Cryypter's page

14 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists.


RSS


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

The feat Flumefire Rage from the Elemental Master’s Handbook increases the damage of fire evocation spells. It also lists the kineticist's Elemental Focus class feature as a prerequisite, and mentions blasts in the part detailing the Fort save DC, but as far as I can tell, using a kinetic blast does not count as casting an evocation spell.

Was this feat intended to work with blasts, and if so, is it a typo/oversight, or is there something I am missing?


Isabelle Lee wrote:
It appears that it would (although you'd have the same issue with prerequisites as for Flumefire Rage itself).

Speaking of prerequisites, is it supposed to apply to kinetic blasts too? It mentions Elemental Focus (a Kineticist class feature) in the prerequisites, and the save DC mentions the spell or blast's level.


I assume you would have to be adjacent to your opponent to take the free overrun, so if you bull rush them 30 feet away but don't follow them, you wouldn't be in range to take the overrun.

It seems I didn't think through my example. I actually had a different scenario in mind than a line of opponents, but I thought that one would be simpler.

The case I am thinking of would be if you have an opponent cornered.

S = Siegebreaker
E = Enemy

______
|E S
|
|

You make an attack, get a free bull rush, but since the target has a wall behind them, according to Shield Slam, they move the maximum distance (0 ft) and fall prone. You now get a free overrun, which if successful, allows you to move through their square, ending up here:

______
|E
|S
|

EDIT:

Claxon wrote:
Breaker Rush only removes the need to spend a standard action to make the check by turning it into a free action, it does not change the other requirement, which is moving.

Hmm, you may be right...


Forseti wrote:

It allows you to "attempt an overrun combat maneuver check against that foe as a free action"

It offers the check, nothing else. It definitely seems to me as if it's your job to provide everything else you need to actually move through the opponent.

How do you think it should work? How much extra, free movement would this free action give you? The Overrun maneuver has no answers, neither has the Breaker Rush ability.

Actually, Overrun does.

Quote:
If your maneuver is successful, you move through the target's space.

That's it. You do not get a free move action, you simply move through their space. If Overrun instead said "you can continue your movement through the target's space", I would agree with you. But it simply states that the benefit of an overrun is that you move through their space.


Ah, I see. So in this case, unarmed strikes are bludgeoning melee weapons, and thus do not qualify for Vorpal, therefore Vorpal cannot be applied to the amulet.


Claxon wrote:
Cryypter wrote:

Are there any rules that support that?

After looking into it further, apparently even with a normal bull rush, you are not required to move with the target.

Bull Rush wrote:
You can move with the target if you wish but you must have the available movement to do so.
I assume you would say in both cases, you cannot use the free overrun unless you choose to move with them?

Yes, I would say that both cases require you to move.

And no, there are no explicit rules that state it, but its the only way that makes any sense.

Overrun states that it is done as a standard action during a move, or as part of a charge (which actually makes how it works mechanically confusing) but in either case the character has to be moving to overrun.

In my mind it doesn't make sense to say you can overrun someone if you're not moving. Overrun is literally about running over someone, how can you do that if you don't move through their square and over them. It just doesn't make sense if you don't move.

So the only way this works is to attack with shield bash, get free bulrush from shield slam, move with target, and get free overrun attempt on target (where it would have normally been an standard action).

I think the problem is that you're thinking that overrun attempt would ever grant you free movement, but it absolutely doesn't. Which is why it states is has to be done as part of a charge or during a move action.

I agree that it doesn't make sense to overrun without moving.

If you didn't have Breaker Rush, I would also agree that in order to initiate an overrun from a free bull rush, you would have to spend the action to move with the target of the bull rush, as that is required in order to take the overrun action.

However, Breaker Rush provides a free overrun, thus bypassing the normal required standard action as part of a move action or charge, just like how Shield Slam lets you bypass the normal required standard action to perform a bull rush.


Claxon wrote:
Cryypter wrote:
Bob Bob Bob wrote:
The closest you're going to get is a Vorpal Amulet of Mighty Fists (bite attacks are slashing, so it works) and a natural 20, but I don't think you can because you can't normally apply vorpal to unarmed strikes, which is what Amulet of Mighty Fists requires.
If your unarmed strikes can deal slashing damage (which can be done through various methods), why could you not apply Vorpal to them?

Because vorpal specifically requires a slashing weapon, which an amulet is not.

It's similar to why the Brawling enhancement can't be applied to bracers of armor, because brawling requires light armor specifically to qualify, not even mitrhal medium armor qualifies.

Using that reasoning, you can't apply any weapon special abilities to the amulet, because it is not a weapon. The description says:

AoMF wrote:
this amulet can grant melee weapon special abilities, so long as they can be applied to unarmed attacks.

Vorpal can be applied to unarmed attacks (since you can make them deal slashing damage), therefore it meets the requirements of the amulet.

Bracers of armor are different, as they simply say they can be enchanted with armor special abilities. Thus, since the bracers do not qualify as light armor, Brawling cannot be applied to them.


Bob Bob Bob wrote:
The closest you're going to get is a Vorpal Amulet of Mighty Fists (bite attacks are slashing, so it works) and a natural 20, but I don't think you can because you can't normally apply vorpal to unarmed strikes, which is what Amulet of Mighty Fists requires.

If your unarmed strikes can deal slashing damage (which can be done through various methods), why could you not apply Vorpal to them?


Are there any rules that support that?

After looking into it further, apparently even with a normal bull rush, you are not required to move with the target.

Bull Rush wrote:
You can move with the target if you wish but you must have the available movement to do so.

I assume you would say in both cases, you cannot use the free overrun unless you choose to move with them?


The Shield Slam feat gives you a free bull rush when you successfully perform a shield bash.

Shield Slam:
Any opponents hit by your shield bash are also hit with a free bull rush attack, substituting your attack roll for the combat maneuver check (see Combat). This bull rush does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Opponents who cannot move back due to a wall or other surface are knocked prone after moving the maximum possible distance. You may choose to move with your target if you are able to take a 5-foot step or to spend an action to move this turn.

The Siegebreaker Fighter archetype gives you a free overrun when you successfully bull rush.

Breaker Rush:
At 2nd level, when a siegebreaker successfully bull rushes a foe, he can attempt an overrun combat maneuver check against that foe as a free action.

My question is: how does movement get resolved for this situation? The rules for overrun state:

Quote:
As a standard action, taken during your move or as part of a charge, you can attempt to overrun your target, moving through its square. [..] If your maneuver is successful, you move through the target's space.

But in this case, the free overrun is not being taken as part of a movement, since you do not have to move with your opponent for Shield Slam. Do you move through the opponent's square essentially for free? Are you limited in how much movement you can gain from this? For example, if you had a line of enemies spaced with 1 square between each, could you full attack your way through as many enemies as you have attacks, overruning each along the way to move 10 feet per attack?


Mark Seifter wrote:
Cryypter wrote:

I couldn't find any info on this, so if this has been covered already, I would be appreciative if you could point out where.

Regarding the Kineticist, why do Air and Aether have no 9th level wild talents, while Earth, Fire, and Water do? Was this an oversight, or was it intentional?

Basically, what happened is that instead of gaining new "levels" of talents at level 1, 6, 10, and 16, I wanted to make things more granular, opening up more options and making the progress less of a hop. On the other hand, though, some of the abilities are just really nice, regardless of what number they have on the label. You could make an extremely powerful kineticist all the way up to 20 who didn't take any wild talents with a level higher than 6, to be honest. But anyways, back to the main point: If an element didn't have a 9th but instead had an 8th, that's really a perk, not a drawback. The other alternative, when filling out the levels, would have been to make an 8th level talent be 9th level. With aether, which has 3 of them, it would have been really easy to just say "telekinetic deflection is 9th level" (or either of the other two), and they're all good enough that they could have been, but I decided to instead give increased versatility in the order you take those talents. I doubt that any telekineticist will find any of those three to be an unsatisfying pick at 18th. Does that make sense?

Yeah, that makes sense (I actually hadn't noticed that the elements without a 9th had at least one 8th). As a related question, why is the infusion progression set up such that, assuming you take a different element at level 7, you have to wait till level 9 to get the 3rd level infusions? Was it ending up in testing that there wasn't enough incentive to take the same element over the benefits gained from diversifying?


Deadbeat Doom wrote:
Because he used the three points in his Internal Buffer, plus two points of burn.

But spending internal buffer points doesn't count for elemental overflow. Unless you are counting the burn taken to add the points to the buffer in the first place, in which case the total burn damage is the same as if the buffer hadn't been used.

To fill the buffer: 3 burn x 11 = 33 non-lethal
5 points in defense: 3 buffer + 2 burn x 11 = 22 non-lethal
Total: 55


Tels wrote:
Rynjin wrote:

"At 20th level"

Nobody plays at 20th level. Everything sounds way better than it really is if you assume 20th.

This doesn't really apply as the ability scales with the players level.

At 3rd level, you are getting +1 to hit/+2 to damage for free.

At 6th level, you are getting +2 to hit/+4 to damage for free.

At 10th level, you are getting +3 to hit/+6 to damage, +2 size bonus to two ability scores (+10 hp/+1 fort, +1 range attack/Reflex/initiative/dex skills/AC), and a 15% miss chance vs criticals and sneak attacks.

At 15th level you are getting +4 to hit/+8 to damage, +2 to two ability scores (+15 hp/+1 fort, +1 range attack/Reflex/initiative/dex skills/AC), +20% miss chance.

At 20th level, you get +5 to hit/+8 to damage, +4 to one ability score, +2 to two others (+40 hp/+2 fort save, +1 range attack/Reflex/initiative/dex skills/AC or +20 hp/+1 fort, +2 range attack/Reflex/initiative/dex skills/AC), 25% miss chance.

In addition to the above, you can, reasonably, top off Overflow each day by spending additional burn on your defenses. This means with only a few 'actual' burn points taken, you are bumping yourself up to the +6/+4/+2 ability score bonus of Elemental Overflow, while also drastically increasing your miss chance vs criticals and sneak attacks and bumping your Kinetic Defense.

For example, an 11th level Geokinetic could have his 3 buffer points, and then spend another 5 bumping up his defense to DR 8/adamantine. Doing so grants him +3 hit/+6 damage, +4 to con, +2 dex and +2 to strength, and a 25% miss chance vs criticals and sneak attacks. He's taken a total of 2 burn (-22 hp) but also bumped his con by +4 (+22 hp) so he's at a net loss of 0 HP, but gained quite a bit of bonuses in doing so.

I'm a little confused by the example given. If you're spending 5 points on your defense, how are you only taking 2 points of burn?


3 people marked this as a favorite.

I couldn't find any info on this, so if this has been covered already, I would be appreciative if you could point out where.

Regarding the Kineticist, why do Air and Aether have no 9th level wild talents, while Earth, Fire, and Water do? Was this an oversight, or was it intentional?