Noticed something in some of the feats in the Two-Weapon Fighting chain.
Two-Weapon Defense wrote:
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.
Two-Weapon Rend wrote:
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.
Double Slice wrote:
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 feats wrote:
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.
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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.
Quote:
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.
Quote:
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?
Burn seems a little too much in my opinion, especially the scaling reflex DC as opposed to the flat DC 15. One point (as a torch) seems a bit on the other side of the spectrum but I would take it, especially considering that I'm getting free damage out of a defensive ability.
The gloves are actually a pretty interesting idea, most evil minions would probably see them as magical fire gloves rather than mundane fire which might make my resistance slightly less obvious.
I also seem to recall some kind of magic tankard that would fill itself with alcohol whenever you willed it to, that could be a method of fueling.
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?
Spoiler:
Catching on Fire
Characters exposed to burning oil, bonfires, and non-instantaneous magic fires might find their clothes, hair, or equipment on fire. Spells with an instantaneous duration don't normally set a character on fire, since the heat and flame from these come and go in a flash.
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.
Those whose clothes or equipment catch fire must make DC 15 Reflex saves for each item. Flammable items that fail take the same amount of damage as the character.
Disappointed I didn't see this thread when it started, Chosen One has skyrocketed to the top of my favorite archetypes. I'm playing a Nagaji Chosen One in PFS with a 5 intelligence and it's a blast to roleplay him being corrected by his familiar all the time. He just reached 7th level and his Thrush turned into a Cassisian Angel.
Haven't actually gotten a chance to play him yet since he hit seven but the shapechange ability Cassisians have is incredible. "A child-sized angelic humanoid wearing a proportional helmet matching the cassisians' true form." Which means hands. Thanks to this my familiar is now running around with First Aid Gloves in addition to lay on paws and a Quarterstaff of Entwining Serpents to chuck endless Magic Missiles during fights. Going into combat? Take off your helmet and let your friends watch it grow into a child. Everyone you play with will love you for having a holy little kid running around with defibrillators.
Honestly, I spent a good bit of time looking at the improved familiar options for Chosen Ones and Cassisian just seemed the best by far.
Limited Aura: Give your angel kid a piggyback ride and you get free defenses vs evil. Bonus points for using In Harm's Way/Paladin's Sacrifice to keep the aura going.
Truespeech: Someone in your party speaks EVERY language. Need I say more?
Shapechange: HANDS.
Breath Weapon: Fearing swarms? Who needs alchemist's fire when your helmet is a limitless source?
Perfect Memory: Forgot the mayor's name? What were we doing again? Is that Iomedae's Holy Symbol or Gorum's? You forgot, your character forgot, but your angel buddy's got your back.
SLAs: Free Aid when you want it, Daylight to counter the enemy tiefling/dark lurker/etc, and Commune for every scenario/week? Please and thank you.
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.
Advanced Class Guide wrote:
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.
Eldritch Font Arcanist with a single level of crossblooded orc/dragon is probably your best bet to focus on a single spell. You can max out your 10d4 by about 5th or 6th level with the right feats and Eldritch Surge. Once you add in other metamagic as well you can get 10d4+12 maximized to 52 empowered to 78 and your DC will be sky high. Bonus points for picking up elemental spell, though you'll lose some damage if you don't use your draconic bloodline type. Fruian's listed out a lot of great feats you should take a look at.
"Spell book? Well I've only got the one spell... More of a spell pamphlet, really."
EDIT: If you want, take Gold/Red dragon bloodline (that way your hands are still burning and not corrosive or shocking) and when you're high enough level switch to cone of cold. The draconic bloodline lets you change it to fire for free and all of the specific spell bonuses on burning hands can transfer over pretty painlessly. When you switch it to fire it really is just a bigger and badder burning hands.
Built a swashbuckler flavored as a Dervish, dancing around combat with a scimitar. He would purposefully provoke AoO's from movement or untrained CM's and then parry & riposte it. Gave me a free attack, soaked up an AoO so allies needn't worry, and fit the flavor of the character pretty well.
Took about two sessions for every single enemy to ignore him and never take AoO's on him ever again, and only rarely get attacked at all.
That one especially bothers me because it not just metagames tactics based on the character, it metagames the combat system. Realistically combat is not based on turns. You shouldn't really be able to tell the difference between attacking during your own turn and getting to attack during my turn. You have an opening to swing and you take it.
Hurrah for Thread Necromancy! This is a really awesome thread with lots of great concepts!
230. Eidolon is actually a powerful (elemental, demon, angel, etc) that you summon only a part of. At first you can only call upon a meager representation of it and it is insulted that you would dare give it such a weak form. As you gain power and evolve it the Eidolon gets closer to it's true form and gradually starts to respect you.
231. Eidolon is a cruel, fearsome creature that the summoner is terrified of. Summoner usually relies on Summon Monster ability and only calls on the Eidolon in the direst of situations, and usually hides from it or pleads for mercy from it afterwards.
232. (Broodmaster) Small sized summoner once served as on officer in a military and now constantly tries to relive his glory days by summoning his old squad to fight under his command once again! Front line sword and board Eidolons! Bow wielding sneaky Eidolons! Slightly bigger mount Eidolon with which to better survey the battlefield! Get ALL the Teamwork feats!
The author of the Holy Vindicator specified that the intent is it expends a use of your channel in this thread. I'm not sure if that's the official ruling too or just the intent.
Darksol, The ability does indeed say when worn, and I am wearing the buckler the entire time, just because I'm not using it defensively doesn't change the fact that it's strapped to my arm and is being worn. At any moment I could choose to hold the greatsword in just one hand (thus no longer wielding it or threatening squares with it) and gain the +1 shield bonus. The shield is being worn, so I would think that it gives the bonus.
I think being disarmed would cancel it out; I believe combat maneuvers are considered a type of attack.
Official ruling would be appreciated in all of these questions!
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.
Vindicator's Shield wrote:
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?
First of all, thanks so much to everyone that gave input, this is way more than I could've hoped for in the mere hours that it's been since I made the post. To answer a few questions:
'Brief' breakdown of combat: First round BBEG yells "Get the one in metal" (Tarkus was wearing Spiked Full Plate in a party with a sorc, a wizard, and a monk) and then starts casting Deep Slumber (Full round). Minions 1 and 2 use a fear effect and the wizard and monk become panicked, and then minions move adjacent to me. I step back and cast 'Swallow Your Fear' on Monk (Adventure Path #35) and Monk becomes confused, acts normally and attacks minions. Slumber goes off and I fall asleep. Sorcerer and BBEG distract each other while Wizard flees. Minions target "the one in metal", ignoring confused monk and five footing up and CDG. Wizard continues to flee, monk continues to be confused, BBEG tells minions to target the sorc, they kill sorcerer before monk and wizard recover, wizard comes back with summoned Hound Archons, and with a bit of luck and strategy they manage to finish off the encounter. My concern is that if I wasn't helpless, my AC was high enough that I could have probably held them off long enough for the wizard to get back and save the sorc, even if Tarkus still died. With occasional help from the monk I may have even taken one or both minions with me.
Dylos wrote:
My advice, talk to your GM and VC/VL.
I was hoping to get a chance to bring this up tonight, but found out I wouldn't be able to make the session (curse you work schedule changes, curse you!), so I figured I'd ask here for some input. The GM in question is actually one of the two VL's in my area, and the VC I've only met a couple times.
Wraith235 wrote:
I must ask the obvious question just to be sure (and to cover the bases)
did
A) the attack drop you to negative HP ?
B) were you at or above zero after taking the damage ?
Tarkus's max HP is 43, with a 14 Con. He started the fight with two points of damage, so it would take 42 damage to bring him unconscious, and 55 to kill him. The first CDG did ~28, which means I would still have been conscious, and the second did slightly more.
Pirate Rob wrote:
Here's something that's been bothering me for awhile...
Where in the Guide to Organized Play (or an official post from campaign leadership) does it say that Venture Officers are able to retroactively change the results of a scenario based on a rules call by the GM that they disagree with?
I'm not trying to blare the battle horns and march to war under the appeal banner, I'm just asking for advice on what to do in this situation. The way the mod turned out has been bothering me, getting killed isn't fun for anybody and I feel like the sorc should have survived. If the consensus is for it to be appealed then sure, it should be appealed. If not, that's just as fine by me.
kinevon wrote:
Another thing of note on CdG: CdG is a full round action, so, unless both minions involved were within a 5' step of your PC, they would not have been able to CdG to begin with, or it would have taken the Standard action from their first round's actions, along with the Standard action from their second round's actions, to complete the CdGs.
Minions took the right actions and didn't do a CDG wrong, just at the wrong time.
James Becker wrote:
...CDG was not ok for GMs to use in PFS...even if it is allowed, it is still very poor form.
roll4initiative wrote:
...not to do CdGs...
Bob Jonquet wrote:
... Many players feels that a CdG is unfair or (situationally) cheating...
Soluzar wrote:
...IMO this was a dick move...
And etc. Please don't get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing held against this GM for doing the CDGs, the minions were told to get me and they got me. I don't think he was trying to be a dick or malicious or anything, what happened made sense to happen like that. I'm not trying to get revenge for my character's death, as I said above I'm just looking for advice. He's a great GM and a great person.
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:
Deep Slumber wrote:
This spell functions like sleep, except that it affects 10 HD of targets.
Sleep wrote:
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.
