Kenneth Souther's page

Would this Trait bonus apply to a Bard's Inspire Courage? or for that matter, any Bard ability that affects morale?

I guess I'm a bit confused. The performance (and assuming effects) end immediately if the bard is prevented from taking a free action each round, yet this trait appears to modify this; so if I was knocked-out, silenced, etc., whatever morale effect I had going would last for another 1-4 rounds on me (course it would end for everyone else.) Just wondering before I decide to choose it.

Trait: Optimistic Gambler (from Second Darkness)

According to the description given of the Huge Earth Elemental it is 32 feet long. However, this is one of those situations where the fluff doesn't match the rules because a huge creature is only occupying a 15x15 foot space per the grid. So when he makes a move action and burrows straight down his full 20' he actually is 5 feet underground.

No adjustments needed just the creators need to think a bit more about the communication between rules and descriptions.

Ok, I see what you are saying. Huge is limited to a 15' cube, then listing heights above that is contradictory to the form of combat which Pathfinder adjudicates threat range and spacial placements for convenience. Sort of how combat HP/AC is not a literal tit-for-tat, I probably should not GM literally the height-to-movement ratios.

As noted, a Huge Elemental is 32 feet long yet it's burrow/earth glide speed is 20 feet. Am I correct to assume that if a he decided to burrow straight down, he'd still have 12 feet showing, unless he took two move actions?

If you reverse this, if he wanted to burrow straight up into a room, he'd run into the same issue; either having to use a full round to be fully exposed, or one move action (allowing him to do a standard action, etc.)

What we started doing for the Druid (13th Lvl) is move action, partial exposure, attack with his arms and/or cast spells, and then next round he can sink back down or come all the way up.

Either way, I think the burrow/earth glide speed should be adjusted for the size of the Elemental, not the same across the board for all sizes...it just seems wonky.

This stone absorbs spells of 4th level or lower. After absorbing 20 spell levels, the stone burns out and turns to dull gray, forever useless. This stone works like a rod of absorption, but absorbing a spell requires a readied action, and cannot be used to empower spells.

With the stone requiring a 'readied' action before it will absorb spells, I find it's absorption capability particularly lacking.

If I understand the actions in a round correctly, to utilize this stone, you'd have to sacrifice doing anything else on your turn (other than possibly a Move Action), in the expectation a spell MAY be cast that effects you prior to your next turn.

Even if you are hit by a spell, and you didn't take a Move Action prior to doing your Readied Action, you only get a 5 ft step when the Readied Action occurs, plus from that point on, shifting your place in the initiative order to right before the creature that caused the Readied Action to happen.

If no spell affected you, your Readied Action does not occur, and you maintain your initiative order, and waste a round doing nothing at all; at which point the rest of the party just scowls at you.

Am I reading this correctly? If so, this appears to be a fairly useless Stone IMO.

Let me see if I got this correct. Examples are generic for the purpose of understanding.

A large Ogre, with a 10 ft. reach, gets an AoO on the approaching medium human. At the 10 ft. mark, the Ogre decides to do a CMB Trip for it's AoO. Ogre succeeds, human falls at 10 ft. mark. Normally, a Trip would provoke an AoO from the human, but since the human is still 10 ft. away, that would be impossible. Human will spend a move action getting up, provoking another AoO from the Ogre (possibly tripping them again, sundering, or just walloping them.)

If the Ogre's Trip had failed, human then would of been in range for a standard attack (after his move action), but would the human still get the AoO from the Ogre's failed Trip at the 10 ft. mark, even though they had to move another 5 ft. AFTER that event?

Let me see if I got this correct. Examples are generic for the purpose of understanding.

A large Ogre, with a 10 ft. reach, gets an AoO on the approaching medium human. At the 10 ft. mark, the Ogre decides to do a CMB Trip for it's AoO. Ogre succeeds, human falls at 10 ft. mark. Normally, a Trip would provoke an AoO from the human, but since the human is still 10 ft. away, that would be impossible. Human will spend a move action getting up, provoking another AoO from the Ogre (possibly tripping them again, sundering, or just walloping them.)

If the Ogre's Trip had failed, human then would of been in range for a standard attack (after his move action), but would the human still get the AoO from the Ogre's failed Trip at the 10 ft. mark, even though they had to move another 5 ft. AFTER that event?

Crib s screenshot of the asylum from Dracula?

Sorry, I don't understand what you are asking.

After running off Habe and clearing the building of the necromancer, my group decided to officially take possession of the vacant building with the permission from Mayor Kendra Deverin of Sandpoint (Kendra thought it in the areas best interest to allow the adventurers to use it as a base of operations in helping secure the region.)

Has anyone done artwork showing how the sanitarium looks from the outside? I just think it would make a very nice scene, with the Ashen Rise in the background and the Cougar River running out and beside the building.

I do not have an ounce of artistic ability, or I'd try my hand, but generally my stuff ends up looking like a 3rd grader's impression of their house done in crayon.

I have the mental image that the building would look like a stone keep, with slits for windows on the bottom floor and nothing further up; a large wrap around porch in front. Generally looking like a stone bulwark more than a hospital for the insane.

This skill is also used to identify the properties of magic items in your possession through the use of spells such as detect magic and identify.

Some confusion here to me on this. Can you use Spellcraft to identify the properties of magic items? Or is it saying you have to use Spellcraft to be able to cast Detect Magic and Identify?

If a party member finds an item he has identified as magical, via Detect Magic, will Spellcraft tell them it is +1 item, or whether it does certain functions, number charges, etc.?

Need some clarification. I understand you can move through a threatened square without provoking an attack of opportunity from an enemy by using Acrobatics.

Does this also mean you can move AWAY from an enemy you are engaged with using Acrobatics to avoid an attack of opportunity? For that matter, can you avoid other types of attacks of opportunity (spellcasting, missile firing, etc.) by using Acrobatics?

As stated on page 40 of Rise of the Runelords: Anniversary Edition, "...patch of poisonous plants, either stinging nettles (Fortitude DC 12 to avoid 1 point of Dexterity damage) or a goblinberry patch (Fortitude DC 12 to avoid 1 point of Strength damage)."

Question 1: How long does this damage to Dex or Str last for?
Question 2: What exactly is a goblinberry patch? What does it look like?

Gifted Adept and Precocious Spellcaster only adds Caster Level, not Spell Level, so when he reaches 5th lvl, his Burning Hands will do 5d4 on the round cast , then 2 points of damage on the second round since the Spell Level is unaffected by those traits, only caster level.

Sounds like he should rethink his strategy.

It seems then that Burning Spell Metamagic is going to be pointless to have at the start of your adventuring career;

I guess I don't understand the reason of this metamagic being offered at 1st lvl then. Course, I'm sure there are a variety of traits like that I'm not aware of.

Thank you for the clarification.

I'm new to the rules in Pathfinder, so some of the different skill sets that combine are a bit confusing to me.

One of my players created a 1st lvl half-elf sorcerer and chose these Feats/Traits/Flaws for his character:

Burning Spell
Gifted Adept (G.A.) - Burning Hands
Precocious Spellcaster (P.S.) - Jolt, Burning Hands

Burning Hands does 1D4 dmg per lvl.

Question 1: When he uses it, Burning Hands then should be doing 3d4 dmg (1st lvl & +1 G.A. & +1 P.S.) and then at the start of the next round the victim would take 2d4 dmg more? (Burning Spell 2 X 1st lvl spell)<<When a creature takes acid or fire damage from the affected spell, that creature takes damage equal to 2× the spell's actual level at the start of its next turn.>> Then by the beginning of the 3rd round, no damage, right?

Question 2: What does this mean for him at first level? <<A burning spell uses up a slot two levels higher than the spell's actual level.>> Does this mean he can't even use this Metamagic until he has access to at least 3rd lvl spells? He currently has only 2 1st lvl spells (Burning Hands, Burning Disarm).