Emparawr's page

@Jeff, damn. I was hoping they would have clarified it completely by now. Hell even tentacles are not always dependent on having a limb to make into one. The only cut and clear natural attacks are things like claws, which always require forelimbs, talons, which always requires hindlimbs or legs, wings which require none, a tail which requires none, and bite which requires having a head. Tentacles are all back and forth and slams are apparently still wishy washy. Disappointing.

Ok so I know that Slam Natural Attacks have always been a spot of confusion in DND because although most of the time they are used to represent things like punches from large fisted enemies and things like that, they arent always. So what I'm curious about is has that changed in PF? Have they finally said that slams can only be applied to limbs or are we still left to just choose one way or the other on our own?

Hmmm I guess actually that demoralize attempts via intimidate would be the fall back since they don't have a number of uses per day. It does eat up your actions though for sure. By the way its currently written actually I would think that it could require that if you have no way to inflict some other kind of status effect or they arent already afflicted since Shaken is on the list and you can do that with intimidate. Idk I think that is this was made official it would certainly require a very particular kind of build to use effectively but that is good because it is a damn powerful curse all on its own just for the upsides.

What part of the way its written now would make you think that it wouldn't require demoralizing attempts?

Yeah I guess below 5th curse level you could kind of cheat it by just not taking any spells or abilities that inflict status effects because you dont have your first cruelty yet. Then again at lower levels you have to hack away at your enemies more anyways and Touch of Corruption would be less useful at lower levels so its a decent trade off balance wise.

Hmmm interesting change in the discussion idea. I guess since the original Curse "Merciful" was thus named because of the namesake Paladin Mercies that it uses that it would make sense for the evil version to be Cruel for its namesake cruelties. So now we have two different versions and I'm not quite sure which is the better path. What all of this really breaks down to is this.

For the purposes of balance, the positive abilities gained are an easy 1-1 transfer. Instead of getting Lay on Hands and Mercies you get Touch of Corruption and Cruelties. No balancing or other changes need occur here.

- One good point, although I'm not necessarily sure how well it fits, is that the Cruel version makes it so you can't make Coup De Grace, which is good in the sense that this is yet again a 1-1 balance transfer between the good and evil versions that does not need to be rebalanced.

- This leaves us with only one section that really needs evil conversion. To rephrase and simplify, what remains of the Merciful Curse is that,

"On the action following any Non-Enemy Character asking for help with any condition that you can heal, neutralize, or cure, you must use your action to do so."

So unless you have some kind of masochist who likes being hurt asking you to hurt them clearly the asking to be hurt needs to be reinterpreted. The easiest way to do this is by looking at it as, any creature who attacks you or an ally has asked to be attacked, through the act of attacking you. This as well is pretty established in either of the potential builds.

So this leaves us with the much more narrow downed question of interpreting what the evil version of healing someone of a condition would be. I think forcing the player to only attack people who are already suffering from some kind of a condition is quite a restriction, but then again curses are supposed to come with quite a restriction and it needs to be something that can equal the bonus of getting Touch of Corruption and 3 Cruelties. In a sense Cruel is definitely a step up on Sadistic because while sadistic requires you to continue attacking adjacent enemies until they are totally dead, even unconscious ones, Cruel forces you to attack them, and specifically with something that will inflict a status effect, unless they are already afflicted.

In a sense though, cursing someone with an affliction and letting them live is far more cruel than ever killing them. They can't suffer if they die. I mean the current setup of Cruel, does at least force the player to make his victims suffer before they die. This is a step in the right direction. I like that this still allows for area blasting since they are not being directly targeted, even though the character I'm using this on isn't really a caster. One thing that needs to change is the inflict or cure entry. That needs to be removed completely because it makes no sense. Instead I think it should be adapted to take into account that if you are fighting enemies and you have no abilities remaining for that day to use that you are still able to fight the creatures. Otherwise you could be forced to stand there and be killed because you dont have any abilities to make them suffer before you actually attack them. I think between that and the entry that allows you to attack normally when fighting creatures that are immune to these kinds of effects, specifically undead, and oozes, at least off the top of my head. Touch of Corruption being amongst the list of possible actions is repetitive because due to cruelties Touch of Corruption will always inflict a relevant status effect. Also this needs to be specifcally rephrased so that it only limits what you can do with actions on your turn, so that it doesn't limit things like AOOs.

I suggest the following rewrite. Let me know what you think. Also thank you again to everyone who has helped with this little project of mine. The great ideas just keep flowing :)

Cruel
You must make your enemies suffer before you can let them die.
Effect
If an enemy is not Bleeding, Helpless, Disabled, Dying, Staggered, Dazed, Stunned, Paralyzed, Shaken, Frightened, Panicked, Cowering, Fatigued, Exhausted, Sickened, Nauseated, Blinded, Deafened, Diseased, Poisoned, or suffering from Energy Drain or Ability Score Drain/Damage, the player cannot, on the players turn, attack them directly (as defined by the spell sanctuary) unless using a form of attack that would cause at least one of the targets of that attack to become afflicted by one of the aforementioned status effects.

Making a target helpless can mean inflicting any condition that causes them to become helpless, but not just hit point damage alone. Enemies who are immune to these effects, such as Undead, can be attacked normally. Also, if the player has already used all daily uses of abilities or spells that could inflict any of the qualifying status effects, then he may attack normally.

Also, you cannot perform a coup de grace. You gain the ability Touch of Corruption, as the Antipaladin ability, using your curse level as your Antipaladin level.

At 5th level, you gain a cruelty, as the antipaladin ability.
At 10th level, you gain a second cruelty, and can exchange your first cruelty for a different one.
At 15th level, you gain a third cruelty, and can exchange one of your existing cruelties for a different one.

Huh, I hadn't considered that actually. I mean being compelled to heal people who ask isn't much of a downside for a good aligned oracle. So my version would actually be a little more of a restriction but in a good way. Which potentially makes up for the fact that for a destroyer type the damage dealing of touch of corruption has many more applicable targets than Lay on Hands, but it is also more restricted on the targets to use it for healing.

not sure if im even allowed to bump on this site but im doing it anyways to see if I can get more opinions on this.

Yeah I think this version is a fairly balanced evil version. Instead of being compelled to heal people who ask for it, you are compelled to fight any who attack you are your allies, and instead of being compelled to heal afflictions of your allies or those who ask, your are compelled to leave no survivors in your immediate vicinity during a fight. It being restricted to enemies keeps him from being a mindless berserker who attacks anyone in sight which is good, because that would be a bit overboard. I love the fluff of this character because he is meant to represent the ID facet of the human psyche, and although he is far more prone to giving in to his base desires such as Rage, Lust, and wanton destruction, he does also struggle to keep himself in check through training and willpower, only allowing himself to break and unleash his true power and will in battle.

Hmmmm, okay so anybody else have any more thoughts on balance or additioanl restrictions that should be added to this?

I'm liking this route but a think it still needs a few changes. I like the overall theme of him being forced to take the vicious offensive route when he has the option because it fits the characters fluff perfectly. Also this group has a blaster/True Necromancer using Lord of the Uttercold to blast and heal at the same time so him not being able to heal in combat most often wont be as much of a disadvantage as if he were the only healer.

I love him being forced to attack adjacent Enemies whenever he has the option. Although being forced to us an entire full round action to make a Coup De Grace against a helpless adjacent ally instead of attacking other still fighting adjacent allies is a pretty heavy price to pay. I might amend this to instead read that he has to continue attacking adjacent enemies until they are completely dead instead of performing a full round Coup De Grace. That way he still has much more restricted combat choices but he isn't wasting whole rounds just to make one attack and crit an already essentially defeated foe. Of course I have never been a fan of Coup De Grace. Its highly circumstantial in it's usefullness for the action economy loss. Lemme know what you guys think of this slightly altered version.

Sadistic
You have an urge to inflict harm on those around you that is impossible to ignore.

Effect:
In combat, when adjacent to a AN ENEMY character, you are compelled to inflict harm on them in some way. This may be by inflicting damage, inflicting ability drain or damage, poisoning them, inflicting a disease, casting a curse, or inflicting any other detrimental condition as long as it causes harm to the target. Even if you are adjacent to a helpless or unconscious enemy, you must continue harming that creature in some way until it is dead. You gain the touch of corruption ability, using your curse level as your antipaladin level.

At 5th level, you gain a cruelty, as the antipaladin ability.
At 10th level, you gain a second cruelty, and can exchange your first cruelty for a different one.
At 15th level, you gain a third cruelty, and may exchange one of your existing cruelties for a different one.

Ahhh I like this idea. Especially since alot of the party has Negative Energy Affinity so normally he would be able to use it to heal them if he wanted. The Cruelty Oracle Curse would prevent him from being able to heal allies or undead etc during combat, also if any creature attacks him or one of his party members he is compelled to attack them and to use his touch of corruption to do so as often as possible until he burns out his charges, although I would allow using it through the Conductive Weapon Quality or through Crusaders Fist so he can still make his normal attacks, hes just compelled to also fire off Touch of Corruption as often as possible. Although the often as possible isn't really much of a downside really, but being compelled to attack any creature that he perceives as attacking him or an ally could certainly lead to more than a few stick situations. I'm liking this idea so far. Anyone else have any input?

Merciful [3PP]
Source Oracle's Curse, copyright 2014 by RJ Grady, published by Tripod Machine.
You are bound to offer tender aid to those who are most wounded.

Effect
If a non-enemy character who is adjacent asks you to heal them, or asks you for help and you can tell they have taken damage or drain or suffer from a disease or poison, you must help them on your next tum. If they have a condition or suffer from a poison or disease that you can neutralize or cure with any ability you possess or any spell you can cast, you must do so as your next action. Otherwise, if they have taken any damage, you must cast a spell or use an ability that heals hit points. Also, you cannot perform a coup de grace. You gain the ability to lay on hands, as the paladin ability, using your curse level as your paladin level.

At 5th level, you gain a mercy, as the paladin ability.
At 10th level, you gain a second mercy, and can exchange your first mercy for a different one.
At 15th level, you gain a third mercy, and can exchange one of your existing mercies for a different one.

So my question is this, if you were to reflavor this as an antipaladinesque dark version, how would you go about doing it? I mean some parts are obvious as the progression for Lay on Hands and Touch of Corruption are identical and the Mercies/Cruelties are interchangable, one inflicts, one cures. How though would you alter the fluff and initial requirements imposed on your actions that are mentioned in the first portion. I really like the flavor of this idea for one of my players but I just cant seem to come up with a good conversion.

yeah that was why I was posting this thread, was since they knicked using SLAs I wanted to see if there was some way I hadnt thought of, the answer it appears is no, but if you happen to be playing in a game where the magic college rules from inner sea would fit then you could use that. If not, then just dont play MT because its trash now again. Sad. I have seen some other theories but nothing that makes a compelling argument yet

I actually am the DM as far as character creation is concerned. A buddy and I are splitting duties because I have far more experience with PF and 3.5 but he has way more experience DMing so I am in charge of helping the players with character creation and making sure its all balanced, legit, or otherwise DM power overruled to be ok. So I have the option of just saying screw the FAQ and ignoring it, but I figured if there was another way that was legit it would be good to know. The Magic Guild system looks potentially promising although it would definitely require some changes to the campaigns storyline.

Ok, so my other thread was locked because I did not actually post a question and posted an opinion instead to see if others felt as I did, so I will rephrase this with a question instead. So since Paizos FAQ last month did away with using SLAs as a prerequisite for feats and PRCs like Mystic Theurge, are there any other ways to get early entry into these kinds of classes or are we forced to do Cleric 3/Wiz 3 or Oracle 4/Sorc 4 in order to get in? I would really rather not have to house rule something to make these kinds of dual classes playable if there is another option other then the now banned SLAs. If there is I have never come across it, but it wouldn't be the first time I came across a set of options that I had never considered before. So are there any other ways or is there only just doing it the hard way? if there are legitimate options that fit into this new version of the rules I would love to hear them because I dont want to make my players sacrifice 6-8 levels just to get where they are going.

I disagree. Neither spell applies a bonus with a type such as a size bonus. Nor does either of them mention anything about not stacking with other size increasing effects, which when they don't want something to stack (enlarge person), they are very very clear about. Nor is it trying to stack an effect by casting the same spell more than once. So I see no RAW reason why they would not stack. Thankfully though upon double checking the PF version of Improved Natural Attack, it would appear that they changed it from 3.5 so that it specifically doesn't work with unarmed attacks.

ahhhh thank you Lemeres for the FAQ. I had thought that I rememembered reading an faq about that at some point but for the life of me I couldn't find it.

as far as #3 goes neither of the spells mentions anything about not stacking with other forms of effective size increase, which player size increasing spells and effects almost always do because they dont want players getting to gargantuan and colossal anymore like in 3.5. This is going to force me to make some decisions about the 3.p game im helping to run because there are more size increase options between the two and I cant have a multiclassed monk doing 32d8 per strike even at epic levels because that is just too much. Maybe I will houserule it that lead blades and strong jaw dont stack. That would bring him down to maxing out at 16d8 at least, which while still insane, is much less so.

Whoa. Didnt know Id actually get any response to this. Well here are a few choice responses.

1st, yes I did not indeed write this in the form of a question. Guess I should have added, would you do the same at the bottom of my post or something.

2nd, Really, I posted this because I was mad at this terrible decision to screw over prcs even harder then they already are so that people will continue to play the same limited sprue of builds by penalizing the desire to actually use the prcs or multiclass by making it as bad or as painful as they can.

3rd, No obviously I am not talking about society play. Personally society is much too stuffy for me. Also online play isnt really my thing and I know that's how id be doing it if I did play society. If you play society, then you play by their rules. There are no exceptions.

4th, yes I realize that this is a game where in all reality, unless you are playing society, the only true rule is that the GM is God, and what he/she says goes. So as far as ignoring ruling like this, that is completely within the scope of the GMs power.

5th, One big reason I will not be using this terrible ruling is because we are just about to finish building progressions for a campaign meant to go on for years where all but one of the characters were using SLAs gained from custom races to qualify for early entry into PRCs like Cerebremancer, and Mystic Theurge.

6th, Nice to see that some people other than me were upset about this. Although I had no idea that apparently there was a sh**storm about it when they released the decision a few weeks ago. They really should have left this one alone. Some of us dont like playing bland ol single class characters. Some of us like trying to create unique characters from classes that are typically considered to be subpar because of the way that they are built. The previous ruling on this allowed us that and now they want to take that away. Well, I refuse. I have always been one to say that I would rather have a ruling on something one way or the other then have no ruling at all, but then again this is the first faq from paizo that I have wholeheartedly disagreed with.

Okay so I can see that they have done an faq for this but I am still a little fuzzy on the details as I have never run an unarmed character before. Here is the faq.

Unarmed Strike: Can I use two-weapon fighting to make two unarmed strikes in one round?

Yes.
posted April 2013 | back to top
posted Mar 26, 2014 | back to top
posted Mar 26, 2014 | back to top

So that was as simple and unhelpful of an answer as they could possibly give and was apparently overwritten several times as well, so instead I have a question for clarification.

1) So if you are a Monk, regardless of whether or not you are using Flurry of Blows, you can make unarmed strikes with any part of your body. This essentially means that you entire body is treated as the Unarmed Weapon without having to use your hands. So since it requires no hands, and they say you can combine TWF and Unarmed Strikes, then you can TWF with no hands needed, just different parts of your body. Is this correct?

2) This one is a little less related but still a point of confusion for me. If your unarmed strike is your whole body, and your unarmed strike as a monk counts as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon, then does it count as one weapon for the purposes of abilities that increase the effectiveness of said weapon, even if you are TWFing?

3) This leads me into yet another question. If your unarmed strike counts as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon, could one use both of the spells Lead Blade and Strong Jaw to increase the effective size of your Unarmed Strike?

Spell-Like Abilities, Casting, and Prerequisites: Does a creature with a spell-like ability count as being able to cast that spell for the purpose of prerequisites or requirements?
Only if the pre-requisite calls out the name of a spell explicitly. For instance, the Dimensional Agility feat (Ultimate Combat) has "ability to use the abundant step class feature or cast dimension door" as a prerequisite; a barghest has dimension door as a spell-like ability, so the barghest meets the "able to cast dimension door prerequisite for that feat. However, the barghest's dimension door would not meet requirements such as "Ability to cast 4th level spells" or "Ability to cast arcane spells".

Personally I think this is a HORRIBLE call on Paizos part and I will be ignoring it in my games. The only thing that using SLAs to fill prereqs helped with were classes that are already considered to be lower tier classes because of the necessary investment like Mystic Theurge and Cerebremancer. This is even more annoying considering that just a year and a half ago they clarified how to classify the type of magic an SLA is (arcane or divine) which was primarily useful for using them to meet prereqs, and now they do this. Yeah I am not using this rule, this was a bad call on their part. I know they dont like multiclassing but still. Not good

I am the DM. Well as far as character creation is concerned at least. The DM who is going to be running the campaign itself week to week put me in charge of character creation and balance for all of our players since I am the one with the most knowledge of the game itself and its mechanics. Either way, looks like I will just figure something out on my own. If nothing else I guess he could just take different path abilities and normal magic items and maybe later in the campaign we'll work an artifact for his build in there somewhere that doesnt follow the standard creation rules so we can make something that will be of some use to his build. He's an all out brainjacker and illusionist who believes that the use of physical weapons is beneath him. After all, why learn to be the greatest at swinging a sword when you can just convince your enemy to fight for you instead. The particular artifact I was looking at for him is the Tarnhelm from Mythic Adventures because all its abilities fit him perfectly. Especially the shapechanging and disguise. Although the Dragon transformation less so than the others because it is meant to be a combat effect but it could be nice thematically when the group is fighting whole armies in the epic levels.

Actually no. Most of the legendary items I think of are not weapons. They tend to actually be the least interesting even though I most often play martial classes. So whats wrong with wanting to see some interesting variety in artifact creation? I have been roleplaying for over a decade and finally there are rules for a character being able to make their own custom legendary items, and this is the best that they can come up with? Also instead of just slinging insults, how about you try actually making a point about something. If I wanted to listen to a troll sling I could go to any board for that. I came here to get some actual input. So do you have any actual advice, useful information, or real points to make?

Ok so barring the two abilities that are damn powerful but only for weapons, Foe Biting and Unstoppable Strike, what is it that you see out of these abilities that is supposed to be so good? If you go invisible alot undetectable is useful but there are other ways to get that. Most of the abilities are just about making it so other people can use your item, or cant use your item, or you can teleport it to you etc etc. Very few of them ever actually give it any real abilities of any use to anyone but a fighter who wants a much stronger weapon. Even the SLAs are pretty limited in their scope of usefulness. None of it really screams mythic to me.

We are in fact running a Mythic Campaign. Not looking to try to work this into a normal campaign, and to tell you the truth, based on the current state of the artifact creation rules available to Mythic players, I'm not impressed by a long shot. Especially considering how many path abilities it takes. Idk, maybe it should be the way that it is, but I found the whole section highly disappointing and uninspiring.

Ok so any of us who have read Mythic Adventures knows that there is a section for players to create their own artifacts by taking a series of three particular path abilities. Personally though, I was highly unimpressed with this section. It felt really under detailed to me, and for something that I was initially so excited about reading, it really fell flat. So Im wondering, how many of you think it would be broken to allow players who wish to utilize this ability, to instead create some of the premade artifacts from Mythic. Essentially break down the artifacts abilities into the 10 legendary abilities that are gained through the use of the path abilities, put them in order of power least to greatest, and go from there. I don't know if I am the only one who feels this way about this topic but I would be really interested to hear opinions.

Check the lists again. Nowhere on the Create Undead or Create Greater Undead list is there any mention of making ghosts. There is no entry for it whatsoever.

It does only provide a maximum of 8 temporary hp. I mean he does have alot of options as far as people following him around to act as portable PP batteries, since he is a Brainjacker extraordinaire, but at the same time, it takes to long to be of any use in combat which is good. Yeah I guess its not all the OP really. Hell it does take one pretty bad feat and one decent one to even qualify anyways, and it fits his story really well.

AH HAAAA that dear Critcal is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks man, I owe you one :)

So I have searched all over and I have yet to find any kind of a spell, or ability, or class or anything that makes a creature into a ghost. You would think that this would be included in Create Undead or Greater Create Undead but nope, nowhere. So does anybody know of any way to create a ghost in pathfinder?

bump in hope of some help. Man the homebrew section must be really dead. I get way more responses in the rules section to my posts.

Ahh yes. Guess I clicked on the wrong section. Good catch.

The other idea we had fluff wise for his draining effect was more similar to the Wraith species from Stargate Atlantis.

Ok so I'm running a particularly high power campaign. Pathfinder, 3.5 upon approval, custom race building from advanced race guide, 30 racial points each, a free +2CR template each, Mythic Progression, and we are going to be playing levels 10-30. It is going to be a long term camapaign of truly epic proportions in the MTG universe of Ravnica.

Ok now on to the meat of the question, having set the bar for where our power level is at. One of the characters is an uber arcane/psionic enchanter/telepath/thrallherd etc, with Illithid blood in his parentage. However, fluff wise we like the idea of his feeding being more in vein with the vampire hybrids in Blade 2. Predator style face splitting and whatnot. I have been looking at the Illithid line of feats for awhile now and considering if we can work them in with him because Illithid Extraction feat is really in line with what we envision for him, however the tentacles really dont fit him at all and 7 feats just to get to extraction really is alot. So I am considering removing the Illithid Grapple x4 feat requirements from the line and just letting him take Illithid Heritage, Illithid Compulsion, and Illithid Extraction instead. Is three feats a fair price to be able to get 2d4 non stackable PP from draining people of their intelligence of is it too much? This is a very very high power campaign but I am still very much concerned with balance. So let me know what you all think.

Absolutely beautiful. What a lovely and completely sense making set of rulings. I am really glad that I chose to set aside more pointless searching and just post here instead. I need to put aside some time and read through all the faqs again at some point. Thanks for the help Nikolai.

oh man I must have skipped right over that FAQ the last time I read through it. Thank you very much. That was the exact clarification I needed because the original mounted combat rules did not state which creature was actually charging. This FAQ makes the answer to this question a slam dunk. Also it's nice to see that their thoughts on full attacking with a lance at the end of a charge were in line with mine as well. So if you charge, only your first attack with a Lance, or with any weapon if you have Spirited Charge, or both, gets the multiplier. Although they didn't specifically mention Pounce, the fact that they did specifically say "With your first melee attack" takes care of that nicely.

Gods I love it when they actually respond to FAQ requests. Although I agree with this ruling, even if I didn't, I would rather have an official ruling any day of the week, then read through dozens of pages on forums and still have to try to make a decision myself.

To clarify, I AM allowing him to make all his iterative attacks with Pounce. I am NOT however allowing him to do it with a Lance. 3 reasons for that.
1) Its just an uncomfortable amount of cheese for me.
2) Logistically thinking about it in a real life visual, it makes no damn sense with a Lance. Pulling it out and plunging it back in again so fast that you can make full attacks. Plus with it being a reach weapon this is made even more problematic.
3) This character is actually all about natural attacks and unarmed attacks utilizing TWF feats. No flurrying here. He prefers to use his whole body as his weapon to rend his enemies limb from limb. When fighting with weapons you cant feel the beat of your foe's heart fade into nothing while your claw is plunged into his chest and crushing his heart to a pulp. Now that's a grapple, lol.

Actually both the mount and the rider are based on the same combat tactics. Natural attacks and lots of Unarmed Attacks with TWF feats. Its gonna be brutal for sure.

Ok so here is the deal. I have searched all over for a comprehensive answer to this question and have not found any so far so im hoping that this post might get me some perspective. Please do not tell me "Talk to your DM", since although I am going to be playing in this campaign, I have been put in charge of character creation for the group and making sure that they are all balanced against eachother and rules legit. I know alot more about PF then our DM so he put this responsibility on me.

So the question is as follows. I have a mount who has gained the Pounce ability, which allows him to charge and still make full attacks. However, if the mount's rider ALSO has the ability to Pounce, would this allow him and the mount to both charge and make a full attack. I know that there is no cut and clear answer on this one but I need more opinions, especially if there is something rules wise that I have not come across. From the way I see it now, Pounce is not just an ability to make an extraordinarlity fast charge, it is also the speed of the creature itself in being able to make all those attacks in less time than it would normally take, due to the fact that even if the charge is indeed fast, they are still having to make their attacks even faster than a normal creature as well. So by that logic, even though the mounted character is not himself using his own speed to make the Pounce Charge, the fact that he does in fact himself have charge, should allow him to make his full attacks at the end of the charge.

Clearly there is no question that the Mount itself would charge and get it's full attacks, since it has Pounce. Also that if the character were not mounted and made the charge himself he would get his full attacks, since he has Pounce. However if the character is mounted, he is not taking into account his own accelerated charge speed as part of the charge. Instead he is relying upon the mounts accelerated charge speed. However, since they both have Pounce, and the Mounts Pounce gets it to the enemy with enough time to make all its full attacks, and the Rider is also able, through pounce, to make its full attacks in the same period of time, it seems to make sense to me that the mounts pounce would provide enough time for a Rider with Pounce to also make his full attacks.

Note, I am not about to allow some crazy cheese where he pounces with a Lance and manages to attack with the weapon, then pull it out, and stab again an amount of times equal to his iterative attacks. It MAY be RAW, but it is a stupid visual and makes no sense in a real life kind of way. So there are no concerns here.

What I need to know, is are there any rules in any of the books, that would directly oppose the viewpoint that if both the char and the mount have pounce, they both get to charge and make full attacks, or is it just as much of a grey area as my own research has lead me to believe. The mounted combat section of the book was no help as far as I could tell. Thank you in advance for any help.

Any chance you might be able to post the correct text entry for me? My pdf has the incorrect original text as well.

Ok. So it is indeed supposed to mean that for any Agent of the Grave level where you got a CL increase, you count it twice for the amount of undead you can control. Therefore a Cleric 7/Agent of the Grave 3 would control 44 hd. Thank you very much. Im glad to know that I'm not crazy and just couldn't see the way that made it all make sense.

I have wracked my brain on multiple occasions and cannot seem to make any interpretation I can come up with of this ability match the results given in the example.

Inspired Necromancy (Ex)

When determining the maximum number of Hit Dice of undead he can control with spells like animate dead, a character counts his Agent of the Grave levels twice. This ability does not factor into how many undead he can create with a single casting of a spell. Thus, a cleric 7/Agent of the Grave 3 would be able to control 52 Hit Dice worth of undead with animate dead.

Ok, so a Cleric 7 has 7 caster levels. 2/3 of the Agent of the Grave levels progress his spellcasting and hence his CL, bringing him to a caster level of 9. Now from here is where this gets confusing, because Agent of the Grave doesn't progress a all 3 levels, so the interpretation that the ability is meant to say that you count the caster level increases being given by levels in Agent of the Grave, as being double that amount of CL increase, for the purposes of determining the amount of HD of undead controlled by Animate Dead, the numbers don't add up. That would only bring him up to a CL 11 equivalent which would be 44 HD of undead controlled. he's still 2 CL short. The only interpretation I can come up with where the numbers come out correctly, would involve not counting the CL increase for some insane reason and instead just getting 2xAgent of the Grave levels added to your CL for the casting.

This has plagued me for so long and I need an answer to this one. What am I not seeing here? I mean it can't just be a type or they would have errated it and it would be updated on d20pfsrd. Thanks in advance for any help your can lend.

Sorry, I thought I deleted this thread but apparently I cant now that others have posted on it. Yeah its third party, here is the URL. Also I misread the Horse Lord Feat and what I talked about would require much more resources then I though so I am going to explore other ideas instead of this confusing and resource intensive one. Thanks anyways though.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/cavalier/orders/cavalier-order s---louis-porter-jr-design/order-of-the-chimera

I found a better way. My cousin, who is going to be the GM actually running the game (He put me in charge of balancing all the parties chars and helping the with building), approved the use of 3.5 material on principle, although I have been imposing some severe restrictions because there is some major brokenness there. So what I did for the char that I was curious about progressing its channeling was let him take levels in True Necromancer, which is already awesome because it progresses both his Arcane and Divine casting which he wanted already, and I made it a full 14/14 progression. That class progresses channeling, which in 3.5 was turning or rebuking but in PF is for channeling healing/damage. So although there is still no feat set up for this, he doesn't need it anymore :)

only problem with getting an animal companion from a class feature is unless that class is Cavalier and you take the Horse Lord feat, that animal companion will never advance beyond level 1 without investing additional character levels into that class. So for first party options you have Cavalier and Horse Lord, if you want any other kind of set up its Leadership or going 3PP. I have recently revisited this topic with a new character and am still debating the options I have discovered.

Well I guess its nix to that idea as it is clearly universally loathed lol. No way to increase bab it is.

I have seen some other threads where this idea came up but I am curious as to what others think of this idea. Basically a feat, that raises your BAB, but never past your HD similar to Practiced Spellcaster from 3.5 or any of the other multiclass helper feats. I'm thinking +2 to your BAB, never past your HD though. This eliminates any potential for BAB higher than HD Uber Fighter nonsense but allows for a multiclasser to sacrifice some feat slots in order to take the BAB loss sting off a bit. I look forward to opinions.

Ok I realize that this is going to be full homebrew because as far as I know nothing like this has ever existed, but I have a player making a Mystic Theurge character who wants to continue to advance his channel energy ability progression, and I am thinking of brewing up a line of feats to accomplish this but I am really curious to see what the community would think of this. I know it will need to take more than one feat because I would like him to be able to get full or close to full progression but I am debating on the number of feats. Also if anyone knows of any way in the current rules sets or older editions that can continue the channel energy progression in multiclass characters that would be a great help.

True enough. They are required to take a certain amount of ranks as is, but this would force them to take full ranks, as opposed to less than full because the other bonuses make the score high enough (class skill, ability score, etc) that you wouldnt need full ranks to makes the checks. .

I have lots of thoughts here. I'm bolding the different sections to break them up.

You're the GM.

You're not playing PFS. If you want to houserule Eldritch Heritage Sylvan, you can.

On Sylvan Bloodline & Eldritch Heritage

Here's my reasoning though for why Eldritch Heritage Sylvan does not work RAW or RAI --
Eldritch Heritage only grants the bloodline power of a sorcerous bloodline. For sylvans (I know, because I play one) the animal companion is not only the bloodline power but ALSO the bloodline arcana. Since Eldritch Heritage does not offer bloodline arcana (and how I wish there was a feat that did) it cannot provide the Sylvan animal companion.

Here are my questions:

Do you as GM think that her AC would be game-breaking?

Do you as GM think that her character concept is fun?

If the answer is no to the first and yes to the second, allow it.

My thoughts on the three feat cost

I would totally pay the three feats to get an animal companion for a bard. (I'll note that my Sylvan Sorcerer has two feats invested in her animal -- boon companion and the human alternate trait "eye for talent." I also have invested one of my two traits and 25% of my skill points. That's how important my AC is to my character.)

If Eldritch Heritage Sylvan were available in PFS, I would take it to get an animal companion for a bard. As it is, for PFS, I am stuck with going Evangelist Cleric in order to get someone with inspire courage and the full druid list of animal companions. Yep, I also want a roc. Flying is fun!

If she wants to fly, there is a great third party book on flying mounted combat. I will see if I can find it for you. If you do allow her to fly, balance it by enforcing ride and handle animal checks. It won't hurt her to invest in those skills.

Hmm

Yes, the eldritch heritage line doesn't really work. I initially posted it as an example I guess for balance purposes of would you take these three feats to get this effect.

As far as your questions are concerned, whether or not an AC is gamebreaking depends so much on how one decides to play it. The Roc for example, IMO is one of the strongest ACs by far, and definitely the best flyer. Plus with some creative thought, like the fact that ACs can utilize Improved Unarmed strike along with TWF feats to gain iterative attacks, albeit at the expense of making all their natural attacks into secondary attacks, or making a custom item to get daily uses of spells like Form of the Dragon onto an item, which would be crazy expensive but extremely powerful. Of course this depends on whether or not you are playing in a campaign that allows custom magic item creation and has a party member to make them, which this party does and this campaign allows, with GM approval of each item of course. There are also prexisting items that add natural attacks.

On the other side of things though, you could have a player who just wanted a wolf or something for fluff purposes and doesnt really beef it up. The range of possible power levels is just too varied. I mean I know this player is far more likely to go the former route then the just for fun route. So as to whether or not its game breaking, I really cant say. Too many factors invovled.

As to whether or not the concept is fun, totally. I like the fluff backstory, and the whole Roc who does martial arts thing is priceless.

Most recently what I am considering is an alternate version of the Signature mount feat, which allows a player to take any kind of AC, but for Mounts they have to take the ranks in Ride, for non mounts it must be in Handle Animal, and they are required to take Boon Companion as well. So that makes the price of an animal companion with druid lvl=Char lvl, 2 Feats, and Ranks in either Ride or Handle Animal equal to your level. Which is essentially the equivalent of three feats since for example, the Open Minded Feat gives an extra SP for each HD you have.

Also on a separate note, I recently came across a Metagame Artifact on d20pfsrd that I think I am going to implement. I like that it take the awkward or downright stupid moments out of being a pet owner. Dont want your pet around right now, boom into the statue. Your a large size creature and you wont fit through here, boom into the statue. It seems like it would give players the options they should have to make things simpler. One of my players brought this up and asked about having it be a tatoo on their body instead of a statue, which I thought was a pretty awesome idea. Kind of like the guy from Elektra. I know, not a good movie, but a cool idea. The item is called Figurine of the Concealed Companion.

I already said that by the rules this has already been deemed to not work a the alternate bloodlines are archetypes, not alternates like subdomains, also it is mean to replace the arcana as well. IMO it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that it switches out another level of power as well because that would have nothing to do with it. Regardless, you must have missed the part where I already said this was not by the rules, that I was not asking if it was by the rules, and that the only actually question I was asking was about opnions on balance. How many feats do you think is a fair trade for an animal companion?

In this specific case it is important but not necessarily vital to the character to have this animal companion. Also it needs to be a Roc so the Animal Ally route doesnt work. I think if I do use a 1 feat equivalent I will prolly use Signature Mount instead of leadership for the sake of simplicity.

@Lemmy, that seems like a very easy way for people to add in a chosen pet. I like it. It is a bit stronger than signature mount as the level is equivalent instead of -2 and it would have more companion choice options but it would be less powerful than full blown leadership.

The biggest reason why I post whenever I have a balance question either about one of my characters, or those of a player in a campaign im running is because I myself am a Power Gamer.

Note I am NOT a Metagamer. The difference to me being that a Power Gamer does try to make very strong and optimized characters, but also tries to find a very strong balance and synergy with their fluff and attempts a balancing act between the two to come out with a character that is the closest they can get to what they really want to roleplay as.

A Metagamer really doesnt give a damn about the fluff, they just want to be the strongest most OP char they can be. They care about the rules only and simply to make themselves the strongest. They gladly and easily sacrifice rather important story points to get the more powerful rule set or they put together the strongest character they can and then create a flimsy paper thin back story for themselves and dont every really roleplay.

Even as a Power Gamer though, I am very conscious and self evaluating in making sure that I dont create something TOO powerful. Group power balance is essential to a health play group. So I find it helpful when I have any doubts, to check out the opinions of others. Also my former playgroup had a real hard ass for a DM so anything that wasn't 100% by the paizo only rules was not allowed, any variation on the rules etc that had any kind of power or usefulness were always denied immediately, and if you found a strong combination of levels and feats etc, it was banned. He was my opposite in a great many ways and it didnt help that most of the rest of the players in several of our campaigns were total amateurs who had never even read the rulebook, let alone knew the rules or made their own characters rulesets. So those years made me even more self conscious of balance, because I was the only one playing a character who wasnt just X levels in the same class.

My current group however that we will be starting up with are all experienced veteran gamers and we will be playing quite powerful characters in an Evil campaign reboot of the Ravenica setting from WOTC Magic the Gathering. Its going to be a bit less typical light hearted fantasy and a bit more Game of Thrones on intrigue speed. Still all the elements of normal dnd but no goody two shoes Hero characters and easy to solve adventures. Lots of political intrigue, puzzles, real roleplaying, and advanced combat etc.

Anyways, so with this being a not strictly by the first party rules decision, I am a bit wary. Balancing this campaigns party is a doozy, but many of the characters are built to compliment eachother, fill in the ability gaps, and create a highly functional team, as opposed to a group of unrelated character builds. So that helps a bit.

Thats true I guess, he could just take leadership. I guess I think of that feat as being "The Taboo Feat" because almost nobody allows it, and even Paizo and WOTC before them said that this feat could only ever be taken with DM approval as a warning of its power. Would you allow this in your game though? 1 feat for an animal companion and a bunch of followers seems a bit unbalanced. Although I guess it wouldn't actually be an animal companion. Come to think of it I'm not quite sure how this would even work rules wise, taking an animal instead of another character as your cohort. I mean I know there are rules for players taking non standard races with a level offset in PF. Hmmm.