ErichAD's page

There are a number of combat maneuvers that aren't part of the standard set, typically only available through feats or class abilities. Some are named maneuvers, like "awesome blow" and others are special types of actions that require a combat maneuver roll, like "stand still".

These are the specific questions I was looking at, in case it varies based on maneuver language.

-Could a maneuver master monk make a flurry of "awesome blow", or "ranged trip" maneuvers?
-Can "special ranged trip maneuvers" be used when a free trip maneuver is granted by some ability?
-Can a Magus select Maneuver Mastery for "stand still".

This is a recurring issue when I work on silly builds where I try to string feats together to make items count as something they aren't. I'm looking for a default rule somewhere for how to handle weapon enchantments for things that aren't always weapons or are being used as a weapon other than the one they were enchanted as.

The rope gauntlet from adventures armory is listed as a weapon but is really just a way of preparing your fists for combat. Since the item is a rope when you aren't wearing it, is there any way to enchant this item as a weapon? If I've enchanted the rope as a rope gauntlet and have a way of using it as a different weapon such as the equipment trick's knotted weapon or lash, is it still enchanted as a weapon when used for those purposes?

There's also the Strong Side Boxer Brawler archetype's shield hand. While it clearly can't be enchanted as a shield since it gives the wrong sort of bonus, if I took upsetting shield style and hit them with it, the arm has no means of no apparent means of being enchanted. Do handwraps help since they specify unarmed attacks and not unarmed strikes, or are the two just the different terms for the same thing?

Spear dancing style also makes a weapon into a double weapon, does the second weapon inherit the original's enchantments, does the new weapon need to be enchanted on its own, or is there no way to enchant that end of the weapon since it isn't a weapon when not in use?

I've solved the issue for the particular build I'm working on, but I feel like I'm over looking the default rule.

VMC Oracle says:
"At 1st level, she must select a curse. She gains all effects of the curse, treating her effective oracle level as equal to 1/2 her character level."

This at first appears to give you exactly what it says 50% of normal curse advancement. However curse says:
"An oracle's curse is based on her oracle level plus one for every two levels or Hit Dice other than oracle."

Since VMC is giving you an effective oracle level for curse progression, and suggests no other changes to the curse ability, it seems like you'd be getting both 50% curse progressions.

I realize that if I'm reading this right, it's simply an error, but it's also possible I'm missing some other rule that would prevent this from happening.

I keep looking at this ability, since it's both potent and bizarre, and I'm not sure how to explain it as it happens. I see that it defaults to a supernatural effect, which helps somewhat, but that's all I got. Is the character effectively b**#+!**ting his way to the truth? Are they channeling some secret knowledge encoded in the dance? Are they just assuming authority and being granted it?

As it stands, I'd just treat it as the person acting like they know what they're doing so well that they land on the truth due to all other possible deceptions being less convincing. I'm curious how others have managed it though.

How would you run the casting of suggestion on a spell casting target and suggesting that they cast a spell for your use in crafting a scroll; would it end the downtime period, or begin encounter mode and prevent crafting?

I was looking at the student of perfection archetype and saw that it granted ki strike. When you use ki strike you can make an unarmed or flurry of blows, but I'm uncertain whether or not you spend an action to use ki strike and an additional action to flurry or attack. I'm also unsure whether or not you are granted the ability to make a flurry of blows if you do not otherwise have that ability.

The spear sling launches javelins, harpoons, spears and short spears.
"A harpoon, javelin, shortspear, spear, or other weapon shot from a spear-sling is treated as a projectile weapon instead of a thrown weapon, increasing its maximum range and allowing it to be used underwater."

I assume it means to say that it treats the weapon as ammunition, not as a projectile weapon:
Does the spear sling treat these objects as ammunition in any other way, like destroying the launched object?
Do they become thrown ammunition making them incompatible with ricochet toss?
Would the ammo-weapon be retrieved by a blinkback belt?
Would a spear-sling enchanted with shadow shooting be able to launch shadow harpoons with shadow ropes attached?
Does the weapon lose melee only enchantments, such as bloodsong, when used in this way?
How would this interact with the vigilante talent "returning weapon"?

However, if you are treating the launched weapon as a projectile weapon, what the heck does that mean?

I'm probably just slow today, so I apologize before the stupid question.

Certain traits have inherent qualities such as "Sonic" trait abilities only working when they can make a sound, or "positive" trait abilities healing the living and harming the undead. Weapon attacks made that deal damage of the type inherit the trait themselves, so your attack action gains the sonic trait when attacking with a thundering weapon, and an attack with a poison weapon gains the poison trait and so on.

Due to the sonic traits being crippled in silence, are you effectively disarmed in silence if you are wielding a thundering weapon, or is the rune turned off by the silence so that the attack is no longer sonic?

There's also the issue of whether or not attacks with positive energy descriptor heal the living, fail to harm the living, or function as a "manipulate positive energy" effect and just do the damage leaving the harm/heal note in the trait as fluff.

Some of these questions are cleared up a little with the compound immunity rule, where you can be immune to part of an attack but not another part of the attack, but it seems unclear what traits are adequate components to create a compound immunity situation. It's clear that if an attack does both acid and fire damage, and a target is immune to fire damage, that the acid damage still happens, but if you're immune to attacks with the fire trait, I think you also wouldn't take the acid damage as the attack inevitably comes from an attack with the fire trait.

For my specific example. I thought it would be fun to play a goblin who threw a greataxe of divine fire. I took a goblin with the burnit feat, went universalist wizard with hand of the apprentice, got an axe with the flaming rune, then grabbed barbarian archetype for the spirit instinct at level 6. Raging makes the melee weapon positive, necromantic, divine, rune adds fire, hand of the apprentice makes it evocation and allows for a spell attack with a melee weapon. The fire and positive traits are inherited directly by the hand of the apprentice ability, since that's the attack dealing the damage.

My concern is, at which step does each trait begin to apply. If someone is immune to abilities with the fire trait does my axe bounce off them harmlessly? If they are a living creature does my weapon heal them?

I assume there's rules somewhere explaining that a mascot familiar can't spend a day becoming a team mate of a random monster or passerby, but I can't seem to find those rules. A recurring adversary having a 1 mile radar for the party seems too useful for there not to be a save, and I don't think a player should be able to have their mascot team up with a sleeping dragon for the HP and BAB boost.

It's clear what the intent is, I'm just hoping there's something more explicit. This is mostly to look at the edge case of a mascot allying with a called outsider, but with no restrictions to look at, I'm sort of stumped.

I was looking at taking a level of totem spiritualist on a hunter in order to make the animal companion more portable and give it some additional utility. I was hoping for a ghost rider without the spookiness, but the archetype seems pretty messy. Now I'm not sure totem spiritualist does anything of the sort.

The TS archetype replaces the phantom with a phantom animal that has the base stats and abilities of an animal companion, and progresses as an animal companion, but gains special abilities as a phantom. Their spiritualist levels also stack with druid levels for determining the power of the phantom, but not for determining the power of an animal companion. Would taking a level of TS on a hunter give you a single phantom animal, or would it give you a phantom animal as well as the animal companion? Would it give you a phantom that only manifested when your animal was gone?

I thought that the line "A phantom animal functions like an animal companion except as noted in the descriptions below." would indicate a replacement, but the line "A phantom animal is otherwise considered a phantom for the purposes of all feats and abilities." Appears later in the paragraph. Nothing in the paragraph indicates a replacement, but I doubt it's intended that a single level dip would give you a fully leveled phantom.

I'm also uncertain whether or not the phantom manifests as a normal animal, or as an ectoplasmic or incorporeal animal.

Honestly, the whole things a bit confusing. Has there ever been a clarification of intent on this thing?

I thought it would be sort of entertaining to have an eidolon that looked like a crab with a straw thatched hut on its back. The character would sleep in the hut and fight in from the hut when the creature got big enough.

The problem is, I can't seem to find a way to make this work. The easiest method I can find is to use the synthesist summoner and refluff the fused eidolon ability as the character walking into the house, but then nobody else can go in the house. There's also the Howdah, but they require a huge creature, so it would be awhile before the creature was large enough to carry a howdah, and I really wanted it to be part of the creature. At that point I'd be better off going with a witch's hut grand hex or an animated object.

Is there a good way to do this?

I understand that when a summoned monster is reduced to 0 hp or lower, the monster disappears. However, I'm uncertain what happens when a summoned monster has a specific effect that occurs when the monster reaches 0 hp.

The Viduus can be summoned through the feat "summon neutral monster" as 4th level summon. When it reaches 0 HP it's body turns into a swarm of centipedes and it creates a mind fog centered on the body. The viduus can also undergo this transformation at will. So my question is, what happens when it hits 0 and what happens when it transforms deliberately. I could see anything from it disappearing with no additional effects, to it creating a now permanent swarm and the fog cloud.

I'm sure there are other summonable creatures with effects that occur on death, but this is the one I noticed and caused me to ask the question.

This isn't a big issue, but having modifiers split between attack and defense seems to slow down the time in determining what stacks and what doesn't. Changing flanking to a +2 to hit is the simplest example. I'd also like to see attackers gain positive modifiers against targets suffering from conditions rather than modifying the defense of the sufferer. It shouldn't change anything other than doubling the amount of stacking modifiers on one side of the combat equation in favor of removing the others from the other side.

This does also open up the option for exploit feats that improve a character's to hit versus targets suffering from certain conditions/traits without competing with current conditional/circumstance modifiers.

I'm a little uncertain what is meant to happen to a stave with a shifting rune on it once its been changed into a different weapon. Staves are expert quality quarter staves, and so could be turned into any other one handed weapon. Staves themselves allow the wielder to use the hand holding the staff for somatic casting actions as well.

So my question. Is it intended that a caster could shifting rune his staff into a bastard sword and still be able to cast spells from it, gaining permanent bonuses from it, and use it for somatic casting actions, or are all the unique staff options treated the same as property runes that would be incompatible with the new shape?

Also, does the rule on 370 regarding item level of runed items also include staves essentially giving players a free staff at the cost of a rune slot on their weapon?

Final question, does the stave's one or two handed wielding allow it to take the shape of one handed items only, or only items that can be wielded both one and two handed?

This adventure has been a little bit odd to run. I count myself fortunate that my players didn't sap the professor when he refused to come with them willingly, but it seems full of hiccups.
During investigation my players succeeded all the perception checks and circumvented locks by either climbing through an upstairs window or using gaseous form to slip into the basement. One player was quite concerned that he couldn't access the salon even when invisible. Not satisfied with that level of investigation, the druid took his wolf out to track the zombie scout back to its origin, a detail not covered in the adventure, but tracks left a few days ago by a low level creature seemed within the realm of his 30ish survival check which lead him to the lake. The lake he'd been fishing at while the rest of the party investigated.

Afterward, the druid swims out to see if there are more zombies underwater. Unsure where the undead army is hiding as far as the adventure is concerned I had them hiding in the lake, scaring the bejeezus out of the druid and sending him back to the house. At that point the cleric figures he'd be best off slinging fireballs out the back windows down at the lake. In order to preserve the scenario I created an impenetrable mist to cover the area.

The combat, the actual focus of the adventure, hasn't done much to test healing. My players have adapted their tactics to suit the game by this point, so the types of barricading expected by the adventure aren't things they went for. Instead there's a barricade about 15 feet into the main hall with the chandelier lowered to about chest height and furniture spread about the room making flanking impossible. The zombie invasion feeling, breaking down the front door and all that, just isn't happening.

The player most fond of the new system commented that we spent far more time working on the characters for the adventure than playing the adventure.

The rules for rerolls are pretty straight forward, typically you just take the same action again and get a new try. My players quickly discovered this part of PF2, and have begun just bulk rolling dice. With some things, like recall knowledge checks, they are hoping to succeed before they crit fail, and for others it just ticks down a timer. I'm uncertain why I'm having the players roll on something in which they are assured eventual success particularly if the bonuses and result are more or less random or eventual success is required.

Are all monsters assumed to have the foil senses feat, or is it assumed that monsters generally aren't taking special precautions against special senses and thus aren't hidden from those with special senses?

If it's a case by case basis, I would like to see the stealth skill pulled out of the skill list and given its own heading listing which senses are confounded, similar to stealth.

The feat mentions that gnomes would likely select an animal with a burrow speed as their familiar, but familiars have no way of gaining a burrow speed. Is burrow accidentally omitted from the familiar movement options, or are gnomes finding crippled moles to take on as familiars?

The various breadth feats give you an additional spell slot of each level spell you can cast except for your highest two spell levels. Is this intended to include the highest level spell slots you gained from archetypes, or does it include those gained from your main class?

Either way, I hope the wording could be changed to make it explicit which limit is intended.

This is more of a narrative question than a rules question; How does the bard deliver spell attacks when he has replaced the somatic casting action of his spell with the playing of an instrument?

Since bards are able to replace their somatic, material, and verbal casting actions with playing a held instrument; and spell attacks are delivered as part of the somatic action, do bards play their instrument in place of making spell attacks? If so, how does that work exactly?

There's a bit of other weirdness with bard spells, like the apparent ability to cast bard spells while raging by replacing all casting actions with playing an instrument, and whether or not you can stow your instrument as part of the material casting action as you could if it had been a normal spell focus. I'd take clarifications on those issues as well, but I'm mostly worried about whether or not I'm meant to be breaking my guitar over someones head, or melting their face with an epic solo.

Once again we're starting with wood and a few metals and holding off on non-rigid materials for some later date. It's important to have at least one non-rigid special material in the core book to ensure material options for all classes. While there are a few specific leather and hide armors that use an unusual material, the material itself doesn't seem to provide a material benefit on its own.

Maybe this can be neglected somewhat due to the inability to target items, but I'd hope some guidelines would be provided. Dragon leather and spider silk would be a good start.

There are a number of abilities, such as "widen spell" or "healing hands" that take a free action to add an action to a spell. I see that the "free action" step is meant to prevent adding multiple metamagic like feats from impacting the single casting of a spell through the free action trigger limitation.

I think this is unnecessarily complicated though. As it stands the ability appears to be a free action, and uses the free action icon, but in order to use the ability you're still using an action to do so.

Either that, or I'm reading it wrong and the addition of an action to the casting is not meant to imply that an actual action must be spent in order to use it.

If the ability is meant to only add the restrictions of the additional action type, then add the restrictions of the additional action type and list the ability as a free action. If it is meant to take an action, indicate that it should take an action and require that the ability be used immediately before the casting of a spell.

The master sniper feat allows the player to make two ranged attacks while sniping. This doesn't appear to be limited to any ability or weapon types. At first this seemed like a nice boon for sneaky javelin or dagger throwers, but it appears to be left broad enough that a kinetic blast could qualify despite there being no other way for a kineticist to make two blasts without sniping.

I assume I'm missing a rule somewhere that prevents this.

Short version: How does Master Sniper interact with kinetic blast?

Taking the Planar Heritage feat lets a human qualify for feats and the like as if they were another native outsider race. It's a cool feat and lets humans branch into the native outsider races a bit. However, the Xenarth is a native outsider demon allowing it to qualify for the demonic possession feat. I'm not sure it's that big a deal, but I'm certain that it's unintended. Are there any other entertaining uses of the planar heritage that I should be prepared to reject when players bring it to the table?

I'm a bit curious why the starfish isn't aquatic. That makes it more convenient as a familiar, but I feel bad for the poor bastards drowning at sea.

Is it possible to use the kinetic blast to fulfill the blast requirements for combined blasts or for other abilities that ask for either the elemental focus or an elemental blast as prerequisites?

The water dancer archetype specifically grants the "elemental focus ability of the kineticist class" and "kinetic blast feature of the kineticist class", so this should work barring some specific prohibition.

I realize that you don't have access to combined blast till you get the expanded element feature, and I also realize that the identical abilities don't stack unless they specifically call out that they stack so we aren't combining levels for advancing the blasts. I'm only wondering about the prerequisite thing.

Hoping for a rules check to see if I missed something.

I was looking at using mindblade to flesh out a character, but have come across a lack of information in their weapon creation ability. The ability says the weapon can be up to two handed which rules out things like oversized weapons that can no longer be wielded two handed, but there doesn't seem to be any other limitations.

The weapon is made of psychic energy, but without any guidance for that fluff I'm assuming it acts as a steel or wood weapon with the same hardness and hitpoints. It seems odd to make an aspergillum or lantern staff and fill psychic energy with liquid, or to light a psychic energy torch on fire, but I don't see any guidance for objects made of psychic energy that would say otherwise.

There also doesn't appear to be a limit of proficiency, so in theory a character could make something they didn't know how to wield, or that they wouldn't know how to make. This is probably not a big deal, but gets weird if they start making monowhips.

There doesn't appear to be a limit to the purpose to which the weapon is put either, such as making a kyoketsu shoge and using it as a short rope, or using a aspergillum as a shower. I'm assuming that you can't create an improvised weapon as that would let you create any object up to a certain size, an ability worth noting in the entry.

Some other side cases that I'm unsure of involve modified weapons like weapons with tactically adapted or a sawback sword, or modified objects like spiked shields and armor. Could you summon a spiked shield, or spikes onto your shield. Then there's the question of naturally combined objects like the boulder helmet, the klar, or rosewood armor.

The kineticist gets a size bonus to physical stats from elemental overflow. It's clear that this doesn't stack with things that are explicitly size bonuses, such as those gained from beast shape spells, but does it stack with stats granted to small races due to size such as a halflings dex bonus? Is there a reason why this is a size bonus?

Another question along those lines, could a creature use kinetic form to qualify for feats with a size requirement such as an ogre's glutonous gobbler feat? I like the idea of taking racial heritage(ogre), grabbing glutonous gobbler, and swallowing the target with a mass of kinetic energy, but I'm unsure whether that is intended or how that would look. Could you gobble them if your grapple was being done via telekinetic maneuvers?

Sorry for the weird questions. I'm just trying to figure out what the outer bounds of this class are.

The Occultist archetype "Esoteric Initiate" grants a book as an implement that works for any two schools of magic. This implement doesn't have the additional language from Battle Host which states that invested mental focus need be split between schools.

Given that, I'm wondering if the Battle Host split focus rule is meant to be clarification of a universal rule for occultists, or a specific rule exclusively for the battle host.

Beyond that, as it grants a book as an implement, is it possible to use that same implement for divination if it was used for two other schools when you received the implement.

It's hard to judge the intent of the archetype's ability as either reading of the rule removes something from the class, and its delay of Panoply access is also significant.

If there's an faq regarding Occultists in general I'd like to see it.

I'm playing a grippli monk (shush, I know it) and am trying to determine what exactly I can do while climbing around. I see that I need to have my hands free to climb but can hang on with one hand and still make attacks when not moving. So far so good.

Are the two hands required equivalent to the two hand-place-holders used when restricting combat options, or is this a literal requirement for two hands in all instances where there are enough hands to fulfill this requirement?

For example:
can a four armed climber keep two weapons out?
can a no armed climber use a hand-place-holder to attack?
can a grippli monk use his feet to grapple and still have a climb/reposition option available.

I'm not really invested in the outcome and will just see what the DM thinks, but I was wondering if there was a ruling out there on the topic.

I'm hoping to collect all the underground movement questions I have here. Not all burrow and earth glide is equal, so some questions depend on which type and I do know that. I'm mostly trying to figure out what my earth elemental familiar can do for me and apparently these questions have gone without an official answer for awhile now.

1: inventory and held objects
1a. can you take stuff with you with burrow? with earth glide?
1b. does your stuff fill with dirt when you burrow/glide?
1c. can you bring your carried familiar with you with burrow/earth glide
1d. can you drop objects and leave them embedded in solid stone
1e. can you just put something into the ground without going in yourself, like pushing a tower shield into the ground or a long spear?

2: movement
2a. Can you dive into glide-able material to avoid fall damage.
2b. Can a glider move into a giant's boulders before a toss? after?
2c. Do you fall out if someone moves the dirt you are in when gliding?
2d. what is the minimum relative size of a thing you can glide into?
2e. how much fire resistance is required to survive lava
2f. can an earth elemental cut straight through the planet to shorten his journey to the other side by about 2/3rds
2g. Can an earth elemental glide the surface to avoid making noise from foot falls.
2h. At what point should roots be considered a terrain difficulty for earth gliding.

3: combat
3a. Is there a maximum level of cover a glider can take while attacking enemies on the surface?
3b. Can you grapple/bullrush and pull enemies down into the surface with burrow? with earth glide?
3c. does the note that earth glide is like swimming imply that a earth glider can use an underwater crossbow under earth or from above earth into it?
3d. can an earth glider glide through worn armor made of the glideable material?

4: action type
4a. Is earth gliding a conscious act or do you fall into the earth if dropped.
4b. Does paralysis prevent earth gliding or is it purely mental
4c. How much of one's body is dedicated to earth gliding.

I think that's the whole list. If I've forgotten one let me know.

I'm more specifically concerned with what happens when you are guaranteed a surprise round action in the event that there is a surprise round.

If the character wins the surprise round initiative, does the character now know that something is happening and does he have knowledge of the action that triggered the surprise round?

What is the threat level that triggers combat for the purpose of a surprise round. Can you circumvent a surprise round by always being in combat with an impotent foe?

If more targets enter the encounter late, do they get a surprise round as well, and do you get to act on it?

If combat progresses from mock combat to real combat (someone gets serious) are surprise rounds ran normally. What if a dueling match is ambushed by bandits?

"Swarming: Ratfolk are used to living and fighting communally, and are adept at swarming foes for their own gain and their foes' detriment. Up to two ratfolk can share the same square at the same time. If two ratfolk in the same square attack the same foe, they are considered to be flanking that foe as if they were in two opposite squares."

Do ratfolk lose their swarming ability when their size changes. Supposing a ratfolk were to be large sized through some magic, could they share each square with one other creature, or one square with one other creature. What's the ruling on a large ratfolk sharing each of it's four squares with on corner of four other large ratfolks squares.

Similarly, is their ability meaningful when tiny?

Second, since attacks can't occur simultaneously, what is the exact meaning of "attacking" here. Is threatening enough or does this require a previous attack against that specific target. Can those attacks be ranged?

1.Where's the FAQ/Errata for the Klar?
2.Under what conditions is the Klar treated as a shield
3.under what conditions do the armor spikes on the shield behave as armor spikes
4.under what conditions is the Klar treated as one handed
5.under what conditions is the Klar treated as light
6.how many objects is the Klar 1,2 or 3 (Klar, armorspike&shield, armorspike&shield&Klar)
7.what feats interact with its use
8.does using the Klar as a weapon prevent the shield bonus
9.can the shield and weapon break separately
10.can you hold things in the Klar hand?
11.should it just be treated as a slashing armor spike?
12.do you need to make a shield bash with the shield to activate shield slam, or is the Klar a modification of the shield bash
13.under what conditions can it be two handed
14.under what conditions can it be finessed
15.is it considered a shield for the purpose of denying abilities that can't be used when a shield is active.
16.can you chose to use it as a weapon without strapping it on as a shield.
17.does it need to be strapped on as a shield
18.does it have spell failure chance
19.does it have armor spikes, shield spikes or both.
20.if it doesn't have shield spikes can they be added.
21.does proficiency in the Klar grant proficiency in light shields and armor spikes?
22. if so, does it matter if they are part of the Klar or not?
23. how does the Klar interact with slashing grace?
24. when grappling with a Klar, can it be used as a light weapon "spiked shield"
25. can it also be used as an "armor spike"?
26. Does armor spike bonus damage from armor and two Klars stack?
27. It's not a double weapon is it?

That's all I can find with a two hour scan sorting through everyone's rules debates on the Klar. I think it's a cool flavorful weapon, but I'll be damned if I could explain how it works to a DM without them thinking I'm hiding something.

I'm mostly trying to make sense of the slashing grace changes, but I thought this broader question would be more valuable.

There are a number of abilities that require that you have a hand free, such as deflect arrows, snapping turtle style or the free hand fighter's singleton ability. Can abilities like this be used together, or do they take up the free hand?

Would using deflect arrows prevent the dex to damage portion of slashing grace from taking effect? Would using the dex to damage portion of slashing grace prevent you from using deflect arrows?