Forgarn's page

I disagree.

In the implementation of the School Understanding ability of the arcanist in terms of the abilities chosen, you gain the ability of Diviner's Fortune and are able to use it 3 + CHA Mod times per day as if you were a 1st level wizard. Which means only +1 to the insight bonus.

By expending 1 point of the arcane resevoir as a swift action, you increase your "virtual" wizard level to be equal to your arcanist level insofar as Diviner's Fortune is concerned. At the same time, for a number of rounds equal to your charisma modifier, you gain the forewarned ability aka "the other ability gained at 1st level for the chosen school".

That is correct. The OP was talking about taking the Forwarned as the implementation of the School Understanding and that is what I was referring to. You cannot take that feature because it is not a 3 + Int Mod type feature therefore it does not fall under the ability. However, as you stated, once you spend the arcane point, it is active for a number of rounds equal to your CHA mod.

I know that when you retrain a class level, you loose the class features that are listed for that highest level of the class you are retraining. My question is this, if that class feature includes an object, do you loose the object? A good example is I create a Gunslinger 1 and after playing for several games I don't really like it, so I am going to retrain. One of the 1st level gunslinger class features is Gunsmithing. I know I loose the gunsmith feat, but in that feature it also states that I gain a firearm. Would I not also loose the firearm chosen since it is part of that class feature? Or am I able to keep it and then down the road take the exotic weapon proficiency (firearm) feat and use it?

Sorry for the necro, but I do see that no one answered this one.

You cannot take Forwarned. What you have bolded is the last part of the rule stating that you can only take abilities that are usable 3+Cha mod (for wizard 3+Int mod) times per day. Since Forwarned is an "always on" ability, you cannot take that.

1979 - the D&D Basic and Expert books (Red and Blue box sets). Those were the good old days!

@ Doomed Hero: That's already a listed requirement for Aid Another, no matter how you plan to do it. The problem isn't being adjacent to an ally, the problem is having to be adjacent to an enemy as well, which is, in my opinion, quite stupid, doubly so for improving an ally's AC.

Actually it doesn't say that you have to be adjacent to the enemy... it states that you have to threaten them. There is a fine difference, especially when it comes to reach weapons. I can threaten the enemy from BEHIND my ally is my reach will still hit the enemy. I am not adjacent to the enemy, but I still meet the requirements of aid another.

I am looking for a program or app that will allow me to track when spell durations expire. The party is getting a lot of buffs and the the encounters have a lot of spell casting involved and as the GM I want to make sure that I am 1) keeping the players honest, and 2) keeping honest myself. I have a lot going on and would love something that I can add a spell to a list with the duration in rounds and just click a button to decrement the duration as well as a some visual or audio indication that the spell duration has expired.

I know I am asking for a lot, but does anyone know of something like this that can help?

littlehewy wrote:

But they also specifically state that the confirmation roll is a an attack roll, and on an attack roll a 20 always hits. If your fonfirmation attack roll hits, it's a crit.

It's there in black and white.

Also, as has been stated upthread, it probably helps NPCs and monsters more.

It does not state anywhere that if the confirmation roll hits, it's a crit. It does state if you hit the target's AC it's a crit. They are two different things.

Unless there's an FAQ or other official clarification I've missed.

I have to agree with Dust Raven here. Yes they state that the confirmation is an attack roll, but they also state specifically that if that attack roll hits against the AC, not just a hit.

Critical Hits: When you make an attack roll and get a natural 20 (the d20 shows 20), you hit regardless of your target's Armor Class, and you have scored a “threat,” meaning the hit might be a critical hit (or “crit”). To find out if it's a critical hit, you immediately make an attempt to “confirm” the critical hit—another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll you just made. If the confirmation roll also results in a hit against the target's AC, your original hit is a critical hit. (The critical roll just needs to hit to give you a crit, it doesn't need to come up 20 again.) If the confirmation roll is a miss, then your hit is just a regular hit.

In addition, there are some times that you can't crit no matter what you do. Rolling a nat 20 against an earth elemental for example. You might as well skip the second roll because elementals are immune to critical hits. But that first nat 20 is a hit no matter what.

Rolling a single nat 20 is saying that you have been luck enough to find a weakness in the fighter's AC 50. But rolling a 20 with +21 bonuses means you are not good enough to exploit that weakness to its fullest. No critical hit, but you did cause some damage.

To me it is very clear that the second "attack roll" is specifically looking for a hit against the AC. If you can't do it, you can't do it. Very simple.

Forgarn wrote:

So I'm reading through the Kineticist and I got to the composite blasts and I was stunned. The book states that the composite blasts do "2d6+2 plus the kinteicist's Constitution modifier, increasing by 2d6+2 for every 2 levels beyond 1st." Is that right? If so that would meant the the composite blasts would start out at 8d6+8 because you can't get the expanded element until 7th level. 2d6+2 to start and 6d6+6 for the three sets of 2 levels beyond 1st you are at 7th level.

That's only for physical composite blasts; energy composite blasts do "2d6 + 1/2 the kineticist’s Constitution modifier, increasing by 2d6 for every 2 kineticist levels beyond 1st". And note that for all of them, you have to take 2 points of burn to use them. While this can be reduced by gathering energy, until 11th level with supercharge, you have to take 1 round to completely avoid taking burn (or spend a point from your limited internal buffer while taking a move action to gather energy, but you can only do that a limited number of times per day without taking burn), which means you're basically skipping your turn (as well as opening up yourself to being attacked and potentially losing the benefits of gathering energy and taking the burn you were trying to avoid). Conversely, you could instead choose to empower your blast with metakinesis by gathering power as a move action and not take any burn, which would be a bit less damage, but is more sustainable.

But I am reading ti correctly then... 8d6 of damage at 7th level for 2 burn (possibly less)?

So I'm reading through the Kineticist and I got to the composite blasts and I was stunned. The book states that the composite blasts do "2d6+2 plus the kinteicist's Constitution modifier, increasing by 2d6+2 for every 2 levels beyond 1st." Is that right? If so that would meant the the composite blasts would start out at 8d6+8 because you can't get the expanded element until 7th level. 2d6+2 to start and 6d6+6 for the three sets of 2 levels beyond 1st you are at 7th level.

I have read through this post and as I sit here and just shake my head, I ma forced to point out several problems with many of the attempts to make this magical trap an offensive weapon.

1. For those of you planning your marauding goblin horde with explosive runes on the front side of tower shield, please note the following from the spell itself:
"Target: one touched object weighing no more than 10 lbs."

A tower shield weighs 45 lbs so a small sized one for a goblin would weigh 22.5 lbs. Too big to put explosive runes on.

2. For those talking about them on a piece of paper, if that is the only thing on the paper it would take a Perception check of 28 to notice them as they are a magical trap (which is what the spell was designed as).

3. For all others, the spell states that there are only three ways to make the runes explode: reading the information they protect, failed erase, or failed dispel magic. So... even if you were crazy enough to sit down and put explosive runes on every page of a book, the first page that is read would cause 6d6 points of damage to the reader and to the book thus destroying all the pages but not triggering them.

4. For the spell to trigger, and this is the irony of it all, you have to read the information. This is ironic because I get the sense that many of the people posting here had not actually read the spell. The information that it protects must be read. The definition of reading, as listed by Merriam-Webster is " to look at and understand the meaning of letters, words, symbols, etc." Please note it says "UNDERSTAND," not just look at.If the information that is being protected is written in Draconic and the person inspecting the book does not know Draconic, they cannot read the book, therefore they cannot trigger the runes. The same with maps; if I created a map and used my own short hand that only I understood, and then cast explosive runes on it, no one else could set it off because they don't understand the meaning of the symbols that the runes are protecting therefore they cannot read it.

In summary, the explosive runes spell is a magical trap spell designed to protect information from getting into the wrong hands. Please stop tying to make it an offensive spell, because it is not.