Liam Arrowheart's page

I know manufactured poisons can stack, but I'm having trouble tracking down if the Poison monster ability stacks with itself.

I have 2 Giant Centipedes that both hit one PC. Is he suffering from one instance of Poison? One that has a higher DC? Two?

Any help or reference would be welcome.

At 8th level the White-Haired Witch archetype has the ability to grapple (and constrict/strangle), trip, and do a minor reposition as free actions with her hair after a successful attack. Can she do all three maneuvers on a single hit?

Ex.
1. Smack an Orc
2. Free action trip an Orc
3. Free action grapple an Orc
4. Free action constrict an Orc
5. Free action pull an Orc 5 ft
6. End of standard action

So I've bitten off more than I can chew with a lvl 20 Arcanist...my first full caster and first character beyond 14th level. I wanted to focus on the Brown-fur Transmuter's abilities to boost the rest of the party with polymorph and such, but beyond that I am at a loss for spell selections.

I've not found a "preconstructed" spellbook for a transmutation specialized caster so...any suggestions? It's an overly optimized campaign so any "broken" combinations are actually welcome.

If you go the Evangelist prc route but only take it through lvl7, what happens when you reach 20HD? Do you gain the 3rd Evangelist Boon or the 3rd Exalted boon?

When I first started playing PF I came across something saying you received an additional language per +2 bonus on a headband of vast intelligence chosen at the time of item creation. This is how I've seen it played in the games I am a part of and in a lot of actual play podcasts, but I cannot find a rule in either 3.5 or PF that states this is the case.

Is this just a really common house rule or am I missing an entry somewhere?

I am certain I came across this exact issue somewhere, but I have been unable to find it. If you build an Oracle with the Lore mystery who takes Sidestep Secret they replace DEX to AC and reflex with CHA. If they then take 2 levels of Paladin they get an untyped bonus equal to CHA to saves. Do they stack in this case? So a 3rd level character with a +5 to charisma would end up with a +10 Reflex.

I am well aware of James Jacobs remarks on ability scores not stacking in the case of CMB and attacks due to feats like Fury's Fall, but that's an issue of a feat directly stacking in the same "slot".

I know the Alchemist's vestigial arm discovery has been questioned to death by this point, but I was unable to find this issue addressed: If you had a reach weapon held in two vestigial arms but it was not used in your regular attack actions that round can it still be used for attacks of opportunity? I am hoping the lack of questions about this means it is as cut and dry as I believe, i.e. these are not "extra" attacks, simply the normal use of the weapon.

My group is currently playing Kingmaker with 3 players. Our GM is allowing 2 characters per player (only 1 character at a time can be brought on an adventure) and granting Leadership for free. So in a couple levels I'm going to have 2 cohorts to build. I've been playing around with a couple different classes to see what would complement my main characters thematically and mechanically, but I just can't decide. So I come to you wonderful folks for opinions and thoughts.

I know one of the standard cohort gotos is a crafter, but the other two players are already planning on bringing in crafting companions (not that you can really ever have enough).

So here are my thoughts:

Main Character 1 is a Half-Elf Ranger (Archery). His cohort may already be chosen depending on how the GM feels as my character actually helped rehabilitate a certain bandit leader early on and put her under his protection. Otherwise, I've had a run of good luck when it comes to bosses with him (he one-shot crit the first mini-boss in the surprise round and had a clutch shot against the boss at the end of book one) so I thought a bard might work well -- someone to sing his praises. Could a bard work well if they're going to be 2ish levels behind the party for most of the game?

Main Character 2 is an Aasimar Goliath Druid. She actually hasn't debuted in the campaign yet, but she comes from the Realm of the Mammoth Lords and is not very civilized. I was thinking a good cohort for her would be something militarily minded to help her get used to the organization of a kingdom or maybe just a dedicated bodyguard. The closest I came to being satisfied with a build was using the Path of War Warder, but I don't know if I could convince the GM to approve all of the Path of War elements needed for the Warder.

Anyway, thoughts from y'all? Should I just build some other crafters or are there some good support options I haven't thought of?

I haven't run into this before so I'm trying to figure out reach as a long creature increases size multiple times. The Goliath Druid is able to cast enlarge person on it's animal companion. Assuming a large Elasmotherium animal companion, it should start at 5ft reach. Enlarge Person makes it huge. Does it now have 10ft or 5ft reach? To add more confusion to the matter. In trying to find an answer to this question I came across the Elasmotherium creature entry on d20pfsrd which is huge and has 15ft reach.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/animals/megafauna/megafa una-deinotherium/megafauna-elasmotherium/

What's more, I plan to prestige into Mammoth Rider which nets a possible Gargantuan Elasmotherium with Enlarge Person. How do I handle it's reach?

The +1 Level of Spellcasting Class always makes my head hurt. Now, I'm specifically looking at the Master Chymist prestige class for Alchemists:

I know you are not granted extracts from gaining a +1 Alchemist Level in the "Extracts per Day" part of the Master Chymist class, but does the increased Caster Level unlock higher tier extracts or simply increase extract effects based on CL?

Example

Does an Alchemist7/Master Chymist10 just have 5 1st and 2nd level extracts and 4 3rd level extracts operating at CL14?

OR

Does he have the same spells per day as a 14th level alchemist and simply needs to acquire the 4th and 5th level spells from copying scrolls or from a wizard's spellbook?

The 1st example is how I'm reading it, but this seems odd since you would max your extracts per day at Master Chymist7 and just get an additional CL2 for the other 3 levels in the class.

I'm hoping this is a simple answer that I just was not able to find. Can you use a weapon that has Bludgeoning and Piercing or Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing in conjunction with Sap Adept or does it have to be Bludgeoning only?

My group just hit level 13. My character is Investigator12/Inspired Blade1, and I am wracking my brains for an interesting feat to take. I know there are some nice gotos like Improved Initiative, Critical Focus, or Iron Will/Great Fortitude, but I am hoping for something a bit more exciting.

HP 96
BAB 10
SAVES Fort 6 Ref 19 Will 11
STR 8 DEX 21 CON 14 INT 20 WIS 12 CHA 16
FEATS: Fast Learner, Improvisation, Weapon Finesse (Rapier only), Weapon Focus (Rapier), Fencing Grace, Piranha Strike, Master Alchemist, Combat Reflexes, Extra Talent (Sickening Offensive)

Any thoughts would be highly appreciated.

I was taking a look at the Kineticist class last night and saw the Wild Talent Flurry of Blasts. I had a few of questions that my google fu did not find answers to, so I'm turning to the boards for help.

Question 1: There are no listed penalties, so am I correct that these are all made at full BAB?

Question 2: A quickened double blast followed by a double standard blast nets you 16 attacks in the round. Is the 1d6 treated as an increase on all subsequent attacks after the first or is it split into the 4 flurries (Assuming all hits, flurry 1 does 1d6, 2d6, 3d6, 4d6 -> flurry 2 does 1d6, 2d6, 3d6, 4d6, etc)?

Question 3: Assuming you negate any infusion cost with infusion specialization, is 6 the lowest burn cost you could achieve on this (8 burn for 2 doubles, 3 burn for quicken, -6 for full round and move action supercharged gather power)?

I have an idea for a Goliath Druid/Mammoth Rider that will fit into the campaign I'm playing through right now. The character I want to bring in is kind of like Mowgli, but he's an Aasimar raised in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords by a herd of Mastodons.

More for RP than any mechanical reason, I wanted the fellow's animal companion/mount to be pretty intelligent. The Aasimar will have the trait Beastkin (Mastodon), and I wanted him to be able to converse with the animal companion regularly*.

The thing I am having trouble with is getting the AC's intelligence up without just throwing a +4 Headband of Vast Intelligence on it.

The only two class feature ways I have found to get a decent INT companion are a mid-level Palladin or a Nature mystery Oracle with the Bonded Mount revelation.

The Celestial Servant feat opens up the Magical Beast type for the AC, but doesn't seem to actually change its INT score at all initially.

So, are there any ways besides just dropping every Ability Score increase into INT to make the companion smarter?

*This is a PbP so the conversations shouldn't infringe on other player's time like it would around a table.

Starting Kingmaker soon and wanted to try something different than what I've played before. I decided I wanted to focus on being a noncaster support character. What I have in place is a Halfling using his racial feats to add his fighting defensively bonus to his allies. I then wanted to focus on maximizing the aid another action to boost AC and attack for the party.

I'm just having trouble making this work. I can't seem to get him to come online anywhere effectively anywhere before level 8 or so. I've played around with Order of the Dragon Honor Guard Cavalier which delivers on the aid another by level 3, but the tactician side is severely lacking to provide a decent boost from harrying partners.

Holy Tactician fills in the teamwork side, but doesn't provide any bonus to the aid another (and losing the mount means losing additional aid another attempts each round).

And focusing on any of these does not progress "optimizing" fighting defensively which really needs the crane style line, which amounts to five feats because of pre reqs.

Any ideas to make this work or is it a fool's errand?

My group is starting Kingmaker soon and I wanted to jump in with something setting specific. Enter the much maligned Aldori Swordlord. I checked out some guides, read about some common traps, and felt pretty good about it. Then I decided to shoot myself in the foot even more by deciding to make him a Halfling.

The backstory for this unnamed swordsman sees him as an apprentice blacksmith attached to an Aldori training center. His dream is to become one of these swordlords, but he knows they would never take him. So he studies them from afar and buys a nearly destroyed dueling sword from the smithy. He trains with the wrecked blade, intending to repair it himself in the future. When the call comes in for the expeditions to the Stolen Lands, our swordsman signs up while impersonating a trainee swordlord.

I could tweak this to another race, but I really like the story, so I'd like to progress forward as a Halfling.

I have mapped out a level 12 build focusing on using fighting defensively to boost the AC to the limit, but I feel like this is going to severely hamper actually being effective.

I'd like some thoughts on the build and where it may go wrong (and especially where it definitely goes wrong). If you have other classes and even weapons to recommend that could still be flavored to fit the swordlord ideal, that'd be great.

Oh, and the party is only 3 people. Learned today one of them is doing a Rogue/Inquisitor Intimidate build and the other is looking at an Oracle or Druid.

Male Halfling Fighter(Swordlord)11/Monk(MoMS)1
LG Small humanoid
INIT + 1; Senses Perception +13
Languages: Common, Dwarven, Elven, Goblin, Halfling

DEFENSE
AC 28, touch 13, flat-footed 26 (+13 armor, +2 Shield, +1 Dex, +1 Size, +1 Dodge)
Fighting Defensively AC 44, Touch 29, Flat-footed 29 (+13 armor, +2 shield, +1 Dex, +1 Size, +14 Dodge, +3 Untyped)
HP 92 (12 HD + 11FCB)
Fort +11, Ref +7, Will +4

OFFENSE
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Melee: Aldori Dueling Sword +4 (1d6+12/19-20), Unarmed Strike (1d6+6)
To Hit +24 (11BAB+6STR+1Size+4Enchantment+1WeaponTraining+1SwordScion)
Power Attack (-4/+8), Risky Striker (-4AC/+8)
Ranged: Halfling Sling Staff +1 (1d6+7)
To Hit +14 (11BAB+1DEX+1Size+1Enchantment)

STATISTICS
Abilities: STR 23 (+6), DEX 12(+1), CON 12 (+1), INT 14 (+2), WIS 7 (-2), CHA 12 (+1)
BAB +11/+6/+1; CMB +16 (+26 Disarm); CMD 28 (35 Disarm, +16 Fighting Defensively)
Feats: Cautious Fighter, Combat Expertise, Crane Riposte, Crane Style, Crane Wing, Dodge, Greater Disarm, Improved Disarm, Improved Unarmed Strike, Mobility, Power Attack, Risky Striker, Spring Attack, Stunning Fist, Whirlwind Attack
Skills: Acrobatics +7, Climb +13, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +13, Knowledge (Engineering) +6, Knowledge (Religion) +10, Perception +10, Stealth +21, Swim +13; Armor Check Penalty -3
Gear: Aldori Dueling Sword +4, Belt of Giant Strength +4, Halfling Sling Staff +1, Mithral Full Plate +4, Mithral Madu +1 (Animated); 20,810gp for additional gear
Encumbrance: light 150 lb., medium 300 lb., heavy 450 lb.; Weight Carried 18 lb.

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Aldori Caution (Trait, Combat): You gain an additional +1 dodge bonus to Armor Class while you fight defensively or use the total defense action.
Bravery (Ex): +3 to WILL saves on fear.
Counter Attack (Ex): A swordlord can make an attack of opportunity as an immediate action against an opponent who hits the swordlord with a melee attack , so long as the attacking creature is within the swordlord's reach.
Defensive Parry (Ex): When a swordlord makes a full attack with a dueling sword, he gains a +1 bonus to AC against melee attacks until the beginning of his next turn. This bonus increases by +1 every four levels after 3rd.
Disarming Strike (Ex): When a swordlord successfully disarms an opponent using a dueling sword, the swordlord also deals normal damage to the target, but without the normal Strength bonus to damage.
Fleet of Foot (Race Trait): Halflings with this racial trait have a base speed of 30 feet.
Fuse Style (Ex): The master of many styles can have two style feat stances active at once. Starting a stance provided by a style feat is still a swift action, but when the master of many styles switches to another style feat, he can choose one style whose stance is already active to persist. He may only have two style feat stances active at a time.
Polyglot (Race Trait): Halflings gain a +2 racial bonus on Linguistics checks, and it is always a class skill for them. Halflings with this racial trait also begin play with the ability to speak Common, Halfling, and any one other language of their choice.
Steel Net (Ex): When fighting defensively as a full-round action with a dueling sword, the swordlord’s penalties on all attacks in a round are reduced by 2, and the dodge bonus to AC is increased by 2 for the same round.
Sword Scion (Trait, Campaign): You begin play with a longsword or Aldori dueling sword and gain a +1 trait bonus on all attacks and combat maneuvers made with such weapons.
Weapon Training (Ex): Starting at 9th level, a fighter can select one group of weapons. Whenever he attacks with a weapon from this group, he gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls.

I know this is a fool's errand, but I am hoping my search-fu has simply failed me and that there is a positive answer out there.

I have been designing a reduced person halfling build for the last week that utilizes risky striker to max his damage output. I then decided to drop the reduced person side to go for a reach build and realized I had effectively taken risky striker out for the majority of combats.

I know of a couple different ways to be treated as 1 or 2 size categories larger for different effects, but is there any way to be treated as a size category smaller?

Situation: A Huge creature is in an anti-magic field and attacks a PC 15' away. The PC has defensive shock. Does the huge creature take the electrical damage or not?

In-game the gm ruled it would take the damage since it was attacking outside of the field, I was just wondering if this has ever been an official ruling on a situation like this?

I've been tinkering with a Beastmorph Alchemist and a couple questions popped up.

1) Beastform Mutagen

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/archetypes/paizo-al chemist-archetypes/beastmorph

I'm pretty certain I know the answer to this one, but I figure I'll put it out there. To the levels of Beastform Mutagen stack? Extrapolation below:

There are 4 levels of Beastform Mutagen (Initial, Improved, Greater, Grand) that allow you to choose abilities from the polymorph spells Alter Self as well as Beast Shape I, II, and III. However, they do not actually apply the polymorph spells to the Alchemist and as such do not seem to come under the polymorph spells do not stack caveat.

Also, whereas the Discoveries Greater and Grand Mutagen explicitly state that they alter the bonuses granted by the mutagen ability, none of the Beastform Mutagen levels state that they replace the previous levels.

The rational person in me assumes these were not meant to stack, but the gamer in me hopes that by RAW they do.

2) Abilities from Beast Shape

This should hopefully be just a yes or no question. Are the size bonuses under the polymorph spells (i.e. "If the form you take is that of a Medium animal, you gain a +2 size bonus to your Strength and a +2 natural armor bonus.") considered selectable abilities for the Beastform Mutagen or are they restricted to travel speeds, vision, etc.?\

Thanks, folks.

For the next week my character is on the edge of death from a huge mud elemental. First the rant: statistically speaking, my character should rarely be hit in this encounter (something like 17% with high AC and displacement) but he's taken 5 out of 7 hits in the first 2 rounds taking him down to 1/5 of his hp. OK, that's done.

With no chance of taking this thing out in 1 rd, I've got to retreat to safer ground. But Withdrawing is no good as I'm 10' away and he has 15' reach. So while it probably won't help, the +2 AC from fighting defensively is attractive. My question is, can I fight defensively without any intention of, you know, actually fighting? You know, like if I was planning to run away behind the casters like a complete and total wuss, can I still get that +2 to AC?

I am sure this is an "I am not realizing something very obvious" issue, but I want to make sure I haven't missed something.

I posted a Brawler build yesterday looking at dipping a MoMS Monk level.

Part 1) I know about this under Hybrid Classes "While a character can multiclass with these parent classes, this usually results in redundant abilities. Such abilities don’t stack unless specified." So to be clear, Even though the Monk's AC Bonus is untyped and the Brawler's is a dodge bonus, because they share the same ability name they do not stack, correct?

Part 2) The monk's robe. With Martial Training a Brawler 6/MoMS 1 would be treated as a 7th level monk and get the damage dice of a 12th level. The AC Bonus is where the question really comes up. Which AC Bonus ability is used? The first one you take a level in? Do you get to choose?

For quick reference: Brawler AC Bonus at 12 is a +2 and the Monk is at a +3.

I'm working on a back up character for a home game. Not PFS. No 3rd Party material.

My party almost got TPK'd because of an anti-magic field, and we realized that we are very magic oriented. If/when my PC goes down, I wanted to bring in one that was a full on martial that could shine in melee and save the casters if magic is a no go.

I just found out about the Crusader's Flurry feat and decided to go for a crit fishing build as I haven't really played a character like that before. The problem I come to is Master of Many Styles vs Shield Champion Brawler (I don't really want to go maneuver based and I figure some of the shield abilities may end up helping save some lives).

With MoMS having only a 3/4 BAB progression, I feel like trying to follow that class would lose out on a lot of feat pre-reqs and you would have to clear the feats for TWF chain.

Going Brawler seems to have a decent character in general with a good amount of variation thanks to flexibility. But I'd really like to get access to Ascetic Style and be able to call up another style tree to fuse with it so I can apply the effects to the weapon attacks.

**On a related note, has there been a ruling on Pummeling style's interaction with things like Ascetic Style and Feral Combat Training? Does this "This ability works only with unarmed strikes, no matter what other abilities you might possess" override treating things as unarmed strikes as related to feats? I haven't been able to track down anything other than opinion**

Anyway, here is the current build. Is dipping MoMS worth losing another BAB progression?

Human Brawler (Shield Champion) 7/Cleric (Crusader) 1
STR 21
DEX 12
CON 14
INT 14
WIS 12
CHA 7

Feats
L1 (Bra) - Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Shield Bash, Power Attack
L2 (Cle) - Weapon Focus (Scimitar)
L3 (Bra) - Weapon Specialization, Crusader's Flurry
L4 (Bra) - Far Shot
L5 (Bra) - Shield Focus
L6 (Bra) - Saving Shield
L7 (Bra) - Shield Slam
L8 (Bra) - N/A

Two of the talents the Investigator can take are Sickening Offensive and Sapping Offensive. These are activated when damage is dealt to a studied target through Studied Combat with the caveat: "Only one of these talents can be applied to an individual attack, but the decision can be made when the damage is dealt."

So firstly, does this mean with iteratives you could apply sickening to one hit and sapping to a second?

And secondly, would sickening stack with itself? It applies sickened to the target for 1 rd. If you applied sickening offensive to 2 consecutive hits would it apply for 2 rds.? I don't see anything in the talent or Investigator Talents that says it does not stack, but I know often things don't stack unless otherwise noted.

EDITS: Clarity

So I'm playing a dex-based vanilla Investigator. This was the first Pathfinder character I built, and somehow he has survived to 8th level despite my multiple failures in the build. He's mostly back on track now, largely thanks to some generosity from my GM in the first few levels.

I recently discovered the Inspired Blade Swashbuckler and subsequently discovered everyone mentions this class dip for dex-based Investigators. Mixed with my GM's retraining house-rules, by taking Inspired Blade for 8th level, I will be allowed to retrain Weapon Focus (lvl3 feat) this level and instantly retrain Weapon Finesse (lvl5 feat) at 9.

The problem is I'm not sure what to take for those retrained feats. I've toyed around with going the extra talent route to get Infusion, but I've been using all but 1 or 2 of my lvl 1 extracts every day, so this doesn't seem too useful for this party. Weapon Versatility seems pretty cool since I am always using a rapier, but also seems like it will only come to play on rare occasions. I'd love to take something like Improved Critical, but the house ruling is that the feat has to fit the qualifications of the level feat it is replacing as per the vanilla rules for feats granted by class features.

Any recommendations?

Current Build: Human, Investigator 7
STR 8, DEX 16, CON 12, INT 17, WIS 12, CHA 16

Lvl1 - Fast Learner, Improvisation
Lvl3 - Weapon Focus (Rapier), Talent: Mutagen
Lvl5 - Weapon Finesse, Talent: Quick Study
Lvl7 - Fencing Grace, Talent: Amazing Inspiration

Just need a clarification on this for a build experiment:

"A weapon’s size category isn’t the same as its size as an object. Instead, a weapon’s size category is keyed to the size of the intended wielder. In general, a light weapon is an object two size categories smaller than the wielder, a one-handed weapon is an object one size category smaller than the wielder, and a two-handed weapon is an object of the same size category as the wielder."

Would a huge light weapon remain classified as a light weapon or would it actually be reclassified as a two-handed weapon thus getting the increased strength bonus on attacks?

So I am fairly certain I am simply misreading this since I have not been able to find any forum questions about it.

The Tengu Claw Attack alternate racial trait states:
Tengus with this racial trait have learned to use their claws as natural weapons. They gain two claw attacks as primary natural attacks that deal 1d3 points of damage, and are treated as having the Improved Unarmed Strike feat for the purpose of qualifying for other feats.

Feral Combat Training states:
Choose one of your natural weapons. While using the selected natural weapon, you can apply the effects of feats that have Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite.

My question is does the line "are treated as having the Improved Unarmed Strike feat for the purpose of qualifying for other feats" mean that you can "apply the effects of feats that have Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite" without needing to take Feral Combat Training for the claws?

I know this is probably just a matter of crunching the numbers, but I was wondering what the general thought was about mixing multiple natural attacks with manufactured weapons.

I'm building a mid level Master Chymist Wereboar-kin Skinwalker who is going to have a gore, bite, 2 claws, and 2 hooves to attack with.

What I'm debating on is getting a vestigial arm in the Alchemist levels leading up to 7th to hold a weapon. Is the -5 (-2 if my GM will allow Multiattack) to all the natural attacks worth the extra 2 attacks from the manufactured weapon at lower levels? What about when BAB reaches 16?