Burntgerb's page

The living Bonfire Kineticist feat - *You conjure a bonfire in an unoccupied 10' space within 30'.*

How does that work in combat? There's no rules in the feat itself - and the rules for fire just look like it's difficult terrain and 1d6 of fire damage with a Reflex DC 15.

I don't intend to milk this feat for more than it's worth - I'm just trying to understand how much of a deterrent to passing through a 10' patch of *bonfire* is going to be for allies and enemies - all the bonfires I've ever been to are about twice as tall as they are wide but this doesn't say anything about that.

I imagine that it's something that's highly dependent on your GM - but I figured I could be missing out on some secret metatag info somewhere .

I've seen a lot of content around the Kineticist and have a good idea how it functions - but there's very little feedback that I've seen about how people are *enjoying* the class.

So those of you that have a few levels of real play experience under your belt, what do you like about it?

You add a flourish to your composition to extend its benefits. If your next action is to cast a cantrip composition with a duration of 1 round, attempt a Performance check. The DC is usually a standard-difficulty DC of a level equal to the highest-level target of your composition, but the GM can assign a different DC based on the circumstances. The effect depends on the result of your check.

So does the extension of the duration only extend the benefits of the song - or the song itself?

My group just successfully wrapped up Tomorrow Must Burn and I was hoping to get access to Spiritual Anamnesis during the adventure or upon it's completion. I'm uncertain if we could have gained access to it at some point - but our GM didn't seem to find a page where it said we had access to the spell. If it's a specific award for something we missed

Other than the GM outright telling you, is there existing rules support to allow a caster to know if an enemy critically failed it's save?

Some applications of this would certainly be more obvious than others - for example, in my game it's an enemy that crit failed a Calm Emotions spell.

Would a caster just *know* that information?
I couldn't find rules support for this in the CRB.

Or is this all simply up to the GM?

If a hazard or trap has the magical trait but doesn't mention Dispel Magic under it's Disable block nor does it have a counteract level - can it be successfully dispelled?

Does the Magical trait inherently imply that Dispel Magic can counteract it? Or does it need to be specifically called out in the hazard stat block that it can?

I'm playing a 9th level (Maestro + Polymath) bard in Age of Ashes - and I'm currently determining if Quickened Casting is actually my best feat option at 10th level. Myself and the Cleric are the only casters in the party - so I've assumed the role of primary offensive caster for the party. I'm tempted to take Quickened Casting despite how the guides indicate otherwise - there just doesn't seem like a more ideal option available.

I understand that it's usage is only 1/day - but climactic boss battles are pretty evident (and often easy to anticipate to be fully rested for), but it's potential to almost immediately tip the scales in your party's favor without having to even fire off your highest level slots (I'm looking at you, Spiritual Anamnesis...) seem too good to pass up. We don't typically have 15-minute workdays, but the rest of the party does understand the value of having the casters close to full power - and this version of the game seems to understand that you'll be near full power for most encounters.

It just seems that once I hit 11th level, being able to cast two massive debuffs or sing, move (to the champion) and cast greater silence on him in the first round of battle seem as though they'd be tremendously helpful often enough to be worthwhile.

Used judiciously and carefully, I think that despite it's spell level and 1/day usage limitations, it's still to me well worth the investment to help your caster have more capability to overcome encounters.

My question is about using Bon Mot before casting Charm:

A successful usage of Bon Mot will lower an enemy's will save by 2 or 3.

You launch an insightful quip at a foe, distracting them.

And Charm has this relevant text:

It must attempt a Will save, with a +4 circumstance bonus if you or your allies recently threatened it or used hostile actions against it.

I believe it's intentionally left up to the DM to determine what's threatening or hostile - but I'd like to see if it's a reasonable expectation to believe that a usage of Bon Mot would constitute as a threat or hostile action. I could see arguments for it either way.

What do you think?

I'm reading the Bard's 4th level feat Combat Reading in the APG, and I'm trying to wrap my head around it - what are it's (non-obvious) differences from Recall Knowledge and if that makes it a better choice or a trap - and should it replace recall knowledge if you can afford to?

Looking at the stats at a random sampling of lvl 8-10 creatures, they've got recall knowledge dcs of 26 - 29 and stealth and deception scores from 18-22. More than once in the Age of Ashes my party is playing, Recall Knowledge has been a wasted action.

My 9th lvl bard has an Occultism of 17 - so it's about a 50/50 shot at that point to get a crit success for two pieces of vital info on the baddie your party is fighting and close to 85+% for a success. In my experience, we don't get creature level or any other ancillary info on a recall knowledge check - basically the info we as a player already know and one of the above. It's sometimes stressful on play for the GM to stop, read the stat block and determine everything known by a knowledge check - it'll derail combat frequently.

So am I right in understanding that Combat Reading - for the cost of a precious Class Feat - can likely replace needing to use recall knowledge in combat with a drastically lower DC, a lighter burden on the GM and a far smaller skill investment? I feel like I'm missing something here as 2e still has a lot of nuance that isn't immediately evident.

Sometimes a character might want to follow up on a check

to Recall Knowledge, rolling another check to discover more information. After a success, further uses of Recall Knowledge can yield more information, but you should adjust the difficulty to be higher for each attempt. Once a character has attempted an incredibly hard check or failed a check, further attempts are fruitless—the character has
recalled everything they know about the subject.

If I cast Hypercognition on a single creature, I'd like some clarification about how it works. Are all rolls simultaneous? If not, do you have to announce which checks you make before knowing the results - would a critical failure prevent using a different type of knowledge check?

Scenario: The caster uses the Hypercognition on an Adult Brine Dragon
Recall Knowledge - Dragon (Arcana): DC 32
Recall Knowledge - Elemental (Arcana, Nature): DC 32

A)The caster lobs 6 Arcana checks (22, 27, 36, 43, 42, 25)
- does the initial crit fail effectively fizzle the rest of the rolls?

B)The caster uses: Dragon Lore: (22, 36) Arcana: (22, 42) & Nature (32, 38)
- does the first crit fail nullify further checks on the same creature (subject)?

You can instantly use up to 6 Recall Knowledge actions as part of Casting this Spell.

I guess I'm asking how this is adjudicated - do you make up to 6 rolls simultaneously - or do you make them one at a time (and if you do, do you need to announce what all six are before you start rolling)? Also - when is says you've exhausted all you know about the subject does that mean the target of the spell or the particular knowledge skill used (Brine Dragons vs. Brine Dragon morphology as it relates to their biome)?

It seems unclear in the core rulebook how positive damage would work with living creatures.

With the positive damage option, would an attack against a living creature deal:
- Full normal damage(as per "planes awash with this energy" p635),
- Zero damage (not cited anywhere I know of, but It's been suggested to me)
- Heal them for that damage (Effects with this trait heal living creatures with positive energy, p635)?

If using necrotic damage is the only option to damage living creatures, it certainly seems like it would give spirit instinct a more sinister flavor than intended.

Specifically, has anyone used this fourth level spell yet? It's on p.75 of Siege of the Dinosaurs.

It seems like you could sneak up to the big bad, touch the armor they're wearing (or some other difficult-to-remove attended object) and back away and just stack up the extra damage while your party engages in combat. In this respect, it's like a 4th-level Heat Metal that still does 20d6 necrotic (over 1 minute)on a save.

But like most of us - I'm new to this edition and there's tons of subtleties I'm learning that make me reevaluate powers and options entirely.

An attended object only seems to be defined once on page 461

You usually can’t attack an attended object (one on a creature’s person).

Am I missing a rule about attended items? Would armor count as "holding or carrying the object" I just can't tell at this point if it's a trap or above the curve for a 4th level spell.