Dunkelzahn's page

Skip it if you want. I prefer the reach. If you don't need the other abilities of Dragon form it is better in pure combat.

Thanks! I guess I'll see if I feel the reach is worth it. I may have discounted it too early.

Not sure if this is still monitored but I see that the guide is still being updated, so fingers crossed...

You rated Dinosaur Form as blue and I feel like I am missing something. I don't really see the benefit. It seems it is squeezed by Animal Form, which is equivalent up to character level 12 and Dragon Form that takes over at character level 15. Unless you are putting a really high value on Gargantuan size, it seems to provide only marginal benefit over 2 levels. Am I missing something? I'm just planning my druid and I thought I'd skip Dinosaur Form until I saw your guide and now I'm doubting myself.

I stumbled upon a similar post to this the other day about variant channeling and it had the original author of variant channeling stating his intent behind the variant channeling and that it got altered from his original intent in editing I believe. I am unable to find it and link it at this time, but I'm sure if you Google it or search these boards a bit you could quite easily find it. But yeah, based on what he said, Jeff Merola would be correct, part was changed but they missed some things.

Thank you, I found it: Post by Jason Nelson

So, writers intent was the second option but the design team went for the other option - and Undeath got messed up in the process. Good to know.

It's not a fluff comment. Variant channeling never affects Positive Energy to Harm or Negative Energy to Heal.

What about this then?

Undeath
Heal—This works like a standard channel (not halved).
Harm—The healing effect is enhanced (see Variant Channeling above) for undead creatures and those with negative energy affinity.

It seems that variant would then be completely useless or am I missing something?

Even an interpretation that the initial Heal and Harm are just (poor) abbreviations for Positive Energy and Negative Energy, regardless of their use doesn't work. That would lead to the awkward situation where the cleric from the initial example would actually buff the undead.

I'm confused...

A 7th level chaotic good cleric of Gorum selected variant channeling for the Battle aspect of Gorum's portfolio during character creation. Since he is good he is channeling positive energy and during an encounter he used it to harm undead creatures. What happens?

Is positive energy that is used to harm simply not covered, i.e. he would do 4d6 damage (Will for half)? Or, is the positive energy to heal comment fluff and he deals [4d6]/2 damage and the undead take a -2 penalty on weapon damage and crit confirmation (Will negates the penalty)?

Thanks for any insights!

Between the two choices I'd go with the cleric even though I agree that druid and witch would be stronger choices. In a small party encounters are going to last longer, which means you'll get more actions per encounter. As a wizard you will quickly deplete your spells and then be a crappy crossbowman. As a cleric you can at least still be a decent melee combatant. The same would go for the druid but the druid list provides in my opinion more flexibility and so does wild shape. The witch has its hexes which do not use resources. Just my 2c...

Thanks everyone! It seems that arcance enlightenment, as expected, doesn't work.

LazarX, are you sure it's a touch range? The ability says "you can summon" and both summon monster and summon nature's ally spells have close (25ft + 5ft /2 levels) range. Touch doesn't make any sense and frankly, there's no RAW to support it.

Dunkelzahn, I think (RAI) the Skeleton is a human skeleton or human zombie from Bestiary 1 that has its HD adjusted to yours (Bestiary human zombie has 2 HD, so I guess it drops to 1 HD at oracle level 1). Since neither skeletons nor zombies have any skill ranks, you only adjust hit points, BAB, saves, feats for skeleton (zombie does not gain any feats at increased HD) and ability score increase for every 4 HD.

Looks like this needs some house rules. I'm going to ask our DM:

I compared the revelation to the standard summon spells and even with all these asks I believe it falls behind over time. Summon Monster IX gets you a CR 13 or 14 creature at which point you'll be level 17-20. A standard Skeleton of those HD is CR 8 and that should assume an appropriate base creature so would probably be huge. Even with bloody and advanced stacking that gets you CR 10. Without stacking and assuming no size increases you should get something like a CR 7 equivalent. That just doesn't seem reasonable.

Let's see if I can convince my DM :)

Thanks for all the responses. Some comments in reverse order:

Is this for PFS or a home game?

As written, the answers given above are correct and apply to PFS. However, there is no harm in asking a home GM to modify Arcane Enlightenment so it works.

It is for a home game so I'll check with the DM. Just wanted to make sure I come in with the best available info.

Note that Spirit Guide explicitly switches any effects based on Wisdom to Charisma. So, for example, if you took the Benefit of Wisdom Hex all knowledge skills would become Cha based for you rather than Wis. This would also mean the Circlet of Command would apply to them.

Thanks, totally missed that one!

Actually Arcane Enlightenment does nothing for Oracles. It adds spells to your list of spells which you can prepare, not to your list of spells known. As such Oracles gain nothing from it.

Thanks, that's what I originally thought. Just wanted to confirm whether there has been some clarification somewhere.

1. Touch

2. You get exactly what the mystery says you get according to your class level.
3. See 2 above.
4. No. or depends on The Dm's ruling

I have some questions:

How can it be touch as a summoning spell? There is nothing to touch before the creature is summoned.

I believe the mystery isn't clear about what you are getting which is why I am asking. Do you mean the literal reading that since the revelation says I get a "Skeleton" and not a "Human Skeleton" I have to go to the later part in the Bestiary where it says: "Skeleton" is an acquired template...? That would imply I could just pick any monster with the appropriate HD and apply the template to it. (I'd be fine with that but it may be a bit too open for abuse.)

Sorry, I'm just not sure if that's what you meant.

I have some questions regarding Oracles. I have found some really old threads with similar questions but couldn't find any good answers and didn't want to necro post. So here goes:

Bones Mystery - Raise the Dead (Su)
1. What is the range on this power? Adjacent? Close? 30 feet?
2. Is the skeleton/zombie from any appropriate monster within the HD restrictions or is it the Bestiary skeleton/zombie advanced to your HD.
3. If it is just the advanced standard skeleton/zombie, does it receive size increases as appropriate (humanoids seem to become Large around 5 HD and Huge around 15 HD) or does it stay medium?
4. Does the ability to summon an advanced version at 15th level stack with the choice of bloody/fast at 7th?

Spirit Guide Archetype - Bonded Spirit (Su)
1. Does the Lore spirit's Arcane Enlightenment do anything for an oracle? From first reading it doesn't since it affects a choice to prepare spells. Even if one were to say it applies to spells known in some way, the DCs are explicitly switched from Int to Wis which of course does nothing for the Oracle. (It probably makes it worse since the choice of the spirit guide archetype with the knowledge skills it grants and the lore spirit with its knowledge focus makes it likely that Int is higher than Wis.)

Thanks in advance for any help!

Actually, it got a FAQ answer here, at least with respect to the subdomains problem.

A bit scary prospect but it works for me. If you have the Devil subdomain it makes sense that you wouldn't imprison a devil. Thanks!

This has never been officially resolved.

Talk to your GM, see if you can get planar ally instead. Or if he'll let you hand-wave the magic circle requirement.

Thanks, that's what I thought. I'll ask the DM to just let me use any magic circle instead. Not that they differ cost or level wise.

I realized today that planar binding has some weird interactions with non-neutral casters.

[...]
Okay, now for the things that just don't work. If I'm a cleric with the Devil subdomain, I get to cast planar binding as a domain spell. But only to get devils. But to contain those, I need magic circle against law, or magic circle against chaos, neither of which I can cast because either I'm LE or my patron is if I have the Devil subdomain. Demon has the same problem. Domain spells you can't use!

Sorry to necro this again but has this ever been resolved? I'm looking at making a fiendish vessel and I'm hooped because I have to be LE and take the Devil sub domain and I don't really feel like losing one of my 6th level domain spells.

Thanks for the feedback. It would have been nice though to see some rules support. It just seems odd that a 5-foot step, which doesn't provoke an AoO because you are just shifting while maintaining your defense can be done in a unfamiliar movement mode that requires a skill check to actually not fall out of the sky when only moving 5-feet.

Fly Spell: The subject can fly at a speed of 60 feet...

Spider Climb Spell: The subject gains a climb speed of 20 feet...

It is a subtle difference but quite important. Specifically:

"You may not take a 5-foot step using a form of movement for which you do not have a listed speed."

The situation came up in my game last night and I ruled that characters using a fly spell could not take 5-foot steps while airborne which obviously put them at quite a disadvantage against natural flyers.

Did I get that right?

Thanks!

Thanks!

@vorpaljesus, I'm no familiar with the inquisitor. Guess it's worth checking out.

@Orfamay Quest, I guess with just three players resiliency against bad luck streaks is a lot lower. I was hoping that the higher gp value might help out with this. If modules are written for 4-5 players we should end up with 33-66% higher equipment value.

I recently found this neat guide called The Forge of Combat.
I liked the author's thoughts and was wondering if a 3 player party based on this would be viable. Competent players and coordinated and well optimized builds assumed, could you make it from 1 to 20?
With that in mind I was hoping people here could share their thoughts on which classes would make good anvils/arms/hammers. Thanks!

I've been looking at making a new character and thought that Kirin Strike would be a nice way to build an int based fighter type. However the way I currently read it, I wouldn't be able to get the benefit until round 3. Is that intended?

Round 1 - Use swift action to enter Kirin Style
Round 2 - Use swift action to make knowledge check
Round 3 - Use swift action to add 2 x Int

That seems crazy to me! My reading of RAW is that because I can only ever get 1 swift action per turn I have to wait 2 full rounds before I can get a bonus that while nice, only works for 1 attack per round. Further, every time I switch targets I have to wait for another round. And actually not just wait, use a potentially precious swift action and succeed at a skill check. In addition I had to invest 3 feats.

Please tell me I read something wrong! In my opinion a reasonable version would be if all the swift actions could be combined into 1 swift action but I can't find anything in that regard. That still would leave a 3 feat investment, a knowledge check and a swift action for a once per round bonus.

Thanks!

Thanks as well for the guide and apologies for resurrecting this thread.

This is my first look at witches and I was wondering what people's thoughts on Spell Hex (Web Bolt) would be? Not everybody might be able to get access to the spell since it is listed under drow in the Advanced Race Guide supplement. However it would give a witch a Reflex based control option. Unfortunately it only gives the target the grappled condition.

Thoughts?

I'm going off memory here so sorry if I'm on the wrong track.

In your world, what would the difference between Supernatural (Su) and Extrordinary (Ex) abilities be under your house rule. Under the normal ruling, each ability is distinct, i.e. there is enough difference between Spell Like (Sp) & Su, Su & Ex, and Ex and Sp. It seems under the house rule, Su and Ex would basically become identical. I always considered the vulnerability to anti-magic the defining difference between these types of abilities so I would advise against the ruling.

On a seperate note in case you have an arcane archer with antimagic field I'd house rule that...

Thanks for the quick responses! Now I'll bug the DM about all the junk I can find. Quick follow-up: does the junk have to be masterwork junk?

I am trying to understand magic item creation and was wondering about the need for the Craft skill if I already have ranks in Spellcraft.

Specific example: Gnome Fighter with Int 10, Cha 11, Classically Schooled trait (+1 Spellcraft and Spellcraft is Class Skill) and 1 rank in Spellcraft. Through Gnome Magic he qualifies for item creation feats and he picks Craft Magic Arms & Armor at level 5.

Could this character buy a masterwork weapon from the local smith for 300+ gp, pay him a bit to hang out at the forge, spend 1,000 gp and then take 10 on his Spellcraft check to make +1 weapon? Or, does he require a Craft skill and if so, how many ranks (assuming he'll take 10)?