Chromnos's page

Excellent. The wording did seem to indicate just that. Thanks for the clarity.

Ninja entry shows that the ninja can spend a ki point as a swift action to gain one extra attack as part of a full action. Pretty clear. But if the ninja spends two ki points as a swift action for the same power, do they then get two attacks?

Yeah. It's a fun downgrade. More interested in story goodness and in working well with my party than in any perks.

Fantastic! I really like this mojo for the setting. So I'm glad you're considering it as an option, Bondsman. The notion of vindicating Savith, of serving as her agent in the mortal world, and of Savith's influence stretching out again beyond the realm of the dead just sparks with campaign story sweetness!

****
Grindy rules stuff...

I've never played a holy vindicator so I don't really have experience with how they compare to a full blown oracle. Looking at the prestige class, you get full base attack bonus, 1d10 hp, 3/4 casting, and some flavorful special abilities. The strongest of these are probably sacred shield (major boost to AC until you get hit by a rolled attack), the ability to continue advancing and improving channel energy, and stigmata which is a floating buff to hit, damage, AC (doesn't stack with sacred shield), or saves at the cost of ongoing bleed damage.

You lose mystery advancement for the levels you take in vindicator which means you also lose mystery bonus spells (ouch). You also lose favored class benefits from oracle. So the half elf Umbra couldn't take extra spells known.

Overall it seems like a downgrade to spell power, selection, and advancement, loss of extra revelations, loss of some revelation advancement, and slower curse advancement in favor of more melee tankish focus. For our group (ranger-archer, magus, rogue + Umbra), I think this works out very well. But I think the overall white room consensus (which admittedly biases toward the power of spells) is that oracle to oracle/Vindicator is a wash or even a slight power downgrade in net capability.

Umbra won't qualify for vindicator 1 until she reaches level 8 (bab 5+). She has to boost her knowledge religion skill and take the channel alignment feat at 7.

I think a good strategy for playing any class is setting aside in the range of 20-30 percent of character development resources to enhance team play. Playing a rogue with a high crit range weapon? Take something like the outflank feat. Playing a Druid, pick a few good team buffs in your spell list and summon flank buddies for melee types. Playing a fighter, don't hesitate to run to the front and be a meat shield for your buddies. Character classes with more potential for OP and more net resources need to devote more for party support. That's a good internal balancing method.

Nice! Sounds like you have a highly developed setting. I particularly appreciate the active role of numerous goddesses in your interpretation. Hope my GM goes for it or, better yet, nabs some of the cool vibe you've cooked up. I sent him a link to this thread. So he may drop in.

Fantastic to hear there's more support for the Savith interested on the way. Thx for chiming in! I'll definitely be checking it out!

So you guys don't think it's too much of a stretch setting up a holy vindicator of Savith, even if she's more martyred hero than god?

thejeff wrote:

Yeah, that's what I've been referencing. I had to look it up too.

Gish aren't the rank and file as I see it, but low level officers, on the same scale as the sergeants and warlocks.
It's the knights who get the silver swords.

A DM who can't expand on monster manual entries is a sorry sight. The only reaason not to give a silver sword to an advanced gish is that you might kill the party before you get to show off how awesome and badass you are.

I'm almost certain this was the way we played it. Gish were the up and comers, the ones that eventually, in many cases, advanced to 8/8 or 9/9 fighter magic user special silver sword wielders (supreme leaders). The Githyanki text includes both fighters and fighter magic users as supreme leaders.

Yep. I had to pull out the Fiend Folio too to get the details. But the name I remembered best was Gish. Probably because it was unique and cool-sounding. So no surprise that I might have elevated them to silver sword holders in memory.

Now taking up a huge amount of time at table due to class complexity and multiple animal companions/summons is another issue entirely...

It's ok. I clicked on the link. Saw a magic weapon of some kind (did see +2 but that's it). Then backed out. So no real harm done.

All the other stuff about Savith was great. And it's pretty amazingly clear she was a badass. The only mortal ever to defeat a God is nothing to sneeze at. I just wish there was more about her as a person. The more I find I don't know, the more I want to fill in the gaps.

Also, Azlanti civilization seems a confluence of contradictions to me. Influenced and manipulated by Aboleths, harboring demons who rose up among them (Zura) and yet also worshipping benevolent gods like Desna or civilization preservers like Aroden.

My character is a life oracle whose taken on the role of tank and healer in a party of strikers. I'm considering going down the holy vindicator route and it might be cool to develop some kind of spiritual link with Savith -- stigmata that look like the marks of serpent fang bites and ooze blood black with venom, for example.

The character is a half elf named Umbra. Her father was an anti-paladin whose bloodline descends from abyssally corrupted Azlanti. Her mother was an impoverished elf struggling to get by on the streets of Korvosa. She's a lawful good worshipper of Imodae. But she has dark urges which she's thus far been good at keeping under wraps. When she channels positive energy it comes out tainted with black and violet.

I'm thinking that the possible link, character development wise, is that Umbra's spirit and blood are tainted with abyssal 'poison' in much the same manner that Savith ultimately succumbed to Ydersius's poison. And, ironically, it's this link of taint and corruption that allows Umbra to serve Savith as her Vindicator.

Does it work?

I've used the term broken too much lately...

For my part, I think that wizards are broken in the white room because they can, conceivably, do just about anything. Mileage in a real game will greatly vary. The white room Druid is broken in that if you optimize it along certain paths it's a full caster, action economy, melee machine capable of doing just about anything. But like the wizard, in real games the Druid mileage varies.

My opinion is that, though power-wise, it is conceptually very capable, flavor-wise it doesn't really step on anybody's toes. It can't buff or heal like the cleric, can't blast like a wizard, can't summon extra planar beings, and if it fights well it does it in such a way that it kinda makes the fighter look cool with his flashy sword.

The chained summoner, on the other hand, stepped on toes. It could summon up living armor in the form of the eidolon, pick up an oversized great sword and make the martial classes look like minions while still casting haste at 4th level. It was broken because it invalidated whole roles. Now remove that particular archetype and the summoner might not have initially offended so many people. For though the core summoner with eidolon (not the one using summon monster shenanigans which also broke the game for different reasons) was amazing, had great spells and action economy, it really didn't overshadow any of the other player niches. The most fun version of that summoner, in my opinion, was the unoptimized flank buddy where the summoner melees with his eidolon or serves as eidolon and party buffer before coming in with weapons ready to help with clean up.

So to make a long story short, you can break the Druid in the white room but it's really hard to make a Druid that overshadows other players' character niches. Which is why it likely doesn't offend so much.

Gish was the easy name to remember.

Pull out your Fiend Folio and you'll find that Gish were the rank and file fighter magic users in Githyanki raid parties. Usually level 4/4. Get enough of them together bashing with swords, casting mirror image, burning hands, and magic missile, and blazing away with psionics and it was an even more memorable experience than that first encounter with the admittedly nasty drow.

Yeah. Not the ones with the silver swords. But you'd find yourself up to your eyeballs in Gish if one ever happened to fall into your hands.

Thanks guys! This is a great help! I now have a far better context than before. Although, as a player in Serpent's Skull, I'm trying for history and world color, not specific crunchy spoilers related to that AP (magic items and such). Probably should have mentioned that in the header. So yeah, just the general history stuff is great!

thejeff wrote:

And sure, the Githyanki were cool. (Not surprising, they were apparently created by Charles Stross with inspiration from a GRRM book!) I'm just amused that this common term came from such a tiny original mention.

Look up David Brin's writings on the subject of meme propagation sometime.

We grognards memed it all right. The Githyanki were just too terrible a monster not to be used by the game master, and too badass not to be remembered with ultimate jealousy by the players.

'Gish? What's that?'

'Dunno. But it just TPK'd us.'

'Why can't I play one?' ... And so the meme was born.

Not to mention the fact that actually killing a Gish and getting a silver or even a special silver sword was likely the object of entire campaigns -- as the dragon riding Githyanki would send out relentless hunt parties to track the weapon down and reclaim it.

Is capture ape and determine if it can be reformed not an option? I'd call this both good and pragmatic.

Killing the ape simply because it is running off with loot = greed/evil.

As an archetype, they absolutely worked.

The term absolutely came from the Githyanki.

Back in old AD&D these sword and spell weilding badasses were masters of magic, psionics, martial combat, formed pacts with red dragons who ferried their raiding parties across the planes, and forged not only the astral thread cutting silver swords (instant death for astral travelers), but the most snicker snacky of all vorpal weapons the +5 special silver sword. Unfortunately, as with many of the coolest things in AD&D, the Githyanki have been shamelessly nerfed.

All that aside, a subtype of Githyanki -- the Gish -- became very well known as a badass spell slinger and martial combatant combined. The Githyanki, and the Gish by extension, therefore defined the pinnacle of the art of combining sword and spell in combat. Elven fighter mages wished they could hold a candle to the Gish. Hence, Gish became the easy, one-word, invoking the pure head cleaving, brain exploding, fireball slinging, red dragon riding bad assery, term that people began to use to describe the idealized form of the fighter-mage.

The term has since morphed into anything that both fights and casts combat spells and does it well. In pathfinder, a cleric or an oracle can make a pretty decent Gish. A magus is the Gish class (arguably Githyanki, if they existed in pathfinder, would be a premier race for magus). And anything that combines melee (especially swordplay) with offensive magic of any kind could well be termed a Gish.

But do not forget the terrible race from which the name Gish originates -- the Githyanki, who perfected the art.

Just brushing up on Azlanti lore for a game next week and am trying to learn more about Savith. Thus far all I've been able to put together is that she was a powerful Azlanti hero who beheaded the serpent god Ydersius. She's depicted in one bit of art and appears to be weilding a scimitar or a Falcata. There's really no other information on her affiliations within Aslant society -- be its darker or more benevolent side. Nor does it seem we know what class she was -- fighter, paladin, or something along those lines seems appropriate, though.

So is there any more definite information on Savith that I'm missing?

I see it as an excellent opportunity for the players to, well, role play. Does the Druid feel compassion for the ape's anguish and beg the other players to show remorse? Does the paladin see this as an opportunity to show mercy to an emotionally wracked and grieving foe. Does the pragmatic fighter call for killing the ape so it doesn't seek revenge?

It's a complex situation in which the responses can and probably should vary. Of course, someone playing a good character would probably show at least hesitation after such an event. And for the deeply good, this is one of those Gandalf situations.

Yes, and omniscience I have not. :p

I think this question might come up in a game with friends this October. I want to be able to give honest rules advice if it does. My buddy is playing a magus and uses wand weilder in his build.

Tomos wrote:

Also note that the +2 bonus on AC and Saving throws is untyped for Greater Stunning Barrier.

Seems dubious, Greater Barrier acts as the normal spell which provides resistance and deflection bonuses.

Yeah. Resistance bonus listed in the parent. I'd go with that.

Why worry about feat support? Good enough as is without trying to break things.

So you can use your wand with spell combat, but not with spell strike.

The rules wording made me suspect that this might be the case. However, has it been otherwise clarified?

So the wand casting of say shocking grasp would allow the magus Wandweilder to then spellstrike with, say, her scimitar just as if the wand activation was a spell, correct?

The Wandweilder arcana specifically states that a magus can use a wand with spell combat. Does this also allow the Wandweilder to Spellstrike with the wand?

That's pretty fracking fantastic.

In our scenario wizard 1 has cast Greater Stunning Barrier, monster 1 hits the wizard with 3 melee attacks on its turn. Does the monster have to save 1 or 3 times to prevent being stunned?

Spell wording in question:

'Any creature that strikes you with a melee attack is stunned for one round (will negates).'

In cases where the duration lasts as long as the enchantment process, then yes. Shorter duration effects would probably require DMs to arbitrate that the spells could be cast at a key point in the item creation process and could result in a reduced buff as a result.

My confusion was probably due to the fact that this entry -- http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/creature-types#TOC-Unde ad isn't the same as this entry -- http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead

I was reading #2 which did not have a specific reference to bleed. My hunch is that it's related to a death effect. #2 also had no specific reference to sickened, but it was reasonable to assume that was fortitude related.

Stumbled upon entry 2 as you guys were clarifying. So thanks for this.

Thx! Read the same paragraphs and somehow missed the final one in para 6.

Same question as header...

So say you're a magus and you cast monstrous physique to turn into a troll. Do your weapons in hand change size with you?

Thanks, Carl. much appreciated.

So my question is this --

1. You're a Holy Vindicator
2. You channel smite an undead creature with a positive energy Bloodfire.

What happens?

Sure, you get the +1d6 damage. But I'm a bit murky on the rest. Under the Undead entry it notes that these creatures are immune to disease. So would this reasonably include the sickened condition? It also notes that undead are immune to effects that require fortitude saves unless specifically noted. But since channel energy keys off Will, they wouldn't be immune for that reason.

Also, I noticed that undead are listed as immune to death effects. But no specific mention of bleed unless I missed it. Is Bleed considered a death effect? If not, am I right in saying that undead can be made to Bleed?

It would be interesting if these effects did somehow work. It would almost be as if the Bloodfire imparted temporary life-like characteristics to Undead creatures -- a transition back toward a life-like state that is particularly and oddly painful and sickening.

Spell combat implies the magus class. So I guess the answer is no -- unless magus with spell combat?

So from the other thread... Can you cast a touch spell, hold the charge, attack with a spell storing spiked gauntlet and deliver both the touch attack (held charge) and the stored touch spell in the gauntlet. I doubted it because the gauntlet may count as weapon attack and not unarmed strike.

This question, by the way, doesn't have much to do with somatic components. Just the difference between a weapon strike and an unarmed strike.

Saw it. Great question, really.

But the spiked gauntlet counts as a weapon, right? So it looks like the unarmered strike section here wouldn't apply.

But what it would allow me to do is cast, hold the charge, and attack with claws from my abyssal eldritch heritage feat while holding the charge :).

I think I'm starting to like this vampiric touch thingy ;).

Ah. Forgot about hold the charge. Now that's very creative.

So as a frontline spontaneous caster, don't forget meta magic. If the idea is to stand there and take it, you'll be able to 5'step out of most threat ranges and use a full rd to cast metamagically enhance spells. Vamp touch gets pretty mean when you start slapping max/emp/intensified spell onto it. also don't rule out the power of spell penetration to bypass SR.

And then there is Spiked Gauntlets of Spell Storing:

You can cast vamp touch and punch to deliver 2 of them at the same time, (one of them stored in your gauntlet) and the one you just cast.

The full round to meta magic does fiddly things with action economy. So that may be somewhat situational. As for the gauntlet stuff. Oh now that is explosive! But I wonder if it's really technically legal. Woundn't the gauntlet attack count as a separate weapon attack and therefore not be combinable with the actual spell attack?

Ok, so you need the feat in any case and besides that if you want to do the "Provide the requirements" task, one and only one creator must have all of them , except the item creation feat, right?

Good question. I think the rules allow for collaboration on item creation with one character using the item creation feat and the others providing the skills to help out, so long as one character has the creation feat to initiate the process in the first place. The added risk is item loss. The added reward is reduced cost. So I guess specifically only one person would need the item creation feat and those with other skills could collaborate.

I have a Witch who routinely starts every day casting Spite with Mythic Vampiric Touch.

Mythic makes the dice d8s and Blood Money takes care of the inks. Besides, it's creepy to make a ward with your own blood.

That's a great spell combo. And I really like the creepy blood ink flavor of it all. Not sure there's a way for me to access Spite, though.

If you have anyway of adding sneak attack, the extra damage dealt will add to your temporary HP from vampiric touch. Since The spell is the source of the sneak attack damage.

Thanks Gol. So my party composition is a bow specialized ranger, a kensai magus who generally likes to hang back, a rogue and an oracle of life ancient lorekeeper that I've been building to be the meat shield and heal the party. It's gone fairly well through the first five levels and my chief concerns are to 1 be enough of a threat to draw heat off my buddies, 2 be able to take the heat from focus firing when it happens, and 3 have fun playing the build I've set up and am calling The Witch Pit Fighter (hopefully to be posting in builds section at some point).

Getting some sneak attack is probably off the table, though. But vampiric touch was interesting to me in tight situations. I could, for example use energy body to heal as a move action, use battle healer to heal as a swift, and still deliver a vampiric touch attack which both dealt damage and added thp as my standard. If I went this route, as an option, it would be nice to know if other buffs that are accesible to me could add a bit of an edge to the touch attack.

Consider buying a pair of Deliquescent gloves. Not only will they make all of your weapons corrosive, they will also add 1d6 acid to all of your touch attacks, including any touch spells you cast.

Thx for this. Am in a home campaign and access to specific items is a bit dicey. But will definitely think about putting it on my wish list.

Seems that questions like these have cropped up a bit. I wonder if a general weapon like spell and what modifies spells FAQ would, overall, be helpful.

And I guess a related what modifies touch spells question would also be helpful. For example, in the FAQ, it notes that bard song modifies the attack and damage of ranged touch spells. So I suppose it would be reasonable to assume that bard song likewise modified melee touch attacks. And if bard song, a morale bonus, could modify such spells then why not a luck bonus like divine power unless otherwise specified?

Of course, it's pretty well known that you can use sneak attack to modify these precision based spells, but other than bard song and sneak attack (yes, and yes) and divine favor (specifically no), there seems to be a big gray space.

Thanks Slim. I probably should have specified that the specific wording in divine favor was what made me question whether some of the other like spells would modify touch attack damage. For example, would the same apply to divine power which lacks similar specific wording? Will definitely check the FAQ.

I suppose this is another one of those weapon-like spells questions. Hoping the answer isn't too murky.

No. You just use the use magical device skill in the complete the task step which has potential benefits and adverse effects. You still need the related craft magical item feat and you still also need to complete the prepare the vessel step.

I'm playing a tankish oracle of life, ancient lore keeper in a Pathfinder campaign with some friends next month. Hashing out spell choices from the ancient lorekeeper bonus list and considering vampiric touch as a level 8 choice. As I've never had access to this spell as a divine caster, it raises a few added questions for me:

1. Strength modifies the melee touch attack, but only for to-hit, correct?
2. Spells with luck bonuses like divine favor -- do they modify to hit and damage or just to-hit as with strength?
3. Any other quirks about this spell I need to know?

Best!

Magical tattoos, in my book, get props for cool factor ;)