Gallant Armor's page

On the magic weapons page Bane has the note "Projectile weapons with this ability bestow this power upon their ammunition". Since the arrow becomes a +1 bane arrow it would overcome DR as a +3 weapon against appropriate enemies. If the weapon was a +3 bane bow it would still only overcome DR as if it was a +3 weapon given the FAQ.

Gallant Armor wrote:

If you think that those passages make sense by your interpretation then you are deeply delusional.

Please refrain from accusations of insanity, and otherwise personally insulting phrases. They don't help these conversations and don't resolve anything. It's also hate speech against the mentally ill when you refer to mental illness as an insult.

I have never heard the term delusional used in relation to mental illness, in my colloquial understanding it is equivalent to irrational. I apologize if I offended anyone as that was not my intention.

Corset of Delicate Moves gives you a swift as a move 1/day that could be used for your Invoker swift action. 24 hour attunement unfortunately so no swapping out between combats.

If you don't qualify for a feat you don't have it. If you don't have it you can't use it as a prerequisite.

Some things are just left to logic.

"This is the total number of feats possessed by an animal companion"

That seems pretty clear.

1 or 2 sets of 'roll twice take the worst'. If they succeed on the save on the first set then they have to roll another set.

What if you added misfortune?

Bashing and Spiked don't stack as they are both effective size increases. FAQ saying effective size increases don't stack.

As for the brawler damage being boosted by effective size increases, there is a lot of contention, but I don't know of any rule to indicate how it should work.

It is firmly established that a specific rule in a spell overrides more general rules for spells. This makes the Ventriloquism effect clear hear the sound make a save.

On the other hand it is a fairly feeble 1st level spell so if you choose to ignore the rules and run it an other way it is not going to break the game.
Unless you are a PFS GM in which case you should really follow the rules.

Right, but ventriloquism doesn't say you get a save when you hear the sound:

Saving Throw Will disbelief (if interacted with)

To repeat what I said above: "anyone who hears the sound and rolls a successful save recognizes it as illusory" ≠ 'anyone who hears the sound receives a save to recognize it as illusory'

For specific to trump general there has to be something that specifically trumps the general rule. The requirement to interact with the spell makes this clear that you don't get a save just by hearing the sound.

+1

As per the rules on size changes, size changes do not stack, so if you have multiple size changing effects (for instance an effect that increases your size by one step and another that increases your size by two steps), only the largest applies. The same is true of effective size increases (which includes “deal damage as if they were one size category larger than they actually are,” “your damage die type increases by one step,” and similar language). They don’t stack with each other, just take the biggest one. However, you can have one of each and they do work together (for example, enlarge person increasing your actual size to Large and a bashing shield increasing your shield’s effective size by two steps, for a total of 2d6 damage).

And once again, "anyone who hears the sound receives a save" is how Ventriloquism works: not anyone that interacts with it or spends an action but "hears the sound".

Don't put something in quotes if it is not accurate, the line is "anyone who hears the sound and rolls a successful save" these are the conditions to disbelieve, there is nothing saying that anyone who hears the sound gets a save.

New thread for the side discussion.

Claxon wrote:

No surprise round. The barbarian was aware something was wrong with the situation.

The barbarian was aware of the caster's existence, that's all that mattered.

I disagree there. If the barbarian wasn't suspicious of the caster there should have been a surprise round. If the spell had been cast before the sense motive check, the barbarian would have had no reason to suspect the spell can going to be directed at him so he would be caught unaware as the party was on indifferent to friendly terms with him at that point.

Part of being "aware of your opponents" is being aware that they are your opponents.

We had a player shoot a whistling arrow into the entryway of a dungeon thinking it would be a good idea for them to come to us rather then us go to them.

This seemed to work as enemies starting coming out of the dungeon and we entered combat. The problem was that the enemies didn't stop coming. To make things worse, these were no pushovers; there were well over a dozen difficult enemies with several that would take a round or more of attacks from multiple party members to bring down. 2 of us were killed by the onslaught, and 2 managed to escape.

After this was all over someone asked the GM why the encounter was so tough and he told us that every enemy within 500 feet of the path of the arrow received a perception check to hear the arrow so we ended up fighting several encounters worth of enemies at once.

As per the rules on size changes, size changes do not stack, so if you have multiple size changing effects (for instance an effect that increases your size by one step and another that increases your size by two steps), only the largest applies. The same is true of effective size increases (which includes “deal damage as if they were one size category larger than they actually are,” “your damage die type increases by one step,” and similar language). They don’t stack with each other, just take the biggest one. However, you can have one of each and they do work together (for example, enlarge person increasing your actual size to Large and a bashing shield increasing your shield’s effective size by two steps, for a total of 2d6 damage).

No, they won't stack.

If you are dropping below 7, the flavor text on the ability score chart starts to become meaningful.

At 3 STR you would be somewhere between "Needs help to stand, can be knocked over by strong breezes" and "Knocked off balance by swinging something dense".

Even if it's not outlined in the rules, a creature with under 5 in a stat should have trouble just existing in the world, let alone adventuring.

Gallant Armor wrote:

+2 to hit is worth 2 feats (weapon focus + greater weapon focus).

You aren't talking to hit bonuses but negating penalties... If we go that route, weapon proficiency removes -4 making it worth FOUR feats by your estimation and making the ability 1/2 a feat...

Gallant Armor wrote:

Most of the things you have listed are worth a feat at best.

Really? +2 to stats, imm to flank see in darkness [a multi-feat tree], 75gp worth of items/day, +5 speed [without restriction], ect... All I have to show that the list has ANY abilities that are better than a feat to show that 'it's better than a feat' isn't a reason to read the ability in question differently because of 'power'.

Gallant Armor wrote:

There are also options on the list worth 1/2 a feat such as the +1 to saves. +2 to attack is at the higher end of the list.

Again, it's NOT a +2 hit or proficiency feats are worth 4 feats... And we're only looking at how good the options can be so lower power one's don't meaningful add to the debate: it' only how strong can they be and +2 to your main stat seems better than the strongest reading for oversized limbs.

Gallant Armor wrote:

Also, where do you see +2 hp/level? The charts I see say "You receive +1 bonus hit point per level."

Typing error: it's meant to be 1/level. While it's equivalent to toughness, it's more impressive then the feat since it stack with both the feat AND FCB for +3/level, which can be a boon for kineticists.

Gallant Armor wrote:

I didn't realize they changed that, it's an amazing deal in that case.

It was a requirement in Pathfinder 25: The Bastards of Erebus but rebalanced in Blood of Fiends to a non-feat option: though if your DM makes you roll, the extra 2 chances on the chart can be quite valuable.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I'm personally of the opinion that this does not work.

I'm on the fence. As old as it is and being from Pathfinder 25, an AP, I can imagine that the wording is super precise compared to...

The point is that if you look at the list, there are almost useless options such as "The first time each day you take slashing damage, you gain a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls for the following round." and powerful options that you listed. Many are about equivalent to a feat (fleet, toughness) some are worth less that a feat (save and skill bonuses) and a few might be worth more. An effective +2 to hit is at the higher end of the range of the options. Just because it isn't the most powerful doesn't mean that it needs to be boosted beyond it's wording.

The list contains things that are generally available to characters with feats and equipment, wielding an oversized two-handed weapon is not on the same scale. Look at the Titan Fighter archetype, it trades a feat and all of armor training to get at level 15 what you are saying a tiefling gets for almost nothing at level 1.

I'm on the side of the rules say what you can do, not what you can't do. Oversized Limbs negates the penalty for wielding a large weapon as a medium creature, but it doesn't allow you to wield a large greatsword (or other two-handed weapon) as it doesn't say it gives you that ability. There is nothing in the description that overrides the general rule on weapon size category increases.

However, bows don't have a light, one-handed or two-handed size category, only the line "You need two hands to use a bow, regardless of its size." This can be taken to mean that it is possible to wield any size bow by taking the appropriate penalty, or that it is impossible to wield a bow not made for your size, as there are no rules saying how the size increases would work and that the "size" the quote is referring to are shortbows and longbows, not medium/large weapons.

If we were to estimate the size category of a longbow, it would likely be considered a two-handed weapon as it's height is about equal to a medium creature (6-feet) and a hornbow is "Larger even than a longbow".

Taking everything into account, I'd say it shouldn't work, as there aren't rules listed on how to treat bows for size increases. Also, there are entire archetypes built around this concept, it shouldn't be available with a feat.

If the animal has the template naturally (through selective breeding for example) then it should be able to benefit from magical size changes, it is only when the template is applied by magical means that they wouldn't stack.

I like the rules for builds that don't work out as planned, but I dislike the practice of designing a build with the plan to retrain later.

1d6=1d8-1

A d6 has an average value of 3.5, a d8 has an average value of 4.5.

Since 1d6=1d8-1, 2d6=2d8-2, etc. there technically would be no statistical difference.

Since this is a damage roll however, a value of 0 would be equal to 1 point of non lethal damage making the xd8-x the better choice.

There is also a greater max value which can be preferable when trying to overcome DR/hardness.

To craft a custom item combining two or more slotted items, pay full price for the most expensive, 1.5x price for the rest.

Gallant Armor

The fact of the matter is that the way your group plays negates the disparity, or at least lessen's its effects.

You have made it clear that your party would rather fight your way through the horde of enemies than find an alternate path that avoids the combat.
This basically means that your players do not care overly much for narrative agency. They want to fight stuff and kill it.

Other people however value narrative agency over combat ability, but would still like to play a non magical character.
They want to be able to do things that give them the same options that a caster has.

If I am not an arcane caster and my foe teleports away, I am screwed. There is no way for me to chase them.
I want my fighter who can swing a sword better than any man alive to sunder the fabric of reality and tear a whole through which I can follow my foe.

My group has used magic to completely negate an encounter (or possibly a series of encounters). We used a series of scrolls, hexes and prepared spells to rescue someone without interacting with the guards at all. All of the players contributed to the plan, put only one character actually did anything in game. It was fun, but if we did that often that would mean sidelining characters a good portion of the time which is something we try not to do.

I'm not sure where narrative agency comes in. Most campaigns involve some task and enemies being put in the way of the party who prevent the completion of that task. Getting rid of that threat makes the most sense logically. If a party wants to use disguise, stealth, bluff, diplomacy and/or magic to get around encounters that is their prerogative, but if those are to be primary tactics there would be no reason to play a martial focused character as they would have nothing to contribute much of the time.

It sounds like you want to be a 3/4 BAB caster, not a full martial class. All classes exist on a spectrum of reliable to flexible. The more reliable classes can do what they do nearly endlessly, but are more limited in what they can do. The more flexible classes can do more things, but are limited in how often they can do them. This is the balance point.

There are many classes that are very much in the middle; magus, alchemist, inquisitor, summoner, warpriest, shaman to name a few. These classes have per day resources to do many amazing things, and are still viable when not using those resources.

As I mentioned in another thread, wizards are generally seen as overpowered because GMs treat them with kid gloves.

There are a myriad of ways to foil a caster if they are dominating encounters:

*Have a longer adventuring day forcing them to ration resources (this can be accomplished with a ticking clock, or situations where rest isn't easy.)
*Force concentration checks with grappling/readied attacks (vital strike is of great use here).
*Mindwipe, spellcrash, night terrors and similar effects.
*Include enemies with good saves/SR
*Provide a variety of challenges that can't easily be predicted.
*Encounters that have an answer for commonly used tactics (true seeing, energy immunity, teleportation blocking, protection from scrying, etc).
*Have logical in-game repercussions for using certain tactics (enemies that the party teleports past attack en masse, kill a beloved NPC, or otherwise disrupt the game)

INB4 "That's unfair"; if a wizard is grossly more powerful than any other party member, they should be focused on as the greatest threat. Ignoring these options would be like sending enemies at the party with 10 AC.

I am not saying that all of these options should be used by all GMs all the time. I am saying that if the wizard is as powerful as some people seem to think they are, these are tactics that you can use to bring balance to the game.

I would strongly oppose the mindset of teleport=XP for all encounters you skip. You could level from 1 to 20 with a scroll with that logic.

Gallant Armor wrote:

My least favorite thing out of game is players who don't understand parallel action out of combat.

For example, the party goes to town and the cleric goes to pray and seek information on the [insert plot device], the rogue tries to find someone they can pickpocket, the bard goes to the tavern looking for ale and romance and the fighter finds someone to train with.

When the GM asks the paladin what they wand to do, they go with the cleric to pray and gather information, try to stop the rogue from pickpocketing, protects the virtue of the women of the bar and lectures to bard about overindulging, trains with the fighter and also patrols the city looking for anyone else in need of their assistance.

They should only be able to do 1 or 2 of these at most, but they manage to weasel in to each action and steal the spotlight from other players (whether meaning to or not).

We used to have a player like that. The thing to do, if you're GM, is to ask the "weasel" what he wants to do first. Then when he tries to jump into someone else's scene you can remind him that he's not present.

If the GM is on the spot that would be great, too often I feel GMs don't want to hinder RP by policing stuff like that. I can understand the notion as it can feel petty to bring it up as a player.

Porcupine Defense gives +2 to CMD

Fergie, PossibleCabbage, Firewarrior44, Omnius I will answer you here as there will be quite a lot of overlap.

First and foremost, I didn't say that wizards aren't overpowered; in general they are better than martials if they are allowed to stay at full power or near full power for most encounters in an adventuring day.

I am also not saying that you should use the tactics I outlined all the time as it would be tiresome and adversarial as Omnius said.

But it is certainly possible to set up a campaign or a section of a campaign where the wizard doesn't outshine martials consistantly.

1. Make a ticking clock (Task has to be completed in x number of days, making them push each day)
2. Make a dungeon that doesn't easily allow for rest in or near it
2. Give them consumable healing
3. Provide a variety of challenges that can't easily be predicted
4. Build encounters that will challenge a full caster (as stated above: good saves, SR, etc.)

This will mean that for some situations the wizard may not have a spell available or will not wish to expend the spell slot and/or they will leave more spell slots open to increase flexibility meaning they will have less spells prepared at any given time.

I am not saying that Wizards aren't OP, but a GM can find ways of making it less apparent and letting other players shine more often.

Fergie - as to your note on sleeping and spell preparation, I was referring specifically to effects that prevent a full night's sleep and thus preparing spells.

My least favorite thing out of game is players who don't understand parallel action out of combat.

For example, the party goes to town and the cleric goes to pray and seek information on the [insert plot device], the rogue tries to find someone they can pickpocket, the bard goes to the tavern looking for ale and romance and the fighter finds someone to train with.

When the GM asks the paladin what they wand to do, they go with the cleric to pray and gather information, try to stop the rogue from pickpocketing, protects the virtue of the women of the bar and lectures to bard about overindulging, trains with the fighter and also patrols the city looking for anyone else in need of their assistance.

They should only be able to do 1 or 2 of these at most, but they manage to weasel in to each action and steal the spotlight from other players (whether meaning to or not).

The familiar has to be threatening your opponent to aid another on attacks/AC. For tiny and diminutive familiars this would mean entering the enemy's space and provoking an attack of opportunity.

Protector familiars of any size can aid another on AC without entering your enemy's space. Small sized familiars and mauler familiars in battle form can aid another for AC or attacks.

Uh, what happens to the other thread on this topic?

The main issue with Gallant's interpretation is whether or not true strike applies to both attack roll and confirmation or only attack roll (there is no time to cast the spell in between the two). I believe it would be both, but it may depend on interpretation of the GM.

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.

All of the modifiers and bonuses of the original attack roll apply to the confirmation roll as well.

Yes. You can use a Cyclops Helm to choose to make your attack roll a 20. You could then roll to confirm with a +20 to your attack roll (assuming True Strike is active).

The Cyclops Helm has True Strike as a prerequisite spell, but the item effect is completely different from the spell effect so they can be used together.

Character just died again in Reign of Winter, having a spot of some really bad rolls and failed saves.

Party is currently at level 8, and I wondering at this point (and with this campaign if anyone has any insight) how well can tripping work? I was thinking of using Lore Warden with a Fauchard (DM has ruled trip weapons give a +2 to the attempt instead of being able to drop the weapon instead of being knocked prone).

The barbarian in the group has taken Outflank due to the previous character, so overall I can get a large bonus to CMB. (I think flanking helps with CMB, I could be wrong). The main problem comes in the CR we are seeing and the possibility of things just not being trip-able due to super high CMD and lots of spell casters that may just be flying.

Maelstrom Shield helps a lot by making tripping a free action add-on to an attack instead of replacing an attack. You can use it with TWF or as a primary weapon.

I am working on a Shield Champion Brawler and with Relentless Shot you can trip at range and still threaten for AOOs. There is a lot of fun to be had with this build.

Nope.

"Protection From Evil: Does this work against all charm and compulsion effects? Or just against charm and compulsion effects where the caster is able to exercise control over the target, such as charm person, command, and dominate person (and thus not effects like sleep or confusion, as the caster does not have ongoing influence or puppet-like control of the target)?

The latter interpretation is correct: protection from evil only works on charm and compulsion effects where the caster is able to exercise control over the target, such as command, charm person, and dominate person; it doesn't work on sleep or confusion. (Sleep is a border case for this issue, but the designers feel that "this spell overrides your brain's sleep centers" is different enough than "this spell overrides your resistance to commands from others.")"

That's a shame. Emergency Force Sphere would be a good option in that case.

Given that Power Word Kill is an enchantment [compulsion] spell, protection from evil (or other alignment as appropriate) would block it. Clear Spindle ioun stone in a wayfinder gives you this effect constantly.

Have you played Borderlands?

I had this discussion with a GM once with the argument that surely making use of the dead was akin to recycling and therefore a good thing.

Personally, I love the rush of barely scraping through an encounter. If a character dies, that's a bummer. If a character almost dies that can get everyone on edge now that there are stakes.

It depends on the group and your style how you want to run it.

Armor Ointment

Effortless Armor

Armor expert or armor master traits

Alchemists can be almost impossible to kill if you build them right:
Spontaneous Healing, Healing Touch and Lingering Spirit discoveries can help you survive.

A Protector tumor familiar will have fast healing 5 when attached and provide you an HP battery. If you have them take the extra item slot (hands) familiar feat they can use poisoners gloves to deliver infusions. You could have each glove filled with combined healing extracts for a nice HP boost when needed and have extra pairs of gloves to swap out between combats.

Corset of Delicate Moves lets you take an extra swift in place of a move 1/day.

So like asked before what about Shocking Image? I mean seriously is it well 2d6 might drop you so yep it pops an image but nah you have 180 hp nothing happens to the image?

Your making it way more than it actually is nothing about a Nat. 1 suggest its some sort of cosmic botch. It's there so that there is a chance of failure for attacks and skills regardless of actual bonuses not to be Schrodinger's dice roll where we have to check what the outcome of both sides of the roll would be vs all situations to figure out what the worse thing would be. It's real simply it missed it can still pop an image it can still trigger upsetting strike it can force a fort save vs jarring armor it can end your crane wing bonus all depending on modifiers what can it not do "hit".

Shocking image is the only case I've seen where there is a mix of positive and negative that could cause issues. There are issues with your method as well:

If your attack is successful, your target drops one item it is carrying of your choice (even if the item is wielded with two hands). If your attack exceeds the CMD of the target by 10 or more, the target drops the items it is carrying in both hands (maximum two items if the target has more than two hands).

For disarming, if you roll a nat 1 you fail, but if you exceed their CMD by 10 they drop things from both hands?

What's funny I would be willing to put money down that if the first question asked had been about Jarring armor and not mirror image the question would have been an overwhelming yes you have to make the save vs sickened. But since the original question was a benefit to the attacker people started coming up with weird logic to make it work the way they wanted.

The argument worded consistently is along the lines of: when an attacker rolls a natural one it is treated as a miss or roll + total attack bonus, whichever is worse for every effect. When an attacker rolls a natural 20 it is considered a hit or roll + total attack bonus, whichever is better for every effect.

Would you feel threatened by a chicken with a pointed stick?

You obviously have never played Ocarina of Time. Once you trigger initiative they are very threatening.

I want a rules citation that says Natural 1's can't ever benefit an attacker.

The only thing the rules say is that a Natural 1 is an automatic miss.

That's it.

To prescribe anything else besides that is speculation and/or houseruling.

As I said it is my interpretation, not an assertion of facts. I would consider the general rule of a natural 1 missing (even missing an image) to always apply unless specifically indicated otherwise. You consider misses to hit mirrors on a natural 1 unless specifically indicated otherwise.

Either is a reasonable interpretation, so it would be GM rule until there is an official ruling on the matter.

If they are not mechanical items, you could just say "you found a cache of various bits of art or small figurines or jewels worth a total of X GP" with a single appraise check if you want to have one at all.

Gallant Armor wrote:

If the information is important for them to have in the moment (like an item they need to use to do a thing) then they should roll. If it's just loot, as long as someone can take 20 and know what it is there is no reason not to just give them the list of items.

I don't believe you can take 20 on Appraise, since you get inaccurate results on sufficiently bad rolls.

However, you can certainly take 10 if you're not evaluating loot in the heat of combat for some reason. Can they hit the necessary DC 20 that way?

Not knowing the true value isn't a penalty as long as you eventually find the true value, but technically you are right given that you can't retry. I would still allow it unless you really wanted to RP having to research the value of an item.

If they know what is than they know the value. At least that's how my group plays it.

If the information is important for them to have in the moment (like an item they need to use to do a thing) then they should roll. If it's just loot, as long as someone can take 20 and know what it is there is no reason not to just give them the list of items.

"You can cast this spell only if it is the first action you take on your turn... Until the beginning of your next turn, you can take only the 5-foot step, move, run, or withdraw actions."

Why would you think you could?

Bladed dash would be a better option.

You can do it with feats but not class features.

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