Joey Cote's page

Is this NPC still able to use staves and wands and scrolls?

Could be mean and let him polymorph into a young dragon. Even if he keeps his sorcerer levels, since dragons of that age category are not able to cast spells, the sorcerer also wouldn't be able to as I understand it. He would need something like natural spell feat? Form of the Dragon spells don't indicate that the caster is still able to cast spells while changed, even the higher level ones. He might also have some problem equipping some magic items such as cloaks and robes as a dragon.

The player would probably be pretty upset but it makes sense if the mortal is giving up his present power to become something that can live for thousands of years with incredible room for growth in personal power. Not that would matter for the campaign, but makes sense when thinking about the world overall the the power level of a wish effect.

Oh, spells that increase your size (enlarge person, etc) increase the damage of ranged weapon attacks (bows, throwing axes, etc not rays).

At least one creature, (the mythic crystal creature in the warded circle), has two DRs listed and it stacks them (lists the creature as having 25DR and 10DR, damage for less then 36 did nothing). But that might be some mythic ability it has.

The save to avoid dying from a coup de grace isn't 10+ damage dealt from the attack. Not sure what it is exactly but I was coup de gracing a creature for well over 100 damage and it was making it's saves on a 35ish. Maybe it is doing 10+base damage for the attack and not including the autocrit damage.

Animal companion stats are either way off (as they were in Kingmaker) or I have been misinterpreting the druid animal companion table. The animal companion stats are much higher then they should be, including natural armor bonus, which makes them really great at avoiding taking hits and laughing off the damage when something does actually hit them.

All you need to do to flank an opponent is have at least one other person threatening them. Makes it absurdly easy to do precision damage.

Hmm, thanks for the breakdown. So I might just add a bit extra. I really don't want to stack yet another set of rules on the table to deal with the fame/prestige system.

So I have been planning on running an adventure path in the near future and it seemed that other then a series of artifacts that is core to the story (Shattered Star), the treasure seems to be a bit light. At the end of the adventure I noticed that the characters are supposed to receive points for Pathfinder Society play, and it sounds like those points can be spent to purchase some items or benefits. Since I hadn't planned on running the game with the PFS system would it be reasonable to add some more treasure to the adventure to make up for the loss of the point spending? I have no idea if the points are figured into the treasure amount for the adventure.

The weapon has to have a +1 enchantment first, then you can add the returning property. Assuming that the arcane bonded weapon isn't already enchanted the base value is a +2 weapon (8000gp) and then you half amount to 4000gp for the material cost of the enchantment.

If the weapon already was enchanted to +1, then you would look at what the weapon's enchantment bonus would be after the new enchantment. In this case total value +2 (8000gp) and subtract the value of the starting enchantment +1 (2000gp) to get a value of 6000gp, which you then half as the material cost for the enchantment.

So, yes, you seem to have the right idea and values.

Diego Rossi wrote:

Joey Cote wrote:

Maybe if they simply had an ability that would allow them to be considered to be flanking any opponent an ally was also threatening. A teamwork feat would be good for that, since it would require other players to also take it and most melee's would see it as being worth taking.

Gang Up (link fixed)

Its utility depends on the number of melee combatants in your party and your willingness of spending a feat to take Combat Expertise.
If you have a party member who uses summoning or has an animal companion it should work well.
Note that party members with reach will make it way easier to use.

Hmm. Going to be running a campaign as soon as our present one ends. I have been reworking more then a few feats and some of the core rules to get rid of things that really annoy me. I think removing the combat expertise requirement for Gang Up would fit perfectly in that list.

I think the biggest problem with the rogue is the difficulty in using their precision damage due to both the difficulty in anyone without teleportation or invisibility like ability to get into a flanking position and the very limited situations where an opponent would be flat-footed.

And even if they can somehow safely get into such a position it can put them in extreme danger. If there are multiple opponents they might then concentrate on and flank the rogue. If the rogue has positioned to get on the opposite side of a big, nasty opponent and the opponent chooses to attack the more squishy rogue? Now the rogue is in a bad position for a healer to be able to help.

I love the rogue's massive amount of skill points and enormous list of class skills. Close in stealth isn't even vaguely reliable in my opinion. But I do think that their rogue talents could use a serious reworking with an eye to helping them be able to use their precision damage and making their stealthing more feasible.

Maybe if they simply had an ability that would allow them to be considered to be flanking any opponent an ally was also threatening. A teamwork feat would be good for that, since it would require other players to also take it and most melee's would see it as being worth taking.

I really love Second Chance for melees swinging two handed weapons.

Iron Will is another feat I will almost always try to buy as early as I can.

The real problem with Vital Strike is that it's entirely dependent on swinging a big weapon. So it's really for Enlarged Impact Butchering Axes or shapechanging druids. Otherwise it's junk. So I house-ruled it to +BAB damage and eliminated the Improved and Greater versions.

Interesting. How do you deal with crits multiplying damage if it is a straight +damage bonus and not additional dice?

How does devastating strike work in conjunction with your house rule?

Sigh, anything that the adventure gives me that the party can actually use. I am so sick of large and small sized weapons with nice abilities that are vendor bait because no one can use them without taking a hefty penalty.

My first kneejerk reaction is Heighten metamagic because I find the idea that if you use a higher level spell slot to cast a spell it isn't considered that level for anything that is concerned with the spell's level (primarily DC) is utterly beyond comprehension.

An unchained version of the Alchemist that scraps the way their infusions are done at present and makes it seem less like spells in a bottle. Or at least rebalance the effects vs level (such as haste which shouldn't be a 3rd level effect since it only effects the imbiber)

As a player in our campaign we knew a dragon was soon going to attack our town. I had managed to purchase dust of disappearance, potion of heroism and potion of fly in order to try to deal with the creature. I spent the entire duration of the dust of disappearance completely whiffing while trying to hit the dragon or trying to catch up with the dragon as it flew away only to stop and set another building alight. In the end, our archer and wizard did enough damage to it that the dragon decided to retreat.

It felt really, really bad to have blown thousands of gold in one shot magic items to have done nothing in the battle, especially when "defeating" the opponent also resulted in the town taking quite a bit of damage and not gaining anything out of the fight. And now I don't have that money to upgrade my other equipment.

So, I guess what I am trying to illustrate is that especially in a PnP game like Pathfinder expendable items can be a major cost. As one of my friends put it, "Using things like that feels like throwing gold into the void." That heroism and fly potion as well as the dust of disappearance should have given me a good chance to really impact the fight, but due to disadvantage of random dice rolls it was all a waste.

Party was about 5th lvl when we encountered a flesh golem with a scythe. I had been tripping it with on and off again success. It had gotten in a few good hits and I was pretty low on hp. The other melee had been rolling absolutely terribly, the ranger wasn't hitting hard enough to get through it's DR and the wizard was pretty much useless against a golem.

The golem had gotten into my dead zone for my bardiche. Thinking about the bonus strength damage the golem got using the scythe two handed and fearing it might get a critical considering how long the fight was going I decided to grapple it since that would prevent it from using a two handed weapon. I had recently grabbed a level in monk and taken improved grapple from my bonus feat so at least I wouldn't provoke.

Then the golem used it slam attack twice while in the grapple and killed me deader then dead. I completely forgot it had the slam attack.

Something else I really liked from PF2 was how magic staves work. I cannot recall ever seeing PCs using magic staves in PF1, probably because the gp value is so extreme that by the time PCs would likely get such a staff, it doesn't do enough to be worth the gold.

I don't mind the prerequisite for the combat maneuver feats so much since the feats provide a large modifier to the maneuver and give defense against the same. And the greater version are a bit sick in what they allow (in many cases). It's just that by the present rules the players get punished twice, once with a provoked AOO, and if that connects, then an almost guaranteed failed check for the actual maneuver (which might have even more negative consequences other then just failure).

I think I am going to throw out Greater Cleave as I have never once seen it used and put Whirlwind in it's place. Whirlwind being part of the cleave chain seems fair more thematic then it being part of the spring attack chain.

Combat maneuvers don't provoke. It makes for a far more interesting combat when players don't get punished for trying actions without having invested in specific feats.

Trying to figure out how I want to integrate the ritual system of spell casting from PF2 into PF1. I know I want it, because there are a lot of great ideas for story there.

What I meant by two different saves on the flashbang is you should get a save vs each effect.

Saves vs most heals are Will saves, I would go with that.

I think it would be reasonable to set all the DCs to 18 and just call out specific type for each effect.

Is it a magical item or an alchemical item? Is it made through craft-alchemy or craft wonderous object? Description says it produces a random magical effect, you will need a caster level for creating and for spell penetration rolls. But most alchemical items don't produce a magical effect.

As an alchemical item is seems kind of against the concept that alchemical items produce a limited effect that is created through a process requires precise work.

It also seems very strong for an alchemical item.

A 6d6 fireball is six times the base damage of an alchemical fire and effects a massively greater area. Does it have a saving throw? If so, what is the DC?

The healing surge effect is a very powerful effect. Also, since it damages undead it also needs save information.

Silence lasting 20 minutes seems very long and would need a DC since it should receive a save.

Flashbang - should probably have two saves, one vs blindness and other vs deafness. The blinding effect has an extremely longer duration then flash powder.

The chaotic nature of this item may seem like a big drawback, but when used in the opening round/surprise attack of a fight, it really isn't. Against undead it is even more effective.

I was in a AD&D 3rd ed game when at one point in the campaign we went through a side quest to release the spirit of an elven princess that was trapped and could not move onto her afterlife. As a reward she gave my character a ring with a fairly minor effect.

Later on we ended up in the pocket dimension of some very powerful wizard/sorcerer type that was the home of a character of one of the DM's players from another campaign. He had the player show up to interact with us. We wanted him to help us get through a sealed gate to get to a place that had been the focus of the campaign. But the guy wanted the ring. And nothing else we had or offered to do for him would make him budge. And the guy just creeped me out. As an example, he described one of the dishes of food that his servants brought out as grilled Aboleth. Considering the ring had some sort of connection to the elf princess's spirit, I just wouldn't trust it in this guy's hands.

At the end of it all, out of frustration, I plane shifted the party back to our starting point and we kicked in the front gate and charged into the enemy's teeth, instead of sneaking in the back way which we had worked on for months.

Why are morning stars in the flail category?

Ah, I see, I was thinking that an attack on the target of a studied combat was a studied strike. Completely missed that they had another level 4 ability.

Studied Combat is not a bonus to a single attack, it last a number of rounds equal to their INT modifier. It is spending a move action to gain a +10 to hit and damage that at 20th level is probably going to last the entire combat. After the first round the bonus applies to all the investigators attacks. Ranged Study allows you to use it with a ranged weapon as long as the target is within 30 feet. While it is probably not worth doing for minions, it is well worth doing for a tough boss.

Studied Combat also says

And it says " and once a creature has become the target of an investigator’s studied combat, he cannot become the target of the same investigator’s studied combat again for 24 hours unless the investigator expends one use of inspiration when taking the move action to use this ability."

So, I don't understand how it would last an entire combat against a boss? You cannot even reapply studied combat to the boss unless you spend inspiration.

This doesn't seem like a good ability to combine with typical ranged build. Although might be interesting with a sniper type build.

I think the flaming enchantment would still do damage, but it would just be the 1d6 fire damage. Disrupting I don't think should do anything against an undead.

True, both disrupting and flaming both include the "hit" language. But the flaming enchantment "surrounds" the weapon in fire, so even if the weapon cannot hit the box or undead, the energy radiating from the blade should. Disrupting doesn't indicate that it radiates any energy so requires interaction between the weapon and the undead.

But both those are RAI arguments. Pure RAW, since the weapon cannot hit the flaming and disrupting enchantments shouldn't work.

Radiant energy is one of the stupidest enchantments at +4 cost that I have ever seen.

Hopefully the party might have looted a few extra weapons to use in that case.

Make Whole casting time - 10 minutes
Greater Make Whole casting time - 1 standard action

Greater also has a higher top end for healing constructs, but it's all about the casting time.

Since Blade Rush is an infusion, not a wild talent, and not a blast, it should not be effected by Air's Reach.

Well, Nethys says it is an Wild Talent, so I guess it would work.

Could let the players continue on with their plans to attack Sandypoint, and while they are doing that the goblins with the support from the folks in the fort also attack the town, and the players.

Since so many of the Pathfinder games I have been in seem to have a lot of time crunches, I always thought it would be nice to have leadership to create an NPC caster that can be used to craft magic items for the party. My group had a player that loved the idea of being a magic item crafter, but the adventures often had so little down time that all the feats he spent to be able to make magic items often felt like a complete waste.

Bet he could make a lot of money.

<Paladin enters new town>
Bring out your dead!

Any attack that requires a "to hit" roll can critical.

The part you are getting confused is bonus damage dice are not multiplied on a critical.

For example, a +1 two handed sword with the flaming enchantment does 2d6+1 +1d6 fire damage with a x2 critical multiplier. So on a critical hit it does (2d6+1)x2 + 1d6 fire.

Someone making a Vital Strike (which gives bonus dice damage equal to the base damage dice of the weapon) with a +1 two handed sword with the flaming enchantment does 2d6+1 +1d6 flaming +2d6 slashing. On a critical it would do (2d6+1)x2 +1d6 flaming +2d6 slashing.

A large fire elemental does 1d8 damage on a slam +2 burn. Since the +2 is not bonus dice, it does get multiplied, so it does (1d8+2)x2 on a critical.

The giant slug has a ranged (touch) attack that does 10d6 (ouch) acid. Since this is the base damage of the attack, all of it gets multiplied on a critical.

Hope those examples help.

"Once you are grappling an opponent, a successful check allows you to continue grappling the foe, and also allows you to perform one of the following actions (as part of the standard action spent to maintain the grapple)."

So I would run it as they get to add the "feeding" to "move" "damage" "pin" "tie up" options.

I know it isn't official, but there is a monster in Owlsight's Kingmaker game that has regeneration and pretty much the only way to kill it is using coup de grace until it fails it's fort save.

You don't get Mutagen from Mutagen Warrior until 3rd lvl due to the errata.

Joey Cote wrote:

Brilliant enchantment.... because it becomes a blade of light. And lightsabers should be good against undead right?

Lightsabers are actually useless against the undead:

Quote:

A brilliant energy weapon has its significant portion transformed into light, although this does not modify the item’s weight. It always gives off light as a torch (20- foot radius). A brilliant energy weapon ignores nonliving matter. Armor and shield bonuses to AC (including any enhancement bonuses to that armor) do not count against it because the weapon passes through armor. (Dexterity, deflection, dodge, natural armor, and other such bonuses still apply.) A brilliant energy weapon cannot harm undead, constructs, or objects.

Yeah, see, sarcasm, because an enchantment that is +4 that makes certain opponents immune to your weapons?

Brilliant enchantment.... because it becomes a blade of light. And lightsabers should be good against undead right?

I applaud the OP for finding a nearly useless spell and enabling others to transform it into a rules argument that has one question the transcendental nature of "what is a weapon?"

Except the spell then goes on to say "This effect does not alter the weapon's shape or appearance in any way. For example, if this spell is cast on a chair leg, a butter knife, or a pitchfork, the items function as a masterwork club, a masterwork dagger, or a masterwork trident, respectively, but the items look no different than they did before the spell was cast."

Which would seem to indicate that the improvised weapon uses the damage, critical range and multiplier and damage type of the chosen weapon but does not actually become the weapon. Which is why I think the OP is questioning how this spell interacts with feats and such. Which I think is a more then reasonable question.

Two fairly obvious suggestions -

1) Any melee weapon you wield gains the Flaming Burst trait.

2) Cast quickened scorching ray 3/day at an innate ability so that it treats your character level as your caster level.

I think my biggest problem with guns in a game like Pathfinder is they just don't work well. Very low fire rate, expensive ammunition, and when monster's HP is commonly over 90+ a bullet doing 1d10 or so is just ... insignificant. Maybe in a game like Rolemaster with a critical table (and criticals can be extremely nasty) and you can boost the chance of getting a critical by stacking modifiers to hit they can work.

My plan is to actually command a ship full of undead. I have two problems the first is Animate Dead is an evil spell casting it makes me eventually evil which I don't really want. The second is mindless undead do not make good sailors. I could have sworn I saw a spell or ritual where you sacrifice a crew making them undead and bound to you.

Anyone else getting whiplash at the idea that the writer doesn't want to cast Animate Dead because it will make them evil eventually ... but wants a ritual to SACRIFICE the crew of a ship to make them into undead minions and apparently doesn't think that will make them evil?

Deeper Darkness cannot be seen through with darkvision. Have a few specially made single use items hidden about the room that are triggered at the correct time. If you are planning on having this be a mystery/investigation type situation the enchanted items can even be clues.

Consider this - If the kobolds are running around suiciding with sticks of dynamite, that implies they probably figured out how to make it. And since kobolds are not well known for being wealthy, that implies that the process to make it is fairly cheap. Do you really want to give your players the chance to reverse engineer and to make cheap, powerful explosives?

I am going with first and first.

Could just do a search on weird or strange animals and either dump the aquatic ones or adapt them to land versions. Might also take a look at ice age or jurassic critters since Pathfinder has mammoths and dinosaurs.

I would find it sad to not be able to take different aspects of different cultures in time that I think are interesting and incorporate them into a fantasy game.

Now, if I was designing a campaign and I was claiming it was based in say, Russia during the reign of the Czars, and I was getting major cultural and historical information completely wrong to the point that it could be a mockery, then that would not be very appropriate.

Hmm, I wouldn't want to be my desert dwarven barbarian with a 5 charisma that speaks with a swedish accent. But the gnome bard storyteller and stand up comedian with 7 daughters would be a blast.