Caleb Garofalo's page

I suggest that there be made some consistency to items that temporarily grant special material and rune effects to weapons and ammunition.

Cold Iron Blanch: 10 gp for 1 min of cold iron (level 3) [cold iron weapon is lvl 2]

Silversheen: 6gp for 1 hour of silver (level 2) [silver weapon is level 2]
Ghostbane Fulu: 40gp for 1 min of ghost touch (level 6) [ghost touch rune is lvl 4]
Disrupting Oil: 10gp for 1 min of disrupting (level 3) [disrupting rune is level 5]

No consistency in price to level of mimicking effect ratio, no consistency in duration, no consistency in level of item to level of mimicking effect ratio, no consistency in type of magic item. Further inconsistencies: the fulu only effects one target, the first two call out how it works with ammunition, the second two do not leaving it up to the players whether or not these work with them or don't like their mimicking runes do not.

I propose some consistency in the remaster.

Alchemical Oils that mimic the effect of special materials. Magical Talismans that mimic the effect of runes.

Both last ten minutes, cost X% of the rune/material, level is X% of the rune/material, and ranged weapons apply it to their ammo.

I don't care much on how good you think my example is, all of the above is meant to convey this:

However Paizo wants to make it look and whatever specifics they settle on, I think some consistency is warranted.

The Rain of Rust Feat says: "You conjure a red raincloud in a 10-foot burst within 60 feet, which pours rust-colored rain directly below it. Any creature in the rain with the metal trait, that is made of metal, or is wearing metal armor is covered in corrosive build-up. Any such creature is clumsy 1 as long as it remains in the area. If such a creature is in the rain at the start of its turn, it takes 3d6 damage with a basic Fortitude save against your class DC, plus 1d6 persistent damage if it fails. Damage from this impulse ignores Hardness."

What is the duration of this?

The Versatile Blasts feat says: "Accessing a wider realm of elemental manifestations, you can make blasts with rare forms of your elements. Add the following damage types to those you can choose for Elemental Blasts of that element: air cold, earth poison, fire cold, metal electricity, water acid, wood poison."

Is the fire entry correct, with this feat it can do cold damage instead?

I will be attempting to do two things.
1. Analyze if there are enough meaningful choices one could make to distinguish their character from another when wild shaped.
2. Point out some unclear information regarding using form spells.

First Subject
When looking at a wild shaping druid I wondered if there were meaningful choices I could make to effect my stats when wild shaped. Here is the data I collected to find my answer. This post does not consider pest form.

All form spells state, "If your unarmed attack modifier is higher, you can use it instead," and after it gives your athletics modifier they also state, "unless your own modifier is higher." It is unclear exactly what is meant by 'your modifier'. Does it include all possible bonuses you've added to it from all sources? Does it mean just bonuses from proficiency and ability score? Does it mean only bonuses that could be retained while polymorphed (circumstance & status and if from gear only those that are also a constant effect as opposed to activated)? It is unclear that if you have your modifier boosted from a spell if that will count as your modifier pre-transformation.

Let us assume that 'your modifier' only means proficiency and ability score bonuses and the bonus gained from Wild Shape. Here is when it is better to use the power's attack bonus / athletics or acrobatics bonus.

Animal [2/9]: 2-5,7,9 / 2-5,9
Insect [6/9]: 7,9 / 9
Dinosaur [8/13]: 9,13 / 8-11,13,14
Aerial [8/11]: never / 9,11,12
Elemental [10/13]: 11,12 / 11-14
Plant [10/11]: never / 11
Dragon [12/15]: 15,16 / 12
Monstrosity [16/17]: 16-19 / 16-19
Nature [20]: always /always
(in brackets is the level you can first use said spell, and the last level it is heightened at)

Let us assume that 'your modifier' means any bonus but not consider temporary bonuses such as from spells. Here is when it is better to use the power's attack bonus / athletics or acrobatics bonus.

As you can see with the first assumption there is a good spread of times when it's better to use the spell's modifiers, or your modifiers. With the second assumption there is almost no scenarios where it is better to use the spell modifiers (only two for elemental form, and three for animal form). Based on these results I feel that in the first scenario there isn't enough opportunities to make character choices to make your character any different from other characters when wild shaped; and in the second scenario there are more than enough opportunities to make character choices to make your character different from other characters when wild shaped.

Second Subject
I would also like to address some confusion with how form spells work. When using form spells you gain special statistics. Every form spell has the polymorph trait which details that, "If you take on a battle form with a polymorph spell, the special statistics can be adjusted only by circumstance bonuses, status bonuses, and penalties...Your gear is absorbed into you; the constant abilities of your gear still function, but you can't activate any items."

Handwraps of might blows allow you to use runes and apply them to your unarmed strikes (which the attacks you gain from form spells are considered). Runes are for the most part unclear if they function while you are polymorphed.

Let's start with one that is clear. It is clear that the Weapon Potency rune would not apply to attacks gained from the form spells. This is a constant effect so the gear is allowed to function, but it is a item bonus which is not one of the two types of bonuses allowed to affect your special statics gained from polymorph. However things become more complicated when we look at Striking Runes.

It is not clear whether or not the Striking Rune would apply to attacks gained from the form spells. A Striking Rune increases the number of damage dice (depending on the rune level and how many die the attack has). This is a constant effect so the gear is allowed to function but this effect of increased damage dice is not a typed bonus of any kind so it is not one of the two specified bonus types that can adjust the special statistics given to you by the form spells. If an effect is not a typed bonus of any kind does it still need to go through that bonus type rule? This is a very similar issue with many property runes. Take corrosive for example which add 1d6 acid damage. This is not a typed bonus of any kind, but is it considered adjusting the special statistics?

Consider the energy-resistant rune. This gives you 5 [energy] resistance. This is very similar to the above example, with an added caveat. It is adding a wholly new statistic to your character - resistance. Animal Form (for example) doesn't give you resistance of any kind. Is gaining resistance considered adjusting your special statistics? Is adding considered adjusting?

Moving onto another unclarity. As touched on in the first part of this post, the wording 'your modifier' in the form spells is ambiguous. What exactly does 'your modifier mean? I see three possible interpretations:
1. It includes only bonuses from proficiency and ability scores.
2. It includes only bonuses from proficiency, ability scores, and items.
3. It includes bonuses from all sources including proficiency, ability scores, items, and temporary bonuses such as those from spells.

To help reduce unnecessary discussion I think we can all agree that a bonus from a spell such as Heroism applies to a polymorphed creature's new stats, what is unclear is if you have your pre-transformed modifier boosted from a spell such as heroism if that will count as your modifier pre-transformation.

The Striking Rune says, "...increasing the weapon damage dice it deals to two instead of one." I imagine it was worded this way because all the weapons in the equipment section only deal 1 damage dice.

I used Dinosaur Shape getting 2d8 damage. Rules as written a striking rune would not add a damage dice because the wording does not say add 1 damage dice, it says to bring it from 1 to 2 and it's already 2.

Any weapon that is added in the future that has a base damage of to 2dx will also not be effected.

I propose that the wording be changed to indicate that it's damage dice will be increased by 1.

Can someone explain to me what benefit you get from the level-8 barbarian feat 'Animal Form'.

You transform into your animal. You gain the effects of the 3rd-level animal form spell except you use your own statistics, temporary Hit Points, and unarmed attacks instead of those granted by animal form. You also retain the constant abilities of your gear. If your animal is a frog, your tongue’s reach increases to 15 feet. Dismissing the transformation gains the rage trait.

For every stat the animal form spell gives you it seems that the feat is telling you to use your own stats instead. So what benefit are you actually getting from the spell?

For an instinct that is very simple, I would imagine it would have the greatest rage damage progression, not the worst progression.

Rage Damage Progression (lvl-1/lvl-7/lvl-15)

• Animal: 2/5/12
• Spirit: 3/7/13
• Dragon: 4/8/16
• Giant: 6/10/18
• Fury: 2/6/12

I submit that the Fury instinct should give you the greatest increase in rage damage at every stage due the sacrifice you're making of not having any other additional effects. Getting an extra feat at level-1 (a level-1 ancestry feat btw) is not enough compensation for not increasing my fury damage until level-7 while all other instincts increase fury damage at level-1.

The level-4 Barbarian Feat 'Wounded Rage' says you can enter into a rage as a reaction if you have taken damage. However this has the rage trait which means you can only use it while your raging. This makes it unusable, correct?

Catfolk
It includes half-catfolk heritage for humans and half-catfolk feats as well.

Kineticist

Here you go for all of you that don't want to wait to play a Kineticist.

To answer this question we will reference the Eidolon section of the Summoner (taken from Unchained, note however this section in the original summoner is worded nearly exactly the same):

This specifically says that the Eidolons are, "treated as summoned creatures," except they are not sent back to their home plane when the duration of the spell that summoned them is over (because obviously they haven't been summoned by a spell) but instead are sent back to their home plane when other criteria is met (ie. -con score, banished, etc). So since summoned creatures are the actual creatures ripped from their home plane and forced to serve you for a limited time depending on the spell (ie. summon monster, planar binding, etc.) before returning to their home plane given that they have survived long enough for the spell to expire, Eidolons must be the actual creatures being summoned.

However it also states that, "The eidolon forms a link with the summoner, who forever after summons an aspect of the same creature," (Important to note that it then does away with the word aspect and refers to the aspect of the eidolon simply as the eidolon). What does aspect mean? Consider the following:
1. "The eidolon’s physical appearance is up to the summoner."
2. The eidolon can experience "death" and can be "slain" (specifically calling out those words and obviously referring to it reaching -con), and yet can return (be summoned) a day later.
3. It doesn't heal naturally unlike all other living creatures in Pathfinder.
4. "The eidolon takes a form shaped by the summoner’s desires," ie. the summoner chooses it's evolutions and gets to redecide them every time the summoner levels up.
5. The eidolon grows stronger as the Summoner does.
With these details we have to assume that aspect means that we are not actually summoning the creature.

In conclusion, there is a contradiction in the book where it both says you summon an aspect of the Eidolon (not the Eidolon itself), and that you summon the Eidolon itself and that is what makes the question posed in the title impossible to answer RAW. If it is the actual creature then why does it return to life after being slain and what does the verbiage about aspect mean? If it is an aspect then it does not in fact get, "treated as a summoned creature," and what exactly is being returned to it's "home plane" when dismissed or slain?

We had so much to say about the Playtest that it couldn't all be contained in an open survey.
So here are our thoughts on the playtest.
We also filled out many surveys, and made sure to get this episode up before the surveys close for what that's worth.

After having a lot of experience with the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Playtest we're ready to give our feedback on the playtest system. From playing through and GMing the entire Playtest Adventure Path Doomsday Dawn on the feedback schedule, to GMing our own home games afterword, we spent a lot of time with the system. We discussed the system at it's most current updated state (1.6).

You can find more ways to listen here.

The Pathfinder Academy podcast celebrated 150 episodes with Paizo's Franchise Manager Mark Moreland. This discussion was all about Catfolk, so please feel free to post all your Catfolk thoughts and feedback here!

Listen here:
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I made the Kineticist for 2nd Edition Playtest (1.6). Took like 50 hours, but I'm proud of it.

I created rules for a Catfolk Ancestry.

List of creatures you can summon via Planar Ally

To my knowledge there is no other list of all the creatures you can summon via the Planar Ally spell so I decided to create one.

The list contains monsters that have higher HD than the spell lets you summon, but I figured why not just complete the list of outsiders.

The list uses all Core Rulebooks as it's sources.

The list does not leave out monsters that might not be good to summon (such as the Ahkhat that will return to it's home one round after being summoned).

I think it would be an improvement if the Form spells (Pest Form, Animal Form, Insect Form, Dinosaur Form, Aerial Form, Elemental Form, Dragon Form) each referred to Bestiary entries.

This has some pretty cool pros:
• This would also make these spells cooler than gaining just a few generic abilities instead getting some cool monster-specific abilities that you'll find in their Bestiary entry.
• The formatting of Bestiary entries are very clear-cut making them much easier to reference while playing than the Form spell entries.
• The spells give you new stats (instead of modifying your own) which is what the Bestiary does already, so the design philosophy is the same in that respect.
• I think this also allows expansions to the spell in the future by simply having an entry in each bestiary that says 'add the following monsters to the following form spells' if expanding the list of creatures you can turn into is something that we would want.

I know there are some challenges to this change, but I think they're worth overcoming:
• We have to have a Bestiary entry for each creature.
• What exactly would heightening the spells do? (Maybe use the dire versions of the creatures or higher age category for the dragons.)
• This means that people who want to use these spells have to own the Bestiary. (Don't summoning spells make you do that already? Besides if there is a PRD-like reasource for 2nd edition this won't be a problem.)
• Stephen Radney-MacFarland was kind enough to speak to this subject and said that one of the potential challenges would be that players would be burdened with having to 'pick the best one' as they were 'shopping' through the Bestiaries. Having the spell list which monsters you can transform into (much like it already does) would solve that I think.
• He also said that the Bestiary monsters weren't designed with players being able to turn into them in mind. But he added that if they were to get feedback that this was the direction to go they would reflect that in the final Bestiary publishing.

Ever since first 1st edition I've always wanted to be able to just use the Bestiary stats, I think that's a lot of people's fantasy to just become the monster and be handed the Bestiary.

In the very least it would be an improvement to the readability and usability of the spell if the stats in the Form spells were formatted like Bestiary entries where they can so it's easier and more efficient to reference in game.

As I understand that magic item slots have been removed, so can we wear multiple belts say, or multiple hats, that sort of thing? I would like a page reference not opinions if possible. Thank you.

For example Kolyarut, Inevitable. If I had to guess creatures such as the 4 horsemen's names are not, or stat blocks for deities are not. What about names that are from other open-source things such as Charon as one of the 4 horsemen, or Baphomet the deity?

As someone who uses Pathfinder for purely homebrew content I find myself wanting to know the world-neutral (or setting-neutral) names for Golarion specific content. It is my understanding that the generic names are part of the OGL and the Golarion specific names are not. I am unable to find a complete and centralized list of the generic names and created this document to serve that purpose.

I need your help to complete this list. Please respond with any first-party world-neutral terms with your source and I will add it to the document.

Thanks so much!

Item hardness is not listed by item, it's listed by material in the "Treasure" section (p.354).
Wooden hardness is 5, iron or steel is 9.

According to a note about Shields under the "armor and shields" section (p.177) there is says, "...you can use the Shield Block reaction to reduce damage you take by the shield's Hardness (3 for wooden shields or 5 for steel).

Do you guys think this is a typo (ie. one thing didn't get updated while the other did) or do you think shields are an exception from the hardness rules?

Vic Wertz posted on this thread that "I'm leaving this thread locked until our community team is available to moderate as needed," on Oct 23rd.

It's been nearly a month, when is the community team going to be available to moderate? If you look at the Ultimate Wilderness thread it appears they're available now.

A creature with the burn special attack deals fire damage in addition to damage dealt on a successful hit in melee. Those affected by the burn ability must also succeed on a Reflex save or catch fire, taking the listed damage for an additional 1d4 rounds at the start of its turn (DC 10 + 1/2 burning creature’s racial HD + burning creature’s Con modifier). A burning creature can attempt a new save as a full-round action. Dropping and rolling on the ground grants a +4 bonus on this save. Creatures that hit a burning creature with natural weapons or unarmed attacks take fire damage as though hit by the burning creature and must make a Reflex save to avoid catching on fire.

If afflicted with the burn special ability of a monster, a character can take a full-round-action to attempt the save to put out the fire. Dropping to ground is a free action, but what action is rolling around?

Characters at risk of catching fire are allowed a DC 15 Reflex save to avoid this fate. If a character’s clothes or hair catch fire, he takes 1d6 points of damage immediately. In each subsequent round, the burning character must make another Reflex saving throw. Failure means he takes another 1d6 points of damage that round. Success means that the fire has gone out—that is, once he succeeds on his saving throw, he’s no longer on fire. A character on fire may automatically extinguish the flames by jumping into enough water to douse himself. If no body of water is at hand, rolling on the ground or smothering the fire with cloaks or the like permits the character another save with a +4 bonus.

If a character has caught on fire by other means they "must" make a reflex save. What action is this? Dropping to the ground is a free action, but what action is rolling on the ground? What action is smothering the fire with cloaks?

I wanted to make a Druid archetype that focuses on wild shape and does not have spell casting.

Replacing Spellcasting with Something Equivalent:
Spellcasting is exceedingly powerful, and scales as you level up.

The Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain class features from the Ranger is both powerful and scales, however it is not as powerful. The buffs to wild shape (which scale) took care of the rest of the power discrepancy.

Since the first option of Nature Bond modifies their spell casting, I replaced it with the Ranger's first option in order to retain a choice as it works well with the other Ranger abilities they have received.

To keep with the Druid's nature-based theme I gave them the Orisons as spell-like abilities, which I believe doesn't effect their power level dramatically. They retain their ability to use summon nature's ally, however they can not do so as often as their base druid counterparts.

Buffing Wild Shape
I gave Wild Shape to them at 2nd level, made it unlimited at 4th, I gave them the ability to change into vermin, oozes, and magical beasts, and a few other benefits (such as the wild armor special ability and quick wild shape feat modifications).

I gave them built-in ways to access wild shape class feature feats.

Since this archetype focuses on martial combat I have given it a d10 hit die and full BAB progression.

Other Notes
I wasn't able to solve their wild shape not scaling past 12th level, though the expanded types of creatures available and the extra feats they get might be good enough.

I allowed the Bonus Wild Feat to grant regular feats if there are no more wild feats available because the only way for that to happen is if the player selected wild feats using their normal feat allotment, so in the end there is no net gain.

This should be able to work with any of the ANIMAL Shaman druid archetypes.

Usually things are explained in fiction, then in mechanic terms.
IE. You create a wall of fire. It's x ft. long, does x amount of damage, etc.

However I can find no wording clarifying how the Shifter's minor aspect actually looks in fiction, only mechanic language.

Stats here.

The idea was to allow have base stats with some room left for players to customize their character based on what parts of their race are clockwork and which are flesh.

What do you guys think?

The sticiked FAQ post in the rules forum says, "New answers are provided on a weekly basis on Tuesday. You can keep up to date on what's been answered in the FAQ Updates Sticky Thread."

I went to the linked post and it hasn't had any responses. Has there been no updates since Aug 10th? The FAQ thread seemed to indicate that there would be an update every Tuesday. Did they cancel this?

Do Kineticists receive their burn before or after making their Kinetic Blast.

I ask because the Elemental Overflow class feature changes certain things (one such being attack bonus on the Kinetic Blast) depending on how much burn the Kineticist currently has.

I am trying to figure out what the attack bonuses look like for a Kasatha wielding 2 two-handed weapons. I made this chart to help me talk about this question. It assumes Kasatha Fighter(12th) with a BAB of 12 and no other bonuses to hit.

The numbers on this chart were taken from Hero Lab, I am trying to figure out if it's listing for the 2 two-handed weapons is correct.

According to the wording in the "Multiweapon Fighting" feat, creatures that have more than two arms, "It has one primary hand, and all the others are off hands."

What do you guys think?

I am new to the area and am looking to be a player in a homebrew Pathfinder campaign. Anyone out there looking for a player?

I am a 26-year-old married man and have a fair amount of experience. I have been the GM for a long-running home-brew campaign which has accrued over 380 hours of gameplay. I have also GMed for over 100 hours for an online-campaign for a podcast. I have been a player in the Harrowing adventure path, and have been the player in a couple online homebrew campaigns.

As a player I enjoy roleplaying a lot, and like making my characters with a focus on flavor not just optimization. If you want someone to just sit back and be stats on a page then I'm not your guy, but if you want someone who will engage with the story then I'm your man!

Can I pick a greater exploit if I am level 11 or above by using the "Extra Arcanist Exploit" feat?

At 11th level and every 2 levels thereafter, an arcanist can choose one of the following greater exploits in place of an arcanist exploit.

At 11th level and every 2 levels thereafter, an arcanist can choose one of the following greater exploits in place of an arcanist exploit.

Hello, my name is Caleb, and I'm looking to be a player in a homebrew Pathfinder campaign. Anyone out there looking for a player?

I'm a 26-year-old married man and I have a lot of experience as I have been the GM for a long-running home-brew campaign which has accrued over 380 hours of gameplay. I've also GMed for over 100 hours for an online-campaign for a podcast.

As for being a player, I always seem to GM more than I play, and am really itching to be a player again.

Hey guys, I hope you don't mind a small bit of self-promotion.

Not too long ago I started a Podcast Network called THE TRAILBLAZER NETWORK.
It's been a ton of fun doing these podcasts and I just wanted to let you guys know about it. Right now there are two podcasts on the feed:

Pathfinder Academy

• Join professors Caleb & Christian as they teach you all about the Pathfinder RPG. We talk about game mechanics, review classes, discuss GM and player techniques, and much more! From beginners to experts, everyone can attend this class for a great time.

Trailblazers

• Follow our players on their adventures as they encounter Emperors, Dragons, Liches, and much more! This is not your average dungeon crawler!

Our website is here, at tblazer.net. If you're interested in either podcast you can find us on iTunes, just search for "Trailblazer Network". We also have links at the bottom of our website where you can play the podcasts through a variety of other ways (including: RSS feed, iTunes, PodBean, Stitcher, Podcast Chart, and RPG Podcasts). In addition each episode can be played right on your browser HERE (NOTE: The page will take a few seconds to load).

We have over 50 episodes in our back catalog so there's plenty to check out. If you guys do check it out, we hope you enjoy it and your feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Looking to be a player in a homebrew Pathfinder campaign. Anyone out there looking for a player?

I'm a 26-year-old married man and I have a lot of experience as I have been the GM for a long-running home-brew campaign which has accrued over 380 hours of gameplay. I've also GMed for over 100 hours for an online-campaign for a podcast.

As for being a player, I've been wanting to be a player for a long time, only ever had a chance to do that a couple times.

I'm GMing for a group of 2 players in Galloway (near Atlantic City) and we need a third. No experience needed. The two players we have are in their twenties and are males. I'd like to round out the group with a girl, but all are welcome to apply.

What would you like to see in an official second Advanced Race Guide book?

I'd like to see stats for:

Anubis (Egyptian Mythology)
Centaur (ARG)
Cthulu-like-race*
Dragonkin**
Drider (ARG)
Elementals***
Gargoyle (ARG)
Gathlain (B4)
Gnoll (ARG)
Goron (Zelda)
Kasatha (B4)
Lizardfolk (ARG)****
Minotaur
Nagaji (B4)
Nekojin (Cat-people)
Ogre (ARG)
Protoss (StarCraft)
Trox (B4)
Wyrwood (B4)
Wyvaran (B4)
Zora (Zelda)

(bold is what I want the most)

I'd also like to see favored class bonuses for all previous races for classes that have been introduced since the ARG.

I would also like to see illustrations comparing all the races similar to this one (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-decgIL_-zQI/UfmbIF1hKsI/AAAAAAAAAas/sys-CTIsEr4/ s1600/pathfinder_races.png).

*Something Eldridge inspired would be awesome, tentacles and stuff you know?
**Here is an example of what I mean (http://pathfinderwiki.com/mediawiki/images/thumb/4/45/Blue_dragonkin.jpg/2 50px-Blue_dragonkin.jpg)
***It would be cool to be able to roll one of the elementals as a PC. You could use alternate racial traits to choose between the different types of elementals.
****Lizardfolk are weird because there is an example of them in the ARG as well as a beast of the same name in the Bestiary. In this case I am referring to the one shown in the ARG
*****For any races based on another IP, I'd like to see a version of them represented in the Pathfinder Universe.
******ARG indicates that the race was used as an example at the end of the book in the section dedicated to building your own races

Hey guys, I hope you don't mind a small bit of self-promotion. My friend Christian and I started a podcast about two months ago. It's called Pathfinder Academy, a podcast where we talk about game mechanics, review classes, and(eventually) discuss GM and player techniques.

Neither of us have done something like this before, and we're still trying to hit our stride. If anyone checks it out, your feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Our most recent episode is part of a series of discussions of the Advanced Class Guide Classes. We discuss the Hunter's mechanics and class abilities, and our opinions of the class. We've also reviewed the Arcanist, Bloodrager, and Brawler.

Our website is here, at tblazer.net. In addition to Pathfinder Academy, I host an actual-play Podcast called Trailblazers. If you're interested in either you can play the podcasts through the RSS feed in your browser, or on iTunes.

Warning: RSS Feeds do not work on Google Chrome. As far as I know, Chrome requires an add-on to be able to load RSS Feeds. It should work fine on Firefox and Internet Explorer.

I would love to see a class that specializes in making and buffing constructs and golems.