Clockwork Kobold's page

Yes that is more or less how I am interpreting how that would work. Don't get me wrong, I understand and can see how casting the spell makes it not an attack but at the same time, a full attack, the way I see, it as an amalgamation of viable standard actions: melee attacks, ranged attacks, and combat maneuvers. The point I was trying to get across is since rays should be treated exactly as ranged attacks for feats like precise shot then what is really separating the casting of ranged touch attacks from being just like a normal ranged attack?
The reason I've been making this argument is because I think needing to apply precise shot to rays is silly and if you really want to nitpick the rules I see this as a viable interpretion that needs to be brought up.

I'm just posting the rule for clarification.

Ranged Touch spells in combat: Some spells allow you to use ranged touch attacks as part of casting the spell. These attacks are made as part of the spell and do not require a seperate action.

Yeah I'm in agreement we are getting nowhere with this conversation so this will be my last bit. As I've said before casting a ranged touch attack is a standard action, yes. It is also incredibly broken to gve spellcaster full attack and I can't deny this but that is the point I'm getting at as well. You are all saying you can only cast one spell a turn because casting a spell is a standard action. That being said casting a ranged touch attack is a attack, yes you have to cast a spell to do it but that is part of the attack as the rules explicitly state. From there since casting a ranged touch attack is for all intents and purposes exactly like a regular ranged attack there is no rule saying you can't use a full attack action with ranged touch attacks. Is it ridiculously unbalanced? Absolutely but the point I'm trying to make is that I see no reason it shouldn't work that way other than 'because casting the spell somehow isn't an attack even though the rules says it is'. At higher levels going without precise shot is fine but at lower levels you are going to have to burn two feats or forgo ray attacks altogether. I was writing this because I feel according to RAW it works like this but as far as RAI it's an unnecessary ruling that causes everyone involved a headache.

And wraithstrike I get why snap shot wouldn't work and if you read my earlier posts I already said why I could see why snap shot wouldn't work but as for rapid shot here you go.

Full Attack:If you get more than one attack per round because your base attack bonus is high enough (see Base Attack Bonus in Classes), because you fight with two weapons or a double weapon, or for some special reason, you must use a full-round action to get your additional attacks. You do not need to specify the targets of your attacks ahead of time. You can see how the earlier attacks turn out before assigning the later ones.

The only movement you can take during a full attack is a 5-foot step. You may take the step before, after, or between your attacks.

If you get multiple attacks because your base attack bonus is high enough, you must make the attacks in order from highest bonus to lowest. If you are using two weapons, you can strike with either weapon first. If you are using a double weapon, you can strike with either part of the weapon first.
BAB
A base attack bonus is an attack roll bonus derived from character class and level or creature type and Hit Dice (or combination's thereof). Base attack bonuses increase at different rates for different character classes and creature types. A second attack is gained when a base attack bonus reaches +6, a third with a base attack bonus of +11 or higher, and a fourth with a base attack bonus of +16 or higher. Base attack bonuses gained from different sources, such as when a character is a multiclass character, stack.

Alright nothing saying you can or can't use basic melee, basic ranged, or even ranged touch attacks there.

Multiple Attacks

A character who can make more than one attack per round must use the full-attack action (see Full-Round Actions) in order to get more than one attack.

Nothing there either.

Ranged Attacks

With a ranged weapon, you can shoot or throw at any target that is within the weapon's maximum range and in line of sight. The maximum range for a thrown weapon is five range increments. For projectile weapons, it is 10 range increments. Some ranged weapons have shorter maximum ranges, as specified in their descriptions.
Melee Attacks
With a normal melee weapon, you can strike any opponent within 5 feet. (Opponents within 5 feet are considered adjacent to you.) Some melee weapons have reach, as indicated in their descriptions. With a typical reach weapon, you can strike opponents 10 feet away, but you can't strike adjacent foes (those within 5 feet).
Ranged Touch Spells in Combat: Some spells allow you to make a ranged touch attack as part of the casting of the spell. These attacks are made as part of the spell and do not require a separate action. Ranged touch attacks provoke an attack of opportunity, even if the spell that causes the attacks was cast defensively. Unless otherwise noted, ranged touch attacks cannot be held until a later turn (see FAQ below for more information.)

Nothing here for any of these either and that's my problem. Apparently we should treat ranged touch attacks exactly like a ranged attack and I see no reason not to apply the same benefits and penalties if you are going with this rule. If you want to say casting a spell is a separate action than attack and for some reason that doesn't work, by the same logic you could saying loading an arrow/bolt/bullet is a separate action therefore you can't make full attack actions with ranged weapons at all.

Alrighty, Xert the aberrant bloodline, level 12 sorcerer(so +6/+1 BAB and we'll say an 18 dex) is fighting a goblin warrior(Xert is a cruel, cruel man) within 20 feet of him. He has taken the feats point blank shot, precise shot, rapid shot, weapon focus(ray), deadly aim, and other unimportant feats. Knowing his foe is weak and pathetic he takes a full round action and declares rapid shot and deadly aim for casting disintegrate as a ranged touch attack(+8 because -2 from rapid shot, and -2 from deadly aim but +1 from weapon focus and point blank) then for an acid splash(+8 to hit) and finally one last acid splash(at only a +3 to hit). Assuming all attacks hit, which hilariously enough may not happen, and the goblin failed his fort save Xert deals 24d6+5, 1d3+5, and another 1d3+5.
I thank you for suggesting this by the way Gisher, it gets my point across that it's really not that big of a deal. If that sorceror really wanted to he could cast 3 disintegrates a turn, which sounds really scary until you realize that you have burned through 3 of your 4 6th level spells in one turn and at least one of those spells you cast is going to miss. This is on top of the fact that at that level you would have a whopping one feat plus bonus feats from sorcerer not focused around casting ray spells as weapons.

Actually it is because the touch attacks are part of the casting that you can't use them as part of a full attack action.

Why? Is it because casting the spell is a standard action and isn't an attack action? The thing that I'm seeing is that you should treat rays exactly like a basic ranged attack and there is no difference between making the ranged touch attack itself and casting the spell. It has been stated repeatedly in this post that the ranged touch attack should be treated exactly like a regular ranged attack and I see no reason not to give someone this if you want to blindly follow the RAW.

It's usually advised that you try to avoid necroing such an old thread. Many FAQs, errata, new rules, and new books have been released in the last 4 years that might make an old discussion irrelevant, plus you're skipping over valuable commentary that's taken place since.

I will remember that for later and thank you! I was googling this rule and this was the only post of relevance I found. All I was trying to do was clarify the rules for this situation based on what I've found.

In short, you need rules that state you can do something, not rules that state you can't.

In the sense of numerical bonuses and penalties to attack rolls, yes. In the sense of other rules elements, such as full attacking or Rapid Shot, you would be incorrect.
I am unaware of any ability to "hold the charge" on a ranged touch spell. Do you know of any way you can do this? Otherwise your spell will have been done and cast from your turn and there'd be nothing left to threaten with using Snap Shot.

In the combat section for the pathfinder srd for casting ranged touch attacks, casting the spell and using the ranged touch attack are stated to be the same action and are not seperate so if I'm reading this correctly the casting of the spell is the same as actually attacking.

I am not reading 4 year old post to find out everything you got wrong, but I can already tell CK, that you do not know the rules well.

So 4+ year necro AND horribly poor understanding of the rules? Double whammy here.

Way to have some constructive feedback for a rules question. /sarcasm

Apparently I feel the need to write on a five year old forum post but I would like to clarify some things about this conversation.
1. What I'm about to say relies heavily on the fact that I haven't found anything in the rules saying you can only cast one spell a turn. Yes it takes a standard action to cast a spell but so does making a basic melee or ranged attack.
2. In the core rulebook on pg. 186 it states that ranged touch attacks are part of casting the spell and are not seperate actions. So according to this, yes, you can use snap shot or rapid shot with ranged touch attacks.
3. Mcgreeno is right, if you're going to apply all the penalties of a ranged attack to a ranged touch spell and treat it as a ranged weapon then you better be willing to grant all the benefits.
4. Personally I'm not a big fan of applying this rule to spells when they have to get by spell resistance, then hit touch ac, and you have to make sure the creature isn't immune to what you're casting in thr first place.
5. You guys realize that to do all the stuff that mcgreeno brought up requires heavy feat expenditure and HEAVY spell expenditure right? I say if you are going to make the best of that rule and make a ranged touch attack happy caster, go for it!
In summary according to the RAW, yes ranged touch attacks require precise shot but if you apply that rule there is no reason for those spells not to function just like a basic ranged attack.

I mean to clarify rules so a player can continue playing their character.

Well thanks for the responses all! Unfortunately I didn't get to actually playtest most of what I saw that seemed unbalanced so if it seems good then that is fine by me. Now pretty much the only complaint I really have is the loss of character while possessed if there could be some more concrete rules or even optional rules once the class is finished up about what a character actually deals with other than you have to act a certain way I would be happy.

I agree with quite a few things you said and I'll explain a few things and the things I disagree with.

Wow, lots of thoughts! My own:

Clockwork Kobold wrote:

2) I don't see how it is balanced that a character can be as good as a "pure" melee character but at higher levels at the drop of a hat suddenly you have completely different abilities a la trance. Yes you do only have limited spell casting and you run the risk of becoming possessed, as long as you only do it once per day it's actually not a problem because of how influence works.

Is it as good? I had some trouble getting it to function in melee as well as my Bloodrager around level 7. It's low on feats, doesn't get consistent spells, gets later iteratives, and doesn't get nearly as much by way of hitpoints. Trancing only ever gives you one new ability, though, so the big changes only happen between days. I didn't poke around it too much, though, so I'd love to see your builds! (As another 4/9 caster with a progression of abilities, Bloodrager seemed the most comparable to me.)

The way I made it, you take the Str, Dex and Con spirits as your vessels at higher level and I made a human medium compared to a human fighter, barbarian, and paladin. The str spirit bonus let him hit as hard as the fighter and close to the barbarian and hit harder than the paladin, the dex spirit kept my AC close to the fighter and paladin but beat the barbarian, and the con spirit just from statistics effectively raises your d8 to a d10 (gives close to a hp per hd, average of a d8 roll is 4.5 so 4.5+1=5.5 which is the average of a d10 roll). Obviously at lower levels, specifically 1-4, a medium is not nearly as good as the melee classes but from 5+ when you start getting multiple vessels it gets pretty dumb for a class that can trance and just change their abilities as needed at the drop of a hat.

If you don't trust the spirit and/or your GM, you never let yourself hit influence 4. You can try to bargain with the spirit before hitting 4 (obviously some, like The Liar, aren't really ones you're likely to be able to trust). And sometimes there's going to be a TPK anyway, so you might as well see what the spirit does. (Dex spirits are probably best for that as far as the whole getting away thing goes.)

If you can point out to me where it says you can bargain with spirits I would be a lot happier about that and to be fair it is pretty hard to get an influence of 4. My point I was trying to make is that if by some mistake on your part you do something and have to take an influence of 4(trance to switch to desert to keep an ally from dying of poison for instance) you're character is now trying to murder people or murder himself which is a pretty hefty drawback. Or worse yet you can't play your character for game sessions. Having something in your class that effectively says "You're out of the game or reroll your character." is a pretty major flaw.

ClcockworkKobold wrote:

4) It seems weird and a little overpowered that the str spirit bonus is a straight bonus to attack and damage rolls to everything. I think it should be a bit more conditional to what it applies to or apply to only attack rolls.

It's like swift studying with a Slayer or Investigator, I think.

Slayer and investigator both have some penalties to those abilities, for both it's only against one target and you have to spend an action to activate both and for investigator it's precision damage so it doesn't work on half the monsters you encounter. Meanwhile a medium's spirit bonus is always functioning against everything, with everything you do.

ClcockworkKobold wrote:

Also The Desert’s Greater Power an ally can only attempt to remove a negative condition from an ally 1/day so that after a fight the party doesn’t stand around removing all negative afflictions from each other, specifically poisons and diseases.

It only works on afflictions you don't have, so you can't use it on yourself. If you fail, you get the affliction, so you can't remove that affliction from anybody else. The risk of getting the affliction yourself, range of touch, the restriction on conditions you don't have, and the cost of a standard action seems like enough of a limit. Ooh! You're right, though- if you get immunity to disease, poison, or some other condition, you can remove it from everybody else. It's definitely an ultimate disease healer for villages once it gets an item for immunity.

Unless I missed this there is nothing stopping this scenario: Alright so our barbarian is going to remove the disease from the wizard. *rolls* Lame, the barbarian botched now he has the disease. Alright cleric is going to remove try and remove it from the barbarian. *rolls* Hey! He made it! Now the barbarian is disease free once again. He is going to roll to remove disease from the wizard........ So on and so forth, granted you run the risk of disease-ing half the party but it can also lead to the party never being at risk for dealing with diseases or only a few rounds of poison as long as you have the guy in the party who makes the fort save on a 4 remove everyone's disease since there is no limitation to using this ability.

My bad somehow I read over that.

Clockwork Kobold wrote:

4) My only real "complaint" is I feel like the wild defenses should have some sort of duration so that a character doesn't just activate it at the beginning of the day, spend a move action to reduce the burn by 1 to enhance it a little, and then just have the enhanced wild defense running until they wake up the next day. If that is what was intended why not just make it a constant defense that you can spend burn to enhance?

It is a constant defence, it's just a constant defence you can turn off if you want to not constantly be on fire when walking down the street.

Also you cannot spend a move-action to reduce the burn, as that only applies to blasts.

[QUOTE ="Occult adventures playtest"] Burn: If she has both hands free, as a move action,....reduce the burn of a WILD TALENT used in the same round by 1 point...."

Granted it is only one point which is pretty negligible you can do that. What I'm trying to get at is it seems less like it should be an ability and more of just a static bonus you can buff with burning. If you want it to be constant then allow it to be suppressed. If it should have some sort of activation then give it a duration so you have to activate it for combat.

Sorry I forgot to be constructive about why the rakshasa and liar power should change their dc. For your strongest ability from a spirit, a static save, even if it is an at-will ability is kind of underpowered compared to other classes high level abilities.It would help if you didn't have to jump through hoops for both of them to activate the spells but since you do it isn't really that ridiculous to change the dcs.

The split score is no longer as harsh as it once was. This was recently added to the rules update in the first post of the thread (along with many other good changes). This goes a long way to focusing almost exclusively on Intelligence with a psychic, if you like.

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

Psychic Discipline: The saving throw for any discipline ability that allows a save is 10 + 1/2 psychic level + Intelligence modifier.

I'm aware of that but while it may not be as harsh as it was it doesn't change the fact that all other spell casters get to use their abilities and spells from the same score. What does psychic have that is so unbalancing that all of it's non spell abilities and it's phrenic pool have to run off two different abilites?

I have read through occult adventures and while I didn't run an actual playtest I made medium characters at multiple levels and compared it to other pathfinder classes. Here is my feedback:

1) Medium is.......interesting but I have quite a few complaints about it. First off when thinking of a medium I see a robed spell caster who channels the spirits, not someone who is on par with a fighter. I think the name is a little misleading for what the class does.

2) I don't see how it is balanced that a character can be as good as a "pure" melee character but at higher levels at the drop of a hat suddenly you have completely different abilities a la trance. Yes you do only have limited spell casting and you run the risk of becoming possessed, as long as you only do it once per day it's actually not a problem because of how influence works.

3) I'm concerned about reaching influence 4 and your character becoming possessed. A DM who is sick of your character or who has a malicious streak can attempt to kill you or the party since there is nothing defined about what happens when you become possessed. Not including the fact that if this happens you lose your character for 24 hours(which can actually be game sessions sometimes) and you then have to choose that spirit AGAIN the next day making trance and/or astral beacon unusable if it would affect that spirit.

4) It seems weird and a little overpowered that the str spirit bonus is a straight bonus to attack and damage rolls to everything. I think it should be a bit more conditional to what it applies to or apply to only attack rolls.

5) The Dex spirit bonus allows a medium to have the highest AC in the game compared to any other class. While other classes can reach that big of a bonus it required them spending a lot more gold to increase their ability scores than a medium needs to.

6) It isn't really specified how long a spirit will function as a differing ability when their conditions are met(Ex: the rabbit prince using weapon finesse, does it only last for a round or until new spirits are chosen?).

7) Oh dear lord did the powers seem alright at best:
Big Sky’s Greater Power is alright at best due to how darkness spells now work in pathfinder compared to 3.5, I recommend adding some effect similar to the supreme power where it either grants temporary hp or removes conditions or something.
The Beater’s Greater Power should have a fort save to negate the strength damage.
The Rabbit Prince’s Intermediate Power should only be usable so many times per day or it gains an influence when you use it. If fighting a big, burly boss and the player is aware that they hit on a d20 roll of 3 and that is the only enemy your party is dealing with they reserve their immediate action for each round and suddenly the boss fight that was supposed to be a challenge is now missing half his attacks or the wizard with an abysmal to hit now hits half the time with attacks making fights much easier.
It is up to the GM but I feel to prevent someone using The Desert’s Lesser Power, taking all the damage to themselves and then activate fast healing or regeneration to remove it all they should be unable to participate in the bond of reliance the next time it is used as the spirit is now aware that person is reliant. Also The Desert’s Greater Power an ally can only attempt to remove a negative condition from an ally 1/day so that after a fight the party doesn’t stand around removing all negative afflictions from each other, specifically poisons and diseases.
The waxworks lesser power should last for more than 1 round because unless you hit with multiple attacks it is next to impossible to entangle anyone making this spirit’s power next to worthless until you get greater powers.
The Rakshasa’s supreme power’s DC should be 10+½ medium’s level + Cha mod.
The Losts Lesser Power I feel should let you add or subtract your spirit bonus after seeing the roll from a confusion effect and maybe even increasing it to 3 times your spirit bonus because a lot of the time this power’s effect doesn’t give any benefit. For instance it could change an ally or yourself from babbling to hurting themselves, from being able to perform an action to babbling, or just not changing the outcome at all.
The Lost’s Greater Power should last for 1 round per level of the spell or spell-like ability since that power actually becomes more detrimental the more levels you gain in medium.
I’m assuming The Lost’s Supreme Power is supposed to work by them making a Will save each round while you babble and as long as they keep failing the will save they are fascinated as long as you babble and no one, besides you, attacks them.
The Liar’s Supreme Power’s DC should be 10 + ½ medium’s level + Cha mod.

I have read through Occult adventures and while I didn't get to actually playtest these classes here is my feedback:

1) I really like how Psychic works, the phrenic pool is used for all of your spells still and "augmenting" your spells is much more standardized than Psion in 3.5.

2) As far as flavor goes I would still like the spells per day to be called psionics per day but that is just my preference.

3) I feel like Psychics get a little under powered compared to other classes in pathfinder since they are the only spellcasting class that has to split it's mental attributes. Every other class in pathfinder runs off of one attribute for it's spells AND abilities. The only exclusion being a cleric's turn undead which if you so desired you could forgo Charisma and still have an effective cleric. Psions choosing to forgo Charisma/Wisdom means practically all of your non-spell abilities are nigh useless.

I have been reading through occult adventures and since I haven't done an actual playtest I believe this is where I post my feedback so here it is:

1) I like the variability and focus on items in the class, it's interesting and something I've never dealt with too much before(I've played artificers in 3.5 but those were a completely different monster).

2) I would like some sort of spelled-out rules for acquiring non-magical relics. While it is unlikely to lose all your relics or have all of them broken, if it occurred and your DM is unwilling to give you new relics(I've had a few DMs who would do something like this for a "challenge") you're now playing a next to useless character at low levels. At higher levels this becomes slightly less of a problem since your magical items can fill this role but the problem can still potentially arise.

3) For Blinding Pattern in the enchantment implements I think you should replace on a failed will save you're paralyzed to being stunned. This is simply because of the fact that being paralyzed means you become helpless and can be coup de graced making this ability really close to a save or die effect at level 7.

So I've been reading through occult adventures and since I didn't do an actual playtest I believe this is the proper place to post about kineticist and here goes:

1) I really like kineticist, it feels kind of like a beautiful combination between wilder and warlock from D&D 3.5 and I like the various options for the elemental blasts.

2) Constitution is an interesting casting mod and I agree it makes sense considering to fuel a lot of your abilities causes you to effectively lose a Constitution modifier for the day.

3) Since it's only nonlethal you won't actually kill your character by using too much burn but there are definite drawbacks to "nova-ing" which is nice.

4) My only real "complaint" is I feel like the wild defenses should have some sort of duration so that a character doesn't just activate it at the beginning of the day, spend a move action to reduce the burn by 1 to enhance it a little, and then just have the enhanced wild defense running until they wake up the next day. If that is what was intended why not just make it a constant defense that you can spend burn to enhance?

In my defense magic missile and vampiric touch are awesome wizard spells but for some reason I thought there were more damaging spells in the psychic classes. That's what I get for not paying closer attention. :/

Also I think medium is what they were king of going for, for eldritch knight.

So I've been reading through the Occult adventure classes and there doesn't seem to be any sort of penalty to wearing armor as a psychic class and I haven't seen any thread discussing this. The problem I have with this is the fact that psychic, for instance, has some sorcerer/wizard spells that are damaging but no real penalty to wear armor. Granted it's only a few but if you were only wanting those spells why not be psychic and take 3 feats so you can wear full plate. While I am okay with medium being able to cast spells in armor since it is a melee class I don't understand why the other classes should be able to rock full plate. If someone could help explain how this is balanced other than you have to take feats to do it I would really like to know.