Jo Bird's page

Herein is my understanding of how the magic item creation system works. I know a lot of you folks don't believe the system works this way, but so far this is what I've taken from the text.

I've done quite a few searches on this issue. I've found precious little in the RAW to compel me to believe otherwise. This is not to say that it doesn't exist, only that I have not found it.

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"MAGIC ITEM CREATION:

***These prerequisites*** must be met for the item to be created. Most of the time, they take the form of spells that must be known by the item's creator (although access through another magic item or spellcaster is allowed). The DC to create a magic item increases by 5 for each prerequisite the caster does not meet. The only exception to this is the requisite item creation feat, which is mandatory. In addition, you cannot create potions, spell-trigger, or spell-completion items without meeting its prerequisites."

The context of this paragraph tells us what prerequisites may be ignored by adding 5 to the DC of the creation. Specifically, it is talking about the prerequisites in the construction area of the item's description.

1. All items have prerequisites.
2. Those prerequisites (the ones in the item's description) must be met.
3. If they're not met (the prerequisites in the item's description) then the DC is increased by 5 for each not met.

Sean K. Reynolds wrote:
"Caster level is only a prerequisite for creating the item IF the caster level is LISTED in the Requirements section of the item (for an example, see amulet of mighty fists)."

1. This tells us that the caster level is only one of those prerequisites IF it is listed in the requirement section of the item (meaning in the construction area).

The Magic Item Creation text continues in a new paragraph.

"While item creation costs are handled in detail below, note that normally the two primary factors are the caster level of the creator and the level of the spell or spells put into the item. A creator can create an item at a lower caster level than her own, but never lower than the minimum level needed to cast the needed spell. Using metamagic feats, a caster can place spells in items at a higher level than normal."

I see zero provision for ignoring this if the minimum caster level is not included in the construction area of the item. As Sean K. Reynolds wrote, it is not a prerequisite of the item when it is not listed in the construction area. Instead, it is a fact of creation per the base rules -- the minimum caster level can never be lower than the minimum level needed to cast the needed spell. Granted, you don't have to have the spell, but you have to be high enough level to cast it.

Since the minimum caster level needed is not a prerequisite it can not be avoided with a +5 to the DC.

I am aware of no method that allows the caster to set the caster level at a higher level than their own. So, I am aware of no method that allows a caster to create an item with a minimum caster level (due to the level of the spell the item creation is based around) higher than their current level.

Of course, this is not an issue if the minimum caster level is listed in the prerequisite section of the item . . . it is then easily avoided by adding +5 to the DC of the creation.

Of course, if there is a rule that allows the caster to set a caster level higher than their own then this concern is alleviated. In that case the caster could meet the minimum caster level of the item without actually meeting the minimum caster level of the item.

I am not saying that the magic item creation rules definitely work this way. There could easily be a quote somewhere in opposition to what I'm saying. However, I haven't seen any compelling evidence otherwise. The closest I've seen is people cherry picking the bit about avoiding prerequisites out of context, and assuming that prerequisites mean more than what is listed in the item's construction area.

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Regarding magic weapons and armor: this issue is heavily debated, and there is no general consensus. I would say that a large percentage of the gaming community feels that this issue is, at best, ambiguous. What's more, the staff at Paizo has failed to respond to this oft asked question for at least a couple of years now. At least it seems so from what my searches have garnered.

Consider this: the DC needed to make a +1 sword would be the same as making a +5 sword.

DC = 5 or 10 (depending on whether you take the value listed on page 548 or 112) + 1 (caster level of the item; since you can lower the CL to the minimum spell level needed you dump it to one) + 5 (for not meeting the "special" prereq) = 11 or 16

A level one wizard, with enough money, can craft either of these swords by taking ten, regardless of the 5 or 10 plug needed to build the DC.

That's ridiculous, it doesn't even sound right.

What makes a lot more sense is that the weapon's special prerequisite is reflected as the minimum caster level needed to construct the item. That makes the DC's different at least. And, assuming a caster can't elevate the CL of an item past their own level, it forces the caster to wait until a reasonably appropriate time in his or her career to begin trying to work on more and more complicated items.

Question 1: Does Crane Wing work against trip attacks? Disarm attacks? Grapple attacks? Any other maneuver attacks?

One of my players has taken this ability, and I want to make sure I adjudicate it fairly. My player believes that Crane Wing should be effective against any attack, allowing him to deflect folks relying upon their CMB.

I believe that it only works against attacks that use a melee weapon as part of the attack, meaning I'm not sure if it would work against unarmed trips, or unarmed disarms.

Question 2: Speaking of, do unarmed attacks from Monks count as "weapons" because of their training? (I don't think so, but it was brought up by my player so I want to try to cover it.)

Question 3: And finally, if you use a weapon to try to disarm (or sunder) your opponent's weapon, would that count for the deflection purposes of Crane Wing?

Player X crafts magic items at 1/2 cost. Those items are then sold to Player Y at 3/4 cost.

Player Y has the benefit of not paying full cost.

Player X makes a tidy profit with every sale.

Obviously, this has the potential to put Player X well above the correct wealth by level amounts. This is happening in an adventure path where time is not an issue, so plenty of crafting can occur.

Do you guys have experience with this? Does this create a problem? If so, any ideas on how to handle this problem? I'm trying to address problems before they occur in the game, and I'm concerned that this might tip the scales of balance.

As it stands, I'm reluctant to just say, "no, you can't do this" because there doesn't seem to be legitimate grounds to say they can't wheel and deal between themselves.

Hello. My name is Jo. I'm a pretty average fellow. I have a strength of 8. Hey, don't judge. We're not all built to lop off the heads of a hydra, you know.

One day my demanding wife asks me to go out and cut down a tree. I grab my trusty hand ax and walk out to the field. I run my thumb across the edge of the ax. Boy, it sure is sharp. Taking my time, I line up my swing. The ax hits the tree dead on.

Hmmm. Not a scratch. Let me try that again.

Oh no. What gives?

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Forgive me if what I'm saying here is persnickety, but for some reason I'm bothered by it.

My hand ax does 1d6 - 1.

The tree I'm trying to cut down is (for argument's sake) about 10 inches thick. That means it has about 100 hit points. Since it's wood it has a hardness of 5.

Clearly, I can not do enough damage to overcome the hardness of the tree. I can not cut it down. I can not chop firewood.

My family freezes that winter.

(I suppose I can work in the probability of factoring in critical hits, but I'm pretty sure that it's going to take way too long to hack through the tree even so.)

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Or perhaps I'm a halfling, and I use a small sized hand ax. This creates the same problem.

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So. My question is: am I missing something obvious here in the RAW? Can a guy with a strength of 8 actually chop wood? For instance, is there some rule that allows automatic criticals against items?

I've never really been clear on this.

Does a cleric need a free hand to cast spells? The rules seem to say that they do (most spells have a somatic element), but I feel like I've seen an awful lot of clerics carrying maces and shields while casting spells.

In addition, do material components and divine focuses have to be manipulated by hand to be used? Can a cleric just have their holy symbol hanging on necklace, for instance? If so, can a wizard just have his or her material component in a pouch? I haven't found a place in the rules (yet) that tells me they have to manipulate their item.

If they do have to physically touch their material components or divine focuses does that count as being doable with the same free hand they need for somatic components?

If a spell does not have a somatic component, but does have a material component or divine focus does the caster still need a free hand?

Hey folks,

A cleric with the Madness Domain gets Aura of Madness at eighth level. How does that work in relation to actions?

You get it a number of rounds per day equal to your cleric level. Got it.

Is it a move action to activate the aura? Is it a standard action? Is it a no action? I just don't know, and it doesn't seem to say.

In addition, if it is a move action or standard action does that mean it is a move or standard action every round it's up, or just for the initial round, assuming it's maintained for few rounds.

If it requires a new action every round (or even if it doesn't) does it allow for a saving throw each round, or only the first round in which it is activated?

So, three questions really:

1. What type of action is activating an Aura of Madness?
2. Does it require an action every round to maintain it, assuming it takes an action in the first place to activate it?
3. Does Aura of Madness allow a saving throw every round it is active, or just the first round it is initiated?

How does this work?

It says that the person in the Sanctuary can not attack without breaking the spell. It isn't clear on what attack means. Normally, I would rule this to include anything that could negatively impact someone else.

But the question has come up.

1. Can you cast Summon Monster from a Sanctuary (without breaking the spell)?
2. Can you cast a Grease spell from a Sanctuary (without breaking the spell)?

Those are the only real examples I'm thinking of at the moment, but they should do well to illustrate the point of my question.

Is there any way to do this?

It seemed so promising. My early build, that is. 1 level of Barbarian followed by 1 level of Oracle. The flavor was great, and it worked perfect in combat dealing strong damage, and with a high bonus to hit.

But, then...

The damage didn't exactly scale up. The high bonuses to hit became mediocre. The spellcasting lingered at low levels.

Here are the basic problems as I see them.

1. The spellcasting falls behind. The Oracle is already behind a level in spellcasting. Multi-classing the Oracle makes that slow progression even more miserable.

2. The BaB falls behind. Again, due to multi-classing, I'm not sure that the BaB remains competitive with CR challenges on the field. This is especially true if the character has more levels in Oracle than Barbarian, obviously.

3. There's no chance to take some of the higher level rage powers, or revelations. After all, the Rage Prophet only escalates the abilities of rage powers and revelations that you qualify for based on your actual Oracle and Barbarian levels.

4. Obviously, multi-classing into three classes seriously hampers your ability to gain a favored class bonus. This isn't the end of the world, but when added to the troubles from above it hurts.

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Like I say, I absolutely love the idea of making the Rage Prophet work. But I'm having a lot of trouble making it work well.

Can someone here please help? Am I missing something? Is there a way to build a Rage Prophet that doesn't inherently suck?

Hey folks,

The Oracle revelations tend to say things like, "You must be at least 11th level to select this revelation." It doesn't say that you must be 11th level as an Oracle, just that you must be 11th level.

There are several revelations that say things like this.

Additionally, the revelations scale up in power with future levels, but it doesn't seem to stipulate that the extra levels need to be held in the Oracle class.

So, to simplify, my questions:

1. Can a player take ten levels of fighter, and then one level of Oracle, and select the mystery of Bones, and the revelation of Iron Skin?

2. Can a player take one level of Oracle (mystery of Bones), get the revelation Weapon Mastery, and then take seven levels of fighter and get the 8th level benefit of Weapon Mastery?

So how does an Oracle with the Bones mystery (Raise the Dead) summon a skeleton?

Does an Oracle need a target body? This makes the ability more circumstantial, but it makes the skeleton build easier to know how to do. However, it is not really summoning; it is more animating to do it this way.

Does an Oracle just summon a skeleton in the same manner a caster summons, for example, a wolf? If so, how is the skeleton summoned built? The ability says that the skeleton has two hit dice, but it doesn't elaborate on the issue of size, or stats, or natural attacks of the original form. I'm somewhat confused as to how to rule it.

Hey folks,

One of my players took the Sword Scion trait. He's potentially trying to master the art of the blade, and I was excited about the idea of a tournament where he could test his skills against others, and maybe gain some acclaim if he wins.

But the tournament only has archery, log chopping, boasting, and (drunken) jousting. I was disappointed to not see any blunted sword competitions. Then I started thinking, "hmmm, I bet those guys frequenting paizo.com come up with new stuff like this all the time!"

So, I'm hoping.

Does anyone have some good ideas for a melee competition of any sort? Preferably with swords, but anything would do. And hopefully something that can give points to the first place, and second place winners, so the event can fit into whole of the competition.

Hey folks.

I'm running Kingmaker, just started it as a matter of fact. So far we are having a blast. We're only one game session in, but some pretty exciting things have happened.

One of my players is playing a Paladin of Erastil. The God was chosen based on the recommendation of the Player's Guide. It also happens that this Player has the highest Charisma in the party, and the group has pretty much already decided that he'll be taking the spot of King.

But then we started thinking . . . man, doesn't it seem weird that a Paladin of Erastil would want to grow a city? Doesn't Erastil despise the stench of cities? I know Erastil is not fond of Abadar, for instance.

Has anyone else come across this problem? I feel like the doctrine of Erastil may be hard to maintain in the face of a growing Kingdom. Followers of Erastil are supposed to preserve the integrity of rural communities . . . not necessarily spend tons of BP's trying to build up one urban center after another.

Erastil is obviously being pushed pretty hard in this adventure path, but I can't help but wonder if he's the best thematic choice for the overall adventure.

What do you guys think? Am I the only one with this problem? Am I mistaken about the doctrine of Erastil?

How does the Scorpion Whip work? Seriously.

Here's how it reads now:

To me, that means that it works like this:

1. You need the Exotic Weapon Proficiency Scorpion Whip to use it.
2. It gets a ten foot reach, just like standard reach weapons.
3. It does not have the ability to attack squares 5 feet away, just like standard reach weapons.

Now, there is an exception to the rules above:

1. *IF* you have the Exotic Weapon Proficiency Whip instead of the Exotic Weapon Proficiency Scorpion Whip then you may use the weapon as a Whip.
2. It then has a 15 foot reach, and can attack squares 5 feet away.
3. It then deals non-lethal damage.

The above is how I believe it should work, not only from the wording of the weapon, but also from my sense of how the weapons balance properly with one another.

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However, apparently the Scorpion Whip reads differently in Legacy of Fire, and in the Adventure's Armory.

Here is the reading I'm told it had in Legacy of Fire:

Here is the reading I'm told it had in the Adventure's Armory:

Both of those readings imply that the Scorpion Whip is pretty much just the Whip, only better.

What gives? Does anyone know why all the wording was changed? Was it on purpose? Has the Scorpion Whip been 'nerfed'? Is the Scorpion Whip supposed to just outclass the regular Whip, and the new wording confuses that?

One of my players wants a small keep/castle.

How much would that cost to build?

How long do you think that would take to build? I'm thinking a couple of years should suffice considering the keep in question is relatively small; nothing fancy.

There is a magus character in a game I am running. The question of holding charges on a touch attack inevitably came up. Thus far, my ruling has been that spellstrike does not allow for the charges of the spell to be held.

I will list my reasoning below, but I'm prepared to reverse my ruling if someone can point to some official errata stipulating otherwise. I'll also happily accept an unofficial quote from a developer that states that held charges remain.

As I see it:

Spellstrike allows the magus to change the way a touch attack spell is normally cast by allowing a melee attack to be performed "as part of" the casting of the spell.

Spellstrike specifically limits the Magus to ONE melee attack. That seems to me to be a specific rule that otherwise outweighs the general rule of touch attack spells.

Regardless, the charge of a touch attack spell dissipates if the caster touches anything, even something unintentionally touched, e.g. his enemy, his waterskin, his sword, whatever. Note, the Magus is, of course, touching his own weapon upon the casting of the spell.

Even if touching his weapon is ignored for purposes of dissipating the charge there is still the consideration of the actual attack made against someone's (non-touch) AC. A melee attack is going against an AC that is generally inclusive of an armor bonus, and a shield bonus (or even natural armor). In other words, the attack - unlike a touch attack - doesn't actually *miss* in terms of coming into contact with an item. The sword blow could scrap across a breastplate, or clash against a shield, but still do no damage thanks to the protective barrier between the attacker and defender. Missing due to a touch attack is clearly an all around miss; that's why the touch AC is so much lower.

Basically, "instead of" making the normal touch attack, you are making ONE melee attack, and you are attacking "as part of" the casting of the spell. Of additional importance, you are attacking a normal AC, and not a touch AC. Add all of that to the fact that you are by necessity touching something upon the casting of the spell, i.e. your weapon, then I can't see the sense of allowing for charges to remain held. Also note, if you're interpreting the "unintentional" touch ruling of held charges to only apply to your off hand you have to consider the use of wands with the Magus.

In short, I feel like my ruling is simple and elegant. I feel like it's supported by the rules, and not some house rule. There may be errata, or developer comment otherwise though, and while I haven't been able to find it yet I am open to reversing my decision in the face of strong evidence. I just want something reasonably official, or at least very well thought out, as opposed to a slew of opinions cloaked as facts.

Thanks.

Hey folks,

I recently started a new campaign, and my players wanted to play characters that were a bit more mature (older) than the average first level adventurer. This seemed like a fine idea to me, so we decided that they would be able to start play with a few NPC class levels under their belts already to represent their livelihoods before entering into the adventuring lifestyle.

So. My players started with four levels of NPC classes, and one level of PC class. Now that play has started I'm realizing that I may have created a few CR issues for myself.

I'm wondering:

What is my party's ECL? Should I consider them to be fifth level characters for all purposes? (Note: the NPC class levels they took tended to the better ones; aristocrat and expert.)

Is there an established rule for this? Clearly, the group is not as powerful as they would be with five levels of PC classes, but I don't know how much weaker they are.

Thanks in advance for all help.