Larris Magpie's page

I've been playing Pathfinder Duels daily for over a month (it's that fun!), but I'm in Europe and on Android.
App store looks good from here?

So surprised to see my ranking on the leaderboard now. I don’t consider myself a good CCG player at all. I have spent time at this every day for a couple of weeks, though, and apart from gold/XP/gem/token grinding there are a few tricks to be learned from experience, particularly with regards to tactical card placement.

I'd be lucky to beat an Investigator, but the other classes I seem to lose and win against more balancedly. (I don't play an Investigator myself). Losing is fun, too, when you see skilled players field new kinds of card combos using common cards. So many times I've wished I could have thanked my opponent for a GG.

I really like the Rise of the Runelords story chapters, too.

Yes, it counts as an AoO. Fencer is a popular trait for swashbucklers too for that reason.

So it's a contested ruling. I'm still not quite sure what's fair here.

Understood. Thanks!

It does however eat up the immediate action, which might be seen as being a more heavy cost than just an AoO. With this in mind, continuing with the same modifiers throughout the deed seems a more reasonable interpretation.

A Calistria following swashbuckler has taken the Opportunist religious trait from Ultimate Campaign (+1 to AoOs). When performing a parrying deed, its description says, "the swashbuckler makes an attack roll as if she were making an attack of opportunity;" which I interpret as the +1 trait modifier is indeed applicable to this roll.

Not as clear to me is the opportunity of following up a successful parry with a riposte: "the swashbuckler can as an immediate action make an attack against the creature whose attack she parried". Is it reasonable to treat this second attack roll too as a "bonus" AoO, applying any AoO-specific modifiers, negative and positive?

I'm asking both RAI and RAW, if anyone knows if this question has been raised before.

I like to avoid having my PCs get equipment that's unique to specific cultures on Golarion when my PC's not part of that culture. But in the equipment collection books (Adventurer's Armory, AA2, Ultimate Equipment), the cultural ties of each item as it was first published in other Pathfinder products is not specified, whether it's from OGL or space reasons.

I first noticed this where the daredevil softpaws of the catfolk in Advanced Race Guide became generic daredevil boots in UE. Another example: the Adventurer's Sash was said in Seekers of Secrets to be sold exclusively in PFS lodges (presumably to Society members), but in AA2 it's available for all.

Knowing the original source for each item would help when I decide its availability.
Does such a table exist for either anthology?

I know the Archives of Nethys site does reference sources for each item, but then I have to click through each and every entry from the list on the source page. I just wonder if anyone knows if someone has already made a spreadsheet somewhere?

I'm looking to restrict my own PC for flavor's sake here, just to repeat that…

Judging by what Erik Mona wrote, the music of the Kellid people should sound like Cimmerian music. Which hasn't existed outside of fiction and must be created and interpreted from scratch anyway.

Knut Avenstroup Haugen, composing the score to the "Age of Conan" MMORPG approached it like this:

"The music for lowland Cimmeria is inspired by Celtic musical traditions and the solo violin is the main instrument here. In the Cimmerian highlands and the Eiglophian Mountains, the Norse and Nordic influences are strong and Helene Bøksle's voice represents a kind of mountain spirit - much like Atali of Conan lore."

Here's a sample of his work (YouTube link)

In my own mind, not being a great Conan aficionado, I imagine Kellid music would feature a lot of drum banging and horn blaring.
Guttural death metal grunts optional.

Inspired by the big spellcraft/spellcasting detectability debate, I thought I’d share my personal interpretation of Pathfinder spellcasting logic and internal consistency, while leaving most of the details of timing and perception, stillness or visibility to that other thread.

In our Rise of the Runelords campaign, I have written an in-character paper for the Cypher Lodge of Riddleport. (The character is a Linguistics/Knowledge/Spellcraft orientated cypher hunter transmuter/cyphermage.)

The document is in excess of 4,500 words of fanwank flavor fluff, but it provides me with what I think is a pretty coherent understanding of the practical (if not theoretical) workings of metaphysics and spellcasting in Pathfinder, at least from the point of view of this magic-user IMC. Anyway, the explanations should be adaptable to most settings. =)

Here's my somewhat condensed list of takeaways.

• Great will must be imposed in order to bend the laws of nature. (Echoes of thelemic magick here)
  
• I disregard the passage describing “two types” of magic. There are no arcane and divine “sources” of magical power. I don’t know of any instances where this is a decisive factor in practice anyway.
  
• The phrase “Unlike arcane spells, divine spells draw power from a divine source” becomes accurate only when substituting “draw power” with “act on an invested willpower”. Divine spellcasters channel the will of something greater than themselves, arcane spellcasters must muster their own (free) will. (Note that witches seem to be a special case.)
  
• Therefore, generally way more precision is required for doing arcane magic than for divine magic, even if the spell effect is identical:
  ** Loud and forcefully presented verbal components in a commanding voice.
  ** Armor means risking interference with the somatic part, arcane casters can’t get away with just waggling arms around. (Note how arcane bard spells are more lenient in this regard, but OTOH they always require verbal components.)
  ** Material components for sympathetic magic instead of just providing a holy symbol.
  
• Every caster has just a limited reservoir of willpower available to spend before rest is necessary to regain it. The more powerful magic, the more force of will is necessary. This improves with experience and (cap)ability increases.
  
• Spellbooks are collections of formulae and algorithms detailing the exact manners in which patches, rifts or wrinkles in the fabric of the plane (or however magical phenomena are explained) may be inserted or exploited in order to fool with nature in different ways.
  
• These formulae are so incredibly, unfathomably complex that the symbolic notation script used for documenting them relies exceedingly heavily on mnemonics, to the point that they draw on the uniquely personal traits of every individual caster copying down their spells.
  
• Thus, deciphering and understanding another person’s script takes time, which can be reduced with the assistance of the person having written the spellbook.
  
• During the preparation of spells, the actual algorithmic procedure from the arcane spellbook for evoking the spell effect is in fact followed. Likewise, the divine rituals are performed, partly as praying and/or meditation. There is no memorization and no cramming. The change in the world is made ready, like carefully setting a mainspring-powered trap or meticulously mixing reagents, and it merely awaits the throwing of the switch or adding of the catalyst to take effect.
  
• The caster’s mind and/or body then functions much like a spell completion item for spells prepared. The spell resides in the caster, almost-cast until the last components and triggers are applied.
  
• Like scrolls, the magic energy stored in pre-cast form may be released in other ways than just completing the spell.
  
• The minds and/or bodies and/or souls of spontaneous casters are permanently imbued with a magical conduit of some sort.
  
• Scribing spell scrolls and crafting other spell completion items means externalizing the storage of the prepared spell outside oneself. (Like allocating program memory externally at compile-time. Sorcerers allocate internal memory at run-time.) The main lifting of exerting willpower is done during the item creation process.
  
• The writing on a scroll describes briefly and symbolically how the scriber personally has prepared this specific instance of a spellcasting, and gives unique instructions for its completion. This is why high-level scrolls are no larger in size than low-level ones, even if the high-level spells take up more pages in a spellbook. (Casting time could possibly be a more relevant factor.)
  
• When casting a spell, it is only a matter of completing it properly. The spellcaster adds the situationally conditional parameters by adjusting the use of required spell components.
• Through these, the caster’s will is also unequivocally expressed. (“I command: Make it so!” or “In the name of $DEITY, amen”).
  
• The components may or may not consist of mnemonically enhanced language symbols, elaborate poetry and/or interpretive limb signs. It’s all individual. But which general effect (spell name, not the specific parameter values of target, distance, etc. or color of the magic missiles) that these components are designed to make is still recognizable to spellcrafty observers during casting time (as the spell is being cast).
  
• As a spell is being cast, its counterspell will always be faster to set off, since it has no need to detail many of the situational parameters. This is how a spell used as a counterspell may interrupt a regular version of itself even if the counterspellcaster must first identify the spell.
  
• Persons skilled in Using Magic Devices may recognize a spell scribed on a scroll and improvise the verbal and somatic components needed for its completion, which will vary according to the spellcasting and scribing habits of the person who originally crafted the scroll, and possibly to the person currently using the scroll as well. The divine/arcane dichotomy is actually quite important in this case because of the difference in components employed by divine/arcane casters. So a rogue activating a divine and an arcane scroll of the same spell would in fact behave a little differently during the completion of each of them.
  

What do you think? Does this make sense, or is it nonsense? With what, if anything, do you particularly disagree? All comments welcome!

The html anchor id for the Example Kobolds on paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsterCodex/kobolds.html#example-kobolds
doesn't work, since it's got a typobug in the code:

<h1 is="example-kobolds">Example Kobolds</h1>

Typobugs, like kobolds, ain't big, but they can be darn annoying.

You might be familiar with D0 Hollow's Last Hope; the Baba Yaga/Witch Queen reference in which might have been the first in Pathfinder/GameMastery history. It's where Guide to Darkmoon Vale got its starting info.

The Falcon's Hollow material in GDV has since been superseded by its entry in Towns of the Inner Sea, but I'm not sure I want to use all of the updated version IMC.

Reading E1 Carnival of Tears, I figure someone in Irrisen might really be begging for a large scale war, but it's not clear whether it's against the (regular) Fey or with any or all of the southern nations. Or maybe they do have some unknown reason for harrassing Darkmoon Vale in particular.

I also think of Elvanna in practice as a Queen Regent, a Stewardess (of Gondor) if you willl, so whatever references in E1 to Witch Queens might target both/either her and/or B.Y. after your taste. Maybe B.Y. made arrangements for dark ice fey back in 4613. But I don't have Reign of Winter, so I don't know much else about that.

It's doubtful whether E1 and the other FH based material from that era should be viewed as canon anymore, on account of their many throwaway oddity references. Shame, because I really like GDV in many ways.

About the scaling magic items of Owen:

I was just reading this thread today looking for good house rules.

I hope the implementation in Unchained amounts to something similar.

Resurrected and recommended for addition to FAQ.

At our table, the dialogue would go like this,

"The bad guy swings at you, hitting AC XX."
"I use spell shield, my new AC is this, so miss."

(Players rarely actually provide the GM with their ACs. High level of trust.)

The key is that it needs to be used between the time the attack is declared (targeted) and the time the attack is resolved.

I kind of agree. Still I find in practice that the time separating the declaration and resolution is most often non-existent. (We try to keep comat fast-paced, also rolling damage dice together with the d20, disregarding them if miss.) This might be at the core of the problem, but our way of doing it saves a fair bit of combat time, and this is more or less the only downside to our method we have encountered.

According to this, in most cases, the immediate action would not work as a M:tG interrupt spell after all (going by the "last declared, first resolved" rule), because in order to be valid, they must be declared before the roll of the die anyway. I see a potential time/flow issue here, allowing for enough time for people to declare any immediate actions before every die roll. I'd actually prefer allowing ex post facto application of an immediate action in this case.

In the interest of keeping combat with immediate actions flowing as smoothly as possible, what would be the best way of handling them?

I notice that the RAW for the Cyphermage prestige class is different from that of e.g. the Loremaster (with which it otherwise seems to have shared blueprints) in very few places.

The difference I care about is the spell level progression:

Spells: When a cyphermage gains a level, he gains new spells per day as if he had also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class he belonged to before he added the prestige class. He does not, however, gain any other benefits a character of that class would have gained. This essentially means that he adds the level of cyphermage to the level of whatever other arcane spellcasting class he has.

Source: d20PFSRD.com

Spells per Day/Spells Known: When a new loremaster level is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if he had also gained a level in a spellcasting class he belonged to before adding the prestige class. He does not, however, gain other benefits a character of that class would have gained, except for additional spells per day, spells known (if he is a spontaneous spellcaster), and an increased effective level of spellcasting.

Source: d20PFSRD.com

From this alone it would seem that the Loremaster does gain the increased effective casting level benefit from the prior class, while the Cyphermage does not.

However, I'd very much like to know if this is in fact overruled by this FAQ answer, which does seem to save the day for the Cyphermage:

Prestige Classes and Spellcasters: Does a wizard (or other character that uses a spellbook), receive bonus spells to add to his spellbook when he gains a level in a prestige class that grants an increase to spellcasting?

No. The increase to his spellcasting level does not grant any other benefits, except for spells per day, spells known (for spontaneous casters), and an increase to his overall caster level. He must spend time and gold to add new spells to his spellbook.

Source: FAQ

So which is it? Is the Cyphermage really a badly amputated Loremaster, stuck casting low-level versions of high-level spells (if that's at all possible) or could its prestige class features description do with a little bit of clarification like the Loremaster text?

Aha!

That's a pretty important distinction, because I wouldn't have thought this necessarily followed from the phrasing of the RAW:

Every bard spell has a verbal component (song, recitation, or music).

No problem then. All is well. Thanks for the clarification.

If they don't require verbal components, they don't require verbal components. Seems pretty clear-cut to me.

Yes. I am being unclear. My apologies.

My problem is only pertaining to the fluff rationale I personally have come up with for explaining the bards getting away with armored spellcasting when wizards and sorcerers don't:

When bards sing or otherwise perform their verbal spell components, this makes up for a reduced importance of the rigid somatic hand gestures which wizards and sorcerers must employ, so the arm wavings of the bards do not have to be as precise as the measured movements required of the other spellcasters who do suffer from ASF risk. (I have come up with a similar rationale for the other armored casters.)

Thus, whenever bards do not sing to cast a spell, the somatic (and material) component must complete the spell without the aid of the superior bardic verbal component. So a bard casting a spell employing no sound to build the casting around becomes all the more dependent on the somatic (and material) component. Seeing that she gains no audio enhancement, no shortcut to simplify her manual movements, I'd think that as far as these (very few) spells are concerned, she should be on equal ground with any other wizard/sorcerer caster. IMO.

I'd make this a house rule, not to nerf the bard at all, but to make more sense of the ASF rule, which has been kind of problematic at least since OD&D.

Bards can cast spells in armor because they're usually closer to the action than wizards.

I'll have to say I'm not at all satisfied with that explanation as an in-game rationale. Design-wise I don't really care about whatever game balancing reasons there might be.

The Silent Spell feat cannot be used with bard spells, though I've never been on a table that enforced that.

Heh. I didn't know that. Thanks. But there is still the matter of the spells that do not require any verbal component.

I am struggling to rationalize why bards may cast arcane spells with only a Somatic component while wearing light armor and still get away with no arcane spell failure risk. I thought of it when reading the Ki Arrow description, but the phenomenon applies to more spells.

In my mind, the rationale behind the armor rule would be that the bard spellcasting methods greatly emphasize the verbal component and rely far less on the precision of the arm movements and gestures of the somatic components than wizard/sorcerer castings of the same spell, but moreso than the cleric's crude ritual handwavings.

I would houserule that any bard spells cast silently would risk ASF as normal. On The other hand, as they are spontaneous casters I’d give them Eschew Materials as a bonus feat.

Options?

i get what you're saying, and ancestors is spot-on.

obviously if none of the UM mysteries were used for that product, there wasn't any unique oversight or error, it just wasn't possible.

Well, I know, but... In any future product looking in-depth at the Skoan-Quah (while allowing the use of UM), this should in my opinion really be rectified.

i would say that given skull clan lore, a bones oracle would be prime material for an evil oracle,

i.e. to be treated as the prime enemy-from-within (if/when they are aware of the oracle's powers/actions)

Totally, it's a great story hook. But such a person would hardly remain Skoan-quah's oracle shaman for long, and would surely be a rarity.

The bones mystery just doesn't seem to fit in the list of "the mysteries commonly adopted by the quahs’ oracle shamans", as the explanatory text phrases it.

The utterly helpful inner front cover of the Varisia: Birthplace of Legends Player Companion provides among other stuff the following:

Skoan-Quah (Skull Clan)
Oracle Mysteries: Bones, lore, nature

I have two big problems with this:

Firstly, the bones mystery revelations are almost all necromantic and related to creating or controlling undead, the greatest taboo of the Skull Clan. Cf. this old post by James Jacobs.

Secondly, the omission of the Ultimate Magic oracle mysteries from the entire list leaves the very essential ancestor mystery inaccessible for the Skoan-Quah shaman oracles.

This is just wrong. IMNSHO the bones mystery should officially be swapped for ancestor in this list.

Opinions?

Thanks for replying. Your points of view are much appreciated.

For the record, I agree that the Spirit Totem should really be no problem for the Skull clan. I also agree (in way of summarizing) that for the sake of simplifying and streamlining combat, the 1d4+CHA damage should be automatically applied to one random living foe adjacent to the spirits at the start of the round. Maybe allowing a Reflex saving throw.

If this wouldn't be the case, the negative energy damage should certainly only be dealt after a successful touch attack, to which AoE buffs to allies (Bless, etc.) could be applied, but no buffs requiring targetting.

On the other hand, I'm disallowing my Skoan-Quah oracles access to the Bones mystery without severe social penalties. But that's a topic for another post in another sub-forum.

Here is a more Varisian campaign setting specific rules question related to the Spirit Totem:

Given that the Spirits deal negative energy damage to living creatures only, they do indeed seem to be a kind of incorporeal undead force, like insaneogeddon mentioned..

So do you think the Shoanti barbarians of the Skull Clan, being the ghost busting zombie smashing vampire hunting +2 melee dmg vs. undead fellows that they are, should really be granted access to the Spirit Totem tree at all without getting expelled from their tribe?

Because I do think it perfectly likely that ancestral spirits would be willing to aid their Skoan-Quah descendants and burial mound protectors from the beyond, I'm just very uncertain about the whole negative energy against living beings functioning like necromancy and upsetting every other cleric around. Others seem to have had a similar issue, houseruling the spirit attack as holy damage instead.