still, it is one of the rare swift action cast spells, and you can apply it after you confirm a hit, so those are a few pluses there. But overall, a magus has better options on where to spend his/her swift action.

...my DM has been speaking to me about concerns about the somewhat unbalancing nature of the class. My character is currently a 5th level Bladebound magus, and now we've both come to see certain unbalancing qualities...

...Am I over thinking this? Am I missing any glaring weaknesses in the class as combat is concerned? Can anyone offer any advice to balance things out?

Does your DM allow wizards, clerics, druids (or other tier 1 primary casters) in the campaign? Then no, the magus is not overpowered. Those are class abilities you listed are designed to help the magus keep up with the damage potentials of other primary pointy stick users.

& It sounds like your DM is concerned with the magus' damage output, so i ran a little comparison between three classes on melee without optimization (other than giving the magus very high strength.)

So without further ado, let's compare the melee damage output potentials of three 7th level characters: a barbarian, a druid, and a magus.
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1.
if you give a barbarian 18 str, +2 weapon (something that a black blade magus has at the same level) and add rage & power attack.
they get a +13/+8 to hit with a damage range of 15 - 24 per hit. with a crit damage range between 30 - 58 per hit.

per round, assuming both attacks hit, minimum is 30 and max is 116 with both crits + max rolls on damage. (note: that this is not optimized with additional feats or rage abilities)
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2.
druid using Wild Shape (shaped as a tiger - they get pounce & grab for free) & a wolf companion.

druid will also they get for free (in tiger shape) :
-->grab = free grab w/o provoking aoo on successful hit
-->pounce = full attack on a charge

for enhancements we'll only cast the Magic Fang spell for companion, and enhance the druid with a Greater Magic Fang (and for argument's sake we'll imbue all his/her attacks with a +1, instead of the +2 for one type of attack) spell. and for argument's sake we'll set his strength score slightly above average. a 12 strength.

this way, you should note all of the druid's attacks are at +10 to hit, with a +4 to damage.
claws do 1d8 each and the bite does 2d6. so assuming all attacks hit, 10-24 for claws & 6-16 for bite. that's 16 - 40 per round total. (without crits. crits would double that damage)

the animal companion's to hit value is a +12 (BAB+4, Str 13[+1:ability score increase][+2:str/dex bonus][+7:str bonus as 7th level wolf animal companion] & magic fang +1)

the animal companion's dmg output is 1d8+8, which works out to 9-16 per round, again assuming all attacks hit with it doubling on crits.

per round, a druid character dishes out 25 - 56 damage. (output doubling on crits)
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3.
a magus with black blade archetype, scimitar and power attack with a str score of 20.

gives them a +10 to hit. (BAB +5, str +5, black blade +2 and power attack -2)

with damage of 1d6 + 11 (str+5, bb +2, pa +4) roughly works out to 12 - 17 per hit and doubling on crits.

you'll also note that in order to spell strike effectively they have to get their spell out. (if they fail their concentration roll, they are not privy to an extra attack or the extra damage that hitting with the spell allows.)

d20 + 7 + 5 = concentration | dc 15 + double spell level | 45% chance of spell failure for 3rds | 35% chance of spell failure for 2nds | 25% chance of spell failure for 1sts

if the spell is successfully cast, the highest damage potential for a 7th level magus is a shocking grasp spell with intensified metamagic feat & free empower metamagic feat as per magus arcana (1/day) that would bump up the damage to a 10d6. {crit x 2}

if we are assuming all melee & spell hits, the damage would range from 39 -> 124. understand that this can only be done 1/day.

if both melees crit (which makes the spell crit as well) the damage would range from 68 -> 188. also that this can only be done 1/day.

now that we understand the potential for damage a magus is capable of with one round of attacks once per day, let's discuss his/her effectiveness outside of that one attack.

since we are assuming all melee & spell hits, for an average Magus spell, damage ranges from 29 -> 64 per round. or 58 -> 128 on crits.
*if the spell hits but one melee misses, damage ranges from 17 -> 47. doubled on crits.

finally, keep in mind that at best, a magus has a 25% of success for critical hits. (gained from using a limited use 'keen' ability) this means that 1/4 attacks have a good chance at achieving critical hits.
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Ok, so now that we all understand the numbers, let's see how it works in game play...

Let's say in 4 rounds of combat, we assume all attacks hit, and none are criticals:

3. Magus:
Statistically speaking the magus should pass concentration twice and gets off two spells in those 4 rounds. That's 6 regular attacks and two of them are supplemented by a spell. 6 attacks at 12 - 17 damage is 72 -> 102 plus spell damage of 10 -> 60.

So in 4 rounds, magus regularly would deal 82 -> 162 points of damage.

That works out to 21 -> 40.5 per round.

2. Druid:
If the druid prepares for combat in advance and casts Magic Fang, Greater (lasts 1 hour/level so it should be cast early in the day) on himself, the first round of combat could be spent either casting Magic Fang on the animal companion, or Wild Shaping to a fighting beast form.

That leaves about 2 rounds of fighting, but for the sake of argument, let's say only the Wild Shaping action is taken to bump attacking rounds up to 3 rounds.
the Druid's average damage would be 24 -> 53 (remember the -1 for not casting on the companion) x 3 rounds of fighting.

Output is then 72 -> 165 total damage for the 4 rounds.

Roughly, output per round should work out to be 18 -> 41.25.

1. Barbarian:
Fighting for 4 rounds at 2 attacks each round is 8 attacks.
Each hit results in 15 -> 24 damage which is about 120 -> 192 for the 4 rounds of combat.

Per round average works out to 30 -> 48 damage.

Yes I did not account for critical hits, (and the explosive critical damage potential for magus when a spell crits) but the magus is no better suited to actualizing critical hits than a barbarian with a Keen Edge spell cast by a friendly caster.

I hope this helps.

Edit: I neglected to calculate the -2 penalty to all attacks that a magus takes for being able to Spell Combat. Thus it makes all the magus' attacks at a +8 and not a +10 like I originally wrote. It wouldn't make a difference in the all attacks hit in the 4 rounds I outlined above, but in actual game play, the magus would hit a lot less often.

The feat chain, ending in Dimensional Savant.

I'm thinking of a bard build, sandman, specifically.

Yes, I know, it's a long build.

So:

Dimensional agility (and the others) requires the 'ability' to cast dimension door as a prerequisite. Can this be satisfied simply by using the spell, such as a scroll or wand? It's on the bard's spell list, or does it require that he be OF LEVEL to cast it.

Next, this is really odd, this is a long feat chain with a lot invested into it, to get what maybe a few uses a day?

IF I'm say a 17th level bard, I cast D-Door I get 30 feet of movement, per level, so 510 feet of movement, but the duration is instantaneous, using the dimensional savant feat, i can't 'night crawler' all around an enemy BAMF BAMF BAMF as many times as I have attacks, moving 5 feet at a time, giving myself flanking positions around my enemy,

Ok sweet. But say I move once, maybe 20 feet, and then another 15 feet in 'bamfing' , Ive taken ALL my actions, and my turn is over, now what? Is the spell over or next turn can I continue BAMFing until all my movement per level has been expended,

If the former, this seems extremely limited in it's use for the huge feat chain that must be invested, no?

I'm inferring that requiring the 'ability' to cast DD means that the character be of sufficient level to cast the spell, or be able to use a spell-like ability to mimic the spell.

I understood it as one use per casting. (Maybe it could apply to AoOs?) Next round your bard will have to cast DD again to gain the movement benefits the feat chain provides.

The movement rate you calculated is incorrect. you don't get 30' of movement per level.
As per SRD listing for the feat Dimensional Dervish:
<i>Benefit: You can take a full-attack action, activating abundant step or casting dimension door as a swift action. If you do, you can teleport up to twice your speed (up to the maximum distance allowed by the spell or ability), dividing this teleportation into increments you use before your first attack, between each attack, and after your last attack. You must teleport at least 5 feet each time you teleport.</i>

It's like casting a quickened DD spell, and get full-attack out of it. As you can see, this feat becomes a little more useful once you stack Fly and/or Haste on top of it to boost movement.

Pendagast wrote:

ok so, I have to be 'of level' got it. but the point still remains, IF I use ALL my spells per day just to teleport, maybe i can pull this stunt 6 times? this seems like ALOT of feats for such a limited use....

It's a "limited use" that can be damm handy during those few times you use it. I can see this big time for a monk, magus, or eldritch knight type of figure.

Partial investment in the chain can be rewarding in and of itself. Not everyone who enters it needs to go the full route.

Agreed. I am currently playing a Magus building specifically to do this. It's a lot of (very costly) feats, but I think it would totally be worth it to pull off a few times in game.