E I's page

I think my GM let us make helms of opposite alignment. That was the most peaceful game of Kingmaker I ever saw (all our enemies were essentially subdued via the party witch and then forced to wear the hats, which we had enough money to do an assembly line of)

The GM at one point said that forcing characters to change alignment against their will seemed evil, but we said if we ever became evil alignment, we'd just wear the hat.

So the ARG has a alternate racial trait for Samsarans, which lets them (at creation) add spells to their spell list if they're the same type (divine or arcane).

My issue with this is what spell slots do certain spells occupy. So if, as a witch, I take haste, is it a level 3 spell (as everyone has), or a level 2 spell (since summoners get it as a level 2 spell).

If it's the player's choice (as in he gets to cherry pick which spell level the spell is at), then what's stopping me from adding spells to my spell list that I already have albeit at a higher level? i.e. Adding Maze, Dominate Monster, Overwhelming Presence, etc. as level 6 spells, since the bard or summoner has them at level 6. I shudder at the thought of Witches/Wizards being able to cast those kinds of spells at CL 11.

I agree, there are much better rulesets, even for the specific settings you mentioned (Buffy has a unisystem RPG based on it, and Dresden Files has a FATE RPG based on it). In my opinion, Pathfinder rules are best for high-fantasy sort of gameplay, although I'm sure some would disagree.

A few new quotes have me intrigued:

This Legends & Lore article by Monte Cook says: "...this sounds so crazy that you probably won't believe it right now—we're designing the game so that not every player has to choose from the same set of options. Again, imagine a game where one player has a simple character sheet that has just a few things noted on it, and the player next to him has all sorts of skills, feats, and special abilities. And yet they can still play the game together and everything remains relatively balanced. Your 1E-loving friend can play in your 3E-style game and not have to deal with all the options he or she doesn't want or need. Or vice versa. It's all up to you to decide."

"Players can pick their own style and complexity within a class. Think of it kind of like having a $10 budget to spend on lunch. Some people will go to a restaurant and buy a $10 lunch special. Someone else might spend that $10 by ordering a few different things off the menu, rather than a special. Someone else might take that $10 and go to the grocery store to buy all the ingredients for a recipe they like. The idea is to put everyone on the same scale, but then allow people to burrow into the level of detail they want. DMs have a similar process they can go through, adding optional rules to flesh out their campaigns. Those options can range from creating a unique list of races or classes for a setting, to adding in special rules for things like managing a kingdom or waging a war." - Mike Mearls.

Icy Prison has been errata'd here, unofficially. http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz3v54&page=7?Ultimate-Magic-Errata#316

My question is why is there some cold damage effects which undead are immune to, and others which they take damage from? It can be flavored or fluffed in a certain way, to justify it, but I just wanted to know if there was a mechanical reason why.

Thanks guys for the responses, despite my not-so-clear initial question.

But later on in the description of Ice Tomb, it does make specific reference to a creature. Moreover, are the undead susceptible to the paralyzed and unconscious effects of Ice Tomb?

If it's the case that Ice Tomb does work on undead, then we have the case that only http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/words-of-power/effect-words/winter-s-wrath is the only Cold spell which does not work on undead, reason being that it does ability damage. Seems kinda wacky when you compare it to Cone of Cold (one cold just does damage and works on undead, but this other cold, which is much colder, does damage and ability damage, but does not work on undead).

So, I know by RAW, Icy Tomb does not work on undead. This seems to be a bit odd to me, since the effect I imagine it has is something like Icy Prison effect, which has been unofficially errata'd by SKR to be Reflex instead of Fort.

This seems like if it was a conscious decision, then it was done for balance reasons.

What say you all?

Also, as per RAW, I believe you can call your eidolon if you've used your SLA. There is a line in the SLA that says "As a result, he can only use this ability when his eidolon is not summoned", but there is no converse in the eidolon description that says "he can only use this ability when his SLA is not active".

Of course, this all depends on your interpretation of what 'use' means in the RAW. Is only the initial casting considered a 'use', or is just having the SLA out considered a 'use'? It is unclear.

MadMonkeyMcKnight wrote:

Thanks! I'll look into ways to work it into a character of mine.

Be aware that NONE of those are paizo rules, so you will definitely need to clear them with your DM before using them.

Well, Dragon Compendium was Paizo published, but it was from the 3.5 days.

The oracle has a much harder time getting significant bonuses to her skill checks though, the bard breezes through that for free.

Oracle of Lore gets to add their Charisma instead of Int to Knowledge skills instead. They also use charisma instead of Dex for AC, reflex throws, and initiative. Overall, they're one of the least MAD classes in the game.

It's actually houseruled in my group that the requirements listed are necessary, and that for every prereq a caster does not meet the DC increases by +5. The kicker here is that they still have to be fulfilled in some way. So if the crafter is not a cleric, and the item calls for a cleric, then a cleric needs to be present for the entirety of the crafting, just to 'assist' so to speak.

As luck would have it, this interpretation is possible from a close reading of the rules.

Rapid shot and haste also work on bomb throwing.

And with the new Split Hex and Accursed Hex in UM, combat efficiency goes way up.

Actually, you do not have to be able to meet the requirements to take a feat.

You just have to be able to rationalize that you have a readily available method to meet the requirements often enough to train it. - And the Eidolon is That.

This is similar to having a magic item that grants +STR. With the item, you meet certain pre-regs., without it you do not.

When you do not meet the requirements, the feat is passive and not usable. When you do meet the requirements, the feat is active and usable.

Is this written anywhere in the rules? I'd like for this to be true, but I haven't seen it be the case anywhere.

There are already a few types that get immortality. Monk of the 4 Winds was mentioned. Oracle of Heavens is another, and her's is also better than the wizard's immortality.

Alchemist, through a combination of Eternal Youth Grand Discovery and Elixir of Life with Alchemical Allocation, can live on indefinitely.

"A creator can create an item at a lower caster level than her own, but never lower than the minimum level needed to cast the needed spell."

So you can't create potions of spells that you can't know at your level, which is a good upper bound.

"These prerequisites must be met for the item to be created. Most of the time, they take the form of spells that must be known by the item's creator (although access through another magic item or spellcaster is allowed). The DC to create a magic item increases by +5 for each prerequisite the caster does not meet."

The interpretation that I use from this is one of 2 things:

1) The alchemist knows the spell and can create the potion, no problems.
2) The alchemist doesn't know the spell, but seeks outside help and adds a +5 to the DC to craft the potion.

Either way, the spell must be known and cast per each day of crafting.
Hope that helps.

If you're using the adobe to view the pdf, you can just copy the image out without taking of the text, since adobe's copy function only works for images or text, not both.

I think the line is "The synthesist gains the eidolon’s hit points as temporary hit points". If it had said "The synthesist gains the eidolon’s hit points and these are treated as temporary hit points", then you might have more weight to your argument.

However, I do find this kinda stupid and thematically breaking. I would let spells like rejuvenate eidolon work though. Why? Because you are already giving up 1 action by not having the eidolon be a separate being. If you want to heal it, fine, but you've essentially lost another action to do so, which is something the synthesist might not have handy. Also, the normal summoner capstone is completely borked for this archetype, so right now, I don't see any point to not letting a synthesist have a few concessions.

The following errors are all on p.83:

Witch Light Patron lists Sunburst as being both the 16th and 18th level spells.

Witch Insanity Patron spells the spell gained at 6th level as "Madn Hallucination".

Interesting. Would this allow you to affect creatures with spells that have the "language-dependent" descriptor?

E I wrote:

Now let's say Phil the Orc rolls a nat 20. I can't see that because the GM is behind a screen, but I can see the GM pick up his dice and re-roll it. Would this be considered meta-gaming cheese?

That particular case, I would say is to meta-gamey for my taste.

In a broader sense, the problem is you GM rolling behind a screen when you have such an ability. You have no way of knowing if a roll is high or low.

When I GM, only rolls specifically stated as being secret do I roll behind a screen. This is just another good reason to roll in the open.

I consider it too late once the total is calculated. If it is an attack roll. As GM, I roll a 16. You now have to decide if you want to force a re-roll. Once I add the attack bonus of +12. It would be too late as you now your armor class is only 27.

This is where players need to try and not metagame. Once you seen the creature once or twice, its all too easy to reverse engineer the attack bonus and figure out what die roll is needed.

Natural 20's also pose the problem of always been a hit. So, in a way they announce the result before such a feature could kick in as it were. Of course disallowing it too work in such a way would drastically reduce its power.

So, in practice I just allow the use of the power up until damage is revealed. Who knows you might just 'waste' the power when I roll a '1' on the damage. This also requires the GM to provide a pause between the roll and damage being rolled and announced.

Since, I doubt your GM will start rolling in the open. I would suggest that your GM at least allow you to state when you want to use the re-roll power. Such as, 'the first enemy attack roll that is greater than 16.'

Good idea.

However, I just realized my metagaming cheese could backfire, since my GM plays with critical fumbles as well, so I could just as well be saving him from a critical fumble.

Okay, so I noticed this in the write-up for the dual cursed oracle, where it can get an ability called Misfortune to "force a creature within 30 feet to reroll any one d20 roll that it has just made before the results of the roll are revealed as an immediate action". Now there are other classes and abilities that have similar wording.

My question is, at what point do you consider this to be too late? The name of the feat is supposed to make it seem like this is a bad thing, but presumably you could use this to force an ally to re-roll a bad roll.

For example, Jim the ranger tries to shoot an arrow at Phil the Orc, but his attack roll is only a 3. Before checking against the GM to see whether his attack roll with all it's modifiers, Steve the Oracle forces him to re-roll it, and Jim does much better on his second roll. I think this interpretation is okay by the rules. I think that the same would apply if Jim rolled a 1 as well.

Now let's say Phil the Orc rolls a nat 20. I can't see that because the GM is behind a screen, but I can see the GM pick up his dice and re-roll it. Would this be considered meta-gaming cheese?

So, I'm thinking that if you're looking for an Oracle Tank with a Gnome or Halfling, here's what I would do:

Gnome Battle Oracle

Ability Scores: Str>Con>Cha>Dex>Wis>Int
You want to be strong and have lots of HP, but your Dex is less important than Heavy Armor. That's why I prefer the Gnome to the Halfling. Make sure you have the Charisma to cast your spells eventually, but don't look for lots of save effects--focus on buffs.

If you think you'll be fighting lots of Humanoids, keep the basic Gnome abilities. Otherwise, swap out Hatred and Defensive Training for Eternal Hope. Alternately, check with your DM about crafting rules. If you like them, then Master Tinker will let you be proficient with any weapon you personally make--and you're all about weapons.

Curse: Lame slows you, but you'll eventually be immune to Fatigued and Exhausted conditions. Wasting gives you bad Charisma skill checks, but eventually makes you immune to Sickened and Nauseated conditions. Either curse will help your staying power.

First revelation: Skill at Arms. First feat: Extra Revelation: Battlefield Clarity or Maneuver Mastery (Disarm or Dirty Trick).

Spells: Bless, Divine Favor, Cure Light Wounds.

Hmm, if you make him twice cursed, with Lame as his main one and Wasting as his second, he'll get 2 extra revelations. Also, it isn't clear whether you could use the Gnomish Favored class bonus to advance the curse that normally stays stagnant, so that way, you can advance both curses, although that does sound cheesy and against RAI.

Also, Lame is great, because it allows you to wear and sleep in Heavy armor with no penalty.

Terrible Remorse is way too powerful for a 4th level spell as written, but it's on track to be errata'd.

And that is at rounds/level.

We know that Vow of Poverty is on the low end of the spectrum, but what about the other side? What seems to achieve or surpasses the Paizo benchmarks that Jason Bulmahn mentioned?

I know about the infinite spell loophole, but that isn't really intended to work that way and will be errated soon enough.

The Alchemist's Cognatogen seems like a present into my lap right now. I have a bomb focused Alchemist and the Mutagen was just a withering vine of an ability. Now you can crank up the damage of bombs an additional +2 points, and losing strength isn't a big deal as the Mule Chords magic item, which is cheap pretty much solves carrying things around.

The Confusion Bomb sounds like it'll be errated also, so strong, but not no-save strong.

The Tumor Familiar gives the Alchemist Fast Healing 5? Sure...

The Pack Lord (Druid) and Broodmaster (Summoner) both seem like they could surpass the normal power of the class at low levels as you're dramatically increasing the number of attacks your character's little group can output, though at higher levels these creatures are going to have a hard time surviving.

The Qinggong Monk seems interesting, it seems to be an acceptable patch for the Monk in that you can tweak what you can do and slough off some of the stuff you don't want, however the benefit is still very constraining as you're giving up an always on ability for something that feeds off a limited resource. It seems like it's getting close to the benchmark, but not surpassing it. If the Qinggong Monk was just given each of those lists as a larger pool of Ki power options at all of those levels... well, then... that would have been a worthy upgrade!

The Paladin's Oath of Vengeance seems like a good trade off. With Wands of Cure Light Wounds, and Clerics about, the energy channeling for the Paladin isn't that big of a deal, but getting that extra Smite is a real upgrade.

There is so much stuff in this book, what are other people finding is rising to the top in terms of power scale?

To be precise, the Tumor Familiar does not grant the Alchemist Fast Healing 5. Only when it is a part of him, does the tumor itself have Fast Healing 5. There is no mention of the Alchemist getting this.

Onto strong stuff, Bladebound seems like a fairly strong archetype. You give up one arcana to get an intelligent weapon that levels with you. Yes, you lose arcane pool points, but the weapon gains them as well (ends up being a net arcane pool gain of +1 if the blade is counted against a normal magus).

There's a lot of debate on the mechanics of a synthesist, but it seems like it could be a strong class, if the mechanics of it end up working like how the optimizers read it as.

Keep in mind of the Gnomes Favored Class bonus, which makes them advance their curse 50% faster than any other race.

Does anyone know if Feral Mutagen works with Vesitgal Arms in any way? I'm leaning towards no at the moment.

Clerics must follow a living God in Golarion in order to have powers. They can venerate a concept as well, but the God must be a Patron Deity of that philosophy.

False gods and dead gods cannot grant spells to clerics, but other divine spellcasting classes (such as druids or oracles) who gain their power from other sources, rather than directly from the gods, can serve these forces as champions or cultists.

And

Clerics who follow a philosophy must select a patron deity among the philosophy’s associated religions (they gain no additional benefits from adherence to a philosophy).

By that, it seems like classes which either can have a general divine focus or do not need one at all (Druid, Ranger, Oracle) are free to be atheists, whereas classes that require a divine focus (Cleric, Paladin, Inquisitor) must follow some sort of divine faith.

Hand your enemy a dapper new hat of opposite alignment. See how well he gets along with his evil buddies once he's become lawful good.

The save for this spell confuses me. Reflex (partial) and fort negates. Nowhere in the spell description does it mention more than one save which I assume is the reflex since it doesn't negate the spell. Where does the fort save come into affect?

Probably a mistake in editing. You should re-post this in the errata part of the forum.

I actually wanted to play a re-animator who would raise corpses of undead, and fill them with plague bombs and harass people like that. I don't know if that's in poorer taste or not though, although I'm pretty sure walking corpse bombs was an intention of Paizo.

To be fair, the first thing I thought of when I saw this, was the guy who had the bomb implant in Dark Knight. Aside from maybe the squick of the surgery, did that make you think of suicide bombers? Because it's pretty much the exact same thing here.

Nephelim wrote:

arkady_v wrote:

Anything for alchemists? I'm looking for an alternative to a fire bombing alchemist for an upcoming Serpent's Skull adventure path character. I want to play more of an herbalist focusing on mutagens, extracts, infusions, and poisons, and it'd be nice to have an alternative to the fire bomb.

Oh yeah... alchemists have some really fun and disturbing new discoveries. Having a Tumor as a familiar that can detach and wander around, or vestigial conjoined twins, extra limbs\tentacles. Bottled oozes, alchemical zombies, simulacrua, tanglefoot bombs, self-mumification, and more!

... and 30 new spells.

Wow, that all sounds really... weird, LOL.

You think that's weird? Witches get the ability to cook people and smell children.

Yeah, it is a good selection, especially since when you get Greater, the sorcerer level - 2 goes away, and it just becomes character level.

I was thinking of taking a Gnomish Oracle with this bloodline, before I realized that most of that stuff wouldn't apply, since he couldn't cast arcane spells.

So still no word on the 'choose fate' spell? Or are we waiting for everyone to get it before we discuss errata?

E I wrote:

So one thing I noticed is that for the Witch patron Ancestors, the final spell 'Choose Fate' is not described anywhere in UM, the APG or Core. Wondering if this was something taken out at the last minute or not.

Yes. I thought about starting an errata thread but I wasn't sure I wanted to spoil the fun. Most people haven't even gotten the pdf's yet and no one have gotten their hardcovers.

I don't see why not. You just let people know there's spoilers.

So one thing I noticed is that for the Witch patron Ancestors, the final spell 'Choose Fate' is not described anywhere in UM, the APG or Core. Wondering if this was something taken out at the last minute or not.

I'd also like to hear some stuff about Alchemists. Do Psychonauts get totally tripped out?

If you're planning to play in Golarion though, there are limits. You must worship a God in order to get divine powers. You can follow an ideal, but you must choose a patron God of that ideal to worship. Similarly, dead gods do not grant powers either. This is all outlined in The Inner Sea Guide.

Thanks for the info.

So a few examples to clarify:

1) You hex someone to sleep and then a tree falls on them (assume the tree would do nothing to rouse the person prior to impact). Does the person sleeping get a reflex save?

2) Person is tied up, bound, and completely restricted, and the same happens. Do they get a reflex save?

3) Person is dying and unconscious. Do they get a will save to resist mind manipulation?

This has been something taken for granted in my group for awhile now, and both DMs play it as if being unconscious results in a auto failed saves, regardless of what it is. This actually resulted in my character death at least once. The clarification provided already has been good, I just wanted to see what other people thought of the situations above.

It seems to be a bit confusing in the RAW. It says:

Unconscious creatures are automatically considered willing, but a character who is conscious but immobile or helpless (such as one who is bound, cowering, grappling, paralyzed, pinned, or stunned) is not automatically willing.

However, the context that this is in about some spells being limited to willing creatures only.

My question is two-fold:

1) Are all unconscious creatures considered willing for any spell, or is it just for spells that are limited to willing creatures?

2) If they are willing for any spell, are they also considered willing for saves for other effects (channels, Su abilities, environmental effects)?

Improved Natural Attack has been specifically errated to not work with unarmed strikes. However, Strong Jaw has no such restriction, and as such, would work with monk's strike since they count as "... both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons."

Put it this way: If magic fang works, then why wouldn't strong jaw work?

Also, your damage die calculations are correct.

Actually, I would like to know what the criteria is for experimental over conventional. I realize it's one of those weird concepts that sometimes one more has an intuition about rather than an actual set of values that define the boundary, but if you guys actually have a good working definition, I'd like to hear it.

Enlight_Bystand wrote:

drayen wrote:

I would love to see an AP in Taldor. Make it your experimental AP for the year. It could be based on the intracacies of Taldan society where role play would be stressed and combat would be of tertiary concern. A social AP would be a great change. Combat outside of an occasional duel or a singular rescue mission shouldn't be necessary in such a campaign. Taldor is a hive of scum and villiany dressed in the latest fashions with the best educations and most noble breeding. You haven't faced a true hag until you've been slashed by the razor sharp wit of an elderly matron.

As above, Jade Regent is the experimental AP for the 2011/12 cycle, so the later one will be reasonably standard.

Not necessarily.

The "experimental/safe" route for APs is something that was important when we first started Pathfinder, but with each AP in the can and with each experimental AP being more popular than the "safe" ones, expect us to shift this around. After all, Serpent's Skull and Carrion Crown are both what I'd call "Safe" APs and they're back to back.

What I've got planned after Jade Regent is, perhaps, the most experimental topic for an AP we've done yet.

I realizing I'm using a quote from quite a few months ago, but that last line was what I was referring to. I had thought you had scrapped that idea. My bad.

Actually, if they happen to be playing a homebrew with pf rules, then the Inquisitor can just follow an ideal. However, if it's Golarion, the Inner Sea Guide does specifically state divine spells cannot be gained if the player follows solely an ideal/dead god. Their powers do have to be granted from somewhere, and they're not druids, so they can't get it from nature.

What Wes said.

Also... we don't want to announce an AP before we're 100% sure that it's the AP we are for sure for REAL going with. We announced Jade Regent early a few years ago, and then for various reasons when it turned out we couldn't do it at that time, we had to backpedal. Caused a fair amount of confusion.

Lesson Learned: Don't announce APs until you're sure for SURE. And I'm glad we haven't announced the next AP in the last month, since the one we were 97% sure would be the one following Jade Regent sort of fell apart once we started to build it, causing us to shift to an entirely different AP anyway.

Also: PaizoCon is a great time for those kinds of announcements anyway.

Ah, I see. So does that mean the AP after Jade Regent is not the highly experimental one you guys had planned?

They have the ages here, so presumably they exist somewhere in the book.

EDIT: Ninja'd

Doesn't reincarnate give you a new fresh body? Or does it just give you a body in a body that's in comparable age to what you were in before you died?

The text does spell out that "The spell can bring back a creature that has died of old age", but whether that means they won't immediately die right after, is open to interpretation.

A summoner can have one min/lvl monster at any time, and it can't normally be out while his eidolon is. However, there's no limit on the number of actual summon monster spells that can be active at once, aside from the rnd/lvl duration. So a 20th level summoner could have 21 things in play (20 from spells, and one eidolon/SLA).

Actually that's not entirely true. It says using his SLA while his Eidolon is out will dismiss his Eidolon. There is nothing about the opposite case however, where he calls his Eidolon after his SLA has been used (note, they never notate the summoning of the Eidolon as 'summoning'. It's always 'calling'). And since the SLA lasts minutes per level, it is entirely possible by level 5 or so to have an SLA out and an Eidolon out simultaneously.

Generic Villain wrote:

Montana77 wrote:

As for other speculation... a completely story-driven AP without ANY combat encounters at all!?

I'm all for trying new things, but that would be suicidal on Paizo's part.

More "Death through boredom." I love roleplaying encounters probably as much as or MORE than anyone at Paizo, but Pathfinder's not a peaceful game about no combat. There are other games out there to scratch that itch. Pathifnder adventures will always have a lot of good-old fighting in them.

So, uh, it's been about 8 months since you said "We won't be revealing the plot and nature of the AP after Jade Regent for some time. Probably about 6 to 8 months.". Any chance you're willing to open up the oven a crack and see the bun you got cooking in there? :)

Another question about magic jar. Is it possible to identify allies once inside? It just says 'detect lifeforce' but that's vague enough for me to say that you can't distinguish between friend or foe (unless you're against undead, then you can see what is powered by negative energy), making magic jar much more useless than I thought'd be.