Carl Burgdorf 320's page

Noticed something in some of the feats in the Two-Weapon Fighting chain.

You are skilled at defending yourself while dual-wielding.

Prerequisites: Dex 15, Two-Weapon Fighting.
Benefit: When wielding a double weapon or two weapons (not including natural weapons or unarmed strikes), you gain a +1 shield bonus to your AC.
When you are fighting defensively or using the total defense action, this shield bonus increases to +2.

I'm a Sword and Pistol pirate with a single shot pistol, but empty or not I'll keep holding it as long as it keeps giving me a shield bonus. I always knew buckler guns were overrated.

Striking with both of your weapons simultaneously, you can use them to deliver devastating wounds.

Prerequisites: Dex 17, Double Slice, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon Fighting, base attack bonus +11.
Benefit: If you hit an opponent with both your primary hand and your off-hand weapon, you deal an additional 1d10 points of damage plus 1-1/2 times your Strength modifier. You can only deal this additional damage once each round.

I'm a Net and Trident gladiator with two nets and lots of combat maneuvers. I can trip/disarm/entangle/dirty trick without dealing damage, but doing two is like swinging a glaive. Alternatively, I hit some sap with two saps and rend them for lethal damage.

Your off-hand weapon while dual-wielding strikes with greater power.

Prerequisite: Dex 15, Two-Weapon Fighting.
Benefit: Add your Strength bonus to damage rolls made with your off-hand weapon.
Normal: You normally add only half of your Strength modifier to damage rolls made with a weapon wielded in your off-hand.

Nowhere does it say melee only, and the benefit doesn't say strength bonus increases to 1.0 from .5, it just says "Add your strength bonus" without requiring you had part of it previously. My 'off-hand' hand crossbow adds my strength modifier to damage while my 'primary' hand crossbow doesn't.

Twin Thunders (Combat)

When you fight giants, your powerful blows combine with skills learned from generations of your people to quickly even the odds.

Prerequisites: Dwarf or gnome, defensive training racial trait, Two-Weapon Fighting or flurry of blows class feature, Weapon Focus with both wielded weapons.
Benefit: Once per round, when wielding a bludgeoning weapon in each hand against a creature with the giant subtype, if you hit the creature with your off-hand weapon after you hit with your primary weapon, roll the damage dice for your off-hand weapon twice and add the results together before adding any bonuses. Such extra weapon damage dice are not multiplied on a critical hit.

Twin Thunders Flurry (Combat)
Your dual bludgeoning strikes are especially deadly when you are fighting giants.

Prerequisites: Dwarf or gnome; defensive training racial trait; Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and Two-Weapon Fighting, or flurry of blows class feature; Twin Thunders; Weapon Focus with both wielded weapons; base attack bonus +6.
Benefit: You can trip a creature with the giant subtype of up to Huge size, and you gain a +2 bonus on damage rolls against creatures of the giant subtype. Further, each time you hit a creature of the giant subtype with your off-hand weapon after you hit that creature with your primary weapon, you can deal the extra off-hand weapon damage Twin Thunders grants you.

Twin Thunders Master (Combat)
With thunderous simultaneous strikes, you can batter a mighty giant into submission.

Prerequisites: Dwarf or gnome; defensive training racial trait; Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and Two-Weapon Fighting, or flurry of blows class feature; Twin Thunders; Twin Thunders Flurry; Weapon Focus with both wielded weapons; base attack bonus +9.
Benefit: Whenever you deal an opponent extra damage with the Twin Thunders feat, that opponent is shaken for 1 round. You also force that opponent to succeed at a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + half your level + your Str modifier) or become staggered for 1 round. If you use this feat to render staggered an opponent that is already staggered, you daze that opponent instead. In a similar way, you can stun an opponent that is already dazed.

My Dwarven pistolero will make some giants have bad days with free vital strike and debuffs on half my touch attacks from 30ft away.

.

The best(worst?) part is that all these can stack, so your alchemically 4 armed Gnome can get pretty crazy with two longbows and blunt arrows. Common sense tells me most of these examples shouldn't work. RAW tells me all of them do. I'm looking specifically for any references to these sorts of things by the devs or in FAQs or etc. What are the specific rules on what kinds of weapons each feat applies to? How many of these weird combinations are intended to work as such?

So I have a PFS cleric (no archetypes) and I've just come across the Iron Priest archetype from the Technology Guide. It fits the character pretty well so I looked at retraining, and had a bit of a question.

To gain an archetype that replaces standard class abilities you already have, you must spend 5 days for every alternate class feature you would add, subtract, or replace by taking that archetype. At the end of the training period, you lose the standard class features and replace them with the archetype’s alternate class features (if any).

The Iron Priest archetype does three things: different class skill list, alters channel energy, and alters casting.

Iron priests preach of the messengers from beyond the stars, envoys of the divine brought to Golarion in a falling star. Iron priests can affect robots and other unliving constructs with channeled energy, but lack power over the undead. Appropriate deities for an Iron Priest include Brigh, Nethys, Gorum, and Haagenti. An iron priest has the following class features.

Class Skills: The iron priest’s class skills are Appraise (Int), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Dex), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (engineering) (Int), Knowledge (history) (Int), Knowledge (local), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), and Survival (Wis).

Channel Energy (Su): When an iron priest channels energy to heal or harm living creatures, she heals or harms constructs with the clockwork or robot subtypes as well. Constructs without those subtypes are also affected, but gain only half the normal amount of healing or take only half the normal amount of damage, as appropriate. An iron priest cannot harm or heal undead with channel energy. This ability alters channel energy.

Spontaneous Casting: An iron priest can spontaneously cast make whole and greater make whole in place of cure/inflict moderate wounds and cure/inflict critical wounds, regardless of whether she channels positive or negative energy. This ability alters casting.

While it doesn't specifically state so, I assume that the class skill list replaces the standard cleric class skills. My question is that the archetype alters channel energy and casting, it doesn't add, subtract, or replace either of them.

Lots of archetypes alter abilities rather than replacing them outright, and the archetype retraining never mentions abilities that alter.

tl;dr Is retraining altered class features free or is it considered replacing?

So I've had a silly little idea for a while, and now that I've figured out how to do it I started writing up the stats for it. The idea behind it is a grapple-focused monk that starts every day by setting himself on fire, and then giving very warm hugs to the bad guys.

Catching on fire deals 1d6 fire damage per round, so I need to choose a race with resist fire 5 (Tiefling, Ifrit, etc) and take a Magic Basic Trait called Unscathed, which increases all of your resistances by 2. I now have resist fire 7 and I am immune to 1d6 fire.

Now I have 2 questions.

1) Catching on fire rules never actually discuss how to weaponize being on fire. My first reaction is that I am considered a bonfire (medium sized) so when I grapple enemies they are exposed to it and must make the standard DC 15 Reflex save to avoid catching on fire, not forgetting the grappling condition's dex penalty.

2) Equipment. The character is a monk, so he won't need a whole lot, but I was wondering if there were specific rules for equipment being flammable or not. Can I just say my amulet of mighty fists is made of steel? Do magic items with fire effects (things of shirts of immolation) count as fireproof? How much does an asbestos explorer's outfit cost? Technically the rules specify "Those whose clothes or equipment catch fire" and not "those who catch fire," so RAW can I light my hair on fire and not need to worry about equipment at all?

So I'm currently running book one of the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path, "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv." To avoid unnecessary spoilers, I'll just say that wilderness survival is a major theme of the book, and finding sufficient food is one of the things the party needs to worry about. One of the characters is looking at taking the spell Climbing Beanstalk from the ACG.

CLIMBING BEANSTALK

School conjuration (creation); Level druid 2, witch 2
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, DF
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect 5-ft. square of climbable beanstalks
Duration instantaneous

You cause a thick, sturdy beanstalk to sprout from the ground and grow upward to a height of 10 feet + 5 feet per 2 caster levels. The growing stalk anchors itself to sturdy objects such as walls or ceilings, and grows around objects that do not fully obstruct its square (such as tree branches), but is stopped by solid obstacles. The beanstalk provides numerous hand- and footholds; its climb DC 5. The beanstalk can support up to 200 pounds plus 50 pounds per caster level, or double that amount if anchored on its upper end. If it anchors itself to a sturdy mobile object (such as a ship or a siege engine), breaking the object free requires a DC 23 Strength check or cutting through the beanstalk (hardness 2, 40 hp).

If the ground is capable of supporting plant life, the beanstalk continues to live as a normal plant, and it produces nutritious (if unappetizing) beans. Otherwise, the plant dies after 1d6 hours; its husk remains as durable as a small tree.

The adventure is on a vibrant jungle island, so there's no question of whether or not the ground can support plant life. It mentions that it produces beans, and even that the beans are nutritious, but doesn't provide any statistic on how these beans count as food rations (enough food for X creatures per day per Y feet of height, etc). The beanstalk itself (while gigantic) is non-magical after it's created, should I just rule that it doesn't produce beans fast enough to provide a statistical difference for the party's rations?

It's worth noting that other than a 2nd level slot, the spell has no cost and is effectively permanent. The character in question is a witch, not a druid, so it does cost one of his 2nd level spells known.

So I have a cleric of Gorum that is looking at the Holy Vindicator PrC (Better BAB, Better HD, Better Armor Proficiency, etc). But, being a greatsword wielder, he can't really use the Vindicator's Shield ability, which is one of the coolest things they get IMO. However, I was reading the ability and noticed something.

A vindicator can channel energy into his shield as a standard action; when worn, the shield gives the vindicator a sacred bonus (if positive energy) or profane bonus (if negative energy) to his Armor Class equal to the number of dice of the vindicator’s channel energy. This bonus lasts for 24 hours or until the vindicator is struck in combat, whichever comes first. The shield does not provide this bonus to any other wielder, but the vindicator does not need to be holding the shield for it to retain this power.

Nowhere in the ability does it state that it adds the bonus to your shield bonus, or that you even need a shield bonus at all. You just need to be wearing a shield. If my cleric straps a buckler on he's wearing a shield, and can thus benefit from the ability, and can still wield the greatsword, albeit with a -1 to attacks.

Am I correct in this reading or is it just wishful thinking?

So recently I played my character 'Iron Tarkus' through the scenario "Day of the Demon. Regretfully, he did not survive to the end, but as I thought back on the way things turned out, I realized something. In the final encounter, the big bad hit me with a deep slumber spell and I managed to fail the will save, so down goes Tarkus. Wanting to capitalize on this, minion 1 performs a coup de grace. I take a pretty hefty hit but manage to roll a nat 20 on the fort save and thus survive, until minion 2 also performs a coup de grace in the same round and kills me from flat damage. It wasn't until after sheets were handed out and we all went home that I realized this:

This spell functions like sleep, except that it affects 10 HD of targets.

A sleep spell causes a magical slumber to come upon 4 HD of creatures. Creatures with the fewest HD are affected first. Among creatures with equal HD, those who are closest to the spell's point of origin are affected first. HD that are not sufficient to affect a creature are wasted. Sleeping creatures are helpless. Slapping or wounding awakens an affected creature, but normal noise does not. Awakening a creature is a standard action (an application of the aid another action). Sleep does not target unconscious creatures, constructs, or undead creatures.

This means that after the first coup de grace (which I survived) I would have awakened, thus no longer vulnerable to another coup de grace. Normally I wouldn't worry too much about this, mistakes happen and I doubt it was done intentionally, but we only had a four player table, and I was playing frontline, my death left the rest of the party exposed, another teammate died as well, and if it hadn't been for some timely Summon Monster spells it may well have been a TPK. The fact that my group spent money and prestige raising half the party because of an illegal kill has been kind of nagging in the back of my head. I haven't raised this with the GM or my VC/VL yet, figured I'd get some advice here first.

2: Twin Fang (Ex) Once per day as a standard action, you can summon an exact double of your animal companion. The double acts and thinks like your animal companion in every way, and obeys your commands just as the original would. Your original animal companion and its double understand and trust each other perfectly. The double remains for 1 round for every Hit Die you possess, and then vanishes. If you don’t have an animal companion, you instead gain the ability to use summon nature’s ally V as a spell-like ability once per day.

The second Evangelist Boon for Erastil in Inner Sea Gods, listed above, effectively clones your animal companion for a few rounds a day. What happens if I'm playing an archetype with multiple companions? Would it summon a copy of all of them or only one? Would I choose which one or would it be determined randomly?

Summoning a double of each of your companions sounds like amazingly cool RP material for a Pack Master Wolf Shaman or the like, but that many creatures runs the risk of combat slowing to a crawl. On the other hand, only doubling one would make the ability drastically weaker than for a character with a single full strength companion.