Kyraeus's page

Hey guys,

Seeing a lot of conflicts in how dispels, specifically targeted dispel, is RAW vs how it's handled by GM's apparently. Just wondering about the resolution of two opposing situations.

Via Raw, targeted dispel appears to do two different things in these situations.

1) Haste/party buffs - the prevailing wisdom seems to be that targeted dispel ONLY removes haste or similar mass spell effects for a single individual, rather than cutting off the source (spell) for all individuals covered by it.

2) Completely in opposition to the above, summoned creatures seem to be a difference in opinion, where people have said, and via RAW, when a targeted dispel hits a summoned creature, all summons via that spell (ex: a 3 creature summon spell), all of them go poof back to their otherplanar homes.

Can anyone clarify the difference of these two situations, or give me a better understanding of why they'd work differently/ what the intent was here? Is it a 'this is just meant for readying a dispel against the summon or buff'? or does the dispel actually remove ALL for everyone on both instances as RAW?

Thanks all!

Also, sorry for the terrible formatting above. It's about 6:30am and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..............

I never under stood the TCG crowd when they force you to rebuy almost your entire deck every year to keep playing formally. No thanks.

Not to defend this, because I don't fully either, but I'd assume the same reason I have to purchase a new $15-30 book just so I can remain legal when I use a single feat or monster stat/etc. on a character. Being strictly honest, most of us know that nobody cares whether someone owns the manual when we're playing in a homebrew/between friends game of PF. It doesn't matter if you looked up a feat online to use, or pulled it from a buddy's book.

Being a bit of a newb, and not really having much experience with PFS, I have to say based on the posts here on the forum, seems kinda like raid mode on any MMO to me... At least in terms of 'You have to step up your game, be legal, know what you're doing, and in some cases depending on the crowd, have the right build (here's looking at you, WoW Elitists). Given, I assume less of that last goes on.. at least I hope.

I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing considering a lot of new players to PF come through this way at the conventions/etc.. On one hand, great that they maybe have to learn it the right way first, like most of us learned math longhand first, then were given calculators. On the other.. well.. You try telling the sixth dude in a row that he can't use the build he'd actually ENJOY, because he hasn't spent the $150 in manuals he needs to back it up with another GM that might be picky as hell about him having them.

But yeah. Having read a bit on here, GMs and players alike within PFS seem REALLY picky about having you come to the table with all your ducks in a row. While I to some degree applaud that for the sake of not getting bogged down, it does take a little out of the fun of being part of a game. Any thread about Hero Lab, some of the regularly trolled or flameragers about paper character sheets vs electronic... the list kinda goes on. People seem really picky.

Having GM'ed a few simple home-run games myself now, I gotta say that's sorta one of the things I hope doesn't completely translate over, is that anal attention to needless detail.

I'd rather have the same vibe of fun that my players do when they manage to hit that cyclops three levels higher than them in the eye and instantly kill him (because the ranger rolled a 20, and damn that his damage dice was 3 points short of a kill), because it was the right story/fun decision to make as the GM, than have it be a Pathfinder-themed WoW clone with people only there to cram their way to max level by day 5 and constantly rerun raids for gear.

That said, in PFS it kinda has its place when you're a GM trying to run 3 or 4 dozen people through a scheduled campaign 6 or 7 times through the course of a 3 day convention stay. I can understand it, even if I'm not terribly fond of it all. I do try to see both sides of the coin. Also, I can't fault Paizo for wanting to not go broke, after creating a pretty wonderful product for us, and a place to come together and enjoy it.

Yup. As stated, it's just a method to shift the 'focus' of the class to something more to each individual's liking. You don't like being a poisoner or the GM doesn't want to mess with those rules? Pick something that drops poison in exchange for something else. You'd rather focus on Bombs? There's a 'type for that.

As an example, Beastmorph.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/archetypes/paizo---a lchemist-archetypes/beastmorph

Beastmorph doesn't mean you can't still learn to use bombs. It still allows you to take discoveries from the alchemist list if you WANTED to boost your bomb tossing capabilites.

The description simply lists that Beastmorph alchemists are specialized to kind of get in close and mutagen up, enlarge/etc, shift to a beast form and get on with the 'Hulk SMASH!'

Thus it gives you suggestions of discoveries that help to specialize further. Alchemist is a VERY diverse base class, these are just options to give you the character type you want from the class.

Please, anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here, seminoob myself, but I have an alchie.

My understanding is they're an addenda. Most of the archetypes are just a shifted type off the main alchemist path. Like saying 'This PARTICULAR alchemist focused on his mutagenic magic rather than his bomb sciences', therefore losing some of his standard alchemist abilities to become something specialized.

In keeping, he's STILL an alchemist. That's still the base class. He's just a special type of one. So in addition to the stuff normal alchemists can choose from for discoveries/etc. , because of his specialization he gets some extra options to play with for having lost, say, poison use/etc. (a common one).

Funny thing, but IIRC his old pal in mortality and now herald Thais turns him down everytime, just as in their mortal lives. I've always wanted to see that relationship explored a bit more...they aren't the usual "master and servant" arrangement you see in most god/herald relationships but more "old friends". With the herald snarking at the god.

Y'know, something similar happened in Kelly McCullough's 'Ravirn' series of novels (starting with Webmage), where they had a wisecracking shifting goblin/laptop sidekick attached to one of the many hundreds of children of the fates, who eventually becomes a god in his own right. Personally, I found the interplay between them hilarious.

I REALLY like that idea, it lends a lot of comedy gold to the scene, which is almost always appreciated. Anything to bring the funny, I always say. It's those moments of 'Really? Did his mortal servant basically just flip him the bird and walk off?' that your players go home chuckling to after a good session.

Also, one of the biggest benefits of explosive missile in that same vein is missed. Let me explain by using my gnome alchie Kito as an example.:

I tend to prefer a very 'jack of all trades' kind of build. I like keeping my options open. I also like living and I have a dwarf cleric played by one of my friends who takes a big dislike to me 'accidentally' blowing up party members.

Therefore, while building my alchemist, I first took explosive missile initially to get a bit of range on my bombs, give me a chance for a 'first strike' capability, because in the (initially kingmaker, now converted to the new book) campaign we are running, we tend to explore a lot and have a chance to hit stuff from range as it runs/flies/etc at us.

What I didn't realize until reading things more thoroughly is that if you miss with a touch attack bomb, being a thrown splash weapon, you get screwed by the miss table and run a high risk of hitting your party. With bombs that have some pretty nasty effects, this is dangerous. ESPECIALLY if you're using any of the later level additions, like the cloudkill bombs or such. Explosive missile on the other hand, allows you to miss cleanly, with no explosion. Particularly nice GM's MAY even rule that you can get the bomb use back (personally I'd say for a round or three, or maybe it's 'active') if you grab/throw it again from where the missile hit, or whatnot.

A clean miss is WORTH that on some of these. True strike is a godsend with bombs, but if you miss a thrown, you'd better prepare for all hell to break loose because as the discovery states, Precise Bombs does NOT work on a missed throw (common sense, how can you be precise when you screw up the throw?).

Conducive allows you to skip all that nonsense for two charges, but personally I feel it's wasted on bombs. Basically you're getting the same thing for one charge with explosive missile, so the tradeoff is, blow the gold and double charges, or blow the feat/discovery. Tough call. Depends what you use more, I think.

As far as the other part, I don't remember seeing anything anywhere on either about only allowing one concurrent effect. Though I'm not sure many GMs would allow that in six seconds you have time to both imbue the weapon AND create/affix a bomb. I may actually have to try this and see what kind of response my GM gives me on it next session in a week or so, seeing as I'm easily at a point I could try this.