Search Posts
Good to know, since this is the first time I've played an oracle (life or otherwise) it's a learning experience for me. The GM was all set to let me get a holy symbol then handwave it as always being on hand. But I said "No, it was my mistake. I'll get one in-game when I get a chance". I'm RPing it as the holy symbol was either destroyed in an out of game encounter my backstory references, or merely forgotten by mistake due to being distracted by a vision.
Never made one before, so I started tinkering with a Witch build, seeing how it looks. First off, I should mention that I typically use Hero Lab to build characters. But this is raising a confusing issue with me. Upon seeing the list of familiars I noticed the Wasp Familiar option. Then I looked at the requirements, and adjusted my character to have the right alignment and worship the correct deity. But it still gives an error message that reads Wasp Familiar: Master must have wasp familiar Wait, what? How can I have a wasp familiar... before picking my familiar? Is this requiring I already have a familiar from another source to pick this? Do I need a feat like Improved Familiar? Or is this just a recursive error? If it is a feat, which book is it in? I'm assuming the feat must be named "wasp familiar" or something if it's not Improved Familiar. As I mentioned, never tried building a witch before so I'm unsure just what is going on here.
Just min/maxing isn't really an issue. I do so too usually, seeking to make a character as good as I reasonably can. Power gamers though take it to the extreme. If they can get away with it, many I've met would cheerfully trade away the ability to rhyme for a +1 on to-hit and damage, for example. To power gamers I've met over the years if a character's lowest stat isn't 15 they tend to consider it useless. Do you go that far? That said, I'm doubting I'll see too many power gamers in PFS in my area. Most of the ones where I live consider point buy attributes an abomination because you can't end up with three 18's and the rest 17's. heck, they hate point buy character building such as with Mutants & Masterminds because such systems have inherent checks and balances.
But it does provide alternate viewpoints. And I do agree with Wei Ji. Heroes do need flaws. Without flaws and things to overcome, where's the drama? Where's the heroism? When newly revived from the dead Clark Kent grabbed a gun, strapped on a jet pack, and rushes off to face Hank Hackshaw and Mongol I cheered. It wasn't because he was facing something Clark knew he could stop. No, it was because he was heading towards what he knew would probably be his death. Yet he still chose to do the right thing instead of the easy thing. Moments like that are why Superman is a hero. Not his neigh invulnerability, not his incredible strength, or any of the bajillion other powers he's got. It's his willingness to face certain death to save even one person. Sadly many power gamers forget this. In their quest to make the supreme character, they remove as many flaws as they can. They create a mechanical monstrosity, sometimes abusing some obscure rule to the Nth degree. Or they seek out the hidden chinks of the system to empower their character. This is not cheating, usually, but often has as bad of an impact from what I've seen. One guy in my lodge hates that PFS banned the Summoner class in favor of the Unchained Summoner class. Why? Because he can't make an excessively strong character without even trying hard. Also is upset that he can't craft anything in PFS, including sitting down and making blanches in an hour or two when he realizes there's going to be a werewolf in the next fight. I'm sure everyone remembers the Spiked Chain Fighter from 3.5. That's a prime example of legally bending the rules to the detriment of the game. Or a certain songbird fighter build someone did here on the Pathfinder forums. A GM once let me play a pixie, full abilities up front. Yes, that included greater invisibility as my character's natural state. And there were so many nasty ways I could have abused that. Hell, I worked up a very nasty rogue build that would be sneak attacking nearly 100% of the time for a minimum of 12 damage at level 1. As a pixie. Ended up not using that build cause I considered (and GM agreed once he'd looked it over) that the build was broken. It was 100% legal and by the books. But it would have been game breaking. I'd ended up going with sorcerer for a vastly less broken character. Would have opted for wizard, but as the GM said... "Who would be insane enough to take on a pixie as a wizard's apprentice?"
Please dial back the "powergaming = cheating" rhetoric. Nothing good down that road. Thanks. It's been my experience over 25 years. You might have had different experiences. But what we encounter in life develops our views and opinions. At least in my area, power gamers are cheaters 80% of the time. Some that cheat don't do it intentionally, they just suck at simple addition. Or at least that's what they would like everyone to believe. Trying to min/max a build as an intellectual exercise can be fun. And I have spent hours at a time tinkering with hypothetical builds doing so. As I said, I can be a power gamer when the mood strikes me, and do so without cheating. My distaste of the common (in my experience) correlation of power gaming and cheating is only half of why I dislike it. The other half is that I find power gaming to take away the actual fun of roleplaying by removing the challenge. A character who can't be challenged isn't a fun character. Similarly I stopped reading Superman comics cause he's too damn powerful. Flash too, really. There's only so many times you can have an "unstoppable juggernaut" of the week before it becomes old hat and boring. And needing to constantly have contrived situations to force a character (player character or literary) to preform at less then their best due to whatever absurd reason also gets boring fast. It's one reason when I'm writing a short story the protagonist isn't an untouchable absurdly skilled warrior, mage, or whatever.
Which is why I've been trying to have at least 4 skill points with any PFS character. 1 for a craft or profession, 1 for a knowledge skill, 1 for Perception, and 1 for whatever fits the character concept. If I have skill points beyond that then I'll start going for other things. Don't always go for a knowledge skill though. Might go with sense motive instead, depending on the character. Of course that does mean I may need 12 to 14 Int, depending on race and class.
Got an email yesterday from the VO. He admitted he'd looked up the rule again, and realized he'd been giving bad info on that subject. Not that I can blame him. He IS the regional coordinator, and constantly bouncing from town to town, convention to local PFS event. Not to mention fielding questions from who knows how many people on any given day. In fact when me and a friend told him we're more then willing to GM now and then, he expressed relief. So I'll buy the +1 enchantment at the start of next session and be done with it (for now).
Thanks... I was reading that as I took a drink of water. So I just had to pry off the keys of my keyboard and dry it off with a paper towel after the spit take.
My experience has been that those who min/max the most, also tend to cheat. Sometimes blatantly, sometimes subtly. But most power gamers I've met also cheat. Weather it's by lying about their dice rolls at character creation or lying about how much of a finite resource they have left, players I've met who power game the most also tend to cheat somehow. It's like the whole idea of making as powerful a character as possible runs into the rules, and they can't stand that their concept lost the fight. Not all of them, but most. Now I myself am no stranger to bending the rules. As a GM I've been known to fudge the dice in the players favor once in a great while. And I've asked GM permission to bend a rule or two, sometimes in half. But when I do ask to do such things, I give the GM my full reasoning for the request. And it's often something that's for RP flavor that actually weakens my character somehow. Or because the system's rules can almost, but not quite do what I'm trying to do. If the GM says "no" however I move to a different concept. The times I have sat down to make as powerful a character as I legitimately can, I've usually walked away disappointed with the character. using various paladium games in the past (if you're familiar with the rules) I've made characters with +10 to strike and +15 to parry and dodge at level 1. A +1 to strike and +5 to parry/dodge is rather normal for most characters in that rules system. Also made a character using the system once with EVERY skill in the book, legitimately. When a GM for 3.5 D&D made me use the half dragon template instead of taking levels in dragon disciple to represent being a half dragon, I found the character not to be very fun. Love the character, but starting at level 1 with as much HP as the barbarian and more AC then the fighter and 25 str... on a sorcerer The character was too powerful too quickly to be fun.
For now, bought 4 potions of mage armor. Which should be enough for a while. Will probably buy a wand later on though. I'm saving my prestige atm for in case something bad happens, and didn't want to spend too much gold up front. I'm also saving up for either a ring of protection (once I can get one) or amulet of natural armor. Or amulet of mighty fist, not entirely sure which one I'll get. Natural armor would improve my odds of not being hit, while mighty fist would improve my ability to take out foes. It's a tough decision that I'm still thinking on. If we have a party wipe, which nearly happened last session, then I'd like to be able to have my body recovered and have the gold needed to be revived.
If so, I know what I want for a monk I'm playing in PFS Core. If not, oh well. I'll just stick to potions of mage armor till I get a bracer of armor +5.I'd grab a wand of it. 9/10 times there will be someone in the group who can use it for you - just have a few potions for that tenth session when no-one can. Potions are far cheaper, and I didn't feel like messing with creating a custom wand in hero lab. Don't think anyone in the regular Core group can cast mage armor either. Could be wrong though. We've got a fighter, ranger, barbarian/cleric, monk... Wait, yeah we've got a wizard. Not that he's demonstrated a willingness to help out others much beyond summon monster 1 in the last session. Granted, his wand of summon monster 1 DID help out a lot. As did his casting the spell personally.
As I said, the issue doesn't matter either way. And the idea of a monk in a chain shirt seems a little absurd to me. Since the faq answer specifically called out barbarians being able to use their "only in light armor" class abilities (for example) when wearing a medium mithral armor, it made me wonder if the same would be true for monks in light mithral armor. Normally a monk that puts on light armor receives the non-proficiency penalties and loses access to their class abilities. So based on the faq answer I got to wondering if monks who did take proficiency in light armor as a feat could wear mithral chain while still using their class abilities. Or would the fact they put on armor, even if it's light enough to not impede their movement at all, mean they can't use their class abilities. Granted, depending on how much you're carrying and strength score I could see a mithral chain shirt bumping said monk into medium encumbrance anyway.
Honestly, I'm not a fan of powergamers. I can do it, and have done so. i've then quickly retired said powergamer character builds. I find if I make a character who's too overwhelmingly powerful, the character just stops being fun. That doesn't mean I try to make weak characters. I just don't actively try making as overpowering a character as possible. Where's the challenge if your level 1 (pick class) character has 28 AC and a +9 bonus to attacks while having +12 in every knowledge and social skill? And if there's no challenge, where's the fun of playing the build? A large part of why I dislike the powergamer mentality though is a trait that tends to accompany it. Namely the mindset of "rules are meant to be bent into pretzel shapes". If you require abusing the rules to the point where the GM can legitimately call you out on cheating, maybe you shouldn't be participating in something as social as roleplaying? At least that's my opinion. If you have to roll your dice out of the GM's sight so you can claim to have gotten crits when you didn't and count on the GM not having read the exact rules that govern your character, you probably shouldn't be playing that character. You also should examine your motivations for roleplaying. Cause if you have to cheat to have fun, the game may not be for you. Me, even if the GM owns the book I'm using, I offer print outs for everything my PFS character is using to the GM. This actually came up on Sunday since the GM wasn't familiar with several mechanics behind what a kineticist does, such as that burn can't be healed by anything except resting for the night.
Was searching for an answer to a friend's crafting question in errata and faqs, and stumbled across the following regarding mithral armor and what armor catagory it counts as. question regarding the properties of mithral armor:
This means that mithral armor allows its wearer to use it when her own class features or special abilities demand her to wear lighter armor; in other words, the character wearing the armor is less limited. For example, a bard can cast spells in mithral breastplate without arcane spell failure, a barbarian can use her fast movement in mithral fullplate, a ranger can use his combat style in mithral fullplate, brawlers, swashbucklers, and gunslingers can keep their nimble bonus in mithral breastplate, rogues keep evasion in mithral breastplate, a brawler can flurry in mithral breastplate, characters without Endurance can sleep in mithral breastplate without becoming fatigued, and so on. It does not change the armor’s actual category, which means that you can still store a creature one size category larger in a hosteling mithral fullplate, and you can’t enhance a mithral breastplate with special abilities that require it to be light armor, like brawling (though you could enhance it with special abilities that require it to be medium armor), and so on. This then sent ideas spinning around in my head. Does this mean a monk could wear a suit of light mithral armor and still get monk wisdom to AC and access to their various monk abilities? I know they'd need light proficiency or they'd take a non-proficient penalty to skills and attack rolls. But would a mithral chain shirt, for example, count as unarmored for the purpose of monk abilities due to the properties of mithral lowering the weight category by 1? If so, I know what I want for a monk I'm playing in PFS Core. If not, oh well. I'll just stick to potions of mage armor till I get a bracer of armor +5.
Did you actually read the post that shows a direct answer to this in the FAQ?Caster level prerequisites are one of the things you can ignore by adding +5 to the DC. It is entirely possible for a 5th level character to make +5 armor and weapons (should he have the money and ability to make the check). Hadn't actually found the entry regarding that till today in the faq. Ironically enough I was looking for something else in the faq a friend mentioned wanting to do. Namely that he was thinking of having an amulet of mighty fist combined with amulet of natural armor made for a monk he's planning on playing in a starting lvl 6 campaign. I wasn't sure if that's even possible. Tempted to go with "no", but wanted to verify my gut reaction.
As I said, not worth fighting over. I can get it enchanted after the next session. And till then a +1 to AC probably isn't going to be that super useful. Not with the way he's been rolling. It's not like having 17 or 18 AC has as much impact as going from 24 to 26 AC at level 2. Or even going from 18 to 22 AC like my core monk does if he drinks a mage armor potion. And might I say, the aerokinetic elemental defense is NOT that helpful if you can't chose to take burn to improve it. 20% miss chance on non-energy ranged attacks sounds great, but it actually rarely helps out. Or at least it didn't yesterday. Kinda wishing I'd had the water elemental defense instead.
Another real world example... I've had to go to work after being up 80 hours before. Yeah, it was my own fault I'd been up that long. But that's besides the point. The point is you could consider it a form of real world enervation, or temp neg level. I was able to do everything I normally do. But there were issues. I preformed my duties at work to the same quality, it just took far longer to do it then normal. I still knew everything I normally do, but was not able to use that knowledge as effectively. Not to mention it could take me a bit to work through a problem. My spacial awareness was also down, causing me to miss details I normally wouldn't. You know, such as being startled that someone's in front of me talking even though I saw them approach. This could correlate to a wizard or sorcerer being able to cast a spell, but not do so as powerful as they normally can. Reduced speed (class bonus to movement speed being reduced?), temp loss of skill ranks, and so forth too. But no actual skill, knowledge, or capability was gone. I just couldn't use it as well.
Yet there's other abilities that may be iffy. Say I'm playing a level 11 kineticist. If I get a neg level, do I still keep the level 11 form of Elemental Overflow or does it drop down the next highest version? Do I lose access to utility and infusion wild talents if I take too many neg levels? Does the damage of my kinetic blasts go down or just the caster level of them? If neg levels drop me below level 7 (even temporarily) do I lose my expanded element? If neg levels drop me below level 8 do i lose my expanded elemental defense? Can I still use greater flame jet if neg levels drop me below effective level 6? You get the idea. Or an alchemist, why would neg levels prevent them from using an extract? After all, once it's mixed you just drink the extract to get the effect.
Asked him again today before the session. This is what the VO told me. Mithral chain shirt: always available, no fame needed +1 chain shirt: always available, no fame needed +1 mithral chain shirt: NOT always available due to being made of mithral AND enchanted. I decided not to fight about it and just got the mithral chain shirt. Once at 9 fame I'll enchant it. Annoyingly we didn't get the 2nd Prestige due to not asking the right questions once, and the person who had a vital clue ignoring everyone saying "This is suspicious, that note you found also implicates that guy as working with these bandits". He failed to realize as a player every single clue given was actually a clue, even when the GM was making a point of calling attention to the same clue over and over. Even when at the end I told him (in character) "What about that note you found" Show it to her." He didn't realize that was in fact a clue that implicated the real badguy, thus never showed it to the person who we should have given it to. So at least 1 more session. Meh, annoying but I can deal with it.
The HP loss and penalties to rolls are to account for the lower effective level. You don't lose a hit die worth of HP and an extra 5 HP. You just lose 5 HP. Your BAB doesn't go down by one level and you get a -1 to bab, you just get the -1 to BAB. Same for saves, you still only get the -2 (I think) to saves. It's things like sneak attack, highest spell able to be cast, and class abilities you got at X level that are a little fuzzy to me.
Caster level prerequisites are one of the things you can ignore by adding +5 to the DC. It is entirely possible for a 5th level character to make +5 armor and weapons (should he have the money and ability to make the check). It's the entry that specifically calls out how high of a bonus you can add though that gave me the my ruling. It reads as follows:
This is the same as for magic weapons, amulets of mighty fist, and amulets of natural armor. And the wording implies it's not bypassable via a +5 to the DC. Thus why saying you can bypass it by adding +5 DC surprises me.
Note that caster level for a vanilla +X item is three times the enhancement bonus. So to make a +5 sword it's caster level 15 base. If there's both, use the highest caster level. So in the case of a +5 shield of heroism, that would probably be caster level 15, for a DC of 20 minimum to craft. Really? My understanding was that you flat out aren't allowed to make a +3 sword if you're not level 9 or higher. And that you similarly aren't allowed to make a +2 amulet of natural armor unless your caster level isn't high enough for the bonus (4 levels per +1 I believe). And isn't the CL added to difficulty already factoring in that part? I mean, unless they are taking feats, traits, and other stuff to maximize Spellcraft a level 5 player is probably going to find a CL 15 item to be difficult to make. Especially if they have multiple prereqs that they're missing. Overwhelming yet? Crafting is a nifty system that can give the players a lot of power far faster then the GM might have intended. On the other hand, players that overreach them self can quickly get smacked down HARD when they fail a crafting check. Personally, I'd only let someone take ten if they literally can't fail to make the item except on a 1. That way there's always the slight chance they'll mess up a high DC item.
As I mentioned, he's rather vague when explaining things. That said, he did specifically state that a mithral chain shirt requires 9 fame due to being a special material. Didn't make sense to me considering it said all special materials other then dragonhide were always available. But when the regional coordinator for your area says it's one way, kinda hard to argue with it. I figured it didn't matter since one more session and I'll have 9 favor anyway.
Another reason is that as more and more books come out chances of a class being made that turns out to be excessively powerful increase exponentially. The Alchemist class for example seems... a tad overly powerful. I mean, a strong AOE at level 1 (1d6 initially, rather powerful for lvl 1) that only gets stronger quickly? Even an average alchemist can make the rest of the party feel superfluous at level 1, and down right unneeded at level 6. Magus also seem a wee bit too powerful. Or maybe that's just a given player who likes to bend the rules into unnatural shapes with the knowledge the GM knows nothing of the class or ability he's using. Such as relying on the GM not having read the crafting rules thus not knowing you can't make a +3 Living Steel heavy steel shield at level 3 or a +2 amulet of natural armor at level 5. Let alone knowing what the DC to make anything is, or that you DO need to make a skill check. I'm still not sure he's playing his magus correctly, but I'm dang sure he wasn't playing his alchemist right in Serpent's Skull.
Uhm, buy 3 or 4 quivers of arrows initially and probably not run out before having 3 scenarios under the character's belt? By the way, always available and fame limits apply to your starting gear. How have you been equipping your characters? My understanding from talking to the VO for my region was that your initial 150 gold for buying starting gear didn't run into fame limits, but afterwords once you start playing you do. So I'd only been restocking consumables like trail rations and torches till I had 5 fame. Then again he's not that good at explaining things beyond a general "it works". When I asked him about how he setup Paint for printing out maps, his answer was rather vague. Beyond the gear noted above, your character is restricted to purchasing additional items from his accumulated Chronicle sheets, or by capitalizing on his fame. Weapons, armor, equipment, magic items and so on that are outside of these lists are not available for purchase at any time.As you can see, you only apply the Fame limits to items that are not Always Available. Mithral and +1 armors are Always Available. Not disputing that it's always available. What I'm trying to understand is how the Fame purchese cap affects it. Because I've read a post regarding upgrading equipment that said that upgrading a masterwork weapon to a +1 weapon was still restricted by fame for if you can spend that much. Wait, looking for the post and rereading it. *frowns in thought* Hmm, yeah must have been misreading it. Still, the Guild Guide is kind of vague on that and implies even 'always available' stuff is still limited by fame amount. Damn, that means I could have had my mithral chain shirt after the second scenario. That's it, before we start tomorrow I'm buying a +1 mithral chain shirt and selling my current regular chain shirt. With 6 Str, I need the lighter weight for armor. And the extra point of armor doesn't hurt either.
Daniel, an experienced PFS player asked this question during the playtest to avoid table variation. Smart player. Why wasn't that dev post cited earlier when I asked for verification? You know, instead of just "it's been told to us".
Looks like sneak attack damage isn't affected by neg levels, but I could be wrong about that. To my knowledge what is affected is the following: Effective caster level for spell effects (not if you can cast the spell), BAB, Saves, HP, and you are that much closer to dying and coming back as a wraith, vampire, shadow, or whatever undead is draining your levels :)
And when the Rules As Written specifically say it's up to the GM how spells work underwater? That's not a "this is the standard rule that's followed outside of specific exceptions" situation, it's a "your GM will decide how it works" situation. Which is the whole point of the thread's initial question. No two game masters are required to rule it the same way. My ruling doesn't have to be the same as yours. Although if it crops up in PFS enough I'd imagine they will make an official ruling for that venue.
So it'd still possibly default back to the DC of the armor's enhancement bonus. All told, making magic armors and weapons gets difficult. Not something you want to do with low spellcraft. Hell, crafting in general isn't something you want to do with low spellcraft. Yeah with +15 spellcraft a DC 21 item (handy haversack for a level 5 wordcasting sorc for example) isn't too difficult. But higher CL items get rough, especially if they require multiple spells you don't have. And you REALLY don't want to push your luck with some things. The first time you accidentally make a scarab of death instead of a +3 flaming burst amulet of mighty fist of pure good could well be your last. Or the first time you mess up a bag of holding type IV and make a bag of devouring...
My understanding of the amount you can spend on things comes from the following passage on page 26 of the PFS GUild Guide:
Thus I can always buy a mithral chain shirt (or +1 mithral chain shirt) without needing a chronicle that grants access to one. But I still can't buy a mithral chain shirt till I have enough fame to allow a 1100 gold purchase, and can't outright buy a +1 mithral chain shirt till I have enough fame to allow a 2100 gold purchase. And until you get 5 fame you can't buy anything with a cost above 9 silver and 9 copper after character creation. Unless it's part of your rebuild by selling your bought equipment back at full value. If I'm reading that entry wrong, mind explaining how I'm reading it wrong?
There's evidence in various modules and scenarios that magic electricity gets conducted too. Crypt of the Everflame has a prime example. What about electricity created via magic or psyonics makes you think it'd act differently then lightning or electricity generated by a fungus? Magic fire can be effective underwater presumably because it's either A. hot enough or B. fueled by the force of will of the caster. Probably option B though due to the concentration check. Otherwise it works like you'd expect, getting doused normally but able to turn water into steam. Use to know someone who had an electric eel. It died cause he stopped feeding it after getting shocked by the dang thing simply by touching the water in the tank when it was agitated too many times. Are you saying casting shocking grasp when fully submerged would get conducted less then the charge given off by an electric eel despite it being a stronger charge? If it's a damaging electric attack, I'd say be careful using it in water. If you tried the whole shocking grasp and create water thing, and were standing in the water? I'd rule you get shocked too. Heck, I'd be having it deal less damage then a precedent set by a module would suggest I should. And you're darn tooting I'd let cold spells freeze water. Cone of Cold will do so as a matter of course if water is in the area of effect. Otherwise I'd rule you have to actually target the water. And I'd rule that ice spells cast underwater... not so effective at any range. Why? It'd spend all it's energy freezing the water near you. Me and a friend have been planning the whole 2 hydrokinetics creating an ice slick via the Slick utility talent and cold blast. Not all cold spells though. Spells that fire a bolt of ice wouldn't freeze water. Cool off smaller bodies given enough time, maybe. But not freeze. A kineticist's Ice Blast composite blast probably wouldn't freeze water either. Or in other words "Chunk of ice", no. rays, cones, orbs, or otherwise of intense damaging cold, yes. How much water gets frozen, that would prob depend on the level of the spell. Just as I'd have electric spells or abilities affect things in a radius based on level of the spell/ability. But again, if you don't want to rule like that then that's your right. It says in the rule it's DM's discretion how casting a spell underwater affects the spell. But electric spells should be affected by it somehow. So should spells like ray of frost, polar ray, freezing sphere, kinetic simple cold blast and the like.
Some spells might function differently underwater, subject to GM discretion. That says nothing about electric spells not being conducted by water. Only magic type it specifically describes the effects of is fire spells. It then says "subject to GM discretion" in regards to other spells. My ruling would be half damage to those in an area. If it's a small enough submerged section, might hit everyone if it's a single target spell. If it's a spell with a range, half damage to everyone within that range. I'd have Shocking Grasp deal half damage to everything within 10 ft of the target. Maybe up to 20 feet for a higher level shocking grasp. A zero level electric spell though, probably only would deal half damage to those within 5 feet. So caster, target, and maybe anything else adjacent to the target. You are within your rights to rule it in a different way. Notice too you didn't mention which book, just the SRD page. One reason I asked for book and page number is... When I'm GMing for PFS I have no access to the internet. I DO have access though to my PDFs. If I can only find rules on the SRD, I don't reliably have access to the rules when GMing.
Which when using the "average HP per level" rule is typically 1 HD worth of hit points. Sure you keep your con bonus, and any from Toughness. But that may just mean you died with a few hit points still :) Really, even a barbarian is getting only 6 or 7 HP per level using average HP per additional level (plus con and possibly favored class bonus) So 5 HP per neg level is almost an entire HD here too. Hell, for a caster that may be MORE then they got per level.
And just where are you pulling this from? Can you list a book and page number you find that ruling? Or is it your personal ruling on the subject? Because if that's the case, how is that any different then me saying "You want to do an electric blast while underwater? Fine, but you do realize it's going to hurt. Right?" The books make no mention of either from what I'm seeing. So citation and/or book and page number are what I'm asking for. Not just "I already said it", but actual citation that can be verified by others. Not that I'm saying you're lying. But I am asking to see verification. If I'm wrong, I'll happily amend how I'd rule something. This hasn't come up for me as a GM yet. But I have seen instances in modules and scenarios where interaction between electricity and water would support my ruling.
Using bold text is a way to call attention to a key part. Capslock... That I try not to do very often. MAYBE a single word for emphasis, but even that I dislike doing much. I'd much rather use italics for such emphasis. It's easier on the eyes, yet calls attention to the word just as easily.
Then again, there's GMs letting you do things that RAW and RAI may not have even crossed their minds... such as using an aerokinetic's basic aerokinesis to help a sail boat travel faster on a low wind day. Or using a hydrokinetic's basic hydrokinesis for the same purpose. Or both at once going on.
First, the player has to make, buy, or have someone else make the master crafted armor. This is done by them doing a crafting check to make the armor, THEN another check to make it master crafted. not sure off hand the DC for this. Next, they need to have a level 3 times higher then the enhancement bonus (minimum of +1 bonus) being added. Before you can even think of adding an ability, it has to be a +1 item. Cost to add the ability would be as if 200 charges if it's a continuous effect or has unlimited charges. Does he want the armor to have a constant Heroism effect, or usable effect that you trigger X times per day? This affects cost to make. Finally, the DC to craft the item is 5+caster level (Heroism is probably CL 6). If you don't actually have the requirements, add another 5 to the DC for each missing requirement. For example if you want to make a belt of physical might, but don't have bulls strength, cat's grace, and bears endurance the DC goes up by 15. Note that caster level for a vanilla +X item is three times the enhancement bonus. So to make a +5 sword it's caster level 15 base. If there's both, use the highest caster level. So in the case of a +5 shield of heroism, that would probably be caster level 15, for a DC of 20 minimum to craft. If you're a word caster the spell needs to be on the normal spell list for your class, and you have to have enough spell slots of the correct level. If both are true, increase DC by 2 per spell prereq you're replacing with word casting. If not true, add 5 DC per prereq you don't meet. For example a wordcasting sorcerer could make a belt that grants +2 dex and +2 con so long as they can cast two level 2 spells per day. But the DC would go up by 2 for each spell needed. Thus raising the caster level to craft from 12 to 16. Note that some abilities you can add to weapons, armor, and shields have an enhancement value. Add this to the item's enhancement value to determine caster level for crafting DC. A +5 anarchic long sword for instance would have a total enhancement bonus of +7, for a total DC of 26 (31 if the crafter doesn't have the Chaos Hammer spell). Rules are on pages 462 and 548-551 So in summery, the spellcraft DC to make the armor he wants is 5+(CL of spell or 3x enhancement bonus, whichever is higher)+5 for each prerequisite missing (such as Heroism spell). And remember, if he rolls 5 less then the crafting DC, it's a cursed item. Or if he rolls a 1 on the crafting check. If he fails to meet the DC but it's within 4 points, he just wasted time and resources, have to restart. Also remember that it takes one 8 hour day of crafting per 1000g of the end value (not crafting cost). And if he's working on it while adventuring, he can only spend 4 hours a day working on the item (while receiving 1 hour of credit towards completion).
Where's anyone getting that kineticists are bringing anything in from the elemental planes? Haven't seen any reference to this in the book, just in this thread. And why would you think an electric bolt from spell or other source wouldn't be conducted by water? So physics takes a vacation simply because the bolt of electricity was formed via magic or psychic powers? If you have a rules source for such a claim, care to share what book and page number it's on?
I think, but I could be wrong, that the Rogues Edge class ability grants the signature skill feat as a bonus feat in order to give the skill unlock. Which means an unchained rogue. Only way the wording of the AR makes sense to me. Since skill unlocks require the signature skill feat, but only unchained rogues get skill unlocks and that feat via rogue's edge...
Whips using Str for damage (at X1) I can see. You either use your agility to finesse the whip so it's traveling fast enough to crack (and on target enough to hit what you're aiming at), or you brute strength it for the same result. Either way, trying to swing a whip with two hands just isn't going to get it moving fast enough for the tip to break the sound barrier. That IS the source of the 'crack' sound after all, and the reason for a whip stinging so much. For an ectoplasmist, I'd envision the 1 handed forms of the ectoplasmic lash to be very much a whip (or two whips). While the 2 handed form is probably closer to an oversized a riding crop or cat-o-nine tails, with only the last bit actually whip like while the rest is a solid shaft. Which would explain being able to 2 handed wield it. In fact, I think I'll describe my character's 2 handed manifestation as an oversized cat-o-nine tails. Doesn't use that one much though since he can't use his shield at the same time.
|
