IsawaBrian's page

I'm working on learning the system and trying to judge difficulty. Mostly, I'm starting to get the hang of it but I'm not 100% sure about some things. The current issue I have is the Drow Rogue ranged attack:

Ranged [one-action] hand crossbow +10 (range increment 60 feet, reload 1), Damage 1d6 piercing plus lethargy poison

In the items list, they have the following:

Items hand crossbow (10 bolts), lethargy poison (2; Pathfinder Core Rulebook 552),

Does this mean that every bolt is poisoned, and the lethargy poison doses are just for the shortsword? The bolts aren't listed as being poison bolts, though; does the rogue have to poison each of the bolts in turn?

The former seems to be RAW, unless I've misunderstood the rules-- which is why I'm here.

Flipping it the other way around, if I was making a Drow Rogue PC from scratch, unless they have a feat I'm missing, I don't think they could do that-- at least, I can't find a poison bolt like in 1e, where they were 25g per bolt, or 3.5, where drow poison bolts were 100g per bolt.

I guess the question comes down to-- is this a case of a specific rule overriding the general mechanics for poisoning a bolt, and hence presuming that they have poison bolts that they use freely; have I missed a feat or mechanic somewhere; or do they only get the two shots and/or have to coat them, too?

What does Skeleton Summoner do to the effects of the Summon Monster spells in terms of descriptor-- and hence alignment of the spell? Summon Monster says the following:

"When you use a summoning spell to summon a creature with an alignment or elemental subtype, it is a spell of that type."

Well and good. Not going to have evil wizards summoning hound archons or good conjurors summoning succubi without deliberately exposing their magical selves and possibly their very souls to the raw planar energies of good or evil aligned outer planes. This has always made sense to me, contrary to some internet arguments; if the outer planes are moral and ethical soulstuff/personality magnetism poles, using that sort of energy is going to have a consequence, even if you use, say, Protection from Law to fend off an Inevitable while still being LN and on a contract.

But the feat Skeleton Summoner says:
"Benefit: Add “human skeleton” to the list of creatures you can summon with summon monster I and “human skeletal champion” to the list of creatures you can summon with summon monster III. Once per day, when you cast summon monster, you may summon a skeletal version of one of the creatures on that spell’s summoning list (apply the skeleton template to that creature to create this monster)."

Under the skeleton template, it says that you give them the Undead type, and the Undead type says it replaces all alignment subtypes.

If I'm reading it right, that means that a character with Skeleton Summoner can use Summon Monster to summon the undead without it being an inherently evil act by spell type. Is that right?

My reasoning is: no matter what I apply that template to, or whether it's the original context of human skeletons or human skeletal champions, that summoned entity isn't going to have the alignment subtype of the original-- whether that's a celestial or fiendish creature, or potentially, even weirder, something like, well, a succubus or a hound archon. It's going to have the undead subtype, which does not make the spell (evil) or (good) or whatever.

This doesn't cover whether or not the use of Summon Monster in this way is an evil act for other reasons, of course. I'm not sure where these particular skeletons are coming from; the description of the feat just says they "answer your call." That makes it a bit harder to adjudicate. Obviously, summoning them to go stomp on the Champions of Light or a bunch of fleeing foolish fools who told you you were mad at the PTA meeting that went really bad, sure, that's an evil act.

But if a neutral or even good spellcaster obtained this feat and used it towards good ends in the sense of fighting evil, then... not so sure.

I'm not sure how worth it would be, but looking through various banners and flags, I was wondering a few questions about the Banner of the Scarlet Rose and the Banner of Ancient Kings:

First, can they be wielded together? The Banner of the Scarlet Rose:
https://www.aonprd.com/MagicWondrousDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Banner%20of%20th e%20Scarlet%20Rose

"This flag bears an image of a red rose on a silvery field. Made for the Scarlet Rose’s standard-bearers, these flags offer protection to the wielder and inspiration to her allies. To grant any benefit, a banner of the Scarlet Rose must be held firmly in one hand by a woman."

Banner of Ancient Kings:
https://aonprd.com/MagicWondrousDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Banner%20of%20the%20 Ancient%20Kings

"This tattered white canvas banner looks like an old piece of sailcloth, or perhaps a winding shroud—a 4-foot-by-6-foot rectangle with loops that can fit over a spear haft or pole running up one side. If mounted on a longspear or pole at least 8 feet in length, the banner shifts in appearance to match the heraldry or coat of arms of the person who attached it."

"As long as the longspear or pole to which the banner is attached is firmly wielded in two hands..."

Flying multiple flags together-- especially since the latter would shift to fit the heraldry that is appropriate to the wielder, and therefore functionally complementary to the former-- on a single staff is, of course, a long-standing tradition. Which flag goes above which depends on many things like seniority, etc., so it seems like at the very least, the Banner of Ancient Kings could be attached to the pole upon which the Banner of the Scarlet Rose is flying, as long as it's 8' long.

The only exception I can think of is the two hands / one hand thing, but being firmly held in two hands doesn't make it not firmly held in one of them. Is this valid, or does this violate some reductive rules principles?

Which brings me to question two. What is the Banner of the Scarlet Rose, specifically, and if it's just the banner, are there rules on what it can be attached to?

The description of the Banner of the Scarlet Rose is just concerned with the banner proper. The picture by it in my copy of the Adventure Guide shows it with a spear-like spar off the finial, or well really, just below what looks like a crudely cut-off pole or even a quarterstaff. But the description does say that the _banner_ has to be held.

I think by the pic, it's clear that it doesn't mean that the BotSR isn't just waved around in the character's hand around the border. But since the text doesn't describe, could it be flown off a longspear, too?

Which leads to the last question. I'm pretty sure I'm on solid ground here, but much like an amulet of natural armor, actual natural armor, and a suit of enchanted plate would stack all four types of AC, the sentence "This benefit does not apply to spells that grant competence bonuses, nor does it stack with other item effects that increase competence bonuses," does not seem, to me, to conflict with the Banner of Ancient Kings' "A bard who carries a longspear or pole to which a banner of the ancient kings has been attached is treated as four levels higher than his actual bard level for the purposes of determining the bonuses granted by his inspire courage bardic performance ability."

Am I right on that? Even if you can't wield both on the same pole, if you've got a woman from that four-armed species in the interplanetary book, presumably you could have her wielding both. Presumably then, since the Ancient Kings bumps her level by 4 and the Scarlet Rose is concerned with the competence bonus itself, they would stack.

I'm aware that it's 36,000 gp and may leave you only capable of combat with Improved Unarmed Strike, but it _would_ still leave our bard capable of casting via free action switching between holding a pole in one hand or two without losing the shield bonus, but I'm honestly more struck by the visual of the Scarlet Rose banner below a longspear's point, followed by some complimentary heraldry-- perhaps the facial scar pattern of the woman bearing it with some runic extrapolation?

I'm working on an NPC fighter-- not a cohort, but the players have cultivated her to the extent that she follows them when it makes sense IC-- that's allied to my PCs. It's a mythic game, and I've upped defenses to suit, so I'm trying to optimize to make her relevant (mostly in terms of hitty, but I'm working on some maneuvers too). She's nonmythic.

As a result, and since I'm the GM and don't care about being cheesy too much, I'm poking at weapon design to specifically enhance her usefulness. They haven't seen her for 5 levels, so she's had time to retrain and so forth, but the basic character was a Str 22 two-handed fighter. I'm not sure if I'm getting this right, because the results seem out of proportion to pre-existing weapons.

Martial Weapon. Starts at 5 DP, M, 1d3, x2, B (I think this is the most likely to be useful-- dealing with demonic and magic-made creatures mostly), Price 5gp

Fighter Weapon Group: Polearms

Hands: 2 (+3 DP, net 8)

Wt: TBD

Qualities:
Additional Design Points x3 (+45 gp price, +3 DP; net 50 gp, 11 DP)
Improved Critical Range 1 (-3 DP, +1 threat range, net 8 DP, 19-20/x2 crit)
Improved Critical Multiplier 1 (-6 DP, +1 multiplier; net 2 DP, 19-20/x3 crit)
Weapon Feature: Reach (-1 DP, net DP 1)
At this point, I could: (1) go Exotic and add another feature-- probably Brace or Trip, though I'm dubious that's worth a feat-- (2) stay Martial and go to 1d4 damage, (3) go Exotic and jump to 2d4 damage (again, not sure that's worth the feat)

As I'm expecting her to be 15th level and having Improved Critical, Power Attack, and Str 28 (including MI), it seems to me that additional damage is worth the most, rather than core damage dice. I'm also presuming every crit confirms for simplicity, but even with the enhanced levels, I doubt she's going to miss much even when power attacking. With ImpCrit and x3, range moves to 17-20/x3, which means that 20% of hits will do triple damage. As opposed to 18-20/x2 becoming 15-20/x2- 30% of hits doing double damage-- 28/20 > 26/20.

So, 20% of the time, she's getting x3 backswing-- not sure if that means 9*6=54, 9*5=45, 9*1.5~13*6=78, or 13*5=65 extra damage, but either way she swings it, that's substantially more than even a greatsword's max-- 36-- crit one time out of twenty. The power attack would be either 54 or 45 again, depending on whether multipliers are additive or multiplicative. I've been doing the former but I'm starting to wonder. Then there's weapon enhancements, buffs, etc.

Am I seeing this wrong? Is there any reason to care at all about the base damage die for a high level fighter who can expect to either overwhelm or bypass DR?